Robin’s parents were already there when they swept up the drive of the FitzWalter home. Inevitably, there had been a delay on the motorway - there was always a hold-up on a Friday evening, but they were still in plenty of time for an excellent dinner.
Robin was tired, and he could see that Marian was, too. They had gone through a very hectic and stressful few weeks, what with getting back at short notice from Africa, planning and setting up the office for their small team in Oxford and then working flat-out on phase one of their project. If it had not been for Will and Bonkers, they would never have rushed at it like that, but in many ways it had perhaps been a good thing. It had concentrated their minds. They had been given every reason to work fast, and to tackle the problem immediately rather than put it off, perhaps indefinitely.
But there were even more problems to be tackled now. Having discovered how to bypass the banks’ encryption systems, they now needed to put the information to good use before they closed the door again, so to speak, by devising the revised and strengthened security system and marketing their work to the banking community. Once that had been done, they would no longer be able to access the banks at will.
Robin was deep in thought after dinner, as he sat in the lounge with his brandy. Marian was curled up on the sofa, trying hard not to doze off, while their parents chatted on.
“You two are not very good company this evening,” said Robin’s mother. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes, fine,” replied Robin. “I’m sorry if we’re a bit anti-social, but we’ve had a very busy few weeks, and need a bit of a break. It’s just so nice to be able to relax.”
“But there’s still a lot of hard work ahead of us, too,” said Marian, stirring. “Lots to think about and lots of planning to do.”
“How’s your special project going?” asked Denis Hood.
“That’s what has been keeping us so busy, Dad,” replied Robin. “We’ve been very successful, and completed the first stage, but now we have to put it to good use, and then do more development work.”
“If all this is about computers,” said Richard FitzWalter, “then don’t even try to explain to me what you’ve been doing! I am technically illiterate, I’m afraid, and don’t understand a thing about them.”
“Neither do I,” said Elizabeth FitzWalter, Marian’s mother. “We don’t even have one in the house. If Richard needs any posh typing done or anything like that, he gets it done at the office. He has an excellent PA who is very efficient and helpful.”
“And well paid,” added Richard, laughing. “That helps!”
“In that case,” said Robin, “I won’t bore you. But I do want to talk to you about it again, Dad, sometime this weekend if possible.”
“Of course,” replied Denis. “I already know a lot about it, from what you told me the last time we were together. I’m glad the project has gone so well so far.”
“Does this mean you will soon start earning money from it,” asked Robin’s mother.
“No, not yet,” replied Robin. “But that’s one of the things we have to work out. As well as doing more work on the computer programmes themselves, we shall need to form some sort of company, I think, to market the thing - and one or two other projects I’ve been developing - as well as things like getting it patented and all that.”
“That’s where I come in,” said Marian. “I’m proving to be an excellent PA as well, and I’m also efficient and helpful, like yours, Dad! The only problem is that I’m not paid for it yet!”
“You’ll get paid when I get paid!” responded Robin. “And the other members of our little team, too.”
“Who are they?” asked Marian’s mother.
“As it happens,” replied Marian, “two Russians and a fellow graduate colleague of Robin’s.”
“How on earth did you come to be working with Russians?” asked Sir Richard.
“One of them is a girl who was at St. Catherine’s with me,” replied Marian. “We became great friends, even though she was studying mathematics, and we met her father when he came over to visit her at Oxford.”
“He turned out to be a brilliant mathematician and one of Russia’s top computer scientists,” added Robin, “so we were very fortunate to get him to help us out. In fact he is so good, that he has now been offered a post on the tutorial staff at Oxford, which he’s accepted.”
“When I think,” said Marian, “that I was planning to go into a boring old charity of some sort when I left Oxford, and now I’ve been to Africa and made friends there, as well as the Russians - what a dull life it would have been if I hadn’t met Robin!”
“I think we shall probably be going to Switzerland too, soon,” said Robin, “and we shall certainly need to go back to East Africa.”
