Free Fallen Angel by Kevin Lewis

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    ‘What did I do?’ said Khan at last.
    ‘Didn’t they teach you anything when you joined?’ said Collins with a smirk. ‘It’s “sir” for the men, “ma’am” for the women. Everyone likes “guv” too. You’re Khan, aren’t you?’
    She held out her hand, and he took it gratefully. His handshake was surprisingly firm. ‘I’m DI Collins. How are you finding it?’
    Khan shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s okay, I guess. Equipment’s not exactly state of the art. And the stuff I do, well, you know, I could do so much more if only they let me bend the rules slightly. It’s like working with one hand tied behind my back.’
    ‘I know the feeling,’ said Collins. ‘I have the same problem myself. Tell you what.’ She leaned forward so she could speak softly in his ear. ‘Next time it becomes an issue for you, just come and see me.’
    Khan’s young face broke into a broad smile, and Collins could see that one of his incisors was missing. ‘Cool. Thanks. That’s what I came over for. I need a bit of advice about something I’m working on.’
    Collins and Khan headed for the corner of the room where his computer was situated. As they walked, Collins looked around to see that many of those in the incident room were now staring at Drabble as she returned to the room. ‘And how are the people, how are they treating you?’
    Khan glanced over to where Drabble was settling down at her desk. He shrugged. ‘It’s okay. Kinda weird being surrounded by coppers all day long. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells, you know? And I have to make sure none of my friends see me coming in or out of here. I’d get lynched.’
    ‘I didn’t think people like you, computer nerds, I mean, had friends.’
    Khan knew she was only winding him up and was happy to play the game. ‘Cyber friends are still friends, though I suppose most of them don’t know what I actually look like.’
    They reached his computer and sat down. Khan pulled the keyboard towards him and began to type quickly.
    ‘What have you got?’ Collins asked him.
    Khan didn’t turn to look at her; indeed he didn’t stop typing, his fingers lightly flying over the keyboard with unstudied skill. ‘Dead-drop,’ he said cryptically.
    ‘What you talking about?’
    Khan stopped typing and swung round on his chair to look at her. ‘A virtual dead-drop. It’s how the 9/11 terrorists communicated with each other without being traced. You get yourself a webmail account – this geezer used Hotmail – and then save any message as a draft. What he did then was give the parents the user name and password to access the account for themselves.’
    ‘What’s the point of that?’
    Khan shrugged. ‘There’s no electronic trail. The email doesn’t actually travel anywhere once it’s in the Hotmail draft server. Only thing is, he’ll have had to upload the email somehow, and that means connecting to his Internet account.’
    ‘Can you trace where he uploaded?’
    ‘It’s difficult. Hotmail don’t keep a record of people accessing to leave draft emails, only actual mail that comes in or out. I’ll have to work round it, but, even if I do that, chances are he used several layers of encryption.’
    ‘What’s the alternative?’
    ‘I could put a worm on to his account. A kind of virus,’ Khan said nonchalantly. ‘It’s what hackers use when they want to drain information from someone’s computer – credit card numbers, bank details, that sort of thing. You can also use it to steal someone’s ISP address. When this guy logs in, which he’ll have to do even just to leave a draft email, the sleeper will wake up and attach the worm without him even knowing about it. But that only works if he logs on again.’
    ‘Sounds good,’ said Collins. ‘So what’s the problem, then?’
    ‘Well, there are two problems.’
    ‘What’s the first one?’
    ‘It’s kinda illegal.’
    ‘How illegal?’
    ‘I’ve got to hack into Hotmail to place the worm.