Infinite Exposure (36 page)

It was at this point Dimitri stepped forward and opened his briefcase. At first the customs officials made a reach for their
weapons thinking this was going somewhere else. “I am Dimitri. I work for the company which helped establish their new office.”
He pulled out the paperwork from the bank showing the establishment of a company account under the name of Jeremy's new branch
and the wire transfer of $500 million. He also pulled out an office lease document showing the company had leased the office
for five years.

“Where will you be staying while you are here?” the customs officials asked Jeremy.

Dimitri pulled out the apartment lease document showing a two-year lease on a two-bedroom furnished apartment leased to the
same company.

The customs official doing the inquiry pulled out a clipboard and put a form on it. He looked at Dimitri and asked, “May we
keep these?”

“Yes, of course, they are copies.”

“Good.”

“Do you have a phone number for the file.”

“The new office phone is on the business card. I haven't picked up a regular cell phone for this country yet. I was pretty
certain mine wouldn't work here so just have a prepaid I bought at the airport now.”

“The office phone will do.” He put all of the paperwork together with the clipboard and turned to one of the others speaking
in Russian. The other seemed quite perturbed. Dimitri volunteered in English: “One of those two can fill the form out for
you if you wish. They are immigration lawyers we paid to be here.”

That brightened both men's day. Being able to order an immigration lawyer to do a mundane task was a treat most of their ilk
didn't get.

“You should have said something earlier,” said the customs official. He stamped Jeremy's passport then looked at Dimitri,
“Which one do you want to fill this out?”

“Your choice,” Dimitri responded.

The man wavered his finger between the two men like he was playing a game of eeny meeny and finally pointed to one and motioned
him forward. The man next to him smiled, but said nothing. You don't laugh until you are out of earshot when someone just
drew the short straw. Neither man had filled one of these forms out in years. They had office staff to draw the short straw,
just not today.

The customs official waived Jeremy and Dimitri on. When Jeremy got away from the customs desk with his luggage he noticed
that the others had already left and asked Dimitri about it.

“Gleb has already taken them to their hotels. We will take you to your apartment. In about three hours we will come by and
pick you up for supper. Your team will be picked up as well. Dress casual. Blue jeans are fine if you brought them as long
as they aren't all ripped up. We are taking you to a family restaurant so you can get a taste of good Ukrainian food.” He
looked at Dimitri and said, “Don't worry, wine and vodka will flow.”

Both men laughed. “Tomorrow morning around 9 AM local time we will send a car to pick up you and ... Jennifer, is it?”

Jeremy nodded to confirm the name.

“The others have been instructed which way to walk. It is only a couple of blocks. If it is raining of course, they can hail
a cab, but your IT person has chosen to walk each day.”

When they arrived at the apartment building, Jeremy was prepared for the worst. He was coming down from a two-story townhome
with three bedrooms and a full basement to a two bedroom apartment. The rooms were quite small, but overall the layout wasn't
bad. The kitchen only had cabinets between it and the living/dining area. Like a lot of American apartments there were no
dividing walls between those areas, you were supposed to divide them with furniture. It seemed adequate for his needs, came
with washer and dryer along with dishes and utensils. He could get some more blankets and things once he found a store.

Jeremy put away what clothes he had in his bags. There were two large boxes in the living room so most of his stuff had made
it over. He didn't know where the third box was, but it may still be at the office.

The apartment had provided a welcome folder but it was all in Russian. Jeremy had seen a McDonald's on the way to the apartment.
He suspected most of his meals would be coming from there until he learned to speak the language better. He opened one of
the boxes and rummaged for his power adapter. There was a little writing desk which had what appeared to be a cable modem
on it.

With everything hooked up, he tried getting to the Web page of his personal email. This was going to be a very boring stay
if all he could do was play games on his notebook while at home. He needed to be able to get to the Internet from home. There
was much anticipation as he hit return after entering in the Web address. There was much joy when he got to the site and could
log in.

Not wanting to lose track of time, he logged out and started putting away the clothes from the opened box. He would have to
deal with the second box after supper.
Did they even call it supper over here?
he thought. Once complete he flattened out the box and set it by the door. It was now time to get cleaned up for supper.

