The Morcos Connection - Frank Pilger Book 2

The Morcos Connection The second Frank Pilger novel

by W. W. Walton Daisy Wheel Press 277 Hearst Street North Bay, ON P1B 8Z2 705-474-0258 ISBN 0-9688-492-2-9

Typically, we forensic accountants like to follow the money. The trip to Bermuda was a nice change of scene. And no one should complain about spending a couple of weeks in La Jolla - one of the nicest places in the States. But hiding in the brush on a hillside in the Dakotas with a frightened fraud artist as my backup while three killers lay in ambush around our Jeep was not my idea of a typical day for anyone even a forensic accountant.

Chapter 1 "Don’t forget your dentist's appointment at 9:30, honey," my wife Nancy said as she kissed me goodbye that morning. She knows how I hate going to the dentist. I am one of those people who have very sensitive teeth and just the thought of Dr. Bauer grinding away with his drill gives me goose bumps. Nancy actually falls asleep in the dentist chair. At least that is what she tells me when she ribs me about being a sissy. "How could I ever forget that?" I said, pulling on my gloves. It was minus 10 again today, snowing for the second time this week and it was only Monday. I was leaving early this morning. I had an appointment to meet the building contractor who was starting the electrical wiring in the addition to the office. By nine o'clock, Nancy would be at her usual place at the helm of the office. We each had our own cars since I never knew what hour of the day my work would end, so even though we worked in the same office, our paths crossed only by chance throughout the day. Pilger and Associates were adding the new section to our building to house the Forensic Accounting Division that was my pride and joy. My father, Philip Pilger, attended to the normal accounting and auditing accounts that had built the firm, while I was busy getting new accounts to substantiate the expansion. Forensic accounting jobs tend to last only as long as it takes to rout out the people and systems that can cost companies thousands of dollars, often without their ever realizing they have a problem. We catch the bad guys, suggest some better controls and move on to the next job. We also take accounts where there is suspected commercial sabotage. The theft of ideas can be harder to track and prove, but Pilger and Associates have had some successes. Pilger and Associates, Forensic Division, also take insurance jobs where we attempt to recover monies for a percentage of the recovery. It is the detecting work that I enjoy the most. Nancy says it is because I crave the danger of apprehending criminals, but I try to deny that assertion. The contractor was at the office precisely at 7:00 a.m., as promised, and we reviewed the changes we wanted. Jack ‘Scotty’ Holland, our computer manager, had changed the specifications on the original plans, and we now had to add more power to the computer room. He was worried about the extra heat the new processors and their myriad of peripherals would generate, so we decided to install a larger capacity air conditioner. Scotty was away at yet another computer conference where he would pick up even more ideas on what technology was at the cutting edge in the industry. By keeping current with the technology, we could offer our clients the latest solutions for any security needs. We also needed a power supply that could not be easily tampered with. Secure data and data processing were very important in our business; limiting the access to our outside power and our computer lines, as well as a secure office environment, was essential. We designed the office access points carefully to prevent anyone from easily passing through the

electronic door locks and into the computer room. The whole of our office was under video and audio surveillance. Our employees did not mind the electronic eavesdropping and in fact used the system to keep Dad and me aware of any grievances they had. The staff was used to me trying out all sorts of electronic equipment that could be used in an investigation - everything from infra red night binoculars to parabolic eavesdropping equipment. But the computers were the heart of our system. The building addition had its own fire suppression system, alarm system and remote video monitoring. Philip thought we were being paranoid until the day one of the suspects in a fraud case burst into the office, armed with a very large gun, and threatened to shoot whoever was responsible for having him suspended from his job. Somehow, Philip had talked to the fellow, listening to the poor man's story of grievances with his employer, and, feigning a genuine interest, suggested that the man had a valid complaint. Could Pilger & Associates look into this for him? After he surrendered the gun? Dr. Bauer greeted me and then turned me over to his technician who would clean my teeth. Dr. Bauer had to make an important telephone call before the Toronto Stock Exchange opened for business at 10 a.m. I am even more leery of my dentist when he is worrying about his stock market investments. And he was not smiling this morning. Thinking to get his mind on more pleasant matters, I asked him where he was planning to vacation this coming spring. Dr. Bauer always takes the month of April off - right after Dad finishes his income tax return. Some kind of a ritual journey to the sun god to celebrate another financially successful year, I suppose. "I may not be able to afford to take a vacation this year, Frank. I’m losing my shirt on the stock market." "I keep telling you to stay away from those penny stocks. I suppose you had money in Bre-X, didn’t you?" "No, I did have some but I got out when it split last fall. I should have stayed in a little longer as it turns out, but my broker advised against it. No, it’s a mutual fund that is worrying me now." "How can that be? I thought that mutual funds were the safest investment anyone could make," I said. Personally, I never touch mutual funds, preferring the safe but sure Blue Chip stocks like Seagram’s or BCE. The fewer the people who touch my money, the better. Besides, those mutual fund managers drive far too expensive cars. "Yeah, that’s what I thought too. Open a little wider, Frank. No, I bought into a fund called Wardwell and the whole thing seems to have collapsed." I knew that individual companies could collapse, but how could a whole fund fail? My mouth was wide open with a mirror, a pick and two of Dr. Bauer's fingers in it, so all I could say was "hunh?" "Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. However, according to my broker, the four companies that make up the Wardwell Fund all closed - without warning. It was obviously a fraud and my broker says they have applied to the Ontario Securities Commission for an investigation." He removed his fingers and said he needed an x-ray to see if I needed a filling replaced on a left molar. "Do you want freezing? This isn’t too deep and shouldn’t bother you much." "Do I want freezing? You know me, Doc, I’m a real chicken when it comes to my teeth."

"Well, I’ve been using a couple of drops of anesthetic just around the surface of the tooth and most of my clients find that enough. You won’t have to go around all morning with a frozen mouth. Almost all of my business people are doing this now," he prompted. Now he was really challenging me. With Nancy's taunts still fresh in my mind, I acquiesced, "Okay, I’ll try it this one time but if it hurts very much I may just bop you on the nose to get even!" "Relax, Frank, it’s just a routine filling. The last time your wife was here she almost fell asleep while I did her fillings." So it was true. There was no way out of this now. No matter how much it hurt, I was going to have to tough it out. It was bad enough to have Nancy ribbing me, but now Doc Bauer was rubbing it in too. To get even, I asked, "How much did you have in that mutual fund, Doc?" "Well, as of last week, I was in for over fifty thousand dollars." "Wow!" I said. That was a pile of dough in any man's language, even a dentist's. "So explain to me what happened. I can’t understand how a whole fund can collapse. I thought the very nature of mutual funds was to protect against that sort of thing – to spread the risk around." The story was that Dr. Bauer's broker had a friend in another brokerage firm who was managing a really successful fund. Wardwell had only been on the market for three years but the fund manager obviously knew how to pick winners. The fund held only four stocks, all Indonesian high-technology companies. All four companies were showing strong returns and were very active on the Japanese market. The returns for the past three years had risen from a low of 15% in the first year to 28% in this last quarter. In the first three months of this year, everyone had jumped on the bandwagon. Registered Retirement Savings Plan money flowed into the fund as brokers placed more and more orders. Two weeks after the RRSP season ended, all hell broke loose. The 'friend' who had recommended the stocks simply did not show up for work one Monday. The four Indonesian companies had vacated their offices; trading was suspended on the TSE when the Canadian brokerage company backing Wardwell found it was short of funds; a large Boston firm announced it too, had found some discrepancies and the Japanese stopped all trading on Wardwell. The units that Dr. Bauer has purchased at $32.50 were worth absolutely nothing. The drilling and filling were really quite painless, just as Doc has said they would be. Maybe I had been getting all those needles over the years for no reason. I tried to console Dr. Bauer with the thought of the capital loss he could claim against his other stock winnings. This was small comfort to him, but it was further evidence to me that you could not trust those mutual funds. Buy common stocks in blue chip companies, own a part of the business, take some dividends and wait patiently while the shares gradually increase as the stock markets creep higher and higher on the backs of mutual fund investors. That is my plan for getting rich. That, and getting high-paying jobs doing forensic investigations into people's books. Chapter Two When I returned to the office, I had a message on my voice mail to call Buddy. A year ago, I shuddered every time Buddy Olsen called me on the telephone, but now his calls were money in the bank. Buddy

Olsen and his Canadian Security and Intelligence Service friends needed the help of Pilger and Associates more and more and I was happy to oblige them. The budget cutbacks in Ottawa had reduced the field staff of CSIS to the point where they now contracted out much of their forensic investigations to companies like ours. We did not get the jobs that involved National Defence or International conspiracies, but often an investigation into a routine monetary swindle turned over stones that hid characters that were into spying and espionage. Buddy knew our company well and I believe he gave us the jobs that might turn out to be a little sensitive, knowing that we would report to him if we suspected we were onto something bigger than it first appeared. "Buddy, this is Frank, returning your call. I’m in the office for the next hour - call me," I said to his voice mail. Voice mail tag can last for several rounds but it was only a matter of minutes before Buddy replied. He was probably monitoring calls with his voice mail, a practice in the civil service of which the public has good and valid reasons to complain. "Frank, I have a really good job for you, if you can get on it right away," Buddy began. "I’m well, thanks, Buddy, and Nancy and the kids are fine. How are Bertha and Jenny?" I replied. "Oh. Yeah, fine, thanks. Sorry, Frank, things area little hectic here this morning. The Minister of Finance is crawling all over me, looking for answers that I can’t give him." "What's up?" "You heard about the collapse of that Mutual Fund - Wardwell?" "As a matter of fact, I just did - about an hour ago. My dentist had some money in it and he was calling his broker. How is CSIS involved in that?" "Normally we wouldn’t be involved, but the Ontario Security Commission has asked for our help. They are quite certain that there is an international flavour to this whole thing and want us to investigate. This is all on the QT, Frank, but the OSC had been watching Wardwell for some time and were about to open an investigation when the major players just disappeared." "With a lot of money, I presume?" I asked. "Yeah, a lot of money. Upwards of two billion dollars." "Two BILLION?" "The papers are going to say several hundred million, but they will eventually come up with the right math. The amount of money involved should automatically call for us to do the work in-house, but I simply don’t have the resources right now. Can Pilger and Associates look after this one?" Doing some quick math with a figure like two billion dollars was easy. "Yes, I can work it into my schedule. I’ll take this one myself, at least in the initial stages. How soon can you get me the background material?" "I already have my person waiting for you at Wardwell's office. The two main players are Jerry Sewell,

a Canadian and Hogarth Attward, an American. Robbie Quick will meet you as soon as you can get down to Bay Street. Quick will fill you in on the details and be your contact with CSIS. Quick has been assigned to work with you all the way on this one, Frank." "Quick. I don't know that name, Buddy. A new employee, I assume?@ "Yes, fairly new to us." "So you want one of your new people dogging my tracks?" I was hurt to think that Buddy would not trust me with over two billion dollars. A Does this mean I have to share any commission I might earn? @ "Oh, yeah, the commission. Due to the large amount involved Frank, we will have to cut that back by half. If you ever do recover any money, that will still make it worth your while," "I see. You don't sound hopeful of catching these guys." "No, I don't. Our experience with stock scams has been that the money is gone long before we can get to it. Your usual hourly fee should still make it worth your while." "And as a bonus I get to train your new employee. Sounds great!" "Think of it as an apprenticeship, Frank. Quick is a good operative but needs some field experience. I thought you might be a good teacher." Buddy saying > needs some field experience'was like me buying a handyman's house - something I would never contemplate. A pig in a poke came to mind. "Needs field experience - that sounds like a greenhorn to me. How long has Quick been with you?" "Just over a year, but don’t let that fool you. This one is sharp and shows a lot of promise. Do it as a favour to me, Frank." "Okay, okay. How will I know this Quick person?" "Don’t worry, Robbie has your photo," he laughed. I did not get the joke. "The FBI is getting a team together and I’ll get their contact name to you sometime today." Damn Buddy was as confident as ever. One of these days I would surprise him and turn down a job. But not one that involved billions of dollars. I checked in with Nancy at her desk, telling her that I had one filling and no freezing. She patted my hand saying how brave I was and reminded me to pick up my summer-weight suit at the dry cleaners. Saturday we were flying to San Diego for a holiday. Nancy had arranged our complete itinerary and I was satisfied just to get away for a week, no matter where she took me. I told Nancy of Buddy's call and said I was on my way downtown to meet his new operative. The Wardwell offices were in an office tower just at the edge of the financial district on Bay Street. The building, 27 stories according to the elevator, was not clad in the reflecting gold of the Royal Bank Tower, but in plain old-fashioned clear glass that neither mirrored the opulence of the neighbouring buildings nor kept the heat of the sun out of the building. The lobby was typical of most business

offices, a reception desk where a security person sat before some video consoles that displayed hallways and entrances from nearly-hidden cameras. I read the directory and found Wardwell listed on the seventh floor, nodded to the security person and walked across the fake marble floor to the bank of elevators. I shared the ride up with three young executive types - all dressed in slacks and blazers displaying some complex company logo on the breast pocket. They were discussing some stock or other that was moving well and would go to at least sixty-five cents before the week was out. For a moment, I thought of phoning the name of the penny stock to Dr. Bauer, but I was in a good mood and decided against it. The office door to 707 was open. Standing behind the receptionist's desk, I saw a very beautiful young blonde woman reading through a pile of papers. She had her hair caught back in what Nancy calls a French roll. Her complexion was bright and clear, with just enough makeup to be almost natural shadowing around the eyes. She was wearing a dark blue two-piece outfit with a narrow red and white stripe crossing diagonally from the shoulder to the waist. I guessed her at about five-eight and around 135 pounds. I still cannot convert people sizes to metric. She had not heard my approach so I took a business card from my gold CGA clip and cleared my throat. "Good morning," I said, sub-consciously dropping my voice a note or two to sound manlier. "I’m Frank Pilger and I am supposed to meet a Mr. Quick." She laughed, her laughter as pleasant as her appearance, "Sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Pilger, but I am Robbie Quick." "Oh," I stammered, knowing now why Buddy had chuckled at my expense. "No apology required - I just expected some stodgy little accountant-type - that’s what Buddy usually gives me to work with." I remembered my training then and asked for some identification. Robbie handed me her CSIS photo and it matched the smiling face before me. "The office has been closed for over a week and the report from the Securities Commission says that Jerry Sewell left on the 5th of the month to places unknown. The staff were paid, complete with a severance package, to the end of the month. When the receptionist and two employees arrived at work on the Monday all of their computer files had been erased, the backup tapes magnetically destroyed and a number of paper files shredded. Most of the information was kept on the computers - one of these offices that were trying to go paperless. I've been looking through what paper there is for the past two days but I’m afraid there is nothing that leads anywhere." "All right," I said. "Sewell obviously planned this for some time. He would have covered his tracks very carefully, knowing what we were looking for. Let’s look for the not-so obvious clues that everyone leaves. Show me around, Robbie." "You mean like finger prints, hair samples, things like that, Mr. Pilger? We . . ." "No, Robbie - I assume we have everything we need to identify the physical Mr. Sewell. And please, it’s Frank - I’m not that old!" although I was thinking about the differences in our ages. I was not old enough to be her father but I was afraid that was what she might be thinking. Why I was even concerned, I do not know. Maybe young beautiful women do that to all men - even happily married men like me. "What I want to do is get a picture of the way this man thinks and acts. I noticed that the carpeting in this office is very good quality. Find out if these offices come furnished or does the lessee supply the carpeting, etc."

"The lessee supplies it. I looked at the lease to see what terms Sewell had signed. His lease expired in six months." I was encouraged to see that she remembered a detail like that from reading a lease. "So either he planned this whole thing to end within a time frame or he was going to renew. Is there anything else that might indicate that he was planning to leave?" "Not that I know of." "Check to see if these office plants were rented or purchased. If they were purchased, see who bought them. If Sewell did it himself, we have a person who likes and cares for plants. You don’t often see a Clivia in an office - too sensitive to heat and light. The same goes for that orchid over there. If Sewell selected this carpet, I would say he has good taste and knows his furnishings. Let’s look at his office." "I never thought about it, but his apartment has lots of plants - I have no idea what kind they are. All I know is African Violets and geraniums." "So we have access to his apartment?" "Yes. He lived alone. He had a girl friend, Judy O’Hare, and we’ve applied for a warrant to search her place, but there has been no one at her apartment for about a week before Sewell disappeared. She is named on the international warrant along with Sewell." Sewell’s office was typical executive suite - very nice mahogany desk and credenza, an expensive, comfortable, leather chair, gold-plated pen set on the desk. I powered up his computer, a current model Compaq but all I got was a password query that I did not even try to guess at. The art on the wall was poster art - one of a surfing scene, another was one of those > inspirational'themes of waves breaking on a rocky shore that said to be all you can be. A screen saver of tropical fish began swimming across the computer screen. "Did he have an aquarium in the apartment?" I asked. "Yes, but there were no fish in it - just some plants." "Let’s check the local fish shops and see if he sold his fish recently. Maybe the guy had a hobby . . ." Hobbies are good things to use when tracking someone who has gone to earth. Sooner or later they try to get back to their normal routines and hobbies are one of the things that people take up again. And aquariums say something else to me. People who keep fish in glass cages can be control freaks. They keep these little creatures in a glass prison, a place with no privacy or hidey holes, where only the master feeds at his leisure, controls the temperature and light - a person who must be the master of all situations. Or else just someone who likes coloured fish. Maybe Sewell was the later since he had fish on his screen saver. For my sake, I preferred to go after the control freaks. They are predictable and vulnerable. People who like and keep coloured fish probably think they are doing the fish a favour by keeping them from becoming fodder in the violent under-water food chain. The control freak would have flushed the fish so there would be no record of him at any tropical fish shop. I hoped the fish were still alive and registered at some pleasant aquarium in the area where we could make a connection with Jerry Sewell. The meeting room was typical but a large painting caught my eye. It looked like a Remington - wild horses running on a western plain, an Apache on a galloping paint trying to lasso one on them. I had

always liked Remington's depictions of the Wild West and walked over to take a closer look even though I knew it would only be a print. It was not a Remington. It was a limited edition print, signed by the artist, one M. Morcos. I stood back and examined the print more closely. This person could use a paint brush; there no doubt about the skills of the artist here. The colours were good although there was a little more yellow in the grasses than I would have liked. The sky had a unique blueness to it that was almost a chromatic. The horse, trying to dodge the thrown lasso, had a certain wildness in his eye that was revealed by the amount of white showing. The mountains in the background had a redness in them that you did not see at first glance, but on closer inspection added a depth of field that I would not expect from such a colour. Not that I am so knowledgeable about painting, it is just an interest that I picked up from my first wife and her vocation. "I assume you have applied for a copy of his telephone records?" I asked as we left the empty board room. "Yes, both for the office and his home. We should have them in a couple of days," Robbie replied. "That includes his cell phone?" "Uh, I’m not sure." She checked through her note pad. "His secretary said Sewell had a cell but did not use it for business. He never gave out the number. The secretary did not know the number. He had a car phone and we are checking that number as well." "A big time operator like this guy that doesn't list his cell phone number on his business card? That’s unusual. Let’s ask for all phone records under his name." On a hunch I added, "Get the girl friend's records too. If he had a cell and didn’t use it for business calls, who did he call on the cell?" Perhaps, I was thinking, he might be calling his partner in the States. Or some other co-conspirator. He might also have registered the cell under a different name. And different billing address. "Are you picking up the mail from both of their apartments?" "Yes. Nothing of interest yet. No telephone bills, no charge cards so far," she added, reading my thoughts. This girl might be new to CSIS, but she did know what she was doing when it came to an investigation. It might not be as hard to work with Buddy's greenhorn as I had feared. I followed Robbie's rental car across town to the Scarborough area and parked in the visitor's space outside a small, five-story apartment block. The building was new, about ten years old, and looked out over a ravine filled with maples and oaks, now bare except for a few clinging brown oak leaves that were waiting for the first warm days of spring when they would be blown onto someone's pristine lawn. Jerry Sewell rented the penthouse suite on the top floor, a spacious and tastefully decorated apartment of over 2400 square feet of floor space. This guy had a taste for the finer things in life and treated himself to only the best. The furniture was all top quality, the electronic sound system was Sony and Bose with a 40-inch Hitachi television set, the dining room set was rosewood, well oiled and rubbed to a fine gloss. "We checked his study and found it cleaned out, the same as the office,@ Robbie continued. "Nothing on his personal computer that we could find, the drive shows no files, there are no backup diskettes or tapes in the place. He has a paper shredder here and we think he shredded everything before he left. The building superintendent says he remembers a couple of large green bags of shredded paper in the

dumpster but that was picked up before we got here. Are you listening?" "Oh, yeah. Right. Sewell obviously planned his departure very well. I doubt if we’ll find anything here. Notice this painting?" I asked. "So, what about it? It looks like any one of a thousand of those seascapes you see in every art store. It looks like something you'd find at a starving artist sale in a park or mall," she laughed. "No, I don’t think so. Come and take a closer look. This is an original oil painting, not a copy like we saw at the office. And it is by the same artist - Morcos. I’m only guessing, but a painting of this size 48" by 60" has to be worth - oh, say $10,000." "You think so?" Robbie was now looking at the painting with a different perspective. "Yes, I can see that it’s better than I first thought. The painter did a nice job of catching the light on the waves, didn’t he?" "Yes, it is quite effective, almost a luminescence. And we don’t know whether the artist is a man or a woman, do we?" I liked correcting women on the gender thing. "Oh, I think it’s a man," Robbie replied. "Why do you say that?" "Just the lines - the curves of the palm trees - the waves. The lines are too soft - women try to hide that side of themselves and try to make their art more male-like. Sells better," she said. "Are you a student of the Arts," I asked. It would be too much of a coincidence to find this attractive young woman shared the same love of painting as my first wife, Karen. "No, just human nature - police thinking. It is probably not right in this case. Maybe this painter is just a good artist - I wouldn’t know." I checked out the bathroom, looking for old prescription drugs or patent drug containers. The only thing unusual about the bathroom was a surfing poster. Same bronzed guy from the office, riding a different green-water wave. We went back out to the living room and I poked around, trying to find something that I may have missed on the first pass through the room. I had a vague feeling that something was not right but I could not pinpoint it. "Robbie, do you feel anything wrong about this room? Something is bothering me and I can’t figure out what it is," I said. She stood and looked around the room and then said, "Got it! It’s the paintings. Don’t you see what's wrong?" There were four paintings on the walls, none of them by this Morcos person - two landscapes, a tiger in the jungle and a science-fiction interpretation of some faraway galaxy. "What do you see that I don’t?" "That’s it precisely, Frank. Would you place those paintings on the walls in those locations?" Interior decorating is not one of my strong suits but now I looked at the room as a whole unit. It was

out of balance. "Something is missing!" I moved closer to the wall that was out of sync with the rest of the room. There were small nail holes, almost invisible with the white plaster spackling that had been hurriedly applied. The other wall had the same marks. Two paintings had been removed. They must have been small paintings, probably about 12 x 18 inches, allowing for frame size. "So, our Mr. Jerry Sewell took a couple of paintings with him. That’s interesting. They must have been originals, perhaps worth a little money," I mused. A Then why didn’t he take the one you say is worth $10,000?@ A Good question. Because of its size? Maybe it was too big to pack?@ "Or maybe he just liked the smaller ones more than the big one," Robbie suggested. "True. Good work, Robbie. I doubt if I would ever have noticed that those paintings were missing. I guess most men wouldn’t have noticed. Maybe Sewell didn’t really see the change in the room himself." "Or maybe he never thought there would be a woman police officer on his trail!" she laughed. She may have been right. I left Robbie with a list of little chores to follow up on. I would contact the Americans to see if they had anything to share on Sewell’s partner, Hogarth Attward. I told her that Nancy and I would be away for 10 days in San Diego and we would get back on the case when I returned. Jerry Sewell had a wellplanned three-week lead on us anyway - a few more days would not make much difference. Until we had an idea of where the money had gone, we could not do much. It would take the banks another week to get the big money transactions to us and then some time to analyze the legitimate money movements. Always follow the money, was my credo. We had a spare interview room at the office so I installed Robbie there rather than have her working out of a hotel room. This case was going to take some time and resources so I wanted her nearby. I watched Nancy for any signs of jealousy when I introduced the two women but saw nothing. Not that there should be any reason, for I had no thoughts about this very pretty young woman. No inappropriate thoughts. By Friday, we had tracked Jerry Sewell’s girl friend, Judy O’Hare, to the Pearson International airport in Toronto. Her car had been tagged since March 3 because the parking ticket was not displayed. Robbie would get a search warrant for the car as well as for O’Hare's apartment. I asked Robbie to check every airline for an O’Hare and Sewell between March 1 and March 8. I doubted they would be using their own names, so I asked her to verify all female single passengers between March 1 and 3. I was guessing that Ms O’Hare had departed before Sewell and was meeting him somewhere. It would take Robbie a week to track every single airline and all passenger lists, and follow up all women traveling alone during our search period. I gave her the telephone number of the Cove Suites in La Jolla where Nancy and I would be vacationing for the next week in case she came up with something important.

Chapter 3

First-time landings at San Diego are as scary as putting down on a short strip on a Caribbean island. If you have traveled to the sun-Meccas of the south, you know of those short, narrow asphalt runways that end near a beach, surrounded by shrubby thorn bushes, where only planes that have burned off their heavy loads of fuel even attempt to land - islands where you take off and then stop at a longer strip to take on enough fuel to make it to the mainland. As we banked left on approach at San Diego, I could see from my window in front of the wing what appeared to be a freeway without cars, then I realized the pilot was lining up for this little stretch of black asphalt. We came in with lots of power and full flaps, touching down right on the button and braking hard with the wheels, reversed thrusters roaring. I would not like to abort a landing here because there were hills right in front of the landing strip. I understood now why we were flying American Airlines and why Air Canada did not fly its largest airplanes into San Diego. As I found out later, the airport had been used during World War II as a fighter delivery strip for an aircraft manufacturer. When the company shut down the plant to move to quarters where they could deliver jet aircraft from a longer runway, they gave the property to the city. The city kept trying to stretch the single strip and at the same time build skyscrapers right in the approach path, the result being a major city without a proper airport. Nancy had reserved a car for us and we were soon on our way to the San Diego suburb of La Jolla. It was only about a fifteen-minute drive up the freeway but then it took us fifteen minutes to find the hotel. The Cove Suites was tucked away just across the street from a park fronting on the ocean. The park was lined with tall palms and an island of Torrey Pines - those gnarled, misshapen pines that are unique to this one little place on the planet. The park was obviously a favourite spot for families and young people. There was a group playing Frisbee football - we call it Ultimate Football in Canada and a female quarterback was throwing the Frisbee with the accuracy of a John Elway. There were a few trinket and Tee shirt sales tables but the sellers were not bothering the park visitors. Buskers were strumming their instruments in complete compliance with San Diego By-law 0502.76 that says no music may be louder than to be heard for more than 50 feet. They should apply that same bylaw to car stereos. The four-storey Cove Suites was a cement block building that had been around for a while, but the rooms, although not fancy, were clean and quiet. The swimming pool and putting green were cut into the hillside behind the main structure. From the pool terrace, one could see the ocean just over the flat roof of the main building. Our balcony gave us a perfect view and we sat out, enjoying a drink of scotch as the orange sun dropped quickly into the Pacific Ocean. Like all ocean sunsets, it was a brief display of orange and then dark. I often wondered how island people would adapt to our twilight evenings where darkness comes slowly, giving time to prepare for the night, time to complete tasks begun late in the day, time to sit and linger over a drink, summing the successes of the day. Nancy and I quickly got into a vacation routine, catching up on our sex life, walking hand-in-hand along the beach paths, sharing little laughs as we people-watched from our balcony. It was good to be alone, away from the cares of the office. The first two nights we telephoned home to see how the children were but then we grew comfortable in their absence, knowing that Mary and Philip were very capable of caring for Marisa and Justin. The intimacy that comes with an escape like this was good for us, giving us time to dedicate ourselves only to each other. No matter how much one tries to keep the romance kindled in a fast-paced working household, it slowly falls into the commonplace of routine. We even had sex after breakfast one morning, a spontaneous romp on the bed as we were about to change into our swimsuits. We promised each other that we would have to take a coffee break at home

at least once a week when we returned to the office, each knowing this was only a fantasy to be cherished for a while. We planned to visit at least two art galleries per day during the week we were in La Jolla and on Wednesday we had worked our way through about a quarter of the shops on Prospect Street. La Jolla is an up-scale village where everything is a little pricey, but still there is something for every taste. The stores were not unlike the better boutiques in our own Yorkville area, and I supposed from reading the tourism blurbs about La Jolla, the history paralleled that of Yorkville - from hippies to yuppies in a few strong economic years. From the playground of the Hollywood set to the home of the rich and somewhat famous. Nancy and I were playing at buying paintings and jewellery, pretending to ourselves what pieces we would buy had we the money, but not carrying our charade to the extent of leading on the sales staff. To them we were typical tourists, I suppose. Then we walked into the Eagle Fine Arts Edition, a small shop that advertised Art and Antiques. Something had caught my eye as we had walked past this shop before but as soon as I entered the shop, it hit me. Morcos! There were over twenty pictures reproductions and originals - in the place. Nancy sensed my excitement. "Do you like these paintings, Honey?" she asked. "Uh, yes. I find them very interesting. I have seen one or two of these works before, but I never realized the extent of his work." I had not told Nancy about the paintings in Sewell’s place. I was attracting the attention of the sales clerk now. She had been busy doing some bookwork and had only briefly acknowledged us when we came in. "Can I help you, sir?" she asked. "Are you familiar with Maher's work?" "No, I can’t say as I know anything about him, but I certainly like his work." "Maher has matured into a very accomplished artist," the clerk said. "He taught himself to paint when he was very young and developed a unique ability to capture light. If you would like to come into the back room here, I’ll show you what I mean by using some proper lighting." The back room had pot lights that were controlled by a rheostat and the sales clerk explained how Maher Morcos' work changed in character with the lighting. We had just visited a gallery where the same sales technique had been tried on us. Yet I had to admit that Morcos' paintings did appear to have something just a little more to them than those we had been viewing the past few days. He was very bold with his white, using the white as some painters would use bright reds or chromatic yellows to focus the attention. I remembered the horse's eyes on the painting in Sewell’s office. The collection of Maher's paintings was very eclectic, everything from western pastorals to seascapes to portraits. There were two security cameras in the office. "I notice that all of these portraits are of Middle East subjects. Is there some significance in his topics?" I asked. "Yes, there is. Morcos was born in the Middle East - he came to America as a child but he is now interested in his roots. He has been quite successful and now has enough income to be able to paint what he likes, if you know what I mean, and his focus has changed to his Egyptian heritage." She

laughed and continued, "It turns out that the demand for his work has increased. The 'Aida' that you saw in the back room is listed at $119,000 and he has an offer on it. Maher wants to keep it for a couple of years in the gallery as part of his display but it may go out soon. I think he and the buyer are making some deal on the number of reproductions that he will make." "What would you get for a reproduction of that painting?" Nancy asked. "We usually ask ten percent, so the prints would go for about $12,000." "Wow!" I said, thinking that Sewell had paid some serious coin for those originals in his office. "Well, it may seem like a lot, but when some of the Maher Morcos paintings are hanging in the White House and in the Palace in Saudi Arabia, you can see the prestige of owning a Morcos original. The 'Gentleman in the Market', the small painting over here by the window, is listed at $29,500. And if you are interested in sculpture, I have this piece here," she said, indicating a rather fine jade work depicting a native on a horse. "I’m impressed," I said, and I really was. "Do you mind if we spend some time looking at the work?" "Not at all. If you find something you like, I’ll be happy to have it wrapped for you." "Oh, we probably won’t take anything tonight," Nancy said. "We’re here on vacation and carrying paintings on aircraft is so much trouble." "Oh we can have a painting delivered anywhere in the States," she volunteered. "We’re from Canada," I said hoping this would excuse us. "Really? I thought from your accent that you might be New Englanders. What part of Canada are you from?" "We live just outside Toronto," Nancy replied. "Well isn’t that interesting. We have a client in Toronto. I forget his name - let me get my book and I’ll see if I can find it." Once again, people think that if you are from a little country like Canada you must know their acquaintances. Our population belies the massive size of our geography. Nancy and I gave each other the knowing glance but continued to look at the paintings as the clerk went through her order book. "Here it is," the clerk announced. "A Mr. Jerry Sewell - do you know him? I’ve never met the man, I’ve just seen his orders in the files." Before Nancy could say anything, I said, "No, I don’t think so. But it’s interesting to think that someone in Toronto has one of these paintings." "Oh, Mr. Sewell has several works. I think he has three originals. They are smaller paintings, but it is a very nice start to a collection. He also has a couple of reproductions that he bought for his board room."

