Chapter 430

We were in the office early; Lorrie’s group had a day filled with flights. The agency’s secret materials were loaded in the dark last night. The pilots started doing the preflight at 5 AM. The flight was leaving in just a few minutes for Thailand.

Two C130s left on the freight run and all the G5s were to go on charters today.

Burt was sending me one folder at a time; he had broken it down into chats separate from the emails. It looked like Randolph was spending the entire shift in chat rooms talking with other agents at the other three colleges.

The more I read the more it looked like that he was pumping them for information. In one case he had asked one of his fellows to take pictures of specific class rooms, including all blackboards and postings at Rochester.

In another case he asked the agent to hack into a professor’s computer and download files from the hard drive at St Paul University. Frank had a lot more work to do and some of it was not going to be pleasant.

When Robert delivered the next folder I asked if all the agencies people had been run through Genie.

“Yes, there is nothing in Genie on any of them,” he replied.

When Robert came back with the final papers of Randolph’s activities, he brought today’s Intel of Minneapolis. There was more Intel today, 10 pages worth.

Diya was still unaware that his repeated computer problems with the new Microsoft upgrades had allowed Robert to place a bug in the operating system that contained a key logger which negated his use of a separate drive to remain hidden.

Robert also had it copy the contents of that drive but it was nowhere near what we thought should be there. That led him to believe that Diya had more than one drive, but there were two important tidbits.

One was a short burst in a chat room that simply said, “99sr169 n,” - it lasted less than 30 seconds.

The second was confirmation of the day of the attack and that, “Everything was ready; you will be impressed with our preparations.”

I thought about that for a moment and then realized Diya was bragging to someone or expecting them to participate. I took those pages and went to the EIT office.

“Is there any way to find out more on these two chats?” I asked Robert.

“These are random chat rooms on the dark web. Usually they meet up there at predetermined times and days and there are too many of them. I am monitoring this one at the same time everyday to see if that is the plan they are using,” Robert replied.

“Since the key logger has not been found - and even if it is - he may still think he is safe by using the remote drive. All we can do is wait. We can get there but it is going to take time and how soon will depend if he uses the same chat room all the time,” Robert said.

Frank was waiting by my door when I turned around. I handed him the chats but nothing to do with Diya, “I think you may have some more of your people that you may want to question. I highlighted the ones that stand out. That is all that was on our system. The question is what they said on the phone or your system,” I said.

I had a thought when I finally got to my chair and pulled up a map of the Minnesota and 99 miles or Km? SR had to mean state route or was that a code. There on the map leading north was state route 169; it started from an intersection on route 10. Did the distance start from that intersection or the city line of from where-ever Diya lived?

The difference between 99 miles and 99Km was 30 miles. In a straight line that was 20000 acres. To be able to test any explosive devices they had made of any size, it was imperative that there be considerable distance from any houses or other farms.

There was of course ways to deaden the sound and then they could have used minimal amounts just to make sure that their engineering worked. But then they had stolen 10000 pounds of the commercial grade bulk explosive ANFO used in surface mining and road building in pelletized version.

The problem with ANFO was that it had to be contained in order build up the high pressure to be an effective explosive. Poured out on the ground it simply burned.

It made me wonder what they were using in the car bomb they were building. Twenty pound propane cylinders would be very weak in delivery; the tank skins were so thin that they would rupture before most of the propellant would be ignited and would be scattered at the site.

Twenty and 100 pound propane tanks were the choice in many parts of the world, filled with a brew of explosives, gasoline, RDX, dug-out of artillery shells and bombs.

The twenty’s filled with ANFO would weight 60 pounds or so, easy to handle and a lot easier to conceal. Three or four in the trunk and a couple in the back seat with a blanket to cover them and it would still be a big explosion.