CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

 

 

STANTON’S PARENTS WERE the country club types. They had a huge mansion in the Hamptons and loved being retired there. Stanton paid for it all.

And the two of them were creatures of extreme habit, just as their son. Last night, late, Jean had set a very, very powerful bomb in the Mercedes they always drove to the country club for their afternoon tennis lessons.

Mary Jo wondered if Stanton knew that his parents then paid the tennis pro a very large bonus to have sex with Stanton’s mother while his father watched, sucking his thumb.

More than likely not.

When Mary Jo had told Jean about that discovery, she had just shaken her head. “For a change I think we are doing the world a favor here.”

“Now don’t go getting all superhero on me,” Mary Jo had said, smiling at the beautiful face of the woman she loved.

Jean had laughed and later that night had pulled a sheet up over her shoulders, standing naked over Mary Jo in a wonderful position straddling her.

Then Jean had said, “Super Assassin to the rescue.”

“I know what will stop Super Assassin,” Mary Jo had said.

“Nothing can stop me!” Jean had said.

Mary Jo sat up and buried her face in Jean’s crotch, holding her tight by her butt cheeks.

“Well, that will certainly slow a hero down,” Jean had said after a long moan.

Mary Jo locked up the apartment after one last check and put her keys in the landlord’s mailbox with a thank-you note. Then with just a backpack, she left the building. She had moved what few clothes she had kept there out of the apartment yesterday and given them away to a charity.

Jean would be doing the same thing in their other apartment near Stanton’s home shortly. Right after she finished watching her favorite soap opera.

Mary Jo loved the fact that Jean had a favorite soap opera. It didn’t interest Mary Jo much, but she loved that Jean was passionate about it.

Two blocks up the street, Mary Jo hailed a cab and was dropped off along the edge of Central Park within a few blocks of Stanton’s large apartment looking out over the park.

There, sitting on a park bench so she could see the large apartment balcony, she had her laptop open like any writer out working on a story on a nice afternoon.

She glanced at the time and then she started the ball rolling.

It was exactly three-fifteen in the afternoon.

First, she drained every dollar of both corporation accounts, making the transaction look as if Stanton had taken the money in all respects.

She made the transaction look like it started from his personal laptop computer and then she started the international programs that would make the money completely vanish after dozens of transfers through holding and shell accounts around the world, ending up eventually in one of hers or Jean’s many accounts.

Then she did the same with every one of Stanton’s bank accounts, making it look like he had transferred all his money offshore. She cashed out everything he had.

She even drained every one of his credit cards.

In just minutes Stanton had gone from having hundreds of millions to not having a dime.

She had also purchased with one of his last credit cards in his name and some phony woman’s name, ten different plane tickets for this evening from three different New York area airports to countries that did not extradite.

To anyone, it looked like he had cleaned out everything and was fleeing the country.

There could be no other way anyone could read what had happened, no matter how much Stanton claimed otherwise.

Then, at twenty-nine minutes after the hour, she clicked on a camera link that Jean had hacked into on a camera on a pole in the Hamptons.

Mary Jo knew that Jean would also be watching now, since her soap was over.

The Hamptons had great security cameras. But the security system was far too easy to hack into to be worthwhile. It was how Jean had gotten in and out undetected to plant the bomb.

As Mary Jo watched, Stanton’s parents, all dressed up in their tennis outfits, came out of the back door of the house as the garage door opened.

They climbed into their Mercedes.

A few seconds later the camera flashed and when the image cleared, it showed most of the house completely destroyed and in flames. Debris was flying through the air.

“Boom,” Mary Jo said.

Then she destroyed that link.

Stanton Cobble the Third was just starting to pay.