“What night was this?”
“Tuesday.”
“The night he died. Go on.”
“Well, we had a nice meal together and I left to catch my plane. Gwyn stayed behind and chatted with Dad for several hours while she waited for her flight. He gave her a package before they parted. He said somebody was trying to obtain a document, and he wanted to give it to Gwyn for safekeeping. Gwyn told me about it yesterday in Dallas. We opened it together. It contained two folders. One was an old manuscript and the other contained several loose pages that looked like letters. There was also a piece of paper with a handwritten translation of a portion of the manuscript.”
“And then he dies the same night and you are wondering if there is a connection.”
“Exactly.”
“And what about the file you were searching for?”
“He told Gwyn that he had a digital copy of the document.”
“But that document is not on his computer?”
“Right, you have to admit that seems odd, and now we see that his Internet history has been deleted. Something weird is going on here, Gary.”
“Are you suggesting foul play? Maybe this is all coincidence?”
“I had a biology professor in college who said life itself was a coincidence, but there is plenty of evidence that suggests otherwise. Too many things are wrong here. Dad sends a file with Gwyn to Texas, mentions that he has scanned a copy for himself, and yet, less than forty-eight hours later, it has mysteriously disappeared, and his Internet history has been erased.”
“What are you going to tell McIntosh?”
“I want to run a data recovery program on Dad’s hard drive. If something was erased, I’ll be able to recover it. I just want McIntosh here to see the results.”
Gilbert began rummaging through his bag looking for a thumb drive and Gary headed for the door. He reappeared with McIntosh a few minutes later. Gilbert had almost finished installing the data recovery program.
“What is it you want me to see about, Mr. O’Brien?”
“My father told my sister that there should be several scanned images on his computer. I did a search for them, but there are no picture files. There are a couple of other anomalies as well so I wanted to run a state-of-the-art forensics program our company developed to see if there has been any suspicious activity.”
“I don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re talking about”, McIntosh responded.
“My brother’s a computer geek,” replied Gary dryly. “The program he’s going to run can recover files that have been deleted.”
McIntosh seemed uncomfortable, but nodded in consent.
“Sure, go ahead.”
Gilbert launched the program and leaned back in the high-backed leather chair to wait for the program to scan the hard disk. All three of them were staring at the progress bar on the screen, calculating how long they’d have to wait when the doorbell rang. Gary walked to the door and opened it.
“Mrs. Askwith. How do you do?”
“I saw you come up the stairs, but I had to freshen up before I came over. Allow me to offer my condolences for the loss of your father.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Askwith. I trust you are in good health.”
“As good as can be expected for an old woman flirting with the Grim Reaper.”
Gary smiled. Mrs. Askwith had a flair for the dramatic.
“I know you two are busy,” she continued. “So, I won’t keep you. Your father gave me this book on Tuesday night, and I wanted to return it before I forgot.”
She handed Gary a worn leather journal, gave him a hug and began shuffling back to her apartment.
When Gary returned, the scan was finished. Gilbert was scrolling through the list of recovered files sector by sector. It all seemed so surreal. He had only just begun to recover from the grief and loss of his mother’s vicious battle with breast cancer. Now, he was overcome with feelings of intense guilt for neglecting his father over the last few years, and something else gnawed at him.
He replayed in his mind the last night he had spent in Istanbul. After leaving the bookstore, he had walked down to Sahkulu Mosque at the head of Galipdere Street, where Istiklal Boulevard dead ends at Galata Tower Square. He had desperately hoped Yusuf would be there, although the lateness of the hour all but guaranteed that he would not. He was surprised to find the old man sitting beside the door as if expecting him.
The imam had risen to his feet, clasped Gary’s hand and kissed him once on each cheek in the traditional greeting. Then he gently held Gary at arm’s length and stared through the windows of his soul right down into his heart until he was sure he had read it right. He said, “Your grief is deep. I feel your pain. A black noose of evil is tightening around you and your family, but do not be afraid, for you know as well as I that darkness will never overcome the light.”
Gary had stood there in shock. He spoke like a fortune-teller or maybe even like a prophet of old. Gary had been debating whether or not to tell him about the strange dream he’d had the night before. There was nothing to lose, so he had proceeded to tell his elderly friend that he had just received news of his father’s death and then related his strange dream . . .
Several choice expletives brought Gary back to the little apartment in London. He looked down to find Gilbert rapidly scrolling through screen after screen and muttering to himself before finally slumping back in his chair. Gary and McIntosh looked at the screen, but all they saw was a page filled from top to bottom with lines of the letter ‘a’ in small caps.
“What is it Mr. O’Brien?”
Gilbert put his head in his hands and took a deep breath, but made no response. He was obviously processing it all. The silence began to be uncomfortable.
