The Los Angeles office in Wilshire Boulevard is one of the largest FBI field offices in the whole American territory. It controls ten resident agencies. It is also one of the few with a specific Cybercrime Division.
The FBI Cybercrime Division’s priority is to investigate high-tech crimes, including cyber-based terrorism, computer intrusions, online sexual exploitation and major cyber frauds. In the United States, in the past five years alone, cybercrime has increased ten-fold. The US government and its networks receive over a billion attacks each and every day, coming from multiple sources all around the world.
In 2011 a report was submitted to the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, estimating that internal cybercrime was bringing in illicit revenues of approximately US$800 million a year, making it the most lucrative illegal business in the USA, exceeding drug trafficking.
Thousands of the FBI’s ‘web crawlers’, also known as ‘bots’ or ‘spiders’, search the net endlessly, looking for anything suspicious concerning any type of high-tech crime, inside and outside the United States. It’s a mammoth job, and the FBI understands that what the crawlers find is merely a drop of water in a cybercrime ocean. For every threat they find, thousands go unnoticed. And that was why on that autumn morning at the end of September, no FBI web crawler came across the web page Detective Hunter and his partner were looking at back at the Police Administration Building.
Three
Hunter and Garcia’s eyes were glued to their computer screens, trying to take in the surreal images. They showed a large, see-through, square container. It looked like it was made of glass, but it could’ve been Perspex or other similar material. Hunter guessed each side to be approximately 1.5 meters wide, and at least 1.8 meters tall. The container was open-top – no lid – and it seemed to have been handmade. Metal frames and thick white sealant connected the four walls. The whole thing looked just like a reinforced shower enclosure. Inside the enclosure, two metal pipes of about three inches in diameter, one on the left and one on the right, ran from the floor all the way up and out the top. The pipes were sprinkled with holes, none wider than the diameter of a regular pencil. But two things worried Hunter. One was the fact that the images seemed to be streaming live. Two was what was at the center of the container, directly between the two metal pipes.
Sitting there, tied to a heavy metal chair, was a white male who looked to be in his mid to late twenties. His hair was light brown and cut short. The only piece of clothing he had on was a striped pair of boxers. He was a chubby man, with a round face, plump cheeks and chunky arms. He was sweating profusely, and though he didn’t look hurt there was no doubt about the expression on his face – pure fear. His eyes were wide open, and he was taking in quick gulps of air through the cloth gag in his mouth. Hunter could tell by the fast ‘up-and-down’ movement of his belly that he was almost hyperventilating. The man was shivering and looking around himself like a confused and frightened mouse.
The entire image had a green tint to it, indicating that the camera was using night-vision mode and lenses. Whoever that man was, he was sitting in a dark room.
‘Is this for real?’ Garcia whispered to Hunter, covering his mouthpiece.
Hunter shrugged without taking his eyes off the screen.
As if on cue, the caller broke his silence. ‘If you are wondering if this is live, Detective, let me show you.’
The camera panned right to a nondescript brick wall where a regular, round wall clock was mounted. It read 2:57 p.m. Hunter and Garcia checked their watches – 2:57 p.m. The camera then panned down and focused on the newspaper that had been placed at the foot of the wall, before zooming in on its front page and the date. It was a copy of this morning’s
LA Times.
‘Satisfied?’ The caller chuckled.
The camera refocused on the man inside the box. His nose had started running and tears were streaming down his face.
‘The container you’re looking at is made of reinforced glass, strong enough to withstand a bullet,’ the caller explained in a chilling voice. ‘The door has a very secure locking mechanism, with an airtight seal. It only opens from the outside. In short, the man you can see on your screen is trapped inside. There’s no way out of there.’
The frightened man on the screen looked straight at the camera. Hunter quickly pressed the ‘print screen’ key on his keyboard, saving a snapshot of his entire desktop to the computer’s clipboard. He now had what he hoped would be an identifiable shot of the man’s face.
‘Now, the reason why I’m calling you, Detective, is because I need your help.’
On the screen, the man started panting heavily. Fearful sweat covered his entire body. He was on the brink of a panic attack.
‘OK, let’s take it easy,’ Hunter replied, being certain to keep his voice calm but authoritative. ‘Tell me how I can help you?’
