Major Nikolic ignored the question. “I’ve translated your documents for the Commander. We’ve determined that you are Draga’s lawyer, but we cannot help you. You will need to leave here immediately.”
The major handed Kevin the documents from the Tribunal.
“Okay,” Kevin said, taking the papers. “I’m very sorry.”
Major Nikolic handed Kevin a set of keys. “Here are the keys to your car.” He turned and walked out of the cell.
“But what about my interpreter?” Kevin asked as he followed the Major out of his cell. “Where is he?”
“I’m afraid there has been a misunderstanding,” Major Nikolic replied as he walked down the corridor past Nihudian’s cell.
Kevin followed, and then looked inside the cell.
Nihudian lay on the floor in a pool of blood.
Kevin ran into Nihudian’s cell. He knelt down by Nihudian’s head and looked at his face. It was chalky white and lifeless. “Nihudian!” He reached for his arm to check his pulse. There was no pulse.
Kevin’s body shook as he put his head in his hands.
“You’ve killed him!”
“It was an unfortunate mistake,” Major Nikolic said from the corridor. “I assure you that those involved will be severely punished.”
Kevin looked numbly at the smooth-talking Major. He was too shocked to speak at that moment, and his brain was processing a flurry of thoughts at once.
“I can identify the men who did this,” Kevin finally said. “I saw them.”
“That won’t be necessary. We’ll be conducting a full investigation, and we will notify the family of the deceased immediately. I am sorry.”
Kevin stood, and walked numbly out of the building.
Although he would not remember the drive, he somehow found his way to the Sarajevo airport and took the first flight out for The Netherlands.
CHAPTER 14
At home, Diane insisted in desperation that Kevin quit the case.
After Nihudian’s death, he felt as if he was in a constant daze. He had been the one who insisted on going to Sokolaz, despite Nihudian’s reservations. Now, because of him, two little girls in Sarajevo had lost their father. While Kevin didn’t have the will to resist Diane’s stance, neither did he do anything to take himself off the case. He was stuck in limbo, as if he had become a numb caricature of whom he had once been.
Slowly, after a few days and some long jogs through the Wassenaar dunes, Kevin’s instinct to fight began coming back. If he quit now, Nihudian’s death would have been for nothing. Even if he lost, at least if he saw Draga’s case through, he would vindicate the principle that even war criminals should receive a vigorous and effective defense. A Muslim man had died while trying to obtain favorable evidence for an accused at the Tribunal. The least he could do, Kevin decided, was to continue the pursuit of that evidence.
“I’m going to stay on as Draga’s lawyer,” he finally told Diane. He explained his reasoning as she recoiled with fear. “But I promise I’ll never set foot in Bosnia again.”
If she was relieved in the slightest, Diane didn’t let on.
Kevin decided to try to get his hands on a list of the bona fide Black Dragons who were trained and enrolled under Draga’s command. Under the Tribunal’s rules of superior responsibility, if Kevin could prove that a crime was committed by someone impersonating a Black Dragon, Draga could not be held responsible for that crime. Kevin needed a roster of the Black Dragons to look for the name Victor Vidic and other persons who had been identified as having committed war crimes.
He wrote Bradford Stone, but received a sharp reply that they had no such list.
Draga was sorry about Nihudian, but when Kevin asked him about the existence of such a list, his client was steadfast in not wanting to participate in his defense.
Kevin next asked Zoran Vacinovic, but Vacinovic said his government wouldn’t serve up lists of its citizens that the prosecution might use to indict people for war crimes.
Kevin found the entire scenario unbelievably frustrating. In the U.S. Attorney’s office, he could get his hands on a document by having an FBI agent serve a subpoena. As a defense lawyer, he was reduced to begging, and still he couldn’t get what he needed.
That night, Kevin helped Ellen pack her suitcase for their long-planned Christmas visit to California. “Guess what?” he said casually. “What you said about people dressing up like the Black Dragons is coming true.” He told her about what the former judge had said.
