She hailed a taxi outside the American Center, showed the map to the driver, and was whisked off across town.
Alison didn’t need a map to recognize the Tokyo Law Research Center. Massive Corinthian columns flanked stone steps leading to entrance doors of grand scale. “Enter, ye who dare,” the doors challenged. Legal buildings looked the same wherever you went. Edifices whose solidity and strength were designed to reassure as well as to intimidate.
Alison pushed open the weighty doors and was greeted by a silence befitting a catacomb. Even though she tiptoed through the entrance hallway, her footsteps echoed off the stone walls. Proceeding up a short flight of stairs, she arrived at the research center’s main reading area.
Multivolume sets of legal treatises, the hallmark of every law library, lined the walls of the cavernous room. Scholars seated at study tables hunched over weighty tomes. A faint smell of bookbinding paste laced with mildew hung in the air. Considering the overall ambiance of dreariness and sterile erudition, Alison was certain she was in the right place.
She approached a woman seated behind a polished-wood counter. The woman stared into a computer monitor while jabbing her index finger at the keyboard. Her speed of attack was impressive.
Alison smiled and tried to invoke the right phrase. “Eigo ga dekimasu ka?” Do you speak English? The woman didn’t reply, but her finger kept up its assault on the keyboard. Maybe she hadn’t understood Alison’s wobbly Japanese. She tried again. “Eigo ga—”
“Can I help you?” The librarian frowned at her wristwatch before looking up at Alison.
An English speaker. Alison gave silent thanks. “I was doing some research at the American Center library, and it turns out that the material I need is only available here.”
The librarian’s eyelids fluttered. Maybe a dust mote from the ancient law books had lodged in the woman’s eye. “This library is not open to the public,” the librarian said. “I am sorry.” She returned to her one-finger punching at the keyboard.
Alison bit the corner of her lip. If she had on a power suit instead of her going-to-the-car-wash jeans, the librarian might be treating her differently. “I’m a lawyer. A bengoshi. From America. I don’t want to borrow any books, or anything. I need to look up some articles. It’s really important, and I can’t get this information anywhere else.”
“The Research Center is only open to members.”
Alison tried to stay calm, but somewhere back in America an overzealous prosecutor with conspiracy on the brain was ready to implicate her in all sorts of criminal deeds. She needed information, and she needed it now. It was time to cut through the Japanese red tape with a little American-style ingenuity.
“Actually,” Alison began, “I’m doing some legal research for Lauren Lipton at the American Embassy.” Since she was telling a lie, might as well make it a whopper. “Here’s her number. You can call her.” Alison had committed the embassy employee’s contact information to memory ever since she’d helped Alison with immigration advice. It never hurt to have a friend at the embassy. She wrote down Lauren Lipton’s name and the embassy phone number and hoped that the librarian wouldn’t feel the need to call.
“And I’ve got my bar card,” Alison said. “State Bar of California.” She combed through her wallet searching for that hard-earned piece of plastic hidden amidst the random assortment of junk she’d accumulated. Visa, Nordstrom card. Currency exchange receipts, taxi receipts, a picture of Charles, someone’s business card she couldn’t read. Why didn’t she ever clean out her wallet? AAA card — a lot of good that’d do her here. Voilá. Her bar card, barely distinguishable from the other scraps in her wallet.
The librarian took the card from Alison and examined it as if it were a hundred-dollar bill she suspected was counterfeit. She turned the card over before pushing it back to Alison, along with Lipton’s embassy phone number.
“What information are you looking for?” the librarian asked.
Alison exhaled. She pulled out the pages of cited articles that had referred her to the TLRC library. The librarian read through the list, stopping to peer up at Alison over the pages of the cites.
