"We could have done this better if you'd turned this over to us," one of the officers for the FBI's Seattle Field Office complained to the sergeant, "You got lucky with the fact that Albert Gamboni had left a fair number of his programs logged in when you caught him..."
"Shows that these guys ain't as smart as they like to think they are," Colonel Rick Harrison in charge of the detention facility on Fort Wolfe commented, "and as for moving him... he came onto OUT post and OUR immediate jurisdiction. Just because yer FBI and Agent Baoman has ben actively chasing the Gambonis around the country does not mean you get to control what stupidly stumbles onto our base."
The FBI officer glanced over to Harrison with a raised eyebrow. The man was clearly from Texas and carried with him a lot of the same sort of swagger that was typical of the average Texan. It was another thing that differed this US Army Colonel from a Nevada pawn shop owner, the other being that Colonel Harrison was a fairly tall man with a full head of red hair. But the present issue wasn't so much about mistakes that had lead to the arrest of Albert Gamboni but the required technology needed to go over all the evidence that would be needed to convict Albert Gamboni of the various internet crimes that the man had committed. There had been various warrants for searches of his hardware and software over the years, but the Gambonis had played the proverbial shell game with regard to what was searched on when this was to be done. The fact that he'd stumbled onto an army base and gotten caught had finally put those games to an end.
However, getting that evidence would require some expert computer skills to execute that warrant. Particularly with the fact that while Albert had remained quietly in the cell that Harrison's MPs had put him in, he hadn't been that cooperative in sharing his passwords, which made getting into many of the files that were on his laptop computer difficult. The only real reason they were able to figure out the program that had been tracing Moe Charleston's phone was that the program was kept logged in and kept running, even when the laptop was turned off. In that part, they didn't have to really try all that hard to get into that program. But there were a lot of other programs that weren't left on and running, and the small office space area and the limited computing power of Fort Wolfe's systems made going through those programs more difficult.
"They may be arrogant," the FBI officer answered, "but I wouldn't say they're stupid. I may be low ranking computer analysis agent... and not a senior investigator type like Agent Baoman... but I'm smart enough to know that organized mobsters like the Gambonis generally don't get where they are by dumb luck. And I'd bet that you're smart enough to know that too."
"True..." Harrison officer shrugged, "but... even with running security and law enforcement on the base, I've tended to find that most criminals generally have to have some kind of major flaws that when ya think about it... ain't that brilliant. The key is finding it."
"With the Gambonis as a whole, that flaw is probably in Marcus's desire to catch and carry off Karen Charleston," the FBI officer commented, "in that... they've trailed that family around the country, after a point where even most organized crime families would either give up or change tactics greatly. As they've gone outside their territory, where they won't be as comfortable, and have already run into their own issues... Albert coming here, thinking that regular army personnel would all be from Washington State, and Marcus Gamboni killing a Park Ranger at Mount St. Helens in order to steal one of their vehicles."
The FBI officer looked over to Harrison as he continued to work at figuring out a way to get into a program that looked like it was financial, and thus might help them find out where the Gambonis had been before Albert was caught. That might provide some means of figuring out where those that hadn't caught were now, particularly with the fact that there was some pretty clear evidence that Marcus had killed the park ranger and might help the FBI's organized crime unit find some way of catching him. However, so far, the file was protected by a password, which so far the FBI officer could only guess at because the Army's computer wasn't well equipped enough to allow him to actually get through the password. Rick Harrison looked fairly curious, but also seemed to be thinking some things over.
"But the key will be in finding them," the FBI officer finished, "If only you could let the FBI take full custody of both Albert and the evidence caught with him. We could get his laptop analyzed and decoded so that we're not guessing at passwords and things like that... Particularly when there are already warrants out there to try and go through all of these things."
"He came onto our base, first," Harrison answered, "and under false pretenses... which means he lied when he came onto the base and got the entry pass."
"But his biggest crimes, and the ones we have warrants for came from outside your post," the FBI officer gave a sigh, "and in the end it'll be the conviction that matters, not where he was caught. That's why we need to get all the evidence from the computer. And right now... we're just left at guessing."
"Sometimes that works," Harrison answered and came around to look at the screen that the FBI junior agent was looking at.
He'd loaned his own office computer to the FBI agent who had Albert's laptop plugged into the USB port as he tried to crack the passwords that had been erected over certain files and data on the laptop. It was something that would ultimately let them look into Albert's laptop without there being any way to say that they had deliberately changed things, as they wouldn't be able to edit anything. It was essentially a "read only" mode. For the moment there was a log in box in the center of the screen. Behind it was a folder that looked like it read "Bank Info." It was likely some of the financial records the Gambonis had for their operation, which would make sense, given what they'd need to run a lot of their illegal activities, but checking those records would be needed. However, given that the Gambonis were suspected of many things from money laundering, theft, identity theft, and various other cyber crimes that could relate to money, the MP had a hunch that he figured to go with.
