Sachs continued, "Well, it was like a casino. The outside doesn't exist. Small--or no--windows. No watercooler conversation, nobody laughing. Everybody's completely focused on their jobs. It's like you're in a different world."
"And you want somebody else's opinion on the place," Sellitto said.
"Right."
Rhyme suggested, "Journalist?" Thom's partner, Peter Hoddins, was a former reporter for The New York Times and was now writing nonfiction books about politics and society. He'd probably know people from the business desk who covered the data-mining industry.
But she shook her head. "No, somebody who's had firsthand contact with them. A former employee maybe."
"Good. Lon, can you call somebody at Unemployment?"
"Sure." Sellitto called the New York State unemployment department. After ten minutes or so of bouncing around from office to office he found the name of a former SSD assistant technical director. He'd worked for the data miner for a number of years but had been fired a year and a half ago. Calvin Geddes was his name and he was in Manhattan. Sellitto got the details and handed the note to Sachs. She called Geddes and arranged to see him in about an hour.
Rhyme had no particular opinion about her mission. In any investigation you need to cover all bases. But leads like Geddes and Pulaski's checking on alibis were, to Rhyme, like images seen in an opaque window's reflection--suggestions of the truth but not the truth itself. It was only the hard evidence, scant though it was, that held the real answer to who their killer was. And so he turned back to the clues.
*
Move . . .
Arthur Rhyme had given up being scared of the Lats, who were ignoring him anyway. And he knew the big fuck-you black guy wasn't any threat.
It was the tattooed white guy who bothered him. The tweaker--what meth-heads were apparently called--scared Arthur a lot. Mick was his name. His hands twitched, he scratched his welty skin and his eerie white eyes jumped like bubbles in boiling water. He whispered to himself.
Arthur had tried to avoid the man all yesterday, and last night he'd lain awake and in between bouts of depression spent a lot of time wishing Mick away, hoping that he'd go to trial today and vanish from Arthur's life forever.
But no such luck. He was back this morning and seemed to be staying close. He continued to glance at Arthur. "You and me," he once muttered, sending a chill right down to Arthur's tailbone.
Even the Lats didn't seem to want to hassle Mick. Maybe you had to follow certain protocols in jail. Some unwritten rules of right and wrong. People like this skinny tattooed druggie might not play by those rules, and everybody here seemed to know it.
Ever'body know ever'thing round here. 'Cept you. You don' know shit. . . .
Once he laughed, looked at Arthur as if recognizing him and started to rise but then seemed to forget what he'd intended and sat down again, picking at his thumb.
"Yo, Jersey Man." A voice in his ear. Arthur jumped.
The big black guy had come up behind him. He sat down next to Arthur. The bench creaked.
"Antwon. Antwon Johnson."
Should he make a fist and tap it? Don't be a fucking idiot, he told himself and just nodded. "Arthur--"
"I know." Johnson glanced at Mick and said to Arthur, "That tweaker fucked up. Don't do that meth shit. Fuck you up forever." After a moment he said, "So. You a brainy guy?"
"Sort of."
"The fuck 'sorta' mean?"
Don't play games. "I have a physics degree. And one in chemistry. I went to M.I.T."
"Mitt?"
"It's a school."
"Good one?"
"Pretty good."
"So you know science shit? Chemistry and physics and everything?"
This line of questioning wasn't at all like that of the two Lats', the ones who'd tried to extort him. It seemed like Johnson was really interested. "Some things. Yeah."
Then the big guy asked, "So you know howta make bombs. One big enough to blow that motherfucking wall down."
"I . . ." Heart thudding again, harder than before. "Well--"
Antwon Johnson laughed. "Fuckin' wit' you, man."
"I--"
"Fuckin'. Wit. You."
"Oh." Arthur laughed and wondered if his heart would explode right at this moment or would wait till later. He hadn't gotten all of his father's genes, but had the faulty cardiac messages been included in the package?
Mick said something to himself and took an intense interest in his right elbow, scratching it raw.
Both Johnson and Arthur watched him.
Tweaker . . .
