Proportionate Response

by Dave Buschi

Costa Rica might be next on their list after this bus stop.

  Lip did a flyby. Had his Blackberry out. They passed Johnny Two-cakes’s house, but didn’t slow down.

  It was a nice house. Neighborhood was upscale. Nothing like Britney’s zip code, but still impressive. Homes were in the one to two million dollar range. Course, in regards to real estate valuations, everything was relative. What one and two million got you in the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area wasn’t exactly the same as what it got in other regions of the country.

  Johnny Two-cakes’s house was nice, but it wasn’t the Taj Mahal. It was in a Seventies style. A big timbered A-frame with rusticated stone on half of it and glass on the rest. A smaller wing was on one side, and an enclosed two-car garage was on the other. Site was generous; probably about three-quarters of an acre. Lawn was manicured; had mature oaks and maples whose leaves were just turning color. There was a decent length asphalt driveway. At its front were two stone piers that formed the entrance. Landscaping looked well kept.

  Not a place that looked owned by an absentee owner.

  Place said money around here. Not crazy obscene money, but the kind that senior partners in law firms, well-to-do lobbyists, and the other white collar elite might make. Plot of land like this—this close to DC? Ka ching, ka ching.

  And Johnny Two-cakes owned it. Man who’d been on a government salary for a good chunk of his life? That didn’t fit.

  Before they put boots on the ground, Lip wanted to dig. Flyby got him what he needed. They cruised on. Drove to a Dunkin’ Donuts that was about ten minutes away. They parked. Got some Joe. Lip did his donut fix; ate two from the bag before they got back in the Suburban. Lip flipped open his laptop and got down to business.

  Marks was odd man out. After a few sips of his coffee he put it in the drink holder, reclined his seat and took a nap. Wanted to beat the caffeine to the punch. Snag some Zs. Marine thing. Hit the rack when you can. Never know when you’ll get a chance to do so next.

  A nudge in the ribs and Z time was over. Too short as usual. Lip brought him up to speed.

  “I needed to see what type of security we might be dealing with.”

  Marks rubbed his eyes. “And?”

  “Funny,” Lip said. “He doesn’t own the house. It’s owned by an offshore trust. Just a P.O. Box for an address. I ran some things down. That trust is owned by another shell company. I lost the trail after that. The house is practically invisible. There’s nothing that ties it to Johnny Two-cakes.”

  “Not surprised. That’d be him,” Marks said.

  “I agree,” Lip said. “Still, think about it. Johnny Two-cakes was worried about Marion. Wanted her out of there ASAP. Obviously he was worried. Didn’t think his attempts to sanitize would withstand scrutiny. Maybe with more time I might be able to get past the dead end I hit, but I doubt it. Johnny Two-cakes did it like I would have done. It’s almost textbook. And I had the address to work with—a big advantage. They don’t. So why did Johnny Two-cakes want Marion out of there?”

  “I don’t know, could be several reasons. Maybe it’s listed elsewhere. As collateral for a loan? He had his business down in Costa Rica.”

  “I dug into that too,” Lip said. “Nope, not that I can see. His business was off any books. No loans. All I found was the name of it. It wasn’t in his name, either. It was owned by another offshore trust.”

  “Hell, I wasn’t out that long.”

  “Yeah you were. And you snore.”

  “Hell I do.”

  Lip tapped two keys on his computer. A noise like a hippo chuffing filled the Suburban.

  It was disturbing. “What the hell is that?” Marks said.

  “You.”

  “No way.”

  79

  THEY rolled right on in like they owned the joint. Pulled up to the two-car garage. Sometimes the out in the open approach was the best approach.

  It was just a few minutes after ten. This was a working neighborhood. The working rich, but still the working class. Most folks, Marks realized, would be at their offices. Prying eyes should be limited to the few moms that weren’t running errands. And Johnny Two-cakes, if what Marion said was right about them recently moving in, probably hadn’t even met his neighbors.

