Stopped in a traffic jam on Broward Boulevard, Joey reached over to the passenger seat, reached into her bag, and pulled out the photo of Duckworth and Gillian. At first glance they were his dad and his daughter, happy and carefree. But now that she was looking at the photograph in a new light, now that she knew...
Damn, that's a rookie mistake, she told herself as she slammed on the wheel. She held the photo to a palm from her nose and she couldn't understand how she hadn't seen it before. It wasn't just the proportions that were uneven, but even the shadows were asymmetrical. Duckworth had the shadow on the left side of his face; Gillian had it on the right. A job done quickly, she decided. Quick but still correct enough to go unnoticed.
She managed to park in a free zone next to a strip mall, opened her laptop, and searched for the digital photos of the Greene Bank offices she'd taken that first day. From Oliver, Charlie, Shep, Lapidus, Quincy and even Mary. She went through them one by one, examining...
"Fucking bastards," she muttered as soon as she saw him. She leaned into the screen just to make sure she was right. Her hair was a different color and straight, but there was no mistake. There she was. A simple snapshot. Right in front of her eyes all the time.
Joey stepped on the accelerator, kicking up a cloud of dust behind her. Her hand went directly to the phone. Speed Dial.
"Noreen here.
"I need you to find me a name," Joey said.
"Have you got anything new?" "Actually, something old," he said.
Joey as the car flew toward the Neowerks offices. But if the dominoes match up, I think I finally have the true story of Gillian Duckworth.
Do you see this warehouse? The one for eighty-seven thousand dollars? I ask, pointing out to Charlie and Gillian the most recent entry to Duckworth's account. Before they can answer, I explain, "It's from Sylvia Rosenbaum's account. But as long as I can remember, she had set it up as a trust with specific beneficiaries.
-I mean?
—In other words, once every quarter, the computer automatically performs
automatic two internal transfers: a transfer of a quarter of a million dollars to his son, and a transfer of a quarter of a million dollars to his daughter.
"And why is this rich old lady transferring money to my father's account?"
"That's exactly what it's about," I clarify. Other than her family and the annual payment to her advisers, Sylvia Rosenbaum does not transfer money to anyone. Not your father, not the Treasury, not anyone. That is the purpose of the registration account; works autonomously and makes exactly the same payments every quarter. But when you take a look here…" I review Duckworth's account details and point to one of the first deposits, another $80,000 transfer from Sylvia Rosenbaum's account. It is dated June. Six months ago-. You see, this transfer shouldn't be here either," I explain. Has no sense. How the hell could your father...?
"Will you please slow down?" What do you mean he shouldn't be here? Charlie asks. How can you know?
"Because I'm the one who keeps track of Sylvia Rosenbaum," he replied, making an effort not to raise his voice. I've been checking this woman's account statements since I started working at the bank. And when I checked last month—you can be sure—these transfers to Duckworth's account weren't there.
"Are you sure you didn't miss them?" Gillian asks.
"That was precisely what I wondered when I first saw her," I admit. But then I saw this other... -I activate another internal transfer that has recently entered the account of Duckworth. $82,624 from account 23274990007.
"007," Charlie exclaims, reading the last three digits. Not a detail is lost.
"That's it," he replied. Seeing that Gillian is lost, I explain. 007 belongs to Tanner Drew.
"That Tanner Drew?"
"Himself, the newest member of the Forbes 400. In any case, last week he threatened to blow us up if we didn't transfer forty million dollars to another of his accounts. All this happened on Friday at exactly 15.59. Now let's check the time that Tanner Drew made this transfer to Duckworth...
Gillian and Charlie lean into the screen. Friday December 13: 15:59:47.
I see a drop of sweat slide down my brother's sideburn.
"I don't get it," Charlie says. We were the only ones who had access to the account. How is it possible that he transferred the money from him to Duckworth?
"That's what I'm saying…I don't think Tanner did it," I suggest. In fact, I know he didn't. Once we made the transfer, I checked Tanner Drew's account half a dozen times, just to make sure there were no problems. Do you know how much the last transfer was? Forty thousand dollars.
"Then where did these eighty-two thousand dollars come from?" Charlie asks.
"That's what I'm trying to find out." But whatever hat Duckworth pulled them from, it's clear that he was involved in almost everyone's business. I mean, half of these accounts; here and here and here... -I point to one by one all the account numbers that are listed under "Deposits"—. Each of them is a client of the bank: 007 is Tanner Drew, 609 is Thomas Wayne, 727 is Mark Wexler. And 209... I'm sure it's from the Lawrence Lamb Foundation.
