High Crimes

23

Not even four in the morning, and the sky was indigo-black with just a trace of pink on the horizon. Dew was on the grass on the forlorn little hillock in front of the “defense shop,” the low white temporary-looking structure that served as Judge Advocate General defense offices at Quantico. It looked like a dressed-up Quonset hut.

Grimes had arrived first, in jeans, a sweatshirt, a black leather jacket out of Shaft. Claire wore jeans and a green Shetland sweater and a suede jacket. They stood in silence. A pair of guys in identical gray sweats and army T-shirts jogged by, huffing in rhythm. A car pulled up, a dark-gray Honda Civic. Captain Terry Embry’s car. Grimes and Claire looked at each other. They hadn’t seen him since that night at the bar; they hadn’t said anything to him either.

Embry got out and sprinted over. “Sorry,” he said.

“No problem,” Claire said. “No one else’s here yet.”

“Morning,” he said with a nod to Grimes. He was wearing his uniform, neatly pressed as always. His complexion was clear with a ruddy flush. She could smell his mouthwash when he talked. “Claire, ma’am, bad news on the general. His office finally got back to me on our request and said the general won’t be able to testify or even give a deposition. There’s been a change in his schedule. He has to fly to CINCPAC, Camp Smith, Hawaii. So he’s going to be totally out of reach from now through the 32 hearing.”

“Ask for a continuance until he gets back.”

“Yeah,” Grimes said, “but you won’t get it.” He grunted. “Asshole.”

“The good news is, I reached Hernandez for you, and he’s all set for an interview with us.”

“Thanks, Terry,” Claire said.

“But...” Embry faltered. “You remember he works in the Pentagon?”

“Yeah?”

Embry unlocked the front door and switched on the lights.

“Well, he’s the senior administrative officer to General Marks.”

“What?” Claire said.

“Yeah. Turns out Hernandez is, like, the general’s aide de camp. His XO, his executive officer. Handles personal business, scheduling, all that. He’s followed General Marks around everywhere since ’85. Totally loyal.”

“I’m sure he’s gonna tell the truth,” Grimes said sardonically. “He won’t cover for the general, oh no, not Hernandez.”

They followed Embry to a conference room, where he also switched on the lights there. “Want me to stay for this, or no?” Embry asked.

“Best if you don’t,” Claire said.

“Okay, then, if you guys don’t mind, I’d like to get back to my office at Fort Belvoir.”

“That’s fine,” Claire said. “Thanks.”

The polygrapher arrived fifteen minutes later, a stout, squat, bearded man in his late fifties wearing aviator horn-rimmed glasses. He carried a silvery metal briefcase. While he set up the instruments, he chatted. His name was Richard Givens. He had a deep, soothing voice. He spoke slowly, carefully, as if to a child, and in a soft-edged Southern accent. He was from Raleigh, North Carolina. He had attended polygraph school during his service with the Naval Investigative Service and had been an examiner with the navy at Newport, Rhode Island, and San Diego.

“Do you think there might be some more comfortable chairs anywhere around?” he asked. “Comfortable chairs would be a very good idea, if you have them.”

Grimes went out into the hallway and returned a minute later with a chair under each arm. “These okay?”

“Those would be great,” Givens said. He bustled around for a while. “I use a five-channel instrument,” he explained. “That means five pens moving on this spool of paper here. There’s three parameters — the pneumo, the cardio, and the galvanic. The pulse rate, the breathing pattern, and the galvanic skin response.”

“Can we stay in the room?” Grimes asked.

“If you want to,” he said. “But you’ll have to stand behind the prisoner. Out of his line of sight.”

“Fine,” Grimes said.

“The test I give,” Givens said, now stopped before Grimes, his short arms swaying awkwardly at his side, “is highly structured, very pure. Very dogmatic. First I will meet with the prisoner and talk until we feel comfortable with each other. I’ll go over the questions with him in advance, several times. He will know every question in advance. There will be no surprises. When I feel the test is complete, I will send both you and the prisoner out. Then I’ll go over the charts. Then I will call you back in first.”

Claire nodded. She sat in one of the comfortable chairs.

“If I find that deception is indicated — if he’s lying, in my opinion — I will tell you that. Please understand that my product remains confidential.

“Then I will call the prisoner in and give him a report as well. If he has failed the test, what I’ll tell him is that the test is not going to help him in any way. Then, if you want, I’ll begin the interrogation process. To elicit a confession.”

“We’ll let you know what we want when the time comes,” Claire said.

Givens looked at his watch. “The prisoner isn’t arriving for half an hour, is that right? Not till oh-five?”

“Right.”

“Good. Now I need to find out from you the exact parameters you’re interested in finding out about.”

Claire and Grimes watched Tom — he was still Tom to her, whatever his official name — arrive in a white panel van. Wearing a khaki uniform and full restraints, he was escorted out of the van by several armed brig guards. They took him, jingling loudly, down the hall. One guard stationed himself outside the window of the conference room. Another stood in the hallway outside the door. Still another removed Tom’s restraints and then joined the one standing outside the door.

“Tom, this is Richard Givens,” Claire said, introducing the two as if at a cocktail party. “Richard, this is — Ronald Kubik.” They were about to go through a truth-telling examination. She would use his true name. It had the unintended side effect, however, of making him seem a different person.

“How do you do, Ronald,” Givens said as they shook hands. He sat down in one of the comfortable chairs and gestured for Tom to do the same. They conversed for a long while. Givens had suddenly become warm and convivial, no longer didactic. The shift was startling. Tom had begun their talk wary, but after a while his reserve had melted and he was his usual amiable self.

“Ronald, have you ever been polygraphed before?” Givens asked.

“Yes, I have,” Tom said.

“When was that?”

“At several points before and during my service with Detachment 27.”

“Then you were given the test the army uses. It’s called the Zone of Comparison Test. It’s a very simple test, a very good test. That’s the test I’m going to give you this morning. I don’t know how the examiner who gave you the test worked, but when I give the polygraph, there are no surprises. No surprise questions. In fact, you and I are going to draw up a list of questions, and then we’re going to go over it, okay?”

“Okay.”

“No surprises. No ambushes. All very friendly, okay?”

“Okay. Sounds good to me.”

“Now, Professor Heller, Mr. Grimes, could you come around here? I need you to stand out of Ronald’s sight. No distractions, please.”

They both moved around to where Givens was standing. Claire’s pulse quickened — a sympathetic reaction to what her husband was experiencing?

“Is your name Ronald Kubik?” Givens asked. His voice had become once again slow and deliberate and monotonous.

“Yes.” Tom’s voice was clear and strong.

There was a long silence. Claire counted at least fifteen seconds. Had Givens forgotten what came next?

“Regarding your presence at the incident at La Colina on 22 June 1985, will you answer my questions truthfully?”

“Yes.”

Another long pause. Grimes looked at Claire.

“Are you convinced I will not ask a surprise question on this test?” Givens asked.

“Yes.”

Claire counted fifteen seconds again. The long silence was intentional.

“Before your enlistment in the army, did you ever deliberately injure anyone?”

“No.”

“Did you actively participate in the death of anyone during the 22 June 1985 shootings?” Claire held her breath. She felt everything inside freeze. Even her heart seemed to stop beating.

“No.” Tom’s reply was loud and clear and strong. She exhaled silently. She squinted, trying to make sense of the pen-scratchings on the unspooling paper, but couldn’t.

“Following your desertion from the army in 1985, did you ever deliberately commit bodily harm to anyone?”

“No.”

Eighteen seconds this time.

“Did you take part in the shootings on 22 June 1985 in the village of La Colina, El Salvador?”

Tom’s reply came more quickly this time. “No.”

Sixteen seconds. Claire found herself following the jerky little movement of the second hand on her watch.

“Is there something else you’re afraid I’ll ask you a question about, even though I told you I would not?”

“No.”

Fifteen seconds precisely.

“Have you ever threatened a loved one with bodily harm?”

“No.” Seventeen seconds of silence.

“Did you see any civilians die on 22 June 1985 in the village of La Colina?”

“No.”

Fifteen seconds, then twenty. The longest pause yet. “Thank you, Ronald,” Givens said. “We’re done now.”

Grimes knocked on the door. It was opened, and the two guards came in. They put the restraints back on Tom. They took him out into the hallway, and Claire and Grimes followed. Grimes and Claire sat in front of the stenographers’ office. Tom stood with his guards on either side. They all waited in silence, five minutes, which seemed forever.

Givens opened the door. “Professor Heller, Mr. Grimes, could I talk to you, please?”

They entered the room. Her heart thudded. She felt prickly perspiration under her ears.

He waited until they had both sat down. He didn’t seem to be interested in generating suspense; he seemed to be following some script, moving through it with plodding deliberateness.

“Well,” Grimes said, “is he a lying motherfucker?”

Claire wanted to throttle him.

Givens did not smile.

“In my opinion, he is telling the truth. My report will state NDI. No deception indicated.”

“Aha,” Claire said, calm and professional on the surface. Inside she was elated. Not since Annie’s birth had she actually experienced such a physical, biological sensation of elation: a great swelling inside her rib cage, the feeling that her organs, her heart and lungs, had lifted several inches. At the same time she felt an immediate easing of tension. “Thank you,” she said. “When can we expect your report?”

24

The courtroom where the hearing was to take place was a windowless underground chamber, newly constructed, beneath the basement level of one of the buildings on the Quantico grounds not far from the FBI Academy. It had been specially built for security-classified meetings, courts-martial, and other proceedings, and was intended for the use of all four branches of military service. Two MPs stood guard before the steel stairway that descended to the steel double doors that locked by means of electronic cipher locks. It was extremely secure.

Shortly before nine in the morning — 0900 hours — Claire and Grimes met in front of the red-brick building. She wore a navy suit, conservative — nothing too stylish or flashy. Grimes, she was pleased to see, was in a suit as well: double-breasted, pinstriped, elegant.

