Project Northwest (18 page)

Mr. Wright continued. His words were decisive
and delivered with the sharpness of a man in control. “You want a
guarantee, James? I suggest you focus and only focus on the task at
hand. That’s the only guarantee you’ll make it out of this
unscathed. Forget trying to shadowbox with me. You’ll lose. This is
strike three James and I will not tolerate any additional
insolence. You will do what I want you to do or I will do what I
have to do. I hope, for the final time, I’m clear. Do you know what
hope is, James?”

James could only shake his head. He didn’t
have a clue what hope was.

Mr. Wright opened his coat just enough to
show James the handle of a pistol settled snugly in its shoulder
holster. He tapped it for effect. “This is Hope. She’s a source of
divine inspiration with an inferno from hell in her belly. Many
have found God when she appears, most have gone to hell. I hope
she’s getting through that thick skull of yours. I hope she doesn’t
have to kill a man today. I hope you don’t fuck with me or her. I’m
not in the habit of making mistakes and when I do, I don’t solve
them, she gets rid of them.”

Mr. Wright closed his coat, checked to make
sure ‘Hope’ was hidden, and continued, “Here’s the deal. I’m not
afraid of death, Mr. Spain. I’ve seen death all my adult life, but
I know you are afraid – excuse the pun – deathly afraid. The fear
is irrational, you know? We’re all going to die and if you’re
lucky, you won’t know when, but I will make sure you know when.
Hope doesn’t hide in the shadows. I understand your fear. You have
a lot to lose. Nice condo, beautiful girlfriend, good job. You’re
young enough to rebound – I couldn’t do it, too old and I just
don’t care. So I’m not afraid of death, I embrace it. I’m death’s
caretaker.”

He leaned in and hissed, “My not being afraid
of death should be of grave concern to you.”

James was thoroughly mortified. “My
apologies, I regret even suggesting it now.”

“No need to apologize, James. It was an
honest question and I gave an honest answer. The safest place for
you in this city is in your office doing what I’ve asked you to do.
You do that and you, Ms. Davies, and Miss Spenser will be just
fine. But if you cross me once more – well, Hope’s one flaw is
she’s quick and merciful. I will make sure Hope takes out Ms.
Davies first and I will make sure you see it before she turns her
vengeance upon you.”

Mr. Wright stood. “One final thought--don’t
make any new friends.”

Mr. Wright made a hand motion and the
associate returned with the cell phone and stood guard.

“Cricket, turn on the devices and start
recording, thank you.”

“Mr. Spain, thanks for the meeting. I do
apologize for you having missed lunch, but there is important work
to be done, shall we?” He stood, took James’s arm at the elbow, and
gestured that James should make his way to the elevator bank.

James’s knees were weak, his legs the
consistency of Jell-O, but he managed to walk to the elevator bank
and looked over his shoulder. Both Mr. Wright and his associate
were gone. While waiting for the elevator to arrive, he looked over
the entire patio area and didn’t see any trace of them. They had
vanished in a matter of seconds.

He tossed his cell phone into the back of the
employee locker, went through security, and found Shelly sitting in
the office.

“I didn’t know they were taking pictures. I
had no idea until I got the package late last night.” She sat back
into her chair, her body drooping with exhaustion and guilt, “So is
everything okay, are we still moving forward?”

“Yes, we are. It doesn’t matter, it’s done,
let’s just get him the numbers he wants. What do they have over
you, Shelly?” James asked, as he logged back into the bank system
and was announcing numbers, secretly hoping they choked on
them.

“My nine-year-old daughter,” she said in a
heartbreaking whisper. “They said they would hurt her, said Hope
had her eye on her—I don’t even know what that means. She’s only in
fourth grade, James.”

James could only nod his head, “Well, let’s
make sure nothing happens to her.”

* * * *

Mr. Wright and his associate waited until
James had taken the elevator. “Cricket, are we still on for mark
number four?”

“Yes, sir. Mr. DuVall confirmed he will meet
you in Belltown at nine on the dot to complete the exchange.”

“Thank you.”

Wright looked at the associate. “Looks like
Hope has some unfinished business, time to send another gluttonous
soul to hell. Let’s make our way to Belltown and survey the area
for our late night rendezvous.”

