Shell Game

by Jeff Buick

  Two hundred and sixty-four million dollars.

  He leaned forward, keying furiously. Seconds now and the window would close. Then the user requesting the withdrawal would have to speak with someone at the bank. He initiated an electronic withdrawal form and typed in the necessary account information. It asked for his password, and he entered the twelve-digit code. The cursor jumped down to the line asking what amount to withdraw. With shaking hands he entered two hundred and sixty-three million dollars. He hit Enter.

  Nothing happened for about two seconds, and then a prompt came on the screen. Destination. Kelly could hardly breathe as he typed in the numbers to start an electronic transfer that would send the money bouncing off eight satellites and in and out of thirty banks in as many countries. Every time it hit a destination, that bank’s security software would throw up a firewall for anyone trying to trace it. Moving the money through the satellites disguised where it was going. The satellites were just about untraceable.

  He touched the enter key and stopped breathing.

  Seconds passed. The machine beeped. The money had been transferred. He let out a whoop and killed the programs. Then he opened a direct link to Taylor’s account in the Bahamas—the ultimate resting place for the funds. The balance read twenty-three thousand dollars. He stared at the screen. What the hell was going on? Where was the money? He keyed in a request for recent transactions. There were two. A deposit of two hundred and sixty-three million dollars, then a debit for exactly the same amount. Both transactions were within the last two minutes.

  “Christ Almighty,” he yelled at the screen. “No, no, no.”

  Edward Brand must have had some sort of program in place to immediately retrace the steps and redeposit the money unless the transaction were verified. Kelly grabbed his head in his hands for a second, then moved back two screens and tried to reactivate the initial transfer out of Brand’s account. A note popped up on the screen that any debits would have to be cleared through the bank by calling a banking representative.

  “Oh, my God,” he said, leaning back in the chair. “Oh, guys, I am so sorry.”

  The only explanation was that the money was back in Brand’s account. They had failed. And right now, thousands of miles to the south, a deadly game was being played out on the top of a rugged Mexican mountain.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Alan Bestwick asked as he approached the group. His gaze was firmly fixed on Ricardo Allende.

  Brand glanced between the two men. “You know him?” he asked Alan.

  “From Mexico City. He drove me around one night. Remember?” Alan asked Ricardo, now only inches separating the two.

  The pistol appeared in Brand’s hand, and he flipped off the safety with the fluid motion that only comes when the user knows the weapon well. Carlos backed off, the Smith & Wesson out of his waistband, and covered the group from a few yards away.

  “What’s going on, Ricardo? You and your little friend here trying to pull a scam of some sort?” Brand asked quietly.

  “I met this guy one night. So what?” Ricardo said, faking bravado. Tough to do with a pistol aimed at his chest. “I drove him about the city. I haven’t seen him since.”

  “You trying to say this is a coincidence?” Brand said. “I don’t think so.”

  Silence engulfed the group. Brand backed off a few feet and watched both Alan and Ricardo. A slight breeze stirred the air and rustled the leaves on the few scraggly plants bordering the road. The moonlight played off the men’s faces, casting shadows on their eye sockets and masking the fear and the hate. Edward Brand didn’t need to see Ricardo’s eyes to know. Ricardo was in on the scam. He and Adolfo had five hundred thousand dollars of his money. Brand toyed with the idea of killing Ricardo on the spot, but the shots would only attract the guards. He made a motion toward the road leading away from the ruins.

  “Move,” he said. “Down the road.”

  “This isn’t right,” Ricardo said.

  “You’ve got that right, you fucking moron,” Brand spat. When he spoke it was with emphasis on every word. “Get moving or I’ll kill you. Both of you.” He waved the gun at Adolfo.

  As they started to move, a shout cut through the night air. The language was Spanish and even without Spanish as a native tongue, it was clear who it was and what they wanted. The guards had returned and were standing on the rocks yelling at them to stop. Carlos spun and yelled back, trying to encourage them to get back to work and leave well enough alone. The two uniformed men started down the hill, their guns still holstered.

