Innocent Conspiracy

by David Archer

  Hickam’s phone rang. He glanced at it, then excused himself and went outside to take the call.

  Cross looked at Darwin. “He’s bloody guilty as hell, if you ask me,” he said softly, once Hickam was out of earshot. “Lansdowne thinks so, but he says there’s not enough proof to try to make a case.”

  “Not a doubt in my mind,” Darwin replied. “Just make bloody sure he thinks we don’t believe it, or we’ll end up just like Devon.” He knocked back his glass and signaled one of the attendants for another gimlet.

  Cross stared at him. “I’ve no idea how you can stand to drink gin with breakfast.”

  “It’s easy,” Darwin said. “All I have to do is imagine what the day would be like if I was sober. All the motivation I need, right there.”

  Hickam had answered the call as he was walking out, telling the caller to wait a moment. Outside, he made sure there was no one who could possibly overhear before he put the phone back to his ear again.

  “Is it you?”

  The distorted voice came through the earpiece. “Yes. We have some problems over here. The investigators think someone inside our organization is involved.”

  “Bloody hell,” Hickam said. “Do they actually know anything? Or is it just speculation?”

  “As far as I can tell, they’re only guessing. We’ve taken great pains to make sure there is no evidence linking us to the events, but someone made another attempt to kill the boy a few hours ago. Do you know anything about that?”

  “Me? Why should I know anything about it? You’re the one who set up the whole damn thing, not me. All I did was hold the money, and I wouldn’t have done that if I’d known what you were doing. This thing has gotten so far out of hand I’m wishing I never agreed to any of it. I was forced to order the death of my own best friend just two nights ago, all because he told the wrong person he suspected I might be involved.”

  “Then we both have problems. Have you made sure to clean up the mess on your end?”

  “I said he’s dead, didn’t I? I don’t know that it did any good, though, because his bloody nephew is going ’round pointing fingers at me, now. Fortunately, the top man at the Crown Prosecutors is one of my big investors. That’s probably all that’s keeping me from being held on remand at the local prison, right now. I hope you’ve got someone equivalent watching over you.”

  “No one suspects me. Even if they believe someone in our company was involved, no one is going to point the finger at me. Now, are you prepared for the next phase?”

  “Yes, yes, I’m ready. Just make certain everything goes as planned. I don’t think we could recover if anything goes wrong, and we’ll certainly never get another chance.”

  “We only need one,” said the voice. The line went dead, and Hickam took a moment to compose himself before going back inside.

  *

  Denny slept on the flight. He’d certainly been in need of sleep, and since the flight would last slightly under nine hours, he figured it was the perfect opportunity to catch some rest. The only problem he had run into was the flight attendant, who suggested that he might like to watch a movie and have a bite to eat.

  “I’ve had about five hours sleep out of the last forty-eight,” he said. “I ate fish and chips before I got on the plane, and the only movie I want to watch is playing on the backs of my eyelids. Now, if you can find a way to sit quietly for the duration of this flight, I shall be more than grateful, which you will know because it will mean that I will not hogtie you to one of the seats. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Perfectly,” said the man. “I’ll—I’ll just go put the earphones in and watch the movie myself.”

  “You do that,” Denny said, “right after you fetch me a blanket and pillow, there’s a good lad.”

  Unfortunately, Denny’s mind took that particular opportunity to start reminiscing about his uncle, and sleep did not want to come. Between the grief and the turbulence they experienced numerous times on the journey, he actually didn’t get much sleep at all.

  The plane had left Heathrow at five thirty in the morning. It arrived at Denver International at nine AM, all thanks to the fact that the plane was fleeing the sun the whole way. Denny stepped off refreshed and ready for whatever they might throw at him, until he got to the customs desk. There, an overpaid, undereducated miscreant, in his opinion, tried to tell him that his DHS identification was not sufficient to allow him to bypass the customs inspection. Denny decided that he was either going to have to put up with the inspection, or spend some ridiculous amount of time in jail before somebody at DHS would make the right phone calls to get him out.

