The Reform Artists: A Legal Suspense, Spy Thriller (The Reform Artists Series Book 1) (11 page)

“That makes sense to me,” Martin said, recalling how he had felt immediately after viewing the video disk. “By the way, who was that guy on your video?”

“All I can tell you,” Brooks said, “is that sometime in the past, several top people in the intelligence community (military and civilian) were put through the same meat grinder that’s now preparing to turn you into sausage.

“They didn’t like it any more than you will. While they lacked political influence, these men more than made up for that through their access to power. I’m talking about the kind of raw power you get with control of billions of dollars in state-of-the-art intelligence-gathering equipment, command and control of highly disciplined special ops units, global satellite networks, secret offshore accounts and classified technologies.

“Eventually, they got together and quietly devised a way to use the resources at their disposal to help anyone being victimized by ‘the system’: legal, judicial, banking—whatever—and to help set things right.”

“That’s incredible,” Martin said. “And they’ve been able to operate undetected the whole time?”

“Of course. Why do you think we call them ‘spooks’?”

“Does this organization of yours have a name?” Martin asked.

Brooks smiled. “I call it the ‘home office,’ but there really is no official name. And again, that’s deliberate. Our founders were not looking to draw attention.”

“Listen, Martin,” he continued, “we want to help you out of your current predicament, and we can because our resources are considerable. We have access to people and assets you can scarcely imagine. The point is we can be extremely effective. Even so, we will only help you up to a point, and I want to be perfectly clear about this.

“Our goal is to reestablish a level playing field for you with the court. We believe in the justice system. We just want it to work properly: free from bias and corruption. So, that’s as far as our interference goes. Despite what you may think, we are not subversives. Although some might call us ‘terrorists’—if they even knew we existed—we think of ourselves as reform artists.”

Martin looked puzzled. “Reform artists? I don’t get it.”

“We call ourselves ‘reform artists,’” Brooks continued, “because we effect systemic change through actions taken on an individual level. That’s not easy to do. It requires great sophistication and delicacy. When we get involved on someone’s behalf, such as in your case, we take precautions to make sure no one gets seriously hurt, no one gets killed, no one gets threatened, and no one’s property gets damaged or destroyed.

“Instead of blowing up buildings and terrorizing people, we achieve our aims peacefully, by bringing institutions back into balance. It’s a subtle, disciplined approach to maintaining the social order.

“Sometimes our efforts produce permanent changes in people. Other times, the effects are just temporary. But gradually, we move society in a better direction. You could easily compare our work to continental drift. Its effects may seem miniscule in the moment, but when compounded often enough, over time, it can change the face of the world.”

Martin considered everything Brooks had said. “What you do sounds impressive, Robert, I’ll give you that. But I don’t have millions of years in which to see meaningful results. My case goes before the judge in just five days. And everything I care about—my relationship with my kids, my position with my firm and my reputation—it’s all on the line. Everyone keeps urging me to just settle the damned thing and make it go away. I don’t like the idea of rewarding my wife for lying. And I’m sure that, if I settle, I probably won’t like the terms I get, either.

“But more importantly, I don’t want my kids blaming me for breaking up the family. I don’t want them believing, for one instant, that their father ever abused them or their mother. I also don’t want anything left in the public record that might lead people to conclude that these domestic violence charges ever had merit.

“Robert, what assurance can you give me that, if I do ask for your assistance, your plan will work?”

“I can’t guarantee anything, Martin,” Robert said. “No one can. All I can say is that we will do everything in our power to ‘level the playing field’ for you. What happens after that is largely out of our control.”

Martin frowned. “That’s not what I would call a compelling sales argument.”

“Maybe not,” Brooks said. “But what’s your alternative? If you go to trial without our help, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get screwed.”

“I could settle,” Martin said.

“Really? If you thought that was a viable option, I doubt we’d be having this conversation.”

Martin thought for a moment. “How soon would I need to give you an answer?”

Brooks looked him squarely in the eyes. “I need your decision right now, Martin. Tonight. We barely have time to plan and execute the operation.”

“Whose fault is that?” Martin asked. “You guys had forty-eight hours in which to contact me. What the hell were you waiting for?!”

“I don’t know,” Brooks said. “That’s not my call. But I am sure whoever was responsible had a good reason. Regardless, I need your answer now.”

Martin put his left elbow on the table and, leaning forward, began rubbing his temples with his left hand. As he did, he closed his eyes. “I’ve got to think this through,” he said. Then, he looked up. “Can you, at least, give me until morning?”

