by Tony Wiley
The head of IT security at Candela Bank nosed his luxurious German sedan slowly into the parking lot. Wary of rolling over shards of broken glass or sharp metal debris, he threaded his way carefully to the booth.
There, he killed the engine, turned off the lights and grabbed some spare change from the armrest compartment.
Up close, the sight of the pay phone almost made him turn back and drive away. It looked horrible. Half its glass panels were broken, the rest covered in graffiti. And it smelled even worse. Reeked of piss from five feet away. But he didn’t have time to go out looking for another one, which would potentially be just as bad anyway. And besides, he figured he wouldn’t be there too long either, so he furrowed his brow and stepped in.
Before reaching for the set, he wrapped his hand in a tissue. Then he squeezed some quarters into the slot and punched the phone number on the dial. He listened to the ring tones with the set a good two inches away from his ear. It was that disgusting. Somebody finally answered.
At the other end of the line, the voice sounded surprised to hear from him. They hadn’t talked in a long time.
A little more than three years, actually.
“What do you want?” the voice asked. It came from a respected citizen. A member of Acton’s community. Somebody who championed all the local causes. Never missed a pancake breakfast at the fire station or a bake-off contest for the Girl Scouts. A true pillar of society.
“I think I should be the one asking that question,” the Candela Bank head of IT security said. “What do you want? Why have you been nosing around my servers today?”
“Whoa, whoa. What servers?” the respected citizen said. “What are you talking about?”
“There’s been an intrusion into the bank’s system today. Somebody read the logs concerning four hundred accounts. You know, the accounts.”
“What does it have to do with me?”
“You were the only one who knew of these accounts. You’re the one who tapped them dry three years ago.”
“Why would I go back in there now? Why would I do that?” the respected citizen said.
“You tell me.”
“I’ve got nothing to do with this. This is absurd. The operation went on three years ago. The deal has been signed, sealed and delivered. It would be crazy for me to go back there.”
The head of IT security went pensive. He thought as much. It would be crazy for anyone involved to go roaming back in there, which is why the intrusion had brought him on the verge of panic. “Then who’s doing that?” he asked.
“I’ve no idea,” the respected citizen said. “I’ve no idea, but this needs to be taken care of. We can’t have anybody sniffing around like that.”
“What if it’s the cops?” the head of IT security said. “What if somebody tipped them off?”
“You’re the security expert. Can’t you track where that intrusion comes from?”
“It depends. Sometimes we can but not always.”
“But you have to try, right? We can’t let that thing slip out. It’s too risky.”
The head of IT security was sweating in the dirty phone booth. Like a chess player, he had begun contemplating the next moves. And like in chess, they could bring him into dangerous territory. “We … we might have to act on this, you know.”
The respected citizen understood the cryptic message.
“Fine,” it said. “I’m gonna take care of it if it has to go there. But you start by tracking down whoever put his dirty nose in there and call me back, OK?”
Chapter 31
The alarm on Morrison’s phone woke him up at seven o’clock. It was only his second night in that soft warm bed, but the hard prison mattress already felt like a distant memory. When he got up, his head still buzzed from the deep sleep. He walked across the blue room to the shower stall like a drone. Ran the water real hot and stepped in for a long one. Another small pleasure he had almost forgotten. In prison, you didn’t really linger in there. You had every reason to make it quick, especially when you were a small guy.
After his long hot shower, Morrison felt revived and ready to attack his day. He got dressed in his pair of jeans and a fresh white button-down shirt. As he buttoned his shirt, he ambled to the window and peered outside.
The big black SUV was still parked at an angle in the driveway, two hundred feet down. Still stubbornly blocking the way, it hadn’t budged an inch since Morrison had gone to bed. Only now, the blond guy was not sitting behind the wheel but standing next to the driver’s door, smoking a cigarette. Mike stood at his side, hands tucked in his coat pockets. Both men had their backs to him. They stared down the hill, their body language calm and relaxed.
So their worries had been unfounded. Nobody had ventured on the property during the night to trouble them.
Morrison moved away from the window, grabbed the car keys on the nightstand and left his blue room. He trotted down the creaky staircase to the foyer, then came out the main door and slid into the driver’s seat of his big SUV.
The clasp of the door must have alerted Mike and the blond guy to his presence. Even before he started the engine, they swiveled on their feet to face up the hill. Morrison covered the two hundred feet in a few seconds. Crunched to a stop on the hard-packed gravel close to the other Navigator and got out.
The blond guy’s eyes were hollowed out. Face covered with a dark stubble. Hair misplaced from a lot of head scratching. Morrison aimed his first words at him.
“Enjoy your night, buddy?” he said. “I sure did enjoy mine.”
“Well, why don’t you try it next time, smart ass?” the blond guy said.
Mike raised his right hand out of his pocket. “Cut the crap, you two, OK? I don’t need that this morning.”
Mike was freshly shaven, his hair all sorted out. He looked clean and rested. Already on top of his day’s business. He nodded to Morrison. “Where you heading?”
Morrison preferred to stay vague. “Got the ball rolling. Now I’ve got to keep it going,” he said.
“So you have something.”
