Solid Oak

by William F Lovejoy

  “You must relax, Treasurer. Things will calm down shortly. On Monday, May will settle up on the Commercial Bank shares. There will be about $250,000 in profit to divide. Your recommendation on that was excellent.”

  “It seemed logical to me.”

  “You know so many economies so well,” the Chairman said.

  That was true. Over the years, they had made a great deal of money on Mears’ advice. With a little push to change the balances now and then, as had been arranged in Qatar.

  “Then, too, as she no longer has need of it, you’ll receive a share of her account.”

  “What?”

  “Just what I said. Your balance will be bumped by about 6.3 million.”

  “Oh, hell! That’s kind of like robbing the cemetery.”

  “We can’t very well give it back, now, can we?”

  “And we still don’t know where . . . the Recruiter’s seven mil went?”

  “We don’t. We’ll keep looking.”

  “Let me know when you hear more about Lani.”

  Asshole forgot to use the code name.

  “I’ll do that,” the Chairman said.

  Maybe. It might depend on the ME’s report about Lani’s death. All good things can’t last forever.

  *

  Saturday afternoon had been little fuzzy for Bobbi. She blamed it on the adrenaline high that gripped her all through the breaking and entering episode.

  “Nothing broken,” Oak had told her. “Just entered.”

  Then his arms were around her, holding her so firmly, his lips on hers, and the fever built. And held in place.

  “Let’s go home,” she told him. “In a hurry!”

  He exceeded the limit most of the way, and they made it in twenty minutes.

  And went right to bed, shedding clothes that landed on the floor. Stayed in bed for three hours. Missed lunch.

  Didn’t really miss lunch, didn’t even think about it. There were other objectives in mind. The first time was a little frenzied, he flinched once when she accidently dug her fingers into the dressing over his arm wound. Afterwards they lay facing each other, sharing a pillow.

  Staring into each other’s eyes. She liked his better and better. His left arm was resting on her side, his finger tips tracing the line of her spine. The tingle went all the way to her toes.

  “I’ve tried to be professional,” Oak said. “Didn’t want to but I really tried.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Deep inside, I suppose I was hoping for this.”

  She almost said, “You’re a guy,” but knew that was too flippant. She thought Oak really was a gentleman, emphasis on the gentle. Except maybe when he was working his trade.

  And the fact was that she had been avoiding consideration of the possibility of this event despite some emotional stirrings. She didn’t want to get too close, too caught up in something that might not last. But now she was beyond evasion.

  “Truth is,” Oak said, “that I don’t even know what love is. Never seemed to work out for me. When I thought I was in love, I wasn’t. Loved my folks, I suppose, but I don’t really know what the emotion is supposed to be. I’ve always felt a little incomplete in that regard.”

  “Did you love Peggy and Megan?”

  “Thought I did, but when they were gone, I didn’t really miss them.”

  “You care about people, though,” she said.

  “I do. Like Abby and Andy. Like Emma Blaylock. But it’s not love.”

  “Who is Emma?”

  “She’s eighty-six years old, living on Social Security. She likes mint cookies, so I make sure she gets them. I worry about me sometimes, Bobbi.”

  She ran her fingers over his cheek. “Maybe I can show you the way.”

  “That would be good.”

  “I’m not necessarily a competent guide,” she said. “My life’s pretty screwed up, when I think about it.”

  Despite the fact that he sometimes looked awkward in his knobby skinniness, his touch was delicate, and soon she was aroused again, and this time lasted much longer, quieter, more intimate. And then she embarrassed herself by falling asleep, held in his arms and feeling more content that she had felt in years.

  And when she awoke, they made love again.

  Her mind cleared then.

  “Oak! What time is it?’

  “Hmm, little after two.”

  “I’ve got work to do.”

  “That’s what tomorrow is for.”

  “If someone figures out we’ve been in the Institute’s databases, tomorrow may be too late. Get up.”

  “Want a shower?”

  So they showered together, and then dressed.

  Bobbi set up her laptop on the dining table while Oak made some phone calls. She kind of understood he was making arrangements for later in the day.

  She began probing the files she had copied.

  She was happy about what she was doing, what she might find out.

  And happy.

  It was a foreign feeling.

  *

  Conrad Sherry set up his surveillance at 4:30 on Saturday.

  He parked a half-block down from the condo, on the opposite side of the street. Slipping downward in the passenger seat, he barely kept his eyes above the dashboard. He used his binoculars to scan the door of the condo and the parking lot in front of it.

  He could barely see the four bullet holes in the door.

  “Bitch!”

  The parking lot was another matter. He couldn’t spot the blue Chevy that Malone had left in on Friday. He didn’t know what Galway drove.

  If Malone wasn’t here, then Galway might be alone again, but that wasn’t an attractive proposition given what had happened last time. The pain in his arm had subsided but was still very noticeable. It throbbed. It made him want to not use that arm.

  What he wanted was to get either of them outside, get behind him or her, and get an arm around a neck. In seconds it would be over.

  So he would have to wait and watch for one of them to leave.

  Waiting was almost a habit by now.

