"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 advertisement.
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.