by Leslie Wolfe
“We need to start building a timeline,” Alex said and drew a long, horizontal line spanning across the entire lower section of the whiteboard. She marked the right extremity of it with an arrow and a “t,” for time. She marked “November” very close to the right end of the time axis. She marked January right about the middle and then went back in time, to the left of the board, and marked “June?” on the axis. Next to June, she drew a line at a sixty-degree angle and wrote on it “Heart failure starts.” Then she marked November of the previous year as “Congestive failure,” and in December she marked “Transplant.”
“OK, I’ll continue adding events as we go though the facts. Back to what we know.” She wrote “transplant facilitation” under the Known section and “heart disease cause” under the Unknown section.
“I think it’s fairly clear they did this,” Lou offered. “We could move that to the Knowns.”
“I think it’s very likely,” Alex replied, “but it’s not really known or proven yet. We will operate under the assumption that this scenario is very likely, but for now we don’t have enough data to confirm it.”
“That’s a very cautious way to look at things,” Brian confirmed. “The hypothesis that they caused Melanie’s heart failure is changing the timeline dramatically and turns this into a two-year long conspiracy.”
“As a side note,” Alex intervened, “I struggle with calling these people ‘they’ all the time. Can we call them something else? Until we figure out who ‘they’ are?”
“Let’s call them UNSUB,” Sam suggested. “Works for law enforcement really well, stands for unknown subject.”
“Yeah, I’d say that’s very applicable, thanks!” She wrote “UNSUB” on a sticky note and placed it above Helms’ sketched likeness on the corkboard. “It could be more than one UNSUB, you know.”
“UNSUB can be a person, a group, or an organization. Until you know for sure you cannot assume,” Sam clarified.
“Works for me,” she confirmed. “OK, so what else do we know? We know it’s about the presidential election somehow.” She wrote “Elections” under the Known category. “We don’t know how they, the UNSUB, are planning to hit the elections. But because it’s the elections that the UNSUB is targeting, we have a very valuable piece of information.”
She wrote “November 8” in the Known column. “We have a date. We know the when. We don’t know the what, the how, or the who, but we can say we’re fairly certain about the when, don’t you think?”
“I’d say it’s a safe assumption,” Tom said.
“I agree,” Brian said.
“Same here,” Lou confirmed.
“We might learn differently as we uncover more facts,” Steve said. “Election Day, this date we think we know could be one hell of a red herring, getting all eyes focused on the election process, while the UNSUB could be trying to blow something up elsewhere. The NSA is heavily involved in securing the election software and the actual election data during the voting process. How do we know it’s not an attack against the NSA, using the election software or hardware as a Trojan horse?”
A few moments of silence took over the room.
“What a disturbing thought,” Alex said.
“Very,” Tom agreed.
“All right, let’s adapt our strategy, then. Let’s brainstorm and speculate on what the UNSUB could be planning. Mild to wild, lazy to crazy ideas, nothing is too much or too little. Let’s bring it.” She carved a space on the whiteboard by drawing a rectangle on it, taking from the ample space she had reserved for the Unknown.
“I’ll be eating crow now and bring back the idea of explosives in the hardware. All or some of the devices could be rigged,” Lou said, smiling shyly.
Alex wrote “Bomb(s) / hardware” in the rectangle. “No crow needed for your sustenance, Lou. Tom will share his steaks, you know.”
They all chuckled quietly and relaxed just a little bit.
“They could be targeting the NSA,” Steve reminded her of his red herring.
“Ah, yes.” She added it to the list. “How about if they want to plant a back-door into the software, so they can hack the results?”
“And bypass the NSA security and firewalls?” Sam replied. “I seriously doubt it, but put it on the board.”
“What else? Could this be, after all, only about money and ego?” Alex asked, while adding “$” to the board.
“It’s farfetched, in my opinion,” Brian said, “but I guess it’s a possibility. They spend a few million getting the contract that’s worth hundreds of millions. Nice return on investment there.”
“Not just worth hundreds of millions, but it affirms this government’s commitment to sending work offshore,” Tom said, “which could have a political motive.”
“Political? For which country? For the States?” Alex asked in rapid fire.
“No, I was thinking for India. For the States, it wouldn’t make much of a difference, and although some voices are speaking loudly against globalization in general and outsourcing in particular, these voices remain strangely ineffective in the States. For us, outsourcing has become an accepted status quo, no matter how damaging. But for India it would mean a great deal of political capital to be able to say that even the most American of processes has been handed over to them. It’s like having the biggest and best reference or portfolio item in history; huge political capital asset for them.”
“OK, adding it,” Alex said, then added “India politics” to the list. “Sam, you’re more experienced in things like this; what’s your theory?”
“I have a theory, and it’s not fully fleshed out, but it has to do with terrorism. When I see a heart attack here, a car crash there, arranging a black-market heart transplant in the middle of the modern US medical system, that spells power and money to me. Huge power, lots and lots of money. That’s why I’m thinking a terrorist organization, not sure who, but an organization nevertheless, that wants to take the election hostage somehow, maybe in the biggest blackmail in the history of our country. Maybe the biggest concentrated terror attack in history. Something like that,” Sam said.
