Damage Control

by Gordon Savage

  Voiceover: “The agents were very thorough [video of an agent dumping the contents of a middle drawer onto a desk], but in the long term all they found besides the data tapes [video of agent watching as IT technician locates tapes with explosion video on them] was a scattering of individual passwords [video of agent tearing a sheet of paper off the bottom of a desk drawer].”

  Robbie Martin: “I have to admit that despite their having a warrant, this felt like an invasion of our rights.”

  News at Eleven – Channel 12

  Day 5, 7:30AM

  The woman at the information desk in the hospital sniffed disdainfully at my government ID. “Where’s your badge?” she demanded. There it was again. I was glad I’d had Jake issue me one, even if only temporarily.

  I pulled the badge out of my purse. “Here you go. Would you contact the nurses’ station and get them to ask Officer LaMotte if it’s okay for me to talk to her?”

  She was still skeptical. “What do you want to talk to her about?”

  This was getting annoying, and I had to remind myself to be polite. I told her what I was doing, and she relayed the information to the nurses’ station. If LaMotte was willing to talk to me right away, I might beat Homeland to her. It was only a minute or so but the wait seemed endless. I kept looking over my shoulder expecting the Homeland guy to show up. Finally the phone rang, and the woman behind the counter handed the phone to me.

  I answered, “This is Samantha Pederson.”

  The voice on the phone said, “This is Mary LaMotte. So you’re conducting an independent investigation. How can I help you?”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Somebody has convinced Homeland Security that the blast was matter/antimatter and effectively shut down investigation. My boss and I believe they’re wrong, but to prove it I need a firsthand account of the blast scene.”

  “Couldn’t you talk to Baker?”

  I decided not to mention Homeland’s interference. “He’s already out on patrol.”

  There was a brief silence. “Okay, come on up. I’m in room 304.”

  I handed the phone back. “She said to come on up. I’ve got her room number.”

  I took the stairs to the third floor. Following the signs, it took me a few minutes to find her room. The whole time I kept watch for the Homeland guy, but he didn’t show. The door to her room was open, so I knocked on the frame. She looked me up and down and said, “Come on in. You look worse than I do.”

  I laughed. “Fortunately, it’s not as bad as it looks.”

  Her eyes widened in recognition. “You’re the woman from the cab. The last time I saw you, you were covered in blood. It’s good to see you’re okay.”

  “Thanks. I was lucky – if you call feeling like a human pincushion lucky. Thank goodness for safety glass.” I glanced around the room and spotted a chair with rollers. “May I?”

  She nodded. The back of her bed was up as far as it would go. A slight bulge on her left shoulder under the hospital gown must have been the bandage for her wound. As I pulled the chair up to the open side of her bed, I said, “I’m glad to see you’re okay as well.”

  LaMotte waved off my comment as if being shot were no big deal. “Part of the job. … What can I tell you?”

  I said, “Let’s start with anything you saw that might indicate the nature of the explosion, say the blast pattern for instance.”

  “Why are you interested in the blast pattern?” she asked.

  “I’ve spent some time watching the video from the explosion. There’s only one frame of the actual explosion, but it suggests the blast originated somewhere besides the portal.”

  She frowned a bit. “Why would that be important?”

  “As I mentioned, Homeland’s story is that the explosion was caused by a matter/antimatter reaction, implying the portal was actually opened to an antimatter universe. Unfortunately the guy who’s pushing that idea is using it to stifle a serious investigation. I’m pretty sure that really isn’t the case, and I want to make certain we aren’t letting someone get away with mass murder. If the blast originated somewhere other than the interface, that’s a pretty good indicator it wasn’t matter/antimatter.”

  She seemed to think that over. “I see. … I’m no explosives expert, but the pattern on the ground floor sure looked to me like the explosion took place there.”

  I took out my phone and asked, “Is it alright if I record this?”

  She said, “Certainly.”

