One Night In Bangkok Ch. 02

"So who the hell led the FBI investigation into McGinty?" Cindy demanded to know. "And why is it such a secret that you can't tell us?"

"Because it was Les Craig." I said. "Sit down."

"Oh." Cindy said, her eyes blinking in understanding. "Well, that explains that. Sorry I doubted you. I'll show myself out."

"You'll do no such thing." I said with authority. "I asked you to sit down. So sit down." Cindy sat down.

"So," I said, "what do you think? McGinty, friend or fowl? Good or bad?"

"Hard to tell." Cindy said. "I'd think he's as dirty as the mud wrestlers at the 'Pink' club, except that the guy on his team went to work with Jack's favorite SBI Agent, Ferrell----"

"Can I borrow that crowbar, Don?" Muscone said witheringly. "Strong beatdown to follow?"

I grinned. "I am so tempted to hand it to you, just to see what happens." I said. "But seriously, Cindy, keep going."

"Like I said," Cindy said, much happier now that she'd gotten that dig at Jack in, "Jeff Farley worked with Ferrell, and now you tell me Les Craig was the FBI's investigator. If ever there were people who'd rig a dishonest set-up to get rid of a guy, they'd be first on my list to call... Don?"

I was in a reverie, staring at the top of my desk. It was a long moment before I came out of it. Cindy and Jack were peering at me with half-interested, half-amused looks on their faces.

"What you just said... on the list to call." I said, my voice nearly a whisper. Then I recovered, sat up even more straight than my 'girdle' was making me, and said "I just realized... Sullivan was McGinty's partner. We know Paul Cash went to McGinty for information about these other deaths. O'Brady and I went to McGinty about Cash's death. What if Lisa Reese and Jason Jones also went to McGinty?"

"Wow, would that ever implicate him if we found proof of that!" gasped Muscone.

"Well, maybe." I said. "But here's the thesis: all of these Detectives were good enough to stumble onto the Consultant of Crime or this ring of 'Mr. Big' or 'Birdie Edward'. Maybe they did and, like Cash, came across McGinty's name. They visit him, find out what he knows, as O'Brady and I did, then they attempt to follow the leads."

"And they're found out, and murdered." Cindy said. "Like Cash was."

"McGinty tip them off?" asked Jack. "The perps, I mean. Did McGinty tell the perps about the Detectives?"

"He could have." I said. "Or maybe after the Sullivan case the perps kept watch on McGinty, to see who came to visit him. Then they killed off the cops who did. And that, by the way, would be the only reason I can see, so far, why they haven't murdered him yet. He's achieved very little over the last eight years of investigating them after being fired and becoming a P.I. They see him as harmless. But they did not see these standout Detectives as harmless, and so they were all eliminated."

"And that means you're next on their list." Cindy said. "As is O'Brady."

"It's enough to make my dog nervous for two days." I said agreeably, then explained how Bowser had apparently been worried about me. "Yes, we need to be careful."

Part 8 - The Cyber-War At Home

10:30am, Tuesday, March 19th. Cindy called me and asked me to come down to I.T. I went down into the basement areas and to Myron's office in the back corner... which had been my first office as I.T. Supervisor when I joined the TCPD. Just in front of the office Lainie Everett and Mary Milton were typing away feverishly at two computer stations. Cindy was standing behind them, watching.

"Whaddya got, Myron?" I asked, standing at the doorway to the office.

"We are under cyber-attack, sir." said Myron, typing away. I went around his desk to look. Several boxes of data were open on his screen, blinking back and forth as he brought one then the other up with lightning speed. "Someone's trying to hack into our data files."

"It's worse than that, sir!" I heard Mary yell. I got up and went to the door. She said "While Myron is keeping the firewall up, someone else is trying to worm their way into the system files and plant some malicious code that could knock us out whenever it's activated."

"Can you stop it?" I asked.

"So far so good, sir." Mary said. "But whoever is doing this is very good, very sophisticated."

"Sir," said Lainie, "these trojan horses so far are pretty basic. It's almost like this guy is toying with us."

"But his, or her, way of getting into the system is not basic." said Mary. "Lainie's right, he may be just playing around, but I'm worried the big stuff might be coming... or happening now while we watch the little stuff."

"Commander Ross," I said, knowing that she was the boss of the I.T. Department, "if the bad guys start winning this, have our guys shut the systems down. All of them."

"Roger that." said Cindy.

