Daniel Ganninger - Icarus Investigations 02 - Peeking Duck

by Daniel Ganninger

  “I was just speculating, but grooves like that couldn’t have been caused from a heavy file cabinet or furniture. It had to be caused by something really heavy and dense. Why would a shipping company need a safe? I mean, companies like that usually don’t have anything of value.”

  “Those guys were awfully good in their pursuit, too,” I added.

  “I noticed that. You’re on the same page as me, aren’t you, Roger?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “What are you guys talking about? Who do you think it was?” Maddie wondered aloud.

  “We’re thinking this was a government agency,” Galveston started. “I don’t know which one, but this smells of a trained government unit. I’m only speculating, but I think it may be one of our own.”

  -Chapter 22-

  Galveston called Alex again and quickly told him our theory. Alex had his own assumptions on who may have been after us, but he kept it to himself for the time being.

  “What can you do from your end?” Galveston asked as we began to walk out of the parking structure.

  “You said they had some pretty heavy electronic connections going in that office, right?” Alex asked.

  “Yeah, lots of wires and stuff. Looked like some intricate stuff to me, but what do I know.”

  “Yeah, that’s true,” Alex laughed. “Let me do some checking and find out who was controlling the connections there. Singapore has a solid infrastructure and a lot of internet providers, so it may take me an hour or two to find out the company connecting that office. I’ll call you back with some news, hopefully.”

  “Sounds good. We’re going to find a quiet place to lay low until we hear from you. I’d like to get out of this country as quickly as possible. I doubt these guys will give up on looking for us.”

  “Understood. I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

  Galveston hung up the phone, and we cautiously wound our way through the narrow streets adjacent to the garage until we saw a quaint cafe nestled at the bottom of a giant skyscraper.

  We found a table as far back in the restaurant as possible, and waited patiently as a young waiter bound toward us for an order.

  “We better go ahead and eat. I’m afraid we might be here a while,” Galveston told us.

  We quickly scanned the menu, and I noticed the cafe had Mediterranean fare. I picked out the first thing that seemed appetizing and gave the order to the waiter who repeated it back in clear English, which for some reason surprised me. As I got comfortable in my chair, Maddie and Galveston put their picks in with the waiter.

  “Take your time,” Galveston said to the waiter, “we’re going to be here for a while.” The waiter gave us a confused look and hurriedly moved into the kitchen.

  Over the next hour we nursed our drinks and discussed what we had found out so far, which wasn‘t much. Alex had the ball, and he would dictate our next move.

  We had slowly finished our food and drinks when, finally, Galveston‘s phone rang.

  “What up?”

  “Okay. Hey dude, pretty interesting things so far, but I need to do some more digging. The service provider for that office said the business that used that connection was Asian Pacifica, so a dead end there, but what was interesting was the connections they had.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, they had a T1 connection, but not just one, they had three.”

  “I don’t follow. What the hell is a T1 connection?”

  “It’s a very fast internet connection usually utilized by larger companies. A shipping company wouldn’t need one, let alone three.” Alex paused. “I also found that I couldn’t trace anything from their office. I’ll put it in layman’s terms. They were masking their internet address, and not only that, they were bouncing it all over the world. It’s almost impossible to track what was going out. But I was able to use some data that was coming in to locate them, and what Singapore service they were using. Plus I traced a large amount of data from that office to the United States. Just don’t ask me how I got that. I can’t think of any reason why a shipping company would be using this type of setup. It may confirm your theory of a government connection.”

  “Our government?” Galveston questioned with surprise.

  “No, Canada,” Alex answered with sarcasm. “Of course our government.”

  “But why?”

  “I have no idea, but I would stake my shaky reputation that it has to be a U.S. agency. I don’t know which one, but I can sure try to find out.”

  “And how, and I’m scared to ask, would you do that?”

