by D. R. Bell
She’d always thought that love would strike her like a bullet, that she would know instantly that he was “the one.” She had a picture in her head of her future family having a summer dinner in the garden of their house, but the faces of her husband and two children were never well defined. Sometimes she thought she desperately wanted to be in love and not care whether it was equal or not, but she didn’t really know how to get from here to there. What was separating her from others? Was it her secret, her nightmare? Could she promise somebody—anybody—that she wouldn’t run away?
Her social life did not include many campus clubs, she wasn’t much of a joiner. In the beginning, when she had just moved to LA, she’d tried a few: a literary club, one of women’s clubs. After a while she ran into disagreements with her clubs’ fellows: she didn’t feel gender-discriminated, she didn’t care about affirmative action, she didn’t want to march against oppression. The end of Maggie’s club participation came when the head of the literary club accused her of being “not sufficiently compassionate about economic equality for all people.” When Maggie responded that the constitution does not promise economic equality and that in her homeland economic equality experiments ended rather badly, they suggested she find a different group. In the campus land of compassionate correctness Maggie was an alien, literally and figuratively.
When she first met David, she took pity on him; he was so beaten up and lost. She could never be attracted to someone she pitied. But she also meant what she said about praying for him to come during those three horrible days with “Mr. Chao.” There was something special about him going with only a small thumb-drive against a bunch of armed agents. She marveled at his courage, even if it was not particularly smart. She wondered whether any of her “cool” friends could have done that—and concluded that none would have even tried. Being “cool” usually meant looking out for number one, making your own rules, figuring out how to get ahead. Not having beliefs or people to die for.
It was not only at the lake. When Petr ambushed them and threatened to shoot her, she felt how his body, on the couch next to her, tensed. He was going to jump Petr. They never talked about it, but she knew. The thought of him so brazenly putting his life on the line for her overwhelmed her at times. That made her feel weak and now, when the raw emotion of being kidnapped and waiting to be killed had subsided, it paradoxically made her cranky toward David. The events of the past few days pushed her to the point of hysteria, and she did not like the feeling.
But then she thought of the touch of his hand against her skin, his mouth exploring her stomach, moving lower, her body responding. Her hands on his back, pressing him deeper. She shook her head to push away the sensation. There was some form of protective shell he had, a moat around his castle, a screen that she couldn’t penetrate.
She looked at him quietly sleeping. There were lines around his eyes that she had not seen before. Maggie stretched. She’d have to figure this out in a due course, but for now her goal was to go back to being Margarita Sappin and she needed his help to get there. And she needed to do it quickly, because the longer she was Alena Brockman, the more difficult it was going to be to come back. She’d have to make an effort to be nicer to David. She gently woke him up.
Saturday, 4/30/2022, 8:18 a.m. CDT
After showering, they went downstairs for a quick breakfast. David was tired; he’d stayed up late last night. When they came back from dinner, both silently went to their computers. David had set them up with multiple proxy services to be used for web surfing and for any e-mail communication.
David checked his e-mail. On the e-mail address provided by Javier there was a brief message from Oleg that he was doing well and giving them his new e-mail and phone contact. On David’s personal e-mail there was a message from his boss at Space Systems, telling him he’d been gone for a week now and that he needed to check his work e-mail. David sent a response that he was still tied up with the family emergency, and that he unfortunately did not have access to his work e-mail at the moment. There was no point in explaining that he could not access the work e-mail without his work computer, and said computer had been stolen by the Chinese intelligence service and was possibly being taken apart in some Beijing laboratory. David thought he’d now be RIF’d for sure, but this had moved much lower on his list of priorities.
That was when Maggie exclaimed, “Interesting!”
“What?” David asked.
“Turns out that Suzy Yamamoto, Williams’s senior advisor, had worked at CFTC from 2010 to 2015.”
“That means she overlapped with Schulmann there for about two years?”
“Exactly. They probably knew each other.”
David looked at Maggie without seeing her, his mind in overdrive. Keep it simple. Here’s a connection. If Yamamoto was Schulmann’s “backup,” that would explain why the file was not released. Not a certainty, but a possibility, a lead. Thanks to Androssian, he knew what to search for; he just needed the tools.
David contacted his Purdue classmate Mohun Biswan. Mohun was a great programmer who had zero discipline. He could not fit into any organization, so he freelanced for various companies, mostly testing their security. David had stayed in touch with him and gotten Mohun a few paying gigs. Now David was interested in recovering files that may have been deleted up to two years prior. He got from Mohun an “extra strength” data recovery program. (“It blows any commercial software out of the water,” claimed the hacker. “It will search for even small fragments, anything that can possibly survive erasure.”)
David also discussed with Mohun various approaches to controlling dissemination of files stored on multiple distributed servers. Mohun chuckled with an emoticon, “David, have you gone to the dark side?”
