NEEL WAS HUNCHED over his computer, palms sweating. He was accessing a grim, dark world of human filth, a deep web of depravity that was hard to define. It was an Internet beyond Google, Amazon, and eBay but the markets were no less robust. In fact the underworld of the web was far larger than what appeared above the surface. It was large and anonymous, making it relatively easy to hide from law enforcement.
He was using Tor, an abbreviation for “The Onion Router,” an anonymizing filter that could resolve addresses that could not be identified by a regular browser. These websites ended in .onion instead of .com or .org, and were in a constant state of flux so that they were never in a given place for too long.
It was pretty incredible what was on offer. The Hidden Wiki, a directory to all the illegal stuff, had 3,099 listings under drugs alone. In addition, you could find passport forgeries and fake driver’s licenses from around the world, firearms, counterfeit bills, contract hit men accepting fees in Bitcoin, human experimentation, child pornography, sex slaves, snuff films, and human organs. Neel felt sick to his stomach as he continued to explore.
On a thread that helped wannabe murderers, there was someone suggesting that dissolving a body in lye was the quickest way to dispose of it. The message board had other users contributing their own dark expertise to the knowledge forum. An active user seemed to indicate that 70 percent of the bones and teeth would remain if lye were used. He advised using acid to dissolve the remains. Yet another thread was entitled “Producing Kiddie Porn for Dummies.” This was the smelly underbelly of the World Wide Web that highlighted the greatest depravities of human nature.
Neel clicked into the organs marketplace and was dumbfounded to see a price list as though they were offering items from the daily specials of a restaurant:
Pair of eyes: $1,525
Scalp: $607
Skull with teeth: $1,200
Shoulder: $500
Coronary artery: $1,525
Heart: $119,000
Liver: $157,000
Hand and forearm: $385
Pint of blood: $337
Spleen: $508
Stomach: $508
Small intestine: $2,519
Kidney: $262,000
Gallbladder: $1,219
Skin: $10 per square inch
He scanned the comments below the price list. Someone had posted: “If you are reading this thread, it means that you are searching for a human organ for yourself or a loved one. Ignore all the crazy prices that are listed here. We can get you reliable donors at a fraction of the cost from India.” The seller was using the handle “Dr. O. S. Rangoon.” An Indian cell phone number accompanied the message.
Chapter 55
NISHA AND SANTOSH watched the five men working along the banks of the Yamuna river. They hefted heavy, soggy sheets on their heads and dumped them into a milky concoction of bleach, alum, and other compounds before giving them a final rinse in the river. Without this chemical rinse, the men knew they would never be able to get the filth out of the fabric because an extended soak in the effluent-laced river water would always leave a grimy patina on cloth.
The work had used to be much easier some years before. The river’s waters had been clean and had done most of the work. The overall increase in Indian prosperity had, ironically, reduced the prosperity of the dhobis. The washing machine had eaten into the business of dhobis but the men at the Yamuna had faced a double whammy owing to the degeneration of the river. Even hospitals were wary of sending their stuff to the Yamuna. Fear of infection from effluents had stopped most of the better ones. In previous years there would have been fifty men at work instead of five.
Santosh walked up to the group along with Nisha. “Terrible work these days,” he commented. One of them looked up wearily to see a man who looked as though his clothes had been washed by them in the river.
“It’s the only way we know how to keep hunger from our doors, sahib,” said the man. “Most households have given up on us. After a wash in the Yamuna, their garments are often returned reeking of sewage.”
“So how do you survive?” asked Santosh, leaning on his walking stick.
“The cloth sellers still need their fabric to be shrunk before tailoring,” replied the man. “In addition there are government hospitals that still send their bed linen to us.”
Santosh took out a five-hundred-rupee note from his wallet and handed it over to the man.
“What is this for, sahib?” asked the man. His colleagues also stopped their work, eyeing the money.