Bounty

by Michael Byrnes

  In the virtual file cabinet, neatly organized into folder icons with descriptive labels and document dates, Novak spotted a folder for emails dated as recently as yesterday, which certainly hadn’t yet made their way to his desk. There were also thumbnail pics of Lombardi engaged in a lewd sex act with two women scantily clad in leather, neither of whom was Mrs. Lombardi.

  “Clicking this button labeled VOTE NOW brings up a quick disclaimer on how the website works, terms and conditions, et cetera.” Walter pointed at the small print that filled the screen. “It states here that participants take part in a virtual jury and pay a pledge fee to cast a vote for or against a mark—guilty or not guilty. A simple majority vote of guilty activates the bounty. The website then tabulates a starting prize amount based on the total number of guilty votes for that specific target, which then increases as more votes come in. If the vote swings to not guilty—presumably as the result of new evidence in favor of the target—the bounty is suspended, as are any personal data and vital statistics associated with the target. If the evidence unequivocally clears the target of wrongdoing, the target is deactivated and those pledge fees are distributed proportionately among the remaining active targets.”

  “Wait a second, Walter,” the agent next to Novak called out loudly. “I’m confused. What do you mean targets? Are you saying this isn’t just about Chase Lombardi?”

  Walter clammed up and looked over to Knight.

  Knight said, “We’ll get to that in a few minutes. First, let’s hear the rest of what Walter has to say.”

  “Holy shit,” the guy behind Novak muttered.

  “As I mentioned earlier,” Walter continued, “whoever is the first to upload a valid kill-confirmation video for a guilty target wins the prize. There’s no mention here as to how the prize money is paid out. My guess is that the winner is sent payment instructions after the claim has been validated. And I doubt the prize would be in the form of a check or bank transfer or gift card.”

  Some laughs.

  For such a sizable reward, bearer bonds could be a sensible choice, thought Novak. A few certificates worth half a million dollars altogether could easily fit into a letter-sized envelope and would allow any “bearer” to redeem them just like cash. Or, for nearly perfect anonymity, payment could be transacted in a digital cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, which required no banks or intermediaries. But monetizing bitcoins into such a large cash equivalent wouldn’t be easy.

  A veteran agent in the front row raised her hand. “Where does this bounty money come from, Walter? And how do we know this isn’t just some scam or stunt?”

  “Ah. Good point. Can we prove the reward is real?” He shrugged. “Not at the moment. However, we do know that the website is indeed set up to raise money. So let’s take a look at how that works.”

  For the next few minutes, Walter explained exactly how money changed hands on Bounty4Justice, and it wasn’t nearly as surreptitious as Novak had expected. Before participants could fully interact with the website, they were required to purchase a novelty lapel pin—shipped via standard mail—for a minimum fee of two dollars to support “social justice.” Though any pledge amount would be accepted, each unique participant—as determined by his or her IP address and other undisclosed identity data points—was restricted to one vote per mark. Walter presumed this measure was intended to prevent the marks themselves from rigging their own outcomes. He also pointed out that the website encrypted each ballot upon submission, preventing anyone from viewing its contents. Then he brought up a picture of the pin on the website—a simple affair with a round face bearing the stylized image of the scales of justice set inside a wreath of laurel branches, black on a white background, no inscriptions.

  It was a clever tactic, but Novak wondered if a participant purchasing the novelty pin was somehow legally complicit in the murder-for-remuneration function of the website, even if his actual ballot was anonymized. No clean answer or precedent came to mind.

  “Visa, MasterCard, and NcryptoCash are accepted,” Walter said. “No formal account registration required. No filter to screen for bogus mailing addresses. Which means if you pay with NcryptoCash, pretty much anything goes—you can enter your name as ‘Mickey Mouse’ and have your pledge pin shipped to the White House.”

  Novak and almost everyone else in the room had come to know and fear NcryptoCash—the hottest new cryptocurrency to hit the Web. Units of value that existed only in ones and zeros. Completely untraceable. Loved by hackers and cybercriminals. Download the NcryptoCash Safebox software, and you were off and running.

