High Crimes

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Quantico Marine Base, Quantico, Virginia

The gate, made of steel bars painted institutional gray, slid open slowly, electronically. A marine guard stood at attention. The floors were pale-green linoleum atop concrete; the corridor echoed as she walked. The gate slid shut behind her, filling her with dread. A red sign on the wall said B-WING. The cinderblock walls in this section of the Quantico brig, Special Quarters One, were painted white. In this wing, violent rapists and murderers were incarcerated. Security cameras were everywhere. Her escort, the duty brig commander, led her to a door marked CELL BLOCK B and held it open. It was eight-thirty in the morning.

Another guard snapped to attention. She was taken to a windowed visitors’ room just off the cell block, shown to a blue chair at a wooden conference table. She sat and waited in the cold.

A few minutes later a rattling and clanking of chains announced his arrival.

Flanked by two large guards, Tom stood before her naked, except for gray military-issue undershorts. He was in handcuffs, leg irons, and a connecting waist chain. His head had been shaved. He was shivering.

Tears sprang to her eyes.

He said, “Thanks for coming.”

She began to weep.

She got to her feet. “What the hell is this?” she shouted at one of the guards, who looked at her impassively. “Where are his clothes?”

“Suicide watch, ma’am,” one of the guards said.

“I want clothes on him right now!”

“That request has to go through the duty commander, ma’am,” the other guard said.

“You go talk to him now. This man has rights,” Claire said.

They brought Tom back, dressed in a light-blue prison jumpsuit. He was still in restraints, which forced him to take small, mincing, jangling steps toward her. Still weeping, she embraced him. His hands still cuffed, he could not hug her back.

“I want the cuffs off,” she said.

“Only one hand can come out of the cuffs, ma’am,” a guard said. “Duty commander’s order.”

Tom sat at the conference table across from Claire. A guard stood watch just outside. A security camera was mounted in one corner of the room, where the wall met the ceiling. Guards watched them through one glass wall.

They sat for a moment in silence. He wore a tan ID badge with a tiny smudged black-and-white photo, his name-Ronald M. Kubik-his Social Security number, and the date of the confinement, which was today. A black strip on it said DETAINED. A red strip said MAX, for maximum-security confinement.

“This is all my fault,” Claire said.

“What is?”

“This.” She waved her hand around. “All this. You know-the car.”

“You’d never have found the transmitter. I blame myself. I shouldn’t have let you drive it anywhere near the lake.”

“They don’t fuck around,” Claire said.

He nodded.

“You’re in the army now,” she said.

He nodded again. He reached his free hand across the table and held hers.

“No joke,” she said. “You’ve been joined to a headquarters-and-service company, on paper anyway. After thirteen years they’ve got you back on active-duty status. The good news is, you start drawing pay again.” She flashed a fake smile.

“How’s my little girl?” he asked.

“She’s okay. She misses you. I kissed her goodbye this morning. Jackie took her to school. It’s her last day. End of the school year.”

“Early in the morning for Jackie, isn’t it?” He gave a rueful smile.

“She’s a trouper. I got the first flight out of Logan. I’m basically running on fumes.”

“Are you going back to Boston today?”

“Probably not.”

“Where are you staying?”

“For now, some Quality Inn right outside the Quantico gates.”

“What am I charged with?”

It occurred to her for the first time that Tom had been kept entirely in the dark. They’d flown him directly to the marine base at Quantico on one of the U.S. Marshals Service DC-9s-“Con Air,” they called their fleet of planes-and trundled him into a holding cell, stripped him, confiscated all his possessions, printed him, photographed him, gave him a regulation haircut. Thrown him into Cell 3, Cell Block B, wearing nothing but army-issue shorts. Told him nothing. All the U.S. Marshals had told her was that they had been subjected to a sophisticated new incapacitating agent, a formula that had been developed after the FBI’s fiascos at Waco and Ruby Ridge. The grenades burned a formula that contained a built-in antidote, so that as soon as the two of them were knocked out, a chemical immediately started waking them up. Within an hour both of them were awake, though groggy and nauseated.

They’d threatened her with all kinds of charges: they were furious at her evasion and at first refused to allow her to see Tom. In the end, though, the FBI men had backed down. Legally, they couldn’t do anything to her. She had a right to meet with her husband; it was as simple as that. The next day she flew to Washington National Airport, rented a car, and drove to Quantico, Virginia.

“I don’t know,” Claire said. “Officially you haven’t been charged. They don’t have to do that yet. Some system they got here.”

“They made me sign a confinement order.”

She scowled. “Don’t sign anything.”

“It was just to acknowledge that I’d read it.”

“What did it say?”

“Just the ‘nature of the offense.’”

“Which is?”

“Desertion. Nothing else. Article 85 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. I guess they drew up those charges years ago, after I disappeared.”

She nodded. “And more to come. Did they read you your rights?”

“Yep.”

“Damn. Now we need to find you an attorney.”

“What about you?”

“Me? What the hell do I know about military justice?”

“They’ll assign me a military attorney automatically. He’ll know all the military stuff.”

She shook her head slowly. “We have to find you an outside attorney who really knows what he’s doing. In addition to whoever they assign to you.”

“How?”

“I’ll find someone. Don’t worry about it.”

“Claire, don’t you realize what’s going on here? Don’t you know what they’re planning to do to me? They’re going to put on a court-martial. A fucking kangaroo court. They’ll probably do it in secrecy. They’ll find me guilty, and then they’ll lock me away in Leavenworth, or maybe some special Pentagon facility no one’s ever heard of, for the rest of my life. Which won’t be long, because soon they’ll ‘discover’ me dead in my cell, presumably a suicide.”

There was a knock on the door.

“Have you seen my cell, Claire? You can see it from here-look.”

The guard entered. “Time,” he said.

“We’re not finished yet,” Claire said.

“Sorry,” the guard said. “Commander’s orders.”

Tom pointed with his free hand. Through the open door she could see his cell, just a green mattress on a metal shelf and a steel toilet-sink unit.

“Claire,” Tom said, “I need you.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Despairing and angry and, above all, confused, Claire sat in the rental car for a long time after leaving the brig. She felt lost and powerless and didn’t know who to turn to for help, and finally she took out her cell phone and called an old friend.

Arthur Iselin, a prominent Washington attorney who was her old boss and a trusted friend, agreed to meet her for an early lunch at the Hay-Adams. Iselin was a partner at one of the biggest and most powerful law firms in Washington. Fresh out of law school, she had clerked for him when he was solicitor general. He was then, and remained, one of the wisest men she knew.

Without asking, the waiter brought him his regular, the farmer’s omelet with piping-hot biscuits, which he slathered with plenty of butter. No health fanatic, he. Nearby sat the White House chief of staff with a Republican senator; Iselin, who knew them both, nodded at them.

“You know, there’s an old saying,” he said. He had widely spaced gray eyes, under which were deep circles, and a large mouth with large lips, the bottom one appearing to be split. “Military justice is to justice as-”

“As military music is to music,” Claire finished. “I know, I know. But I thought they’d gotten a lot better since Vietnam.”

“Since the Calley court-martial, actually. When I was in the army everyone used to tell me the military system is far superior to our civilian one because at least they take it seriously. But I never believed it. Still don’t. I think, if the military wants to lock someone away and throw away the key, they can do it. And I have no doubt they want to lock your husband away.”

“Probably true,” Claire conceded.

“And if you tell me he’s innocent, he’s innocent.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course, that’s easy for me to say. After lunch I go back to my office and my stack of briefs. Your life will never be the same.”

“Right.” She nibbled on a bite of salad. Since the arrest she’d had no appetite.

“The first decision you’ll have to make, and it’s a big one, is whether to make this public. Tom’s story itself is a headline maker. If the Pentagon goes ahead and prosecutes, that makes it front-page stuff.”

“Why wouldn’t I publicize it?”

“Because that’s your ace in the hole. The Pentagon is terrified of public scrutiny these days. Going public is a potent threat. Use it when you have to. For now, I’d keep all this absolutely secret.”

She nodded.

“Tell you something else. If you leak it, even if he’s acquitted, he’ll always be known as a mass murderer. Your family will be destroyed. I wouldn’t do it, given the choice.”

“Makes sense to me.”

“Sounds like you’ve already decided not to get involved as an attorney of record.”

She shrugged.

“I’d reconsider. You’re the last one they want trying this case. To the military, civilian lawyers are wild cards. Get them involved, next thing you know you got what the military calls a CONGRINT, a congressional inquiry. And you most of all-Claire Heller Chapman, big scary Harvard Law School celeb-you’ll scare ’em to death. They’ll piss their pants. You really should do it.” He looked at her, assessed her dour expression, then chomped down blithely on a biscuit. “Failing that, there’s this.” He slid a typed sheet of paper across the table.

“Your list of civilian lawyers who do military law.”

“Correct. You’ll notice it’s not a very long list. Good civilian criminal lawyers who don’t just practice military law but actually specialize in it, there’s maybe a handful of them around the country. You’ll want someone who lives and works in the Virginia area, ideally, so that narrows it down even further. Every one of these was once a JAG officer in one of the service branches of the military. Judge Advocate General Corps.”

“I know what ‘JAG’ is.”

“This is good. You’ll see, the military speaks a different language, and the sooner you learn it the better. Not that many decent civilian military lawyers in the area. Slim pickings.”

She looked the list over with dismay.

“It’s a tough way to earn a living,” Iselin went on. “In the old days when we had a draft, there were rich kids whose daddies were willing to pay the big bucks for a civilian attorney. In the new military, not too many can scrape the money together. If it were me, I’d pick this guy Grimes. In solo practice in Manassas.”

“Why?”

