Against All Enemies ps-4

by John G. Hemry

  Nguyen nodded. "At the time the investigation began, your period of command of the USS Michaelson was growing short. I understand your change of command will be later today. Did you feel any pressure, internal or external, to resolve this matter quickly enough that it wouldn't be passed on to your successor in command?"

  Hayes looked briefly weary, as if the burdens of his last two years had been brought to the fore by the question. "Captain Nguyen, as I'm sure you're aware, no commanding officer wants to pass on unresolved issues to his or her successor. Especially an issue of this magnitude. But at every decision point I realized that if I did not resolve it properly, then I wouldn't have resolved it at all. Telling my successor that I'd caught the right individual if in fact that person was still running free wouldn't have been doing him any favors. In fact, it'd be undermining him in a very critical way. That's a long way of saying I knew I had to resolve it right."

  Captain Nguyen nodded again. "Thank you. Do any of the other members have questions?"

  "I do, ma'am," Commander Sriracha stated. "Captain, you assigned Lieutenant Pullman to take over the Communications Division. This is a job which specifically deals with much of the classified material flowing into the ship, especially the most urgent material. Did you assign Lieutenant Pullman to this position because of a particular belief in his trustworthiness?

  "No, Commander. I honestly can't say that. I had a division officer's job coming open, Lieutenant Pullman's record indicated he should've been competent to do it, and there was no reason to doubt his trustworthiness. No reason at that time, that is."

  "Still, Captain, you could have assigned Lieutenant Pullman to a less sensitive position. In engineering, perhaps."

  Captain Hayes frowned and shook his head. "I could've, but even though a job in engineering might be less sensitive in the sense of less exposure to classified material, it's still a position requiring great faith in the trustworthiness of the officer. I don't have any jobs on my ship that don't require me to trust their occupants. You know that."

  Commander Sriracha smiled. "Yes, sir, I do. I just wondered how you'd express it. Thank you, sir."

  "Captain?" Lieutenant Kilgary asked. "I'm assuming from what's been said that there's no indication Lieutenant Pullman attempted to communicate anything to the South Asians during or immediately prior to the engagement at the asteroid? Or is there something about that which will be presented later?"

  A murmur arose in the courtroom, quickly quelled when Judge Campbell gave the spectators an acidic look. Paul found himself startled as well by the question. Startled because he wondered why he hadn't thought of that himself before. Communicating with the other ships wouldn't been easy, but it wouldn't have been impossible, either. The right software could've projected a simple code onto part of the Michaelson's outer hull using the video displays which were part of the visual bypass system, or a transmitter could've been run out past the grounded outer hull, though that would've required cracking an airlock which would've set off alerts.

  But Commander Carr was shaking her head and answering for Captain Hayes. "There's nothing in the government's case pertaining to that issue, Lieutenant."

  Lieutenant Kilgary looked surprised. "Even though as Communications officer Lieutenant Pullman would've had authorized access to the visual bypass system back-up message projection capability?"

  Paul felt like slapping his forehead. Well, duh.

  Captain Hayes had an expression that seemed just as startled, but then his face cleared. "No, wait a moment. Pullman didn't get tapped as the new Commo until after we were on our way back from the asteroid. He didn't have that access when we were out there. Lieutenant Denaldo was still Commo at that time, and I know she'd have ensured there wasn't any unauthorized access of that capability."

  "Yes, sir." Lieutenant Kilgary nodded in agreement. "That does resolve the question."

  Lieutenant Commander de Vaca looked from Lieutenant Kilgary to Captain Hayes. "There's high confidence, then, that this Lieutenant Denaldo would've done a good job of protecting her access codes?" Both Kilgary and Hayes nodded.

  Captain Nguyen checked to see if anyone else had questions. "That's it, then. Thank you, Captain."

