‘Just as well we’ve got a copy, then. But we couldn’t find anything on it that was even slightly interesting, and certainly nothing worth killing for.’
‘Which must mean,’ Richter reflected, ‘that whatever it is must be very well hidden. I’ll talk to your computer man when we get back to the embassy, and see if we can come up with anything.’
‘Lady,’ Watkinson said.
‘What?’
‘My computer man is actually a computer lady. Her name’s Christine Halls, but everyone calls her Chris.’
‘How did you check the contents of Holden’s hard drive?’ Richter asked.
‘I analysed the overall directory structure and looked at the program files and utilities,’ Chris Halls replied, ‘because you can gauge a user’s ability by seeing what software they have in addition to the standard stuff.’
Halls was a slim and attractive woman of about thirty, long dark hair framing a pert and pretty face, square-lensed spectacles giving her a somewhat studious appearance. She had a degree in computer science, and had worked for the SIS ever since university.
‘And Holden?’
‘He was a user, but not an expert. Take a look.’ She pointed at the nineteen-inch flat-panel monitor on which the cloned copy of Holden’s hard drive was displayed. ‘He’s using Windows Vista Home Premium, and that’s a clue straight away because it’s still pretty buggy. Serious users tend to run XP Professional or Linux. For application software he’s got a basic version of Office, and that came with the computer because it’s an OEM edition.’
Richter nodded. ‘Original Equipment Manufacturer,’ he said. ‘What else has he got?’
‘What you’d expect, bearing in mind the spec of the machine. He’s got a standard DVD player, and an oldish version of Nero for burning CD and DVD disks for backup. That probably came with the machine and he’s never bothered updating it. His firewall, anti-virus and so forth are all perfectly good programs, but he’s using the free editions. A serious user would either run the bought versions or more likely an integrated suite like Norton. This looks like a machine owned by somebody who either doesn’t know too much about computers, or doesn’t care. As long as the PC did the job, I don’t think he was bothered.’
‘What about data files?’
‘There were a few hundred files in the “my documents” folder, divided up the way you’d expect — letters to the bank, that kind of thing. I scanned the whole disk, doing wildcard searches for likely filenames. I also looked for text strings within files, choosing words associated with the bombs Holden told us about, but found nothing.’
‘And then?’ Richter asked.
‘And then nothing, really. We were never certain that there was anything to find on Holden’s computer. The people we sent in only copied the hard drive because it seemed like a good place to look for information. The last thing I did was check his copy of Outlook Express. He had no files at all in his inbox, which was a surprise. Most inexperienced users end up with hundreds or thousands of messages there. But Holden seems to have been good at filing them, and he had a lot of folders. I scanned them all, but still nothing came up. No pictures, no mention of the words “Damascus”, “Syria”, “Assad”, “suicide”, “bomb” or “shahid”. I also searched for “Bahrain” and got a few hits, but they were all to do with that new waterside development at Manama. The only slight oddity was that his “deleted items” folder was also empty. Most people delete messages they’ve read or they’re not interested in, and then they sit there until they do a purge and empty the entire folder.’
‘He might have just done that, so it could be a coincidence the folder was empty.’
Halls nodded. ‘You could be right, but you could also argue it indicates a regimented use of the email client, with Holden eliminating every message that he didn’t file. And I’m not a big fan of coincidence.’
‘Neither am I,’ Richter said, ‘and now that we know somebody killed Holden and took the trouble to wipe his hard drive, we can be sure there was something on that machine the killer didn’t want us to see. We also know that what Holden was telling you people was probably sent to him by email, and that he was no more psychic than I am.’
‘So what do you want to do now?’
‘That’s your department, I think. There’s something on that hard drive we need to find, and it’s obviously very well hidden. How could Holden have managed that, if you’re right and he wasn’t a sophisticated user?’
‘We can rule out techniques like steganography, so my guess is that he did one of two things. He could have used online storage, but I’ve checked his favourites in Internet Explorer and none of them links to a storage site. Most probably, somewhere on that drive,’ Halls pointed at the external hard disk, ‘is a security program Holden used to create a hidden folder, or even a hidden partition, that won’t show up using normal search tools.’
‘Are you sure it’s still there? I mean, did the people who accessed Holden’s computer copy everything?’
‘Yes.’ Halls nodded. ‘They didn’t copy the hard disk — they cloned it. That means they made an exact, byte-for-byte replica of it. This drive is identical to the hard disk in Holden’s computer on the date our people entered his apartment. If there was a hidden directory or partition on his computer then, it’ll be here on this drive.’
‘Can you find it?’
‘Yes, probably. As this investigation has moved from being merely about an anomaly nobody could explain to a murder hunt, my priorities have changed. Watkinson’s told me I can spend as much time as I like playing with this.’
Dawson’s update for Langley had inevitably proved to be somewhat protracted. The man they’d travelled to Dubai to interview had been murdered, and his apartment ransacked. With their witness — using the word in its loosest possible sense — dead, the primary reason for their presence in Dubai had vanished, and Owens had recommended that they return to the States immediately.
This had always been a potential problem, because local CIA officers usually took a dim view when Langley-based staff were sent out to work on their ‘patch’. But Dawson had handled that, too, by telling Owens they’d be leaving once they’d shown the Dubai police how to use the explosive detectors they’d brought with them. That, he estimated, would take them three or four days to accomplish. Owens had grumbled at this delay, but had agreed to relay everything Dawson had told him back to CIA Headquarters.
‘Leave Dick guarding the room, but go get John, will you?’ O’Hagan instructed, as they climbed out of the police car. ‘We’ll go through what happened and make sure we’ve got all our beans in a row.’
As the three of them headed towards Dubai Creek, he began. ‘Right. What happened at Al-Ramool, John?’
‘It went as exactly as planned. Holden let me in, I terminated him in the study and wiped the hard drive on his PC. I grabbed all his disks and anything else I could find, trashed the place and left.’
‘You took precautions?’
Petrucci nodded. ‘Yes. I wore my Arab stuff, and sunglasses. I took a taxi both ways but not door-to-door. Nobody followed me in either direction, and nobody took any notice of me at the building itself.’