Two weeks before the start of Amir's senior year of college, Jane and Amir traveled back to Atlanta by train. They tried to slip into town quietly, but that was hard to do. Jane was a national celebrity. Jane and Amir told the story of why they were living in Atlanta many times to many reporters. Local reporters loved the story of how a local family of relatively modest means outbid a billionaire for the purchase of what was clearly the most valuable slave ever offered for sale. Jane and Amir also told the story of their marriage, and how Jane obtained her freedom during the ceremony. The local reporters were very respectful of the need to keep their financial details private.
Two weeks after the start of college, Jane and Amir made the shocking announcement that they had been swindled out of their money. They said they still had some money, but they were no longer going to try to invest in anything. They would just try to hold onto their money. Their goal was to wait until Amir could get out of graduate school and be in a position to start his own business.
Julie Hildebrandt traveled to Indianapolis to hold televised hearings on the Indiana Advanced Communications swindle. These hearings started in mid-October. Jane was summoned to testify. She was asked why she had invested in this company. Jane testified, “I systematically constructed analogies with the histories of the 1970s through the 2000s. I regarded the technology that was promised as transformational as the web was in the earlier era. What I did not know was the company was a sham, perhaps constructed just to collect my money.”
Jane later added, “People in their 70's and 80's must remember using the web, Google, and Facebook in their youth. With these tools, everyone could communicate with each other so that each person could be his or her own publisher. This many-to-many form of communications was a revolution. Among other things, it allowed citizens to curtail abuses by those in authority.”
This testimony was very close to the truth. The company was specifically constructed to collect Jane's money. Julie carefully avoided mentioning that she was the biggest investor. Jane was amused to see all of the slave traders in Indiana and their spouses testifying in handcuffs and chains. Julie very much wanted to get to the bottom of this affair. The only clue anyone had been a blurry copy of the ID card used to open the bank account. Since the ID number was linked to a child who died 20 years ago, it made it look like the bank was involved or was highly negligent. The common view was that Jane was a very clever slave with a blind spot: she could not recognize an obvious fraud. Somehow, criminals had pulled off a sophisticated fraud and made off with Jane and Amir's money.
Jane was grateful for her investment in her father's bicycle factory. She could tell people that the revenue from the bicycle factory allowed her and Amir to meet basic expenses without using their remaining money or relying on relatives. Jane told people that the college tuition and the rent were covered by the income from the factory. She recommended that everyone buy their bicycles from the Foreman Bike Works.
Peter was the lead person to go through the hard drive from California. It was clear that Roger Carter had a very detailed plan to transform the primitive form of computer networking into the more powerful form on which it was based. Roger's plan was to allow each fiber to take the role of the existing four primitive modes. If a company needed to use three modes, it would now need only one fiber instead of needing three fibers. A bonus was that the new software allowed for much faster transmission speeds. Considering how expensive dedicated computer lines were, the entity setting up the new system could charge huge fees. It would still be a bargain for the customer.
The new software was a Trojan horse. By setting a hidden mode, you could carry those four existing data modes plus “even better mode” mode that followed historical HTTP protocols. Once you had significant parts of the national network converted, you could “turn on” full HTTP traffic everywhere.
If one were actively converting cables to the more advanced setup, one could make huge sums of money well before the day came to “flip the switch.” To express this idea another way, it was a way of extending the $100 million war chest of the enterprise if one of their operations made significant profits before they could flip the switch. Once the whole enterprise was visible to all, they would make significant money from the rise in the value of their companies. They made the deliberate decision to use the fiber conversion project as a key funding mechanism for the whole project.
The other positive was that Roger had every detail worked out. Every computer program, every piece of equipment was listed and described. There were maps of cables, addresses of critical locations. It was one thing for Peter to look over this master plan and see that it was well crafted. The next step was to see if he could do a small project on his own. Peter did his best to locate equipment at his university to test. He was able to establish better communications with everything he worked on. He was so successful that his university wanted to hire him full time to upgrade all the computer cables on campus.
Peter was very enthusiastic about this project. The one thing that worried him was that it was clearly against the wishes of the billionaire class that ran the country. He was not sure that he could work out a way to keep his company from catching too much attention.
