by Paris Morgan
I’d been collecting the names of those who had appointments from his secretary’s calendar, but so far, all the people who had been listed had legitimate reasons for seeing the head of the company.
Each night when I arrived home, I took out my laptop that I’d connected to the Urban Energy systems and spent hours adding cookies and data, scouring programs to collect information that might have escaped notice floating around in the computer system.
It had taken many nights of digging beneath layers of well-constructed protection protocols to hide the connections between the two companies.
While on the outside, it seemed that they were as far apart as any two companies could be, but I’d come to the conclusion that the Urban Energy Corporation was literally a front to hold all the money for the Gold Money Exchange. It seemed that the energy structure was a money-making venture, but all of the contracts were with front companies for cartels and thugs.
I’d spent enough time digging through things at the FBI that I could easily identify when a name didn’t ring true. Most of the companies that did business with Urban Energy had pretty decent covers, but their business structures had started to bother me. It didn’t make sense.
An energy company that helped with the environment sounded like a dream come true, but most of the stuff people did for this company were honestly just inputting data.
No one from the company would be coming to my house, and I’d taken precautions to back up my work, but I had an entire wall listed with transactions and companies that corresponded to dates when cartels had been paid or had paid in money that needed to be cleaned.
There weren’t two companies, The Gold Bank and Urban Energy. No, it was the same company hidden and mingled together to keep law enforcement from figuring out what they were doing.
If I could just come up with the actual papers and start tracing transactions, proving what was really going on inside of this “respectable” company.
It was time to make the phone call and get the FBI working out some of the logistics. I could do it all myself, but if we had a couple of agents working on it, it would cut down the amount of time needed until we could serve a warrant and shut down this underground organization.
The flip phone I’d bought for these kinds of calls always made me laugh. It was like taking a walk back through the Stone Ages of phones. Thankfully, the FBI always let me work with some of the best and newest technology since I’d been with them, so I didn’t have to use these phones for very long.
“Agent Watson, I’ve got an update. I found the connection between the Gold Money Exchange and Urban Energy. I’m going to need a few agents to help me pull the evidence and connect the dots.”
“Really? That’s more than we expected to uncover. When can we get you to come in and get started with this?”
“Probably by the end of the week. I don’t want to give them any indication that I’ve been in their systems, and if we work over the weekend, it won’t be until Monday that any alarms are triggered.”
“Very well. I’ll make sure that there are a few technicians here on Friday night, but if I’m authorizing the overtime, you’re going to need to tell me what you know.”
“No problem, sir. I believe that the two companies are one and the same. From what I can tell, Urban Energy is a consulting firm that helps give environmental advice to corporations about where to build, as to hurt the environment the least.” I shook my head. It had been right there in front of me the entire time.
“Do you have proof?” Agent Watson demanded.
“Partially. Which is why I need a few others to go over what I’ve concluded, and then help me to put the other pieces together.”
“This is huge, and I don’t want to take a chance that the courts or their lawyers will get it thrown out on a technicality. We would lose all the work we’ve done, and they would destroy the evidence.”
“I agree, sir. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone else about this so that we can have the element of surprise. I’ll let Ryan and Leslie know on my own.”
“Be careful. If Urban Energy finds out what you’ve been doing, you could be in grave danger.”
“Understood, sir. I’ll take the necessary precautions.”
“We’ll see you Friday.”
I hung up, feeling so much better that we were close to taking down this huge organization of criminals. If you cut off their money supply, you cut off their primary source to continue doing illegal activities. It would be a huge win, not only for the FBI, but also against crime itself.
The Urban Energy Corporation was worth billions of dollars, if not trillions. I wasn’t an accountant, but I was going to bet that the majority of what came in went straight into the pockets of “legal” operations.
While I knew that Agent Watson would handle this in the right way, I still wanted to reach out to another source I had in the white collar and cybercrime division.
I sent a text to the number with my name and gave it two minutes before I dialed so she’d be expecting me.
“Hey, Barbie.”
“Hi, Kev. What’s up? You don’t normally reach out on a throwaway phone.”
“I’m kind of in a situation, but I’m hoping that you can help me. It’s a very tricky kind of line that I’ll be crossing, and I need another set of eyes to make sure I’m not making a mistake.”
“Sure, you know I love blurred lines.”
“Can we meet?”
“How big of a thing are we talking?”
“Multi-agency, and there are dirty agents as well. I’m not even sure who would take point, but I know that my agent in charge isn’t equipped to deal with this kind of thing.”
Barbie whistled. “Is it life-threatening?”
“Well, I wasn’t thinking about it that way, but my boss did just warn me, so yeah, more so than I’d thought.”
“All right. I’m about thirty minutes away from the hangout. Don’t bring anything that can trace you, and meet me there. I’ll look over what you’ve got and we’ll see if it’s worth worrying about, or if you should just turn what you’ve got in.”
