Take the Fourth

by Jeffrey Walton

  “Holy fucking shit,” he beamed. She used not one but two Homer Simpson quotes and he wondered just how long she was saving them. He had the biggest of smiles and couldn’t help but to giggle a little while he went to work, searching for the answers. He dove right away into the database searching for the journal files which contain information that has changed on the system. He didn’t find any changes pertaining to this event. He then pinpointed the main players that could change the report level, Mike, Peter, Jorja, and he omitted himself since he knew damn well he had nothing to do with it. Again he found nothing. He tried a few other back door queries, and again nothing. At the moment he was stumped. He pulled his hands away from the keyboard and closed his eyes and contemplated for a few seconds. His mind then snapped into gear and his fingers flailed while doing the alphabet dance. As quickly as the bulb came on, it went out like one of Edison’s first attempts at lighting a horse hair filament. It was another fizzle. He thought some more. If level access was changed then there should be a paper trail or in this case journal files, unless, unless someone erased them as well. If that was the case, then he might have a chance looking at the reciprocating database—a database that was an exact mirror copy only not located in the basements of Langley. In reality the CIA had many mirrors and he was going to check everyone. He did and nothing. He even checked the backups. Nothing. He thought some more. He thought out of the three main players, none of them had the expertise to erase a change such as this. So he decided to play the waiting game. His plan was to hack in and change the IP Address report access level back to two, then place a wee bit of code in order to track the perpetrator the next time he or she changes the access level. He did this with minimal effort. By doing so he would have to call and tell Jorja it might take some time but… . but then thought about it, he thought about the “why”. Why would anyone want to change the level access of this report? Only one reason came to mind, to mask certain IP addresses.

  With his quick hack he ran the IP report with full access set at level two.

  Almost immediately he saw the same thing Jorja saw, an IP address at the top of the report ending in twelve dot one six eight; he too did not recognize it. He reset the level access at one and reran the report. He did a difference on the two reports—sure enough the only difference was this IP address was now missing from the report. It had a governmental look and feel to it, the first set of digits in the IP address gave that away but there was something amiss, something not quite right. Before he forgot, he rehacked the IP report and set the access level back to two. He’ll play the waiting game as to who changed this but for now he had an even bigger piece of meat on his plate to cut. He ran the IP address through the likes of whois.com and various other domain registrars, and even through the CIA’s databases, all of them turned up nothing. Then he did the same thing Jorja had done and pinged the address, sure enough he received a reply.

  “That’s good,” he questioned, “maybe I can find the who by the where.”

  He adjusted his firewalls and made his computer look like it was outside the CIA network; very few people in the CIA had this type of skill-set. Once outside the network, he could put a trace on his message when he tries to ping the machine again. From this trace he could find the location with ease. It took him close to an hour to apply the right settings for the trace but once all was in place he was shocked with the results.

  “This can’t be,” was his immediate reaction and he rechecked his steps and reran the trace, again taking almost an hour. Same results—nothing. No trace information was available. He tried to ping the machine, again nothing, no response. It’s like it vanished into thin air. He thought some more. He thought about rechecking his steps but didn’t want to waste the time, he thought some more. He was caught in a flurry of over complicating the matter. His brain was racing, searching for an answer but it wasn’t his analytical skills that first found the answer, it was his eyes. He noticed in the bottom right-hand corner of his screen, a little icon was flashing. That icon meant his firewall was off and he was still outside the network. He turned it back on and reran the trace, this time he was shocked even more.

  Greg ran an in-house trace and received his information alright. This IP address resided somewhere within the CIA network and that somewhere was in the mountains of Virginia. So now he had the “where,” not the who just yet, and certainly not the why. The receiver was in his hands.

  “Whatcha got?”

  “What I don’t got, is an answer or a Simpson’s quote.”

  “You liked them didn’t you?”

  “Hell, I thought it was my birthday, you’re such a clever girl, more on that later. That IP report, I don’t know who changed it, they covered their tracks pretty good, they erased the journal files and entries from the backups and mirrors.”

  “So we are talking who exactly?”

  “Your answer is as good as mine but the next time they change the report access level I will have them, I wrote a wee bit of code into the report to trap the user id.”

  “That could take a while I expect.”

  “Yeah, maybe, not something you check on a regular basis, we, I mean you, might have to force their hand with something.”

  “I’ll have to think then.”

  “I’m sure you will being such a clever girl and all, also I reran the IP report with full level access set to two and found something weird.”

  “What?”

  “A strange IP address.”

  “Let me guess, ending in twelve dot one six eight.”

  “Damn, you’re good, shall I call you Carnac the Magnificent.”

  “It’s like someone changed the access just to hide this one IP address.”

  “I know, and the strange part is, you’ll find this interesting, the strange part is that the server is located within our network.”

  “Ours? Where?”

  “Oh, you know the place, in them hills,” with his best southern drawl.

  Right away she knew in the Blue Mountains of Virginia, “there must be some highly classified material on that server.”

