One Night In Bangkok Ch. 01

"Not at all. We could use your help." I replied. "And thank you for the coffee." Lindy smiled as she sat down to my left behind the desk. Shane was sitting on the other side, and I turned the monitor to which I'd attached my laptop so that he could see what I was doing.

The file folder on Cash's computer had been named 'Bangkok', which had piqued my interest. I'd downloaded other files, too, but I instinctively felt that this was the right file folder.

"Okay, there are nine files here." I said of the files in the folder. "The first is named 'Bangkok_Rules_1' with a suffix for a JPG image. The second is 'Bangkok_Meet_2' and is a Word file." I tried to bring it up, but the program asked for a password. I tried to bring up the JPG file, but the program said it wasn't an image file.

"Moving on," I said, "the third file is named 'Bangkok_Crown_3' and is an image file." I tried to bring it up, and it popped right up. I sat there for second, totally in shock. The file was of a crown, with the words 'Keep Calm And Bow To The Crown. God save the Queen' under it. It was the exact same image I'd seen in the 'Queenie Files' case (Author's note: 'Fathers and Sons', Ch. 02.) , just in a modern file format. It was also right side up instead of on its side.

"Don?" Lindy said. "You okay?"

"Uhhh, yeah." I said. "I've seen this before, when Charlie Griswold and I solved the Queenie Files. Exact same photo." After another long moment of contemplation, I said "Okay, let's look at the other files. 'Bangkok_Home_4' is an image file." I brought it up; it was a photo of Paul Cash in front of his home, the number '631' visible behind him.

"The next file, 'Bangkok_Home_5'," I said, "shows Cash in front of his home, standing on the sidewalk of the street. 'Bangkok_Me_6' is a headshot photo of Cash in his formal Police uniform, probably his official portrait. 'Bangkok_Me_7' shows a building. Nothing to say which building it is, though; no street number is visible. And I don't see Cash in the photo."

"That's the Social Security Administration Building, here in the City." Lindy said. "Immigration Services is in there, also."

"Okay." I said. "The next image is titled 'Bangkok_Caps_8'. And it's an image file that's... a red rectangle. Very small red rectangle, solid red. And the last one, 'Bangkok_Bar_9', is an image of a crow."

"Wow." said Shane O'Brady. "I don't mind saying I'm lost on this."

"Let's put the first file, which is not an image file despite the suffix, into a text editor." I said. A continuous row of letters came up, with no spaces, and some periods (.) and underscores (_) intermixed. A bunch of gibberish.

"That's a bunch of gibberish." Lindy said. "And no triple Vs, like that one in the Queenie Files you solved."

"Yeah." I said, perusing the jumble for a pattern.

"It could be anything." said O'Brady. "We may have to put it in a certain order for words to line up like in those puzzle books."

"Or worse, it may be a one-time pad." Lindy said. "We'll never solve that without the key."

"Hold on." I said, trying to get an insight to come into my head. "Let's get back to the beginning on this. Cash may want this to be solved, but he didn't want someone to just stumble on it. So he's not going to use a one-time pad. Those periods and underscores... dots and dashes..."

"Morse Code?" Lindy asked. "But how do you know what the separator is? There are no spaces. One dot is 'e', two dots is 'i'; one dash is 't', three dashes an 'o', but how to tell which is which?"

"Wait." I said. "The only symbol besides the dots and dashes, and the letters, is the pound sign (#). Let's try that." I quickly went through the file, writing down dots, dashes, and slashes. Then I translated the Morse Code into English: 'seven word passphrase'.

"The filename says 'rules'," I said, "so this is what the we have to find. Cash probably knows that Government computers can crunch a trillion calculations a second, and only a seven-or-more-word passphrase can make those computers take time. A seven word, completely random passphrase takes 150 years for those supercomputers to decode. Anything less, and we're talking minutes to hours. He didn't want the password-protected file to be solved by sheer trial-and-error. But he does want it solved, and I think these next seven files are the passphrase words... or numbers."

"What's more," I said, "I'm seeing a pattern here, but one that I am in a unique position to see. This crown photo is an exact duplicate of the one from the Queenie Files. Cash studied my case notes and Police reports. I also wrote a treatise for a Law Enforcement site that is not known to the general public, about what Charlie Griswold had done to solve the Queenie Files. This file was the only one I used from that, so it's the one Cash saw, and used."

"The key in the Queenie Files was the dimensions of the image, which was 509x503 pixels when upright." I continued. "If we look up this images dimensions, its... 509x503. I'll bet 509503 is the first 'word' of the passphrase."

"Amazing." said Lindy.