“Apart from anything else, we haven’t finished our holiday there yet!” said Marian. “It’s all very exciting!”
“I’m sure we’re all very pleased for you both,” said Elizabeth. “But you do look so tired after all your work, and the drive across here as well - why don’t you get an early night, and we’ll talk again tomorrow.”
Robin was rather hoping to be able to walk with his father in the extensive grounds of the house the next morning, but it was pouring with rain, so that was out of the question. After all his time shut indoors recently, Robin had been keen to get some fresh air, but instead, he and Denis went down into the billiard room.
“You know,” said his father, “if this place was in Surrey, it would be little short of a stately home and open to the public!”
“Marian told me once that they do open the gardens a couple of times a year for charity,” replied Robin, “and it certainly is a wonderful old house.”
“Richard says he loves his garden, but still needs plenty of help to keep the estate going,” said Robin’s father, idly trying to pot a red, and missing. “Goodness knows what it all must cost, but they don’t seem to be short of the odd bob, do they?”
“Apparently not,” said Robin, “although Marian is expected to pay her own way in life without too much help from her parents,” said Robin. “It’s money I wanted to talk to you about, as a matter of fact.”
“I thought it might be,” replied his father, missing yet another easy pot. “Have you actually managed to break into a bank now?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.” said Robin. “Since we last spoke, my small team and I have found the weak points which we were sure existed in the banking security arrangements. We are now able to get to the heart of the bank’s computer operations, and have actually managed to move money around using the Internet and our own computer programmes. So far, we have only worked with our own personal accounts, just to show that the system is robust, but we know that we can get access to the bank’s main financial reserves, without going through individual accounts.”
“So what does all this mean?” asked his father.
“It means,” replied Robin, nonchalantly potting his third red, and lining up perfectly to pot his third black, “it means that we are now in a position to develop a more secure system and, hopefully, sell it to the banking world.”
“How do you do that?” asked Denis.
“Do what? Hack into someone else’s computer?” asked Robin, hardly believing his father really wanted to know the technical details of what they had done.
“No, no! I mean how do you pot those balls so easily? I never could work out all the angles.”
“I’ll show you later,” promised Robin.
“Meanwhile,” said his father, returning to the subject, “you are now at the point you mentioned before, where you need to move large sums of money around - money you don’t have.”
“That’s right,” said Robin. “Shifting the odd tenner here and there, which is what we have been doing, is never going to worry a bank sufficiently to convince them that they need to upgrade their encryption systems. And unless we can convince them of that, they will never buy our new programmes.”
“Which you have yet to invent, right?” asked Denis.
“Right again,” said Robin. “But it shouldn’t take us long to do, in all honesty, although we don’t actually want to put it on the market too soon.”
“Why not?” asked his father.
“Because I want to put to good use the facility we now have available to us before we offer the banks the upgrade. There are people we know about who have been denied huge sum of money which are rightfully theirs, and while I am in a position to access the financial reserves of banks and wealthy individuals, I can redress the balance a bit.”
His father frowned. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that,” he said.
“Let me explain,” said Robin, who went on to tell his father about the plight of the white farmers in Africa, and of the Soviet mathematicians who had been exploited in America.
“You see, father,” he concluded, “I am now in a position to help these people, by moving cash from those who have profited from corruption, and returning it to those who have suffered at their hands. This is not theft, and I shall not benefit from it at all myself, but it is a form of justice that I can administer, which would not otherwise be available.”
“And Padre Tucker? What does he say?” asked Denis Hood.
“He agrees,” said Robin. “It’s not without its risks, but it’s worth doing, in my view,” continued Robin, “and I think I can reduce the risks by working through the Swiss banking system.”
Denis leant on his snooker cue, and looked hard at his son.
“How long will all this take?” he asked.