Three originals at the prices the clerk was quoting meant some serious coin. Perhaps our Mr. Sewell was hooked on Morcos. Maybe the bait to get him to surface was here in this store - or directly with Morcos. I would have to get a look at their books. "Really?" I said. "Well, we should be going - we have dinner reservations at the Crab Catcher and we don’t want to be too late." "The Crab Catcher is one of my favourite restaurants in La Jolla. Here, let me give you my card and this booklet on Maher. Perhaps you may change you mind and take something back to Canada with you," she smiled. We thanked her for her hospitality and headed for dinner. I had a grin from ear to ear and Nancy asked why. "I have a feeling that we’re onto something, darling. Jerry Sewell and the Morcos paintings! This may be the connection that we need to find Sewell." I told Nancy about the paintings in the office and the missing ones at Sewell’s apartment. "Just because the guy bought a couple of paintings isn’t much of a connection, Frank. Really, I think you’re dreaming if you think anyone takes those paintings that seriously. They’re good, but not in a collector's class!" Women were just too pragmatic. Of course, it was not much of a clue, but that is how cases are built - the little things, using intuition - something women were supposed to be good at. "Well, they’re not that bad. The artist has a lot of technique and a good sense of how far he can push a colour - especially the whites. And Jerry Sewell did take two of those paintings with him. It’s worth thinking about." Despite what Nancy thought about the paintings, I did like them. The ones on display were perhaps a little gaudy, yet there was some link between the old men sitting at their games board and the ancient ruins in the background. The painting titled the Pharaoh’s Eternal Dance that the clerk had used her lighting trick on was good. Again the connection between the past and present - the stone sculpture showing its age and the young women feigning modesty, wrapped in modern fabrics. Maybe Maher had found his roots. Was Jerry Sewell looking for the same thing or was he investing in a collection that he thought would appreciate? Money and art. Which was Sewell's greater love? I called Robbie Quick on Thursday to inquire if we had any new information but there was nothing. Sewell’s girlfriend was still missing and Robbie was checking the last of the passenger manifests for the week preceding Sewell’s disappearance. We had a meeting scheduled in Pittsburgh with the FBI on Wednesday next at which time we would exchange information with the Americans. They had assigned a five-person team to investigate the affairs of Sewell’s partner, Hogarth Attward. Nancy and I spent the rest of Thursday visiting Balboa Park, seeing only enough to ensure that we would visit again. Perhaps in a couple of years, when the children were older and could enjoy the San Diego Zoo, we would return and spend more time in the Park. Friday we whale-watched aboard the Hornblower, an older harbour tub that seemed to be on horn-tooting acquaintance with every naval boat in the huge San Diego dockyards. We saw three whales that seemed to know the Hornblower and did not mind us taking their pictures. We dined outdoors that night in Old Town, the historic part of San Diego that proudly shows the Spanish heritage of the coast. The tall margaritas, guitar-strumming troubadours and laughter everywhere were a perfect ending to our brief holiday. I was rested and ready to return to work. Our luggage enjoyed the holiday even more than we did as it stayed away for an extra four days. I knew I would soon be back in La Jolla. The best clue we had on Jerry Sewell was his

fondness for Morcos’ paintings.

Chapter 4 Flying into Pittsburgh was as uninviting as our arrival in Toronto three days before. The same cold, damp, drizzly conditions had most of the eastern part of the continent in its grip, yet I had hoped that because Pittsburgh was a little further south, we might not need our winter coats. My fall and spring London Fog trench coat was not warm enough. Robbie had the good sense to wear a wool car coat. It has been my observation that most younger women tend to under-dress for the weather, wearing too little clothing. Older women carry umbrellas at the slightest mention of possible showers, wear ear muffs when the temperature is only low enough to tingle your ears and cover their feet in gear that always expects the worse weather. I mentioned this to Robbie on the flight down but the only accounting for her wardrobe was that she had watched the weather forecast for Pittsburgh. I had not. The Captain said it was a mild 30 degrees in Pittsburgh and it took me a moment to remember that he was not talking Celsius. It was snowing lightly when we landed. The FBI driver was close-lipped and we found out nothing from him other than the Penguins were a better hockey team than the Toronto Maple Leafs. How could I argue with that? Robbie tried to get in a few good words about her hometown Senators but the driver ignored her as being just another woman who thinks she knows something about the games men play. The FBI offices were in a modest six-story building that was well secured with newly installed cement pylons designed to stop car bombers. There were video cameras everywhere and security guards who appeared to take their jobs very seriously as they whispered into each other’s earphones. We were scanned and brushed with a wand in all the appropriate places then escorted to the fourth floor, announced by the receptionist and offered coffee while we waited to meet the American investigators. The coffee was only lukewarm and had that bitter taste of sitting too long on a burner. Americans make terrible tea and this coffee was not much better. I missed my morning cup of Tim Horton's coffee although I was not addicted, as Nancy scolded me about my daily habit. After a twenty minute wait we were delivered to the boardroom. Haram Jarez looked at our identification and compared our photo identification to a scanned photo he had obtained from somewhere. There were five other men in the room and we were introduced around the table, Jarez saying we were from CSIS and were there to help them with their investigation into the security scam that had cost investors hundreds of millions of dollars in the United States. "Mr. Pilger, I wonder if you would mind asking your secretary to leave the room while we go over a few details that will set the scope and relationship of our joint investigation?" "I have no problem with that at all, Mr. Jarez, except that I don't have a secretary with me. If you are mistakenly referring to my partner, Ms Quick, she stays. She, in fact is the CSIS operative, and I am only under contract to CSIS." "Oh. So who is charge - you or Ms Quick?" I did not like this man’s tone of voice whenever he mentioned Robbie's name. "We're partners - you can consider us as equals. Ms Quick has the same security clearance as I - I'm sure you already know that. Any information you have is for both of us. Just as we will share our

information with you and all your team." "Well, that may be the way you Canadians work, but that is not how we work. You will contact me personally with any new information and I will decide what is passed on to my team." "Whatever, you wish, Mr. Jarez. You on the other hand, may feel free to contact either of us." "In that case, I will contact you, Mr. Pilger, not the junior officer." Robbie had had enough of this. "Mr. Jarez, I think we'd better get this straight, once and for all. I am certainly qualified to handle this work. I have degrees in electronics and accounting, three years of prior service with the RCMP - and that was in the field, not in an office, and two years with CSIS. I am an excellent shot with both side arms and rifles and teach black belt karate. So while I am no doubt the youngest person in the room, I suggest that you treat me with the same respect you would any other qualified officer!" Robbie had small anger spots showing on her cheeks, a sign that I would later learn meant it was time to back off or face the consequences. Jarez paused for a moment and then said, "All right. Perhaps you can leave us with a telephone number and I will pass along information to whoever answers the phone. I presume you will have a secure line? @ "Okay, that's no problem for us. How much information are we sharing at today's meeting?@ "I think we can share everything openly as this is a preliminary meeting. I think we both have the same information at this point, in any case." Without waiting for any comment he continued, "we know that Hogarth Attward and Jerry Sewell, along with parties unknown, set up a false company and over a period of three years, removed approximately 2 billion dollars from investors here and in Canada. Both Attward and Sewell have disappeared without trace and their whereabouts are unknown." "You said > parties unknown'- do you have reason to believe that there was a third party involved?" "Yes - and this is the sensitive information I want to remain within these walls for the time being. There is a connection to the Middle East - Saudi Arabia - but we haven't found the name of the parties so far. We are tracking money transfers right now and we will trace the money." "I presume that this third party used an international bank - how will you get access to that information?" Robbie asked. "There are very few international banks that won't cooperate with the FBI when we really want the information. And in this case, we will insist." "Do you have any idea at all where Attward might be?" I asked. "No, nothing yet. We think he used a false passport to leave the country." "Yeah, probably a Canadian one," joked one of the men at the far end of the table. There were snickers around the table from the other Americans. Just because the Israelis had used a Canadian passport instead of an American one for one of their agents said something different to me than it evidently did

to the Americans, but I let it pass for now. "Yes, he may have," Robbie said, almost in a low enough voice that Jarez could not miss. "It would get him into more places than an American passport." "Well," I said, clearing my throat, "How about you people focusing on Attward and we will look for Sewell. We have nothing positive yet, but we are following up on some leads." We passed the next two hours reviewing how we thought the Wardwell scam had worked. The Americans believed that some Saudi Arabian had fronted the operation with enough money to set up the phony software businesses in the Far East and to seed the market by purchasing the original shares. Attward and Sewell had promoted the shares, keeping the portfolios separate from their legitimate work in their respective brokerage houses until they went public with the Wardwell firm. At a planned time, they liquidated everything and disappeared with 2.3 billion dollars of other people's money. Jarez backed off a little and let his team do most of the talking until it came time to sum up the meeting. He dismissed class by saying he had a luncheon appointment with the senior area director and that one of his people, John Withers, the CPA on his team, would take us to lunch. Withers was a decent enough fellow and took us to one of the better restaurants in the downtown area. He told us that Jarez was considered an asshole by most of the people in the district office, and that he had trampled everyone on his way up the ladder, so most people were happy just to let him have his way, hoping that he would soon be transferred to Washington where he would fit in nicely with that crowd of bureaucratic bunglers. I liked Withers’ attitude. I asked him what background they had on Attward. "Hogarth Attward will not be easy to catch. This man has training as a lawyer and as an accountant. He practiced law for ten years before he got into the brokerage business and from what records we did find in his office, he was very, very thorough. There was nothing anywhere to suggest anything illegal in his operations. All the money was openly moved around in some different bank accounts and held in trust as it should have been. Until the last month, then the money and the trails just disappear. The Saudi connection was through the Saudi Bank, but don't tell Jarez where you got this information. I think it was a member of the royal family." "Whoa - no wonder this whole operation was slow to get off the ground. Robbie, do you think anyone in Ottawa knew about this connection?" I asked. "I wonder . . . Buddy Olsen did seem to know more than he was telling me. I sensed he was holding back. I wonder if he had been told to . . ." she mused. "You know, I got the same impression when we first started this case. There seemed to be some reluctance by Jarez's boss. Maybe the Saudis are too important an ally to go after." "Yes, that would make sense. I can see that for you Americans, but what does Canada have to lose?" I asked. "Oil, the same as the Americans," Robbie said. It was true, we did import some light crude from Saudi Arabia. And Uncle Sam may have whispered something in the Primer Minister’s ear. Now I was beginning to question why Buddy had called Pilger and Associates - was it because this was too

politically hot for his office to handle? Was that why he has sent young Robbie to work with me? "John, where did the pressure come from to get this case moving here in the States?" "Well, as far as I can tell, from a small Savings and Loan company in Georgia. Seems one of our fine Senators lost some money and won't keep quiet about it. Maybe he knows something. I will check on him and see if he does know more than he is telling the media." "Let me know what you find out. It was a small pension plan in Canada that got this going back home not any one of the big banks - and I know the banks lost a bundle." Withers and I exchanged telephone numbers when he dropped us off at the airport. He said to use his cell phone number between 7:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. on weekdays as that was the time he was on the road commuting to work. It was harder for anyone to eavesdrop, he said. Air Canada was right on time for a change leaving Pittsburgh and its damp drizzle behind us. I was chilled from the walk into the terminal so I ordered a scotch from the cabin steward. Robbie joined me and we chatted about our backgrounds and family life. I wanted to find out more about my new partner and I told her that I was surprised to hear she had field experience with the RCMP. She laughed, "Yes, I had three interesting years with them. I spent my first year in the Edmonton recruiting office and the next two years on the Musical Ride!" "You’re kidding! You actually rode a horse for two years?" "Yes. When I told that asshole Jarez that I had two years of field experience, I wasn’t lying! I was raised on a farm in Saskatchewan and rode quite a lot. But I could see that I was not going to go far with the RCMP - they still weren’t totally enlightened about female officers in my opinion. So when CSIS came along with an offer, I took it." "So all that about being such a good shot and teaching karate was just to put that jerk Jarez in his place?" "No, Frank - that part is absolutely true. I can shoot. I topped my class every time. And I am a black belt." "Well, I doubt that we’ll have to resort to guns on this case." "But if we have to, don’t worry about me. You can handle a gun, I presume?" "Yes," I said and left it at that. I did not like to talk about one of the last times I had fired a gun. It is never easy to get over killing anyone and I did not want to open up any old memories - especially memories that had a pretty young face, not unlike the beautiful young lady sitting beside me. The flaps growled down as the power came off the engines. I tossed back the last of my second scotch and tightened the seat belt as we made our approach to Lester Pearson International. It was still snowing in Toronto.

Chapter 5 Spring arrived in the Toronto area on Saturday morning. Under clear skies, a south-westerly wind wound through the city and suburbs, sublimating the skiff of snow that had fallen the previous day. By noon, tee shirts replaced jackets and by late day, joggers were in their shorts. The robins that had arrived a couple of weeks earlier, finally began their singing and nest-building sites were being inspected by the female birds as the males worked like real estate agents, pushing the fixer-up locations. A small flock of starlings was doing a clean up on the front lawn, getting the first bugs that were slowly coming out of a long winter's sleep. Nancy was in the backyard, poking around her daffodils and tulips, trying to encourage them to open their buds. Marisa had me up in the crawl space over the garage looking for the swing set so she and Justin could have their long-awaited first ride of the year. The whole community was coming alive with the assurance that this was the real spring and summer was not far behind. Spring is the shortest season here in the upper latitudes, sometimes only lasting three weeks before it turns into glorious summer. Someone down the street even had a lawnmower sputtering to life but it sounded as if it needed a new spark plug. My cell phone rang and I squirmed around to reach my belt clip, knocking over a can of miscellaneous nuts, bolts and washers. The lid came off and pieces of threaded metal rolled across the boards and down through the cracks, bouncing off my car hood below. "Hello," said, perhaps a little brusquely. "Hi, Frank, It's Scotty. Did I catch you at a bad time?" "No, Felix and I are up in the crawl space above the garage on my hands and knees, upsetting things and having a great time. What's up?" Felix was pushing the remaining nuts through the cracks, listening to them ping off the roof of my car. "Sorry - nothing - I just wanted to check to see if you needed the system tomorrow. I want to cut over to the new server and it will likely take me four or five hours." "No, I won't be in tomorrow. Did you check with Philip?" "Yeah, no one from his side will be working. Uh, is it okay if Robbie comes in to watch? She seems pretty interested in computers and I thought I could show her how the new server will work." "Sure, I can't see any problem with that. I thought she was going to Ottawa this weekend." I said. "I guess she changed her mind. She said she wanted to go to the electronics trade show this afternoon so I'm going with her. There's supposed to be some new stuff on cellular phones that we should check out. I’ll see you Monday." As I picked up the screw nails, nuts and bolts, I wondered if Scotty and Robbie were going to be a number. Scotty never had time for women before as far as I knew - the computers were his only interest, it seemed. It might do him a world of good to open his eyes and find out what the rest of us considered a life. Scotty did not fit the stereotype of a computer geek - he was over six feet tall, muscular and sported a short brush cut. He did not consume gallons of coffee but was never far from his plastic bottle of Pepsi. I once noticed a squash racquet in the back seat of his Dodge pickup truck, but he never left early for squash games so I did not know how often he played. He always seemed to

be at work, which was good for me, but maybe not for him. I did not know much about Robbie Quick's private life but somehow she did not strike me as being so wrapped up in her job that she would not have the time for a boyfriend. It was spring and maybe that is all it was. The cellular telephone security problem was one that we had been focusing on recently. As part of our Forensic Security services we often advised our clients on how to keep their information out of the hands of their competitors. Telephone eavesdropping was a concern and we had been watching the development of scanners that could be used to listen in on cellular calls. As fast as the scanners were coming onto the market, the telecommunication companies were building in scramblers to thwart the scanners. Our job was to keep up with both sides of the competition. This reminded me of the comments of the FBI agent who used his moving car to add security to his cellular conversations. Scanners have a limited range and it would be difficult to monitor a moving car. Unless one had a bug on the car. Of course, an FBI employee would have his vehicle routinely checked for bugs. If I were trying to listen in on a cellular call, I would try to bug the telephone. It would have to be a very compact device because of the size of cell phones. I would ask Robbie what CSIS had available for this kind of eavesdropping. On Monday, a Len MacDonald arrived at my office without an appointment. MacDonald was the owner of CanPak, a supplier of packaging and shipping products whose warehouse was just off Lakeshore Drive. Len was a member of the bowling league, and although I had never talked to him, I did recognize him. He was a big, heavy man who looked like he would not be able to reach down to pick up a bowling ball if it were not on the raised return rack. But he could bowl. He said that he had talked to Stu Carlson about a problem he had at work and Stu had sent him to me. MacDonald thought that he was losing money due to fraud or theft at his plant but his own auditors had been unable to find anything unusual. Could Pilger and Associates do a forensic audit? He said > forensic audit'as if the term was new to him - perhaps a term Stu had used. "Yes, we can do an audit for you, Mr. MacDonald. I’ll have to check our schedule, but I think Al and Julie should be free in about a week or ten days. In the meantime, could you get your auditor to give us their working papers for the past 5 years? Do not mention anything to anyone on your staff, not even your most trusted employee. Al Rogers and Julie Cantin will arrive at your plant on a Friday evening to do a surprise inventory. Al will likely drop around a couple of days before, saying he is an insurance man. You can give him a complete tour of your operations at that time. I’ll leave it to Al to decide what has to be done on the following Monday. He may want to shut you down for one day - it depends on what patterns we find from your auditor's working papers." "What do you mean patterns?" he asked. "We have a special computer program that we run that will develop a profile of your business. It will find any areas of variance from the normal operations of your business or from a business similar to yours. We have a large database of many kinds of businesses and the computer should be able to tell us whether your business has any costs that are slightly out of line. We then focus on those areas and normally we can find out what is different in your operation as compared to others. Sometimes it is just a management thing, other times we find leaks where money is being drained off." "You mean like someone writing unauthorized cheques?" "That's one way, but falsified sales figures or inventory theft are others. Is there anyone in your

operation who you have any doubts about?" "No, really I don't. Maybe there's nothing wrong at all, but I'm not making the money I was two years ago even though my sales have increased." I discussed our fee and he seemed satisfied that the audit would be worth the expense. Besides, he could always write it off as an expense on his taxes. I introduced him to Al and Julie who were both working in the office that day. I wanted to get back to my Wardwell case, so I excused myself and got back to serious work. Not that the forensic audits were not important - they were the mainstay of our division. They just were not as much fun as working for Buddy. On Tuesday we got our first break in our search for Judy O'Hare, Sewell's girl friend. O'Hare's passport was turned in at the Canadian consulate office in Hamilton, Bermuda. The passport had not been reported as lost, something that would have happened if Judy O'Hare had wanted to use the passport to gain re-entry to Canada. Robbie had CSIS check with British Customs and Immigration on Bermuda to see if O'Hare ever registered as a guest or if there were any control records showing she had left the island. I asked Robbie to check for Sewell's passport number as well, but I had little hope that we would find anything. Customs and Immigration did not record every passport, only those they selected on random inspections. Thursday we had a little more luck in that officials in Bermuda had recorded Sewell's passport on an inbound flight from New York. There was no record of him leaving the island but I knew that they were no longer there. Islands are great places to change identities as out-going visitors are not checked. But islands can also be a problem for those who wish to keep their identity a secret because islands have a limited number of hotels, restaurants and car rental agencies. It was worth checking out, so I booked a flight to Bermuda for the next day, with a return flight scheduled for Sunday, but open in case I had to stay longer. I packed my golf clubs on the off chance that if I finished my work sooner than expected, I could get in a round on Bermuda's fine courses that are populated with pink sand traps. I asked Robbie to get on the Internet and start looking for anyone who had anything to do with Maher Morcos - collectors, critics, shows - anything that could possibly connect us to Sewell. She seemed dubious of this effort but there was little else to do until we heard from the Americans or I found something in Bermuda. The pink sand beaches of Bermuda flashed under the wings of the Boeing 737 as we landed at Hamilton, the island's only airstrip. I was soon in the Customs office, telling my story to Chief Inspector Wallis. He was happy to help and we soon tracked Judy O'Hare to the Constellation Hotel. Wallis rang the hotel's manager and asked them to cooperate fully with me. The manager had his staff prepare a list of all Canadians who stayed at the hotel for the weeks following Miss O'Hare's arrival on February 24. A list of all telephone calls from her room would be available the next morning. I had no assurance that Sewell would be travelling alone but all other Canadian guests were couples or families so I assumed that Sewell had booked a different hotel. The only hope I had was that Judy O'Hare had called him. Over a shrimp dinner that night I tried to broaden the scope of my thinking on the case and I wondered if the American, Attward had come to Bermuda as well. I would have Chief Inspector Wallis look for that name also. Attward and Sewell would have to keep in touch with each other in case someone got on their trail. There might not be much loyalty between thieves but these guys were stockbrokers - maybe they had a different code. Somehow, I doubted it. Stockbrokers were at about the same level of the food chain as dentists in my opinion. After trying the local television, I pulled out the book Nancy had packed for me - a copy of MacDonald's Bright Orange for the Shroud and escaped into the wondrous world of Travis McGee. The tropical setting here in Bermuda could have been an anchorage for Travis and his houseboat, the Busted

Flush. I wondered how Travis would have worked on the case of the missing stockbroker. The author, MacDonald, would have to come with his trademark title, a special colour, for the world of stocks and bonds. Perhaps ‘The Missing Blue Chips’ or ‘The Quicksilver Traders’. I fell asleep with the light on. I was having breakfast on the terrace, enjoying the soft breeze blowing in off the Atlantic when the hotel manager joined me. He had the list of telephone calls. All calls were to the tennis courts except two to the Bermuda Hilton on March 1. Judy O'Hare had checked out on March 4. The desk clerk thought she remembered Miss O'Hare had called from the desk phone to verify a flight to New York on American Airlines. I left word that I could be contacted at the Hilton and hired a cabbie for the short trip across town. Using Wallis'name, I soon had the day manager at the Hilton checking records for the first three days of March. One single male Canadian had booked in on March 1st - a Mr Jerry Steward who had stayed for three days. It never fails to amaze me how often amateurs who are using fake identification will use their first name and a last name that sounds like their own. I guess they are afraid of not answering their name if someone calls out to them. Of course, the masters of the changed identity spend enough time creating an alter ego that they would never use similar names, but Sewell and Attward were novices. I corrected that thought when I remembered that these two had ripped off over two billion dollars. Maybe they were smarter than I was giving them credit. Steward could be a temporary name used just to get in and out of Bermuda. Or was it a clever pun on how well he had looked after other people's money? There were three long distance calls charged to Steward’s room. One call to Switzerland, one to the Grand Caymans and one to Saudi Arabia. I had photocopies made of the call charges, but one number I knew. It was the number of the First National Bank in the Caymans - the same bank my father used for his offshore investments. I spent the rest of the day checking out rental agencies but came up with nothing. Wallis could offer no more help other than fifteen single male Americans had arrived between February 28 and March 2. None of the ones checked by immigration had the name Attward or anything similar. Sunday morning I had my game of golf, finding out that the pink sand traps were just as hard to escape as the white ones back home. On the flight back to Kennedy in New York I reviewed what evidence we had so far. It was sparse at best. That passport turning up had shown how well they had planned this swindle. Was the passport a break in their luck? Or was it a red herring? I realized that we knew nothing of where the passport had been found. It might make a difference. I would call Wallis in the morning. I was back in Toronto by 9.00 p.m. and home just south of Newmarket an hour later.

Chapter 6 I called Haram Jarez in Pittsburgh on Monday afternoon and gave him what little information I had picked up in Bermuda. He said he would check out the telephone numbers in Switzerland, the Grand Caymans and Saudi Arabia. Robbie was already on that chore and she had found some of the answers before I could tell her that the Americans were going to do the checking. From the Internet she had discovered that Morcos had a customer list of the more noted collectors of his art. One name stood out King Khalid of Saudi Arabia. It was a stretch at this time, but if Sewell and Khalid had an interest in the works of Maher Morcos, perhaps they had something else in common. Robbie had printed out the samples of Morcos'work for me and the range of work was much more extensive than Nancy and I had seen in La Jolla. Morcos seemed to be into a female body phase and I wondered if this would appeal to a Saudi whose culture publicly frowned on such displays of feminine pulchritude. Whatever had attracted the King to the art, I now thought that we should find out more about Morcos'customers. It

looked like that might be our only lead to Sewell - or whatever he was calling himself now. Air Canada had also come through with a listing of the travels of Jerry Sewell. There was nothing within the past six months but this was no surprise to me. I asked Robbie to have Air Canada and Canadian Airlines to check the prior year for Jerry Steward because I was convinced Sewell had at least one other passport. Two years ago, Jerry Steward had traveled to the Grand Caymans. That is one thing about the offshore banks in the Grand Caymans. They insist that you visit their fair land when you open an account. Perhaps Philip could find out more about Sewell's account through his connections at the Bank. It was worth a try, so I headed to his office, telling Robbie to start getting ready for a trip to La Jolla. Philip's door was open so I walked in and sat in the chair across from his desk. "Good morning, Dad," I said. He did not glance up from the letter he was about to sign. "I don't suppose it even crossed your mind to invite me to go golfing with you in Bermuda, did it?" Somehow, our conversations always start off this way - one of us accusing the other of some petty thing. Why couldn’t he just say ‘good morning’ first? "It was a business trip - the Attward job. And I thought you and Mary were going to the theatre on Saturday. Besides, there were too many sand traps for your game." "Hummph," he muttered as he signed the letter. "What course did you play?" "The Royal George - I shot a 79." "Not bad. I like that course. The best I ever shot there was a 77." I knew his best score would be better than mine no matter what I said. Philip's game had slowed a little in the past year or two but he and I had the same handicap. We were very competitive when we played together. If we could get along a little better, I am certain we could win the Father and Son tournament at the Country Club, but neither of us could play a whole game without telling the other what was wrong with the swing on the one shot that was not quite perfect. Maybe one of us would start mellowing some day soon. Somehow, I thought it would be me, not Philip. "Dad, I believe Jerry Sewell has an account in The Caymans - at your bank. Is there anyway you could confirm that? Maybe even get an idea of how much money is in the account?" "It's possible. Will it be in his name or in a numbered account?" "I'm not sure. Check his name first. These guys planned very carefully, but sooner or later one of them is going to have to brag about his success. Maybe he would use his own name. I think he is living under an alias - wherever he is now, but yes, try his own name. Jerry Steward might also be a possibility." "Okay. I’ll check it out. Mary and I are going down for a long weekend this coming Friday. I’ll let you know on Tuesday what I was able to discover." "I’ll be in La Jolla for the next couple of weeks - leave me an Email message – I’ll check the mail

every day." Philip's telephone rang and he picked it up. I rose to leave, but he held up his hand. "It’s for you - from Bermuda." It was Wallis, the Customs official. Judy O'Hare's passport had been found on the beach. And there was more news from Bermuda. Police had recovered the body of a female. The body was badly decomposed from the seawater and the little fishes had lunched on the cadaver, but the physical measurements, one remaining eye and hair colour matched Judy O'Hare. Wallis went on to explain that the ocean currents were different this year because of El Nino and Bermuda was getting a lot of garbage washed ashore - garbage that used to disappear over the horizon. There were no outstanding missing persons on file with the Bermuda police. They were waiting for dental records from the Toronto police but Wallis thought the body matched the passport description. Death by gunshot. I slowly replaced the receiver. "What's wrong?" Philip asked. "The investigation has just changed. We now have a murderer to deal with - not just a very good fraud artist. The girl that Jerry Sewell was seeing has been found in Bermuda. She was shot in the head and dumped in the ocean. If it weren’t for the El Nino effect, the ocean currents would have washed the body out to sea, but things have been washing back to shore lately." "You had better tell your friend Buddy. He may want to take the case back now that it has murder added to it." "Knowing Buddy, he’ll just tell us to be careful. Maybe the FBI will put more resources into the investigation now. We don't know who committed the murder - maybe it was the American." "Or both of them," my father added. I called Haram in Pittsburgh to bring him up to date. He had nothing new on the Arabian connection and nothing on the whereabouts of Attward. I didn’t tell him that we were going to the United States to follow up on what I thought was our best lead, but promised myself that I would advise him as soon as I had a definite clue. Scotty was drinking a Pepsi and munching on a stale donut by himself in the coffee room so I interrupted his reading of a trade journal, inquiring how his weekend went with the upgrade. He ignored my question and pointed to the article he was reading. "Frank, this is interesting. Did you know that the Internet Service Providers are required to disclose personal Email to a Federal Jurisdiction in case of a criminal investigation in the States?" "Why only a Service Provider? Why not anyone?" "No, you miss the point. You see, the ISP has backups of all their data - in case of hardware failure and the US courts have determined that the Email on their files does not belong to the individual. It is the property of the ISP - therefore there is no chance of incriminating yourself." "So even though I write something on Email, I don't own it?"

