Final Strike--A Sean Falcone Novel

by William S. Cohen

  He gave himself the luxury of a shower and a glass of vodka before he wrapped himself in a bathrobe and put in a call to Ray Quinlan. Surprisingly, he picked up.

  “You son of a bitch,” Falcone said.

  “Nicest thing you’ve ever called me, Sean. What’s your problem?”

  “Not my problem. It’s yours and Oxley’s. He wants a legacy? How about, ‘Hypocrite-in-Chief’? ‘Candidate Who Promised to Close Guantanamo Has Increased Its Population.’”

  “You writing headlines now?”

  “No, but Phil Dake might.”

  “You making a threat?”

  “You bet.”

  “Sean, what the hell are you talking about?”

  “I am talking about this: How did you possibly believe you and Oxley could get away with putting Robert Hamilton in Guantanamo?”

  “What?! Jesus, Sean! Are you telling me the truth? You’re not having a crazy spell?”

  Falcone hesitated, lowered his voice, and asked, “You didn’t order the detour to Gitmo? That’s what the Gulfstream pilot called it. ‘A detour.’”

  “What?!” Quinlan exclaimed again. This time his voice was touched with panic. “If Hamilton is in Guantanamo, Sean, something awfully wrong has happened. First of all, the President is still determined to close Guantanamo. Congress is totally opposed and—”

  “Okay. So he seems sincere about closing. But—”

  “Sean. The President wants me. Gotta go. I’ll call you back.”

  Carlton. The name shot into Falcone’s mind. But he did not—could not—call Carlton. He had to be the one who had set up the detour—with Drexler, and probably Sam Stone and the CIA. Falcone remembered talking to Drexler about what would happen if the rendition became known: Falcone had to take responsibility and claim he was suffering from PTSD by his long imprisonment during the Vietnam War.

  He made a quick call to Ursula Breitsprecher, telling her to destroy his letter of resignation from the firm.

  “Oh, Sean. So glad you are back,” she said. “I worried so.”

  “I had some worries, too. It was some flight home! Will see you when I can. Hope it’ll be tomorrow. ’Bye.”

  “Wait. I looked up the Moscow Times. There was a story about an American being killed in a hit-and-run. And his name did begin with the letter D. His name was Leonid Danshov.”

  “Okay. Thanks much, Ursula. See what you can find on him. ’Bye again.”

  Falcone’s next call was to Akis Christakos. Falcone remembered that he had turned over the Sullivan & Ford files on Hamilton to Christakos. Hamilton’s previous lawyer was Paul Sprague, who had resigned in the wake of a shooting of a lawyer and three others at the law firm. Some of the files had been missing because they were in the possession of the FBI, which was investigating possible ties of SpaceMine and Hamilton to the shootings.

  His call to Christakos was short:

  “Christo, this is Sean Falcone. We need to talk, but not on the phone.”

  “Breakfast tomorrow at The Hay-Adams?”

  “Too public.”

  “Metropolitan Club?”

  “Too public. How about your office?”

  “As a client?”

  “No. As a co-counsel on a very hot case.”

  “You have my attention, Sean. See you at eight a.m.”

  Falcone had no doubt that Christakos expected to be discussing Hamilton tomorrow morning.

  68

  Falcone knew that Christakos would not be able to resist a chance for a very hot case. He had been labeled a Washington Super Lawyer by a reliable rating service because he always won his cases. None of his criminal clients had gone to jail, winning either acquittal or a probation deal. On the civil side, he rarely accepted a case in which less than $5 million was at stake. Because of his persistence in attaining a settlement, none of his plaintiffs had lost their pleas and none of his defendants had ever lost when their clients made the mistake of contesting Christakos in court.

  Many politicians knew his private phone number. He was hailed as a genius for his timing, stepping in just as a politician was about to be indicted or arrested. He would defend the innocent. As for the guilty, he managed removal from office without public explanation, a maneuver he called his “silent arrangement.”