“He’s smart as hell, and he knows the ins and outs of military justice as well as anyone. But most of all he hates the military with a vengeance. You want someone like that, someone with fire in the belly. Because you’ve got a really tough case, and you need a fighter.”

She looked at Grimes’s entry. “He’s a former army JAG and he hates the military? Why?”

“Oh, they forced him into retirement five or six years ago.”

“Over what?”

“I don’t know. Some scandal or something. He’s black, and I think it was racism. Ask him. Thing is, he’s a scrapper and a street fighter, and he’s obsessed with beating them at their own game.”

“But there must be some hotshot partner in a Washington firm who was an army JAG.”

“Sure. There’s a partner in one of the big firms, but you don’t want him.”

“I don’t?”

“Nah. He’s like me-full plate, stretched way too thin, hands everything off to his associate. You want Bernie the Attorney, you want someone who knows the system inside and out and still has lots of time available for this case, because it’s going to be a huge time-consumer. They’ll have him up on murder charges, count on it. Mass murder, whatever the military calls it.” He peered at her over his coffee cup. “Though I thought they were in the mass-murder business.”

“You know anyone who has a house to rent?”

“A house?”

“Preferably furnished. This is going to be a long haul.”

When she returned to her room at the Quality Inn, across from the Quantico gates, she was surprised to find her bed unmade. When she called down to Housekeeping to ask about it, she was told that a DO NOT DISTURB sign had been hung from her doorknob for most of the afternoon. She knew she hadn’t put the sign up. This prompted her to check her suitcase; sure enough, the zipper was aligned differently from the way she had left it.

She sank onto the unmade bed and, more depressed than frightened, began to make telephone calls.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Boy, it’s a real honor to meet you, ma’am,” the young man said. His name was Captain Terrence Embry, he was twenty-seven years old, and he was the military defense counsel assigned to Tom. (Claire still could not get herself to call her husband Ronald, to think of him as anyone except Tom.)

She smiled, nodded politely, stirred nondairy creamer into her coffee. It was early in the morning and they were meeting for breakfast at the McDonald’s on the base. His invitation: he’d called the Quality Inn the night before, told her he’d just been detailed to the case, and would she like to get together?

“I mean, we studied your book Crime and the Law in my criminal-law class,” he went on. “I’m just sorry about the circumstances and all…” His voice trailed off, and he looked down at his Egg McMuffin. His face reddened.

Terry Embry had reddish hair, cut short in what she was beginning to recognize as an army regulation haircut, large prominent ears, nervous watery blue eyes. He blushed easily. He had long slender fingers and a dry, firm handshake. On his left hand was a large, perfectly shiny gold wedding band, obviously brand-new. On his right hand was a heavy West Point ring, on top of which was mounted a synthetic black star sapphire. He was a West Point graduate, he said, sent by the army to the University of Virginia Law School and then the Judge Advocate General School there, in Charlottesville. He was a smart young man, Claire saw at once, and almost totally inexperienced.

Her appetite still hadn’t returned. She took a sip of her coffee. “Do you mind if I smoke, Captain Embry?” she asked.

Embry’s eyes widened and he looked around anxiously. “No, ma’am, I…”

“Don’t worry, we’re in the smoking section,” she said, as she unwrapped a pack of Camel Lights, pulled one out, and lighted it with a plastic Bic lighter. She despised herself for smoking again-actually buying a pack, and not just bumming from Jackie, was serious-but she couldn’t help it.

She exhaled. There were few things more disgusting than smoking a cigarette at breakfast. “Tell me something, Captain-”

“Terry.”

“Okay, then. Terry. Tell me something. Have you ever tried a case?”

His face reddened. She had her answer. “Well, ma’am, I’ve done a number of plea bargains, mostly for drugs, unauthorized absences, that sort of stuff-”

“But you’ve never actually done a trial.”

“No, ma’am,” he said quietly.

“I see. And have they assigned a prosecutor yet? Or is it still too early for that?”

“Well, it’s really early, but they’ve already detailed someone, which tells me they’re probably planning on a court-martial.”

She smiled grimly. “What a surprise. And who have they assigned?”

“Major Waldron, ma’am. Major Lucas Waldron.” He took a healthy bite of his Egg McMuffin.

“Is he any good, do you know?”

His eyes widened. He accelerated his chewing, then tried to speak through a mouthful of food, but settled for vigorous nodding. Then he said, “Pardon me, ma’am. Major Waldron-yes, ma’am, he’s good. He’s real good. He’s probably the best they’ve got.”

“Is that right?” she said, unsurprised.

“Well, he’s a bit of a hardass, ma’am, if you don’t mind my saying. He’s the most experienced trial counsel in the JAG Corps. Really aggressive. And he has a perfect win-loss record. No one’s ever been acquitted at a trial he’s prosecuted.”

“I don’t suppose that means he only takes the easy cases, in order to maintain his perfect record, does it?”

“Not that I’ve heard, ma’am. He’s just really good.”

“My husband is being scapegoated.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said politely.

“When you read whatever files they give you, you’ll see that. It’s a conspiracy. Can you deal with that?”

“If it’s true, yes, ma’am, I can.”

“It won’t be good for your career, Terry, going after a cover-up within the military, will it?”

“Ma’am, I don’t know what’s best for my career.”

“Enough with the ‘ma’am,’ okay?”

“Sorry.”

“Terry, you should know I’ll be hiring civilian counsel.”

He examined his Egg McMuffin. “That’s certainly your right, uh, Claire. Would you like me to excuse myself from the case?”

“No.”

“Well, one of us will have to be associate counsel,” he said. When Claire didn’t answer, he said, “I suppose it’ll be me. That’s certainly fine.”

“Tell me something, Terry. Why do you suppose you, a complete rookie, were assigned to this case, against Major Waldron, the best the army has? Any idea, Terry?”

“I have no idea,” he admitted with a candor she found disarming, “but it doesn’t look good for us, does it?”

She gave a soft snort. “You didn’t choose this assignment, did you?”

“That’s not the way it works in the military. You go where they tell you.”

“Wouldn’t you rather be prosecuting it?”

“This case?” He reddened. “Just from the way it looks, this is a slow soft pitch right across the plate, just hanging there, waiting to be hit out of the ballpark.”

“By the prosecution.”

“Just from what I’ve heard, but I haven’t dug into it yet.”

“Did you choose to go into defense, Terry, or did they just put you there?”

“I was assigned. I mean, everyone in JAG school wants to prosecute, not defend, you know? Defending bad guys is not exactly a career-enhancing billet.”

Claire’s eyes flashed. “I want you to know something, Terry,” she said coolly. She exhaled a plume of smoke like some kind of dragon, or perhaps a femme fatale. “My husband is not a bad guy.”

“Well, so, anyway, I think you should look at this.” He withdrew some papers from a folder and, without even looking at them, handed her a stapled sheaf.

“What’s this?” Claire asked.

“The charge sheet. They work fast. Article 85, desertion. Article 90, assaulting or willfully disobeying superior commissioned officer. Article 118, murder in the first degree. Eighty-seven specifications.” He looked up at Claire, shook his head.

For the first time, the seriousness, the finality of it all struck her. They were really going after Tom. He could in fact be executed. The military still had the death penalty.

She had to do it.

“I think I’ve just changed my mind,” she said, steely. “How the hell do I sign up to help represent my husband?”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Twenty minutes from Quantico, along the two-lane Dumfries Road in Manassas, Virginia, Claire pulled the sleek rented Oldsmobile over onto the shoulder and once again inspected the street number. This was the correct number, it had to be. It was precisely the same address that appeared on the short list Arthur Iselin had given her, and neither Arthur nor his secretary made mistakes. And she had talked to the lawyer on the phone and had taken down the street number he told her. So it was impossible that she’d gotten the address wrong.

But this could not be the office.

This was a tiny yellow clapboard house, almost a dollhouse. It was a house, not an office building, and it was a house out of Tobacco Road; all that was missing was a turnip truck and maybe a car chassis up on cinderblocks. This could not be the office of Charles O. Grimes III.

After she’d driven past the house three or four times, she finally pulled into the driveway and got out and rang the doorbell.

After a few long minutes the door opened. A handsome black man in his late forties, with graying hair, a gray-flecked mustache, and large amused eyes, stared at her for a disconcertingly long time. “You get lost, Professor? I saw you pass by here, must have been four times.”

“Thought I might have had the wrong address.”

“Come on in. I’m Charles.” He extended a hand.

“Claire.”

“Let me guess,” he said, guiding her through a tiny cluttered living room dominated by an immense TV, “you’re asking yourself, why does this guy work out of the same little shitbox he lives in, right?” Claire, following him through a doorway into a fake-wood-paneled study, didn’t answer. “Well, you see, Professor, I had a wife who wasn’t too happy when I started boinking my secretary, who was never much of a secretary anyway, and isn’t my secretary anymore. In fact, I don’t even know where she is. So the wife dumps me, holds me up for child support, takes all my money, and now look at me. I used to have a Jag. JAG with a Jag. Now I’ve got a third-hand rustbucket Mercedes.” He sank down into a cheap orange vinyl-cushioned desk chair and interlaced his hands behind his head. “Have a seat. Welcome to Grimes & Associates.”

She lifted a stack of papers off the only other chair and sat down. This was the tackiest office she’d ever seen. The floor was covered in hideous wall-to-wall orange shag carpeting. Piles of papers were everywhere, some in cardboard boxes, some in precarious towers on the floor or heaped on top of the flimsy-looking tan four-drawer filing cabinets. In one corner of the room a portable fan stood on the floor next to a red-and-black shoe polisher. There were a few diplomas on the wall she couldn’t make out. Atop one of the file cabinets was a cluster of bowling trophies. A fake antique wooden sign hung on one wall announcing, in olde lettering, “DULY QUALIFIED HONEST COUNTRY LAWYER at your service-Wills-Deeds filed-Disputes settled-Bondsman-Patents review’d-Consultations from 25¢-Your lawyer is your friend.” Hanging from the bottom of the sign was another sign, a wooden rectangle: “C. O. GRIMES III, ESQ.”

