Wednesday story day again (already) and last week our happy thespians got a shock from Mrs. Wolfe. She laid out a plan to extort four million dollars by threatening to blow up the student union. We didn’t stay around long enough to get the kid’s reactions so let’s go back now and see what they have to say.
“Mom, you’ve got to be kidding. No one is going to turn over four million dollars just because we say we are going to blow up the student union.”
“No, you are right. You back it up with a plan to go ahead and blow it if they don’t pay.”
“So Mrs. Worthe, you are saying we plant the explosives and then only blow it if they don’t pay?”
“That’s right Einstein.”
“But Mrs. Worthe, what’s to stop them from going in and disarming the bombs?”
“I’m so glad I mentioned this plan. You people seem to be concentrating on all the wrong things. Let me explain one more time.”
“Mom, We are not stupid.”
“I think we can include your father in that group, but I’ll admit y’all have some brains.”
“Nice dear.”
“Okay now that we have heard from the entire peanut gallery here’s the plan. Ben you and Alexis go into the union about two weeks in advance. You place the explosives in the basement. They will be in containers labeled Fire Prevention do not Move or Touch. We can also add something like by order of the fire marshal. I think this kind of disguise will prevent the cleaning crew from messing with them.”
“Boy, I like that.”
“Thanks, Ben. Then we will use cell phone detonation devices so that we can control when the stuff goes off or not. Ben, you asked about someone disarming the devices. We will include in the letter that any attempt to disarm will cause immediate detonation. Also, I think we should double arm the device. If they should get to the cell phone, we can have another underneath the C4 to use. You can wire that can’t you Ben?”
“You bet Mrs. Worthe.”
“Good boy. So once we have everything in place, we send the letter.”
“Mom, how will we be able to collect the money?”
“Ah, my child. You just hit on the one thing that usually trips up folks who try to extort money from others. We are not going to have a physical drop. We all know the cops will be all over that spot and the minute we try a pick-up they got one of us. No, we are smarter.”
“What kind of drop my dear? I can’t think of an alternative.”
“That’s because your brain has been soaked in booze, my love. We are going to use an offshore account.”
“Mom they will be able to trace that kind of thing.”
“Not if it goes through several iterations and then ends up in a nonexistent account.”
“You can do that?”
“Of course. Your daddy and I have been using off-shore for some transactions. The nice thing is once you cross the Ukraine a couple of times data seems to disappear.”
“Mom you amaze me.”
“I amaze myself sometimes. How about a drink? I’m parched with all this talking.”
