Jeff leaned on the counter. “You coming to Martha's party this weekend? It might be a good thing, considering the fact that all the top brass will be in attendance.”
She pulled herself back to this reality. “And this should bring me to my knees? When is it?” Actually she had no plans to attend the affair and knew precisely when it was, but Jeff was the kind of guy who liked giving out information. It made him feel important, she guessed.
“Friday at seven. And yes, you might consider paying a little homage.”
“To them or to you?”
He smiled coyly. “But of course, I'll be there as well. And I'd be disappointed if you were not.”
She smiled kindly. “Well, we'll see.” Maybe it would be a good idea, after all. Get her mind off this Kent madness. “I'm not crazy about parties doused in alcohol.” She studied his face for reaction.
“And neither am I,” he said without missing a beat. “But, like I said, the brass will be there. Think of it as a career move. Reaching out to those who determine your future. Something like that. And of course, an opportunity to see me.” He winked.
Lacy stared at him, surprised by his boldness.
Jeff shifted awkwardly. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be soâ”
“No. It's okay. I'm flattered.” She recovered quickly and smiled.
“You sure?”
“Yes, I'm sure.”
“Well, I'll take that as a sign of promise.”
She nodded, unable to answer for the moment.
Evidently satisfied that he'd accomplished his intentions in the little exchange, Jeff stepped back. “I have to get back to work. Mary Blackley is waiting anxiously for my call, and you know Mary. If it's one penny off, she's ready to declare war.” He chuckled. “I swear, the old lady does nothing but wait by her mailbox for her statement. I can't remember a month when she hasn't called, and I can't remember a single complaint that has borne true.”
Lacy pictured the elderly, hook-nosed lady wobbling through the doors, leaning on her cane. She smiled. “Yeah, I know what you mean. What is it this time? A missing comma?”
“Some ATM fee. Evidently, we're robbing her blind.” Jeff laughed and retreated across the floor.
The heat started at the base of Lacy's spine and flashed up through her skull as if she'd inadvertently hit a nerve.
Some ATM fee?
She watched Jeff clack along the lobby floor. The clock above his head on the far wall read 8:58. Two minutes.
Lacy dived for her keyboard, hoping absently that no one noticed her eager- ness. She ran a quick search for Mary Blackley's account number, found it, and keyed it in. She ran a query on all service charges. The screen blinked to black, seemed to hesitate, and then popped up with a string of numbers. Mary Blackley's account. She scrolled quickly down to the service charges levied. She lifted a trembling finger to the screen and followed the charges . . . six ATM transactions . . . each one with a fee of $1.20. A dollar-twenty. As it should be. Mary Blackley was chasing ghosts again. Unless . . .
She straightened and ran a search on the first transaction fee. According to the record that popped up, Mary had used her card at a Diamond Shamrock convenience store and withdrawn forty dollars on August 21, 1999, at 8:04 P.M. The servicing bank, Connecticut Mutual, had charged her $1.20 for the privilege of using its system.
So then, what could have prompted Mary to call?
Lacy backed out of the account quickly and walked across the lobby to Jeff 's cubicle. He was bent over the keyboard when she stuck her head in and smiled.
“Lacy!” He made no attempt to hide his pleasure at seeing her materialize in his doorway.
“Hi, Jeff. Just walking by. So, you straighten Mary out?”
“Nothing to straighten out, actually. She was not overcharged at all.”
“What was her problem?”
“Don't know. Printing mistake or something. She was actually right this time. Her statement did have the wrong fee on itâ$1.40 instead of $1.20.” He lifted a fax from his desk. “But the statement in the computer shows the correct fee, so whatever happened didn't really happen at all. Like I said, a printer problem, maybe.”
Lacy nodded, smiling, and turned away before he could see the blood drain from her face. A customer stepped through the doors, and she made her way back to the tellers' windows, stunned and lost and breathing too hard.
She knew what had happened then with a dreadful certainty. Kent had done that! The little weasel had found a way to take Mary's twenty cents and then put it back as he had said he would. And he had done it without tipping his hand.
