“Mr. Gray,” agent Fox began, “My colleague and I disagree on this point, but it’s my call. It is not a priority to identify your informant though that could be helpful in the investigation. Clearly if any correspondence pertains to Jameson or Unbreakable, we need to see it. On the other hand, we don’t want to step on your toes in these other investigations and quite frankly don’t need the distractions, particularly if what he or she is trying to expose is out of our jurisdiction. So for now, we’ll leave it to your judgement. Clint?”
“Okay. I agree. But getting back to the main topic of this meeting, as Mr. Rockwell indicated, Jameson is our investigation. If you learn anything that can help us you must let us know as soon as possible. Also, it may sound cold, but we won’t tolerate any interference in our work. Poking around on your own could jeopardize our case and could put people in physical danger. I know it’s hard, but you really need to let us do our job. And Mr. Flores, I know it will be tempting to take some initiative on the network security side, but you really need to leave it to our techs. Please follow their lead. We don’t want anyone to inadvertently flag the fact that we know what Jameson is up to.”
“And,” said Agent Fox, picking up the momentum and looking at each of the Sentinel employees individually. “As we’ve discussed, this is absolutely confidential. We can’t afford any leaks. Are we in agreement?”
George, Morris, and Miguel nodded.
“Yes we are,” Sterling Rockwell confirmed. “We look forward to helping you nail this scumbag.”
2
Sam was pleased. Leaving San Francisco County Jail #2, she couldn’t help but think how far the system had come since her early days as a student and in residency. She had done a rotation in a psych ward at a prison and the San Francisco County facility was a world apart from the dangerous environment she had found herself in then.
The San Francisco County Jail seemed more like a staging area than a prison, which she had learned it often was. Suspects awaiting trial were housed here but so were those close to release from prison. The County had determined that for low-risk prisoners, it was better to confine them in what they called pods. These were two-level circular dormitory areas which housed inmates, and which also offered large communal areas. Some of the other County jails had adopted this pod philosophy and it seemed to present more creative opportunities for real rehabilitation rather than hard punishment.
At intake, the County used a classification system to determine a prisoner’s risk to him/herself and to the rest of the jail population. Based on the results of a complex evaluation process, prisoners were placed in high-risk facilities, medium risk pods, general pods, low-risk pods, medical and psych pods, and reentry pods. Some were even co-ed.
As Sharon had explained to Sam, in spite of the severity of the accusations against him, Mark had been classified as low-risk. He had no criminal history, did not appear violent, had no gang connections, and had held a high powered tech job until his arrest.
As for the psychiatric evaluation, while it was clear he had issues, the staff decided that Mark was not a risk to himself or others so he was not placed in the psychiatric pod. On the other hand, recognizing his history, and with a bit of pressure from Sharon, they had agreed to allow Sam to continue her treatments. The only real issue was confidentiality. Sam had some doubts about the privacy of the psych pod. She’d been promised that nothing said there was recorded, but since the room contained cameras, she wasn’t completely convinced. Nonetheless, it all seemed quite civilized for a jail.
Her first few sessions with Mark were rough. They focused on getting him re-stabilized after his arrest. Mark had been lost. He couldn’t say he hadn’t committed the murders. He didn’t trust his memory. And, he saw clearly that the evidence against him was convincing.
The worst was his computer. During his interrogations, the police had showed him what they’d found. And he just couldn’t remember the emails, the visit to the bomb-making sites, poison sites, or the surveillance notes and videos that he had apparently taken when stalking the three women.
Over the course of those first few sessions, Sam tried to show Mark that he might have been framed. But he remained unconvinced. He had the best security software on his computer. It would have flagged any intrusion.
But in their previous session, Sam had told Mark about her meeting with Mike McKensey. She told him Mike believed him to be innocent. Completely surprised, Mark started to listen and to think. Now he too had to wonder who could have framed him. Who would have technology sophisticated enough to get into his system without him knowing about it?
With relative stability achieved, Sam decided that instead of trying to have Mark figure out who could have framed him, she’d get back on track with the therapy they’d started before all this happened. She’d leave it to Mike McKensey and Sharon to chase new suspects. Her recent attempts had probably caused more harm than good.
When she got back to her office, she poured herself a hot cup of English Breakfast, added cream and sugar and sat down in her recliner with her notes and her laptop.
Yes. Today had gone well.
She had started the session carefully. “So Mark, Sharon tells me that you two have been friends for years.”
Mark thought about it, obviously reliving a memory, smiled and replied. “Yes. I guess you could say Sharon is my oldest friend.
“We met when my family moved to the area. She and a few others welcomed me into their intellectual crowd in high school, and she helped me fit right in.”
“What kind of things did you do together?”
“Well, most of the time we all got together as a group. It sounds pretty nerdy as I think about it now, but every week we had duplicate bridge parties.”
‘Duplicate bridge? I played a bit of bridge myself in college, but what’s duplicate bridge?”
“In contract bridge, you shuffle the cards, play the game, then reshuffle the cards and play until someone wins.”
“Yeah, just like any other card game. So?”
“With duplicate bridge, the cards are placed in boards, each of which holds four hands. There are many boards, depending on the number of people playing.