“Thanks, Barbie. You’re literally a life saver.” I sighed with relief.
“Don’t thank me yet,” she huffed. “See you soon, Kev.”
I hurried to do a backup of my computer and put it with the others before I left. Agent Watson’s warning continued to echo in my head. He never really thought I would be in danger or he wouldn’t have sent me undercover…right?
Either I’d found something I wasn’t supposed to, or things weren’t going well with the hunt for the Zodiac Master. I was betting on the latter, considering that we were entering the ninth month of chasing this prick.
Computer and tech skills were required in this day and age, but when I’d applied to work in the FBI, I hadn’t planned on much field work. Sure, we were all given training and told it could happen, but most of the exciting stuff happened in real time as we directed our agents in the field toward their suspects from data.
So no, he would never have sent me into a situation that he thought was life-threatening.
Even though I’d been meeting with this group of people—mostly computer geeks—for years, it wasn’t unusual for one us to be followed by parents or someone wanting to know the whereabouts of our hive mind, so we always took precautions to make sure that our meeting place stayed off the radar.
Most of us hadn’t met each other until college, and after countless hours of hacking each other’s systems, we decided to form a partnership and work together. We were split about half and half in our moral standings due to the fact that some of us worked in law enforcement and helped with active cases. But the others in the group kept their more illegal activities on the downlow out of respect for us, not so much for our profession.
Mutual respect was what made our coalition unique. We all agreed that evil should be stopped at all costs. We’d each chosen different paths, and occasionally worked together to get rid of
people that an agency couldn’t find, or was having trouble pinning their crimes on.
I was walking a fine line by not telling the FBI about our activities.
We’d all taken code names, knowing that they would protect our identities in the future. Those of us in law enforcement didn’t acknowledge each other in the real world. If our paths crossed, fine, but we weren’t going out of our way to meet in real life.
There were a few in our group from the non-law side that would take the information that I held and proclaim that the government was evil, and that it was all a conspiracy anyway.
I approached the rundown house we’d set up and went around to the back. There were only five of us in the area right now, since most of our group lived in different parts of the world. It wasn’t often that we all congregated together because of the need to protect our identities.
Barbie was already inside and had started booting up the systems.
“Kev.” She gave me a nod while flicking on power strips and typing in passwords into the system.
When we’d first met, no one could believe that she was the same girl that we’d been communicating online with for so many years. Her blonde hair and perfect skin made her look like a Barbie doll brought to life. But it hadn’t taken five minutes in front of a keyboard before we all forgot how she looked and realized that she was the smartest of us all.
She’d always laughed that it was a good cover because no one would ever think she was a serious hacker.
The gang teased us about being Barbie and Ken, but honestly, my dark skin made it harder to play the part. They still joked about it, and I figured that if they could see past our obvious differences, then who was I to remind them?
“All right, show me what you’ve got, Kev.” Barbie took a seat and twirled in a circle while I stood there lost in thought.
“Right. So, what I’m about to tell you is completely confidential, and you know what would happen if the FBI found out you knew.” I pulled out a couple of USBs.
“Yeah, yada yada. I’ve heard it all before. Hit me with it.”
“Okay. I’m not sure how much you hear over there in cybercrimes, but we’ve been on the trail of a serial killer who recruits others to do his work for him. In the process, we’ve uncovered that the Urban Energy Corporation has some stuff going on beneath the surface. The ZM, or Zodiac Master, as we call him, because his kills follow the zodiac signs, keeps pointing toward the company for some reason.”
“I hadn’t heard about the ZM case, but the Urban Energy Corporation isn’t really the type of place for any illegal stuff. I mean, they’re advising people on how to keep to the right side of the law, not helping them break it.” Barbie gave the chair another twirl.
“That’s just it. They’re helping them break it, just not in an environmental way. You’ve heard of the Gold Money Exchange, right?” She waved her hand in the air, as if telling me to go on. “Well, they’re the same company. We knew that the main guy was one of the founder’s sons, but he goes by two different names: John Reed and John Armstrong. It seems that they’re one and the same.”
“Whoa!” Barbie stopped spinning and came to a halt. “You’re saying that the Gold Money Exchange is operating under all of our noses as the Urban Energy Corporation?”
“If what I’ve discovered isn’t proof of at least a connection, then I’m not very good at my job.” I sank into the seat next to her.
“This is way bigger than anything the FBI can handle, you were correct on that score. But how does me knowing about it help?”
“Honestly, I just needed to run the data past someone and see if they came to the same conclusions before I let the FBI start pulling at the threads this weekend.” I held out the USBs toward her. “In case something happens to me, I’ve stashed more in my house and at a drop spot that one of the detectives I was working with knows about, but that might still not be put into the right hands.”
She looked at me with a worried expression. “You’re not playing around, are you?”
