Chapter 2

My wife and I watched one happy family come down the stairs and into the kitchen where Amanda was making breakfast. I had never known Brian well and had only met him a couple of times. Now I had a friend for life. Linda clung to her mother and June kept promising the little girl that she wouldn't ever go away again.

June brought up the subject of how her actions had not only destroyed her marriage, but her friends as well. She was devastated when I told her that we were actually divorced, but still loved each other, so we were still living together. Someday we would be married again and would be starting a family.

"So what are you waiting for? You seem happy enough together?"

"It is like this. I had Amanda divorce me and I put all of my assets in her name. When the civil judgment came down against me, the Nolands weren't able to touch them. I'm giving them fifteen percent of my wages and I am stuck in a low paying job. If I marry, my wife's assets would become joint and they could come after them. I'm not going to give them the satisfaction. So they are collecting about fifty dollars a week from me almost forever." I smiled when I said this.

Brian questioned why I was not more discouraged.

"Who knows, I might hit the lottery or something." This time I chuckled out loud.

"It sounds like you have something in mind. You wouldn't have any revenge in mind, would you? If there is any revenge involved, I want to be a part of it if I can."

I looked at Amanda. She shrugged her shoulders as if to say, "Okay, tell them."

"How do you feel about committing something illegal if it is just against those two? It might involve their families, but that had to be a calculated risk that they were willing to take in the past. It wouldn't be any worse than the situations you and I are in right at the present."

"What does the illegality consist of?"

"Hacking into some computers, transferring some funds out of the country from some bank accounts, hiding those funds and then transferring them back only into my or maybe your name. I have no plans to cheat our government. It should come out ahead, for those funds are hidden from the Treasury Department and they wouldn't get what is owed anyway. When I get this done, I plan on tipping off the Treasury and let them get their pound of flesh through the courts."

"Anything at all I can do to help, for God's sake let me know. Don't forget, June was ready to kill herself. I'll remember to the end of my days how close I came to losing her."

I couldn't have chosen a better coconspirator. Brian was a banker. Just the knowledge on how to transfer funds might be what would keep me out of jail. "Okay, you're in. But I still am going to be the face in front. I don't want anyone else to take a fall if something goes wrong. If you can accept that, we can get down to where and when."

Amanda and June were making much of Linda. I never saw a happier child--or mother for that matter. Amanda took them upstairs and eventually June came down wearing one of Amanda's outfits. Seeing her in some sharp clothes made me pause. She was one of the women that Tim and Bob had shown on the disks. Maybe that was how the password was hidden too. Some way I had to find out what all the names were of the girls pictured.

Linda had been so long without a woman's touch, I suggested that the two older ones take the child out for the morning. I sat and explained to Brian what I had done and how far I had reached in my goal of extracting the money from the Cayman account. I told him I was searching for something that would act as a password. I was sure of the account number--well, ninety percent sure, anyway. He asked if he could view the pictures. I said he could but I didn't want to do it on my home computer, or take him to the room I had rented. I was going to use that one to do the heavy work when I was confident I had all my ducks in a row.

Brian came to the rescue. "I have an old machine with Windows 98. Would that do?"

"It should, but can we take the guts out and destroy it before we try to go after the account? It should be safe enough anyway, but I want to be extra cautious." Brian was with me all the way on this. I took my printer and we skipped over to his house with both the original two disks and the one that I had copied last night. I left a note to Amanda and said we would be back before lunch.

When we entered Brian's home he made the comment that this was the saddest house ever and had been for the last year. He hoped it would be bright and sunny again after today. June was going to be home. I could see where it needed a woman's touch. It was clean enough, and there were some toys around for Linda, but no flowers or anything pretty. Brian went to a storage closet and brought out the old tower. He used his home office monitor, keyboard and mouse and I hooked up my printer.

It seemed to take the old machine forever to boot up, but it was able to read the disk okay when I put in the file password. Brian was surprised as I scrolled down the pictures. I printed these out. He of course knew June, and he knew three of the other women. There were nine in all and one was a coworker of his. He was hoping that she hadn't compromised his bank in any way. He said he would have to watch her closely from now on.

I then put in the last disk with the most recent information and printed these out too. Two of the women were different than they were a year ago. The numbers that I surmised to be the account number was there in the same sequence in both panels. We strung the pictures in one long panel by taping them together. June's picture appeared in the same place and we hung the two panels on the wall. We studied them for a few minutes, but could not determine much. We had to find out who the other five women were. We were hoping Amanda and June might know the names of the rest of these women. We figured they all would be local so we had some hope of being successful in identifying them.

June knew three of the remaining unknown women and Amanda knew the last two. I had the feeling that this was too simple. We strung the panels up and studied them as we had lunch, and then relaxed. June and Brian kept touching each other. Linda wouldn't let her mother get more than two feet from her. If June was sitting, Linda was either climbing onto her lap or was kneeling with her head there. June kept telling about the glorious feeling she had when she awoke with her daughter on one side of her and her ex on the other. I got all the credit and passed it off saying, "We all make mistakes and if there is true love you can get over most anything. You do have to talk about it though."

I was saying this while staring at the panel on the wall. Suddenly I said, "Look at this. In the first panel from the old disk, there is a woman we don't know, but in the second panel, same sequence, we know her name is Betty. On the last disk we don't know the name of this one, but the one on the first disk is named Georgia. And here in the first disk, this woman is named Patricia, and in the second, it is Penelope. Let's assume that the code is the first letter of the first name of all of these women.

"So we have the letters, PGBJSMKCE, in that order. There has to be more to the password. There are usually eleven characters. It has to be in the panel somewhere. It is probably small and would indicate a number." We all looked, but could see nothing that would indicate a number.

