The Gambit (9 page)

“Anytime, man. What are friends for?”

“I don’t really know anymore. I work too much to have many of them.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Grey said.

“Why?”

“Because you are social, and one of the best flirts I’ve seen with women still to this day.”

“Women are different, man. I’m almost tired of how many know my name in D.C. It’s almost like, how am I supposed to build any kind of relationship when the press makes me out to be this good-looking hero whose shoes I can’t even fill. If only they knew it was just an idea. It all began with an idea. I’m no hero. I’m just like everybody else.”

“Have you been seeing anyone?”

“No, man, unfortunately no. Just one night stands with women I meet out at the bar. That I’ll probably never see again.”

Grey shook his head and laughed. “I wish that was my problem, you cold-hearted bastard.”

“Well, maybe if you’d shave that possum off your face you could get some.”

“You wish you could grow a beautiful beard like this,” he mocked, dramatically caressing his scraggly beard.

“I’ve never tried. I would grow one if I didn’t have to uphold an appearance and could work from home, you lucky shit.”

“I’ll trade places with you, pretty boy.”

I stared at him with a deadpan expression.

The humorous smile faded away from his face.

“Actually. I take that back,” he mumbled.

“I thought so.”

In the background of our conversation, the TV was on low volume, still playing the repetitive stream of information they had been looping all day. A couple hours had passed. Part of me had relaxed, and the other part was worried sick that the CIA would come barging through the door.

“So, Owen…what is your plan?” Grey asked, staring at me from across the table.

“My plan?” I stammered.

“Did I stutter?” he laughed at my zoned-out response.

“I mean. No, I don’t. I don’t have the slightest idea of what to do, or where to go.”

Hearing my verbal surrender to the situation I was in made me sick. It was against my nature to give up, to quit. It didn’t feel
right
.

“Well,” he said slowly, with a smirk growing on his face. “Maybe I can help you. Maybe we can
make
a plan.”

“Elaborate.”

“Owen, do you even realize the gravity of what is going on here?”

“Yes, Grey, I do. I’m the most wanted fugitive in the US. Thank you for pointing out the obvious.”

He shook his head, dismissing me.

“What was the first thing you said to me when I asked you if you did it?”

“Fuck no—that was the first thing I said,” I answered him.

“Then after, you told me how someone must have created this lie, that it wasn’t just a mistake.”

“Yes…”

“Do I really have to piece this together for you, Owen?”

“Oh, come on Grey, stop this storytelling shit and spit it out!”

He grabbed our bowls and put them in the sink, and when he came back he remained standing.

“Owen, think about it. Perhaps the people who were behind the Confinement are behind this lie, too. Why else would they frame an innocent man? You and Cole are the
leaders
of the party. Don’t you see how your party’s existence threatens the continuity of their own?”

“I’m following you,” I said. Grey was getting worked up. He paced in the dining room and moved his hands around as he spoke.

“Here is the thing, Owen.
If
they win, if they convince the public long enough that you are the enemy, then you will
become
the enemy. If the truth never gets out, that it’s all a sham, then your cause will be lost. Everything you worked for will disappear. They will get what they want. Goodman will lose the election.”

I felt rage begin to bubble up inside of me. My heart rate increased.

“Then the question is,” I began, “who is
they?
”

“
That
is what we have to find out. Come, follow me to my office.”

“Remember what I told you I do?” Grey asked.

“Network security.”

“Yes, now let me ask you a dumb question.”

“You sound like my dad,” I said, laughing.

He shook his head. “Anyway, since I am the head of network security at the bank, there is no one above me in terms of the job that I do. I am the lone wolf.”

“Nicely put, you know, with the beard and all.” I peppered in some sarcasm.

He chuckled at my remark.

“Now, the sole purpose of Wells Fargo hiring me was to prevent what happened with the old execs that ran the bank shortly after the Confinement. When I arrived, everything was as clean as a whistle. The execs were already gone. So I created a network that would allow me to monitor everything.”

“Everything?”

“
Everything
. What they wanted me to do was to make a system that it was impossible to commit grand larceny or launder money. I could have easily done just that. What I thought, though, was that in this kind of job market, if I made everything so perfect that my network could be secure indefinitely—they might get rid of me. Especially when they pay me a high salary compared to the rest of their staff, and I work from home. I am essential
only
if I can maintain my network without them learning how it operates. Once they figure out how it works, they could train some pushover fresh out of college who would do it for half the pay.”

“Continue.”

“So, what I did instead was I created a node system in the existing network.”

“A node as in, a sensor?”

“Precisely,” he responded. Excitement burned behind his eyes. “Any time an employee in my bank were to manually edit a report, move money from one account to another, etcetera, it is flagged and sent to my inbox. Then I can view the event from my computer. The employees don’t know this because I am the only person allowed to know. All I have to do is report to corporate if I see something suspicious.”

