by Jack Davis
They watched Antonescu dial a number and listen. He cocked his head and looked at the receiver. He dialed what the agents would later find out was the same number again, with the same results. It had been disconnected. He tried one more time before he set the phone down and put his head on the desk, shaking it back and forth. He sat up, stretched over to the door, and knocked.
When Morley and Greere walked in, they could see Mihai was upset.
“Is everything okay?” asked Morley
“Problem to phone number. Mihai must vait friend to call.”
The agents could see he was visibly shaken.
“Mihai go back cell and lie down if okay?”
The agents escorted Antonescu down the hall and watched as the dejected Romanian shrank into his cot.
Before he left, Morley asked, “Do you plan on representing yourself in court?”
Antonescu looked confused so Morley rephrased the question, “Are you going to be your own lawyer tomorrow in front of the judge? If not, you probably should get a lawyer.”
In terms of prosecuting the case, it went against every tenet of law enforcement. Morley saw a startled look flash across Greere’s face.
“Mihai’s friend call soon. Tonight maybe. He make all better. Mihai no vant vaste anyone mores time.”
Morley noticed that even though Antonescu seemed dejected, he was confident in his answer. Not cocky like so many of the suspects the agents had interviewed in similar situations.
Antonescu’s sincerely apologetic manner was disconcerting. It made Morley wonder if he might be an informant for another agency. He made a mental note to contact the ASAC Shaw later to confirm Antonescu wasn’t working for them. He would also ask Posada to do the same for DEA, BATF, and the intel community. Based upon Antonescu’s country of origin, there was a possibility he was being used against Eastern European gangs or possibly from the spook side of the house for something even more covert. Morley knew it was a long shot, but stranger things had already happened in this case.
Before Antonescu was back in his cell, the agents had the tape of the call and started tracing back the number. It was a local number and when dialed, they got a disconnected recording. Scott and the PD ran it and within thirty minutes found it came back to a Tavis Okoffu, an African & African-American Studies professor at SUNY Brockport.
Interviews the following day would determine Okoffu had no idea there was a phone in his name being used in upstate New York. Since the bill was being paid, he would not have found out if it weren’t for the agents knocking on his door. The bill was being paid like so many others, via the now closed Western Union account.
The important part about the phone number was that it had been disconnected over the internet the day of Antonescu’s arrest. The termination of service for the account required affirmative action; it wouldn’t just lapse on its own and it hadn’t been canceled for nonpayment.
It was the same number he had called when first arrested. Calling it again indicated that he hadn’t anticipated it being cancelled. He hadn’t had access to any means of canceling the account since being arrested. The phone company could provide no usable information as to the email address that had requested the termination. The last hop they were able to identify was an ISP in Bucharest.
After that, the agents could find no more information; it was another dead end, but a dead end that pointed away from the crestfallen Romanian.
61 | The Interview from Hell
Endwell, New York, 10/18/09, 1554 hours
Craig Lublin was upstairs in his spare bedroom—study—working on an old computer he had found at a garage sale when he saw a car pull up in front of his house. Two men got out. They were dressed in suits, with short haircuts, and appeared to be in good physical condition.
Lublin knew immediately they were not local police. Secret Service, interesting. He hurried down the stairs to greet his guests. He caught himself as he slouched across the room and straightened up before he got to the door.
Things went badly for Lublin almost immediately. When he opened the door, the two men had their badges out. The larger of the two introduced them, “Agents Kruzerski and Swann of the Secret Service. Are you Craig Lublin?”
“Yes, I am. Can I help you?”
“Are you Mihai Antonescu’s supervisor?”
“Yes…” Lublin was about to move through his prepared script as the “stunned supervisor” when it happened. The agent who hadn’t spoken yet looked to his left and sneezed into the crook of his arm. He quickly apologized, took out a tissue, and blew his nose. Then to Lublin’s consternation, he asked if there was someplace he could dispose of it. Lublin was completely thrown off.
Somewhat like his doctor characters on the road, he did have a phobia when it came to germs. Although it was well behind his fear of the dark, it was growing as he got older.
Lublin hadn’t expected the tissue problem. He tried to mentally regroup.
“I’ll get you a trash can. Please wait right here.”
When he moved away from the door, the first agent asked, “D’ya mind if we come in; we have a few questions for you.”
Lublin’s anxiety got the better of him. His mind began to race. He wondered how much the agents knew. Were they trying to get into his house to look for evidence? But there was no evidence, not at his house anyway, what was he worried…
The larger of the two agents started to walk in the door. Lublin moved forward to block his way.
It seemed to aggravate the agent, who gave a surprised look as he cocked his head.
“We have some questions to ask an’ we’d rather not do it out on your front porch.”
Lublin didn’t like the fact he was now well off his script, or any alternate scripts he had prepared. It wasn’t going right at all. He thought it best if he postponed the interview until he had regrouped. In trying to do so, he dug himself even deeper.
“I’m pretty busy right now.”
“Yeah, so are we. This won’t take long and it’s more important than whatever you got goin’ on, believe me.” The agent used his forearm to brush Lublin out of his way and enter the house.