  As soon as the judge dismissed him Hayes hastened down the aisle, checking his watch, and out of the courtroom. Paul checked the time as well, surprised to see how little time remained until the change of command ceremony was scheduled to take place. He still felt uncomfortable about not being there, knowing that Lieutenant junior grade Shwartz would be the one standing in front of what had been Paul's division. But it was probably just as well. Shwartz, not Paul, would be the new Captain's Combat Information Center Officer. He had to let go of that responsibility and start facing whatever new responsibilities he'd have in his job on Mars.

  The next witness's testimony wasn't as dramatic as Captain Hayes' had been, but Paul found his information intriguing. The NCIS agent, a man Paul hadn't encountered before, testified to the results of the financial investigations conducted on Lieutenant Pullman once the proper warrants had been obtained. The last ten years of Lieutenant Pullman's financial life, both on and off the official record, had been reconstructed in exhaustive detail within a period of days. Paul wasn't sure whether he should feel reassured that the government could ferret out financial wrongdoing that well, or horrified that the government could track someone's financial life that well.

  Paul stared at the displayed data. The complex diagrams, revealing a dizzying maze of interlinked financial transactions across borders and regulatory authorities, kept ending in various bank accounts whose owners had different names, but a remarkably similar set of passwords and access codes. That in and of itself meant little, until the agent revealed that a warranted search of Pullman's personal storage had unearthed a well-concealed data coin containing all those same passwords and codes under triple encryption.

  Paul couldn't help staring at Brad Pullman after this information was revealed, wanting to see how Pullman would react. But except for a surprised expression and a shake of the head in denial, Pullman didn't seem especially fazed by the revelation.

  There were a few purchases that hadn't apparently come from Pullman's salary; the money to pay for those things not having come out of Pullman's regular bank accounts and not being traceable to the regular government deposits of Pullman's pay. A very nice vehicle registered in Pullman's name. A state-of-the-art home theater system. A couple of gambling vacations where the house (as usual) had won a lot more than Pullman. But nothing Pullman, as a single junior officer, couldn't have afforded by using the money he earned in his own salary. Instead of using Pullman's salary, though, the luxuries been paid for using money acquired in some other way. Paul stared again, focusing on the sums in the different bank accounts. They were nice, but even added up they didn't seem all that large.

  David Sinclair tried to hammer at that in cross-examination. "Is there anything here that Lieutenant Pullman couldn't have afforded on his own?"

  The NCIS agent shook his head, his expression calm. "No."

  "These sums in the bank accounts. That's all you found?"

  "Are you saying there's more?" the agent inquired, igniting a burst of laughter from the courtroom and a glare from the judge.

  David Sinclair flushed slightly, but spoke evenly enough. "That little a sum. Those few trinkets. You're claiming that Lieutenant Pullman sold secrets to a foreign power for such modest sums? For a few items that aren't even luxuries beyond his income?"

  "That's what our investigation shows."

  That agent left the witness stand and another arrived to discuss the contents of other data coins found in searches of lockers reserved under various names. All of the lockers had been traced back to Lieutenant Pullman as the agents had followed threads of information from point to point. She explained and showed that these coins contained detailed plots for dead drops, locations where materials could be deposited for later retrieval by foreign agents. There were lists and
photos and instructions, all of them cross-referencing each other across one or more coins so that the capture or loss of a single coin couldn't compromise any part of the scheme.

  When his turn came to cross-examine, David Sinclair tried his usual question. "Did anything on these coins indicate they belonged to Lieutenant Pullman?"

  "Not directly," the NCIS agent replied smoothly, "but comparative analysis of the written contents with material known to have been written by Lieutenant Pullman produced a match with a statistical certainty of ninety-eight percent."

  David Sinclair gave Commander Carr a very brief but intense glower as he returned to the defense counsel's table. He knew she'd left that item undiscussed during the agent's testimony so he'd be fooled into bringing it out during the defense's cross-examination.

  "This court-martial is closed," Judge Campbell announced. "It will reopen at thirteen hundred in this courtroom."

