Crack-Up (6 page)

“Close one,” I said.

“Too close.
 
John Helms means more to national security than you may know, Argus.”

“Is that right?”
 
I knew that John’s first major contract award, twenty years earlier, had been with the
CIA
—or the United States Central Intelligence Agency—and that, over the years, his company had done work for virtually all of the major intelligence branches, as well as the US military, but still I was surprised by Nathan Pitt’s concern.

“So what went down, exactly?” he said.

“It’s nothing.
 
The usual story.
 
One lone nut.
 
History of mental illness.
 
Now in custody in a secure psychiatric ward.”

“You sure that’s all there is to it?”

“Positive.”

“Because I can lend you some manpower, if you’d like.”

Again Pitt surprised me.
 
I knew that taking him up on an offer like that would require authorization from the
US
president himself, Eliot Ames.

“Won’t be necessary, but thanks.”

“Standing offer, by the way.”

“I’ll remember,” I said.

“How’s that golden shoulder doing?”

He liked to needle me about the injury I’d sustained on the job ten years earlier before leaving the Secret Service.
 
Saving President Cooper’s life had made me instantly famous, and it was slowly making me rich—and Pitt jealous.
 
We did a little BS-ing before hanging up.
 
I went back to writing my press release.

Meanwhile, I was informed that John’s wife, Rebecca, had cut her trip to
Bermuda
short, due to the attack.

When her helicopter descended upon the back lawn around
noon
, I was standing ten yards beyond its lime-traced helipad circle, where the whirring blades frightened the grass and gave my tie the notion to strangle me.

The pilot emerged first.
 
With his helping hand, Rebecca Helms alighted, followed by her five year-old son, John Junior.

Rebecca wore a conservative black silk suit with a pleated skirt and short jacket.
 
But the dying windstorm’s lecherous grip offered a liberal view of her shapely figure.
 
Her black hair hid beneath a pink silk scarf.
 
The egg-shaped lenses of her white plastic designer sunglasses did little to hide her distraught mood.
 
My search for just the right words of reassurance derailed when she greeted me with a vicious slap across my face.

Then she took her boy in hand and continued on toward the main house.
 
If only her slap had awakened me to what had begun.

Chapter 5

The following morning, I left my office in
Georgetown
and drove down the Dulles high tech corridor to the world headquarters of Helms Technology in
Vienna
,
Virginia
.
 
John’s state of mind still concerned me.
 
I should’ve been more concerned with my own.

On the surface, the multinational corporation that John founded a quarter century ago is nothing like the high tech firms of the movies, or the wackier outposts of Silicon Valley, south of San Francisco—lands of facial hair and ponytails and Hawaiian shirt-clad CEOs with popcorn machines and nerf basketball hoops in their offices.
 
At HT, people carry on like adults.

Geeky adults.
 
I can recall, for example, one of John’s top marketing executives bragging that his business suits had metal fiber woven into them to stave off electro-magnetic pollution.

“Have a seat, I’ll be right back,” John said, after greeting me in his corner office.
 
He disappeared inside the alcove leading to his private bathroom.

His office bordered on the palatial, with floor-to-ceiling windows ushering in the urban skyline.
 
There was a definite art deco vibe to the place: black matte walls and walnut millwork and a unique, chrome and glass office desk, where a chrome-encased laptop computer sat on top, open and always running.
 
I sat down in a red leather camelback sofa with brass nailhead trim.

The spot offered a good view of John’s prodigious ego gallery: framed and frequently autographed photos of himself posing with other famous people.
 
There he was at
Sun Valley
with fellow computer industry giants Bill Gates and Larry Ellison.
 
At Camden Yards with iron man Cal Ripken.
 
Dining with basketball’s Michael Jordan.
 
And shaking hands or hugging shoulders with every American president going back to Ronald Reagan.

On the cushion beside me lay a strange bit of head gear.
 
I picked it up.
 
Lightweight and made of chrome and black-colored plastic, it looked like a pair of music headphones wedded to a fancy bicycle helmet’s rear-view mirror and stem.

“It’s called a wearable computer,” John said, returning.
 
He seized it from me and strapped it on his head.
 
He reminded me of one of the Borg from Star Trek Next Generation.
 
“Got it from the MIT lab in
Boston
last month.
 
Experimental model.
 
