by Jack Davis
“In a closet.” Posada piled on.
“In the dark.” Swann finished everyone’s thoughts.
Morley spoke up, “I wanted to give them a little while longer to see if they could pull something out.” When he heard a confused Murray say, “Why…ahhhh, why, is that why?” he tapped his left forearm twice with the middle three fingers of his right hand in the gesture baseball managers use when they want to bring in a relief pitcher.
Greere understood. “So he’s calling in the wily left-hander.”
Morley eyed Swann. “Doc, make this guy a believer.”
“Love to,” said Swann as he turned toward the door.
“Ron, ask Brian and Ken to step into the hallway.”
“Morley wants to see you. I’ll watch our friend,” said Greere to Kruzerski and Murray.
The Marines’ haggard faces registered confusion as they stepped out.
Morley looked from one to the other. “You need a break. He’s been here a long time and I don’t want him to lawyer up.”
“Sir, give us five more minutes; if we don’t get anything, we’ll take a break,” countered Murray.
“Guys, you’ve done a great job, but I’ve been watching the last few minutes. You’ve lost the initiative. I’m gonna have Swann, Greere, and Posada take a crack at him. If they don’t get anything, we’ll process him, and you can take a shot at him after he spends some time in MCC.”
Murray started to speak but Morley cut him off. “It’s not up for discussion. Back-brief Posada and Swann, then grab a cup of coffee.”
As Posada entered the room, Anthony spoke up in a more defiant tone. “Reinforcements. Wow! Where’d the other two go to?” Then faking a look at an imaginary watch on his wrist, he said, “Oh yeah, I forgot its eight a.m., feeding time. They don’t want to lose out to the other orangutans at the zoo.” He turned and smirked at the two-way mirror.
Greere replied in an even, self-assured tone. “Agents Kruzerski and Murray have gone to get a cup of coffee; they’re not there.” He motioned to the glass without taking his eyes off the suspect. “If they’re so stupid, what does that say about you? They caught you. You might want to rethink who the stupid one is.”
Greere let the thought sink in.
Anthony looked less confident after his joke had been turned around, but he kept up the offensive. “I’m gettin’ tired of all the games. The two apes try the tough guy routine, and now you guys are gonna try the good cop routine? Either give me some type of immunity or the interview’s over.”
Greere smiled. “I’m glad you’re ready to work with us. We look forward to your cooperation. Before we get started, I have a question for you. Have you ever met a ‘Bell Cow?”
The defendant’s expression showed realization that things were completely different.
Less than ten percent of the hackers in the world knew the term Bell Cow. It had been coined to refer to ultra-elite hackers who others would follow in the same way that a herd of cows follows the lead cow wearing the bell. Bell Cows were the hacker equivalent of grand masters in martial arts. There were reported to be less than thirty worldwide, no one was sure.
Anthony’s tone was markedly different when he answered, “I’m supposed to believe you’re a Cow?”
“Oh no, not me; my friend behind the glass.” Greere motioned to mirror.
“Nice try.” Anthony was nervous, his movements were jerky and his words hesitant. “If there’s a Cow back there, what’s his nic?”
“You must think all agents are stupid,” Greere said. “You actually think we’re gonna tell you his nic? I hope you’re tired, because the other option, dumb, is gonna make this too easy. I’ll prove it to ya; we’ll give him a little test. What bank do you do business with?”
“What?”
“You want me to prove it; give me the bank you do business with and I will—”
“B of A.”
“And you give us authorization to look at your account?”
“Sure.”
Greere looked at the mirror and nodded, knowing Swann was already hard at work. Turning back to Anthony, he continued, “Agent Posada over there, he’s developed and deployed more secure computer networks than you have zits.”
Posada squinted and after a quick look at Anthony added, “Maybe not that many networks. You ever heard of acne cream, kid?”
Anthony now piled self-conscious onto nervous. Even so he was able to keep up appearances. “And you, what’s your superpower? You read minds or somethin’?”
Greere paused for a second. “My special power is friendship.” The response brought a muddled look to his antagonist.
“My best friend growin’ up is a captain over at Rikers. I can guarantee you’ll get a poor choice of cellmates and that your file will get lost. You’ll spend enough time over there to be on a first-name basis with the proctologist.”
“And don’t be fooled, there are a lot of guys there that claim to be amateur proctologists. I’d request some type of documentation before you let ’em start the nightly exams,” joked Posada.
Greere laughed before continuing. “We want to know everything. The tools you used, where you got ’em, the sploits, how you picked your targets—everything. Agents Kruzerski and Murray just graduated from our computer forensics school. They found the evidence in less than six hours. Agent Posada, the Cow, and I have been doin’ this much longer. You don’t know anything we don’t. If you think you’re smarter than us, you’re wrong. That’ll become readily apparent as we move forward in this process.”
Anthony defaulted back to his initial story. “I told the other agents, I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. I didn’t do anything. I’d like to cooperate, but I don’t know anything about any credit card numbers on the laptop. I can tell you who I loaned my machine to, but that’s it.”
