Computer Capers

by Dan Kelly

  “Tania, take a good hard look at the CEO of Pinnacle Pharmaceuticals, this George Palmer, and see what dirty laundry he has in his hamper. Barbara, you eyeball James Hollingsworth and, Collette, you put Ronald Baltzinger under the microscope. I’ll take Basil Halkias. I have some contacts in the financial ionosphere that might be able to clue me in on what he’s all about. At the moment, these four people stand out from the crowd, so we’ll start with them. The remaining 20 people we can divvy up, five for each of us when we’ve completed our investigation of these four.”

  Barbara asks, “What resources are available to put tails on these champions of commerce?”

  “The President will provide whatever manpower we need. I’d like to weed out the most unlikely candidates from our pool of suspects before we take that step though. All of you know the drill. The people behind what’s happening aren’t hermits. They have friends, associates, partners, vendors, clients/customers, etc. Find out who they are and talk with them, using cover stories so as to not arouse suspicion.”

  At that moment, Hank Aldridge enters the office with a well-dressed swarthy looking guy who looks like nobody you should piss off. 5’10”, well-built, handsome in a rugged sort of way, a man who when he speaks is soft spoken, obviously cultured and has a self- confident air about him. Although he has the physique of a young man, his facial features tell a different story. The man has definitely been around the block more than a few times. Midnight has quietly stood up and is intently checking the new arrival out.

  “People, this is Abdu-Azim. He will be working with us at the behest of the President. He is an international terrorist expert and his credentials will knock your socks off. Although we are convinced that our culprits are home grown, the President has convinced me that these maniacs might very well use international resources to implement some of their plans going forward. He is using the cover name of Vincent Torizzio and a cover story of being a private consultant for multi-national corporations with terrorist concerns. Only the President and now Sentry know his true identity. It is to remain that way. Bring him up to speed and then get cracking.”

  Hank left, the introductions, hellos and nice-to-meet-yous were quickly dispensed with and then they got back to business. The group briefed Abdul-Azim as to what they had been discussing and how they got to that stage and then Joel asked him for his thoughts on their intentions.

  “From what you’ve found out about theses 24 individuals so far, a good number of them are actively engaged in international activities. It would hardly be surprising to me to find that their international presence coupled with their economic stature gives them access to unsavory resources all over the world. I have found that people this far up the food chain frequently have no qualms about tapping into those types of resources if the need arises. If I were to put out some feelers, I might make contact with something that could lead us to one or more of the people on your suspect list.”

  Everybody nodded their head in agreement and Joel said, “It sure wouldn’t hurt to give it a shot. Go for it.

  “Okay folks, it’s time to boogie. Check in with me at noon and at 5 in the evening every day until I tell you differently, everyone that is but you Vincent. By the way everyone, from now on forget the name Abdul-Azim. This man is Vincent Torizzio period. Always think of him this way. There will be less chance of a slip up if we do so.”

  As Joel’s office begins to empty, the power goes out. Barbara is the first to react with, “Well, well, well. It looks like our friends are at it again.”

  Joel instructs them to stay where they are. “Hank had an emergency generator installed and there are battery powered lanterns in the conference room if we need them in some other areas of the office. The generator should kick-in in a minute.”

  As if on cue, the generator kicks-in, Joel dials Hank on the intercom and the rest of the group sits back down to hear what Hank knows about this latest development. Joel puts the intercom on the speaker so everyone can listen to what Hank has to say just as Hank comes on the line.

  “Joel, things have gone from bad to worse. I just got a message from the Chicago office of Homeland Security and the entire Mid-West is experiencing major power outages. Phones are working, but the radio and TV stations are off the air. We’ve got to ID these guys, Joel, and bring them down hard. Pull out all the stops and pursue every lead no matter how slim they may appear. I’m going to ask the President to get every available military plane in the air to look for these drones that are probably being used to disrupt radio and TV broadcasts and get every radar installation in the U. S. to focus on searching for any unidentified small aircraft. We’ve got to put these guys out of business and do it fast or all hell is going to break loose.” The line went dead and the silence in Joel’s office was deafening.

  “Okay everybody. We’ve got our marching orders. Let’s get moving.”

  As everyone begins to file out of the office, Midnight walks over to Vincent and holds out his paw. Barbara said, “You’ve received Midnight’s stamp of approval. It’s unusual for him to decide so quickly. Joel is the only other person that has been given that honor.”

  “Well, Midnight, I’m happy to make your acquaintance. You’re a very cool dog. Most dogs, especially labs, would’ve have lost it when the lights went out.”

  “As you get to know him better, you’ll find he’s cool in lots of ways.”