Alex looked at him, puzzled, a frown developing on her forehead.
“Can you please give us more details?” Tom asked.
“If the UNSUB organization gains access to the single nationwide event that puts the majority of all adults in a certain place within a certain time frame, I’d say that’s a power play of immense magnitude and potential. By ‘gaining access’ I mean a lot of things could happen. They could threaten: detonate a few warning charges here and there, make public threats, and cause terror to prevent Americans from voting. They could ask for billions of dollars to allow the voting process to happen peacefully. They could defraud the voting process; although it’s hard to say why they’d care, unless there’s an American political connection involved somehow. Has some politician outsourced the committing of electoral fraud? That’d be something, wouldn’t it?”
They were all staring at Sam in disbelief. Alex felt a wave of anger rising in her throat, choking her. Oh, my God! She made an effort to regain her calm, analytical demeanor.
“We should have started with you,” Alex said. “Wow...that’s a lot to think about. Why do you say organization? Can’t a single individual hold the power and the money necessary to make this happen?”
“Not really. From what I am seeing,” Sam replied thoughtfully, “this plan is not only large and complex but also elegant. It plays like a symphony, not like a single-instrument tune.”
“How do you mean?” Alex asked.
“A single individual wouldn’t have had the capacity, mentally and operationally, to lead and execute such a complex plan. A single individual could have created the plan, that’s true, but he’d need an organization to execute this plan. The facts we know don’t seem to be that many, but the precision of execution leads me to believe there are many people behind this plan, deploying and executing surveillance on multiple targets, drawing co
nclusions, making things happen. That’s why I said symphony.”
Sam rubbed the back of his neck, thinking hard. “Here’s another thought for you. We don’t know anything about the money. How the money flows, where it comes from, and how. Getting a black-market heart transplant arranged, that’s north of a million dollars, considering it was done in a legitimate clinic, not someone’s back room.”
“Yep, we don’t know much about the money, that’s true,” Alex said and wrote “Money trail” under Unknown. “Any other thoughts, ideas, scenarios?”
No one offered; they were tapped out.
“I think we’re out of any new ideas, especially after Sam’s input,” Steve said. “The one thing circling in my mind now is that we might have underestimated the complexity of this case, and by complexity, I also mean danger. If we’re about to uncover a conspiracy of this magnitude we are facing extreme danger and we should proceed, if we still want to, with extreme caution.”
“Oh, we’re still proceeding, if you’d like my opinion,” Alex said. “Let’s figure out how. I’ll finish the timeline and the categorization this afternoon and see if any new ideas pop up.” She took a couple of gulps from her coffee mug. The coffee had turned cold. She went toward the coffee maker and programmed it to brew a new serving on top of her cold coffee leftovers.
Sam popped a cold Coke from the mini fridge, drinking it with large gulps.
“What are you planning to do?” Tom asked. He stood and started pacing a little, not having much room to do his traditional back and forth. “How would you like to approach this?”
Steve also stood and, grabbing a bottle of water from the small table, went near the window and leaned against the wall. Lou fidgeted, tapping his foot quietly against the floor, but remained seated. Brian was the only one maintaining his relaxed pose, probably because he was used to sitting through very long business meetings. They were ready for a break; the work session had been intense and bothersome.
“I’d approach it the usual way, thinking Robert could get me hired on his team. He does have two openings. Getting me aboard will probably take longer than usual because we don’t have DCBI as a client, so there’s no senior leadership support for our case. I would have to go through channels and act like any other employee. No fast tracking will happen here. Robert, who most likely is also under complete surveillance in both home and office, has to play this very carefully. We have to get this phase started.” She took a sip of fresh coffee. “I’d have to move to DC,” she said, a little concern seeping into her voice.
Steve caught on to that and looked straight at her. She smiled and made a quick reassuring gesture. She would be fine, she’d have to be, no matter how scary it felt to think she’d be on her own in a strange new city and most likely under surveillance all the time, just like the rest of Robert’s team had been. That ups the ante a little bit, she thought, and if I make a mistake or voice the wrong opinion, I won’t even know what hit me. But damn if I’ll let them win this, no way in hell I’m backing down now.
“We can follow three things.” She turned and wrote them on the whiteboard. “Tech, heart, and money. It’s what we have. We have the two technology contracts, hardware to Taiwan and software to India. We’ll follow those as soon as I’m inside DCBI. Until then, we can get started on the heart and the money used to pay for the transplant.”
“It’s a plan,” Tom said. “Brian, what are your next steps?”
“I’ll work on the equipment, encryption devices, decoders, locators, anything I can think of, and maybe Sam can help with a few ideas. I will also give Alex a crash course in strategic sourcing, vendor engagement, quality assurance for outsourced contracts, and all that good stuff.”
“So we’re still a go?” Sam asked.
Alex looked at Tom. He nodded almost imperceptibly.
“Hell, yeah,” she responded.
