Zero Sum, Book One, Kotov Syndrome (11 page)

He’d started his own company for the
same reason. Building his business before successfully selling it
reinforced his conviction in his own abilities. Losing money by
depending on others taught him to only depend on himself.
Self-sufficient and confident by nature, backing down wasn’t in his
makeup.

He pulled up to the bagel place and got
a couple of still-hot cinnamon raisins, and then stopped to fuel
up. That sucked the last of his cash, so he hit the ATM at his bank
to pull out a few hundred bucks. He inserted his card, punched in
the PIN, and after a few seconds a screen he’d never seen before
flashed at him: Access Denied. That was weird.

His card ejected, so he re-inserted it
and re-entered the PIN, figuring he must have flubbed it the first
go around. Access Denied. The bank was just opening, so he went in,
the only customer, and approached the teller. Her nametag said
Linda, and she looked sleepier than a narcoleptic. He explained
what had happened and handed her his ATM card, asking if she’d look
into the problem and help him withdraw $300.

“Sure, mister, uh, Archer. Let me swipe
the card and I’ll see what’s going on.”

Nice girl, helpful. So far, so
good.

“Uh, that’s strange. Let me go to
another screen.” She typed in more data. Punched at things. Clicked
things. Swiped the card again. “Uh, just a second. I, uh, need to
get a manager.”

Great. Where had he heard this
before?

A few minutes went by. A rather rotund
woman approached him while his original teller hovered in the
background.

“Mr. Archer, I’m sorry for the
confusion. I’m afraid we can’t help you with any withdrawals at
this time.” She stared at him. He stared back. Her porcine face was
shiny with perspiration, no doubt caused by the effort of moving
across the floor to meet him.

“Come again?”

“I’m afraid we can’t help you with any
withdrawals today.”

“I don’t understand. I have over a
hundred fifty thousand in my account. I want three hundred dollars.
What’s to help?” He felt his anger rising, but also the anxiety was
creeping into his stomach again.

“Sir, we value your patronage, but at
this time we are unable to allow any withdrawals from your account.
Perhaps you should speak with Ted, the manager?”

Like a robot. A fleshy, sweating
robot.

“You have my money,” Steven began, arms
now folded, “which I gave to you for safekeeping, and now you’re
telling me, the owner of the money, that I can’t have it? Am I
hearing this correctly?” His blood pressure rose, bit by bit.
“You’re damned right I want to talk to Ted. He was more than happy
to help me when I was opening accounts and referring friends.”
Enough of this horseshit. Time to get into someone’s face who would
do something about the situation.

“One moment, please.” She departed to
the rear office area, returning a minute later.

“Ted will see you now.”

Great, sounded like a doctor’s visit.
He’d see me now. You bet your ass he’d see me now. They proceeded
to Ted’s hallowed office.

“Steven, I’m so sorry for this. Sit
down. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ll get to the bottom of
it.” Ted exuded bankish conviviality. “Let’s see now, here’s the
account, blanket hold placed, see file notation A(6), hmmmmmmm,
A(6), A(6)…oh…hmmmmm…I see…” Ted looked decidedly paler than he had
two minutes earlier. He was also uneasily avoiding Steven’s
gaze.

“So what’s the problem?”

“Steven, I can’t really say anything
due to banking regulations, but because you’re such a high value
customer, let me ask; are you in any kind of dispute with, say, the
IRS?” Ted inquired. “Maybe being investigated for something, no
doubt all a big mix-up?”

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re
talking about. I called the cops because my dog was killed last
night, but that’s it. What’s going on? What are you trying to tell
me?” Now the blossom of anxiety was turning into a full-fledged
incipient panic attack. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe
in...

Ted pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I’m so sorry to hear about your dog. No, according to my screen,
your account has been frozen by a law enforcement agency. I can’t
go into more detail. Shouldn’t have even said that. Didn’t…if you
take my meaning.” Ted was not having a good start to his day. That
made two of them.

