This entry intends to discriminate my previous blogosphere contributions in the area of news blogging with this completely different PURELY FICTIONAL web log publishing conjured up solely by my ever expanding imagination and personal interpretations of the world around me.
The dates associated with the blog posts are irrelevant and merely provide organization to the story and its chapters. Read from the top of the site to the bottom. The most recent chapter is at the bottom. Click the "older posts" link to find chapters beyond the bottom of the page.
I welcome any and all suggestions for improvement. Please provide comments.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Chapter 1 - The Watchmaker
Carla Borlino sat alone on the well-worn bench within Metro Center along the northbound side of Washington’s Red Line subway. Normally, she would not be here this early in the afternoon ahead of the rush hour crowds. The platforms were mostly empty aside from the groups of families and tourists that were transiting the town by passing through the hub of Washington’s multi-line Metro going from one colored-line to another traveling amongst the nation’s historical landmarks, vast memorials, and government institutions. The seat next to her was unavailable for others to sit, due to the heavy file folder box she had dropped down with a heavy thud of relief. It was no matter, no one was looking for the seat. Carla was the only one sitting still in the massive intersection of the tunnels around her. Everyone else passed this way or that with hurried intentions to reach other destinations.
Carla lifted the lid to the standard-issue, plain white cardboard box next to her and began digging through the eclectic collection of items inside then removed a white 8 ½ x 11 lined pad of note paper, along with, the only pen she was able to find among her things. She crossed her right leg over her left knee exposing a handsomely tailored pant-suit from underneath the khaki overcoat she was wrapped within. Carla pressed the pad to her right calf and shin which provided her with a surface to write against. She no longer had her company issued blackberry nor pc. Email was not an option. She could not be reached nor reach anyone until she could get to her home north of downtown along the red line in the Cleveland Park neighborhood.
Her daily commute had been one of the best perks of her job. A few direct stops north or south along the western side of the red-line’s direct route. Day in and day out she had worked a demanding twelve-plus hour day - weekdays, weekends and even holidays in the line of duty. She had committed herself completely to her career in neglect of her family, her twin four year-old daughters - whom she loved with all her heart – and her estranged husband. At this hour, and on this day of the week, Carla knew Luka had the girls for several more planned hours and would be expecting to have them for the night, again like every other night that Carla worked too late. Her daughters are in the best hands, she thought.
With pen in hand, she set it to the blank white top sheet of paper and started composing the letter she had written in her head hundreds of times over the past three years.
Luka:
I Lost! Its all been taken away. I can’t get it back.
They walked me out of my building under escort, as if a criminal. I have been placed on Administrative leave “until further notice” because my security clearance was revoked due to excessive debt and my continuing therapy sessions with Dr. Card. These events were out of my hands. Please understand, please believe me.
Three years ago – as soon as I went back to work after having the girls – my life changed dramatically. I began to feel and now recognize that I was manipulated extensively through pressures put upon me deliberately, including financial hurdles and obstructions, turmoil instigated in our marriage, and through intentional and deliberate efforts to initiate and accelerate the destruction of my health…..
The remainder of the letter detailed extensively the people, places, dates, times, methods and purposes behind a vast conspiracy Carla knew had been turned against her to make her go away. The final aggression against her – today’s events – were described in detail and depicted along a timeline that Carla had drawn from top to bottom along the left margin of the notepad. Her accusations were incredible – quite literally. She knew that Luka, if anyone, would believe her - despite the fact that the charges she listed in her five-page letter, were made against the highest leadership within the Pentagon and Whitehouse who she knew to be in sinister collaboration with her employer, International Security Solutions (ISS) – the largest intelligence contractor in the United States. Luka will understand, she held firmly.
The final sentence read simply: “Please tell Mallory and Rebecca that I love them.”
Carla separated the pages from the pad carefully along the perforation. She folded all five pages and wrote her final words along the blank side of the last page using the middle fold to address it as if an envelope. Luka – I love you.
Confident in her understanding of the facts that led to her manufactured personal destruction and the corner she had been painted in, Carla laid the letter on top of the pile of items in the box beside her, returned the pen, then shut the lid.
Carla stood, removed her trench coat, and laid it down on the bench where she had been sitting. She felt as if a weight had been lifted from her - much greater than her heavy outer garment or the box of personal effects she had lugged along with her today.
The wind began to exhale from the tunnel to Carla’s right as the fourth or fifth train since she sat down approached the station. The train’s wheels squealed as the brakes were applied to begin decelerating from the high speed it traveled between stations in preparation to stop along the length of the platform to discharge and onboard its’ passengers.
The dark tunnel began to illuminate brightly from the rapid approach of the train’s headlights.
Carla breathed in deeply then exhaled slowly pacing her breath her steps. She closed her eyes just as the platform ended in front of her. She was startled by the sense of falling. She instinctively thought to extend her hands forward to brace her impact. There was not enough time for them to move nor for Carla to complete her thought before the impact from her right. The train crashed into her at 45 miles per hour slamming her hard onto the tracks. Her body was run over by the first and second cars of the train shredding her into a lifeless collection of flesh bones and a lot of blood.
The station collapsed into hysteria. Many within the train had been injured by the abrupt stop attempted by the driver to spare the jumper's life. People were screaming in pain and desperation. Commuters inside the station were either racing to help the wounded or dialing 911 on their cell phones.
Security Management Agency (SMA) Supervisory Analyst, Sergeant Major Burt Paulson walked through the hysteria down the length of the platform toward the spot where Carla had jumped. Without notice, he opened the file box left behind on the bench and removed the letter addressed to Carla’s husband. He placed it within his jacket in the inside breast pocket and walked with a calm yet deliberate pace against the rush of arriving first responders to the station’s exit. Pulling his blackberry from the case attached to his belt, he typed a message that he knew would send shockwave’s through the highest levels of the U.S. intelligence and security communities.
“COUNSELOR committed suicide at 14:27. Metro Center. Full response in progress.”
The text message would be received and immediately assigned the highest priority for relay through the SMA incident management enterprise systems to the leaders of the nation’s broad community of intelligence and security agencies across each of the three branches of the government.
“Boom!,” Bart thought to himself as he depressed the send button on the phone.
Next, Sergeant Major Paulson dialed the phone number he had burned into his memory on a separate pay-as-you-go phone he had purchased for this single use.
The call was answered on the other end with silence, as expected. Bart spoke clearly and concisely informing the call’s receiving party, “The patient is dead.” He hung up the line and dropped the phone into a trash can as he reached the street level at the end of the tall escalator he had just ridden up out of the transfer station below. As he reached the street’s curbside he was met immediately by a dark SUV with government license plates. Bart opened the SUV’s passenger door and entered the vehicle. He was driven from the scene without any resistance.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Chapter 2 - Open Season
September 3oth was exceptionally cool this year with a cold front pushing down from the north ahead of hurricane Melvin. On this day, as expected, Atled's coffee shop was deserted compared to every other week of the year. Only the most regular - and most elite - of the normal clientele would be congregating on this colder-than-expected, rainy day. For the many regulars not so fortunate, today promises to entail the most miserable day of the year, the end of the government's fiscal year. Patrons from the FBI, DHS, Treasury, and the CIA are the norm on a Friday morning such as this. Their fading tans subtly mimic the internal discomposure many of them have been dealing with for years working in this town. Washington, DC was in fact considered the most elite of assignments... for ever other country in the world. Working here, and working for us was not the same as the glamorous tales I can see glorified in the titles of the brilliantly colorful paperbacks on the revolving rack between me and my target at the high power java hut located at 501 15th ST NW.
Today we needed to justify everything. Our targets were most likely to remain in high enough significance survive the end of the fiscal year funding war that threatened all of us.
[CONFIRMED] .. was heard by everyone as the facial recognition algorithms had completed their independent analysis. This was a given. We knew who we were trailing and we hadn't let him out of our sight in seven years. The amazing thing about the technology was its accuracy. Once pointed at someone, it never failed to find them in a crowd.
Finne Seldnac, Jr. was browsing about the family health section slowly sipping his latte. It was quite surreal to see him strolling about the deserted corner retailer with little knowledge of the massive entourage of Federal agents that had preceded him into his usual morning habitat. Everything was following the common operating procedure estimate that had been developed and refined over the last six and one-half years officially surveiling Finne.
Today was the day, though. It had all been put into place.
In an attempt to blend into my environment, I reach for a copy of Patterson's Roses are Red to avoid eye contact with the man I have been chasing for the last half-decade. Just then, I saw him twitch - again. It was subtle, yet so obvious if you were paying attention - which had become my life. I couldn't help feeling like I was at the poker table and I had finally found my opponent's "tell".
Then again, such an assessment was too simple...too easy... and therefore too hard to believe in. Nothing easy is ever worth it from my experience.
This case was supposed to be easy when it was sold to me... just like the rest of them. But, I really did believe this one was a simple up-and-downer... Set 'em up and take 'em down. The story looked so true when I took the SAC position, but I have learned a lot since then. Finne wasn't the kingpin he was sold to me as, but it didn't matter.... I had twelve million dollars of "retirement funds" invested in this case and almost one hundred full time agents engaged in this operation.
Finne was done.... It will end today.
Today we needed to justify everything. Our targets were most likely to remain in high enough significance survive the end of the fiscal year funding war that threatened all of us.
[CONFIRMED] .. was heard by everyone as the facial recognition algorithms had completed their independent analysis. This was a given. We knew who we were trailing and we hadn't let him out of our sight in seven years. The amazing thing about the technology was its accuracy. Once pointed at someone, it never failed to find them in a crowd.
Finne Seldnac, Jr. was browsing about the family health section slowly sipping his latte. It was quite surreal to see him strolling about the deserted corner retailer with little knowledge of the massive entourage of Federal agents that had preceded him into his usual morning habitat. Everything was following the common operating procedure estimate that had been developed and refined over the last six and one-half years officially surveiling Finne.
Today was the day, though. It had all been put into place.
In an attempt to blend into my environment, I reach for a copy of Patterson's Roses are Red to avoid eye contact with the man I have been chasing for the last half-decade. Just then, I saw him twitch - again. It was subtle, yet so obvious if you were paying attention - which had become my life. I couldn't help feeling like I was at the poker table and I had finally found my opponent's "tell".
Then again, such an assessment was too simple...too easy... and therefore too hard to believe in. Nothing easy is ever worth it from my experience.
This case was supposed to be easy when it was sold to me... just like the rest of them. But, I really did believe this one was a simple up-and-downer... Set 'em up and take 'em down. The story looked so true when I took the SAC position, but I have learned a lot since then. Finne wasn't the kingpin he was sold to me as, but it didn't matter.... I had twelve million dollars of "retirement funds" invested in this case and almost one hundred full time agents engaged in this operation.
Finne was done.... It will end today.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Chapter 3 - Artificial Reality
Jack Wooten appeared ten years older than he had actually aged. If you knew him - truly knew him, however, you would be convinced that he had gained the wisdom of ten times the number of generations he had actually experienced in life. Jack was a self-sufficient, yet infinitely backed special agent for the newest and most secret organization the United States had ever chartered. Jack commanded the deep-cover domestic intelligence agency known only to the highest levels of the U.S. intelligence community as the Security Management Agency (SMA) which had been formed along with the creation of the office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI).
Only Jack's direct superior in the new intelligence hierarchy, the director of SMA, would ever come between his reports and the DNI, National Security Council and the President of the United States. The SMA operated at a level of authority equivalent to the Director of Central Intelligence. However, even the D/CIA had no knowledge of SMA, its mission, or its resources.
SMA allowed Jack to operate below everyone's radar, yet in plain view. His direct funding was funneled through classified channels in the DEA and ICE primarily used to secure paid informants. Knowledge of who actually received payments through these channels was secured by a minimum of three layers of separation of information between the funds distribution and the eventual payee. Most importantly, this budget was entirely off the books and completely beyond public or Congressional scrutiny.
Jack was an entrepreneur with his funding. That was the only reason he was able to carry his current case as long as he had. He wasn't as much of a financial genius as he was lucky. During the run up to the Year 2000, Jack had invested millions of dollars into technology companies through multiple online investment accounts he established through his cover. In late 1999, Jack pulled everything out and moved it into a secure Treasury bond account just before the stock market bubble burst. Fear of the Y2K effect on his access to the funds he had amassed in his franchise within SMA motivated him to seek low-risk investments to safeguard his capital before the bottom dropped out. His decision was brilliant in the minds the agents he commanded. For he was the only SAC to retain his entire team during the Y2K wealth transfer. In fact, he had actually hired most of the agents that had to be let go from the other six SMA Sacs. Jack's team at seven years old had grown to 120 agents. 120 mortgages and families depended on Jack's leadership. Jack felt the weight of his responsibility to his subordinates’ livelihoods immensely.
Jack constantly was tormented by the decisions that were made to get him and his team into the situation with the case they had developed. SMA Team 6 walked the finest of lines between covert operations and public scandal on a daily basis. It had been a miracle that Jack and his team had not been exposed by any number of political, commercial, or activist organization intent on exposing waste, fraud, abuse, and violations of civil liberties by the Federal government. His secret - he paid every one to cooperate. And once they were paid - they were just as guilty as he was.
[Target is exiting the Operational Perimeter] This was expected as Finne always left through the 15th street exit at Atled's on his way back to his office.
Once outside, the external sensors reporting from the telephone lines and tree limbs monitored Finne's movement in micro-second detail. Statistical analysis was performed on his every movement by the Universal Production Server parked in the truck on the corner. At this point in the game, Jack's agents had 250 "pets" watching Finne on their behalf. Everyone was comfortable with the wide band-width analysis interface between the local surveillance network of cameras and sensors and the UPS. Twelve generations of software improvements had gone into the decision support engine of the UPS and the communications interface with the agents had proven to be flawless.
[Operational Perimeter Established] was heard through everyone's micro comm. Finne had just crossed the line between OP6 and OP5. He was headed back into his office. Everyone could stand down now for an hour or two while he was monitored at his desk by several remote sensors.
It was time for breakfast.
Only Jack's direct superior in the new intelligence hierarchy, the director of SMA, would ever come between his reports and the DNI, National Security Council and the President of the United States. The SMA operated at a level of authority equivalent to the Director of Central Intelligence. However, even the D/CIA had no knowledge of SMA, its mission, or its resources.