Mr. Wright entered the condo a little after
5:00 P.M. Cricket, at first, was nowhere to be found, then he heard
someone messing around in the restroom off the main hallway.

“That had better be you in there,
Cricket.”

“Yeah, it is. Will be right out. The GMC
tailed Ms. Davies to work and the guys are returning the van, not
much going on, so I thought I’d answer nature’s call.”

Mr. Wright passed the couch and stood in
front of the array of computer monitors sitting on the surveillance
table. The setup was impressive, with each monitor showing visual
gauges of server processor speeds, data transfer speeds and other
data he didn’t understand. The monitor to the right obviously held
the alarm software and the pop up notices showed several
alarms.

“Were you still recording when I asked you to
stop earlier? When I was speaking with Spain?”

“Of course. I’m sure he was scared shitless.
The stuff about Hope was classic,” responded Cricket as he exited
the restroom.

“Good man, what are all these alarms?” Mr.
Wright asked pointing at the third monitor.

“Let’s see,” said Cricket, as he settled into
his chair and rolled up to the desk. “Those are intrusion alarms,
those are motion alarms, and the three there in the corner are
digital packet signatures.”

“Where are there intrusion alarms? You mean
like into the room or something?”

“They’re nothing to be concerned about. Our
wi–fi system and firewalls are impenetrable. I built the system and
not even I could punch through. There are just too many hoops to
jump through and the wireless laptops only sync when they are in a
specific GPS range. Of course, they have to have a dongle in the
USB port.”

“A dongle, are you messing with me?”

“No, it’s an actual security device, more
along the lines of physical security. So the alarms are nothing. I
just like to see all intrusion attempts and check the mapping to
see if anything looks suspicious.” Cricket maximized a program from
the task bar. It showed all connected sessions.

“What’s that?” Mr. Wright asked pointing at a
flashing icon labeled ‘data center.’

“Our storage server, it’s in a collocation
data center down the street.”

“Why not have it here?”

Cricket laughed at the idea, a bit of tech
humor that Mr. Wright just didn’t understand. “We’re capturing
twenty-four cameras and forty-eight voice channels, twenty-four
hours a day, for who knows how long. Video and voice files are huge
and would quickly overwhelm anything we could cart in here. Plus,
the server acts as the gateway, a third party, for our digital
signature. We don’t want another DeepSouth.”

“Yes, DeepSouth, we did get screwed. I still
want to put a little pressure on them. They owe us and I will get
my revenge.”

Mr. Wright sat in the chair next to Cricket
and stared mindlessly at the monitor as he recalled the DeepSouth
contract. It was simple enough. The client wanted a sneak peek at
the books and inner workings of a competitor, in the hopes of
taking advantage of pressure points. Was the competitor’s weakness
accounts receivable? Maybe more along the lines of a strained
supply chain? Was someone skimming a little off the top or was the
company overleveraged in retirement plan commitments. His client
wanted anything to start a rumor that had just a tinge of
truth.

The mark, pressured by Wright, delivered the
data needed and Cricket passed it along to a clearing house for
DeepSouth. The client eventually ran the competitor through the
rumor mill, hiring five cent per post bashers to post on message
boards, and leaking confidential information to media sources. The
competitor’s stock tumbled and Mr. Wright’s client purchased all of
its assets through liquidation proceedings at the end of a two
month bankruptcy for pennies on the dollar. In the end, they had
all the assets and managed to rid themselves of a competitor.

The client claimed the success was due to the
hired bashers and not the data Mr. Wright and his team provided.
Mr. Wright was shocked to learn that some bashers and pumpers are
well connected, well-funded, and can swing the sentiment of a
company’s stock through social media, blogs, even print articles in
newspapers and journals.

Mr. Wright knew DeepSouth used the inside
information provided by his team and the client owed them 8.9
million dollars for their work, but reneged, claiming they never
got the numbers and that what they did get, they didn’t use.
Cricket was sure they had received all the numbers, but couldn’t
prove it. In criminal ventures, parties can’t simply involve the
authorities, so when one party doesn’t live up to the deal, the
only option left is revenge.

