by Jack Davis
At 0500 hours, Greere confirmed with Blizzard that the account was not active. Next the character’s account was looted and the note from Awesome Sauce was inserted.
Simultaneously, the Western Union account was cleaned out.
51 | Blinding Rage
Endwell, New York, 10/15/09, 0900 hours
The Thing was used to getting angry. It had been angry more often than not since childhood, It was accustomed to the feeling. Anger was a significant part of Its personality. It used anger both on quests, and in day-to-day existence. Many people who had to deal with It at work deferred just to avoid having to endure one of the trademark flareups. The outbursts were a form of emotional bullying that the Thing had perfected over the years. It exploded at users, colleagues, and peers at least weekly, and often multiple times a week. The only group that seemed exempt from the anger were supervisors. Not that they didn’t make It furious—they actually made It madder than all the others—but in the back of the Thing’s mind there was always a fear they might be able to hurt It somehow. Not being able to yell or in some way berate management, thereby releasing anger, added to the problem. That generated a frustration level that triggered debilitating migraine headaches. The Thing found that, taking Its anger out on someone else lessened the pain.
So, after a lifetime of consistent anger, the rage that rose within the Thing after he logged onto his WoW account was off the charts. It peaked after seeing Swann’s note. The pain was beyond anything It’d ever felt. The instant migraine forced the Thing to the floor for an hour. Every time It tried to stand, nausea swept in and Its head pounded beyond the point It could bear.
Not until the Thing started devising a plan for revenge was It was able to relieve some of the pressure behind the eyes and temples. Initially, It could think of nothing but the last part of the plan, the part where It had the maggot who called himself Awesome Sauce completely incapacitated. The part where the terror would be so intense It would almost be worse than the pain—almost. The Thing would have to rise to new heights of barbarity for this victim. This one would die more slowly and painfully than anyone else. This one had attacked the Thing Itself. No one had ever done that!
When able to sit up, the Thing understood there were a lot of parts to this play that had to take place before It would be able to enjoy the final act. Thinking through the process, the Thing realized finding the identity of the opponent would not be nearly as easy as tracking down internet whores. This led to a new wave of pain.
After more rounds of slight relief and then renewed anguish, noon had passed. The Thing needed to contact the customer service desks at both WoW and Western Union. It had to see if there was any way to mitigate or minimize what had happened. If It could easily or semi-easily reverse what the future victim had done, that would be a victory and help alleviate the anxiety and lessen the physical discomfort.
The Thing had significant experience in dealing with the WoW account resolution process; It knew to start by sending an email. It was not able to adequately express the level of anger in the initial email and after hitting the 250-character limit halfway through the rant, the headache started to return. The Thing was just able to trim the email and hit send before throbbing temples forced a return to the couch and a cold washcloth.
The duration of this attack was less than ten minutes, after which It rose and picked up the phone.
Once connected with the WoW operator the Thing was put on hold to await the next account representative. It paid no attention to the automated voice, “For quality assurance purposes this call may be recorded.” It was too busy thinking of all the excuses It was going to hear and planning responses.
“Blizzard Entertainment, World of Warcraft account services; can I help you?”
“Probably not, but I have to start somewhere; you might as well be the second person to pass me along.”
“What seems to be your problem this morn…wait, it’s afternoon where you are; what seems to—”
“Does the time where I am make any fucking difference?”
“No, sir, it doesn’t, I was just trying to be friendly.”
“I don’t need a fucking friend; I need someone from WoW to fix the problem they are partially responsible for, and I need them to do it NOW!”
“Sir, first of all, if you continue using that type of language I’m going to hang up.”
“Are you fucking kid—” The Thing heard a click. Its head began to throb. Redial, madder than ever. When a woman answered and asked if she could help, the Thing practically screamed, “Yes, one of your account trolls just fucking hung up on me! I want to speak to a supervisor immediately!”
The pleasant woman on the phone asked what ticket number he had been calling about.
The Thing, annoyed by the question, realized it was part of protocol. Without the ticket number, the woman wouldn’t get a supervisor. It provided the ticket number and was again put on hold. After fifteen seconds there was a click and then to the Thing’s amazement, he heard the voice of the man who had hung up in the first place.
“Blizzard Entertainment, World of Warcraft account services; can I help you?”
The Thing couldn’t even feel the pain in Its head for a split-second; only seeing red, It screamed, “I want to speak to your supervisor immediately!”
“Sir, I am the supervisor and if you do not lower your voice, I am going to hang up on you again and eliminate the support ticket.”
There was a long silence as the Thing tried to process what had just been said. Helplessness washed over It. It detested the feeling. The silence continued until It was able to come up with his next move.
“What’s your name? I want to report you.”
“We’re not allowed to give out our names. My Blizzard badge number is A415. You can refer to me with that number in any correspondence.”
It was again stymied. All normal weapons seemed to be useless against this opponent. The Thing was being forced to deal with him, and on his terms. Before the Thing could think of what to say next, A415 asked again.
