God is a Gamer

by Ravi Subramanian

  His phone started to ring. It was Tony.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘At the hospital.’

  ‘Can you get here in like . . . Well, soon?’

  ‘Why are you so excited?’

  ‘Come over and see for yourself!’ Tony exclaimed.

  Adrian had sent Tony and a team to retrace the intruder’s steps. They had got a lead to his apartment’s address through the GPS in his truck.

  *

  Adrian arrived at Josh’s apartment thirty minutes later. The FBI chopper came in handy, though he struggled to find a landing spot in the neighbourhood.

  ‘In here!’ Tony yelled when Adrian opened the door to the apartment.

  Adrian followed his voice and walked into the room where Tony was busy with some papers. The moment he entered the room, he froze. Arranged on the bed were wads of dollars. At least a hundred of them.

  ‘Where the fuck did all this cash come from?’

  ‘Our friend seems to have been involved in the ATM heist too.’

  ‘What?’

  Tony pointed towards a corner of the room where two large suitcases stood. ‘The cash was found in these. Pretty elementary. He probably didn’t expect his apartment to be searched.’ He pointed to a pile of backpacks lying in another corner. Adrian counted twelve.

  ‘All of them match the screenshots of the backpacks in the ATM video grabs. Can’t be a coincidence, right?’

  Adrian nodded in response.

  Tony led Adrian to the far end of the room. On the table were several small packets.

  ‘Marijuana. Small quantities. Not enough to book someone.’

  ‘So he was a druggie too.’

  ‘But here’s something more interesting . . . ’ He handed Adrian a notebook. ‘I found this inside the vault that we forced open.’ Adrian turned the first page and his eyes nearly popped. Written inside were some names and alphanumeric codes—codes he knew were the public keys for bitcoin wallets—and next to them were dates and values. Clearly this was some sort of a manual ledger meant for transferring bitcoins into and out of the wallet to the names written down.

  ‘Why would someone transfer bitcoins across so many names? And under what circumstances?’

  ‘Only if he is running some clandestine business where payment is made and received in bitcoins.’ Adrian nodded.

  Two laptops were also seized from the apartment, one of them a Mac. Both were sent for forensic examination.

  The apartment owner was called. He gave them a picture of Josh’s roommate, Stan.

  ‘Run a facial scan,’ said Adrian. ‘Turn the apartment inside out. This guy holds the key to a lot more than the murderous assault on Nikki Tan.’

  48

  Mumbai

  ‘The bug is fixed, Varun!’

  The programming head called in that morning. ‘The guy you recommended did a wonderful job.’

  ‘It’s only been three days since he came on board.’

  ‘Yes, but he rechecked the entire program and identified a simple change that was needed to make the fix. He tweaked it and now we are ready to roll. The update is being released today. Townsville is back on track now.’

  ‘Good to hear that. You were unnecessarily getting worked up the other day.’

  Varun was listening to the caller but his mind was elsewhere. He was thinking about Tanya. She had not left the confines of her house since the tragedy. Varun was concerned. Every day, after work, he went to meet Tanya, spent some time with her, and then headed back home. He hadn’t had decent conversation with Aditya for over a week.

  *

  Times Now had been deliberating whether to carry the news of the finance minister’s romantic liaison with the deceased CEO, and ultimately decided to bite the bullet. It carried a muted reference to the minister’s possible affair with the CEO of NYIB but that was enough ammunition for the opposition parties. There was a ruckus in Parliament that day. The opposition was up in arms demanding the minister’s resignation.

  A few news channels backed by some eager political parties suggested that Malvika’s death could have been a crime of passion, and not a suicide, and that the finance minister might be involved in it.

  The finance minister fought off every challenge determinedly. When the prime minister, who was also the party president, called him and asked him to tender his resignation, the minister stoically refused. He had only one thing to say.

  ‘Public opinion be damned! I know what I have done. And I have done nothing wrong. You want to sack me? By all means, do so. But I will not put in my papers. Resigning would mean tacit acceptance of the fact that I have done something inappropriate.’