Giving up, Brian and I had a beer and June and Amanda set about preparing dinner. June kept picking at the food as it was cooking. She admitted that she had at times resorted to dumpster diving behind restaurants. One glass of wine made her giddy. All of a sudden tears were streaming down her face and she was sobbing uncontrollably. "A week ago I planned on being dead by this time. I'm so glad I didn't do it. Oh, I thank you all so much. Brian, if you will only take me back I'll do anything. Please?"

"Just having you back is enough to keep me happy forever. Amanda, would you mind if we skipped out on you? I want to take my family home. Mike, you are close to finding what you need and I'm sure you'll figure it out. Would you both come over for coffee in the morning? For tonight, I just want to get June to where I can hold her. Thank you all for what you have done."

After they left Amanda said, "I didn't have any idea that June had set me up. I suppose I would have done the same thing to one of my friends if I was in the same position. I don't blame her and I have always wondered how those bastards thought they could get away with what they planned. I know you have gone through hell in the last year, Mike. We still have each other and it hasn't been as bad as what June, Brian and Linda have had to deal with. I love you Mike and I want to be part of everything you have planned for the Nolands."

"This year has been something, hasn't it? I still have to find the rest of the password. I may have to go into Tim and Bob's PCs on their home computers. I hate to do that. That is too much an invasion of privacy, because their wives and children would be involved. I don't mind screwing with the men, but women and kids are, I hope, safe from me."

"You're an old softy, you know. I love you anyway. Just think, you may be the only crook with principles."

Two-thirty in the a.m. the phone rang. "Hello?"

"Hi Mike, it's me, Brian. Christ, I'm happy! I was thinking, when I was taping those pictures together, there were three that had something that I covered up. I overlapped the sheets of paper to just show the women. Sometime when you have time, pull the sheets apart and see what you find."

"I'll call you back."

I went downstairs and did what he suggested. Amanda was asking, "What, what?" after me.

I pulled the latest panel of pictures apart and saw what I was missing. I know I would have found the numbers eventually, but it might have been weeks and many struggles along wrong paths before I found them. I called Brian back. "Hey Buddy, the full password is pg8bjs1mkc3e. Trust me, I know I am right. Spelled out it would look like Pat, Georgia, asterisk, Betty, June, Shirley. exclamation point, Marge, Kate, Carol, pound sign, and Evelyn. If you don't hit shift on your keyboard then instead of these symbols, you get numbers. Thanks again Buddy. I'll see you later."

Back in bed Amanda asked, "What was that all about?"

"Brian gave me the key to somebody's bank account. It is almost time for some serious pay-back. Now shut up and see if we can't work up some serious lovemaking. I'm hyped!"

We reached Brian's house at ten-thirty. June hugged Amanda when we came in. We could see she seemed happy, but we also could see she had been crying. Brian took me into the kitchen and was shaking his head. "I think June is going to need some help, therapy I mean. She is so happy to be home and that I have forgiven her, but she can't get past the fact that she was the one that cheated on me and started this whole debacle.

"You don't seem to hold it against her either for what happened to you. Would you please say something to her? I know Amanda has forgiven her for being set up the way she was. June feels that you are the one hurt the most, so if you could say you forgive her too, I'd be most grateful."

I went in and sat down beside the child. Amanda and June were sitting across the room on the couch. "Hi Linda. It's pretty nice having your mom home isn't it?"

She sat there banging her heels on the chair smiling all over. "Yes, I'm so happy."

"Would you like to go on vacation with your mom? You might even go somewhere in an airplane. Have you ever been up in the sky before?"

"Can Daddy go too? I don't want to go anywhere without him."

"You would all be going together. Amanda and I would be going too. We'd see all kinds of new things and meet a lot of people, some that don't even talk the way we do. They would be talking and you wouldn't know what they were saying."

"Would they know what I was saying if I talked?"

"Some would, but not all of them." Brian had come in with coffee and heard most of what I said.

Linda looked at her dad. "Can we go up in an airplane, Daddy? I've never done that before."

"We'll discuss it, Sweety. Maybe we can go on vacation. We will see, okay? Mike, what did you have in mind?"

"I was thinking maybe we would all take a trip to the islands and set up an account of our own. After we get an account set up, I would come back here alone and move the Nolands' money around the world and have it end up in the same bank as it came from. That done you could help me square things with the IRS and I would have the remainder as my own."

"The Treasury will be taking a huge chunk of it you know?"

"I know, but it is owed to them anyway, no matter whose account it is in."

"How are you going to get it back into the States? You don't have a foreign business. Regulations require that anything over $10,000 be reported as to its source."

"I know that, but there are a lot of casinos in the Caymans. The reason for the trip is to establish our presence when I report it as gambling winnings. Don't worry, I know enough about how to set this up so there will be a minimum of investigation. Especially if the IRS has the check in hand."

"Sounds like a plan to me. I think you are the first honest crook I have ever known. Of course I'm not admitting I know many crooks." That brought a laugh among the four of us.

Linda was puzzled by all of this. "When are we going up in an airplane, Daddy?"

"Soon, Sweetheart. Is there anything more you have to do Mike?"

"One thing I am going to do is go in through the Nolands' computer and see if I can access their account. I think I have everything I need, but I won't know for sure until I actually do the access. I need to do that so I can program in new directions for its dissolution. I'll do that tomorrow evening I think."

"Why do you have to go through their computer?"

"Because when I access the account, the bank's computer will be looking for a legitimate signature to make sure it isn't a hacker. I have overridden the Nolands' computer, but there is no chance in hell of doing the same with the bank computer. The bank will assume that either Tim or Bob is just checking up on the account balance if I use them. Mine is just a proxy. This shouldn't raise any red flags."