“Grimes & Associates?” Claire asked. “You have associates?”

“Planning on it. A man can dream, can’t he?” A powerful mothball odor wafted from his seventies-style polyester pullover sweater, a psychedelic riot of brown, orange, and yellow.

“Look,” she said. “Don’t take this the wrong way. You come highly recommended. By, of all people, Arthur Iselin.”

“How is Artie?”

“He’s fine. He says you’re a star of the civilian military-law field. I assume that means you win a lot of cases. You’re successful. Now, in my world, if you’re a big star-”

“-a big swinging dick, you have a corner office in a skyscraper, am I reading you right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, some of the guys in my business do, but mostly they practice other kinds of law, too. Like corporate, or big-deal criminal, or whatever. You can’t get rich on military law. Myself, I supplement my military practice with personal-injury and insurance work. No, I’m not a big Harvard Law School celebrity like you-all. But you wouldn’t even be here if you hadn’t talked to some other civilian military lawyers and checked out my record, and if you have, you know I like to win cases. I don’t always, but I try… real hard.”

“Why’d you leave the military?”

Grimes hesitated a split second. “Retired.”

“Why?”

“I was tired of it.”

“Something happen?”

“I got tired of it,” he said, a note of irritation entering his voice. “That’s what happened. You mind if I ask you a couple questions?”

“Go ahead.”

“Arthur called me. I got the background. Sounds like you’re in some kind of deep doodoo. He been charged yet?”

She handed Grimes the charge sheet. He looked it over, raised his brows here and there, hummed. By the second page his humming got louder and went up an octave. “Someone’s been a bad boy,” he said.

“You better be joking.”

“Of course he didn’t do it,” Grimes said, a twinkle in his eye. “I like to tell people all my clients are innocent. They’re always innocent-or else they won’t plead guilty.”

Claire suppressed her annoyance. “Is he a deserter? No question about it. But he’s no mass murderer. They tried to set him up to take the fall for this massacre thirteen years ago, and he was smart enough to escape their clutches. General William Marks-that’s right, the four-star General Marks, the chief of staff of the army-commanded the platoon in 1985, when he was a colonel. The Special Forces detachment that was sent down to El Salvador to take revenge for the killing of some American marines. General Marks himself ordered them to kill eighty-seven civilians for one reason alone: cold-blooded revenge. Tom didn’t take part in it-he wasn’t even there.”

Grimes nodded, watching her steadily.

“General Marks initiated and supervised a cover-up thirteen years ago and tried to nail my husband with responsibility for it. So whoever takes this case is going to flush him out and expose his attempted cover-up. Because I’m going to go after the whole corrupt system. The whole goddamned military system-”

“Oh, no, you’re not,” Grimes interrupted. “No fucking way. Bad mistake. Get that out of your head, sister. You’re going to play by the rules. Play hard, play aggressive, but it’s their game-hell, it’s their fucking stadium. Their fucking ball club. Lady, let me tell you something. Every civilian who’s ever gone into a military general court-martial and tried to attack the foundations of the military has lost his case. No exceptions. The military is a tight, closed fraternity. They take it real serious. Military justice is a deadly-serious business. You’d be surprised how much it’s like the civilian justice system-it was made that way. Modeled on the U.S. criminal-justice system. Lot of the same rights. You want to defend your husband, you go after the charges and prove they haven’t made their case, just like you’d do in a regular courtroom. You think there was a cover-up, go ahead and go after General Marks. Go after General Patton, General Douglas fucking MacArthur, General Dwight fucking Eisenhower if you want. But you don’t attack the system. Now, you know I’m hungry for this case, but I’m not going to lie to you. If you hire me, you’re hiring someone who plays by their rules. I play nasty, but I play their game. I just play it better than them.”

Claire nodded, smiled.

“They hook you up with a detailed defense counsel yet?” Grimes asked.

“Yes. Some kid named Terry Embry, fresh out of law school.”

“Hmph. Never heard of him. He any good?”

“He’s totally green. Smart. Well-meaning, I think. Nice kid. But strictly junior-varsity.”

“We all got to start somewhere. Why should the Pentagon give you their best? How about trial counsel? That’s what the military calls the prosecutor. He assigned yet?”

“Lucas Waldron.”

Grimes leaned back in his chair and laughed. He laughed so loud, so hard, that he had a coughing fit. “Lucas Waldron?” he choked out.

“You’ve heard of him, I take it.”

When he finally stopped coughing, Grimes said, “Oh, I heard of him, all right. He’s a totally ruthless son of a bitch.”

“You ever come up against him?”

“A couple times. Got some light jury sentences off him, but never won a case against him. But what I don’t get is why they’re even putting your husband on trial.”

“What else could they have done? Legally, I mean.”

“Oh, man, they could have done much worse if they wanted to. They could have had three army shrinks declare him crazy and lock him up in some government mental institution, some federal facility, and throw away the key. I really don’t get why they want to go the court-martial route.”

“Probably because of me. Do everything by the book.”

He nodded slowly. “Maybe. Still doesn’t make sense.”

“You’d be second chair, you know. If I hire you.”

“Second to the fetus?”

“Second to me. He’d be third chair. If I even keep him on. I don’t know if I can trust someone from the army.”

“Nah, you want to hold on to the assigned co-counsel. He’s got the power to order military witnesses to appear for an interview; we don’t. Plus, you need him around to cut through all the administrative bullshit. I’m telling you, the army has a reg-a regulation-for everything, including how to wipe your ass.”

“Okay.”

“No offense, Professor-you want to be lead counsel on this, go right ahead, it’s your money, your husband, your case. You’re the boss. But I don’t get the feeling you know too much about court-martials.”

“You just said it follows civilian law pretty closely.”

“You want to be gettin’ your training wheels when your husband is facing the death penalty?”

“I’d expect you to do a lot of backseat driving.”

He shrugged. “Hey, you’re Claire Heller Chapman. You want to do it that way, fine with me. You got clearance?”

“Why?”

“I promise you, they’re going to close this courtroom, shut it tight as a drum. Plus most of the statements and evidence will be classified top secret. That’s how they’re going to play this.”

“I’ll get clearance. You think that’ll be a problem?”

“Shouldn’t be. You’ll have to fill out a bunch of paper. Standard form 86. They’ll do an NAC, that’s a national agency check. Background check by FBI and the Defense Investigative Services. Clear you up to ‘secret.’”

“And if they don’t give me clearance?”

“They have to. Now that you’re counsel. They have to give counsel clearance, otherwise your husband doesn’t have to talk.”

“How fast can I get it?”

“They can grant it overnight if they want. Now, we’re going to need a good investigator.”

“I know a really good one.”

“Army background? CID?”

“Boston PD and FBI.”

“Good enough for me.”

“He’s in Boston, but he’s worth the added expense. Really good investigators are rare.”

“Tell me about it. In this case, they’ll be vital. This case is going to be brutal. So what’s the deal here? Am I hired or not?”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

On the way from the airport, Claire stopped first at Arthur Iselin’s law firm, just off Dupont Circle, to pick up the keys. Annie and Jackie waited in the rented Olds. The house was on Thirty-fourth Street, near Massachusetts Avenue, a very short walk to the Naval Observatory. It was a Federal-style town house, cream-painted brick front with black shutters, quite handsome. It belonged to one of the senior partners in Iselin’s firm, who had recently retired and moved to Tuscany for six months. He was asking a lot for the short-term rental, but Claire decided, as she walked up the front steps, that it was worth it.

“Do I get my own room?” Annie asked.

“I’m sure you do,” Claire replied.

“How ’bout me?” Jackie asked.

“Hey, you get your own wing,” Claire said.

As soon as Claire had the door unlocked, Annie bolted ahead into the house. She squealed as she ran, “Mommy, this is so cool!”

Claire took in the spacious and elegant foyer, the beautiful old Persian rugs, the antique furnishings, the linen-white wainscoted walls. “We’re in trouble,” she said to Jackie. “She’s going to destroy this.” The air was musty-the house smelled as if it had been empty for months-yet laced with furniture polish. Someone came in and cleaned once a week or so, she decided.

Jackie set her duffel bag down and looked around, eyeing the graceful staircase that wound around upward from the left of the foyer in a fan of white balusters. “Cool,” she said. “You did good.”

She’d taught her last class and instructed Connie to turn away all requests from potential clients. There would be final exams, but she’d have the completed exams FedExed down to her here. She told her students she was available by telephone and gave her number in Washington. Two of her pending cases she turned over to a friend at a downtown Boston firm. That left her with one appeal before the Supreme Judicial Court, which would involve a quick flight to Boston and back. Their house would stand empty, but Rosa-who had kids of her own and certainly couldn’t come down to Washington to work-would stop in every couple of days to make sure everything was all right. Jackie, who paid the rent doing what she called “boring fucking technical writing,” could do her work down here and was willing, saint that she was, to take care of Annie.

She placed a couple of calls to friends in Boston, told them she’d be in Washington for a while, perhaps even several months, working on a case she wasn’t supposed to talk about. A few hours later, while Claire and Jackie were still unpacking and settling in and Annie was discovering new rooms and new hiding places, the doorbell rang.

An army courier, a young black man wearing a nametag that said “Lee,” was carrying a large carton. “I need your signature on some forms, ma’am, but first I’m going to need to see a driver’s license.”

She signed with a sense of anticipation and anxiety far different from her customary feelings about documents provided to her during litigation. These were documents about Tom and his life before he met her, his concealed life.

