Take the Fourth (10 page)
Authors: Jeffrey Walton
Greg ran an in-house trace and received his information alright. This IP address resided somewhere within the CIA network and that somewhere was in the mountains of Virginia. So now he had the “where,” not the who just yet, and certainly not the why. The receiver was in his hands.
“Whatcha got?”
“What I don’t got, is an answer or a Simpson’s quote.”
“You liked them didn’t you?”
“Hell, I thought it was my birthday, you’re such a clever girl, more on that later. That IP report, I don’t know who changed it, they covered their tracks pretty good, they erased the journal files and entries from the backups and mirrors.”
“So we are talking who exactly?”
“Your answer is as good as mine but the next time they change the report access level I will have them, I wrote a wee bit of code into the report to trap the user id.”
“That could take a while I expect.”
“Yeah, maybe, not something you check on a regular basis, we, I mean you, might have to force their hand with something.”
“I’ll have to think then.”
“I’m sure you will being such a clever girl and all, also I reran the IP report with full level access set to two and found something weird.”
“What?”
“A strange IP address.”
“Let me guess, ending in twelve dot one six eight.”
“Damn, you’re good, shall I call you Carnac the Magnificent.”
“It’s like someone changed the access just to hide this one IP address.”
“I know, and the strange part is, you’ll find this interesting, the strange part is that the server is located within our network.”
“Ours? Where?”
“Oh, you know the place, in them hills,” with his best southern drawl.
Right away she knew in the Blue Mountains of Virginia, “there must be some highly classified material on that server.”
“My thoughts exactly, can you comb through your budget reports to see if this is mentioned anywhere? After all, you are probably paying for it, the DST deputy director should be aware of all its toys.”
“I will but that’s going to take some time, in the meantime, I want you to find out as much as you can about that machine, someone has taken some pretty good precautions to hide it, hide it from me, but why, who?”
“I will.”
“Do you need anything more from me?”
“What? . . . . Uh, no… . on my deathbed I will receive total consciousness… . so I got that goin’ for me.”
“Huh?”
“Gunga, gunga-galunga.”
“What…,” Jorja said quizzically.
“The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald… striking… . come on… . you’re killing me Smalls.”
“I thought you said no Simpsons quotes for my birthday.”
“It’s not… it’s from Caddyshack?”
“Never saw it… . sci-fi is my forte.”
“Never saw it? What… you’ve been living on Altair 4 your whole life?”
“Forbidden Planet, 19… . 1956… . see, see I know my stuff in that genre… . now tell HAL, Gort, and Robby to play nice and see what you can find me.”
“Okay, I’m impressed.” The mere fact that she mentioned three of the top computers/robots in cinematic history brought a clever smile to his face but the fact she knew the planet Lesile Neilson visited in the classic tale of the Tempest set in space floored him to no ends.
“Just remember that the facts…”
“You used that one last time, give me something new Jorja.”
“I was going to say before I was rudely interrupted, the facts can be dangerous, tread lightly my good friend, live long and prosper.”
Upon listening to the dial tone, he smiled and reminded himself, that’s the reason he loved his boss so much and would do anything for her, she was a nerd just like him, that and she was always quick with a sci-fi quote. He quickly slapped on his headphones and got to work while jamming to Metalica’s Sandman—“hush now baby, don’t say a word, never mind that voice you heard, it’s just the beast under your bed, inside your closet, in your head.”
. . .
I
t took Garfield two hours to arrive at Lynch’s office; he went to his station first to gather all the evidence. He knew it was a long shot that both cases were connected but something in his gut told him otherwise—something both Orlando and Charles had in common. They met at Lynch’s office since this was indeed the hot case and it was best for Detective Lynch to stay close to the phones. Garfield was not what Lynch was expecting. He expected someone much like his build, a bit girthy around the middle. Garfield was just the direct opposite, in other words, nothing in common, and at six-two, black, and built like a stone wall, Charles and Orlando were ebony and ivory to the stereotypical extreme… they could never make a cop buddy film that was serious.
