by Tal Bauer
Richard Renner sat across from Vadim Kryukov in a tiny, windowless room in the federal detention center. Thick, rubber-coated wire mesh stretched between them, barricading Kryukov to one side of the room. The prisoner’s side. A camera watched them from the corner, obviously recording everything.
Kryukov hunched on his side of the table, his hands faintly scratching at the steel surface. His blond hair was stringy, hanging in his face, a curtain that needed to be pulled back.
“Are you being treated well?”
Kryukov flinched. Slowly, he looked up and eyeballed Renner, big, blue Slavic eyes staring at him like icebergs. “I am in solitary,” he said softly. “But it is better than the last time I was in prison.”
Shit. “When were you last in prison?” Renner flipped through his papers. He didn’t have a record of Kryukov being incarcerated before. Had that been left off? What the hell—
“In Russia. I was jailed because I am pidor.” He held Renner’s stare. “Because I am gay.”
Renner blinked. He stopped shuffling his papers. Laced his fingers together, and regarded Kryukov carefully. “You are being charged as a terrorist, which means that, though we do have attorney-client privilege, there will also be a team of counterterrorism agents monitoring all your conversations. They’re looking for any information you might inadvertently admit.”
Kryukov nodded. Somewhere, a counterterrorism agent was cursing his name bitterly.
“You are a suspected terrorist. The government claims you are an anarchist, and specifically that you want to bring about the end of the Russian state.”
“Of course I want the end of the Russian state. They criminalized my existence. Threw me in jail for who I am. I escaped to America for a new life. For freedom.” He lifted his wrists, handcuffed together. “Why would I throw that away?”
Renner never asked his clients if they did “it” or not. Whatever crime they were accused of, whatever charges were brought. He never wanted to know. He never asked, and he made it a point to never let them admit their guilt, even if they desperately, desperately wanted to. “I could understand,” he said carefully, “someone in your shoes wanting to make a statement. President Vasiliev was shot in front of a gay pride march. That’s one hell of a statement.”
“And I wish he had died.” Kryukov spat on the concrete floor. “But I had nothing to do with this.”
Russians, more than any others, always protested their innocence. They could be holding the bloody knife in front of a still-warm body and blame the victim, claim they were only defending themselves. Was that what Kryukov was going to say? He was only defending himself and other gay men like him? “You don’t have to convince me of anything.” Best to get that out of the way. “Let’s talk about your defense. There are a few options we can look at. First, the technical evidence. We play the government’s rulebook and prove to the jury that the evidence is weak and the state can’t actually prove you were involved.”
“I was not involved.”
Renner held up his hand, his lips quirked up in a placating smirk. “Like I said, no need to work hard to convince me.”
“What evidence do they claim they have?”
“Well…” Renner pulled out the criminal complaint and the arrest warrant, filed by the United States attorney himself and signed by Judge Tom Brewer. “They have a text from your cell phone to Desheriyev’s cell phone identifying President Vasiliev as the target of the shooting.”
“I did not send that text. I do not know this Desheriyev.”
“They also have Desheriyev picking out your voice as the voice that spoke to him over the phone. Desheriyev identified you, conclusively.”
“Impossible.”
“Does the number six-two-one mean anything to you?”
Kryukov froze. Renner knew a yes when he saw one. “And, they also have a bag of cocaine that Desheriyev says you provided to him. It has his fingerprints… and yours.” He peered at Kryukov, who was now looking hard at the wall to his left. “Are you a cocaine user, Mr. Kryukov? A dealer, even?”
Silence. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” Kryukov finally growled.
“Just answer that one question truthfully. It will help me.”
“I am a businessman. I sell a product. I have many customers. Happy customers.”
The famous Russian doublespeak and protestation. He hadn’t so much as said the words, but he’d confirmed it. “Did you sell your product to Desheriyev?”
“No!” Kryukov slammed his hand on the steel table. “I tell you already! I do not know this man! I have never seen him! Spoken to him! Never did I text him! Never!” His icy eyes burned with anger, now more gray than blue.