SMA allowed Jack to operate below everyone's radar, yet in plain view. His direct funding was funneled through classified channels in the DEA and ICE primarily used to secure paid informants. Knowledge of who actually received payments through these channels was secured by a minimum of three layers of separation of information between the funds distribution and the eventual payee. Most importantly, this budget was entirely off the books and completely beyond public or Congressional scrutiny.
Jack was an entrepreneur with his funding. That was the only reason he was able to carry his current case as long as he had. He wasn't as much of a financial genius as he was lucky. During the run up to the Year 2000, Jack had invested millions of dollars into technology companies through multiple online investment accounts he established through his cover. In late 1999, Jack pulled everything out and moved it into a secure Treasury bond account just before the stock market bubble burst. Fear of the Y2K effect on his access to the funds he had amassed in his franchise within SMA motivated him to seek low-risk investments to safeguard his capital before the bottom dropped out. His decision was brilliant in the minds the agents he commanded. For he was the only SAC to retain his entire team during the Y2K wealth transfer. In fact, he had actually hired most of the agents that had to be let go from the other six SMA Sacs. Jack's team at seven years old had grown to 120 agents. 120 mortgages and families depended on Jack's leadership. Jack felt the weight of his responsibility to his subordinates’ livelihoods immensely.
Jack constantly was tormented by the decisions that were made to get him and his team into the situation with the case they had developed. SMA Team 6 walked the finest of lines between covert operations and public scandal on a daily basis. It had been a miracle that Jack and his team had not been exposed by any number of political, commercial, or activist organization intent on exposing waste, fraud, abuse, and violations of civil liberties by the Federal government. His secret - he paid every one to cooperate. And once they were paid - they were just as guilty as he was.
[Target is exiting the Operational Perimeter] This was expected as Finne always left through the 15th street exit at Atled's on his way back to his office.
Once outside, the external sensors reporting from the telephone lines and tree limbs monitored Finne's movement in micro-second detail. Statistical analysis was performed on his every movement by the Universal Production Server parked in the truck on the corner. At this point in the game, Jack's agents had 250 "pets" watching Finne on their behalf. Everyone was comfortable with the wide band-width analysis interface between the local surveillance network of cameras and sensors and the UPS. Twelve generations of software improvements had gone into the decision support engine of the UPS and the communications interface with the agents had proven to be flawless.
[Operational Perimeter Established] was heard through everyone's micro comm. Finne had just crossed the line between OP6 and OP5. He was headed back into his office. Everyone could stand down now for an hour or two while he was monitored at his desk by several remote sensors.
It was time for breakfast.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Chapter 4 - Megalomania
Sarah Simpson knew that the lit up a room when she entered it. Heads would turn and others were already focused on her as if they anticipated her arrival wherever she went. She loved the attention and hated at the same time.
Most days Sarah related her own existence to that of a Hollywood super-star constantly hounded by hordes of paparazzi. The restaurants, clubs, boutiques and even grocery stores she chose to frequent have all become hugely popular and exceptionally successful. Sarah knew it had to do with her and the entourage of admirers that she knew preceded her everywhere she went.
Sarah felt as though she used those that surrounded her as much as they used her. Her benefit from the relationship, as she saw it, was a constant stage on which she could exert her sphere of influence over an ever increasing fan base. Those who were watching her and entangling their lives with hers, she felt, were obviously in this for money. She had heard them discussing enterprises and industries that had been built around her and the marketability of her image.
Most of the players broadcasting Sarah liked to remain in the shadows, she knew and could tell because they remained so anonymous. Whenever Sarah was sure she had outed one of the production members or cast extras they were never seen again. She knew they had been replaced or relocated or re assigned to more behind the scenes roles to protect the operational secrecy of the programming. Occasionally, she would catch a real Hollywood superstar making a cameo in her daily life.
Just last week Sarah watched Matt Damon as he was watching her from the far end of the bar at the Columbia Grille on Capitol Hill. Sarah was not an idiot. She knew to only pay attention to Matt through the corners of her eyes and by using the long mirror behind the bar to ensure he never knew she had pegged him as a cast player the minute he entered the door. He had covered up in a scarf, turtle-neck and baseball cap. He was pretending to solve the crossword puzzle in the Washington Post he had picked up off of the bar, but she knew he was really taking notes on her and her mannerisms. Sarah was a frequent target of the Hollywood types interested in “studying” the common American.
Sarah knew that she was the whole package. Not only had the infrastructure been put into place to capture every second of her life from the bedroom to the office to bathroom, but she knew there was a seven year archive a footage that was ready for release but was worth nothing without her authorization. Sarah had matured past her embarrassment and anger over the complete violation of her private life and the private lives of her friends, family and co-workers by the plague of content-hungry information brokers that she knew had sold her soul – or at least her image and everything personal about her – to the insatiable appetite of what had become her public.
Sarah also knew that she could never acknowledge the Sarah Simpson industry directly. If she did she knew it would only contribute to the industry’s ultimate demise and her personal fall from grace. Sarah knew she was not supposed to know anything. Her celebrity status and popularity was based on her qualities as the perfect unsuspecting citizen. Sarah knew the masses of her audience were afar – mostly on the west coast and probably overseas. Her words and her actions were admired from huge distances via multiple broadband internet streams broadcast by her watchers. Some of them she knew had grown to admire her, as well. That acceptance helped her to gain the understanding that she had about her situation – an understanding that she knew she was not supposed to have.
Most days Sarah related her own existence to that of a Hollywood super-star constantly hounded by hordes of paparazzi. The restaurants, clubs, boutiques and even grocery stores she chose to frequent have all become hugely popular and exceptionally successful. Sarah knew it had to do with her and the entourage of admirers that she knew preceded her everywhere she went.
Sarah felt as though she used those that surrounded her as much as they used her. Her benefit from the relationship, as she saw it, was a constant stage on which she could exert her sphere of influence over an ever increasing fan base. Those who were watching her and entangling their lives with hers, she felt, were obviously in this for money. She had heard them discussing enterprises and industries that had been built around her and the marketability of her image.
Most of the players broadcasting Sarah liked to remain in the shadows, she knew and could tell because they remained so anonymous. Whenever Sarah was sure she had outed one of the production members or cast extras they were never seen again. She knew they had been replaced or relocated or re assigned to more behind the scenes roles to protect the operational secrecy of the programming. Occasionally, she would catch a real Hollywood superstar making a cameo in her daily life.
Just last week Sarah watched Matt Damon as he was watching her from the far end of the bar at the Columbia Grille on Capitol Hill. Sarah was not an idiot. She knew to only pay attention to Matt through the corners of her eyes and by using the long mirror behind the bar to ensure he never knew she had pegged him as a cast player the minute he entered the door. He had covered up in a scarf, turtle-neck and baseball cap. He was pretending to solve the crossword puzzle in the Washington Post he had picked up off of the bar, but she knew he was really taking notes on her and her mannerisms. Sarah was a frequent target of the Hollywood types interested in “studying” the common American.
Sarah knew that she was the whole package. Not only had the infrastructure been put into place to capture every second of her life from the bedroom to the office to bathroom, but she knew there was a seven year archive a footage that was ready for release but was worth nothing without her authorization. Sarah had matured past her embarrassment and anger over the complete violation of her private life and the private lives of her friends, family and co-workers by the plague of content-hungry information brokers that she knew had sold her soul – or at least her image and everything personal about her – to the insatiable appetite of what had become her public.
Sarah also knew that she could never acknowledge the Sarah Simpson industry directly. If she did she knew it would only contribute to the industry’s ultimate demise and her personal fall from grace. Sarah knew she was not supposed to know anything. Her celebrity status and popularity was based on her qualities as the perfect unsuspecting citizen. Sarah knew the masses of her audience were afar – mostly on the west coast and probably overseas. Her words and her actions were admired from huge distances via multiple broadband internet streams broadcast by her watchers. Some of them she knew had grown to admire her, as well. That acceptance helped her to gain the understanding that she had about her situation – an understanding that she knew she was not supposed to have.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Chapter 5 - Denial of Service
Finne sat down at his desk and jiggled the mouse wired to his computer to wake it from its screen saver – a touching family portrait of himself, his wife and their two golden retrievers. Finne placed his thumb and index finger on his right hand across the [CTL+ALT+DEL] keys on his keyboard to make the familiar Windows network login prompt appear. He typed in his user id, RSA Key code, and placed his middle right finger on the fingerprint scanner to log back into the secure network shared by the Office of the Inspector General of the United States Treasury.
Finne only was allowed to review and audit the material within his case load for OIG by employing an eyes only protocol. Nothing Finne had access to was ever printed. The 19 inch monitor on Finne’s desk had a sleek micro-prism reflection shield built into the liquid crystal display which prevented viewing the screen from any distance farther than 22 inches and from any direction other than front and center. Essentially, the only way to view the raw data Finne collected from the most classified programs within the U.S. Treasury, was to sit between Finne and his PC while he was working, have access to the original classified source data, or to tap the secure fiber optic network feed that was wired into Finne’s secure office.
We thought two out of three wasn’t too bad. Chuck Davis, known as “CD” to everyone on SMA team 6, had been wired into Treasury for seven years without being detected – although it wouldn’t have mattered if we had been caught as we would have pushed Treasury out of our way acting as FBI or CIA if necessary.
CD was one of a kind in terms of technical capabilities and aptitude. He had been part of the original crack team to infiltrate the OIG office while we tried to close in on Finne. That was seven years ago. CD now led a team of programmers known as the Disc Pack ( a reference to their wolf pack mentality with CD as their Alpha male). The Disc Pack were not only skilled, they were the upper echelon of the computer science community in terms of their working knowledge of the emerging technologies that would eventually be released to the civilian world. Their application of advanced telecom and networking protocols along with multi server self generating networks created the SMA high band-width, multi-user, collaborative online surveillance environment we now depended on.
Along with allowing us to monitor Finne’s work efforts, the Disc Pack had managed to surround Finne’s online access capabilities with our operational security and management layers from his home, his PDA, and every library and internet café terminal Finne had ever tried to sign onto while we were targeting him. Finne didn’t do anything online unless we allowed it.
The news Finne browsed online was served up custom to him by us from every source he tried to access – the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Google were Finne’s favorites. The Google news intercept had been the trickiest, because the information was cross-referenced for relevance before posting on Google’s News page, therefore we had to create our content for Finne for Google hundreds of times over on internationally recognized news leader’s sites in order for Google to pick it up.
Aside from allowing us direct insight into Finne’s planned daily activities by studying his online behavior, we had actually developed a methodology for manipulating his plans by allowing and refraining him access to true information. Email invitations to party’s we didn’t want to tail him through came late or were lost in cyberspace – of course the follow up calls by the sender’s were also not let through to Finne until after the party had taken place. We also had to manipulate the inventories of many online retailers that offer in store pick-ups to make sure Finne shopped where we wanted him to. That became a necessity in the first year of surveillance after the Best Buy incident which nearly blew our entire cover and operation.
[Target’s Browser Opened] Finne had just taken a break from reviewing a suspected IRS embezzlement case involving a deputy assistant commissioner and four tax enforcement agents and switched to his open network pc to browse the internet.
“What’s he doing?” I called through the comm. to the Disc Pack. “First stop…hotmail” replied the familiar voice of Shirley Thompson one of DC’s quintessential subordinates. “Now he’s reading the Post” she updated a minute later. “OK we have a PE” she announced less than 2 minutes after that. A PE was a Predictive Event. These types of online activity gave us a statistically measurable element of information that allowed us to plan for Finne’s upcoming activities and movements.
“What’s he looking for?” I queried. “It seems he can’t wait for the sale we planned at Circuit City and he wants to buy his new TV now.” “Just keep him away from Best Buy!” I reminded. “No kidding, I just cut him down on their site” Shirley replied. “They could have had an easy sale, they’ve got 12 of the DLP monitors he’s looking for” she added.
“Where are you sending him?” I asked more rhetorically than not. “Target.” Was the response I had expected. “Has he planned anything that would prevent him from making the pick-up on his way home?” I asked. “There is nothing on his calendar and we haven’t picked up an email that suggested anything out of the ordinary.” Shirley commented.
“Ok, good.” I relayed over the comm., “plan for taking over Target at 4:30.”
“Jack! We have a new PE, and you might want to plan for a shorter takeover cycle.” Shirley interjected. “What is it?” I asked without giving much concern to the subtle distress in her voice. “He just IM’ed Anna to see if the boss had left yet.” Shirley replied.
Anna was on our team and played the role of flirty and helpful co-worker within the OIG’s office in order to gain Finne’s trust and attention. Anna had been recruited from CIA because she had a stellar Treasury career background which made her a shoe-in to get the position when it posted and she was exactly Finne’s type – a slender, shapely, brunette with stunning blue eyes. “Stall him Anna, I need twenty minutes” I ordered.
“Road show everyone! We’re headed to OP-9!” I shouted into the open comm. for the entire team. “Advance team get to Target, and get them prepared now! Escorts and Scouts get on the road and ready to intercept as he leaves the garage. I’m headed for the chopper and will catch you in play at OP-9” I demanded as I closed my laptop and shoved it into my travel bag. It was time to head out quickly.
Finne only was allowed to review and audit the material within his case load for OIG by employing an eyes only protocol. Nothing Finne had access to was ever printed. The 19 inch monitor on Finne’s desk had a sleek micro-prism reflection shield built into the liquid crystal display which prevented viewing the screen from any distance farther than 22 inches and from any direction other than front and center. Essentially, the only way to view the raw data Finne collected from the most classified programs within the U.S. Treasury, was to sit between Finne and his PC while he was working, have access to the original classified source data, or to tap the secure fiber optic network feed that was wired into Finne’s secure office.
We thought two out of three wasn’t too bad. Chuck Davis, known as “CD” to everyone on SMA team 6, had been wired into Treasury for seven years without being detected – although it wouldn’t have mattered if we had been caught as we would have pushed Treasury out of our way acting as FBI or CIA if necessary.