With his shave and shower out of the way, Jeremy went back to checking his personal email. His eyes were immediately drawn
to an email from his buddy he had given first dibs to.

Hey dude,

You're right. Unbelievable email coming from anyone else. Since I know both you and Stacie, count me in for New Year's. I'll
take the brunette. I attached a picture of me just in case she doesn't want this to be a completely blind situation. Feel
free to pass along my cell phone number as well.

Jeremy laughed and forwarded the email to Stacie. For a subject line, he put “One Down.” Since there still wasn't a knock
at the door, he opened the email from his second pal to receive a New Years Eve offer.

You gave first dibs to him! You rat bastard!!

He can have anyone he wants as long as it isn't the red head. I've always wanted to add a red head to my resume. I know, I'm
a pig, but at least I'm not cheap.

Pass along my email and cell phone. I'll send them a picture of myself when they drop me a note.

See you New Year's Eve.

Jeremy forwarded this email to Stacie as well. In it he took time to write a few words.

Looks like we are all set for New Year's Eve if I can get a flight home. Landed here a while ago. Car is coming by to pick
me up for supper. Apartment is small but rather nice. Get to see the office tomorrow.

He did regret writing so few words and figured he would pay a price for it later on, but he didn't know how long he had. He
heard a knock at the door and logged out. Upon answering, Jeremy learned his driver was here.

The meal was way too much food. Everybody focused on having a good time. There was no pressure to make a sale or close a deal.
Jeremy had talked with the IT person who seemed quite pleased with the office layout.

It was a small three-story office building and most of the second floor was theirs. Since the company wanted to put in a computer
room, they had taken over the lease of a company directly below them and the raised floor was already getting installed. Electricians
were showing up tomorrow to route in the power. An order had been placed for a new computer and disk array just like the one
they had in the remote office.

The networking equipment was installed, but they did not have a T1 connection out, only a cable modem, which was shared. Dimitri
had made arrangements for the telco company to install a T1 for them, but it was going to take several weeks even with bribes
being paid. A docking station had been installed on Jeremy's desk for his notebook and all of the other desks had locally
assembled computers up and running on the company network. Things were going far smoother than Jeremy expected.

***

Stacie was nervously pacing back and forth in her apartment. She was dressed and ready to go to work, but was waiting for
an overnight delivery. She had called into the office to let them know she was running late, but didn't say why. In truth
she didn't need to call in as she wasn't scheduled for any meetings before 10 AM. She certainly hoped to be in by then!

Finally there was a knock at the door and Stacie nearly jumped out of her skin. She didn't know why she felt so nervous about
this. Her hand shook as she signed the electronic delivery machine. With the delivery man gone, she quickly opened the package
and began fumbling through the documents. There wasn't any time to read it all. Thankfully they had included two copies of
everything. She was to sign and return one. She found the four places she needed to sign and verified her Social Security
number.

Something about this felt so illegal to her, but people opened stock trading accounts all of the time. She had looked through
the employee handbook on-line and nothing in there said she had to report to Big Four Consulting any trading account she opened
or stock trades she made. Besides, Jeremy was right. She should profit from this little venture. It may be the only chance
she has to score really big in the stock market, even if it was using Jeremy's money.

Included in the package was a deposit slip so she could add more money to her account. Being a lowly paid single girl, Stacie
only had about $3,000 sitting in her checking account she didn't need. She wrote out a check for $3,000 making it payable
to the clearing firm and included that with the bundle to go back. The UPS store was a block away. She circled the overnight
address they had provided for return shipping, gathered everything up to go back and walked out the door. She made a mental
note to email Jeremy tonight about the extra money she had placed in the account.

This all seemed so naughty, but technically, her part was all legal as far as she could tell. At any rate, if things went
bad, she was going to need the money.

***

Kathryn was sitting in her office with the sales rep for Pytho Corporation. She had wanted Stacie to be there to take credit,
but the girl had called in saying she was running late.

“Thank you for coming George.”

“No problem. Always happy to show up when there is a hot lead to be had. How is the car?”

“When the weather is nice enough to have the top down, it is wonderful. When it is raining, it is pretty noisy.”