"Got it!" exclaimed Myron. He exhaled, then said "I've got this one contained. Goddamned FBI."

"You sure it was the FBI?" I asked.

"No sir." said Myron. "But after what those bastards said to my wife this morning, why wouldn't it be them?" I just gave Myron a 'look'. He was having none of it, and gave me a 'look' of his own right back. Channeling his inner Crowbar, he was.

"Myron, I could use some help here!" Mary yelled, to get her husband's head back in the game.

"I'm on it!" Myron yelled. He began typing away again. "Oh wow, this is at a whole new level!" I let him work a few minutes.

"Lainie!" Myron called out. "Let's go to Plan B. Open up the backup systems."

"Yes sir." said Lainie. She began typing.

"What's that?" I asked Lainie, as Myron and Mary were concentrating on their work.

"It's a separate server system, sir." said Lainie. "It lets the Officers in their cars continue to have access to check drivers licenses and stuff without going through our main systems. The next step, Plan C, is to shut that down, and the Officers will have to radio in and get the information."

"We gotta cut it back." said Myron. "Commander Ross, we gotta tell everyone that we're going off line.

"I've got that." I said. I took out my cell phone and made the 'loddy-doddy-everybody' text that the computer systems were going offline for the next several minutes. I heard cellphones everywhere chime in response.

"Okay, Myron, do what you have to do." I said. "Commander Ross, will you monitor their progress and let me know if things get worse? I'm going upstairs to tell the Chief."

"Wilco." Cindy said.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

An hour later, Cindy and I were in the Chief's office with Myron.

"We're still in a semi-safe mode, and the mobile units in the Police cruisers are on the Plan B system." said Myron. We purged the entire main system, just to be sure. I reloaded the overnight backup and ran checks. We're clean again. Whatever work was done this morning may be lost, though. Personnel & Records is pissed."

"They can get un-pissed." Cindy said with alacrity. "I'll let them know what happened. Is the email system back up?"

"Yes ma'am." said Myron. "And pursuant to that, all emails that came in are still in what we call the 'holding tanks'. They're being re-checked for bugs, and will be distributed when found to be clean. We don't think the email system was affected, so hopefully that won't take too long." Cindy began typing her email that would apprise the Force of the situation.

"So, Lieutenant Millllltonnnnn," drawled the Chief. "What happened?"

"After this morning's meeting, sir," said Myron, "I was sure that it was the FBI hitting us. The attack on the data files looked similar to stuff they've done in the past. And before I go further sir... I will never attend another meeting with FBI Agents present. I will resign and turn in my Badge before I help those bastards again in any way."

Cindy had looked over as Myron said that, then said "You won't have to resign. I'll back you up on that all the way."

The Chief didn't seem to like that, so I said "Let's not worry about that now. Myron, do you really think it was the local FBI guys? Or something else? Something worse?"

"The attack turned out to be in two parts, sir." said Myron. "First came the probe into our data files. I was working on that when the harder attack on our systems occurred. Thankfully, Mary came down and helped Lainie with that one, then I helped after I beat back the data file attack. That second attack was really vicious. It was designed to completely cripple our systems. And if it had gone unchecked, it would've damaged the physical chips in our processors and servers. We're talking damage potentially in the millions of dollars, and replacement of much of our hardware and servers."

The Chief emitted a long, low whistle. "That is ugly. Who could do something on that scale?"

I said "Something with that level of ability to penetrate our relatively secure Police firewall and systems, and with that power to destroy our internal mechanisms, has to be a Government... either a foreign power or our own Government."

"Why would someone want to do that?" Cindy asked. "We're a local Police jurisdiction, not the NSA."

"Ohhhh, I dunno..." I said. "Same reason someone parked a nuclear bomb in the middle of Town, maybe?" Yeah, that brought 'pin drop' silence to the room.

Chief Moynahan said "Loo-tenant Milton, thank you for the report, and for your excellent work this morning. Why don't you go check on the recovery process?" That was a dismissal, and Myron realized it.

"Yes sir." he said. "if you'll excuse me, Chief, sir, ma'am?" We all nodded and he left.

"I didn't want him to hear this," said Moynahan, "but we have to report this to Homeland Security. They very well may demand to come in and look at our systems, and Myron might quit before he helps them. And then they may arrest him for not helping them, even charge him with treason."

"Then don't report it, Chief." I said. "That's what I'd do if I were sitting in your chair."

