CHAPTER 46: Oh, Well, It’s Insured
Sheriff Russo was amazed at the level of skill provided by the military-trained hacker, a colleague of his elk-hunting buddy, a retired Sergeant Major. It didn’t take the professional long at all to hack Seamus Boyle’s burner phone number and email.
The hacker loaned the Sheriff a laptop with a Virtual Private Network set to Chicago and showed him how to navigate the software. “I’ll come back tomorrow for it and wipe it,” he said.
Now the Sheriff sat in his wood-paneled home office, scrolling through Seamus Boyle’s emails, listening to and recording his voice mails.
Carol had left multiple messages:
Bobby, baby, miss you! When you coming home?
Hey babe. It’s not the same without you. I need a big fuckin’ dose of Bobby!
Bobby, honey. Cops showed up, two of ’em. I didn’t tell ’em nothin’, I know better. You still in Santa Barbara, babe? Going to Montana? Say hi to Skye for me.
Liar, whispered the Sheriff. Then he listened to half a dozen messages from males:
Bob, heard you got a new job, man. We’re meeting at Sammy’s on Wednesday. If you’re in town, see ya there!
Hey, Bob. Sam here. You still owe me a grand, man. Heard you left town, you fucker...
Hey, man! How’d you do on the game? I made out, dude! We’re celebrating! See ya at the bar...
Then, a man’s voice: Pick up at the store: beer, chips, rum…
It was the same voice on the voicemail greeting, the Sheriff was sure of it. He listened as the list continued: …apples, toilet paper…
It went on for a long time and then changed to numbers, letters. That was the last message in Boyle’s voice mail.
The Sheriff copied the recording of the voice mails from his computer to a tiny flash drive and popped it in his breast pocket for safekeeping.
He poured himself a cup of coffee, then sat back down at his desk. He played the final voice mail, writing down the numbers and letters neatly on a legal pad. He played it back again and double checked them.
The first series were longer, the second set short, repetitive:
######XXc, ######XXf, ######XXi, ######XXl
He Googled the longer numbers. The digits corresponded to routing numbers for banks in Argentina, Belize, Cambodia, the Cayman Islands.
The rest? Bank accounts? Passwords, he hoped.
Out of the list of routing numbers, Cambodia lacked an extradition treaty with the US so he started with the Cambodian account and inputted HellOnWheels@megmicro.ph as the user name, guessed at the password. He bounced out several times until he tried BELIZEghi as the password. Bingo! He was in.
Funds had regularly come in for years, then they were transferred to a variety of the other accounts. There was a recent transfer out, leaving $50,000 in the Cambodia account.
The Sheriff methodically hacked all the accounts and found transfers in, then out, small balances of about $50,000, but in the Belize account, there it was: a little over $2.4 million.
So, Boyle, thought the Sheriff, you’ve been at UCLA, in Brentwood, Silvercreek, Seattle, Santa Barbara, Montana, and now you’re heading to Belize.
Sheriff Russo studied his meticulous notes. The room grew cold. He closed the heavy drapes and stacked logs in the fireplace, lit them.
The Sheriff poured himself a stiff whisky and paced in front of the blazing fire. Rain pelted the roof, turned to hail then back to rain as he thought long and hard about what to do next.
<><><><>
The paperwork was signed, the notary and lawyers from both sides had left. Escrow was officially opened, a $25 million deposit in the account. Soon the balance would transfer along with titles to the properties and the deal would be complete.
In his office at his Greenwich, Connecticut estate, Frédéric Trinité poured champagne into three Dartington crystal champagne flutes. “Congratulations, Jackson. Another win-win,” said Trinité, handing glasses to Grace and Jackson.
“That land,” said Jackson slowly, “is everything my family has built over four generations in America and we are losing it.”
Trinité laughed, then said, “Losing it, no. You are selling it and for a very good price, but, yes, I can understand your sense of loss. Let us drink to change, then. To positive change.” He raised his glass, but no one toasted him. He turned away, looked out the window. “Your location is idyllic for a resort. Your land is tres belle in the summer, when that incessant rain finally stops falling.”
Ah, the games we will play in those woods far from prying eyes! thought Trinité, sipping his champagne. He imagined the chase, the naked prey, running under a full moon, breathless, panicked. He preferred pale young females, but he wondered if an Indian princess in a fringed buckskin skirt might be a novelty. All in good fun, he thought as the memories and imaginings aroused him.
He shook it off, turned. Grace was staring at him. Trinité felt she could see into his soul, read his thoughts. The idea was strangely arousing. He did not blush, nor did he look away.
Grace put down her glass and stood. She wrung her hands together, then smoothed the navy blue sweater she wore over a long, white cotton shirt and jeans. “I’m not feeling well,” she said quietly. “Please, excuse me.”
Jackson looked at her with concern. Trinité pointed to a door. “Down the hall to the right,” he said.
In the bathroom, Grace splashed cold water on her face, dried it with a plush rose towel, studying her reflection in the ornate mirror above the vanity.
Isn’t there any way out of this mess? she thought, with tears in her eyes. Isn’t there a way back to a simple life, a life where one can be happy, blissfully ignorant?