“I don’t want Embry speaking,” she said.

“I don’t either.”

“And I want you to start off with the first witness. I’ll observe.”

“Fine.”

“You look good.”

“Surprised, huh?”

“Yeah. Let’s go.” They entered the building and descended to the basement, then waited for the steel doors to the subbasement to be unlocked. The sleek, modern room was low-ceilinged, about twenty by thirty feet. The floors were gray linoleum over concrete; the walls were poured concrete as well. Otherwise, it looked exactly like every other courtroom in the world, with a raised judge’s bench and witness chair, a jury box (ten seats instead of twelve, but empty, because there would be no jury at this hearing), a long table for defense and one for prosecution. The furniture — the witness and jury chairs, the spectators’ chairs, the tables — was modern and tasteful, blond wood and gray upholstering. An American flag hung from a pole next to the bench, on which was mounted a brass armed-forces seal. On the wall in back of the jury box was a large clock. The quality of sound in here was curiously deadened: the chamber was, of course, soundproofed.

Claire was surprised to see four or five unsmiling spectators already in place, uniformed men wearing security badges on white plastic-beaded chains around their necks. None of them she recognized. Why were they here, and how were they allowed in such a secret proceeding?

“I thought this was a closed hearing,” Claire muttered to Grimes.

“Spectators are allowed if they have top-secret clearance.”

“Who are they?”

Grimes shrugged. “Lot of people in the Pentagon are watching this case closely.”

Claire, who’d done hundreds of trials and observed even more, couldn’t help feeling nervous. Her throat was parched. She looked around for some water. Sure enough, a glass pitcher was already in place on the defense table. She poured some water for herself and Grimes, then set down her briefcase and opened it to remove her carefully indexed file folders. Stuffed inside was a honey-colored, fuzzy Winnie-the-Pooh doll, a little gift, a message from Annie. She smiled, almost laughed out loud with pleasure.

A few minutes later Major Lucas Waldron entered, tall and lanky and dour, accompanied by his associate trial counsel, whose name, she’d been told, was Captain Philip Hogan. They were both uniformed and carrying identical bulky leather briefcases. Waldron saw Claire and Grimes and nodded at them as he and Hogan approached the prosecution’s table.

“The gang’s almost all here,” Grimes said. “Where’s the man?”

“He should be here any second,” Claire said. She saw the steel doors open and, sure enough, Tom entered, flanked by two guards. He wore a sharp, dress-green uniform. She was stunned to see him in it: it fit him perfectly, he seemed a natural in it. His ankle restraints, handcuffs, and chain belt looked like some strange funky jewelry. His shirt was immaculately pressed but was noticeably too large at the neck. He’d lost weight. He looked pale.

He looked around the room anxiously until he saw Claire, then smiled. Claire gave him a wave. He was ushered to the vacant chair between Claire and Grimes.

At three minutes before nine, Embry entered, in his dress-green uniform, and rushed over to them. “Sorry,” he said, as he sat next to Grimes.

“Late night?” Grimes said.

Embry shook his head, smiled pleasantly. “Car trouble.”

“You friendly with the prosecution?” Grimes asked suddenly. Claire winced. She’d asked him not to confront Embry, not yet.

“Not especially. Why?”

“Because, if I learn that you’ve leaked anything to them, and I mean anything, no matter how trivial or stupid, I’ll have you disbarred, and then I’ll have your testicles marinating in a pickle jar in my office, next to my bowling trophies.”

“What’s all this about?” Embry said, hurt.

Grimes looked over, saw the investigating officer enter the courtroom from his chambers. “We can talk about it later. It’s showtime.”

“This Article 32 hearing will come to order. I am Lieutenant Colonel Robert T. Holt. As you know, I have been appointed as the investigating officer under Article 32 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.” Lieutenant Colonel Holt was a career army man of around fifty, a JAG officer with clearance. Even from his seat on the bench he appeared tall; he was thin, with receding black hair, a high forehead crowning a long, narrow, pinched face. He wore squarish wire-rim glasses. His voice was husky, high, his cadences matter-of-fact. In front of him, at a low table, sat the court reporter, a stout middle-aged woman, whispering into a black rubber steno mask.

“The purpose of this investigation is to inquire into the truth and form of the charges sworn against Sergeant First Class Ronald M. Kubik, United States Armed Forces. Copies of these charges — and the order appointing this investigation — have been provided to the accused, counsel for the accused, counsel for the United States, and reporter. Sergeant First Class Kubik, have you seen these charges against you?”

He sat between Claire and Grimes at the defense table. His shackles had been removed. “Yes, sir, I have.”

“You understand you have been charged with eighty-seven specifications of murder, which is a capital crime.”

“I do.”

“You are advised you have the right to cross-examine any witnesses produced against you at this hearing. All right, now to the first order of business. Have the nondisclosure statements been signed by both trial counsel and defense counsel?”

“Yes, they have,” Waldron said.

“They have,” Grimes said.

“You all understand that anything that is said in this hearing, anything that happens here, may not be divulged outside this room.”

“We do,” Waldron said.

Grimes got to his feet. “Yes, sir, we do, but we want to assert that, by signing the statement of nondisclosure, we are in no way waiving our right to a public trial as guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. The government has made no showing whatsoever as to why these proceedings should be classified.”

Lieutenant Colonel Holt peered at him for a few seconds and cleared his throat. “Your assertion has been noted for the record.”

Now Major Waldron rose. “Mr. Investigating Officer, the accused doesn’t need a public proceeding to get a fair hearing. As long as the defense has a full and complete opportunity to hear all the evidence, the public doesn’t have to know about it.”

“Thank you, Major,” Holt said.

Waldron remained standing. “Sir, moreover, this is a CIPA case” — he referred to the Classified Information Procedures Act — “involving national security and classified information.”

“Moreover,” Grimes mocked in a priggish whisper.

“Yet the government has reason to believe that the defense may attempt to ‘graymail’ the government,” Waldron continued, “by threatening to leak classified information, in order to obtain an unfair advantage in this court. Or they may even be planning to selectively leak information to try to sway public opinion in their favor — which would be a total violation of the nondisclosure forms they have signed. I’d like to request that, in the interest of the fairness of this proceeding, you order the defense counsel not to make any leaks to the press.”

Claire and Grimes stared at each other, astonished. How much did Waldron know about their intentions — and was it Embry who had told them? Who else could it be?

“Uh, yes,” Colonel Holt said. “Counsel, you are reminded that this is a classified proceeding and you are counseled not to make any statements to the press.”

Claire stood up. “Sir, I appreciate your admonition, but as you well know, my cocounsel Mr. Grimes and I, as civilians, are not subject to your orders. I’m sure my military cocounsel, Captain Embry, will abide by your orders. But we have all signed a nondisclosure-of-classified-information form, and we intend to abide by that agreement. Anything else concerning this matter that you choose to instruct us with, sir, we will take for informational purposes only.”

The investigating officer glowered at her. After a significant pause, he muttered, “So noted. Does government counsel have, at this time, a list of prospective witnesses they intend to call?”

Captain Phil Hogan replied, “Mr. Investigating Officer, at this point the government anticipates calling Colonel James Hernandez and Chief Warrant Officer Four Stanley Oshman.”

“Who’s that last one?” Claire whispered to Grimes.

Grimes shrugged. “No idea,” he said.

“Okay, Captain Hogan, Major Waldron, would you like to begin your case in chief?”

Waldron stood. “Sir, the government offers Investigative Exhibits 2 through 21, copies of which have been provided to defense counsel for inspection and possible objection, and requests that they be considered by the investigating officer.”

“Defense counsel?” Colonel Holt asked.

“Uh, yes, sir,” Grimes said. “We object to the admission of Investigative Exhibit 3, a CID statement regarding my client’s alleged misconduct involving a neighbor in North Carolina in 1984.”

“On what grounds?”

“On the grounds that it deals with uncharged misconduct that’s not relevant to this case. It’s also improper character evidence. No charge was ever filed over this alleged incident — which we dispute anyway — and the statute of limitations has expired. Therefore, we object under Military Rule of Evidence 404(b) and 403. This uncharged misconduct has no relevance whatsoever on whether my client murdered eighty-seven civilians in El Salvador. The government is simply and obviously attempting to admit this phony evidence for the sole purpose of impugning my client’s reputation at this hearing.”

“Trial counsel, how is this relevant?” Holt asked.

“Sir,” Waldron replied, “we’re offering this other act of killing, the killing of a dog, not to show the accused’s propensity—”

“Hold on,” Holt said. “The killing of a dog?”

“Alleged,” Tom whispered. Indeed, Devereaux had been unable to get any information on the incident, or on the alleged neighbor.

“Yes, sir,” Waldron continued. “Not to show the accused’s propensity to commit murder, but that the accused is able to form a premeditated design to kill.”

Whatever that means, Claire thought.

There was a long silence.

“I’m going to agree with defense counsel,” Holt said at last. “This is an extrinsic act of misconduct that’s not relevant to any of the elements of the charged offense, and I am not going to consider them. Trial counsel, you may not present that evidence.”

“Yes, sir,” Waldron said neutrally, betraying no disappointment.

Grimes smiled. “We also object to Investigative Exhibits 6 through 11,” he said. “The sworn CID statements allegedly given by six other members of my client’s Special Forces unit, Detachment 27. It ain’t easy to cross-examine pieces of paper. Where are these other six men?”

“Trial counsel?” Holt said.

“Sir, several of these men are deceased. As for the others, we are only required to produce witnesses who are ‘reasonably available,’ that is, located within one hundred miles of the site of the hearing. The others are at the moment unavailable under Rules of Courts-Martial four oh five golf one alpha.”

Holt hesitated. “All right. I’m willing to consider these sworn statements alone. If there are no further objections, trial counsel, you may call your first witness.”

