Secretive

by Sara Rosett

“We’d better stick with the café. It will be the cheapest, and we need to keep as much of our cash as possible.”

  “Fine. Sandwiches it is.” They made their way to the café and ordered sandwiches and drinks, which they ate as they stood at the tall tables in the café area. “Did you see anyone...who looked familiar as we passed through the carriages?”

  “No,” Jack said. “You?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  They ate in silence as London slipped away and was replaced by fields and hedgerows. As they returned to their seats, an announcement stated they were about to enter the Channel Tunnel.

  “Hand me Bent’s laptop, would you? I’d like to take a look at those emails.”

  “I hope it’s not password protected,” Zoe said.

  Jack opened the laptop and the screen came to life, exactly as they had left it.

  “I can’t believe that he wouldn’t have some sort of security on his laptop. I mean, he was a hacker, after all. If anyone should know the risks, it would be him.”

  Jack shrugged. “Cobbler’s kids have no shoes and all that. Maybe he had some sort of incredible firewall and virus detection. Maybe he was just foolish. Whatever the reason, I’m glad.” Jack settled down to read. Zoe read over his shoulder for a while, but with her full stomach and feeling of safety, her eyelids began to feel heavy.

  The train emerged from the Chunnel and her attention was drawn to the slightly rolling French countryside with its smattering of villages, each dominated with a church spire. She felt her eyes drifting closed. She awoke to the general hubbub of talk and motion as people stood and stretched or moved through the aisles. Jack was absorbed in the screen of the laptop. “Incredible,” he murmured.

  “We’re here, Jack.”

  He glanced up and blinked. “Right.” He slammed the laptop closed and shoved it at Zoe.

  She stowed it in the messenger bag. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Jack jerked Zoe’s suitcase off the rack at the entrance to the train without answering.

  Zoe said, amazed, “You’re angry.” Jack was rarely angry, and if he was angry, he didn’t show it. He hid his emotions, tamping them down inside.

  Jack rotated his shoulders as he worked a deep breath in and out of his lungs. “Sorry.” People stepped off the train and surged around them. “You’re staring at me,” he said, irritated.

  “It’s such an unusual spectacle. Fascinating really. I think I should jot it down on my calendar or something.” He closed his eyes but grinned slightly as she continued, “I’m usually the one who flies off the handle, not you. So, what’s incredible?” Zoe asked as they turned and walked along the platform.

  “He was playing both sides against the middle,” Jack said.

  “Bent?” Zoe asked, dodging other travelers.

  “Yes. Bent—Ares—whatever his current name was—it’s all there on the computer. Apparently, he had several email addresses and he downloaded them all to a single email account. Some of the emails are to Bent and some are to Ares. And, if that’s not enough, there’s a second, completely different account. It was open, but minimized. That’s why we didn’t see it when we looked at it in his office.”

  “Who was he on the other email account? Someone totally different?” Zoe asked.

  “No, still Ares, but it’s the recipient who is more interesting.” Jack paused to consult a board with train departure times. “That’s the one we want, the sleeper train to Munich, to start. Come on, let’s get our tickets and I’ll show you what I found.”

  ––––––––

  ANNA had established a habit of taking a smoke break on the wall walk of the castle after dinner, so no one said anything when she picked up her lighter and cigarettes and left the dining room. Costa didn’t like the cold, so he wouldn’t follow. She stopped by her room to put on her long wool coat. While the drafty rooms of the castle were freezing, they were actually a few degrees warmer than the even more frigid air outdoors.

  She took the circular staircase at the end of the hallway, which followed the curve of the tower. At the top, the thick wooden door stuck, but she shoved it open, ducked through the low pointed doorway, and stepped onto the wall walk.

  Icy air swept over her cheeks and tossed her hair into her eyes. She shook it away and lit a cigarette, sheltering it from the wind. She took a long drag, then blew out a stream of smoke. Below the castle, at the base of the steep bluff, a handful of lights twinkled in the tiny village of Lintzberg. Beyond, a few lights dotted the motorway, but the rest of the heavily forested countryside was dark, the land rising and dropping steeply under the canopy of stars.