Mr. Wright restrained himself. “Don’t worry,
Cricket, once we’re done with this project, we’ll get our revenge
on DeepSouth. I know you’re looking forward to it. They basically
called you a liar.”

“I know. It still pisses me off. That’s why
the data being sent to Project Northwest’s war room carries a
digital signature. Each file packet, when delivered, gets signed,
when opened, gets signed again, and when returned back to our data
center, gets signed once more. No one will be able to claim that we
didn’t provide numbers. Their digital fingerprints are all over it
and the beauty of it is that if they don’t pay, we can use it
against them.”

“Very good. So what kind of revenge do you
have in mind for our misguided client, DeepSouth?” Mr. Wright asked
as he placed his hand on Cricket’s shoulder.

“Will it be my call?”

“Sure, why not?”

“I’d love to bring them to their knees, not a
virus or worm, but something far more sinister, I’m thinking of
polymorphic code.”

“Tell me about it later. My only request is
not only does the company go down, but the president, the CEO, the
CFO, and their kids, end up on the street. Think you could do
it?”

“Yes, I dream of it in code every night.”

“In code?” Mr. Wright shook his head in
disbelief. “We got to get you a girlfriend, Cricket. Is she moved
in?” he asked as he pointed to the picture of Ms. Davies on the
middle screen.

“Yes, they moved all the boxes first, then
took the large items to the storage unit. The associates just
returned the van and are going back to the apartment to sign the
new lease with the landlord.”

“Perfect. Ms. Davies may or may not be upset
the landlord leased it before the thirty day expiration, but we
both know we couldn’t leave the microphones and cameras in an empty
apartment and we couldn’t leave it in her name. Mr. Spain is smart
and would’ve found a reason to go there and we would’ve been
blind.”

“Is she at The Lounge?”

“Yes, she arrived about thirty minutes ago.
We have associate one in The Lounge watching her and the GMC
outside.”

“Okay, today was a good day. Process the
images on this sim card from DuVall’s office and get them to the
client. Nice screen saver by the way, which island is it?” He
tossed Cricket the sim card for a digital camera.

“Yeah, the screen saver is my dream spot, the
end of the Rum Point pier on Seven Mile Beach. It’s on Grand
Cayman. Haven’t been there yet, but I will.”

“I think I’ll have a little good scotch and
smoke a cigar out on the balcony. I picked up a nice Macanudo
Corona after my meeting with Mr. DuVall. You won’t call the Seattle
police, will you?” Wright joked.

“Only if you don’t share a little of the
scotch.”

Mr. Wright pondered the deal, as if Cricket
had just asked him something personal about his family. “Okay, just
a little. God knows you could use better dreams.”

Mr. Wright made it to the balcony first, sat,
and lit his cigar. Cricket followed and took the other chair.

“How did the marks do today?” he asked.

“Spain and Spenser did well, so that’s four
solid days of numbers. About a thousand little pieces of the puzzle
have fallen into place for our client.” He took a small sip of the
scotch and continued, “All indications from the client’s war room
show they are pleased. Miss Spenser has moved the questions along
nicely, and we are now getting a true read on the bank’s
liabilities and daily outflow. Mr. Spain isn’t holding anything
back.”

“And our other marks?”

“Our third mark has transmitted some one
hundred plus highly confidential documents and emails. The
information is proving to be extremely helpful to our client. The
fourth, from what I gather, will be dealt with at nine
tonight.”

Their glasses clinked together.

“Please make sure the accounts are ready.
Tomorrow, we will receive our fourth weekly expense payment in the
amount of five million and our first quarter payment for the
contract, a respectable twenty-five million. What’s your take on
the bank?”

“You know, it’s middle of the road. She’s
taking some punches, but her assets and subs are strong. There is
one weakness, a troubled mortgage branch in California. We haven’t
seen the rumor mill fire up yet, though. When our client strikes,
that lending unit will be leaked to the media as a systematic
symptom of the entire bank and the run will begin. Of course, any
sitting Congressman who is willing to listen will receive secret
phone calls and minutes of secret meetings, all suggesting dire
months ahead. Do you think the bank has any idea what’s about to
happen to them?”