Double Tap

by Steve Martini

  Templeton objects, claiming that this last bit is argument. He asks the judge to strike it from the record.

  “So ordered,” says Gilcrest. “The jury will disregard the last question posed by counsel.”

  Time to light the coals at Templeton’s table again.

  “We will show beyond any question or shadow of a doubt that Primis, the software developed by Madelyn Chapman and sold by her company, Isotenics, Incorporated, to the federal government, had been transformed by sinister forces and used to spy on the very citizens it was intended to protect.”

  This time it’s a gang bang. All three of the government lawyers are out of their chairs, huddled at Templeton’s shoulders, pumping protest into his ears. The judge slaps his gavel. I look at the bench, and by the time I turn around again, the scene at Templeton’s table looks like part of the refectory wall from Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, everybody jumping on Judas and the paint peeling off the wall.

  This time I don’t let it stop me.

  “We will produce a witness who will sit on that stand”—I point to the witness box—“and will testify under oath that Madelyn Chapman was killed after she discovered that her software had already been harnessed to millions of personal computers and industry networks. That it was being used daily to read and copy massive volumes of private information, everything from personal medical records to financial information and personal correspondence. That anything and everything being processed, stored, or sent by computer was being read and copied by supercomputers in Washington, D.C., without your knowledge or your consent.”

  When I glance back toward Templeton’s table, the expression on the lead lawyer’s face looks as if he’s had a stroke.

  “We will show by witness testimony that Madelyn Chapman complained bitterly and loudly when she discovered this fact. And that she was murdered in order to prevent her from revealing the existence of this spyware.”

  With the emphasis on the last word, there is an uproar in the courtroom. The judge bangs the gavel, but at least a half dozen reporters in the front row bolt for the door.

  “Silence!” Gilcrest shouts in a booming voice, so that even Templeton is jerked a little in his chair. “Those people, the ones who just ran out”—he points with his gavel—“they do not get back in. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.” One of the bailiffs heads out to get names and descriptions so he can enforce the banishment.

  “Fill their chairs with members of the public,” says Gilcrest. “Somebody’s gonna get ringside seats.”

  As people start moving to fill the vacant chairs, Nathan Kwan seems to hurdle forward four rows like an Olympic athlete and ends up in the center of the front row.

  It takes the judge five minutes to restore order. I take my seat at the table. The entire time Templeton is arguing with the government lawyers, giving me the evil eye whenever he can spare the time. The three lawyers are angry. I would be, too, if Templeton had manipulated the release of tons of paper from a defense contractor without giving me the courtesy of a phone call or the opportunity to review the information. God only knows what it is that we have back at the office because, given the limited time frame, Harry and I sure as hell don’t.

  Templeton could have no way of knowing that he was putting his case in jeopardy, because Templeton had never met Jim Kaprosky or been briefed on the shoals and pitfalls of national security. When he had Sims open the floodgates on the documents from Isotenics, Templeton put himself up to his hips in muddy water. Now the crocodiles are stirring on the beach. The only question is, can I get them to snap?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Templeton is talking with both hands, eyes like saucers, a broad smile on his face, his most sincere expressions of assurance. He now turns the other way so I can no longer see his lips moving. But I can read his mind. He is trying to convince the three government lawyers that Harry and I have a briefcase full of nothing but air.

  “Mr. Madriani, you want to call your first witness?” says Gilcrest.

  If Templeton’s guests don’t do something soon, the judge is going to force me to open it. And then everybody in the courtroom will know that not only is the briefcase empty, but Harry, Emiliano, and I are all sitting here at the table naked.

  “Your Honor, the defense calls Karen Rogan.”

  “Karen Rogan.” I hear the name repeated by one of the bailiffs out in the hallway.

  Templeton manages to get the three lawyers to sit down again, but the older one is shaking his head. He seems no longer to be asking Templeton: he is telling him. It may only be wishful thinking, but my sense is that the prosecution is now on a short tether.

  Rogan enters the courtroom through the main doors in the back. As she walks up the aisle toward the bench and the witness chair, every head in the audience turns. The three government lawyers take a bead on her. Then they confer. Puzzled expressions, and then one of the younger ones gets up and heads for the door.

  The judge doesn’t stop him: the privileges of sitting inside the bar’s railing.

  Rogan steps up to the platform. The judge reminds her that she’s already sworn in. She takes the seat and repeats her name for the record, then spells it.

  “Good morning.”

  She nods at me and smiles politely.

  “Ms. Rogan, as I recall from your earlier testimony, you are employed at Isotenics, Incorporated.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And that prior to her death you worked as executive assistant to Madelyn Chapman, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you tell the jury where your office is located at Isotenics?”

  “I work on the second level of the headquarters building on campus, the executive level, in an open area.”

  I pick through the pile of papers on the lectern in front of me and pull out a schematic of the Isotenics headquarters, the wedding cake with a dome out in the hills above La Jolla. The bailiff delivers a copy to the witness and the judge, and one is dropped on Templeton’s table.