“I do. But I’ll need another chunk of money. Like 20K, right now.”
Mike nodded his approval and motioned for the blond guy to go fetch the money in the house. “Bring it back here,” he told the blond guy, “and then you can go to bed. Nothing will happen now.”
“That’s right, be a good boy and go get me my money,” Morrison said.
The blond guy made like he didn’t hear him, got in the big SUV, turned it around and drove up to the house.
Mike was only waiting for Morrison and him to be alone to ask more questions. “So what’ve you got?” he said.
As he had planned, Morrison told him all about Chelfington Bank, the first bank. About how, after his arrest, nothing had happened there, no further withdrawals had been made from the four hundred accounts. How he was now switching his gears to the other four banks, taking them one by one, starting today with First Collins Bank.
“When will you have something?” Mike asked.
“Don’t know,” he lied. “You never know with these types of operations. Sometimes it’s fast, sometimes it’s slow. You gotta get your nose in there and see.”
“What about the other banks? Can’t you have a look at them in parallel? Would speed things up, no?”
“I don’t have an infinite amount of resources. The last thing you want is to make a splash. You want to go nice and slow, real careful.”
Mike shrugged. “Well, whatever. It’s your call. I’m giving you a couple of days, but then you better bring me something worthwhile.”
Morrison nodded. They remained silent for a beat, then Morrison said, “Can I ask you something? That blond guy. You really trust him?”
Mike frowned. “Yes, I do,” he said. “Why?”
Morrison shrugged. He was thinking about the young guy who had been strangled by this blond nutter. Wondering if he should broach the subject. But he had to be careful. Didn’t want to expose Laura. So he de
cided to go at it from a far angle.
“Well, obviously, you didn’t trust that other guy,” he said, referring to the slicked-back hair guy who had abducted him with the blond guy at the prison bus stop. The one Mike had that blond maniac execute at point-blank range in front of him.
“That bastard got what he deserved. Caused me a whole lot of trouble.”
“What did he do?”
“He lost his temper one time too many.”
“And?”
“And he did something he really shouldn’t have. Brought me some heat. Lots of it.”
“Like what? He killed somebody?”
“Yeah, something like that. He had to keep an eye on one of our guests, but he got into some sort of argument with him and ended up killing the sucker. Dumbass. For all I care, he can rot at the bottom of his hole for all eternity. Good riddance.”
Morrison flashed an inner smile. The young prisoner. The blond guy had killed him, yet he had made the slicked-back hair guy take the fall in his place. Son of a bitch. Slimy son of a bitch. That blond guy was a snake.
“And this guy wouldn’t do stuff like that?” Morrison said.
“Why? You got any reason to doubt him?”
“No, no, nothing like that. Just don’t like his guts, that’s all.”
Mike shrugged. “He does what I tell him to do and he doesn’t bitch too much about it. That’s all I’m asking for. Speaking of which, he’s got your money now.”
The blond guy hadn’t bothered to use the SUV to come back. He simply walked the distance down from the house to where they stood with the fat envelope in his hand. He looked really tired. Totally beat. Who could blame him, after a full night of watch? The blond guy handed him the money and turned around to walk back up. Morrison thought about nagging him again, but he let it go. He had just learned something interesting about that guy. Something he might use later on. That was already enough.
*
At this early hour on a Saturday morning, the country two-lane was deserted. Morrison hummed along in the Navigator, right at the speed limit. His driving was relaxed. Purely mechanical. It allowed him the space to think about his next move.
The previous night, he had come back from Johnson’s with two potential suspects.
Logically, only Cowgirl or Harris could have skimmed First Collins Bank and Candela Bank. It had to be one of these two. He had been pondering this in bed for a long time before he could find some sleep. And when he did fall asleep, he still hadn’t decided which one of these two he would probe first. But now, on that clear blue morning, the answer was obvious in his head.
He fished the phone from his pocket and flipped it open. Punched the number with his thumb, half-looking at the road and half-looking at the mobile. It rang for a while before somebody answered. At the other end, the voice was still sleepy.
“Hey, Cowgirl. Hope I’m not waking you up.”
She sighed. “You are, Morrison, you are.”
“So sorry. Any way you can forgive me?”
She paused for a second. Then she said, “How about you come join me?”
Morrison smiled. “Just our luck. That’s exactly what I had in mind.”
“Well then hurry up, cowboy. I’m saving you the best spot here, right between the sheets.”
*
The head of IT security at Candela Bank hadn’t pulled an all-nighter in a long time. Back in his junior days he’d had plenty of them. But reaching the top of the totem pole had its rewards. You could let the little guys suffer. Thank God the intrusion had happened on a Friday night. If he’d had to face a regular work day now, he would just collapse.
Hacking was just like riding a bicycle. Once you’d mastered the technique, you’d never forget it. In his day, the head of IT security had hacked or simulated hacks countless times. That’s what he told himself. He would be fine. Still, after his phone call in the disgusting booth the previous night, he had come back home a bit nervous. He hadn’t hacked himself in a really long time. What if he’d forgotten how after all? It was not like he could draw anybody else into this. He had to take care of that task himself.
