Orchid Blues (18 page)

“We know there are right-wing, racist groups in a lot of army outfits,” Harry said. “We keep a very close watch on that sort of thing. I don’t think they could actually do what John says they’re going to do. I’m more interested in how he’s going to finance all this. He can’t rob that many banks.”

“He said he’d have the financing soon,” Ham said. “I didn’t press him on that.”

“He must have a benefactor,” Harry said. “Somebody with big bucks, who’s willing to invest in a future he thinks he can control. I’d sure like to know who that might be.”

“I don’t think that’s the kind of thing he’d tell me,” Ham said.

“I agree. You’re too new.”

Ham turned to Eddie. “Have you got some equipment I can plant out there? They seem to hold a lot of meetings in Peck’s office; that would be a good place to bug.”

“Depends on how paranoid they are,” Eddie said. “If they sweep the place and find something, then we’re screwed.”

“You mean Ham’s screwed,” Holly said.

“Come on, Eddie, you must have something that would work.”

“I’ve heard rumors about stuff,” Eddie said, “but I don’t think the Bureau is in charge of it.”

“You’re talking about the National Security Agency, aren’t you?” Ham asked.

“Yeah. I’ve heard rumors about their capabilities, and they’re scary. They could be listening to us right now.”

Holly looked at Harry. “Why do I think you wouldn’t want to bring another government agency into this?”

“Don’t needle me, Holly.”

“Something’s building out there,” Ham said. “I don’t know what it is, but if all you’ve got is me, then I think you need a lot more help, Harry.”

“I guess at some point I’m going to,” Harry admitted. “But not yet. In order to get the NSA in on this I’d have to go right up the Bureau’s chain of command to the director, who’d then chat with the attorney general about it, and if he thought it couldn’t damage him politically, then he might talk to the director of Central Intelligence, and if he felt like it, he might authorize the director to talk to somebody at NSA. But there’s no way to be sure of that, and before I go that route, I want some hard information.”

“I believe this is a catch twenty-two,” Holly said. “We can’t get the information without outside help, and you don’t want to ask for outside help until you have the information.”

“That’s about it,” Harry said. “What I can do, though, is get Washington to equip Eddie with something cuter than a regular tape recorder. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Eddie?”

Eddie nodded enthusiastically.

“I’ll make the call in the morning, after they’ve had their coffee,” Harry said. “We’ll get hold of something.”

Holly chimed in. “Get hold of something that won’t get Ham’s ass fried, will you, Harry?”

Thirty-seven

HAM WAS SPENDING EVERY DAY AT LAKE WINACHOBEE now, and his students were becoming expert shots, one after another. Only occasionally did he find someone who could not learn to shoot reasonably well. They were usually people with shaky hands.

One morning, after sending a shooting class to the range, Peck whistled at him from his house and waved him over.

“What’s up?” Ham asked.

“I want you to hear a little presentation John’s giving to some of our newer folks,” Peck said, ushering him into his study. A dozen people sat around the room, and John sat in a comfortable armchair, chatting easily with a couple of them. He looked up and saw Ham and Peck enter.

“All right, listen up,” John said to the group. “We know from our previous discussions that the founding fathers of our country intended that it should be run under principles set down in the Bible: whites are the chosen people of God; homosexuals are an abomination and should be exterminated. Also, the paper money issued by the government is unconstitutional, and so are the income tax laws, but of course, we have no chance of getting the Supreme Court to rule that, not without a new Supreme Court. Now, we’re going to see what can be done about avoiding taxes and keeping our financial dealings secret.”

John stood up and went to an easel. He took a felt marking pen and began drawing a chart. “What we’ve done is set up something called a warehouse bank,” he said, pointing to the first block. “We take deposits into numbered accounts, and that’s very important. Once we establish an account and give you a number, we destroy any record that would show who owns the account. This drives the IRS crazy. I saw a quote from one official who said that investigating a warehouse bank is like looking for a needle in a stack of needles.” This got a good laugh.

“Now, let’s say you open your account with ten thousand dollars. We then transfer these funds to certain western banks. When you want to pay a bill, you send an e-mail to the warehouse with your instructions and your account number; that is transmitted to the partner bank, which sends a banker’s draft to your creditor. So the bill is paid without your name being mentioned, only your account number with the creditor. If you want some cash, you request that by e-mail, too, and the money is sent by certified mail or an overnight delivery service.

