Shell Game

by Jeff Buick

  “How did it go?” he asked.

  “They took it okay,” Taylor said. “They’re glad no one is getting laid off.” She smiled at Morel and checked her watch. Five to twelve. “Good morning, Detective.”

  “Ms. Simons,” he said, rising.

  She waved him back into his chair and sat down at the table. “Please call me Taylor.”

  “Sam,” he said.

  Alan rejoined them at the table. “Sam was just going over the latest news from the FBI and the DA’s office.”

  “We appreciate you taking the time to keep us up to date,” Taylor said.

  Morel nodded, then cleared his throat. “I was telling Alan that the FBI has identified eight centers Brand and his colleagues targeted. The operation in San Francisco was one of the eight.”

  “The others were all in major cities?” Taylor asked.

  “Yes. New York, Dallas, Denver and the like. Nothing under a million people and all cities with vibrant economies. The sting was the same in each city. They used the NewPro name, told people that they would be revitalizing old products and gave each investor a copy of the false prospectus. From what we can gather so far, they ripped off about two hundred million dollars.”

  “So it’s not just us,” Alan said. “There are lots of people out there in the same predicament we’re in.”

  Sam nodded. “I have a list of the victims. Some can easily afford the loss, others were hit very hard. Brand didn’t care. He took whatever money he could get his hands on. Hawkins gave me a detailed report on NewPro’s accounting. Once they had the corporate accounts set up they established lines of credit with suppliers and pushed most of those dates to September fifteenth. Then they packed up a week before that and skipped out on the payments. Some of their suppliers wouldn’t extend the dates that far and all those companies were paid up to date.”

  “How much money did they invest in this?” Alan asked. “I mean, setting something like this up isn’t cheap.”

  “No, it’s not. The FBI tally on what Brand’s crew paid out is somewhere around eight million dollars. That includes paying their office staff, who had absolutely no idea what was going on and covering up-front costs like the two hundred thousand they paid to G-cubed for your initial setup fees on the advertising campaign. They were well financed. And that’s got Hawkins and his guys thinking that maybe these guys have done this before. They’re looking in their history databases for similar scams.” Morel brightened for a moment. “There’s one thing that might be helpful,” he said. “The FBI office in New York might have something.”

  “What?” Taylor asked, sitting forward in her chair.

  “Don’t know. Hawkins said they had a source that was feeding them information, but he wouldn’t elaborate.”

  “I’ll keep my fingers crossed,” Taylor said. “We need some sort of a break.” Alan grasped her hand.

  “We’ve finished interviewing the staff who were working at NewPro,” he said. “We did it jointly with the FBI, and we’ve identified two other men beside Edward Brand who were involved. The rest of the staff look to be innocent dupes.”

  “Who are the other two?” Alan asked.

  “Ben Wright and Roger Tate. Do you know them?”

  Alan and Taylor both nodded. “Wright was VP—Western Region Sales, and Tate was the financial guy. Brand introduced him as a Certified Public Accountant.”

  “Well, we’ve accounted for everyone but them. They’re ghosts, like Brand. No one living at their addresses, no mail, no trace of either man. We suspect they kept an address just for show, but that all three were living together somewhere else. Where, we have no idea.”

  “So the entire office, with the exception of these three guys, all thought NewPro was a legitimate business,” Taylor said.

  “It appears that way.” Morel sipped his coffee and continued. “Fraud, or white-collar crime or whatever you want to call it, is out of control. The FBI has an entire division, the White-Collar Crime Investigation Team, set up to monitor fraud and money laundering through the Caribbean. It’s not just drug money flowing through the Bahamas and the Caymans and all the other Islands. More and more it’s money from fraud that’s being deposited into the banks. Since it’s not drug money, the bankers are more accommodating on stretching or breaking the rules.”

  “Why don’t they stop it?” Alan asked. “We’ve got the Securities and Exchange Commission regulating publicly traded stocks. Why can’t something be done to control private corporations?”

