Take the Fourth (22 page)

When his phone chirped he simply forwarded the information onto Scott and at the same time placed it anonymously on the databases at Homeland Security. He uploaded all the security photos from the turnpike with some extraneous references and bogus percentages belonging to nonexistent data files. He thought about digitally enhancing the mall pictures but he wasn’t a whiz with Photoshop so he decided that it be best left alone, besides he knew how the system worked and it didn’t work all that well. He knew it was a rare chance, especially with the President screaming down their necks, that any significant data simply wouldn’t be checked for authenticity once it appeared in these databases. He was correct. But give credit where credit is due, within minutes of this newly found information, the people at HS started the ball rolling towards an early Christmas present for the nation.

His session was restored a few minutes later when Scott intervened, he then picked up where he left off, digging for more clues. He wanted to do two things, build a better timeline for past events and find the assailant with cold feet. First things first, Simon Trudell was now in Indiana, living with an aunt, he had been there since the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, he rarely left the house. He’s not going anywhere and even if he did he couldn’t hide. As it turns out he simply hitched a ride at a rest area and went back home, from there it was to his aunt’s. Cold feet indeed and lucky for him or they would have been forever cold while rotting in a pine box.

Next up on the radar scope was pinpointing the exact time when each member of the group was contacted. This was no simple task but within minutes he found them all together at one of the houses prior to their road-trip on a Tuesday evening, in fact they met almost every Tuesday evening for three months prior to their departure. He learned two of the boys went to the same high school and hung out quite a bit. He uncovered an essay on a college application in which, the writer Steven Tyler, was disenchanted with the American way of life. He found many similarities between the other boys when he poked around in their electronic lives and files. He found subscriptions to several white supremacist websites and magazines; he found links to questionable chat rooms, and uncovered a plethora of racist emails that would make the skin crawl even on a seasoned member of the KKK. The words of hatred reached far into the depths of the American ideals associated with its melting pot culture. Hate was the one string that was intertwined through the six boys but something or someone had to be the accelerant, the igniter in order to go from simple words on paper and screen to actions of horror in a mall. It just didn’t make any sense. The more digging he did, the more straight laced the boys seemed. Most did pretty well in school; one was even a member of the National Honor Society. None of them had any prior convictions or even a minor altercation with the law; they didn’t shave their heads or have any tattoos, yet something or someone made them explode into cold blooded killers.

He spent the better part of the night piecing things together. He found almost the exact times each new member came into the inner circle. It seemed to start with Matthew Gieger and Gene Lynner about twenty-six months before the shootings—over two years in the making. Gradually a new member was introduced roughly every three months and not once did all the members gather until their weekly Tuesday meetings had started. He then put the power of the computer to a laborious data mining task. He created a radius of ten feet around each individual’s location and searched for any and all social security numbers found within that circle for each member for the past twenty-six months, then crossed referenced those numbers. Using the super computer’s ability, in a few minutes a list of all matching numbers was on the screen. He crossed checked these numbers with his and the DNI’s database. One number in particular stuck out in the crowd as if it was in yellow highlighter but it was not a social security number. It was a passport number. It was a number off a Turkish passport belonging to one Ehsan Nejem who entered this country over three years ago and was injected with the recommend dosage of a certain flu vaccine which in turn carried the now famous STBL5 stabilizer and logged into the Etimiz’s database. He was flagged as a supporter in connection to several suicide bombers and shooting instances but has never been charged, just watched from afar. His current location was in northern India and has been there since the beginning of November, however prior to his new surroundings he was in a Tuesday night meeting outside of Cincinnati, Ohio, just two months ago. The plot thickens.