  If he hadn’t had a gun stuffed in the hidden compartment of the bag, he might have decided that sitting in jail a few hours would only mean getting some more sleep. As it was, though, he didn’t think he wanted this jackass to feel like he’d actually caught someone doing something wrong. There was basically no possibility that the jackass would find the gun, so Denny handed over his bag and passport.

  It was close. The idiot actually found the false screw that would release the hidden compartment, but he didn’t turn it the full one hundred eighty degrees. If he had, somebody in D.C. would’ve had to make that call after all.

  Finally, Denny was allowed to escape the airport. He took his bags, which were bound together so that they could all roll on one pair of wheels that he dragged behind him, and headed for long-term parking. He got into his car and stopped at the gate to pay its ransom, then headed for home.

  Denny Cortlandt lived in a nice area of Denver, a gated community known as Lockwood. His house was modest compared to many of the others, with only three bedrooms and four baths, but it suited him well. He parked his car inside the garage and walked in through his kitchen, dropping his bags in the utility room as he headed straight toward his bedroom. He stripped out of his clothes and entered the bath, took a fast shower, and then climbed under the covers.

  A moment later, he sat up and picked up his phone. He hit the button to dial Sam, and held the phone up to his ear.

  “Denny?” Sam asked as he answered.

  “It’s me, mate,” he said. “Just got in a bit ago, but I’ve not had any sleep to speak of. If it’s all right with you, I’m going to catch a few hours now.”

  “That’s fine,” Sam said. “Nothing’s going to happen before tomorrow, anyway. See you at the office in the morning?”

  “Yeah,” Denny said. “Assuming I wake up, that is.”

  Sam chuckled. “Get some sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  *

  Sam hung up the phone and turned to Indie, who was just cleaning up after their late breakfast.

  “Denny is back,” he said. “I’m about half dreading tomorrow, but at least we’ll have a shot at bringing this case to a close.”

  Indie turned away from the sink and walked over to put her arms around her husband from behind.

  “It’ll be okay, Sam,” she said. “You’ll handle it the way you always do.”

  *

  Jade Miller was sitting in her kitchen, tapping at the keyboard on her computer. She would type consistently for several seconds, then stop and read whatever was appearing on her monitor, only to begin typing once more. Darren Beecher, who had spent the night at her place and was sitting across the table, finally got up and walked around behind her to try to see what she was doing.

  “Jade? The look on your face makes it seem like you’re onto something big over here.”

  “I wish,” she said. “Got something stuck in my teeth, and I’m trying to get it out. When I was working undercover at Web Wide Awards, I came across something that seemed to be unrelated. According to one of the employees, John Morton has been diverting some cash for the last several months, and it’s driving me nuts not knowing what he wanted it for.”

  “Did you ask him?”

  Jade shook her head. “I mentioned it to Sam, and he felt like it was unrelated. He said our contract requires us to ignore anything not related to t
he case, so there really wasn’t much point. The more I think about it, though, the more it drives me nuts.”

  Darren pulled his chair closer to her so he could see what she was looking at. “I can understand it driving you crazy,” he said. “Do you think it actually is related, somehow?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I honestly can’t say that it is, but it’s still driving me mad. I was just curious and checked to see if they had cut off my access to their computers yet, and it turns out they hadn’t, so I’m digging around to see if I can find any kind of indication on what it was for. I mean, we’re talking more than a million dollars that he’s funneled off into some secret hiding place. I don’t know that you can have a legitimate reason to hide a million dollars, do you?”

  “It’s possible,” Darren said. “Maybe it’s an emergency retirement fund, just in case the company goes belly up on them. Or it could be that he’s investing the money in something new; Summer mentioned that he’s about to announce a new video algorithm or something, right? Maybe it’s related to that.”

