Molon Labe! (32 page)

"I understand your feelings, Fred, but the Director will deal with that when the time comes," the AD replies. "Now, who can tell me more about the kidnappings?"

The DAD of General Crimes is heard for the first time. "The abductions are causing the most concern amongst case agents. From an investigative standpoint, finding bodies would be preferable. And, the victims' families would have closure. But when a former Deputy Commerce Secretary simply vanishes with no warning or ransom note, we must establish that he didn't merely run off with his mistress. Before that, we must first establish if he even
had
a mistress to run off
with.
Inexplicable disappearances cost us nearly a week of time interviewing family and acquaintances, and analyzing phone and email records, airline reservation and credit-card data, security-camera tapes, and so forth.

"Then, once we've established that he is not
willfully
missing, we must then rule out the possibility of a solitary accident. Did he drive into a ravine? Have a boating accident? Get lost hiking in the Rockies and fall down a mine-shaft? All of these possibilities must be eliminated before we can finally conclude foul play, and even then we're never
really
quite certain until we get a break. So, by
not
leaving a body the perpetrators automatically gain a week head start."

"It's like we get hit with a seven-day handicap right from the beginning," the AD observes.

"Exactly, sir. And after a week, any clues they might have left are likely stale, contaminated, or destroyed."

"Have any bodies of the abductees been discovered?" asks the AD. "No, sir. Of the twenty-three we have classified as likely Krassnyite victims, only six were found at the crime scene. None of the other seventeen have so far been found. We do, however, expect some of them to start turning up. It is quite tedious and time-consuming to totally dispose of a body, especially without witnesses. Short of incineration or chemical decomposition through acids or alkalies, human remains have a stubborn habit of surfacing. Hunters and hikers are constantly discovering buried remains. We believe that the perpetrators are inexperienced, even though they have so far managed to avoid apprehension. As amateurs, they are bound to have made
some
errors, so it's just a matter of time before we get forensic leads. From there we may get DNA, tire tracks, fingerprints, cigarette-butts, witnesses, security-camera evidence, etc.

"At the moment, however, we see no breakthroughs on the horizon, and five of these cases are over four months old. The agents must move on to fresher cases after that much time."

The AD nods. He had been a Philadelphia Special Agent and SAC, and well understood case work. "What about the six murders?"

"We may soon have a break there. Four of the murders have similar MOs, suggesting two serial actors. One pair were stabbed; the other shot. Analysis of ballistic evidence looks promising. Spent shell cases were found at both crime scenes. An identical H&K .45 USP was used. We're comparing the cases to our database
⁶
. If the handgun was made after 2000 and if it hasn't been stolen or altered, we should be able to identify the owner through NICS
⁷
data. We're cautiously optimistic on this."

"Glad to hear that. What about the stabbing victims? Any success there?" asks the AD.

"Not yet, sir. But unless lots of hydrogen peroxide is used it is very difficult to totally remove all blood residue from surfaces, and we'll likely be able to tie the knife to the two victims once we locate their assailant. His knife won't help us catch him, but it will help us convict him."

The AD says, "OK, what about backtracking this whole thing? Working from the point of contagion, so to speak. We know that Krassny posted his deeds on the Internet via several dozen websites, chat rooms, and forums. What about traffic analysis of log-ons? We learn of these people the same way they learned of Krassny. That'd give us an initial lead base to work with."

The Counter-Terrorism DAD picks up the baton. "Yes, sir, we're already on it. Many of those sites are visited through secondary browsers, such as anonymizer.com. This muddies the trail considerably. What has been more profitable is to DCS1000 search for all emails which contained URL links to Krassny posts. Let's say that Smith originally happens upon such a post. Though he declines Krassny's example, he forwards the link to Jones, who is made of more volatile stuff. And Jones to Brown, and so forth.

"We are concentrating on individuals who sent and/or received the most number of Krassny posts. From there, we compare them to rosters of known hate criminals, militia members, illegal tax protestors, sovereign citizen types, patriot agitators, etc. Within this list, we focus on males under 35 and those over 60, meaning males likely without families. Given the intellectual and physical demands of committing these crimes, we tend to dismiss the very young and the very old, such as under 25 and over 70."

"But Krassny was in his — what? — mid-80s, and he successfully killed two men," observes the AD.

"Yes sir, but we think he was the exception that will prove the rule. An octogenarian may have started this, but we doubt it's the elderly who are keeping it going. Another filter we are developing will flag those who have suffered recent psychological triggers, such as death of a loved one, divorce, bankruptcy, or loss of job. For example, Krassny had recently lost his wife and two grown children. TRAC is helping us to define other search parameters, such as prior military service — especially combat experience. Commercial and government databases are 98% linked today, fortunately. We couldn't have done this ten, or even five, years ago."

The AD seems impressed. "And who have you come up with?"

"At the moment, we are interested in eleven possibles and are analyzing their travel, phone, and email records to see if we can place them near the time and location of any of these deaths and abductions. It's a long shot, but four of these men have suspicious travel patterns and two of them are good friends."

"Do you think these two were accomplices in some of these crimes?"

"We can't say. We do know that they didn't travel together, but they may have compared tactics with each other. Both are well-known 'patriot' agitator-types. Both gun-nuts. Both Marine Corps vets. Bradford is a farmer in Lander, Wyoming, and Swan is a diesel mechanic in Logan, Utah. They're four hours apart by car, and their wives are second cousins. They stay in regular touch by PGP encrypted email, which we have yet to break."

"Farmers and mechanics using PGP. That's just great," the AD sighs. "NSA had their chance to nip all that in the bud twenty years ago and now we have to deal with common terrorists using unbreakable encryption."

