Tunnel Rat

Chapter 274: Victor has money? Let's fix that.

"Can we watch it again? Please? The part where they open the pod is awesome! Victor looks so sad/pissed/surprised." Nina loved the video that Bork had put together. It was footage from news programs, Heathrow Security Cameras, and Interpol badgecams. He'd edited it, added his own comments, and created a soundtrack. They'd watched it four times today, made up more jokes, and suggested scenes, keeping Bork busy as he perfected his masterpiece.

Bork was happy that his work was appreciated. His creations were only for the five of them. Releasing them to social media would have given away too much, specifically that someone had access to video footage they shouldn't. Too many clues like that in the wild would spark a conspiracy in someone's brain. The Alphabet had enough trouble as it was staying ahead of the chaos they sometimes caused without advertising themselves.

"Sure, I don't think I will ever get tired of watching it. It's so perfect how it all worked out. Are we sure we didn't set this all up? It sure feels like something we'd do."

"That's an interesting point. Didn't we used to have someone in Interpol that we tipped off about things? It was years ago, but I remember how convenient it was to have a big organization like that working with us."

Zander's joy at watching Victor evaporated as he thought about the person he'd worked with anonymously at Interpol. "That was Agent Simms. I miss her. For a normal person, she was brilliant! I barely had to give her clues before she put things together and ran with them. She retired when she couldn't work any longer and died shortly after that. I'm glad we quit sending her cases in the last two years. She was working herself to death even without our help. She was incredibly competent at putting together information and arriving at conclusions. A remarkable woman. Can you imagine how smart she would have been if she'd been like us?"

Algernon tilted his nose up in the air. "It would have been wonderful to have another genius around. You four are from such common stock that even enhanced; I have to lead you around and tell you when to eat and when to poop. I look forward to finding Milo so we can have an intelligent conversation." This remark infuriated his less intelligent and more violent siblings, who pummeled him with pillows to vent their caveman-like anger.

Nina stopped in mid-swing. "Milo. It was Milo that set up Victor!" Everyone else stopped as well. Playtime was over, thinking time had started again. It couldn't be put off once someone had thrown out a problem or mystery.

Bork considered for a second and then agreed. "He doesn't like Victor either, is friends with Belinda Seimovich, and would want him out of that habitat he's been living in. He probably...SHIT! ...Obvious. Milo hacked our hacked security system and has been eavesdropping on Victor. Probably hacked his emails as well and was watching his every move."

"Of course he did! We have to assume that Milo is at least as smart as us. If we would do something, he would too."

"Nicely done, too. Victor looked like he got hit by an anvil when that pod opened, and it was someone else. And that bunch has no loyalty; all the doctors are flipping on him and each other. It will be a bloodbath of accusations, even if they don't go into the old, secret stuff."

"You mean, like us and all the fun things Vigo worked on before his untimely death? I'm not sure I want that coming out in the open. It would complicate things if people were looking for us."

"Someone is looking for us. Always assume that!." Bork never liked it when his siblings relaxed about some things—and hated it worse when he did the same thing.

Algernon got up and went to a workstation. "Enough fun. We can watch that later. This is an opportunity. We need to listen to what the doctors and Victor say, either voice recordings or transcripts. We need to find out the name of his current lawyer and any others he is using. And anyone who visits him. He'll communicate through them to have his network of thugs do his business. And, most importantly, we need to watch his money. He'll have some resources left, and we should strip him of them as fast as we can. Leave him penniless and in jail. People will desert him. Money is a weapon Victor can use. Let's take it all away down to the last breadcrumb."

Nina got to work as well. "I'm going to gather the information on the teams who took him down. I suspect Milo is working with someone on that team, maybe the top guy, but we have to find out. They may be good people to feed information to. Victor and the terrible trio aren't the only people we need to get some revenge on."

"Yes. Revenge...and karma for making the world a better place for everyone else!"

"Screw that, Zander, the rest of us want revenge."

"Fine, I'm ok with revenge. We'll fix the world tomorrow."

Two hours later, working together and on their own, they reconvened in a living room, seated on pillows with plates of snacks. On the wall, Bork's video played silently, over and over.

"I'll start since all of you are stuffing your faces. I monitored the ten mercenary groups that Victor has hired from before. I'm not seeing anything from nine of them. But one has some interesting activity. Volgard put out an email to the people on their payroll in Eastern North America. They have forty people en route to Philadelphia. Half of them have technical experience, and the other half specialize in intimidation and controlling local populations. I tracked their payment to a bank account we didn't know about. Bernard St. Clair, the head of a law firm in London, authorized the payment."

Zander chimed in, "He's been retained to represent Victor. I haven't found prior links between them, but that firm has represented some powerful people who aren't very nice. Not a lot of them, and not enough to tarnish their reputation. They are competent and not squeamish about who they work for. The client list includes people that run in the same circles as Victor."

Bork nodded at the confirmation. The Alphabet liked to have more than one person independently verify information whenever they could. "They're moving too quickly and not hiding their transactions well. Victor is in a hurry. He has to find Belinda Seimovich, and he's focused on her. She's his way out of this mess. I don't agree with his thinking and would love to cause that plan to fail."

"I can mimic the transfer authorization from the lawyer whenever we want to close down that account. Do it now? Or wait until we find more so they don't catch on?" Nina loved finding hidden chunks of money owned by people she didn't like. After stealing it, she found worthwhile charities to donate the money to. It might be food and clothing for disaster victims or support for an animal shelter. She had a fondness for cats. She had funneled over forty-six million dollars taken from criminal organizations into shelters for felines. Eventually, they found four funds that Victor's new lawyer used. All of them were brought down to less than two dollars, the account passwords changed, and the money moved elsewhere.

