Baksheesh (Bribes)

by D S Kane

  “Yeah. Okay. Wing out.”

  And just like that, the conversation ended. She realized that their aliases would be useless from now on. There would be no way to keep their new identities secret with even a few people calling them by their real names.

  Damn! Diva does not travel. What a curse!

  * * *

  Ann stared at the notebook’s screen and smothered a curse. Her fingers flew over the keyboard and suddenly, she smiled. I’m in! She examined the list and changed several items. Three history grades of other students were changed from B+ to C-. That would fix those mean girls in her eleventh-grade gym class.

  She heard footsteps approaching behind her, and covered her Internet Explorer screen with her homework, a Word document: “How LAFCO forms a new city in California.”

  Cassie touched her shoulder and she turned her chair facing her mother. “Hi, Mom.”

  Cassie frowned. “Ann, Wing asked me to send you to him.”

  The teen’s face dropped. What has William told her?

  Cassie nodded. “I know everything. Were you ever going to tell me?”

  Her arms flapped. “Sheesh, Ma, no. I have secrets, too.”

  Cassie shook her head. “Not from me. Well, no matter now. He wants you to help him. Thinks you have world-class hacker talent.”

  Ann beamed. “How cool. And Ma, lemme remind you. You never told grandpa Kiril or grandma Tasha you were a hacker.”

  Cassie’s face fell. “Well, you’re right. So pack your bags. You’re going home. And they won’t call you Sasha. Just Ann from now on. Same for Lee and me. When you return home, you can use your alias at school. But not at home.”

  * * *

  Looking out the Lear jet’s window, Ann watched the lights of Washington far below, growing closer. She pulled her cellphone from her pocket as the aircraft’s wheels screeched in touchdown. Turning off Flight Mode, she touched one of the buttons on her Favorites screen. “Hi, big C.”

  His voice echoed surprise. “Hey, Ann. Where are you calling from? Been months since you disappeared.”

  She gripped the phone tightly. “Uh, we moved. Far away. Suddenly. And you know I can’t tell you where.”

  “Yeah. Will I ever see you again? I miss you a bazillion.”

  She smiled. “Never give up, do you, C?”

  “Never.”

  She imagined him sitting across from her as she spoke. “Well, your persistence is about to pay off, you lucky boy. As we speak, my ride just touched down at Reagan. Remember the house where I used to live?” She thought for a second. William had Sylvia keeping him occupied. There’d be times when Orley dragged Wing’s body off to their room.

  That’s why she’d called Charles Breckenridge. “Be sure to come prepared. I’ll call again with details.” She smiled, terminating the call.

  * * *

  Major Ralph Giondella met her as she passed through the airport security exit. There were two men with him, men she’d never seen before, all dressed in typical merc garb. Green polo shirts peeking out from under the Hawaiian shirts, kangaroo pants. She’d met the major several times. “Hello, Ann. Do you have baggage besides what you’re carrying?”

  She shook her head and handed him the two cases she’d carried. One contained her notebook computer. He passed them to the mercs behind him and led her from the airport. Toward the place she used to call home.

  About an hour later, she walked through the old house’s front door. “Welcome home,” she whispered to herself. She looked at her wristwatch. 1:52 a.m. But her body was still on Pacific Time and not at all tired. “Which bedroom for me?”

  Giondella pointed down the hall. “We’re full up. You’re sharing with Betsy Brown, the new hacker. She’s a night owl, probably hanging out in the dining room.”

  Ann dropped her suitcase and notebook case in Brown’s room. She remembered when this used to be their guest room. A new poster, proclaiming “Megadeath Rocks Baltimore!” adorned the inside of the door. She found three bags of opened seaweed rice crackers and clothing scattered all over the tiny room. There was a sleeping bag on the floor and a note on the bed:

  Hello, Ann—

  Come meet me in the dining room. Wing says you’re worth our time. I challenge you to prove it. Whoever wins gets the bed tonight. Sleeping bag to the loser. Are you game?

  —The Butterfly

  She guessed Betsy Brown was “The Butterfly.” What a lame nickname. Kind of late for games. But what the hell? She had a three-hour time-zone advantage.

