The Broken Window

Compliance.” Geddes nodded toward Sachs. “It didn’t make any sense at all. Something was fishy about it. No way would Andrew Sterling volunteer to work with the government on privacy issues if he didn’t get something big out of the arrangement. He’d fight them tooth and nail. That made me suspicious. Compliance is about something else. I don’t know what. But we’re going to find out.”
    He explained that the suit was under federal and state privacy acts and for various civil violations of common law and constitutional rights of privacy.
    Rhyme reflected that Geddes and his attorneys would have a pretty pleasant surprise when they had a look at the Compliance dossiers. One of which he just happened to have in a computer not ten feet from where Geddes now stood. And which he would be more than delighted to hand over, given Andrew Sterling’s refusal to help find Sachs after she’d disappeared.
    He wondered which would be in worse trouble, Washington or SSD, when the press learned of the Compliance operation.
    Dead heat, he concluded.
    Sachs then said, “Of course, Mr. Geddes here will have to juggle the case with his own trial.” Giving him a dark look. She was referring to the break-in at her town house in Brooklyn, whose mission presumably was to find information about SSD. She explained that, ironically, it had been Geddes, not 522, who’d dropped the receipt that had led her to SSD. He regularly hung out at the coffee shop in Midtown, from which he kept up a furtive surveillance of the Gray Rock, noting the comings and goings of Sterling and other employees and customers.
    Geddes said fervently, “I’ll do whatever’s necessary to stop SSD. I don’t care what happens to me. I’ll happily be the sacrificial lamb if it brings back our individual rights.”
    Rhyme respected his moral courage but decided he needed more quotable lines.
    The activist began to lecture them now—reiterating much of what Sachs had reported earlier—about the arachnid sweep of SSD and other data miners, the death of privacy in the country, the risk to democracy.
    “Okay, we’ve got the paperwork,” Rhyme interrupted the tiresome rant. “We’ll have a little talk with our own lawyers and, if they say everything’s in order, I’m sure you’ll be getting a care package by your deadline.”
    The doorbell rang. Once, twice. Then loud knocking.
    “Oh, brother. Goddamn Grand Central Station . . . What now?”
    Thom went to the door. He returned a moment later with a short, confident-looking man in a black suit and white shirt. “Captain Rhyme.”
    The criminalist turned his wheelchair to face Andrew Sterling, whose calm green eyes registered no surprise whatsoever at the criminalist’s condition. Rhyme suspected that his own Compliance dossier documented the accident and his life afterward in considerable detail, and that Sterling would have boned up on the particulars before he arrived here.
    “Detective Sachs, Officer Pulaski.” He nodded to them, then returned to Rhyme.
    Behind him were Sam Brockton, the SSD Compliance director, and two other men, who were dressed conservatively. Neat hair. They could have been congressional aides or corporate middle managers, though Rhyme was not surprised to learn they were lawyers.
    “Hello, Cal,” Brockton said, looking over Geddes wearily. The Privacy Now man glared back.
    Sterling said in a soft voice, “We found out what Mark Whitcomb did.” Despite his diminutive stature, Sterling was imposing in person, with the vibrant eyes, the perfectly straight posture, the unflappable voice. “I’m afraid he’s out of a job. For starters.”
    “Because he did the right thing?” Pulaski snapped.
    Sterling’s face continued to show no emotion. “And I’m afraid too the matter’s not over with yet.” A nod to Brockton.
    “Serve them,” the Compliance director snapped to one of the attorneys. The man handed out his own batch of blue-backed documents.
    “More?” Rhyme commented, nodding at the second set of paperwork. “All this reading. Who’s got the time?” He was in a good mood, still elated that they’d stopped 522 and that Amelia Sachs was safe.
    The sequel turned out to be a court order forbidding them to give Geddes any computers, disks, documents or any material of any kind relating to the Compliance operation. And to turn over to the government any such material in their possession.
    One hired gun said, “Failure to do so will subject you to