  The cynic in the front row added, “Why can’t we just shut down this website or stop it from accepting credit cards?”

  Novak mused how even some agents in the FBI assumed that taking down illicit websites was as simple as flicking a light switch.

  Walter smiled tightly. “Bounty4Justice may look and feel like a run-of-the-mill dot-com, but we’re having difficulty identifying its host servers. I’ve got people working on that. My team is also running transactions through the website to trace the money chain. Let’s just say that it’s going to take some time before we can present our case to the Justice Department. As we all know, these things don’t happen as quickly as in the movies.”

  “Okay,” Knight said, swooping in to pat the cyber expert on the back. “Let’s leave it there for now, Walter. Lots of great information, thanks.”

  Walter waved diffidently to the audience and strode back to his seat.

  “Now that we’ve all gotten a primer on the inner workings of Bounty4Justice”—Knight checked the wall clock—“I think it’s obvious that we’ve got one heckuva situation on our hands here. And, unfortunately, it gets worse. Much worse.” His eyes circled the room to make sure everyone was fully engaged. Then, his voice hardening, he went ahead and dropped the big bombshell: “Problem is, folks, as you’re about to see, Mr. Lombardi was this website’s sixth victim. And twenty-two more men and women have been marked for death.”

  16:48:07

  Re: VIDEO UPLOAD COMPLETE

  ▶Await further instructions.

  # 07.01

  @ Washington, D.C.

  The light drizzle was giving way to a full-on downpour, so he flicked the wipers from intermittent to high speed. Forty-five minutes ago, metro D.C. news radio had reported an impending five-mile traffic jam along the Capital Beltway, compliments of a jackknifed tractor-trailer. So he’d exited onto I-295, until the rented GPS unit mounted on the dashboard rerouted him downtown along I-695, where an unbroken stream of flashing taillights stretched as far as the eye could see. The damn old-school mapping software clearly lacked the basic congestion-spotting intelligence of WTOP’s traffic copter. Same reason a machine or some clever app couldn’t replace a seasoned sniper: computers still lacked the true complexity for good old-fashioned human decision making.

  Which got him thinking that he’d much rather have killed that banker at his home in the suburbs as he sat in his man cave watching HBO, or maybe out on a golf course as the asshole stood crouched over a teed-up golf ball, steady and focused—anywhere without the myriad complications and risks of an urban setting. All those eyes. But a public spectacle seemed to be part of the package this time. One shot, one kill. Mission accomplished. Ooh rah.

  Luckily, after scouting the blocks surrounding the banker’s office a few days ago, he’d happened upon that eyesore building across from Ground Zero and the signboard posted outside on the sidewalk announcing an upcoming audition for guitarists. The security in the place had been a joke. He’d circled to the back alley, slipped through the service bay undetected, and scoped things out both inside and topside. He’d had no trouble getting up to the rooftop, where he’d found the perfect nest. Perfect vector. Perfect cover. From there, the plan practically wrote itself. Serendipity.

  The required video was a new twist. In his line of work, video was typically reserved for a mark outside the United States whose body could not be recovered, like some milit
ary leader surrounded by a security detail who could be taken out only from a distance.

  The traffic came to a standstill.

  He stared through the passenger window at the Capitol Building’s grand dome, imagining Washington powerbrokers—those blue-blood patriots in slick suits who never got their hands dirty and thought they were doing God’s work—advancing their misguided political agendas, putting out encrypted calls to anonymous minions who would tie up their loose ends and sweep their tracks every step of the way.

  The crush of vehicles finally started moving again, merging onto I-395 in a steady march. Up ahead near the Francis Case Memorial Bridge, he spotted a three-car fender bender that had been cleared off to the shoulder. The flashing lights of the police cruisers were causing plenty of rubbernecking, which impelled the driver of the minivan in front of him to come to a sudden stop, which forced him to do the same. Reflexively, he glanced in the rearview mirror at the yellow taxi that had been tailgating him with zero margin of error for the past two miles. Unfortunately, the oblivious driver was looking down at something in his lap—big mistake.

