“Let me see the next hand that was played in this game,” Tommy asked quietly without taking his eyes off the screen.
Without a word, Hughes reached out with his right hand, scrolled down the list of screenshots to the next one, and clicked the mouse.
This time, Tommy’s attention was immediately drawn to the bets. Still, before asking Hughes to show him the next screen, he inspected the cards being displayed as well as the user names. He did the same with the third screenshot, but he stopped looking at the cards or the user names, focusing his entire attention on the bets as Hughes progressed from one round to the next.
For his part, the dispassionate expression he’d affected ever so slowly morphed into a knowing grin as Hughes realized Tommy had caught on to the quirk that made this particular group of players stand out. Still, he kept his own council, waiting until Tommy had decided he’d seen enough.
“Well,” Tommy finally intoned. “Either you have a group of grannies who are on the dole playing this game or the bets are being used to transmit a message. How many of these types of games are there, and how often do these particular users play?”
Easing back into his seat once more, Hughes knitted his fingers together and brought his hands to rest on a paunch that had long ago lost all definition. “These particular players show up on our website about once a week. Though they change their screen names every few months, it’s the way they bet, regardless of what hand is being played, that’s caused the algorithm we use to sniff out quirky behavior to flag this lot. What we can’t figure out is what kind of code this is.”
“Ever hear of JN-25?” Tommy asks his friend.
“Can’t say that I have. What kind of program is it?”
“It’s not a computer program. It was a cipher the Jap navy used in World War II. It was made up of words, phrases, numbers, and letters that were each assigned to a set of numbers. The sender looked up the word or phrase he wanted to use in a code book, found the numbers next to it, and encrypted the numbers when sending the message. All the addressee needed to do was look up the numbers and write down the word or phrase they represented.”
Hughes, having worked with contractors and sales reps of software companies long enough to be leery of someone who came up with an answer as quickly as his friend had just done, remained skeptical. “Since when have you become a history buff?”
“Since I started working for someone with a desk across from mine who likes to pass the time rambling on about why Hannibal was completely daft for even thinking about taking elephants across the Alps and thinks spending a weekend perched on Hadrian’s Wall dressed like a Roman soldier is as close to heaven on earth as you can get.”
“I know what you mean.” Hughes snickered before returning to the matter at hand. “Try spending all your time around jokers who live, eat, and sleep nothing but gambling and how to keep people from cheating the casinos built to cheat them out of their life savings.” After a pause, during which Hughes waited for Tommy to continue with the point he had been making without him doing so, he sighed. “Okay, I’m game. What makes you think the bets are a code?”
“I’m willing to wager you another free meal at that posh restaurant we ate in,” Tommy declared with an air of confidence. “I expect if you were to go back and look at all the bets made by this crew that’s giving you the willies, you’ll find their bets all consist of five digits. Never any more, never any less.”
Hughes didn’t need to go back and look. He already knew this to be the case. “Okay, so someone is using the game to send messages back and forth. That’s easy enough to fix. Even I can stop that.”
Tommy looked away from the monitor a moment and took to regarding his friend out of the corner of his eye even as something of a plan began to gel in his head. “I wouldn’t advise that, mate. Not until you find out who these blighters are and what they’re up to.”
“I expect you’re going to tell me why I need to worry about that.”
“I will, but not here,” Tommy replied as he glanced about the room, taking note once more of one of Hughes’s people, who had been doing a pathetic job of pretending he wasn’t watching them. “All this high-powered thinking has left my throat parched.”
“Should I even bother to ask who’s buying?”
“You can always ask, mate, but it’ll be a waste of time, since I’m sure you already know the answer,” Tommy shot back with a sly wink as they both came to their feet and headed for the door.
In a quiet booth tucked away in the corner of one of the casino’s bars, Tommy took his time to explain to his friend why he needed to find out who was using the poker games as a way of passing messages. “Whoever came up with this system has dedicated a whole lot of time, money, and brainpower generating the code books and distributing them. They’re not about to abandon the system simply because you freeze them out. They’ll just go to another outfit’s site and carry on.”
“So long as they’re not here, what do I care?” Hughes replied offhandedly before taking a sip of his beer.
“Two reasons,” Tommy explained as he was holding up two fingers of his right hand in front of his friend’s face. “First, these people are probably up to something that is not in the best interest of your adopted country. Whether they’re druggies or terrorists doesn’t matter.” Pausing, Tommy thought about that a second before he corrected himself. “Well, it does matter. Given my druthers, I’d rather they be druggies. You can avoid that lot if you’re careful. Hopped-up hajjis, on the other hand, would love to pay a visit to a place like this to make a statement and wreak havoc on the people who messed with their system and extract a bit of vengeance before cashing in on the seventy-two-virgins deal.”
Tommy allowed this thought to sink in as he took another slurp of his beer before continuing. “The second reason is connected to the first in a roundabout way. Let’s just say the people who are passing messages are martyrs in waiting, using your system to post messages to each other or, even more likely, the leader of a group passing on orders to various cells. In the wake of a major attack, when the people at the NSA stop reading Kim Kardashian’s e-mails and turn their attention to figuring out how they missed the warning signs, they’ll trace the hajjis’ traffic back to you. If your site was the first one they used, I imagine you’d come under some heavy-duty scrutiny, the kind I expect your boss, his partners, and their accountants are keen on avoiding.”
“No doubt about that,” Hughes muttered. “If you think the lads who work for HMG’s Revenue and Customs can be brutal, try dealing with the American IRS.”
“And finally,” Tommy added as his face lit up with a broad, toothy grin. “Think of the plaudits you and your boss will get if you manage to uncover a covey of nasty little bastards intent doing more than running about crying ‘Death to America!’ for the TV cameras.”