James Grippando - Afraid of the Dark

“My guess is that the ‘something else’ would be encryption,” said Jack.

“You got it,” said Chuck. “The first reports out of the London Times were about terrorists encoding secret messages in the digital images of child pornography.”

“That seems really stupid,” said Jack, “considering all of the scrutiny it gets from law enforcement. Seems like it would be a much better idea to hide messages in pictures of cookware or something else random and off the radar.”

“Exactly,” said Chuck. “My take was that it wasn’t steganography-terrorists embedding messages in child porn. It was terrorists learning about encryption by studying the way online pedophiles traded files in peer-to-peer networks. That was when it hit me: If terrorists could go to school on these guys, so could I. Project Round Up was born.”

Jack knew about P2P, but something was missing. “I’m still not clear on what your project is,” said Jack.

“Show him,” said Vince.

Chuck nodded readily, as if the initial reluctance to share his work had faded. In fact, he seemed proud of what he was doing, almost eager to be able to demonstrate it. “Keep your eyes on the screen,” he said.

Jack braced himself, fearful that the horrific image of a pedophile’s work might appear. Instead, the image of Chuck’s face blinked off the screen, and it was replaced by a map of south Florida. A red dot appeared over a street on Key Biscayne.

“The dot on the screen marks the address of a convicted sexual predator who traded on the P2P network,” said Chuck.

“That’s less than a mile from my house,” said Jack.

“That’s why I chose it. Kind of brings it home, doesn’t it?”

“He was trading child pornography?” said Jack.

“Not just trading. He created it. What I’m going to show you is the digital version of time-lapsed photography. You’re looking at zero-hour for the launch of one of his video files. The first trade.”

There was a blip on the screen, and the map enlarged from south Florida to the eastern United States. A second dot appeared over Richmond, Virginia.

“Is it that easy to track P2P trades?”

“If you know what you’re looking for. Watch what happens twenty minutes later.”

The map grew again, now showing the entire United States. Jack counted six dots, one as far away as Oregon.

“Two hours later,” said Chuck, and suddenly there were several dozen dots spread across North America. “Four hours,” said Chuck, and the map stretched to the entire Western Hemisphere. Hundreds, maybe thousands of dots from Brazil to Vancouver to Budapest and everywhere in between.

“That’s Project Round Up?”

“No. Project Round Up is the ability to work backward.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at that map,” said Chuck. He continued to advance the timeline-one day, three days, a week-until there were so many dots that virtually every major city on the map was covered in red. “If you didn’t know that the file started in Key Biscayne, could you tell me who created it?”

“No way.”

“Unfortunately, that’s the point where law enforcement-usually undercover agents trading online-gets involved. After the file has been traded around the world. You nail these creeps for possession and trading, but not creation. This is what I want to do. Watch.”

There was another blip on the screen, and the timeline was in reverse-the map shrinking, red dots disappearing. Finally, they were back to the first frame: one red dot over a house on Key Biscayne.

“You can do that?

“I’m almost there. My goal is to be able to work back to the camera that made the video. Like ballistics for a bullet.”

“How does that work?”

The map vanished from the screen, replaced by the image of Chuck’s face. “That’s for me to know and the sick bastards to find out.”

“Is that what Jamal was working on when he disappeared?”

“We were in the very early stages of creating algorithms to unravel trades of encrypted files. Basically he was cataloging the most popular encryption methods used by sexual predators. As I mentioned, some terrorist organizations have essentially borrowed those encryption methods from the pedophiles.”

Jack worked through the implications. “So Jamal was all over the Internet downloading files that were encrypted the same way al-Qaeda files are encrypted.”

“Not necessarily al-Qaeda,” said Chuck, “but yes, known terrorist organizations.”

“Couple that with the fact that he was of Somali descent, his father is a known recruiter for al-Shabaab, and two of his high-school classmates left Minnesota to fight in Somalia, and I can see where he would end up on an antiterrorism watch list.”

“A watch list is one thing,” said Vince. “A secret detention facility in Eastern Europe is another.”

Jack considered it, but he didn’t want to put words in anyone’s mouth. “What are you saying, Vince?”

“I’m saying that we still don’t know for sure that there ever was a secret detention facility in Prague. Even if there was, we don’t know if it was government run.”

“Actually, I’m convinced that it was not government run,” said Jack, though he still did not divulge Andie as his source.

“Hell, if that’s the case, maybe it didn’t even have anything to do with the war on terrorism.”

Jack glanced at Chuck’s image on the screen, and with the slight transmission delay, the import of Vince’s words hit Jack first and then carried across the ocean like a tidal wave.

“I feel stupid for saying this,” said Jack, “but I’ve never actually considered that possibility.”

“Maybe it’s time we did,” said Vince.

There was a flicker on the computer screen. The map reappeared, but this time it was focused on London, and the city was covered with red dots.

“Maybe Shada already has,” said Chuck.

Shada lay sleeping at his side. Habib was staring at the ceiling, deep in thought.

The sex had been good. Not as good as their first time, of course, but it was hard to top the illicit thrill of throttling another man’s wife in his own castle. To say that he had come between Shada and Chuck Mays would have been overstatement. Never had a married woman been so ripe for the picking. It had started with the exchange of e-mails, a little flirtatious online banter, and the eventual trading of photos. Things quickly heated up with the webcam, where it was her idea to undress for him, his idea that she touch herself, their idea to meet. From then on it was good-bye to the virtual world and hello to the real pink. Habib had the perfect arrangement. Until Vince Paulo came along. And now Paulo was pounding the sidewalks of London with Jamal’s lawyer. Or so Shada had told him.

Habib glanced at Shada, who was still sound asleep. The room was awash with shadows, brightened only by the dim night-light. He quietly rolled out of bed, walked to the bathroom, and washed up at the sink. Then he went down the hall to the study, unrolled his prayer mat on the floor, and faced toward Mecca. It was almost Isha, the last of the daily prayer times for Muslims around the world.

Salat-the formal prayer of Islam-is one of the Five Pillars of the religion, an obligatory rite for practicing Muslims that must be performed five times each day at the specified time. Habib tried not to miss Fajr (sunrise), Magrhib (sunset), and Isha (nightfall). Zuhr and Asr were another matter. Praying at noon and midafternoon would have required him to set an alarm clock. Sometimes he would wake himself and combine the two into one, a permissible practice known as Jam’ bayn as-Salaatayn. More often, he slept through and substituted a late-night prayer, twisting the words of `Amr ibn `Absah, who claimed to have heard Muhammad say, “The closest that a slave comes to his Lord is during the middle of the latter portion of the night, so if you can be among those who remember Allah the Exalted One at that time, then do so.” Never mind that the Prophet was talking about non-mandatory nighttime prayer in addition to Salat. It was one of the small ways in which Habib had distorted the teachings of Islam to suit his personal needs. He was guilty of bigger distortions. Much bigger.