Neal met Sara for an early lunch outside a hotel she was staying in temporarily. It started to rain, and Neal opened his umbrella and held it over Sara, who was dressed in a sleeveless dress.
"Thank you." She moved closer to him, hooking her arm around his, making them share.
"I lived out of a hotel once," he told her, reminded of the memory.
"Once?" she returned, surprised. "Figured you probably stayed in a lot of hotels during your indiscriminate youth."
"I spent most of my time on the move."
"Well, what was different about this hotel?"
"The Palazzo Sasso in Ravello." It was south of Neapel in Italy. "It's the height of the Renaissance frozen in time."
"Mm-hmm. With jacuzzis and hot-stone massage."
"Cloisters at the Villa Cimbrone a few minutes away. In another life, I'd have stayed there forever." He would return there someday. Or would he ever be able to do it? If he fled with the treasure, he wouldn't.
"Sounds perfect. Why'd you leave?"
"I got word that Europol was closing in for a score. I allegedly ran to Corsica. Indiscriminate youth."
"Well, hotel living is fine, but I will be very happy when renovations are over, and I can get back into my apartment."
"Aw. Are you getting tired of roughing it in the lap of luxury?"
"I prefer to be somewhere where 'Do not disturb' is standard policy and where I don't have to pull money to tip every day, as grateful as I am to the boys in the blazers." She turned up towards a Manhattan Mutual Bank ATM machine. He glanced over her shoulder. "Back up there, sticky fingers."
"Okay." Although it hurt, he could not blame her. He had peeked over her shoulder. "If you think that'll help." He leaned on the wall beside her.
"You think you can guess my pin?"
"No. I can deduce it."
"Really?"
"Mm-hmm."
"Would you like to make a wager?" She pressed cancel and took a step away from the machine.
"Loser tips for the rest of the day?" Neal suggested.
"Generously?"
"Of course."
"You're on."
"Your birthday is November 11th," Neal started. "Eleven. Eleven. But you grew up at 7310 Lake Street."
"Good listener, but you're not even close."
"Your first car was a red Chevy Nova."
"So?"
"So the 4th and 9th position in the VIN number tell you the vehicle make."
"You're insane."
"And... You're a Scorpio." He took a step toward her, and took her card.
"You have no idea," she insisted. He put the card into the machine.
"3-1-8-9," he said as he pushed the buttons. The message on the screen said 'pin accepted.'
"That's impossible. I picked a random number."
"Well, there's no such thing as random. Your subconscious is always back there, working."
"Or you saw the reflection in the camera guard." She was so smart, Sara. That was one of the reasons he loved her.
"Or I might have done that."
"Mm-hmm." She smiled and continued the withdrawal. There was a buzz. "Neal, what'd you do?"
"Nothing. I entered the pin." He turned and glanced at the screen. 'Error Message. Insufficient funds," it said. "Account balance: $0.00"
"Neal, my account is empty."
He looked at her. It was panic in her eyes. She did not think he had done this. But someone had.
"We've got to tell Peter."
She nodded, mute. He took her back to the office.
"At 10:30 this morning, Manhattan Mutual Bank lost control of its server," Peter said to the assembled in the conference room. It had been a rush of lunch. The kid had returned with Sara and her story. Five minutes after the hell broke lose. "Within an hour, they were out $125 million."
"That didn't all come from Sara," the kid said. Peter was not sure if he tried to be funny or stated a serious question.
"No," Diana answered. "Thousands of customers got hit."
"That's too many to compromise with classic phishing techniques," Neal noted.
"We're thinking computer virus," Peter said.
"Our best guess is a trojan camped out in the server's boot sector," Jones said. "It captured administrative domain credentials and converted the entire intranet into a botnet."
Diana giggled at this.
"In the common vernacular, the virus took over every computer in the network," the kid translated.
"Our thief was gracious enough to leave an explanation for the crime," Peter said.
Jones got started on the computer.
"Thirty minutes," he said, "Manhattan Mutual's website was replaced with this."
"What the hell?" Diana muttered. "Is that a mask?"
It was an image of a female face on the screen, but it was more like a drape covering the real face. And the voice was distorted.
"Members of an interned world," it said. "Too long have we suffered bureaucracy, a corpulent infant with which the masses have greedily procreated. Today we strike a blow against the dysfunction we call world finance."
"It goes on like this," Peter said, turning it off. They all got the picture, he figured.
"We know who's behind it?" the kid asked.
"We have a theory," Diana said. "This morning, the Swiss Financial Authority reported a cash transfer into the account of Cameron Duponte."
"The deposit matches the amount stolen, but we think Duponte is a cover. There's no record of him before a few months ago."
"This is a list of Manhattan Mutual clients who got hit."
"This isn't just investment bankers and C.E.O.s," Peter pointed out. "We've got pensioners, public servants."
"That's a lot of people without a backup plan," Neal said softly.
"A lot of people, which means this case takes top priority. Jones, maybe there's a language in the virus that can point us to the programmer. Diana, call up Zurich. We need access to the Duponte account. That's it."
Neal joined him as he walked out. Down by the kid's desk, Sara sat waiting. He took a deep breath. He preferred not to be personally involved, but Sara was a friend. He could not treat her any different than all the others who had lost their money in this.
"So?" she asked when they got down to her.
"I got good news and bad news," the kid took the lead.
"We traced the money to a Swiss bank," Peter said.
"Is that the good news or the bad news?"
"Both," Neal said.
"Until we prove something definitively, the account's untouchable." Peter did not add that that might take some time. No need to add more stress.
"Well, great," Sara returned. "In my experience, if the criminal's not caught before the money's spent, then those dollars are never coming back."
She was not happy about it at all.
"Which is why I intend to catch him, Sara," Peter assured her.
"Thank you."
She collected her things and made herself ready to leave.
"Are you okay in the short term?"
"Well, this guy took everything. And the FDIC has me filling out all sorts of paperwork. We know how long insurance claims take."
"Yes, with this many victims and different account types," Peter sighed, "could be months."
"My apartment is fully under construction, so until I pull my next commission check..." She sighed and turned for the elevator.
"You could stay with me," the kid said. "You know, till this is cleared up."
Sara turned back to them.
"Uh...at June's? You sure that's a good idea?"
"Well, it's not the Four Seasons, but…" the kid took a step closer to her, "I can bring you food on a little cart."
"Okay." Sara looked delighted. She took a step backward into the elevator, and when the door closed, the two of them still had eye-contact. The kid still had that dreamy look even since the door shut.
"I remember when Elizabeth moved in," he said.
"No. No. This is temporary."
"Yep. So was El." The best thing that could happen to Neal and make him stay on the right side of the law was about to happen.
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