I was doing technical consulting in the construction industry around uh life safety and uh building structures uh part of the building code. 

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And I got asked to do uh or to join a task force uh for the attorney general's office investigating corruption between the construction industry and government. And in fact, one of the high schools that we investigated was right down here in Ocean Shores. A very frustrating process because we went through hospitals and schools and we were able to clearly identify fraudulent behavior on the part of a lot of very big general contractors. And in the end, when we went back to the legislature and sought funding for prosecution, the bad guys went to the politicians and gave them money and the politicians shut the whole investigation down and that was it. The bad guys win.

On his business cards, it says Gary P. Booker Jr., Booker Security Consulting, but he rarely hands one out. Most people who contact him either know who he is or are blindly reaching out through a secured channel, having heard there might be someone on the other end who would help them in a desperate hour of need. He often wondered why he even had business cards, an analog remnant in a digital digital world. But on that rare occasion, handing one out gave the appearance of legitimacy. The term cyber security consultant made his work sound very neat and tidy, and it usually was, but other times it got really messy. That's what this story is about, a time when things got really messy.

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It was a Monday night in the middle of July. The temperature in eastern Washington had been characteristically hot, hovering around 100 degrees most days. Gary did not mind. He had air conditioning, although he didn't like to use it. Rather, he preferred wearing fewer clothes with quick dips in his pool. Since he lived alone most of the time, he had little need for clothes, unless his teammates, his housekeeper, or her 17-year-old daughter were around. Lately, he spent a lot of time alone. Technically, he didn't live alone. But his dog Jax didn't care if Gary worked nearly naked or not.

He was up late into the evening digging through an Asian chat room on the dark web. The real name of which is to or the onion router. The system has many different uses actually, but it was popular known for being the secure place criminals used to communicate. Referring to it as the dark web was sensational, and the media loves to sensationalize things. Besides, nobody wants to hear about some technical process of encrypting messages in layers, especially with a boring name like the Onion router. The dark web sounds much more mysterious and dangerous.

He'd been monitoring a situation in Dvau City on the Philippine island of Mindanao. There had been some mention of possible terrorist activity in a dark group he surfed occasionally. That was enough to send him digging through the notorious online back alley of society looking for clarity on the matter. The Philippines is 15 or 16 hours ahead of his local time zone depending on daylight savings time. That was why he was up in the middle of the night on naked on a warm summer evening. Normally he would be in bed trying to outsnore his dog which would be laying on a big pillow in the corner of the room.

The phone rang breaking his concentration. Irritated someone would call at this hour, he looked to see who it was. The screen simply said, "John." Calling unexpectedly was not unusual for his best friend. If he and Ila were not actually in Ellensburg with Gary, they might be anywhere in the world. When that was the case, John frequently poked his head above ground wanting to chat. He normally did not call at 11 p.m., though. Curious about the call at that hour, Gary picked up his phone and touched the button. Hey, Big John. What's up? You okay?

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Yeah, boy. All good now. But I have a situation and I need your help. Now, Gary known John Burn for years. He was one of those hard to describe people. The closest comparison Gary could think of was to Lone's character in Get Carter. Gary often wondered if that character had actually been modeled after John's notorious career as an enforcer and collector for the casino industry. Jod would not stick out in any crowd. But when an immediate lasting impression needed to be made on someone, he was the man many powerful people called. People knew him said John was the most interesting person they'd ever met. A very common comment about him was, "Somebody should write a book about all of his stuff, all of the stuff he's done, but nobody would believe it was true."