  Anna shifted her gaze to the parking lot, a small sweep of open ground directly below her at the base of the castle wall. A second stone wall, this one with massive wrought-iron gates, encircled the whole castle area and edged the cliff, enclosing the parking area.

  Satisfied that no one was lingering among the cars below her, she twisted around and turned her attention to the courtyard inside the castle. The far side of the castle was in ruins with only a section of one of the interior walls left standing. Three stories of stone jutted up against the night sky, the stars visible through rows of narrow windows. Nothing moved in the courtyard. Anna took out her phone and called Wade.

  When he answered she kept her voice low, but her tone was sharp. “Finally. Why didn’t you answer earlier?”

  “Now, Anna, don’t get mad—”

  She rubbed her forehead with the heel of the hand that held the cigarette. “No names! How many times do I have to tell you?”

  “Right. Sorry. Anyway, I’ve got some bad news. I can’t go to London.”

  “Why not?”

  “Haven’t got a passport.”

  “Well, get one.”

  “Can’t. It takes weeks and weeks. You have to fill out a form and send it off. Not to mention the picture...”

  “Not a real one. Get a fake passport, you idiot.”

  There was a pause. “I don’t think that would be right.”

  “What?”

  “Traveling on a fake passport...that could get me into a lot of trouble. Federal offense and all. I mean, I don’t know for sure, but I bet it’s a crime.”

  Anna flung her cigarette butt to the stone path and spoke through gritted teeth. “So kidnapping is okay, but you draw the line at using a fake passport?”

  “See, I’ve been thinking. This hasn’t gone the way we thought it would, has it? It’s gotten so complicated. I think I better bow out.”

  “You don’t mean that. If this is an attempt to get a larger share, you can forget it.”

  “Sorry, Anna. Don’t call again. I won’t answer.”

  “Don’t you dare—”

  He cut her off. “It’s been real.”

  A dial tone sounded in her ear. She hit redial, but he didn’t answer. She hung-up on the voicemail message, redialed again. Voicemail.

  Anna swung around toward the village and the forest. She was so angry she wanted to throw something. Her fingers clinched around the phone. No, that would be stupid. She shoved it in her pocket and worked to calm her breathing. She never should have counted on Wade. He wasn’t reliable, but he was the best she could come up with on short notice. She paced a few steps along the narrow walk. What would she do now?

  She knew Costa well enough to know that he liked her, but he didn’t love her. Someday—either in a few weeks or a few years—he would move on to someone else. She already saw signs of his waning interest. What would she do when he moved on? She had nowhere to go, hardly any money. The ransom money would have set her up nicely, but now...she blinked and swallowed the thickness in her throat. Now she had nothing.

  She needed to get inside. Soon, Costa would send Ernesto to look for her, if she didn’t return. She wiped a finger under each eye and raised her chin to the chilly air. She would find something, some way to survive.

  She went inside and met Costa in the hallway. He caught her f
rigid fingers in his hands. “You should smoke inside. You know I do not mind.”

  “But I like the stars and the cold doesn’t bother me. Remember, I wanted to go somewhere where it felt like winter.”

  “I do not understand this fondness for the cold. The sun, yes. Longing for warmth makes sense, but not this,” he said, raising her pink fingers. He chaffed his hands over hers, then said, “I had Ernesto build a fire in the drawing room. I will be back shortly.” She walked a few steps, but turned to him when he called her name.

  His eyebrows lowered over his squinting eyes, he asked, “Michigan?”

  “Not even close.” She threw him a flirty smile before she resumed walking. She knew better than to ask what he was going to do.

  She entered the drawing room and warmed her hands at the fire for a moment, then reached in her pocket for a cigarette. She needed another one. Her plans had been smashed beyond repair, after all. She patted her coat pocket and realized she must have left her lighter on the stone parapet. She retraced her steps to the top of the castle, hurried through the door and onto the wall walk. Her lighter rested on the stone. She picked it up and turned to go, but a flicker of movement in the car park caught her attention.