He had only two poorly worked out ideas. One thought was to support the needs of banks. If the enterprise could solve their data needs, it would be harder to think of them as “the enemy.” The other idea was to set up lots of regional offices, each with a different name so that this massive network of companies would not appear to be part of the same coordinated enterprise.
On another front, Emily constructed transitional identities for all members of the Five Couples. Each person got a new citizen ID card in the mail from Emily. No one dared ask her how these were obtained. The only instructions she gave were to hold onto these ID cards. Do not use them and do not let anyone else see them. Everybody wondered what was meant by “your transitional identity.”
There were nine college graduates in the Five Couples. Since Jane was auditing her courses, she did not get a degree. Jane was a voracious reader, and she went to countless lectures and presentations during her college years. Her intellectual curiosity was well known by anyone who had any dealings with her. Sarah said, “When this is all done, every university will be fighting with each other to give you an honorary Ph.D.” Jane just said, “If I just require a university to free their slaves and to give a free education to slaves and recently freed slaves, they will pause before giving me that great honor.”
The graduations happened all over the country. Amir and Jane were in Atlanta. There were graduations in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, and Denver. It was now time to get to work.
As soon as all of the college graduations were done, the Five Couples all traveled back to Warren Ohio. They held a three-day conference. At the end of each day, there was a wedding. On Monday, it was William and Sarah. On Tuesday, it was Peter and Becky. On Wednesday, it was Karen and Zach. The weddings were fun and functional. The alcohol was for the guests and lightly consumed by the Five Couples. Some of them secretly filled their glasses with alcohol-free bubbly to make it appear that they were fully celebrating.
Monday's conference was on the core product. Peter gave the presentation. Each couple had an assignment:
Tuesday's conference was on secrecy and tradecraft. Everyone was briefed on the core operational secrecy needed to keep the project hidden from view. Each person needed three separate identities: their normal name and identity, their cover name and identity, and a transitional name and identity. The transitional identity was to be used to travel from their normal house to their cover house.
Emily explained, “Everything in your normal house has to be clean. A single loose piece of paper could be your undoing. The rule is, assume that the police might search your house at any time. They should find nothing suspicious. People might ask what your source of income is. Just say, ‘I edit other students' papers. Right now I am working on someone's Ph.D. dissertation. I am being paid in food and barter.’ Another key problem is messaging. We want your computer system to collect your phone messages and securely relay them to a different location. You should be able to use a computer remotely to get your messages. If you can do this, you should have no trouble living a double life. Peter and Becky are working right now on the software to provide this capability to us.”
The tradecraft rules were complex. The biggest weakness was being followed by another car. After a lecture on the tradecraft of avoiding being tailed, everyone got into cars and practiced following and avoiding being followed. Everyone agreed that this was much more difficult than they thought.
Wednesday morning was devoted to focusing on the prize, transforming society. They all agreed that they were not doing this just to get rich. They could use their money to achieve specific social goals. They could also use the information platforms that they were rolling out to attempt to persuade people to push for a reform agenda. There was agreement that their money would help protect them from a counter-attack from the billionaires. But holding onto every dollar was not healthy or desired. If the population perceived them as being generous and helping build a better society, they would get a better reception for their social agenda.
There was a discussion of money, and how to divide the spoils of war. Jane presented a proposed split of ownership of the new enterprise. Each of the companies formed would be owned by one large holding company. The ownership of the holding company would be 5% for the Mitchell family, 30% for Amir and Jane, 15% for each of the other couples. There was a bonus of 5% for Zach and Karen because of the additional risk they would be taking for the heist and for their role in providing banking services for the enterprise holding company.
How much would they be able to pull in? Estimates ranged from $15 billion to $50 billion. A 15% share of $50 billion seemed like a huge payday for a college graduate who was tasked with working round the clock for the next five years. That was a splendid hourly wage. The talk of charity did not faze anyone. Everyone sensed that over time, a generous person often ended up with much more wealth than they had when they started.
Wednesday afternoon was spent focusing on individual assignments. Each couple was assigned to live in a paired city:
Jane announced that every three months, there would be a high-level meeting limited to the Five Couples and the key members of the Mitchell management team. These meetings would take place in St. Louis, and all participants should travel using their cover identity. Each company being formed should have a name that reflected financial services since that was an industry not being regulated. Peter's networking company needed a name reflecting “networking,” the group suggested Universal Networking Services, which sounded bland and unthreatening.
