Mortal Allies

CHAPTER 29

What Katherine was attempting was actually very clever. And ballsy, too. Moran and Jackson were being held in the Yongsan Holding Facility and Katherine faxed a request for Colonel Barry Carruthers to issue a judge’s order to allow us to interview them.

Why was this clever? Because we now had valid reason to suspect Bales and Choi had coerced the two men into testifying against our client. I had courageously sacrificed my own body to make that discovery. See what a noble guy I am?

The reason it was a ballsy move was because they were both listed as witnesses for the prosecution, and thus, technically, our first chance to speak with them should come in the courtroom, during cross.

But Katherine slyly justified her request on the basis that Moran and Jackson, aside from our own client, were the only living witnesses to what happened inside that apartment, and we therefore deserved an equal chance to determine whether their testimonies might be beneficial to our client. This might sound specious at this late stage in the game, but speciousness is what American law’s all about.

Fast Eddie opposed the request in the strongest possible language. With the strength of his case, you’d think he’d cut us a little slack, but Eddie never took prisoners. Therefore Carruthers responded that he wanted to meet with Katherine to hear her logic. Protocol required me to accompany her.

Imelda actually wasn’t happy about that. Her game plan was to keep Katherine and me separated. She knew Katherine and I were hormonally destined to eternal conflict.

Anyway, the two of us were standing outside the door that led into Colonel Barry Carruthers’s office. We were both pacing nervously. Actually, Katherine was pacing, while she quietly rehearsed her logic. I was limping on a cane and quietly cursing, because my body was aching to be back in that wheelchair. I just didn’t want the judge’s first impression of me to be in that contraption, like I was crippled. I wanted him to see me with a cane, like I was only partly crippled. That’s how macho logic works.

The judge’s secretary, who’d flown over here with him, was strenuously buffing her nails and ignoring us. We were defense attorneys, after all – her boss’s well-known disdain for our breed was infectious.

She glanced up occasionally to inspect a small blinking red light on her telephone. Finally it died. This was the signal that the judge was free and Katherine and I could enter. She gave us a glacial nod, and we trod fretfully into the lion’s den.

The first thing I noticed was that the room was dark. Really, really dark. The shades were tightly drawn, as were the curtains, so that the only light came from a small desk bulb that illuminated only the figure it was directed at – the judge.

The second thing I noticed was that Barry Carruthers was what you might call a visually imposing man. He’d once been a left tackle for Notre Dame, and he’d gotten meaner-looking since then. He was Black, and by that I mean ebony black, with a big, broad face and thick, bushy eyebrows. Everything else was sharp angles – angled nose, angled eyes, angled lips. His face looked like it could slice you to ribbons. A human stiletto.

He was wearing an Army green short-sleeved shirt, and you knew the instant you laid eyes on him the man pumped some serious iron, because his sleeves were precariously tight around his brawny biceps. One flex and he’d have to make a hasty trip to the Post Exchange for a new shirt.

“Sit down,” he said. Not nicely. Not angrily. Just coldly.

Katherine sat in the chair to my right. I bent forward on my cane, then ungracefully collapsed into my chair.

Carruthers was staring at his right fist and kneading one of those rubber squeeze-me balls. I was damned glad I wasn’t the ball being pulverized inside that beefy mitt. You could see the sinews on his huge forearms tensing and untensing.

I stole a glance at Katherine; she was holding up okay. As far as I could tell, anyway. Between the eerie darkness and the man’s sheer size and appearance, I wanted the hell out of there. But Katherine was somehow managing to mask whatever anxiety she felt.

“You got my request, Your Honor?” she asked, firm but polite.

“You’re the young lady who arranged and led yesterday’s demonstration?” Carruthers responded, deliberately ignoring her question. That “young lady” thing, that was a nice touch. Very condescending. Very overbearing.

“I am,” Katherine admitted, trying to sound casual.

“It was designed to embarrass me, wasn’t it?”

“Not in the least. It was an expression of public outrage at the captivity of an innocent man. Thomas Whitehall did not murder Lee No Tae, and if I’m given a chance, I will prove that.”

Good so far, I figured. Katherine’s voice was cool, unemotional, detached. She was holding her own. It was one of those David-wrestling-with-Goliath moments.