  “Ah, fuck.” He eased up on the brake to take the sting off the impact, but the hit was still forceful enough to jostle him in his seat and make the rental car lurch forward and bumper-tap the minivan. Luckily, the air bags didn’t deploy. Most important, the trunk hadn’t popped open. “What a fucking moron,” he groaned, shaking his head and glaring in his mirror at the driver, who was holding his hands up apologetically. He imagined walking back to the taxi and shooting the jackass between the eyes. One less idiot in the world.

  The minivan angled off to the shoulder, and a little girl with pigtails in the backseat pressed her tiny face to the glass and frowned. The driver—her daddy, it would seem—immediately hopped out and waved to him insistently for the pull-over-and-let’s-swap-insurance-info song and dance.

  “Goddamnit.” He considered ignoring the guy, but the taxi was now maneuvering off to the shoulder, too, and one of the cops tending to the fender bender was looking quizzically at the minivan. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Reluctantly, he steered onto the shoulder.

  The Associated Press @AP • 17m

  BREAKING: Vigilante website @Bounty4Justice boasts worldwide hit list that claims first U.S. victim for $532K prize.

  apne.ws/1TyH72aW

  # 08.01

  @ Manhattan

  “You heard me right, people,” Knight said, raising his hands to stop the eruption of side conversations. “Six dead, so far. Twenty-two more, and counting, could end up the same way if we don’t get answers fast. So please listen up. The screens Walter just described pertain specifically to Chase Lombardi’s profile. Now we’ll look at Bounty4Justice’s home page and you’ll see the true scope of this thing.” Knight worked the remote, and the screen refreshed.

  Chase Lombardi’s X’d-out photo reduced down to thumbnail size alongside an equally scaled American flag icon. To the right of the flag, the award notification marquee scrolled the bounty payout of $532,814 next to the pie-chart graphic of the vote split. Stacked beneath Lombardi’s profile were five more X-outs and their accompanying bounty award marquees, but the flags beside them were not American. Though Novak hadn’t noticed it earlier, there was a button on top of the page labeled NOMINATE A TARGET, which implied that the website was open to suggestions.

  “Bounty4Justice also operates throughout Europe and Asia,” Knight informed his audience. “Lombardi was the first U.S. mark to be taken out. But as you can see here, marks in five other countries have shared that fate, and over twenty more have bounties on their heads. So let’s get acquainted with the other victims.”

  He used the remote to click on the second victim’s crossed-off head shot. The picture enlarged and brought his complete profile up on the screen.

  “Mr. Mario Bianchi.” He pointed to the man’s photo, then read snippets of the caption beneath it: “Vatican banker suspected of embezzling over fifty million euros from dioceses across Europe. Never formally sentenced. Found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London. Video claim is dated six days ago.” He pointed to the digital marquee, saying, “You can see here that the awarded bounty is roughly half a million U.S. dollars. The vote was 84 percent for guilty, 16 percent not guilty.” He clicked the remote, turned to the screen, and pressed a fist to his chin.

  The video began with a bright light shining on the middle-aged banker, slumped inside what looked like the interior of a van, his chin pressed to his chest, sweating through his tailored gray flannel suit. A rusty chain had been cinched around his neck in a hangman’s knot, and his hands—presumably bound—were pulled tight behind his back. The way Bianchi rocked and jostled showed that the van was in motion.

  “Come si chiama?” the cameraman’s offscreen voice demanded. The banker’s head merely flopped from right to left. The cameraman grabbed a fistful of Bianchi’s thick gray hair and yanked the head back, the camera shuddering side to side as he did so. “COME SI CHIAMA?” he repeated contemptuously.

  Bianchi’s listless eyes rolled away from the light. “M-Mario…Mario Bianchi.” He began weeping.

  The cameraman let the head drop, then held the banker’s Italian passport close to the camera to further validate the man’s identity.

  The video abruptly switched to an exterior view: nighttime, the banker awash in the camera’s light, standing against a waist-high railing to which the chain’s slack end was now tethered. Behind him, the Thames was an expansive gray void between London’s glowing riverfront architectural facades. It appeared to Novak that Bianchi now looked sedated, drunk. He wasn’t attempting to escape; he wasn’t putting up a fight.

