A Far Justice

by Richard Herman

  Horns blared behind him. “Don’t do this!” Hank shouted. Then he saw it. A woman was holding a poster with a man’s photo and the word KILLER scrawled in red across it.

  Another woman climbed up a small ladder clutching a bullhorn. “Oh no,” Hank moaned. It was one of his students at the University of California at Berkeley. “The ditzy one.” Hank taught at Boalt Hall, Berkeley’s law school, but he had been shanghaied to conduct a graduate level seminar on international law, his specialty, for the political science department. It was a decision he had regretted from day one. He couldn’t remember the young woman’s name, and while she was intelligent, he despaired of her critical thinking skills and feared for the legal profession should she pursue a law degree. “Madison,” he mumbled, finally recalling her name. He set the parking brake and got out to hear.

  “We need the TV cameras over there,” Madison ordered, pointing to the clear traffic lanes. “I want the stopped cars as background.” The TV reporters dutifully obliged and moved to their appointed location.

  An attractive young woman got out of a car two lanes to Hank’s left. “I’ve got to catch a flight!”

  Madison turned her bullhorn on the woman. “This is more important than you catching an airplane, lady.”

  “My job depends on it!”

  Madison blasted her with “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”

  The loud bass of truck air horns echoed over them. Hank stood on his car’s doorsill in order to see. Six truck drivers were out of their trucks and headed his way, picking up angry drivers as they came. “Now it gets interesting.” He reached for his cell phone and dialed 9-1-1. He quickly described the situation. “You got a riot about to start. And it’s gonna get very ugly very fast.” He broke the connection. He looked skyward and spread his arms. “Why me?”

  “Here come the rednecks,” Madison announced over her bullhorn.

  “Now that really helped,” Hank muttered. He opened the sunroof to his car and stood on the driver’s seat. His eyes narrowed as he surveyed the combatants. He calculated there were at least eighty demonstrators, about half women. He counted the men surging past his car. Seventeen. But more irate motorists were joining them by the second.

  One of the truck drivers pointed at Madison who was still standing on the ladder orchestrating the demonstration. “Get her!” The battle was joined as a dozen or so of the demonstrators formed a defensive line.

  “We come in peace!” a young woman shouted as the demonstrators locked arms.

  “Peace my ass!” the same truck driver yelled. He barreled into the line, his muscular arms pumping with short, hard jabs. More men piled in behind him, giving weight to the attack. The line split apart and the men headed straight for Madison. “Grab the fuckin’ bitch!” the truck driver shouted.

  Another shout echoed from the rear. “Over the side!”

  The mob picked it up it as a war cry. “Over the side! Over the side!”

  Madison dropped her bullhorn and jumped from the ladder. But she was too slow in reacting to the threat and two men grabbed her. The chant grew louder as the men carried her to the nearside of the bridge. More demonstrators joined in trying to save Madison.

  Hank climbed out through the sunroof and slid down onto the hood of his car as a man banged a baseball bat against his car’s fender. He glared at Hank, his eyes filled with hate. “Hey man!” Hank yelled. “You got the wrong car.” He pointed at the old VW van directly in front. “Nail that one!” He slid off the hood and gave him an encouraging look. “Let’s get the bastards.” Again, he pointed at the VW van.

  The man yelled an obscenity at Hank but turned toward the VW van. It was the wrong move. Hank pounded at his back with four, blindingly fast rabbit punches. The man went down as Hank grabbed the baseball bat out of his hands. “Crazy bastard,” Hank said. “Get out of here.” The man scrambled for safety. Hank used the bat as a battering ram and bulldozed his way straight for the kicking and screaming Madison. He held the baseball bat low to keep it hidden and reached the girl just as the men started to heave her over the side. He brought the tip of the bat up in a sharp upward motion into the elbow of the man holding her feet. He collapsed in a spasm of pain, dropping Madison’s legs. Hank straddled her.

