Private L.A. (Private 6)

Chapter 86

“NO PRISONERS SENT an e-mail that appears, like the others, untraceable for the time being,” Mayor Wills informed a conference room crowded with city, county, state, and federal law enforcement. “They said they no longer wished to be paid in cash.”

Shortly after dawn, Mickey Fescoe had called to alert me to this meeting, waking me from a dead sleep in my own bedroom, a first since Del Rio had been injured. Fescoe briefed me on No Prisoners’ demands. I’d suggested I bring Kloppenberg and Maureen Roth along to get their perspective, and he’d agreed.

The three of us were standing against the back wall of the room, strictly observers, possibly advisors.

“How do they want it, then?” Sheriff Cammarata demanded.

“Electronic transfer of funds,” the mayor said somberly. “We’ll be texted or e-mailed an account number and routing information, then have ten minutes to respond with payment. If we arrange to pay today, it’s seven million dollars. If we don’t arrange to pay by midnight, the fee jumps to ten million. If we don’t arrange to pay by tomorrow midnight, eight will die.”

A grumble rolled through the room as people tried to get their heads around No Prisoners’ demands, see angles to those demands that might be exploited. To my surprise, when the grumbling drifted toward silence, Mo-bot was the first to offer advice.

“Mayor, if I were you, I’d be willing to move ten million tomorrow,” she said quite loudly and forcefully.

That offended Sheriff Cammarata, who looked at me and demanded, “Does she toss around ten million dollars in public money all the time, Morgan?”

But the mayor seemed surprised and looked at Mo-bot with great interest. “Why would I do that, Ms. Roth?”

Mo-bot shot the sheriff a belittling smile, said, “Because by waiting until tomorrow you’ll give us time to attach a digital bug to the transfer file, a bug that will follow that money wherever it goes, making the money retrievable.”

Even FBI Special Agent Christine Townsend seemed impressed. She looked at me. “Private can do that? I don’t even think we can do that.”

In all honesty, I didn’t think so, but before I could reply, Sci said, “Well, not Private, exactly, but friends of Maureen’s, folks from Cal Poly that we keep on retainer. I imagine they could put something like that together lickety-split.”

Imagine? I thought. Lickety-split? I wondered if that was true. I mean, it was true that Private did have on retainer top scientists at Cal Poly, Stanford, and Berkeley. Whether they could devise a digital bug that would do what Mo-bot and Sci were suggesting, and overnight, was another story.

But I said, “I think it’s worth a fifteen-minute phone call on Maureen’s part to make sure this is, indeed, possible.”

“Go ahead, Ms. Roth,” Mayor Wills said, and Mo-bot left the room.

“What about the money?” asked the FBI special agent in charge. “Where are you going to get ten million dollars to transfer, even if you can get it back?”

W

ills hesitated, then threw up her hands. “I honestly don’t know what I can do without opening myself up to a lawsuit, or worse, criminal charges should we fail to get the money back.”

“You could ask private citizens, Hollywood,” Chief Fescoe said. “Give them some kind of guarantee on the loan of the funds.”

The mayor didn’t like that either, and I didn’t blame her. No Prisoners had killed twenty-one people, including two police officers. Going to private citizens for the money smacked of an inability to handle the situation, not a good thing for a politician with aspirations to higher office.

“You could call the governor,” said Bill Ikeda, who was representing the criminal division of the California Department of Justice. “Under these circumstances he might be willing to authorize having the funds drawn from one of the general accounts. As long as the transfer carries this bug, I mean.”

“We don’t know if this bug will work!” the sheriff complained. “We’re …”

Mo-bot reentered the room. She was sipping a cup of coffee, noticed all eyes on her, and stopped. “What?”

“Can they make the bug?” the mayor asked.

“Oh,” she said, as if she’d been thinking of something else. “Of course.”

“How much is this bug going to cost?” Townsend asked me.

“Nothing,” I replied. “Private won’t take a dime for this, and neither will the computer scientists. We want to catch these guys and make L.A. safe again as much as you do.”

Chapter 87

“I’VE GOT YOUR back, but you’re going to have to take the lead on this,” I told Mo-bot as we exited City Hall, heading for our cars around nine thirty that morning. “How soon can the Cal Poly boys be here?”