Take the Fourth

by Jeffrey Walton

  Once through the doors of DS & T she went straight to Greg only to find he too was running late as there were no signs of disturbance at his desk. As she started to turn towards her office her Blackberry buzzed. It was a message from Greg.

  “Running late, have few personal items 2 attend 2, will be in by 12.”

  Out of all the days to choose his rare non-appearance this had to be the worst. She took a deep breath and just hoped he would be here before her big meeting with Scott and Reynolds so she could bounce a couple of things off of him.

  Throughout the morning she was constantly checking her watch, checking her emails, and even checking her text messages for some sort of communication from Greg. She finally got a glimpse of him as he walked by her office just prior to lunch. She immediately rose from her desk and started out the door after him. She saw he was carrying some sort of white bag with him as she followed him to his desk.

  When she finally caught up with him, “Hey Greg, I need…”

  “Sorry I’m late, did you get my text?”

  “Yes and I need to talk to . .”

  “Like I said, I had a few personal things to do this morning,” cutting her off on purpose. “So did you do anything exciting last night?”

  “No, not really but…”

  “You left rather late, how come you didn’t drive home, if your car was on the fritz you could have asked me for a ride I would have been glad to . .”

  “I… how did you know?”

  “Jorja, I park on the same level, remember? And I stayed here rather late myself, you had already left but your car was still here. It struck me as odd.”

  “Well, actually I,” and then she noticed the bag Greg was holding in his hand and was sort of lost for words, “I, I, was meeting a friend from, from high school that I hadn’t spoken to in years, met of all places on Facebook.”

  “I never would have figured you to be a Facebook type of person.”

  “I wasn’t, I’m not, I was just curious was all,’ and for the first time in her life she was becoming uncomfortable in talking with Greg.

  “So did you two get reconnected, is he married, divorced, gay?”

  “Well I don’t… hey I never said it was a man.”

  “You didn’t have too, first time on Facebook, I just knew you were looking up old boyfriends, it’s only natural to see what first loves are up to these days.”

  “We had a nice time, yes, but he was just in town for the evening and happily married I might add, I’m not looking for anything, just catching up,” lying through her teeth.

  “I’m not judging you, you have your own life I can respect that. So what did you want?’

  “Oh, um nothing it can wait, but later on, I need to go over a few things with you, it’s about covering for me while I’m at my aunt’s funeral.”

  “Jorja, I was going to go.”

  “No, no, you don’t have too.”

  “Jorja, I’m a friend, I’ll be there for support, you don’t have to go through it alone.”

  “I know but… but I don’t know… I gotta go, we’ll talk later.”

  She spun around and headed back to her office. She replayed the conversation she just had with Greg over in her head. Something was amiss. She knew it as soon as she spotted that white bag he was holding. She tried not to let her eyes glance upon it too long but sure enough the bag had Tosca’s name and logo on it; it was the very same restaurant she ate at last night. Something definitely was amiss. He probably already knew who she had dinner with as well. She suspected he was using the system without her knowledge. She started to almost shake as her mind slowly came to the realization that Greg might be watching her, even stalking her. “Was this really happening? Maybe it was just a bizarre twist of fate or something,” she said to herself. Before she could question any more she felt the vibration of her phone and read the text message. Her car to the West Wing was here. She headed to her office, grabbed her coat and purse and without double-checking herself in front of a mirror, and was out the door in under two minutes. It was a short ride by Washington’s standards to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. She went through the normal security procedures and was seated in Scott’s office to await his arrival. Within five minutes Scott entered with who she could surmise was Captain Reynolds.

  “Jorja Carson, Captain Jack Reynolds.”

  “Please just call me Reynolds”, as he took the chair next to her.

  “So this is the Reynolds who killed my aunt?”

  “Jorja… . Jorja… we have no idea what happened remember… . we are on the same side here.”

  “No we’re not, you are just trying to save your asses, it’s the fact that my aunt is dead because of some concoction you two dreamed up… . remember that. I’m here to find the truth, I’m here to find out who murdered my aunt.”

  “Well, let’s start by trying to find that truth, I have a meeting in an hour with the President to discuss my findings. I’d like to start with a timeline of past events and Reynolds correct me when I’m wrong. It was the second week of February, not sure of the exact date but Villanova and Georgetown were playing. The President was concerned with his numbers and even more concerned with his next term. He wanted to win at any cost. Shortly afterwards I found out that Grace Carson, the wife of a possible running mate was having an affair, I think it was in March or April. Now with the President needing a win and with what just fell in our laps I decided to hold it in my back pocket until the primaries were solidified, a precautionary measure. Only once we had the official November ballot, did I call Reynolds for help with my dirt, that was late September and lucky for us she was still involved with this Blake fellow. I just wanted proof, I wanted photographs and it’s not like I could go snooping around in someone’s backyard with a camera around my neck.”

  “That’s where I came in, I had a photographer on call.”

  “You mean your b o, John Smith.”