Only the fact that Lublin was holding onto the doorknob kept him from falling down.
“You can’t just barge into my house; I want to see a warrant,” said Lublin, his indignation obvious.
Something in the back of Swann’s mind was trying to make itself known. There was something he was missing. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something wrong. It was just out of focus, like waking up and trying to recreate a dream. He wished he hadn’t taken the cold medicine. There was something there, but he couldn’t grasp it. He lost it as he heard his partner’s voice.
“Listen, Johnny fuckin’ Cochran,” the big agent didn’t even turn back, he just walked into the middle of the living room and looked around. “You can whine and moan if ya want, but my partner and I both heard you ask us to come in.”
Lublin stopped staring at the back of the one agent and looked at the agent still holding the tissue. “Can’t we do this some other time, tomorrow maybe?”
“Hey pal, we can do this NOW, here, or we can do it down at the police station after we haul your ass in. That’s the only choice you got. What’s it gonna be?” said the agent in middle of the living room.
“Am I under arrest?” Lublin asked the agent still on the porch.
“Not right now, but you’re workin’ on it,” came the response from the ape behind him.
Lublin grasped at the same straw again, but this time a shorter version. He thought that with a few minutes to compose himself, he would be fine. In his mind it was a perfectly reasonable request.
“I am pretty busy right now. Can this wait thirty minutes?” he asked the thoughtful-looking agent.
Again, the response came from the agent he wasn’t talking to, “Yeah, we’re only investigatin’ multiple felonies! We’ll just go and get ourselves a latte until you’re ready.”
The agent
on the porch finally spoke. “Mr. Lublin, the network you’re responsible for has been used to commit multiple federal felonies. It is suspected of being used in other crimes. One of your employees is being charged with using your network as a tool to commit crimes all over the world. I seriously doubt you have anything more important than talking to us right now.”
The big agent, who seemed to fill up the center of the room, went into Lublin’s kitchen and grabbed the wastebasket. Returning, he held it out to his partner, who dropped the germ-infested tissue into it.
Lublin’s mind sputtered. I’ll have to sanitize the wastebasket…I’ll spray the whole living room and the kitchen. He couldn’t think with the gorilla right in front of him. What if he was sick too; he had been in the car with the other sick agent breathing the same air. Now he was breathing on Lublin, right in his face. Lublin hated it. He hated him. He hated his kind—bullies—you’re never immune from them.
He had a brief moment of clarity. He had a foolproof excuse to give himself more time to get his wits about him.
“I need a few minutes to address a personal matter.” Lublin added to the innuendo by motioning with his head to the stairs. Even the troglodyte had to understand his meaning now.
“Tell the Mrs. to put the vibrator on ‘stun’; you’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”
Lublin was floored at the crass nature of the comment, and only then realized he had no real answer to that response. He stumbled into, “I’m not married.”
“Now there’s a surprise,” said the ogre after he looked Lublin up and down. “Okay, then tell Princess Lay-ya you gotta take care of a couple of storm troopers. She can help you extend your light saber in a few minutes.”
Lublin was now completely flabbergasted. How could anyone be so offensive? He couldn’t have been more shocked if he had been tasered. He barely heard the other agent say, “Wait just a minute.”
When he looked up, the intelligent agent was putting the straps of a surgical mask around his ears. Lublin had now received too much data and his mental processer had shut down. Were the agents baiting him with the mask? They had to be, this couldn’t be a coincidence. They were trying to see his reaction. Wait—his reaction—he had to control his reaction. He couldn’t stop looking at the surgical mask. He heard the larger agent say, “You can’t be serious? You’re not gonna do the interview with that on your face are ya?”
“If Mr. Lublin doesn’t mind, it’ll keep me from spreading germs.”
Lublin couldn’t tell if there was sarcasm in his voice, or if it was sincere. All Lublin could say was, “It’s okay.”
“Thank you; I’m sorry and I wouldn’t normally conduct an interview when I’m sick, but this case is very important.”
“I understand.” He was going to start to try to have a dialogue with the obviously smarter of the two when he was again spun on the mental tilt-a-whirl by the other agent.
“You expectin’ an ellipse?”
Even if Lublin had known the agent meant eclipse, he wouldn’t have known what he was trying to say. “What?”
“It’s daytime and you got every light in the house on. You ever heard of conservin’ energy?” With that, the agent set the wastebasket back and turned off the kitchen light.
Lublin’s world was now officially crashing in around him. He started to sweat. He tried to walk to the kitchen to turn the light back on when the larger agent grabbed him by the back of the collar and lifted him onto his toes. “What’s it gonna be, here or the PD?”
He was barely able to squeak out, “Here.”
Lublin had been dealing in environments where he was in complete control for so long, he’d forgotten people like this agent even existed except as caricatures. Even in day-to-day life he was able to ignore someone like this. But now, this throwback was intimidating him…in his own house! The indignity was monumental.
Lublin couldn’t even console himself with the salve of retaliation. That might spoil his intricately prepared cover story. He was completely impotent…he was infuriated. Calm down.