  The prime minister didn’t have much choice. One of the perils of a coalition government. Over thirty-six members of Parliament owed their allegiance to the minister. A forced eviction could destabilize the central government.

  *

  Aditya’s woes didn’t show any signs of abating either. He had just finished an hour-long conference call with a client in the US when Sundeep walked in.

  ‘Some more bad news, Aditya.’

  ‘I’m getting used to bad news these days. I haven’t heard good news on the eTIOS front in a long time.’

  Sundeep extended a sheaf sheet of papers towards Aditya—a legal notice from NYIB.

  ‘Matt has served us. He wants us to reimburse the 5 million dollars that they have lost because of the ATM heist. They are pinning it on us.’

  Aditya didn’t respond. He kept reading.

  ‘They have also threatened to terminate our services if we don’t reimburse them.’

  After reading the document from end to end, Aditya spoke. ‘From the looks of it, even if we reimburse them, they will terminate our contract.’ He thought for a moment before continuing. ‘We must respond to this. It is unacceptable. We have done no wrong.’

  ‘Perhaps we should talk to them?’

  ‘I don’t think you should. They are looking for excuses to get rid of you.’

  The sound came from the door. Both of them looked up. It was Swami.

  ‘I tried to convince them not to do this. But they didn’t listen.’ He paused, waiting for a reaction from the two of them. When neither said anything, he announced, ‘I have quit.’

  Aditya shook his head. ‘That’s a big mistake. Why didn’t you listen to me?’

  ‘I couldn’t take it any more. That asshole Matt makes me feel like a piece of shit. After so many years I deserve better, Aditya. I begged of him not to send a legal notice but he just refused to listen. What do you expect me to do?’

  ‘It’s okay, Swami. Don’t worry. It will all work out fine,’ Sundeep piped up.

  ‘No. It’s a big mistake,’ Aditya reiterated. ‘Now we won’t know what they are thinking internally. We will be shooting in the dark.’

  49

  Washington DC

  Adrian had waited a long time for this day. Today he was finally going to interview Gloria Tan. Till now, he had patiently allowed her to tend to her mother.

  Even though Nikki Tan’s condition was still critical, Gloria had gotten used to the events around her and was in a settled state of mind when Adrian met her at the coffee shop a few miles from her home. For a girl who had lost one parent and was on the verge of losing another, she had tremendous poise.

  ‘Do you have any idea what could have led to this?’ Adrian started the conversation.

  Gloria just shook her head.

  ‘Any personal enmity? Family? Property? Wealth? Relationships?’

  ‘Nothing that I’m aware of.’

  ‘Was everything cordial between your parents?’

  ‘It was in the initial years. But, of late, they were having quite a few fights.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of me.’

  ‘You?’

  Gloria nodded. ‘Dad was worried about me. Mom felt he was overreacting.’

  ‘Worried?’

  ‘He was
worried that I would embarrass him and compromise his position as a senator. I was like any other teenager. I’d go out with friends. I’d party, socialize, call people over. At times, we would skin up soft drugs after classes. It never went to a level for him to worry about but he always thought it could. Who doesn’t do drugs these days? One of our Friday-night parties was busted by the cops once. Even then, they couldn’t find anything illegal and after a few hours let us go. I had told mom about the raid.’

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Dad didn’t know about it. Never told him. Mom was always on my side. She knew that I was in control. She always told me that if I want to do such things, I should try them at home, not get adventurous outside. She was the one who introduced me to Cotton Trail.’

  Adrian was shocked. He literally fell of his chair. ‘She introduced you to the underground web for the drug trade?’

  ‘Yes. I hope you aren’t recording any part of this conversation Mr Scott. I’m telling you the truth because I want the men responsible for the attack to get the lethal injection. That’s why I’m opening up to you. If any of this becomes public or implicates me or my mom, I will deny it.’

  ‘You have my word,’ said Adrian.