Silence.
Hunter knew the caller was still on the line. ‘I’ll do everything I can to help you. Just tell me how.’
‘Well . . .’ the caller responded. ‘You can decide how he’s going to die.’
Four
Hunter and Garcia exchanged uneasy glances. Garcia immediately clicked off the call and quickly punched the internal code to be connected to Operations again.
‘Please tell me you’ve got a location for this creep,’ Garcia said as the phone was answered at the other end.
‘Not yet, Detective,’ the woman replied. ‘We need another minute or so. Keep him talking.’
‘He doesn’t want to talk anymore.’
‘We’re getting there, but we need a little more time.’
‘Shit!’ He shook his head at Hunter and signaled him to keep the caller talking. ‘Let me know the second you get something.’ He disconnected and tapped back into Hunter’s call.
‘Fire or water, Detective?’ the caller said.
Hunter frowned. ‘What?’
‘Fire or water?’ the caller repeated in an amused tone. ‘The pipes inside the glass enclosure you can see on your screen are capable of spitting out fire or filling the enclosure with water.’
Hunter’s heart stuttered.
‘So pick, Detective Hunter. Would you like to watch him die by fire or water? Shall we drown him or burn him alive?’ It didn’t sound like a joke.
Garcia shifted in his chair.
‘Wait a moment,’ Hunter said, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘You don’t have to do this.’
‘I know I don’t, but I want to. It should be fun, don’t you think?’ The indifference in the caller’s voice was mesmerizing.
‘C’mon, c’mon,’ Garcia urged between clenched teeth, staring at the line lights on his phone. Still nothing from Operations.
‘Choose, Detective,’ the caller ordered. ‘I want
you
to decide how he’s going to die.’
Hunter kept silent.
‘I suggest you pick one, Detective, because I promise you that the alternative is much worse.’
‘You know I can’t make that decision . . .’
‘CHOOSE,’ the caller shouted down the line.
‘OK,’ Hunter’s voice remained calm. ‘I choose neither of the two.’
‘That’s not an option.’
‘Yes, it is. Let’s talk about this for a minute.’
The caller laughed angrily. ‘Let’s not. Talking time is over. It’s decision time now, Detective. If you don’t pick . . . I will. Either way, he dies.’
A red light started flashing on Garcia’s phone. He quickly swapped calls. ‘Tell me you’ve got him.’
‘We’ve got him, Detective.’ Excitement colored the woman’s voice. ‘He’s in . . .’ She paused for a moment. ‘What the hell?’
‘What?’ Garcia pushed. ‘Where is he?’
‘What the hell is going on?’ Garcia heard the woman say, but he knew she wasn’t talking to him. He heard some more undecipherable whispers coming from the other end of the line. Something was wrong.
‘Somebody better talk to me.’ Garcia’s voice raised about half an octave.
‘It’s no good, Detective,’ the woman finally answered. ‘We thought we had him in Norwalk, but suddenly the signal jumped to Temple City, then to El Monte, now it’s showing the call is coming from Long Beach. He’s rerouting the signal every five seconds. Even if we keep him on the phone for an hour, we wouldn’t be able to pinpoint him.’ She paused for a moment. ‘The signal just moved to Hollywood. Sorry, Detective. This guy knows what he’s doing.’
‘Shit!’ Garcia tapped back into Hunter’s call and shook his head. ‘He’s bouncing the signal,’ he whispered. ‘We can’t get his location.’
Hunter squeezed his eyes tight. ‘Why are you doing this?’ he asked the caller.
‘Because I want to,’ the caller came back. ‘You have three seconds to make your choice, Detective Hunter. Fire or water? Flip a coin if you need to. Ask your partner. I know he’s listening in.’
Garcia said nothing.
‘Wait,’ Hunter said. ‘How can I make a choice if I don’t even know who he is, or why you have him in that tank? C’mon, talk to me. Tell me what this is all about.’
The caller laughed again. ‘That’s something you will have to find out for yourself, Detective. Two seconds.’
‘Don’t do this. We can help each other.’
Garcia’s eyes had left his computer screen and were now locked on Hunter.
‘One second, Detective.’
‘C’mon, talk to me,’ Hunter said again. ‘We can figure this out. We can come up with a better solution for whatever this is.’