  Chapter 10

  -Chicago-

  After Hank called the President and got his agreement to get planes in the air and radar stations on the alert for small, unusual blips appearing on their screens, he called Ashok to get the status of the dissemination of his system access security procedure and virus software.

  “Patel here.”

  “Ashok, have your security procedures and virus software been distributed yet?”

  “We finished that last night, Hank. We had some delays in locating and verifying the appropriate destinations or we would have finished sooner.”

  “How long do you think it will take for your procedures to be implemented and the virus software to be installed?”

  “If everyone reacts with urgency, a few days at most. Does your query have anything to do with our power outage?”

  “It sure does. The entire Mid-West is without power now and if countermeasures aren’t quickly forthcoming we are going to be in a world of hurt. Stay with that electromagnetic theory of yours. If you can come up with a way to quickly locate these force fields and neutralize them and your security procedures and virus software prove to be effective deterrents to computer cracking, those two developments will greatly help calm the fears of the public and provide windows of opportunity for us to go on the offensive. Keep me posted on your progress.”

  Hank broke the connection and Ashok resumed his mental gymnastics trying to recall everything he has learned about electromagnetic force fields. He hasn’t thought about people like Ampere, Coulomb, Faraday, Gauss, Heaviside, Henry, Hertz, Lorentz, Maxwell, Tesla, Volta, Weber, Orsted or his physics professors since he was in college. “There has to be a way to detect these force fields from a distance and neutralize them. Magnetometers are used to measure electromagnetic force fields and the measurements are done in teslas and in gauss, 1 tesla equaling 10,000 gauss. First, I’ve got to come up with something that will be sensitive enough to detect an aberrant force field from a distance of from 1,000 to 2,000 feet in the air. Second, it must be easily transportable. Third, it must have the means to neutralize the trouble making force field without interfering with any other normal force fields. Lastly, I’ve got to do all of this yesterday. What’s that old Marine saying, ‘The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer.’ Oh boy.”

  Chapter 11

  -Chicago-

  Barbara Sheehan started out on her discovery exercise by determining where James Hollingsworth had offices around the globe. She noted that he had relocated his head office in Elizabeth, NJ about a year and a half ago and wondered why. She co
uldn’t see what appeal the city possessed for someone in his field of interest. She put that curious piece of information aside for a while as she delved into the business, personal and social life of one of the most successful commercial real estate developers in the United States. The man’s life appears to be an open book and the more she finds out about his accomplishments the more she thinks if a biography was ever written it would be a best seller. The man is phenomenal when it comes to creating or identifying successful money making projects. He seems to be wired into the future like no one else. Nothing about his business activities arouses any suspicion, so she turns to his personal and social life.

  He’s divorced after ten years of marriage, has no children, and his former wife, Tiffany, got remarried to a neurosurgeon, Milton Cabot, and lives in Tampa, FL. Although he dates, there’s no one special. He maintains three homes, one in Hillside, NJ, one in Westchester, NY and one on Maui in Hawaii. He belongs to every civic organization in these communities, has more photo ops than a newborn baby and is extremely ostentatious. He makes Donald Trump look like a shy piker.

  There’s definitely going to be a lot of people she can talk to about him. Reviewing her thoughts about the guy, the one about a biography on him being a shoe-in best seller sparks the idea of her cover story revolving around her considering writing one and she’s researching her subject. “Yeah, that works for me and the first person I want to talk to is his ex. From what the society columns said, the breakup wasn’t a pleasant one, so she should have no qualms about telling all.

  * * * * * * * * * * * * *

  Collette Cummings has decided to pursue a different course of enlightenment regarding her quarry, Ronald Baltzinger. From an item appearing in a recent edition of the Wall Street Journal she has learned that old Ronald, a confirmed bachelor, owns a 9,000 square foot mansion in Short Hills, NJ and a penthouse in Manhattan, but more often than not can be found in one of the luxurious hotels in Atlantic City. The article made a big deal about his successful gambles in the transportation arena and compared them to his successful runs at some of the world’s finest casinos’ craps tables and roulette wheels. It appears the gentleman has an addiction to high stakes gambling. Although he has offices in San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta and Santa Fe, he maintains his corporate headquarters in Linden, NJ.

  “If I were to casino hop in Atlantic City for a few days there’s a good chance I’d run into this modern day Nick the Greek. Even if I didn’t, I could still talk with the people working in the casinos and have a decent chance of picking up some useful information. I hope I can convince Joel that this has enough potential to warrant the expense of him flying me down there and picking me up later when I’ve finished poking around. I don’t want him to think that I’m just trying to finagle a joy ride on his plane. I’ve never seen what he flies, but I’ve heard that a Cessna T182T Skylane is something special. It would be kind of nice to fly in it. If the reason for the flight wasn’t so menacing, I could really sit back and enjoy it.