On Thursday morning, everyone got dressed as they had for their own wedding, including the two couples that had married the previous summer. A very special set of group portraits was made of the Five Couples in wedding gowns and tuxedos, with each person holding a single rose. Deb decided that she preferred a tuxedo. Everyone knew that these portraits would only be printed up when the product was released in about five years.
After the portrait taking, everyone went their separate ways. Where they were to live and work was already assigned to them. Everyone needed to do their part of building a complex network of companies. Eventually, these secretive companies would all work in harmony.
Each couple now had two identities. They had their normal identity, with the names their parents gave them. They now had a new identity called their transitional identity. This was to be used when moving to their cover identity. They were not to conduct business or make friends in the transitional identity. Each couple was given a budget to purchase two houses in their assigned city, one in an area where there were many houses visible from the front of the house. This was their “normal house,” where they were using their normal identity. As Emily had explained, at no time was there to be any contraband or suspicious items in their normal house, no matter how short a time this was to be. A paper document should be scanned, transmitted to a distant computer file, and then destroyed. It was as if they were on a mission in a hostile, foreign land.
They were also assigned to purchase a house close to farmland, about seven miles from their normal house, and which had no houses visible from the front of the house. This was to be their “transitional house.” It needed an attached, locked, two car garage. This was to be purchased only with their transitional identity. At no time was anything from their normal identity to be used in the purchase or use of the transitional house. Everyone awaited instructions on how to construct their cover identity.
Amir and Jane traveled to a small machine shop in Pennsylvania. The workers sawed off Jane's gold collar. It was replaced with a clever duplicate that used a magnetic key. Jane could now disguise herself as someone other than herself or as a trusted slave. They paid the workers two one-ounce silver coins, worth $2 thousand each. Amir knew that these people could keep a secret. They also manufactured “traps,” hidden motorized boxes on motorcycles and cars to hide money or drugs. Jane wondered how Amir knew about this shop, but she decided not to ask that question. Amir was always full of odd surprises.
Peter and Becky were the first ones to get their cover identity. They quickly purchased a house and a starting business location. It was not hard to get competent staff. Peter set up separate companies to take on different tasks. That way, the hardware people knew little about the software, and the software people did not know much about the hardware. The people who did the installation did not know the details of the generation of their technology. Only Peter and Becky held all the keys.
Zach and Karen also got their cover identities early. Zach actually had two cover identities, one for technical development and one for his role as a banker. His bank largely brokered loans with other banks. He managed to arrange massive loans, using Supreme Council bearer bonds as collateral. It was brilliant since it kept the serial numbers from being seen by the authorities. The full value of the bonds was diverted to needed funds to start all of these companies without selling a single bond.
The risk to Zach was considerable. This helped justify his additional 5% of ownership share. Zach and Karen each had four different cell phones and four different ID cards to keep straight. Zach later said, “I spent five years scared that I would say the wrong thing or use the wrong ID card. It was beyond crazy.”
At one of the St. Louis meetings, there were two surprise guests: Lucy and Samantha from Roger Carter's household. They were there to invest $50 million from The Lucy Foundation. The Lucy Foundation was a financial instrument for the personal slaves of Roger Carter. The investment would infuse another $50 million of needed funds. Altogether, they had $100 million from the heist and Jane, $50 million from this investment, and maybe $100 million to be pumped in from the networking business. This was a war chest that would take them over the finish line. As they were finding out, every project was costing more than they thought.
To make the investment, they needed to price the enterprise. It was a simple question. What percentage of this company can you buy with $50 million? They came up with the figure of $4 billion as the value of the enterprise at this stage. Thus, $50 million would constitute 1.25% of the enterprise. Since the original agreement between Jane and Mr. Mitchell was that he has 5% no matter what, all other shares were diluted to make room for this new investment.
There was a point of hilarity when Lucy and Samantha took off their scarves. Neither one had a slave collar. Lucy explained that Roger had secretly freed all of his slaves years and years ago. Since this would not be popular in Sunnyvale, they all pretended to keep their old status. They used removable collars to keep up the deception. Jane explained how she used a collar only when she was playing the role of Jane Foreman. Amir frowned when Jane said that. Jane added, “He always likes to walk me on a leash. I am going to get my collar back when this project is done.”