  “Thanks.” I started the recording and read off the date and time for the record. “State who you are, why you were at the scene of the explosion on October twenty-second, and describe for what you saw.”

  She stated her credentials and then stared at the ceiling as if trying to visualize what she had seen. When she looked back at me, she said, “There really wasn’t much of the building left, but the ground floor had a concave depression about six feet in diameter where the concrete was cracked and shattered. What remained of the structural beams were stubs sticking in the floor. The stubs close to the depression were sheared right at the floor line. To me that suggests the second story floor held the top of the beams briefly after the explosion started.”

  That was pretty much what Capt. Weigner had given me. “In other words the explosion had to have happened on the ground floor. That’s helpful. Did you get any pictures?”

  “Yeah, but the government guy took my camera’s SD card.”

  “You again!”

  The voice came from behind me. I looked back. It was the same giant Homeland agent, Phil Kaminski, who had kept me from getting anything from Officer Baker. I quietly slid my phone into my front pocket.

  He advanced menacingly. I stood up and faced him, trying to look stern. It must have worked because he stopped before he got to me. I turned back to LaMotte. “This gentleman is from Homeland Security. He’s going to tell you that what you just told me was classified information and a matter of national security. And I’ll bet if you ask him why, he won’t tell you.” I glared at him. Then I extended my hand to LaMotte and shook hers. “Thanks. You were a big help. And don’t let him bully you.”

  I turned back the Homeland agent. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this. Do you have a card?”

  He grinned. “Hey, I’m just following orders.” To my surprise he offered his hand. “Call me Phil.”

  “I’m Samantha – Sam. Jake Coffee deputized me to make sure we find the real cause of this explosion.” That wasn’t the full story, but it was close enough. “Anyway, I got what I came for.” I turned on my heel and left the room.

  ◆◆◆

  Day 5, 10:30AM

  Dr. Nazary hmmed to himself as he examined my nicks and scratches. Finally he stepped back and said, “You’re healed up enough that you don’t really need bandages. Come over and take a look.” He stood me in front of the mirror.

  This was the first time I had seen under the bandages, and it was not a pleasant sight. My left side looked like a bad case of the measles. I could imagine people running in fright if I approached them.

  He must have read the expression on my face. “I’ll have the nurse put on light bandages to hide your injuries for now. You can take them off whenever you’re ready, but don’t leave them on for more than three days.”

  “Thanks, that might help.” Then I thought about my car. “One other thing, when can I start driving again?”

  “That dizzy spell you told me about concerns me. It may have been related to the concussion, or it may have been nothing, but I think it’s best if you wait a little longer. You wouldn’t want to pass out while driving.”

  I mumbled, “Great!” under my breath.

  Nazary scribbled something on his notebook. “I want to see you again in three days. If you haven’t had any more episodes by then, I should be able to clear you to drive.” That was the good news I was looking for.

  He went to the door and stopped. “I’ll send the nurse in now to put on the bandages. Then you can leave. On
your way out, stop by the desk and make an appointment.” With that he left me alone with my thoughts.

  ◆◆◆

  Day 5, 2:00PM

  My interviews with the other TV stations resulted in the same “Federal agents ….” response. Not that it was unexpected, but I had to follow up to be sure. I will say this, without needing to spend a lot of time at any of the stations; I was able to get to all of them that afternoon. I left a card with every one of them, not really expecting anything. Between interviews I fretted over what else I could do. I’m not a real detective, and as far as I could tell I was at a dead end.

  After the last station I headed for the subway, figuring to visit Jack and his wife, Helena, – maybe do some serious whining and report to Frost the next day that I was done. Then my phone rang.

  I had been putting the names and numbers of people I’d interviewed in my phone. The caller was Kayla Ross. I had interviewed her at the last TV station I had visited. I couldn’t remember her official title, but she was some kind of producer’s assistant. She hadn’t been in the studio when the explosion took place. Curious, I answered, “This is Samantha Pederson.”