CD was one of a kind in terms of technical capabilities and aptitude. He had been part of the original crack team to infiltrate the OIG office while we tried to close in on Finne. That was seven years ago. CD now led a team of programmers known as the Disc Pack ( a reference to their wolf pack mentality with CD as their Alpha male). The Disc Pack were not only skilled, they were the upper echelon of the computer science community in terms of their working knowledge of the emerging technologies that would eventually be released to the civilian world. Their application of advanced telecom and networking protocols along with multi server self generating networks created the SMA high band-width, multi-user, collaborative online surveillance environment we now depended on.
Along with allowing us to monitor Finne’s work efforts, the Disc Pack had managed to surround Finne’s online access capabilities with our operational security and management layers from his home, his PDA, and every library and internet café terminal Finne had ever tried to sign onto while we were targeting him. Finne didn’t do anything online unless we allowed it.
The news Finne browsed online was served up custom to him by us from every source he tried to access – the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Google were Finne’s favorites. The Google news intercept had been the trickiest, because the information was cross-referenced for relevance before posting on Google’s News page, therefore we had to create our content for Finne for Google hundreds of times over on internationally recognized news leader’s sites in order for Google to pick it up.
Aside from allowing us direct insight into Finne’s planned daily activities by studying his online behavior, we had actually developed a methodology for manipulating his plans by allowing and refraining him access to true information. Email invitations to party’s we didn’t want to tail him through came late or were lost in cyberspace – of course the follow up calls by the sender’s were also not let through to Finne until after the party had taken place. We also had to manipulate the inventories of many online retailers that offer in store pick-ups to make sure Finne shopped where we wanted him to. That became a necessity in the first year of surveillance after the Best Buy incident which nearly blew our entire cover and operation.
[Target’s Browser Opened] Finne had just taken a break from reviewing a suspected IRS embezzlement case involving a deputy assistant commissioner and four tax enforcement agents and switched to his open network pc to browse the internet.
“What’s he doing?” I called through the comm. to the Disc Pack. “First stop…hotmail” replied the familiar voice of Shirley Thompson one of DC’s quintessential subordinates. “Now he’s reading the Post” she updated a minute later. “OK we have a PE” she announced less than 2 minutes after that. A PE was a Predictive Event. These types of online activity gave us a statistically measurable element of information that allowed us to plan for Finne’s upcoming activities and movements.
“What’s he looking for?” I queried. “It seems he can’t wait for the sale we planned at Circuit City and he wants to buy his new TV now.” “Just keep him away from Best Buy!” I reminded. “No kidding, I just cut him down on their site” Shirley replied. “They could have had an easy sale, they’ve got 12 of the DLP monitors he’s looking for” she added.
“Where are you sending him?” I asked more rhetorically than not. “Target.” Was the response I had expected. “Has he planned anything that would prevent him from making the pick-up on his way home?” I asked. “There is nothing on his calendar and we haven’t picked up an email that suggested anything out of the ordinary.” Shirley commented.
“Ok, good.” I relayed over the comm., “plan for taking over Target at 4:30.”
“Jack! We have a new PE, and you might want to plan for a shorter takeover cycle.” Shirley interjected. “What is it?” I asked without giving much concern to the subtle distress in her voice. “He just IM’ed Anna to see if the boss had left yet.” Shirley replied.
Anna was on our team and played the role of flirty and helpful co-worker within the OIG’s office in order to gain Finne’s trust and attention. Anna had been recruited from CIA because she had a stellar Treasury career background which made her a shoe-in to get the position when it posted and she was exactly Finne’s type – a slender, shapely, brunette with stunning blue eyes. “Stall him Anna, I need twenty minutes” I ordered.
“Road show everyone! We’re headed to OP-9!” I shouted into the open comm. for the entire team. “Advance team get to Target, and get them prepared now! Escorts and Scouts get on the road and ready to intercept as he leaves the garage. I’m headed for the chopper and will catch you in play at OP-9” I demanded as I closed my laptop and shoved it into my travel bag. It was time to head out quickly.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Chapter 6 - Hit Man
Kai Jefferson lay prone and motionless across the rear sofa bed in the back of a late model Chevy van while he maintained a steady heartbeat and shallow breathing cycle to steady the barrel of the NSRT05 out the slightly cracked rear passenger side window as he waited for his target. The van had been converted to appear - from the outside – a 70’s model conversion van that was on its last legs. In reality, the van was in excellent shape with the entire law enforcement engine and performance upgrades, along with, the intelligence production operations equipment enhancements standard with any Domestic Reconnaissance and Intelligence Vehicle for Emergency Responses (DRIVER).
Through the 1000 times optical, digitally enhanced scope, Kai kept the cross-hairs aimed at a spot exactly 5 foot 6 inches above the ground at the entrance to Club Atlas in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of DC. It was 11:30 and the clientele was beginning to arrive. Kai knew that there would be a rush at the door from 12:00 AM until 12:45 AM that would provide for a long line to slow anyone from going into the club – which would improve the accuracy of a clean shot at the door. Across the lens of the scope and one of the two plasma monitors on the wall of the van above the command console walked numerous beautiful and elite 20 to 30 year olds as they arrived as couples or in groups to and stopped at the door to present their IDs.
The two doormen were burly Greek – Italian looking men in dark suits with blatantly displayed ear bud wires running behind their ears and down their neck while nicely clipped to the lapels of their jackets to the Motorola walkie-talkies on their waist. The receiver in the van was tuned to the club’s security frequency so that Kai could listen into reports from inside the club and all of the perimeter entrances. Most of the chatter tonight has been focused on one of the assistant managers, Joe, who had gone home last night with a bar regular that the security staff referred to as butt-face. Joe came in to work tonight with his head hung low in embarrassment about 5 hours ago and the doorman won’t stop hazing him. Adding a fan to the fire, Butt-face had shown up at 9:30 almost an hour and a half before the next patron walked in to the late night club. Club Atlas was a place for the beautiful and Butt-face noticeably stood out of the crowd. It had been difficult not to laugh at the wit of the folks on Atlas channels 2 and 4, but Kai was a professional.
Kai was brought into SMA via the U.S. Marine Corps. Kai had been trained as an elite Marine Recon sniper and had been deployed in the global war on terrorism in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Egypt – always on highly classified high priority target operations. While in the Corps, Kai spent the last four years of his service under the direct command of the CIA. Upon retirement, the CIA had expected him to cross-over as everyone with his clearance and skills does, but Kai declined and accepted a job with a global private security firm – at the direction of the SMA. Kai was quickly swept up into the domestic intelligence division to lead tactical surveillance and assault operations. Kai’s exposure to DNI and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) technologies had opened up hidden talents and skills that Kai had rarely tapped before. Kai earned a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering before entering the Corps and later obtained two Master’s degree in Computer Science and Applied Physics while working for SMA.
Kai had support in this theater of operations. Two SMA agents were employed at Club Atlas as off-duty DC police officers to work the back doors on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights giving Kai the reassurance that his target would not enter the building from any other access point.
This Friday was looking like every other Friday this year – busy. Club Atlas had become one of the hottest clubs in DC, and according to the local club authority, clubchair.com, “Friday was the night to be seen at Atlas”. DJ Jam-Don - a local celebrity and frequent DC radio guest – drew the crowd in like moths to a flame. Tonight’s beat was pounding out the door as it opened and closed with each arriving and departing patron.
It wouldn’t be long before she arrived, Kai knew. She had parked up the street and out of the line of sight over 45 minutes ago and walked halfway to the club before turning into a three story apartment building on the same side of Q Street as Atlas. This was her regular routine before partying at Atlas on Friday nights – she always made a first stop at this area’s most reliable coke dealer, Dexter Sazilis.
Dexter’s apartment was on the third floor and street side which made the continuing surveillance easy. The SMA agents assigned to tail the target had positioned themselves outside of Dexter’s apartment and were inconspicuously directing a microwave beam projector at the exterior walls of the third floor apartment to maintain an audio and video record of the target’s conversations and interactions. Computer enhanced images of the microwave interpretations of the bodies inside the apartment walls displayed inside Kai’s van on the second monitor at the command console. Our target was negotiating a better deal for her eight-ball in Dexter’s bedroom. Every sound and motion was captured for the surveillance team to see – sanctioned pornography in the minds of many of the agents. As the clock neared 11:45, the two had finished their hard and fast-paced love making and were redressing. Both stopped to inhale a long line of cocaine that was cut on the bedside table. Dexter must have been satisfied, because she got her eight-ball for for free instead of the one hundred and fifty dollars the rest of his clients paid. He was now trying to hurry her along to the club, as he was expecting some other visitors. In fact, Dexter’s apartment would be visited by no less than 30 percent of Club Atlas’s patrons tonight. A fact that we would mention to the DEA in a couple of weeks after our operation was complete.
[TARGET IS EXITING THE BUILDING] was broadcast over the comm.
The microwave image was changed to a night scope video stream of the target as she strolled towards the club and Kai’s sights. Kai noted that the balance between the barrel choke and stock had been significantly improved with the NSRT05 model. With his right eye focused on the cross-hairs of the scope while his left eye was trained down the length of the blue alloy cylinder that extended out from his grip through the open van window to the door of club Atlas.
Sarah Simpson walked down the Q street sidewalk past the growing line of club-goers to the front of the line and directly into the cross-hairs of Kai’s scope. With a steady and slow squeeze of his right index finger Kai pulled the trigger and scored a direct hit. A burst of energy discharged from the nano-sonic radar technology (NSRT) weapon and struck Sarah square in the back of the head – she didn’t feel a thing.
In less than a half of a second the return beam was received by the NSRT and a frequency reading had been locked. Sarah’s brain waves were projecting at an accelerated rate and therefore much higher frequency that the reference frequency that had been established as her baseline on record. Tonight’s shot proved to be exceptionally important to operations as Sarah’s current frequency was well out of bounds from the baseline and everyone’s receivers would need to be re-programmed to be able to monitor her while she was partying tonight.
Through the 1000 times optical, digitally enhanced scope, Kai kept the cross-hairs aimed at a spot exactly 5 foot 6 inches above the ground at the entrance to Club Atlas in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of DC. It was 11:30 and the clientele was beginning to arrive. Kai knew that there would be a rush at the door from 12:00 AM until 12:45 AM that would provide for a long line to slow anyone from going into the club – which would improve the accuracy of a clean shot at the door. Across the lens of the scope and one of the two plasma monitors on the wall of the van above the command console walked numerous beautiful and elite 20 to 30 year olds as they arrived as couples or in groups to and stopped at the door to present their IDs.
The two doormen were burly Greek – Italian looking men in dark suits with blatantly displayed ear bud wires running behind their ears and down their neck while nicely clipped to the lapels of their jackets to the Motorola walkie-talkies on their waist. The receiver in the van was tuned to the club’s security frequency so that Kai could listen into reports from inside the club and all of the perimeter entrances. Most of the chatter tonight has been focused on one of the assistant managers, Joe, who had gone home last night with a bar regular that the security staff referred to as butt-face. Joe came in to work tonight with his head hung low in embarrassment about 5 hours ago and the doorman won’t stop hazing him. Adding a fan to the fire, Butt-face had shown up at 9:30 almost an hour and a half before the next patron walked in to the late night club. Club Atlas was a place for the beautiful and Butt-face noticeably stood out of the crowd. It had been difficult not to laugh at the wit of the folks on Atlas channels 2 and 4, but Kai was a professional.
Kai was brought into SMA via the U.S. Marine Corps. Kai had been trained as an elite Marine Recon sniper and had been deployed in the global war on terrorism in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Egypt – always on highly classified high priority target operations. While in the Corps, Kai spent the last four years of his service under the direct command of the CIA. Upon retirement, the CIA had expected him to cross-over as everyone with his clearance and skills does, but Kai declined and accepted a job with a global private security firm – at the direction of the SMA. Kai was quickly swept up into the domestic intelligence division to lead tactical surveillance and assault operations. Kai’s exposure to DNI and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) technologies had opened up hidden talents and skills that Kai had rarely tapped before. Kai earned a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering before entering the Corps and later obtained two Master’s degree in Computer Science and Applied Physics while working for SMA.
Kai had support in this theater of operations. Two SMA agents were employed at Club Atlas as off-duty DC police officers to work the back doors on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights giving Kai the reassurance that his target would not enter the building from any other access point.
This Friday was looking like every other Friday this year – busy. Club Atlas had become one of the hottest clubs in DC, and according to the local club authority, clubchair.com, “Friday was the night to be seen at Atlas”. DJ Jam-Don - a local celebrity and frequent DC radio guest – drew the crowd in like moths to a flame. Tonight’s beat was pounding out the door as it opened and closed with each arriving and departing patron.
It wouldn’t be long before she arrived, Kai knew. She had parked up the street and out of the line of sight over 45 minutes ago and walked halfway to the club before turning into a three story apartment building on the same side of Q Street as Atlas. This was her regular routine before partying at Atlas on Friday nights – she always made a first stop at this area’s most reliable coke dealer, Dexter Sazilis.
Dexter’s apartment was on the third floor and street side which made the continuing surveillance easy. The SMA agents assigned to tail the target had positioned themselves outside of Dexter’s apartment and were inconspicuously directing a microwave beam projector at the exterior walls of the third floor apartment to maintain an audio and video record of the target’s conversations and interactions. Computer enhanced images of the microwave interpretations of the bodies inside the apartment walls displayed inside Kai’s van on the second monitor at the command console. Our target was negotiating a better deal for her eight-ball in Dexter’s bedroom. Every sound and motion was captured for the surveillance team to see – sanctioned pornography in the minds of many of the agents. As the clock neared 11:45, the two had finished their hard and fast-paced love making and were redressing. Both stopped to inhale a long line of cocaine that was cut on the bedside table. Dexter must have been satisfied, because she got her eight-ball for for free instead of the one hundred and fifty dollars the rest of his clients paid. He was now trying to hurry her along to the club, as he was expecting some other visitors. In fact, Dexter’s apartment would be visited by no less than 30 percent of Club Atlas’s patrons tonight. A fact that we would mention to the DEA in a couple of weeks after our operation was complete.
[TARGET IS EXITING THE BUILDING] was broadcast over the comm.
The microwave image was changed to a night scope video stream of the target as she strolled towards the club and Kai’s sights. Kai noted that the balance between the barrel choke and stock had been significantly improved with the NSRT05 model. With his right eye focused on the cross-hairs of the scope while his left eye was trained down the length of the blue alloy cylinder that extended out from his grip through the open van window to the door of club Atlas.
