High Crimes

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

“I’m moving in,” Devereaux said. “You got more rooms in here than the goddamn Hilton, and the roach motel’s starting to wear on me. And you need protection.”

Claire lay on a couch in one of the sitting rooms, both Jackie and Grimes hovering nearby with grave concern. It was close to one in the morning. She was considerably banged up, particularly along her side and her left hip, where she had landed on several small rocks. There were quite a few scrapes as well, including a long, ugly one along her neck and left cheek, by the ear. She also had a ferocious, thudding headache. She’d spent over an hour being questioned by Maryland state police, from which nothing, she knew, would ever come.

“I don’t need protection, Ray,” she said weakly.

“Naw, you don’t need protection,” he said sardonically. “Not you. Someone disables your braking system, intending for you to wipe out on a jeep that’s conveniently left in your path, with two probably half-empty gas tanks on the back, and get blown up, but, naw, everything’s fine.”

“If you care about me-” Jackie said. “No, forget about me. If you care about Annie, you’ll take him up on his offer.”

Claire shrugged, unwilling to argue with such logic.

“So you never lost consciousness at all?” Devereaux asked.

“Nope.”

“No vomiting, change in vision, none of that?”

“Nope.”

“Your pupils look the same size, far as I can tell. So you don’t have a concussion, but you really should get over to the ER and have ’em do a CAT scan.”

“Suddenly you’re a doctor, too?” Claire said.

“You’re not disoriented.”

“No more than usual,” she replied.

“All right, now, Jackie,” Devereaux said, “I want you to wake her up in a couple hours, make sure she can wake up.”

“Don’t bother,” Claire said. “I’ve got my nightly harassing phone call to wake me up.”

“You think it really was Lentini behind this, or just someone using his name for the set-up?” Grimes asked.

“Who cares?” Claire said.

“Nah,” Devereaux said. “The call you got-arranging your little meeting in Maryland-I got a local phone-company source tells me it came from a payphone inside the Pentagon. I doubt it really came from Lentini-if he’s lying low, hiding, he won’t be calling from inside the belly of the beast.”

“We gotta file a notice with the Quantico cops, the MPs,” Grimes said.

“To what end?” Claire asked. “Until we can figure out who did this to me, and prove it, we’ve got nothing.”

“You know something,” Devereaux said, looming over her, “you really piss me off royally. What the hell you think you were doing, arranging a meeting like that, asking me to wire you, and not telling me where you were going? I woulda gone with you.”

“He insisted I go alone,” Claire said feebly.

“They always do,” Devereaux scowled. “You gotta stop being so casual about your safety. I got news for you.” He turned around to the others. “For all of youse. You know your realtor from Pepper Pike?”

“Our witness? What’s-his-name, Fahey?” Grimes said. “Don’t tell me…”

“Yeah. He was killed in a car accident this morning.”

Claire bolted upright. Her head almost exploded with a searing pain. “Oh my God.”

“Whoever wanted him out of the way are the same folks who wanted you out of the way,” Devereaux said. “Similar modus vivendi.”

“Operandi,” Grimes said.

“Right. It seems to be the modus operandi of Kubik v. the United States.”

The phone rang at almost three-thirty in the morning.

Claire rolled over, remembered the pain she was in, and grabbed the phone before the machine could get it.

She didn’t wait for the man’s voice, or for the breathing.

“Missed, motherfucker,” she said, and slammed it down.

She woke up late-ten after nine. Court was already in session. She felt the jolt of pain, and then a jolt of realization in her stomach. “Oh, God,” she exclaimed, and leaped out of bed.

No, she remembered. This morning the armorer from Fort Bragg was taking the stand to testify for the government about the integrity of the computer armory records he supervised. Grimes was doing the cross. She never liked to miss a moment of testimony, but this wasn’t a tragedy. And she’d needed the sleep.

Devereaux and Jackie were seated at the breakfast table, talking. Annie was in Devereaux’s lap, sketching with a marker on a drawing pad. Claire could smell freshly brewed coffee.

“Hey, killah,” Devereaux greeted her.

Annie stared at her scraped-up mother with wide, tear-filled eyes, and she started to cry.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

She was able to cover her scraped cheek fairly well with a concealer, but a large, garish, purple-yellow bruise had emerged around her left eye that even the most industrial-strength cover-up she had wouldn’t hide unless she troweled it on.

Tom noticed it immediately as he was brought to the defense table. “What the hell happened to you?” he said, gaping.

“I slipped and fell,” she said. “Living in a strange house, you know. Happens.”

He looked unpersuaded.

The fact was that they were losing the case. Despite Claire’s powerful cross-examinations of both Hernandez and La Pierre, the two witnesses had still done the job the prosecution had called them to do. The jury no doubt believed not only that Tom had machine-gunned eighty-seven mothers, children, and old men, but that he had visited upon them acts of sadism that could only have been devised by a disturbed mind.

By the afternoon session of the third day of testimony, Henry Abbott, the next eyewitness, was ready for cross-examination. Claire looked around the courtroom, located Ray Devereaux sitting in a spectator seat with his hands folded over his great belly, and smiled. He was wearing one of what he called his courtroom suits, in case he had to take the stand, and looked ill at ease.

She got slowly to her feet and approached the witness stand. Henry Abbott, dressed in a navy-blue suit and crisp white shirt with a silver-striped tie, looked relaxed and confident. He gazed at her with dead eyes. He exuded neither hatred nor contempt. He looked blankly through her, as if she were some invisible bag lady on the street.

“Mr. Abbott,” she said, “I’m Claire Chapman. I’m the lead defense counsel.”

He blinked and gave the barest nod.

“Mr. Abbott, did you see the accused shoot those eighty-seven people?”

“Yes, I did.”

Claire turned her head slightly so that she was out of the line of sight of the jury, then gave Abbott a brief smile. “So you saw the victims react to the impact of the bullets?”

“Yes.”

“Can you describe their reaction?”

“Their reaction? Some of them screamed and cried, some of them fell to the ground and tried to cover their heads. The mothers shielded their children with their bodies.”

Very good. He was well prepared. “And you saw their reaction to the bullets’ impact?”

“Yes.”

“Which was-?”

“Some of them flew backward. They twitched, fell, crumpled in bizarre positions.”

“And you believe the accused was the only one who could have fired those bullets?”

“He was the only one that did.”

“But can you state positively that the bullets that struck those victims came from the accused’s firearm?”

“As I say, he was the only one firing.”

“But did you see the bullets exiting his machine gun?”

“I couldn’t see the bullets in flight, if that’s what you mean. I’m not Superman.”

A few chuckles came from the jury box. Abbott was unshakable. He had been thoroughly briefed.

“Mr. Abbott, how many rounds are in an M-60’s ammunition belt?”

“One hundred.”

“If you’re machine-gunning eighty-seven people, one hundred rounds isn’t enough, is it?”

“No, it’s not.”

“So you must have seen him reload.”

But Abbott was too well prepared. “He had two belts linked together,” he said evenly. “He didn’t have to reload.” A brief twinkle of triumph seemed to enter his eyes.

“Mr. Abbott, did your unit have muzzle devices called distorters available for your M-60 machine guns?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why did we have them?”

“Correct.”

“To mask the location of the shooter,” he said, one eyebrow cocked in a deft expression of contempt. “Sometimes it was very important that we not be located.”

“And can you tell me whether Sergeant Kubik had a distorter or a sound-suppressor on his weapon?”

Abbott hesitated. This detail they hadn’t furnished him.

“I believe not.”

“You believe not?” Claire echoed. “Well, isn’t the sound of an M-60 machine gun extremely loud?”

“Yes,” he conceded grudgingly.

“So there’s nothing subtle about it, is there? It would be just about impossible not to know whether an M-60 had a sound-suppressor on it, isn’t that right?”

He shrugged, wary of the trap he suspected she was laying for him. “Perhaps.”

“So, then, is it your testimony that Sergeant Kubik did not use a sound-suppressor or distorter when he fired the rounds that killed the eighty-seven civilians?”

“Right.”

Had he guessed? If so, he was lucky. Abbott was too sharp, or too well briefed, to be shaken from his prefabricated story. She decided it was time to pounce.

“Mr. Abbott, how much business does your company do with the Department of Defense?”

“I don’t really know.”

“Surely you have a fairly good idea.”

“A couple billion, certainly.”

“A couple of billion dollars,” she marveled. “So a good relationship with the Pentagon, and the army in particular, must be important to you and your company.”

He shrugged. “The customer’s always right, I like to say.”

“I’ll bet. And are you currently involved in any contract negotiations with the Pentagon?”

“Yes.”

“For what?”

“That’s a classified matter.”

“We’re in a classified courtroom, Mr. Abbott. Everyone here is cleared, including the jurors and the spectators. You can speak freely.”

“We’re conducting negotiations with the army for the purchase of a new generation of attack helicopters.”

“That must mean quite a lot of potential income for your firm.”

“Yes, it does.”

“And you’re one of the point men in those negotiations, correct?”

“Yes.”

“So that must make you inclined to be cooperative with the army.”

“Is that a question?”

“The customer’s always right, as you like to say.”

He shrugged.

“Mr. Abbott, do you remember the interview we had at the Madison Hotel four days ago?”

“Yes.”

“We met for breakfast, did we not?”

“We did.”

“Did I meet you along with my cocounsel, Mr. Grimes?”

“Yes, you did.”

“How long was the interview?”

“I don’t recall.”

“Does twenty-six minutes sound about right?”

“It may be. I don’t know.”

“Mr. Abbott, at our interview with you at the Madison Hotel, did you tell us you were coached by Colonel Marks, and told what to say in your CID interview?”

Now his eyes were dead again, the flat eyes of a snake. “No.”

“You don’t remember saying that?”

He leaned forward. “I never said it.”

“You never said you were coached before your CID interview?”

“No, I didn’t, and no, I wasn’t.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Are you positive?”

“Objection, Your Honor,” Waldron shouted. “Asked and answered.”

“Overruled,” Farrell said, and took a sip of Pepsi as though he were watching a particularly exciting game on TV.

“I remind you you’re under oath, Mr. Abbott. You never told me that your commanding officer told you what to say to the CID?”

“I never said that, and he never did.”

“Are you aware, Mr. Abbott, that I can move to the witness stand and testify about what you told me?”

“Then it would be your word against mine,” he said blandly. “And you’re not exactly an unbiased witness, are you?”

Claire noticed several jurors watching this exchange with great interest. The foreman, or president of the court, the bespectacled black man, was busily taking notes. “If I told you that’s exactly what I remember, would I be lying?” she said.

“Yes, you would.”

“If I told you that’s exactly what my cocounsel remembers, would he be lying?”

“He most certainly would.”

“If I told you we were tape-recording that interview, would we be lying?” she asked casually and turned toward the defense table. The courtroom stirred. She saw Tom’s eyes gleaming. He was doing all he could not to smile.

Grimes handed her a small stack of papers. She saw Abbott stiffen and clench both hands at his sides. He glared at her fiercely.

“Your Honor,” she said, “may I approach the witness?”

“You may.”

She strolled over to the prosecution table and dropped a stapled sheaf of paper, then placed one on the judge’s bench. Then she handed one to Abbott.

“Mr. Abbott,” she said, “that’s a verbatim transcript of your interview with us, certified by my colleague, Mr. Grimes, and my investigator, Mr. Devereaux, transcribed from a tape recording made by Mr. Devereaux.” She didn’t yet bother to explain that Devereaux had provided her with a transmitter in a dummy cellular phone and had taped the conversation in his car parked in front of the Madison. “Please turn to page thirty-four, Mr. Abbott, and begin reading where it’s marked, seven lines down, beginning with, ‘He says, “Didn’t you see Kubik suddenly raise his weapon and begin to shoot?” I say, “No, sir, I didn’t.”’ And ending with ‘they don’t like snitches and turncoats.’”

Abbott’s face was dark with fury. Under his breath, he said, “Cunt.”

“Excuse me? What did you say?”

Abbott stared ferociously. A vein at his right temple throbbed.

“Did you just refer to me by a four-letter vulgarism, Mr. Abbott?”

Suddenly Abbott threw the transcript to the floor of the witness box. “Goddamn you, that was off the record!”

“It was off the record back then,” Claire said quietly. “But you led yourself into the perjury you just committed, not us, and we can’t allow that to happen.”

“Your Honor!” Waldron shot to his feet.

“That’s it!” Judge Farrell exploded, hammering his gavel. “The members are excused.”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

“Did you really agree that conversation was off the record?” rasped Farrell.

“Yes, Your Honor, I did,” Claire replied. “I tricked him. I had my investigator make a tape recording to ensure that we got accurate testimony at the trial.”

