Barb wasn’t surprised when Jackery canceled the auction. It was the only move available to him. She’d taken a chance by bidding in person, but if her misinformation campaign had done its job, Jackery would dismiss her as a simple stooge. That had been a part of her plan from the beginning—to, in essence, hide in plain sight.
She watched the sheriff and his crew pack up their things and drive away. From the porch of the farmhouse, Maria Sanchez watched them go, as well. Barb climbed up the stairs to join her.
“What just happened?” said Maria.
“I bid against Jackery,” said Barb. “So he shut down the auction.”
“Is it over?”
“Unfortunately, no. He’s merely making a strategic retreat.”
“What do we do now?” said Maria.
“I’m going to spend some time gaming out his likely next moves, as well as working on a move of my own,” said Barb. “Honestly, you don’t need to be here. If you want to go be with your husband, I can have a helicopter ferry you.”
“Thank you, but I spoke with Ramon today. He said he’s doing fine, and he’d much rather I stay and look after the farm.”
“If you change your mind, just let me know. ”
Maria nodded her gratitude. The two women stood shoulder to shoulder, looking out over the land. Barb could see why it meant so much to the Sanchezes. It was simply and utterly beautiful. From lush pastures stretching over gently rolling hills to a forested area and the stream winding through it. Barb could tell the grass in the pastures was unnaturally high without the animals to graze on it.
“Would you like me to get your livestock returned?” she said.
“I would,” said Maria. “But I can’t care for them alone, and I have no money to hire our hands back on.”
“Then, unfreezing your bank accounts is the first order of business.”
“How will you do that?”
“Don’t worry,” Barb patted her arm. “I’m sure there’s a way.”
#
Barb climbed inside the RV to find Julian and Danita at the kitchenette table working silently on their respective laptops. Danita was planting more messages on the libertarian message boards, building up #Barb and #Barbarossa. Julian was doing research for another case he had ongoing. They were so absorbed in their work that they didn’t notice Barb as she took a seat in the armchair.
She pulled out her phone to do a little research of her own. But first, she saw she had an email from the detective agency. She read through the attached file, most of which contained information about Jackery that she already knew from public sources. He was the fourth son of Titus Jackery, an aging building contractor who’d made his fortune putting up cheap housing developments across the upper Midwest, spread far and wide like mushrooms after a spring rain. Titus was famous for his aggressive marketing tactics and subsequent shirking of responsibility for the shoddy build quality. He was also infamous for keeping his developments lily white long after the Fair Housing Act of 1968 made outright discrimination illegal. Somehow, Titus managed to adhere to the letter of the law while repeatedly violating the spirit. The fact was, he understood his customers. They’d accept leaky roofs and cracked floor tiles if it meant they didn’t have to live next to those people.
What wasn’t public knowledge was that Peter Jackery was actually the product of a late-in-life affair. He’d spent his first thirteen years in relative poverty—until his mother got herself arrested and, going through her meager effects, he learned the truth about his paternity. Social Services wanted to put him in foster care, but the boy had other ideas. When he showed up unannounced on Titus’s doorstep, the old man had been cold at first, but Peter didn’t give up. In between dodging social workers, he weaseled his way into the man’s life. Perhaps recognizing something of his own dogged ambition, Titus at last gave in. He forced his wife to accept the intruder into the household, and as the boy grew, the old man allowed Peter to become more and more involved in his business affairs.
Titus’s other sons had naturally been appalled at this development. Their father had long pitted them against each other, temporarily rewarding the most ruthless with his favor while freezing the others out. They’d grown up like a pack of dogs, snarling and snapping, constantly fighting to be the alpha—and the last thing they wanted was another member of the pack, even one so small and unprepossessing. But young Peter’s appearance was deceptive. While his half-brothers had spent their formative years at fancy private schools, he’d grown up on the street. He was like a wolf cub dropped into the middle of the pack. His first attempts to compete for Titus’s attention were clumsy and ineffective, but as he grew into his full feral power, he became more and more of a threat to the others.
