Zero Sum Read online

  He got into his car and called Stan Caldwell, his attorney and asset protection specialist…and also his very good friend. Stan listened intently to his story, then suggested they get together in half an hour in San Clemente. Stan made his living in part by being ultra-paranoid about privacy concerns and didn’t like cell phones.

  Steven was in turmoil as he drove down PCH. Why would his account be frozen by a government agency? Didn’t the IRS have to file something, some sort of notice, if that was it? Besides, he didn’t owe anything, wasn’t being audited. Could it be identity theft? That had been a big topic with the Group a few months back. Could someone have used his ID to do something illegal, forcing him to jump through hoops to clear it up? What a pain in the ass.

  At least he had a full tank.

  Cash wasn’t an immediate concern, as he still had about seven thousand dollars left from what he’d won in Vegas at the last bachelor party. But not having access to a little over a hundred and fifty Gs was an issue, that was for sure. He wondered if they’d also frozen his credit cards. And who they were. And why. Which brought him right back to the beginning again...

  Stan Caldwell was a very smart man. Quiet. Looked nothing like an attorney, more like a successful real estate developer. Heavyset, usually smiling, relaxed, did a lot of listening and spoke rarely. He had many high net worth clients for whom he’d structured asset protection solutions. Discretion was his mantra. His specialty was creating transactions for company sales so they wound up being tax-free events, which is how Steven and he had met. They’d been friends ever since.

  Steven told him about the account, and he jotted down the information, asking a question now and then. Stan assured him he would get to the bottom of it quickly. Steven then told him about the events of the last thirty-six hours or so; Avalon, the ISP, Griffen, the website. Again, Stan asked pointed questions, clarifying a point here, requesting more information there.

  Stan quickly decided that Steven was playing with very hot water, and cautioned him that not all factions of society played nice.

  “Steven, if you hit a snake on the head over and over, eventually it will try to bite you. Law of the jungle. Seems to me you’ve made a hobby out of hitting this particular snake pretty hard, and pretty regularly.”

  “Griffen’s a liar and a thief, and he’s robbing little old ladies. All I did was create a website and shine a light on his latest scam. There’s nothing illegal about creating websites, last time I checked – besides which, it’s too late; the damage is done.” Steven didn’t need any more statements of the obvious.

  Stan framed his fingers together and looked through them at Steven.

  “A colleague of mine used to go on safari, in Africa, years ago. He had a saying: If you’re going to go elephant hunting, bring an elephant gun and be willing to use it. Otherwise you have no business elephant hunting. Steven, my point is you’ve been elephant hunting. If you have even half of this right, he’s been doing this for years, successfully, and is well connected. Your current situation may or may not have anything to do with him, but it isn’t lost on me you’ve had a lot of strange things happen since you started with this...”

  “Stan, I’m not saying you’re wrong, or that I wouldn’t change anything if I could. But I can’t. So what do I do?”

  Stan considered the question for a long time. “I’m not sure you have the means to get a gun big enough to bring this particular beast down. Let me think on this. I’ll take care of the bank first thing.” They shook hands and agreed to talk soon. Stan looked at Steven again.

  “At least your life’s not boring, I’ll give you that. And sorry about Avalon. I liked him.”

  As Steven pulled onto the freeway to return home, his phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and saw it was Jennifer. He picked up.

  “Hi there. All rested?” Steven asked.

  “Where are you?” Alarm…no, make that borderline panic in her voice.

  “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

  “You need to come home now. I don’t think I can deal with this anymore, Steven.”

  “Deal with what? I’m twenty minutes away. Tell me what happened.” He hated when people said things like ‘there’s a problem’ and then refused to elaborate. This was very unlike Jennifer.

  “When you get here. I have to go.” She hung up. Christ, she’d hung up on him. She’d never hung up on him. He stepped on it. He figured he could be there in fifteen minutes if he worked it.

  He made it in twelve.