“The basic idea is that you team up with a partner and over the course of the evening you play all or most of the different boards. What this does is it takes all the luck out of the game. Instead of the pair (or couple) with the most wins, each pair is scored on how they did on a particular board. The winner of the tournament is the pair who did the best overall on the most boards.
“To give you a weird example, Sharon and I once had a great win. We were pretty good players but on one board, every pair that played the opponent’s hand completed a Grand Slam – the highest possible score in bridge. But on this hand, Sharon opened with five hearts. This is unheard of but completely legal. The opponents really had no way to bid beyond that to communicate what they needed to get to the Grand Slam, and I understood Sharon’s signal. We ended up at 6 hearts and failed to make it by one trick doubled – meaning we got negative 100 points. But on every other table, the opponents had scored over 1200 points, so we effectively beat every other team playing our hand by 1100 points. It’s silly, but I’ll never forget that game.”
“It sounds like you two were quite a team.”
“You know, we really were,” Mark replied, clearly nostalgic.
“So where did these bridge tournaments take place?”
“We moved from house to house, changing pretty much every week.”
“And did you play at your house?”
Mark’s face darkened. “Ah, no. We never did.”
“Did Sharon ever come over to your house?”
Mark thought briefly, then smiled. “Yeah. She came over quite a bit.”
‘Did she get along with your parents.”
“Absolutely! My Dad loved her.”
“And your mom?”
Mark withdrew.
“Mark, I know this is difficult, but did yo
ur mom like any of your friends?”
Mark sat in silent reflection for a moment.
“Mark?”
“I’m sorry, Sam. I’ve never really thought about this. My mother was just my mother. My dad was outgoing and friendly. My mother, not so much. But lots of families are like that, right? I mean one parent is upbeat and friendly, and the other more withdrawn, right?”
“Was she withdrawn, Mark?”
You could almost see the wheels turning in Mark’s mind. After a minute or two, he seemed reluctant to admit, “I guess withdrawn is the wrong word.”
“Do you have a better word to describe your mother?”
After a moment, Mark responded solemnly, “Angry.”
“Angry? And what do you think she was angry at?”
“I don’t know Sam. I don’t know.”
“Mark, we’re running out of time – others are waiting for the pod. But I want to give you something to think about in preparation for our next session. I noticed that you refer to your father as ‘Dad’ and to your mother as ‘mother’. When I see you next time, could you talk to me about that?”
Hearing the knock on the door. Sam stood up and gave Mark a quick hug.
“Hang in there, Mark. You’re making great progress! I’ll see you in a few days."
A guard came in and led Mark out of the psych pod. Sam had signed out and left smiling. She was a good detective, though maybe just for psychiatry, and she was hot on the trail now.
3
Morris gestured George and Miguel into his office.
“Guys, I know this isn’t what you wanted, but I think this is how it has to be.”
“No. That’s not it,” George began. “We’re in complete agreement that the FBI needs to take the lead on this. It’s ah –“
“Janey,” Miguel interrupted.
“What about Janey?” Morris asked, intrigued.
“Well, we previously agreed that Janey should take a look at this, but now the FBI is saying we should stay away and shouldn’t get involved in any way. Should we hold off telling Janey?”
Morris frowned.
“Miguel, how good is Janey?”
Without hesitating, Miguel stated seriously, “Janey is the best I’ve ever met. She’s light-years beyond me, and I suspect the best the FBI has couldn’t begin to keep up with her.”
Morris looked at Miguel and George, then reviewed his notes from the meeting with the FBI.
“Okay, guys. I have to trust the FBI, but I also have to look out for the interests of the Sentinel. Talk to Janey, but be very, very careful. We don’t want to be charged with interfering with a Federal investigation, and we certainly don’t want to get in their way. Miguel, since the FBI is looking at you as our point person, I want you to keep an eye on Janey. Anything you two come up with you need to bring to me. I’ll decide if and how it goes back to the FBI. George, you’ve got to be a spectator on this one. I don’t want you involved in bypassing the FBI. Is that clear?”
George was tempted to reply, ‘absolutely, Chief’, but knew this wasn’t the moment for a joke. He looked at Morris and agreed solemnly, “I understand, Morris.”
“Good. Guys, be very careful. This could not only alert Jameson, it could put lives at risk. Jameson is dangerous.”
That evening, after their standard arrival ritual, George helped Janey prepare dinner. As Janey took her first bite, George took a deep breath and told Janey about his day.
“The informant contacted me and this one is the biggest yet.”
“That’s great, George. Can you tell me about it? You look a little nervous.”
“Well, the FBI has asked us not to tell anyone, absolutely no one about it, but after discussions with Morris and Miguel, we’ve decided to bring you in, if you’re interested.”
“Of course I’m interested, Silly.”
Crossing her heart, Janey continued, “And I won’t tell anyone anything about it until you all agree it’s okay.”
“Ah, well,” George stammered. “It’s more than confidential. The information is dangerous. I’m not sure we should get you involved.”
Janey’s looked turned somber.
“George, if it’s dangerous and I can help, I want in. Tell me what’s going on.”