  “Oh, for God’s sake. Is everything going to fuck up tonight?” Brand yelled, spinning about and leveling the gun at the guards. He pulled the trigger, and five shots barked out. Two hit their target, and one of the guards grabbed at his stomach and fell, rolling down the hill, bouncing off the rocks. The second guard pulled his gun and returned fire, then dove behind the nearest rock. The bullets churned up the dirt at their feet, and one caught Carlos in the calf. He took two steps and crashed to the ground, writhing in pain. Ricardo pounced on him and grabbed his right arm, trying to wrestle the gun from his grip. Brand turned and leveled the gun at Ricardo’s head.

  “You fucker,” he said. “Try to rip me off, will you?” He pulled the trigger.

  Ricardo had grown up street smart and street wise. One thing he knew was when someone was pointing a gun at you, get something or someone between you and the gun. Fast. He wrenched on Carlos’s left arm, taking the man by surprise as he was protecting the gun in his right hand. Carlos rolled from the force, right into the path of the bullet. It ripped through his right shoulder, the trajectory and power of the pistol driving the bullet through his lung before lodging in his chest cavity. He shuddered from the impact and blood poured from his gaping mouth. Brand tried to find a target but Ricardo had pulled Carlos on top of him, giving the man nothing to shoot at.

  Adolfo was running down the road, and Brand swung about and fired two quick shots after him. Adolfo stumbled and fell, clutching his side. Brand turned back to the scene just a few yards from his feet. Three shots, fired in rapid succession, whizzed by, just missing Brand. He ducked and dove for the edge of the road, training his gun on the approaching guard. Two shots smacked into the rocks close to the guard, who dropped to the ground, his gun in front of him. He fired another two shots before the hammer clicked on an empty chamber, one of the bullets ricocheting off the rock Brand was hiding behind and showering him with razor-sharp shards of stone. He grimaced in pain.

  That wasn’t the worst damage from the last two shots. Alan Bestwick, running to the same side of the road as Brand, had taken one bullet in the neck. He was sprawled on the dusty road, clutching at the wound. Blood spurted out, leaving strange mottled patterns on the dirt. His hands slowly stopped grabbing at his neck, and his body went stiff.

  Edward Brand leapt up from behind the rock and ran toward where the guard was hunkered down behind a large boulder reloading his gun. He had just finished reloading when Brand rounded the edge of the rock, and pumped three bullets into his chest. The impact knocked the guard over the rock, and he hit two more on the down slope before falling in a crumpled heap. Brand shot him once more in the head as he walked past.

  “Asshole,” he said, looking down the road for Adolfo and Ricardo. He saw them, about two hundred yards along. Ricardo had his arm around the older man’s torso and was helping him. They were almost at the Jeep, parked facing down the road. Brand started to run, a fast jog at first, then an all-out sprint as he realized they were at the vehicle. When he was about sixty yards away, the lights came on and the Jeep lurched onto the road. He stopped and took careful aim, firing twice before the magazine was empty. He flipped it out and jammed in the replacement. He raised the gun and then slowly lowered it. The Jeep had rounded a corner.

  Brand turned and surveyed the carnage. Alan and Carlos were both dead. He had lost a half million dollars. The bastards who had scammed him had gott
en away. He stood on the road, the pistol by his side, the half moon reflecting a strangely luminescent light on the scene. It seemed almost surreal. He sat on a rock, his mind alive with the irony.

  So many times he had taken people’s money. Some of those times it had turned ugly. People had died trying to protect what they owned. Until tonight it had always been them, never him. He didn’t like being on this end of things. He sat in the silence for a few minutes, then retrieved the car keys from Carlos’s pocket and returned to the car. He had to get out of Oaxaca before the Mexican police discovered the two dead guards. They wouldn’t give two shits about Alan or Carlos, but the guards would have them searching every house and stable inside a hundred miles.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  Everything had gone so wrong.

