by John Statton
In this case, he was operating in his most disarming manner, handing her a cup of coffee, black with two sugars, as she liked it.
“It's good,” she said after taking a sip. Anyone who brought her a tasty coffee deserved extra credit in her book, but her caution bell started to ring faintly. “To what do I owe the honor?”
“Just taking note of your rough day, yesterday. Someone let me know you had lost a friend and were at the funeral. I wanted to check in and see how you were doing.”
She motioned to one of the chairs in front of her desk. Mansfield took it, his limp a bit more pronounced this morning, and sat down. She took another longer sip and leaned back in her chair with the cup nestled in her hands.
The alarm bell was ringing louder since she’d not told anyone the reason for her absence, instead just letting her group know she was taking a vacation day. Mansfield obviously had access to information about her beyond what she told the team. A shadow of fear entered the room.
She decided it would not be right to ask further about his source. Better just to play along. “That's kind. It was a bit of a shock actually. I’d known Paul since we were in college together. We’d always kept in touch, easy to do since he lived in the same city.”
“Didn't you meet Sander in the same program?”
The sound of the bells was threatening to provoke a little panic. Mariana had not mentioned the particular program; Mansfield was too well versed in her past and apparently her present too. She’d obviously been under deep surveillance. She took another sip and kept her voice even, “Yes, the three of us were close.”
“Don't suppose you ran into him at the service?” came the light reply.
So that’s the point of this conversation, she thought, he wants to know if Paul told Sander anything while they were in the bar together.
She went right at his question, “We had a chance for a long talk. With Paul's passing, it made a lot of our issues seem like water under the bridge. We are never going to get past our rupture, but there is a chance we can park some of the pain we've felt.”
“That had to be hard. I know you gave Sander up for this career, and I'm grateful for your sacrifice. You've done impactful work here, Mariana; we care about how you are doing. Paul was a tragedy. I asked to see a copy of the police report, and they’re attributing it to a ruptured fuel line. But it almost seems like a movie nightmare. How often do cars just explode like that?”
She knew he was still fishing to see if Sander had confided anything in her, anything like the truth. She did not rise to the bait.
Mansfield had received more than the police report; he’d learned Paul was looking into Shasta Bell’s San Francisco splitter. NetSecure had implemented the fiber siphon technology there, and the data pipe fed directly into DARKSIDEMOON. No question this could ever be public knowledge. He had Seth providing security for the operation. Making the decision to use him to cauterize Paul’s inquiry was easy. He reflected, Once he’d crossed the line with employing the wet option, it was easier the second time. But his decision to eliminate Paul had stirred the waters.
He needed to see if he had contained the matter and opened up just a little to elicit some trusting reciprocity from Mariana. He leaned forward, as if confiding in her, and said with a low tone, “I can’t tell you completely, but Paul, among others, was apparently being watched in connection with a black project. But nothing that could have caused his elimination. The night he died he was observed with Sander, having drinks and dinner at a bar in San Francisco. I wonder if he mentioned Paul discussing any concerns with him, or provided him with any data?”
“You are trying to see if Paul divulged proprietary or secret information to Sander?”
“Yes, anything they may have discussed then would be important to know. Do you think Paul may have confided anything?”
She was surprised at the question’s bluntness. She knew she had to protect Sander from this predator and decided a little reciprocity of her own would throw him off. “We did discuss that night. Paul had been having problems at work, and they talked about his shitty supervisor. That's all he mentioned. Despite what has happened between us, I think Sander would have told me if anything important came up. I have his trust; he knows he can confide in me. I guess I'm a natural secret-keeper.”
Mansfield stood, drained his cup and tossed the empty into the recycling bin. “Then no reason Sander ever needs to be disturbed, especially in light of this tragedy.”
She also stood and said, “I'll let you know if I hear anything that would make you want to reevaluate your decision.”
“Take care of yourself, Mariana. I’m glad you are doing OK.” With a smile he concluded, “Nice to see you back to work, you know how I hate to let my folks have a vacation.” With those parting words, he headed out of the door. The sense of menace disappearing with him.
Mariana closed the door and sank into her desk chair. Now scared for Sander, she was also a little upset at herself for still having such intense feelings for him. Feelings that had just caused her to lie to her boss. All these years of keeping him safe, she thought. This isn’t going to end well if he pursues his crusade to discover the truth.
#
Chapter 10
Striking Out
July 2016
The recent anniversary of Paul's death brought Sander back to The Ramp for a little mid-morning life contemplation. Sitting at the bar, he looked out across the cove to an ocean liner lifted up into dry-dock. A kayaker paddling a yellow boat wove between old piers jutting up from the Bay. Sander gazed enviously; he would love to be floating on the water away from his reality.
He turned away from the window and towards the bar and his beer. The TV suspended above the corner was tuned to CNN, and their political reporter stood in front of the Capitol teasing a story. “Now the Republican field has evolved to a single standard bearer, we are starting to get the match-up polls for a two-candidate race to the White House. Despite a bruising Republican primary, the party is unifying behind their candidate. The first surveys are coming in close. The CNN poll shows a four-point difference, just outside the margin of error, which is in line with recent others. More on this tonight at eight in our ‘Contest for the Capitol’ report.”