  The witness identifies the location, marked with an X on the drawing where her desk is located on the second floor. The floor plan is printed to scale.

  I have the drawing marked defense exhibit next in order and moved into evidence. There is no objection from Templeton, and a second later the drawing appears up on the visualizer. Now the jury and the two government lawyers who are still sitting there can play along.

  “And the two double doors directly across from where your desk appears in the drawing”—I hit the desk and then the doors on the screen with a laser pointer in my hand—“where do those doors lead?”

  “That’s the CEO’s office.”

  “By CEO, do you mean the chief executive officer of Isotenics, the head of the company?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And during her time, before she was killed, did Madelyn Chapman occupy that office?”

  “She did.”

  “How far would you say it is from your desk to those doors?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe ten feet.”

  “If I told you that, according to the scale on this floor plan, which was obtained with documents that we received from Isotenics, the distance is almost exactly eight feet, would you question that?”

  “No. That’s probably right.”

  “And inside the CEO’s office, do you see another area with a small rectangle, marked with an X?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you tell the jury what that represents?”

  “I suspect it’s the location of the desk. Ms. Chapman’s desk.”

  “Does it look as if it’s in the right place in the drawing? Is that about where Ms. Chapman’s desk was located?”

  We play a little tongue tag and she finally agrees that the desk was no more than ten feet inside the double doors. While Chapman’s office was immense, one of the interior walls was lined with shelves containing art glass and other collectibles. She had her desk turned
toward the two walls of windows that looked out toward the Pacific so that when she sat behind it, her back was to the double doors.

  “I know it’s a strange arrangement,” says Rogan, “but it’s what she liked. She wanted the view. She loved looking at the ocean.”

  “So while her desk was, say, ten feet away from the doors to her office, by the time she sat in her chair, she was probably less than eight feet from those doors, is that right?”

  The witness is nodding. “Yes, I said that’s about right.”

  “And if she pushed back from the desk, perhaps leaned back in her chair—say, to talk on the phone—she might be only seven or eight feet away from the door to her office.”

  Rogan nods.

  “You have to speak up for the reporter.”

  “Yes. That’s right.”

  “So the total distance from your desk to where Madelyn Chapman sat at her desk was no more than sixteen to eighteen feet.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know what the doors to Ms. Chapman’s office were made of?”

  “They were wood panel. I think they were probably pine. They were a little different than the other office doors on that level: Colonial. They had been put in by a decorator hired by Ms. Chapman.”

  “What were the acoustics like?” I zero in: “Was it possible to hear what was being said inside Ms. Chapman’s office if the doors were closed? From your desk, I mean.”

  “The walls were thin,” she says. “The building was designed to look old, but it wasn’t. I told her once that her office needed some soundproofing.”

  “You told Madelyn Chapman?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did she have that done?”

  “No.”

  Until this moment I couldn’t be sure. Now I am. Karen Rogan is signaling me to pop the question. I stop nibbling and put my fork in the enchilada.

  “In your capacity as executive assistant to Ms. Chapman, did you place and receive phone calls on her behalf at Isotenics?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you ever either place or receive a phone call to or from General Gerald Satz at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.?”

  With the mention of the name, there is a little buzz in the courtroom. The judge looks but lets it die down.

  “Yes, many times.”

  “Do you recall a telephone conversation between Ms. Chapman and General Satz in which Ms. Chapman’s voice was raised in apparent anger?”

  “Objection,” says Templeton. “Vague as to the time period.”

  “Sustained.”

  “Within the last, say, three months before her death, do you recall a telephone conversation between Madelyn Chapman and General Satz in which the tone and level of Ms. Chapman’s voice became elevated in apparent anger?”

  “Yes.”

  “Objection,” says Templeton. “How can the witness possibly know who the victim was talking to unless she was listening on the other line?”

  “Why don’t we ask her, Your Honor?”

  “Do it,” says the judge.

  “During the time that you heard this conversation, were you listening on the other line?”

  “No.”

  “Then how did you know that Madelyn Chapman was talking to General Satz?”

  “Because Ms. Chapman had asked me to place the phone call and I transferred the general to her line.”

  I turn to look at Templeton’s table just as one of the doors at the rear of the courtroom opens. It’s the government lawyer who left, coming back. He hustles up the aisle. This time he is carrying some papers in his hand. He moves quietly through the gate in the railing, hands the papers to the older lawyer, and takes his seat again.

  “And after you transferred the call to Ms. Chapman, you hung up after that?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you say you still heard part of the conversation?”

  “I heard Ms. Chapman’s voice.”

  “And what was she saying?”

  “She was angry. She was shouting.”

  “Was there anyone else in the office with her at the time?”

  “No.”

  “Do you ever remember her shouting like that before?”