  Kelly Kramer sat in his living room, soft piano playing on his stereo, the Boettger acoustics perfect as always. The mug of tea was warm on his hands. He stared at the time. Ten-fourteen in the morning. Nine days since the snafu at Monte Alban. Nine days of wondering how the wheels had come off so badly.

  Ricardo had phoned him once, to give him a cell phone number where he could be contacted. That was his only link to the events of that dark night. It had come three days after the slaughter atop the mountain—the call originating in Villahermosa, an oil-producing city set in the swamps and banana groves of southern Mexico. He and Adolfo were on the run, laying low. They spent one night in Minatitlan, but the city was too small. Eventually word would get around that two men had shown up early on the morning of January 3, one with a bullet wound. That would be an invitation for Edward Brand to come sniffing about.

  Kelly sipped his tea. Ricardo had taken a couple of minutes to fill him in on what had happened. He and Adolfo sold Brand on the treasure and Brand made the call. Then, when they were getting ready to leave, Alan Bestwick showed up. That’s when everything went from good to horrible. He described the gunplay—Alan and Carlos both killed on the dusty road, the guards’ bodies splayed on the rocks, dead from bullets fired from Brand’s gun. Then their run for freedom. The two bullets crashing through the rear of the Jeep and smashing the windshield only inches from his head. The terrifying drive down the road and the difficulty in finding a doctor to treat Adolfo’s wound.

  “What about Taylor?” Kelly had asked.

  Ricardo didn’t know. Taylor lit the fire exactly on cue at midnight. From that point on there was no indication she was anywhere on the mountain. Which was Kelly’s fear. Taylor had slipped while navigating her way along the treacherous west side of Monte Alban. One misplaced footstep in the jumble of rocks, and she would have fallen to her death. And the mountainside was so rugged that it could be months or years before a local, scavenging for firewood, would find her body. By then she would be just a skeleton, the bones bleached white by the tropical sun.

  The last thing Ricardo had asked was about the money. “Did you get it?” he had asked, his voice eager.

  Kelly explained the transfer back of the money. That, to the best of his knowledge, Edward Brand had managed to reroute the funds back to his account. There was nothing to split. It was too dangerous to touch the five hundred thousand dollars. It had been sent directly to an account in the Caribbean, and Brand’s bank would be able to trace that in ten minutes. Brand would be watching. Any attempt to get money from that account would only result in Edward Brand at your doorstep in record time.

  Ricardo had repeated his cell number in case something changed, then hung up. Kelly had gone back to work at the National Security Agency. It was business as usual. No one had noticed the quick blip of computer time he had borrowed to track the money. No one was the wiser. Nothing had really changed, except for the five people who had lost their lives. He felt some remorse at the thought of two Mexican police officers being gunned down while simply doing their jobs. He felt nothing but loathing for Carlos and Alan. Every time he thought of Taylor, trying so desperately to get back to the north end of the ruins, falling to her death on the sharp rocks, he felt a wave of sadness and despair.

  He finished his tea and took the empty cup to the kitchen, rinsed it out and dried it. He had worked late the night before, and no one expected him in before noon. He switched the stereo over to his favorite FM station and caught the weather forecast. Seven degrees and snowing. He shrugged into his coat, slipped on his boots and opened the front door. A blast of cold air hit him, stinging his lungs as he breathed. The tip of an envelope stuck out of his mailbox, and he opened the flap and dug out the mail. He went to throw it on the stairs, then stopped. One piece caught his attention. He closed the door, the wind and snow trapped outside.

  Kelly set a handful of mail on the stairs and held the one of interest in his hand. His name was handwritten in scrawling text and the postmark was from Vienna, Austria. He knew the handwriting—he had seen it many times while at G-cubed. There was no return address. He took off his boots and coat and returned to the living room where the light from the front window was strong. He sat on the sofa and fingered the envelope for a minute before opening it. He suspected he knew who had sent it.

