A/N: I don't own anything, including the Magic Hotel and Casino. Especially the Magic Hotel and Casino.
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First man: Good morning, Sir.
Second man, more gravelly voice, sounding older than the first man, his voice firm and confident: Good morning, Captain. How was your trip to Chaiyi?
FM: Successful, Sir. I spent the entire day with the engravers. In my judgement, they have done a wonderful job. The new plates seem flawless. I looked at them under a microscope and could find no problems.
SM: Even the microprinting at the corner?
FM: Yes. And the microprinting on Franklin's coat as well. It came out perfectly.
SM: Excellent. If they are as good as you say, give the men an additional 50,000 dollars.
FM: There is no need, Sir. The men are patriots and eager to assist you.
SM, chuckling: No, Captain, even when the troops are loyal, a good leader treats them with generosity for extraordinary performance. Heavens knows these men are of more worth than the fools who cracked the last set of plates.
FM: Very well, Sir. I will take care of that. Would you like me to bring the plates to the Mojave facility immediately?
SM: No, we are going on the junket in a few days. We can take them then. A separate trip will just attract attention we can't afford during the campaign. With these new plates we can print another five or six million more in US notes. That will put us just where we wanted to be.
FM: Yes, Sir. That buys a great deal of TV and radio time. With your campaign ads on all the stations, your message will be everywhere. The people will rally to your banner.
SM: Yes, but it is our banner, Captain, not mine alone. We will lead our country to the safe place it deserves in the world and blunt the threat to our west. Tell Lon that the new money will be coming shortly. If he continues as efficiently as he has been, he will be able to move it in the course of a month...maybe six weeks at the outside. He should be busy over the American Christmas holiday. That should work perfectly for us. We can start the new year with a nice cash reserve.
FM: Yes, Sir. I will bring the plates with me when we go over. And I will call Lon this afternoon. Do you think he will continue to cooperate?
SM: He had better, Captain. He is very aware of his fate if he does not. Now, if you have not eaten already, let us order some breakfast.
The recording ended and Mei-Ling's voice translating the men's conversation fell silent.
Graham said, "Agent Cho's translation was entirely accurate. They are making up fake hundreds and someone named Lon is helping them move the money."
"Your Chinese is still good, Director," said Beckman.
"Good enough," he replied with a shrug.
Beckman said, "Agent Walker, since your team caught this lead from the MSS, you will be running with it. First things first, you will have to contact the Secret Service and share this information. There may very well be an ongoing investigation. You should coordinate with them. I believe you have had a posting with the Service in the past, Agent Walker, so they will be familiar to you."
"Yes, Ma'am," said Sarah. "Do we know who we should be in touch with at the Service?"
Graham put on his reading glasses and looked at a tablet he held, "Yes, Agent Kendler in Los Angeles..."
"Pat Kendler?" asked Sarah, a little surprised.
"Ummm," he was still looking at the tablet, "Yes, that's right."
"I'm familiar with Agent Kendler. We'll reach out this morning," said Sarah. She looked pleased at the prospect.
"Very good. Couple of more things before you go," said Graham. "First off, you will want to know that Frederick Reynolds and his sister Beatrice have been relocated to Wyoming and he's begun treatment at the facility. So far so good."
"Thank you, Sir. That's good news. He's a good man and deserves a decent chance," said Casey, expressing all of their feelings.
"No problem, Major. It's going to be up to him, though. You know as well as I do that the success rate at these programs is …. well, it's challenging."
"Yes, Sir."
"Also, I have a small assignment for you, Chuck. When we questioned Payne, he talked about this new truth serum he was trying to buy from Volkoff. SP-117. Volkoff's man cheated him on the sale...gave him the toxic version of sodium pentothal instead..., but the intel is that the Volkoff organization does actually have SP-117 for sale. We'd like to get a sample to analyze. Can you have your man Gobrienko liberate one for us? I don't think we've put him to work yet. This sounds like an easy one."
"Ummm, Sir, why don't we buy it?" asked Chuck.
"Excuse me?"
"Well, it's for sale. Why don't we just buy it from him...from Volkoff. I mean if Gobrienko steals it to give to us, we are putting him at risk. Maybe not a lot of risk, but risk nonetheless. He's a pretty valuable asset. It doesn't seem right to put him at risk for something we can just buy from him without any risk."
