by Tom Clancy
"Doctor Ryan? Would you please follow me, sir?" The VIP treatment continued here also. A bailiff in short sleeves and tie came over and led him into the courtroom through a side door. A police officer took his computer after opening the door. "Show-time," Ryan whispered to himself.
Old Bailey #2 was an extravagance of 19th-century woodworking. The large room was paneled with so much solid oak that the construction of a similar room in America would draw a protest from the Sierra Club for all the trees it required. The actual floorspace was surprisingly small, scarcely as much as the dining room in his house, a similarity made all the more striking by a table set in the center. The judge's bench was a wooden fortress adjacent to the witness box. The Honorable Mr. Justice Wheeler sat in one of the five high-backed chairs behind it. He was resplendent in a scarlet robe and sash, and a horsehair wig, called a "peruke," Ryan had been told, that fell to his narrow shoulders and clearly looked like something from another age. The jury box was to Ryan's left. Eight women and four men sat in two even rows, each face full of anticipation. Above them was the public gallery, perched like a choir loft and angled so that Ryan could barely see the people there. The barristers were to Ryan's right, across the small floorspace, wearing black robes, 18th-century cravats, and their own, smaller wigs. The net effect of all this was a vaguely religious atmosphere that made Ryan slightly uneasy as he was sworn in.
William Richards, QC, the prosecutor, was a man of Ryan's age, similar in height and build. He began with the usual questions: your name, place of residence, profession, when did you arrive, for what purpose? Richards predictably had a flair for the dramatic, and by the time the questions carried them to the shooting, Ryan could sense the excitement and anticipation of the audience without even looking at their faces.
"Doctor Ryan, could you describe in your own words what happened next?"
Jack did exactly this for ten minutes, without interruption, all the while half-facing the jury. He tried to avoid looking into their faces. It seemed an odd place to get stage fright, but this was precisely what Ryan felt. He focused his eyes on the oak panels just over their heads as he ran through the events. It was almost like living it again, and Ryan could feel his heart beating faster as he concluded.
"And, Doctor Ryan, can you identify for us the man whom you first attacked?" Richards finally asked.
"Yes, sir." Ryan pointed. "The defendant, right there, sir."
It was Ryan's first really good look at him. His name was Sean Miller—not a particularly Irish name to Ryan's way of thinking. He was twenty-six, short, slender, dressed neatly in a suit and tie. He was smiling up at someone in the visitors' gallery, a family member perhaps, when Ryan pointed. Then his gaze shifted, and Ryan examined the man for the first time. What sort of person, Jack had wondered for weeks, could plan and execute such a crime? What was missing in him, or what terrible thing lived in him that most civilized people had the good fortune to lack? The thin, acne-scarred face was entirely normal. Miller could have been an executive trainee at Merrill Lynch or any other business concern. Jack's father had spent his life dealing with criminals, but their existence was a puzzlement to Ryan. Why are you different? What makes you what you are? Ryan wanted to ask, knowing that even if there were an answer the question would remain. Then he looked at Miller's eyes. He looked for… something, a spark of life, humanity—something that would say that this was indeed another human being. It could only have been two seconds, but for Ryan the moment seemed to linger into minutes as he looked into those pale gray eyes and saw…
Nothing. Nothing at all. And Jack began to understand a little.
"The record will show," the Lord Justice intoned to the court reporter, "that the witness identified the defendant, Sean Miller."
"Thank you, My Lord," Richards concluded.
Ryan took the opportunity to blow his nose. He'd acquired a head cold over the preceding weekend.
"Are you quite comfortable, Doctor Ryan?" the judge inquired. Jack realized that he'd been leaning on the wooden rail.
"Excuse me, your hon—My Lord. This cast is a little tiring." Every time Sally came past her father, she had taken to singing, "I'm a little teapot…"
"Bailiff, a stool for the witness," the judge ordered.
