Ames also installed a commercial-quality gas stove with a thousand-gallon propane tank to fuel it. He hid a satellite dish or two and put in state-of-the-art electronics, including televisions, computers, and sensor and communications gear. When he was all done, his little hideaway was perfect. Safe. Isolated. Secret.
Even if you knew it was there, it was almost impossible to get there without being spotted, by land or air. On top of that, its security system included both radar and heavy equipment sound detectors, and Ames had surrounded it with a minefield full of nonlethal noise poppers.
He was confident no one would be sneaking up on him, but he wasn’t worried if anyone did manage to defeat his security. The place itself was impregnable. Built of hardened concrete and rebar with walls six feet thick, it was a veritable fortress. Best of all, it lay under twenty to thirty feet of very solid ground.
Safe and secure, but comfortable, too. Like everything else in his life.
He looked around again, feeling very satisfied, then headed for the secret entrance to the stairwell. It was far too hot to spend much time out here, especially since it was much nicer inside.
11
Perched in a large old oak tree, Jay Gridley studied the castle in front of him. It had all the usual features: a wide moat, a high stone wall, an iron portcullis raised just beyond the drawbridge. He could see large iron pots between the crenellations at the top of the walls, pots that he knew could be filled with boiling oil. There were also dozens of firing slits in the thick walls. Those narrow, protected openings would allow long- and crossbow men to loose a rain of shafts and bolts on any who attempted to storm the castle.
But Jay had no plans to storm the castle. He had something far different in mind.
He smiled. What was it that Saji had said about not being able to see the forest for the trees? And here he was, looking from a tree in the forest.
He sobered, then, thinking about Saji, and how much he appreciated her help. It had taken her comment to get him thinking. She had been right, too. He hadn’t been looking at the entire bank when he’d tried to follow the money here. He had been focusing on the area where wire transfers were sent, and that was a mistake.
The vault was, of course, heavily armored. Banks protected their customers’ money, after all. If they lost it, they would be out of business. Which meant that trying to get to where the money was would be practically impossible, even for him.
He smiled again at the thought. He knew himself well enough to realize that the phrase “practically impossible” was like a challenge to him. There was a part of him that was still tempted to go that route, just to prove that he could.
He shook his head, laughing at himself. No, he needed the information, and he needed it fast. He needed to do this the easy way.
Besides, he could always come back later and crack the vault.
He climbed down from the tree and went over to a leather-covered chest near the base of the old oak. Opening the chest, he took out a brown robe. His forest green doublet, which worked well to hide him in the trees, wouldn’t be suitable for what he was about to attempt.
Before changing, he unstrung the longbow he carried and laid it on an oiled skin. A pity he couldn’t bring it with him, but it just wouldn’t fit with his disguise. He admired the carefully worked and sanded wood before wrapping the oilskin around it.
Amazing things, longbows. With their superior range and penetrating power, they’d given the English the Battle of Hastings, which had pretty much kept the entire nation from having thereafter to speak French.
He pulled on the brown robe, picked up a heavy wooden quarterstaff that leaned against the oak, and moved toward the small settlement outside the castle.
As he neared the village he smiled and nodded at people who nodded back.
Just another friendly friar going to pay respects, that’s me.
As Saji had said, once he revised his view to look at the entire aspect of the problem, he’d seen openings. Once he’d spun this VR scenario with the bank as a castle, he had noticed something interesting. Toward the back, and outside of the main fortified walls, was a smaller building, a humble village chapel. Many people came here, including townspeople, clergy, knights, and merchants. Which meant Jay could get in there, too.
It hadn’t taken him long to identify the real-world equivalent of the building, and he realized that it was indeed a part of the computer he was trying to penetrate.
Banks strived very hard to provide convenience to their customers. These days, convenience meant access. They couldn’t make the access to the money itself too easy or the money wouldn’t be safe. That was the very problem that Jay had been fighting. They could, however, make it easy for customers to access things like bank balances and account histories.
This chapel housed that information, behind a much less daunting firewall.
If he was right, this chapel would give him access to the information he was after. It wouldn’t be in the same form, necessarily, and it wouldn’t have as much information as he would have liked, but it should have enough for his purposes.
He hoped.
Jay walked toward the small gate in the side of the castle wall. A pair of monks sat at a table outside, welcoming people. As he neared the table, he heard people giving their passwords to the friars. The silver-haired one on the left would nod if the password was right, and the person would be allowed to go inside the chapel to pray — although in the real world they were accessing their banking records. Not withdrawing their money, just checking on its status.
This whole process of finding the security hole had been a perfect example of why VR worked better than just peering through a flatscreen or at a holoproj. His instincts, his eyes and ears, all worked better in an environment like this than in one of pure text.
He stepped up to the table.
The older monk spoke. “And your account number, my son?”
Jay gave him the number of the account he was tracking.
“Your password?”
Jay spoke the Sanskrit word “om,” drawing it out as Saji had taught him. She had told him once that some Zen masters believed that the word contained all the sounds in the universe happening at once.
In the real world, tens of thousands of passwords slammed into the on-line banking program simultaneously.
In the VR world, time stopped. The monks froze, and everyone in the village stood motionless. A woodcutter near the smithy paused in mid-stroke, splinters of firewood to the left and right of his axe, hanging in the air. The flames in the blacksmith’s forge stood out as sharply as a three-dimensional marble statue.
Only Jay could look around. Only Jay was free to move.
And then time clicked back in, reality’s hiccup over.
The silver-haired monk nodded, as though nothing had happened.
“You may pass, my son. God be with you.”
Jay bowed his head, a smile on his face. “And with you as well, brother.” He entered the small gate to the chapel within the castle.
He made his way to a vast array of pigeonholes alongside one wall of the chapel. Huge Roman numerals marked the account numbers of each of the bank’s members.
Way to go, Jay, he thought. Outsmarted yourself again, didn’t you? You know you hate Roman numerals.