While they ate Jack bounced what he’d learned off the older man. “The U.S. intel community, or at least those members looking into this compromise, seem to think the leak is one person who knew all the people burned by the leak.”
Gavin said, “Highly unlikely.”
Jack was prepared for the pushback. Gavin was a computer guy, so Jack felt sure from the beginning Gavin would assume this was some sort of a computer leak. “Mary Pat says NSA has run a security review on all networks run by the agencies involved and they found nothing amiss. Also, the fact that many different groups seem to be benefiting from the breach leads the government to the belief this isn’t one nation stealing information. The few nations with the potential know-how to break into U.S. networks aren’t the type to share intel across so broad a spectrum. That makes it look, to them anyway, like there is a government mole who is selling off this intel to multiple parties.”
Gavin said, “NSA did a review and found no hints of a breach, so they have effectively eliminated the possibility this has been done via a hack. They’re digging deeper, but their preliminary findings are sending everyone except for a few eggheads at NSA off looking in other directions.” Gavin shook his head. “I still believe this was cyberespionage of some sort. The fact they haven’t detected a data compromise doesn’t mean there wasn’t a data compromise.”
Jack was worried Gavin was too dug in to his theory, but he didn’t press any further. The last thing he needed was to entrench the Campus IT director further to one side of this or another. Good analytical thinking required an open mind, and Jack wasn’t at the stage where he could draw any tight conclusions and close his mind off enough to argue.
Four hours of nonstop reading and working later, Jack rubbed his eyes and turned away from his laptop, ready to ask Gavin if he wanted to go out to grab dinner together and then come back and work into the evening. But when Jack looked across the table he found the big man looking right back at Ryan with a grin on his face.
“Umm… you okay, Gav?”
Gavin answered the question with little hesitation. “I have a theory.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“E-QIP.”
Jack had no idea what the hell that meant. “What’s e-QIP?”
Gavin’s excitement was obvious in his voice. “It’s the government database that houses all applications for security clearance. The SF-86. Doesn’t matter if you’re Army, DNI, NSA, Department of Commerce, FBI… a contractor designing a new dump truck for the Air Force. Anybody who has applied for a security clearance has filled out the SF-86, a super-long questionnaire, one hundred twenty some-odd pages. All that data is housed in one database. If you are telling me a bunch of different government types from across all agencies and military branches have been compromised, I’ll tell you to look right there.”
Jack thought it over. “You are saying to find the commonality, you have to go back to the first thing these compromised parties did to become part of the classified world? To their original application for classified access?”
Gavin nodded. “That’s it. After the initial application for classified access, their subsequent information would have been moved to the issuing authority. The Department of Defense, DoJ, Department of State, or wherever. But the first file created for anyone entering the classified-access realm is all kept at the same place.”
Jack asked, “Okay, who manages e-QIP?”
“The Office of Personnel Management.”
The younger Ryan thought it over for a few seconds. “I like your thought process, Gavin, but you can’t seriously think nobody at NSA or DIA or CIA has come up with and tested this theory yet.”
“Sure, they thought of it, then they checked to see if e-QIP got hacked. When they didn’t find evidence of it, the investigators moved on.”
“But you’re certain they missed something.”
“I’m certain of this. There is no other linkage between those involved, which means, yeah, I’m certain they missed something. It happens.”
“What about the theory that an individual in the government had all this intel on different people, a mole? Just because there are a lot of different agencies and branches represented in this, that doesn’t rule out a mole. Take Chavez, for example. He knows everybody. You could bring him in here right now and he could give the name of a CIA NOC, a SEAL Team assaulter, a Department of Commerce investigator, an Air Force fighter pilot, and twenty-five other men and women with classified access.”
Gavin shook his head. “This is a data breach, I’d bet my reputation on it. This isn’t one guy spilling the beans on his buddies working in government.”
Jack said, “I’m not saying I’m on board with your theory, but let’s say you’re right. What country has the skills to get into the OPM network?”
Gavin really thought this one over for a long time. “It’s not what we’ve seen from the Chinese. The Russian government, either. Those would be the ones who could most easily break into OPM unnoticed, but they aren’t the ones involved in this attack.”
Jack said, “I agree with that. Russia could be passing out tidbits of pilfered intel to Iran. China could be passing out tidbits of pilfered info to the North Koreans. But neither of them are going to be handing targeting intel of a U.S. base in Italy over to ISIS. You could almost think that China might do it to screw with us domestically, but the risk versus reward just isn’t there. They’d have to know the reaction we’d have if we found out this was going on.”
Gavin said, “I’m going to try to narrow down the hunt for the culprit by reverse-engineering the problem. Give me some time to try to understand what it would take to get into the OPM’s e-QIP database. When I figure out how someone got in, I’ll look for the hallmarks of the attack that will give me a better idea of who might be involved. It will give us a smaller subset of villains to look for.”
Jack said, “Okay… but that’s your wheelhouse, not mine. What can I do to help?”
Gavin looked back down to his laptop. “I’m gonna be here awhile. You could go find me something to eat. Nothing too heavy…”
Jack laughed a little. “Two questions: Who are you, and what have you done with Gavin?”
Gavin Biery just raised his eyes from his computer.
Jack said, “Never mind. One kale salad, coming up.”
“I’m not a vegan, Jack, I’m just trying to cut back a bit. Don’t kill me.”
Jack stood and headed for the door. “You just work. I’ll worry about dinner.”
25
Abu Musa al-Matari had spent the early morning watching the news out of Sicily on the television in the living room of his safe house, a brownstone on North Winchester Avenue in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Chicago. Algiers and Tripoli sat with him, along with Rahim, the thirty-four-year-old leader of the Chicago cell.
The other cell members were all out in the city, buying items such as flashlights, phones, extra food and water, fertilizer and nails to build improvised explosives, and medical gear. It was busywork for the team, but al-Matari had nothing for them to do.
Although the others in the safe house celebrated the attack in Sicily, chanting “Allahu Akbar” with each new revelation about the death toll or image of the damage, quietly al-Matari was fuming. He knew this was the type of intelligence the Saudi had promised him, and the Saudi spoke nothing of a similar operation going on in Europe in concordance with the American attacks. This was important information for the operatives on the ground here in the U.S., and the Saudi seemed to be playing favorites by handing out intelligence to whomever he had operating in Europe before al-Matari had even been given his first target.