"That's what the courts in the States said." I wondered how long it would be before that ruling was appealed. If I did not own something I wrote, or perhaps the person to whom I addressed it owned it there was no way it belonged in the public domain - or to some third party who happened to have copied it? Criminal case or not, it sounded like self-incrimination. Their 5th Amendment should take care of that ruling. We Canadians might stand for that ruling with a little grumbling, but I could not see the Americans letting this ruling stand. "And you said the ISP's have backups - how long would they keep this data?" "Well, not too long, I suppose. They would have to know if the mail had been delivered before they erased it. Or they might not erase it until they needed the media - whether it be the hard drives or tapes. Interesting ruling, don't you think?" Scotty asked. "Scotty - could you find out who the ISP was for Sewell? Would there be any records on his hard drive by any chance?" "Yes, there could be something there. Robbie said she had looked at the directories on his computer and there were none . . . holy smokes, I wonder . . . Frank, do you still have that computer?" "Yes, as far as I know, it's in his office. Why?" "Well, there are two ways to clean a drive. One way, the obvious way, doesn’t really take the data off the drive, it just allows you to overwrite it. There may be something on that drive that I can recover." "Okay, I’ll get the computer for you. And I’m going to ask the FBI to check on Attward’s Internet service as well Maybe the Department of Justice didn’t tell the FBI about the new ruling." I called Haram for the second time that day but this time he was a little friendlier. It was after lunch and I suspected he had had a couple of barley sandwiches. He did not know about the Internet mail ruling and said he would get someone on it right away. The rest of the afternoon I spent with Robbie, telling her that I wanted us to set up as a front for a Security Company. We would need all the equipment to fake an office from our hotel room, covering identification and letters of recommendation from firms that sounded real. I told her not to try to hide the fact that we were Canadian, in fact I wanted to use our own names and Pilger & Associates as our parent company. If we did find Sewell and he checked on us, I wanted him to find some easy and correct answers. I wanted some scanning equipment so we could bug or eavesdrop on Sewell if we did find him. And something electronic that we could use to gain his confidence - a scrambler might be a thought. She said she would take care of everything.

Chapter 7 The clear blue skies over the desert changed to Los Angles'industrial hue of grey-orange as we descended into the warm coastal air of California. US Customs paid no attention to the five large bags we brought into their country although the redcap pocketed the ten dollars I passed him with a thankyou nod that said > man, those are heavy bags and the ten is just enough'. I could not imagine what Robbie had packed for our planned 10 to 14 day visit, but I had given up long ago trying to understand how or what women packed. I had two suits, a light sports coat and matching slacks and enough

accessories for exactly two weeks. I was maybe one tie short, but I liked shopping for ties and would find time to purchase one sometime during our visit to San Diego. A yellow cab dropped us off at the Canadian Trade Mission where we signed for an assortment of packages that Robbie had ordered for us. I glanced at the list but soon lost interest in diodes, transceivers, microphones, tape recorders and computers with fax machines and printers. All these goods were packed into a big white GMC van that had ‘True North Security’ painted on the side doors. Our final act at the Trade Mission was to sign for a pair of guns. I had protested that we did not need firearms but as Robbie pointed out, we did not know if Sewell was a killer and it was better to err on the side of being over-prepared than going into a situation without the resources needed for control. The guns were properly registered to True North Security. If anyone traced the registration, it would end up at the desk of the RCMP officer who was now closing his briefcase and telling us to be careful. One gun was my favourite 9 mm SIG Sauer P226, a gun I had used just a few times. The other was a small Berretta .380. "I checked with your OPP friend Stu Carlson and he assured me that you would like the 9 mm," Robbie said as she dropped the smaller gun into her purse. "How did you get Stu’s name?" I asked. "It was in your file. Besides, Nancy said you two were best friends, so I had no problem getting his number. He said this would be your gun of choice. Was he right?" "Yeah, I suppose so," I said, somewhat grumpily. What else had Nancy told Robbie about me? Women. There is no loyalty and no privacy when they start talking about their men. I had thought it bad enough when Nancy and Mary were talking about my father and me, comparing us in what I thought were just a little too personal terms. So we leave a strong smell behind us in the bathroom - that was just part of our animal heritage of marking territory – it’s not our fault. It is the same with our snoring, although I was sure I did not snore as loudly as Philip. Dad snorts a lot when he sleeps. Snorts punctuated with a blowing throw loose lips that sounds like a two-cylinder engine at idle. The friendly folks at The Cove Suites were all apologies that they could not get the three adjoining rooms we had asked for a week earlier. One room had experienced a broken water line and caused so much damage that the room had to be completely renovated. Instead, the manager had booked us into one of the family suites that are separate from the main building. They are just above the pool, looking out over the hotel roof to the ocean. Nancy and I had promised ourselves that we would bring the kids next time we visited La Jolla and we would stay in one of these family suites. I had not expected to share a family suite with a beautiful young woman who was not my wife. We looked over the proposed accommodations and Robbie declared them just what we needed. I was going to suggest looking for another location but I did not want to sound prudish so I acquiesced. There were three bedrooms, a large sitting room, a kitchenette and one full bathroom. The sitting room opened onto the balcony where potted geraniums gave the setting an almost Swiss chalet look. We spent the rest of the afternoon setting up the computers, fax and file boxes that gave the place the appearance of a temporary office in case anyone came snooping. The manager said we would have a private telephone line installed in the morning and gave us the number that AT&T had selected for us. Robbie soon had the printer humming and producing business cards with our address and telephone / fax number neatly inscribed on the bottom of the coloured card stock. I was a Vice President of True

North Security, ‘Confidential Safety and Security’, while Robbie was a Security Technician. Robbie announced that she was going for a run and swim before dinner so I finally got around to unpacking my suitcases while she was out of the suite. I found a present under my suit - a package neatly wrapped in Winnie the Pooh paper - from Marisa and Justin. It was a West Coast Petersen's bird book! The sticker inside said the book had been purchased in La Jolla's Captain John's Bookstore. Nancy had bought the book when we were here last month, knowing that I was having a hard time identifying the local birds. I finished my unpacking, poured myself a generous portion of Cardhu scotch whiskey, then sat on the balcony, smoking my pipe and reading my bird book until Robbie returned from her run. I had already spotted a pair of Ross gulls, likely on their way north to Alaska or Siberia. Monday morning we visited the local Sheriff's office to let them know we were in town; that we were doing a joint investigation with the FBI; that we were carrying registered firearms and where we were staying. The only advice the Sheriff had was not to fire our guns. I had had some experience with the red tape involved with discharging a gun and knew whereof he spoke. The next stop was to visit the gallery that featured the works of Maher Morcos. We split up, Robbie entering the store a few minutes after I had attracted the sales clerk's attention. The shop was split into four rooms and I wanted to find out what security there was in each room. By keeping the clerk moving around, we had time to inspect the shop from floor to ceiling. The filing cabinets had only standard locks that would be easy to pick. I had no interest in the vault and it appeared to be of the best quality. The doorways all had infrared beam protection and there were two motion detectors covering the display areas. The windows were wired for breakage in case someone was foolish enough to try to gain entry that way. There were no small windows or air conditioners to give access, so the only way in was through the mall door. The master control for the security was a simple keypad connected to an ACME monitoring box. It was not going to be easy to get into that office. "What do you think, Robbie?" I asked as we retired to our True North Security van. "I’ve got the model number on that ACME - let me make a call." She dialed her cell phone to a 613 area code, spoke briefly to a person called Sam in Ottawa. "Okay, I need about two minutes to jumper the wiring on the back of that box. When the clerk flips the switch, nothing will happen. There's a two minute delay on the system, allowing the person to get into the office and reset the switch each morning, so we can remove the jumper when we leave and tomorrow things will be back to normal. All you have to do is get me two minutes alone with that box behind the air conditioner." "I guess I'm going to have to make a purchase and somehow distract that young lady. Let us try to get there about twenty minutes before closing time. We can pretend to recognize each other from this morning and I’ll put her at ease by turning on the charm," I said, demonstrating to Robbie my best Cheshire cat grin. "That should distract her all right, Frank," she said, grimacing at my effort. "Let's find a Radio Shack store so I can get a few jumpers and a pair of cable cutters." "Okay, but there's no hurry. I want to case the area around the shop this afternoon and tonight. We’ll have to get a pattern of police patrols so we’ll have escape routes if something goes wrong. We’ll also have to get into the mini mall itself after the cleaning staff leave and I'm not sure how easy that is going

to be. I expect it will be Thursday night at the earliest before we can move." "Is there anything else we can do while we are waiting?" "Yes, I’m going to try directory service for names like Sewell or Steward, just in case he is in this area. Who knows, he may have decided he wanted to stay around here. He likes the artist, there are numerous aquarium services and native fishes, and there is surfing. It is probably a waste of time, but there is not much we can do until we get a look at those sales records." "Okay, I’ll snoop around the little mall and see if I can find a way in for us. Besides, there is a sale at the Ladies'Boutique that I want to check out," Robbie said. Why is it that women cannot resist a sale, even if they don't need anything, while men always wait until the sale is over before we realize we needed just what was on sale? By Thursday night, we were ready to go to work. Until now, our stay seemed more like a holiday than work, but there was little we could do until we saw the sales records. Robbie did her homework and we gained entry through the Ladies Boutique change room. Thursday morning I had purchased a couple of prints and distracted the clerk long enough for Robbie to get into the back room and disarm the security system. A tour bus conveniently deposited a load of keen shoppers on Prospect Street right in front of the mall and a number of them added to the hubbub in the Eagle Arts gallery. I ended up explaining the works of Maher Morcos to a couple from Germany who bought an original for $2,800. The young woman who managed the shop was so impressed that she gave me a poster; retail value $29.99, for my assistance. Robbie easily opened the steel file cabinets for me and I soon found the sales records for the past five years. The Morcos sales invoice copies were separated from the other sales and this made it very easy. I soon found that there was a customer code buried in the customer number and Jerry Sewell was CN23. King Khalid of Saudi Arabia was SAU5. I noted that there were two other SAU accounts, numbers 8 and 11 and wrote the names and addresses in my notebook. "Bingo!" I said as I found a recent entry for CN23. The sale was made three weeks ago. The new address was right here in La Jolla - 23 Torrey Canyon Drive. Jerry had purchased ‘The Pharaoh's Niece’ for $124,500. I noted the titles and dates of the Saudi purchases just in case one of these collectors was the partner in the fraud. We closed everything, removed the jumper cable from the alarm and exited through the change room in the Boutique. We removed our surgical gloves that we had worn so we would not leave fingerprints on the off chance that anyone noticed our illegal presence. The gloves went into the packsack with Robbie's tools. Back at our suite, I poured us both a drink of Cardhu to celebrate our success. It was a good feeling to have guessed correctly about the Morcos connection. It would be a simple matter to arrest Sewell and have him extradited to Canada and Robbie thought she should get the paperwork started in the morning. "Hold on, Robbie," I said, pouring us a second drink. "We want to get that money back - all of it. Sewell has only a small share, if I know anything about this kind of fraud. His American partner will have a share, but the person who bank-rolled this whole scam will have the lioness'share." "And if that is a Saudi national, we’ll have to turn this over to the FBI and my bosses. We’ve done our part." "You mean you want to drop this into someone else's lap? Well I don't. I'm working on a percentage

and the more I recover, the more I earn for Pilger and Associates." "Nobody told me that you were on commission. I thought you were on a straight contract with CSIS," she said. "If I worked for Buddy on a salary, he couldn’t afford me. No, we have a recovery fee of one-half percent of the amount recovered on top of billed time. One-half percent of one hundred million dollars is worth a lot to me. No, Robbie, we're still in business." "You're sure Buddy knows about this? I mean, maybe he’ll want me back in Ottawa - leave you on your own to recover any money. I think all he's interested in is catching the thieves." "Well, Robbie, we haven't caught them yet. The recovery of that money will go a long way towards helping some investors recuperate their losses. Buddy knows the political side of this operation and he will want you to stay on. There's no gain for him if it looks as if a contracted firm has done this on its own! Besides, Robbie, would you rather be back in Ottawa, wading around in the snow, or here in La Jolla, running along the beach each morning?" "Pour me another scotch, Frank. Here's to La Jolla!"

Chapter 8 Nancy called at 8:15 a.m. the next morning with the good news that Dad had found an account in the Caymans under the name of J. Steward. He did not know how much money was in the account but his source said the account had been opened three years ago for a client who gave a Toronto address. The children were well and Nancy said she missed me. I lied about the weather being cool and foggy, a prevarication that changed the weather that very day to foggy mornings that were to last for the next four days. By the time Robbie came in from her morning run, I knew how I wanted to proceed against Sewell, or Steward, as he was now known. Over breakfast on the rooftop restaurant, I told her that I wanted to tap Sewell's cell phone, bug his computer and steal the best Morcos painting in his house. I wanted Sewell to hire True North Security to correct these deficiencies in his security. By gaining his confidence, I hoped to find out who his partners were, where they were and how to get the money back. In addition, if he were a murderer, bring him to justice in Bermuda. "Okay, Frank, I can work on the technical end of how to tap the telephone line and the cell phone, but it would be a lot easier if we could get into Sewell's house without having to worry about a security system. He is sure to have one - everyone out here has a sign on their house saying it's protected. > Armed Response'scares me more than a little." "Yeah. I wonder . . . I think I’ll call Jarez and see if we can get some FBI help to smooth the way with any security company that Sewell has retained." "Why don't you ask him for that Withers fellow - the one who took us to lunch in Pittsburgh? He

seemed like a good man to me." "You’re right, I liked him too. All right, I’ll call Jarez and see what he will do for us." I was afraid that Jarez would want to take over our investigation since we were operating on US soil, but he seemed satisfied to let us keep control for now. He readily agreed to send Withers out to help us - I found out later that Withers had to cancel his planned vacation because of this. Jarez disliked John Withers and was doing everything in his power to force Withers into early retirement. "Frank, how are you going to bug his computer? If he uses the Internet to contact his partner, we will never know what he's doing," Robbie said. "Yes, that is a problem. I wonder if the Internet Service Provider keeps track of his messages." "I guess they must have a log of the addresses, but that may not do us much good." "Why not?" I asked. "Well, what happens now is that people who spam change their addresses so you can't return the mail. The ISP wouldn’t give out addresses in case we were spammers." I should make more of an effort to keep up with the computer jargon but I rely on Scotty to keep me posted on what I should know. "Spam?" I asked. "Yeah, Spam - that's what we call junk mail on the net. Spammers can buy mailing lists from people who make it a point to gather Email addresses on the net." She saw my next question coming and continued, "They're just like hackers - on the net snooping around for places that don't have a firewall, home pages that have employee's Email addresses posted. It is not hard to do. In fact, some businesses even ask if they can use your address for mailing lists. It's surprising how many people think they just want to receive some innocent electronic mail - and end up getting spammed! These people then sell the lists to mass marketers and these mass marketers find open file servers to send their mail. People can find their server busy when they are not even on it. Someone has broken in and forwarded the spam mail with instructions to mail it out at night." "So someone could use our system as a > mailbox'and we would not even know it?" "I doubt if Scotty has left your system open!" "Yeah, I suppose this is all old hat to you two." "My guess is that Sewell is smart enough to not be caught using the net. However, I wonder if we can trick him into using it. If he is a little unsure of the cell phone, he may be open to suggestions," Robbie mused. When I returned from refilling my coffee mug, Robbie was talking to Scotty on the phone. Something about encryption. At least I knew about encryption. Robbie said ‘Enigma?’ and I nodded my head so she did not press Scotty for an explanation. Apparently, Scotty was going to send her a file so we could run the Enigma program on Sewell's computer. It was something we had used once before on case

involving tax evasion. I should have remembered it myself. Robbie hung up the phone and immediately asked, "What is Enigma?" "Well, it gets its name from the German coding machine in the Second World War. The Enigma machine changed its code structure on a seemingly random method that the allies could not break. Fortunately, an Enigma machine was captured from a sub before it could be destroyed. The secret was soon broken and the British intercepted the German High Commands'orders for a long time before the Germans realized the code had been broken. Scotty is a World War II buff so we use the Enigma name on our encryption software." "Okay, so you have an encryption system. What good does that do us?" "Well, as best as I can describe it - and you probably will understand it immediately - Scotty has a line of code in the encryption software that sends a copy of the message to his Email without the sender being aware of it." "You mean if I send an encrypted message no one would know that you got a copy of it?" "Yes, exactly. I don't know how he did it, but it works." "Wow. Does CSIS know about this?" "No! And don't you mention it either. This is Pilger and Associates'secret weapon." Robbie was learning too much about our operation. I was going to have to find something or some way to keep her quiet when this operation was over. "So you have to convince Sewell to put this on his machine?" "Yes, I think I can do that. Make me a couple of disks when Scotty sends us the file." Robbie checked the Email and was soon downloading the Enigma files. Robbie and I planned to appear to work the neighbourhood, going door to door, trying to sell our upgraded security system to people who were already mired in a fortress mentality over their earthly goods. I wanted Sewell to get used to seeing that big white GMC van. Robbie had a sophisticated scanner that she kept focused on Sewell's house no matter where we were on the block. It took her two days to put a tag on the frequency and only succeeded then after we sent three pizzas to his house so Sewell would get angry and use his telephone to blast some poor clerk at Pizza Pizza. We placed a tracking bug on Sewell's dark green BMW so we could follow him without being seen. The white van was not as conspicuous as one might think since so many companies used the white delivery trucks along the warm California coast. But after three days we used the rental car that John had hired just to be on the safe side. John Withers knew his way around. He was between 55 and 60 and had over thirty years with the FBI. He soon had a piece of equipment from the San Diego office that would allow us to bug Sewell's cell phone if we could get our hands on it for a few minutes. He talked to the SafeGuard Security about cooperating with the FBI and we no longer had to worry about the alarm at Sewell's so long as we

contacted SafeGuard before we entered the house. We had watched Sewell long enough to establish some of his daily patterns. He ran on the beach every morning at 6:00 a.m., towards the Cripp's dock, so Robbie planned to meet him there and see if she could distract him. Sewell appeared to live alone in the rambling house set on the ocean view side of Torrey Canyon Drive. Friday morning at 6:00 a.m. sharp, John and I entered Sewell's house as we saw his receding form jogging down the street towards the beach. We had half an hour but I hoped we would be in and out in about ten minutes. John was to bug the computer modem line while I did a quick audit of any papers that were lying about. Then we would wrap the painting in a bed sheet we had brought with us and put it in the van, meet Robbie for a relaxing breakfast and then call on Jerry Sewell to see how badly he wanted to buy our security services. On the way out, we would put a dead battery in the controller for the security system so SafeGuard would be off the hook when Sewell called them. Sewell had a very nice home. The guy had expensive tastes and the money to indulge his whims. Everything was new, yet the placed looked comfortably lived-in. Expensive furniture can do that to a room. There were many live plants to take advantage of the huge windows that faced west. I expected an aquarium, but not three, all larger than any I had ever seen in a residence. One tank had some small sharks, another had what I recognized as angel fish. There were no goldfish and that ended my repertoire of tropical fish. There were four Morcos paintings in the house but I had already picked the Pharaoh's Niece as my target. I easily opened the desk with my pick but found little of interest. A paper shredder beside the desk told me the story of how this guy was still being very careful. I would have loved to get my hands on one of his telephone bills but there were none in the files. "Bingo, Frank!" Withers called from the washroom. "He left his cell phone here." "Great! Get that bug installed. We still have about ten minutes." "No problem. He uses a Nioka - same as mine." I watched as John quickly removed the four small screws, took a very small transistor-like device from a carefully wrapped packet in his breast pocket, clipped it to the red wire and blue wire inside the handset and replaced the cover. It took him less than two minutes. He wiped the cell phone carefully and put it back into its carrying case. "Okay, that's done. Shouldn’t we be getting out of here?" John asked, a satisfied smile spreading across his face. "Right. Let's get the picture." We took the Pharaoh's Niece, replaced the battery in the security monitor and closed the door behind us. I saw no sign of anyone watching us as we loaded the painting into the van. We were back at the Cove Suites having coffee when Robbie returned. She had struck up a conversation with Sewell as they jogged along the beach trail. They had parted, saying they would see each other tomorrow. John excused himself, explaining that he was going to monitor the telephone. He thought it would take Sewell a while to realize the painting was missing since it had been hanging in the living room, but he needed to be nearby to pick up the cell call signal. He took a couple of strawberry Danish, filled his Styrofoam cup with the complimentary coffee and said he'd call the ‘office’ when he had anything.

My next job was to find a small secure warehouse that we could rent for a month. We would keep the painting there until we had to retrieve it. I picked up the San Diego paper and began reading the classified section. After two calls, I had what sounded like a promising office. They only wanted a thousand dollars for the month so it sounded like a decent place. I would check it out that afternoon. I called Nancy to see if everything was fine at home. Marisa had a slight cold and was staying at home with our cleaning lady, Mrs. Swartz, who was a grandmother figure to Marisa. This getting a cold on cleaning day had happened before but I knew a day away from school with Mrs. Swartz would not do her any harm. Dad had reported in from the Caymans, saying that the Steward account was between 50 and 100 million dollars Canadian. Converting that amount to US Dollars, it was still a very large amount of money. Our commission could be quite handsome if we could get our hands on the money even if we could only get Sewell's share. I told Nancy I would be at least another week or ten days but promised to fly home Saturday evening to spend Sunday with my family. Being around Robbie had my hormones humming and I needed some relief. Withers called to say that he was recording Sewell's calls. The first call had been to SafeGuard about their system not working. Sewell did not say anything was missing. There were no calls to the police about the missing picture. That was the news I was hoping to hear. Sewell would suffer a major loss without contacting the authorities - a fact that made him susceptible to blackmail. I decided to wait another full day before I openly contacted Sewell, planning to arrive at his home late in the afternoon so I could not complete everything and would have to return on the Monday to set up his new A security@ system. In the meantime, I hoped we could get some of the numbers that Sewell called to see if we could locate either his partners or his money. John said he might as well work the weekend since his wife had left to visit their daughter in lieu of the vacation he had to cancel. Robbie was staying over the weekend, planning to meet Sewell on the beach each morning for their run, but never giving him any clue as to her identity. When we made our sales pitch on Monday, Robbie would be introduced to Sewell as True North's leading technician, and this, I hoped, would make Sewell even more at ease with us. Friday afternoon, about 4 p.m., I knocked on the door and met Jerry Sewell face to face. I handed him one our fresh business cards and said I would like to talk to him about home security. "Sorry, I already have a good security system - here's their sticker right on the door," he said indicating the blue vinyl diamond that was SafeGuard's logo. "I understand that, sir, but True North offers an additional service that I think you should be interested in seeing," I replied. Calling a younger man ‘sir’ and then implying that his choice of security systems was not all that it should be sent a confusing message. He hesitated. I reached into my inside pocket and showed him the audio tape. "I think you might be interested in hearing what we have on this tape, Mr. Steward." "Do you have some other identification?" he asked. "Yes, I have a photo ID, a clearance letter from the State Police and a recommendation from the Better Business Bureau. I also have a permit from the San Diego City Hall to operate a business in this area. But you are wise to ask. The best security you have is who you decide to let into your home." I opened my wallet to show him my Ontario Driver's license photo.

"You're a Canadian?" "Yes, but our firm does a lot of business in California. We have a product that is patented and right now, we have very little competition. My home is in Toronto, but I’ve spent the last two months here in California. Before that, I was in Texas looking after some clients in Houston and Dallas." "Okay, come on in," he said, opening the door to let me by. "Are you going door to door, canvassing for clients?" "No, that's not how we operate. You may have seen our van in the neighbourhood over the last few days, but what we were doing is focussing on people who have money and may need our services." "But how . . ." "It's easy, actually. You purchased this house a few months ago without a mortgage. You are driving an expensive car, you don't seem to have a daily job, so we assume you are working out of your house. This is a really nice house, Mr. Steward. I think you made a great deal to get it for a million two." "How . . ." "The selling price is on your State Assessment file. I like the way you have decorated, too. Not overdone like many of the places I see." "I did it myself. Excuse me if I'm a little taken aback, Mr. Pilger, but I had no idea there was so much information available about my personal life." "This is the age of Big Brother. And that's what True North is all about. Our firm offers you just a little more privacy than the ordinary citizen thinks he has. We can protect you in a couple of ways that very few people know about. For instance, this tape," I said, offering it to him. "You want me to play it?" I nodded and followed him into the living room. The wall was bare where the Pharaoh's Niece used to hang. Sewell listened to the call we had recorded which was his call to SafeGuard about the monitor not working. "How did you record this? I thought cell phones couldn’t be tapped!" "They can't - in the normal sense of phone taps, but as you can see, we have the technology so others probably have it too. There is always the chance that someone with a scanner will pick up on a call accidentally, but it is unlikely that the ordinary person will ever get more than one of your calls. However, if your business, and I don't want to know what it is, is confidential or competitive, then you may have people out there who are trying to listen to your conversations. What we have and others don't, is the ability to make sure no one can tap your cell phone calls." "Well, you’ve certainly piqued my interest. I suppose you can prove all this to me?" "Yes, I can. You have some of the proof on that tape. But I can bring our technician in and demonstrate the equipment if you wish. The system is expensive, Mr. Steward, I’ll tell you right up front, and it will

be up to you to decide how much your privacy is worth." "How, much?" "Fifty thousand dollars to install, ten thousand per year for annual maintenance," I said, wondering if I was too high or too low. "Wow!" "With that, we also give you some other services, such as securing computer lines and regular land telephone lines. We also offer a guarantee that if anyone breaks our system within a year, we will refund any unused portion of our fee. We have an international investigation branch that offers private work, if you ever have any need for that service." I paused, then added, "Listen, I’ve given you a lot to think about. Why don't you call me on Monday if you're interested in our services. We’ll be in this area for another few weeks, but then we are moving on to San Francisco." "Okay, Mr. Pilger, I’ll think about it over the weekend." He stood to indicate the meeting was over. As we walked to the door, I said, "By the way, did you lose anything while your security system was malfunctioning?" "Why do you ask?" "We checked your house yesterday and we didn’t notice any sign of an active system. We saw your signs outside, but nothing on our scanner. After seeing the system you have, I presume your system was either turned off or not functioning." "I didn’t have it turned off," Sewell said, a perplexed look coming over his face. "Well - and this is some free advice - you can scan a home to see if the security system is active - if you have the right equipment. If a monitor goes down, thieves can get into your home without you knowing it. For the cost of a 9-volt battery, I suggest to all of our clients that they change them every six months. They may be good for up to four years, but why take that chance? Sometimes when the battery is low it doesn’t have enough power to run the monitor." "Okay, thanks for the tip. I’ll call you on Monday for sure - one way or the other - and let you know. Have a good weekend." "Yes, I will. I'm going home for the weekend to see my wife and children, so our office here will be closed until I get back about noon on Monday." I could have been wrong, but I think we had Sewell on the line. Monday would make our case.

