Infernal revenue, p.9
Infernal Revenue, page 9
“According to Chemical Percolators, they did not receive the wire transfer of funds,” Smith said.
“According to our records, it was sent and received.”
“Chemical Percolators is a very large, very reputable institution,” Smith pointed out in a tone that could not be misinterpreted.
“Yet you chose our fine institution,” the bank manager answered in a frosty tone.
“A mistake.”
“Would you like to close out the remainder of your account, then?” the manager said in a thin voice. “All...twenty-five dollars of it?”
“No. I will get back to you.”
“Always happy to serve.”
Smith hung up. He removed his rimless eyeglasses and rubbed his eyes. This was impossible. Money does not disappear en route. Then Smith realized that the money had moved electronically. In a physical sense, it had not moved at all. Only electrons, sent by computer and backed up by a voice confirmation, had moved.
Someone had raided the CURE bank account and, during the transfer, redirected and misappropriated nearly twelve million dollars in taxpayer funds.
That someone would have to be tracked down. Smith still had the matter at hand to resolve.
He would have to replenish the CURE operating fund.
· · ·
Over the decades CURE operations had grown exponentially. Just as Smith had been forced to upgrade his computer system to its present state, so had his operating budget mushroomed. In the first decade of CURE, it had been possible to draw millions of dollars out of various off-the-books CIA, DIA, NSA and other Intelligence-community operating funds undetected because there was little or no congressional oversight on such black-budget expenditures once appropriated.
But CURE had one day outgrown the ability to do that undetected by its sheer voracious financial need. A blind had to be created, a federal agency whose mandated purpose was too important to ever be closed or suffer budget cutbacks, one with an annual operating budget vast enough that CURE could siphon off funds at will without arousing suspicion.
Smith normally moved funds from this agency by computer to the Grand Cayman Trust–a notorious haven for money laundering–to ensure absolute security. There was no avoiding it. He reached for the concealed stud that would bring his terminal humming up from his desk well.
Smith pressed the stud. Almost at once the intercom buzzed, and his secretary said, “Dr. Smith. There’s someone to see you.”
“I have no appointments this morning,” said Smith as the desktop panel dropped slightly before it was to slide to one side.
“It’s Mr. Ballard.”
“Ballard? I know no–”
“He’s from the IRS, Dr. Smith,” the secretary said. Smith hit the stud again. The scarred oak panel reversed its mechanical course to return flush to the top of the desk and vanish from casual inspection.
“The IRS?” Smith said dully.
“Shall I send him in?”
Smith hesitated. Lips thinning, he said, “Yes.” He did not sound enthusiastic.
The door opened and a balding pear of a man wearing bifocals entered, carrying an imitation-leather briefcase.
“Dr. Smith. My name is Bryce Ballard.” He put out a pudgy hand.
“Is that your real name?” Smith said without warmth.
“No, actually it isn’t.”
“But you do claim to be with the IRS?”
“Here’s my identification.”
Ballard showed an IRS revenue agent’s card that appeared genuine.
“I have reason to believe you are not who you say you are,” Smith said flatly.
“You can check with my office,” said Ballard. He waved toward the couch. “May I sit down?”
“Yes,” said Smith, dialing the number the man gave him.
“Internal Revenue Service,” a voice, announced. “Ask to speak with Mr. Vonneau,” Ballard called over.
“I would like to speak with Mr. Vonneau.”
“One moment, sir,” a switchboard operator said crisply. Smith regarded the man Ballard. He looked harmless enough.
He might easily pass for an IRS revenue agent, but Smith had excellent reason for thinking him an impostor.
“Vonneau speaking,” an unemotional voice said. “This is Dr. Harold W. Smith at Folcroft Sanitarium, Rye, New York,” said Smith. “I have a man in my office who claims to be here to audit me. He gave his name as Bryce Ballard, although he admits that is not his true name.”
“Describe him, please.”
Smith described Ballard in flat but accurate terms. “That’s Ballard. As you know, Dr. Smith, IRS agents for their own personal protection are allowed to assume authorized pseudonyms.”
“Then I am being audited?” Smith said in a disbelieving voice.
“You are.”
“Impossible.”
“Actually, we’re auditing quite a number of medical facilities. Don’t worry, you’re in good hands. Ballard is thorough and, of course, fair.”
“What I meant to say,” Smith said, “is that I received no official notice of an audit.”
“Give me your business-taxpayer identification number.”
Smith rattled off the number from memory. There was silence on the line. Then Vonneau came back to say, “According to my files, the notice was sent out a week ago, and an appointment was arranged for today by telephone.”
“I did no such thing,” Smith said tartly.
“According to our computerized logs, you did. Perhaps one of your staff handled it.”
“I do not delegate such matters,” Smith said stiffly. “There must be a mistake.”
“IRS computers,” Vonneau said just as stiffly, “do not make mistakes of this scope.”
“Thank you,” Smith said without emotion, and hung up.
Ballard stood up and said, “I will need to see all your in-house financial records to start.”
“Why is Folcroft being audited?” Smith demanded suddenly.