Carruthers stared at his fist. “Fifteen bloody bodies in a morgue. A rupture in a fifty-year-old alliance that may not be reparable. A public embarrassment for both our nations. Not bad for a day’s work, Miss Carlson. Wouldn’t you say?”

Katherine’s face was static. “It was supposed to be a peaceful, legal demonstration.”

The judge was still staring at his hand, and it was squeezing the ball even harder. His forearm looked like a bunch of snakes slithering up and down in a slow dance.

“You were warned by General Spears, weren’t you? You were told things were brittle here, weren’t you? What’s the matter? Couldn’t resist?”

Katherine couldn’t answer that. There was no answer for that. His Honor was mad as hell and was putting her in her place. Frankly, he had every right to. Regardless of the awful consequences that neither Katherine nor anybody else could’ve foreseen, no judge likes to be taunted by press statements and public demonstrations. She’d been waving a match underneath a stick of dynamite, and the dynamite was now letting her know it didn’t appreciate it.

Nor did it escape me that the judge was exploiting the situation to try to put his strong boot on Katherine’s throat. Smart move on his part. It would save him from having to crush her like a bug in front of the whole court.

I peeked at her. Instead of looking like she wanted to crawl under her seat, she appeared ready to leap across the table and slap him.

She said, “Are you trying to blame me?”

The stick of dynamite was squeezing the ball harder and faster, and I realized that Katherine might enjoy this game of taunting judges, but it wasn’t my idea of great fun. Before either of them could say another word, I quickly intervened. “What’s your decision on our request, Your Honor? I’m asking on the record.”

Carruthers placed the ball in the center of his desk. He stared at it awhile, and I got the point. That ball represented Katherine. If it weren’t for that little piece of rubber, he’d probably rip her arms off and beat her over the head with them.

His eyes shifted to me for the first time. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it, Drummond? To discuss your request.”

In case I haven’t mentioned it yet, the judge has a deep, resonant voice. The type of voice that batters its way through the air and penetrates your skin and bounces right off your bones.

I coughed a bit, and bent forward. “Miss Carlson and I feel it’s imperative to meet with those two men.”

“Then you better have a more compelling legal justification than the one I read.”

Katherine said, “We do. Neither of us were present for the Article 32 pre-court-martial investigation. We haven’t been given the right to full discovery. If this request is denied, we’ll consider it certain grounds for an appeal.”

Her tone was respectful, but she might as well have stuck her middle finger in his face. When a lawyer brazenly threatens to take a judge’s decision and use it for an appeal – no matter how politely it’s couched – that’s pretty much the same thing as… Well, actually, it’s worse than that. The truth is I can’t think of anything as bad.

A big angry snort erupted from Carruthers’s nose and his body jerked forward. His slitty eyes were dead on her pretty face. “Was that a threat?”

She coolly said, “Yes, Your Honor, I threatened you. Respectfully, of course.”

“Well, I-”

I saw a vision of two trains racing full speed at each other, so I said, nearly yelling, “Please let me explain. We’ve just learned that Moran and Jackson have knowledge that could be crucial to the proof of our client’s innocence. Unless we’re able to obtain that knowledge in a timely manner our case will be fatally weakened. Our client will be denied a reasonable defense. We’ll have no choice but to appeal.”

His head cocked to the side, and he scratched his ear. “Go on.”

I looked at Katherine and she nodded for me to take over. In fact, she conceded the discussion so hastily I wondered if she was using me to play a little game here; her version of good cop/bad cop. Only in this case, a more accurate name would be brave cop/chicken cop.

Anyway, I swallowed and said, “We believe the statements provided by Moran and Jackson were physically coerced.”

Carruthers contemplated that a moment. He picked up the rubber ball and began kneading it again. This time, I was the pitiful little thing trapped inside that meaty fist.

“You’d better have a reasonable basis for this suspicion.”

“We do. Yesterday I was interrogated by the same officers who questioned Moran and Jackson. As you can see by my physical condition, they have… shall we say, a very persuasive way about them.”

The room was so dark that he had to get up and walk to the light switch and turn it on. He circled around a few times, inspecting the damage.

He returned to his seat. “Look, Drummond, it’s not news that Korean interrogation techniques aren’t as humane as ours. But if you’re considering a dismissal on that basis, go study your precedents. American law doesn’t recognize the misbehavior of foreign police authorities operating on their own soil as grounds for dismissal.”

