He really did. He wasn't making it up-he seemed to know too many details. "I'm impressed."
"Never underestimate me, buddy. Now, a couple of questions for you."
I nodded.
"That lady CEO," Russell said. "Cheryl Tobin. Most of these guys don't like her, huh?"
"I like her okay." What did he care?
"Well, you're low on the totem pole." A sly smile. "I'm talking about the senior guys."
"Most don't," I admitted.
"How come? Because she's a bitch?"
I paused for a second. Some guys use "bitch" interchangeably for "woman." Men like Russell, I figured. I wasn't going to teach him manners. "Yeah, they're probably not comfortable having a woman in charge. But the fact is, like it or not, she's the boss."
"Boss may not always be right, but she's still the boss, that it?"
"Like that."
He shook his head. "I think it's because they don't want her investigating them. They're scared she might find something. Like a bribe, maybe."
"News to me." Had Slattery told him about the internal corporate investigation? Or someone else-his inside source? "Wouldn't surprise me, though. She's a real stickler for rules."
"They'd love to get rid of her."
"Maybe, some of them. But the board of directors hired her. Not them."
"And she doesn't have the power to fire any of them, does she?"
"Never heard that before."
"There's a lot about your company I know."
"I can see that." And I wondered how.
"She's holding out on me."
"That's her job. Someone has to, and she runs the company. But she'll come around."
"Maybe I don't need her."
"Maybe you do. That's the thing, Russell. You gotta keep your options open. Anyone who has signing authority is someone you might need around. The point is for you to get your money. Not prune the deadwood."
"But she doesn't have signing authority, does she?"
"That's way above my pay grade, Russell."
"Interesting, isn't it?"
"If true. You get all this from Ron Slattery?"
"I have my sources." He winked. "Gotta know who I need to keep alive."
"You never know who you might need."
"Only need one."
I shook my head. "Don't assume that. The amount you're talking, the bank's probably going to require the authorization of two corporate officers. That means user IDs and passwords and who knows what else."
"Once I get the user IDs and the passwords, I don't need 'em anymore."
"Russell," I said, "let's be honest: You're talking about shooting someone to put the fear of God into the rest of us, right? But the thing is, you don't know which names the bank has on their list. What if they insist on a callback?"
"A callback?"
"A phone call to verify the transaction."
"Not going to happen that way. It's all going to be done over the Internet."
"Right, but look at it this way. A request for half a billion dollars e-mailed from some computer outside the country-that's bound to raise all kinds of questions at the bank."
"Not if we're using the right authorization codes."
"Maybe," I said. "Or maybe not. Let's say the wire request goes to some pain-in-the-ass bureaucrat at the bank. Some low-level employee in the wire-transfer room who's seen too many TV shows about Ukrainian bank fraud and doesn't want to lose her job. She calls back the number on file for the Hammond treasury operations office or whatever it's called, but nobody at Hammond headquarters has a record of any transfer request."
"The top guys are all here," he said. He sounded a little less sure of himself.
"So someone at headquarters says, gosh, I don't know anything about that, but here's the phone number of the lodge where all the honchos are. The bank lady, she's thinking she's being such a good doobie, she's gonna get a promotion for sure, maybe even be made deputy assistant supervisor of the wire room, and she calls the number here. Which happens to be the only telephone in the whole place-the manager's satellite phone. Maybe you answer the phone yourself. Whatever. But she asks to speak to someone whose name's on her list."
"They'll talk to her, believe you me."
"And maybe the protocol is, she's got to talk to two senior officers. An amount that size."
"Maybe."
"So you want to have at least two of them around to answer the phone and say, yeah, it's cool."
"She's not going to know who she's talking to. Shit, Buck could pretend he's Ronald Slattery, comes to that."
I shrugged. "And if they have voiceprints? Half a billion dollars, you never know what sort of security precautions they might take."
"Still only need two of them."
"Thing is, Russell, you don't know for sure which names are on the bank's list."
"Huh?"
"Look, I don't know how this works. But what if the bank has a list of two or three names you've got to call if a request comes in for a transfer over, I don't know, fifty million or a hundred million bucks. You're not going to know who's on that list."
He was silent for five, ten seconds. Looked around the porch. Moths fluttered outside. Some big insect-a june bug, maybe-kept colliding with the screen. The crickets seemed to be chirping louder and faster, but maybe that was just my imagination. It was brighter outside than in here: I could see the glimmering of the moon on the waves, the silvery wooden dock, the boulders and rocks of the shore.
"You're pulling all this out of your ass, aren't you?" he said.
"You bet."
He nodded, smiled. Then his smile faded. "Doesn't mean you're wrong, though."
"And another thing? One of the hostages needs his insulin."
"That guy Latimer."
"He could go into a coma. He could die. You don't want that."
"I don't?"
"He's the General Counsel. He might have signing authority, too. Don't dynamite any bridges you might need to cross later on."
He nodded. "Why're you being so helpful?"
"Maybe I want to save my ass."
"If you're trying something, I'll know."
"I told you. I just want to go home."
We looked at each other for a few seconds. It felt like an hour. The roar of the ocean, the lapping of the waves against the rocks on the beach.
"Stay on my good side," he said, "and you'll make it out of here alive. But if you try anything-"
"I know."
"No," Russell said. "You don't know. You think you know what's happening here, dude, but you really have no idea."
47
Russell's words echoed in my head as Travis followed me out of the screened porch and through the great room.
You think you know what's happening here, dude, but you really have no idea.
He took me to another room I hadn't seen before, some kind of parlor or reading room with antlers and moose heads mounted on the walls. The floor was covered with a large Oriental carpet, where some of the hostages were stretched out or curled up, and others sat in clusters, talking quietly. For a moment it reminded me of kindergarten, when all the kids would lie down on little rugs at naptime.
A Coleman lantern on a trestle table near the door gave off a cone of greenish light. Nearby, two guards on duty, sitting near each other in railback chairs, murmuring to each other: Buck, the one with the black hair and goatee; and Verne, the ex-con with the teardrop tattoos.
Only one door, I noticed. There were windows, but they were shut and, I assumed, locked.
I wondered how long they'd keep us here. It was early Thursday morning already. I assumed that Russell would be interrogating people throughout the night: the large pot of black coffee.
Travis shoved me to the floor. Then he called Geoff Latimer's name. Latimer was lying on his side, pale and exhausted.
"You're in luck," Travis said, helping Latimer to his feet with a gentleness I didn't expect.
"Thank God," said Latimer.
Travis and Latimer left the room, and the two guards whispered. Verne, twitchy, jiggled his foot up and down. They obviously weren't worried about us-unarmed, our hands bound.