  While the camera held steady from a side view along the railing, a second man dressed head to toe in black swept in and fiercely snap-kicked the banker in the chest, sending him over the rail like a dropped anchor. The cameraman did a superb job of leaning over the rail and tracking the plunge. The chain’s slack—maybe twenty feet, Novak estimated—clink-clink-clinked over the rail, then pulled taut with a loud CLING-CLACK! Down below, Bianchi’s head whipped and snapped against the chain’s violent drag as his body popped and threatened to detach. But the neck held firm, and Bianchi’s limp form swung in and out of view above the water.

  Fade to black.

  The mission statement reappeared in the video player’s window. Its concise language certainly didn’t mince words, thought Novak. GLOBAL NETWORK ADVANTAGE TO TACTICALLY COMBAT ELITISM AND TYRANNY, SO AS TO ADVANCE COLLECTIVE FREEDOM AND LIBERTY. Yet he couldn’t decide if it was an incitement for revolution or some zealous edict for a new world order. The second line of the website’s credo was even more disconcerting: AT ANY COST. What in hell did that mean?

  Knight blew out a long breath, shook his head, rubbed the back of his own neck. “Look, I know this is disturbing stuff, folks. But it’s important that we get through this.” And for the next fifteen minutes, he played master of ceremonies to the website’s macabre video library.

  Next up: an iconic fifty-three-year-old news anchorman named Juergen Ackermann from Frankfurt. Ackermann—self-proclaimed champion of the working class—had been charged with raping his young ex-girlfriend at knifepoint, only to be acquitted on the grounds of insufficient evidence after a divisive ten-month trial dubbed Germany’s “trial of the decade.” Two days after the ruling, while drinking heavily in a local biergarten, he’d been secretly caught on video bragging about how he’d gotten away with the crime. That video went viral on Instagram and YouTube and subsequently landed him a top spot on Bounty4Justice, with 97 percent of participants voting him guilty.

  In Ackermann’s kill-validation video, he was bound to a chair with duct tape while three masked captors, clearly female, grotesquely bludgeoned him to death with sledgehammers—knees shattered, shoulders mashed, skull macerated—for a winning prize equivalent to $458,649. The wet thwumping sounds of blunt steel crushing bone and tissue were sure to replay in Novak’s nightmar
es for months.

  Though the audience was registering the true horror of Bounty4Justice, the show was far from over.

  The next prize winner, from Madrid, had cashed in on Dr. Carmena Esquierdo, a former obstetrician who, during the 1960s and ’70s, had stolen hundreds of newborns from Spanish hospitals on behalf of an underground trafficking network that sold the babies to unsuspecting adoptive parents. Esquierdo had told the birth mothers that their babies had died during delivery, and those who’d insisted on seeing their dead babies wound up dead themselves, from unexplained complications. With Spain’s former dictator Generalissimo Francisco Franco, other government officials, and even some prominent clerics complicit in the scandal, however, and given that Dr. Esquierdo was nearing eighty years of age, a trial had been ruled out so as not to relive a very dark chapter in Spain’s past. Bounty4Justice’s virtual jury, on the other hand, had dismissed the statute of limitations with 87 percent approval and a $466,109 kicker.

  The killer gave a nod to the Inquisition by roasting Dr. Esquierdo atop a pyre of car tires set beneath the makeshift “stake” of a lamppost. If the searing blue-and-orange flames hadn’t killed the old woman, thought Novak, the toxic black smoke from those smoldering Pirellis most certainly would have. The way she shrieked and writhed in the fire had him shifting in his seat. When her face boiled up like the toppings on a brick-oven pizza, he felt his gag reflex start to kick in. Yet he couldn’t pull his eyes away, because the static shot gave the viewer the eerie impression of sitting there with her like some twisted ringside spectator. What is it about the “train wreck” that so connects with our primal core? he wondered. Esquierdo’s burning struck him as an update on medieval hangings in the public square or mass crucifixions in ancient Rome—a shaming, ominous spectacle.