Start at the Prologue and First Chapter here

No one at the bank had ever told Audrey Addams she was beautiful. Not because she was unattractive, but because she was unapproachable. Even after hours, her colleagues agreed, her consistently severe expression, hairstyle and wardrobe sent an unmistakable “keep away” signal rather than a “come hither” invitation. Audrey was okay with that.

No one would have called her severe when she was growing up in a small, rural town in upstate New York, though. But she was shy and reserved, overshadowed by her big, football playing brothers and ignored socially at school because she excelled at every subject. Her father, a dairy farmer, doted on her because she was his only little girl. But he never took seriously her ambition to be the first Addams to attend college. That is, until the day she packed up and left for college with a full room, board and tuition scholarship to a state school. Her mother knew her better and cried. She knew that wherever Audrey would be after college, it wouldn’t be upstate New York.

By her sophomore year, Audrey had decided that Syracuse would be just a stepping stone to something bigger. By her junior year, she’d set her sights on the biggest city of all – New York. Scholarship money didn’t pay for sorority fees, but that was okay, too. She was happy to hunker down harder than ever to her studies to be sure that when the time came, she’d have not just a job in the city, but a good one as well.

Her determination paid off, and the financial world had been good to her. She’d graduated close to the top of her class and accepted an offer from a bank with a good management training program. The pay was generous, too. She’d be able to save up to go to business school – the next stage in her plan for success. For the first few years, things at the bank went even better than she could have hoped. She advanced so rapidly that the need to add a business school degree to her resume faded, and then disappeared.

But then she hit her glass ceiling. It wasn’t her gender that halted her rise, but her attitude. The bank wasn’t a big, old, white-shoe Wall Street institution, but a much smaller one called Bowery Savings & Loan, a solid, modest institution without any ambition to become a player on the New York financial stage. Then Willy Bigelow became CEO.

It had only taken Willy eighteen years to make it from the mail room to the top spot. He was intelligent, to be sure, and had a great aptitude for banking. But his real skills were personal – everyone agreed that no one could hold a candle to Willy when it came to team building. He wanted everyone who worked for him to think that Bowery S&L was the only place they would ever want to work for the rest of their career. And he backed that ambition up in every way he could, including by taking the bank on a daring and exhilarating expansion campaign that often scared the Board of Directors out of its wits but always worked out in the end. Everyone at the bank, from the receptionist to his Executive VP, loved Willy Bigelow.

Except for one, and that one was our own Audrey Addams. Where others saw a brilliant deal maker with nerves of steel, she saw a tie that was never quite cinched up to his neck, a shirt collar that never quite settled into place, and a shirt that always needed some tucking in. He was overweight, too. The greater he made the bank become, the less worthy she thought he was to lead it. Of course, she never exactly said anything to anyone that sounded like direct criticism.  But she didn’t need to; a sniff and a look at the right time could speak volumes. The more out of synch she became with her peers, the more she compensated with aloofness

She wasn’t high enough on the organization chart for Bigelow to notice her behavior and attitude, but her superiors did. The word got around. Audrey Addams was not a team player. And that was that.

Like many success stories in the world of big business, Willy Bigelow’s eventually came to an end. He pulled off the biggest coup of his career when he acquired First Manhattan, a storied bank that had made some large and disastrous loans and fallen below its required reserves. Even in that weakened state, though its assets were half again more than those of Bowery S&L. It was a complicated, deal, too, because Willie’s bank would need to convert from being a Savings and Loan bank. But Willie stuck with it doggedly, huddling with the lawyers and bucking up the courage of his board. As a last concession to seal the deal, he agreed that he and Benson Cronin, the suave head of First Manhattan, would be co-CEOs of the combined enterprise. It seemed like a safe bet. The Chairman would come from Bowery, and he and Willie were tight.

All seemed to go well after the merger, and the bank’s stock began to rise encouragingly.

Behind the scenes, though, Cronin was just biding his time to bump the bumpkin in the office next door. The opportunity to make his move came when the Chairman, suffering from health problems, unexpectedly retired a year after the merger. The Board was still split fifty-fifty between directors who came from First Manhattan and ones that came from Bowery S&L, but Cronin began meeting privately with those he hadn’t known before. He showed them a skewed industry survey that seemed to indicate they had been under-compensated for years under Bigelow’s leadership. Cronin didn’t mention that their compensation was roughly equal to what his directors had received as well.

Cronin sprung his trap at the next board meeting by proposing a dramatic increase in Board compensation. Willy was shocked at the numbers Cronin put up on the board, and suggested it would be consistent with their fiduciary duties as directors to hire a compensation consultant to advise on any adjustments that might be in order. Instead they voted to demote him to Chief Operating Officer.

