Infinite Exposure

by Roland Hughes

  There were quite a few articles in the Indian news and on various blog sites stating Union Network International was trying to organize the call center and back-office workers in India. They had already made some progress in Bangalore, but were having an uphill struggle.

  UNI had failed to organize the programmers back in 2000, but they just might succeed with the call center and back-office workers. Currently, these people made around U.S. $2,400 per year. Well below the poverty level in any industrialized country, but way more than the $500 per year many other workers made in the country.

  What was going to help UNI was the stress level. Three in 10 changed jobs at least once per year and one in seven left the field entirely during that same time frame. Burn out and poor treatment were commonplace. Most of the major off-shore companies already had operations or were starting them in places like Korea where the work could be done for even less. Indian workers were getting $10 per day and the companies were billing them out at $10 to $20 per hour. That kind of margin allowed you to exploit any poor person in any country you wanted.

  Vladimir did what he always did. He wrote a report and emailed it to the man in the suit. He was pretty certain the report would just be ignored as the report was ignored for the operation that cost him his ability to walk. If the IT workers unionized and the off-shore companies moved the jobs, this would be the largest pool of disenfranchised educated people in the world. Many of them were Muslims already; Al-Qaeda would have a field day bringing in recruits. After a moment's thought, he also sent a copy of his report to his friend in the Russian mafia.

  He did some quick number crunching to gauge the impact of this event. According to some reports, most of the IT workers held on to over half of their money. There wasn't much in the way of quality home builders in the areas where the data centers were, so they couldn't go into debt on McMansions. They also didn't have much in the way of roads, let alone interstates to drive on, so most didn't buy cars; or they bought those $3,000 cracker boxes made by Indian and Chinese car makers for sale in that market. Some employment reports stated there were as many as 300,000 IT workers in India working for off-shore companies. That was a lot of untraceable cash. If they banded together, they would be able to purchase a nuke or a biological weapon. Vladimir doubted if such a sale could be stopped again.

  Once, a few years ago, one of the Russian crime families dealing in arms tried to sell some uranium to representatives from al-Qaeda. “Tried” was the operative word. Vladimir's friends found out about it and took care of the problem. You could sell all of the grenades and automatic weapons you wanted to them back then, but if you tried to sell something uncontrollable, you were dealt with. A few phone calls were made to some other crime families and two days prior to the delivery, that crime family ceased to exist. When the police tried arresting some of the mechanics, the information was given to Russian intelligence along with the location of what the family had been trying to sell. Everyone was released. It was OK to be a bad man in Russia, it was not OK to be that kind of bad man.

  What bothered Vladimir the most was not being able to see how the attack would occur. Educated people with money tended to not strap bombs to their chest and blow up buses. He didn't think it would be enough for this group to simply design and fund an attack. Then again, given the class system, the upper class may choose to design and fund those attacks and order the lower classes to their deaths. The problem with that idea is that the lower classes were the ones working in IT, while the upper classes made a profit off them.

  ***

  The day came when Nedim was to make the drop to the courier. His shadows had followed him from quite a distance. The rest were in place up and down the street. All of the documents and a CD were in the courier pouch they had given him. Thankfully, they thought to buy something made locally which was used and cheap looking. It was exactly the kind of bag locals carried things in. A new leather bag from one of the big name manufacturers would have been a major tip off something was up.

  Half way to his office a woman he worked with walked up beside him and asked him if he had a bag for her. Nedim was shocked that this woman would be speaking with him. She was obviously not a good Muslim: Speaking to a man who was not her relation and she was not asking him permission to do something. Still, Nedim played along. “God is great. He may have provided a bag for you.”

  “God's word lights the way and is only for me to carry,” the woman responded. With that, Nedim took the bag off his shoulder, and without stopping handed it to her. She put the bag over her shoulder and disappeared into the crowd without breaking stride.

  Thankfully, many IT workers had cell phones now. As bad as cell phone service was in Pakistan, it was still more reliable than land lines. The devices receiving the tracking information looked and functioned just like cell phones. When the woman was sufficiently gone, Umar came up alongside Nedim and asked, “Did you know her?”

  “She works at my company.”

  “Do you have a name?”

  “No, but I can get it. Her cube is four rows down from mine and we all have name tags.”

  “Good. See that you get it and email it to this address first thing this morning.” He handed Nedim a slip of paper with an email address on it. “Probably an alias, but we should be able to find out where she is living from your employer.”

  Nedim stopped and looked at Umar. “How?”

  “We have access to all employment records filed with the government. Don't worry, your employer won't even know we were looking.”

  With that, Nedim continued on to work in silence. Something bad was about to happen, he could just feel it. These people had never tried to comfort him in the past.

  Some time later he arrived at work. On the way to his desk he took a different route which took him past the woman's cube. He quickly wrote her name down on the back of the slip of paper he had been given. Once at his desk he logged in and sent the requested email. This is simply not going to be a good day, he thought.

