Authors: AJAY
Swat River
During the festival
season of Eid al-Adha, on 7
th
December, when people were shopping in the Qisakhawani area of the Peshawar Market, a bomb detonated inside a car parked outside a Shia mosque. A man, who chose to remain anonymous, told the Reuters News Agency that it was a suicide bomber targeting the members of the local tribal council.
Later in the day, another news agency claimed that a few people had abducted the informer and taken him to Nemogram in the Swat Valley.
In the valley, the video recording started. Imran Shah Malik was on his knees in prayer. When he lifted his head, he saw four men pointing AK-47s at him. His hands shook and he started to scratch his right thigh nervously.
The men tied Imran Shah Malik's hands behind his back and covered his head with a black cloth and retreated to their position.
The automatic tracking MT tripod of the camera spun, following the direction of the four men and focused at the firing squad. They inserted the magazine, placed the selector at the automatic middle position, pressed the stock latch, aimed at the sight and rested their fingers on the triggers.
The camera slowly swivelled and zoomed in. The focus was on Imran Shah Malik. The stunning valley resounded with the sound of the bullets.
From the high cliff, Imran's body fell into a deep gorge. The cool current of the river quickly swept him into the gushing water cascades of an almost vertical waterfall. His body hit an outcrop of a hard rock and the impact tossed him up in the air. Once again he plummeted down, scrapping against the mossy rocks. A funnel-shaped whirlpool pulled him inward into a deep constricted bore.
Several copies of the video recording were made and sent to T.V. Stations and newspaper offices. The ruins of a Buddhist Stupa and monasteries clearly visible in the backdrop confirmed that the incident was recorded on the banks of the Swat River.
Reuters got a special message, "
No one dares to deal a deathblow to our tribal council."
A senior ISI officer visited Nausheen to convey the condolences of the present ISI Chief. Many of Imran Shah Malik's colleagues, relatives, and friends from the neighbourhood assembled at the house, expressing their deepest grief. A heart broken Nausheen was inconsolable. At that time, the grief-stricken woman just wanted one person beside her - her son, Aban.
A few hundred miles away, Sundaram Iyer watched the video in silence and remembered the chilling words, "Never ever dare to ask too many questions. Implement whatever the
Aka
of Qaeda tells you."
Encryption
As Siddhartha Rana
watched the cold-blooded murder of Imran Shah Malik, he was both rattled and alarmed. He needed to go to the USA as quickly as he could. He asked the systems expert to reach his office immediately and left for the office himself. The System Expert was waiting for him. "Did you download everything from Lahore?"
"Yes sir."
"The password?"
"Yes. Our keylogger captured each of the keystrokes."
"Good. Did you check the mails and files?"
"There is not much except one large file."
"What's that?"
"It would not open. It's password protected."
"Did you take a crack at it with our brute password breaker program?"
The system expert pointed his finger to a small window on the screen, "See the progress bar, sir. It's been almost ten hours and still our supercomputer has no idea of the secret code."
"Our system can decode even a 256-bit encryption. Why is it failing?"Siddhartha was vexed. "Did you try Õ, the big O notation, the big theta
Θ
or the big omega Ω?"
"The computer made several exhaustive key searches and every possible combination that it could, without a single hit. This is the first time that a password has failed this system. Frankly speaking, this is a unique system of password protection, and in my view, it's completely unbreakable."
"Why is that?"
"Instead of the alphanumeric keywords, the file seems to be protected by an image password made up of several smaller images."
"Image password!"Siddhartha was surprised. "I know people are trying to develop doppelgänger, where a ghost password remains on the cloud and never remains inside the computer. One has to download it with sophisticated Unix commands and only then does the system boot. However, I've never heard of an image password."
"The National Institute of Standard and Technology of the US Department of Commerce has developed this. It is a very recent system, where the '
secret words
' are a combination of images, each of which should be dragged into a grid. Once the correct images fill up the grid, it turns into a theme. The procedure is known as salting. The file unlocks after authentication of the theme."
"Did you try different combinations of images?"
"Mr. Malik seems to be an avid photographer and a connoisseur of all types of art. He has snapshots of flowers, nature, wildlife, clips of historical places, countless portraits and god knows what else!"