  “She could get angry, lose her temper. But I’d never heard her like that before.”

  “What did she say? Do you remember the words?”

  “She said something to the effect that ‘You lied to me. You set me up. You’re using spyware and you didn’t tell me.”’

  There’s the stir of voices out in the audience.

  “You’re certain about that? That those are the words she used?”

  “Yes.” She nods. There is no hesitation.

  I turn to look at Templeton’s table. The three lawyers are huddled. Templeton turns to try to head off another revolt.

  “Ms. Rogan, do you know what the term spyware means?”

  “Objection.” Templeton spins around on his box, trying to put out fires on both fronts now. “The witness is not a software expert.”

  “Your Honor, I’m not asking for an expert opinion. I’m asking the witness what her understanding of the term was at the time she overheard this conversation—that is, if she had any understanding.”

  “I’ll allow it for that purpose,” says Gilcrest.

  The older lawyer with the gray hair is on his feet now, standing near his chair and looking but saying nothing. Boring holes into the witness.

  “At the time you overheard the conversation, what was your understanding of the term spyware?”

  “As I understand it, it is special software designed to attach to people’s computers in order to mine data, collect information from their hard drives.”

  “So you had heard the term before?”

  “Yes.”

  “From who?”

  “Engineers. Software-design engineers at Isotenics.”

  “And, to your knowledge, did Isotenics make spyware?”

  “No, not that I’m aware of.”

  I reach into the pile of papers in front of me on the rostrum. Moment of truth. I slip out the copy of the telephone message from the box of documents collected from Madelyn Chapman’s desk the day she died. The bailiff delivers a copy of this to the witness and the judge. Harry drops one on the table in front of Templeton.

  The government lawyer leans over his shoulder. When he sees the words looking glass penned in an elegant hand in the middle of the slip, he puts a hand on Templeton’s shoulder, and for a moment it looks as if he’s going to strangle him from behind. He has his face down at Templeton’s ear. Templeton is shaking his head. He doesn’t want to hear it.

  “Ms. Rogan, is that your handwriting on the form that is copied on that sheet of paper?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you write that note?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Can you tell the court what it is?”

  “It’s a telephone message slip, taken by me and directed to Ms. Chapman.”

  “And what’s the date on that slip?”

  “September thirtieth.”

  “This last year?”

  “Yes.”

  “Three days before Madelyn Chapman was murdered?”

  “Yes.”

  “And who was this phone call from?”

  “General Satz.”

  “Did you take the call personally on behalf of Ms. Chapman?”

  “I did.”

  “So you talked to the general on the phone?”

  “Yes.”

  “And can you tell the jury what he wanted?”

  “Your Honor.” I hear the voice from Templeton’s table, but it’s not Templeton. “Excuse me, Your Honor. My name is Edmund Yost.”

  Gilcrest looks confused, not sure that he is actually hearing some stranger interrupting proceedings in his courtroom. “I am senior counsel at the Department of Justice, representing the Department of Defense, Office of Intelligence.” He reaches behind him without even looking.

  One of the other
lawyers hands him a stapled sheaf of papers.

  “I have an order in my hand issued earlier this morning staying these proceedings indefinitely, signed by the senior judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review in Washington, D.C.”

  “Let me see that.” Gilcrest holds out his hand.

  The lawyer hands the papers to the bailiff, who takes them to the judge. Gilcrest looks at them, flips a page, and reads. The document appears to be only a few pages long.

  “Mr. Templeton, did you know about this?”

  “Your Honor, I just found out,” he says. “I haven’t seen that document. In answer to your question, no. I didn’t know. Not until just now.”

  “It appears to be in order,” says Gilcrest. “I don’t see any date for the lifting of the stay.”

  “There is none, Your Honor.” This from the gray-headed counsel from D.C.

  “This court has no authority to supersede a federal court order. By the same terms, the defendant is entitled to his day in court. I cannot hold the jury indefinitely. What do you propose I do?” Gilcrest puts this to the government lawyer.

  “I’m sorry, Your Honor. The United States government takes no position regarding the outcome of this trial.”

  “Other than to stay the proceedings of it indefinitely,” says the judge.

  “Your Honor, perhaps a brief continuance until we can sort this out,” says. Templeton.

  “No,” says Gilcrest. “I may have no authority to override a federal court order, but I surely have authority to control the proceedings in this court. Based on this order, which will become part of the record, this trial is now over. I’m declaring a mistrial. The jury is released. The defendant Emiliano Ruiz is discharged. This court is adjourned.”

  There’s an uproar in the courtroom.

  I look over at Larry Templeton. It is the first time I have ever seen him at a loss for words.

  Harry is sitting there looking at me, dumbfounded.

  “You son of a bitch.” He is laughing, smiling at me. It has finally dawned on him exactly what I meant that day in our office when I told him that if we were lucky we might not have to deal with Templeton at all—or, for that matter, the jury.