Decency (22 page)

Both were quiet a long, long moment.

“Bonnie, would you take some notes while I think out loud. Chime in any time with your thoughts.”

“Okay.”

“These are my thoughts on what we have here and what we don’t have and questions these messages raise.

“Obviously, Samantha Pierce found repeated efforts to get access to NSA information in an unauthorized, or what she perceived to be, unauthorized way.

“She did what she felt she could and should do about it.

“She worked in two tracks, one official and one unofficial.

“She did not think anything sinister was necessarily involved until later in the process and then she started sending coded letters describing her efforts to her parents.

“She gave us three names of people connected to her efforts or her case that we did not already know were involved in them, co-worker Carl Foley, who Richardson mentioned to us, psychologist James Cochran, and coworker Christian Mason.

“The letters stop, presumably because she died, when Christian Mason told her he was close to identifying who made the unauthorized access to the NSA information.

“Among the things the letters do not tell us is whether the efforts she was making, possibly through Christian Mason, in fact triggered the effort to terminate her employment.

“We do not know what information was involved in the unauthorized access to the Echelon computers.

“We do not know why she felt it necessary to track the unauthorized access except that nothing came of her official reports.

“We do not know why she thought a mole was possibly involved, except to the extent that the access to the Echelon computers was probably so limited even within NSA that a mole was perhaps necessarily involved.

“And, this information from the letters is obviously of interest to law enforcement and national security authorities which may create obligations on our part to divulge it to them.

“Finally, in the litigation we initiate, we will eventually have to disclose the letters in discovery.

“Your turn.”

“Just one other one for now, which I’ve thought since we started this morning. It’s this. The code system she used in the letters to her parents is simple, probably crude from the point of view of an NSA computer scientist. Wouldn’t she use a sophisticated code to keep details such as classified things somewhere?”

“That would still be outside classified channels…but I get what you mean.”

They fell silent.

“While we’re on the subject, let’s just see what is on the diskettes from the farm.”

Kelly took the first and slid it into the drive on a computer she asked Jannie to bring in. None of the firm’s machines had drives that would accept floppy disks.

In Microsoft Word, she clicked on “Open” then on “(A:).”

No files showed up in the files list window.

She tried each one separately. All of them show the same result, no files.

“I guess that’s that.”

“Kelly, let’s check for archived or deleted files.”

“I don’t know how to do that.”

“Here, let me.”

Kelly offered her desk chair and Bonnie sat down.

She exited “Word” and pulled up “Programs.”

She clicked on “Norton Utilities” then on “Recover Deleted Files.”

Norton Utilities ground away for several seconds.

“I think it’s finding something.”

A list of a dozen files showed up. Bonnie flashed a smile.

“Okay, now let’s read them.”

Bonnie clicked on the command.

Norton ground repeatedly then reported, “Error - Unknown File Format,” then the screen changed to lines of computer code.

“What does that mean?”

“Just that Norton doesn’t recognize the file format but can recognize the programming code.”

“And?”

“Well, we’re at the end of my expertise. I suggest you let me take the diskettes to some programmers and see what they can come up with.”

“Sounds good to me. One thing though, get copies of them made and leave the originals here.”

“Sure.”

“Okay, Bonnie. Let’s game plan what we do next. We’re down to nine days.”

Kelly divided the tasks, taking responsibility for Richardson and getting any other NSA employees as witnesses, except Mason. She gave contacting Mason, requesting all existing documents from NSA and contacting expert psychologists and psychiatrists, to Bonnie.

“By the way, what did you find at the police?”

“It’s pretty strange. For all practical purposes there is no remaining evidence. The investigation report is not there. They could not even tell me whether there was an investigation report.”

“I suspected that might be the case.”

“That it?”

“No. Before you do anything else, finalize the complaint and the other papers to be served with it. We now know Cochran was the key psychologist doing the evaluations. We’ll go with him and the government as defendants. We’ll file as soon as it’s in final form.”

The partners meeting was always unpredictable. Not in the sense of irregularity. It was uniformly held every Tuesday at 8:00 a.m. Or in the sense of the general flow. It began with a financial report, went on to discussion of collecting from slow paying clients, then transitioned to new clients, then orbited around problems until everyone had their say on whatever they wanted to bother everyone else about. What was unpredictable was what would dominate the discussion. It could come from anywhere and in rarest of all events, made the gathering interesting.

Today’s meeting was bound to pivot on the issue of how much it would cost to make the telephone and computer systems secure.

