Cisco & Pancho

 ~ 1 ~

His name was Terry Mason, but the name he went by, and had since high school, was Cisco. There was a bit of a story behind it, and a solid friendship with the guy he grew up with named Lucas Avelino, who was, of course, Pancho.

The name Cisco had nothing to do with his real name. In fact, there were only a few people on the whole planet who could remember what it was. To them he was always Cisco. Some things just have a life of their own.

Cisco and Pancho grew up in Santa Fe and both went to college in Albuquerque on academic scholarships, because they were both very smart. And their families were well enough off that they could easily support their choice of living in Albuquerque. Cisco spent five years getting his Master’s in business management at the New Mexico State College of Business. Pancho went to the same school but left after getting his Bachelor’s degree in computer science and took off for the West Coast, mostly just to see the ocean and think about what he wanted to do with his life.

After college, Cisco started playing the market with more than eight million at his disposal and his own house in Santa Fe, which his parents had signed over to him after they decided to move to Italy. He set up a trading account, started studying market and putting his money to work making more of the same.

Three years later, Cisco had pretty much quadrupled his net worth, because, as it turned out, he was a natural at it. But he had also learned a great deal about the US economy during that time, and came to realize, just how closely linked the market was to the politics of his country. And though he couldn’t be sure, he followed the best advice his dad had given him before he and his mom left for Italy, and that was to trust your gut. 

When Trump came to power in 2016, Cisco was in his sophomore year, but he was, like a lot of his fellow students, a keen observer of the market.  He was skeptical about how good Trump would be for the US economy. And so he watched as the market did cartwheels for four years.

He got his business degree the same year the Democrats got into power. But he didn’t jump in right away. He, like most other savvy young investors, wanted to be sure that Trump’s influence was out of the way before they would start their quest. While he was waiting, he took some extra night courses on market analysis, joined a networking group of people like himself and got ready to attack the market the minute the Biden government was in place. Not just because that’s what his instincts were telling him, but because a lot of people in his networking group, who were all around his age, thought the same way. 

In late 2021, at the age of 23, with the Democrats in power under Joe Biden, Cisco opened his trading account, started studying the changes in temperament around the country and began investing. By late 2023, his initial six million dollar stake had created a profit of nearly 22 million.

Cisco hoped and prayed that Biden would come back for another term. But then Biden made a bonehead move and about three months before the 2024 election, he backed out and turned the candidacy over to his Vice-President, a capable woman from California.

By this time, Cisco knew enough about politics in his country to understand that this woman, even as strong and capable as she seemed to be, was simply not given enough time to campaign. And to make things even worse, she would have to beat out Trump, which he reckoned would be an impossible task, bearing in mind the loyal following he had and the astonishing number of non-voters in the country.

So, stock by stock, he started cashing out, and became a spectator again, as opposed to a player. He had had a very good run and his 30 million net worth was more than enough to see him through the catastrophe he saw coming. He used the time to investigate how to hold on to most of it, and to keep a close eye on the antics of the Republican president.

In short, he was simply treading water. He thought about doing some travelling, maybe heading out to California to look for Pancho. Anything to keep from paying more attention to the catastrophe that Trump’s second term turned into. It felt more like revenge porn than actual leadership. And while he was proud of himself for pulling out when he did, he felt bad for some of the people he knew who had just decided to ride it out, as their portfolios shrivelled up.

His travelling was reduced to day trips in various directions, just to try it out, mostly north to Denver and a couple of other towns where some of his schoolmates lived. But after a couple of months of that, it got really old and he returned home, watched a lot of baseball, kept his eye on the market, swam a lot, drank a little and had a bit of sex with some of the girls he knew from high school. He also prayed someone would blow up Trump’s plane while he was off making the world miserable.

One night, two and a half years later, for no better reason than that he was hungry, he decided to go out for dinner at the Flying Tortilla downtown, and think things through staring at different walls. Because, truth be told, he was tired of sitting around the house for the past couple of years, watching mostly bad news, because the Republicans were doing nothing to rein Trump in, and he was now fucking things up on a worldwide scale.

~ 2 ~

Cisco was sitting out on the back terrace of the Flying Tortilla when who should he run into but his old pal, Pancho. 

Pancho didn’t notice him at first, as he scanned the terrace but when he did, he shouted across the half-empty restaurant, “Hey Cisco!”

Cisco looked up from the menu he was perusing and saw his old friend walking toward him. He was darkly tanned and had hair much longer than Cisco had ever known it to be.

“Hey Pancho.”

They greeted each other like long lost brothers. 

“I tried your house.” Pancho said as he sat down opposite Cisco. “Then I thought, dude’s gotta eat, right?”

Cisco shook his head. “Man, it’s so good to see you.”

Pancho smiled. “Good to be seen.”

“Where the fuck have you been?”

“You know, here and there. Went to the coast. Learned how to surf. Fucked a lot of LA white girls. But then, you know, I kinda got homesick. So here I am back home.”

“Have you been to see your folks?”

“Oh yeah. Same old, same old. Nothing really changes out here. How about you? I hear your folks moved to Italy. You still playin’ the market?”

“Not for the last couple years or so. Fuckin’ Republicans. I‘m just the ghost in the machine. So what gives, amigo? I like your hair, by the way.” It was long and slightly bleached looking.

“Yeah, I kinda just let it grow when I was out there.”

“So are you back?”

“I guess I kind of am.”

“What are you gonna do?” Cisco asked

“Ahh, man, I’m already doin’ it.” Pancho said.

“What the hell does that mean?”

OK well. First of all I’m fuckin’ starving. Let’s order and I will tell you about it.”

Cisco knew what he wanted so he flipped the menu around to Pancho, who stared at it for a minute. When he put it down the waitress came and they ordered their dinners and two beers.

The beers came right away. So they clinked their bottles  and both took slugs. Then Pancho started to explain what he was doing. 

“As you know better than anyone, I have always had a real affinity for computerized activity. Once I got out to the coast. I rented a floor in this house on the beach in Malibu, just north of LA proper. It had a great back deck and good wifi, so I would sit there all day long staring out at the ocean and playin’ with the computer. The guy who owned the house, his name was Johnny Dunn, he was like thirty something and lived on the first floor. He was a real deal surfer. And we got to be good friends. He taught me how to surf, in fact. But he also was a genuine computer genius. So naturally, we had a lot in common. After we got to know each other and he saw what I could do online, he started teaching me the things that he did there, you know, to make money.”

“Like what kinds of things?” Cisco asked.

“He had a business. It was called ‘Consider It Dunn’ with two n’s instead of an ‘ne’. It was all about finding things that people were looking for, but either didn’t have the time or the skills to find them for themselves. Certain types of cars, jewelry, paintings, umm, the list goes on for fucking ever. “This guy, Johnny, his surfer name was Breaker, cause nobody uses their real name out there, he taught me a whole bunch of cool shit on how to search for things, then how to go about finding the people who are looking for stuff. It’s a real market, Cisco, and my friend Breaker taught me how to play it.”

“That sounds like a pretty cool business. But why would he do that? Isn’t he just creating competition?” Cisco asked.

“He called it ‘paying it forward’. He’d done it for about ten years, told me he’s made enough to pay off the mortgage  house, and he had a girlfriend who he was gonna marry wanted to have a couple kids, all that good shit. He never said so, but I think he was pretty fuckin’ rich on top of the money he made off his business.

“So, it took a few months to get my bearings and wait for the advertising I did to pay off. But when it did, it happened quick and hard. After a while, it started to level out ‘cause I was gettin’ referrals. I pulled my ads so I could slow down a bit. Once I started to understand how to play the game, I realized I could do it from wherever. It was good for anywhere from seventy thousand to a hundred thousand a month. When I cut back the advertising it dropped down to around fifty, sixty thousand.”

“No shit” Cisco said, thoroughly amazed.

“Turns out I was pretty good at it.”

Just then the food started to show up. Cisco hoisted his beer and he and Pancho clinked bottles.

“So good to see you, man.” Cisco said. “You know, I have hardly no friends outside of Toby and an online group of indie investors.”

“Yeah, I figured as much. But hey, you got me, amigo.”

“So where are you gonna stay?” Cisco asked. “Because I got tons of room.”

“I’m not exactly sure what I’m gonna do living-wise. But I’ll take you up on it until I figure things out.” 

“Okay. That’s settled.” Cisco said. “I could really use the company.”

So tell me about the market.” Pancho said. 

They spent the next three hours catching up. Then they drove back to Cisco’s house. Pancho had all his stuff in his car.

They lugged his suitcases and gear up to one of the guest rooms and Pancho spent the next hour sorting himself out. 

He then came down, grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and joined Cisco on the back deck. The sky was clear and  full of stars. They didn’t talk much. Then Cisco said.

“You know, I have close to twenty million bucks, in the bank not counting my blue chip stocks. This house is paid for. My car is paid for. And even though all that shit is taken care of, I am bored out of my skull.”

“You should be happy, Cisco. We both should, you know.” Pancho said. “We are among the chosen few.” 

