Fault Line (18 page)

Guys, Alex started to say, but Sarah cut him off.

Tell me then, she said. What kind of service do you perform?

I just keep people like you safe, that's all. It's nothing important, really.

She caught that. Keeping her safe wasn't important. How, then? All you've told me is what you don't do.

He paused as though considering. I neutralize threats so lawyers can go on earning big bucks and swilling overpriced lattes. It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it.

He wasn't just showing her condescension, she realized. Condescension was what was he was intentionally showing her. Beneath that, implicit, was an entire worldview in which people like Ben were martyrs and people like Sarah were yuppie sheep, ingrates, whatever. Play to that, she thought, knowing she was being immature and possibly even dangerously foolish, but too fascinated to see what would happen to stop herself.

How noble of you. What sorts of threats, though? And how do you neutralize them? It all must be very dangerous. She didn't hold back on a single iota of the contempt she felt.

Various, Ben said. His expression was still neutral, even bored, but there was something in his eyes-engagement? resentment? anger?- that made her feel she was getting to him. Mostly Axis of Evil types. Iraqis, once upon a time. North Koreans. There was a pause, then, Iranians.

Iranians, she said, feeling her face go hot. They must be the most evil of all.

Hard to trust, he said, chewing his gum. You never know what they're up to.

Well, I'm glad you two are getting along so well, Alex said. That ought to make our job of staying alive for another day much easier.

Damn it, he was right. She was playing an idiot's game, and what did that make her?

Wait a minute, she said. Do we have any remaining records of the Obsidian source code?

Alex shook his head. I don't think so. They got everything, even the application in PAIR.

Shit, she said.

Ben looked at her. What?

If we had the source code, she said, we could have published it.

Of course, Alex said. SourceForge, or Slashdot-

Not just the tech sites, Sarah said. We could have written to every political blog out there-Talking Points Memo, Unclaimed Territory, No Comment, Balloon Juice, Hullabaloo, the Daily Dish, Firedoglake. We could have documented the people who were killed, the break-in at your house-

That's why they moved so fast after they blew their shot at Alex, Ben said. They had to eliminate any chance you might have gone public. This whole thing is about keeping the invention secret.

That's what the government does, Sarah said. Bottle things up. Information wants to be free. The government wants to control it.

Alex sighed. Yeah, well, without the source code, we can't free anything. We'd sound like a couple of crackpots peddling a conspiracy theory.

Sure, Ben said. And then eventually, when you turned up dead anyway, assuming anyone even noticed when it happened, there would be no proof. No proof, no story. The main thing is, the invention would still be secret.

They were quiet for a moment. Ben looked at Alex. You must know something, he said. Otherwise they would have just killed you and vacuumed up the documents right after. But they didn't. They wanted information from you first. What was it?

How should I know?

What do you know? What could they have suspected you know?

I don't know.

Think. They knew all about your firm's filing system, electronic and hard copy. They knew which lawyers were working on the case. They knew about PAIR, and how to access it. These are all quantifiable, procedural things. Formal things. Systems. What would have unnerved them is the possibility of something idiosyncratic, something outside the system, something hard to predict. What would that be? What would they be afraid they were missing? A personal laptop? An unofficial backup file? Do you have anything like that?

Yes! Alex said. Hilzoy used to leave a backup of the latest version with my secretary whenever he visited the office. Catastrophe insurance, keeping a copy in a remote location. It's on my laptop now. I've been playing around with it.

That's exactly the kind of thing they were afraid they might miss, Ben said. Exactly what they were planning to grill you for. Does it have the source code on it?

No, it's just executable, Alex said. It's like a software program you would buy in a store. And Hilzoy's notes.

Well, can you reverse-engineer it? Ben asked.

No, Sarah said. I mean, maybe theoretically you could, but practically speaking, no.

No backups of the source code? Ben asked.

Alex shook his head. They got all of them.

Well, what would happen if you posted the executable version?

Alex shrugged. I don't think it would give us a lot of credibility. On the surface, it's just a slick way of encrypting data. Since Hilzoy died, I've been experimenting with it and I can't find anything about it that would be worth killing for. So posting it as proof of some kind of conspiracy would just get us a big yawn.

They were quiet for a moment. Well, Sarah said, what are we supposed to do now?

I see three possibilities, Ben said.

Alex and Sarah looked at him.

First, Ben said, you could do nothing. It's possible whoever is behind all this feels the risk/reward ratio has changed. They've vacuumed up the source code. They've deleted the invention from PAIR. They've eliminated the inventor and the patent guy. And they don't know about the backup disc, although it was the kind of possibility they were trying to foreclose. They might feel comfortable enough at this point to stand down.

How likely is that? Alex asked.

I wouldn't say very, Ben said. They started this op going after people. Doing so involved a lot of logistics and a lot of risk. That suggests the people aspect of their op is important to them. What you did at your house forced them to change the sequence of the op, but it doesn't change the value of the targets.

And now I've had time to discover the missing paperwork, Alex said, and the other missing items. To put together pieces. Meaning if there was some kind of backup they missed

Ben nodded, then inclined his head toward Sarah. Exactly. Also, they might have let her live because she wasn't important enough to kill. But now they have to figure that you could have warned her about what's going on. You know more now than you did before. They might reassess her threat level as a result.