Lucy and Samantha said, “What you are doing is amazing. You are going to help everyone in the country. By the way, our fund started with $25 million from Roger. So far, we have doubled that. We expect this investment to be worth $500 million in five years. Our plan is to pay Roger back with $100 million. While Roger was not expecting to be paid back, we think giving him $100 million will be a wonderful thank you from his former slaves.”
The success of the Foreman Bike Works showed what could happen if a good company got good financing. There were now major bicycle factories in seven different locations around the country. In the last two years, the price of bicycles had fallen 40% due to the influence of the Foreman pricing policy. Since bicycles were the most common form of transportation, lower prices were good for everyone. Jane was determined to see that more good ideas would be properly financed if she had anything to do with it. Another bonus was that her stake in the bicycle factory was now quite valuable. She could buy what she wanted without worrying about anyone asking how she got the money.
That year, Emily and Danny did set up an agency to hire computer programmers. They explained that there was a large demand for computer programmers in the financial industry. No one questioned the extensive background checks or the requirements for signing extensive secrecy agreements.
Three years into the project, things had settled into a routine. Jane and Amir finished a three-day stretch in their public identity in Kansas City, Kansas. In the late afternoon, they got into their car and drove to their transition house near the edge of the city. Halfway there, they turned off their phones. Once in the isolated house, they opened the garage and put their wallets, ID cards, and phones on the car seat.
They got out of the car and knocked on the door to the attached house. An attractive couple, who strongly resembled Jane and Amir, came into the garage. Jane reached for a small magnetic tool that was kept in the garage. When the tool was placed on her gold collar and moved a tiny bit, the hidden catch opened up. Jane could open the hidden hinge and remove her collar. She handed the open collar to her double; she then expertly placed the collar around her neck. A slight wiggle of the magnetic tool locked the hidden latch. They checked that their clothes resembled each other.
The doubles put their wallets, ID cards, and phones in their own car, which Jane and Amir would be driving shortly. At this point, all the phones were turned off. The doubles drove away in Jane and Amir's car. As far as anyone could tell, they were Jane and Amir. They were going to a nice restaurant, and then to Jane and Amir's house. To anyone who was watching Jane and Amir's house, it would be as if Jane and Amir were taking a night out, and then getting home after a quiet night of entertainment and a meal.
About 45 minutes after the doubles drove away, Jane and Amir drove away from the garage, on their way to their cover house in Kansas City, Missouri. It was time to get back to work. Halfway there, they turned on their phones. As long as no one was able to observe the switch, they were safe in their new identities.
At their cover house, they took out their transition wallets and phones. These were placed in a hidden safe in their garage. From this safe, they pulled out their wallets and phones for their cover identity. Jane and Amir made sure they made a round trip every two weeks or so. Jane's private joke was that she could have chosen a blonde woman to take her role, and no one would know the difference. Once someone saw the gold collar and saw her in her house, she was Jane Foreman. Her appearance did not matter. Amir shook his head and said, “While that might be true, at a key moment, it was crucial that the woman occupying our house should closely resemble Jane Foreman.”
Three days after this transition, several cars drove close to Jane and Amir's house in the middle of the night. Four people in dark clothes rushed out of their cars and ran to the house. They pounded on the door and demanded that the door be opened immediately. The person playing the role of Jane put on a coat and opened the door. The men rushed in and demanded to know where Amir was. Once “Amir” came out of the bedroom, the house exploded with gunfire. Over 12 shots were fired. As far as the intruders were concerned, Jane and Amir were dead. One of the men walked over and very deliberately fired two shots into each of their heads. There was no doubt about their fate.
We need to acknowledge the true victims here, named Cynthia McCarthy and Paul Hanna. Their deaths would be silent; their families would be in agony over their vanishing into thin air. Only years later would they learn the sad and amazing truth.
One intruder focused on collecting the guns and picking up the bullet shell casings. The other three men quickly grabbed the computer and any papers that looked valuable. Nine minutes after the raid started, the four intruders drove off into the dark, leaving behind a horrifying crime scene.
