Bitcoin Bandits

by Chris Kale

  Thomas sighed. He knew it was his job to get it back, and hand it over to whoever Wyatt told him to, but man, this would be a knee in the dick if Wyatt asked for all of it, or to give it to the South Korean government. No one really knew what would happen. The coins may just get double-stolen. For the first time in many years, Thomas didn’t mind the idea of not-being-dry, even for just an hour.

  The feeling of having a drink was fleeting, and he quickly rounded back around to gain control of his senses.

  10:55 a.m. rolled around and Ron texted that he was at the front drive to the hotel. Thomas was eager to get to Joon’s as he nearly ran to the elevator.

  He just about leaped into Ron’s white Mustang with black trim.

  They both greeted each other with police-like ‘heys.’

  Ron’s heavy foot pressed firmly on the pedal and they were quickly ripping toward downtown.

  “How’s your research been going?” Ron scratched his short, black beard. He’d changed from his tan suit to an outfit of a blue, button-up shirt, jeans, and a black jacket.

  “It’s been fine.” Thomas tried his best to keep the excitement from spilling out through his breath. “It’s gotten to the point where I figured now would be a good time to do a look at the scene of the crime, even though I’m sure it’s been combed over good.”

  “Nice place,” Ron said, cleaning his teeth with a fresh toothpick. “Wouldn’t want to rent it now though, turned into a bloody mess.”

  “Has it been cleaned?” Thomas asked. “I mean, I’m sure the blood was mopped. But is the scene still intact?”

  “More or less,” he said. “People are still in and out of there, just like you, hoping to find something new.”

  The remainder of the drive, Thomas and Ron talked about the latest season of the Kansas City Royals.

  Up in the high lofts of Joon’s building, the elevator doors opened with a low murmur of slick-moving steel, and a long hall opened up with soft light bulbs that must have been $50 a piece, in long rows on both sides. They were the kind of light bulbs that were clear and had elaborate, winding filaments, like the ones you see hanging over someone’s newly remodeled home in some magazine by the register at a market in the states.

  Ron led the way. With the size of the condos, there were only four doors that led to condos on this level, one at each corner. Joon’s was the one on the north-east corner. His keys dangled as he pulled them from his right-front pocket, slipping it in with a smooth flipping of tiny pistons within the lock.

  As he turned the key and turned the knob, he said, “Looks like we’re the only ones here.”

  Thomas felt the slight curve of a smile on the right side of his lips.

  Ron flipped on the light switch, even though it wasn’t necessary with the flooding sunlight from the afternoon sun seeping into the vast windows on two sides of the condo. The place couldn’t have been more different from Thomas’ apartment back in Missouri. It was masterfully clean, with only a faint layer of fresh dust from a couple of days without a cleaner. The furniture was a fine leather, there was a Persian-looking rug, actually three of them. Marble-tops on the kitchen counters with a massive island at the center of the open kitchen. And blood. . . lots of dried blood.

  Near the computer table, which was free of all computers and monitors now, lay a thick, dry, circular stain of almost black-blood. It had streaked all the way from the patio door to the computer desk, where Joon was tortured.

  “Terrible,” Thomas said, never having seen such a sight. “Who could do this to a person? Just for money?” But he knew the answer. Money made people kill all the time. What were most wars fought over anymore anyway? And this wasn’t a little bit of money for some cocaine.

  “Yup,” Ron said, more composed than Thomas. “He crawled to the window, but then was dragged back here, where he was stabbed, and remained alive for maybe another hour before he finally passed. Whoever did this, it wasn’t his first time. He enjoyed it.”

  “Sickening.” Thomas put his hands in his pockets and began to inspect the apartment.

  “What are you looking for exactly?” Ron asked. “Interior design tips?”

  “Not sure, really,” Thomas lied. “Maybe a clue of where he put the crypto.” OK, he didn’t entirely lie.

  “Well,” Ron said, slowly following Thomas, who had his laptop bag draped over his shoulder, “there’s nothing here. No computers, they were all confiscated.”

