Deal Gone Bad - A Thriller (Frank Morrison Thriller Series Book 1)

by Tony Wiley

  Morrison kept shaking his head.

  If First Collins Bank’s accounts, the day two target, ended up being tapped anyway, that meant somebody did get that information after all.

  How the hell did this happen? he thought. And who did it?

  Morrison had no clue as to how that could have happened. It just blew his mind. Right then, he didn’t have enough information to make any form of educated guess. But as for who had done it, the list of suspects was rather short.

  Apart from him, there had been four other partners in that deal: Mike, Tommy, Harris and Cowgirl.

  Morrison ran them one by one through his mind. Mike was the one who had forced him to investigate the failed deal in the first place. Mike had even judged the matter urgent enough to have two thugs pick him up at gunpoint straight out of prison, at the bus stop. This would’ve been an unbelievably foolish move by Mike if he’d had anything to do with the First Collins withdrawals. Like calling the cops to report himself. You could call Mike a lot of names, but foolish wasn’t one of them. So it couldn’t be him. By extension, it couldn’t be Tommy either because he had sided with Mike. If Tommy had had anything to do with First Collins, he certainly would’ve vetoed Mike’s audit plans. Those two were in regular contact. Morrison had to assume they were on the same page.

  So if it couldn’t be Mike or Tommy, then that only left Harris and Cowgirl.

  Morrison shook his head in disbelief.

  Harris. He had seemed really happy to see him, genuinely pleased to have a meal and talk shop with him. Of course, the trucking entrepreneur’s reassurances that he was scaling down his criminal activities hadn’t impressed him much. After all, Morrison had just stumbled upon Harris’s basic ATM-skimming deal. And that’s precisely what rattled Morrison’s cage: Harris’s ATM attack the previous night was so raw and basic. So unsophisticated. The complete opposite of the First Collins Bank deal. Three years before, if Harris had managed to pick up where Morrison had left off on the First Collins deal and grab the two million dollars—out of thin air as far as he was concerned because he had no idea how anyone was able to pull that off—then why would he resort to such lowly tactics now? For such a small payoff? It just didn’t make any sense. But that didn’t exclude him either. People did all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons.

  As for Cowgirl, well, he didn’t know what to make of her. She had told him she had just enjoyed three carefree years outside of the business. At the moment, he had believed her. She had appeared so relaxed. They had spent a couple of hours in bed together. Making love. Shooting the shit. If she had indeed robbed him blind three years ago, he couldn’t believe she’d be able to act so innocently.

  But three years without any form of substantial revenue was a long time, especially when you had stables and a few horses. Those beasts required constant care. House visits by the veterinarian, wages for the hired hands. The bills piled up quickly. Not even to mention the rest of her expenses. Earlier, they had each driven from Flanagan’s Bar to Cowgirl’s place in their own rides: Mike’s Navigator for him and a recent Mercedes E350 for her. Morrison wasn’t in on her personal finances, but if she was the one who had pocketed the First Collins Bank millions, then that could explain her insouciance.

  The shrill wail of an engine being worked really hard interrupted Morrison’s train of thought. It came from behind in a high-pitched fury. He wanted to crane his neck toward his door’s side-view mirror to see what it was about, but he didn’t even have the time to do it. A motorcycle caught up to him and passed in a flash. At a hundred and twenty miles an hour—at least. A lean, mean, fast-racing machine. Silver and red. The bike had passed by so fast that even though he knew a thing or two about them, Morrison couldn’t identify the brand let alone the model. A sudden jerk of the SUV immediately followed, but Morrison didn’t know if the motorcycle’s draft was responsible for this or if his vehicle’s movement was down to another sudden burst of wind.

  He shook his head. Crazy biker. Another young punk with too much testosterone. They were everywhere, especially during springtime. After a long winter, they got out in droves and used the roads as a racing track. The newspapers were full of their crashes.

