Zero Sum, Book One, Kotov Syndrome (12 page)

“Well, you’re going to have to figure
it out without me around, Steven. I love you, but I didn’t agree to
risk everything for some stupid stock, and this isn’t the life I
want. Maybe I’ll feel differently later, but right now, you’re
living in some kind of nightmare, and I’m scared, and I want
out.”

She was beautiful even as she hated
him.

“You’re not the man I met. You spend
more time on that stupid computer than you do with me, and now it’s
gotten you into big-time trouble.” Her voice cracked raw, hoarse
from the strain and emotion. “I don’t want this life. I want our
old life back. But it’s gone, and it’s all because of you and that
fucking company. I can’t take this, Steven; I don’t want to be
involved in whatever you’ve exposed us to. It isn’t
fair.”

She’d pretty much nailed it. He’d
impacted her right to happiness by taking poorly calculated risks
without accurately understanding how much was being put on the
line. And now he was in crisis mode, and Steven in crisis mode
wasn’t a good partner or mate. She wanted security, stability, not
chaos and danger and change. Hard to argue that.

He’d sensed a confrontation coming for
a while, the dissatisfaction building, the resentment over his time
involvement in the market becoming a simmering issue. Just as with
the kids and family thing, he’d hoped to deal with it at some vague
point in the future, hoping it could wait. But it hadn’t, and the
last two days had tipped the already teetering balance.

“Maybe we should take a break while I
figure this out,” was the best he could manage. It sounded shallow,
but the reality was he had bigger problems right now. Internally he
was churning, trying to figure out the next step, and Jennifer’s
dissatisfactions weren’t at the top of the list – even if they were
justifiable.

Her being right wouldn’t fix things,
and he needed to focus on fixing this quick-smart.

“Yeah, Steven, you do that…figure it
all out.” She got up and stalked across the room, kicking the rag
she’d been using to scrub the rug as she went. She stomped upstairs
and he heard drawers closing, closets being slammed.

She flounced back down a few minutes
later with two suitcases and her purse.

“I hope you come out of this okay,” she
conceded as she opened the door.

He went over and kissed her lightly on
the cheek, and held her tightly for what seemed like could be the
last time. Tears welled dangerously in her eyes, but she looked
resolved.

“Take care of yourself,” she
said.

And then she was gone.

* * * *

Steven felt disoriented. The day’s
events had already overloaded his system, and it was only
mid-afternoon. He had to take some time and calm down, to think.
Everything seemed like it was coming apart at once, and it took
every ounce of control he had to keep from panicking. He went into
the kitchen and picked up the Homeland Security card, looked at it,
put it into his pocket. He absently stared at the stain on the
carpeting – the lingering evidence of the reality of Avalon’s
death, and realized he was spacing out. Snap out of it and think, a
voice in his head commanded. Focus. He couldn’t help himself if he
zoned out. He needed a plan of action.

He sat down at the computer that had
gotten him into all the current trouble and logged into his Group.
Described the morning’s events.

A few minutes later a post popped up
from one of the gang:

[Consider your physical location and
your lodging compromised. Stow all your CCs, don’t use them. Use
only cash. Leave now with any high value items that can be
converted into $. Pull your hard drive, take the CPU and discard
elsewhere, take laptop and any CDs. Create a new Hotmail account
from a remote location, use alias for info, log on here and give us
the address. I’ll set up a new private chat room. Leave soonest,
time probably critical. G-luck. Spyder]

Wow. The lads were taking this
seriously. Then another post came up:

[Do it. Now. Gordo]

He’d been involved with them long
enough to recognize when they were right. He also realized he
hadn’t been thinking clearly, had already spent too much time as a
sitting duck. He powered down, disconnected the computer and took
it out to the car. Back inside, he grabbed the laptop and his
CD-ROMs, then went upstairs and packed a small duffel with a few
days’ clothes, the seven grand in hundred dollar bills from Vegas,
and his three most valuable watches; a yellow gold Patek Philippe
3970, a platinum Patek 3940, and a platinum men’s Rolex President.
Everything fit in the bag, along with some socks and underwear, and
a rudimentary shaving kit. He looked at his watch. Seven minutes
since he’d disconnected.

He stuffed his gear into the front seat
of the car, started the engine and raised the garage door. No black
helicopters circling. He backed out, again nearly taking out the
same skateboarder who offered the same
watch what you’re doing,
asshole
look, then pulled down the street.

So far, nothing suspicious.

No sedans with men on headsets, no
sirens, no SWAT truck.

He realized he had no idea where he was
going or what he should really do next. He called Stan, but got his
voice-mail.

“Stan, it’s Steven, there’s been a
situation at the house. Some gentlemen had been by looking for me,
gentlemen I think you’d be better at talking to. I’m on my cell.
Please call as soon as you get this.” That started the ball rolling
on the lawyer front. There was little Stan couldn’t deal with.
Short of being caught with a body in the trunk, Stan would know how
to respond.

He drove around for a while, paying
special attention to ensure he wasn’t being followed. As far as he
could tell, he had no tail. He ran a couple of yellow lights at the
last possible second, confirmed no one made it through after him,
and then gunned it around a series of corners into the back bay
side streets. From there he made his way to a frontage road, and
then onto the freeway and out to Irvine.

He didn’t want to be anywhere near
Newport Beach until he knew what the hell was going on. Irvine was
big enough so he’d be invisible for the time being. He felt a
little sheepish, wondering if he was over-reacting, but then
considered the Group’s response. They weren’t hotheads or alarmists
yet they seemed pretty agitated by the day’s events. Best to trust
that collective judgment, especially when he was in uncharted
territory.

