False Witness (31 page)

Isaiah gave Wellington a look, a twisted face that conveyed his feelings better than words would have—
Are you crazy?
But he was obviously starting to trust Wellington. His work on this case had been exquisite, his pleadings a thing of beauty. Why doubt him now? Besides, what did they have to lose?

“I say we give it a try,” Jamie said.

“I agree,” Snead said, still frowning.

“A cracker conspiracy,” Isaiah said.

52

“Plaintiff recalls Agent Parcelli,” Isaiah said. Though he tried to sound confident, Jamie could tell his heart wasn't quite in it.

“For what purpose?” Allan Carzak asked pleasantly. All of his sugar was starting to sicken Jamie.

“To ask him some questions about the type of algorithm in question.”

“That information is protected by national security concerns,” Carzak countered.

“I agree,” Torriano said before Isaiah could even warm up his arguing muscles. “Plus, that line of inquiry is irrelevant. If your client has the algorithm, he doesn't need this witness to describe it. If your client doesn't have the algorithm, testimony about its nature is irrelevant.”

What?
Jamie felt like she had just witnessed a masterful case of doublespeak that would take her a month to unravel.

Wellington, not surprisingly, had processed it instantly. He was leaning forward again, tapping Jamie on the shoulder, like that annoying kid in junior high who kept borrowing your pencil. “Put me on the stand,” he whispered.

“Huh?”

“Put me on the stand. Qualify me as an expert in mathematical formulas. Ask me these three questions.” He shoved a piece of paper containing some handwritten notes into Jamie's hands. She showed it to Snead as Isaiah argued about the court's ruling.

Snead looked as confused as Jamie. He shrugged. Jamie slid down and tugged on Isaiah's arm. “One minute, Your Honor,” he said.

Jamie told him the plan.

“You'd better know what you're doing,” he whispered. Then to the judge: “The plaintiff calls Wellington Farnsworth as a rebuttal witness.”

“This is getting ridiculous,” Carzak mumbled.

But Torriano had no choice. A plaintiff was entitled to call a rebuttal witness. “Make it quick,” she snapped.

While Wellington stumbled his way to the witness stand, Isaiah leaned down and whispered to Jamie. “Why don't you take a shot at this one? I missed that evidence class where we covered the qualifications of experts.”

Jamie began by asking questions about Wellington's undergraduate degree in applied mathematics, his experience in the patent office, and a thesis he had written as an undergrad about differential equations. She did everything but ask him about his grade in high school algebra. Carzak shook his head in amazement, and even Snead, Jamie's own supervising attorney, had his hand over his mouth to hide a smirk.

“I'd like to present Mr. Farnsworth as an expert in the field of applied mathematics,” Jamie said at last.

Carzak stood with his arms spread wide. “Judge, you know he doesn't meet the new standards for experts. For example, he's never worked in the field of applied mathematics, he's never published a single scholarly article, he's never—”

“Actually,” Wellington interrupted, “I've published two. In the
SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics
, I wrote a report titled ‘Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Source Codes, and Standards,' and the journal
Numerical Algorithms
published one of my papers titled ‘Linearizations of Matrix Polynomials.'”

Normally, Jamie would have stifled a yawn just hearing the titles. But today, in the combat of the courtroom, they took on an intriguing, almost-magical mystique.
This guy is seriously smart.

“I also served as a panelist at the Workshop on Analytic Algorithms and Combinatorics sponsored by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. Other panelists included professors from Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, and—” Wellington's tone dropped to a hushed reverence while Carzak tried to recover his panache—“Dr. Gilles Schaeffer from the École Polytechnique in France.”

As Wellington finished his answer, Judge Torriano leaned forward, her chin propped on her fists. She seemed enamored with the whiz kid already.

“Any other questions, Mr. Carzak?” she asked.

“Judge, he still doesn't meet the relevancy standards in
Daubert
—”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Her Honor said. “But those standards are primarily a safeguard in jury cases so that jurors don't get swindled by junk science. This court will not grant Mr. Farnsworth's testimony any more weight than it is due. But I'd at least like to hear what the young man has to say.”

Carzak sat down, and Jamie heard Snead, sitting behind her, whisper his assessment to Isaiah. “It's over,” he said. “When a judge lets you qualify a law student as an expert, she's guaranteed to rule against you.”

Jamie glanced at Wellington's list of questions. “Mr. Farnsworth,” she began, though it felt weird to call him by his last name, “can you think of any kind of algorithm that would be so powerful and crucial that it would shut down the Internet if it fell into the wrong hands?”

“Objection,” Carzak said, but a curious Judge Torriano overruled him.

“Most Internet security is based on public-key encryption,” Wellington responded. He slid forward in his seat as he warmed to the subject. “Public-key encryption is dependent upon certain one-way mathematical formulas, and the effectiveness of these formulas is in turn based on the unique characteristics of prime numbers. While it is relatively easy to multiply prime numbers together, it is nearly impossible to rapidly factor a large number into its prime components.”

