Cover Of Night

Yuell thought about that. Bandini might be telling the truth. He might not. Yuell would have to do some research on computer files to find out if it was possible to write a program that would erase itself from the drive if anyone tried to access it without the password. Maybe. Probably. Damn hackers and geeks could probably make a program sit up and bark if they wanted.

Or maybe the file would be emptied, but the info would still be on the drive somewhere. He’d been thinking about recruiting a computer forensics expert, and now he wished he’d already taken on the expense. Too late now; he’d have to go with what he could find out on his own, and he wouldn’t have enough time for a thorough investigation.

"Get that flash drive," Bandini said, "take care of Layton, and the twenty million is yours."

Holy shit. Fuck. Yuell managed not to show any reaction, but he was as alarmed as he was enticed. Bandini could have offered half that – hell, one-tenth that – and he would have felt overpaid. For Bandini to offer twenty million, the flash drive had to hold some explosive stuff – probably more than just his financial records. And whatever it was, Yuell didn’t want to know.

Or Bandini planned to kill him anyway, so it didn’t matter how much he offered.

The thought niggled at him. He couldn’t ignore it, but from a business standpoint it didn’t make sense. If Bandini got the reputation for reneging on deals, he was gone. Fear could take you so far. but it didn’t trump the bottom line. You start pissing on people’s money, and they’ll find a way to piss back.

But he was in it now, and he’d do the job.

"You got Layton’s social security number?" he asked. "Save me a little time if you do."

Bandini smiled.

Chapter 5

Yuell called in his two best men, Hugh Toxtel and Kennon Goss, because he didn’t want any mistakes on this job. He also sent another man. Armstrong, to Layton’s house in the suburbs to look for information such as credit card bills that might have arrived since Layton had bolted. Hell, Layton might even have left stuff like that lying around. People did stupid shit every day, and Layton had already demonstrated he wasn’t the most logical person in the galaxy.

While Yuell was waiting for the men to arrive, he ran several search programs on his computer, digging up every bit of information on Jeffrey Layton that he could find, which was a lot.

Most people would have a stroke if they knew how much of their personal information was out in cyberspace. From public records he got the dates of Layton’s marriage and subsequent divorce, and he noted down the ex – Mrs. Layton’s name for further investigation. If she hadn’t remarried, it was possible Layton would run to her for help. Yuell also noted how much Layton’s property taxes were, and some other details that were probably useless but which he wrote down anyway. You could never tell when something that looked trivial on the surface would turn out to be crucial.

Some of the programs he used weren’t exactly legal, but he’d paid through the nose for them because they worked, allowing him to get into databases that were otherwise closed to him. Insurance companies, banks, Federal programs – if you could make the computers think you were a legitimate user, you could go anywhere in their systems. By logically starting with Illinois’s largest health insurer, he discovered that Layton had high blood pressure for which he took medication, and that he also had a two-year-old prescription for Viagra – which he’d never had refilled or renewed, which meant he wasn’t getting laid very often, if at all. Nor had he had the foresight to refill his hypertension medication before absconding with Bandini’s files. Running for your life was bound to be stressful; the fucker could stroke out if he wasn’t careful.

Exiting from the insurer’s system, Yuell logged in to the state system and soon netted Layton’s driver’s license number. Going into the social security system took a bit more finesse, because he had to piggyback on another, legitimate user, but he persisted until he had it because the payoff was worth the risk. The social was the magic key to a person’s life and information; with it, Layton’s entire life was his.

Armstrong called on his cell from Layton’s house. That was one of the first things Yuell told his guys: Never use the phone in someone else’s place. That way no cop could hit "redial" and find out the last number called. That way no information connecting you to the place turned up in the phone company’s records. Yuell’s rule was ironclad: Use your own cell. As an extra precaution, they all used disposable cells. If for any reason they thought the number had been compromised, they simply bought another phone.

"Jackpot," Armstrong said. "This fucker kept everything."

Yuell had hoped that Layton, being an accountant, would. "What do you have?"

"Practically his whole life. He kept the important shit, like his notarized birth certificate, his social security card, his credit card accounts, in a wall safe."

That was why he’d sent Armstrong, on the chance Layton might be cautious enough to have some kind of safe; the small, commercial safes were child’s play to Armstrong, and most custom jobs merely slowed him down. "I already have the social. Give me his credit card numbers, then put everything back and leave it the way you found it."

Armstrong began reading off the various credit cards, their numbers and security codes. Layton had a ton of cards, the hallmark of someone who was likely to spend more than he could afford. Maybe that was why he was taking the desperate chance of blackmailing Bandini, but Yuell didn’t really care why. The dumb fuck had sucked him into Bandini’s orbit, and now Yuell had to do the job or go into hiding himself.

For a minute he thought of doing just that; telling his men to scatter, taking his money, and disappearing, maybe in the Far East, for a few years. But Bandini’s arms were long and his well-earned reputation was brutal. Yuell knew he’d spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, waiting for the shot into the back of his head or the knife slicing into his kidney, and Layton’s life wasn’t worth it to him. Layton was a dead man, one way or the other. If Yuell didn’t do the job, someone else would.