Jimmy came to this building for the first time. He had passed by it many times before, and when he saw this building with no windows at all, he felt that it was completely out of harmony with the surroundings. The entire building looks more like a fortress. Except for the huge ventilation holes around it, there is no window. It looks rough, powerful and indestructible.
Jimmy had tried to check the information about this building before, but he could only see that it belonged to AT&T. It was originally used as a telephone switching station. In the early days, calls needed to be manually transferred. To ensure safety, the entire building The building has no windows, ensuring it remains safe during a hurricane.
Later, the telephone system gradually improved, and the world entered the Internet age. The telephone switching station has withdrawn from the stage of history, and the building has lost its original function. The ownership is still AT&T, but it is rented out. Unfortunately, there is no other information. .
This time Chris brought Jimmy over and let Jimmy understand who rented this bunker, the NSA, the National Security Agency of the United States.
Chris took Jimmy into the building through the main entrance. Although there were no windows at all, the brightness inside was very good. Of course, Jimmy's mind had already discovered many things like cameras in the lobby on the first floor, because he only took a quick glance. , so it is difficult to judge for the time being. This is not a place for him to visit casually. If he doesn't plan to get into trouble, it's best to stay honest here.
After Chris consulted at the front desk, a man walked out and took them to a small conference room, which was of course also on the first floor and did not enter the core area of the building at all.
After a while, another man in a suit came over, shook hands with Chris, took the phone from Jimmy and left.
After another while, someone actually came to the conference room to receive Chris and Jimmy.
"Hi, I'm Benjamin Patterson." Benjamin came into the conference room, shook hands with Chris and Jimmy, took two bottles of mineral water from the cabinet next to him and handed them to Chris and Jimmy, and then sat across the small table.
"Hi, Chris, this is Jimmy. This is our case this time." Chris introduced, and then pushed the file on the table.
Chris: "Jimmy, tell me about the case."
Jimmy: "Okay." Benjamin had already opened the file, and Jimmy started talking about the case when he saw the photos he took: "This case was originally defined as an accident. Investigative reporter Ash Perino came out of the parking lot. He made a mistake when driving away from the 4th floor and fell from the 4th floor to the 3rd floor. As the car overturned, Ax's neck was twisted, causing his death.
However, after checking the photos of the scene, we found that there was a dent in the rear bumper of Ax's car. At the same time, according to the information provided by the NYPD, Ax's belongings did not contain a notepad or the like, so we suspected that Ax might not be He died in an accident, but someone knocked Ax's car off the fourth floor.
I went to the residence where Ax registered in the system, and saw his girlfriend Ginny in his apartment. Through some means, I got two pieces of information from Ginny. First, Ax always left his notebook when traveling. He had computers, voice recorders, notepads and other things with him, but these were not found at the scene of Ax's death.
Second, Ax missed a notepad when he went out this time. We got the notepad, and the content recorded on it seemed to be interview records. There were not a few complete sentences, just some note-type information, but in the information Contains a large amount of information on fertilizers, special equipment, etc.
Judging from the records on this notepad, Ax's death was not simple. These materials and equipment can be assembled and deployed to make giant bombs. It is not even ruled out that some people can use them to make special gases to create even greater disasters. .
The investigation of the case has just begun, and these are the clues and inferences that have been obtained temporarily. "
After Jimmy finished speaking, Benjamin was still reading the follow-up, but his nodding showed that he was listening to Jimmy's description.
Chris added: "We do not have many clues at the moment, but the possible inferences of this case are too serious, so I ask for your help to obtain the information in the mobile phone of investigative reporter Ax and samples of previous call records. "
Benjamin did not reply, but continued to look through the photos and file descriptions in the file. In just about ten minutes, Jimmy felt that time was passing very slowly. He turned his head uncomfortably and looked around. There were cameras hidden in three of the four corners of the conference room. There were no cameras except above the door. It could be said that after entering the building , Jimmy and the others are completely within the scope of surveillance.
Jimmy had already discovered several heavily armed security personnel in the back. He had not seen them outside before. It seemed that they were all hidden in order to make the outside look more normal.