Once he’d gotten into the heart of the
town he pulled off the freeway and spotted an office supply
superstore that featured web access. He parked in the back and
threw his computer into a dumpster. In the superstore he rented
twenty dollars of computer time from a spike-haired kid with an
attitude and halitosis. Steven was the only one in the computer
section.

He logged on. Went to Hotmail, created
a new ID, confirmed it was set up, then logged onto the Group site
and posted his new e-mail: [[email protected]]. Logged out, went
back to Hotmail and saw a message had arrived. It contained a
chat-room address he committed to memory before deleting the
message and signing out. He logged into the new chat-room address
and found yet another chat-room address with the instruction to go
to the new one.

The Group loved their cloak-and-dagger
stuff.

He did as advised, and logged into that
final address. Posted a message:

[It’s Bowman. I’m on]

Instantly a message
responded:

[Give me a second, I’m destroying the
other chat room - Spyder]

Thirty seconds went by, and
then,

[Are you clean?]

Steven advised them he was in a public
computer area and hadn’t been followed.

A different poster, Pogo, popped
in:

[Lose your cell phone – they can trace
them – do it now and come back in a few minutes. Destroy the phone.
Pogo]

What? How was he supposed to
communicate? Shit. What about his address book?

[Is that really necessary?]

Immediate feedback:

[Do it]

What a pain in the ass. He logged off,
went out to the car, and drove a block away to another parking lot.
Wrote down the ten or so numbers he didn’t know by heart. He got
out, put the phone under his back tire, and reversed over it, and
then pulled forward again for good measure. He looked at the
flattened lump of plastic and metal and wondered whether he’d
finally lost his mind.

Avalon’s dead, you’ve got no access
to your cash, and Homeland wants to chat
.

Maybe these precautions were prudent.
He did the same thing with the hard drive he'd removed before
tossing his desktop system to eliminate any chance of data ever
being recovered. Mission accomplished. He drove back to the store
and logged on.

[It’s done, crushed it, now
what?]

Spyder responded:

[You didn’t really think we were
serious…did you?]

Steven fired back,

[Ratfuck]

To which Spyder replied:

[Just kidding. You need to be ultra
careful. Cells can be tracked. When you’re done here, get a calling
card with 2000 minutes, pay cash. Use that for all calls. Go buy a
disposable cell phone with a time card in it, and use that to call
the 800 number on the calling card. Never use the ArcherX account
again. That was a one-time deal. Spyder]

Steven appreciated the instant access
to such unusual expertise, and took it seriously. Phone card,
disposable cell, got it.

Another post popped up:

[It’s Gordo. Did some checking, and
Griffen’s Barbados fund is only a PO box. It’s actually registered
and domiciled in Anguilla. Unusual.]

He wasn’t sure what to make of that.
These guys had amazing access, though. He remembered his friend had
told him there were some ‘ex-spooks’ in the Group. Gordo looked
good for one of them. Spyder too.

Another post:

[My buddy on the trading desk at one of
the big brokers says a lot of the trades that came in over the last
few attacks were done via Canadian brokers and haven’t cleared yet.
Stinks. Pogo]

This went on for half an hour or
so.

Spyder introduced the topic of IP
addresses:

[Every time you post on Yahoo or
anywhere else they tag your IP. That may be how they tracked you.
Use an IP mask when accessing e-mail or posting or uploading to the
Web. Here’s the best site – www.Be-invisible.com – use it from now
on]

Seemed like a prudent plan. God he’d
been sloppy; of course, an IP mask was ideal, he should have been
using one all the time. Dumb. Wouldn’t happen again.

He smiled at the irony that a
cyber-contact thousands of miles away could help him remain
anonymous five miles from home. No wonder governments hated the
web.

When he advised them he was signing
off, Pogo popped in and recommended he use the WiFi areas in
Starbucks whenever possible; it was convenient and anonymous. And
Pogo owned Starbucks stock. Ha-ha.

Steven purchased a calling card, then
went over to the mall cell phone store and bought a prepaid cell
phone with 250 minutes of time; forty bucks for the phone, and
twenty cents a minute for the airtime card. The kid behind the
counter activated the phone in the name of John Smith. No one
seemed at all interested in having him sign anything.

He went outside and called Stan, who
answered on the first ring.

“Steven. I tried calling earlier and
your number just rings. What’s the problem?”

“Cell phone’s on the blink. Just bought
a temporary one. Convenient… Stan, we need to talk.” That was the
understatement of the year.

“I see. Yes, they are convenient,
aren’t they...?” Stan answered cautiously

“I had some folks stop in from Homeland
Security while we were meeting this morning. They left a card.
Wanted to talk to me in the worst way. I haven’t called yet. Been
occupied,” Steven explained.

“In light of this morning’s problem
with your bank, I think perhaps I should field that call for you,
or rather an associate of mine who’s also an attorney specializing
in criminal matters should field it.” Stan was quick on his feet.
Attorney client privilege twice removed, creating an honest ability
for the attorney in question to say he had no idea where Steven
was, or even what he looked like. “I’ll sign a retainer agreement
with him on your behalf. I still have one of your powers of
attorney around here somewhere.”

“Any movement on the bank issue?”
Steven asked.

“The Justice department froze it, most
likely at the request of Homeland Security. It can be unfrozen in
time, I’m sure, given you aren’t guilty of anything and aren’t
involved with anything Homeland Security has purview over. But for
now we have a problem with that.”

“I’ll touch base with you tomorrow with
the Homeland Security phone number. I want to take care of a few
things today.”