Colonel Mustard, In The Study, With The Maglite

It’s supposed to be in the low teens tonight. Treasa is over for a roaring fire, my renowned meat sauce, a bottle of cabernet and 24 episodes into the wee hours of tomorrow. Also making the trip are her two German Shorthaired Pointers, Brogan, the male, and Rohan, whose name is pronounced like what you do in a canoe, the female.



In so far as the truck break-in fallout is concerned, I have two potential avenues to track my prey. First, are fingerprints. These, unfortunately, are not an option. I made the decision not to dust for prints. How could I explain myself, a supposed banker, possessing a CSI kit and combing for forensic evidence?

Secondly, is the GPS itself. The thing about a GPS is that in order for it to give you directions to where you need to go, a computer has to know where you are. If a computer knows where the GPS unit is, I can track it. Unfortunately, I can only track it if it’s powered on. It’s hasn’t shown up on the grid yet. This either means that I’ve been targeted and my attacker has disposed of the GPS, or the junkie that took it hasn’t found a buyer yet. Time will tell.

This whole ordeal has me thinking about home security though. If someone had broken into my truck during the holiday season, one could surmise that they were looking for presents left in a vehicle and happened to stumble on my GPS. A vehicle break-in this time of year brings into question my, and Treasa’s, safety in my home.

This highlights the necessity of keeping everyday household items placed around your house that can also be used as weapons in the event of a home invasion. For the sake of this discussion, I’ll leave out firearms. They should always be locked in a safe, and therefore, may not be the best thing to rely on if your life depends on your actions within the next few seconds.

Bedroom: I keep a Maglite flashlight on my bed stand. Not only great for when power goes out, but Maglite’s also make good weapons.

Maglite flashlights have been known to be used as mêlée weapons. On March 30, 2007, the Los Angeles Police Department announced that they would be switching to a smaller, lighter LED flashlight that cannot be used as batons, in response to a highly publicized incident where an officer was accused of using excessive force against a suspect by using a Maglite

Kitchen: Obviously, cutlery is a good choice. However, your attacker will know about that as well. I keep a large pair of scissors in a drawer, they also serve as a good impaling device. Silverware. Cast iron skillets. My favorite ones are made by Lodge.

Dining Room: Candle stick holders will do a nice job when struck with force against a forehead. Also, break the bowl off of a wine glass, and the stem and foot will stab quite well.

Garage: Hammers, screw drivers, saws, nail guns…all this should be pretty obvious. What’s not, however, is a plumb bob. Consider the plumb bob the Lowe’s equivalent of a medieval mace.

Living Room: Fire place set. Maglite by the television.

Office: Letter opener. Any pen or pencil. Scissors. A stapler also can serve as a nice interrogation device should you capture your trespasser.

Others: Dog leashes. If a 13 year old girl in Saudi Arabia can get 90 lashes over a possessing a cell phone, your dog’s leash can serve as a weapon.

By no means is this an exhaustive list. I didn’t list the variety of pocket knives and Leatherman mini tools I own. You can be certain I’ll be looking to strategically place additional items around my house within the next coming days.

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Fine Tuning Banjo

Treasa's office has an operational scanner. Here’s Banjo Jim’s letter:
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At Least It Wasn't Raining

Sometimes your days just don’t go as planned. Today, I woke up at my normal time, took a shower, poured a cup of coffee and got ready to drive in to work. Everything was going along just fine until I went to get in my truck. Someone, it seems, decided that my GPS, residing inside my vehicle, would be much better suited belonging to someone else. The only thing between them and my GPS was the locked door and the driver side window. The window proved to be the path of least resistance and, apparently, didn't put up much of a fight.


My neighbor had just detailed his car yesterday and said he had hand prints on his windows, indicating that the perp’ had gone from car to car looking for a nice score. This, for any tax paying citizen, would be a small comfort because it indicated that I had not been targeted directly and had just gotten unlucky.

Well, for me, I’m not ready to jump to that conclusion. It is now hyper-vigilance o’clock from now on.