“I see you were using the CD-ROM reader at the American Center. We have a similar reader here, but our discs include legal sources. Enter the same cite numbers at our machine, and you’ll be able to see your articles. The reference room is through the door and to the right.” She pointed to an arched doorway in the rear of the reading room. “But first, you must sign in.” She gave Alison a clipboard. “And be sure to sign out when you leave. The Research Center closes at five o’clock.” The librarian checked her watch yet again. “You have forty-five minutes.”
Alison signed the visitor ledger and hurried off. Only forty-five minutes to find out if she was likely to land on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.
The reference room straddled a crossroads of library technology. A handful of digital terminals sat next to card catalogs and hand-cranked microfilm readers. The information-retrieving devices of the TLRC’s quaint reference room couldn’t compete with the high-tech gadgets at the American Center. Not surprising. The TLRC didn’t have the CIA’s budget backing it. But what the TLRC did have was the information Alison needed to assess her potential criminal liability. She collected her disks and seated herself at the CD-ROM reader.
Given her limited time, Alison pulled up every cite that referenced the TLRC and printed it out. Articles about online systems and pornography. Printed. Websites and free speech. Printed. Anything and everything that might shed light on her predicament. Reading could come later.
Alison checked the last citation off of her list as the frenzied printer wheezed to a stop. She stacked the heap of pages into a pile then tapped the edges on the desk to neaten them. She had hours of reading ahead. But if she were lucky, somewhere in the reams of disorganized papers, she’d discover a gem that would help with her legal analysis, that would help save her butt. Flying blind, but it was the best she could do. Or was it?
Alison sprinted out to the reference desk. The librarian was still pecking away at her keyboard.
“Excuse me, but by any chance do you have access to Lexis, the legal database service?” Alison held her breath.
“Yes, we do, but the center is closing in ten minutes.” The librarian’s purse sat on top of her desk. She was packed up and waiting for the five o’clock whistle to blow.
“I’ll only be a minute. And I’m sure the American Embassy would appreciate your cooperation.” Desperate times called for desperate bullshitting.
The librarian’s eyes flickered open and closed. The nervous habit was a tell, and Alison seized the opportunity to exert nonverbal coercion. She leaned across the desk in what she hoped was an intimidating stance. Apparently, her strong-arming worked because the librarian’s eyes focused, and she said, “The Lexis terminal is through the rear door in the reference room. But remember, we close in—”
“Ten minutes,” Alison said. She waved her thanks and took off. The clock was ticking, and the librarian was unlikely to cut her any more slack.
Alison wasted precious minutes trying to get her bearings on a database system she hadn’t used since law school. She fumbled around with the Lexis commands until she found legal news organized by topical search words. Perfect.
She entered: “Federal Crime and Computer Bulletin Board System.” Hundreds of hits on that one. She had to tighten the focus. “And Software,” she typed.
Out spewed cites to articles about bulletin boards being shut down for child pornography, hate mail, scamming credit card numbers.
Alison sat back, satisfied, watching the articles scroll out of the screen until she caught a glance at the last headline: “Hacker Charged for Illegal Exportation of FYEO Encryption Software.”
What the hell? FYEO was the encryption software she’d downloaded from SwampLand to keep that cyberfreak asshole out of her life. Had she dug herself in deeper as a criminal conspirator by downloading FYEO?
&n
bsp; Alison didn’t get a chance to read the article before the reference librarian appeared at her side.
“The research center is now closing,” the librarian said. Alison could tell from the fresh lipstick the librarian wore that the woman must have Big Plans.
Having spent an exasperating afternoon running in circles, Alison had finally found an article that was on point. Scarily on point. But she needed access to the high-powered Lexis database to read why some guy — she assumed the hacker was a guy. It could well be a woman. A woman like her — was being charged for messing around with the FYEO encryption program. Rob’s fax took on a new urgency. This was no April Fool’s joke.
Arms folded across her chest, the librarian hovered. Alison considered trying to coax the librarian out of a few more minutes on the Ferrari of legal databases, but thought better of it. She might be spending a lot of time at the Research Center, and it would be smart not to piss off the woman who held the keys.
