The 37th Amendment: A Novel (18 page)

“Information,” she repeated. “What kind of information?”

Howe leaned forward and spoke in a very quiet voice. “The kind of information that moves public opinion,” he said. “The names of people whom you know to have been wrongly convicted. People with family members who will go on television and draw instant public sympathy.”

“Just names?” Jordan asked.

Howe smiled. “Well,” he said, “Perhaps a bit more. There is a credibility issue to address. Family members would be expected to declare the innocence of their loved ones. They won’t be persuasive unless they are supported by documentary evidence.”

Jordan was silent.

“Ms. Rainsborough, the integrity of the criminal justice system is at stake here. We cannot continue to convict people of crimes they did not commit and tell ourselves it’s the price of a civilized society.”

Jordan sipped her tea. “What are you asking me to do, exactly?”

“I’m asking you to take a significant risk. I know that. I wouldn’t ask this of you if I thought there was another way.” He paused. “I need proof,” he said. “I know there are people you believe to have been wrongly arrested, prosecuted and convicted. I believe you can acquire the documents that prove it. I need your help to get this information out to the public.”

Jordan looked straight at Howe, her clear blue eyes unblinking. “That would be a felony, Mr. Howe,” she said firmly. “I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

Ted was in line at the drive-through of his favorite burger place when his wireless rang. “Yeah?” he answered.

“I want to scramble this call, okay?” It was Jordan. Ted keyed a series of numbers into his wireless and after a moment it responded with a long beep. “Thanks,” Jordan said. “You’re not going to believe this. Dobson Howe wants me to pull documents out of the files and leak them to him.”

A horn sounded behind Ted and he inched the car forward. “Do you think he’s heard something?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Jordan answered. “He didn’t mention the Dency medical report. But he said he heard I wasn’t happy with the way the D.A.’s office was handling some of these cases.”

“Sounds like somebody knows something.”

“Oh, Ted! What if they know it was me? I could go to prison for fifteen years!”

“They can’t possibly know it was you,” Ted said.

His tone seemed to calm Jordan. “You’re right,” she said. “I know you’re right. That leak can’t be traced to me. Even if they check my computer for records of all the documents I accessed, they won’t find any trace of anything about that medical report.”

Somewhere inside Ted’s brain, a light went on.

“May I take your order?” A scratchy voice came spitting out of a red speaker on a post as Ted reached the drive-through’s menu board. “Give me a number three and a chocolate shake,” he said automatically.

“What?” Jordan asked.

“Nothing, I’m ordering dinner.”

“What?” the scratchy voice asked.

“Nothing, that’s it.” Ted pulled forward. “Jordan, are you there?”

“Yes, I’m here.

“So he wanted you to leak documents to him?”

“Yes. He said he wants to lead a campaign to repeal the 37th Amendment and he needs documentary evidence of wrongful convictions.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him I couldn’t do it and I got out of there as fast as I could. I just pray no one saw me with him.”

Ted shoved some cash at the employee behind the drive-through window. “Why?” he asked.

“Because he’s trying to bring back due process,” Jordan said. “I wish I could help him but it would be career suicide for an assistant district attorney to be connected with that. Assuming I haven’t already committed career suicide by going to prison.”

“Jordan, you’re not going to prison,” Ted said. “Give me a day and I’ll have the answer for you.”

“The answer to what?” she asked.

“Give me a day,” Ted repeated. He clicked the phone off and sped out of the drive-through, where a confused young woman was waving a paper bag out the window and yelling after him.

Thirty minutes later, dressed for an evening out and carrying two dozen red roses, Ted rang the doorbell at Julia’s house.

He was on his knees when she opened the door. “I know you can never forgive me,” he said. “Have dinner with me anyway.”

Ted was smiling at Julia as the waiter brought two crab cake appetizers and gracefully set them down on the table. “Mmm, that looks wonderful,” Julia said.

“No, you look wonderful,” Ted answered.

Julia looked up in surprise. “Thank you,” she said. Then she resumed her story about the malfunctioning cash register at the mall.

Ted smiled and nodded. At least the crab cakes were good, he thought, and why not, at a price that could have included one-way airfare from Maryland.

They were halfway through their entrees when Julia’s chatter subsided. “So,” she asked, “How are things at work?”

“Oh, fine, fine,” Ted said. “In fact, we were discussing something today that’s right up your alley. We were trying to figure out if it’s possible to copy documents from a secure network without leaving any kind of a record that you’ve done it.”

“Oh, there’s always a way,” Julia said.

“Really?” Ted asked, “Even when there are a lot of different security measures and passwords and all that?”

Julia smiled. “Have you ever seen a magic act?” she asked. “Did you ever see a magician climb into a box, and then see the assistants close it, and wrap it in chains, and put big steel padlocks on it? How could anyone escape, right? I mean, you see the chains, and they’re real, and you see the locks, and they’re real. How can the magician possibly escape? Well, guess what? All the chains and locks in the world don’t matter if the magician isn’t in the box.”

Ted was listening intently.

“Every organization has to be prepared in case of a catastrophic data loss,” Julia explained. “All the data must be backed up every night. And of course, there should always be a second back-up that’s stored off the premises in case of a fire or a natural disaster. Because if everything’s in the same location, the same disaster that destroys your computer system would also destroy your back-up.”

Ted’s eyes were lit up.

“So if somebody wanted to steal documents from an organization, the easiest way is to steal them from the off-premises back-up. I mean, it’s not easy, and it’s totally illegal, but it can be done.”

“But what about the passwords and the security features?” Ted asked.

“Back-up software copies everything,” Julia said. “It ignores passwords and all the rest of it. The whole idea of a back-up is to restore absolutely everything that was on the system before the loss.”