“With luck, only a week or so once we are all organised, and have established where the money should go. I doubt we shall be able to help all those affected, as that will depend on how much money we can trace and how many people we can identify who need help. But while all that is being done, we shall be working on the final phase of our project, ready to launch and market a new system as soon as we can.”
“And that’s where you hope to make a profit - from selling your new computer security system?”
“Absolutely,” agreed Robin. “We shan’t profit at all from the redistribution exercise.”
“Is Marian totally committed to this venture with you?”
“Totally,” replied Robin.
Denis Hood made another, rather desultory attempt at potting a ball, which hit several cushions before finally coming to rest on the green baize as far from a pocket as it had started.
“So be it, then,” he said eventually. “You said when we last spoke about this that you needed a large sum of money to convince the banks that their system doesn’t work. Presumably, you will do your best not to be identified with the large sums you will be moving about to impose your form of retribution, so we are talking about a separate sum, are we?”
“Yes,” replied Robin.
“So I shall have to use my power of attorney over your Aunt Gladys’s estate to arrange this in some way or other,” pondered his father. “How much do you want, then?”
“Oh, I don’t want anything at all,” replied Robin.
His father mis-cued completely, and very nearly tore the cloth on the snooker table.
“But I though you saidà.”
“I’ve changed the plan,” interrupted Robin. “What I want to do now is to put money into Aunt Gladys’s account. I want to see if the bank notices the new, large deposit, and whether it can trace where it came from and then return it.”
“Blimey!” exclaimed Denis. “That sounds a bit devious, if you ask me.”
“Not at all,” explained Robin. “Frankly, I doubt that they will be able to trace its source, if the security arrangements I put in place work at all well. And that’s what I want to test, before I start returning money to farmers and others. If my security system works, then I should be able to do what I plan without the risk of being detected.”
“So if they can’t trace it and return it, then what?” asked his father. “Presumably, this will be money you’ve moved from some bank or other somewhere.”
“Precisely,” agreed Robin. “If Aunt’s bank can trace the source of the deposit and return it, so well and good. If they can’t, it will eventually be passed to me in Aunt’s will, so I can return it myself. All that will be lost is a bit of interest that the money will earn while it’s in Gladys’s bank. I might just be tempted to keep that!”
“And what do I tell them if they do ring me?”
“Tell them to leave the money where it is until they have established its source, and to contact you again when they have done so. Then you can authorise its withdrawal from Aunt’s account, for them to return it to its rightful owner,” replied Robin. “And make sure they pay the proper rate of interest on it while it’s there!” he added. “But first of all, I want to see if the bank notices the deposit, and contacts you about it.”
“How much have you in mind, then?”
“Two million pounds should be enough,” replied Robin.
“I think they’ll notice!” said Denis Hood, with a laugh.
“They certainly should spot a sum of that size moving about,” agreed Robin. “I’ll let you know before I make the move, but that will probably be while we’re in Switzerland. I need to open up a couple of accounts over there before I do anything else, and then we shall probably have to go to Africa again. I might even run the operation from there, if not Switzerland - I haven’t decided yet.”
“You must let me know where you are, so that I can keep you in touch with any developments here,” said his father.
“Of course I shall,” agreed Robin. “But you should always be able to contact me on my mobile phone. I shall also need to tell Marian what’s happening, by the way, as she’s keeping all the detailed records of what we do. That means that I have to tell her earlier than you wanted me to about being Aunt Gladys’s only heir. Do you mind?”
“No, of course not, if you’re equally sure that your relationship won’t be influenced by her knowing,” replied his father.
“I’m sure it won’t,” replied Robin. “We’ve more or less decided that, whatever happens, we shall stick together after this.”
“I hope you do, and I know the FitzWalters hope so, too. You make a lovely couple, if I may say so.”
“Thanks, Dad,” said Robin. “Now let me teach you some geometry, and show you how to play snooker!”
***
Everyone had had a busy weekend, in spite of needing a break.
