In for a Ruble (40 page)

I felt no sympathy for the late Walter Coryell. I did wonder if there were any members of the Leitz family who weren’t putting the squeeze on another.

Andras figured the only way out of Irina’s doghouse was to resolve things with franky once and for all. As soon as his uncle got sprung from the Tolland County jail, Andras arranged to meet him on Wednesday in New York. But when he arrived at Coryell’s office, nobody answered the buzzer. Uncle Walter didn’t answer his cell phone either. He went looking for Coryell at home. He wasn’t there, neither was Julia, of course, but the kids let him in. He hung with them until they got reabsorbed in their videogames, then he tossed his uncle’s bedroom, taking every key he could find.

Two of the keys got him into YouGoHere’s offices—and another world of trouble. Coryell was dead at his desk. The body wasn’t yet bloated, and it didn’t stink. If Andras was telling the truth, Coryell had been killed sometime Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.

Andras had been clever—not smart, but clever. Smart would’ve walked away—or called the police. As it was, he’d acted with coolness well beyond his years and done the job he decided to do, leaving the slimmest of trails. But he didn’t know that he was going to have someone like Karp looking for him.

He locked the door to YouGoHere and toured Long Island City on foot, withdrawing a few hundred dollars at the ATMs he passed along the way (he hadn’t counted on the Basilisk either, but who does) until he found a motel where no one would notice one more person coming and going. He rented a room for two nights, cash. He returned to Coryell’s office, stopping at a UPS store to buy cardboard boxes. He dismantled the servers and the server rack, packed them up and transported the lot by gypsy cab to the motel. Leaving everything there, he took the subway to Manhattan and the Fung Wah Bus to Boston, got to Gibbet, picked up Irina’s car, and returned to Queens. He loaded up the servers and went back to Massachusetts, one step ahead of the snowstorm. He stored everything in the barn and went into hiding at the playhouse while he figured out what to do next. He’d confessed the whole thing to Irina, of course, and she persuaded him to go back to school, as if nothing had happened. Then I showed up.

It was a good story, especially for a seventeen-year-old. I wondered how much was his and how much hers. I knew one thing—only about half was true.

“What were you planning to do—with the servers?”

“Don’t know. I just thought … I couldn’t just leave them there, you know?”

I was about to tell him I didn’t believe that when a black Escalade swung into the hotel drive and stopped just past the lighted entrance. New York plates. No way the occupants could see us thirty yards away, but I pushed Andras down in his seat and slid lower in mine. Two men climbed out awkwardly, as if something under their long overcoats inhibited their movement. They went inside. A third descended and followed more slowly. His head just cleared the hotel door.

Nosferatu.

*   *   *

The boxes holding the servers were still in the barn, covered with a blue plastic tarpaulin. We loaded them into the Explorer and started back toward New York. When we got off the Mass Pike onto I-84, I called Foos.

“I’m traveling with the kid and ConnectPay’s servers. Don’t want to bring them into town.”

He grunted. “Where you feel like stopping?”

“How about Stamford?”

“I’ll call back.”

Ten minutes later, he said, “Super Eight Motel, I-Ninety-Five, exit six. I’ve booked three adjoining rooms. Brandeis. I’ll take the first train out, gets in at six forty-four.”

“Call Victoria before you leave. Tell her I’m on the move and will call when I can.”

“She gonna appreciate a five a.m. wake-up call?”

“Doubt it.”

He grunted again and hung up.

I set the cruise control at sixty-eight. It occurred to me, as I crossed Connecticut for the second time in three days, this was better support than I ever had when I was with the Cheka.

CHAPTER
45

The Super 8 was clean, functional, and anonymous. In other words, perfect. Or almost—too close to the highway and train station for my purposes, but I would have taken us to the center of Siberia if we didn’t have business to conduct.

We rolled in at 5:22
A.M.
Andras hadn’t said much during the drive, leaving me to my ruminations. I couldn’t tell whether he was sleeping as he slumped in his seat, or ruminating as well. Moody, Aunt Marianna said. Introspective, Jenny Leitz corrected. He certainly had enough material to occupy his thoughts, starting with how he was going to stay out of jail—assuming he stayed alive.