“Impossible,” Brooks said.

Martin glared at him. “You’ve got to be kidding me! I can’t do this now!”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know!” he said. “I’m just not ready.”

Brooks quietly exited the database and shut down the laptop. Then, he looked at Martin, who was still leaning over the table, rubbing his temples. “We’re done here,” he said, indifferently, closing the laptop and returning it to its case. “I’m sorry,” he said, standing up.

Martin’s heart was pounding and he had started to sweat. “That’s it?" he asked, "After all your months of research and preparation?"

“It happens,” Brooks said. He walked over to the coffee pot and turned the power off. Then, he gestured toward the door. “You ready?”

Martin’s pulse was racing. “All right, all right!” he blurted out. “Let’s do it!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, damn it! Do it! Do it!” he said, wringing his hands. “I think you’re right. I really don’t see any other options. You guys are it.”

Brooks sat back down. “Martin, if you give us the go ahead now, I need you to understand −”

“What? What else is there, Robert?”

“Your decision must be final. There’s no going back on it.”

“Why the hell not?” Martin demanded.

“Because as soon as we leave here, our group will begin committing considerable manpower and resources to run your covert op, resources that could just as easily be used to help someone else. We’ll also be asking certain people to break the law in order to help you. We cannot ask them to do that in vain.

“Considering that, are you still prepared to go forward?”

Martin teetered at the edge of panic. He knew that, if he said ‘Yes,’ to Brooks, he would forfeit any chance of settling the case before trial, something he had been eager to do only hours earlier. Now, he would be ‘locked in’ to a trial, no matter how appealing his wife’s final settlement offer might be.

“If I say ‘yes’ now,” Martin asked, “does that mean I must see the trial through to a final verdict?”

Brooks looked puzzled. “No one’s ever asked me that before.”

“Well?”

“Here’s what I think,” he said. “You'd be agreeing not to entertain settling the case at least until after your attorney rests. From that point on, you'd be free to settle, on the advice of counsel.”

Martin took a deep breath and relaxed. “Okay, then,” he said. “Yes. I'm all in.”

Brooks smiled, and the two shook hands. Then, he softly cleared his throat. “There is one final matter we need to discuss, Martin. I believe I mentioned at the start of our conversation that we have certain ‘expectations.’”

Here it comes,
Martin thought.

“In addition to requiring that you tell no one about our organization’s existence, we also will need your solemn pledge that you will assist us—without hesitation—if we ever ask.”

He looked Martin squarely in the eyes again. “Are you comfortable with those conditions?”

“Yes,” Martin said.

“Good. Then, roll up your sleeve and extend your arm.”

“What for?”

“It’s necessary, Martin,” Brooks said. He waited as Martin rolled up his right sleeve and laid his exposed arm down on the table. Brooks quickly applied rubbing alcohol to a small area toward the outside of Martin’s upturned arm, just below the elbow. Then, as he held Martin’s arm down with his left hand, he revealed a small syringe in his right.

“Whoa! What’s that?” Martin asked with more than a little concern.

“It’s just a small, sub-dermal tracking device,” Brooks said as he removed the cap with his teeth and then plunged the needle under Martin’s skin.

“Hey!” Martin said, but it was too late.

Brooks tossed the empty syringe into a nearby trashcan. “The tracking device is non-negotiable,” he said. “It allows us to determine your whereabouts on a moment’s notice, and that’s critical if we are to operate effectively as an organization.”

“What is it, exactly?” Martin asked, rubbing the injection site.

“It’s a crystal-based micro transmitter that runs on wireless Tesla power,” Brooks said. “It represents the next generation in ultra-high-frequency, passive transmission technology. Officially, it’s only in the testing stages—and authorized for use in rare instances. But, for us, it’s standard issue.

“Its primary value comes from its tiny size and its evasiveness. This transmitter can clear metal detectors, x-ray scans and other popular security devices.”

“How does it work?”

“The transmitter remains dormant under your skin, until activated.”

“And how do you activate it?” Martin asked.

“That’s the beauty of it,” Brooks said. “The unit contains a tiny electrical induction coil set to receive near-field wireless electrical power transmissions. We set them to operate at the same frequencies that run wireless inventory control RFID-tag systems and Smart Cards. So, throughout the day, whenever you come in range of these devices − at retail establishments, banks and gas stations − your device powers up temporarily and listens for its unique ultra-high frequency pulse.

