George thought about Colma and its weird history. Located a few miles south of San Francisco, Colma was a city of funeral homes and cemeteries.
Somehow, until he became a reporter, George had never realized that no one was buried in San Francisco. Well, that wasn’t exactly true, although technically full, the National Cemetery at the Presidio occasionally accepted burials of veterans or their family members – if space became available. How did space become available in a cemetery?
Soon after starting at the Sentinel, someone mentioned that the subject of a story was on his way to Colma and then patiently explained to a stunned George that you can’t be buried in San Francisco. After some hysteria about diseases being spread from cemeteries on the westerly winds, the City outlawed burials in 1900. A new town was formed called Lawndale, and for decades, it contained only cemeteries, funeral homes, and florist shops. Later, Lawndale became Colma. And today, there is only one cemetery in the San Francisco City limits (the Presidio is officially Federal Land and not part of the city) – at Mission Dolores. The last burial there was in 1898.
“On her way to Colma?”
“Yes. It appeared to be natural causes, so no need for the Medical Examiner to get involved. Mike called them and they’ve sent out an investigator who will likely order an autopsy.
“Yep. There will be an autopsy,” said Mike McKensey who entered Morris’ office with Bob Simpson hanging back at the doorway.
“Let’s grab a conference room,” Morris suggested.
A few minutes later, looking out at the Bay Bridge and the East Bay from the 11th floor conference room, Morris kicked off the discussion.
“So what have you got?”
Mike and Bob looked at each other and Mike responded.
“Actually, not much more than I told you on the phone. Apparently Julia Lewis is quite the socialite. She was hosting a charity event for kangaroo awareness and she just collapsed. EMTs arrived and tried to resuscitate her on the ride to Community, but she was DOA. She had some heart issues, so everyone just assumed it was a heart attack. We’ll see what the autopsy tells us. But I’m pretty sure your guy did it.”
“Yeah,” Bob chimed in. “We don’t see your guy making a false claim here. And it was within 48 hours; and it was the wife of a technologist. He just lied to us about the MO.”
“It kind of pisses me off,” Mike continued obviously exasperated. "You can't trust murders to tell you the truth these days.”
“C’mon guys,” George responded a bit irritated. “You’ve gotta stop calling him my guy. He’s as much your guy as my guy, probably more so.”
“It’s okay, George,” Morris jumped in. “They’re just rattling your cage. So guys, if you don’t have anything new, why are you here?”
“Well,” Mike responded. “We were hoping to talk to you about your coverage of the story. We’d like to keep it quiet for a while until we get a bit further along.”
Morris laughed. “Remember ‘in possession of material evidence in a murder investigation’ from our last meeting? Well, just as you were doing your job then, we need to do ours now. This is news. We have multiple murders by the same perpetrator who’s targeting very specific victims. And really, it’s more than news. The public needs to know. I don’t mean to be taking shots, but you weren’t successful at preventing this murder. Maybe it’s time we took a more active role in catching this guy.”
Bob Simpson looked like he was about to explode.
“Let’s step out into the hall for a couple of minutes,” Mike suggested or ordered.
“Why don’t you use my office.”
Once they were out of sight, Morris turned to George.
“There’s not much they can do to stop us from publishing this story but at the same time, we’ve developed a good relationship with Mike and Bob. They’ve given us information that they didn’t have to. They’ve put us ahead of other outlets. I’d like to try to keep that going. Let me take the lead when they come back.”
“Sure. What are you thinking?”
“Ah, I’m sure they’re afraid we’re going sensationalize this with a headline like ‘Serial Killer Claims Second Technologist Widow’. We’ll promise to be more circumspect. But, just as he pulled the trump card on us last time, I don’t want to let them off the hook too easily.”
Mike and a much calmer Bob returned a few minutes later.
After making them sweat a bit longer, Morris agreed to keep the story tame and investigative in exchange for Bob and Mike keeping them informed on the progress of the investigation.
They all shook hands and George got to work on the story about the non-serial killer serial killer.
6
Jack thanked the hostess as he and Sam were seated at a window table which looked out at the Bay. Green’s offered one of the City’s best dining views with the lights of the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and Angel Island shimmering on the windswept Bay. Sailboats raced back into the nearby marina as the sun set to the west. With its subtle use of exotic spices and organic ingredients, even the most ardent meat-lover could revel in the gourmet vegetarian cuisine.
Jack has chosen Green’s because it seemed to be just the right mix of elegant and casual. And with the views, it was the perfect spot for a romantic first date.
For the past few weeks, Sam and Jack had been getting together for lunches, several challenging hikes, and a few rowing sessions, but this was their first ‘official’ date.
True to her promise to herself and to Mary, Sam was taking the lead, and unexpectedly, Jack seemed to enjoy following. Sam was intrigued by Jack’s commitment to fixing the internet. He almost seemed to take it personally that people had perverted what he thought of as a perfect egalitarian creation. And although Jack’s feelings about social justice and politics seemed to match hers, he willingly admitted that his positions were his opinions and that different views could be valid.
