Rule of Evidence ps-3

by John G. Hemry

Sharpe looked down for a moment, then unexpectedly smiled slightly. "I just remembered a time I couldn't put it together, either, sir. Drove me nuts."

  "What happened?"

  "Oh, we had a problem with some druggies running stuff through an area, and we also had a lot of burglaries and other thefts going on. We kept trying to tie the thefts to the druggies and kept running into blind alleys." Sharpe shook his head. "We finally figured out the druggies and the thieves were two separate gangs. Wasted a lot of time trying to make them one big problem, though."

  Paul listened a moment longer, but Sharpe's story was done. Paul shrugged. "I don't see how that helps, Sheriff."

  "Uh, no, I guess it doesn't. I just thought of it, is all."

  "Yeah." Paul blinked as his vision fuzzed. "I'm so exhausted."

  "Do you need help getting back to your stateroom, sir?"

  "No. I can make it. Thanks, Sheriff."

  He made it back, rolling into his bunk, thankful for a moment that he was so used to his surroundings by now that he automatically ducked low enough to avoid the tangle of cables, pipes and supports than ran along the overhead just above his bunk. Paul fell asleep almost instantly, his mind filled with absurd images of Commander Carr and the Fleet Commander jointly plotting to destroy ships.

  He popped back awake several hours later, staring up at the overhead. Something had jolted his subconscious. What? Something somebody said. Something more than one person said.

  Senior Chief Kowalski, saying he'd never known any new equipment to work as designed. Senior Chief's not an engineer, but he's been in the Navy forever. He probably helped Noah sweep up after the animals. But if there is some big problem with SEERS, or any problem with SEERS, the Navy has to know it, and that would mean people I know are honorable were lying in the most horrible way I can imagine.

  Or would it? The thing Sharpe talked about. Two problems instead of one. Is that what I'm missing? I keep trying to tie it all together. Jen's being court-martialed because… because of some grand conspiracy that doesn't make sense because of the people who'd have to be involved. What if that's not the case? What if the people I think are honorable are being honorable? What if they don't have any reason to think they're wrong about stuff like SEERS? But maybe there is something wrong, anyway.

  What did Colleen tell me the other night? Even a lie has to agree with what people expect if they're going to believe it. Something like that. Well, everybody who's looked at this SEERS data has said they're surprised at the lack of problems during development. They don't really believe it. They just can't find anything that proves it's wrong and none of the people going after Jen have credible reasons to hide stuff that'd prove there were problems. But maybe they're not hiding it because they don't know, either.

  It wouldn't be a matter of the left hand and the right hand working together. Or even a right hand and a left hand at all. It'd be two separate things entirely. And Jen getting stuck between them purely by chance. And no one able to see it because we're all trying to make sense of one big picture that isn't one big picture, and trying to see a reason for something, Jen surviving, that didn't have any reason.

  Paul sat up so abruptly he rapped his head against the overhead. Ow! Blast it! What time is it? Zero six thirty. How'd I miss reveille? Because it's Sunday. Who can I ask about SEERS on a Sunday? Who'd be able to answer questions about something new being built under contract?

  Oh. Duh.

  "Mom, I really need some help."

  She blinked blearily back at him. "Why do kids always really need help early on Sunday morning?"

  "I need you. Jen needs you."

  "What about?"

  "Contractor stuff. Have you heard of SEERS?"

  "Yes. That engineering system thing. Big contract. I haven't worked it, though. Different corporate entity."

  "I need to know…" Paul's voice trailed off. What do I need to know? "If somebody was trying to hide something about SEERS, what would they do?"

  His mother blinked a couple of more times, her hands fumbling around outside of Paul's vision. "Coffee. I need coffee. Hide something? Hide what?"

  "Uh, design features?"

  "That's all protected. Industrial secrets and confidentiality. And then the Navy wanting to keep ship performance capabilities secret. None of it's going to be sitting out on any public site."

  "What about problems?"

  His mother had finally found a coffee container and drank half of it before answering. "What kind of problems?"

  "I don't know. Reliability? Test results?"

  "Hmmmm. What is it you're looking for exactly?"

