“This way, if you please.” Janice led them over to the Town Hall storefront. They passed through the door and found a young man sitting behind the counter.

“Let us through,” she instructed him, and he reached under the counter. A buzzer sounded. She pushed on the handle of a door next to the counter that unlocked at the sound. They all passed through and walked down a small hallway and turned left. They came to another small door, this time with an optical scanner. Janice pressed her thumb against the scanner, and the door opened. They entered another short hallway with doors along it and crowded inside. Janice knocked on the last door.

“Come in,” a male voice said.

She opened it and replied, “I hope they warned you we might come.”

“Yes, they did,” said a man in his mid-40s. He got up from his desk and came around to greet them. He only stood about 5'9”, but his bearing made him seem taller. He smiled at everyone, but his eyes rested on Special Agent Regan.

“Hi sweetheart,” he said and bit his lip.

Regan's mouth dropped wide open in shock!

“Dad!” she breathed. “What? How? You're alive!!! What are you doing here?”

Her face turned a deep red. She couldn't move.

He smiled sadly at her and said, “I'm sorry, hon, I wanted to tell you but I didn't dare. I could think of no other way to keep you and your mother safe.”

Perplexed, but suddenly overcome by seeing her father living and breathing again, she finally closed the distance between them, and they embraced. She squeezed him tight, quivering silently with her eyes closed and her head on his chest as he held her and gently kissed her forehead.

“I'm so sorry,” he whispered.

Justin watched the reunion uncomfortably. “We should give you two some time together.”

Paul Regan glanced over at him, and his daughter released her hold.

He reached out his hand. “Hello, Justin. It's good to see you again.”

Justin took it and grasped it warmly.

“It is good to see you alive! But we should leave you two alone for awhile.”

Lizzie spoke up, “Yes, let's go,” she said, taking Michaela's hand.

“No, please,” Catherine Regan requested. “It was just a shock, that's all. Please don't leave.”

She turned to her father. “But what happened, Dad? Why didn't you contact us?”

“Why don't we all sit down?” Paul answered. “We can bring some chairs in from the conference room.” He gestured to the door off to his left. Justin followed him inside, and they pulled some chairs back to the now over-crowded office.

Once everyone comfortably seated themselves, Catherine asked again, “So what happened, Dad? We thought you were lost at sea.”

“I was, in a sense, but not in the way you mean. The AU helped me stage that rather effective scene out in the middle of the ocean where the authorities later found my yacht. You see, I was being followed, and I received...threats.”

“What kinds of threats, Dad?”

“I'll get to that. The AU set the whole thing up. They told me where to drive my boat that morning. I know someone followed me. I could see them behind me in a smaller boat when I looked back. I opened the throttle to create a little distance between us, because I knew I needed a little time once I reached the rendezvous. When I got there, I found a small launch waiting. I pulled up alongside, turned off the motor of my yacht, and jumped over the side into their smaller boat. They equipped it with a very quiet electric motor, which allowed us to move away from the yacht undetected. A thick fog shrouded the water that morning, as we had expected from weather reports, and we counted on the electric motor to get us far enough away from the yacht before my pursuers arrived. It worked, too. We waited until we heard them give up and finally head back to the mainland. Then my rescuers switched over to the gas powered motors on their launch, and we headed for a different point on the shore.”

“And you don't know who they were?” Catherine asked him.

“My pursuers?” He shook his head. “I only know that one of them called the other Porter.”

“Ward Porter?” Justin asked in surprise.

“Maybe. I never heard his first name.”

“What did the other guy look like?” Justin asked him.

“He tried to visit me at the bank one time during my absence while I spoke at a luncheon, so I never met him. However, our security cameras collected a rather grainy shot of him,” Paul picked up a small photo from the desk and handed it to Justin.

“Haven Donahue,” Justin said as soon as he saw the familiar chiseled face.

“You know him, then?” Paul asked.

“I should. He was my estate's chief of security for the past two years.”

Paul stared, astonished.

“I will wring the bastard's neck if I ever get a hold of him,” Justin said.

Paul laughed, and the others chuckled too. Michaela gaped in surprise at her father, displaying a little smile. She never saw this side of him before.

“So what role do you play here, Paul?” Justin asked him to distract everyone's attention away from himself.

