“In the House, we have the votes. The problem is in the Senate. We need to flip two votes.”
“What about the President?”
“He’ll sign the bill if it gets to him. Three German companies are entering the US electric car market next year. Stopping the sunset of the individual car subsidy helps his case in the upcoming trade negotiations with the EU. It gives him a bargaining chip he can use,” the Senator replied.
“Give me a list of the names of the Senators you expect to vote against the bill,” Evan stated. The Senator had a complete report with all of the names as well as suggested talking points for an engagement strategy with each one. He handed a bound presentation to both Evan and his VP for Government Affairs, expecting a lengthy strategy session to follow.
“Thank you, gentlemen, for your time,” Evan said
Armed with a list of fifty-one names, Evan went directly to his office desk and went to work. The two visitors said their goodbyes on the way out, but he didn’t hear them because he was already lost in thought. He worked at a manic pace for two straight days with hardly a break. He didn’t sleep, and he didn’t eat. A steady diet of cocaine and coffee kept him energized. When he finally finished his task, he rubbed the stubble on his chin and ordered a company plane to fly him to Butte, Montana. Then he crashed on his office couch.
Storing servers in the cold Rocky Mountain air saved Evan millions in cooling costs; miles and miles of server racks generate a lot of heat. SysData Storage was Evan’s most neglected holding. He rarely visited the SysData Storage complex because of its out-of-the-way location, and because he found data storage to be an intensely boring subject. His only fondness for the business came from the steady income it generated. Most of the revenue came from performing data storage for big insurance companies and government agencies— organizations that generate mountains of documents that need to be digitized, retrievable, and retained for long periods. One of those agencies was the FBI. Over the past two days, he’d completed a lifestyle profile on every Senator who was expected to vote against extending the tax credit. He narrowed the fifty-one names down to eleven targets. He focused on those eleven targets and identified specific time periods for each individual where he would concentrate his search. He was sure he’d find what he needed on at least two of the Senators. He had a lot of reasons to be confident. He had access to every FBI case file and report ever submitted, and he was a computer genius who could sift through those files at lightning speed and find what he needed.
The FBI server farm is a highly secure facility. It can’t be accessed by the internet. Its only external connection is to the FBI headquarters, and that’s by a secure fiber optic link. To access the files, a person needs to be physically present at the server farm in Montana or in the Hoover building in DC. Evan could never access the info through FBI channels, but as the owner of SysData Storage, he had a free pass to the server farm any time he wanted.
He was met at the Butte Airport by the facility General Manager. The reason he gave for his visit was a data compression upgrade he was working on. The reason for the visit, as flimsy as it was, went unquestioned. He was Evan Moskowitz, a deity to people in the tech community. He could have told the GM the real purpose for his visit and it would have been met with unquestioned support. The highlight of the GM’s career, perhaps even his life, would be the day he escorted Evan Moskowitz from the airport to the server farm.
It took him only five hours alone behind a computer console to get what he needed. He made sure to erase any trace of his activity. Connections to the system with a USB or a printer would have raised an alarm to the FBI, who monitored all access to the system. He captured screenshots of the documents he needed from the monitor screen using his cell phone.
He met his personal lawyer and fixer at his office in Seattle before heading to San Francisco for the weekend. His lawyer would engage a security firm they used occasionally to solve sensitive issues. An ultimatum would be passed to the targeted Senators early the next week. Given the choice between either saving the environment by voting to extend a $7,500 tax credit on electric vehicles, or losing their next reelection bid because of a scandal, Evan was certain the decision would be easy.
Evan dressed for the charity dinner in the tux Tabitha laid out for him and had a car take him to the airport. His girlfriend met him in a limo at the Palo Alto Airport private terminal, and after receiving a humanitarian award at the Annual San Francisco GLAAD gala, he spent the weekend partying with his popstar girlfriend and her friends. By Thursday the next week, he received confirmation the approach to the Senators had been made. The first target, the Senior Senator from Alaska, had agreed to the proposition on the spot. The response of the second target, the Senior Senator from Georgia, had been puzzling, to say the least.
Senator Raymond Childers was elected to the Senate in 1994. He was a prominent Republican with a strong conservative voting record. He was a family man with a wife and two adult children. Prior to entering the Senate, he was a popular Congressman and, before that, Childers was a high school teacher. During an annual week-long school trip to Italy while still a teacher, Senator Childers became romantically involved with his Italian guide. Months later, after Childers ignored attempts from the young lady to communicate with him, the girl, out of frustration, visited the US Embassy in Rome and requested assistance in reaching Childers.
Many years later, when Senator Childers was getting his background investigation for his Top Secret security clearance, the investigators found the Italian girl’s inquiry in the State Department records. The investigators also discovered a payment of $100,000 to the girl many years later. The investigators learned the payment was consideration exchanged for the signing of a non-disclosure agreement. The protected information the agreement was created to keep secret was the fact that Childers had impregnated the Italian girl and later paid for an abortion.
Impregnating girls and paying for abortions are not crimes. The concern of the security clearance background investigators was restricted to the threat of blackmail from the girl. The existence of an NDA was found to provide sufficient protection and a Top Secret/Special Background Investigation security clearance was granted. The file was closed and never re-opened.
