James had left earlier with Anthony, who owned the apartment and she still hadn't met, after information Innis had brought with him.
“Things got a bit dicey back home,” Innis added. “It seemed a good idea to get away for a while.”
Dangerous was a better description after he explained what he'd uncovered, digging around in the cyber world.
“When did they leave?” she asked with a frown, thinking about the night before.
“Early. He wanted to meet with someone Anthony knows with connections in the art world.” His voice trailed off, the rest left unsaid.
His digging had uncovered the fact that Jonathan Callish was the owner of a second art gallery in Paris, Le Noir, with a staggering amount of money transferred through secure accounts—secure until Innis had hacked into those accounts.
“How much?”
“Over twenty million that I was able to track, maybe more.”
Twenty million dollars, U.S.
She knew just enough about gaming and the cyber world, from books Ellison had published, to know that parts of it existed on the fringes of the law. There was that whole murky area that Innis had built his business around, that crossed borders, skirted legal systems, and territorial boundaries.
Twenty million dollars was a lot of money to simply disappear into a black hole.
Welcome to the brave new world, she thought. But just who or what was that at the bottom of that black hole?
It was after noon and there was still no word from either James or Anthony.
The tea Daenerys had provided had worked miracles. Food helped, along with a hot shower and the clean sweatshirt and sweatpants Daenerys had also provided.
She had retreated to the hot-house garden she kept on the veranda that overlooked the street below. Luna was still asleep in one of the upstairs rooms.
Kris pulled her hair back into a ponytail and leaned over Innis's shoulder.
“Any clue where all that money went?”
“I found a couple of things.” He brought up a screen shot that he'd saved.
She looked at him. “Haddon Acquisitions?”
“Right,” he replied. “Except there is no Haddon Acquisitions.” He brought up more information he'd tracked, along with searches he'd made.
“It's fake, a really good fake, with all sorts of firewalls built in, professional-appearing website, along with a Board of Directors—a reputable-looking group, a list of acquisitions in Dubai, property development, that sort of thing. But it's all fake, a front. These properties don't exist. Those people don't exist.”
He had her attention.
“It's that same old thing that's been around for centuries—build a wall and someone will find a way around it—the Romans, the Chinese.” He angled a look at her.
“You Yanks should know something about walls...”
Then at the look she gave him, “Any wall that can be built, someone will find a way around it, or in this case through it—brick by brick. The trick with cyber security is to build in a codethat continuously changes so that people can't get in. Or at least it cuts down the opportunity.”
She was familiar with the theory, just not the exact method.
“Explain, please.”
“A hacker can spend weeks or months trying to break a certain code that's written into a program, only to have it change on him, and he has to start over. The whole idea is that it keeps changing and prevents the hacker from gaining access and screwing with things.”
“Moving money around?”
“Clever girl. Over the years a lot of tricks have been developed, but not everyone uses them.”