Pancho took a slug of his beer. “When I was leaving Cali, I drove down through LA. I highly recommend it if you really want to see how the fuckin’ world is divided up. Block after block of homeless people living in makeshift tents and big cardboard boxes. After a while it, starts to feel like you’re looking at the end of civilization as we know it. Then, just like that,” and he snapped his fingers, “You’re surrounded by the kind of wealth that would make your fortune look like peanuts. All the way back here, I couldn’t get around the thought that something’s really wrong in this country. And that sooner or later it’s all gonna fuckin’ implode.” Pancho took a deep breath. “But I’ll tell you, man, the further I got from LA, the more I started to feel like myself again.”

Cisco just looked at his friend and he could see the sadness in his eyes. Pancho noticed Cisco staring at him and said. “What?”

Cisco told him that two years earlier he had closed his trading account and stashed all his money in a single savings account, and used the interest to pay his property taxes and  living expenses.

Cisco paid a lot of attention to US politics, mostly because of its effect on the market. Since the Republicans took over this effect was, to say the least, consequential. Consequential enough for a smart player like Cisco to sell off his remaining stocks and close up shop until the storm passed. Like any smart poker player, he wasn’t about to risk the small fortune he had already accumulated playing in a sane market by  second guessing an administration that was certifiably bonkers. 

The more he continued to observe the market, the more he became convinced that the decline was primarily being caused by sheer government stupidity, and this disruption would continue and even worsen in a lot of ways, unless, of course, something could be done about it. 

As the next few months passed, he had taken to following the news much more closely, simply because he no longer had a market to play. On the positive side, he congratulated himself for pulling out before the ceiling started to crack. But the more he watched, the angrier he became. And the more he started to fantasize about things that he could do to damage the Republican Party, which, in his opinion, was the root cause of all of this insanity. 

“It was at that point, probably, the lowest in my life, when I was sitting on the terrace of La Boca thinking through an idea I’d woken up with that day, who should I run into but you, amigo. I thought it was kismet, because it brought all the pieces of my idea together.

“I had this, I don’t know what you would call it, maybe a premonition or a hunch that things were gonna get a lot worse here before they got better.” Cisco said. “I’ve been sitting here watching it slide down the chute, and thanking my intuition that I didn’t stay invested.”

“So…what’s causing this? Because I know a bit about the market but nothing near what you do.” Pancho said.

“A couple of things. One is the spike in fuel prices, since the trade agreement we had with Canada fell apart thanks to Trump and all his asshole tariffs. Canada also controls a lot of the critical minerals and oil we used to get fairly cheaply and that’s not gonna be happening, maybe ever. Second thing was the Iran war, which essentially cut a lot of the world off from a big chunk of Middle Eastern oil. Another Trump scam. Bottom line is the market is just a bag of hammers. And they’re all kissin’ his ass just like every Republican in the fucking country. I’ve been thinking a lot about how this all gets straightened out short of a bunch of assassinations.”

You know, it’s funny,” Pancho said, “But when you’re out in California, it’s like you’re in another world. The only political conversations I had were with Breaker, and there were only a few of those.”

“Lucky you.” Cisco said and he just chuckled. But it wasn’t a happy chuckle at all.

“So what are we gonna do about that? If you’ve got an idea, let me hear it.” Pancho said.

“Well…I have been thinking about this a lot, and I’ll tell you, you have just showed up right on time.” 

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes, sir.” And then Cisco told his friend what exactly he had he had in mind.

~ 2 ~

Pancho’s real work, which he explained to Cisco at dinner, was what he called ‘the finding business’. It was all done through searches, phone calls, emails and money transfers, connecting sellers and buyers. On an average day, he reckoned it only took a couple of hours. He had been doing it for two years now and by the time he had decided to leave the West Coast and come back home, he was pulling in $30,000 to $120,000 a month in commissions, depending on what he was searching for. He used BankAmerica for his banking because they had branches all over the country. His account there was currently sitting at around six million, which was about five million over what his folks had given him when he left for the coast five years earlier. His expenses were relatively low, all things considered. And after he started his finding business, which he called ‘A to B’, he was making at least a million and change a year, working just a couple of hours a day.

As it turned out, Pancho was very good at it, and being good meant excellent word of mouth, which meant more business, which meant more fees, which meant an expanded knowledge base, which meant more search categories to add to his website and more clients he could take care of.

What brought him home to Santa Fe was really the driving and the claustrophobia of LA. He was not really all that fond of driving to start and it seemed like everything he needed or wanted to do entailed a good hour of his life spent in traffic getting there and another hour or more getting back to Malibu. 

But if he was being honest with himself, he was a desert creature, and while he enjoyed the small wave surfing, he knew it would take a few years to get to the point where it would get  really interesting and he just wasn’t keen on that kind of time investment. 

And that was what drew him back home, and got him reconnected with his best friend.

Pancho didn’t need much space or many hours of the day to do what he did. It was all done while he listened to music on his ear buds.

And now that he was well established, it was basically a licence to print money. 

~ 3 ~

Cisco knew that, in addition to all his other computer skills, Pancho was a world-class hacker. During their college years, he had proven it over and over again. Not actually doing anything criminal. Just a little breaking and entering to stay in shape.

So when Cisco told him what he was thinking, he just looked and his friend. “You’re talkin’ about real important money here, amigo.”

“Yes I am.” Cisco said. “But that’s what it’s gonna take.”

“Well-protected money too.”

“Dude. I know exactly how good you used to be and have no reason to believe that you have not gotten even better over the past five years.”

“Well, of course I have. But it’s still some pretty serious crime.” Pancho said. 

“You know,” Cisco said, “I had a friend in college whose motto was ‘Go big or go home.’ You remember that dude?”

Pancho said nothing for a while and then he just turned and smiled at Cisco. “Well, it would be a hoot, would it not?”

“Yes it would. And the world will thank us for it, amigo.”

The next morning. Cisco was up early and feeling energized. He’d had a good four months to think about this idea and had a pretty fair idea of just how to put it together.

The first thing he did was to check out the Republican party website, and there he found exactly what he was looking for, which was a section devoted to big money donors. They were even listed in, he assumed, the order of their contributions to the party on every level.

He cut and pasted the donor names and their companies where they were listed. There were no specific amounts listed, but that didn’t matter. If they weren’t listed alphabetically, a good assumption would be they were listed by their level of importance to the party.

As he was doing that on a small anonymous MacBook he had purchased for cash up in Denver, Pancho, with a coffee and a toasted bagel on a small plate, pulled up a chair and sat down next to him.

“Who are these clowns?” he asked.

“Republican Donors. In order of amount, I would assume, because it’s not alphabetical.”

“That’s a lot of names.” Pancho said as he sipped his coffee.

“Yeah, but I figure if we attack the top ten or twenty we’ll really be doing some damage. Most of them would have private accounts, apart from their business, for donations. And a lot of them would be offshore.”

“Hmmm.” Pancho said, thoughtfully. “OK, well the first thing we need to do is get onto a public server. I assume you have a fake ID on this computer.”

“Oh yeah. I know that much.”

“OK. I’ll tell you right now I’ve never tried anything quite like this before. So I’m gonna have to talk to Breaker, just to make sure I’m doing it right.”

Cisco looked at him. 

“What?” Pancho asked.

“Do you know where he stands politically? I don’t want to be bringing a fox into the henhouse, Pancho.”

“Dude. This guy can tell me exactly what to do and how to do it. And we have talked about politics in the US, and he thinks Republicans are a plague on the universe.”

Cisco took a deep breath. He was already pretty uptight about what he was planning. The idea of involving someone he didn’t really know didn’t appeal to him at all. On the other hand, they were only talking right now, and if this guy was all Pancho said he was, then maybe…

Pancho had set up his computer in the large dining area adjacent to the kitchen that overlooked the pool out back. 

It only took a few seconds before they were looking at Breaker, who was sitting on his deck with the Pacific Ocean behind him. His hair was long and he was clean shaven and looked just like Cisco’s idea of what your average Californian dude would look like. 

“Breaker. How’s it hanging, amigo?” Pancho said.

“Hey Pancho.” Breaker said. “Good to hear from you. I assume you’re back home in New Mex.”

“Yes indeed. And this is my life long best friend, Cisco.”

“Howdy, Cisco. You guys look like brothers.”

“Pretty close, Breaker. Good to meet you.”

“So to what do I owe the pleasure of this call, amigo?”

“Well, I’ll tell you. Cisco here is a market player. And ever since Trump took over, the market just hasn’t been playin’ nice, you know.”

“You’re telling me. It’s a right fuckin’ mess every time you bother to look. I’ve liquidated almost everything myself. So I hear you.”

“Well, Cisco and I have been talking about this idea we have to, how shall I say it, relieve the rich hardcore right wing  of their donation capital.”

They watched Breaker as he looked away for a good fifteen seconds.

“So you’re looking for a little method for this madness.”

“That’s about the size of it.” Cisco replied.

“Well first of all, you’re givin’ yourself a shit ton more work than you need to do.” 

“What do you mean?” Pancho asked.

“Well you’re talking about hitting maybe three or four dozen.. And you’ll maybe be able to jack about half of them if you get lucky. But you’re pulling a lot of exposure that way. A lot.”

