by Dete Meserve
“Hey, Max, quick question. In what online games could you have a conversation with another player? With someone you don’t know.”
“All of them, pretty much. Why? You finally getting into gaming?”
“It’s for a story I’m working. You know, the heists of the one-hundred richest Americans’ estates?”
He brightened. “Yeah, heard about that. Crazy how much money those dudes have.”
“The guy I talked with said he met the leader of the group by ‘playing games online.’ I’m wondering if we could find the leader online and what games might allow him to talk to other people?”
He sounded distracted. “Like I said, most of them do. Too many to count.”
“The leader goes by the name of Locksley. Could you find him by looking up that user name on various games?”
“You have any idea how many games there are out there? Thousands.”
The conversation was halting and awkward. He was clearly focused on the game he was playing, and I could tell he was annoyed with my questions. “So could you look for someone across the games you play if you knew his user name?”
He hesitated. “No. He might call himself Locksley, but his user name could be something else. So, yeah, sounds like a lost cause.”
I could hear him feverishly clicking the controller. He sounded frustrated, which probably meant I was making him lose. “He starts every heist by saying he’s summoning the champions and telling his team they’re changing the world and—”
“He actually says ‘summoning the champions’?”
“Yes.”
“Like in League of Legends?”
“What’s that?”
“How’s it even possible that you haven’t heard of it?” he said, without tempering his disdain. “It’s a MOBA played by seventy million people. A player is called a ‘summoner’ and they start the game by ‘summoning a champion’ into the Fields of Justice.”
“What’s a champion?”
He sighed as though I’d asked him to explain what a light bulb was. “A player is called a champion. Each one has a special ability. No two are alike.”
“What do you do with your champion?”
“You team up with other champions to try to destroy the other team’s base.”
“How do I find Locksley on League of Legends?”
I heard a couple of loud explosions on his end. “Lost cause. Gotta run, Kate. Catch you later?”
Hannah knew what League of Legends was. She was a rare girl who’d played it in college as a way to relax from the stresses of the journalism program at Columbia University. To the envy of her male classmates, she’d become good enough to earn a respectable silver ranking.
“It’s hard for outsiders to understand the allure,” she said in the newsroom that afternoon. “Because it’s a game that’s very difficult to master and there’s no easy way to learn it. So the people who achieve the highest rankings have a kind of cultlike following, a highly revered status.”
She opened the game on her laptop to see if she could find a summoner named Locksley.
Her face lit up. “Found one. He’s got the highest ranking, what’s called a Diamond One. He’s in the top one-tenth percent.”
“So someone with that ranking might be able to convince another player to help him rob an estate?”
She pressed two fingers to her lips. “Many players would be flattered if a Diamond One reached out to them. Maybe he targets certain kinds of players—risk takers, ones who chart their own paths in the game, or people he thinks would spark to his idea of a small group changing the world.”
“How can I send Locksley a message?”
“We can send a request, but it’s up to him if he wants to accept our invitation.” She typed the name Locksley into the invitation box and pressed Send. “A request has been sent to the user” flashed on the screen.
“What if he figures out you’re a producer from Channel Eleven?”
Hannah shook her head. “He can’t find out who I am from my summoner name. That’s impossible.”
I watched the cursor blink on the screen until my vision started to blur. All we could do was hope that Locksley would respond. I knew it was a long shot, and even if he did respond, there was no guarantee this was the Locksley we were looking for.
I turned to leave. “Let me know if he answers.”
“There’s something else.” Hannah spoke in a low whisper.
I turned to look at her.
“I finally found something about your…source.” She typed a few keystrokes on her keyboard and pulled up a newspaper article. “It took a lot of digging, but he’s with his brother in eastern Kentucky. His brother heads up a group that call themselves the Kentucky Preppers.”
“Why’s he there?”
“No idea yet. He’s still completely silent on all social media.”
“So how did you find him then?”
She smiled and pointed at the screen. “Don’t laugh, okay? Where he’s staying, Dawson Springs, Kentucky, is such a small town—less than three thousand people—that the local paper still publishes a column of local comings and goings.
I scanned the article and right after an announcement about a visit from Connie Gaynor’s four grandchildren, there it was: “Tom Newton and his brother Jake, a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department, attended the opening of Lil’ Cozy Kitchen, a new restaurant opening in Dawson Springs by owners Otto and Thelma.”
I looked at her in amazement. “How do you find this stuff?”
She smiled. “Not saying. Job security.”
“Any way to contact him?”
She shook her head. “His brother doesn’t even have a phone.”
“What do we know about his brother’s group?”
“Many prepper groups share fairly normal self-reliance stuff like storing your own food and stocking up on water and medical supplies. But this one…well, take a look.”
She pointed to their website. In bold letters it read: WE’RE PREPARING FOR THE BREAKDOWN OF SOCIAL ORDER CAUSED BY ECONOMIC COLLAPSE. Beneath the caption was a photo of a stockpile of guns, knives, axes, machetes, and ammunition.The photo was followed by a post showing how to make a device out of plastic piping and compressed air that shoots out fishhooks to immobilize intruders.
