Investing in Murder

One

OneChicago › Monday, December 1, 2008 › 07h40

Jayson L. Riley entered his downtown office tower in the predawn light and marched straight past Security with a latte in one hand, the Chicago Tribune in the other, and a hunting rifle tucked under his arm.

He ducked into an empty express elevator and punched the sixty-first-floor button, crooked his arm, glanced at his chromium Insync watch.

It took four seconds to accelerate through two mezzanine levels where cafés and shops were located, another sixteen seconds until the carriage braked to a full stop. He squeezed his solid frame through the retracting doors, made a quick left, then hoofed it down a narrow hallway directly into the lens of a ceiling-mounted security camera.

He made it halfway to his corner office before someone noticed him — an eager intern whose name he’d forgotten. She stopped dead in her tracks, stuttered, “Sir?” He nodded and passed her by, increasing his gait.

Seconds later, he entered a common area ascetically furnished for nervous clients to pace, where flat-screen tv monitors hung from ceiling mounts at odd angles like windows to the world through 24-hour news channels. The décor, designed to reduce tension, had a Zen atmosphere to it — flowing fountains, reflective music, dried flowers, the aroma of eucalyptus. Cruel kindness, he thought. No one gave a damn about tension or stress, or heart failure. It was all about risk and reward. A price to pay for twenty-first-century materialism.

Some people died for it.

No one was dead yet. But he knew that, by the time markets opened, the hallways would be packed with people anxious to know if their retirement dreams were dead. November 2008 had not been a good time for financial advisors — worse yet, for investors — causing some overzealous individuals to keel over.

A right, then a quick left through a vacant reception area to a bulletproof security door. He clamped the rim of the latte in his teeth and rooted inside his coat for his strangling id lanyard.

His was the first office on the right, directly across from the war room. He entered, kicking the door closed behind him.

The rifle — a modified Remington — was sheathed in an army-green canvas-and-leather case. He released it from under his arm, bouncing it onto a brown leather sofa. The latte and the newspaper he set on his workstation before pulling out of his coat and tossing it on an antique barrel chair. His mind swirled with thoughts of the Caribbean and his offshore investment clients.

In the years before the market crash, he’d traveled to the Caribbean for Thanksgiving, to Dorothy’s — a four-star beach resort somewhere over the rainbow, where many of his affluent clients rendezvoused. This year, he’d reluctantly accepted his father’s invitation to go hunting at the family cabin. His father, JD, ceo of Riley Financial Investment Corp, wanted to discuss his son’s future.

He blew out a breath, combing his fingers through a mat of sand-colored hair that neither obeyed company policy nor the law of gravity.

As he swung himself around his angular workstation, his cell phone rang. He answered before the second ring.

An anxious voice whispered, “Did you transfer the funds?”

Jayson dropped into his leather executive chair and with the phone tucked to his ear, proceeded to power up his computer. “I’m on it,” he said, “you gave me no warning. I was out of town.” He typed his password with ten-finger efficiency, hit the enter key. “You going to tell me what’s so damn urgent?”

“You were right about the ghost of Transys,” his caller said. “Make the transfer. I’ll contact you when I know my departure plans.”

“Where are you?”

The line crackled. “Dorothy’s. At the end — ”

The call went dead.

Shit. He let the phone drop into his lap, wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his wool sweater.

After the usual corporate login, password verification, and security protocols executed, the screen flickered. Three icons splashed up on the screen. He clicked an icon labeled Transys, tapped the touchpad twice, checked his watch.

Three seconds passed before a secure web-based app opened with a warning: You have 15 seconds to acknowledge.

He used the first eight seconds to calculate the revolving password by adding a series of numbers to the precise time on his watch. The next four seconds he used to type the password and hit the enter key. The remaining three seconds the system used to verify the password.

Login Successful.

He tugged the neck of his sweater and took a deep breath, positioning his fingers on the keyboard. Almost immediately, a list of names and account numbers appeared on the screen.

He scrolled down the alphabetic list of records and highlighted four names from an offshore trust account on Grand Cayman Island. He quickly calculated the total in his head, then he transferred $12.7M to a bank in Panama.