“Does your investigator secretly tape-record all your witness interviews?”

“I’d rather not say. But it’s legal, sir.”

“Why’d you tape him?”

“I mean no disrespect to you or to this court, but I had my doubts about his veracity. This witness should not be permitted to come in here and tell barefaced lies to you, me, and the jury.”

Waldron, who’d been pacing during this exchange, stopped suddenly and said, “Your Honor, this is a clear-cut violation of reciprocal discovery. We’ve got a discovery request for all statements by government witnesses in the hands of the defense. How come we never got this transcript?” He was smooth.

“It was nondisclosable,” Claire said. “This is obviously not a statement of the witness. The witness hasn’t read and signed the statement and sworn to the truth of it. We didn’t put the guy under oath.”

“But, Your Honor-”

“Well, I gotta go along with defense counsel on this one,” Farrell said, draining his can of Pepsi and setting it down on the podium with a hollow thock. “It’s no violation of discovery.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Claire said.

“But I’m going to grant prosecution a delay of one hour. I don’t like this surprise stuff. I want the witness to have the chance to read through this transcript. I’m not interested in soliciting perjury in this case just to help you out, Ms. Chapman. Or you, Mr. Waldron. Really. Mr. Waldron, you put your poor excuse for a witness in a room, and I’m going to let the members take a break.”

“But, Your Honor,” Claire said, “this is right in the middle of my cross-examination. Can you instruct the government not to talk to the witness?”

“No, I will not.”

Claire sputtered, “But, sir-”

“Now we’re finished here,” Farrell said.

“Have you read the transcript?” Claire asked when Henry Abbott was finally back on the stand. His hair was freshly combed, and he even appeared to have changed his shirt.

“Yes, I have.”

“And are you satisfied it’s a true and accurate transcription of our interview with you at the Madison?”

“Yes, I am, as far as I can tell, without my notes.”

He probably was the sort of person who’d have taken notes on what was said at their twenty-six-minute breakfast, Claire reflected. “Then can you explain to this court why you lied under oath?”

“I didn’t,” Abbott said.

“You didn’t? Would you like me to have the reporter read back your testimony before we took a break?”

“Not necessary,” he said. “I didn’t lie under oath.”

“Excuse me? Would you like me to play the tape for you?”

“I said I didn’t lie under oath. I was lying to you.”

Claire’s heart sank. Waldron had obviously coached him. “I told you what I thought you wanted to hear,” he continued. “You were obviously on a conspiracy-theory jag, and that pissed me off. You seemed to think that nobody in the military could be trusted to tell the truth, and, frankly, I found that offensive. So I decided, well, this was off the record-I took your word of honor on that-and I decided I’d put you in your place, give you a load of bull, give you what you so desperately wanted to hear.” And he gave her the barest wisp of a smile.

That evening Claire met Dennis, Tom’s CIA source, at the same yuppie Georgetown bar he so loathed.

He wore a blue blazer with gaudy gold anchor buttons, a white shirt, and a red-and-blue rep tie. “Now, I should tell you,” Dennis began, “that I may not contact you again. The situation’s getting uncomfortable.”

“I’ve got your number. I’ll call only if it’s important.”

“That number’s no longer in service.”

“You moved?”

“Just changed phone numbers. I do that periodically.”

“Why, you get a lot of crank calls?” she said. “I’ve been getting them myself recently.”

He looked puzzled but went on, “We’ve got a little old lady who works for us. Got the memory of an elephant.”

“Does every spy agency have one of those?”

“She remembered seeing the MFR I told you about. The memorandum for the record. Found it in operational files.”

“Really?” she exulted, but then she was troubled by something. “Why would CIA have an internal army document?”

He shrugged. “We’re pack rats. We had a source in the army’s Southern Command, SOUTHCOM, friendly to us. Found it in a safe full of classified stuff down there in Panama. Figured it would be of interest to us.”

“‘Friendly’ to you means he works for you?”

Dennis raised his heavy, Mephistophelian brows. “You said it, not me.” He slid a single photocopied sheet across the table.

It was not a good photocopy. It bore the smudges and detritus and vestigial chicken-scratchings of a document copied many times over. Yet it was quite readable. The general, fortunately, had had neat, if minuscule, handwriting. It was no more than three lines. She read it and looked up.

“He says here the peasants had weapons, so he got on the radio to Hernandez and instructed his men to fire.” She looked up, astonished.

Dennis drank his bourbon.

“That’s not in his statement to CID, or his interview with the government. That’s not in anyone’s statements,” she mused. “Nowhere else did he or anyone else ever mention weapons. Or that he gave the order. And to Hernandez!”

Dennis smiled. “That’s why I never put anything in writing,” he said.

Ten minutes later, when Dennis left Claire, he did not notice the tall, bulky figure of Ray Devereaux get up from a table near the door and follow him out.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Claire and Tom met in the small private conference room within the secure courtroom complex. She showed him the photocopy of General Marks’s memorandum for the record that Dennis had given her. He read it, betraying no expression, and looked up. “Nice,” he said, and smiled.

“‘Nice’?” Claire said, aghast. “Is that all you can say? ‘Nice’? This little piece of paper may have just won the case for us here!”

Tom cocked his head and said curiously, “You think so?”

“Well, who the hell knows what will happen in this kangaroo court. But now we’ve got proof that Marks gave Hernandez the order to have those people killed. This is hugely important.” She looked at him for a moment. “Do you think it’s possible Hernandez was one of the shooters?”

Tom shrugged. “I told you, I didn’t see anything. I heard gunfire, and by the time I got there all I saw was the bodies.”

“But did you see Hernandez holding his machine gun as if he’d just fired it, anything like that? You’re not withholding anything from me, are you?”

“Claire,” Tom said, raising his voice, “are you listening to me? I said I didn’t see anything. Okay? You want me to repeat it? I didn’t see anything.”

She stared at him, taken aback by this sudden flash of anger. What in the world was he so mad about?

“I hear you,” she replied tersely, and got up to enter the courtroom.

“The government calls Frederick W. Coultas.” Coultas was the prosecution’s ballistics man, a firearms-identification expert of national rank.

A tall, awkward man in a cheap brown suit, Coultas walked up the center aisle, settled himself in the witness chair, and was sworn in. He had a large oblong head, a tall forehead fringed by an ill-fitting hairpiece of beaver-pelt brown, wire-rim glasses framing beady brown eyes, and virtually no chin.

The jurors turned to look at him with curiosity. Most of the time they seemed to betray little emotion, but not once had Claire ever seen them look bored or distracted.

Coultas stated his credentials for the record, and Waldron helped him elaborate. Frederick Coultas was with the FBI’s Firearms and Toolmarks Unit and an instructor in firearms identification at the FBI Academy at Quantico. Graduate of the U.S. Army Small Arms Repair School, Aberdeen Proving Grounds, in Maryland. Graduate of armorer school, of gunsmith courses, of the firearms-instructors course at the Smith & Wesson Academy. A dozen years with the FBI’s Firearms Identification Section. Specialist in tool marks. On and on in overwhelming detail. Waldron made his point with wearying unsubtlety: Frederick Coultas knew his guns.

He went on to a methodical direct examination, Waldron at his merciless best.

“Tell me about the ammunition that was recovered,” Waldron said sometime later.

“Thirty-nine projectiles, bullets, were recovered, and one hundred thirty-seven cartridge casings.”

“Were they in good condition?”

“Yes.”

“Is that number of bullets, thirty-nine, consistent in your opinion with testimony that two hundred rounds were fired?”

“Yes. Even if you use a metal detector at the scene of the crime, many tend to be lost. You can’t help it.”

“Was anything else found?”

“Yes. One hundred and seven links, the little serrated and notched metal pieces that connect cartridges to each other in the ammo belt.”

“Were these links of use to you in identifying which gun was used?”

Coultas pushed up the nosepiece of his glasses. “No. It’s quite hard to identify links to a specific weapon, though I suppose it’s theoretically possible.”

“Mr. Coultas, does the El Salvador government report say whether any of the bullets were recovered from bodies?”

“No, it does not, but that doesn’t mean anything. It’s extremely hard to recover machine-gun projectiles from the body, since most of them pass right through.”

Relentlessly, like a jackhammer, Waldron took him through the chain of custody. Coultas was satisfied with the way the evidence had been collected by the Salvadorans and sent to Army CID, marked with a metal scribe and put down on an evidence worksheet. Waldron left no stone unturned, right down to the head stamp at the base of each cartridge.

“Now, tell us, were these projectiles and cartridge casings all fired by the same exact weapon?”

“Yes, they were.”

“And was it this one?” Waldron held up the plastic-wrapped machine gun. Coultas leaned forward to inspect it. Theatrics.

“Yes, it was.”

“Mr. Coultas, can you tell us how you can connect a particular bullet to a particular weapon?”

Coultas settled back in his seat and pushed again with a long finger at the nosepiece of his glasses. His voice became high, nasal, and insufferably pompous. “Inside the barrel of every gun, spiral grooves are cut. This is called the ‘rifling.’ It causes the bullet to twist in a certain direction, to spin quickly and thus travel faster and with greater accuracy. Also, the spiral grooves of each type of weapon have a unique pattern. Between the grooves are raised areas called ‘lands.’ These lands and grooves make an imprint on the bullet, the gross markings that we can see under the microscope.”

He had to be a deadly instructor, Claire reflected. No wonder the FBI lab was always in trouble.

“And did the rifling system on this particular weapon match the bullets you looked at?” Waldron asked.

“Absolutely. The rifling system on this particular M-60 machine gun is what we call 4-R, a four-right system, or four lands and grooves with a right twist. Also, there’s one turn in twelve inches. Using comparison microscoping, I saw that the projectiles showed traces of this rifling. Also, I noticed that one of the lands in this barrel was narrower than the others. That was another distinguishing feature. The striations on the bullets caused by passage through a barrel were identical to the barrel of the weapon in question. That is, they all appeared to come from the same weapon.”

Farrell popped open a can of Pepsi.

“What about the cartridge casings?” Waldron asked.

“I inspected the ejected casings, looking at the primer, the firing-pin impression, the chamber markings, and, on the bottom, the breech-face impression.”

“So there’s no doubt in your mind that these bullets were fired by the machine gun you examined?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Thank you very much, Mr. Coultas. Nothing further.”

“Defense, do you have cross-examination?” Farrell asked.

“Yes, sir,” Claire said as she stood. For a few seconds she looked questioningly at the witness. Finally, she said, “Mr. Coultas, do you know if this was the gun used by Sergeant Kubik?”

“No,” he admitted.

“Oh? Why not?”

“Well, I’m really not competent to testify to that. I understand the government has already had a witness from Fort Bragg up here, describing the computer armory records and how they’re maintained. But that’s outside of my area of competence.”

“So you have no idea whose gun this was?”

“That’s right.”

“And, Mr. Coultas, you’ve already testified that you don’t know whether any of these bullets were recovered from bodies, is that right?”

“That’s right.”

“So do you know whether these bullets killed anybody?”

“No.”

“You don’t.”

“No. That’s outside my area of expertise, strictly speaking. I suppose the eyewitnesses-”

“Thank you. Now, Mr. Coultas, based on your thorough examination of the evidence, can you tell the court when these rounds were fired?”

“Actually, no.”

“You can’t? Really? You have absolutely no idea?”

“Well, the attached records-”

“I said, based on your examination of the evidence. Were they fired on the date in question, June 22, 1985?”

“I really wouldn’t know.”

“Can you tell if they were fired that week?”

“No.”

“Or that month?”

“No.”

“Or even that year?”

“No, I can’t.”

“Interesting. And, Mr. Coultas, can you tell me something? When you fire a machine gun for a long time, what happens to the barrel?”

“Well, it gets hot.”

A low chuckle from the jury box, and some titters from the spectators.

“And what do you do then? Do you keep using it?”

“Oh, no. After five hundred rounds have been fired, you change the barrel to avoid overheating. You remove it and replace it with another.”

“Even when you’re out in the field?”

“Oh, sure. The machine gun is usually issued with a spare barrel. Sometimes you might have a whole sack of barrels. They’re interchangeable. They also deteriorate. After a while, you throw them away.”

“So this particular machine gun might have been issued with two separate barrels?”

“Correct.”

“Possibly more.”

“Possibly.”

She gave Embry a sidelong glance. His eyes gleamed with, she thought, pride. “Mr. Coultas, are machine-gun barrels serialized the way guns usually are?”

“Sometimes. I’ve seen it.”

“But is this one?”

“No.”

“It’s not marked.”

“No.”

“So do you know whether this exact barrel was issued along with this exact gun?”

