Orchid Blues

"At no point in this process are you identified by anything other than an account number, so the IRS can't examine your bank records to find out how much money you're depositing or how much you're spending. This effectively puts a stop to the enforcement of the income tax laws."

A man raised his hand. "How much can we save in taxes this way?"

"Depends on how much you earn," John said. "Recently, one of our warehouse bank customers became the first of us to save one million dollars in taxes. I can tell you that we've saved our members, collectively, a quarter of a billion dollars in income taxes."

There was a murmur of approval from around the room.

"Also," John continued, "we print our own currency, which we use only among our member groups." He passed around a banknote for everyone to look at.

Ham inspected the paper, which bore an engraving of Jefferson Davis. It had the look and feel of money.

"By drawing our own currency from the warehouse bank instead of U.S. currency, we can trade among ourselves without fear. We also encourage the use of false social security numbers, which confuses the IRS, and we've learned to set up trusts that help us do business without attracting their attention."

"What are the chances of our getting caught doing this?" someone asked.

"We've been doing it for more than ten years, and none of us has even been arrested," John said. "You may have seen accounts in the Jew press of arrests, but they weren't our people. From time to time, we shut down the warehouse bank and create a new one. We're a constantly moving target, and the antitax forces in this country have influenced the U.S. Congress to cut funds for IRS audits and investigations, which makes it harder than ever for them to track us down."

"How can I open an account?" a man asked.

"Peck is going to distribute account application forms now," John replied. "You'll notice that nowhere on the form do we ask for your name. You make deposits in cash, and we give receipts to numbers. Not even I know who has which account number."

Ham received one of the forms and put it in his pocket as the meeting broke up.

Peck walked over. "You going to open an account with us, Ham?"

"I'm going to have to take a close look at this, Peck," Ham replied. "My income comes mostly from my army pension, although I have some investments. I think I might be too much on record to start hiding stuff. I might raise a red flag that could cause trouble for you."

"I see your point," Peck said, "and I appreciate your concern. You let me know what you want to do. I'm sure it will be all right with John."

"Can I buy some of your currency?" Ham asked. "That makes a lot of sense."

"Sure, how much you want?"

"I've got a couple hundred in my pocket, I guess," Ham said, digging out some money. He handed Peck four fifties.

Peck went to a safe in the corner, opened it and returned with twenty ten-dollar bills. "Use it to shop at the gun show this weekend."

"Right," Ham said. He walked out to the range, his head spi

38

Ham let himself into the beach cottage through the sliding doors. They were all at di

"You got a Mexican restaurant in this town?" Harry asked. "We'd go for that."

Ham rolled his eyes and pulled up a chair.

"What have you got?" Harry asked.

"Fellas, it's a whole new ball game every day." He pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket, unfolded it and handed it to Harry.

"What's this?"

"It's an application to open an account at a warehouse bank."

"Uh-oh," Harry said.

"What's a warehouse bank?" Holly asked.

"The biggest tax dodge you ever heard of," Ham said. He explained it to the group as it had been explained to him.

Holly and the three FBI agents sat, rapt, listening to him.

"Holy cow," Holly said, when he was finished. "Harry, you're going to have to get the IRS into this."

"It can't be that big a deal," Harry said.

"Would you believe a quarter of a billion dollars?" Ham asked.

"That's billion with a B?"

"Correct. That's how much they claim to have cost the IRS over the past ten years."

Harry stared at him blankly. "How many people are we talking about here?"

"I have no idea," Ham replied. "John did say that, recently, someone had become their first member to avoid a million dollars in taxes." He pulled the group's paper money from his pocket and placed it on the table. "They also print this for themselves."

Harry picked up a note. "Jefferson Davis? I don't believe it."

Eddie was holding a bill up to a bare lightbulb. "This is first-class work," he said, "and with Jeff Davis on it, it could never be considered counterfeit currency, legally, unless it was counterfeit Confederate currency."

"How do they use this?" Harry asked.

"They buy and sell among themselves at these gun shows."

"Shit," Harry said, tossing the note onto the table. "We're going to end up with every law enforcement agency in the federal government in on this. There'll be nothing left for us."

"You're forgetting the bank robbery," Holly said. "And there's the murder for me."

"Oh, right."

"Harry, I think you've got to start making some calls to other agencies."

"Yeah, I guess so," Harry replied disconsolately. "And once I call one, I'll have to call them all. I still want some hard information, though. Eddie?"

Everybody turned and looked at Eddie, who was gri

"You look like the cat who got into the goldfish bowl," Holly said.

"You could say that," Eddie replied. "Ham, describe the room, Peck's study, where all these meetings take place."

"It's big, maybe twenty by thirty, fairly high ceiling, windows on two sides. The Venetian blinds are almost always drawn."

Eddie set a cardboard box on the table. "This stuff was couriered in today." He held up what appeared to be a smoke detector. "This is really neat: all you do is stick this to the ceiling somewhere in the room, and it sits there, listening. It'll pick up anything said anywhere in the room, then it transmits what it's hearing to an NSA satellite. They can listen to real-time conversation and transmit it to us over phone lines. We'll know everything that's going on."

"What happens if they sweep the room?" Ham asked.

"They'll probably be using readily available commercial stuff, which is pretty good, but very short-range. They'll walk around the baseboards, then the lamps and phones with a detector; they'll look behind pictures and under the rug. Meanwhile, ten or twelve feet above their head, this thing is sending a highly directional signal straight up. Have you noticed that nobody ever looks up in a room? Well, they won't sweep up, either."

"Suppose they do?" Holly asked. "Suppose Peck looks up and says, 'Hey, I didn't install a smoke detector in here.'"

"If Peck takes it down and looks at it, he's going to see a smoke detector. It will even work like a smoke detector. If you blow cigarette smoke at it, it'll squawk. What he won't see is a layer of electronics that's sealed into seamless plastic."

"How is it powered?" Ham asked.

"The only difference between this and a regular smoke detector is it has two nine-volt batteries, instead of one. Except they're not really nine-volt batteries, they're made of a new, extremely high-powered battery material developed by the NSA. They're disguised to look like regular nine-volt batteries. The two of them would give you a month's talk time on your cell phone, and this unit uses a little less power than a cell phone."

"Neat," Ham said.

"What's not neat," Holly pointed out, "is that Ham has got to go into that room and install the thing."