Her lips slowly parted, like she was about to speak, but she said nothing. I picked up my pen. Marisa fixed her gaze on me before saying in a hushed, conspiratorial tone, “Well, I suppose if it’ll help. If I were going to steal confidential research files from Benton Dynamics, here’s how I’d do it.”
19
Once Marisa dropped her initial reluctance, she brainstormed ways to steal plans from Benton Dynamics. She leaned forward, her eyes gleaming at the idea of conducting espionage against the company that had fired her.
“This first thing?” she said. “Clear the staff out of the lab.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Well, if people were around, you couldn’t do anything.”
“But in a cubicle …”
“No cubicles,” she explained. “Open format. The whole lab was redesigned years ago. Tables and rows of computer stations. No walls. Everything’s open.”
“Everywhere?”
“Pretty much,” Marisa replied. “The supervisor’s stations are elevated with glass walls. Can’t do anything with all those eyes around.”
“How about just work normally and download files?”
“Well, maybe. Still need passwords. Risky.”
“How would you get everyone out of the lab?”
Marisa paused as she considered possibilities. She shook her head, apparently unable to come up with a quick hypothesis. Eventually she said, “During a fire drill, maybe.”
“That didn’t happen while you were there.”
“No,” she said with dull embarrassment. Her answers halted abruptly like an aluminum rowboat running aground.
Urging her along, I asked, “What other ways could someone clear out the lab?”
“Well, it’d be hard. I don’t know. But I wouldn’t download plans to a portable drive anyway. Photographs would be easier.”
“Okay. How?”
“Well,” she said, “we’re not supposed to have cameras or phones anywhere in the lab, but a thief wouldn’t worry about that, right? We store our phones in lockers before we start each day.”
“Security scans when you go in and out?”
“We card in, but no checkpoints or metal detectors. Nothing like that. More of the culture. If your phone rang or if you got caught with a camera, you’d be handed your head and canned. Besides, there’re closed circuit cameras in the locker rooms and at the entrance doors. They make sure we enter and leave emptyhanded. No bags, purses, or jackets. Our lab coats are inside. They try to prevent anyone from smuggling anything in there.”
“What about security cams in the lab?”
Marisa grinned at my naiveté. “None. Just at the entrances.”
“Why not inside?”
“Because if someone got a video of our research, like from a security camera, then that’s another possible route for a leak. No cameras inside at all.”
“So security can’t monitor what’s going on in the lab, just at the entrances and exits?”
“I guess,” snapped Marisa with growing frustration at my questions. “Look, Mr. Seagraves, I’m just coming up with what I can, only because you said it might help.”
Before any more oxygen got sucked out of the room, I said, “It’s helping, and I appreciate it. Remember you know what went on at Benton. I don’t.”
“Maybe we should focus on preparing my case,” Marisa suggested coolly.
“We will. I blocked off as much time as we need today. You’ll be fully prepped before you leave, I promise. I just need to understand the lab procedures. Let’s keep going, okay?”
“All right.” She shifted in her chair and glanced impatiently around the conference room. “With all the computer security, I can’t see any employee downloading research files onto a drive. It leaves a digital trail. Taking pictures would be the way to go.”
“Except that the Benton Dynamics lawsuit doesn’t mention photos. The lawyers said that you and Richard Kostas downloaded files. I assume to a KEL drive.”
“That’s the only way. The only portable drives we’ve got. You know, like the ones you used at your former job at NSA.”
My background was not up for discussion right now, despite Marisa’s prying and verbal parry. Instead of taking the bait, I asked, “You get into the lab by sliding a personal entry card?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“And with entry cards, Benton Dynamics has a record of who’s in the lab and when, right?”
Marisa exhaled slowly. “I assume.”
“Anything else at the entrance?”
“You watch too many movies, Mr. Seagraves. There’s no retina scan or anything like it at the entrance.”
Recognizing that Marisa was under stress, I ignored her sarcasm and suggested, “Like a guard at the doorway?”
“Nope, and we don’t think of them as guards. Security staff is around the building, but we just card in and out. What we do is confidential, but we’re not locked down. Nobody watches our every move.”
“Got it,” I said, jotting down notes on a legal pad. “Once you’re inside, you’re free to work. I guess everything is digital. No printouts that could leave with anyone.”
“Correct. No printers. No tablets or laptops. Nothing goes out of the lab without authorization.”
Hailey stopped at the doorway to my conference room, holding a silver tray of ceramic mugs. “Pardon the interruption. Thought you might want coffee.”
“None for me, thanks,” Marisa said. “My stomach isn’t great right now.”
Hailey set the tray on the conference table. “I could make something else. Herbal tea, perhaps? I’ve got a nice hibiscus mango.”
“Okay,” Marisa replied with interest. “I’ll try it.”
The tea sounded more like a fancy shampoo to me, so I took the coffee and poured in milk from a tiny white pitcher. I would probably also drink the mug for Marisa as well, just to clear my head. The weekend of skeet shooting, racquetball, and boating had exhausted me. Besides, I had downed enough India Pale Ales over the past week to float a sea kayak.
“Thanks, Hailey,” I said.
Hailey turned her back to Marisa, raised both eyebrows, and gave me a look that I took to mean she had been eavesdropping and that I should ease up on the questions. Every attorney occasionally gets too focused on the lawsuit and
