Decency (34 page)

“Yeah, we’ll make a transcript of it and redact the names. As we go along, we’ll probably find other things like that we need to watch out for. Okay, let’s go get the Richardsons.”

After the Richardsons’ papers were done and Jannie left, Kelly and Bonnie stormed non-stop through the typing, revising, printing and re-revising that accompanies every significant federal court motion. At just after 5:30 a.m., they finished the motion and legal memorandum in support of it, requesting the court on an emergency basis to prohibit disclosure of the identity of three witnesses to anyone except, if the court should find it necessary, to a specific representative of the Attorney General.

The memorandum in support of the motion ran to forty seven pages, just under the maximum fifty. They attached an index, the John Doe affidavits, the affidavits of Kathy and Harlan Pierce filed with the original suit papers, transcript of the Fitzgerald to Hawkins audio tape, and a certificate by Kelly describing the video tape instead of the tape itself. Altogether, the papers totaled one hundred and twenty seven pages.

Then they copied the package and tabbed the original and the copies according to the index.

Finally, after 8:00 a.m., they fanned out the deliveries. They send a courier to the court and the U.S. Attorney’s office in Baltimore. Kelly took a copy to the Attorney General’s office in Main Justice and one to Senator Charboneaux’s Russell Building office. Bonnie took a copy to the NSA headquarters and called Angela Bonafacio from the reception desk. At Kelly’s request Angela personally picked up the copy from Bonnie’s own hand at the visitor control desk.

Kelly went home and, the last thing before falling asleep, called Judge Reichardt’s chambers to alert them to the request, the emergency nature of it, and gave Carly Bennett her cell phone number to call to set up the hearing at the earliest opening on the Judge’s calendar.

The papers accused Theodore Fitzgerald, Special Agent of the FBI, of espionage and violation of Samantha Pierce’s constitutional rights under the 5th Amendment to life and liberty, and suggested the unmistakable inference that he murdered her.

The “private” line to the Director of the National Security Agency rang. It was a regular telephone line the number to which was limited in distribution.

The Director answered, “This is General McKenna.”

“Good mornin,’ General McKenna! How y’all doin’?”

“Good morning Senator, it’s always a pleasure to hear from you.”

“General, we have a problem. I have a copy of an emergency hearing motion in the Pierce case. Do you know about it?”

“Yes, I do, Senator. I was briefed by the general counsel a few minutes ago. We have a team forming as we speak to assess it. Give me half an hour to call you back?”

“You got it, sir. In the meantime, I’m callin’ the Attorney General.”

“Very well, Senator.”

The Attorney General’s private line rang.

He answered, “John Corrigan, here.”

“John,
c’est Jean
.”

“How are you, Senator Charboneaux?”

“We been bettah, my friend. Do you know about an emergency protective order motion filed in the NSA case in Baltimore?”

“Just did learn.”

“I called Chet McKenna. He’s forming a team and calling me back.”

“I have the FBI Director Johnson and key folks headed this way. We should conference on a secure line when McKenna calls.”

“Good.”

John Barrett trotted into Angela Bonafacio’s office carrying a copy of the motion already studded with post-it notes and closed the door. Since receiving the motion he had trotted everywhere he went. He was not the only one. Copies of the motion were concatenating throughout the NSA and the Justice Department.

“Angela, I have a meeting with the Director in twenty minutes. Have you finished?”

“Almost.”

“What do you see so far?”

“This is astounding. If it is solid, there is going to be hell to pay. The legal arguments are novel. But I don’t think they’re unsound. They certainly came up with a ton of facts. If I was the judge, I would listen.”

“When I looked at it I didn’t see any hard proof that Fitzgerald is a mole. Even if you believe every word, we have nothing except Samantha Pierce’s word. If you don’t believe her, you could argue she made the whole thing up.”

“Agreed, except Fitzgerald’s reaction yesterday corroborates her.”

“Okay. Come and get me if you find anything you think you should tell me.”

Barrett left and took the elevator to the ground floor, exited and walked a long corridor to the restricted access elevator, punched in his code, entered and descended to the most secure portion of the NSA headquarters. He entered the facilities housing the Analysis division. These were the people who could make the computers pull intercepts by any combination of symbols.

The head of Analysis, Michael Parkinson, was there, huddled with three of his branch chiefs over a copy of the motion. Parkinson was a tall, balding, bespeckled, horse of man, generally regarded as the single most intelligent individual in the entire agency. Trained as a mathematician, he had taught himself how to perform any job in the agency other than translation of languages.

Barrett checked his watch. “Mike, we have fourteen minutes. Do you have anything showing Fitzgerald as a spy?”

“Bottom line, no. But, so far we have thirty seven hits on ‘Green Lilly’ in any combination with ‘China,’ or ‘Fitzgerald,’ ninety three more if you add ‘Waddell,’ ‘Foley,’ ‘Mason,’ ‘Richardson,’ or ‘Pierce,’ and a wild card for any other name. We’re printing transcripts.”

“How many are U.S. to China or China to U.S.?”

“In the first group, twenty one. In the second, forty two.”

“That many?”

“Yeah, he apparently used a lot of transmissions even for dead drop delivered material.”

“Any hard connection to Chinese authorities?”

“Won’t know for another…” Parkinson checked his watch. “…maybe three minutes.”

The group waited. Each of them counting the seconds.

Parkinson donned his jacket. He and Barrett would have to begin the trek to the Director’s office immediately when the three minutes elapsed in order to make it on time.

At three minutes and six seconds, the report printed.

There was only one recorded intercept of Fitzgerald communicating directly with Chinese authorities. None for Green Lilly.

Parkinson’s fingers flashed across the keyboard. The intercept came up on one of the several monitors. Fitzgerald was thanking the Chinese embassy for a wonderful party in honor of Chinese New Year.

Parkinson turned to his branch chiefs.

“Okay folks, keep at it.”

He and Barrett headed off in the direction of the elevator.

“John, they may yet find something. They’ll keep changing the criteria until they exhaust the permutations.”

“Likelihood?”

“Maybe…twenty three percent.”

“Looks like it’s the Director’s call to make.”

The Director’s conference room, like many of the work spaces at NSA, was a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, a “SCIF,” pronounced “skiff.” It was also equipped with additional detection, countermeasure, and surveillance devices, making it a SCIF within a SCIF. No one and nothing, not a person, thing, or electric impulse went in or came out without identification and assessment.

All of the relevant Division Chiefs of the segments of Operations, plus Parkinson from Analysis, Barrett, Personnel, IG and Security were present waiting for the Director. The unneeded portions of the senior staff, Maintenance, Logistics, Comptroller and other offices were not invited and were unrepresented.

They stood when the Director, General McKenna entered.

“Please be seated, folks. Any luck?”

The meeting attendees had been directed to address one question, what was the specific evidence of acts of espionage by Fitzgerald on behalf of China?

The Director looked at each member starting on his left.

Each in turn answered with a clear, “No.”

“All right. Mike, what’s the probability Analysis will find something in what we have now?”

“About twenty three percent, no more than twenty seven, sir.”

“Pretty low. All right. Ops and legal, stay. Everyone else, get back to it and update me immediately with any change. Thanks for your hard work.”