Origin - Season One (2 page)

In some places the paint had run all the way down to the marble floor and formed small pools.

Dekker knelt and picked up the can. There was a sheet of paper fastened to it with a rubber band. When he unfolded it, a small memory card dropped to the floor. Dekker knelt to pick up the card. He recognized it as a standard SD card, the same one his own digital camera used. He scanned the safety deposit boxes along the wall, but saw no sign that any of them had been opened.

The paper was a printout of the vault’s 120 deposit boxes, complete with the names of their owners. At the bottom someone had written the words
Back Off
followed by a long line of numbers that meant nothing to him.

Dekker was too shocked to hear the guard return.

“Sir, the chairman is on his way. What the hell is going on?”

Dekker turned to him, his eyes vacant, uncomprehending. “We’re fucked, Andy. That’s what’s going on. We’ve just been fucked.”

The Pentagon

Washington DC

Friday 14 July 2006

1800 EDT

The helicopter was bright red except for the words
Skyline Defense
painted across the tail boom in thick black letters. It hovered briefly over the landing pad before nosing up and gently settling onto the manicured lawn.

Carl Bosch, chairman and CEO of Skyline, stepped out into the bright afternoon sun and waved an impatient hand at the waiting navy lieutenant.

Dressed casually in a collared white shirt and tan slacks, Bosch made no effort to hide the gray in his hair, which was cut short and complemented by a thick salt-and-pepper mustache. As the head of one of the Pentagon’s less advertised contractors he enjoyed a number of rare privileges and exuded a corresponding arrogance that endeared him to few.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Bosch,” the officer said. “The admiral is waiting for you in his office.”

“Where else would he be waiting?” Bosch said.

They made their way down the concrete path toward the north face of the building. Inside, a marine gunnery sergeant handed Bosch a photo ID and put the briefcase he was carrying through the x-ray scanner.

Five minutes later, he stepped into the office of Rear Admiral James O’Connor. O’Connor was a tall, thin man with gaunt features and a sharp nose. He was standing at the window overlooking the inner courtyard. He didn’t turn around when Bosch entered, only looked down at the tumbler of scotch in his hand and stirred the ice cubes with a shake of the wrist.

“Thank you, Adam,” the admiral said, and the aide promptly left the room.

Without waiting for an invitation, Carl sat down on one of the two leather chairs facing the admiral’s desk. “I didn’t realize inflation was running so high.”

The admiral put his glass down and smiled. “Christ, Carl, you should be thanking me, not complaining. I had to call in a lot of favors on this one.”

Bosch set his briefcase down on the desk blotter. “Happy retirement.”

The admiral walked over, opened the case and ran an absentminded hand over the bills inside. “What’s so important about this ship, anyway? Why not just sail her around the Cape?”

“She’s on a tight schedule,” Bosch said. “She also represents a sizable investment. The last thing we need is for her to be stuck off the coast of Somalia for three weeks while the insurance people haggle with the locals over ransom money.”

The admiral opened the top drawer of his desk and handed Carl a sheet of paper. “The USS Princeton will be authorized to leave her patrol zone for twelve hours. That will get you into Egyptian waters. After that, you’re on your own.”

Federal Reserve Bank

New York, New York

Saturday 15 July 2006

0900 EDT

Special Agent Mike Banner pulled up to the loading-bay entrance on Liberty Street and stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette in an empty coffee cup on the passenger seat.

Both security guards in front of the door were carrying shotguns. To his bemusement, one of them retreated to a covering position as the other approached the car. Mike lowered the window. “Afternoon. Mike Banner, FBI. I should be on the guest list.”

The guard wasn’t amused. “I’ll need to see your ID, sir.”

Mike handed it over. The guard took it, then stepped back and conferred briefly with someone over his radio. When he handed it back, he said, “Sir, are you carrying a weapon?”

“Just my service issue,” Mike said.

“I’ll have to ask you to leave it here, sir.”

Mike was about to ask why, but the look on the guard’s face suggested it would be a waste of time. He reached over, pulled the Glock 23 from the glove box and handed it over. A moment later the doors began to open.