“Mr. Lublin, does Mihai Antonescu work for you?” Not knowing the second agent was just trying to get things started by establishing the relationship, Lublin’s mind defaulted to: They are trying to set me up. They know I’m his supervisor. Why would they ask me that? What if they know he called me instead of a lawyer? Should I admit to the call? What are they trying to get at? What should I say? He realized he had to say something. He started to talk, and talk fast, and say more than he wanted to.
By the time he got himself under control, he’d said a lot. The worst part was that he couldn’t remember half of it. He had admitted he was Antonescu’s supervisor. While trying to lay the groundwork for his imminent sense of betrayal, he inadvertently gave the impression the two were close. That led to normal questions about his personal life, for which Lublin hadn’t prepared. He stumbled and continued to talk fast and sweat.
When Lublin got himself partially under control, he made sure he played up the fact he allowed his “superior” employees to work remotely as a perk. Then the intelligent-looking agent dropped Lublin back into the mental quicksand.
“Mr. Lublin, if Antonescu was such a good employee, why aren’t there any awards or letters of commendation from you in his personnel file? There seem to be plenty from the user community, but nothing from you. You gave him good overall performance appraisals, but nothing spectacular. What about a cash bonus?”
Lublin knew he should have kept his answers short. He struggled for what to say and settled on a shallow lie. “Funds for IT are scarce, no one really gets bonuses.”
He was about to relax when the agent said, “Commendation letters don’t cost anything.”
The implication was clear, the point made. Lublin struggled for an answer when the other agent got him off the hook.
“Does Antonescu travel much?”
Anticipating this series of questions, Lublin fell into his canned response.
“Yes, he does, I think. Anton,” he had been waiting to use the familiar nickname, “has a limited amount of annual leave. He told me he needed that to go back to Romania to help in the orphanage. I let him work remotely at times. I think he took the opportunity to go on other shorter vacations. That way he could use his two weeks for the trips back home.”
“Trips, plural?”
Good, they were following the breadcrumbs.
“Yes, Anton normally took a number of trips each year. They lasted a little over a week, not counting the weekends. I would give him some slack when he got back to catch up.”
Lublin watched the large agent’s eyes widen with excitement before his next question.
“Do you remember when his last trip was?”
Lublin was back in control; his heart rate was almost back to normal. He shook his head as if struggling. “I’m not sure of the exact dates, but there was one recently. I’ll look it up when I log in again.”
This is how it’s supposed to go. I feed you bits of information and you gobble them up like greedy little piglets. You may continue.
“Did he ever mention traveling anyplace else besides Romania?”
Excellent, time for me to spoon feed you the next nail in Antonescu’s coffin. I hope it scrapes all the way down, you fucking moron. “No, but as I said, I got the impression he did travel a lot. He once offered to thank me for allowing him the flexibility of working remotely by buying me a ticket anywhere in the US. He said it wouldn’t cost him anything because he could use frequent flyer miles.”
Lublin saw the light bulb go off over the useful idiot’s head. He smiled to himself, knowing the agents would look up Antonescu’s frequent flyer account and see all the flights to and from New York. If they knew about the murders, they would match the dates.
As he savored his tactical victory, he was interrupted by the intelligent agent.
“Do you know anything about Mr. Antonescu’s online gaming?”
While Lublin hadn’t given that line of qu
estions a lot of thought, he was able to come up with the solution. All he had to do was substitute Antonescu for himself. He said he knew Antonescu played the game World of Warcraft.
After a few more questions about Antonescu’s gaming, the ogre started asking questions confirming to Lublin they had found the child pornography. He threw in another seed he had been waiting to plant.
“Not Anton. It’s not possible. He’s too shy, too religious. I’ve never even seen him with a girl for goodness sake. Child porn? No!”
The ogre asked a few more questions on the topic and Lublin drew him closer to the idea Antonescu might be a child molester.
When the intelligent agent asked about Antonescu’s personality and temperament, Lublin thought they had moved off child porn and were probing the killings. He knew what everyone else would say about Antonescu. Mihai would be described as the male version of Mother Teresa. He decided to tell the truth…with a few strategic lies sprinkled in.
“Ohh no, I’ve never seen Anton lose his temper. He is very patient. Of course, we all have our breaking points. He’s only human. You can’t deal with average computer users without getting frustrated. Occasionally, he would vent to me if he had a particularly difficult user. I don’t think he ever let his guard down to anyone else.”
There, that should show Antonescu had another side and I was the only one who saw it.
“You two are close?” continued the smart agent.
“In a professional way, yes, you could say that. I acted as somewhat of a mentor.”
“Did you hire Mr. Antonescu?”
“Yes, as a level-two help desk technician. He has an excellent work ethic and as you mentioned, the customers like him a lot. He moved to a level three within two years. I recommended the promotion.”
“If your organization is like most I’m familiar with, level-two technicians are able to part the water. Level threes can actually walk on it. Is that about correct?”
Lublin smiled to be polite. “I guess that would be accurate. When I hired Mihai, he was able to do troubleshooting, diagnostics, and work with users to get them through eighty percent of their issues. That kind of skill set.”