Chapter 9 I was still basking in the warm glow of a wonderful weekend when I disembarked in San Diego on Monday morning. I had depleted my store of randy hormones and hardly noticed how young and

healthy Robbie looked when she met me at the arrivals gate. As we drove north to La Jolla, Robbie related her weekend of meeting Sewell on the morning runs along the waterfront trail to the Cripp's dock. He had even asked her out to dinner but she declined. We wanted him to recognize Robbie when we met him later this morning, but we wanted it to come as a surprise at her vocation as an electronics expert. Robbie and John Withers had worked on the cell phone we were going to give Sewell. They installed a bug that had a very short range, one that we could monitor for up to 500 metres. John had also put a bug on Sewell's car that was an amplifier for the cell phone. This would allow us to listen in on the cell phone when Sewell used it in his car. It was Withers, with his cautious use of the cell phones that gave us this idea. Our hope was that Sewell would call Attward and we could record the dial tones on tape. On Friday evening, John had mailed a ransom note to Sewell for the Pharaoh's Niece. We expected the San Diego post-marked letter to arrive in La Jolla sometime on Monday. We wanted $75,000 for the painting. I told John and Robbie that I had briefed the staff back home on what to say to any queries regarding True North Security. The initial call would go to the Pilger and Associates number on our business cards. The receptionist would transfer the call to line 9 and anyone in the Forensic Division would answer that line with the True North greeting. Using Call Forwarding, calls could be sent to our office in La Jolla. It would be interesting to see how long it took Sewell to check us out. There was a voice mail message at the Suites from Sewell asking for a meeting on Monday morning. We had him on the line. All we needed to do now was to reel him in. I called Jerry ‘Steward’ to confirm our 11 o'clock meeting. He said he would have a fresh pot of coffee ready for me. I told him my assistant, our electronics expert, would be joining us and he replied that there was lots of coffee. John was to park his rental car just down the street and monitor a radio in case Robbie needed some advice. The small device behind her ear was completely hidden by her blonde hair. Robbie was also wearing a wire. John could record everything that was said on the chance that we could use the conversations as evidence in any court case that might arise from the arrest of Sewell. The plan was to show Sewell the inside of our van with its bank of monitoring devices, most of which were just computers running wave files across the screen. At precisely 11:01 a.m., I used the large brass knocker on the front door to announce the arrival of True North Security. "Good morning, Mr. Steward," I said as he opened the door. "May I introduce my technical assistant, Robbie Quick?" His eyes lit up with recognition. "Miss Quick - we meet again!" "You know each other?" I asked, trying to look surprised. "Well, not really, Frank. Mr. Steward and I met on the jogging trail a couple of times. We never got as far as names, just chatting about the weather and running." She shook his hand. "It's good to meet you, Mr. Steward." "Come in, come in. And please, call me Jerry - there is no need to be so formal." Sewell led us to the living room that looked out over the neighbour's roof, north to the long beach and the Cripps dock. We admired the view, taking turns looking through his powerful telescope that brought the distant shoreline into sharp focus. He asked for our coffee orders, black for me, double cream and sugar for Robbie. How could she consume all those calories and never show them? Jogging every

morning, no doubt. And a higher metabolic rate because of her young age. We settled down around a marble coffee table and Sewell asked where we wanted to start. He was convinced that he needed some kind of security service, but wanted to know exactly what we had to offer. "Before we start, I'd like to have a tour of your home, just to see what you have now. Perhaps you could show us what services you have and if you have any concerns about your present security." I reached into my briefcase and brought out a small electronic device. "I'd like to scan your home as we go, to make sure there are no listening devices, if you don't mind?" He seemed taken aback that there might be something in his house that could record conversations. "You mean my house might be bugged? Why would anyone want to do that?" "Mr. Steward - Jerry, I don't really want to know what you do for a living. But anyone who has your kind of money must have business interests that are very successful. If you are that successful at whatever you do - someone out there will want a piece of the action." "I never thought about that." "Robbie, would you do the scans?" I said, handing her the old voltage meter that Scotty had retired and which I kept because it still worked. Robbie began by touching the gator clips to the wall outlets. There was enough bleed-off current in the screws to make the dial move. Sewell was persuaded it was doing something so he paid her no more attention as he led me through the house. The house was secure enough, the usual door and window entry devices. There were no infra red or motion detectors inside the home. The home was furnished with very high quality goods. There was no questioning Sewell's taste. Having the money to indulge this taste was something most of us only dream of. There were the three Morcos originals that I had only a chance to glance at when John and I were in the house last week - plus the one we had taken. There were a number of good prints throughout the house and I was surprised to see Dali's St. John in a spare bedroom. "Jerry - I’ve been admiring your art collection. But I must admit I am pleased to see a Dali - he's one of my favourite artists!" "Really? Yes, I liked that one in particular. But Dali originals are seldom offered for sale, so I settled for that print. I am trying to collect the works of a local artist though. You may have noticed them in the living room and my bedroom. I have three so far." "Yes, I noticed. I recognized two of them as being by the same artist - but the third?" He took us back to look at the three paintings in question, explaining who Maher Morcos was, how his paintings were hung in the White House and in the Royal Palace in Saudi Arabia. Sewell was certainly knowledgeable about the paintings and the artist. I was itching to show off my knowledge of Salvador Dali but it was his turf and his time. He finally wound down and we got back to our cold coffee.

"Well, Jerry, your security is adequate, but I would recommend that you have some motion sensors installed. Those paintings are worth more than the cost of adding that small monthly charge. I didn’t see a vault, but if you have one, I would suggest that it also be separately secured. We have checked with SafeGuard and they are very competent, so I suggest you continue to retain them." "But I thought you were going to sell me $50,000 worth of security?" "Yes, we will, but not on your physical assets. SafeGuard and your insurance policies will cover that. What we offer is security for your communications. As we demonstrated last week, cell phone conversations can be overheard. We can guarantee privacy for your telephone. We can also guarantee privacy for your Internet Email. As I said before, I don't want to know what your business is, but I assume you conduct it from your home. I doubt if you use the postal service or couriers since they are not as secure as they would like us to believe. So that leaves you vulnerable only through the electronic systems." "Well, yes, you are right. I do use the telephone - but only my cell phone - and I use the Internet. I assumed that the cell couldn’t be bugged. And I thought the Internet was secure - I mean banking is done over the Internet . . ." "Yes, but they use encryption," Robbie said. "And you are going to offer me that? I thought I could get that from my Internet Service Provider?" "Well, you can purchase a certain level of encryption, but it will not be entirely secure. We go far beyond what you can find anywhere else." "Is there some way I can test what you are selling me? I don't want to be taken in by some kind of a high-tech scam." "Yes, we will show you how to test it - or you can have a third party try to break into the system. We will let you post-date your cheque for 10 working days. And we will guarantee that if at any time you have a security break, we will refund the balance of the yearly fee - no questions asked." "You have a head office in the States?" "No, we operate out of Canada only. I can give you a letter from the Better Business Bureau and from the City of Toronto to show our bona fides. We are licensed for every state where we work Some states require a mailing address, but a drop box is all we have to supply to meet those requirements." "Okay, explain what you can do for me." "Robbie, would you like to talk about the computer?" "Sure, Frank. What we do is install a program in your computer that encrypts your message. The only person who can read your file is someone who also has our program installed on their computer. We give you two off-site loads, others will cost on a per user basis. What the program does is use your IP address to get your connection to the ISP - your Internet service provider - but then as soon as the connection is accepted, it changes the address through a special logarithm that we use. Your provider

will not notice anything - or if he does, won't be able to track it. The message is coded so they can't read your mail. Or the address of the recipient. Every two months we install a new version of the program." "You mean that right now my Email can be read?" "Yes - but most ISPs are ethical and wouldn’t do that. They do record your addresses though so they can track the number of hours you are using. Our system will show that you logged on and will also show when you log off, but in between they will have no idea of who is using their services. This of course, is not strictly legal, but really you are paying for everything you use and we are not shorting the ISP." "And I get two addresses free. How much for additional addresses?" "A thousand dollars each," I said. He thought about that for a moment and then said, "Okay, what about the telephone?" "First, we will recommend that you use one of the new digital models. We have a scrambler in the unit that you can activate by entering a special code before you dial the number. Again, we will supply two other handsets for you to give to your business associates. Additional phones are a little more expensive - $2,500 each. We will replace the telephones once a year if we have any reason to believe that our code has been compromised. We can install our device on handsets, but I prefer that our clients use cell phones, simply because there is less chance of someone seeing the coding dialed than on a desk set." "So only the people who have the matching sets can hear my calls?" "Yes. What happens is that your phone will send a tone as soon as the connection is made. That tone activates the scrambler at the other end. If you send the tone to someone who does not have the matching sets, both parties will only hear a short tone similar to the sound you hear when you dial a fax number. The technology is very similar to military scramblers, but we have refined it to let you set your own secret codes. This way there is no chance that even we can tap your phone." "So you suggest that I use this scrambled cell phone for all my business calls?" "No, just the calls that are critical to your operations. Regular calls to your office can be made without the scrambler. I would only use the special code when I had something very confidential to say. You don't want your office staff to see all this added security - you will only pique someone's interest, and you don't want to do that. We can also show you some ways to minimize eavesdropping using the cell phone." "Such as?" Sewell asked. I laughed. "Whoa - when you become our customer. I don't want to give away my product!" "Okay, that's fair enough. Listen, let me think about this and consult my business associates. Can I call you on Wednesday?"

We agreed that was acceptable. I mentioned again that we were scheduled to start looking for business in San Francisco in about a week, just to keep him moving. Sewell said he would see Robbie on the beach next morning.

Chapter 10 It only took Sewell a few hours to call us after he received the ransom note for The Pharaoh's Niece. He wondered if we had any experience in recovering stolen articles. Robbie, who had answered the telephone, stalled for a few minutes while she pretended to consult with me, but holding the telephone out so I could hear. "Yes, Mr. Steward, Frank says we might be able to help you. Is there some reason why you don't want to involve the police?" "Well, I would just as soon keep them out of it if possible. I don't want them in my home, seeing what else I have to steal. Frankly, I think I trust you people more than I do the local police." Maybe being fellow Canadians was working in our favour. Even though he did not know us, just the fact that we were Canadians was enough to make him turn to us in his need, I thought. But then, we Canadians do have a reputation of helping strangers in need anywhere in the world. Not that we are more generous or that we are more open - in fact, we are probably more reserved - than, say, Americans. Perhaps it has something to do with being from such a wide, empty country that causes us to understand what being a good neighbour is about. When we see someone in trouble, we help. There is simply no question about it - unless it is some idiot standing by the side of a road with an empty gas can wondering why he did not stop at the last gas station as he knows he should have - then we will stop, but make him run a hundred yards or so just to teach him a lesson. "Okay. We’ll be over in about half an hour. Don't answer your phone until we get there in case they call you. We’ll put a tap on your phone so we can track any calls." We had already recorded the dial tones from John's cell phone and copied the wave file into a program on a computer in the van. The plan was to have John call Sewell and demand the ransom. We would tape the call and make a show of playing this tape against the computer in the van in Sewell's presence. The address of the warehouse would appear on the screen after flashing a list of San Diego street names. While Sewell told me about the Pharaoh's Niece, Robbie installed the tape recorder on his desk telephone. Sewell certainly knew his painting very well and talked almost lovingly of it. By the time he was finished describing it I was starting to worry about having left the painting in that warehouse. Right on time, John Withers called. Sewell kept him on the line, stalling as we had prompted him, asking for details of the painting to assure himself that the thief really had the goods. Sewell said he would get the cash the next morning and would meet wherever the thief wanted. We took Jerry Sewell out to the van and he watched in amazement as the program worked and then gave us the address. We sat in the van and planned how we would recover the painting. We would check out the location as soon as we left Sewell's. The plan was that Robbie and I would go at night, around midnight, and break into the warehouse. Sewell wanted to come with us so we finally acquiesced, telling him that we would

pick him up at eleven. Robbie told him to wear dark clothing, further sucking him into our plan. Neither Robbie nor I had dark clothing fit for our midnight raid so we stopped at a sports store and bought black jogging suits. Robbie opted for the form-fitting lycra that I was certain would have the same effect on Sewell as it had on me - very distracting. He would not notice me in my loose-fitting navy blue cotton outfit. John arranged with the local FBI office to tell the San Diego police department that two shots would be fired at our warehouse location around midnight. The FBI would accompany a local detective on surveillance at the site just to calm their nerves. The chances of anyone hearing the shots in the industrial park were small but we wanted Sewell to think he was really involved in something risky. We wanted to compromise Sewell in a crime and then use that to pressure him more and more until he had to rely on us. At eleven o'clock that evening, we parked outside Sewell's home. A quick phone check with John Withers assured me that everything was ready at the warehouse. I rapped on the door and Sewell opened it immediately. He was dressed in black from head to toe, complete with black runners and black driving gloves. All he needed was a blackened face to disappear completely. All we needed was for some La Jolla cop to drive by and he would immediately throw us all in the hoosegow. "Good camouflage, Jerry," I said, looking him over. "Do you have a gun we could borrow?" "A gun?" "Yes. I have my own," I said, patting the bulge under my sweat shirt. The SIG Sauer is bulky and not a gun that one wears in undercover work, but the fifteen-shot clip had some obvious benefits. "Robbie didn’t bring hers into the States. I'd feel a bit more comfortable if she was carrying. Normally, I don't expect violence from a thief, but your fellow Americans tend to carry guns . . ." "Do you really think it's necessary? I don't want anyone to get hurt - the painting isn’t worth that much," Sewell said. "Trust me - we would never shoot unless somebody forced us to. I just don't want to go into a dark warehouse unarmed. We think there is only one person involved but there may be two of them." "Okay - I guess it will be all right. I’ll get the gun." I knew he had the Colt 45 automatic in his desk drawer from our previous search of the house, but I hefted the gun and checked the loads, making sure there was not a round in the chamber. Some people leave their 45's loaded since racking a shell into the chamber makes quite an audible click. "Let's go. Jerry - would you drive? You know your way around better than we do. The warehouse is in San Diego - just off the west end of the airport.@ In just over twenty-five minutes, we were on the street leading to the warehouse. There was no traffic at that time of night in this area of town. I did not see any sign of the FBI car, but I knew it was somewhere near the warehouse. "Jerry, cut the lights. Just drive slowly until we get near the building," I said in low voice, as if someone might overhear me. "Robbie, keep an eye for anything moving - I think it must be just on the next row of buildings."

"Yeah - next to Fox Forwarders. Everything seems quiet. I don't see any car - maybe the thief has gone home." "That's what I'm hoping - he's not expecting any action until tomorrow when he thinks Jerry is going to hand him $75,000." We moved along under the dim lighting of street lamps that were so far apart as to be totally useless except by night people like us, which reminded me of one of my pet peeves. We spend millions of dollars in North America lighting up empty streets in the wee hours of the morning. Streetlights should have timers on them to turn off automatically after about four hours. And no, there would not be a crime wave, in fact, I think there would be less crime. Criminals cannot see in the dark, so they would have to carry lights, and anyone with a light in the dark becomes very conspicuous to the watchers in the night. The police would find their jobs much easier. "Okay, Jerry, stop here. Turn off the engine and sit tight while Robbie and I do our thing. Robbie, get the blanket out of the back." "What do you need a blanket for?" Sewell asked. "To wrap around your painting - we wouldn’t want to damage it in the dark warehouse," I answered. I had another reason for the blanket, but that was for later. Robbie and I sneaked into the vacant warehouse, putting on a good show for Sewell until we were inside. "John, where are you?" I called into the dark room. "Over here," he said and flicked on his small flashlight. "Everything all set?" "Yes - let me get the guys on the radio before we fire the shots." John thumbed a small radio and said, "Watcher One, do you read?" "Read you loud and clear," a voice crackled over the set. "We're firing now." "Go ahead." Robbie and I each drew our guns and aimed into the bag of sand that John had set up for us. I fired and then about two seconds later, Robbie fired a single shot from Sewell's gun. "Okay, wrap the painting and let's go before Sewell panics and drives off without us." We hurried to the doorway, where I waited as Robbie ran to the van. I could hear her telling him to back the van up to the loading ramp. He did so and I opened the back door as he bumped into the dock. I hoped he did not mark our rental or we would be cutting into the profits again. "What was that noise? It sounded like gunshots!" "Robbie, give me hand here with the painting - quick!" "It was gun shots," Robbie said over her shoulder. "The stupid son of a bitch took a shot at me!"

"Okay, get the blanket and let's get him," I said. "What are you doing?" Jerry Sewell asked, a note of panic creeping into his voice. "We’ve got to get that body out of there," I said. "Body? Somebody's dead?" "Yeah," I said, grabbing the blanket. "You wait right here. We’ll only be a minute or two." I could see that Sewell was losing it and might drive off without us. "Robbie - the keys." She reached into the cab and removed the ignition keys before Sewell knew what she was doing. We ran into the warehouse. John was ready for us. We wrapped him in the blanket, smeared a little ketchup on it and each grabbing an end, made towards the door. "Watch my head," was all he said. "Jerry, give us a hand back here!" I ordered. "Here, help us lift him into the back." He hesitated, so I used my growly voice and snapped at him, "Get out here! Jesus, it's just a body! Come on before someone reports those shots!" We got Withers in the back of the van and then I told Sewell to drive slowly - I wanted to find a dumpster nearby. About a block away we came to the one we knew was parked behind a packaging company. It had been half-full of cardboard that afternoon, so we could drop John into it without worrying about banging his precious head. Sewell held the door open but would not touch the body, so Robbie and I hefted the limp Withers up and into the steel container. Just before I closed the van door, I said, "Shit, Robbie - get that blanket. They might be able to trace it." Robbie clambered over the side of the bin, struggled for a few seconds and reappeared with the blanket. "Fold it so the blood isn’t showing," I said. She folded and stuffed it under the back seat. "Okay, let's get out of here!" I had to keep telling Sewell to slow down so we would not attract any attention but we still made it back to his house in about twenty minutes. Without a word, we unloaded the painting and carried it into the house. "I could use a drink, Jerry," I said, sitting down on his expensive sofa without brushing any dust from my elegant track suit. "I think I’ll need more than one," Robbie said. "What the hell happened back there? I told you I didn’t want anyone getting hurt!" "That idiot took a shot at me, that's what happened!" Robbie snapped.

"So you killed him?" "Look, Jerry - it happened. It was dark and I couldn’t see well enough to just wound him. We can't undo that. Let's just be calm and think about this. But get me that drink first!" He went to his bar and poured us all a stiff belt of scotch without asking what we wanted. It was a damned fine scotch whiskey, too. From the shape of the bottle I guessed it was a Dumbarton, or perhaps even a Glen Elgin, but I could not see the label. We all drank without the usual toast. "Okay, let's review," I said. "Well, we didn’t see any police cars so maybe no one heard the shots," Robbie said. "True. How long before they find the body?" "I'd say we have two or three days before the smell attracts someone. It will be Monday, before that packaging place comes to work." "Okay. The gun?" "I fired one round," Robbie said as she pulled the 45 from her waist. "I'd guess the bullet went right through the body." "Yes, I saw the exit wound. Chances of them looking for a bullet in that warehouse are slim." "There may have been blood on the floor," Robbie said. "Jerry, is the gun registered?" "Uh, no. I picked it up from a street seller." "So, it may have been registered at one time, but not by you. Chances are it couldn’t be traced. We may want to get rid of it but let's sit on that for the time being." I took another drink of the scotch. "Robbie, clean the gun up - no prints, replace the expended round in the clip. Jerry, do you have any gun oil?" He shook his head. "WD-40?" He nodded numbly. "Get it for Robbie, would you?" Sewell brought in a rag, some newspaper and the can of WD 40, placing them on the counter in the kitchen. Robbie took her scotch and the gun and set about dismantling the Colt, spraying and wiping as Sewell looked on. "You’ve done this before, haven't you?" he asked her. "There's nothing to cleaning a gun, Jerry," she said. "No - I mean, shot someone." "What makes you say that?"

"You're not shaking or hardly upset. If I had killed someone, I'd be a wreck." "I used to be a cop, Jerry. Believe me, I’ll be shaking enough after the adrenalin wears off. You don't shoot someone and not think about it." "I just can't imagine it!" Jerry said. So maybe Jerry Sewell had not killed his girlfriend. Maybe it was Attward who had pulled the trigger. Maybe he did not even know that Judy O'Hare was dead. If he was this nervous over the night's work, he would be showing signs of recollection about killing Judy. It must have been Attward. Or a third person. Philip keeps telling me to keep my options open. "It makes things a little easier when it is self-defence," I said, joining them in the kitchen area. "Have you ever killed anyone?" Jerry asked me. "Yeah, and believe me, it's something that's not easy to live with." "You weren’t a cop, too, were you?" "A long time ago. I got out after I had to shoot someone." "Man, I couldn’t do it - I know I could never pull the trigger," Sewell said, looking a little pale as he thought about it. Somehow, I believed him. Robbie had the gun reassembled. "Jerry, put another shell in that clip and then handle the gun as if you had removed the clip a couple of times, cock the hammer, move it from hand to hand," I said. "But my prints will be all over it then . . . " "And shouldn’t they be? It would look really funny if your gun didn’t have your finger prints on it, wouldn’t it?" "Yeah, I guess you're right," he said, accepting the gun from Robbie. "Okay, let's go over one more thing," I said. "I don't think they can trace the body back to us, but on the off chance that the burglar told someone about the painting, I want you to have a solid story. The painting was never out of the house, no insurance claim filed, no ransom note received. You have destroyed that note?" I asked. "Yes, I burned it," Sewell replied. "On second thought, I think we had better get rid of that gun. Robbie will clean it again to get rid of all the prints and we’ll dispose of it where it will never be found. Jerry, you might want to get another gun. If I were you, I would get a license and go through the proper channels. Buying a gun from the street is not always a good idea - you may be buying a history that could come back to haunt you. Street guns have often been used in crimes and a ballistics check could point at you, the present gun owner, as the culprit."

"Okay - I guess you're right. I never thought about that." "We’ll get rid of the blanket - although we’ll have to replace it - we took it from our suite. I think that's all we have to worry about now. Let's turn in, Robbie." "Okay, Frank. I’ll see you in the morning, Jerry." "Geez, I don't know if I’ll feel like running . . ." "Jerry, you have to keep your daily routine. Nothing has happened to make you change it. Remember that," Robbie told him. Driving back to the Suites, I had to laugh out loud. It had been a great evening. I was certain that Sewell had swallowed the bait - hook, line and sinker. I reached over and put my hand on Robbie's arm as she drove. "That was great work tonight, Robbie!" "Yes, it went well, didn’t it?" She glanced at my hand and I quickly removed it. I am not a touchy-feely person. I do not normally like people touching me and here I was placing my hand on Robbie's arm. I guess if I had been working with a man I would have given him the old shoulder punch – it is just something guys would do. I cursed at myself for this breach of conduct but said nothing. Perhaps Robbie understood.

Chapter 11 John and I were just finishing our second cup of coffee on the rooftop deck of the Suites when Robbie joined us. It was another typical La Jolla morning, the temperature a constant, comfortable 20 degrees Celsius, the sun already burning through the light coastal morning mist. I had spent thirty minutes in the park across from the hotel doing a Tai Chi set and was feeling quite relaxed, ready for the day ahead. "How’s Sewell this morning, Robbie?@ " John asked as he watched her place her tray of Special K cereal, banana, pineapple slices, yogurt, orange juice and croissant on the table. "He is nervous, but he’s on the hook. He wants us to come over after ten to sign up for our services. He said he'd have our money for us by noon hour Monday." "Great," I said. "I'm betting he has to wire for the extra money for that payment. That means he’ll have to call the bank in the Caymans. John, we’ll need you on the telephone to record any conversation. In case he does the transfer by Internet, I’ll call Scotty and have him standing by." "Let me get this straight," John said. "If he uses the computer, your program will send a copy of the Email to your office in Toronto?" "That's right," Robbie said. She explained how it could be done, talking about bits and bytes and IP addresses, throwing in terms that neither John nor I knew. The gist of it was that one way or the other we would have Sewell's bank account number and code. I then would call my father to use his

influence with the manager of the Grand Caymans International Bank in Georgetown to put a freeze on the account. We could not stop the payment for long, but a couple of days were all we needed to panic Sewell. I would ask my father to accompany Buddy Olsen to the Grand Caymans to make an official request to freeze the account, using the evidence of fraud as the reason. While the bankers would not give the money to anyone, at least they would hold it until a court order was obtained for its disposition. I went back to the room and called Nancy, asking her to find Dad and have him available from noon hour on. I also asked her to call Scotty and tell him to be watching for an intercept on the Enigma program. The kids were fine, playing outdoors already. I lied to Nancy and said it was foggy and cool but I think she knew I was just trying to make her feel better about my not being home for the weekend. We waited until nearly eleven before we went to Sewell's house, trying to make him as anxious as possible. I had all the contract forms ready for him to sign and as soon as he had the ink on the page Robbie began to install the Enigma program on his computer. She explained to him how he could give the program to two of his associates simply by entering a command once he had made a connection to his clients on the web. Scotty had designed a clever icon using the Greek symbol for E that rotated in the upper left corner of the screen. Sewell was to click on this symbol when he wanted to send encrypted Email. Robbie explained that the code allowing only two more users was protected and if Sewell or anyone else tried to break it, the system would remove all Enigma programs and then shut down the computer. The encrypted files could not be backed up onto tape or disk. If Sewell ever had any problems with the program, he was to call us. The cell phone was next. I handed Sewell a brand new Iridium cell phone with a voice scrambler attachment that clipped onto the base of the unit. I neglected to tell him that the phone also contained a bug and that John Withers would be listening to his conversations - scrambled or not. I also gave him two other similar phones and reminded him of the additional costs for more units. "Jerry," I said, "There's a little trick we also suggest to our clients. Using the phone while driving makes it harder for anyone to eavesdrop but it is also not a recommended practice for road safety. What we suggest is that you drive to a place where the cell zones intersect, park your car, check for anyone stopping near you and then use the phone. We’ll give you a map with a precise place on it that you can use with confidence. Anyone who is trying to scan or listen to your calls will be in the next cell zone and unable to pick you up." "You're kidding!" "No, it really works. We acquired this little trade secret from your FBI. It's amazing how precise these zones are - often there's only a matter of about 5 metres - about 18 feet - where there is no cell coverage. These areas are out in the country where the chances of a user hitting the dead zone are very small. If they are driving through the zone, they’ll lose communication for a fraction of a second but most users accept that, not knowing that it's the transfer from one cell zone to another that's causing the problem." "And you know where these zones are? How did you find them?" "Well, let's just say we have connections in the telecommunications industry." Robbie rolled her eyes at my bad pun. But it was just these kinds of connections that had put this case together for me. My

interest in art had spotted the Morcos paintings back in Toronto. Now the Pharaoh's Niece was bringing this part of the investigation to a close. "Do you have a GPS unit, Jerry?" "Well, yes I do. I’ve never used it much - just bought it on a whim." "Okay - would you get it, please? Robbie will program in the location just north of here - the one near the Lawrence Welk Resort." Robbie worked on the GPS unit and explained how Jerry could watch the screen as he drove along the highway. She told him there was a side road near the dead zone. Sewell would have to get out of his car and walk a few yards out into a field to get the exact spot. That would also give Withers better reception if Jerry was going to follow our advice. Sewell gave me a cheque for $50,000 and asked that I not present it until noon on Monday since he had to transfer some funds from one account to another. I said I understood perfectly. About an hour after we left, Jerry Sewell drove his BMW north. John knew where he was going and simply followed at a distance. He watched as Sewell walked out into the little clearing and listened to the conversation Sewell had with a Bank in the Caymans. We got the account number, 010-862-2241AGF, and the code word: ‘Maher’ followed by the word Red. The colour code was a simple variable word that added security to phone instructions. The bank and the user would have a chart for that part of the code so no one could access an account by forcing the owner to call in secret number. A wrong colour would freeze the account until a verification process was completed to the bank's satisfaction. For now, all we needed was the account number. I called Philip and asked him to call his banker friend in the Caymans. Could he delay any transfers from account 010-862-224-1AGF for two days while CSIS followed up on an illegal transfer of government funds? The bankers in the Caymans will turn a blind eye to origin of funds except when it comes to money illegally freed from government coffers. They want to keep good relations with governments around the world and they make that clear to their clients. The banker knew of my father's connection with CSIS and international banking so he agreed to hold everything for two days. On Monday at 1:00 o’clock, I presented the cheque at the First National Bank in La Jolla. There was a problem with the amount. The assistant manager called Mr. Steward and they had a chat, the result being that Mr. Steward asked that I hold the cheque until later that day as a bank transfer was on its way. I told the manager I would return just before closing. Our Mr. Steward called the bank in the Caymans. He could not believe that the bank would hold his money. He finally got through to the Vice President and was told that when the Canadian government had requested a 48 hour freeze on his account, the bank had no choice. The VP was certain everything would be cleared up the following day. Half an hour later, the Enigma program was activated. The first message sent the encryption file with instructions to load the file and use it to read the message that would follow. Scotty got the IP addresses but we could only get the country or area for now. The FBI could trace them later. The first transmission was to Hogarth in Argentina, the second to a Mr. Faazi, somewhere in the Middle East. The second message said that his account in the Caymans was frozen by the Canadian government - they might have traced the money - he would know in 48 hours. If it was still frozen on Wednesday, Jerry was going to leave the country and would contact Hogarth and Faazi before he left.

I returned to the bank just before 5:00 p.m. just to keep my cover. I then called Sewell and told him of the non-payment. He said there had been a delay but the money should be there in the morning. I said I would be at the bank at 10.00 a.m. and hoped there would not be a problem. I had just put down my Travis McGee book and turned out the reading light when the telephone rang. It was Scotty. He said he had been working late on the server when he saw a message on the Enigma program. The eleven-hour time change from Saudi Arabia to California explained the late answer to Sewell's Email. ‘Faazi’ told Sewell to sit tight for a day - he would use his influence with the Cayman's bank to get to the bottom of the problem. I thanked Scotty and told him to go home. The light was off in Robbie's room but I knew John always stayed up for the late news so I rapped on his door. We discussed what we had just discovered and John thought he should report to his boss, Haram Jarez. I said it could probably wait until morning but John said he had always wanted to call Jarez in the middle of the night. As it turned out, it was a good thing for us that John made that call.

