successful it would perfectly complement Pharos’s broader strategy. But there was very little time: nominations for many states would be closing soon. It would necessitate either getting one of the declared candidates on side, or a relatively late entry. In the meantime, Crowley needed a replacement for his hit man, Wesley Robinson.
He picked up the phone and punched in a series of digits. Protected by AES 256-bit and Twofish algorithms and ciphers, the EVRAN system was virtually unbreakable.
‘Yes, sir?’ The phone was answered immediately by Eugene Reid, a convicted felon appointed by Crowley to head EVRAN’s Area 15. Located over 8000 kilometres away on the secure top floor of EVRAN’s headquarters in Dallas, in one of two glass-fronted twin towers, Area 15 was the code name for EVRAN’s top-secret commercial intelligence unit. It had amused Crowley to designate the unit with the reverse code of the notorious Area 51 in Nevada, one of America’s most sensitive military bases. But unlike its desert cousin, which focused on military threats, EVRAN’s Area 15 was tasked with commercial espionage, targeting other energy giants like British Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron and ExxonMobil. And Area 15 had more sinister purposes.
‘Elias D. Ruger,’ Crowley said. ‘He’s about to stand trial for murder in Chicago. We need to put in a fix to get him in front of Judge Braydon O’Reilly.’
‘I’m on it, sir.’
In the 1980s, the FBI had conducted Operation Greylord, a three-year undercover operation to expose endemic corruption in Chicago’s courts, which at the time included a ring of clerks, in effect ‘bagmen’ tasked with passing bribes to corrupt judges. Judges’ chambers had been bugged, and the US Department of Justice had authorised dummy cases for undercover agents and lawyers to ‘fix’ in front of those judges suspected of taking bribes. The last judge to be caught in the sting was Judge Thomas J. Maloney, convicted of taking over US $100 000 in bribes to acquit hit men and murderers. Crowley smiled to himself. The gap left by Maloney had been more than adequately filled by Judge O’Reilly.
Crowley put down the phone, confident that his man would be acquitted. Unlike other countries, once an accused was acquitted in the United States, the district attorney was prevented by law from appealing, even if new evidence emerged.
Crowley got up from his desk and moved toward a heavy steel door set in the inner stone wall of his office. He punched the fifteen-figure code into the lock. The door swung open noiselessly on its finely engineered bearings, and Crowley switched on the lights to illuminate the subterranean passage. He had been down here countless times, but as always, he felt a surge of adrenalin as he descended the fifty stone steps that led to an underground vault carved out of the rock. At the end of the narrow passage that led from the base of the steps, Crowley punched in a longer code that opened the final steel door. It had taken over two years and some three million dollars to construct, but the state-of-the-art gallery within was equipped with conservation and preservation systems that would not have been out of place in either the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City or the Louvre. Computers controlled the temperature and light levels. To guard against mould, sensitive psychrometers provided readouts on the relative humidity, and 20-watt LED lamps minimised infrared and ultraviolet radiation, all enemies of ancient masterpieces.
Crowley threw a switch to override the computers, and soft lights illuminated a dozen priceless paintings. He moved silently across the sprung wooden floor, and stood in front of Rembrandt van Rijn’s
Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee,
the Dutch master’s only seascape. Crowley had acquired the Rembrandt and many others through Zachary Rubinstein. The Rembrandt was part of the proceeds from the heist of the Isabella Stewart Gardner
He picked up the phone and punched in a series of digits. Protected by AES 256-bit and Twofish algorithms and ciphers, the EVRAN system was virtually unbreakable.
‘Yes, sir?’ The phone was answered immediately by Eugene Reid, a convicted felon appointed by Crowley to head EVRAN’s Area 15. Located over 8000 kilometres away on the secure top floor of EVRAN’s headquarters in Dallas, in one of two glass-fronted twin towers, Area 15 was the code name for EVRAN’s top-secret commercial intelligence unit. It had amused Crowley to designate the unit with the reverse code of the notorious Area 51 in Nevada, one of America’s most sensitive military bases. But unlike its desert cousin, which focused on military threats, EVRAN’s Area 15 was tasked with commercial espionage, targeting other energy giants like British Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron and ExxonMobil. And Area 15 had more sinister purposes.
‘Elias D. Ruger,’ Crowley said. ‘He’s about to stand trial for murder in Chicago. We need to put in a fix to get him in front of Judge Braydon O’Reilly.’
‘I’m on it, sir.’
In the 1980s, the FBI had conducted Operation Greylord, a three-year undercover operation to expose endemic corruption in Chicago’s courts, which at the time included a ring of clerks, in effect ‘bagmen’ tasked with passing bribes to corrupt judges. Judges’ chambers had been bugged, and the US Department of Justice had authorised dummy cases for undercover agents and lawyers to ‘fix’ in front of those judges suspected of taking bribes. The last judge to be caught in the sting was Judge Thomas J. Maloney, convicted of taking over US $100 000 in bribes to acquit hit men and murderers. Crowley smiled to himself. The gap left by Maloney had been more than adequately filled by Judge O’Reilly.
Crowley put down the phone, confident that his man would be acquitted. Unlike other countries, once an accused was acquitted in the United States, the district attorney was prevented by law from appealing, even if new evidence emerged.
Crowley got up from his desk and moved toward a heavy steel door set in the inner stone wall of his office. He punched the fifteen-figure code into the lock. The door swung open noiselessly on its finely engineered bearings, and Crowley switched on the lights to illuminate the subterranean passage. He had been down here countless times, but as always, he felt a surge of adrenalin as he descended the fifty stone steps that led to an underground vault carved out of the rock. At the end of the narrow passage that led from the base of the steps, Crowley punched in a longer code that opened the final steel door. It had taken over two years and some three million dollars to construct, but the state-of-the-art gallery within was equipped with conservation and preservation systems that would not have been out of place in either the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City or the Louvre. Computers controlled the temperature and light levels. To guard against mould, sensitive psychrometers provided readouts on the relative humidity, and 20-watt LED lamps minimised infrared and ultraviolet radiation, all enemies of ancient masterpieces.
Crowley threw a switch to override the computers, and soft lights illuminated a dozen priceless paintings. He moved silently across the sprung wooden floor, and stood in front of Rembrandt van Rijn’s
Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee,
the Dutch master’s only seascape. Crowley had acquired the Rembrandt and many others through Zachary Rubinstein. The Rembrandt was part of the proceeds from the heist of the Isabella Stewart Gardner
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