“That’s impossible. It’s a mistake.”
What the hell was going on here?

“It’s not the bank. It’s actually out
of our hands. I’d suggest if you have an attorney, you get in
contact and have him talk to our headquarters to see about clearing
this up. I’m really sorry we can’t do more.” Ted was ready to
conclude the meeting.

Steven walked out of the branch in the
fog of a daze. Account frozen? A hundred and fifty grand
inaccessible? He looked in his wallet. Three one-dollar bills.
Fucking just great. The bagel had completely lost its appeal now.
His mouth tasted like tin.

He got into his car and called Stan
Caldwell, his attorney and asset protection specialist…and also his
very good friend. Stan listened intently to his story, then
suggested they get together in half an hour in San Clemente. Stan
made his living in part by being ultra-paranoid about privacy
concerns and didn’t like cell phones.

Steven was in turmoil as he drove down
PCH. Why would his account be frozen by a government agency? Didn’t
the IRS have to file something, some sort of notice, if that was
it? Besides, he didn’t owe anything, wasn’t being audited. Could it
be identity theft? That had been a big topic with the Group a few
months back. Could someone have used his ID to do something
illegal, forcing him to jump through hoops to clear it up? What a
pain in the ass.

At least he had a full tank.

Cash wasn’t an immediate concern, as he
still had about seven thousand dollars left from what he’d won in
Vegas at the last bachelor party. But not having access to a little
over a hundred and fifty Gs was an issue, that was for sure. He
wondered if they’d also frozen his credit cards. And who
they
were. And why. Which brought him right back to the
beginning again...

Stan Caldwell was a very smart man.
Quiet. Looked nothing like an attorney, more like a successful real
estate developer. Heavyset, usually smiling, relaxed, did a lot of
listening and spoke rarely. He had many high net worth clients for
whom he’d structured asset protection solutions. Discretion was his
mantra. His specialty was creating transactions for company sales
so they wound up being tax-free events, which is how Steven and he
had met. They’d been friends ever since.

Steven told him about the account, and
he jotted down the information, asking a question now and then.
Stan assured him he would get to the bottom of it quickly. Steven
then told him about the events of the last thirty-six hours or so;
Avalon, the ISP, Griffen, the website. Again, Stan asked pointed
questions, clarifying a point here, requesting more information
there.

Stan quickly decided that Steven was
playing with very hot water, and cautioned him that not all
factions of society played nice.

“Steven, if you hit a snake on the head
over and over, eventually it
will
try to bite you. Law of
the jungle. Seems to me you’ve made a hobby out of hitting this
particular snake pretty hard, and pretty regularly.”

“Griffen’s a liar and a thief, and he’s
robbing little old ladies. All I did was create a website and shine
a light on his latest scam. There’s nothing illegal about creating
websites, last time I checked – besides which, it’s too late; the
damage is done.” Steven didn’t need any more statements of the
obvious.

Stan framed his fingers together and
looked through them at Steven.

“A colleague of mine used to go on
safari, in Africa, years ago. He had a saying: If you’re going to
go elephant hunting, bring an elephant gun and be willing to use
it. Otherwise you have no business elephant hunting. Steven, my
point is you’ve been elephant hunting. If you have even half of
this right, he’s been doing this for years, successfully, and is
well connected. Your current situation may or may not have anything
to do with him, but it isn’t lost on me you’ve had a lot of strange
things happen since you started with this...”

“Stan, I’m not saying you’re wrong, or
that I wouldn’t change anything if I could. But I can’t. So what do
I do?”

Stan considered the question for a long
time. “I’m not sure you have the means to get a gun big enough to
bring this particular beast down. Let me think on this. I’ll take
care of the bank first thing.” They shook hands and agreed to talk
soon. Stan looked at Steven again.

“At least your life’s not boring, I’ll
give you that. And sorry about Avalon. I liked him.”