Reluctant to return to the office, Grace walked out to the garden and dabbed her eyes on the terrace. A path led down toward Long Island Sound where a yacht, a sailboat and several small dinghies were docked next to a float plane.
A stocky man carrying a dark jacket approached. He had jet black hair, a black goatee and wore glasses and a skinny black tie over a white shirt tucked into black pants. A caterer? thought Grace.
“Are you alright, Miss?” asked Seamus Boyle, his voice filled with concern. “May I get you something?”
“No, thank you,” said Grace with a small smile, brushing away a tear. “I’m fine.” Her smile disappeared—he was too close.
Seamus Boyle moved quickly, wrapping a thick arm tightly around her neck. Grace felt Boyle’s warm breath on her neck. The hand holding a gun against the small of her back shook. God, don’t let him kill me, she thought.
“Not a word,” he whispered, letting go of her neck and pushing her forward, his jacket covering the gun.
A security guard approached and asked, “May I help you?”
“Am here for the Cessna Stationair,” said Boyle. “Prescott.”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Prescott,” he said. “You’re a little early, but the plane’s ready. Fueled up, keys inside. Do you need any assistance?”
“No, thanks,” said Boyle. “I’ll take it from here.”
“Have a nice trip, sir, miss,” he said, leaving them.
“Off we go, dear,” said Boyle as the barrel of his gun forced Grace up the dock while thinking, Grace Newman—worth at least three mil! One gig ends, and the next begins.
Boyle opened the plane’s clam shell cargo doors on the starboard side and pushed Grace into a seat. He pulled off his tie and used it to bind her hands, scanned the plane for rope, spotted a parachute container hanging on the back of a seat.
Grace tried to get away, but he pulled her back in and hit her hard with his fist, breaking her nose. She lost consciousness.
He grabbed the parachute container and pulled the main out, used its lines to tie her in. Satisfied, he closed the cargo doors, untied the dock lines. Boyle settled into the port side pilot’s seat, skipped the preflight check. The propeller turned and he taxied away from the dock and across the placid surface of Long Island Sound.
The sound of the engine and the plane’s vibration brought Grace to her senses. As the plane began its ascent, she freed herself from the parachute lines, but Boyle’s skinny black tie still bound her hands.
She heard Boyle laugh as he turned back in a lazy arc. One last flyby? thought Grace as she stuffed the main parachute’s white silk into its container and buckled herself into the harness.
She opened the forward cargo door and pushed it hard. It opened a few inches and she heard Boyle yell, “Shit!” She opened the rear cargo door and the wind caught it and flung it back hard against the rear fuselage at almost the same time as it slammed the forward door shut.
Through the two-foot-wide rear cargo door opening, she could see Long Island Sound moving dizzyingly below.
Grace said a quick prayer as she jumped and pulled the cord on the reserve parachute. It immediately deployed into a comforting orange arc hovering above, slowing her descent, but pain shot through her as she hit the water hard. She felt the tug of the lines as the air held within the orange canopy fought the downward pull of her plunge deep into the dark and cold waters of Long Island Sound.
Her hands still bound, Grace flailed ineffectively, pawing a path upward to the light. She ran out of air long before she reached the surface.
<><><><>
Inside the estate, Trinité and Jackson heard the sound of the plane’s engine. Trinité used the intercom and asked, “James, what is that?”
“I’ll see, sir,” replied James’ voice.
“Who in the world would steal my plane?” asked Trinité, taking a slow sip of champagne. Oh, well, it’s insured, he thought as Jackson quickly checked the hall bathroom. Empty.
“Grace!” he yelled as he sprinted across the lawn toward the sound of the plane.
James was standing at the end of the dock, watching the plane taxi away. “Boyle? Grace?” asked Jackson.
A look of shame crossed James’ face, but he said nothing as Jackson boarded one of the inflatable dinghies and revved the motor. James freed the lines and tossed them into the little boat, saying, “Nothing you can do, man.”
Jackson shook his head and motored away, studying the plane as it rose and then circled back. He saw the wind slam the rear cargo door open against the fuselage, saw Grace appear briefly in the opening. She did not hesitate and he watched her jump.
He breathed a sigh of relief as the small orange parachute captured air. Grace hit the water and Jackson whispered, “Mother of God!” as he full throttled across the Sound. Overhead Boyle flew low over Trinité’s estate, so low the trees shook and every window rattled.
Jackson slowed as he approached the orange silk of the reserve floating on the surface of the Sound. He killed the motor and the little vessel drifted into its folds. He grabbed the parachute and pulled it, hand over hand, into the dinghy.
Finally, he saw Grace’s hair billowing beneath the surface and then her limp body, tangled in lines. As he pulled her out of the water, she reflexively gasped for breath. He laid her face down over the side and she spat out cold salty water. Jackson unclipped his pocket knife from his belt and cut her hands free, cut her free.
“Grace,” he whispered as he turned her into his arms. She looked at him without recognition, blood flowing from her broken nose. “Come on, Grace,” he begged as he checked for other wounds.
“Jackson,” she moaned. “I think I’ve broken an ankle,”
“Only one?” he asked, shaking his head. “Impossible.”
He smiled. She smiled.
“You’ll be fine, Grace,” he said, wrapping her in the folds of orange silk for warmth. He started the motor and slowly, gently, made his way to shore.