“So do you have a better suggestion?” Pancho asked.

“Yeah. I’ve thought about this myself over the past few years. Those people are constantly bad news waitin’ to happen. But I’ll tell you, a more effective way to get where you wanna go is directly to their own coffers,”

“You mean hack the party.”

“Yeah. One hack and it will be a fuck of a lot easier to pull off than three or four dozen, most of whom will have some sort of big time failsafes. But gov doesn’t work that way. Mainly because their guard dogs are all pullin’ in shit civil service salaries, which means you’re not dealing with any sort of … intellect, you know.”

“Okay so how would that work?” Cisco asked.

“Dead simple, dude. You email the party HQ with a request for info on how to donate. When the person who opens the email opens the email, a little fella I can give you gallops into the system and presto, you’re at the movies. You roam around and find the bank and you either transfer it to a numbered account in the Caymans, or you disappear it altogether.”

“So, if this is such a piece of cake,” Cisco asked “How is it you’ve never tried it.”

“Two reasons. One is sitting across the table from me with who just found out yesterday that she’s about six weeks pregnant.” With that he turned his computer to see a  beautiful looking woman sitting at the table with him. “Hi Pancho.”

  “Hi Janey…Congratulations.”

“Thanks. Come see us once I have the baby.” And she waved goodbye as Breaker turned the laptop back to himself. “The second reason is that this is Cali, Pancho. If things get really gross and hairy, Newsom will just do the paperwork to cut us loose from the union. That fucker will do it too. We have the fourth or fifth largest economy on planet earth, man. We don’t need the grief.”

“Okay,” Pancho said. “So where do we get this wonderful little creature?”

Breaker just laughed. “I’ll have to send it to you from my  untethered machine. I can probably do that later today, after we go do some baby stuff shopping. And I need a Starbucks to send it from.”

“Well, thank you for setting us straight.”

“I’ll send you a note along with the thing, I don’t want to get too specific on the phone, you know.

“Sounds like you know your way around the political landscape.” Cisco said.

“Yeah, my dad’s a California senator. Good man, cap D Democrat. Write this down.” And he gave Pancho a email address. “Send me your safe email address and I’ll send you back the app and a ‘how-to’ file. Whatever you do, don’t open the fuckin’ app, for obvious reasons.

“No sweat, Breaker.” Pancho said. “Hope your kid is happy and healthy when he or she gets there.”

“Thanks Pancho. Stay in touch, but this is the last conversation we’ll be having about what we just talked about. I got a family to take care of, you know. Just make sure the machine you use is wiped clean and well hidden after you’re done because there will be bloodhounds.

“Gotcha man. Talk soon.” Pancho said, and disconnected. He then turned to Cisco and said. “It’s not what you know, my friend, but whom you know.”

Cisco slapped his pal on the back. “So here we go, breakin’ the law bigly.”

“The biglier the better.” Pancho said. He had a lot of confidence in Breaker, because he’d seen the man do some very crazy shit online and on the waves too.

~ 3 ~

Pancho sent off a safe email address for Breaker on the MacBook, and then, there was some stuff to do.

“From a lot of the research I’ve done,” Pancho said. “We’re probably smart to drive up to Denver or somewhere and find ourselves a Starbucks that’s not too busy to send this message. So our avatar, will be someone from Denver.” I assume you bought the little MacBook for this project.”

“Yeah. For sure.” Cisco said.

“Okay, so I will strip it clean.” So nobody can backtrace us.”

“How do you do that?” Cisco asked

“You know I know how to do it, but I can’t really explain it.” You watch me and you’ll get it.”

So they set about stripping the little MacBook. Cisco had no real idea what Pancho was doing, but he knew that Pancho was light years ahead in his understanding of computers.

When Pancho had finished stripping the MacBook, he said “Now we need to make up some sort of believable alias and write some email text.”

They talked about that for a while and came up with a name, Brian Billings, who owned a small chain of hot dog restaurants called ‘Hot Dawg!’ Dogs & Fries’. 

“I like it.” Cisco said. 

There was no need to create a web site, only a gmail address, because all that had to happen was that the email he sent just needed to be opened and the virus that they would get from Breaker would automatically migrate onto the system, hopefully past their firewall.

The email created the picture of a life long Republican, who felt it was time to give something back, and needed to understand the process of making a donation to the party.

They searched through the Republican National Committee Office website until they found the contact link which was really all they needed. 

All that was left to do was wait for Breaker to send them the virus and its usage instructions. Fortunately, they were waiting at a very nice house with a well-tended pool and comfortable lounge chairs.

Since Cisco’s house was out on the edge of town, his backyard went on for quite a ways, into the desert. The sun was crawling across the western sky. They swam and drank a couple of beers, warmed up a supermarket pizza and talked about what they would do once they got the app from Breaker.

They got the app late that evening with a “Good Luck” salutation from Breaker.

The next morning Pancho copied off the app and they both read the instructions, and created a Gmail address, one of literally thousands that got created every day. Having disabled the backtracker, there would be no way that Google or anyone else short of a genius hacker of some sort could figure out who or where they were.

The note from Breaker read;

Pancho…Before you send the email with the attached worm, you need to give the worm a password and it will show you your options. The three options are 1. Find The Money and transfer it, then either 2. Wreck the site to create confusion 3. Annihilate the site to create chaos and desperation.

I’ll leave the decision to you guys. But my preference would be steal the money, wreck the site and redistribute the money to any number of worthy causes. You know the mechanics. Whatever you do, don’t open the app. 

Good luck, Breaker

They registered the small Mac in the name of Brian Billings with fake address in Denver. Finally, they contacted a Cayman Islands private bank and transferred one hundred thousand of Cisco’s money, into a new, private account that belonged to Mr. Billings. 

According to Pancho, once they had the account number and password, which were all numerical, transferring the money that would be in the Republican party coffers would be simple, painless, and best of all, anonymous. 

They then prepared the note they would send to the Republican National Committee.

Pancho gave the app a password and wrote it out on a piece of paper, just to be safe, He then pasted the app link into the email on the MacBook as an invisible, with a backlink to the G-mail they had created on the small Mac. 

All they had to do was send the email, when they got to a Starbuck’s server in Denver, then locate the link and tell it what to do. The stuck with the idea of simply moving the money. It felt like that would be doing more than enough damage. 

Pancho told Cisco that the best they could do was trace the email back to the Starbucks they chose in Denver, which was a good six hours from where they were. 

Pancho did some more work on the Logo for Hot Dog! and pasted it into the email signature. Even if they didn’t get back to him, it didn’t matter, because once they opened the email the virus would migrate into their system, and past 98% of the firewalls in existence, because Breaker knew what he was doing.

When Pancho was done and set up he put the laptop to sleep. “Alrighty then,’ he said to Cisco, “Let’s get some shuteye and we’ll hit the road for Denver tomorrow.”

“Are you sure we’re ready? I mean absolutely sure.” Cisco said. 

Pancho just smiled and nodded his head. “As sure as I can be. It’s good to go. Guaranteed.”

“It just seems like it’s so simple.” Cisco said.

“That’s because it fucking is.”

The next morning, after breakfast and a few coffees, they were off.

~ 4 ~

The drive to Denver took about seven hours, with much of the time being more or less alone on the road. They arrived at about 7 in the evening. The plan was to look for a motel and a half decent restaurant, get a good night’s sleep, plant the bug in the Republican Party’s system first thing in the morning, which was a Thursday and then, once they had control of the the money, they would move it to Mr Billings’ Cayman Islands account. Pancho told Cisco that after the bug was planted they could do the rest from his house, because the bug was controlled by the small MacBook which had no location vectors to track, because he had disabled them when he stripped the machine down. The only reason for going to Denver was for what Pancho called ‘authenticity’. It also had the advantage of leading any authorities that would be contacted when the money went missing to Denver and not Albuquerque, providing, of course, they could figure it out in the first place. 

Cisco asked him about the amount of money they would be moving. 

“They really can’t have much more than a couple billion  

Nothing under ten billion would raise any sort of alert.”Once the money was free and clear in the Caymans, we can do anything we want with it. Because the chances of anyone trying to track down it down are, at least in my opinion, a logistical and banking business impossibility. People move billions in and out of these banks every day. They make their money based on the fact that they have a pretty massive firewall wall that nobody but the owner of the money is allowed to penetrate. Their reputations stand or fall on that single point.”

The next morning they found a Starbucks in south Denver and sent off the email. Within twenty minutes,  they received a reply with instructions on contributions to the party, and the Party’s sincere thanks. 

Ten minutes after that they were on the road. Pancho was riding shotgun he wrote out the account number and password for the Caymen Islands account on two 3 x 5 inch business cards, and handed one to Cisco, who was driving.

“Wow, paper.” Cisco said.

“It’s a constantly underestimated medium, my friend.”

They got back into Santa Fe at around six pm and stopped for ribs at Oak & Fire, then headed back to Cisco’s House. They were both beat so they had a swim, talked a bit about the rest of their plan.  Around midnight, which would have been about 2 AM in DC they woke the little Mac and instructed the bug to move all the money from the account where it was held to the Cayman Islands account.

