The Brit was using every trick he knew to locate the actual destination of the email address which had Vladimir all in a dither. The Brit still didn’t know who Vladimir was, only that someone remotely going through the outbound email had stumbled across something big. He used every mail distribution site he knew how to hack into to send every kind of spam he could think of with the ping utility embedded in it. He simply needed the remote location to get a ping to work from. The outbound email had happened before the trainer’s machine had been fully compromised.<\/p>\n
Finally, he turned to Hans and said, \u201cCan you have your remote guru connect in and send an email to this same address from the trainer\u2019s machine? We can get the ping utility to them that way, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI can ask, but I think he would have done it already if he could. He was never able to get all the way in to that machine. He might be able to send it from the email service directly, though.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy didn\u2019t I think of that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCan you do it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, but I will have to do a full penetration of the site which he has already done. He can get the email out today. No content, just the ping utility.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s really got you going with this, hasn\u2019t he?\u201d \u201cSomewhere they have an identity shop. I am assuming it is a good one and used regularly since our trainer requested a new<\/i> kit. That means he was given one to come here. If they have a shop that good, it probably has to do with an intelligence service in one of these hostile countries. Given the reluctance of the man in the suit to leave Pakistan, I\u2019m assuming he fears it is his own country. Your man is worried about that as well since he didn\u2019t want you to feed any of the tracking story to him.\u201d \u201cJust as well since it is a bust now.\u201d \u201cStill. He sounds rather seasoned. I like the whole idea he came up with about getting help from the Americans. What I would like even more is to know how he knew about that operation. I was unaware of it, but it is real nonetheless.\u201d \u201cYou verified?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. I\u2019m leaving that up to you. You are the leader here. It\u2019s a damned good idea as long as we don\u2019t have to give up too much about what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI would have jumped on it already, but I worry about that last little bit.\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t wait much longer. I know it sounds like limitless storage, but they do nearly a full turnover every three months.\u201d Hans looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, there is that much email on the Internet. The word search tends to pull in a lot of needless chatter and everyone is sending naked pictures of themselves around the globe. Some poor schmucks actually have to sit and wade through all of that stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans contemplated the absolute torture it would be to weed through millions of emails per day and a shiver went down his body \u2014 it was visible, he couldn\u2019t control it.<\/p>\n
\u201cNasty thought, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSuddenly one shower a week doesn\u2019t sounds so bad, does it?\u201d \u201cNot at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf what you are telling me is true, they probably don\u2019t have the messages we need in storage anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI would believe that to be true.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat good is contacting them, then?\u201d \u201cNo new communications trainee has shown up for our trainer. Our existing hub has a new roommate. I\u2019ll wager you a week in a nice hotel with room service this new roommate will suddenly have a machine showing up on our ping server.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has already received a computer and been getting lessons on how to install security on it. I give it three days, maybe four, before he is learning the ropes of email forwarding.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMake you a deal. In three days we take them both. Take their computers, their notes, everything they have. Bundle them up and send them to the interrogation camp. We can take them while the other is at work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat sounds like a statement, not a deal.\u201d \u201cThe deal is, we don\u2019t go to the Americans this time with what we have. We simply give them all of the American email addresses we have and tell them we know someone reading email from each account is an al-Qaeda member. We don\u2019t tell them how we know, just that we have proof which cannot be revealed now. What they choose to do with this information is up to them.\u201d \u201cYou know they are going to ask for everything we have.\u201d \u201cI have directories full of translated messages, original messages, etc. We could burn a CD for them and say this is all we can give them right now.\u201d \u201cThe suit would shit a brick!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019ll never know.\u201d<\/p>\n
That stunned Hans. \u201cYou don\u2019t trust him anymore?\u201d \u201cI think he is the good soldier who files all his reports with Pakistani intelligence. I think they have been leaking information and holding us back. We both know the government itself has a lot of al-Qaeda backers in it.\u201d So far everything the Brit said was true and Hans knew it.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me burn the CD, pass it on with what I\u2019ve said, and tell my contact not to come looking for more. It is all we can risk letting slip out. If you think our operation is covert, just think how bad it is for their operation. Illegally eavesdropping on residents in a country full of unemployed lawyers and media moguls looking for a good tabloid story. \u2018Big Brother\u2019 sells a lot of copy over there. The person who gave me the confirm took an amazing gamble. I need to give them something to work with as payment in kind. If you don\u2019t want me to give them all the American email addresses, tell me how many and I\u2019ll limit it. I definitely want to pass along the Golden Gate Bridge and Sears Tower stuff, though.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now we are getting to the bottom of it,<\/i> Hans thought. He needs to buy back the favor. Still, what he was asking was the smart play. Get that information into the hands of Americans today so they could start looking through it and begin monitoring of the email accounts which were about to lose their hub.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cI take it your contact is here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA few hours away by bus,\u201d replied the Brit. \u201cThey are running surveillance on an offshore consulting company they believe is owned by al-Qaeda.\u201d<\/p>\n
That made Hans\u2019 eyes go wide.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy reaction, too. The company has been sending workers into the U.S. Under H1-B work Visas.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy God!\u201d exclaimed Hans. \u201cIt\u2019s a major pipeline for suicide bombers.\u201d \u201cIt was only a matter of time before they came up with the idea,\u201d responded the Brit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy don\u2019t they just end the H1-B program?\u201d \u201cAh mate, you don\u2019t understand corporate greed and the politicians it controls.\u201d<\/p>\n
***********************
You are reading a special promotional version of \u201cInfinite Exposure\u201d containing only the first 18 chapters. This is the first book of the “Earth That Was” trilogy. You can obtain the entire trilogy in EPUB form from here:<\/p>\n