“You will have to come back tomorrow.” The librarian switched off the room lights while Alison was still sitting at the terminal. The librarian might be a jerk, but at least she’d said that Alison could come back.
Tomorrow. How could Alison could wait until tomorrow, sleep until tomorrow, pretend that things were normal until tomorrow? And what if tomorrow was too late?
Alison signed the visitor log, gave a little bow to the librarian and walked down the stairs to the exit. But at the last minute, in a move worthy of a quick-footed offensive receiver on a football field, she cut over to the women’s restroom, shutting the door behind her. She stole into one of the toilet stalls and bolted the lock.
The five o’clock song rang in the streets. She listened to employees going home for the day, feet lumbering down the library’s steps, colleagues chatting, the building’s weighty doors closing with a thud.
How many people worked at the library? How long would it take for them to vacate the building, for the coast to be clear? Alison decided to hide out for fifteen minutes. She didn’t have a watch, but she could guess the time based on the quieting of the library. Hopefully that would be long enough for the TLRC personnel to assume that all visitors had long ago cleared out.
The restroom door burst open. Alison leaped up on the toilet seat so that whoever had entered couldn’t see her legs under the stall doors. Crouching low in her hiding place, Alison was glad that the toilets were Western style with a seat to stand on and not one of the hole-in-the-floor squat toilets. She was also grateful that Japanese people closed toilet seat lids. Why hadn’t the custom rubbed off on Charles?
Through a crack in the stall door, Alison spied a woman fluffing her hair in the mirror. A sickeningly sweet floral fragrance wafted through the air, and Alison pinched the tip of her nose to suppress a sneeze. The woman dabbed at her face with a handkerchief and added lipstick before closing her purse and leaving.
Alison’s knees burned and she was losing her balance. But she should stay put a little longer. A few more minutes. Just to be safe. She tried some yoga breathing to pass the time, but it was impossible to execute a deep belly breath with her thighs jammed against her chest.
Legs wobbling, Alison hit her physical limit for perching on a toilet seat. She stepped down and stretched.
Had she lost her mind? The Japanese had a relaxed sense about security and locking up, so she thought she could get away with it. If someone were to find her in the library’s restroom after hours, she could explain that she had a touch of upset stomach. But if she was going to go after the information that she needed, that she had to have, and she got caught — it would be hard to explain that she was creeping around the research library after hours because of acid indigestion.
She strained to detect any subtle sounds, any indication that library staff were still roaming the premises. She heard nothing. It was time to make her move.
Alison emerged from the stall, eased open the restroom door, and surveyed the scene. The library’s interior had felt catacomb-like by day. Now, with lifeless corridors and windows lit by fading sunlight, the empty structure looked like an abandoned cathedral.
Alison slipped off her shoes to muffle her footsteps and ran back up the stairs to the reference room. She prayed that the library was hard-wired into the Lexis database so that she wouldn’t have to log on or know a password.
Alison tapped the keyboard, and the terminal prompted her to enter a query. Prayer answered. She typed in the last search she’d used and pulled up the article that had seized her attention and induced her panic.
A federal grand jury in San Francisco, California, is considering whether Samuel Newman violated federal laws banning the exportation of weapons. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mr. Newman threatened national security by posting data encryption software on the internet, potentially enabling hostile foreign governments and even terrorist organizations to use the software.
Pursuant to the Export Administration Act and the Arms Export Control Act, jointly administered by the Departments of Commerce, State and Defense, encryption software is subject to strict export controls. Cryptography is included on the list of weapons that could compromise the country’s security and cannot be exported without a license. The software posted by Mr. Newman, called FYEO, an acronym for “For Your Eyes Only,” was not licensed for export.
Mr. Newman’s lawyer stated that her client could face a prison sentence of up to fifty-one months.