  A Suburban was on par for this place. Not too lowbrow or too flashy, and definitely not the sort of ride that would raise any red flags. People were hampered by stereotypes. Last thing they expected was someone driving a forty thousand dollar family vehicle to be B&E candidates.

  Security was good, but nothing crazy. Lip wasn’t impressed.

  “Johnny Two-cakes is getting sloppy,” Lip said, as he turned off the security system from the car. “Store bought. Not even customized.”

  They put on disposable gloves, exited and walked up to the front door. Thirty seconds for Lip to use his nimble fingers and they were in.

  No joke; gloves on too. Man had scary skills.

  “Let’s see what we got here,” Lip said. “Poppa’s curious.”

  80

  HALFWAY around the world a honey pot was triggered. It happened the second the security system went down on John Claiborne’s residence. The man in the white mask was notified almost immediately. In 3.21 seconds to be exact.

  He had already determined several things about John Claiborne’s “store bought” system. It had been purchased five and a half years ago with a credit card that was in John Claiborne’s name.

  Everyone gets careless. Including sorry old hawks from the National Security Agency. Claiborne, who’d reached a GS Pay Grade 14 by the time he’d retired, was quite adept at keeping off the radar. He wasn’t the careless sort.

  Ever since vulnerabilities were discovered in ARPANET and MILNET back in the early 80s—almost since the beginning, it appeared—he’d adopted a minimum profile approach. He hadn’t taken it to an extreme (like some ghosts who changed names every week), but he did abide by a set of cardinal rules. His personal residence was always listed as a P.O. Box. His billing address for his credit cards, likewise, was a P.O. Box. That P.O. Box was linked to an incorporated entity, not to him individually. He was very disciplined at parsing information about himself. The NSA had obviously instilled in him a deep respect for the capabilities of those on the other side.

  The other side being the enemy. Never underestimate them appeared to be his motto. Quite the paranoid individual, he was. Also a realist. He had anticipated that chinks in his armor would be found. He’d seen his own vulnerabilities. For one, he paid his taxes. Being a government employee that duty was kind of required. So obtuse of Americans. They might as well put bull’s eyes on their brave defenders. Secondly, and perhaps even more emasculating, certain “other” information was out there. Claiborne did not know the exact means that an enemy would try to exploit, but he was aware that it might happen.

  Good show in both regards, Mr. Claiborne. A man that admits his deficiencies is a rare breed indeed.

  The exploit, as they always were, was perfunctory, an inevitability, like the rising tide. Claiborne had used his credit card to purchase the security system. The credit card was in his name. Name: one piece of useful info. When the cashier rang up that purchase at the time, the point of sale software had captured and married several bits of metadata. The optical scanner had swiped the barcode and the integrated credit card processing system had captured the card’s number.

  The product purchased happened to be a GE product. GE’s tracking capabilities for its inventory were state of the art, even five years ago. When the barcode was swiped, from that point forward, GE could pinpoint which retailer had sold its product. Date, time, cash or credit.

  Credit. Ah… such a lovely thing. Particularly from the retailer’s perspective. Companies loved when customers used their plastic. It enabled their sophisticated analytics to earn its keep. All sorts of additional data was captured instantly.

  With one simple swipe of that credit card, the retailer (and their sales partner, GE) suddenly knew quite
a lot on who had purchased their product. Age, name, buying preferences. Those were just the basics.

  In John Claiborne’s case the available information was less than most. He was a ghost, after all. But nevertheless, even with the man’s diligent precautions, it was still additional information that could create the beginnings of a virtual profile.

  John Wellesley Claiborne. 53 years old. Born February 15th. An Aquarius. An ascetic palate. Not very adventurous with what he ate. Bought the same thing each time. Liked to use coupons at the grocery store. Had an inquiring mind. Liked books. Bought them prolifically. Quite a range of subjects too: history, technology, psychology; preferred nonfiction for the most part. Once had a cat, then a canary. Did the cat eat your canary, Mr. Claiborne?