“That's why convertibles don't sell so well. Everyone loves them on the perfect days and can't stand them the rest,” he laughed.

Nice and subtle way of telling me you've already paid for this lead,
thought Kathryn.

“I'll cut to the chase. One of our consultants who helped out with the training took it upon herself to do some legwork for
you and came up with Granite National Bank.” She handed George the print outs and he scanned through them.

“Looks like they need it but couldn't afford it,” George responded.

“Financing can always be arranged George. First you have to let them know they need it. We had an account rep for them at
one point. I took it upon myself to get you the IT director's name and phone number.” She handed George another sheet of paper.

“You need a U.S. bank to begin recouping your investment,” she continued. “Do you know that Kent's interview is coming out
tomorrow?”

George's eyes popped open.

“That's right. Call them today George and let them read about it tomorrow. If the IT director shuts you down, we have contacts
on their board of directors. We could still make a presentation, but it would be better if this came through channels.”

Tossing the Dice

Two days went by at waiting for a response from the man in the suit. It was unlike him to simply not acknowledge a request
for instructions. Hans instructed Vladimir to start watching the outbound messages closely from the email hub. The surveillance
team had been watching the progress of each new trainee and taking very detailed notes about how security was set up. Live
video and sound feed had been a good idea. As soon as the trainees had gone to sleep with their machines on, the team called
Hans who called Vladimir. In under an hour Vladimir had installed all his software on their machines and could monitor them
at will. Each time they started they would be hitting the ping server he was running.

On the following day, email started coming into the first trainee's machine. The surveillance team made copies of all video
and sound footage for the past four days. They hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary, but perhaps the rest of the team
could spot it. A copy was put on the operation's server so Vladimir could access it. Everyone was frantically looking for
what caused the switch in hub addresses. Nobody was finding the email with the message.

Hans had some technical skills, but he knew he couldn't play at the level of either the Brit or Vladimir. Five different email
addresses were now transmitting messages to the new hub. Everybody was grinding through those messages byte by byte. Vladimir
was going through the messages as they appeared on the ping server he was running. Absolutely nothing was showing up. Hans
sat there watching the surveillance video looking for something out of the ordinary. He could find nothing. Then again, there
was a lot of dead time, so he started keeping a time-index spreadsheet while going through. At least it would save others
the trouble of fast forwarding through the dead time.

Everyone was taken quite by surprise when the man in the suit walked in.

“I didn't expect to see you here,” said Hans.

“It's nice to walk in and see everyone so hard at work,” replied the man in the suit. Yes, even here, he wore his suit. “Catch
me up.”

“We are all pouring over the last few days of messages from one hub operator before they started going to another hub operator.
Well, I'm watching the surveillance video to see if they made any phone calls or did anything unusual. The Brit is well beyond
me in the tech world. So far, we cannot find what is triggering the cell members to send email to the new location consistently.
They flash cut to the new hub and haven't slipped up sending email to the old since.”

The Brit stood up, stretched, cracked his neck and back then said, “I need to walk around. I really need a proper pint when
I'm doing this kind of digging. I can't find anything in the image that contains the new email address or any instruction
to switch. According to our translation script, these are the regular communications that go back and forth.”

“Let me take a look at the email,” said the man in the suit.

“Be my guest. I'll start you off the way it appears when viewed in an email reader.”

“Please turn off full header viewing.”

A couple of clicks later a normal email screen displayed the message. The man in the suit read the message and began to chuckle.
“What is so funny?” asked the Brit.

“Whenever my best minds can't find something, they are generally “overlooking a stupid.” In this case you gave your opponent
too much credit. The new email address is in the 'reply-to' and the Holy Quran quote is what tells them to use it while deleting
the other.”

“I don't read Arabic, what does it say?”

As for those who disbelieve in our communications, We shall make them enter fire; so oft as their skins are thoroughly burned,
We will change them for other skins, that they may taste the punishment. (4:56)

“You were busy looking for an umbrella gun when all they used was a club.”

“It couldn't be that bloody obvious!” screamed the Brit. “I really need a bloody pint now! Why can't we ever be stationed
in a country that drinks?”