Greere looked down and shook his head. “Now, this isn’t going to work if you keep trying to treat us like shitheads. We’ve got you by the balls. We’ve taken a Best Buy’s worth of electronics out of your house; we have tapes—tapes plural—showing you walkin’ out of Mail Boxes Etc. and we found credit card numbers on your laptop. We can stop now, throw you away, and move on to a real hacker. We’re givin’ you an opportunity to not spend the best years of puberty getting cocksicles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Your best option, your only real option, is to cooperate, but it’s up to you.”
“Or you can take what’s behind door number two, a lifetime without constipation,” said Posada.
“Because you’ll be able to shit a softball without any discomfort,” said Greere as three sheets of paper slid under the door.
Greere picked up the papers and pulled up a chair across from the defendant. “You lied to us; you don’t do your banking with B of A. That’s the last lie you get. We,” Greere corrected himself, “You, don’t have time to dick around.” Then he proceeded to lay out all six accounts—in various names—that Anthony had with banks throughout the New York metropolitan area. The second piece of paper showed every other account in Anthony’s name, including information from his dentist and doctor. The last piece of paper showed his school transcripts.
Anthony’s eyes widened. He knew the skill it took to access this information this quickly.
Greere handed the papers to Posada, who smirked. “I notice a generous donation to the Special Agent’s Benefit Association from three accounts that, while not in your name, have been associated with some of your financial activity. On behalf of the SABA, we thank you.”
Posada and Greere grinned. In the other room, Morley looked at Swann and shook his head.
Greere clarified, “So now that we’re clear who the stupidest person in this room is, let’s start again. You’re gonna give us at least four other people at your level, or two above you.”
“The source of the numbers and personal info is the wild-card in the deck,” said Posada, “an’ can be worth four; you should probably keep that in mind.”
“It depends
on whether the source is, say a real hacker, a bank insider, or some other target of interest,” explained Greere. “Know right up front, we decide if your cooperation is sufficient.”
The agents could see Anthony’s head was starting to swim. His eyes darted from one to the other.
Posada decided to dive into the defendant’s head and make more waves. “You’ve proven you can’t be trusted. If we let you work for us, you’re gonna be polygraphed randomly. Fail and you go directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect Vaseline.” He gave a malevolent smirk.
Greere now used a speech he had largely plagiarized from Morley. It helped push potential informants over the brink.
“Right now, we’re the most important people in your young life. We’re the only things standing between you and a much more vicious type of punk than you deal with every day in school. What you do in the next hour or two will decide whether you’re goin’ down one path or another. One path is much less pleasant than the other. The decision is yours alone. It makes no difference to us. We’re goin’ home to our families tonight, to enjoy a nice long weekend. We’ve got other things to do, so make up your mind.”
Posada, who had enough of the softening-up portion of the interview, spun Anthony around in the chair and got in his face, “Like my friends said, it has to be now. We’ve got things to do, and we’re not gonna dance with you anymore.”
Anthony put his head on the desk and asked meekly, “Can I have somethin’ to drink first?”
“Fuck you, give us something first, then we’ll get you a drink,” snapped Posada.
When Anthony started talking, the information came out in driblets. He seemed to be thinking through everything before he said it and was very deliberate. It was obvious to the agents that they were getting a sanitized version of the truth. At first, they let the young man continue, as long as they got what they wanted. They stopped him occasionally, realizing that it was more important to let him become more comfortable with what he was doing than to get all the information in the first pass. Once he’d committed himself mentally to what he was doing, it would be easier. It was a gradual process. Potential informants had to be emotionally eased into giving information on other people, especially people they considered friends. Once they had gotten over the initial discomfort, things progressed much better.
Anthony took great pains not to incriminate himself. This was an important omission, and Posada decided to address it midway through the process. He braced the teen about the illegal numbers on his laptop. Once Anthony admitted to a crime and the agents were comfortable with his level of cooperation, Greere told him to take a break. “What do you want to drink?”
“Do you have Red Bull?”
“Please,” answered Posada in an annoyed manner as he headed for the door. He was back in less than five minutes with a Red Bull and two small bags of Doritos.
Anthony devoured the Doritos. When he asked for more, Posada brought him back an apple and a bottle of water instead. For the first time since being picked up early that morning, he said something sincere. “Thank you, Agent Posada.”
Realizing where they were in the development of rapport, instead of his preferred answer, he just said, “You’re welcome. Now let’s get back at it so we can get you outta here.”
The jolt of caffeine had the desired effect and Anthony started answering questions with renewed vigor. Shortly after starting on the apple, Anthony went through the whole operation, explaining everything in great detail. That was one of the nice aspects about computer criminals—once they started to talk, they were much more detail oriented than the druggies or the gangbangers. Anthony was no exception. He laid out the whole operation clearly and in an organized manner.
His mind seemingly fixed on the cooperation deal, Anthony told the agents about the source of his numbers, an individual known only to him as Miguel, the only person above him in the chain. He told them everything he knew about Miguel. He gave the basics: height, weight, hair, eyes, make and model of his car, whether he carried a weapon, etc. Then he got to the interesting information. He explained that Miguel was a member of the Mexican street gang called the Latin Kings and that he received the numbers and personal information from a bigwig in Mexico City.