Evan couldn’t understand why the Senator didn’t jump at the deal. As one of the most vocal pro-life candidates in the country, it made no sense that he was willing to risk exposure as a hypocrite instead of voting for a tax credit that would go largely unnoticed by his supporters. He called his fixer and asked him to meet, so he could pass him the information on the third target; his backup was a Senator from New Mexico. He thought the Senator from Georgia would eventually come around, but it never hurt to have a fallback plan.
Chapter 33
Eleuthera, Bahamas
We were midway through hurricane season the next time the subject of Evan Moskowitz came up. Cheryl was experiencing autumn in Northern Virginia, and I was living on the beach in Eleuthera. We traded visits every other weekend. She was working marathon hours while I was mostly just hanging out at the beach.
Mike popped down to Eleuthera for a visit. I was guessing he was just checking in on me because he gave no reason for coming. I still hadn’t hired replacements for the guys we lost in Paphos. The reconstruction of the Paphos hangar was almost complete, but my heart wasn’t into the act of rebuilding the team.
He came early, after I was just finishing up my morning surf. I was still in my wetsuit on the second-floor sun deck when Maria opened the porch door and let him through. He sat in the wicker chair next to mine. I was drinking coffee, weary and sore from spending the previous three hours battling the waves. The deck is a wrap around, with a view of both oceans. We were looking out on the Atlantic side; the weather was cloudy, and a blustery wind was coming in from the ocean. The surf was rough; a tropical storm was generating big swells that made for an exciting morning.
“How are David and Cheryl coming along?” I asked.
; “Good. When they’re done, ALICE will live in our computer facility in Fredericton, but David will have remote access from Scotland and Paphos.”
“Is that all there is to his system, the AI driven computer?”
“No, it’s much more than that. It’s the way ALICE synchronizes with the sensors. Cheryl has a better understanding of sensors, and David is the computer whiz. Together they’ve pioneered some techniques that they’re sharing with our people in-house.”
“How can ALICE be used for commercial purposes if it’s owned by the government? We make a pretty good business tracking, and sometimes finding, maritime assets for shippers and insurance companies,” I said.
“The system belongs to Clearwater; we’re keeping it in Virginia to safeguard it, is all.”
“I have no objections. I just don’t want you to wind up in a congressional oversight hearing about it.”
“No danger there.”
“Speaking of congressional oversight, that’s why I’m here.” My ears perked up at that.
“Our boy Evan can’t seem to color inside of the lines. The tax bill last year cut out the subsidy for electric cars. Uncle Sam’s $7,500 represents a pretty big discount, and without it, his sales are going to take a pretty big hit.”
“Go on. I’m listening.”
“He paid a leg breaker to approach Senator Childers and offer him silence on an indiscretion involving an abortion he paid for years ago, in exchange for a yes vote on the upcoming bill stopping the sunsetting of the electric car tax credit.”
“How do you know he did that?”
“Hubris. The guy was so confident Childers would take the deal and keep his mouth shut, he used a law firm to hire the thug that, after only a little research, traced all the way back to Moskowitz. Childers has stage four lymphoma; he’s dying and couldn’t care less about reelection. His wife knows about the girl and the abortion, so his only vulnerability is the voters which matter very little at this point in his political career. He’s kept his diagnosis secret and Moskowitz knew nothing about it. We got lucky because after he was contacted, Childers went straight to the FBI and from there it took less than a week to connect the dots back to the law firm, and back to Moskowitz.”
“Moskowitz being a bad guy has already been established.”
“This is a new level. He’s gone beyond meddling in the affairs of Saudi Arabia. He’s now stealing secrets from the FBI and blackmailing US Senators.”
“Have the powers that be decided to do something about it?”
“I had a very private meeting with the Director and the DNI. Moskowitz has the contract managing the servers for the FBI, HSA, ATF, as well as other agencies not connected to national security. These facilities are supposed to be secure, and the data within them not accessible by the hosting company. Moskowitz found a way to bypass that security. The top FBI computer experts can’t find any evidence that Moskowitz got the info to blackmail Childers from the FBI, but given his talent in the area, we believe that’s where the dirt on Childers came from.”
“How does any of this involve me and Trident?”
“It doesn’t involve Trident at all.”
“Now you have me confused.”
“Let me explain. Moskowitz has the head of the FBI and President himself terrified. He’s out of control, completely off the rails; he’s willing to do anything to get what he wants, and he has billions of dollars and access to many of the Nation’s most closely guarded secrets at his disposal. Moskowitz can no longer be trusted. By accessing the FBI files, he’s become a clear and present danger.”
“Why doesn’t the FBI arrest him?”
“The firm that made the approach to Childers has worked in the past for Moskowitz. That’s all the evidence against him. We can’t prove he accessed the FBI data, and unless the goon who threatened Childers flips on him, we can’t prove Moskowitz was involved at all.”
“Maybe he’s not involved?”
“No chance. He’s involved, and if we go after him in the courts, he’s going to beat the charge, and for all we know he’s got the dirt on many more public officials and politicians.”