He was too enthralled to notice it was closing in on four in the morning and he hadn’t left the office yet. He was starting to unravel a theory in which terrorist cells were using home grown Americans, the young manipulative minds, to inflict its own doings on the general populace. This wasn’t a new theory. Back in the nineties Arlen Specter, the famous long-time Pennsylvania Senator, had the same theory during the Oklahoma bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in April of ‘95. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols took the fall for supposedly two middle-eastern descent looking men fleeing the scene in an old pickup truck just prior to the explosion. After McVeigh refused to give up any names and was put to death, the American public moved on with their lives never wanting to reopen old wounds. He confessed. He did it. Case closed. Next news story please, all while ignoring the Senator’s plea for a further investigation. Now several years later, all members of the Holiday Mall Massacre brigade had laid in their own pools of blood and there is not one mention of middle-eastern men at the scene or talk of people plotting revenge on some unknown foreign country. Smart dressed, young Americans gone amuck, just like school shootings—it just happens, and most Americans tend to rely on the sole rationalization that these boys must have been wired differently from the rest or just plain old bad up-bringing. Never would the American people even try to theorize or blame members of Al Qaeda or some other Islamic extremist group. They know all too well they need not look elsewhere for accountability—these boys were sown from the very fiber of the American Heartland. In this case the Americans assumed the parents were at fault, the teachers were at fault, the police, the mall security guards, the government, they were all at fault and to a degree they all were, yet staring him in the face was a number to a passport that told him otherwise, the passport belonging to Ehsan Nejem.

Before he brought up any more files his body cried out for some adjustment and nourishment. He needed to stretch his legs and get a jolt of caffeine and maybe something to eat. He had been sitting in his office; sitting in the same chair, since Scott’s call and that was almost twelve hours ago. He flexed his fingers and lifted himself up from the chair which was a chore. His back was stiff with pain. He lifted his hands above his head, rolled his neck once or twice, leaned back, and heard a few cracks. He yawned. He looked around thinking he should have been the only one in the office but on this day it was not the case—answers were still needed so people still worked all through the night, just like him. He exited his office and adventured to the caff. Here all the TV’s were tuned to various CNN stations across the globe, with only the American version out of Atlanta still showing scenes of the trauma—that drum will not be fully beaten for weeks to come. He went straight to the soda machine; he thought about his usual selection but pulled out an additional dollar and opted for a can of Red Bull to perk his brain. His change clanged in the coin return but he went straight for the gusto. He popped the top and took a huge swig; almost half the can was gone. He grabbed his change and perused his selections of snacks in the next machine. Something salty, something chocolaty, something crunchy, he couldn’t decide. He glanced at a bag of chocolate covered pretzels, all his urges in one convenient little plastic container. He was about to put his change into the bank of unfulfilling calories but a memory quickly flashed in his mind. He turned towards the fridge instead. “Holiday luncheon leftovers,” was his light bulb moment. Grant it, nothing much was left since every office has its vultures and here inside the DNI it was no different, but there were a few pickled eggs, various holiday cookies, some cheese, a few slices of meat and a few discarded gherkins. He grabbed a paper plate from the cabinet over the sink and now there were officially no holiday luncheon leftovers left. He made his way back to his office with a plate of goodies in one hand and half a can of Red bull in the other.

He wanted so much just to let his mind rest and take a break. He went straight to his favorite internet site, digg.com. Here was a bunch of techies, nerds, and news hounds posting various articles from throughout the web. They posted just a link and a brief description and if the eyes liked what they saw, one just clicked on the link to read the rest of the article or see the full picture, or watch the video. Again he so wanted his mind to rest but when he went to digg, eighty percent of the articles pertained to yesterday’s events. He couldn’t escape the facts, the theories, the bloodshed, the sobs, the rage. He couldn’t escape a nation in mourning. He couldn’t escape it no matter where he went on the web… even espn.com had articles on the carnage since most sporting events were cancelled in lieu of the situation. He didn’t fight his mind’s tension any longer. He ate his last cookie, the one with the Hershey’s Kiss, he swallowed his last bit of carbonated sucrose, glucose, vitamin B12 beverage, then forgetting a napkin, he wiped his hands on his jeans, and logged into his computer once again. He realized he had great power. It was he himself that gave the mourning nation the gift of the killers. Yes, tomorrow was Christmas but there was work to be done and more presents to be given but first he had to wrap the one named Eshan.

When he dialed into HS’s database he was a bit surprised, Ehsan Nejem had already been tagged and tracked as he exited the country a few weeks ago. He was half expecting he’d be the only one with that information but soon remembered he had pulled this very same data from the terrorist watch list. Ehsan boarded a flight out of JFK and hit a few connecting hubs to arrive at his destination. His last known whereabouts were correct—India, now where exactly in India, only he had that answer, down to a few meters. He really wasn’t concerned with that now, when it came time to pay the piper, that information will be highly beneficial to some of our boys in black. He was more interested in the past and thanks to Frank Simoski and his little inventions—that too could easily be done. Eshan’s NID’s were referenced several times within the cross reference set of the Holiday Mall Massacre members. The first occurrence intersected with Matthew Geiger just over thirty-two months ago Then Gene came on board and it was proven the three of them had a few meetings together. The reference points plotted a story of camaraderie between the boys and their new found friend. He had found the accelerant.