Sarah Simpson walked down the Q street sidewalk past the growing line of club-goers to the front of the line and directly into the cross-hairs of Kai’s scope. With a steady and slow squeeze of his right index finger Kai pulled the trigger and scored a direct hit. A burst of energy discharged from the nano-sonic radar technology (NSRT) weapon and struck Sarah square in the back of the head – she didn’t feel a thing.
In less than a half of a second the return beam was received by the NSRT and a frequency reading had been locked. Sarah’s brain waves were projecting at an accelerated rate and therefore much higher frequency that the reference frequency that had been established as her baseline on record. Tonight’s shot proved to be exceptionally important to operations as Sarah’s current frequency was well out of bounds from the baseline and everyone’s receivers would need to be re-programmed to be able to monitor her while she was partying tonight.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Chapter 7 - Pimp My Ride
As Finne pulled out onto the street level of the seven under-story garage beneath his building, he squinted as the setting sunlight broke through the open barricade and into the dark shadows of the parking structure. Effortlessly he dropped the Revo 3050 Flex sunglasses on his head to his eyes and folded down the tan leather visor in front of him. Finne gave thought to the fact that it had taken a significant amount of work to get to where he was in life despite the advantages he had in life.
Pulling onto 14th street in his navy blue, late model BMW 325i heading towards Constitution Ave., Finne tried to recall his early childhood – a time of amazement, and a time of importance. Finne was born into a successful family that grew up on the fringe of politics and in the heart of government. His father had been a dedicated public servant through six administrations within the Department of Defense. He graduated from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in 1958 initiating a fast-paced rise though the military ranks. He had excelled in the sciences at the academy and participated in many of the early R&D projects the academy facilitated for the active service during his time on the yard. Oscar Seldnac had led the development of military research programs for thirty years before passing away. When he had died, his funeral was attended by more than seven hundred staff, friends and family at a full color ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. Twenty One shots were fired by the national Drill Team as three bursts of seven shots in disciplined and somber order. Finne’s family had brought him within the circle of importance that surrounded Washington, DC.
Finne stepped on the gas as he rounded the turn onto Constitution Ave knowing that he needed to get ahead at least three blocks in the next twelve seconds to beat the lights between 14th and the Memorial Bridge ahead. He felt comfortable in the leather seats that held him like a glove as he shifted into fourth gear with a steady rapid acceleration. Finne knew that MPD had much more difficult challenges to battle than the flagrant speeding that occurred between mid afternoon and the end of rush hour as the throngs of government employees vacated the city each night. Finne had the drive down to a routine. Right lane for two blocks, than center lane until just before the first bus stop, and finally left lane over the bridge and past Arlington along interstate 66 towards northern Virginia. DC’s latest investment on cross-walk timers showed Finne exactly how much time before the green lights in front of him turned to yellow. As long as he stayed ahead of the yellow lights past the Federal Reserve, he would sail past them all and be on his way without impediment to the highway.
Finne had gotten a sweet deal on his car just six months ago. Miraculously, the exact make, model, and color certified BMW was sitting on the lot he drove past on a daily basis. He had been searching the internet and shopping at all of the local dealers for over a week without any luck.. Finne had come close to buying one through Car Max that had the same package as this one but without the sunroof and Bose speaker package. However, that car was sold off the lot before it had been cleared from the internet site, so he missed it. Then this beauty jumped out in front of him. It had a package of factory additions that nearly mirrored the “wish-list” he had created on the Kelly blue book website. Finne faired well in the negotiations resisting the offers for unnecessary warranties, add-on electronics, and “life-time” service plans that weren’t all that they were sold to be. He paid just under the KBB price for a car in Fair condition and was surprised to have made his deal so easily. He thought his timing couldn’t have been worse, the dealer’s blow out end of month, end of quarter sale had just ended and then this car showed up. He knew he couldn’t hold a poker face with such an exact match of a car and figured he would be take for the ride in this negotiation. However, he stuck to his price and felt he had bettered a tired veteran salesman that was looking to get one more sale in before going home for the first night of the past five before 1:00 AM. In fact, Finne had met one of our agents portraying a very convincing battered down swindler and had bitten our hook with his mouth wide open.
The navigation system and satellite radio features Finne had foregone during the sale of the car had already been installed. However these systems were not visible nor known to the new owner. The GPS beacon was for our tracking purposes and not to alleviate Finne’s navigational dilemmas. The satellite system in this car was bi-directional and completely disguised. What sounded to the passengers of this vehicle as local DC radio broadcasts were actually prepared pre-packaged music and news information bursts tailored to the needs of the DNI. Finne heard only what we broadcast into his car except when he played a CD of his own. Finne also broadcast every sound within his vehicle through the network of satellite transponders at our disposal to our global receiving and cataloguing station in nearby Baltimore, MD. From there the signal was split between the recording and indexing server network and the international communications bridge that allowed us to monitor him through our com channels. Finne drove the most expensive BMW in DC and no one would ever know it due to the elaborate camouflage techniques employed. Finne had gotten a lot more than he bargained for.
The mid afternoon traffic was surprisingly light, Finne thought. There seemed to be little merging traffic ahead on 66 and he felt that he could make it to Reston in less than 45 minutes if he could keep this pace. He did need to be cautious of the Virginia State Police, as they regularly setup speed traps along the highway, but Finne banked on the knowledge that they were almost always past the turn toward the Dulles Toll Road which he would be taking. Finne checked the speedometer which read 85 miles per hour – which was thirty miles an hour over the speed limit. He backed off the accelerator and let the car cruise along at 79 to feel more comfortable and then he let his mind drift off as he payed more attention to the colors of the changing leaves that lined the highway and the blue sky overhead. Before he noticed, Finne had sped through the Smart Tag lanes at the toll booth and was motoring on towards Reston. It was only 43 minutes in total before he pulled into Target’s parking lot. Not bad at any time of day especially now. Finne felt good as he clicked the key fob to lock the car behind him as he walked towards the front door of the mega retailer. Today was a good day, he thought…..
Pulling onto 14th street in his navy blue, late model BMW 325i heading towards Constitution Ave., Finne tried to recall his early childhood – a time of amazement, and a time of importance. Finne was born into a successful family that grew up on the fringe of politics and in the heart of government. His father had been a dedicated public servant through six administrations within the Department of Defense. He graduated from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in 1958 initiating a fast-paced rise though the military ranks. He had excelled in the sciences at the academy and participated in many of the early R&D projects the academy facilitated for the active service during his time on the yard. Oscar Seldnac had led the development of military research programs for thirty years before passing away. When he had died, his funeral was attended by more than seven hundred staff, friends and family at a full color ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. Twenty One shots were fired by the national Drill Team as three bursts of seven shots in disciplined and somber order. Finne’s family had brought him within the circle of importance that surrounded Washington, DC.
Finne stepped on the gas as he rounded the turn onto Constitution Ave knowing that he needed to get ahead at least three blocks in the next twelve seconds to beat the lights between 14th and the Memorial Bridge ahead. He felt comfortable in the leather seats that held him like a glove as he shifted into fourth gear with a steady rapid acceleration. Finne knew that MPD had much more difficult challenges to battle than the flagrant speeding that occurred between mid afternoon and the end of rush hour as the throngs of government employees vacated the city each night. Finne had the drive down to a routine. Right lane for two blocks, than center lane until just before the first bus stop, and finally left lane over the bridge and past Arlington along interstate 66 towards northern Virginia. DC’s latest investment on cross-walk timers showed Finne exactly how much time before the green lights in front of him turned to yellow. As long as he stayed ahead of the yellow lights past the Federal Reserve, he would sail past them all and be on his way without impediment to the highway.
Finne had gotten a sweet deal on his car just six months ago. Miraculously, the exact make, model, and color certified BMW was sitting on the lot he drove past on a daily basis. He had been searching the internet and shopping at all of the local dealers for over a week without any luck.. Finne had come close to buying one through Car Max that had the same package as this one but without the sunroof and Bose speaker package. However, that car was sold off the lot before it had been cleared from the internet site, so he missed it. Then this beauty jumped out in front of him. It had a package of factory additions that nearly mirrored the “wish-list” he had created on the Kelly blue book website. Finne faired well in the negotiations resisting the offers for unnecessary warranties, add-on electronics, and “life-time” service plans that weren’t all that they were sold to be. He paid just under the KBB price for a car in Fair condition and was surprised to have made his deal so easily. He thought his timing couldn’t have been worse, the dealer’s blow out end of month, end of quarter sale had just ended and then this car showed up. He knew he couldn’t hold a poker face with such an exact match of a car and figured he would be take for the ride in this negotiation. However, he stuck to his price and felt he had bettered a tired veteran salesman that was looking to get one more sale in before going home for the first night of the past five before 1:00 AM. In fact, Finne had met one of our agents portraying a very convincing battered down swindler and had bitten our hook with his mouth wide open.
The navigation system and satellite radio features Finne had foregone during the sale of the car had already been installed. However these systems were not visible nor known to the new owner. The GPS beacon was for our tracking purposes and not to alleviate Finne’s navigational dilemmas. The satellite system in this car was bi-directional and completely disguised. What sounded to the passengers of this vehicle as local DC radio broadcasts were actually prepared pre-packaged music and news information bursts tailored to the needs of the DNI. Finne heard only what we broadcast into his car except when he played a CD of his own. Finne also broadcast every sound within his vehicle through the network of satellite transponders at our disposal to our global receiving and cataloguing station in nearby Baltimore, MD. From there the signal was split between the recording and indexing server network and the international communications bridge that allowed us to monitor him through our com channels. Finne drove the most expensive BMW in DC and no one would ever know it due to the elaborate camouflage techniques employed. Finne had gotten a lot more than he bargained for.
The mid afternoon traffic was surprisingly light, Finne thought. There seemed to be little merging traffic ahead on 66 and he felt that he could make it to Reston in less than 45 minutes if he could keep this pace. He did need to be cautious of the Virginia State Police, as they regularly setup speed traps along the highway, but Finne banked on the knowledge that they were almost always past the turn toward the Dulles Toll Road which he would be taking. Finne checked the speedometer which read 85 miles per hour – which was thirty miles an hour over the speed limit. He backed off the accelerator and let the car cruise along at 79 to feel more comfortable and then he let his mind drift off as he payed more attention to the colors of the changing leaves that lined the highway and the blue sky overhead. Before he noticed, Finne had sped through the Smart Tag lanes at the toll booth and was motoring on towards Reston. It was only 43 minutes in total before he pulled into Target’s parking lot. Not bad at any time of day especially now. Finne felt good as he clicked the key fob to lock the car behind him as he walked towards the front door of the mega retailer. Today was a good day, he thought…..
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Chapter 8 - Chronic Halitosis
Stuart Potter had been lounging in a reclusive section of Club Atlas with several of his cohorts for the better part of an hour before Sarah entered the vibrant nightclub. He was informed of her arrival by a text message from the sentry he had stationed at the bar facing the entrance – this was a surprise. Stuart had expected to be informed of her presence by the frequency scanning application he had built into his Palm Treo PDA. Immediately he knew that adjustments were necessary. But why so early this evening?
Sarah passed through the crowd surrounding the front bar and headed towards the VIP rooms in the back of the club where she knew she would have easy access to two private bars. As she strolled past the spacious dance floor she saw several regulars and gave them a cunning wink and smile as a social nicety and token of recognition without the burden of stopping for a conversation. Aren’t they glad to know me – she thought.
Joe Reynolds, the young hard-working assistant manager, approached her with glowing smile. Sarah knew Joe was infatuated with her – which she used to her benefit more often than not. Although Joe earned a decent living and was well connected through his position at Atlas, Sarah considered him to be an inferior male compared to the likes of the club’s VIPs that she preferred. Also, Joe had been known to make poor choices in the woman he took home with him which Sarah considered to be fundamental flaw in his reputation with which she never wanted to be associated.
“Buona sera, signora Simpson” Joe uttered in a slightly nervous and fake Italian accent. “Good evening to you my friend” Sarah replied. “Would you like a drink? Your usual?” Joe responded. “Yes, please. Thank you dear. I’ll be in the red room” Sarah countered. “Have you seen Tony tonight?” she asked as she parted. “He’s already back there” Joe called after her – an answer that was expected and one that Sarah paid no attention to. She knew Tony was here because his elegant black Maybach was parked in a reserved spot in front of the club. Sarah, like many other beautiful woman, was drawn to Tony Gautrachs like a moth to a flame. She proceeded towards the private red room where she knew he held court on Friday nights.
Joe headed to the bar to fetch a very special chocolate martini for Ms. Simpson. Joe was back on duty and ready for anything the crowd Sarah hung out with could present him with tonight.
Sarah passed through the crowd surrounding the front bar and headed towards the VIP rooms in the back of the club where she knew she would have easy access to two private bars. As she strolled past the spacious dance floor she saw several regulars and gave them a cunning wink and smile as a social nicety and token of recognition without the burden of stopping for a conversation. Aren’t they glad to know me – she thought.
Joe Reynolds, the young hard-working assistant manager, approached her with glowing smile. Sarah knew Joe was infatuated with her – which she used to her benefit more often than not. Although Joe earned a decent living and was well connected through his position at Atlas, Sarah considered him to be an inferior male compared to the likes of the club’s VIPs that she preferred. Also, Joe had been known to make poor choices in the woman he took home with him which Sarah considered to be fundamental flaw in his reputation with which she never wanted to be associated.
“Buona sera, signora Simpson” Joe uttered in a slightly nervous and fake Italian accent. “Good evening to you my friend” Sarah replied. “Would you like a drink? Your usual?” Joe responded. “Yes, please. Thank you dear. I’ll be in the red room” Sarah countered. “Have you seen Tony tonight?” she asked as she parted. “He’s already back there” Joe called after her – an answer that was expected and one that Sarah paid no attention to. She knew Tony was here because his elegant black Maybach was parked in a reserved spot in front of the club. Sarah, like many other beautiful woman, was drawn to Tony Gautrachs like a moth to a flame. She proceeded towards the private red room where she knew he held court on Friday nights.
