The pattern told her that the account holder lived somewhere close to the account to be able to appear in person for his—or her—monthly injection of cash. Problema: there was no ID regarding the location of the account.
The account holder was pretty savvy, too. There were no transactions involving a transfer to another account which could be tracked.
In another CH account she found a major withdrawal, again by cashier’s check, for 2.8 million US. CH had made some hefty purchases. With those numbers, it practically had to be property. Maybe a yacht. But all of the action was taking place off-shore. No taxes involved. At least, no taxes for the US of A which was after all funding some of those purchases.
Bobbi sometimes thought about how the generosity of the U.S. government came back to bite the donor in the ass. Admit supposed political refugees to the country without sufficient background checks, put them on welfare, keep them healthy, educate them, and after they blow up a Boston Marathon, pay for the defense attorneys. Hell, it’s only other people’s money the government spends. We want to be generous with the underprivileged, right? And look good to our fellow ideologues.
When she finished, she looked over at Oak. His head was way back on the cushion, and she was pretty sure he was asleep.
Until one eye popped open, looking at her. He smiled.
“What did you learn?”
She told him.
“So CH appears to be outside the country?”
She liked that thought. It precluded Patrick.
“Or goes outside once a month,” Malone said. “Or maybe has someone else picking up his cash.”
Or maybe Patrick was not precluded.
“You ready,” he asked.
“For?”
“Action. I need a few of those passwords.”
“Let me check.” Bobbi tried the password for one of the VC cash accounts, and it opened right up.”
“Well, well.”
“Is that an introspective well, well, Bobbi?”
“This morning, this account had 4.4 million dollars.”
“And now?”
“Zero.”
*
At 4:00 Malone parked a half-block away on the street outside the Institute for International Stability. He used his new cell to call, and when someone answered the phone, maybe Cheryl, he asked to be connected to Ms. Hampstead.
That took a minute.
“Hello, this is Alicia.”
“Alicia, this is Oak Malone.”
Certainly, not in a thousand years, would Alicia have expected a call from Oak Malone. It took her a minute to decide how to handle it.
Tried to be helpful.
“Yes, what can I do for you, Mr. Malone?”
“I assume you’ve talked to Mr. Paxton about my earlier visit and my concern about Institute payments to charities abroad.” It wasn’t a question.
“Ah, well, yes, I have. We’ve been looking into that, and I think I have some answers for you.”
“That would certainly be helpful,” Malone said.
“I can provide you with documentation on how the funds were expended.”
Of course you can. You had all weekend to work on it.
“But I’m not worried about that now.”
“Oh?” she said.
All that work wasted?
“No, what I’m interested in now are some passwords to secret accounts.”
“Oh?” This one at a slightly higher pitch.
“Yes. Try this: JK4_97AFB? Or this: 71QW?VY254. Either of those ring a bell for you?” Malone read from the note in his hand.
Another long pause.
“Mr. Malone, I’m sure I don’t know what you’re referring to.”
“Sure you do. You can find them in your SD-6 file.”
She tired of chatting about it. She hung up on him.
Malone had to wait longer than he expected to. Thirty minutes went by before she appeared at the front door of the building, waving back at Mel. So maybe she’d made some phone calls. Called Mom and Dad. Said goodbye to a few friendly folks. Destroyed her computer terminal.
He doubted it, though she probably killed that SD-6 file.
She’d want to leave quietly, not attract attention to herself.
He didn’t know what Hampstead looked like, but the woman coming through the door was in a bit of a hurry and would have attracted attention, no matter what. Dressed nicely in a summer suit of light lavender that hugged her well. Kind of a horsey face but tall, blonde, and busty. Worth following, probably, for any number of reasons.
She only walked to the curb carrying a purse and a fabric portfolio of some kind, and then stood waiting. A few minutes later, a cab pulled up, and she climbed into the back. So, okay, one of her calls was for a taxi.
The cab moved out, and Malone shifted into drive and pulled away from his parking spot at the fire hydrant. Hadn’t even gotten a ticket. He let the taxi take the next corner, let a Lexus pull in behind it, and then followed. Tailing cabs in this town required concentration because there were so damned many of them. Tracking taxis was similar to herding cats. They didn’t go where you expected them to go.
Hampstead didn’t look back through the cab’s window as far as he could tell, so she probably wasn’t very experienced at this part of the game. A nerd. He stayed a block back and called Bobbi at the hotel.
“Oak?”
“I’m the only one with your number.”
“I know it, damn it! What’s she doing?”
“She left work early. I’m following. But she took some time getting out of the building. I wonder if she called an airline.”
“Hang on.”
The cab had turned onto Wyoming Avenue NW before Bobbi came back. “She’s booked on American, Reagan to VC Bird International, Antigua. Departing at 7:25.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. Fred and Melissa want the same trip, but not the same flight.”
“Do I charge it to my card?”
“We’ll pick up the tickets at the airport. I’ll pay cash.”
“Be careful.”
“Of Alicia?”
“Of Detective Ford.”
‘Oh, him.”
