Mr. Stephens breathes rapidly over the phone. “No amount of sophistry is going to mitigate your bloodguilt, Dr. Verity.”
There’s that term again—bloodguilt. The worst kind of guilt, I suspect. The very thought of it turns my stomach.
“Oh, so hateful.” I tap the receiver to hang up and open the fridge in the cabin of the limo, looking for a hit of liquor to ease my rattled nerves.
15
“WILL YOU AT LEAST CONTACT him?” I’m trying to get my attorney, Vlad Riddell, to obtain a deposition from Phil Stevens regarding their group’s relationship to the suspect accused of bombing NBS.
“Why are you doing this, Raymond?” Vlad is relentless in his insistence that I cease from trying to defend my sister’s innocence. From behind his desk in his D.C. office, he is beginning to flail his arms in an emotional fit, as if he’s attempting to pull me back from the precipice of insanity. “Do you want to flush your reputation down the toilet?”
I’ve never seen Vlad so animated, or so resistant to my recommendations. “You’re over-reacting. Don’t I have the right to pursue my curiosity? She’s my sister!”
“You’re going to ruin your future for this lost cause!”
“By asking questions?”
“Your sister’s a freak.”
“Even freaks should be declared innocent in a court of law, if they are innocent.” I stand to pace in front of his cherry wood desk. “The Dutro character was not a part of her organization.”
“Well, tell the FBI.”
“Her Board tried to contact federal investigators repeatedly, but they refuse to even consider any evidence that fails to support the official story. My sister is innocent, Vlad. But even if she is guilty, shouldn’t her evidence be at least considered by investigators?”
“Federal investigators looked at all the evidence, Doctor Verity!”
“No one interviewed Phil Stephens to confirm Tamara’s testimony, even as he appealed to them repeatedly.”
“Tamara hired a defender, Raymond.”
“No, the court gave her a public defender, Vlad, and he didn’t interview Tamara’s alibi. Aren’t you just the least bit curious why?”
He shakes his head, as if I’m an incorrigible child. “Just let attorneys do the job attorneys are trained to do, and we’ll let you doctors do the job you are trained to do.”
I lean down to press my palms against his desk, lowering to his eye-level. “Since he’s not doing the job of a defender, I wonder what his job is? Maybe his job is to stand idly by and let his client be treated unjustly.”
Vlad turns his face skyward and howls, “You have got to be kidding me, Raymond!”
“Stop being so emotional, Vlad.” I calmly sit back down in the seat in front of his desk. To try to put him at ease, I even raise my feet and set my heels on his desk in a more relaxed posture. “Come on, it’s me. Why are you freaking out like this?”
He takes a deep breath. “You’re just not being reasonable. I don’t want to see you throw everything away.”
“By asking you to take a deposition and scoot it to the right lawyer?” I look at him cross-eyed. “Are you serious? Come on. Do you have any contacts in the FBI? How inconvenient can it be for you to give them a call and ask some questions?”
“Like what? What questions? Questions like, ‘Why won’t you interview some Alabama anti-abortion hillbillies that can verify Tamara Verity’s conspiracy theory?’ Don’t you know how foolish that would make me sound?”
“What if Chuck Dutro was a federal agent?”
Vlad laughs out a vulgarity. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Will you check it out for me?”
He crosses his arms over his chest and puffs out his cheeks. “No, I will not check it out for you any more than I’ll check out if there are aliens in my cupboard or snakes in my washing machine—and for the same reason!”
I remove my heels from his desk, clench my fists, and my frame goes rigid. “If I recall, I pay you for the legal services I request.”
“If I recall, you used to respect my opinion on legal matters.”
“If anything, your insincerity and stubbornness has increased my suspicion!”
Vlad rolls his chair back six inches, never before having heard me speak to him in such a disrespectful fashion.
“Now, Vlad, you’re going to help me with this, or I’m going to find an attorney who will.”
I have knocked the breath out of him. I’m giving him the most sizable portion of his salary, and there’s a lot at stake if he displeases me. I wonder, can I really trust him to do this for me, even if he does consent to my request?
“You know what, Vlad?” I stand and head for the door. “I think I will obtain more helpful counsel.”
“No, no, no. I’ll do it for you. It’s just . . . ”
“No, Vlad. I’ll find someone else to help.” With my hand on the doorknob, I look back. “I may take the rest of my business to them, too.”
“I can recommend some good consults.” He begins to tap on his laptop as if trying to look up a contact.
“Don’t bother.”
I step through the door as he lets loose a string of vulgarities.
His secretary looks at me with a worried grimace, never having before seen Vlad cross his most important client. I put my index finger over my lips. “Shhh.”
Momentarily, I overhear Vlad’s words. “President Sayder, please. She’s expecting my call.”
“President Sayder!” I open the door and make eye contact with him. It was obvious he had an ulterior motive for refusing my sensible request, but I’m furious President Sayder dared to intervene, or that Vlad dared to work for her and against me. What could possibly be her personal interest in my desire to have my sister defended well in court?
