The Price Of Power

by James W. Huston

  Dillon and Grazio walked through the door. “Good Morning, Mr. Speaker,” Dillon said.

  “Morning,” Grazio echoed again.

  “Well, Mr. Dillon, Mr. Grazio,” Speaker John Stan-bridge said, getting up from his desk. “How are you?” he asked.

  “Fine, sir,” they replied.

  The Speaker’s face suddenly clouded over as if by an eclipse. “Did you hear they nabbed the president of that American company and his wife in Indonesia?”

  “What?” Dillon asked, shocked. “What American company?”

  “Gold mine. Biggest one in the world. American-owned, on an eastern island of Indonesia, Irian … something.”

  “Irian Jaya?”

  “Yeah. That’s it.”

  “Nabbed as in kidnapped?”

  “Yeah. Right out of their bed.”

  “They okay?”

  “Don’t know. They’ve disappeared. Intruders killed a few guards, ripped the Heidels out of their home, blew up the gold mine, and disappeared.”

  “Who did it?” Grazio asked.

  “They think it’s the same guy. George Washington,” the Speaker said.

  “You’re kidding me,” Dillon said. A chill ran through him. His mind flashed back to Bunaya, the island near Singapore where he had come face-to-face with the Indonesian terrorist in a cave during the Marine attack. He had seen the tunnel blow up around George Washington. He was sure the explosion had killed him. “I thought he was dead.”

  “Maybe they just think it was him. They’re guessing right now. He’s a convenient one to blame. And guess how they got away?”

  “Cigarette boats?”

  “Yup, except this time they’re black. Four of them. Where are they getting all these speedboats?”

  “If you have enough money, you can buy however many you want,” Dillon said.

  “If it’s them, not only do these guys have money, they have inside information, and balls,” Stanbridge said.

  Dillon asked, “What’s the President doing about this one?”

  “This incident is unknown to the public or the media, at least so far. We’re supposed to keep it that way, for now.”

  “Sure,” Dillon said, his mind now racing off in an entirely different direction than it was just minutes before.

  The Speaker broke into his thoughts. “Did you see the footage of Admiral Billings at Pearl Harbor?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I tell you what,” Stanbridge said with unusual intensity, “if there was ever any mercy in me for our President, it’s gone. I should have followed my instincts. I told you so at the time. But no, I have to be the reasonable politician. Don’t look vindictive, I’m told.” He paused. “Anybody who’s responsible for an admiral of the United States Navy—considered a hero by the rest of the country, I might add—to be humiliated like that…” Stanbridge looked at Dillon and Grazio, barely controlling his anger. “Well, enough of that. What did you want to see me about, Dillon?”

  Dillon watched the Speaker carefully. He could usually tell when his boss was puffing, or exaggerating. This was not one of those times.

  Stanbridge relaxed, and spoke to Dillon before he had a chance to begin. “I never really thanked you for the work you put into the Letter of Reprisal. Without you, it never would have happened.” He smiled. “Not only did we fix the problem, we have given Congress a new identity.” His eyes danced at the thought. “No longer just passing laws and spending money. Now Congress can act on its own, militarily. Or at least until the Supreme Court decides we can’t. It used to be all the President. The administration. Covert CIA, whatever. Almost always a disaster. Now it’s Congress, and the military, in the light of day.”

  Dillon tried to bring him back to the topic. “What Frank and I wanted to talk to you about, Mr. Speaker is—”

  “I’ve been talking to Brad Barrett,” the Speaker interrupted, referring to the congressman from Arizona, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, his friend, and fellow Republican. “I told him it was time.”

  Dillon and Grazio exchanged glances. “Time?” Dillon asked.

  “Yes. It’s time.”

  Dillon proceeded cautiously. “For what?”

  “Start the hearings.”

  Dillon hesitated to state the obvious, but then had to. “Impeachment proceedings?”

  “Of course. What the hell else would I be talking about?”

