I regretted not having taken a corporate job where I could get paid for goofing off. “Okay, Marisa, let’s discuss your workstation. You kept your KEL drive in a drawer with a combination lock, right?”
“Yes. Digital. Not the kind that hangs on a gym locker. I pressed a keypad.”
“Did you choose the combination?”
“No. Assigned by security.”
I finished writing down a note. “That’s where you always stored the KEL drive?”
“Right,” she said innocently as she gently stretched her neck and shoulders. “That’s not unusual.”
We had been sitting a while, but I decided against taking a break. “When was the last time you saw your KEL drive?”
“A couple of days before they fired me.”
“And when they let you go, what happened to it?”
“No idea.” Her eyes fixed onto mine, not intensely, but like she wanted sympathy. “Security showed up at my workstation and escorted me to the personnel department, where they terminated me. A quick exit interview. They wouldn’t answer my questions. Walked me out of the building. I haven’t been back since.”
“What about your personal effects?”
She turned her head away as her eyes grew moist. “Three days later, some guy in a dark suit delivered a cardboard box to my house. They’d been through my stuff. Even took my pictures out of frames and put them back, but I could tell. A few days later, the sheriff showed up at my door with court papers.”
“Sorry to hear that. Let’s get back to a hypothetical theft, Marisa. You were doing fine. How would you get the KEL drive out of the lab?”
She sniffed and dabbed the corners of her eyes. “I don’t know. Put it in my pocket, I suppose.”
“You need a minute?”
She waved me off.
I continued with my questions. “Does security ever check when you leave?”
“They can, but it’s rare. The only thing that could leave the lab is a KEL drive. A supervisor always stood at my workstation when I took it out and put it back. Required procedure. A witness.”
“So you couldn’t just walk out with it and nobody would know?”
“No, impossible.”
I rested my palms on the cool, smooth surface of the conference table, unsure if she was correct. “And Richard Kostas was your supervisor?”
“Yeah, most of the time. There’s some rotation, though.”
“Who else?”
Marisa shrugged. “Whoever. Richard for the last few months.”
“If you snuck the disk drive out of the lab somehow, what would you do with it?”
“How am I supposed to know?”
“Well, again, just a hypothetical. What would someone do with it?”
Marisa looked blankly at me and shook her head with uncertainty.
I said, “Just give me your best quick answer. What could someone do with confidential files stolen from Benton Dynamics?”
She offered no quick response and instead thought it over for a moment. “I guess you might take it home to work, but that violates protocol.”
“You’d need a special device to access a KEL drive. It wouldn’t fit in a home computer. How about taking the files to a business competitor?”
“Sure, they’d be valuable, but you’d get caught. Out of the blue, some other defense contractor shows up with our research and development?”
“Like plans for an underwater drone or a new stealth technology?”
Marisa squinted impatiently at me for bringing up that subject again. “Not my area, so I don’t know. Besides, our competitors all have security clearances. Have to for work on nuclear subs.”
“I see your point. Easier to license another company’s intellectual property and pay royalties. A competitor that steals R&D risks everything … its security clearance and future government contracts.”
“Exactly.”
I jotted down the page number on the next sheet of the legal pad. “What about foreign intelligence?”
“Well, sure, I suppose. Depends on the research files, but yeah, foreign governments target defense contractors like Benton Dynamics. We watch for approaches.”
“Approaches?”
“People making friends with us for no apparent reason. People without any direct connection to our friends, family, co-workers. We’re trained to keep an eye out for that and report anything unusual.”
“To whom?”
“Supervisors or security. Never had to myself, but there’s a procedure.”
Marisa sipped her herbal tea and frowned. Maybe it tasted like a fancy shampoo after all.
I asked, “How would a foreign intelligence service gain access to the drive?”
“They’d need a KEL reader and the password. Then they could read it.”
“And a KEL drive records activity every time it’s accessed, right?”
“Yeah, it maintains a log.”
The muscles in my hand were sore from notetaking. I wiggled my fingers. “And the last time you saw your KEL drive was when? About a week before this all went down?”
She rolled her brown eyes. “I already told you that. Yeah, maybe a week or so before I was fired. Look, I’m playing along with your little game, Mr. Seagraves, but I don’t know what happened. No foreign spies ever approached me.”
“Okay, I get it. Just hang with me. KEL drives have been around a while, so I can see foreign intelligence agencies having them. It’s at least plausible. Could the thief have used another KEL drive, not one from Benton Dynamics?”
“No way,” she said bluntly. “If the codes didn’t match, then cybersecurity would be alerted. A KEL drive without our signature codes would be immediately flagged.”
“So the KEL drive used to steal files had to come from Benton?”
“I guess so.”
I put my elbows on the table and steepled my fingers. “Benton Dynamics thinks it was yours. It’s missing. They want it back.”
“Which makes no sense. Why won’t their lawyers settle this case without the drive?”
“Because they want to know who took it and when it was accessed. If no one passed it on yet, they just want it back. If someone has accessed it, they want to know who’s got the files. The log recorded on that drive will tell them a lot.”
“But I can’t give them something I don’t have,” she pleaded.
“I know, and I’ll work on their lawyers some more before the hearing. We’ve talked about business competitors and foreign intelligence. What about a thief taking the files to this whistleblower website?”
She glanced at the printout
