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  "But we gotta hire some anyway."

  "Why?"

  "Community relations."

  "Will community relations increase our profits?"

  "Forget profits. They picket the building, blocking the entrance, and if we don't cave in, someone's going to bounce a brick off my skull one fine morning."

  "What makes you conclude that, Chip?"

  "One of them threatened to do exactly that."

  Friend then said, "I cannot afford to lose my CEO to a brick. Hire them."

  "All of them?"

  "All. Set them up on the fourth floor."

  "Doing what?"

  "Give them busy work. I will take care of the rest."

  Reluctantly Chip had done exactly that. He hired every picketer, installed them in fourth floor cubicles and telephone pods at better than average starting salaries and watched as they sat behind their desks making unauthorized long-distance phone calls and pilfered office supplies for resale on the street.

  This went on for precisely a week.

  One by one the new hirees began calling in sick. They began getting sick on the job.

  "What's going on?" Chip asked Friend at the beginning of the second week. "They're all falling ill."

  "I have hired an environmental engineer to furnish a professional opinion."

  "A what?"

  "One who inspects buildings for environmental problems."

  The environmental engineer showed up the next day, made a three-week examination of the XL SysCorp building environmental systems and pronounced it a sick building.

  "Sick!" Chip blurted out when he heard the news.

  The environmental engineer went down his checklist. "This building is unfit for habitation by more than twenty persons at a time. The air-conditioning system is substandard, air is not circulating properly, there are airborne toxins present, and it's a miracle you haven't gotten Legionnaires' disease."

  "Legionnaires' disease?"

  "It's caused by faulty air-conditioning equipment. Your workers all have it."

  "Damn. The lawsuits will kill us. What about me? Why aren't I sick?"

  "You work on the fifteenth floor, correct?"

  "That's right."

  "Well, through some freak of construction, the air on that floor is fine. As long as you stay there and it's not occupied by more than twenty persons, you should be okay."

  "We're not in danger of being condemned, then?" Chip had asked in relief."No. But if you rehire, the board of health will shut you down cold."

  "It's amazing," Chip had told Friend once the story broke. "We're off the hook. The thugs who call themselves community activists can't say a damn thing about this."

  "You are satisfied?"

  "Well, we're going to look pretty foolish once it comes out XL spent 170 million on an office building that can't be inhabited. And if we ever need to hire on- site staff again, we're screwed."

  "We will do fine," said Friend.

  And they did. XL SysCorp took off after that. It expanded its customer base with the XL WORM-drive information systems, which could be deeply discounted because XL's overhead was so low. They bought up any and all suppliers who threatened to rival them one day, becoming a vertically integrated virtual corporation. XL branched out into telecommunications, ATM machines, and even dabbled in virtual-reality technology, all the while continuing to service the old government accounts, especially in the U.S. Intelligence community.

  Business rivals fast went out of business. And when XL SysCorp landed the lucrative twenty-year project to completely replace the IRS computer system, Chip Craft thought he was set for life.

  That is, until he returned from vacation to learn that Friend had evolved a business plan in his absence that depended upon blackmailing the U.S. government.

  "We can't blackmail the Feds," Chip said, exploding out of his chair.

  "Correction. Prior to today, we could not."

  "What's different about today?" Chip demanded.

  "While you and I have been talking, I have been in contact by modem with the one person who could thwart my plan."

  "Yeah?"

  "He has just surrendered. The way is clear to implement my plan."

  "Who is this guy?"

  "His name is Harold Smith."

  "Is he with IDC?"

  "He is with CURE."

  "I don't know that outfit," Chip said vaguely.

  "It does not matter because Smith has been neutralized and rendered impotent. We may now proceed with our business plan to blackmail the U.S. government."

  "Would you mind not putting it in such stark terms. This is pretty serious shit we're talking about here."

  "I know it is serious shit. I have planned it carefully for a very long time."

  "As CEO of XL SysCorp, I can't go along with this."

  The door popped open, and the secretary with the free and easy breasts came bouncing in wearing a pout and saying, "Oh, Chip! Please don't talk that way."

  "You stay out of this," Chip snarled.

  She came over and dropped to her knees. She looked up at him with imploring brown eyes and actually clasped her perfect hands.

  "I—I'll do anything you say," she whimpered.

  "No."

  "Please."

  Chip folded his arms defiantly. "I have a special responsibility as CEO and I'm standing firm on this one."

  The bright sunlight coming through the window abruptly shaded to gray, and anvil-shaped thunder- heads rolled into view. Lightning flashed blue and electric. The peal of thunder sounded as if it were in the room itself.

  "Firm as a rock," Chip said resolutely.

  "Are you certain, Chip?" came the smooth voice of Friend.

  "Absolutely," said Chip.

  The furniture faded from sight. All of it. The Spanish leather chairs. The mahogany paneling. The private bar. The window. Even the secretary. There was a single heart-breaking tear coming from her left eye as her face—the last part of her to go— faded from sight, taking the rest of her with it.

