3 Bad Guys Get Caught (19 page)

“Was he coming on to you?” Roman asked
after Jason walked away. “You just say the word, Janet, and I’ll sack him.”
Roman puffed out his chest.

Janet shook her head. “No, nothing like
that. He’s just being friendly, that’s all.”

The night continued as Janet greeted the
guests mechanically, escorting them to their tables. At first the time seemed
to drag, but then, before she knew it, it was getting close to eight p.m., and
her heart started beating like a sledgehammer.

At eight p.m. sharp, Dennis buzzed the
intercom of Mila’s, or to be more precise, Anton Kovar’s apartment.

“Glad you could make it,” Mila greeted
him when she opened the door. She was dressed in a sweatshirt and a pair of
jeans. Her hair was pulled in a ponytail and her face was free of makeup. A
carryon suitcase stood by the door. “Did anyone see you come here?” she asked.

Dennis shook his head, taking off his
jacket. “Why would anyone see me?” he asked nonchalantly, trying not to think
about the fact that he was wearing a wire.

“Just checking. What’s that?” Mila
asked, pointing at his briefcase.

“My tools of the trade, remember? Shall
we dance?”

Mila smirked. “You’ve got a strange
sense of humor. Come on, it’s this way.” She motioned for him to follow her.

“Voila,” Mila pointed at the safe.

“Great, thanks.” Dennis examined the
safe; it was the model and make that Mila had specified to him, and he had
spent over ten hours breaking into safes just like that under the tutelage of
Ham’s contact, and then had the added benefit of instructions from the Feds
this afternoon. He’d felt fairly confident then, but now that he was ‘on’ he
was nervous. There was the option of calling in for back-up; all he had to do
was press a button on his stethoscope, which he removed from his briefcase and
hung over his neck to listen to the safe’s mechanism, but he hoped that he
wouldn’t have to exercise it.

Dennis plugged the stethoscope into his
ears and began to slowly roll the safe’s wheel. He was listening to the
mechanism. Just then there was a click. He wrote done the number and continued
rolling the safe lock wheel. Two more clicks followed, and he wrote down the
corresponding numbers.

“Wow, this is just like the movies,”
said Mila, perching on the couch.

Dennis waved for her to be quiet.
Slowly, he began to enter the sequence, pausing at the numbers he had
previously written down. There was a click and he stopped the safe wheel. Two
more rounds. He took a deep breath and pulled on the lever. He was shocked to
see the door open; this was just too easy. He expected more sophistication from
Anton Kovar.

“Yes!” Mila clapped her hands. “Bravo!”

“We ain’t home yet,” Dennis muttered. He
looked through the contents of the safe: there were several jump drives, a
ledger notebook, and a bank token. Now came the tough part.

“Grab the bank token and leave
everything else in there,” Mila said. “I don’t want Anton to think that I took
anything other than the money.”

Dennis did as he was told; there’d be
plenty of time to retrieve the contents of the safe later.

Anton’s computer was password protected,
but Dennis was able to bypass the password fairly easily. He entered the bank’s
website and tried to log in. The first attempt was denied. Damn it, he thought,
trying to concentrate on the instructions that he’d been given.

“Come on!” Mila bit her knuckles,
squirming on the couch.

“Some quiet would be appreciated,”
Dennis snapped. His fingers fluttered over the keyboard, entering the sequences
that he was told would give him access. He bit his lip: one, two, three, he was
in. “Yes,” he panted, wiping his forehead.

“Yes! You did it!” Mila’s flowery
perfume enveloped him, as she wrapped her arms around him. “Now transfer it all
to this account.” She put a piece of paper on the table.

But Dennis was already typing in the
wire instructions for the escrow account that the Feds had given him. He
transferred the entire ten million dollars.

“Wait! What the hell are you doing?”
Mila screamed.

“Calm down, Mila, we have to talk. The
FBI is on to you, Mila. They followed me and they made me cooperate with them.
Your only chance is to cooperate with them. They know that Anton stole Muller’s
money. Now, if you cooperate, they won’t prosecute you. All they want is
information and, of course, the money.”