“The physical evidence is harder to overcome, but not impossible. I’ll be going through the warrants, making sure everything was obtained in a perfectly legal manner. If there’s any reason to get something thrown out, I will find it. We can go after Desheriyev’s testimony against you, too. The word of a mercenary for hire? Please. He has zero credibility. Altogether, is the evidence enough to point to conspiracy? Enough to convict a man to death? I can make a case to the jury that this is way, way too low a threshold. It’s a good argument, and will win over the bleeding hearts.”
“If you cannot get the evidence thrown away?”
Renner blew air out of his ballooning cheeks. “Well, there’s another defense we can run. You ever been to Texas?”
Kryukov glared at him. He said nothing.
“Texas is one of the states where this defense works real well. It’s a modification of lex talonis. You know what that is?”
Kryukov shook his head.
“An eye for an eye.” Renner grinned. “Justifiable homicide. In Texas, they say it like this: sometimes, a man just needs killin’.”
Kryukov’s eyes flashed. Not with anger, not this time. Something else. Something hungrier. He leaned in, no longer hunching, no longer afraid. His eyes narrowed, and even his hair seemed edgier, no longer meek and stringy, but framing a face cut from a glacier. “Vasiliev needs killing.”
“So, to run that as a defense, we’d expose all of Vasiliev’s dirty laundry. All of Russia’s dirty laundry. Vasiliev was one of Putin’s thugs, yes? Well, we paint the picture for the world. Russia, a totalitarian state. You, little David, fighting for your life and your rights against the Goliath that imprisoned you—”
“Tortured me.”
“—and tortured you because you are gay. You’re a refugee, so, bam. Even the U.S. government thought you were suffering, and they airlifted you out of Russia and brought you to the land of equality.” Renner smiled, like a shark might. “We paint that picture in Technicolor three-D. I bet you more than a few jurors will wish Desheriyev had been a little better with his aim and Vasiliev was a smear inside a wooden box, instead of a pain in the ass on CNN.”
“How will you do this? How will you expose Vasiliev? I have worked against Putin and Vasiliev my whole life. Now you say you can do this, no problem. How?” Kryukov leaned forward again, punctuating his questions with raps to the steel tabletop.
“I file a discovery motion that asks for everything. You see, in America, we don’t do show trials, and we don’t do monkey shitshows either. This judge? Brewer? He gives defendants a judicial hand job. He loves overindulging defense attorneys, making sure everything is fair, fair, fair. We can play that like an electric guitar. We’re entitled to everything that is material to our defense. So I want it all. The government’s position on Vasiliev. Human rights abuse the government knows about. Public denouncements from Amnesty International and every other bleeding-heart organization.” Renner hesitated. “There is a big risk with this defense. I need to be straight with you.”
Kryukov frowned.
“I’m essentially putting your motive under the microscope. Ballard, the U.S. Attorney, could turn around and say that we made his case for him. We’re pulling jurors from the DC federal district. That’s DC, all of DC. Gangbangers in the northeast, r
ich conservatives in the northwest and Georgetown, and green party equality-loving progressives by the river. This case is internationally notorious, so there’s no hope of getting a change of venue. Some of the jurors will have their minds made up before the trial, and it’s a Sisyphean effort to change their minds.” He held his breath. “And, there are the three dead Secret Service agents. Ballard will try and stir hearts with patriotic fervor, and he’ll win a lot of points playing the heartbroken, grieving families and stricken nation card. Their funerals are coming up, and that will be a masturbatory experience for Ballard and his prosecution team.”
Kryukov growled, and he grabbed his head, as much as he could with his wrists shackled. “This is not good! Why do you play these games with me? Do you want to help me or not?”
“Mr. Kryukov, I will do everything I can—”
“Then find the man who did this!” Kryukov exploded. “Find the man who set me up! Who really hired Desheriyev!”
He sighed. Pressed his lips together. Smiled a tight, thin smile. “Mr. Kryukov, do you watch a lot of television? Hollywood movies? Seen a lot of set ups on screen? It’s not that easy in real life. People just don’t get set up.”