  The man in the white mask could go on, quite ad nauseam. Claiborne’s buying habits revealed much about the man’s personality. A boring sod; not so for his wife, however. Sex toys… you naughty boy. What was she teaching you? No longer using coupons, either. Whom did you think you were fooling, Johnny boy? But enough on Mr. Claiborne. The exploit. Yes, the exploit. Was droll work. No challenge at all. Mr. Claiborne’s Achilles’ heel had come into existence five and a half years ago.

  The GE security system. GE being a Six Sigma company prided themselves on their “best of class” systems and processes. Everything for them was cross-linked. A barcode was all it took to bring up information on any of their products. In this case, for the security system Claiborne purchased, this included the sixteen digit verification number for the software that ran that particular system.

  When Claiborne set up that system for wireless access he’d inputted that number into one of GE’s highly secure websites. He had also inputted some other personal information about himself, which included his name, address, and email contact info. For almost all of those items, Claiborne had been careful. The name he’d inputted was a shell entity, not his own name. The email info he’d typed in was also one that couldn’t be traced to his name. But for the address, in order for the GPS marker of the security system to be effective, he’d plugged in his actual address.

  You can run, but you can’t hide. Actual address. Second piece of info.

  Now there were two pieces of info that were linked. When he’d plugged in that address—there was a trail, albeit tenuous, that could be linked back to that credit card that was in his name. Name. Address. It just takes one time. Any and all previous sanitation attempts on Mr. Claiborne’s part were suddenly negated.

  Granted, the link between those pieces of useful information was only known by GE, and that trail was protected by a triple-tiered firewall. GE had a very secure site. It was better than most. In fact, it was one of the best.

  In this case, it wasn’t good enough. It had been hacked. By little ole me.

  The man in the white mask clicked to review the mirror site he’d already set up. It enabled him to bring up the video capture that had occurred seconds previous, before the system went down.

  The footage was clear and in color. It showed a Suburban pulling into the driveway. Ah there you are, you naughty boys. You’re not easy to find are you?

  Two clicks and he sent an email. Concluded. The man in the white mask could almost see its path. He knew exactly where it was going. His little white dove carrying his simple message. One, two, three, shall I recount your flight?

  First the little white dove traveled at the speed of light over the Pacific Ocean’s floor—from Shantou to a sandy beach at California’s Montana De Oro State Park in almost an instant. Less than an eye blink later, it zipped to a landing station in San Luis Obispo, and traveled from there another 242 miles to a main convergence point at AT&T’s central hub in downtown San Francisco. From there it went through a dizzying array of switches and splitters before crossing the country an eye blink later. Total travel time from sender (that would be me) to recipient’s Inbox was approximately three seconds.

  Sender was TGallard72487@msn.com

  The white dove (email is such a blah description) contained a recipe for “Kidney Bean Pie”. Embedded in that file—the white dove’s pretty little beak—was a brief message. Its sole contents: John Claiborne’s address in North Arlington. That address was now being read and passed on. The man in the white mask had kept this information to himself long enough. He’d known Mr. Claiborne’s address for over 18 hours, but it was time that information was passed on. The two visitors required it. They had been a little too busy, a little too naughty, and that just wouldn’t do.

  The man in the white mask knew what would happen now, was probably already happening at this very moment. Monster was adjusting his sunglasses and pulling out into the street.

  Hmmm… The man in the white mask missed times like this, being hands on. This was so much more fun than delegating to his minions.

  Now, now, what do I see in my crystal ball? The man in the white mask brought up some DMV cameras. Ah, there he is…

  Monster, you lovely boy, Godspeed. I shall enjoy seeing your next masterpiece.

  81

  MARKS and Lip walked into the foyer. They were packing; Lip’s was in his holster, Marks’s was shoved in his pants. Plan was to handle this like a normal job. No shortcuts. Full sweep. In and out like they were never here.

  Their Suburban out front might pass muster from watchful neighbors, but any flyby from the bad guys and that was another story. No need to press their luck. This was going to be a quick job.

  “Right?” Marks said.

  “Got it,” Lip said.

  The foyer had a privacy screen. There was an opening and three floating steps that spilled into a big main space. The A-frame structure soared over it. Whole plan was open.

