by Jack Davis
While Anthony did have a healthy fear of jail, it was tempered by arrogance and ignorance—a dangerous combination. Anthony felt that from what he had seen and heard, his best opportunity for staying out of jail was to string the two agents along. Make them think he was cooperating, when in actuality he was just spinning in circles.
The agents had done nothing to change his opinion from the time of his arrest up until the interview. Their lack of cyber skills was obvious from the questions they asked and the way they asked them. They didn’t know any of the jargon. They also kept indicating that if he was willing to cooperate, they could work out something where he could be released and required to report back at some later time. The combination confirmed Anthony’s suspicion. He was sure if he could get himself released, with a little time and effort, he could eliminate all the evidence against him, warn a few of his friends, set up a few of his enemies, and make this arrest go away. So, after thinking about it, while it was certainly irksome that these two clods had arrested him, he was glad it was them and not someone who really knew cyber. Anthony decided to let the troglodytes think they were winning, all the while working to get his neck out of the flimsy noose they thought they had around his neck.
After the better part of three hours, Anthony’s plan was working. He had started by sticking to his story and protesting his innocence. The electronics at his house were deliveries for friends. He had no idea they were stolen. He was as shocked as the agents.
About an hour in, Anthony started to use a different tactic. “What kind of deal could a person who hypothetically committed these crimes make?”
“Hypothetically, we could probably keep him outta jail tonight if he cooperated.” The white agent grinned as the black agent leaned in. “Hypothetically, the person who committed these crimes might not have to go to jail at all.” He looked at his partner, apparently happy with the hypothetical progress.
“Would the person who committed these crimes need a lawyer?” Anthony’s questions momentarily stymied the agents.
“Are you asking for a lawyer?”
“Well, if the hypothetical criminal wanted to make a deal, wouldn’t he need a lawyer?”
The white agent grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “No,” he stammered. “No, not really. The person could admit stuff, sign somethin’…” He faltered. “We could work somthin’ out with the US attorney.”
“I need some time to think about this.”
“You take all the time you need. My partner and I will be outside for a couple minutes.”
The agents re-cuffed him to his chair and left the room. Anthony assumed it was to confer and strategize out of earshot.
When they returned, he patiently listened again to their pitch, hit them with a few more hypotheticals and what ifs, then when pressed, went back to, “I’m innocent.”
This drove the agents from the room in a smoldering rage.
26 | ECTF Group Leaders
NYFO, 09/26/09, 0630 hours
If Murray and Kruzerski were Clydesdales, Morley’s Group Leaders, Jaime Posada, Ron Greere, Kay Pencala, and Keith Swann were three thoroughbreds and a cow. There was nothing one of the four could not do with a computer. They truly were world class in their field.
The day of Chin-Lake’s arrest, all were in the office shortly after 0630 hours. Their intellects were focused on their newest scheme, which they planned on pitching to Morley later that morning. With that in mind, they mechanically went through the next steps in their commute ritual, dropping their bags in their office and grabbing some caffeine.
It was only after they had gotten their beverage of choice and were walking back to the lab that they heard the heated conversation between Kruzerski and Murray.
Greere, the lab director, knew that although the former Jarheads had been part of ECSAP for about three months, they had only completed three exams between them, and these with some help. This was in marked contrast to the other in the program who normally knocked out three or four exams a week. The former Marines had explained they hadn’t needed to conduct the exams because the people they arrested confessed.
Fueled by the long-held belief that the two shouldn’t be in the squad and they were masking their lack of ability via other means, the speculation regarding how their confession rates were so high continued. The issue was even brought to Morley, who assured the squad leaders he had been monitoring the situation, and there was “no there, there.”
As Swann and Greere walked into the lab they saw Kruzerski sitting in front of an exam machine, Murray hovering over his shoulder.
“Morning,” offered Greere.
Murray looked up, then at his watch, “Shit, it’s after six!”
Swann sat down and fired up his Mac as Greere went to the evidence vault to retrieve the hard drive they were scheduled to examine. From the corner of his eye he saw Kruzerski hunting and pecking the keyboard with his meaty fingers.
“You guys want a hand?” asked Greere.
The two answered in unison, “NO!!” Then almost in unison, “We can handle it!”
Swann looked Greere. “Let ’em be, they’re ECSAP agents.”
Greere shook his head slowly and set the hard drive down in front of Swann. “Once you get the string search going, let’s see if Morley’s in and give him our pitch.”
Swann’s fingers flew over the keyboard, and after a few mouse clicks, he turned. “Ready.”
As the two Group Leaders moved toward the doorway, Kruzerski’s voice shattered the silence. “I give up. I can’t find it either. I’m ready to shove this keyboard down that little asshole’s throat.” As he said it, he picked up the keyboard in frustration.
Greere, still mindful of the damage from the last time the two had gotten upset in the lab, verbally pulled them up short. “Remember, Morley said if you break one more piece of equipment, you’re both transferred to Admin,” said Greere in his best former Army captain voice. “I just patched the hole from your last flying-hard-drive incident. I’m responsible for this lab. You two screw around again and I’m not covering it up.”