“What can I do to assist you this morning?”
There were a thousand things that the Thing wanted to say to the imbecile on the other end, but It knew they would all result in the same response. “My account has been raided. They took everything. I want to know what Blizzard is doing to reconstruct my account and catch the assholes responsible.”
“Sir, my records indicate the ticket was only submitted twenty-two minutes ago. At this point it has been put in the priority queue. An investigator should start processing it sometime tomorrow. From that point, depending upon what is uncovered, it could take as long as ten days to resolve the ticket.”
“TEN DAYS! TEN DAYS! Are you…” the Thing caught Itself, “kidding me? How can it take ten days to see my account has been stolen and someone else has it?”
“Sir, I’m sure that you’re right, but there are protocols we have to follow to ensure we do things responsibly, and to keep it from happening again.”
“I work in technology, and I know protocols. What can take ten fu…What can possibly take ten days?”
“Sir, if you are in technology, you should know that if you have protocols, you don’t just abandon them when you get an angry user. Now, it might not be ten days, it usually isn’t, but it will take some time. We have to pull the records from when it happened. We’ve got to make sure you’re not involved. Once we determine that we need to look at the account, if it is being used, is it just being farmed for equipment and gold, etc. We have to follow our standard procedures. You must understand how processes work, being in the IT field.”
The Thing, still extremely agitated knew that A415 was telling the truth, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Then It decided to try something It hadn’t done in years, appealing to A415’s good nature.
“I’ve been on the game since it came out. If you look at my account, you can see I’ve been one of your loyal customers for years. I’m a beta tester,
the best your company has. Is there anything you can do about putting me up higher in the queue?”
He waited to see if this approach had the desired effect.
“I see you’re one of the classics. Even though we started off badly, I’ll look and see who is in front of you. If it isn’t Shatner or Mr. T, I’ll put you at the top. Please give me a call tomorrow and I’ll let you know where you are.”
Feeling it might enhance the Its chances, the Thing again, said something It hadn’t in years, “Thank you.”
“Understand, even if I put you up at the front of the line, it will still take a while for the staff to conduct their investigation.”
“How long will that take?” The Thing’s tone was harsher than It’d planned.
“If there are no complications, it should only take a couple days. If there are complications, like a hacker in the system, it could take a week.”
The Thing reached for his opening. “Is there any way that I could get any information regarding the account of the character who hacked my account? I would like to make his life miserable…on the game I mean.”
“I know what you mean; I’d be pretty upset too. We’ll take care of the offender. He’ll be banned from the game.”
“You and I both know he’ll just open another account and within a couple of months be right back where he was. If you just let me know who it is, you can ban him for a while and then I can make his game-playing experience so bad he’ll give it up voluntarily.”
There was a chuckle. “As much as I’d like to, I can’t. Give us a call tomorrow, ask for me, and I’ll have more information for you.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow morning.” There was a pause and then another painful, “Thank you.” The headache was almost gone.
Next, Western Union. Having learned, the Thing decided to start out as the wronged account holder looking for help. It could always degrade from there, and it would be much better for It’s head.
The Other Side of the Phone (10/15/09, 0900 hours)
Greere was laughing so hard he had tears rolling down his cheeks as he watched Swann hang up the phone. His friend had played MichaelTAA perfectly and hanging up was the pièce de résistance. It was actually a very gutsy move, not knowing if there would be a call back, then not being sure WoW security could again forward the call quickly enough to not spook their suspect. It was a masterpiece, but through it they only learned the suspect was using Skype to make his calls. Trace-backs resolved to proxy upon proxy, the second one being in Bulgaria. The phone trace-back angle was a black hole.
That evening at the briefing, all the agents agreed it was a waste of an Oscar-worthy performance by Swann. They would have to be content knowing they had a good amount of MichaelTAA’s voice that could be analyzed and used later, when the suspect had been identified. They would have to track him through other means or continue to wait for him to make a mistake. They still had the possibility of luring him to a location with the WU account—doubtful, but possible.
Western Union (10/15/09, 1000 hours)
The Thing had much less luck with the security department at Western Union. After filling out the company theft report online and referring to that number on the prerecorded messages, It got to a real person. As expected, the initial person could not help. The call was transferred to a supervisor in the security department. After what seemed like an extremely long time, a man answered the line and apologized for having had him on hold for so long. For security purposes, that individual asked to have the Thing confirm his identity. It was everything the Thing could do to not tell the idiot that it was a little late now to worry about security. Instead, It confirmed the identity of Keith Nelson and answered all the confirmation questions.
Once the WU investigator was satisfied, the Thing listened as the investigator droned on about how the account had been hacked and they were looking into it. He asked a lot of the same security-related questions that had been on the intake form. The answers were short and terse.
Finally, unable to take it any longer, “How long? How long before I get my money back?”
“That’s impossible to say. It depends on the investigation. I can assure you we’ll get you your money as soon as possible.”