Algernon was having fun reading the transcripts of Victor's interviews with agents from Interpol and Scotland Yard, bringing the group's attention to an important detail. "He's cutting more deals and giving up old secrets. But he doesn't have many left. They are pressing him on where a body is buried, a package that disappeared in Brussels, which might be a pocket nuke, and a project involving 'Batch Four,' which obviously makes me both nervous and curious as to what he will or won't say."

"Hmm, so do we take away his options if we can? Will that make it more or less likely that he talks about us?"

Everyone was quiet, and the rest turned to Bork. As the most paranoid of them all, he could often be used as a litmus test on decisions involving risk. He thought for a full ten minutes, then stated his theory. "Victor will do what is best for Victor. He doesn't care about where a body is buried and can gain immunity from the murder charge in all probability. The Nuke will gain him a lot of points, whether he helped steal it or not. Nukes make people nervous. As for talking about us? He thinks we are dead, and there are very few indications we aren't. My most recent borkup being the worst clue that we are alive. Victor can't admit he was working with Vigo Johansson and the terrible trio from Biosolutions to create bio-engineered mutant human cyborgs to be used to disrupt the financial markets and steal money and information. Maybe if he was in front of a firing squad. Because admitting to that could put him against the wall, along with those doctors, he'll take that secret to his grave, especially how it could affect his grand-niece. We don't know what Vigo did to his daughter, but it's enough that she's been kept hidden for seventeen years. She's only been seen out in the open recently."

"With Milo!"

Bork grimaced. He hated loose ends, and Milo was the biggest loose end ever, with a very tangled string. "Yes, with Milo. He must know something about her and has become friends, or at least knows her well enough to get on her gaming team. And it makes sense he wanted Victor jailed if he's figured out all the secrets of the Seimovich family."

Zander suddenly brightened up, and a big smile appeared on his face. "Yes! Just think of what Milo might know. It will be like Christmas for all of us. We get to tell him secrets, and he can tell us secrets! I wonder if he has any data on Belinda Seimovich? I'm curious about her father's modifications to her genetics or development."

Algernon sat next to Zander, ate some popcorn, and started reading an issue of his newest favorite comic book, Wonder Warthog, and he was humming loudly."

Zander looked at him with utter disgust. "Don't you do that! Not again! Don't you do that to me!"

"Oh, and what's that? Sorry, I'm reading a comic book. Really good, see, in this issue, Wondy (that's my nickname for the main character) has to fly to Uranus (the planet, just in case you're confused) and...

Zander stared at Algernon and, in a low, deep voice, said, "You have a secret, and you know I'll want to know, and you're humming!"

Algernon put his comic back into the lock-tight Mylar sleeve and placed it carefully on a shelf. "Oh? Well. I might. You see, I've been reading all those boring Interpol transcripts where they do good cop/bad cop and interrogate the criminals. Victor's pals, the doctors, are throwing him under the bus as fast as they can. It's bad for them; death penalty bad, and some countries tried them in absentee so there won't be a long wait for a trial. One of them even hinted that he had data on scientific experiments that Victor might have been involved with. He's offering it to Interpol with some really steep conditions attached. He wants total amnesty for anything they see in the files and to be under protected house arrest for the next twenty years. For that, he'll flip and give them the keys to the vault where the data is stored. Interpol is going to agree, but only once they get the data. The description matches the vaults we invented with the auto-EMP feature, and you can guess where it is."

Everyone's mouths fell open. Bork was tearing his hair out. "The missing data discs from BioSolutions! That has to be what they're talking about. They took them, faked their deaths, and had them all these years. And they're in a vault in the habitat we just rented? OMG! We can't let that get out. How hard is it to break into one of those vaults? I don't know what they changed once we sold the patent."

Nina put the schematics on the screen. "Close to impossible for anyone else and merely difficult for us. I estimate that three of us, working as a team, could do it in three hours. First, we have to get into the Manpower facility, which will be under siege in a day, and we have to get there before Interpol cuts a deal. I can have the equipment needed on a Philadelphia flight, and we could start our run in less than eight hours. We need to start at this point, and it will be tight moving through ductwork and crawl spaces to get near the storage area. Bork! Stop pacing! We have a working plan. Start telling us where it might go wrong."

Bork refocused, "Uh, OK. The number of people working there will be way down; it will be just a skeleton crew with most of the staff in Geneva. But that doesn't mean the offices, labs, and living quarters will be deserted. That deal is paying dividends already. But Manpower has to focus its security on the pods they care for. Anything we can do to have them shift more personnel will help. We need some sort of scouting drone to move ahead and map, and I want a 4th person on that. 5th man is overseeing everything and calling it off at any sign of danger." Everyone pointed at him. "Right. We have the security system hacked, but we still go in wearing full costumes. I'm thinking we do ninjas again."

The team liked going as ninjas. The reason wasn't obvious. While ninjas were cool, it helped disguise their lack of size. Everyone knew ninjas were short.

"And I think we should be helpful. Rhebus will be neighbors with Manpower, and no one likes pushy mercenaries running around their habitat. I'm going to have the head of Rhebus contact the manager of Manpower and offer some extra muscle from our security section. Just in case."

Within an hour, the team had planned the operation and were on their way to Philadelphia.