Un-Connected (27 page)

Anyway, Jim’s supervisor called back in a
surprisingly short time and told him they agreed with his assessment, and the
legal department was preparing the announcement now. They expected it to be
wired to each bank that day with a hard copy to follow in the mail.

Jim had also gotten time to see the autopsy
of the patient they had taken in who had died prematurely. He had air injected
into his veins. I asked how that could do anything. He said it was called
air embolism
, and it was a bubble of air getting to the heart. Then the
heart got vapor lock and couldn’t pump. They had found a very small puncture
wound in his neck, which had not bled. So he was murdered.

Jim said they
had a big picture now, but there were still a
lot
of details missing,
especially who was behind it all. Then Jim gave me an attaboy. Because I had
refused to die or give up, I had probably opened the crack that Rebecca had
started and exposed the whole thing. Whoever was behind this was certain if
they had gotten me, they could have gone right on.

Their program
was to take un-connected people who had enough equity of some kind to be worth
stealing and take all their stuff. It apparently worked well as long as the
person was truly un-connected. But when they missed picking up on a connection,
which they did with Rebecca and Leon, they had to “clean up.  That is probably
what the black SUVs were mainly for.”

“They didn’t
know Rebecca hadn’t told you anything. They were concerned about you talking. He
reminded us of the guy in the wheelchair who had been run off the road and
killed. That was certainly
clean up
. When I evaded them with Deb’s help
and refused to die at Otis’s truck stop, then their plan began to unravel. They
began to be exposed. Also because I was so resilient, it was evident to them
that I knew about Rebecca and Leon. They didn’t know all it meant was that I
was hardheaded and stubborn.” He said chuckling.

Jim said they were
probably angrier with me now than they were before, but now they were undoubtedly
very busy eliminating situations or people that could expose them.   “They had
to be running really scared.  The second visit to the truck stop was not to
recover anything, it was pure revenge.  So since they had shown they tended to
be vengeful that was a bad warning for me.”

“This was a
large, developed scheme apparently nationwide with a number of people involved.
There were numerous black SUVs with several men in each one of them.  Then they
had doctors, lawyers, and IRS agents doing their bidding. With that many people
involved, there were a lot of people who could talk. They must be really busy
making sure no one does talk.”

Jim finished by
thanking me for staying alive and breaking this case open. I told him I had
just done it for the greater good. I said my own personal well-being was never
the most important issue.

We all laughed.

“Later,” Jim
said and was gone.

Chapter 16

Doing the Paper Work

Deb and I went
to walk the land. We parked on the knoll that would probably be the home site. We
walked to each corner from there and then walked the perimeter. We were tired
of walking, but we were so excited. This was our land. We had a place where we
could stand or sing or shout or whatever and no one could tell us to move on. We
had a place on God’s green earth, and only God could take it away. Or more
likely, He could take us away from it. We took pictures of different features like
a very interesting rock outcropping.

A place where
the soil was damp indicated there might be an underground spring.  A little
patch of short scrubby trees or large bushes of some kind were so thick we
could hardly force our way into it. But once inside, it was like a canopy
overhead with support posts spread around randomly. Leaves thinly coated the
floor under the canopy. It was quiet and shady and it afforded privacy from the
outside world. I told Deb I could kiss her in here and she could scream and no
one would come to rescue her from my lips.  But she didn’t run or scream.

We liked our new
property but had not gotten anywhere with picking house plans. I told Deb we
could buy a travel trailer, drill a well, put in a septic tank, and live there
until inspiration came to us. She said that would be OK if we couldn’t do
better.

We called
Margaret and gave her one of our debit card numbers.  We told her to take $2000
and make it last as long as she could.  We told her we would try to see Franz
every other day. 

“How do you
think we should break the news to him that he won’t be getting his house back?”
Deb asked Margaret.

She was quiet
for a few seconds.

“I don’t know
but that is the next big nut isn’t it? I have been so busy trying to run this
place and balance the books so I don’t get fired.  I didn’t even take the time
to see things from Franz’s point of view.  Thank you for helping me with this. 
I needed your perspective.  You are right that is the next big hurdle.  Give me
some time to think about it.  Maybe by the time you come to see him next, one
of us will have an idea.”

Then I got a
call from Rebecca’s parents. Rebecca’s car had been put in a body shop to get
repaired, and the repairman had found a folder hidden in a side panel of the
trunk. He didn’t think much of it but had given it to the niece. She gave it to
them, and they were trying to figure out what it was.