Joe headed to the bar to fetch a very special chocolate martini for Ms. Simpson. Joe was back on duty and ready for anything the crowd Sarah hung out with could present him with tonight.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Chapter 9 - Posse Comitatus
The flight out to Reston was uneventful other than the conversation with the DNI regarding Finne. I had convinced the director that there would not be a failure at Target. Our technology was well positioned and ready for acceptance testing. The objectives had been well planned and mapped out with the entire extended SMA team six support staff. Many were cleared personnel hired under Intermittent Contractor status, providing them with roughly $100,000 per year for an average year and up to $300,000 after overtime for a year like this one that was about to close. Others within support team were brought in through the county sheriff to provide a slight window of compliance with the laws preventing the military from enforcing the laws of the United States.
Few realized that aside from a U.S. Marshal, the county sheriff is one of the most powerful positions of authority when a federal investigation wanders through a multi-jurisdictional state such as we were doing. Without the sheriff’s compliance and participation in local operations, we’d be left to bring in the Coast Guard in some manner to bridge the gap between what we were doing and what we were technically allowed to do. Face it, just because the National Reconnaissance Office Head quarters is located in Fairfax County, doesn’t mean that the county sheriff has the ability to run its operations.
However, many within the sheriff’s inner circle were becoming exceptionally skilled at using the satellite intelligence to manage the details of our operation. The training exercises we put them through over the past four years had bred some exceptional team players within the deputy sheriffs, paramedic/EMS technicians, and volunteer fire fighters. Within an hour after getting the call, the sheriff could have a cleared and experienced team ranging in size from four to forty on site for operational support.
As we flew over the interchange between the Dulles Toll Road and Washington’s beltway, we could see the Fairfax County Police cruisers that had pulled back into clearing behind the high burm fronting the watershed at the intersection. Although this was a common staging area for speed enforcement, at this moment it was providing cover to allow a very important car pass through the area without delay. As I watched Finne’s sporty blue car easily navigate a path through the slower traffic entering the toll road, I envisioned a lab rat navigating a maze in search of his cheese. The image was too appropriate, considering what we had planned ahead.
The helicopter was being flown by and Air Force Captain, an obvious indication of the importance that they placed on this flight. We had cut though both Pentagon and CIA airspace on our flight path to Reston. Our presence would never be officially recognized, even though several government agencies, including the FAA, had to buy off on the details of the plans. For this mission, things we’re taken care of without delay, especially today. What we needed we got – it did not matter from whom anymore.
Few realized that aside from a U.S. Marshal, the county sheriff is one of the most powerful positions of authority when a federal investigation wanders through a multi-jurisdictional state such as we were doing. Without the sheriff’s compliance and participation in local operations, we’d be left to bring in the Coast Guard in some manner to bridge the gap between what we were doing and what we were technically allowed to do. Face it, just because the National Reconnaissance Office Head quarters is located in Fairfax County, doesn’t mean that the county sheriff has the ability to run its operations.
However, many within the sheriff’s inner circle were becoming exceptionally skilled at using the satellite intelligence to manage the details of our operation. The training exercises we put them through over the past four years had bred some exceptional team players within the deputy sheriffs, paramedic/EMS technicians, and volunteer fire fighters. Within an hour after getting the call, the sheriff could have a cleared and experienced team ranging in size from four to forty on site for operational support.
As we flew over the interchange between the Dulles Toll Road and Washington’s beltway, we could see the Fairfax County Police cruisers that had pulled back into clearing behind the high burm fronting the watershed at the intersection. Although this was a common staging area for speed enforcement, at this moment it was providing cover to allow a very important car pass through the area without delay. As I watched Finne’s sporty blue car easily navigate a path through the slower traffic entering the toll road, I envisioned a lab rat navigating a maze in search of his cheese. The image was too appropriate, considering what we had planned ahead.
The helicopter was being flown by and Air Force Captain, an obvious indication of the importance that they placed on this flight. We had cut though both Pentagon and CIA airspace on our flight path to Reston. Our presence would never be officially recognized, even though several government agencies, including the FAA, had to buy off on the details of the plans. For this mission, things we’re taken care of without delay, especially today. What we needed we got – it did not matter from whom anymore.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Chapter 10 - Mystery Shopper
Finne passed through the entrance to Target right on schedule, he thought. He was certain that the price offered on the 60 inch Sony DLP Rear Projection TV was well under valued and would not last long. Finne hoped to arrive before the hordes of families would hit the super center after the schools had let out this last day before the weekend. Finne had done his homework on the subject and conferred with several colleagues on their experiences buying similar HD TV units. This price was better than what Finne could have ordered on-line at any of the major retailers.
Finne found this deal because he was a detective – in all senses of the word. Finne could scour through volumes of data and identify the slightest deviations from the norm with impeccable accuracy. When Finne pulls something out of the pile for a closer look, it always turns out to be warranted. This time, Finne’s perceptive cognizance found a last minute one column advertisement among the obituaries in the Metro section of the Washington Post. In keeping with the black on white ink standard for the obituary pages, the ad was obscured and less than attention grabbing. Only those that scour through every intricate detail of the information contained in a single day’s publishing of the Post - from the first print to the final – would have interpreted this block of space on the page to be more than an ink smudge. In fact the add would have presented exceptionally well on any of the color pages of the paper, but the number of hue changes and the details of the background printed in black and white like the photo copied result of most bank and treasury checks where a dominant security / water-mark repeats across the face. Except for the disclaimer line that remained slightly above the border at the bottom of the ad frame and below the rippled circles of ink smudged above. In the finest typeface, it read: “* 40% off Clearance price for the 60 inch Sony XBR rear projection DPL TV is limited to stock number 0079423730.”
True to his commission, Finne was an inspector with the perseverance to labor through the forensic review and audit of massive amounts of raw data for the purposes of validation and investigation. But, Finne was gifted with intelligence and exceptional perception capabilities that were obvious to those he came in contact with. His personal talents as an orator and advocate for the beliefs he cherished were definite factors in the successes Finne had achieved in his career and social life.
Finne was bright, very bright, which brought him much adoration from his friends and family. We had poured over his background and conducted interviews with six layers of developed character reference leads, and it had been impossible to find anyone who spoke poorly of him. That was only a part of our problem and today’s gaming would hopefully help us to abate some of that risk. The fact of the matter was that he stood in the cross-hairs of this operation and several billion dollars would be exchanged based on today’s outcome.
[Target has crossed the starting line] was heard over the comm. channel that was open to the entire support team.
Finne found this deal because he was a detective – in all senses of the word. Finne could scour through volumes of data and identify the slightest deviations from the norm with impeccable accuracy. When Finne pulls something out of the pile for a closer look, it always turns out to be warranted. This time, Finne’s perceptive cognizance found a last minute one column advertisement among the obituaries in the Metro section of the Washington Post. In keeping with the black on white ink standard for the obituary pages, the ad was obscured and less than attention grabbing. Only those that scour through every intricate detail of the information contained in a single day’s publishing of the Post - from the first print to the final – would have interpreted this block of space on the page to be more than an ink smudge. In fact the add would have presented exceptionally well on any of the color pages of the paper, but the number of hue changes and the details of the background printed in black and white like the photo copied result of most bank and treasury checks where a dominant security / water-mark repeats across the face. Except for the disclaimer line that remained slightly above the border at the bottom of the ad frame and below the rippled circles of ink smudged above. In the finest typeface, it read: “* 40% off Clearance price for the 60 inch Sony XBR rear projection DPL TV is limited to stock number 0079423730.”
True to his commission, Finne was an inspector with the perseverance to labor through the forensic review and audit of massive amounts of raw data for the purposes of validation and investigation. But, Finne was gifted with intelligence and exceptional perception capabilities that were obvious to those he came in contact with. His personal talents as an orator and advocate for the beliefs he cherished were definite factors in the successes Finne had achieved in his career and social life.
Finne was bright, very bright, which brought him much adoration from his friends and family. We had poured over his background and conducted interviews with six layers of developed character reference leads, and it had been impossible to find anyone who spoke poorly of him. That was only a part of our problem and today’s gaming would hopefully help us to abate some of that risk. The fact of the matter was that he stood in the cross-hairs of this operation and several billion dollars would be exchanged based on today’s outcome.
[Target has crossed the starting line] was heard over the comm. channel that was open to the entire support team.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Chapter 11 - Master Handler
I had seen Finne cross the parking lot and enter the store as we flew past towards our landing site at the National Geospacial Intelligence Agency nearby. After a swift drop-off, I was being driven in discreet looking Chevy blazer for the quarter mile distance to the Target. Based on the comm. chatter, I had estimated that Finne would be deep inside the store before my arrival which would allow me to enter without drawing any attention to myself.
The dark blue SUV pulled in and along the fire lane curb to the sidewalk in front of the store beyond the view of persons looking out of the windows and doors. Upon exiting the vehicle, the driver drove off slowly, but with purpose to join the fleet of support vehicles staged nearby. Before proceeding to the entrance I quickly scanned the landscape of the parking lot. There had not been any comm. chatter about this area of the “playground”, but something seemed askew. Then I saw it. Barely visible above the second to last row of cars was the dark silhouette of baseball cap that I recognized as the standard issue headwear for the contract security personnel hired by Target.
[“SMACK come in!”] Jack blurted over the comm. from the microphone embedded in his collar. [“Command and Control here, what is it Jack?”] was the reply. [“There is a uniformed security guard headed for the front door. Confirm that you have the rest of them contained, I’ll head this one off before coming in.”] Jack informed them. [“Roger. We’ll confirm the schedule and roster”] was returned with a subtle tone of dejection in the speaker’s voice. SMA protocol’s required precision, and the loss of control over external security and management personnel that were affected by an operation was unacceptable. This could have been a huge mistake if the approaching guard – probably late for his shift or coming in off the clock - had breached the playing field.
I reached the guard just as he had crossed the service lane to the sidewalk at the far end of the store’s front wall. This was a safe distance to have a conversation with him without attracting anyone else’s attention. I approached him with my left index finger extended and pressed to my lips motioning him to be quiet while reaching out towards him with my right arm to present a set of FBI credentials. I have used badges and commission books from the FBI, Secret Service, State Police, DEA, ATF, ICE, and CBP because they were better cover for our organization then any of the intelligence agencies could provide. Frankly, when you approached someone and told them you were with the CIA, you ended up with more trouble than you would if you said you were with the gas company. Either you encountered a spy buff that would dive head first into nostalgia or you would elicit tirades of opinions judging you for the nefarious actions of the company - both true and based on conspiracy. The FBI credentials seemed to be the most easily accepted among the average American citizen. Mostly due to the amount of time and effort that they put into their public image versus the other smaller and more narrowly focused law enforcement agencies, such as the DEA and ATF. The FBI were always on the scene and helping take the credit for the major busts brought in by any of the other agencies. In fact, the FBI was generally responsible for calling the press conference in the first place. This attention to PR has served them well, allowing them to retain the all-encompassing jurisdiction they operate within, crossing over the line between domestic law enforcement and global intelligence activities for counter-espionage and counter-terrorism. From this, the FBI has produced the most accepted brand identity, and therefore has become my choice in under cover credentials.
“Special Agent Jack Wooten, FBI” I stated in a low volume but with a firm and authoritative tone. “I need you to make alternate plans for the afternoon. We are engaged in a surveillance operation inside and have taken over security operations from the store’s management under federal authority. Our suspect is in the store at this moment and you are restricted from entering at this time. The rest of the security staff is sequestered in the management offices on the second floor. Until we have released the store back to its management, you are to leave the premises. Do you understand?”
“Yes sir” was his only reply.
“And hand me your radio!” I continued. The last thing we needed was someone interfering with or corrupting the “airspace” – or radio communications spectrum - over the playing field while this operation took place.
With a stunned look, the young man reached to his belt and unfastened his walkie-talkie and handed it to Jack. “This is only my second day” he said with a slight tone of fear penetrating through his words. “If I don’t clock in, I’ll loose my job.” He said.
“What’s your name? I’ll make sure you get credit for being here.” Jack responded with a sigh of frustration with the length of time this conversation was taking and therefore keeping him from running the plays from inside. Jack knew that he had a top-notch staff controlling the game inside, but he couldn’t help himself from wanting to play quarterback every chance he could. He loved making things happen from the control position.
“Sam Peterson Jr., sir” he uttered, “My father has been a guard here for five years. He got me this job. I came in yesterday to sign a lot of papers and get my uniform and sit through a bunch of training videos, but today was going to be my first day really working.”
“Sam, I can take care of all of this. Just take off for a while and don’t tell anyone about all of this. It will just cause us interference. Why don’t you come back to clock-in in two hours? I’ll make sure you get paid for this down time, ok?” Jack asked empathetically.
“Ok. Thank you, sir.” Sam responded.
Sam turned around and headed back towards the lane of parked cars from which I had first spotted him. I was thankful to have headed off that disaster before it happened. I turned and headed towards the entrance.
Once inside the automatic bi-folding doors, the starting line was easily spotted inside the store. It was marked by two yellow folding “Wet Floor / Piso Mojado” placards that were separated by a distance of twelve feet between the last register and the store greeter, who was being played by an SMA agent. There was little room to maneuver around this starting line, but it was there as required by the rules of engagement. Just like a sobriety check point risks becoming an illegal search and seizure if it is placed along a route that has no viable alternative, the successful outcome of our gaming could be nullified by a tainting of entrapment if there was no path around the starting line.
I approached the greeter and asked where the target was located. “He is straight ahead in the electronics department. He has spoken with our floor sales staff and has just requested to see the floor manager to discuss the advertisement”, the agent replied. “He is poking around the DVD racks while he is waiting, so be careful as you approach” she continued.
“Thank you. Take this radio, please.” I said as I headed toward the electronics department.
The SMA command and control (SMACK) office was set up in an upper level manager’s office that had a bird’s eye view of the store layout and access to the array of video surveillance feeds coming from the 75 cameras positioned around the property. Directions to the field actors and agents was being delivered via comm. channels and by use of the store’s overhead speakers as coded control messages disguised as innocuous store broadcast interruptions to the background music that was playing. Messages, such as a request for manager’s assistance or a price check were in reality basic play calling for the benefit of the team on the field playing with or against Finne.
