CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

Kelly Kramer picked up the link from the phone to the satellite the moment the connection was made. He locked his computer on it and listened. One voice was Edward Brand, the other a man with a pleasant tone and a lilting accent. The two men talked briefly, enough time for Brand to tell him the transfer was legitimate. Then the banker switched over to the automated system, and Brand began entering numbers on the keypad.

Kelly knew he was in trouble by the fifth number. As the numbers Brand entered on the phone came up on his screen, the software immediately tracked the transit code. By the fourth digit, the number of banks with that transit code, worldwide, had slipped to ten. As the fifth digit was entered, the screen went blank. The bank he was dealing with had encryption software that time-delayed the numbers Brand was entering by one millisecond and scrambled them at the source. The only way to get the real numbers was to find the right decoding algorithm. And fast. He had a window of maybe one minute before the automatic transfer system would shut down and any additional transfers would require another call to the banker.

Kelly initiated the decryption software and hit Enter. The supercomputers at the National Security Agency rank among the fastest in the world, at over five trillion computations every second. With it being after one o’clock on the East Coast, there were very few users and the systems were running fast. It took eighteen seconds to find the right algorithm and apply it. A series of numbers, five with a gap followed by sixteen more, a hyphen, then another twelve, scrolled across the screen. The transit code, the account number and the numeric password. Kelly hit the print button and jotted them down on a piece of paper. He had lost data before and that wasn’t going to happen tonight.

He switched from decryption to identification. The response time was almost zero. The account was in a bank in the Seychelles. The Greater Seychelles Financial Institution. He keyed in a request for an account balance. When the number hit the screen he sat back in his chair and sucked in a deep breath. The funds were registered as American dollars. The amount was staggering.

Two hundred and sixty-four million dollars.

He leaned forward, keying furiously. Seconds now and the window would close. Then the user requesting the withdrawal would have to speak with someone at the bank. He initiated an electronic withdrawal form and typed in the necessary account information. It asked for his password, and he entered the twelve-digit code. The cursor jumped down to the line asking what amount to withdraw. With shaking hands he entered two hundred and sixty-three million dollars. He hit Enter.

Nothing happened for about two seconds, and then a prompt came on the screen. Destination. Kelly could hardly breathe as he typed in the numbers to start an electronic transfer that would send the money bouncing off eight satellites and in and out of thirty banks in as many countries. Every time it hit a destination, that bank’s security software would throw up a firewall for anyone trying to trace it. Moving the money through the satellites disguised where it was going. The satellites were just about untraceable.

He touched the enter key and stopped breathing.

Seconds passed. The machine beeped. The money had been transferred. He let out a whoop and killed the programs. Then he opened a direct link to Taylor’s account in the Bahamas—the ultimate resting place for the funds. The balance read twenty-three thousand dollars. He stared at the screen. What the hell was going on? Where was the money? He keyed in a request for recent transactions. There were two. A deposit of two hundred and sixty-three million dollars, then a debit for exactly the same amount. Both transactions were within the last two minutes.

“Christ Almighty,” he yelled at the screen. “No, no, no.”

Edward Brand must have had some sort of program in place to immediately retrace the steps and redeposit the money unless the transaction were verified. Kelly grabbed his head in his hands for a second, then moved back two screens and tried to reactivate the initial transfer out of Brand’s account. A note popped up on the screen that any debits would have to be cleared through the bank by calling a banking representative.

“Oh, my God,” he said, leaning back in the chair. “Oh, guys, I am so sorry.”

The only explanation was that the money was back in Brand’s account. They had failed. And right now, thousands of miles to the south, a deadly game was being played out on the top of a rugged Mexican mountain.