As he went on about Balanced News and talked about the importance of tolerance of other, dissenting ideas and opinions, Sam found herself becoming less polarized in her own thinking. She realized that over the past few years, she had become quite convinced of the righteousness of her beliefs, often disdaining the more conservative among us, writing them off as uninformed and uneducated. She was beginning to believe that perhaps her narrow-mindedness was as bad as theirs; that as Jack argued, you needed to listen to both sides to really have an opinion. Even more important, if you wanted to change someone’s mind you needed to understand where they were coming from. And, to truly win any argument, you had to grant points and allow the other to save face.
Yes. She really liked Jack. He was helping her expand her world view.
For his part, Jack was fascinated by Sam.
Not only was she beautiful and intelligent, she challenged him. He knew that she’d found their discussions on internet stories enlightening. But he was sure that she had no idea how much her discussions of psychiatry had opened his eyes. Somehow, until he saw what happened to Mark Johansen, he’d never thought about mental illness as something that afflicted normal people. Now, he realized that many of the ‘normal’ people around him might well be suffering from psychological problems; that psychological demons might very well lurk beneath what appeared to be a reasonable exterior.
“Lost in thought?” Sam asked, smiling at her charming dinner date.
“Ah, yeah. I was just thinking about how truly amazing you are and how happy I am to have met you.”
Sam blushed. It had been a while since she’d felt so attracted to someone. Maybe tonight she’d take the next step. But for now, before she started babbling something stupid, she decided she needed to change the course of the conversation.
“And I’m really glad to have met you too, Jack.”
Jack reached out and took her hand. Maybe it was the wine, but Sam suddenly felt warm all over. She gave him a smile full of promises and gently changed the subject.
“I know you do a lot of research on the news. Have
you met this Sentinel reporter, George Gray?”
“No. I haven’t had the pleasure. But I’ve found his work to be more than even-handed. I really appreciated the story he did on Michael James back when, and recently, he seems to be covering a lot of things that directly impact me and what I’m trying to accomplish. Like the one he just did on Boris Yanofski, a scumbag if ever there was one. I’m glad to see he’s been taken down and I hope that soon, his conspiracy theories that turn people against each other will follow him. When they do, my life gets a lot easier.
“Were you thinking of that, or of the story he did a few weeks ago on Ryan Hamilton, the CEO of LotsofJobs.com. George pretty much single-handedly brought down his human trafficking ring. That’s another internet bad guy now out of circulation.”
Sam looked surprised. “I didn’t know about Boris Yanofski and I guess I’m glad I haven’t bumped into his conspiracy sites. I’m not sure how I didn’t realize that it was George Gray who exposed the trafficking. I’ve been following the impact of the stories. It’s impressive. A lot of women are coming forward and people are starting to look for signs of trafficking. Some of my patients are talking about it and I’ve had some calls about some rescued victims who need some help dealing with their experiences. I think awareness of the problem has finally come into the spotlight. Hopefully, it will stay there. Like the psychological problems we’ve discussed, trafficking lies just beneath the surface of what seems to be normality.”
Jack nodded. “I hope that George Gray can continue to break these stories. There are more bad guys out there than I care to count and he’s made a good start. But if you didn’t know about his stories on my nemeses, why did you ask about George Gray?”
“Did you see the story about the murders of the two technologist’s wives? Although he didn’t use the words, it seems there’s a serial killer out there who’s targeting wives who’ve left their technologist husbands.”
Sam paused before continuing. She was usually careful about making pronouncements about people with psychological problems, especially when she hadn’t examined them, but this was social and this was Jack. It would stimulate the conversation. After all, he knew almost everyone in the Silicon Valley.
“From the story, it sounds like we have a psychopath out there who is unable to deal with the reality of our modern society. You can’t go around killing women because they left their husbands.”
Jack tensed. His face darkened and for the first time that evening, he took his eyes off Sam. He looked down at his plate, took a sip of wine, and then turned to gaze out at the Bay, obviously mulling something over. Was he about to tell her something? An awkward silence followed.
“Jack, are you okay?”
“Sure.”
Alarm bells went off for Sam. Was she now seeing the real Jack, the hidden Jack that Mary had talked about? Did Jack have issues that would jeopardize any possibility of a long term relationship?
As much as she tried to cheer him up, Jack remained sullen for the rest of the dinner. Her skills as a therapist failed her as they always seemed to do when she tried to help people close to her. Help? Was she trying to help Jack? Maybe there was something wrong with her. Sam tried to change the subject, but the Jack she’d come to like so much refused to return.
He asked for the check, paid quickly, and drove Sam home in silence. Sam had originally planned to ask him to come up, perhaps to spend the night, but that wasn’t going to happen. And maybe it was a good thing. Maybe, in spite of managing the pace, she just wasn’t ready for a relationship. Then again, maybe Jack was the problem.
