“Affirmative,” Patel said. “And the AUSA is on board.”
Wu had made sure Patel collaborated with the Assistant US Attorney’s office. He’d also secured an agreement to temporarily seal the warrant to prevent the senator or anyone else from learning about it and taking steps to hide evidence. Even in exigent circumstances, Wu made sure they had followed the law.
Flint had been listening to the exchange. “You said the creator is sophisticated,” he said to Patel. “How do you know he won’t figure out the Bureau is behind those fake profiles?”
“To access the site, we’ll use an anonymous browser that routes us through a series of proxy servers run by thousands of random individuals around the world.” Patel lifted a shoulder. “Our IP address will be totally unidentifiable and untraceable.”
“But you’re going to infect the game with our own virus, right?” Hargrave asked. “Then you can shut it down so there’s no audience.”
Wu cut in before Patel had a chance to respond. “Even if we could, I’d argue against it. First, the game is our only way of knowing the status of our agent and our asset. Without it, we’re completely in the dark. Second, we can keep trying to locate the game developer as long as we can access the site, and third, if we make the game useless, all the players might become useless.”
No need to spell it out. Everyone understood the potential ramifications.
Hargrave blew out a frustrated sigh and turned to Patel. “You told us the feed is never livestreamed. What’s the time delay?”
Patel shook his head. “Can’t be sure.” He gestured toward the screen. “Did you notice that sometimes you can see the whole structure, and other times it zooms in to cover the action in a given room?” He demonstrated with a few seconds of recorded video before continuing. “That’s editing, but I can’t be sure how long the gap is between when things happen and when we see them.”
“Let’s table the cyber search for a moment.” Hargrave turned to Wu. “What else have you been doing to find Vega and Toro?”
Wu understood the subtext. He was in charge of the operation, and their safety was his responsibility. He had already failed once and needed to redeem himself. He’d been authorized to allocate any of the FBI’s resources toward finding their missing personnel, and the assistant director wanted to evaluate how he was conducting the effort.
“Satellite images revealed no new data,” Wu began. “The team of agents I sent to New Jersey combed the Pine Barrens, searching for the Suburban, and came up empty. Another team followed up with the used-car dealer, who was no more helpful after a search warrant than he was when Detective Flint and I paid him a visit.”
“What about the cars coming from area garages?” Hargrave asked.
“I have Jada Johnson overseeing a group of analysts collecting and reviewing video feeds from cameras outside the parking structures,” Wu said. “There are still hundreds of license plates to run through and cross match with various databases. It’s a time-consuming process, and we’ll follow up on any leads.”
Hargrave frowned. “What else have you got for me?” he asked. “I’m jumping on a video call with Washington as soon as we’re done here.”
Hargrave would brief everyone up his chain of command all the way to the top, and he wanted to be prepared. Nothing would be more embarrassing than having Director Franklin or one of his deputy directors ask questions to which he had no answers.
“There are three options when you first access the site,” Wu said, then waited for Patel to bring up the opening screen with buttons for PLAY, VOTE, and CONTRIBUTE. “Watching the game is free, but any other involvement is pay to play. I want Patel and his team to participate on all levels.”
Hargrave’s brows shot up. “You want us to transfer funds to the suspect’s site?”
“It will provide another avenue for investigation,” Wu said. “We can follow the money, especially if the payment is in some sort of cryptocurrency that can be transferred with a digital signature.”
“That doesn’t always work,” Hargrave said. “I don’t want us inadvertently funding a criminal enterprise.”
Wu had anticipated pushback. There had been tragic instances in the past where the FBI and other law enforcement agencies had allowed money to “walk” by purchasing contraband, and the cash had disappeared into a black-market vortex. Although rare, these incidents grabbed headlines when they inevitably came to light, causing public scandal and internal investigations that had torpedoed promising careers.
He lifted his chin. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
“How much?”
Wu gave Patel a significant look.
“I can’t be sure until we access that part of the site,” Patel said, taking the cue. “But from what I’ve seen so far, it looks like you can pay to vote for a specific avatar. The ones with the least votes face more challenges.”
“It’s a popularity contest?” Flint said.
“Sort of,” Patel said. “Subscribers upvote and downvote. From what I can tell, it looks like avatars that are downvoted get punished in the game.”
Flint paled. “Punished?”
“Everything’s still in beta mode,” Patel said. “Looks like the developer is attempting to gauge audience participation for now.”
“It galls me to send money,” Hargrave said, echoing Wu’s own feelings. “But I agree we need to give Vega and Toro an edge while we figure out where they are.”
“Speaking of which,” Wu said, moving on to his next objective. “We’re scouring the videos for clues in the background.” He signaled Patel to pull up a freeze-frame of some avatars in one of the rooms.
“How do you know the environment is not a hologram projected on a blank background?” Hargrave asked.
“Because of the way the avatars interact with the space,” Patel said. “The snake and the glass tank were both real; the guy getting electrocuted when he grabbed the metal bars was real, and so was the knife used to stab the other guy to death. Some of the stuff might be projected, but everything that requires physical contact is there.”
Hargrave looked skeptical. “How can you be sure? I’ve seen movies and TV shows where—”
“Because of the glitch.” Patel navigated to the point of the electrocution and zoomed in. “When that happened, more than just part of the human body under the avatar got exposed. You can also see the flooring and background for a split second. The physical space is a perfect match of what’s represented in the game. It hasn’t been visually modified like the players inside the game have.”
Hargrave squinted at the screen. “Why didn’t the developer edit this out?”
“He’s had to review a lot of footage and might not have noticed.” Patel shrugged. “Or maybe thought it was only for a second and it wouldn’t matter, or maybe he figured no one was recording the video to go back and examine it closely.”
A speck of yellow interrupting the gray background caught Wu’s eye. “Can you expand the area in the upper right corner of the glitched space?”
Patel typed a series of commands into his computer, zooming in on the quadrant. The speck became a square with yellow and black.
Wu pressed him. “Can you make it bigger?”
“I’ll expand it as much as I can,” Patel said. “Any closer and the image will be pixilated.”
Everyone leaned in close to study the yellow-and-black image that filled the screen moments later.
“That looks like the corner of a sign,” Flint said. “But I can’t make it out.”
Wu thought about what kinds of signs might be posted. An idea began to take shape, bringing a fresh wave of dread in its wake.
He crossed the room to tap the screen. “This looks like the bottom of a capital letter, and this part of the image could be the edge of a trefoil.”
“What’s a trefoil?” Flint asked.
Instead of answering, Wu turned to Patel. “Split the screen and put a radiation hazard symbol on the other side.”
In less than thirty seconds, Patel posted an image with three rings in a bright magenta design.
“Colors and design aren’t right,” Wu said. “Let’s see an earlier version.”
A rectangular sign with what looked like a three-bladed black propeller on a yellow background replaced the first image.
“I’ll superimpose the radiation symbol over the video,” Patel said, excited.
The room fell silent as he dragged the trefoil to overlay it on the corner of the captured video feed.
“It’s close,” Hargrave said. “But not perfect.”
“Wait a second,” Flint said. “My grandad lives upstate. He built a fallout shelter in the sixties. He hung a sign with a symbol that looked sort of like that.”
“Here’s a fallout-shelter sign,” Patel said after a quick search.
This time there were three yellow triangles, their points touching in the center of a black circle.
“Same color scheme, same era,” Wu said. “Unfortunately, there’s not enough of the letter in the video feed to tell whether the sign says ‘caution,’ ‘radiation,’ or ‘shelter.’”