"You're not sitting in this chair. Yet." said the Chief.

"How about this, then?" I said. "I'll report it to the FBI... to Jack Muscone. That'll satisfy the requirement, and I can also couch it in a way that might keep the Feds from barreling in on us."

"And how will you do that?" asked the Chief.

"From what I saw this morning," I said, "Tanya and Jack are going to be 'hanging drapes' over this." Cindy laughed. The Chief looked confused.

"That's something that Don's mother liked to say." Cindy said. "She'd say a couple's first fight would be when they started hanging drapes."

"Jack was genuinely pissed that Mary knew that information about Jason Jones being an FBI Consultant." I said. "Tanya did the right thing and shut him down, and she's backing her Vice Lieutenant all the way, like she should. That's going to cause some friction between them. That's where I'll step in, tell Jack about the cyber-attack, in writing, and then tell him that Tanya would be very happy with him if he found a way to keep the Feds out of our business on this."

"In the meantime, either Cindy or myself will convince Myron that he really does need to write up a report on what happened for us to submit to the Feds." I said. "We won't give the solutions, and I will personally add a note that we're not telling our solutions because I have had more than enough problems with dirty Fed agents over the years, including being tortured by the CIA."

"Let's hope it doesn't have to go that far." said the Chief. "As usual, I will defer to you and let you handle it, Mr. Crowbarrrrr..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

After bribing Jack Muscone with double cheeseburgers at the Cop Bar, I submitted my report on the cyber-attack and asked what he could do to keep the Feds away from Myron. It did not hurt my case that Tanya and Cindy were having lunch with us.

"I've already sustained a blue crowbar beatdown today." said Jack. "I don't need one from the red crowbar. I'll tell them it's resolved and to come to you and you only if they have questions. Flip side of that: I agreed with Tanya to leave her various Lieutenants alone, especially her Vice Lieutenant. But the data breach about the FBI Consultants can't be ignored. After all, Don, you're one of them, and the data security affects you, too."

"And I agree with that, Commander." Tanya said. "We'll have to be more... circumspect... about things."

"I think that took care of itself this morning." I said. "I'm going to set those brackets up just right in the first round of the Police Boxing Matches: Mary Milton vs. Sandra Speer." Cindy laughed at that. I then said "I can assure you, Jack, that you will not hear of any more data breaches from Myron nor Mary."

"You had a good English teacher in school, Don." said Jack. "They way you parse words like that is very good. I get the feeling I'll never hear another report from either of them directly again, much less hear of any data breaches."

"See, Don?" Tanya said. "My man is handsome and brilliant!"

"Set a date, please." I said.

Just then, our Police phones all chimed. The email system had released all the morning's emails, and we each had a bunch of them.

When I give out my card, it has an email address on it. It is not my normal Police email, so when I see an email in it, I know it's something to pay attention to. I had one, and I opened it.

"Ho-leee..." I gasped. "Then I said "Jack, I just got an email from Butch Harmony."

"The Whippet's guy?" Cindy asked.

"Yeah." I said. "He works at 'Bangkok' now, and was there when O'Brady and I went there to meet McGinty." I then handed Muscone the phone so he could read the email.

It said: "IC, I didn't know it at the time, but that Shimono woman you asked about was in the BDSM areas of the club last night. Some of the staffers in the back said she suddenly bolted out the back, right about the time you came in. I checked the tapes, and it sure looks like her. I copied the tape to a jump drive and hid it, and for another C-note it's yours. See you soon, BH."

"Jack, we gotta get over there." I said. "Now. Meet me at the Westphalia SBI Office. I'll call O'Brady on the way."

"You got that right." Muscone said. "See you there." We bolted for our cars.

Part 9 - Inharmonious

Shane O'Brady met me at the Westphalia SBI office, and we went in my black SBI SUV towards 'Bangkok'. Jack Muscone had gone to the Federal Building to pick up Martin Nash, and was on the way.

"Uh oh, press the panic button, trouble in Paradise." I said as we pulled up. City Police were all over the place, and the bar was closed off.

"Hey, it's the Iron Crowbar." said City Detective E.J. Jefferson as we pulled up. "How did you hear of this so fast?"

"Long story." I said. "Please tell your guys not to shoot the SBI Reservists?"

"Sure. Park in the parking lot in back." said E.J. "Hey guys! These guys are all right. Let them through!" The City Police Officers let us through the cordon.