Robin had put in a call to Will on Sunday morning. Will, who was then staying at his parent’s bungalow on the Parkinsons’ estate in the Western Cape, was surprised and delighted to hear from Robin again, but also mystified by the conversation.
“Do something for me,” Robin had asked.
“Anything,” replied Will.
“I need all the information you can get from your network of contacts about the dispossessed white farmers,” said Robin. “In particular, I need to know where they are and how they can be contacted. You said you could get that sort of information, and I think I might soon need it.”
Will was intrigued to know why, but Robin decided not to tell him yet, especially over an open phone line.
“You’ll have to wait for an explanation,” said Robin, “but eventually, I shall need to know details of their bank accounts. If the Justice for Farmers organisation you mentioned has all the details, then I can probably deal with them rather than duplicate. Find out for me, if you will.”
Will was even more mystified.
“Of course I’ll do that,” he said. “Anything else?”
“Yes. I specially want those details in respect of yourself, your father, and Bonkers. How is he, by the way?”
“He’s OK. Still in Harare, but I spoke on the phone yesterday.” replied Will. “But what’s going on, for goodness sake?”
“Get the information I want, and give it to me when next we come back to Africa, then perhaps I shall tell you,” said Robin mysteriously.
“When are you coming back, then,” asked Wills.
“Soon, I hope,” replied Robin. “I’ll let you know, but get cracking.”
“Of course,” replied Will. “It will be good to see you both again, and I’m almost hopeful, from what you’ve said, that there might be some good news when you get here.”
“You’ll find out!” said Robin. “There’s more information I need, as well, though, but I hardly dare ask you over an open line.”
“Give me a clue and I’ll see if I can guess.”
Robin thought for a moment.
“O.K.,” he said, “try this. I want as much information as you can get about as many of the colleagues as possible of the man who paid for your air fares to Livingstone, including his boss.”
Will laughed. “Got it!” he said, after a moment. “You’ve given me and my contacts a lot to do, but we’ll get cracking right away. When will you be here to collect?”
“In a week or so, I expect,” replied Robin. “Marian and I need to go to Switzerland first, but we’ll make contact with you from there.”
“The plot thickens!” said Will. “I think I’d better get back to Harare and join up with Bonkers again.”
“Our regards to him, and be careful,” Robin said, and rang off.
The Volkovs had also been busy during the weekend, as Robin and Marian discovered when they got back to Oxford on Sunday evening.
“I had to use your spare key,” said Sergei, “because I needed to use the computer.”
“That’s why we gave it to you,” said Robin. “What’s been going on, then?”
“Well, I’ve been trying to get a list together of all my colleagues who worked in America. There are others, as well as my team, who have been used to develop operating systems for the same corporation, and I’m trying to trace them as well,” explained Grudge.
“And how are you getting on?” asked Robin.
“With any luck, I should get an email in a few days giving me whatever information my people in Russia have been able to find,” replied Grudge.
“And while my father has been doing all that,” said Valya, “I’ve had a great stroke of luck, and been able to take on our present flat on an extended lease for a couple of years, renewable every six months.”
“So we can stay here for as long as we like,” said Grudge, “and we don’t have to start looking for somewhere else to live.”
“That’s all good news,” said Robin. “When you have it, I shall need the list of your colleagues and their bank details.”
“Tell me what you propose for them,” enquired Grudge.
“It all depends, of course, whether or not we can get into the Corporation’s finances,” said Robin, “and how much you honestly think you are owed by them. I shall need you to work that out as fairly as you can. But what I would hope to be able to do is to arrange for a cash lump sum to be paid to you all, and to set up arrangements for an annuity to be paid to you as a form of pension.”
“That sounds too good to be true,” said Valya. “But we have probably done enough to be able to access the American’s finances, so let’s hope for the best.”
“We then need to do much the same thing, if we can gain access to the cash, for the people in Africa,” said Robin. “So there’s a lot to do, especially as I would hope to be able to arrange all this through the Swiss banking system.”
