Steve Martini - Double Tap

“All’s fair in love and war,” says Harry.

“But here’s the part that will interest you,” says Kaprosky. “Apparently there was a major argument brewing between Chapman and the Pentagon at the time she was killed.”

“Over what?” I ask.

“That’s the question.” Kaprosky shrugs. “I don’t know. What I do know is that it was getting very ugly. The word is that General Satz was making noises that if she didn’t get in line, he might have to go to the Justice Department to have them take the program away from Isotenics. Out of Chapman’s hands.”

“Maybe she refused to go along with them on the trapdoor thing?” says Harry.

“No,” Kaprosky says. “They couldn’t very well go to Justice and tell the lawyers that Chapman wasn’t playing fair because she refused to allow them to violate the law. Besides, the trapdoor would only be useful if Congress allowed the Pentagon to wire up all the computers in the country to get the raw data. Only then could they mine it for information, and if they found something-say, a pattern of conduct-they could slip through the floor without a search warrant to identify the party involved to put them under surveillance, arrest them, or do whatever else it is that they do.” It is obvious that Kaprosky has darker thoughts about the government than most people.

“Without some source or raw data, the trapdoor was useless,” he goes on. “It was premature. If they approached Chapman on it, it’s possible she said no, simply because it was too risky. If they got caught, she and her company would have been toast. But Isotenics wasn’t the only shop that could engineer something like that. I think it was something else.”

“What then?” I ask.

“According to some of the data junkies in D.C.-people working for other government agencies, and I know a lot of them-the word is that Defense is already running Primis to mine data. They’re getting massive amounts of digitized information somewhere. Maybe it’s only beta testing. Maybe they’re only working out the wrinkles hoping that Congress will ultimately come along. But what if they’re not? What if they found some other way to get inside, to tap into the databases? What if Chapman wasn’t involved? What if she found out? She couldn’t afford to just sit by and watch.

“The government tapping into private information on three hundred and fifty million Americans in violation of federal law,” Kaprosky continues. “If that kind of a web started to come unwound, you’d have a scandal that would make Watergate look like child’s play. If that’s what it was, Isotenics would have been at risk. The company would have been ground into dust by the lawsuits and congressional investigations that would have followed. My battles with the government would have been a virtual paradise compared to what she would have had waiting for her.”

If it is true, Kaprosky is right. Chapman would have been in a bind, caught between loyalty to old friends; Gerald Satz, her mentor; and the continued existence of her own company. If she started making disagreeable noises, it would explain why she was feuding with the Pentagon. And if they suspected that she might go public-or, worse, engage in the favored political pastime by leaking the information to congressional staff or the press-the anxiety that might grip those in high places would provide a mountain of motive for murder.

“How do we prove it?” Harry asks. “Can you give us names? Your sources inside the data Beltway in Washington: will they testify?”

“Not in this lifetime,” Kaprosky replies. “Their jobs would vaporize. Trust me. After more than a decade fighting with the government in and out of court, there is one thing I do know with certainty: whistle-blowing on that level is bureaucratic suicide. Besides, even if you got close-assuming you could find somebody willing to testify under oath-I guarantee you, before you could get them on the stand, the Justice Department would have them bundled up and shipped off to Anchorage in a box marked Top Secret. The old national-security defense,” he says.

We sit around the table in silence. Jean seems to be studying the grain of wood in the shimmering surface, lost in her own thoughts, security in their old age slipping way.

“You look puzzled, my friend.” Kaprosky is looking at me.

“What I don’t understand is that if they’re cut off from getting the data by Congress, which refuses to compel business to allow them to tap in, how are they getting the information?”

“I don’t know,” says Kaprosky. “But I can tell you one thing. They’re running Primis, and they’re doing it around the clock.”

Of late I find myself reading into the wee hours, reviewing evidence, forensic and police reports from the crime scene at Chapman’s house, taking notes and scouring new appellate cases that may have a bearing on Ruiz’s trial-everything spread out over the empty half of my king-size bed in stacks.

Usually I am so weary that each morning as the alarm on my nightstand emits its dreaded buzz, I swim toward the headboard and reach for the snooze button. Invariably I sink back into a half hour of deep slumber that is often rich with dreams. Lately it seems that these moments of subconscious thought brim with visions of my uncle.

As a child I had only vague notions of what Evo had been through. The war in which he had suffered was long over before I could harbor any memories. In the little free time that I can steal from the trial, I have turned to a short stack of published journals and military histories to capture in detail just a glimmer of the horror that was Korea those many years ago, the first of two forgotten wars of a century littered with violence on a scale not seen since.

On the twenty-second of November 1950, unknown to U.S. intelligence, 250,00 °Chinese regulars crossed the Yalu River into North Korea under cover of darkness. According to later reports an equal number were encamped on the other side, held in reserve in the event that they might be needed.

At night over a period of five days the Chinese infiltrated American lines, isolating and encircling entire units, including Evo’s.

The Chinese separated the UN forces from support on their flanks. With quiet efficiency they set up barricades and fire blocks cutting off roads of escape to the south. They played havoc with UN communication lines. Allied forces, unable to reach headquarter units by radio because of the mountainous terrain, were forced to rely on miles of hastily strung field telephone wire. When the field phones failed, officers at the front had to figure it was due to the rapidly deteriorating winter weather. Scouts and repair parties sent out to fix them never returned.

The U.S. soldiers lacked tents, warm footwear, and long winter coats. Nighttime temperatures dropped to sixty below zero, driven by a wind chill off the steppes of Manchuria that froze everything they had, including the saliva in their mouths and the bolts on their weapons.

Just before midnight on the twenty-seventh, to the blare of bugles and whistles, under the flare and hiss of colored rockets, tens of thousands of Chinese troops rose up like a tidal wave. U.S. sentries, pickets asleep in their foxholes, were killed before they could reach for their rifles. Waves of Chinese troops washed over isolated American and UN forces. What little I gleaned from my uncle, listening to the accounts he told my father, was this: His unit was attacked from the side when the forces protecting their flank collapsed in chaos. They never knew what hit them.

Hundreds of soldiers were caught; many of them lying out on open ground in sleeping bags were killed in place by Chinese using Thompson submachine guns, part of the lend-lease given to them by the Allies during World War II.