  Please God, let it be her.

  He ripped open the end of the envelope and pulled the single sheet of paper from inside. With trembling hands he unfolded it. There was very little printing on the page, but what was there was of incredible value.

  Kelly,

  Sometimes life can be a little twisted. Things not always what they seem. Kind of like those street performers who put a peanut under one of three shells, then mix them up and have you guess which one is hiding the peanut. They always make one move you don’t see. That’s why you can never guess which shell it’s under. Maybe that’s why they call a con like this a . Hope you understand.

  There are three account numbers on this page. The one marked 10M is yours. 5M is for Ricardo. 500K is for Adolfo.

  A good rate of pay for a night’s work.

  Sorry about the transfer out. Should have warned you I’d be doing that.

  Thanks for all your help.

  Taylor

  Kelly held the single sheet of paper in his hand, a slow grin creeping over his face. Taylor had set up Edward Brand. It was not at all the way it appeared. Brand had never held the aces in his hand. Taylor had perpetuated one of the largest frauds he had seen, and he had been witness to some pretty brazen schemes. And she had done it with total anonymity. To this day, Brand didn’t know she was the one who stole his money. How could he? She had left no clues.

  Taylor was alive. And she had the money. Two hundred and sixty-three million dollars. And ten million dollars was sitting in an offshore account—with his name on it. Five million for Ricardo. A half million for Adolfo.

  Taylor had done it. Taken a con man for everything he was worth. And survived.

  He walked to the kitchen, found the scrap of paper and reached for the phone. He dialed a long-distance number. When the voice answered, he said, “Ricardo, it’s Kelly. I’ve got some good news for you.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  The Caribbean sun was wonderfully strong. She glanced down at her arm and poked it with her index finger. A tinge of white showed, like a dot on a piece of colored paper. Time to get out of the sun. But finally, for the first time in her life, she was tanning. Red hair was nice, but the pasty white skin that went with it was a pain in the ass in a tropical climate. Taylor retreated to the giant palapa next to the pool and poured a glass of lemonade. She sat in one of the wicker chairs and stared out over the teal waters of the Caribbean.

  What a ride. The last three and a half years had been everything she expected. And more. With the exception of Alan’s death, she couldn’t have scripted a better ending. No, there was nothing else she would change. And that was saying something, considering the whole thing had started so innocently so long ago. She let her mind drift back.

  Alan Bestwick had tried to pick her up in a bar while she was having drinks with a few of her staff after work one night, but she had shut him d
own on the spot. A week later he reappeared in a more appropriate setting—one of her favorite restaurants. He stopped by the table, talked for a while, then left. With her phone number. He had called—and they started dating. And that led to them getting married. All pretty simple, but for one thing.

  Taylor had known from minute one what Alan Bestwick was doing. She checked his name in the Alumni records at Stanford—his Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering was a fake. Then she paid a local private investigator to dig up the facts on exactly who Alan Bestwick really was. And what she had found was more than a little interesting. Alan Bestwick’s real name was Francois Vallencoure, an American with strong ties to France. And he was joined at the hip with a man named Robert Zindler—a very successful con man who went by numerous aliases. In this case, with the NewPro scam, he had chosen Edward Brand.

  Taylor knew from the start what they were after. Her money. And from that moment on, she was a lioness on the hunt. She called in a favor and had G-cubed grossly overvalued. Its actual dollar value on the market was less than six million. But Alan and Brand would never have bitten if that were all she was worth. So she played the game, knowing all the while that her turn would come.

  Kelly Kramer was her ace in the hole. When she interviewed him, his résumé was convincing, almost too perfect. She contacted his previous employer and received a glowing reference. The little things were setting off warning lights, and she looked deeper. She had a private investigator check the company on his résumé, and after considerable digging about, he discovered it was a front for the American government. A department of the country’s security forces designed to give references to previous employees of the CIA and NSA. She knew she had an in to one of the agencies. She didn’t care which. She hired Kelly on the spot.