  He rushed through the door from the garage and found Jennifer sitting in the living room. The blanket was gone, but a dark stain remained on the beige carpet. Her arms were crossed as she gripped her shoulders. She looked scared. He’d never seen her like this before.

  “What’s going on, honey?” He approached her, but she pulled away.

  “Two men came to the front door this morning, at around ten-thirty. They wanted to speak to you. I told them I didn’t know where you were, which was the truth – you were just supposed to go get bagels. You were supposed to be here with me...” She started sobbing.

  “Oh, Jennifer, I’m sorry. I had some emergencies come up I had to deal with.” He tried to hug her, but she pulled away. Shock? “I picked up the bagels, then stopped to get some cash from the ATM. Turns out my account is frozen; some law enforcement agency froze it, no explanation. So who were the men?” Steven asked.

  “They were from Homeland Security, and yes, I made them show me their badges,” Jennifer sobbed. “They wouldn’t discuss why they needed to talk to you. They just asked a bunch of questions.” She was still crying, scared, and angry. He should have been there. She’d been dealing with the mess, cleaning up dog blood, and now this.

  Whatever this was.

  Homeland Security? Wasn’t that the terrorist people?

  “Honey, I have no idea what this is about. I swear,” Steven protested. At least that much was true.

  “They wanted to know where you were, when you were coming back, if you had an office around here. I told them you were out, maybe for the whole day.” She was staring at him.

  “I haven’t done anything wrong. This is crazy,” Steven exclaimed.

  “They wanted to come in, and I told them no, someone had broken in and killed your dog last night, and you didn’t want anyone in the house without you being here. They didn’t seem to know about that. One of them left a card and asked you to call as soon as you could. It’s on the counter.” Jennifer pointed at the kitchen.

  “I don’t get it.” What was happening here?

  “Don’t you? DON’T YOU?” Jennifer finally lost it, screaming at him now. “Steven, your dog’s dead, they’ve frozen your money, and now they’re coming for you.” She beat upon his chest with her fists. “What don’t you get? Your little game with the goddamn stock has turned into a nightmare and you’ve endangered everything we’ve got, everything we had. Avalon’s dead and they’re after you. WHAT…DON’T…YOU...GET?” She’d expended her energy, and he held her shaking wrists as she collapsed back onto the sofa.

  She looked up at him. Composing herself a little. Then suddenly calm. “You thought you were so damned smart, and now Homeland Security’s at your door. This isn’t a game, Steven. It’s real life. Real consequences. You lost Avalon, for real. You could lose everything.”

  Jennifer looked away, then back at him, directly at him, with an intensity born of betrayal and anger. “And you’ve lost me, Steven. I didn’t sign up for any of this.”

  So there it was. He was to blame for everything, and she wanted no part of it.

  And she was right.

  “Jennifer, I haven’t done anything wrong. Don’t you see? There’s no law against creating a website. This is lunacy. There’s gotta be some other explanation.” Even to him, that sounded empty. Lame even. The only new variable in his life the last few days was the website. They must have tracked him, even though he’d been extremely thorough; or so he’d thought. And they wanted him
off the air enough to pull out all the stops.

  “Well, you’re going to have to figure it out without me around, Steven. I love you, but I didn’t agree to risk everything for some stupid stock, and this isn’t the life I want. Maybe I’ll feel differently later, but right now, you’re living in some kind of nightmare, and I’m scared, and I want out.”

  She was beautiful even as she hated him.

  “You’re not the man I met. You spend more time on that stupid computer than you do with me, and now it’s gotten you into big-time trouble.” Her voice cracked raw, hoarse from the strain and emotion. “I don’t want this life. I want our old life back. But it’s gone, and it’s all because of you and that fucking company. I can’t take this, Steven; I don’t want to be involved in whatever you’ve exposed us to. It isn’t fair.”

  She’d pretty much nailed it. He’d impacted her right to happiness by taking poorly calculated risks without accurately understanding how much was being put on the line. And now he was in crisis mode, and Steven in crisis mode wasn’t a good partner or mate. She wanted security, stability, not chaos and danger and change. Hard to argue that.