“I’m aware of that, Your Honor. A CID officer was present for my beatings.”

“That’s lamentable, but CID can’t be expected to control the behavior of the ROK police, either. Same precedents apply.”

“Agreed, but he participated. And the same CID officer was present for the interrogations of Moran and Jackson. In fact, he’s the lead witness for the prosecution.”

“Then file a complaint against him. But the fact that he struck you doesn’t lead to the conclusion he beat the other two.”

“No sir, it doesn’t. Except there was a point in my interrogation when he and his ROK counterpart thought I was unconscious. I overheard them refer to the beatings they administered to Private Jackson.”

Carruthers was obviously familiar with the case file. “This is Bales you’re referring to?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

He began bouncing the rubber ball on his desk. “Watch it, Drummond. Of course you want to discredit the star witness, but I don’t allow attorneys to assassinate the reputations of good people. Not in my court. Bales is the youngest CW3 in the Criminal Investigation Division. He has a record any police officer would die for. Let me put this frankly. Don’t be pulling any crap here.”

“May I be equally frank?”

“You’d better be, Drummond.”

“Okay. Here’s the thing. For three hours before Bales and his ROK counterpart interrogated me, a long line of Korean officers kept appearing with keys to my cell. I got my ass thrashed more times than I could count. Can I prove that? No. Then I got dragged in to see Bales and his ROK buddy Inspector Choi. They knocked me around so hard they cold-cocked me. Will I ever be able to prove it? No. Enough guys in that precinct got a piece of my ass that there’ll be a wall of silence harder than a woodpecker’s lips.”

“Then what do you hope to accomplish with Moran and Jackson?”

“We need to ask them if they got their asses crushed, too. We need to know if their testimony was coerced or not.”

“Assume for the sake of argument they claim it was coerced. Will you be able to prove that in court?”

“It’s doubtful, Your Honor. Choi has already filed a fabricated statement that claims Jackson was beaten up by his cellmate. I don’t know what Moran’s story is.”

“Then what’s your point? Why should I permit this if it’ll still prove irrelevant?”

“Because it could lead us down other paths.”

“And do you want to tell me what those other paths are?”

Carruthers, I suddenly realized, was considerably smarter than I’d given him credit for. I think he suspected from the beginning that we had some larger ulterior motive here.

I looked at Katherine and she looked at me, and we both realized that if we confided to Carruthers that we suspected the Itaewon Police Precinct of a mass conspiracy that included the massacre the day before, he’d wring both our necks.

Katherine, being the lead counsel, took over. “No, Your Honor, not at this time.”

He leaned back in his chair. He was still brooding and bouncing that little ball on his desk. “But you expect me to approve your request?”

“Yes sir,” Katherine said, and it did not escape my notice that she sounded and looked as meek as a housebroken kitten. Suspiciously so, in fact. She’d apparently switched to good cop/good cop routine.

Smart girl. There’s a time for in-your-face, and there’s a time for laying back.

The ball stopped bouncing and the judge bent forward again.

“All right, I’ll let you know my judgment. But if I allow it, the prosecutor has to be present. Moran and Jackson are his witnesses and he has the right to share in the fruits of your discovery. Another thing – call it point one: I want to know whatever you find out, as soon as you find it out. I don’t want to get into court and have any big surprises. Not on this case. Capisch?”

“Capisch, Your Honor,” we both respectfully replied.

“Point two: Don’t forget point one. God help you, don’t forget point one. Miss Carlson, don’t confuse me with those pansy-asses you baited and sucker-punched in the past. I’ll rip off your head and poop down your throat.”

Katherine sat and stared at him, and I have to tell you, there wasn’t any doubt in my mind that Barry Carruthers was not a man to tangle with. Nor was there any doubt that he’d researched Katherine’s trial history and was well aware of her theatrical tactics.

He then said, “Now, you step outside, Miss Carlson. I need to have a word with Drummond here.”

It wasn’t like she could say no. It was his office, after all. For once, she didn’t backtalk, or grumble, or anything. She got up and left.

I sat nervously in my chair and anxiously wondered what this was about. If he didn’t want witnesses, it had to be bad.

He picked up the ball and started squeezing it again.

“Drummond, do I need to tell you that our friends in Washington aren’t real pleased with your performance out here?”

