Project Northwest (27 page)

Chapter Twenty
one

~ CAMEL Ratings ~

James logged out of
the bank system at five on the dot. He was eager to get to the
downstairs bathroom to see if Mark had left a note. He wished
Shelly a safe trip over the weekend, but she failed to acknowledge
it.

Shelly had the look of deep concern on her
face all afternoon; it manifested itself and grew worse as the day
went on. James knew it was worry, the kind of worry that only a
mother could feel. She was blank, no emotion. Her persona vanished
when she learned that Mr. Wright would follow through on his
threats and she never returned. He wanted to say something,
anything that would reassure her, but didn’t know what to say.

Guilt caused him to pause before opening the
office door. He had to say something. He couldn’t leave her like
this.

He locked the door, dropped the blinds and
grabbed a Kleenex. He placed his hand on her shoulder, “Shelly, my
mother used to say ‘cry when you need to, laugh when you can.’ I
can’t think of a single thing that would make you laugh right now,
but I do have a shoulder you can cry on.”

She quickly stood and hugged him, her salty
tears caught in the Kleenex James handed her.

He patted her on the back, saying over and
over, “We’re going to be okay, this will be over soon.”

The embrace lasted for only a couple of
seconds, but both felt the connection. Both knew the ones they
loved the most were also targets, were the innocent ones, none more
innocent than a nine-year-old girl.

She pulled away, somewhat embarrassed, but
thankful for the release. She kissed James on the cheek. “You’re a
good man, James.”

“Thanks, but I mean it. We’re going to be
fine,” he responded with his hands on her shoulders, looking
squarely into her eyes.

“Okay, I guess I should get going. Have a
flight to catch. I will see you Monday?”

“Yes. Yes, you will.”

She wiped the lipstick from his cheek with
the tear-soaked Kleenex. “Don’t want anyone to suspect
anything.”

“Thanks, are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah, I mean, we haven’t done anything
wrong, right? Mr. Wright has no reason to hurt us.”

“We’ve done exactly as he asked us to do.
Finish your summary report and I will see you here bright and early
Monday, okay? Enjoy your daughter, she’s lucky to have a Mom like
you.”

“Okay,” she said, wiping the smeared mascara
from her eyes. “I’ll see you Monday.”

He shut the door behind him and began heading
toward the data room doors when Frank stopped him. “James, you look
like you’ve seen a ghost. I heard about the Mustang. Man I’m so
sorry.”

“It’s okay, I’ll have it repaired.”

“I know you will. She’s a beauty. Don’t
forget the annual Seattle Film Festival is coming up on May
twentieth. I told you I was on the board, right? Heading to our
first meeting now. Shit, here comes Stone. I’m out of here.” Frank
patted James on the back and left in a flash and James tried to
follow him, but didn’t make it.

“James, can I have a word with you before you
leave?” asked Mr. Stone, motioning with his hand for James to
follow him to his office.

“Have a seat.” Mr. Stone closed the office
door and paced anxiously behind his desk for several minutes before
sliding into his chair.

James’s heart was pounding—this was it, this
was the moment he feared would catch up with him when he had become
a criminal on Monday. This was when it all came out in the open. He
was sure the police were clearing through security at this very
moment with his arrest warrant.

Mr. Stone tapped on his desk and began.
“James, we have a couple of issues going on that I need to bring to
your attention.”

Mr. Stone took a sip of hours old cold
coffee. He drank coffee all day long, it ran through his veins. “Of
course, the murder of a senior bank analyst, who may or may not
have been dealing bank secrets like they were ecstasy pills at a
rave, is deeply concerning, but that’s a local issue, a bank issue,
one we will certainly address.”

Mr. Stone reached into the top drawer of his
desk, pulled out a memo, and tossed it toward James. It slid across
the desk and nearly fell into James’s lap. James jumped, almost
confessed to everything right then and there. He was sure Mr. Stone
could see the guilt on his face. James didn’t even look at the
memo. He turned his head and focused on the office art on the wall.
It was a nighttime cityscape of the New York Bridge and James
wished he could climb to the very top of the bridge and jump
off.