  “What about USB drives?” Thomas again tried to mask his excitement. “Did they find any and confiscate those?”

  “Nope, not a one, kinda fishy if you ask me.” Ron furrowed his brow. “Guys like Joon don’t usually do their only backups to the cloud. They like to keep things off the grid. I don’t know, I just think it's odd that he didn’t have any backups of his work here in the apartment.”

  “That is fishy.” Thomas opened kitchen cabinet drawers and pulled them out to look behind them. “Did the killer take them?”

  “Entirely possible,” Ron said. “Probable even.”

  “Any closer to catching this guy?” Thomas inspected behind another drawer.

  “I haven’t heard anything,” he said. “That’s the local government’s investigation. But to be honest, unless this guy messed up royally somewhere, I doubt he’d leave a trace. He’s probably out of the country by now.”

  “Another murderer on the loose,” Thomas said. “And no CCTV camera footage of him entering or leaving the apartment? I saw cameras out there.”

  Ron smirked. “Yep, there were two separate times one hour and thirty-seven minutes apart where the camera footage goes blurry just long enough for a man to walk from the elevator to the room door and enter.”

  “What?” Thomas said, snapping his gaze back to Ron. “He had some device that kills camera footage?”

  “And it happened all over the building,” Ron said. “He’s a pro, whoever he is. No camera footage, no blood, no fingerprints, and no witnesses. A real grade A ghost.”

  Thomas shook his head. “I hope I never run into this guy.”

  “I hope we catch him before he gets his sights set on some other innocent person.”

  “Do you think Joon was innocent?” Thomas felt underneath the lip of the island in the center of the kitchen.

  “Hmm.” Ron stroked his beard. “I hadn’t thought about it in a moral sense. I mean, yes, he probably stole it. But who did he really steal it from? The people who owned it, or the people who really intended to steal it? I mean, the owners of the Bitcoin didn’t send out someone like this after the programmer, did they? No. This screams insider knowledge types. The heavy hitters.”

  “That’s what I think.” Thomas put both hands on the top of the island and looking around the condo. “Is that his bedroom over there?”

  Ron led him to Joon’s bedroom. Same as the rest of the place—fancy, with a king-size bed with satin sheets, but with posters of bands and movies on the wall. Thomas recognized some of them, but not all: Radiohead, Björk, The Matrix, The Arctic Monkeys, Apocalypse Now, Zoolander, and one for The Misfits.

  “Weird kid, huh?” Ron asked.

  “I don’t know,” Thomas said. “You ever had a teenager before?”

  “No kids.”

  “Good for you,” Thomas said. “Lots to miss, though.”

  “How many you got?” Ron asked.

  Thomas ran his fingers over each of the posters, hoping to find a drive behind one of them. “One,” he said, “she’s all grown up now though, got a kid of her own.”

  “Congratulations,” Ron said. “By the way, they had two teams I know of come through with metal detectors. There’s nothing behind those.”

  Thomas turned and shrugged with a smile. “You can’t blame me for trying. I’m sure they thought to check under the mattress.”

  Ron shrugged. “Probably. But you want to check anyway, don’t you?” Thomas smiled.

  Together they both lifted one side of the soft mattress up and found nothing underneath.r />
  Damn. There really isn’t anything here, is there? What am I going to tell Freyja? That this is the end of the line and all the Bitcoin is gone?

  A thought did come to him then, what if someone got the drive before the police arrived? Did someone already crack the code? Days ago even? They could have the drive right now. But then they would have the seed phrase and all the Bitcoin would have been moved the second they got control of it. No. Whoever has the drive doesn’t know what they have. . . yet.

  Ron got a text from the sound of the blip in his pocket. He pulled it out and checked it. “It’s Soo-Jin. He’s asking if we need any help.” He looked up at Thomas. “Do you have any questions for him? He’s the one who let us in here.”

  “Would you mind double-checking with him that they didn’t find any USB drives in the condo?”

  Ron nodded and punched the message in. “No,” Ron said, after the text message came through. “He is asking why you asked, though.”

  “Just like we talked about,” Thomas said. “Just seems fishy.”