Mike recognized the black Chevy Suburban parked at the bottom of the ramp as one of their own. He got out and approached the woman at the top of the steps to the loading platform. “Afternoon, boss.”

Mary Winters, the assistant director of the New York field office, looked tired. Her hair, normally her most striking feature, had been tied back in a simple ponytail, and Mike didn’t think she was wearing any makeup.

“Thanks for coming in, Mike,” she said. “I appreciate it.”

“Not at all, I could use the overtime. Especially now that Susan wants us to find a place in Nassau.”

When she didn’t smile, he said, “What’s going on?”

“Follow me,” she said.

She led him through the door at the back of the loading bay into a small room filled with monitoring screens, then through another door at the back of the room into a long hallway that ended in a narrow flight of steps. At the top was yet another steel door that looked even thicker than the previous two.

The room was a larger version of the one downstairs. There were at least thirty screens mounted in an arc around a wide counter with two keyboards and a joystick built in.

Two people were waiting for them inside. The first was a portly, bald man with a thick gray beard. He wore no tie, had rolled his shirtsleeves up to his elbows, and looked to Mike as if he hadn’t slept in a week. The assistant director introduced him as Paul Shaffer, chairman of the bank’s board of directors.

Shaffer held out a hand. “Mary you know. This is Gert Dekker, our vice president. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Agent Banner. Mary says you’re her top guy. I sure hope she’s right. Gert, show him the video.”

Mike, who knew neither what was going on, nor why he was there, watched as Dekker walked to the control terminal. A loud burst of static issued from the wall-mounted speakers; then the video feed began to run on one of the two large screens above the counter. The picture was only a moving blur at first, then it settled. It took Mike a moment to understand that the camera had been mounted somehow to the head of the person making the video.

When the picture came into focus Mike could just make out a door in the dark, grainy image. There was a click and the door opened. The view suddenly blurred again as it swung back to the door and a hand reached out to close it. As soon as it was closed, the image was suddenly flooded with light, presumably from a flashlight also mounted on the person’s head. After that things moved fast.

Less than three minutes later, Mike, who was now dizzy from the constantly moving picture, saw the elevator doors open on the sublevel antechamber. The man (Mike assumed it was a man) turned right and approached the control panel next to the vault door. For several seconds the image was static; then the door began to open. Mike watched as the figure stepped inside and walked to the far wall. There was a loud rattle as he shook the spray can and began to write. When he was done, the view swung back to the door and the video stopped.

Mike turned to the assistant director, who turned to Shaffer.

“Agent Banner,” Shaffer said, “What you’ve just seen is a recording of someone breaking into the New York Federal Reserve. I’d like to explain how it was done, but I don’t have a clue. And neither does anybody else around here.”

“Jesus Christ,” Mike said. It was all he could think of.

Shaffer nodded to Dekker, who said, “This bank is protected by one of the most secure systems in the world. As you can see, they managed to somehow bypass it completely. As for the people that monitor the system from Boston, they don’t even know it happened.”

“When
did
it happen?” Mike said.

“Sometime between Wednesday afternoon and midnight last night. From what we can see, that was when all the camera feeds for the areas concerned were automatically erased by the system.”

As he listened, the frown on Mike’s face deepened. “How? I don’t get it. There’s no indication in the system that the doors were even opened?”

“None,” Dekker said. “And everything appears to be running just fine now.”

“Do you know what was stolen?” Mike said.

Dekker handed Mike a sheet of paper. “This was also left in the vault.”

The sheet was a printed list numbered from 1 to 120. Each entry contained the name of an individual or company. Mike recognized quite a few of them, including several prominent members of the New York political elite. Below the list, written in the same clumsy handwriting as the Latin on the wall were two words:
Back Off
. Below this in even smaller letters there was a long string of what looked like some kind of code.

“Well, the message is clear enough, if nothing else is,” Mike said handing back the sheet. “We go looking for these people and everyone on that list gets a copy of the video, along with the Times and the Journal, is that right?”

