The Millionaires - Brad Meltzer [138]
Gillian looks around, making sure no one’s nearby. Charlie steps away from her, just to be safe. He can’t help himself. “You think dad was blackmailing them?” she asks.
“I don’t know—but when you look at what he did in the trust account—and then with Tanner Drew—it’s like the transfers shouldn’t exist. Forget what it says here. On the bank’s system, not a single dollar left any of these accounts. I mean, it’s almost like this ticking program is convincing the computer to see what’s not really—” My chest tightens and I freeze.
“What? What’s wrong?” Gillian asks.
“You okay?” Charlie adds, shoving her aside and putting a hand on the back of my neck.
“Oh, crap…” I stutter, pointing to the screen. “That’s what he invented.” My voice rattles down the runway, slowly taking off. “It’s like a funhouse mirror—it shows you a reality that’s not really there.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“I mean, how else do you get a credit to match the corresponding debit? That’s what the Secret Service wanted to invest in…and that’s what Gallo wanted for himself. The next step in financial crime. Virtual counterfeiting. Why steal money when you can just create it?”
“What do you mean, create it?”my brother asks.
“Electronically make it. Convince the computer it exists. Build it out of thin air.”
Charlie goes back to the screen. “Sombitch…”
“Wait a minute,” Gillian says. “You think my dad created all that cash?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense. That would explain why the Service is on it, instead of the FBI. It’s like Shep said—they’re the ones with jurisdiction over counterfeiting.”
“But to build money out of nothing…” Gillian begins.
“… would make a VC place like Five Points Capital wet itself. Think about how it played out: Six days ago, Martin Duckworth had three million dollars in his account. Three days ago, the computer said it was three hundred and thirteen million. But when you look at these records, it’s clear that that didn’t just happen overnight. These transactions go back six months. Hundreds of deposits. It’s like keeping two sets of books. The regular system always said he had three million, but below the surface, his little invention was quietly creating the full three hundred. Then, when the gold-plated nest egg got big enough—wham!—they went to grab it. But we nabbed it first—and as it was sent on its way, the second set of books merged with the first, and every one of his fake deposits now somehow correlated with a real transaction at the bank.”
“Maybe that’s how the program works,” Charlie jumps in. “Like the forty million we transferred to Tanner Drew—it waits for a real transaction to take place, then takes a random amount that’s under the audit criteria. By the end, you’ve got a whole new reality.”
“It’s the same thing happening now,” I agree. “The bank thinks Duckworth’s account is empty, but according to this, there’s a new five million in there. The crazy thing is, none of the people he took it from is missing any cash.”
“Maybe it just looks like they’re not missing cash. For all we know, whatever my dad put in the system could be wiping them clean.”
I shake my head no. “If that were true, Tanner Drew wouldn’t have been able to transfer forty million bucks. And if Drew was shorted a single dime, we would’ve heard it the instant it happened. Same with Sylvia and the rest. The richer they are, the more they inspect.”
“So that’s the big ultra-secret?” Gillian interrupts. “Some diddly computer virus that makes a few people rich?”
“We should be so lucky,” I say, turning back to the blue glare.
Charlie watches me carefully. He knows that tone. “What’re you saying?” he asks.
“Don’t you see what Duckworth did? Sure, on the small stage, he invented some cash, but when you pull the microscope back, it’s far bigger than just adding a few zeros to your bank account. To pull this off, he not only sidestepped all of our internal controls—he also somehow fooled the bank’s computer system into thinking it was dealing with real money. And when we transferred