"How many images are there?"
"More than a hundred thousand."The System Expert leaned and clicked on the keyboard, "To be precise 2,09,71,52."
"Interesting. It's two to the power twenty one."
"Exactly 2
21
. He seems to be not only a computer expert, but also adept with mathematical numbers. The results can run into sextillion or one thousand trillion of possible combinations in a 2X2 grid if a modified image file becomes the password."
"Can't our supercomputer find it in another twenty four hours?"
"I don't think so, sir. We don't have any program that can break an image-password. Even the cryptologist of the National Security Agency of the USA doesn't enjoy it. That is why the American government is not very comfortable with this concept. They treat it as a security risk and have not ratified it for putting it into common practice."
"Then, who can take a shot?"
"We can try the father of the program, the NIST. They may be able to work out some solution."
"It's not that straightforward. We usually think of the US Special Army as the most secret organization of America. But in reality, the Department of Commerce of the USA is the most enigmatic. It just doesn't divulge any details. After all, it has to protect American commercial interests in today's competitive world."
The System Expert gave Siddhartha a blank look. Siddhartha smiled and patted him. "Anyway, give me a complete shadow copy of the downloaded files, any unusual emails, and flag germane details that you think could be important."
"I'll compile everything in about two hours."
"Good. I want it before I board my evening flight. "
Massachusetts Avenue
The Assistant Director
of the FBI of the Washington Field Office sought an appointment with the Indian Ambassador and after confirmation reached the Indian Embassy at Massachusetts Avenue.
"Good to see you, Director. What can I do for you?"
"Mr. Ambassador, our New York office wants to question your daughter, but she is not responding to our call. We tried contacting her on her cell phone and also at Cornell. She is not there. We will appreciate it if you could help us reach her."
"Officer, she is in DC. But if your inquiry is about the arrest of a Pakistani gentleman, then I'm afraid she doesn't have anything to say. I don't want her to be put through the wringer and get into trouble because of some Pakistani lout."
"I appreciate your feelings, Mr. Ambassador. But we have a
request from the Indian Government to grill the Pakistani boy. And
it is your intelligence agency, which has found that he was in contact with Juhi at the time of the Mumbai attack. We believe that it couldn't be a mere coincidence that Juhi was at the Taj Mahal Hotel at that very point of time."
"Acquaintance between two young people, studying in the same school, is nothing new and has nothing to do with nationality. Many people from different countries are in the same campus and share many common things. And for your information, she was with a European Delegation when the Mumbai attacks begun."
"I have the same opinion as yours. But Juhi has to come to our office at 4
th
Street for a very short time. It will only help to clear her name."
"I suggest that the FBI send her a questionnaire. I will ensure that she replies to each of your questions candidly without concealing a single fact."
"This is not the way the FBI works, sir. We need to record her statement and sign an affidavit."
"Then come to my home. I'll see what best I can do for you. By the way, the Under Secretary of State rang me up and gave his word that there won't be any diplomatic disaster. So, I suggest that the FBI keep this information very confidential."
"It is my word of honour, Mr. Ambassador, that it will be held in the strictest confidence."
"Thank you, Director. Send your officer home this evening. Juhi will co-operate. By the way what's the name of the boy?"
"Didn't Juhi tell you?"
"No."
"Why?"
"She reserves the right to tell or not tell her father anything strictly according to her wishes. I never question her wisdom."
"He is Aban Malik."
"Is he the son of Imran Shah Malik?"
"How do you know him?"
"Just a guess. I saw in the newspapers how Mr. Malik was snuffed out. I believe it's not the work of western intelligence."
"The Government of Pakistan is looking into the matter."
"Don't forget to see me after you see Juhi. Let this cat out of the bag. I'll tell you more about Mr. Malik."
Long Battle
Siddhartha entered the
Director's room. "Sir, I've to go to New York. The situation has turned grave after Imran Shah Malik was shot today."
"What about your progress at the Lalit Continental Hotel?"
"Still groping in the dark. The butler who attended to the four gentlemen will visit our office tomorrow and help the graphic expert to draw their sketches. I think we may be able to recognize some of them. When I'm back from the US, I'll see how to proceed in that matter. One more interesting fact has come to my notice. Hussein Pharma of Dubai booked the Presidential suite in the hotel. I've sent orders to our agent in Dubai to verify the profile of the company and get back to me. I'll keep you posted about everything."