  “Not her,” Hank shouted, now holding the bat high, ready to swing. “The van! Get the van!” A man grabbed him from the rear. Hank bent his knees and went into a crouch as he jerked his body sideways. At the same time, he twisted into his assailant and drove the butt of the bat into his stomach. The man went down spewing vomit over Madison. “Throw the goddamn van over the side!” Hank shouted.

  A voice picked up his order. “The van, the van!” It became a chorus and the mob turned toward the van, momentarily diverted. But it was only a temporary reprieve.

  Hank scooped up Madison in a fireman’s carry. “Play dead,” he told her. She played the role and her arms and head dangled lifelessly. He angled through the crowd that was pushing the van towards the bridge railing. The lane in front of his car was now open. He reached the back of his car and lifted the trunk lid. He dumped Madison in and slammed the lid.

  “What the hell you doin’?” a voice shouted behind him.

  “Taking her to the morgue,” Hank shouted back. “Let’s get the hell out of here.” Ahead of him the men had pushed the van against the railing and were rocking it back and forth. Hank jumped in behind the wheel and started the engine. Sirens blared from Yerba Buena Island as police and emergency vehicles approached, coming towards him in the clear lanes. He accelerated straight ahead as the van went over the railing and the police cars arrived. A line of traffic shot the gap he had opened, adding to the confusion.

  Hank sipped at his tea while his wife, Catherine, gently cleaned a nasty abrasion on Madison’s left knee. Catherine was a big woman often described as statuesque, and towered over the waif-like Madison. “There now,” Catherine said, “you should be okay. You were lucky. The fall would have killed you.”

  “They’re all bastards,” Madison announced.

  Catherine was an accomplished lawyer in her own right but had given up practicing law to raise a family. But she fully understood the deadly mix of anger and opportunity. “Men can get that way, especially when you make them angry. You lost situational awareness.”

  “What exactly does that mean?” Madison asked.

  “Your perception of the situation did not match reality,” Hank explained. “Besides, always know how to get out of Dodge when the situation turns to crap – like today.”

  The phone rang and Catherine picked it up. She listened for a moment. “Hank, it’s Marci Lennox, the reporter from CNC-TV.” She pulled a face and covered the mouthpiece. “She recognized you and wants to interview you for the evening news.”

  “No way,” Hank replied. “Tell her to go away.”

  Catherine took a deep breath. “I don’t think the media will be going away soon. Apparently, you’re some sort of hero for saving Madison.”

  “Lovely. Absolutely lovely.”

  “Another call,” Catherine said. She punched the call-waiting button and listened. “Hank, I think you should take this one. It’s the attorney general.” She handed him the phone with a worried look.

  He took the phone and glanced at the waiting image on the small screen. “I think I’m in trouble.”

  THREE

  Washington, D.C.

  Hank’s BlackBerry vibrated as he followed the young woman through the marbled halls of the Department of Justice. He glanced at the message on the offending instrument and arched an eyebrow. Max Westcot wanted to speak to him soonest. Hank reread the message as the lawyer in his soul sounded alarms. First, the attorney general, and now the modern-day equivalent of a robber baron wanted to speak to him.

  “I must apologize,” his attractive guide said, “but the attorney general has been called to the White House.” She checked with the assistant attorney general’s receptionist and led him throug
h.

  “Thank you,” Hank murmured, still groggy from the Friday night’s redeye flight from San Francisco. His alarm signals went ballistic and he was jolted awake when he saw the man waiting with the assistant attorney general.

  The assistant AG stood and extended his hand. “Hank, thanks for coming so quickly. I don’t believe you know Mr. Weaver.”

  Hank was well aware of James Weaver’s reputation, and he went into a deep defensive crouch. This was a meeting that never happened, which explained the attorney general’s absence. They men shook hands all around and Hank sat down. “So, what can I do for you?”

  The assistant AG leaned forwarded, his ‘I only want to help’ look in place. “Mr. Weaver asked if we would solicit your help in the Tyler case.” He waited for a response from Hank. There wasn’t one so he shifted into his ‘we really need your help’ approach. “Specifically, we want you to defend Colonel Tyler before the ICC.”