But that was impossibleâso maybe that was not what had happened at all.
Lacy returned to her station and lifted the closed sign from her window. The first customer had to address her twice before she acknowledged.
“Oh, I'm sorry. What can I do for you today?”
The older woman smiled. “No problem. I know the feeling. I would like to cash this check.” She slid a check for $6.48 made out to Francine Bowls across the counter. Lacy punched it in on autopilot.
“God, help me,” she muttered aloud. She glanced at Mrs. Bowls and saw her raised eyebrow.
“Sorry,” she said.
Mrs. Bowls smiled.
Lacy did not.
One Month Later
Wednesday
KENT SAT on the edge of the lounge chair, staring at the Caribbean sunrise, his stomach in knots over what he was about to do.
He rested his hands on the keyboard and lifted his chin to the early morning breeze. The sweet smell of salt swept past his nostrils; a tall tumbler filled with clear liquor sparkled atop a silver platter beside the laptop. The world was his. Or at the very least this small corner of the world was.
From his perch on the villa's deck, Kent could see half of the island. Luxurious villas graced the hills on either side like white play blocks shoved into the rock. Far below, sun-bleached sand sloped into emerald seas that slapped gently at low tide. The ocean extended to a cloudless, deep-blue horizon, crystal clear in the rising sun. The Turks and Caicos Islands rose from the Caribbean Sea like brown rabbits on the blue ocean, a fitting likeness, considering the number of inhabitants there who were on the run. Whether fleeing taxes or the authorities or just plain life, there were few destinations better suited to a man on the lam.
But none of this mattered at the moment. All that mattered now was that some satellites had graced him with a clear connection. After all these weeks of lying low, he was rising from the dead to wreak just a little havoc in the lives of those two fools who'd taken him for a sucker not so long ago. Yes indeed. This was all that mattered for the moment.
Kent lowered his eyes to the laptop's screen and ran his fingers over the keys, taking the time to consider. It was a commodity he had plenty of these days. Time.
He'd paid $1.2 million cash for the villa four days earlier. How the builders had managed to erect the house in the first place remained a mystery, but nothing short of a monster sledge hammer swung from heaven would knock this small fortress from its moorings. On either side, tall palms bustled with a dozen chirping birds. He turned back to the living area. Large flagstones led to an indoor dipping pool beside the dining area. With the flip of a single switch the entire front wall could be lowered or raised, offering either privacy or exposure to the stunning scenery below. The previous owners had constructed a dozen such villas, each extravagant in its own way. He'd never met them, of course, but the broker had assured Kent that they were of the highest caliber. Arabs with oil money. They had moved on to bigger and better toys.
Which was fine by himâthe villa offered more amenities than he imagined possible in a four-thousand-square-foot package. And it now belonged to him. Every stick of wood. Every brick. Every last thread of carpet. Under a different name, of course.
Kent took a deep breath. “Okay, baby. Let's see what our two porky friends are doing.” He began what he called phase two of the plan, executing a series of commands that took him first into a secure site and then to Niponbank's handle. He then entered a request that took him directly into a single computer sitting idle, asleep in the dark corner of its home, as well it should be at 4 A.M. mountain time. Borst and company had moved to a different wing of the bank following the fire, but Kent had found him easily enough. Beginning within the week of the theft, he had made breaking in to both Borst's and big-boss Bentley's computers a regular routine.
There was always the off chance that someone intelligent was at one of the two computers at 4 A.M.âsomeone with the capability to detect the break-in in real timeâbut Kent lost no sleep over the possibility. For starters, he'd never known Borst to work past 6 P.M., much less in the wee morning hours. And if he would be in there, poking around his computer at four in the morning, Porky was not so stuffed with intelligence as he was with other things. Such as pure, unadulterated drivel.
Kent entered Borst's computer through a backdoor and pulled the manager's hard drive up on his screen. The directory filled his screen in vivid color. Kent chuckled and sat back, enjoying the moment. He was literally inside the man's office without the other having a clue, and he rather liked the view.
