The Saracen Incident

by Jack Bowie

  “Anything new on that one? Does it still look like an accident?”

  “Well, that’s what everybody thinks. We still haven’t been able to identify the visitors this Ramal had, and there are some inconsistencies in the placement of the evidence.”

  “Anything new from the witnesses?” Rodgers continued.

  “Not really. None of the neighbors can back up the landlord’s description. And the girl friend was so shook up, she doesn’t remember anything except the explosion. But she sure doesn’t believe the closet revolutionary story.” Fowler was as frustrated by the lack of progress as was his boss. He felt his case slipping away.

  “I’ve had some calls, Sam,” Rodgers said quietly. “Bombings make people real edgy. Do what you can to get this one wrapped up.”

  “Yes sir, Captain.”

  Fowler watched his boss walk silently back through the squad room and into his office. Rodgers was a young, well-spoken black who was just the representative the D.C. Police Department needed in turbulent times. He had quickly worked his way up the department chain of command, taking over command of Investigative Services a year ago. Rumor was he had well-placed friends in both headquarters and the mayor’s office.

  Fowler had never had any problems with him, and he hoped this visit wasn’t a sign of changing times. The Captain had generally been fair and treated all his officers with respect, but Fowler had always wondered what the kid would do under pressure.

  He figured he was about to find out.

  * * *

  Braxton opened the door to his room at the Dupont Circle Holiday Inn, tossed his bag on one bed and collapsed on the other. Boston fog had delayed the shuttle for an hour and then they had circled National for another half hour waiting on who knows what? US Airways certainly wasn’t going to tell him.

  After a few minutes of rest, he drifted into his regular on-the-road routine. First, he turned on CNN to find out what was happening in the world. Next, he grabbed the room service menu and ordered a pizza. It could be a long night and he was already starving.

  Then he opened his laptop and connected to the Inn’s Wi-Fi. Terrel had left a message that the climbing trip was on for the weekend after next. He made a note in his Outlook calendar and added an item to his action list to check out his hiking boots.

  There were three messages from his monitor programs and another from Flanagan. Politely but firmly she was already asking for a status report. There certainly wasn’t anything substantive he could report, so he marked the email for follow-up and moved on to the monitor updates.

  He spent the next hour analyzing his program’s results while simultaneously munching through the pizza. There was a clear pattern of anomalous transmissions appearing in the scans. They didn’t seem to be correlated with time or activity, however, and only occurred on one of the two GW gateways. Not what he would have expected.

  There weren’t enough examples for any more sophisticated analyses so he saved the data in a working file and logged out. At least he had some hard data and a preliminary confirmation of this Saracen’s claim. Hopefully he would be able to get more evidence tomorrow.

  He was going to reply to Flanagan, but stretched back out on the bed for a few minutes first. It had been a long day and he still hadn’t caught up from the weekend’s excursion. Still, he couldn’t stop thinking about the data from the gateway. As he fell off to sleep, he felt sure there was something familiar about the pattern.

  * * *

  The dinner had been excellent, but Lombard was more interested in the upcoming dessert. They had gone to her favorite Italian restaurant in Falls Church where she had selected a veal piccata and he had chosen a heavier marsala. They were both outstanding. For wine, he had picked a deep red Barolo, knowing it was her favorite and one that always put her into a talkative mood. The ride back to her apartment had been slow enough to build her anticipation even more. They were now relaxing on her sofa with an after-dinner aperitif.

  She was not unattractive, tall and slim, with long dark brown hair she normally wore up but that somehow always started to fall by the end of an evening. She was older than Lombard but significantly less experienced in certain personal matters. A little flat-chested for his usual taste, but she was an apt and attentive pupil. All of which made for an acceptable relationship, to say nothing of the special extra benefit.