Coultas shook his head in bafflement as he stroked his receding chin. “I’d have no way to know that.”

“But you do know that they’re easily switched?”

“That I do know.”

“Mr. Coultas, granting for the sake of argument that this is the barrel that was used to fire the projectiles you’ve so carefully studied-isn’t it possible that someone might have switched barrels?”

“Well, I suppose so, yes.”

“You suppose so?”

“It’s possible, yes.”

“So someone might have taken this gun, with this particular serial number stamped on it, and actually put on it the barrel that was used to fire all those rounds?”

“I can’t rule it out.”

“It’s possible?”

“Theoretically, yes, it is.”

“It’s not difficult to do?”

“No, it’s not.”

“It would, in fact, be quite an easy thing to do, wouldn’t it, Mr. Coultas?”

“Yes, it would,” he said. “It would be very easy.”

“Thank you, Mr. Coultas. I have nothing further.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

The weekend, at last. Some much-needed time off. She tried to sleep late but couldn’t. She awoke before seven and realized the phone hadn’t rung in the middle of the night. Progress. Or maybe they took weekends off. She ran a very hot bath in the big old white porcelain tub in the master-suite bathroom, whose floor was tiled in tiny black-and-white octagons as in a grand hotel of old, and took a long soak. She was tempted to bring some work into the tub with her, maybe a transcript, but then forced herself not to. She needed a break. She needed to let her fevered brain rest a bit. She needed perspective on the case. So she closed her eyes and soaked away the bruises and the aches. She thought about Tom, wanted to visit him at the brig, but knew that Annie needed her even more right now.

Then she got into jeans, a sweatshirt, and sneakers, and took Annie out to breakfast in Georgetown, just the two of them. They left without notifying Devereaux, who was probably still sleeping.

“When can we go home?” Annie asked. She was making designs on her pancakes with the squeeze bottle of syrup.

“You mean Boston?”

“Yeah. I want to see my friends. I want to see Katie.”

“Soon, honey.”

“What’s ‘soon’?”

“A couple of weeks. Maybe sooner.”

“With Daddy?”

She didn’t know what to say now. No, she wanted to say. Not with Daddy. Daddy’s kangaroo court will probably find him guilty and sentence him to life in Leavenworth, where you’ll be able to visit him once in a while. It will tear your life apart. And that’s if Mommy’s able to get the sentence reduced from death. All the while, Mommy will be fighting uphill battles, writing and filing briefs like one of these half-crazed prison legal scholars, taking the case to the Army Court of Criminal Appeals, and higher and higher, all the way up to the Supreme Court. While the family’s resources dwindled away, because Harvard would have fired her, which she was sure would happen any day now. Probably at some point, once they were out of the military system, the verdict would be overturned; it surely couldn’t stand up, the government’s case was a joke. But Daddy would certainly not survive prison, because too many people wanted him dead.

“Of course with Daddy,” she said, and tousled Annie’s miraculously soft, glossy brown hair. “Now, when you’re done with your pancakes, we’ll go to the zoo, okay?”

Annie shrugged as if the idea didn’t appeal to her.

“You don’t like the zoo?” Claire said.

Annie shook her head.

“You’re still upset with me.”

“No, Mommy. I’m angry with you.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t, Mommy. You always say you know, but you don’t.” Her eyes shone. “You said you were going to be home more, but you’re still always gone.”

“You wanted me to play with you last night, but I had to work with Mr. Grimes and Mr. Embry and Uncle Ray. I know.”

“How come you’re always working?”

“Because Daddy’s on trial,” she said. “They want to lock him up in the jail for a long, long time, and it’s up to me and my friends to make sure they don’t do that.”

“But why does it take so long?”

A tough one. “Because the people who want to put him away are bad guys, and sometimes they lie.”

“Why?”

Claire thought about that one for a long time. Finally she said, honestly, “I don’t really know.”

“So you have nothing on the general?” Claire asked, when they’d gathered that evening. Embry and Grimes sat in their usual chairs. Devereaux stood and paced, because he liked to loom over people. She sat behind the beautiful library table-cum-desk, leaning back in the high leather-upholstered executive chair, and exhaled a cloud of cigarette smoke. “No wife-beating, no adultery, no child molestation, nothing?”

“He’s clean as a whistle,” Devereaux said. “Fastest-promoted general ever to serve in the army. Eagle Scout, kind to animals, good to his neighbors. Gives generously to charity, serves on the board of the United Way and the American Cancer Society. He doesn’t even rent dirty videos.”

“‘Even’?” Claire said. “Like everyone does?”

“Well, you don’t,” Devereaux said. “That I know.”

“Thanks. Nice to know you respect my privacy.”

“What about Robert Lentini?” Grimes asked. “Still can’t turn that guy up?”

“Even assuming he wasn’t behind that setup in the Catoctin mountains, and that they just used his name because they knew Claire would bite-no. The guy’s disappeared without a trace. Either that, or he never existed.”

“Well, we know he existed, from his service records,” Embry said.

“Maybe,” Devereaux said.

“And what about my CIA guy, Dennis?” Claire asked.

Devereaux broke out in a grin. “You gotta love this. These cloak-and-dagger boys can’t even pick up on a tail if it’s six-four and three hundred pounds. I followed baldy home to Chevy Chase, right to his suburban manse. His name is Dennis T. Mackie. ’Course, I don’t know what good that’ll do you. Unless you have a CIA personnel directory. Now, you guys mind if I take my leave? I gotta get my beauty sleep.”

“I wanted to say something,” Embry ventured bashfully. “That was a really great cross you did of the ballistics guy.”

“Thanks,” she said. “But this was definitely a case of I-couldn’t-have-done-it-without-you.” Embry shrugged. “No, I really couldn’t have,” she insisted. “I’d never have thought of the barrels. What the hell do I know about guns?”

“You prepped her on that?” Grimes said.

Embry looked at Grimes uneasily.

“You’re a smart dude,” Grimes said.

Embry smiled in amazement. “Thanks.”

“Even Coultas didn’t remember about the barrels,” Grimes said.

“I don’t believe that,” Claire said. “Not someone like Coultas. He’s a national ballistics authority, and he doesn’t overlook something obvious like that.”

“It wasn’t that obvious,” Embry protested.

“It is to a guy like Coultas,” she said. “I’m sure he was hoping he wouldn’t be asked.”

“Naw,” Grimes said, “he’s a neutral expert. He doesn’t take sides. He was probably instructed, by Waldron, not to bring it up unless asked, not to point to it in any way.”

“Is there anything else?” Embry asked after a while. “Because I want to get to work on the General Marks stuff, see if I can come up with any angles. Actually, I’d kind of like to go home and get some shut-eye.”

“Go ahead, Terry,” she said. “Thanks for coming over.”

When Embry had left, Grimes said, “You want a drink?”

“I don’t think so, no. Thanks anyway.”

“You look tired.”

“I’m always tired these days.”

“Then I’ll head home myself.” He stood up, collected his papers, and put them in his briefcase. Standing near her desk, he said, “Can I tell you something kind of personal?”

“Yeah?” she said warily.

“I just-what I mean is, you’re this big hotshot lawyer, and I’ve been, like, a fan of yours for a hell of a long time, and I thought it was kind of cool you wanted to hire me.”

She nodded, smiled. “You came highly recommended.”

“Forget that shit. I’m saying, even though I was, like, totally intimidated when you came into my office that first time, I still couldn’t help think it was a joke, you wanting to try this case, a totally high-pressure military court-martial, and not knowing shit about military law. But you know what?”

“What?”

“Now I get it. Now I see why you’re the hotshot you are. You’re just fucking good at whatever you do.”

Tears came into her eyes. It was late, she was exhausted, and she was emotionally a wreck. She smiled and shrugged and shook her head. She stood up and came around to where he was standing. “Grimes-Charlie-Charles-oh, fuck it.” And she hugged him long and hard.

The phone rang again, at two-thirty Monday morning.

She fumbled for it, picked up the handset.

“Ask yourself who really wants him locked away,” the electronically altered voice said.

“Thanks,” Claire said. “We’ve almost got you, asshole.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

“They’re putting the general on the stand today?” Devereaux asked. Claire sat in the front seat of Devereaux’s rented car, a Lincoln Town Car even larger and more luxurious than the one he drove back in Boston. Corinthian leather was everywhere.

“Apparently.” Distracted, she sipped from a takeout cup of coffee.

“So he’s going to sit there in his general’s costume with the four stars and the fruit salad on the front and say Sergeant Ronald Kubik did it? And that’s going to sway the jury because he’s a four-star general? Even though he wasn’t even on the scene?”

“That’s Waldron’s theory, and it’s not a bad one.”

“And you’re going to do what?” He pulled into the back gate of Quantico and waved at the sentry, who by now recognized them.

“I’m going to look for the soft spots,” she said, “and plunge in the knife.”

Devereaux looked at her for a moment and turned back to the road. He gave a crooked smile. “Why do I get a feeling you’re gonna plunge in the knife even if there isn’t a soft spot? You get a call this morning, around two-thirty?”

She nodded. “The FBI boys got something?”

“Nope. Me. See, there’s only two entrances to the Pentagon that’re open twenty-four hours a day. There’s the Mall entrance, and there’s the River entrance. I gambled, and staked out the Mall entrance. At around twenty after two in the morning-ten minutes before you received a call-guess who’s striding into the Pentagon, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed?”

“I can’t guess,” she said.

“The good soldier. Colonel James Hernandez. He’s your caller. And probably behind that car ‘accident’ in Maryland. Nice guy, huh?”

Waldron’s direct examination of the general was crisp, professional, and respectful. It lasted most of the morning, and the court recessed for an early lunch.

When Claire, Grimes, and Embry returned from lunch they noticed that the prosecution table was empty, which was unusual. Waldron and Hogan were punctual men who liked to confer at their table with plenty of time to spare before Judge Farrell returned.

The two men returned with just seconds to spare, talking in low voices with evident excitement. Waldron was accompanied by a CID investigator Claire had seen from time to time, whose name she’d forgotten.

“What’s going on?” Tom whispered, grasping her shoulder.

She shook her head.

“Something’s up,” Grimes muttered under his breath. “Waldron looks like the cat that ate the canary.”

Claire introduced herself to the general with extravagant graciousness, emphasizing for the jury something she might, at another time, be inclined to downplay: General William Marks’s august rank.

Another attorney might well have chosen to treat the general as just another witness, silently communicating to the panel members, This witness is really no different from any others, and don’t you forget it. And that wouldn’t have been an incorrect strategy.

But she noticed that the jurors seemed on their best behavior while the general was in the courtroom. They sat up straight, they refrained from chewing pencils or cradling their chins on their hands or any of the little gestures of inattention or boredom. Even Judge Farrell, she noticed, hadn’t brought a can of Pepsi to the stand. So she slathered on the deference, knowing that in a matter of seconds she’d be treating him with all the disrespect he actually deserved.

“General Marks,” she said once the dull preliminaries were out of the way, “you have been granted immunity in exchange for your testimony here today, is that correct?”

“Yes, it is.” His response was frank and confident. With his silver hair and his aquiline nose, he looked resplendent in his dress uniform.

“There are two types of immunity, General. One covers just your testimony here in the courtroom. Another kind covers the events you’ve been testifying about-specifically, the events in El Salvador in June of 1985. Which kind of immunity have you been given, sir?”

“The latter. Transactional immunity,” he said with a nod.

“And why is that, sir?”

“War is sloppy, counselor. Mistakes are inevitably made, and often the commander is held responsible for them.”

“Oh? And were we at war with El Salvador in 1985, General?”

Judge Farrell interrupted. “Madame Defense Counsel, I’m not going to countenance your taking that tone with the general. I don’t like that disrespect.”

Claire dipped her head agreeably, not inclined to quarrel just yet. “Certainly, Your Honor. General, when you use the word ‘war,’ do you mean to say that we were at war in 1985? I wasn’t under the impression that Congress had declared war against El Salvador at the time.”

General Marks gave a wry smile. “Any time a unit of the army, including the Special Forces, conducts operations downrange against a potentially hostile force, we operate under the conditions of war.”

“Ah,” she said. “Now I see. That certainly makes sense. And do you agree with the notion that the commander is responsible for the actions of the men under him?”

“It’s not just a notion, counselor. It’s the way the army operates.”

“So you have no quibble with it?”

He gave a small snort of amusement. “No, I have no ‘quibble,’ as you say, with the way the army operates.”

“So, as the commanding officer of Detachment 27, you were ultimately responsible for all of the actions of your men?”

“Yes, indeed,” he said, nodding his head vigorously. “Even actions over which I had no control-”

“Thank you, General-”

“-which is why I’ve been granted immunity to explore the tragic actions of your client.”

