Randy Singer - The Justice Game

Next, Jason gave up all the flash drives, CDs, and paper files he had produced while at Justice Inc. His contract called everything a “work for hire” and specified in no uncertain terms that it all reverted back to the company. Rafael called somebody on the phone and spoke to them in Spanish. Twenty minutes later, two men appeared at Jason’s apartment and started loading everything into boxes.

They reached a point of impasse when Rafael insisted on personally inspecting Jason’s desk drawers and the drawers of his filing cabinet for additional Justice Inc. materials. Jason refused, challenging Rafael to point out contractual language that entitled him to invade Jason’s privacy.

“I am just ensuring that you’ve complied with your contract,” Rafael insisted. “This is for your own protection. If proprietary information gets leaked, I’ll be able to certify that it didn’t come from you.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Jason said.

Rafael stared at Jason for a moment. He had slipped his sunglasses on top of his head an hour earlier, revealing emotionless dark eyes that he now used to try to bully Jason.

Instead of intimidating Jason, it only made him mad.

“I’ll have to make a phone call,” Rafael said.

He called Michael Ortberg, who asked to talk with Jason and played the role of good cop on the phone. It was nothing personal, Ortberg said. He acknowledged that Rafael had no contractual right to look in the drawers but he urged Jason to let Rafael look anyway. “I know you’ve got nothing to hide,” Ortberg said. “So if you could just humor him on this, it would make things a lot easier.”

“What’s next, my sock and underwear drawer?”

When Jason’s sarcastic comment was met with momentary silence, he became even more agitated. “You’re kidding,” he said.

“Yes, I’m kidding,” Ortberg said. “Let me talk to Rafael.”

Rafael took the phone and walked into another room. When he returned, he told his men to make sure they had everything boxed up and labeled. He removed a form from a folder and asked Jason to sign it.

While the men taped and labeled the boxes, Jason studied the form. It was a certification that he had returned everything-every piece of data and information he had ever generated or collected while at Justice Inc., whether stored electronically or contained on paper or in any other manner. Jason read the form, opened his desk drawer, and handed another flash drive to Rafael, then signed the form.

Rafael took the form, then handed Jason a plain white envelope with Jason’s name on it. “Mr. Sherwood wanted you to have this,” Rafael said.

After Rafael and his men left, Jason sat down at his desk and opened the envelope. Any warm fuzzies he’d had about his time at Justice Inc. had largely disappeared. Rafael had made Jason feel like a convicted felon trying to steal the company’s proprietary secrets.

The envelope contained a letter from Robert Sherwood, expressing his gratitude for a job well done. I’ve never terminated anyone for being too good, the letter said. Seems like that might merit a small bonus.

Enclosed was another check for $75,000-half a year’s salary. It made his total severance $150,000.

Though it still seemed like a strange way to leave a company, Jason no longer felt underappreciated.

He sat for a few minutes in silence, contemplating how quickly his life had changed. It was times like this when he most longed to pick up the phone and call his mom-a remarkable woman who had lost a six-month struggle with cancer when Jason was in junior high. Until she died, Jason had always been his mother’s son, soaking up the attention and unconditional love that came as natural to her as breathing. She died after the cancer metastasized from her colon to her liver. Fourteen years later, Jason still teared up just thinking about her.

At the time, people simply shook their heads. “She was so young,” they’d said.

His mother’s death left Jason with his father-a strict disciplinarian who never remarried. Jason now felt obligated to call his father and let him know about these recent developments. His father had grudgingly accepted Jason’s going to work for Justice Inc. but had always dreamed of Jason becoming a prosecutor. Instead, Jason would have to tell his dad about his plans to become a criminal defense lawyer, joining the “dark side.”

His father would curse and let Jason know he was disappointed. He would remind Jason, as he had many times before, that Jason would be serving time behind bars if not for the fraternity of the men in blue-the way they looked out for each other’s families. He would do everything within his power to send Jason on another guilt trip.

But it would only backfire, reminding Jason of the reason he had chosen this path in the first place. If other cops were as willing to work outside the law as the ones Jason knew, all kinds of innocent people would need good defense lawyers.

His father would never understand that. He would accuse Jason of being a sellout.

But Jason knew the truth.

It was his father who had sold out. The system had already purchased his father’s soul.

Robert Sherwood looked up at a knock on his office door.

“Come in.”

The door swung open, and Rafael Johansen stepped in. “We’re all set,” he said.

“Do you think he’s got copies of the software?” Sherwood asked.

“Maybe. He wouldn’t give us access to his desk drawers and filing cabinets.”

Sherwood thought about this for a moment. Given the enormous sums at risk, Justice Inc. had always been obsessed with protecting its proprietary information.

“I think he’s a straight shooter,” Sherwood said. “But let’s put surveillance on him for a year or so just to play it safe.”

It took Jason three days to call.

The first two days, he pulled up his father’s contact information a half-dozen times and scrolled the BlackBerry wheel until it shaded his father’s phone number. But he couldn’t bring himself to place the call.

The third day, in the solitude of his apartment, Jason found the courage to push the wheel and initiate the call. The phone rang three times with no answer, raising Jason’s hopes that he might be able to just leave a message.

But then his father answered. “Jason, I’m in the middle of something. Can I call you back?”

“Sure.”

An hour later, when Jason was walking down the Avenue of the Americas, he felt his BlackBerry vibrate twice. His father’s name and number appeared on the screen.

“Hey, Dad,” Jason said.

“Hey, Jason. Sorry I had to go earlier. I was in the middle of a department meeting. What’s up?”

Justice Inc. placed a premium on confidentiality, so Jason needed to be somewhat vague, even with his father. In the past, he had described his job as “legal research for investment firms.”

His father had scoffed at the “desk job” but tolerated it because he knew Jason was making $150,000 a year, enough to take a healthy chunk out of his student debt. The unspoken assumption-at least his father’s unspoken assumption-was that Jason would take a job as a prosecutor once he finished his two-year commitment.

“Um, I’m leaving New York early, Dad. As in next week.” Jason paused-it was never easy to talk with his dad. “I finished my projects ahead of schedule, and they’re paying me the rest of my salary.”

This brought an extended silence. Jason imagined the scowl on his dad’s face-the block jaw tensing as the forehead wrinkled in displeasure. It was, in Jason’s opinion, a face that bore little resemblance to his own. “You’re not telling me something,” his dad said. “You had a two-year contract. Something must have happened.”