The circular piece hanging in front of my left eye is the monitor.
 
It’s so small there’s no problem seeing past it.
 
You lose binocularity in only a seven or eight degree wedge, which is nothing at all.”

I said, “What do you use it for?”

“Instant access to information, mostly.
 
I do email with it too, and instant messaging, using voice commands.
 
But the best is yet to come.
 
I’m designing some special software for it.
 
Not too many people know about it, but I guess I can tell you, Argus.
 
You keep secrets for a living.
 
It’s lie detector software.”

I stood.
 
“Come again?”

“Lie detector software.
 
While wearing this thing, I’ll be able to test people for truthfulness without them ever knowing.
 
It’s my pet project, you might say.
 
Been working on the software for two years now.
 
I’ve put a whole development team in place.”

“Why?” I said.

“Edge, Argus, edge.
 
The secret to success.
 
And just think of what kind of edge I’ll have when I know when the people I deal with on a daily basis are being deceptive.
 
My suppliers, my competitors, my contractors, and my employees.
 
My wife—if I ever decide to divorce her.
 
One lie can be worth millions, you know.”

I felt contaminated somehow.
 
“But how could you possibly design software able to catch human lies?”

“It’s based on neurological studies of receptive aphasics.
 
Stroke victims and people with other brain injuries, who can’t understand human speech, or face real challenges trying to.
 
What the neurologists discovered was that aphasics share a remarkable gift for detecting falsehoods.
 
They pick up on nuances of facial expression—momentary and very minute emotional flashes that the rest of us usually miss because we understand human speech just fine, we’re busy attending to the words.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” I said.

He smiled, pleased, I think, by my strong reaction.
 
“Put a group of aphasics in front of a television set while a politician is giving a speech and you’ll hear more laughing than inside a comedy club.
 
They understand not a word, typically, but they find all the fibbing hysterical.”

“So the computer takes photos then?”

“Video,” John said.
 
“In the back of the monitor is a pinhole camera lens.
 
It records whomever the wearer happens to be looking at.
 
The facial images are instantly run through the software program, checking for these nuances noted only by the aphasics, these shutter speed-swift leaks of emotion.”

“And the results appear on the monitor?”

He nodded.
 
“In about a second.
 
But I’m still not happy with the accuracy rate.
 
Another year of development, I think, and then I’ll be satisfied.”

He took off his wearable computer, placed it on his desktop, and fixed his hair.
 
I remembered why I’d come.

“You doing okay, John?”

“Sure, sure.
 
Why do you ask?”

“You’re not obsessing about the other day, are you?”

“No, no.
 
You told me there’s nothing to worry about, and I believe you.
 
One lone mental case, right?”

“Right,” I said.
 
I had to admit John did seem like he’d snapped back, like he belonged in his Armani suits again.

“But I’m glad you stopped by, Argus.
 
I was going to call you.
 
What’ve you turned up about that unexplained backdoor we found in the new software?”

“My investigator’s still interviewing the programmers and running background checks.
 
I’ll keep you posted.”

“Every day, if you would.”

“Sure.”

“Also, something new’s come up.”

“What is it?”

“Jeremy Crane, my chief technology officer, he’s missing.”

The name was vaguely familiar.
 
“Missing how?”

“Absent from work.
 
He hasn’t shown up for two days straight, no calls, not a word.
 
Can’t reach him on his cell phone, or his home phone, or his Palm Pilot, or—”

“What about family?
 
Did you—”

“He lives alone.”

“Maybe it’s just a misunderstanding, John.
 
Maybe he thought he had some time off and went out of town.”

“No, no, son, it’s not like that.
 
You see, I know Jeremy Crane well.
 
He’s inner circle.
 
Been here nine, ten years now, at least.
 
And it’s not like this man to be out of touch, ever.
 
He’s dedicated, he’s loyal, he’s anal-retentive.
 
You know, the perfect employee.”

“Until now.”

“Until now,” John said.
 
“I’m worried about him, Argus, I really am.
 
Could you handle this for me?
 
Personally?”

Did I mention John was demanding? (I don't think I have to mention he was also eccentric to the point of being scary.) I agreed to find the missing geek myself.

But once I’d returned to my own headquarters in
Georgetown
I assigned a junior investigator to do the initial legwork.
 
I had to attend the weekly staff meeting with my principals and managing associates early that afternoon.