The defense team was seated adjacent to the prosecution, perhaps fifteen feet farther away in the same row of seats, green leather cushions on the oak benches. In a moment the bailiff arrived with a simple wooden stool, and Ryan settled down on it. What he really needed was a hook for his left arm, but he was gradually becoming used to the weight. It was the constant itching that drove him crazy, though there was nothing anybody could do about that.
The defense attorney—barrister—rose with elegant deliberation. His name was Charles Atkinson, more commonly known as Red Charlie, a lawyer with a penchant for radical causes and radical crimes. He was supposed to be an embarrassment to the Labour Party, which he had served until recently in Parliament. Red Charlie was about thirty pounds overweight, his wig askew atop a florid, strangely thin face for the ample frame. Defending terrorists must have paid well enough, Ryan thought. There's a question Owens must be looking into, Ryan told himself. Where is your money coming from, Mr. Atkinson?
"May it please Your Lordship," he said formally to the bench. He walked slowly towards Ryan, a sheaf of notes in his hand.
"Doctor Ryan—or should I say Sir John?"
Jack waved his hand. "Whatever is convenient to you, sir," he answered indifferently. They had warned him about Atkinson. A very clever bastard, they'd said. Ryan had known quite a few clever bastards in the brokerage business.
"You were, I believe, a leftenant in the United States Marine Corps?"
"Yes, sir, that is correct."
Atkinson looked down at his notes, then over at the jury. "Bloodthirsty mob, the U.S. Marines," he muttered.
"Excuse me, sir? Bloodthirsty?" Ryan asked. "No, sir. Most of the Marines I know are beer drinkers."
Atkinson spun back at Ryan as a ripple of laughter came down from the gallery. He gave Jack a thin, dangerous smile. They'd warned Jack most of all to beware his word games and tactical skill in the courtroom. To hell with it, Ryan told himself. He smiled back at the barrister. Go for it, asshole…
"Forgive me, Sir John. A figure of speech. I meant to say that the U.S. Marines have a reputation for aggressiveness. Surely this is true?"
"Marines are light infantry troops who specialize in amphibious assault. We were pretty well trained, but when you get down to it we weren't all that different from any other kind of soldier. It's just a matter of specialization in a particularly tough field," Ryan answered, hoping to throw him a little off balance. Marines were supposed to be arrogant, but that was mostly movie stuff. If you're really good, they'd taught him at Quantico, you don't have to be arrogant. Just letting people know you're a Marine was usually enough.
"Assault troops?"
"Yes, sir. That's basically correct."
"So, you commanded assault troops, then?"
"Yes, sir."
"Try not to be too modest, Sir John. What sort of man is selected to lead such troops. Aggressive? Decisive? Bold? Certainly he would have more of these qualities than the average foot soldier?"
"As a matter of fact, sir, in my edition of The Marine Officer's Guide, the foremost of the qualities that the Corps looks for in an officer is integrity." Ryan smiled again. Atkinson hadn't done his homework on that score. "I commanded a platoon, sure, but as my captain explained to me when I came aboard, my principal job was to carry out the orders he gave me, and to lean on my gunny—my platoon sergeant—for his practical experience. The job I was in was supposed to be as much a learning experience as a command slot. I mean, in business it's called an entry-level position. You don't start shaking the world your first day on the job in any business."
Atkinson frowned a bit. This was not going as he'd expected.
"Ah, then, Sir John, a leftenant of American Marines is really a leader
of Boy Scouts. Surely you don't mean that?" he asked, a sarcastic edge on his voice.
"No, sir. Excuse me, I did not mean to give that impression, but we're not a bunch of hyperaggressive barbarians either. My job was to carry out orders, to be as aggressive as the situation called for, and to exercise some amount of judgment, like any officer. But I was only there three months, and I was still learning how to be an officer when I was injured. Marines follow orders. Officers give orders, of course, but a second lieutenant is the lowest form of officer. You take more than you give. I guess you've never been in the service," Ryan tagged on the barb at the end.
"So, what sort of training did they give you?" Atkinson demanded, either angry or feigning it.
Richards looked up to Ryan, a warning broadcast from his eyes. He'd emphasized several times that Jack shouldn't cross swords with Red Charlie.
"Really, basic leadership skills. They taught us how to lead men in the field," Ryan replied. "How to react to a given tactical situation. How to employ the platoon's weapons, and to a lesser extent, the weapons in a rifle company. How to call in outside support from artillery and air assets—"
"To react?"
"Yes, sir, that is part of it." Ryan kept his answers as long as he thought he could get away with, careful to keep his voice even, friendly, and informative. "I've never been in anything like a combat situation—unless you count this thing we're talking about, of course—but our instructors were very clear about telling us that you don't have time to think very much when bullets are flying. You have to know what to do, and you have to do it fast—or you get your own people killed."
"Excellent, Sir John. You were trained to react quickly and decisively to tactical stimuli, correct?"
"Yes, sir." Ryan thought he saw the ambush coming.
"So, in the unfortunate incident before this court, when the initial explosion took place, you have testified that you were looking in the wrong direction?"
"I was looking away from the explosion, yes, sir."
"How soon afterwards did you turn to see what was happening?"
"Well, sir, as I said earlier, the first thing I did was to get my wife and daughter down under cover. Then I looked up. How long did that take?" Ryan cocked his head. "At least one second, sir, maybe as many as three. Sorry, but as I said earlier, it's hard to recall that sort of thing—you don't have a stopwatch on yourself, I mean."
"So, when you finally did look up, you had not seen what had immediately transpired?"
"Correct, sir." Okay, Charlie, ask the next question.
"You did not, therefore, see my client fire his pistol, nor throw a hand grenade?"
Cute, Ryan thought, surprised that he'd try this ploy. Well, he has to try something, doesn't he? "No, sir. When I first saw him, he was running around the corner of the car, from the direction of the other man, the one who was killed—the one with the rifle. A moment later he was at the right-rear corner of the Rolls, facing away from me, with the pistol in his right hand, pointed forward and down, as if—"
"Assumption on your part," Atkinson interrupted. "As if what? It could have been any one of several things. But what things? How could you tell what he was doing there? You did not see him get out of the car, which later drove off. For all you know he might have been another pedestrian racing to the rescue, just as you did, mightn't he?"
Jack was supposed to be surprised by this.
"Assumption, sir? No, I'd call it a judgment. For him to have been racing to the rescue as you suggest, he would have had to come from across the street. I doubt that anyone could have reacted anywhere near fast enough to do that at all, not to mention the fact that there was a guy there with a machine gun to make you think twice about it. Also, the direction I saw him running from was directly away from the guy with the AK-47. If he was running to the rescue, why away from him? If he had a gun, why not shoot him? At the time I never considered this possibility, and it seems pretty unlikely now, sir."
"Again, a conclusion, Sir John," Atkinson said as though to a backward child.
"Sir, you asked me a question, and I tried to answer it, with the reasons to back up my answer."
"And you expect us to believe that all this flashed through your mind in a brief span of seconds?" Atkinson turned back to the jury.
"Yes, sir, it did," Ryan said with conviction. "That's all I can say—it did."
"I don't suppose you've been told that my client has never been arrested, or accused of any crime?"
"I guess that makes him a first offender."
"It's for the jury to decide that," the lawyer snapped back. "You did not see him fire a single shot, did you?"
"No, sir, but his automatic had an eight-shot clip, and there were only three rounds in it. When I fired my third shot, it was empty."
"So what? For all you know someone else could have fired that gun. You did not see him fire, did you?"
"No, sir."
"So it might have been dropped by someone in the car. My client might have picked it up and, I repeat, been doing the same thing you were doing—this could all be true, but you have no way of knowing this, do you?"
"I cannot testify about things I didn't see, sir. However, I did see the street, the traffic, and the other pedestrians. If your client did what you say, where did he come from?"
"Precisely—you don't know, do you?" Atkinson said sharply.
