CHAPTER 38
For the next several days, we sat in the Intergalactic and watched it all unfold on the cable news channels. We were initially excited by the reports of massive evidence of criminal activity. We watched the news footage as box after box with evidence tags were hauled from the fraternity house and the Siegleshust estate. We groaned in frustration with the announcement that a judge had disallowed all the evidence because it fell outside the original warrant. The judge ordered all of it be returned or destroyed.
Then some of the evidence leaked, and the judge was implicated in the conspiracy. Rumors circulated that someone in the DEA or state police, shocked by the nature of the evidence and refusing to let the investigation die, began leaking to the press to outrage and rally the public. It worked. Jurisdiction was shifted to the Justice Department and the FBI. The evidence was ruled clearly permissible under exigent circumstances. The judge committed suicide after evidence of his pedophilia was leaked.
More prominent members of the conspiracy were outed. Some fled the country. Some turned up dead. Others surrendered and made deals with the Justice department, and that's when everything really unraveled. The whole spiderweb came apart, thread by thread, and we watched it all live on CNN.
The Freedom Birthright Foundation was eventually raided and all of its assets frozen. Siegleshust fled the country. Much of his wealth was seized, but more than eight hundred million dollars was transferred to offshore accounts and disappeared before that happened. I could tell this really bothered Dee.
We all sat in the Intergalactic's TV lounge, watching yet another high profile arrest. Tilly sat next to me, and even The Mook had joined us. He had somehow escaped being shot or arrested and seemed very happy for someone recently unemployed. We learned his name was Michael, and I worked hard to remember that and not accidentally call him Mook instead. Dee gave him a cold brew coffee without asking him what he wanted. I think that means he's a member of the team now.
“You did that,” Liz said to Dee. She was pointing at the television and the video of some corporate attorney being hauled off in handcuffs.
“Yes, and I am happy about it,” Dee replied, “but it all feels... anticlimactic, somehow. Siegleshust got away. We're still losing the Lair. It's not the ending I imagined.” She looked down at the new patch on her motorcycle jacket, a stylized letter D on her left shoulder. D for Devious.
“You still helped a lot of people. Probably more than we'll every really know.”
Dee squeezed her friend's hand and stood. “Thanks Liz. I'm not really as glum as I look. It's just that this is my last day in the lair. I need to get over there and clear out my stuff before the deadline.”
We all shuffled out of the coffee house, agreeing to meet over at the factory and help with the move. Tilly and I road with Brian and Liz. We arrived at the same time as Dee. She leaped off her scooter and ran toward the workers and trucks arrayed near the factory's entrance. We ran after her.
“You're not supposed to be here,” Dee was yelling, “we have another entire day.”
“Dee, it's not what you think,” Brian called after her.
Dee slid to a stop. She seemed to finally notice that the workers were carrying things into her lair, not out. She turned to us. “What's going on?”
Brian and Liz looked at each other. Brian gave a slight nod, and Liz turned back to Dee. She pulled a USB stick out of her pocket. It dangled from a chain with a plastic skull on the end. “Recognize this?”
“Sure, it's the Skeleton Key,” Dee answered.
“Yeah... not really. It's just a regular USB thumb drive. You gave back the wrong thing after the we infiltrated the Freedom Birthright Foundation.”
Dee pulled a similar looking USB stick from her pocket and looked at it. Wheels turned. “Under the frat house. I tried to copy files from that computer with the videos.”
“Yup,” Brian responded, “and that punched a hole through their firewall, the same one guarding all the financial data.”
Dee ran into the factory, and we followed. Workers were installing new electrical conduit. Others were pulling the boards off windows and installing new glass. “All that money... the eight hundred million...”
“Siegleshust didn't get a penny of it,” Liz confirmed. “When he thought he was transferring the money, all he was really doing was giving us his account numbers and passwords. He's probably on the run with whatever he has in his pockets and nothing else.”
Dee smiled at that. Then she frowned. “You stole that money.”
“He stole it first,” Brian replied, “well, blackmailed it. Same thing. It was just going to get seized by the government if he didn't get it. This way, we can do a lot of good with it.”
Dee looked uncertain. “That just sounds like a convenient rationalization to me.”
“We talked a lot about this,” I interjected, “and I think we've worked out a plan you'll be OK with.”
“You're part of this too?” She turned from me to Tilly. “What about you? Is everyone but me in on this?”
Tilly looked a bit embarrassed. “They did ask my advice on a few things,” she admitted.
“Well, they might as well,” Dee said, “you're part of the team now.”
“I don't know about that. I feel more like a groupie than a team member.”
Liz laughed. “Just roll with it. If Dee says you're a member of the team, you are whether you like it or not.”
Dee looked back at all the renovation activity going on throughout the factory. “So this plan you've all cooked up. Tell me about.”
“It's a non-profit foundation,” Tilly explained, “set up to help all the victims of the Siegleshust conspiracy. At least, that's the first thing it will do. The charter is still being defined. Right now it amounts to 'Be awesome and reduce world suck'. Your friends asked me to chair the foundation's board.”
Dee pointed at the renovation. “And all this work? How is that being paid for?”
“The foundation needed office space,” Liz answered, “so it's renting it from you. It's also paying for the renovation. It's pretty common in commercial leasing for the tenant to pay for office build-out.”
I also knew the foundation was paying Liz and Brian a decent consulting fee for technology services, and it had already extended a job offer for clerical support to Dee's friend Ruth. We would explain all that soon enough.
Dee stood there silently for a while, then said, “it's a good plan. I'm happy with it. I'm also a bit miffed. You should have talked to me about it.”
“We weren't sure we could pull it off,” Liz replied. “We didn't want to get your hopes up until we were sure it would all work. The last bit was getting the city to extend their deadline. They became real accommodating once we showed them all the signed work orders for getting things up to code.”
Brian further explained, “it helped that there's been a house cleaning at City Hall. The staff responsible for the original condemnation order have all been arrested or sacked.”
We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the factory, discussing the non-profit foundation and the renovations and the changes we might make to the Lair. A week later we all got back together to see how the work was progressing. I joined Dee and the rest of the team up on the balcony of the office area. We all looked down at the factory floor where framing for new walls was just beginning to take shape. She now had a proper Danger Room with a fully outfitted martial arts dojo. I was already designing some interesting automated systems to add to it, something to properly test her skills. Her new superhero outfit would also push the limits of current technology.
The office space for the non-profit foundation was also coming along nicely, as was Dee's office. The name Themyscira Security Services had just been etched on the glass of her door. Publicly, it's a detective agency. Privately, Dee still considers herself a superhero. Don't expect me to argue the point. I mean, look what sh
e has accomplished. And now with the resources of the foundation, she can do so much more. We can all do so much more. The world still has big problems, and good people need to step up and do their part. I know I'll be doing what I can. After all...
I'm a superhero.
###
Thank you for reading Devious Origins. Barry, Dee, and the rest of the team will return in Devious Alibis. If you enjoyed this book and would like to see more like it, please review it at your favorite on-line book retailers.
Thanks,
Thad Phetteplace
About the Author
Thad Phetteplace is a full time computer consultant and part time writer. He currently lacks the literary or financial success to be considered the 'eccentric author' he aspires to and is instead just considered 'weird' by most people who know him.
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