  “He’s got one of the bookkeepers covering up for it, Darren,” Jade said, “and he’s given her a couple of very generous raises since she agreed to help him hide the money. She swears up and down she doesn’t know what it’s for, but it’s just bugging me.” She pointed at the screen. “Look here, at this part. Her original report for the day said that they brought in one million, nine hundred and twenty-three thousand and change. What that means is that she and the girls in her office actually counted that much, either in the cash that came in from various sources or in the accounts they use, like PayPal. Later, though, she edited the report to say one million, eight hundred, ninety-six thousand. That’s twenty-seven thousand dollars that just disappeared. The only way that could be possible is if somebody transferred it to a secret account, somewhere. Morton makes this bookkeeper change her daily reports every day if it doesn’t fit what’s left over by the time it all gets done at the accounting office.”

  “Well, I’ll admit it does sound strange,” Darren said. “On the other hand, unless you can come up with something to justify your interest in it, there really isn’t a lot you can do. I mean, you can report it to the IRS, I guess, but he’ll undoubtedly have some way to justify it as a deductible expense, so that probably wouldn’t get you anywhere, and might get you in a little bit of hot water with Sam.”

  “Well, I can’t help it,” Jade said. “I’m like a dog with a bone, sometimes. I just can’t stop gnawing on it, no matter how worn out it may be.”

  “But are you getting anywhere? Are you finding anything to make all your effort worthwhile?”

  “Not just…” She suddenly froze and stared at the screen. “Holy granola,” she said. “Darren, take a look at this is, tell me what you think it is.” She pointed at a line on the screen.

  “Well, that looks like a record of transfers from one account to another,” Darren said. “That spreadsheet is showing almost 200 lines, and the amounts I can see range from about twenty-five thousand up to around thirty thousand. Look, they’re all going to one particular account number. Any idea what bank it’s in?”

  “Not yet,” Jade said. “But let me run those numbers through the FINCEN database and see what comes up.” Her fingers flew across the keyboard again, and a moment later she let out a low whistle.

  “Darren,” she said. “John Morton is transferring money to an account in the Royal Bank of London. Now, what makes that so interesting is that it’s the same bank where Starbright keeps their accounts. Same branch, everything.”

  “Is there any way to actually tie it to Starbright?” Darren asked.

  “Not without hacking into the bank,” Jade said. “Unfortunately, that’s not among my talents.” She turned and looked at Darren. “But I know who can do it.”

  She picked up the phone and called Indie, and it was answered on the second ring.

  “Indie? It’s Jade. How would you feel about hacking into a bank in London?”

  “Is this part of the investigation you guys are working on?” Indie asked. “Sam seems to think it’s just about over.”

  “Well, let’s just say it’s connected, okay?” She gave Indie a quick rundown of the reason she was trying to track the money, explaining that she had found a spreadsheet in the Web Wide Awards computers indicating that all of that money had been transferred to the account at the Royal Bank.

  “Just a minute,” Indie said. “Let me get Sam in on this conversation. I’m putting you on speaker, okay?”

  “Yeah, that’s fine.”

  “Okay, Sam’s here. Tell him what you just told me.”

  “Hi, Jade,” Sam said.

  “Hey, Sam,” Jade said. “Um, I should probably mention that Darren is here with me, too. Anyway, I’ve been going a little bit crazy over that money I told you about Morton hiding, remember that? Well, I’ve just been poking around in the Web Wide Awards computer system this morning, and I finally found an accounting sheet that shows that money being transferred to another bank, the Royal Bank of London. Now, what got me all excited about that was that is the same bank that Starbright uses.”

  “Okay,” Sam said. “That does seem pretty strange.”

  “That’s why she called,” Indie said. “She was asking about having Herman take a look inside the Royal Bank and see if there’s a connection.”

  Sam was quiet for a couple of seconds, then spoke again. “I think we should check it out,” he said. “Is it going to be difficult?”

  “For Herman? Not really. Okay, Jade, first, give me the information to get into your account on the Web Wide Awards system. Let me see the spreadsheet you’re talking about.”