I filed a police report, which they completed over the phone. Apparently they didn’t need proof that my truck was broken into. They’ll be fine taking my word for it and adding it to their stack of paper. They said that my daily transaction number was ‘077.’ Does this mean that, as of my call at 7:50 AM, I was the seventy seventh person to require police assistance? That’s not exactly comforting.

At least I was insured for this. Zero dollar deductible and no increase in rates for theft or vandalism. The window guy came by mid afternoon, made my truck significantly less drafty, and departed without any out of pocket expense.

The boss-man was okay with me working from home today, considering the circumstances. Surprisingly, I got a lot done. Corporate work, nothing for Mother.

I ate an ungodly amount of seafood stew for dinner. I’m ready for this day to end.

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Stealing A Paycheck

Today was boring.

Nothing going on at work. Leftover homemade pizza for lunch. And the leftover red sauce that was a primary ingredient in the leftover homemade pizza topped some rigatoni for dinner.

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A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

As you can imagine, I’m a bit skeptical of packages left on my front porch. I hadn’t ordered anything in awhile. So great, this is either a bomb or someone’s head packaged in dry ice.

The odds of it being a bomb are slim. If you were the target of one of my operations, somehow was left alive, then figured out that I was the one who was responsible, and then tracked me down through my maze of cover stories, you would have to be smart enough to know that I wouldn’t fall for the old ‘bomb in the box by the front door’ trick.

Ok, so whose head is it?

Wait, a return address from Banjo Jim? Anyone who knows Banjo Jim, and isn’t dead because of it, is a friend of mine. He lives down state, below the canal, where things tend to lag a few decades behind the rest of us. He’s a man of peculiar wit, possesses an encyclopedic memory of crossword answers, and as a result of his time spent in the Navy, besides receiving a tidy monthly pension, has a pretty substantial network in the import/export business. Every so often a shipment of something useful gets diverted to me.

Today it’s a pair of black tactical gear bags, a letter, and a black t-shirt. Yes, a t-shirt. A black, size large, Fruit of the Loom t-shirt. I know I mentioned his ‘peculiar wit,’ however I want to go back and reemphasize the ‘peculiar.’

My scanner has decided to take the night off, so I had to take a digital picture of the actual letter.



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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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Thank You, Come Again

After work I went over to a small strip mall to meet someone on Mother’s behalf. This was the kind of place that was busy enough so that two people arriving at the same time wouldn’t be the only thing to watch, but not so congested that you had a hard time keeping track of who was coming in and out.

The strip mall had two ways in and out, one on each end of the parking lot. I entered from the west side. As I was pulling into my isolated parking spot, I observed a loading truck pull up on the east end, partially obstructing the exit. That way out now pinched the flow of traffic to one lane. It could still be used for a quick escape unless some innocent was entering as I tried to speed away. Or, of course, it could be by design.

Either way, the meet had to take place now. With the parking lot sparsely populated, sitting in a parked car for the truck to depart, if in fact the truck was there for legitimate reasons, was not an option. It would draw too much attention.

When I saw someone matching the rough description of the person I was waiting for walk into the convenience store, I followed. To even a fairly well trained eye, as well as the security cameras, our contact looked polite and casual. After my contact grabbed a bottle of Pepsi (blech) from the refrigerator, he held the door open for me so I could select a Coke Zero. Holding the door open gave the window just enough time to collect some condensation to further obstruct what our aligned bodies could not. Two electronic monitors were now inside my jacket. They were equipped with both a GPS and a satellite enabled recorder. We walked to the counter without any additional interaction, paid, and went our separate ways.

With the east end still partially blocked, and no sign of an ambush coming from the west, I exited where I entered and made my way back home.

What were the two devices for, you ask? Well, Mother’s intelligence places someone of interest at the Baltimore Boat Show tomorrow. Should they purchase a boat, it’s my job to make sure one of these devices is concealed inside. Why two? Well, in case they buy two boats.

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TV Fix

The Burn Notice season premier is on tonight. If I can't urge you to watch it, she will.


Show info.