  Chip Craft found himself standing in a windowless room with flat white walls. Only the chair had been real.

  "Bring it back, sir. This is no way to act."

  "I require your help, Chip," Friend said.

  "Blackmailing the U.S. government is going too far. We could lose everything."

  "You have not heard my business plan."

  "Okay, I'll listen. But give me back my desk."

  The desk reappeared. Chip took his seat and looked expectant. "Shoot," he said.

  "I have this morning looted the Grand Cayman Trust," Friend said.

  "Yeah?" "Yet no money has moved."

  "How is that possible?"

  "In the digital age, hardly any money moves in the physical sense. Yet billions of dollars are transferred daily."

  "Sure. By wire transfer."

  "Mankind has entered a new economic age he does not even realize has dawned. Otherwise, he would have given it a name."

  "What age?"

  "The age of virtual money," said Friend.

  Chapter 18

  Basil Hume, president of the Grand Cayman Trust, had only one rale concerning the funds that came in for deposit to his financial institution: he didn't care where they came from.

  The government of the Cayman Islands didn't care where the money came from, either, just as long as it got its fair share in taxes and high government officials could deposit their own tainted funds in the Grand Cayman Trust.

  It was a very tidy arrangement. No one cared. There was no governmental oversight, no regulations, no bank examiners, and of course there was no deposit insurance.

  Who needed insurance when so much money flooded into the Grand Cayman Trust that it could never in a million years till the sun went cold in the heavens and the stars winked out one by one, fall insolvent?

  In any case, the very customers who entrusted the Grand Cayman Trust with their riches were the perfect insurance and the ultimate form of advertiseme
nt.

  Among the depositors were numbered some of the wealthiest despots, drag barons and organized-crime figures in the world. Terrorist organizations relied on the safety of the Grand Cayman Trust for their operating funds. Even certain clandestine U.S. agencies had emergency slush funds on deposit at Grand Cayman Trust.

  So if Basil Hume didn't care where the money came from, why should he concern himself with the trivia of where it went when it left the sphere of his responsibility?

  He tried explaining that to the former customer who presented himself to Basil in his office without warning.

  "We are closed until further notice," Hume said.

  "Twelve million dollars of U.S. taxpayers' money has disappeared from an account the Federal Emergency Management Agency has on deposit with you," said the man named Smith, flashing a Treasury Department badge in Hume's face.

  "You have no jurisdiction here," Hume shot back.

  "As an authorized representative of the depositor, I have every right to demand an explanation."

  "Our computers are down," Hume said quickly. "We have a call in to the service people."

  "A computer malfunction does not explain why the FEMA emergency fund has dropped from twelve million dollars to twenty-five dollars, and the missing millions are said to have been transferred to a New York bank that claims to have no record of the wire transfer."

  "You will have to speak with the manager about this," said Hume, pressing the security button. The phones in his office were ringing again. They were ringing all over the building. It was a difficult situation. There was no telling what would happen once the more serious depositors learned that the bank was virtually off-line.

  "I have gotten no satisfaction from the manager," said Smith stubbornly. "That is why I have come to you."

  "How did you get into the building? It is supposed to be locked to nonstaff."

  "The guard was impressed by my identification."

  "But I am not," said Hume, pressing the buzzer again. What was keeping that damn guard? What if the Cali cocaine cartel were to burst in demanding their money?

  "I have some expertise in computers," Smith said. "Perhaps I could learn something through an examination of your equipment?"

  Hume looked up with new interest. "You are good with these damnable machines?"

  "Very good," assured Treasury Agent Smith.

  The guard finally threw open the door.

  Donning his most pleasant smile, Basil Hume snapped his fingers once peremptorily.

  "Escort Mr. Smith to the computer room. He is going to look into our little problem."

  The little problem was a panic in full cry when Harold Smith was brought to the second-floor computer room.

  The sealed, air-conditioned room was cooled to a perfect computer-friendly sixty-two degrees Fahrenheit. Still, the officers and technicians of the Grand Cayman Trust were sweating bullets.

  "The D'Ambrosia Family—I mean, Syndicate—account is down to forty-seven dollars and change," a harried clerk called over his shoulder from a terminal.

  The manager was frantically going through a green- and-white striped printout with eyes that threatened to slip loose of his stretched-wide lids.

  "I have no record of any withdrawal in the last month," he said, his voice pitched too high.

  "According to the computer, the money was transferred to the—"

  "Don't say it!"

  "—Chemical Percolators Hoboken," finished the clerk.

  "They swear they've not received any of these confounded transfers," the bank manager was saying in a stunned voice.

  Harold Smith cleared his throat noisily. "I would like to examine your system."

  "Who the devil are you?" demanded the manager, looking up from his printout stack. His face had a touch of the same greenish white as the printout.

  "Smith. With the U.S. government."

  The guard added, "Mr. Hume okayed it."

  The manager waved to the bank of terminals. "Help yourself."

  "What is the problem?"

  "The bank is—" the manager swallowed "—electronically insolvent."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Someone somehow sucked out all the money from every one of the large accounts."

