“It's critical that we get some more people inside,” Roone instructed Donahue “I want you to infiltrate the AU's trading floor, or whatever the devil they call it, and take Masters and Porter with you. I'll put Dawes in charge of continuing to scope out the area around Yankee Stadium.”

“What do you want us to do once we get inside?”

“Meet up with Sanders, and figure out how to help our guys get in. Also, you're my backup plan. If for some reason we can't get in, it's your job to take out Knight. Do whatever you have to do, but make sure he doesn't get out of there alive. Got it?”

“We'll need cash and papers.”

“You'll have them in an hour,” Roone promised. “Can you do the job?”

“Of course we can do it, Boss.”

Hours later, after the ponderous effort of presenting false identification, filling out forms, answering endless silly questions, and shuttling blindly from place to place under the watchful eyes of their “benefactors”, Donahue and Porter finally arrived at the trading floor of the Agorist Underground. Unfortunately, most of the tools of their trade now rested in the hidden vaults of the AU's security force, TST. Porter's frustration over this turn of events threatened to erupt at any moment, but Donahue took it stoically and philosophically.

“Never mind the guns,” Donahue whispered reassuringly. “We still have our most important weapons.”

“Oh, yeah?” Porter whispered back. “What the hell do you mean?”

“Our minds, Porter, and our allies. If we keep our eyes and ears open, we should have no problem acquiring weapons, too. Shall we find out whether Masters managed to penetrate the AU's defenses?” Donahue asked silkily.

Porter nodded but said nothing more. The two men began a slow, apparently leisurely stroll around the available stores and offices. Although they feigned aimless interest as they walked, they sought certain faces they knew well. They decided to check out the menus over at the Taipan Tradewinds restaurant.

As soon as they walked in the door, Porter spotted Masters sitting at the bar, an amber liquid within a tumbler sitting in front of him. He indicated the location to Donahue, who also spotted Masters. The two men made a beeline for the bar, and the bartender came over.

“Scotch,” said Donahue.

“Me too,” Porter added, “on the rocks.”

The bartender poured their drinks. “Thirty cents argentum.”

A befuddled Porter said nothing, but Donahue intervened, saying, “We've only got dollars right now.”

“Then it's $9.”

“Keep the change,” Donahue replied, handing him a ten.

“For what it's worth,” the bartender answered grimly as he made the bill disappear.

“You guys just get here?” Masters asked them quietly after the bartender moved away. “Well, I've been busy.” He opened his jacket pocket to reveal four six-inch kitchen knives. “Nicked them when the chef went in the back,” he muttered with a wink, pulling two out and handing one to each of them surreptitiously.

Porter tucked the small weapon away in his pocket. Donahue examined his quietly. “Good edge. They should do until we get something better.” He slipped his into a pocket as well.

“Any sign of Shorty?” Donahue asked softly over the drink he sipped.

Masters shook his head no and added, “But I've only been here about an hour. He could be almost anywhere, but I'm sure we'll find him. Security around here’s a joke.”

“Yeah, real funny,” Porter replied sarcastically. “None of us have guns now.”

“Don't worry about it,” said Donahue. “Drink up. We've got more searching to do.”

The three men left separately, each headed in a different direction to search the nearby stores. They reunited in the main corridor a half hour later, all three empty-handed.

“Find him?” Donahue asked the other two.

Porter shook his head no, but Masters answered, “Actually, yes.”

He gestured with his head toward the café. They saw a small man with a perpetual grin reading a newspaper, sitting back in his chair, coffee in front of him.

“Sanders,” Donahue said with a satisfied grin. “Give me another knife.”

Masters handed him one.

He left the two men in the square and walked over to the café customer where he sat down next to him.

“Coffee any good, Shorty?” he asked conversationally.

“Not bad,” Sanders replied after looking up from his newspaper. “Where have you guys been, anyway?”

Donahue reached into a pocket and pulled out one of the knives Masters slipped to him in the street. He handed it to Shorty under the table. “This should do for now.”

Sanders raised his eyebrows but said nothing. The knife disappeared somewhere on his person, although Donahue couldn't see where it went. It might have gone up Shorty's sleeve for all Donahue knew.

“Checked out the construction yet?” Shorty asked with a nod of his head in the direction of all the banging and clashing going on.

Donahue shook his head. “Why, have you?”

“I had a nice chat with one of the workmen. That big wall getting the most attention has an auditorium inside. He said they're rushing to get it done by tomorrow evening. Double-overtime, the works. They've planned some big event, although he wouldn't say exactly what.”

“Maybe he doesn't know himself.”

“No, I'm pretty sure he knows all about it. He's just keeping his mouth shut.”

“Well, we'll just have to find a way to get him to open it,” Donahue replied as he considered the possibilities.

“I saw something else.”

“What?”

“The guy wore a ring, and he kept playing with it. In fact, while sitting here pretending to read my newspaper, I watched corridor-level activity, keeping an eye open for you guys. In the past 10 minutes, I've seen at least four different corridor-level conversations where at least one of the participants wore a ring that he twirled. It made me wonder if a connection exists between them.”

The mental image of a ring twirling on a finger sounded familiar to Donahue, but he couldn't remember where he saw it.

