“Well, you know I’ve been poking my nose around, and I’ve heard a couple of rumors.” MaeBe made it to her desk. She had a double cubicle with three different monitors and so much computer equipment, Michael couldn’t name it all. She also had shelves of pop culture memorabilia. Michael was sure the blonde figurine with a stake was Buffy, but he had no idea why Rose Apothecary was such a big deal to the woman.
“By poking around I assume you mean you’ve been hacking,” Michael said.
“And looking around our beautiful interwebs,” MaeBe replied with a smile. She sank down to her chair and started typing. “I found a couple of boards where former employees of George Jr. commiserate on what an ass he is. I infiltrated.”
“Of course you did, you sneaky little catfish.” Kyle stood behind her chair, watching the biggest of her monitors. “Do they think you’re an employee, too?”
“A former assistant,” MaeBe replied. “Though I told them I worked for his second wife. Everyone here is involved in the corporation, so I was hoping they wouldn’t know much about the domestic side.”
Kyle might be right about MaeBe when it came to working in the real world, but damn she was a master when it came to this one. “How long have you been on this?”
“About six weeks,” MaeBe explained. “When Julian asked Big Tag to look into the Vanessa situation, he thought it would be good to check out all the angles. He wanted me to get some insider info. So I was in place when it was time to pivot and get the downlow on Junior himself. Everyone hates him, by the way.”
“That is not surprising.” Big Tag had spectacular instincts when it came to these things. “Are these active employees? Or former?”
“It’s a mix of both,” MaeBe replied. “The group started so they could network, but it morphed into more of a support group. From what I can tell, it’s not easy working for Junior. So, his current assistant is on here. She’s trying to find a new job. He passed her over for a promotion again, and she’s figured out that he’s never going to let her move into that marketing job she wants. So she was talking last night about him moving money around. Large sums.”
“How large is large?” Michael asked.
“Two hundred and fifty K,” MaeBe replied. “I know that’s not much to a billionaire, but she says it’s very odd for him to do it personally. So odd that he wasn’t sure how to do it himself and he had to ask her for passcodes.”
Okay. He was intrigued. “Do we know what account he moved it from?”
“A personal account, but not one he shares with wife number three.” MaeBe brought up a screenshot of a banking record. “And he didn’t exactly move it. He made a purchase. Bitcoin. She had to help him do that, too. He then shifted the bitcoin to another account. He told her he was paying his lawyers.”
“Lawyers don’t take cryptocurrency.” Kyle frowned. “Does she have the account number?”
“I couldn’t easily ask.” MaeBe turned her face up from the screen. “I’m looking into it though. The assistant thinks it’s hookers. Apparently Junior likes hookers.”
“I doubt a hooker would make him go to so much trouble, and she would have to be a spectacular one to charge a quarter of a million.” Michael didn’t like it. He didn’t like that number at all.
“It’s some kind of shakedown,” Kyle said with a shake of his head. “Cryptocurrency is the chosen payment form of the mafia these days. He’s in charge of a multinational corporation. Does he have ties to any of the heavy mob countries?”
MaeBe nodded. “The company works all over the world. He’s got ties to both Russia and Ukraine. There’s a big office in Tokyo, too.”
“Don’t discount the Italians.” He’d made a study of the Benedict Group. “The company owns some hotels in Italy. So we’re thinking he’s paying mafia contacts?”
“Or he’s had a ransomware shakedown,” MaeBe mused. “But I suspect the assistant would know something about that. And he would likely use corporate funds.”
“Unless it’s personal servers they’re shutting down.” It wasn’t likely though. Ransomware attacks were more and more common these days, and they’d gotten far more sophisticated. The attacker would target certain systems, take control over them, and hold the very important system hostage until demands were met. The government had been battling them for years.
MaeBe knew a lot about those kinds of attacks.
“I’m looking into it, but I doubt it. I’ve heard absolutely nothing about a coming attack. He’s in town today, by the way,” MaeBe mentioned.
That was news. The last Michael had heard, Junior was holed up in Houston. “Junior flew in?”
MaeBe shook her head. “No. He drove up here. The assistant thought it was weird because he didn’t mention he was going anywhere, and he didn’t use a driver. She only knows about it because she overheard him talking on the phone. Said it sounded supersecret. That’s why she thinks it’s hookers.”