The Great Heist

Chapter Ten

Data analyst, Kaboul Alsam was finding it hard to get his work done as he sat before his workstation, some safe distance from the operator and the grid of CCTV monitors in the stadium’s control room.

To begin with, enhancing the picture from Cam #25 with Face Hallucination—an algorithm-based resolution enhancement technique used in low-resolution imagery to enhance human identification at a distance through pixel substitution—was not turning out as smoothly as he had first thought. Neither are his attempts to reduce the high signal-to-noise ratio of the picture and get a clearer resolution of the image of the stewards captured in its background with the program coming off as good. Nor is the Director standing this close to him and breathing down on his neck helping, either.

He had thought having worked for six years at the Qatar State Security Service, where he had helped crack and solve several cases under intense pressure and scrutiny would be enough to help check his nerves in a situation like this.

But, unfortunately, he could see now that he was making bad work of that. At the same time, he had discovered that all those years of sitting behind a desk and a computer screen in his workstead back in HQ mattered little in this case and scenario. Interestingly, he had come to know for a fact that this particular situation was nothing like anything he had ever seen before. Or what they handled back at HQ.

This situation was a whole new ballgame and on a different dimension. More significantly, he could see that the stakes are too damn high. After all, it’s the World Cup Trophy that has been missing.

At least, that much was evident in the way his hand was shaking as he dragged the mouse over the mouse pad. More so, in the way, his heart pounded heavily in his chest while he watched the digital clock on the monitor’s screen across him tick past without any significant progress on his end. Likewise, in the same way, the Director was huffing and puffing as he paced the length of the control room.

In his six years working as an analyst for Qatar State Security, Alsam had never seen the Director this up close. Nor had he seen him this distraught before. Basically, it’s not like he sees him regularly. But on the rare occasion that he had seen him from his cubicle walking down the hall, or on the scarce chance that he had seen him come down of a car from across the street, the Director has always seemed composed and collected.

But not today. The Director was nothing like the man he had come to love and revered so much from afar. Today, he was more like a walking volcano, ready to erupt, at any time.

Holding a little tighter on the mouse to keep his hand from obviously shaking, he dragged the cursor across the monitor’s screen; selecting yet another familiar enhancement tool from the Face Hallucination program to further enhance the picture on the screen.

As Alsam worked from his place in front of the workstation, unable to shake the unnerving footfalls of the Director’s feet; which subconsciously served as a constant reminder of a ticking clock in his head, he prayed silently to God that he arrived at something soon.

His prayer was answered two minutes later. The algorithm after a due process of plotting and enhancing the imagery finally blotted out the very last of the smoke that shrouded the faces of the men in the picture. Now on the monitor’s screen was a sharp high-res. rendition of the same picture taken from #Cam 25.

“I have something, sir,” he announced, swiveling around in his chair to meet the drawn face of the Director traipsing around in the room.

“Oh, good,” Commander Ali breathed a sigh, rushing over to his side.

On getting there, Commander Ali who had run over to the analyst’s side with the hope of unraveling the mystery behind the picture at long last was stunned into perpetual silence when he stared at the image on the monitor screen.

Instead of looking squarely at the faces of the men that had caused him so much headache in the last half an hour or so, the Director’s gaze settled on faces muffled with face masks and baseball caps. Therefore, he found the image on the screen crisp and quite distinct but otherwise useless.

“But you didn’t mention that there’s a new problem entirely,” Commander Ali stuttered out in vexation once he recovered briefly from the shock, unbothered in the slightest by the presence of the other man in the room.

“I was going to mention that eventually, sir,” Alsam explained in a rush. “Plus the fact that we stand a lesser chance of getting an accurate reading of their faces with their masks on. And that’s even if they’re not wearing disguises, which I’m sure they did.”

“Fuck! You think I don’t know that already?” Commander Ali growled softly, running a frustrating hand over his eyes and temple. “Just run their faces through any FRS (Facial Recognition System)—FindFace, DeepFace—anything. I don’t bloody care what. And have their faces pre-treated and plotted, or whatever it’s you guys do to get better imagery in such cases. I need to know who the hell those men are right now!”

“I get it, sir,” Alsam blurted out, panicked.

“You can do that, right?” Commander Ali asked this time on a rather calm note.

“I could try, sir,” Alsam returned, hearing no edge of conviction in his own voice.

“Well, good. Now, get me something to work with already.” Commander Ali said, folding his arms over his chest in eager expectation. A master, who has assigned his subject a work he deemed could be done by him.

Alsam got down into business in no time. His hands tapping and clicking away on both the keyboard and mouse at a go, as he set to initialize the facial scan of the masked stewards on FRS.

As he did this time, he felt the fears and trepidations from earlier double from the Director standing this close to him.

As it were now, it took great effort not to knock the workstation in front of him over with his trepidations. Even worse, it took taking several deep breaths to calm his palpitating heart; and nothing at all within his power to stem the flow of perspirations streaming down both sides of his face and throughout his entire body.

Fortunately for him, this was allayed when the Director’s cell phone sprang to life with a lively tune about a minute later.

Sparing a glance behind him, he watched as the Director quickly withdrew the phone from his suit’s pant pocket, and stared long at its screen as if dreading to answer the call. Having found the right resolve after much deliberation, he reluctantly swiped a finger across its screen and brought it gently to his left ear.

“Commander Ali speaking,” the director breathed into the phone, and almost in the same breath pointed a finger at Alsam and mouthed out the words, which the data analyst lip-read to be; ‘You get on with your work. I will be back once I am done receiving this call’.

Saved by a phone call, Alsam thought silently as he watched the Director scat out of the control room.

Feeling a little relaxed now that the Director was not in the room with him, Alsam turned his mind away from the events of the last minutes and pulled his attention back to the here and now. And soon, began the work at hand.