  Dillon and Grazio relaxed. “That’s the very thing we wanted to talk to you about, Mr. Speaker.”

  “And what is it you would have said?”

  “We can’t let the President do this to Admiral Billings.”

  “Well, we can’t stop the court-martial, but we can sure as hell make it hot for the President.”

  “I want to light the match,” Dillon said.

  The Speaker regarded Dillon with curiosity. “I recall you’re the one who talked to me from your fancy phone in the Pacific and convinced me to take the impeachment off calendar. What’s got you so fired up?”

  Dillon had gained a deep admiration for Billings since spending time with the Navy in the Pacific. They had done everything he could have hoped for at the request of Congress. He felt he owed them something. “Maybe getting to know Admiral Billings. Watching him operate on the carrier. Then seeing what the President did to him. It got to me. I guess he wants to play hardball. I want to play hardball back.”

  “You already are.”

  “How so?”

  “Barrett knows you’re the one behind the Letter of Reprisal. He figures anyone who thought of something that clever would be smart enough to think of the right things to do in this impeachment proceeding.”

  “I don’t have any experience in impeachment. He knows that.”

  “Hell, Jim. Not many do. Those that were involved in the Clinton … abortion aren’t getting anywhere near this one. This will be different. I promise you that.”

  Dillon studied the Speaker’s face. “Do you still think Manchester’s a pacifist?”

  “If he doesn’t deny it in the middle of the biggest constitutional crisis of the last hundred years, he isn’t going to.” He pointed at Dillon as he spoke. “And any President who doesn’t go after people who murder U.S. citizens is either a pacifist or a coward. Either one is unsat. If our Commander in Chief refuses to act, he should be removed for incompetence. If he is truly a pacifist, as I think he is, then he is unqualified to be President and Commander in Chief. Either way, he loses.”

  Dillon wasn’t sure what to say. What an opportunity. But if he screwed up, the whole world would know.

  The Speaker continued. “We’re definitely going forward. After that show the President put on with Billings? Definitely. Gloves are off. And Barrett wants your help. You willing or not?” The Speaker looked at his two staff members with anticipation.

  “Absolutely,” Dillon replied. He had been the one to discover the power in the United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8, which gave Congress the power to grant “Letters of Marque and Reprisal...,” a power that had not been exercised by Congress since the War of 1812, but was still alive. When the Pacific Flyer—an American merchant ship—was attacked in Jakarta, taken out to the high seas and the crew murdered, President Edward Manchester had refused to respond with a military attack. He took the moral high ground and refused to perpetuate the “cycle of violence” that attacking terrorists might lead to. He wanted to leave it to Indonesia to prosecute the men responsible. Thanks to Dillon’s research. Congress had passed a Letter of Reprisal and Dillon had carried it to Admiral Ray Billings aboard the USS Constitution. Contrary to the direct order of the President, Billings had gone after the terrorists on a remote island in the Java Sea. The terrorists were killed or captured and Stan-bridge’s public approval rating had rocketed to over eighty percent. The President’s had plummeted to less than thirty. Stanbridge was only now realizing the political implications of what he had accomplished.

  “I want you both to help Barrett prep
are for the impeachment trial.”

  “It would be an honor,” Grazio said, glancing at Dillon.

  “If this makes it through the House, who will actually prosecute the President?” Dillon asked.

  “That’s the very thing I’ve been thinking about,” the Speaker said, sitting down heavily in his chair.

  “The House has fired this gun three times. I’m not talking judges and low-level impeachment. There have been something, like, thirteen trials, total. I’m talking about the big cases—two Presidents and one Chief Justice. Three times. That’s it. And they’ve lost every one. Johnson got off by one vote, Justice Chase wasn’t that close, and Clinton, worse yet.” Stanbridge rubbed his eyes. “I think it’s partly because the House thinks of itself too highly. We always appoint ourselves as the managers—the prosecutors—to try the case. A bunch of has-been prosecutors who think they still have it. But even if they are up to it, they’re not prosecutors anymore. They’re politicians. Always have their fingers in the wind. And with Clinton’s, what’d they appoint? Fifty managers? It was thirteen or something. That’s nuts. This isn’t complicated. I want one lawyer. Maybe two. But the best in the country. Someone with fire in his belly who won’t be afraid to plunge the sword all the way home. I want someone the President will fear.”