 . . .

Chapter 32
 

T
he countdown of twenty-four hours had elapsed and the cops and feds were restless as could be.

“Goddamnit,” Lynch said aloud as he looked at the clock, “just who came up with the twenty-four hour bullshit rule anyhow? I mean… . shit. Goddamnit!”

“We’re not giving up,” Josh snipped, “C’mon Lynch, I know you have been working through the night but we are all working on this.”

“I know, I know, it’s just there’s this lead balloon hanging over us and it’s about to pop. We are no closer to the truth than we were yesterday.”

“True, but these things take time and manpower and yes, it’s a bullshit rule but you and I both know there has been exceptions to that rule and that’s what we cling to. Remember not long ago, there was the girl, Russian maybe, or from one of those other eastern bloc countries, I can’t remember. She was taken at age ten and escaped at age eighteen, and there was Elizabeth Smart, remember her, they found her after a few months… . besides all that, the phones have starting ringing from the news clips… where there are facts there are clues.”

Lynch’s frustration showed on his face along with baggy eyes, uncombed hair, and wrinkled clothes, his sleeplessness also showed. The twenty-four hour mark had come and gone and it felt like a deadline, literally and on top of that he felt like shit and depressed. In the back of his mind hope was fleeting fast but he knew he had to make a phone call and try to hide his true feelings before he headed home for some needed sleep. He walked into his office, sat down in his chair, picked up the phone and dialed the number to Ripley’s parents. It was a brief conversation, very cordial, and to the point. “We are not giving up hope. We have the best people working to find your daughter. We have some leads. We have. We are. We. We We.” He felt sick to his stomach after he replaced the receiver back onto its cradle, sick because of the lies he just told, sick because of the lack of sleep, sick because he has been doing nothing but pouring jet black acid into the pit of his stomach in order to find the cute little blonde who went missing over twenty-four hours ago. Lynch then powered down his computer, glanced at the clock that read five after twelve and stood. He picked up the last photograph the Newenbergs had of their daughter, one where her daddy had her on his shoulders. She was wearing a small Braves hat and was all smiles. Then he placed it into his shirt pocket and walked out the station towards his car. He forewent his daily ritual of the last smoke before calling it a day; the nicotine would have made him even sicker. Within fifteen minutes he was passed out on his unmade bed, shoes and all.

Garfield was back fielding the phones with several of the FBI guys. Ever since the morning news broke, the phones starting ringing off the hook at the suburban Atlanta police station with descriptions of limping men and blonde children. It was a tedious job to say the least. Garfield didn’t have direct access to a workstation at the moment so he took notes the old fashion way—longhand making it even more tedious for him. Each phone call was logged; time and facts jotted down, and names and numbers were taken down for follow-ups. Very few people called in anonymously. Those types of calls usually are taken with skepticism but on occasion when the facts are just too detailed the red flags are waved. Once in a blue moon the perpetrators themselves call in to brag, they slip, and they are captured and convicted due to their stupidity. Sometimes it was easy to catch people in their weaves of lies but most of the time the officers have to be attentive with their ears to the ground. Garfield was anything but attentive. He was feeling the effects of the all-nighter as well; cops are just mere men, not superheroes. His body beckoned for a little shut-eye but instead of making the commute back home he hunkered down in a very seldom used waiting room that had a small uncomfortable couch but it wasn’t the stiffness in the cushions that kept him deprived of his much needed rest. His mind raced with the many so-called facts from the morning’s phone conversations. So much so, he couldn’t keep anything straight in the whirlwind of his thoughts. “Red hat. Red car. Walks with a limp. Old man buying children’s toys. In Tyler County, near Hapeville, outside of Woosley, in downtown Americus. Young man limps on his right leg. Sports a cane. Green Camaro. Ripley. Blonde hair. Medium build limping in Wal-Mart. Drunken man with red hat at the bar. Limping man getting gas, buying toilet paper, buying coffee, buying paint, buying a child’s toothbrush, buying fruit, seen at the donut shop, the bank, the post office, the hardware store, never mows his lawn, never outside, always a strange man, a loner, a pedophile lives next to me, was arrested for child molestation once I think, always watches the kids getting haircuts, very creepy, still lives with mother, house looks dilapidated, never parks in his garage, never a light on, never gives out candy for Halloween, works at night, doesn’t work, disability compensation, never talks, in his own world, heard he was in therapy most of his life, since the accident, since his mother died, since his father died, it was his fault, he killed his sister, he left home at a young age, rarely drives, is a thin man, big around the middle, black, white, sort of tall… . ” Somewhere in there, there just might be a clue, a lead, a case breaker. His mind reeled for another twenty minutes until it just shut down under its own accord.

