"Are you telling me," Higgins spoke carefully, "that you and this . . .hacker, illegally entered a bank computer and changed records and . . ."
"Whoah!" Scott held up his hands to slow Higgins down. "We left everything the way it was, no changes as far as I could tell."
"Are you sure?"
"No, I'm not. I wasn't in the driver's seat. I went along for the ride."
"What else did you do last night, Scott?" Higgins sounded re- signed to more bad news. The legal implications must have been too much for him to handle.
"We poked around transfer accounts, where they wire money from one bank to another and through the Fed Reserve. Transaction accounts, reserves, statements, credit cards. Use your imagina- tion. If a bank does it, we saw it. The point is, John, I need to know two things."
John Higgins sat back, apparently exhausted. He knew what was coming, at least half of it. His expression told Scott to ask away. He could take it.
"First, did I do anything illegal, prosecutable? You know what I mean. And, can I run with it? That's it."
Higgins' head leaned back on the leather head rest as he began to speak deliberately. This was going to be a lawyer's non-answer. Scott was prepared for it.
"Did you commit a crime?" Higgins speculated. "My gut reaction says no, but I'm not up on the latest computer legislation. Did you, at any time, do anything to the bank's computers?"