Week Four
Dave started work at 07:00, he had three iPhone chargers with him, the phones were plugged in and left to charge, while he was waiting, he went through the contents from the pile for Patrick Finn, this was one of the sons, the oldest one, inside his wallet were his bank card and a credit card, he was aware of his bank account, but not the credit card, Sally would do that later, there was some Euros and UK currency, he looked in every part of the wallet hoping to find something, there was nothing. It was the same with the other two sons, bank cards, some money and not much else. He wondered if everyone had been told to take only the minimum of personal items. Peter arrived shortly before 09:00. “I’ve been sitting in the dining room, if I had known you were here, I would have come up earlier. What do you want me to start on?” Fire up the laptop you have been using, I will install a bit of software on it and then you can start.” Dave asked him to make coffee as he downloaded the software, he cleared his search history and ran the program. Peter returned with the coffees, “pick one of the iPhones and bring it over here with it’s lead.” It was plugged into the laptop, Dave ran the program, two minutes later the screen lit up with no password required. Peter looked in amazement, “you can’t do that, it’s supposed to be impossible,” “there is a lot I’m not supposed to do. But there we are,” “I want the number from the phone, find out who it belongs to, down load the contacts list, I want a print out of call logs, once you have done that see if you can find his browsing history, and finally the emails and messages, any problems, let me know. Create a folder and put all the information in it, call it by the name of the owner and the number, I will do the same on one of the others, when you have finished, move on to the next one. There was only one left to do when Sally arrived, Peter watched as they kissed, “I didn’t know you were a couple.” Sally made coffee before starting, the information from the phones were copied on to sticks and transferred onto her laptop. She looked at one of the folders, “I need the phone connected to my laptop and your software installed.” Dave gave her the phone then downloaded the program. Sally worked away, “they are using WhatsApp for normal messages, but there is another file I can’t access, I’ve tried everything you have, it won’t let me in.” “Peter, can you give us ten minutes, go down to the canteen, buy some cold food and bring it back up here please,” he handed over £20. With only the two of them in the room, he called Yuri, “thanks for the software, it has got us in, however I have a problem, there are messages on the phone we cannot access, we’ve tried all the software I have but nothing works.” He put the phone on speaker mode, “what program is it?” Sally called out the name, “Dave, who is the woman?” “Sally, it’s OK, we work together,” “be careful, bad people use that program,” “we wouldn’t be looking if they were good honest citizens.” Yuri said it was highly encrypted, “it cost me a lot of money to buy access to the back door and not many people want to buy it,” “Yuri, how much?” “$10k, it’s a special price, only for you.” “No, I will pass the phone over to the UK government, I’ll let them find a way in, it will take longer but not cost me as much, $15k, for both the pieces of software.” He looked towards the door, Peter was coming back in, Sally rushed over to keep him out. “OK, when will you pay me?” “I’m in London on Thursday night and Friday, maybe Friday night as well, I can pay you or whoever you send then.” Yuri agreed, “I am at my desk, I will send it to your storage now.” Dave nodded at Sally, she opened the door, Peter came back in laden with food for them. Sally asked him a question Dave had forgotten, “Have you been told to report what we are doing?” Peter looked down, “It doesn’t matter to us, I am just curious, “I have to report progress on a daily basis to Admiral Sheldon, the problem is, I don’t know what I am meant to tell him, all I have been saying is there is a lot of data being entered.” “Good, keep on saying that, you will be finished early this week, we are going to London, I’m not sure about next week, it depends how we get on.” They stopped for a break, while he was eating, Dave downloaded the software, he tried it, Sally stood behind him watching, the messages were now visible. There were emails as well as messages, standing back up, he left it for Sally to carry on. When Peter had finished the last phone, Dave said to stop for the day, tomorrow it would be the android phones. He and Sally carried on until 19:00, “Dave, I have to go home, there are things I need to do, we will be back tomorrow, three of us for a day should get us well on the way, are you coming now?” She knew the answer to the question before she asked it. “I’ll stay a little longer, I want to start reading the messages, can you think about how we will show them in a way which makes sense?” Sally made him a coffee before she left, they kissed, he walked with her down to the car, on the way back, he spent his change in the vending machine. At 22:00, he picked up his phone, “Ruth, sorry to call so late, is Jane there, I didn’t want to call her own phone?” “David, what is it?” “Can you speak to the Admiral tomorrow, I want the Brigadier to email me saying there is a job for me at the MOD and to say I need to be at a meeting on Friday. I want to see you and the Chief, not the Admiral.” “What have you found out?” “Wait until Friday, I will have a progress report by then, nothing in writing, it will be all in my head, Sally will be with me.” It was 02:30 when Sally felt him climb into bed, five hours later the alarm went off, Dave woke and was out of bed and in the shower minutes later. Sally followed him, “you were late coming home, what happened?” “I was reading, I think I understand what is going on, it’s not republicanism or drugs, something much bigger, the drugs are being used as a money machine, I don’t know what it is, but we will get to the bottom of it.”