  *

  Fred Williamson had insisted on a hotel because food was more easily available. And he had picked the Beacon on Rhode Island Avenue NW, about four blocks from Dupont Circle, because they had what they called Corporate Quarters. Mainly, it was a suite with additional amenities.

  Fred had decided they didn’t need separate bedrooms.

  And Fred had also decided the hotel was necessary because Bobbi’s condo was a known target of, probably, Conrad Sherry.

  They packed a couple changes of clothing—all that Oak had with him, anyway. “You need an East Coast wardrobe,” Bobbi had told him.

  They packed Bobbi’s ink jet printer just in case she needed it. He reminded her to bring her passport. Loaded it all in the rental Chevy and headed into the District. Malone took a number of turns, drove haphazardly around several blocks, headed generally in the right direction. He didn’t pick up on anyone chasing after them.

  They were checked in by four o’clock and Bobbi unloaded her laptop on the desk and went back to mapping the files she had captured at the Institute.

  At seven o’clock, Malone’s cell rang, he took the call, gave out some directions, and twenty minutes later opened the suite door to a short, dark man who looked Italian. Oak didn’t introduce him. He held up a couple different fabric backdrops behind Bobbi, and the man took several pictures. He shot a few pictures of her driver’s license and both of their passports also.

  At midnight, he was back, gave Oak documents to look over, and then accepted a thick bundle of cash. After he left, Bobbi checked her new paperwork. She was now Melissa Williamson.

  “Funny way to get married,” she said.

  “I’m sorry it’s so quickly done, but I’m pretty sure that Roberta is now known to Big Brother. If we have to fly anywhere, we can do it with a little stealth.”

  “This passport looks used, says it’s three years old, but it looks like t
he real thing.”

  “That’s because it is the real thing. You’ll note that some of the entry and exit stamps match mine since we travel together now and then.”

  “You’re kidding. Where does he get blank passports?”

  “Got me. This is just a sideline business for him. Eight to five every day, he works for the Agency.”

  “My God. How much did you give him?”

  “Five thousand. I get a discount.”

  The way of the world. Everyone was trying to get ahead a little, and sometimes, it proved advantageous to Malone.

  By 2:00 in the morning, Bobbi told him her eyelids weren’t cooperating, and they went to bed to actually sleep.

  Malone woke first and checked his watch. Just after 7:00, late for him, but he stayed where he was, on his back, warm under the light blanket, Bobbi pressed up against his right side. Her breathing was deep and even. Her auburn hair was nicely mussed, but still too short. He didn’t mind. Her closed lips held a passive smile.

  Oak was still amazed at the sudden new direction in his life. The more he thought about it, the more he convinced himself that it was inevitable. He remembered that Toby Keith sang a song, something about the difference between the one you can live with and the one you can’t live without.

  He could see how that might have some real meaning. He enjoyed just watching her sleep.

  A few minutes later, Bobbi’s eyes flicked open, caught him watching.

  She slid her hand across his chest. “I could get used to this.”

  “I’d like to.”

  Twenty minutes later, they finally prepared for the day. It was 8:15 by the time Malone finished shaving, and then called room service to order his normal repast and Bobbi’s lighter request.

  With breakfast dishes and Bobbi’s laptop spread out over the dining table, Oak worked on an English muffin while Bobbi told him, “It’s not Big Brother.”

  “It’s not?”

  “It’s Big Sister.”

  “Oh, hell! Alicia’s the one?”

  “Looks like it to me.”

  Bobbi had several sheets of paper covered with little boxes identified with minute printed names and hooked together with dotted lines. She had a meticulous printing style, he noted. She spread the papers around her plate of cantaloupe and melon.

  “I’m not finished mapping all of it yet, Oak, but I’ve got a fair idea of what she’s been doing. First of all, I didn’t try to break any of the passwords while I was on her computer, just in case I might set off an alarm of some kind. Once I found files that looked right, I just copied them. A hell of a lot of them. Some of them resisted being copied, but I happen to have some software that knows how to overcome that.”

  “So now you could go online and try to break passwords?” he asked.

  She gave him a big smile. “Won’t have to. Some people jot down their passwords and shove them in a desk drawer or under the desk blotter. Alicia has so many passwords for so many files and accounts, she probably couldn’t remember them all, so she just keeps them in a file called ‘SD-6.’ There are 104 passwords, each one of them different and complex. She can call that up into a window and refer to it while she’s working.”

  “SD-6?”

  “That was the name of the secret CIA department in the TV series Alias. I think it ran from about 2001 to 2006.”

  “I never saw it.”

  “Alicia thinks she’s being cute. An alias is a substitute for password. So I’ve got all her passwords. Or at least most of them.”

  “I think this is good,” Oak said.

  “It could speed things up, depending on what we try to do.”

  “What else did you get?”

  “I’ve probed a little.” She tapped one of the boxes on her sheet of hand-drawn boxes. “There’s a massive folder called ‘Hot Stuff’ which required two different passwords to access. It contains over five hundred files that look like copies of articles, white papers, and position papers, and I scanned quite a few, but not nearly all of them. Most of them are marked as draft or confidential.”

  “Secret stuff?”