“Thank you, General. Now, sir, Detachment 27 was sent down to El Salvador to take reprisals for the Zona Rosa bombing, isn’t that correct?”

A rueful smile. “No, counselor, that’s not correct. We were sent to locate the murderers, the so-called urban guerrillas who murdered four marines. Not to take revenge.”

“Thank you for that distinction, General. And would it be correct to point out, sir, that you had a personal stake in that mission?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Really? You weren’t a close friend of one of the marines killed in the Zona Rosa bombing on 19 June 1985, a Marine Force Recon, Lieutenant Colonel Arlen Ross?”

“Well, there’s another important distinction to make,” he said, quite reasonably. “I was indeed an acquaintance of Arlen Ross-”

“No, sir,” she interrupted. “Not an ‘acquaintance.’ A friend.”

The general shrugged. “If you wish. A friend. I have no quarrel with that. Lieutenant Colonel Ross was, sadly, among those killed in the Zona Rosa. But make no mistake, counselor. I was there at the direction of the President of the United States. I most certainly did not use the might of the United States Army Special Forces to carry out my own personal vendetta.”

“I certainly never implied such a thing, General,” Claire said, feigning astonishment. “Merely that you might have had a personal stake in the mission, as anyone might have who’d had a close friend killed a few days before by antigovernment rebels.”

But the general was too shrewd for that. Not for nothing had he advanced as high as he had, and as quickly. “That’s very generous of you, counselor,” he said brusquely, “but I operate at the behest of my commander-in-chief. Not as some Mafioso out for blood.”

Never lose control of the witness, Claire reminded herself, and here she was doing just that. This line of cross-examination was clearly a mistake.

“General,” she said, “when we met for a pretrial interview at your office in the Pentagon, did you warn me not to pursue this matter because it might be damaging to my career?”

General Marks regarded her for a few seconds with an indecipherable stare. He had been briefed. He knew about the secret tape recording of Henry Abbott. “Yes, I did,” he replied at length. “I was quite frankly concerned that you were on some sort of self-destructive kamikaze mission, counselor, because the client is your husband.”

There, it was finally out. She had no doubt that all of the panel members already knew that Tom was her husband. But now the fact, in all its complexity and ambiguity, lay out there on official display.

“I was concerned,” he went on, “that if you continued to pursue this case without knowing all the facts, you’d end up looking foolish in the extreme. You are, after all, married to a man who may be a murderer. You’re not exactly objective.” He smiled sadly. “You are the same age as my daughter. I can’t help but take a fatherly concern.”

“Well, that’s very kind of you, General,” she said without irony. “I certainly appreciate your concern and your solicitude.” And she decided to move right in for the kill. “General Marks, when my client allegedly fired upon the civilians, how far away were you standing?”

“I wasn’t there,” he said. “The unit was being led by my XO, Major James Hernandez. I was issuing commands over the radio.”

“Major James Hernandez, who is still your XO, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Now, General, it is alleged that my client killed eighty-seven people, and it occurs to me that killing eighty-seven people must take some time, isn’t that right?”

“Alas, no,” the general replied. “It can be done in a surprisingly short time, counselor, I am sorry to say.”

“Really?”

“It would surprise you,” he said, and gave another sad smile. “Sergeant Kubik fired two hundred rounds. The M-60 machine gun fires at a rate of five hundred fifty rounds per minute. So firing two hundred rounds takes not much more than twenty seconds, counselor.”

Ordinarily, the general’s reply would have been devastating. But Claire knew where this was going. “Twenty seconds,” she mused.

“A little bit more.”

“But I thought there are only one hundred rounds in a belt,” she said, playing the ingenue.

“That’s true,” the general replied, “but he had apparently linked two belts together, using a technique he said he’d learned from a squad leader in Vietnam. That way, the second belt pulls evenly.”

“If the ammo belt gets twisted, what happens?”

“The weapon will jam.”

Claire nodded, and began to pace in front of the witness rail, thinking. “So, if one of your men had grabbed Sergeant Kubik’s ammo belt and twisted it, his weapon would have jammed, and he’d have been unable to fire.”

“Only if someone could get close enough to grab the belt.”

“And no one could?”

“Seriously? A man firing a machine gun?”

“None of your men could have bounded up to him in a few steps and grabbed the weapon out of his hands? Or twisted the ammo belt so that the gun jammed?”

“The man had an M-60 in his hands, counselor. I was told that his head was pivoting all around, looking, and he would most certainly have sensed anyone moving toward him.”

“But your men must have had weapons, too, General.”

“Indeed.”

“What weapons did they have?”

“They had.45s. And I certainly wasn’t going to have them go up against an M-60 machine gun with a.45. He could have hit them much more easily than they could have hit him.”

“Did you order him to stop?”

“Yes, I did. Through Major Hernandez.”

“And?”

“Hernandez said, ‘He’s wacko, we can’t stop him.’”

She fell silent for a moment. He was good, and well briefed. And she knew this was going nowhere. He would continue to insist that he couldn’t have stopped Kubik, and he would be unshakable in his certainty. “General, in your opinion, would you have been within your rights as an officer to order your men to shoot Sergeant Kubik dead, if, as you claim, he was in fact massacring those eighty-seven civilians?”

“In fact, yes,” Marks said. “The Uniform Code of Military Justice permits the use of lethal force to save your life or the life of another.”

Claire winced inwardly. That was the right answer. He had just foreclosed the line of cross-examination she’d prepared designed to show that he’d been negligent as an officer and a commander-which could at least have damaged his credibility. So she tried again, coming back to the question of whether he could have killed Kubik. As she questioned the witness about this fictitious Sergeant Kubik that the prosecution was creating, she didn’t think of him as Tom. “General, isn’t it true that any of your men could have waited for the instant that Sergeant Kubik’s eyes were trained on his civilian targets, and simply aimed a Colt.45 and fired?”

The general exhaled noisily. “Counselor, I don’t know whether you’ve ever fired a gun-whether you’ve ever even picked up a gun-and I know you’ve never served in a war-”

“Move to strike as nonresponsive, Your Honor,” Claire interrupted.

“I’m afraid you opened the door to that with your theoretical question,” Judge Farrell said. “Continue, sir.”

“Thank you,” General Marks said. “Counselor, sitting in your comfy office at Harvard thirteen years after the fact, I suppose you could make that argument. But when you’re commanding a ten-man unit in conditions of war, it’s a different matter. There are chances you have to take, so there are chances you will not take. Perhaps you would have exercised superior judgment. I used the best I had.” He bowed his head. “We lost a number of Americans in El Salvador, counselor, for what the President of the United States, my commander-in-chief, deemed our strategic interests. Covert operations aren’t always pretty. But there’s a difference between the price of covert ops and what that evil man did. It sickens me what happened in that village-sickens me as an army man and as a human being.”

This was, Claire realized, one of the worst crosses she’d ever conducted, and not for want of preparation. She could see how moved the jury was. General Marks was a terrific witness, and an extremely well prepared one. It should not have surprised her.

But it was not over yet.

“General, a few moments ago you referred to the unarmed civilians. But is it possible that Sergeant Kubik believed they were in fact armed combatants?”

“No,” he replied flatly.

“Why not?”

“They weren’t in uniform, for one. They were lined up peacefully, and not making any hostile or antagonistic movements. And there were no weapons.”

“But isn’t it possible he might have thought he saw weapons?”

The question, she knew, would perplex the general. It seemed to point to a new theory of defense-that Tom had fired because he saw weapons. Whereas they had all along insisted that the entire incident was made up, implying that someone else must have done the shooting. She could see the general hesitating, and glancing furtively at Waldron. She stepped to the side deftly, placing her body in his line of sight.

So the general reverted to his customary arrogance. “No,” he finally said. “There were no weapons.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because, counselor, I had my XO inspect the bodies, and he found no weapons.”

“So you knew objectively, after the fact, that there were no weapons. But at the time, General, did you have any reason to believe the villagers had weapons?”

“None.”

“Your men saw no weapons.”

“Correct.”

“They saw nothing, no glint of metal, nothing that might make them even the slightest bit apprehensive that the villagers had weapons.”

“Nothing.”

“So they saw no weapons pointed at Sergeant Kubik, or any of your men.”

Waldron called out, “Asked and answered, Your Honor.”

“Sustained. Move on, counselor.”

“My apologies, Your Honor. Just wanted to be absolutely sure we were on the same page. General Marks, early on the morning of June 22, 1985, you sat down and wrote out an MFR, a memorandum for the record, isn’t that correct?”

“That’s correct.”

“Isn’t that unusual?”

“How so?”

“Well, sir, isn’t the usual thing to do to file an After Action Report?”

“Yes, it is. But this wasn’t a ‘usual’ incident, counselor. One of my men had just waxed an entire village full of innocent civilians.”

“In fact, unarmed civilians.”

“As I’ve said, counselor.”

“So why file an MFR? What’s the point in doing that?”

“Because I wanted to get the event on the record. I was sure that Sergeant Kubik would be prosecuted for this, and I wanted to begin preserving records.”

“You mean, creating records.”

“Your Honor!” Waldron shouted.

“I said preserving records, counselor,” the general said crisply.

“General, do you have a copy of the memorandum you wrote that morning?”

“Unfortunately, I do not. It appears to have been lost.”

“How could that have happened?”

He smiled. “Papers are lost all the time, counselor, especially in wartime. Believe me, I wish I had it. Even general officers can be victimized by a large and at times unwieldy bureaucracy.”

She returned the smile. “General, in the memorandum you wrote that morning, did you state that the villagers had weapons, and that was why you ordered your men to shoot?”

“Absolutely not,” Marks said, his eyes flashing.

“You didn’t write that?”

“No, I didn’t, because it wasn’t the case. I didn’t order anyone to kill those civilians, and the civilians didn’t have weapons.”

“Thank you, General.” She stepped back to the defense table, where Embry handed her several sheets of paper. Smoothly she came around to the prosecution table and dropped one in front of Waldron, then handed one to Judge Farrell. “Your Honor, may I approach the witness with what has been previously marked Defense Exhibit C for identification?”

“You may,” Farrell said, looking down confusedly at the document he’d just been given.

She gave the paper to the general. “General Marks, do you recognize this form?”

The general said nothing. For the first time, he appeared to have lost his composure. His face seemed to be going white.

“Is this your signature, General?”

Nothing.

“Is this your handwriting?”

The courtroom was silent, absolutely still, but she could feel all hell breaking loose. Waldron was scribbling something furiously, a note he was showing to Hogan. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a motion at the back of the room, and realized it was the general’s lawyer, Jerome Fine, making some sort of hand signal.

“We can take a recess if you like,” Claire said gently. “We can have a continuance. I have a handwriting expert standing by. We can ask you to copy this document and have it analyzed on the spot.” It was a bluff; she had no such handwriting expert. “I think you know this is your handwriting. Let me remind you, sir, that your immunity does not cover lying under oath, perjury, or false swearing.”

“Yes,” he said at last, staring at her with hatred. His tone, however, was even. “I believe it is my handwriting.”

“Your Honor,” she said, turning pleasantly toward Farrell, “at this time I’d like to offer Defense Exhibit C for identification, and ask permission to publish it to the jury.”

“It is admitted,” Farrell said, “and the words ‘for identification’ will be stricken. You may publish it to the jury now.”

She handed six copies of the document to the president of the court, who took one and passed the others out. Turning back to the general, she said, “Please read that to the court.”

He hesitated, turned to the judge. Annoyed, he asked: “Do I have to?”

“Yes,” Farrell said, “I’m afraid you do.”

Marks compressed his lips into a thin line, then turned back to Claire and gave her a poisonous look. Donning a pair of reading glasses, he began to read: “‘In the early-morning hours of 22 June 1985, I was informed by Major James Hernandez that armed villagers in La Colina, El Salvador, had been observed acting with apparent hostile intent toward Detachment 27.’” He cleared his throat. His face was flushed. “‘I ordered free fire based on presence of armed hostiles. My orders were executed, and eighty-seven aggressors were terminated with prejudice. The detachment retired from the scene of aggressor contact and returned to Ilopango. Signed, Colonel William O. Marks, Commanding Officer, Detachment 27. Ilopango, El Salvador.’” He looked up slowly, his eyes flashing with anger.

“General Marks,” Claire said, “is every word of what you just read the truth as you remembered it on 22 June 1985? Or is there anything you want to change?”

For several seconds they glared at each other.

Then General Marks turned to the judge. “Your Honor,” he said, “I’d like to speak with my attorney before I answer that question.”

“Your Honor,” Waldron said, standing, “we need a recess for the witness to consult his attorney.”

