by L. M. Vila
Adrian's computer chirped. A new email had just arrived from Mark. He left his desk and proceeded through the main office towards the analytics team without even reading it. Everyone had their heads glued to their own work. If they bothered to look up, they might catch a rare glimpse of the S.A.C. practically sprinting do the hallway.
“Mark!” Adrian called when the analyst in question was within sight.
The lead analyst was up to his elbows in computer parts. Thin metal servers stamped with the DELL logo came out of the box by the dozens. None of them were labeled or organized. At least this stuff was neatly packed. He looked up to see the second in command looming over him.
“Hey boss,” said Mark while stacking each server box into a neat pile.
If he was going to be tackling this for the next few days, organization was key.
“Is everything here?” Adrian asked.
“Do you mean figuratively or spiritually?”
The look on Adrian's face proved to Mark his sense of humor was not amusing.
“How long before you'll be able to get started?”
“Hard to say,” Mark replied while adding the last server to the pile. “Transferring all of this stuff to a virtual environment will take a few hours, maybe even a day. While that's working I'll be taking a crack at the laptop. You got that warrant pretty quickly.”
“Not an issue. This was a top priority.”
Adrian was at the judge's office twenty minutes before he showed up. Punctuality was well respected among the judicial branch of government. It didn't hurt that Adrian forwarded all of the necessary documents the night before. Picking it up personally was just a formality on top of being polite. Sometimes you can grease a wheel without having to dip into your bank account. That's the way to do it by the book.
“Well looks like I'll be stuck digging into this stuff like you asked boss. I'll let you know when I find anything worth noting on the inside.”
“Good,” chimed Fischer. “When you get inside his laptop, forward me his address book. I want to see what kind of connections he's made over the years. Maybe one of them would be willing to talk to us. After getting a subpoena of course.”
“Of course Agent Fischer,” winked Mark.
He began plugging in and plugging away at the servers without any care in the world. With nothing else left of his plate for the week, Adrian made it his mission to find out what Charles Logan was trying so hard to hide from them. All of the money in the world wouldn't be able to save him from now. When Adrian Fischer jumps on a case, there's nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
March 25th, 2013 1:58PM
Washington, D.C.
“Annyeong hashimnikka. Chonun April Winters imnida. Geugeos-eun dangsin eul mannaseo yeong-gwang ibnida.”
“Very good Meryl,” Shelly complimented. “You pick up this stuff very quickly.”
“Thanks,” Meryl replied trying not to sound too overconfident. “My R.A. in college was Korean and I learned a few things here and there.”
“It sounds like it. You diction is perfect as well as you're delivery. You're a natural.”
“Really? I'm glad,” Smiled Meryl.
“I should be the one thanking you. You're making my job easy.”
“Well that's because I have a good teacher.”
They both laughed together.
Agent Shelly Yuan checked her watch and let out a small disappointing sigh.
“Looks like that's all the time we have today but we'll jump right back at it tomorrow after lunch, okay?”
“Sure,” Meryl replied sounding equally if not more enthusiastic. “All of this studying has brought back some memories.”
“Really?” Shelly asked with her eyebrow slightly tilted. “Of what?”
This was kind of embarrassing to admit but Meryl wasn't one to be bashful. Especially after receiving such high praise only a few moments earlier.
“Kimchi.”
“Kimchi?” Shelly said with a hint of surprise and confusion mixed in.
Meryl nodded.
“The R.A.'s mother used to visit the dorms a lot. Every time she showed up she'd bring a big container of kimchi with her. I overheard them talking one day and they invited me to join them. From then on, every time she came over to visit, they would ask me to come over. I would hear them talk for hours and they would even teach me a few phrases. I still miss her food though. It was beyond delicious.”
“You haven't had kimchi since?”
“Nope,” replied Meryl shaking her head. “I didn't think any other restaurant would compare.”
“We'll see about that,” Shelly smiled. “Are you free for dinner tonight?”
Meryl was taken back a bit.
“Well, yea. I mean, I don't have anything planned.”
“Perfect. I'll take you to this great Korean place just up north. It's kind of small but I'm sure you'll love it. How does seven o'clock sound?”
“Works for me.” Meryl said using great restraint to hold back a grin.
“Great. I'll meet you at the hotel lobby. You better bring your appetite.”
“Thanks, I will,” she laughed.
Shelly walked out of the conference room and disappeared into the chaos outside. Meryl admired her in a lot of ways. They were practically the same age but Shelly has a PhD in Asian-American history and can speak six languages. By comparison, they were two completely different people. Meryl wondered why someone as smart as Shelly wasn't working in the private sector making more money than she could count. That would be a great question to ask her tonight.
Walking into this place was intimidating at first but Meryl was starting to see why people always aspired to work here. The prestige of working in the nation's capital may have been part of it but everything moved and flowed her with such elegance and grace that the madness going on outside almost looks like it was just for show.
“Knock-knock,” an enthusiastic Tracy Rogers called while opening the door. “I'm here to take you to your two-thirty appointment downtown. Ready to go?”