They were copies of his enlisted-evaluation reports-DA Form 2166-6, photocopies of what she imagined were old, yellowed pieces of paper from deep in files somewhere in North Carolina (Special Forces trained at Fort Bragg). They were stamped FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY and included ADMINISTRATIVE DATA and PERFORMANCE EVALUATION-PROFESSIONALISM and PERFORMANCE AND POTENTIAL EVALUATION. She settled down in the room that she’d chosen as her office-a comfortable library on the first floor, far removed from the living quarters-and examined copies of Tom’s service-records books. Most of them were boring and anodyne, but she forced herself to read closely. She discovered his file photo, attached to a copy of his personnel file, taken when he was sent to Vietnam. He was almost thirty years younger. A kid of nineteen. Younger, yes, but also a very different face-a different nose, more bulbous; hollow cheeks; a receding chin. If she hadn’t known it was Tom, she wouldn’t have recognized the photo. It surprised her that the plastic surgery that had altered his appearance so dramatically had also improved his looks considerably.

Then she read something that made her blood run cold.

Charles Grimes met her at the entrance to the Quantico brig. This time he was wearing an ill-fitting jacket and tie. In addition to his briefcase, he was carrying a large portable radio.

“What’s that for?” Claire asked.

“Tunes,” Grimes said and didn’t elaborate. “Bad news.”

“What,” she said vaguely. Nothing surprised her anymore. They stopped at the sentry and opened their briefcases.

“The battalion commander’s ordered the Article 32 investigation and hearing,” Grimes said. “Docketed for a week from now. They normally take thirty days between preferring charges and the Article 32 hearing, but they’re really moving this one along.”

“English, please.”

“It’s the pretrial investigation. Required by Article 32 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. To weigh all the facts, the issues raised in the charges. And decide whether to go ahead with the court-martial.”

“Sort of like the grand-jury investigation in the real world.”

“But better. We get to be there. Question witnesses, impeach stuff. No jury, and it’s run by an investigating officer, not a judge. It’s a good discovery opportunity-see what evidence they got, what kind of case they got.”

“But they’re not going to really drop the charges, are they? They’re going ahead with the court-martial.”

“Look, we got the right to waive the hearing. But we want it. We want to scope out their case.”

“The hearing’s in a week?”

He nodded as they walked along the echoey corridor, accompanied by an escort. “Not much time for us. They’ve had years to put this together. You get the documents?”

“I read them.”

They talked briefly. Grimes told Claire about his brief meeting with Tom in the brig yesterday. Tom had approved of hiring Grimes.

They stopped at the long conference room before the entrance to Cell Block B. “We’re going to meet here,” Grimes said to the escort. “Can you get the prisoner now?” He turned back to her, told her he’d spent hours going over Tom’s case file. “Your husband’s had quite a life. Interesting experiences.”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t know what to say. Instead, she talked about the Article 32 hearing. Concentrate on the legal proceedings, she told herself. This you can do. “You want to try to get the court-martial knocked out?” she asked.

“Do I want to?” He put the radio down outside the conference-room door and switched it on to some rap station. “Notorious B.I.G.,” he said. “Life After Death. I hate this shit. Yeah, sure I want to. Ain’t gonna happen, but I’m willing to try. Long as you’re paying me.”

“You were serious about tunes, weren’t you?”

He smiled. He had an endearing smile, perfect white teeth. “No, it’s to keep ’em from listening in. Old Quantico brig trick.” He entered, set down his briefcase, took a seat at the head of the long Formica-topped table. She looked around the long, narrow room, noticed there was no camera in here. “See,” Grimes said, “I told you they’d give you clearance. I’m surprised you accepted the conditions, though.”

“Why?”

“Famous civil-liberties lawyer like you, I woulda thought you’d refuse. They investigate you, you had to sign that gag order, now you can’t speak out about the classified evidence in the case. Kinda like selling your soul.”

He was right. “I didn’t have a choice,” she said. “Not if I wanted to defend Tom.” She sat down next to him.

“True, but still. You call him Tom, huh? His assumed name?”

“That’s how I know him. I don’t know him as Ron.”

“You still think he’s innocent, huh? After what we both read?”

She turned to him angrily, but before she could reply, the door opened. Tom, in his blue jumpsuit, stood there in his restraints, flanked by guards. She noticed he was wearing black boots.

“All right, I want these off,” Grimes told the guards, waving at Tom. “All of ’em. And not just one cuff either. You tell your CO we want all these off or we’re going to file complaints with every single goddamned member of the Senate Armed Services Committee plus the senators from Massachusetts and Virginia, and then we’re going to initiate a CONGRINT and your CO’s going to go blind with paperwork.” Tom remained standing at attention, looking at Grimes curiously.

“Yes, sir,” one of the guards said. They turned and escorted Tom off.

Grimes laughed, almost a cackle. “I love threatening these guys,” he said. “I mean, Christ’s sakes, where the hell is this guy going to go anyway? They think he’s going to escape from a conference room inside the fucking brig, with steel bars everywhere?”

They brought Tom back a few minutes later with all his restraints gone. Claire kissed and hugged him, and for the first time he could hug her back. He looked gaunt and haggard. “Charlie Grimes,” she said. “Your new lawyer. You’ve already met.”

“Charles,” Grimes corrected, and shook Tom’s hand.

“Where’s the kid?” Tom asked as he and Claire sat down. “What’s his name, Embryo?”

“We’re meeting without him this morning,” Grimes said.

“How are you?” she asked.

“Mostly bored,” he said. His voice was hoarse, as if he hadn’t spoken in a long time. “New-prisoner indoctrination. They bring around a library cart with a shitty selection of paperbacks. TV call for an hour three times a week, but there’s nothing I want to watch. I get ‘sunshine call’ an hour a day, outside in this awful little cement courtyard. In full restraints. By myself.”

“They didn’t give you the tour of the health club?” Grimes asked. “Sauna, steam, Nautilus, pretty girls giving massages? No?”

“Missed it,” Tom said. “Yeah, I can’t complain, I guess.” To Claire he added, “But I miss you.”

“I miss you. We all do. You can call us, you know.”

“I just figured that out. They bring the phone around on this wooden cart and plug it in. Collect calls, thirty minutes max.”

“Yeah,” Grimes said, “and they monitor the calls, so be discreet.”

“I’m representing you, too, Tom,” she said. “I’ve signed on. Did an appearance letter. It’s official.”

“Thank God,” Tom said.

“Thank her,” Grimes said. “Bet she figures she’ll save you guys money that way.”

“You know this is a death-penalty case,” she said, ignoring him. “And I haven’t done a full-blown criminal trial in years. I’m rusty on trial law. That doesn’t make you nervous?”

“You?” Tom said. “No way. Thank you, honey.”

“Can I smoke?” she asked Grimes.

“Nonsmoking facility,” Grimes said with a firm shake of the head.

“How politically correct,” she said. “Tom, we’re going to have to know everything. No more holding back-anything. You understand that?”

He nodded.

Grimes spoke up. “It may not be pleasant for you. But if you start holding back, we’re going to get tripped up. They’re coming at you with all the ammo they got, and if you leave out a detail, especially something that’s unflattering to you, we’re all screwed, dig?”

“I dig,” Tom said.

“All right, cool,” Grimes said.

“Tom,” Claire said, “you didn’t tell us about your tour in Vietnam.”

“I told you I went to-”

“That’s not what I’m referring to. You know damned well what I’m referring to. You never told me you were part of the Turncoat Elimination Program.”

“What are you talking about?” Tom said.

“What are we talking about?” Grimes said angrily. “U.S.-government hit squads, that’s what we’re talking about. Special hunter-killer operations, teams of U.S. Army and Marine snipers sent deep into enemy territory to assassinate Americans. To eliminate American ‘traitors,’ deserters. Officially sanctioned assassination of American soldiers. You were on one of those recon-combat patrols. You were a hired killer for the U.S. government, Tom. A little something you forgot to mention.”

“That’s bullshit!” Tom exploded. “They’re making that up!”

“It’s in your file,” Claire said, desperately hoping he was telling the truth. “Says you volunteered for this mission. That you were one of their top snipers, with deadly accuracy. That’s why you were accepted into the program, even though you were so young.”

“It’s a lie!” he said. “I did a normal tour of duty, then I was sent to Special Forces training at Fort Bragg. I heard of those teams-everyone heard rumors about them over there-but I had nothing to do with it. I didn’t eliminate American soldiers. They’ve forged records or something, trying to make me look like a cold-blooded killer. You can’t possibly believe this, Claire!”

“I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

“You can’t believe this, Claire!”

“We can get it excluded,” Grimes said. “It doesn’t have to come up at court-martial.”

“But it’s a goddamned despicable lie! Look, those assassination patrols were such a goddamned closely guarded secret, nobody knew about it. If there’s anything on paper about it, wouldn’t it be top secret or something? It wouldn’t be in my unclassified files!”

Claire sighed in frustration. “That’s true. It would be in the classified stuff.”

She looked at Grimes, who shrugged. “Whatever. We’ll get it excluded. Of course they won’t want that on the record anyway-it’s a government scandal, one of the most shameful secrets of the Vietnam War.”

“What are they telling you about what happened in Salvador?” Tom asked.

“We haven’t seen the records yet,” Claire said. “But Charles tells me discovery starts now, so we’ll see it soon.”

“The good news for you,” Grimes said, “is that we’ll be going to trial soon. The military has a speedy-trial provision. They’ve got to start the court-martial within a hundred-twenty days of the time you were locked up here.”

