Call Waiting

If there’s one thing that gets my head, and heart, racing, it’s when someone misses a meeting. Mother always taught me, if you’re not fifteen minutes early, you’re late.

Generally, for face to face meetings, I’ll arrive at the specified location much earlier than that to check for surveillance and to make sure my escape routes are mapped out. For internet meet-ups or phone calls, other than making sure you’re on a secure line, there’s nothing much more to do than sit and wait for your contact to arrive.

Now that my Bulgarian Operation has, for the most part, been wrapped up, I’m looking for another target on which to focus my skill set. I’ve done a good job of establishing my corporate cover. I’ve gained trust, built relationships and delivered results consistent, exceptional results to all of my corporate business partners. Because of this success, I may have the ability to gather more intelligence in other parts of the bank.

With this perspective, I was awaiting a phone call last night from one of Mother’s people who may have a way to interject me into their operation. We had met in person previously, but with Marcel currently residing on the Left Coast, we struggled through time zone differences to set up a contact time: 21:00 EST.

By 21:09 a myriad of what-ifs were running through my mind. What if he couldn’t get away from his corporate responsibilities? What if he couldn’t find a secure line? What if, unlikely as it may be, he forgot? What if he was tied to a metal chair in the basement of a Tijuana flat, bleeding, hoping the power goes out so the electrodes will stop while his captors repeatedly ask who he was meeting and what it was about?

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Cheeeeeeeese!

There are certain times where it just makes sense to pay a professional to do a job right. For a great variety of things, I’m the man you call to get results. But intrinsic in my skill set is an understanding of my own limitations. For instance, I’ll solicit the services of an accountant, a lawyer and a plumber, and yesterday, you can add a top notch photographer to the list.

Mother sent Timothy down to meet me. Whereas I can avoid detection, trail a mark, and gain access to areas without leaving a trace, taking pictures good enough for facial recognition software isn’t something I have on my resume.

Timothy and I met downtown and trailed our targets as they ran Sunday morning errands. While they made a trip to the ATM, a hair cut for him, nails for her and lunch at a burger place, Timothy was click-click-clicking away with his multi thousand dollar camera. I kept my truck from drawing attention.

He seemed to be pleased with the lighting and how the depth of the backgrounds complimented the subject matter, or something. His mood turned sour when we followed them back to their home, a working horse farm. At the thought of walking his white suede, leather soled dress shoes through the woods and a field or two to gather intelligence, he threw his hands up and exclaimed something to the effect of, ‘Oh, they’re last season’s style anyway.’

The layout of the property was all in the dossier. The fact that he knew that the couple lived on a horse farm and that we’d follow them there, and that he still chose to wear those shoes made me reason that his pictures must be really good to outweigh his complete absentmindedness.

A bluff of trees, two fields, and two now brown suede, leather soled shoes later, we had the pictures we needed. I brought Timothy back to his car and went home to cook dinner:

Sear seasoned chicken thighs in enameled cast iron dutch oven in butter and oil.
Set remove chicken, set aside and sauté chopped onion and garlic in oil.
Dump last sip of beer into dutch oven to deglaze stuck-on chicken goodness.
Add parsley, thyme, crushed red pepper, and a good dash of personal spice blend.
Add two cans of low fat, low sodium chicken broth and bring to a simmer.
Add chicken back to dutch oven and simmer until just shy of done.
Remove chicken thighs and add box of orzo. Add water if necessary.
Chop was-frozen-now-partially-microwaved spinach and add to ducth oven.
When orzo is almost done, reintroduce chicken thighs.
Top with parmesan cheese and devour.

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Neighborhood Watch

Sorry about the lack of updates over the past few days. I haven’t been killed or detained, which you should have figured out by reading the previous sentence.

I made my way home from work today to find three police cars at the front of my neighborhood, lights flashing. There was, what appeared to be, a minor traffic accident. However, this happened on a section of road that was completely straight for a few hundred yards in either direction. The lead car had jumped the curb and struck a small tree next to the sidewalk. The second car had come to a stop only inches behind it. To add another level of complexity, there was a drug dog searching both vehicles. My best guess was that some sort of drug deal had gone bad resulting in the second car forcing the first off of the road.

And I paid a lot of extra money to live in the good part of town.

If someone in the same neighborhood has a less than legal distribution business, it does explain why someone broke into my truck a few days ago. Presumably, they were looking for something, like my GPS, to trade for a score.

Hopefully, this will cause the local police force to increase patrols through this area. Now, you may think that increased police presence would be a hindrance to someone like me. For day to day activities, this is not the case.

A quieter locale reduces the chances of an extraneous factor impeding on any operation I may have planned. Luckily I was able to work from home following my truck break in. But what would have happened if I had to leave abruptly to meet one of Mother’s contacts that morning? Driving a truck with a busted out window would attract police attention in the wrong way. My ability to stay alive depends on skillful planning of operations and their inherent contingencies. It is virtually impossible to strategize a backup plan that fits into my cover story that covers waking up to a pile of glass on my driver’s seat.

Hopefully, there won’t be any other incidents in the future.

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Don't Showboat, Just Get Your Job Done

Well, turns out Mother’s original intel wasn’t totally accurate. I wasn’t in Baltimore to track down a potential boat buyer, I was there to locate a boat dealer.