After reaching the Kalorama area, the cab dropped her at mid-block, and Malone went to the curb and waited. A half hour later and the street would be jam-packed with parked cars and he never would have found a place to park.
Short wait. Hampstead reappeared in her doorway, dragging a large wheeled suitcase and still toting the purse and portfolio. She hadn’t changed clothes. The lady had been prepared. She pulled the case out to the sidewalk and turned west. Walked a hundred feet and stopped next to a white Honda Civic parked at the curb which responded to her remote. She loaded the case in the back seat, and then went around to open the driver’s door and settle behind the wheel.
Well, her destinations, short-term and long-term, were pretty clear.
Malone drove back to the hotel.
Chapter Sixteen – Tuesday, June 25
When the cell phone rang, and the Chairman saw that it was the Treasurer, he checked his watch. Just after seven in the morning in Phoenix.
“What’s going on, Chair?” Mears’ voice resonated with agitation.
“Something is going on?”
“You were going to call me about La . . . about the VC. But the six o’clock news this morning reported she was killed. It wasn’t suicide, goddamn it!”
“Hold on there. I haven’t seen the news.”
But of course he had. He had already talked to November about the report yesterday.
“So I checked my accounts,” Mears went on. “The brokerage accounts are still intact, but my three cash accounts have been zeroed out. I can’t reach May. What the fuck are you doing?”
What the hell? Maybe Alicia screwed up something in transferring Lani’s accounts.
“This is news to me, Treasurer. I’ll look into. . . .”
“You goddamned will better! Are you sending November
my way? Remember I’m in Arizona and I’m damned well armed.”
“Hey, hey! Don’t accuse me of anything! Let me find out what’s happening.”
The Chairman switched off before Mears could make a reply.
For Christ’s sake!
He rose from his easy chair and crossed the big room to the desk in front of the window, flopped in the desk chair, and scooted the mouse to bring the computer out of hibernation. While he waited, he hit the speed dial for Alicia.
Six rings.
No answer.
He called the Institute directly and asked for Hampstead.
“I’m sorry, sir. She hasn’t come in today.”
He cut off the call and logged into his primary cash account. Wished he had access to Lani’s and Jim’s accounts so he could check those.
The account came up.
Should have been close to $7,300,000.
Zero.
He quickly logged into his other two cash accounts.
Zeros.
*
The flight left Ronald Reagan International at 7:15 in the morning, and after one stop in Miami, was scheduled into St. Johns just after two in the afternoon. Malone’s cash supply was running low after forking out five grand for Melissa’s documents and eight hundred for the two airline tickets, but he knew a bank in Antigua where he could access his accounts in Grand Cayman.
Best part, they hadn’t run into Detective Ford or his friends. They probably didn’t get up early enough to get through security to the concourse. Probably had no reason to want to do that, anyway.
None of the cops or security people around the airport gave him a second glance so the BOLO wasn’t having the desired effect. Worst part, he’d had to leave the Walther in a lockbox at the hotel. Private ownership of firearms was not guaranteed by law in Antigua. On the other side of that issue, the unofficial trade in firearms was flourishing on the island. He’d be able to pick up something.
Bobbi was sitting in the window seat, and she reached over and patted the top of his right thigh. This was a Boeing 737 with three seats on each side of the aisle. He was in the middle seat, and his knees were lodged against the seat in front of him like the presidents’ faces were pressed against Mount Rushmore.
“This is why you like business class.”
“Ah, it’s only six hours, and we get an hour layover in Miami. I always look forward to the layovers for a stretch of legs.”
She shook her head, and then looked around him at the twenty-something guy in the aisle seat. His head was bobbing to whatever was throbbing through the ear buds plugged into his ears. Malone was certain he was happy not to hear it.
Bobbi had her computer open on her lap, but she was no longer online of course. She was working on a spreadsheet. Malone leaned over to look, his head against hers. She rubbed his temple with her forehead. He liked it.
“What have you figured out?”
“When I found out that the one VC account had been drained, I thought maybe those were Lani’s accounts, and they were moving the money. And sure enough, the other two VC deposit accounts had been withdrawn to zero balances.”
“But VC isn’t necessarily Lani?”
“No. All of the other deposit accounts had been depleted, also. Except for the INS or Institute accounts. The coded brokerage accounts are still as they were.”
“Big Sister didn’t have time to do anything about them,” Malone said.
“That’s what I think. She’d have had to put in sell orders. But she transferred out all of the cash.”
“How much?”
Bobbi pointed to her spread sheet. “CH had 17.8 million in all three of his deposit accounts, VC had 14.6 million, TR was showing 12.2 million, and MD had 5.6 million. The total amount is 50.2 million.. There’s still a total of 21.1 million invested in equities through all the brokerages.”
“And fifty million went missing?”
“Probably not. The transfers were all to one account that we hadn’t seen before. Maybe it was her Plan B.”
“And you couldn’t get into it?”
“Not right away,” Bobbi said. “I didn’t have a nice list of passwords. There were six levels of access with complicated passwords, and it took my program three hours to break through. By the time I got into it, it had all been transferred again to another new account. I was only half way into that when we had to leave this morning.”