  She frowned. It was Costa, moving quickly through the cars. Was he leaving? He opened the trunk of the black Mercedes, removed a box, then closed the trunk and perched on the bumper as he opened the box and removed something. The lighting was too dim for Anna to see what it was, but after working with it a few moments, he transferred to the driver’s seat and turned on the lights to the car, but didn’t start the engine.

  Anna leaned on the parapet and tried to quiet her breathing. He’d left the driver’s door open. One foot rested on the ground outside the car as he worked with whatever he’d taken out of the box. Because he was directly below her, she couldn’t see him. The roof of the car blocked him from her view, but his words floated up to her through the clear night air.

  “I do not like phone calls,” he said, his tone matching the icy air. After a moment, he said, “Lost her?”

  She couldn’t make out his next words, but she could tell he was angry. Finally, he said, “Leave it. Forget about her. Did you take care of the loose end? What about the package? Do you have it? Good. Then get back here. Tonight.” His voice had softened as he spoke, and Anna leaned over at the waist to hear him. Costa was one of those people who didn’t get louder when he got angry—he got quieter. She’d learned that it was best to avoid him when he spoke as he did now.

  She swallowed, suddenly aware of her precarious position. She was careful not to bump any lose stone that might alert him. His words were barely a whisper as he said, “Do not lose anything else.”

  The growl of the car engine filled the night. Costa got out of the car, placed the cell phone beneath the front tire, then backed over it. He threw the car into park. Before he’d turned the car off, Anna had pushed through the thick wooden door.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ––––––––

  ZOE and Jack had enough cash to buy the night train tickets, but had to purchase one of the more expensive deluxe two-bed sleepers because it was all that was left. Once in their compartment, Zoe tossed her messenger bag on one of the two seats and took out Bent’s laptop. “So let me see these email accounts.”

  He opened two windows that had been minimized.

  The first account had a mix of emails with most addressed to Bent Consulting and only a few to Ares. “I don’t know much about what a computer expert in cyber security does, but these emails to Bent Consulting look fairly normal.” She skimmed through the subject lines, which contained an invitation to speak at a cyber security conference, an interview request from a London newspaper, and follow-up questions from an inspector about a case on which Bent had been consulted. One with the name Costa in the subject line caught her attention. In reply to a query on tracing an IP address, Bent had written, “Nothing—sorry. No go on addy. I’ll keep looking. Don’t hold out hope.”

  Zoe switched to the emails addressed to Ares, the one with the address Nico had given her. She squinted at the email address, SERA218@mail.com. She looked up quickly. “Hey, I get it. Sera is Ares spelled backward.”

  Jack tilted his head. “You’re right. I hadn’t noticed that.”

  “That’s about all I can figure out about these.” Zoe couldn’t decipher the replies. They looked like gibberish—just numbers and letters without spaces. She supposed it could be some sort of code, or maybe the bodies of the emails were encrypted.

  She switched to the other email account. After a few seconds of scrolling and clicking, she looked up. “There aren’t any emails in this account at all. Nothing sent or received.”

  Jack put her small rolling suitcase in the rack above the door. “Check the drafts folder,” he said over his shoulder.

  There were messages—plenty of messages.

  “Why would someone compose draft emails, but never send them?” She didn’t wait for him to answer, but went back to reading the emails.

  Jack leaned against the window. “Because someone else had the log-in info for the email account. That way, two people could each read and reply to the emails without actually sending them. It’s a common technique to avoid someone intercepting emails. Terror groups use it. Teenagers, too.” His face worried her. There had been a brief lull when they were getting the tickets and finding the train that he’d looked normal, but now he was back to being stressed. She could tell there was something bad in the rest of the emails.

  The communication was hard to follow because there were no names in the headings and the subject lines were often blank, but there was a definite feel of an exchange between two different people. One person sent short abrupt commands in full sentences with correct grammar and punctuation. The other person replied in short phrases and used abbreviations and punctuation haphazardly, a copy editor’s nightmare. “This one with the choppy phrases and abbreviations is probably Bent,” Zoe said. “The style is similar to his other emails, the ones he signed with his Bent Consulting email signature.”

