“John,” I called out, “you need to see this.”
John came over and looked at the screen. “What am I looking at?” he asked.
“These are the GPS coordinates of the computers that are being used to attack our system, and here are the user names of the people logged into those computers,” I said.
“So how do we convert the GPS locations into an address?” John asked.
I pointed to the next terminal over. Tia slid into the chair and brought up a program that identified buildings by GPS location.
“Here we go,” Tia said. She looked at the addresses and the names of the building’s occupants. “This is strange. I have two, no, three warehouses, a novelty company, a marketing research company, a crating and shipping company, and seven, actually eight vacant buildings. This doesn’t make any sense.”
“Actually it does,” I said. “They’re all fronts for DIA operations.”
“Are they going to know that we are tracking them and know who they are?” John asked.
“They’ll figure it out very shortly,” I replied.
I checked the intrusion display. We already had over a thousand total attempts on our new firewall, none of them successful.
“Look,” John said, “the number of current attacks is dropping.”
“It should,” I said. “Once they realize we are tracking the intrusions and know who they are, they will stop.”
“Why is that?” one of the computer techs asked.
“The DIA doesn’t want to leave any traceable evidence of their illegal activities,” John replied. “We have a log of the user names, ISP addresses, time of attack, and the substance of the attack itself. That’s enough to go into court and sue for damages.”
“Current attacks just fell to zero,” Tia announced. “It’s over.”
The computer techs stood and applauded. It was one of those rare moments in life when you were recognized for something worthwhile, something above and beyond what was expected. Tia stood up and grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to a standing position. The applause continued for another minute.
“Congratulations you two,” John said. “Well done. Really, well done.”
I turned to Tia. “It may be over for us,” I said. “But tomorrow the DIA will discover what the Trojans we downloaded to their systems do. It won’t be over for them for another month.”
“Payback,” Tia said quietly, “can be a beautiful thing.”
We both smiled at each other.
Tia and I rode with John in the limo back to the cabin. John implemented his plan to catch the mole.
“I’ve made contact with that engineer that used to work for NASA,” John said with his back to the driver. I watched for a reaction from the driver. He glanced in the rear view mirror and then back to the road. “I think we may be able to bring him into the organization within the next week to ten days. I’ll know more as I get to negotiate with him on a more regular basis.”
“Does he know about what we do?” I asked for the driver’s benefit.
“He’s the one who told us about the meteor storm,” John said. “That’s a good place to start.”
I looked out the window pretending not to be that interested. Tia noticed another glance from the driver. Whether or not this was our mole, the trap now had bait in it. John used the same theme the next day in the presence of the pilot and copilot of his Learjet 45. The following day John let slip the date and time for the ex-engineer from NASA to appear.
The first test came when John arranged for the Carl Palminteri lookalike to board his Learjet 45 in San Diego and fly to Denver. Ed, Tia and I were invited to witness the festivities.
We sat in the small coffee shop late in the evening and waited for John’s Learjet 45 to land. At 10:20 PM the jet landed. So far, there was no activity around the airport. John’s Learjet 45 taxied over to the hangar and entered. A few minutes later the Carl Palminteri lookalike walked out of the hangar and over to the coffee shop.
I was startled as he walked in the door. I felt like I was looking at myself. It was very disquieting and strange.
“Well, what do you think?” Ed asked looking over at me and Tia.
Tia sat wide-eyed looking at the actor. “This is spooky,” she said.
“Un-nerving,” I added.
“Convincing?” Ed asked.
“Oh, Yeah,” Tia replied, “If I didn’t know better…”
Ed motioned for the actor to come over to the table. “Frank, these are two of my friends, Tia Harkensen and Karl Koenig.”
“Pleasure meeting you,” he said offering his hand.
I stood up and shook his hand. Tia shook his hand, as well. We learned more about him during the conversation, as John’s Learjet 45 was being refueled. He was an actor in San Diego and had been in several television episodes during the last, year and was lined up to do a series of commercials. He was happy to land this gig for the money involved.
“Are you concerned about the possible bad publicity this might generate?” I asked.
“There is no bad publicity,” he replied, “or so my dad always said. You just have to make sure they spell your name correctly.”
We all chuckled and continued with small talk. When John’s Learjet 45 was ready, Frank walked back over to the jet and flew back to San Diego.
The next morning we were back at the airport. We spent half an hour watching everything that happened in the airport. So far, nothing looked even a bit suspicious. John’s Learjet 45 landed and again taxied into the hangar.
All of a sudden men wearing FBI jackets and U.S. Marshal jackets moved from the outside rear of the hangar on both sides and entered the front bay door.
“Those guys are good,” I said. “I didn’t see any of them until just now.”
“Pros,” Ed said.
We watched as they hauled Frank off in handcuffs and stuffed him in the back of a black SUV with red and blue lights flashing from the grillwork. The FBI walked our day driver to another car in handcuffs, just for show.
“One mole,” Ed said as he raised his coffee cup, “in the bag.”
We touched paper coffee cups and drank. “What about John’s limo?” I asked.
“Oh, his night driver just got a promotion to days. He’s about two blocks away. We can go now if you don’t mind my driving for two blocks,” Ed replied.
CHAPTER 17
Several weeks passed as more references to the meteor storm leaked into the mainstream media. Each report was prefaced with the reporter mentioning the lunatic fringe and rolling their eyes. Following each interview, the camera returned to show the newscaster grinning and shaking their head, like this was some gigantic joke.
Promotional flashes began to appear on the Network News Channel, gradually increasing in length, advertising a special interview on Sunday Evening titled “NASA Speaks.” Dr. Sheldon Woolser would appear and answer questions about the meteor storm.
We had an early supper Sunday afternoon and gathered in the communications room to watch the show. At 6:00 PM Mountain Time, 8:00 PM Eastern, the program began.
Woolser was introduced to enthusiastic applause. “Dr. Woolser,” the host began, “is there any truth to all of the rumors of a meteor storm?”
“Of course there is,” Woolser replied. “This is exactly how extremists work. They will take a small amount of truth and blow it all out of proportion to fit with their agenda. For example, we have the Perseid meteor shower which appears to be centered in the constellation of Perseus and the Leonid meteor shower in the constellation of Leo, the Lion. We have these meteor showers every year. Once in a great while we also have a meteor storm where over a thousand meteors enter the Earth’s atmosphere each hour. That puts on quite the show with one meteor every four to five seconds.”