Johnson then said, "Yo, yo, Jersey Man, lemme ask you somethin'."
"Sure."
"My momma, she religious, you know what I'm saying? And she tellin' me one time the Bible was right. I mean, all of it was exactly the way that shit was wrote. Okay but listen up: I'm thinking, where's the dinosaurs in the Bible? God created man and woman and earth and rivers and donkeys and snakes an' shit. Why don't it say God created dinosaurs? I mean, I seen their skeletons, you know. So they was real. So whatsa fuckin' truth, man?"
Arthur Rhyme looked at Mick. Then at the nail pounded in the wall. His palms were sweating and he was thinking that, of all the things that could happen to him in jail, he was going to get killed because he took a scientist's moral stand against intelligent design.
Oh, what the fuck?
He said, "It would be against all the known laws of science--laws that have been acknowledged by every advanced civilization on earth--for the earth to be only six thousand years old. It would be like you sprouting wings and flying out that window there."
The man frowned.
I'm dead.
Johnson fixed him with an intense gaze. Then he nodded. "I fuckin' knew it. Didn't make no sense at all, six thousand years. Fuck."
"I can give you the name of a book to read about it. There's this author Richard Dawkins and he--"
"Don' wanna read no fuckin' book. Take yo' word fo' it, Mr. Jersey Man."
Arthur really felt like tapping fists now. But he refrained. He asked, "What's your mother going to say when you tell her?"
The round black face screwed up in astonishment. "I ain' gonna tell her. That'd be fucked up. You never win no arguments 'gainst yo' mother."
Or your father, Arthur said to himself.
Johnson then grew serious. He said, "Yo. Word up you din't do what they busted you fo'."
"Of course not."
"But you got yo' ass collared anyway?"
"Yep."
"The fuck that happen?"
"I wish I knew. I've been thinking about it since I got arrested. It's all I think about. How he could've done it."
"Who's 'he'?"
"The real killer."
"Yo, like in The Fugitive. Or O.J."
"The police found all kinds of evidence linking me to the crime. Somehow the real killer knew everything about me. My car, where I lived, my schedule. He even knew things I bought--and he planted them as evidence. I'm sure that's what happened."
Antwon Johnson considered this and then laughed. "Man. That yo' fucking problem."
"What's that?"
"You went out an' you bought ever'thing. Shoulda just boosted it, man. Then nobody know shit what you about."
Chapter Twenty-three
Another lobby.
But a lot different from SSD's.
Amelia Sachs had never seen anything quite so messy. Maybe when she was a beat officer, responding to domestics among druggies in Hell's Kitchen. But even then a lot of those people had had dignity; they made the effort. This place made her cringe. The not-for-profit organization Privacy Now, located in an old piano factory in the city's Chelsea district, won the prize for slovenly.
Stacks of computer printouts, books--many of them law books and yellowing government regulations--newspapers and magazines. Then cardboard boxes, which contained more of the same. Phonebooks too. Federal Registers.
And dust. A ton of dust.
&n
bsp; A receptionist in blue jeans and a shabby sweater pounded furiously on an old computer keyboard and spoke, sotto voce, into a hands-free telephone. Harried people in jeans and T-shirts, or corduroys and wrinkled work shirts, walked into the office from up the hall, swapped files or picked up phone-message slips and disappeared.
Cheap printed signs and posters filled the walls.
BOOKSTORES: BURN YOUR CUSTOMERS' RECEIPTS, BEFORE THE GOVERNMENT BURNS THEIR BOOKS!!!
On one wrinkled rectangle of art board was the famous line from George Orwell's novel, 1984, about a totalitarian society:
Big Brother Is Watching You.
And sitting prominently on the scabby wall across from Sachs:
GUERRILLA'S GUIDE TO THE PRIVACY WAR
* Never give out your Social Security Number.
* Never give out your phone number.
* Hold loyalty card swap parties before you go shopping.
* Never volunteer for surveys.
* "Opt out" every chance you can.
* Don't fill out product registration cards.