The man in the suit simply smiled and walked over to the carry-on bag he had brought with him. He opened it up and began taking
out bottles that were wrapped in towels. Six bottles of Bass Ale. The Brit was absolutely drooling. “They aren't cold, but
they are yours,” the man in the suit said.

Hans had stopped typing his email to Vladimir to watch this show. The man in the suit didn't drink and was against it entirely.
He must have feared for his life buying beer and bringing it here. The Brit was already gathering every big container they
had to put cold water from the well in. Hans had to laugh.

Nothing diminished the Brit's performance like the lack of a proper pint. He was OK for a week or so, but then he was hard
to be around. He never got drunk when he was in the field. He simply needed a proper pint at the end of the day to keep himself
functioning. It literally was just one pint. Hans had never met anyone who could stop at one beer until he met the Brit.

The man in the suit walked over to him and saw what he was typing. “Do you need me to repeat the phrase he asked?”

“Please do,” Hans responded. “Sorry, I was being amused and forgot what the phrase was.”

With the message recited and the email off to Vladimir, he turned to the man in the suit and asked, “Did you bring orders
for the nab?”

“We are cleared to nab these hub operators and to run the hub for a while if we think it will benefit us. I don't really see
how now that we have found what we were looking for, but that much is cleared.”

“Starting today, I had most of the surveillance team monitoring the trainer. We want to nab whomever brings the identities.”

“That we do!” chimed in the Brit. “They have an actual identity shop cranking those things out and I want a crack at finding
out where they are made.” All the while he was speaking he was spinning one bottle slowly in a bucket of cool water. The rest
were soaking in a pail.

“I thought you would be trying to prove him wrong,” smirked Hans.

“Can't be done. I don't read Arabic, but that exact phrase was in every final email message that went out. Our previous hub
operator had informed us only that a valid phrase meant the recipient should use the email and an invalid phrase meant they
were a decoy. Until now, we never knew any of those phrases had meaning. We can prove it soon enough if we let those guys
live another couple of days. The second trainee will be receiving a few cells to handle in pilot mode. We will see the same
sequence occur with the same phrase and new email address in the 'reply-to' address. It is too bad we don't get a better screen
shot with the surveillance cameras.”

“We don't yet have an exit plan,” said the man in the suit, “so I expect you will get your few days.”

The Brit responded, “I picked up a car which can hide two drugged out people in the trunk. If you want to take all three at
the same time the third will have to ride on the floor of the back seat. It is in good enough shape to make it to Mangalore.”

“Why Mangalore?” asked the man in the suit.

“It is the closest place with a port we can get to by road. We were thinking you could charter some kind of fishing trawler
or other boat that could get us out to international waters,” offered Hans.

“Then what?”

“We assumed you had enough connections you could get a Huey to fly out and cable up our guests for a trip to Pakistan. After
that, we assumed you had a way to get them out,” answered the Brit.

“Here I have little in the way of connections. I assume you are already procuring the equipment needed to knock them out and
get them out quietly. I also assume you wish to do this quietly because you were planning on leaving the original trainer
in place for a while.”

“At least until we know the identity kits have been delivered,” said Hans.

“Kits?”

“He has a team that we cannot identify. We have some passive tags, but are trying to get more scanners. We assume they all
work with him, but don't have a single clue as to who they are.”

“I have placed an order with a supplier here,” volunteered the Brit. “I should have them tomorrow along with the chloroform
and handcuffs. Of course, one of you will need to check into my hotel, preferably on the same floor so I can drop the stuff
in your room. I won't be able to come back here once I make the purchase. You will have to sneak it back here. We really need
a second car though.”

“Why?” asked the man in the suit.

“The two trainees usually only work for a little while when their trainer is at work, then they go to sleep. Once he gets
back he gives them a little more training and they practice while he sleeps. I want to take the two while they are asleep
and the other is gone. We can be waiting for the other when he returns from work. Doing that means we want two cars. It's
a long drive to Mangalore,” said the Brit.

“This assumes we can find a ship there, and a small boat to get us out to the ship,” said the man in the suit.

“I won't be able to return here, are you telling me you want me to go there and make those arrangements as well?”

“Do you have that level of contact in this country?” asked the suit.

