Illusion of Splendor
An International Thriller by J.D. Easley
Waterton Publishing Company
No part of this book was created using Artificial Intelligence (AI).
This is a work of fiction. The events described are imaginary and the settings and characters are fictitious and not intended to represent actual places, companies, or persons.
Copyright © 2012 by J.D. Easley. Waterton Publishing Company. All Rights Reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproducedin any form without permission.
Published simultaneously worldwide.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012947104
ISBN: 978-0-9905249-0-8
New chapters to be released (see below).
If you enjoy reading this book, please consider making a $10 donation to the author. We appreciate your gift!
ILLUSION OF SPLENDOR
II PRIVACY
About two hours later, ten-thirty, Glenda opened Analyst Intake number 1443994-879, “Robert Downing, Malik Said, Rain Walker;” reading Rain’s email to Robert, Malik Said’s email to Robert, Robert’s email to Rain, and, finally, Robert’s email to Malik Said. She pulled up a daily log report, typed the Intake number in a report field, pressed the tab button, and typed “appears to be of no significance but due to nature of incident will follow-up: run IAFIS and local searches, Robert Downing, Rain Walker, Frank Caprizio LNU DOI 04/26/12, IAFIS Interpol Malik Said, background Downing, Walker, Caprizio, Said, East-West Business Development Foundation, Arab world institute.” A subsequent flurry of keystrokes over a period of about eight minutes initiated searches of city, state, national, and international law enforcement records and the three primary credit bureaus related to persons named Robert Downing and Rain Walker living in the Washington, DC metropolitan area and a person named Malik Said residing in France.
Glenda shook the empty Redskins mug, swiveled, got up and walked back to the kitchen, filled the mug with hot coffee and, smiling somewhat deviously, returned to her cube. “Let’s see” she muttered, sliding the mouse with her right hand and tapping the keyboard with the fingers of her left, “Google, Yahoo, Washington District College.” A line started to form on the bridge of her nose; staring at the screen the mouse jiggled rapidly back and forth, no longer a smooth gliding motion, as the keyboard tap turned to a repetitive thump.
“But that’s a strange email, malik dot said at encryptosecure dot ye,” she said to herself, picked up her desk phone and dialed three numbers. After several rings, “Ricky, it’s Glenda in intake with a quick question. I have an email address from an outfit called encryptosecure, the domain is a ye, I think its Yemini, are you familiar with them; can I get a history? Call me when you have a moment, thanks, Bye.”
Lunch for Glenda was cherry pastry and coffee sitting with two coworkers in the base cafeteria; back at her desk in thirty minutes, digital responses to her earlier inquiries began trickling in from agencies around the world. She pulled up the log report, tabbed to a follow-up space, and entered information she considered material from each response:
“Robert Downing, 52, owns in Georgetown, drives a BMW, professor of law and international studies, WDC, ACLU, Greenpeace, Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, lecturer Arab organizations, East-West Business Development Foundation, divorced, one daughter appears to be in Europe, listed as victim-witness DC case against Frank Caprizio charged with Islam hate crime assault, airline ticket to Paris in May.”
She tabbed to another space: “Rain Walker, 20, student COTP, in Prof Downing’s class, unemployed, student loans, witness to DC case re Frank Caprizio, no known adverse affiliations except perhaps Prof Downing.”
Tab: “Frank Caprizio, 25, student at WDC, in Prof Downing class, employed at Carbone’s Real Italian Pizzeria, brother killed in plane crash, investigated by FBI for sending letters to politicians demanding investigation of crash al-Qaeda link, arrested once before re assaulting an airline spokesman case dismissed, open DC case for hate crime assault, unpaid medical bills psych.”
Tab: “Malik Said,” Glenda stopped typing, re-read the response, and typed, “appears to be linked with EWBDF in Paris, no further information.”
Glenda stood, arched back with hands on her hips to relieve a low back knot, and noticed pinned to the wall of her cubicle a photograph from two years earlier. Glenda was kneeling in green grass next to Heidi while in Annapolis visiting her nephew. She thought for a moment about Lucas sailing around the Pacific on an aircraft carrier and whispered to the photograph, “Something’s not right with this one, old girl; fanatics, too many fanatics in the stew.”
