Joseph Finder - Power Play

It took him a few months, but he found his place in the hierarchy. He became respected for his expertise. He began to smile from time to time. Even, once in a while, to laugh.

One day, though, he started acting different. He became subdued, withdrawn. I couldn't figure it out. I began to notice long, deep slashes on his face, which he refused to explain. After a while, his face became seamed, crisscrossed with angry red scars.

Finally I confronted him, demanded to know who was doing this to him. I told him I'd take care of whoever it was.

He showed me his bloodstained undershorts, told me that Glover, the chief guard on D Unit, was coming into his room at night. He'd switch off the surveillance camera and do things to him that he couldn't talk about.

He said he was thinking seriously of killing himself, and he knew how to do it. Then he showed me the loose steel coil he'd removed from his mattress and sharpened on the concrete floor of his room. He admitted that he was slashing his own face.

He didn't want to look pretty anymore.

Who's been smoking?" Russell said.

He sniffed the air, turned toward the dining table. "Verne, that you?"

"What about it?" Verne said.

"I don't want to be breathing secondhand smoke. You take it outside next time."

"Sorry, Russell. Okay if I go out for a smoke right now?"

I had a feeling he was going to do more than smoke a cigarette.

"Make it fast," Russell said. He clapped his hands. "All right, let's get down to business. Where's my little buddy Ronald?"

He crossed the room to our side of the fireplace. "How're you doing there, little guy?"

Slattery nodded sullenly. "Fine."

Upton Barlow said, "I need to use the bathroom."

Russell ignored him. "You have a family, Ronald?"

Slattery hesitated.

"Three daughters, right?"

Slattery looked up suddenly. "What are you-?"

"Divorced, that right?"

"We're-separated. How do you-?"

"You cheat on your wife, Ronald? Is that what happened?"

"We're separated, I said. Not divorced."

"You cheat on her?"

"I don't have to answer this."

Russell patted his holster. "No, you don't," he said. "You always have a choice."

"No," Slattery said. "I'll-I'll answer. I didn't start seeing anyone until after our marriage pretty much-"

"Ronald," he interrupted, shaking his head and making a tsk-tsk sound. "If a man can't live up to his marital vows, why should anyone trust his word? You love your daughters, Ronald?"

"More than anything in the world," Slattery said. His voice shook, tears flooding his eyes.

"How old are they, your daughters?"

"Sixteen, fourteen, and twelve."

"Aw, that's nice. That's sweet. But girls can be difficult at that age, am I right?"

"Please," Slattery said. "Please don't do this."

"Am I right?"

"I love them with all my heart. Russell, please."

"No doubt you do. But they don't live with you, do they? You're probably too busy to have a houseful of teenage girls."

"No, that's not why. My wife and I agreed the girls should live with their mother."

"So Daddy's free to screw chicks in his bachelor pad, huh?"

"That's not it at all-"

"I'll bet their dad's an important figure in their lives anyway."

"Very," Slattery managed to choke out.

"Gotta be tough on the girls not to have a dad around the house. Especially at such an important time."

"For God's sake," Barlow broke in, "will you let me go to the john?"

"They spend every weekend with me," Slattery said, "and every-"

"That the best you can do, Ron? Weekends? But I guess it's better than nothing, right? Better to have a weekend dad than no dad at all."

"Please," Slattery said, "what do you want?"

"I'm counting on you, Ronald. To make sure everything goes smoothly."

Slattery nodded frantically.

"I need to take a goddamned piss!" Barlow shouted abruptly. "I'm about to explode. You want me to do it right here on the floor?"

"Upton, please. I'm speaking with Ronald."

"This is cruel and inhumane," Barlow said.

Russell smiled. "No, Upton," he said patiently. "If you want to see cruel and inhumane, I'd be happy to demonstrate the difference." He raised his arm, flipped his fingers. "Buck, please escort poor Mr. Barlow to the head."

Buck sauntered over at a leisurely pace.

"You doing okay, there, Hank?"

Bodine stared at him and didn't reply.

Russell grinned. "Upton, sounds to me like you've got an enlarged prostate gland. Guy your age ought to be taking saw palmetto extracts. Pumpkin seeds, too. It's the only body you got. You really should take care of it."

"For Christ's sake," Barlow said.

Buck grabbed Barlow roughly by the arm.

Cheryl said, "I'd like to use the restroom as well. I'm sure others do, too."

"Thank you for the suggestion, Cheryl," said Russell. "Anyone else needs to use the facilities, my team will be happy to assist you, one at a time. Now, Ronald, have we figured out how we're going to make this transaction work? Everything clear?"

Slattery swallowed hard, nodded.

"Look," Bross said, "let me tell you something that everyone else is afraid to tell you. We simply don't have the ability to make a bank transfer from here."

"No?" Russell said.

Bross nodded. "No. Online bank transfer requests can only originate from computers inside Hammond headquarters."

Russell looked at him curiously for a moment, tipped his head to one side. "Tell me your name again."

"Kevin Bross."

"Bross," repeated Russell. "Bross balls, huh? Well, Bross Balls, maybe you can explain that to me a little more." He was speaking in that fake-innocent way I'd begun to recognize. I waited for the sting in the tail. "Use small words, please."

"See, every computer has what's called an IP address," Bross said. "And the bank's computers won't talk to another computer unless it has the right IP address."

"Really?" Russell said. "Gosh, that's bad news."

Bross nodded. "I'm sorry to break it to you, but that's just the way it works. Believe me, if we could do it, we would. So if there's some other arrangement we can make-"

"This is interesting," Russell said. He reached into his pocket, and we all froze.

He pulled out a small gray plastic object a few inches long and held it up. At its round end was the bright green logo of our bank; at the narrow end was a digital LCD readout.

"Because when I called your bank about setting up a corporate account, they said I could initiate a wire transfer from anywhere in the world, no problem. Any of your corporate customers can do that, they said. Just a wild guess, Bross Balls, but I'm thinking this here might be an RSA SecurID authenticator."

Bross licked his lips. "Right, but Hammond Aerospace has a whole system of security protocols in place, Russell-"

"I thought you were just telling me how the bank's computers won't recognize an unauthorized IP address, Bross," Russell said softly. "We weren't talking about your internal security procedures, were we?"

Bross faltered for a few seconds. "I'm telling you everything I know, to the very best of my knowledge-"

"You know something, Bross? I'm disappointed in you. But I guess I should have expected you'd try to pull a fast one. Executive Vice President of Sales and all-you probably think you're good at the sell. So now we're gonna have a change in plans. I'm going to have a little talk with each one of you separately. One on one. You're each gonna tell me privately everything you know about how to transfer money out of Hammond. That way I'll know if anyone's trying to pull a fast one on me. See if there's any contradictions. Anyone lies to me, we're gonna have some immediate layoffs. A little downsizing, you might say. Oh, and one more thing. The price just went up. Teach you kids a lesson. It's five hundred million now. Half a billion."