Chapter 12 I awoke early and was just leaving for a pre-breakfast walk to the Children's beach to see the sea lions as Robbie trotted off for her morning run. A pair of anglers was casting lures out into the surf, hoping for some small fish to nibble on their bright baits. A slender but steady stream of walkers and joggers moved along the pathway and I almost felt like breaking into a trot so I would not be so obviously out of place with this early morning crowd of fitness buffs. I resisted the urge. Breakfast on the rooftop café was different that morning. Robbie came straight to the table from her run to report that Sewell had not been on the beach. She grabbed a banana and headed back to the room for a shower. John was just lighting up his after breakfast pipe when his cell phone rang. It was Jarez telling him that two Saudi embassy security staff had left Washington for San Diego that morning. They would be arriving at 11.00 a.m. on American Airlines. They had not been armed but Jarez thought maybe there was a connection with the case. We should be ready. John and I decided that we should take some precautions. It was possible that Sewell might be seen as a weak link in the chain and the Saudis may want to remove that link. Robbie appeared and I told her to take her breakfast with her. We were going to Sewell's immediately. We all agreed we needed our guns. John would get one of the local FBI agents to accompany him as he staked out the house. Robbie and I would get inside with Sewell and stick with him until something broke. Sewell was placing a travel bag in the trunk of his BMW when I pulled the van into his driveway. He did not seem pleased to see us. "Going somewhere, Jerry?" I asked. "Uh, yeah. I have to make a short business trip - just going up to Los Angles for a day or two." "There's a small matter of a cheque we should discuss before you go," I said. "Let's go inside, shall we?" "I'm sure everything will be in order - there was just some delay with my overseas account - a bank holiday or something . . ." he said. I motioned him into the house. I had been wondering how to play

this out on the drive over and I now decided it was time to move. I would have liked to have a little more solid evidence but if Jerry was getting nervous enough to run, maybe he had drawn the same conclusions as Jarez about his partners in crime. We followed him into the house. "Frisk him, Robbie," I said. "What? What's got into you people? You stay away from me," Sewell said, backing up as Robbie moved towards him. I removed my gun from the shoulder holster and Sewell froze. Robbie patted him down. "He's okay," she said. "Listen - if it's about the money - take your stuff back – we’ll just forget the whole deal." "No, I think not, Jerry. After all, we do have a contract. You owe me $50,000." "Well, I can't pay you just now. I’ll get the money for you in a week." "From your account in the Caymans? I don't think so." "How do you know . . ." "Oh, I know quite a lot about you, Jerry Sewell." "My name is Steward, not Sewell." "Ever hear of the Wardwell Mutual Fund, Jerry?" "Who are you people?" "Oh, we are just who we said we were - security specialists. Robbie is CSIS agent and I'm a forensic accountant in the business of tracking down crooks for the government. You have heard of CSIS, haven't you, Jerry?" "You can't touch me here. I'm calling my lawyer." "I don't think so, Jerry. Sit down." He sank into one of his plush chairs, the colour draining from his face. Now was the time to keep him off balance. "Robbie, make us a pot of coffee, will you. I missed my second cup this morning when the FBI called." "The FBI?" Sewell whispered, sinking even further into the soft abyss. "Yes, they were kind enough to call us this morning and warn us that two Saudi nationals are on their way to San Diego. I think they are coming to pay you a visit, Jerry." He made one more try for innocence. "I don't know any Saudis. What are you talking about?" "Jerry, Jerry," I said. "You really think we don't know all about your operation? We know about Faazi

and Hogarth. We just want all that money back. And we want you to be the guest of our government at one of their very secure resorts for about 25 years." He sat there, quiet for a moment. I watched his eyes. They were taking on that look of a trapped animal. That was not good. Trapped creatures will attempt things no rational being would contemplate. I could see him tensing, measuring whether he could jump me while Robbie was in the kitchen. I removed the gun once again. "Don't Jerry! You will never make it. Robbie is armed, so are the two FBI agents outside. Your best bet is to cooperate now." He looked at the gun, then at my face. He knew I was not going to let him get away. He sank back in the chair. "We can make some kind of a deal if you can give us the others in the case," Robbie said from behind him. Even I had not seen her move into position behind Sewell. "I can't. I don't know where they are. Really." "You have their Email addresses. My guess is that you also have some other way to contact each other in case of an emergency. Or were you so confident you wouldn’t be caught that you didn’t plan some contingency?" He was silent, trying to think his way out. I did not want to give him that luxury. "Those Saudi security men are due here in about two hours, Jerry. I'd like to offer you some protection, but if you don't come up with some answers, we may just have to let you hang here and twist in the wind. You may have enough money to run for a while, but believe me it takes a lot of money to hide. If the insurance companies put a price on your head, there will be people looking for that money who aren’t governed by rules like we are. If we found you, others can too." "How did you find me?" "It was the paintings." "My paintings?" "Maher Morcos - you had some in your Toronto office and at your apartment. You couldn’t resist the Pharaoh's Niece. We tracked you here from the sales slip - even though you changed your name. The aquariums cinched it for us. When you took the time to return your finny friends in Toronto, I thought you might take up that hobby again. The surfing poster in your apartment in Toronto indicated that you liked the ocean. Where would a thief go to live if he had all the money he needed, loved putting little fishes in glass cages, wanted to surf and could be living in the same community as his favourite artist? Once we found you, we stole the painting and then pretended to recover it to gain your confidence. We have had your phone bugged and have been logging your computer Email. We found the number of your account in the Caymans and had them freeze it." "The body in the trunk . . ." he asked. "An FBI agent with some ketchup for a wound," Robbie supplied. "Shit!" he said. "And there's the matter of Judy O'Hare," Robbie added. I had wanted to keep the murder charge out of

this so he would cooperate more willingly. "Judy knows nothing about this," he said. "I told her nothing and she just thinks I gave her a present to ease our break-up." He was talking as if Judy O'Hare were still alive. Robbie and I exchanged glances. "Where's Judy now?" Robbie asked. "I don't know. I had to break off all contact with her. I wanted to bring her with me but Hogarth said no. It was too risky. I might as well have brought her here. At least we could have had a few months together." "Jerry, I'm sorry to tell you - but Judy is dead." "Dead? What happened to her?" "You really don't know, do you?" Robbie said. "Judy O'Hare was shot in Bermuda. Her body was found about a month after you and Attward were there." "No!" He really did not know. He was silent for a moment, recalling what had happened. "Hogarth was to give her the money and the plane ticket. I just couldn’t do it. He said it would be easier for her if he did it. He said everything went okay - that she was upset, crying, but when he said that I might be able to contact her in a few years, she would understand. The bastard shot her!" Sewell put his face in his hands and wept. I had to turn away, but I saw Robbie place a hand on his shoulder. "We don't have a lot of time, Jerry," I said after a few moments. "If those Saudis turn up here, we’ll know that you have become a liability. We’ll have to do something to hide you." "Can you put me in a witness protection plan?" "You have been watching too much television, Jerry. The Americans have those programs for serious federal cases but this is really just a big fraud case for you. In Canada, you go to jail for fraud." "That could be a problem, Frank," Robbie said. "Why?" "We may have a problem getting Jerry out of the States. The FBI has jurisdiction and until they get everything straightened out, they may want to hold Jerry." I thought maybe she was right. "Okay, let's work on that. We’ve got about two hours before the Saudis can get here - maybe a little longer if they stop to pick up guns. Jerry - you look like you’ve got your essentials already packed. How much money do you have on you?" "I’ve got about $500 cash. I was going to use my credit cards." "Forget them - they leave a trail a mile wide. How much money is in your bank account here? I know

there's less than $50,000." "About thirty thousand, I guess." "Okay - write a cheque to Robbie for most of what's there. Call the bank now and tell them she is coming in. Robbie, call the Cove Suites and tell them to make up our bill. Get back there and pack an overnight bag, get my stuff out of the bathroom for me. Get the computer and as much of the files as you can loaded into the van. I want you back here no later than 11:30. Don't tell John. Here, use my phone - yours is being monitored by John." Jerry called the bank, confirmed his balance and wrote a cheque to Robbie for most of it. Robbie made the call to the motel and then headed back to the Suites. Jerry gave me his US passport and then admitted that he had kept his Canadian passport as well. We decided that the best we could do for the fish in the aquariums was to mail a note to his housekeeper with instructions to have a pet shop pick up the fish. We would mail the note if the Saudis came and we had to leave. Jerry realized that he was going to lose everything - the house, the car, his tropical fish - everything he had would be seized. "Uh, Frank, do you think we could do something with the paintings?" "What do you mean?" I asked. "The Morcos originals. Can we take them with us?" "You know they will be part of the evidence - the FBI will want them." "Yeah, but what are the chances of them ever getting to the evidence room undamaged? Or even getting there if someone knows their value? I don't want them damaged or lost." "Jerry, you can't keep them. Do you think they’ll let you keep them to hang in your jail cell?" "No, but you could keep them for me." "Now you want me to break the law! What makes you think I'd do that for you?" "Well, you said if I cooperated . . ." "Hell, I didn’t mean that - I meant we could ask for a reduced sentence." He was quiet for a moment, looking at me, appraising something. "I noticed the way you looked at the paintings. You have an appreciation for art. These Morcos are too valuable to be lost or damaged. They need to be seen and enjoyed." "Like you were worried about that, hiding them away here in your home!" "Well, I did have friends and I planned on opening an art gallery when things looked safe," he said. He was right, of course. I did like the paintings. Maybe we could pack up the four originals and have them ready to move. If the FBI had any questions, I could say I was only packing them for secure

handling. "Okay – let us get them out of the frames and find someway to pack them." We decided to put the paintings in Jerry's car. I went outside and closed the garage door so we could work without being seen. I was thinking that we could pretend to take Sewell into custody, telling John that I wanted to interview him first at the Cove Suites. The only problem would be to give John and the other FBI agent the slip. I was hoping that the Saudis would come to the house so we could arrest them on some charge - that would keep the FBI busy for a few hours. Robbie arrived back right on schedule - she had paid the motel and managed to pack all our clothing as well as most of the office files. She had the computer and the printer but had left the file cabinet, telling the desk clerk that she would send a truck for it the next day. I called John on my phone to ask if everything was all right with him. He said the Saudis had been met at the arrivals gate and were given the keys to a rental van. He expected them in about ten minutes. The plan was to let them into the house where Robbie and I would hold them at gunpoint. John and his partner would secure the outside and then come inside to arrest the Saudis. I explained this to Robbie and Sewell and we placed ourselves in a strategic way around the room. I was going to answer the door and bring the Saudis into the living room where Jerry would be standing behind the chesterfield, Robbie in the doorway, out of sight. I wanted Sewell to be ready to drop to the floor in case the Saudis made a move to take him or shoot him. It was another thirty minutes before my phone chirped and John simply said, "Three in a van." I answered the bing-bong of the doorbell after a quick look at both Sewell and Robbie. Robbie had that mean little .380 automatic in her hand. Two men were standing at the door. "Good morning," I said. "Can I help you?" "We are looking for a Mr. Sewell," the taller one said. "I am Mr. Sewell's personal secretary. Was Mr. Sewell expecting you?" "No, we are old friends and we are just visiting here. I'm sure he would want to see us." "Your name, please?" I asked, trying to act like a personal secretary. "Faazi." "One moment please." I stepped back in the entranceway and said in my best personal secretary voice, "A Mister Faazi to see you, sir." "Faazi? Oh, yes, please show him in, Frank." All this loud enough so the Saudis could hear the conversation. They relaxed a little and I showed them in, closing the door behind them. Without any warning the shorter Arab turned on me, his arm coming down in a vicious karate style blow. I yelled and managed to deflect the blow a little but he knocked me back and down to the floor. I heard the muffled splat of a silenced gun and then two fast sharp reports of the Berretta. The taller man crumpled to the floor and I aimed a kick at my assailant, knocking him down. I had the 9 mm out and pointing into his ear before he could recover. Robbie was standing over the shooter, kicking his gun

away from him. "Jerry, are you okay?" A head appeared from behind the chesterfield. "Jesus Christ!" he said. He looked a deathly pale. It must have been the first time he had been shot at. The tall Arab was cursing in Arabic and holding his bleeding leg. I ordered my Arab to roll over on his face and lock his hands behind his head then went to the door. John almost bowled me over, but seemed relieved to see me grinning at him. "Better call an ambulance for the one Robbie winged," I said to John's partner. He stood outside the door and dialed 911 on his cell phone. I explained to John what had happened and then continued before he had time to start asking questions. "John, let me take Sewell to the Cove Suites. I want to question him more before we have to bring in the local cops. Robbie can stay here with you to answer any preliminary questions about the shooting, then you can join us at the hotel. Give me your cuffs and key so I can secure Sewell for the trip to the motel. I’ll use his car, Robbie can bring the van." John obliged without comment and then went to try to stem the flow of blood from the two wounds in the Saudi's upper right leg. I would have to apologize to John some time because there was no doubt in my mind that Jarez would do a job on him for turning a suspect over to an alien civilian. I liked the way American officials referred to Canadians as ‘aliens’, as if we were from some remote frozen planet. I bundled the cuffed and still pale, frightened Jerry Sewell into his nice dark blue BMW and drove off. If all went as I hoped, Robbie would meet us later in Palm Springs at the Burger King.

Chapter 13 On the way to Palm Springs I pumped Jerry Sewell for more information on the Wardwell Mutual Fund scam. Jerry told me he had met Hogarth Attward at a training course in New York. They were both employed by large investment firms and were new at selling mutual funds. Since they were both bond market specialists, they needed only a few days of tutoring to become sellers in the fastest growing segment of the marketplace. It was at a nightclub in New York that they had first encountered Prince Faazi O’nan. Three years went by before O’nan contacted Attward with the plan for a super scam. Faazi had assessed the two young investment brokers correctly - they wanted in on his plan to rip off investors in a grand scale. Jerry admitted it was nothing but greed on his part and when I suggested that he had harmed a lot of people, he was not too concerned. His view of people who were investing in mutual funds was that they knew going in that there was risk. In fact, his point that people who buy mutual funds instead of investing directly in a company's shares, was not that different from mine they are gamblers who hedge their bets by spreading risk - they are not true investors. When I pointed out that pension fund managers had used people's retirement money to invest in his phoney mutual fund which caused ordinary people to lose their nest egg, he was not sympathetic. "How much did you get from the scam, Jerry?" I asked as we drove along right at the speed limit. "I thought you said you knew everything?" "Well, not the actual amount you and Attward got. We have the total figure at around 2.3 billion

dollars." "Yeah, that would be close. Hogarth and I each got a hundred million dollars plus our expenses over the three years that we worked the scam." "Faazi got the rest?" "Yeah. Not bad for using about 25 million in seed money, eh?" "I guess not. I'm a little surprised that the King would allow his son to pull something like this though. There could have been a lot of political repercussions. Could be yet," I said. "Faazi is a nephew, not a son. I met the King once, in Saudi Arabia. He has a couple of the large Morcos paintings." "I guess the work Morcos is doing on the Middle East would interest him." "No, in fact it is the American wild west series that the King collects. He loves the way Maher paints wild horses." I had thought the horses well depicted too. We chatted about artists we knew and apart from Jerry being a thief and a fraud artist of the highest order, I did not find him that unpleasant a person. I reminded myself not to fall into the trap of getting too close to him though - a sort of Stockholm syndrome in reverse. This guy was going back to Canada and was going to face some serious charges concerning the theft of billions of dollars. The problem we faced now was getting back to Canada. The FBI would be looking for us and they could ask for the help of local authorities to watch for us. We would not be that big of an item after a few weeks so we had to go to ground somewhere until it was safe to move towards the border. The famous unguarded border that stretches from sea to sea would be our ticket into Canada. The border was unguarded except by some very keen customs officers on both sides of the fence. We also had to break all connections with La Jolla and that meant getting a new vehicle. Jerry's 535i BMW could be traded in for a vehicle that would better suit our needs. But the trade had to seem plausible to a car salesman so he wouldn’t remember the deal as being unusual. We could dump the rental van in some place where it would be found in a few days. We needed a vehicle large enough for the three of us and all of our gear. I was thinking a Sports Utility type of vehicle might be best in case we had to do some cross-country driving at the border. Once Robbie joined up with us, we would have the money from Jerry's cheque to cover our expenses. We parked across the street from the Burger King, in what passes for the main street in Palm Springs. The white van pulled into the fast food outlet fifteen minutes later so Jerry and I walked across the street and got in. "Did you have any problems getting away from John, Robbie?" I asked. "No, I left just after the ambulance and the local police arrived. I gave them a statement and John vouched that I would be at the downtown office in about half an hour. I think I may have thrown him off the track in any case." "How?"

"I called a travel agent and asked for three seats on the next flight to Vancouver. I told her to leave a message at the front desk at the Suites. The agent said she would call back within five minutes, so I'm guessing that when John shows up at the motel and finds that he has been checked out, they will give him the message." I was impressed with her quick thinking. I could not have done any better. "Good work, Robbie. I think we can stay here one night but then we will have to move. We have got to get rid of the van and change this vehicle somehow. I was thinking about trading it in for an SUV." "Not my Beemer!" groaned Jerry. "Sorry, Jerry, but they’ll be looking for this car soon. I'd like to trade it this afternoon if we can." "But they will have my registration number. They’ll track us anyway." "They can try. It's not all that easy to look for a vehicle. Your crime is not that high profile - yet. I think if we move somewhere, go to ground for about a week and then start towards the border, we should be okay." "That sounds all right to me," Robbie said. "We’ll need a local address to give to the car dealer. Let's find an apartment building, look in the lobby for an empty mail slot and use that. Jerry can say he wants a Sports Utility to travel to his cabin up in the hills. He can pretend he is all excited about the vehicle and wants it right away. I’ll pretend to be his wife and will handle the money. It shouldn’t take them long to prep a new vehicle if they think they can make a fast sale." Robbie was turning into a real pro at my kind of work. There was no doubt in my mind that I would have to offer her a job in forensic accounting when this project was over. CSIS was no place for a bright young woman like Robbie. We found an apartment block with an empty apartment on the second try. Jerry said he wanted a Jeep so he and Robbie headed for the Chrysler dealership. I remained behind in the van with all the evidence, thinking about a place to leave the van. I was on my second chocolate milk shake when they returned to the Burger King parking lot driving a dark green Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited. The Jeep had enough gold accents on it to tell me they had paid a bundle for it, but it looked like it would have no trouble bouncing its way across the border. It had the expected four-wheel drive on the fly system, non-slip differentials, all season radials that appeared to have plenty of gripping power and extra lights for better off-road night visibility. Inside, the seats were all soft brown leather; there were enough speakers to satisfy any audiophile; and an electronics package to keep the owner’s manual in your hand for months. It even had a GPS system that matched the cell phone, explaining the extra aerial on the roof. "Jesus, Robbie, couldn’t you have got something a little less ostentatious?" "Frank! We were BMW owners! We weren’t about to try to trade down and make that sleazy salesman suspicious. Besides, I like this - it's great to drive." "Do we have any money left?"

"Lots. We only paid $2,300 difference- it's a demo." I had not looked at the odometer. I would have thought an even trade for the new 535i but said nothing about their bargaining skills. "Okay - let's move our stuff into the Jeep and get rid of the van. Any ideas where we could leave it?" "How about the big shopping mall?" Jerry suggested. "If we park it where the employees park, it might be there for days before the police find it." "Good idea, Jerry. How did you come up with that?" "I saw it on television. I used to watch Police Story reruns." There is a large factory outlet mall just east of Palm Springs and that is where we left the van. We ate dinner and decided to drive through the night, not wanting to register at a motel near where the van would be found. Robbie suggested that we head for Phoenix since she knew that area from having spent two-week's leave there when she finished her training at the RCMP training depot in Regina. Jerry was going along with our plan and did not seem inclined to give us any trouble. Just in case he forgot, I mentioned the Saudis a few times and complimented Robbie on her good shooting back at La Jolla. And it was good shooting. Two shots into the leg, even at fifteen feet, was nice work. At ten a.m. the next morning, we had booked into the private condo where Robbie had stayed a few years ago. The Capri Resort condos were small apartment units on 3 rd Street just a short walk from the centre of Scottsdale. The units were clean, there was a pool, and the manager paid us little heed once we had paid our deposit. I handcuffed Jerry to his bed and fell into a sound sleep myself. I could hear Robbie running the shower next door but Jerry and I were both snoring before she finished. Over dinner that evening, we planned our next moves. Robbie would rent a car so we did not have to use the new Jeep. We would connect our computer, load the Enigma program and send Scotty a message that let everyone at home know we were all right. Jerry would call his bank in the Caymans and tell them that Philip Pilger would be contacting them and to freeze the account under his trusteeship. Jerry gave us as much detail as he could about Hogarth Attward and we passed this along to Scotty with instructions to forward it to John Withers. Scotty would say he did not know where we were sending from and John would accept this once Scotty told him we were using the Enigma program. In fact, Scotty would know exactly where we were and could contact us if necessary. We had a little code within the code that I used in the message I sent to Nancy. We stayed at the Capri Resorts for one week, playing a little golf, touring around like typical tourists. I no longer handcuffed Jerry at night. He had no passport and no money and seemed content to bide his time with us. I thought the Saudi attack had shown him just what little regard his former business partner had for the lives of his associates. Jerry was hoping that we could somehow extricate him from his mess without him having to spend a lot of years behind bars. If we could somehow recover most of that money, things might go a little easier for him. The day we were ready to leave Phoenix, I called John Withers on my cell phone. I was feeling a little guilty about the way we had left him holding the bag at La Jolla. I wanted to tell him some of the details Sewell had given us about Hogarth Attward, hoping that would smooth things between us. I dialled the Pittsburgh office and was put through to John after a few minutes.

"John Withers, here," he said. "John - It's Frank. Be in your car in exactly thirty minutes," I said and broke the connection. I had been held at the switchboard too long. "Okay, Robbie, let's get started. I want you to pull off the road in exactly twenty-five minutes. Even if they do manage to trace the call, they won't backtrack us to the Capri easily." Robbie turned into a resort complex twenty-five minutes later. We were just at the end of Pima Road, leaving Scottsdale, heading for Flagstaff. I punched in John's cell number. "Withers here." "Can we talk?" I asked. "Yeah, you son of a bitch. Do you have any idea of how much shit I'm in?" "I'm really sorry, John, but I had to get Sewell back into Canada. He's given me a lot of valuable information and he will certainly be a good witness for us." I related everything I had gathered from Sewell, from the original meeting with Faazi to the murder of Judy O'Hare to the final days when they wound down the fund and fled with the money. I suggested that the FBI try to track Hogarth's girl friend, Mary Beth Rendell as she might have a lead on his whereabouts. "We know where Hogarth is," John said. "Have you got him in custody?" "Sort of . . . he's dead. We think Faazi got to him shortly after they tried for Sewell. We think your boy is still a target." "Did you get anything from those two in La Jolla?" "Naw – they have diplomatic immunity. But Robbie busted up that guy's leg pretty good. He's still in hospital - the other has been recalled to Saudi Arabia." "Are you fellows still looking for us?" "Oh yeah. You three are very high on our wanted list." "I see. Well, John, sorry for the trouble I caused you." "Ah, hell, Jarez would have found something else to bug me about anyway." "Yeah, I suppose so. I’ll call you if we come up with anything new." I got back into the Jeep and we continued our escape to Canada. Having the FBI after us was a problem we could deal with. I had some idea of how police forces work. The Saudis were another matter.

Chapter 14 On the way to Flagstaff, we discussed how we would make our run into Canada. I wanted to change the license plates a few times, keeping the original plates so we could do a legal plate change once we had the vehicle in Ontario. I saw no reason to give up the Jeep as part of the restitution before I had to. It would be a nice vehicle for trips to the cottage this summer. Robbie and Jerry were detailed to find a green Jeep whose plates we could steal and put on the Jeep. If we were spotted by a Highway Patrol officer and he ran our plates, it would give a match unless he was suspicious enough to ask for the matching registration. Robbie was to leave some same-state plate on the target Jeep in the hope that the owner would not report his plate missing. One thing about most of the States - you only had to steal one plate, not two as you did in Ontario. The huge parking lot at the Grand Canyon seemed to be the place to find another Jeep. I also wanted to be rid of the paintings we were carting around with us. The simplest solution was to send them by courier to Canada. All we needed was a customs form, prepay the charges and let someone in Canada know that they should expect a delivery. We found a small gallery at the edge of the main shopping area in Flagstaff where we purchased four prints of about the same size as our Morcos paintings, got the young clerk to package them so we could ship them to ‘Aunt Martha’ in Salt Lake City. We then re-packed the boxes and drove to the Federal Express office. The Customs form was simple enough and the price, $45.50, was reasonable. I addressed the package to Stu Carlson, Ontario Provincial Police officer, bowling partner and my friend. That night I called Stu and warned him of the package that Federal Express would be delivering within the next couple of days. I also asked Stu if he could manage to get me an electronic surveillance bracelet - the kind that sends a location signal and is compulsory for house-arrest convicts. I wanted to keep Jerry Sewell somewhere unofficial until we sorted out jurisdiction between CSIS and the FBI. Robbie connected to the office with her computer and read us the Enigma messages. There was a brief message from Nancy asking me to look after myself, a much longer message from Scotty telling Robbie to take care and a note saying that I should call John Withers. The final instruction was that we should go to Enigma II. That meant Scotty thought someone was looking at our system. Enigma II was simply a day code. Using the day of the month we added the day of the week and only the words that matched that number were the real message. If I were sending a message today it would mean that Monday, April 4, would be 4 plus 1, or every fifth word was my message. It took longer to send, but would confuse anyone who thought they had Enigma broken. I waited until we were ready to leave Flagstaff for Albuquerque before I used my cell phone, thinking that if the call was being traced, they would not find us in Flagstaff. I had a message from Withers saying Jarez had removed him from the case but to call him at a new number. I dialled the number and was greeted by the sound of what I thought was a lawn mower. "John, it's Frank," I yelled. "Frank - just a minute - I'm mowing my lawn." I could hear the sound of the mower fading away. "Are you okay?" "Yeah, we're fine. Anything new?" "Yes - just before that bastard Jarez took me off the case, we realized that the body in Argentina wasn’t

Attward - it was his ranch foreman. The Saudis shot the wrong man!" "Attward is still alive?" "As far as we know. We think he may have headed back here, but there's no sign of him at any of the places we're watching." "Do you know if the Saudis are still looking for Jerry?" "Yeah - they are. Worse, they have a million-dollar price on his head. I would not be surprised if some FBI agent might decide to take that contract, so be careful if you are caught by the Bureau - make sure there's lots of witnesses. I'd also be concerned about leaks - someone may tell the Saudis where you are and settle for a finder's fee." "Okay, we’ll be careful, John. I expect we should be home in about a week. Can I call you on this phone?" "Yeah, I bought a new one - Jarez doesn’t have this number." "Thanks, John." I shared the news with both Robbie and Jerry as we drove through the mountains. Sewell seemed lost in thought and I presumed he was thinking about the million-dollar bounty on his scalp and the fact that Attward was still alive. It was good that he was worried. It made him a much easier prisoner. In fact, we even let him share in the driving. I was fascinated with the country we were driving through, vowing that I would bring Nancy and the children here for a vacation. It was almost thirty years ago that I lived and breathed in this very country. As a boy of ten, I had discovered Zane Grey and my days were full of the Wild West. I read avidly, and for a few years, until I discovered the adventures of Horatio Hornblower and then girls, Zane Grey was my man. Now, I was busy following the map, pointing out places that Grey had used in his stories. Robbie and Jerry were only slightly interested but that did not dull my enthusiasm. At least Robbie was punching the coordinates of all the Zane Grey sites into the GPS so I could reverse navigate if I ever got back out this way. We were having a drink in my room at the Days Inn in Albuquerque that evening when Jerry said he had something that maybe we should know. He and Attward had an answering service in New York that they could use in case they ever had to leave a message for one another. "Why didn’t you tell me before now, Jerry? This could be really important!" "Well, when you told me Hogarth was dead and then that you thought he killed Judy - I didn’t want to think about him anymore." "Yeah, I can understand, but Jerry, we have to cover everything. I think you'd better check for messages." "Should I call from the room - what if they trace it?" "Nobody but you and Attward know about this - there's no reason for anyone to trace it. We’ll be long

gone before anyone ever finds we were even here. Call the number." Jerry called, identified himself with a password and listened. I wished I could hear but there was no extension in the unit and I wanted to show Jerry that I trusted him. He motioned for a pencil and paper and wrote some numbers on the back of the Days Inn customer satisfaction survey. "What was the message, Jerry," Robbie asked. "He's back in the States, says to leave a message if I'm okay. The numbers are for his Swiss account in Zurich - says I'm to have the money if the police catch him." "Nothing about the Saudis?" "No. Why would he give me his money?" "Maybe he's feeling a little guilty about killing Judy," suggested Robbie. We needed to keep this line of communication open. And we had to be more careful about it than I had thought. If the FBI or the Saudis found this room, they would eventually look at the phone bills. "Jerry, what's that telephone number?" "Why?" "Quick - I need to dial it right away!" He looked puzzled but gave me the number. I dialed, but transposed the last two digits. Some young person answered and I managed to keep them on the line for a couple of minutes before the mother came on the line to see who was calling. I hung up. "What was that all about?" Jerry asked. Robbie was laughing. "He just made your phone call look like a wrong number! That should confuse anybody that's checking the account for at least a few hours." "Okay," I said, "That is enough fooling around. I think we have to get Attward to continue using this message service until we can catch him. Jerry, I want you to make a call to the service from a phone booth. Tell Hogarth that the Saudis are after you and him because CSIS was onto you. Make it sound as if you are on the run. Give him your bank account number - in case the Saudis get you. Tell him you will meet him somewhere if he finds a safe place." "But I thought we were going to Canada." "We are, but he doesn’t have to know that. If we can set him up for John, so much the better. You do want him brought to justice for killing Judy, don't you?" "Yes, I do. What if he tries to get the money from my account and finds it is closed?" "I'm gambling on a little honour between thieves, Jerry. He did give you his account number. He must still trust you. Besides, if he finds that your account is closed, it will add some pressure for him to use

you as an ally." "I suppose that's true. Shall I call now?" Jerry called and left a message for Attward, saying he would check daily for news. We made it as far as Pueblo the next day, having been slowed by a spring storm that dumped a few inches of snow in the mountains. The Jeep had no trouble but the cars slip-sliding on the road made the going slow. I decided to send Robbie back to Canada from Denver. If anyone was watching for the three of us, that would lower the odds of being spotted. We decided to change plates once more in Denver. We put Robbie on an Air Canada flight to Toronto at the Denver airport. She took all the receipts that I had been accumulating since we began this trip, the computer and a note for Nancy. I kept her little . 380 automatic, promising to take good care of it and to return it as soon as I got to Toronto. Jerry volunteered to get a buzz cut and dye his hair blonde. My only disguise was to shave off my moustache and wear the plaid shirts and hunting pants that were to be our vacation trip clothes in case anyone asked where we were going and what we were doing. We purchased two hunting bows as props but I was not sure if either Jerry or I could even string the compound bows. Later, Jerry told me that he had taken archery lessons once, so I was counting on him to add some verisimilitude to our story if we were stopped. We were going to miss Robbie, but it was probably best that Jerry and I were without female company for a while. The hormones were starting to percolate. Jerry called the message centre from Cheyenne, but there was nothing at the service. We got a parking ticket and I thought nothing of it until Jerry read it out loud as we headed for Belle Fourche, our destination that night. The message was that all out of state tickets had to be paid within 24 hours or they were put on the State computer system. If the real owner of the plate had reported it stolen, we would soon be on the system. I pulled off the road and we removed the plate, replacing it with our original Arizona plate. That might also be on a computer but the chances were reduced that some overzealous parking attendant would see it on his ticketing machine as a > scoff-law'who had skipped Cheyenne without paying a thirty-dollar ticket. I thought at first it was just the slip in not paying that ticket that was making the hairs tingle on the back of my neck. But something else was bothering me. That reliable sixth sense told me we were being followed. "Jerry, write down every make and colour of every car that passes us when I pull into this service station for gas. Get the first four or five cars. And if anyone comes in for gas, get that one too." "You think we're being followed?" "Just checking." Back on the road again I asked Jerry to read me the list. "Red Chevy half ton, really old; blue Ford Taurus - looked like one person in it; Green Dodge half ton, looked new, two people in it; Grey Chrysler LHS, couldn’t see inside; Volkswagen - silver, one person, a transport truck - Laidlaw and an old green Chevy truck. A red Firebird pulled into the gas station - a girl was driving." "Okay - watch for any of those vehicles stopped along the road or in any driveway."