The assembled principals of the firm blistered through the agenda, presumably with everyone holding their tongues to shorten the whole process and get them back to making money as quickly as possible.

Toward the end Abe Kramer intoned, “Kelly, I would be grateful if you would explain the possible security requirement that you and I have discussed.”

“Sure. As everyone knows, we do not have special security features on our telephone lines. We have normal software firewalls but we don’t have the highest grade encryption or even anything on some of the phone lines and connections, like the faxes and printers. This means anyone with the necessary equipment, skill, and intentions can listen to our phone conversations and hack into our computers.

“As we have discussed before, the need for upgrading security on our systems has not been apparent or at least has not been significant enough to warrant the expense of doing so.

“I believe that has changed. The new case, the Pierce case that I have briefed you about, is a matter involving the NSA. That agency can listen in on any telecommunication anywhere, including phones, faxes, computers, etc. While I don’t anticipate the agency itself will target our systems - which as you know it cannot legally do here in the U.S. without a court order - I believe that individuals at the agency may very well use its capabilities to listen in on us to protect themselves. That means listen in on any of us or anyone at the firm, not just me.

“Now, I think we’re faced with a requirement to protect our clients’ confidentiality to the extent that we reasonably can. Remember, in these times it does not take much in the way of equipment and fairly low grade skill to eavesdrop or hack into computers. It may be that we are at the point where, for the sake of all of our clients, and not just because of this Pierce case, that we need to spend the money to make our systems secure.

“I’m sure you are interested in what the costs of this are. Because we have fiber optic connections to the computers and the phone exchange I think we are talking about mainly software, such as highest grade firewalls and encryption and certain monitoring gear. The number I’ve come up with in talking to a couple of suppliers is down slightly from when we last discussed this. I think we can do the job for about eighty to ninety thousand. Questions?”

Don MacIntyre, a notorious penny pincher, spoke first as could be expected.

“Kelly, can you assure us this new case will pay for this?”

“No. But as I said we probably need it anyway.”

“As long as nothing has changed except having this new case, I don’t see why we should do it, given our previous position on the matter. Lawyers lose more money picking up crumbs in front of the statute of limitations expiration than any other way. It seems to me it’s your problem, Kelly. You could solve it by spending what you need from your allocation.”

MacIntyre was not being actually unfair. He would not spend a dime of his own money to keep himself in food if he could help it.

“Mac, God knows you have saved us a lot of money over the years. It’s my opinion, however, the time has come for us to move from outdated technology to today’s.”

“I just don’t need to for my practice. I propose anyone who wants the features Kelly is talking about to spend their own money for them. The firm as a whole is doing fine without them.”

Michael Campanelli spoke next.

“I don’t give a damn about the costs. But your case, Pierce. There’s just no way you can sue an intelligence agency or its employee when the issue is likely to revolve around security clearances. We’ll end up looking like jackasses! I don’t want the firm to look like that and neither do you. You’re spinning your wheels, at best.”

Abe stepped in.

“Any other points of view?”

Without waiting for any, Abe continued.

“It seems we should probably take a vote. Just to let you know, I will be voting for the upgrades. I can tell you from my practice in the telecom arena, we are very susceptible to all kinds of invasions. For instance, I am informed that anyone with about twenty minutes of instruction can get the necessary devices over the internet and be in the eavesdropping business tomorrow, not to mention hacking computers which high school kids do for fun. In other words, anyone interested in our client’s confidential information can get it without much trouble.”

After a pause Abe called for the vote.

Nine of the fourteen partners voted in favor.

Somewhat unnecessarily, Abe announced the tally as he always did. He believed they remembered that even if they remembered nothing of the discussion.

“Kelly, you’re free to get started with a total budget for the effort of ninety thousand. I know you won’t spend anything you don’t have to.”

After the meeting adjourned, Abe nodded to Kelly, “It was closer than I thought it would be.”

“I actually hope we are practically wasting the money. It would be nice if we did not need to do this at all.”

“In a perfect world…”

Thompson/Richardson sat at the same table in the Ramada Inn restaurant. But he was not alone. A small woman nearly his age was with him. Her black hair had barely begun to streak with gray. Her stylish eyeglasses sat on a very straight nose. Her face was open and her skin was bright. Whether contrived or natural, she gave the appearance of being happy to be there.

“Hello, Mr. Richardson, thank you for meeting me.”

“Ms. Hawkins, this is my wife, Theresa. She does not work for the agency. I brought her so she can get an idea what might be involved here.”