“But we don’t want a speedy trial,” Claire said. “We need as much time as we can get to comb through the evidence, interview the witnesses. Raise reasonable doubt. We don’t want to try this case half-assed. They’ve been putting this sham together for years, I’ll bet.”

“Hey, you’re in the army now,” Grimes said. “They got the right to force us to trial if they want, when they want. The good news for you, Tom-or-Ron, is that in less than four months you’ll either be out of here or-”

“Or in Leavenworth,” Tom said mordantly. “Or executed.”

“Right,” Grimes agreed with a blitheness that seemed inappropriate. “So the clock’s ticking.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The military policeman stood straight and tall and perfectly dressed in a perfectly creased uniform. He had whitewalls behind his ears. His shoes appeared to be spit-shined to a mirror gleam. He looked like he’d just stepped out of an inspection box. He was “strac,” Grimes marveled. ‘Strac,’ he said, was army lingo for spiffy, impeccably attired, and groomed in the very best, strictest army manner.

He stood guard before a windowless room in the basement of a building at Quantico called Hockmuth Hall, where all classified materials in the Ronald Kubik matter were stored under conditions of the highest security. Outside the room Claire waited with Embry and Grimes.

“This is what we call a SCIF,” Captain Embry told Claire. He pronounced it “skiff.”

“Another new word,” Claire said dryly. “Meaning?”

Embry hesitated.

“Special Compartmental Information Facility,” Grimes said. “Something like that.”

“I think it’s Sensitive Compartmental Information Facility,” Embry said.

“Whatever,” Grimes said.

“I requested a continuance on the 32,” Embry said. “But the investigating officer turned us down.”

“What a surprise,” Grimes said. “Who is he, by the way?”

“Lieutenant Colonel Robert Holt. Nice guy.”

“They’re all nice guys,” Grimes said. “Watch out for nice guys in the military.”

Embry ignored him. “He instructed me that this is a case with national security implications, and any conversations regarding it must be conducted in the SCIF.”

“Whatever that stands for,” Claire said. Grimes caught her eye, which she took to mean Pay no attention to their instructions.

“Next time we talk to your husband,” Grimes said, “I want to do it outside the brig. I don’t trust these guys. Who knows who might be listening in?”

“They’re not allowed to listen in on conversations between attorney and client,” Embry said.

“Oh, I see,” Grimes said. “You want to tell ’em that, or should I?”

Grimes and Embry had just met this morning, and already Grimes was testing Embry’s patience. But Embry was too polite to rise to the bait. In any case, before Embry had the chance to say anything now, the door to the SCIF was opened by a security officer.

It was just a room, linoleum floors with government-issue green metal tables and gray metal chairs. There were, however, a number of large safes, Sargent & Greenleaf brand, officially approved government safes, that opened with combination locks. Inside were separately locked drawers, each with its own combination lock. Each of them was given a drawer where he or she was to lock up any notes taken. No notes were to be removed from the room. They’d brought yellow legal pads-Grimes had told her not to bother bringing a laptop computer-but even their own handwritten notes had to stay there in the locked drawers. All notes on classified files would become part of an official government file, kept under government control.

Claire found this alarming, even a little ominous. They couldn’t take notes out with them? How could they work anywhere outside this awful little room? The official headquarters of the Ronald Kubik defense was the library at her rented Thirty-fourth Street house, where all their files were kept; how could they work there without notes on the classified files? She was given no satisfactory answer. Neither Embry nor Grimes seemed perturbed by this ridiculous precaution.

She was shown a procedure designed to ensure that no one else looked at her notes. Any papers she chose to leave here would be placed inside a manila envelope, sealed with two-and-a-half-inch brown paper tape, the kind you moisten with a little sponge. The security officer would seal it for her, after which she would sign her initials over the tape’s seal line. That went into another manila envelope, which was then sealed with the same tape and then initialed. That envelope was marked SECRET-SENSITIVE PROPRIETARY and then placed into yet another envelope marked PRIVATE FOR____________________.

The whole ritual was designed to set the note-taker’s mind at ease, and, indeed, it appeared to be awfully hard for anyone to get to her private notes without being detected, but she put nothing past these people. Anyone who came up with such elaborate and lurid precautions probably had figured out how to penetrate them.

“Jesus,” Grimes exclaimed from his seat at an adjoining table. “Either your husband is really some kind of sick fuck or they got some fine creative minds over at the JAG Corps.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Claire.

Grimes waved a sheaf of papers. “CID statement taken in, what, August of 1984. Sergeant Kubik was stationed at Fort Bragg for training, living off-base in Fayetteville at the time. Neighbor, a civilian, lodges a complaint against him.”

Claire approached, tried to read over Grimes’s shoulder.

“Seems the neighbor’s dog kept pissing on Kubik’s rosebushes, Kubik complained a number of times, and then one morning he grabbed the dog, slit its throat, and hung it by its hind feet from the neighbor’s mailbox. Hoo-boy.”

Claire, speechless, shook her head. “That’s… that’s impossible. That’s not-Tom.”

“Man,” Grimes said. Embry looked over nervously, then returned to whatever he was reading. “Hoo-boy. Avon calling. No welcome wagon for this bad boy.”

“It’s got to be a forgery,” Claire said. “Can’t they make these things up? I mean, look at it, it’s a couple of crappy typed pages.”

“The CID agent’s name who took the complaint is down there. Neighbor’s name, too. Roswell something.”

She shook her head again. “That’s not Tom,” she repeated.

“No, Professor,” came a voice from the entrance to the room. “That’s Ronald Kubik. And I’m Major Waldron.”

Major Lucas Waldron was a tall, lean, brown-haired man in his late thirties whose predominant feature was his aquiline nose. He was neither handsome nor plain-he had a fine, strong brow, and a thin, weak mouth-but he was unmistakably intense. He did not smile as he shook hands. Claire felt her stomach clench, as it did whenever she met a powerful adversary.

“Maybe you’re beginning to understand, Professor, why so many people consider your husband a stain on the army’s reputation,” Waldron said.

Claire looked at him for a moment. “Are you proud of prosecuting this farce?”

Waldron gave a glacial smile. “Given who your husband is-what your husband is-I personally don’t think he’s even worthy of a trial-”

“The charade of a trial, you mean,” Claire interjected. “I’m surprised you were willing to accept this assignment. You might spoil your perfect win-loss record.”

“Let me tell you something, Professor,” Waldron said. “This is not a case the army’s going to lose. When you get a look at the evidence we have here, you’ll understand. I can only assume that you don’t have any idea what kind of monster this man is, what kind of monster you married.”

“You’ve got to be awfully naïve if you believe the stuff they’re handing you,” she said. “If you can’t smell a cover-up.”

“All you have to do is check out the evidence.”

“Believe me, I plan to.”

“Just check it out. You’ll see. And as for my perfect win-loss record, well, part of that’s because I’m lucky. And I’m thorough. But the main reason is, the people I prosecute happen to be guilty.”

“I’m sure you’re good, too,” Claire said. “Anyone can convict a guilty man, but it takes a really good prosecutor to convict the innocent.”

“My father was a POW in Vietnam,” Waldron said. “I’m an army officer and I happen to be proud of it. I plan to spend my whole career in the army. But if I had to destroy my career to get a sicko like your husband convicted, I’d do it. And gladly. Nice to meet you, Professor.”

And he turned and left the room.

“Nice guy, huh?” Grimes said.

“Over here, guys,” Embry called out. “CID’s got seven statements here, from seven members of Kubik’s unit in Salvador, Special Forces Detachment 27. Taken on 27 June 1985. Five days after the 22 June incident, in debriefings back at Fort Bragg. They’re almost identical. And they’re devastating.” Embry looked at Claire anxiously, almost wincing. He licked his lips.

Grimes bolted from his seat. “They’re only calling one eyewitness at the 32 investigation. A Colonel Jimmy Hernandez, now a senior administrative officer based in the Pentagon. Now, he wouldn’t happen to be one of the seven, by any stretch of the imagination, would he?”

Embry flipped through the pile in front of him. “Major James Hernandez, the XO. The executive officer. Yep, he’s here.”

Claire felt her stomach constrict. “Let me see it,” she said.

Embry handed it to her with an involuntary wince.

Her heart thrumming, she at first skimmed it, then began to read through it very slowly. Her mouth was dry. She felt sick.

The top page was a cover sheet from the Criminal Investigation Division of the United States Army. Statement taken at Fort Bragg, 27 June 1985. The time. HERNANDEZ, James Jerome. His Social Security number. His grade. Then several long blocks of text, each initialed by Hernandez at the beginning and the end of each paragraph. Then several pages of questions and answers.

“I, Major James J. HERNANDEZ,” it began,

make the following free and voluntary statement to JOHN F. DAWKINS, whom I know to be a Criminal Investigator for the United States Armed Forces. I make this statement of my own free will and without any threat or promises extended to me.

On 22JUN85 my unit, Detachment 27 of the Special Forces, a top-secret combat unit, was based at Ilopango, El Salvador. I am the unit’s XO. Our mission was to conduct operations regarding the antigovernment forces in El Salvador. Our CO, Colonel William MARKS, received intelligence from a reliable source that a splinter group of the leftist, antigovernment guerrilla organization FMLN, which had killed four off-duty marines and two American businessmen several days before at the Zona Rosa in San Salvador, had gone to ground in a tiny village outside San Salvador. The village, which was called La Colina, was the birthplace of several of the guerrillas. They were said to be in hiding there.

In the middle of the night, early on 22JUN85, we located the village. The unit split in half to approach the village from two directions. We had silencers on our weapons to prolong the element of surprise, to shoot dogs or geese or whatever animals we might encounter. Both teams moved in and took control of the village, going from house to house, waking inhabitants and rousting them from their huts. We took this approach to ensure that the inhabitants had no firearms.

