Maggie couldn’t let it jeopardize what she had in mind. With Lita at the keyboard, it would be trickier to pull any sleight of hand. She’d have to think of a way. And fast. But she was tired and cold and hungry and beat up—and surprised at her revulsion on seeing Beltran in his current state.
From the back of the house they heard the door to the cell room being locked. A moment later, Paavo emerged from the hallway.
Maggie sat down on the hard-backed chair next to Lita. “You’re not going to get far unless you plug the network card into the USB port,” she said. “It’s in the zipped pocket of the bag.”
Lita found the card, plugged it in.
“Now you need to enter the password,” Maggie said.
“I’m all ears,” Lita said, fingers poised over the keys.
Maggie told her.
“Interesting,” Lita said, tapping in the password in, gaining access. The computer desktop appeared.
“Log onto the secure network.” Maggie pointed at the IKON network client symbol, a globe with interconnected lines. Lita clicked it, typed in the ID and password. The little green light on the USB device flashed. She smiled, obviously pleased with herself.
“Now we have access,” Maggie said.
Almost immediately an ICE alert popped up. A small exhilaration thrilled Maggie. Whoever was trying to track her might find her this time. And in this case it might just get her out of a jam.
“What is that?” Lita said, pointing at the pop-up window.
“Nothing to be concerned about,” Maggie said.
“Then why is it there?”
“It happens all the time. It’s called a false positive. Just ignore it.”
“Why?”
“Look, I don’t have time to take you through Computer Basics one-oh-one. Or years of the Bank’s security policies. It’s just part of the protocol.”
“Yes, but why?”
“Because this is a highly secure system. Are you going to ask questions nonstop or can we get on with it?”
“How would you like the back of my hand across your face?” Lita said through her teeth.
“Just do as she says, Comrade,” Cain said to Lita with forced patience.
“Don’t tell me what to do, Comrade,” Lita replied. But she clicked the pop-up away. To Maggie, she said: “Warning disregarded. What next?”
“Before you can make the transfer, you must notify the system administrator.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s always a manual step to these procedures.”
“Why?”
“Because nothing fully automated can remain secure.”
“That makes sense to me,” Cain said.
“It would,” Lita said. Then to Maggie: “How do I get hold of this server administrator?”
“System administrator—sysadmin for short. Open that window there.” Maggie pointed to a white “I” icon.
“What is that?”
“The bank’s internal messaging application.”
Lita opened the Iggy client window to the app Maggie had written with Enzo, back in graduate school. “Iggy?”
“The admin ID is enzo99. You’ll have to send a message, telling him you need authorization for the Quito bank transfer. You’ll have to do it in English. Do you speak English?”
“A little.” Lita pushed a pad of paper and a pencil over. “Write it down.”
Maggie brushed her hair out of her face, picked up a pencil, and wrote:
“@enzo99: request confirmation for the preauthorized bank transfer in Quito. Please notify ED. Have verified that the merchandise is safe and am ready to move forward.”
Lita and Cain read over the message Maggie had written, translating it.
“Who is ED?” Cain asked.
“What is ED,” Maggie said. “External Deposits. The account Commerce Oil uses to stage money transfers. Looks very benign on the reports.”
Cain pursed his lips. “As long as I get the money.”
“We,” Lita snapped, eyeing Cain. “Cosecha Severa.”
“That’s what I meant, Comrade.”
“Of course you did.”
Maggie noticed Paavo eyeing Lita, then Cain. Did he sense the tension? But her ruse seemed to be working. She watched Lita type the message to enzo99, check it, then hit Enter. Her heart pounded while they waited for the reply. She’d known Enzo a long time—digitally. Enzo knew her boss’s name. About her search for the woman’s prison in Quito. All of that gibberish about transfers and authorizations would hopefully trigger a huge alert in his big suspicious brilliant brain.
Finally, the response came.
Enzo is typing . . .
Will process the request through ED. But first I need your bank access location and confirmation.