“Never mind. Anything that has to do with the Gold Money Exchange always manages to disappear quickly, and any case is quickly settled. There’s more than a few dirty cops and agents that are protecting this. The only thing is that they think they’re protecting a bank, when instead it’s a corporation sitting under everyone’s noses. Right out in the open with little to no oversight.”
As I spoke, she slid the first stick into the computer.
“I wasn’t worried until I realized they were the same thing. There’s no way that they don’t have someone as capable as you or me sitting in a room monitoring stuff. Most of the stuff I’ve pulled wouldn’t have alerted the normal type of tech guys that work with me, but this is next level stuff they’re protecting.”
“Give me a couple of days to analyze this. I’m going to pull what the FBI, and even the CIA have on the Gold Money Exchange. I’ll need to access the files of known cartels and mob connections to find out if the money amounts going in and out are the same.” Barbie chewed on a painted nail as she scanned the information I’d brought her.
“I’ll wait until tomorrow and call Agent Watson back to tell him I might need a bit more time because some things don’t add up, and I want what I give him to be airtight. That should give us a little room to work on things.”
“Perfect. I’ll do a deep run on his and a few other agent’s profiles and see if there are any obvious red flags. What was the name of your friend, the detective?”
“Oh, Ryan Foxe, and his partner, Leslie Boxe. Also, do a check on Adam Dalca. He’s part of a crimes division that I’d never heard of before he showed up.” I had a funny feeling when I was around him.
“What division?” Barbie questioned.
“The Unusual Crimes Division.”
“Oh, you’re right to be concerned, but his group is on the up-and-up. It’s what they do that should cause you to be wary. They’re psychics and witches. They investigate the crimes that make the rest of us cringe. They have an amazing close rate, but the whole division has a top-level clearance, and only a few people actually get to know what they do.”
I grinned at her. “So how come you know what they do?”
“It’s not because I’m psychic, that’s for sure. I ran into a member of their unit on another case and was curious. I pulled a few things and got into their database. Freaky stuff.” She shivered. “The in-between world isn’t something that you’re going to want to mess with.”
“Got it. They’ve had a lot of strange things happen with this case, and there was a lady that claimed she was psychic that they were working with there for a while. I’m not sure what happened, but I know that she’s not FBI.”
“Not all people who are psychic have to be in the FBI.”
I could tell that she was laughing at me.
“Duh. I just hadn’t put it all together that we had psychics working from inside the FBI.”
“No worries, it’s a well-kept secret. Although, I have to say that this connection you’ve discovered is a much bigger one. I’m going to caution you, be very careful.”
I couldn’t help it when my eyes rolled at her words.
“Really, Kevin. This is serious. These guys in this Exchange have taken out entire neighborhoods because they didn’t want people to know. It’s not a joke. They’ll take you out and we’ll never know what happened to your body. It’ll be in so many different pieces, they won’t be able to identify you.” She placed a hand on my arm.
“All right. I’ll be careful and not do any poking around for a few days. Just kind of monitor the situation a little bit, but I don’t think anyone in the company knows about what I’ve been doing yet.”
“You told your boss. Just hope that he’s one of the good guys, or it won’t matter how careful you’ve been.”
“I’m going to go, but make sure that you send me a message when I need to meet you.”
She turned back to the screen. “Will do.”
I smiled a
s I walked out the door. She would spend the next several hours working on this puzzle I’d given her. Most of the time, what we did in our real lives wasn’t enough to challenge us, but I was certain that this time, she’d at least be scratching her head for a while.
***
While I’d told Barbie that I was going to take it easy, I did the exact opposite. If I’d been discovered, then it was just a chance I was going to have to take. I didn’t think we were going to get another chance to collect this information.
I’d managed to get Agent Watson to give me a little more time to work on a few things before involving the FBI.
“Kevin, the boss was looking for you. Something started going crazy on the sixth floor, and he wanted to have you look at it. He headed up there and said for me to send you in that direction if I saw you.” Shirley, the main secretary, informed me after waving me down.
“Aw, Shirley. Can you just tell him that you couldn’t find me?” I pleaded.
“Nope.” She smiled. “You know he’ll think he can fix it, and then it will be ten times worse than it was to start with. Would you rather work a little longer on a Friday, or start out your Monday with that kind of mess?”
“You speak the truth, madam.” I gave her a bow. “I’ll head that way and see what I can do before he takes out the entire building.”
Heading back up to the sixth floor, it caught me off guard at how quiet it was when most of the people were gone. It was kind of spooky now that I thought about it.
“Boss? Where are you?” I called out, trying to find him.
The sound of him grunting led me in the right direction.
“Oh, good, Shirley found you.” He held two sets of wires in each hand.
“Are those live?” I wasn’t an electrician, but this didn’t look good.
He looked between them, confused. “How the hell am I supposed to know?”
I took a step closer before thinking better of it. “Let’s see if we can get the breaker turned off. Don’t move, I’ll be right back.”
Since we did a lot of different types of stuff with wiring, most of the floors had the same layout, so I figured I knew where to find it.