“That’s a problem. Why would the FBI hand over all of their secrets to a dotcom billionaire anyway?”
“Dotcom billionaires are the only people with the skills and resources to manage big data. Do you know who handles the CIA’s servers?”
“No, who?”
“Jeff Bezos from Amazon, who’s also the owner of the Washington Post.” That made me chuckle.
“I’m sure you have nothing to worry about with that choice. What’s the plan on Moskowitz?”
“The FBI is going to quietly investigate. In the cloak and dagger meeting I had with the DNI, his exact words were ‘If someone were to take Moskowitz out they’d be doing all of us a huge favor.’ I told him that Moskowitz had plenty of enemies, but nobody that was going to solve our problem for us. His response was that he wouldn’t be surprised if Pat Walsh went after him. He said you’ve never been one to listen to orders.” I paused for a few seconds while I processed what he said.
“That’s the King Henry, ‘Will nobody rid me of this turbulent priest?’ defense. He gave the order without giving the order. That’s a pretty gutless way to authorize an operation, if you ask me.”
“Welcome to the world of Washington. It’s an unsanctioned operation; if you get caught, you’re on your own and nobody can help. Once he’s dead, nobody’s going to look very hard to find out who did it.”
“That works for me.”
“On your own Pat; no Trident assets either.”
“Do you want me to recover the information he stole from the FBI, or is this just a hit?”
“We’d love to know how he’s manipulating the social media, and what other FBI files he has. But this is improv, and we don’t expect miracles.”
“How many people know I’ve been given the green light?”
“You, me, and the Director of National Intelligence, for sure. I would guess the President has a good idea what’s going on. The DNI is not one to operate without top cover.”
“Small group. Let’s keep it that way.”
“Best if you make it look like an accident or natural causes, but nobody’s too worried about the how; he just needs to be taken off the board. Maybe you can do something with his growing drug habit.” He handed me a thick manila envelope.
“What’s this?”
“A target folder. Burn it when you’re done with it. It has everything we know about his habits, movements, and security.”
“Cool. Are you hungry? Feel like wandering over to Tippy’s bar and having a beer and grouper sandwich?”
We walked next door and had a terrific lunch. After I’ve been in the salty ocean water for hours, beer tastes so much better. After lunch, Mike flew back to Langley and I retreated to my office to study the target.
Chapter 34
Seattle, Washington
I drove off the Bainbridge Island Ferry in my rental and headed north on Alaska to the Seattle Marriott. I went to the island to see if it was a feasible starting point to surveil Evan. It wasn’t; his home on Bainbridge Island couldn’t have been less suitable.
Evan has a sprawling estate on the Puget Sound shoreline. It’s a beautiful stone house facing the Olympic Mountains to the west and is surrounded by a forest of hundred-foot evergreens. I drove by his house, but my only information on what his actual residence looks like came from magazine articles. He has an iron gate blocking the access road to his house and a forest concealing it from the road. A hundred acres normally buys a guy a lot of privacy and gives someone like me a few quality scouting options. Unfortunately, in Evan’s case, the combination of the local culture, his high-tech smart-home, and a full-time personal security detail makes surveillance of his house too difficult.
I expect billionaires to have personal security details; if they didn’t they’d get kidnapped and used as ATMs. Evan has a PSD that stays with him whenever he goes ou
t in public. From media searches, I could see that he always has at least two members of his PSD with him. The existence of a permanent detail at his house is just a guess. I found a lot of information on his home by doing a web search; his place had been featured a several magazine articles and even a TV show. It’s a seventy-five-million-dollar high tech smart home with a state-of-the-art security system.
Making matters worse is the local culture. Bainbridge is an ultra-community-conscious island neighborhood where everybody knows each other. The level of community awareness borders on intrusive. It’s not the kind of place you can park a car on a road and leave it for a few days while you go out to conduct a recon. It’s more like the kind of place where people check each other’s trash to make sure they’re recycling and only eating organic. There’s not a single franchise store on the island, and the hotels are all small inns or bed-and-breakfasts. It’s a virtue-signaling heaven, and a terrible place to find the kind of anonymity I need to work. Despite his near-god status as a death dealer to the combustion engine and the evil oil industry, Evan’s neighbors complain about him constantly. I read through back issues of the local paper, the Bainbridge Review, and found half a dozen complaints on the noise pollution created by his frequent helicopter use. I ruled out Bainbridge pretty quickly. The only benefit from my trip was the nice scenery on the ferry ride from Seattle.
Evan’s office was equally problematic. Volta doesn’t have a lone office building in the downtown with public access, but instead has a secure campus on the north side of the city. Industrial espionage from competitors and bad actors like China have made tech companies hyper-vigilant. The security at most high-tech firms is better than at most US military installations. Volta was no exception; access was closely controlled, and cameras were everywhere.
Work and home were out. I needed to get to Evan when he was out and about, and to do that, I needed advance knowledge of where he was going, or I needed to find a way to put a tracker on him. I really missed having a team to support me. That’s what I was thinking about as my head hit the pillow on the bed in the Marriott.
Arabian Collusion Page 17