For fun and to add emphasis, Swann jumped in. “Yeah, have fun conducting backgrounds and accident investigations for the next six months.”
Both Kruzerski and Murray knew Greere was serious. The thought of being sent to the Administration Squad was as scary as anything the two had faced since coming back from Iraq.
Kruzerski turned to his partner. “It’s that little puke’s fault. We should go have another talk with our friend and convince him to tell us where to look.”
“YEAH, I’m in the mood for a good talk.” Murray smacked his fist into his palm.
After the Marines left, Greere and Swann agreed they needed to mention this to Morley when they pitched their idea.
Before leaving the lab, Swann hesitated. “Go ahead; I’ll be right behind you.” He moved over to the computer Kruzerski had been on. While standing, he worked the mouse and keyboard. After a look at the screen, he typed in another command. Another review of the data, then a third command, and he had what he needed. The file named Kardz was located right where he thought it would be. He shook his head. With one more click the network printer on the other side of the lab begin to spit out paper. Grabbing the first sheet he was torn between following Greere or going after Murray and Kruzerski.
Swann bumped into Pencala who was coming from the gym as he walked into the hallway.
“Sorry Kay. Can I ask you for a favor?”
Pencala nodded, “Sure. What do you need?”
“I’ve gotta update PJ about a time sensitive issue. Can you find the HGH Twins? Tell them their last search must have worked—the printer is spitting out credit card numbers.”
“They actually found something” said Pencala in astonishment. “I guess the odds makers took a beating on that one. Do you know where they are?”
“The holding cells or one of the interview rooms. Knock before you go in.”
Morley sat in
his gym clothes listening to his voicemail when Posada and Greere queued up outside his door. “C’mon in, I’ll be right with ya.”
“K,” said Greere as the two entered and walked over to the couch.
Morley focused on the phone and jotted down notes. While waiting for the next message, he asked, “How’d you guys shoot?”
“Okay; 282 with the MP5, and 290 with the tube.” Greere hesitated. “And 278 with the Sig.”
Morley looked up. “Two seventy-eight? Was it off-hand shooting day or were you trying to curve the bullets like Angelina Jolie in Wanted?”
“I still think the academy snubbed her. Anyway, it was windy,” said Greere sheepishly.
“Ron, there are videos on the web of single-cell organisms and airmen shooting in the low 280s. The only thing keeping the ameba out of the 290s is the reloads. You’ve got…”
Morley was going to continue but something important caught his attention on voicemail. He put up one finger. With the handset between his shoulder and ear, he scribbled a note.
Swann walked into the office. “Morning.”
Morley, finished with the messages, hung up. “Hi.”
“Boss, I think you might want to talk with Kruzerski and Murray about the case they’re working. They seem to have, ah…” Greere paused. “They’re having trouble with an exam and they’re going back to…chat, with the suspect to get him tell where things are located.”
“What suspect?”
“Not sure, I guess they picked up some kid last night. They were talking about it in the lab. Kruzerski was getting pissed at the exam and they decided it would probably be faster to re-interview the perp. They rushed out of the lab, knuckles dragging across the floor.”
Morley smiled, turned to the phone and hit a few numbers to access the office intercom. “Kruzerski, 5958, Kruzerski, 5958.”
After Morley hung up Swann chimed in. “I took a quick look at the image of the machine they brought in. There’s stuff on it; they just couldn’t find it. They got the right guy.”
“I was with them ‘til twenty-two-thirty last night,” said Morley. “How’d they get an image and that far into the exam so quickly?”
“Looks like it’s a new laptop. Maybe only a couple weeks old. Didn’t have much info on it, and they ran the hash sets for the OS and some of the other programs. Without having to look at those, there really wasn’t much on there. The process could go pretty quickly.”
Greere couldn’t help himself. “A lunch says that someone reminded ’em to run the hash sets.”
Posada nodded in agreement. “Smart money says it would take hours of their undivided concentration and a dictionary to even spell hash set, let alone know what they are and how to use ’em.”
Morley deflected the attack away from Kruzerski and Murray. “Why is it I get the impression you have these bets about me at times?”
“Not anymore,” said Posada.
“Noooo, we like you now,” said Greere.
Swann hit the ball back to Greere. “Unless it’s something really egregious.”
“I thought that was a given,” confirmed Greere.
“Like a couple of weeks ago when you….” The phone rang, stopping Posada in mid-sentence.
Morley picked up the handset. “Brian, did you pick up the Chin-Lake kid?…No I haven’t gotten to my email yet. Swann just mentioned you found some evidence on the machine that you were working on. Since you and I were together until late last night, I figured it had to be Chin-Lake.”
There was a longer pause as Morley listened to Kruzerski explain how they had tracked down the defendant through a next-door neighbor who went to school with Anthony.
“Nice job. You gonna hit him,” Morley paused as he smiled at Greere, Swann, and Posada, “with the evidence and see what he has to say? That would be my recommendation.”
Over the phone, all heard Kruzerski say, “Yes, sir, thank you.”
Morley turned toward the agents on the couch, smiled, and said, “If you need any help, Swann, Posada, and Greere are around today. I think I saw Pencala too. Any of them would be glad to help.”