Neighbors called the police. The police hated to deal with crimes like murder since there was no money to be had investigating a murder. This one was different. Fred Blair, the lawyer for Julie Hildebrandt, was with the police as they came to investigate. He said there would be a fat payday for the police, as long as they stripped the house of evidence and shipped everything to Sunnyvale, CA.
The police were primarily concerned about moving out all the contents of the house. They might as well have been hired to load a truck. They barely paid any attention to the dead bodies in the house. Since they had been shot in the heads, identification was difficult. But they had Jane and Amir's wallets, ID cards, and phones. Jane had on her collar, with the correct serial number in the metal, and issuing the correct ID signal. No further checking was thought to be necessary.
Jane and Amir's families were notified by the police in the morning. They were horrified and in deep grief. Jane and Amir never explained their double life to anyone outside of those that attended the St. Louis conferences. As far as their families were concerned, their hearts had just been ripped out.
Once Charles and Emily Mitchell heard the news they called Jane at her cover location. She was at work when Emily called via a phone patch that hid Emily's location. Emily was relieved to find out that the real Jane and Amir were fine. But the news was deeply distressing. Emily and Jane both wept on the phone as they thought about the distress of Jane and Amir's families. Emily could not think of any way to ease their agony. It was a blow to the gut, a reminder that they were not playing a game.
Charles called Amir's parents and offered his sincere condolences. Everyone agreed that they should be buried together in Warren Ohio. Charles knew that one way or another, the bodies would need to be reburied to be close to their true families. He made discrete inquiries as to how to arrange the caskets and burial to facilitate a re-burial.
The Five Couples had a code during phone calls. They would refer to someone as “the hard-working Peter” to refer to Peter in his cover identity. They would leave out the “hard-working” to refer to the public identity. The group used a phrase containing the word “that” to refer to the Jane or Amir double. Emily called the other members of the Five Couples to tell them, “The people that we love, Jane and Amir, are dead. We all need to gather in Warren for the funeral.” To be certain, most asked, “Is the president of the company OK?” Emily said, “I need to call others. You can read the news from the computer wire services. It is so tragic that the people who we are so fond of are no longer alive.”
Charles sent Danny to Kansas City as soon as possible to collect the bodies. Danny was also instructed to visit the transition household to secure any valuables and sentimental items. The one specific item he was asked to obtain was the magnetic collar tool from the garage. Danny got permission to walk through Jane and Amir's house. He was amazed that only large furniture items were left. When no one was looking, he removed the hidden hard drive from inside the computer desk. The computer's biggest secrets stayed in the house until Danny pulled it out.
The funeral was heartbreaking. Everyone laughed at the stories of Jane pretending to work at a brothel at night while she was in high school and all the other amazing tales of high school antics, and of a fortune gained and lost. For Amir's family, the loss was very tragic. Amir's grandfather had cast out Amir's father. Amir was poised to rebuild the reputation of his branch of the family. Now he was gone. He had so much promise and was so driven to succeed. And now he was gone in a hail of bullets.
The survivors of the Five Couples were in agony for knowing that Jane and Amir were alive and well. Tom Sawyer might have thought that watching his own funeral was a lark, but no one could say a word. Even trying to say, “Eventually, this will not hurt so much” seemed like trying to say the wrong thing. It was easier just to let the tears flow.
Each of the four couples placed a rose in each of the coffins. Each person cut a leather leash in two, placing one part in Jane's coffin and one part in Amir's coffin. Charles Mitchell placed an envelope in each coffin. Each envelope contained a piece of copper that had the true name of the deceased embossed on it. If no one was able to tell the real story, their true names were with them in the coffin for eternity.
Amir's parents and two couples carried Amir's coffin. Jane's parents and the other two couples carried Jane's coffin. The parents were assured that everyone knew what Jane and Amir wanted them to do, and they would make sure that their wishes would be fulfilled. They quietly told the parents that all of Jane and Amir's papers were missing, but they were sure Jane and Amir wanted their shares of the bicycle company to be placed into a charitable foundation, with the parents on the board of directors. It was a reassuring message on a bitter day.
While each person at the burial took a turn putting earth on the lowered coffins, Sarah whispered to Becky, “I hope, I hope that they were in love with each other. I cannot bear the thought that one or both of these people has a sweetheart who needs to know what has happened to their love.” Becky nodded. Losing a decoy was as painful as losing a key member of the team.