Countdown in Cairo

FOUR

In a quiet wing within the main building of the United States Department of Treasury in Washington, DC, Alexandra LaDuca leaned forward at her desk. On the screen of her main computer, Alex studied the final anatomy of a case she had plunged herself into upon her return from Spain two months earlier.

Ray Medina’s clients had been his wealthy friends. He had promised them twelve percent on their investments; then, using the old technique of underselling his abilities, he had produced K-1 tax forms showing returns of twenty percent.

But Medina had also been battling a serious liver infection. His health had declined to such a degree that he had taken his wife and children to the mountain home he was having built in Aspen. He needed time to convalesce.

Medina’s clients grew worried. So while he was away, several clients exercised a remote clause in their agreement with him that granted them access to Medina’s office should he become incapacitated. A few hours later, the investors were phoning their friends. Office records showed that there was hardly any money in the brokerage accounts. Other accounts didn’t exist. The K-1 tax forms Medina had been providing them for years were forgeries.

Two days ago, Medina had pleaded guilty to fifteen counts of theft, securities fraud, tax evasion, money laundering, and forgery. He had been sentenced to sixteen years and eight months in the Arizona state prison system, plus a restitution order of nine million dollars.

Through a default judgment in the civil case, which Alex had helped arrange, some of the victimized clients had reclaimed just over three million dollars of their missing funds.

Another “mini-Madoff,” as these schemes had come to be known. With the downturn of the world economy in the first decade of the twenty-first century, there was no shortage of them. These cases were starting to depress her. She was bored to tears of white-collar frauds, mini-Ponzi schemes, and their slick-as-oil perpetrators.

A phrase came to mind from the old Woody Guthrie ballad about Pretty Boy Floyd:

Some will rob you with a six-gun,

others with a fountain pen…

She was glad she had been able to help some of these people recover some of their retirement savings from one of the fountain-pen thieves.

Enough!

She sighed. She glanced at the time at the bottom right corner of her computer screen. It was past 6:00 p.m. For today, she was more than ready to blow out of the joint.

She logged out of both computers on her desk. She was conscious of the weapon on her right hip. She was overdue at the firing range and always needed to stay sharp, just in case. Not everyone she went up against robbed with a fountain pen, and increasingly she found the other type of criminal a more exciting challenge. So she wore her firearm everywhere now. There was no reason not to.

Recently, she had gone over to a new weapon for personal protection: a Glock 26, better known as the “Baby Glock.” The weapon was a snub-nosed automatic that carried ten rounds. It had been developed for ease in concealing and accuracy in firing. Alex had acquired it when she returned from Spain. It fit her hand nicely and on her right hip just as well. She appreciated the perfect match.

Now if she could only get to use it…