Old Growth & Ivy (The Spook Hills Trilogy Book 1) (4 page)

“He
lives for solving cases, catching the bad guys and putting a stop to
crime.  When we are on the hunt, he does whatever work is required, no
matter how tedious it is.  He wants this case solved and he will do what
it takes to break it open.  The man is a walking legend at the
Bureau.  He has a record of always getting the perp he is after.  He
never forgets a case, a perp or anything.  In a word, he is the best.”

“Yeah
well, I thought at one point he might put a gun to my head to get the data.”

The
agents shifted uneasily in their chairs.  “He would never do that,” Brian
said softly.  “Not to any civilian, and certainly not to you.  He has
strict rules of operation and standards for performance.”

The
curly-headed agent took over, saying in the soft, pleasant way he had, “Thanks
to your team for all the ground work.  They were honing in on a likely
issue.”

“Tell
me more,” Ivy said, pulling out a chair to join them at the table.  Moll
was definitely like a noble fir which grew with its sometimes sparse limbs
springing out at odd lengths, making it an attractive, if somewhat odd tree to
decorate for Christmas.  If left to its natural ways, it often had a
little whirl of branches at the top, almost like a propeller.

“Well
this Terry guy who works for you left a great trail of possible issues. 
Cryptic pointers here and there.  He noticed little patterns that might
have taken us weeks to find or maybe that we would have missed.  Do you
have some special software or something?”

“Yes,
we do, but Terry is a talent of his own.  He never focuses on the obvious
issues.  He is one of those rare analysts who hones right in on the more
abstruse ones.  We make sure he is on the team for every bank we handle.”

“He’s a
techno-miracle.  If I could be allowed to meet him, it would be an honor.”

“We’ll
see.  Give me an example.”

“Well
here,” Moll switched on a tiny portable projector attached to his laptop. 
He thumbed his way around and brought up a bank approval document with a little
note on it.  “See it says.  ‘
ap/ac
fmlr.  X
PP
.”

“And
you think that means?”

“Approver
and account are familiar.  Cross-check it.  This Terry guy has like a
table in his head or something of approver names, accounts, and account
owners.  We followed that trail and it led us to . . . .”  Moll
stopped, looking up behind Ivy.

She
could feel a presence and knew that the big agent must be back.  She
swiveled in her chair and tilted her head up, pulling her hair away from her
face as she turned.  Today she wore it down and it was making the most of
its freedom by curling out in every direction.  There he was, standing
right behind her, staring at the Moll guy with a mixture of annoyance and
curiosity. 

“Not
giving away confidential case information, I hope,” he said sternly.

“No,
sir.  Nothing our Ivy Vine hasn’t seen before.”

Steve
raised an eyebrow at the moniker.  Moll was famous for his humorous
comments.  He was one of the few people who could make Steve laugh.

“Moll
was kind enough to compliment the work of one of my senior analysts.”  Ivy
quickly jumped to Moll’s defense.  “I just came in to make sure all was
going well and to see if . . .”

“If?”
Steve echoed.

“If
they would be interested in joining me for dinner.  Great couple of agents
you have here.”

“Have
they earned it?”

Brian
said quietly.  “We think we have, thanks to leads from Ivy’s team that we
found in the notes.”

“Let’s
hit it then.”  Steve sat down, opened his briefcase and dealt out energy
bars like cards around the table.  He looked over at Ivy.  “You have
time to sit in?”

“I will
make time.” He dealt her a crunchy Cliff bar with white chocolate and macadamia
nuts in a whole grain base.  The man knew something about energy bars.

Ivy
spent the next hour watching Moll and Brian zoom their way around the data and
electronic documents.  Out of the ten million records from two of the
three banks in question, they had isolated twenty transactions, all winding up
in two banks in Sofia, Bulgaria in accounts under the cryptic translated name
of “Adjunct Resources International” and totaling nearly two million
dollars.  Steve watched, listened and questioned.   The analysis
stood up to his intense scrutiny.   Ivy could see that all three of
the agents were fully focused on finding the trail that would lead them to the
bad guys or perps, as they called them.

“And
the third bank?”  Steve asked at the end.

“Unfortunately,
we are not finding any notes from our friend Terry.  We’ll have to slog
through it on our own, unless Ivy will lend us his brain.”

Steve
turned to face her.  “Well, Ms. Ivy Vine.  You with us on this? 
Will you throw in the talent?”

She
considered the request while keeping her eye contact with Steve.  Sooner
or later Terry would find the pattern at that third bank if one existed. 
It may as well be sooner.  She walked over to the phone on a side table,
dialed and asked Terry if he could work that night.  Terry was a free
spirit and tended to start his days late, then worked past midnight or worked
weekends when a project really interested him, and Terry found a good deal
about data that intrigued him.  He was like a curly willow tree, right
down to his soft blond hair that he wore about mid length in barely brushed
ringlets.

Ivy was
uneasy about how much support she was giving the FBI that was not required by
the Court Order, including direct contact with one of her best analysts. 
She was a loyal executive who was protective of her company’s best
interests.  Surely even from a corporate viewpoint, cooperating in a
critical federal investigation had to be the best option.  Yet she knew if
she went back to their Internal Counsel, the answer would be to stick to the
strict interpretation of the Court Order.  This would be one more
responsibility she would have to shoulder alone.  It was what she did –
took risks when needed.  They weighed heavily on her shoulders. Ivy knew
there would be no dinner out tonight.  She would order in for the agents,
Terry and herself.  

Although
Terry planned to work through the night, Ivy shooed the agents out of the
building just before 9.  The big agent was looking like he might go to
sleep on the floor.  Only Moll refused to leave, wanting to learn what
methods Terry used.  They agreed to start at 7 the next morning, going
over the notes Terry and Moll would leave. 