Graham started to laugh. "You learn fast, Chuck. I should have anticipated your point of view. You are thinking like a true handler, concerned about your asset's safety. Just the way a good handler would judge the situation. Ok, contact your asset and get the price. I'll see about freeing up the money, assuming the price is reasonable. If the deal is going to go down, you can set up the buy with your team and get it done." He looked at Sarah and Casey and said, "You two are training him well."
"Naw, Sir. That's all Bartowski. It's just the way he thinks," said Casey with a small smile.
"Ha. You're a natural, Chuck. Keep it up," said Graham.
"Thank you, Sir. I'll contact Yuri right away," he said.
"Good luck, Team," said Beckman, breaking the connection.
"Ok," said Chuck. "I'll get on to Yuri."
"And I'll contact Kendler and make an appointment," said Sarah.
"That leaves me with the breakfast dishes," grumbled Casey.
Sarah patted his arm, "I'll help as soon as I get off the phone."
Chuck took out his laptop and went onto the Internet. He was always very careful when communicating with Yuri. He knew that Yuri's life was in danger every minute and wanted to do absolutely nothing to increase the risks the man was running. He opened Tor, a free online system that allowed anonymous searches by routing any of his activity through more than seven thousand relays.
From there, he went to the anonymous email account he had set up under Tails (The Amnesiac Incognito Live System), a further security based system that utilized Tor and was similarly available free of charge. Although emails sent to and from Tails accounts were supposed to be untraceable, he had never sent an email from the account and it had never received one, but nevertheless this was how he had been communicating with Yuri. Without any traffic, there was nothing for a curious agency (or Volkoff) to monitor even if they could get through the multiple layers of security from both Tails and Tor. He opened a draft email that had been saved, but never sent. The email was quite long. Yuri would access the same account and the same draft email. They would communicate with each other simply by expanding the draft email and saving it again in the "Drafts" folder when done, rather than actually sending it.
Chuck opened the draft and read the most recent message from Yuri.
Hey, Chuck. Want to thank you for getting that medicine for my mom. It worked well and she's recovering. It's what I told you that time in the courtyard. Family is the most important thing. Come visit Moscow sometime soon. Well, maybe not soon. Maybe in the spring. The weather now is unlikely to be to your liking, my California friend. Best.
Chuck typed.
Hey, Yuri. Glad to hear mom's ok. Let me know if you need more of the medicine. It's pretty easy for me to get. Question for you. How much $ to buy a sample of SP-117 from Volkoff? We hear interesting things about it and would like to get some to test it. With the price, I can get the money approved. Thanks. Stay warm. Remember that vodka doesn't actually make you warmer, it just makes you not care that you are cold.
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The Los Angeles field office for the United States Secret Service is located in an office building on South Figueroa, an otherwise inconspicuous building in downtown Los Angeles housing law firms and accountants. A tall Christmas tree decorated the plaza adjacent to the building.
Chuck, Sarah and Casey parked the Crown Vic in the lot across the street and made their way up to the offices for their meeting with Agent Pat Kendler.
Once off the elevator, they were greeted by the five pointed star which served as the emblem of the agency. The reception area was like office receptions everywhere, the only difference being that the men and women walking around with their jackets off were conspicuously armed. An agent greeted them and requested that they follow him.
They were taken to a conference room with a view of neighboring office towers and CA-110 below. There were five agents in the conference room, three men and two women. One of the women broke away from the group and approached them with a smile. She was of medium height with short brown hair. The woman agent moved with the wiry strength of a long distance runner, which she gave every appearance of being. She was in her late 50's and was very tan with intelligent brown eyes.
She took Sarah's hand in her's warmly, "Sarah. So good to see you again. How have you been? You look great." She stood back for a second and studied Sarah frankly and said, "Actually, you look more than great. You look fantastic. Radiant. What's going on?"
"Hi, Pat. Thanks. You look great yourself. Let me introduce you to my team. This is Chuck Carmichael. He's sort of a CIA/NSA hybrid analyst. Chuck, this is Pat Kendler."
He shook her hand, "How do you do?"
"Good to meet you, Carmichael. Your reputation precedes you."
Chuck murmured a "Thank you," looking a little embarrassed.
"And Major John Casey, NSA," said Sarah.
"Major," said Kendler, shaking his hand.
"Agent Kendler," he said.
"So, Pat, why are you here? You were DC based the last I saw," said Sarah.