Having had it work once that day already, the Thing decided to give it another shot and appeal to the investigator’s good nature.
“I’m a disabled vet. This money might not be much to Western Union, but it’s two less meals a day for me, man.”
The Thing had done it, hit the jackpot.
“Hey, man, I get where you’re comin’ from. I was in the Army. What branch were you in?”
“Air Force.” The Thing was out of Its element and could get tripped up in this conversation. It needed to end it soon. “I got injured in a training accident, stateside.”
“That’s tough, man. Hope you are doin’ okay.”
“You know how it is, I take it one day at a time.”
“I know. I know.” There was a reflective pause. “Hey, I will personally make sure the claim is processed immediately.”
The investigator ended by telling the Thing, “You hang tough, and if you need anything, call me back anytime.”
For the third time that day, the Thing was forced to say, “Thank you.”
As he hung up, the Thing was quite pleased. Some of the damage done by Awesome Sauce was being undone.
Before bed It tried to access Alvaro’s machine, without any luck. It would have to open a new account on WoW the following day and contact all Its clients to give them the new information. Some of the more paranoid would not believe the story. They’d assume there had been an arrest and that the Thing was setting them up. That couldn’t be overcome—not yet, that would take time. It would think about that later, after figuring out how to adequately eviscerate Awesome Sauce…first virtually, and then hopefully physically. Just the name was annoying, it reeked of some twenty-something who was most likely a point-and-click hacker. Someone who had no idea of the intricacy of writing good code. Someone who had no appreciation for the people who had come before him and paved the way. He would find out though; oh, he would find out what a real hacker could do, and he’d regret the day he saw the nic MichaelTAA.
52 | Connected…Sort Of
NYFO, 10/15/09, 1330 hours
Most of Thursday, after the phone calls from MichaelTAA, seemed anticlimactic. The agents continued the more mundane aspects of the investigation. With Swann, Greere, and Posada tied up developing programs and plans to trap and trace the suspect, it was left to Kruzerski and Murray to follow up with the remaining porn site owners and systems administrators. By now the two had participated in enough of the previous calls that they could walk the people on the other end of the phone through the process of determining if their sites had been compromised. They sat close to each other in case there was a question one or the other couldn’t answer. Four more infected sites had been identified by the time they finished and moved to the sites they’d been unable to reach the previous day.
Attorney Beau Yardley (10/15/09, 1647 hours)
The success at finding additional sites pushed the un-contacted pile further down in the priority stack. It wasn’t until 1647 hours that Kruzerski called the number listed for the Blairs’ attorney.
The call was answered by a pleasant voice with a Southern accent. “Turcotte, Becker, and Yardley, this is Linda Preston, how can I help you?”
“Good afternoon, this is Agent Kruzerski of the US Secret Service, I would like to speak to someone regarding the Blairs.”
“Mr. Kruzerski,” she said the name slowly to try and pronounce it correctly, “let me connect you with Mr. Yardley. Hold please.”
A few seconds later there was a click. “Beau Yardley.”
“Mr. Yardley, my name is Brian Kruzerski. I’m an agent with the New York Office of the Secret Service. I’m calling regarding a case we have that may involve your former clients.”
“Have you caught anyone?” Yardle
y sounded anxious.
A somewhat surprised Kruzerski hesitated slightly. “Yes, sir. We’ve arrested a number of people so far, and we believe we’re getting closer to the individual who set the whole thing up.”
“There was more than one person involved? The local police didn’t mention anything about that.”
A now somewhat confused Kruzerski continued to plow ahead. “Well sir, I’m not sure what you’re referring to with the local police; at this point I don’t even know if there is any tie-in. We’re still trying to connect certain dots. I can tell you we’ve made three arrests in our case—two here in New York and one in another district. We need your help to determine if our case has anything to do with the Blairs.”
“You’ve caught three people. Are sure they are involved? Do you have confessions?”
“Yes sir, we’ve arrested three people. We’re trying to work our way up the ladder to the person at the top of the chain. We want the person responsible for the distribution. That’s why I’m callin’ you—to help with the computer portion of the investigation. Do you have access to the Blairs’ computers?”
The word “distribution” made it clear to Yardley his former clients had been killed for drugs. “Sure, I’ll do anything to help you track down these sick bastards. I’ll have Paul Fugate give you a call later today and he’ll help you with anything you need.”
Realizing that Yardley wasn’t the man to help him with the computer search, Kruzerski moved to close out the conversation. “That’d be great. I left your secretary my number. I can be reached at that number twenty-four-seven. Once you have someone who can access the machine, the first portion should only take about fifteen minutes. If we find anything, I’ll send an agent from our Savannah office to see you to take an image of the hard drive. That may take up to a few hours.”
“We’ll do anything we can to help you.”
“Thanks. The first thing I need is to talk to someone there about the computer. I’ll also need the contact information of the local detective handling the case so we can coordinate our efforts.”
