Beyond All Doubt by Hilton Reed

Author:Hilton Reed
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

CHAPTER

21

THE US ATTORNEY’S Office for the Southern District of New York is located at One St. Andrews Plaza, not far from where the Brooklyn Bridge empties into Manhattan, and a few hundred yards from One World Trade, the former site of the twin towers.

Charles Harmon was the deputy chief of the Criminal Division, overseeing the Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit, which investigated and prosecuted financial graft, tax scams, and online criminal activities. The unit worked closely with the Money Laundering and Asset Forfeiture Unit, which was responsible for maximizing the recovery of proceeds from fraudulent investment schemes, eventually returning the money to victims.

Harmon’s was the one name I remembered from those long nights Alison had spent with the federal suits after Harding had been indicted. His executive assistant told me that her boss was in a high-level meeting and understandably was not available on such short notice. Instead, she handed me off to an assistant regional director named James Hartoonian, who in turn punted me down the hall to the Investigative Division. There, a bureaucrat named Lew Myerson made it clear he was juggling a massive caseload and was not happy to have his day disrupted by a taxpayer who seemed to be tilting at some sort of personal windmill. Still, he grudgingly agreed to give up five minutes of his time in a poorly lighted conference room with no windows, where he made a point of not offering me a cup of coffee or even a bottle of water. The message: we weren’t going to be meeting long enough to bother with formalities.

I’d almost blown off my unannounced visit to the US Attorney’s Office, but Marika assured me that my daughter was in good hands, and I didn’t have to hand her off to Janelle’s mom until later. Now, a sense of unease nipped at my brain as I wondered how this would all play out if Harding was indeed still alive. As well as Alison, of course. What a convoluted mess, I thought as I settled into a chair while Myerson perched his ass on the edge of a credenza. I sized the guy up, wondering if he was a lawyer like everyone else in the building seemed to be.

He explained that he’d worked in the area of cybercrimes for close to fifteen years and was responsible for prosecuting companies and individuals involved with the commission of all sorts of digital thefts, from Nigerian prince rackets to the illegal manipulation of global cybercurrencies. “There was a time when we spent most of our time and resources chasing down good old-fashioned securities and investment fraud, but the internet has changed all that,” he told me. “Greed is still as big as ever, but bad actors are finding new ways to bilk their victims, and cybercrime is a growth business. We see everything from IRS phone call scams to bitcoin theft on a worldwide scale.”

“Like Maxwell Harding?”

“Exactly, and for every Harding there’s a bunch more lurking just below the surface,” Myerson said.

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