According to the schedule, Meryl was to be measured and fitted for her attire she'll be wearing on the big day. She made sure to have a super light breakfast and lunch in anticipation for this moment. Not that she was worried about breaking the scale but she didn't want to find any surprises once the tape started rolling around her figure.
“Roger that,” Meryl winked.
Tracy laughed in response. In the short time they've gotten to know each other, they had already began forming a list of inside jokes together.
“Is it okay if I leave my stuff here?”
“Oh yea, it'll be fine,” he remarked. “You are the guest of honor after all.”
All of this special treatment sounded too good to be true but everyone appeared to be so genuine and honest that Meryl didn't bother questioning it. Things were going great here. Beautiful skies, prime assignment, and to top it all off, she's already making some fast friends. There wasn't anything not to like in D.C. Meryl walked out of the conference room right with Agent Rogers with that thought permeating in her mind for the rest of the day.
March 25th, 2013 11:15AM
Los Angeles, CA
The cargo aircraft touched down over twelve hours ago and the container hadn't moved since. Colonel Lee and his men were instructed to stay silent at all times as to not arouse suspicions. The difficulty in that is that it's much easier to be quiet when you're awake versus when you're asleep. The men enjoyed some rest on the flight over but since landing, the place has been as silent as a morgue. Some of the men remained so still it was hard to tell if they were alive. Not that it made much of the difference sitting in complete darkness.
Timing was everything. General Song never gave Lee or his men any reason to doubt his orders. They would carry them out perfectly. Even if it would guarantee death. If the General wanted Lee and his men to wait in this box for a year they would have done so willingly. Not a single man in this group has gone to the bathroom since entering this
box. That is the strength of their resolve when it concerns representing the People's Army.
A wild slap found its way to the side of the container. The resounding echo shook the contents from within, most notably the willpower of the soldiers. There were muffled voices coming from outside. They were close. Lee slowly moved over and pressed his ear to the side in the hopes of picking up some information. There words became clear to him now.
“This is the one right?” Said one man with a distinctive accent.
“Right you are my friend,” replied the other.
“So you're telling me all I have to do is ship this from here to D.C. in forty-eight hours and they're going to pay me ten grand?”
“I don't make the ads but that's what it says.”
“There's got to be some important shit in here. Am I right?”
“You know better than to ask that Jimmy. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, all right? Here's the directions. Bring your flatbed around and I'll get the crane to load you up.”
“Thanks buddy. I owe you for this.”
“Again, not my money. But Jimmy,” the second one went temporarily silent before continuing on. “Be careful and make sure to get this delivery there on time. If they're willing to pay that much to for a simple delivery, I'd hate to see what they'd do if you were late.”
“Quit your worrying, I've got this.”
The voices soon stopped. Lee pulled himself away from the wall and tried to best put together the conversation that had just transpired. Out of everything those two men had said the only thing of importance was the destination.
Washington, D.C. the Colonel thought to himself. The capital of America. Whatever General Song had planned it must have been big to go after the very heart of this nation. Lee started to feel a sense of worry cloud his mind. A mission to the capital would be one of great secrecy and importance. General Song trusted Lee with this task without question. It was an honor to serve his army. Lee desperately wanted to make everyone proud.
March 26th, 2013 5:45AM (local time)
Tokyo, Japan
The solid hot rush of water continued to pour over Michael's body. If there was any tiny pleasure that Michael allowed himself on any given day it was that of a nice hot shower. Though, he didn't feel like rewarding himself after the disaster last night.
Chiba was a bust. They hit over ten bars throughout the night and not a single one of them even knew the name Ryoo Myung-Dae let alone worked alongside him. Those guys were a disgrace to gangsters. He got most of them to talk with just the idle threat of violence. Michael didn’t find the need to throw a single punch since he's been in this country. Something he found more fortunate than not.
Surprisingly enough, Davis was quiet throughout the entire process. He didn't raise a single word of opposition. Even when one of the gang members pissed himself, the young Paladin turned a blind eye. Michael was unsure what to think of it but perished the thought soon after. The fact that he wasn't getting in his way made all the difference. Doing his job with added baggage became much easier when it didn't weigh him down at all.
Michael turned off the shower and grabbed a towel. He scrubbed off the water in quick succession then slipped into a pair of boxer-briefs. There wasn't a need for any major grooming. Just the basics of brushing his teeth and slapping on some deodorant. Some stubble was beginning to show on but he didn't bother shaving. Going out with a gruff, uncaring look would help add to his intimidation. If it made the job any quicker Michael would welcome it.
The morning and afternoon would be filled with nothing but observations and stakeouts. None of the action took place in daylight. Michael had to choose his targets carefully. Time was not on his side. Someone furnished that Korean with Agent M. Michael had to find them. They might be already funneling that chemical to the highest bidder. This had to be taken out at the source or Michael will be fighting a never ending battle. His genetics would gladly help him along the way but his sanity did not have the same luxury of being scientifically crafted and enhanced.
