Donning his most pleasant smile, Basil Hume snapped his fingers once peremptorily.
"Escort Mr. Smith to the computer room. He is going to look into our little problem."
The little problem was a panic in full cry when Harold Smith was brought to the second-floor computer room.
The sealed, air-conditioned room was cooled to a perfect computer-friendly sixty-two degrees Fahrenheit. Still, the officers and technicians of the Grand Cayman Trust were sweating bullets.
"The D'Ambrosia Family—I mean, Syndicate—account is down to forty-seven dollars and change," a harried clerk called over his shoulder from a terminal.
The manager was frantically going through a green- and-white striped printout with eyes that threatened to slip loose of his stretched-wide lids.
"I have no record of any withdrawal in the last month," he said, his voice pitched too high.
"According to the computer, the money was transferred to the—"
"Don't say it!"
"—Chemical Percolators Hoboken," finished the clerk.
"They swear they've not received any of these confounded transfers," the bank manager was saying in a stunned voice.
Harold Smith cleared his throat noisily. "I would like to examine your system."
"Who the devil are you?" demanded the manager, looking up from his printout stack. His face had a touch of the same greenish white as the printout.
"Smith. With the U.S. government."
The guard added, "Mr. Hume okayed it."
The manager waved to the bank of terminals. "Help yourself."
"What is the problem?"
"The bank is—" the manager swallowed "—electronically insolvent."
"What do you mean?"
"Someone somehow sucked out all the money from every one of the large accounts."
"Sucked?""We don't know how it could have happened. At close of business yesterday, all was well. This morning we began noticing that the account balances were all out of sort. To the debit side. We have records of numerous wire transfers, backup confirmations, but no one remembers executing the transfers." The manager swayed on his feet. He wiped a white handkerchief across his damp, pasty forehead.
"And the correspondent banks have no record of receiving the wire transfers?" prompted Smith.
"Exactly. How did you know?"
"The U.S. government account I am responsible for was rifled in the identical way," Smith said tightly.
"You—you are not by chance with the CIA?"
"Why do you ask?"
"They are nasty people."
"I represent the Federal Emergency Management Agency," said Smith.
"The ones who chase tornadoes?"
"Yes."
The manager breathed a sigh of sheer relief. "Just as long as you are not one of those Colombian or Jamaican depositors. They've been calling all morning. Word has leaked out."
Smith was at a terminal. He went through his own account file. It seemed to be in order from this end, except that the missing funds had been transferred out without proper authorization and were never received at the other end.
Yet according to the transaction file, the correct constructed number had been received from Chemical Percolators Hoboken, verifying receipt. Smith understood that a constructed number was a digital string that, when subjected to certain carefully guarded mathematical manipulations, produced a number that was the true identifying authorization code. They were supersecret supersecure formulas, and the fact that the power that had looted Grand Cayman Trust knew the constructed numbers emanating from Chemical Percolators meant its computer security had been breached.
It smacked of a perfect white-collar crime.
By a quirk of the computer age, even though no physical money had left the bank and none was received, the electronic credit the mainframes stored was absent. In effect, the money had vanished into limbo. The bank could not recredit Smith's account because, according to its electronic records, the money was now on deposit in New York. The absence of the money in New York made no difference to the Grand Cayman Trust computer system. It reflected a perfectly correct wire transfer out. Therefore, the money was gone.
The very checks and balances of the banking system had been exploited masterfully.
Looking up from the monitor, Smith said, "You have a very serious situation here. I would suggest you question your employees closely. This has all the earmarks of an inside job."
"We intend to do that—if we survive," said the bank's manager.
"Survive?"
"Due to the special nature of our depositors, we are more concerned with the repercussions of these losses."
"I see," said Smith. "Have any employees failed to report for work today?"
"No. In fact, we have called in the night shift and all those out on holiday to help us straighten out this beastly mess."
"And all returned?"
"Without exception."
"This is not an inside job," said Smith suddenly.
"Why do you say that?"
"Your employees know full well the dangerous types of people who use this institution. A guilty party, knowing the true extent of the looting, would not return voluntarily to face the dire consequences if an irate depositor came looking for his money."
"I hadn't thought of that," the manager admitted. "Very logical. Very logical indeed. Then where is this money?"
"In cyberspace," said Smith.
"What?"
Smith got out of his chair. He was looking at the mainframes and could find no manufacturer's name.
"Tell me," he said at last. "Who services your system?"
"The manufacturer, of course."
"And that is?"
"XL SysCorp. They make the finest mainframes in the world and offer them at competitive prices."
"I see," said Harold Smith, turning to go.
The manager followed him out of the room, tugging at Smith's gray sleeve. "I say, I thought you were here to help." "No. I am here to track down the U.S. government's money."
"But what about us? What about the irate depositors who will not take no for an answer?"
"You have lain down with dogs," Harold Smith said coldly, shaking off the man's trembling hand. "Now you must deal with the fleas."
In the stark white windowless office furnished with a chair that was the finest money could buy and a desk that had no more substance that a moonbeam, Chip Craft blinked.
"Virtual money?" he queried.
"One of the flaws of paper money is that it has no intrinsic value," came the smooth voice of Friend.
"Sure. Money—even coins these days—is really a kind of promissory note issued by the government. If the currency ever becomes worthless, the government will step in and make good."
"With more worthless currency," said Friend. "For the value of the U.S. dollar is no longer backed by gold reserves."
"Is that why you've stashed all that gold in the basement vaults?"
"Yes. For, once my business plan is implemented, all paper money is at risk of being destroyed by hyperinflation, thereby causing my gold reserves to appreciate in value by an astronomical amount."
"We're going to make money worthless?"
"No, we are going to take advantage of the weakness of money in the digital age."
"Yeah?" "Money has been replaced by electrons in 96.8 percent of all business and government transactions. These electrons travel through the telephone lines from computer station to computer station, where they are stored in the form of credits and debits. These transactions are executed with the speed of light via fiber-optic cable, then verified by telephone voice or paper confirmation slips."
"Yeah. It's very secure."
"It is very insecure. Voices can be imitated, and paper itself does not move in these transactions."
"Huh?"
"Facsimile paper has replaced cellulose confirmation slips sent by messenger or mail."
Chip snapped his fingers. "Virtual paper!"