***

Around
4:30 a.m. Ivy’s home phone rang, waking her up.  She answered sleepily –
the long days that week had hit her hard the night before.  On the other
end of the line, Terry was full of excitement.  “Ivy, I think we found
something, but I can’t be sure about it.”

“What?”

“On
transactions going to accounts in Bulgaria for this third bank, sometimes one
guy at the bank approves it; sometimes a woman does and sometimes a couple of
other guys do.”

“And?”

“I
think one of them is forging signatures.  I’m not a handwriting expert,
however the writing looks almost traced, without those little variations
signatures usually have.”

Ivy
pushed herself up further in bed.  “How many?”

“Fifteen
in total.  The transactions originate in various cities and are from
different companies and source accounts.”

“Dollars?”

“Over
five million.”

“Wow. 
All going to Sofia?”

“Uh-huh,
spread over the months we have.”

“This
will be delicate, but the FBI can have signature analysis done.”

“Ivy, I
have a question.”

“Yes,
Terry?”

“Those
agents aren’t here to give an opinion on our practices, are they?”

Ivy
thought for a moment.  She avoided directly lying to her employees,
although she might shade the truth a bit or tell them she was not at liberty to
disclose information.  However Terry was tight-lipped.

“The
FBI is here on a critical humanitarian case.  You cannot tell
anyone.  For right now, this cannot get back to the banks.  The case
they are pursuing is both very sensitive and important.”

“Got
it.”

“Did
Moll say something to you?” 

“Nothing,
but what a guy!  He was great help last night until he fell asleep curled
up on the floor about an hour ago.  I didn’t want to wake him.  He is
the smartest guy I ever met and the first one who thinks like me.”

“Good
to know.  I’m going to call Agent Nielsen.  In all likelihood, you
can expect us to arrive within the hour.  You okay to hang around until
then?”

“Yeah. 
Might need a ride home.  All of a sudden, I’ll just crash.”

“No
worries.  Terry, I’ve said it before -- you are a great asset to us. 
Thank you.”

Ivy
hung up the phone, grabbed her cell and searched for the big agent’s phone
number in her contacts.  She dialed and waited.  When she heard a
gruff, “Neilson” on her phone, she thought she heard a shower running in the
background.

“Steve? 
Ivy Littleton.”

“Give
me a minute.”  She heard the shower turn off and after a few moments Steve
came back on.  “Sorry about that.  Just finished my morning swim and
shower.  What’s up?”

Ivy
tried not to think of him standing dripping wet in his hotel room.  She
hoped he had a towel on.  She explained what Terry had found. 

“We’ll
want copies of the signatures.”

“Signatures,
yes.  Not the docs.  We’ll assign a cross-reference code.”

“Yeah
okay.  I’ll call London,
er
Brian, and we’ll be
at the site in a half hour.  You be there?”

“Yes. 
See you.”

Ivy
jumped out of bed and into the shower, planning a mad scramble to let the dogs
out, feed them, get dressed and drive to the office.   She would
phone in a quick order to a nearby Starbucks for coffee and breakfast
sandwiches to shore the team up.

Three
hours later, Terry had explained his findings to the team, shown them the
documents and been driven home by Ivy’s assistant to get some sleep.  The
three agents carefully examined each transaction and were running searches to
try to find more.  Ivy now had her assistant electronically cutting and
pasting signatures into an indexed document, while she was in her office
handling her other work.  Steve rang her phone and asked her to join them
in the conference room.

“Ms.
Ivy Vine,” he said.  She noticed that sometimes his voice had a slight
drawl and she wondered where he had grown up.

She had
to laugh at the nickname.  It was one she used herself sometimes.

“We
need one more thing.”

“Only
one?”

“We
need you to request a larger set of data over a longer date range.  Now,
for each of the three banks, we need . . .”

Whether
from the long hours or the stress of the situation, Ivy had reached her
limits.  “No.”

“Think
about it.  We have a trail here.  We need to scope how big these
operations are.”

She
stood stiffly.  Ivy rarely became angry.  She could argue heatedly,
but real anger was something else.  When it hit, it was immediate,
white-hot and impossible to control.  The agent was pushing her too far.

“I have
stuck my neck out sharing as much as I have.  No way can I go back to the
banks and ask for more data.  It would create all sorts of concerns. 
You must realize that.”

“Then
I’ll go for another court order and we’ll come back.”

“You do
that.”

Ivy
glared at him, marched over and stood next to Steve where he sat at the head of
the meeting table.  “I may not be some high-powered FBI attorney, Agent
Nielsen, however I do not believe any judge can or will force a service
organization like this one to ask a client to supply more data.”

It was
then that Steve broke into a big grin, turning his severe face into that of an
impudent boy.  “Got you!” he said, breaking out in laughter.

Right
then Ivy was too tired and too fired up to be the butt of a joke.  She
turned on her heel and marched out of the room.  She stomped down the
hall, took the elevator to ground level and went out the front door, seeking
fresh air to get her temper to settle back down.  That big agent was
totally exasperating.  She marched down the street and around the block,
annoyed at herself for having lost her cool, irritated with Steve for
embarrassing her in front of the other agents and particularly aggravated that
he had gotten the better of her.  She kept moving for a few blocks,
stopped, breathed in and out about twenty times to bring herself back together,
turned and walked back.  Once on her floor, she saw the damned big agent
in the reception area to her offices.  Ivy gritted her teeth and lectured
herself to keep calm.  She was 62 and this man had her acting like a crazy
person.  He waited until she walked up, looked at her contritely and held
the door open to their office suite.