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BILAL IN PITTSBURGH

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, February 2008

One crisp winter morning in 2008, Inspector Bilal Şen of the Turkish Police stared out of his office window at Pittsburgh's Hot Metal Bridge. Straddling the Monongahela River a tad east from where it joins the Allegheny to form the majestic Ohio, the bridge used to transport molten metal from the great Eliza furnace on the north side to the rolling mills on the south.

But today he had no time to reflect on Pittsburgh's snow-clad post- industrial aesthetic. He had just read something disturbing on the DarkMarket boards. According to apparently reliable information coming out of Istanbul, Cha0, the cyber criminal under investigation by Inspector Şen, was 'one of the big boys, rich and powerful'. For a Turk, the phrase was easy to decode: the target had friends in high places, a Turkish copper's worst nightmare.

Inspector Şen had been working at the National Cyber Forensics Training Alliance for almost three months. On his first day he had been waiting in reception to be greeted by the organisation's boss when by chance Agent Keith J. Mularski strolled in, bright and charming as always. He introduced himself and, on learning that Bilal was from Turkey, immediately started telling him everything he knew about Cha0, DarkMarket's notorious administrator and master criminal. Mularski and Şen were a splendid match.

When he entered the office area on the fourth floor of 2000 Tech- nology Drive, the Turkish policeman was struck by the appearance of the place, which looked more like an insurance company than the