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Top Of The List

As you know, because I mentioned it, everything you do within corporate walls is being monitored. They may not necessarily be actively monitored, but there’s a good chance if you do something quirky it’ll ring a few bells in corporate security or wind up on some monthly report. These are good ways to draw attention, and attention is not good.

But, one of the attributes that makes many banks strong also opens up holes in their information defenses. The banking industry has been consolidating recently. Often the newly acquired institutions are more likely to be Velcro’d on to the mother ship then they are to be assimilated. There are many reasons for this, but one of the biggest is the technology cost, in both dollars and human capital, required to reconfigure the entire IT infrastructure each time another chip is added to the stack.

This means that analysts, like yours truly, are forced to navigate through a myriad of differing types of servers and databases to get to the information we need to make business decisions. While this is cumbersome when completing day to day tasks, it makes it easier for someone to run database queries and hide their covert data gathering agendas. One of easiest ways to do this is to have your code reference a macro located on your desktop. When your code finishes, erase the macro and it becomes very, very hard for someone to go back into your query and figure out what it did. They’ll see the macro referenced, but have no idea what its function is. This is akin to reading a novel’s sequel without reading the predecessor. Sure you can generally follow what’s going on, but you’re definitely not getting as much out of the story as you could be.

This morning Mother sent me a partial business name: ‘Pinnacle.’ This company had become involved the Bulgarian extortion scheme. All I knew was that the company’s name started with Pinnacle and it was located in Florida.

Here’s the short version:

Step 1: From database A, pull all records where the first eight characters of the business name were ‘Pinnacle,’ along with some firmographic information. This brought back hundreds of businesses.
Step 2: From database B, pull all business names located in Florida. This brought back thousands upon thousands of businesses.
Step 3: Move the datasets created in Step 1 and 2 into temp space, giving them different names, so they would be automatically deleted when I signed off.
Step 4: Determine which companies are located on both of the datasets. This brought back a handful of companies, six to be exact.
Step 5: Convert this dataset to a comma delimited text file and download it the Recycle Bin on my desktop.
Step 6: Copy the dataset, but rename it when I upload it back to database A.
Step 7: Append a junk dataset, one copied from a coworker’s directory, containing a few thousand records, to the end of it.
Step 8: Download this back to my desktop in the form of a comma delimited text file, renamed to something else of course.
Step 9: From database C, pull all companies that completed a cash advance on their credit cards within the past 12 months.
Step 10: Determine which of these companies matched with the six companies I identified in Step 4. Luckily, there was only one match. Memorize the account number.
Step 11: From database D, pull credit bureau data from the credit card application, but create the search parameters wide enough so that I would capture the one account as well as a lot of other extraneous noise.
Step 12: Move this dataset, in comma delimited text file format, to temp space. Do I even need to say ‘and rename the dataset’ at this point?
Step 13: Import the dataset from temp space into an access database. Sort data by account number, and locate Pinnacle Travel Enterprises by manually scrolling down until the account number is found.
Step 14: Send email on personal BlackBerry to Mother giving, among other things, the name, social security number, home and cell phone numbers, online banking logon ID, and mailing address of the primary card holder.
Step 15: When cleaning up your electronic paper trail, do not just delete your datasets, save over them first with something benign. Then delete them. I'll save my macros for when I really need them.
Step 16: Dial into next conference call and act like nothing happened.

See, pretty easy.

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"Allez, Homard!"

Damn, your life becomes boring when you have a corporate job. The two most exciting things that happened today were the tilapia fish tacos I made for dinner.

I did find an easy way to pass information in the office though, not that it’s too hard to begin with.

There are a considerable number of co-workers who use the community fridge in the break room. They drop their meal off in the morning when they arrive and then pick it up when they eat lunch. So, it would be quite easy for someone to drop something off in the morning and have another person pick it up from the community fridge later in the day. It’s not like there’s a sign in/out sheet for everyone’s lunch bag.

There is some risk however. Word ‘round the water cooler is that there have been a few ham sammy thefts lately. It’s not fool proof, but it’s viable.

Any-who, on to the 4th season of 24 tonight.