Ellen was proud. “You ought to listen to me more often, Daddy. I’ll solve your cases for you.”
“Well, solve this for me, Ms. Detective,” said Kevin, sitting down on the edge of her bed. “How do I get a list of real Dragons to prove that the people who committed the war crimes are not on that list and therefore were not under Draga’s command?”
“What are the choices?” Ellen always wanted her problems to be multiple choice.
“Number one, we get it from Draga. Number two, we get it from the Serbian government. Number three, we get it from the prosecution. But they’ve all said no.”
“Elementary, my dear Daddy,” Ellen said. “I choose number four.”
“But there’s no number four.”
“Think outside the box, dude,” Ellen said, giggling. “That’s what you tell me.”
“You’re a big help, Sherlock. Here’s your fee.” Kevin reached over and tickled Ellen on her sides. She convulsed with laughter and scampered away.
Think outside the box. Good advice, Kevin mused.
It made him think of his old friend and former colleague, Bud Marcello, who had survived a long career in the bureaucratic FBI by doing just that – again and again.
Two days later, Kevin was lunching with Bud Marcello at Mac’s in Santa Rosa.
“I still can’t picture you as a defense lawyer, Kevin.”
“It’s not exactly what I had in mind either,” Kevin admitted as he sipped a Diet Coke. “I never knew dealing with a client could be so difficult. I wish Draga would help with his defense. Some clients want to help too much, but this guy won’t help one bit.”
Bud was amused. “He wants to be a martyr. That’s his choice. At least he can’t complain about the outcome.”
“I just can’t play to lose. It’s not my nature. Plus, I’m not convinced he did what he’s charged with.”
“Oh, an innocent client,” Bud said, laughing. “You’ve turned into a real true believer, old buddy.”
“That Tribunal is a prosecutor’s dream. They hold all the cards. They almost put me in jail. Can you believe that? Then I filed a motion for intelligence agency files on my client and they pretended it never existed. Vanished, even though I had a file-stamped copy. It makes me think somebody is hiding something. I’ve been thinking that if I could get my hands on the CIA’s records, they might have a list of men under Draga’s command.”
“That could break either way for your client, you know?”
“Yeah, well, right now I’m willing to take the chance.”
Kevin had been edging up on something, but he let Bud take the lead.
“Hey, remember that lady and her husband who worked for the CIA and were convicted of selling information to the Russians? Andrew and Maria Jones.”
“Sure do.”
“You know, I handled a lot of the interviews with them.”
Kevin did know. He had remembered somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean on the flight to San Francisco about Bud’s involvement in the espionage case, wherein the Jones couple had eventually cooperated with the government in exchange for lighter sentences. Even in instances involving CIA officers, the FBI had jurisdiction to investigate criminal prosecutions of U.S. espionage laws.
“Maria is okay. She’s Italian, you know?”
“A real pisano, huh?” Kevin grinned.
“She found herself in some stuff that was mostly Andrew’s doing – that guy I did not like – and she went along for the ride. Anyway, she’s d
oing her time at the federal joint in Pleasanton. Go see her and tell her ole Bud says howdy.”
“It’s worth a try,” Kevin said, smiling inwardly, thinking: How many retired FBI agents would consider a convicted CIA spy “okay.” Bud Marcello was one of a kind.
Bud took out his pen and wrote something in Italian on his napkin. “Show this to Maria.” He handed Kevin the napkin. “In the meantime, I’ll make some calls.”
The next morning, Kevin drove to the women’s prison and was led into a conference room near the warden’s office. The prison resembled a college campus, except for the towering barbed wire fences that surrounded the facility. The inmates were allowed to roam freely within the fences, and after a few minutes, Maria Jones opened the door to the conference room and entered unescorted.
“Ms. Jones, I’m Kevin Anderson,” Kevin said offering his hand.
Maria Jones shook Kevin’s hand. “I was expecting you.”