From down the bar, one of the regulars gave a shout to the bartender to switch channels; they were missing the Giants and Nationals game back in D.C.
A warm, half-empty Longboard beer sat in front of him next to his tablet displaying a story from three months ago. He still looked at it when feeling low, just to remember what a kick in the teeth he’d endured. The headline read: “Congress Grants Phone Company Immunity for National Security Assistance.” That’s the ball game right there, he thought. No getting around the immunity wall.
His mind drifted back to Paul's death. Outside of the movies, Sander had never seen anything like it. The fiery wreck had to come from a bomb; reason ran against mechanical failure. His friend's paranoid discussion about Room 101 had rubbed off. However, without a shred of proof, he could not tell the police about shadowy activities at the phone company.
He could hear it now, “I think my friend was caught up in a national security matter. Would you mind investigating if this was a deliberate bombing? My evidence? Well, he told me he’d encountered something weird at work and acted afraid. Oh, come back later if I have anything real?”
He had nothing showing conspiracy and murder. He knew he needed more.
For the last year, he channeled his grief into investigating Room 101. It aligned with his well-developed concern over digital intrusion into daily life. His Foundation became a crusading voice in the digital privacy wilderness for access to phone company surveillance records. The investigation gave him focus, and most importantly it started to yield results.
There had been victories along the way, such as when he found a court to hear the case, and when their discovery had indicated similar data hijacking activities in other domestic phone companies.
&nb
sp; Sander smiled when recalling his team finding the golden email among the mountains of paperwork turned over in response to his discovery motion. His research assistant was astonished when she brought it to him. “Look what we found. The 'to' and 'from' is blacked out and it's cryptic, but ooh la la!”
It must have slipped through the hundreds of thousands of pages. It was an email print out stating, “The Shasta Bell splitter was the last one needed to complete clean collection across each submarine cable running into the US. It’s yielding expected volumes nominally in line with the other flows.”
He grinned back, “Looks like data gets a strip-search when it crosses our border. So much for any notion of privacy.”
She finished the thought, “And because they’re helping themselves to the world's data flowing through our submarine cables, this confirms a global dragnet.”
Their trial was calendared for December fifth; Sander was ready to use the golden email as his key piece of evidence. He was confident his lawyering could break open the wall of secrecy and avenge his friend. He was just getting started. Then he ran into the wall.
Completely out of nowhere, one of the NSA's pet Congress members attached a rider to a defense appropriations bill. It provided retroactive immunity against civil or criminal suits for any telecommunications company cooperating to provide government requested system access. It sailed through committee and attached to the bill. Within days the bill had been passed by the House and Senate, reported out of the conference committee and signed by the president. “Wham. Bam. And that's all she wrote,” he muttered dejectedly to his beer.
From there it was all downhill, since the invisibility cloak of national security secrecy draped around the very thing he was trying to expose. The lawsuit had crumbled the same day the bill became law.
He picked up his glass and drained the rest of his beer in a long pull. Putting it down on the wooden bar, he motioned to have it refilled. After the collapse of the suit, his wealthiest donor had sent him a sizable check along with a note to say he could not continue his association, but wanted him to have a final donation to help weather the rough seas ahead. One by one, many of the Foundation’s biggest funders had disappeared.
He took another long draught from the refill and thought, Here we go, a year's work gone to shit. My suit shut down. My friend killed, and I'll never be able to find out what the hell happened. Donors are continuing to bail as if they all got the same marching orders. I'm going to have payroll problems by the end of next month. Things are not working out.
He reflected there was something criminal here. He had Googled Steve Riggio, Paul’s friend who he had talked to about Room 101, and found a Lake Tahoe Times article. Steve had died in a car accident; his car had shot out over a cliff. No attribution to a cause, but the car's computer, when recovered, showed no sign of system failure. Steve’s death happened within two weeks of Paul's hit. Just too many coincidences, Sander thought and turned his attention back to working on his beer.
Sander knew Paul kept Lucille in top shape, as befitted his queen. But, without more, he could not contest the police finding it had been a rupture creating vapor, with an ignition circuit spark providing the needed arc to set it off. With an apparent cause and no suspects pointing in other directions, there was no investigation.
Hell, he thought, I can't talk about this to anyone because I'm probably monitored. I can't trust phones of any kind. My accounts likely being scrutinized, no email was safe. Maybe I should have taken Mariana’s advice a year ago. I need to back off and shut this down.
He lifted his glass and said, “So here's to you, drifting kayaker, and here's to you, Paul. I'm at an end, and I’m sorry I wasn't able to help you out.”
***
Six months earlier, Sander had been the focus of a discussion by Mansfield and Rainy over an encrypted call.
“This guy was not on our radar. We only put him under watch after he started his crusade to pry open information relating to our collection efforts,” Mansfield said. “DARKSIDEMOON is made possible by the rivers of data we harvest from the world's fiber-optic cables. Each phone company has been cooperative. But an investigative attorney from a Podunk foundation is putting our most sensitive secret at risk.”