"Yeah, but the protection details involve tons of travel. You know that. Every time the principal leaves DC, we go along. It's fun and exciting for a young agent. But I'm getting close to the thirty year mark now. It's exhausting. You never know what freakin time zone you're in. I wanted a more nine to five job, maybe with less travel, so last year I asked them to move me to counterfeiting investigations."
"Why LA?"
"My daughter lives here now. She's about to give birth to my first grandchild. I wanted to be around them, maybe more than I was when she was growing up. Bert retired last year. Another couple of years and I'll join him. He's taken up surfing, of all things."
"Oh, that's great, Pat. I'm happy for you," said Sarah.
"How about you, Sarah? Things still good with the Agency? Graham treating you ok? You know if you're unhappy, I'm the one to call," said Kendler.
"Still good, Pat. But if that changes, you'll be the first to know," said Sarah.
"Excellent. Now come on, we have work to do," said Pat, taking Sarah's arm and leading her over to the other people now seated at the conference table. "Listen up, team. This is Sarah Walker. CIA. Director Graham put her with us for a year about three or four years ago. She's solid and good people. She still holds one of our records in Delta Force's Killing House. This is Major John Casey, NSA. And this is Chuck Carmichael. You've all heard of him from the bomb in Union Station a couple of months ago."
There was a rustle from the agents at the table at the mention of Carmichael. Chuck blushed a little bit. He wasn't at all used to the looks of respect he was getting from the Secret Service agents. It had only been a few months and he still deep-down thought of himself as some weird visitor to this world, rather than a man respected by its normal denizens. But he admitted to himself that as strange as the feeling was, he definitely liked it. He made a mental note not to get used to it, though. He was only there because of the computer program housed in his brain.
Kendler concluded to her team, "So, look alive, people. You're playing with the varsity." Casey moved to the side of the conference room and got black coffee for himself and waters for Chuck and Sarah.
She introduced the others around the table and everyone sat down. Kendler said, "Ok, Sarah. You're up. What did you guys find for us?"
While the introductions were being made, Chuck had opened his laptop and wirelessly connected it to the giant TV screen along one wall. He pulled up a photo of Rashan Chen and, upon Kendler's invitation to begin, began the audio recording of Chen's conversation. When the name "Lon" was mentioned one of the agents murmured "Sonofabitch."
When the recording ended, Kendler said, "Play it again, please." Chuck did so.
When it ended the second time, she said, "Who is the translator?"
"Can't tell you that," said Chuck. "Sorry."
"But you trust the translation?"
"Yes," Chuck said.
"When was this recorded?"
"A couple of days ago, we believe," said Chuck.
She nodded with understanding, "Ok. Who are the speakers?"
"The older man is Rashan Chen." Chuck gestured to the picture of General Chen on the screen. He was a middle aged Chinese man looking fit and serious in his bemedaled Army uniform. "Recently retired from the Taiwanese Army with the rank of General. He was the commander of the Aviation and Special Forces Command. He's just beginning a political campaign and hopes to be the next President of Taiwan. Their election schedule runs on the same cycle as ours. It's early for calling the odds, but he's certainly in the running and is a strong contender."
"Yeah, with bad US money financing it," said one of the agents bitterly.
"Yeah," said Chuck. He changed the photo on the screen to that of a younger military man wearing the three bars of an Army Captain's rank. "We believe that the other man is Captain Chang Li-fu. An ex-Special Forces commando, also recently out of the Army. He had worked closely with General Chen while they were in service and is part of his campaign staff now. They will be bringing the printing plates in to a facility in the Mojave Desert and someone named Lon is moving the fake money for them."
"Lon Kirk. The owner of the Magic Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Billionaire. Very politically connected. Just held a big fundraiser for Romney. We have been circling him for a while, but never had enough evidence to prove that his casino was involved. This evidence is a very big deal. It means that not just the casino is involved, but Kirk himself personally. Holy shit," said Kendler, clearly weighing the importance of the news. "We traced back a number of the fake bills to Vegas and believed we had narrowed it down to the Magic. A few months ago, we put a man undercover into his operation. The man disappeared without a trace." As she was speaking, Chuck did a quick internet search and pulled up Kirk's picture to display on the screen.
"Don't casinos have procedures...tools...to make sure that there are no counterfeit bills?" asked Sarah.
