CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Dark Arts

“Ah, there you are, Holmes,” I declared. “I was wondering what had become of you.”

“Have you been waiting long, Doctor?” asked my friend. He tossed his sports bag onto the chaise longue and shuffled out of his wet cape.

“So, you have taken my advice, I see,” said I indicating the sports bag. “Have you been exercising down the gym?”

“I have, Watson. Is there tea in that pot or am I too late?”

I got up from my chair before the fire and poured my friend a somewhat stewed cup. “Mrs Hudson let me in and she very kindly made me some tea. There are even a few of my favourite Garibaldi biscuits left.”

Holmes plonked himself down and snatched eagerly at a crisp brown wafer. I handed him his cup.

“So, why the sudden change of heart?” I asked. “I have been nagging you for the best part of a year to take exercise.”

“I am experiencing a surplus of energy, Doctor. My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to pieces. I must burn it off.”

“And are you not working on any cases at the moment, Holmes?”

“Not a sausage,” huffed my friend. “Romance seems to have passed forever from the criminal world and, as you know, my mind rebels at stagnation.”

“Then congratulations, Holmes, for not reverting to your old destructive habits.” I was referring, as Holmes knew full well, to his earlier fascination for artificial stimulants – both morphine and cocaine.

“Old hat, old boy,” chuckled Holmes. He sipped readily at the dark tea. “You recall my recent foray to Silicon Valley?”

“Consulting work, I believe.”

“Yes, my friend. The task itself was nothing to write home about but I did make an interesting discovery whilst there. Have you ever heard of ‘micro-dosing’, Doctor?”

I let out a deep sigh.

“It is the ‘in’ thing among the bright young people of the tech world, and most fascinating, too.”

“Drugs?” I asked feeling deeply weary.

“In a manner of speaking. Did you ever see that film Limitless where a struggling writer somehow acquires a top secret wonder drug that enables him to take full control of his brain? He becomes a financial wizard.”

“I did, Holmes. And, as I recall, it did not end well.”

My friend shook his head. “This is not quite the same thing but pretty close. Micro-dosing is the act of consuming sub-perceptual amounts of psychedelics, like LSD and Psilocybin with the aim of expanding the mind.”

“Sub-perceptual meaning the effects are subtle but noticeable?”

“Precisely, Doctor. Typically, individuals integrate sub-perceptual doses into their weekly routine for higher levels of creativity, more energy, increased focus, and improved relationship skills. Micro-dosing also helps to heighten spiritual awareness and enhance all five senses.”

I scoffed. “I have never heard of it, Holmes, and I like to pride myself that I keep up-to-date with all the journals. And is it working for you?”

“Indubitably. I take precisely ten micrograms of LSD every four days and it provides the mental exaltation that I crave.”

“Where on earth do you get such a thing? You can’t just pop down the chemists, can you?”

“I buy it online, Watson. On the Deep Web. Did you bring Susan and your laptop?”

I fished them both out and began to set up. I gave Holmes the nod once I was ready.

“I imagine, Doctor, that you were equally surprised to discover the existence of other Internets.”

“You could have knocked me over with a feather,” I told him.

Holmes smiled. “As you know, it is my business to know what other people don’t know. To that end, I have made a particular study of the darker side of the Internet.”

“The so-called Dark Net or Dark Web?”

“Just so. Fire up Tor, Watson. We are going to take a walk on the wild side this afternoon. We are going to enter pioneering territory, a place with very few settlers – perhaps half a million daily users as compared to the three billion plus who stay up top.”

“Right you are.” I had the green screen open in front of me.

“But we must be on our guard, Watson. Many of the natives are hostile. They would like to keep the place to themselves. Others are friendly because they know that more users mean more people to hide among.”

“And how big is it, then?”

“Some say this Deep Web is more than five-thousand times the size of the Surface Web – so deep that the major search engines do not venture down there. But, Watson, it is not all dark despite being hidden from view. Just like everything else, there is good and there is bad.”

“Where shall we start?”

“Let us go shopping.” Holmes sat back and consulted deep within his mind, a far-away look in his eyes. “Our starting point, dear Doctor, is on the Surface Web. VPN first. Then, using Tor, go to deepdotweb.com.”

I typed the address into the command line at the top of the page.

“This is a most capital starting point for all things Deep Web, Watson. The good people who run this site stay abreast of all developments and – perhaps just as importantly – they maintain a list of trustworthy vendors and of places where it is safe to do business.”

“I am pleased to hear it.”

“Follow the links on the home page. Seek out their Market Comparison Chart. Here we have a list of the most popular shopping venues. Let us select the one topping the list. Cut and paste the address into a fresh Tor page.”