I went back over his story a couple of times. I believed the abuse and his desire to keep his uncle away from Irina. I didn’t believe he’d ripped off ConnectPay—or the BEC—as a means to that end. I certainly didn’t believe he’d taken the servers—going to all the trouble to cover any trail—with no idea of what he planned to do with them. I also wasn’t convinced Coryell was dead when Andras got to his office. Hard to see a seventeen-year-old murdering his uncle—never mind by breaking his neck—but no less difficult than seeing him running a child pornography operation. I could check part of Andras’s story with Victoria, if the FBI had reestablished its stakeout in time—and if she was still talking to me. That gave me something else to ponder as I drove through the night.

I saw her face, more than once, floating in the night air, just outside the windshield, smiling one time, pouting the next, intruding when she decided to, just as she’d done in the months she’d been gone. She faded and was replaced by Beria, his all-knowing grin mocking from beyond reach.
Fuck your mother,
I told him. He frowned and disappeared. Victoria came back.
Call me,
she said.
I have things you should know.

Not now,
was my response. What was that? Leitz’s dangerous arrogance? Partly. My own hubris? Certainly. Doing things my own way for too long. More certainly. Worse, was I unwilling to let her into a part of my life I was determined to wall off as my own? In that territory, maybe I really did want to fly solo. Beria reappeared, nodding vigorously. Good thing Andras was with me. Otherwise I might have stopped at the first hotel with an open bar.

I made Andras wait upstairs while I carried the servers up to the motel’s second floor. He was all but sleepwalking, exhausted, emotionally drained, and functioning at about one-third capacity. I suggested a shower before we went to the train station and stood guard outside the bathroom. I skipped mine, I didn’t trust him not to run. He perked up when I said we were going to pick up Foos.

“Really?! He’s coming here?”

“You weren’t listening last night.”

He shook his head. “Sorry, I was caught up in my own space, you know?”

This kid had been through more than most boys his age. Still, his self-centeredness grated, but maybe I was just tired.

Not much activity around the Stamford station. The train pulled in right on time. A few people got off, Foos among them, carrying a duffel bag with a backpack over his shoulder. Andras took off like a shot. He was still trying to wrap his arms around the big man as I caught up.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Andras said to Foos. “I think it’s going to be okay.”

“Don’t count on it,” he said. “You fucked up, big time.”

The skinny arms fell away as Andras recoiled.

“I thought you…,” he said.

“I know what you thought,” Foos said. “Don’t make assumptions. About me or anyone else. You’re in a shitload of trouble and you’ve put me on the hook with your old man, who’s my friend. Turbo too. This is not how I was planning to spend my day.”

Andras turned away. Foos nodded at me. I nodded back. The psychology was honest and perfect. Setting himself up as the bad cop made Andras’s only option to rely on me. I’d have to reconsider my views on mathematicians.

Foos said, “I’m hungry. Let’s get breakfast. You hungry, Andras?”

Andras nodded meekly.

“Turbo, we’re in your care. Find us a diner, preferably one with superior pancakes.”

Andras smiled faintly, and I went with the program, meaning I stopped at the first place I spotted on the way back to the motel.

We ordered, and I sat back chewing my bacon, eggs, hash browns, and toast, sipping coffee while Foos devoured a platter-size plate of pancakes and worked Andras over in his own huggy bear merged with porcupine style. He extracted the same story. All the weak points sounded weaker the second time through. When it was finished, he asked the same question.

“What were you planning to do with the servers?”

Andras shook his head and looked at his plate.

“Don’t know,” he whispered. He was having a harder time lying to Foos than he had to me.

“Bullshit, man!” Foos said. “I get up at five a.m., travel all the way up here for this kind of crap?”

He said it with a smile, but the voice was bordering on hard. Tears formed in the kid’s eyes. He was between a rock and a hard place—and the hard place’s name was Irina.

Andras shook his head. “I’m sorry. It’s true. I…”

“Don’t make it worse,” Foos said. He looked at me. “Let’s blow. We got work to do.”

I used some of Warren Brandeis’s cash to pay the bill, and we drove back to the motel. Upstairs, Foos eyed the servers and took out a laptop and a handful of cables from the duffel bag.

