The Switch

55

Tanner Roast had survived without him. He spent half an hour going over administrative things with Lucy, signing some paychecks for the few employees who for some reason didn’t do direct deposit. Karen wanted to talk sales, which really meant agonizing over deals that should have been and still might be. Like the Four Seasons account.

“We can’t submit a new bid? It’s definitely lost?”

“The deal’s done,” Tanner said.

“That’s so totally not fair.”

“I have an idea.”

“What is it?”

“I’m getting into a sort of scorched-earth frame of mind,” Tanner said. “Do me a favor. Get hold of City Roast’s S-1.”

“Which is what?”

“It’s a form you have to submit to the government when you’re planning to take your company public. It’s online.”

“When is City Roast going public?”

“In a couple of months, I think. Who’s this new kid hanging around with Sal?”

“The intern or whatever? From Northeastern, remember?”

“I forgot. Do I have to explain stuff to him? I’m a little preoccupied.” He remembered that he’d agreed to let a college sophomore intern at Tanner Roast learn the business of running a coffee company for a semester or two. But that was months ago. Before all this.

And then he thought of something. “Actually, tell that kid to get in here. Meet the boss. I want to teach him about delegating.”

Tanner sent the Northeastern student on a run to a sporting goods store and the Computer Loft. Meanwhile he called Carl Unsworth. “Do you have any downtime between lessons or classes or whatever? I need to talk to you.”

“Some. But I got a pretty full day today.”

“You don’t have to go anywhere. I’ll drop by.”

He left the office a few minutes later and took the turnpike to Newton Centre. Carl’s martial arts studio was in an office building that had a good deli on the ground floor.

Tanner had imagined that Carl’s martial arts courses were full of state troopers and FBI agents. Instead, it turned out that most of his students seemed to be suburban women. At least, the daytime classes. Carl wore workout pants and a T-shirt with his studio name emblazoned on it.

“Do you know anyone who knows wiring?” Tanner asked.

“Like an electrician?”

“Could be, sure — wait. Scott!”

“Who?”

“A buddy of mine who installs home theaters and TVs and sound systems and all that. I play squash with him.”

Toward the end of the day, Tanner met Jamie North for a drink in the Back Bay, at a loud after-work bar on Boylston Street. Tanner ordered a bourbon on the rocks. Jamie ordered a Diet Pepsi, because he had to return to the office. There was no small talk. Tanner tried, but Jamie was not a small-talk kind of guy. He didn’t even ask about Sarah, though he had to be thinking about her.

After ending his engagement with Sarah, Jamie quickly met another woman and was engaged within a few months. Clearly he’d decided he was on the marriage track and was going to get there one way or another. His male biological clock — there is such a thing — was ticking loudly. They had two kids and then quickly got divorced. So Jamie felt that he’d gotten the shitty end of the stick, that Tanner had won. He was a rival who had been defeated, and that made him foul-tempered.

Jamie listened to Tanner impatiently, drumming his fingertips on the table, playing with a straw’s paper wrapper. “What does that mean, you’re in trouble with the NSA?”

“They’re demanding the senator’s laptop. They claim there’s classified information on there.”

“Is there?”

“Yes.”

“Dude, you don’t mess with the NSA. Give it to ’em.”

“Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I don’t want to hand it over.”

“Why not?”

“Let’s just say. Do they have legal grounds to arrest me? This is what the NSA guy was threatening me with.”

“Well, did you come into possession of this laptop legally?”

“Like I said, accidentally. At the LA airport.”

“All right, so you have someone else’s computer, which is not theft. I mean, it’s mushy. Anyway, that’s not the point, and that’s not my expertise. You are in possession of national-security-classified, top secret documents. And you have given them to a reporter who intended to publish. You leaked it to a journalist. Right?”

“Right. But is it still a leak if the journalist I leaked them to is dead?”

Jamie shrugged a couple of times. “Everything gets complicated when it involves a journalist. And how do you know your buddy Lanford or Landon, or whatever, didn’t give it to a couple of his reporter buddies? Or his editor?”

“I don’t.”