  ‘Dad’s behaviour stressed us out. Mom used to buy anti-depressants for me and at times for herself too off Cotton Trail. These were not over the counter medicines. She didn’t want her drug purchases to be tracked by anyone and used against dad.’

  ‘Who ordered from Cotton Trail?’

  ‘Most times, she did. When she was travelling, she would provide for me and go. But if I ran out, I could order from Cotton Trail too.’

  ‘She allowed you to do that?’

  ‘Yes. Once in a while.’

  ‘Doesn’t Cotton Trail accept payment only in bitcoins?’

  ‘It does. But I have a bitcoin wallet of my own. Mom kept a watch on it and transferred bitcoins into it.’

  ‘Not entirely relevant, but did you use your bitcoin account responsibly?’

  ‘By and large, yes. But occasionally when no one would notice, I would buy off it.’

  ‘Buy what?’

  ‘Mostly marijuana. Whenever we had a party at home. One day, dad found out. That day, dad and mom had a huge argument. She told him that I was doing these things with her explicit approval and that she was in control. She saved me that day. She really took good care of me even though I’m adopted.’

  Adrian was hanging on to every word. The last bit raised his antennae but he kept quiet. He didn’t want to interrupt the narrative.

  ‘Dad chaired the committee of financial reforms. Actually, he was a bit of a liberal. In the committee, he was one of the few who supported bitcoins as legal tender. But seeing me use bitcoins to buy drugs set him off. He threatened to use his position to shut down Cotton Trail and ban bitcoins by making them illegal. Not that bitcoins enjoyed great credibility, but they had not been officially banned then. Both mom and I knew he couldn’t have done it without the buy-in of others on the panel. And, in any case, it was not that we really cared.’

  ‘You said you are an adopted child.’

  ‘Yeah. From an orphanage in London.’

  ‘Do you have any contact with your biological parents?’

  ‘No. They died in the 1992 El AL Boeing cargo plane crash in Amsterdam. They were visiting relatives in Amsterdam when it happened. The plane crashed into their apartment complex. Thirty-nine people on ground were killed. My parents were among them.’

  ‘I remember that crash. It was a cargo plane from the US, which had taken off after a stopover at Schipol.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘I was in London at that time with my guardians.’

  ‘When did you find out about this?’

  ‘A few months ago. Dad told me.’

  Adrian was listening intently. Gloria’s confession was muddying the plot.

  ‘When he told you about you being adopted, did he tell you anything else about your biological parents?’

  ‘I didn’t care to ask. But yes. He did tell me. My parents were British.’

  50

  Washington DC

  As he narrated the story to Tony back in office, one question kept popping up in Adrian’s mind, again and again. If Gloria was close to Nikki, so close that Nikki trusted her with Cotton Trail, why was it that Gillian was the one who told her about her being an adopted child? Why not Nikki?

  ‘Is she a suspect?’ asked Tony

  ‘I’m not writing her off yet.’

  ‘If she is, why would she tell you everything?’

  ‘I’m not sure if she is telling us the complete story. Anyway, Tony, run a check on her arrest. If what she is saying is true, there should be a record.’ He walked up to the table, shuffled a few papers, and asked, ‘Has the forensic report come in?’

  ‘Yes. A little while ago. I was going through it.’

  ‘What does it say? Headlines, please.’

  ‘Our friend Josh is a very complex creature. But for someone running an operation of this scale, his encryption is pretty elementary. His hard disk shows some interesting stuff. It has a list of many vendors who dealt in banned drugs on Cotton Trail. It could put the narcotic traders out of business in this great country.’

  ‘How did it get there?’ Adrian was all ears. This was like a labyrinth—so many blind alleys and passages concealed behind walls.

  ‘Because our friend is an admin on Cotton Trail. He manages the entire back-end—vendors, payment collection from customers, technical problems with the website. He is the guy who does all that.’

  ‘How do we know that?’