Twenty minutes later, Pancho opened the Cayman Island account the balance read $2,543,863,904.00

“It’s just a bit over two and a half billion, amigo.” Pancho said.

Pancho thanked the program for all its hard work, then typed, in all caps, the word GOODBYE. With that, the bug generated a small explosion and was gone.

“Holy fuck. In legal terms this is grand larceny.” Cisco said.

“Doesn’t matter, amigo. The thief has just committed suicide. All I have to do now is strip the computer of the letter and the bug. And you and me, amigo, are billionaires.

“All gone, my friend. Money’s in our bank, and this computer is clear as a bean, so there will be no trail to follow. The only evidence they might be able to find, if they’re good enough, is the ghost of the bug on the letter we sent from Denver. But it will have no information in it. So we are free and clear with a couple billion Republican bucks.”

“What about the Cayman Islands account itself?” Cisco asked.

“I gave them the Billings name and location when I opened that account.” So even if they get that far, they won’t get to us, because the reputation of those bankers relies 100% on confidentiality and there’s no way the US can force them to leak any information. The minute that happens, their business is fucked and they know it.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, we did a good thing, Cisco. But the real upside is that once this settles in, I believe the market will stabilize around the fact that the Republicans have no chance of winning the next election, and you can go back to investing, and I can give you a big chunk of my money to invest for me.”

“Let’s hope that happens sooner rather than later.” Cisco said.

“Well, you know the market better than I do.”

“Probably sooner, knowing the greed factor on Wall Street is always high. 

“The other thing we have to think about is how we get rid of all this money. I sure as hell don’t want to keep it.” Pancho said.

“I agree. And I haven’t really told you about what I’m thinking, because, well, you might think it’s crazy.” Cisco said.

“You mean as crazy as boosting it in the first place?”

“Yeah, that crazy. I want to give it all back to them.”

Pancho laughed and kept laughing for a while. “You’re gonna have to explain what that means.”

And so Cisco did just that.

~ 5 ~

The missing money was discovered late in the day by Janice Wellman, assistant to the Republican Party’s Manager of Finance, who was pretty high up on the totem pole and whose main responsibility was making sure that all donations were properly deposited into the party’s war chest. This was a well-guarded, high-security investment account directly linked to the party’s financial management department. 

None of this, of course, mattered to Breaker’s virus, which was designed to move through all segments of the Party’s site  and links with the alacrity, and obey whatever commands were given to it by the operator, who, in this instance, was Pancho.

It only took the virus twenty-three minutes to find the right combination of numbers and letters that would unlock the account. To say this was next gen codebreaking tech would have been an understatement. It was created by Breaker and two of his friends from Cal Tech in complete secrecy. They were justifiably afraid to put it to any real use, unless the cause was just and the need was urgent. But since they were all children of wealth, they saw no need to deploy it and risk the consequences of having what would be a great life taken from them. And like most high-end techs, the real thrill was in the doing and the knowing, not the profiting or the loss on the other end. But there was something about Pancho and his friend Cisco and what they wanted to do that appealed to him. In essence, if they could pull it off, they would actually be affecting a change in the country that was long overdue.    

Growing up as the son of a prominent Democrat, he’d had a front-row seat in the war-like situation which had developed between the left and the right in his country. So when Pancho called, it took him all of fifteen seconds to realize that this was one of the very best reasons he could imagine for his little monster to do some meaningful work for the country.

The assistant to the Finance Director, Janice Wellman, had been in her position for twelve years, and had never experienced so much as a hiccup regarding the account she and her boss, Jonathan Fry, managed.

When she noticed the account appeared to be empty, her first instinct was to assume there was a glitch in the system, so she shut down her computer and rebooted, only to achieve the same result. Her second instinct was to call the technician in charge of the computers in the office, David Perlmutter, who showed up a few minutes later, shut down Janice’s computer and rebooted it again, but nothing had changed, the financial account had been drained. 

He spent a few more minutes looking through Janice’s most recent emails for a way that the virus could have entered the system, then took a deep breath and turned to Janice. “There’s nothing wrong with your machine. What’s wrong is that the account has been drained and contains zero dollars.”

Janice Wellman, together with David Perlmutter, mainly for moral support, walked down the hall and knocked on the door of her boss and Financial Manager for the Party, Johnathan Fry.

“Come.” Fry said, and the two of them walked in. He was sitting at his desk with a blank look on his face that betrayed the fact that he already knew why Janice and David were there. He motioned of them to sit. 

“So?” Jonathan asked.

“Well, it appears that someone sent a virus, probably via a routine email, to Janice’s computer.” David said. “Once the virus was inside it roamed around until it found the link to the war chest, opened it, I have no idea how, and drained it.”

Jonathan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Any idea where the money was sent?”

“There’s no trace of anything. Whoever created this virus is off-the-chart smart. And whoever did the theft is no dummy either. They left us absolutely nothing to go by.”

“Okay.” Jonathan said. “I’ll have to meet with the executive group and we’ll probably call in the FBI. Janice, I want you and David to go through the last few day’s emails  and see if you can figure out who might have sent the virus. Your best bet would be checking to make sure that the contact information they gave is for real. This is a huge bag of hammers.”

Janice, who had been working hard to keep her emotions in check, broke down and began to cry. David put his arm around her and she buried her face in his shoulder.”

“Janice, listen to me.” Jonathan said. “This is not your fault. You have no reason to feel guilty. I’m familiar enough about this kind of sabotage to know that it could have been sent to anyone. But I think your computer would have been most likely since you are the point person for anyone making queries about supporting the party. And whatever virus they sent

, well, you would never have been able to see it. So, please, don’t beat yourself up over this. You and David just get to work and check on the emails. If we can find the source of the sender, maybe we can connect some more dots from there

Janice wiped her eyes with a tissue and took a deep breath. “Alright, sir. We’ll get right on it.” With that she and David got to their feet and left the office. Jonathan picked up the phone and punched three numbers, then said “George, I’m coming up to see you. We have a situation.”

It only took a few minutes for Janice Wellman and David Perlmutter to locate the email file from the person known as Brian Billings owner of the Denver business named Hot Dog!!! Dogs & Fries. It took them a few more minutes of searching to come to the conclusion that there was no such business. Unfortunately, that was of no use to them since the virus was trained to erase its own footprint as it migrated from place to place. When it left Janice Wellman’s computer, it left without a trace. 

The only thing they were able to determine was that the email was sent from a Starbucks in South Denver. There was also no trace of the virus in the mainframe computer for the Republican Party, which was David Perlmutter’s purview. All in all, they had nothing, other than Denver, and that might as well have been Timbuktu. The two and a half billion, as far as they were concerned, was long gone, and likely never coming back without getting someone involved in the case with a great deal more experience in cybercrimes that either of them.

Meanwhile, upstairs in the office of the various directors of the party, the news from Jonathan Fry was met with a genuine lack of outrage. These were hard-core political people who had been to the mountain many times. Fry came from the banking business and had seen more than his share of this kind of theft. His experience taught him that they would be unlikely to find the money until such time as someone decided to put it to some sort of use. Two and a half billion could fund a great deal of activity.

In the group discussion that ensued, they determined that whoever was responsible was highly skilled and obviously an enemy of the party. Sooner or later, that money, or a part of it will surface somewhere in aid of the Democrats. That would, they unilaterally concluded, be their only clue. They talked about calling the FBI but decided against it. Then they asked Jonathan if he had anyone outside the law he could trust to help search for this money. They determined they would just need someone who can keep a close eye out for it and follow any leads that may occur.

All four men were silent for the better part of a minute, then Fry said. “Okay, Job One is keeping this off the news. I’ll call all my people together and that’s as far as it will go for now. I also have a solid contact who I will try and recruit as an investigator slash watchdog for us. The person I’m thinking of is named Myra Tyree. She is exFBI Cybercrimes. Pretty decent record for a low-percentage game like this. But she’s a real bloodhound. She currently works for a business software company called Falcon Wing and is well connected in the hacker world. I think we can get her on board to do some investigating without making a lot of public noise.”

And so it was decided. Two hours later Jonathan Fry was on the Amtrak for New York City with his fingers crossed.

~ 6 ~

Myra Tyree had left the FBI after being suspended for allegedly taking a bribe from a supposed Russian hacker. After the situation was proven to be a fake, and she was about to be reinstated, she chose instead to quit and eventually went to work with a fellow reformed hacker who was managing the digital division of Falcon Wing, a sizeable New York digital marketing and business software corporation.

Myra got the call from Jonathan Fry, who knew Myra from his banking days when she gave a presentation on Cybercrime to the banking community. 

After the presentation, Fry took her for a drink and told her that he had been asked to become financial director for the Republican Party, and wondered if she could come and give the same lecture to his staff, once he was installed in his new position. Myra was flattered and the offer of fifty thousand for a two hours of work also appealed to her. 

The next day, Fry called her on the train heading north. She agreed to meet with him at the bar of the Pierre Hotel that evening and he would fill her in. Fry was quite firm in his request that Myra tell no one that they were meeting. Myra was smart enough to know that from Fry’s tone that this was something fairly serious, so she agreed to keep it completely private.

