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TWENTY-FOUR
LIZ AND BOLDT STOOD INSIDE the front door of their home, LaMoia’s Jetta parked and ru
“I told them exactly how David did it,” Liz explained. “He split the money into tens of thousands of tiny amounts-a few cents, a few dollars-and tacked those amounts onto trades as Securities and Exchange Commission fees. It worked because the SEC account is one of only a very few accounts that we don’t audit unless the government files a complaint. David kept the funds moving through the system, these tiny amounts charged as SEC trading fees, impossible for us to co
Boldt said, “They could only grab the seventeen million four times a year.”
“I’m guessing. Yes. He wouldn’t have wanted it to be lumped together for very long, nor very often. Auditors might have spotted that, though even that’s doubtful. The whole purpose was to keep it moving.”
“And no one reported the incorrect SEC charges on their statements?”
“How many investors are going to question a few cents more on an SEC trading fee that’s a charge they probably don’t pay attention to anyway? He did the smart thing: He hid that money out in the open.” She changed the subject, asking, “What do you do if he doesn’t give you the tape?”
“John has one of his wild ideas. He’s been studying terrorist technologies for the past two weeks and, typical of him, has ‘borrowed’ a device.”
“You’ll be careful.”
It was a sentiment impossible for her not to express, but Boldt wished she hadn’t. He didn’t want to think of this upcoming meeting as dangerous, though he knew otherwise. Judging by Svengrad’s tone of voice, he had already been hit with the surprise. Boldt’s mission was to deflect and redirect the blame.
“It’s more ridiculous than dangerous,” he said of LaMoia’s idea.
“You’ll have backup?”
“Speaking the lingo now?”
“I’m a fast learner,” she said, “and don’t avoid the question.”
“Not officially, no,” he told her honestly. “That would mean answering all sorts of questions at some point, questions you and I don’t want to answer.”
“Forget that,” she said. “I’d rather answer questions, pay a fine, go to jail, than be stupid about this.”
“John will be there. Outside. He’ll call for backup if needed. It’s a meeting is all,” he said, trying to reassure her. “We expected this.” He corrected himself, “I expected this.”
“It’s not worth it, Lou.”
“It is,” he said. “It’s very much worth it.”
“Not if you’re at risk.”
“It’s not like that. Honestly. If I thought it was, I wouldn’t do this. He’s not going to arrange a meeting if he plans on torturing me; his goons are going to bust in here and do it. He has questions. That’s all.”
“We gave him his money. He should be happy.”
“Absolutely,” Boldt said, trying to keep the lie out of his eyes. “Maybe he wants to thank me.”
She leveled a look onto him, and he knew then that she knew. He saw the first twinges of realization sink into her. “What did you do?” She closed her eyes, then looked at him fiercely. “You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?”
The trouble with marriage was that all that familiarity, the years of arguments and discussions, of practical jokes and conspiracies, meant that one’s barriers became invisible to the spouse, easily penetrated. Liz looked through him and read his thoughts effortlessly.
“Oh, my God,” she said. “You co
“I followed my conscience on this one.”
“It was all done, Lou. We did it. Over! The children,” she pleaded, as either her concern or her anger glassed her eyes.
“Exactly,” Boldt said. “I’m not saying I did anything, but if I did, I did it for the children. No lies, right?” This had been their mutual agreement going into parenthood, to lead by example. The comment struck deeper, as he knew it would. They’d been living nothing but lies for too long, and for him this was a fresh start instead of a continuation.
He kissed her good-bye without saying anything more. He had no sense that he was heading into anything more dangerous than on any other day of work. A meeting was all. She accompanied him to the front door. An unmarked police car still watched the house. Boldt hoped this meeting with Svengrad might end the need for such precautions.
She touched him once lightly on the arm as he opened the door. The tenderness of that gesture cut him to his core and he felt emotions ripple through him. He had explanations for everything he’d done, for what he was about to do, but they would have to go unspoken. He hoped they might go unspoken for a very long time. He smiled at her and let her shut the door behind him.
“Drive,” he said, and LaMoia pulled the Jetta away from the curb and out onto the street.
Boldt looked into the empty backseat.
“It’s in the trunk,” LaMoia said. “Thing’s about the size of a microwave oven.”
Boldt shook his head.
LaMoia said, “I’m telling you, Sarge, it works great.”
“Forget it, okay?”
“No way! You gotta let me do this. If nothing else we put this guy back into the Stone Age. Every computer, every phone, every disk, every tape, zeroed.”
He’d explained it to Boldt in trying to sell him on the idea. The box in the car’s trunk emitted an electromagnetic pulse, essentially a blast of radio waves that rearranged any magnetic charge. The military had been developing the technology for years-first discovered as a side effect of an atomic blast, a pulse of energy that, while not radioactive, interrupted and defeated anything with a memory chip. The technology remained fairly bulky and heavy, still too conspicuous to be smuggled onto an airplane, though this and other uses were believed possible prospects for terrorists down the road.
“I think we’ll do this the old-fashioned way,” Boldt said. “Leave James Bond for the movies.” He added, “I’m going to talk to him. That’s all.”
“He’ll never give you back that tape.”
“Probably not.”
“All I do is plug the thing in and turn it on. It uses the wiring in the building like a huge ante
“I think we’ll leave his refrigerators alone this time.”
“No matter what he tells you, he’s going to keep a copy of the tape. You said so yourself. Then he’s got his finger on you. He owns you, Sarge.”
Boldt shot his sergeant a look. He didn’t like this talked about in that way.