Infinite Exposure (38 page)

He picked up a disposable cell phone and called the office in the Ukraine. When he got Jeremy's voicemail, he left a message.
“Jeremy, dump all of your Pytho and First Global as soon as you get in. It is up well over our target. Watch it in after-hours
and start shorting when it looks like it has hit a plateau.”

He couldn't wait for Jeremy to start finding Russian and European stocks worth a play. Group Lenny would really be able to
grow then. Indeed, after this series of plays, they were going to need to find some losses or issue some loans to get the
cash out of the accounts.

Lenny decided to run the intra-day position report. When he scrolled down to the bottom and looked at total cash on hand his
mount went dry.

***

Stacie was dressed for success today. Kathryn had tapped her to assist with the Friday presentation to Granite National. The
Pytho sales rep had gotten nowhere trying to go through the Director of IT. Stacie's impression of the guy was that all he
could do was fill out an order form when it came to sales. Kathryn managed to pull some strings and now Big Four Consulting
was leading the presentation to the board.

The Director of IT was dead set against this deal. Kathryn had been unsuccessful in keeping him out of the conference room.
He wasn't invited, but he barged in anyway. This was going to be a cut-throat presentation. Since the man barged in, Kathryn
wasn't pulling any punches. After George got done with a small Pytho dog and pony show about the wonderful new reporting,
Web accessibility, and international aspect of the software, Kathryn went into her PowerPoint presentation.

Kathryn went straight for the jugular. Her first slide was a spreadsheet showing what Granite National listed in their last
quarterly report as IT expenditures. She admitted to using a national average when figuring in the cost of benefits for the
large IT staff. She had brow beaten George into low balling the price to them so the “after” picture looked so much rosier.
Of course Big Four Consulting would be getting a cut from helping train all of their locations. Naturally, when you totaled
up the proposal and compared it to their cost now, the bank would be saving over $2 million per year.

The Director of IT was putting up quite a struggle in the conference room, but Stacie admired the way Kathryn handled him,
by answering some questions, ignoring and diverting others. Her killer stroke was asking the board if they had heard about
First Global's purchase of this system. She pointed out Stacie had just gotten back from France, having helped train the tellers
for the French roll-out, which completed in only a couple of weeks and was running smoothly.

When the Director of IT took the bait and asked the board if they could afford to be down for a couple of weeks operating
only a handful of locations, Stacie volunteered the two week roll-out was because First Global had to put standardized PCs
on the teller desks and they opted to do it as part of the roll-out instead of in advance. If their tellers already had PCs
running at their windows, then the bank could literally bring them in for a Sunday afternoon training session and start operations
on a Monday, assuming the data mapping and conversion was completed either late Saturday evening or early Sunday morning.

Kathryn was loving this girl! The other skirts and heels were simply there to drain blood from the brain, but this girl could
drain and punch. She continued on, “Since your tellers already have PCs at their windows, a flash cut will work best for you.
Simply have them log into the new application on Monday morning. If some horrible problem is discovered they can simply log
back into the other application and we can migrate the transactions they did over to the new system once that problem is rectified.”

The only friend the Director of IT had on the board spoke up to try and save his friend's job. “This is all well and good,
but the conversion won't be free and the cash position of the bank is not such we can do a huge cash outlay to purchase a
new system which does what our existing system does.”

Finally, George did something. “We can set up a payment schedule so you don't begin paying until you have started to recognize
the savings of the new system. We realize you will want to have it in place for at least a quarter to give you time to reap
the benefits of staff reduction and terminate the maintenance contracts on your heritage equipment. Coupled with the other
business changes your company has spoken about publicly, this system should have the bank off the FDIC watch list in less
than a year.”

There was the knife in the back. The bank was on the watch list and in danger of being seized by the government to prevent
a failure. Migrating to this system and showing the regulatory agency the amount of money they will save in salary and benefits
alone would buy them a good six months, if not longer. If the first payment wouldn't come until the quarter following installation,
the board had no choice. Were a proposal like this leaked to the shareholders after it was turned down they would all be summarily
tossed out. It was no longer a sales pitch, it was a bum rush.

Of course the board of directors thanked them for the presentation and said they had to discuss matters among themselves.
They would get back to Pytho Corporation some time next week with a response. Everyone in the room knew there was little they
could do other than stall the payments off for as long as humanly possible. If they opted to take a pass, news of this presentation
would be leaked to financial analysts and all over the business news a few hours later. Then they would be seized.
Nothing like holding a gun to their heads to make a sale,
thought Kathryn. She made a mental note to have her broker buy some more Pytho stock.

Stacie returned home and dashed off an email to Jeremy telling him about the sales pitch today and that Pytho was sure to
be announcing another sale in about a week. She asked him if he was going to buy some more Pytho stock for her based on this
news or just let it ride. In closing, she told him she loved him. Truth was, she knew they would both sleep with other people
while apart, but she was starting to fall for this guy. Perhaps it was just the thought of the life she could lead with the
money he was going to make. At this point, she didn't care. He was fun to be with and great in bed. When you add in about
to be very wealthy it was difficult for a girl not to imagine herself wearing a ring.

***

The Brit returned to the hotel carrying a couple of knapsacks full of gear. Knapp sacks seemed to be common locally and nobody
looked twice at someone carrying them. He went straight to the suit's room and dropped them off. Out of one sack he pulled
a small bundle of euros and handed them over.

“Perfect. I should be able to carry that amount on my person and in my carry-on without attracting too much attention. Do
we have the car yet?”

“I'm off to get that now. Should be back in an hour or so.”