Vlad’s eyes bug out and his jaw drops. He taps behind his ear and clears his throat gruffly. He opens a desk drawer and acts like he’s looking for something. I can see his wheels turning, trying to think up an excuse. “Raymond, hold on, I can—”
“Tell Veronica I said hello.” I step back out and slam the door.
16
AS I RIDE MY HOVER-LIMO home, I have to fight the urge to be paranoid about practically everything. I pull out my handheld computer to read the Bill online to investigate Tamara’s and Phil Stephens’ claims. It’s gone. I peruse many news reports and Bill summaries from the left and the right, but the actual Bill seems to have just vanished. The website for Personhood Now, which I was perusing just yesterday, appears to have vanished. It is a troubling mystery to me. I don’t want to be a conspiracy theorist, but I cannot make sense of the facts.
My nanophone announces, “Thomas Verity, Iowa City, Iowa.” Maybe my brother can help put the pieces together for me.
I tap the soft spot behind my ear. “Thomas, thanks for calling me back.”
“Sure. What’s up?”
“I wanted to speak with you about something I heard concerning the law that bears my name.”
“I have not yet congratulated you—”
“For the sake of time,” I interrupt him, “just answer my question. I’m really worked up about this . . . ”
“Okay.”
“Is it true the law prohibits the adoptions of dupes by families, but legalizes releasing dupes to medical research facilities for experimentation and termination?”
“Um, no, I don’t think so. I heard that if they had the DNA host’s permission, the dupe could be adopted into a family.”
“You probably heard that from me, Thomas, but have you read the Bill?”
“I believe I delegated that to subordinates in our organization. It was four inches thick, Ray. We have a lot of legislation to review.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Why did you get so firmly behind a Bill of such importance that you haven’t read?”
His lips smack together, as if his mouth had just gone dry. “From what I’ve heard, Ray, the legislators don’t even read the Bills before voting on them
.”
“Well, I cannot pull the Bill up online anymore, and I didn’t save it. The Bill’s sponsor won’t call me back. I can’t find the disc I had it on. I have learned some things recently that make me think we’ve been lied to about this Bill. Horribly!”
“Well, you were the chief public relations spokesperson for the Bill. You were obligated to read it as much as anybody. But you shouldn’t beat yourself up about the Bill’s weaknesses, Ray. It’s the best we could do with the time and resources we had to counteract the President’s radical proposals.”
“The President’s radical proposals, Thomas . . . ” I stop myself, calculating the potential risks of informing him of the President’s conspiracy to have me feign a conversion to the political right to get the termination of clones firmly entrenched in federal law through a phony bipartisan consensus.
“Our policy is to try to pass laws that will survive judicial muster,” he continues. “I don’t like the exceptions, but it’s better than a Bill that the courts would reliably overturn. We’ve had to compromise like this for decades with regard to abortion and euthanasia and similar social issues. I’m morally repulsed by all the loopholes and the exceptions, but if we don’t incorporate them into the law, they won’t clear the judiciary and lives won’t be saved.”
“You can’t be that naïve, Thomas. These laws you and others like you have celebrated are all rhetoric, no teeth. Feel-good laws that don’t stop abortions or euthanizations.”
His tone coarsens. “Did your Bill stop dupe terminations? No, Ray. Political realities require pragmatic considerations. We’re both in the same political boat trying to wrestle the helm into the right direction, but we need to accept our limitations. Of course our laws aren’t perfect. Believe me, I go to confession for the things for which I feel guilt.”
Guilt. There’s that word again, and that sinking feeling in my chest.
“Ray, what has happened to get you so upset? I expected you would be thrilled with the outcome. Your law passed, Ray. You’re a hero on the right. With your influence and wealth, you could make a bid for President on the GOP ticket, and even get all those elusive moderates. I mean it! You are the man, right now! Ask anybody on the Hill.”
“You know, brother, part of me wants to thank you for the kindest words you’ve probably ever spoken to me.”
“Thank you.”
“But part of me wants to give you a stern ‘Tamara’ for your blatant and despicable hypocrisy.”
“A ‘Tamara’?”
“Yeah, a rebuke. You know, the kind that sets your hair on end, raises your heart rate, and breaks you out in a sweat?”
“Oh, a ‘Tamara.’”
“You believe that abortion, and physician assisted suicide, and dupe termination is murder, don’t you?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“All killing of innocent persons is murder, right? God-given inalienable rights, and all that. That’s what you say in your speeches.”
“Yes.”
“Even just killing one person, Thomas? If someone just murders one innocent person, are they still a murderer?”
“Well, yes. What’s your point?”
“All of your celebrated pro-life laws with all your exceptions justify the killing of some people, just like my law that you supported justifies the killing of some clones if certain arbitrary conditions are met. So, on what basis can you condemn abortionists or New Body scientists at all? After all, they just make more exceptions than you.”
Thomas takes a deep breath. His tone is defensive. “You know what, Ray, we do the best we can. If it’s wrong for me to judge the left for justifying child-killing or the termination of clones simply because we make rare exceptions, then it’s just as wrong for you to judge me for supporting a law for which you fought hard, leading the way for not just me, but everyone on the right.”
