Steve Martini - Double Tap

Piecing together what Kaprosky told me and from the information on adware and how it works, if the government is using looking glass as a form of spyware at some or all of its online sites, this has ominous implications for anything remotely approaching a free society.

Businesses or individuals going to their computers for tax forms or electronic filing, some of which is now required by law, would have no way of avoiding the attachment of virtually invisible spyware to their computers. Everyone from farmers reporting agricultural production, to banks dealing with the Federal Reserve, to doctors and hospitals using computer uplinks to communicate with government regulatory agencies, could be having their confidential data files scanned at the speed of light with no oversight or restriction on how it is used.

Those possessing the keys to this kingdom would be the ultimate inside dealers. They would know the details of every business transaction before it occurred, like playing Monopoly with loaded dice.

In the area of privacy, everything, from patient medical records to supposedly confidential financial data, from the content of e-mail to personal notes and records maintained on home computers, could be scanned.

If this is true, and if the system is in full bloom, any computer that has ever surfed to a government site is probably already infected. In this case, its data and anything networked to it is being scooped up without notice or benefit of a search warrant. If Kaprosky is right, all of it at this moment could be running through high-speed lines in compressed microbursts to computers running Primis in the basement of the Pentagon.

Our mystery man, retired General Gerald Satz, has now disappeared. Two days ago a relentless process server, a friend of Herman’s working out of Washington, D.C., finally gained access to Satz’s outer office in the Pentagon, only to be told that Satz was gone.

According to the information, the general is out of the country on government business. They will not say when he left, when he will be back, or where he is. According to his staff, Satz’s location and his itinerary are confidential for reasons of security. What is clear is that Satz will not be available for the trial. The government is sealing off the last small fissures in the cover that might shed light on what happened between Madelyn Chapman and the Pentagon in the days before she died.

Friday afternoon, the end of the week, and Templeton is sitting at the cusp, right at the edge of the state’s case in chief. He is a master of timing, and the feeling is palpable as he climbs the stool to take the podium. You can almost smell it, like ozone in the air after a jolt of lightning: the packed courtroom seems to crackle with a psychic charge.

Like a pint-size philharmonic conductor, Templeton would like to end his case on a crescendo, some high note that he can leave ringing in the minds of jurors, for them to ponder as they kill time, sequestered in their hotel rooms over the weekend, waiting for the defense to begin its case.

“Mr. Templeton, do you have any more witnesses to call?” Gilcrest looks up only briefly as he makes a note on the blotter in front of him. The jury is in the box.

“One final witness, Your Honor.”

“Very well, let’s do it,” says the judge.

“People call Jensen Quinn to the stand.”

I glance over at Harry, who has already leaned forward in his chair, his elbows on the table as he turns to look at me. His face is an expressive question mark, a shrug of the shoulders. He has no clue.

Harry fingers through the separate piles of paper on the table in front of him until he finds a copy of the state’s witness list. This is nearly eighteen pages in length, names single-spaced and numbered along the left-hand margin. There are hundreds of names here, people Templeton thought he might want to call, long shots that in a pitched battle over some minute point could come in handy, others that would be called only if the factual sands underlying the case shifted beneath his feet. I suspect many of the names were grabbed out of phone books in the library and dropped on his list like chaff among the wheat to distract us, so that we would waste time checking them out.

I lean into Emiliano. “Do you recognize the name?”

He shakes his head. He is turned now, looking toward the back of the courtroom, toward the double doors where the bailiff has announced the name out in the hallway.

A second later I hear the whoosh of one of the swinging double doors at the rear of the courtroom as it opens and closes. Before I can turn to look behind me, I notice that Emiliano’s face has gone ashen. There is something in his fixed gaze that I have not seen before. It is the focused appearance of fear. A second later, when he snaps around to the front, his breathing is heavy, his eyes darting.

I turn to look behind me. At the back of the courtroom there is a man talking to the bailiff, who is directing him up the main aisle toward the front of the courtroom. He is of medium height with dark, wavy hair. He’s wearing a tan jacket, slacks, and a polo shirt. As he heads up the aisle I get a better look. His eyes are directed straight ahead, as if he is consciously avoiding any eye contact with the people at either table and instead is staring off into the ether.

I look over toward Harry. He has slid the state’s witness list toward the center of the table in front of Ruiz where we can all see it. Harry’s finger is on the page next to the name Jensen Quinn.

I cup a hand and whisper to Ruiz, “Do you know him?”

He nods quickly, twice, a kind of muted gesture. “I knew him as Jack. It’s what he went by in the military,” he whispers back.

“What’s he going to say?” I ask.

A little shake of his head, a shrug of his shoulders. Ruiz is telling us he doesn’t know.

“What is he going to say on the stand?” Harry is whispering through clenched teeth from the other side. He has picked up the same signal of panic from Ruiz that I have.

Emiliano falls silent, his eyes on the witness, who is now raising his hand to be sworn in by the clerk.

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

“Ah do.”

“Take a seat and state your name for the record.”

He sits in the witness chair. “Jensen Jonathan Quinn.”

He has a distinct accent. If I had to guess, I would say the southeast hill country, maybe the western Carolinas or Tennessee.

“Mr. Quinn, my name is Lawrence Templeton. I’m a deputy district attorney with the county of San Diego. We have met and talked to one another on one earlier occasion, have we not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you sometimes known to your friends as Jack Quinn?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You don’t have to call me sir . Just relax. All you have to do is answer the questions truthfully and we’ll get you out of here as quickly as we can.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry,” he says.

Several of the jurors are smiling.

“That’s okay, we all understand. It’s natural to be a little bit nervous. Let me ask you, Mr. Quinn, are you a member of the United States military?”

The witness shakes his head. “Not at the present time. No, sir.”

“But were you at one time a member of the United States Army?”

“Yes, sir.” The witness blushes, shrugs his shoulders.

“That’s all right. Old habits are hard to break,” says Templeton. “If it makes it any easier for you, you can just go ahead and keep on pretending I’m a sir.”

The jury laughs.

“Mr. Quinn, can you tell the jury what type of work you did when you were in the Army?”

“I was in the infantry, Army Rangers.”