“AlphaBay Market,” I announced.

“Sign up. They do not want any personal details. Login and let’s see what they have for sale, shall we?” Holmes sprang from his chair and came to look over my shoulder.

“It is much like an eBay or Amazon,” I marvelled while scrolling down the home page. “Good heavens, Holmes.” I declared. “Drugs and Chemicals. Counterfeit Items. Credit Cards. Weapons. How wonderfully shocking.” I looked up at Holmes in amazement.

“How much ammunition do you still have for that handgun of yours, Watson?”

“Less than half a box, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“Then you can restock here, my friend. Click Weapons. Click Ammunition.”

“Blow me down,” I declared. I even let out a lengthy whistle. “Lots of 9mm, .38 Special and .45 ACP. They even have ammo for an AK47 or NATO 5.56. I am gob smacked. And very good prices, too.”

Holmes smiled. “And they have the guns, Watson. From the security guard’s plastic delight – the Glock 17 – through to concealable machine-pistols and long-range sniper rifles. Silencers, too.”

“But are they to be trusted? What’s to stop them taking your money and then not handing over the goods?”

“Reputation, for one thing. These places work just like eBay. Swindle a buyer and you are booted off the site. Each vendor must lodge a security deposit before they can start listing. It is not worth their while to go around cheating people. This is a market with plenty of willing buyers after all.”

“And how do they deliver these guns and the ammo? You can’t just pop an SA80 assault rifle in the post – or can you?”

“Seemingly,” said Holmes. “They break them down. Ship them off in with machine parts. When all the bits arrive, the buyer looks up on YouTube how to reassemble the thing.”

“And this is where one might acquire LSD and other drugs, I imagine.” I had returned to the home page.

“When it comes to drugs, Doctor, name your poison. Everything is here.”

“And it is all shipped to the buyer in some stealthy manner, I imagine.” I shook my head in wonder. “Is there no question of sniffer dogs finding your drugs, Holmes?”

My friend dismissed the notion. “Not a chance. And, besides, most venders will make up any loss if it goes missing. I find it more reliable than any of your usual online shopping haunts.”

“Most impressive,” I declared. “I applaud any move that takes drugs off the streets.”

“Of course, Watson. But that said, we are talking here of the Marketplaces where reputation is everything in a highly competitive arena, where vast fortunes are to be made on commission. Cheats will not be tolerated.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

“But the same cannot be said of the sole traders that prey – just like their Surface counterparts – upon the unwary and the gullible down here on the Dark Net.”

“One can hardly go running to the police,” I laughed. “Saying my marijuana or .44 Magnum failed to arrive.”

“Precisely. Now, Watson, we are off to the Hidden Wiki. Search for it with duckduckgo and paste the address into Tor.”

“Here we go,” I glanced back at Holmes. “Looks much like Wikipedia.”

“For many people, Watson, the Hidden Wiki is the gateway to the Onion hidden network. This is a directory of the known unknown, if you will,” Holmes nodded sagely.

“There are links to every service imaginable – a distorted mirror image of your Internet – and much of it beyond the realms of the law and much more beyond the realms of common decency.”

“Really?”

“You must be alert, Watson. Be careful where you tread. There are people down here who like to lay traps. You might click a link and – suddenly – be confronted by an image so shocking, so utterly depraved and distressing that your mind will be indelibly marked.”

“I do not need to remind you, Holmes, that I am a doctor who has seen combat. The most shocking wounds imaginable. I have seen the best of human nature and I have seen the worst.”

“You are not so easily shocked,” nodded my friend. He straightened back up and took himself off to the window. He was silent for a long time. Finally, he turned and looked me directly in the eyes.

“There are, Watson, truly terrible things to be found here. And I am not even thinking of the people who will commit rape, torture, arson and murder on demand – at your very whim – for a handful of BitCoins.”

I shuddered.

“Duels to the death,” Holmes grimaced. “Wildlife auctions that would make your heart weep.”

“I cannot abide seeing any living creature in distress, Holmes. What sort of auctions?”

“Imagine, Watson, that you are a filthy-rich oligarch. You collect exotic animals. You like to impress your friends and snow leopards are so passé these days. What do you get yourself?”

“A panda,” I suggested flippantly.

“Precisely, Watson. A panda. But not just any old panda. You want a nice cuddly baby panda. One you can bottle-feed and tuck up in a crib at night.”

“Ah, bless.”

“But you cannot just pop down the pet shop and have one pulled from a cage for you. You need contacts. The right contacts. There are plenty of pandas in the wild – not just in zoos and shopping malls. And there are people who arrange it all – for a price.”

“Dear me.”

“And if the vendor should happen to come across a nest of the things, he will auction them off.” Holmes held up his hand. “But how do they do that, you ask? I shall tell you, Watson.”

