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CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Keller’s not one to go over someone’s head, but the circumstances warranted it. She reached out to Stan and, as is his way, he made it happen. Less than two hours later, she stands under the impressive portico of Olympic Country Club. When Stan told her to meet the assistant U.S. attorney there, she didn’t know what to make of it. Government lawyers don’t tend to make enough to belong to hundred-grand-a-year clubs. But then she understood: They’re there to see a judge.

In the entryway, there’s a cocksure-looking man in his early thirties. He wears a suit, standing out from the old-money casual wear of the members scuttling around the club.

Keller approaches. “Cameron?” she says.

He nods, shakes her hand dismissively.

“Apologies for interrupting your weekend,” Keller says. A breach of Bob’s no-apologies rule, but sometimes it helps build rapport.

“It’s fine. My boss said Letko was too scared to try to get a warrant, which is typical,” he says, referring to the original AUSA assigned to get the data from Google. “Time to send in the big dog.”

Keller has met cocky prosecutors before. The job yields a lot of power and it can go to your head. She’s also concluded over the years that the cocky ones tend to be the least effective. They often charge in without all the facts, tend to lack empathy for victims, treat the system like it’s a big game.

“We’re meeting the judge here?” Keller asks.

He nods, like it’s a dumb question.

“Judge Henry?” Keller asks. Libby Akana’s father, a judge himself, told Keller that Judge Henry would sign whatever papers they put in front of him.

“I wish. The duty judge for emergencies this weekend is Romero. Linda is a card-carrying member of the ACLU.”

Keller doesn’t like how he uses the judge’s first name, but says nothing. She’s also annoyed that if he’d consulted her before rushing the warrant, they might’ve gotten the papers in front of Ken Akana’s friend Judge Henry.

A man in golf attire materializes and leads them through the club and outside. The course spans out into the distance. Lush greens and sand traps and lakes. They’re taken by golf cart along a sidewalk that carves a path through the green and then onto the rolling course. Rounding a hill, they see a petite woman taking a swing. The ball soars into the air.

The cart stops and the player—a woman less than five feet tall but somehow giant at the same time—scrutinizes them.

The lawyer says to Keller, “ I do the talking.” He gets out of the cart and approaches the judge, Keller following after him.

“Your Honor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Cameron Greene. I understand your clerk advised that we were coming.”

The judge’s mouth pinches shut. “The warrant.”

“Yes. We apologize for the interruption, but it’s urgent. The data could help us find five missing college students who could be in great peril.”

The judge snaps her fingers at the man driving the golf cart and he hurries over and hands the judge a sheaf of papers. As she reads, her brow crinkles.

“I can’t sign this.”

“Your Honor?”

“You know how many of these geofence warrants I got last year? It’s out of control.”

“Your Honor, respectfully, this is a matter of life and death and…”

“‘A matter of life and death’! Why didn’t you say so?”

“Your Honor, I—”

“Do you know what the Fourth Amendment requires?” she interrupts. “Does it say, go ahead, search away, do whatever you want if it’s a matter of life and death?”

He cricks his neck, his bravado from moments ago fading in the wind.

“Well,” the judge says, “does it say that? Is that what the Fourth Amendment says?”

“The Fourth Amendment requires probable cause of criminal activity.”

“And…?”

He’s silent, like he’s not sure what she’s prodding him to say.

So the judge says it for him: “And particularity . The Constitution requires probable cause that is particularized to the person to be searched or items to be seized. Show me where in this”—she waves the warrant papers in the air—“you describe with particularity the persons to be searched or places to be seized. It’s a fishing expedition. You don’t know that anyone who was located in the geofence has committed any crime. You don’t even know who they are.”

Keller watches a bead of sweat roll down the AUSA’s forehead.

“And let’s put aside the Fourth Amendment,” the judge continues. “Where’s the basis for federal jurisdiction? All I’ve heard is that there are some missing persons. Last I looked, that’s not a federal matter.”

AUSA Greene is silent, like he’s had the shit kicked out of him. And he has.

“Who are you?” Judge Romero says to Keller, finally acknowledging her.

“Special Agent Sarah Keller.”

The judge shakes her head, disappointed. “Mr. Greene thinks he can get a warrant based on little more than ‘life and death.’ So what’s the Bureau have to say about all this?”

Despite the dressing down, Keller likes this judge.

“Your Honor, if I can respond to both of your questions, starting with jurisdiction?” She remembers Stan’s text.

“Title eighteen section one-fifteen prohibits assault, kidnapping, or murder—or conspiracy to do those acts—on the immediate family members of government officials. One of the missing students is the son of a government official, so there is a clear basis for jurisdiction. The conspiracy might involve the other students, so they’re covered as well.”

Keller can’t swear on it, but she thinks she sees the corners of the judge’s mouth rise a trace.

“But that doesn’t solve the Fourth Amendment problems.”

“I understand the court’s concern with the overuse of geofence warrants. But this one is narrowly tailored, particularized.”

“Not in these papers it’s not,” the judge says, flailing the affidavit in support of the warrant around again.

“Given the urgency of this matter, Mr. Greene didn’t have time to incorporate information we have gathered as this investigation progressed.”

The judge rests on her golf club, possibly amused.

“We have consent for the location data for the missing students’ phones and an additional phone one of the students borrowed from a friend. The devices were last located within a fifty-yard radius of a section of Rancho San Antonio County Park. Given the students’ disappearance, it is probable that anyone in that remote area at the time their phones went dark could be the perpetrator. We believe that the geofence will capture only a small number of phones within that discrete time and place, so this is not one of those cases where we’d rake in hundreds of other devices.”

The judge frowns, looks out at her next hole. Then says: “Put what you just said in an amended warrant, and I’ll direct my clerk to enter my electronic signature.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Keller says.

Cameron Greene, the prosecutor who insisted on doing all the talking, says nothing all the way back to the clubhouse.