The Great Divide

by T. Davis Bunn

  Marcus cast a swift glance at the judge. She was watching Logan with that same small frown. Marcus gave a mental nod of agreement. During the past twenty-four hours, Logan had come to know what they were still seeking to discover. And it had rocked him to his very core.

  “It is a sanctionable offense to bring forward a witness and elicit testimony that should have been disclosed to us beforehand,” Logan continued. “This deserves the severest punishment, Your Honor, because the plaintiff’s counsel has falsely manipulated the court.”

  “Your request is denied,” Nicols said quietly.

  “Then I move to have this evidence struck from the record.”

  “Motion denied.”

  “I then move for a mistrial on the basis that such ambushing evidence should never be permitted.”

  “Overruled.”

  “I request you issue limiting instructions to the jury.”

  “Denied.” She waited a long moment. “Are you done? Very well. Proceed, Mr. Glenwood.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor.” Marcus returned to the witness box. “Mr. Klein, you say this paper is an official governmental document?”

  “Yes. The words at the top, they are the formal name of the Canton of Geneva.”

  “Geneva,” Marcus repeated. “That is where the request for depositions of the New Horizons board members has been sent, is it not?”

  “I am sorry, I don’t—”

  “Never mind, Mr. Klein. Back to the document. Can you tell me what exactly it says?”

  “Yes, of course.” He read swiftly and translated, “These photocopies are of the incorporation of a joint venture between New Horizons and a certain Factory 101—”

  Logan had to pitch his voice to be heard over the rising swell of noise from the court observers. “Objection! Your Honor, the witness said it himself. These are not original documents!”

  Marcus hefted further documents from his table and replied, “Request permission to approach the bench.”

  “Very well.”

  When Marcus was close enough to see the beaded sweat on Logan’s forehead, Logan hissed, “Interesting how you waited to this point to request confidentiality.”

  “All right, enough. Go ahead, Mr. Glenwood.”

  “Your Honor, these documents have been unearthed not in Switzerland but in Beijing.” He gave a verbatim recital of what Dee Gautam had scrawled in his cover note, and hoped the judge would not request further information, because he had none. “A quasi-governmental body exists there whose sole purpose is to extract special ‘foreign operating taxes’ from international ventures. That is why you see that strange stamp in the top-right corner.” He offered his other documents. “I wish to offer these as further evidence, Your Honor. They are the corporate documents of the Swiss partner, a shell company established by New Horizons Incorporated just to hold this joint venture.”

  “I object,” Logan said, but weakly. “This is further trial by ambush.”

  “It has taken us this long to unearth these documents, Your Honor. As I said, it is all newly discovered evidence.”

  “I am going to allow it,” Nicols said.

  “Your Honor—”

  She stopped Logan with one black-robed arm. “Proceed, Mr. Glenwood.”

  Marcus returned to the witness stand and walked the witness carefully through all the documents, concluding with, “So what we have here are official documents lodged with the federal government in Bern. These documents state that a Swiss subsidiary of New Horizons is now the forty-nine-percent owner of Factory 101 in Guangzhou, China. The Chinese signatory, representing the controlling interest in the joint venture, is a certain Zhao Ren-Fan. And that payment for New Horizons’ share was made in the form of equipment and sales contracts.”

  “Yes,” Hans Klein emphatically agreed. “All is stated exactly so.”

  Marcus decided to risk one further question. “Can you tell the court why New Horizons would choose to go this route and incorporate in Switzerland rather than in the United States?”

  “Objection. Requires conjecture on the part of the witness!”

  “I submit this witness is an expert in this field, Your Honor,” Marcus responded, “and can reply from a wealth of experience.”

  Judge Nicols leaned over her desk and asked the young man, “Do you fully understand the nature of this question?”

  “Oh yes, judge.”

  “Very well, you may respond. But only to the exact question.”

  Marcus repeated, “Why would the company choose to incorporate in Switzerland?”

  “Usually there are only two reasons,” the man replied brightly. “Because our taxes are very low and all corporate records are held as secret documents—they are not shared with anyone in the company’s home country, not even the tax authorities. Not by us, I mean. What they choose to do themselves is their business.”

  “No further questions.” Marcus retreated from the witness and the one question he could not ask: How did the young man know Dee Gautam?

  Logan gathered his forces and fought back. “Mr. Klein, what you have in front of you are photocopied documents, is that not correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you ever seen these documents before this morning?”

  “No.”

  “Can you guarantee their authenticity?”

  “No, well, perhaps, but it is hard, you see—”

  “Could these documents not be forged, Mr. Klein?”

  “It is hardly likely, because—”

  “Yes or no, Mr. Klein: Could these documents be forged?”

  “Yes, of course, anything is possible.”

  “Yes, of course, they could be forgeries.” Head down, Logan tracked his way toward the jury box, as though intent on ramming home the fact. “How much business background do you have, Mr. Klein?”

  “I am a graduate of the Bern School of Diplomacy, a part of the University—”

  “A diplomacy school. So you are a civil servant. A federal bureaucrat. With no actual experience in business whatsoever. Is that correct?”