Peter was waiting and eager to start, the laptops were fired up and ready, Dave gave Peter his instructions, he and Sally sat at a desk on the other side of the room. He had scribbled notes as he had read last night, Sally could usually read his scrawl, but not this time, “Dave, it looks like a five year old wrote this.” “I understand it, I will write it out again while you read, I have copied and pasted conversations together to make sense. Sally was still reading when Dave had finished his rewriting, he waited until she pushed her chair back, in their small kitchen, she washed the cups and made drinks, instead of sitting back down, she said to Dave to come outside, they left Peter with his drink. Sitting on a low wall opposite the building she sipped her coffee, “this is scary shit, how high do you think it goes?” “I don’t know, I haven’t looked at the American side yet, I will do that tonight.” “Why don’t you phone Cyrus and hand it over to him?” “Because at the moment, I don’t know who to trust, we have to work this out ourselves, on Friday, I will talk a lot, but say nothing,” Sally suggested he tell the Prime Minister. “No, only us until I know more, I will send Peter home on Wednesday evening, I think we won’t need him after that, I will go Ubering or sit in the café on Thursday until you finish, we will go down to the hotel afterwards.” He took out his phone and called Michael, “I need a favour, can I leave two laptops and a couple of sticks with you on Wednesday evening, we will pick them up on Saturday or Sunday, I don’t want to leave them or take them with us when we go to London?” A drop off was agreed, Sally looked worried, “Dave are we safe?” His ‘yes’ wasn’t very convincing, “I will be carrying from now on, I’m not sure you should be at work, however we will discuss this on Friday, I have a plan, I just need to work it out in my head. We are getting near the end, maybe another week or two. Sally left at 19:00, Dave promised he wouldn’t be as late as the previous night, he had all the messages and emails from the android phones, most of them were simple instructions, where to be and when. Since there was no mobile phone signal on the island, there were large gaps, Patrick Finn didn’t spend very much time on the island, usually only a day or two at a time. His time was spent between Dublin and Belfast, it was clear to Dave he called the shots. Nothing happened unless he approved it, but he couldn’t find the money. Patrick was married to Helen, they had a four year old daughter, he searched for bank accounts in her married and maiden name, he checked her mother and three sisters, nothing. Next was Companies House, none of the three Patrick Finn’s listed were him, he tried the wife in both her names, and the mother, each time he drew a blank. The Irish equivalent had around twenty Patrick Finn’s, Dave finally found him, the company was called ‘P Finn and Daughter Manufacturing’ there were two other directors, his wife and father. Moving on to the Irish banks, he found the company accounts, there was only two years figures, he downloaded the statements, looking at the most recent balance, it was over 17m Euros, there were regular payments coming in every month of around 2m Euros, the amount was converted from US Dollars, always the same amount, there were regular weekly cash withdrawals of £50k, He thought that shouldn’t be allowed, but he found a note on the account authorising cash withdrawals up to £75k per week. This, he thought, would be to pay the men and buy supplies, he couldn’t see any payments for the raw ingredients.