* Don't fill out "warranty" cards. You don't need one for the warranty. They're information gathering devices!
* Remember--the Nazis' most dangerous weapon was information.
* Stay off the "grid" as much as possible.
She was digesting this when a scuffed door opened and a short, intense-looking man with pale skin strode up to her, shook her hand and then led her back into his office, which was even messier than the lobby.
Calvin Geddes, the former employee of SSD, now worked for this privacy rights organization. "I went over to the dark side," he said, smiling. He'd abandoned the conservative SSD dress code, and was wearing a yellow button-down shirt without a tie, jeans and running shoes.
The pleasant grin faded quickly, though, as she told him the story of the murders.
"Yep," he whispered, his eyes hard and focused now. "I knew something like this would happen. I absolutely knew it."
Geddes explained that he had a technical background and had worked with Sterling's first company, SSD's predecessor, in Silicon Valley, writing code for them. He moved to New York and lived a nice life as SSD skyrocketed to success.
But then the experience had soured.
"We had problems. We didn't encrypt data back then and were responsible for some serious identity thefts. Several people committed suicide. And a couple of times stalkers signed up as clients--but only to get information from innerCircle. Two of the women they were looking for were attacked, one almost died. Then some parents in custody battles used our data to find their exes and kidnapped the children. It was tough. I felt like the guy who helped invent the atom bomb and then regretted it. I tried to put more controls in place at the company. And that meant that I didn't believe in the quote 'SSD vision,' according to my boss."
"Sterling?"
"Ultimately, yes. But he didn't actually fire me. Andrew never gets his hands dirty. He delegates the unpleasantries. That way he can appear to be the most wonderful, kindest boss in the world. . . . And as a practical matter there's less evidence against him if other people do his butchery. . . . Well, when I left I joined Privacy Now."
The organization was like EPIC, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, he explained. PN challenged threats to individuals' privacy from the government, businesses and financial institutions, computer providers, telephone companies, and commercial data brokers and miners. The organization lobbied in Washington, sued the government under the Freedom of Information Act to find out about surveillance programs, and sued individual corporations that weren't complying with privacy and disclosure laws.
Sachs didn't tell him about the data trap Rodney Szarnek had put together but explained in general terms how they were looking for SSD customers and employees who might be able to patch together dossiers. "The security seems very tight. But that was what Sterling and his people told us. I wanted an outside opinion."
"Happy to help."
"Mark Whitcomb told us about the concrete firewalls and keeping the data divided up."
"Who's Whitcomb?"
"He's with their Compliance Department."
"Never heard of it. It's new."
Sachs explained, "The department is like a consumer advocate within the company. To make sure all government regulations are complied with."
Geddes seemed pleased, though he added, "That didn't come about out of the goodness of Andrew Sterling's heart. They probably got sued once too often and wanted to make a good show for the public and Congress. Sterling's never going to give one inch if he doesn't have to. . . . But about the data pens, that's true. Sterling treats data like the Holy Grail. And hacking in? Probably impossible. And there is no way anybody could physically break in and steal data."
"He told me that very few employees can log on and get dossiers from innerCircle. As far as you know, is that true?"
"Oh, yeah. A few of them have to have access but nobody else. I never did. And I was there from the beginning."
"Do you have any thoughts? Maybe any employees with a troubling past? Violent?"
"It's been a few years. And I never thought anybody was particularly dangerous. Though, I've got to say, despite the big happy family facade Sterling likes to put on, I never really got to know anyone there."
"What about these individuals?" She showed him the list of suspects.
Geddes looked it over. "I worked with Gillespie. I knew Cassel. I don't like either of them. They're caught up in the whole data-mining curve, like Silicon Valley in the nineties. Hotshots. I don't know the others. Sorry." Then he studied her closely. "So you've been there?" he asked with a cool smile. "What'd you think of Andrew?"
Her thoughts jammed as she tried to come up with a brief summary of her impressions. Finally: "Determined, polite, inquisitive, smart but . . ." Her voice petered out.
"But you don't really know him."
"Right."