“The technology is perfectly suited to our purposes. For instance, we only need to know your whereabouts, or the whereabouts of any operative, when we have a specific assignment for them.”

“To find you, we simply transmit the appropriate ultra-high-frequency pulse through our global network until we get a response. When you and your transmitter come into range, our signal activates your transmitter’s resonant harmonics, triggering a high-frequency return signal burst. The process is similar, in concept, to echo-location on demand.”

“So it’s safe?” Martin asked.

“Perfectly,” Brooks said. “The device produces virtually no heat, and it’s all based on highly efficient, low-energy output.”

(Of course, Martin also realized, this newly installed device now meant Brooks and his ‘associates’ would always be able to find him, further assuring his continued loyalty and compliance.) “How do I know you haven’t installed a little cyanide dispenser in it?” he asked.

“You don’t,” Brooks said, putting on his best poker face. Instantly, he regretted it as Martin’s eyes bulged in horror. “But we didn’t,” he continued, smiling. “Remember, Martin, we are a non-violent group.”

“You'd better be!” Martin said, a little annoyed with Brooks, but also intrigued. He was once more feeling the renewed confidence that comes from making a bold decision and from committing himself to a new, promising, course of action. “So, what’s next?” he asked.

“That’s simple,” Brooks said. “Between now and your hearing next Monday, we will implement a covert plan to make sure that Judge Farnsworth, the judge presiding over your case, behaves more even-handedly at your hearing.”

“How do you intend to do that?”

“I could tell you, Martin,” Brooks said, smiling, “but then, as the saying goes, I’d have to kill you.”

Martin laughed nervously.

“Well, I think that concludes our business,” Brooks said. He extended his hand. “What do you say we call it a night?”

“Sounds good to me,” Martin said.

The two shook hands. Then, Brooks locked up for the night and escorted Martin back to his car.

Roger Hannah bought a small cup of coffee and instinctively took a seat in the far corner of the nearly deserted McDonald’s
®
restaurant. From this vantage point, he could see through the store’s large, front windows and quickly spot anyone approaching. Outside, car headlights flickered intermittently through the hedges as late-night shoppers entered and exited the adjoining shopping center. Inside, the night shift busied itself behind the counter, shouting out drive-through order details and words of encouragement to each other, while the inviting smell of sizzling burgers and fries wafted through the dining area.

In his Naval Academywindbreaker, Under Armo
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
jogging slacks and white running shoes, Hannah looked like he had just completed a routine, nighttime run. He unzipped his windbreaker and sat down revealing a drab, gray t-shirt stretched tight across his muscular chest. He looked fit enough to be in his mid-to-late forties. Only his gray, military-issue haircut, his tan, weathered, deeply lined face, and tired gray eyes hinted at his true age and at the lifetime of classified work that had helped shape his character and outlook.

Hannah glanced at his wristwatch: 9:42 p.m. At ten, the restaurant would close its doors for the night, and staff members would start cleaning up and restocking the dine-in area for the morning rush. About thirty minutes later, the assistant manager, Leanna, would politely ask him to leave. That meant he had nearly an hour in which to surf the Internet over the restaurant’s public, and personally untraceable, wireless access network. With his powerful, 256K data encryption software scrambling his communications and a random I.P. address generator program masking his computer’s true identity, Hannah would be able to do his ‘extra-curricular’ work in relative secrecy while physically hiding in plain sight. The sixty-four-year-old NSA deputy administrator knew it was foolish to expect any more privacy than that. After all, his own agency had been illegally intercepting, analyzing and storing virtually all domestic and international online communications, as well as voice and data transmissions, for the better part of two decades.

Hannah took out his laptop and plugged in an additional layer of security: A tiny, USB memory stick "boot drive" that contained a covert operating system. He pressed the power button and the laptop sprang to life, booting directly from the thumb drive and bypassing its regular operating system altogether. Now, any activity logs this new work session might generate, and any information Hannah might choose to download, would reside exclusively on the tiny, password-protected USB drive—leaving nothing incriminating on his NSA-issued computer.

As an added precaution, Hannah launched a tunnel browser program that covertly routed his online session through a string of far-flung, remote servers, changing his computer’s IP address several additional times.

Hannah brought the Quadratic Sound Studios website up on his browser and then opened a "lock box" program located on the thumb drive. He scanned the list of accounts. When he found the entry for the "Quadratic Sound Studios, of Bethesda," website, he keyed in the information and hit Enter, logging in as Dave Clancy.

