Dale Brown - Puppet Master

Dryfus shook his head. “I can tell you right now, most won’t. They don’t want us messing with their networks, screwed up as they are.”

“We thought of that,” said Chelsea. She reached into the bag and took out another case, this one blue. Inside was a flash drive with a different program. “This program can do the same thing if it’s inserted into an ATM machine. Even better, it can examine all the coding instantly. So you’ll be able to see if a program is being parked inside the ATM.”

“Hmmm,” said Jenkins.

“Again, getting them to cooperate is going to be tough,” said Dryfus.

“That’s why we did this.” Chelsea removed the last item from her bag. It looked like a paper-thin tongue depressor made of copper, with a gummy black plastic lip.

“What is this?” asked Jenkins, holding it between his fingers.

“Wow, a high-tech card skimmer, right?” said Dryfus.

“That’s right.” Chelsea was pleased that the tech expert could figure it out, even if it was only an educated guess. Maybe there was hope for the FBI yet. “All the electronics are imprinted in the tongue and the chip that’s molded into the faceplate. It goes right inside the card reader. You’ll never know it’s there. We made a tool to insert it as well.”

“I’m not sure I’m understanding,” said Jenkins. “This is a skimmer?”

“It’s more a monitor,” said Chelsea. “It will communicate with another program and just send an alert. The network itself is never broken into.”

“Still—”

“We’d need permission from the ATM owners, even if it’s just a monitor,” said Flores.

“I’m going to have to think about it,” said Jenkins. “I may have to run it by the top floor.”

“That’ll be a ‘no’ real quick,” said Flores. “Even before you go to the banks.”

Jenkins glanced at his watch. “I have a conference in a few minutes. Please excuse me.”

Jenkins knew it was a lame excuse, but he needed to think.

Boy, did he want a cigarette. It had been two years since he’d smoked — the night of the operation that saved his daughter’s life, as a matter of fact — but he still felt the urge at moments like this.

Too often, lately.

He entered his office and shut the door behind him. The space was barely the size of an entry-level worker’s cubicle, yet somehow it managed to look massive to him. The bare walls, the empty bookcase, and, most important, the clean desktop.

Who ever heard of a clear desktop during an open investigation?

Jenkins wheeled the desk chair out against the wall and sat down. The sole window in the room was a casement job, the sort installed in a basement, as if the builders really didn’t want to let light in here.

The banks that owned the ATM machines would cooperate, but only after each was harangued personally. And by that time, these guys would be on to a different city. Or maybe even a different country.

What if the device was inserted by Chelsea? How would something like that play in court?

It wouldn’t. No way. The defense would argue that it was akin to a search without a warrant.

Assuming they found out.

Even if she did it? And then did the monitoring and alerted the FBI to a crime?

Maybe she’d be guilty of trespassing — but who would prosecute her?

Not the bank whose money was saved. And not the FBI.

“You could make some good money with this,” said Dryfus, turning the skimmer over in his hand. “The right place in Russia will pay over a million. And in Bitcoin. You won’t have to worry about carrying it around.”

“Is that where you think these guys are from?” Chelsea asked.

“Hard to say. They could be from anywhere. Czech Republic, Romania, Bosnia’s pretty big with banking scams like this. Most of them are more primitive.”

“You’ve worked on a lot of cases like this?”

“A few. This is the most interesting, though. Most are just tracking down people with skimmers. That’s what we thought this was at first.”

“It makes it more interesting,” said Flores. “But frustrating at the same time.”

“So you think you’ll get permission to use this?” asked Chelsea, taking back the skimmer she’d invented.

“Oh, it’s not about permission,” said Dryfus. He glanced over his shoulder. “Jenks is deciding how far to push the envelope.”

“What do you mean?”

“We go through channels, it’ll be years before we get the OK. Getting permission from the Bureau is hard enough. The banks…”

“So what then?”

“Jenks will think of something.”

“Let me ask you a question,” said Flores, standing up and stretching his legs. “How cooperative was the bank with your boss? Did they give him his money back?”

“No,” said Chelsea. “They said they would and then they welched.”

“I’m going to guess what actually happened,” said Flores. “The local branch was very cooperative. Then somebody above them reversed it. Because there’s no obvious sign of fraud. That’s why he got involved. And it’s not about money, right? It’s justice. Or revenge, however you want to slice it.”

“The same way it is for Jenks,” said Dryfus.

“He was ripped off, too?” asked Chelsea.

“No. His brother,” said Flores. “He didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

“His brother was killed while investigating a similar case a year ago,” said Dryfus. “He’s convinced it’s related.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t think it was,” added Dryfus. “The pattern is different. And there we found skimmers. But he’s in it until the end now. Once he’s on to something, he doesn’t quit.”

Jenkins was still feeling the urge to smoke as he walked back into the team room. He decided that was OK, though; get through the afternoon without smoking, and he wouldn’t be bothered like this for several weeks at least. It was like being vaccinated.

“I have an idea,” he told Chelsea. “Your personnel will have to install the devices and then do the monitoring. Then tip us off. We can be all together, but you’d be the one at the monitor. You or whoever. So we’d be getting the information from you. As a concerned citizen.”

The young woman’s face blanked. She was a pretty girl, he realized for the first time, very pretty. The glare of the overhead fluorescents shaded her skin so that it looked like the shade of a pale rose, accentuating her eyes. Those eyes narrowed slightly as he stared.

She nodded. “Good,” said Chelsea. “When do we start?”

“Tonight.”

Gabor Tolevi was not a big fan of Grozny Avia, a Russian-owned airline best known for its harrowing flights in and out of places like Chechnya. But Armenia — even Tolevi wouldn’t try Chechnya — was the only way to get into Crimea from the West without going to Russia, and Grozny Avia was the only airline, at the moment, connecting it to the recently annexed “free state” of Russian-occupied Crimea.

Getting to Armenia itself wasn’t easy; flights from Turkey had recently been canceled, and Tolevi had to fly all the way to Dubai before connecting.

Despite the labyrinthine route, both flights had been way overbooked. In danger of being bumped from the Grozny flight, Tolevi had contemplated bribing the gate clerk, a not-uncommon tactic. He’d ultimately decided against it, deciding it would demonstrate beyond doubt that he was either a spy or a smuggler, and it was always best to leave such issues in doubt. As it turned out, he had kept his seat; he received two large kinks in his neck and shoulder as a reward.