~ 7 ~

In Albuquerque, Cisco and Pancho were chilling. It had been two days since they stole the money and they had not heard so much as a peep from the Republican Party.

‘If I was on the receiving end of this business,” Pancho said, “I’d be keeping it under wraps for as long as I could. The good news is that it would not be very long at all, because this money had all sorts of different uses within the political system.”

“I get that.” Cisco said. “The trouble with that is that the market’s still in a fuckin’ coma.”

“Patience is a virtue, amigo.” Pancho replied, but he could sense his friend was genuinely anxious. “Tell you what. Let’s give it two more days and if nothing happens, we’ll head back to Denver and send out a bunch of emails to the media all around Washington andNew York. This will get them really focused on Denver and even a rumour, hopefully, would be enough to get the market cranked up.”

Cisco just stared at his pal for a moment, thinking things through. Finally he said, ‘Yeah,  OK. Sounds like a plan.

“So let’s go get some dinner.”

And off they went.

It was 6:00 pm on the dot when Myra walked into the bar at the Pierre Hotel. There were quite a few people there, mostly standing around the bar. Likely all from some convention or other. Off in the corner she spied Fry,

“Good to see you, Myra.” Fry said, as they sat down at the table “I heard about the nonsense with the FBI.” he said. “Had to be pretty hard on you.”

“It wasn’t so bad, you know, ‘cause I kinda had it all figured out…just couldn’t prove anything. But it also made me realize that maybe I belonged in the private sector instead.”

When Myra was with the FBI Cybercrimes Division, she was tracking a hacker who was sabotaging the systems of companies in the fossil fuel industry, and ended up having her efforts sabotaged and getting suspended until the situation could be resolved. Toward the end of her suspension, she got a call from one of her sources who had recently joined Falcon Wing to help develop one of their new divisions. He needed some help and she had the right credentials to be that person.

“Well you look great, Myra. Your new position obviously agrees with you.” Fry said. 

The waiter showed up and Myra asked for a glass of red wine. 

“So what is it you actually do for these people?” Fry asked.

“A little bit of everything. Mostly deep diving into potential employees. And some corporate screening for the wife of one of the owners, Lilli Braithwaite.”

“Yeah, she worked for the Dems for a while. Had a special budget for new business development. That’s a good program, we kept it going after she left and we took over. So does this make you a hard core Democrat?”

Myra chuckled. “You know, cops, even the FBI, it’s a lot better if you don’t align yourself in either direction. So I never really did. The company I work with, Falcon Wing, the big owner is hardcore Republican. The rest is a mix. There’s no real politics involved there. It’s all about the business. I know Lilli is a Democrat, but that’s about all I know for sure.” Myra took a sip of her wine then said “So what about you? Big time Republican, right up near the top I hear.”

“Yeah well, that’s got its upsides and downsides. And that’s what I’m here to talk to you about.”

With that, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope. He opened it up and took out two sheets of paper. He handed one of them to Myra. 

“Read this over and if you agree, sign it and we can talk about why I’m here. If not, no harm, no foul. We’ll just have a drink and talk about other things.”

Myra was not a dummy. She could tell from the timbre of his voice that Fry was troubled. So she read over the confidentiality agreement and signed it without any hesitation. She owed him that much and probably a bit more.

She slipped the paper back to Fry, then said. “So what’s the deal? Has to be something pretty major for you to come up here to talk to me about it in person.”

“It is, Myra. It’s very bad.” Fry said then he looked around and lowered his voice a bit. “Two nights ago we were hacked. The hackers went straight for our war chest and cleaned it out.” 

“How much?’ Myra asked.

“Two and a half billion, more or less.”

“Whoa.” Myra was astonished. “That’s a lot of money and influence.”

“Indeed.”

“How did they get in? I mean what do you think?”

“Well, we think it was a virus embedded in an otherwise innocuous email.”

“Must have been pretty powerful. I know you guys are well protected. Did you trace a point of origin?”

“Yeah, it was a Starbucks in south Denver. The email was sent on a Sunday, opened on Monday morning and that’s all we know. We checked out the sender. Fake. We have no idea where the money went but, it’s most likely Panama or the Caymans. You know the drill there. No tickee, no laundry. All numbered accounts and nine digit passwords. So the hackers were either real pros or gifted absolutely gifted amateurs.”

“Have you heard from them subsequent to the grab?”

Fry just shook his head. 

“That’s the kiss of death for you guys after this term is over.” Myra said

“Barring a miracle.”

“So why are you talking to me? You have all kinds of people in your world.’ 

“Something like this, Myra, everybody high up in the party’s a suspect.

Myra took that all in then said. “So what do you need?”

Fry took a deep breath. “I’d like you to take a good look at the whole thing, then nose around a bit to see if anything shakes loose.”

“Not much to go on.”

“Yeah I know. And we have to keep a lid on it for as long as possible.”

Myra sat and thought. She took another sip of her wine. Then said. “I work with, and live with, a guy who is about ten times the hacker I am. I will get him to sign anything he needs to. We can put our heads together and he can comb the dark web and see if we can’t shake anything loose. But I’ll tell you it’s a long shot.”

“Well, at least it’s not exactly a shot in the dark. I’ll get confidentiality agreement to you, first thing tomorrow. Just text me his name and email address.”

“Will do. Myra said, finishing off her wine and they both got to their feet.

“You said the email came from Denver. Maybe we should head out there and nose around.” 

“Whatever it takes.”Fry replied. “We have a substantial slush fund that they didn’t get at.”

“We’ll worry about that when we’ve gone as far as we can go. Maybe we’ll get lucky, though.”

“Whatever it takes.” Fry said, and he sat back down as Myra walked away. As she was heading back to the apartment she shared with him, she texted the name, Jamie Taggart and his email address at the office.

~ 8 ~

When Myra got home, Jamie was busy messing around in the kitchen. She gave him a peck and then went to change. When she came out she pitched in and helped Jamie get dinner together.

“So,” Jamie said. “Mysterious meeting.”

“Not so much mysterious as very confidential. And something we can do together.”

“You want  to tell me about it?”

“I would, but first you have to sign a confidentiality agreement.”

“Okay. Is this some old FBI stuff coming to bite you on the ass?”

“No, but it’s pretty heavy all the same.”

Jamie knew better than to try and pry anything out of Myra, because that would be a lost cause. So he just kept his curiosity in check as they got their dinner together. 

The next morning Jamie got the email from DC, which he read, then indicated his agreement pasting in his signature and  returning the email. He then called Myra, who came into Jamie’s office, closing the door behind her. 

“So I’m all signed up. What’s going on?”

Myra sat down and took a deep breath. “My meeting was with a guy named Jonathan Fry who is the financial manager for the Republican Party, nationally. When I met with him last night he told me that someone had hacked their system and stolen close to two and a half billion dollars from their war chest.”

“That’s a whole lotta dough.” Jamie said.

“Yeah, it is and, not that I care one way or the other, but it really screws their chances of winning the next election. Unless, of course, we find it.”

“Hmmmm.” Jamie said. “Any evidence available?”

“Nope. It was executed perfectly.”

“Could be. But my experience with cybercrimes tells me that nothing’s perfect. There’s a flub in there somewhere. Always is, you know. It’s just a matter of figuring it out.”

“So is this something we can figure out?” Myra asked.

Jamie rubbed his face like he was thinking hard then he said. “Tell me everything your guy told you.”

Myra did, and for a long time, Jamie just sat there doing a lot of stuff in his head. Finally, he said. “Okay, first thing, we can draw a circle of say a couple hundred miles around Denver. Wherever they are, they figured they should travel at least a half a day, maybe even more to plant the bug. Second thing is that these guys are good, really fucking good or getting good help. Third, somebody had to open an account in either Panama or The Caymen Islands and seed with a sizeable chunk of change it so they could do auto-deposit once they boosted the money from the Republican treasury, which is where we might get lucky. Fourth is motivation, and I’m leaning toward the financial side as opposed to the political side. I mean, the Republicans are pooched no matter how much money they have in their stash. Trump sees to that every day just by getting out of bed.”

That narrows it down quite a bit.” Myra said. “Is there any way we can compel the banks in those other countries to check into this?”

“I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. But two and a half billion would land with a helluva thump. So there might be somebody in one of those banks who could be, you know, be incentivized to dig around. But they would be risking a career ending crucifixion, so a real long shot at best.”

“No, it all makes sense, especially coming from someone like you, hun.”

“Let’s talk to the old man. He’s a hardcore Republican.If we tell him we’ve been asked to do something for the party, he’ll be happy to let us go after it.”

The old man, Andrew Thomas and his youngest son, Ethan owned Falcon Wing. Ethan was a programmer and really only worked part time, because he and his better half, an environmental journalist and mover and shaker in that world, named Lilli Braithwaite, lived way out on Long Island. Jamie was hired to replace Ethan as development manager and, over the three years he’d been doing it, had build a formidable crew. So stepping away from the office for a while, especially in aid of the Republican party, was an easy ask for them.

The next morning, equipped with a credit card, plus a letter from the President, which Fry had given to Myra just before they left for the airport, and with Andrew Thomas’s blessing, they were on a plane to Phoenix.

