DARKMARKET

humiliated hacker, Mert Ortaç, and pressure was ramping up both on the Istanbul police, who were tasked with finding Ortaç, and on Bilal, whose primary target was Cha0. Bilal had to speed things up, but he knew he must not allow impatience to jeopardise the operation.

By abducting Ortaç, Cha0 had betrayed anxiety and vulnerability for the first time. But why had Ortaç's revelations in Haber 7 so unsettled him?

Cha0 knew that Ortaç was Turkish. Cha0 also seemed to believe that Ortaç was a police informant. Furthermore, he had worked out that Ortaç was on the run and in a state of fear. If the police had picked him up before Cha0 did, there was a real risk he might start blabbing.

But who on earth was Mert Ortaç and how had he become involved in this extraordinary criminal affair? It had all begun the previous spring when, unbeknownst to Ortaç, Matrix and JiLsi were about to be arrested, marking the end of Phase I in Operation DarkMarket and the beginning of Phase II.