The 6:20 Man

Chapter 25

When Devine got back to the house, Valentine was waiting for him in the living room, excitement and concern competing for equal time on his features.

“What’s up, Will?”

“Dude, the email?”

“What about it? Did you find out who sent it?”

“No. It’s untraceable.”

“Well, thanks for trying. It’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. I mean, it doesn’t even look like an email address.”

“No, Travis, is not that easy. I mean, I could not trace it. People I work with, they cannot trace it, either. At first, I think it is some kind of weird spoofing email or maybe hexadecimal.”

“What?” exclaimed Devine.

“Hexadecimal. A base system to simplify binary language computers use. But I dig deeper and it is not that either.”

“Okay, but people send anonymous emails all the time,” said Devine. “Don’t they?”

“There are many ways to sending such messages on internet,” said Valentine. “Cheap, not so cheap, hard, not so hard.”

Devine leaned against the wall. “You’re going to need to explain that.”

“New phone number, preferably burner or prepaid with cash or cloned credit card, fake name and info, new email account, Hotmail, Gmail. Different browser, use incognito mode, and off goes mail. Russia has Yandex webmail, no phone verification needed. Hotmail and Gmail require phone number, but that is bypassed with burner phone. Incognito mode still has location IP address sent with email. But this email has none of that.”

“So then it’s untraceable, you mean?”

“Not if person you send it to has resources. And by being cheap you create big problem.”

“What are the more expensive and better ways?”

“Use special service to do just what you want, send anonymous email. Built-in premier encryption, spoofed IP address, auto deletion from whatever server is used, password protect, no personal info required. Good shit like that.”

“Who does that?” asked Devine.

“Many platforms do proxy email. Some legit and reputable, others not so much. They all do that and do it good. Or you can jump over them and use VPN platform. But don’t do free service, they sell data to third party. Use premium service and your IP address goes poof.”

“Well, whoever sent that email must have used one of those services or the VPN method.”

When Devine eyed the Russian, the man seemed more serious than Devine had ever seen him. Gone was the pizza-and-beer caricature of a Russian hacker.

“Even with that, you can’t hide the computer’s MAC address. Every device has MAC address attached to network card. Is like fingerprint.”

“But this one doesn’t?”

“I think maybe they spoof address, make it invisible.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t a spoofing email?”

“Does not matter. We can break those systems, no matter which method used,” he said quite confidently. “No matter if MAC address spoofed. That is what we do! But this email was not sent on one of those platforms. It could not be. It has none of protocols required to send message over broadband, including an IP, or Internet Protocol, address.”

“So I guess it has to have all that stuff?”

“Of course, Travis, get with fuckin’ program.” Valentine sighed and sat back on the couch. “When you send email, sender and recipient IP addresses are in packet. Then it is directed to gateway or router. Then on to higher-level network. It does this over and over, until it gets to destination email address.”

“So then how did the email manage to show up in my inbox?” asked Devine, before answering his own question: “Someone had to have my email address.”

“Yes, this is true. But that is easy to get. The big thing, Travis, is we do not know who send it or how they manage to send it. I mean, we can’t even trace message to any portal on internet.”

“This is getting a little beyond my depth,” conceded Devine.

“There are basically five IP classes. Classes A, B, and C are used for public and private use. Class D for things like video streaming, TV networks, and such.”

“That’s only four classes. What’s the fifth?” asked Devine.

“Class E, not reserved for public. Mainly used for research. Is experimental IP class. If I had to guess, I say your email sent somehow using Class E, but I can’t figure out how.”

“It came in at nine twenty-two a.m. It said that a custodian found Sara’s body at around eight thirty that morning and the police were called. So less than an hour later someone knew she was dead and had details about how she died and where the crime scene was and what she looked like hanging there. And then they sent out a message only to me, as far as I know, that you guys can’t trace. That’s pretty damn fast.”

“You have to find out about this, dude. People I work for are freaking out over this. I mean seriously freaking out.”

“How can I find out about it if you guys can’t? I’m not a world-class hacker.”

“I mean talk to people. Talk to this dude that found body.”

“Is not being able to trace an email really that catastrophic?”

“For me, it is end of world. It means what I do... goes poof. And it means that bad people on internet, they get away with anything, because they are invisible. Get with program.”

When he said it like that, Devine began to understand the importance of the situation.

“And you knew this girl, Travis. You told me you dated her. Don’t you want to find who killed her?”

“Of course I do. But if I’m going to be snooping around there, I need your help.” Devine was thinking about the security database at Cowl and Comely. He told Valentine what he wanted done.

“Give me your log-in and password,” the Russian said.

Devine hesitated. “I’m not sure I should do that, Will.”

Valentine smiled. “I can find out in about one minute, dude. But if you don’t want my help?”

“You screw me, I’ll kick your ass,” said Devine.

“Dude,” Valentine said with a smile.

Devine emailed it to him and the Russian’s fingers began flying over the keyboard.

“How long do you think it will take?” asked Devine.

“Is done.”

“What!”

“Your employer has bullshit encryption. I email you what you need to get into database.” Valentine did so and said, “And you Americans wonder why you get hacked all the time. Is bullshit.”

As Devine walked off he knew one thing. There was really only one way the sender of the “invisible” email could have known those details at that point in time.

I think whoever sent me the email also killed Sara.