Cooperate. Treat him like he knows what he’s doing. And watch him every minute.
As soon as Bill Janovsky, his second-in-command, got back he’d take him aside and explain about their guest and how he was to be handled. Just now Janovsky was up in San Francisco conferring with the U.S. Attorney about a technology transfer case. Their talk would have to wait until this afternoon.
Weinberg wished devoutly he was still chasing Soviet agents around the semiconductor plants. He felt like hell.
In the event, Weinberg didn’t get to talk to Janovsky that day. Janovsky was delayed in San Francisco until after 5 P.M. and Weinberg felt so awful he went home sick before Janovsky got back. He felt worse the next morning and stayed home all that day and the next day. By Thursday his wife took him to the doctor and the doctor called an ambulance to take him to the hospital.
One consequence of Weinberg’s illness was that it took somewhat longer than usual to get things squared away on Pashley’s hacker investigation.
There were a couple of less obvious consequences. For one thing Weinberg hadn’t had a chance to tell Janovsky or anyone else about his conversation with the director. His people had seen their boss acting as if Pashley was a big gun expert so naturally they assumed he was.
For another, no one bothered to tell the director that Weinberg was out of commission. There was no reason why they should, after all, since no one in the office knew about her interest in Pashley.
Ray Whipple could have told them a lot about Pashley, but Whipple had gone off to visit some colleagues at Cal Berkeley’s Leuschner Observatory to get a first-hand look at some anomalous data collected by the Kuiper Airborne Observatory. Pashley had assured him he would call him when needed and Whipple figured the FBI could do a better job of restraining Pashley than he could.
The net result was that Clueless Pashley was loose in Silicon Valley with the full force of the Federal Bureau of Investigation behind him.
Fourteen: Raiding on the Parade
Expert: Anyone more than 100 miles from home carrying a briefcase.
The Consultants’ Handbook
It is a truism well-known to lawyers that while the law may be uniform, all judges are not alike. It is a corollary equally well known to prosecutors that some judges are easier than others when it comes to search warrants and such. In San Francisco District Court, Judge David Faraday was what the local federal prosecutors privately-very privately-called a patsy. A law-and-order Nixon appointee, he could be counted on to grant search warrants on nearly any grounds.
So it was hardly surprising that FBI Special Agent George Arnold showed up in Judge Faraday’s office with Special Agent Clueless Pashley in tow to seek warrants to raid Judith’s apartment.
“And this person has been breaking into government computers?” Judge Faraday asked after looking over the papers Pashley and Arnold presented to him.
“Highly sensitive government computers,” Pashley amended. “Your honor this is a major national security case.”
Arnold nodded. “Your honor, if need be, we have a civilian expert on computer networks and security waiting outside who can testify to the importance of this warrant.” Actually it was Ray Whipple cooling his heels in the outer office, but he was an expert in Pashley’s eyes and Arnold was following the lead of the bureau’s out-of-town “expert.”
“I know about computer crime, Mr. Arnold,” Judge Faraday said mildly. “I saw that movie, War Games.” The judge scanned down through the pile of affidavits.
“Search warrant for subject’s apartment, wiretap on subject’s telephone, electronic surveillance of premises. Well, this seems in order,” he said as he reached for his pen. “Very well, gentlemen, the warrants are granted.”
Pashley managed not to cheer.
“Did you get it?” Ray Whipple asked as Pashley and Arnold emerged from the judge’s chambers. Pashley tapped his breast pocket significantly, even though the warrant was really in Arnold’s briefcase.
“When are you going to serve it?” Ray asked as soon as they were out in the corridor.
“I’d like to hold off on the search warrant for a week or so,” Arnold said. “We’ll put the wiretap in place immediately and get a snooping van in the parking lot tonight to start executing the surveillance. That van can pick up the electromagnetic emissions from ordinary computers and decode them from five hundred feet away.”