  “That’s where it becomes tricky, and probably highly illegal. I would need to go to San Francisco. There’s a hub there that the NSA controls in a telecommunications building. I remember it from my days at the NSA. About ninety percent of the electronic information coming from the Pacific Rim into the U.S. goes through that hub. Its how they monitor traffic from that area and get information on all sorts of things; including terroristic threats, money transactions, email, you name it.”

  Galveston absorbed the information. “You think you can get in without being caught? You would be taking a huge risk, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know. I have a way in. Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.”

  “If you say so. Please don’t get caught, okay?”

  “Got it. Give me until tonight and I should have some new information. You guys might as well come back. If they’re gone, they ain’t coming back to clean up.”

  “We’ll head to the airport now. Hopefully, they won’t be able to catch up yet, whoever it was after us.”

  Galveston hung up his phone and gave us the update. It was a truly crazy plan, but we had nothing else to go on. It seemed we may already be chasing our own tail. Galveston conveniently left out the part about Alex sneaking into the NSA hub. He liked Maddie, but this was not information he felt she needed to know.

  We hailed a cab to take us back to the airport, and we discussed what to do next. Another day could be wasted if we didn’t find another lead. I thought about what we had so far, and something kept gnawing at my gut. There had to be an inside man who knew what cargo the Trusian was carrying. It also seemed strange this ordeal happened when a new captain of the ship was taking his watch. I posed the question to Galveston and Maddie, who wondered the same. Was this captain involved?

  Before I had time to delve into the question further, Galveston informed me our flight plans had changed. We were going to Hong Kong instead of L.A. Maybe we would find what we were looking for there.

  -Chapter 23-

  The jumbo jet landed at Hong Kong airport late that night, and our bodies were beginning to feel like the landing gear. We found a quaint hotel near the center of the city and decided that early in the morning we would investigate the port, not that we knew what we were looking for.

  The morning came quickly, and the vast hours in an airplane and across time zones were beginning to weigh on the three of us, but we had to press on.

  The port of Hong Kong was enormous, and rightfully the busiest in the world. It stretched for as far as the eyes could see, but thanks to Maddie’s information, we were able to whittle down the different docks to the loading area from which the Trusian had debarked.

  The men working the docks were far from affable in helping us, so we decided a little fibbing would have to come into play to get the information we needed. We weren‘t in a poor country with easily manipulated personnel; we were in Chinese controlled Hong Kong. Luckily the amount of traffic that came into the port, and the number of Westerners and Eastern Europeans hanging around, would help us disguise our actions.

  Galveston had an idea, and I let him go to work. We located the dockmaster huddled in a small office close to the huge gantry cranes that loaded the container ships.

  “Hello, sir,” Galveston said, smiling. “I’m Kip Mulrooney, reporter for the Shipping Times, and your team has been chosen for an expose in our magazine. Did your boss tell you?”

 
; The man gave a confused look, mumbled a response, and continued to look at the papers splayed in front of him.

  “Excuse me sir, did you hear me? I’m a reporter from the Shipping Times here to do our story?”

  Again the man didn‘t seem to hear, but then suddenly spoke at us in Chinese, and it appeared that the words were not that nice.

  “I don’t think he understands English, Kip,” I said to Galveston, who continued to stare at the dockmaster.

  “I guess not,” Galveston replied. “Sure seems like someone pissed in his Wheaties.”

  I couldn‘t help but stifle a laugh as we stood uncomfortably in front of the man.

  Galveston was bound and determined not to stop and give the man what he obviously wanted, which was to be left alone.

  “Kip Mulrooney, Shipping Times,” Galveston tried again, putting out his hand.

  The man sighed heavily and looked up. We expected another barrage of angry Chinese.

  “What you want, man,” he said loudly. “Me very busy, no time for tourist.”

  “Ah, he speaks, excellent.” Galveston rubbed his hands together, and the man gave him a look of disgust. “I’m doing a story about a ship that is supposed to leave this port.”