We went about two miles before we spotted the big Chrysler. I watched the rear view mirror as long as I could after we left the service station and I thought I saw the grey car pull out of a driveway. "I think that Chrysler is the one, Jerry. I don't want him to think we’ve spotted him but watch for him." "Yes, I think he's back there. What should we do now?" "Well, if it's the FBI, they will be in radio contact and we’ll be caught before we get to Belle Fourche. If it's the Saudis, we had better lose them before we stop tonight. The last thing I want is for them to find us at night in some motel." "But they’ll have guns - what will we do?" "Crawl in the back and get my overnight case - it's got your gun in it." "Hell, Frank, I don't know how to shoot!" "Well, I may need the extra fire power - get the gun." I was watching the road for a turn-off. We were in the Black Hills area and this was rugged country. It was the ideal place where a couple of bow hunters might be out looking for small game. If our followers were FBI they would likely try to stop us as soon as we left the main road. They would not want us four-wheeling through the back trails where they could not follow us in the Chrysler. The Saudis might think the desolate Black Hills area would be a good place to leave our bodies. But this area was not like their homeland and unless they too had read Zane Grey, I thought I would have the advantage. I saw a fingerboard sign ahead and slowed, signalled and turned right onto the gravel road. The LHS followed. The gravel road led past a small home, then a house trailer. The power and telephone lines ended at the trailer. The road was less used and definitely one lane, but still passable. I found a clearing on the side of a hill and drove the Jeep up near the brush line. We were about 200 hundred yards from the road out of range of pistols and small automatics like the Uzzi. The Chrysler stopped just at the entrance to the clearing, almost out of view. "Okay, Jerry, get out the bows and arrows - see if you can set them up for us. I want it to look like we are going into the brush hunting. Keep that gun out of sight, under your windbreaker." Jerry strung the bows and tested the pull on the compound bow. He gave me one along with a quiver of six mean-looking hunting arrows. I made a couple of practice pulls and started talking about hunting. I motioned for Jerry to go to my left and we stepped into the light brush, working our way up the hill. Three men got out the car and began moving towards the Jeep. They were definitely from the Middle East and unless the FBI sent out a field team that was not politically correct for race, these guys were Faazi's friends. Two of them carried machine pistols that I thought looked like Glocks, the other just had a .45 handgun. We were certainly out-gunned as well as out-numbered. Those fellows had murder on their minds while I was still trying to think of some alternative to shooting them. I think Jerry would have preferred to head into the hills and hope to lose them. It might have been the prudent thing to do for the short term, but I wanted to get back to Canada on my own - not through the court system where I was likely already considered a fugitive or at least an accomplice to a crook. I made my way over to where Jerry was huddled behind a tree.

"Jerry, if they try to follow us I want you to work your way straight up the hill. Don't let them get too close and don't be afraid to shoot at them to keep them back. I’ll try to work around behind them and take them out one at a time." "I can't shoot anybody." "Give me your gun." I checked the loads and put one in the chamber. I eased the safety on and showed him how to push it off. "Just put the safety off, point the thing in the general direction and pull the trigger. If you hit one of them okay, but at least you’ll make them back off." "But . . ." "Listen, Jerry. Those guys are going to kill us. I'm not going out without a fight. We have the advantage of knowing they are after us so we can ambush them. Now get moving - and be quiet." "Jesus, Frank, can't we just run for it?" Jerry's conditioning from his daily runs might give him an edge in a long run, but I was in no shape to try a foot escape. "No! Here, take my arrows - I'm going to see if they are coming after us." I made like a snake and bellied back down the hill until I could see the Jeep through the brush. The Saudis were looking inside the Jeep. One of them opened the door and started going through the luggage. Evidently, he found something that convinced him that we were the ones they wanted. There was an exchange in Arabic and the three men moved out to positions of concealment around the Jeep. They were going to wait until we came back and then shoot us. I marked their hiding places and then made my way up the hill to find Jerry. Jerry had made better time up the hill than I thought and it took me almost ten minutes to find him. I finally yelled at him to get him to stop. I figured the Saudis would not hear us and if they did, they would think it not unusual. "Jerry, they're not coming," I panted, trying to catch my breath. "Good," he said, relaxing a bit. "Yeah - well, now we have to go after them." "Frank, there has to be another way. I can't do this." "Okay, Jerry - there is another way. I can just walk out of here and go home. I don't need this. I’ve got a family to think about. I’ve got nothing to lose - only a little money. You can do what you want." I stood up. "But what about me?" Sewell whined. "It's your problem, Jerry. It's you they want dead - not me. You can try to run and hope that the FBI finds you before they do . . . Good luck." "Frank! Wait! Don't leave me here – they’ll kill me." His face was as white as a piece of 24 pound bond paper. "Tell me what we have to do."

"Okay - but don't you screw up and leave me to try to take on three guys by myself." "I won't, I won't!" I scratched out a little map of the area where the Jeep was parked. I knew where the three Saudis had hidden themselves and marked those places with X's, pointing out to Jerry how I planned to circle around behind one of the gunmen and take him out as quietly as I could. I would then try to get a drop on the second man while Jerry covered the third, shooting at him if necessary. If we could disarm them and put them afoot without their shoes, they would be off our trail until we got into Canada. I did not tell Jerry, but I thought the chances of taking out those Glock machine guns without shooting someone were very slim. I knew the range of my 9 mm and its accuracy at range was far better than the machine pistols. Robbie's .380 was only good for close work and I would use it as my weapon when I tried for the first man. I was wishing that Robbie was here now. The odds would have been in our favour, I was sure. We made our way down the hillside being careful to keep out of sight of the watchers around the Jeep. I found a spot for Jerry where could see the third man if he stood up to confront me, as I hoped would happen. Jerry was still clutching the bow and arrows and I made him put them down and cock the gun. He was sweating even though it was a pleasant 10 or 12 degrees Celsius with a breeze from the southwest. It took me about ten minutes to work my way around behind the man on the left side of the Jeep. He was sitting with his back to a small aspen, his gun in his lap. He seemed to be paying attention to something just ahead of him, in the short dry grasses. A ground squirrel was rooting in the grass, looking for seeds or fresh spring insects. The man made a low whistling chirp, trying to get the little brown critter to look at him. I eased off my walking shoes and carefully made my way closer, the .380 in my right hand. I hoped to get right behind the guy before he heard me and then whack him on the head with the gun. All was going well, the man watching the squirrel, me making no sound in my socking feet. I was about eight feet away when the squirrel spotted me. It stood up, gopher-like and gave a loud warning. The Saudi put two and two together a lot faster than I would have given him credit. He grabbed his gun and rolled in one motion. I felt the little gun buck in my hand twice, heard the boom of his big magnum and drove to the ground. I banged my head on a small rock but felt nothing else. I rolled and then took a quick look at my target, ready to fire if he moved. He did not. One of his buddies yelled from across the opening. Jerry fired the .45. And fired, and fired. The silly bugger had frozen his hand on the trigger. He was going to empty the clip on the automatic! One of the Saudis opened up with a Glock. I hoped Jerry was down behind his rock because that fellow also emptied a clip. The problem was, he likely had another clip and Jerry was now unarmed. I squirmed over to the fellow I had shot. Two through the shoulder. He was dazed now, staring at his shoulder but the wounds did not look that bad to me. Not even a lot of blood. Probably the first time he had been shot. I rolled him onto his front and tied his hands behind his back with his belt. He never said a word but the looks he gave said all he needed. The other two men yelled out to check if they were okay. My guy was going to respond until I put the cold steel of the Berretta muzzle behind his ear. He understood.

I had to move quickly because the other two gunmen knew exactly where I was. I scooped up the big magnum and stuck Robbie's little .380 in my pocket. I retraced my steps and found my shoes. I was about to start my hunt when a cold voice from behind me said, "Okay, stand up real slow. Drop the gun." The voice was close enough that I knew I had no chance. I slowly straightened, dropping the magnum. "Turn around." I did. The fellow was Caucasian, not an Arab as I had thought. "The other gun - take it out and drop it - very easy now." I carefully opened my jacket and took the 9 mm out of the shoulder holster with only my thumb and forefinger. I dropped it carefully on the ground, trying not to drop it on a rock. "Ahmed - I have the detective," he yelled. "Good - bring him out, Harry. Is Janni all right?" "I just winged him in the shoulder," I said to Harry. He looked at me and nodded. "Yes, he's only got a little wound." He motioned with his Glock, "Okay, put your hands up where I can see them, start walking." The other, Ahmed, called out to Jerry, "Mr. Sewell - we have your friend. You had better come out now. We only wanted to talk to you." After all the shooting, even Jerry could not believe that line. There was no reply from Jerry. We were now out into the clearing, me with my hands in the air, the fellow Harry behind me with the machine pistol ready to cut me in half. Ahmed now came out into the clearing. "That other one has no more bullets," he laughed. "Sewell, either you come out so we can talk or we’ll have to shoot the detective!" he yelled into the brush up the hillside. There was no answer from Jerry. Dammit, I wished I had Robbie here instead of the frightened Sewell. Maybe Robbie and I could have worked out something to have prevented this mess I had gotten myself into. "Sewell, I'm counting to ten, then we shoot this man!" He began counting slowly. I looked around at the man behind me. About ten feet away. I had no chance and we were already at four. I knew at nine I was going to have to dive and try to get that little .380 out of my pocket. Out in the open with two Glocks at this range my chances were virtually nil. "Six." I heard something swish over my head. Harry turned to look at the receding sound. "Seven," yelled Ahmed, looking up into the brush for any sign of Sewell. "Eight." I heard another swish, then a thunk of something hitting Harry and saw him staring in disbelief at an arrow sticking out of his hip as he slowly crumpled to the ground. "Indians!" he yelled. I hit the dirt, digging for the .380, rolling away down the hillside. Ahmed looked at Harry, not comprehending what was meant by ‘Indians’ until an arrow dug into the ground beside his foot. I stopped rolling. The little Berretta was in my hand and I fired a round in the general direction of Ahmed. He turned and sprayed the dirt around me with his Glock. I heard him yell something in Arabic and thought he would be charging at me in some death-defying frenzy. I held the

gun out in front of me and prepared to get in as many shots as I could, hoping to hit the running figure. But Ahmed was not running. He was hopping around on one foot, holding his other leg where a hunting shaft was firmly lodged in his shin. He had dropped the gun so I got up and ran over to him, kicking the Glock to the side. Harry was not making any movement at all, staring in a catatonic trance at the arrow. "Sit down, Ahmed," I said, roughly pushing him to the ground. "Jerry, It's okay - come out! You got both of them!" I yelled. We carried Janni and Harry over to where Ahmed was sitting. I bound up Janni's wounds so the bleeding stopped - he would probably last a few hours. Harry had that arrow in his hip and although there was not a lot of blood, I suspect the hunting point was embedded in the hipbone. He seemed to be in a lot of pain, but was in no immediate danger of dying. Ahmed was the least injured, but again, the arrow head was into the bone. I checked their pockets for identification. The Saudis had nothing of interest except five hundred dollars in US which I pocketed. Harry had a badge. A FBI badge. I kept the badge and his identity card. I thought he was doing a little off-duty work for Prince Faazi, but in any case, I planned on sending his badge to Jarez with a short explanatory note. I told the three wounded men that I would call for an ambulance but it would probably take an hour before they saw anyone. Through all of this, Jerry had been very quiet, seemingly under control, showing no signs of the timid man who an hour ago wanted to run away. "Okay, let's go Jerry," I said. "Wait just a moment, Frank. There's something I have to do first." He picked up the bow and notched another of those mean-looking hunting shafts. He walked over to Ahmed, drew the arrow back and placed the tip on Ahmed's throat. He had all of Ahmed's wide-eyed attention. "In the name of Allah, don't kill me," Ahmed whined. Jerry pulled the arrow back more. "You tell Faazi that I just placed a million dollars on his head. A million dollars for whoever kills Faazi. You understand?" "Yes," whispered Ahmed. Jerry took the arrow from Ahmed's throat, moved it slowly across Ahmed's right cheek, leaving a fine red line of blood that stretched from Ahmed's mouth to his ear. "That's so you don't forget to tell him." Ahmed was going to have a long scar as a memento of his visit to the Wild West. We stopped at the Chrysler and let the air out of two front tires in case the wounded men tried to get out by themselves. We wiped the prints off the guns we had taken from them and threw them under the car. Somebody would see them when they moved the car and the three men would have to come up with a story to explain that as well as how they were all wounded. Jerry left his bow and arrows under the car to further complicate the investigation. I slowed as we passed a mail box at the trailer and got the name. As soon as we were on the highway, I called 911 from the Jeep's cell phone and reported that my son had seen some men shooting at each other in the woods. I gave my name as the one on the mailbox and hung up before they could trace the call. About ten miles down the highway we met two state police cars going at full speed and then an ambulance with its lights flashing followed about two minutes later. We drove steadily, not stopping at Belle Fourche as planned. We got a room in Williston about eight o’clock, had several too many drinks of scotch whiskey after dinner and fell into a sound sleep. Jerry was feeling some kind of remorse at discovering he had the capacity to kill another human being. My

calling him Red Feather may not have helped, but I could not stop myself.

Chapter 15 We ate a leisurely breakfast the next morning at a waffle house while I explained to Jerry how I planned to find a way into Canada. He would pose as an FBI agent using the badge we had taken from the agent yesterday. He would only flash the badge, never showing the photo side of the holder. I would use my CSIS identification and would show everything since there was no discrepancy in my identification. We would drive to the small town of Ambrose and start visiting farms, asking if the owners knew of any way that criminals could cross the border in a Jeep-like vehicle. We were part of an international team that was trying to control illegal immigration into our respective countries. My hope was that sooner or later, we would find a cooperative landowner who would tell us how to cross the 49th parallel in our Jeep. We would even show them our GPS system to impress them. It was late afternoon when we finally found someone who could show us the way over the border. The farmer rode with us right up to the fence line and then pointed out the way into Canada. There was a small creek that he was certain the Jeep could ford as he himself often took his Honda four-wheeler through when he was looking for stray cattle. The condition of his fence told why he often had cattle wandering into Canada. We marked the location on the GPS and drove him back to his home, thanking him for his cooperation. I left him a business card saying the Canadian government appreciated his help in this important work. At 2 a.m. the night sky was clear with only a fingernail moon on the horizon. We slowly made our way through the rancher's field to the border crossing we had positioned on the GPS. We cut the fence with the pliers in the Jeep's tool kit and drove through the gap. Not wanting the farmer to have to come to Canada to find his cattle the next day, I wired the strands back together with the coat hanger I had filched from the restaurant. We began picking our way down towards the creek. The lights were on now and the extra off-road lights turned the area around the vehicle into ghostly white with shadows dancing around us as we moved through the small trees. The creek was not very deep and the Jeep had no problems climbing the bank on the other side. We did scratch the paint a little as we zigzagged our way through the brush but soon found a cow path that we bounced along until we suddenly came to a farmhouse. A dog started barking and before we could get past the frame house, a light came on revealing a fellow dressed only in skivvies armed with pump shotgun blocking our way. I got out and identified myself, using the same story I had used on the American side. He did not believe me. "Whatcha doing with them Arizonie plates on the Jeep, then?" he asked. "It's the FBI's vehicle," I said. "Jerry, he wants to see some ID," I said over my shoulder. The FBI badge convinced him. I thought it odd how he would not accept a bona fide Canadian CSIS identification but one glance at the American FBI eagle and he lowered the gun. "We had a fellow on the other side point out this here trail to us and we wanted to see if we could use it in the night," Jerry told the farmer in his best Texas drawl. "You all ever see any traffic coming through here?" "Well, no strangers. In the winter we sometime visit back and forth on our snowmobiles, but we aren’t

doing anything illegal," the man said. He paused and then added, "Well, Hank sometimes brings me a bottle of vodka, but that's all." There was no doubt we were back in Canada. This man was volunteering more information than he should have to the authorities. I do not know what it is about us that prompts us to give away information to authority figures. We do not need a Freedom of Information Act in this country, what we need is an Act to keep our mouths shut. Jerry was a perfect example - he spilled everything we wanted to know about the case without us having to really interrogate him. Maybe it is from watching too much American TV where the cops are shown giving the suspect the third degree. Nobody wants the third degree. It was too late to think about sleeping so I decided we should head directly to Winnipeg where we would spend the night before the two-day trip to Toronto. We treated ourselves to a suite at the Renaissance and ordered room service for our late lunch. I apologized for having to handcuff Jerry to his bed but since he was in Canada, he no longer needed a passport to leave the country. There were just too many countries willing to accept a driver's license as proof of residency where Jerry could go. He did not have any cash but that could always be found if he were desperate enough to hold up a Seven Eleven. He said he had no desire to escape and face any more Saudi hit teams but I figured Red Arrow might have found something within himself to encourage him to try once more given the opportunity. The following morning we left Winnipeg at seven a.m. hoping to make it to Timmins late that night. I had made a number of telephone calls, first to Nancy to tell her that I was fine and to expect me and my stiff friend the day after tomorrow. I called Stu Carlson and went over my plan to keep Sewell under wraps until we, and the FBI, could catch Hogarth Attward. It was my idea that we might be able to lure Attward into Canada if he thought Sewell had a safe hiding place. Stu had arranged to get a monitoring bracelet so we could keep tabs on Jerry without being with him twenty-fours a day. Stu even volunteered to look after Jerry for the weekend. He said that he had Sewell's paintings hung in his recreation room and he might as well have the man there too - as long as Jerry was no threat to his family. When I told Stu that Jerry had saved my life using a bow and arrows, Stu said he really must meet this desperado who I was now calling Red Feather. I talked to Robbie for some time, finding out how much she had reported to her boss, Buddy Olsen. She had kept everything to the bare bones, saying that I would be giving a full report in a couple of days. She said that Scotty was fine, without my asking, advancing my suspicion that something was brewing between those two youngsters. I placed one more call to Jay Silverstein. Silverstein was an old rival, of sorts, but a good criminal lawyer. I told him that I had a client for him if he was interested in a very significant international case. I warned him that the client would have no money, but I thought there might be something in it for him from CSIS. I did not want to go into details, for I would be on the crown's side of any court case, but Silverstein said to have my friend call him. I passed the phone to Jerry and let them talk. Jerry punched the numbers for his voice messaging number in New York. There was a message from Attward asking Jerry to call leaving a secure number where Attward could call direct. The plan I had in my mind was to put Jerry in my cottage in Haliburton and try to lure Attward to come to Canada. Once we had him, I wanted him to deal for the money he had left in return for a reduced sentence in Canadian jurisdiction if we could work something out with the FBI. We were not going to mention the murder charge in Bermuda until we had the money. I did not have to tell Jerry that we were going to throw Attward to the wolves, he knew his reduced sentence would depend on getting that money back.

Over the next two days we tried to come up with some way of getting Prince Faazi O’nan but by the time we reached Toronto we still had no idea of how to get those billions of dollars back to the shareholders of Wardwell. It was good to be home again and sleep in my own bed. Nancy was as anxious as I, and we had a frantic sex session before we relaxed and made love in the long and slow way that we both needed to strengthen that bond of love between us. The kids piled into bed with us in the morning or we would have had another round of bouncy-bouncy. I had not yet told Nancy the details of how Jerry and I had played cowboys and Indians in the Black Hills of Dakota. Somehow, with my family around me I began to realize that I had taken chances that I should not have risked. There was a responsibility now that I had not had before when I was doing my police thing, exposing myself to dangers that were beyond what any family man should. Well, unless he was a soldier, fireman or policeman. Or perhaps a forensic accountant. I called Buddy Olsen and filled him on my plan. He was a little unsure about letting Jerry Sewell remain at large but when I told him that we had him in a monitoring bracelet he thought he could justify the risk if something did go wrong and Sewell escaped. I told Buddy that we would need some funding and he agreed that we could use a modest amount of the money we had recovered from Jerry's San Diego account - after doing some creative accounting that would remove us from the money trail. That was one nice thing about the federal budgets - the amounts were so large and the budgets so general - one could move money around without attracting the auditor general's attention. The plan was to get Attward and then find some way to get the money back from Saudi Arabia. Perhaps Attward would cooperate and give us some ideas. I asked Buddy to talk to his FBI opposite, Jarez to see if he would cooperate. If not, I planned on getting as much help as I could through John Withers, on the hope that any credit for capturing Attward would go to John. On Monday Robbie and I took Jerry to my cottage near Haliburton. We bought enough food for a week for the two of them. Robbie was going to stay with Sewell and take down his deposition on her laptop computer. The plan was to call Attward and see if we could entice him north of the border. Jerry would tell him that he had a remote cottage and was staying there with two bodyguards, Robbie and me, and that the place was safe. They would pose as Americans staying there through the summer. By the fall, Jerry hoped to have found a safe haven somewhere else, but the important thing was to get Faazi off their backs. Together, they could come up with something. Robbie kept the Jeep at the cottage and as I drove back to Toronto alone, I tried to figure how we could get the money back to the investors when we did recover it. Since they were mutual funds, I did not want the money just to go back into the general fund account. The owners of the funds would have changed as investment managers scrambled to stop the bleeding when the Wardwell Funds collapsed. I needed to understand better how the records of mutual funds were maintained and to do that, I needed someone with the inside knowledge. I thought about getting my dentist to give me the name of his broker but then we did not want to go public with anything. Perhaps my father, Philip, would know more about this. Suddenly it dawned on me that we had Sewell - he knew everything about mutual funds. I called Robbie on the cell phone and asked for Jerry. Red Feather had slipped on the rocks near the docks and got himself soaked. I guess he was not wearing the right moccasins! Jerry was changing his clothes and would call me in a few minutes. Jerry explained that there would be records - it was simply a matter of establishing a cut-off date for the transactions. And yes, he knew the date. Jerry would tell Robbie how to get the records that she could

use to contact the various fund managers once we were ready. We would have to arrive at some ratio since I had no hope of retrieving all the money. Jerry had already used up a goodly piece of his share and I was sure that Attward and his Argentine farm would not show a plus on the balance sheet. Perhaps Faazi might have invested his money since he did not need to dip into the proceeds for his daily needs. If we could only find a way to get our hands on those billions. Early May is spring cleaning time at the camp and this year we had Robbie and Jerry installed as fulltime residents at our cottage. I call it a cottage but really it is a winterized four bedroom lodge with separate kitchen, dining and family room. It sits back about fifty feet from the shoreline among some pines and birches. There is a sandy beach for about half the frontage, on the left a weed bed spread out into the lake where it deepens to about thirty feet of water. That weed bed was the home of a big pike that I tried to catch every year. My Dad had named it Jaws and told fearsome stories to the neighbouring kids to keep them off the dock. To the left of the property was a rocky point, the home of several pair of smallmouth bass. The weed bed was a favourite ambush place for northern pike as they waited and watched for an unwary bass. Jerry and I were busy installing the floating dock, a cold job in the spring water. Robbie and Nancy were washing the outside windows while Marisa and Justin played nearby. My neighbour had his lunch cooking on the barbeque, the smell of hot dogs and buns spreading along the beach. The spring warblers were flitting among the birches, looking for early bugs that would fuel them for their continuing trip north. This bright, warm day was why I loved my cottage retreat. "You know, Frank, you’re a very lucky man," Jerry said as he stood waist deep in the cold water. "Yeah - this year I have you standing in the cold water instead of me." "No - I mean, just look around - your family all together here in this idyllic place, the birds singing, somebody cooking outdoors - what more could a man want?" "Yes, you’re right. It is a great place. I guess this is what I work for." He was quiet while he bolted the last section onto the dock. "I thought I knew what I wanted from life. Now I see it was not much. I thought that having a girl friend instead of a wife, some excellent art and my aquarium in a comfortable house, fine food and good music was all I could ever want. It doesn’t seem like much when I see you here with your family." Expressed that way, Jerry seemed like a fairly normal fellow. But I thought it might also show another side to the man. Did he not want the responsibility of a wife and family? Was he greedy in his art collection or really a connoisseur of these modern paintings? Did he keep the little fishes in the aquarium because he was a control freak, or did he think he was giving his finny friends a safe home? I still did not know the man that well to make these kinds of judgements. "Well, someday you can have a family too, you know." "Yeah - but I’ll be an old man by the time I get out of prison. I don't even have a girlfriend to wait for me." "Maybe you won't be in prison as long as you think. You should get parole fairly soon. You're no threat to the public - as long as you're not in the stock market. I think if we can recover most of that money, your sentence may turn out to be fairly light - I'm guessing you’ll only spend two or three years in jail."

"But I’ll be thirty-five or thirty-six by then. I won't have a job. I’ll have to find a woman - that could take me a couple of years. By then I’ll be too old to have children." "Quit feeling sorry for yourself, Jerry. Jesus, I'm forty-one and I have Justin who is two. I’ll admit that Nancy is a few years younger than I am, but hell, there are lots of great people out there who are looking for a decent partner. You’ll be all right. You can study while you're in jail – you’ll just have to decide what kind of career you want." "I was thinking about that. I like fish - maybe I could start a pet shop. I'd like to get into an art gallery, but that takes capital." "Of course you could always teach archery, Red Feather!" I laughed. He grabbed my foot and dumped me into the cold water. Some people just cannot take a joke. Jerry had been trading messages with Hogarth but we still did not know where Attward was living. Jerry suggested that Hogarth come to Canada and hideout with him, but he did not bite. Haram Jarez was getting impatient and wanted to put the pressure on Jerry to tell him more. I was satisfied that Jerry Sewell had told us everything he knew, about both Attward and Faazi. So when the receptionist said she had Mr. Sewell on the line and that it was very important, I ended the meeting with the two investigators who were working with Scotty on a computer fraud case. "Jerry, what's so important?" I asked. "Frank! I caught a big fish!" "You caught a fish? You called me in the middle of the day to tell me you caught a fish?" "Yeah. A really big one. Right off the dock!" "Okay, Jerry - how big is it?" "110 centimetres! It was beautiful." That got my attention. "You're kidding! What kind of fish is it?" "Was. We let it go. Robbie says it was a pike." He had caught Jaws. "What kind of lure were you using?" "A green one." "Yeah, yeah, but what kind?" There were half a dozen green lures in my tackle box- Zara Spooks, Bagley's Big O, Rapala Deep Runners, rubber frogs, buzz baits - I had tried everything to hook that monster pike. I heard him asking Robbie what kind of lure he had used. "Robbie says it was a spinner bait, Frank." I had tried that spinner bait every year without luck. "Well congratulations, Jerry - you just caught

Jaws," I changed the subject. "Any news from Attward?" "No, I’ll check the message centre again this evening." "We're going to have to force his hand, Jerry. If you don't get anything tonight, I think we’ll go after him another way. We’ve got to get Attward and then hopefully find a way to get at Faazi. I’ll come to the cottage tomorrow to go over the plan." We had to get moving before Jarez and Buddy Olsen ran out of patience. I began going over the plan that had been forming in my mind. Jerry would have to be the bait we used to trap Attward. I told myself it had nothing to do with Jerry, a novice fisherman, catching Jaws when I had tried for years to hook that big pike and failed.