  Morel shook his head. “Computers changed everything. It used to be that in order to pass a bad check, a fraud artist would have to physically move into an address, search the public records for someone about his or her age who had died, assume the identity by ordering a birth certificate and get a driver’s license once the proof of birth arrived in the mail. Then they would go to the bank, open an account and order checks with their address on them. They’d wait for the checks to be printed and mailed out, then they’d go on a spending spree. Now, with computers and the Internet, they simply place an order with a firm that prints checks and have them sent to a P.O. box. Turnaround time is less than a week, and they don’t need an address. I don’t know if any of you saw the movie Catch Me If You Can, with Leonardo DiCaprio, but one of the scams they showed in the movie still works just fine. Say someone wants to write a bunch of bad checks in New York State. They take the checks and modify one number on the routing numbers the banks use to designate the Federal Reserve Bank in that region. By changing two to twelve on the routing number, the checks are sent to Hawaii for processing rather than New York. That buys them another two weeks. When the checks finally start to come back to the bank, they’ve scammed thousands and thousands of dollars from merchants and the bank and have moved on to the next set of checks they ordered. The losses to the banks are in the hundreds of millions of dollars. That’s just checks. There are hundreds of other frauds going on out there every day. We’re talking billions of dollars in fraud every year. Yet for some reason, everyone seems to think this is acceptable. It’s all Greek to me.”

  “How do you catch them?” Alan asked.

  Morel shrugged. “Usually we don’t. The criminal has to make a mistake to get caught. If they’re smart about what they’re doing, keep moving and don’t get too greedy, they get away with it. In fact, most of the small ones just get written off. It’s the big ones, like this, that get the attention.”

  “That’s not good news,” Taylor said.

  Morel finished his coffee and set the mug on the table. “We might have a line on some of the computers they used. And sometimes there is still usable information on the drives. Sometimes. Usually they wipe the drives clean by writing a series of zeroes over the data.”

  Taylor nodded. “Kelly told me about that,” she said. Both men looked at her. “Kelly Kramer, he’s my computer specialist at G-cubed. Well, was my computer specialist. He took some kind of Master’s program in some sort of high-technology crime investigation from some college in Arlington.”

  “He’s working for an advertising firm?” Morel asked. “What’s with that?”

  “He was involved with some woman, and she wanted to move to San Francisco. When he followed her out here, he needed a job. I was the first one to make him an offer. He’s great with computers and CAD, and he loved the job. So he stayed.”

  Morel scratched his head thoughtfully. Jamie was an asset when it came to dredging information off a wiped hard drive, but Jamie wasn’t always reliable. There were times when he was AWOL. It would be wise to keep Taylor Simons’s computer specialist as a backup. “Maybe we could use him,” Sam said. “We’re run off our feet just trying to keep up with all the fraud that’s happening. We’ve got a hiring freeze on. It’s all about money these days. Anyway, one of my sources has a line on a batch of computers that just came on the resale market. I’m meeting with him later today.”

  Alan managed a slight smile. “Well, good luck. Any news these days is good news. I
t’s been over a week since they took off with our money. I don’t imagine the trail gets any warmer with time.”

  “No. It’s not like a murder investigation where time is often crucial, but the longer Brand and his crew have to settle in somewhere, the worse it is for us.”

  “If the trail goes cold . . .” Taylor let the sentence die off. She didn’t have to finish. The money had disappeared into a black hole, and that hole was closing.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Alicia Walker glanced over her shoulder. Two men were about eighty feet behind her and matching her pace. She ducked into an alley and sprinted fifty feet to an overflowing Dumpster, crouching low in the shadows. She could feel the pressure of the government-issue Glock pistol against her back. It felt good.

