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Her view of America was a red, white and blue-suited “Uncle Sam”, walking on stilts at a town parade when she was a schoolgirl, this larger- than-life representation of America being just that, standing tall, leading the way. It was why she was at the Agency. She considered her native Virginia the cradle of American history. Family trips when she was a young girl were to places like Declaration of Independence author Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello estate, and founding father George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon. She had never had children of her own while she remained rock-steady focused on her career.
What a bitch! Balducci couldn’t help but thinking as he left the building and headed out to his car in the visitor’s section of the sprawling parking lot. That first meeting hadn’t gone nearly as well as he had hoped, due to Molan’s clear opposition, but he knew that Molan understood that he came with the blessing of POTUS, so she had no choice but to cooperate. Or did she?
“Did he leave you with any written instruction?” Cunningham asked.
“No Sir.”
“Good. So it is just a verbal order from one guy. And since it contradicts our current instructions, I’ll tell you what we can do...”
29. HEADING HOME
Lippnow’s penchant for speeding and reckless driving was nothing new; it was part of his showing off to no one in particular. Give him a drink or three or four and he was almost guaranteed to do something stupid behind the wheel. Which was precisely the situation this frustrating afternoon on the way home from Kennedy Airport.
The police car that spotted him observed the SUV swerving between lanes, causing other cars to brake abruptly. The driving was just too erratic to be one of those women whose rich husband bought her a jeep that she doesn’t know how to drive, or someone too cheap to buy a hands-free unit fidgeting with his cell phone while driving. The trooper put on his red flashing strobe and accelerated his Dodge Charger to catch up to the SUV, feeling the power of its 340 horsepower V8 engine kick in as it closed distance behind the jeep. Seeing the flashing lights in his rear view mirror, Lippnow let out a loud “Fuck!” as his day continued to get worse. He braked, signaled and moved to the right lane in the unlikely hope that he wasn’t the object of the policeman’s attention. When the squad car pulled up behind him and hit the squawk on the cruiser’s bullhorn, there was no question it was him. Still emboldened by alcohol, he remained confident and defiant as he decelerated and looked for a safe place to pull over.
The squad car’s dashboard camera videoed the routine stop as the car’s red strobe lights reflected off the Range Rover’s tinted rear window. When the officer punched the vehicle’s license plate number into his in-car computer console, he received an error message indicating an invalid entry. The officer carefully punched in the license plate number a second time, certain this time that he had entered the number correctly, only to see the same error message. Picking up his microphone, the officer radioed dispatch to ask if there was a problem with the computer system.
The response crackled over the radio a moment later: “Negative.”
After notifying dispatch that he is on a traffic stop and about the error messages coming up on the computer, he reported his location and gave vehicle details on Lippnow’s Range Rover Evoque. He was a veteran of the force, wise enough to know the dangers inherent in even a routine traffic stop, which is why he kept dispatch so well informed. He had learned way back when he was in the academy that a traffic stop is an investigation, with many a wanted criminals caught for traffic violations. He even remembered the example his instructor had used: Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was arrested for a traffic violation before authorities knew he was behind the murder of 168 people in 1995.
Stepping out of the patrol car, the pug-nosed officer put on his tan felt Stetson hat, straightened his shirt, and slowly and cautiously approached the expensive vehicle, carefully watching the driver as he walked towards Lippnow’s vehicle on the driver’s side. The officer stopped at the rear of the Evoque to make sure the hatchback was securely latched—a protective measure meant to prevent someone from quietly emerging and surprising the officer from behind. It also put the officer’s fingerprints on the vehicle in the event the traffic stop went very much awry and resulted in a code 10-00 officer down situation.
A very annoyed-looking Lippnow impatiently waited, his left elbow resting on the open window, the other visible on the steering wheel. After a cursory look, the police officer clicked on his radio’s toggle switch to update dispatch: “One occupant in vehicle.” The officer was happy there was no cell phone camera being thrust in his face by the driver to record the entire encounter—the latest trend in an era where any police encounter with the public has the potential to quickly spiral into national news.
“Roger, copy,” the radio crackled back.
“Can I help you with something, officer?” Lippnow asked obnoxiously.
“License and registration please,” the officer calmly requested, ignoring the rude greeting. The officer unsnaps the protective loop on his Glock 37 service firearm’s holster and keeps his right hand on its grip without taking his eyes off Lippnow, fumbling through his glove compartment until he finds the car’s registration, then lifts himself up from the grained leather seat to remove his wallet from his back pocket, from which he removed his driver’s license. He handed them both over to the officer.
The trooper glanced at the documents, seeing that everything looked in order.