“Routine. Your return popped up on the random-audit list.”
“I happen to know that random auditing has been suspended for the next two years while the new IRS computer system is being installed.”
“True,” said Ballard, offering a weak smile. “I might as well tell you, word has come down from the top. The President’s health-care program has to be paid for somehow. Waste and fraud in the medical profession are rampant, as you know if you watch any of the news-magazine shows. The IRS has been asked to look into this very thorny area. We’ve already collected substantial sums in back underreported taxes, FICA payments and fines, all of which will be earmarked to pay for the health-care program. Of course, I’m sure that won’t be the case here.”
Harold Smith heard all this with his ears ringing. He was being audited by the IRS. It was a virtual impossibility. Smith had continual access to Folcroft’s IRS records by computer. He knew the mathematical formulas the service used to target institutions for auditing and every year carefully made out his returns, underreporting legitimate deductions and not taking others so that no red flags triggered the random-audit process.
And just in case, his computers were programmed to monitor the IRS master file in Martinsburg, Virginia, for this very eventuality. Smith should have been warned Folcroft had been targeted for an audit. He could have headed it off by remote manipulation of the IRS’s own computerized files.
The Folcroft Four had failed him again. And he was forced to sit numbly in his chair as IRS Agent Bryce Ballard droned on about his needs. Harold Smith stared at the scarred corner of his desk that hid the system he could not access and now no longer trusted if he could.
“First,” Ballard was saying, “I will need to see your computer system.”
Smith looked up, startled. “System?”
“You do have financial records?”
“Yes. On a standard three-book ledger.”
Ballard’s round face slackened into stunned lines. “Do you mean to say, Dr. Smith, that a facility of this size has never been computerized?”
“I have never seen the need for it,” retorted Smith.
Chapter Eleven
If Jane Kotzwinkle didn’t have three children to raise and an ex-husband who believed child-support payments were due only when he won the daily number, there was no way she’d put herself through the many indignities of wearing a Con Ed hard hat and snug uniform in broad daylight. The night shift was fine by her, and usually it was enough. But she needed the overtime, her babies needed new clothes, and with so many of her colleagues on vacation, Manhattan needed her services.
What Jane Kotzwinkle didn’t need was the stares. Not from the passersby who did a double and sometimes triple take when they happened upon her digging up a section of New York City pavement in her Con Ed blue-and-gray coveralls, nor from her fellow workers who stopped what they were doing to appraise her rear end whenever she bent over to look down a manhole or pick up a tool.
And especially she did not need the wide cow eyes she got whenever a NYNEX rep came out to check on the dig.
This one looked fresh out of CUNY or some damn place. He pulled up in a NYNEX company car that was no more than three months old and, spotting her hard hat with its Con Ed symbol, walked right up to her and asked, “Where can I find Kotzwinkle?” The brainless mutt.
“I’m Kotzwinkle.”
This one didn’t even try to hide his surprise. “You?” Duh, Jane Kotzwinkle thought. Like this wasn’t the 1990s.
She got down to business using her best ramrod voice, the one she used on her boys when they wouldn’t turn in at bedtime.
“We’re digging in back of this building,” she said, walking away. “Come on. I’ll show you!’
“My name’s Larry,” he said, clutching his rolled-up blueprints. “Larry Lugerman.”
Like I care, you waxy-eared dip, Jane thought. She took him around to the side and pointed to the spot. They were in the shadow of one of the few new buildings in upper Manhattan. Her crew stood around drinking Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, looking bored in the early-morning light.
“Is this a line break?” Larry asked, his voice a little nervous.
“Client wants a gas line put in. That’s what we’re going to do. Hook him up.”
They came to the spot. Jane Kotzwinkle indicated it with a disdainful toss of her head. “We’ve got a gas pipe that runs north-south, right here,” she said. “We’re going to tap it and run a line into the basement. According to DigSafe, we’re okay.”
Larry looked at the spot and unrolled his blueprints, holding them so Jane couldn’t read them over his shoulder. Like the location of NYNEX trunk lines was a fucking national-security secret, she thought.
“Let’s see...” he muttered. He looked from the blueprints to the spot in the concrete that Jane was impatiently tapping with her work boot and back to the blueprints.
“You’re in the clear if you don’t disturb anything beyond twenty yards in either direction,” he said finally.
“Good. Thanks,” she said dismissively. DigSafe had told her the exact same thing.
Larry Lugerman looked stricken. “I’m supposed to stay.”
“Fine. Can you manage a jackhammer?”
“No.”
“Then what’s the use of you staying?”
“In case there’s a problem with the phone lines.”
“You just said if we stay within a forty-foot box, we’re okay.”
Larry swallowed. “Sometimes the blueprints aren’t updated as well as they should be.”
“Then what’s the point of all this hoop jumping?”
He took a step backward. “I’m just doing my job.”
“Fine. Just stay out of the way while men are working.”
Jane walked away from his melting face. She knew he had been thinking of asking her if she was free for lunch. He had that gooey look in his eye.
Like she’d date a guy who wore a coat and tie to work.
