TWENTY-EIGHT

On the screen, Kevin Finnerty set down his coffee cup.

“I know, Senator,” he said to Jeannette Randall across the table, the camera’s wide-angle lens providing a perfect view of both of them. “I know you have an important committee meeting in an hour. I wouldn’t have asked for these few minutes were it not absolutely necessary.”

“You should be a politician, Mr. Finnerty. You’re here for one reason only. Because I’m turning you people down. Because you’re hoping for an eleventh-hour reprieve.”

“Magic Lantern is too important for politics. I just want you to do the right thing.”

“To give you carte blanche, you mean. To let you and your people have whatever you think you can get away with.”

Finnerty leaned toward her, his voice ice-cold now.

“You’re making a big mistake, a huge mistake. We need Magic Lantern. To have any chance at all against the kind of people we’re fighting, we must have it.”

She shook her head. “Half my committee agrees with you, but they don’t have the votes to make it happen. Thank God there are still a few of us who care about the Bill of Rights.”

“We’re alone here, Senator. Don’t bother to make a speech. We all care about the Bill of Rights, but if you think innovative law enforcement will bring down the Constitution, you’re simply wrong.”

“You call dismantling the Fourth Amendment innovative? Have you read it lately?”

“I read a lot of things. Mostly about the animals who hide behind it to keep themselves out of prison.”

“Better that some go free, wouldn’t you say? Better that than an innocent man in prison.”

“Spend a day inside, Senator. See how many innocent ones you can find.”

“That isn’t the point and you know it.”

“We don’t want to do away with the Fourth Amendment—I shouldn’t even have to tell you that—but the world has changed. The Framers didn’t have telephones, couldn’t possibly have foreseen the anonymity of cyberspace. Sure as hell they wouldn’t agree that computers come with an inherent right to privacy. Or that the government has no right to treat electronic criminality differently than any other kind.”

“Magic Lantern goes much further than that.”

“Not one bit further. Same rules, same safeguards. Our program doesn’t change any of the basics.”

“It doesn’t have to change the rules, not when it’s impossible to tell when you’re breaking them.” She appeared to stare over his head for a moment, then straight into his eyes. “It’s the fox and the henhouse, Mr. Assistant Director. The bureau has always walked a fine line with the Fourth Amendment. The Magic Lantern program—batteries of supercomputers monitoring the keystrokes of millions of home computers—puts you way over that line.” She shook her head. “You’re not going to do it on my watch. Never on my watch.”

“We’re in a war, and you talk about fine lines, about breaking rules … the possibility of breaking rules. Well, what about the bad guys? How many rules do you think they might break?” His voice got louder. “You don’t give us this, we can’t win!”

“Win what? Your version of the Land of the Free? A country where the FBI decides who’s free and who isn’t?”

“That’s uncalled for, Senator, and I resent it. An even playing field is all I want for this country, for what’s left of this country, thanks to people like you. What we’ve got now is anarchy. Drugs and violence. Metal detectors in our schools, for Christ’s sake!” He leaned toward her. “The Bill of Rights protects the people from their government, but who’s supposed to protect the people from themselves?”

“My God, I hear you talk like that and I’m all the more convinced I’m right.” She was almost out of her chair now. “You might want to overthrow the Constitution, but don’t expect me to help. If you’re trying to form a police state, you’ll have to climb over my dead body to do it.”

“I guess that’s up to you. But it doesn’t need to happen that way.”

She sat back again. “What’s that supposed to mean? Are you actually threatening me?”

“Quite the opposite. I very much want to help you.”

Finnerty reached for the black leather briefcase on the floor next to his chair, lifted it to his lap and withdrew a manila envelope, closed the briefcase, and returned it to the floor. He slid the envelope across the table. Senator Randall stared at it for a moment, then at him.

“What’s this?”

“You have family in California, Senator.”

“Get to the point.”

“There are twenty photographs in that envelope, along with a summary report. I’ll start with the first picture.”

She pulled the documents from the envelope, examined the top photograph.

“My daughter, Sarah,” she said. “Sarah Hansen and her husband, Jack. My grandchildren.” I could see her touch the picture and smile, but the smile disappeared as she looked back at Finnerty. “There better be a damned good reason for this.”