"Wait a minute…so my father was making money from all of them?" Gillian interrupts.
"It seems so," I say, studying the monitor's blue glow again. And the money never stopped coming.
Gillian looks around her, making sure the room is clear coast. Charlie moves away from her, just to get out of her way. She can't help it.
"Do you think my father was blackmailing them?" she asks.
"I don't know, but when you take a look at what he did on the record account and then with Drew Tanner, it's like the transfers don't exist. Forget what he says here. In the bank system not a single dollar left any of these accounts. I mean, it's almost like this recording system is convincing the computer to see what it really doesn't…" My chest tightens and I freeze.
-That? What's going on? Gillian asks.
-Are you OK? Charlie adds.
pulling her away from her and resting a hand on the back of my neck.
"Shit…" I stammer, pointing at the screen. That's what he invented. My voice taxis down the runway starting a slow takeoff. It's like the hall of mirrors in an amusement park... it shows you a reality that doesn't exist.
-What the hell are you talking about?
"I mean, how else do you get a credit to match a corresponding debit?" That's what the secret service wanted to invest in... and that's what Gallo wanted for himself. The next step in economic crime. Virtual forgery. Why steal money when you can simply create it?
"What do you mean create it?" my brother asks.
"Electronically, I mean. He convinces the computer that it exists. He builds it practically from scratch.
Charlie refocuses on the screen.
-Bastard...
"Wait a minute," Gillian says. Do you think my father created all that money?
"It's the only thing that makes any sense." That would explain why the Secret Service guys are running this thing instead of the FBI. It's like Shep said, the secret service has jurisdiction to investigate counterfeits.
"But making money out of thin air…" Gillian begins.
"…would make a big place like Five Points Capital a piece of cake. She thinks about the way events have unfolded:
Six days ago, Martin Duckworth had three million dollars in his account. Three days ago, the computer said there was $313 million in that same account. But when you take a look at these records, it's clear that this didn't happen overnight. These transactions date back six months. Hundreds of deposits. It's like keeping two ledgers. The regular system always said Duckworth had three million, but below the surface his little invention was quietly creating the three hundred million. So when the reserves were very substantial—boom!—they went for them. But we went ahead and, when we transferred the money, the second ledger merged with the first, and each of the fake deposits from it is now interrelated, in a way I don't know, with a real bank transaction.
"Maybe that's how the show works," Charlie chimes in. Like the forty million bucks we wired to Tanner Drew: wait for an actual transaction to occur, then pick a random sum that doesn't cross the accounting verification threshold. In the end you have an absolutely new reality.
"It's the same thing that's happening now," I say. The bank believes that Duckworth's account is penniless, but according to this data there is five million dollars in there. The absurdity of this whole affair is that none of the people from whom he has taken the money are short a penny.
"Maybe it looks like they're not short for a penny." For all we know, whatever my father could have gotten into the system could be cleaning them up.
I shake my head.
"If that were true, Tanner Drew wouldn't have been able to make a transfer of forty million dollars. And if Drew had been short a penny, we would have found out the minute it happened. And the same goes for Sylvia Rosenbaum and the rest of the clients. The richer they are, the more they examine their accounts.
"So that's the big top secret?" Gillian interrupts again. A computer virus that makes a handful of people rich?
"We should be that lucky," I say, turning to him icy blue glow from the screen. Charlie stares at me.
She perfectly knows that tone of voice. -What are you talking about? — she asks.
"Don't you see what Duckworth did?
Granted, he on a small scale he invented a bit of dough, but when you take the microscope out it's so much bigger than just adding a few zeros to your bank account. To do this he not only bypassed all of our internal controls, but also managed to trick the bank's computer system into thinking he was dealing with real money. And when we transfer that money abroad, the transaction was good enough to fool the bank in London, the bank in France, and all the banks after them. In some of those places—including ours—we're talking about state-of-the-art computer systems designed for military use. And Duckworth's imaginary transactions fooled everyone.
I still don't understand what...
"Take it to the next level, Charlie. Forget private banks and puny foreign institutions. Take Duckworth's program and sell it to the best bidder. Let a terrorist organization take over it. Even worse, put it in too-big-to-fail.
-A what?