  ***

  Hans came into the man in the suit's office and turned on the BBC. He did not ask permission nor speak to the man in the suit. When the man in the suit saw him heading for the satellite television set, he opted not to protest. There was a news report stating that Pakistani intelligence had arrested an IT worker who was a suspected link in the al-Qaeda communications network. They didn't have a name yet, but they had enough generic information to finger Nedim to anyone who knew him. The report did not yet say they had turned him and were using him to infiltrate al-Qaeda operations, but that information couldn't be more than a few hours away. Hans simply looked at the man in the suit and walked out. Both of them knew what they had to do now.

  The man in the suit made a phone call to his contact in Pakistan's intelligence. He arranged for a strongly worded protest to be released to the press. He needed to buy time for the couriers to be nabbed. He made certain the press release stated that the person arrested had remained in custody pending a full investigation.

  Hans had his own communication to make. He had to tell the team in the field to nab each courier as soon as they made the drop. They were to immediately be flown to the interrogation camp as this operation had just been burned. They were now in a race to find the destination before others found out about the operation. The others he was worried about were the al-Qaeda leaders who were about to receive this pouch. If they got wind and ran to ground, this operation's biggest nab would vanish. Nobody knew who was supposed to receive the pouch, not even Nedim. It had to be an old timer who didn't like technology and they had to be somewhere in the mountains, but finding them would be impossible unless they could follow the bag.

  There was one final duty for Hans before he could return for more instructions and a debriefing. From his bag he took a disposable cell phone and a slip of paper. He went upstairs to an empty room and made an international phone call.

  Nikolaus had not been expecting that particular cell phone to ring when it went o
ff. There was only one person who had the number, and this wouldn't be good.

  “Hello.”

  “It's me. Our asset is being outed by the BBC. Perhaps you've seen the news? He is in the process of making a courier drop and given the situation we are nabbing each courier once they make the drop. I know the first one is a woman. Until the field report's in we won't know how many we are sending your way, but they are all coming your way. This operation is burned. We have to tie it off and get out until we manage to locate another asset.”

  “Understood. We have less than 24 hours to get everything in order. You will call again to let us know when the plane is leaving?”

  “Yes.”

  Nikolaus hung up and used his own disposable cell phone to make a call. He relayed to the man on the other end the story Hans had just told him. Unless something happened during the nabbing, there would be at least one woman with this bunch.

  Couriers never knew much, sometimes they didn't even know they were working for al-Qaeda. It sounds weird when you say it out loud, but it is true. A lot of the couriers are simply that by trade. They carry drugs, contraband and information from one place to another each day. It's dangerous, but it's a living.

  It was agreed that most of the couriers would undergo interrogation for a week or less. So far the interrogators had all been professional and they could tell when they were pumping a dry well. Nikolaus told him to notify the team.

  ***

  Jeremy had never been a smart individual. If it hadn't been for friends helping him and doing his homework, he would have never gotten through college. He had a long list of friends from college who were now successful and his only real asset was his contact list. Combined with his expense account it turned up very valuable information. His boss, Lenny, was a cheap bastard when it came to things like pay checks and bonuses, but he never batted an eye when you turned in a $300 receipt for drinks and dinner if you listed a stock symbol on the back you were researching. He knew information was more valuable than money and that you had to spend money to get information.

  It had been quite a morning at “Group Lenny.” That wasn't the official company name, of course, but it was how he and his friends referred to it. In truth, Jeremy had to look at his business card to remember the company name. Lenny had the reputation, not his company. The reputation Lenny had earned was that he only accepted investments from people with tens of millions to toss around and he generally averaged returns in the 100%-400% percent range. As a result, Lenny didn't advertise and didn't let anyone in the media know anything about his company. They weren't even listed on the company roster for the office building. People with tens of millions to invest were smart enough to keep their mouth shut. The last thing Lenny needed was a bunch of reporters or SEC investigators running around trying to figure out how he achieved those returns.

  There was no real magic. Quite simply, Lenny, and everyone working for him, broke the law. They used every contact they had to obtain information two to three days early. Nobody at this group would use information obtained only one day in advance. Trading one day before big news about some company tended to be investigated by the SEC. If you had a three day window, you could spread out your trades and leak the news via channels once you had your position in the market. This type of thing was done all of the time. Nobody ever seemed to question how financial reporters broadcast a company's news days before it was officially filed with the SEC. As long as you had a few reporters you could feed third-hand you could get away with it.

  On this particular day Lenny had assigned his staff the task of finding out how First Global Bank was beating analyst estimates by so much. Jeremy assumed the news was already being leaked since the automated trading should have acquired their position by now. The number crunching algorithms on the computer system flagged an unusual drop in IT expenses and some increased income from asset sales. There had been no news of First Global Bank selling any major assets, so this set Jeremy to searching the various on-line databases and making some phone calls.

