Chapter 6 - The Digital Guillotine
By the time Cynthia and Marcus rushed back to their penthouse, the trap had fully sprung.
Sitting in Vance’s underground office, we watched the monitors.
"They’re trying to log in," Vance laughed, typing furiously on his mechanical keyboard. "Cynthia is attempting an emergency wire transfer to a Swiss bank."
"Let her in," I ordered.
Vance hit a key.
On the other side of the city, Cynthia watched her bank screen load. But instead of seeing the two hundred million dollars she had stolen from me, she saw a single, flashing number.
$0.00.
"Where is it?!" Cynthia’s voice echoed through the hidden microphone Vance had planted on Marcus’s phone at the gala. "Marcus, the accounts are empty! It’s all gone!"
"That’s impossible!" Marcus roared in the background. "Call Trenton! Get him on the phone right now!"
"Trenton’s phone is disconnected!" Cynthia shrieked. "Richard took it! He took everything!"
Sitting in the glow of the monitors, I looked at Elena. She wasn't smiling. She was simply nodding, the quiet satisfaction of a woman watching justice take its course.
"Where did you route the money, Arthur?" I asked.
May you like
"I didn't route it to you, Richard," Vance said, spinning around in his chair. "Because if I did, the Feds would freeze it again. I routed it into five thousand decentralized micro-trusts under a fictitious holding company. Untraceable. And I left a breadcrumb trail that points directly to Marcus Thorne’s IP address."
I laughed out loud. We hadn't just taken their money. We had framed Marcus for stealing the stolen money.