“Thanks for coming down on such a short notice, Officer Garfield.”
“What do you think the chances are…”
“We’ll know much more shortly. I was thinking, if the cases are related that the date might be significant.”
“My thoughts exactly… I pondered that very thought during my ride down here. They are only a week apart but a year apart… . I was thinking anniversary or something.”
“So was I, so I did a bit of research and expanded my original search parameters to five years to see how many more hits we’d receive.”
“And?”
“And I found only one other missing child at or around our time frame… that was three years ago and was a four year old boy… that case is still unsolved as well.”
“So we are thinking the same thing here, no longer just a missing person’s report but a kidnapping. This could have been a first attempt, then switched to girls for some psychological reason.”
“I always thought it was a kidnapping, I’ll keep this bookmarked for the time being… so I’ve read your case file, very similar indeed, do you have all your interview notes with you?”
“Yes, but there was only one other person at the park that day and the only real clue that I received was a man in his late twenties or early thirties was seen looking for a dog.”
“Hmmmm, the eye witness report we received stated he was in his early forties, maybe late thirties.”
“Yeah, how did you manage to get a sketch of your perpetrator?”
“Well, a kid in his twenties was paid ten bucks so he could have a picture of his car.”
“And?”
“And that’s it… just a coincidence I know… but it happened on the same street as the park and within the same timeframe and I thought it was odd… how many people walk up to a complete stranger and ask for a picture of his car?”
“Good point, maybe it was some sort of three card monte… . you know make them look here, when the ace is over here . .How long was the kid waiting?”
“In total about twenty minutes, so we are on the same page here, he pays a kid to sit and wait by the park, hoping some onlooker will take notice. The car was a hot rod of sorts so plenty of people could pick it out of a lineup if asked; the bone is thrown over here, while he gets away in a plain Jane over here… three card monte as you say.” He paused a bit, glancing at Officer Garfield’s notes while completely blocking out Garfield’s next set of questions to where he only heard gibberish. After several seconds he then came back online with “Goddamn mother fucking bingo!”
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry… but these cases are the same sick twisted bastard… . I just read your notes from the interview… walked with a limp.”
“That should have been in the file.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Sure it is… . oh wait, right here… . on the back… . we did put out an APB but received no hits.”
“This is the same guy. I’m sure… and I bet my life on it that these two little girls are not the only ones.”
“You know looking at these two pictures side by side, these girls could be cousins or even sisters… same height, same build, almost the exact same length of hair… just shoulder length.”
They compared notes for a good solid hour until the phone rang. It was the Newenbergs. He just didn’t have time to comfort them. He basically told them he had a few solid leads and his prayers were with them… even though he wasn’t a religious man by any stretch of means… . far too much evil he saw in this world to be convinced otherwise. After the abrupt phone conversation, Charles pulled out a map of the state, hung it up on his cork board, and placed a red thumb tack where each little girl vanished, he was old-school. He then used an old fashion compass and drew two circles that signified a seventy-five mile radius from the vanishing points. The two circles overlapped much in the way a Venn diagram does.
Garfield stated, “There is a good chance that the sick twisted bastard lives within these circles somewhere.”
That brought the first smile to Lynch’s face since he started this case this morning.
“How do you take your coffee?”
“Like me.”
“Excuse me?”
“Like me… . black.”
That brought the second smile and Charles quickly walked to the break room for two cups of straight black coffee and a badly needed cigarette break. Five minutes later he arrived back at his office and Orlando was standing by the corkboard holding the compass. There were now three interlocking circles on the board and the one he drew also contained the two red thumb tacks.
“Here, hot and black”
“Thanks, I hope you don’t mind but I took the liberty and drew a third circle, originating from Ripley’s hometown. Tanya was taken from her hometown so I just wanted to see if the two overlapped.”
“Okay, it looks as though we have a bit more research to do. I only did research from my crime scene outward. I didn’t think to look from her hometown outward… maybe she was followed, stalked.”