The idea of Jake Newton joining some kind of survivalist group in Kentucky seemed impossible to me. He was ambitious, high-minded at times, and never anything like the stereotypical police officer with a drug problem, an ex-wife, an estranged child, or a secret past. He was raised in Portland by parents who were college professors. Sure, he liked to unwind with a drink and probably worked too many long hours, but I couldn’t imagine him as someone who’d throw his promising career away and go off the grid.
“They’re definitely on the fringe,” Hannah said quietly.
My stories about the burglar caught on camera had rocketed Channel Eleven to number one for two days running, and to celebrate our new status, David and Bonnie had gathered all the reporters and anchors on the set to pose for a group photo. Some of the reporters grumbled about taking a photo so early in the morning. But in a market like Los Angeles, getting to number one was no easy feat, so everyone smiled long enough for one of the cameramen to snap a few photos.
I felt a pang of guilt as I stood shoulder to shoulder with the Channel Eleven news team while seriously considering leaving them for ANC. No doubt we were competitive, as each of us jockeyed for the best stories and airtime, but we were also like a family—celebrating milestones and playing petty pranks. I didn’t have much time to dwell on my guilt, because David was obsessed with the heists story.
“There’s one thing in this story that no one’s been able to get,” he said, pacing the Fish Bowl later that morning in the assignment meeting. “Not any of the networks, not CNN or ANC, not even Oprah or Diane Sawyer have been able to get it.” He took a slug of his green drink. “Anyone know wha
t it is?”
He scanned the puzzled faces in the room, mine included.
“An interview with whoever is behind these heists?” Conan asked.
He shook his head. “If you had that, we wouldn’t be sitting here.” He slammed his hand on the table. “Come on, people. I’m talking about the kind of interview that catapults us straight to the top. National…worldwide attention.” He threw up his hands. “We need to interview one of the victims. The billionaires who’ve been robbed.”
“We’ve struck out with all the estate owners,” Susan pointed out.
“That’s exactly why we have to get an interview,” David urged. “This is our moment, guys. We’re crushing the competition. Even our movie studio owners are paying attention to what we’re doing. But if we want to capitalize on all the attention Channel Eleven is getting—if we want to stay on top and keep rising—we have to get on the inside and interview one of the billionaires.” He pointed a finger at me. “Kate, you met one of them—Stephen Bening. Why can’t you interview him?”
“It’s not that easy—”
“I’m not looking for excuses. Find a way in,” he said, waving a hand in the air. “Just bring back an interview.”
I didn’t have a “way in” to Stephen Bening. And given his relationship with my father, it wouldn’t be smart to hound him like an ordinary interview subject. He’d already turned down two of my requests for an interview so I needed a compelling reason to reach out to him again A reason for him to say yes. I found the copy of his book Business Hacks and scanned through the biography:
Bening, a twenty-five-year veteran of the software industry, began his career at the age of 18 by founding an entertainment software company, Liberty Software, to develop games for the Atari platform. From there he worked as an assembly language programmer at Apple, then at Oracle Corporation and Symantec. From a rented apartment in 2005, he launched SalesInsight.com, now a multibillion-dollar global organization. Bening is a graduate of the University of Southern California and has an MBA from Harvard.
The book was aimed at the captains of corporate empires. There was a chapter about the development of his Delfina software system, which revolutionized the way businesses tracked sales and serviced customers. and became the leading customer relationship software used by Fortune 500 companies and boutique businesses around the world. But nothing I read was a way into an interview, so I asked Hannah to do a deep web search on Stephen. Fifteen minutes later, she handed me a white paper Bening wrote when he oversaw the security technology and response division at Symantec, a computer security software developer.
She pulled up a chair next to mine. “Bening writes that cybercriminals use sophisticated techniques to leapfrog over company and private defenses. Maybe you can ask him if cyber attacks were made on his security system.”
I shook my head. “Police say the security systems in the estates weren’t breached. Even the security expert who designed the system at El Mirasol confirmed that the system wasn’t compromised. There’s no evidence of cyber attack.”
“That’s exactly Bening’s point in this paper,” she said, running her fingers through wavy hair that fell to her shoulders. “Hackers can hide their digital fingerprints with something called a ‘rootkit.’” It’s malicious software—malware—that hides the intrusion. Makes it appear that the systems were not compromised at all.”
I straightened then swung open my laptop and typed an e-mail. “Stephen, were rootkit tactics used to evade the security systems in your home?”
It took Stephen Bening twenty minutes to call. That was breakneck speed in CEO time, because most executives responded in days, if they returned a reporter’s call at all.
“It’s a good theory,” he said. “The problem is that we’ve run multiple scans and analyses and memory dumps and haven’t found a shred of evidence of any malicious software or rootkit on my system or any of the others.”
“Maybe their ability to hide is greater than your ability to find them,” I said quietly.
