territory. Rebecca and Sloan looked at one another across the expanse of smooth black stone. Watts and Jason watched them. Officer Mitchell stared straight ahead, her eyes fixed somewhere over the Delaware River.
“What’s your plan?” Rebecca asked finally. There was no point in drawing lines in the sand over false issues. She and Watts couldn’t do what Sloan and McBride could. Chances were they’d never even get to the point of arresting anyone. Clark was after something with this fishing expedition, she had no doubt of that, but there was more smoke in the room now than before the briefing.
“This kind of Internet surveillance op isn’t new,” Sloan said with a shrug. “And like Clark said, it usually involves a huge number of man-hours for something that often produces short-lived results.”
“Like busting hookers,” Watts remarked. “No percentage in it.”
“Exactly.”
“So why hasn’t he given you a dozen people to sit here and surf the Internet—flood the system and maximize his returns?” Rebecca persisted.
“Can’t say. It’s costly; there aren’t that many computer-savvy agents readily available; or…” She considered her words carefully, because she didn’t know the blond cop at all. She was bothered by that fact as well, had been since the first phone call had come from Washington asking her to head up the computer side of the investigation. “He wants to limit the number of people exposed to the operation.”
Rebecca nodded. That played with her sense that there was a hidden agenda beneath the stated objectives of the investigation. And there was nothing to do but do the job and keep her eyes open. “Did he give you anything specific to work with?”
“Actually, yes,” Sloan affirmed. “There are probably 100,000 sites that supply child sex images worldwide. Many of them link to credit card transactions and on-line billing sites that take Visa, MasterCard, and AmEx. When you trace them through their domain registry, they turn out to be in the Balkans or Bali or some other even more remote locale.”
“Untouchable,” Jason commented.
“Right,” Sloan agreed. “A more profitable place to search is the Web-hosting companies. Most porn sites are explicit about their content when they register with a server—you know, clever names like underagenymphos.net and lolitaland.com. Justice’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section has given us a prescreened list of potential U.S.-based companies that specialize in porn sites. I’ll start there, looking for intersecting references to anything in the Northeast corridor as points of origin. If there is a big supplier, particularly a live feed somewhere local, we’ll get a whiff of it eventually.”
“Sounds simple,” Watts commented dryly. “What’s the catch?”
“There’s an international network of Web resellers who buy and sell space on hosting frames. They can cloak the site content so it’s not so conspicuous to broad searches.”
“And that’s what we’re looking for, right?” Rebecca asked. “A central clearinghouse.”
Sloan nodded, an appreciative glint in her eye at Rebecca’s quick assessment. “Yes. That’s very high up on our list of desirable intel. While I do the broad sweeps, Jason will try for individual contacts.”
Watts regarded the only other man in the room sympathetically, feeling an instant kinship with him based on that fact alone. “Jeez, you’re gonna pretend to be a perv?” he asked.
“Sometimes,” Jason replied flatly. “The rest of the time I’m going to pretend to be a girl.”
“We’re going to go at this from every angle we can,” Sloan affirmed, shooting Jason an amused smile that no one else noticed. Somehow she didn’t think the time was right to explain to their new associates why that particular role would not be all that difficult for her friend.
Rebecca stood. “Is there someplace here where Mitchell can set up shop for us?” She didn’t add that
“What’s your plan?” Rebecca asked finally. There was no point in drawing lines in the sand over false issues. She and Watts couldn’t do what Sloan and McBride could. Chances were they’d never even get to the point of arresting anyone. Clark was after something with this fishing expedition, she had no doubt of that, but there was more smoke in the room now than before the briefing.
“This kind of Internet surveillance op isn’t new,” Sloan said with a shrug. “And like Clark said, it usually involves a huge number of man-hours for something that often produces short-lived results.”
“Like busting hookers,” Watts remarked. “No percentage in it.”
“Exactly.”
“So why hasn’t he given you a dozen people to sit here and surf the Internet—flood the system and maximize his returns?” Rebecca persisted.
“Can’t say. It’s costly; there aren’t that many computer-savvy agents readily available; or…” She considered her words carefully, because she didn’t know the blond cop at all. She was bothered by that fact as well, had been since the first phone call had come from Washington asking her to head up the computer side of the investigation. “He wants to limit the number of people exposed to the operation.”
Rebecca nodded. That played with her sense that there was a hidden agenda beneath the stated objectives of the investigation. And there was nothing to do but do the job and keep her eyes open. “Did he give you anything specific to work with?”
“Actually, yes,” Sloan affirmed. “There are probably 100,000 sites that supply child sex images worldwide. Many of them link to credit card transactions and on-line billing sites that take Visa, MasterCard, and AmEx. When you trace them through their domain registry, they turn out to be in the Balkans or Bali or some other even more remote locale.”
“Untouchable,” Jason commented.
“Right,” Sloan agreed. “A more profitable place to search is the Web-hosting companies. Most porn sites are explicit about their content when they register with a server—you know, clever names like underagenymphos.net and lolitaland.com. Justice’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section has given us a prescreened list of potential U.S.-based companies that specialize in porn sites. I’ll start there, looking for intersecting references to anything in the Northeast corridor as points of origin. If there is a big supplier, particularly a live feed somewhere local, we’ll get a whiff of it eventually.”
“Sounds simple,” Watts commented dryly. “What’s the catch?”
“There’s an international network of Web resellers who buy and sell space on hosting frames. They can cloak the site content so it’s not so conspicuous to broad searches.”
“And that’s what we’re looking for, right?” Rebecca asked. “A central clearinghouse.”
Sloan nodded, an appreciative glint in her eye at Rebecca’s quick assessment. “Yes. That’s very high up on our list of desirable intel. While I do the broad sweeps, Jason will try for individual contacts.”
Watts regarded the only other man in the room sympathetically, feeling an instant kinship with him based on that fact alone. “Jeez, you’re gonna pretend to be a perv?” he asked.
“Sometimes,” Jason replied flatly. “The rest of the time I’m going to pretend to be a girl.”
“We’re going to go at this from every angle we can,” Sloan affirmed, shooting Jason an amused smile that no one else noticed. Somehow she didn’t think the time was right to explain to their new associates why that particular role would not be all that difficult for her friend.
Rebecca stood. “Is there someplace here where Mitchell can set up shop for us?” She didn’t add that