The Buck Stops Here (17 page)

It was the size of a regular cell phone but seemed a little heavier somehow, the mouthpiece thicker. I turned it on and fooled with the buttons a bit. On the stored numbers screen was only one name, Tom Bennett, followed by a number I didn’t recognize. I pushed the buttons to dial that number, and after about six rings, Tom answered, his voice sounding freshly roused from sleep.

“It’s Callie. I have a question for you.”

I could hear rustling, and I pictured him sitting up in bed, rubbing his eyes, trying to get his wits about him.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“I need to know about this file,” I said, ignoring his question. “This charity.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes, I’m calling on the phone you gave me. I assume that makes this conversation secure?”

“Yes. Yeah,” he said softly. “Okay, Callie. What do you want to know?”

“Was this charity somehow related to the death of my husband?”

“Family HEARTS?”

“Yes. I see the address. I see the people involved. What am I supposed to do with this information?”

He was quiet for a long moment.

“You understand that I’m not at liberty to explain, really.”

“Tell me what you can,” I replied.

“I thought it…I figured it might be a good way to give you access to…certain people. That’s all. I hoped it would serve you well as a
concurrent
investigation, if you know what I mean.”

“This charity has nothing to do with me or you or Bryan?”

“No, absolutely not. Family HEARTS is a good group. No connection. I really would like to give them a donation.”

“You expect me to run a charity investigation as though nothing else is even going on?”

“I just thought you needed a way to get there, a reason to be there. There are people connected with the charity you need to meet.”

“Who, Tom? Like your mother?” I asked. “Your
sister
? ”

He was quiet for a moment.

“So you know.”

“Yes, I know. Why would I want anything to do with any of these people? For that matter, why would I want anything ever to do with you again?”

I was so angry! I closed my eyes, my fists clenched, about to hang up. It had been a mistake to call.

“I know you’re angry, Callie,” he said. “And you have every right to be. Just don’t…don’t give up on us yet.”

I held my breath, fighting back tears.

“When this is all over,” he continued, “then you can walk away if you still want to. For now, please. I’m begging you. Keep your focus. There’s more to learn.”

“I’ll try,” I whispered, the only words I could manage to say. Then I hung up the phone, not telling him that I would be learning everything in just a few short hours, when I went face-to-face again with James Sparks. After that, I knew what I would do: return to D.C., hand in my resignation to Harriet, and then go home and make some decisions about the rest of my life.

I paced for a while, knowing I needed to go out somewhere, to do something physical to work off some steam. I really wanted to go canoeing, but I decided the best I might be able to do was catch a swim in the motel pool.

I kept a gym bag in my car with a swimsuit and towel inside. I went out and retrieved it. Officially, the pool didn’t open until 10:00
A.M.,
but it was well hidden from the front desk, behind a row of rooms, and I doubted anyone would stop me as long as I wasn’t making much noise.

Towel in hand, I worked my way over to the pool area and then slipped into the chilly water, going immediately into laps. After a while I warmed up, my muscles working hard to propel me across the water. I blanked out my mind, counting the short laps with each stroke: “Nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, flip, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, flip…” In that manner I pushed forward, back and forth, counting like a mantra, until I reached one hundred. Then I turned over onto my back, chest heaving for breath, heart pounding, paddling more slowly back and forth as my muscles cooled down.

It was going to be a sunny day, and I squinted up at the sky as I paddled, peering at the fluffy white clouds that drifted past. All of this felt like a nightmare. The only problem was, I didn’t think I would be waking up any time soon.

Back in the room, I took my second shower of the day, but this time I took care afterward to style my hair and put on some makeup. I don’t know why I was fixing myself up to see James Sparks, other than I wanted the confidence and self-possession that looking my best always seemed to bring me. I dressed in my suit, the same suit I had worn several times now in a row. It was the only really nice thing I had with me, and though it was time to get it to the dry cleaner, I thought it could go one more round if it needed to.

When I was completely dressed, I packed my meager belongings in their plastic bags, propped them by the door, and then I sat on the side of the bed for a moment, knowing I needed to go to the Lord in prayer.

I didn’t want to. I was a little mad at God right then, and I really didn’t feel like talking to Him any more than I felt like talking to Tom. Still, I knew I was about to head into an incredibly difficult moment. I needed to be right with God, and that started with a willing and compliant heart.

Unable to pray, I reached into the bedside table drawer, thinking that at the very least I could read a verse or two from the Bible. I had recently given away my travel Bible to a friend, but the Gideons, God bless them, had placed a Bible in this motel room as usual. It opened to 1 Corinthians 13, verse 12:

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face; now I know in part; but then I shall know even as also I am known.

I closed the Bible, a sudden rush of emotion catching me off guard. Taken out of context, maybe God was trying to tell me something. He wanted me to persevere, to keeping working forward until I could “know fully” everything there was to know.

“Be with me, God,” I prayed, the only prayer I was able to utter. Then I put the Bible back in the drawer, picked up my things, and went to the car.

Eighteen

I was sitting in the same chair as the day before, waiting for Sparks, when he came through the door. This time he didn’t hesitate but walked right over to me. He looked horrible, and I wondered if he had slept at all last night. His hair was a disheveled mess, and there were deep circles under his eyes. As he sat across from me, a guard positioned himself just out of earshot, arms hanging loosely at his sides.

“Thanks for coming,” Sparks muttered, his manner much calmer today.