“Set ’em up, let’s see what we got.”

“I can help,” Andras said eagerly.

Foos turned to him, the usually sparkling eyes dark and hard. “Uh-uh. I’ll explain a few facts of life. Turbo here has put his ass on the line for you. There’s guys out there willing to kill for these things. You and I are friends, but I’m on his side, and you’re not playing straight. That means we can’t trust you. So, no, you can’t help. Go get some sleep.” He turned his back, shutting him out.

Andras teared again as he stood there, hoping Foos would relent. When he didn’t, the boy walked slowly to the connecting door to his room, shoulders slumped.

“Leave it ajar,” I said.

He did as he was told.

“That’s some hold that girl has,” I said softly.

“You sure it’s her?”

“Can’t see who else.”

“Thought I could crack the shell, but it’s tough, as you say. I’ll take another shot later.”

I don’t normally bet against him, but in this case I wasn’t ready to give his chances better than even money.

We stacked up the servers, sixteen in all, and connected the cables. Foos plugged in his laptop, sat at the small motel desk, and went to work. I checked on Andras, who was curled up, asleep, still clothed, on top of the bedspread. I felt sorry for him, but he didn’t make it easy.

I thought about calling Victoria, but decided to wait and see what Foos found. I took the shower I’d passed up earlier. Hot, hard spray massaged tired muscles. I stretched out on the bed in the third room and went under immediately. I was dreaming about Victoria and video cameras when I heard him call.

“Turbo! You better check this out.”

The bedside clock radio said 8:15. I felt the stiffness and lethargy you get with too little sleep after too long without any. I stretched, rinsed my cotton mouth in the bathroom and went next door.

Foos’s laptop screen was filled with rows of data—names, numbers, amounts. A digital carpet of information.

“Remember that case I told you about, the one the Feds busted? Based in Belarus, ninety thousand customers?”

“Yeah.”

“Double it. They’re close to two hundred thousand accounts here, averaging ten K a year each, maybe more. I need more time with the data. But we’re talking two billion a year, minimum. Say ConnectPay took five percent, that’s a hundred mil.”

“Real money.”

“Uh-huh. Before the scamming.”

“What scamming?”

“Looks as though someone’s expanding the revenue stream by keyboarding the client base. Once they get bank and credit card access, they’ve got an app that starts adding small charges or making small withdrawals. Money moves through a series of banks, bogus accounts no doubt, then overseas. Guess where?”

“Belarus?”

“Very good. Looks like they’re still testing the waters. Started a few months ago. They’ve only hacked a few thousand, netted about twenty mil so far. Tip of the iceberg. They’ve got endless material to work with.”

In my exhaustion, I had another vision, this time, a lineup of old-fashioned western wanted posters across the wall, Konychev, Batkin, Lishin, Coryell, Nosferatu. At the end of the row, looking out of place, but maybe not, were Andras and Irina.

I shook my head and the image vanished. “I never met the guy, but this sounds a little too advanced for our late friend Walter Coryell.”

“Actually, you can buy apps like this online if you know where to go. But you’re right. The scamming’s being run remotely. Some other computer, some other place working through zombies, hacking in. That and the money trail that heads for your old ’hood suggests other involvement.”

“Like BEC involvement?”

“Good place to start.”

“BEC ripping off the BEC?”

“Technically, no. BEC ripping off BEC’s customers.”

I had a thought. “Or the reason Alexander Lishin is no longer among the living. He had the expertise. He tried a solo venture, figuring what Konychev and Batkin didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. Probably would still be getting away with it too, except Konychev had someone searching for whoever was ripping them off, and that guy found Lishin’s trail.”

“Works for me.”

I lowered my voice. “Where do the kids fit in?”

He shook his head. “It’s not the scamming. Timing doesn’t line up, for one thing. For another, I can see where someone hacked into the frankyfun account months ago, and it’s a whole different picture. Does leave hanging the question of what Andras was going to do with the servers.”

“I’m guessing it was her idea—and that’s why he’s so close-lipped. He’s told us all about himself, but every time the story gets close to her, he veers off in another direction.”

“Protecting her?”

“Could be what he thinks.”