“Exactly. Look, the pertinent law here is the Espionage Act, which dates back to World War I, and the Patriot Act. Then there’s Executive Order 12333. But this stuff hasn’t really been litigated in modern times. It’s all about how far the Justice Department prosecutors feel like going. And, you know, there’s more enforcement when you’re at war.”

“Are we at war?”

“Against terror, sure.”

“Still?”

“It’s the forever war. Anyway, that’s the crux of it. Have you actually taken a peek at the documents?”

Tanner looked away. He took out his wallet and pulled out a twenty, which he handed to Jamie.

“What’s this for?”

“I’m hiring you as my lawyer.”

“And how much of my time do you think twenty bucks buys? I’m fifteen hundred bucks an hour.”

Touché, he thought. “This conversation. Beverages included. Your Diet Pepsi is on me. That makes this a privileged conversation between attorney and client.”

“Okay, okay. As a favor to Sarah. But let me be clear: I’m not representing you.”

“Got it. Yes, I looked at the documents. Most of it went over my head. It’s about some top secret NSA program. Something involving mass surveillance.”

“How? In what way?”

“I think it’s this secret program where the government can switch on cameras on our computers and phones and watch us without us knowing.”

“Jesus.” Jamie shook his head slowly. “Thing is, once you get into legal matters involving the National Security Agency, it’s like we’re on a different planet, where the law of gravity no longer applies. Everything’s backward and upside down. There are secret executive orders; there’s a secret court. And your situation looks bad. The fact is, you knowingly passed on classified information to a journalist who fully intended to publish it. That’s what they’re going to say.”

“How did I know what Lanny planned to do with it? He’s a friend. Maybe I wanted his advice on what to do.”

“Okay, good. But you gained access to classified information. Then you passed it on to someone. If they want to, they can go after you for that. That’s all there is to it.”

“And what would you do? As my lawyer. Theoretically speaking.”

“I wouldn’t take the case.”

“But if you did.”

“Let me say it again: I am not representing you.”

“Got it.”

“Your case would be not only extremely time-consuming but probably unwinnable.”

“I see.”

“If they want to put you on trial for mishandling classified information, you might even be tried in a secret courtroom, represented by a civilian lawyer who basically has his hands tied behind his back. You’ll likely be sentenced to at least ten years in prison, and that means a federal prison. Very few lawyers will want to represent you.”

“Why not?”

“Because the case would take five years and you’re guaranteed to lose. The courts almost always side with the government.”

“Since when?”

“Since 9/11. The world changed. I don’t think most people get how much things changed. Unless you use serious encryption, assume that all of your e-mails are being read. Assume your phone calls are being recorded or monitored somewhere. Just assume the worst and you’ll probably be right.”

“You mean we’re in a surveillance state.”

He shrugged.

“How long has this been going on?”

“In practical terms, it started with W., with the George W. Bush administration after 9/11. But things got worse in the Obama administration. And then the new president took it to a whole new level.”

“News to me.”

“And to most people. Most people have no idea, and that’s how the government wants it. Keep people in the dark and confused. No one’s going to protest.”

“You think I could just be... disappeared... I mean, arrested and locked up somewhere like Guantanamo?”

“It’s possible.”

“It is?”

“I can’t tell you for certain. Just... things I’ve heard.”

“US citizens, imprisoned without a trial. In America.”

“Yep. Don’t tell me you’re disillusioned now. This is the way it is. This is the way the world works now.”

“Like 1984.”

“Orwell was off by about three decades.”

“And what if I just disappear, just go off the grid?”

“What about it?”

“Do you think I can do that and get away with it?”

He shrugged. “I can only give you legal advice. Survival — that’s something totally different. That I can’t help you with at all. I’m sorry. Wish I could help you.”

He didn’t sound like it.

“Why do you think they didn’t arrest me in the first place?”

“That’s easy. They didn’t want you to lawyer up. They want the computer back really badly, and it’s a lot easier if you don’t have a lawyer. And speaking of which, let me say it one more time—”

“I know,” Tanner said. “I got it. You’re not my lawyer.”