As Jamie watched the judge's eyes begin to glaze over, she immediately appreciated the genius of Wellington's next question. “What does any of that have to do with this case?” she asked.

“If Mr. Hoffman possessed an algorithm valuable enough that the mob would kill for it, I can only assume it was a formula for rapidly factoring numbers into their prime components. Such a formula, if it existed, could serve as a key to unlock most asymmetric encryption codes on the Internet. The owner would be able to steal bank accounts, access proprietary documents, and tap into financial institutions. The existence of such an algorithm would fit the description that Mr. Parcelli gave in his testimony—it could threaten national security and shut down the Internet.”

Suddenly a lot more hung in the balance than the safety of two government witnesses. Jamie turned to the final question.

“If somebody had possession of such an algorithm, why would they try to sell it to the Chinese mafia? Wouldn't legitimate Internet security companies pay millions, even billions, for such a formula?”

Carzak was on his feet. “Objection, Judge.” For once, his ever-present smile was gone—Mr. Rogers on a bad day in the neighborhood. “That calls for pure speculation.”

“I agree,” Torriano ruled. “Save that one for your closing argument.”

Jamie nodded. It occurred to her that Wellington probably knew the question was objectionable when he wrote it. Most likely, he had intended it as a road map for Jamie's closing. She made a mental note.

53

Carzak stood at his counsel table, not even bothering to approach the podium. “Do you work at the legal aid clinic at Southeastern?” he asked.

Wellington looked dumbfounded by the question. “No, sir.”

“But you are aware that the legal aid clinic has certain guidelines in terms of accepting clients, is that right?”

Jamie couldn't figure out where Carzak was going. But her training from trial advocacy kicked in. When in doubt . . . “Objection, Your Honor. Relevance.”

“If Your Honor allows me a little leeway, I'll link it up in my closing argument,” Carzak promised.

“Proceed.”

Carzak nodded his thanks to the judge and turned back to Wellington. “Mr. Farnsworth, is it your understanding that a person's income must be at or below the poverty level to qualify as a client for the legal aid clinic?”

“I think that's correct.”

“And they have to fill out forms stating their income. Right?”

Jamie objected again, but Torriano overruled her again.

“Yes,” Wellington said.

“And Mr. Hoffman originally came to be represented by this team of lawyers—” Carzak arched his hand toward the opposing counsel's table—“because he was a client of the Southeastern legal aid clinic, is that right?”

“That's my understanding,” Wellington said.

Carzak grinned and took his seat. “That's all I have,” he said.

A perplexed Wellington Farnsworth stepped down from the stand.

“What was that all about?” Jamie asked Isaiah.

Jamie gave her closing argument first. She thought she would be nervous, the judge staring at her with the sole power to protect the Hoffmans or allow the government to abandon them. But once Jamie got started, the competitive instincts chased away the nerves. A belief in the justice of her cause brought out the passion.

She told the story of David and Stacie Hoffman like the proud parent of an honor roll student. They didn't fit the profile for government witnesses. These were not former mobsters who had turned on their partners in crime, but decent people trying to earn a living, their lives forever changed by mafia intrusion. Jamie explained what Stacie had shared with Isaiah over the weekend, elaborating on the facts Wellington had put in the affidavits—the kidnapping of Stacie and the heroic rescue by David. Jamie described the nightmare they had lived ever since—leaving family members and friends, risking their lives to testify against the Manchurian Triad, moving across the country to start over. It was, she said, an American tragedy with no happy ending.

And now, rubbing salt in their wounds, somebody had revealed their location to the Manchurian Triad and set them up by sending a computer-generated letter to Johnny Chin. Did a leak from the marshals' office cause this tragic turn of events? Or did somebody from the mob find the Hoffmans independently and then use Johnny Chin to make it look like the Hoffmans had caused this problem themselves? Jamie admitted that she didn't know the answer to that question. But there was one thing she did know: David and Stacie Hoffman did not write that letter to Johnny Chin or otherwise reveal their location to the mob.

If the Hoffmans possessed this valuable algorithm, why would they wait four years and then try to sell it to the mob? They could get millions, maybe even a billion, selling it to a legitimate company that wouldn't try to kill them for it. Did the government's case make any sense at all?

No, Jamie concluded, surprised at the strength of her own emotions. The Hoffmans had risked their lives to serve the Department of Justice. And now, after using the Hoffmans as witnesses and after asking every court who heard their testimony to believe in the Hoffmans, the government wanted to abandon them, throw them away, and have this court believe the word of a hired mafia killer.

Not in my country, Jamie said. That's not my government.

She took her seat, scowling at the injustice of it all.

“Wow,” Isaiah whispered. “You blew them away. This one's in the bag.”

“I agree,” Snead whispered cautiously, “unless the government can pull a rabbit out of its hat.”

But Allan Carzak did not look like a beaten man as he took his place behind the podium.