Power Play Read online

  33

  What do you mean?" Slattery said. "You think they planned-"

  But then we fell silent as Verne brought Ali over. He held a gun on her: a stubby little stainless-steel Smith & Wesson with a two-inch barrel. She sat, looking angry and remote.

  "I enjoyed that, sugar tits," Verne said with a manic leer. "Let's do that again soon without our clothes, huh?"

  Ali gave him a glacial stare. Under her breath, she said, "I'm not really into short-barreled weapons."

  He heard it, though, and he hooted. "Whoa, that chick's got a mouth on her! We'll see what you can do with that mouth later."

  "Yeah," Ali replied. "I've also got sharp teeth."

  He hooted again.

  "Hey, Verne," I said.

  He turned, eyes wild.

  "You touch a hair on her head, and I'll take out your good eye."

  "With what?" He smirked. "You can't even take a piss unless I say so."

  "Hey," Barlow called out. "Speaking of which, I need to take a leak. Badly."

  "So?"

  "What the hell am I supposed to do?"

  "Wet yourself for all I care," Verne said with a cackle.

  "I'm serious," Barlow said.

  "So'm I," Verne said.

  Barlow gritted his teeth. "This is torture. I'm not going to make it."

  I gave Ali a questioning look: Are you okay?

  She smiled cryptically, maybe thanking me, maybe chiding me. She seemed more angry than frightened, which wasn't surprising. That was Ali: She was a fighter, not easily intimidated. Maybe that was the legacy of her Army-brat upbringing. I'm sure it was also something Cheryl had recognized in her immediately, a trait the two women shared.

  "Excuse me," Latimer called out. He looked haggard. "I need my…insulin."

  "Your what?" Verne said.

  "There's a kit upstairs in my room. In my dresser. With syringes and a blood test kit and some vials of insulin. Please. Just let me go up and get it."

  "You're not bringing a bunch of needles in here. Sorry, guy. Deal with it."

  "But if I-please, if I don't get my insulin, I could go into a coma. Or worse."

  "Hate to lose a hostage," Verne said, swiveling away.

  "At least could I get something to drink, please? I'm dehydrated."

  Verne was out of earshot.

  "I didn't know you were diabetic, Geoff," Cheryl said. "How serious is this?"

  "Hard to say. I mean, it's serious, but I don't have any symptoms yet. Just really thirsty."

  "You're late with a shot?"

  He nodded. "I usually give myself an injection before I go to bed."

  "Did you mean it about going into a coma?"

  "If too much time goes by, it can happen. Though I think I'll make it for a couple more hours. If I drink a lot of water."

  "Damn them," Cheryl said. She turned around and yelled, "Someone get this man a glass of water now! And his insulin!" Her voice echoed.

  Hank Bodine stirred, his eyes fluttering open. He looked around groggily, groaned, then shut his eyes again.

  Travis came over, gun leveled. "What's the problem?" he said, scowling.

  "Get this man some water," she said. "He's a diabetic, and he needs water immediately. He also needs his insulin shot."

  "And I need to use the restroom," Barlow added.

  Travis looked at her, at Latimer, and said nothing.

  "And will you get Mr. Bodine a pillow, please?" she said. She pointed toward the jumble of displaced furniture. "A sofa pillow, at least."

  "That's up to Russell," Travis said. "I'll see." Looking uncomfortable, he turned, crossed the room toward the dining area, and began speaking to the crew-cut guy, Wayne.

  "Thank you," Latimer said. "Even if they won't get my insulin, the water should help."

  "Will you please not mention water?" said Barlow.

  "I still haven't heard why Landry thinks this whole thing was planned," Slattery said.

  "Who cares what he thinks?" said Bross. "He's not even supposed to be here."

  "Let's hear him out," Cheryl said.

  "They're wearing the wrong brand of hunting vest," Bross went on. "A big fashion 'don't' in your world, that it?"

  I refused to let him get to me. "They came in here knowing exactly where to go and what to do. They weren't stumbling around. These guys know too much. They knew where everything was the second they arrived-the kitchen, the front door, the upstairs. They knew which exits to cover. As if they'd scoped the place out in advance. It just feels too well planned to be a coincidence-too well coordinated."