“That’s good. A mutual friend asked me to show you this.” He pulled out Bud’s napkin.
Maria picked it up and read the note. She was a small, thin woman, who looked to be in her early forties. Her dark black hair was streaked with gray and pulled back in a bun. Her skin looked wrinkled and her eyes tired.
Kevin expected Maria to be cautious. She had received a twenty-year sentence, and Kevin figured that, like most inmates, she still clung to some hope of getting out earlier, either by cooperating further with the government or by filing post-conviction legal challenges. What he was asking her to do now did not fall into either category.
Maria smiled warmly. “Your friend has been good to my family since I have been in here. I’d like to pay him back by helping you if I can.”
“I’d sure appreciate any help you can give me,” Kevin replied, wondering what Bud had been up to with Maria’s family, and if the Bureau had known about it. “It would be confidential. Obviously, you’re not going to be a witness in my case. I’m trying to locate a list of men fighting in a paramilitary unit called the Black Dragons in the war in Bosnia. I represent the commander of that unit. They called him Draga.”
Maria Jones’ eyes widened. “You represent Draga?”
“Yes. So, you know about him?”
Maria ignored the question. “Has he told you what he did during the war?”
“Well, no. That’s the problem. He isn’t cooperating in his defense. He loves to talk about American football and eat pizza, but he hasn’t told me a thing about his case.”
Maria nodded understandingly. She was silent for a while.
“What do you know about Draga?” Kevin asked, practically holding his breath.
“I was in the unit that coordinated intelligence information on Yugoslavia. I know a lot about Dragoljub Zaric.”
“Do you know where I could find a list of the Black Dragons under his command? There apparently were people in Bosnia going around committing war crimes pretending to be members of the Black Dragons. Those crimes are going to be hung around Draga’s neck unless I can prove they were committed by people not under his command.”
“So you really don’t know.” Maria put her hands together and brought them to her lips. She was obviously thinking of something, but Kevin couldn’t seem to get it out of her.
“What don’t I know?”
Maria looked down at the napkin in her hand. “This could get me in a lot of trouble, Mr. Anderson.”
Kevin was perplexed. He decided to remain silent and see what Maria Jones would do.
She wrung her hands. “Your client was the most significant operative the CIA had in Yugoslavia,” she said finally.
“What do you mean?”
“Draga worked for the CIA. He passed on the best intelligence information we had on the war and on President Milosevic.”
Kevin couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “How do you know that?”
“I read the reports of his handler, William Evans. That was my main job for three years at the CIA.”
“I’m speechless,” Kevin said after a long pause. “My client has never even hinted at such a thing.”
“The Agency probably promised to take care of him when his trial is over. They did the same to my husband and me. Then they gave him life and me twenty years.”
Kevin’s brain was working overtime to digest this new revelation. Then, reality set in. “I’ll never be able to prove it,” he said dejectedly.
“Yes, you will,” Maria said, looking Kevin directly in the eyes. “I kept copies of the reports.”
A shiver ran through Kevin’s body.
“My mother has them. She lives in Oakland.” Maria wrote her mother’s address on Bud’s napkin, along with a short note. “She’ll give you the papers. You might also want to talk to William Evans. He retired. I think he works for Hilton Hotels now, in security.”
Kevin thanked Maria profusely. His mind was racing as he drove directly to Oakland to see Maria’s mother. If what Maria told him was true – and he had no doubt that it was – how would this impact his defense of Draga? In passing vital information to the CIA, had Draga been working to prevent war crimes, not commit them? Could his first client as a defense lawyer really have been on the side of the good guys?
Kevin wondered why Draga hadn’t told him of the CIA connection. Was he willing to sit silently in prison for the rest of his life? Or had the CIA promised Draga his freedom, as Maria, who knew about these things, had strongly suggested?
As he drove on the freeway, Kevin suddenly wondered if he was being followed. The prison authorities could have notified the CIA of his visit to Maria Jones. They could have even bugged the conference room at the prison.
