That alone explained Batra’s reluctance to meet me in a public place. She was proud of being FBI, and she was a woman of great personal integrity who cared deeply about her reputation. But she’d come, which meant she thought it was worth the risk, which meant she had looked at Killingblondechicks4-fun.org.co.
“C’mon, Batra,” I said. “Any luck unlocking those videos?”
“Can a pickpocket pick?” Batra said, heading toward the Vietnam Memorial.
“What did you find?”
“Nothing,” she said. “The videos all end a second or two past the locking point. I suspect if a user has the correct passcode, the two extra seconds are revealed and a secret onion router message is sent to the webmaster. At that point, the webmaster would send back an onion router message with the complete encrypted film attached.”
“Hold up,” I said. “Most of that went right over my head. Start with onion.”
The cybercrimes specialist took a sip of her coffee and said an onion was a digital message or order that left a computer surrounded by layers and layers of encryption and code, almost like an onion. “When you send out an e-mail or look at a website,” she said, “you’re leaving digital tracks all over the so-called clear web. But when an onion message or order is sent, the surrounding codes direct it through dozens of routers on the deep, or unorganized, web. Each router peels away layers of encryption and metadata that would identify the original sender.
“Onions guarantee anonymity,” Batra said. “We can’t look at them. The NSA can’t even look at them. Why? Because we won’t even know they exist. Done right, they leave virtually zero trace.”
“You’re kidding,” I said, disappointed.
“I’m not kidding,” Batra said, her face clouding as we entered the Vietnam Memorial. “This is serious black-net stuff you’ve gotten yourself into, Cross. Almost everything having to do with that website was done through onions, so I have no idea who built it or who maintains it.”
“Can’t you hack it?”
“What’s to hack?” Batra said. “The website is anonymously built and self-sustaining. I can shut down whatever the hosting URL is, but I’d imagine there are dozens of mirroring sites with the content on them already.”
I thought about that. “You said almost everything having to do with the website was done through onion routers.”
Batra arched an eyebrow and said, “You’re smarter than you look, Cross.”
“One of my redeeming qualities. What was not done through an onion?”
“Those posts on the hackers’ bulletin board. Those I could track. And I did.”
“All of the posters?” I said, impressed.
“Just the high-volume ones so far,” Batra said.
“What do we know about them?”
“Creeps,” the FBI agent said, taking another sip of coffee.
I was getting chilled, so I untied the hoodie around my waist and put it on as she continued.
“On the clear net, they troll porn,” Batra said. “In the darknet areas where I can track them, they’re into lots of the sicker stuff. I wrote it all down.”
“Where are they?”
“You mean physical location? All over the world, though one of the regular creeps posting is definitely local.”
“How local?” I said, stopping.
“Right here,” she said, waving her coffee cup. “DC.”
“You have a name? Address?”
Batra studied me several beats, calculating what to tell me, no doubt, and then said, “Close enough.”
Chapter 13
Leaving the Brookland-Cua Metro stop later in the day, I knew damn well I shouldn’t have been walking up John McCormack Drive. I could hear Bree in my head saying I had no authority here and that my time would be better spent working on my defense for trial.
But I was back in the game, and who was going to tell Bree or anyone?
The creep?
Not a chance. The creep would want to avoid any contact with legitimate law enforcement. And I just might learn something useful about Gretchen Lindel and the other missing blondes, which would more than justify my actions as a concerned citizen.
With that firmly in mind, I went to the security guard at the main entrance to the Catholic University of America and asked how to find the alumni office. The guard gave me a map. I thanked him and started in that direction until I was around a corner and out of sight.
Then I made my way to Flather Hall, a brick-faced dormitory for male freshmen. Classes were over that Friday. Rap and heavy-metal music pulsed and dueled from inside open dorm rooms. I spotted a few underage drinkers and smelled hemp burning as I made my way to the second floor and down a long hallway that reeked of too many young men living on their own for the first time.
The door I sought, number 278, was ajar. I stood there, listening, hearing nothing, and then knocked. No response.
I pushed open the door, saw bunk beds to my right and a single twin bed across the room. Two white males in their late teens sat on a love seat between the single bed and me, wearing Beats headphones and holding video-game controllers. They were absorbed in a violent game playing on a screen on the wall, oblivious to my presence.
Beyond them, at a desk tucked in the corner, there was a third white male, small, scrawny, oily brown hair, lots of acne. Three computer screens dominated the small desk where he sat, and he had headphones on as well, engrossed in the screens.
I reached over and flicked the dorm room light off and on twice.
As if a hypnotist had snapped his fingers, all three of them came up out of their virtual trances and looked around groggily. The closest kid, a chubby towhead named Fred Vertze, spotted me first. His double chin retreated, and he tugged off his headphones.
“Who are you?” he said. “What are you doing in here?”
I waited until the other two removed their headphones before making a show of shutting the door behind me and locking it. They were alarmed when my cold attention swept over them.
“Who are you?” Vertze demanded again.
“Who I am is irrelevant,” I said.
“Hell it is,” said Juan Cyr, the other young man who’d been playing the video game. Cyr was built like a fullback and stood up to show me he was no one to be trifled with.
Brian Stetson, the kid with the acne and the three computer screens, said, “Don’t do anything el stupid-o, Juan. I’m calling campus security.”
“Do that and I’ll have to tell campus security what I know about what goes on in this dorm room,” I said.
They glanced at one another uncertainly.
Vertze, who could have used a shower or two, said, “We don’t know what you’re talking about, man.”
“Okay, let’s cut right to it, then, before I alert the NSA, the FBI, and six other law enforcement agencies. Gentlemen, which one of you is Lone Star Blondes Must Die?”
Chapter 14
Vertze’s eyelids drifted almost shut. Stetson frowned, as if he’d heard a foreign phrase spoken at a distance. Cyr acted like I’d punched him in the gut.
Then the burly teen’s expression shifted from shock to anger. He twisted his shoulders and hissed at Stetson, “I told you messing around with that kind of crap was mind poison.”
“Shut up, Juan,” Stetson said, studying me calmly. “Who are you?”
“The worst kind of poison, unless you come clean,” I said, feeling like I’d identified the leader of this crew. “How old are you, Brian?”
“Eighteen,” he said. “How do you know my name?”
“I know all your names. I know you get your kicks exploring the dark web. Pushing the boundaries. Looking into nasty places.”