New York City
May 10
“Icould float my keys in this coffee, Twitch.” Steady set the cup of sludge aside. Twitch shrugged and took a big gulp, setting the cup a safe distance from her keyboard.
Ren knocked and entered, Calliope on his heels.
Cam and Chat looked up from their pow-wow, anticipating the update. Nathan Bishop sat behind his desk on the phone. He ended the call and ushered Calliope to the chair.
“How’s he doing?”
“Honestly? I thought he’d be one of those guys who ripped the IV out of his arm and left without permission, but he seems fine. They’re releasing him later today. I don’t get it. Who likes hospitals?”
“You’re forgetting to factor in a major component,” Ren commented. “Tox likes places where people bring him food.”
The amused agreement died down as Twitch dove in. “This is Loker Stillwater.” She flashed a picture on the screen of a man who could have been on the cover of Forbes. “He allegedly runs an organization called The Circle Brotherhood, or ‘The Circle’ and is suspected of having his fingers in a lot of very unsavory pies.
Steady quipped, “Why are these mysterious organizations always named after shapes? The Triads, The Pentagon? The Circle? They should name one The Hexagon. Now that’s a scary sounding shape.”
A balled-up piece of paper hit Steady in the head. Nathan got them back on track.
“Members of The Circle—Loker calls them his ‘sons’—identify themselves with a tattoo, a poker chip-sized circle on the inside right wrist. The tat will have concentric circles inside denoting achievements and rank in the organization. The guy Tox took out…” Twitch brought up a picture of the dead man’s wrist, showing a tattoo consisting of five concentric circles. Steady gave a low whistle. “Cops identified him as Marvin Wilkins, career criminal.”
Ren looked at Nathan. “So we know who. Do we know why?”
Nathan turned to his spritely tech guru. Twitch’s eyes danced. She pointed her index finger toward the ceiling then in a grand gesture for a programmer, flew it around and hit a button on her keyboard without ever taking her eyes off of Calliope. A blurry document popped up on the large screen at the end of the table.
“We did it.”
“I can’t see shit on that thing,” Steady complained.
“Wait for it.” Ren looked to Twitch who hit another button and the picture cleared.
Twitch smiled in triumph. “Calliope took this picture the night she was in Van Gent’s office. I asked her to get a pic of the framed photos on his desk so I could compile a list of associates. She had to back way up to avoid triggering the cell phone detector on the computer. This document was open on the monitor.”
“Looks like accounts.” Ren pointed at a row of numbers.
“Specifically the unique coding signature of the Cayman-Britain Bank in George Town, Grand Cayman.” Nathan nodded to his phone. “The Feds are communicating with the bank through local law enforcement and an embassy representative. The bank is cooperating.”
“Hot damn.” Steady clapped once, then frowned. “What does that mean exactly?”
“The US Government will seize the assets and, depending on how much money is in the coffers, try to repay Gentrify clients at least a portion of their investment.”
“How did these motherf—sorry Calliope—how did these gentlemen know about that picture?”
Twitch didn’t look up from her laptop. “Someone hacked Van Gent’s personal laptop. It was also on his desk. The hacker accessed the webcam and watched the whole thing.”
The guys all looked her way.
Nathan took over. “Best guess is Roman Block figured out something wasn’t kosher at Gentrify. He also realized he was a dead man if he lost the money he was laundering for The Circle. So he hired a hacker to find his money.”
Twitch brought up a spit-polished business journal picture of Roman Block.
“That’s the man who was in my house,” Calliope confirmed.
“But how would Loker Stillwater and The Circle have known that?” Cam challenged.
Steady connected the dots. “The hacker tells Roman Block about the cell phone, and Roman, in turn, tells The Circle to assure Loker he could recover their money.”