“There’s never been a better reason.” He pointed at the top photo. “Whole family here, looks like, on the deck of their house in La Jolla, the blue Pacific behind them. Couple of million dollars worth of house, easy.”

“Jack’s a lawyer, a Boalt Hall lawyer. Trust me, he can afford it.”

“He’s a member of the bar, I’ll give you that, but I don’t think he goes to his office much.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Exhibit 2, Senator, the second picture. Sarah and Jack at a nightclub in Tijuana. See the man sitting to Jack’s right? Lots of hair, lots of teeth?”

“God damn it, Finnerty, Jack’s an international lawyer. He’s got clients everywhere! Not only Mexico but all through the Caribbean and South America. A certain amount of socializing goes with the territory.”

“Of course, it does. In this case it’s a few miles south of Tijuana … the Rosarito Beach Hotel. The man in the picture is Nogales-Rios. Juan Pablo Nogales-Rios.”

Senator Randall grabbed the photo and stared at it, then flipped the photo back to the table. “So Jack and Sarah had dinner with a suspected drug dealer. In a foreign country. So what?”

But her voice gave away the truth. I could see it in the language of her body, as well. She was a professional politician. Had to know what was coming.

“Suspected drug dealer, you call him,” Finnerty said, “the DEA’s number one target worldwide.” He cleared his throat. “You’re a bright lady, Senator. I’m neither fooled nor impressed with your act.”

She shrugged. “Last I heard it isn’t against the law for a lawyer to have a thief as a client. As a matter of fact, it takes us right back to the Bill of Rights, doesn’t it?”

Finnerty pointed at the stack of photos. “The next eighteen pictures show Jack and Nogales-Rios together in seven different Latin American countries. No Sarah, thank God, but plenty of young Jack.”

Her voice became a monotone. “Same objection, Finnerty. Habeus corpus. Show me something other than your travelogue.”

“That’s why I’m here. The summary report I’ve included goes way beyond the pictures. And it doesn’t look any better for him, either.”

“I’d like to see it.”

He shook his head, but now his voice fairly dripped with concern.

“The bureau shares your distress. We’re worried more than anything about what might be ahead for Jack. The possibility that your son-in-law could be set up even if, as you suggest, he’s completely innocent.”

Senator Randall said nothing. Finnerty shook his head again, for all the world an old and trusted family friend, filled with compassion for a woman on the verge of disaster.

“What can happen down there in Latin America,” he said, “what we’ve seen happen in Mexico, in Central and South America, is almost too terrible to describe. Especially with the kinds of enemies Nogales-Rios has made.”

Again he shook his head.

“No one wants your son-in-law to suffer in the kind of prison we see only in movies, in the kind of country where they’ve never even heard of habeas corpus. With a wife and family horrified they’ll never see him again. Afraid he’s dead, but even more that he might be wishing he were.”

Finnerty’s voice slid to a lower register.

“And you. Mother and grandmother. Your family shattered by events even a United States senator has no power to control.”

She stared at him, her hands drumming the table. She looked down at the photos again, and the report, then back at him. He spoke before she could say anything.

“DEA’s made Jack a target. They want to sweat his family—your family—to make their case, and believe me they can do it. I think it’s political this time. I think DEA is targeting Jack because of you, and I want to put a stop to it.”

Her shoulders sagged. I thought for a moment she might collapse, but slowly her head came back up. The blow had staggered her, but she struggled to maintain her composure as the ADIC continued.

“I’d like to work this out at headquarters level. With the DEA director himself. Suggest to him that Jack’s been working with us, that he’s put himself in considerable danger to neutralize Nogales-Rios.”

She said nothing, but he answered the only question she could possibly have had.

“I don’t know, Senator. I don’t know if it will work, but I’ll do the best I can.”

She appeared to draw a deep breath and blow it out slowly. She turned away from the camera. Her shoulders rose and fell, trying, I could see, to come to grips with his odious quid pro quo. When Senator Jeannette Randall turned around again her face was blank with despair, then contorted by tears she could no longer control.