The Russian Crisis

CHAPTER 48

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Jackson Phillips burst into Payne's office just before 9 a.m. Payne was on a phone call but made short work of it as his friend plopped himself in a visitor's chair in front of Payne's desk.

"Hey Jackson. Don't break my furniture."

Phillips bounced up again, like a 20-year-old, and began pacing across the office and back. His hands were behind his back. Payne thought he looked like a slim Winston Churchill.

"Get Bill in here," Jackson said in a cheery voice. "I've got something for both of you. And get me a coffee, will you, Payne?"

Payne gave him a tortured look but summoned a young man from the reception area to get them all coffee. He added a big "Please."

As Jackson roamed around the office picking up and putting back books, photographs and various decorative pieces, Payne and Bill Brownley moved to the conversation area and began drinking their coffee. A television set was mounted on the wall and Brownley looked up at the screen. The sound was muted but the set was on, tuned to CBC's news channel.

"Hey," said the startled man. "Look at this; Petrenko's dead." The eyes of Payne and Jackson shot to the screen. The crawl at the bottom of the screen announced the death of Roman Petrenko in 'a home invasion' at his downtown apartment. A following line said 'businessman' Petrenko had been stabbed.

"You didn't..." Brownley looked hard at Jackson. Payne followed the look and was aghast.

"Not us, Bill. He was alive and well when we left. I'm sure your guys would have told you if we had chopped him up."

Payne shuddered but Brownley was relieved. "Okay," the security chief said. "But who?"

"The Russians. His own guys. A stranger. Our thief..." Jackson threw up his hands. "Take your pick." He thought for a moment. "We took care not to leave any trace of our visit, Bill. I doubt if anyone will come after us. If they do, I'll take the heat but I'm not volunteering anything because we don't know any more than they do." He gestured at the tv screen and the CBC anchor.

Jackson took up his coffee cup, spilling a few drops over the rim and onto Payne's expensive rug. The news had shaken him.

"Hey. Careful. That's real money."

Jackson ignored Payne's protest. "Bill, can you get Leona and David working..." Over the next five minutes, between gulps of coffee and a refill from the young man with the forced smile, Jackson explained what he wanted done by the A/V experts. They were to scan video and audio recordings going back six months of all A/V from cameras aimed at the sidewalk in front of the JPI building. They were to employ the JPI software that analyzed various characteristics, mannerisms and actions of people using the sidewalk.

The functionality of the current software was marvelous even though it was Version 2.0. It was built to recognize any person who exhibited nervousness, unnatural mannerisms like sudden shivers, excessive sweating, wiping brows, trembling hands and many others. It would analyze the clothing and body shapes of persons looking for bombs, guns or even knives hidden under clothing. It would look closely at the gait of each person. Using technologies like infra-red, vibration monitors, radar and some so secret they didn't have recognizable names, the software could determine threats at considerable distances - beyond typical blast ranges.

"We're not under threat," Payne remarked at one point, confused and a bit alarmed by Jackson's enthusiasm for the process he was describing.

"We could be." Jackson was enigmatic. "But the main point is to find the thief."

Jackson explained to Payne and, particularly, Brownley, that the thief was no doubt a senior executive or technology leader at JPI. No one else could have access to company servers and archives without being identified by the monitors. The thief likely worked at headquarters for the same reason. If this were true, reasoned Jackson, the thief would likely know of the cameras set around the building. "It wasn't a secret from the higher echelons," he said. "It was a point of pride to them."