“Mr. Naughton, it’ll be better if you don’t know. But you can do a few things for me...”
Robin was in the bedroom. I sat on the edge of the bed, “How would you like to go to the Caribbean for a week or two and get a gorgeous tan?”
What I had planned was going to require technical assistance. Glenn Monk was an old army master-sergeant when I knew him at intelligence school; my army career had ended with a grenade in Vietnam.
Glenn had been an instructor in electronic surveillance, telephone tapping and bugging, both offensive and defensive. When he retired he came to Los Angeles and moved to one of the beach towns and went to work for defense contractors debugging their facilities. Quad uses him whenever we have a client with that type of problem. I explained what I wanted him to do, that there was a certain degree of danger, and that it was obviously illegal.
“Hey. When do we leave on this Caribbean vacation, Mike?” was his answer.
The view of Georgetown the second time around was just as spectacular as the first. Robert was at the gate to greet us. I had briefed him by phone a few days before. Glenn would have no trouble getting his gear through customs. Aunt Tilly’s nephew’s cousin worked for customs.
Later I outlined the plan to my assembled troops: Robin, Glenn, and Robert.
“All right. Step one. We have to keep Boynton and Kristi under continuous surveillance. We have to know where they’re going to be at any given moment.”
The next day we staked out the villa. Robert told us that the housekeeper had the afternoon off and that Boynton and the girl would probably go out to dinner. The housekeeper left at one. We got lucky. At two, Boynton and Kristi drove off in their car. They looked to be gone for the rest of the day; they took extra clothes.
Robert watched the road and the house. Glenn and I went in. We bugged the place from top to bottom — the phone, bedroom, living room, kitchen, and den, even the veranda. Glenn was an expert and it would take another expert to tell it had been done.
We hid the small van Robert had rented about two hundred yards from the house, across the road in heavy cover. We would take shifts monitoring. Glenn had even tapped into the phone line so he could reach us at Aunt Tilly’s or anywhere else on the island.
Robert and I went off to check on step two. We needed an office in Georgetown, out of the way, but with access to international telephone and telex lines. Thomas found one on the second floor over a grocery store. There was a back entrance off the alley.
The next day I visited the offices of the Inter-Island Overseas Bank. Step three. I asked for the manager.
“May I be of assistance, sir? I am the managing director, Mr. Griffin.”
“Mr. Griffin. I’m Paul Stephens, I represent the Trans-Oceanic Commodities Service, Gmbh. We wish to open a private numbered account with your bank.” More than one could play the fake I.D. game. I handed Mr. Griffin one of my business cards.
Naughton had advanced us a hundred thousand as working capital. I put thirty into my new account. Later that morning I walked out knowing in precise detail how the private numbered account system worked. Mr. Griffin had been very helpful. One thing I had checked very carefully was that Inter-Island Overseas Bank, Ltd., was quite up to date and used the latest in telex equipment. They could transmit any type of banking document worldwide. “We here at the bank, Mr. Stephens, can handle your every banking need.”
I walked over to our new offices. They were only two blocks away. Glenn was setting up equipment.
“Hiya, Mike. This place will be just about right. There’s plenty of juice and there’s a big phone junction box next door for the six banks in that building. I’ve never seen so many ruddy banks! I’ll be operational by tonight.”
Glenn was working away unloading the crates of “spare engine parts” that flew in with us. “Here, I’ll go over this stuff. First, the portable telex. We can message to any other telex on or off the island. Next, we got the scrambler for voice transmission. Bob Johnson has an identical unit back in L.A. There’s no way anyone will ever know what you two talk about on the phone.”
He rummaged around in an old army musette bag and came up with a handi-talkie. “I bought six of these FM units. They got a five-mile range and four channels, also extra battery packs. I thought they might be useful.”
I went back to pick up Robin at Aunt Tilly’s. There were happy sounds and good smells coming from the kitchen. We drove out to see how Robert was doing at the “listening post.”
“Afternoon, Miss Hendricks. Mike. Nothing transpiring. No phone calls. They be pretty quiet. I think they on the beach now.”
Robin and I settled in. Robert went back in the car, saying he would send Thomas out after dinner to relieve us. I went over with Robin what she had to do in the next couple of days. “You’re the key to this whole thing, hon.”
Wednesday dawned overcast and cool. They said there was a chance of rain later in the day. At 10:34 A.M. Mr. and Mrs. Paul Stephens entered the Inter-Island Overseas Bank, Ltd. Mr. Hamilton, an account representative, was most gracious. He asked if we would like coffee, perhaps tea. Yes, tea, that would be most kind. And how could Mr. Hamilton be of assistance?
Mr. Stephens would like to transfer five thousand dollars from his private numbered account to an account in Miami. Of course, that would be no problem. Robin’s cue.
“Oh, Mr. Hamilton, do you handle all these transactions from this computer terminal on your desk?”
“Yes, Mrs. Stephens. Everything can be handled from here.”
“Would it be all right if I watched how you do that? I’m just learning how to use my new personal computer. It’s all so fascinating.”
Would Mr. Stephens mind? No, Mr. Stephens would not mind. It would be a good learning experience for his wife. Mr. Hamilton showed Robin how he checked the account status. He entered my account number and the primary code word, and also the secondary code word which changed for each transaction. The codes were random five-letter groups.
“But, Mr. Hamilton. How do you know what the code words are supposed to be?”
“Well, Mrs. Stephens, each account holder is given a code booklet. It has his account number, primary code word, and also a list of the changing code words. There are several hundred in the list, and every account has different code words. When a customer gives me his account number and the code words, I check them by entering them in the computer. Like this. And then after entering this command I can bring up all the code words listed in your husband’s account. See?”
“Oh, yes. That’s very clever.”
Mr. Hamilton didn’t know it, but he had just put the whole bank in jeopardy. Given a little uninterrupted time with Mr. Hamilton’s terminal, Robin could now loot any of the bank’s accounts. But there was only one account we were interested in.
Our next problem was two-pronged. We had to determine how much of the five million seven was in Boynton’s private numbered account. And second, or actually first, find out what the account number and code words were. The only way I could see to do that was to get a look at Boynton’s bank booklet, and it had to be in such a way that he wouldn’t suspect it had been done.
There were two possibilities. The first was to get back in the villa while everyone was out and do a full search. I didn’t think this way was too promising. One, he might take the booklet with him; two, we could miss it if he had hidden it; and three, there was a good chance Boynton would notice the house had been searched no matter how careful we were.
No, the second way was the only one that would work. We had to get a look at the booklet while we knew he had it with him. And the only time we could be sure of that was when Boynton went to the bank. I explained the next step.