  “My thoughts exactly, can you comb through your budget reports to see if this is mentioned anywhere? After all, you are probably paying for it, the DST deputy director should be aware of all its toys.”

  “I will but that’s going to take some time, in the meantime, I want you to find out as much as you can about that machine, someone has taken some pretty good precautions to hide it, hide it from me, but why, who?”

  “I will.”

  “Do you need anything more from me?”

  “What? . . . . Uh, no… . on my deathbed I will receive total consciousness… . so I got that goin’ for me.”

  “Huh?”

  “Gunga, gunga-galunga.”

  “What…,” Jorja said quizzically.

  “The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald… striking… . come on… . you’re killing me Smalls.”

  “I thought you said no Simpsons quotes for my birthday.”

  “It’s not… it’s from Caddyshack?”

  “Never saw it… . sci-fi is my forte.”

  “Never saw it? What… you’ve been living on Altair 4 your whole life?”

  “Forbidden Planet, 19… . 1956… . see, see I know my stuff in that genre… . now tell HAL, Gort, and Robby to play nice and see what you can find me.”

  “Okay, I’m impressed.” The mere fact that she mentioned three of the top computers/robots in cinematic history brought a clever smile to his face but the fact she knew the planet Lesile Neilson visited in the classic tale of the Tempest set in space floored him to no ends.

  “Just remember that the facts…”

  “You used that one last time, give me something new Jorja.”

  “I was going to say before I was rudely interrupted, the facts can be dangerous, tread lightly my good friend, live long and prosper.”

  Upon listening to the dial tone, he smiled and remin
ded himself, that’s the reason he loved his boss so much and would do anything for her, she was a nerd just like him, that and she was always quick with a sci-fi quote. He quickly slapped on his headphones and got to work while jamming to Metalica’s Sandman—“hush now baby, don’t say a word, never mind that voice you heard, it’s just the beast under your bed, inside your closet, in your head.”

  . . .

  Chapter 14

  It took Garfield two hours to arrive at Lynch’s office; he went to his station first to gather all the evidence. He knew it was a long shot that both cases were connected but something in his gut told him otherwise—something both Orlando and Charles had in common. They met at Lynch’s office since this was indeed the hot case and it was best for Detective Lynch to stay close to the phones. Garfield was not what Lynch was expecting. He expected someone much like his build, a bit girthy around the middle. Garfield was just the direct opposite, in other words, nothing in common, and at six-two, black, and built like a stone wall, Charles and Orlando were ebony and ivory to the stereotypical extreme… they could never make a cop buddy film that was serious.

  “Thanks for coming down on such a short notice, Officer Garfield.”

  “What do you think the chances are…”

  “We’ll know much more shortly. I was thinking, if the cases are related that the date might be significant.”

  “My thoughts exactly… I pondered that very thought during my ride down here. They are only a week apart but a year apart… . I was thinking anniversary or something.”

  “So was I, so I did a bit of research and expanded my original search parameters to five years to see how many more hits we’d receive.”

  “And?”

  “And I found only one other missing child at or around our time frame… that was three years ago and was a four year old boy… that case is still unsolved as well.”

  “So we are thinking the same thing here, no longer just a missing person’s report but a kidnapping. This could have been a first attempt, then switched to girls for some psychological reason.”

  “I always thought it was a kidnapping, I’ll keep this bookmarked for the time being… so I’ve read your case file, very similar indeed, do you have all your interview notes with you?”

  “Yes, but there was only one other person at the park that day and the only real clue that I received was a man in his late twenties or early thirties was seen looking for a dog.”

  “Hmmmm, the eye witness report we received stated he was in his early forties, maybe late thirties.”

  “Yeah, how did you manage to get a sketch of your perpetrator?”

  “Well, a kid in his twenties was paid ten bucks so he could have a picture of his car.”

  “And?”

  “And that’s it… just a coincidence I know… but it happened on the same street as the park and within the same timeframe and I thought it was odd… how many people walk up to a complete stranger and ask for a picture of his car?”

  “Good point, maybe it was some sort of three card monte… . you know make them look here, when the ace is over here . .How long was the kid waiting?”

  “In total about twenty minutes, so we are on the same page here, he pays a kid to sit and wait by the park, hoping some onlooker will take notice. The car was a hot rod of sorts so plenty of people could pick it out of a lineup if asked; the bone is thrown over here, while he gets away in a plain Jane over here… three card monte as you say.” He paused a bit, glancing at Officer Garfield’s notes while completely blocking out Garfield’s next set of questions to where he only heard gibberish. After several seconds he then came back online with “Goddamn mother fucking bingo!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Sorry… but these cases are the same sick twisted bastard… . I just read your notes from the interview… walked with a limp.”

  “That should have been in the file.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “Sure it is… . oh wait, right here… . on the back… . we did put out an APB but received no hits.”

  “This is the same guy. I’m sure… and I bet my life on it that these two little girls are not the only ones.”