  "I'm looking for something no one's found yet."

  "That helps a lot."

  "Something no one would want to be found. I mean, suppose there were problems with SEERS and no one wanted anyone to know that. And they hid that evidence from the fleet and from the investigators and the evidence gatherers after what happened on the Maury."

  "That's a real big 'suppose.' Do you have reason to believe that's what happened?"

  "No. Just a hunch."

  His mother looked to one side. "I'll get your father. There's people we can talk to. Places we know to look. But you understand we're bound by confidentiality agreements for our work with contractors."

  "I don't know exactly what that means."

  "It means there's limits on what we can do." She took a good look at him. "You look awful."

  "Thanks, Mom."

  "Get some breakfast. I'll see what we can do. How urgent is this?"

  "Life and death."

  Her eyebrows shot up, then she nodded. "I should've realized that without asking. Oh-kay. Get something to eat. I'll call back as soon as I can."

  Paul tried to clean himself up, then went to grab a quick meal. Kris Denaldo, obviously coming off the quarterdeck watch, spotted him. "Paul! Is…" Her voice ran down as she saw his face. "What can I do?"

  "How are you at miracles?"

  She made a helpless gesture. "Not much." Coming closer, Kris put a hand on Paul's arm. "You know whatever I can do, I will."

  "I know, but there doesn't seem to be anything."

  "Ahem!" Lieutenant Isakov squeezed by them, favoring Paul and Kris with an arch look that implied volumes.

  Kris pulled her hand away and Paul glared after Isakov as she entered the wardroom. "You can keep her away from me."

  "Like I told you, she's a bit of a psycho, Paul."

  "I'd already figured that out. Didn't you guys warn Randy Diego about her already?"

  Kris shrugged. "Randy's been a pain and he never wants to listen."

  "No, he doesn't, but letting her run him around… geez."

  "Okay, okay. I take it you've already talked to Randy?"

  "Yeah. He didn't want to hear it."

  "What a shock. If he's determined to be Isakov's lapdog, there's not much we can do about it, Paul."

  "I know." Paul looked upward. "But it's something I can make a difference at. I hope. It's nice to know there's something I can still say that about."

  "You'll make a difference with Jen. There's nothing happening today?"

  "No. Final arguments happened yesterday. Today's a day off but also a day for the members of the court to make up their minds. The court-martial reconvenes Monday morning."

  "Do you think they'll have a decision then?"

  "I'm afraid they will."

  She nodded helplessly and Paul went back to the his stateroom, staring every once in a while at the outside phone connection while he pretended he was working on administrative tasks.

  The phone finally rang. "Hi, Paul. Care to meet us for lunch?"

  "Does that mean you found something, Mom?"

  His mother made a slight shushing motion. "How's that place we ate at yesterday sound?"

  "Fine."

  "We'll see you as soon as you can get there, then."

  His mother was drinking coffee again when Paul got to the restaurant. His father winked and gave him a thumbs up.<
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  "Did you find something?"

  His mother sighed, lowering her coffee cup. "Now, Paul, I told you we probably couldn't help because of confidentiality agreements."

  "I…"

  "But I did find that other thing."

  He looked at her blankly. "What other thing?"

  "You know." She slid an actual piece of paper toward Paul's father, who glanced at it, nodded, then slid it over to Paul.

  Paul examined the paper. Blank on one side, the other held a long web site address hand printed on it. "Do you think-"

  "I don't know. But, if there's anything like that, it should be there if it's anywhere. Various… indicators… point that way. Unfortunately, we couldn't get into it. You probably can't, either. But good luck."

  "Thanks. I hope you don't mind if I eat and run." Paul folded the paper carefully and went in search of Sheriff Sharpe.

  Half an hour later, Sharpe eyed Paul dubiously. "Sir, what are you suggesting doing with that?"

  "Try to break in."

  "No, sir. No way. I'm an officer of the law."

  "Meaning?"

  "You know what it means, sir." Sharpe pointed at the address Paul held. "I only get to conduct searches with a warrant. If I search without a warrant, any evidence I find gets thrown out."

