The Medina Device

by T. J. Champitto

  Agent Kershaw clicked play on the next grainy, black-and-white security footage from his hard drive. He watched, for the thousandth time, a twenty-two-second clip of his ghosts as they flawlessly entered the main cage and secured what they had come for—$3.6 million in untraceable cash being prepared for transport. The armed pick-up guards were scheduled to arrive only three minutes later to collect the cash load. It was all done with perfect military timing.

  That’s all it took. Twenty-two seconds, Kershaw thought to himself.

  He switched back to the outside property footage of the Jeep parked on the side street, its hazard lights still flashing. Seconds later the three men, now carrying large duffle bags, calmly piled into the SUV. Rand knew they drove southbound again onto Las Vegas Boulevard, then west onto Spring Mountain Road, which granted them immediate access to the Las Vegas Freeway. From there, they simply disappeared.

  Rand tightened his jaw in anger. They kept the damn hazards on. Who does that?

  He took the last sip from a Dixie cup and crumpled it in his hand. A dramatic hook shot fell short of the nearby trashcan, where several other wads of paper had met the same fate.

  Rand had looked at this heist from countless angles over the past nine months. He now caught himself spinning his wheels again. He tried to rein in his wandering imagination and shift his anxious attention elsewhere. Frustration and focus had become his worst enemies.

  Reaching for his messenger bag, Rand decided to take a few files and get out of the office, maybe stop by Callahan’s on his way home for a nightcap. He thumbed through a few folders that littered his desk and zeroed in on one in particular that had caught his attention earlier that day. Some fresh blood would be good, he decided, and threw it into his bag. The weary agent placed the whiskey bottle in a desk drawer and turned off his laptop. It was midnight.

  A half hour later, Rand lumbered into Callahan’s Pub—a small, dark bar on the south-side of town outfitted with all the decor of a mid-century storeroom. The FBI agent in him instinctively checked the place from left to right before making his way to his favorite stool. Rand Kershaw projected an air of intelligence, but carried an unwelcoming sense of professionalism that often rubbed people the wrong way. The bartender, known only as Big Nick, had a whiskey-on-the-rocks already poured and waiting on the bar by the time Rand landed on his stool.

  The half-drunk agent stared endlessly into the ice cubes floating in his highball glass, watching them slowly melt into the cheap booze. He caught himself daydreaming about the file he’d grabbed from his desk and, more importantly, where it would take him when he dove into it later that night.

  It was a silly hunch, really. A hunch that relied heavily on the age-old tale of Robin Hood—a band of criminals stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. As ridiculous as it sounded, it was a theory that provided answers to all his questions.

  The thin folder tucked away in a messenger bag in the back seat of his car contained articles and documents pertaining to several large, anonymous donations that had been made in the months following the heist. Written on the front in black ink were the words Robin Hood. And tonight was as good as any to peel back the layers of a long shot theory and get lost down another rabbit hole.

  Rand knew that the story provided entertainment value and cultural symbolism. The tale of Robin Hood was no more than an attempt to denounce the foundations of the ruling class and give the “people” a hero—someone who kept their hopes alive in an otherwise hopeless world. But there was just one problem; when Rand viewed his theory through an investigative lens, he couldn’t help but ask himself: Why would a guy take so many risks for a return that yielded no real value or reward for himself, yet reaped life-changing rewards to others? To complete strangers, no less.

  It had to have been Rand’s one-hundredth eureka moment since the investigation began.

  Vigilantes like Robin Hood didn’t actually exist, did they? he wondered as he sat upright in his bar stool. The laws of psychology would probably say no, Rand reasoned. In the conscious of most modern humans it is extremely rare that our natural instincts would allow us to follow through on an action with such an unrewarding projected outcome. It was basic biology—people just weren’t wired up that way.

  The thoughts spun wildly in his head. After one more drink, Rand left Callahan’s and, by two in the morning, he was sitting alone in the cluttered living room of his small apartment in Henderson, just south of Vegas. The place was well-furnished and upscale, carrying all the hallmarks of an overworked bachelor.

  Seated on a black leather couch, he leaned in to have another go at the file. Three receipts rested on the coffee table: a $400,000 anonymous donation to the U.S. Hunger Relief Organization; an untraceable donation of 6,000 laptop computers made to a dozen school districts in southern Alabama; and an anonymous $3.24 million donation to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

  The latter stuck out for obvious reasons—it was by far the largest of the group. But there was more about the St. Jude’s donation that caught his attention. With a single sheet of paper in one hand and a glass of bourbon in the other, Rand squinted through floating eyes at the receipt. He distinctly remembered the donation from the news cycle earlier that year. The incredible act of humanity had created a feeding frenzy for the media, who hailed the anonymous donors as heroes. Undisputed praise littered social media for weeks. It was the stuff of movies. But something else suddenly stood out to Rand: the donation was exactly ninety percent of the amount stolen from Wynn. The percentage was insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and the agent feared he was finding logic where logic didn’t exist.

  Rand had hit the wall, physically drained and very drunk. With a deep sigh, he got up and sluggishly wobbled his way to the bedroom. Tomorrow he’d dive into the St. Jude donation with a recharged battery.