“This right versus left dichotomy makes me sick, Thomas. You know all these so-called ‘rare exceptions’ that you say you’ve got to put into your bills? They aren’t rare. I’m a physician. They are so, so common, especially that ‘health of the mother’ exception, which you know the courts have also interpreted to be psychological health and social health, right?” He is silent. “Then your laws say get an ultrasound before an abortion. Wait 24 hours before an abortion. Let the mother know the baby feels pain before an abortion. Get parental consent before an abortion. Do this and that, and then you can kill the baby. Get a judge’s consent if you can’t get parental consent, and then you can kill the baby. And if all else fails, just lie, and then you can kill the baby. When has a state ever prosecuted anyone for lying about a rape to an abortion clinic? It’s not like they are under oath.”
“It’s all designed to decrease abortions, Ray, not necessarily to prosecute mothers or doctors. The goal is to save lives, as many as we can.”
“By justifying some killing?”
“We’re both in the same boat, Ray, trying to make the best laws possible in a corrupt culture. Why are you going off on me like this? We’re on the same team.”
“We are not in the same boat, nor are we on the same team. You’re the one with the solid rock of the Christian moral standard, right? Not me. I’ve got my feet planted firmly on thin air. I really don’t know what I believe. But you are a leader in the pro-life movement. You claim to be fully confident that life begins at conception and that abortion and dupe termination is murder, and yet you strongly supported a bill that legalized it without even reading it first.”
“I supported you! I trusted you!”
“An openly pro-choice doctor who has aborted tens of thousands of fetuses. A pioneer in genetic engineering and human cloning who has destroyed hundreds of thousands of human embryos, and who has never expressed remorse for one of them. That’s me. By your definition, a murderer. If you trust me, of all people, on a life issue, what does that say about you, a national pro-life leader?”
“I’ll tell you who you should be angry at. Be angry at the judges, Ray. The judiciary!” He spits the word out like it is a drop of venom that would contaminate him if he held it on his tongue one more second. “The . . . ” He pauses, and I can sense he’s measuring his words carefully. “The stinkin’ judiciary! That’s why we have to make compromises with which we are not comfortable.”
My sister’s words come to mind, and I repeat them to Thomas. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by the judiciary with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life and liberty? Is that what it says?”
Thomas growls. “No, the right to life is God-given, not given by the judiciary.”
“If abortion is murder, if dupe termination is murder—and that’s what you believe, Thomas—then judges may kill the innocent with the slam of their gavel and stroke of their pen, but does that make their rulings lawful? Or lawless?”
“Like it or not, we can only do what the courts let us. They won’t let us end all abortions. They won’t let us protect all dupes as full persons under the law. It gives me peace knowing that these innocent children at least go to heaven when they die.”
My mouth drops open. “What! That’s the best argument for abortion and dupe termination I have ever heard. Hey, it’s a good argument for infanticide, too.”
I hear his audible sigh.
“So you deceive your right-wing troops, rally them to make your phone calls and write your letters in support of legislation that you say protects people, but in reality has so many loopholes and justifications for killing that it may as well have been written by the advocates of abortion and dupe terminations. And you soothe your conscience by telling yourself that at least the innocent go to heaven. Unbelievable!”
“Now you’re being silly. Our laws haven’t been written by advocates of abortion or dupe termination.”
“Guess what, Thomas?” I pause. Will telling him come back to haunt me later? At the moment, my fury at the hypocrisy of the right easily eclipses any motive
for self-preservation. “Thomas, what if I told you that the President planned to take a position more extreme than she wanted because she knew the GOP would do the legwork on this legislation for fear of hers?”
He is silent for a moment. “Ha. Very funny.”
“Oh yes, Thomas. I am not joking. The very President whose philosophy on life you soundly condemn personally wrote the law that you ended up supporting.”
“But, her initial proposals were so radical.”
“A ruse, Thomas. Her first proposal was all a ruse. She was counting on you pro-life and pro-family leaders who, in your own laws, always justify at least some killing with your exceptions and regulations, to once again betray your principles. She knew you would open the door to killing clones in federal law for fear of her more radical proposal, designed only to induce enough fear in you to provoke sufficient compromise to get you to support this clone-killing bill. As always, you didn’t let her down.”
Thomas raises his voice. “And you knew this?” His words drip with disgust. I do not answer his question. “You were dishonest, Ray.”
“And, tell me, why do you expect murderers to be honest?”
“If you want to direct your anger in a productive direction, direct it at yourself. No one was more obligated to read the Bill and speak honestly about it than you, its chief public defender.”
“Oh, yes, if there is a God and if killing clones and unborn children is murder, then the guilt is mine, but not all mine. Don’t delude yourself into thinking you’re innocent for all the people that will die through the law you supported. It’s our law—yes, our law! Own it with me, brother. If there is a line God draws in the sand on this issue, and if His commandment ‘Do not kill’ applies, then you and I are on the same side, under the same gavel. If Tamara’s right, we’re both up to our noses in bloodguilt. How will counting your rosary beads make up for that, Mr. Pro-Life Leader?”
If.
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