  "Oh, yeah." Paul looked at the address bitterly. So close. Maybe. But I can't get into a web site myself. My skills don't run that way.

  Sharpe seemed angry. "I can't believe you'd suggest that, Mr. Sinclair. I can't believe you'd come to me knowing that only Warrant Officer Bob Rose might be able to break into a site like that and I couldn't possibly provide any assistance or involvement in the matter. Don't even ask me!"

  "Okay, Sheriff. Sorry-"

  "Don't even ask me if Rose's contact information is in the ship's data base. I don't want to tell you."

  "Uh, okay-"

  "And even if Rose could maybe try to break into that site because part of his job involves testing government-related sites for security flaws, I wouldn't tell you, sir! Not a word. I am not involved, sir. Is that clear?"

  "Yeah, Sheriff."

  "So don't talk to me about it. Don't say anything else. I'm an officer of the law. Just because someone like you or Bob Rose isn't an officer of the law and anything you find without a warrant would be admissible in court doesn't mean I would in any way suggest or sanction such a thing in a way that would taint it in the eyes of any court!"

  "Right, Sheriff." Paul put away the paper. "What was I thinking?"

  "About what, sir?"

  "Uh… nothing. Excuse me. I've got to make a phone call. After I look up some contact information."

  Warrant Officer Rose couldn't get away to meet Paul until early evening. He heard Paul out, looked at the site address, and seemed to be thinking about it all. Paul tried to look as earnest and convincing as he possibly could. "Can you try this for me, Warrant?"

  Rose squinched up his face a bit. "It's a little shaky. I mean, yes, I'm supposed to check sites for security effectiveness, but this site isn't really anything I have any reason to go poking around in."

  "I just need to see what's there."

  Rose sighed. "Okay. Just hold on. Sit over there somewhere and let me work. If I do get access we might have only a very brief chance to look, so don't wander off."

  "Yes, Warrant. I owe you big time for this."

  "I haven't done anything, yet. Did Sharpe tell you I could help you?"

  "Uh, no. Petty Officer Sharpe is an officer of the law. He couldn't even suggest such a thing to me."

  "Good. Wouldn't want to break any rules." Rose wriggled his fingers over the keyboard. "Now, let's see what kind of defenses this place has."

  Paul had to sit a fair ways back, out of Rose's line of sight, so as not to distract him, but that also left Paul unable to see what Rose was doing. He just had to wait, hearing occasional words or sounds from the Warrant which he strained to interpret.

  He was actually dozing in and out sometime later when Rose's voice brought him fully alert. "We're in! Hurry!"

  Paul scrambled over, peering at the display. "What is it?"

  "Some kind of memo."

  Paul scanned, his eyes skipping rapidly across the surface of the document and picking out a word here and there. He raised his gaze to the top again to actually read the document when the screen blanked. "What happened?"

  Rose shrugged. "They kicked us out. Real nice security on that site. Did you see anything?"

  "Yes. Did you?"

  "A couple of things."

  "Wh- Wait." Paul thought for a moment. "Could you write down anything you saw? I'll do the same and see if we saw the same sort of things."

  "Good idea."

  Paul hastily wrote down the scattered words he'd picked out. "Here's my list. I saw a name on the memo header. McNamara."

  Rose nodded and pointed to his own writing. "I saw something like that. Sounds right."

  "I saw SEERS in the subject line."

  "Concur."

  "And I saw the words 'further testing required.'"

  "I just thought I saw 'testing required.' That's close enough."

  "And 'failure.'"

  "Not just 'failure.' I know I saw 'catastrophic' in there."

  It was Paul's turn to nod. "I did, too." There were several other fragmentary phrases and words which didn't match on their lists. "But those are enough. Is there any chance you can get back into that site?"

  "I doubt it. They're probably sealing the backdoor I just used. And they'll be watching for me."

  "Then this'll have to do. Thanks, Warrant. If any lawyers call you, will you confirm this?"

  "Navy lawyers, you mean."

  "Right."

  "Sure. Where are you going now?"

  "To see a lawyer."