  Morrison was about to return to his musings when a flurry of blue and red lights appeared in his peripheral vision. He gave a nod to his door’s side-view mirror. The motorcycle was not alone. A sheriff’s department patrol car was chasing it at full speed, increasingly filling his mirror. It was going fast but it lacked the zip of the nimble motorcycle. As it bore down on him, the patrol car switched on its siren. They were traveling on the two-lane country road south of Acton. Apart from them and the increasingly small red light of the motorcycle in front, he could see no other car. Still, Morrison pulled over to the shoulder to give way to the pursuer.

  He gave a nod to the car as it passed. The sheriff’s deputy was hard at work behind the wheel, all concentration and intense focus. Morrison didn’t know him. He had never seen him before. But his fight already seemed lost. The motorcycle was way ahead, a small red dot now barely visible in the distance. And Morrison suspected it still had some speed in reserve.

  He peered behind him. Nobody else was coming, so he brought the Navigator back to the center of his lane and settled on a nice even cruise.

  Soon, the patrol car itself disappeared down a long bend to the right. Morrison was now all alone on the road.

  He stretched and yawned in his seat. He cupped his right hand over his forehead to massage his temples. Where was he? Ah yes, the money from First Collins and his dear partners. Who the hell had put their filthy hands on it? That was the question. The two-million-dollar question—or more. Because there were other questions to ask. Three more, in fact. One for each of the three remaining banks. Yeah, those were big questions. And he hoped that Johnson and his sidekick would soon provide answers for them.

  After the long bend, he got to a straight flat section of the road. Out in the distance, he could see two sets of blue and red police lights. Two patrol cars, blinking but otherwise immobile.

  He squinted. Oh, shit. He knew right there that something terribly wrong had just happened.

  As he got closer, he saw that the cars were at a right angle to one another. The one perpendicular to the road was missing its left front beam light. Only the right one was piercing the night. As for the other patrol car, it was immobilized in the middle of the right lane but at a respectable distance from its sister car. Maybe two cars’ length.

  As he drew closer yet to the scene, he understood why.

  It looked like an airplane crash.

  Debris was strewn all over the place. Upon impact with the patrol car, the motorcycle had disintegrated into a myriad of small pieces.

  The sheriff’s deputy who had passed him minutes before stood on the pavement. He made big signs to tell him to slow down and skirt the wreckage on the left.

  Morrison complied. While he did so, he craned his neck to take in the scene, just like every other rubbernecker in the world.

  Silver and red fragments covered a radius of about fifteen feet in front of the car. None bigger than a pack of cigarettes. Morrison suspected there was more behind. A whole lot more. The patrol car itself had sustained a lot of damage. Its left front wheel had caved in under the force of the collision. The surrounding body panel and the hood had been ripped as if they were just giant pieces of aluminium foil. From the general shape of things, Morrison could tell that the motorcycle had veered slightly to the right before the impact. The rider must have flown far into the ditch, probably all the way to the stands of maple that began fifty feet away from the road.

  Instant death, certainly. A massive crash. Like he had rarely seen. If ever.

  Inside the patrol car, the shock must have been horrific. A motorcycle was not heavy. But the force of any impact was proportional to the square of its speed. When it had zoomed by, that bike had been north of one hundred twenty miles an hour. No wonder the driver appeared so stunned.


  She was still behind the wheel. Conscious but in a semicomatose-looking way. She stared at empty space in front of her.

  The last times Morrison had seen her, she had been the polar opposite.

  The previous day in person. Then earlier that day on the TV. She had been brash, animated and confident.

  But even in her shell-shocked state, her features remained intact. And easily recognizable.

  Those of Acton County Sheriff Claire Sanford.

  *

  Being head of IT security at Candela Bank was a big job. One of the top two or three in the whole organization. It meant that you worked long, stressful hours at the office. And that when you finally went home, you were never totally free. It was a 24/7 assignment, much like that of a priest or a family doctor in a small rural community. Your mobile phone could always ring. Important emails could always head your way. And you were expected to deal with them. 24/7. Throughout the whole year. Never a break in sight. Even during your vacations, you still had that virtual umbilical cord linking you to the office.