  She entered the dining room from the kitchen rather than the hallway, so she could see Brown before Brown saw her. At the table sat a tiny woman, rail-thin, mousy hair in wild strings, facing away from her. Ann readied herself to move in when the woman’s voice, gruff and deep, said, “Hello, Ann. Grab a seat and I’ll tell you what’s going down.”

  While the woman spoke, her fingers flew across the notebook’s keyboard and Ann watched the screens change faster than once every second. Ann thought, she’s quicker than me. Way quicker. Focus! The woman didn’t look anything like a stupid butterfly. And she had the largest nose Ann had ever seen.

  She scooted into the chair alongside. “I’m Ann.” Then she realized how stupid it was to say what the other woman already knew.

  “Yeah. But of course you are.” The woman continued pounding the keyboard.

  Ann frowned. “Why do they call you the Butterfly?”

  “Because when I sit at a computer, the screens fly by faster than a butterfly’s wings.” She stopped and stared at the teen. “Sorry about your mama. From what I heard—”

  “My mom’s still alive. But my grandma’s dead.”

  The Butterfly’s head bobbed as if she knew it already. “Yeah.”

  “How do you know William?”

  The Butterfly looked as if she’d been slapped. “We became close during a hacker challenge. Then we finally met, after nearly five years. We became lovers. But that stupid merc, Sylvia, stole him from me. A few months ago he called and asked me if I wanted to work with him. I see this as a chance to reclaim him. Now, down to business. Wing claims he’s the best hacker planet-wide. I claim I am. He and I want to let you compete with us for the title tomorrow. Game?”

  Ann shook her head. “What has this got to do with William dragging me all the way here?”

  “You’ll see tomorrow when you meet our other guests. Meanwhile, let me give you the FAQs.” The Butterfly left her seat and paced. “Here’s what we know: The ex-Pres wants your mama dead. Tried to kill her at the wedding. The new Pres also wants your mama dead. But why? Find out and you win the title for Best Hacker on Planet Earth. You in?”

  Ann’s face went from frown to smile. “Of course. It’s my mom’s life.”

  The Butterfly nodded. “Good. You get the bed tonight.”

  * * *

  At 6 a.m. Cassie dropped off the last stair from their bedroom into the family room, switched on the vid-cam and logged into The Swiftshadow Group’s secure conferencing webcast network. The screen on her computer flashed the message “Waiting…”

  She poured a cup of coffee and flexed her fingers. Soon. Be patient. The screen abruptly changed to a full-color hi-def image of the dining room of her house in Chevy Chase. Her face sprung a wide smile. She waved. “Ann! How are you?”

  Ann returned the smile. “Fine, Mom. Have you met Betsy Brown?”

  The small rat-faced woman punched Ann’s arm. The Butterfly? She stared at Cassie’s face, three thousand miles away. “Hello, Ms. Sashakovich. We meet at last.”

  Cassie nodded. “Who are the rest of your team, William?”

  A long-faced, thin man sat on the other side of Wing. He raised his hand. “I’m Sam Tyler. Systems architect for Project SafePay.”

  Cassie nodded. “How can I help?” She sipped coffee, waiting.

  Wing pointed to the large hi-def screen mounted on the wall behind him. “Here’s what we know. Every President for the past thirty years had modified SafePay to fit
conditions on the planet and our government’s changing policy objectives. During the Cold War it was used to bypass congressional oversight and fund black ops. When the Soviet Union collapsed, SafePay fell into disuse and more conventional funding methods were used for almost a decade. It was totally recoded by the President in power fifteen years ago to hide his funding of the terrorist attack that destroyed the Trade Towers on 9/11. But Mastoff’s changes to the system are a departure from everything that preceded it.”

  Tyler pointed at the screen behind him, and the image changed. “When we developed SafePay, I set up the endpoints. When they contacted me recently, I was given changes to make. I kept copies of everything.” He pressed a button next to the touchpad on his notebook. A sketch of a woman appeared on the wide screen behind them. “I drew this. It’s the woman who delivered the assignment to me. Code name Mockingbird. Sorry, but I’m no artist.” He grinned.

  Cassie stared at the screen. Her jaw dropped and brows wrinkled. “I know that face. It’s not a woman. That’s Gilbert Greenfield in drag. My former boss’s boss.” And why not, she thought. Lee and I have both disguised ourselves as members of the opposite sex.