As Steven pulled onto the freeway to
return home, his phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and saw it
was Jennifer. He picked up.

“Hi there. All rested?” Steven
asked.

“Where are you?” Alarm…no, make that
borderline panic in her voice.

“What’s going on? What’s
wrong?”

“You need to come home now. I don’t
think I can deal with this anymore, Steven.”

“Deal with what? I’m twenty minutes
away. Tell me what happened.” He hated when people said things like
‘there’s a problem’ and then refused to elaborate. This was very
unlike Jennifer.

“When you get here. I have to go.” She
hung up. Christ, she’d hung up on him. She’d never hung up on him.
He stepped on it. He figured he could be there in fifteen minutes
if he worked it.

He made it in twelve.

He rushed through the door from the
garage and found Jennifer sitting in the living room. The blanket
was gone, but a dark stain remained on the beige carpet. Her arms
were crossed as she gripped her shoulders. She looked scared. He’d
never seen her like this before.

“What’s going on, honey?” He approached
her, but she pulled away.

“Two men came to the front door this
morning, at around ten-thirty. They wanted to speak to you. I told
them I didn’t know where you were, which was the truth – you were
just supposed to go get bagels. You were supposed to be here with
me...” She started sobbing.

“Oh, Jennifer, I’m sorry. I had some
emergencies come up I had to deal with.” He tried to hug her, but
she pulled away. Shock? “I picked up the bagels, then stopped to
get some cash from the ATM. Turns out my account is frozen; some
law enforcement agency froze it, no explanation. So who were the
men?” Steven asked.

“They were from Homeland Security, and
yes, I made them show me their badges,” Jennifer sobbed. “They
wouldn’t discuss why they needed to talk to you. They just asked a
bunch of questions.” She was still crying, scared, and angry. He
should have been there. She’d been dealing with the mess, cleaning
up dog blood, and now this.

Whatever
this
was.

Homeland Security? Wasn’t that the
terrorist people?

“Honey, I have no idea what this is
about. I swear,” Steven protested. At least that much was
true.

“They wanted to know where you were,
when you were coming back, if you had an office around here. I told
them you were out, maybe for the whole day.” She was staring at
him.

“I haven’t done anything wrong. This is
crazy,” Steven exclaimed.

“They wanted to come in, and I told
them no, someone had broken in and killed your dog last night, and
you didn’t want anyone in the house without you being here. They
didn’t seem to know about that. One of them left a card and asked
you to call as soon as you could. It’s on the counter.” Jennifer
pointed at the kitchen.

“I don’t get it.”
What was happening
here?

“Don’t you? DON’T YOU?” Jennifer
finally lost it, screaming at him now. “Steven, your dog’s dead,
they’ve frozen your money, and now they’re coming for you.” She
beat upon his chest with her fists. “What don’t you get? Your
little game with the goddamn stock has turned into a nightmare and
you’ve endangered everything we’ve got, everything we had. Avalon’s
dead and they’re after you. WHAT…DON’T…YOU...GET?” She’d expended
her energy, and he held her shaking wrists as she collapsed back
onto the sofa.

She looked up at him. Composing herself
a little. Then suddenly calm. “You thought you were so damned
smart, and now Homeland Security’s at your door. This isn’t a game,
Steven. It’s real life. Real consequences. You lost Avalon, for
real. You could lose everything.”

Jennifer looked away, then back at him,
directly at him, with an intensity born of betrayal and anger. “And
you’ve lost me, Steven. I didn’t sign up for any of
this.”

So there it was. He was to blame for
everything, and she wanted no part of it.

And she was right.

“Jennifer, I haven’t done anything
wrong. Don’t you see? There’s no law against creating a website.
This is lunacy. There’s gotta be some other explanation.” Even to
him, that sounded empty. Lame even. The only new variable in his
life the last few days was the website. They must have tracked him,
even though he’d been extremely thorough; or so he’d thought. And
they wanted him off the air enough to pull out all the
stops.