“Not to mention,” Catherine said. “You know, there was a memo going around the other day about salary and bonus structures. It’s supposed to be confidential, but I’m sure your father wouldn’t mind.”

“Not if we don’t tell him,” Cordelia said.

“I think I saw him put it in here.” Catherine pulled open the top right desk drawer and also the built-in shelf above it. Taped to that was a white index card on which was neatly written in fountain pen ink, CoRdELiA44#! Catherine looked at it, pushed the shelf in, glanced in the open drawer, and closed that, too.

“I guess not,” she said, “but yeah, in banking, you can do very well.”

Messages

MESSAGES

The email from Catherine arrived at 3 a.m. Rafe opened it as soon as he woke up. The message read, “For the party we’re planning!” Attached was a folder labelled “Sarah’s Surprise Party.” It contained lists of guests and party supplies and menu items (“Don’t forget the salsa, if you can find any here!”). Every list had a blank page at the end, and some had blank pages in the middle (the guest list skipped a page between Suzanne Selzer and Kip Thomas). They were the kind of random formatting errors that can occur if one isn’t careful. Rafe went to the first blank page and dragged and clicked his cursor to select the entire blank space. It turned blue. Then he opened the ribbon at the top of the screen and clicked to open the menu of font colors. He selected black, and the contents of the page, which had been there all along, white letters invisible on a white background, appeared like magic. There were numbers, and transaction dates and amounts, and the names of account holders. He repeated the process for all the blank pages and took special note of the names, which he proceeded to google, one by one.

Stavro texted Majid, asking if the short sale of the cruise line had been accomplished. Majid replied that he was still looking to borrow the shares. Stavro texted again the next day, and Majid replied the same thing.

Then Stavro started texting on a different subject, first angry, then frantic, then more frantic. You made a mistake . . . Text me . . . What the hell did you do?. . . Get back to me now . . . Now!

Majid did not reply.

Designated Nationals

DESIGNATED NATIONALS

“Can I ask you,” Armstrong said, “where did you get this information? It’s all confidential.”

Rafe shook his head with a sad smile. “They don’t even tell me about sources and methods,” he said. “Informers? Whistleblowers? Wiretaps? It’s need-to-know. But you’re not denying that it’s accurate, are you? That you do handle these accounts?”

“Honestly,” Armstrong said, “I don’t know. Some of these go back a few years. I’d have to check. I’m new in this branch.”