  Falcone had known Christakos for more than twenty years as a fellow Washington lawyer, but they had never met in a courtroom or argued across a table to reach a settlement. Nor had their personal lives ever intersected. Christakos was a family man with three grown children and four grandchildren, a lay leader at the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral, and the holder of a Redskins season ticket; Falcone was a childless widower, an agnostic drifting toward atheism, and a patron of the National Symphony Orchestra. Each knew the other only as a highly ethical, highly successful lawyer. Deeper down, if either man chose to examine the other, he would find a man who knew who he was.

  * * *

  “Welcome,” Christakos said to the arriving Falcone at precisely 8:02. He led the way to his private office, a long room of baronial style. At one end was his massive desk and at the other, which he pointed Falcone toward, was a carved and gilt-decorated rosewood octagonal drum table.

  “Breakfast is my vice,” Christakos said. “I had to settle for this,” pointing to a tray holding two glasses of pineapple juice, a plateful of croissants, a butter dish, a sterling-silver coffee service, and two gold-etched porcelain cups and saucers.

  Falcone had entered carrying two Starbucks coffees. He left them on Christakos’ desk and followed him to the table, which, he noticed, matched the office’s rosewood-paneled walls.

  “This is, indeed, a historic event,” Christakos said. “The meeting of two great legal minds, a meeting, I surmise, that has something to do with my client, Robert Wentworth Hamilton.”

  “You’re right, Christo. And I am here to tell you that your client is in Guantanamo.”

  Christakos, who liked to appear all-knowing, seldom showed surprise. But he lurched forward, nearly toppling the coffee urn. “What?!” he exclaimed. “Guantanamo? How? Why?”

  “It all begins with an asteroid,” Falcone said, carefully pouring himself a cup of coffee. He rapidly and coolly laid out the story—Hamilton’s journey to Moscow to meet Basayev, the sinking of the yacht, Lebed’s decision to hold Hamilton, the need for deniability, the approach to Falcone by Quinlan on Carlton’s orders, the visit to Drexler’s Global Special Services, and, in very condensed form, the rendition that ended in Guantanamo instead of a Virginia safe house. He omitted the deaths of the Russians, but he told of the death of Leonid Danshov and the substitution of a Mossad officer whom he did not identify.

  Falcone ended his account with, “And you and I have to go there and get him out.”

  Christakos vigorously nodded. “I certainly agree,” he said. “But first I suggest we go to court here and petition for a writ of habeas corpus.”

  “I don’t think we want to go public right away,” Falcone said. “If we do, we may lose any hope for getting Hamilton to cooperate.”

  “That puts me in a very awkward position, Sean. A clear conflict of interest.”

  “You’re a great lawyer, Christo, but you’re a patriot first. I promise you, you will get a deal for Hamilton. I assume the Gitmo detour was some kind of fuckup. Probably by Carlton throwing his weight around. I’ll bet the White House is scared shitless that news about Hamilton will leak.”

  Christakos, finishing off a croissant, raised his right hand to indicate he was about to speak but had to swallow first. “I know a little of this.” He told of his calls to J. B. Patterson and Quinlan and the visit from Hamilton’s chief operating officer.

  “I talked to Quinlan as soon as I got home,” Falcone said. “He was called away by Oxley during the call. My bet is the Pentagon heard from Gitmo, and Winthrop undoubtedly called Oxley. By now the White House is in full panic mode.”

  “What do you propose, Counselor?”

  “I call Quinlan and say you
and I will trade our silence for a trip to Gitmo to rescue Hamilton.”

  “Plus cleared of all so-called charges as Patterson’s ‘person of interest,’” Christakos said. “Let’s call Quinlan. I’m sure he’ll pick up.”

  69

  President Oxley sat in the middle of one sofa; Carlton, Winthrop, and Quinlan sat opposite the President on an identical sofa. A long low table stood between the sofas. In the middle of the table was a digital voice recorder that a White House staffer had just brought in. Oxley was holding a copy of the IMMEDIATE (O) message that Winthrop had handed him a moment before.

  Oxley spoke the date and location, named the other men in the room, and said, “I am recording this meeting so that there will be a record of what is said here. The other participants have agreed to be recorded.” Oxley read the message aloud, paused, and said, “Let me ask for the record, Secretary Winthrop, how did it happen that Mr. Robert Wentworth Hamilton is in the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp?”