“Actually, if you decide you want to do this, it will be Miguel who brings you in. You’ll be working with him and I need to stand aside – Morris’ orders.”
“Hmm. If I find something, I can’t tell you about it? I’m not sure I can do that. We always tell each other everything. Maybe you should just keep it confidential.”
They continued eating in silence as George thought about it. Morris said George needed to remain on the sidelines. But sidelines didn’t mean you couldn’t watch the game. You just didn’t get to play.
“Okay. I think you can keep me informed. I’ll just have to not act on anything without consulting Morris.”
George took a deep breath.
“The informant says that Marcus Jameson, CEO of Unbreakable Security has embedded a Trojan in his software. Apparently it collects confidential information and sends it to Jameson, completely undetected. Anti-virus software can’t see it. He’s used the information he’s gathered to force competitors out of business, to blackmail politicians, and to get inside information for securities trading.
“The informant sent me software that spots this activity along with a tool to remove it. He also sent me list of offshore accounts, and people that Jameson uses for insider trading. And, he gave me contact information for Larry Samuelsson, the former CEO of Zyzyx Technologies, that hot startup that folded a few months ago. Apparently he was blackmailed into closing the company.
“From the look on your face, I can see that you get the impact of this.”
“George, this is terrible. Most companies, government agencies, and countless individuals use Unbreakable’s software. My company uses it. It’s on my laptop and on yours. If this gets out, our whole industry could be compromised. In fact, our government and the entire world as we know it will be impacted. George, it’s a disaster!”
“Yeah. I know. Right now though, it’s critical that no one make any dramatic changes. You can’t alert your company yet. That could tip off Jameson. I brought the tools from the informant so you can take a look but –“
“George, I want to see them right now!” Janey ordered, jumping up from the table, her dinner unfinished.
George went to the bedroom and returned to an anxious Janey already sitting at her computer. George handed her the thumb drive. Janey plugged it into her laptop and waited. She opened a couple of files, quickly read the contents, and her fingers flew across the keyboard so fast that George could hardly see them. He watched transfixed as Janey ran through the tools, then opened up other software to examine the source code of the tools themselves, looking for some kind of developer’s signature. Clearly, the code had been scrupulously scrubbed before it was digitally signed. She wasn’t going to find out who had developed the tools.
She did something to isolate the tools to prevent them from accessing her system and then watched them run through her own custom debugger. After nearly an hour of non-stop typing with hundreds of screens that made no sense to George, Janey pushed back her chair.
“Okay. I understand what it does and how it works. Most intriguing to me is the tool that watches what Jameson’s Trojan sends out. Jameson was very clever in hiding that information. Very clever. I wonder how your informant figured it out so that he or she could develop this tool. Maybe he or she is an insider.
“So, what do you want me to do with this? I know I can’t alert my team at Uluru, at least not yet. But how can I help?”
“Janey, I really don’t know. The technical side of this is way over my head. Why don’t you contact Miguel and figure out how you guys can work together?”
Janey dove back into the code for a few minutes the responded very distractedly, “Okay, George. I’ll work with Miguel. But in the meantime, what are you
planning to do?”
“I’m not sure. The Sentinel is waiting on the FBI and we’re following their lead. But somehow, just like saying that serial murders weren’t done by a serial killer, I’ll have to balance anything we do write so we don’t create some crazy panic. As I think about it, maybe we shouldn’t publish anything at all. Then again…”
George’s eyes glazed for a moment.
“George! Don’t even think about doing anything stupid. You have to be careful. You’re potentially putting a billionaire at risk. I don’t want to lose you.”
“I won’t tell you not to worry, but I will do my absolute best to be careful. I’ll be working with Morris to decide when to publish and what we’re going to publish. I’m not going to do anything until the FBI has arrested Jameson.”
“George, even after the arrest, you could be at risk. You won’t be safe until Jameson is in prison. And even then.”
George lifted Janey out of her chair and pulled her close.
“I promise. I will be cautious. I never want to put us and what we have at risk.”
They held each other for a moment. Then suddenly, Janey pushed George away from her.
“George!” she shouted, clearly excited. “Who is Jameson’s biggest competitor?”
“Sorry Janey, I don’t keep up with this stuff.”
“George, it’s Johatchen Software!”
“Johatchen as in Mark Johansen’s company?”
“Yes. Didn’t you say that Mark Johansen couldn’t figure out how someone could have gotten into his system? Maybe Jameson is trying to frame Mark Johansen to disrupt Johatchen.”
“But why would Mark Johansen have Jameson’s software on his system. Unbreakable is a competitor. Wouldn’t he use his own software for security?”
“Of course he would. But at some point, Mark Johansen might have downloaded the Unbreakable software to look at its features. Than again. I could be on the wrong track here. At Uluru, we have a separate lab that looks at competitor’s products so that we, the engineers don’t inadvertently get contaminated by looking at our competitor’s features. Still, if Johatchen does the same thing, there’s nothing that would prevent Jameson’s Trojan from finding its way into other systems. Given what we know, what better way to keep an eye on his competitors?”
The Misogynist Page 20