  “Some of it is Sensitive Compartmented Information at both the Top Secret and Secret levels for the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency. Including human resource files.”

  SCI was a protocol that limited even Top Secret material to just those with a need to know.

  “How would Alicia get to that stuff?”

  “My first question,” Bobbi said. “So I looked at her application software while I was there. Some of it is classified Agency and National Security Agency programming. I didn’t attempt to mess with any of that.”

  “Shit. What for?”

  “Well, think about what the Institute does. They’d want to know where in the world the next crisis was going to arise. She can get right into the supercomputers and look for it.”

  “The Institute is not a government agency,” Malone said. “Their mission doesn’t justify that kind of access.”

  “True, and I’m wondering how they got it. We’ll have to put that on our To Do list. Back to the Hot Stuff files. Quite a few of the articles and white papers look like draft copies of material to be published by various think tanks. Mostly current events affecting foreign policy. David Dixon’s name was on most of them.”

  “Lani’s contribution to the cause.”

  “I’d think so, yes.”

  Malone considered all of this for a minute, while he replenished coffee cups from the carafe.

  “Can we give any credence to a pure motive, Bobbi? That Alicia and probably some other people were only looking for places where they could do some good?”

  “You’d like to think so, wouldn’t you? But then there’s the folder entitled ‘Bitter Stuff.’”

  “Bitter Stuff.”

  “That one took three consecutive passwords to get into. Each of the files, and there are over two hundred, relates to some incident that took place somewhere in the world. I’ve only looked at the last one which was labeled ‘Qatar Com Bk.’ That’s shorthand for the Commercial Bank of Qatar.”

  Something on the news a couple days ago. Malone couldn’t place it.

  “I looked it up,” Bobbi said. “Suicide bomber killed a few and wounded a lot more in the main Commercial Bank.”

  “I remember now.”

  “The file contains copies of news reports and some notes. One note reads, “short sale 1.1M CBQK. It was dated 6-18.”

  “Before the bombing,” Oak said. “Somebody anticipated it.”

  “Or arranged it. If they’ve bought stock to cover the short sale since, they made some money. The stock price is down by 27 Qatari Riyals.”

  Malone couldn’t convert that to dollars in his head, but he said, “Big Sister made some bucks.”

  “She did. Or someone did. That’s all I’ve noted in files so far, but there’s a hell of a lot more files. Alicia must have been quite a math teacher in Idaho.”

  “So that’s where we are?”

  “Oh, no! I’m just getting to the good stuff.”

  As if what she’d found so far wasn’t good. Oak decided on one more muffin, which is all that was left. He pointed at it. “Would you like that?”

  “No. Where do all of those calories go?”

  ‘You know, I’ve never asked.”

  Galway shook her head.

  “All right, next. Some of those passwords provide access to airline and hotel reservations systems.”

  “Good for finding out where Malone goes.”

  “Exactly. Then, there are 84 separate bank and brokerage accounts.”

  “Hey, I’ve only got four. Well, five if you count the U.S. account.”

  “And I’ve only got two, both on-shore. I feel underprivileged.”

  “Do we know where these accounts are?”

  “Not yet, but look at this.” Bobbi called up some file, and then turned the laptop around so Malone could see the screen. “This is the password file. Each passwo
rd has a descriptor in the first column which tells Alicia what file or account it belongs to. The descriptors are coded somehow. The second column is the account number, and the third column is the password.”

  Oak noted that the passwords were, as Bobbi had noted, complex. The one on the first line was: QB_7Le2?P47)9zy.

  “I guess I’d have trouble remembering even one of those.”

  “I can’t imagine why. The fourth column I’m sure is a listing of answers to security questions, like ‘What was the name of your first pet? Fido.’ But look down the column of descriptors. Do you see anything in common?”

  After several visual passes, he said, “Some of them have the same starting letters. CH, VC, TR, RC, MD, INS. Hell, most of them have those starting letters.”

  “Best guess,” Galway said, “those are people.”

  “People.”

  “Six people involved, each with a code name. Well, wait. Some of those accounts would belong to the Institute.”

  “INS,” Oak said.

  “Could be.”

  “Have you tried to look at any of them?”

  “No. I was waiting to show you first. In case it all blows up when I try. I have backed all of this up on flash drives. Something to pass on to the investigators.”

  Bobbi was running a little further ahead than Malone was at the moment.

  “Let’s try one.”

  “You pick it,” she told him.

  He closed his eyes and stuck his finger to the screen. “TR-WSB.”

  “Here’s where it gets interesting since I don’t know what the hell WSB is. Plus, I’m a little concerned about the hotel’s wireless system, but it’s encrypted so we’ll give it a try.”

  Bobbi slid her chair around next to Malone’s so they could both watch the screen. She brought the cursor up to TR-WSB and clicked.

  A few seconds later, a website appeared.

  “I’ll be damned. Alicia has the descriptor linked to the website. Pretty smart dame, except. . . .”

  “Except?”

  “Except she should never have left this password file on the machine. Stupid as hell.”

  “You’d do what?” he asked.

  “Print it out, kill the file, and carry it with me.”