Take the Fourth (3 page)

Evidence was then gathered at each house or apartment and the authorities assumed the operation was a complete success. They found detailed plans of the mall, itemized lists that included budgets for things like bullets, food, and hotel, but the most interesting piece of the plot was another set of detailed plans, not a plan b in case this one failed, but a plan for another full frontal assault on the very same mall, planned for exactly one month later just to prove the point that no one was really safe. The mall would have beefed up its platoon of guards and installed more cameras but besides the fact that they were not going to search everyone entering the mall, the mere façade of security would not have been enough to stop another attack. The fact of the matter was no one is truly safe and the shrinking freedoms proposed by the man in charge, Homeland Security, or the other extensions of government and law enforcements are not going to make one iota of a difference but on this day, the day of the massacre they had to feel justified in their plight. Within nine or ten hours of the Mall Massacre, all five suspects were flushed out and killed, except for Mr. Suicide, and a second attack thwarted.

Security camera tapes at the mall were reviewed by the FBI and the gunmen’s facials were caught and enhanced. Matching these pictures up with the security cameras at the turnpike was a cinch, for each toll booth has several built in mini cameras at varying heights and takes about 8 shots of each vehicle as they pass through the toll. Using the latest facial recognition software known to man, searching the turnpike’s picture database, and narrowing the query via on ramps close to the mall, produced identical matches to the assailants within a 98.97 percent accuracy margin. Searching the turnpike’s computers again provided a cashless ticket, proving they were still on the main artery of Pennsylvania, heading west. They also predicted their exact location within five miles. Once the gray Chrysler passed the checkpoint camera it was an easy mark to follow. From there members of the FBI and local S.W.A.T. force coordinated their efforts through both ground and air. Simple really—people make mistakes, especially young men, inexperienced men. They made the mistake of not wearing masks, taking a toll road, not looking for cameras, staying on a toll road. They made many mistakes. That is the story the media will tell and they are none the wiser.

“Scott, Reynolds here, listen, something really bad just went down at the mall, it’s a cluster fuck, we need to do something and fast.”

That one call started a chain of events. Just as the President was about to have a quiet late lunch with his family—a first in almost two weeks, Scott entered the main dining room, just roughly two minutes after his call with Reynolds. He briefed the President on what he knew. In a matter of seconds the President rationalized his nod to Scott. It didn’t have anything to do with the campaign or Homeland Security or the Patriot Act; it was the right thing to do, being so close to Christmas and all was just a bonus.

As media reports started to flow over the airwaves, Langley was a buzz. Conference rooms and conference phones were jammed packed with analysts from all corners of the globe. Was it terrorists, demonic adolescents, or Tom Clancy copycats? Hows and whys were being asked and no questions were being answered, just speculations at this point. Computer monitors, televisions screens, pda’s, blackberry’s, cell phones, and any other form of technology was ablaze with speculation. Nothing was clear this early in the game. In the midst of what may seem to be utter confusion to the outsider, the direct phone of someone deep within the National Intelligence rang—bypassing any secretaries or phone taps. It was Scott Norwood calling.

“Listen, obviously you’ve heard the news about the mall and that two assailants were taken out, I’ve just talked with the President, he gave the nod, I need as much information within the hour so it can be fed to the proper channels,” a click was the next thing heard and that’s how the real story started.