Cronin moved quickly to consolidate his new power by shaking up the management team. One of those moves was to invite Audrey Addams to become his Chief of Staff. Her file indicated she had the qualifications. More importantly, she had never been part of Bigelow’s team. And best of all, placing someone with her imperial manner in such a visible and influential role would send a message that the free and easy Bigelow days were over. When he delivered the offer to her, in person, Cronin implied that further advancement would follow in due course if all went well.

Of course, she took the job. She’d been squarely in Cronin’s corner ever since she first heard him speak. At last, the bank – her bank – had a leader that looked and acted the part, instead of an ill-groomed ruffian with a Brooklyn accent. Cronin, on the other hand, might never have attended Oxford, but he cultivated a subtle inflection to his voice that suggested that his lack of a diploma form the prestigious university was a meaningless detail.

For a year, Addams felt she’d died and ascended to career heaven. Cronin was as respectful and courteous to her as he was to the Board. Within a few months, it was clear to her that he trusted her completely and relied on her absolutely to make his job as efficient and painless as possible.

Bigelow, naturally, didn’t stick around. Just long enough for the his most recently awarded stock options to vest. Cronin replaced him with Lawrence Bragg, someone Cronin had known since college, sharing a dorm room with him there, an apartment while in business school, and vacations after that with their families.

That was when things on the eighty-fifth floor really began to change. Whenever someone left or a job was created, Bragg would give hiring preference to cronies from his and Cronin’s past. Within a year, he went further, and started filling spots with former colleagues without engaging a search firm at all to find the best candidate. And the new hires were always men.

Once the new order of things became clear, the best female managers began leaving to pursue better options elsewhere. Naturally, that trend snowballed as those that remained felt more isolated. By the time Bragg’s second anniversary at the bank arrived, the only senior female managers left were those who refused to be edged out as a matter of principle or were so close to retirement that making one last move made no sense.

That would have been bad enough. But junior staff changes on the eighty-fifth floor were equally profound and disturbing. It seemed that whenever a new manager came on board – male, of course – the only thing he paid attention to in hiring his new administrative assistant – always a woman – was her looks. After a while, an outright competition broke out among the vice presidents, who began firing and hiring their admins in an blatant effort to see who could hire the best looker.

Audrey ignored the disgraceful process for as long as she could. Cronin, she was sure, was above what was going on. He was on the road a great deal, after all, and relied on Bragg as much as he relied on her to keep the place running smoothly. But turning a blind eye grew more difficult as the number of Bragg-hires increasingly outnumbered the managers from the old Bowery S&L days.

And then there was this: some of the new hires not only had the biases of sexist pigs, but were perfectly happy to act like them, too.

The change wasn’t immediately obvious. Some female employees shut down their bosses immediately when they made a move. But some other female employees were afraid to defend themselves, opting instead to put up with it when they had to, and avoid non-public places in the office as much as possible when their predator was around.

That approach – or leaving – became increasingly popular as word got around that anyone who complained to the Human Resources department – now also headed by a Bragg hire – was met with skepticism and endless forms to complete. And no obvious consequences ever followed for those who were accused and supposedly believed.

Word also got around that if a woman persisted in her accusations, the Director of HR would suggest that perhaps she would be happier working somewhere else. If so, she would receive a glowing recommendation, plus twelve extra weeks paid vacation while she looked for a new job. Of course, there would be the usual paperwork to sign – the release of all claims of any kind against the bank, for instance, and so on. Just the usual.

If the accuser didn’t take the bait, the Director of HR would flip through the papers in the employees file, shake his head, and observe that there really did not seem to be any hope of advancement for the accuser within the bank. Now that he looked at her file more carefully, her performance of late had really been quite poor … Was she sure that she couldn’t use a nice vacation?

And still Cronin looked the other way, either unaware, or uncaring, what was going on outside his corner office door.

Audrey tried to make excuses for him as long as she could. After all, she’d been oblivious to what was happening for an embarrassingly long time, because she was so unapproachable. She never engaged in chit-chat with anyone, even with the few female senior managers that were left. They might be colleagues, but they were also competitors for advancement.

Still, reality has a habit of barging into people’s lives – even the Audrey Addams’s of the world. For Audrey, not one, but two, rude shocks on the same day drove the reality of the eighty-fifth floor home in a way she could no longer ignore. As it happened, those events occurred the very day before Frank asked her to hire a private investigator to look into the suspicious activity at his apartment.

Audrey’s reality check took place at a typically-boozy going away party open to everyone who worked on the management floor – the kind of event that women who feared unwanted advances found excuses to miss or left as quickly as possible if they attended. Audrey was usually a brief, token attendee at such affairs, but that was due to a lack of interest in socializing.