Kryukov’s stare turned frigid, wrathful.
“There’s physical evidence connecting you to this crime. Cell phone texts, verified by both cell companies and the cell tower, your fingerprint. Desheriyev’s statement backs up the hard evidence.” He held his hand out over his notes, as if he was summoning the truth from the warrant and the complaint. “I’m not asking you if you did it. And you don’t have to try and convince me you’re innocent. My job is to defend you. Not believe you.”
Lunging, Kryukov grabbed the rubber-coated wires, his fingers wrapping around the mesh screen like claws. “I did not do this,” he growled. “I am being set up.”
“By who?”
“That is your job. To defend me, you must find who truly did this. Who set me up. Who has the power to do this kind of thing? Who can change cell records? Plant fingerprints?”
His mind whirled, racing from one thought to the next. It was preposterous. It was ludicrous. It was the stuff of bad Hollywood movies, Bruce Willis flicks with too many explosions and too little sense.
But if there was one government in the world that wanted Vasiliev dead, it would have been the United States. Hadn’t Vasiliev just come from the Capitol where he’d met with congressional leaders who collectively gave him the finger? Bipartisanship, at least, in defiance of Russia’s aggression in Eastern Europe? And hadn’t President McDonough, the day before, supposedly told Vasiliev to fuck off?
Was it possible?
Honestly, probably not.
Could he build a case around it, though? At the very least, he could make it excruciating for the government. Prosecute and reveal their dirty secrets, or keep their mouths shut and let a mistrial happen when they didn’t produce information on discovery. Perhaps suffer their failure to assassinate Vasiliev, even.
“Okay…” He shifted, leaning forward. Braced his elbows on his padfolio and chewed on his lip. Thoughts tumbled, merged, coalesced. A strategy, a loose one, began to form. “Okay, here’s what we do. Forget everything I said. Our defense is that you were framed. In discovery, we’re entitled to all information that exculpates you. That says you didn’t do it. So, again, we ask for everything. Everything the government has on the assassination attempt. The forensics, the FBI investigation, any intelligence they’ve uncovered, before the attack and after, that discusses the attack. Foreign intelligence intercepts. Internal documents. NSA recordings. Human intelligence sources and their reports. What has the CIA’s top spy in Moscow said about this attack? Anything and everything the FBI, CIA, NSA, and Secret Service have on this. Our government’s investigation in total.
“Will they give you this information?” Kryukov looked dubious at best. “In Russia, they would laugh you off, all the way to Siberia.”
“They will have to give it to us, or I can move for a mistrial. Like I told you, we don’t do show trials here. Nothing is fake. And, with what I know about the judge, he’ll fall right in line. We demand the information, or we move for a mistrial.” Renner snapped his padfolio closed. “Easy as that.”
“But what about finding the man who really did this? Clearing my name?”
“If you walk out of this prison, your name is as clear as it’s ever going to be.”
Kryukov slammed his open palm against the wire mesh. “Not good enough! I did not do this!”
“One step at a time, Mr. Kryukov. We just need to make this hurt for the U.S. government. Leave that to me.”
Chapter 24
That evening, Mike turned the TV off, ending Tom’s obsessive watching of CNN. Since the case had been assigned, Tom had the TV on, either in his office or at Mike’s place, and he stared at the screen like he was waiting for the world to worsen, for the next breaking news alert to be more terrible than the last. His face kept popping up, along with commentators speculating about how he’d run the trial, or what he was like. He was painted as a demon and a saint, a defender of justice and a pansy who gave in to defense attorneys.
So far, not a word, not a whisper, about his sexuality. About Friday. About him and Mike.
He was desperately, pathetically relieved.
“I wish I could cook you dinner.” Mike wrapped his arms around Tom’s waist and held him. “I’m sorry my place is such a disaster.”
“I’m not that hungry.”
“You need to eat. There’s a Lebanese place a few blocks up. Let me run over there. Get some hummus, some appetizer stuff. You can pick at it, eat slowly.” He rubbed his hands over Tom’s arms. Concern hung in his eyes, deep pools of worry and care. Tom hadn’t had someone care this much about him in decades. His throat clenched, and he nodded, afraid his voice would break if he spoke.