“My cooperation? What the hell are you
talking about? That money is mine! It was my grandmother’s!”

“Save it Mila, the Feds ran a check on
you; both of your grandmothers never had more than the equivalent of one
thousand dollars in their bank accounts. It will go much easier if you
cooperate.”

“What did they promise you in exchange
for handing me over? A nice reward?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

“Yeah, right.”

“That’s right. I don’t know how they got
wind of it. Maybe they overheard us in the bar; maybe it was when I was buying
my supplies. My PI license did get suspended, so it might’ve been a clue,”
Dennis followed the script he’d been given. Under no circumstances was he to
reveal the nature of his true occupation for fear of compromising Janet’s
cover.

Mila’s eyes welled up with tears; she
tried to wipe them away, but her hands shook. “What bad luck! Why do these
things keep happening to me?” she muttered.

“Because you keep hanging around the
wrong kind of guys, that’s why. You can still turn things around if you listen
to me.”

“What’s going to happen to me? Are they
going to deport me? Or throw me in jail?”

“Not if you listen to me.”

“I’m listening,” she said, her voice
trembling.

“The money’s been wired into the FBI’s
escrow account. You will be taken into protective custody—”

“I knew it!” she exclaimed. “They are
going to throw me in jail!”

“It’s protective custody, Mila. It’s not
jail. Do you really think you could get away from a man like Anton Kovar on
your own? He’d find you before you could make it to the airport. Even if you
did make it to the airport, he’d pick you up right off the plane.”

“Instead I’m going to go to jail!” she
wailed.

“It’s not jail; it’s for your own
safety. Once Kovar is apprehended, you’ll be free to go.”

“Like you know.”

“Believe it or not, I do know.” Dennis
leaned back in the chair, rubbing his forehead. “Your ex-boyfriend and I have
lots more in common than you might think.”

“What on earth are you talking about?
You’re a snitch. David is a financier.”

“I’m not a snitch, Mila. For your
information, David Muller is nothing more than a common crook. The only
difference between him and a common pickpocket is the scale of operation,”
Dennis paused, deliberating if he should continue. He could simply escort Mila
downstairs where an FBI van was waiting by the curb, or he could call for the
FBI agents to come up and collect her. His part of the job was done. Still, he
felt the need to provide an explanation, more so for himself than for Mila.
“You will probably find it hard to believe, but I began my career as a trader.
It was really just a lucky turn of events that got me started. I grew up in
Park City, Utah. My old man worked as a hotel manager at one of the resorts. He
got me a job there so that I could make some extra money during winter breaks
and summers. My father probably thought I was going to have a great career as a
hotel manager, but I had my eyes set on something different. No siree, working
at a hotel wasn’t good enough for me. I couldn’t wait to get out of there, so I
listened to the lofty conversations between the big wigs staying at the resort
and tried to ingratiate myself with them while carrying their luggage.”

“Oh, please.” Mila rolled her eyes.
“Spare me a tale about a small town boy who learned his lesson the hard way.”

“Humor me.”

“By all means. It’s not as though I have
a choice.”

“You always have a choice, Mila, that’s
what I’m trying to tell you. Back to the story: the winter of my high school
senior year, I delivered Terrance Stanton’s luggage. At the time, he’d just
been appointed as the CEO of Rossman Grozling, a major investment bank.”

“I don’t live under a rock, you know.
I’ve heard of Rossman Grozling.”

“Pardon me. I didn’t mean to imply that
in the least. When I brought up the luggage, the most gorgeous girl opened the
door. Well, she seemed to be the most gorgeous girl to me at the time: long
legs, blue eyes, a mane of blond hair. She was dressed in this see-through
blouse that nearly made my eyes pop out.”

Mila wrinkled her nose. “What is it that
men love about blondes, I never understood.”