So that’s what this was. He’d asked the civilian to leave so we could have a soldier’s heart-to-heart. He was about to deliver the mail, as they say. I slumped down in my chair.

“No, Your Honor. I think I’ve guessed that.”

“You’re a SPECAT special attorney, right?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” I replied, although my mouth was agape.

What I was admitting was that I’m a Special Actions attorney assigned to a secret court that handles the ultra-sensitive cases of soldiers assigned to what the Army calls “black units.” In other words, units whose purpose and missions are so absurdly secret and sensitive the military won’t admit they exist. There are a lot more of these units than the public has any idea exists, which is actually paradoxical, because the public supposedly is unaware any of these units exist. With the marked exception of Delta Force, of course, which has to be the most widely publicized nonexistent unit in history.

Although the soldiers assigned to black units take strict vows to never mutter a word about what they do, when one of these “black” troopers gets accused of a serious crime, most of them instantly forget that vow and start threatening public disclosure unless they get a favorable plea bargain. There’s also the danger that a public court-martial would expose information that could be hazardous to the nation’s security.

Thus the SPECAT tribunal, where I work. The judges are handpicked. The lawyers are handpicked. We all have security clearances that run down the length of our arms. I got to be one of these attorneys because I was in the outfit, which happens to be the “blackest” unit of them all, and I got wounded so badly on a mission that my career as an infantry officer, such as it was, was over. The powers that be decided to send me to law school and then make me pay it back by working as a SPECAT lawyer.

I’m sure they were all regretting it now.

Judge Barry Carruthers wasn’t supposed to know this, of course, because the existence of the SPECAT court was kept as secret from the rest of the JAG Corps as it was from the rest of humanity.

He was grinning. “Drummond, I spent four years as a SPECAT prosecutor.”

“I had no idea,” I admitted.

“Long time ago. But I’m not keeping you here to trade chummy stories about life as a SPECAT lawyer.”

“No, I don’t guess. You’re here to tell me to straighten up and fly right.”

“I’ve never heard of a court case that caused so much godawful carnage. You realize, don’t you, that this alliance is on the brink of disintegrating?”

“That’s what they say on the news.”

“The news don’t know the half of it, Drummond. The Secretary of State’s here on a last-ditch effort to keep it together. Personally, I don’t have any money on him. You should see the messages flying back and forth between here and Washington. It’s ugly. And if you and Miss Carlson come into my court and start trying to prove this Lee kid was gay, then don’t wait till the last American flight to get off this peninsula, because our boys will be loaded on troopships, and it won’t be long before Uncle Kim up north decides it’s time to come south for an extended visit.”

“Your Honor, I-”

“Knock off the ‘your honor’ crap. We both know this isn’t a proper judge-to-lawyer conversation. This is a mano-to-mano chat we’re having here.”

“Right.”

He fixed his eyes on my face. He paused for a moment to let me know this was a decisive moment. Then he asked, “Do you really believe Whitehall’s innocent? Don’t screw with me now, Drummond. I’m not the jury. You don’t have to persuade me. Give me a no-shit answer.”

I did not pause or hesitate. “Of murder, rape, and necrophilia, I do. The other crimes, I suspect he did.”

He leaned back in his chair and kept staring at me. I guess he was trying to look into my soul to see if I was capable of telling the truth or if I was just one more prevaricating, weasel-faced defense attorney.

Finally he nodded that big head of his and said, “All right. Do what you have to do. Talk to Moran and Jackson. On Friday, we’re gonna have a trial, and you and Carlson come in and give it all you’ve got. No holds barred. I won’t be easy on you, but if an American soldier, of all people, can’t get a fair trial, then you and I chose the wrong profession.”

I thanked him, left, and hooked back up with Katherine. As soon as we got outside, we stood right where we were, in the sunlight, blinded and awestruck for a second.

I said, “We’ve got permission to talk with Moran and Jackson. Also, trial starts on Friday. No holds barred.”

She nodded. “Friday. No holds barred.”

We fell quiet.

I finally laughed. “Ah hell, he’s not so tough. He’s a big pansy.”

Katherine giggled, too. “Did you hear what he said? He threatened to rip off my head and poop down my throat. Poop? He’ll poop down my throat? What kind of a man uses that word?”

“A man who means it.”

She sighed. “God, I’m not looking forward to this trial.”