With that Lynch brought up the case database on his computer and Orlando moved in just over his shoulder. His new search parameters started at a town right in between Ripley’s and Tanya’s., a seventy-five mile radius and within the past year. There was one hit, still open… so he drilled down to read the case file. Becky Timberstone, age four reported missing on May 4
th
of this year, disappeared from a playground, and the kicker… also blonde. No reported witnesses.
“What’s your gut telling you, Garfield?”
“That our anniversary theory is shit.”
Their map was beginning to look like a pond after someone threw in a handful of pebbles. They drew seventy-five mile radius circles from Ripley’s hometown, Tanya’s hometown, Becky’s hometown, and they found a few more hits in the database. They divided the case load and Lynch hooked Garfield up with a colleague’s computer and password. After an hour or so they each came back with one possible match. Five in total and all within the past year, although one was slightly older at age eight but all other statistics matched… female and blonde and still way too young.
For several minutes, maybe more like ten or so, they focused on the map and its circles, knowing all too well that the sick twisted bastard lived within one of them—not one word between them during this time. Each of them had a mind moving forward, thinking and rethinking.
Garfield broke the silence, “Do we have a picture of Anna, the eight year old?”
“No, it’s not in the file.”
“Can we get someone on the phone? . . . We need a fax or email.”
It was coming in on eleven at night but the Barnsville Police department was more than helpful and at roughly 11:07 they had a picture of Anna. Garfield walked up to the map and removed the Anna thumbtack, then grabbed a yellow highlighter from Lynch’s desk and highlighted a circle… it contained all four remaining thumbtacks, it contained all four of the missing little girls, it contained Ripley’s hometown, and it also contained Ripley’s vanishing point. And just like that it was a clue that could break the case wide open or even better, return Ripley home but time was ticking ever so fast. Eight year old Anna had short brown ear length hair. It was a gut feeling both men shared.
. . .
S
o now Greg had a task at hand. It was a challenging task to say the least but he was about to embark on his favorite journey, one that was even better than Frodo or Bilbo Baggins’, a journey where he got to play with his toys and prove just how smart he was to Jorja, to his boss. With that in mind he brought all his monitors to life and cannonballed into the data pool.
His first order of business was to see if he could talk to the machine. He quickly opened a command prompt and tried a few commands. The first was to ping again, and yes he received a reply. The next order of business was to open a line of communication and he tried to telnet into the box. This was a standard communication protocol between computers. He received no response. He tried another protocol called ssh, then ftp, nothing, then he tried another, and another, and yet another, no response each time. Next was plan B. If he couldn’t communicate with the box, just who can? He brought up the IP report again and tried to find an average hit ratio, just how often was this box being used. It seemed as though over the past months, the number of hits grew; he pinpointed some of the past months’ highs and lows. One particular high hit day was Dec. 23
rd
of last year, another was for a few weeks ago, right away, Greg knew Dec. 23
rd
would be forever etched in his brain right alongside of nine-eleven. He thought that was a strange coincidence. The other high note, he did a bit of research, turns out that day was a high level alert day at airports across the country. He then rationalized that this might have something to do with the boys of Homeland, “but why was this machine on our network, they have their own network?” He needed to set up a trace so he could see where the hits to this IP address originated. He would need Jorja’s help to do this since she had the authority to maintain hardware protocols and this was going to take more than a few lines of coding but before her help, he proceeded to plans c and d just in case.
Jorja was back at her desk also doing her part in the investigation. She brought up the inventory report and narrowed in on the stuff over in the hills of Virginia. She could probably tell how many rolls of toilet paper were left in the janitor’s closet if she wanted to… . this thing had everything on it… . well almost everything, she quickly realized the janitor’s closet was bigger than she anticipated. She also thought about doing a manual check but she didn’t know how to quite pull this one off… she had never been to the hills and just couldn’t go waltzing in without the proper credentials, besides she would need that from her boss and she didn’t want to tell her boss about anything just yet. Everybody had secrets, she knew that much, especially people in the CIA, especially people with higher credentials, yes Jorja needed to soft-toe around the water cooler that’s for sure, and she had to watch her back along with Greg’s.