“Mr. O’Brien?”
“I’m sorry, sir. I’m trying to put it all together. Can you get a cyber-forensics team down here?”
“Of course.”
“I think it would be a good idea to have them document this.”
“Document what?”
“A totally secure deletion of information from my father’s computer that exceeds DoD 5220.22M protocol.”
“What exactly do you think is going on, Mr. O’Brien?”
“Sir, someone has performed a secure wipe on my father’s computer, overwriting select files multiple times with random data so that it could not be recovered. We might’ve missed this if it had been a single file, but they also wiped all of the Temporary Internet files so that no one would know what my father was researching. We can’t recover the data, but the program can also identify sectors that contain random data and flag them as having been wiped. Over a hundred thousand files have been deleted in this fashion. There is no way to know what they were, but clearly they were sensitive enough to warrant special attention. I would bet that they oiled the hinges on the door as well, so that their intrusion would be totally silent. I don’t know if my dad woke up to find intruders in the house and died of a heart attack or if he was killed, but I certainly mean to find out.”
“You think your father may have been murdered? I think that is a bit hasty.”
“He gave my sister some documents he said someone was trying to obtain. If my father was murdered, it may be connected to these documents.”
“And just what are they related to?”
Gilbert pulled out his Blackberry and scrolled through his directory.
“I don’t know, sir. I don’t know, but I sure as hell intend to find out.”
Gilbert put the Blackberry on speaker and sat it down on the desk by the computer. He took a thumb drive out of his bag and started transferring the results of the scan to the USB memory device. A woman answered on the second ring.
“Good morning, Gilbert. I got a message from Tracy this morning saying that you would be out of the office for a few days. I hope everything is okay.”
“Hi Kiyomi, I’m in London taking care of personal business.”
“London? I thought you flew into DC yesterday.”
“It’s a long story. My dad passed away here in London.”
“Oh dear. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Listen. I need you to find out if we have anyone here in London that we use for medical forensics on legal briefs. I need the best man available and I need him ASAP.”
“I’ll get on it right away.”
“Great. Hang on a sec, will you?”
He turned to McIntosh and asked, “What morgue is my father’s body being kept at? Our company works with some of the best forensic specialists in the world and, if you don’t mind, I would like to request that one of our people be allowed to act as an observer and consultant on this case.”
“Mr. O’Brien, that really won’t be necessary. The Hornsey Public Mortuary has excellent facilities and personnel.”
“I’m sure they do, but, all the same, two minds are better than one and I would certainly feel better about it. Anything we can learn would be helpful and if the conclusion is that my father died of natural causes, I will feel better knowing that two experts concurred.”
“Mr. O’Brien, this is highly unusual. I’m not sure that we can accommodate this request.”
Gilbert turned back to the phone and said, “Kiyomi, sorry to keep you waiting. If he could just meet us at the Hornsey Public Mortuary, that would be great.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Gilbert set the Blackberry in his pocket and turned back to the Superintendent.
“Do you mean to tell me that English law does not permit independent verification of an autopsy report? I find that difficult to believe. Listen, I’m not trying to be difficult. I know that you want to help us, but if you have a problem with this, then I am sure I can have a lawyer at your office tomorrow morning and that would be unpleasant for both of us.”
The Superintendent’s face hardened. He was clearly not a man who was accustomed to having his authority challenged. He liked Americans in general, but their impetuous nature and lack of decorum had always been something that ruffled his feathers. He rubbed his chin.
Do these bloody Americans have to respond to everything with an M1 Abrams tank?
“Mr. O’Brien, until a few minutes ago, everything about your father’s death seemed natural. This sudden turn of events has certainly given us reason to explore the possibility of foul play. Let me see what I can do, but in the meantime I expect you to tell me everything you know.”
“If you can give me and my brother a ride down to the morgue, I will tell you everything that . . .”
The doorbell rang before Gilbert could finish.
“. . . everything we know,” he said walking across the room to get the door. “We want to get to the bottom of this too.”
He turned the handle and expected to see a policeman, but found himself staring at Judith Herrin.
“How can I help you?”
“Sorry, if I’m interrupting something. Is Professor O’Brien here? If I’d known he had guests, I wouldn’t have stopped by.”
“I’m Professor O’Brien’s son.”
“Oh, nice to meet you,” she said extending her hand. “I’m Judith Herrin, a friend and colleague of your father’s.” He shook her hand. “If you’ll just tell the Professor I stopped by.”
Gilbert studied her more carefully. Her long black hair was pulled up in a ponytail. She wore a blouse that invited the eyes downward, but a string of pearls formed a safety net that held one’s gaze from descending further. Her lips shone from a fresh application of lipstick. Gilbert subconsciously began employing security protocols.