David laughed it off, claiming to be investigating a case of industrial espionage. Mohun even suggested using a virus to infect thousands of computers that would release the information based on their time code, but David thought this was going a bridge too far. Instead, he configured a network of remote servers paid for through a PayPal account.
By the time he was done, it was well past midnight. Maggie was still awake. He was apprehensive and guilty over making her feel bad at dinner and started setting up on the couch thinking she didn’t want him anywhere near, but that seemed to make her angry, so he moved to bed. Both were tired and quickly fell asleep.
But this morning she appeared to be in a better mood.
Maggie’s phone rang. “Hello? Yes, John. We can be ready quickly. No need to send a car. Give me your address.”
After hanging up, she turned to David. “He wants us to check out of the hotel and come over to his house. He said he’ll explain everything there.”
They dropped off the keys and fetched the car. Maggie took care to dress in a cream linen blouse, knee length dark skirt, and black shoes with heels. That was the closest in her limited wardrobe to a business look. She programmed the address in the University Park suburb into her smartphone and projected directions for David into a corner of the windshield. For both of them this was their first time in Texas, so there was some novelty even in the short twenty-minute drive.
Dallas looked like a quintessential large American city, a continuous metropolis anchored by a dense collection of business towers and sports arenas in the center surrounded by miles and miles of suburbs, all interconnected by wide freeways. It was getting hot even though it was still early. On downtown streets there were homeless people wandering around, some still sleeping. But less so than in LA. Perhaps the city was doing better, or the police were stricter, or else the weather played a role. They drove out of the city’s downtown core and through an area where most of the houses looked large and spacious with well-manicured lawns.
Next to a freeway, there was a giant billboard of a man confidently looking forward and proclaiming that the best days of Texas lie ahead, with smaller figures of smiling men, women, and children behind him.
Saturday, 4/30/2022, 10:12 a.m. CDT
Not surprisingly, Pratt’s house was a mansion. They drove up a wide circular driveway with a fountain and flower garden in the center. Steps led to a Georgian-style house with a tall portico framed by white columns and symmetrical tall windows on both sides. Solid red brick walls were accentuated by white colors of multi-grid windows. There was a large garage on one side and a tennis court on the other.
A pretty young woman met them at the entrance, introducing herself as Cathy, Mr. Platt’s secretary. When David asked her if she usually worked on the weekends, she laughed and said, “Not usually, but this is a busy weekend.” Cathy had a newspaper in her hand. Recognizing David’s surprised look, she offered, “Dallas is one of the few metro areas remaining with a paper version of a major newspaper. John likes to read it the old-fashioned way. Tradition.”
Cathy showed them to the study, where John Platt was waiting for them at a small round table, and then excused herself.
Platt went straight to business. “Turns out Ms. Yamamoto and Jonathan possibly knew each other from before.”
“Yes, we figured that out,” said Maggie.
Platt smiled. “Mrs. Brockman, perhaps after this is over, we should talk about you coming to work for Southwest Oil and Gas. I could use more women that hold their own in a traditionally men’s world of energy exploration.”
Maggie blushed but said nothing.
Platt continued. “Cathy and I have not been able to find earlier connections between Jonathan and other members of Mitchell’s staff, but of course that does not mean there were none. Still, Williams and Yamamoto seem to be our best starting points. The Williams family stayed in Austin. I spoke with Jenny, Mitchell’s widow, this morning. I have known her almost as long as I’ve known Mitchell. She agreed to meet with us today.”
“Us?” Maggie said.
“Yes, us.” Platt’s voice had an edge to it. “Both Jonathan and Mitchell were my friends. Also, I think you will benefit from me being there. To these people you are just two strangers off the street. Now, I have met Suzy Yamamoto, but I did not know her well. She is survived by a husband and two children. They now reside in San Antonio. The husband has agreed to meet with us this afternoon. I’m sorry to push things so fast, but it’s easier for them to meet on the weekend. Plus, I need to be in Japan Sunday evening, so I will have to take off from San Antonio tonight. I was hoping to at least be able to facilitate the initial exchange. We’ll have to leave for Austin soon. I understand that you like your independence, but it really would make so much more sense for you to come with me on my Gulfstream. I would appreciate if you’d let me do this.”
“OK,” Maggie grudgingly agreed.
“Thank you. Cathy will make arrangements for your transportation and hotel. One more thing. I spoke with a friend of mine who runs the FBI office here. He checked which agents were looking into Jonathan’s death. One of them was William Tokley. As a favor to my friend, Mr. Tokley will speak with us. Please understand that this is indeed a big favor, and we should not mention this to anyone else.”
“When is he going to talk to us?” David asked.
“We are supposed to call him at 11:45 a.m. Eastern Time, which is just about now.”
Platt looked at the paper in front of him and punched numbers into the speakerphone on the table. After a couple of rings, a gruff voice said, “Hello?”
“Mr. Tokley?”