  ‘Because of specific websites that he visited using the TOR network, from this laptop. One wouldn’t normally visit those parts of Cotton Trail unless one is the admin. There is a trace on the hard disk. He even kept detailed notes about various bugs in the site. This also explains the bitcoin public keys that we found scribbled in his diaries. Those were of vendors who operate on Cotton Trail. Our friend used those keys to transfer their payments to them once goods were delivered to customers.’

  ‘You are making it sound so easy. Wouldn’t you have expected better levels of encryption from someone like him?’

  ‘True,’ Tony accepted. ‘However, Adrian, our man here was probably not expecting to get caught which made him complacent. This is the first time his real and virtual worlds collided. Had he not been caught at Gillian’s house, we would never have gone back to his apartment and seized all the equipment.’

  Adrian nodded. ‘Anything else that we know of?’

  ‘Josh messed up some payments. Some of his mules disappeared with the money, and the guys behind the operation asked him to make good their loss. There are a couple of fairly aggressive mails on his laptop. How he landed up at Nikki Tan’s residence is something we are still trying to figure out.’

  ‘And you pieced all this together via email trails on his laptop?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where was he to deliver the money?’

  ‘The Dominican Republic. We don’t have a name but there is an address. The cash was to be delivered at a particular time.’

  Adrian didn’t respond. He was lost in deep thought.

  ‘What do you make of it Adrian?’

  ‘I don’t know. Let’s not make any assumptions. The problem with theorizing on the basis of incomplete facts is that we end up twisting the facts to suit the theory. We should be doing it the other way around.’

  Tony couldn’t have disagreed with this simple logic. ‘You know Adrian, two questions have been on my mind from the time we reached the Tan residence. What was Nikki Tan doing at the cafe on the day of the heist? And why did Josh chop off her finger?’

  ‘Unless there is a sect that believes in mutilating victims, it’s completely incomprehensible . . .’ He stopped. On the table in front of him were photographs of the crime scene, and the evidence collected from the site.

  Adrian looked at the images carefully, again. There were imag
es of the bloody meat knife. The chopped finger with the ring on it. He suddenly stopped scanning them and turned towards Tony. ‘Show me the forensic report.’

  The report described the ring. It was made of pure white gold, 22 carats, no patterns, no texture, handcrafted. An image of the cleansed ring was attached. Its undulating texture suggested that it was made with antiquated equipment, probably outside the United States.

  The inner side of the ring, not visible entirely to the naked eye, had what seemed to be a code—a long, alphanumeric code. Adrian thought for a few seconds and got up to dial a number from his desk phone.

  ‘Hi, Dan Malloy.’ A nasal voice came on the line. Dan was the chief of the CRRU, the Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit, the FBI’s code cracking wing.

  ‘Dan, Adrian. Right time?’

  ‘No time is right for you, you son of a bitch. What are you up to?’

  ‘Neck-deep in work.’

  ‘I met Brick the Prick a couple of days ago. He was ready to piss on you!’

  ‘That would have been an unfairly violent reaction to anything that I might have possibly done to offend him.’

  ‘Ha ha! Young man, he knows that you are his only officer capable of getting to the bottom of the Gillian Tan murder. So while he is seething at the delay, he doesn’t have much of a choice.’

  ‘Speaking of Gillian, I’m sending you an alphanumeric code found on Nikki Tan’s ring. I need your help to decipher it. I think I know what it is but I’d rather wait for your confirmation.’

  ‘Let me give it a shot. I’ll call you the moment I have any answers.’ He hung up.

  It didn’t take Dan long to call back. Adrian switched on the speaker phone so that Tony could listen in.

  ‘Looks fairly simple to me, Adrian. It is the private key to a bitcoin wallet.’

  ‘Hmm, thought as much. Though I was a bit surprised that there were fewer than usual number of characters.’

  ‘Bitcoin users are obsessed with keeping their private keys secret. Looks like Nikki Tan went a step ahead and got it engraved on a ring!’

  Adrian responded, ‘But why would she do that? Wouldn’t it make it easy for anyone to get their hands on the key?’