They rented a car and found a hotel near the Starbucks where the virus was sent. The next morning, they went to the local FBI office and talked to the regional chief, a man named Carl Bannister. They told him they were conducting a special, confidential investigation and showed him the letter from the President. Bannister took the information about their vehicle, then issued a temporary FBI badge for Myra and assured them they would be left alone by the local police force. 

They then drove to the Starbucks, got some coffees and bagels and took seats by the door on the outside patio, where they could see people coming and going.

The reason they were there, according to Myra, was to see if they could spot any suspicious activity. If they sent the original letter with the fake name from that Starbucks, it only made sense, to her at least, that they would come back to the same place to make a demand or, God forbid, send out a notification to the media, announcing the theft. 

There was a lot of guesswork involved, but Jamie trusted what he called Myra’s ‘cop sense”, and since they had used this location to launch their attack, it was, in Myra’s opinion, at least, likely they could come back here. Plus it was really the only lead they had if it was even a lead at all.

While they waited, Jamie would work on trying to hack the Panamanian and the Caymen Islands banks to see if he could find out anything about a very large transaction, which turned out to be a short exercise in futility, which he figured it would anyway.

“Okay, first of all, the odds were very much against us finding out anything from the banks. Their security is nearly ironclad. But at least it was something to do while we wait. Secondly, the money could very well still be in the ether, which is not a bright move, because if the news ever got out, the banks might just refuse them, and they would end up with a couple billion dollars that they couldn’t use for any reason other than sending it right back to where it came from. The last thing is that maybe the people who did this aren’t motivated at all by the money. Let’s face it, there are a lot of people in this country and around the world who think this administration is a fuckin’ mess. Taking the money, they kill the Republican’s chances of getting re-elected, although the whole country thinks they’re finished anyhow, but this would ensure that as an outcome.”

“That all makes sense,” Myra said. “But we’re here and we might as well stick it out at least today and tomorrow. Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“Well there’s always that.”

Myra chuckled. “You know, you wouldn’t believe how many crimes get solved because the investigators just plain got lucky. She was looking at her computer as well. She had her Google Maps and was looking at the area inside the two hundred mile diameter. There really wasn’t all that much out there. Then she started looking outside the circle. “Maybe they came from even farther away.” Myra said. “I mean people who live out here, they have to be used to a lot of driving. This is the least populated area of the US outside of the Alaskan interior

“I trust you told your DC contact that this was nothing more than a Wild Goose Chase. In the middle of nowhere to boot.” Jamie said.

They drank coffee and munched on their bagels. And they waited. At around four in the afternoon, they were getting ready to pack it in for the day when Myra noticed something that tweaked a nerve in her cop brain.

She was looking out at the parking lot when Cisco and Pancho pulled in and got out. Pancho had the small Mac in a nice leather case.

“Look at these two hombres.” Myra said, pointing to Cisco and Pancho.

Jamie looked up and watched the two young men enter the Starbucks. Then a few moments later they came out to the terrace with large coffees and took a table two tables away from them.

“Is your ass hurting from the horseshoe stuck up in it?”

Jamie said.

“Arizona plates.” Myra pointed out. Jamie opened a vehicle search program he had access to. A moment later,` he said. “It’s registered to one Terry Mason, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Wonder if he’s got a website.”

Jaimie puttered around and after a few minutes he stopped. 

“Dude is a market trader. His website has very little on it other than a paragraph about his passion for the market. But there’s a blog attached to the site.”

Jamie scrolled through to the most recent posts and  glanced through them in reverse order. After a few minutes of silent reading, he looked up at Myra and said. “This guy is really pissed at the effect the Trump regime is having on the market. Looks like he closed his trading account several months back. That could be motive.”

‘Yeah, it sure as hell could.” Myra said. “The other thing is that it’s a hell of long way to come for a coffee.”

“Yeah, but I really doubt a market trader would have the hacking skills to pull this off.” Jamie said. “So maybe it’s the other guy. Jamie went back to the site and looked around the pictures file. “His name is Tommy Avelino.” He found a few pics of the two guys together.

He then went back to the blog and read some more. “These guys have known each other for like ever. And Avelino is a computer geek. So it could be we lucked out. Sadly, I’m not big on finding the needle in the haystack so quickly. I mean, that only works in the movies, not real life.” Jamie said.

“Yeah, but…Santa Fe to Denver is a hell of a ride, just for coffee.” Myra said.

Jamie looked over at the table. “The Avelino guy seems to be doing all the keyboard work. Could be he sending a ransom demand? Maybe we did luck out after all.”

~ 9 ~

Pancho wasn’t sending any sort of ransom demand. They had all the money safely tucked away in the Caymen Islands. What he was doing was sending a carefully crafted note out to the news media in the DC and New York City areas.

CYBER THIEVES DRAIN REPUBLICAN  COFFERS.

“You probably haven’t heard about this, but three days ago myself and my partner hacked into the Republican Party relieved them of their accumulated campaign funds…more than two and a half billion. We did this in the sincere hope that without this money and all the influence it could buy, the Republicans would lose badly in the upcoming elections and that the Democrats could start to restore some sanity in the country. 

You in the media need to follow up on this story and let the whole country know that this has happened. If you think this is some kind of prank or publicity stunt, bring it up with the government and watch how they respond. This could be the biggest story of the year for you, and perhaps even the beginning of a real recovery for our country.”

Sincerely, Brian Billings

The message was sent on the Brian Billings Gmail to a list that Cisco and Pancho created, which included all the larger media in the greater DC and New York City areas. 

After they sent it, they gave each other a high-five. Pancho closed up the computer and they both sat back and sipped their coffees.

Two tables away, Jamie and Myra sat watching the two young men.

Jamie said. “If they are the guys, I think they may have just told the media what they’ve done.”

“Fuck.” Myra said, as she dug her phone out of her pocket and called Washington. Jonathan Fry answered on the first ring. 

“Hi. It’s Myra…Not a hundred percent on this, but we may have found the guys you’re looking for, and they may have just sent something out. We don’t know whether it was to you or the media. In any case, you should be prepared for the worst. We’re gonna tail them, hopefully back to where they came from, and see if we can find any evidence. We’re just guessing at this point. But it’s all we’ve got.”

“Stay on it, Myra. We’ll batten down the hatches here.” Fry said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky

~ 10 ~

Half an hour later, they were on Highway 25 following Cisco and Pancho back to Santa Fe, which was a good five to six-hour drive. They kept well back because they didn’t want to spook the two young men.

Jamie was riding shotgun and looking at the blog on Cisco’s website. 

“Apparently, these guys grew up together.” Jamie said. “Went to college in Albuquerque, and then one of them moved to California for close to five years. The guy who stayed in Santa Fe started a market trading account, which he closed when the market started to turn down. The other guy went to California to learn how to surf and came back about five years later, shortly after that. So these are fairly rich kids. The one who moved to California majored in computer science. The kid who stayed home majored in finance. The blue chips have been doing OK, but smaller businesses took a major league hit as the Republican policies started to take hold in the country and the trade war with Canada heated up. So I assume he was an active trader, not just an investor.” Jamie said.

“Well, that’s a fairly decent motive. Plus having the skills to maybe pull pull it off.” Myra replied.

“Yeah, they pretty much do.” Of course, this is still a wild- ass guess on our part.” Jamie said.

“It’s all we’ve got at the moment, and you have to admit, it all kinda makes sense.”

“We’ll see.”

On their way, Jamie shuffled around the news sites and as they were approaching Santa Fe, they started to blow up with the news. At the moment, it was all speculation, because the government was saying nothing and wouldn’t until they had their ducks in a row, at least according to what Jonathan Fry sounded like on the phone.

In the town of Trinidad, close to the New Mexico border, Cisco and Pancho stopped for gas and drinks, so Myra and Jamie did the same. Jamie filled the tank while Myra went into the store to get some drinks and bags of chips for herself and Jamie.

As she was standing in line behind Cisco, he turned to look at her. He didn’t say anything, but there was definitely a look of curiosity on his face. 

There were three people in line ahead of them. Pancho was sitting in the car. Then Cisco turned again and said “Did I see you in Phoenix a couple hours ago?” Cisco asked.

“Maybe. We stopped for coffee there at a Starbucks.”

“Yeah, that’s it. Where you headed?”

“South Texas, by way of Los Cruces. I collect small sculptures and other folk art. Then gonna visit my sister down in Corpus Cristi. What about you?”

“Goin’ home to Santa Fe. Was visiting a friend in Denver.”

Just then, Cisco got to the cash and paid for his stuff. 

“Have a nice trip.” He said as he walked out of the store.

“Thanks.” Myra said. She paid for the stuff and got to the car.

“I saw you talkin’ to him.” Jamie said.

“Yeah, seemed like a pretty nice kid.”

“You thinkin’ about wild geese?”

“Time will tell, my dear.” 

They got on the highway and stayed about a mile behind them, all the way to Santa Fe.

Pancho was driving and sipping on a Diet Coke and munching on some chips.

“I noticed you chatting with some chiquita in the line. What was her story?” Pancho asked.