7
Richard Hatch looked over at Mark Johansen, his best friend and long-time business partner who was leading a design session in their all-glass-walled conference room. Mark was once again at the helm of Johatchen Software and the company seemed to be back where it was before Mark’s breakdown. In fact, with Mark now at nearly one hundred percent of his old self, Johatchen was doing better than ever.
The team seemed to have regained faith in Mark and all of the insanity had been forgotten. And ‘insanity’ was the appropriate word.
As for Mark, he was working like a demon. It seemed like he had something to prove again. Richard thought back to their first startup. While still at the university, Mark had come up with an idea that he thought would change the industry.
At that time, there were quite a few operating systems for PCs, minicomputers, and larger mainframes, and they were all incompatible. A technology called Object-Oriented Programming (OOP), was just beginning to positively impact how engineers developed software. This technique and the programming languages that it employed dramatically increased the productivity of engineers and the reliability of their software. Companies began turning out software at a prodigious rate.
Mark wanted to go a step further. He created an object-oriented operating system. Richard was no slouch technically, but it was a real stretch for him to understand that this operating system was provably secure and could speed development even more. The cherry on the cake was that it could ‘guest’ other operating systems and make them and their applications secure at the same time, and it ran on any sized system, even very small microprocessors. Mark had named it the Great New Operating System in the Sky (GNOSIS).
With GNOSIS, not only would all systems be completely compatible with each other, they would be absolutely secure and completely immune to any attack from viruses, malware, or hackers.
Richard and Mark worked day and night to develop a prototype and then Richard began shopping it to see if they could raise enough money to hire a team to build the real thing.
The concept seemed to be beyond the venture capitalists (VCs) at the time, but the Department of Defense (DOD) was fascinated and provided enough funding to get a basic multi-platform system running. Richard and Mark hired some of the smartest engineers in the industry who quickly got religion. The team worked ridiculous hours to get GNOSIS running in record time. As Mark had predicted, the object-oriented nature of the operating system itself allowed development and testing to go faster than anyone had imagined.
Richard made the rounds of the venture capitalist community again, but they all seemed convinced that it would be impossible to compete with the established companies, and that it wasn’t operating systems that made money, it was the hardware they ran on and the applications that customers would buy.
Richard did manage to get a large Japanese mainframe company to invest, but they took over 50% of the company. And although the DOD successfully implemented the system in some top-secret facilities, apparently, funding dried up for that particular black operation and they didn’t continue with GNOSIS. Worse, as the VCs predicted, there was no market for the product. Over the course of the next two years, they burned through all the cash they had and had to close down the company. The Japanese VCs took the technology as part of the dissolution.
Richard was devastated, but Mark just kept on going. They formed another company after convincing several of their top technical team members to work in exchange for equity. It was based on another of Mark’s brilliant ideas, a way to both guarantee performance of video and audio data across the internet and ensure its absolute security. But, this too was years ahead of its time and that company failed as well.
After several weeks of serious discussions, Richard convinced Mark that they needed to look at market needs first rather than just coming up with technologies that were years ahead of their time. Mark sniffed at ‘just’, but given their two dramatic failures, he recognized the wisdom in Richard’s approach. Richard and Mark gathered the team once again and they brainstormed several ideas based on what they perceived as needs in the now fast-growing internet.
Richard did market analysis on each and they finally settled on a system that borrowed a bit from the ideas of their previous efforts – a cross-platform system that would provide consistent security for all communications while preventing attacks. It relied on an underlying hook at the lowest l
evel in each operating system that insulated applications from what was running underneath. The fact that it could run on a variety of different computers made it very attractive since a customer with different computer systems could run exactly the same software to protect all of them. And thus, Johatchen Software was born. And aside from Unbreakable Security Systems, Inc., they had little real competition.
Richard thought back to their teen years together. It seemed like Mark was always the smartest, always the fastest, and always the most adept at anything new while Richard inevitably took a close second. It had always been that way except during Mark’s ‘incident’, as they like to call it now.
For several weeks, Richard got to feel what it was like to be the CEO. For once, the team had looked to him, not to Mark. They didn’t question his decisions or run to Mark if there were a disagreement on something Richard had proposed. In fact, the company ran quite well without Mark; perhaps better than it had for most of the previous year when Mark was on his descent into schizophrenia. But now, Richard was playing second fiddle again.
How was it that a team of talented genius engineers couldn’t recognize his contributions to the company? Realistically, the company wouldn’t exist without him and they wouldn’t have their impressive salaries or extensive benefits.
At least Mark appreciated him. Over the years, Mark had made it clear that he couldn’t have done Richard’s job and Richard knew that the company wouldn’t survive without Mark. The company was growing and Mark’s new ideas would drive it forward even faster.
Their friendship was back on track and Johatchen was back to normal. Mark had thanked him for stepping in during the incident, but Richard had to admit that he was now a bit jealous. He missed being in the driver’s seat. Then again, maybe he was and always had been the one controlling the direction of the company. There was really no reason for jealousy. Unfortunately, like his team, Mark had no idea what Richard actually did for the company.
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