“Big Sister is on the run with a few bucks to help her out.”
“I could probably live on it,” Galway said.
“I have the feeling that Alicia thinks it’s a game. Those numbers are so out of sight, they’re difficult to comprehend.”
“That could be correct, Oak. She had so many accounts to play with, it was a challenge to have all of the right numbers in the right slots.”
“And she still assisted in plots that killed people.”
“I’d bet she didn’t think of it that way, if she thought much about it at all. The goal was to increase the size of the pot.”
“We’ll ask her about that.”
“If we find her.”
“We’ll find her, Bobbi. She’s pretty easy to describe.”
“How would you describe her?” Bobbi asked.
“Tall blonde with big tits.”
“My way is easier. She has a reservation at the Blue Waters.”
Malone grinned at her. “I wonder if Alicia knows you’re now the Big Sister?”
*
Hampstead had not reached her room in the Blue Waters Resort until after three in the morning. She was still so keyed up that she couldn’t sleep, and a long, hot shower didn’t improve her attitude or make her sleepy.
She couldn’t even remember much about the flight because her mind had been wrapped in the dozens of questions she couldn’t answer. How did Malone know about the SD-6 file? She had never printed it out. How did he get the passwords? When she checked the accounts, there was no sign of an intrusion. Did he know which passwords went to which accounts? Did he actually know what was in the accounts? Did he figure out the coding on the accounts? Could he just be guessing?
She had been so meticulous. No one other than the Chairman, the Vice Chair, and the Treasurer knew about all of the accounts. Dinmore had never known more than his own brokerage and deposit accounts. No one had access to all of the brokerage and deposit accounts but her.
That was it. No one else.
But Malone knew something, somehow.
He couldn’t have gotten into her office suite. No one could. Just she and Jeffrey and Doyle had the combination for the keypads. Did Malone get to Doyle Katt? No. Doyle didn’t know about the accounts.
Or maybe he did. He was bright.
Malone had called as she was cleaning out Lani’s accounts, and she was so frightened that she just cleared everyone’s deposit accounts and transferred them into her backup escape hatch. It was the sub-basement in her mental picture of the architecture.
She should have placed sell orders at the brokerages, but she knew she was running out of time. Malone could be on the way with the police or the FBI.
By dawn, she was feeling calmer. She was out of the country, probably to never return, and no one knew where she was.
Jeffrey Paxton would not likely survive without her, so she put him out of her mind for good. The Chairman was still a possibility.
She looked at her cell phone lying on the desk. It was turned off, and she had also turned off the voice mail function. She should call him.
Not yet. She had tasks to accomplish.
At seven, she had taken another long shower, and then prepared carefully to go out. She wore a pale yellow sundress with a low-scooped neckline. It would provide a distraction for the banker.
She ordered coffee and a croissant from room service, and then sat down at the desk to open her computer. After logging into the hotel’s wireless system, she methodically went into each of the brokerage accounts and placed sell orders for every stock holding. The cash fro
m the sales would go into the brokerage’s money market funds for each of the accounts, and she could transfer it later. If the Chairman and the Treasurer happened to check their accounts in time, they could divert the proceeds to other of their accounts. If not, she would scoop up most of it. As for the VC and MD accounts that neither of them had access to, she would capture the six million for certain.
When she was done, she sat at the desk looking out at the fabulous blue sea and sipped her coffee. Some hotel guests were on the move, headed out to the beach or to the swimming pool. Some were at tables on the deck, having breakfast in the beautiful outdoors. Sea gulls climbed high into the morning sun and then landed on the beach seeking morsels tossed by humans.
Alicia had not traveled much. Several trips to Canada since it was close to Idaho, like to Victoria which she had really enjoyed, one to Mexico, and one to the Bahamas. Now, she supposed she could make up for the lack. And possibly convince the Chairman to join her. If she had the money, he would certainly join her.
The fantasy could become reality.
At 9:00 she left her room and went out front to catch one of the taxis waiting there. The driver hopped out to open a rear door for her, and she gave him the address on Sir George Walter Highway. The drive was pleasant. Blue Waters was on the very north tip of the island, and they drove east along the shore, and then south. Commercial ventures appeared to be stretched haphazardly along the highway. Traffic was thick, but after twenty minutes, the driver pulled to the side of the road and got out to open her door. She didn’t have East Caribbean Dollars, but he was happy with the US variety.
There was a row of five shops finished neatly in white with blue trim. Each was outfitted with large windows to either side of a single front door. Souvenirs and jewelry and an art gallery. None of them looked like a bank, but the third unit had a small brass plaque next to the door which read: Caribbean Regional Investment Services. The door was locked, of course, and she pushed the bell button.
After a couple minutes, someone’s eyes appeared on the other side of the bronzed window in the top half of the door, then the locks clicked and the door pulled open.
The young woman assumed by looking at her that Alicia spoke English, and she said, “May I help you, madam?”
Solid Oak Page 20