“Bank President.”

“You mean the First Agorist Bank?” Michaela asked him.

“That's right,” Paul smiled as he answered her, “and that leads me to something I want to ask your father.”

“Do you intend to continue to work at Hanover-Rush? If not, I would be honored if you would consider joining our board of directors. We could really use your expertise.”

Confused, Justin said, “The First Agorist Bank? I never heard of it.”

“I'm not surprised,” Paul said with a laugh. “We're not exactly mainstream. Let me tell you about it. After the AU helped me stage my escape, I figured I needed a new career, since the feds closed my bank down. The AU people I knew disagreed. They thought I should continue in banking. They convinced me that the underground needed a bank it could trust in order to have any chance of succeeding and growing.”

“An underground bank?”

“Exactly. We provide a gold and silver storage service. We mint gold and silver coins and bullion bars. We also have an investment program, but unlike our above ground counterparts, we don't lend our depositors' money. We only loan money invested by people who understand exactly where the loan is going, how the money will be used, that they won't get their money back until the loan is repaid, and that they might never see their money again at all if the borrower defaults. They get the lion's share of the interest collected, and we get a small piece of the action plus transaction fees. We never promise early withdrawal or anything like that. We offer gold and silver checking accounts which include the ability to electronically transfer funds between accounts. Once other banks start popping up in the AU, we plan to work out exchange mechanisms with them.

“In short,” he concluded, “we have established a gold and silver based monetary and banking system for use underground, until the day comes when the government comes to its senses and starts allowing gold and silver to be used as money above ground. We behave the way a bank should behave, without dumping all the risk on unsuspecting depositors and keeping the lion's share of the rewards for ourselves. We offer something this country has never seen before: a 100% honest bank engaging in 100% reserve banking.”

“Forgive my skepticism,” Justin interjected, “but what keeps you from 'expanding' the money supply through clever management of checking accounts and electronic transactions? And how do depositors know their money actually gets stored, not loaned out?”

“Ultimately, they don't 100% know for sure,” Paul conceded, “but our reputation depends upon never doing that kind of thing. If our customers started to think that we engage in that kind of behavior, the run on our bank would happen pretty quickly. Most underground people are quite savvy. Also, many of them wouldn't hesitate to slit our throats if they thought we cheated them in some way.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Yes, I suppose it does, but we have no need to worry as long as we do business honestly. And security is pretty good around here, too.”

“That's true, Dad,” Michaela added. She repeated the story of the argument she, Lizzie, and AJ saw during their prior visit to the trading floor and how AU security intervened.

“So all underground locations have this AU security?” Justin asked.

“All the trading floors managed by TST have it,” Paul replied. “I won't add a new branch location without them.”

“How many branches do you have so far?”

“Just 10.” Paul counted on his fingers: “New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Toronto, London, Zürich, Johannesburg, Sydney, Sao Paulo, and Beijing.”

Justin whistled his approval, surprising Michaela and Lizzie, but Paul said, “Don't be too impressed. We only have about 10,000 customers so far around the world, and most of them do only minor amounts of business with us, compared to what you and I did above ground. We have lots of risks involved in working underground. Still, we made a good start.”

“A very good start, I would say,” Justin complimented him, and Paul grinned.

“Speaking of new starts,” Paul added, “You need to start getting your wealth 'off the grid' now.”

“I have already taken steps. Most of my wealth that the bank didn't freeze is now offshore.”

“You know as well as I do that it won't stop the feds if they start making waves with foreign governments about you. We need to move your wealth where they can't find it. We need to make it untraceable.”

“Trying to sell me your banking services?” Justin asked him with a grin.

“Of course!” Paul said, smiling back before he got serious again. “I don't know your plans, but if you want to preserve your wealth so you can carry out those plans, you'll want to make your wealth invisible to the feds. After my 'death' I had a heck of a time making the transition because they took control of most of my assets. We must prevent that from happening to you.”

Justin saw his point.

“What exactly do you suggest?”

Paul leaned back and said, “Let's turn your assets into precious metals and take delivery and hide them where the feds cannot find them.”

