Chapter 16: The Committee

DID YOU EVER have a dream in code? Last night I worked in the office at the Condo until late, trying to figure out the last two digits for the hidden code. I was so tired, I fell asleep in front of the screen. All night long I dreamed long series of random numbers and letters. Don’t go thinking I solved the problem in my sleep. My head was apparently not satisfied with hexadecimal code. The dream included every letter of the alphabet and several figures from Aramaic, Chinese, and Farsi. No bolt of lightning breakthrough.

Pick a number

I woke up as tired as when I fell asleep, still in the chair at the desk. When I saw what time it was, I scrambled around to make sure my makeup and hair were in place before Davy got there. There would be a party tonight but he might be ticked if he just found out Angel was gone. I don’t think she told him she was going. She won’t be at the party tonight and I had one of those creepy feelings that I shouldn’t be here either.

When I got back to the desk, a flag I’d set up on Brenda’s accounts was chiming gently. She used a credit card in the name of Ashley Lark, one of the aliases I’d recorded. It was charged yesterday in Belize. It’s time I left the country. I used my James Whitcomb identity to buy a ticket on the most direct flight I could to Belize City, via Dallas/Fort Worth. At 11:55 tonight, I’m going after the bitch.

Now, back to my other problem. What are the last two characters to the code? I opened Excel and made a worksheet of the possibilities. If I can decipher what perverted word Simon thought up, I can fill in the last two numbers. But for most of the known numbers there were more than a single letter that could be substituted. ‘B’ could mean b, be, bee. ‘1’ could be one, won, i, or L. ‘6’ was just a six or a G. ‘0’, I hate that one. O, naught, zip, zilch, aught, nada or just zero. ‘I’ again. ‘D’ could be de, de-, ed (on Brenda’s tattoo, Simon used just a ‘d’ instead of ‘ed’ to make elated but on his own, he used both the ‘e’ and the ‘d’ to make fated.)

Then there were all the letters in Simon’s tattoo since I didn’t know which two were in red. ‘F’ has to just be f. ‘8’ could be eight, ate, 8. ‘E’, long or short sound. ‘2’ is another goody. Two, to, too, Z, 2. I still had two ‘d’s, a ‘1’, and another ‘e’.

What do I know about Simon? He’s a gamer and consistent. He has rules he follows or else he has to cheat. Simon loves the game too much to cheat. So, the letters should be in the order they’ll be used. Angel says he can make a dirty joke out of anything. He loves money. He’s obsessed with death, having used ‘die’ twice already. Combined with the b1, what do I have?

Bif? Bize (busy?), bile, bide, bl8d (belated), bled, blez, blei, bige (big ego?), blie.

Bi-lego-id, big-ego-id, bi-leg-old, bizesixoid (bisexual?), bi-f8-gold.

Gold! That’s Simon-talk. Busy gold would work. Belated gold. Bled gold. Yes! Morbidity with the bleeding and money with the gold. I was getting impatient. What will it hurt if I try? I can always rebuild the system again if he decides to erase everything.

Gotta run now

I’m scared.

Davy started banging around in the living room shouting at caterers and decorators for the party tonight. The party is for the board of directors of Bio-Research Technologies, one of the hottest new stocks on the Seattle market. But it’s not Davy I’m worried about, or even the CEO of Bio-Research by himself.

I got into the thumb drive.

When I brought the computer out of hibernation, the message was still flashing on the screen: “Simon says, enter the next encryption code.”

Here goes. B-1-e-d-6-0-1-d. Bled Gold. Who is bleeding, Simon?

The screen blanked and I was poised to yank the thumb drive out of the port when a message appeared on the screen.

“There’s only one person in a billion who could get here, so congratulations, Dag. Everything you need is here. Simon says, ‘Nail the bastards.’ I’m counting on you, old friend.

The screen dissolved and was replaced with a directory of hundreds of files. I scanned through a few of them. There were bank records, commerce records, spreadsheets, email, and documents setting up offshore accounts. Dag told me he’d moved nearly two billion in assets for Simon before he died. These records showed traffic an order of magnitude greater than that.

There was a new area of fraud alive in the world, more profitable than drug traffic. I was holding one in my hand—a cellular phone.

I would have been more comfortable if I’d found some big crime syndicate in this mess. What scared me was it was controlled by eight men and one woman. The Committee comprised senior officers of every major corporation in the Northwest. And the way they were working would evade detection by the most careful auditors. They weren’t defrauding their own companies. They were preying on each other’s.

These were the kind of people who could buy and sell a dozen of me a minute and not even care where I ended up. And one of them would be a guest at the Condo this evening. No wonder Angel had run. I’m doing the same.

I packaged up a compressed file of everything on the thumb drive and sent it to Jordan with instructions on how to access the data.

Then I packed.

The party started at seven. I’d planned my escape route but people started getting there before I was prepared. Now I’d have to watch for a break and make a run for it. Of course, the first one to arrive would have to be Cinnamon.

She checked her phone and purse at the door and headed directly for the private room opposite the office.

I’m sure she knew there were cameras all over the Condo. Probably knew where each one was. She went into the dressing room area and leaned into the mirror to powder her nose. She was wearing an elegant pale blue gown that accented her tawny skin tones. It was a scoop neck front but the back was cut so low it nearly showed her butt crack.

She turned so she was facing the camera and I saw the tube of lipstick drop to the floor. That was when I realized she was putting on a show. She tapped her foot angrily, made a big deal out of seeing where the tube landed, and bent over to retrieve it. While she was bent over, the straps of her gown slid down her shoulders and when she straightened up, the dress slipped down to her waist leaving her pert little breasts exposed to the camera. Again, she made a little display about being silly enough to let her dress fall off and slowly slid the straps up her shoulders. She finished tidying herself up and turned to leave the private room. Just as she pulled the door open, she glanced up at the camera and blew a little kiss to it.

The girl had been giving James Whitcomb a show, intentionally inviting me to call for her. She was going to be so disappointed when she found out I was a girl and we’d both be embarrassed when she found out which girl. I suddenly understood the impulse guys have to run when a girl shows interest in them. I was about to run.

The party was moving along by then. Davy served drinks and monitored the door. He checked everyone through and made sure the house rules were followed. No phones, cameras, or weapons. I think our Condo security was better than an airport. I watched the CEO hand out gifts to his employees in the living room and I thought I could make it to the service elevator behind the kitchen when there was a knock at my door. I checked the monitors and Cinnamon was standing outside looking up at the camera. She tilted her head and waved her fingers at the camera.

Now what was I going to do? I could pretend not to be here, but then she would go ask Davy and there would be too much attention drawn to me. A flash of lightning and boom of thunder outside the windows shocked me as a gust of wind blew the cover off the hot tub. I needed to leave. When I opened the door, Cinnamon rushed in and wrapped me in a warm embrace, searching for my lips with hers.

“James,” she breathed in my face as she kissed my cheek. Before she could reach my lips, I regained control.

“Cinnamon, baby,” I husked as I pulled her away.

“Have you recovered from your jetlag? I hope so.”

“I’m fine, Cinnamon, but I’m getting ready to leave. I have to leave on a trip tonight.” My mind was in overdrive, trying to think of a way to use Cinnamon to get me out of the penthouse suite. Another gust of wind toppled a potted plant on the patio. A real storm was blowing in. Those plants are heavy.