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Chapter 3
 

T
oday Jorja Carson came in and sat at her desk, not her desk where she spent the better part of her life just a month ago, but at her desk in her new office, her new office with windows, her office with the name on the door and her own personal secretary out front, the office of the Deputy Director of the DS&T or Directorate of Science and Technology. The DS&T as stated on the website is responsible for leveraging technology to assist in critical intelligence problems within the boundaries of the CIA. This was Jorja’s job. Being the new deputy director to DS&T, Jorja was connected at the hip to her counterpart, the CIO of the Office of Director of National Intelligence. The DNI was the premier overseer when it came to intelligence as put forth by the Bush Administration in the later part of 2004. After 9-11, Homeland Security was supposed to be the glue, the liaison between the CIA and FBI but a new committee was needed to encompass the entire Intelligence Community. This Intelligence Community consisted of not only the CIA, FBI, and Homeland, but all branches of the military, DEA, NSA, Department of State, and a slew of other government agencies, sixteen in all. They were the change machine that funneled all the information and sorted it to the appropriate wrapper or in this case, an agency, for further analyses. Jorja had to make sure that the information they received from DNI was routed to the correct department within the CIA in a timely manner. Prior to her move she spent many of days and nights floating between Langley and an undisclosed location close to the White House drafting budgets, going over communication protocols, and sorting through piles of documentation in what amounted to be an internship for her new position. As her learning curve seemed to lessen, she grew more comfortable with her title and surroundings with each passing day, though she still wasn’t used to having an office of her very own.

Jorja’s new office was still sparsely decorated but she made room for her only prized possession—the full one sheet movie poster to “2001: A Space Odyssey,” hanging right next to her poster from “Silence of the Lambs”. This was no ordinary movie poster, oh no, this was indeed a rare specimen. She first laid eyes on the poster when she was on a field trip to New York City and she visited MoMA at the age of twelve. Right there and then she vowed to herself that one day she would own such a work of art. Two years ago she forked out over thirteen thousand greenbacks for her holy grail at an auction down in Dallas. Yes, thirteen thousand—it is that rare. In the collectors’ circle this poster is simply dubbed the “Eye” poster. It consists of a close-up shot of a human eye in orange and blue and the famous Star Child in its pupil, with a tagline that reads “the ultimate trip.” The poster was produced to promote the 70mm relaunch in New York and was supposed to appeal to the movie goers who entered the theater half way through the film stoked by the wacky weed and wanting to finish out their trips amidst the stars and music. The fact that this poster was used for wilding, the act of pasting posters at construction sites, on fences and walls throughout the city, very few survived, very few survived in this pristine of a condition. It cost Jorja another thousand to frame it and protect her investment. The day she got promoted she knew this piece would be making the ultimate trip to her new digs so she could enjoy it each and every work day, which amounts to almost seven days a week in this job. Getting this piece from apartment, to car, through the parking garage, through security, in the elevators, to her wall was comical at best but was worth every smile and light profanity under her breath. As she smiled and stared at her eye, she sipped her morning cup of Joe—jet black, none of this half skim milk double foam mocha latte five dollar a cup crap… she loved the taste of coffee so why mask it with sugars and cream, besides look at all the money and time she saved by not going to some overrated Seattle coffee joint. Time was money as the old saying goes but so was coffee; at about five bucks a day for some glorified handpicked java beans and hot city non-filtered water, that adds up to a little over eighteen hundred dollars a year (weekends included). Place that in a money market account and over twenty years that’s a tidy sum, maybe help finance a boat or vacation home for retirement or even another poster. She sipped her free cup of bitter as she waited for her computer to boot and entered her login, password, and for even more security as opposed by the federal government in regards to biometric scans, she swiped her index finger. Jorja was now plugged into the network, one of the most powerful networks in the world and it was not even seven in the morning.