Waldron called out — sang out, really: “The government calls Colonel James Hernandez.”

25

Colonel James Hernandez, the general’s aide de camp, was short but powerfully built, with short curly black hair, a thin mustache, and swarthy skin. Under his right eye was a scar. He had the slightest trace of a Cuban accent. As he spoke, he gripped the railing in front of the witness stand.

“They begged for mercy,” he said. “They said they weren’t rebels.”

“And what did Sergeant Kubik do while he was machine-gunning them down?” Waldron asked.

“What did he do?”

“Did he react in any way?”

“Well, he smiled, sort of.”

“Smiled? As if he were enjoying himself?”

“Objection!” Claire called out. She felt Grimes’s restraining hand on her arm. “This witness can’t possibly testify as to whether Sergeant Kubik was enjoying himself—”

“Uh, Ms. Chapman,” Colonel Holt said, “this isn’t a regular court-martial. This is an Article 32 hearing. That means that none of the rules of evidence apply here. The only thing we go by are the military rules of procedure for Article 32 pretrial investigations.”

“Your Honor—”

“And I’m not Your Honor, much as I’d like to be. You can call me ‘Sir,’ or ‘Mr. Investigating Officer,’ but I’m not Your Honor. Now, are you going to be cross-examining this witness, when the time comes?”

“I am, sir,” said Grimes.

“Well, then, counsel, I don’t see why you’re objecting anyway. Mr. Grimes here should be the one objecting. We have a rule here — one counsel, one witness. No tag teams. Understood?”

“Understood,” said Claire with a half-smile. She whispered to Grimes, “Sorry.”

“I have nothing further,” Waldron said.

Grimes got to his feet. Standing just in front of the defense table, he said: “Colonel Hernandez, when you were contacted in regard to this 32 hearing, were you threatened with charges if you didn’t cooperate?”

“No,” Hernandez said.

“You weren’t coerced in any way?”

“No, I was not.” He gave Grimes a direct, confrontational stare.

“I see,” Grimes said, as if he clearly didn’t believe him. “And when you were interviewed by the CID in 1985, in regard to this incident at La Colina, were you pressured in any way by CID?”

“Back in 1985?”

“Right.”

“No, I was not.”

“No one threatened you with charges if you didn’t cooperate — complicity, involvement in the alleged crimes, conspiracy to commit murder, even murder?”

“No one.”

“No threats whatsoever?”

“None.” He jutted his chin as if to say, So there.

“So this was a completely voluntary statement?”

“Correct.”

“Now, you work for General William Marks, the chief of staff of the army, is that right?”

“Yes. I’m his executive officer.”

“Did he ask you to give a statement?”

“No. I did it on my own.”

“He didn’t coerce you in any way?”

“No, sir.”

“You’re not afraid of harming your career if you say anything critical of the general?”

Hernandez hesitated. “If I had anything critical to say, I’m required to say it. I’m under oath. But he did nothing wrong.”

“Aha. Now, tell me something, Colonel. When you saw Sergeant Kubik discharge his weapon at the civilians, did you personally try to stop him?”

Now Hernandez eyed him suspiciously. Was this a lawyer trick? “No,” he finally said.

“You didn’t?”

“No.”

“Who did try to stop him?”

Hernandez hesitated again. He sat forward in his seat. He looked over at Waldron and company. “I don’t know. I didn’t see anyone try to stop him.”

“Hmm,” Grimes said. He took a few steps closer. He shrugged and said conversationally, “So you didn’t actually see anyone try to stop him?”

“No, I did not.”

“And, Colonel, since General Marks — then Colonel Marks — was back at headquarters at this time, you were in charge, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Colonel Hernandez, how long have you worked for General Marks?”

“Since 1985.”

“That’s quite some time. He must trust you enormously.”

“I hope so, sir.”

“You’d take a bullet for the general.”

“If given the chance, yes, sir, I would.”

“You’d lie for him, too, wouldn’t you?”

“Objection!” Waldron shouted.

“Withdrawn,” Grimes said. “Okay, now, Colonel Hernandez, I’m going to take you step by step through this incident. We’re going to very slowly explore every single detail, just so’s I don’t miss anything, okay?”

Hernandez shrugged.

In mind-numbing detail, for two hundred questions or more, Grimes took the witness through every point he could think of. It was like watching a movie frame by frame. Where was he standing? What did Sergeant Major so-and-so say?

Then, suddenly, Grimes seemed to veer off course. “Colonel Hernandez, did you consider yourself a friend of Ronald Kubik’s?”

Hernandez’s eyes snaked over to Waldron for a moment. He looked sullen. He opened his mouth, then closed it.

“You can tell us the truth,” Grimes prompted, walking away from the witness stand, back toward the defense table.

“No, I did not.”

“You didn’t much like him, did you?”

“I thought he was twisted.”

Grimes stopped and whirled around. “Twisted?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Twisted like sick-twisted?”

“Yeah. Sick.”

“Oh?” Grimes looked curious. “And how was he sick?”

“He was a sadist. He loved to kill.”

“In combat, you mean.”

Hernandez looked confused. “Yeah, when else?”

“You didn’t kill people outside of combat, did you?”

“No. Outside of a designated operation, which wasn’t necessarily combat.”

“I see. So, during a designated operation, he loved to kill.”

“That’s right.”

“Which was his job — your job.”

“Only part of the time—”

“Part of the time it was your job to kill people.”

“Right.”

“And he was good at it. In fact, he loved it.”

“Correct.”

“Would you say Ronald Kubik was a good soldier?”

“What he did was illegal—”

“I’m not asking about what happened on June 22, 1985. I’m asking you, up until that point, up until that night, would you say Ron Kubik was a credit to the Special Forces?”

Hernandez looked trapped and resentful. “Yes.”

“He was really good.”

“Yeah,” Hernandez conceded. “He was so fearless it was scary. He was one of the best guys we had.”

“That’s all I’ve got for this witness,” Grimes said.

“As it’s lunchtime,” Colonel Holt announced, “we will recess for an hour and a half, until fourteen hundred hours.” A rustle, oddly dampened by the soundproofing, arose, along with a flat babble of excited voices. The few spectators got to their feet. Waldron headed for the exit; Hogan, his cocounsel, lagged behind, doing something at the prosecution table. The steel doors opened.

Tom gave Claire a hug and said, “We’re doing great, don’t you think?”

“We’re doing okay,” Claire said. “I think. What do I know?”

At that moment, Hogan brushed by the defense table. When he was next to Tom, he whispered: “You know we’ll get you, you sick fuck, one way or another. In court or out.”

Tom’s eyes widened, but he said nothing. Claire, who had overheard the remark, felt a surge of adrenaline, but then she too said nothing.

Tom held out his wrists for cuffing. The restraints were put back on him and he was led away, back to the brig for a meal in his cell.

Embry came around the table and reached to shake Grimes’s hand in congratulation. Grimes didn’t meet it. He leaned over and spoke to Embry in a low, menacing voice. “What the fuck did you tell them about leaking to the press?”

Embry’s hand dropped slowly to his side. His face darkened almost to purple.

“We saw you, Embry. We saw you having beers with Waldron and company.”

“Yeah? Well, that’s all it was. Beers. I work with these guys, you know. They’re colleagues. I have to live with them, work with them, long after you guys are gone.”

“And that’s why you feel free to divulge confidences to them?” Claire asked.

“Now he’s got you thinking this way? I didn’t tell them a thing, Claire. Not a thing. I never would. It’s unprofessional and it would just get me in trouble. Plus it would make me look like a chump. Anyway, why should I tell them I was party to a conspiracy to violate nondisclosure? That would just get me in a heap of trouble.”

He turned, looking wounded, and walked off.

“You believe him?” Grimes asked.

“I don’t know who to believe anymore,” Claire said. “Let’s get lunch. My car is parked really close. There’s a McDonald’s nearby.”

“I’d go for McDonald’s.”

“Is there a McDonald’s on every army base in the world?”

“Or Burger King.”

On the way to the car, when she was satisfied no one was within earshot, Claire said: “I don’t understand why you didn’t trap him, Grimes. In his statement he says something like, We all tried to stop him. But on the stand he backed down from that. That’s a major contradiction! Why didn’t you bring out that inconsistency?”

“Because that’s not the point of this proceeding,” Grimes said. “We’re looking to lock the witness into his story. Get it on paper. We’re not trying to impeach him here.”

“Explain.”

“Don’t blow your wad at the 32. We’re going to trial, we both know that. So hold our ammo in reserve to blow holes in him at the trial. We treat this hearing like a discovery deposition. Don’t confront the witness with his inconsistencies. Not here. Maybe we’ll point them out at the closing, but I’d rather we didn’t do it even then. Save the big guns for the trial.”

She shook her head at the curiousness of the military system.

“Look,” Grimes explained, “it’s like those different kinds of mousetraps, okay? There’s them sticky-glue traps where the mouse gets stuck to it and keeps wriggling around, alive, and you got to pick it up and throw it away. And then there’s the old-fashioned snap-trap that crushes the little bugger in half a second — breaks his back. A 32 is like a glue trap. You get the witness to poke his little paws in the glue so he’s stuck there, wriggling but alive. You don’t crush the fuckers yet.”

“Yeah, well, I wanted to crush the fucker.”

“Because you’re defending your husband. That’s not the way the system works. That would have been ill-advised.”

She flushed hotly, realizing that he was right. She wasn’t being objective. How could her feelings for Tom not hinder the way she tried this case?

She unlocked the passenger side of the rented car first, and they both got in. The instant she switched on the ignition, they were engulfed by an enormously loud sound, the blare of the car radio, turned up all the way.

“Man, you trying to kill me?” Grimes shouted. “I just sustained permanent hearing loss. I didn’t know you were the musical type.”

She switched it off. “Jesus, what was that?”

“Marilyn Manson, I think. I don’t know. I don’t listen to that shit either, don’t ask me.”

“I didn’t put that on,” she said. “I never listen to the radio.”

“Maybe you brushed it on by accident or something.”

“I would have heard it go on. Believe me, I didn’t put the radio on. Someone else did.”

“A warning,” Grimes said. “Telling you they can get into your car or your home, anytime they want, so watch it.”

“Subtle,” she said.

26

“Your last witness, trial counsel?” Holt said.

“Mr. Investigating Officer,” Waldron said, “I have some testimony that’s not relevant now, which I’ve prepared in response to what I anticipate the defense will put on.” Grimes looked at Claire, puzzled. “So, rather than keep Chief Warrant Officer Four Stanley Oshman around for another day and a half, I’d like to put him on now.”

“Defense, do you have any objections?” asked Holt.

Claire whispered to Grimes, “You didn’t find out who this guy is?”

“No luck,” Grimes whispered back. “It’s okay, we’ll get to cross him, help us put on our case.” Aloud, he said, “We have no objection.”

“I call as my next witness Chief Warrant Officer Oshman,” Waldron announced, “a polygraph examiner assigned to Fort Bragg.”

The courtroom stirred.

“What the hell is this?” Grimes said aloud. He looked at Claire and then at Embry. “What the hell is this?”

Chief Warrant Officer Stanley Oshman, slight and owlish in thick glasses, with receding blond hair, in his early forties, got up from one of the spectator seats. He had been there all along, observing. He made his way to the witness stand and was sworn in. Waldron moved swiftly through the preliminaries while Claire and Grimes watched in dull horror.

“Chief Warrant Officer Oshman,” Waldron asked, “in addition to your day-to-day responsibilities, what do you do with the Special Forces units you work with at Fort Bragg?”

“I teach them to beat the box,” Oshman said.

“Beat the box? What does that mean?”

“I teach them techniques — tricks, if you will — that enable them to beat a polygraph, in case they’re captured and interrogated behind enemy lines.”

Aloud, but ostensibly to himself, Grimes said, “Wait one goddamned second.”

“So it’s your testimony here today,” Waldron continued, “that certain Special Forces officers, like Ronald Kubik, can beat the polygraph.”

“That’s correct. He certainly can.”

“That, if he’s given a polygraph, he knows how to give the answers he wishes to, whether truthful or not, and yet most polygraph examiners will conclude that no deception is indicated.”

“That’s correct.”

Too loudly, Grimes said, “Jesus fucking Christ. Our guy can just goddamn well go home now.”

“Are you accusing me of leaking again?” Embry asked after the hearing was over. “Is that what you’re implying?”

“I’m not implying, I’m saying,” Grimes fulminated. “You got another explanation how Waldron knew we were going to call our polygrapher, introduce the results of the polygraph? You got another explanation, dude?”

“I have no explanation.” Even Embry’s ears were flushed. “I was just as shocked as you—”

“Oh, were you, really?” Grimes said.

“Give him a chance to talk,” Claire said.

“For what?” Grimes said bitterly. “So he can stand here and bullshit us? The prosecution just successfully knocked out our ace. You think anyone’s going to pay attention to an exculpatory polygraph taken by a guy trained to beat the box?”

Claire instinctively turned to Tom, then remembered he’d just been taken back to the brig.

“Fine,” Embry said. “I see where this is going. I can see you don’t really care what I have to say. So I’m going to make it easy for you. I’m withdrawing.”

He turned and began striding away.

“You’re still subject to attorney-client confidentiality, you asshole,” Grimes called after him. He muttered, “Not like it ever stopped you, sorry-ass motherfucker.”

Embry joined the exodus of spectators and lawyers from the courtroom. From a distance, Waldron approached the defense table. Claire wondered how much he had overheard. It wouldn’t take particularly sensitive ears to hear the heated exchange.

When he was a few feet away, Waldron spoke directly to Claire. “Captain Embry didn’t tell me anything. You owe him an apology. This is a small world, and things get around.”

Claire chose not to give him the satisfaction of pursuing the matter. Instead she said, sweetly, “Maybe you can enlighten me about something. What’s the point of conducting a trial if it’s going to be held behind closed doors? I mean, I’ve always taught that a trial is held for the purposes of demonstrating to the public that justice is being done. So where’s the public? Five anonymous guys with top-secret clearances?”

“Take it up with the secretary of the army,” Waldron said.

“I just may,” Claire replied. “But it’s clear to me that the only justification for keeping this whole business so top secret is to keep certain persons from being embarrassed. There’s clearly no real national-security justification, given that the events we’re talking about are thirteen years old.”

“The national security—” Waldron began.

“It’s just us here talking,” Claire said. “No investigating officer to play to. Just us. So we can be honest. You see, I really don’t quite get the point of putting my husband through a court-martial. Why didn’t you guys just lock him away in a loony bin?”

“That’s actually where he belongs,” Waldron shot back. “Your husband is a sociopath, a twisted, sick bastard. He demonstrated that as an assassin in Vietnam. He was a legend, a sicko legend in that covert world. But he was brilliant, he spoke a bunch of different languages and dialects perfectly, and he had no compunction about killing his fellow human beings. He was perfect for the military’s purposes. Just like the U.S. government hired those Nazis at the end of World War Two. Only the Pentagon thought they could control Kubik. But he lost it.”

“Ask yourself what the brass really want,” Claire said. “Say whatever lies you want to about my husband; the folks at the top really just want to keep all this buried. They want to make sure the fact of a U.S. massacre in El Salvador never becomes public. And we’re prepared to agree to that. You drop the charges now, and we’ll agree to complete secrecy. In writing if you want. Nothing will ever come out. But if you let this go to court-martial, you’ll destroy the chief of staff of the army. This I promise you. And I’ll go public with the story — the whole world will know. You’ve gotta ask yourself, do you really want that? He goes down, you do too.”

Waldron smiled. It was an unpleasant, feral smile, the smile of someone who rarely did. “I really don’t give a shit who wants to cover their ass. Or who goes down. My job here is to prosecute a mass murderer, to get him put in Leavenworth for the rest of his pointless life. And preferably executed. That’s my job. And I’ll do it happily. I’ll see you at trial.”

27

Cleaning up the kitchen after dinner, Claire and Jackie talked. Annie was getting ready for bed, brushing her teeth. Claire, exhausted and ruminative, rinsed off the dishes while Jackie loaded the dishwasher.

“Will someone please explain to me what the deal is with Eeyore?” Jackie said. “I mean, give the poor donkey some Prozac, you know?”

Claire nodded, smiled.

“And this Kubik thing. I can’t call him Ron,” Jackie said. “That’s fucked up.”

“I can’t either. I don’t know what to call him, and there’s something kind of symbolic about that. It’s as if he’s a different person, only I don’t know who or what he is. I see him for five minutes before the hearing starts, we talk business. It’s all business. He says I did a good job, or he asks me something procedural. I go to visit him in the brig, and we talk about the case. All business.”

“Isn’t that the way it should be? You’re defending him, you’re his lawyer, his life is on the line.”

“Yes, you’re right. But he’s not there somehow.”

“Anyone would be scared out of their mind. You mind if I ask something — did you get the polygraph results admitted?”

“Yeah, sure. But it was damaged goods. If I were the investigating officer, I’d think he beat the box because he was trained to do it.”

“And what do you think? I hate this dishwasher.”

“About what?”

“About whether he ‘beat the box’ — whether he pulled one over on the examiner?”

“How can I answer that? He could have — I mean, he apparently knows how to. Yet I don’t think he’d have to — he’s innocent.”

“Okay,” Jackie said guardedly.

“It’s maddening. I’ve defended enough cases against the government where the government persecuted someone or scapegoated someone — a whistle-blower, whatever — so I know how they can do these things. How corrupt they can be. I once defended this guy who was fired from the EPA for whistle-blowing, basically, about this toxic-waste site. And it turned out his supervisor had forged and backdated personnel records, evaluations, to make it look like the guy’d had a drinking problem. When in fact he’d been a model employee. So I’ve seen this stuff happen.”

Jackie turned over one of the hand-painted ceramic dinner plates. “These are cool,” she said. “I’m surprised they’re letting us use them. You think they’re supposed to go in the dishwasher?”

“They didn’t say not to.”

“Can I be straight with you?”

“What?”

“Look, two months ago we both basically thought Tom Chapman was just this great guy — macho, good-looking, great at everything. Real guy guy. Good provider, great dad, great husband, right?”

“Yeah? So?”

“So now we know he was hiding from us. He’s got a different name, he has this creepy secret past—”

“Jackie—”

“No, wait. Whatever the truth is about these murderers, he was a member of this top-secret military unit that parachutes into places or whatever, into some foreign country where they’re not supposed to be, carrying false ID, shoots the place up, then pulls out. I mean, you want to talk about symbolic? He parachutes into your life out of nowhere, takes it over, carrying false ID—”

“Very clever.” Claire began scrubbing, with deep concentration, the detritus of Annie’s Alpha-Bits cereal encrusted on a bowl.

“And we don’t really know who he is.”

“Whatever they throw at him, he’s still the man I fell in love with.”

Jackie stopped and turned to look directly at Claire. “But you don’t know who that man is. He’s not the man you thought he was — he’s not the man you loved.”

“Oh, now, what does that mean, really? When you come right down to it? I wasn’t being fatuous or naïve when I said he’s the man I fell in love with. Whoever he is, I got to know him as he was, for what he was. I loved him — love him — for who he is, who I know him to be. Everyone has a past, everyone conceals something. No one’s ever totally open about their past, whether they’re hiding stuff intentionally or not, whether it’s their sexuality or—”

“And there you go, rationalizing it.” Jackie raised her voice. “You don’t know, bottom line, who he is and whether he did what they say he did—”

“I know he didn’t do what they’re charging!”

