Arnold Nimmerich was a computer forensic examiner. The first one Aisha had ever seen, though she’d read about them in the criminal justice journals. He was her age, but his blond hair, long in back, was already receding in front.
Presently everybody in the agents-only meeting upstairs in the base security building took seats. At last, as if bringing forth crown jewels, Major Yousif unlocked a briefcase, unwrapped several layers of bubble wrap, and gently placed on the table the drive a joint SIS/NCIS evidentiary team had seized from the Salmaniya Avenue madrassa.
Diehl asked whether they’d dusted it. Yousif said dusted and photographed, but the only prints on it were old, from when it had been assembled. Which meant they didn’t need to do the usual rubber-gloves routine.
Nimmerich picked it up and turned it over. Studied the label pasted to the bottom, then rattled it, like a kid with a present. He put it back on the bubble wrap and said, addressing nobody in particular, “So, is this particularly time sensitive?”
“We think it might be,” Hooker said.
“Ey-yup. Well, sometimes these things take awhile. Just to let you know. Was the computer running when it was taken into custody?”
“No.”
“If you take one running, dump the RAM to a disk before you pull the plug. That’ll give you passwords resident in memory, any decrypt process that’s running, stuff that makes my job easier. If there are usable files on this one I can probably get you some degree of recovery, unless whoever used it last knew how to do a disk wipe. Was there a modem on the source machine?”
“Yes,” Aisha said, since no one else looked like they knew what he was saying.
“Then there are probably e-mail files. They can lead to other connections and potential suspects.”
She said, “He could have used a Web-based e-mail, like Yahoo or Hotmail. Then the files wouldn’t be resident on his computer.”
Nimmerich looked at her and said, rather unwillingly, she felt, “Correct, but you can find traces and sometimes parts of messages in the unallocated clusters. I can do string searches to bring up hidden information like that. But again, it’ll take time.”
“What do you need from us?” said Hooker.
“Well, I brought the software I think I’ll need, and some blank, formatted hard drives and cables, but I’ll need two machines. One like the one this came out of. The other, the fastest IBM compatible you have, with a dual processor and a high-capacity tape drive. A phone line, back to Quantico. And a secure place to work.”
He looked around uncertainly, not meeting her eyes, obviously wondering who was in charge. He picked Diehl to address, probably because he was the oldest white man. “Where will that be? Someplace I can plant myself for a couple of days?”
“Major?” Diehl deferred to Yousif.
The SIS man cocked his head. Running out the various angles, she thought. At SIS headquarters, where his men could learn from the visiting American computer expert? But also where the American could see how well or how badly they were equipped and trained. Here at the base? Where he might lose control of whatever they managed to extract. Aisha caught the flicker of a glance between him and the Arab. ‘Mr. Hassan’—it was like introducing someone as Mister Jones in the States. A pointed little beard, and hooded, watchful eyes over a too-ready smile. He’d spoken only a few words, in Arabic. But she’d gotten to talk to some Saudi sisters in her souk roaming. He had their accent.
“We’ll do it at the ministry,” Yousif said. “In a special room, separate from our regular offices. We’ll have to restrict access. I’m sure everyone understands how sensitive this information may be.”
“I don’t,” said Diehl. He’d hauled out one of his El Stinkos, was chewing it, and seemed, despite annoyed glances from around the table, about to light it. “We’ll close-hold it, but this is a criminal investigation of a very nearly successful attack on one of our ships. We led you to the evidence. We want access to the result.”
Yousif said, “Mr. Nimmerich will be your access, Bob. What more can you want? He is, after all, an agent of the FBI.”
Diehl asked Nimmerich, “You read Arabic, Arnold?”
“No.”
“You a Moslem?”
“I’m a Mormon.”
“A what?” said Yousif. No one answered, and he frowned and made a note on his pad.
“Well, Aisha does, and Aisha is. So she goes, too,” Diehl said. “She’s got a top-secret clearance. She knows the background of the case. She’s hot stuff on the computer, too.”
She reflected bitterly that now she “knew the background.” Somehow the senior agent had conveniently forgotten she’d actually
