He had cased the bank thoroughly and been inside one time a few years ago when he was setting up his network. A parking space opened up on South Sixth Street, and he maneuvered the station wagon smoothly into the space. He was within two blocks of the bank. He kissed Alice and walked up to the bank with his briefcase. Each safety deposit box had two names on the access card, Mr. Charles P. Brown and Mr. Robert Garrett. In this bank, he was Mr. Garrett and had all the identification papers he would need.

Changing names and keeping them straight required focus. The penalty for failure was so high, it wasn’t difficult maintain the discipline required to slip in and out of the different roles. It was the short-term aliases that were the hardest. He had checked his documents before he left the car. He left his Kincaid identity in the glove compartment. It was against protocol to carry more than one identity at a time. No cover story would help if he got caught with two or more identity documents. The Garrett identity was only for this bank. The other name on the access card was so the KGB could check the box and add or subtract contents whenever they wanted. He wasn’t sure but believed whoever Mr. Charles P. Brown was would get notified regarding Garrett’s access to the box. Frank hoped that would take at least three days.

He walked in the front entrance, passed the bored guard, and crossed the highly polished floor to an open teller window near the safety deposit box vault. He told the teller he wanted his safety deposit box and showed her the key. The woman teller signaled and an attendant hurried up. He showed his I.D., a Minnesota driver’s license, and was escorted down to the vault. Once inside, the attendant inserted both keys and pulled the large box out and carried it to small private cubicle.

When the attendant left, he opened the box and began transferring the packets of dollar bills, in denominations of twenties and hundreds and thousands, to his briefcase. His previous count of $300,000 he was sure was still correct, but he wasn’t going to count it again. The small cloth bag of several ounces of diamonds went in his briefcase next. He had no idea of their value. The same was true for the twenty small gold bars. The last items to go in the briefcase were two sets of identity documents and a Browning nine-millimeter handgun with two loaded magazines. He remembered the Browning magazines held 13 rounds. To cover the difference in weight, he took a cloth-wrapped red brick from his briefcase and a heavy wrench and put them in the box. The difference in the weight of the box would probably not be noticed by the attendant.

He called the attendant and when the box slid into space 214, used his key to lock the box in slot. He thanked the attendant and left. He was in the bank less than 15 minutes and was on his way to being a wealthy man, thanks to the generosity of the KGB.