"Anything else?"
"I need two hundred thousand dollars from our secret fund."
"Two hundred thousand!"
"Yes, sir. We may have to fight a long battle for the young man."
"Why should we get involved for a Pakistani?"
"I think he holds the key to Indian security."
"Is he a security threat?"
"Maybe just the opposite."
Zia-ul-Haq
The Assistant Director
of FBI and two senior agents reached the Ambassador's stately home in the evening. The agents greeted the Ambassador and then expressed their wish to see Juhi. The Assistant Director waited in the living room.
The agents expected Juhi to be fidgety, but found her poised and confident while answering their thorny questions. Soon it was over and as Juhi signed the paperwork, one of the agents remarked, "May I suggest something to you, Ms. Shergill?"
Juhi nodded.
"If you know what is good for you, keep away from this Aban Malik."
"I hope you people do not harm him any more than you have already done,"Juhi could not hide her ire.
The agents stood up, thanked Juhi and left the room. "We'll be back, young lady,"The officer chewed his words under his breath.
The Ambassador saw the agents off and then came back to the Assistant Director, still sitting in his living room.
"I'd now like to have the Imran Shah Malik story you mentioned."The Assistant Director's tone was brusque and business-like.
"Try and recall the assassination of the President of Pakistan Zia-ul-Haq in a plane crash in the late '80s,"the Ambassador began. "After witnessing a US Abrams tank demonstration in Bahawalpur, the President came back to the BHV airport. An officer presented a crate of mangoes to the President, when the President was to board his C-130 Hercules. The mangoes were spiked with VX gas. The President was seated in his air-conditioned VIP capsule with the American Ambassador and the head of the U.S. Military aid mission. When he showed the mangoes to his American guests, boasting how good Pakistani mangoes were, the VX gas escaped and the nerve gas finished them all off. It then dispersed and reached the cockpit. The commander, the first officer and the flight engineer, although not choked immediately, suffered extreme twitching and sweating, followed by severe bronchial constriction. It was so swift and intense in its action that the crewmembers were overcome by drowsiness before they could send out a Mayday signal. The plane flew erratically for some time, nose-dived and exploded on the ground. The officer, who had presented the mangoes, was to accompany the President, but had excused himself and joined a top-ranking Army officer in another flight, which took off a few minutes before the President's Hercules. They witnessed the crash and loud boom from the other aircraft, but did not bother to help. Instead of returning to Bahawalpur, their aircraft headed straight for Islamabad. That officer did not join in national mourning, when the Senate Chairman announced the President's death. He did not attend the funeral ceremony of Zia-ul-Haq. Do you want to know the name of the officer, who presented the mangoes to the President?"
Without much to speculate, the Assistant Director shook his head.
The Ambassador continued, "Then you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know how capable that gentleman is. Even the US is aware how he, with the help of the Pakistani army, obstructed the crash investigation carried out by a high power inquiry commission. To sabotage the investigation, he stated that both America and India were behind the President's killing."
"How could he accuse these countries without substantial proof?"
"It was just a ploy to divert attention. The deception and false emphasis misdirected the investigator on a red herring chase. The plot was to deliberately confuse each and every one of us. This gentleman stated that the complex Afghanistan problem was the reason for the assassination of the President. These countries wanted a regime which would act according to their wishes."
"How did you know about his involvement in this stratagem?"
The Ambassador laughed, "It's not mere coincidence that I know so much. I was then posted in Pakistan as First Secretary of the Indian High Commission. Rumours were abuzz everywhere and conspiracy theories were rampant in every corner of Pakistan. Friends of mine told me several stories. Some facts cropped up from hearsay and gossip coupled with real accounts, and all of which led to this man."
The officer nodded and the Ambassador stated matter-of-factly, "Don't lose the bigger picture by paying far too much attention to small things. I think none of you is seeing the forest for the trees, officer."
The Ambassador smiled, "Do you think Mr. Imran Shah Malik is so naïve as to involve his beloved son in such a dangerous mission?"