  He’d sensed a confrontation coming for a while, the dissatisfaction building, the resentment over his time involvement in the market becoming a simmering issue. Just as with the kids and family thing, he’d hoped to deal with it at some vague point in the future, hoping it could wait. But it hadn’t, and the last two days had tipped the already teetering balance.

  “Maybe we should take a break while I figure this out,” was the best he could manage. It sounded shallow, but the reality was he had bigger problems right now. Internally he was churning, trying to figure out the next step, and Jennifer’s dissatisfactions weren’t at the top of the list – even if they were justifiable.

  Her being right wouldn’t fix things, and he needed to focus on fixing this quick-smart.

  “Yeah, Steven, you do that…figure it all out.” She got up and stalked across the room, kicking the rag she’d been using to scrub the rug as she went. She stomped upstairs and he heard drawers closing, closets being slammed.

  She flounced back down a few minutes later with two suitcases and her purse.

  “I hope you come out of this okay,” she conceded as she opened the door.

  He went over and kissed her lightly on the cheek, and held her tightly for what seemed like could be the last time. Tears welled dangerously in her eyes, but she looked resolved.

  “Take care of yourself,” she said.

  And then she was gone.

  Chapter 14

  Steven felt disoriented. The day’s events had already overloaded his system, and it was only mid-afternoon. He had to take some time and calm down, to think. Everything seemed like it was coming apart at once, and it took every ounce of control he had to keep from panicking. He went into the kitchen and picked up the Homeland Security card, looked at it, put it into his pocket. He absently stared at the stain on the carpeting – the lingering evidence of the reality of Avalon’s death, and realized he was spacing out. Snap out of it and think, a voice in his head commanded. Focus. He couldn’t help himself if he zoned out. He needed a plan of action.

  He sat down at the computer that had gotten him into all the current trouble and logged into his Group. Described the morning’s events.

  A few minutes later a post popped up from one of the gang:

  [Consider your physical location and your lodging compromised. Stow all your CCs, don’t use them. Use only cash. Leave now with any high value items that can be converted into $. Pull your hard drive, take the CPU and discard elsewhere, take laptop and any CDs. Create a new Hotmail account from a remote location, use alias for info, log on here and give us the address. I’ll set up a new private chat room. Leave soonest, time probably critical. G-luck. Spyder]

  Wow. The lads were taking this seriously. Then another post came up:

  [Do it. Now. Gordo]

  He’d been involved with them long enough to recognize when they were right. He also realized he hadn’t been thinking clearly, had already spent too much time as a sitting duck. He powered down, disconnected the computer and took it out to the car. Back inside, he grabbed the laptop and his CD-ROMs, then went upstairs and packed a small duffel with a few days’ clothes, the seven grand in hundred dollar bills from Vegas, and his three most valuable watches; a yellow gold Patek Philippe 3970, a platinum Patek 3940, and a platinum men’s Rolex President. Everything fit in the bag, along with some socks and underwear, and a rudimentary shaving kit. He looked at his watch. Seven minutes since he’d disconnected.

  He stuffed his gear into the front seat of the car, started the engine and raised the garage door. No black helicopters circling. He backed out, again nearly taking out the same skateboarder who offered the same watch what you’re doing, asshole look, then pulled down the street.

  So far, nothing suspicious.

  No sedans with men on headsets, no sirens, no SWAT truck.

  He realized he had no idea where he was going or what he should really do next. He called Stan, but got his voice-mail.

  “Stan, it’s Steven, there’s been a situation at the house. Some gentlemen had been by looking for me, gentlemen I think you’d be better at talking to. I’m on my cell. Please call as soon as you get this.” That started the ball rolling on the lawyer front. There was little Stan couldn’t deal with. Short of being caught with a body in the trunk, Stan would know how to respond.