Prison sentence? No way. It was those kiddy-porn pervs on SwampLand who needed to be locked up, not her. But if some gung-ho prosecutor was going for a conspiracy charge, all bets were off. She’d be standing shoulder to shoulder with the porn freaks as they were all roped together and marched into the courthouse in one convenient conspiratorial lump.
Alison tried to take a deep, relaxing yoga breath to slow her racing pulse and focus her mind. She closed her eyes, but instead of seeing her happy place at the top of the mountain in Lake Tahoe, she saw an orange jumpsuit with her name — no, her number — imprinted on it. Forget about the yoga breath. The threat of prison was all the focuser she needed. Alison opened her eyes and prepared to defend herself the best way she knew how — rigorous legal analysis.
Why had SwampLand been a target of the Feds? Rob’s fax said it had to do with kiddy porn files found on the BBS’ computer. Pornographers preying on kids deserved to get locked up. Let the prosecutors have at those abusive sicko pervs.
But the prosecutors were talking conspiracy theory, which meant that they were casting a wide net, trolling for child pornographers and any other miscreants that might get hauled up in their catch. As a card-carrying member of the SwampLand BBS, Alison would have some explaining to do.
Without even breaking a sweat, the Feds could see from the SwampLand user logs that she’d downloaded FYEO, the same software described in the news article. The same software she and Kiyoshi had been using to protect their conversations from the prying eyes of the creepy cyberfreak. The same software that the U.S. government had categorized as a weapon. And although it appeared that encryption software wasn’t exactly illegal, exporting it without a license was.
By downloading the software in Japan, moving the digital bits from the U.S. to Tokyo, had she exported a weapon? She wasn’t a criminal. Certainly not an illegal arms dealer. Was she? And if it weren’t for that pervert freak online who kept harassing her, she wouldn’t have gotten into any of this mess. She’d only been trying to defend herself, but now she could get disbarred. Or worse. Where was the justice? That cyberfreak was the criminal, not her.
With answers leading to more questions, Alison wondered if she were up to the research task. Maybe it was time to call a lawyer. Just for a quickie consult. A hypothetical. My cousin’s babysitter’s aunt downloaded some software that might implicate her as an international arms dealer…
Alison printed out the article along with a host of related cites. The printer, an old-fashioned dot matrix, shimmied as it cranked out pages.
&
nbsp; “Ola! Dare desu ka?” a man shouted from the hall.
Alison sat erect in her chair.
Footsteps, slow, then increasing in speed, grew louder in the corridors.
“Ola!”
Party over. It’d been easy — too easy — to sneak into the library after hours to do some serious lawyering on Lexis. Now she was busted. The librarian who’d told her to come back tomorrow wouldn’t be as accommodating after hearing about Alison’s exploits.
The last of the articles was churning out of the printer as a man in shirtsleeves and necktie rushed into the room. Alison was glad she didn’t understand what the man was saying. He wasn’t happy. No interpreter needed.
“I was just leaving.” Alison stepped into her shoes, grabbed her printouts and ran for the main entrance. The man continued his angry tirade as he followed her and shooed her out the door.
43
Alison flicked on the reading light in the back of the taxi and dove into the printouts she’d gathered at the law library.
Even from the limited material she read, things didn’t look good for the home team. The government had used conspiracy theory arguments to haul in BBS operators and users. RICO came up often as the favored means of prosecution.
RICO. Shit.
Alison put down the papers and chewed on a cuticle. In the hands of skilled prosecutors, RICO had long since moved from its original purpose of bringing down “racketeer-influenced and corrupt organizations,” aka, the Mob, and had morphed into the Godzilla of all conspiracy laws. Alison had never understood how such a Draconian federal statute was even constitutional.
The RICO act’s concern with organized crime carried with it an equal lack of concern for individual due-process rights. The darling of prosecutors, RICO was severe. When skillfully invoked, it enabled them to cast a net — a driftnet — that was as far-reaching and merciless.
Tokyo Firewall: a novel of international suspense Page 23