  Six phone calls into it he found someone who knew First Global Bank had sold their New York data center for a boat load of cash. Jeremy made some other small talk with the contact, then agreed to meet them for supper at a four-star restaurant they both liked.

  A data center sale was not outside the realm of sanity, but it didn't account for the staggering difference in earnings. First Global Bank had eaten a good number of bank chains in the past couple of years, so it made sense to consolidate data centers. Loss of the New York center struck Jeremy as odd since First Global had a brokerage division, which would mandate keeping your trading engine as close to the New York trading floor systems as possible. Milliseconds meant millions when filling market orders.

  The Web searches now centered on commercial real-estate sites and related news sites. It turned out that First Global Bank had a lot of their data centers up for sale or had given up the leases on them. Could they possibly have completed merging all of the other bank chains onto their original system? Didn't seem likely. There were a lot of countries involved and First Global had been in only North America and Canada prior to the acquisition spree.

  When the hour approached 4 PM, Jeremy struck pay dirt. One of the skirts he used to do in college was now working at Big Four Consulting. After offering to meet her for supper the following evening at a four-star restaurant she really wanted to try and the possibility of a roll in the hay, she volunteered that Big Four Consulting had won a contract to off-shore all of First Global Bank's data centers. By the end of the project, the 10 original sets of data centers would be down to one set located in the cheap labor market of India. Admittedly, First Global Bank had already consolidated down to four sets of data centers before Big Four Consulting got involved, but the project was quite large anyway. Jeremy thanked her and asked what time he should make the reservation tomorrow.

  Exactly at 4 PM, Lenny called the analysts into their meeting. Lenny went around the room asking each analyst what they had learned. The other two simply regurgitated what the computer analysis had told them. Jeremy informed him he had to fly out tomorrow to repay the contact who had given him the information Lenny needed. First Global Bank was moving all of their data centers off-shore. In about another year, they would have no computer systems in any country other than India. The nine sets of data centers they had were being sold or having their leases terminated. All of the hardware inside of them were being sold as well. They had outsourced all of their data center work to a partner of Big Four Consulting in India.

  The other two analysts had graduated with 4.0 GPAs from good business schools. Jeremy had barely graduated from a state college. Yet here he was, once again bringing home the bacon.

  “You can verify this?” Lenny asked.

  “The New York data center just sold for a killer profit,” Jeremy responded as he handed Lenny the print out from the commercial real-estate Web site. “Two more are up for sale,” as he handed over two more screen prints. “It appears some were leased and now have leases listed as available.”

  “At first I thought they had simply completed a consolidation project getting all of the other banking chains onto their original system, but it didn't fit given all of the countries involved. Then when I found the person who knew the details, it all made sense. They never attempted a consolidation project, they simply got rid of all the machines and outsourced to the land of cheap labor and low rent. I doubt anyone's banking records could ever be subpoenaed now given that the data centers are in another country.”

  Lenny sat back and thought for a moment. “This is very interesting indeed. Does anybody else have this information yet?”

  “I don't think their shareholders even have it,” responded Jeremy. “Normally you don't send out letters to shareholders when you are simply moving computer systems around.”

  Lenny pondered awhile longer. “The board had to know. A project of this size would have had to get their approval and funding. I imagine t
heir next step will be to use all Indian IT labor to do the consolidation project. Only one problem with this situation. Not one person depositing money in these banks knows the banks no longer control the access to the data systems.”

  The three analysts looked at each other, then at Lenny. Finally Jeremy asked, “Does any depositor know if their bank controls access to the system it uses?”

  “It is both assumed and required,” responded Lenny. “Your research said they were selling off all of their computers, but said nothing about buying new computers. This means the off-shore data center is providing a turnkey service. The banks don't own the computers they are now using, which means people who have not been vetted by the FBI, SEC, FDIC or whatever government agencies in this country perform the background checks. Each country has its own rules, but there are some common rules across most of the countries we do banking with. No convicted felons and nobody on a terrorist watch list can ever be employed at a bank or financial institution. When the data center isn't in this country and the bank doesn't own it, who is to say what type of people are hired and now have accounts with complete access to the system?”

  At that moment, the reality of what Lenny was saying sank into all three analysts. After the money was made over the next couple of weeks with the share price run up, Lenny was going to start a very slow process of shorting the stock. Once he had achieved the kind of short position he wanted, this very story was going to leak. It would be timed to leak right about the time the off-shoring project was past the point of no return.

  Jeremy was told to book a convenient flight out tomorrow. No need to come into the office if he didn't want to. He needed to find out which divisions of the bank already had 100% of their data center operations migrated off-shore. “Focus on the U.S. branches for now,” Lenny told him. “You also need to book a date with her for the day/evening after they complete migrating the last data center. I'm sure you can find a jacuzzi hotel suite in a nice restaurant to thank her properly.”