Time appeared to pass slowly this morning. Michael contemplated checking in with Commander Wells but decided against it. He would call when there was something concrete to report. Until them, the search continues.
March 25th, 2013 3:49PM
Los Angeles, CA
The list of associates in Charles Logan’s address book was extensive. They were neatly categorized and searchable by name, profession, and net worth. There must have been over a thousand names in this file, all of which had some sort of relationship with the billionaire. Adrian may have bitten off more than he could chew with this request. That’s where he hit the wall.
He couldn’t exactly submit everyone to a background check. It would take weeks just to get them back and months for him to go through them all. Even with a team of agents reviewing the files he still couldn’t get it done in a timely fashion. Logan’s lawyers were already banging at the judge’s door earlier this morning. Thankfully they were able to delay the process for another twenty-four hours. Apparently the judge assigned to the case had crossed wits with Logan’s defense team on more than one occasion and decided to give them another day to cool off and think about things before proceeding. Declaring the billionaire a flight risk also helped to soothe some adversarial temperaments. At the very least, they could argue that Logan’s real estate and connections across the world wasn’t above attempting to escape prosecution for several federal tax crimes.
The rhythmic chime of Adrian’s desk phone brought life to this otherwise silent office. Mark was calling. He only called when it was important. Adrian pulled his eyes away from the mess of data and answered it hoping for a piece of good news in this otherwise endless battle.
“Find anything Mark?” Adrian asked forgoing the need for a greeting.
“You’d better come take a look at this boss. I think I found something big that I can’t exactly explain over the phone.”
That was all Agent Fischer needed to hear to pry him away from his computer. He walked casually towards the analytics department. The arduous tasks tied to this assignment seemed to drain the very life out of the S.A.C. Whatever Mark found better be good because they were running out of time. If Adrian even had a second of freedom, he could probably make one phone call and blow this entire investigation before it got started.
A trio of monitors was the first thing that caught Adrian’s eye when he first arrived to the lead analyst’s desk. All of the screens were filled with various lines of computer programming code or data. This was not on the S.A.C.’s primary field of knowledge. Thankfully he had a team dedicated to this sort of thing who were paid handsomely to make sense of it all.
“What have you found?”
“Take a look at this,” Mark replied pointing to the monitor on the left. “This is only a small chunk of data I was able to pull from the servers but I noticed a pattern here embedded in the hard drive.”
The analyst gave a few quick clicks of his mouse and brought up a chart mapping out the network overlay of the servers in question.
“On the surface they would appear to be normal. Nothing out of the ordinary as far as system usage, data stored, or processing speed. All of it is very typical for a business of this operation: bank accounts, guest information, marketing data, etcetera.”
Adrian was hoping this was not another dead end but he knew how careful Mark was in his work. He wouldn’t call the S.A.C. out here unless it was big. Or a practical joke. That would not go over well given the kind of pressure this investigation is under. Thankfully Mark wasn’t up to his usually humorous antics and continued.
“It wasn’t until I brought the data onto the virtual machine that I noticed something funny going on. The only thing I extracted from the hard drives was the data stored on them but for some reason, they were still communicating with one another as if they were still plugged into the same network.”
“What?”
Mark figured he needed to explain this part so he
tried to do it as easily as he could without going over too much techno-babble.
“Normally when the servers are all set up, one acts as a host which guides and regulates all of the communication between the rest. Server boxes don’t differ that much from regular PCs in terms of hardware. They have CPUs, RAM, the whole shebang. That’s where it’s funny. Hard drives can’t communicate with each other on their own. It’s just data. They need to be told what to do from the host server.”
Now that definitely sounded strange even for someone with less than a fraction of Mark’s experience.
“What does this all mean?”
Mark quickly tapped the mouse again and brought up a sample of the data stored within the code. It all looked the same to Adrian but with a noticeable difference. Certain sections of code were highlighted in yellow and others in red.
“A computer virus. Or worm to be more specific.”
Adrian’s mood suddenly took a turn for the worse.
“You mean to tell me someone has infected Logan’s hard drives?”
“No. Logan did it himself.”
“Say what?”
“Look at this here,” said Mark going back to the center screen with the image of the network map.
After another click, animated lines began to go through each individual server one at a time and then flow back to the host in an orderly fashion.
“This is what normal server communication looks like. Clean, elegant and easy. All of the drives are talking to each other but doing so under the instructions of the host server. Now watch this,” Mark stated while giving the mouse another click.
The animated lines started to go wild all over the screen, bouncing off one another is a mass of chaos. Within seconds the screen was completely covered by the various paths the communication has taken.
“And that’s how these servers are communicating. They’re using the worm, a real clever one to boot, to host the communication between the servers.”
“But aren’t viruses like this dangerous?”
Mark shook his head.
“Viruses yes because they’re meant to change or corrupt data. But worms could be used as a tool for good too. Microsoft used to roll them out to do a series of critical updates and fixes on a whole room full of servers to speed up the process.”