Regarding the overall magnitude of the operation, Anthony claimed that on a good day they made about three hundred, on a bad day about one-fifty, but most days were somewhere in between. He stated that every morning he gave Miguel the money from the previous day and got the numbers for the upcoming business day.
“Are you supposed to meet Miguel this morning?” asked a concerned Posada.
Morley heard the tinge of urgency in his agent’s voice. He started a mental checklist on what he’d have to do if the answer was…
“Yeah, we always meet between nine-thirty and ten.”
Morley, checklist almost complete, turned to Swann, “Doc, one of you needs to contact the duty AUSA and explain to him what we have. I don’t think Carpenter will be there yet but explain to whoever you get that Chris signed off on the search warrant and knows the case.”
“I’ll get the particulars of the arrest and make the call,” said Swann.
“Better yet, Doc, why don’t you take Brian and Lionel over to meet Chris?”
“Boss, I thought you wanted this to go smoothly and quickly. Putting those two clods in the middle of this part is gonna do neither.”
Morley frowned, but Swann was right. “Okay, get a thorough debrief before going over.” He paused to think. “Make sure the AUSA knows about the circumstances, and that we want our boy to talk to the source wearing a wire later this morning. Chris will clear the way for anything else we need.”
Morley continued to check off items on his mental list. “When you talk to Kruzerski or Murray have them start setting up some type of cover plan in case we can pull this off in time. I’ll call Pencala and have her get a wire ready, and at least four UC cars. Thanks.”
Swann moved off to his assigned tasks.
Morley closed his eyes to think. I’ll need buy money from Brown.
If Miguel’s in a gang the danger to the whole operation just jumped by a factor of ten. Pencala needs to run the info we have on Miguel past the PD’s Gang Task Force.
Oh, and brief Mak.
Fifteen minutes later Morley entered the interview room having set things in motion. Posada was talking with the prisoner about networking. Both stopped as the door opened.
“Anthony, I’m Agent Morley. I’m the agent in charge of the Electronic Crimes Task Force. We need you to work with us to get more evidence against Miguel.”
“I’m not sure what more I can tell you about him. I’ll think—”
“Anthony, it’s not about that. We need you to work for us,” said Posada, who had developed a connection with the kid and knew where Morley was headed.
“Agent Posada is right. It has nothing to do with the information you’ve provided so far; that’s been great. The problem is that if what you say is true, and you’re scheduled to work at eleven a.m., we only have a little while to do something or Miguel is gonna start to worry. That’s if he hasn’t already heard something about your arrest or the raid on your house. Then he’ll be in the wind and it’ll be a lot more difficult for us to find and arrest him…and frankly your cooperation won’t mean as much.”
“He wouldn’t know I was arrested or that my house was raided. We don’t know where the other lives. Miguel said that’s how they did it in the gangs, so no one could lead the cops to another member.”
With the last statement, the agents pushed the likelihood of gang ties farther from the possibility table. Every gang member knew where they could find their friends, any time of the day or night. A real gang member wouldn’t say something so blatantly stupid. More importantly, they also noticed that Anthony didn’t seem to have any reservations about what they were asking him to do.
“We need you to wear a wire and meet Miguel. The problem is we can’t get things in pla
ce before eleven. Is there any way you could stall for time, tell him you’re sick or got into a car accident, something to give us a few more hours to put something together?”
“Sure, I guess so.”
“We want to arrest Miguel today. We need you to help us with that. The best way to do that is what we call a ‘buy-through.’ We let him give you the day’s numbers, you pay him with some money that we give you, then we let him go on his way. We’ll arrest him later in the day, so he doesn’t know what happened, or where we got the information. We bring him in and then afterward we drag you in and put you in the adjoining cell. You accuse him of rattin’ you out to keep up appearances. We arrest a few others, so no one knows where it all started. Now if he doesn’t cooperate, and we can’t get enough other evidence, we may have to use your information, and you may have to testify. That is a possibility.”
“We’ll do everything we can to keep that from happening,” added Posada.
Morley nodded. “The sooner we arrest Miguel, we go to work on him and start to cut you out. Your information will only be used to corroborate and confirm what he says. We use his information to arrest everyone else. The key now is getting some extra time to get you ready and put a plan in place. Would Miguel believe you were in a car accident, and that your car was damaged to the point that you couldn’t drive it?”
“Maybe. I think so,” said the increasingly sleepy informant.
“Good. I’m going to have agents Swann, Posada, and Greere help you with the call. Once we’re sure we can move on this, they’ll brief you more thoroughly.”
Morley turned to the agents. “Murray and Kruzerski are en route to the meeting point to look it over. They’ll put something together to cover the deal. I’ll go brief up. Get him ready.”
Morley started to wonder about Anthony. He knew better than most that suspects who agreed to cooperate fell into two camps: those who were willing to wear a wire because they thought it was exciting, and those who would only do it under the threat of severe penalty. Both camps had their dangers. The ones who had to be threatened tended to be minimalists. They would only get the bare minimum of information, then find some reason to end the discussion. They were also normally nervous, and often unable to pull off the assignment.
