Black Hat Blues (27 page)
trance-like state he would always get when things got complicated and
tricky, seeming to look with almost autistic fervor from one screen to
the next, constantly shifting views and re-arranging things on the desk-
tops to get a different perspective and maybe tease out some previously
unseen opportunity. Chloe wanted to pace, but knew that would drive
the others nuts, so she made herself lie on one of the beds and focus her
attention on Danny’s e-mail mirror on her laptop.
The boy got started early, hitting up his many media contacts and
trying to both get a sense of what they were writing about the protests
against Rep. Wolverton, and at the same time doing his best to assuage
them of any doubts or criticisms they might have. He said off the record
over and over again that the Congressman had something to announce
that morning that would clear all of this nonsense up and confirm his
commitment to a safe, secure, protected and productive American work
force. Meanwhile, Paul got in a message from Isaiah that he passed on
to the room, “He says they’re starting to head into the banks and check
cashing places now. Everything went out late last night or early this
morning. So tell Jamie and the others we can start, too.”
Chloe got up and dug one of the previously unused cryptophones
out of her bag and called Jamie down in Key West. He helped run The
Party for them, which, of necessity, was no longer running 24/7 but
still popped up somewhere every week. Since it wasn’t anywhere near
noon yet and he answered on the first ring, she assumed he hadn’t slept
last night. “Hey hot pants,” she said. “It’s pay day. You and the boys can
start cashing those checks. How’s Miami?”
“Miami is, as always, too fun for it’s own good. But we’ve got our
checks in our hands and a fist full of fake IDs.”
“Go get paid, and spend some of it for me,” said Chloe, hanging up.
She made several follow-up calls to other contacts with other phones,
and half an hour later the stopper on the drain of Ken Clover’s personal
and business bank accounts had been pulled.
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The great innovation for businesses, and the people who want to
steal from them in this modern era, was the ability to print your own
checks. For companies like Clover & Associates that cut a lot of checks
to employees, vendors, and sometimes even clients, it just made sense
to order thousands of blanks and then print the information as needed.
Stealing that information from the company’s network had been at
the top of their list when they hacked the Clover network, although
they already knew the bank account numbers and routing information
before that. They’d sent all the data to Isaiah on day one, and since that
time he’d been printing and distributing checks all over South Florida.
Almost all of the checks were made out to people with some of the most
common Hispanic surnames and just a first initial, so there were a lot of
J. Hernandez, J. Rodriguez, P. Garcia checks for $2000 being distrib-
uted almost at random to day laborers and workers of all stripes. She
wasn’t sure exactly how Isaiah was getting the checks out, but she knew
Sacco had put him in touch with some worker’s rights organizers down
there and that they were told it was part of a settlement in a class action
lawsuit of some kind. That was certainly what Paul had told the Bank of
America representatives when posing as Clover’s accountant. Thus fore-
warned, the bank should refrain from putting any holds on the accounts
when money started to evacuate from them in a torrent of $2000 drops.
Meanwhile, Chloe and her Crew had siphoned off some of the cash
for themselves, which were the checks that Jaimie would be cash-
ing today and would account for another $50,000. All told, the hit
would suck about $1.5 million dollars from the accounts, which was as
much cash as Clover kept on hand between his personal and business
accounts. The wonderful thing about distributing all those checks was
that, once they’d been cashed, the money was pretty much untraceable.
The people receiving them were the very victims of Clover’s clients,
people who were probably here illegally and had no bank accounts or
even permanent addresses. Once they’d cashed the check at one of the
thousands of check cashing places in South Florida, there was no way
Clover would be able to recover the money.
His money tied up in stocks, bonds, and real estate was harder for
them to get at. They could order some sell-offs electronically, and they
were doing just that, but there was a good chance he’d be able to recoup
some of his losses or cancel the trades. Maybe. But in the meantime,
they would transfer funds to offshore electronic accounts that Isaiah’s
co-conspirator Marco had set up for them. Chloe wasn’t counting on
getting that money any time soon, if ever, since Marco would have
to move it through a series of Caribbean-based accounts and take his
Rick Dakan
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cut before it became cash in her pocket. The important part was that
Clover wouldn’t have access to it either, and figuring out what the fuck
was happening to his money was only one of the problems he would be
facing in a few hours.
Just to add a little insult to injury, Paul had come up with the idea
of paying off all of Clover’s debt as well. Clover & Associates carried
mortgages on their offices and several other properties, along with leases
for cars, various corporate credit cards, and several lines of credit from
companies like caterers, private plane and car services, and even secu-
rity and legal bills. All of these could be paid electronically, and so
they went ahead and did that, costing Clover another couple hundred
thousand dollars in the process. He would have a hard time getting
those companies to refund the payments just because he didn’t actually
authorize the money, and it would continue to deplete his ready cash.
Plus, it would just piss him off.
Having checked in on all her check cashers and transfers, Chloe got
up off the bed and went over to peer over Paul’s shoulder. “Danny’s
been on fire with the damage control,” she said. “Any sign that Clover
has noticed anything at all is going on?”
