Day Minus 100

My research is over, my team is set, and my plan is executing. Naturally, not everyone knows they are on my team yet, but their opinions don t enter into it.

For each team member, I have assigned a watcher. Their watcher is there to tell me all about them, make sure they are on schedule, and that they don t just run. Another person will contact them as needed, phone, person, or dead drop. Another person may buy off some of his friends , if necessary.

I have arranged to lose a good deal of money on stocks related to companies with a strong African presence. If someone is going to the trouble to monitor my Internet activities, they would think that I m an ultra - paranoid failure of a day trader with a fixation for African business interests. I have lost a couple of million dollars on the market. Mostly to others who have shorted the high-risk investments I have made.

Laundering my own seed money is somewhat risky, but there isn t enough time for anyone to build a case against me. They don t know there is a deadline and that they won t get to see my next tax return.

My team members have been chosen by reputation. In some cases, their reputation is also their cooperation button. If I know what they do, then they are also compelled to do the same for me. To do otherwise has clear implication for them.

I maintain a schedule of what has to happen when, in the cage. It s kept in Microsoft Project. This doesn t leave the cage. If something has to come out, it s a particular action item from the schedule. There are a number of places where a delay from a team member can cause other dates to slip, and the plan unravels. Like any project manager, my task is to make sure that doesn t happen. This program will ship on time.

I keep a large number of items in the cage by now. I ve got various PGP keys for communicating with different individuals. I ve got authentication credentials to systems I don t own. I ve got extensive dossiers on people with special talents, including those who are people people . I have some special custom-developed client software. I have a quantity of account numbers . I have scans of official documents, birth certificates, driver s licenses, passports, death certificates.

No paper comes and goes to my mailbox in town, except for junk mail, and the occasional statement from a bank or billing agency. Anything I collect is scanned elsewhere and received by myself electronically .

I even have information on a number of legitimate services I have paid for out of my own pocket, even if the records wouldn t indicate such. These include things like hosting servers, mail forwarding services, anonymizers, communications lines, offices, mailboxes, phone numbers, fax mailboxes, and investigative services. These services are located all over the world. Each is dedicated to communicating with one team member, no more. As each communications service is no longer needed, it is terminated ; as is the identity that paid for it.

Sometimes the identities exist solely to provide funding and make purchases. Some team members need payment or supplies . There just isn t anything you can t buy on the Internet. It would be stupid of me to be so crass as to steal any of these goods or services at this point. I ve got the money to pay for them, why would I draw attention by stealing them? Yes, the identities and trails are fraudulent, but as long as the money is paid, absolutely no one cares.

For some team members, a small common thread is needed, something they can relate to, or become enraged over. Something they can use to identify me in the vaguest way possible to their peers; a handle. Most of the team members will know me as Bob Knuth.