  “From when you worked at the agency?” Wing’s smirk gradually grew into a frown, and then exploded in a shit-eating grin that split his face wide. “Wow. How does he fit into this?”

  How indeed, she wondered.

  * * *

  Wing split up the SafePay endpoints by geographic region, with four lists of about thirty each. He assigned himself the endpoints in Europe. Cassie took Africa, the Butterfly grabbed South America, and Ann landed Asia.

  William pointed to the four lists on the wide screen. “The task is to put an account-holder name to each endpoint bank account. There are sixty-seven additional endpoints in the United States, and those are easy. So they’ll sit unassigned until one of us finishes with the assignment we already have. Then we take them one at a time, until someone finishes the last one. That hacker completing the most endpoints will be deemed to be The Best Hacker Planet-Wide. Got it?”

  Cassie thought competing for a title was ridiculous. And, Ann didn’t speak any Asian language or even understand the widely different alphabets. But Cassie didn’t expect Ann to provide much help. As the competition continued on, Cassie and the other hackers bantered insults at each other. It drew her in. She smiled and pointed at his image on the screen. “Wing, you’re slower than a corpse. Get your tail moving. I’ve already completed twenty-nine.”

  Wing continued pounding the keyboard as he spoke. “Lay off, Sashakovich. Africa is easy. They’re still using clay tablets and cuneiform. Now, my banks in Europe, they grift in high-tech. Much harder to hack.”

  “Tell us, sweet William, how many have you done?” The Butterfly’s tone mocked him.

  He frowned at his screen. “Uh, twenty-four. But they’re harder than yours.”

  The Butterfly howled with laughter. “Thirty-two. Two more and I’m moving on to the final pile. Lookin’ good for me as the new proclaimed champ.”

  A second later, Ann reached for the first in the stack of American endpoints. Everyone else froze, staring at her.

  CHAPTER 26

  June 6, 11:31 a.m.

  220 East Kirke Street,

  Chevy Chase, Maryland

  An hour later, Ann sat humming a blues tune while the others continued flashing through screens and pounding keys. She grinned. “You all spent so much of your time dissing each other. Otherwise, you’d have probably beaten me. So now I get this stupid title. Big deal.”

  She stared at the teleconference screen. “Mom, what’s next?” Her hands were akimbo against her hips as she sat. She faced the screen and was certain Cassie could see her hidden smirk as the Butterfly passed her the certificate. She covered the side of her face with the small black-framed document so they could see her stick her tongue out at Cassie, thinking her mother couldn’t see her. But Cassie saw Ann’s image reflected in the wall mirror. She reached the key that triggered the vid-cam’s camera and snapped Ann’s photo. She giggled.

  Thinking about what her daughter had accomplished, Cassie was stunned. Ann had defeated the secure firewalls and encryption of banks in Russia, China, both Koreas, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Tajikistan, and twenty-two other countries. Many of the systems were coded in English, but there were those that weren’t. And Ann wasn’t even a whiz in English. How had she done it?

  Ann’s smirk disappeared. “Oh, so you think I’m just a lucky little bitch, huh? Well, it was easy. I did one or two that use English, memorized the sequence of steps they used and used those again when I did the ones in other languages. So easy.” She stuck her tongue out again, this time at Wing and the Butterfly.

  The Butterfly punched Ann’s arm. “Hey, you beat the best. So now, you are the best. Grats!”

  Gizmo the cat jumped into Cassie’s lap. Fully grown now, the black cat was no longer small. It settled into a curled bundle of fur and purred. She stroked its fur, waiting.

  When all the endpoints were processed, Cassie stared at the completed listing. She scrolled down the screen. “Okay. Now we’re on to step two. How do the account holders connect with each other? We need to complete background checks for each of them. If it’s a person, we need to build a file containing everything about them. If it’s a corporation, who owns it and who manages it? If it’s a government, which country, which agency or ministry, and who heads that organization? Then a complete file on the individuals who are the contacts with the banks. Got it?”