"Absolutely," said Kendler. "The counting machines double as scanners. Spit out anything that doesn't pass muster. Then there are separate ultra-violet scanners to check the bills. All of their people are trained to detect fake money. If Kirk is the one passing the money, though, all those procedures are in the wrong place...are checking the wrong money. Casinos don't want to GET fake money. They don't check that they aren't GIVING fake money out. Damn it."
One of the agents asked, "Can we use this tape? Is this good evidence? Where'd we get it?"
"Nope," said Sarah. "Not good in a court. We trust the source, but can't disclose it. Won't work in court as evidence."
"What kind of a facility do they need to print that kind of money? I mean now we know roughly where it is. Would it stand out?" asked Chuck.
"If they print in sheets of 50, $6,000,000 in hundreds is only...1,200 sheets. Not that much. You need both an offset printer for the background and regular intaglio printer for the rest of the features. Maybe another round of printing for things like the serial numbers. You could do it in a big garage or a small building with a decent power supply. Add a high-quality cutting machine, the whole set up would hardly take up any room at all. You wouldn't need a factory or anything like that," said Kendler.
One of the agents said, "Still a mystery how they get real paper. We're looking into that as well."
"Maybe this new information will help," said another agent, hopefully.
"Maybe they didn't get new paper," said Casey. "Don't they have a security thread in them that shows up under UV light? Why can't they just bleach out the ink on a lower denomination bill and print over it to the hundred? It'll still have the thread."
"Aww, that's the kind of crap thriller writers pull, ones that don't bother do their homework. Doesn't work, because we are smarter than that. The strip is on a different place for each denomination," said Kendler. Casey grunted. "We keep changing the bills to make them harder to counterfeit and they keep adapting. We rolled out a new $20 bill last year and are bringing out a new $10 bill next year. A new hundred is on the agenda, but not for a while. It's been going on forever. One of the problems with this crop of fakes is that the paper is flawless. It's impossible, but, like we said, they seem to have gotten some of our own hundreds paper."
"Aren't there still the older bills in circulation without all the bells and whistles?" asked Casey.
"Yeah," said Kendler, "but the last redesign of the hundred was eleven years ago. Most of them have been taken out of circulation by now."
"So, if these are so good, how can we tell that these are fakes at all" asked Chuck.
"They are careless with the serial numbers. That's one thing, but that won't show up on a scan or simple visual check. The real flaw is that they haven't gotten our ink. On the hundreds we use a special optically variable ink, OVI, a color shifting ink. From one angle it looks green, from another it looks black. They are just using green ink in place of that. Very hard to spot. The other colors they have duplicated very well, it's the OVI...lack of OVI, that gives them away. These guys are making some excellent fakes. Very hard to detect. And if they have a casino distributing the fakes... all that cash...it's a pretty comprehensive operation."
"So, what's the plan with these assholes?" asked Casey.
"We'll do the forensic accounting on the money flowing in and out of the Magic Casino now that we are certain it's involved. If they are moving fake money, he's got to be cooking the books to account for it. We'll also watch for Chen and his junket to come in with the new plates. I'm going to guess he'll be staying at the Magic. We'll want to follow them to the presses in the desert," said Kendler.
"Ok. Makes sense. We aren't cops, though, and can play by different rules. My team and I will head to Vegas and see what we can dig up on Kirk. See if we can infiltrate his inner circle somehow," said Sarah.
"Sounds good, Sarah. Each team playing to its strengths."
"Damn right," growled Casey.
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A/N2: Anachronism alert. Tor was in existence in 2007, but Tails was not yet developed. But if you want totally safe (or as safe as we can get) email communications, and you don't work for the NSA or the CIA, these are the smart choices today (2019). Der Spiegel, the German news magazine, reported that in 2012 the NSA dubbed Tails a major threat to its mission. If true, that's quite an admission.
A/N3: The US Army counter-terrorism unit known as Delta Force runs a state-of-the-art facility in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, informally called the Killing House, to train for close quarter combat and hostage rescue. To be collegial, they permit the US Secret Service to train there from time to time as well.
A/N4: No dig at Lee Child intended. His book with bleached paper re-printed counterfeit bills pre-dates the inclusion of the security thread.
A/N5: These are some of the known security measures for the $100 note as of 2007. Not all of the security measures, though, were (or are) shared with the general public.
A/N6: Love to hear from you guys. Fill in the box below and let me know how I'm doing, please. Anything you guys are interested in seeing in Las Vegas at Christmas-time? I'm thinking dealers in Santa hats.