“You don’t know anything about him, Claire. If he could lie to you about his family, his parents, his childhood, his college, practically his whole fucking life, do you really think he couldn’t lie to you about this?”

Annie was standing at the entrance to the kitchen in her Pooh pajamas, sucking her thumb for the first time in years.

“Annie!” Claire said.

Annie removed her thumb with a liquid pop. She looked sullenly, suspiciously at her mother. “Why are you and Aunt Jackie fighting?”

“We’re not fighting, baby. We’re talking. We’re discussing.”

Accusingly, Annie said: “You sound like you’re fighting.”

“We’re just talking, kiddo,” Jackie said. To Claire she added: “I’m going to smoke a cigarette.”

“Outside, please,” Claire said. “I may well join you after Annie goes to bed.”

“I’ve created a monster,” Jackie said.

“No, you’re not tucking me in,” Annie told her mother. “Jackie is.”

“Oh, but can I? I hardly ever see you anymore — I miss you!”

“No,” Annie said loudly. “I don’t want you to tuck me in. I want Jackie to.”

Jackie turned back. “Kiddo, let your mommy tuck you in.”

Claire added, “Sweetie, your mommy—”

“No! You go work! Jackie will do it! Go away!” She ran out of the kitchen, her feet pounding up the staircase to the second floor.

Claire looked at Jackie, who shrugged.

“Go for it,” Jackie said. “You can’t blame the kid.”

Annie’s temporary bedroom was a guest room whose only personalizing touch was the toys she’d scattered about the floor.

Annie had already climbed into bed, looking at Madeline and the Bad Hat, sucking her thumb furiously. “Go away,” she said when Claire entered.

“Honey,” Claire said softly, approaching the bed and kneeling next to it.

Annie pulled out her thumb. “Go away! Go work!”

“Can I read to you? I’d really love to.”

“Well, I don’t want you to, so you can just go away.”

She replaced her thumb in her mouth, staring balefully at the book.

“Can I talk to you?”

Annie ignored her.

“Please, baby. I want to talk to you.”

Annie’s eyes didn’t leave the book.

“I know you’re upset with me. I haven’t been a good mommy at all, I know that. I’m so sorry.”

Annie’s eyes seemed to soften for an instant; then she lowered her brows, frowned. Still she said nothing. Claire had told her that her daddy was on trial, but how much did she really understand?

“I’ve been so busy trying to get Daddy out. I’m out of the house early, and I come home late, and I’m exhausted, and we haven’t done any of the things we always do. And I want you to know that I love you so much. More than anyone in the world. I do. And when this is all over, we’re just going to play together a lot, and go to the zoo, and get ice cream, and mostly just be together like we used to.”

Annie pulled the blankets up to her chin. Without moving her eyes from the book, she said sullenly, almost demanding: “When’s Daddy coming home?”

“Soon, I think. I hope.”

A pause; then Annie said grudgingly, “Jackie says he’s in jail.”

Claire hesitated. She was loath to lie to her anymore, and right now Annie, ferociously observant like all small children, appeared almost to be daring Claire to tell the truth.

“He is, but it’s a mistake.”

Annie frowned again. “What’s jail like?” She seemed to be demanding the details, as proof of Claire’s credibility.

“Well, they keep him in a room, and they give him his supper there, and they give him books.”

“Isn’t there bars and locks and everything?” Annie asked warily.

“Yes, there are bars.”

“Is he sad?”

“He’s sad he can’t be with you.”

“Can I go see him?”

“No, babe, I’m sorry.”

“Why not?”

Why not, indeed. “They don’t allow kids there,” Claire lied. Probably kids were allowed in the visiting room.

Annie seemed to accept this. “Is he scared?”

“At first he was, but now he’s not. He knows they’re going to let him out soon, and then we’ll be a family again. Let’s read some books.”

“No, I don’t want to,” Annie said. Claire couldn’t tell if Annie was mollified or not. “I’m tired.” She turned over. “’Night, Mommy,” she said.

Claire fell asleep on the sofa in the sitting room, surrounded by case books on military law and packets of nonclassified discovery materials.

At around nine she was jolted awake by the doorbell. She ran to get it, before he rang again and woke Annie up.

Grimes’s face was solemn.

“The decision’s back, isn’t it?”

Grimes nodded.

“When are we going to trial?”

“Can I come in? Or do I got to stand out here on the porch?”

“Sorry.”

“The arraignment’s in six days,” he said, removing his fern-green overcoat and hanging it on the hall coat tree. “That means we got to have all our motions in by then, or we should, anyway. We probably go to trial in a month.”

“Why did I even allow myself to think otherwise?”

“Because, underneath all your been-there, done-that, cynical worldliness, you’re an optimist. A cockeyed optimist.”

“Maybe,” Claire said dubiously. “You want coffee or something?”

“Naw. Not at night.”

“So this is it,” Claire said when they were seated at their usual places in the library office. “We lose this, we’re fucked.”

“I don’t believe I’m hearing this from the appellate queen of Cambridge. It’s like baseball. Motions is your first base. Trial is second base. Then you got the Army Court of Criminal Appeals. Then Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. They get a single, the game ain’t over.”

“So now who’s the cockeyed optimist?”

“I’m just talking how the game is played. Lot of innings.”

“But this whole charade is ridiculous. The investigating officer’s finding tells any officer who might be on the jury that their commanding officer thinks Tom’s guilty. They’re not going to acquit after that! What’s that?” She noticed a piece of paper in Grimes’s hands.

“The convening order,” he said, standing up and handing it to her. “Take a look. You see who’s ordering the court-martial?” Grimes studied a fragile-looking porcelain urn on a white-painted wooden columnar pedestal next to the desk.

The letterhead said SECRETARY OF THE ARMY. The letter was signed by the secretary of the army himself.

“I don’t get it,” she said. “Why is the secretary convening it? I thought it was done by someone lower down on the food chain, like the commander of Quantico or something.”

“Usually is. That’s what’s interesting. It’s like they’re ordering this from the very top to send a message — you know, We’re not fucking around, this is serious shit.”

“No,” Claire said.

“No what?”

“That’s not the reason. There’s a legal reason, I’ll bet. A really interesting one.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s because General Marks, the chief of staff of the army, is involved in this. Legally, that makes him an accuser against Tom. And according to Article 1 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and Rule of Court-Martial 504(c)(2), a court-martial can’t be convened by anyone junior to an accuser. The only one senior to the general—”

“Is the secretary. Right.” He traced a pattern on the urn, nodded. “Right.”

“And what’s this list?” Claire said, still looking at the letter. “Is this the jury?”

“Yeah, only in a military court they’re called the ‘members.’”

“I want all these guys checked out for any glitches. Any biases. Anything we can use for voir dire. How come all these guys are commissioned officers? Tom was a noncommissioned officer, that’s lower rank. Don’t we want some senior NCOs on the panel?”

“If we want senior NCOs, we can request it. But I think we’ll get a fairer shake if we stick with officers. They’re more inclined to look at the evidence, in my experience.”

“I assume the most senior guy in rank automatically becomes the jury foreman.”

“You’re catching on. Everything is rank.”

“And how do we know these guys haven’t all been selected for their willingness to convict?”

“We don’t. Officially it’s unlawful command influence to try to stack the court, but good luck proving it. You can’t.”

The doorbell rang. “Shit,” Claire said. “That’s going to wake Annie up. She was just drifting off to sleep.”

“Expecting someone?”

“Ray Devereaux. My PI. Excuse me for a minute.”

Ray stood at the door like an immense statue with an improbably small head. He wore one of his good suits.

“Good evening,” he said with exaggerated courtliness.

“Hey, Ray,” Claire said. She went to hug him and ended up squeezing his stomach. He entered and looked around.

“I like this,” Devereaux said. “You’re living in the goddamned Taj Mahal and I’m staying in a roach motel.”

“It’s not a roach motel, Ray, it’s—”

“Fuggedaboudit, I’m making a joke. What happened to your sense of humor?”

In the library he was introduced to Grimes and refused to sit down. “I wanna know why you guys don’t drop a dime to the Post or the Washington Times,” Devereaux said. “Only thing that’ll derail this express train. Open the door and let in the light of day.”

“No,” Claire said urgently, shaking her head. “Then Tom becomes William Calley. No matter if we get him off or not. For the rest of his life, he’s a mass murderer, and my daughter has to live with that.”

“But if you change your mind,” Grimes said, “just don’t use your phone. Don’t even talk about it on your phone.”

“You think they’ve got an illegal tap on my phones?”

Devereaux laughed the laugh of the man who’s seen it all.

“Lady,” Grimes said, “I put nothing past ’em.”

“Okay. Field report,” Devereaux announced. “Of the men in Detachment 27 I’ve been able to locate, there’s Hernandez, who probably salutes General Marks’s bowel movements. Two are in the private sector. Two I can’t find. That’s all of them.”

“Including Tom, that’s six,” Grimes said. “There were twelve in the unit. Where’s the other six?”

“Dead.”

“That’s what Tom told me,” Claire said.

“There seems to be a high mortality rate in that unit, wouldn’t you say? Six of the men have died since 1985.”

“How?” Claire asked.

“Two in combat, but there’s nothing available about the circumstances of their deaths. Three dead in car accidents. One, who lived in New York City and never owned a car or had a driver’s license, died of a heart attack.”

“Because they couldn’t plausibly engineer a car accident for the guy,” Grimes said, nodding. “But heart attacks can be faked, with the right chemicals.”

“Tom was right,” Claire said. “He said they were going to go after him, too.”

“They didn’t figure on losing him the way they did,” Devereaux said.

Claire heard a small noise at the doorway and saw Annie standing there, thumb in her mouth, dragging her blanket behind her. Another regression. “What are you doing up?”