  He had met her quite on purpose, of course, only two weeks after she had started at Theater. Keane’s secretary of twenty years had died just after the New Year, and the President had been frantically searching for a replacement. The temp agency had sent four secretaries, each of whom Keane had burned out, stressed out, or thrown out in a day or less. Clarice Montonet had been their last chance and she had been perfect. She was even tempered, with exceptional clerical and organizational skills. She was effective enough to keep Keane happy, and dour enough to not alienate the other executive secretaries.

  The relationship blossomed slowly, Lombard being careful to express the appropriate concerns and make the appropriate entreaties for propriety. But as affairs of the heart will do, they soon were involved in a steamy, if not public, affair.

  Their desire to see each other as often as possible had reduced Montonet’s overtime hours at Theater, and as a result, she was taking increasing amounts of work back to her apartment where she could complete briefings and reports between her lover’s frequent visits. All of which was exactly what Lombard had been planning.

  “Clarice, darling. You look tired. Has our boss been working you too hard?” Lombard leaned back on the soft leather sofa and sipped his brandy.

  “Just the same old thing. Actually, Charles has been in a very good mood lately. He’s been on the phone a lot. And smiling most of the time.” Montonet had collapsed on the other end of the sofa and dropped her feet in Lombard’s lap. The Barolo was definitely beginning to do its magic. “What I really need is one of your patented massages.”

  “If that’s what you’d like.” His smile was forced. This was not good news. Keane should have been worried about the Board and worried about Greystone. What has he got up his sleeve?

  Montonet’s oversized brown leather shoulder bag sat temptingly next to the hall table. Perhaps he could discover the answer to this riddle after all.

  Lombard slipped off her pumps and began messaging her stockinged feet, starting at the ankle then moving down to each individual toe. His thumb made small, firm circles over her tired muscles.

  Montonet softly moaned. “Your hands feel so good. How about working on my neck and back now?”

  “And where after that?”

  “That’s for you to find out,” she replied as she pulled herself up and took his hand.

  “Now, now. You go ahead. I have to check my messages in case Robert called. I’ll just be a minute.”

  “I’ll be waiting,” she said and carefully took off across the room, staggering only slightly between the pieces of furniture.

  Lombard got up and walked to the hall. As Montonet vanished into the bedroom he took out his iPhone and punched the icon for his voice mail. No use in taking any chances. She could come back unexpectedly just to be cute.

  Listening for his mail with one ear and for any unexpected movements with the other, he quickly reached down and snapped opened the bag. Rapidly scanning the contents, one document caught his eye.

  “The old bastard,” he whispered. “We never would have guessed.”

  Lombard replaced the document and closed the bag.

  The sound of the shower echoed through the bedroom door. This was going to be an evening to remember.

  Chapter 8

  George Washington University, Washington, D.C.

  Tuesday, 10:00 a.m.

  BRAXTON”S MEETING AT NASDAQ had been a bust. If he had been a negative kinda guy, he would have sworn Sherman’s only reason for agreeing to a meeting was to get a free breakfast. NASDAQ was completely satisfied that they had addressed any and all cyber threats, according to his friend.
Well, Braxton wasn’t one to wish ill of anyone, but he’d be waiting to read the inevitable article in the Times.

  He grabbed a cab for GW. As the driver fought through the cross-town traffic to Foggy Bottom, Braxton leaned his head back and took a deep breath to fight off the agitation. Time to think about his next meeting.

  He felt good about the job for CERT. The incident sounded like the kind of challenge he loved. Braxton had always been a problem solver. His father had been an engineer and had fed him a regular diet of broken toys, busted appliances and over-the-hill pieces of machinery. Braxton had a natural curiosity for the way things worked and an unrelenting single-mindedness to get to a solution. Have an actual Gordian’s Knot of string? Braxton could sit quietly for hours until the cord was freed.

  Professionally, tearing problems apart and creating solutions was both useful and profitable. When he was in his working zone, he could completely block distractions of any kind, including those of his co-workers, friends and family; a behavior that wreaked havoc with personal relationships.