  The young man’s eager demeanor was swiftly fading. “I went straight from school into our foreign service.”

  “Do you know anything whatsoever about New Horizons’ operations in North Carolina, Mr. Klein? Are you aware they employ four thousand people in this state, most of them in one of the poorest areas in the Southeast United States, and are in fact the largest employer in the region?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t—”

  “Are you aware of the charitable activities this company undertakes on behalf of young people playing organized sports nationwide?”

  “I have seen their advertisements,” he responded lamely.

  “Their advertisements. How nice. Is it not true, Mr. Klein, that all you really know about this company is this one document, shown to you by the plaintiff, possibly forged, given to you for whatever motive the plaintiff might have dreamed up?”

  “I …Yes, I suppose—”

  “No further questions, Your Honor.” Logan wheeled about and stalked by Marcus’ table. As he passed he landed a single flaming glance, a swift warning shot across the bow. Marcus understood perfectly. Logan was bloodied, but far from beaten. This was only the first round.

  THIRTY-ONE

  YOU’VE MADE a total shambles of this from the beginning.” The silver-maned gentleman at the head of the table glared down at Randall. “Which I suppose should come as a surprise to no one present.”

  “The cameras aren’t rolling, Sidney, and the press isn’t here.” Randall played at a nonchalance he did not feel. “You can stuff that censure back in your pocket.”

  “Now look here!” Before being forced into retirement, the chairman of the China Trade Council had run a seventeen-billion-dollar corporation. He was used to people jumping when he barked. Randall’s slow drawl left him bilious. “I don’t take that from anybody, especially not some gun-for-hire, two-bit shyster like you!”

  “Calm down,
Sidney.” This from the deputy chairman, himself the former chief executive of a Fortune 50 company. “This is getting us nowhere in a hurry.”

  The opulent suite of Washington offices would have better suited a private club than a firm of lobbyists. But this was no common lobbying group, and the men gathered here were not mere mortals. The table was ringed by nineteen retired executives, all white, all over sixty, whose retirement packages had all exceeded twenty-five million dollars.

  The China Trade Council had started life as a quasi-official arm of the International Chamber of Commerce. It had soon come to the council’s attention, however, that it could operate far more effectively if it were independent. And secretive. Its chieftans included the top executives of over three dozen of the largest corporations in the United States. Membership in the council cost them 250,000 dollars per year. The board itself was selected on the basis of contacts within the current administration. Members of the council’s board accompanied the President on trade missions, attended top-level Commerce Department strategy sessions, represented American industry before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, slept in the Lincoln bedroom. As far as Randall Walker was concerned, these men had held power for so long it had rusted along with their brains.

  The council’s chairman attempted to rein in his rage. “I told those bozos at New Horizons they were making a mistake to entrust you with something this explosive.”

  “What would you expect,” grumbled another board member. “Coming from a company that sells glow-in-the-dark tennis shoes.”

  “And pays a million bucks a year to some yahoo because he can jump,” sneered the deputy.

  Randall ignored the jibes because he was concentrating on another sound, the only one he could clearly hear. The China Trade Council’s boardroom table was ringed by the noise of sharpening knives. “New Horizons pays their dues the same as you. They appoint their representative, the same as your own companies. That representative happens to be me. As per our rights as a council member, we are requesting your help.”

  “Help that should have been requested weeks ago! Back before this lawsuit became a public brawl!”

  The deputy turned his placating tone on Randall. “You know how we hate publicity. Especially when the Vice President has a trade mission in the pipeline.”

  Randall smiled, and wished he could reach over and strangle the man. “I find it absolutely amazing how everybody at this table has such perfect hindsight.”

  The chairman barked, “I told you from the beginning to destroy the Hall girl’s files.”

  Randall sighed. “And just exactly when was that supposed to happen? Back when we didn’t know there were any files, or after we realized she must have locked them in a safety deposit box?”

  “Now you listen—”

  But Randall wasn’t done. “Hamper Caisse searched the Stanstead girl’s car, house, office, bathroom, basement—not once, but three different times. Everyone in this room knows Caisse is the best in the business. That’s why we use him. Caisse said there was nothing. I believed him.”

  “And look how wrong you were!”

  “Yes.” Randall’s mind remained split between two fantasies. One was of carving out the chairman’s tongue with a dull spoon. The other was of a frosty glass filled to the rim with crushed ice and single-malt scotch. He could not tell which one appealed the most just then. “We were all wrong. Remember the meeting we had soon after this broke, gentlemen? I’ll be happy to draw out the minutes to refresh your memories. First we arranged for an attorney we tamed to tell the Halls they had no case. When that didn’t work, we agreed that sooner or later this thing was bound to come out. Then the Halls selected a lawyer so utterly incompetent the case was lost before it was started.”

  Randall felt suddenly weary, both of this battle and the overall war. It had all seemed so simple then. “It was a unanimous decision, gentlemen. We all agreed. The Halls were not going to drop this case. A lawyer would be hired. The Halls would pursue their case. And going after the Halls themselves would only heighten the risk of everything coming out in the press. We couldn’t bribe them, we couldn’t threaten them. We had to find a weak link. Glenwood was perfect.”