Garcia held his breath.
‘The solution is either fire or water, Detective. Anyway, time’s up. So what is it going to be?’
‘Look, there’s got to be another way we can . . .’
TOC, TOC, TOC.
The sound exploded through Hunter and Garcia’s phone so loudly that their heads jerked back, as if they had been slapped across the face. It sounded like the caller had slammed his receiver against a wooden surface three times to get their attention.
‘You don’t seem to be listening to me, Detective Hunter. We are through talking. The only word I want to hear from you right now is either
fire
or
water.
Nothing else.’
Hunter said nothing.
‘Suit yourself. You don’t want to pick, I will. And I pick fi—’
‘Water,’ Hunter said in a firm voice. ‘I choose water.’
The caller paused and let out an amused chuckle. ‘You know what, Detective? I knew you would choose water.’
Hunter stayed silent.
‘It was obvious, really. When you considered the options you had, death by drowning seemed less awful, more humane, less painful and quicker than being burned alive, right? But have you ever seen anyone drown, Detective?’
Silence.
‘Have you ever seen the despairing look on a person’s eyes as he holds his breath for as long as he can, knowing death is all around him and closing in fast?’
Hunter ran a hand through his short hair.
‘Have you ever seen the way a drowning man frantically looks around himself, confused, searching for a miracle that is just not there? A miracle that will never come?’
Still silence.
‘Have you seen the way the body convulses, as if it was being electrocuted, as the person finally lets go of hope and breathes his first mouthful of water? The way his eyes almost bulge out of his skull as water enters his lungs and he slowly starts to suffocate?’ The caller deliberately breathed out heavily. ‘Did you know that it’s impossible to keep your eyes shut when you’re drowning? It’s an automatic motor reaction when a person’s brain is starved of oxygen.’
Garcia’s gaze returned to his screen.
The caller laughed one more time. This time a relaxed giggle. ‘Keep on watching, Detective. This show is just about to get much better.’
The line went dead.
Five
All of a sudden and with incredible speed, water started jetting out of the holes on both pipes inside the glass enclosure. The man tied to the chair was caught by surprise, and fear made his whole body jerk violently. His eyes widened in complete desperation as he realized what was happening. Despite the gag in his mouth, he started screaming, frantically, but on the other side of the screen Hunter and Garcia couldn’t hear a sound.
‘Oh my God,’ Garcia said, bringing his closed right fist to his mouth. ‘He’s not bullshitting. He’s going to do it. He’s going to drown the guy, goddammit.’
The man kicked and wiggled ferociously inside the enclosure, but his restraints wouldn’t give an inch. He couldn’t break free no matter what he did. The chair was solidly bolted to the floor.
‘This is insane,’ Garcia said.
Hunter stood still, his eyes unblinking, staring at his computer screen. He knew that from their office there was absolutely nothing they could do – except maybe collect evidence. ‘Is there a way we can record this?’ he asked.
Garcia shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’
Hunter reached for his phone again and got the LAPD switchboard.
‘Punch me through to the head of the Computer Crimes Unit,
now.
This is urgent.’
Two seconds later he heard a ringing tone. Four seconds after that the phone was answered by a baritone voice.
‘Dennis Baxter, LAPD Computer Crimes Unit.’
‘Dennis, this is Detective Hunter from Homicide Special.’
‘Hello, Detective, how can I assist you?’
‘Tell me, is there a way I can record a live webcam broadcast that I’m watching on my computer right now?’
Baxter laughed. ‘Wow, is she that hot?’
‘Is there a way or not, Dennis?’
Hunter’s tone knocked the play out of Baxter’s voice.
‘Not unless you have some sort of screen recording software installed on your computer,’ he answered.
‘Will I have one?’
‘On an LAPD office computer? Not as standard. You can put in a request and IT will install one for you in a day or two.’
‘No good. I need to capture what’s on my screen right now.’
A split-second pause.
‘Well, I can do it from here,’ Baxter said. ‘If you’re watching something live over the net, just give me the web address. I can log into the same website and capture it for you. How does that sound?’
‘Good enough. Let’s try it.’ Hunter gave Baxter the sequence of numbers the caller had given him minutes earlier.