  Megan, his ex, had called it his obsession complex. It was a major contributor to her decision to terminate their marriage.

  After she left, Braxton had taken stock of his relationships, both professional and interpersonal, and came to the conclusion that he was better off working for himself than for anyone else. Complaining about the incompetence of his managers and shutting out his colleagues wasn’t getting him very far. If he was so damned smart, then he should be able to prove it. If he wasn’t, then he wouldn’t have anyone else to blame. Thus was Cerberus Consulting born.

  Cerberus was a character from Greek and Roman mythology; a monstrous three-headed dog with a mane of snakes, the claws of a lion, and the tail of a serpent. It was supposedly the sentry that guarded the entrance to Hades to prevent the dead from escaping and the living from entering. Braxton had decided that this was just the personification of network security he wanted to portray.

  Not coincidentally, MIT had called its Project Athena network authentication system Kerberos; software that Braxton had worked with in graduate school. The Cerberus name thus had the right provenance, and the name recognition was useful, especially in Boston’s robust high-tech arena.

  Cerberus was what the industry called a “boutique” consulting firm. Some believed this was because it specialized in very specific problems such as network intrusions, cyber-attacks and information theft. Early on, however, Braxton realized “boutique” meant you’re a one-man operation and there’s no one covering your back.

  Parlaying connections from his previous position and positive references from new clients, he had managed a stable, but not opulent, stream of income. Sometimes the jobs were boring as hell, no more than adding a few documented checks and balances to an existing project plan, others even interesting, like ferreting out a major security flaw in eTrade’s latest trading app, but the work had been enough to maintain his comfortable Cambridge lifestyle.

  The gig with CERT could raise his industry visibility significantly. “White hats”, as ethical Internet investigators and hackers were known, commanded premium rates and were in constant demand by major corporations, already paranoid from high-profile break-ins at Home Depot, Sears and even Sony Pictures. These benefits could, on the other hand, only be realized if he actually found a problem and then resolved it.

  The cab slowed and turned down 22nd Street.

  George Washington University filled twenty square blocks in the northwest quadrant of the District of Columbia, lying along the southern side of Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and Washington Circle. Known primarily for excellent undergraduate and graduate programs in the Arts and Sciences, Braxton knew that another of its areas of expertise was Computer Science. He had hired a number of GW graduates over the years and they had become excellent developers.

  The taxi stopped in front of a gleaming glass and steel cube at the corner of 22nd and H Street. This was GW’s new Science and Engineering Hall. The building was home to the departments of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and included the Dean’s administrative office. Whatever he was going to find out about Saracen, it would be here.

  Braxton had decided to start his investigation at the School’s Computing Facility. CERT protocol dictated checking in with GW’s administration before speaking with any university personnel, but in his experience this would be a frustrating and time-wasting experience; something he had no intention of inflicting on himself. Formal requests also made interviewees defensive and selectively forgetful. Better to see what a surprise appearance would uncover.

  The Computing Facility was buried in the second basement level of Science and Engineering Hall. Braxton entered the lobby and walked down the spiral concrete staircase. At the bottom he saw two large arrows: the one pointing left was labeled “Resource Center/User Services”, the one to the right read “Computing Center”. The user services staff was unlikely to give him the information he wanted; he needed detailed account information. He turned right and headed down the hall.

  A steady flow of students made their way through the corridor. D.C. diversity was everywhere: jeans and sweatshirts, coats and ties, dashikis and kaftans. All pecking at cell phones and stabbing on iPads. Not quite the way Braxton remembered his college years but he couldn’t help but feel a bit of nostalgia.

  He threaded his way through the crowd and paused in front of a Student Information bulletin board. The aging cork board, it must have been brought from the Center’s previous location, displayed a rainbow of flyers ranging from the mundane, “Student Tutor - Windows, Linux, MS Word - Reasonable Rates”, to the topical, “African Student’s Union - The Fate of South Africa”, to the recreational, “Phi Delta Beta - Open Beer Blast”. Social causes changed with the times, but a variety of thought and behavior was still alive and well.

