While Justice Sleeps(83)
Jared leaned over to Avery, his mouth against her ear. “She is inside a government building. Based on the geotag, it’s the Department of Homeland Security.”
The idea of a meet suddenly held less appeal. Her swallow was nearly audible. “Major Vance?”
“Or someone in his organization.”
“Someone who apparently is looking where she shouldn’t be.” Avery mulled over the implications. This could be a trap, one too dangerous to walk into blind. “If I wanted to, could I reach out again?”
“Yes,” he said. “I captured the computer’s address, and I’ve got a Trojan that will let us get to her again.”
Ten feet away from them, a man sitting in an airport chair took note of their whispers and stood up, moving toward their positions. Jared immediately spotted him, and he casually draped his arm across Avery’s shoulders and leaned his head against hers. “We’re being watched,” he said softly.
The agent stopped but kept furtive watch. He glanced at another agent, who sat with a newspaper twenty feet away. Satisfied, Jared murmured, “Yes, you can contact Wilma again, but if DHS is like the rest of the intelligence agencies, they clean their systems regularly. We have to reach out soon.”
Avery leaned closer to him, turning her lips to his ear. “It would be better if we could figure out who Wilma really is before I meet with her.”
“How?”
“The power of the Court.” Avery reached for the computer again, and Jared handed it over. She opened her personal email account and wrote a quick message to one of the few people still talking to her inside the Court.
“Gary, I need your help. I need a roster of employees at the Science and Technology Directorate for DHS.” Justice Wynn’s FOIA request nudged her to add, “Preferably for the finance or audit division. It’s urgent and important. Please.”
She hit send and sighed. “What next?”
Jared glanced over at the agents. “We wait.”
* * *
—
In her office, Betty Papaleo wondered if she should pack her bags now or later. Surely one of the super-techs in DHS would be knocking on her door soon, demanding her credentials. The only question was whether she’d be in Leavenworth today or next week.
On her desk sat the beginnings of a conspiracy theory that would make Watergate look like high school gossip. She stared at the icon on her screen, the dancing eyes that seemed to know what she was thinking.
Even she didn’t.
She did understand the government. Knowledge was more powerful than money, and if she controlled it, she might be safe. Which meant that she needed to know what she knew before her impromptu meeting tomorrow. She had to write down the thoughts writhing through her mind like scattered eels.
But not in her office on a computer that had been compromised. The dancing icon warned her of how insecure her sanctuary had become. Betty stood, gathered up her notes, and headed downstairs to the dead files room and the ancient computer stored there. It had no access to the Internet. Basically, the nineties-era machine was a very large calculator with a simple word processing program.
It was forgotten and perfect.
Betty began typing, her simple memo growing into a treatise. Fingers flew over the keyboard, stopping only when she needed to reference reports to cross-check dates. The more she typed, the queasier her stomach grew. She’d stumbled onto more than a conspiracy.
What she’d found was mortal sin. She’d never imagined herself to be a tattletale—or, in government-speak, a whistleblower. You didn’t reach her level of security clearance and access without learning to weigh the difference between sloppy and dangerous, between bad and evil. But the sludge-like sensation that had taken up residence in her gut had only gotten worse. Because the only thing worse than a tattletale was a person too afraid to tell the truth.
Wearily, she reread her work. She didn’t bother trying to save the document. The floppy disk drive had grown inoperable years before. Instead, Betty typed in the commands to print. As the pages whirred through the aged printer, she trudged over to the copy machine and duplicated the hundreds of pages Mike had given her. With copies made, she added her manifesto to the stack.
Betty searched the racks of abandoned office supplies. Her fingers closed upon a box suitable for containment. Suddenly aware of what she intended, Betty fumbled a bit as she stacked the pages inside.
To send this information out of the building was illegal and possibly treasonous.
The question was, who to ship it to?
Betty had never considered herself very political. She voted, but party didn’t matter. Her job was her politics, and as a career employee, she understood that having no affiliation was the best job security. Still, what sat in front of her was possible proof that this government had committed acts worse than anyone could have suspected. And if what she’d written was true, then God help America.
Now, though, she needed an ally to ship the report and her memo to as backup. Tomorrow, she’d deliver it to her superiors, but she hadn’t lasted for more than a decade in government without learning some truths. Laws might protect a whistleblower, but the ones who escaped with their reputations intact had insurance policies. In this case, she needed a person outside Homeland Security with the resources to evade the wrath of the president. Someone who would understand what she’d discovered and present her evidence without fear of reprisal.