  “That’s correct Jorja, he’s one of the best I ever worked with, he could get up close and personal, probably fuck you in your sleep without you even knowing it. He was the invisible fly on the wall so to speak and he never lost that touch. I wanted him to keep his distance and I was going to inform him when to make his move, only I never told him to move.”

  “Yet someone did.”

  “That’s where you come in, see I collected all of Reynolds’ emails and I noticed all of them went through your email server which struck me as odd, so I called up Sam who always did fine work for me when I was director. She pulled the logs but before I could make any sense of them you called.”

  “So Reynolds, you are saying you never sent the email to John Smith three nights ago?”

  “The email,” using his fingers as quotation marks, “I suppose you have an email in mind.”

  Jorja, pulled a piece of paper from her folder and handed it to Reynolds, “So you are saying you never sent this message?”

  Reynolds read it, and reread it, then handed it to Scott, “Yes, that is my original message.”

  Scott read the email, “That’s some shitty ass writing Reynolds, your coding technique needs a bit of work as well but this is the proof that we just wanted pictures.”

  Jorja was wondering if Scott had broken the code that fast or knew it already, then said, “How about this one,” as she handed Reynolds another piece of paper.

  He took a moment, “That is not my writing… my code but not my writing… . where did you get this?”

  “You didn’t send this?”

  “No”

  “How about this one?”

  Reynolds read that one as well and promptly said, “No, not that one either, I told you I did not communicate the time or place to Smith, again where did you get these?”

  “From my machine, my server, if you didn’t send them, then who did?”

  “Can I ask you, why are they on your server?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “So you are saying that Reynolds’ emails are being routed to
your server, at the CIA, yet someone is also sending emails from that very same server to John Smith?”

  “It looks that way, yes.”

  “So it could be someone from the outside?”

  “Possibly.”

  “I thought DST had state of the art protection against this sort of thing, I mean you certainly knew when I, Sam, tripped your sensors, yet you didn’t know someone was taking control of your email server, I don’t buy it. What I think is that someone within DST was sending those emails.”

  Jorja started doing the simple math and she didn’t like the summation, “not necessarily.”

  “It makes perfect sense, that’s why your alarms didn’t go off, hell it might even be you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you, you have access.”

  “But why me?”

  “Good question, maybe you got wind of what we were up to, you wanted to play your own game, you know, make sure your uncle wins.”

  “Wins, wins how, by killing my Aunt Gracie? You got some,” she paused, then through clenched teeth, “some,” and wanted to place an expletive in the mix but elected not to, “nerve… besides that makes no sense whatsoever.”

  “I’m playing devil’s advocate, we came up with the plan, yet the emails are on your server, the string that ties it all together here is your last name and the evidence is in plain sight. Maybe you wanted to catch us in the act of catching your aunt in the act, so you sent your own agent out to intercept ours, but something happened along the way and now your aunt is dead with possibly our lieutenant colonel and that’s why we can’t find him.”

  “You still have no straws in your hand with that screen door theory of yours.”

  “There may be a lot of holes to fill but it is a plausible explanation and you can’t deny it’s a considerable coincidence that these emails pertaining to your aunt would wind up on the very same email server that her niece is the guardian of.”

  “So why did I come here looking for answers if I already knew the answers?”

  “Anticipatory deniability, to throw us off your scent.”

  Jorja hung on that word, not anticipatory, not deniability, but rather the word scent. She then began searching for words, “Um… what if…”

  “So Jorja, you can see our predicament. Your server, your emails.”

  “No, no… wait a minute . .,” she was now back on the same train of thought before she left for the White House. She didn’t like it. She felt a pit in the bottom of her stomach. She felt unsure. She felt vulnerable. She felt a pinball of emotions and all of them led to unsettling feelings. “What if… .” She felt betrayed. “What if, like you said before someone else placed those emails on my server, someone besides me, someone besides you?”

  “Someone from within your office. Who?”

  “Listen, I got to go,” as she stood and gathered her belongings.

  “Jorja, who?’

  “I want to confirm my suspicions before you call out the firing squad.”

  “Jorja, I want a name, I need a name now, I’m seeing the President in a few, he’s going to want a name goddamnit!”

  “I can’t give you that now, if I do, your men will get to… get to this person first,” as she was careful not to give them any hints in using a pronoun.

  “Goddamnit Jorja . .”

  “Listen if you are so concerned, give him your name, give him Reynolds, you are the two bastards with the plan, remember that, just give me a few hours, I might, I might have some answers,” and she headed back in the direction she came, checked out through security, and was back in the car en route to her office.

  . . .

  Chapter 68

  Josh was a pro at the system by now, just as good as any of the feds in the room. When James Wartner’s arrival was announced he elected to stay put in the war room for he found something quite interesting in the files. If this information was true he knew the man who walked into the station was Christopher Emmanuel ‘Manny’ Balestrero, a.k.a. Henry Fonda, a.k.a. The Wrong Man from the 1956 Hitchcock classic and it wasn’t a hunch.