Maggie wrote on the pad of paper: “National Bank of Ecuador, Quito Main Branch. Access code: UIO593.”
Lita typed it all in.
Very good. ED notified. Please stand by.
Maggie breathed a sigh of relief. Enzo was a genius. She made a mental note to fly to Paris at the next opportunity and take him out to dinner and marry him, if he wasn’t too hideous.
“Stand by for how long?” Cain said.
“Ten-fifteen minutes,” Maggie said, winging it.
“It takes that long?” Lita asked.
“People think everything with computers takes nanoseconds,” Maggie said. “That’s Hollywood. When people are involved, it’s much different.”
“Oh,” Lita said. “Just like everything else.”
“Just like everything else,” Maggie said.
Another ICE alert popped up. Lita clicked OK, ignoring it.
They waited for close to ten minutes before the reply came from enzo99.
Transfer is pending. Proceed to the main branch to complete authorization in 24 hours.
Maggie had a pretty good idea what Enzo had set up with Ed. The 24 hours would give Ed time to get a team together, back her up.
Lita divulged a smirk, suddenly jumping up from her chair, whooping, before she high-fived Paavo. She even gave Cain a high five, which seemed to irritate him. “Don’t you know what this means, Comrade?” Lita asked Cain.
“It says go to the main branch in twenty-four hours,” Cain said, looking unevenly at Maggie. “I thought the transfer was supposed to be immediate.”
“No,” Maggie said, ad-libbing again. “Although the authorization process is complete, the actual funds transfer to Beltran’s account can take anywhere up to forty-eight hours. In some countries, depending on the bank, even longer. So twenty-four is actually pretty decent.”
“You told me last night that the funds were ready.”
“Ready, yes. But transferring them still takes time. We’re talking about two million dollars here.”
“Why in the hell didn’t you tell me this?”
“I told Jack Warren,” Maggie said, meaning John Rae’s alias. “Several times. I thought you understood the procedure.”
“Damn it,” Cain said. “Goddamn it.”
“Don’t worry, Comrade,” Lita said. “By tomorrow we’ll have our money.”
“The money is going into an account under Beltran’s name,” Maggie said. “So he’ll need to sign it over to you.” That was BS, too, but the only way to ensure that Beltran was at the signing, to make sure he wasn’t “forgotten.” “Do you have an account to transfer it to?” Two million in large bills easily filled two suitcases, so she knew they wouldn’t be taking it all in cash. Besides, few banks were prepared for a withdrawal that large. It would take hours just to count it. And think of the unwanted attention.
Cain nodded. “Yes, yes.”
“We need to get hold of some decent clothes.” She motioned at her own muddy getup, then at Lita and Cain in their well-worn shorts and jeans. “Beltran looks like he’s been sleeping on the streets. We can’t walk in a bank to transfer that kind of money looking like vagrants.”
Cain said to Lita: “Send Señora Gomez
out to find some clothes.”
“I’m a small,” Maggie said.
“Whatever.” Lita powered the laptop off by hitting the button. It ground down and rattled before it died.
“What did you do that for?” Maggie said. “Are you trying to ruin the damn thing?”
Lita folded the laptop shut. “If we need your precious little computadora again, doll face, you can always charge it up then.”
Christ. Maggie shook her head.
“What do we do for a day?” she said.
“We wait,” Cain said. “We wait.”
-30-
After a night sitting up against the living room wall in the safe house, dozing intermittently with one eye half-open, watching the tall geeky teenager and Paavo watching her while they took turns sleeping in armchairs, it was finally time to get moving and make the transfer. Cain had slept in another bedroom, Lita in a room with Señora Gomez, Beltran in his cell-room. Señora Gomez had gone out to the shops early and returned with a transparent pink plastic bag full of bread rolls. She seemed to be the busiest terrorist of the bunch. She had fetched presentable clothes last night at Maggie’s suggestion, but nothing for Maggie, which gave her pause.
