CHAPTER ELEVEN

It is three days before the two families can get together again. Lots of questions. Even more paperwork. They have to explain every step that was taken over and over again until the government had every detail right. It is exhausting.

The President had pardoned China for anything and everything she had done, explaining that he had authorized her plan when she had called him on the phone. He had called a press conference for later on that afternoon, but China had insisted that they have lunch together first.

They are all in the kitchen of the Simon Bertoni Foundation house where it had all started. More tables and chairs were brought in and the meal was catered. While they eat, they chat and catch each other up on the news. They have all been invited to the press conference and they wonder what the President will say.

“I bet we’re all getting medals,” Jeremy says.

“Maybe,” China says, mysteriously. “Maybe not.” Then she looks at Lujan. “I insisted that all charges be dropped in your case as well.”

“Thank you,” Lujan says, tears in her eyes.

“But I don’t understand something,” Juan Carlos says. “They got the money, didn’t they? I mean the bad guys. You gave them the access codes and they transferred the money to their own accounts. The President can’t be too happy about that.”

“Well, sort of,” China says. “It’s actually a bit more complicated than that. What these guys didn’t know is that we had a security protocol in place exactly for situations like this where there was coercion involved.”

“But how could the bank know,” Jeremy says. “I thought it was a computer program.”

“It was,” China says. “If humans are involved, they could be corrupted, but the program could only be hacked. So, we encrypted it with top-level 64-bit encryption code and decentralized the program into multiple servers around the world.”

“It’s getting too technical for me,” Annie says. They all laugh.

“Well,” China says. “Let me explain it simply then. All I did was add one number to the end of the second access code to tell the program that we were being coerced. That told the program to send the money to the bank account that they wanted but then, after ten minutes, after confirmation but before the money was actually transferred by the bank, it would be transferred to another account.”

“But when did you tell the computer the codes for the other accounts?” Jane asks.

“And which accounts did you send all that money to?” Miguel Angel asks almost right afterward.

China laughs delightedly. “One at a time, you two.” She stands up and picks up a glass of wine. “I would like to make a toast.”

“Where’s my wine?” Jeremy asks.

“You get to toast with your coke,” Annie says putting the glass in his hand.

“What are we toasting?” Arnold asks.

“We are toasting the Stroessner family, Lujan and Miguel Angel,” China says, “for their generous contribution to the four major charities that work in Paraguay.”

They look at her in astonishment.

“Yes, I’m afraid they woke up this morning to a sizable contribution from the Stroessner Fortune to each one of those charities.”

Miguel Angel beams. “Cheers to me and mom, then. We are off the hook and the money is gone. Thank goodness.”

And they all raise their glasses, clinking them together and cheer.

“What a relief,” Lujan says. “It’s over.”

“Yes,” China says. “I promised the President that the money would go to the Paraguayan people but not to him or to the CIA or to the group behind the kidnapping. He liked the idea.”

“Do we know anything about this group behind the kidnappings?” Arnold asks.

“That guy you killed wasn’t a neo-Nazi.”

“No, he was a fixer, brought in to get a job done. That’s all,” China says. “But we got his transfer code, and we are trying to trace it back to someone or some company. Also, we have the picture of that woman who was connected to the group. Apparently, she worked for one of the twelve families.”

“Then we can get answers from her,” Juan Carlos says.

“So far, they can’t find her,” China says. “She’s in the wind.”

“What is that?” Jeremy says, “spy talk for she left the country?”

They all laugh.