As I neared the large enclosed area beneath the hanging sign that read “Electronics”, I spotted Finne. He was strolling the aisles of DVDs with his head down and his hands buried deep within the outer pockets of his overcoat. I was confident that my approach hadn’t drawn his attention so I continued to the sole entrance to the enclosure that was located between two cashier stands. I just had stepped past the inventory control scanners that read the magnetization status of the security devices enclosed in the boxes of expensive electronics equipment and accessories sold in this part of the store when a play came over the loudspeaker.
“Scott Adder there is a call waiting for you on extension 33” said a polite yet monotone voice for all of the store to hear. This was a general announcement. It let everyone know that the SAC was on the field. Then again, the same announcement was repeated, “Scott Adder there is a call waiting for you on extension – Dad, the FBI says I can’t come in….”
Damn It! I cursed myself. Someone had broadcast on phone or walkie-talkie from within the control room while the PA was on. I kept my eyes trained on Finne looking for a reaction to the breach of the operation’s security. Sure enough, he raised his brow in surprise and muttered softly but with enough detail on his lips for me to read him say “huh? F-B-I”. This was a disaster. All I could think about was Best Buy.
The dark blue SUV pulled in and along the fire lane curb to the sidewalk in front of the store beyond the view of persons looking out of the windows and doors. Upon exiting the vehicle, the driver drove off slowly, but with purpose to join the fleet of support vehicles staged nearby. Before proceeding to the entrance I quickly scanned the landscape of the parking lot. There had not been any comm. chatter about this area of the “playground”, but something seemed askew. Then I saw it. Barely visible above the second to last row of cars was the dark silhouette of baseball cap that I recognized as the standard issue headwear for the contract security personnel hired by Target.
[“SMACK come in!”] Jack blurted over the comm. from the microphone embedded in his collar. [“Command and Control here, what is it Jack?”] was the reply. [“There is a uniformed security guard headed for the front door. Confirm that you have the rest of them contained, I’ll head this one off before coming in.”] Jack informed them. [“Roger. We’ll confirm the schedule and roster”] was returned with a subtle tone of dejection in the speaker’s voice. SMA protocol’s required precision, and the loss of control over external security and management personnel that were affected by an operation was unacceptable. This could have been a huge mistake if the approaching guard – probably late for his shift or coming in off the clock - had breached the playing field.
I reached the guard just as he had crossed the service lane to the sidewalk at the far end of the store’s front wall. This was a safe distance to have a conversation with him without attracting anyone else’s attention. I approached him with my left index finger extended and pressed to my lips motioning him to be quiet while reaching out towards him with my right arm to present a set of FBI credentials. I have used badges and commission books from the FBI, Secret Service, State Police, DEA, ATF, ICE, and CBP because they were better cover for our organization then any of the intelligence agencies could provide. Frankly, when you approached someone and told them you were with the CIA, you ended up with more trouble than you would if you said you were with the gas company. Either you encountered a spy buff that would dive head first into nostalgia or you would elicit tirades of opinions judging you for the nefarious actions of the company - both true and based on conspiracy. The FBI credentials seemed to be the most easily accepted among the average American citizen. Mostly due to the amount of time and effort that they put into their public image versus the other smaller and more narrowly focused law enforcement agencies, such as the DEA and ATF. The FBI were always on the scene and helping take the credit for the major busts brought in by any of the other agencies. In fact, the FBI was generally responsible for calling the press conference in the first place. This attention to PR has served them well, allowing them to retain the all-encompassing jurisdiction they operate within, crossing over the line between domestic law enforcement and global intelligence activities for counter-espionage and counter-terrorism. From this, the FBI has produced the most accepted brand identity, and therefore has become my choice in under cover credentials.
“Special Agent Jack Wooten, FBI” I stated in a low volume but with a firm and authoritative tone. “I need you to make alternate plans for the afternoon. We are engaged in a surveillance operation inside and have taken over security operations from the store’s management under federal authority. Our suspect is in the store at this moment and you are restricted from entering at this time. The rest of the security staff is sequestered in the management offices on the second floor. Until we have released the store back to its management, you are to leave the premises. Do you understand?”
“Yes sir” was his only reply.
“And hand me your radio!” I continued. The last thing we needed was someone interfering with or corrupting the “airspace” – or radio communications spectrum - over the playing field while this operation took place.
With a stunned look, the young man reached to his belt and unfastened his walkie-talkie and handed it to Jack. “This is only my second day” he said with a slight tone of fear penetrating through his words. “If I don’t clock in, I’ll loose my job.” He said.
“What’s your name? I’ll make sure you get credit for being here.” Jack responded with a sigh of frustration with the length of time this conversation was taking and therefore keeping him from running the plays from inside. Jack knew that he had a top-notch staff controlling the game inside, but he couldn’t help himself from wanting to play quarterback every chance he could. He loved making things happen from the control position.
“Sam Peterson Jr., sir” he uttered, “My father has been a guard here for five years. He got me this job. I came in yesterday to sign a lot of papers and get my uniform and sit through a bunch of training videos, but today was going to be my first day really working.”
“Sam, I can take care of all of this. Just take off for a while and don’t tell anyone about all of this. It will just cause us interference. Why don’t you come back to clock-in in two hours? I’ll make sure you get paid for this down time, ok?” Jack asked empathetically.
“Ok. Thank you, sir.” Sam responded.
Sam turned around and headed back towards the lane of parked cars from which I had first spotted him. I was thankful to have headed off that disaster before it happened. I turned and headed towards the entrance.
Once inside the automatic bi-folding doors, the starting line was easily spotted inside the store. It was marked by two yellow folding “Wet Floor / Piso Mojado” placards that were separated by a distance of twelve feet between the last register and the store greeter, who was being played by an SMA agent. There was little room to maneuver around this starting line, but it was there as required by the rules of engagement. Just like a sobriety check point risks becoming an illegal search and seizure if it is placed along a route that has no viable alternative, the successful outcome of our gaming could be nullified by a tainting of entrapment if there was no path around the starting line.
I approached the greeter and asked where the target was located. “He is straight ahead in the electronics department. He has spoken with our floor sales staff and has just requested to see the floor manager to discuss the advertisement”, the agent replied. “He is poking around the DVD racks while he is waiting, so be careful as you approach” she continued.
“Thank you. Take this radio, please.” I said as I headed toward the electronics department.
The SMA command and control (SMACK) office was set up in an upper level manager’s office that had a bird’s eye view of the store layout and access to the array of video surveillance feeds coming from the 75 cameras positioned around the property. Directions to the field actors and agents was being delivered via comm. channels and by use of the store’s overhead speakers as coded control messages disguised as innocuous store broadcast interruptions to the background music that was playing. Messages, such as a request for manager’s assistance or a price check were in reality basic play calling for the benefit of the team on the field playing with or against Finne.
As I neared the large enclosed area beneath the hanging sign that read “Electronics”, I spotted Finne. He was strolling the aisles of DVDs with his head down and his hands buried deep within the outer pockets of his overcoat. I was confident that my approach hadn’t drawn his attention so I continued to the sole entrance to the enclosure that was located between two cashier stands. I just had stepped past the inventory control scanners that read the magnetization status of the security devices enclosed in the boxes of expensive electronics equipment and accessories sold in this part of the store when a play came over the loudspeaker.
“Scott Adder there is a call waiting for you on extension 33” said a polite yet monotone voice for all of the store to hear. This was a general announcement. It let everyone know that the SAC was on the field. Then again, the same announcement was repeated, “Scott Adder there is a call waiting for you on extension – Dad, the FBI says I can’t come in….”
Damn It! I cursed myself. Someone had broadcast on phone or walkie-talkie from within the control room while the PA was on. I kept my eyes trained on Finne looking for a reaction to the breach of the operation’s security. Sure enough, he raised his brow in surprise and muttered softly but with enough detail on his lips for me to read him say “huh? F-B-I”. This was a disaster. All I could think about was Best Buy.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Chapter 12 - The Champion-Challenger Project
The request for information or RFI most likely went unnoticed by the majority of federal contract seekers. Likely, the thought of solving one of DARPA's problems was too much for most to consider. However, a select group of companies poured through the RFI with a fine toothed comb. This was it. DARPA was finally looking for a bake-off of the competing technologies being used in the field trials. The energy around this program will be climaxing soon.
The notice (FedBizOpps May 17, 2010):
https://www.fbo.gov/download/56c/56c82971c27d3d3a067639e1606e06a8/SMITE_RFI_17May10.pdf
Information systems security personnel are drowning in ever expanding oceans of observational data from heterogeneous sources and sensors from which they must extract indicators of increasingly sophisticated malicious insider behavior. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) is requesting information on areas of research related to the development of methods, tools, and techniques to reduce these enormous volumes of data to actionable information. Such technology must be flexible, scalable and highly interactive in order to cope with the dynamic nature of the insider threat. For the purposes of this RFI, we define insider threat as malevolent (or possibly inadvertent) actions by an already trusted person with access to sensitive information and information systems and sources.
The fundamental challenge is one of finding a poorly understood, subtle, or hidden signal (indicators of malicious behavior) buried in enormous amounts of noise (observational data of no immediate relevance) under the constraint that the measures of significance are themselves moving targets (based on dynamic context) that must be continually monitored and updated. The first step in meeting this challenge is to create a scalable, distributed infrastructure to securely collect, store, access, process, and correlate relevant data from heterogeneous sources over extended periods of time. The next step is to determine whether an individual or group of individuals is exhibiting anomalous behavior that is also malicious. However, this analysis is very heavily dependent on the context of the individual, groups of individuals and any data involved. Furthermore, context (e.g., location, time, roles and relations) is dynamic and so must be continually inferred, managed and applied automatically. Part of the challenge is detecting deceptive behavior. Deceptive behavior is characteristic of malicious intent which leads to the problem of assigning intent to observed behaviors.
Looking for clues that suggest an insider attack 1) can be anticipated, 2) is underway or 3) has already taken place could potentially be easier than recognizing explicit attacks. On the other hand, in both the real and virtual world, it is very difficult to do anything without leaving some evidence behind. Attempts to conceal or remove evidence generally create new evidence that, if detected, could be a strong indication of the perpetrator’s intent. Security is often difficult because the defenses must be perfect, while the attacker needs to find only one flaw. An emphasis on forensics could reverse the burden by requiring the attacker and his tools to be perfect, while the defender needs only a few clues to recognize an intrusion is underway.
Forensic-like techniques can be used to find clues, gather and evaluate evidence and combine them deductively. Many attacks are combinations of directly observable and inferred events. Topics of interest to this RFI include, but are not limited to, techniques to (a) derive information about the relationship between deductions, the likely intent of inferred actions, and suggestions about what evidence might mean and (b) dynamically forecast context-dependent behaviors –2 both malicious and non-malicious. Also of interest are on-line and off-line algorithms for feature extraction and detection in enormous graphs (as in billions of nodes) as well as hybrid engines where deduction and feature detection mutually inform one another.
DARPA is requesting white papers in the following three broad areas relating to malicious insider threat detection.........
The notice (FedBizOpps May 17, 2010):
https://www.fbo.gov/download/56c/56c82971c27d3d3a067639e1606e06a8/SMITE_RFI_17May10.pdf
Information systems security personnel are drowning in ever expanding oceans of observational data from heterogeneous sources and sensors from which they must extract indicators of increasingly sophisticated malicious insider behavior. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) is requesting information on areas of research related to the development of methods, tools, and techniques to reduce these enormous volumes of data to actionable information. Such technology must be flexible, scalable and highly interactive in order to cope with the dynamic nature of the insider threat. For the purposes of this RFI, we define insider threat as malevolent (or possibly inadvertent) actions by an already trusted person with access to sensitive information and information systems and sources.
The fundamental challenge is one of finding a poorly understood, subtle, or hidden signal (indicators of malicious behavior) buried in enormous amounts of noise (observational data of no immediate relevance) under the constraint that the measures of significance are themselves moving targets (based on dynamic context) that must be continually monitored and updated. The first step in meeting this challenge is to create a scalable, distributed infrastructure to securely collect, store, access, process, and correlate relevant data from heterogeneous sources over extended periods of time. The next step is to determine whether an individual or group of individuals is exhibiting anomalous behavior that is also malicious. However, this analysis is very heavily dependent on the context of the individual, groups of individuals and any data involved. Furthermore, context (e.g., location, time, roles and relations) is dynamic and so must be continually inferred, managed and applied automatically. Part of the challenge is detecting deceptive behavior. Deceptive behavior is characteristic of malicious intent which leads to the problem of assigning intent to observed behaviors.
Looking for clues that suggest an insider attack 1) can be anticipated, 2) is underway or 3) has already taken place could potentially be easier than recognizing explicit attacks. On the other hand, in both the real and virtual world, it is very difficult to do anything without leaving some evidence behind. Attempts to conceal or remove evidence generally create new evidence that, if detected, could be a strong indication of the perpetrator’s intent. Security is often difficult because the defenses must be perfect, while the attacker needs to find only one flaw. An emphasis on forensics could reverse the burden by requiring the attacker and his tools to be perfect, while the defender needs only a few clues to recognize an intrusion is underway.
Forensic-like techniques can be used to find clues, gather and evaluate evidence and combine them deductively. Many attacks are combinations of directly observable and inferred events. Topics of interest to this RFI include, but are not limited to, techniques to (a) derive information about the relationship between deductions, the likely intent of inferred actions, and suggestions about what evidence might mean and (b) dynamically forecast context-dependent behaviors –2 both malicious and non-malicious. Also of interest are on-line and off-line algorithms for feature extraction and detection in enormous graphs (as in billions of nodes) as well as hybrid engines where deduction and feature detection mutually inform one another.
DARPA is requesting white papers in the following three broad areas relating to malicious insider threat detection.........
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Chapter 13 - Distortion, Distraction, and Discovery
Having left the parking with his new toy awkwardly, yet securely wedged in to the back seating area of his BMW, Finne felt relief not only for the lack of complications he encountered to purchase what he wanted but also by the confirmation of his suspicions about the people around him recently. The FBI was involved which meant that many of the recent things he considered out of the norm, probably were. No worries. Finne walked off any nervousness on the way to the car. Now heading north on Springvale Rd. towards the river Finne was confident that the federal investigators were not looking to arrest him, as he has presented several opportunities for them to approach him unarmed. Likely, he thought, this involved a re-up of his security clearance or someone he knew was under similar scrutiny. Just to be sure, Finne had thrown the last half of his joint out the window in the middle of the first large intersection he had crossed. No one could retrieve it from there and find any useful evidence.
