Page 16 of Scammed

“I wish to know why Amy Fontenot is not here to take my donation,” said Marcel.

“Well, so much for subtlety,” smirked Gaspar.

“I-I can’t divulge that, sir. I’m sorry. The Foundation and Amy have parted ways.”

“Parted ways? She was a stellar employee who raised more money than anyone else. Prometheus was founded on the very notion of raising money to provide for those less fortunate, and you’ve allowed your most productive employee to leave.”

“Wh-what is happening here?” asked Sheffield, staring from one man to another. Beads of sweat lined his upper lip, making the men far more suspicious than when they’d walked into the room.

“Nothing,” said Gaspar. “As we said, we spoke to Amy about a sizeable donation to the foundation, and we only wanted to deal with her. No one else.”

“Listen,” said Sheffield, standing, “you’re correct. Prometheus was founded on the idea of raising money for those less fortunate. And we’ve done that. Quite well, I might add. Amy was invaluable at what she did, but she’d made some mistakes lately that we couldn’t abide by.”

Now, that caught the attention of Nine and Gaspar.

“Mistakes? I believe we need to know what those are.”

“Sir, I don’t think…”

“I think a twenty-five-million-dollar investment should make you rethink. If I’m investing that much money, I want to know that my funds are going where they were intended. What mistakes?” asked Nine.

“Well,” he said, clearing his throat, “we believe Amy diverted funds into her personal account, and we also believe she was using company funds to start her own business, which would be in direct competition with us. She signed a non-compete.”

“Liar,” said Marcel, standing, his fists rammed into the surface of the table.

“Who are you?” asked Sheffield.

“We don’t matter,” said Gaspar, “but my friend is right. You’re a fucking liar. Amy was cleared of all charges related to the fund transfer that your own head of IT fucked up. He was the one who allowed the virus to get into the system, divert the money, and use Amy’s name in the process. She never started any company in competition with Prometheus. Prometheus was her life until you fucked with that life.”

The three men stood from the table and walked out the door of the conference room. Gaspar stopped at the painting, smirking at Marcel.

“It’s a damn fine painting, Marcel.” He lifted it off the wall, holding it in his arms.

“Hey! You can’t take that!”

“Oh, I can and I will. See, my name is Gaspar Robicheaux, and the man in this painting is my ancestor, Marcel Robicheaux. In fact, that’s his name as well. This painting belongs to my family, and if you so much as dream of a way that you’re going to get this from me, you will be sorry for the hell and havoc I wreak on this shithole.

“So, try me. Please. I’m begging you. Just try to fuck with me and my family and see what happens to you and everyone in this fucking place.”

Sheffield was breathing heavily, staring at the three men. If they were ancestors of Marcel Robicheaux, the painting, in fact, did belong to them. They’d been told years ago by an attorney and an auditor that they should seek out his ancestors and return the painting. They did not. They definitely looked nearly identical to the man in the painting. Right now, he honestly didn’t give a shit. He just wanted the men gone.

“That’s what we thought,” said Nine. “We’ll be taking the painting and our donation to a more worthy organization. You’re a fucking shitty guy, and Amy deserved better than she got.”

As they left the offices and walked down the street with a massive portrait tucked beneath their arms, the men caught stares and glares. Once safely inside the SUV again, Marcel could only stare at his likeness.

“What do we do now?” he asked. “We know that man was lying about Amy, but why?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

The sounds of fingers tapping on keyboards echoed in the massive board room on Belle Île. Code, Hiro, AJ, Tanner, and the kids were all helping to find the sources of the viruses and the organization or individuals causing them to happen.

“Anything?” asked Whiskey.

“We’re still digging. This shit is pretty complex. What we see so far is that they send out a message stating that someone’s computer has a trojan virus or malware or has been hacked into. They put up a phone number that they have to call, claiming that they are the computer’s software protection. We think they’ve got a call center or centers somewhere telling the user to type in a phrase or code that allows them to have access to the computer. Once that happens, everything on their computer is within their grasp.

“For a company, they could have access to payroll records, 401k accounts, pensions, benefits, everything. They could scan every payroll record within their organization, assume, based on deposits to retirement plans, who has the most money, and target them. If it was an individual, they could get into their checking account, savings, credit cards, everything.”

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