After parking, we went back around front and into the front door. The bar looked different with all the lights on and no customers. Employees were being held on the left side of the large room. I noticed our waitress from last night as one of them. She was upset and had been crying.

"Hey, I.C." said City Detective Thomas 'Sapper' Warren, who was making some notes.

"Hey Sapper." I said. "Sapper, E.J., this is Pottsville Detective Shane O'Brady, working with me an an SBI Reserve capacity. Shane, this is 'Sapper' Warren and E.J. Jefferson. Jefferson is one of the few that got away from me; he used to work in the TCPD, then came to the City."

"Yeah, the I.C. was too good for my own good." E.J. quipped. "But I learned a lot from him, and I'll bet you have, too."

"Have I ever." said O'Brady. "What's going on, here?"

Sapper Warren said "Dead guy in the back areas. I'll bet the I.C. can tell us who it is, too."

"Butch Harmony?" I asked. Sapper nodded and I said "Damn. I was afraid of that."

"How did you know Commander Troy would know?" O'Brady asked.

"The email Harmony sent me." I said.

"Yeah, that's right." said Warren. "We found Harmony's cell phone in his locker in the employees area. One of his fingers unlocked it. He'd sent the Iron Crowbar an email this morning. We need to ask you about that, I.C... in an official kind of way."

"Sure." I said. Just then, Muscone and Nash came in. I made introductions all the way around.

"This is the former TCPD Detectives convention." I quipped. "Nash was with the TCPD before this Muscone guy stole him from me."

"Smartest move I ever made, except for asking Tanya to marry me." said Jack. "We're walking in late to this party. What happened?"

"THAT'S THE GUY! THAT'S HIM!"

A short man was flying out from the back areas. It was Mitt, the doorman the night before. He was pointing at me as he told E.J. "That's the guy I told you about, that was talking to Harmony last night. He's the guy that did this!"

"Better watch who you're accusing of doing anything." I snarled at him. "I'll tell you who one suspect should be, and that's Mitt here. Butch threatened to tear Mitt a new asshole last night. Maybe Mitt got retaliation, eh?"

"Why you son of a bitch!" Mitt roared, hurling himself at me.

*WHAM!*

Aikido does rule, but I made sure in the process to slam Mitt's face into one of the tables. I then had his hands behind him and in cuffs before he could recover.

"That's assaulting a Police Officer, faggot." I growled at him, using the slur to enrage him further, glad that Cindy was not here to 'not approve'.

"You didn't identify yourself as a Police Officer." retorted Mitt.

"I don't have to." I said. "You're in a world of shit now, faggot. You had an altercation with the dead man last night, assaulted Police today. It's getting bad. The gangbangers in City Jail will do to you want Harmony said he was going to do, tear you a new ass. They'll take turns raping you until they are satisfied, and you're half-dead."

"Go fuck yourself." snarled Mitt.

"We'll see who gets fucked" I said. I turned to the two Uniformed Officers behind me and said "Take this piece of dog shit to City Jail. He's a person of interest." The two Officers led Mitt away.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Better get downstairs if you want to see the body." a City plainclothes Officer said. "The Medical Examiner is getting upset. Fastest I've ever seen them get to a crime scene. Now he wants to take the body away before we're finished here."

We went through the door in the back right that led to the kitchen areas behind the bar. Past that were stairs leading to the basement. Some of it was storage for kitchen supplies, but turning back left, which would take us back under the bar and restaurant area, was a large area with appropriate whips, stocks, chains... all the needed hardware for a big BDSM party.

And on the floor in the middle of the room, lying face-down, was the most unfortunate Butch Harmony.

"It's been two fucking hours. I don't understand why I can't take the body to the morgue." said a youngish man with brown hair, wearing a labcoat.

"Patience, my friend." I said as I came it. "Five more minutes won't make a difference."

"And who the fuck are you?" asked the M.E. Then he saw the crowbar in my hand. "The Iron Crowbar? What the fuck are you doing here?"

"Why, I'm investigating this murder." I said acidly as I put on latex gloves. "What are you doing here?"

"My job." spat the M.E. "If you'll let me. I need to get the body to the morgue for the autopsy and testing.

"Not that I'm an M.E. or anything," I said as I took out my magnifying glass and examined the small wound in the back of Harmony's head, "but even I can see the small-caliber bullet hole in the back of his head." I was frisking Harmony's clothing.