“Why Switzerland?” asked Grudge.
“Because they have a tradition of secure private banking, using numbered accounts,” replied Robin.
“You two are obviously going to be busy,” said Grudge. “Once I’ve got the lists you want, I suppose I could make a start on the new security system we need to develop.”
“That would be great,” said Robin. “Don’t forget, we also need to develop a system which will counter my two ‘new’ credit cards, but I can probably do that later. And I suppose we should remove the ‘trojan horse’ programme from the bank, too. We shan’t need that again.”
“I’d quite forgotten about the two cards,” said Marian.
“Shouldn’t be too difficult, really,” said Robin. “But we do now seem to have a problem I hadn’t anticipated.”
“What’s that, then?” asked Valya.
Robin frowned, looking worried.
“It’s Jim,” he said.
“What about Jim?” asked Valya.
“He left a message on our voicemail to say he wouldn’t be back here until sometime tomorrow,” replied Robin, “which is no real problem, except that he also hinted that he might want to leave the team early, and get back to his job at the Bank of England.”
“I wonder why?” pondered Grudge.
“Probably something to do with his old Mother, I would guess. But it does mean we shall be a man short for doing the work which is supposed to be earning us all a living,” said Robin.
“If he does leave the team before our work is completed, he will obviously not be able to share in the proceeds to the same extent,” said Marian.
“Well, we shall need to cross that bridge when we come to it. I just hope he will still be prepared to help us from his post at the Bank. He could be very useful, there,” said Robin.
“Why is that?” asked Valya.
“Because he’s in their international banking section, and he said he should be able to gain access to passwords and codes in foreign banks much more easily that we ever could. That could be risky for him, but he said he was prepared to do it for us if necessary,” replied Robin.
“He will need to be able to use our new system for that?” asked Grudge.
“Yes, he will,” said Robin. “And again, he’ll have to be very careful how he goes about that, and only use the software when he needs it, and then immediately un-install it. Otherwise, it will be detected.”
“How are all these banks linked together?” asked Marian.
“Mostly by fibre-optic links,” replied Grudge, “although some are by satellite.”
“The fibre-optic links are operated by an organisation called Global Crossroads, which monitors and controls nearly all the Internet traffic in the UK,” explained Robin. “They ensure the integrity of the system, and divert the routing if ever there is a problem with the normal links. They specialise in high security systems, and quite honestly are a bit of a worry.”
“Why’s that?” asked Valya.
“Not least,” answered Robin, “because they have highly-developed managed security services, which include intrusion detection systems.”
“You mean they could detect our attempts to break through banking security systems?” asked Marian.
“If they do, my hope is that they not be able to trace us or identify us, not least because we shall be working within the bank’s own system and using its own passwords and access codes,” explained Robin. “But we shall see, in good time. Jim will have to be jolly careful, that’s all, but I’m sure he knows that.”
“Meanwhile,” asked Grudge, “will we need to replace Jim if he does return to his job earlier than we thought he would? And if so, who with?”
“There’s always your friend Rupert,” suggested Valya.
“Personally, I’d rather not widen the circle unless we really have to,” replied Robin. “What do you think, Sergei?”
“I agree,” replied the Russian. “I think we should be able to manage the new work between us, and I can make a good start while you are abroad.”
“And I’ll always help as best I can,” said Valya.
“Agreed, then,” concluded Robin.
In the end, Jim Farlow rang them on Monday morning. His mother still wasn’t doing too well since his father had died, and he really thought he should be back at home for a spell. He had considered commuting to Oxford every day, but concluded that it was not terribly practical, as well as being a waste of time and money. Getting from Highgate to Bank on the Underground was bad enough, he declared. He remained totally committed to the project, he assured them, and would do anything he could to help from his desk at the Bank, or from home if that was possible.