  He drove around for a while, paying special attention to ensure he wasn’t being followed. As far as he could tell, he had no tail. He ran a couple of yellow lights at the last possible second, confirmed no one made it through after him, and then gunned it around a series of corners into the back bay side streets. From there he made his way to a frontage road, and then onto the freeway and out to Irvine.

  He didn’t want to be anywhere near Newport Beach until he knew what the hell was going on. Irvine was big enough so he’d be invisible for the time being. He felt a little sheepish, wondering if he was over-reacting, but then considered the Group’s response. They weren’t hotheads or alarmists yet they seemed pretty agitated by the day’s events. Best to trust that collective judgment, especially when he was in uncharted territory.

  Once he’d gotten into the heart of the town he pulled off the freeway and spotted an office supply superstore that featured web access. He parked in the back and threw his computer into a dumpster. In the superstore he rented twenty dollars of computer time from a spike-haired kid with an attitude and halitosis. Steven was the only one in the computer section.

  He logged on. Went to Hotmail, created a new ID, confirmed it was set up, then logged onto the Group site and posted his new e-mail: [[email protected]]. Logged out, went back to Hotmail and saw a message had arrived. It contained a chat-room address he committed to memory before deleting the message and signing out. He logged into the new chat-room address and found yet another chat-room address with the instruction to go to the new one.

  The Group loved their cloak-and-dagger stuff.

  He did as advised, and logged into that final address. Posted a message:

  [It’s Bowman. I’m on]

  Instantly a message responded:

  [Give me a second, I’m destroying the other chat room - Spyder]

  Thirty seconds went by, and then,

  [Are you clean?]

  Steven advised them he was in a public computer area and hadn’t been followed.

  A different poster, Pogo, popped in:

  [Lose your cell phone – they can trace them – do it now and come back in a few minutes. Destroy the phone. Pogo]

  What? How was he supposed to communicate? Shit. What about his address book?

  [Is that really necessary?]

  Immediate feedback:

  [Do it]

  What a pain in the ass. He logged off, went out to the car, and drove a block away to another parking lot. Wrote down the ten or so numbers he didn’t know by heart. He
got out, put the phone under his back tire, and reversed over it, and then pulled forward again for good measure. He looked at the flattened lump of plastic and metal and wondered whether he’d finally lost his mind.

  Avalon’s dead, you’ve got no access to your cash, and Homeland wants to chat.

  Maybe these precautions were prudent. He did the same thing with the hard drive he'd removed before tossing his desktop system to eliminate any chance of data ever being recovered. Mission accomplished. He drove back to the store and logged on.

  [It’s done, crushed it, now what?]

  Spyder responded:

  [You didn’t really think we were serious…did you?]

  Steven fired back,

  [Ratfuck]

  To which Spyder replied:

  [Just kidding. You need to be ultra careful. Cells can be tracked. When you’re done here, get a calling card with 2000 minutes, pay cash. Use that for all calls. Go buy a disposable cell phone with a time card in it, and use that to call the 800 number on the calling card. Never use the ArcherX account again. That was a one-time deal. Spyder]

  Steven appreciated the instant access to such unusual expertise, and took it seriously. Phone card, disposable cell, got it.

  Another post popped up:

  [It’s Gordo. Did some checking, and Griffen’s Barbados fund is only a PO box. It’s actually registered and domiciled in Anguilla. Unusual.]

  He wasn’t sure what to make of that. These guys had amazing access, though. He remembered his friend had told him there were some ‘ex-spooks’ in the Group. Gordo looked good for one of them. Spyder too.

  Another post:

  [My buddy on the trading desk at one of the big brokers says a lot of the trades that came in over the last few attacks were done via Canadian brokers and haven’t cleared yet. Stinks. Pogo]

  This went on for half an hour or so.

  Spyder introduced the topic of IP addresses:

  [Every time you post on Yahoo or anywhere else they tag your IP. That may be how they tracked you. Use an IP mask when accessing e-mail or posting or uploading to the Web. Here’s the best site – www.Be-invisible.com – use it from now on]