  “You know looking at these two pictures side by side, these girls could be cousins or even sisters… same height, same build, almost the exact same length of hair… just shoulder length.”

  They compared notes for a good solid hour until the phone rang. It was the Newenbergs. He just didn’t have time to comfort them. He basically told them he had a few solid leads and his prayers were with them… even though he wasn’t a religious man by any stretch of means… . far too much evil he saw in this world to be convinced otherwise. After the abrupt phone conversation, Charles pulled out a map of the state, hung it up on his cork board, and placed a red thumb tack where each little girl vanished, he was old-school. He then used an old fashion compass and drew two circles that signified a seventy-five mile radius from the vanishing points. The two circles overlapped much in the way a Venn diagram does.

  Garfield stated, “There is a good chance that the sick twisted bastard lives within these circles somewhere.”

  That brought the first smile to Lynch’s face since he started this case this morning.

  “How do you take your coffee?”

  “Like me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Like me… . black.”

  That brought the second smile and Charles quickly walked to the break room for two cups of straight black coffee and a badly needed cigarette break. Five minutes later he arrived back at his office and Orlando was standing by the corkboard holding the compass. There were now three interlocking circles on the board and the one he drew also contained the two red thumb tacks.

  “Here, hot and black”

  “Thanks, I hope you don’t mind but I took the liberty and drew a third circle, originating from Ripley’s hometown. Tanya was taken from her hometown so I just wanted to see if the two overlapped.”

  “Okay, it looks as though we have a bit more research to do. I only did research from my crime scene outward. I didn’t think to look from her hometown outward… maybe she was followed, stalked.”

  With that Lynch brought up the case database on his computer and Orlando moved in just over his shoulder. His new search parameters started at a town right in between Ripley’s and Tanya’s., a seventy-five mile radius and within the past year. There was one hit, still open… so he drilled down to read the case file. Becky Timberstone, age four reported missing on May 4th of this year, disappeared from a playground, and the kicker… also blonde. No reported witnesses.

  “What’s your gut telling you, Garfield?”

  “That our anniversary theory is shit.”

  Their map was beginning to look like a pond after someone threw in a handful of pebbles. They drew seventy-five mile radius circles from Ripley’s hometown, Tanya’s hometown, Becky’s hometown, and they found a few more hits in the database. They divided the case load and Lynch hooked Garfield up with a colleague’s computer and password. After an hour or so they each came back with one possible match. Five in total and all within the past year, although one was slightly older at age eight but all other statistics matched… female and blonde and still way too young.

  For several minutes, maybe more like ten or so, they focused on the map and its circles, knowing all too well that the sick twisted bastard lived within one of them—not one word between them during this time. Each of them had a mind moving forward, thinking and rethinking.

  Garfield broke the silence, “Do we have a picture of Anna, the eight year old?”

  “No, it’s not in the file.”

  “Can we get someone on the phone? . . . We need a fax or email.”

  It was coming in on eleven at night but the Barnsville Police department was more than helpful and at roughly 11:07 they had a picture of Anna. Garfield walked up to the map and removed the Anna thumbtack, then grabbed a yellow highlighter from Lynch’s desk and highlighted
a circle… it contained all four remaining thumbtacks, it contained all four of the missing little girls, it contained Ripley’s hometown, and it also contained Ripley’s vanishing point. And just like that it was a clue that could break the case wide open or even better, return Ripley home but time was ticking ever so fast. Eight year old Anna had short brown ear length hair. It was a gut feeling both men shared.

  . . .

  Chapter 15

  So now Greg had a task at hand. It was a challenging task to say the least but he was about to embark on his favorite journey, one that was even better than Frodo or Bilbo Baggins’, a journey where he got to play with his toys and prove just how smart he was to Jorja, to his boss. With that in mind he brought all his monitors to life and cannonballed into the data pool.

  His first order of business was to see if he could talk to the machine. He quickly opened a command prompt and tried a few commands. The first was to ping again, and yes he received a reply. The next order of business was to open a line of communication and he tried to telnet into the box. This was a standard communication protocol between computers. He received no response. He tried another protocol called ssh, then ftp, nothing, then he tried another, and another, and yet another, no response each time. Next was plan B. If he couldn’t communicate with the box, just who can? He brought up the IP report again and tried to find an average hit ratio, just how often was this box being used. It seemed as though over the past months, the number of hits grew; he pinpointed some of the past months’ highs and lows. One particular high hit day was Dec. 23rd of last year, another was for a few weeks ago, right away, Greg knew Dec. 23rd would be forever etched in his brain right alongside of nine-eleven. He thought that was a strange coincidence. The other high note, he did a bit of research, turns out that day was a high level alert day at airports across the country. He then rationalized that this might have something to do with the boys of Homeland, “but why was this machine on our network, they have their own network?” He needed to set up a trace so he could see where the hits to this IP address originated. He would need Jorja’s help to do this since she had the authority to maintain hardware protocols and this was going to take more than a few lines of coding but before her help, he proceeded to plans c and d just in case.