  "Right," Bross said, heavy on the irony. "This whole thing was planned. Get real. They didn't crash in here demanding a hundred million bucks, did they? That was only after Russell discovered who we are. At first they only wanted our wallets, for Christ's sake."

  "And our watches," I said. "Don't forget the watches, Kevin. Even the 'replicas.'"

  Bross glared.

  "I think they were trying to make it look like a random, unplanned break-in," I said. "Which, in itself, is interesting."

  "Why?" said Cheryl.

  "I don't know," I admitted. "But I'll figure it out."

  "I think Jake may be right," Ali said. "Look at who comes here-mostly rich people and corporate groups. Who else can afford it? All these rich folks out here in total isolation. Sitting ducks. If you're a bad guy looking to make some quick money, you can't do better than this."

  "Russell knows too much about Hammond," I said. "All that stuff about our cash reserves-I doubt he figured that out tonight, on the spot, by looking at a balance sheet. He already knew it ahead of time."

  "It's all out there on the public record," said Barlow.

  "Sure. But that means he did research on Hammond before coming here. Right?"

  For a few seconds, everyone was silent.

  Then Slattery said: "But how'd he know in advance that we'd be here?"

  "You guys come here every year around the same time," I said. "It's no secret."

  "Then they must have had a source," Latimer said. "One of the lodge staff, maybe."

  "Or they've been here before," I said.

  "Excuse me," Bross said. "I don't even know why anyone's listening to you. Did anyone ask you for your opinion? You're not even a member of the executive council, or have you forgotten that? You're a substitute. You're nothing more than a ringer."

  Amazing: Here we were, held hostage at gunpoint, and all Kevin Bross wanted to do was one-up me. With Hank Bodine at least temporarily incapacitated, he probably considered himself the reigning Alpha Male. And I was a threat.

  "I got news for you, Kevin," I said. "There's no more executive council. Not anymore. Not now. Your life is no more important than mine or anyone else's. Neither is your opinion. We're all just hostages now."

  I heard a groan, then a familiar rumbling voice. "Well put, Landry," Hank Bodine said. "When the hell's that pillow getting here?"

  34

  Bodine's silver hair was mussed, clumps of it standing on end. His eyes had all but disappeared into the swollen mass of his cheeks. White strips of adhesive tape crisscrossed his face.

  "There he is," Bross said. "How're you doing?"

  "What do you think?" Bodine tried to sit up. "What's this, they tied me up, too? The hell they think I'm gonna do?"

  Bodine's mere conscious presence had reordered the group like a magnet waved over iron filings. You could tell it rankled Cheryl. She needed to take charge. "The issue isn't who they are or how they got here," she said. "The issue is how we're going to deal with it. That's the only thing that counts at this point."

  "Tell me something," Lummis said. "Do we even have the ability to do this-to make a funds transfer from here-if we wanted to?"

  No one replied for a few seconds, then Ali said: "I'm sure he knows about the Internet connection in the manager's office."

  "That's not what I mean. Can it be done from here? Can we really transfer a hundred million dollars out of the corpor
ate treasury to some offshore account, just using the manager's laptop?"

  More silence. Cheryl looked at Slattery: She didn't seem to know the answer either. I assumed that the only ones who really knew how the system worked were Slattery, Danziger, and Grogan-but Danziger and Grogan were on the other side of the fireplace, out of range.

  "I could transfer funds out of one of our accounts from a laptop at Starbucks," Slattery said wearily, taking off his glasses and running a hand over his forehead. He closed his eyes and pushed against them with a thumb and forefinger, as if trying to massage a headache away.

  "You're kidding," Lummis said.

  "No, unfortunately, I'm not," said Slattery.

  "Hold on a second," Kevin Bross said. "Are you telling me that any lunatic could just put a gun to your head and empty the company's treasury? We don't have any security procedures in place? I don't believe it."

  There was something about Bross's tone-he sounded incredulous, but in an exaggerated way-that made me suspicious. Then there was the look of irritation that Slattery gave him in response. Bross, I realized, already knew the answer. He gave a quick, furtive glance at Bodine, seemed to be performing for him. Bodine's eyes were open, but the lids were drooping.