“Members,” Farrell said, “will you excuse us?”

As the members were escorted out by the bailiff, the courtroom exploded in a maelstrom of voices.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

“Your Honor,” Waldron demanded, “I’d like to have the defense counsel state for the record, as an officer of the court, how long she’s had this memorandum, and where she got it.”

“No, Your Honor,” Claire said before Farrell had a chance to respond. “I don’t have to do that, and I’m not going to. The prosecution isn’t entitled to a preview of my cross-examination. For God’s sake, we put this exact MFR in our discovery request-we named it specifically!-and the government, in effect, made a written denial that it even existed! I got this after their written denial; this document is a photocopy from the CIA operational files, fully marked with a complete chain of custody, and that’s all I’m going to say.”

“The CIA!” Waldron stammered, looking at Claire. Why was he so astonished? she wondered.

Farrell was clearly taken aback by the whole business, by how quickly the tables had turned, by the spectacle of an entire courtroom watching a four-star general lie under oath. Everything the judge said on the record was going to be scrutinized minutely. He had to tiptoe, and he knew it. He popped open a Pepsi and swigged long and hard.

“Mr. Trial Counsel,” Farrell said, “it’s your witness, and it was your job to find that document, so I’m not inclined to help you out here.”

In the meantime, Jerome Fine, the general’s counsel, had moved a chair right next to the general’s on the witness stand, and the two of them were conferring in whispers.

“General,” Claire said, approaching him, “is that your attorney there?”

Marks seemed vaguely amused. “Yes, it is.”

“And what’s his name?”

“Jerome R. Fine. He’s the army general counsel.”

“Hmm. Interesting, General, that you have your attorney sitting right next to you. Do you feel you have something to hide?”

He smiled and said with a low chuckle, “Not at all.”

“Now, General, prior to your testifying here today, did you review the testimony you gave before Congress when you were confirmed as chief of staff of the army?”

Marks hesitated but a moment. “Yes.”

“Your attorney advised you to do that, didn’t he?”

“Ms. Chapman,” the general said hotly, “I don’t have to tell you anything that my attorney and I discussed.”

“Ah, but I’m afraid you do.” She glanced at Jerome Fine, who looked uneasy. “You see, General, we can call Mr. Fine to the stand right after you-nothing you two have talked about is privileged, since he works for the United States of America. Not for you.”

The general looked at his lawyer, who gave a tiny nod.

“So perhaps you can answer my question, General. Did your attorney advise you to review your congressional testimony?”

A pause. The lawyer nodded again. “Yes, he did.”

“Now, General Marks, did you tell your attorney that the memorandum for the record you wrote immediately after the incident at La Colina had been destroyed, as far as you knew, and that you didn’t remember its contents?”

Marks turned again to Judge Farrell. “Do I have to answer that, Your Honor?”

“Yes, you do,” Farrell replied.

“Yes, I did tell him that,” Marks replied, “but that was my recollection-”

“Thank you,” Claire interrupted. “General, did you ever tell your wife about the alleged massacre at La Colina?”

“My wife?” Incredulous, he turned back to the judge. “Your Honor, I don’t have to answer questions about my personal life, do I?”

“Yes, General, you do,” the judge said evenly.

Raising his voice a few decibels, Marks said tartly, “My wife and I never discuss this sort of thing.”

“Oh? And what sort of thing is that?”

“Covert actions-”

“And was the incident at La Colina a ‘covert action’?”

“Don’t twist my words,” Marks snapped. “That massacre was the most godawful tragic thing that ever happened during my-”

“And you mean to tell us you didn’t tell your wife about this most godawful tragic thing?”

He hesitated.

“Or did you lie to her, too?”

“I have never lied about La Colina!” Marks thundered.

“Oh, no? You lied to Congress, didn’t you? Isn’t it a fact that when you were asked about this incident by the Senate during your confirmation, you gave a version entirely contradicted by the MFR you wrote? You lied to Congress, did you not?”

“I do not have to take this!” Marks shouted. “I have dedicated over thirty years of my life to serving the Constitution of the United States and the people of this country-”

“General,” said his attorney, grabbing his arm.

“But you lied to Congress, General, did you not?” Claire persisted.

“I do not have to take that from someone like you!” Marks shouted, half rising from his seat. His face was crimson. “You’re out of line!”

“General, please!” his attorney said, tugging at Marks’s arm to pull him back into his seat.

“What does that mean, someone like me?” Claire asked with a faint smile. “A defense attorney doing her job? Protecting a client falsely accused of murders he did not commit? That you might have had a hand in as an accomplice-?”

“Objection!” shouted Waldron.

“This is an obscenity!” thundered Marks.

“Move on,” Judge Farrell said.

“General,” Claire said in a ringing voice, “you lied to Congress, did you not?”

There was a moment of silence.

The general’s lawyer cupped a hand in front of his mouth and whispered something to his client. General Marks, his composure regained, looked up and said blithely, “Upon advice of counsel, I decline to comment.”

“Wait a second,” Claire said. “Are you taking the Fifth?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, what-what are you taking the Fifth about?”

“About my testimony,” Marks replied evenly. “My lawyer has just advised me that I may have committed false swearing.” He turned toward Judge Farrell. “Your Honor, I haven’t seen that document in thirteen years. I testified here as to what I remembered of that document. And, frankly, I was ambushed.”

“Your Honor,” Claire said, “I move to strike the direct testimony of this witness, since we’re being denied the Sixth Amendment right to cross-examination.”

Farrell squinted at the general, then shook his head in disbelief. “Your motion is granted. The witness’s direct testimony is stricken.”

“Thank you, Your Honor. At this time, defense moves for a mistrial on the grounds that this witness’s testimony can’t be taken back. You can’t un-ring that bell.”

“Denied,” Farrell snapped with a red-faced scowl.

“In that case, Your Honor, we ask that you instruct the members that the chief of staff of the army is no longer a witness before this court, and the members may not consider any testimony he has given. I also ask that Your Honor inform the members that you, the military judge, believe that the chief of staff may have perjured himself, and that the members should put his testimony out of their minds, and that the military judge has advised the chief of his rights against self-incrimination under Article 31 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and the chief of staff has decided he will give no further testimony here before this court-martial.”

“All right,” Farrell said. He knew he had little choice. “You got it. I will so instruct the members. And, General, you’re excused, with our deepest apologies.”

Claire stared in disbelief as the general got to his feet, shrugged his uniform back into place, and strode off, attorney in tow.

“Uh, Your Honor,” Waldron said, “while we’re in this 39(a) session, I’d like to introduce our next exhibit, Prosecution Exhibit 4, for identification, which is a tape recording of the accused speaking on a tactical field radio on 22 June 1985, referring to the events he’s on trial for, as well as a verbatim transcript of that conversation.”

Claire looked at Grimes, then Embry, then Tom. All of them looked as astonished as she did.

“Your Honor, I don’t believe this!” she said.

“And the worm turns,” Farrell said. “What is this, Surprise Evidence Day? Give the Judge an Ulcer Day? Trial counsel, you got the tape right here?”

“Yes, we do, sir,” Waldron said. He handed the black cassette to the judge, along with a small tape player.

“Well, let’s hear it,” Farrell said.

Grimes said aloud, “The hits just keep on coming.”

The tape sounded as if it had been enhanced, the static filtered out, and so Tom’s voice was crystal-clear.

And it was Tom’s voice, there was no question about it.

“It was unbelievable. Just fucking unbelievable. I mean, I was just so fucking sick and tired of those peasants lying to us, you know? I just picked up my M-60 and blew ’em away, and it was just fucking great. Fuckin-A right I did.”

There was silence, and then the judge clicked off the tape recorder.

“That’s not me,” Tom said to Claire in a low voice.

“Where’s this from?” Judge Farrell asked.

“Defense Intelligence Agency made the original recording, Your Honor,” Waldron said. “Their signals-intelligence section. The copy was provided by CIA after a search of their SIGINT archives.”

“When did you get this?”

“Just today, Your Honor. At lunch.”

“How long you know about its existence?” Farrell asked.

“I was called this morning, but I didn’t believe it until I actually heard the tape at lunch today.”

“Whadda we got here, CIA versus DIA?” Farrell said. “Civilian spooks versus military spooks?”

Waldron replied, “This conversation was overheard by signals intercept, 123rd Signals Battalion, down in El Salvador, on 22 June 1985. Their communications receivers were automatically sweeping between certain frequency ranges, between four and five hundred megahertz. The accused’s conversation was made in the clear on a tactical field radio with a range of up to twenty miles.”

Claire’s mind raced. This could be no coincidence, the surprise memorandum immediately followed by a surprise tape. What was going on here? She turned to Tom. “You never said those words?” she whispered. Her stomach ached.

“Claire, that’s not me,” he said.

“It’s your voice.”

“That’s not me,” he repeated.

She rose. “Your Honor,” she said, her voice loud and emphatic, “this is trial by ambush. That tape was covered in our discovery request, and we should have gotten it long ago.”

“Your Honor,” Waldron said, “defense counsel just heard me say we just received the tape today, at lunch.”

“The question,” she replied tartly, “is not when did trial counsel get it. The question is when did the United States government get it. This is covered by our discovery request, and trial counsel had a duty to cover the government and find out if any part of the U.S. government possessed any relevant information. I planned my case based on what the government disclosed-and now here we are, halfway through this case, and suddenly we have some seriously prejudicial evidence we haven’t had an opportunity to test! This is outrageous!”

“Sir,” said Waldron, “as defense counsel well knows, these things do happen. Evidence turns up at the eleventh hour-just as happened with this memorandum for the record.”

“Well, it’s true, Madame Defense Counsel, you can’t exactly complain, given you just pulled the same thing.”

“What we ‘pulled,’ Your Honor, was a rectification of prosecutorial misconduct. We were fortunate to have turned up, through our sources, a document that the prosecution should have given us quite some time ago. Now they’re trying the same trick again. ‘Suddenly’ they ‘happen’ to find a key piece of evidence, and now they’re attempting to introduce it into the court so late that they hope we won’t have a chance to have our experts examine it. If the Defense Intelligence Agency made this recording thirteen years ago, why has it taken so long to see the light?”

“Sir,” Waldron said, “it’s not impossible that this court-martial has provoked persons within the government to comb old files for things they might have otherwise assumed were lost.”

Tom said aloud, indignantly: “I don’t believe they’re trying this!” Then he raised his voice: “You check the tape, Claire! That’s not me!”

“Sergeant,” Farrell said, “you will refrain from talking. Counsel, you are advised that you are to keep your client under control. No further outbursts will be permitted. Now, counsel, I assume you want a continuance.”

“Absolutely, sir. We request one month in order to conduct a full and thorough examination.”

“This is a goddamned frame-up!” Tom shouted, rising.

“Sergeant,” Farrell thundered, “I told you to keep quiet. Now, you were advised that you have a right to attend this court-martial. However, if you’re going to disrupt this court-martial, we will arrange for you to watch the proceedings by closed-circuit television, do you hear me? You will not sit in my courtroom and disrupt it further, you understand?”

“That’s not me!” he shouted. “It’s not true. That’s not my voice!”

“MPs, take this man away!” Farrell bellowed. The brig guards immediately surrounded Tom and wrestled him to the ground as they clamped the handcuffs on him.

“This is a goddamned frame-up!” Tom shouted.

“I want him out of here now!”

The guards yanked at Tom’s elbow and led him away.

“All right,” Farrell said to Claire, when the courtroom was finally quiet. “You’ve got forty-eight hours.”

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Late at night, Claire and Jackie sat at the kitchen table, drinking and smoking. The tape had already been flown out to one of the world’s foremost forensic voice-and-tape analysts, in Boulder, Colorado. Claire had chosen the expert carefully: the woman had done extensive voice-identification work for the military, and had even done cases with Waldron. She was virtually a Pentagon insider, and her word would be unquestioned.

“Of course he denies it,” Jackie said carefully. “He’s denied everything about this case, Claire. I mean, he denies it’s his gun, right?”

“Yeah, well, it’s probably not his gun!” Claire said, furious. “Or else they switched the barrel!”

“Of course they could have. These guys can do whatever the fuck they want to. But don’t you believe-deep down-that it’s his gun? That he fired it? That maybe Colonel Marks gave the order over the radio, maybe he didn’t, but Tom did it?” She poured more Famous Grouse into both of their glasses.

“No, I don’t.”

Jackie took a long sip of straight scotch, and shuddered. “Claire, if a man can lie to you about his entire life, why can’t he lie to you about the one horrible incident he’s spent his life evading?”