His progress hadn’t been smooth. He’d fallen in and out of Titus’s favor, knowing the warmth of his newfound father’s love only to lose it again when one of his half-brothers pulled ahead of him. But slowly, steadily, his ruthlessness and instinct for the jugular had put him in the lead.
The entire sordid business came to a fitting conclusion when Peter barricaded himself—along with a notary public—inside the hospital room of his dying father. He proceeded to browbeat the man into signing over everything to him.
“You’re a ruthless, scheming bastard,” Titus had apparently said as he scrawled his name.
But, according to subsequent testimony by the notary, he’d smiled as he said it and then held his son’s hand while he breathed his last and left behind this vale of tears.
Barb closed the email, shaking her head by what she’d read.
What a perfect recipe for creating a monster.
#
Barb looked up information on the bank that had frozen the Sanchez’s accounts. It appeared to be a small regional bank, one of the few left in the country that the national conglomerates hadn’t yet swallowed. It was the only game in town and thus held mortgages on most of the properties in the county. A little further research revealed that earlier in the year an unnamed outside investor had bought up enough shares to earn himself a seat on the board.
Barb had no doubt that the investor was Peter Jackery.
The bank’s stated rationale for seizing the Sanchez account was that it suspected them of money laundering. To support the accusation, it pointed to a pattern of large deposits followed a few months later by large withdrawals. Barb didn’t doubt that these deposits and withdrawals were genuine. You’d find them with any farmer who sold mature livestock at the end of the season and purchased calves for the upcoming one. If the Sanchezes could be suspected of money laundering, so could any of their neighbors. That was clearly Jackery’s plan.
Barb immediately spotted a weakness in the plan. It flowed from Jackery’s reluctance to spend money he didn’t absolutely need to. He could have bought the bank outright. Instead, he settled for a single board seat. That had granted him influence, but day-to-day operations remained in the hands of the current management. They’d gone along with Jackery’s transparently illegal scheme—undoubtedly sweetened by promises to be “charter citizens” or some similar nonsense—in his new paradise. But they had to know it was their asses on the line should the account freeze ever come under outside scrutiny.
Ergo, they counted on there being no such outside scrutiny.
That was the weakness.
But how to exploit it?
Barb could contact them directly, of course, but that would only initiate a long and involved bureaucratic process. By the time it wound its way through the machinery of government, Jackery would already have enacted his master plan. She needed something to light a fire under the regulators now.
What could force the notoriously slow regulatory system to jump to attention?
Before she’d even finished forming the question, the answer appeared to her, and she smiled.
This would be fun.
#
Barb pulled Danita off the misinformation project to help her brainstorm the best way to use modern technology to contact all of Dixon’s inhabitants.
“We need a way to reach everyone currently hunkered down in their houses.”
“We could use social media,” said Danita. “I bet they’re all on Facebook and Instagram.”
“But how would we target them?” said Barb. “I doubt there’s a single channel or interest group they all subscribe to.”
“True,” said Danita. “Well, if had everyone’s cell numbers, we could send out a group text.”
“Any thoughts on exactly where we’d get those numbers?”
“Can’t you buy a list or something? Unless you don’t want to spend the money.”
“I wouldn’t mind spending it—if there were such a list to buy.”
“Okay, then. What’s your big idea?”
Barb raised her eyebrows at the touch of feistiness in Danita’s voice. Then she smiled to herself. It was good to see the girl display a little life.
“Maybe we’re going at this wrong,” she said. “We’re so hypnotized by the latest communication technologies that we’re forgetting the older, tried-and-true ones.”
“Such as?”
“Everyone here has a landline, right? Because cell coverage is so unreliable.”
“That’s right.”
“The thing about landlines is that there’s a readily available central database of all the members of a particular community, organized alphabetically and providing both addresses and phone numbers.”
“You mean a phone book,” said Danita, half rolling her eyes.
“Exactly.”
“So you’re thinking—what? Call each house, one at a time? Do you have any idea how long that would take?”