All of the inhabitants, who numbered eighty-seven individuals, were assembled in an open area that was presumably the town square. They were all civilians, old men and women and children and infants. They were interrogated in Spanish but claimed no knowledge of the whereabouts of the guerrillas. Col MARKS, who remained behind at headquarters, was informed by radio our determination that the intelligence lead was wrong and there were no commandos in hiding in La Colina at that present time. Col MARKS then directed us to leave. There was an exchange between several of the villagers and Sgt KUBIK. Suddenly Sgt KUBIK leveled his M-60 machine gun at the villagers. I noticed he had linked two ammo belts together on his shoulder so he had two hundred rounds. Sgt KUBIK began firing directly at the inhabitants and in a few minutes he had killed them all.

The following questions were asked by J. F. DAWKINS and answered by myself.

Q: Was an attempt made to restrain KUBIK?

A: Yes, but no one could approach him, because he was firing wildly.

Q: Were the civilians checked for weapons?

A: No, because Col MARKS thought we had lost control of the situation and ordered us to move out of there immediately.

Q: Did Sgt KUBIK have any comment after he finished killing the eighty-seven civilians?

A: No, he just said, “Well, now, that takes care of that.”

Claire put down the page she was reading and felt lightheaded. She excused herself and located the women’s room in the corridor outside. The “head.” She staggered to a stall and was sick. Then she washed her face at the sink with a brown block of army-issue soap.

CHAPTER TWENTY

As she waited to be admitted to the brig, she found herself lost in thought.

It is shortly after their wedding, on their honeymoon, in fact. They are checking into the Hotel Hassler in Rome, at the head of the Spanish Steps, on the Piazza Trinità dei Monte. She’d wanted to stay at a more modest pensione nearby, the Scalinata di Spagna, but Tom insisted they treat themselves to some serious luxury. The reservation, however, has been lost. A screwup. The suite he’d reserved is no longer available. The most they can offer, with deepest apologies, is a “junior suite.” Tom flushes, slams his fist down on the counter. “We made a reservation, goddamn it,” he thunders. Everyone in the lobby turns, appalled and fascinated. The reservation clerk is all apologies, flustered, humiliated. He almost dances before them. Tom glowers terribly, but then, just as quickly as he ignited, he cools. He nods. “See what you can do,” he says.

There are other times, she now remembers.

The time when his assistant at Chapman & Company confused the date of a lunch meeting with a big-time potential investor so that Tom missed the appointment. He flew into a rage, became abusive, and fired her, but then relented a few hours later and hired her back.

The time when a neighbor accidentally swerved his Range Rover into their lawn and gouged out a rut. Tom came storming out of the house, face dark with fury, but by the time he reached the neighbor’s car he seemed to have cooled down.

The time when, as he was walking with Annie in Harvard Square, she reached out to pet a dog, and the dog growled and snapped at her, and Tom grabbed the dog by the scruff of the neck until it yelped. The owner protested angrily; Tom set the dog back down, and it slunk away, tail between its legs. “Don’t you worry about anything,” he said to Annie.

There were dozens of such incidents, but what did they mean? A man who didn’t want his perfect honeymoon spoiled. An overly exacting boss. A meticulous homeowner. An overprotective father. In the course of marriage-even a relatively brief one, as theirs had so far been-you witness anger and sadness. You see the best in your spouse, and you see the worst. Tom had a quick temper, but he’d never directed it at her, never at Annie, and he’d always managed to contain it.

And then there was the way he had paralyzed the U.S. Marshals agent who had pursued him at the shopping mall. No doubt it was his Special Forces training. Had he really been unnecessarily brutal? They were trying to imprison him for a crime he insisted he hadn’t committed. He hadn’t killed the man.

Even the ruthless way he’d fought off the marshals at the lakeside cabin in the Berkshires-but was that anything more than self-protection, the survival instinct?

Did all these things really make him a killer?

“Hey, where’s the rest of my team?” Tom asked. He’d begun to exhibit the occasional flash of joviality, which for some reason irritated Claire. They met in the small glass-walled room that adjoined his cell. This time they had removed all restraints, presumably as a sign of respect to her.

“Just me right now,” Claire said quietly. “I want to know about La Colina. What really happened.”

He cocked his head, squinted. “I told you-”

“I’ve just read seven statements. They’re all substantially the same-”

“They’re probably identical. The military can be clumsy in their forgeries.”

“Who’s Jimmy Hernandez?”

“Hernandez? The executive officer of my detachment. Marks’s number two. Kid from Florida, son of Cuban immigrants-”

“Is he honest? A truth-teller?”

“Claire,” Tom said with exasperation. “Honesty is a relative concept to these people. Their CO tells them to fart, they fart. And if he tells them it’s gardenias, they’ll say it’s gardenias. Hernandez is Marks’s asshole buddy. He’ll say whatever Marks tells him to say.”

“Well, the prosecution is calling Hernandez as an eyewitness to the atrocity you allegedly committed. If he’s as believable as his CID statement, we’re in trouble.” She adopted a carefully neutral, professional tone.

“And what, he says I did it? I was some kind of mass murderer of eighty-seven civilians?”

“Yeah.”

“I told you, Colonel Marks gave the order to waste the whole village. ‘To teach ’em a lesson,’ he said. Hernandez was the XO, Marks’s loyal number two-it wouldn’t surprise me if he was one of the shooters. I wouldn’t participate in the cover-up, so they turned the tables and blamed me. That’s what this is all about. It was thirteen years ago, for God’s sake, I don’t know why they don’t just let it go away.”

“The Criminal Investigation Division interviewed the entire unit. They must have interviewed you, too.”

“Sure they did. They interrogated me at length, and I told them the truth. Obviously I didn’t do a statement for them.”

“And you didn’t report this to anyone? The truth, I mean?”

“Report to who? You don’t know the military. You keep your mouth shut and your head down and hope for the best.”

“But some of the guys in the unit must have seen you on the other side of the village. Some of them must know you weren’t there.”

“You’re not going to get anyone to testify to that. Either they took part in the massacre, or they’re part of the cover-up. They probably all have deals, immunity, whatever. You can find that out in discovery, can’t you?”

“They’re required to tell me. You didn’t have any friends in the unit? Any guys who might have refused to deal, but agreed to keep silent? Who might be willing to help you out now?”

“I liked maybe three guys in the unit. One or two of them I’d call friends. You know I don’t make close friends easily. Anyway, how do I know they didn’t fire at the villagers.”

“Tom,” she began. “Ron.”

“You can call me Ron, if you want,” Tom said softly. “If you’d feel more comfortable.”

“I know you as Tom. But that’s made up, isn’t it?”

“It’s the name I chose, not the one my parents gave me. I became Tom with you. I sort of like being Tom.”

“Tom, why should I believe you? Really. You’ve lied to me for six years, as long as I’ve known you. Really.”

“I lied about my past. To protect you from the kind of crazies who don’t fuck around. Who if they heard the slightest whisper that I was alive and living in Boston would have tracked me down and killed me and everyone around me. I should never have fallen in love with you, Claire. I should never have ruined your perfect life, me, with my horrible background-”

“You didn’t ruin my life.” Tears misted her eyes. She exhaled slowly.

“Claire, I’ve been thinking a lot about who might know the truth. About what really happened. There is a guy.” He bit his lower lip. “Someone who knows about what really happened. He’ll have the proof. He knows the Pentagon’s trying to cover this up. I’ll bet he can turn up the documents for you.”

“Who?”

He took her pencil and scribbled a note on one of her legal pads. He whispered: “Keep this name locked up. Destroy this paper. I mean, flush it down the toilet.”

She glanced at it. Her eyebrows shot up.

“Tom,” she said, “I have to ask you something else.” She told him about the grisly incident with the neighbor’s dog and the mailbox back in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Tom closed his eyes, shook his head slowly. “Come on. I did live off-base, they got the right address, but I bet, if you try to track this supposed ‘neighbor’ down, you’ll find he doesn’t exist.” His eyes were moist. “Claire, we need to talk.”

“Okay,” she said guardedly.

“Listen to me. You are my rock right now. When Jay took off, I was there for you because I valued you as a friend. I’ve tried to be a rock for you, because I love you. But now I need you. I can’t tell you how hurtful it is that the person I love most in all the world doubts me.”

“Tom-”

“Let me finish. I’m utterly alone here. Totally alone. And if it wasn’t for you, your faith in me, I don’t think I’d make it. I really wouldn’t.”

“What does that mean?” she asked softly.

“Just that I don’t think I’d live through it if I thought you didn’t believe in me. I need you. I love you, you know that. Deeply. When this is over, if I pull through this okay, we’re going to get our life back. I need you, honey.”

She felt the tears spring to her eyes, and she hugged him, hard. She felt the sweat rising hotly from his shoulders.

“I love you, too, Tom,” was all she could say.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The library in the rented house was the real thing, an old-house, old-money library. Linen-white-painted bookshelves that held not just the requisite leather-bound antiquarian volumes in sets of ten and twenty and fifty, but real books as well, recent and not-so-recent hardcover editions, mostly politics and history, no fiction in sight. The sort of books that the owner of the house, right now perhaps drinking un caffè macchiato at a café in Siena, probably actually read. His library was the century-old prototype of Claire and Tom’s modern study back in Cambridge.

Captain Embry, dressed in civilian clothes (brand-new deep-indigo jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, both neatly pressed), sat on a hard chair at a side table, taking notes with a chewed Bic pen on a legal pad. Grimes (once again in his 1970s orange Day-Glo sweater) was sunk deep in a floral-upholstered wing chair, legs splayed.

