Umar, the man playing the cousin from Saudi Arabia, returned to headquarters. He set down his notes and quickly loaded the CD into a laptop computer for his superiors to see. They were both impressed and skeptical that such a find could be nabbed on the first day. The laptop was handed over to another team for further analysis while Umar went through his notes to his superiors and the rest of the team. He explained the meanings of phrases as Nedim had explained them. There were many questions, it took hours.<\/p>\n
After a short break, they regrouped and Umar began explaining how the baseline images were distributed. He told them about the Open Source software used to embed messages in them and how all baseline images now had \u201cGod is Great\u201d embedded in them before being distributed. The corrupted decoy messages brought up quite a bit of discussion. When asked how they kept track of which images to use, he informed them that each cell communicator chose a specific family of images, beach scenes, birds, fish, etc. This segregation ensured they never needed to keep a list of what went where.<\/p>\n
Skeptics in the room could take no more. They decided to put these theories to a test. A snooping program had been installed on Nedim\u2019s email account for months. They all gathered around a computer while the British photographer downloaded the software and copied two sets of images to the local hard drive. In one directory he put all of the copies of one picture Nedim had sent, in another directory he placed all of that same image Nedim had received. Thirty-eight messages had gone out, but only two had come back.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst we try this on an image sent to someone who didn\u2019t return it,\u201d said the Brit.<\/p>\n
He entered the commands to remove \u201cGod is Great\u201d from the image, then the difference between this baseline and one of the received images. Garbage appeared.<\/p>\n
\u201cSee, he lied to you,\u201d said someone in the back.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d said the Brit. \u201cThis one was a decoy. Next we try an image sent to an email address that returned it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He went through the steps to create the new baseline image. When the difference was run against the responding message, out popped the message.<\/p>\n
Went fishing today.
\nCans and bottles counted.
\nWorm box ignored.<\/p>\n
\u201cWent fishing where?\u201d asked someone.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can ask,\u201d responded Umar.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d said the man in the suit. \u201cSimply observe and report. This was a status report. They will send email again. When Nedim responds to them, we will know their location. We will watch them for a while, then round up the entire cell.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd bring them here?\u201d came the question from somewhere in the room.<\/p>\n
\u201cDepending on the country and who makes the arrest, they will go to our new interrogation facility,\u201d responded the German.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere is that?\u201d asked one of the brutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat information is on a need-to-know basis and you do not need to know,\u201d snapped the man in the suit. He also made a mental note not to let the muscle part of this operation stand around while evidence was being sorted through. Operations like this needed brutes, but they could be damned inconvenient when thinking was going on. As a general rule, they always tried to absorb more information than their tiny brains could hold. This over-absorption had a tendency to result in leakage. Operations like this could not function when leakage happened.<\/p>\n
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\nYou are reading a special promotional version of \u201cInfinite Exposure\u201d containing only the first 18 chapters. This is the first book of the “Earth That Was” trilogy. You can obtain the entire trilogy in EPUB form from here:<\/p>\n