“At no point in this process are you identified by anything other than an account number, so the IRS can’t examine your bank records to find out how much money you’re depositing or how much you’re spending. This effectively puts a stop to the enforcement of the income tax laws.”

A man raised his hand. “How much can we save in taxes this way?”

“Depends on how much you earn,” John said. “Recently, one of our warehouse bank customers became the first of us to save one million dollars in taxes. I can tell you that we’ve saved our members, collectively, a quarter of a billion dollars in income taxes.”

There was a murmur of approval from around the room.

“Also,” John continued, “we print our own currency, which we use only among our member groups.” He passed around a banknote for everyone to look at.

Ham inspected the paper, which bore an engraving of Jefferson Davis. It had the look and feel of money.

“By drawing our own currency from the warehouse bank instead of U.S. currency, we can trade among ourselves without fear. We also encourage the use of false social security numbers, which confuses the IRS, and we’ve learned to set up trusts that help us do business without attracting their attention.”

“What are the chances of our getting caught doing this?” someone asked.

“We’ve been doing it for more than ten years, and none of us has even been arrested,” John said. “You may have seen accounts in the Jew press of arrests, but they weren’t our people. From time to time, we shut down the warehouse bank and create a new one. We’re a constantly moving target, and the antitax forces in this country have influenced the U.S. Congress to cut funds for IRS audits and investigations, which makes it harder than ever for them to track us down.”

“How can I open an account?” a man asked.

“Peck is going to distribute account application forms now,” John replied. “You’ll notice that nowhere on the form do we ask for your name. You make deposits in cash, and we give receipts to numbers. Not even I know who has which account number.”

Ham received one of the forms and put it in his pocket as the meeting broke up.

Peck walked over. “You going to open an account with us, Ham?”

“I’m going to have to take a close look at this, Peck,” Ham replied. “My income comes mostly from my army pension, although I have some investments. I think I might be too much on record to start hiding stuff. I might raise a red flag that could cause trouble for you.”

“I see your point,” Peck said, “and I appreciate your concern. You let me know what you want to do. I’m sure it will be all right with John.”

“Can I buy some of your currency?” Ham asked. “That makes a lot of sense.”

“Sure, how much you want?”

“I’ve got a couple hundred in my pocket, I guess,” Ham said, digging out some money. He handed Peck four fifties.

Peck went to a safe in the corner, opened it and returned with twenty ten-dollar bills. “Use it to shop at the gun show this weekend.”

“Right,” Ham said. He walked out to the range, his head spinning.

Thirty-eight

HAM LET HIMSELF INTO THE BEACH COTTAGE through the sliding doors. They were all at dinner again. “My God,” he said, “don’t you people ever eat anything but Chinese food and pizza?”

“You got a Mexican restaurant in this town?” Harry asked. “We’d go for that.”

Ham rolled his eyes and pulled up a chair.

“What have you got?” Harry asked.

“Fellas, it’s a whole new ball game every day.” He pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket, unfolded it and handed it to Harry.

“What’s this?”

“It’s an application to open an account at a warehouse bank.”

“Uh-oh,” Harry said.

“What’s a warehouse bank?” Holly asked.

“The biggest tax dodge you ever heard of,” Ham said. He explained it to the group as it had been explained to him.

Holly and the three FBI agents sat, rapt, listening to him.

“Holy cow,” Holly said, when he was finished. “Harry, you’re going to have to get the IRS into this.”

“It can’t be that big a deal,” Harry said.

“Would you believe a quarter of a billion dollars?” Ham asked.

“That’s
billion
with a
B
?”

“Correct. That’s how much they claim to have cost the IRS over the past ten years.”

Harry stared at him blankly. “How many people are we talking about here?”

“I have no idea,” Ham replied. “John did say that, recently, someone had become their first member to avoid a million dollars in taxes.” He pulled the group’s paper money from his pocket and placed it on the table. “They also print this for themselves.”

Harry picked up a note. “Jefferson Davis? I don’t believe it.”