An hour later the stuttering of the jackhammer had died down, and they were into the shovels and pickaxes portion of the excavation.
“Got something here,” Melvin Cowznofski called out.
Jane beat the NYNEX suit to the hole. Partially buried in the dirt was a braided steel cable, half-severed. Twisted strands of copper wire lay exposed to the early-morning light. The strands were protected by bright red rubber tubing.
“Looks like a phone line,” Jane muttered.
“Let me see,” Larry said anxiously, pushing through the ring of gas company workers.
“That look like a phone line to you?” Jane demanded.
“Yeah. But an old one. It’s a copper analog line. All the cable on the island is fiber-optic.”
“Is it a problem?”
“I gotta call this in. Don’t do a thing till I get back.” Three minutes later Larry Lugerman came back, relief on his youthful face. “It’s okay. They have no record of it.”
Jane Kotzwinkle looked at him pointedly. “So?”
“That means you can cut through it, work around it, do anything you want.”
“Just because they don’t have a record of it?”
Larry shrugged. “If there’s no record, it doesn’t exist, as far as we’re concerned.”
“But it’s a phone line. You said so yourself. How can it not exist?”
“It’s probably an old test line upgraded or abandoned years ago that some lazy SOB forgot to remove.”
“You’re the authority,” Jane said aridly, picking up a pickax and chopping away. The line parted. Nothing happened. There was no spark of complaint, not that anyone expected a spark.
As a piece of the copper wire came flying out of the hole, Larry picked it up and said, “Boy, this is really old. They haven’t used two-wire lines like this for carrying voice since I don’t know when.” He noticed the red rubber sheathing, looked into the hole and saw that every line in the cable was protected by the exact same red rubber coating.
“This makes no sense,” he muttered. “They always color code the individual lines. Otherwise, how would the linemen know which lines were which?”
Nobody paid him any mind. They were busy excavating the gas pipeline. After a while Larry dropped the utterly fascinating copper telephone wire and stared at Jane Kotzwinkle’s ass as she bent to her work.
He was wondering if she was up for lunch.
Chapter Twelve
After Harold W. Smith got IRS agent Bryce Ballard squared away and out of his office, ledgers in hand, he returned to his desk to punch the concealed stud of the CURE computer system.
His finger stopped short of the button when a muffled ringing came from the right-hand desk drawer. It was the red presidential phone.
Smith dug it out of the drawer and brought the receiver to his ear. “Yes, Mr. President?”
The Chief Executive’s tone was hoarse and urgent. “Smith, I need an update for the hounds of hell.”
“Who?”
“The White House press corps. Someone leaked the Harlequin story. I’ve gotta to issue a statement to settle things down.”
“Mr. President, I regret to say I’ve not been able to get to the matter.”
“What?”
“Sir, an IRS revenue agent unexpectedly walked in.”
“For God’s sake, why?”
Smith cleared his throat unhappily. “Er, it appears I have been targeted for audit.”
“What the hell do you do up there that the IRS would want to target you? Scratch that. I don’t want to know. If I don’t know where you operate out of or your cover, I have limited deniability.”
“Very wise, Mr. President.”
The President pitched his voice low and conspiratorial. “Want me to pull a few strings? Squash the audit? I can do that–I think.”
“I am tempted, Mr. President, but for the White House to order the audit squashed would be so highly unusual as to call undue attention to my cover operation.”
“Yeah. Good point. Now, let’s get back to this submarine thing.”
Smith hesitated. “Mr. President, there has been another difficult development.”
“Yeah...”
“It appears that the CURE operating fund has been possibly, ah, embezzled.”
“Embezzled! I thought you and only you controlled that fund.”
“I do. It appears to be a bank embezzlement.”
“Well, can’t it wait until this Harlequin incident is dealt with?”
“Without operating funds, I cannot replace the missing gold the Master of Sinanju is demanding in order to start the next contract.”
“You telling me you don’t have any agents?” the President asked sharply.
“I’m afraid so.”
“And you’re caught between contracts?”
“Yes.”
“Smith, what kind of operation are you running there?”
“One that has suffered a regrettable cluster of setbacks,” Harold Smith admitted, trying to keep the embarrassment out of his voice.
“Well, they couldn’t have come at a worse time.”
“I know.”
“You know I have serious reservations about this operation,” the President continued. “If it wasn’t for the fact that the past President I most admire set you up, I would have shut you down my first week in office.”
“I have had that sense,” Smith admitted.
“Goddamn it. The country is spending a billion dollars a day servicing the national debt, and you’ve let twelve million slip through your fingers. Not to mention another five million in gold bullion lost with that sub.”
“I am certain it will be recovered.”
“Well, recover it.”
“I am trying, Mr. President. All I can say is that my best efforts are being put forth.”
“Well, your best efforts aren’t worth spit in a wind–”
The line went dead. The President’s voice was simply cut off. There was no click. No dial tone. Nothing but dead air.
Harold Smith said, “Hello? Hello?” several times and hung up. He waited exactly thirty seconds by his Timex wristwatch before lifting the receiver again.