“Pretty close, but another Twinkie will help ensure it.”

“Twinkie?”

Hans opened the bottom drawer to his desk and pulled out the Twinkie he had stacked there. He tossed it to the Brit. The man
in the suit got a stunned look on his face.

“One of our sponsors sent us some liquid assets in a care package. All local currency so we don't stand out any more than
is necessary.”

“Does he have another care package available?” asked the man in the suit.

“Only in Indian currency that I know of. Why?”

“Oh. I was going to have him ship one to the headquarters in Pakistan to rent your Huey. Indian currency is near worthless
in Pakistan.”

“If you have another one of these I can get it exchanged for euros,” volunteered the Brit. “They charge a lot to do the exchange,
but they don't ask any questions.”

“A smaller brick of euros would be helpful. Something I will be able to stash on my person with only a little bit in my carry
on bag. Do you have some loose local currency I can use to rent a hotel room with?” the suit asked Hans.

“I feel like a dad handing out allowances,” said Hans as he opened his wallet.

The other two men laughed and the Brit chimed in, “But dad, I'm buying you another car.”

Now they all laughed. In truth, it was the only time Hans could remember ever seeing the man in the suit laugh.

With the money handed out, the man in the suit mused, “It is possible we already know who his team is.”

“How so?” asked Hans.

“It might simply be the other operators. They might all be about to disperse to different parts of the world. Given the loss
of Nedim and the rather sudden loss of the hub in Khyber Pass, they might be trying to spread out their hubs just in case.”

“That is a possibility” said the Brit.

“I don't buy it,” responded Hans. “He has had absolutely no contact with the other operator since the guy moved out. There
is no way for him to know how the training of the others is progressing. He has a team elsewhere, probably at work since that
is the only place he goes other than to buy food. Our man inside has learned nothing about what they are planning. The only
thing we know is that it is not a suicide attack involving them.”

“Well, involving them wearing the bombs anyway,” the Brit concurred.

“Has either of them had any visitors at all?” asked the man in the suit.

“None,” responded Hans.

“We have video on the one apartment, so we know bombs aren't being made there. Wish we had video on the other apartment,”
said the suit.

“We have a tap on his phone, but he never makes a call,” said the Brit.

“Well, once you have the exit plan in place notify us and we will do the take down of these three,” said the suit. “It might
be good for the surveillance team to occupy both apartments for a few days. If we are all wrong and that is his team, someone
carrying an identity kit will show up there soon.”

“It's a play worth making. We will learn a lot more about what they were doing by getting an image of their machines and sending
it on to the technical team,” said Hans.

“We will have to go through it ourselves if we want it done in a timely manner. The technical team has been swamped with computers
and cell phones from the British and other round ups” said the suit. “What hotel are you staying in?” he asked the Brit.

“First one you find on this road headed into town.”

“Write down your cell phone number and I will call you once I'm in a room.”

Paper and pen changed hands, then the man in the suit left. The Brit finished his one bottle of beer, bagged up the Twinkies
and was about to leave when Hans spoke up.“I need anther case of MREs here while you are out shopping.”

“Will do mate. Why don't you call the surveillance team and have them bring you some food on their way over to file reports?
At least some local bread and bottled tea. You can't keep much else here.”

“Hence my need for MREs, but the bread isn't a bad idea. It keeps a few days on a shelf.”

***

The part-time receptionist Dimitri had allowed them to hire had been a godsend. Susan (it wasn't her name, but she agreed
to let them call her that since it was close enough) spoke some English, enough she could understand much of what Jeremy said.
She had helped Jennifer place the job ads for analysts on-line and in the local paper. She could drive, but didn't own a car.
That small matter was quickly taken care of at a local car rental place where they leased a car by the month for her to drive.
The rental place carried all necessary registration and insurance so it was cleaner for the company to lease it that way.

Quite possibly the nicest thing she did for everyone was find a map of the local area on-line and circle things. Each circle
got a number and on the following page there was a description of what that number was. She flagged four restaurants, a dry
cleaner and two stores where Jeremy could buy food. Lunch was catered to the office every day she was there. Dimitri had put
them in touch with a payroll service to get people set up on payroll.