Now she drank watery coffee and chewed a roll with no butter or jam—Señora Gomez had bought day-old bread—sustaining herself with the hope that Ed was putting together a team to monitor the handover at the National Bank of Ecuador down on the Plaza de la Independencia. Making sure Beltran was released without any nonsense, that Maggie made it out unscathed.
And soon, with any luck, Tica and the rest of the Yasuni 7 would go free as well.
It had been a harsh few days but it was looking like it was actually coming together.
“The van’s here,” Lita said, slurping from a cup as she pulled the curtain back an inch to check the street down below. She let the drape fall back into place, drained her coffee.
Lita was practically unrecognizable in a loose blue synthetic pants suit that had seen much better days, over a cream-colored blouse with a bow at the collar, and black flat shoes. Her outfit bore a hint of thrift shop, but with her hair combed back and held in place with a black headband, and large lightly tinted sunglasses, she looked much more at home in a bank than the jungle madwoman that she was. A large beat-up leather shoulder bag lay on the table, empty, and Maggie assumed it was intended to carry some of the money away after the transfer.
Lita instructed the teenager to do a perimeter check of the building. Meanwhile Cain had slipped on a nondescript black jacket and was checking his gun, which made Maggie wonder. He wore laundered jeans and a shirt. No suit, or tie.
Maggie still wore her mud-caked jeans and grubby T-shirt. Something was up. “Why the gun? We’re going into a bank.”
Cain didn’t reply.
“What the hell is going on, Cain?”
Lita set her cup down on the bare coffee table, nowhere near a doily. “It’s your turn in the back room, princess.”
Maggie started, her heart thumping. “I followed through on my end,” she said in a controlled voice to Cain. “You’re going to get your money. You need to let Beltran—and me—go.”
“Of course,” Cain said. “But first I have to make sure everything is as you say it is.”
“We have Beltran,” Lita said brightly. “The money is in his name. And he will sign anything. No one is going to argue with him. He’s the oil minister. What do we need you for, doll face?”
Maggie’s head reeled. “You think Commerce Oil is going to put up with this?”
“We will let you go,” Cain said. “Once the money is transferred into our account.”
Bullshit. Cain and Lita would be halfway back to the jungle. Maggie would be the guest of Paavo and the creepy adolescent who couldn’t take his eyes off her.
“Do you expect me to believe that?”
“Believe what you wish,” Cain said.
“You won’t get through that transfer without me,” she said between her teeth.
“Let me just put it this way,” Cain said, narrowing his gaze. “We better get through it. Because if we don’t, we’ll be right back here to find out why.”
And then the shit would hit the fan.
“And what makes you so sure I don’t have someone to back me up?” Maggie went up to Cain, looked him directly in the eye.
Cain shook his head. “You’re a rogue. No one really knows where you are, or what happened to you—except that you transferred money without your partner. What were you doing? Trying to use the opportunity of his disappearance to impress your bosses? Well, you took a chance, didn’t you? No one to protect you. Without the cash as leverage, you’re just another gringa who was swallowed up by South America.”
She lowered her voice. “What do you think it means for little Ernesto. Hmmm?”
Cain frowned. “It’s a risk. But I’m a little better at risk-taking than you. Unlike most, I thrive on it. I still have Beltran. I still have you. An American citizen? An employee of a large oil corporation? The kind of money they have? I suspect they’ll pay for you, too. And, if not . . .” He shrugged.
Cain was prepared to throw Yalu and his son to the wolves. She’d miscalculated. “How do you know the transfer wasn’t bogus?”
“Because I don’t think it was. But if, for some reason, it fails, I’ll be back. And that won’t be good for you.”
“I’m going to make sure you pay for this.”
Lita came over, gave a little smirk. “Come on, doll face, time to trade places with Beltran. I hope he kept the bed nice and warm for you. Do you know how to use a bucket? I’m so sorry there’s no bidet for your pampered fanny.”
Maggie sucked in a breath. She needed to think.
Cain said to Paavo, “Get Beltran ready. Lita, take Alice back. Make sure she’s well-secured. Well-secured.”