  “I agree,” Jack said.

  “So who is the officious Mr. Proper Grammar?”

  Jack raised an eyebrow. “Who do you think?”

  “No, not Costa.”

  “The tone fits what I’ve seen of Costa’s business correspondence. The info I collected in Germany has a similar style.” The train pulled out of the station as he spoke, but neither one of them was interested in looking at the city lights as they left Paris.

  “But lots of people use a formal tone in business. Aren’t you stretching a bit? Seeing Costa everywhere? Wouldn’t it be too much of a coincidence?”

  “No, it would be a neat little circle that I can see Costa working to his advantage. Costa pays off the leading consultant who’s supposed to help the police track him. In his position, Bent could keep the investigation away from Costa, or if he couldn’t do that, then he could at least keep Costa appraised about how close the police were to him.”

  “And that would allow Costa to stay one step ahead of the investigators,” Zoe acknowledged. “It would explain how he’s always just slipping out of their reach.”

  “Keep reading. I think you’ll agree with me by the time you get to the end of the draft emails.”

  She scanned the emails, working her way backward. Jack left the compartment, but she barely noticed. After an hour, she’d read nearly all the emails that went back over two years.

  Jack returned to the compartment, and she said, “I don’t see any names of people, but these words like Evergreen and Silver Fox, they look like a code.”

  “They are. I found the same thing in the data I have on Costa. Silver Fox was a scam involving retirement accounts.” Jack ran a hand along his jawline. “One that I haven’t seen until today is Evergreen. Take a closer look at those.”

  “There’s quite a few,” she said as she clicked through the first ones. By the time she’d read the first t
wenty or so, she frowned. “These dates, and what they’re discussing. It almost sounds like they’re talking about GRS.” Zoe looked up. “You don’t think...Evergreen isn’t...?”

  “Me? Afraid so. Well, actually I think it refers to GRS in particular. There’s a bank account number listed in one of the exchanges and it’s the account number for GRS’s business account.”

  The porter arrived and folded away the seats then lowered the bed while Zoe read the next emails, skimming through the text, reading impatiently, but with a growing sense of unease. When he left, Zoe sat on the lower bed.

  “Jack, these emails...” she trailed off, almost not believing what she’d read. But it was there in black and white, a neatly drafted plan to ruin a man’s life—Jack’s life. “I can see why you were angry. You were deceived.”

  “I was stupid.” His voice had turned serious. He leaned against the wall and sighed with disappointment. “Those draft emails explain a lot of things I ignored or wrote off as coincidence. They fill in a lot of gaps.”

  “But it says you were set up—from the very beginning.”

  Jack shrugged. “It’s all there. Look at the emails—somehow Costa found out I was anxious to start the company, but had zero funds. He bet that I would barely need convincing to take Connor on as a partner. I’d be so glad that I had a backer that I wouldn’t look too closely at the capital. And he was right. I never wanted to delve too deeply into where Connor got it. I was just glad he had the money. You saw his place in Vegas last year. There’s no way he had that kind of seed money stashed somewhere for a business and lived in that pigsty.”

  “I’ll give you that,” Zoe conceded, remembering Connor’s tiny, filthy apartment, “But the rest of it. It’s so unbelievable. You really think Costa set up this elaborate scheme? That he hired Connor to basically impersonate a businessman and gave him cash to run the company?”

  “To run the scam,” Jack corrected. “It was a classic long con.”

  “That’s...I don’t know...Machiavellian.”

  “Look at the results,” Jack said. “In the end, after you strip away me and Connor, you’ve got a pump-and-dump stock scheme. The investors were the marks along with Connor and me. The investors put in money, Connor worked to inflate the price through all those phony posts on stock message boards, then the money was yanked when the stock was at the high point. After the stock tanked, Connor and I got blamed, and Mr. Anonymous had the Bent-slash-Ares guy manipulate the money so that it disappeared, leaving me as the scapegoat. If I weren’t in the middle of it, I’d have to admire it. It’s brilliant.”