In the break room Glenda poured coffee from a Folgers canister into the used paper filter, poured water from a carafe into the reservoir, pushed the on button, and waited, staring at the coffee maker, still thinking about Malik Said. “Maybe a call to the French Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence would be worthwhile,” she thought, but then again, there really was not any negative information about Said, just an absence of information.
“You won’t make it work any faster, Glenda,” Sharon startled the contemplative Glenda, “Did you just make it?”
“I did, and I’m giving it a little encouragement” Glenda replied in a tone of sarcastic frustration; “It seems like I make a lot of coffee around here.”
“That’s probably ‘cause you drink most of it girl,” Sharon smiled and opened the refrigerator.
Glenda continued upbeat, “Hey Sharon, have you talked to Ricky in email today?”
“Nope; why?” answered Sharon while bent over rummaging through a produce drawer.
“Oh, I put a call in to him this morning but haven’t heard back,” Glenda tipped her mug over the sink to be certain it was empty, removed the lid, pulled out the carafe in mid-brew, and poured a viscous dark liquid.
“Yea, sometimes he’s kinda slow, he’ll call,” Sharon was upright holding a banana, “I still can’t believe you can drink that stuff straight!”
“Creamers are for pussies, girl,” Glenda smiled, adding as she was going through the break room door, “stop by later if you’re in the neighborhood.”
Sharon almost blew a mouthful of banana.
Standing outside Glenda’s cubicle, Ricky was first to exclaim “There you are!”
“As I’ve been all day” Glenda replied with a smile; “you got my message?”
“That’s what brings me to your fine abode; show me the email.”
Glenda walked past Ricky into the small workspace and he followed; she set her coffee next to the keyboard, sat down, moved the mouse, clicked several times, and said “Here it is, an email from this guy named Malik Said, I think he lives in Paris, anyway, he’s associated with an NGO called the East-West Business Development Foundation, they’re on our do-not-support list, you can sit if you want.” She stood, moved aside, and lifted her mug.
Ricky sat down and scrolled through the email; “Well, it wasn’t encrypted, interesting.”
“No, this is how it came in,” Glenda’s response conveyed intrigue.
“Hmm, well,” Ricky paused while concentrating on the screen and soon rose from the chair, “this EncryptoSecure is a company out of Yemen, as you suspected, but we don’t yet know where, and they use multi-layer email encryption, TLS, PKI, IBE, combinations, which means they’re very hard to decode, and the company doesn’t cooperate, obviously, if we don’t even know where they are.”
“So…” Glenda’s questions developed slowly, “what kind of people use this company? I mean, do they advertise online, can anyone get their service?”
“Not that we know of; I will tell you that several higher-level Qaeda’s used them, but there are probably others also, without any FTO affiliations.”
“Why didn’t he encrypt this email?” Glenda sought confirmation of her hypothesis.
“Because, probably, it would seem kind of strange to the college professor,” Ricky promptly confirmed Glenda’s initial conclusion, “who’s going to Paris for a lecture, he would need the key, or a password, it would just seem too strange, nothing top secret, also maybe because the sender, this Said, knew the email was being sent to a Google account.”
“Whereas,” Glenda finished Ricky’s thought, “if he is a bad guy, and sends an email to another bad guy, they would want big-time encryption.”
“Yes; all we would receive is an email address – some fictitious name or pseudonym at EncryptoSecure; so, really, it’s pretty cool you got his name.”
Glenda reflected on the totality of her evidence after Ricky left by writing on a legal pad “liberal prof donates to Palestinian causes, speaks at watch-list ngo headed by man using FTO email account, accosted by rightwing radical upset over classroom lecture; malik said, probable FTO affiliation; rain walker, no apparent connection, no more action unless additional contact; frank caprizio, domestic threat level 1, fbi should talk with da.”
She reread the words and thought for a moment about their implication and a prudent course, took a sip of lukewarm coffee, and accessed the interagency contact site. In a matter of minutes, Glenda was advising an FBI liaison officer to begin surveillance of Robert Downing and communicate the importance of a psychological evaluation and tightly supervised probation to the prosecuting attorney in the Frank Caprizio case; her next call was to Paris and the French Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence.