“G’morning. Phillip Fairfax here,” a man’s voice said. Alison exhaled. He sounded like a native English speaker. Lucky for her. “I’m with the U.S. Embassy, and I’m looking for Mizz Alison Crane.”
46
The embassy. Looking for her, calling her at home. Not good. Not good at all. The FBI’s dragnet for members of the notorious SwampLand BBS had reached across the Pacific. Or was she being paranoid? Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe they were calling about her visa problem.
Alison faltered for a second, trying to figure out how to respond to that guy, swallowing the urge to say, “This is Alison Crane speaking.” She needed to tease out some information first.
“Alison’s not here right now. May I tell her what this is in regard to?” Alison held her breath.
“It’s about her friend Mr. Gordon. Ma’am, who am I speaking to?” The voice dripped with an unmistakable Texan accent.
They were going to out-polite each other. “I’m Lauren Freeman. “I’m visiting from the States.” Freeman? How did you come up with that name? Must be a Freudian slip.
“Mizz Freeman, I’m working with the U.S. Embassy. We’ll be coming by your friends’ house later this morning. We—”
Coming by the house this morning? Alison’s stomach tightened like she was bracing for a punch to the gut. She had to get in front of this catastrophe, head them off at the pass. “Sorry, but I’ve got to go out, and Charles — Mr. Gordon, is at work.”
“That’s all right, ma’am,” Fairfax said. “We have authorization to search the premises. We can let ourselves in.”
Let themselves in? Alison’s heart beat in double time. What kind of fishing expedition was this guy planning? Rob had warned her that the Feds were moving quickly to bring in SwampLand BBS members. Now the officials were coming for her, and she was officially fucked.
Alison cleared her throat. “I don’t mind staying until you arrive. When should I expect you?” She tried to sound sweet and innocent. Or at least sweet.
“We’ll swing by later this morning, Mizz Freeman.” Fairfax hung up.
Alison froze, immobilized, cotton-brained, body unresponsive. Panic time.
Snap out of it, Crane! Go! Do something! But what? She chided, goaded and shook herself mentally as she struggled to jump-start her synapses.
Charles. He’d know what she should do. He hated being disturbed during trading hours, but this was an emergency. And it was his house they were searching.
She dialed his work number. An unfamiliar voice answered. “Gordon-san is out of the office. May I take a message?”
“No. Thanks.”
How strange that Charles was out of the office when the market was open. She called his cell and was sent to voicemail. Where the hell was he?
Charles was unreachable. The embassy would be arriving any minute to search the house. And in searching the house they’d find her computer. And in searching her computer, they’d find weapons-grade encryption software. In the house that Jack built.
Alison’s breaths shortened as anxiety squeezed her rib cage like a vise.
First, they’d arrest her, then they’d deport her. Getting deported would be bad, but getting disbarred would be worse. She could hear her colleagues snickering as they pored over the “Ethics Violations” section in the monthly Bar Journal. “Alison Crane, environmental lawyer and activist, having been convicted of illegally exporting munitions, has been disbarred.”
“Okay, Crane. Keep it together,” Alison mumbled, saying the things she wished a good friend was saying to her. “You can deal with this. No need to be arrested. No need for disbarment. You just need to do a little housekeeping, a little cleaning up.”
“The embassy’s coming. The guy who called is probably with the USIA. Damn CIA lackeys. They’ll be looking for the encryption software. That has to go. What else? Encoded messages you and Kiyoshi shared. Log onto World NetLink and delete them. Fast. And that Tracer box — lose it. And floppies, all the floppy disks. You don’t want to have to explain your unusual collection of software. It’s not kiddie porn, but it’s all got to go. And there’s not much time.”
Alison booted up her computer and, with trembling fingers, clicked on files. FYEO, PeepHole, FireAx, the connection information about the SwampLand BBS that got her into this mess in the first place. She dragged the incriminating evidence to her computer’s trash and deleted the goods. In a millisecond, all of her hard-acquired software vanished. Her computer was clean and pristine. But she had more work to do.
The floppy disks. It was easier to re-initialize them rather than erase their contents.
She lined up her pile of floppies and inserted the first disk to obliterate its data. The computer buzzed, wheezed and hummed. The red light on the disk drive flashed on. Alison chewed on a cuticle. The red light flashed off. Wheeze. Alison’s heart pounded in her solar plexus.
She ejected the floppy from the computer’s drive, shoved in the next disk from the stack and hit the button to initialize. More buzzing, more humming.
The computer was taking way too damn long. And those CIA henchmen would be arriving any minute. The last thing she needed was to get caught in the act of erasing contraband software. That, alone, would be reason enough to deport her.
Alison dashed into the kitchen and snatched a government-approved clear plastic garbage bag from under the sink. She rooted through the recycle bins and stuffed the bag with rotting persimmon peels, empty Merlot bottles and a grease-soaked Domino’s pizza box.
She unplugged her cherished laptop, her window on the world and the repository for her Green Space research. Why hadn’t she backed up her latest work? Too late now. She swaddled the laptop in day-old newspapers and tucked it in the middle of the rubbish.
Next went the floppy disks and the Tracer device. A sprinkling of soggy coffee grounds topped the garbage. She cinched the bundle tight.
With marking pen in hand, Alison debated what name to write. Autographing your own garbage bag. How did the Japanese come up with such an asinine law? She started to write “Gordon” but decided against it in case the embassy maggots went digging in the trash. In the end, she signed “Yamada,” the only name she could write in passable Japanese characters.
After checking to see if any cars were coming, Alison bolted out to the corner and added her garbage bag to the mound already stacked for the day’s pickup. She worked her sack into the middle of the heap so that her kindergarten-level handwriting wouldn’t be immediately apparent.
Her dirty deed done, Alison returned to the house, washed her hands and did some deep yoga breathing to steady herself. Finishing the last complete breath, she remembered. She’d loaded her software on Charles’ computer, too.
She hurried into Charles’ office to discard the files she’d squirreled away on his hard drive. He’d never suspected that she had dared to use his forbidden computer. And now he would never know. She erased all traces of her misdeeds, including the FYEO encryption software. All was neat and tidy. Purged and sanitized.
Alison returned to the living room, sat down and waited.
01100011 01101111 01101111 01101100
A fist pounded at the front door. Nerves strung taut, Alison jumped at the sound. Whatever happened to ringing the doorbell like normal people do?
“Just a minute.” She took one more deep breath before walking to the genkan.
Peering through the peephole in the door, Alison saw three men. Two white guys and a Japanese guy. Fairfax must be the older of the white guys, she guessed. The other white guy looked like a young punk. Maybe an intern. She cracked open the door.
“Good morning, gentlemen.” Alison smiled, gracious as all hell.
“Mizz Freeman,” the older white guy said, “I’m Fairfax.” As she suspected. “We spoke on the phone. I was looking for your friend Mizz Crane.”
“That’s me. I’m Alison Crane. How do you do?” Alison said, keeping cool as a can of wheat tea in a Tokyo vending machine. “I’m awfully sorry to have to ask
, but would you mind showing me your ID, please?” Anything to stall for time, to give her brain a chance to catch up.
As if they were used to being asked, the men flipped open wallets with what looked like official picture identification cards. Alison made a show of examining the proffered evidence. Not that she’d know if the IDs were legit or not, but it was worth going through the motions, keeping the guys on their toes.
Fairfax stepped up. “Your warrant.” He shoved a piece of paper through the opening in the doorway. Alison took the document and examined it. She could read the date and recognized the kanji characters for the address of the house. Stamped with two red seals, the search warrant looked authentic. Not that she would know if it were fake. Why hadn’t she called a lawyer when she had the chance? Now matters were spinning out of control, and she was on her own.
Alison held the paper in her fist and opened the door. “Come in.”
As the men walked through the genkan, Alison glanced past them down the street to see if the garbage truck had come yet. It hadn’t.
The men were already in the house before Alison saw that they hadn’t taken off their shoes. They should know better. But what the hell. Shoes in the house were easily the least of her worries. Alison followed the men into the living room.
Fairfax turned to her, and said, “This is Saito-san with the Police Security Bureau, and Peterjohn from the NSA’s cyber group.”
“NSA?” Alison asked.
“National Security Agency,” Fairfax said. He spoke to her in the patient tone of a nursery school teacher.
“I’m in NSA digital,” Peterjohn piped up. “Computer stuff. We get farmed out to State and Commerce when they don’t know what they’re looking for.” He shot Fairfax a fleeting sidelong glance.
“I see,” said Alison. She sized up Peterjohn. He looked to be late twenties, tall with arms that protruded well beyond the cuffs of his suit. He shifted his weight from foot to foot while staring at the floor. Only Peterjohn carried a briefcase.
“How can I help you, gentlemen?” Alison asked. “Would anyone like some tea? Coffee?”
She needed to take control of the situation to discourage the men from being overly meticulous in carrying out their mission. All three men declined and set about their business.
Fairfax and Saito took themselves on a quick reconnaissance tour around the house. The two men conferred in hushed voices, then spoke to Peterjohn. The computer nerd nodded and, toting his briefcase, marched into Charles’ office.
Fairfax and Saito left Peterjohn sitting at Charles’ computer while they surveyed the house, room by room. Alison trailed behind, an insipid smile plastered on her face. She kept a keen eye out for things the men were especially interested in, things that they took extra time examining. The men opened closets and pulled out cabinet drawers, but nothing seemed to be what they were looking for. What the hell were they looking for? She was thankful that she’d had the good sense to ditch her notebook computer and get it off of the premises before the embassy’s bloodhounds had arrived.
After a cursory search, Fairfax and Saito returned to Charles’ office, where Peterjohn was at the controls of Charles’ computer.
“How’s it going, Pete?” Fairfax asked.
“Some real interesting stuff here.” Peterjohn didn’t look up from the computer. “He’s got a hot patch into the website.”
Fairfax whistled. “Some nerve, that guy.”
Hot patch? Alison ached to understand what they were talking about.
“Yeah, but he left the door open. Wide open.” Peterjohn ejected a disk, pulled another floppy out of his briefcase and inserted it in the drive. His fingers danced a rapid-fire quickstep across the keyboard.
“I got everything we need. More than enough, but give me a minute,” Peterjohn said. “I want to take a look at his trash.”
Alison stiffened like she’d been touched by a live electrical wire. What did he mean, “Look at his trash?” It didn’t sound good. Not if it meant what she thought it meant.
With rapt attention, the men huddled around the computer screen like hungry beasts preparing to go in for the kill. They didn’t notice Alison as she eased in closer to get a better view of Charles’ monitor. The screen read “Trash” at the top, but was filled with a directory of file names, sizes and types. All were ostensibly deleted files. But, instead of being dead and gone, the zombified files were immortalized on the computer.
“Well, well, well, what have we here?” Peterjohn said, relishing the moment like an adolescent boy sneaking a peek at a centerfold. “Look what our friend dumped from his computer this morning.”
Alison’s eyes followed where Peterjohn’s finger was pointing on the computer screen. The screen read:
FYEO 156.8 MB Deleted 09:23
Fairfax turned to Alison. “Of course you don’t know anything about this, do you, Mizz Crane?”
Derision oozed from Fairfax’s eyes. She could almost hear him thinking, “dumb broad.”
“Do you know anything about this?” Fairfax said.
Alison’s cheeks grew hot. “About the computer?” she said. The wobble in her voice surprised her. She cleared her throat.
“No, this file that was deleted.” Fairfax pointed to the screen. “FYEO. For Your Eyes Only. It’s for encrypting messages. That means putting something into secret code. Do you know about this file?”
The man was insufferable. Alison resisted the urge to tell him where he could put his secret code. But she was in a serious jam. Maybe his patronizing blind spot might work in her favor.