  Paul stayed standing after the judge and members had left the room, once again trying to study Brad Pullman. The physical evidence presented this morning seemed both damning and conclusive, yet Pullman didn't reflect concern. What has he got up his sleeve? What defense evidence or witness or argument is so potent that Pullman doesn't seem much worried even after being caught with all this Spying For Idiots guidebook stuff?

  "Going anywhere for lunch?"

  Paul turned in surprise, seeing Jen standing beside him. "I didn't expect to see you here."

  Jen shrugged. "I don't particularly enjoy visiting courtrooms anymore, but I figured you could use a break."

  Commander Carr turned as well, halting when she saw Jen. "Lieutenant Shen."

  "Commander."

  Apparently having finished their conversation, Carr and Jen turned away from each other. Paul resisted a sudden urge to bonk their heads together, reflecting that if the two women had been a little less alike then Jen might actually have liked Commander Carr.

  Jen insisted on their hiking to Fogarty's. "You haven't been eating well enough."

  "How do you know that?"

  "I have my own sources and methods. Order a decent meal and eat it."

  "Okay, okay." Paul ate, knowing she was right, but didn't say much for a while, thoughts tumbling through his head as he tried to process everything he'd seen and heard at the court-martial.

  Jen canted her head to one side and studied him. "You're awful quiet. What's bugging you?"

  "I don't know." Paul frowned, then nodded. "Yeah. That's exactly it. There's all this evidence that Brad Pullman did commit espionage. Hard, physical evidence. It seems plenty convincing to me. But I keep asking myself why he would've done that. There's no indication at all that Pullman supports the South Asian Alliance, no indication he dislikes our government or our country or our policies on Earth or in space. No one's claiming he secretly hates the Navy. He doesn't seem to have any strong political beliefs. All we have is money showing up in bank accounts traceable to Pullman, but we're not talking mega-bucks. Not even remotely. Nice to have money, maybe, but not even as much as he's earning as a junior officer."

  "Does he look guilty? I'd expect you to know the difference between scared and guilty."

  "He doesn't even look worried!" Paul clenched his fists in frustration. "No matter how much evidence I see that Pullman is guilty, some part of me keeps wondering what his motivation could've been. His real motivation. If I can't figure out why he'd do it, I have trouble accepting that he did it."

  "Maybe he's an idiot," Jen suggested.

  "That doesn't seem to be the case. He's very smart. He could handle his job on the Michaelson without breaking much of a sweat."

  "Hmmm." Jen pondered the question as she ate. "I see your point. There's a disconnect. People don't go to all the trouble Pullman apparently did just for a little extra pocket change. Smart ones don't, anyway. Maybe he's just irrational deep down."

  "Wouldn't that show up in other actions? How could he confine irrationality to just committing espionage?" Paul twisted his mouth. "Besides, if there was the remotest chance of coping an insanity plea I'm sure David would've run with it."

  "Let it go, Paul."

  "What? Let what go?"

  "The sibling rivalry. Your brother doesn't seem nearly as hung up on it as you are."

  He felt heat on his face as anger rose. "Jen, you didn't grow up with a guy who made you feel like nothing you ever did could measure up to him."

  "No," she stated sarcastically, "I just grew up with a father who expected me to sprout wings and fly if the job called for it. Look, I can't claim to be an expert on you and your brother, but it's past. Let it go."

  Paul picked at his food. "It's not that easy."

  "Did I say it was easy? Growing up. That's the key phrase. You and I are both old enough that we ought to be able to recognize what wasn't great about our childhoods and accept it as something that was but that doesn't have to drive us for the rest of our lives. Who has a perfect childhood? David had his own pressures to deal with, believe me. Maybe he's oblivious to this day how his attitude grates on you, but so what? Why let him make you crazy?"

  He found it hard to come up with an answer and didn't know if that was because it was too complex or if he genuinely didn't have an answer.