  Now, the job paid well. Enough to pay for a nice house in a quiet leafy suburb, fitted with all the trimmings. But the head of IT security at Candela Bank never dared to compute all his working hours. He suspected that if he did, the hourly rate wouldn’t be so impressive. But still, it was a choice he made and he rather liked the job anyway.

  As he did most Friday nights, he was binging on a couple of movies in a row in his basement home movie theater. When his mobile buzzed at close to midnight, he wasn’t surprised one bit, just slightly annoyed that he would have to pause the movie.

  The man grabbed his phone and looked at it. It was an email. An automated heads-up from Candela’s defense system telling him that somebody had just made queries on some accounts. He scrolled down the message. His eyes widened.

  Those accounts.

  The four hundred ones that had been hit three years before in a sophisticated ATM-skimming operation.

  The man stared at the message. That was a surprise. A real surprise. Ever since the hit, nothing further had happened concerning these accounts. Nobody had ever even looked at them again. Because if they had, he would’ve known. He would’ve received a similar email to the one he was now staring at.

  Shit. The man reflected on this for a while.

  Then he immediately forwarded the email with instructions to his employees on duty, asking them to investigate the matter further, to try to establish the possible provenance of these queries. Always a difficult endeavor. Skilled hackers knew how to cover their tracks. But you never knew. It could be the work of a less careful or skilled operative.

  His email sent, the man didn’t resume playing the movie. In fact, he completely forgot about it. Lost all interest.

  Now, he had a pressing phone call to make.

  But he couldn’t use his mobile or even his home phone.

  For this, he would have to use a public pay phone.

  Chapter 29

  After Morrison drove slowly past the crash scene, it took him ten minutes to reach Mike’s house. Up on that cleared plateau, the wind had picked up and was now blowing stronger than ever. The Navigator shook violently on its wheels. There was still no sign of rain, just damp air making its unruly way from the Deep South. Morrison pulled up alongside the little white BMW X3 parked in front of the garage. It was the only other car in the driveway. That meant Mike and his guys were still out there somewhere.

  Morrison got out of the SUV and walked into the big house, shot across the hallway and headed straight to the kitchen.

  The sight of that accident had shaken him. They said that the body had its own memory, different from the mind’s. He knew that was right. The sight of all that debris had conjured up bad ones that he had long forgotten. Right now, he really felt like having a drink. He pulled a cold bottle of lager from the fridge, cracked it open and took a long pull.

  In his youth, he had been one of these young punks who burned the road on their motorcycles. In his case, a Honda CBR 1000—a frighteningly powerful racing machine. He had bought it at eighteen with the proceeds of one of his first successful operations. His best buddy had bought the same, and together they had spent the better part of a summer crisscrossing the country roads of the Northeast at breakneck speeds, as though they were Grand Prix drivers. The world was a good place for them at the time. They were young, they had just made serious money together and they didn’t have to hold on to steady jobs like most of the others did. So they had enjoyed their bikes thoroughly. Until one late August afternoon when they were racing down Crawford Notch Road toward Glen in New Hampshire. A moose had emerged from the forest. In a swift show of reflexes, Morrison had pushed hard on the left handle, making his Honda lean aggressively, barely missing the animal. Unfortunately, his buddy had had no such luck. He had been riding to his right, and he smashed head on into the moose, killing himself and the animal on the spot. Morrison could still hear the enormous thump, like some gigantic blow into a punching bag. After that accident, his taste for motorcycles had vanished and he had stuck to cars ever since.

  Morrison thought back to the accident he had just seen. Sheriff Sanford had been very lucky. If the bike had hit her car three feet further to the right, she would’ve vaporized. Morrison took another swig. He wondered how the accident had happened. Judging from her position, Sanford had emerged from the mouth of a dirt road in her patrol car. Had she, upon the arrival of the motorcycle, suddenly lurched forward to block its path? Or had she already positioned her car there before the bike stormed in at full speed? And what about the wind? Had it played some part in that horrific crash? Had a sudden gust pushed the biker into the patrol car as it was attempting to skirt it?