With such a powerful defense force and such complete surveillance facilities, when you think of the NSA that monitors the world, it doesn't seem so unacceptable. After all, that's what they do.
Of course, this also completely failed Jimmy's attempt to understand them. He had no chance to leave this small conference room.
Benjamin closed the file and looked at Chris: "I probably understand. It is indeed necessary to investigate. I will leave for a while. You guys wait a moment."
Benjamin left the conference room without taking the file, leaving only Jimmy and Chris here in a daze. Jimmy looked at Chris and asked in a low voice: "Who is this person?"
Chris shook his head: "I don't know either, okay, don't talk, just wait."
Jimmy shrugged, turned around and sat upright. After waiting for a while, no one came in. He simply moved his chair back, leaned on the back of the chair, crossed his legs, swayed the chair, and stared at the ceiling in a daze.
After waiting for more than half an hour, Jimmy checked the time. It was almost time to get off work, and Benjamin hadn't come back yet. After waiting boringly for almost an hour, the door of the conference room finally opened, and Benjamin came in with another person. The person put a small tray on the conference room table and left.
Benjamin sat across from Jimmy and the others and introduced the things in the tray: "This is your mobile phone. All the data in it has been extracted. In memory 1, memory 2 contains the outgoing and incoming calls from this phone in the past month. You can take the phone records back with you."
Chris stood up, and Jimmy stood up too. "Thank you, Benjamin, for your help. Jimmy, put it away and let's go back."
Chris, Jimmy and Benjamin shook hands. Jimmy put the things on the table into his briefcase and left the building with Chris, which was completely unexplored.
While walking outside, Jimmy glanced back at the entrance. Who is not curious? As the most mysterious intelligence agency in the United States, the NSA is famous. Even when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was established, the NSA was not involved. It was only used as a Coordination can obtain some information and intelligence designated by them from the NSA.
Chris did not look back at Jimmy, but said: "Don't look, the people here are not easy to deal with, you don't want them to see everything about you."
Jimmy took two quick steps, walked side by side on the sidewalk with Chris, and returned to the FBI office in Federal Plaza honestly.
Jimmy connected memory No. 1 to a computer that was not connected to the Internet, opened it and checked the contents. It was exactly as Benjamin said. It contained address book, text messages and call history information. In order to ensure safety, Jimmy copied the contents, stored them on the computer, and then opened the No. 2 memory.
Number 2 is even better. It contains voice files one by one. The other party’s phone number and call time are marked on the file titles. It’s so thoughtful that Jimmy doesn’t even need to rearrange the chronological order.
Copied the same, Jimmy did not dare to use the memory provided by the NSA directly in the FBI's networked computers. He was not afraid of ten thousand, just in case.
Taking the computer, Jimmy returned to his seat. The first thing he had to do now was not to check the recording, but to investigate the mobile phone number. The number of recordings is too large, so it is better to retrieve the information corresponding to the mobile phone number first, so that it is more convenient to obtain the recording information specifically.
As an independent investigative reporter, Ax's mobile phone address book is really huge. Regardless of whether he really knows so many people, at least he can find so many people from his address book, which is really impressive. Why do you think so? Because Jimmy checked several mobile phone numbers, the people corresponding to the mobile phone numbers didn't seem to be ordinary people. Most of them were news practitioners, including some editors in chief. For many people, the most they can do is have a reporter from a TV station, a newspaper, or a department that specializes in managing paparazzi. It is very difficult to contact them directly.
Jimmy turned to look at Chris, "Chris...", hmm? Where are people?
Jimmy raised his hand and glanced at the time. Hey guys, it's almost 9pm. When does overtime start? Jimmy shook his head, laughed in a low voice, cleared the table, got up and went home to rest. At this time, he couldn't cook by himself, so he just grabbed something to make up for it on the way.
The next day, Jimmy returned to the office. Chris had already arrived. After Jimmy said hello, he continued yesterday's investigation.
Chris: "Jimmy, did you find anything?"