Holmes made a move for his violin case and I cringed inwardly. He halted mid-stride and spun back towards me. “First you flick through your contacts book. You seek out the likely buyers. You send them a secret message. You give them an Onion address and a specific window of time.”

“I see.”

“This Deep Web page will only appear briefly and then it is gone again. You – the buyer Watson – will get a chance to peruse the goods. To see which cuddly little fella takes your fancy. The site goes down. Sometime later you receive another secret message. You go to a different Onion address and there you get your chance to bid. It is quite straightforward.”

“Duels to the death, Holmes? What of them?”

“Suppose, Watson. You are the self-same oligarch and you have grown tired of your Filipina chamber maid. And suppose that I am another oligarch and I have much the same thing. Well, we sell them to a Dark Net fight promoter. Same thing as before. You get a secret message, etcetera, and you can place your bets while watching the whole grisly thing live.”

“Hold on, Holmes. How in the name of all that is good do you ever get two Filipina maids to fight it out to the death? What possible incentive do they have?”

“Elementary, Doctor. You put them both in the picture. The winner gets one-hundred dollars cash and her passport back.”

I was shaking my head. “I find this too far fetched, Holmes. I can clearly see the guns and the drugs but these other things – pandas – surely not?”

“So right you are, Doctor. Pandas are purely emotive – they are not technically-speaking endangered in that they face imminent extinction. The world’s zoos are awash with them.”

I felt some relief at that.

“But there are, however, plenty of critically endangered species for auction down here as we speak – creatures like the not-so-cuddly pangolin. You can, of course, buy an adorable baby orang-utan online. And then there are the sad creatures auctioned off for their component parts, like the rhino and tiger and, of course, plenty of elephant ivory.”

“And the maids, Holmes?”

“Perhaps not maids fighting to the death, not as such. But an equal level of callousness abounds. Human traffickers buy and sell these women every day. They are treated to the most shocking abuse. Rape and murder are commonplace.”

“But live online? Is that really happening?”

My friend scoffed. “Rohinga refugees fleeing Burma are frequently tortured live online by the traffickers – all to get their families to pay up a ransom. The jungles of Thailand are littered with their shallow graves.”

I felt sick.

“The Bedouin kidnappers of the Sinai desert, Watson. How do you imagine they best extort money from the distraught friends and families of their victims? The bride market. How else could it function? The enslaved girls filling the brothels of Europe. Where do you imagine that these trades are best carried out?”

“Down here in the depths.” I felt choked. “While Lestrade and his ilk spy on us.”

“No area of cyberspace a haven,” recollected Holmes, stomping to and fro across the living room.

“I could go on, Watson. There are things interminably baser than this. But I do not wish to talk of the lost children who are displayed and abused to the specific directions of those willing to pay and capable of infinite cruelty.”

“Please spare me, Holmes.”

“We have two distinct but parallel worlds, Doctor. A world where a caring State spends billions to keep us all safe from harm.”

“So they tell us.”

“And another world where the State shrugs its shoulders when the sick and hopelessly disabled take their own lives because there is no money in the kitty to care for them.”

“I know it.”

“In this first world, Watson, we blindly hand back to the State the hard-won freedoms of our forebears on the flimsy pretext of protection from future terror. Here we sit quietly by while the State constructs an all-seeing eye – the kind of tool that only a paranoid megalomaniac or totalitarian regime might dream of.”

I was shaking my head.

“And in the other world, my friend, we have the criminals, the dealers, the traffickers, the child-abusers – the very people we see here – who are free to operate with impunity. Here the actual terrorists plot, plan and communicate beyond any reach.”

“Either Lestrade and his fellows are clueless, Holmes, or they think that we are.”

“Let us take an analytical approach, Doctor. The State maintains that it is fighting a war against terror and against organised crime. In order to do so, the State has granted itself unparalleled surveillance powers.”

“That is how Lestrade explains it.”

“So, Watson, given that we know the terrorists can easily avoid State surveillance, how successful do you suppose the State will be in monitoring the terrorists?”

“Patently, Holmes, it is not possible to catch them by reading people’s emails or by spying upon their Internet activities. I must conclude that they will not be successful.”

“Precisely,” smiled Holmes. “It is not possible. And once we eliminate the impossible, whatever remains – no matter how improbable – must be the truth. You agree?”

“I do. Which means, Holmes, that we are left with the inescapable fact that the State is spying upon us and that – improbably as it may seem – it is not for the stated purpose of keeping us all safe.”

“And there you have it, Watson.”

“But why, Holmes? Why?”

“Because they see what is coming, my friend. They see the perfect storm.”