Daniel Ganninger - Icarus Investigations 02 - Peeking Duck (13 page)

-Chapter 24-

Alex arrived in San Francisco in the late afternoon.  His plan was to get into the hub of the AT&T telecommunications building in the middle of the city and back on a plane that night.  He knew of a small room that held secret NSA listening equipment and what security system guarded it; he had designed it.  Alex just hoped no one had changed it since then.

Alex arrived at a nondescript, windowless structure near
Market Street in downtown San Francisco.  There were a few offices in the building, and he made his way past the security guard with relative ease using a forged maintenance badge.  He knew the NSA control room was in the direct middle of the building and on an otherwise unoccupied floor, except for the hubs and servers that routed digital traffic from all over the world.  Alex couldn’t get to that floor from the elevator since it had a security code and a camera inside, and he couldn’t risk being spotted.  Instead he took the fire door and walked slowly up the stairs until he reached the fifth floor. 

He carefully removed his backpack, and using a small device of his own crafting, defeated the electronic lock on the door.  As he opened it, he spotted a few technicians amongst the wide array of digital switching hubs and computer equipment.

The technicians were busy with their work of checking various buttons and switches, and thanks to the sheer size and noisy hum of the equipment, he easily moved between them and out of sight.  He wasn’t sure where the NSA control room actually was but figured it had to be fairly remote.  The NSA didn’t like to draw attention to themselves, and the technicians probably had no idea that the room even existed.

As he dodged between the various blinking lights and massive machines
, he found what he was looking for.  He located a barely visible lone door with no handle positioned close to an array of cables.  It was just as he had designed.

He inched his way behind
a machine and had just enough room to begin working at the door.  It was a genius design; no keylock, no keypad, absolutely nothing except brute force could open the door, or so it appeared. 

Out of his backpack Alex withdrew a wand, about half the size of a baseball bat
, connected to a small battery.  If no one had changed his design then this would be easy.  He was giddy at the thought of seeing if it had been implemented to his specifications.

Alex took the wand and adjusted a few knobs at the base, and starting at the bottom corner of the door, he closely followed the outline of the steel frame until he arrived at the other end.  He heard the sound he wanted.  A soft buzz emanated from the door and a few clicks sounded
, indicating the steel bars were being retracted into the door.  After the sounds stopped, the door popped slightly, allowing just enough room for him to get his finger in.  He pushed open the door and moved inside.

As his design had specified, the door frame had been built with a distinct electrical frequency
; a sine wave that circulated around the door.  The wand emitted the opposite frequency.  When the two waves were brought together they triggered the new frequency, which popped the lock and allowed the four large steel rods to retract from the wall and into the door.  Without the wand the room was virtually impenetrable.  It was like a bank vault without a lock.

The room was bigger than it appeared and held equipment that only the government could develop.  He immediately went to work and found the lone computer terminal. 

The digital traffic that came in from the Pacific Rim was all funneled through this room before it entered the U.S.  Everything from bank transactions, telephone calls, emails, or anything else electronic over the internet or by phone ran through this area before it went to the servers outside the room.  The NSA used it to catch phrases, words, writing, or anything that might endanger national security.  It was all done by the massive computers in this room and back at NSA headquarters in Maryland.  If the computer flagged a potential threat, it would forward it to a NSA technician to disseminate if it truly was.  This happened twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

Alex
knew this all too well, and he also knew what kind of trouble he could get into if anyone knew he had been in this room.  That was his first job, to erase any indication he was ever there.  He pecked away at his laptop, which was connected to the computer terminal, and in a stroke had erased the time stamp of his entry.  Luckily he still knew this system inside and out, proving he was a dangerous man, which in some ways made him proud.

Alex set up phase two quickly, and he began to search for the address of the office that
Galveston and Roger had supplied him in Singapore.  He cross-referenced dates with the address and was overwhelmed by the information he got back.  It was a massive amount of data and more than he had anticipated.  He pulled a few more hard drives from his bag so he could download the wealth of information.  This data was not the type of information that a private company would have used.  It was something bigger, and he began to realize who they were dealing with without even seeing the data.