Chapter 16 Scotty wanted to accompany me so he could visit with Robbie when I drove north to the cottage that Thursday morning. It was becoming very obvious that these two young people were more than just good friends. They could be a good for each other, too, I thought. Scotty needed somebody to get his head out of the world of chips and bytes. Robbie could do with a little romance in her life. She was very much the professional CSIS operative. She had a mind that seemed to tune into the way the bad guys operated. I suppose it was something like the way that I can look at a set of books and smell a rat after only a few hours of digging. You develop a sense of how things should be, like how the motor is running in your vehicle. Any slight change in sound or response and you know something is not just quite right. Sometimes it goes away, as in the case of a tank of poor quality gasoline, but other times you take it to the shop and the technician finds some little thing going wrong that will cost you only $50 now or $200 later. Robbie, Scotty and I all had this sense of what was right or wrong in our professional fields. Maybe all professionals do. The trouble comes when you get the signals from some other endeavour - or try to find signals where there are none - usually in our relationships. If Scotty and Robbie could turn off the signal searching when they were together, so much the better for them. "Frank, I was thinking about how to get to Prince Faazi," Scotty said as we drove up highway 400 towards Haliburton. "We should be using the same technology that he used to steal that money." "I don't follow you," I said. "They used the trading over the computer to set up those phony companies. They presented information to the buyers that was never really verified. They knew that they had a certain amount of time before any regulatory body could check on them. The shell companies existed - that could be easily discovered by a visit to the Far East. But most of the investors just looked on the Internet, saw the home page, read what a wonderful company they could invest in and called their broker." "Okay, but I still don't see how that gets us to Faazi." "We should be using the Internet to attack him." "Attack? You’ve been playing too many of those computer war games, Scotty." "Well, I don't know. Suppose we identified everything that the Prince - or his family - owns;

companies, aircraft, oil wells, banks - whatever. And what if we could get people to boycott all of those assets." "Hell, Scotty, we aren’t big enough to make any impact on him that way!" "No, you and I can't - but what about all the investors who lost money in Wardwell?" "Well, you might get several hundreds of people that way - but most of them won't do anything." "There are always the windmill jousters out there on the net - people who like a cause like this anything to get back at a big corporation." "Okay, so now you have maybe a thousand people." "Oh, I think you underestimate the power of the Internet, Frank. I'm betting that if we posted a site that told everyone who is looking forward to a pension that their pension could be jeopardized the same way as the people who lost with Wardwell, they would act." "Okay, so you can drum up some activists - what can they do that will cause Faazi to give us back that money?" "Well, Robbie and I think that if we posted a list of all the companies that Faazi has any interest in at all, any companies that he controls through shares held, any company remotely connected to his family, we would have a very extensive list." So my employees were plotting behind my back now. And I thought they were acting normally, necking, kissing, carrying on in a romantic way that young people should. Instead, they were talking business! "And you would post this list of companies on the Internet and tell people not to buy their products." "Yeah - it would have to hurt them." "I think Faazi - and the King - have pretty deep pockets. They could weather this a lot longer than your campaign will last. People will lose interest unless they see immediate results. You’ll keep the hard core followers but I don't think you’ll keep the pressure on very long. And they could hit back at us." "I don't know - maybe you're right." We drove along listening to the radio and finally got to discussing sports after hearing how the Jays had dropped another extra-inning game to New York. Scotty was right up on baseball but his real passion was boxing. I had thought that the barbaric sport had fallen from favour and did not draw many fans anymore. But apparently I was wrong. Scotty had all the statistics about the upcoming welter-weight fight right at his finger tips. He was even offering me odds on who would win but I would not bite. The last time I bet on boxing was - well, I could not remember when Smokin'Joe fought last. We stopped at the Beer Store in Haliburton and bought a case of Upper Canada Rebellion for the cottage. It was that kind of spring day when you could sit outdoors and sip slowly on a glass of dark ale. Not like a hot summer day when you wanted to tip the bottle up and gurgle down large cold mouths full of a clear

light pilsner. We retired to the dock where Jerry went through his exploits with Jaws, Robbie rolling her eyes at his exaggerations. Jerry could turn into a real fisherman with a few more catches. He was about to go to the cottage to get my 6' spinning rod and demonstrate his technique when I called him back. "Jerry, sit down and stop with the fish for a moment will you? We need to talk about our next step with Attward and Faazi." "I was telling Frank about my Internet idea but he seemed to think it wouldn’t work," Scotty said. Jerry had not heard the scheme yet so Scotty and Robbie filled him in on their idea. "I don't know, Frank. It sounds like it might have a chance," Jerry offered. "I don't think you can get enough people interested. Most of the big shareholders were Trust Funds or Banks who were using Wardwell for retirement plans. They seem to have written off the loss and just gone on with business as usual." "That's true, but there is another group of traders out there now. The Day Traders. If we could get them interested, we might have something to work with." I had to ask, "What is a Day Trader, Jerry?" "Jeez, Frank, where have you been? Under a rock? Day traders are the people who are driving the stock markets right now. They are the people who put their money into the market early in the day, speculating on a stock that they think will run. Before the end of the day, they sell everything, taking a profit if they are lucky - and most of them are." "So you're saying that people are just playing around with a few dollars on short-term investments?" "It is not just a few dollars. There's big money moving in the day trades. And it is hurting the brokerage houses. These people are trading directly over the Internet, paying only the buy / sell fees, no commissions. They seem to be like a school of sharks - they drive prices up and then suddenly sell. Brokerage houses have to buy into any stock that's rising fast, but since they are in for a longer term, they don't sell the same day. Often they get caught with losses." "Why don't they sell every day, like the day traders?" Scotty asked. "It's partly a culture thing - they have been taught to buy a stock, watch it grow based on earnings, then sell. They can't get their heads around the idea of speculating on IBM as if it were a penny stock floated by some junior mining company," Jerry said. "So you're saying that even mutual funds can be hurting because of the day traders?" I asked. "That's right. The stock market is a very risky place to be right now. That's why Wardwell did so well in such a short time. Wardwell was just at the start of the wave of day trading. It was the day traders who pushed the stock value up so fast - faster than we thought. We had a four year plan that accelerated into

about 30 months." This convinced me once again that the stock market was no place for me. I would stick with real estate and the slower but surer gains I was making there. But I still didn’t see any connection between day trading and Faazi. "How does all of this get us to our friend, Faazi?" I asked. "Well, Frank, if we could get the message out to the day traders and have them go after any stocks that the Saudis hold, the price fluctuations could hurt. Even saying on our site that those stocks were vulnerable, would drive the prices down - then the day traders could have a field day as they ran the prices back up. It would be like a feeding frenzy with those fast-money sharks." "I don't know," I said. "It sounds pretty iffy to me. Let's stick with the basic idea first. How are you going to get people to look at your web site, Scotty?" "By indexing. I will use many key words that will attract people to the site. Once people have read the message, and if they agree with our plan, we will ask them to spread the word via Email or their own home pages. You will be surprised how quickly the word will spread." "And if the Banks and Trust companies don't come on side, we could threaten them with the day traders, too. The same for any large company who is dealing with the Saudis," Robbie added "Well, maybe we should go after them right now," Scotty said. "Whoa. Where will this stop? We can't get the whole country up in arms over some scam where some greedy people got burned. That's a little too idealistic," I said. "If you start attacking banks and fund managers we’ll have everybody after our necks. Don't forget that I have to stay in business after this is all over." "Geez, Frank, I didn’t think you were so conservative," Robbie scoffed. "Hey, if I thought it had a chance in hell, I'd agree." "Pass me another beer, will you, Frank," Jerry said and when he had the top snapped off, continued, "You know, there was quite a bit of union money in that account. If you could get the unions on your side, you might get a lot more support than you think." "Yeah, I never thought about getting the unions involved. That would be perfect," Scotty said. "Explain," I said, getting myself another Rebellion from the case at my feet. "Unions are an international movement. If we can point at Faazi and tell them how he has ripped off their pension plans and strike funds, they could become real allies." "That's right," Robbie added, taking up the idea. "If every time one of Faazi's ships or air planes docked or landed in a foreign country the stevedores held them up, they could disrupt the Saudi business. People would soon know that if they used anything connected to the Saudi family, it was going to cost them time and money they would boycott them in no time. You know how you feel when you see that ‘Delayed’ note at the airport."

"And to take it one step further, you could then use the same tactic with anyone who supported them." "You mean like our own banks and trust companies . . ." I mused. "That's right. We could blacklist them as being supporters of the Wardwell scam." "Boy, I sure wouldn’t want to get all these people mad at me," I said, being the only conservative naysayer on the dock. No one else sitting there had much to lose. "Well, we would have to be very careful about how we worded the manifesto," Scotty said. My God, what had these kids been reading - a manifesto? "All you have to do is to put a disclaimer on the article. Offer it as a philosophical idea on how to force the Saudi who has stolen over two billion dollars of investor's money to pay it back. If you can get this moving you might find that companies like Shell are very sensitive at the gas pumps. Using the Internet you can very easily uncover all sorts of relationships with companies. You can find out what companies Shell holds an interest in - and threaten to put them on the list. You can go after the brokerage houses, too." Jerry said. "You mean, try to get the guys who were to blame for this whole mess to clean it up?" "Exactly. Nobody likes to be ripped off. Those people probably hate my guts now. But if you could show them a way to stop recommending investments in anything remotely connected to the Saudi royal family, they would do it. I think the king would soon order his nephew to give the money back." "Let me get this straight. Every time a Royal Saudi airplane lands somewhere, it is going to develop mechanical problems that are going to be very difficult to fix - no parts, lots of overtime, and so on. If they need a part for their oil wells, it will be held up every step along the way. Companies that try to get around the boycott will find their names on the list as sympathizers of the people who stole retirement money from old people all over the world. Banks that have been reluctant to press for an investigation by the securities branch might find themselves on the list. Rumours of a class action suit will surface." I was beginning to see the potential of this plan. "How long do you think it would take for people to get on-side with this?" "Well, you can be sure that once it starts, the newspapers will pick it up. If we could time it with the ‘arrest’ of Jerry and Attward and the recovery of their money, the message will spread quickly. The Saudis will see it as a Western plot against the Muslims and try to resist, but if we can focus on only Faazi, I think the Arab world will soon see that there is a simple solution," Robbie answered. "I'm a little concerned about setting a precedent here. What if everybody tries to use this same method of righting some perceived wrong? You could have cuckoos out there mounting vendettas against anything and everything under the sun." "Well, I think you have to give a little credit to people. They are not going to support something they don't believe. That's why it is very important that we be extra careful in describing what our goal is full explanations, no hidden agendas. Besides, if it turns out to be a way to show disreputable businesses that they can be vulnerable to boycotts, so much the better. Maybe people would stop

buying sports shoes produced in sweatshops in the Far East," Robbie said. It might just work. "Okay, work on your Internet home page and I’ll get our lawyer to vet it. We have to catch Attward before we release it so we can give that information to the news media at the right moment. Jerry, when did you last check for messages?" I asked. "Last night. There was nothing there." "Okay, let's tie up his bank account. I’ll give Buddy and Jarez the account number and they can go to Berne. As soon as they have the money frozen, I want you to leave a message for Attward that your account in the Caymans has been seized. Ask him to call you on the cell. Say it can't be traced because your security people have checked everything out. When he calls, tell him you want to meet - either here or in the States - to plan a way to escape before the FBI and CSIS get any closer. You can say that you got a couple of million out of your account just before it was seized." "Okay, that sounds like a plan. But if he wants to meet in the States, I want to go too. I want to see that bastard's face when you nail him for Judy's murder!" "We’ll see what we can do. As long as you don't want to take your bow and arrows with you, I guess it would be okay." "Bow and arrows?" Scotty asked. He had not heard the story about Red Feather, so I told the story again. The legend was improving with every telling with my embellishments. I would teach this greenhorn to catch my big pike.

Chapter 17 Buddy Olsen finally replied to my voice mail just before noon. "Sorry, I was so long in returning your call, Frank. Things are really hectic here this morning." As if things were ever more hectic in Ottawa than here in Toronto, I thought. Hectic is an Ottawa state of mind. "Buddy, I'm glad to hear that you’ve been working so hard. How would you like a little holiday?" "Holiday? You’ve got to be kidding." "Oh, that's too bad. I guess you’ll have to sent someone else to Switzerland for two or three days make that over a weekend, probably five or six days. All expenses paid." "Switzerland?" Suddenly the workload was going to be delegated down the line. Things were not that hectic in Ottawa after all. "Yes. We have an account number that needs to be frozen. It belongs to an American, but I think we had better get joint custody with the FBI." "You found Attward!"

"Well, almost. He gave Sewell his account number in Berne in case anything happened to him. We don't know how much money is left in his account, but there must be a few million dollars. I haven't told Jarez yet - I thought I would let you do that since he is a little pissed at me for taking Jerry out of his jurisdiction. It might be a good chance for you two to get to know each other." "How come you didn’t suggest that you make the trip? Is there something you're not telling me, Frank?" Buddy was getting to know me too well. "Well, we do have a plan to get Attward. I don't know when it will happen, but we need that account frozen before we can spring our trap. If you can keep Jarez out of town for a couple of days so I can work with John Withers, I think we can get to Attward. We may have to leave him in the States. I think we should also let the people in Bermuda know that we have a suspect in an outstanding murder. They can issue a warrant and that will hold Attward in case he finds some way to slip through the American justice system." "What are you doing with Sewell?" "We need him to get Attward. He is really helping and cooperating with us, Buddy." "I don't want you to lose him, Frank. It would look really bad for the department." "Don't worry, Buddy. I have an electronic bracelet on his ankle. If we have to take him into the States, Withers will cover for us. That's why I would like you to keep Jarez in Switzerland for a few extra days." "Okay, I’ll see if I can get away. When do you want us to freeze the account?" "Wednesday. We need to do a couple of other things between now and then." "Such as?" "Well, Robbie and I are working on a scheme to force Faazi to return the money." "How in hell can you do that?" "At this point, you don't want to know. This is a little far out, but it might just work. We're working on the details now." "That's what I like about working with you, Frank. You never tell me anything until it's too late for me to do anything." He paused for a moment. "What's the name of the bank and the account number?" "Marchand et Cie in Berne. I don't have an address. The account number is 876-337-1989, Hogarth Attward, although he may have used another name. He didn’t say anything to Jerry about that." "Okay. I’ll call you to confirm that Jarez will go and then again as soon as we have the court order to freeze the account."

"Have a nice trip, Buddy," I said. Nancy had been standing at the door, waiting for me to put down the telephone. "Frank, here are the final reports on the CanPak audit. Al and Julie are in today - do you want to meet now?" "Okay, honey. Give me about half an hour to read this and we’ll meet in the boardroom. Can you do lunch about 12:30?" "All right, but I have to get back. Philip has a large tax appeal that needs my attention today. Shall I make reservations?" "Sure - do you want to try the Villager in Unionville?" "Okay - we haven't been there in a while. See you later." The audit on CanPak showed that the inventory was being rigged in combination with the sales figures. The accountant and the warehouseman were obviously in cahoots. Al had checked out their backgrounds and both were living slightly beyond their means. It was a classic fraud, but as with most of these thefts, if they had been happy to keep the amount low, they might have gotten away with it for years. But what looks easy in small amounts becomes difficult to hide in larger amounts. The local auditor should have caught these people, but they had been doing the audit for so many years they had grown comfortable with the staff. The annual inventory was only sampled - by the warehouseman! The outcome was that CanPak was being ripped off for about $300,000 a year, up from $200,000 the year before. On sales of about forty million, it was not a whole lot, but on a 6% profit margin, I could see why Len MacDonald was not happy. Al and Julie had all the figures ready to support any action they would have to take. They would have to come out in the open and do the current years'books, but there was enough evidence to support suspending the two people in the plant, pending an investigation. I would suggest to MacDonald that he prefer charges, although most clients preferred not to go public with these types of crimes. I would also suggest that there might be an opportunity for MacDonald to go after his auditors for their lack of diligence. And they might be very happy to pay without going to court if they thought their case weak. Moreover, it looked weak to me. It did not take long to review the MacDonald account. The computer profiles were obviously outside the normal for this type of business and historically they were not following the market. I suggested that they have MacDonald purchase all new locks and have a locksmith attend on Friday evening. They could work all weekend to review the current year’s figures and if, as they suspected, the two people were involved in a fraud, they should have extra security on hand Monday morning. They should also have charges laid against the two people immediately. MacDonald could decide later if he wanted to continue with the charges. It did not appear that the two employees were a threat to flee since they both had turned their ill-gotten gains into fixed assets. Lunch was excellent, as usual, at the popular Unionville restaurant. There was a poster in the reception area promoting a children's fair on Saturday where youngsters under ten years of age could, for a small fee, join the chef on Saturday morning to observe how the kitchen operated. A special luncheon would follow. Adults paid full fare, but it did seem like a good opportunity to introduce children to broccoli a la chef de Villager. Nancy suggested that we take the children but I begged off, saying I might be in the States for the weekend. Perhaps Grandpa and Grandma would join them in my stead. Philip hates

broccoli. I spent the remainder of the afternoon preparing an expense account for the work on the Morcos file. This was costing CSIS a fair penny, but they were well ahead with the amount we had seized in the Caymans. I would suggest that they hire a broker in La Jolla to dispose of Jerry's house and contents. I did list the Jeep as an asset, but neglected to mention that we had spirited some paintings away. Depending on how cooperative Jerry continued to be, I thought I might store the paintings for him. Stu liked the paintings that were hung in his recreation room, but the Pharaoh's Niece was too large for most homes. We needed some place to store it and the only person I knew who might keep the painting was Jerry's lawyer, Silverstein. I knew Jay Silverstein's wife, Melissa quite well and she would keep the valuable painting in an appropriate place, out of the public view. Melissa had a remarkable collection and unless one of her friends was a Morcos aficionado, they would never realize it was a collector's piece. I attached a special note to the purchase receipts for the hunting goods that we had bought in the States. Some auditor would be bound to question why we needed bows and arrows when we had guns, but then auditors are pretty staid fellows. I might even get to tell the Red Feather story again. When Nancy left the office at 5:30, I told her that I would be about another hour since I wanted to talk with Scotty about his Internet plan. She said that we were having a stew that night and she would eat with the Marisa and Justin. I guess she knew that once Scotty and I got into computers we would forget the time and I would not be home before eight o'clock. A stew is best warmed up a few times, anyway. Scotty went over the details of our plan to bring any business connected to Faazi to its knees through boycotting. He and Robbie had added a few enhancements since we had all met on the cottage dock. With Jerry's help, they had a list of all investors in Wardwell who had or were likely to have a union in their shops. Robbie was sending Email to the unions that explained why we were seeking their support, and what they were to do once we gave the green light for the operation. They had drafted a letter to all Wardwell mutual fund holders which we would send once we had Attward in custody and his money tied up in the Swiss bank. I wanted personally to sign the letter that went to our dentist. The plan was then to send notices to every company or service supplier who might be affected by the boycotting of Saudi interests, asking for their cooperation. Without threatening the companies directly, the letter did point out that companies who continued to support the people who had robbed their employees'pension fund might themselves be a target of the Wardwell Investors Recovery Project. Robbie was doing a web search to find as many companies as she could that were owned or controlled by the Saudi royal family. The oilfields, airline and the shipping interests were the easiest. Robbie then prepared a listing of where the air planes would be on Saturday next, what ships were due into port and the location of all tankers at sea. This information would be released as soon as we had Attward's money frozen in the bank. Scotty said he needed what he called a > honkin'big server, a T1 line and a place to set up his office. I did not want the operation run from Pilger and Associates in case there were repercussions from Faazi. I gave the okay for him to lease the Compaq Alpha series he wanted, but only for the shortest term possible. If we could not bring Faazi - or the king - to the table within two months, I wanted the operation dropped. He had already talked to the local Compaq dealer and the telephone company. He knew of an empty office in a building where they had fibre cable and had already spoken to Bell to have the line installed the next day. It amazes me how my employees can find time for their favourite projects. I was still waiting for a new colour printer to be connected in my office. I asked Scotty who had signed for the lease on the office and he said Nancy had approved it for him. I was beginning to

feel that I was not needed on the voyage. The following Wednesday morning I accepted an overseas collect call from Buddy. He was still hoping that I would forget to charge him for these long distance calls but he should have known better by now. I made a note for Nancy to watch for the call from Switzerland and to add the 15% surcharge. Buddy and Haram Jarez had successfully served the bank with notice. They would be taking a couple of extra days in Europe to meet with their heads of operations in Berlin, Bonn and Paris. He gave me the telephone numbers of the hotels they had reserved but I had little intention of calling Buddy or Jarez. The six-hour time difference would give us time to leave our planned message on the call service for Attward. Jerry's would say that his account had been frozen; he was concerned that the FBI was closing in on them; he had only $900,000 left - did Hogarth have enough money to get them out of the country? Call him direct at the cottage number. We had no way of knowing when Hogarth would contact us, but Jerry was confined to the cottage so he would not miss any call. He grumbled about having to give up his 10-kilometre morning run with Robbie, but compromised on having a long swim early in the morning. If Hogarth phoned while Jerry was out, Robbie could take the call since she was pretending to be one of Jerry's two bodyguards that we wanted Hogarth to expect when we met. I reviewed the latest web page that we were ready to post on the Internet the moment we had Attward in custody. I felt like some master spider, weaving this electronic web that would reach out all around the world, creating a trap for Faazi O’nan. The message was addressed to all of the listed holders of Wardwell funds at the time of the collapse, a list we had on file from the Ontario Securities Commission and the NYSE. It asked that they pass on the message to anyone who they thought would support the effort to bring all businesses in which the Saudi royal family had any interest to its knees through boycotts or work slow-downs. There was a strong warning on the web page saying that nothing was to be undertaken that might cause injury or loss of life. We then listed the published schedules of the Royal Saudi Airlines, the whereabouts of ships under Saudi registry or ships flying flags of convenience for their Saudi owners. All major oil companies who bought Saudi oil were put on notice that after a certain number of days they would be subject to boycott. We had to give them time to purchase their crude elsewhere, but anyone loading crude after the boycott date would be a target. Banks were a different matter. We noted which bank stocks were owned by the Saudis and suggested that anyone supporting these banks were in fact supporting the people who had taken money from pension funds of the union members. I was still a little ticked at the banks, especially my own, for not taking a stronger stance in trying to recover the money they had lost on behalf of the investors. I knew the loss would come out of everyone's account in little small bites of interest rates and service charges. In the end the shareholders would not feel a thing - only the customers would feel the shark's teeth. Then there were the investors themselves who had been burned in the scam but who had not put any pressure on the regulatory bodies to find out what happened to the Wardwell Mutual Funds. If we could force the Stock Exchanges to stop trading in Saudi securities, we would have a powerful ally in our attempt to get restitution. It would take some successes in other fields to persuade the brokers to cooperate, but we did have Sewell's knowledge of how to leverage these people. It was my hope that the Saudi royal family would soon realize their predicament and tell Faazi O’nan to return the billions of dollars to the former shareholders of Wardwell.

Chapter 18

I moved to the cottage on Wednesday evening to be at the centre of action in case Attward returned Jerry's call. Jerry had told him that his account had been seized and he had only about a million dollars he could get his hands on. The idea of the message was to warn Hogarth Attward that he should move his money. Jerry was a quarter of a mile out in the lake the Thursday morning when I answered the telephone with a simple "Hello." "Is Jerry Sewell there?" "Uh, Jerry is out of the house just now. Can I take a message?" "Who are you?" Attward asked. "It’s Frank. Is that you, Mr. Attward?" I asked, and before he could reply, I added, "Jerry said if you was to call that I should get your number and he’ll call you back. He is out for a swim with Robbie." "Robbie? Who's Robbie? And who did you say you were?" "Robbie and me, we're Mr. Jerry's, uh, personal assistants, if you know what I mean." "Like body guards?" "Well, yeah, but more than that." "Okay, here's my cell number 407-225-4839. Have him call within the next twenty minutes." "Yes sir, I’ll take the power boat and go get him right now." "You do that." And I did. Jerry called Hogarth as soon as he was toweled-off. The three of us tried to listen to the receiver with Jerry explaining the noise we were making as being the poor line out here in the country. Jerry told Hogarth that Faazi had made two attempts on his life and that Robbie and I had each shot one of the bad guys. Hogarth related how his foreman had been gunned down when he took Hogarth's favourite horse out for its morning run. He was in Florida now and had just found out that his Swiss account had been frozen by the > authorities'. He only had a few thousand dollars left that he could get right now. The rest of his money was in Argentina and he was afraid to go back there. He knew the FBI had been to his ranch after getting a telephone call from his girlfriend who did the secretarial work. Jerry said he was willing to share what money he had, but thought they should meet somewhere and talk about finding some place to hide. Jerry said he believed he was okay here at the cottage until the fall and that Hogarth could visit him as a guest until then, but they would have to move on once the cold weather came. Hogarth thought about it and then said he would rather meet in Orlando. It would be easier for Jerry to come to the States than for him to go to Canada since he was sure the FBI had his picture posted at the borders. I nodded for Jerry to agree. Jerry told Attward that he, along with his two bodyguards, would be in Orlando by Saturday. They agreed to meet at the entrance to the Mexican village at the Epcot Centre at 2:00 p.m. Robbie called Scotty and gave him the go-ahead to start the electronic warfare against Prince Faazi. I had been a concerned that Faazi’s people might trace the computer messages back to the office but

Scotty assured me that he had taken that into consideration. He would update the server remotely and never have to go to the site. He also had a connection with a friend of a friend of a spammer who had supplied him with a list of servers that Scotty could tap into to host his Email messages. That way, even if the Saudis did try to find the source they would run into an electronic nightmare. Scotty tried explaining how this all worked but when he started talking about IP addresses and automatic net searches, he lost me. I trusted that he knew what he was doing and only said to call me if he had any indication that anyone was trying to track the messages. I called John Withers on his new cell phone and again caught him in his car. He agreed to meet us at Pearson International on Saturday morning to get us through US Customs with our guns and a prisoner who was wearing a fancy titanium bracelet around his right ankle. Withers would accompany us to Orlando where he would pick up another local agent and put the Orlando branch office on notice that they might need some backup resources on Saturday. I then called Jay Silverstein and told him what we were planning to do. He insisted on having the FBI sign a release to ensure that Jerry remained in our custody. Jay would meet us at the airport on Saturday. Stu Carson would also meet us at the airport to show us how to reset the code on the bracelet so it would not send out an alarm to any monitoring station we might pass along the way. In fact, he told me later, he simply turned the thing off. Nancy and I took the kids to Red Lobster on Friday night and the seafood must have worked its aphrodisiac wonders on both of us because we had a great night bouncing around our bed later. Saturday morning she helped me pack my kit, making me take my swimming trunks even though she knows I don't particularly like swimming in chlorinated pools. Nancy noticed the gun under my jacket but did not say anything other than ‘be careful’. Jerry spent the night with Stu and his beloved Morcos paintings and I suspect that Robbie stayed with Scotty. We were all as chipper as spring robins when we met at Terminal 2 at eight o'clock. Jerry had a parcel to send by air express and I was going to question him about it when I caught Robbie's signal that it was okay. Jerry had very carefully packaged up one of his hunting arrows and addressed it to Faazi O’nan. The customs papers described it as a copy of a Sioux Indian arrow, an historical artefact from the early 1800's, North Dakota. If the Saudi hit man had reported his misadventure with Red Feather, Faazi would get the message. I was glad to see Jerry showing so much confidence. I thought he could pull off the capture of Hogarth Attward without any trouble. He was a far different man from the stockbroker who wanted to flee for his life in the Black Hills a month ago. He had a confidence in himself that was more than knowing he was smart and could handle himself in the world of high finance. He knew he could look after the physical side of things now too. A month of workouts with Robbie had toned his body even more than the running had done. The karate moves, the awareness that physical quickness can save your life, the melding of body and mind into a reacting machine able to respond at a second's notice, had changed him. Catching my pike likely honed his hunting instincts, too. He had a goal to pursue after his prison term and he was focussing on that goal. Hogarth Attward was not going to stand in his way and Hogarth Attward was going to pay for killing his girlfriend, Judy O'Hare. His attitude towards the other co-conspirator, Faazi O’nan, was not merely that he wanted to help us get the money back - it was revenge for O’nan hiring those hit men to kill him that drove him now. Sending that arrow was a statement that Jerry Sewell was ready. The flight down was uneventful, just the way I like flying. We picked up a rental car and were right on schedule as we drove to Disneyland. John Withers and his FBI partner talked to Disney security and we all got through with our guns. We did not expect any trouble there or at Epcot but we did want to have our weapons with us when we left the park. Hogarth was alone when he arrived a few minutes after two o'clock. We were sitting at a picnic table having a lunch of tacos and Pepsi. Jerry introduced us, saying

that Robbie and I were bodyguards he had hired after a break-in at his house in La Jolla. He related how the Saudi assassins had made two attempts on his life, but that nothing had happened since his move to Canada. He again offered to bring Hogarth back to the cottage but Attward was reluctant to try to cross the border. Hogarth thought the best plan was to head for Indonesia or Singapore where they could both find some work in brokerage houses. The money that Jerry had would last for a couple of years but they both agreed that they needed a long-term plan. Attward suggested that we all head back to the house he had rented just north of Orlando were we could talk freely. I offered to ride with Hogarth while Robbie and Jerry would follow us in the rental car. I asked Attward about his place in the Argentine and he spoke fondly of the ranch and the people he had hired to work for him. He wondered how Jerry had found us and I told him that I had a small private investigation firm and that we had contracted our services to Jerry for a year. Yes, we knew how Jerry had made his money and it did not bother us. I gave him the impression that we usually worked outside of the law. I asked him why Faazi had turned against them. "That bastard! I don't know what he thought he was doing. Jerry and I never opened our mouths and we would never have given his name to the FBI." "You don't suppose the FBI found out on their own, do you?" "Well, maybe. But we covered our tracks very carefully. I don't think there was anyone who worked in our offices who knew what was really happening. It was all so slick!" "Faazi must have been spooked by something," I said. "Those guys he sent after Jerry were highly paid professionals. If we had not been on our own turf, they might have taken us. That's why I agree with Jerry - you would be safe in Canada, at least until the fall. Jerry's cover is that he is an American who is spending his summers up in Canada while he writes a book. The locals seem to have accepted him. Robbie is supposed to be the cook and I'm his chauffeur and grounds keeper. You could be another writer or something like that." "Yeah, I suppose - but I'm worried about getting through immigration. I'm sure the FBI has me on a wanted list." "Maybe we could get you a new passport. I know some people . . . " He was quiet for a few miles. "Jesus Christ! If only I had moved my money to different banks! I was going to split up the accounts but I was so busy at the ranch. Do you know how much Jerry managed to keep?" "Well, no. He doesn’t talk to us about his money. All I know is that we were paid for a year in advance." "How much did he pay you?" "Robbie and I each get $75,000." He whistled. "Wow - you aren’t cheap."