This time, though, she was taken by surprise. Soon after the party began, Ben Cronin tapped on a glass. So far, so good. Audrey expected him to say a few kind words about the departing employee. When Cronin sat down, though, Larry Bragg stood up to announce and congratulate the person who would take over the newly-open job, one she’d put in for and expected to get. But he wasn’t congratulating Audrey Addams. Worse, he announced someone several steps junior to her. Someone, of course, who he’d hired into the bank just six months before. Someone, of course, who was a man.

Audrey was forced to remain for a full half hour before she was able to confront Cronin privately. When she did, he made what she heard as a game, but lame, effort to explain. The position wasn’t a big enough step up for Audrey to move on to, he said. Be patient. He had his eye on a better, more appropriate position he expected would open up – maybe as soon as next year. Just give him time.

She wasn’t buying it. Furious and humiliated, she retreated to the back of the room, wanting to leave but determined not to let anyone notice and think she cared.

She didn’t fool everyone, however. Glen Olson, one of Bragg’s latest hires noticed her alone in the back of the room, industriously checking her email. He’d happened to be watching her when Bragg made his announcement, and saw her face change from anticipation, to shock, to anger.

People were leaving by now. Only the hard-core party types remained, clustered in the front of the room, laughing loudly. He detached himself from the crowd and strolled over to where Audrey was checking her email.

“Hi,” he said. “You were out of the office the day I came on board, and I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to thank you. I appreciated how helpful and professional you were when I was interviewing.”

She examined his face cautiously. He’d been perfectly proper during the hiring cycle – very respectful. Like as not, that was probably just an act. She was, after all, Cronin’s Chief of Staff. For all Olson knew, she might have a lot of influence over her boss’s decision. No need for an act now, though. He held one of the jobs in the bank now. He could walk into Cronin’s office any time he wanted without sweet-talking her into putting him in Cronin’s calendar first.

And he was just as respectful as before. Indeed, he was exquisitely diplomatic, offering sympathy without suggesting he was aware of any reason why she might need it, even though she guessed he’d caught on. He listened carefully to everything she said, smiling, frowning or nodding appropriately and exactly on cue. He also filled her glass whenever it was empty.

It became empty several times. That was unusual, because Audrey Addams rarely allowed herself more than a single glass of wine, regardless of the site or circumstances. By the time she was finishing her third glass, she found herself venting her frustration and hurt at being passed over for the job that had just been announced. They were sitting down now, on a couch.

She didn’t notice when the last of the partiers left the room, but he did. He put his arm consolingly around her shoulder, and the unexpected and rare experience of being touched sympathetically put her over the edge. She began to sob, putting her head on his shoulder. He tried to console her, and she cried harder. Through her tears, she dimly became aware of his other hand moving, and then moving further. He was still making soothing sounds, but now both hands were in places they had no business being.

The reality of what was happening hit her like a thunderclap. She jumped to her feet. Looking around, she saw the drink he’d just refilled for her and threw it in his face, realizing for the first time that they were alone. Her own face was burning furiously, as much with humiliation at being taken in by his act as with rage and alcohol.

His reaction was infuriatingly cool. He stood up, and without touching her, backed her, quivering, up against the wall. Then he slowly pulled her scarf from around her neck.

“Very pretty,” he said softly, his face just inches from hers. “Silk, isn’t it? Must have cost a lot.” He used it to mop his face, and then dropped it to floor and pushed it around with his foot, wiping up the rest of the drink. Only then did he finally back up.

“Very well then,” he said, “Have it your way – which is to say, at home, by yourself. I can’t imagine an ice queen like you getting some any other way.”

He started to walk away, and then turned around, now with the same pleasant smile she remembered from when he was interviewing. “Oh,” he said, “by the way – don’t count on Ben keeping his word about setting you up for that job he just promised you. I’ve known Ben for years, and he knows he’s got it made with you as his Chief of Staff. With Medusa guarding his door, he never has to play the bad guy. You’re there for good.”

*  *  *

Ryan Clancy looked at the notes from his call with Audrey Addams. He was significantly more concerned with what Frank had reported than she was. Word had come over from the CIA that the Russian Federal Security Service was starting to take an interest in BankCoin. And no surprise. Why wouldn’t they? It was too obvious a target. Not only was it now carrying almost the entire global transactional flow, but from an attack perspective, it was spectacularly attractive – the exact, same technology ran on every single bank of any size in the developed world now.

Find one flaw in that technology, and you could bring the whole house of cards down. Why in the world would the banks go from a system where a hacker would have to find a different entry point in every one of ten thousand systems to one where they could hack just one and then use the BankCoin technology to deliver malware to every other bank. It was like an evolutionary bottleneck, where every remaining member of a species had the same DNA. A new bug could come along and wipe out all of them out in a matter of weeks and you end up with an extinct species. Crazy.