I can’t imagine the logistical nightmare shows like this create. There were probably a few hundred boats inside the Baltimore Convention Center. Maneuvering trailers around the building in order to precisely place each boat in its location must be choreographed perfectly. And I do mean perfectly. These boats were mere inches away from each other. I’m sure this task was obscenely stressful, not just because of the time sensitive deadline, but because many of these boats were several multiples of my yearly corporate salary.

Organized chaos is a great opportunity for someone looking to get something done under the radar. The Director of Logistics, or whatever their actual/official title is, would have been under a great deal of pressure. Issues would only be brought to their attention if they were of the utmost importance. So if someone sees something that doesn’t seem right, chances are no inquiries will be made.

Mother’s new and improved information said that one of the boat dealers was transporting something illegal between conventions. We didn’t know what; drugs, arms, bootleg DVDs of Grey’s Anatomy. We had no idea. The what was someone else’s problem. The where was my task. And that’s why I brought the tracking devices.

The actual mission was easy. It’s not hard to find a boat dealer at a boat show. They advertise the bejeezus out of themselves. Determining what boat(s) were being used for transporting illegal goods was a bit more challenging. Each boat was in pristine condition. They were cleaned from top to bottom, so there was no visible evidence, that I could find, without CSI-esque gear, showing that a particular compartment was being used. Therefore, I picked two boats that had a good amount of storage room, planted the devices and hoped for the best.

Unrelated, if anyone is looking to buy a boat, I recommend contacting Dirk Van Rees of Taylor Marine Centers. He was genuinely friendly and extremely knowledgeable about the products he was selling. In particular, we talked about a 23 foot Grady White walk around cuddy cabin.

On that note, I’m going to go buy a lottery ticket.

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Please Press "0" To Speak To The Next Mobster

I’ve been able to make a few observations about the Bulgarian banking operations. It seems as if they’re collecting a form of street tax from small business owners, but doing it through the financial system as a means of disconnecting the cash flows directly from the victims’ accounts to theirs as well as reducing the short term impact on those they’re robbing.

The crooks are targeting their victims either by brute force, or or by crafting business relationships that they can leverage. Once they have someone to squeeze, they pull cash out of the business. However, instead of directly extracting cash from the bottom line, it looks like they’re forcing the business owners to take cash advances out on their credit cards. Ironically enough, this helps the business owner because they don’t have to fight a large initial cash outflow. Instead, their obligation to the financial institution is the small monthly minimum payment. This keeps the business operational for as long as possible, though saddled with immense debt, so when the credit card balances are paid down, the Bulgarians force the owners to advance more cash.

The economy is both helping the Bulgarians in this regard. From the bank’s perspective, it’s almost impossible to tell which businesses are impacted by the Bulgarians versus which businesses are just increasing debt levels as a result of macro economic conditions. This gives the Bulgarians some additional operational cover. However, to their detriment, banks are protecting themselves from losses by cutting available, unused credit lines. This severely diminishes the amount of cash they can pull from business owners. The Bulgarians are effectively extorting less cash, but they’re doing it without as much risk of getting caught.

Mother’s concern is that if the cash trickles to a point where Bulgarian public officials aren’t being greased enough to continue cooperation, there will be retribution against the business owners.

While I don’t think this is the only angle the Bulgarians are playing, at least I’ve found some activity to investigate.

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Shoulders, Toes, Head and Knees

I’m working from home today. This doesn’t mean merely monitoring my emails while watching TV in case I’m asked a question. Rather, I’ve been quite busy – analytical follow-ups from a senior leadership roundtable, ongoing segmentation analysis and an ad hoc data pull to profile a highly performing portfolio segment. Unfortunately, all of this work hasn’t left time to identify and locate the Bulgarian corruption influence. While the delay is necessary to keep my corporate cover story, Mother will not be pleased.

I finally took a shower during my lunch break. I have a ‘shower routine.’ Mine’s not as bad as this guy’s, though. First, it’s shampoo, then body wash, and lastly, a facial scrub. Today, for some reason, I body washed first. This obviously isn’t a huge deal, but it proved to me that I’m not thinking clearly. Routines and checklists save lives. If I let the simple things go awry, what else am I susceptible to?

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Home to Mother

The holiday season, whether it be Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza, Saturnalia etc, can be a difficult time keep your cover. While most look forward to the opportunity, or succumb to the obligation, to spend time with family. Those in my line of work tend to rarely have that option.

Many don’t have family. Some do not want to bring their loved ones in too close to their business. Others, like many of you, can think of much more enjoyable uses of their time—like ensuring your closet’s are in chromatic order.

I use this time to go see Mother in New York. This provides a good cover. When you tell people you don’t want or can’t see your family for the holidays, many tend to ask the follow-up question: “why?” The answer you provide will be memorable. In this business you don’t want to be remembered unless it’s by design. So, I’m off to see Mother for a few days.

Mother is not exactly what may have first come to your mind. Sure, there will be cookies and a hot meal (I requested steak), but it’s hardly that simple. Mother is not a person. Mother is control and command.

Military Operations Training on Humans for Essential Results.

This acronym comes in handy when communication is monitored.

“Yes Mother, I’m picking up ‘groceries’ as we speak.”

“Mother, ‘chores’ are complete. I’ll call it a day.”

“Mother, I could really use some money.”

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