He lifted a crystal glass from the table and sipped at the tequila sunrise he'd mixed himself. A small shudder ran through his bones. A full thirty days had passed since his night of terror in the bank, lugging that ridiculous body around. And so far every detail of his plan had fallen into place as planned. The realization still made regular passes through his mind with stunning incredulity. To say that he had pulled it off would be a rather ridiculous understatement.
Kent removed his eyes from Borst's directory and looked out at the emerald seas far below. So far he was batting a thousand, but the minute he touched these keys a whole new set of risks would raise their ugly little heads. It was why his gut still coiled in knots while he presented himself to the seascape as a man in utter tranquillity. An odd mixture of emotions to be sure. Fully pleased at himself and thoroughly anxious at once.
The events of the days leading up to this one slipped through his mind. No need to be overzealous hereâhe still had time to abort phase two.
He'd escaped Denver easily enough, and the bus trip to Mexico City had flown by like a surrealistic scene on the silver screen. Yet once in the massive city, a certain deadening euphoria had taken to his nerves. He'd rented a room in an obscure dump some enterprising soul had the stomach to call a hotel and immediately set about finding the plastic surgeon he'd made contact with a month earlier. Dr. Emilio Vasquez.
The surgeon readily took a thick wad of money and set about giving Kent a new look. The fact that Kent's “new look” should have required four operations instead of the one did not deter Vasquez in the least. It was, after all, his trademarkâ doing to a man's face in one operation what took most plastic surgeons three months. It was also why Kent had chosen the man. He simply did not have three months. The rest of his plan was begging for its execution.
Four days after the big fire Kent had his new look, hidden under a heavy mask of white gauze, but there, Dr. Vasquez promised him. Definitely there. The twinkle in the surgeon's eyes had worried him. It was the first time he'd considered the possibility that he might spend the rest of his life looking like something out of a horror comic. But done was done. He'd sequestered himself in the hotel room, willing the cuts beneath the facial bandages to heal. It was a time that both stretched his patience and settled his nerves at once.
Kent lifted the chrome platter from the table and stared at his reflection. His tanned face looked like a Kevin, he thought. Kevin Stillman, his new assumed name. The nose was fuller, but it was the jaw line and brow work that changed his face so that he hardly recognized his own reflection. The plastic surgeon had done an exceptional jobâalthough the first time Dr. Vasquez had removed the bandages and proudly shoved a mirror to his face he'd nearly panicked. Then, the red lines around his nose and cheekbones brought to mind frightening images of Frankenstein. Oh, he looked different, all right. But then, so did a skinned plum. He started to drink heavily that night. Tequila, of course, lots of it, but never enough to knock him silly. That would be stupid, and he was over being stupid.
Besides, too much liquor made the computer screen swim before his eyes, and he'd spent a lot of time staring at the laptop those first two weeks. Whereas ROOS-TER allowed him undetected access into the banking system, it was that second program, the one called BANDIT, that had actually done the deed. When he had inserted his little disk into the drive that night at the bank and executed his theft, he'd left a little gift in each target account from which he'd taken twenty cents. And by all accounts the program had executed itself flawlessly. Indeed, BANDIT worked on the same principles as a stealth virus, executing commands to hide itself at the first sign of penetration. But that was not all it did. In the event the account was even so much as queried, it would first transfer twenty cents from one of Kent's holding accounts back into the target account, and then it would immediately remove itself permanently. The entire operation took exactly one and a half seconds and was over by the time the account-information screen popped to life on the operator's monitor. In the end it meant that any queried account would show erroneous charges on printed statements but not in the accounts themselves.
Kent's little virus executed itself on 220,345 accounts in the first two weeks, refunding a total of $44,069 dollars during that time. The virus would lay dormant in the rest of the accounts, waiting until September 2000 to be opened. They would obediently delete themselves if not activated within fourteen months.
It took two full weeks before he felt comfortable enough to make his first trip to the bank in Mexico City. The lines on his face were still visible, but after applying a pound of makeup he succeeded in convincing himself that they were virtually undetectable. And he was at the point of driving himself crazy in the hotel room. It was either risk a few raised brows in the bank or hang himself with the bedsheets.