2023-12-07 20:31:46Data 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.
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Chapter Twenty-eight
Liam. They had tailed the SUVs all the way from the Sports District in Lusail to the headquarters of the Al-Jazeera in Doha. Of course, it’s not been an easy ride though. They have had to identify themselves to every cop at every road blocks. Liam had even made the best of the situation, seizing the opportunity to make a report of the situation of things across the country. The hardest part had been how to escape the police at every roadblock and Terry stop they encountered on their way here. He was beyond shocked to find a roadblock on every block from the Sports District in Lusail all the way to Doha. But thankfully, the BBC logo on their van, couple with a flash of an ID here and there had proven sufficient enough to buy them a passage at every point of the trip.Thiago Silva was washing out his tinted terracotta hair back to his natural black when his burner rang beside him on the washbasin/vanity. Like the burner which he kept on his person at all times, the disguise—the facemas
Chapter Twenty-six
Mr. Ahmed Al-Shahbaa, director of the Al Jazeera TV network was winding down in his office having gotten through yet another stressful day at work. Already, the black suspenders holding his black slacks and shirt together were nowhere to be found anymore. Now it was lying somewhere in his briefcase stowed away under his Elm desk. The sleeves of his white-stiffed-fronted shirt were rolled up to the elbows, exposing deeply tan, slender forearms covered by a fine coat of body hair. His head of sable hair, frosted at the edges by a wisp of gray found rest on the headrest of his executive swivel chair, while his overly long legs were thrown heedlessly over the varnished top of the same Elm desk.His job at Al Jazeera was not the hardest in the world. But surely, every day in office in this position at one of the top-flight news agencies in the world must have counted for something. Today, however, seemed to be so different. Different in that it was most overwhelming in every sense of
Chapter Twenty-five
Director Julia shut the door gently behind her. She had managed to escape into the cocoon of her office at last, after spending the last hour between meetings with some concerned personnel of the museum. These meetings as was expected were intended to ensure that Mr. Leigh’s inspectorial visit to the MIA went smoothly and without kinks.Apparently, having something go wrong was the last thing she wanted while he was here. Heaving an obvious sigh of relief, she shuffled from the door toward the center of the room almost hesitantly. Her feet already leaden in her pumps barely left the Persian rug that took up a third of the office space as she made her way to her desk. She didn’t waste time once she got to it. She just slid the swivel chair bracketing it back a little, then plopped right into it. Today, for her had been a most eventful day, to say the least. Aside being the Qatari National Day; one in which they usually received a large turnout here at the MIA. It also happened t
Chapter Twenty-four
One-and-a-half hour after he arrived at the mews.The tall, trim black man still was unable to get a breather. Much less sit his ass down for a minute. This considered with the fact that he had been up since 5:00 am after a mere two-hour sleep and had also managed a one-hour long session of exercises meant he was far spent at the moment.So far, it was thanks to the excess caffeine in his system that he was still kicking and functioning at full throttle. As it is, he was already into his twelfth cup of coffee for the day. And it was just 11:30 in the morning.Just as he anticipated earlier, he had assumed the command of the emblematic ship that was the mews as soon as he had stepped in through its backdoor. Overseeing the highly-prioritized activities going on around there ever since then. While at the same time delegating the less-prioritized, but nevertheless important ones into good hands.Now, holding a disposable paper cup that holds the coffee in his left hand and peeking ov
Chapter Twenty-three
Several miles from the Green Palace, a wizened grey-haired man in a blue blazer worn over white, razor-sharp creased pants and balmorals paced up and down the expansive terrazzo floor of the command center in silence. Gnarled arms folded and gingerly tucked behind his stooped back. His mind shuttered against the low drones of computers and the beehive chatters around him. But otherwise, fixated on other things.Other things like the closed surveillance footage of the Lusail Arena splashing across the rank of computer screens around him. The conflux of communication—both inbound and outbound—as well as the ongoing strings of investigation into the likely scenarios that might have led to today’s awful events being carried out by half of the room’s occupants. But despite his obvious concerns about these things. The simple fact remains, he wasn’t so much concerned about them as much as he was with one thing in particular: The intercom mounted on a table somewhere in the room.This was
Chapter Twenty-Two
Prime Minister Qabid El Hamdi took one last glance at the three faces standing like posted sentries across from him. Faces he knew all too well. Faces of individuals who had served under his administration for so long that he now trusted them completely with his life. Soon as Al Jazeera had faulted the gagging order placed by the government on all media agencies in Qatar, the need to go public with the disappointing news of the stolen world cup trophy had become not only apparent but inevitable. Therefore, his study has been instantly transformed to make it scenic enough for his address to the nation broadcast under the ever-efficient guidance of those three. As expected, a whole lot has been put in place to make this realizable: one such thing is the at-the-ready camera crew assembled immediately by his Chief of Staff that now hung about the study. Same with the ad-lib speech scrolling horizontally across the teleprompter’s screen which was churned out courtesy of his Press Secre