“Good. Then you can make our other arrangements.”

On his way to buy another vehicle, the Brit's disposable cell phone rang. He recognized the number so he answered.

“Hello.”

“Quite a pile of information you gave us.”

“Thought it might come in handy.”

“You mentioned being able to perform some round ups if we could get you transportation.”

“It's possible.”

“There are three cells we would like rounded up. We can get you a plane to Germany from the U.S.”

“You have my email address, do you not?”

“The Hotmail one?”

“That will work. Send everything you have to it. I will talk with my people and see when we can get them. You wouldn't happen
to have a boat around here would you?”

“Why?”

“Need to extract three members from here and get them to international waters for pick up. Planning on driving them to Mangalore
and finding some place along the shore line to quietly leave.”

There was muttering in the background, then the conversation resumed.

“Will your cell phone work there?”

“Presumably. If not I will pick another up while there and call you.”

“In three days we can have a rubber duck team on the beach north of Mangalore. They can take you and your guests to a sub.
How many people?”

“Three of them and myself.”

“I will call you in two days to confirm.”

“Very good.”

The phone call ended. Hans was never going to believe this. That little information payment they made was returning dividends.
He knew the man in the suit didn't want the Americans involved, but these guys were working so far off the reservation nobody
knew they existed, much less any reporters. He dialed the man in the suit's cell phone.

“Hello.”

“We need to have an emergency pow-wow. I'm going to sneak to the office. Call Hans and tell him we are both coming.”

The Brit knew this was going to be trouble. Best to get it all out in the open now. If the man in the suit didn't want it
played this way, then he wouldn't leave India. Here, one could make his death look like a hate crime. You didn't have to bother
getting rid of the body.

An hour later they were all back at headquarters. The Brit had actually bought the second car and parked it behind the building.
He was a few minutes late because of it. At least he brought some fresh bread and bottled tea for the meeting.

“In two days we get a phone call to confirm we are ready to extract,” he started the meeting. “A rubber duck will meet us
along the coast just north of Mangalore. They will take myself and the three members to a sub that will take us out to international
waters.”

“How did you get a sub? How did you do this without leaving town?” inquired the suit.

“Received a phone call from some people needing a favor. Told them I needed a favor before I could give them a favor.”

“What favor do they need?” inquired Hans. He knew, he just wanted to hear it.

“I need you to check my Hotmail account for the next few days Hans. We will be getting one or more files of cells and or cell
members to be rounded up in the United States. Flights in and out will be taken care of, we just need to provide boots on
the ground and local transportation.”

“These people who need the favor, they don't want any information about where the suspects end up?”

“No. They just want to know what they know and be done with them. They have more evidence than they need for conviction, but
due process would be strategically inconvenient.”

“Meaning it came from an illegal covert OP,” said the suit.

“All covert Ops are illegal somewhere. These guys own big planes, have use of airports and landing strips around the world.
They say getting us from America to Germany is nothing. We just have to perform the nab and get them to the airport or landing
strip.”

“Why do they want us?” asked the suit.

“In case it goes bad,” Hans said without looking up. “If there is an explosion, fire fight, or film on the news we will be
left hanging out to dry. They can't protect our people once the media gets some footage of them. With us being the ones to
get caught, they can say it was done by foreign nationals without the knowledge or consent of the government.”

“One thing is certain. Neither Hans nor I should be in the United States handling this. At least not in the field. Film at
11 of a Brit will make it difficult for them to deny.”

“Yes,” said the man in the suit, “If there are white guys involved, the press won't buy the cover story. It needs to be Arabs
and/or Chinese doing the actual round up, probably just Pakistanis. If one of them is nabbed, my government can play it up
saying they were rooting out terrorists wherever they found them, which is what they had publicly pledged to do.”

“Either way, film at 11 will eventually be a major problem,” said Hans.

The suit concurred. “I am heading back in the morning to arrange for the Huey. I will see what we have left for a round-up
team that can be sent. Find out how much coordination and technical support they are going to provide when the email comes
in.”

“Speaking of the Huey,” Hans interrupted.

“Don't tell me you already have one!”

“No! I wanted to tell you that there will be a care package at Pakistani headquarters first thing in the morning. The guy
who was there a little while ago said he would sign for it and not open it.”

“Indian currency won't do me any good.”

“Euros.”

“Oh.”

“If you send the team on commercial flights, they can exchange their euros for American dollars at the airport.”

“Not an entire Twinkie.”

“True, but there are currency exchanges and they could take turns coming to Germany escorting prisoners. The Americans won't
be able to know about the rest of the operation, so best to have our own people on the plane to handle the loading of the
vans.”

“OK said the Brit. I've relayed my information. I'm going to take the rest of these bottles and spend the next two days in
my hotel room. I will put my phone on a charger there, simply let me know what to say before they call back.”

With that, the meeting was over. He handed the car keys to the suit, grabbed the remaining five beers and walked out the door.
The suit fired up the car and drove back to the hotel beating the Brit by a long while. He parked where he could find parking,
but it was getting late and people were bedding down in the street.
Pakistan may be poor,
thought the suit,
but it doesn't allow this kind of squalor.

***

Back in the three-man team apartment, the one watching the external surveillance cameras saw something he had never seen before.
Someone actually knocking on the trainer's door. He quickly woke the others since the man was carrying a small bag. Once they
cleared their eyes, he played those few seconds back for them. The other two gathered a bag and a club along with the car
keys and went to wait for the man in the dark. If he was just a courier, he would be coming out soon and never seen again.