  “Ms. Pederson, after you left the station I remembered something. Ben Williams, our cameraman at the scene”—Her voice choked up a little—“had a setup in the van that uploaded his video to the cloud on a personal account of his. I don’t think anyone mentioned that to the other Feds. What he shot may still be there.”

  My heart thudded. Was this for real? “Are you still at the studio?” I had only walked about a couple of blocks.

  “I am.”

  “I’ll be right there.” Thankful I was wearing boots; I turned and ran toward the station. Heels would have been murder.

  When I arrived Kayla was at the door. She had Max Lassen, the producer, with her. I was still regaining my breath. Lassen laughed. “Wow, was that fast! You must have been just around the corner.”

  “Ms. Ross. Mr. Lassen.” I nodded to both of them. “I was a competitive runner in school. You’d never know it now,” I gasped. “What can you tell me?” I felt a drop of sweat roll down my nose and wiped it away with my glove.

  Lassen beckoned to me and headed into the station. “Please call me Max. Come with us.”

  They led me down the hall to a bullpen. As we came in, a few of the occupants glanced at us and went about their work. Max stopped at a beat up looking but clean desk. I was surprised to see a computer monitor and a tower. My initial thought was, why hadn’t Jake’s agents taken the computer? But really, there was no reason for them to take it since Williams was at the scene instead of his desk.

  The monitor was on and showed a sign-in screen. “This is as far as we could get,” Max said, “but I put out the word around the station to see if anybody knows Williams’ cloud login. The best I’ve heard so far is that his user ID was definitely Ben at camerajock dot com. No one seems to know his password so far.”

  I scribbled the user ID and the Internet address for the cloud on my note pad. “People tend to keep passwords where they can find them. Has the desk been cleared out yet?”

  Max appeared surprised. “No, but the agents who confiscated our videos did turn it inside out.”

  “But they weren’t looking for a password I’ll bet.” I indicated the desk. “Is it alright if I snoop?”

  He hesitated.

  I saw that and reassured him. “I have no interest in your company private information. I’m just trying to find out what really happened.”

  He smiled weakly. “I should get permission from the front office lawyers, but I guess it would be okay.”

  I sat down at the desk and pulled out drawers, looking for anything that might be a password. I not only looked in the drawers but also on their bottom sides and under the desk top in the top drawers. Nothing. Finally I pulled out a slide out work surface and found my answer. A sheet of paper had been taped to the surface, but now nothing was left but a few corners still taped down. Apparently the agents had torn the paper off. As a last resort I tilted the monitor back and checked under its stand. No luck.

  I looked up at Max. “I assume the agents checked his account on your server.”

  “They did. And as you noticed, they did look for passwords, but they didn’t try them out on any of Ben’s accounts. All they looked at was the station’s video files. Boy, that was a circus. They insisted on physically taking anything with the explosion on it, and the files were scattered all over the storage unit. We had to transfer all the other files to different drives with them breathing down our necks. Homeland is going to get a bill for that.”

  I smiled. “I’ve heard. Some of the other stations said the demands were ridiculous. One of them videoed the whole proceedings.”

  “Channel twelve, I bet.”

  I nodded. “Could you get your IT guy to log me into Williams’ account?”

  He glanced at the now blank monitor. “The computer is already logged in. We were using it to look at the cloud login page. Just wake it up and have at it.” He glanced at his watch. “I have to excuse myself. Work to do. Let me know when you’re through.” Kayla left with him.

  I spent the next half an hour scanning files in William’s account for any indication of a password. When I finally found myself going through the same file for the third time, I realized I was running out of steam. It was likely I was still being affected by the injuries from the explosion. Doctor Nazary had told me to take it easy. I pushed the chair back and stared at the screen. So far it had been an exercise in futility. I stood up and stretched. Then I set out to find Max.

  He was standing behind some engineers in a control room, an absorbed look on his face. I moved far enough in front of him that he could see me but respected the control room and didn’t say anything. He took off his headset and beckoned for me to follow. Outside the control room, he closed the door. “Have any luck?”