  The two men walked past the alley entrance without a glance. She waited a few minutes, then moved through the garbage-strewn lane back to the street. It was dark, the only light coming from a streetlamp halfway down the block. She looked both directions, her eyes taking in every detail. The street front was lined with retail shops: a butcher, a bookseller, a tailor and a small deli stood on the far side of road. Her eyes saw into every doorway, every shadow, every niche. Nothing. She ventured out from the alley until she could see into the recessed doorways on her side of the street. There was no sign of the men. She resumed walking north on the street, her senses on high alert.

  Some people would call her actions paranoia. She called it common sense. And not just because she lived in New York.

  Alicia Walker was undercover FBI, working in the corporate fraud division. She was trained to notice the small details and to recognize and eliminate danger before it eliminated her. Six years with the Bureau and so far she had managed to sidestep the violence that so often plagued undercover work. She had pulled her weapon three times, but had never fired. That was something she was extremely proud of. Most of her working days were spent in posh offices with white-collar criminals, amassing enough evidence for the boys from the J. Edgar Hoover Building to swoop in and arrest the major players before they could pull their scam and close up shop. She had been successful many times, but this one hadn’t gone well. Not that it was really her fault; she had come in at the last moment, too late to stop the con from going down.

  Six weeks ago, Alicia had met Tony Stevens at a SoHo art gallery featuring a new Manhattan artist. He was attractive and charming, and from minute one she had suspected he was involved in some sort of con. The signs were all there. He was more than willing to talk about himself, but reluctant to reveal too much about NewPro, even though she showed a real interest in his company. She didn’t push too hard, but spent some time going over the company’s SEC application. Bells started to go off immediately. She dug deeper and after two weeks was convinced that Tony Stevens and his cronies were not interested in going public, but were setting up their victims for a big crash. She kept in touch with him, as a new friend, not a business associate. He revealed precious little to her, but with the scraps she managed to pry loose, she was positive NewPro was a scam.

  Twelve days ago her suspicions had proved correct. Overnight, NewPro had vanished. The front doors were locked and the offices inside stripped bare. Any paper trail at the New Jersey manufacturing plant was gone, and the key players, including Tony Stevens, had disappeared. With them, they took almost ten million dollars of their investors’ money. She was disappointed but not surprised; she knew the scam was wrapping up when she got involved. Another week, maybe two, she might have had enough on Tony Stevens to get a positive ID. From things he had said, she suspected he was from Stockholm, but she had no idea what his real name was. The FBI and Interpol computers had no record of anyone matching his description, and that worried her more than anything else. Usually by the time a con artist was scamming his victims for ten million dollars, he was in a criminal database somewhere. But not Tony Stevens. This meant whoever was running the operation was bringing in partners with no prior arrest records. That made them tough, if not impossible, to find.

  Alicia reached her apartment on West Twentieth Street in Chelsea. It was a typical New York brownstone walkup, with eight steps leading from the street to the landing. She checked the street, then let herself in, locked the door behind her and headed straight for the bathroom. She filled the bathtub and lowered herself into the steaming water after securing her gun in a small cavity next to the tub and hidden by the shower curtain. The warmth felt good, even though it was a mild mid-September evening. She let her mind drift back to Tony Stevens and NewPro.

  Even though the con hadn’t taken her by surprise, the size of the scam had. Including the other cities they had targeted, the take was more than two hundred million. That number was huge. The Bureau was treating the case with the attention it deserved. District offices in every city where Stevens and his accomplices had been active had agents working the scene and trying to identify the players. To date, they had very little. The best penetration into the group was her attachment to the New York chapter. Although Tony Stevens had been tight-lipped, he had inadvertently given them something to work with. Tony had talked about a luxury boat he owned and kept moored in the Bahamas. She wasn’t sure where exactly, but he had spoken a couple of times of Freeport and Port Lucaya on Grand Bahama Island. The boys stationed in the Caribbean were running the registered owners of every boat over thirty-five feet, trying to find a connection back to the mainland. It was a long shot, but the best they had right now. The phone logs and utility accounts had netted them exactly nothing. Tony Stevens was no fool. He had been extremely careful to leave no clues.