Mr. Stone continued, “There’s another issue,
a political one, that memo—go ahead, take a look.”

James reluctantly picked up the memo and read
the words without processing them.

After a few moments, Mr. Stone summarized the
memo, “Shocking, isn’t it? To put it bluntly, the FDIC is pissing
and scenting on our turf and, of course, our big dog, our director,
is none too happy about it.”

Mr. Stone was up again, angrily walking the
ten foot square office, the type of anger managers try to
internalize. “Apparently, the FDIC is relying on CAMEL ratings.
Attempting to use them to muscle in, for some reason they think
ratings from an outside ratings agency is more accurate than we,
the OTS. We both know that just isn’t so. Plus, the FDIC isn’t even
a thrift regulator.”

He sat back down and looked James in the
eyes. “I want you to come in tomorrow and do a comparison of our
numbers to the rating agency numbers. Start with the problem child,
the poorly performing mortgages out of Long Beach. Create a trend
and do the same for the CAMEL ratings. The two should match trend
wise. If not, then there is a problem. Then move on to the bank’s
core mortgages, you get my drift.”

James edged back when Mr. Stone leaned in
closer and hissed, “Word is, a big bank, a Wall Street bank, is
positioning itself for a takeover bid of some sort. Can you imagine
that? The whole financial world is going to shit and there’s a big
bank using the political turmoil to take advantage, using its
connections to weasel in.”

James didn’t want to do the project for two
reasons. First, it was a lot of work and, second, he was sure Mr.
Wright was dealing with this same bank. He would be accused of not
playing nicely. “Sir, I can’t come in tomorrow, I will be out of
town.”

“You can’t cancel?” Mr. Stone asked in
disbelief.

James lied, it was becoming a habit. “No,
sir, plans were made months ago.”

“Sunday at the latest then. I want that
report on my desk by Monday, James, and I will not take no for an
answer.”

James still tried to twist free. “How would I
get the ratings data? I mean, it’s not readily accessible.”

“I’ll get the email from Frank. He has all
the details.”

One final twist from James, he was sure this
would break him free. “Frank is gone for the weekend. You and I
both saw him leave.”

“I have access to the mail server and will
get the email from there. So Sunday it is, then. How’s the project
with Miss Spenser going?”

James couldn’t think of any more excuses.
Damn, he thought, you and Mr. Wright should be a team.
You two
have an answer for everything.

“James, I said how is the project going?”

“Okay, I guess. She seems to be getting the
numbers she needs.”

Mr. Stone collected the memo from James and
put it back in the top drawer, “Good, good, glad to hear it. One
more thing, James, are you sure you don’t know a Mr. Wright? You
jumped a little in the conference room when the name was
mentioned.”

“No, sir, I’ve never heard of the name,
you?”

“No, doesn’t ring a bell.” Mr. Stone stood
and opened the door. “Have a good trip. I expect that report by
Monday.”

James exited the office without saying a word
and made his way to the lockers. He listened to the message from
Bridget. He was up for a nice hike, but wasn’t looking forward to
what he knew she was really up to, the coming tempest of car
safety. He could hear Sibelius’ T
he Tempest
playing in the
deep regions of his mind. It would be the perfect setting for when
the conversation started.

As he stepped off the elevator, he made a
mental note of the guys hanging around the lobby and walked past
the bathroom toward the back exit.

Before exiting the lobby, he quickly turned
and saw one guy had stood and was following him. The associate
froze and nervously moved back to his seat when James headed back
into the lobby, back towards the bathroom.

James almost knocked Mark over as he was
entering the bathroom. Mark didn’t say anything, didn’t even
acknowledge him, he just pushed past and kept walking. Maybe it
wasn’t Mark. The guy had a mustache, but he was almost certain it
was.

He quickly opened the toilet paper dispenser
with the key, pulled the magnetic plate off, and read the note.

