Page 40 of Operation: Valiant Angel

“I recognize you,” Bianchi said to Garcia. “You’re from the computer room at work.”

“We’ve been investigating you,” Madison began. “We received a tip regarding your conversations with a certain Saudi businessman.”

Bianchi looked like he was about to throw up. “Khalad Bashar?”

Madison nodded. “Yes. What can you tell us about him?”

“That I wish I’d never heard his name,” Bianchi said, looking more unstable on his feet.

“Why don’t we sit down?” Cooper said, motioning to Bianchi’s living room couch.

Bianchi dropped himself onto the far left of the couch. Cooper sat in the middle right section. Madison sat across from him in the rocking chair, leaving Garcia and Wilson to stand on either side of Madison, as there were no more seats in the room.

“Let’s drag a few kitchen chairs in,” Wilson said to Garcia after evaluating how intimidating it had to feel to Bianchi that they stood as they did. In any other situation, intimidation wouldhave been the intention, but not in this one. Bianchi was clearly already intimidated enough.

“Khalad Bashar?” Madison repeated gently. Wilson was impressed as she adjusted her approach.

“Yes, he tried to blackmail me into clearing his organization’s shipments without a proper inspection. I didn’t though and I’m waiting for him to make good on his threats.”

“What threats, exactly?” Madison asked.

“You don’t know?”

Wilson watched him slump in his seat. The man was embarrassed and defeated. If it was what he suspected, Bianchi would never say it out loud. “We need to hear it in your words, but let’s start with this. Tell us how it unfolded. How did the communications begin?” Wilson asked.

“I think the term is catfished,” Bianchi began. “Looking back now, I should have suspected.” He shrugged. Or was it a shudder? Wilson couldn’t tell.

“A lot of really intelligent people are catfished every year. Those doing it are skilled. And let’s face it, most people aren’t suspicious of everyone and everything,” Madison said. “They take things at face value.”

Bianchi nodded. “Well, you can believe I’ll be more suspicious of everything and everyone.”

“How’d it start?” Madison pressed gently.

“It was on an app, swipe right, swipe left,” he said, mocking himself. “I never really thought twice about using the same picture on my work email and using it in my personal life. It was a good picture. We’re required to have a picture on our email for work. Makes it more of a personal customer service experience for our customers is what the company brass has said. BradfordBianchi at MRG Enterprises dot com. And my personal email, Bradford Bianchi at gmail dot com. Didn’t occur to me anyone would look for me, want to set me up and I’d made it super easy for them.” He shook his head in disgust.

“We live in a sick world,” Cooper agreed. “How’d he do it?”

“I don’t know how he found my account on that site. It’s supposed to be anonymous, your email address and real name. My site name is BB ten-twenty, my birthday, October twentieth.”

“The site sends you email regarding your account?” Garcia asked.

Bianchi nodded.

“He probably hacked your email account first and then saw the emails from the dating app site. From there it was easy enough for him to find your account on the dating site, set up a fake profile of his own, and initiate communication,” Garcia said.

“My own email account led him there?” Bianchi asked.

“Yeah, more than likely. Had it been a hetero dating profile, he’d have set up a fake female profile to use.”

“Remember, these people are skilled at what they do,” Cooper reminded him.

“So he initiated communication with you in the dating app?” Madison asked.

“Yes. He sent me a message, said all the right things, looking for friendship and perhaps more, but definitely friendship and someone to talk to first. Must have read my profile and created his to mirror mine. We talked for weeks about work, family, life, unfulfilled dreams. And before you ask, yes, things got very personal, and a bit risqué. I’d never done anything like that before. It was fun, and I thought I’d found someone like me,wanting to take the next step, but unable to due to current life circumstances.”

“Why are you unable to? What life circumstance?” Madison asked.

“Hello, my father. I can’t tell him I’m gay,” Bianchi said.

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