Maggie eyed the revolver on the arm of the chair. About ten feet away. But with a good chunk of Cosecha Severa in the same room, ten feet too far.
Paavo came out with Beltran in his suit that had been pressed. His tie was askew, but he’d been put together. He blinked his eyes, looking meek and hopeful.
“He’s going to make a great impression signing over two million bucks,” Maggie said.
“Money talks,” Cain said. “You should know that better than anyone.”
“Let’s go,” Lita said to Maggie. She had plastic cable ties in one hand, her Beretta in the other.
Maggie’s eyelids flickered with rage as Lita guided her past the crucifix in the hallway to the cell-room. Señora Gomez was on her hands and knees in the bathroom, her heavy bottom waving in the air as she scrubbed the toilet. Lita shoved Maggie into the room, followed, shut the door. The room reeked of Beltran’s sweat and worse.
“Turn around,” Lita said.
“Do you really think you’re going to get away with this?”
“Turn around, I said.”
“You don’t think it’s going to look just a little bit weird, some guy who needs a bath transferring two million dollars to a couple looking like you two?”
“If I have to ask again, you are going to get this pistol across your face.”
Maggie turned around to face the bed, Beltran’s dirty rumpled sheets awaiting her. “Cain is sending you into the bank with Beltran to manage the transfer, while he waits outside in the van, isn’t he? Where it’s safe. That’s why he didn’t bother with a shirt and tie.”
“Hands behind your back, bitch.”
“Ah, that’s it.” Maggie put her hands behind her back. Lita tied them. Maggie turned her head, caught Lita’s eye while Lita cinched her wrists down. “You’re going in without Cain. Yeah, it would be pretty difficult for Comrade Cain to walk into a bank, wouldn’t it? His face is on quite a few wanted posters. Not you, though. Can’t send any of the other Grim Harvesters in with you either. Now that would look odd, a bunch of terrucos accompanying Beltran. So it’s just you.” She caught a flinch in Lita’s eyes, confirming her suspicion. �
�Has he explained why you have to take the risk and he doesn’t? For the good of Grim Harvest, is it?”
Lita tightened the cable tie even tighter, but Maggie could tell she was listening.
“That’s when you need me along,” Maggie said. “Bank transfers in the millions are a can of worms anywhere, but especially in this part of the world. You’ll probably have to pay someone off. Do you know who, and how? I do this kind of thing for a living. You did okay on the computer out there, but that was with me telling you exactly what to do. You need me. Any suspicions and they’ll call the tombas. That’s way too tight, by the way. My fingers are already numb.”
Lita examined her work.
“And if you get nabbed,” Maggie said. “Do you think he’s going to wait outside for you?”
“You think you know so much. You and your fancy job. College degree. Where did it get you? Right in this room. A room where we make the rules.”
Lita spun Maggie back around. Maggie’s fingertips pulsed ominously.
“But he’s going to take off on you anyway,” Maggie said. “As soon as he gets those two million smackers. With Miss Hottie and his baby. I wonder where they’ll go. They can’t stay in Ecuador. Or Colombia. Brazil maybe. Until things die down. Copacabana? Kids love the beach. I bet she’s a knockout in a string bikini. But she’ll go topless, of course. He’ll like that.”
“Shut up.”
“Long afternoons making love, while little Ernesto snoozes away, contented. Sucking on his pacifier while Yalu sucks on something else.”
“Didn’t I just tell you to be quiet?” Lita grabbed Maggie by the collar, wound up her right fist, and punched Maggie square in the nose. Pain shot through her face and head and she saw stars as she fell back onto the bed with a bounce. She lay there in anguish on top of her bound arms, head hanging over the side of the bed, spinning.
“You don’t like me and I don’t like you,” Maggie gasped. “But we’re both alike. And we both fell for his lies.”
“You did, perhaps.”
“Don’t kid yourself, girlfriend. He’s playing both of us, so he can have what he wants. He’s going to screw you, and not the way he screws her.”
The Cain File Page 26