Before joining the CIA she worked for the Office of Naval Intelligence as a project manager for some sensitive development projects; her uncle, a Senate Armed Service Committee member recommended her for the job. She entered the CIA eight years ago on her own merit but unbeknownst to her, her uncle might have had a little talk with a certain somebody, given a gentle tap on the back, and paid for a round of drinks—favors are the true currencies in this town—she fully earned the position of Deputy Director of DS&T through her hard work, dedication and smarts—in other words no help from her uncle this time around. Jorja was a smart cookie, always had the flair for electronics, be it computers, cell phones, digital camera, and not once did her VCR ever blink 12:00. She cruised through computer courses at college, got one of her degrees in software engineering, the other in network engineering. She didn’t go to an Ivy League school, though she almost could have if money were not so tight. Her father did the odd jobs here and there to get by and raised his daughter the best he could after her mother was killed in a freak boating accident on the Chesapeake Bay. Her mother had masoned a good solid foundation in her life though common courtesy before she passed on from this world. She died just before Jorja entered school, before her first A, before her first school recital, before Jorja’s first kiss, before her first boyfriend, before the prom, before graduation, before life began. She accepted her mother’s faith early on in life. Her father was not so lucky. He loved both his daughter Jorja and his wife Carolina. Carolina was the love of his life, he truly missed her every day and every day he looked at his daughter and every day the similarities reminded him of his loss, the love of his life, his Carolina. There was no doubt that Carolina and Jorja were mother and daughter. Jorja had her mother’s green eyes, vibrant green eyes; it was the first thing people noticed when she wasn’t wearing her wire frames. She had her mother’s cheekbone structure and wavy sandy brown hair which she wished was straight as all women with wavy hair do. At age thirty-eight and standing at five-eight, Jorja was a spitting image of her mother, there was no hiding that fact. What she did hide was her fit figure, hidden behind unrevealing cloths which seemed to be the norm when working for the government. She also hid the fact of her father’s health. It wasn’t Jorja’s fault but her father fell into a state of depression. Every time Jorja was successful in a turning point of life, her father would dwell on the fact that his wife was not here to cherish in these moments. The more successful Jorja became the more depressed her father became and his broken heart just couldn’t take it any longer. Her father died late last spring.

She opened her email glanced at the headers and before she got any urges to open them, she accessed the report server and dialed up a report labeled—IP Addresses, She entered today’s date, punched enter on her ergonomic keyboard and waited a few seconds but before she could analyze the report her phone rang, then it rang again, and again, her inbox was starting to fill up, and before she could breathe it was way after lunch. Again she noticed the IP report but again she was interrupted, she noticed a buzz in the air, like chaos was about to erupt. Then an emergency alert appeared on her screen which blocked out her entire desktop. A wave of data is about to be upon us, she thought, the chaos she thought. She picked up the phone and at the same time fired off an alert to her staff—meeting in conference room D in fifteen. Then as predicted, the wave hit and all hell broke loose; news about the shootings had hit the airwaves.

She had a few minutes of air while her staff collected any data prior to the meeting; she thought about replacing her cold coffee but instead glanced at the prompts for the IP report that was still open on her desktop. Having been promoted within the past month she has found many new encumbrances, report reading of IP addresses was not one of them; she simply could not let her old responsibilities fade away. This report was latest and greatest list of all the IP addresses (a number similar to a phone number that identifies the device such as a computer or printer, on a network) that were flooding the routers of the CIA on a daily basis. The report was divided into countries in regards to ordering, whether or not the address was incoming or outgoing, and the number of hits each IP address received. Sure hackers could spoof IP address but not necessarily the traces placed on them from the CIA. Very few people had that kind of smarts—there were other reports for those individuals. At the very top of this report was an IP address with no country and a few hits in the outgoing column—meaning the hits to this machine originated from within these walls. Odd she thought, the address looked familiar, like a federal IP number but if it was a federal number it would have been marked under the United States. Her curiosity peaked. She ran the IP address against a few databases, all coming up blank. Her curiosity piqued even more. She quickly checked her past reports, before she was the deputy director—she saved everything; she was a pack rat. No mention of this IP address anywhere, none. Before she could investigate any further Jorja made her way to conference room D. She gathered what little information there was and laid out her plans to her staff and was back at her desk within forty minutes. The IP Address report was still open but that wasn’t her priority now. Her curiosity was still peaked and she quickly went to the router’s configuration file and blocked access to and from the IP address until she could fully confirm its identity, then she wrote the number down on a sticky and attached it to her monitor. If someone needs it, someone will scream she thought.

 . . .