  “I don’t have any idea how that happened, Mr. President,” Winthrop replied.

  “Mr. Quinlan, do you know? Did you order that Mr. Hamilton, an American citizen, be taken to the Guantanamo Camp?”

  “No, sir. But I would—”

  “Please, Mr. Quinlan, your no is sufficient.”

  Iran-Contra flashed through Quinlan’s mind.

  “And, Adviser Frank Carlton, do you know?”

  “I would rather not say, Mr. President.”

  “Thank you, gentlemen. I am now ending this recording, at least for now.”

  The sound of the recorder clicking off was surprisingly loud in the tense, silent Oval Office.

  “Okay, Frank. I felt I had to do that. The Oval Office log will show that a meeting occurred today between … among … us all. And you chose not to answer my question. We will go off the record now, but I feel damn strong that if this Hamilton fuckup goes public, there will be a congressional investigation—at best, a Benghazi-style witch hunt, at worst my impeachment. You’ll be asked what happened after the recording ended. You’ll have to depend on your memory. So, Frank, do you want to open your memory?”

  “I feel, Mr. President, the most honorable thing I can do is resign,” Carlton said, his voice hoarse, his face pale.

  “No, Frank. The most honorable thing you can do is tell me how the hell a prominent American citizen—a man who, by the way, contributes heavily to the opposition—was placed in a prison by members of my administration.”

  “It … he … was not a member of your administration, sir.”

  “Well, then, Frank, who was it?”

  “It was Sean Falcone, Mr. President. He came to me with a story about having to get Hamilton out of Russia because, well … he said something about saving the world. And that sounded kind of crazy to me. But he insisted, and finally, I sent him to General Drexler, who runs a private paramilitary outfit.”

  Quinlan stirred and looked at Carlton in profile: square-jawed, slight beard shadow, beads of sweat. Holy Christ! He’s twisting it. But it’s just like he said: Falcone takes the fall. And Oxley gets deniability.

  Oxley picked up the recorder, switched it on, and gently put it back on the table. “This is the President. I have just been told by Frank Carlton, my national security adviser, that the abduction of Mr. Hamilton from Moscow was the idea of Sean Falcone, my former national security adviser. I now ask Frank Carlton to repeat what he has just told me.”

  Carlton replicated his statement almost word-for-word, paused, and added: “I wondered at the time—and wonder now that it’s over—if somehow this idea of freeing Mr. Hamilton came from some deep-seated obsession or something that Mr. Falcone has, due to his long imprisonment and torture as a prisoner during the Vietnam War.”

  “You son of a bitch!” Quinlan shouted. Oxley reached for the recorder, changed his mind, and left it running.

  “Mr. President,” Quinlan continued, only slightly lowering his voice. “Carlton’s lying. I can’t sit here and hear this. The rendition was absolutely his idea, not Falcone’s. I carried the idea to Falcone at Carlton’s request. I gave Falcone a phone number that Carlton gave me. That was the extent of my participation. Carlton told me that he was making arrangements that would give you deniability. That was his word. Deniability.”

  Carlton turned sharply, looked as if he was going to speak, but kept silent.

  “You told me, goddamn it,” Quinlan continued, pointing to Carlton. “You told me that the President wanted Hamilton ‘removed from Moscow.’ Those were your exact words. And you said if I didn’t follow your orders, you’d have me not only fired but blackballed in Washington.”

  “Okay, Ray. Calm down,” Oxley said. “I have a question, was Guantanamo mentioned?”

  “No, sir,” Quinlan replied. “All I knew is that I had to give Falcone a phone number and somehow that would start the whole thing.”

  “Do you happen to remember the number?” Oxley asked.

  “Excuse me, Mr. President,” Carlton said, leaning forward. “Allow me to—”

  Oxley ignored Carlton and nodded when Quinlan slowly called out the number: “one zero zero five five five seven eight two zero.”

  “And whose number is that, Frank?” Oxley asked.

  “Sir, all I know is that number reaches Global Special Services.”

  “Run by retired General Drexler?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Was sending Mr. Hamilton to Guantanamo General Drexler’s idea?”

  When Carlton did not respond, Oxley turned to Winthrop, whose eyes had been bulging as he moved his head from the President to Carlton and Quinlan: “Secretary Winthrop, the Department of Defense operates Guantanamo. Do you have any knowledge of the circumstances that led to Mr. Hamilton’s being taken there?”

  “No, sir. I have ordered a top-level investigation by General Dafoe, who commands the Joint Task Force operating the … facility. I expect his report within twenty-four hours. I have also instructed him to provide the maximum … comfort and to treat him as … a … as a distinguished visitor. The place isn’t all pris … detainee camp, sir. There’s a Pizza Hut, a beer bar, a—”

  “Has Hamilton been allowed to make any telephone calls?”

  “No, sir. I am advised by General Amador that communicational protocols restrict calls from and to … residents. Only authorized personnel can—”

  “Okay. Thank you, George,” Oxley said, clicking off the recorder. He was silent for a moment. “So we have a small window. News of Hamilton hasn’t reached the outside world.” He looked Carlton full in the face and said, “You may go, Frank.” Then he pointed to Quinlan and said, “Get me Falcone.”

  * * *

  Quinlan hurried back to his office, discovered that Falcone had already called, and put in a call to him. Falcone answered on the first ring.

  “I’ve just come from a meeting where your name was mentioned,” Quinlan said. “You’re invited here. Immediately.”

  “Tell the gate there will be two visitors,” Falcone said.

  “Who’s the other?”

  “That lawyer who called you looking for his lost client.”

  “Okay. Tell the escorts to take you both directly to my office. You’ll need to be briefed.”

  “We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  70

  Quinlan ushered Falcone and Christakos into his office and shut the door. Pointing to two chairs and grunting, Quinlan was as hospitable as his aggressive psyche allowed. Nearly a full minute passed before anyone spoke. Finally, Falcone broke the silence: “We’re here for one purpose, Ray. We need to go to Guantanamo and free Hamilton.”

  “Actually, Sean, you’re here at the request of the President. He’ll decide what you do. When the President met with Carlton and me, Carlton said the rendition of Hamilton had been your idea. The President had no knowledge of what happened. He wants to talk to you.” Quinlan pointed his finger at Christakos and added, “You were not sent for.”

  “I real
ize that,” Christakos said. “I’ll just sit here and wait for what happens next.” He reached into his croc-leather attaché case, extracted a file folder, and began leafing through it. As if in an afterthought, he added, “You may want to tell the President that, on behalf of our client, Robert Wentworth Hamilton, we intend to file in Federal District Court a petition to have him released. As I am sure you’re aware, such a petition is a public document. I am also sure it will arouse the curiosity of Philip Dake.”

  Quinlan frowned. His face reddened, and he looked as if he were going to respond. Instead, he called the President and told him Falcone had arrived.

  Again, the President set up a tableau, he on one side of the long table, Falcone on the other. The President quickly recounted the call from Lebed, the meeting with Carlton, Winthrop, and Quinlan, and his selective use of a voice recorder. “And so we come to right now, Sean. Tell me what you know.”

  “No recorder, sir?”

  “No recorder. Just you and me.”

  “First, Mr. President, I did not come up with the rendition idea. Carlton did. And he said that it had to be done by someone not in your administration to give you deniability. I did agree to run the rendition and take the fall if it became known. And I am still prepared to do so. But … Guantanamo? That was not on the menu.”

  “Well, where in hell did it come from?”

  “I believe, sir, that the order had to have come from Carlton.”

  “Well, he apparently didn’t give the commanding officer all he needed to know. The general sent an urgent message saying he wanted ‘national command’ authorization for having Hamilton there.”

  Oxley shook his head, looked directly at Falcone, and said, “Why did Carlton do it, Sean? He damn well knows that I hate Guantanamo and want to close it down. If it weren’t for Congress, it would be closed. Why Guantanamo?”

  “You’d have to ask him, sir.”

  “I think, Sean, it will be better for you to ask him. You were on the scene,” Oxley said, speaking in the tone that indicates a meeting is over. He rose, as did Falcone, but neither man moved.