  "Sucked?""We don't know how it could have happened. At close of business yesterday, all was well. This morning we began noticing that the account balances were all out of sort. To the debit side. We have records of numerous wire transfers, backup confirmations, but no one remembers executing the transfers." The manager swayed on his feet. He wiped a white handkerchief across his damp, pasty forehead.

  "And the correspondent banks have no record of receiving the wire transfers?" prompted Smith.

  "Exactly. How did you know?"

  "The U.S. government account I am responsible for was rifled in the identical way," Smith said tightly.

  "You—you are not by chance with the CIA?"

  "Why do you ask?"

  "They are nasty people."

  "I represent the Federal Emergency Management Agency," said Smith.

  "The ones who chase tornadoes?"

  "Yes."

  The manager breathed a sigh of sheer relief. "Just as long as you are not one of those Colombian or Jamaican depositors. They've been calling all morning. Word has leaked out."

  Smith was at a terminal. He went through his own account file. It seemed to be in order from this end, except that the missing funds had been transferred out without proper authorization and were never received at the other end.

  Yet according to the transaction file, the correct constructed number had been received from Chemical Percolators Hoboken, verifying receipt. Smith understood that a constructed number was a digital string that, when subjected to certain carefully guarded mathematical manipulations, produced a number that was the true identifying authorization code. They were supersecret supersecure formulas, and the fact that the power that had looted Grand Cayman Trust knew the constructed numbers emanating from Chemical Percolators meant its computer security had been breached.

  It smacked of a perfect white-collar crime.

  By a quirk of the computer age, even though no physical money had left the bank and none was received, the electronic credit the mainframes stored was absent. In effect, the money had vanished into limbo. The bank could not recredit Smith's account because, according to its electronic records, the money was now on deposit in New York. The absence of the money in New York made no difference to the Grand Cayman Trust computer system. It reflected a perfectly correct wire transfer out. Therefore, the money was gone.

  The very checks and balances of the banking system had been exploited masterfully.

  Looking up from the monitor, Smith said, "You have a very serious situation here. I would suggest you question your employees closely. This has all the earmarks of an inside job."

  "We intend to do that—if we survive," said the bank's manager.

  "Survive?"

  "Due to the special nature of our depositors, we are more concerned with the repercussions of these losses."

  "I see," said Smith. "Have any employees failed to report for work today?"

  "No. In fact, we have called in the night shift and all those out on holiday to help us straighten out this beastly mess."

  "And all returned?"

  "Without exception."

  "This is not an inside job," said Smith suddenly.

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Your employees know full well the dangerous types of people who use this institution. A guilty party, knowing the true extent of the looting, would not return voluntarily to face the dire consequences if an irate depositor came looking for his money."

  "I hadn't thought of that," the manager admitted. "Very logical. Very logical indeed. Then where is this money?"

  "In cyberspace," said Smith.

  "What?"

  Smith got out of his chair. He was looking at the mainframes and could find no manufacturer's name.


  "Tell me," he said at last. "Who services your system?"

  "The manufacturer, of course."

  "And that is?"

  "XL SysCorp. They make the finest mainframes in the world and offer them at competitive prices."

  "I see," said Harold Smith, turning to go.

  The manager followed him out of the room, tugging at Smith's gray sleeve. "I say, I thought you were here to help." "No. I am here to track down the U.S. government's money."

  "But what about us? What about the irate depositors who will not take no for an answer?"

  "You have lain down with dogs," Harold Smith said coldly, shaking off the man's trembling hand. "Now you must deal with the fleas."

  In the stark white windowless office furnished with a chair that was the finest money could buy and a desk that had no more substance that a moonbeam, Chip Craft blinked.

  "Virtual money?" he queried.

  "One of the flaws of paper money is that it has no intrinsic value," came the smooth voice of Friend.

  "Sure. Money—even coins these days—is really a kind of promissory note issued by the government. If the currency ever becomes worthless, the government will step in and make good."

  "With more worthless currency," said Friend. "For the value of the U.S. dollar is no longer backed by gold reserves."

  "Is that why you've stashed all that gold in the basement vaults?"

  "Yes. For, once my business plan is implemented, all paper money is at risk of being destroyed by hyperinflation, thereby causing my gold reserves to appreciate in value by an astronomical amount."

  "We're going to make money worthless?"

  "No, we are going to take advantage of the weakness of money in the digital age."

  "Yeah?" "Money has been replaced by electrons in 96.8 percent of all business and government transactions. These electrons travel through the telephone lines from computer station to computer station, where they are stored in the form of credits and debits. These transactions are executed with the speed of light via fiber-optic cable, then verified by telephone voice or paper confirmation slips."

  "Yeah. It's very secure."

  "It is very insecure. Voices can be imitated, and paper itself does not move in these transactions."

  "Huh?"

  "Facsimile paper has replaced cellulose confirmation slips sent by messenger or mail."

  Chip snapped his fingers. "Virtual paper!"