So around midnight, he had retreated to the basement with his laptop. Pulled the shades down on all the windows. Lit up every fixture and got right down to work.
His first hour had been a complete waste of time. With the logs from his own servers in hand, he wasn’t sure where to start. He’d written a few scripts, poked around here and there but couldn’t find a handle. Something solid to hold on to. This had tensed him up even more. At the time, the temptation to calm his nerves with a glass or two of scotch had been serious. But he had resisted it. This was no time to dull his senses. He needed to remain sharp.
So he’d summoned the courage to continue looking into this. By attacking the problem from multiple angles. By trying to think like an intruder. In short, by doing what hackers naturally do. And so it had all come back to him.
The second and third hours had been much better. Once you found that initial breach, it was much easier to force your way in. Just like for a tough crossword puzzle.
As he progressed in this virtual maze, his confidence rose up again.
From the fourth hour on, he was humming along. Making solid, steady progress every hour. Up to the point where, after nine hours of continuous, feverish work, he now had an IP address in hand. The IP address of the computer used by the hacker that had gone poking around in Candela Bank’s servers.
A fantastic breakthrough. He was really proud of having achieved it.
But it remained an incomplete breakthrough. Now he had to find a way to match a real-life brick-and-mortar address to that virtual one. And for this, he knew he would have to expose himself a bit.
*
Morrison pushed open the door into Cowgirl’s subtly white cocoon. She was half-sitting in her bed, buried in a mountain of pillows, her hair undone. She wore a two-piece white silk pajama of yet another shade of white—that one leaning toward pearl. With a soft and luscious hue. Made her look like some precious jewel in a refined casing. Downstairs, Morrison hadn’t needed to knock on the door or ring the doorbell. He had let himself into the house without any obstruction.
“Are you crazy, leaving your front door unlocked like that?” he said.
She raised her head and shrugged. “Nothing ever happens in dear old Acton.”
“Any maniac could walk in here and rape you just like that,” Morrison said, snapping his fingers.
Cowgirl rolled her eyes. “There are no maniacs in Acton,” she said. “Only a couple of crooks and I know them all. They don’t scare me one bit. Besides, I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”
Morrison frowned. “How would you do that?” he said.
She extended her left arm in a deft move to pull open the nightstand drawer. In there was a dull black pistol, not very big. Probably a .22 or a .25. The kind of weapon specifically marketed for women in the trade magazines and websites that catered to the more paranoid crowd. Morrison thought this rage for guns was nuts. The vast majority of people who owned them never used them. And those who did usually ended up injuring themselves or someone close by accident. Cowgirl was well aware of Morrison’s aversion to guns, so she wrapped her hand around the butt, took it out of the drawer and aimed at him. Going straight for the groin.
“How about that?” she said.
“Whoa, easy, Cowgirl, easy,” he said. “That’s not funny.”
She thought otherwise. A wide smile spread across her face. “You don’t know,” she said. “Maybe I want to rape you.”
While she kept the gun aimed at him, she used her free hand to unbutton her shirt. Morrison could see the tips of her breasts stick out of the silken fabric, the softness of her skin around her bellybutton. She was relaxed, vibrant. Totally playful.
“Well, it can be done, my dear,” he said, “but if you wouldn’t mind putting that thing down.”
“Aha. You come here right now, Mr. Morrison, or I’ll shoo
t you, I swear.”
He skirted around the bed to her side, leaned over her and took the gun away from her hand. Then he put it back in the drawer.
“You shouldn’t play with guns,” he said. “They’re dangerous.”
“Don’t worry. There’s a safety catch on that thing, you know. It stayed on the whole time.” She reached for his belt buckle, slid her fingers behind it and pulled him to the bed. “Now come in here, cowboy …”
*
Just like the previous night, the pillows and bedspread went flying in all directions. And just like the previous night, he and Cowgirl were left panting on the giant mattress, their bodies spent, totally covered in sweat.
It could have been just a pleasant repeat of their previous session. But this time, Morrison saw her in a different light. A much different light. While before he’d had no suspicion of her involvement in anything fishy, this time she was one of two suspects in the theft of four million dollars from him. At least four million, but more probably eight. And yet, by looking at her, you wouldn’t suspect anything.
Morrison lay on his back. She rested her head on his chest, her body at a slight angle across his. He could feel she was relaxed, totally at ease. If he didn’t have any reason to doubt her, he would have sworn she was genuine. But maybe it was just a façade. Maybe she was just acting that way precisely so he wouldn’t suspect anything. After all, she was a good actress. He had seen her fool many a sucker in their previous operations. At that moment, the old saying came rushing back to Morrison’s mind: if you’re sitting around the poker table and can’t spot the sucker, then you’re probably it.
Out of the corner of his eye, Morrison caught a glimpse of the alarm clock on the nightstand. It was already 10:30 a.m.
“I’m surprised you’re still in bed at this hour,” he said. “Don’t you have a full stable? I thought you horse people were always up at dawn to take care of those beasts.”
Cowgirl shook her head. “No, no, I’ve got some people just for that,” she said.
“Oh, so you’re the big shot owner and they do all the work for you.”