Vengeance For Gabriel, page 6
“Oh No!” She exclaimed. “Guys we have definitely been hacked! I do not understand how they got in! And our data…” Harlow’s voice fell off as she developed a sense of sincere concern while trying to ascertain what she just discovered meant.
“Our personnel data files have been exploited!”
“Can you be more specific Harlow?” Roger asked. “What files are you talking about?”
“All of them!” She shouted. “They do not look corrupted, but they have been or are being copied!” Roger was rattled by the discovery.
“Can you stop it Harlow?” He inquired, sharing her panic.
“No, not yet! Whoever did this might be much smarter than me! And that’s hard to believe.” Harlow was typing frantically as she continued. “This makes no sense; this isn’t your everyday network level SSL or TLS encryption; our security is the best there is. Period. I am telling you; it is impenetrable, it would literally take like forever to break the algorithm’s code.”
Chapter 11
Another Clue
Nathan came across something that he thought might be of interest on day three of his investigation. It was a broken pipe protruding from a wall. He scanned the walls on the opposite side of the crater to determine where the pipe might lead or have exited the sub-basement. The odd thing about this pipe was that it did not pass through the building like all the other twisted and mangled underground utilities, it seemed to terminate in the cavernous space between the foundation and the pouring of the first floor.
Nathan scrambled out of the pit to retrieve a camera and cabling from his truck that he would be able to insert into the pipe. He also grabbed a gas-powered saw that he could use to cut a sample of the pipe for further analysis in a laboratory. Nathan became cautiously optimistic in his hope that this might prove Roger’s theory. The pipe was not a typical utility pipe, it was a much larger four-inch diameter black iron pipe. Gas companies commonly used piping that was only a half inch to three quarters of an inch in diameter.
The broken pipe Nathan found was unusual, but not necessarily unique, in a city where construction and renovations were done over decades. Nathan ran his camera up the line to learn more. He discovered the pipe ran across the street and up the block. At the end of the pipe’s run, somewhere about a hundred yards or so away from the broken section of the pipe, Nathan found a fill cap coming from the foundation of another building.
This was highly irregular. It was a direct line to the basement of Seven Main Street. Nathan could see there were layers and layers of old paint on the foundation and fill cap that had accumulated over a lengthy period of time. He made a mental note of the fact that the cap opened without any resistance. Nathan wondered if he had just come across the smoking gun.
When Roger’s phone rang, it was Nathan asking if Roger had a gallon container that he could fill with colored water or a dye of some kind that he could bring down with him. Roger opened his fridge to see what he had on hand. His housekeeper kept the apartment well stocked when she knew he would be in town, so he wasn’t surprised to find that he had some options. “Will a half gallon of milk and a half gallon of orange juice do?” Roger asked as if it were a negotiation, not understanding the reason for the question.
“That will be fine, can you bring it down now?”
“I will be right there. Can you meet me in the lobby?”
“That’s where I’m standing.” Nathan declared. When Roger was done raiding the fridge, he grabbed his windbreaker from a kitchen chair on his way to the elevator. Nathan’s bizarre request brought back more memories for Roger of the crazy stunts his professor often used in the classroom to make a point, and no doubt this was one of them. Nathan must have found something worth sharing Roger surmised. Milk and orange juice though? Roger was extremely curious about what Nathan had in store for him.
When the elevator door opened in the lobby Nathan greeted Roger and took the two containers from his hands, asking Roger to follow him. That was it, follow him? Drama Queen were the two words that came to Roger as he tagged along, still without an indication as to what Nathan was up to. When they arrived down the street, just before the corner coffee shop, Nathan stopped and handed Roger the milk. He opened what appeared to be an oil fill cap to Roger and poured the orange juice in. Nathan then asked Roger to add the milk and he closed the cap.
“Okay, now follow me.” Nathan continued leading Roger on his mystery tour. He walked across the street and headed into the crater, where they worked their way down to the bottom along the makeshift access ramps that had been set up. As they approached the wall where the broken pipe was protruding from, Roger could see the mixture of milk and orange juice dripping and pooling on the ground. Roger stood there astounded.
“What do you think?” Nathan asked as he enjoyed watching Roger realize what he had found.
“I think you may have discovered causation, that’s what I think.” Roger said as he looked about the vast cavernous space, he was standing in. The walls which towered more than thirty or forty feet high were marred and charred. Roger’s gaze reconnected with Nathan. “Now we have to prove it!”
“You have to prove it Roger, and if you can, my work here will be done.”
Roger and Michelle were working late into the night reviewing building plans, permits and other documents they found online trying to make sense of Nathan’s discovery. Roger had also asked Harlow to collect images of any propane gas trucks making deliveries to the fill pipe Nathan found. A couple of hours later Harlow reported there were only oil deliveries no gas deliveries at this location. Roger found this difficult to believe, oil would burn but it would not explode. He was sure Nathan had found the evidence that would prove his theory to be correct. His gut told him to have Harlow send the pictures anyway.