After more than two hours downloading the information, he had what he needed.  For good measure he searched for the name of the
Trusian
and downloaded any information that came up about the ship.

Alex finished the last downloads and packed up his bag carefully.  He escaped out the door, making sure the steel rods locked back into place.  As easily as Alex got in, he got back out, and raced for the airport.  It was all like taking candy from a baby.

-Chapter 25-

Dimitri sat up on the side of the bed in his small cabin prison aboard the
Trusian
, and tried to figure out the date and time since the hijacking.  It had been over forty-eight hours since the ordeal started, or so he thought, because he wasn’t all that sure.  The pain in his leg caused him to sleep more than he would have liked.

Dimitri did
some rough calculations in his head and figured the ship would have to refuel soon based on the amount of time that had passed, the speed of the ship, and its fuel carrying capacity.  The
Trusian
had planned to refuel to capacity in Los Angeles and not Hong Kong, due to the cost.  Since that was the case, the ship would have to make a port of call soon.  It may be the break he was looking for, he thought.  At least someone at a port would have evidence of their arrival, wherever that may be.

The day quickly turned into night, and as Dimitri began to fade off into sleep due to exhaustion, a slight vibration woke him as the engines of the
Trusian
noticeably wound down.  He leapt from the bed and immediately felt a shot of pain in his leg, reminding him of his injury.  Dimitri managed to pull himself up to the porthole and peered out.  He saw a strange black shape moving closely beside the ship.  As the shape grew larger into view, he noticed the characteristic lights of the superstructure on another ship.

Dimitri strained to see what was going
on.  He hypothesized that the pirates were either escaping or attempting to offload cargo, but then realized they were doing neither; he realized they were refueling.  The
Trusian
wouldn’t be making a port of call anytime soon.  His heart sank at the sight.  But then he observed something he wasn’t supposed to see—the name of the other ship. 

Dimitri scrunched his eyes and made out a few of the letters on the bridge of the ship as it matched speeds with the
Trusian
. 

“
A-L-L,” he said quietly to himself, straining to make out the last letters.  “A-L-L-T,” Dimitri paused, “
Alterra
.” 

He had a link, or at least something that connected the pirates to the outside world.  Dimitri knew he had to tell someone he had found a ship helping the pirates.  Unbeknownst to him, he had been riding on another
Alterra
the entire time.

-Chapter 26-

Relaxation finally set in on our flight to Honolulu.  We had been so busy getting out of the country that time hadn’t allowed us to discuss the case.  We had a long flight ahead of us and plenty of time to banter the facts about now.

Galveston
moved closer to Maddie and strategically placed himself next to her.  I knew him too well, and when he saw an opening his hormones set in.  Unfortunately for Maddie, she was his target. 

I liked her and appreciated how she continually redirected his advances back to the work at hand.  I could tell,
however, she was beginning to weaken toward those advances.  I noticed her gazing a little too long at Galveston and laughing at his horrible jokes. 

I inserted myself into their conversation to keep things on track.  Maddie reverted back into her professional mode and asked me to pull up the files on the tiny screen of my
phone.  Galveston sighed, knowing this would be a team discussion and not some mini-date on a long airplane flight.

I
pulled up the papers on my phone, and they were barely legible.  We huddled together like a football team, straining our eyes at the screen.   Maddie pointed to the first page of the cargo manifest, where she had seen the original discrepancy, the one that listed the crew.

“
It’s odd that the first mate’s name was on the manifest.  He wasn’t supposed to be on this ship.  I’ve uncovered a little information about him.  His name is Dimitri Petsoro.  He was on the previous voyage, but was supposed to debark at Hong Kong and fly home.  I don’t why he would have stayed on the ship, and I don’t know anything about this Captain Olgary Svenson.”

“
So we have two guys who aren’t supposed to be on this ship.  That seems like a smoking gun to me,” I announced.

“
Yeah, we need to research these two, find out their work history, and where they came from.  Why didn’t the chief mate leave, and who is this captain?”  Maddie said, asking the million dollar question.