"When I saw your client, sir, he was coming from the direction of the stopped car." Jack gestured to the model on the evidence table. "For him to have come off the sidewalk, then gotten the gun, and then appeared where I saw him—there's just no way unless he's an Olympic-class sprinter."
"Well, we'll never know, will we—you fixed that. You reacted precipitously, didn't you? You reacted as you were trained to by the U.S. Marines, never stopping to assess the situation. You raced into the fray quite recklessly, attacked my client and knocked him unconscious, then tried to kill him."
"No, sir, I did not try to kill your client. I've already—"
"Then why did you shoot an unconscious, helpless man?"
"My Lord," prosecutor Richards said, standing up, "we have already asked that question."
"The witness may answer on further reflection," Justice Wheeler intoned. No one would say that this trial was unfair.
"Sir, I did not know he was unconscious, and I didn't know how long it would be before he got up. So, I shot to disable him. I just didn't want him to get back up for a while."
"I'm sure that's what they said at My Lai."
"That wasn't the Marines, Mr. Atkinson," Ryan shot back.
The lawyer smiled up at Jack. "I suppose your chaps were better trained at keeping quiet. Indeed, perhaps you yourself have been trained in such things…"
"No, sir, I have not." He's making you angry, Jack. He took his handkerchief out and blew his nose again. The two deep breaths helped. "Excuse me. I'm afraid the local weather has given me a bit of a head cold. What you just said—if the Marines trained people in that sort of stuff, the newspapers would have plastered it on their front pages years ago. No, moral issues aside for the moment, the Corps has a much better sense of public relations than that, Mr. Atkinson."
"Indeed." The barrister shrugged. "And what about the Central Intelligence Agency?"
"Excuse me?"
"What of the press reports that you've worked for the CIA?"
"Sir, the only times I've been paid by the U.S. government," Jack said, choosing his words very carefully, "the money came from the Navy Department, first as a Marine, then later—now, that is, as an instructor at the United States Naval Academy. I have never been employed by any other government agency, period."
"So you are not an agent of the CIA? I remind you that you are under oath."
"No, sir. I am not now, and I never have been any kind of agent—unless you count being a stockbroker. I don't work for the CIA."
"And these news reports?"
"I'm afraid that you'll have to ask the reporters. I do
n't know where that stuff comes from. I teach history. My office is in Leahy Hall on the Naval Academy grounds. That's kind of a long way from Langley."
"Langley? You know where CIA is, then?"
"Yes, sir. It's on record that I have delivered a lecture there. It was the same lecture I delivered the month before at the Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island. My paper dealt with the nature of tactical decision-making. I have never worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, but I did, once, give a lecture there. Maybe that's where all these reports started."
"I think you're lying, Sir John," Atkinson observed.
Not quite, Charlie. "I can't help what you think, sir, I can only answer your questions truthfully."
"And you never wrote an official report for the government entitled Agents and Agencies?"
Ryan did not allow himself to react. Where did you get that bit of data, Charlie? He answered the question with great care.
"Sir, last year—that is, last summer, at the end of the last school year—I was asked to be a contract consultant to a private company that does government work. The company is the Mitre Corporation, and I was hired on a temporary basis as part of one of their consulting contracts with the U.S. government. The work involved was classified, but it obviously had nothing at all to do with this case."
"Obviously? Why don't you let the jury decide that?"
"Mr. Atkinson," Justice Wheeler said tiredly, "are you suggesting that this work in which the witness was involved has a direct connection with the case before the court?"
"I think we might wish to establish that, My Lord. It is my belief that the witness is misleading the court."
"Very well." The judge turned. "Doctor Ryan, did this work in which you were engaged have anything whatever to do with a case of murder in the city of London, or with any of the persons involved in this case?"
"No, sir."
"You are quite certain?"
"Yes, sir."
"Are you now or have you ever been an employee of any intelligence or security agency of the American government?"
"Except for the Marine Corps, no, sir."