Hannah lifted the coffee cup to take a sip. His hand shook excessively—a reminder of his recently diagnosed Parkinson’s disease and the fact that, at this late hour, his medication was starting to wear off. He used his left hand to help steady the cup, took a quick sip, and hastily returned it to the table.

Hannah went to Clancy’s “sent mail” folder where he found, and opened, a new email addressed to him at one of his many online depository accounts. The email mentioned a promising, new technical breakthrough and included two attachments. The first was a compressed copy of a new ‘Hypnotic Dream Sequence’ audio file. Hannah had ordered the file several days earlier just in case Martin Silkwood decided to give his team the green light. The second file contained a transcript of the Hypnotic Dream Sequence narration. Liu’s latest discovery, Clancy reported, had made the HDS file several times larger, and many times more powerful, than before. Hannah smiled as the laptop began downloading the files.

Earlier that evening, Hannah had received an email announcing a new post on Robert Brook’s Mid-Atlantic travel blog. He had followed the link to the post, where he had found the encoded message, ‘It’s a go,’ buried in the copy. Now, he could get started doing the work he loved most: formulating and orchestrating high-risk covert operations.

By now, the Silkwood Project had survived its first three operational hurdles. Phase One, ‘Target Acquisition,’ had occurred nine months earlier, when the group’s automated Legal Watch system first flagged Katie Silkwood as Beverly West’s newest divorce client. Within two weeks, routine background checks gave Martin Silkwood an ‘extremely low risk’ domestic violence score, clearing the way for the Silkwood case to move into the organization’s Covert Ops holding queue. There, it sat until the previous Friday, when Katie Silkwood filed for a Temporary Restraining Order against her husband, in Montgomery County, Maryland, District Court. The filing activated the Silkwood case and led, in rapid succession, to Phase Two, ‘The Face Off’ on the subway, when an agent slipped the introductory DVD into Martin’s pants pocket and tagged his brief case with a small, discreet tracking device. Phase Three, ‘The hand-shake,’ began earlier that night when the second agent contacted Martin in the bar. It ended in Martin’s face-to-face meeting with his handler, Robert Brooks.

Each phase involved a heightened level of organizational exposure and risk. Each also required more prolonged, direct contact between the target and the group’s covert operatives. But they all paled, in terms of risk, to the next step: Phase Four, the hostile action they would take on behalf of their new client. Phase Four demanded a coordinated effort, involving multiple operatives and typically targeting at least one, possibly more, ‘high value’ individuals: government officials or powerful businesspeople. Phase Four also nearly always required the group to engage in some form of ‘extra-legal’ activity.

This operation would be no different. Hannah intended to use Quadratic’s dream manipulation technology to temporarily, if not permanently, alter District Court Judge Michael J. Farnsworth’s thought patterns and behavior. Farnsworth was the presiding judge in the Silkwood v. Silkwood domestic violence case as well as the Chief Administrative Judge for Maryland’s 12- district courts.

If all went according to plan, the operation would succeed in making Judge Farnsworth more sensitive to the rights of ‘respondents’ (in this case, Martin Silkwood) and less biased toward the claims of the ‘petitioners’ (such as Martin’s wife, Katie.)

To pull it off, Hannah’s agents would need to gain access to the Judge in an isolated, contained environment. Everything had to occur without raising the judge’s suspicions and without exposing him to any serious physical danger.

Typical ops sites included the target’s home, workplace, or such third-party locations as a neighbor’s home or a medical or dental office. Hannah’s group had used any number of third-party locations with success in the past. He preferred them, because they usually presented him with the smallest number of variables and unknowns to control. By far, the easiest ops his group had ever run took place in temporary, out-of-town accommodations, when his crews had followed targets on trips to professional conferences and workshops. Posing as room-service staff, they had quickly gained entry to their targets' hotel and motel rooms, where they completed their assignments effortlessly, in relative secrecy.

Hannah knew that the ideal spot for carrying out a covert operation against Judge Farnsworth, or any sitting judge for that matter, was inside the judge’s chambers, where the need for complete privacy, and discretion, overrode normal security concerns. The county may have blanketed the courthouse with security cameras and listening devices, and bailiffs, sheriff’s deputies, and other support staff may have roamed the halls freely, but both official and casual snooping stopped abruptly at the judges' chamber doors. Security cameras continuously monitored entry and exit points only, and no court employee wishing to keep his or her job would ever consider entering a judge’s chambers unannounced...or uninvited.