  Chapter Four

  Cameron Lyle sat comfortably behind the wheel of a rented BMW X5 as it roared up the open country road. There was a certain energy in the air as they made their way north through the Pennsylvania foothills. He darted a wincing smile at his passengers. His brother Michael was already buzzed from a bottle of Scotch he’d picked up at the airport. In the backseat, buried in his smartphone, William “Trip” Montgomery III was shaking off his jet lag and sifting through technology headlines he may have missed while trapped in the air. The self-taught hacker had flown cross-country from San Francisco to Philadelphia, where he met up with Cam, who had drove down from Providence, and Michael, who had raced up from D.C.

  That was a half-bottle of Scotch ago.

  “We’re about an hour out,” Cam announced, trying to yell over the Van Halen track blasting through the speakers at Michael’s insistence. “I’m stopping at North Bend for supplies. You guys need anything?”

  “Booze. Lots and lots of booze,” Trip called from the backseat. “I gotta catch up with your idiot brother.”

  At just twenty-nine-years-old, Trip was the youngest of the pack. He grew up in Lodi, Texas, on his family’s farm. Both his parents died in a car accident while he was a teenager, leaving him to be raised by his older brother, who was later killed in action while serving in Afghanistan.

  It was an annual tradition for Trip, Michael and Cam to spend a week at the Lyles’ cabin in Susquehannock State Forest, nestled in upstate Pennsylvania. The place was originally built by Elliot Lyle back in the Sixties, but as time passed Elliot’s sons eventually took it over as their own. It was a rugged, four-bedroom that sat high on a cliff overlooking the lush wilderness below.

  The SUV pulled into a convenience store just off the main drag that ran through the sleepy mountain town of North Bend. Cam got out and inhaled the fresh air as he had a cursory glance at his surroundings. The cabin was stockpiled with everything the guys could think of, but it nev
er hurt to pick up a few additional items on the way. He entered the dusty, old country store and minutes later emerged with two bags brimming with charcoal, steaks, eggs, two cases of beer and a gallon of off-brand whiskey.

  He topped off the gas tank at the pump outside, and moments later the SUV pulled back onto the two-lane, scenic highway to begin its final ascent into the mountains. Before long they would be stoking a fire and lining up shots of liquor in the cool Appalachian air.

  As the BMW climbed, Cam pinched his lips and stared blankly beyond the steering wheel at the colossal pine trees zooming by. The weather was overcast and gloomy, but Cam found beauty in the vast surroundings of the foothills and was excited about a week of testosterone-filled banter, high-stakes drinking games and war stories.

  The three guys had been coming to the cabin together for the past four years. Before that, when Cam was home on leave, he and Michael would meet there with a handful of rowdy childhood friends from Hockessin. But as time went on, each year brought fewer of those friends, and eventually it was just the two youngest Lyle brothers. Until that fateful night four years ago, when Cam and Michael invited Trip on their annual getaway. And The Huntsmen’s Club was officially born.

  The memory brought a soft smile to Cam’s face. He peered into the rearview mirror at the young hacker in the backseat.

  “What?” Trip finally asked, sensing the steely eyes lurking at him.

  “Sorry,” Cam replied with a grin. “You remind me of your brother sometimes.”

  Chapter Five

  As the gang embarked on their big week in the Pennsylvania foothills, Special Agent Rand Kershaw sat quietly at his desk at the FBI field office in Las Vegas. He had spent the previous night laying out his Robin Hood theory and was now ready to present it to Special Agent in Charge, Steve Brodsky. Rand had struck out so many times in previous attempts at selling Brodsky on his theories. He was nervous, knowing damn well his boss had become skeptical of almost everything that spilled out of his mouth.

  With a deep breath of confidence, Rand grabbed his case file and marched down the hall, then briefly paused to gather his thoughts before jumping in. He opened his eyes and rapped his knuckles on the door.

  “Steve, you got a sec?” he asked, leaning into the doorway.

  “Sure thing,” Brodsky replied, removing his bifocals and closing a folder on his desk. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Agent Kershaw?”

  “The Wynn case. I’ve got something. Thought I’d run it by you if you have a moment.”

  “I can always make time for a hard-working agent. Take a seat.”

  Rand sat sheepishly in the worn-out chair in front of his boss’s desk. He placed the file in front of Brodsky and leaned back into the chair.

  “I’ve been looking into some large, anonymous donations that took place in the months following the heist,” he began.

  Brodsky narrowed his eyes and opened the folder. The bifocals quickly returned to his face as he peered at it inquisitively.

  “Of course, I found several,” Rand continued. “But one in particular stood out to me. It was a $3.24 million-dollar donation to St. Jude.”

  “No shit?” the Special Agent in Charge contemplated. “That’s a lot of dough.”

  “Yeah, it certainly caught my attention. I have a feeling these guys are…well, it’s just a hunch…”

  “Spit it out,” Brodsky scoffed.