Claire shook her head. The exhaustion had defeated her. Tears flooded her eyes, and one of them splashed on the table. “I need to talk to him.”

The phone rang.

“It’s only midnight,” Jackie said. “A bit early for the breather.”

Claire picked it up, expecting Grimes or Embry.

“Professor Heller?” said a deep female voice. “This is Leonore Eitel, in Boulder.”

“Yes?”

“I hope I’m not calling too late-you asked me to call as soon as I had the first results-”

“That’s fine.” Her heart beat so loud she could barely hear the woman’s voice.

“Well, I’m afraid-I’m afraid it may not be what you want to hear.”

“It’s him, isn’t it?” Claire said thickly.

“I want you to know exactly what tests I’ve run. I used a really quite sophisticated system from Kay Elemetrics, a Computer Speech Lab Model 4300B, to run the oral and spectrographic analysis of the voice, and I matched it against the samples your husband gave me over the phone.”

“It’s him, isn’t it?”

“I looked at things like frequency on the vertical axis, and, in the time domain, the trajectory of formant structure, the consonant-vowel couplings. Pitch, which reflects vocal-fold oscillation and is represented by the vertical striations in the spectrograms-”

“Damn it, is it Tom’s voice?”

“Yes, it is,” the expert said quietly. “I used twenty-two different words, and I got nineteen very good matches based on the number of formant structures.”

“How certain are you?”

“Ninety-nine percent, I’d say. But I’m still not done with my tests, and there’s one more thing I need to check.”

Eight o’clock the next morning. In the long sterile conference room at the brig, the only one where there wasn’t a camera.

“I need the truth now,” she said.

He grimaced. “Come on, Claire-”

“No. Tell me the truth. Did you say that?”

“Of course not. We weren’t out in the field the day after the massacre, we were back at the hooch. And I never carried the radio-that wasn’t my job.” He smiled and sandwiched her right hand between his. “Come on, honey.”

“That’s your voice.”

“They faked it somehow.”

“You can’t fake that, Tom. That’s your voice.”

“Well, I didn’t say all that stuff.”

“And you’re telling me the truth?”

He withdrew his hands. “I’m telling you the truth,” he said softly.

“Promise me.”

His eyes expressed hurt. “My God, you think I did it, don’t you? They’ve turned you around, haven’t they? They’ve gotten to you-my own wife!”

“Come on, Tom!” she shouted. “I don’t know what I think! What about the gun?”

“We’re not still talking about that, are we? You proved how easily they could have-”

“Forget what I did and said in there. Forget my courtroom tricks. It’s just you and me now.”

“You showed how they could have substituted the barrel.”

“Don’t get legalistic on me. Did you kill those people?”

“Claire-”

“Were you ordered to do it? Is that why everyone’s covering up, to protect the general?”

“Claire-”

“If you were ordered to do it-well, that’s not really a defense, but we could argue mitigating factors, and-”

“And you think I massacred eighty-seven people?”

She looked at him, not knowing what to say. “Promise me that’s not you on the tape.”

For a long moment he looked at her, his eyes at once wounded and furious. “I am not a monster, Claire,” he said.

There was a loud knock on the door. She opened it to find Embry standing there, out of breath, holding a sheet of paper.

“What have you got there?” Claire asked.

“You asked about Hernandez’s medical records a couple of days ago,” Embry panted. “I had a buddy of mine check around-they were at the Pentagon dispensary, like I thought. He just faxed this over.”

“You got his shrink records?”

“No,” Embry said. “Better.” He grinned, then broke out into laughter. “Much, much better.”

The forensic tape expert, Leonore Eitel, was a petite and dignified-looking woman, slight to the point of tiny, silver-haired, with oversized round black spectacles. She wore a perfect dove-gray suit.

“If you would please stand in front of the witness chair, raise your right hand, and turn and face me,” Waldron said. The attorneys and the judge were meeting in a separate evidentiary hearing, a 39(a) session. “Do you swear that the evidence you shall give in the case now in hearing shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

“I do.”

Claire then took Leonore Eitel through her credentials, which were extensive and impressive. Then Eitel stated her findings: that the voice on the tape was indeed that of Ronald M. Kubik, a.k.a. Thomas Chapman.

“And what else, Ms. Eitel, can you tell us about this tape recording?” Claire asked.

“Well, to begin with, using a spectrum analyzer, I detected a sixty-cycle hum on the recording.”

“What’s the significance of that?”

“That’s the sound made by line power. That tells us that the voice was recorded on an electrical, plugged-in tape recorder, as opposed to a battery-operated one.”

“But couldn’t that hum have come from the tape recorder used by the Signal Corps, the people who allegedly taped the broadcast off the air?”

“No. If the speaker’s voice had been broadcast over a field radio and then recorded off the air, I wouldn’t have picked up that hum where I did. I can demonstrate precisely what I mean.”

“Thank you, but for now, let’s move on. Could this hum have been caused by copying the original?”

“No. I’ll explain-”

“In a few moments. What else did you observe?”

“The band width was different from what you’d expect to see from a voice broadcast over the air. The range of speech and microphone characteristics was markedly different, in terms of frequency response, from what you’d see in a radio transmission.”

“Is that it?”

“Oh, no. There were things missing that should have been there.”

“Such as?”

“Such as the keying of the microphone on the field radio, the button you push to transmit or receive. That sound was missing.”

“Anything else?”

“There were digital artifacts that shouldn’t have been there in an analog tape. That’s a real red flag. There were inverted V-shape figures in the upper frequencies, unexplained spikes in there, half an inch apart. Acoustic marks that aren’t associated with either speech or an analog tape recorder, but with a computer.”

“A computer?”

“That’s correct.”

“So what are you telling us?”

“That this tape was created on a computer, using editing software to splice together words and phrases. I would speculate that the subject did in fact speak all these words, but in a different order. Perhaps in an interrogation or an interview. My conclusion, and I state it with ninety-nine-percent certainty, is that this tape is a fake. A very, very skillful one-really, a beautiful job-but a fake all the same.”

The courtroom exploded. Farrell pounded his gavel. “Order!” he bellowed. “I want order! Trial counsel?”

Waldron’s eyes flashed with anger and shame. Both his hands flew up, palms out. “Your Honor,” he said, “we had no idea this tape was a forgery, we submitted it in good faith, and we hereby withdraw it-”

“You had a duty,” Farrell thundered, “to ascertain if it was real before throwing it into this court.”

“Sir, no one is as surprised as we are,” Waldron protested. “We had no reason to believe-”

“Sit down, trial counsel! I am appalled. I warned you there’d be no prosecutorial misconduct, and here you’ve had a general officer lie to this court, then he takes the Fifth like some drug dealer. Now you introduce this tape, and you didn’t even ask for the time to have it tested! You leave me no choice. Ms. Chapman, do you have a motion for a finding of not guilty on these charges?”

Claire stared at the judge, momentarily speechless. She got slowly to her feet. “Uh-yes, Your Honor, yes, I do.”

“Your request is granted,” Farrell said. “I find Sergeant First Class Ronald Kubik not guilty of all charges and specifications.” He gave a loud wallop of the gavel. “Trial counsel is instructed to prepare the results of the trial, after which the accused is to be returned to the brig for processing out of confinement. This court is adjourned.” And with another slam of the gavel, he rose.

Time slowed virtually to a standstill.

All around her was turmoil, yet everything seemed slow, quiet, muffled. The light seemed to have been refracted through a clouded lens. Her suit was soaked through with sweat. She moved slowly, as if underwater. She hugged Tom, then Grimes, then Devereaux. She smiled, laughed, then wept. Devereaux almost crushed her in his immense embrace, then shook Tom’s hand, too. Tom was also weeping. Embarrassed, he tried to shield his tear-strewn face from the gaze of others with a splayed hand. As she hugged Tom again, she saw Waldron storm past, then stop, then circle back to her. He stood and waited while Tom patted her on the back and said, “You saved my life, Claire. You saved my life.” She felt strange: relieved, of course, and mortally exhausted; but more-mildly depressed, and oddly tense.

“Counselor,” Waldron said sharply. He held out his hand, but his countenance was unsmiling. “Congratulations.”

She extricated herself from Tom’s embrace, held out her hand. “Thank you,” she said. She feigned geniality. “You did an impressive job. Apart from all the discovery stuff, which I’d like to believe wasn’t your fault.”

“It wasn’t. Can I call you Claire?”

She shrugged.

“You were a fearsome adversary, Claire, and one I hope I never have to face again.”

“Believe me,” she said, “I hope I never have to face you again, either. Let’s talk in private for a minute, okay?”

Waldron hesitated, puzzled. “Sure.”

They found a quiet corner of the courtroom where they could talk undisturbed.

“I hope you don’t believe I was behind that forged tape,” Waldron said.

She avoided his eyes. “Let me put it this way,” she said. “I don’t think it was necessarily your idea to put bugs in my rented house, but you didn’t exactly shy away from using whatever information you were given, right?” Waldron’s face was a mask, neutral and inexpressive. His eyes narrowed. “I just think there are a lot of people behind you who wanted to see you succeed. Such as General Marks.” She gave him a saccharine smile.

Anger flashed in his hawklike face. “The tape was given to me,” he said. “Believe me, I would never have used it if I had the slightest inkling it was fake. And by the way: he killed himself, did you hear?”

“Who?”

“General Marks. About two hours ago. Bullet through his head with his service revolver. Dressed in his Class A’s. In his office at the Pentagon.”

She felt the blood drain from her face. “What?”

“He knew his career was destroyed, and he’d be facing criminal charges,” Waldron said. “He didn’t want to go down that way.”

“I’m sorry he’s not around to see the acquittal,” Claire said.

“It wasn’t his decision to court-martial your husband.”

“Then whose decision was it?”

“Officially, the secretary of the army’s-the only one senior to the general. Who never much liked Marks. But I’ll bet there were others who persuaded the secretary to convene the court-martial. Rivals of the general’s. We’ll see who they are when we see who succeeds Marks as chief of staff of the army. He had some powerful enemies.”

“So his enemies wanted a court-martial,” Claire said, staring into the middle distance, “in order to bring out, even within limited circles, the fact that General Marks probably gave the order to massacre the entire village, even though he didn’t know-not being there-that they really were innocent. A horrible mistake. And his enemies knew that a court-martial would bring out the fact that he lied to Congress about it, even had his memorandum destroyed. Lied about the massacre for thirteen years. They knew they’d expose his high crimes.” Now she faced Waldron directly. “And yet, at the same time, the court-martial had to be secret, closed to all but military observers…”

“Because, if the word got out that the U.S. military had massacred eighty-seven innocent civilians and covered it up for thirteen years, the worldwide ramifications would be incalculable.”

She nodded. “And now the pieces begin to fall into place.” She handed him a sheet of paper.

“What?” Waldron said, looking it over. “This is a medical record of some sort… What’s the point?”

“Read it,” she said.

“It’s Hernandez’s-what, it’s about some eye injury or something?”

“You know that scar under his eye? He got it in 1985. At La Colina.”

“Okay,” Waldron said, still baffled. “He had it treated at the infirmary at Fort Bragg-”

“Right after the massacre. There’s a note there from an ophthalmologist and surgeon.”

“‘Burn and laceration to soft tissue inferiolateral to right eye not involving lid margin’…” Waldron read. “Why is this important? He got wounded at La Colina. So?”

“In his sworn statements he says he never fired a gun in the village,” Claire said. “Now read what the army surgeon wrote there. He recorded exactly what Hernandez told him. We’ve contacted the surgeon, and he’s prepared to back that up.”

Waldron read the sheet closely, and looked up after a minute. His eyes were wide with astonishment. “Hernandez was hit just below his right eye by a red-hot ejected shell casing while firing over two hundred rounds with his M-60. His barrel may have overheated, or he swung it a little too wildly… Jesus fucking Christ. Your husband really is innocent.”

Claire nodded.

“My God,” Waldron breathed. He gestured to Hogan to come over at once. “Contact CID,” he called. “They’ve got an arrest to make.” He turned back toward Claire. “I-I don’t really know what to say.”

“Just get the guy who did it,” she said, and headed back toward Tom.

They walked out of the courtroom in a daze. The early-summer sunshine was blinding. They blinked owlishly, Tom and she. Tom was still in his chains, but that was how the military worked. They sat on the steps of the building, near the white van, the guards standing by at a discreet distance. Tom was weeping again.

Grimes approached. “Hey, you guys,” he said softly. “I guess this is where I say goodbye.”

Claire and Tom got to their feet. Claire put her arms around Grimes and pulled him close to her. She hugged him hard, the way a man saved from drowning might hug his rescuer. “I’m going to miss you,” she said softly. “Thank you.”