  There was no doubt in Hank’s mind that the ‘we’ was the president of the United States. “As an official of the United States defending one of its citizens?” Hank asked.

  The assistant AG shifted in his chair, not liking the way Hank was going. “No. That would be de facto recognition of the court by the US, which we certainly do not want. You would have to go as a private individual.”

  The ‘we’ was still in play and Hank understood it was a request that he couldn’t refuse. “So I’d be on my own?”

  “Let me be candid,” Weaver said. “We asked the attorney general to approach you because you are, without reservation, our country’s leading expert on the ICC, and one fine lawyer. Colonel Tyler’s trial is going to be a three-ring circus, a soap opera that will dominate the nightly news. But given the current crisis over China and Taiwan, we cannot risk angering our European allies and can’t intervene, at least for now. The State Department is involved but our best option is to provide Colonel Tyler with a topnotch defense. That’s you. But our role in this must not be revealed.”

  “As the US has no status with the court,” the assistant AG added, “we need someone who is lacking, shall we say, an official stamp of approval, and has a good reputation with the European media. Which you do, thanks to what you did on the bridge yesterday.”

  “So I defend Colonel Tyler while you pursue other means to gain his release.”

  “The President does have wide-ranging powers under the American Service-Members’ Protection Act,” Weaver said.

  “To use all means necessary to free any service-member detained or imprisoned by the ICC,” Hank added, paraphrasing the congressional act. A hard silence came down in the room as Hank considered the offer. What he didn’t know worried him. Finally, “I need to think about it. Do you have a file on Tyler?”

  The assistant AG shoved a thin folder across his desk. “Here’s all we have, plus the transcript from his arraignment hearing this morning in The Hague.”

  “The ICC calls it a confirmation hearing,” Hank said.

  “The court appointed an Irishman to defend Tyler,” Weaver said. “The guy is a real bozo and a drunk to boot, but Tyler did a creditable job defending himself. He challenged the court’s jurisdiction and ended up looking pretty good. But we need you there as soon as possible to minimize the damage.”

  “How soon may we expect an answer?” the assistant AG asked.

  Hank glanced at his watch. It was just after nine in the morning. “I’ll let you know this afternoon.” He stood, dropped Tyler’s file into his briefcase and left.

  The assistant AG watched Hank close the door and took a deep breath. “Will he do it?”

  “I imagine so,” Weaver answered. “He’s only lost a handful of cases in his career and this is a challenge he can’t refuse.”

  “Do you think he could win?”

  Weaver shook his head. “No way in hell.”

  Riverview, Maryland

  Hank pressed the doorbell of the colonial style house and waited. For some reason, he had assumed that Max Westcot would never be caught dead in anything approaching normality. He pressed the bell again as he took in the beautiful garden and wide expanse of grass that sloped down to the Potomac River. In the far distance, on the other side of the river, he could see the trees surrounding Mount Vernon, George Washington’s estate with its never-ending throngs of tourists. Westcot opened the door and welcomed him inside. Westcot was shorter than Hank expected, no more than five feet eight inches, and built like a fireplug topped with heavy dark hair. “Thanks for coming. How did the meeting go?”

  Rather than ask how Westcot knew about the meeting, Hank only nodded and said, “They want me to defend Colonel Tyler.”

  Westcot led him into the study that had an even better view of the Potomac. He stood by the French windows. “Please, have a seat. Are you?”

  Hank sat down. “May I ask why you’re interested in the colonel?”

  “We were friends and classmates at the Air Force Academy. I got into some trouble and he went to bat for me. It was a pretty rough patch but he got me through it. He’s a good friend.”

  “Forgive me, Mr. Westcot, but I suspect there’s more to it than friendship.”

  “I do have other interests that are involved.”

  “Is oil one of them?” Westcot stared at him and didn’t answer. Hank’s instincts warned him to level with the financier. “To answer your question, I am thinking about defending the colonel but haven’t made a final decision.”