  Lieutenant Bashir answered the door to his living quarters, listening skeptically. He examined Paul's list of words. "You're sure? I mean, this isn't definitive."

  "Isn't there a way to get into the site and know for sure?"

  "Yeah, with a court order. Do you have any idea how hard that'd be to come up with at this stage in the trial?"

  "No, I don't."

  Bashir actually laughed for a moment at Paul's reply. "You can't be more honest than that. Listen, Paul, there's only one way we've got a chance of getting a court order in time to make a difference. We need another lawyer to help us."

  "Who?"

  "Commander Carr."

  Carr was at home, too, in casual clothing. Paul found himself noticing how nice her legs looked in shorts and jerked his eyes away guiltily.

  Carr eyed them both, then invited Bashir and Paul in. "Sit down. What's this about? If it's a plea bargain at this late point, Ahmed, then Mr. Sinclair shouldn't be here."

  "Not a plea bargain." Bashir gestured to Paul. "Explain the situation, please."

  When Paul was done, Carr shook her head. "That's a very thin, reed. Some memo, maybe, at some web site you shouldn't have been accessing, with a few words which, if interpreted very liberally, might be worth looking at. Or maybe not."

  "Ma'am." Paul pointed to his list of words. "It was a memo. I'm sure of that. I saw the subject line. And even though I didn't have time to read it in detail I did have time to skim it for an impression. And that impression was unquestionably that it was talking about unresolved problems with SEERS."

  "As of when?"

  "Sometime late last year. I didn't catch the exact date."

  "How did you find this site?"

  "Uh, I'd rather not disclose my sources."

  Commander Carr looked away. "Can you at least tell me who this memo was addressed to?"

  Paul nodded. "McNamara. Some guy named McNamara. I couldn't get his title in the time I had to read."

  Carr's eyes locked back on Paul. "McNamara?"

  "Yes. W. McNamara. I'm sure of it. I don't know what the W. stands for."

  "William."

  Lieutenant Bashir raised his eyebrows. "You know him, Co
mmander?"

  "I know of him." Commander Carr looked unhappy as she massaged her forehead with one hand. "Deputy Assistant Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Development. I know that because his office provided the background material on the Maury 's new engineering equipment."

  "But obviously that material didn't include any memos talking about catastrophic failures."

  "No, it didn't. Not that I recall." Carr pulled out her data pad and typed rapidly. "Let's do a search of the evidence archive. Zero hits. Those words didn't appear in anything I saw, in any context." Carr leaned close to Paul, her eyes boring into his. "Paul, I know how badly you want Lieutenant Shen to be acquitted. I know how badly you want to find proof she didn't cause the disaster on the Maury. Are you willing to swear to me that you actually saw those words on a memo addressed to Undersecretary McNamara?"

  Paul nodded, keeping his eyes on Commander Carr's. "Yes, ma'am. I don't pretend to know the entire contents of that memo, but I do know what I've told you."

  "You're aware of the penalty for perjury?"

  Bashir almost jumped up from his chair. "Commander! That's-"

  Paul gestured him back. "It's okay. Yes, ma'am. I'm aware of it. I'm not lying. I'm not engaging in wishful thinking. I saw that much of the memo. I had independent confirmation those words were there."

  "And who is this other source who can confirm that information?"

  "A warrant officer, ma'am. Not a cop. Someone who works in computer support."

  "How fortunate your warrant officer's not a cop." Carr leaned back again. "If it's true…" She stared grimly at nothing for a moment. "What do want to do, Lieutenant Bashir?"

  "Reopen discovery. Get a court order to access that web site. A sealed order so we don't have to worry about the site being purged before we can get to it."

  "Judge McMasters isn't going to take kindly to the idea of reopening discovery. We've had final arguments. The members of the court are working on their decisions."

  "The judge'll agree to it if trial counsel supports the motion."

  "I represent the government, not Ms. Shen."

  Paul spread his hands, his face pleading. "You represent justice, ma'am. Don't you? If this evidence disproves the government's case-"

  "That's a very big 'if' right now, Mr. Sinclair."

  "You promised me if I found any evidence that might exonerate Jen that you'd give it a fair evaluation."