Claire sat, smoking, at the immense oak library table, surrounded by law books: Military Rules of Evidence Manual, Military Criminal Justice: Practice and Procedure, Manual for Courts-Martial: United States. “So all the prosecution is planning to present at the 32 hearing”-already she spoke like an old hand-“are those seven CID statements and one so-called eyewitness, this Jimmy Hernandez guy, to corroborate? That all?”

“Yeah,” Grimes said. “The government doesn’t have to present everything they got. Just enough. Remember, all they got to do is demonstrate there’s enough probable cause to go on to a court-martial. It would be dumb for them to present more than the bare minimum.”

Embry put in: “The idea is, we’re supposed to try to knock it out.”

“Which ain’t gonna happen,” Grimes said. “No matter how hard we try. So consider the 32 as the government’s tryout, their audition. We get the chance to scope out their case in advance, see what they put on the table. Cross-examine to point out all the weaknesses.”

“What about the other six members of Burning Tree who gave statements?” asked Claire. “Why aren’t they being called as witnesses?”

“One, they don’t have to,” Grimes replied. “Any witnesses who are ‘legally unavailable,’ meaning more than a hundred miles away, don’t have to appear. Two, the government doesn’t need ’em.”

Claire nodded. “Can they surprise us? Pop something on us at the hearing?”

Embry said, “Normally they give you the evidence as soon as they get it.”

“Yeah,” Grimes said, inspecting the ornate detail on the vaulted ceiling, “or they might give it to us a day or two before. But I doubt they’re going to surprise us at the hearing. They want to be able to say they gave us everything in advance.”

“Anyway,” Embry said, “if they do drop something on us, we ask for a continuance, that’s all.”

“Same as a civilian court,” Claire said. “But what about Article 46 of the code? The equal-access clause?”

Grimes lowered his head and turned slowly to regard her. “Someone’s got the UCMJ on her bedside table.”

“We get ‘equal opportunity to obtain witnesses and other evidence’ blah blah blah, right?” Claire said.

“Right,” Grimes said, “but it doesn’t say equal time, does it?”

“Mommy?” came Annie’s voice, high and sweet and tentative. She was wearing blue-jeans overalls and pigtails. She stood at the open door, curiously stealing a glance at the two men.

“Yes, honey?”

“Mommy, Jackie’s making dinner. It’s going to be ready soon.”

“Okay, honey. We’ll be done very soon, too. Now, let us work, babe, okay?”

“Okay.” She looked around shyly. “Hi.”

“Hi,” both men called out.

“Why are you smoking, Mommy?”

“Come on,” Claire said, “out of here. I’ll see you at supper.”

“But I want to play here,” Annie said with a pout.

“Not now, sweetie.”

“Why not?”

“Because Mommy’s working.”

“You’re always working!” Annie said, stalking off.

“Man,” Grimes said, “you got a serious case of that nasty habit. I thought no one in Cambridge is allowed to smoke, some zoning law or something.”

“Yeah, well, I’m going to quit when this is over,” she said. “I was going to invite you guys to stay for dinner, but-”

“Invitation accepted,” Grimes said. “I can smell it from here. Someone around here knows how to cook. I love garlic.”

“Terry?” she said.

“I can’t,” Embry said. He reddened immediately. “I’m sorry, I’ve-I’ve got to meet someone.”

“Cheating on the wife already?” Grimes said.

Embry smiled bashfully, shook his head.

“All right, now,” Claire said, “I want to find out whatever we can on Hernandez. Terry, I want you to start a file on every witness or potential witness, starting with Hernandez and the other six who gave statements against Tom. I want their, what do you call them, fitness reports, service records, the works. Then I want to interview Hernandez.”

“Uh, you better leave the interviewing on this guy to me or Embry here,” Grimes said.

“Why?”

“Because we’re both army guys. I’ve done my time in the service. We know how the shit works.”

“Fine, but I want to be there. I want to see his face.”

“Of course,” Grimes said.

“I also want to find out if this guy’s been offered anything in exchange for testifying. Like immunity. Same for anyone else they might call at the trial itself.”

“We get that in discovery,” Embry said. “The general-discovery request.”

“Well, no we don’t, necessarily,” Grimes said. “You got to put in a specific request. Demand the government state with specificity which witnesses are claiming privilege and why. Tell ’em you want a copy of all grants of immunity given to any witness. Or any promises of leniency. We want a copy of all informants’ agreements, including any records of monetary and property remunerations.”

“All right,” Claire said, lighting a fresh cigarette. “I want the names of all members of this unit, their current names and addresses and phone numbers. I’m going to have Ray Devereaux track them all down.”

“You won’t find ’em all,” Grimes said. “These guys disappear, sometimes.”

“Ray’s good,” she said.

“They’re better.”

“You think we can trust them in the discovery process?” Claire asked. “To give us everything we ask for?”

Embry hesitated. Grimes said, “Can you ever trust your opponent in discovery? In the real world, I mean?”

“Not always,” she admitted. “It’s always a question.”

“There you go,” Grimes said.

“But the Brady rule requires them to give us all exculpatory evidence, anything that might indicate Tom’s innocence,” she said.

Grimes chuckled.

“You don’t trust them,” Claire said.

“It’s why I have a job, baby,” Grimes said. “It’s what keeps the big bucks rolling in.”

“If we don’t get everything the prosecution has,” Claire said, “we got ourselves a mistrial.”

“If we can prove it,” Grimes said.

“Terry,” she went on, “I want you to do a complete search through the Iran-Contra hearings and the United Nations reports on abuses in Central America in the nineteen-eighties. See if there’s any mention of the massacre at La Colina.”

Embry jotted a note.

“All right,” she said, “we’re going to request that all charges be dismissed. We’re going to argue that the government has no jurisdiction, since we were in an area we weren’t supposed to be in. The government, in effect, has unclean hands.”

“But what about the desertion charges?” Embry said. “You’re not going to contest those, are you? I mean, he destroyed his military uniform and his IDs-he obviously had no intent to return.”

“Least of our problems,” she replied. “Our defense is duress.”

“Duress?”

“Desertion is a specific-intent offense. That means his intent counts, right? Well, he feared he’d be killed-whether he would have been killed or not, it’s a valid defense, as long as we can show the defendant had a good-faith belief he’d be killed. Maybe we can get it dropped to ‘unauthorized absence.’”

“It’s not the ‘defendant,’ it’s the ‘accused,’” Grimes said. “It’s not the ‘prosecutor,’ it’s the ‘trial counsel.’ You’ll get the hang of the lingo.”

Claire flashed Grimes a sulfurous look of annoyance. “Thanks. Basically, we’ll prove that the U.S. government is trying to make Tom the fall guy for a gruesome government-sanctioned massacre.”

“Baby, you can argue all you want,” Grimes began, back to inspecting the ceiling.

“You say the 32 hearing is for scoping out the government’s case,” Claire said. “Well, here’s how we’re going to use it. To let them see we know how to play the hard way, that we intend to play the hard way. That if they go ahead with this kangaroo court-martial, we’re going to bring out the shit they never want out. We plan to embarrass the hell out of them. We’re going to graymail them. Bring out operational info, stuff they don’t want out in the daylight.”

“It’s a closed proceeding,” Embry objected. “Both this hearing and the court-martial that may or may not follow. Totally sealed.”

“Closed?” Claire said. “We leak. No such thing as an airtight trial.”

Grimes chuckled dryly.

“Leak?” Embry asked, horrified. “But we signed a nondisclosure agreement. If we leak, they’ll do an investigation, and we’ll all be up on charges-”

“Hey, you wanted the case, right?”

“Well, no, ma’am, as I told you-”

“Claire.”

“Ma’am?”

“Call me Claire. And don’t sweat it. Leaks are almost impossible to prove, as long as you’re careful about where you call from. And if they can’t prove it, it goes nowhere. Anyway, then we’re going to argue against this closed-courtroom bullshit. We’re going to argue Tom’s Sixth Amendment right to a public trial, and the public’s right to a public trial.”

“And they’re going to argue national security,” Grimes said, now sitting up, drawn into the game.

“So we file an extraordinary writ for an open trial. We go to the federal district court.”

“They’ll say, ‘We’re not going to intervene in a military matter,’” Grimes said.

“So we file an extraordinary writ for an open trial with the Army Court of Criminal Appeals. And the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. And then the goddamned Supreme Court. And let them try to argue national security-I’m going to argue that the operation is no longer ongoing, hasn’t been for years. That they’re just trying to protect the reputation of the Pentagon. Where’s the national-security interest? They want to have it both ways-protect the national security, yet prosecute my client.”

Grimes nodded slowly, rhythmically. A smile crept across his face. Embry watched her, panic-stricken.

“And you see if the government really wants to go ahead with this court-martial,” Claire said. “I’ll bet they lose their enthusiasm.”

“Claire,” Grimes said, “do you really want this trial open?”

She considered for a long moment. “I don’t, do I? In a sense, we’re trapped. I don’t want Tom’s name smeared. Once the charges are out in public, that’s it. They’re accepted as true.” She nodded. “You may have a point, Grimes. But I’ll tell you something else. We’re going to call General Marks to testify.”

Grimes brayed a laugh, his ha-ha. “I want some of whatever you’re smoking,” he said.

“Camel Lights,” she said. “I’m goddamned serious. If he refuses, I’ll subpoena him.”

“The lady’s kickin’ butt and takin’ names,” Grimes said.

“Claire, ma’am,” Embry said desperately, “General William Marks is the chief of staff of the army. He’s a four-star general. You can’t make him testify.”

“Who says? Where does it say that? I didn’t read anything like that in the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”

“I like it,” Grimes said. “You got balls.”

“Thank you,” Claire said, then added, “That is a compliment, right?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

After dinner Jackie told Claire, “You got a call from a reporter at the Washington Post. Style section, I think. They heard you’ve rented a house in D.C. and want to know why. Like it’s their fucking business.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I said I had no idea. They wanted to know if you’re doing some big-deal case here, or if you’re teaching here, or what.”