  Dillon and Grazio waited for him to finish.

  “I called David Pendleton this morning and asked him if he would be willing to do it.”

  Dillon winced even though he knew it was a good choice. Pendleton was just the right person. But Dillon didn’t like him. He had scolded Dillon at the Supreme Court, telling him the United States government is fragile and Dillon’s Letter of Reprisal had flirted with disaster. Dillon had bristled. The government of the United States is not fragile, he’d said. It was built on fundamental, unchanging principles. It wasn’t the Constitution that was fragile, it was the people.

  “You agree Pendleton is the right guy?” the Speaker asked, interrupting Dillon’s thoughts.

  Dillon tried not to sound bitter. “I don’t know, I’ve only seen him argue that one time. He was certainly good, but trial work is different from appellate work. It takes something different. My guess is he probably does have it. He’s tried an awful lot of cases; I think he’s been very successful.”

  Grazio chimed in. “I wouldn’t want him cross-examining me.”

  “That’s just it,” the Speaker said. “A trial will turn on the cross-examination of the President. We have to find the best person to do that.”

  “Why would the President testify?” Dillon asked.

  The Speaker looked at him. “He has to defend himself.”

  Dillon looked surprised. “Why couldn’t he take the Fifth? Or just claim separation of powers?”

  The Speaker was thunderstruck. “That’s possible?”

  “I don’t know,” answered Dillon. “I don’t know what the rules are.”

  “We may go all the way through this and the President won’t ever even have to testify? He’s the only one who can answer the question!”

  “I may be all wet. It’s just the first thing that occurred to me.”

  “He sure as hell had better testify,” the Speaker said as he grabbed his phone to call Pendleton.

  The baffled prisoners stood silently by their attorneys, who wore what passed for suits in the Honolulu criminal defense community, an amalgam of sportcoats, Hawaiian shirts, and casual clothes. The prisoners were the Indonesians who had been booked and now were attending their detention hearings. The attorneys were those who had been called to the federal court to represent the prisoners.

  The federal magistrate had decided to deal with them all at once. They had been taken to an old schoolhouse that had been rented by the FBI for the initial interrogation immediately after the Indonesians were taken off the ship. There was one FBI agent in each classroom and hall monitors all around. Due to the pressures of getting the prisoners booked and the dire shortage of translators who spoke Indonesian, the FBI had succeeded in getting absolutely nothing out of them. Not even names. The lawyers stood behind the prisoners, having been introduced to their clients just once. The small amount of space in the courtroom not taken up by prisoners, lawyers, and the press was taken up by marshals. They were positioned by every exit, around the prisoners, and at the back of the room. Their faces were stern and tight. Several of the marshals glanced quickly from one end of the room to the other. Others shifted their weight and kept their hands away from their sides, ready for anything.

  Two of the attorneys from the federal defenders’ office stood apart near a door. One was a tall, thin woman with a lightweight gray suit on, the other a man wearing a worn navy blazer with gray pants, leaning next to the wall with one foot flat against it. He looked older than most of the other attorneys and more amused. Laura Spellman spoke to him in a low voice. “Sorry I’m late. Miss anything?”

  “Nah,” he replied. Craig Marsh was the head of the Honolulu federal defenders’ office. He thought he had seen it all, until today.

  “What’s the charge?” she asked.

  “Terrorism. 18 USC Section 2331.”

  “Terrorism?” Her eyes grew large.

  “Sure,” he responded. “What did you expect?”

  “I thought they were pirates.”