Harlow sent all the relevant pictures that were taken from traffic cameras on the northwestern corner of Roger’s block. The BrAIn flagged a hundred and twenty-two images, out of seventy thousand or so vehicles that had travelled down this street in the days prior to the explosion. The only trucks that appeared to make a delivery at this location were all from the Black Diamond Oil Company.
Roger downloaded and printed the images of the oil delivery trucks that Harlow had sent to his laptop on a wireless printer he brought out from his office. Michelle laid the photos out across the table as they were ejected from the printer. The images were already in date order with time stamps and the quality of them was surprisingly good. The license plates were easy to read, as was the text and graphics on most of the oil trucks passing through.
Roger glanced at each picture as it came out of the printer. He was about halfway through the run when he beat Michelle to the printer, grabbing the next photo before she could place it on the table. Roger gave a long hard look at the image in his hand. Michelle could almost hear the wheels turning in Roger’s head.
“This is our suspect!” Roger handed the photo to Michelle. “This is the truck we need to find!” Roger said more forcefully than normal. Michelle looked at the photo of the oil truck for a moment, nothing seemed unusual to her, so she asked why Roger had singled out this photo. Roger sifted through the pile, looking for photos of oil trucks that were taken from the same perspective as the one he just handed Michelle. He put the examples side by side in front of her. All the trucks were from the Black Diamond Oil Company. The phone number and the words 24-Hour Emergency Service were displayed on the sides of each truck. It was the shape of the truck that Roger was focusing on, pointing to the tanks on the trucks. “This is a bulk liquid gas carrier, these are not, they are fuel oil carriers!” He explained to Michelle.
“Look at the shape of each tank’s construction. Oil trucks have oval tanks with flat ends like all of these, and liquid gas trucks have round cylindrical shaped tanks with domed ends like this one! The shape has to do with the physics of stability for the materials being transported." Michelle realized they were looking at a mockup of a gas delivery truck that had a cylindrical tank made to look like an oil delivery truck, so it would blend into the neighborhood. There was no doubt in Roger’s mind that this vehicle was delivering propane!
Thousands of pounds of propane!
Chapter 12
Matthew
Roger was in the kitchen preparing fresh coffee and breakfast when Michelle came down the stairs, calling out to Roger. “Harlow has something!” The television in the living room was playing loud enough to hear it in the kitchen. The commentator was recapping the morning’s headlines. ‘Sixty-four are now confirmed dead, forty-nine injured and twenty-four missing. New York’s governor has returned earlier than planned from a trip to California and is scheduled to visit the site within the hour...’ Roger grabbed the remote and turned the television off. It was the same news loop he heard earlier, playing again.
Moments earlier Roger had been thinking; only sixty-four dead. It was a tremendous loss of life, but it could have been so much worse. It should have been so much worse he contemplated, but he was thankful for the miracle. Was it luck or intentionally minimized loss of life? This was a question Roger had revisited more than a couple of times already.
Over fourteen hundred people worked in this building in varying shifts twenty-four hours a day, every day. Why 5:55 am? It was an early hour, the meaning of the fives in the messages was now a nagging and recurring challenge to decipher for Roger, it did not make sense yet.
“What is it?” Roger asked.
“I don’t know. It is coming to you via email.”
Roger’s laptop was still on the counter waiting to be sent to the crime lab. He opened the lid to read the message, but was interrupted by a doorbell that rang, indicating the elevator was coming up to the penthouse. It was Matthew, who had an elevator security key to let himself into the apartment. Roger glanced at his watch, noting that only thirty minutes had passed since they spoke. He headed to the foyer to meet Matthew.
When the elevator door opened, Matthew looked ashen. He was in shock, having just seen the destruction of his workplace firsthand, as he made his way through the debris to get to the apartment. This had a uniquely profound effect on him, as it did for everyone else that got this close to the site. The media coverage he saw online paled a hundred-fold in comparison to what he saw and experienced navigating his way down the street.
Matthew had not taken three steps from the elevator before he was greeted with a huge bear hug from his dad, who held him more tightly and much longer than he could ever remember. Roger had to fight back tears as his eyes welled and throat tightened. Having laid eyes on Matthew meant all was good again in Roger’s world. “You are early,” Roger said as Mathew caught a glimpse of Michelle over his dad’s shoulder and countered.
“And you are um… not alone?” Matthew entered the kitchen, Michelle extended her hand and introduced herself.
“Agent Michelle Woods, your dad’s partner.”
“Matthew, nice to meet you!” Matthew seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as he shook Michelle’s hand. Michelle was the first woman Matthew ever saw in the apartment, other than his girlfriend Ashley, since his mother had passed.
Michelle asked as an icebreaker, “How was your flight in?”
“Bumpy, lots of turbulence from a pair of major storms.” Matthew looked to his dad with a smile and in a kidding manner as he satirically spoke to his father’s worst fear. “You would have loved it, Dad!”
Matthew apprehensively looked to the scarred windows as he walked towards them, clouds of smoke and dust occasionally drifted by, rising from the work going on below. He gasped, instinctively covering his mouth with his hands as he looked down. He had worked in this building on multiple occasions over the years and knew it well. His father stood beside him, placing his hand on his son’s shoulder. Matthew just could not fathom the senseless loss of life. In addition to the co-workers Ashley had lost, Matthew had learned of four other people he knew that had been killed in the blast. He also knew there were probably going to be more bodies recovered in the next day or two.