Even before Morley had finished the sentence, he saw the three in front of him shaking their heads forcefully, mouthing no.
“One last thing Brian, and relay this to Lionel. If you tell me you’re headed to the barn and then stay out on the street, I expect a phone call, not an email. I don’t care what time it is. If you’re out knockin’ on doors, I need to know. Good work. I’ll be down in a minute to get up to speed.”
As Morley hung up, Swann started in. “We offered to help and got a resounding ‘fuck off’ for our troubles. They’re ECSAP agents; if they can’t do the work, they should be in the Protection Squad.”
Morley knew where this was going. “Let’s not start that again.”
Posada jumped in to help his friend. “Yeah, they can always use a couple more human road cones over in Protection.”
As Morley turned toward Posada and frowned, Swann cut in. “Actually, Protection agents aren’t as effective as a good orange road cone. At least people know that a road cone means the area is off limits. No one ever questions a road cone.”
“You guys aren’t gonna let it go, are ya?” The four had an ongoing argument about what took more skill—protection or investigations. Morley, who had been on both sides of that fence, unlike his younger colleagues, had tried to explain that to be a good protection agent took a different skill set. Instead of getting into the discussion he said, “It’s too early in the day for this.”
Swann let his boss off the hook. “Okay, we’ll table it until later. You got a few minutes for something else?”
Morley saw that his computer had finally booted up. “Yeah, I’ve got a few minutes. I was gonna look for any new email, but that can wait I guess.”
“You under a thousand?” asked Greere, referring to the number of emails in his supervisor’s inbox.
“Read or unread?” came the response.
“The pool only counts unread,” added Posada.
Morley didn’t look up from the screen and started typing. “Not counting the spam from you three, I’m around four hundred; counting yours, slightly over a thousand.” As he completed the sentence, he pushed back from the desk and gave his full attention. Interlacing his fingers behind his head, he tried to beat them to the punch. “Before you start, if this is another attempt to get authorization to participate in ‘Meet the Fed’ at Black Hat, I’m not gonna pitch it again. ASAIC Brown is convinced he can handle it.”
“At least listen to our idea.” Swann looked hopeful.
“It better be good, and not involve getting him drunk, lost, or hiring a hooker.”
“I’m hurt you think so little of us,” lamented Greere with fake sincerity. “The point is that no matter how much we don’t like ASAIC Brown, having him make a fool of himself before that audience is not good for any of us. We,” he looked over at Swann and Posada, “feel we can make him think we support him and prove to his highness that he shouldn’t do it.”
Swann interjected, “And the plan involving the hooker fell apart when we all agreed we couldn’t legally get enough money to pay a hooker to sleep with Brown.”
Morley brought them back to the point. “Continue.”
“Our revised plan is, we draft a sample group of probable questions that would be asked of the panel members. When he reads them and realizes he doesn’t understand the acronyms, let alone the questions, he may realize how bad he’s going to look and gracefully defer to someone who has a clue.”
Morley sat silent, mulling over the suggestion, He’s not ignorant, just arrogant. “That just may work. If he hits you up for the answers, thinking he can just parrot those, then what?”
“Easy,” Posada said. “We send him the answers, but also a group of what we believe to be the logical follow-up questions. He’ll see he doesn’t have a prayer.”
Morley smiled, “I like it. Draft up some questions and let me look at
’em.”
“You might want to check your emails from Keith for last Monday.” Greere smiled. “The ten questions are in an attachment.”
“Bastards! Do you know any supervisor who likes to be set up?” Morley acted annoyed.
Now they were all smiling. “We figured you were used to it by now,” said Swann.
Morley shook his head. “Assholes.”
“We’re also looking for authorization to get a popcorn machine for the lab.”
Morley, once more thinking about the Chin-Lake case, heard the words popcorn machine but they didn’t register. They blended with terms like BlackBerry, Apple, Macintosh.
“What is it? What does it do? Why do we need one, and how much does it cost…or is that in an email also?”
Greere, Swann, and Posada looked at each other quizzically before they understood. They couldn’t help but laugh.
Greere was able to stop laughing first and explain to their perplexed boss, “PJ, a POPCORN machine.” Then slowly he said, “To pop popcorn, to eat!”
“Assholes.”
27 | ‘The Ref Oughta Stop This’
NYFO, 09/25/09, 0740 hours
After the impromptu Black Hat meeting, Morley thought it best to observe the interview between the former Marines and their suspect. Followed by his Group Leaders he slipped into the adjacent room.
It only took minutes of watching through the one-way glass to realize Murray and Kruzerski had no strategic plan…or no tactical plan for that matter. The sleep-deprived agents were employing the brute force method of verbal interrogation. It wasn’t working.
“This is painful. How long you gonna let it go on?” asked Posada, staring at Morley’s reflection in the glass.
Swann jumped in, “If this was a fight, the ref would’ve stopped it by now. They’re out on their feet. They can’t defend themselves!”
“They’re tangled in the ropes and can’t even fall down,” said Greere.
“It’s like watching a horse tryin’ to play Chinese checkers,” added Swann.