Before I could reply, several other women came into the room from the visitor processing area. As they took seats at different tables, I realized that it must be a visiting day, and these ladies were here to see prisoners. I leaned toward Sparks, lowering my voice.

“By law,” I said, “we can request a private conference room, if we want.”

“Doesn’t matter. I don’t care who hears me.”

“But I want to know the circumstances of my husband’s death.”

“Then I’m going to tell you a little story,” he replied. “About a group called ‘The Cipher Five.’”

He sat up straight then, looking around the room and seeming to gather strength in front of my eyes. My heart pounded, and I felt as though I were standing on the edge of a precipice, about to jump off.

“The Cipher Five?” I asked softly.

“This was back in the late nineties,” James continued, his voice a little louder than I would have liked. “Like the name says, there were five of us. We were a team. We were working in secret, doing things with code that Diffie and Rivest had only dreamed of.”

He paused for effect, taking out his asthma inhaler and giving himself a squirt.

“Diffie and Rivest?” I asked, trying to tune out the noise that was building around us. Though there were no other prisoners in the room yet, a few more visitors drifted in and, again, I wondered if we should ask for a private room.

“The pantheons in the field!” he said, exhaling a medicinal smell as he tucked the inhaler back into his pocket. “Haven’t you heard of Diffie, Hellman, and Merkle? Rivest, Shamir, and Adelman?”

“James, you’ve lost me.”

“
Encryption
,” he said. “We were taking it all to the next level. The Cipher Five broke the door wide open, man. No one will ever know how significant our work was.”

A noise erupted across the room and I jumped, looking to see that an empty soda can had been accidentally knocked from a table. My nerves were at the breaking point.

“So who were the Cipher Five again?” I asked, trying to remember the names. “Diffie, Rivest…”

“No, no, no,” he scolded, the arrogance I had seen the day before suddenly returning to his features. “All those people, all those guys, they were before us. They laid the groundwork. Our group came
after
.”

There was an odd expression on his face, and I tried to decide what his overriding emotion was at the moment. I wasn’t sure, but as he spoke I thought I detected anger—and an odd sort of defiance, though whom he was defying, I didn’t know.

“Okay, let me get this straight,” I said. “In a long line of very significant encryption experts, you were part of a group of five people who also made important contributions to the field.”

“Correct.”

“So who were the people in your group?” I asked. “Who were the Cipher Five?”

“Me, my wife Beth, her brother, Tom, Phillip Wilson, and Armand Velette,” he replied, counting off on his fingers. “All five geniuses, in our own way. We all brought something good to the table.”

“When was this again?”

“Back in the late nineties. Most of us were fresh out of college or grad school. Tom hired us to implement his ideas.”

“He
hired
you?”

“Yeah. He got a business loan and put together a little computer company. We were his employees.”

“How did he find you?”

“I went to MIT with his sister, Beth. She recommended me, and then when we started working together, she and I ended up falling in love and getting married. But that’s another story.”

Suddenly, the inner door opened and a group of inmates spilled into the room, followed by two guards who placed themselves along the perimeter. The prisoners were all dressed in khakis, just like Sparks, and many of them greeted their visitors with hugs and kisses, something I knew was allowed in minimum security.

I closed my eyes, trying to refocus on our own conversation.

“So Tom Bennett was your boss, but he was also one of the five,” I said slowly.

“Yes, of course,” James replied. “We worked together for a year and half and were finally ready to release in March of ninety-nine.”

“Release?” I asked, not following much of what he was saying.

“Our
encryption program
,” he said, obviously frustrated with my stupidity. “Everybody knew it was better than what was already out there, that it could’ve made us a fortune. But Tom had to follow the rules, had to do everything by the book. His way was taking too long. Is it any wonder some of us ended up courting the T-Seven?”

“Courting the T-Seven?” I asked, and it struck me that Sparks’ thought processes were about as confused and jumbled and nonsequential as the computer code he probably wrote.

“You never heard of the T-Seven?” he asked, his lip curled in a sneer.

“No, I’ve never heard of it. What is it?”

He used both hands to hold up seven fingers, wiggling each finger as he spoke.

“What
was
it, you mean. Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. The T-Seven. Also known as the Terrorist Seven.”

“I see,” I whispered, remembering that his mother had spoken of this, that James had been convicted for selling a computer program to a restricted country.

“Our team may have started with five, but with all of the… issues…we had to deal with, folks started dropping out. There were three of us for a while, then just two. There are still two. Despite what everyone thinks, I have never acted alone.”

His eyes were intense, and he held my gaze for a long time. I wasn’t sure what he was trying to tell me, but I knew it was important.

“Are you talking about Tom?” I asked. “Are the two of you still some kind of team?”

He laughed.

“Me and Mr. Goody Two-Shoes? I don’t think so. He was the first one to pull out. He abandoned all of us and headed off to do his own thing. Ended up filthy rich, while we never saw another penny from the work we did—officially, at least.”

I clenched my hands in frustration.

“James, you are confusing me. What are you trying to say?”

“That I have never acted alone.”

“In the boat?” I asked, grasping at straws. “You weren’t alone in the boat?”

He rolled his eyes, exasperated.

“I’m not talking about the boat,” he said loudly. “I’m talking about the sale to the T-Seven! I wasn’t acting alone.”

Suddenly, I wondered if he
wanted
to be overheard; if, for some reason, he was eager to carry on this conversation in such a public place. I glanced up at the guard who had come into the room with him, and I realized that the man had moved much closer to us and was well within hearing range of our conversation.