The substance of any negotiations or discussions that occurred inside that ‘holy of holies’ remained sacrosanct, known only to the judge and the other participants.

The problem from Hannah’s perspective lay in obtaining a ‘free pass’ into the judge’s chambers. Access normally came exclusively through judicial invitation. If an unauthorized person even attempted to gain entry, he or she would immediately draw attention. At best, guards would appear and escort him or her out of the building. At worst, they could detain the individual for questioning and file criminal trespass charges.

Hannah’s researchers had been busy, since the Silkwood ex-parte hearing, gathering intelligence about the judge, his habits, movements and contacts. One went to his house, swapped out his trash bags, and took them to a secluded place where she methodically combed through the items, seeking any useful information. She pulled details off the judge’s empty pill bottle labels; phone, cell phone and cable bills; medical bills; credit card statements and more.

Another, an NSA employee, requested a ‘data dump’ of intelligence gathered through the agency’s illegal Sentinel mass domestic-surveillance program. The requested files covered data from all households located in a few randomly generated census tracts − including, in this case, the one where Judge Farnsworth lived. The data ostensibly was being used to run systems simulations and data integrity checks. Although the coded files included no names, the agent could quickly cross-reference the data against the judge’s home address and phone number and retrieve his social security number, bank account numbers, driver’s license number, credit card numbers, email account user names and passwords, income tax data and much more.

A third had hacked into the court’s website and downloaded the previous week’s security camera tapes. He then ran the tapes through a facial recognition program, tagging, and tracing, the judge’s daily movements within the courthouse and identifying everyone with whom he came in contact. Agents then cross-referenced those identities against the organization’s database of operatives, looking for potential matches to exploit.

One final agent had performed sophisticated data mining on the internet, using meta-search engines to cull any information that mentioned the judge by name. Afterward, he downloaded the file and fed it into a filtering tool that eliminated duplicate records and sorted and ranked ‘hits’ according to their potential value and relevance.

By now, the agents had finished their investigations and had run their reports. Hannah logged into the organization’s top-secret website and downloaded those files onto his thumb drive.

He then took several sips of coffee as he waited for an additional ‘fetch’ bot he had created to make the rounds of a handful of online depository accounts he had set up as extra drop points. At each stop, the program would download any newly deposited files and then delete all traces of them from the site directory. When it had completed its rounds, the program downloaded the retrieved files to the open folder on Hannah’s thumb drive.

With all the ops data now in hand, Hannah loaded a name extraction program and pointed it at the folder containing the downloaded files. The program rapidly scanned the contents of all the intel reports, isolating, copying and exporting any common names it found, along with any associated identifying data. Hannah then accessed the organization’s secret website again, where he uploaded the processed file and ran it through a program specifically designed to cross-reference its names against his group’s entire roster of operatives. Moments later, he downloaded the results: A report listing each extracted name on a separate page, along with a list of likely internal ‘hits.’ The report returned a separate line for each potential match, identifying the operative by name and ID number and appending a four-digit fraction estimating the probability that the two names were, in fact, an exact match. (Hannah would use the list to identify operatives who might have useful connections, or access, to the judge.)

Next, he uploaded the remaining files from the folder and fed them into a powerful data analysis app that his team had adapted from the NSA’s famed ‘Thin Thread’ software, created in the late 1990s. Several years after 9/11, the NSA had secretly modified and expanded ‘Thin Thread’ to drive a highly invasive, and illegal, domestic surveillance program that served as a precursor to Sentinel.

To run ‘Thin Thread’ efficiently, Hannah had configured the website with a series of parallel processors that could crunch data with all the processing power and speed of a super computer. Within a minute, the program completed its analysis and produced a detailed report, identifying opportunities and associations buried within the data.

Hannah downloaded the report and went immediately to the summary page. As expected, the report had failed to identify any suitable third-party locations, owing to the incredibly short time window. That meant Hannah might have no choice but to stage the operation at the judge’s home, where his wife would most likely be present, further complicating matters. Hannah found homes to be among the least desirable sites for running special ops, and he actively tried to avoid them. Family, friends or neighbors could stop by, unannounced, at almost any time, disrupting his carefully laid plans and greatly increasing the risk of exposure or out-and-out failure. (Hannah’s typical approach, in homes, was to have one or two operatives pose as service technicians, from either the power or the cable company. Once inside the home, they would discreetly dose the residents with a short-acting aerosol anesthesia such as Twilight, complete their operation and then exit as quickly as possible.)