"Too-big-to-fail." That's what the Federal Reserve calls the top fifty or so banks in the country. Once Duckworth's little worm starts digging in there, your three hundred million suddenly becomes three hundred billion, and it flows everywhere, Citibank...First Union...to little family banks all over the world. country. He Only problem is, when all is said and done, the money isn't real. And the moment someone notices that the emperor is naked, the pyramid scheme falls apart. No bank trusts its own records, and none of us knows if our bank accounts are safe. Everyone queues up at the teller windows and ATMs. But when we go to withdraw our money, there is not enough real cash to go around. Since money is a sham, all banks run out of funds. The too-big-to-fail are the first to implode, then the hundreds of smaller banks they lent money to, then the hundreds of banks below them. They all explode at the same time, all of them looking for money that was never really there. "I'm sorry sir, we can't cover your account, all the money in the bank is gone." And that's when the real panic begins. It will make the Depression seem like just a temporary stock market crash.
Not even Charlie can make a joke about this.
"Do you think they want it for that?"
"Whatever you need, there's one thing I'm sure of: the only proof of what really happened is here," I say, tapping my finger on the screen again.
Click.
"Balance: $5,104,221.60."
The sound of the elevator behind us is heard at the same time that ninety-one thousand new dollars are watching us from the screen. Charlie looks at the elevator, but no one gets out of it.
Looking over his shoulder, I see it too. We've been here too long.
"We should print all this..."
"...and get out of here," Charlie agrees.
"Wait," Gillian says. -Wait? Charlie asks. "I just…we should be careful with this stuff.
"That's precisely why we're going to print it." For proof," Charlie says, giving her a frightening look. At this distance, Charlie's fuse is shorter than ever.
Next to the computer is an old laser printer. I push a button and the machine comes to life. Charlie hits "Print" on the keyboard. A gray dialog box opens on the screen: "LPT1 transcription error: Please insert a copy card." At the bottom of the printer is a handwritten card that reads: "All copies fifteen cents per page."
"Where do we get one of those cards now?" Charlie asks.
In a corner there is a machine. In front of her are two guys filling her with bills. Charlie isn't in the mood to wait. A couple of computers away, the porn guy has a card on the table.
"Hey kid," Charlie yells at him. I'll give you five bucks for the card.
"The card is already loaded with five bucks," he tells us.
"We'll give you ten," he added.
"How about twenty?" the boy challenges us.
"How about I yell 'sexual pervert' and point at you?" Gillian threatens.
The boy swipes the card; I get ten bucks.
As I get up to close the deal, Charlie takes the opportunity to take my place at the computer. I lean over his shoulder, feed the card into the little machine attached to the printer, and wait for the buzz to confirm it's working. The card reader screen turns on. "Current balance: $2.20."
We turn to the porn guy. He looks at us and sniffs at the ten dollar bill with a smug smile. Charlie is about to go after him.
"Leave it," I tell him, forcing him to turn his head toward the monitor.
He hits "Print" again. As before, a gray box is activated but this one is different. The font and size of the letter match those that appear on the Duckworth bank statement: "Note: To print this document, please enter the password."
"What the hell is this?" Charlie asks.
"What have you done?" -I tell him.
"Nothing...I just hit 'Print.'
"You see, this is exactly what I was talking about," Gillian says.
The porn boy looks at us again. The elevator doors close in a corner. Someone called you from downstairs.
Charlie tries to activate Duckworth's bank report screen again, but he can't get past the password warning.
"Ask the woman at the information desk," Gillian says.
"I don't think this is from the library," I say, leaning back toward the screen. It must be a Duckworth precaution.
-What the hell are you talking about?
—At the bank we do the same when it comes to important accounts. If you were hiding a smoking gun in the middle of one of the world's biggest websites, wouldn't you bury a couple of land mines for a little security?
"Wait a minute, so now you think it's a trap?" Gillian says.
"All I'm saying is that we should choose the right password carefully," I say almost nonchalantly. Charlie looks at me, surprised at my tone.
"Try 'Duckworth,'" I say.
Charlie types the word "Duckworth" on the keyboard and then hits "Enter."
"Password Recognition Failed - To print this document, please re-enter password."
Shit. If this system is similar to the one we use at the bank, we only have two other opportunities. Three tries and we're out of the game.
"Any other bright ideas?"
"What about 'Martin Duckworth'?" I suggest.
"Maybe the password is something stupid, like her address," Gillian says.
"What about 'Arthur Stoughton'?" Charlie adds, using the first name on the strip of photos.