Sarah tried to control her irritation at the way he was discussing a threat to her life as though she wasn't even in the room. Well, possibility one doesn't sound very promising, she said. What's the second possibility?

The second possibility is that you come up with a meaningful explanation of what makes Obsidian worth killing for. You'll be a step closer then to knowing who's doing the killing.

I've tried, Alex said. I couldn't find anything.

Who's threatened by it? Ben said. Or who stands to gain? Existing security software companies?

Sarah chuckled. You mean software companies are killing people? Please.

Ben looked at her. Please what? Please don't tell you anything that might save your life at the cost of puncturing your little bubble of naA vetE?

Come on, Ben, Alex said. Companies don't kill people.

And you're basing that conclusion on what evidence?

What about the government? Sarah said. Maybe the NSA doesn't want networks to be more secure than they already are.

Ben chuckled. I really don't think the NSA-

What, you don't think the NSA would kill people? And I'm the one living in a bubble? I bet you don't think the president would arrest an American citizen on American soil and hold him without granting him access to an attorney or charging him with a crime or otherwise adhering to constitutional requirements. I bet you don't think the government would wiretap Americans without a warrant, either. I bet you don't think-

You don't know the first fucking thing about what I think.

-that the government would cook up intelligence to start a war. I bet you don't think the government is run by people who've gotten as far as they have in politics by learning to rationalize all kinds of corruption, in the name of the greater good. Are you telling me these things don't go on, every single day?

She stopped, breathing a little hard. She hadn't meant to make a speech. But she'd gotten through to him. That little f-bomb wasn't part of the control curriculum, was it?

You know what? he said. If a few laws need to get bent to save lives, they get bent. That's just the way it is.

Yeah? Who determines which laws get bent? And how much? If you can break some laws, why not others? Where does it stop? What does the law even mean?

Here's an idea for you, he said, chewing his gum lazily. Instead of blaming America first for everything that bugs you, why don't you consider some other possibilities? If it's not too much of a strain.

Like who?

How about the mullahs in Tehran, for a start? You wouldn't believe the shit they're up to.

Sarah knew he was baiting her again and tried to stay cool. She wanted to say, I'm American, you fucking racist, and I hate the mullahs, but knew that's what he wanted, he wanted to make her angry. After that, he would tell her she was just being emotional, adding sexism to the list of qualities she already loathed him for.

Absolutely, she said, channeling her anger into sarcasm. Let's make sure Iran is on the list. After all, every country with a GDP the size of Finland's is a grave threat to our national security. I mean, did you see it on the news? Two Iranian nuclear scientists were assassinated last week in Istanbul.

Really? Ben said. I must have missed it.

Yes, and their bodyguards, too. Even though we have a law-Executive Order 12333-that prohibits assassination.

Ben shrugged. What can you do? Iran has a lot of enemies.

Sure, and maybe we subcontracted the job to one of them, just like we used to subcontract torture to get around our laws against that. Until we started doing it ourselves. You see what happens when it's okay to break the law a little? It starts getting broken a lot.

I admire your idealism, Ben said, with a paternalistic smile that made her want to punch him.

Alex said, You mentioned a third possibility. What is it?

A moment went by while Ben examined a cuticle. Then he said, You don't want to know about that one. It's the one that doesn't have a happy ending. And right now, it's looking the most likely. I get the feeling you two are going to keep your heads in the sand until someone shoots your asses off.

How could he talk that way about his own brother? How could he care so little? Was it an act? After all, he was here, that must mean something.

What about the police? she said.

Ben looked at her. What about them?

We could tell them about the missing files.

Sure you could. What do you expect they would do at that point?

I don't know. Recognize something really is going on here, just like we have. Devote additional resources. Protect us, maybe.

Ben shrugged. Well sure, then do it.

She glared at him. She wanted to slap that insouciance right off his face.

Okay, she said after seething for a moment, tell me what I'm missing.

Ben sighed. You're not looking at things from the other side's perspective. Here, the other side is the police. Alex already ran his conspiracy theory past them, isn't that right, Alex?

Well, I wouldn't call it that, Alex said. And anyway, that was before-

Before what? Before you claimed some files went missing? They'll think it's a stunt. They'll think you're trying to find a way to be taken seriously. They'll start to take a very close look at you in a way you do not want to be looked at.

But my files are missing, too, Sarah said.

Right. They'll think Alex took them so you would corroborate his claim.

They wouldn't think that, she said, realizing she sounded petulant. She just didn't want him to be right.

How many police do you know? Ben asked. Do you know how they spend their time, how they look at the world? Let me tell you what a San Jose homicide detective is focused on. Gangs. Teenagers dead of gunshot wounds. Witnesses afraid to cooperate. Trying to keep a lid on all that. That's his world. The shit you've gotten mixed up in? That's what he goes to the movies to see. That's as real as he thinks this kind of thing is. And even if he did believe you, what then? What do you think-you're going to get a protective detail from the San Jose police?

Damn it, he was right. But

Someone took those files from our offices, Sarah said. How did they get in?

I can think of several ways, Ben said. Why?

Alex sat forward in his chair. Right-the key cards. They're all individually encoded. So if you wanted to, you can tell who's been coming and going, and when.

Ben shook his head. Even if they had help on the inside, you're not going to find out who with a key card.