...Chapter 37: The Sign
...Tuesday, January 26, 2:19PM Local Time (UTC+1:00 hours)
...Zur Roten Buche Corporate Center
...Zürich, Switzerland
Ahmad Babak Javadi was about to lose every bit of temper he had left. These handymen were idiots. The task couldn’t have been easier, and they were screwing it up. All they had to do was put four holes in the wall, drive screws through them, and hang the damn sign. Centered, level, at the right height.
He let himself drop into a huge leather armchair, one of the two in his office reception area. As soon as he hit the red, sumptuous leather, he let a long sigh escape.
“Did you measure from the sides? It’s to the left, not in the middle of the wall,” Javadi said, his thick Iranian accent enhanced by frustration.
“Ja, ja, we did,” one of the nitwits replied.
“Like hell you did,” Javadi said, getting up. He took off his charcoal suit jacket and grabbed the measuring tape. He had to do everything himself it seemed.
Until now, everything had gone quite nicely, according to plan, and with minimal difficulty. He had leased a nice, secluded home for himself, only a few minutes away, yet buried in the hills just off Triemlihalde. Yes, he had the rattling of passing trains bothering him every now and then, but he had the privacy of the thick forest in return. The office space wasn’t that bad either, and he was almost done setting things up.
Javadi was used to getting things done his way, precisely his way, when he wanted, how he wanted. Sitting on a considerable fortune invested in a diversified portfolio of household names like eBay, Google, AT&T, and General Electric, he was used to the utmost deference. In his palatial home in Tehran, worthy of the Eram Garden, this measure of ineptitude would have never happened. Now there were six holes in the wall, two of them visible to the left of the sign. He would have to make them cover the holes and repaint the wall and have it ready before the next morning, when his first appointment was scheduled to arrive.
But the damn thing was finally hanging on the wall where it was supposed to, and it looked quite nice. That was if the eye of the beholder chose to ignore the two ugly holes that were soon to be covered and focus on the brushed metal letters spelling out elegantly “Eastern Africa Development Fund.”
...Chapter 38: Equipment
...Wednesday, January 27, 1:47PM PST (UTC-8:00 hours)
...Tom Isaac’s Residence
...Laguna Beach, California
Tom’s home office, once elegant, open, and tastefully decorated with items that were chosen to fit together harmoniously, had been dubbed the war room. How very appropriate, Alex thought, entering the semi-disorganized work area and setting up her laptop on the improvised conference table. The corkboard on the wall now showed images and sticky notes with names, events, and concepts pinned up and tied together with colorful knitting yarn, color-coded by meaning. Green yarn symbolized a verified, proven connection between two people or events. Blue signified a suspected and plausible connection. There was red yarn available; it was going to be used for unexpected, surprising connections—if they were going to find any. Red had not been used yet.
The night before she had torn everything down and rebuilt it to incorporate a timeline. It worked better like this, made more sense. They might call this system the Crazy Wall, but it was very helpful. She was going to miss it in DC.
“Admiring your handiwork, huh?” Brian asked, walking through the door with his arms full. He deposited everything he was carrying on the table, and then went straight for the coffee machine.
“Hey, Brian. Yeah, I am,” Alex responded. “I was wondering if there’s a connection between the hardware vendor and the software vendor, between India and Taiwan, somewhere in the background somehow. Maybe they’re owned by the same investors? I think we need some yellow yarn, for untested hypotheses and wild hunches.”
“Maybe Lou can dig a little and test your hunch.”
“Yeah, I’ll ask him,” she said, grabbing her coffee mug and going for a refill. “What do you have for me?”
“Lots and lots of toys, you’ll see.
” He sat down and grabbed a boxy device, about the size of a laptop, only a little thicker. “Since you’ll be heading into some travel, specifically to Taiwan and India, I wanted to make sure that you can communicate freely with us, regardless of time and location. These devices will also ensure you maintain the confidentiality of all communication, because you won’t have to go through your hotel’s Wi-Fi, or through the vendor’s network.”
Alex took the device from Brian, examining it closely.
“Ah, a satellite link,” she said, connecting it to the laptop. “I always wanted to try one of these.”
“Go ahead, play with it. It’s the Inmarsat BGAN terminal from Globalcom. It will give you voice, data, and a WLAN access point to hook up your laptop. It’s not very fast, but it will give you data and voice access from anywhere. The data transfer fees are ridiculously large, but feel free to use it as you need.”
“Yep, it’s slow, but it gets the job done, excellent. What’s next?”
Brian grabbed a black object that resembled a phone with a thimble-sized antenna, entirely black and without a screen or keypad.
“For when you can’t use the Inmarsat terminal, we have something else. Let me have your cell phone, please,” Brain asked. “If you attach this device to your cell it turns it into a satellite phone. You attach it to this case first,” he said, picking another object from the pile, one that looked like a typical cell phone holder, “then you attach the sat phone device.”
“Really? Sweet deal,” Alex said, grinning widely.
“It’s called the Thuraya SatSleeve. Once connected to your iPhone, it will instantly give you access via satellite, while using your own number, wherever you are. You can make and receive calls and text messages. The antenna extends like this,” he demonstrated. “But the product is sensitive enough to alert you of incoming calls or messages even if the antenna is not extended.”