"No, but we're good." I gave him my big grin. "Could we hire you to take out Faazi?" "I don't know as you have that much money. Jerry talked to us about that, but we would need a big operation to get close to Faazi. We'd have to hire someone who could get inside his palace and expect to get away and live to spend the money. If the Saudis weren’t cooperating with us against Iraq and keeping some balance of power in the middle east, we might find a Mossad agent who would try it. But, like I said - it would cost a few million dollars." He switched the subject and pointed out some of the interesting scenery as we drove another twenty minutes to his house. Hogarth did know about farming and agriculture, describing to me the different crops that we passed along the way. Robbie was close behind us. I could not see John's car but I assumed the FBI boys were back there somewhere. There was no point in trying to get any more information from Attward since I was not wearing a wire. We would have to wait until we were in the house where Jerry's microphone would record everything that we said. The only thing of interest that I gleaned from our trip was that we now had most of Attward's money in that Swiss account. It would take the FBI some time to realize money from the holdings in Argentina and La Jolla, but neither Sewell nor Attward seemed to have spent much of their hundred million dollars on disposable items. Of the $200,000,000 that they had been paid by Faazi O’nan, we would likely get back $180,000,000. If we could do as well with the Saudis, the Wardwell Mutual Fund caper might not hurt the investors as much as we originally thought. The house was set back from the road several hundred yards in an open field, probably the original home site of a farm in years gone by. The lane and the house area were fenced-off from the field and a few head of brown and white cattle, perhaps with some Hereford blood in their ancestry, were listlessly lying under the only tree, chewing their cuds. It was going to be difficult for the FBI to approach the house without being seen - certainly, they would have to come on foot. As we got out of the cars, I asked Attward if there was anyone else in the house. "No, I live alone," he replied. "Robbie, check inside. I’ll take a look around the outside. Jerry - wait until Robbie says it's okay before you go inside." Robbie took her gun from her waistband and I made a show of unlimbering the big SIG Sauer 9 mm from under my jacket. I would be glad when we were inside so I could take off the sports coat. Florida was warm, even at this time of year. I heard Robbie tell the men to come inside and I took another few minutes admiring the small flower garden that someone had spent a lot of effort working on. I wanted time to see that Withers and company had arrived and that they were going to come to the house. I gave a final look around and spotted a white Ford parked across the road that was not there when we had driven in a few minutes ago. The house was a 1950's ranch style that was in reasonably good condition, but was showing some signs of aging as the paint pealed under the eaves and around the windowsills. Attward had the place clean and neat but there was some dust on the few picture frames. I guessed he did the vacuuming but was not as handy with the dust cloth. He was busy putting coffee and water into a Mr. Coffee machine, asking from the small kitchen if we took milk and sugar. We had settled around a chrome dinning table and I was telling the others about the garden out back when Attward brought in a tray with mugs, milk and sugar and a package of Oreo cookies.

"I didn’t know you were interested in gardening, Hoagie," Jerry said. "Yeah, well I tried a few annuals out back where the former tenants had worked the ground for a little garden. It was just something to put in the time." "Do you miss your ranch, Mr. Attward?" Robbie asked. "Yes, I do. I liked my horses especially. Even those old cows in the field out there are getting to know me though. They come over every evening for apples or lettuce - whatever I have on hand." "There's a riding stable just down the road from my place in Canada," Jerry lied. "You could ride every day if you wanted to." "That right? I don't know, Jerry - just something about trying to leave the country that scares me." "You think you're safe here? If the FBI closed your account, they must have found out something about you. Maybe they know you're back in the States. I'm not sure the Swiss would have worked with them if you were still in Argentina." "Yeah, I was wondering about that myself," I said, trying to get Attward to tell us more. "You think the Swiss would doubt the FBI?" he asked. "Sure," I said. "The FBI isn’t necessarily that well liked in Europe. Now, they may have asked Interpol for help, I don't know." "Shit! Faazi is after us, the FBI and maybe Interpol. Where can we go that we’ll be safe, Jerry?" "I don't know, Hoagie," Jerry replied, "It's not going to be easy. I'm beginning to wish we had never gotten into this whole thing. I had it pretty good - my life was settling in nicely - I had my girl, Judy we were going to be married - I can't even find her to talk to her now." "She must have taken the money and left town like I told her," Attward said. "Did you leave anyone behind, Mr. Attward?" Robbie asked. "No, I was never that close to anyone in New York. I was getting to know a woman in Argentina, though. I’ll get the coffee," he said. In retrospect, I was not being careful enough. I was trying to create an atmosphere of trust by relaxing a little and I had failed to notice the first signs that Attward was going to try to escape. He was pouring my coffee after filling everyone's cups when he let the pot drop as if it had slipped from his hand. And he was quick, I give him that. He grabbed the 9 mm from my shoulder holster and had it pointed at my head in one smooth move. "Get up! Slowly," he said.

"Hoagie, what the hell are you doing?" Jerry asked. "Stand up, all of you. Frank - put your left arm behind your back." I did and he grabbed the wrist, forcing the arm up. I was standing now, with the gun pointed at my right temple. All I could do was to stand as still as I could. "You - Robbie - drop your gun," Attward shouted. Shouting meant he was scared. But not as frightened as yours truly, Frank Pilger, Forensic Accountant! I looked at Robbie. The .380 appeared to be pointed right at my head! It was not wavering in the slightest amount. I was trying to think of what I should do, relying on some instinct to get me out of this situation, but all my brain did was flash back to a seminar I had attended on De-escalating and Resolving Conflict. Listen to what they are saying; do not be judgmental; try to find a middle ground. Shit - I was the middle ground! What the hell was I doing, thinking about conflict resolution at a time like this? My brain was letting me down. I could not think of a thing to say to diffuse the situation. In any case, things were moving a lot faster than I was. "No, Hogarth - you drop your gun. The FBI are right outside. There is no way you can get out of here." She was not diffusing - she was threatening. "The FBI? So you're not private investigators! I knew it. You spoke too well - you're too well educated. Who are they, Jerry?" He was trying to flatter - a bad conflict resolution technique. "Actually, Hoagie, Frank really is a private investigator. Robbie, here is from CSIS." Jerry was telling the truth. That was a good tool in this situation - gain the confidence of the two parties. "And you’ve been working with them?" "Yes, Hoagie. We're trying to recover all the money that we stole. And I personally want you for the murder of my friend, Judy. You might as well give it up. There's no way you can escape." Oh no, Jerry was now threatening him. Didn’t Robbie and Jerry know anything about Conflict Resolution? "Fucking right there is. You people are going to be my hostages. I have an airplane at a small strip about ten miles away. The FBI won't be able to track me in the dark - even if they are outside." "You’ll never make it, Attward," Robbie said. "Drop the gun, now." Now was not the time to assert control, Robbie. Tension was too high. "Fuck you! Not a chance, lady. You put yours down, or I’ll put a Goddamned big hole in your friend's head right now." I could feel his hand tightening on my arm. He was going to do it. I was going to have to try to twist away but he must have read my mind as he pushed the barrel of the big gun harder against my head. Robbie yelled, "Now!" and I lifted both of my feet from the floor. There was a crack of the Berretta, the roar of the SIG Sauer and a burning on the side of my face as I fell to the floor. I thought I heard two more cracks from the Berretta but I was now on the floor, my right ear ringing. It was very quiet.

"Frank! Are you okay? Frank!" Robbie yelled. I opened my eyes to see Jerry down on his knees looking at me with owl eyes. "He's okay, Robbie." The front door crashed in and old John Withers dove through the door first, his gun out in front. Another agent followed him, dropping to one knee, gun at the ready. They must practise that move in the FBI. "It's okay, John - the target is down." I heard Robbie say. Conflict Resolved. My left arm hurt like hell and my right ear was ringing. The stinging on my face must have been from the muzzle flash. I slowly got to my feet. Hogarth Attward was very dead. His right arm at the elbow had been blown away but it was the two red, oozing holes in his forehead that wrote paid in full to his account. "Jesus, Robbie, you took a chance - we were right outside the door," John said. "Yes, I know, but he was going to pull the trigger. I could see it in his eyes." "She's right, John. I felt him tense up just before she shot." By speaking, I returned to reality from the surreal world of mute observer. "What if you had missed?" the other agent asked. "I never thought about that," Robbie said, handing the gun to him. "You’ll likely want this for evidence but I want my gun back as soon as possible." "Is that your gun?" he said to me, indicating the 9 mm on the floor. I moved to pick it up but he said, "Don’t touch it – I’ll want to get his prints off it just to confirm the tape recording." He picked it with a pen. "Uh, people," Jerry said. "When you have moment - I think I’ve been shot." "What?" Robbie asked. "I think I got hit in the arm from Frank's gun." He held out his arm and sure enough, there was a trickle of blood running down his sleeve. Robbie had his sleeve torn back and my proffered handkerchief pressed on the slight flesh wound before the rest of us had the sense to figure out that it was the bullet that had been meant for my head that had struck him when the gun discharged after Hogarth’s elbow had been blown away. The agent was going to call for an ambulance but Jerry said he was okay. Then he fainted. A splash of cold water revived him and he seemed all right. The shock of realizing he had been shot, even if it were only a scratch, had suddenly struck him. At that time I still had not thought about how close I came to having that Goddamned big hole in my head. It was after six o'clock when we left the clinic where an intern had cleaned the wound and put two stitches in Jerry's arm. The intern gave me a couple of Tylenol 3s for my ringing ear. Red Feather was going to stay with John at an FBI house for the night. Robbie and I headed for the Ramada Renaissance where we thought we had reservations. Some clerk had given away our rooms. I guess they did not understand the meaning of the word, ‘reservation’. The desk manager tried calling several of the other

hotels in the area but everything was booked. He could see that I was beginning to lose it so he said that we could stay in the business suite if we wanted. It was regularly $275 per night but it did have two separate bedrooms, along with a kitchenette, conference room and a wall-sized screen for video presentations or TV. We could have it for $149.50. I was suddenly very tired and Robbie looked as if she needed a good night's sleep too. She nodded for me to take the room and I gave the clerk my Visa card. It was all deductible anyway. We retrieved our suitcases from the concierge and tipped the bellhop five bucks for showing us where the light switches were in the huge suite. Robbie had a shower while I called home to tell Nancy that we would be home tomorrow or Monday at the latest, explaining that Attward had been shot and we had to clear up the paperwork before we could come home. She wanted to know if we were all okay and there was no point in my not telling her that Jerry had been nicked but that he was fine now. I asked Nancy to call Jay Silverstein and have him get here on the first flight in the morning so he could represent Jerry in case there was any problem in bringing Jerry back to Canada. I told her I loved her, said a few words to the children and that I would call as soon as I knew when we could leave. I asked Robbie if she wanted to go downstairs for something to eat but she said she was not sure if she could sit still long enough. I could see that she was still wound up from the events of the day so I said we could get room service if she wanted. She thought that was a good idea so I told her to order me something while I showered. She was on the telephone talking to Scotty when I came out of the washroom. I felt better with the sweat of the day washed off and went to the refrigerator for some ice cubes for the scotch that Nancy had thoughtfully packed in my luggage. I motioned to Robbie and she nodded that she would join me in a drink so I poured two large drinks from the half-empty bottle onto the ice cubes in the frosted glasses. One thing about the suite, the glassware was top of the line, the plates of fine china and the flatware was actually silver-plate. It was a classy joint, even if they could not get the reservations right. I could hear Robbie's conversation so I went out onto the balcony to give her some privacy. The sun was just nearing the horizon, giving an orange glow to the few evening clouds in the west. My mind was in neutral and I was sipping slowly on the Dumbarton scotch when Robbie joined me. "Scotty says he has had a lot of Email supporting the boycott. The ground crew at Orly in Paris has refused to service the Royal Saudi aircraft. Their union is supporting the Aerospace Workers here in the States. The Aerospace Workers Union lost millions of dollars on the Wardwell fund." "That's great. I sure hope this works. I'd love to be able to send a note to Faazi in about a week. If we can tie up the oil tankers that should really put the pressure on the king. The airlines are high profile but they won't hurt them financially as much as the oil boycott." "I know we talked about using the news media and you didn’t want to - but now that Attward is dead, maybe we should let the story out." "We don't want to jeopardize our case in the courts," I said. "I understand, but if we just told Attward's side of the story, it shouldn’t hurt Jerry. I think we'd really get everyone's attention - especially if we got on CNN." "I dunno, Robbie. I asked Nancy to get Jay down here first thing in the morning. Let's wait for his opinion."

There was a knock on the door and a room service waiter announced that our dinner had arrived. He wheeled in a cart covered by a linen cloth that was much more impressive than the usual aluminum tray that I expected to see in the Ramada. He went to the big mahogany table, snapped open a white tablecloth that floated to the table exactly in place. He then placed wine coloured cloth napkins, knives and forks, wine glasses, tea service and a candle on the table in such a practiced manner that I almost felt like applauding when he placed the silver domed serving platters on the table. I resisted the applause and gave him a five-dollar bill instead. Robbie appeared from the kitchenette bearing a bottle of white wine. "Where did you find that?" I asked. "It was in the fridge. There's a bottle of red in the cupboard, if you prefer." "What are we eating?" I asked. I have been trying to get away from the habit of having red wine with red meats, but old habits die hard. "Caesar salad and clubhouse sandwiches." "Okay - the white wine will be fine." I ate seriously and was into my second sandwich quarter before I realized that Robbie was only picking at her food. I slowed down and sipped on my wine. I had not given any thought to the post-shooting stress syndrome that Robbie was slipping into. Back home, we would have had someone for her to talk to. I was sure the FBI could provide a counsellor, but like a fool, I decided that I could do this. I had been through it a couple of times, but this must have been Robbie's first fatal shooting. I figured that if I could focus on the positive outcomes, any feeling of guilt that she was having about taking a life could be managed. I knew she would never forget this afternoon but right now she needed to think about the right reasons for what had happened. Once the initial shock eased, she could consider all philosophical impact of taking someone's life, right or wrong, legal or not. "You don't feel like eating?" I asked. "Not really." "I’ve had about enough too," I lied. "Why don't we put the rest in the refrigerator in case we want a midnight snack?" "Okay." She placed the remaining sandwiches on one plate, covered them with her napkin and carried them into the kitchenette. I took the wine glasses and wine over to the chesterfield. When she came back I handed her glass and motioned for her to sit beside me. "Robbie, I never said thanks," I started. "Thanks?" "You saved my life this afternoon. And for that I'm very thankful! And don't say it was nothing."

"You would have done the same for me." "Yes, I'd have tried, but I could never have made that elbow shot. You were as steady as a rock!" "It was an easy shot. He was standing still. I had to take it before he began moving you towards the door." "Well, I owe you one." I raised my glass. "Here's to you - partner!" She smiled weakly and sipped her wine. She obviously did not want to talk but that's exactly what I needed her to do. She had to get it out - express her feelings verbally. "You’ve never killed anyone before?" "Killed? No, never." "Well, sometimes you have no choice. Sometimes it is you - or your partner - or them. You don't have a lot of time to think about it when everything is going down in a matter of seconds. You have to act. That is why you train and train and train." "I know Frank, I know. I’ve shot and wounded people a couple of times, and it never bothered me as much. Did you ever kill anyone, Frank?" Yes, I had, and not that long ago. Shot a young girl, about Robbie's age. And it still bothered me even though I knew she was going to kill me. "Yeah, Robbie, I’ve killed a couple of people. But they were both good shootings - there was never any question about that. Just like you, today - you did the right thing." "But does it ever bother you - I mean, do you ever think that might have had another option?" "Well, in both cases, I was being shot at and only returned fire. Could I have aimed to wound? Under the circumstances, no." She burst into tears. She stood and walked over to the balcony window, and head in hands, wept. What the hell would a Stress Incident person do now? I reached into by back pocket for my handkerchief and remembered that I had used it on Jerry's wound. I went into the bathroom and pulled a handful of tissues from the reluctant dispenser. If Robbie had been a guy, I would have just put my arm around his shoulder and said nothing. So that's what I did. I offered her the handful of tissues without saying anything. She wiped her eyes, blew her nose loudly and I thought it was over. Then the dam really broke. She turned to me and I held her small shaking form close until the sobs ended when I slowly released her and led her back to the chesterfield. "It's okay, Robbie. You did what you had to. It's okay." "But you don't understand, Frank. I wanted to kill him. Those two shots to the head were as deliberate as . . . as if I had planned them for days. When he threatened to kill you, something just snapped inside me. It was me, Robbie, the woman, not Robbie, the cop who killed him!"

"I know, Robbie, I know," I said, trying not to sound as if I was using some time-worn cliché. "How can you know what I felt - what I'm feeling now? I was me who pulled the trigger. It was my eyes looking at him, staring into his eyes as I pulled the trigger. I knew he was dead after the first shot but I fired again. I'm only surprised that I didn’t empty the gun at him." She was shaking again. I took her hands in mine. "Robbie, let me tell you about the time I killed a man with my bare hands - in revenge for Karen's murder." I was just going to give her the bare-bones version of how it had happened but somehow I ended up expressing my feelings more than I had intended. I could almost feel the satisfaction again of breaking that bastard's neck. Maybe I still thought about that killing more than I wanted to admit. But there was no remorse. He deserved to die for what he had done to Karen and what he had tried to do to me and Nancy. Nobody threatens the ones I love and . . . and suddenly I began to see what Robbie was feeling. Attward had threatened someone in her ‘family’ - her friend. Me. And Jerry. "Do you know what I'm trying to say, Robbie?" "Yes, Frank. I guess I do. Could we kill that bottle of scotch instead of this wine?" "We sure can, Robbie!" There were only about two good drinks each left in the bottle, but I thought that would be enough. We chatted about things that we thought might be of interest to each other, things that perhaps had some connection to the events of the day, but gradually we drifted off to talking about family and friends. I was ready for bed and a good night's sleep by the time the weather channel gave us the eleven o'clock forecast of another perfect Florida day for tomorrow. Robbie said good night and went into the one bedroom. I pulled out the hide-a-bed from the inner workings of the chesterfield. It was a quality unit that would give my back lots of support for a night. If we had to stay another night in Orlando, I'd make sure I got a real bed, but for tonight, this would be fine. I turned off the lamp and in the semi darkness, lit only by the light that found its way around the edges of the drapes on the balcony door, banged my leg on the bed and crawled under the sheet. When I am alone I can usually drop off to sleep in a few moments but tonight I had to wait for the thoughts to stop swirling in my head. It had been quite a day. Almost being shot in the head, thankfully, does not happen to me every day. I heard Robbie's door click open and thought she must be headed for the washroom, but I saw her ghostly figure moving towards me. My eyes had adjusted to the dim light and I could see her lift her nightgown over her head. I could see that beautiful young body moving towards me, then lifting the sheet, she came into bed with me. All she said was, "I need you, Frank." For the second time that day, my brain disengaged. There was simply no question of what Robbie needed. And because my brain had quit functioning, my body went right to auto pilot. It was sex, pure and simple, lusty, fast and depleting. I was panting like an old bull when we finished, sweat from both our bodies mingling as we lay together. Robbie had a short little cry, then disengaged, gave me a peck on the cheek and said good night. I drifted back to reality and now my brain started working. I was more than a little confused over what had just happened. I felt, by turn, guilty, happy, remorseful, confused, hopeful and finally, really guilty. I was a happily married man. I would never cheat on Nancy. Sure, I had noticed Robbie and perhaps fantasized over what she would be like in bed. But I would never, never initiate anything. She was my partner, my employee, a friend. How in hell would I be able to look at her in the morning? How would I be able to look at Nancy? Would Nancy know, somehow, using that women's intuition that seemed to be hauntingly accurate at the worst of times? I did not sleep well that night but must have dozed off just

at dawn because I awoke to the smell of coffee percolating. I sat up, rubbing my head to clear the cobwebs. Robbie was obviously just back from her morning run. "Good morning, sleepy head," she said as she went into the shower. It was ‘Sleepy Head’, not ‘Lover’ or ‘Honey’ or ‘Dear’. I got up and pulled on my slacks, poured a mug of coffee and went out on the balcony. Standing there in my bare feet, I sipped on hot black coffee. The traffic was starting to build, even for a Sunday morning. The gulls were checking out the parking lot for scraps. Two kids on skateboards were clattering their way across the parking lot. The world looked perfectly normal. Nothing had changed. Except I still did not know what or why or how Robbie and I . . . "Frank, the shower's free now," Robbie called from inside. "I found a restaurant that has an early buffet just down the street. I'm starving so get your butt in motion." We were walking down the street twenty minutes later when I broached the subject of last night. "Robbie, about last night." "What about it?" "Well, you know. I'm not sure to what to think about us." "Think? There's nothing to think about, Frank. Nothing happened." "Pardon me?" "Frank, I needed a man last night and you were there. That's all there was to it." "You mean, I was just . . ." "No, not quite that. I needed a friend. I guess that might be a better way of putting it." "But we . . . I'm a married man. I shouldn’t have . . ." "Frank - you men get too involved at the wrong times. I don't know what it was - why I had this need in me - whether it was because I had just taken a life or whether I wanted some kind of personal confirmation that I was okay. Maybe I just had to prove my womanhood, I don't really know. And I don't really care. It worked. Let's leave it at that." "Jesus, Robbie, how am I supposed to work with you now, knowing that - you know," I ended lamely, searching for what I did not know and hoped she did. "Frank, what do you know about me that you didn’t know before? All I know is that you confirmed to me that you are a caring person. You helped me over a rough spot. Let's leave it at that." "But what about Scotty? And Nancy?"

"It's simple. I like Scotty quite a lot and you love Nancy. Nothing has changed." "But it's like I had an affair and . . ." "Whoa. Hold on Frank! What we did last night has nothing to do with an affair. Don't even think that!" "Well, hell, Robbie, I don't know what to call it. When a man and a woman have sex, it has to be something!" She took a deep breath and sighed, "Men! You are just a bunch of romantics. Sex is not love. You men seem to get the two confused. Sometimes sex is just a physical act. It's not even a sharing of our bodies - it's something just for your self. Do you think when a man hires a prostitute that he thinks he is in love?" "Well, no. Maybe. I don't know. But I never went to bed with a woman before that I didn’t think something about it!" "You're a bad case, Frank. Are you telling me that you men don't try to get women to have sex just to put another notch on your penis belt? You guys are always trying to do that." "Well, I suppose. But Robbie, last night wasn’t like that." "It was for me!" She said. "What?" She laughed. "I'm joking, Frank. Lighten up. It was simply Therapeutic Sex. And I thank you. It won't happen again. I will never tell another soul, so don't worry about it. Here's the restaurant I told you about." Robbie ate a hardy breakfast of ham, eggs and grits with toast and honey followed by a fruit cup. I had toast and coffee. My stomach was as confused as my head and just did not want anything more to digest.

Chapter 19 We met Jay Silverstein at the Orlando airport and then drove to the FBI offices where John and Jerry were having coffee and toast. My appetite had improved so I helped myself to a couple of pieces of toast and peanut butter while we waited for the rest of the FBI team. Jay and Jerry had a discussion about whether he should say anything while in the States. They decided he should not say anything in public but he could answer any routine questions about yesterday for the FBI. He would not say anything about the Wardwell case. It was agreed that John Withers would accompany us back to Canada and be a party to the investigation. Robbie and I signed an affidavit on the shooting, agreeing to return to Florida if needed for any inquest. We agreed to leak the news of the shooting and the connection to the Wardwell affair to CNN and Jay did an interview at the airport. He said he was hopeful, with the help of his client, that the security commissions in the United States and Canada were

going to recover most of the money. When the reporter asked the prompted question about the Internet boycott now underway, Jay gave his best grin and said > no comment'. At 5:30 that afternoon, we were aboard an Air Canada flight to Toronto. Monday was a bad day for Saudi Arabia. A Saudi spokesperson gave a CNN interview expressing the opinion that what Prince Faazi had done was only what the stock markets traders did every day; there was nothing illegal in his actions. He claimed the Americans were angry only because he had beaten them at their own game. He had no comment about the creation of the three phony shell companies that Wardwell Mutual Funds had used, saying that Sewell and Attward had done all the planning, Prince Faazi was only an investor. The Internet home page was flooded with inquiries and Scotty soon had more telephone lines installed. Royal Saudi Airlines only had one airplane in Saudi Arabia, the others were all hung up at airports in Europe, unable to get serviced. Two tankers were sitting offshore awaiting pilots or tugs that seemed to be too busy to get them into port. Tuesday someone posted a message on the net stating that Shell Oil was going to sue any union that refused to unload Saudi oil. A boycott of Shell was proposed for the next day. The Royal Bank in Canada came under fire for refusing to join in the effort to recover the money lost in Wardwell. We encouraged people to tell that bank that if they did not change their position, accounts would be transferred to a bank that did support the attack against Prince Faazi. BBC World News carried the story of how a small Internet site was trying to take on the power of all the money that Saudi Arabia had invested around the world. Parallels of David and Goliath were made but phone calls to the BBC saying that they were fomenting religious upheaval had the news anchor change the story line to The Mouse That Roared. The Central Bank of Liechtenstein immediately issued a press release saying that they held no Saudi funds. By Wednesday the New York Stock Exchange started to feel tremors of the Wardwell affair. Investors began selling any stock that had connections to Saudi Arabia. Late Wednesday the Toronto Stock Exchange reacted with sell orders outpacing the ability of the system to handle the transactions. The TSE closed half an hour early as signs of a panic in mutual funds were coming in from all North American exchanges. The Saudi ambassadors in Washington and Ottawa asked for meetings on Thursday morning with the Secretary of State and the Foreign Affairs minister. Saudi TV interviewed Prince Faazi who denied any wrong-doing and in fact said that his life had been threatened. He held up a Red Indian arrow that had been sent to him and said that this proved that a million-dollar bounty had been placed on him by the Canadian, Jerry Sewell. I had been afraid that Jerry's offer of a million dollars might come back to haunt us so we had talked to Jay on just how we would handle the question if it ever came. Thursday morning we were on Canada AM television with our story. And we made it a good one. Jerry, John Withers and I sat on stage while Robbie, the CSIS Agent, sat behind a screen and had her voice distorted. We told the whole story, from the shootout at La Jolla to the escape to Canada. Jerry told his part of the action in the Black Hills quite proudly. How he disarmed two assassins with a bow and arrows, and how, in a moment of anger, he had taunted one of the men that he would offer a million dollars for Faazi if anyone ever came after him again. I noted that Jerry did not have any money, and that in any case, the million would be Canadian, not American dollars. John then told what they knew of Attward's story, of how he had been attacked in Argentina and how he had been tracked to the US and while there, he was killed trying to escape custody. And yes, the FBI and CSIS were satisfied that the whole Wardwell Mutual Fund scam had been perpetrated as Mr. Sewell had described it in his statement. Further comment could not be made since Mr. Sewell was out on bail, awaiting trial.

The boycott was spreading and rumours were that a number of major companies had approached the Saudi king to resolve the problem before it got any worse. When we awoke Friday morning the news was that Prince Faazi would return the money providing all sanctions were stopped and there would be no charges laid against him. Buddy Olsen called to congratulate us on a job well done. I reminded him that the amount of money being returned should include interest. Buddy tried to scoff off the interest but when I told him to do the math on over two billion dollars, he realized I was quite right. Besides, any percentage that we were paid on the recovery would be on the total amount and I wanted every cent I could get. I still thought of that gun held at my head. And I still thought about that night in Orlando, still unable to fathom what had happened between Robbie and me. Perhaps it was as she said, nothing had happened. Before Jerry's trial, he had somehow talked to Maher Morcos. Whether it was Morcos who called him or the other way around, I never did find out. The result was that The Pharaoh's Niece was sold back to the artist and Jay was paid out of the proceeds. How they kept the paintings out of the inventory of assets, I never knew nor wanted to know. Stu Carson still had two of the smaller paintings in his recreation room, hung where everyone could see them. The judge at the trial took into consideration the full cooperation of Jerry and the restitution already made and sentenced him to three years at a rehabilitation centre. Jay was sure he could get Jerry out on day passes within a year, and then early parole. Jerry was happy with the sentence and the fact that he had been barred from the stock markets for life, was of no consequence to him. He had his dream of opening an art gallery some day and that was all he needed. I offered Robbie a job with Pilger and Associates but she declined saying she wanted to spend a few more years with CSIS first. She said to keep the offer open, just in case. She and Scotty were working on their relationship and Scotty kept me posted on what Robbie was doing. Work at the office was falling back into the routine. Nancy, Marisa and Justin and I spent some great weekends at the cottage as the Muskokas basked in another warmer than usual summer. All was well until Dr. Bauer's secretary called to say I was due for my annual check-up. I whined about being in the office only a few months ago for a filling, but the secretary would not buy my story. It said right on my card that I was due and that was that. "That was a great job you did, getting all the Wardwell money back, Frank," Dr. Bauer said as he put even more fingers in my mouth. "Umm" "You saved me over $30,000." "Really?" I said as I rinsed and spat. "Yes, and I want you to know that I put that money to good use." "You bought some more stocks?" "No. Well, not with most of the money. I bought this new laser drill," he said, pointing at a complicated looking device sitting next to the chair I was sitting in. "In fact, I have just completed a week's training on it."

"Only a week? " I asked. "Sure - it's easy - it runs off my computer with this high resolution mouse. I'm going to do your little cavity on that back molar with it. You won't feel a thing." "Uh, Doc, I really didn’t mind the old drill," I said. "Nonsense, you were always squirming around. You're just the kind of patient who will really appreciate the new laser drill. I was thinking of you when I bought it." "You shouldn’t have." "Come on, Frank, open up wide so I can get a digital map of the tooth now." "Map?" I said, with my mouth open as wide as I could. "Yes, the little camera on the end of the laser takes a picture of the tooth. I then expand the picture and can work precisely with the laser, cutting away the decayed and damaged part of the tooth. Tests show that we can remove less material and cause less stress on the tooth, at the same time giving a better surface to attach the filling." "Umm," I said again, closing my eyes and trying to think of something else. How was it when I wanted to think of different things, my mind would not cooperate? When I wanted to concentrate, it always drifted away to some obscure thoughts. This would be an excellent time to consider the Big Bang Theory, something that I could almost grasp, almost get a sense of when someone would come out with a different argument about gravity and time. Like about how time can be warped by gravity and how we could really go ahead or back in time if we could harness gravity. "Frank. Frank - wake up." "What? Oh, gee, Doc, I must have drifted off there for a moment. Are you ready to start drilling?" "Start? I'm all finished. Just rinse your mouth. You're as bad as you wife for falling asleep in the chair!"