“The doorbell woke me up,” Annie said in a small voice. She looked around the library, blinking.

“Annie!” Devereaux sang out. He strode over to her and put his arms out. “Want an elevator ride?”

“Yeah!” Annie said, reaching up.

Devereaux lifted her up almost to the ceiling. “Tenth floor! Going down.” Lowering her in stages, he said, “Eighth floor! Sixth floor! Third floor! Lobby!” She screamed with delight. Then, catapulting her upward, he said, “Whoops! Going up! Tenth floor!” And, plunging her to the floor: “Going down! Express! Basement!”

“Ray!” Claire scolded. “This little girl has to go to sleep, and you’re getting her all riled up.”

Annie giggled. “More!”

“No more,” Devereaux said. “Your mommy says it’s sleepytime.”

“Can I play in here for a little while?”

“It’s bedtime, babe,” Claire said.

“But I don’t have school.”

Claire hesitated but a moment. “All right, for a little while. Do you guys mind? She never sees me these days.”

“Is she bound by attorney-client confidentiality?” Grimes asked.

“You’ve got to be real quiet, okay?” Claire said.

“Okay.”

Annie began walking around the library, inspecting the objects, playing with a paperweight.

“We’re going to have to replace Embry,” Grimes said. “Or they’ll replace him, more likely. But we definitely need someone inside the system.”

“You really think he leaked our plans about the polygraph?” Claire asked.

“You got any other candidates?”

“No. But, just judging by his character — I find it hard to accept.”

Annie had both of her hands around the porcelain urn.

“Be careful,” Claire said to Annie. “This isn’t our house.” But Annie didn’t remove her hands. She stared at her mother with defiance.

“You’re such a good judge of character?” Devereaux gibed.

“It’s a different world, the military,” Grimes said. “Different rules. Different loyalties. Different values. Different morality. He may be a moral guy, but his loyalty is to the system, to protecting the military. Not to us.”

“If you really believe that,” Claire said, “why not try to get him disbarred? Annie, honey, I mean it. I want you to go to bed now.”

“Ah, I was just talking trash. How am I going to prove it? Never happen.”

There was a sudden movement, and the urn toppled to the hardwood floor with a sickening crash.

“Annie!” Claire shouted.

Annie gave Claire a ferocious look and stared at what she’d done. The urn had smashed into tiny pieces, scattered far and wide over the polished floor.

“Oh, God,” Claire said, jumping up. “Annie! All right, you, back to bed.”

“No, I don’t want to go to bed!”

“Bedtime, miss.” Claire lifted her up.

Annie wriggled, swung her body to either side, protesting angrily, “I’m... not... going... to bed!”

“Hey,” Devereaux said.

“What?” Claire said as Annie managed to free herself from Claire’s arms and landed neatly on the floor. She ran out of the room. “Annie, come back here, baby!”

“Check this out.” He pointed at the shards of porcelain scattered on the hardwood floor.

Claire and Grimes approached. “What you talking about?” Grimes asked.

“This,” Devereaux said.

“Oh, man,” Grimes said.

“What is it?” Claire asked. She stared at a tiny black object she’d never seen before.

Devereaux picked it up. It was oblong, no more than an inch long, half an inch wide, trailing a long thin wire.

“Transmitter,” Grimes said, his voice hushed.

“Oh my God,” Claire said in a high-pitched whisper.

“Man oh man,” Grimes said.

Claire suddenly grabbed a ceramic foo dog on the cluttered table next to Grimes’s chair and flung it to the ground. It shattered, another small black transmitter among its shards. “Oh my God,” she repeated.

“Claire,” Grimes called warningly.

She lifted the spherical black lamp from the library table she used as a desk and hurled that, too, to the floor. It split jaggedly in half, revealing another black transmitter.

“Cool it, Claire,” Grimes said. “You’re going to have to pay for all this shit.”

“Enough, Claire,” Devereaux said. “You don’t have to do that. I’ll locate the rest of them.”

“This place is loaded with them!” Claire gasped.

“I told you,” Grimes said, grabbing her arms to restrain her, “I put nothing past them. Now you see what I’m talking about.”

28

The house crawled with FBI agents — crime-scene investigators, fingerprint and forensic people. They’d arrived with astonishing speed after Ray Devereaux, one of their own, had put in the call the following morning. He’d done so after he’d finished his own cursory inspection, which turned up a dozen more miniature transmitters, in the library, in Claire’s bedroom, in the kitchen. And more to come, no doubt. In the ceiling of an empty guest-room closet one floor above the library Devereaux had located a large black box, which he said was used to gather the signals, amplify them, and broadcast them for miles to whoever was listening.

A meeting was scheduled for one o’clock that day with the military judge who’d just been detailed to the Ronald Kubik court-martial. As she drove to Quantico, Grimes said, “Well, your complaint certainly sped things along.” He was referring to the complaint she’d filed with the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, who took things like unlawful surveillance devices and interference with attorney-client privilege with the gravest concern. “That’s one way to get the military judge named — they wanted to have a judge named to deal with the bugging complaint. Problem is, now we’re fucked.”

“Why?” she said, and glanced at him to see whether he was being ironic.

“We’re fucked because our judge is Warren Farrell, who happens to be a Nazi.”

“How so?” Claire asked.

“He’s what you call a real iron colonel.”

“Huh?”

“That’s what you call a full-bird colonel who’s at his terminal rank, meaning he’s not far from retirement and can’t be threatened. So he can be as outrageous as he wants and piss all over us, which he likes to do to defense lawyers, particularly civilians. He certainly doesn’t give a shit about a reversal down the line.”

“I take it you’ve tried cases before him.”

“Never had the pleasure. Heard a lot, though. He don’t much like dark-green army boys like me.” Grimes paused to take a sip of his take-out coffee. “Great circumstances to be meeting the judge for the first time.”

“What are you talking about? It’s great. Puts them on the defensive, makes us look good by contrast.”

“You don’t know Judge Farrell.”

“What, he’s going to be prejudiced against us because we had the misfortune to have our workspace illegally bugged by the government?”

“It wasn’t necessarily the prosecution,” Grimes said.

“Oh? You got any other candidates?”

“Hell, it could be the Pentagon. Defense Intelligence. Defense Humint Service, or one of those creepy military-intelligence groups they keep locked up in the basement of the Pentagon. Might even be some private organization of old Special Forces alumni who don’t want shit like this coming out. Or want to make sure we lose.”

“Maybe some friends of the general’s,” Claire said. “But FBI’s not going to find fingerprints on anything, are they? The culprits aren’t going to be that sloppy.”

Grimes nodded slowly in distracted agreement. “This kind of shit happens all the time.”

“In the military?”

“Oh, yeah. When I was with the Judge Advocates Corps, prosecuting, I heard all the time about how they’d plant bugs on civilian lawyers. Military doesn’t like civilian lawyers playing in their sandlot, I told you.”

“Bullshit, Grimes. Don’t tell me the prosecution used information they picked up from bugs.”

“Oh, they’d launder it first. Always happens. You find an independent source, attribute it to them. You think I’m kidding?”

“No, I don’t. I just don’t want to think you’re right.”

The meeting with the military judge was held in camera, in the high-security subbasement courtroom. Waldron was already seated, fuming, when they arrived. He shuffled papers as Captain Hogan talked to him. A court reporter was placing tapes in the Lanier recording machine and testing her equipment. The jury box was empty. Tom was seated at the end of the defense table in his uniform.

In time the bailiff entered the courtroom from the judge’s chambers and called out, “All rise!”

A large, beefy, big-shouldered man, with a shock of white hair, entered. Under his black robe he wore a dress uniform. He was carrying a leather portfolio in one hand and a Pepsi in the other. He looked dyspeptic. Claire was sure he was scowling. Leisurely, he made his way to the bench and flicked a finger against the microphone. Satisfied by the amplified thump, he spoke in a gruff and gravelly voice: “This Article 39(a) session is called to order. Be seated.”

When the defense and prosecution lawyers had sat down, he said, “I’m Judge Farrell.” He put on a pair of black-rimmed half-glasses and consulted some papers on his podium. He ran through a few minutes of preliminaries.

Claire’s heart sank. She’d heard voices like this in Charlestown, in all-white neighborhoods of Boston — self-assured, bigoted, thuggish, clannish. For all she knew he would turn out to be a fair man of judicial temperament, but her instinct told her he was a schoolyard bully.

He spoke as if he was already fed up with the trial, even before it had begun, even before the arraignment. “Now, as you all know, the purpose of this pretrial session is to address a complaint lodged by defense counsel regarding alleged bugs or transmitters or whatnot allegedly found on her premises, within her office.” Warren Farrell’s luxuriant thatch of white hair contrasted with his ruddy face, which was spiderwebbed with the broken veins of a serious drinker. He was a former Golden Gloves boxer, Grimes had said, which would account for his broken-looking nose. Farrell had attended night law school.

“Defense counsel,” he growled, “you have somethin’ to say?”

Claire rose. “Your Honor, I’m Claire Heller Chapman. I’m the lead defense counsel.” She held up a Ziploc plastic evidence bag, clearly marked “FBI” and “EVIDENCE,” containing one of the tiny black transmitters. Very buglike indeed, with its slender black body and long filament tail. The FBI had reluctantly loaned it to her, after great pressure from Ray Devereaux.

“Your Honor,” she went on, “I’ve received technical assistance from the FBI, which is investigating this matter right now, and which confirms that my office has been bugged by parties unknown.” She spoke guardedly for the record, careful not to overstep. “I have reason to believe the government is involved. I would like to move for appropriate relief for disclosure of all intercepted conversations collected from my office. I would respectfully request that you direct the government to disclose any and all information regarding wiretaps, overhears, et cetera, and disclose copies of any and all transcripts or tapes made.”

“Trial counsel?” the judge said wearily.