  Each of them nodded. She posted instructions on the teleconference screen in the Chevy Chase house. “Take the country endpoint files you hacked, and each one of you, send them to the person on the left. Assume I’m on Ann’s left, so I’ll take Asia. No prize this time. Probably a ton’s more work than last time. Let’s be about it!”

  For three hours more, they worked in silence. While the first step had required one hack per bank endpoint, this time there could be many hacks, and they each had to backtrace individual transactions to other banks to find the relationships between the endpoint and all parties who could deposit into it or receive cash out of it. Multiple banks, multiple sending and receiving accounts. It was tedious work. Endless work.

  At about 2 a.m. Pacific Time, Cassie, was wasted. She looked into the vid-cam. “Guys, I need sleep before I do any more of this. I’ll be back in six hours.”

  They all agreed to rest until morning.

  * * *

  Two days passed as they slowly assembled the files. Cassie completed Asia, broke into what Tyler called “the pile of American crap,” finished the first three, and stopped dead with the fourth.

  She stared at two accounts with the same name, one in Moscow, the other in Baltimore. The name was “Egbert R. LeFielding.”

  She stared at the name, surprised by its familiarity. She couldn’t figure out why, but the name triggered a tiny spike of rage as she said it aloud, and more anger as she repeated it. She printed it out on a piece of paper. And said the name again and again.

  The others looked up from their work, frozen. She shook her head. “Guys, I think I found something.” She flashed the linked accounts on the hi-def screen mounted behind them and they all turned to look. “Who is he? Egbert R. LeFielding. Who?”

  The silence was deafening.

  “Mom, who was the guy in the sketch Tyler made? Mr. Drag-queen. What’s his name?” Ann’s brows were furrowed.

  Wing smiled. “Gilbert Greenfield. Not the same guy.”

  Ann pursed her lips, moving her fingers as she wrote in the air, saying the names of alphabetic letters. “Wrong. They are the same. It’s one of those puzzles where you move the letters of a word around to make a different word.”

  Tyler frowned, staring at the screen. “An anagram? Who would be arrogant and stupid enough to do that? It’s a risky trick.”

  Cassie’s mouth didn’t work, and when she finally realized she needed to say something, all she could do was point throug
h the air to draw their attention. But her mouth had gone dry. Her tongue was glued to her palate.

  “Mom, you don’t look well.”

  “Sheesh.” Cassie struggled to force her mouth to work. It was Lee’s word to express total frustration.

  “What do you want us to do?” Wing’s question hung in the air like the sword of Damocles.

  As the spell broke, a flood of memories and emotions washed through her. “I need to go. Now. Be back soon. Work without me.” She snapped off the vid-cam switch. The screen reported, “Call duration: 39 hours, 27 minutes, 14 seconds. Time: 10:43 p.m.” She headed toward the back of the little house and vomited into the toilet until her stomach was completely empty. Then she dragged herself into bed where Lee lay, snoring. She snuggled against him, her arms around his middle, crying silently.

  * * *

  Ann watched her fellow hackers to see if they would take a break. She prayed they would, not because she was tired.

  “What do we do now?” Tyler scratched his head.”

  William yawned. “We do the same. Get some rest. We’ve been up for almost two straight days. Reconvene tomorrow at ten in the morning.” He walked toward the staircase. Toward where Sylvia slept in one of the upstairs bedrooms.

  Ann keyed a text message:

  Big C—

  NOW. Don’t call, just come. Pun intended.

  —Ann

  She faced the Butterfly. “I need a favor. I want the bedroom tonight. Alone. Just me and a guy. Please. Sleep in the living room.”

  The Butterfly’s mouth opened in a wide “O.” She grinned. “Okay, lil mama. After all, you did win.” She chuckled. “What are you, seventeen?”

  Ann stared away from the other woman. “Sixteen.”

  Brown nodded. “Aha. Does Mommy know you’re doing this?” The Butterfly’s grin was wicked. Ann stared at her shoes. “I see. That would be a big no. Hell, I was a virgin ’til I was twenty.” Ann still remained silent.

  Brown walked toward the bedroom. “Well, just let me get some of my stuff and the sleeping bag. I’ll be gone in a minute.” She came back with her arms stuffed. “Lemme give you a bit of advice, kiddo. Fuck quietly, or someone here will tell your mommy.” And with that, she was gone.