  Twenty minutes later, Thomas followed Ron out of the apartment. He was defeated. What am I going to tell Freyja?

  Just then he got a text, it was from her.

  It read: I’m outside. Lose the fuzz. We need to talk.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Niklas slammed his strong hands onto the black leather steering wheel, waiting for the light to turn. “Fucking cocksucker! God damn dog!” He gritted his teeth with a deep groan from down in his gut. The light turned and he gunned it, zipping through cars in the busy lanes of the city. “Who the fuck does he think he is to fire me?”

  Truth be told, someone of Niklas’ profession didn’t have trouble finding jobs. There were plenty of people out there who wanted people like him to do the things he could do. He could travel anywhere in the world and make money doing it. But for him it wasn’t about the money, or the title. It was about respect and power. People like Niklas also craved power. Power over life, power over people; the power to do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. Even when employed, they want to know that they are the ones in control. So, getting fired by some metrosexual behind a glass desk didn’t exactly please him.

  There were only two things that would help to calm Niklas now: one was working out—lifting heavy weights to loud music or killing.

  He drove back to his hidden shack quickly, and threw his black, sleeveless top to the floor, took a deep breath, and eyed the hidden briefcase in the kitchen cupboard. He feigned a smile. Niklas fell onto his bed, resting his bald head against the drywall behind him. He drew out a silver laptop from the floor next to him, and he opened it. The screen flickered to life with a blue glow. He tapped his password into the lock screen, scratching at the knife tattoo on his stubbly neck.

  He quickly opened the web browser, and in the search field entered the word, ‘CryptoCunt.’ Articles appeared with the stories of her victories, and other scammers’ defeats. He adjusted his search query—adding one word—‘reward.’ Niklas already had a heavy cryptocurrency portfolio, with many of his contractors paying him solely in that, but again. . . to people like Niklas, it was about the hunt. Now he had a face. Li didn’t seem 100 percent sure it was her, but there was enough to warrant speculation. And this would give him something to do before he left the country.

  Grinning, he closed the laptop and the glow of the computer faded to the dull light of the room, with two dead light bulbs left dark. Niklas opened the nightstand drawer, and a Glock 22 rustled from within; with the sound of heavy metal hitting cheap wood walls. He pulled it out, checked the clip, and pointed it at the wall. Closing an eye and staring down the sight, he put his finger on the trigger. On a Glock 22, there is no safety. The gun will never fire from being dropped or thrown around, but if a finger finds its way around the trigger and pulls all the way back—the gun will fire.

  Niklas held the grip of the gun tight, resting his finger on the trigger, and with a dark life creeping in his eyes, his lips moved—leaving the sound of a firing gun coming from them.

  “Bitch,” he said next, placing the Glock back into the drawer. “At least gives me something to do, though.” He flicked on the TV in the corner of the room with the controller that rested on the unmade, scratchy sheets. Cracking his neck, he stood up, and putting his arms out before him, fell forward and began to do push-ups.

  On the screen was the local news in Korean. He didn’t seem to mind. The muscles on his arms glistened as the sweat slowly seeped through his skin. The grunting didn’t even start until he hit the high 80’s in his pushups, non-stop he made it to 100, and that was only his first set. Next was jumping knees. He wrapped his fingers around the Rambo-like knife that was in the corner of the room and did a dance with it. It was a hypnotic-like back and forth sway, with the knife’s blade shimmering out the back side of his hand. Swaying at the waist, and lowering himself into a low squat, his blue eyes focused like a cobra’s. Standing back up quickly, he threw the knife end over end at the far side of the room, to a two by four nailed to the wall. The knife stuck into it with a thunderous knock.

  Again, back to push-ups now, and the sweat reared its head again, all the while the sound of a fast-speaking Korean man and woman filled the room. He continued on like this for another twenty minutes. His normal routine lasted the better part of an hour and a half, but something interrupted him that drove red-hot anger through him. Niklas Wolf didn’t know Korean, but he’d been living in Seoul long enough to know a few words, and what he’d just heard made his eyes shoot toward the screen.