Waldron vaulted to his feet. “Your Honor, we find these allegations outrageous and clearly intended to prejudice Your Honor against the government. There is no evidence whatsoever that we had anything to do with such an egregious penetration of attorney-client privilege, and, frankly, we resent the accusation.”

Waldron spoke so heatedly, with such righteous indignation, that for a moment Claire actually believed him. Certainly it was possible he knew nothing about the whole sordid business. If Grimes was right that information illegally obtained could be laundered through independent sources, wouldn’t they — whoever “they” were — want to keep Waldron in the dark about where the juicy stuff came from?

“You’re tellin’ me you had nothing to do with this,” Farrell said, fixing Waldron with a beady-eyed glare.

“Your Honor, not only did we have nothing whatsoever to do with this,” Waldron replied in high dudgeon, “but I am personally outraged that—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Farrell said, interrupting Waldron’s tirade as if he were already tired of him, too. “All right, look, I’m going to make this short and sweet. Trial counsel, I’m going to issue an order for the government to show cause that defense counsel’s allegations are untrue, and that the government has had no responsibility for these bugs. Now, in the event that the prosecution has had any involvement in this, I’m requiring you to produce forthwith copies of all transcripts or tapes of conversations intercepted, and to show cause why your conduct is not in violation of the law. And on a personal note, I wanna tell you that, if I find the slightest evidence of any monkey business on either side, there’s goin’ to be hell to pay.” He slammed down his gavel. “That’s all.”

Waldron passed by the defense table on his way out of the courtroom, and before he had a chance to say anything, Claire looked up at his thin-lipped face. “You should know I’m going to move to dismiss for outrageous government conduct,” she told him. “You just blew it, Major. Violating attorney-client privilege is a mammoth violation of due process.” She pursed her lips in disgust. “That was really pathetic. Amateur hour.”

Waldron stared back with his lucid blue-gray eyes. “I hope you don’t seriously think we even need to bug your offices.” He shook his head and gave one of his feral smiles. “You really have no idea, do you?”

29

The man whose first name and phone number Tom had scrawled on a scrap of paper in the brig met Claire at a yuppie bar in Georgetown — his choice, although as soon as he arrived he announced that he hated it. Too many antiquarian Italian advertising posters, too many twenty-somethings smoking cigars. But neither one of them made a move to go someplace else.

He was short and trim, athletic-looking, about fifty. He was also entirely bald, shiny-bald, as if he waxed his head, which Claire had heard some men did. Upon closer examination she saw he shaved the hair at the sides of his head, probably daily. He had heavy dark eyebrows and would have looked sinister were it not for his morose demeanor. He made Claire ill at ease.

“I’m Dennis,” he said without offering his hand. She did not expect a Dennis; a Dennis did not have a bullet head.

“Claire,” she said, and didn’t offer hers. For several evenings in a row she’d called the phone number Tom had written down for her, but it was never answered. It was the man’s home phone number, and he had neither an answering machine nor voice mail. It just rang and rang, until last night he’d finally answered.

“Who knows you’re here?” Dennis asked. He wore a decent gray suit and an expensive-looking white shirt with a silvery tie and large gold cuff links.

“Why? Are you going to kill me?”

He wasn’t amused. “You tell any of your cocounsel, any of the military guys?”

“No.” She planned to tell Grimes later, but saw no need to get into that now.

“You don’t have a tape recorder on you, I assume.”

“No, I do not.”

“I’ll take you at your word. I could get into a fair amount of difficulty, so, please, no records of our meetings, don’t tell anyone. You know the drill.”

She nodded. “Do you have a last name, Dennis?”

“Let’s leave it at that for now.”

“How do you know Ronald Kubik?”

“I know him.”

“Vietnam?”

“Rather not get into it.”

“Do you mind if I smoke?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.” He flashed a genial smile, although his eyes did not participate.

“Well,” she said. “I’m glad all that’s cleared up. Where do you work?”

“Langley,” he said, his face a blank.

“Ah, the Agency. I might have guessed. I don’t imagine you want to tell me which division you’re in at the Agency.”

He shrugged and smiled. It just missed being a charming, boyish smile. “Can we get down to business?” His gray suit was wrinkled at the armpits, as if he’d been in it all day. This was not a man who worked in shirtsleeves. She guessed he was a fairly senior-ranking official at the CIA. “I assume you don’t know much about how the military works,” he said.

“I’m learning.”

He smiled again. “Like what you see?”

“I’m not planning on enlisting, if that’s what you mean.”

“Well, when a combat unit comes back to base after field action, it’s standard for the CO, the commanding officer, to file an incident report. In the army it’s called an After Action Report. So tell me something: I’m sure you guys have filed discovery and all that — did you get a copy of the After Action Report that Colonel Marks filed after the La Colina atrocity?”

“No. We’ve gotten boxes and boxes of papers, but that’s not in there.”

“And it won’t be. It doesn’t exist. I was just curious as to whether they faked something up. The point is this: when Detachment 27 returned to their hooch, Colonel Marks — now General Marks — filed what’s called an MFR. That’s a memorandum for the record. To tell his side of the story, his version of what happened. Three or four lines, handwritten. See, Marks is the sort of guy puts ‘take a dump’ on a list, okay? He maps out everything. There’s a saying in the army — MFR equals CYA. You know the expression CYA?”

“Yeah, we even cover our asses at Harvard Law School.”

He didn’t smile. “You want to get that MFR.”

“How?”

“Specify it in your discovery request.”

“You think we’ll get it?”

“Hard to say. Pentagon’s good at ‘misplacing’ things. Congress tried to get the Pentagon’s files on Guatemala, took ’em five years. Pentagon said they’d misplaced them.”

“Right. So we’re not going to get the MFR. What good’s it going to do us, anyhow? It’s just going to give the same old bullshit line about Tom — er, Ron — massacring a bunch of innocent people.”

“Maybe.”

Claire’s scotch-and-soda was just arriving, but Dennis was already slipping his olive trench coat back on.

“You must have a copy somewhere,” Claire said.

He flashed another orthodontically perfect smile. “Well, as a matter of fact, we might. But you wouldn’t believe what a mess our records are in. I could have one of my girls look. I’ll let you know if she turns anything up.”

“And what’s it going to prove?”

“It may or may not prove Marks is a liar. Look, no one’s going to testify against General Marks. But now maybe you won’t need that.”

Jackie was still up when Claire returned. They went into the small “rec room” off the laundry room for scotch and cigarettes. So much for her no-smoking-in-the-house rule. Civilization was crumbling.

“Ooh, spy stuff,” Jackie said. “Cool. This guy sounds like what’s-his-name, G. Gordon Liddy. You know, the Watergate guy who used to hold his finger over a lit candle to show how macho he was?”

“I think all bald spooks want to be G. Gordon Liddy.”

“Why’s he helping you?”

“That’s the big question. I guess it’s because he’s a friend of Tom’s.”

“From where?”

“He wouldn’t say.”

“You think he’s telling you the truth?”

“We’ll see if he produces anything.”

“But it makes you all the more sure Tom’s telling you the truth.”

“There’s something about Tom’s intensity that tells me that. Independently. It’s the sound of truth spoken by a desperate guy. And he hasn’t lost his faith. You know, last time I visited him at the brig he told me he wanted to go to Mass, but they wouldn’t let him leave his cell. So they brought the chaplain to him.”

“Home delivery. Can’t beat it. You gonna put him on the stand?”

“I don’t know,” Claire said with heavy irony. “Plastic surgery, name change, false identity — I’m sure he’d make a great witness.”

“Oh, right.”

“Not just that. Fact is, I think he’d do well on the stand. I know he would. But if we put him on, all sorts of background stuff, bio stuff, becomes admissible. Stuff they cooked up, though we can’t prove it. What he did in Vietnam, was he a sort of government assassin who killed American deserters, did he do sicko stuff to dogs.”

“Dogs?”

Claire lighted another cigarette. “Funny, isn’t it, how we’re more revolted by killing dogs than human beings?”

“I figure U.S. soldiers in Vietnam were up to no good. Dogs are innocent.” She exhaled a plume of smoke through her nostrils. “Your secretary from Cambridge called. Connie. There’s a long list of people who want to hire you.”

“She told them no, I assume.”

Jackie nodded. “The Post called again. I think they’re really getting pissed off you won’t talk to them.”

“I don’t have to talk to a newspaper reporter.”

“They think they have a moral, God-given right to talk to you.”

A long silence passed.

“Claire,” Jackie said at last.

“Yeah?”

“If there’s a chance — even the remotest chance — that he’s guilty, that he’s the monster the prosecution says he is, do you really want him around Annie?”

“If he were guilty, of course not.”

“That’s good to hear,” Jackie said darkly. “Because for the last few weeks I’ve been under the impression that you’re a wife first and a mom second. Like, way second. Look at Annie, how’s she’s reacting. Look how you’ve been ignoring her.”

Claire looked at Jackie, saw the fury in her face. She’d never seen her sister so angry before. Then again, Jackie was fiercely protective of her niece. “I’m doing the best I can,” Claire said in a subdued tone. “I’m working night and day—”

“Oh, come on,” Jackie said brusquely. “You used to dote on her. Before all this happened. Now you barely talk to her. Jesus fucking Christ, Claire, you’re the only parent that girl has! She needs you really badly. More than your husband does. Your husband can get another lawyer. Annie can’t get another mommy.”

Claire stared in dull shock, unable to reply.

As she lay in bed for hours, Claire’s mind raced, in a disorganized, useless way. She cried for Annie, for the way she’d neglected her daughter. She didn’t get to sleep until well after two.

At three-thirty-seven in the morning the phone rang.

She jolted awake, fumbled for the phone, heart hammering. “Yes?” She stared at the red digital numbers on the bedside clock.

Complete dead silence on the phone. She was about to hang it up when a voice came on.