Catherine Regan sat watching the two men in a kind of trance, still reeling from the shock that her father was still alive. She saw him pull from his front desk drawer one of those pesky, thin cigars he always smoked. The habit disgusted her, but it also helped reinforce the fact that he was actually sitting right there in front of her, living and breathing. Why hadn't the Director said anything? Surely he must have known! Assigning her to this case now made complete sense to her.

“Storing gold and silver requires a well-secured space,” Justin pointed out. “You have that part figured out already, have you?”

“Partly, although I want to induce you to join my bank so we can benefit from your knowledge and expertise. Does anyone mind?” he asked, waving the cigar in one hand and a lighter in the other. “I might as well look the part.” When no one objected, he lit the cigar and puffed it to a full burn.

“What part?” Michaela asked.

“Well, we're in a back room, and your father and I are discussing a deal!” he said with a wink. “Don't such deals take place in smoke-filled rooms?”

“Oh!” she replied as she grinned back at him.

He glanced at his daughter, Catherine, who continued to stare at him as if she’d seen a ghost. Still, her eyes flickered slightly, acknowledging his joke.

“Our security practices could probably be improved,” he continued, eying his daughter appreciatively. “Still, the AU has some pretty smart people in it. We already figured out a number of very clever ways to store the precious metals. I won't share any of that information with you unless you come on board, of course.”

“Of course,” Justin grinned. He turned to Lizzie and asked, “What do you think?”

“Moving your funds or accepting the job offer?”

“Both.”

“Well, I think you should get as far away from the above ground economy as you possibly can. The job seems right up your alley,” she said encouragingly.

He eyed Michaela who added, “You should do them both, Dad!”

“Well, we can give it a trial basis first. I will agree to transfer some funds over, and I will agree to come on board for a few months. That way, I can evaluate first-hand whether I want to stay. That way, I can find out how viable this whole operation of yours really is. Does that seem fair?” he asked.

“More than fair!” Paul answered gleefully, reaching out to shake Justin's hand, which Justin accepted and shook.

“But have you not forgotten something?”

Confusion showed on Paul's face.

“Your daughter is still an FBI agent. She could arrest you for this.”

“How about it?” Paul asked, turning to his daughter. “Do you plan to turn me in for running a black market gold and silver monetary system?”

Catherine Regan's faced turned beet red.

“I probably should,” she said, staring at her father grimly, “for what you did to Mom and me.”

“What did he do to us, dear?” said another woman as she opened the door and walked in the room.

“Mom!” Catherine gasped, stunned by the sudden appearance of her mother. “What are you doing here?” She stood up and snaked her way through the chairs to hug her.

“Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce my wife, Lenore, to you,” Paul announced to the room.

Justin and the others gave their names and shook hands with her. She stood about Catherine's height, although her appearance suggested slightly greater years. They almost could have been twins.

“I'm your father's new secretary,” Lenore answered her daughter without missing a beat. “Any objections? Or are you going to turn me in too?”

Catherine shook her head in disgust, hands on her hips, after releasing her mother. “You two don't play fair! When did you plan to tell us, Dad?”

Lenore answered her instead. “I didn't know anything until your father contacted me last week. I admit the shock was pretty bad, but I got over it quickly. Just knowing that Paul still lived after all was the best tonic my nerves could get,” she said, with a smile at her husband as she reached out and took his hand.

“So what do you plan to do now, hon?” Paul asked his daughter.

Catherine shook her head again.

“I don't know. I still think I should call in and find out what the bureau has in mind regarding Mr. Knight. I already promised to do that.”

At Paul's questioning gaze, they all combined together to tell him about the video conference call Justin had with his uncle just a few hours earlier.

“So, your fat's in the fire now, eh Justin?” he teased conspiratorially when they finished the story, “We better get to work moving those assets of yours underground, before the bad guys figure out what happened!”

Justin smirked and said, “I suppose we should.”

Janice sat in the back watching the entire conversation in silence, but she spoke up now.

“Well, you two have some work to do. Special Agent Regan, perhaps we should make arrangements for you to make your call?”

“Yes, I think I should. How do we do it?”

Janice stood, opened the door to the main office of the bank, scanned the trading floor and spotted AJ chatting with one of the security guards.

“AJ will set it up,” Janice said. “If you will come with me, we will talk with him.” She left with Catherine following her.

Make a donation