  “Unfortunately I didn’t find anything useful, but this cloud storage could be my best bet. Of course, if it turns out someone in the station knows the password, it would help.” Thinking of another option, I commented, “…I don’t suppose it could do me any good to go by his home?” I made that last statement a question.

  Max looked surprised. “You know, the other agents didn’t ask about his address …”

  “Because they already had his password or thought they did,” I finished his sentence. “Could I get it?”

  He asked Kayla to get the address for me. She returned with it in minutes. I was about to say thank you and leave, but something was nagging at me. I knew it would take blind luck or a really good hacker to come up with the password. I might get lucky at his apartment, but it was another long shot.

  Was there another way? Okay, Williams was dead. What would happen to his cloud account? Did he have family? If so, did they inherit the account? That seemed logical. I realized I needed to check it out.

  “Max, do you know if Williams had any next of kin?”

  “Why, yes. He had a brother. The legal department is looking for him to pay him Ben’s death benefits.”—Now there’s an oxymoron.—“Why do you ask?”

  “You said ‘looking for him.’ They can’t find him?” My heart sank.

  He shook his head. “Apparently his brother has moved from the address we have on file, and Ben hadn’t updated the records for the change of address.”

  Kayla got me the brother’s last known address, and I added it to my notepad. It was a place to start. Meanwhile I’d ask Bill Schofield to see if he could crack the password. He had managed to come up with Troy’s off the top of his head. I knew he couldn’t be that lucky twice, but still… I thanked Kayla and Max and headed out again. So close.

  ◆◆◆

  Day 5, 4:30PM

  On the Metro from DC to Reston I must have gone over a dozen different ideas for contacting Williams’ brother. None of them seemed remotely useful. The best I could hope for was to send him a letter to his last known address and hope it would be forward
ed. I was so intent I almost didn’t hear the announcement for my stop. I was still absorbed when I got off the train, so much so that I forgot about going to Jack and whining to him. Instead, I decided I needed to report to Frost. Plus, I wanted to talk to Bill Schofield face to face. Maybe he could work another password miracle like he did in Phoenix, but I wanted to make sure no one reporting to Wells overheard my request.

  Walking the mile to the agency, I continued thinking about ways to find Williams’ password. When I got to our office, I stopped by Bill’s desk and told him that I needed his help to find out Williams’ password. He stared at me like I was crazy. “Sam, when you asked for a password for Santori’s laptop, I at least had a location to associate him with. And even then it was a wild guess. I don’t have anything to base a guess on. Sorry.”

  I shook my head. “I was afraid of that. Thanks anyway.”

  I headed down the hall. When I arrived in front of Frost’s office, I suddenly realized I was exhausted. The door was open, and before I could knock, he signaled for me to come in. He got up and walked over to me. “You don’t look all that great. Sit down.” He guided me to a chair, and I sat, gratefully.

  He gazed down at me as I settled in. “I’ll let Kirton off early so he can drive you home,” he finally said. “What brings you here today?”

  Trying to keep from showing how low I felt, I answered, “I didn’t want you to forget me and give my job away.” He even gave a polite chuckle.

  It took about fifteen minutes to summarize what I had been doing the past few days. Then Jack drove me home. I was so tired I didn’t give a second thought to whining to him and Helena. I vaguely remember him shepherding me to my apartment and putting me on the couch.

  Chapter 15

  “Federal officials are now officially calling the explosion that took the lives of so many of our colleagues the result of a matter/antimatter reaction. Because of the explosion there is now a hold on any public use of or experimenting with teleportals to preclude the potential dangers of contacting another universe. Dr. Robert West, who was experimenting with the technology, disagreed vehemently with the edict. In a phone interview this morning he said, ‘I’m not about to stop trying to develop a working model. I have serious doubts about the cause of the explosion, but I will avoid contacting other universes. This technology is too important to be suppressed.’”