She went back to her thoughts, back to her reports. The inventory reports turned up nothing; next she checked the budget reports. She was searching for that proverbial needle in the haystack. The CIA had billions at their disposal and trying to find a legitimate figure within the two hundred dollar toilet seat covers was next to impossible. She wondered just how big this server/machine was, how powerful it was, that could tell quite a bit and give her better odds at finding it. She was hoping it wasn’t some cheap server, something just about any fifth grader could build these days. Jorja has built her share of computers and servers were no different. All that was needed was a motherboard, cpu, hard drive, some internal memory, software, and then from there it was pretty much plug and play and all that could be done for under $200. No, Jorja was hoping for something much bigger, much more powerful, something from the likes of IBM, SUN, or HP. Her hope waned as she spent the next several days reading page after page of figures in her spare time. She even looked through hardware requests and approvals and found nothing. It was though someone just brought in a computer and plugged it into the network. Something like that just does not happen on the most powerful network in the world. Someone plugs something in, and someone somewhere knows about it and sure as shit someone knows about this little puppy, someone, somewhere.
For Greg, things were no different. It took him a few days to execute plans c and d and just like Jorja, they turned up zilch. He needed to go to plan b. On his way back from the vending machine with a mid-afternoon caffeine pick-me-up in his hand he stopped by Jorja’s office.
“Come on in,” Jorja said as she was coming back from a meeting, “You find anything?”
“No luck whatsoever, which I have to tell you, is strange for me.”
“No luck on this end either, I think I’ve combed through every report that we have to offer.”
“I have a plan b.”
“B? You are only on plan b, I’m disappointed.”
“No, no, no, I thought of plan b right after plan a, but proceeded to c,d,e,f, geez I forget where I left off maybe w, well anyway, plan b involves hardware installation. We have to swap out the main hub in the server room and it’s not like I can go prancing in without proper authority. Those guys in there hate me.”
“Hate you, why?”
“Because just about anything they can do, I can sidestep, with the exception of swapping out hardware to bypass hard coded encryption chips within the hubs.”
“You have access to the mail room, you can make the switch there, actually go ahead and order what you need, I’ll okay the request, then once we have the new and improved hub with the right encryption chip for your needs, I’m sure you can Photoshop a legitimate shipping label, then we’ll just ship it to the IT department, and they’ll install it for us, just when you do, order the newest hub, make sure it’s their latest top of the line model. It’s always easier to force a swap when there is an upgrade involved.”
“I already have the label printed,” he said with a smirk, “and we want the ic5300 with 32 gigabit ports, this baby is going to fly.”
Over the next few days Greg and Jorja were on the same page in regarding this IP address. They wanted to know more. It took a few days for the new hub to arrive and it was just a matter of swapping out the encryption chip that Greg had obtained through improper channels. Hardware encryption was one of the hardest to break but if one had the right chip and knew the encryption methods the odds were in their favor. Greg had friends everywhere; that’s one of the main reasons he was so valuable, though most of these so-called friends could very well have ended up on the FBI’s most wanted list with ease, if it wasn’t for Greg’s ability to keep them under wraps and under the radar. This chip Greg had obtained came out of Taiwan just days before and shipped to a drop off place, from there it was simply placed in one of those Amazon a to z swish cardboard boxes and shipped right to his cubical. Jorja had the hub sitting in her office and the switch was made there and sent to the mail department. From there it would be installed within a day once the IT department received it along with the hardware request form signed by Jorja.