“All right, so when you arrived it was as clean as a whistle…and
now?
”

He grinned.

“In the past three months, I’ve been getting more things flagged to my inbox than in my one and a half years at the bank combined. Ironically, it coincided with the arrival of the new vice-president. The odd thing, though, is it was like he had done this before…like this wasn’t his first rodeo when it came to money laundering. The flags I received were mundane, similar to the things I would see an auditor mess up, or a teller screw up on a deposit. You see, what allows me to stay stealth is the district managers don’t tell any of the execs that I exist. When I go into the building, they think I am just basic IT support. The employees don’t realize I monitor the entire network and report to corporate. That was how they designed it to be, after losing one-hundred million dollars in a short period of time.”

“So, what have you found?” I asked.

He grabbed a folder, filled with papers that made it as thick as a textbook.

“I knew this guy was up to no good. This was something I had to go into the building for because the events that were in my inbox just didn’t add up. To me, it seemed like the VP had executed this well enough to where what the system
saw
was different from what was actually happening in day-to-day operations. So I scrounged the audit packs, the paperwork, it took me weeks. Then the truth began to reveal itself, and that was when I realized he wasn’t the only one in on it, the auditors were too. The reason why this guy is still here is because apparently he is ‘doing so much’ to help business. The accountants have now been posting false profits, making it appear like the bank is making more money than it actually is. They are making it seem like more money is coming in so they can steal some of the
real
money that is. If the Government were to audit us, we’d be fucked. Our internal auditors are turning a blind eye to it. I just wonder how much of a cut he is giving them.”

I was impressed by how extensive Grey’s research was.

“Dude, have you not reported it yet to corporate? Won’t you lose your job for not stopping it from occurring in the first place?”

His expression looked troubled as I said that. But, behind that veneer I sensed confidence. He had a plan.

“Yes, technically I would. It has taken me nearly a month to compile all of this evidence against him. I was going to report it to corporate on Friday, to give them the weekend to look over it. That is until you came to my door today.”

My brow furrowed in confusion.

“What does any of this have to do with me?”

Grey smiled. “Let me finish, Owen. You of all people should know I have a plan.”

He was right. In high school, I remembered the class discussions and debates. Grey was always a couple steps ahead of everybody. He was quiet…but his mind was loud.

“Enlighten me,” I replied.

“Remember the senior prank I did in high school?”

“Ah, the infamous Grey Maxwell’s gift. How could I forget?”

He laughed from me mentioning what it was called amongst our circle.

“I told you what I did to make that happen, right?”

“Well, at the time, you were more worried about being allowed to graduate than revealing your secret to your friends. You might have said something about it, but I forgot. I just remember being released from school shortly after we made it into homeroom.”

“I used to take that advanced computers class our senior year, and part of our training was learning how to clean out the computers in the office and accessing the registry. So what I did was put a key log on one of the administrator’s computers. All they had to do was enter their credentials, and all I had to do was open my email to retrieve it. So the night before the prank, I stayed at the school late to ‘work on a project’. I used the credentials to log in, and then I did a system-wide hack which created a glitch that nullified every username and password that was presently used.”

“And that’s why we had the day off.”

“Exactly,” he grinned. “Then I realized that when my computer teacher was questioned, he would point out to the administration that I was the brightest in the class…and if
he
were to look into the right computer, he would see where I set up the key log. I figured out a way to turn myself in and giving the administration the data in exchange for me being able to walk at graduation. I gave them the forged data on how it was an experiment to show that the school’s system was not secure. As upset as they were, they just gave me two weeks of suspension, as I’m sure you recall.”

I smirked from his statement. “I remember it quite well. You spent the last two weeks of the school year smoking weed and playing World of Warcraft.”

“The deed was well worth the punishment,” he replied with a wink.

“You cocky bastard…”

“Anyway, back then in high school I was decent at hacking, and not very well-versed in what it takes to write script and execute it properly. During college, I learned quite a bit more about software engineering in general, and the group of friends I hung out with were into hacking too. We were white-hats though—good hackers. We hacked and then revealed the information to the people we hacked in order to make their information more secure. Black hats are the famous hackers, the ones who hack into government websites, retail stores,
banks
…”

I glanced up at him with curiosity.

“Grey, you aren’t thinking of...”

“Yes, but just wait, it gets better. At Wells Fargo, my position gives me clearance to perform extensive background checks. Any kind of information I want, I can have. So I called the Wells Fargo in Baltimore and told the IT that I was doing some scheduled maintenance on their server. I faxed over my credentials, and I was in. Like I told you, I had a feeling the VP had done this before, because of the camouflaged flags I was getting to my inbox. Not just any thief can do that, it has to be a thief who has stolen
before
. I accessed a list that showed the accounts with the highest balances down to the lowest. After I scrolled past the multi-millionaires,
I found it
.