“Without a doubt. That’s why I’ve got some of the world’s top cyber security experts working on it. But here’s where you’re missing the big story. For years, police have used high-end cyber tactics like installing undetectable rootkits and malware to spy on terrorists, drug dealers, and other criminals. They have the ability to pull this off.”
“But why would they do it?”
“Isn’t it obvious? They can steal millions of dollars in minutes and know they won’t get caught. The police chief may be blustering on TV about how he’s going to catch the criminals, but my investigator says the chief knows that it’s actually some of his own officers who are behind it. That’s why they’re not sharing critical evidence with the owners or the media.”
“Would you talk with me on camera about your findings?”
“No,” he said firmly. “We’re still gathering evidence.”
My voice went up a notch. “You have evidence that police are using undetectable malware to hijack high-end security systems and rob estates of millions, yet you don’t want to talk to the media about it?”
He exhaled sharply. “Look, let me help you another way. I’ll set up an interview with the owner of the Holmby Hills estate.”
Thomas Speyer, the owner of the Holmby Hills estate and CEO of a major Wall Street brokerage firm, was not the imposing figure I expected. He was only five-foot-seven and rail-thin, but he had intense, dark eyes and a deep, wide forehead that sloped sharply and gave him an almost hyena-like appearance. He looked like someone who, if provoked enough, might actually physically attack you, even if his size would put him on the losing end of that battle.
Stephen had done more than make an introduction. He’d also persuaded Speyer to meet with me Saturday morning in his home. I don’t often do interviews or file news reports on Saturday mornings—unless it’s a breaking-news story—but if Speyer was willing to grant me an on-camera interview, I was willing to drag my sleep-deprived self out of bed to meet him.
Our photographer, Christopher, waited in the news van—ready to bring in a camera on a moment’s notice—while a uniformed butler ushered me inside Speyer’s Colonial mansion. He paused a moment to allow me to take in the grandeur of the foyer—the set of spiral staircases, soaring forty-foot ceilings, inlaid-marble floors, huge palladian windows, and opulent gilded crown moldings.
Although a wing of the estate was badly burned, the home was so expansive that we were able to meet in a white oak-paneled dining room overlooking the tennis courts and not even be aware there had been a fire at all. When I arrived, Speyer was in the midst of devouring a plate of ribs. He offered some to me, but the sight of barbecued ribs at ten in the morning was turning my stomach.
“I tell you what, they stole from the wrong guy,” he said. Dressed to perfection in a blue linen suit jacket and crisp white pants he looked like a Ralph Lauren advertisement, albeit with a less attractive model. “I have one of the most high-tech security systems available. Yet they stole five million dollars in goods in under fifteen minutes. But do they have any idea who they’re dealing with? No one gets away with stealing from Thomas Speyer.”
I’m always uncomfortable when people speak of themselves in the third person. It usually comes from interviewees who have an inflated sense of self-worth, but it’s also an indication that they’re distancing themselves from me, which is something I had to change. I leaned forward and placed my palms down on the table, mirroring the placement of his hands. I shook my head in sympathy and tried hard to rally a similar expression. “What did they take?”
“What they stole from the others. Cash. Jewelry. But what makes my blood boil is that they stole my artwork. They left my Picasso and took my Mora. Go figure.”
“Mora?”
He lifted his smartphone and pointed to his screensaver that showed a painting of two impossibly stretched figures standing on a rocky precipice, trying to catch hold of the unattainable—the moon. T
he one figure wore a bold red cape and yellow shoes, while the other was a somber black silhouette against a gray-blue sky.
“I fought for it at Christie’s. Man Reaching for the Moon by Antonio Mora. Everyone assumed it would go for two million but it ended up costing me two point four. You should have seen the look on the face of the other bidders when the auctioneer finally knocked his gavel against the lectern. They were kicking themselves—another fifty thousand and they would’ve won it instead.”
“Whoever stole it will have a hard time selling it on the black market.”
He laughed, a throaty laugh that put me on edge. “That’s not how it works. There are people around the world who would be ecstatic to get this piece, for the prestige of having something Christie’s sold at auction for two point four million dollars.”
“Stephen’s investigator says that police officers are behind the heists. What do you think?”
He wiped his mouth with a wet napkin and laid it on the table. “I think he’s right. They’re hiding something. They won’t share any evidence with me. And they took something from the crime scene and refused to show it to me.”
“What was it?”
“Can’t say for certain, but it looked like a silver coin. I saw a detective taking it away in one of those plastic evidence bags. I asked to see it, but he refused.”
“Could I interview you on camera? I think viewers would like to understand what happened from your perspective—”
He stiffened. “Look, this robbery is a tragedy. But there’s no way I’m going on camera talking about all the luxuries I’ve lost. People don’t have sympathy for the other wealthy schmucks who had millions stolen, and they won’t have any for me.”
A young woman dressed in a black-and-tan sheath dress came into the room bearing a tray. “May I offer you some coffee?” she asked.
“No, thank you,” I said.