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.