“Ahh, just some lady heading to heading down to Los Cruses and then over to Texas.”

“Did you believe her?” Pancho asked.

“Are you getting a little paranoid?”

“Nope. Just curious. Because I noticed them at the fuckin’ Starbucks too.”

“You think they might be onto us?” Cisco asked.

“Stranger things have happened, amigo.”

“But how did they figure it out?” 

“I dunno. We’re not exactly pros at this. Maybe…”

Maybe what?”

“I don’t know, maybe we should have picked another Starbucks. Who knows what kind of tracking shit the government’s got.”

Cisco leaned back in his seat. He was thinking hard. “But even if that’s their hunch, how are they gonna connect the rest of the dots?”

“Listen, amigo. This was not your ordinary hack into your unconnected place, know what I mean? They got shit there we know nothing about. I was pretty confident we did this cleanly, and there’s no way they’re gettin’ anything out of the bank. So, even if they were sent to look for us, there’s nothing to find. I just get a little weirded out when something like this happens. We’ll see if they show up at the door. Might be a good idea to call Toby, you know, just in case.” Pancho said.

Toby was Toby Ronson, one of the guys they grew up with. He was a junior partner his dad’s law firm. He specialized in all things cyber. Cisco had had a meeting with him to pick his brain after he got the idea to boost the money from the Republican donors. They were just shooting the shit and talking hypotheticals, but he got some good advice too.

“Toby told me they would probably not use anyone from law enforcement until things got real. Apparently, no matter what level you’re talkin’ they all leak like crazy. And I got the plate on their car. We’ll check it out when we get home.”

“No way they’re getting that money back.” Cisco said. “What we did today is gonna flip the market and that’s all I care about. So let’em come. It doesn’t mean shit unless they can prove something.”

“I can’t disagree with you there.” Pancho said. “Put the radio back on, let’s listen to the bullshit for a while.”

They drove on through the evening, flipping stations as speculation ran wild in the USA, but there was not a single peep from the Republican Party.

 

~ 11 ~

The phones started ringing at the Republican Party Headquarters a few minutes after the email that Cisco and Pancho sent arrived in more than three hundred computers up and down the Upper East Coast. They rang all night and were still ringing in the morning when people started drifting in, with instructions to only answer phones that pertained to their business at hand. If they accidentally got a reporter, they were to simply hang up.

This was something that every editor, news director and reporter who read the email that the Brian Billings message r believed they could get a hell of a lot of mileage from. All they had to do is get one Republican to confirm that this wasn’t just another political prank, like the mountain of bullshit the Republican president spewed nonstop.

The phones at the Republican headquarters never stopped ringing. Finally, and mostly out of frustration, Jonathan Fry ordered the phones to be turned off. He then gathered the dozen people who worked for him and laid out the entire story for them. 

“Needless to say, nothing I have just told you leaves this room. No wives or best friends or significant others. Nobody. Is that understood?” Fry waited for a few seconds as everybody mumbled their responses. 

He then told them what had happened.

“I have a very good team working on getting close to the people who they believe did this and I’m confident that they will find this money. But until something positive happens, we have to be vigilant. No leaks. It’s not an overstatement to say our collective futures depend on this. So now you know everything that I know and I will keep you all posted. In the meantime, it’s business as usual. So thank you and let’s all get back to work. The phones will stop ringing as long as we don’t answer them.”

~ 12 ~

It was dark when they arrived in Santa Fe, and followed Cisco and Pancho to the house at the north end of town. 

 Once they knew where the targets lived, they headed into town to look for some dinner and a nice place to spend the night.

They settled on the Puebla Bonita Inn, checked in then headed south on foot to find some good Mexican food. 

At dinner, they talked about the approach they would make  and decided on just knocking on the door and telling they two young men what they were looking for. A lot of what happened after that would determine if they had indeed gotten really lucky or they were barking up the wrong tree.

While Jamie and Myra were having dinner, Pancho was on the phone with Toby Ronson and told him that he wanted to rent him for the day tomorrow, whatever his going rate was.

“What the hell have you guys been up to?” Toby asked.

“Nada, Tobe. But there are some people on our tail who might believe we were the people did something illegal.”

“So what did you, I mean what do they think you did?”

“I don’t know. But I think it probably has something to do with the shit that’s on the news about the Republicans.”

“Oh yeah.” Toby replied then chuckled, “Yeah I can see you pullin’ off a hack like that.”

“Anyway, it’s probably nothing, but when it comes to anything to do with the government, well, it would be good to have you in on it. I’m pretty sure they’ll show up at the door tomorrow sometime. If you can get here at about ten, I don’t think you’ll be here for more than a couple of hours, but you can bill me for a whole day. I’m stayin’ at Cisco’s place.”

“Okay. I’ll see you at ten tomorrow.”  

Pancho hung up the phone, just as Cisco walked in the back door. 

“Buried the computer out in the scrub, just past the property line.”

“Good man. I talked to Toby. He’ll be here at ten tomorrow. Should be fun.”

Cisco laughed. “Should be? It already is. Let go get some dinner, amigo.”

And off they went.

~ 13 ~

Toby Ronson arrived at Cisco’s house at ten on the dot. Toby hadn’t seen Pancho for almost five years, but had regular lunches and dinners with Cisco, so he peppered Pancho with questions about life in California while they had a coffee. 

Once that was over, Toby said. “So do you mind telling me what the fuck is going on. I mean, can’t do much lawyering without some info.”

Cisco took a deep breath. “You’ve probably heard by now that somebody hacked into the Republican Party in Washington, at least that’s what we think, and drained their campaign account. With the election about a year away, they should be pretty close to needing to start distributing that money.” 

“Yeah I heard about it on the news. Nobody from the Republicans has responded, so right now it’s just a lot of media hype based on some anonymous tip.”

“Right, well yesterday we were up in Denver, to visit Charlie Soames,” Cisco said. “And we were having a coffee before heading back home, when this couple, I think, started following us.

I ended up talking to this woman when we stopped for gas and sodas. They said they were on their way to Texas. But I got a kinda creepy feeling about them.”

“What about you?” Toby said looking at Pancho. “Cisco is the one with the creepy feeling. I only saw them talking from the car after we filled up.”

“So you think they’re tracking you guys because you stole some money from the Republican party, in fucking DC?”

“That’s about the size of it.” Cisco said.

“So did you?”

“Come on Tobe, I don’t give a shit what goes on over there?’ Pancho said. “And never really have.”

“So I’m assuming they’re acting on some sort of information.”

“Well, as you know, Pancho is a world-class hacker. And I have to assume that they’re out here because they were able to trace the email of whoever ripped them off. And then yesterday afternoon, they’re sitting in the same Starbucks as we were while Cisco was showing me some of his surfing videos. So we could fairly easily be construed as the hackers.”

Toby took a deep breath and sighed. “So you think they followed you back here and are gonna show up sometime today to ask you as whole bunch of questions?

“That’s about the size of it.” Pancho said. “We just want to make sure we’re represented, because judging from the news reports, this is pretty serious shit.”

“Well it is that.” Toby replied. “Okay I’ll hang out and be your lawyer.  Give me a buck?”

“What for?”

“If you give me a buck, you have hired me. You can pay me the rest later.”

Cisco walked over to the counter and opened a drawer. He pulled out a four quarters from dish and gave them to Toby. “OK you’re officially our lawyer.”

“Good.” Toby said. “I know that sounds kinda dopey, but it’s the way these things work. Now that you have a lawyer, you don’t, and won’t, say a single fuckin’ thing. You got that?”

They both nodded. Because their pal sounded pretty damn serious.

“Good. Nothing worse than a client who actually opens his yap after his lawyer tells him not to.”

They were sitting out back chatting when the front doorbell rang. Cisco, opened the door. Myra and Jamie stood there. 

“Terry Mason?” Myra said.

“Yeah… I  remember you. You’re the lady who was heading to South Texas. Fancy seeing you here. Come on in.

Myra and Jamie walked past Cisco, and saw Pancho and Toby enter through the back sliding door.

Pancho said nothing. But Toby stepped up. “So, who are you people? My friends tell me they saw you in Denver and then again on the road back here. My name is Toby Ronson.”

Toby pulled a card from his breast pocket and handed it to Myra, who looked at it, then said. “My name is Myra Tyree and this is my partner Jamie Taggart. We’re doing some investigation for the Republican party.”

“Come in and sit down. Would you like some coffee we just made a fresh pot.” Toby said.

He then led them to a large table beside the kitchen and everybody sat down.

“My friends here, Cisco and Pancho, that’s all I’ve ever called them, noticed you watching them at the Starbucks in Denver yesterday. They had no idea what you were doing until they started hearing the news on the way back here last night.”

“So they called their lawyer?” Myra asked.

“Yeah. They had a feeling that you might be following them for some reason.”

“Well they weren’t wrong about that.” Myra said.

“Okay.” You’re not police or FBI or any other of the alphabet agencies, because you would have had to announce that, so what exactly are you and what exactly are you looking for?”

Cisco and Pancho sat quietly watching the two older people, careful not to give off any sort of emotion while their friend did all the talking on their behalf.