Jimmy: "Not yet, I am checking the people in the address book of Ax's mobile phone." Jimmy raised the notepad and flashed it, and then continued to check the mobile phone number on the computer. Checking all these things is definitely not something that can be done in a short time.
Chris: "Let's pause for a moment. Hughes will arrange for people to come to support later. You can assign tasks to them then. It will be much faster if we all investigate together."
It's okay, it can liberate himself for a while. To be honest, if he has to check all the more than 100 phone calls in the address book, Jimmy feels like he will die and be dazzled to death.
Hughes completely let himself go this time. Four trainee field agents and two trainee intelligence officers assigned to the Manhattan office, a total of 6 people, all reported to Chris. Chris contacted the administrative department in advance and gave their office extra money. The computer came, but fortunately there was enough space in the office.
Jimmy gathered them in front of his computer, "This time your task is to find the address book in this computer. There are more than 100 phone numbers here. You can sort them into numbers, conduct an investigation based on their names and mobile phone numbers, and verify everyone's identity. Remember, this computer must not be connected to the Internet, especially not to our internal network.
This is the first step. After confirming the identity of the list, we will analyze these call records separately. At that time, we need to match the identities of the people you investigated to find our final target. Is it clear? "
"Understood." Jimmy gave them this independent laptop and asked them to extract and investigate by themselves. As for Jimmy now, of course he is going back to his previous process, those cars with anti-collision bars and dents on the front face. .
The NYPD has agreed to Chris's request to investigate these vehicles. It will only be a day, and it's almost time to report back the information.
"Jimmy, we have the results. The station wagon is confirmed to be a fake car. The original owner's car didn't go out at all that day. It was always in the garage. Road monitoring confirmed it."
After Chris answered a phone call, he excitedly said something to Jimmy, then said thank you to the other person on the phone and hung up the phone.
Jimmy shouted, "Yeah! We found him. Chris, we need support from the dispatch center to monitor the subsequent movement direction of the car."
Chris: "Okay, go ahead and leave this to them."
Jimmy nodded, picked up his clothes and went out, heading to the NYPD dispatch center. It was most convenient to record traffic directly here.
The investigation process was still boring, but fortunately, the car was finally located in a certain neighborhood, and it didn't appear after that. In theory, it should be over there.
Jimmy contacted Chris and he went directly to Brooklyn. Chris also set off from the office. As a group, they definitely needed to go together. Although Jimmy was used to doing things alone, it was a big case now and he had to make sure that there was nothing wrong with the process. Problem, otherwise if someone is held accountable, the evidence he extracted alone may be considered invalid.
When they came to the block, Jimmy took a look and saw that the car was not parked on both sides of the road, but there was a public parking lot. Jimmy and Chris came to the parking lot, showed their IDs and printed video screenshots, and asked if there was a corresponding The car is parked in the parking lot.
Unfortunately, the FBI is not omnipotent. The security guard came directly and said that we work in shifts and I don’t know anything. Looking at the little tattoo leaking out on the security guard's neck, this guy is not a fuel-efficient guy.
Jimmy and Chris drove the car directly into the parking lot, and then they walked around on their own to find the corresponding car model. After they met and summarized, they found that there were three station wagons of the same model here, but none of these three cars were the same ones as before. Discovered decks.
Jimmy: "Chris, could it be that the man changed his license plate before entering the parking lot? The road surveillance couldn't see the outside of this parking lot. Maybe he changed the license plate on the side of the road."
Chris scratched the top of his head with his good right hand: "If this is possible, what would you do?"
Jimmy: "Stay here for a while? When the owners of these three cars come back, ask them on the spot. This is also our most direct clue."
Chris: "Okay, then I'll go back to the car and take a rest."
Jimmy nodded. He first went to the three cars and wrote down the license plate numbers, and then called the police to investigate their identities. After getting the information, he came to the next intersection and lit a cigarette. At the same time, his eyes were looking around in the parking lot. If it weren't for his straight suit, his actions would always make people look like he was stepping into a spot and preparing to steal a car.
(End of chapter)
