David Duffy - In for a Ruble

Next to that list, I put down the sequence of events involving Leitz as I knew them. The computer activity Foos had spotted in the Leitz system had occurred in August, the same time when the BEC’s troubles began and the first three million showed up in accounts belonging to Andras and Irina. The brute force attack on Leitz Ahead came shortly after. Alyona Lishina approached Leitz in October. More Leitz computer activity around Thanksgiving. Another transfer of funds to the kids’ accounts. The fake lawyers followed, dispatched to question the Leitz family. They pretended to ask about Leitz to support the background-check story, but they were more interested in everyone else. Every Leitz sibling—Marianna, Thomas, and Julia—told me as much. They’d all been asked about the other members of the family, not just Big Brother Sebastian. Konychev was attacked in December, around the time Nosferatu and Coryell placed the bug. Konychev and Nosferatu and the BEC had Coryell in their pocket. They were in business together. Konychev and Nosferatu weren’t looking for information on Leitz’s firm or TV deal. They were looking for the guy who was interfering with the BEC’s network.

Andras Leitz, computer whiz.

That’s where his budding fortune came from—or at least part of it. He and Irina were ripping off the family business, her family business. The timing fit. So did the bank, in a circumstantial way. The million-dollar transfers came in August and December, from a bank in Estonia. More than probable the BEC would do business in Tallinn.

I called Victoria.

“Search warrant come through yet?”

“Don’t get me started. I’m ready to start taking scalps around here as it is.”

“When it does, check the bank records.”

“Turbo, America won the Cold War, remember?”

“We can argue history later. I’m betting you’re going to find four transfers out of ConnectPay’s account at B of A, two each of one-point-five million in August and two each of two-point-five mil in November. If you can follow them, I bet they lead to accounts owned by Andras Leitz and Irina Lishina. Might be tough, though. I think the money gets washed and dried on the way. It ends up in Estonia before coming back here.”

“What have you been up to now?”

“Just thinking.” I told her about my misassumptions.

“Huh,” she said. “That actually makes sense. I’ll look into it and let you know. If —I ever get my goddamned search warrant.”

She hung up. I went to Foos’s office.

“What are the chances Andras Leitz could get inside the BEC network?”

He thought for a moment. “Without knowing any particulars, I’d say not good. They’re well protected, better than most. Andras is smart, but…”

“Someone’s been causing the BEC technical problems for months. According to Ivanov, they’ve knocked it offline altogether.”

“No shit? Give me a minute.”

I went back to my office and fed Andras’s name into the Basilisk. He was on the move again. Wednesday noontime, he flew to LaGuardia on AmEx. Late Wednesday afternoon, he withdrew $2,900 from a half-dozen ATMs—all in Queens. When I mapped them, they formed a parade down Queens Boulevard. Then the trail stopped. Not a single electronic transaction since. He’d stocked up on cash and gone underground. Why? I had the feeling the answer had to do with Walter Coryell.

Foos appeared at my door.

“You’re right. I tried several known BEC IP addresses. They’re all nonresponsive. But I still don’t think Andras…”

“Suppose he got inside some U.S. servers connected to the BEC, like his uncle Walter’s. Could he access the network, make mischief?”

“That’s possible. But…”

“Why?”

“Yeah, why do it?”

“If I’m right, he ripped off eight mil for openers.”

“This can’t be about the money.”

“True. I don’t have a good answer for why. But he was in Queens Wednesday. Withdrew three grand then dropped offline.”

“Huh. You gonna tell Leitz?”

“My client’s Taras Batkin now—and his stepdaughter is right in the middle of this.”

“So?”

“So I’m going to think about it.”

I didn’t get a chance to think long. Gina called a few minutes later.

“Those kids are up to something, but I can’t tell what. It’s a nighttime operation, though. Last two nights, I didn’t get to bed until after three. I figured you didn’t want to hear from me then.”

“You figured right. What’s up?”

“I found the kids’ place. And they’re definitely doing something strange. It’s on the second floor and they got all the windows covered over, like they don’t want anyone to see in.”

“Where?”

“Crestview Main Street. There’s a liquor store across from the pizza joint, in the next block. This place is over that. Looks like they got the whole floor. Two-story building, one entrance and a fire escape.”

“How’d you find it?”

“Two kids showed up for pizza Wednesday night. Ten to ten. Not the Leitz kid and the girl, but two others. They looked like Gibbet School kids, I know a couple at NYU who went to that place, and they’re a type, you know? I took a drive by when I got up here. That campus has more money than most country clubs. Looks like everybody should be wearing blue blazers or white dresses and be waited on by—”

“I get the point.”

“Anyway, these kids were driving a BMW, New York plates, BDK one-three-five-eight. They bought a pie to go and went across the street. The entrance is around back. I circled the whole building. Every window’s covered, no lights anywhere, except one over the door outside. All you can see inside is stairs going up into the dark. They stayed until after two. I didn’t call you yesterday because I didn’t know who they were. Last night the Russian chick shows up. I’m pretty sure it’s her—tall, blond, real looker. She hits the pizza joint and goes in the same entrance as the others. I thought about going up the fire escape, but you told me to lay back, so I did.”

The BMW was Irina’s car. The ghostly image of Nosferatu, all six-feet-seven inches of him, fingernails as long as knives, materialized in my imagination. He could make me come to miss Beria.

“You did right. How late did she stay?”

“Two thirty-eight. I tailed her back toward the school, but she turned off on a side road just short of campus. Martin Lane. No way I could follow without getting spotted. What kind of high school lets kids go and come at all hours?”

“The kind that believes their students don’t use the same toilets as the rest of us. You didn’t see the Leitz kid?”

“Nope. But he could be inside the place above the liquor store, for all I know.”

“You’ve done your job. Pack up and head for Logan. I’ll catch a late afternoon shuttle. Meet me at the gate with the car keys.”

I called Victoria, and told her she was her own for at least one night. She asked where I was going, in a tone that indicated she didn’t expect an answer.

“Batkin business,” I said, which was true.

“Shit.”

That she didn’t precede “shit” with “bull” said she believed me, and she wasn’t happy about it.

“I’m running down the connection between the Leitz kid, the Lishina girl, and Coryell/Druce. Could be fruitful for you too.”

“There’s laws about what kind of evidence we can use, you know.”

“How’s that search warrant coming?”

Silence.

I started to say good-bye, but she’d already hung up.

Gibbet, Massachusetts, settled in 1635 according to the marker announcing the town line, still had all the signs of a prosperous New England colonial township. Why they named it after the gallowslike structure from which convicted corpses were hung as deterrents to those who might follow their misguided path was a question, but four centuries ago someone apparently thought it was good idea. Town founder was a hangman, perhaps. In the intervening years, the Gibbet folk had built lots of white and gray wood-sided houses with green and black shutters. A brick town hall, stone library, and Doric-columned historical society lined Main Street, interspersed with Federal, Greek Revival, and Georgian homes. The supermarket, gas station, and convenience store all looked out of place. The police station, fire station, and post office had been moved to the edge of town, their former Main Street facilities now occupied by an Italian restaurant, health food store and Pilates center. Gibbet had made a seamless transition from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century.