  Felt like they were in a time warp. Everything seemed straight from the Seventies. Abstract artwork on the paneled walls, funky furniture, orange drapes that went down to a shag carpet. The furniture had avocado-colored cushions with a circle motif pattern. In another area, the carpet was a thick pile of brown and orange mixed together in a psychedelic mish-mash; looked like something the dog ate and threw up.

  “Groovy,” Lip said. He walked over and examined the books. There were hundreds of them on the built-in bookshelves that flanked the stone fireplace. The stone went all the way to the ceiling, as did the bookshelves.

  Lip let out a hoot. “Check it out.”

  “Man likes to read,” Marks said.

  “Dewey Decimal system,” Lip said.

  “You’re kidding?” Marks said. But Lip was right; he could see it from here. There were tiny labels on each book.

  “300 for Social Sciences. 600 for Technology and Applied Sciences,” Lip said. “He’s got it all down. Printed the labels.” Lip started to giggle.

  Marks smirked. “Either that or we just found the infamous library thief.”

  Lip looked at Marks. “That was good.”

  “Thank you.”

  They checked out the kitchen. Not the first place they’d normally hit, but Lip was off his game.

  “No way,” Lip said.

  Kitchen had to be original to the place. Lip started opening cabinets. Left them open. “He’s a fuckin’ freak,” Lip said.

  Marks saw it right away. The way things were organized. Pasta fusilli in-between boxes of cereal. No apparent order, except if you looked at the colors. He had the white boxes with the white boxes… green boxes with the green boxes….

  Lip couldn’t stop himself. He was giggling so much he tooted.

  “Sorry,” Lip said.

  It was a peeper, not a stinker.

  Marks closed the cabinets. “C’mon, focus.”

  Lip pulled it together.

  They hit the two rooms that were next to the kitchen. There was a short corridor that led to the garage with two doors that were off it. They were looking for anything that might be helpful. That meant files with financial information, computers, ticket stubs, itinerary books… anything that could help flesh out a picture. Lip kept getting distracted.

>   “He reuses his plastic baggies,” Lip said, barely able to contain himself. He was checking out the laundry room.

  Marks peeked in and saw some ski gear: skis, poles and ski boots that were on the floor in the corner, next to the dryer. He saw what Lip was talking about. Certainly looked suspect. On a counter was one of those wooden coffee-cup trees; the kind with wooden pegs you use to hang your mugs. It was right next to the utility sink. Johnny Two-cakes seemed to be using it for another purpose. Several plastic sandwich bags were hanging on it.

  “He washed and dried them,” Lip said, giggling as he held one of them up. “What does this thing cost? Three cents?”

  Marks recalled working with the guy. The guy was frugal. Always brown bagged it when they were in the office. Used those same plastic baggies for his tuna fish sandwiches. Kind of explained why some of those baggies always looked so crinkled.

  Speaking of tuna… Marks opened a cupboard in the pantry that was across from the laundry room. There were at least fifty cans of StarKist stacked on the shelves. He closed it before Lip could see. His partner was a mess. Sight of this would send him into convulsions.

  They checked out the garage next, doing it together. It was just as Marks imagined it when he’d read Johnny Two-cakes’s letter. Utility shelves lined the garage walls. One thing was for sure, man was predictable. On the shelves were boxes with color coded printed labels. Just like Marks had called it. Swish. Nothing but net.

  The labels were almost as bad as the fact he kept his old newspapers. Hundreds of them. Some of the papers were over three years old. No sense to it. Man hadn’t even lived here when these papers would have been delivered.

  “What did he do—back order these?” Lip said.

  “Got me. Definitely hasn’t heard of recycling.”

  There was a Beemer parked in one of the bays. A blue one. Newer 5 series. Had to be Marion’s car. Johnny Two-cakes was a Subaru man. Drove them till the wheels came off. Also, this car had a female touch. Marks saw some hand cream and anti-bacterial hand gel inside and a bright frou-frou umbrella lying behind the seat.