  * * * * * * * * * * * * *

  Tania Russo has a friend, Trudy Cavanaugh, at Merck who knows anybody that is anybody in the pharmaceutical industry and is anxious to start looking into the background of George Palmer by giving her a call. Her first attempt goes to voicemail as do her next two tries spaced a half hour apart.

  Reviewing the information she has dug up so far, she now knows that Mr. Palmer has been married to his high school sweetheart for 2l years, has four children, two boys and two girls ages 13 to 19, is very athletic and plays a lot of tennis and golf, he and his family reside in Summit, NJ and he commutes daily by train to his office in Elizabeth, NJ. He started out working as a pharmacist for a small chain of drug stores in Topeka, KS and after five years of that had the opportunity to go work for a college buddy of his who had established a small cancer research facility in Omaha, NE. He soon found out that he not only had a gift for research but also for growing a business and four years later bought out his buddy and was off and running. He has an excellent reputation within the pharmaceutical industry and there are absolutely no red flags waving anywhere.

  “I wish Trudy would call. If I can’t connect with her, it might be a good idea to find out where he plays tennis and golf and snoop around there. It’s probably something I should do anyway. Damn, Trudy, call.” As she begins to search on the internet for country clubs in the Summit and Elizabeth, NJ areas, Trudy calls.

  “Hey girl, what’s up? If you call me three times inside of an hour, it has to be something important.”

  “Hi, Trudy, it is. I’m working on finding out who’s behind all the hell that’s broken loose across the country and you mustn’t tell anybody about our conversation. Okay?”

  “Wow, that group you work for sure gets into some amazing things. Don’t give it a second thought. Growing up with five brothers, I know how to keep a secret. What do you need?”

  “I need to tap that memory bank of yours for anything you can tell me about a man named George Palmer.”

  “Well, he’s your typical American success story. The perfect example of what hard work, dedication and a brilliant scientific mind can do. He’s no slouch in the business arena either. He’s built Pinnacle Pharmaceuticals up from scratch and he has earned the respect of all the major players in the industry. If you’re looking for any dirt on him, I’m not aware of anything out of whack. If there is, it has to be microscopic. He’s a keen competitor, doesn’t like to lose, but he plays by the rules.”

  “I understand that a while back he was involved in a major patent infringement law suit and countersuit. Things supposedly heated up real fast and then just as quickly cooled off when some unknown third party intervened and mediated a settlement that was satisfactory to all litigants. Do you know anything about that?”

  “Only that it generated a lot of public interest because they perceived it as a David and Goliath battle and they were rooting for the little guy. When it was announced that an undisclosed agreement between the parties had been reached, the public’s interest didn’t abate. It just refocused on what had caused the reconcilement, but their curiosity only lasted a few days as other issues took the spotlight.”

  “Was there any speculation as to who this mysterious third party might be?”

  “For a day or two there was a rumor going around that some shipping big shot was the man with the magic wand. A Basil something, but it never was confirmed. The media tried to approach him about it, but he was inaccessible.”

  “Might this Basil be Basil Halkias?”

  “Yeah, I think that’s the name I heard being bandied about.”

  “Thanks for your input, Trudy. When things get back to normal I’ll give you a call to set up a girls night out on the town. We haven’t done that in a while. Maybe we could take in a show or something.”

  “I’ll look forward to it. Was I of any help to you?”

  I won’t know until I piece together what you told me with whatever my colleagues manage to uncover. Later.”

  * * * * * * * * * * * * *

  Joel Jergensen hasn’t had any luck reaching the contacts he has in the higher echelons of America’s financial community. He’s left urgent voice mail messages and sent numerous emails, but no one has gotten back to him yet. “This Halkias guy is definitely not your run of the mill billionaire. He shields himself with an impenetrable cloak of privacy, avoids public scrutiny like a kid playing hooky does a truant officer, makes tons of money and covertly gives a lot of it away, his business dealings are shrouded in all kinds of legal camouflage and no one even knows where he resides. He has offices all over the world, but his head office is in Elizabeth, NJ. How can a man live in today’s society and leave hardly any trace of where he’s been or where he’s headed?”

  A knock on his office door brings him out of his reverie. It’s Collette. She tells him about her plan to go to Atlantic City which he agrees to and instructs her to make hotel reservations at one of the finer hotels, go home and pack
and meet him back at the office at five that afternoon. “Use your corporate credit card for all of your expenses, but don’t get carried away at the tables.”