For the next hour he stared at the display, tapping in the word “Dattar” with a list of others and reading the first few pages in the search result. He looked into the woman’s eyes in the photo. Her serious expression appeared intelligent and powerful. Her clothes — a navy suit, white shirt open at the throat, the hint of a chain around her neck, and diamond studs — gave the impression of understated wealth. Smith worked with medical professionals, biologists, and PhDs every day of the week, and this woman looked nothing like them. The female scientists that he knew had massive brain power matched with a scientific bent. Most donned lab coats for their daily uniform, and as a result they often wore simple shirts and slacks underneath. The woman in the photo was a part of the corporate world, Smith would put money on it, and while her brain power looked as massive, it appeared powerful as opposed to academic.
He picked up the phone, ordered room service, and kept typing, switching it up to Google images every time a woman’s name was highlighted next to Dattar’s. Another forty-five minutes passed with no success. His conviction that Dattar was somehow involved in the attack at the Grand Royal was faltering. Perhaps the timing of the attack and Dattar’s escape was a coincidence.
Frustrated, he started searching for software that could apply face recognition to the Internet. He found a commercial website claiming that it was testing a program that could read an image and then search the Internet for every place in which that image appeared. The software was in the beta testing stage and available only by invitation. Smith clicked the link, asked to be included, and then called the company. When a woman’s friendly voice answered the phone, he asked her to speed his inclusion.
“May I ask why you need this information?” The woman’s voice now carried a slight hint of suspicion.
“I’m a member of the United States Army looking for a business contact given me by a friend of a friend. I have the photo of her, but not her name, and my friend can’t remember her name either.”
Smith waited, hoping his white lie would be swallowed. It wasn’t.
“I’m sorry, we do have to be careful about who we allow to use the software. We have already had an incident in which a stalker contacted us and was attempting to locate a woman he was under orders to avoid. We never granted him access, thank goodness, but you can see the problem.”
“I can, but why bother to have a trailer on the Internet and invite users if you don’t intend to allow them access?”
“We’re building our subscription list to make the company attractive for a possible stock offering. We’re unable to grant access at this moment, but hope to in the next year; those on the list will get priority.”
“Would it help if I had a member of the military police contact you? I assume your company could trust them to use the information in a positive manner.”
“I’m sorry, but no. We’re in negotiations with the Department of Homeland Security to allow them to access the software, but those negotiations are ongoing. The fee has yet to be determined, and until then we are not granting access to any law enforcement authority.”
“All right, well thank you for your time.” Smith hung up and called Martin Zellerbach, the one man he knew who could hack into any computer, anywhere, any time.
“Hello, Jon, how nice to hear from you.” Marty’s voice sounded formal, and the sentence was delivered in a stilted voice lacking any real warmth, but Smith was pleasantly surprised. Marty suffered from Asperger’s, a high-functioning form of autism. He’d never really learned the social cues that most people took for granted, and if he answered the phone at all he often answered with an inappropriate greeting.
Smith pulled up a mental picture of the small, plump, green-eyed man sitting in the house that he rarely left, surrounded by his beloved computers. Growing up, Smith had protected Marty from the schoolyard bullies and taunts that often came his way as a result of his Asperger’s and at times was forced to protect others against Marty when he lashed back in a manner far in excess of the perceived wrong. Marty stood too close to others, sometimes thrusting his face into theirs, or made hurtful comments about them. People shied away from him and his strange, intense manner, and the man was isolated as a result. He’d never married, had few friends, and over the years had grown increasingly out of touch.
“You sound good, Marty.”
“Thank you. I’ve been working on a new form of therapy. I saw you almost died in Europe. I’m happy that you didn’t.”
Smith smiled. Marty recited the words in an almost bored fashion and didn’t sound as though he believed what he was saying for a moment, but once again, Smith appreciated the effort.
“How did you see me? I thought television gave you a headache,” Smith said.
Marty snorted. “The clip was on CNN’s website. I’ll bet you got a few hundred thousand views. Do you need my help?” Now Marty sounded eager.
“I do. I’m trying to get access to a software company’s beta test. It’s an image-reading search software.” Smith filled Marty in on the problem, using the same innocuous story that he was looking for a colleague. “Have you heard of this? Can Google images do this as well?”
“I’ve heard of it, and that company’s work is very exciting. And no, Google images won’t do that. Google searches the Internet for keywords in text and then shows you where that text is located. So if I put up a picture of us on a blog site and I caption the photo with our names, Google images will read the text under the photo, not the photo itself. But the software you mentioned will read the image’s actual pixels and then search the Internet for a pixel match. Great stuff.”
Smith felt a small surge of hope. “So it’s almost like reverse engineering. If I have a name but no photo I search Google images to obtain one, but with a photo and no name I use this software to locate the photo and then find the name.”
“Yes. Is that what you need?”
“That’s exactly what I need. Do you think you can do it? I’m sending you a jpeg of the photo that I need analyzed.”
“Let me work on it and get back to you.”
Smith crawled into the shower, loving the feel of the hot water cascading down his back. He closed his eyes and, unbidden, thought of the woman and her air of determination. She reminded him of another determined woman he knew. He turned and held his face up to the spray. A series of images ran through his mind’s eye. Russell grinning at him as they climbed into a vintage car that Peter Howell drove, Howell himself wearing a disguise as he chauffeured them around, Russell standing over him as she fired back at a double agent bent on killing him, Russell piloting a helicopter. The thought came to him, what if the woman in the photo was an agent herself? Perhaps MI6, or other? That would explain the Internet’s complete lack of information on her. He switched off the water and stepped out, grabbing at a nearby towel.
Ten minutes later he was back at the computer, keying in “Dattar” and the names of security agencies the world over when his cell phone rang. He picked it up to hear the excited voice of Marty.
“I’m in! I cracked their passwords.”
Smith felt a surge of excitement. “And? Did you find the photo?”
“The software is wonderful! A piece of art.”
Smith did his best to keep the frustration from his voice. “Okay, but I need to find the woman. Did you run the photo?”
“Yes, but it didn’t get a hit. The photo is too blurry. Worthless actually. And the software only scanned 450 million images, though, so only a tiny portion of the Internet. The lag is understandable. They’re working on inputting more, but it’s time consuming.”