Sally had phoned him to say not to be late, he ordered a takeaway and said for it to be delivered to the barrier, he walked up and waited, chatting to the two guards until it arrived. Sitting at the main desk, he ate his curry out of the container it was delivered in. He went back to Patrick’s phone, he looked for international calls, he found there were regular ones, sometimes up to twenty minutes at a time, always the same number, Dave knew it would be a burner phone. Looking back through emails and texts he marked ones he was sure weren’t to any of the people working for him. He spotted a different style of message to one person, the replies had American spellings. Dave smiled, he was finally getting somewhere. He went back to Patrick’s business account, the reference for the international transfer was written down, he stripped out the account number and bank reference. Rubbing his eyes, he searched for the bank account, it was registered to ‘The Boston Tea and Coffee Company Inc’, there was $175m in the account, there were regular transfers in usually on a daily basis, they came in from three different companies, he would look at them later. The payments going out were to Patrick Finn and another business called ‘Mexican Mining’. Dave now looked at the three companies paying in the money, each one was a vending company, one was in New York, another in Los Angeles the third in Florida. Dave had figured it out, what he needed to know now was who was behind it all, he had a contact in the US, but no idea how to figure out who it was. He looked to see who owned The Boston Tea and Coffee Co., it was a subsidiary of another company, there were five others linked, each one was owned by Wallace Pemberton. Logging on to the Securities and Exchange Commission, he searched for Wallace Pemberton, he was listed as controlling around twenty companies, each one listed at the same address as The Boston Tea and Coffee Co. From the information, Dave worked out he was eighty five years old, he wondered if he was still alive. Leaning back on his chair, he closed his eyes to think, he was woken by his phone ringing. “Where are you, why aren’t you in bed?” It was light outside, “sorry, I forgot the time, I was involved in what I was doing, I fell asleep thinking.” He looked at the time on his phone, it was 07:15. “I will get Peter to finish off, clear the room and come home, I should be there by the time you come back from work.” He went down to the canteen, eating a full English breakfast with strong black coffee he saw Peter come in, once he had his breakfast, he sat with Dave, “you’re making an early start,” “I haven’t left yet, I worked most of the night, I slept on one of the chairs for a while. I have a bit more to do, and then it will be finished, you can leave around lunchtime. I’m going back up now, leave it twenty minutes before you come up, I have a couple of calls to make.” “Yuri, I need your help,” “we don’t speak for weeks and now this is the third call, are you trying to chat me up?” “No time for jokes, I’ve been working for twenty four hours. I want you to do something, but I don’t know if it can be done.” “Most things are possible, especially if there is money involved.” “The dark web messaging software you sent me worked brilliantly, however, I need to know who sent one of the messages, can it be done?” “I don’t know, I will phone you back in ten minutes.” He called the Admiral next, “sir, can you arrange for the collection of the plastic tubs from Garats Hay, they will be ready by midday, however I don’t have anything to seal them shut. I have made some progress, I might be able to update you on Friday, your man has been a great help, he will be on his way back this afternoon.” The phone rang, “It might be able to be done, if it can, then it will cost $1k. He will need access to the phone the messages are on, can you give me the number and make sure it is connected to the web, I will phone you back, I am going to see him now, I will call you then, tell me which person it is later.” There was nothing more he could do, the phone was plugged in and ready. He watched as it lit up, the screen changed several times, Yuri’s man was working. Peter was packing everything away, he was told to put all the phones in a separate box, they weren’t going back. At 11:00 Yuri phoned, “he can do it, he has never done it before, you are the guinea pig, I can sell you the software later,” he was laughing, “tell me which one it is,” Dave looked on the screen until he found a copy of the message, he read out the name used on the screen, Yuri checked it from his end, he talked in Russian to the other person. “Something else I want, can you give me a list of the names he has contacted, $500 per name and IP address, anything else you can find out would be good. Do I need to keep the phone connected now?” He heard a conversation in Russian, “no, he has cloned the phone.” “Yuri, I don’t need to tell you to delete everything and forget this conversation took place.” “I will phone you later when I have some news.”
An Army transport van arrived to pickup the boxes, they were sealed and tagged, Dave was given a receipt, they carried the laptops down to Dave’s car, “I’ve already told the Admiral how good a job you did, Sally and I would have spent another week at least entering the information.” They shook hands, a very tired but satisfied Dave climbed into his car and drove home, he showered and climbed into bed, he lay on Sally’s pillow, he could smell her perfume. He didn’t move when she came home, it wasn’t until she shook him he woke, “Yuri is on the phone, he needs to talk to you.” Sitting up, he took the phone from her, she sat listening. “Dave, it is done, call it $5k, there is a lot of information, the names and messages have been uploaded to your storage. A word of advice, some of the names even I recognise, be careful.” “Will anyone know you have looked?” “No, they would have to be good, very good, we wiped our tracks.”
“The laptops are still in the boot, I didn’t bring them in, we can have a look.” Sally brought them in while Dave showered. One was set up and ready when he came out the bedroom dressed. “Who do you think is on the list?” “I have no idea, let’s see.” Logging on to his storage, he downloaded the folder Yuri had sent him, Sally said she was nervous. “Shit, can you see who is there, Graeme fucking Rogers, no wonder he wanted us suspended.” Dave had seen the name, but was looking at the others, he pushed his chair back, “I need to eat before we go any further, once I start, I could be here for hours.” Downstairs they both prepared dinner, it was a quick meal, they took coffees back upstairs, Dave had biscuits in his other hand.
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