“Your protégé has a connection to him. Could she be his source? How much did the sysop spill to him? Something sure as hell happened to set him off on this hunt,” said Rainy.
“It's not Mariana. Everything we know about her says they broke up nine years ago with no contact until last year’s memorial service and none since then. Mr. Vice President, she is the most talented hacker we've ever encountered. Every technology has its practitioners who combine exceptional intellectual and creative power, people who contribute genius; she’s ours. But I’ve told you, her moral compass has always been strict, and we've never been able to share our deep work.”
Mansfield continued, “I'm concerned about this harassment of the phone companies. They are getting pounded with discovery requests, and depositions are going to start. Our data dragnet is going to get exposed, and that’s a danger to DARKSIDEMOON. We need Congressional cover. We need a law giving our telco friends the protection they need to cooperate with us.”
“I’ll make the arrangements for immunity to be introduced and passed,” said Rainy. “This country's phone companies have been cooperating with the federal government for over a hundred years; I think this is the least we can do to help continue the tradition. Now, what about security for this operation?”
“You mean what to do about Bonham, the damn attorney who is causing this ruckus?” Mansfield was not surprised at the question. After Sander brought a lawsuit, slowly the hints in the press about inappropriate data collection were beginning to mount; they needed to address this problem.
“That's the one. Bonham has come to our attention as a voice that needs to be stilled,” said Rainy.
Mansfield responded, “He's a little too public right now. It would draw suspicion. Better we just deny him any bigger soapbox, like his lawsuit. Immunity for the Telco’s should cut the legs out from under him. When that happens, his suit will collapse, the spotlight will move along, leaving no one caring about Mr. Bonham. Then we can cut his thread.”
“I concur, but frankly the sooner, the better. Anytime after we line up the companies' immunity would be all right. You use O’Brien and see to it. I’ll take care of his Foundation and its funding,” said Rainy.
***
Concluding his anniversary remembrance, Sander turned away from the bar. His dependable old blue Prius hatchback waited for him. He’d just enough to drink to allow a little suspicion to enter his mind. He still had vivid memories of Lucille's immolation echoing through his head. He looked to his trusty car to give him assurance history would not repeat itself.
Shaking his head at the thought, he walked across the street. The door recognized his remote-key and opened at his touch. He slid into the driver's seat and pushed the start button. The engine whirred to life, and an eruption of display lights flashed across the dash.
After the lights had their moment, the car allowed him to place it in reverse, and the rearview camera shot appeared on his display. He backed up without causing any explosion or injury and pulled out onto the nearly deserted street. Heading north towards AT&T baseball park he drove slowly past the mixture of new apartments to the left and old piers to the right.
Two miles away at Red's Java House, a burger shack perched on a long parking pier, Seth had finished his fries and watched Sander's car, courtesy of a small field drone. This one looked and behaved like a seagull, wheeling around the waterfront; just one of the hundreds cruising above the shoreline neighborhood. The drone was state-of-the-art and fiendishly expensive, but it was on an untraceable loan from NetSecure. The downlink to his laptop provided excellent high-definition quality, and he was ready for the games to begin.
Sander's old Prius had fewer computer-controlled systems, presenting a more limited attack surface
. But Seth knew Toyota had never anticipated this kind of threat. He infiltrated the Prius’ electronic control units by coming in over the satellite connection and into its navigation system. With no authentication between the different systems, he took over steering, braking, acceleration, door locks, and windows.
Seth began his hijack of Sander’s Prius by entering a simple command and got back a systems ready prompt. The rest played out almost like a video game; he used keyboard controls coupled with the screen’s bird’s-eye view to drive the Prius. He thought, This hack was worth every shekel I paid in that dark little Jerusalem bar.
Sander passed the Giants’ baseball park and turned right onto The Embarcadero. With an empty road, he was lost in thought when the car began to accelerate. He pulled his foot away from the gas and got increased speed. Startled, he jammed his shoe against the brake pedal. It went in as usual, but it had no effect.
A chill washed over him. He continued to steer with one hand and with the other he reached for the door handle. The car had picked up speed, moving at almost sixty miles per hour. Tugging at the handle he hoped to throw himself out of the rogue machine, but no such luck. It was locked and would not open.
Now fear began to appear across his features. He thought, This is happening way too fast. He hoped he still had steering, but when trying to put the car into a sharp spin to bleed off speed, he found it was another illusion. The car seemed to be on autopilot and now doing seventy miles per hour.
Sander pounded on the window that refused to roll down. He was now only left with a choice between getting out of his seat belt and trying the back doors, or staying just where he was until this ride came to some violent end. The little Prius was now doing eighty-five miles per hour, and its engine was straining.
Out of nowhere, a long articulated Muni bus loomed up from the left. He’d a split-second glimpse of terrified passengers pressing their faces against its windows as his car narrowly missed sideswiping the massive vehicle. The car shot through a red-light intersection and magically made it through some non-existent space between crossing cars. The car’s little horn was the only thing he could get to work.