“Can I take Etta Mae? Give her a walk?”
At the word “walk”, Etta Mae perked up, rising on the couch and staring at Mike, her head cocked all the way to the right. Her tail wagged, slapping the couch like a deranged drummer.
“She’d like that.”
“I think you should stay here, though. I don’t want to stumble on anyone, or have anyone recognize you. Or follow you back here.” Mike looked like he was telling Tom that his mother had died.
“Yeah. Yeah, I agree.” Tom shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I’ll wait here.” He tried to smile.
Mike grabbed Etta Mae’s leash and hooked it to her harness as she bounced at his feet. His giant blue eyes, telling Tom goodbye, gave Etta Mae’s puppy-dog eyes a run for their money. “I’ll be right back.” Mike squeezed his hip and kissed him, and then headed out the door.
Silence enveloped Tom. He heard his own lungs inhale, breath fill his diaphragm, heard the dust settle in corners. Heard each chamber of his heart beat, a fast, anxious rhythm.
From silence came loneliness, slamming into him like he’d taken a belly flop off an Olympic high dive. He was alone, completely and utterly alone. The sound of the door closing, the lock turning, played over in his mind, twisting until it became evil, the final act of Mike leaving him for good. He was alone, and he’d always be alone. He deserved to be alone. Out of everything, out of the botched assassination attempt, Fink trying to railroad him off his trial, Ballard being shiftier and more ruthless than usual, out of all the ways the world had tipped sideways in the past week… he was most frantic over whether anyone had let slip to the media that he’d kissed Mike in public, out in the open, and had taken one foot out of his very deep closet.
Tom sank down, crouching as he wrapped his hands behind his neck. Breathe. Just breathe. Mike would be back. And when he came back, Tom was going to be better. Be a better man, a better partner, before he really did end up alone.
He grabbed some paper plates and plastic forks and then pulled two bottles of beer from the fridge. There were a few stubby candles on Mike’s bookshelves, and he grabbed them and set them on t
he coffee table in front of Mike’s couch.
And then he sat, clasping his hands together, and listened to the dust settle again.
Yes, he’d kissed Mike in public at the volleyball game. And yes, then he’d gone to their gay bar again and had been introduced as “Mike’s new man”. He’d been happy at the time, thrilled. Exuberant. Being seen, and known, and having Mike pick him, want to be with him, out of all the gay men in DC.
Now he felt like he was hammering his closet shut from the inside, shoving towels under the door crack and blocking out every speck of light that tried to shine through.
Had anything changed between them? No, not really. He was leaning on Mike more, and maybe the sharp divide in their professional positions was highlighted today, thanks to Ballard. Mike was a marshal and he was a judge. He’d heard of marshals hooking up with AUSAs before, but that was considered scandalous. A prosecutor slumming it with a marshal? The other attorneys had looked down their noses when it happened, at the attorney reaching too low in the search for love.
He didn’t care about any of that. Mike was so much more than who he was at the courthouse. He was everything, simply everything. He was quickly becoming Tom’s home base, his tree fort, his lighthouse, and his castle. He was already Tom’s lover, and cementing himself as his best friend, too. All the little ways he cared… from taking his judge’s robe to walking Etta Mae, from encouraging him, even when Tom’s mind was a thousand miles away, to making sure he ate.
The world had changed around them, making their fledgling relationship suddenly catastrophic to both their careers. What they needed, right now, was to focus on their duties, be the best they could be professionally.
But the best Tom could be was already starting to wind through how he felt for Mike. Without Mike, he was woefully incomplete, as a man and as a human being. Humans weren’t meant to be alone, and he’d been an exile from his own people for far, far too long. How did he break apart the puzzle of his soul when he’d finally put all the pieces together? Could he ever function properly again, knowing what he was missing if he walked away from this, from Mike? Humpty Dumpty had fallen twenty-five years ago, and he was finally back together again. Could he survive another collapse?