"I knew I shouldn't have slept through that cryptography class." quipped O'Brady. "Hell, I'd have failed it if I'd really taken it. How do you see these things?"

"In this case, it's 'been there, done that'." I said. "And I think Cash knew it. So if something happened to him, he was hoping that I'd be called in to look at things, and would see this and understand."

"And to that point, Shane," I said, "you may have noticed that Westphalia PD and even their I.A. people were very accommodating to us. They may have known about these files, but couldn't figure out how to solve them. They may have been hoping I'd be doing this on Cash's computer instead of here in the FBI's offices, and they'd be able to see what was going on, too."

"Well, let's solve the rest, and see what we find." Shane said.

"Okay, the fourth file, the second with a clue," I said, " is Cash on his front porch. And that address was, Shane?"

"631 Callen", said O'Brady. "That's a 'before' picture, by the way; the 'after' picture is mostly ashes." Lindy chuckled at the joke.

"Okay, lets just put down 631 for now." I said. "The next photo is him on the sidewalk, with the house behind him."

Lindy said "Maybe he's meaning the street. So after '509503', then it's '631', and 'Callen'."

"You're pretty darn good at this." I said. "Okay, the next photo is Cash's headshot. We can see his face, his badge, his ribbons, his nameplate. What's his badge number?"

"2207." said O'Brady. "I can make it out in the photo."

"Your eyes are better than mine." I said, though having seen it myself. Yes, I was trying to include the others in this, so they'd feel like they were part of the solution. "Okay, 2207 it is. Next, is the building. What's the address?"

"I've got that." Lindy said, typing on her laptop. "1401 Coburg Circle."

"Okay, let's add 1401 to the list." I said. "Next is a solid red rectangle. The pixels are... 26x56... oh, of course."

"What?" Shane and Lindy said together. Jinx on them.

"Atomic number and mass for the element iron." I said. "And I suspect the word 'iron' is more the clue than the numbers. But we'll see. The last photo is of a crow."

"Crowbar!" exclaimed O'Brady. "The filename says 'bar', and the photo is a crow. And if the word before is 'iron', and Cash was fixated on you, then the last two words might be 'Iron Crowbar'!"

"Outstanding." I said. "Okay, let's try it." I typed in '509503 631 Callan 2207 1401 Iron Crowbar', and hit return.

Nothing happened.

"That's not it." Lindy said forlornly. I tried not capitalizing the 'iron crowbar', that didn't work either.

"The filename says 'caps'," I said, "so let's try all caps." I did so, nothing happened.

"The caps name may mean that the first letters are capitalized." said Lindy. "So I think you were right with 'Iron Crowbar'. Maybe 'Callan' shouldn't be capitalized, or all caps?"

"Wait!" I exclaimed as I had an insight. "That building photo... the filename says 'me'! Maybe it's... what is his Social Security number?" I looked at Shane; after all, he'd known the man's badge number. But he shrugged.

"I've got that." said Lindy, typing away at her laptop. "His SSN is..." She said the number.

"Let's try the last four first." I said. I typed in '509503 631 Callen 2207 4285 Iron Crowbar', and hit return.

The file opened!

And then we read the contents:

Bangkok
McGinty
Sullivan
Reese
Jones

"Well, that's very... lacking." Lindy said.

"Lindy, you live in the City." I said. "What does 'Bangkok' mean to you? Location-wise?"

"It's a bar in the sleaziest part of town, near the Railyards and the docks." Lindy said. "It's more of a strip joint, actually, and it's rumored to have a BDSM club in the back areas. But I wouldn't know, I don't visit places like that... unless I'm making arrests."

"I get the feeling arrests aren't made there... though cuffs may be used." I said. "So, let's melt the wires and see what's up with these names."

At that moment, Jack Muscone came into the room. "How's it going?" he asked.

"Great!" said Lindy. "Don cracked the passphrase to the encrypted file."

"We all cracked it." I said. "Problem is, this is all the file said. Any of those names familiar to you?"

"Hmmm." said Muscone as Lindy typed on her computer. "Except for McGinty, the names are fairly common. But hearing them together... something's gnawing at me, but I'm not sure what it is."

"Tell you what, let me make a phone call." I said. I called the Police iPhone of Mary Mahoney Milton.

"Hi, Commander, what's up?" she said in her usual cheerful, irreverent way.

"Hi, Mary, are you still at work?" I asked.

"I'm at work 24/7, as always, sir." Mary said. "But yes, I'm in my office at Headquarters. We've got a drug bust tonight, so I'll be in late. Myron and Louise are at home."