  Jen touched his hand for just an instant, all the physical contact she could risk while they were in uniform and in public. "If he still wants to lord it over you, letting him get to you just means you're playing along. If he doesn't care about that anymore, then you're just shadowboxing with the past."

  "I'll think about it." He saw her skeptical expression. "I said I'd think about it and I will. Because I can't think of anything wrong with what you're saying."

  She grinned. "You're going to make a good husband with that attitude."

  "It won't apply to every issue, I'm sure. Okay, you're so smart, tell me honestly, do you think Pullman's guilty?"

  Jen looked away. "Why does my opinion of this matter?"

  "Because you're smart and you know a lot about things."

  "Like how it feels to be sitting at that defendant's table wondering if you're going to spend the rest of your life staring at the walls of a small cell?"

  "Yeah."

  She sat silent for a while and Paul let her think. Finally, she sighed. "I'm torn. I have a very strong and I know to some extent irrational bias against the government because of what happened to me. There are guilty people out there and they need to be caught. I just don't trust the government nearly as much as I used to when it comes to catching the right ones."

  Paul nodded in understanding. "I feel some of the same thing. But there's a lot of evidence against Pullman. Not just the circumstantial stuff they tried to get you with, but solid caught-with-his-hands-in-the-cookie-jar stuff."

  "I know." Jen played with her food for a moment. "I guess it comes down to my wondering what we don't know. What evidence might be out there that we're not seeing, that might tell another story."

  "Jen, even in your case the investigators didn't try to cover up anything."

  She surprised him by laughing. "Do you still believe that? All right, I'll admit they didn't actively try to cover up things. But I've been going over those reports in my free time. Don't give me that look. I've got every right to examine something that almost destroyed my life. You think the investigators dug into everything? They didn't. They asked the questions they wanted to ask. They didn't ask things they didn't want to ask. They didn't ask things whose answers they might not want to hear." Jen saw Paul's surprise. "Do you honestly think no one else wondered why that new engineering control system supposedly hadn't had any significant teething troubles? That no one else ever wondered if they ought to check to see if they could find anything contrary to the official 'everything is great' claims about that system?"

  "I know your lawyer looked."

  "He was a lawyer. A guy who worked hard for me and did what he could, but not someone with the specialized experience or knowledge to smell the right rats and run down
the locations of their lairs. I could've done it, but I was safely locked away in pre-trial confinement and under so much stress that I couldn't think straight. Any other people who could've said 'let's question the people who actually developed this system and ask them if everything was really as great as the acquisition people in the Pentagon claim it is' didn't say anything. There were too many people who were willing to go along with what they were told when they were supposed to be investigating. Too many people who avoided looking in the 'wrong' places that might hold answers their bosses didn't want to see."

  Paul clenched his fists, remembering the agony he and Jen had gone through during her court-martial. "I'm sorry."

  "For what? You've nothing to apologize for. If you'd been an engineer, with the right contacts, you might've found those answers earlier, but I'd be pond scum to complain about that. You asked the questions those other people didn't. For which act of moral courage you're being sent to freeze your butt off on Mars, of course."

  "That and a few other acts," Paul noted.

  "Yeah. Meanwhile, whoever covered up those problems with that system remains officially unidentified and is probably still fat and happy and going to cocktail parties. All that person did was cause the deaths of lots of sailors and terrible damage to a US Navy warship, but digging that person out and making them pay would embarrass the wrong people."

  "And you're afraid that might be happening to Pullman?"

  "A bit. I mean, there's no way to independently challenge or verify what the spooks in the intelligence world are telling us. We have to assume they're being honest. But what if they're mistaken? What if their bosses want a conviction and contradictory information is getting swept under the rug so we never even know it exists?"

  Paul sat and thought, his food now untouched. Something about Jen's argument about Pullman's court-martial and the events surrounding her court-martial wasn't quite matching up in his mind. But he couldn't figure out what was missing. "I don't know, Jen," he finally said. "I'm going to keep thinking about it."