Found where team is located. Have plan in
place to get you the necessary leverage. We will have what they
have. Check email this afternoon as soon as possible. Open the one
having to do with 69 Mustang. Will have Tahoe towed to mess with
them a little and take pictures when they see they are busted. Will
call when I have everything in place. Mexican standoff, buddy.
You’re almost out.

James balled up the note and flushed it,
replaced the magnetic cover, closed and locked the dispenser and
sat on the toilet.

Why would he call me? He questioned. He
knows that they will hear the conversation and they will track him
down. Why would he send me an email?
The bathroom door opened
and James flushed again and left the stall. He washed his hands
while ignoring the ghost.

The associate was in the last stall when
James announced, “Heading home, will be walking, in case you want
to know.”

* * * *

James entered the condo and went directly to
the laptop. He saw the mapped out navigation plan created by
Bridget. Underneath were pages and pages of Volvo information. He
didn’t like the S40 model at all. There had to be something
sportier in the Volvo lineup.

He checked his email and saw the '69 Mustang
e-mail, it was from [email protected]. He opened the email and
there she was—a beauty, a 375 horsepower Boss 429 V-8, pure black.
He almost salivated.
Now that is sporty,
he thought.
That’s what a man was meant to drive.

The polymorphic code activated immediately
and installed an encrypted version of itself on James’s laptop. The
decryption module was next and then the payload fired up. Moments
later, it had mapped itself to Cricket’s computers in the Condo
below and quickly travelled along the network mapping and found the
dedicated storage server leased to ESP Sphere, Inc.

The engine mutated once again on the storage
server and started compacting any video recording, voice recording,
financial and e-mail mime files. Its self-contained modulation
procedure kicked in and transferred the files to the nearby
dedicated server that belonged to Aeneid. The entire process took
less than twenty minutes and the code went into hibernation,
deleted the procedure and waited for new files.

* * * *

Mark was back at the hotel. He was glad James
didn’t say anything when they crossed paths in the lobby’s
bathroom. He opened the e-mail from wooden_horse and followed the
directions exactly.

After a full ten minutes of server hopping,
he was gazing at a folder that contained hundreds of zipped files.
He didn’t expect to see anything this soon, but wooden_horse was
good. He picked one, unzipped it and found it was huge, over 300
Megabytes. He clicked on the voice files and could hear radio
traffic between Mr. Wright and his team in his media player.

Next he selected a video file and watched as
James walked around his condo. Then he selected an excel file and
saw hundreds of rows of numbers, financial data from the bank. The
cells to the far right contained what appeared to be file
modification data. He could see ESP, then PNW War Room, and then a
server name of some sort. Below that he saw his own laptop’s name.
It scared the hell out of him and he closed the file and deleted
it.

He jumped when his cell phone rang. It was
his secretary. She was upset and screaming the moment he
answered.

“Mark, something is wrong with our
account!”

She didn’t even give him a chance to
respond.

“I checked it this morning and everything was
fine. I just checked it again and someone has stolen twenty
thousand dollars. What do I do? Should I call the police? Did you
hear? Twenty. Two oh thousand, Mark!”

“Calm down, it was me,” Mark said when he
could get a word in.

“What? You spent twenty thousand dollars in
an afternoon?”

“Yes, it’s okay. It was me.”

“Oh, I don’t have an invoice for it. What are
you trying to do, give me a heart attack?”

“Sorry, Linda, didn’t have time. It’s for a
job that I’m doing. It will be replaced by Monday.”

“Whewh...”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. Have a
glass of wine and enjoy your weekend. Trust me, it’s money well
spent.”

“I will, see you Monday then. Bye.”

“Bye.”

He did a search and found an Office Depot
near his hotel. He grabbed his keys and headed out the door.

He parked, grabbed his laptop, entered the
store, walked directly to the Tech Services desk, and told the
pimple-faced teenager that he wanted his laptop name changed.

“Yeah, okay. You can leave it and we’ll get
to it in a while.” The young man spoke slower than anyone really
should, it was agonizing.

“I want it done now, right now.”

“Yeah, there are a couple people ahead of
you, so you know, you’re going to have to wait until I can get to
it.”