“No comment,” Claire said.

“I figured.”

“How about we go get a drink,” Grimes said.

“We’ve got booze here,” Claire said.

“I got a place I want to show you. In Southeast.”

“Can you wait till I tuck my little girl in?”

“I’ll wait in the library. File a motion or something.”

Later, Grimes drove them in his beat-up old silver Mercedes. He circled the block where the bar was three times, but no parking space opened up. Finally he saw a large open space right in front of the bar, but before he got there a Volkswagen Jetta zipped into it. Grimes pulled the Mercedes up alongside the Jetta, beeped the horn, and electrically lowered his window. “Uh, excuse me,” he shouted. “Excuse me.”

“Come on, Grimes,” Claire said. “She got there first.”

“Excuse me,” Grimes shouted again.

The woman driver leaned over, cranked down her passenger-side window, and said warily, “What do you want?”

“Hey, none of my business, but you don’t want to park there. That’s valet parking, and believe me, they tow, night and day.”

“Valet parking?” the woman said, confused. “But there’s no sign!”

“The sign’s down, but that’s not going to stop ’em. Ten minutes after you park there, your car’s going to be towed to some part of the city you ain’t never been to before and you don’t ever wanna go to again.”

“Jeez, thank you!” the woman said. She cranked the window back up and pulled out of the space and into traffic.

“Hey, Grimes,” Claire said, “forgive me. That was mighty nice of you.”

He laughed, ha-ha, as he backed into the space. “Always works,” he said.

She shook her head in disgust but couldn’t suppress a smile. “Valet parking,” she said, disapprovingly. “I like that.”

The bar was a dive, dark and dingy and reeking of spilled beer. The creaky wooden floor was sticky. The music-an old song by Parliament/Funkadelic on the jukebox-blasted. “This is it?” she said.

“Authentic, huh?”

“Funky,” she said without much enthusiasm.

Once a plastic pitcher of sudsy beer from the tap had been placed in front of them, along with two large plastic tumblers and a dish of pretzels, Grimes said, “Now, one thing I have to tell you. In the interests of honesty and full disclosure.”

“Yes?”

“You want me to be second chair, fine. But you want me to stand up and cross-examine a witness while you’re sitting there-one of the best in the biz? I don’t think so.”

She laughed. “My cross-examination skills are rusty. Anyway, what do you know about me?”

He took a long swig of beer. “After you graduated from Yale Law School, you did a pair of clerkships. Two years for Arthur Iselin in the D.C. Circuit Court, Court of Appeals. There you worked on opinions, did speeches. You did an insanity case, some bussing, some ineffective-assistance-of-counsel cases. Then you clerked for one year for Justice Marshall at the Supreme Court, where you read applications for certiorari.”

“Very impressive,” she said. “Did you do some sort of Nexis search for interviews with me?”

He took another swig. “Truth is, I read every article, every interview with you. Even before we met. I think you’re pretty cool.” He smiled, embarrassed, and hastily added, “What was Justice Marshall like? Cool guy?”

“Very,” she said. “Extremely funny. And a really nice guy, definitely the nicest guy on the court. He was the only one there who actually hung out with the clerks. One of his favorite TV shows was People’s Court, you know, that one with Judge Wapner.”

Grimes exploded with laughter. “No way.”

“True story. Now, let me ask you something. Why’d you leave the army?”

He studied his beer, took a sip. “Retired, like I said.”

“Voluntarily.”

“Hell, yeah,” he said, annoyed.

“No offense intended. I thought you were sort of forced out.”

“What did Iselin tell you?”

“Just that there was some sort of, I don’t know, scandal.”

“Oh, yeah? Scandal, is that what he said?”

“Something like that.”

He shook his head, drank again. A long silence passed.

“So, what was it, Grimes?”

“You do your twenty years as a lawyer in the army, it makes sense to take retirement. You run the numbers.”

“You weren’t forced out?”

“You don’t stop, do you?” Grimes looked up at her with a hostility that seemed tinged with desperation.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “But I need to know your background.”

He set his beer down, tented his fingers. “Look. I joined the Army as an enlisted man, went to Vietnam, and lived. Okay? I came back, did night school for years, got my bachelor’s and my law degree, got my commission. I’m a lawyer by the time I’m thirty-one. Army’s always telling you they’re the only real equal-opportunity employer, blacks get treated same as whites, and for a while I begin to believe that. I never get beyond major, but that’s ’cause I started late. Fine.” Grimes hunched forward. “Okay, so there’s this brother down in South Carolina. Fort Jackson. Black guy, PFC-that’s private first class-accused of armed robbery on a white guy at the base. I get the case probably for no other reason than I’m black. I fly down there, talk to the kid. Kid never done anything wrong in his life, okay? I mean, National Honor Society in high school, athlete, never been in trouble, army’s gonna send him to college, which is why he enlisted, ’cause his family’s poor. Okay, so what does the prosecution have? This totally weak ID-the victim couldn’t tell one black from another. Meanwhile, I’ve got this case sewed up. So happens that, at the time the robbery went down, this kid’s at home, two hundred miles away, on a weekend pass. Not only that, but I got every fucking second of his time that weekend accounted for. Seven different alibi witnesses, none of them with criminal records or anything. I had neighbors testifying to his good character. When I say ‘altar boy,’ I’m not bullshitting. But the prosecution brings the kid into the courtroom in manacles, which you’re not supposed to do, and they didn’t even need to do that, ’cause the all-white military jury was in and out in five minutes. They didn’t even have time to do a secret written ballot. Gave him ten years in Leavenworth.” Grimes finally looked up. His eyes, blazing, glistened with tears. His expression was fierce. “They gave this fucking altar boy, who joined the army so he could go to college, ten years in Leavenworth for armed robbery. Well, I knew this couldn’t stand up, but I’m a lawyer, see? I was gonna fight this thing up to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, his whole unit knows he’s innocent, and after the sentencing, they give him fifteen days deferment of confinement so he can go home and say goodbye to his mamma and his brothers and sisters.” Grimes clenched a fist and gently pounded it on the table. “I wish to hell they’d put him in the brig.” He shook his head.

Claire, moved to tears, said, “Why?”

“They put you in the brig, they take away your gun, put you on suicide watch. He never could have done it. This kid killed himself. Blew his brains out with his pistol. And the next day, I put in my letter.”

“Jesus, Grimes.”

Very quietly he said: “So you see, kid, you don’t need to convince me what shit a military jury’s capable of, okay?” There was a long, uncomfortable silence, and then Grimes’s voice became louder, his tone belligerent. “So let me ask you a personal question. Do you really think your husband is innocent? Not that it matters to our case, of course.”

“Of course I do,” she said. “I wouldn’t take this on if I didn’t.”

“Well, you are married to him.”

“Grimes, if I thought he was guilty, I’d hire someone else. I wouldn’t do it myself, not if I thought he was really the sort of monster they’re trying to make him out to be.”

He gazed at her levelly. His eyes were bloodshot. “’Course, you represented Gary Lambert, didn’t you?”

“This is different, Grimes,” she said, exasperated. “He’s my husband.”

“You think this whole thing is a frame-up.”

“Of course it is. Colonel Bill Marks comes back to the States after the massacre that he ordered, and realizes he’d better cover his ass, and so he blames it on the one guy in the unit who refused to lie, to cover up. The one who could destroy his career. Here he is, thirteen years later, chief of staff of the army, soon to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and he figures he got away with it. Well, the fucker’s wrong. He didn’t count on me.”

“What am I, chopped liver?” Grimes said.

“Nah, you’re pâté. Hey,” she exclaimed suddenly, “why not polygraph him? And introduce the results at the 32 hearing? That’ll get the court-martial thrown out faster than anything.”

“No way. Don’t go there. Get that nasty idea out your head. Anyway, polygraphs aren’t admissible.”

“Oh, they’re admissible, all right. You don’t keep up on this?”

“Rule 707 of the Military Rules of Evidence says no. In the annotated cases. Based on a 1989 decision of the Army Court of Criminal Appeals. Flat-out no.”

“Grimes, it didn’t used to be admissible, but now it can be. It’s up to the judge. U.S. v. Scheffer, 1996, decided by the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. If it’s exculpatory and the accused’s counsel can lay foundation for it, it may be admissible.”

“And what if you’re wrong? What if he really is guilty?”

“He’s not.”

“You’re gonna take that chance? Plus, he could be innocent and fail because he’s nervous. Then we’re screwed, because people talk, you know. Word gets around. The jurors at the court-martial hear the water-cooler gossip. Everyone’ll know he failed. These guys, these examiners, are Chatty Cathys.”

“Not if he’s hired by us. That makes him an adviser to defense counsel. Falls under attorney work product, brings him within lawyer-client privilege. I’ll see what Tom thinks, but you know a good examiner?”

He sighed with resignation. “I know one. Does a lot of work for the military. You want another pitcher?”

“I couldn’t. Not a third. You shouldn’t either, if you’re driving.”

As they left, Grimes wove his way unsteadily between the bar and the tables. Claire made a mental note to insist upon driving him home. She could pick him up in the morning, but she wouldn’t let him drive now. They passed a large round table near the entrance where they heard a sudden burst of laughter. She reflexively turned to look and saw Embry surrounded by a bunch of other short-haired men, some in civilian togs, some in army fatigues.

“Grimes,” she said.

He turned with a beer-addled grin, saw where she was looking, who was sitting next to Embry. “Well, how do you do. Our own Captain Terry Embryo. Hoisting a few with our very own trial counsel, Major Lucas Waldron. Well, hell-o.”