Heading North yet downhill towards the river seemed like a contradiction in Finne’s mind. The tall maple and oak trees so prevalent in Virginia’s landscape created a canopy over the two-lane road shading the sunlight and producing a dark tunnel-like atmosphere. Finne was alone on the road. He could see ahead and behind at least a half-mile and no one was coming or going in either direction around him. With the canopy above, Finne knew that he could not be seen by a drone or helicopter, so he pulled to the shoulder under a well-shaded area of trees. Finne popped the trunk lever and unlocked his doors before getting out. First he went to the passenger side of the call and reached under the dashboard to get the small stash box of bud that he kept hidden there. This is a shame he thought as he opened the box and dumped the beautiful green, red, and crystalic flower on the ground. Next wiped down the perfect-sized plastic box that he bought at the Container Store and threw it in the other direction across the road. A quick check of the trunk turned up a half a pack of Joker rolling papers which are not illegal in themselves, but definitely would provide a good impression. Finne shut the trunk and dropped the rolling papers in front of the left rear tire before getting back into the driver’s seat. As he spun his wheels on the climb from the shoulder to the road, he knew the rolling papers had been trashed to the point that fingerprints were impossible even if someone found them and cared to try to figure out who touched them. He was driving clean. Best to be safe when it can come back to bite your, he thought.
Approaching the turn towards Georgetown Pike, Finne began to feel increasingly nervous. He was still the only car on the road as far back and in front of him that he could see. The suburban traffic in this area is usually light but consistent with people commuting between homes, farms and the various retail and commercial establishments stretched out over the near river countryside and the larger cities, such as, Leesburg nearby. What could be going on? As Finne rounded the top of a small hill in the roadway, he caught sight of large truck ahead of him down the hill. He quickly dismissed his feelings of isolation and down-shifted to reduce his speed as he approached the truck. As Finne got closer he saw a dark brown tree services truck and shredder trailer stopped on the side of his lane and the shoulder with a crew of four workers standing in the other lane. Behind them and in front of their truck a large sycamore tree trunk lay across the road. Ah Hah! The road is closed, Finne thought. At least the tree guys are here. Maybe they can open the road shortly and save me the time and effort to double back to the nearest detour route, though Finne.
Finne pulled his car to the side of the road roughly 100 feet behind the truck and shredder and got out of his car. He read “ACACIA Tree Services, LLC “ on the side of the over-sized brown covered truck as he approached the group of men in similar colored uniforms ahead. “Good thing you guys are here.” Finne exclaimed trying to get their attention and see if he could gain their sympathies. “I know it will take me 45 minutes to detour around this to get where I need to go. If I offer to help, could we cut through this thing faster?”
All four men turned toward Finne as if they had just broken up a huddle. Three of the men walked towards Finne at a uniform pace but with slightly diverse paths such that they began to fan out in front of him as the approached. The fourth man looked directly into Finne’s eyes and replied, “We are going to cut through this thing fast, Mr. Seldnak. Your offer to help makes our job much easier.”
Finne’s jovial mode turned to panic instantly when he was identified by name. Before he could process his flight or fight emotions, the first man to approach him from his left had taken exceptionally strong hold of Finne’s left forearm. Finne swung his right fist toward the face of the man clasping his arm but his swing was caught in mid motion at the elbow by the man to his right. Finne’s feet were swept out from underneath him and he was quickly manipulated into a standard police hold lying on his face with both hands restrained behind his back. Thick plastic cable ties were secured around Finne’s wrists and ankles. Then Finne was stood up in front of the only man to have spoken a word since he pulled up.
“You didn’t scream” he said. “No one would hear me if I did out here” Finne replied. “Exactly” was the only response.
The man in front of Finne was just about 6 feet tall and looked to be carrying 200lbs on him though it was hard to tell with the bulky tree service jumpsuit covering him up. He had an athletic looking jaw and face, Finne observed. Likely, he was built like a linebacker and was as strong as one too. He motioned to the other men with a nod of his head in the direction of the truck. Before Finne could follow the glance towards the right side of the road, two hand picked him up from under his armpits and he was lifted off of his feet and being carried toward the backend of the truck and trailer into the area illuminated by the headlights of his running car.
“This is the end of the branch for you” Finne heard as dark hood was placed over his head from behind. Next a secondary motor being started followed by a loud combustion noise Finne knew was the sound of the shredder being warmed up. A sustained bursts of grinding followed for 6 seconds that felt like 6 minutes to Finne. “You can take comfort in knowing that the branch that was just shredded was as thick as your shoulders and taller than you by a foot. Also, tree trunks are much harder to grind than flesh and bones.”
Heading North yet downhill towards the river seemed like a contradiction in Finne’s mind. The tall maple and oak trees so prevalent in Virginia’s landscape created a canopy over the two-lane road shading the sunlight and producing a dark tunnel-like atmosphere. Finne was alone on the road. He could see ahead and behind at least a half-mile and no one was coming or going in either direction around him. With the canopy above, Finne knew that he could not be seen by a drone or helicopter, so he pulled to the shoulder under a well-shaded area of trees. Finne popped the trunk lever and unlocked his doors before getting out. First he went to the passenger side of the call and reached under the dashboard to get the small stash box of bud that he kept hidden there. This is a shame he thought as he opened the box and dumped the beautiful green, red, and crystalic flower on the ground. Next wiped down the perfect-sized plastic box that he bought at the Container Store and threw it in the other direction across the road. A quick check of the trunk turned up a half a pack of Joker rolling papers which are not illegal in themselves, but definitely would provide a good impression. Finne shut the trunk and dropped the rolling papers in front of the left rear tire before getting back into the driver’s seat. As he spun his wheels on the climb from the shoulder to the road, he knew the rolling papers had been trashed to the point that fingerprints were impossible even if someone found them and cared to try to figure out who touched them. He was driving clean. Best to be safe when it can come back to bite your, he thought.
Approaching the turn towards Georgetown Pike, Finne began to feel increasingly nervous. He was still the only car on the road as far back and in front of him that he could see. The suburban traffic in this area is usually light but consistent with people commuting between homes, farms and the various retail and commercial establishments stretched out over the near river countryside and the larger cities, such as, Leesburg nearby. What could be going on? As Finne rounded the top of a small hill in the roadway, he caught sight of large truck ahead of him down the hill. He quickly dismissed his feelings of isolation and down-shifted to reduce his speed as he approached the truck. As Finne got closer he saw a dark brown tree services truck and shredder trailer stopped on the side of his lane and the shoulder with a crew of four workers standing in the other lane. Behind them and in front of their truck a large sycamore tree trunk lay across the road. Ah Hah! The road is closed, Finne thought. At least the tree guys are here. Maybe they can open the road shortly and save me the time and effort to double back to the nearest detour route, though Finne.
Finne pulled his car to the side of the road roughly 100 feet behind the truck and shredder and got out of his car. He read “ACACIA Tree Services, LLC “ on the side of the over-sized brown covered truck as he approached the group of men in similar colored uniforms ahead. “Good thing you guys are here.” Finne exclaimed trying to get their attention and see if he could gain their sympathies. “I know it will take me 45 minutes to detour around this to get where I need to go. If I offer to help, could we cut through this thing faster?”
All four men turned toward Finne as if they had just broken up a huddle. Three of the men walked towards Finne at a uniform pace but with slightly diverse paths such that they began to fan out in front of him as the approached. The fourth man looked directly into Finne’s eyes and replied, “We are going to cut through this thing fast, Mr. Seldnak. Your offer to help makes our job much easier.”
Finne’s jovial mode turned to panic instantly when he was identified by name. Before he could process his flight or fight emotions, the first man to approach him from his left had taken exceptionally strong hold of Finne’s left forearm. Finne swung his right fist toward the face of the man clasping his arm but his swing was caught in mid motion at the elbow by the man to his right. Finne’s feet were swept out from underneath him and he was quickly manipulated into a standard police hold lying on his face with both hands restrained behind his back. Thick plastic cable ties were secured around Finne’s wrists and ankles. Then Finne was stood up in front of the only man to have spoken a word since he pulled up.
“You didn’t scream” he said. “No one would hear me if I did out here” Finne replied. “Exactly” was the only response.
The man in front of Finne was just about 6 feet tall and looked to be carrying 200lbs on him though it was hard to tell with the bulky tree service jumpsuit covering him up. He had an athletic looking jaw and face, Finne observed. Likely, he was built like a linebacker and was as strong as one too. He motioned to the other men with a nod of his head in the direction of the truck. Before Finne could follow the glance towards the right side of the road, two hand picked him up from under his armpits and he was lifted off of his feet and being carried toward the backend of the truck and trailer into the area illuminated by the headlights of his running car.
“This is the end of the branch for you” Finne heard as dark hood was placed over his head from behind. Next a secondary motor being started followed by a loud combustion noise Finne knew was the sound of the shredder being warmed up. A sustained bursts of grinding followed for 6 seconds that felt like 6 minutes to Finne. “You can take comfort in knowing that the branch that was just shredded was as thick as your shoulders and taller than you by a foot. Also, tree trunks are much harder to grind than flesh and bones.”
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Chapter 14 - After-party
Sarah found herself riding in the back of a car moving quickly though a series of continuous curves in near total darkness. Her vision was cloudy but she was gaining her senses back enough to know that she was riding with a man beside her in the back seat and two men up front, one driving and one riding in the passenger seat, in a well-appointed four seat sedan sports coupe that was traveling far faster than she was comfortable with at the moment. The turns were endless...sixty degrees to the left...fourty degrees to the right...one hundred fifty degrees to the left. She felt herself being bounced between the door to her right and the man she did not recognize to her left. "What day is it?" she thought.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Chapter 15 - Market Forces
Finne had frozen in shear panic and disorientation. Balancing awkwardly while bound at his ankles with his wrists strapped together behind his back he was near shock. The last several seconds had gone from worst case scenario to ... he didn't know what. Hooded in complete darkness in the middle of what he knew to be nowhere, Finne had begun to be lifted by his belt and underarms toward the sound of the roaring shredder.
Then suddnely, a series of sounds had changed everything and taken him to a higher level of distress. First, three distinct but near identical "SPIT" sounds pierced the air over Finne's right shoulder. Each "SPIT" was followed by a sound that Finne knew but had never heard so closely before. Splater and gurgles to his right, left, and directly behind him. From behind, Finne felt a spray of warm, slimy, liquid mass impact his right side from his shoulder blade to his ear. Finne was let go by all of the hands that had previously been thrusting him towards the wood chipper. Finne knew the gurgling to be the sound of massive arterial gunshot wounds and suspected that at least three of the four men that he had encountered were now dead or dying... likely from a sniper's rifle or a silenced side-arm.
Finne's instinct was to dive for the ground, but the last sounds he heard had locked his joints and sent his body stiff. "BAM..BAM..BAM.." exploded three feet in front and below him. Finne sensed the violent noise was coming from his waist level. These were definitely gunshots and Finne was sure they were directed at him. Nowhere seemed to be safe. He had frozen in shock.
"SPIT..SPIT.." Silence.
Finne's life passed before his eyes. In an instant he visualized his parents, siblings, friends, his memories of a privliged upbringing, boarding school, country clubs, ivy league dinner societies, and his social prowess amongst the DC power scene. His mind was in a state of absolute chaos. His body had gone limp and in his fleating moments before unconciousness, he thought "Am I dead?".
Then suddnely, a series of sounds had changed everything and taken him to a higher level of distress. First, three distinct but near identical "SPIT" sounds pierced the air over Finne's right shoulder. Each "SPIT" was followed by a sound that Finne knew but had never heard so closely before. Splater and gurgles to his right, left, and directly behind him. From behind, Finne felt a spray of warm, slimy, liquid mass impact his right side from his shoulder blade to his ear. Finne was let go by all of the hands that had previously been thrusting him towards the wood chipper. Finne knew the gurgling to be the sound of massive arterial gunshot wounds and suspected that at least three of the four men that he had encountered were now dead or dying... likely from a sniper's rifle or a silenced side-arm.
Finne's instinct was to dive for the ground, but the last sounds he heard had locked his joints and sent his body stiff. "BAM..BAM..BAM.." exploded three feet in front and below him. Finne sensed the violent noise was coming from his waist level. These were definitely gunshots and Finne was sure they were directed at him. Nowhere seemed to be safe. He had frozen in shock.
"SPIT..SPIT.." Silence.
Finne's life passed before his eyes. In an instant he visualized his parents, siblings, friends, his memories of a privliged upbringing, boarding school, country clubs, ivy league dinner societies, and his social prowess amongst the DC power scene. His mind was in a state of absolute chaos. His body had gone limp and in his fleating moments before unconciousness, he thought "Am I dead?".
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Chapter 16 - Codeword
Slowly awaking to the reality around him with an incredible sense of confusion and pain, Finne felt helpless. He was lying on his face exactly where he had collapsed onto the pavement. Without the benefit of his arms and hands to break his fall, Finne had taken the impact of his fall primarily to his left side. His left shoulder and ribcage felt as though they had been kicked hard and the left corner of his forehead just below his parted hairline throbbed and was no doubt the source of the blood smeared into his eye... He could not see and the thick fabric hood over his head was now constricting all of his ability to breathe. Scream, cough, breathe, roll, move, anything, help….fled through Finne’s mind as he passed back to unconsciousness.
All was black and still with an ultra high ring/squeal echoing in the nothingness that was Finne’s mind.
Then, a jolt upright and the blackness in front of him was violently replaced with harsh spot lighting from several directions. Finne could breathe, and he did at a distressed pace as if he had just finished an extensive workout. He could not see anything, though. His pupils had dilated excessively in the blackness of the hood, but now they retreated in physiological reaction to the intense brightness illuminating the scene around him.
An acrid smell pierced his nose and then lungs…ammonia…smelling salts..then a rush of adrenaline surged through his body and Finne quickly began to regain his situational awareness and the dream-like sequence of events that had just occurred. He began to see silhouettes of the bodies around him. Finne’s vision was hazy and he could not make out any details. Faces were not recognizable, but several people were now moving about within a few feet him. Finne squinted to try to see who had the gun. His nerves were still firing instructions to flee throughout the synapses of his mind and body. Then he realized that every figure he scrutinized was armed. Special Forces weaponry and tactics from his initial assessment. The black silhouettes were in-fact black jumpsuits worn by a team of soldiers that were silently securing and clearing the area around them.