  Westcot gazed out the window towards Mt. Vernon. “Sometimes I wonder how George Washington managed to get along with the French.”

  “Do you think they’re behind this?” Hank asked.

  Westcot snorted. “Their pecker tracks are all over it.”

  Hank heard the anger in his voice. “So Tyler is a sacrificial pawn caught in a geopolitical pissing contest.”

  “To put it mildly. The French go at each other with gusto, and God only knows who is doing what to who over there. But basically, the French are the French and play their own game.”

  “And you’re a player in the pissing contest. Or have I got it wrong?”

  Westcot studied Hank for a moment. “No.” Silence. Then, “If you decide to defend Gus, I’ll be in your corner.”

  “In what way?”

  “Obviously out of sight but in any way I can; money, information, contacts, a top notch legal team, you name it. But you’ll be a free agent.”

  It all came together for the lawyer. Westcot was the cutout between him and the government, but if anything went wrong, he would be hung out to dry. He made a decision. “I’ll do it.”

  Westcot handed Hank a wireless phone in a black case approximately three by five inches in size and a half-inch thick. “This looks like a mobile phone but we call it a percom, short for personal communicator.” He didn’t tell Hank that one of his companies had developed it for the CIA. “Open the lid to turn it on. It’s got a touch screen but it’s also voice activated and will only respond to your voice. Just tell it what you want and it does the rest.” He handed Hank an in-canal hearing aid. “Listen with this. Your contact is Cassandra. She’s your link to my people who will back you up to the max.”

  “Pun intended?” Hank quipped.

  Max Westcot did not have a sense of humor and stared at the lawyer for a moment. “Cassandra will provide you with whatever information you need. The percom also functions as a computer, a GPS, and a video cell phone. You can even play games. The battery is good for seventy-two hours of continuous use. To recharge, simply place it next to any power source like a battery or electrical outlet, even a high-voltage power line will do if you’re within a hundred feet, and it will recharge in about twenty minutes.”

  Hank inserted the earpiece and opened the case. The top half was an LED touch screen and the bottom half had a small microphone grate. The screen flicked to life and the image of a pleasant-looking middle-aged woman appeared. Her dark hair was streaked with gray and pulled back and tied in a loose bundle at the back of
her neck. She was wearing a white, classical Greek gown. It was an image that could have been lifted from an ancient Grecian urn he had admired in a museum. He heard a voice in his ear. “Good afternoon, Professor Sutherland. Or do you prefer to be called Hank?”

  He gave Westcot a quizzical look who only nodded in encouragement. “Ah, good afternoon, Cassandra. Hank will be fine.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m just learning how this works,” he told the image.

  “I can give you a description or answer questions you might have. But based on past experience, it’s easiest to learn as we go along. If you don’t mind, from time to time I’ll suggest things for you to consider.”

  “Sounds good. Talk to you later.” Hank closed the lid to the percom.

  Cassandra was still there. “If you want privacy, tell me to terminate the connection. But I do have a watchdog feature you might find useful. We establish a half mile secure zone around your location and monitor all telephone, radio, and computer transmissions within that zone.”

  “I’ll settle for privacy right now,” he replied. Suddenly, he sensed he was alone. “I’ll be damned.”

  Westcot allowed a tight smile. “You’ll get used to it.” He handed Hank a credit card. “No limit.” The meeting was over and he walked Hank to his car. They shook hands and Westcot stood in the drive as Hank drove away.

  Hank drove about a mile before curiosity got the better of him. He parked and opened the percom’s lid to turn it on. “Cassandra, are you there?”

  The image appeared on the screen and the voice in his earpiece was back. “Good afternoon, Hank.”

  Hank closed the lid and dropped the percom into his shirt pocket. “Are you a real person?”

  “I like to think I am. The image you see and my voice are computer generated. Basically, I’m a data information program programmed for voice recognition. However, I am monitored and controlled by a very real person. I’m allowed to give you some technical details of how the system works, if you’d like.”