Murder on the American Express

LadySkywalker: I hear u hv a problem with a person

I wasn't sure if I'd hear back, but here she is. I chose her out of all the people offering this service because of the female username.

Of course, no one is who they say they are on the internet...

I type back:

Mirabilis: Yeah I hear you're good with people

I'd paid a couple hundred dollars – or 0.0032 Bitcoin to be precise – to have this conversation. The crypto was washed through two exchanges so it was in theory untraceable. The chat is encrypted, but she could still be compromised. Or Europol.

LadySkywalker: Who says?

Mirabilis: Your reviews

I found her on periptero.gr, one of many Greek dark web markets which appeared after their economy crashed.

LadySkywalker: Lol 5 star review cost 5c. 1st day on internet?

I resent her implication that I'm a n00b. I'm no hacker, but I'm smart enough to figure out the byzantine underworld of routers, merchants and protocols that got me this far.

On the other hand, I didn't pay $200 to argue with a hired killer.

Mirabilis: So how does this work?

LadySkywalker: I need your friend's photo, phone, and work and home addresses. Send 0.25BTC to 3J98t1WpEZ73CNmQviecrnyiWrnqRhWNLy. I'll notify u when it's done

That's over $15,000. About what I expected. Expensive in real terms, but cheap for what I'm buying.

Mirabilis: How can I trust you?

LadySkywalker: U have trust issues ask therapist

It's a seller's market. Where else would I go? I don't know any gangsters. I'm not connected. There's enough rich mugs with delicate egos out there that sellers don't have to sell hard.

I send her everything she wants. Then she goes offline.

I never hear from 'LadySkywalker' again.

It's been a couple of days when I get a message on my second phone. It's a photo of my front door, taken today because my bins are out.

I check the file and the EXIF data's been scrubbed, but there's some unique file system identifiers, and a message accompanies the picture. It's from a new username:

09:26 Gr3yM4n – I have been paid to unalive u. Pay me 0.25BTC to 3J98t1WpEZ73CNmQviecrnyiWrnqRhWNLy then I tell u who hired me

I smile. The wallet addresses match.

So that's the scam. I pay the merchant for a hit, then the target pays them again to find out who wants them dead. Then, I imagine, the merchant will blackmail both of us again and threaten to expose our very illegal deals.

Except what this guy hasn't realised is that I'm both the client and the target.

I open my Ring camera app to see if there's anyone lingering near my front door. The street is residential so someone hanging around would be obvious. I scrub the footage back a couple of hours until I see myself putting out the rubbish bins.

I scrub forward until I see someone in a hoodie pause on the opposite side of the street and quickly hold their phone up to take a picture. Gotcha.

It's a man. Mid 30s, white, average height. The shade of his hoodie and the poor video compression obfuscate his facial detail.

I reply:

09:29 Me – Who is this?

09:30 Gr3yM4n – This is real

I block and report the number, demonstrating a credible response.

A few minutes later I get another message from another number:

09:42 Gr3yM4n – U cant block me, pay what I ask or I will do what i been paid to

09:45 Me – I will report your numbers to the police

Another credible response, I feel.

Then I receive another photo, similar to the first, but zoomed in. I check my Ring camera again, nobody there. It probably isn't new, probably taken the same time as the first.

09:47 Gr3yM4n – Go ahead how long they goan take?

I call the number. I watch my Ring's live stream. No one is there. No one with a phone. Either way, he doesn't pick up. Instead, another message:

09:51 Gr3yM4n – PAY NOW or I will come

I pause. It's strange he took money from the client (me) and still pursued the target (also me). The first transaction was already a huge risk. Most merchants would fall off the web at that point. This guy is following up, in person and by phone. He's committed. Thirsty. Reckless.

09:55 Me – So come

I block the second number. Will he approach? Or have I blown it?

I'm in a ground floor flat, easy to burgle, easy to break in. But if anyone tries, I'll see them coming. But he won't come. I'm sure of it. The guy is not a mercenary. He's not a professional. He's just some geek. But then again he's reckless... I keep watching the cameras.

My computer pings up a security event. Someone is pentesting my firewall. He's looking for weaknesses.

My software already grabbed his IP and MAC address. I know he's mobile, probably on cellular. He'd never risk hijacking a wifi and getting logged. With a little further sniffing I have his IMEI, and a few seconds later I have his phone number. The number is different from the previous two.

I get the feeling he's not using burners or swapping SIMs. That feels laborious for this guy. So either he's spoofing his numbers through a third party – which opens him up to compromise – or more likely he's using eSIMs, virtual SIM cards. As long as I don't spook him, I can triangulate him.

I let him continue fingering my ports while I phone headquarters.

'Hey Jan, it's Mel. I've got another one. Yeah, through the Greek site. This one's hungry.'

I send her all the data I've collected. I watch alerts stack up on my screen as my hacker continues trying to penetrate my security.

Soon he'll realise my packet timings are the same as his 'client' and the game will be up. Time is running out.

'No, he's not moved,' I tell her. 'You got a feed?'

Jan sends me a link to a street CCTV camera. I see a bus stop. My hacker is sitting there with his laptop out.

'Love it, thanks hon.'

I keep watching.

My firewall is flagging multiple points of attack now. He must have realised I'm no ordinary target. I watch the video and I can see him hunched over his laptop, focussed and typing rapidly. He's escalating his attack to DoS levels, saturating my connection, causing the camera stream to buffer.

I'm not worried about him getting through. My concern is whether his misplaced pride will let him cut and run...

But then, after a few minutes, a police vehicle pulls up. Three uniformed officers surround him, tasers armed. He raises his hands from the laptop. They seize it. I didn't see him trigger a kill script.

Popcorn moment.

I see them open his backpack and pull out three phones, another laptop, and a bunch of hacking tools – I recognise a Flipper, an Ubertooth, an RFID skeleton key and WiFi deauthoriser.

We've got him. His devices and his data.

I kick back in my chair. Soon we'll have the money back, then I can go shopping for my next wannabe killer.

Author's Note

This is an experiment. I wanted to write a short, tech-heavy thriller, lean into the jargon and processes of cyber crime policing, but still tell a story from the perspective of a single character. It's also an art project, to see what MidJourney could do in terms of glitchy, corrupted digital illustrations.

Do you have a short attention span? So do I!

That's why my short stories have big impact.

Please read, like and comment – your support means everything!

My longer stories are available as eBooks – including darkly hilarious horror story HEAD CASE and outrageous feminist splatterpunk METAGOTH, featuring goth antiheroine Rosa Razor. Out now on GODLESS and Kindle.