The Payback - Mike Lawson

Скачать книгу

unfriendly party.

      Because of what had happened at Los Alamos, the shipyard was ultracareful when it came to removable media. Miller explained that when an individual checked out a classified CD from the vault, the number of the CD was recorded – just like when you checked out a book from the library – and at the end of the day, the CD had to be returned to the vault. An inventory was done every day to make sure all the CDs had been returned – and if one was found missing, Miller’s security force went to high alert. The problem was CDs could be copied and their contents e-mailed. When Emma said this, both Miller and Shipley responded immediately.

      ‘No way,’ they said, simultaneously. They explained that the shipyard’s computers were designed to prevent copying classified CDs and the shipyard’s firewall prevented classified material from being e-mailed out of the yard.

      ‘Humph,’ was Emma’s response. ‘And Mulherin and Norton, I suppose they have access to these classified CDs?’

      ‘Yes,’ Shipley said.

      ‘And do they use your computers or their own?’

      ‘You can’t bring personal computers into the yard,’ Shipley said. ‘So their contract specified that they be given a work space here in the training facility and computers and phones. You saw their office. They needed the computers because a lot of the training materials – class outlines, course materials, exams – are on CDs or a secure network. But like I said, you can’t burn copies of classified CDs on our computers.’

      ‘I see,’ Emma said.

      Shipley shook her head and said, ‘Mulherin and Norton are a couple of eight balls. I wouldn’t hire them to clean my blackboards. Why anybody would pay these guys to review my training program is beyond me.’

      ‘You know Dave Whitfield thought there was something, ah, funny about the work Mulherin and Norton were doing,’ DeMarco said. He didn’t want to use the word ‘fraudulent.’

      ‘Yeah, I know,’ Shipley said. ‘He complained to me about it.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘Look, I think this review Carmody’s doing is a waste of time, and I’ve already told you what I think of Mulherin and Norton, but there isn’t anything illegal going on like Dave seemed to think. He was upset because these guys were making more money than he was, but … well, that’s just the way Dave was.’

      ‘What about Carmody?’ Emma asked. ‘Does he spend much time here?’

      ‘No,’ Shipley said. ‘He comes up here once in a while – to check on Norton and Mulherin, I guess – but he spends most of his time on the subs.’

      ‘Doing what?’ Emma said.

      ‘Part of the training is the book stuff,’ Shipley said, ‘which we do here, and part is shipboard. Carmody is supposedly watching the shipboard training, but my guys say that he seems to spend most of his time just bullshitting with the sailors.’

      ‘But he’s on board the submarines a lot,’ Emma said. ‘On his own.’

      ‘Yeah,’ Shipley said. ‘Is there a problem with that?’

       14

      Emma led DeMarco to a café on Bremerton’s waterfront. The place smelled of incense and flowers and served fifty varieties of herbal tea. The cheerful lady who ran the café sported John Lennon-style wire-rim glasses and had straight, gray hair that reached the small of her back. She wore what DeMarco thought of as a granny dress, a long shapeless thing as glamorous as a flour sack that touched the tops of her Birkenstock sandals. DeMarco had thought that hippies were extinct, but apparently not.

      Emma ordered an exotic tea, something with ginseng in it. DeMarco asked for coffee, then a Coke, then a plain old Lipton’s and each time was informed by the woman – not only a hippie but a health Nazi – that she didn’t stock such beverages. He settled for a glass of water; the happy Nazi put a slice of lemon in it.

      They took seats near a window where they could see the ferry terminal and watch the jumbo ferries from Seattle dock at the terminal in Bremerton.

      ‘I think Whitfield may have been right about Mulherin and Norton,’ Emma said.

      ‘That they’re committing some kind of fraud?’

      ‘Not fraud,’ Emma said. ‘Something else.’

      ‘What else? What are you talking about?’

      ‘Let’s look at everything Dave Whitfield said from a different perspective. He said Mulherin and Norton, two guys in debt, suddenly retire early and come into a lot of money and start buying things. Then you consider where they’ve been working, in a training facility loaded with classified materials. And then right after Whitfield calls you about them, he’s killed. So maybe Whitfield saw Mulherin or Norton doing something or overheard something and—’

      ‘Espionage? Is that what you’re saying, Emma?’

      Emma nodded her head slowly.

      DeMarco had never been near a spy in his life, at least not that he knew of. His normal assignments involved wayward politicians and greedy bureaucrats and being the middleman for deals that Mahoney didn’t want his fingerprints on. ‘You might be right,’ he said to Emma, ‘but you saw the security in that place.’

      The shipyard’s perimeter was protected by tall fences topped with barbed wire; boats armed with machine guns patrolled the waterfront to keep watercraft – watercraft potentially filled with explosives – from approaching the drydocks or ships that were moored at the piers; armed guards manned entry gates and patrolled the grounds, and cameras were located in strategic spots. And these were just the security measures that were visible.

      People entering the shipyard were carefully controlled. The employees, the ones who worked on the nuclear ships, had to have a security clearance and they wore badges that had their pictures on the front and a magnetic strip on the back, like the strip on the back of a credit card. To enter the shipyard, workers had to show their badges to guards stationed at the gates and swipe the badges through bar-code readers to further confirm they were allowed to enter. Miller, the shipyard security chief, had said that random searches of backpacks and lunch boxes and vehicles were performed at all times, and if the national or regional threat level increased, everybody was searched, from the shipyard commander’s wife on down to the guy who mopped the cafeteria floor.

      ‘Let me tell you something about security systems,’ Emma said to DeMarco. ‘Most systems – including the one at this shipyard – are primarily designed to keep the bad guys out. But once a worker has been vetted for a security clearance and given a badge, he’s in. And once he’s in, he’s trusted, and he has access to classified information, and most important, he knows how such information is protected.’ Emma paused to sip her tea, then added, ‘And espionage isn’t the only possibility.’

      ‘What else is there?’

      ‘Sabotage. There are currently four nuclear-powered submarines being overhauled at the shipyard. Sabotaging one of these ships would have significant repercussions. Not only the cost to repair whatever was damaged, but fleet operations would be disrupted if a vessel had to be taken out of service for a significant amount of time, and work on all the other ships being overhauled would be delayed.’

      ‘It’s kinda hard to picture Mulherin and Norton as spies. I mean these guys, they’re just—’

      ‘Remember Aldrich Ames?’ Emma asked.

      ‘The CIA guy?’ DeMarco said.

      ‘Right,’ Emma said. ‘Ames was probably the most damaging mole ever to penetrate a U.S. intelligence service. He was an alcoholic and poorly thought of by his coworkers. He was turned down for promotions, not all that bright, and openly flaunted the money he received from the Russians. In spite of all that, he fed

Скачать книгу