  "It's more complicated than that," Slattery said.

  "Yes or no?" Bross demanded. "Do we or don't we have at least some kind of security measures?"

  "Ron," said Cheryl, "you don't need to get into this. It's beside the point."

  "Well, I want to hear it," said Bross. "It's very much the point."

  "Don't even dignify that, Ron," Cheryl said.

  "The fact is," Slattery said, "the bank's computers don't know if they're talking to a computer inside Hammond headquarters in L.A. or at a laptop in a Starbucks or some old Macintosh in a fishing lodge in British Columbia."

  "How is that possible?" said Bross.

  "Well, it's-anytime you log on to our system from outside the headquarters building, you're creating a virtual tunnel into what's called the VPN-the Hammond virtual private network. All the bank computers see is a Hammond IP address. An outbound gateway. For all the bank knows, it's getting a message from my office on the thirty-third floor on Wilshire Boulevard."

  "Can we move on, please?" said Cheryl. "This is irrelevant."

  "Even when we're talking about a hundred million dollars?" Barlow said.

  "Doesn't make a difference how much," said Slattery. "It's just a little more elaborate."

  "Ron," Cheryl said, "enough."

  But Slattery kept going. "For large, sensitive transactions the bank requires two authorized users to make the request. Then on top of that, there's dual-factor authentication."

  "Which is?" Barlow said.

  "Forget it," said Cheryl. "We're not making any transfer."

  "Sounds to me," Hank Bodine suddenly said, "like you're trying to shut him up. I want to hear this."

  Cheryl just shook her head, furious. She did seem to want to keep Slattery from talking.

  "You enter a user name and password as usual," Slattery said, "but you also have to use a secure ID token. Which generates random, one-time passwords-six-digit numbers-every sixty seconds. You take the number off the token and enter it on the website."

  "So, if we don't have one of those doohickeys with us, we can't do the transfer," Barlow said. "Simple as that. I'm sure you don't carry one around with you, right?"

  "It's on my key ring, upstairs in my room," Slattery said. "But Russell's probably got it by now."

  "These fellas aren't going to know what it is," Barlow said.

  Slattery shrugged. "If they know what they're doing, they will. The bank logo's printed right on there."

  "Anyone else have a token like that?" asked Barlow. "I don't."

  "Just the ones who have signing authority."

  "Signing authority," Barlow repeated.

  "The ability to authorize a financial transaction greater than, I think, fifty million dollars. Authorized users."

  Cheryl turned slowly to Ron Slattery. "I don't believe I have such a token," she said.

  "That's because you don't need to dirty your hands with all that financial…plumbing work. It's just for the guys like me who have to, you know, roll up our sleeves and do the operational stuff."

  "Such as?"

  He hesitated. "You know, the corporate officers who're involved directly with the finances."

  "'Authorized users,' as you put it."

  "Basically, yes. Officers who have signing authority at that level." Slattery was starting to sound evasive.

  But Cheryl was unrelenting. "Such as? Who has the signing authority at that level? Besides me, I mean."

  Slattery gave a tiny shake of his head, as if silently cuing her to stop asking.

  "What are you telling me?" she said.

  "I mean-well, actually, you don't."

  "I don't what?" Cheryl said.

  "Don't have signing authority," Slattery said. "Not at that level. Not for a one-off cash transaction of that magnitude, anyway."

  Cheryl's cheeks immediately flushed. She pursed her lips. "I see. Then who does?"

  "I do, of course," Slattery said. "And the Treasurer. The General Counsel, and the Controller. Latimer, Grogan, and Danziger."

  "And Hank, I assume."

  He nodded.

  "Anyone else?"

  "No."

  "I see," Cheryl said.

  "Did I just hear what I thought I heard?" Bross said, his mouth gaping. "You actually don't even have the power to stop us from wiring out the funds, do you? Since you don't have the power to authorize it."

  Cheryl looked at him for several seconds, her nostrils flaring. "Perhaps not. But I'm the CEO of this company, Bross. And if I hear any more of your insubordination, you're going to be cleaning out your office."