“Yes.”
“My name is John Platt. Jim Brobak told you about me calling.”
“Yes, he did. You understand that this is highly irregular?”
“I do, and I very much appreciate you talking to us. I am here with two of my associates and what you tell us stays with us, your name won’t be mentioned.”
“OK. You have fifteen minutes. What do you want to know?”
“You investigated the death of Jonathan Schulmann in 2020?”
“Yes, my partner and I did for about three weeks. Why do you ask?”
“Jonathan was a friend of mine, and I’d like to better understand the circumstances around his death.”
“Why? You don’t believe the official version that he was an innocent bystander in the Williams assassination?”
“Do you?”
“I stick to the facts and to my assignments. Doesn’t matter what I believe or not.”
“Can you tell us what you found out?”
“From the very beginning Schulmann was treated as a collateral damage. Just to be proper, they assigned the two of us to look into it, but it was kind of pro forma. Schulmann indeed had a meeting scheduled with the Philadelphia Fed office, so he had a reason to be there.”
“Was he in the room with Williams when the bomb went off?”
“Possibly, but there was no way to tell for sure. Remember, that explosion collapsed a big chunk of the building, killed twenty-two people, and wounded hundreds. Schulmann’s hotel room was a floor above and almost exactly over Williams’s suite. We could not determine whether they were meeting or not.”
“Did you find out anything about the work that Schulmann did?”
“We went to SEC. It seemed like he was a lone wolf for some time, working largely by himself. We never found his computer; we looked into the files that were on the server, did not know how to analyze them. So we started checking into payments he was making, and tracked most of the invoices down to one consultant.”
“Who was that?”
“His name was Peter Marchuk. He was some kind of computer whiz, designed trading algorithms, specialist in ‘big data.’ But in 2018 he, together with a group of others, was convicted of insider trading. The rest went to jail, but he somehow got probation. He’d been working with Schulmann. Judging by invoices, it was occasional until the early 2020, when it became pretty much a full-time job for Marchuk.”
“Did you talk to Marchuk?”
“Would’ve loved to, but on the morning of September 10th his house in New Jersey blew up. Gas leak. Marchuk died, the house and everything in it destroyed in the fire.”
“September 10th? Isn’t that the day that Williams was killed?”
“Yes, an amazing coincidence.”
“You think there was a connection?”
“As I said, it does not matter what I think. You can believe it was a coincidence. We traveled to Phoenix to see Schulmann’s sister, but she didn’t know anything.”
“And then what happened?”
“After three weeks, we were called in. We had no tangible evidence linking Schulmann to Williams, so Schulmann was judged to be a collateral damage, and we were reassigned to another case.”
“Did you or anyone in the FBI continue working on the Schulmann’s case?”
“Not as far as I know. We’d been told to drop it. The official line was clear—the bomb targeted Williams, everyone else was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And that’s all she wrote; there is nothing else to tell. I have to go.”
After Tokley hung up, Maggie asked David, “What do you know about ‘big data’?”
“Just enough to be dangerous,” David answered. “Big data is the process of analyzing large amounts of data to uncover hidden patterns and correlations. The expression became popular about ten years ago. It was an extension of earlier efforts in artificial intelligence, business intelligence, data mining. The idea was that companies would be able to make better business decisions by examining huge volumes of data from all kinds of sources. Kind of like sorting through tons of garbage and finding a few pearls.”
Platt commented. “In our company we do analyze large volumes of data we collect in order to decide where to drill for oil or gas, but it remains to some degree hit or miss. You still need specialists to look at the information.”
“Yes, that’s what happened. After the initial marketing hype, companies discovered that they were not getting sufficient return on their investment. It was similar to what happened with artificial intelligence and expert systems: the difficulties were underestimated; pure machine processing
resulted in largely a ‘garbage in, garbage out’ outcome where the information derived was not worth the effort. Costs of integrating big data technologies into existing data warehousing structures were high. One still required internal skills and expensive experts. Big data evolved into more specialized applications for particular fields. Some of the technologies, especially databases for processing big data sets, survived and are in use now.”
Maggie shook her head. “So to translate this from computer-ese into English, it seems that to succeed one has to combine a good subject matter expert with a technical expert. Schulmann and Marchuk may have been such a combination.”
Platt called in Cathy. “Would you look up for us a man by the name of Peter Marchuk, died September 10, 2020?” He turned to David and Maggie. “I’d like for you to join me and my family for an early lunch, and then we’ll go see Jenny Williams.”
Saturday, 4/30/2022, 12:15 p.m. CDT
They were in a limo, having just finished a quick but somewhat formal lunch. John introduced them to his wife Liz and their two teenage kids, Joshua and Tracy. The older son was in college. Conversation was somewhat strained. John clearly did not want to involve his family in the subject of Schulmann’s files. John told them not to worry about the rental car; it would be returned.