The Counter-Terrorism DAD ignores this and continues, "It was the farmer who emailed the mechanic the Krassny posts. Within weeks — "

The TRAC Chief interrupts with, "How do you know
that
if they're both using PGP?"

"Good question. Although Bradford's email text was encrypted, subject lines are not. One read 'check out this link!!!' Once Swan decrypted Bradford's email, he then clicked on an enclosed URL which had posted Krassny's suicide letter. We know this from analyzing Swan's surf history."

"Good work. Go on," the AD says.

"Thank you, sir. Within weeks both of them took independent trips to Denver according to their gas card and hotel receipts. From what we can tell, neither of them had any business or family reason for their travel."

The AD says, "Denver. Those three abductions?"

"Yes, sir. The dates show some correlation to their travel. Furthermore, email traffic analysis shows a flurry of communication just prior to and after all three Denver crimes."

The Assistant Director looks skeptical.

"It's thin but it's the only thing with any promise," the Counter-Terrorism DAD allows.

"Do you have PC for a search warrant?"

"We're a long way from that. We
are
monitoring their phones and email, however. First bit of incriminating evidence we hear, we'll get warrants. The judges are very interested in some resolution here."

"No doubt. I'm assuming you've yet to question these two."

"Correct. We don't want to alarm them this early. We installed GPS tracking beacons in their vehicles. Their names are flagged in all travel computers. With any luck, they will act again. If they drive or fly within one hundred miles of any VIP on our list, we'll be alerted immediately."

The AD says, "We don't have that kind of time. The Director demands a break in this before he goes on vacation in August. So do I. I want their computers key-sniffed for passphrases. On my authority, go proactive with Magic Lantern and DIRT
⁸
. I'm scheduling another meeting for next week, same time. Have something new for me then."

"Good afternoon, Director. It's a pleasure to meet you. May I say that I was personally very pleased with your nomination, and feel very confident that the Bureau is under excellent helmsmanship."

"Thank you, Agent Bleth, I appreciate your sentiments. I'm looking forward to the next ten years. Now, I've read your reports on the Wyoming newcomers and their growing control of the counties and legislature. You've been on this since 2007?"

"Yes, Director. Since just a few months after their first election when they took over five counties out of the blue. During these past two years, I've learned much more about them and their agenda."

"Good. Let's hear it."

The White House, Oval Office

July 2009

The President looks up from his desk as his new FBI Director Paul Klein is ushered in. "Hi, Paul. Thanks for coming over. So, what do you have on this Wyoming election thing?"

"It took a little over two years to piece it together, but the Bureau is confident of its conclusions," the Director answers.

"Five months ago the Bureau
had
no conclusions. What was the breakthrough here?"

"Email traffic, Mr. President. Their imperfect security measures and occasionally unencrypted email. We learn more through email analysis than most people realize. DCS1000 gives us tremendous leverage in communication surveillance. Over 95% of the work is completely automated. Also, the NSA finally gave us the help we needed with their quantum computer. Once we had assembled a useful list of target names, words, phrases, and addresses, the picture more or less painted itself."

"It's those Free State Project people, right?"

"In part, yes, sir. It began as a splinter group from the FSP's October 2003 vote for New Hampshire. Nearly 20% of their 5,500 membership were split between New England and the Rocky Mountains. We've suspected from the start that the Western membership had probably struck out on their own. Now we have more of an understanding of their schedule, key players, etc."

"Do they have anything to do with this wave of kidnapping and assassination brought on by that Krassny fellow?"

"We've uncovered no links to the Krassnyites so far, Mr. President. We do, however, expect two search warrants regarding the Denver crimes."

"Are these subjects Wyoming newcomers?"

"No, sir. In fact, only one is from Wyoming and he was born there."

The President frowns. "OK. So, what's the newcomer agenda?"

"The recent libertarians plan to progressively take over the political structure of the state — probably over the course of eight years and three election cycles: 2006, 2010, and 2014."

The President's mouth slightly drops open. "Can that even be done?"

"Theoretically, yes. It's just a matter of the right numbers moving into the state on a coordinated basis. They have already elected and installed five county governments and about 17% of the state legislators. Federal agencies such as the FBI, DEA, ATF, and IRS report extremely diminished cooperation in those counties. Justice is looking into what can be done about that. Next November is their second general election cycle, and they will try to add another five to seven counties to give them nearly half the state geographically, and about 30% of the legislature."

The President says, "I know it's a 'free country' and all, but something about this makes me uneasy. It's just so . . . so
unprecedented
."

"I completely agree, Mr. President. We'll keep on top of it."

____________

1
   Washington Field Office

2
   Scientific Wild Ass Guess

3
   FBI Document-302 reports are FBI witness statements.

4
   A disparaging name used by many federal agents for the ATF.

5
   UNknown SUBjects

6
   Since 2000, several manufacturers such as H&K, Glock, Ruger, and S&W have been providing fired- rounds from their new handguns to the FBI before delivering them to market. Although such ballistic evidence is of dubious crime-fighting value, it provides a pretext for the eventual owner registration of handguns.

7
   
National Instant Check System
, an unconstitutional computerized background screening program for people who buy firearms through federally licensed dealers on ATF Form 4473. Immediately after the purchaser has been cleared for the transaction, the NICS data is by law supposed to be destroyed in order to prevent the formation of a database of gun owners. As is typical of government's
"Do as I say, not as I do"
attitude, NICS data is never destroyed.

8
   
Data Interception by Remote Transmission
, a computer monitoring program that can be undetectably installed on a target computer by email. It transmits a record of user keystrokes to authorities each time the user goes online.

2010