“Believe me, neither did I. So as I was
wheeling in Stanton’s luggage, fighting a hard-on the blonde had given me,
Stanton himself came to give me the tip. I had the presence of mind to
congratulate him on his recent appointment and that earned me the privilege of
walking his dog during his entire stay. In the spring, I received my college
acceptance letters; I’d gotten into all the schools, but only University of
Utah gave me a full ride, so that was going to be my choice. A few weeks later,
I received a letter from Stanton’s scholarship fund, granting me full tuition
and board at any school of my choice. I didn’t have to think twice to choose
Princeton, Stanton’s alma mater. Stanton took me under his wing, and when I
graduated, a job at Rossman Grozling was waiting for me. The rookie year was
tough, but after I earned my stripes, real money started coming in.

I was living the high life. I spent my
bonuses on a swanky apartment in the city and even began to collect art, not
the old masters of course, but I did get a few good modern ones; even managed
to get a Lichtenstein. Those actually turned out be a very good investment when
I had to sell them to cover my legal bills, but I’m getting ahead of myself. My
success wasn’t enough for me. I wanted more, and my wish certainly was granted.
I got approached by partners at Vitaon hedge fund and was offered a senior
trader spot there. Vitaon was known for its cutting edge strategies, but more
importantly, for its huge bonuses. So of course I jumped at the chance. That
year I received the largest bonus of my career. I got engaged to the girl I was
dating at the time, Vanessa; she looked a lot like Stanton’s blonde, and I was
crazy about her. When they told me that they were going to make me partner at
Vitaon, I thought that the world was my oyster. Once I became a partner, I was
initiated into the secret behind Vitaon’s booming success: the management was
indiscriminate as to the sources of its investors’ money, including terrorists
and drug cartels.”

“They made you partner to spread out the
blame.”

Dennis nodded. “You’re a sharp one.
Yours truly was in it up to his ears. It didn’t matter if you were a partner
for five years or five months; you still got indicted.”

“Is that how you made your first
acquaintance with the Feds?”

“Yes. I tried to get out, but it was too
late. Vitaon had already been on the radar. The FBI had been building the case
for some time. I was offered to cooperate and walk away as a free man.”

“So you said yes?”

“I had little choice in the matter, so
yes, I did. I cooperated and in exchange for providing valuable evidence for
the case, I was free to go. I had to give up all of my earnings at Vitaon. I
also got barred from the securities industry for life, not that I had much
interest in returning to it. Oh, and my fiancée left me the minute we had to
put my luxury apartment up for sale. So I moved into a studio, got my private
investigator license, and moved on with my life.”

Mila whistled. “That’s some story.”

“You know what was the hardest part?
Facing my family and telling Stanton. Stanton had been my mentor, and I repaid
him with disappointment. Even after my failure, Stanton had been most
supportive. He told me to put the past behind me and start over, and I’ve been
trying to do so ever since.”

“You still don’t trust women, do you?”

Dennis was caught off-guard. Of all the
things in his story, Mila had to pick up on that piece. “What makes you say
that?”

“That sex addiction mess—you obviously
have commitment and trust issues.”

Dennis cringed, thinking of the FBI
agents listening to the wire and snickering in the van. Sure, his past as a
white collar criminal was embarrassing, but the FBI already knew about it from
his file. The sex addiction stuff, however, even though it was fabricated, was
news. He could just imagine the jokes afterwards; good luck convincing them
that it was part of his cover-up. He had Janet to thank for it; she must’ve
been really pissed at him to come up with something as ridiculous as that. “You
know, I never thought of it from that angle, but you might be right. Gives me
something to talk about with my shrink,” Dennis lied, but beneath the crazy
made-up story was a fraction of truth. He did have a hard time trusting women,
and if a stranger like Mila could spot it from miles away, then what must Janet
think of him?

Mila rose from the couch. “Thanks for
the story, Dennis.”

“You’re welcome. I hope that now you can
see that it’s possible to make the right choices even in a wrong situation.
It’s never too late to put the past behind you and move on.”

“So what do we do now?” She lifted her
arms. “Do you cuff me and take me downstairs?”

“There’s no need for that. Grab your
things and we’ll go downstairs. An FBI van is waiting. They’ll take you to a
safe place. I don’t know its location, but probably somewhere outside of town.
Don’t expect anything fancy, but it’ll be comfortable; a Holiday Inn type of
setting.”