The officer glanced back at Lippnow before returning to his cruiser to punch in the driver’s license number into the in-car console. Again an error message. The license must be a forgery. The license and registration documents appeared authentic, but he recalled a lecture from a Treasury Department Secret Service agent about counterfeiting. Using readily available items like printing inks and papers, the agent had told the police audience, the most convincing documents can be produced with little difficulty. The officer updated dispatch before returning to the Land Rover, this time with adrenaline flowing through his veins now that he knows the guy he pulled over is some type of crook.
“It took you long enough. Can I go now? I think you’ve wasted enough of my time already.” Lippnow greets him this second time.
“Sir,” the officer instructs, “please turn off your vehicle and hand me the keys.”
“Do you know who I am?” Lippnow challenged the police officer. Probably no sentence irritates a cop more than that one. The officer calmly shook his head no.
“No sir, I do not. And I don’t know if anyone else does either.” He didn’t know exactly what the police officer meant, but the remark did seem to capture a series of strange coincidences that were beginning to come together into a pattern.
“Keys, sir,” the officer demanded, holding out his left hand.
“What are you doing, confiscating my car?” Lippnow asks sarcastically. The officer’s stern gaze convinced Lippnow to comply. The officer placed the keys on the roof of the SUV.
“Hey! Don’t scratch the roof or your department will be paying for a new paint job!”
“Sir,” the officer says, “there is no record of this car or your driver’s license. Would you mind stepping out of the vehicle please?”
Dulled as his senses were by alcohol, he finally connected the dots. His credit card, his passport, and now his license and registration. He would later learn that his IRS documents and social security data had been tampered with, as well.
“Someone’s fucking with me!” Lippnow yelled out in an angry outburst. He pounded the steering wheel with the bottom of his fists, again shouting, “Someone’s fucking with me!” He let out a scream of frustration and fear and anger that was something like a lion’s roar.
The startled policeman recoiled in shock and fear. “Sir, calm down and watch your language,” the policeman ordered, his hands shaking nervously at this unexpected outburst.
“What t
he fuck am I supposed to do?” Lippnow yelled back. “You’re telling me I don’t have a driver’s license and my car’s not registered?”
Getting a grip on himself, the policeman firmly instructed: “Sir, slowly remove your seatbelt and then step out of the car please.”
“I don’t know what the fuck is going on!” Lippnow objected, losing control of the situation.
Tensing up as adrenaline coursed through his body, the officer warned: “Sir, you better calm down and follow my orders before I tase you.” With that, the policeman stepped back—careful to stay off the road where a distracted driver could accidently strike him-unsnapped the leather protective loop of the taser’s holster on his duty belt, and put his hand on the weapon’s grip, poised to pull it out and fire. The police officer knew that a situation can go bad and end up in injury or death when an occupant is argumentative, agitated and hostile-the very situation brewing before him.
Despite raging with anger, confusion, and his judgment impaired by alcohol, the prospect of dart-like electrode probes jolting him with high voltage electricity quickly sobered him.
“No, don’t tase me,” Lippnow said in a much calmer tone as he raised his hands slightly so the policeman would feel more comfortable.
“Now get out of the car slowly.” The officer was standing a safe distance from Lippnow, aiming his Taser as Lippnow opened the vehicle’s door and slowly exited to be handcuffed, have his Miranda rights read to him and led off to the back seat of the police squad car, leaving the expensive Range Rover on the side of the road to be impounded.
Parovsky noticed the drop off in Lippnow’s email traffic, yet had no idea Lippnow had been arrested and thrown into prison, and certainly not the ripple effect his actions had caused at the CIA over in Langley. As far as Parovsky was concerned, he had done his small part to thwart what appeared to be an illicit effort to help Iran. And even if it happened to be legit, as it were, then it was a long-overdue shot at an asshole who long had it coming to him.
To re-engage with Chaseman, Alexandra and his mother and to explain away his recent aloofness, Parovsky wrote in separate emails:
Just finished up something I’ve been working on.
What’s up with you?
-Ell
# # #
Acronyms
APT
Advanced Persistent Threat
ATF
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms
CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
C1RT
Computer Incident Response Team
CISO
Chief Information Security Officer
CTO
Chief Technology Officer
DCA
Department of Cyber Activity
DDOS
Distributed Denial of Service cyber attack
DoS
Department of State
FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
FSB
Russia’s Federal Security Service, successor to the KGB
Intel
Intelligence
IT
Information Technology
KGB
Soviet Union’s central intelligence agency
Langley
Headquarters location of the CIA
NSA
National Security Agency
QME
Qualitative Military Edge
SIC
Security Information Center
State
Department of State
TLA
Three Letter Agency
NTP
Network Time Protocol
ICC
International Chamber of Commerce