  Alicia pulled the plug and stepped out of the bath. She toweled off and rubbed on some body cream. A full-length mirror was affixed to the back of the bathroom door, and she stood staring at her reflection for a few moments. She was twenty-nine and in prime physical condition. There was no tummy or weight on her hips and no fat on her legs or arms. Her body was lean, her B-cup breasts just the right size for her chest. She had dark hair that fell just past her shoulders and a face that was attractive, but not beautiful. She could turn some heads when she put on makeup, but if she really wanted to get noticed, she just needed to dress in Spandex. She never did.

  Alicia slipped into her bathrobe and headed for the kitchen. Tuesday night and no date. No friends calling on the phone to have coffee. Nobody wanting to spend time with her. Such was the life of an FBI agent. All the glamour of getting to carry a gun to work, none of the James Bond love life. But tomorrow was a new day, and her boss had hinted he may have another assignment. Time to go undercover again. No truths, all lies. Never let anyone close. Never let your guard down. Never.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Alan Bestwick pulled up in front of the old Victorian and left the motor running. He stared at the for sale sign and took a couple of deep breaths. This just kept getting better. The U2 song finished on the radio, and he switched off the ignition. He locked the five-year-old Mazda and made his way slowly to the front door.

  Inside the house was dark, the curtains and blinds drawn, cutting off the afternoon sunlight. He slipped off his shoes and walked silently in his sock feet through the house to the kitchen. Taylor was sitting on the window bench in the bay that overlooked the tiny backyard. A closed hardcover book rested in her lap. She was staring into the yard as he entered. She glanced up, then looked at the clock.

  “You’re early,” she said.

  He sat beside her and put his hands on her knees, which she tucked up to her chest so he could sit. “Gus is shutting down the company,” he said. “I’m laid off, effective immediately.” Angus Strang owned the corporate security company he worked for.

  Taylor stared at him. “What?” she said, her voice a whisper. “When did this happen?”

  Alan swallowed. “Gus has been talking about retiring for about a year now. He decided that this was as good a time as any.”

  “But the timing . . .”

  “He apologized. He feels really bad about it, but if he doe
sn’t shut operations down now while we’re between jobs and he takes on another big contract, it could be a couple of years before the opportunity comes up again. He wanted to come and talk to you personally, but I told him it was okay.”

  She nodded but didn’t say anything.

  “He paid me out for the rest of September and cut a severance check as well.”

  “How much?” she asked, not believing she actually said that.

  “Fifty thousand.”

  “That was nice of him.”

  “It’ll help.”

  She looked out the window again. “There’s a showing this evening. The Realtor says the people who are interested are serious buyers. They’ve looked at a few houses in the area, but he thinks this could be the one. If the house has to sell, let’s hope nice people buy it.” She forced an upbeat tone into her voice. “It’s a wonderful house, Alan.”

  He held her as she cried, feeling her body tremble. She was a strong woman, but even strong people had their limits. She had worked so hard for so many years to build G-cubed, and then to lose it overnight had been devastating. The house was equally as stressful. He knew Taylor was a nester, not a wanderer. She needed roots, and without that anchor she was a lost soul.

  For ten minutes they sat silently on the window bench, just holding each other. Finally, she said, “I’m going to lie down for a while.”

  “Okay.” He kissed her forehead.

  Taylor forced herself to walk down the center of the swaying hallway. Her equilibrium had been getting worse in the last week or so, probably a combination of low blood pressure and an iron deficiency. She’d always had problems with low blood pressure and had had a few instances of light headedness, but nothing like this. The bouts were almost constant now, and she was having trouble functioning. She didn’t want to alarm Alan and had seen the doctor without telling him. Her doctor had prescribed iron supplements and told her to rest. She was trying to do as she was told, but her rebellious nature kicked in and she often missed her pills.