Finne saw four bodies in brown jump suits being rolled into thick military issue body bags. A dark window-less van backed up to the pile of bodies and they were loaded in through the rear double doors by two soldiers in a matter of seconds. The large blood pools that remained on the road where the bodies had been looked to be as dark as midnight and not red as he had always seen before. Finne knew he was still in shock and he had no control over anything, including his capacity to rationalize what was happening.
“SNAP…SNAP…”
With each sound came freedom. First the cable tie around his hands had been cut. Next his feet. Instinctively, Finne reached for the .40 caliber Smith & Wesson he holstered on his right hip. He felt the holster but no weapon. Of course it must have been taken when he was first apprehended but he couldn’t recall losing it.
“Here is your sidearm, Mr. Seldnak.” A stoic and steady voice offered from his right. Finne’s eye’s adjusted to behold a battle-worn leatherneck stereo-type straight out of central casting approaching him with Finne’s gun extended toward him handle first. “It is fully loaded, as you left it. Fifteen in the clip and one in the chamber. Safety is on.”
Unable to make sense of this clandestine introduction, “Who?..What?..” were the only words Finne could manage to utter.
“Please come with me. I will explain.” Said the spook who handed him his gun. A dark SUV pulled up to the two men and Finne’s new acquaintance opened the rear door and extended a hand gesturing his offer to help Finne climb up into the truck. Finne accepted as he was not confident in his balance and was hoisted into rear of the cab and into his new reality.
The vehicle he was sitting in was equipped with command and control systems that Finne had never imagined before. At least ten monitors lined the entire front bulkhead between the driver and the passenger’s compartment. Each displayed a different set of images, video, data, and intelligence mash-ups that appeared harmonized and fluent across each channel. Satellite imagery on one screen plotted a configuration of thermal images in the middle of a dark void. The vehicle thrust forward and Finne watched in real time as the center thermal signature on the screen moved in tandem with the SUV. A second and third SUV followed in behind the truck in which Finne was riding and the thermal imagery reflected a three vehicle motorcade exiting a circle of smaller thermal points – likely the special ops personnel Finne could see encircling the scene of his capture/rescue/abduction. It was a single detail in the few seconds Finne glimpsed out the window of his convoy as it fled away at an accelerating pace that convinced him he was dealing with the dark world of spooks and national security and not an FBI hostage rescue team.
Finne had long hunted deer in the woods of Pennsylvania with both rifle and bow. His father introduced him to hunting and much of his thick skin for blood and gore came from time spent with his father bleedin’ deer and field cleaning carcasses after a successful hunt. Those formative experiences had ingrained the image of trophy buck being dragged back to camp by hind legs to allow the blood draining from its slit throat to trail behind and away from the body during tow. That was exactly what Finne saw over his shoulder and out the corner of his eye in an instant during the escape. One of the soldiers in black with his MP-5 slung over his shoulder, was dragging the recently slaughtered carcass of a large buck across the road spewing the lifeless animal’s blood across the road such that it mixed and masked the blood pools from the four bodies he had seen taken from the scene. How did they know they would need that and where did they find one so conveniently close to this ambush. Was the deer brought to the location already dead? Or did one of the Ranger Seal Delta Force killers out there just take one down in the woods in an instant of improvisation as they are taught to do in all of the elite military forces?
Finne understood that everything that had just taken place was precisely executed and from the amount of information streaming to the consoles in front of him, had been watched and possibly recorded by at least one set of all-seeing eyes.
“Finne, what do you remember about President Kennedy?” the man sitting across from Finne asked.
“Huh?...I was eight years old when he was shot. I remember the day just like I remember 9/11.” Finne replied.
“What do you remember about the time you met him?” was the retort.
Silence.
“I didn’t expect you to acknowledge the event. You have guarded that secret with your father since you were six years old. I am sure you now understand that I know about that meeting, what was said, and the fallout that still lingers to this day.” The master-sergeant looking man offered in a matter-of-fact and non-threatening tone.
“No one is supposed to know about that.” Finne uttered, surprising himself, as he had never even considered acknowledging what happened to anyone ever before. But if he knew, he must know a lot. Maybe more than me, Finne considered.
“Did you know my father?” Finne asked.
“Yes. It was an honor to work with him. He was a hero to this country and the small community that knows what really happened that day in the Oval Office holds him in the highest regards of honor.”
“Who are you?” was Finne’s next question.
“Consider me to be your guardian angel.”
“What should I call you?” Finne replied in frustration with the non-answer.
“Jack will work.”
“Not Colonel or Commander John?” Finne offered in an attempt to see if a military rank would be disclosed and to see how a bit of jesting would be taken.
“Jack, please.”
“Why do I need a guardian angel?” Finne inquired, although he was quite happy to have one given the rescue his angel just provided.
“Consider this your read in. The information I am about to disclose to you is classified at the highest level, truly.”
“I am cleared TS/SCI with access to compartmental programs and law enforcement intelligence. As an Inspector General with IRS am able to access…” Finne began but was interrupted.
“Watchkeeper.”
“What?” Finne interjected.
“Mr. Seldnac your clearance is codeword Watchkeeper. There is not one higher. In fact, only the President, National Security Advisor, Director of National Intelligence, Director of Central Intelligence, National Security Agency Administrator and six other living persons share the same level of intelligence access eligibility that you do. You, sir are a captain of industry within the intelligence apparatus. I am the director of security for your office. My name is Jack Wooten.”
“My office…captain of the intelligence industry…WTF? I’m a detective. I chase after the guys that steal from the revenue that feeds them. I keep the IRS clean and clear of cheats and thieves. What are you talking about?”
“Are you familiar with implanted comms?” Jack asked.
“Of course,” said Finne. “We use them as standard operating procedure during undercover work. Actually, I have always had technical difficulties with them and prefer the old-school hand signals for communicating covertly between agents during a mission.”
“Yes. The early generations of the technology did interfere with your primary implant. We had a hard time working out the dual channel interference. I assume you tended to experience high pitched static?”
“How did you know that? I never reported equipment problems after the first time in any of my paperwork because I feared that they would blame my hearing and put me on a medical review.” Finne revealed. “And what primary implant?”
Jack reached toward a keyboard in front of his seat and entered a series of keystrokes without answering.
Suddenly, Finne was aware. Streams of information began pouring into his head and his reality was permanently altered as the device lodged below his right ear deep into the tissue around his spinal chord sparking instantaneous neural activity and responses that he had never felt before.
Finne was definitely on the other side of the looking glass now.
“Welcome to the rest of your life.” Jack offered.
All was black and still with an ultra high ring/squeal echoing in the nothingness that was Finne’s mind.
Then, a jolt upright and the blackness in front of him was violently replaced with harsh spot lighting from several directions. Finne could breathe, and he did at a distressed pace as if he had just finished an extensive workout. He could not see anything, though. His pupils had dilated excessively in the blackness of the hood, but now they retreated in physiological reaction to the intense brightness illuminating the scene around him.
An acrid smell pierced his nose and then lungs…ammonia…smelling salts..then a rush of adrenaline surged through his body and Finne quickly began to regain his situational awareness and the dream-like sequence of events that had just occurred. He began to see silhouettes of the bodies around him. Finne’s vision was hazy and he could not make out any details. Faces were not recognizable, but several people were now moving about within a few feet him. Finne squinted to try to see who had the gun. His nerves were still firing instructions to flee throughout the synapses of his mind and body. Then he realized that every figure he scrutinized was armed. Special Forces weaponry and tactics from his initial assessment. The black silhouettes were in-fact black jumpsuits worn by a team of soldiers that were silently securing and clearing the area around them.
Finne saw four bodies in brown jump suits being rolled into thick military issue body bags. A dark window-less van backed up to the pile of bodies and they were loaded in through the rear double doors by two soldiers in a matter of seconds. The large blood pools that remained on the road where the bodies had been looked to be as dark as midnight and not red as he had always seen before. Finne knew he was still in shock and he had no control over anything, including his capacity to rationalize what was happening.
“SNAP…SNAP…”
With each sound came freedom. First the cable tie around his hands had been cut. Next his feet. Instinctively, Finne reached for the .40 caliber Smith & Wesson he holstered on his right hip. He felt the holster but no weapon. Of course it must have been taken when he was first apprehended but he couldn’t recall losing it.
“Here is your sidearm, Mr. Seldnak.” A stoic and steady voice offered from his right. Finne’s eye’s adjusted to behold a battle-worn leatherneck stereo-type straight out of central casting approaching him with Finne’s gun extended toward him handle first. “It is fully loaded, as you left it. Fifteen in the clip and one in the chamber. Safety is on.”
Unable to make sense of this clandestine introduction, “Who?..What?..” were the only words Finne could manage to utter.
“Please come with me. I will explain.” Said the spook who handed him his gun. A dark SUV pulled up to the two men and Finne’s new acquaintance opened the rear door and extended a hand gesturing his offer to help Finne climb up into the truck. Finne accepted as he was not confident in his balance and was hoisted into rear of the cab and into his new reality.
The vehicle he was sitting in was equipped with command and control systems that Finne had never imagined before. At least ten monitors lined the entire front bulkhead between the driver and the passenger’s compartment. Each displayed a different set of images, video, data, and intelligence mash-ups that appeared harmonized and fluent across each channel. Satellite imagery on one screen plotted a configuration of thermal images in the middle of a dark void. The vehicle thrust forward and Finne watched in real time as the center thermal signature on the screen moved in tandem with the SUV. A second and third SUV followed in behind the truck in which Finne was riding and the thermal imagery reflected a three vehicle motorcade exiting a circle of smaller thermal points – likely the special ops personnel Finne could see encircling the scene of his capture/rescue/abduction. It was a single detail in the few seconds Finne glimpsed out the window of his convoy as it fled away at an accelerating pace that convinced him he was dealing with the dark world of spooks and national security and not an FBI hostage rescue team.
Finne had long hunted deer in the woods of Pennsylvania with both rifle and bow. His father introduced him to hunting and much of his thick skin for blood and gore came from time spent with his father bleedin’ deer and field cleaning carcasses after a successful hunt. Those formative experiences had ingrained the image of trophy buck being dragged back to camp by hind legs to allow the blood draining from its slit throat to trail behind and away from the body during tow. That was exactly what Finne saw over his shoulder and out the corner of his eye in an instant during the escape. One of the soldiers in black with his MP-5 slung over his shoulder, was dragging the recently slaughtered carcass of a large buck across the road spewing the lifeless animal’s blood across the road such that it mixed and masked the blood pools from the four bodies he had seen taken from the scene. How did they know they would need that and where did they find one so conveniently close to this ambush. Was the deer brought to the location already dead? Or did one of the Ranger Seal Delta Force killers out there just take one down in the woods in an instant of improvisation as they are taught to do in all of the elite military forces?
Finne understood that everything that had just taken place was precisely executed and from the amount of information streaming to the consoles in front of him, had been watched and possibly recorded by at least one set of all-seeing eyes.
“Finne, what do you remember about President Kennedy?” the man sitting across from Finne asked.
“Huh?...I was eight years old when he was shot. I remember the day just like I remember 9/11.” Finne replied.
“What do you remember about the time you met him?” was the retort.
Silence.
“I didn’t expect you to acknowledge the event. You have guarded that secret with your father since you were six years old. I am sure you now understand that I know about that meeting, what was said, and the fallout that still lingers to this day.” The master-sergeant looking man offered in a matter-of-fact and non-threatening tone.
“No one is supposed to know about that.” Finne uttered, surprising himself, as he had never even considered acknowledging what happened to anyone ever before. But if he knew, he must know a lot. Maybe more than me, Finne considered.
“Did you know my father?” Finne asked.
“Yes. It was an honor to work with him. He was a hero to this country and the small community that knows what really happened that day in the Oval Office holds him in the highest regards of honor.”
“Who are you?” was Finne’s next question.
“Consider me to be your guardian angel.”
“What should I call you?” Finne replied in frustration with the non-answer.
“Jack will work.”
“Not Colonel or Commander John?” Finne offered in an attempt to see if a military rank would be disclosed and to see how a bit of jesting would be taken.
“Jack, please.”
“Why do I need a guardian angel?” Finne inquired, although he was quite happy to have one given the rescue his angel just provided.
“Consider this your read in. The information I am about to disclose to you is classified at the highest level, truly.”
“I am cleared TS/SCI with access to compartmental programs and law enforcement intelligence. As an Inspector General with IRS am able to access…” Finne began but was interrupted.
“Watchkeeper.”
“What?” Finne interjected.
“Mr. Seldnac your clearance is codeword Watchkeeper. There is not one higher. In fact, only the President, National Security Advisor, Director of National Intelligence, Director of Central Intelligence, National Security Agency Administrator and six other living persons share the same level of intelligence access eligibility that you do. You, sir are a captain of industry within the intelligence apparatus. I am the director of security for your office. My name is Jack Wooten.”
“My office…captain of the intelligence industry…WTF? I’m a detective. I chase after the guys that steal from the revenue that feeds them. I keep the IRS clean and clear of cheats and thieves. What are you talking about?”
“Are you familiar with implanted comms?” Jack asked.
“Of course,” said Finne. “We use them as standard operating procedure during undercover work. Actually, I have always had technical difficulties with them and prefer the old-school hand signals for communicating covertly between agents during a mission.”
“Yes. The early generations of the technology did interfere with your primary implant. We had a hard time working out the dual channel interference. I assume you tended to experience high pitched static?”
“How did you know that? I never reported equipment problems after the first time in any of my paperwork because I feared that they would blame my hearing and put me on a medical review.” Finne revealed. “And what primary implant?”
Jack reached toward a keyboard in front of his seat and entered a series of keystrokes without answering.
Suddenly, Finne was aware. Streams of information began pouring into his head and his reality was permanently altered as the device lodged below his right ear deep into the tissue around his spinal chord sparking instantaneous neural activity and responses that he had never felt before.
Finne was definitely on the other side of the looking glass now.
“Welcome to the rest of your life.” Jack offered.
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