“Hey,” Grimes said, “I ought to thank you. I finally got the fuckers.” He noticed Claire crying, and added: “Don’t get so emotional. You’ll be getting my bill soon. Then you’ll really cry.” And he gave one of his unique, trademark cackles.

Once Waldron had returned with the document they needed, the report of results of the trial, she and Tom got into the white van and were taken to the brig. The next hour was a blur of bureaucratic procedures. The release order was prepared. Tom was escorted to his cell to pack his items. He was sent to sick bay to get his medical records, then to the mailroom to fill out a change-of-address card-the mundane things that had to be done!-and then to the control-center supervisor to hand in the checkout sheet. She sat in the confinement-release area and waited. She tried to think clearly, but her mind continued to reel. Then Tom was brought in. His brig uniform was removed, his brig items were taken from him, and his civilian clothes-including a good, freshly pressed suit that Jackie had brought up from Cambridge-were handed to him.

In about an hour, handsome in his charcoal Armani suit and a green tie, Tom was free.

They walked out together hand in hand. She felt the sunshine warm her face. The air was sweet and heavy with the chlorophyll scent of new-mown grass.

“Hey, honey,” he said.

“Hey.” She turned her face upward and kissed him.

His voice was low and sultry. “You saved my life.”

“Aw, it was nothing.” She smiled. “And I’ll tell you something else. Even better than being acquitted. We’ve got proof that Hernandez was the shooter.” She explained.

For a moment he seemed not to understand. Then his face lit up. “I’ll bet Waldron wants to bury it.”

She shook her head. “He’s already in touch with CID. They’re going to bring Hernandez in for questioning, but I’d say he’s headed for Leavenworth in six months.”

“Or less, if Farrell’s on the bench. I love you.” He leaned over and kissed her again, this time a serious kiss. “We’re going to be a family again.”

She squeezed his hand. “We’ve got some packing to do,” she said. “And some celebrating.”

For the first time, she dared to believe that they might finally have their life back.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

“Who’s for more paella?” Tom called out, looking around the crowded dinner table. He brandished a large silver ladle over an immense crockery bowl heaped with lobster, mussels, littleneck clams, chicken, shrimp, and innumerable other kinds of seafood mixed with rice, onions, garlic, and about a dozen other things. He made the finest, most delicately seasoned paella Claire had ever tasted. Of all Tom’s specialties, this was the one he most liked to prepare for guests.

Around their dining table in Cambridge sat Ray Devereaux and his on-again, off-again girlfriend; Tom’s chief trader, the darkly handsome Jeff Rosenthal, and his latest bimbo girlfriend; Claire’s closest friend on the Law School faculty, Abe Margolis, gray-bearded, pudgy, around sixty, and Abe’s wife; and Claire’s good friend Jennifer Evans, very thin, deeply tanned, mid-forties, straight dark hair cut in a highly stylized bob like the silent-film star Louise Brooks. She was unaccompanied, because she was in one of her frequent antimale phases. Next to Claire sat Jackie, who seemed tired, moody, and remote. Annie, in a white sailor dress already stained with saffron-yellow paella drippings, sat on Tom’s lap while he sang to her. She looked little and achingly pretty.

“No more for me,” Ray said. “This is my fourth bowl.”

“I’ll take some,” Jeff said, reaching for the ladle to serve himself.

They were all gathered to celebrate Tom’s return from an extended business trip to the Canary Islands to explore a potentially enormous venture-capital project, a cover story that none of them seemed to question.

“Wanna switch to red?” Claire said to Abe Margolis’s wife, Julia, a large and still very beautiful brunette in her late fifties, who was just finishing a glass of white wine. “Or are you still working on that?” She gave Tom a quick, undetected wink.

“Fill ’er up,” Julia said, extending her glass. “If they mix, what the hell, it’s rosé.” Claire, who’d had a lot to drink, poured unsteadily. “In the glass, if you don’t mind,” Julia Margolis said.

“I’ll have some of that,” Devereaux said. “That Chablis?”

“It’s merlot,” Claire said. “Close enough.”

“Wine is wine to me,” Devereaux said. “Either it has a cork or a screw-top.”

Tom bounced Annie up and down as he continued singing the song he was improvising: “If you’re happy and you know it, pick your nose…”

“No!” squealed Annie. “That’s not how it goes. It’s clap your hands!”

“If you’re happy and you know it, pick your nose!” Tom sang in a booming, pleasant baritone.

“No!” she shrieked with delight. “You don’t know the words!”

He hoisted her way up in the air. “I love you so much, Annie-Banannie!” he exulted.

“Hey, Tom,” called Jen Evans. “In your absence, you missed the grand opening of yet another new restaurant in the South End.”

“Another one?” groaned Jeff Rosenthal. “Remember when the South End used to be a scuzzy hellhole? Now you can’t walk down Columbus Avenue without tripping over an arugula bush.”

“Arugula doesn’t come in bushes,” his bimbo girlfriend, the stunningly beautiful blonde Candy, objected with great earnestness.

“Oh, really?” Jeff said. A look of embarrassment passed briefly over his face. He was clearly in the terminal stages of infatuation with Candy. “Well, then, it must be a weed or something. Like, Italians are yanking it up from their flower gardens and tossing it in burlap sacks and shipping it off to America, laughing at us the whole time.”

Candy shook her head, eyes wide. “It’s not a weed, Jeff!” she exclaimed. “You can buy it in supermarkets! I’ve seen it!”

Jackie, silent and distant, rolled her eyes.

“This restaurant’s so loud,” Jen went on, “that you practically have to wear earmuffs-you know, those things airport workers have to wear to keep from going deaf when they’re working on the jets? Plus they won’t give you water or bread unless you specifically request it. Like it might drive them into bankruptcy or something.”

“If you’re happy and you know it,” Tom sang, “then you never better show it-”

“No! No!” Annie screamed, thrilled. “That’s wrong!”

“Boy, how do you like that story about the general who offed himself,” said Abe Margolis. General William Marks’s suicide was the lead news story everywhere. “General what’s-his-name. I’ll bet you we don’t have the real story yet. It’ll turn out he was facing some big sexual-harassment suit or something.”

“Blackmail, maybe,” Jeff Rosenthal suggested.

“God, there’s just something about a man in uniform,” vamped the buxom Julia Margolis breathily, then smiled lasciviously. “Those guys can’t keep it in their pants.”

For an instant Claire caught Tom’s eye. Devereaux inspected his half-finished bowl of paella. There was a brief silence around the table.

“Well,” Claire said, getting up, “I could sure use some fizzy water. Any takers?”

Several hands went up. Claire went to the kitchen. Tom set Annie down, and she scampered off. “I’ll help you with the glasses,” he said, following Claire.

Tom put his arms around Claire’s waist as she stood at the refrigerator gathering up cobalt-blue bottles of enormously overpriced Welsh sparkling water. “Hey, hon,” he said.

“Hey.” She raised her face and kissed him.

Then she said, “You know, Abe says he thinks Harvard’s going to keep me on after all. He says Dean Englander told him he fought like hell for me, and he won.”

“Of course Englander’s going to say that. He’s a politician.”

The phone rang. Neither one of them made a move to get it.

But Jackie got up from the dining table and answered the wall phone at the entrance to the kitchen. “Uh, sure,” she said into the receiver. “One second. It’s for you, Claire. It’s Terry Embry.”

“Terry Embry?” she said. Tom shrugged as he took the cobalt-blue seltzer bottles from her.

She picked up the phone. “Terry?”

“Gosh, I’m really sorry to bother you, um, Claire. Sounds like you guys are having a party, I’m really sorry-”

“Don’t worry about it, Terry. What’s up?”

“I got that stuff you asked me to get, the logs and all that, and I was going to FedEx it to you.”

“To my office, okay?” She gave the address. “And thanks.”

“You know Hernandez has gone missing? They want him for questioning, but no one can find him.”

“He’ll turn up,” she said.

She hung up and began gathering water glasses.

CHAPTER FIFTY

There was a knock at Claire’s office door, then it opened. Connie, her secretary, tilted her head and asked, “Is this a good time to go over some more mail and messages?”

Claire looked up from a law-review article that a student had asked her to read. Distracted, she smiled, nodded.

“We got a real logjam here.” Connie sat next to Claire’s desk, set down a pile of mail. “I figure if we do an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon we’ll get caught up on your mail and phone calls by… oh, early next year sometime.” She shook her head.

Claire noticed the large white cardboard envelope with the Federal Express logo on it in blue and orange. “That FedEx for me?”

“Oh, right. Just came in.” Connie handed it to her.

The sender was Terry Embry. Claire opened the envelope and slid out its contents.

She drew a breath. “Connie,” she said, “maybe now’s not such a good time after all.”

Connie looked at her curiously. “Okay,” she said. “Let me know when.” She left slowly, glancing back before she closed the door.

Claire held up the small square black-and-white photograph and examined it. It was an enlistment photograph of a young soldier with dark eyes and dark curly hair. She read the name: LENTINI, ROBERT.

A week or so ago, Ray Devereaux had put in a request with Army Personnel Records to locate the photograph in the archives. Then, at her request, Embry had sent for it.

She knew where she had seen Robert Lentini before, even though Robert Lentini had since lost his head of hair.

Robert Lentini had become a CIA operations officer named Dennis T. Mackie.

Her “deep throat.” He had shed his previous identity like a rattlesnake.

Maybe he had always been Dennis T. Mackie. Maybe he was a CIA officer even before he joined Detachment 27 and became Robert Lentini. These things happened. Stranger things, in fact, happened. The CIA liked to plant its people wherever it could.

Her source.

The man who had “somehow” turned up General Marks’s memorandum and effectively ended the general’s career.

She was beginning to understand. She pulled out a small square of paper, the routing slip that had accompanied the forged tape recording. It was headed CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY.

The scrawled initials said “DTM.”

DTM was, had to be, Dennis T. Mackie.

Her deep throat.

The man who had “somehow” turned up a tape recording of Tom speaking over a field radio down in El Salvador, and had gotten it to the Defense Intelligence Agency; the tape that was not just a fake but provably so-good enough to pass prosecution scrutiny but not so good that a defense expert couldn’t prove it a fake. The piece of manufactured evidence that had jettisoned the trial and sprung Tom.

She felt faint. A splash of stomach acid washed up into her mouth, brackish and corrosive.

As she thought, she ran her fingers back and forth inside the FedEx envelope and realized there was something else in there, a stapled sheaf of papers. She pulled it out.

The photocopies she’d asked Embry to make from the Quantico brig visitors’ log of the last several weeks. The logbook that all visitors had to sign.

It took her only a few seconds to locate Dennis T. Mackie’s signature in the VISITOR’S NAME column (REPRESENTING: “Self,” he had written); then she found it twice more. Dennis T. Mackie had visited Tom three times in the last two weeks of his confinement.

Perhaps there was an explanation.

She called Jackie and asked her to pick up Annie immediately, take her for the night.

Then she called Ray Devereaux and asked his advice.

And then she drove home as quickly as she could, her heart thudding.

Tom was already there.

The house smelled of garlic, wonderful and inviting.

“Guess we’re not having leftover paella,” Claire tried to joke, setting down her briefcase and removing her jacket.

“Linguine with clam sauce,” he said. He came over, gave her a kiss. “Your favorite. Ready to eat? I’m starved.”

“Let’s eat.” Claire smiled. She had no appetite. Her stomach was a small hard ball.

“Where’s my little doll?” he asked, dishing out pasta and salad.

“She wanted to sleep over at Jackie’s.”

“She’s really gotten attached to Jackie, hasn’t she?” He dug into the pasta. “Sorry. Mind if I start?”

“Go ahead.”

“Aren’t you going to eat?”

She toyed with her napkin. “Tom, we need to talk.”

“Uh-oh,” he said through a mouthful of linguine. He chewed, swallowed. “That’s not an auspicious opening line.” He smiled, took a sip of sparkling water, took another forkful of pasta.

“Who’s Lentini?”

Tom’s chewing slowed a moment, then resumed. After he’d swallowed, he said casually, “Another member of the unit.”

“What’s his real name? Lentini or Mackie?”

Tom took a long sip of his fizzy water. His eyes watched her steadily over the curve of the glass. He set down the glass. “What’s with the cross-ex, Claire? Trial’s over.”

She replied very quietly. “Not to me. Not yet.”

He shook his head slowly.

She said very quietly, almost in a whisper: “Do you love me, Tom?”

“You know I do.”

“Then I need you to tell me the truth now.”