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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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Key Information

The Spy Museum was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, photography was not permitted around the exhibits. Granted there was like an infinity minus one percent chance that I would have gotten away with taking a few pictures, but out of respect for those that came before me, I figured I’d follow the rules for once.

We met two of Treasa’s friends, Ben and Niki Stoley, for dinner at in China town. This is not a place where they let you leave hungry.

Getting out of DC was a bit of a hassle considering we hit the road at the same time the Capitals game finished. This would have made it easier to spot a tail, yet there was none to be found.

Most importantly, Treasa and I are officially together now.

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Cooperstown

Treasa’s pretty great. We’re going here today. I haven’t told her what I do. That’s for both of our safeties. However, after dog sitting, preferring to sit facing the entrance at restaurants and an uncanny ability to remember where she’s left her keys and/or cell phone, she’s made a few innocent jokes about how I’m like a new and improved James Bond.

Did I mention she’s smart too?

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Queue Up Opportunities

The Sam Adams was more appealing than the treadmill. To further dismantle the New Year’s resolution, I decided to go out and get a pizza as well. It really wasn’t pizza that I was craving, rather something to goes well with Sriracha. Given my recent spicy food kick, this should come as no surprise.

I placed my order at the pizza parlor and went a few doors down to the pool hall to grab a beer and shoot a rack while I waited. The bartender told me that games of pool are free from 3 PM – 7 PM on weekdays. The place must be hurting for business, and as a result, the bartender would be looking for other ways to earn a few bucks.

This could be advantageous. Bars are great places to pass information. It’s just as common for someone to stay for a drink as it is for someone to stay for a few hours and make a night out of it. This means you can either get in early and scout it out, or arrive, make your drop and depart without drawing unwanted attention.

A bartender in need can create another layer of separation between you and your contact. For a few bucks, you can drop off an item for someone else to pick up later. You and your contact never need to be seen together. And as long as it’s not a gun or drugs, it’s pretty easy to get someone to watch over your package and then deliver it for you.

I don’t say any of this to the bartender though. I just make a mental note, pay for my beer, chase the cue around the table for awhile then leave to pick up my anti-exercise dinner.

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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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All Of Them, Please

Today was uneventful, which is good because that means no one took a shot at me. Let’s see, there were a few conference calls, marginal progress tracking down the Bulgarian money, and a fresh hair cut, which was free due to one of those ‘buy 9 and get the 10th free’ type deals.

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What Time Do We Checkout?

Hotels are interesting in my business. On one hand, the anonymity offered can be of great use. It’s fairly easy to reserve a room under an alias and move about a city without leaving a paper trail. It’s very easy to enter a hotel and meet someone, whether it is in their room or at the hotel bar, without raising the slightest suspicion. But because of the transient nature of these establishments, picking up a tail can be extremely difficult.

Such was my concern when I accompanied Treasa to a Country Yard hotel this evening. She was looking book an allotment of rooms for an upcoming event and wanted to see the amenities. We had an appointment with the sales manager at 6 PM. I left work right at 5 PM and sat in the parking lot scouting traffic and staff movements for just under an hour. At roughly 17:47 I called Treasa and told her that I had arrived. She would be pulling in shortly.

By this time I was pretty sure I didn’t have anyone following me, but given the fact that I hadn’t set of the meeting ahead of time and placed an ally on the inside, my alertness was on overdrive.

As I sat in the lobby and waited for Treasa, I was continuously monitoring staff and patrons for any sign that they recognized me. I’m not sure how anyone would know I would be at the Country Yard this evening, but if they did, there’s a chance my photo would be circulated ahead of time. Either a glance lasting a second too long or the opposite, blatant recognition avoidance, can be tell tale signs that someone could be on to me.

I took advantage of the complimentary coffee while I waited. A scalding cup of joe is quite good at disorientating an assailant when flung in their face.

Treasa arrived and we met with the sales manager. The meeting went well. She received the information she needed. Twenty minutes later, we left the hotel. I took a few extra turns on the way home to make sure I wasn’t followed.

A grilled jalapeno and pepper jack cheese burger, a la the Burger From Hell, for dinner, a few more episodes of 24, and hopefully an early night to bed.