Kevin got off at the next exit. He checked his rearview mirror; three other cars were also exiting. He waited at the red light at the bottom of the exit ramp. When the light turned green, he continued straight ahead and re-entered the freeway. He looked to see if any of the other cars were doing the same maneuver. They were not.
Although he was still not sure if he was being followed, Kevin was anxious to see Maria’s mother as soon as possible. He wanted to get his hands on the reports before they disappeared like his graymail motion had vanished into thin air.
As he exited the freeway again and approached what he thought was the right street, Kevin decided to once again be cautious. He circled a few blocks, and then stopped to look at his map. He did not see anyone following him.
Maria said her parents had moved to Oakland from the East Coast after her imprisonment. Kevin could see they were living in a multi-ethnic, poor neighborhood of single-family homes. If the whites, blacks, and Hispanics ever started fighting each other in the United States like the Muslims, Serbs, and Croats had in Bosnia, this neighborhood would be ground zero.
Kevin passed the house. It was a white, wooden single-story house with a small lawn in front. There was an old Chevrolet Impala parked in the driveway. The house needed a paint job, but the lawn was immaculate and was landscaped with nicely kept bushes. Around the yard was a chain-link fence. In this neighborhood, by necessity, all the houses were well fortified with security bars on many windows and doors.
After circling the block and not seeing anyone following him, Kevin parked. He opened the chain-link gate and walked up a few steps to the front door. The screen door was closed, but the inside door was open.
“Hello,” he called, “is anybody home?”
There was no answer. Kevin called again. There was still no answer. A feeling of dread crept over Kevin. People did not leave their front doors open in this neighborhood. Had someone been here before him? He rang the bell. No one came to the door. Kevin thought about calling 911 on his cell phone, but decided to walk around to the back of the house. He slowly backed down the steps and followed the driveway alongside of the house. When he reached the back yard, he saw a woman tending to some plants.
She had apparently not heard his calls or the front doorbell.
“Excuse me,” Kevin said from the edge of th
e yard.
The woman looked up. She was a stout woman with a wide, pleasant face. She looked to be in her seventies, and her brown hair was neatly in place. When she saw Kevin, she put down her pruning shears and walked over to him.
Kevin did not wait for her to speak. “I’m sorry to bother you. I’m Kevin Anderson, a lawyer from Santa Rosa. I’ve just come from visiting your daughter, Maria, and she asked me to come here and give you this.” He pulled out the napkin and displayed it for the woman to see.
The woman looked surprised at the mention of her daughter. She took the napkin. “I need my glasses. Come on in.” She led Kevin into the house through the back door.
Kevin found himself in a small kitchen with a wooden table placed against the back window overlooking the yard. “Sit down. Can I offer you a cup of coffee?”
“Oh, no thanks.”
“How about some tea, or milk? I’ve got some soda, or even some wine.”
“I’ll take a soda, thank you.”
Kevin looked around the kitchen. He saw the refrigerator, filled with photos held up by magnets. He had come to believe that you could tell a lot about a family by looking at what was posted on the refrigerator. From his seat at the table, Kevin saw pictures of a large Italian family, and several pictures of Maria in happier and younger days. He saw none of Maria’s husband.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know your name,” Kevin said as Maria’s mother came back to the table carrying a pair of eyeglasses and a glass of cola.
“Alice. Alice Mancini.”
“It’s nice to meet you. And thank you for welcoming me into your home.”
“We don’t get many visitors. All our family except Maria is back East.”
Alice put on her glasses and read the napkin. On one side, she read Bud’s note to Maria, and on the other, Maria’s note to her. “This scares me. Maria has never asked me to get her papers before. I wish I could discuss this with my husband.”
“Where is your husband?”
“He died two months ago.”
“I’m sorry. I – didn’t know.”
Alice studied the napkin. “I will honor my daughter’s wishes.”
The TRIBUNAL Page 14