  “Me no care. Please, very busy, check back later.” The man continued with his work of scribbling on his papers.

  “Ah, that’s too bad.” Galveston turned to us and gave a wink. “I was hoping to meet Jackie Chan on that boat.” Galveston emphasized the name to get the desired response.

  The dockmaster‘s head rose quickly. “Jackie Chan? What you say?”

  “Jackie Chan is the story here. He’s doing a movie and taking a boat out of the port today for research. My editors want an exclusive.”

  I was impressed by Galveston‘s quick thinking. Jackie Chan had been a Hong Kong movie star long before he had made his run on Hollywood. Nobody could pass up a star sighting.

  “Jackie Chan, here? Why not you say so. Where he at?”

  “Oh, he’s not here, yet. He’s going out on a ship called the Trusian.”

  The man whirled his chair around to a computer that sat behind him and busily typed in the name of the ship.

  “Oh, you crazy. That ship leave three days ago. No Jackie Chan. You facts all up screwed.” The man was clearly perturbed at missing his chance to see his hero.

  “Well, maybe he never got on it. Who is the captain of the ship, and did he authorize any new seaman?”

  “I don’t know. You bummer me out with no Chan. Here, look for yourself.” The dockmaster pushed over a manifesto as it fed from a printer, looking dejected that we had shattered his dream.

  Galveston grabbed the page carefully and brought it between Maddie and me. The manifesto had the names of the crewman and the cargo aboard the container ship. Maddie looked over it first, as she had the original plan of who should be aboard. She ran her fingers over the names and compared the sheets. Everything matched except for a first mate that had been added to the crew.

  Maddie pointed our attention to it. “This doesn’t match. I mean the first mate’s name is correct, but he wasn’t supposed to be on this ship. He was supposed to debark to board another ship. It looks like he was added a week before the departure. The captain reads correctly as the one who took over after the previous captain had been detained.”

  “I think we have a new lead then,” Galveston responded. “Can I end this charade with our friend here?”

  “Please do,” I pleaded. “Just put him out of his misery.”

  Galveston turned around with a look of surprise on his face. “You’re in luck, my friend. Mr. Chan wasn’t on that ship,” Galveston peered quickly at the computer screen behind him and found the most visible place name he could. “He’s going out on the ship to India that’s leaving in the next hour.”

  The man gave him a confused look. “Why Chan go to India?”

  “He has family there, and that’s where they’re filming his movie,” Galveston shot back.

  “You crazy, he no go to India.”

  “Well, I’m going down to that ship to interview him now. I guess you won’t get to meet him,” Galveston said in hopes of doing anything to keep the man’s mind off the insanity of the situation. “See you later.”

  It only took the dockmaster a few seconds to realize the enormity of his potential mistake, and he blew out of his chair and passed us out the door. “You hurry,” he yelled behind him.

  “Get the cargo list and meet me outside,” Galveston ordered.

  Maddie and I stood lifeless until Galveston gave us a shove in the right direction. I began to nervously yank at the file cabinet. Galveston followed the dockmaster out the door, and began explaining to him that we would meet him at the ship because we had to get our camera equipment in order. I wasted no time in perusing the paper files. Luckily, business at the dock was done mostly in English, and after poring past the first fifty file folders or so, I found the one for the Trusian. I pulled it out and shoved it under my shirt, like I was smuggling a ham, and made for the door.

  The dockmaster was racing toward the dock as Maddie and I caught up to Galveston, who was speed walking around a corner and out of sight. We came up behind him breathlessly, and I pulled out the file.

  “Got it,” I panted. “Now what?”

  “We get the hell out of here, that’s what,” Galveston screeched. “We have to find a cab fast.”

  We hoofed it through four city blocks before coming to a small business district with a flurry of eager cab drivers waiting for business.

  “Quick, to the airport,” Galveston barked at the startled cabbie as we pushed our way into the car.