It was clearly Rebecca’s
handwriting. But it was sometimes coded and didn’t make sense with so many
words missing. She had replaced words with numbers and figures and occasionally
Greek or Asian characters. I told them that the guy that gave them the special
new phone would undoubtedly be in contact with them, and he would almost
certainly want the folder. I said bye and hurried off the phone to call Jim. 
We headed home.

He answered on
the second ring, which usually meant he was in the office. When I told him what
had been found in Rebecca’s car, he got as excited as I did. We didn’t know
what it was, but it clearly had been hidden by Rebecca and would likely be
important. He was on his way.

He called them en
route and was there in about forty-five minutes. He told them they had done the
right thing to protect it and call about it on the secure phone because they
expected it to be fairly important. He rushed back to the office and tried to
get someone in encryption to help him with it. He was told that he was the last
“rush” of several, and that they would make it a priority, but it would be a
few days before they could get on it.

Jim faxed copies
to me and asked me to work on it and see what I could come up with while he
tried himself as well as trying to find someone in another office who could
help. He had sent a copy to Marty in the Phoenix office. I made an extra copy
for Deb, and we got into it. Most of the words were there and legible, but the
significant ones were coded, so it was impossible to tell what was being said.

After a while I
decided to work on the Greek characters. It looked like the
theta
was
used for “the,” “that,” and “they.” I asked Deb if it looked right to her. She
thought it was but said it would be hard to tell without more words. There was
a symbol or word that looked like
Dau
, which Deb said she thought was
Vietnamese for “crazy” or “pain.” The first character was capitalized.  The
numbers one and two were common as well, and we weren’t sure whether or not
they were used as one or two or if they were code symbols. They were used so
often, we felt they surely must be symbols for something else. I checked other
Vietnamese words. Several others looked similar to
Giet
with the first
letter capitalized in the middle of the sentence. It could be Vietnamese for “kill.”

Little by little,
we began to figure out some of the code, but it was slow going. Finally, I
asked Deb if she wanted to go for a walk to clear our heads. She said yes with enthusiasm,
and off we went. We hadn’t gone far when we got a call from Jim. Marty had
found an encryption guy in Phoenix that we could work with for one day. We
needed to call him immediately and work out schedules and get as much mileage
out of him as we could. We agreed, and then I asked Jim if he had been in Viet
Nam. He said he had, and he believed some of the words were Vietnamese as did
we.

We called Sal
the encryption guy in the Phoenix FBI office. He said he’d come out toward our
house, and we said we would meet about halfway. He would be bringing a copy of
his own.

The next morning
we were up early and at the meeting location early. We were both well armed in
case something went wrong. Sal was a shorter, heavier FBI agent than most and
not as serious. We sat with our backs to the wall nonetheless and were quiet
whenever anyone walked close by. It didn’t happen often, so we didn’t feel
compromised.

Sal had worked
on the code a little the night before. He suggested the number one was Leon and
the number two was Rebecca. When we read it with those substitutions, Deb and I
both agreed that he was probably right. He had not picked up on the Vietnamese,
but he had most of the Greek characters figured out. Some drawings none of us
had cracked, so Sal asked me to work on those since they probably represented
something in Rebecca’s life, and I would have the best chance to figure those
out. I agreed.

We had some
friends who had a contemporary house with shed roofing. I found that Rebecca
had used a square with one side higher than the other like it had a shed roof. I
tried substituting
house
for her square and it seemed to work. I told
Deb and Sal, and they agreed. There were several crosses that we felt were an
important key. So I worked on that next.

I wasn’t making
much headway until I asked the agent if he knew the name of the nursing home
that Leon was in before he died. It was Christian Brothers Nursing Home. When I
put
nursing home
where the crosses were, it made sense and I told my two
partners. Within a couple of hours, we were beginning to get enough done so we
could tell most of what Rebecca had written.

It wasn’t long
though until we were exhausted. This was serious cranial work. We took a break
for a short lunch and then got back on it. About two in the afternoon, Sal
wanted to take what we had done back to his office and show it to another guy.
He would work on it some that evening because his wife and kids would be away
at grandmother’s house and wouldn’t be home until late. That sounded good to
us.

