Chapter 5: FinCEN

GOING TO MINNEAPOLIS after I’d installed everything in the Fort Myers website was a letdown. People were still wearing parkas and boots. It took me five days to make the needed changes at corporate before I could get back home. I walked in the door of my apartment feeling exhausted and just a bit frustrated. I was beginning to think I needed a girlfriend.

There is something, though, about being met at the door by a fifteen-pound ball of energy and joy that makes coming home feel like coming home. Maizie bounced around me until I got my suitcase settled and then jumped into my lap as I sank into my chair. My face was bathed with a doggie tongue before she curled up in my lap and I turned on the TV. We watched the Mariners opener against Phoenix and went to sleep about half way through the third inning.

I guess I don’t need a girlfriend.

My income from the Twins was routed through my new DH Investigations bank account, establishing an adequate cushion to pay my office rent for a few months. I spent as much time lounging on the sofa in my office looking out at the gray and foggy Sound as I did drumming up new business. Committing digital suicide had a profound effect on me. I spent a lot of time thinking about how to protect myself when I was fully up again. My paranoia had extended to completely erasing the tablet I used in Florida and Minnesota and donating it to charity. I just included the cost in my bill to the Twins. I used cash to buy a new one.

Maizie and I got up around six and went for a walk, eventually heading down to the pier. Tovoni’s, a new coffee shop, was just opening up on lower Queen Anne. With Daylight Saving Time, the sun was scarcely threatening to make its first appearance of the season in Seattle.

The barista, Jackie, proudly told me I was her first customer. She asked what kind of drink I wanted and I told her I liked strong black coffee. She suggested a 50/50. It was her own variation on an Americano. She ran two shots of hot water and then gently poured two shots of espresso over the top. She told me to sip the crema—the oily foam on top—first and not to stir the coffee.

Heaven!

That first sip of the crema and straight espresso was enough to transport me to a different world. Of course, as I tipped and sipped the coffee, it gradually mixed with the water beneath it, but the first sip was enough to set my taste buds right for the rest of the cup. I was so absorbed in enjoying the cup that I failed to notice Jackie when she came out front and started petting Maizie. Next thing I knew, Maizie had a little doggie biscuit and was primly nibbling on it next to my chair.

“Sorry. I should have asked if dogs were welcome. Maizie and I walk to the office this direction most mornings. I think she loves you,” I chuckled.

“Well, I love her,” Jackie said. “She’s always welcome here. And so are you.” That last was sort of an afterthought and implied that I was welcome as long as I brought Maizie.

I gladly paid the two dollars for my drink and left a dollar tip. Maizie and I continued our walk to the office with a little spring in our step.

Try finding yourself on the Internet sometime. People do it all the time. You simply search for your name and Google or Bing starts flashing up a million and a half results. If your name is unusual or you are extremely active online, you might appear on the first page of results. Along with half a dozen notices from websites that collect and sell information about people. ‘We Found Dag Hamar.’ They offer my name, phone number, last ten known addresses, affiliations, friends, photos, family relations, and genealogy. But if your name is James Smith, good luck. There are more than thirty-one thousand of you out there.

Those big search engine services that we use so frequently present another problem for people who don’t want to be found. They catalog searches. The more often people search for Dag Hamar, the larger the catalog becomes. And the link they click on most frequently rises to the top of the results list. Of course, it’s all more complicated than that. Those services have legions of programmers working on making searches more efficient and results more usable, but it all spells trouble for a person who doesn’t want to be found.

So, I write my own search bots.

Getting results is slower, but those results are more relevant. The bots gather information. A filtering program removes results that are irrelevant. For example, show ‘Dag Hamar’ but not ‘Dag Hammarskjöld’. And not people named Dag who live in Hamar, Norway. Ten results, not one point four million. Good for the search engine. Bad for me.

I’m easy to locate as long as I have a computer registered to my name or an alias that can be identified as me. The answer is to create a digital identity that cannot be tracked back to a physical reality.

I had a lot of work to do.

It was nearly Memorial Day when Jordan Grant walked into my office. It was the first time I’d seen him since our sting on the Mexican drug lords almost a year ago and the first time he’d set foot in the new office. He entered without knocking and whistled.

“Nice digs...” he started. He was suddenly being faced down by a growling miniature guard dog.

“Maizie, here,” I commanded. She looked once more at Jordan a little uncertainly and then scampered around my desk with her nails seeking purchase on the wooden floor before she leapt into my lap. “Good girl. He’s a friend,” I said. “I think. What brings you my direction, Jordan? Not that I’m not always happy to have you barge into my office.”

“I didn’t realize you had a new office and receptionist,” he laughed. “I always figured she’d be blonde.” I motioned him to the sofa and settled into a comfy chair opposite. He looked out across the Sound. “You’re a hard man to find. Your last known address is a parking lot. I was worried.”

“Thanks for your concern. How’s life in the nation’s capital?”

“Boring. And even more expensive than here. I’ve put in for a transfer back. I miss the excitement.”

“Not much excitement going on around here. I recovered the data from a waterlogged disk drive last week. How’s that sound?” I asked as we looked out across the water.

“I heard you did a job in Florida. Looking at you, though, one would never know you’d seen the sun.”

“News travels fast. How did that little job come to your attention?” I asked. I’d covered my tracks pretty carefully on that. Everything had gone through DH Investigations. The business contact was my attorney. It could be traced to me, but you’d have to go through the State records to see my name associated with the company in any way. I wasn’t hiding from Jordan, but I was definitely interested in how he found out about my activities.

“Sorry to say this,” Jordan said hesitantly. “I had to build a dossier on you before I could approach you with a new contract.” I stared at him. He refused to look at me, staring out at the water. He knew I wanted the details but I wasn’t going to ask. “I know what happened a few months ago.”

No. If he knew, the FBI would be here and I’d be in cuffs by now. Jordan was fishing. I still refused to say anything.

“You weren’t the only one who got bombed into oblivion,” he continued at last. “I understand your reticence to talk about it. It has to be ... humiliating in a way, I guess. To think that someone could wipe out the online presence of Dag Hamar, computer forensics detective. I just want you to know that you weren’t the target,” Jordan sighed. Now I was really intrigued. Suddenly, I was just collateral damage.

“What brought you in? I mean, I’ve played against some of these guys before. Gaming doesn’t seem like a place where FinCEN would get involved,” I said.

“The gaming site was ancillary to the main attack. Maybe not even intended. The major target was a bunch of questionable charities that were housed in the same virtual world. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Use a gaming site to scam people in the name of charity. I know you know who I’m talking about. You pointed us in that direction years ago.”