The Russian Crisis

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Late in the afternoon, a few hours after the news conference and debriefings, Jackson found his way to JPI's extensive internal security section to thank Bill Brownley and his group for provision of security for the lobby conference. He slipped off his tie, folded it and stuffed it into a suit jacket pocket. It was time to get casual, even if he was still dressed in a pricy suit and Hugo Boss shirt.

Bill Brownley was dressed, as usual, in light tan trousers, white shirt and blue plaid sports jacket. He looked harried. "Hi, Jackson. Come along. Got things to show you." He turned and led the way. The two arrived at a door marked A/V UNIT / PRIVATE DOMAIN / LEONA & DAVID.

Seeing Phillips glance at the sign, Brownley smiled and said, "Leona and David are my audio and video operators. They're a little ... uh ... innovative and they like their privacy. Brownley rapped on the door and opened it slowly. "Hey guys, it's just us," he announced

Brownley introduced Leona and David who were seated several feet apart at a huge and intimidating control panel. The panel was full of levers, keypads, backlit buttons and a mouse or two for each operator. Jackson remembered the layout. He and Brownley took their seats on a large leather sofa set along one side of the studio. The opposite wall in front of the control panel was covered with screens. Some were blank, some displayed JPI logos and some showed street scenes.

"You'll recognize a lot of this," said Brownley. "Hell, you had it installed when you were CEO. Unfortunately, Mr. Blax threw a monkey wrench into it a few months ago when he banned us from, as he called it, 'intruding on the privacy of JPI employees and our visitors.' He told us to stop use of audio and video in and out of the building. We had it watching the streets within a block of the building all sides and a block of Blax's own condo on Yonge Street. And he told us to stop using voice and facial recognition technology as well. He really hamstrung this operation."

Jackson was stunned at Blax's actions since given the reins at JPI. Jackson had not intended the security technology to be invasive unless circumstances warranted. But, for a technology company like JPI totally invested in confidentiality, it was hard to justify eschewing your own capabilities to protect the company and all its employees.

"Nobody told us to get rid of the equipment or stop the recordings ... just not to use them." Brownley underlined the word 'use.' As acting CEO, do you give us permission to do so now - if we have to?" Brownley's face was turned toward Jackson and there was a broad smile on it.

"I give permission for limited purpose," said Jackson formally. "If it helps us to figure out what the hell is going on here, it's worth a bit of intrusion."

"Run it, David" Brownley said. A street scene replaced a JPI logo on a large screen directly in front of the male operator. "Zoom in on her."

Jackson watched carefully as the video zoomed in on the scene that had been captured by one of JPI's cameras mounted on a building next to the JPI headquarters. The scene was of the wide sidewalk of Queen's Quay with its bicycle path and busy road on one side and a row of buildings on the other. A woman was walking slowly along the sidewalk and was in the centre of the zoomed shot.

"Barbara Schumacher. She's a receptionist. Works in the anteroom to Blax's office but isn't privy to anything really confidential. Maybe his visitor's list.... Anyway, watch this."

"Who is that?" asked Jackson. A man had entered the frame. He was walking toward Barbara and seemed to recognize her as he approached.

"That's Roman Petrenko, our Ukrainian pal with GRU connections," Brownley told Jackson. "We scanned all our video from the past month looking for anything suspicious. One of a lot of things we've been doing. Petrenko popped up in a facial recognition scan of everyone who has passed near H.Q. in that time. He's in there because CSIS has him as an associate of the GRU and we have a lot of CSIS military personnel images in our system."