“
Something’s fishy alright.  Okay, we have our first big questions.  Let’s look at those cargo manifests again,” Galveston instructed.

I scrolled through
some legal junk until I came upon the massive cargo bill of lading.  I checked the times and dates of each container’s loading schedule.  At the bottom of the page was a handwritten note explaining the last minute addition of four additional containers, well after the original loading times.  It was signed off by the chief mate himself, Dimitri Petsoro.  There were additional instructions for the four containers, explaining the strange security requirements.  We all looked at each other in unison, realizing we had an excellent lead on who was behind this mess.

“
Very strange,” Galveston wondered aloud.  “Usually the officer in charge of loading the ship signs off on these things, or the captain does it himself.  I wonder if this happened before Captain Svenson came aboard?”

“
It sure seems this Dimitri fellow wanted to be aboard and running the show.  We have to hunt down their entire history, from where they had their last meal to when they sneezed,” I said seriously.

I continued to scan the documents over the tiny screen of my phone.  Nothing explained what was exactly in those four containers other than generic car parts, which was a serious breach in protocol.

“I bet we’re not dealing with car parts, and I bet someone got paid off so there would be no mention of what might be in those containers,” I surmised.

Galveston
put his hand to his chin.  “You’re probably right.  Someone has come up with quite an operation to get the containers on board, and damn, we still have to find a ship.”  Galveston sighed.  “What have we signed on to, Roger?”

“
I don’t know, but this is getting complicated.  Every day we spend trying to find out about these two men costs us precious time in locating the ship.”

“
When we land, I’ll call Alex.  Maybe he has some good news and didn’t get thrown in jail.”  Galveston stated and turned to Maddie who had been unusually silent.  “Maddie, I would recommend that you not tell anyone at your company about what we’ve found, at least not yet.  We’ve learned that the less information anyone knows about what we’re doing the better.”

“
I understand, I think,” Maddie said with a nod of her head, knowing she would have to tell her superiors.

“
Tell them we had a great time, and we’ve found out all sorts of useful information about the culture of Singapore and Hong Kong.”

“
That ought to go over well,” she chuckled.

If only we had realized we needed to be asking Maddie
some questions.  It hadn’t occurred to Galveston or me to check the source sitting next to us and find out what was in the containers her company owned.  We had been so caught up in the case that we broke our own cardinal rule of questioning everyone, no matter how innocent they seemed. 

We were sure that Maddie
‘s job was on the line with this case.  She wouldn’t have even been allowed to go on this trip if it hadn’t been for Galveston’s hormones.  At least that was my opinion.

The flight into
Honolulu went smoothly.  The plane didn’t turn around, and no bad guys were waiting for us at the gate on our arrival.  We had successfully escaped out of Hong Kong with our vital information at hand.

Galveston
was eager to talk to Alex, but reluctant, knowing the gravity of the situation.  Alex had put himself in great danger by entering the highly restricted computer complex in San Francisco. 

We waited around in the airport for the next available flight to the mainland.  Maddie and I were very fatigued, the last few day
‘s events and lack of sleep hitting a tipping point on our bodies.  Galveston on the other hand was clearly hitting his stride.  He was a million miles away from the man I had grappled with on the ground just a few days ago. 

Galveston
noticed our weariness and took the opportunity to ply his many charms onto Maddie, who was about as lively as a dead plant.  Clearly seeing his poor timing, Galveston backed off with a slightly dejected look on his face as he realized he was striking out, for now.  He knew he had planted a seed of interest in Maddie’s mind, and for him that was success.

“
Our flight isn’t for another hour or so,” Galveston said, intentionally changing the subject back to work.  “I think I’ll try to reach Alex or Jane.”

“
Tell him hello for me, and that I hope he’s okay,” Maddie interjected.

Galveston
muttered an “uh-huh”, but I could tell that was not going to happen.  Alex didn’t know it, but he was in competition for Maddie’s affection.  At least in Galveston’s mind.

“
Alex, please tell me you got some good news,” Galveston said over his phone.

“
Oh I have some news,” he started, “and you are not going to believe it.”