  Josh was a hard facts type of guy. For the past six or so hours he and everyone in the room had been working on a bunch of lists generated from the computer system. Those lists had been data-sifted again and again both by hand and by machine. To Josh they didn’t seem real, just ever changing names on a screen in Times New Roman font. He wanted to use his hands to examine the evidence, just something about hard copies made the facts seem more tangible. It wasn’t until he printed them out that they seemed real. It wasn’t until he printed them out that he saw the discrepancy. As soon as the paper slid out between the rollers of the laser printer, he knew something was amiss but couldn’t place a finger on it until he compared it to the list on the screen. Halfway down the paper a name and age appeared seemingly from nowhere. The name was Kyle Kraner, age 38. The name was on the paper yet not on the screen. He decided to refresh the screen. Kyle Kraner, age 38 was now on the screen as well. He then counted the names by hand. Fifty-two was his answer. Thinking he was pretty close to Florida, he counted again. Same answer, fifty-two. That is one more name on the national registered sex offender list for child molestation than they had been previously working from. “Odd”, he thought.

  He opened up the national registration’s database like a twist cap from a domestic beer. He went straight to Kyle Kraner’s file. It was uploaded in May of 2002. He went to open it and received:

  File Not Found.

  He tried again, same response. He tried others on the list and was able to bring up their files with ease. “Odd”, he thought again. He then entered the name Kyle Kraner into the fed’s database and received a plethora of hits, as he should. Their computers did their jobs. At Josh’s fingertips were all sorts of links. He went straight for the medical records. Nothing. He went straight for the criminal records. Nothing. He found his tax records and place of work, and insurance information; he even found the pharmacy records and his two prescriptions but like every other lead it turned up empty. He found his license and more importantly his picture on his license. He compared this picture to the pencil drawn sketch. He couldn’t tell because that damn pencil sketch could be just about anyone. Then he shuffled through the links and hit his medical records again. This time he could have sworn his mind was playing tricks on him, this time he didn’t receive nothing. Maybe he just didn’t click the link right, maybe the server hiccupped, maybe there could be a thousand reasons, but one thing was certain, he now had Kyle’s medical records. The medical records from Peach Regional Medical Hospital indicated he was in an accident over twenty years ago, injuring his right leg and hip. “This would cause the limp”, he said in his mind. He then tried the criminal link again. Nothing again. He was about to dive deeper when the gang walked back in.

  “Dead end”, Lynch said before Josh had a chance to ask the question.

  “Dead end huh, well never mind about that, I think I found another route.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I think I found another name but it’s weird.”

  “What’s weird?”

  “Let me ask you this, how many names on your sex offenders list?”

  “Fifty-one”, piped in one of the feds.

  “That’s what I thought, yet right before you guys left I reran that exact report and”

  “And?”

  “I’m getting to that… I reran the report and received fifty-two.”

  “Someone could have just added that.”

  “That was my thought exactly but the file says it was uploaded in two thousand two but the file is not there, just the name and age, also there are no criminal files to be had anywhere. Oh, and get this, he was in an accident about twenty years ago, he injured his leg and hip and now walks with a limp. His name is Kyle Kraner and just so happens to be in our demographics at age thirty-eight. Here’s a picture from his license, looks nothing like our pencil sketch though.”

  “Why wasn’t
this name on the list before?” questioned Garfield.

  “You tell me,” looking in the direction of the two feds.

  “It should have been, especially if you said it was uploaded in two thousand and two.”

  “Well it wasn’t… and it’s pretty damn strange if you ask me.”

  “It happens, I don’t know why it happens but it does, we are dealing with machines and stuff like this happens all the time, you reboot and move on.”

  “But this is a huge coincidence is it not?”

  “What? That a sex offender appears to have a limp and was not on the original list? Yeah maybe a coincidence but let’s look at the facts… what are they?”

  “He is Kyle Kraner age thirty-eight, walks with a limp.”

  “And?”

  “And what? That’s all we have to go on at the moment. Like I said before I couldn’t open his registration file but I do know his address and was going to do more research until you guys walked in. Again, I find it a little strange, that’s all.”

  The other fed in the room spoke, “Alright, I’ll see if I can find the missing file, in the meantime I’m still not convinced we need to spend a huge bunch of manpower on this one guy but let’s all take a few minutes and dive into our markers to see if anything unusual sticks out.”

  Lynch sat back down at the table, unlocked the laptop, and eyed the name of Ripley’s uncle in his prompt. He would try later to get back to that but now he did a refresh of his screen. Sure enough he now saw Kyle’s name on the global list. He quickly checked the name against his original marker. Roughly ten minutes went by before he decided there was nothing to see so he moved on to his next pin, that of the Home Depot. Not much time elapsed prior to him finding the numbers of Kyle Kraner’s Home Depot credit card. It had a balance just over eighteen hundred dollars. The last purchase was well over two years ago. He tried to open the store’s database but it wasn’t online. He would have to stoop to other means to get his needed information. Lynch looked at his watch and it was almost nine thirty. He was cutting it close, he knew that, but picked up the phone and dialed the number. After a bit of finger dancing and menu surfing it took twelve rings but someone finally picked up.