Anyway. So, what to make of this? He’d have to have his Bank contact keep a closer eye on Adversego. If his hunch about the Russians was right, there was always the chance they might turn him. Maybe they’d dig up something from his past they could use to blackmail him. And there was always money. That had a history of working.

It was good this Addams person was going to send Adversego’s emails and telephone log to him. It wasn’t usually that easy.

*  *  *

Author’s Notes for This Week:

Alright, so who’s this Ryan Clancy character, and where did he come from? The answer is that this is part of a new plot thread I’m only starting to add in. In my current draft, he’s introduced in Chapter two, as follows:

Ryan Clancy set the report aside and stared thoughtfully at nothing in particular. So, First Manhattan had hired someone named Frank Adversego to keep an eye on the GFBS. The name rang a bell.

Three months before, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation had appointed Clancy to lead a new special investigations unit in response to the growing number of cryptocurrency thefts. He’d been struggling to put a team together, given how new the technology was and how much in demand that talent was. Not to mention the fact that government scale wages were only about twenty percent of the market rate for the talent he needed. That left him with no choice but to try to establish liaisons with senior members of the various alt coin projects and lean heavily on them for assistance when he was called on to launch an investigation. It was not ideal.

Last week, the Department of the Treasury had upped the ante by informing the FBI that it had added BankCoin to the list of “critical infrastructure” covered by a standing Presidential Directive. Under that mandate, various agencies were charged with protecting “essential services that underpin American society” to ensure that they remained “secure and able to withstand and rapidly recover from all hazards.”

Not surprisingly, one of the eighteen categories of critical infrastructure designated by the Directive was the financial services sector. Again, not surprisingly, Treasury had decided that BankCoin was now so fundamental to the operation of that sector that it represented a large and obvious target. Would the FBI be willing to coordinate with Treasury in protecting it?

The FBI would. More specifically, it would be willing to tell Clancy that monitoring BankCoin was now part of his responsibilities. They left it up to him to figure out what that meant in an operational sense, and he was still working that out. Should he invite Adversego in for an informal chat? Frankly, he could use all the help he could get. He checked the FBI’s records to see what they might hold about Frank.

Hmm. The first time he showed up on the Bureau’s radar screen he’d pulled off a cybersecurity coup, but had made the FBI look bad in the process. He also had a well-known independence streak. And there were still unresolved questions regarding the conduct of his son-in-law in connection with the barely thwarted attack launched by the Caliphate. And just recently he was part of a CIA operation that had blown up, although apparently not directly responsible for what had gone wrong. None of that was good.

He walked to the window of his office and stared out across Pennsylvania Avenue at the anonymous, neoclassical façade of the FBI’s old home, the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice building. Unlike the FBI’s new one, it was almost indistinguishable from all the other buildings in the federal triangle of the same era.

No, asking Adversego in wouldn’t be a good idea. If he was under a cloud as part of that CIA operation it wouldn’t do for Clancy’s calendar to show a meeting with him. But at the same time, the GFBS was as big as a target could get. If it got hit, everyone would wonder how the FBI had allowed that to happen, and he’d be the guy in the spotlight. Clancy wished there was a way he could know anything Adversego discovered before it turned into something serious without having to recruit him directly.

He made up his mind. First Manhattan had primary responsibility for BankCoin security and was also Adversego’s boss. Bank management should be happy to assign someone on Adversego’s team to be his contact. If he or she was like most people, they’d be a bit wowed. People loved to play spy, and that included abiding by whatever terms he might set, like, in this case, not telling anyone – even Adversego – that they were part of an FBI security team.

He told his administrative assistant to find out who the appropriate entry point would be at the bank for a request like this, and she connected him with Audrey Addams.

*  *  *

There won’t necessarily be a lot more of this guy in between there and here, but I’m still working that out. Part of the idea is that this book still feels more like a mystery to me than a thriller, so I’m looking for ways to get more action into it. Not that there’s anything wrong with a mystery, but to the extent that one gathers a following, one doesn’t want to disappoint their expectations. I expect that many of you will have sussed out what I had in mind in coming up with his name.

One of the other things I’m doing in the course of working on my current draft is to cut up some of the long sections in the draft that you’ve been reading, such as the long back story on Crypto, and spacing those parts out throughout the narrative. The reason is the same. Even if there’s no action intrinsic to the story going on, there can be the sense of action from skipping back and forth between the internal plot threads. I’ll be doing the same thing with this long back story and current events chapter focused on Audrey, cutting it into two or three pieces and pushing all but the end of this week’s chapter back into earlier chapters.

Next week:  The Russians are Coming!

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