“Uh, — no, not really,” Alison said. “Charles doesn’t like me to touch his computer. He uses it for his work. It’s his precious little jewel.” She remembered how she’d felt about even approaching his sacred computer a few weeks ago. Was it only a few weeks ago?
“Then how was it that this file got erased today?” Fairfax punched the screen with his finger. “Deleted this morning.”
Alison crossed her arms on her chest. She was seriously treading now. She remembered an invaluable lesson learned in law school: When in doubt, improvise. “I — I don’t know how that happened. Maybe—”
“You know, Phil,” Peterjohn spoke up, “Gordon could’ve gotten in from a remote site. He has this machine wired. Online all the time. He could’ve accessed this computer from anywhere, could’ve gotten into the system and deleted the files himself. Maybe he even had a hot key with a cyanide pill.”
“Cyanide pill?” Saito asked.
“Yeah, it’s a kind of program where the computer destroys certain files if a key is hit. And the files are gone.” Peterjohn snapped his fingers. “He could’ve done any of that stuff from any phone anywhere.”
Alison resumed breathing. Bless you, computer nerd. Bless you.
“Okay, let’s pack up and ship out,” Fairfax was back in charge again. “You boys load up the computer and let’s haul it on outta here. And you, Mizz Crane, I have to ask you to stay in town for the next few days. Your boyfriend’s gonna need a whole lotta help.”
Alison nodded, wordless with confusion. She sent the crew on their way and closed the door behind them. She took a deep yoga breath and collapsed on the living room couch. Her boyfriend was going to need help? Why hadn’t they arrested her?
She rubbed her eyes as if to clear her vision and heard the grunting of the garbage truck lumbering down the street. Alison jumped off the couch, bolted outside, and from the arms of the trash man, rescued her own precious little jewel.
47
Alison stretched out on the carpeted living room floor and, reaching for the remote, set the control to maximum heat. Time. At least she’d bought herself a little time to think. The warming carpet melted knots of tension from her lower back.
Alison rolled onto her stomach and pushed up into at downward dog yoga pose. The pose was supposed to clarify thinking, among other benefits. Her ears pounded with the surge of blood moving through her inverted head.
The embassy
was pursuing Charles. For something she’d done. Charles knew nothing about the encryption software on his computer, let alone the SwampLand BBS. She couldn’t hang back and let him take the blame. It wouldn’t be fair.
But she didn’t want to come forward, hands in the air, confessing to the authorities what she’d been up to. It was the right thing to do, it was the ethical thing to do. And yet … throwing away her entire legal career, losing her status as an attorney. Possible jail time? And who knew what else might be meted out by a flawed criminal justice system that was especially harsh on African-Americans.
The embassy had targeted Charles. They were sure they had their man. She had no choice. She had to come clean. He wasn’t the criminal. She was.
Arms trembling — because of the intense yoga pose or because of the realization of what was to come — Alison lowered herself to the carpet. She felt calmer knowing what she had to do, bitter though the decision be.
But first, before turning herself in, she needed to explain to Charles. To apologize for screwing up so spectacularly, for involving him in her series of ill-informed choices.
Alison picked up the phone and punched in Charles’ number at the office. She was doing the right thing. He shouldn’t be taking the heat for her. The truth would out eventually anyway. And the authorities looked favorably on people who cooperated with them. At least that was what they said.
An operator picked up Charles’ extension.
“Charles Gordon, please,” Alison said.
“I’m sorry, but Gordon-san is out of the office.”
“Would you tell him to please call Alison. It’s urgent.”
The operator hesitated. “Uh, yes, ma’am. I’ll—I’ll leave a message,” she said.
“Remember, it’s urgent.” Charles still wasn’t in the office. In the meantime, until he returned, Alison had matters to take care of.
She dusted the crud off of her computer and set up on the dining room table. She knew she had a guardian angel because the floppies she’d thrown out with the computer all reloaded smoothly in her machine. Plugging in the Tracer box, just in case, she got online to send unencrypted email messages while she still had a chance to use a computer. While she still was a free woman.
Tokyo Firewall: a novel of international suspense Page 25