Two Leads

Ken Martin, the current commissioner of the New York Police Department, personally came to the scene. Bank robberies were common in the United States, but this case was far from ordinary.

First, the emergency calls had drawn away all nearby police units. Then the traffic signals had jammed multiple surrounding streets, while the road in front of the bank remained completely clear. It was obviously a robbery planned long in advance.

Ken Martin was Black and already in his fifties. He had been a police officer his entire life, yet this was the first time he had seen such an exceptional bank robbery. Still, the perpetrators could not possibly have left no clues. By the time he arrived, patrol officers and backup units had already sealed off the scene, while Captain George Stacy was questioning the bank manager.

When he saw the commissioner arrive, George Stacy stepped forward. "Commissioner, this case is complicated. We may have two leads!"

"George, why 'may'?" Ken Martin asked in confusion. Especially when he heard the word "lead," he wanted the other man to give him a definite answer.

"Here's the situation. The first lead came from eyewitness accounts. They knew the exact location of the bank's alarm system, knew the bank manager carried the vault key on him, and knew the vault combination. You could say they knew this bank inside and out."

"As for the bank's two security guards, the one at the entrance was held at gunpoint from the start, while the other stayed in the surveillance room. According to him, the electronic lock would not open, and neither the landline nor his cell phone could make any calls."

"So we have reason to suspect they had an inside man. The question is why the guard in the surveillance room said neither the landline nor his cell phone could get through. Our technicians are checking it now, and we should have results soon. Still, I don't think he is lying. Something like that would be easy to verify. With such a meticulous operation, they should not have made a mistake like this. It would be the same as directly exposing an accomplice on the inside."

Ken Martin nodded. "Go on. Tell me about the second lead."

"Yes." George Stacy flipped through the small notebook in his hand before continuing. "The second lead points to the New York Traffic Monitoring Center. All of today's emergency calls were made from their landlines. Those calls pulled every police unit away from the area around the bank, and every one of them turned out to be false alarms. Then almost all the nearby traffic lights switched to red, causing a massive traffic jam. Even if someone had spotted the bank robbery and called it in, we could not have arrived quickly."

"But who at the New York Traffic Monitoring Center could have done this? The traffic lights malfunctioned, yet they failed to notice anything unusual. They only discovered the congestion after our dispatch center called to request assistance. That is extremely strange!"

"So these two leads are both riddled with questions. There are suspicious points at both the bank and the New York Traffic Monitoring Center, but determining who the robbers' inside man was will be extremely difficult. Or perhaps we do not even know whether they truly had an inside man." George Stacy reported his analysis, and Ken Martin nodded.

"It is indeed a tricky case. The bank will naturally cooperate with us, but the New York Traffic Monitoring Center is another matter. Someone who could throw traffic into chaos without the staff on duty noticing must have considerable authority. But why would someone like that rob a bank?" Ken Martin was equally puzzled. "Still, the case must be investigated. Check the bank first. Then I'll contact the Traffic Monitoring Center and ask why they failed to notice the morning congestion. We can use that to test them."

"Understood, Commissioner!"

Mo Fei had left them two leads, both obvious yet difficult to investigate. The bank was merely a minor diversion, because they would find nothing there. With no inside man at all, the police would hit a dead end.

The Traffic Monitoring Center would not be easy to investigate either. It managed traffic across all of New York and was busy every moment of the day. There were also countless employees, making it extremely difficult to determine who had used a landline to make the emergency calls. On top of that, Mo Fei had deleted the center's internal surveillance footage from that day, making the matter incredibly complicated.

George Stacy had the security guard from the surveillance room brought to the police station. He was a burly, overweight white man, about six foot one, and the interrogation room chair made him uncomfortable.

"Paul Green? Your record is excellent. You've worked at this bank for eight years. What do you think about this robbery?" George Stacy asked as he walked in, his tone very gentle.

"Captain, I know I look highly suspicious this time, but I really couldn't get out. I don't know why, but the electronic lock wouldn't open, and both the landline and my cell phone only gave me a dead line. I couldn't call the police. The surveillance screens were nothing but static. I..." Paul Green looked utterly dejected. "Then everything suddenly went back to normal. I kept trying, and when I finally managed to make a call, the electronic lock opened too, and the surveillance feeds returned to normal. I was stunned. I felt like I'd been dragged into some kind of conspiracy."

"You realized you were in a bad position, didn't you?" George Stacy continued.

"Yes. I took the police entrance exam before, but I failed the physical because of my health. In the end, I found work as a bank security guard. I have to stay in the bank every day, but the pay is good, especially with the night-shift bonus. I'm not short of money." Paul Green kept talking on his own, subconsciously trying to explain his innocence. "It's been eight years. I know this place inside and out, but this is the first time I've ever encountered something like this. I'm not stupid. I know my situation is terrible."

"You're right. Your situation is indeed terrible." George Stacy did not comfort him. Instead, he confirmed it outright. "All the evidence points to you. I assume you understand that?"

"Yes. The bank's two-guard system is really based on relying on the alarm and leaving bank robberies to the police. And I had opportunities to learn the vault combination. At the same time, I have no way to prove what happened in the surveillance room. My only hope is that your technicians find some clues—evidence that someone invaded the bank's surveillance system and tampered with both the landline and my cell phone." Paul Green really had taken the police exam, but he had one problem: hypoglycemia.

After a certain amount of physical activity, he could easily faint. That had kept him from becoming a police officer, but the bank security job still paid him well. He also had no bad habits. George Stacy had all of that information in his hands, and he could not find a motive for Paul Green to commit the crime.