  “The thing is, it was such a large donation. All our usual suspects for anonymous donations—Brockman, Gates, Buffett—would never make this large of a donation without the charity having some inkling of who it was. They simply haven’t got one iota here about who made this donation. I mean, this is ‘throw a gala and a press conference’ type of money—and even if it was supposed to be anonymous, the media would have named the philanthropist.”

  “I’m not biting, Rand. But go ahead and walk me through the scenario. You’ve got me on pins and needles.” The sarcasm was thick.

  Sensing defeat, Rand pressed on. “So, three guys steal $3.6 million from the casino, completely untraceable. They keep ten percent to pay for expenses and donate the rest—$3.24 million dollars—to one of the largest cancer research charities in the world.”

  “I’m done, Rand.” The bifocals were off again. “This is another bullshit goose chase and I won’t go on it with you.”

  Rand hated seeing Brodsky clearly disappointed and annoyed like this.

  “But, Steve…”

  “Don’t ‘But Steve’ me. You’re just bringing me more garbage because, at the end of the day, you have absolutely nada, hombre. Absolutely nothing here.” Brodsky waived the useless folder around in the air as his football-shaped belly pressed against the desk.

  “No,” Rand shot back. “I need you to hear me out. Please.”

  “You’re not letting go, huh? Fine, you have two minutes. Rapido. Let’s hear it.”

  “The donation was exactly ninety percent to the dollar of the total taken from Wynn. It was made exactly three months to the day after the heist. Nobody, and I mean no one, was ever able to identify the donors. These guys unloaded the cash without any trace of origination. The donation was made by a dummy corporation from San Pedro: Boro Industries. That piece of information was leaked to the press, who then tried hunting down anyone they could find from Boro Industries. All the newspapers had was an address to an abandoned warehouse in the valley and a debunk website hosted from China.”

  “What else?” asked Brodsky, still clearly unimpressed.

  “My profile is three males, late-twenties to mid-thirties, possible military training and absolutely no interest in the money, or obviously any attention. They’re driven by pure adrenaline. The thrill of the hunt.”

  “The thrill of the hunt,” Brodsky repeated, now seemingly ready to play along.

  “Chasing adrenaline can become addictive,” Rand pointed out.

  “They’re not called adrenaline junkies for nothing.”

  “Exactly. So, when people get addicted to things, they crave it—and do it over and over again. Let’s pretend for a second I’ve profiled them correctly: What are the chances that the Wynn casino isn’t the only heist they’ve pulled off?”

  “That’s an interesting observation, Kershaw. A robbery like that could take up to a year to plan. Maybe there were more before this.” Brodsky was thinking out loud now. “Three men with the right resources could potentially pull one of these off every year.”

  Rand gave his boss a moment to process it.

  “So, let’s play ball. What’s your next move?” Brodsky asked.

  “I’d like to dig into a few other high-profile heists followed by high-profile anonymous donations. You’re right, there may be a string of these things that lead up to the Wynn job.”

  Steve Brodsky nodded in agreement. “Set your timetables roughly a year apart and see if you can’t connect some dots. But don’t bring this shit back to me until you do. Otherwise, I don’t want to hear any more crazy tales of a modern-day Robin Hood and his band of merry goddamn men terrorizing the country for no other reason than to cure cancer. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.” Rand’s mind was already racing with the idea of serial criminals on a mission to save the world. He loved it. He needed it.

  “And get some sleep for Christ’s sake! The bags under your eyes are embarrassing.”

  Rand replied with a distracted smile and left. He hadn’t even reached the end of the hallway when it hit him like a ton of bricks: The Hamilton hack, if that wasn’t a high-profile heist than nothing was. It was almost too high profile. The cyber security hack on Hamilton Entertainment two years ago had been one of the biggest robberies since the 1978 Luf
thansa heist. Everyone in the world knew about it, it had made the international news and become the stuff of hacking folklore. The thieves had stolen six million dollars, all without ever setting foot on Hamilton property—the cyberattack was executed remotely, and the hackers were never identified. The timing would have lined up perfectly, he thought to himself. Almost a full year before the Wynn robbery.

  As he considered his next move, the young agent shuddered at the idea of connecting his casino case to one of the largest thefts the bureau had investigated in the last twenty years. He drifted back to his desk and tried to organize his thoughts. After a moment, he was already trying to poke holes in his own theory, because that’s what good agents do.

  If they’re adrenaline junkies, then why would they launch a robbery from behind a computer screen? What’s the fun in that? Or maybe the adrenaline they’re chasing isn’t the physical rush of guns and getaways but simply the rush of stealing. Or, more importantly, giving.

  Rand caught himself slipping off track. No, no, no, you do this every time. He closed his eyes tight, knowing he had an unhealthy tendency to obsess and fantasize—to take the tiniest thread of information and build it into something crazy. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed both hands down his face. Relax, he told himself. Start from the bottom and work your way up.

  Rand opened his laptop and began an exploratory mission to identify all high-profile robberies from the last two years and pick them apart case by case. He would then do the same with anonymous donations. It was going to be another long and sleepless couple of nights.

  Chapter Six

  Susquehannock State Forest, Coudersport, Pennsylvania