The Dark Web Murders

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Monday, 20th August. Afternoon 

McCullough was looking even more baffled than usual. Even before the team had settled down for the debrief, he said directly to Stewart, "What was that stuff you sent on my phone. I couldn't make head or tail of it." 

"Did you read it all?" Stewart asked. 

"I know they're blogs, but I couldn't get past the first dozen or so lines of any of them." 

"The good stuff comes at the end of each of them, Sarge," Miller said."Stewart found them on the Dark Web." 

"The Dark what?"

 "I'm with the Sarge on this one," Connors said. "I know we had to read this stuff for the debrief but it was away over my head too. And what are you talking about, Dark Web?" 

"One dangerous place," McBride interjected. "You're better well away from it." 

"Well away from what?" Connors growled, his patience already wearing thin.   

McBride glanced at Sheehan for permission to speak. Sheehan shrugged. 

"Okay," McBride said. "You know about Google on the Internet?" 

"Of course," Connors said. "Everybody searches for stuff on there." 

"Huge source of information, right?" 

"Absolutely." Connors was on firmer ground now. 

"Well, Google's network is only a fraction of the size of a much darker,much deeper, much more sinister network that not only supplies all sorts of off-the-wall information, but provides all sorts of criminal services, support,access to just about anything a depraved appetite can seek. It's a terrible place." 

"How come I never h-h-heard of it either?" McNeill asked.

 "It's not somewhere ordinary people would go," McBride said. "For a start, you need to know how to protect your anonymity, and you need to know how to access special search engines such as the TOR Hidden Service Protocol." 

"Now what are you going on about?" Connors growled. "You've lost me again." 

"The Dark Web is becoming better known now," Stewart joined in."Many people have heard of it, but its users are generally shady or criminal types. Some people who are very familiar with computers can try to browse there, but unless you are very sure about what you're doing and know howto stay anonymous on it, you just don't go near it." She glanced over at McBride. "You seem to know a bit about it, Malachy. How come?" 

McBride blew air from puffed cheeks. "One experience, Sergeant. That was all I needed to have me running for the hills." 

"Do tell, boyo," Miller said. 

"Well, a guy on my course was telling me about it. I couldn't believe what he was saying. I said I was going to have a look, but he told me I could only do so by using a deep web browser like Tor. I made him show me howto use it so that I could browse anonymously. He did warn me to be careful,but he didn't warn me about hitting random buttons. There I was at home one evening, trying to sneak on to the hidden wifi via Tor, doing random searches to see what might come up. What happened next scared the ever-loving shit out of me." He glanced apologetically at Sheehan. "Uh, excuse me, sir. I was waiting for this web page to load. It was taking a long time, much longer that the normal net. Anyway, when it finally loaded, giant black capital letters leapt up on my screen. They said, 'YOU BETTER START RUNNING.' Needless to say, I almost shit my pants. I couldn't get the machine switched off quickly enough, and I have to say I was in a panic most of the night. I didn't dare go back since."