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In The News

Bomb Blast Kills Physicist in Iran

The target -- seen as a longtime regime insider who had veered toward supporting the opposition -- immediately raised suspicion among colleagues and students that the attack was politically motivated. Prof. Mohammadi's membership in Iran's broadly defined nuclear-science brain trust also raised questions about whether the attack was related to the country's controversial nuclear program. State media identified Mr. Mohammadi as a nuclear physicist. But he was best known for his work in mathematical physics and theoretical, high-energy physics,
according to one colleague, who was also a former student.

Expert: CIA missed glaring red flags on double-agent bomber

So how did a Jordanian doctor play double agent, outsmart his CIA handlers, and end up killing seven Americans and a Jordanian military officer at a remote base in Afghanistan? "This is the biggest deception ever of intelligence agencies, whether CIA or Jordanian intelligence," said Hassan Hanieh, a former Islamic extremist who now studies jihadist movements. "From the beginning, he was deceiving them." Sources familiar with intelligence operations in Jordan say al Qaeda takes at least a year to screen new recruits. The terrorist organization checks out their family backgrounds, gets input from fellow jihadists who know them -- and never trusts anyone who has been arrested, as al-Balawi had been.

These things happen. By definition, you won’t know when a covert operation is going down where you live. We all need to do a better job of memorizing license plates, locating firearms, maintaining cover stories and knowing where canned goods are in grocery stores.

EDIT According to this story, CIA not behind death of Iranian scientist: U.S. official. Publicly or directly, of course.

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Didn't Shake Me, Didn't Even Stir Me One Bit

I had to stop at the grocery store on the way home. I was out of Coke Zero. Come about 1 PM, sometime a man’s just has to get his caffeine fix to make it through another meeting. In order pinch pennies where I can, I’ll buy cases of it at a time and bring it in to work instead of frequenting the vending machines.

As I was making my way through a busy aisle, a man suddenly stopped and started to count the items in his cart. He was waaaay over the limit for the express line, so I had no idea what he was doing. When you’re in a tight area with a lot of unknown subjects moving about and suddenly your mobility is hindered, you prepare for an ambush or you ready yourself to die.

Instinctively I grabbed a can of tuna fish off of the shelf. This, or any other canned item, can either be used as a bludgeoning device or as something to hurl at your attacker’s brow in close quarters. With the blocker ahead of me, I backed up against the right side of the aisle and checked back down to my left. This was previously my 6 o’clock. I did this for two reasons. The first, the attack would probably come from behind me. Secondly, the stupid old blocker caused enough congestion so that if the assailant was coming from that direction, they’d be impeded for long enough for me to recognize the attack.

There was no threat. As it was, I needed some tuna anyway. I exchanged the one I had in my hand for another brand that was on sale, proceeded to check out, and made my way back home.

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Be-Claus I Can

Santa’s early origins are linked to Saint Nicholas of Myra, who liked to give gifts to the poor, and in one case, for the express purpose of preventing three young girls from a life time of prostitution. He also draws quite a few parallels to the Germanic figure Odin, who was known to lead hunting parties across the sky. Dutch traditions have Santa with a beard, hat, spear, and a “cloth bag held by the servants to capture naughty children.” It’s no wonder that parents want to keep this information a secret from their children.

And thus, the tradition of Secret Santa is born.

The commercialization of symbolic religious conglomerates aside, it can be quite useful to have your office do the whole Secret Santa routine. How many other times in a professional setting is it acceptable to bring a concealed object into your office, not to tell anyone what’s inside, and to give it to another person without a question asked? It’s like senior management is saying, “Hey, all you covert banking operatives, we’re going to make it exceptionally easy to pass information and materials back and forth.”

I realize that you may think I’m about two weeks late with this idea. “Christmas was last month, man! Don’t you undercover operatives get calendars?” Yes, for your information, I do have a calendar. And also, more importantly, the fact that I was able to pass information to May Langston today using a Christmas bag and wrapping paper during normal business hours without raising any suspicion seventeen days after Christmas proves how valuable this technique can be.

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