  As the car bumped along the road through the massively congested Hong Kong streets, we got our first looks at the manifest from the Trusian. It was the final updated information on the cargo, crew, fuel, and anything else that was loaded from the port onto the ship. We could get in a huge amount of trouble for having this in our possession, so I took out my phone and began to take pictures of as many pages as I could, hoping they would be legible when we needed to peruse them.

  The traffic was beginning to build as the cab traveled to the airport, and I managed to record most of the pages. I could tell Maddie was beginning to question her reasoning for following us on our little trip. Finally, after an hour in traffic, we arrived at the Hong Kong airport.

  “Are you finished?” Galveston asked me.

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  Galveston took the file and began ripping it into as many pieces as possible, until it laid in a jumbled mess of paper. We jumped out of the cab as Galveston threw some money at our cab driver and thanked him for the trip. We then found the nearest garbage can and threw the papers in it. We moved through the terminal of the airport and found a flight to Honolulu leaving in the next couple of hours; the first out of the country and in the general direction we needed.

  As we finally made it safely to our seats, I began to relax slightly. But I wouldn’t be fully relaxed until we were back on U.S. soil, out of the country. I really didn’t want to answer questions as to why we stole that file.

  I didn‘t breathe easily until we were well out of Hong Kong airspace. We had only spent a few hours in a place I would have loved to explore, but time was not on our side, and every minute we spent on land meant less time before our deadline.

  It occurred to me that the flying wouldn‘t be over soon. We had better take this opportunity to sleep, but we couldn’t help ourselves from first taking a quick peek at the pictures I had taken of the information in the file. What we found could only be described as…interesting.

  -Chapter 24-

  Alex arrived in San Francisco in the late afternoon. His plan was to get into the hub of the AT&T telecommunications building in the middle of the city and back on a plane that night. He knew of a small room that held secret NSA listening equipment and what security system guarded it; he had designed it. Alex just hoped no one had changed it since then.r />
  Alex arrived at a nondescript, windowless structure near Market Street in downtown San Francisco. There were a few offices in the building, and he made his way past the security guard with relative ease using a forged maintenance badge. He knew the NSA control room was in the direct middle of the building and on an otherwise unoccupied floor, except for the hubs and servers that routed digital traffic from all over the world. Alex couldn’t get to that floor from the elevator since it had a security code and a camera inside, and he couldn’t risk being spotted. Instead he took the fire door and walked slowly up the stairs until he reached the fifth floor.

  He carefully removed his backpack, and using a small device of his own crafting, defeated the electronic lock on the door. As he opened it, he spotted a few technicians amongst the wide array of digital switching hubs and computer equipment.

  The technicians were busy with their work of checking various buttons and switches, and thanks to the sheer size and noisy hum of the equipment, he easily moved between them and out of sight. He wasn’t sure where the NSA control room actually was but figured it had to be fairly remote. The NSA didn’t like to draw attention to themselves, and the technicians probably had no idea that the room even existed.

  As he dodged between the various blinking lights and massive machines, he found what he was looking for. He located a barely visible lone door with no handle positioned close to an array of cables. It was just as he had designed.

  He inched his way behind a machine and had just enough room to begin working at the door. It was a genius design; no keylock, no keypad, absolutely nothing except brute force could open the door, or so it appeared.

  Out of his backpack Alex withdrew a wand, about half the size of a baseball bat, connected to a small battery. If no one had changed his design then this would be easy. He was giddy at the thought of seeing if it had been implemented to his specifications.

  Alex took the wand and adjusted a few knobs at the base, and starting at the bottom corner of the door, he closely followed the outline of the steel frame until he arrived at the other end. He heard the sound he wanted. A soft buzz emanated from the door and a few clicks sounded, indicating the steel bars were being retracted into the door. After the sounds stopped, the door popped slightly, allowing just enough room for him to get his finger in. He pushed open the door and moved inside.