"And you think the one yer tryin' ta look at is banking related?" Harrison wondered.
"Or at least financially related with "banking" as a code word," the FBI officer answered, "but unlike the tracer the Gambonis managed to email into the Charlestons' phone... this program was logged out. The real problem is getting in..."
"Why not try "Bankers are Dumb" for the code," Harrison offered, "it'd relate to a lot of the sorts of crimes that any organized crime group has been suspected of."
"They wouldn't just write out those words," the FBI officer countered, "It'd be too easy. Given how advanced some hackers have gotten over the years... codes have had to become more and more random just to stay ahead of them."
"Maybe, but if all those files have different passwords... they need to be easy to remember," Harrison reminded him, "as we didn't exactly get his notes on paper with him. No one has that good of a memory that they can remember and keep track of so many different passwords if all they are are random symbols and letters. There would need to be something that would make them memorable. And even there... that doesn't mean it all HAS to be in straight English. Try - B - @ - n - k - 3 - r -$ - R - D -u - m - B. Or some variation on that."
The FBI officer gave a shrug and then typed things in. He didn't expect it to work, but so far, trying to go by what he had been trained to do hadn't been working with regard to the present situation. He figured he'd demonstrate that Harrison's method might work in other aspects of police work, but not with regard to computer hacking and thus the demonstration would show Harrison that at least control of the evidence needed to go over to the FBI and get it to a system that could better break down the various passwords that Albert had protecting his computer's files.
To his great surprise, though, the log in box blinked and then vanished and the file opened. Displayed on the screen were a series of sub files for nearly every major bank in the country. One set had the line "login" while the one under it was a direct web-link to the bank in question. It was a surprise, but one that the FBI officer figured did link him the Gamboni's finances. He decided to double check and clicked on the web-link which then brought up the webpage for the bank in question. What soon became suspicious however was that the login screen for the bank didn't read as a costumer login. It read as an employee login. The agent then minimized the tab and checked on the file for the log in information. That opened up a notepad page that had the login name and password posted for that bank, and the name wasn't even remotely close to Albert Gamboni or any other member of his family.
"This can't be the Gamboni's account..." the FBI officer said slowly.
"Maybe someone he stole the identity from?" Harrison offered as he looked at the posted user name.
"Maybe," the FBI officer said slowly.
Just to test it, he copied the login name and then went back to the login screen on the bank's webpage. This was then repeated for the password, and to the FBI agent's horror a new scream came up. The screen displayed the full name at the top of the page and noted that it was the name of the owner of the bank in question. What then followed was a readout that covered the bank's expenses and how much money had been made over the course of its last period, along with all new accounts added and the transactions listed that had recently happened.
"He did steal some one's identity!" Harrison gasped as he looked on.
"Not the identity... he hacked the bank's own computer system and owner," the FBI agent spoke, "and managed to mask it so that any security measures wouldn't notice the login coming from OUTSIDE where that owner would be... or if Albert logged in at the same time as the owner."
"He could steal a ton of money that way!" Harrison spoke with shock and some anger in his voice.
"He could... but apparently didn't," the FBI agent commented, "as these transactions all appear to be within the range that would be expected from the average person, and the banks are still marking profits."
"So... if he's not robbing the banks with this... what IS he doing?" Harrison wondered.
"My best guess is that he's monitoring the transactions as another way of tracking the Charlestons," the FBI officer answered and then dug his phone out and began dialing Agent Baoman's number, "for if Moe Charleston takes out any loan or moves his accounts... he'd need to include things like an address and phone number included."
"So they could find these... Charlestons?" Harrison asked.
"Potentially," the FBI officer answered and then lifted his cellphone to his ear.
"How are we making with the computer?" came Agent Baoman's voice through the phone.
"Well... sir... Colonel Harrison still wants to hold onto it until we can formally send Albert Gamboni at least over to the courts that have cases open for him first... but we did manage to guess at one of the passwords he has," the FBI officer answered, "and that's revealed a problem."
"Just what we need," Agent Baoman's groan was so loud that even Colonel Harrison could hear it.
"It gets worse," the FBI officer answered, "Albert, at least, managed to hack practically every bank in the country and was using the owner's pages to then track every transaction the bank made... which means they could well have some idea where the Charlestons are regardless of whether or not the police in Moon Lake were able to de-bug his phone."
"Damn!" Agent Baoman cursed over the phone, again loud enough that even Colonel Harrison could hear. After a moment, Agent Baoman spoke, but at a softer tone, "Well... we at least have an arrest warrant out for Marcus regarding his shooting of a park ranger... that will hopefully keep them quiet until we get some leads as to where they are. In the meantime, get phone numbers for the banks that Albert Hacked and then get ready for a lot of phone calls tomorrow..."
"Of course, sir," the FBI officer answered and then gave a heavy sigh.