Eddie was holding a bill up to a bare lightbulb. “This is first-class work,” he said, “and with Jeff Davis on it, it could never be considered counterfeit currency, legally, unless it was counterfeit Confederate currency.”

“How do they use this?” Harry asked.

“They buy and sell among themselves at these gun shows.”

“Shit,” Harry said, tossing the note onto the table. “We’re going to end up with every law enforcement agency in the federal government in on this. There’ll be nothing left for us.”

“You’re forgetting the bank robbery,” Holly said. “And there’s the murder for me.”

“Oh, right.”

“Harry, I think you’ve got to start making some calls to other agencies.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Harry replied disconsolately. “And once I call one, I’ll have to call them all. I still want some hard information, though. Eddie?”

Everybody turned and looked at Eddie, who was grinning.

“You look like the cat who got into the goldfish bowl,” Holly said.

“You could say that,” Eddie replied. “Ham, describe the room, Peck’s study, where all these meetings take place.”

“It’s big, maybe twenty by thirty, fairly high ceiling, windows on two sides. The venetian blinds are almost always drawn.”

Eddie set a cardboard box on the table. “This stuff was couriered in today.” He held up what appeared to be a smoke detector. “This is really neat: all you do is stick this to the ceiling somewhere in the room, and it sits there, listening. It’ll pick up anything said anywhere in the room, then it transmits what it’s hearing to an NSA satellite. They can listen to real-time conversation and transmit it to us over phone lines. We’ll know everything that’s going on.”

“What happens if they sweep the room?” Ham asked.

“They’ll probably be using readily available commercial stuff, which is pretty good, but very short-range. They’ll walk around the baseboards, then the lamps and phones with a detector; they’ll look behind pictures and under the rug. Meanwhile, ten or twelve feet above their head, this thing is sending a highly directional signal straight up. Have you noticed that nobody ever looks up in a room? Well, they won’t sweep up, either.”

“Suppose they do?” Holly asked. “Suppose Peck looks up and says, ‘Hey, I didn’t install a smoke detector in here.’”

“If Peck takes it down and looks at it, he’s going to see a smoke detector. It will even work like a smoke detector. If you blow cigarette smoke at it, it’ll squawk. What he won’t see is a layer of electronics that’s sealed into seamless plastic.”

“How is it powered?” Ham asked.

“The only difference between this and a regular smoke detector is it has two nine-volt batteries, instead of one. Except they’re not really nine-volt batteries, they’re made of a new, extremely high-powered battery material developed by the NSA. They’re disguised to look like regular nine-volt batteries. The two of them would give you a month’s talk time on your cell phone, and this unit uses a little less power than a cell phone.”

“Neat,” Ham said.

“What’s
not
neat,” Holly pointed out, “is that Ham has got to go into that room and install the thing.”

“All he does is peel off a strip of plastic, exposing a sticky tape and glue it to the ceiling.”

“You’re missing my point,” Holly said. “Ham has to do it; he has to go into that room, unseen by anybody, get on a ladder, or something, and stick it to the ceiling without getting himself shot.”

“Well, there is that,” Eddie admitted.

“Ham, have you ever been alone in that room?” Harry asked.

“No, there have always been at least half a dozen people there.”

“How long do you think it might take you to get in there by yourself ?”

“I don’t know,” Ham said, “I can only try.”

“There’s more,” Eddie said. “Ham, you wear your old army fatigues a lot, don’t you?”

“I do when I go out there,” Ham said.

Eddie held up a button. “They have buttons like these, don’t they?”

“Yes.”

“You sew this onto your fatigues, top front button, or on a pocket. There’s a tiny microphone inside that transmits a very short-range signal.”

“What good is a very short-range signal going to do us?” Ham asked.

Eddie took a pair of well-worn combat boots from his box. “It has to broadcast only as far as your feet. These will fit you,” he said. “We got your shoe size from your military record.” He took a tiny screwdriver from his pocket. “This is the kind of tool you use to replace a screw in your eyeglasses. You also use it to switch on a tape recorder in the right heel of the boots.” He demonstrated. “Insert it a quarter of an inch, make sure it mates with the screw head inside and give it a short turn clockwise. You’re up and running, and you have an hour and forty minutes recording time on two memory sticks imbedded in the heel.”