Robin accepted what he had said, and undertook to make sure he had a proper share of any profits they made from the project, related to the work he had done to break down the existing system. They agreed between them that Jim would need to take great care about how he worked on behalf of the team, since he was not simply in an ideal position from their point of view, but also in a very vulnerable position at the same time, bearing in mind where he worked. They agreed to communicate by email to his private address at home, just to be on the safe side. Jim confirmed that he had his copy of the software with him, and that he would only install it when he needed to, and then un-install it immediately after he had used it. He would probably do any work on behalf of the team during his night shift or while doing overtime, when there would be fewer people about.
So that was that. They would be one short during the development work, but still up to strength when it came to moving money, and that was the next step.
The four of them needed to plan carefully what had to be done and who was going to do it. In effect, they only had four weeks in which to complete most of the work, since after that Grudge was due to start his full time job at the University. Although he would be available to help them after that if necessary, the team would effectively be only three strong once he left, and one of those - Marian - was not a mathematician or computer expert.
“One of the important things we have to ensure,” said Robin, “is that the new encryption devise, when we have developed and perfected it, is properly registered and licensed in our name, so that there is no chance of us being exploited again, as you and your colleagues were, Sergei.”
They nodded in agreement.
“I propose,” continued Robin, “that we should form a proper company, with us as directors, and register the development in the company’s name. That way, the product and any sales flowing from it will be ours until we either wind up the company, or sell on the rights to its use.”
“Is it worth all that just for one product?” asked Valya.
“It won’t be for just one, I hope,” replied Robin. “I would like the company to develop other operating systems as well, and perhaps provide services for major corporate computer users.”
“Like banks!” joked Grudge.
“Yes, why not?” agreed Robin. “We are quite capable of providing a problem solving service for anyone, but I would prefer to concentrate on major corporate users rather than individuals with their home computers, as that way I am sure we would make more money. But let’s get our first product up and running before we start developing anything else.”
“I suppose I could still act as a consultant or something for your new company,” said Grudge, “although with a full time job at the University I would not be able to work more than part time for you.”
“That would be wonderful if you are prepared to do that,” said Robin, “but eventually we shall need to think about employing more people, I suspect, especially as Jim Farlow seems to want to stay at the Bank.”
“Perhaps Rupert, if he’s not doing anything else much,” suggested Valya again. “And I would certainly like to be part of it if you will have me.”
“Of course,” said Robin readily. “But let’s see if we can complete our first venture, and then build on the success of that.”
“What shall we call ourselves?” asked Marian,
“Any ideas?” asked Robin.
“How about ‘Computer Solutions’ - that would describe what you had in mind,” suggested Grudge.
“Sounds perfect,” said Valya.
“Why don’t I set about forming the company and registering the name and whatever else has to be done,” offered Marian, “while you three are doing the difficult, computer, bit.”
“That would be an enormous help,” agreed Robin, “and perhaps you could also fix for us to go to Switzerland soon - we need to open up a couple of bank accounts over there to handle the compensation work we have in mind.”
“We could go to Montreau,” said Marian. “My parents have been there and say it’s a super place. Bound to be plenty of banks, too, and if there aren’t, we can get the train to Geneva.”
“That sounds a good idea,” agreed Robin. “We can fix up a couple of appointments from here. I suppose I shall have to wear a suit, to impress bank managers!”
“If we’re taking posh clothes,” said Marian, “we can stay at a posh Hotel, too! I’ll find one for us.”
“Will you go as Managing Director of Computer Solutions?” asked Grudge.
“Certainly not,” replied Robin. “I do want to the new company identified with this job. We’ll keep the two things separate if we can.”
“So what will you tell the banks?” asked Sergei. “Explain how all that will work.”
“I shall probably open two accounts at each of two banks,” explained Robin. “In both cases, I shall pay money in to one bank and then move it across to the second, for them to pay out to individuals. That way, payments will be made by two separate banks to two separate groups of people. In the case of you and your colleagues, Grudge, I would suggest a lump sum for each of them, including your