“A gas leak, really?” Matthew asked rhetorically.
“We don’t believe it either.” Roger felt at ease to speak freely, knowing Matthew had an extremely high security clearance working for the Department of the Treasury and as a member of the Joint Financial Crimes Task Force.
“Of course, you would know.” Matthew turned back to the window, watching the activity below. “Did anyone claim responsibility?”
“Not exactly, our best lead is a cryptic message we think is indicating another attack will occur in the next few days.” This was too much for Matthew to absorb, he pulled a chair out and sat at the table, holding his head up with his hands. Matthew’s gaze fell to the papers and photos strewn across the oversized kitchen table. It was obvious to him that his father and new partner had been working on a lead.
“Can I help? What can I do?” Matthew asked.
Before Roger could answer, his cell phone rang, it was Harlow. Roger put her on the speaker as he let her know Matthew had joined him and Michelle. “Did you see the email I sent to you?” Without waiting for a response, Harlow informed them that a team of agents woke the Black Diamond Oil Company’s owner up at 2am and dragged him down to his office and trucking yard in Brooklyn.
During their interview, the agents that conducted the raid learned from the owner what Roger had already figured out, one of the late-night delivery trucks was a bulk liquified gas carrier, not a fuel oil delivery vehicle and certainly not owned by the Black Diamond Oil Company according to the man they interviewed. Initial background checks of the company and its owner had not found anything unusual.
Harlow had also found nothing on the driver who protected his identity extremely well. The good news was that the license plates, even being bogus ones, were traceable through EZ Pass, traffic cams and other methods in the same way as if the plates on the vehicle were not changed.
Harlow’s team was also able to track the truck by using the graphics when she could not pick up plate numbers. Harlow then informed them that earlier in the morning, a team of agents found the truck they were looking for parked in a vacant lot in a northern New Jersey town. Field agents were still going over the truck to collect whatever additional physical evidence could be found.
Harlow, in her typical fashion saved the best tidbit of information for last, even though she knew Roger was probably getting impatient by now. Harlow went on to explain that she ran the license plates and registration through all state records, the effort only led to nonexistent entities. Harlow noted it was obvious that someone had gone to great lengths to cover their tracks, but the culprits were not entirely successful.
The VIN numbers were all removed, except for one that was discovered in the wrong place on the truck’s chassis. It was missed when the vehicle was ghosted, leading to the FBI’s first big break. There was a transfer tax on the vehicle that was paid eight years ago on the original VIN number. Concluding her findings Harlow said, “The fee was paid for by a company called FPS Engineering Systems at 555 Long Street.” There was only silence as Roger stared at Michelle in disbelief. Matthew listened not understanding the significance of the conversation yet.
Chapter 13
Long Street
Just fifteen minutes later, Roger and Michelle, along with a contingent of NYC police officers, gathered on the street in front of his apartment. The group quickly grew even larger as they were joined by five FBI agents that had emptied out of the command center trailer. Roger entrusted his laptop with one of the agents and instructed him to drive it directly down to Quantico for examination.
With the entourage of agents, Roger and Michelle walked down to the corner, which was only two hundred yards away from the blast site, and they were standing in front of 555 Long Street. They were looking up at the number on the glass transom over the door of the Home Plate restaurant in astonishment. The street address was taken from the north/south street side of the building rather than the east/west street side where the main entrance is. This is a practice that is common in the city.
Roger stared at the home plate logo he had walked past hundreds if not a thousand times. It had five sides he thought to himself, now keenly aware of, and noticing anything with a value of five. An insidious thought crept into his mind, and he stopped in his tracks, confusing the others. He said to Michelle; “Home plate is a five-sided pentagon. Could the Pentagon be the next target? Was this observation just an uncanny coincidence? Had Roger just stumbled onto something? Michelle was aghast, considering the possibility.
Roger called Greg immediately and shared his thought and explained they were about to conduct a raid so he would get back to him as soon as he could. Then Roger started to second guess himself. He was not sure, his theory felt thin. He questioned himself then asked of Greg.
“What if I am wrong?
“What if you are right Roger?” Greg asked rhetorically, followed by a brief silence. “I have to take this to the President.”
Meanwhile, the police department’s on-scene commanding officer, who was standing in front of 555 Long Street, looked to be thirty years younger than Roger. He was giving instructions to the small strike force of FBI agents and police officers as they prepared to enter the building. He also had directed officers to cover the building’s exits and the roof tops adjacent to 555 Long Street.
Roger and Michelle entered the lobby with their entourage and reviewed the directory. The list of names in the glass case on the wall indicated there were about fourteen tenants in the building. It appeared there was only one tenant on the fifth floor, FPS Engineering Systems. Two police officers and two FBI agents entered the stair well splitting into pairs, one of which went up, the other down. The trio and two additional agents took the elevator up, leaving two police officers behind in the lobby.
