“They’ll probably finish it today.”
“That’s good.” De Jersey paid for breakfast and left.
In East Hampton, he discussed property values with a real estate agent. They were eager to help: a property in such a prestigious area would sell quickly. Once development was complete, they assured him, they could start with an asking price of fifteen million. That sum, with the proceeds from the sale of Moreno’s apartment, meant that one small part of de Jersey’s, Wilcox’s, and Driscoll’s fortunes would be salvaged.
After returning his rental car, de Jersey ordered a taxi and went to pick up the Lexus, which he drove into Manhattan. With Moreno’s keys in his pocket, he was able to let himself into the apartment. Quickly, he packed most of Moreno’s clothes into suitcases and made appointments with three real estate agents to discuss selling the lease of the fully furnished apartment. He phoned the doorman to arrange transfer of the bags to the Lexus.
When the first agent arrived, de Jersey explained his asking price was way below the market value in order to ensure a fast sale. By the afternoon, thanks to the legally binding letters and the lease reversal with Moreno’s signature, a cash deal had been struck. Before he left the apartment, de Jersey unscrewed the back of Moreno’s computer and, producing an electric drill he’d found in a kitchen cabinet, drilled several holes through the hard drive. If he was unable to gain access to the files, he didn’t want anyone else to do so.
At 7:00 P.M., de Jersey parked the Lexus in the long-stay car park at JFK, leaving it unlocked with Moreno’s suitcases in full view, thus assuring their quick disappearance. At the Virgin Atlantic desk he used Philip Simmons’s passport and upgraded himself into first class. After boarding the plane, he changed into the courtesy tracksuit and slept for the entire flight. Once again, he spoke to no one. He was woken for breakfast shortly before landing.
After clearing customs at Heathrow, he returned to the men’s room, where he removed the wig and mustache, and combed his hair. He left the airport as Edward de Jersey.
He was home in time for New Year celebrations. He was confident it would be a long while before anyone started to ask questions about Moreno’s disappearance, and he was pretty sure that the body would never be found. The car would turn up, but it would be hard to prove that there had been foul play. It would be near impossible to trace de Jersey’s own movements in and out of New York. Once Moreno’s finances had been properly investigated, it would be surmised that he had done a runner.
The money from Moreno’s properties was a drop in the ocean compared to the losses the trio had suffered. But de Jersey calculated his share of the cash from the sale of the apartment alone would be enough to keep his estate running for the time being. It was almost a week since he’d left for New York, but in that time he had felt the adrenaline pumping, the old excitement at being on the wrong side of the law. It was a different enjoyment than his horses brought: more like the thrill of walking a tightrope. He was forced to use wits and cunning, and he liked that. He felt no regret for Moreno’s death. He was happy to use the accident to his advantage. The Colonel was back in business.
5
The New Year celebrations were over, and Wilcox and Driscoll were due to return to London, but de Jersey had still not formed a plan. He had been spending much of his time learning about the Internet, a vast world of which he had known so little.
After surfing the Web, he realized that his criminal expertise was outdated. A modern criminal needed only a computer and a modem to carry out a lucrative heist. He also realized that nothing was secure in cyberspace. De Jersey was intrigued by the way information could be appropriated by criminal organizations. The May Day riots, which gathered protesters and support worldwide, had been almost exclusively organized on the Internet. Even the Mafia carried out cyber-meetings these days. Crime was committed behind a hidden web of corruption and orchestrated from a simple keyboard. A teenage hacker had broken into the U.S. defense system and another into the Bank of England. De Jersey was astonished that American institutions were so vulnerable and so accessible. In the aftermath of the recent terrorist attacks, there was more security everywhere, but the dangers in cyberspace continued unabated.
Restricted information could be accessed through password-sniffing programs. Hackers disguised their computers rather than themselves to acquire sensitive information. Computer credit-card fraud was big business. De Jersey was concentrating so hard that he didn’t hear Christina walk in. She was carrying a shirt. “What on earth is this on your cuffs?” she asked. “It’s on the collar too.” She held up the shirt he had used as Philip Simmons, and he couldn’t think what to say.
“It looks like makeup to me,” she said suspiciously.
“You’ve caught me out,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
He grinned sheepishly. “It’s fake tan.”
“What?” she said, taken aback.
“Well, I looked so bloody pale I tried it out, but it turned me orange so I washed it off.”
“Well, it’s ruined the shirt.”
“Chuck it out, then.”
She flicked it toward him. “You silly old sod-wait till I tell the girls how you were trying to impress this banker. No, don’t tell me, he was a woman!”
“No, but he was twenty years younger than me.” He laughed.
“You will be pale and feeble if you keep yourself holed up in here,” she said. “What on earth are you doing?”
“Moving into the high-tech world. It’ll cut down on all that paperwork.”
“Will it? But you don’t know what you’re doing, do you?”
“I’m learning,” he said.
“You should get Tom to help you, he’s doing a computer course.”
“Tom who?”
“The vicar’s son-Tom Knowles.”
De Jersey looked at his computer. “Maybe you should get him to come over-sooner rather than later.”
“I’ll do it now, then,” she said and left the room. De Jersey tapped the desk. He should have dumped the shirt before he came home. He would never have made a mistake like that in the past.
A few moments later Christina was back. “Tom is ready, willing, and able. I said you’d pay him per hour.”
Tom Knowles was training as an information technology tutor at a local college. He was small and skinny, and wore thick-rimmed glasses. He arrived promptly each morning at nine o’clock and stayed for two hours.
One day he opened his laptop as usual and said to de Jersey, “Right, sir, last session you wanted to look into Web privacy. The best way to keep your personal data personal is by not giving it out in the first place. So, if I wanted total electronic privacy, I’d start with a made-up name or nickname for my e-mail account, using Hotmail or Yahoo!, for example. They’ll ask you for personal information, but there is nothing to say that you have to tell them the truth. Always skip any optional fields. If, however, you want to order things off the Net, you’ll have to give your address. If this is a concern, you can get a post-office box.”
De Jersey nodded.
“You may think that surfing the Net is an anonymous activity, but every Web site you contact keeps a record of your computer IP address. Combine that with your ISP’s logs, and you’re right in the spotlight.”
De Jersey pursed his lips. “Are there ways to cover your tracks when you’re on-line?” he asked, staring at Tom’s small screen.
“There are ways to hide behind someone else’s IP address, but I don’t know much about that. You’d have to talk to someone who’s more knowledgeable in that area.”
“And what about these ISP logs? Can’t you just delete those from your computer?”
“Yes, but it’s not as simple as deleting. Many people think that when they send documents to the recycle bin they’re gone, but they’re not. And even if you take the next step and delete the contents of your recycle bin, they’re still on your database. Private detectives and police investigators could still use programs such as EnCase and FRED to recover evidence from parts of your drive.”