David Kessler - No Way Out

“You’ve been served.”

The bailiff was such a battle-hardy and seasoned veteran of this kind of mundane leg-work that she didn’t usually pay attention to the recipient’s reaction to being served with a subpoena or court order. The only thing she was on guard against was the possibility of the recipient becoming violent. In this case, Johnson’s slight frame and meek manner precluded that danger. But still, she noticed that even before Johnson opened the envelope, he already looked afraid.

The hotel room was in semi-darkness, the light coming from a floor lamp. Andi was sitting on the couch working at on her laptop computer. It had been a frustrating day, culminating in the judge postponing her decision on the dismissal motion. Now they had to wait till tomorrow to get the source code.

And there was no guarantee that they would get it. LegalSoft would almost certainly file an appeal. Whether the appeal court would agree to here it was another matter. But if they did then they would grant a stay and set a date for a hearing with all parties present. That could drag the matter out for another week. The best thing they could hope for was that the appeal court would refuse to hear the appeal or grant a stay and the company would have to hand it over by tomorrow morning at ten. The trouble was that hope was all they could do. They certainly couldn’t count on it.

Of course the defense could also go on the offense and file an interim appeal against the court’s refusal to grant their dismissal motion based on what they had already found out. But there was no guarantee that such an appeal would be granted — the judge’s reasoning regarding the intent-based test was legally sound. Besides, it was premature. It was just that even waiting till ten O’clock tomorrow was maddeningly frustrating for Andi.

In the meantime, tonight, she just wanted to unwind and forget about it. So she logged on to her Internet account and downloaded her E-mail. There were several messages from her Internet friends from Europe and the Far East. But there was also one that struck fear into her heart yet again when she saw the name: Lannosea:

So your dirty little plan to get that rapist shit-bag off on a technicality didn’t work? And that leaves you back at square one, you cheap little cunt. That’s what your sisters think of you, you know. That’s really all you are! You didn’t really think you’d away with it did you? By the way, I was the one who changed the software to keep the niggers off juries. And if you try and fuck with me bitch, you’ll be fucking with the wrong woman. You understand?

Lannosea

The language was getting more vitriolic. This person was angry. But who was it? The name Lannosea — and her reasoning about it being another of Claymore’s victims — suggested that it was a woman. But the language was what one would expect of an ultra-misogynistic man.

And how did Lannosea knew about her attempt to get Claymore off “on a technicality?” How many people knew about that? And which of them could be doing this? Which of them might say something indiscrete to let other people know?

She couldn’t think. Her head just wasn’t clear enough. She needed help; she knew that now. She reached for the phone and called David Sedaka. He knew about computers and the internet. He could help her. And she could trust him, she knew that.

“Hi listen David, it’s Andi here… Andi Phoenix… fine, how are you… good… listen I need your help, that is, I’d like your help… if you think it’s something you can do. But you must keep this completely secret from everyone, at least for the time being.”

Over the next few minutes, they set up a plan to try and trace the person sending the messages. It started with her copying the messages she had already received to him, including the full internet header. This showed the path that the messages had taken over the internet. It couldn’t trace the message all the way to its source. But it might just lead them back to the service provider for the place where the messages were sent from. This would probably be something like an internet cafe. But at least it was a start.

The next thing she had to do was give David direct access to her internet account. This entailed a loss of privacy. But he hade it clear that this was something she would have to do if she wanted the person caught.

There was a knock on the door, shaking Andi out of her concentration. Andi looked up.

“Who is it?”

“Your lover.”

Andi tossed the laptop aside, raced to the door and opened it.

“You were supposed to be going back to LA,” said Andi as Gene stepped forward.

“You sound disappointed,” Gene replied, encircling Andi’s waist with her arms.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to,” Andi replied, sliding her hands up Gene’s arms and interlocking her fingers behind her lover’s neck.

“I couldn’t stay away from you babe.”

Gene was about to kiss her when Andi turned away.

“But don’t they need you back at the rape crisis center.”

Gene looked long and hard into Andi’s eyes and tightened her grip around her, emphasizing that she was a prisoner in her arms.

“They need me all right. But right now I need you more… and I think you need me to.”

There was a questioning tone in Gene’s words, and Andi felt a slight, barely perceptible, slackening of Gene’s grip — as if Gene too needed reassurance.

“Of course I need you.”

There was a few seconds of hesitation and then their arms encircled one another and their lips met in a tender but hesitant kiss.

David Sedaka was at his desk in his office at the Old Le Conte Hall when he got a phone call from his father.

“Hi dad.”

“Busy?”

“I’m always busy,” said David, looking around his cluttered office in the Le Conte Hall.

“We’ve got the source code.”

“Great! Send it over!”

“Can you look at it right away?”

“Like I promised.”

Barely a minute later, David had downloaded the source code and was opening it in a word processing program on his Linux-based system. Then it was a simple of matter of selecting the “Compare with” option and selecting the file in which he had stored the decompiled version of the program. The difference were highlighted in red, with a line through the deletions and an underline beneath the insertions.

As soon as he scrolled down, he could see that he was right. The original source code version correctly removed the duplicates from the combined temporary database before selecting the panel. For that reason it had a large area for the temporary database, but a small area for the array that held the names and details of the venire panel. But on the decompiled version this was reversed. The array had been deliberately enlarged to allow for the theoretical possibility that all the names would be duplicated. And the removal of duplicates took place after the panel selection was made, with the address pointer for the program redirected to the jury panel array instead of the temporary database.

And that could only mean one thing: this program had been deliberately tampered with! Some one had evidently modified the source code and then recompiled the program and distributed the modified version.

But how could they do that? How could they get the Court Service in many counties to accept the modified version of the program? Could it have been an inside job? Some one within the company?

That would explain how they obtained access to the software — and also might explain how they had managed to get the Court Services to accept it.