An odd, metallic voice, metallic and hollow. Synthesized. “You should ask yourself who really wants him put away.”

The voice was low-pitched and electronically altered.

“Who is this?” Claire demanded.

“Waldron’s only the point man,” the voice said. Then dead, flat silence.

“Who is this?” Claire repeated.

And the call was disconnected.

She was unable to go back to sleep for more than an hour.

30

In his baby-blue prison jumpsuit and manacles, Tom looked peculiarly vulnerable. His chasers, the two beefy brig guards, stood by, warily watching him examine a machine gun. They stood in a large empty room off one of the armories at Quantico.

The weapon, an M-60, was forty-four inches long and was sealed in a long plastic bag and tagged as evidence. Allegedly it was Tom’s gun, the one he’d used while serving with Detachment 27, the one he’d allegedly used to slaughter eighty-seven civilians. To Claire it was just a machine gun; she’d never seen one up close before.

She and Grimes waited in a couple of metal chairs in the armory while he turned it over and scrutinized it.

“Do you know,” Grimes said, “they call Quantico Camp Sleepy Hollow?”

“Why’s that?” Claire said without bothering to feign interest.

“Since it’s so quiet and wooded.”

“And so peaceful,” Claire said mordantly. “I want Embry back.”

“What?”

“You hear me. I want Embry back on the team.”

“What makes you think he’ll come back?”

“Because they’ve probably got him doing drug busts and drunk-driving stuff. He’ll jump at the chance.”

“He quit, don’t forget. We didn’t fire him.”

“We shamed him into quitting. We also wronged him. We accused him of leaking, when now we know they had the office bugged. We need him. We need an insider, you said so yourself. We need someone to interview and develop witnesses, do all the scut work that you and I don’t have time for.”

“Hey, you don’t have to convince me. Talk to him. I sure as hell won’t.” In a louder voice he called out to Tom: “That look familiar?”

“What can I say?” Tom said. “I mean, how do I know it’s mine? Seriously. I mean, it’s an M-60. We used M-60s.”

“Obviously we’ll have our independent examiner look at it, and the bullets and shell casings,” Claire said. “I don’t trust them.”

“I wonder why,” Grimes said. “There’s a serial number on there. Stamped on the receiver. Look familiar?”

“Grimes,” Tom said, “you don’t really think I can remember the gun’s serial number after all these years?”

“Just trying to help. I thought you covert-action boys file down the serial numbers so they never get identified in case they’re found.”

“Old wives’ tale,” Tom said. “We were part of the army — we need serial numbers just like everyone else to keep track of weapons. We were just fancy about it. We used sterile weapons — new guns purchased by the Panamanian or Honduran governments, so there’s no chain of custody.”

“Shouldn’t it be a simple matter to figure out whether this was the gun used to kill all those people?” Claire asked.

“Sure,” Grimes replied. “Run the ballistics, compare the shell casings and the bullets to the barrel of the machine gun, see if you got a match.”

“And if there’s a match?” Claire asked. “How can they prove Tom fired it?”

“If there’s a match,” Tom said wearily, “then it wasn’t my gun.” All of a sudden he sounded defeated.

“But were there records of who got which gun?”

He shrugged, studied the floor. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “Each one of us was issued one machine gun, one rifle, one pistol. We used the same one every time. You had to sign it out.”

“So there’s records,” Claire said.

“Armory records,” Grimes said.

“But we don’t have them.”

“Haven’t come in yet. Maybe they don’t have them either.”

“If it’s exculpatory,” she said, “I bet they ‘lose’ them. Without the armory records, they don’t have a case.”

“It may be my weapon,” Tom said, even more slowly, covering his eyes with a hand, “but if it is... it wasn’t the one that fired the rounds. And if it’s the one that fired the rounds...” He made a sudden hiccuping sound. “Claire?”

She looked at him sharply. It was a sob, which he’d tried to stifle. He was weeping. The suddenness of it frightened her.

He lurched forward toward her. His chasers vaulted forward and grabbed him, threw him down on the floor. There was a loud crack: his skull hitting the floor. The guards seemed to take some satisfaction in it. He howled in pain.

“Jesus,” Grimes said.

“What are you doing?” Claire shouted.

“She’s my wife, for Christ’s sake!” Tom said. “I don’t have the right to touch her?” The guards were silent. “Claire, I want to talk to you! Alone!”

“We can’t allow that, ma’am,” one of them said.

“This is a legal visit,” she said. “We have the right to talk without you present.”

They moved Tom to the defense shop and waited outside one of the empty offices with Grimes while Claire and Tom talked.

By now Tom seemed to have regained his composure. “I’m sorry about that. It’s just that it’s sinking in.”

“What is?”

“What’s happening to me. United States v. Ronald Kubik. I think maybe I was in a state of denial. But this is real. This is happening. They’re never going to let me go. I realize that now. This is real.”

“I know what you’re feeling,” she said softly. Her chest felt tight. She wanted to cry on his shoulder but knew she mustn’t lose it; he needed to see strength and confidence, whether she felt it or not. “It’s a nightmare, a nightmare for all of us. But you’ve got to keep the faith. Grimes and I are doing all we can. We’re not going to let them get away with anything. I promise you.”

“Embry,” he said when he answered the phone.

“Terry.”

“Ms. — Claire. Hi.” He seemed glad to hear her voice. “How’s it going?”

“Same old same old,” she said. “We need you back.”

A long, long pause. “You figured out I wasn’t the leak.”

“I never thought you were.”

“Does Grimes want me back? Or is it just you?”

“Yes, he does too. Definitely.”

“But aren’t you guys always going to be suspicious? I mean, don’t you want me to take the polygraph?”

“How do we know you weren’t trained to beat it?” she said with a laugh.

31

Waldron was waiting not far from Claire, Grimes, and Embry in front of the secure-courtroom door at fifteen minutes before nine in the morning. When Claire arrived, he pounced.

“Ms. Chapman.”

“Major,” she said blandly.

“Are you ready to deal?”

Claire tried to conceal her astonishment. “Hadn’t given it a thought.”

“I wish I could believe that. I’ve been instructed to make you an offer. Personally, I oppose any kind of deal — I think you know that. I’m prepared to go for the death penalty, and I’m highly confident we can get it, in the current climate. But I’ve been asked to make an offer.”

“We’re listening.”

Embry and Grimes gathered around.

“We’re willing to drop to voluntary manslaughter — Article 119.”

“How many specifications?” Grimes demanded.

“One,” Waldron said. Grimes raised his brows. “Not eighty-seven. Same course of conduct.”

“Voluntary manslaughter’s fifteen years,” Embry put in.

“Here’s the crux of the deal,” Waldron said. “We’d insist on total nondisclosure. In writing, of course. If the government of El Salvador gets wind of this, there’ll be a major international incident. Sergeant Kubik will speak of the circumstances to no one, including the terms of this agreement and everything connected with these negotiations. No books, magazine articles, letters to the editor. No publicity whatsoever. No private conversations to anyone about the incident either.”

Embry and Grimes nodded. Claire simply watched Waldron, blank-faced.

“All attorneys and support and investigative personnel would also be required to sign nondisclosure agreements,” Waldron continued. “You also waive appellate review. Kubik gets dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pays and allowances.”

“What about time?” Grimes said.

“He serves five years,” Waldron said. “But all confinement in excess of five years will be suspended for fifteen years from the date of trial. His nondisclosure will be part of the good-conduct clause. He violates nondisclosure, we vacate the agreement, and he’s back in Leavenworth.”

Grimes turned to Claire.

Waldron said grimly, “Not bad, huh? Five years for killing eighty-seven people? You’ll never beat a deal like this.”

“Why are you suddenly so interested in making a deal?” Claire asked.

“Because this is a long and arduous and expensive process, and we think it’s best for all concerned to come to a settlement now.”

“When do you want to know?”

“Now.”

“Now? You’re crazy. I’ll have to talk to my husband.”

“He’ll be here in a minute or two. I should warn you, the deal’s off the table once he’s arraigned.”

“We’ve got three weeks before trial,” Claire said. “What’s the rush?”

“Just let me know your decision before arraignment. Which is in about five minutes.”

When Claire told Tom the deal as his restraints were being removed inside the courtroom, he shook his head.

“Why not?” Claire said. “The nondisclosure’s no big deal — you’ve kept mum about it for thirteen years! And five years at Leavenworth — well, I won’t minimize how tough any prison time is, but that looks awfully attractive, given the alternative.”

“Claire, I’m an innocent man,” Tom said. “I’m not doing five years for a crime I didn’t commit. Anyway, I wouldn’t survive Leavenworth. They’d have me killed. If they’re offering to deal, that tells us they’re scared. They’re scared of what we might bring out at trial. Scared of what might become public. Don’t you smell blood, too?”

“You’re being awfully brave for a man who faces the possibility of execution. It’s a gamble, Tom. A huge gamble.”

“Everything I’ve done is a gamble,” he said.

Grimes stared in disbelief and whispered to Tom, “Did I hear wrong, or did you just turn down Waldron’s offer?”

“I won’t do time for a crime I didn’t commit!” Tom whispered back emphatically.

Grimes turned to Claire. “You didn’t make him take it?”

“I can’t make him take a deal,” she whispered back.

“This man’s gonna sue you later for ineffective assistance of counsel,” he said, disgusted.

Claire approached the prosecution table and tapped Waldron on the shoulder. “We’re passing,” she said.

“Kubik heard the terms, and he’s not jumping at this?” Waldron said. “You serious?”

“Drop the five years, and you’ve got a deal.”

“Not negotiable.”

“Then we’re going to trial.”

Waldron gave a gladiatorial smile. “You’ll wish you’d taken it.”

“Maybe so.”

“Believe me. You don’t know what’s in store.”

“Nor do you,” she said.