by Jon Reisfeld
It was now slightly past five o’clock. While he consciously wrestled with what his next move should be, Martin watched his left arm reach for the phone and his right hand begin pressing keys. He entered Swindell’s direct number and was more than a little surprised, a moment later, when Swindell actually answered the phone.
“Chester Swindell speakin'. How may I help you?”
“Mr. Swindell? This is Martin Silkwood.”
“Mahr-tin, how are you?”
“Not too good.”
“What’s the matter?”
“What isn’t? I just got ambushed by my partners and our firm’s attorney. Somehow, they found out about the domestic violence charges.”
“I see,” Swindell said. “What happened?”
“Well, for starters, they told me this domestic violence case could ruin my career if it succeeds in creating a permanent public record of the charges against me. And they said that’s true regardless of the outcome of the case. They want me to settle with my wife, expunge the public record, if possible, and put the whole thing behind me as soon as possible.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. They think going to court at this point would be insane and that I should only consider it as a last resort. All of which begs the question, why didn’t I hear any of this from you? Don’t you have a responsibility to advise me against taking such a reckless course of action?”
Swindell considered what Martin said as he tried to formulate an appropriate response. He decided to buy himself a little more time. “Mahr-tin,” he asked, “is your firm’s attorney well-versed in family law?”
“Not personally,” Martin said. “But he comes from a large firm with associates who are experts on the subject, and I’m sure he consulted with them before speaking to me.”
“So, in other words,” Swindell added, “you’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, but not me? I find that very troublin’.”
Martin could barely believe his ears. “That’s pretty presumptuous of you, Mr. Swindell. I’ve known you now for what, a couple of days? On the other hand, Rick Wainwright has represented my firm for years. I know how he operates. This is not a matter of me blindly trusting a stranger, while second-guessing you. I don’t blindly trust anyone. If you want my trust, you’re going to have to earn it, and the sooner you start, the better.”
“You’re right, Mahr-tin,” Swindell said, back pedaling furiously. “I do apologize. I guess that did sound rather smug of me. In my defense, I can only say that I have been practicin’ law in this area for decades, and I’ve built an excellent professional reputation. Still, I shouldn’t assume that you would be aware of my reputation, or unduly influenced by it, even though you said you found me through the referral of a trusted friend.
“Let me try to address some of the points you have raised.”
“Please do,” Martin said.
“Somethin’ I try to do, as an attorney, Mahr-tin, and I may not have done it well enough in your case, is to gauge each client’s temperament at the outset of an engagement and then adjust my communication style accordin’ly.
“Some clients like to have everythin’ explained to them in advance. Others prefer that I simply tell them what they need to know when they need to know it. The former approach, while offerin’ maximum guidance and disclosure, can be tedious, inefficient and unnecessarily costly. In your case, the decisive way you rejected your wife’s settlement offer this mornin’ may have caused me to misread you. In addition, it appears I may have allowed my pride to influence me as well.
“I initially considered callin’ you back after we spoke about the settlement offer, but then I thought better of it.”
“Why?” Martin asked.
“Well, Mahr-tin, the practice of law, as I do it, involves considerable gamesmanship at times, and by that I mean strategic maneuverin’, posturin’—even bluffin’, if you will. I can act strategically on your behalf, in negotiations and such, because the actions we take and the decisions we make are rarely final. We can generally reverse, rescind or amend them.
“At the same time, my status as an attorney also makes me an officer of the court and that sets ethical limits on me. For instance, I am not supposed to collude with clients in order to achieve certain ends. So, I prefer to use whatever leverage the moment provides.”
“I’m not sure I follow you,” Martin said.
“Hang on, Mahr-tin, I’m gettin’ there! Whether I thought your decision this mornin’ was sound or not, it gave me an openin’ to honestly press the other side for some additional concessions.
“I called Beverly West and told her precisely what you had told me, and I could do that because I had not yet tried to talk you out of that particular decision.
“Now, she pretended not to care, but I’ve been dealin’ with these types of cases long enough to know that your response was both unexpected and unwelcome news. It put them off-balance and improved our bargainin’ position.”
“OK,” Martin said. “I get it. Have they revised their offer, yet?”
“Well, not yet Mahr-tin. We need to allow a little time for that hand to play itself out. In the next day or so, if I mention that I might be able to get you to reconsider a settlement, provided they sweeten the pot a bit, they might then come back with enough additional concessions that a settlement suddenly becomes attractive.”
“I see,” Martin said.
“Did any other developments come out of that ambush that I should know about?” Swindell asked.
“Yeah. I think, in part, to motivate me to drop this, they have effectively demoted me from audit team leader to audit team trainer.
“They are worried that I may not be able to make this thing go away, Mr. Swindell, even if I don’t fight the case in court. And if they’re right, I probably am screwed.”
Chapter 13
At twenty past five, Martin left work in a state of near panic. Just hours earlier, he had been ready to fight the domestic violence charges in court. Now, he cowered at the thought. He hoped there might still be time in which to reach a settlement with Katie.
The covert group remained the one unknown. Did they really have the power, and the capabilities, to level the playing field? Were they a serious option? If so, their involvement could change everything, provided they did not expect too much in return.
But where were they? Nearly two days had passed—forty-five hours of the allotted forty-eight-hour follow-up period—and, still, no one from the group had reached out to him. For all practical purposes, the organization had gone dark. Had it given up on him for some reason and discarded his case in favor of another? As Martin left his office building, he scanned the street in both directions, looking for operatives. He was constantly on the lookout now and permanently on edge.
It had taken a great deal of mental energy for him to maintain this perpetually heightened state of alert for the previous two days, and at this point, he felt beaten and emotionally drained. That’s why, when he saw the Sign of the Dolphin pub, Martin veered off course. He opened the door, drawn in by the promise of alcohol-induced escape that lay just a few feet beyond. The thought of killing off a few million over-active brain cells suddenly seemed irresistible.