Sanders continued, “I think I've figured out why. I noticed a pattern. They all twirl forward one turn, back one turn, forward two turns, then back one turn again. Then they repeat the pattern. What do you make of it?”

Donahue suddenly remembered where he'd seen it before. The overweight proprietor at Gabe's Pawn Shop did the same thing when Donahue asked him about buying bullion the other day. He pressed his memory for details and realized that the proprietor's twirling habits matched Sanders's description perfectly.

Donahue pondered this riddle as hard as he could. Then it hit him.

“I got it! I know what it means!” he exclaimed when the inspiration arrived, lighting up his eyes as Sanders turned to him questioningly. “It's Morse Code. One forward, and one back...if forward is a dot and backward is a dash, then one forward, one back would be A and two forward, one back would be a U. They're signaling AU to each other. I'll bet you anything it's a street-level recognition signal!”

Impressed, Sanders nodded approvingly.

“Makes sense, but how can we use it?”

“Easy. I'll have a talk with another one of those workmen. Stay here.”

He got up to walk toward the construction. Porter and Masters began to move toward him, but he stopped them with a subtle gesture and shook his head.

“Wait here,” he mouthed to them silently. They did so, exchanging glances.

As he walked up to the entrance of the construction site, he scanned the facade. Housed behind a short, temporary construction fence, he could see that it went a long way back, both left and right. He peered into the work area inside and saw the auditorium. His eyes moved carefully over every detail he could see. While he stood there, a young woman in coveralls with a white hard hat and a clipboard came walking out.

She stared a moment when she saw him. “Can I help you with something?”

A quick glance at her hands confirmed she wore a ring. Luckily, he still wore his old wedding ring, even though Diane left him many years ago. Just as well, really. He made a mistake when he married her that night in Vegas. He long since reconciled himself to the fact that a mortgage, two kids, and a dog didn't suit him.

As he improvised what to say to her, he grabbed his ring with his other hand and twirled it in the same pattern Shorty described to him: once forward, once back, twice forward, once back. Her eyes went immediately to his hands. He paused and repeated the same pattern again. She reached for her own ring and repeated the pattern back to him.

“I haven't seen you here before,” she said. “What do you need?”

“I'm doing some advance work for tomorrow's event,” he rapped casually, hoping she'd think it the most natural thing he could say. “I need to double-check the structure for security concerns.”

She looked at him dubiously.

“We aren't supposed to let anyone in while we work. It's a hard hat area, after all.”

He grinned sheepishly. “I hoped you might have a spare hat I could borrow?”

She rolled her eyes. “You front office guys are all alike. All right, hold on.”

She walked over to a temporary shed on the side, opened the door, and pulled out a white hard hat. Then she walked back and handed it to him. “Just make sure you put it back before you leave, okay? I don't want to get docked for a missing hat!”

He smiled. “Sure, no problem. I'll be out of your hair shortly. I just need to check the exterior.”

She sighed, and looked back suddenly after hearing a loud clang. “No, not that way!” she shouted and said, “Excuse me,” to Donahue before hurrying away toward whatever she had spotted her team doing wrong.

He could hardly believe his good fortune, but he didn't question it. Instead, he put the hat on and started working his way around the exterior of the new structure inside the temporary fence.

He found nothing of interest along the first wall. When he reached the end, he turned the corner to the back side of the structure. He saw a small loading dock with a staircase and a door next to it. The door stood open. He heard much less noise back here, and a glance inside confirmed that no one could see him from the main auditorium.

He crept inside, keeping an eye peeled for passers-by. Working his way past dressing and storage rooms, he found a likely set of four steps to a door. He climbed them as quietly as he could and pulled the door slowly open. Peeking inside, he found a great view of the auditorium from stage-level. He estimated that it probably would hold 200-300 people, a pretty decent size considering their location.

He didn't scan the large room longer than needed, ducking back behind the curtain to avoid detection by some random worker. Instead, he descended the steps and nosed around near the back door. He saw a ring on a hook next to the door. Could it be? Amazing! The morons left the back door keys where anyone could grab them! Four copies hung on the ring. He tried one to make sure it worked. Then he removed it from the ring, dropped it in his pocket, put the ring back on the hook, and quietly slipped out of the building.

After working his way to the front, he peered around the corner. Seeing no one, he pulled off the hard hat, walked quickly up to the temporary shed, put the hat inside, gently closed the door, and walked off before anyone noticed.

In no time he reunited with his colleagues in the main square. Sanders had abandoned his post at the café, and the three of them stood chatting.

“You guys won't believe this, but I got a key to the place!”

“The whole place?” Porter said in astonishment, looking around.

“No, idiot! I mean the auditorium. The key opens the back door. Some moron left a key ring by the door. Now we have a way in,” he said with a grin.

“We have more than that,” Masters added. “I heard some details about tomorrow's event. Knight plans to appear on a special TV program with some other bankers in front of a live audience.”

“Shit! The bastard's going to spill the beans to the public. I wish we had a way to get a message to Roone. We'll have to stop him ourselves,” Donahue decided. “Let's go someplace where we can plan.”