“That’s amazing,” Ted said. “Where do they do this kind of thing?”

“The back-ups?” Julia asked. “There’s one place in Camarillo that’s very big, and another one in Ojai. There are probably five companies that do this. We’ve used them all at one time or another.”

“Okay,” Ted said. “Enough about work. Flynn’s at her mom’s tonight. Let’s go back to my place.”

Julia beamed at him. “Okay,” she said.

Julia’s creamy skin was flushed with color as Ted idly ran his left hand over her breasts. She was stretched out on her back on the rug in front of the fireplace. Ted, lying on his right side, had the full length of his body pressed up against her. Their discarded clothes formed a trail that led from the living room all the way upstairs to the front door.

Ted moved his hand gently down over Julia’s flat stomach, then down the inside of her thigh, then slowly up. Julia moaned as Ted rocked his hand slowly back and forth, slipping a finger gently upward. Through the windows, the lights of Hollywood sparkled like a spilled load of diamonds.

Ted thought about the back-up software. If the D.A.’s office had an off-premises back-up, Julia would be able to find out where it was. Then the question was, could it be copied without anyone knowing about it. It would be a risk.

Julia extended her arms and grasped Ted around his ribcage. He felt himself pulled down on top of her. “Not yet,” he said. He rose to his knees and straddled her legs. Then, leaning forward, he ran his hands over her breasts, down her sides, over her hips and down her thighs to her knees. Then he leaned forward and did it again. “Aaaah,” Julia agonized. She tried to catch his hands and pull him down on top of her. Ted caught Julia’s wrists instead and pinned them playfully to the floor above her shoulders. Then he leaned down and kissed her neck, biting gently until he heard her moan.

There must be a way, Ted thought, to get a copy of the back-up software and pull the critical documents out of it. Even if a password were required, Jordan had a password. She had all the same IDs that the software was programmed to recognize. Suppose the passwords were changed on the D.A.’s system. An old back-up would still recognize an old password. The question was, how complicated a job would it be to find documents on those back-up disks?

Julia had apparently freed one of her hands because he felt himself in her grasp. Her hand moved up and down, then tightened and gently pulled him toward her. He followed without resisting, pressing against her for a slow moment and then gliding inside. A tiny sigh escaped her. Then he was pounding against her and her whole body was rocking under the force.

Jordan would know where to look for the documents, he thought. She would be able to print them from the back-up disks and give them to Dobson Howe, and her computer at the office would show no trace of any of it. Any investigators watching her network traffic would have to conclude that Jordan was completely innocent.

Ted heard himself make a growling, gasping sound which was almost drowned out by Julia’s near-scream. Then they both fell back, drained and glinting with sweat. Julia’s breasts were rising and falling with her breathing. “I love you,” she said. Ted covered her mouth with his and kissed her.

Tuesday, June 20, 2056

Ted was struggling to get to the office by 8:00 a.m. so he could have an hour to work before everyone else descended on him with their problems.

His doorbell rang.

“Coming!” He was buttoning his shirt as he raced up the stairs to open the door. Julia was standing there, looking amazingly bright-eyed for seven o’clock in the morning. She held up an aluminum briefcase. “Your order, sir,” she said with a big smile.

“Really? You got it? Already?”

“It’s all in here,” Julia said. “This morning’s 3:00 a.m. back-up. Easy, breezy.”

“Come in, come in,” Ted said. He took her by the hand and led her down the stairs to the dining room. “Lemme see,” he said anxiously.

Julia clicked the latches on her briefcase and opened it. Ted saw two stacks of half-inch-thick disks, each labeled in Julia’s precise, tiny handwriting. “That’s amazing,” Ted said. “Now I just put these in my computer and I can get anything I want from the D.A.’s files?”

“No,” Julia said.

“No?” Ted repeated.

“No,” Julia said again. “Got any coffee?”

Two cups of coffee made Ted more awake, but not more clear-headed. Julia began again.

“Ted. Try to focus. These disks are copies of a back-up. You know what a back-up is, right?”

Ted nodded. “It’s what you have to have to recover from a crash.”

“That’s right,” Julia said. “It’s a snapshot of your data that you can use to restore your system if something happens to it. Fire. Theft. Software upgrade. Anything that would cause you to lose everything. A back-up will allow you put it all back exactly the way it was. Okay?”

Ted nodded.

“Okay. There are many different kinds of back-ups. The D.A.’s office uses a really old system. Government offices are always twenty years behind everybody else.”

“They’re thirty years ahead of me,” Ted groused.

“Well, it’s a good thing you have me,” Julia said. She took the disks out of her briefcase and stacked them on the table.

“How does the entire thing fit on ten disks?” Ted asked.

“It’s compressed data,” Julia said. “It’s totally worthless unless you uncompress it. And even then, you can’t access it without all the necessary passwords and ID codes.”

“Well, then, how do you read it?”

“You have to restore it to the computer.”

“But what good is that?” Ted said miserably, “If we could use the D.A.’s computers we wouldn’t have had to do this in the first place.”

“Uh, uh, uh,” Julia said with a teasing smile. “You don’t necessarily have to restore it to the same computer from which you backed it up.”

Ted nodded. “Huh?” he asked.

Julia smiled at him. “Tell me, Ted,” she said coyly, “What’s the limit on your credit cards?”

C
HAPTER
10

J
ordan stared at the rectangular screen sitting incongruously atop the 1920s-era mahogany bar on the lower level of Ted’s house. She tapped a few keys on the attached keyboard. Boxes of text cascaded in front of her. She pressed a stylus lightly on the screen. The image of a document appeared there.

“Well?” Ted asked. “What do you think?”