“Did you draw any conclusion from that?”
“The conclusion was obvious. If emails dated over a six-month period had actually been written to the hard drive at the same time, it suggests that the emails were false. A deliberately false trail had been created.”
“How exactly did you come to that knowledge?” Dana asked.
Turbee launched into an excessively complex and technical explanation involving file allocation tables, proxies, and hexadecimals until Judge Mordecai stopped him.
“Mr. Turbee, you’ve lost everyone, I think. Perhaps we could move on?”
“Of course, sir. Can I ask a question?”
“What is it, Mr. Turbee?” Judge Mordecai did not like witnesses asking questions.
“Where are the hard drives for Mr. Lestage’s computers? I think I could tell very quickly if the same manipulation of hard drive data had occurred there.”
“Will you make those available to Ms. Wittenberg and Mr. Turbee at the noon adjournment?” asked Judge Mordecai.
“Of course we will. They are in the evidence locker in this building.”
“Thank you. Carry on, Mr. Turbee.”
“I will, of course, but can I have another glass of water?” Turbee could see George cringe slightly in the public gallery. The clerk provided Turbee with another glass with a pleading look in her eyes.
“Did you testify at the inquiry that took place after the disaster?” Dana’s hand on the tiller was steadier. She was realizing that she had pure gold on the stand.
“No, I did not.”
“Do you know why not?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Did the inquiry mention anything about data falsely written to the hard drives of the key conspirators?”
“No it did not.”
“Do you know why?”
“No, but I was certainly angry about it.”
“Why?”
“The investigation of the hard drives provided the answers in black and white. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the emails were false.
The inquiry did not go into it.”
“I would like to move to another area,” Dana said.
“Before you do, can I add one comment?”
Dana shrugged and brushed her long hair back. “Sure.”
“There was a deep incongruence in the evidence,” Turbee began. “You see, that terrorist attack was the most sophisticated terror attack that I’ve ever seen. That was obvious when we followed it through from
beginning to end, which we did at TTIC. There were multiple submarines involved. One submarine fit perfectly inside the hull of an old cargo ship. The explosive device that was used was a something that had been developed at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. It was a Tiani/ Melvin focused-charge device. It is a very, very complex device to make, involving multiple layers of different metals of different weights and densities with an incredible degree of precision. Very, very smart people had done this.”
“So?”
“Well, the cover-up was moronically simple. The emails used sixty-fourbit encryption. There are off-the-shelf programs that will break such a code. A sophisticated level of encryption these days is 1,024 bits. At the NSA, they regularly break incredibly complex data encrypted at 2,048 bits and higher. The authorities were literally handed the names of the members of the Los Angeles terrorist cell. The people who built this weapon and executed such a complex plan, pretty much to perfection, do not encrypt at sixty-four bits.
That just doesn’t—”
“Objection, opinion without foundation, and hearsay,” said McSheffrey.
Before the judge ruled, the back door opened and an elegantly dressed, silver-haired lawyer bowed to the court and walked down the aisle dividing the public gallery. He opened the small gate that separated the gallery from the counsel tables and remained there waiting to be heard. Had Judge Mordecai had his way, he would simply have let him stand there for the duration of the trial and ignored him completely, but Turbee stopped talking, and Dana stopped questioning.
“M’lord, there seems to be a gentleman here.”
“Damn, Wittenberg, you are brilliantly observant. I would never have seen him if you had not told me. Carry on.”
“But m’lord, he seems to be wanting something.”
“Don’t you know what ‘carry on’ means? Now ask your question.”
“I forget where I was.”
“I don’t,” Turbee said, “but I can’t talk with this man standing there. He is making me nervous.”
“Fine then, McPhail, why are you intruding in this trial?”
Alistar Donald McPhail was the one of the most respected lawyers in the city, the named senior partner with the law firm Inverness McPhail International. IMI was a megafirm with branches throughout Canada and in New York, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Dubai, London, and many other financial centers. Alistair McPhail’s firm boasted 3,000 lawyers and 10,000 employees. Judges literally bowed to him when he chose to make an appearance in a courtroom, which these days he did once or twice a year.
“I have been instructed by the president of the United States of America—”
“Ooh. Instructed by the president of the United States of America, have you? Sure. And I have been instructed by the Lord God Almighty. Now what are you doing cluttering up my courtroom?”
McPhail never twitched or blinked from the judicial onslaught. He knew who Judge Mordecai was, and the reputation he had for berating counsel. “My lord, perhaps some respect could be shown from the bench. I am here on an assignment of great consequence. The man in the witness box is illegally divulging confidential information. The president has asked that this cease immediately and the witness place himself in our custody so that he can be taken back to Washington.”
“Are you serious? This is a serious request? Is it April Fools’? Are we on Judge Judy? What am I missing here?”
“You are not missing anything. The witness is disseminating confidential, proprietary information to a worldwide audience. The security of the United States of America has been placed in jeopardy.”
“I don’t care. This is not the United States of America, in case you’ve forgotten. And no one comes into my courtroom and tells me what to do.”
“Judge Mordecai,”