“Something like that,” Shaffer said.

“But if this is just blackmail,” Mike said, “where are the demands? It’s hard to believe someone would go to all this trouble just to prove it can be done. Have you considered the possibility that they have taken something, and that you won’t know what until the target does?”

“It’s a possibility,” Shaffer admitted. “But as you say, we have no way of knowing. What concerns us right now isn’t who did this, but how. This bank is the cornerstone of the Federal Reserve System. We hold gold reserves here for over two dozen sovereign nations, the Israeli war chest, and enough cash to buy out Berkshire Hathaway several times over. I had to talk the secretary of the treasury out of bringing in the damn army to protect the building this morning. You can imagine what a can of worms that would have opened.”

Mike only nodded.

“I hope you can,” Shaffer said.

Mike turned to the assistant director. “Ma’am, are you sure I’m the person you need here?”

“You’re my most senior agent, Mike,” she said. “You’ve also got the most experience with cyber-crime. And if I’m honest, you’re the only one I fully trust to keep his mouth shut. This needs to be handled under the radar. Director Gobain has made it clear that no one else is to come in on this.”

Mike considered this for a moment. “All right, but I’m going to need you to make one concession.”

“Go on,” she said.

“I’ll need Mitch Rainey up here from the Office of System Development.”

“Who?” Shaffer asked.

“Kid I busted in Phoenix a couple of years ago. He’s the best computer guy we have, trust me.”

“No way,” Shaffer said.

“Then you’re wasting your time,” Mike replied.

“You want me to let a convicted criminal in here? I’d have to be fucking insane to even consider it.”

“Ma’am,” Mike said, ignoring Shaffer, “from what I understand, someone just robbed this bank with a computer. Is that a fair summary of the situation?”

“That’s what it looks like, yes.”

“So we’re not dealing with some local crime syndicate. And I think we can rule out terrorism. I have trouble sending e-mails, so veteran agent or not, I’m of no use to you there. Rainey’s the best guy we have.”

Mike turned to Shaffer. “And he’s not a convicted criminal; he’s an employee of the FBI.”

“Sure,” Shaffer said, “Because you wanted him. I’m guessing he was spared the interviews and the trip to Quantico, am I right?”

“You’re missing the point,” Mike said. “If I didn’t know better, Mitch would probably be one of my first suspects. By which I mean, if anyone can figure out what happened here, it’s him. When we tracked him down in Phoenix he was about twenty-four hours away from wiping out the credit card accounts of three of the largest issuers in the country. In fact, you’ve probably heard of him.”

Shaffer frowned. “You’re talking about the Bank of America thing? The kid from Seattle?”

Mike nodded. “That’s the one. If it’s any consolation, he’s more than made up for it working with the Bureau. My point is, he’ll be a lot more useful around here right now than I am.”

“All right,” the assistant director said. “I’ll put it to the boss. But don’t hold your breath.”

“I’m telling you, I don’t like this, Mary,” Shaffer said.

“You have a better idea?” she asked.

He didn’t.

Federal Reserve Bank

New York, New York

Saturday 15 July 2006

2000 EDT

Mike was standing outside the open vault when the assistant director stepped out of the elevator. He was holding the can of spray paint in one gloved hand and peering at it as if concentration alone might reveal the identity of the man who had left it behind.

“Anything?” she asked.

Mike shook his head. “No. The prints are Dekker’s. What do you make of the cryptic clue?”

The assistant director walked to the open door of the vault and stood looking at the wall. “Who will watch the watchmen? That’s what it says, right?”

“I think it’s ‘who will guard the guards themselves?’” Mike said. “It’s a line from Juvenal’s Satires about the dangers of corruption in high places. It certainly makes you wonder what this is all about.”

Mike was about to say something else when the elevator doors opened and Dekker stepped out. “Agent Rainey has arrived. Should I bring him down?”

“No need,” the assistant director said. “He’ll need access to the security mainframe. Agent Banner will come up with you.”