  "If any of us survive," Barlow said.

  "We're not wiring a hundred million dollars to these criminals," Cheryl said. "It's as simple as that. Whether or not I have the technical authority to sign off on a payment of that size, the fact remains: I will not allow it."

  "Cheryl, please," said Slattery. "We all know what he's going to do if we refuse. Please."

  "Once we give in to this extortion, it'll never stop," she said. "I'm sorry."

  "You know," Barlow said, "I don't think you have the power to stop us. Am I right, Ron?"

  Slattery glanced anxiously from Cheryl to Barlow, then back again.

  Cheryl examined the rope around her wrists. "Ron," she said in a warning tone, without looking up.

  "Cheryl," Slattery said. "I-" Then he met Barlow's hard gaze, his raisin eyes. "Yes," he said. "Basically that's right."

  Still studying the rope, Cheryl said softly, "I expect more than that from you, Ron. I expect your complete support."

  Slattery turned to her, but she didn't look up. "I'm-I'm sorry, Cheryl. Forgive me. But this is just-this happens to be the one case where we disagree. We really have no choice but to give the guy the money he wants. But-"

  "That's enough, Ron," Cheryl said, cutting him off. You could almost see the icicles hanging down from her words. "You've made yourself clear."

  I saw the tears in Ali's eyes and felt the bad wolf start to stir.

  35

  Correct me if I'm wrong, Cheryl," Kevin Bross said, "but aren't you the reason we don't have a choice?"

  Cheryl gave Bross a quick, cutting glance, then looked away. "I think we're done with this discussion," she said.

  "We've just begun," Bross said. "Tell them, Ron. Tell them about the security measures you were pushing for. Which Cheryl turned down."

  Slattery's sallow complexion immediately colored, but he said nothing.

  "Oh, really," Cheryl said.

  "Ron?" Bross prompted.

  Slattery blinked rapidly, remained silent.

  "Go ahead, Slattery," Hank Bodine said. "Let's hear it."

  Slattery looked first at Bodine, then at Cheryl, and he said, "It's just that-I had my team draw up a p
lan to implement much stronger security on the company's website. I was concerned about, you know, hackers from Lithuania or Ukraine being able to get in and do all kinds of damage. Or steal code and blackmail us. This kind of thing happens to U.S. companies all the time now."

  "Are we seriously going to rehash all of this now?" Cheryl said. "This is neither the time nor the place-"

  "I think this is the perfect time and place," Bodine said, cutting her off.

  "I wanted us to install a multilayered access platform," Slattery said. "Change the whole access infrastructure so we had the ability to turn off most functions for anyone who accesses the Hammond system remotely. Especially treasury functions."

  "Plain English, please," Bodine said. "You're losing us."

  "As I told you then," Cheryl said, "we have executives all around the world who need constant access to our entire system."

  "They still could have had access, Cheryl. I wanted the ability to block the finance portals to outside access. All treasury information, all code repositories. No movement of money off campus."

  "This is past history," Cheryl said. "We went back and forth on your proposal, and in the end I decided it was too complicated and too cumbersome to implement. And too expensive."

  "So you killed Ron's plan in order to save money," Bross said. "And now look at how much money we're about to lose because of you."

  Cheryl gave Bross a poisonous look. "Not because of me," she said. "I want to be on the record here-I'm absolutely opposed to giving in to this extortion."

  "If it weren't for you," Bross said, "we wouldn't even be able to give in to the extortion. This whole nightmare didn't have to happen."

  Cheryl looked down, shook her head. She looked as if she was doing everything she could to restrain herself from lashing out.

  "Does the board of directors know about this?" Barlow said.

  Slattery was silent.

  "They will," Bross said. "They're going to hear about how your mismanagement not only cost the company a hundred million dollars but put the lives of every single top executive at risk. I'd call this an egregious breach of fiduciary duty. Hank?"

  "As soon as this is over," Bodine said, "they're going to hear all about it. And then it's not Kevin Bross who'll be cleaning out his office. It's gonna be a no-brainer."