  While he reflected on these items, Morrison heard careful muted steps behind him. He turned around. They came from the staircase leading down into the kitchen. It was Laura making her way down the last few steps. She was wearing a white nightgown. Her hair was slightly disheveled. And her eyes were still full of worry.

  “I’m sorry,” Morrison said. “I didn’t want to wake you up.”

  The woman flashed a brief smile.

  “Oh, you didn’t,” she said. “I just put my girl back to sleep.” She nodded toward the fridge. “I wanted to drink something before I went back to bed.”

  Morrison nodded. “Kid has trouble sleeping?”

  Laura pulled a carton of skim milk from the fridge and poured herself a small glass. Then she looked at him and said, “She’s already woken up twice tonight. It’s the wind. Makes the windows rattle. It scares her.”

  From the look on her face, Morrison would have guessed it scared her too. He took another pull of beer. She didn’t touch her glass. Didn’t drink any of it. Not a drop.

  They lapsed into silence. Her presence there was no accident. Somehow, she had wanted to talk with him, but she didn’t seem to know where to begin. Morrison finished off his bottle and clicked it on the counter. That seemed to prompt her into saying something.

  “You’ve been with a woman, right?” she said.

  Morrison frowned. “Yeah,” he said.

  “I could tell. There’s a hint of perfume around you. Kind of intimate.”

  “You really have a sharp nose. Mike better be careful.”

  She flashed a brief smile but turned serious again. “Does that mean you weren’t with Mike and his guys today?”

  “That’s right. I’ve been to a friend’s place.”

  She nodded. Stayed silent. Still didn’t touch her glass of milk. She was not forthcoming at all. Her eyes avoided his. She stared at the floor tiles with a tense expression on her face. Morrison felt that Mike’s brusqueness was probably responsible for this. Made her keep a tight lid on whatever she felt. Morrison was sorry for her. She was obviously not in a happy place.

  “I hear you don’t carry a gun?” she said.

  Morrison squinted. “Did Mike tell you that?”

  “No. Well, not directly. I kind of overhea
rd it.”

  She was so nervous. She was biting the inside of her cheek.

  “That’s true,” he said. “I’ve got no time for guns. Or for weapons of any kind.”

  She seemed relieved. “So you’re not really like them, then,” she said. “Not like that crazy blond maniac.”

  Morrison frowned. “Has he been bad to you?”

  “Not to me.”

  “To your daughter?”

  She shook her head. “No, Mike would kill him on the spot if he ever laid his hand on her.”

  “Then what?”

  She squirmed. “Not too long ago, there was a guy—” She interrupted herself and sighed. Shook her head again. “It was horrible.”

  “It’s all right,” Morrison said, “take your time.”

  The poor woman struggled. Like she hadn’t confided in anyone in a long time. Like she had lost that essential faith in others that you needed to open up. Morrison tried to help her as best he could, but this wasn’t familiar territory to him. He said, “So there was a guy …”

  She took a deep breath, raised her head and mustered the courage to follow his lead.

  “Yeah. A young guy. Early twenties, I guess. They brought him here two weeks ago.” She hesitated. “Well, not in here.” She tilted her head toward the front of the house. “Out there in the shed, next to the garage.”

  Morrison nodded. He knew what that meant.

  “They locked me in there too yesterday,” he said, “for a couple of hours.”

  “Well, that was the first time they did this. Mike had just had the shed built. I kept asking why he was bothering with it since there’s plenty of room in the garage, but he kept telling me to mind my own business. They locked the young guy in there. It looks like a regular shed but in reality, it’s a prison. Nothing less than a prison.”

  “Did you see Mike bring him here?”

  “No. The guy was already locked up in there one afternoon when I came back from town. It was a big shock. Mike hadn’t told me anything. When I got out of my car, I heard the guy banging on the door. Banging on the door real hard, pleading for help. My … my daughter heard him too. She asked me what was wrong and I quickly ran inside with her. Even left all my stuff in the car. I was terrified. Totally terrified.”