Two days later they were in business. The new chip within the hub allowed Greg to peek inside the message header of the incoming request to this server. Each time a message is sent from one computer to another this message is wrapped in a package much like the analogy of a letter and envelope. The package contains the original message, along with the address as to where this information is to be sent then wrapped in any encryption protocols that is needed along the way. At any one time if someone or something would receive this package and take a peak, they would only see gibberish unless they had the actual keys to break the encryption. This is where Greg’s Taiwanese chip came in handy. He was able to break the encryption because he had the keys to open the lock, although he only had the keys to decrypt the address layer of the message. The rest of the message was still encrypted and even the best of the CIA computers couldn’t crack a 128 bit encryption method quite easily, that could take months, years, even decades to do even with the most powerful computers man had to offer. Greg didn’t care, he just wanted to see the address layer, where the information was coming from, and after a few moments he had learned all its secrets, and was shocked as hell as he and Jorja saw the address flash on their monitors.
One of the most famous addresses in the entire world flashed on his screen, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the White House itself. Both Greg and Jorja gasped for air and didn’t say a word. It was made clear that the President and his Chief of Staff, Scott Norwood, had hit the server the most. What the hell did they just stumble upon? Yeah, the President and his chief had access to the CIA’s network at a moment’s whim, even Homeland Security, and the FBI, but hitting a server well hidden from just about everybody, well then, they wanted to know more. But they also knew they were in dangerous waters, very dangerous waters, shark infested waters, shark infested waters with blood. This added yet another layer of complexity to the situation. If this box was used by the President then why didn’t anybody know? The network of friends had to be complex as well. They both thought privately amongst themselves then Jorja broke the silence.
“Greg, what are you thinking?”
“Oh how I wish we didn’t know what we know now… . knowing what we know now I want to know more.”
“Ummmm, yeah… my thoughts but not exactly, it’s like my Silence of the Lamb poster.”
“Why?”
“It’s a picture within a picture.”
“Excuse me?”
“Take a close look at that poster.”
“Yeah?”
“See the moth?”
“I may wear contacts but I’m not blind.”
“Ever see within the moth’s head,” before he could answer, “In the moth’s head, there is a picture of a skull, it’s plain as day when you first notice it, sort of like the hidden arrow in the Fed Ex logo, once you see it, you always see it.”
“So a picture in a picture, like the Droste Effect.”
“Not exactly, that’s different, that’s the same imagine being mirrored over and over. Looking even closer at the skull on the moth, you’ll notice something even more; you’ll notice the skull is actually a picture of seven naked women from a famous Dali photograph.”
“Well I’ll be damned.”
“Well I have the feeling there is a lot more to this computer than meets the first glance.”
“I know, I know.”
“There is something very peculiar in this IP address, first it’s embedded within our network, next it’s hidden in the hills, and now it seems to be only used by the President and his Chief of Staff.”
“Not to mention, I forgot to tell you, that the hits to this server seem to peak during a country crisis.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I was able to pull average hits from the IP report and there happened to be a correlation with hits and crisis, take the Mall Massacre, there were over five hundred hits on that day alone, most days it seems to be about ten to twenty, again, remember a few weeks ago, the high level alert at the airports, over three hundred hits.”
“The more and more we talk the more and more my curiosity piques, Greg, I need you to take the next steps, we found the who and the where, now we need to focus on the why, we’ll worry about the how later.”
“In order to do that I’m going to have…”
“Don’t say it, I think you know what I’m talking about.”
And without saying a word, Greg knew it meant spying on the President, but he too could rationalize it, everyone had to be monitored on the system, be it the President or Jorja, no surfing for porn on the company dime, they save that for the boys over at the FBI, searching for child pornography was their excuse.
Greg was also able to decrypt the communication layer, now he was able to talk to the machine, well sort of, it was asking for a login and password. He went straight for root as the login and root as the password but couldn’t be so lucky. He stopped there knowing full well if he were to attempt any more break-ins a flag would be raised and if they, the ones who configured this server knew what they were doing, his first failed attempt should signal the red flag. He was praying they were not bright but then reality had set in realizing whoever set this up in the first place knew pretty damn sure how to hide it, and hide it from pretty much the best in the field, himself included.
. . .