Tom Maloney walked in the back door. It was an entrance he’d been shown months ago, when the idea of retaining Walter Sherman first came to mind. At the time he considered it no more than another skill available on the open market. True, the market he spoke of wasn’t quite that open, and this particular skill was available only for a handsome price. Nevertheless, Maloney believed that if it existed, it was for sale. “If I want it-it’s mine.” Anything that was for sale could be his. Price was never a factor. How many kings had he ransomed in his day? What he’d acquired was indeed exceptional. “Crack and hack,” it was called. Get in. Get the code. That’s it. Simple? Sure, but close to impossible. Once you beat it, however, it’s over. No one and no place was immune, not even the Caymans. Besides, he’d used it before. He thought it was strange that he’d been inside twice already, once just to read it, and a second time he actually put something in. He’d not taken anything out. Now he was about to use this technology, this mechanism, this mumbo-jumbo magic for the purpose it had been invented. When the message appeared on his computer screen, he didn’t believe it. The chill that ran the full length of his body could have frozen hell. He’d gone to cash his lottery ticket and it was nowhere to be found. He lost it. He looked at the keystroke instructions. Letter by letter he read them half out loud. He canceled out his connection and started all over again from the very beginning. He was not far from turning the computer off and restarting it. He was like a man searching his sock drawer, frantically tearing apart the pockets of a coat he hadn’t worn in years, desperately looking for his missing car keys. He knew they weren’t there, but he couldn’t help himself. The correct home page appeared. He typed his code in the special box, watching the letters and numbers as he pushed them down. They showed up as asterisks on his screen, and so, for no reason at all, he deleted them and did it again. One by one he pushed down on the computer keys until each one could go no farther. Of course the code had been correct the first time. He knew that, but he was no longer in control. Things were speeding up. His heart rate and respiration soared. He struggled to keep his thoughts straight. He began to sweat. He felt sick, lightheaded, about to throw up. The message popped up again: Account Closed.