  Jade gave her the login and password, and then directed her to where she had found the spreadsheet, in a folder marked “Special Project S3.” Indie looked it over, and found the information she was looking for.

  “Okay, I’ve got the account and routing numbers, and the Swift code,” Indie said. “Herman’s actually been into that bank before, so this shouldn’t take more than a few minutes. Hang on, let him work his way into that section.”

  A minute passed, and then Herman chimed. “Bingo!” Indie said, and then she gasped. “Oh, my. Sam, look at this. Jade? Are you sitting down?”

  Jade had the phone on speaker, so that Darren would be able to hear as well. “Yeah, we’re sitting down. Did you find something?”

  “Well, I found that the account number you gave me goes to an account owned by Starbright Research Technologies, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Starbright Enterprises, LTD. Starbright Awards is also a subsidiary of Starbright Enterprises, as is Starbright Streaming Service. Now, that’s interesting enough by itself, considering we’re talking about money coming out of Web Wide Awards, but then there’s the fact that the account has made several transfers to a bank in the Cayman Islands. There’s a total of only about fifty dollars left in the account.”

  Jade and Darren stared each other. “Oh my God,” Jade said. “The Caymans? Rather notorious for money laundering, they are, aren’t they?”

  “Yes,” Sam said. “Very much so. Honey, is there any way to find out whose account that was in the Caymans?”

  “Highly unlikely,” Indie said. “The reason people use banks in the Caymans is to keep anyone from knowing anything about their money. However, most of the time, any money sent to the Cayman Islands is transferred right back out pretty fast. They use it for a pass-through account, basically, and sometimes the bank is set to send it right back out as soon as it comes in.”

  Sam grunted. “So, it’s probably going to someone who doesn’t want to be traced, right?”

  “Yes, and those banks hide the actual accounts they send the money to, so even if I hack in, I won’t be able to track where it actually went. It’ll say it went to an account that won’t exist by the time I get to it.”

  “Jade,” Sam said, “it sounds like you’ve actually found something important.”

  “You t
hink?” Jade said. “Does this look the same way to you guys as it does to me?”

  “I hate to admit it,” Darren said, “but I think it does. It looks to me like Web Wide Awards provided the money that was used to hire Reynard to arrange the shooting.”

  Jade nodded. “That’s how I see it. Sam?”

  “I would have to agree,” Sam said. “Unfortunately, unless we can prove conclusively that Morton was aware that’s where the money was going, or that Reynard actually received it, making such an accusation stick would be very difficult. Have we got anything else on this we can work with?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Jade said. “It’s just too big a coincidence, Sam. He’s been diverting money and hiding it, then sending it to Starbright in London, and then it gets transferred to the Caymans? There can’t be any legitimate explanation for that.”

  “I agree,” Sam said. “Again, the problem is how we prove it. At this point, I don’t even want Morton to know we’ve discovered this. We’re going to have to find some way to connect him to the money, and the money to Reynard.”

  “Connecting him to the money isn’t going to be that difficult,” Jade said. “The lady who runs the income bookkeeping office is unlikely to take the fall for him, and I’ve already talked with her about this once. I’m pretty sure I can get her to come forward, if I let her know just how serious the problem might be.”

  “The only problem I have with that is that she might go running straight to Morton,” Sam said. “I want to keep this under our hats for the moment, something we can bring out when we need it. If we can find anything else to indicate his involvement, then as circumstantial as this is, it could help cinch the case.”

  “Then we’ll get back on it,” Jade said. “If he did this, Sam, we cannot let him get away with it.”

  “Trust me,” Sam said. “We won’t. My office, eight thirty in the morning.”

  “Sam,” Indie said, “hold up a minute. Remember that phone recording, the one with the distorted voice that we think was talking to Hickam? Well, I never managed to find the call record, so I haven’t been able to track the call itself. On the other hand, if I could get a sample recording of John Morton’s voice, Herman could do a comparison on speech patterns and cadences, stuff like that. That could tie him directly to Starbright.”