  “Apparently not. Apparently they’re just your basic terrorists out there to scare people. Allegedly,” he added. “If these are the same ones who were involved in the attack on the American ship, a fact which remains to be proved, I might add, and if the story about being an Islamic Front was just that, a front, then they might very well be pirates.” He grinned at her. “That’s our best defense.”

  “What is?” she asked.

  “That they’re pirates, not terrorists. Terrorists do things for political reasons, not for filthy lucre.”

  “Lucre?” she asked. He gave her no response as he stared at the magistrate going through the motions. “So…” she began, still not understanding, “how does that help?”

  “Jurisdiction,” he said, as if it were obvious. “Do we have jurisdiction over terrorists, to go grab them and bring them to the U.S. for trial?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Not if it happened in Indonesian waters. News reports said this ship was hijacked in port. All depends on where the murders took place. It will be tough for them to prove. We want them to be charged as terrorists. When we show it was just about money, then they can’t continue. Plus, in this case, the President himself said that he was going to leave this to Indonesia.”

  “Didn’t quite work out that way.”

  “Yeah. That congressional letter, or whatever.” He took his foot off the wall and yawned sleepily. “This is going to take all day. Why don’t you page me.”

  She was still thinking about what he’d said. “If the President really said that—I don’t remember him saying that at all—wouldn’t that be an executive order?”

  He agreed. “He certainly didn’t extend jurisdiction to these guys. In fact he may have limited it. We’re going to have to go with the President, I am afraid. The appropriate place for this trial to happen, if at all, is in Indonesia.”

  “You want to try and get this case transferred back to Indonesia?”

  “Maybe. We’ll have to think about all kinds of motions. This is going to take a lot of creativity,” he said, pushing himself away from the wall. “Page me.”

  Chapter Four

  Carolyn Billings stared at the floor, not wanting to look at the bars on the door between her and her husband. She was still wearing the sundress her husband had bought her a year ago in Waikiki. It made her self-conscious before numerous leering eyes.

  She felt fortunate to have a marriage that had lasted twenty-five years in spite of the separations and dangers of Naval aviation. She had taken joy in her husband’s rise to stardom after commanding a fighter squadron, an air wing, a deep-draft ship, a carrier, and now a carrier battle group. People often mentioned to her that
he would someday be Chief of Naval Operations. No one had said that to her today.

  Since Admiral Billings had been taken to the brig, they had only spoken on the phone once. He had asked for two things—a clean uniform, and fresh pineapple. She had both, but felt awkward carrying them. It seemed undignified.

  The chief petty officer slid the door open and ushered her into the conference room. She had never seen her husband appear so forlorn. She smiled at him without meaning it. He walked to her and took the hanging bag and the plate covered with cellophane and set them on the table. He then turned to her and opened his arms. She hugged him silently.

  She pulled away. “I brought your things,” she said.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Let’s sit down.”

  Together they crossed to the table and took chairs next to one another. He sat beside her, holding her hand, and played with her engagement ring as he always did. “I’m sorry about this, Carolyn,” he said.

  “Don’t—” she began.

  He stopped her. “No, listen. I didn’t think it would come to this.”

  “It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong. You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Yeah, but I am. My career is over. It doesn’t even matter how this comes out.”

  “Of course your career is not over. I wanted to tell you about…” The door behind them opened suddenly and Lieutenant Commander Lynch stuck his head in.

  “Am I interrupting?” he asked, smiling at them.

  Billings didn’t smile back. “Come in, Commander,” he said coolly. Lynch walked in apologetically and the Master-at-Arms closed the door behind him.

  “I didn’t know you were here, Mrs. Billings. I’m Bryan Lynch,” he said, extending his small hand. She remained seated and shook his hand. “Sit down over there, Commander,” Admiral Billings said, indicating the chair at the end of the table.

  Lynch sat down, slightly out of breath. “We’re trying to find out what their plan is,” he said finally. “I’ve spoken with the prosecutor, because I want to get you out of here. I want to set up a bail hearing.”

  Billings squinted. “They’re not going to let me out on my own recognizance? Not even confined to base?”