  Farther down the hall, he saw a window partially obscured with metal blinds. He peered through the tiers of metal into a sterile-looking machine room. The raised tile floor was dotted with colorful metal cabinets representing the wares of at least six major computer vendors. He could pick out most of the CPUs, disk arrays, printers, and communications hubs, although a few of the enclosures were unfamiliar. It was a typical academic computer center.

  The computer room was devoid of human beings, so he continued down the hall and entered an office area. Straight ahead was a door labeled “Technical Services”. Inside should be a number of System Operators, or “SysOps”, the staff members who had access to the University’s computer systems. They ran diagnostics, managed storage farms, and configured the networks. They also created, monitored, and deleted user access accounts. That’s where he would start.

  The door had a keypad electronic lock, but it was open slightly so he pressed it forward and walked through. University security procedures hadn’t changed much. Inside, the walls of the room were covered with ceiling high cabinets and bookcases. Dog-eared reference books and three ring binders filled the shelves and overflowed onto four small desks that had been wedged into available corners. Two thoroughly preoccupied SysOps sat at the desks on his left. Plastic nameplates stuck to the ends of cabinets identified them as Stan Williams and Mona Levi. His entrance seemed to have no effect on either.

  Williams’ attention was fixed on typing something into his PC. He was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt and his thinning sandy hair suggested he was a bit old to be a student. More likely a full-time employee of the computing center.

  Levi was significantly younger than Williams, and leaned over her desk intently staring into a thick biochemistry textbook. Straight jet-black hair hung almost halfway down her back.

  Braxton knocked on the side of a cabinet. “Excuse me, Mr. Williams,” he said, “I’d like to get some information on a student.”

  Williams looked up. Braxton had been right about the SysOp’s age; tufts of gray stood out at his temples and prominent wrinkles sprayed out from behind gold-rimmed glasses.

&
nbsp; “I’m sorry, but this is the Computer Center,” Williams said with obvious disdain. “Student Services is upstairs.” He turned back to his keyboard ignoring the intrusion. Levi didn’t move an inch.

  “I’m Adam Braxton from the CERT Coordination Center,” he announced with just a touch of bravado. “We’re trying to reach one of your students to follow up on a message he sent us. We were hoping you could be of assistance.” Both heads suddenly popped up.

  “You’re from CERT?” Williams asked as he jumped from his chair and thrust out his hand. “I’m Stan Williams, head of systems operations for the Center.” The SysOp paused as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do next. “Uh, please sit down.” He grabbed a chair from another desk and pulled it into the middle of the aisle.

  Levi waited for an introduction, then seeing that one wasn’t forthcoming, took the initiative. “Mona Levi,” she said standing and offering her hand. “I’m a student operator.”

  “Hello,” Braxton replied, shaking their hands. He couldn’t help but smile at their sudden attentiveness. It felt good to have at least the guise of authority. Since they all looked pretty awkward standing in the middle of the tiny room, he took the chair Williams offered and sat down. Williams and Levi followed.

  “How did you say we can help you?” Williams finally asked excitedly. “We get all the Internet security advisories and such, of course. Always follow them. Are there any problems?”

  Jesus, Braxton didn’t have time for a paranoid operations manager out to cover his ass. “No, no. Nothing like that. We’ve just been trying to reply to one of your accounts and haven’t gotten a response. I was in the area and thought I’d try to locate him in person.”

  “Okay.” Williams seemed to calm down. “But I’m not supposed to give out student information without some authorization.”

  Braxton searched his wallet for the ID card the Center had sent him when he had returned his contract. It was a fancy laminated card with the CERT/CC logo, his picture, and “Adam Braxton” printed on the front. He never figured he’d really need to use the thing. He pulled it out of one of the discolored plastic pockets and handed it to Williams.