  His hands hung heavily at his sides, beads of sweat were streaking down his forehead, and his eyes were driven wide. He’d heard a name on the local news, and it wasn’t just any name. They weren’t talking about BitX, or Li Wei, or anyone else in the world he knew. No. It was his name.

  Standing like a hulking six foot three marine alone in his room, he was now looking up at his own face on the screen.

  “I’m going to kill you, Li,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’m going to get you for this you snake!”

  He, again, didn’t understand what they were saying on the screen, but he’d heard his name, seen his picture, and now with his face removed from the screen, he was left looking at an image of a young man with glasses and a black, pulled back ponytail with shaved sides. It was Joon Chang-Min. They were after him for Joon’s murder.

  Every police officer in the city would be looking for him now.

  “Traitors,” he said to himself. “There’s no way I left any trace. No fucking way.”

  Niklas grabbed the Glock and holster quickly and strapped it around his waist. Then he began to pack. He didn’t believe Li knew where he lived, but he wasn’t certain. Moving at a frantic pace, packing clothes and laptops, he went over to the hidden compartment in the kitchen. Kneeling, he popped it open with a click, and ran his fingers down his trophy case.

  But then something happened, feeling the expensive leather on his rough fingertips, the case called to him. It wasn’t so much the case spoke; it was more a feeling it was hollow. . . empty. It needed to be filled. The whole feeling ripped through him, leaving him feeling hollow himself. There was an emptiness inside that needed to be filled. For him to feel normal. . . satiated again. . . there had to be something to fill the void. He needed another victim, and with Li up in his high tower on display, especially with the fresh news that his security head had murdered his lead programmer, there had to be another. There had to be someone that was low key, someone that possibly no one even knew about. Someone. . . anonymous.

  Chapter Twenty

  “I’ll catch a ride,” Thomas said to Ron, who seemed eager to talk more about what Thomas was hoping to find but didn’t by his startled reaction that he wanted to go off on his own.

  “Sure.” Ron pulled at his jacket’s collar with both hands. “We’ll talk soon. You’re gonna get a taxi back to your hotel?”

  “I think so, I want to do a little thinking. . .
take a walk.”

  “All right,” Ron said with a forced smile. “I’ll check you later. If you need anything just holler.”

  “Thanks,” Thomas said, trying to keep his gaze on his liaison, and not feverishly scan the area for Freyja. Ron nodded and made his way back to his car.

  Thomas walked away from Ron’s direction, his eyes looking in a frenzy over the crowded downtown area. She said she’s here. She’s got to be close, but she’s probably just waiting for Ron to drive off.

  Thomas stopped at the corner of an intersection with a dozen others. The sounds of the city were full of life now. He heard the humming of the streetlight next to him, the beeping of the crosswalk signal, the sounds of people talking at a rapid pace in a foreign language, and he felt something on his arm—the caress of a young woman’s fingers. It was the soft whisper of skin brushing against the back of his hand. Then he caught her smell, an aroma of perfumy tobacco, and freshly shampooed hair.

  He turned toward the soft touch and met her eyes. She didn’t have shades on this time, and he had the strange sudden urge to apologize for not finding anything of value up in the condo.

  “You didn’t find anything,” she said, most hope leaving her green eyes, that went from bright emeralds to the color of a deep, dense forest.

  Thomas shook his head, not meeting her gaze. “And the police don’t have it either. Leaves us with two real possible scenarios. Either someone who's cracked the code took it already, or—”

  “The killer has it,” she intervened.

  “Let’s walk,” he said, gently brushing her arm. He remembered how tall she was as she walked next to him, her dull-black hair flowing behind her. He was probably twice her age, with no real attraction to her other than that he wanted to help her. She seemed intent on bringing down the bad guys on this one, and other than that he had absolutely no idea what she really thought of him. After all, he was a middle-aged man compared to her. But she was beautiful. . . a mystery to him. Although he wanted nothing sexual from their relationship, he could see the gentle, yet strong presence of this young woman. Perhaps after all this was done, maybe they could be friends.