“Not yet,” Paul said, “But not because people aren’t trying to tell
him something. He’s gotten e-mails and calls from The Enemy down
in Florida. Isaiah’s bringing the heat down there. According to the
messages they’re sending, there were a series of break-ins and acts of
sabotage across a dozen different agricultural sites and five different
industrial sites, and the workers seem to have gone on some sort of
general strike. Shit’s on fire down there, in some cases literally. They’re
looking for law enforcement help or something, because the cops they
normally buy off are all out of commission—either out of town or on
suspension for sudden revelations of misbehavior. Some are just plain
missing. Isaiah’s Crew is tearing them to pieces and they’re freaked the
fuck out. I’m not answering calls—just text messages and e-mails. As
far as they know, Clover is trapped inside a closed-door Congressional
hearing this morning and can’t make a call, but he swears he’s doing his
best to help them. Well, rather, I swear he’s helping them.”
Chloe whistled and shook her head from side to side. “Isaiah must
have a hundred people on this with him. It’s so cool it’s scary.”
“It’s also just plain scary,” Paul said. “Although I think he’s got fewer
than that. He’s just making it look like he’s got a hundred guys. Which,
now that I say it out loud, might even be scarier.”
“How much do you think he’ll make?” Chloe asked. “About three
million?”
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“I guess. It’s hard to say. I know they’re taking checks and stealing
cash and transferring a lot of money. But yeah, three to five million for
them to take away. But probably a couple hundred million in damage
to The Enemy, plus jail time or deportation for a lot of ‘em.”
“Fuckin’ hell,” said Chloe, blinking a few times to refocus on the task
at hand. “OK, so are we ready to feed Danny his next lines?”
“As soon as the strikes and fires and raids hit the AP wires,” Paul said,
tapping a screen on one of the laptops that showed a news feed. “They
did dawn raids in a lot of the camps that Isaiah set up for the feds to
take down, so news should be coming soon.”
It was 10:30 before the news wires started pumping out the head-
lines about “ARRESTS MADE IN SE FLORIDA ILLEGAL WORK
CAMPS.” The stories, as predicted, focused more on the angle that the
raided places employed illegal immigrants and framed the story as part
of the larger immigration debate. One key difference from the normal
version of such stories was that these didn’t list how many immigrant
workers the feds had rounded up because they hadn’t gotten any. All the
raids, as per Isaiah’s plan, focused on the employers for once.
With these as ammo, Chloe got everything ready to send Danny the
tip off he needed to add a little punch to Rep. Wolverton’s press confer-
ence. She sent the file over to Paul, who composed the final message:
From: [email protected]
Subject: Ammo
Danny,
Check out the links below. This is exactly what I was talk-
ing about last night. The task force in Florida pulling these
raids is using funding that the procurement our boy added
in will not only continue to provide, but expand. Talk about
enhanced surveillance, increased enforcement, securing
our nation’s vital food supply from terrorist threats, and all
the rest. If he runs with this, he runs all the way to free and
clear.
K
Rick Dakan
143
Attached below were links to the AP stories along with a file containing
more information about the Special Labor Enforcement task force that
Isaiah was manipulating into being his unwitting weapon.
An hour later, Congressman Wolverton went before the press, and
included a live stream of the press conference on his campaign website.
Chloe watched with the other three, laughing and yes, she’d admit it,
giggling with no small amount of glee as a United States Congressman
delivered their talking points almost verbatim. He stood there, smooth,
distinguished, and polished with his flat, fatherly Midwestern accent.
“Nothing matters more to me than the integrity, power, and freedom
that come from decent, patriotic Americans who put in a good hard
day’s work,” he began, sliding into a five minute paen to the non-immi-
grant laboring class that his union-busting voting record made laugh-
able. This in turn transformed into a short but pointed screed against
the “sweat shop tactics” and “inhumane working conditions” in other
countries (read China) and how American Workers should never be
subjected to such indignities and how “The label Made in the USA
inspires pride of workmanship and the promise of freedom to everyone
who buys it,” whatever that meant.
As expected, the slimeball slid on into typical anti-immigrant bash-
ing that would have made Lou Dobbs proud before moving to the
material they’d given him through Danny. “But we don’t need new
laws, and border fences are expensive and inefficient wastes of resources.
Illegals won’t come here if there are no jobs, and there won’t be any jobs
if employers follow the law. That’s why I’m proud to be a proponent of
increased funding for programs like the Special Labor Enforcement
multi-agency task force, a program that just today has made some stun-
ning raids on the kind of vile, exploiting employers who not only drive
off American jobs, but also use and abuse the workers they illegally
employ. When we improve the value of a man’s hard work and treat
it with the respect it deserves, we improve all of America. When we
arrest those who break the law, those who harbor illegals and flout our
national security. When we put those criminals behind bars and leave
jobs for law-abiding citizens, then and only then will we be as strong
as we can be.”
Wolverton went on to praise some of the specific triumphs of law
enforcement against factory and industrial farm owners and touted
projections from the SLE task force that promised even greater results
if they got the full funding they were asking for to not only investigate
but also to prosecute law-breaking employers. With his speech and the
formal statement on his website that went with it, Wolverton had gone a
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long way towards both controlling the damage of the weekend’s protests
and tying himself very much on the record to funding the task force
and supporting the arrests that Isaiah had engineered in Florida.
In the Q&A from reporters that followed, Wolverton adeptly brushed
aside any references to the weekend protests or to his connection to
the Mariana Islands, promising that the new task force would be look-