“Phone spammers solved that problem years ago. They have access to online phonebook data and technology to blast the message of our choice to every landline in Dixon.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“How would you like to be the official spokesperson for the Bank of Dixon?”
#
Barb located a provider that leased its technology to spammers. She configured a series of blast calls, targeting every Dixon County landline in waves of twenty-five numbers at a time. Danita, following Barb’s suggestions, wrote out and recorded a script for the automated call. She did multiple takes until she’d achieved the perfect level of bland business speak. When she was satisfied, she forwarded the audio file to Barb, who uploaded it to the spam service.
Once everything was locked and loaded, Barb made a preliminary call to the Bank of Dixon. She bulldozed her way through the levels of customer service bureaucracy until she was speaking with the bank president himself, one Otto P. Humbarger. Barb allowed herself a moment of sympathy for the boy who’d undoubtedly suffered a childhood of ridicule over the moniker. Then she prepared herself to confront the asshole he’d grown into.
“How can I help you, miss?” he said in a voice both pompous and annoyed.
“Just call me Ellie,” said Barb.
“Okay, Ellie. What’s so all-fired important you couldn’t tell it to someone whose job it is to speak with the public?”
“I’m calling to ask you politely to unfreeze the accounts of Ramon and Maria Sanchez.”
“Ellie, as I’m sure you know, my hands are tied. FDIC regulations require me to scrutinize all customers for evidence of criminal financial activity.”
“We both know that’s bullshit. If you’re concerned about a customer, you file a suspicious activity report with federal regulators. You don’t take it upon yourself to seize their money.”
“If you have a criticism regarding the way the bank operates, feel free to file a complaint with the FDIC. I can give you the mailing address if you’d like.”
“Otto, Otto,” said Barb. “The man I represent doesn’t have that kind of patience. He’s looking for action now. He won’t settle for anything less.”
“I don’t know what to tell you.”
“How about this? I’m going to hang up now and call you back in an hour. We’ll see then if you’re more prepared to be reasonable.”
Barb ended the call and hit the key on her laptop to initiate the first round of spam calls. Twenty-five Dixon County phones rang simultaneously, each displaying the caller ID of the Bank of Dixon. Every caller heard a slightly nasal, officious young woman’s voice telling them: “This is the Bank of Dixon with an important message. Any rumors you may have heard about the bank being insolvent are utterly untrue. Your money is completely safe. There is no need for you to withdraw it. I repeat, there is absolutely no need for you to immediately withdraw your money from the Bank of Dixon.”
An hour later, Barb called the bank. This time she was put directly through to Otto Humbarger.
“Just what the hell are you playing at?” he blustered.
“Whatever do you mean, Otto?” Barb said in her sweetest voice.
“There are laws. You can’t threaten the solvency of a federally chartered financial institution.”
“We’re not threatening anything. But I do think the Fed would be interested in the news of a bank run, don’t you? In fact, they tend to be quite prompt to act when it looks like they might have to pay out to cover insured deposits. They can move in a matter of days to take over a failing bank.”
“This is extortion.”
“Now, Otto—that would be illegal. As is freezing someone’s assets under false pretenses. The next round of calls is queued up. I’ll give you half an hour this time. If Maria Sanchez doesn’t receive word from you that her accounts are unfrozen, twenty-five more depositors will be on their way to your lobby. It’s up to you.”
Before he could respond, she ended the call.
“Do you think he’ll do it?” said Danita.
“It depends on his pain tolerance. He’s going to have to weigh pleasing Jackery against his own financial interests. Jackery’s an intimidating asshole, but Humbarger’s personal fortune is tied up in the bank. If it goes down, he goes down with it. Ultimately, my money’s on self-preservation. The only question is how much he needs to suffer before he chooses his ass over Jackery.”
About ten minutes later, Barb got her answer when Maria Sanchez came knocking on the door of the RV.
“The bank freed up our money,” she said to Danita and Barb excitedly.
“What wonderful news!” said Danita.
“However did you get them to do this?”
“We just made a few calls,” said Barb with a little smile.