Wormhole (The Rho Agenda #3)(23)
More impressively, their breakthrough on miniaturizing the subspace receiver-transmitter had allowed them to rapidly upgrade several computers with that capability. It was a capability they’d already put to good use. After all, what good did it do you to have the ability to perform untraceable subspace hacks of protected, classified networks if you didn’t use it? No worries there. Jack had guided them through the creation of a number of identities. Official passports, bank accounts, medical records, service records, family histories, credit histories, all a piece of cake when you could control the official systems that created and tracked those records.
They’d established identities in seventeen countries, not counting the United States, arranging for documents to be delivered to intermediaries and stored in lockers, long-term storage, and safe-deposit boxes around the world. Money was moved to offshore bank accounts and funded the establishment of companies, some of which had only a post office box as an address while others were legitimate small businesses purchased for umbrella corporations. Jack’s rule of thumb was that no single business they controlled should have assets of more than seventeen million dollars.
Heather had laughed at that number, but upon further consideration judged his logic sound. Governments zeroed in on even numbers and big companies. And although big was generally defined as companies having values of more than 500 million US dollars, that figure varied widely by country and market. Besides, if and when you ran into problems that compromised a particular operation, you wanted your loss to be isolated from the bulk of your assets. Completely separate entities of small size operating under different corporate structures in different countries.
The seed money for their operations they had taken from Jennifer’s raid on the Espe?osa cartel accounts. With Heather’s unique talent for spotting trends and patterns, their investments had quickly blossomed, especially since they could obtain the most detailed insider information on upcoming corporate events. Strictly illegal, but so was practically everything else they were doing.
Heather glanced across at Jennifer and Mark, both at their own workstations, completely engrossed in the task at hand. And the task at hand was to figure out what Dr. Donald Stephenson was up to.
She focused her attention back on her own LCD display, scanning through all the news stories surrounding Stephenson’s release from prison, the president’s apology, Stephenson’s appointment as the US representative to CERN, and his surprising elevation to head the scientific team at the ATLAS detector.
She blasted through all the English-language links and then started in on the foreign sites, specifically those closest to the Large Hadron Collider: Swiss, French, German, Italian, Spanish. And although Heather was proud of the language skills she and Jennifer had acquired over the last few months, they were nothing like Mark’s. That was why they’d left the Russian, Eastern European, and Chinese sites to him.
Problem was, the deeper she looked, the less sense everything made. Stories coming out of the US government and the major European governments about Dr. Stephenson’s appointment to the LHC matched too perfectly. Since when had the Europeans started knuckling under to the US on high-energy physics research? After all, they’d built the largest supercollider in history. Yes, the US had contributed, but this was truly a European-led effort.
And yet somehow the acclaimed French physicist Dr. Louis Dubois had calmly stepped aside to let Donald Jailbird Stephenson take over his position, willingly accepting a lesser role on the project.
Two hours later she was no closer to figuring it out. Mark and Jen also reported no significant progress.
Heather rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands, stretching in her chair to restart circulation to her lower extremities. Outside, the wind had died out, leaving the sounds and smells of a slow, steady rain to break the night’s silence. Nearer at hand, the click of keyboard keys rose above the hum of computer fans.
Rising from her chair, Heather walked to the door and stepped out into the night, sheltered from the rain by the overhanging eave. She inhaled deeply, letting the cool damp air fill her lungs as it cooled her skin.
Over at the main house all the lights were out, but Heather could make out Jack’s lithe form leaning back in one of the porch chairs, apparently regarding her as she looked back at him. What was he thinking about? As much as she liked and respected him, he remained a mystery. The deadliest man she could imagine often showed a lightheartedness that lifted the spirits of all those around him. At other times he drove them like a slave master on one of those old Roman battle ships. She could practically hear him yelling, “Ramming speed!” to the drummer.
Betrayed by his country, the world’s most hunted man relaxed on his dark porch, feet propped on a table, listening to the rain. He sat there waiting for answers from his team, not rushing them, just waiting.
Feeling the weight of that responsibility draped over her shoulders like a heavy wet blanket, Heather took another deep breath, then turned and walked back into the comm center.
The afternoon sun’s rays slanted in through the living room window, wedging into the gap between the curtains, painting a bright yellow spot on the floor. Little dust specks swam through the sunbeam like tiny fish in an aquarium.
Linda Smythe sat on the couch staring straight ahead, completely unaware of the sunbeam’s effort to brighten the dark room. If she had noticed, she would have walked over and dragged the curtains more tightly together. There was no room for light in the dark place in which she dwelled.