"Because he presents the great stone face. In all the years I worked with him I never really knew him. Nobody knows him. Unfathomable. I love that word. That's Andrew. I was always looking for clues. . . . You notice something odd about his bookshelves?"
"You couldn't see the spines of the books."
"Exactly. I snuck a peek once. Guess what? They weren't about computers or privacy or data or business. They were mostly history books, philosophy, politics: the Roman Empire, Chinese emperors, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Stalin, Idi Amin, Khrushchev. He read a lot about the Nazis. Nobody used information the way they did and Andrew doesn't hesitate to tell you. First major use of computers to keep track of ethnic groups. That's how they consolidated power. Sterling's doing the same in the corporate world. Notice the company name, SSD? The rumor is he chose it intentionally. SS--for the Nazi elite army. SD--for their security and intelligence agency. You know what his competitors say it stands for? 'Selling Souls for Dollars.' " Geddes laughed grimly.
"Oh, don't get me wrong. Andrew doesn't dislike Jews. Or any other group. Politics, nationality, religion and race mean nothing to him. I heard him say once, 'Data have no borders.' The seat of power in the twenty-first century is information, not oil or geography. And Andrew Sterling wants to be the most powerful man on earth. . . . I'm sure he gave you the data-mining-is-God speech."
"Saving us from diabetes, helping us afford Christmas presents and houses and solving cases for the police?"
"That's the one. And all of it's true. But tell me if those benefits are worth somebody knowing every detail about your life. Maybe you don't care, provided you save a few bucks. But do you really want ConsumerChoice lasers scanning your eyes in a movie theater and recording your reactions to those commercials they run before the movie? Do you want the RFID tag in your car key to be available to the police to know that you hit a hundred miles an hour last week, when your route only took you along roads that were posted fifty? Do you want strangers knowing what kind of underwear your daughter wears? Or exactly when you're having sex?"
"What?"
"Well, innerCircle knows you bought condoms and KY this afternoon and your husband was on the six-fifteen E train home. It knows you've got the evening free because your son's at the Mets game and your daughter's buying clothes at The Gap in the Village. It knows you put on cable-TV porn at seven-eighteen. And that you order some nice tasty postcoital takeout Chinese at quarter to ten. That information is all there.
"Oh, SSD knows if your children are maladjusted in school and when to send you direct-mail flyers about tutors and child-counseling services. If your husband is having trouble in the bedroom and when to send him discreet flyers about erectile dysfunction cures. When your family history, buying patterns and absences from work put you in a presuicidal profile--"
"But that's good. So a counselor can help you."
Geddes gave a cold laugh. "Wrong. Because counseling potential suicide victims isn't profitable. SSD sends the name to local funeral homes and grief counselors--who could snag all of the family as customers, not just a single depressed person after he shoots himself. And, by the way, that was a very lucrative venture."
Sachs was shocked.
"Did you hear about 'tethering'?"
"No."
"SSD has defined a network based just on you. Call it 'Detective Sachs World.' You're the hub and the spokes go to your partners, spouses, parents, neighbors, coworkers, anybody it might help SSD to know about and profit from that knowledge. Everybody who has any connection is 'tethered' to you. And each one of them is his or her own hub, and there are dozens of people tethered to them."
Another thought and his eyes flashed. "You know about metadata?"
"What's that?"
"Data about data. Every document that's created by or stored on a computer--letters, files, reports, legal briefs, spreadsheets, Web sites, e-mails, grocery lists--is loaded with hidden data. Who created it, where it's been sent, all the changes that have been made to it and who made them and when--all recorded there, second by second. You write a memo to your boss and for a joke you start out with 'Dear Stupid Prick,' then delete it and write it correctly. Well, the 'stupid prick' part is still in there."
"Seriously?"
"Oh, yes. The disk size of a typical word-processing report is much larger than the text in the document itself. What's the rest? Metadata. The Watchtower database-management program has special bots--software robots--that do nothing but find and store metadata from every document it collects. We called it the Shadow Department, because metadata's like a shadow of the main data--and it's usually much more revealing."