Josh was a different story altogether. He was still in the sprinting stages and working closely with the FBI and GBI, pouring over phone notes, dissecting maps, and making assumptions. Even though he had lost hope for his own case a few months ago, this was a case that could make amends, maybe fix the wrongs and help his partner, and capture, taking a line from Lynch and Garfield, that sick twisted bastard. Yes, that was his ultimate goal, capture him and put him away for good, although he wouldn’t mind spending the taxpayers’ hard earned money for the cost of a single bullet—just look at the long run, no high price lawyers, no drawn-out trials, no putting him up for life in a six by six cell, no book signings, no fan mail. For a cost of a single bullet it could save millions, hell, he’d even cough up the cash as to not burden the people for the eighty-five cents. Whatever the means of capture, Josh was back in the game of hunting for a sicko and this time with the help of the government. These FBI guys knew a thing or two and they had a wealth of data in the palms of their hands not to mention a wealth of experts at their disposal. They also had wealth in other areas as confirmed by their dining tabs, also confirmed was the fact man thinks better with a full stomach. Next thing Josh knew, lunch was sprawled out on the table in the conference room—a nice lunch to boot. It was a small catered affair spurred by a quick call to an assistant. The lunch consisted of three types of meat filled sandwiches, pasta salad, chips, sweet tea, soda, water, and a few cookies all with disposable wares. It was brought in and set up by two people who were out the door and onto their next office venue in less than two minutes. With lunch in hand plus his typical sugar filled swill, Josh started to organize the phone notes by geographical location. There was a lull in the ringing of the phones but he knew that would eventually end as the evening news ran the story again and he wanted to get as much done as possible before the next eruption. Organizing the data was pretty much a breeze with the software provided by the feds. It was just a glorified spreadsheet which was later channeled into a database for cross referencing. The only real challenge was reading Garfield’s handwriting which he assumed correctly, that he was not raised in a Catholic school. It was atrocious—dots for i’s, a’s and e’s almost indistinguishable, and ones and sevens and fours and nines caused his eyes to squint and blur as well. Heaven forbid that he needed to call any of these helpful individuals for confirmation or more details; he’d probably end up dialing a strip club or an adult bookshop.

The men in suits were on the phones most of the day, busy with colleagues back at the home office. They initially had communication problems bouncing through the police’s LAN lines, firewalls, and routers, but with the help of some of the best IT people in the world, it became a fully workable offsite location with all the comforts of home and all the security of home too. This security was extended to a few of the computers in the station and all three officers working the case were granted a security clearance, login id, and a password to the powerful database located within the J. Edgar Hoover Building back in D.C. They also had access to the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division which holds all sorts of biometric data from finger prints and palm prints to iris scans and face plots used for facial recognition. At the moment Josh was the only officer logged in since the all-nighters were busy catching some z’s. He had finished his uploading of Garfield’s notes and was given access to a report generator. The software had all the basic prompts he was accustomed to with fields for case number, name, tax, address, date, time, and practically anything else one can think of, but the real beauty was the graphical interface with point and click capabilities. It was far more advanced and he needed a small amount of tutoring to grasp the full layout of the system. Within fifteen minutes he was well on his way of mining for data. This interface was able to show locations of schools, homes, and businesses, bring up credit history at a click of a button, even filter on last known credit card usages, phone calls both cell and landlines, or anything that was a public record—public meaning a business owned database that was granted access by the government under the Patriot Act (America never really knew how much freedom they lost through that Act in order to keep the façade of liberty in check). The guys from the bureau basically said you’re on your own, come up with a plan of attack, get comfortable with the system, and go to town, knowing full well that some of his data/reports will overlap theirs but there is a good chance that he’ll come up with something new, something completely different, something that comes from thinking outside the box—this is how a case could break, how this case could be solved.

 . . .