Just before he
left, Deb put something similar to the Vietnamese
thoi
together with our
“stop.” We went for a walk while he drove away. This was harder work than I was
used to doing. Accounting had been tedious at times, but I hadn’t done any of
it for a long time now. I also had the same kind of feeling as when I’m working
real hard on some kind of puzzle. What we had made out so far is that Rebecca
was having a lot of trouble with someone who was fighting with her over Leon.

We went to see
Franz.  He was walking around visiting with other patients.  He was in real
good spirits Margaret said.  She hadn’t found an easy way to tell him about his
house.  We hadn’t either.

“I guess we will
go visit with him and maybe we won’t have to discuss it today.” Deb said.

“I hope.”
Margaret said.

We went to find
Franz and he was in a sitting area with some other people talking.  When he saw
us he threw up his hands showing his excitement.  He introduced us as his new
friends.

“Let’s go to the
room.” Franz said and he shuffled down the hall with some energy while we
followed.

“Did you see the
house?” He asked.

“Yes, we found
it,” I said. “It looks like a nice house.  Did you plant the flowers out front
and the trees and do all the landscaping?”

“Yes, I worked
on it almost every day.  It was one of the most fun things I did.  I have a
real green thumb you know.  I have been real blessed that I can make things
grow.”

“Did you grow a
garden?”

“Oh, yes.  If
you had been able to see the back of the house you would have seen a nice sized
garden.  I especially like tomatoes and peppers so I have a lot of those.  I
have some corn too.  Then I have a little of several other things but my big
crops are those.”

“Were you
married?”

“Yes, Corrina
and I were married 52 years when she passed away.  We didn’t have any children
and we haven’t talked to our family in Michigan in most of that time.  They
don’t want to have anything to do with us because I was in Hitler’s youth
army.”

“Did you
volunteer or were you drafted?”

“That is a good
question and it sounds so simple now to be one or the other.  The truth is
both.  My mother was taken to a concentration camp because they measured the
length of her nose and that told them she was Jewish.  That is ridiculous but
that is what they said and off she went.  So I was alone starving when most
other kids were starving even that had a family.  I was promised food if I
would join and then they grabbed me up and hauled me off.  So was I forced into
service or did I volunteer.  The truth is they grabbed me up and I didn’t
protest.  They would give me food.”

He paused and
looked at us for a few seconds. 

“Something has
happened so I won’t get my house back, will I?”

We didn’t say
anything for what seemed several seconds.

“It doesn’t look
like it but we don’t know for sure.  We are hoping to get it back for you but
someone bought it and they are living in it.” Deb said.

I was glad it
was her that answered.  A woman’s voice is usually softer and gentler and hers
is for sure so her telling him was kinder than I could have been.

He just sat
there for several minutes without emotion or speaking.

“Well I’ll just
have to make do somewhere else then.”  Franz said with some sadness and some
determination. “I have done it before and I will do it again.”

We just sat
there amazed and with nothing we could really say.  He is eighty years old and
just found out he lost his home.  Now he is talking about going to live
somewhere else.  That was amazing to us.

We visited for a
little while longer and then told him we would be back in a couple of days.  He
thanked us for coming and said he needed to take a nap.

We told Margaret
what had happened and she said they would check on him every little bit and be
sure he was okay.  We were sure he was depressed because he almost immediately
wanted to take a nap.  That is a good defensive mechanism.

When we got home,
Jim called. He said we would not believe what had been happening today. He said
the letter went out to the banks late yesterday afternoon. In the letter they
had instructed the banks what to do if they should be approached to close an
account. If the person did not have the proper paperwork, then they were to
tell them that the bank had an accounting error relating to the account, and
that it should be cleared up that day or the next. They weren’t to tell anyone
about the letter. Then the letter stated that the directions did not exclude
anyone including a branch of government.

If they would
leave a phone number, the bank would call them when it was straightened out,
and they could come back in and close the account. If they protested, the
banker could say that it should be resolved really soon. If the people wanted
to take the money out that was not contested, they would simply say their
charter with the FDIC or OCC, whichever applied
,
would not let them.

The letter did
not mention the IRS. The FBI had gotten several calls from banks saying that
IRS agents had been in to close accounts. The bank people had done what they
were instructed to do by the FBI. It may have been the only time most of them
had ever told an IRS agent “No!” Some of the IRS badge carriers were not very
happy and didn’t take “No” very well. At a couple of places, security had to
show them out. Most would not leave a phone number, and all said they would be
back.