 “If you have been listening to the news, then you know what we are looking for. But I am former FBI and I am working on behalf of the Republican Party, which also means the administration. I have a letter from the president if you want proof.”

“Yeah,” Toby said. “That would be good.”

Myra reached into her bag, took out the letter and showed it to Toby, who stared at it for a moment than pushed it back.

“I find it very strange that the Republicans would send out two non-law enforcement people to investigate this.” Toby said.

“I’m former FBI.” Myra said. “My partner here is a former government hacker. We’re currently both private citizens. But I have a connection in the Republican Party who asked me and my partner to look into this.”

“Alright, so let me get this straight,” Toby said. “You followed my friends here down from Denver, where they go a lot because we all have friends up there. You spot them at the same Starbucks, which I assume is where someone stole a bunch of money from the Republican party, and you suspected them because they were sitting at a table with a computer, like probably three-quarters of the people in that Starbucks. So then you decided to follow them, find out where they live and show up here the next day…that’s where it ends. Because as a lawyer, I would have to say that’s pretty fuckin’ thin as hunches go.”

Myra and Jamie said nothing. 

“So what is it you were hoping to achieve here today? Are you looking for some kind of miracle? Are you hoping they will just confess and give you access to the stolen money?” Toby looked at Myra. “This really is a shot in the dark Ms.Tyree. I know this because I am a tech lawyer and I deal with fraud of all kinds. Yeah, you have a letter from the president, who, to most of us in America, is a world-class asshole. You have nothing but supposition and a very thin connection between my friends here and whoever the hell you are chasing, and you have nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing in the way of evidence.” 

Toby took a deep breath. “Where I come from you have what we in the legal profession would call a goose egg.”

“So if that’s the case.” Jamie finally said, then perhaps you would let us look at your computers, just as courtesy.”

Toby leaned back in his chair and chuckled. “Come on, Mr. Taggart. You know that’s not gonna happen without a court order, and you also know there isn’t a judge anywhere in America who would give you one based on what you think you know.”

There was a moment of silence and then Toby said. “I think this has gone as far as it can go, Ms. Tyree.” And with that everybody got to their feet. 

Then Myra looked at Pancho. “You realize that having a lawyer here when we showed up simply furthers our belief that we are on the right track.”

As instructed Cisco and Pancho both remained silent. 

“Thank you for your time gentlemen.” Myra said as they walked to the door.

“Feel free to come back anytime when you actually have  some evidence.” Toby said as he closed the door behind them.

~ 14 ~

Toby watched Myra and Jamie get into their car and leave, He then walked back to the table motioned for the guys to sit down.

“Okay. Here’s the thing. I know you guys took that money. But I also know that these people will make your lives a living hell unless they get it back.”

“You’re right Tobe. But, there was a very good reason for taking it and yes, we planned all along to give it back. But we’re gonna keep it for a while and I’ll show you why.”

With that, Cisco went into his office and got his laptop. He came back and opened it up to the stock market index page.

He moved it into position so they could all see it.

“Just based on our fucking note alone the market is starting to rebound. The next stage of the rebound will be when the Republicans announce they have had their campaign money stolen, which, if we hold onto it just long enough, will cause substantial surge in the market and bring a whole lot of smaller players back on board. We didn’t do this for the money. We did this for the country. The Republicans are fucking this country in the ear. If we can fight them off until there are only a couple months left till the next election, which is only about a year away, the market will come back with a vengeance and the country will be a hell of a lot better off.

“If they want to come after us and break the law to do it, we’ll just fuck off to South America or Canada, until it’s time to release the money. I can start playing the market again. Pancho can still do his thing and the country will be a lot better off putting the Dems in power.”

Toby just stared at his friends. He saw that everything Cisco had told him was the truth. He couldn’t help but smile.

“What a fucking great idea.” he said. “Give me another dollar and we’ll call it square. “In the meantime, you guys should get packed and close up the house. Those people are predators, so it will be a lot better for you if you are nowhere to be found, as in solid gone. I hear Vancouver Island is pretty nice most of the year.”

~ 15 ~

Myra and Jamie decided to wait a day or two and then go back at them one last time. So they basically just hung around  and spent government money on nice meals.

On the second day they drove back to Cisco’s house and found a note pinned top the door. 

Dear Sort Of Government People

If you’re reading this, it means you have come back to have another go at us. Commendable. You’re earning whatever they are paying you. 

Unfortunately, we have left town for a vacation. Won’t tell you where because that would be no fun. Also won’t tell you when we will be back, because that would be no fun either.

If it’s any consolation to you, your instincts were correct. 

The money hasn’t been stolen, though. Only borrowed. If you want to get it back, you have our lawyer’s card. You could pay him a visit and tell him your offer. And by the way, he doesn’t know where we are. We aren’t idiots. Just concerned citizens. Our thinking right now is the money for dropping any and all possible charges. 

Sincerely, Cisco & Pancho

On their way out of town the next morning, both me went to their local BankAmerica and each had $150,000 transferred to the Royal Bank of Canada in Victoria, British Columbia.

Cisco and Pancho had decided to head north, on the advice of their lawyer and old friend, Toby. And he was right. Vancouver Island was, they soon came to realize, a paradise in a very Canadian sort of way. Much more green than they were used to. Lots of water. Everybody was really friendly. And best of all nobody was after them. Because nobody, not even Toby, actually knew where they were.

They found a nice furnished bungalow for rent on a street called Randle Road in a town called Nanaimo. The back deck faced something called Departure Bay, which was a mix of wilderness and small town and they quickly got to love it. They both met nice girls there and the girls showed them around the whole island which was a lot bigger than it looked on the map.

Nine months later, and less than three months from the US election, they drove down to the capital, Victoria, where they found a local Starbucks and did three things. 

Thing One: Pancho emailed Toby Ronson, who confirmed that he was in possession of a letter that exonerated both Cisco and Pancho of any wrongdoing in return for the stolen funds. They thanked their friend for his effort and insisted on paying him for all his work once they got back to New Mexico.

Thing Two: Pancho sent a Brian Billings request to the Caymans, directing them to move $100,000 plus whatever interest it had accrued, minus their fee, to Cisco’s account at BankAmerica in Santa Fe. Then they got another coffee and waited until that was confirmed by Cisco’s bank. 

Thing Three: Pancho then sent an email to Janice Wellman at the Republican campaign headquarters with the account number and passcode for the Cayman Islands account that held the stolen money. Pancho felt it was only right to send it to her, since it had been her email he had used to penetrate the Party’s site and steal the money in the first place.

They waited for another half hour or so, but got no reply, so they wiped the computer, finished their coffee and headed back to their house on Departure Bay. 

By the time the Republicans got their money back, the Dems, who had had a full campaign budget, and a whole year to spend it, owned the media, were tracking at 40+ point lead over the Republicans, which would be virtually impossible to make up in time to salvage any sort of victory. The Dems won the presidency and majorities in both houses. And the markets, which had been steadily recovering and growing, surged again.

Cisco activated his trading account. Pancho carried on with his finding business. They had a strong Internet signal which was really all they needed. They had wonderful girlfriends, a nice little cottage to live in with salt water in their backyard and trees on the far shore that seemed to go on forever.

One evening they were sitting out on the back deck, with a couple of much stronger Canadian beers. They had been out of the US for nearly a whole year.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about our country, Pancho,” Cisco said. “I can’t help but think that when the Dems take over in January, they will have so much work to undo the mess that was made that they could eventually be seen as a kind of do-nothing government, and lose the next election. Then things would go right back to being the shits, only this time with a different janitor.”

Pancho said nothing for a while. He looked out at the water and the forest, felt the cool fall air on his skin and realized how peaceful he felt up here, out of the fray, which was everywhere in the US and had been for quite some time. Then he said. “I know exactly what you mean, amigo. This country, at least, feels like it’s got its shit together. I mean, we haven’t seen all that much of it. But what we have seen is really fuckin’ beautiful, and the people we’ve met seem like really good people. I’m sure this country has its problems, you know, like all countries do. But last night I was watching a speech that their Prime Minister gave. He just seemed so…human. Our adult life, as short as it’s been. has been spent with a lunatic running our country into the ground. This country, at least from what I’ve seen and read so far, is working really hard not to be like the US or even have anything to do with it. There’s a certain amount of…relief that I feel here. I can still do my business and so can you. I thought I would really miss the desert, but it turns out that I like the trees and the water a lot more.

“The other thing is that we have pissed off pretty much half the country with this prank. That’s the half that have the guns, the less than high school education and the firm belief that people who do them wrong should be hanged from nearest tree. I’m not sure that living there is going to be any good for our continued existence. Our names will get out there sooner or later. But if we’re not findable, well, we’re not killable, you know.”

They sat in the gathering dusk for a long time. And then Cisco said. “One last trip down. We’ll empty the house, pay Toby for his work, put the house up for sale with a real estate lady I trust and then get the fuck out of Dodge.”

“Sounds like a plan, my friend.” Pancho said. ‘You think the Canadians will be happy taking in two American refugees?

“I guess that’s what we’re gonna find out.” Cisco said

And that was that.