  “Perfect!” The chairman’s face had turned a remarkable shade of puce. “The man is threatening to derail our trade mission! One of our most senior contacts has privately informed us that China is considering the closure of all American subsidiaries and cutting off further negotiations with all U.S. companies! We stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in new business! You call this perfect?”

  It was the deputy who responded. “As soon as the facts began to emerge, we tried to stop this Glenwood. Caisse was sent in. And others.”

  “Yes, and I can now see where the problem lay all along!” The chairman stabbed a trembling finger at Randall. “You didn’t have the guts to finish things off cleanly!”

  Randall had to release at least one small chuckle. “And you do?”

  “Absolutely! And furthermore, we’ve got the intelligence to see this as the utter shambles it is!”

  “On the contrary, Sidney.” Randall decided he had had enough. “You’re so dumb you could get lost in a round room.”

  The chairman catapulted out of his chair. “Get him out of here!”

  “Sidney, calm—”

  “You’re fired! I’m getting your boss on the phone and personally taking control of this myself!”

  “Oh, now we’re in for a treat.” Randall picked up his briefcase and graced the room with a grand smile. He had a villa on the Amalfi Coast he had visited only once, and two bank accounts in Switzerland stuffed to overflowing. It was time to taste the good life. As Randall gazed down at the eighteen other faces, he found himself wondering what had possessed him to want to join them in the first place. “I advise all of you to head for the nearest bunker.”

  WHEN THE PHONE RANG, Marcus first thought it was part of a dream. His heart pounded in time to the jangling tone, and his eyes opened to a dark scarcely less vacant than the tomb. A vague yellowish light spilled through his window, enough to guide his hand to the phone. He lifted the receiver and squinted at the clock dial. It was four in the morning. “Hello?”

  “Good, you are awake. This is very good.”

  Marcus recognized the voice of Dee Gautam. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Good to be awake and receiving good news. Sometimes the clock is an enemy to be conquered, yes?”

  Marcus swung his legs to the floor, searched for the lamp switch, squinted at the sudden brilliance. “What news?”

  “You are having pencil and paper?”

  “Hang on. Yes, all right, go ahead.”

  “A certain Hao Lin wishes to speak with you.” The merry voice spelled the name. “She is in detention at the INS center outside Washington. You know the term, INS?”

  “Immigration and Naturalization Service. But what—”

  “They hold her. Here is the detention number they have given to Hao Lin.” He read off the code. “Call today. See her now. Before she is moved and lost again. Hurry.” Dee Gautam cut the connection.

  Marcus sat holding the receiver until he became resigned to the end of his slumber. He rose and padded for the bathroom, glad of one thing only: At least this night he had beaten the nightmare to the punch.

  He went for a run in the dark, reveling in his brief solitude. He had not realized how much the constant presence of others weighed upon him. Even the ache in his arm felt like a healing pulse.

  The night was black and starless, the clouds glinting dully with light reflected from the town below. Rocky Mount had the look of a place too weary to recover with only one brief night’s rest. He headed toward the river, took the bridge, and passed through the deserted downtown streets. The previous year’s floods had merely added new scars to more ancient signs of neglect. Tobacco barns, their windows black and toothless, sported wall signs of long-forgotten companies. Marcus ran and reflected upon how this was the perf
ect breeding ground for injustice, how inevitable it was for New Horizons to come and suck up what good remained within this tired old town.

  He returned and showered and ate, waiting until eight o’clock to call Ashley. Marcus greeted the lawyer with, “This has the makings of a great tale, how one attorney wakes another on a Saturday morning about a case that probably won’t earn either of them a nickel.”

  Ashley croaked, “I’m supposed to find something funny about this?”

  “Dee Gautam woke me at four.”

  “Call me back in five minutes.”

  Marcus waited ten, then redialed. Ashley answered, “I assume the elf did not want to know how you were resting.”

  “He says there’s a potential witness who can’t wait. A certain Hao Lin held at the INS detention center somewhere near Washington. I’m sorry, he didn’t give me any more address than that.”

  “I know the INS holding pen.” There was no longer any sleepiness to Ashley’s tone. “You want me to get a deposition.”

  “Yes. Soon as I hear from you that this person is genuine and has something to offer, I’ll go ahead and request the judge serve papers to have her brought down.”

  “Fine. Good. Listen, I was hoping to contact you this weekend. There’s something pretty amazing that I’m catching wind of. Do you want the rumors now or the facts in another day or so?”

  Marcus pondered, then decided, “I’ll stick with the facts. I don’t know if I could handle anything else right now.”

  MARCUS SET DOWN the phone in time to the chime of his front doorbell. Darren appeared in the back hall and stood watching as he opened the door only to find himself confronting a stranger with a tense look and a cast-off smile. “Marcus Glenwood?”

  “Yes.”

  “Great.” He handed over a bulky packet and turned for the stairs. “Have a nice day.”

  Marcus was still standing in his doorway reading the pages when his phone rang once more. Reluctantly he walked back to his office and picked up the receiver. “Glenwood.”