He nodded, and with a sad smile, he said: “Lentini-his true name’s Mackie, but I always knew him as Lentini-well, he’s really a CIA guy. CIA’s secretly been his employer ever since he was assigned to the detachment. So, anyway, he tells me that CIA considers-considered-Marks a real enemy, a bureaucratic opponent, and they all wanted to undermine his candidacy for the Joint Chiefs job. But I really think that with Lentini it was personal. He despised Marks as much as I did.”

“Is that why he gave Waldron the forged tape? To set up the prosecution, sabotage their case?”

“Does it make any difference now?” Tom took another forkful of pasta.

The room was utterly quiet.

“I’d like to know. Was it your idea or his?”

He shook his head as he chewed. He swallowed, said, “Claire, I haven’t seen the guy in years. Like thirteen years.”

Claire felt herself go numb.

“I have copies of the brig visitors’ log,” she said. “Right here. He visited you three times.”

He regarded her quizzically; then another expression took over, one of calm realization.

Slowly he set down his knife and fork. He breathed a long, soulful sigh. “Claire,” he said wearily. “Claire, Claire, Claire. This was all a very long time ago.”

She whispered: “You killed those people.”

He looked at her pensively. “I don’t think Marks knew the peasants were unarmed and innocent, but he was so riled up about his buddy Arlen Ross being killed at the Zona Rosa that he wasn’t thinking clearly. Later, when the shit hit the fan back at Fort Bragg and they needed a scapegoat, Marks sure wasn’t going to take the fall, and he wasn’t going to point the finger at his XO. Even though he gave Hernandez the fire order. So I realized it was my word against a major’s, and Marks was on his XO’s side, of course. And I knew I had to disappear. Because they were going to pin it on me. And they did, sure enough. And Hernandez and Marks have been blackmailing each other ever since. Partners in crime, so to speak.”

“But you fired, too, didn’t you?” Claire said. “You helped Hernandez massacre those people.”

Tom’s eyes became moist. “Marks knew he could count on me. Everyone in the unit refused except me and, of course, Hernandez.”

He reached out his hand and placed it over hers. It was warm and damp. She withdrew her hand suddenly, as though she’d been burned. She felt her stomach flip over. Suddenly she felt very tired. “You did it,” she said. “You helped Hernandez kill eighty-seven people.”

“You have to understand things in their proper context, Claire. These villagers, they were laughing at us. Totally uncooperative. I had to be a little coercive with them.”

“Torture them.”

“A few of them. Had to. But I couldn’t just torture some of them and then leave them there to report human-rights violations, understand? You don’t do that. You gotta mop up your own work. I didn’t have any choice.”

She felt very cold. She crossed her arms over her chest, hugged herself. She shivered.

“Marks knew he could count on me,” Tom said again, almost conversationally. “You know, before I went to Vietnam they put me through a whole battery of tests. And… and they concluded that I was-what was the expression?-‘morally impaired.’ Which was their way of saying I was just the kind of guy they needed. For the assassination squads, and later for Detachment 27. I could kill without feeling any guilt or remorse.”

She stared at him. The room seemed to be revolving slowly.

“The government needed people like me,” he said. “Always does. People who can do the job others won’t. Then, when they’re done with you, it’s, ‘Oh, we’re shocked, shocked at what you’ve done. Here, spend the rest of your life in Leavenworth. Here’s your thanks.’ I do what they tell me, and suddenly I’m a criminal when they don’t need me.”

Claire nodded. “I don’t get it, Tom,” she said. “The ballistics guy-there was evidence of only one shooter. All the bullets came from the same barrel.”

“All the bullets he examined. I told you those weren’t my bullets.”

She needed to make sense of this, even as her head was swimming. “I don’t understand.”

He shrugged. “I cleared the scene. I always liked to do my own mop-up. Always used my own ammo-German.308 rounds, full metal jacket, steel-cased. Easy to pick up with a magnetic wand. Unlike the standard brass shit Hernandez was using that won’t stick to a magnet. I went over the scene pretty carefully, got all the projectiles and cartridge casings. I never like to leave behind my calling card.”

Again she nodded. She swallowed hard. She got up from the table, made her way to the wall phone.

“What are you doing, Claire?” he said. He got up, came close. He smiled. “It’s over, you know. Remember? I’ve been found not guilty.”

She nodded again. “Of course,” she said blandly. She felt queasy. Her stomach boiled like a cauldron. She wanted to vomit. She picked up the receiver, punched out a seven-digit number.

“This is all between you and me, Claire,” he said. A note of harshness entered his voice. “You’re my lawyer. You’re bound by attorney-client privilege.”

She could hear ringing on the line.

“It’s over, Claire. Double jeopardy, remember? I can’t be tried again.”

Ringing. Where was Devereaux?

“Don’t do it, Claire.” He reached over and depressed the plungers on the top of the phone to break the connection.

She replaced the handset carefully. She looked around the kitchen, furnished so beautifully. So homey. How many breakfasts had they had there, she and Tom and Annie? How many times had Tom cooked dinner for his wife and stepdaughter? And all this time it had been a carefully sustained lie. How safe he had made her feel, when in fact she and her daughter had been living with a dangerous, sick man. “You need to turn yourself in, Tom,” she whispered.

“It’s not going to happen that way, Claire.”

She reached again for the phone.

He moved closer, his body between her and the phone.

“I mean it, babe. Don’t do it. Look how much we’ve gone through together. Look how much we’ve got together, you and me.”

She withdrew her hand slowly. “You’re sick, Tom,” she said, very quietly.

“We’re a family,” he said. “You and me and Annie. We’re a family.”

Claire nodded, head spinning, and once again picked up the phone.

“I mean it, Claire. Put down that phone. Think of Annie. There’s no reason to do this, Claire. We can be a family again.”

She shook her head, tears blurring her eyes, listening to the phone ring.

With a sudden motion he slammed the phone out of her hand, causing her to lose her balance, knocking her to the floor. He depressed the plunger, reached down to retrieve the handset, and replaced it in the cradle.

“I need you, Claire!” he shouted suddenly.

Sprawled on the kitchen floor, she looked up at him, saw his flushed face. She winced. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She reached over to her suit jacket, which hung on the back of one of the kitchen chairs, and retrieved the cell phone. She flipped it open, pulled out the little antenna.

“Claire, babe,” he said. His eyes were sad, his face anguished. “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry. I just need you to listen to me.”

She punched out a few numbers, then realized she hadn’t pressed the power button.

“Sweetie,” he said, and leaned over toward her. He swatted the cell phone out of her hands. It clattered against the tile floor. “Listen. We can be a family again. Put the past behind you. Put it behind you. Think of Annie.”

Weeping, unable to focus her eyes, she slunk across the kitchen floor and grabbed the cell phone; he came at her again, kicked it out of her hand.

Pain knifed up her arm. She scrambled to her feet, tried to stumble toward the door, but he blocked her way.

“Understand, Claire, that if you force me to, I’ll just disappear again. I’ve done it before, I can do it again. You know it.” His tone was reasonable, calm, in control. The same way he reassured her about problems around the house he’d take care of, a toilet that wouldn’t stop flushing, a lamp that had burned out, a mouse in the kitchen. “I want you to think of Annie. Think of what’s best for her.”

“Let me go,” she said. “You son of a bitch.”

“I know you’ll do the right thing. I’d never, ever do anything to harm my little dolly if I didn’t absolutely have to. Never. But I want you to keep in mind that everything in the world that’s precious to you-your sister, your daughter… You can never be sure. I’ll disappear, and you might not even recognize me, and you and your sister and your daughter will never be safe.” She stared at him in horror, realizing that this was no idle threat, that he meant this. That he would indeed take from her the most precious thing in the world if he had to. Because he was incapable of feeling guilt or remorse. He could do it easily. She shivered again.

“That’s a special kind of hell, always having to worry like that,” he said. “You don’t want that. Believe me.”

The doorbell rang, two chimes that echoed like carillon bells. She squeezed past him and ran to open the door.

Behind her, she could hear the chuff of his pants as he came after her. She opened the door, only then realizing how fast her heart was beating.

The pistol looked tiny in Devereaux’s massive hand.

“Didn’t I tell you to block your caller ID?” Devereaux said. “I get a call, a hangup, and it’s your number. I hate hangups. What’s going on?”

“Everything’s fine,” Tom said. “Everything’s under control.”

Devereaux looked at Claire questioningly. “What’s up, Claire?”

Claire stared at him, her eyes desperate. “Ray,” she said.

And suddenly there was a series of explosions from somewhere behind Devereaux, one-two-three-four, and the front of his white shirt was stained blood-red. Claire screamed. Tom’s body coiled, his eyes alert. Devereaux groaned, grabbed his immense gut, then toppled forward and hit the floor. A great whoosh of air escaped his lungs, like an anguished sigh.

Screaming, she threw herself to the floor next to him, cradled his head. Saw he was alive but feeble with pain. Bright-red blood seeped down the front of his shirt.

Now she saw, entering the front door, Colonel James Hernandez, holding a large pistol. Hernandez was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt.

“Hey, Ronny, buddy,” Hernandez said. “Just like old times, huh?’”

Tom’s stance relaxed. “Fuck you, old times,” he said. “What did you have to go and testify about that dog stuff for, Jimbo? And that torture shit.”

Hernandez entered the foyer. “Come on, bud,” he said. “You knew Lentini’s fake tape would get the case thrown out. You never had anything to worry about, no matter what I said. I just didn’t want them going after me. And where’s my thank-you? I just saved your life.” He held up his left palm and Tom gave him a high-five.

“Like I saved yours in Nicaragua, Jimmy,” Tom said, with a grin.

Claire looked up, watched them in disbelief.

“Jimmy, you deal with the fat fuck here. Get this mess cleaned up. Claire and I have some business to discuss. Then you better get out of here. You’ve got a lot of people looking for you.” He put an arm around Hernandez. “That stunt with the jeep out in Maryland-you almost got my wife here killed. That was stupid. I needed her.”

“That wasn’t me,” Hernandez said. “Maybe some other Special Forces guys, but not-”

A sudden movement. A glint of light off Devereaux’s gun as his hand suddenly moved and a bullet exploded in Hernandez’s head. Hernandez sagged to his feet, quite obviously dead.

Tom spun around, startled by the gunfire, and, when he saw what had happened, he lunged toward his dead comrade.

At that moment, Claire felt something cold and hard nudge her, and realized that Devereaux was pressing his pistol into her right hand.

Tom saw the gun in her hand. He shook his head in disgust. “Sorry, Claire,” he said. His voice was flat, taunting. “No one’s here to help you now.”

She hesitated, looked back at him as if through fog. Her mouth moved but she could not speak.

She raised the pistol, getting to her feet as she did so. She could barely get her fingers around the grip to reach the trigger. Using both hands to steady it, she aimed at Tom’s chest.

Suddenly Tom reached down, grabbed Hernandez’s pistol, swept it upward until it was pointing at her. He smiled sweetly. His face transformed back into that of the wonderful man she had loved. “You don’t want to hurt me,” he said.

She shuddered. Her eyes would not focus.

His smile slowly faded. He was his old self-his new self? “You don’t know how to use that thing,” he said.

“We’ll see,” she said.

He watched her intently, then pulled the trigger.

There was a click.

She saw the realization in his eyes that the gun was out of bullets, that Hernandez had fired the last four rounds. He dropped the gun to the foyer floor and looked around, obviously searching for something to use in its place.

“Stop right there, Tom,” she said.

“You’re not going to fire that,” he said, his eyes still roaming the foyer. “You’re a lawyer. You work within the system. You play by the rules.” His body seemed to be coiling again. “I know you’ll do the right thing. For Annie.”

She saw his snake eyes a light on something. She followed his line of sight, saw it was a small marble sculpture on the hall table, and as he suddenly darted forward toward the table, she inhaled, then breathed out noisily. She shuddered. “You’re right,” she said, and she pulled the trigger. The gun recoiled backward, almost flew from her hand. A bright strawberry of blood appeared on his white shirt at the center of his chest. He sagged to the floor and emitted a horrible, low, animallike sound. She aimed again, and fired. The bullet exploded in his chest. His eyes stared, unseeing, and she knew he was dead.

Her hands began to tremble first, then her shoulders. Her entire body shook violently. She too slumped to the floor.

A great sob welled up in the back of her throat. The floodgates had opened, and the sobs had broken loose and were coming in powerful waves.

She saw that she was kneeling in a pool of Tom’s blood, seeping from the wounds in his chest. The fine gray wool of her skirt darkened as the stain spread.

In the distance the wail of sirens grew steadily louder. She caught a sulfurous waft of cordite, then the smell of blood, pungent and metallic, and as she cried she thought of Annie, who’d been no less trusting than she, whose life would never be the same, and yet, at the same moment, for the first time, she felt at peace.