"Good." I said. "Listen, I'm going to give you four names, and I need to know if you can find a correlation between them." I read the names to her, and said I had nothing more except that they were in a file on a murdered Police Officer's computer. She said she'd get right on it and call me back.

"Why didn't he give us the first names?" asked Shane O'Brady, in the form of mulling over the question. "I mean, if he left that file for you to find decode, it doesn't make sense that he makes it this hard for us to get the information on these names."

"Maybe he didn't know the first names." suggested Muscone.

Lindy said "Lexis-Nexis has nothing when I search for all four names. The FBI database also comes up empty when I require all four names. And... the same for any three of the names. And just too many hits if I put in 'OR' instead of 'AND' in the search query. There's gotta be a common thread, but we need to know what that is."

"Try this..." said Muscone. I didn't hear anything else. I was going into a reverie, and it lasted several minutes.

*BRING!* *BRING!* *BRING!* *BRING!*

"That's mine." I said. It was Mary Milton. When I answered, I said "That was fast! Got good news for me?"

"Maybe, sir." Mary said. "When you told me you got the names off a murdered Police Officer's computer, I put in the query to look for deceased LEOs, then murdered LEOs. And three of the four names came up."

"Le me put you on speaker." I said. I did so, then said "Go ahead."

Mary said "There's a Ted Sullivan, City Police. He was murdered eight years ago. Next is Lisa Reese, Jamestown Police in Madison County, four years ago. Then a year and a half ago, a Jason Jones of Jacksonville, near Southport, went missing. His badly decomposed body was found six months later, buried in a body bag near Pottsville."

"Do you know how they died?" I asked.

"I'm beginning to do a full workup on all of them." Mary said. "I just wanted to get this stuff to you, and oh, one more thing. I cross-checked those three names with the name McGinty, and got a hit. He was Ted Sullivan's partner with the City Police. His full name is Bunson McGinty, a.k.a. 'Bundy' McGinty. He left the City Police and is now a licensed Private Investigator in the City. There are no correlations between him and the other two names that I've found yet."

"That is fantastic work, Mary." I said. "Send me that workup as soon as you can... or hand it off to Myron if you need to do your drug bust thing. But I need what you can get as soon as possible."

"Wilco." said Mary. We disconnected.

"I'll look up those names for you." Lindy said. "Get the Federal angle on them."

I got onto my laptop. "I'm most interested in this McGinty guy." I said. "Okay, Bunson McGinty, 41 years old. Eight years ago he was fired by the City Police, but the reasons why are sealed by their I.A. Department. Became a licensed P.I., runs 'McGinty Private Investigations, LLC'."

"Fired right at the time his partner died?" asked Muscone.

"Three weeks after, according to these records." I said.

"I remember it now." said Muscone. "The City Police actually called in the FBI to help investigate Detective Ted Sullivan's murder. The City PD thought it might've been an inside job, a dirty cop."

"I've got that record now." said Lindy. "The FBI's conclusion was that Person 'A' did not kill 'his partner' Sullivan, but he made egregious errors in judgement that exposed Sullivan to danger and led to his death."

"Nice wording, there." I said. "They won't say Person 'A's name, but they said he was Sullivan's partner. Oh... I hope you didn't write that report, Jack."

"No, I didn't." Muscone said. "That was an FBI Special Agent named Bob Rovers. And the investigation was a sloppy as his current work with the BAU."

"So, what's our next step?" asked O'Brady.

"Can I borrow your cellphone? Personal one?" I asked O'Brady. He handed me his phone. I dialed the number on my laptop.

"McGinty." said a raspy voice.

"Mr. McGinty," I said, "my name is Shane O'Brady with the Pottsville Police. I need your help with a case I'm working on."

"Oh really?" McGinty said, his voice a mixture of out of breath, disdainful, and hopeful at the same time.

"Yes." I said. "And I'll make it worth your while, if the information you give me is good."

"Bangkok. Tonight. Eleven p.m. Come alone." said McGinty.

"How will I know who you are?" I asked.

"You'll figure it out." the voice said. The line then went dead.

"Sorry to take your name in vain, there, Shane." I said as I handed him back his phone.

"Quite all right." said O'Brady. "I take it you want me to meet this guy?"

"We'll both go." I said. "Let's spend one night in 'Bangkok', shall we?"

To be continued.

Author's Note: Your author really did have the honor of participating in a chess simul with Grandmaster David Bronstein, and the game at the beginning of the story was in reality our game in that simul. I lose no face in my defeat at the hands of such a great chessplayer. He did autograph the scoresheet as well as my copy of 'The Chess Struggle in Practice', which I still have today.

And yes, he really did tell me that it was better to be alive than to be World Champion...