What is the importance of language in the novel, Ambush?

There is a certain amount of tech and detective lingo included in the novel, particularly in the parts of the story where Sydney is questioning both Taft and Gorman about Kane’s murder. For instance, “person without residence” (166) is police speak for a homeless person. Gorman also refers to “due process” (171) when he comments about the way Sydney killed a murderer. Due process is the means by which a criminal is charged and then tried in the court of law before being punished. This comment indicates that Gorman thinks Sydney shot the murderer without even knowing if he was really responsible. Meanwhile, Sydney and Taft discuss the possibility of a “diversionary tactic” (158) keeping the other railway security men from getting to Kane to help him with the homeless man.

In the tech talk, Taft tells Sydney that his computer guys “ran the faces of everyone on the platform” (158) meaning that those faces were plugged into a computer database to find out who they were and if they might have had something against Kane. He also tells Sydney that one computer tech is trying to “triangulate” (158) or line up the direction in which Kane was looking with the people standing there to determine at whom he was looking. Sydney asks Taft about using “gait analysis” another form of computer-assisted detective work that matches up people who have visited the train station before based on how they walk.