The Sign of the Dolphin was a rare cross between an urban pickup bar and a serious drinking hole. A long, wooden, saloon-style bar ran the length of the establishment, from just inside the front door to the small kitchen in the rear. Some of the stools along the bar were reserved for the pub’s regulars. You could find these men and women at their designated perches at virtually any hour of the day. But most nights, they preferred to drink alone, at home. The bar’s primary concession to the singles crowd was a considerable amount of permanent, open mingling space between the stools to the left and a single row of dining booths on the far right.
To enhance the Pub’s appeal, the owners had recently added several dartboards, a snooker table and two card tables in back. As usual, The Dolphin also promoted more than a dozen microb
rews that were always cold and always on tap.
At this time of day, the Pub was nearly empty. Most of the daytime crowd had gone, and the city’s young, urban professionals, still hard at work at their desks, would not put in appearances for at least another hour. Martin grabbed an empty bar stool and flagged a bartender who was standing near the cash register, drying off freshly washed shot glasses. He ordered an extremely dry vodka martini and began drumming his fingers on the edge of the bar, as he waited for his drink to arrive.
The first sip was cold, wet and tangy. Martin closed his eyes to savor its full effect, as the liquor slowly slid down his throat. Sometime between consuming the olive and completing the final gulp, he failed to notice the new figure stepping behind the counter and donning an apron.
“Just about given up on us, I bet?” she asked as she laid a cloth towel down on the bar to Martin’s right.
Martin looked up and saw a young, attractive African-American woman smiling at him. She was in her late twenties and wore a black leotard that showed off her sleek, classic figure, rich, brown skin tones and fresh, girl-next-door looks. Her long, brown hair hung loosely in a ponytail that draped over one shoulder. Martin wondered if she were a theatre major or a dancer, working part-time to pay the rent.
“Are you referring to the service here?” he asked.
“No, I’m talking about the video disk you received the other night.”
“What?!” Martin bolted up in his seat. He leaned forward. “Are you with the—?”
The woman quickly raised a finger to her lips and feigned a frown. “Don’t shake my hand!” she added a second later, as she shooed away Martin’s suddenly outstretched arm. He immediately withdrew it.
She looked at him quizzically, and smiled. “You’re surprised I’m a woman, aren’t you?”
“No,” Martin said, shaking his head. “Well, maybe a little. I think I’m just relieved that I’m finally talking to someone.”
“Martin,” she said, “let me explain how this works. We are going to have a quick chat together while I clean up the bar for the evening trade. OK?”
“Sure,” Martin said. “But please, call me Marty.”
“OK, Marty.”
“And your name is…?”
“Teresa.”
“Great. So, Teresa, I’m curious, how did you know to look for me in here?”
“That’s easy,” she said. “Hand me your brief case.” Martin lifted it up onto the counter and Teresa ran the palm of her hand over its surface. Suddenly, she stopped and peeled away a small black plastic bar that was about a half-inch long and a quarter inch thick. Then, she slipped it in her apron pocket. “We’ve had you under surveillance for quite some time now, Marty, but since last Monday night, this small transmitter has been keeping tabs on your movements. Its battery is about to expire.”
“Did the guy on the subway plant that on me?” Martin asked.
Teresa nodded, yes.
“So tell me, how does this organization of yours work?”
“Sorry,” she said. “That’s ‘top secret’ information, available strictly on a ‘need to know’ basis, and you, quite simply, don’t need to know. But you do need this.” She slid the bill across the bar to Martin. “You’ll find your instructions handwritten on the back of the tear-off slip. Just do what it says.”
“Since you brought it up, Teresa, how did a nice girl like you get involved in this business?”
“You really want to know?”
“Yeah.”
“I do it to honor the memory of my big brother, Brian,” she said. “He died in a car crash a few years back, after he lost his business and his ex- suddenly pulled up stakes and moved across country with their three kids.
“Brian was a devoted dad—and like a second father to me,” she said. “He deserved better.”
“I’m sorry,” Martin said.
“Thanks. That’s very sweet.”
“Can I ask you another question?” Martin asked, as he paid the bill and slipped the receipt into his pocket.
“Sure.”
“Am I buying trouble, here?”
“Not from us. We are strictly in the trouble-mitigation business. Whether you realize it or not, Marty, our involvement means you’re a very lucky guy.”
“I’m sorry, Teresa,” Martin said, smiling. “But did you just say that I’m going to get ‘lucky’?”
“Not that kind of ‘lucky,’” she laughed, “but, for someone in your situation, lucky enough.”
Just then, a customer passed by. Teresa lowered her voice. “Just follow the instructions!” she whispered. Then louder, “Come back again, soon, sir—and thanks for the tip!”
“Sure thing,” Martin said, getting up. He left the bar feeling soothed, elated and more hopeful than he’d been in days.
Once seated on the metro, Martin took the receipt out of his pocket and examined it. On its back, he found the following message: “Harkins Tours, Suite #221, 3745 Diamond Court Center, Gaithersburg, MD." Appoint-ment: 8:00 p.m., tonight.”
Chapter 14
“How’s production going?” Dave Clancy, CEO of Quadratic Sound Studios, in Bethesda, MD, asked his chief programming engineer, Jay Liu, during a rare evening coffee break.
“Awesome, man,” Liu said excitedly. “I’ve been toying, for some time, with the idea of building multiple subliminal redundancies into the audio feeds, to enhance the recording’s suggestive power and to help the brain make more vivid images during REM.”
“And,” his boss asked, “any progress?”
“Oh yeah,” Liu continued. “I’ve actually got programs now to automate sublim production. I’ve even used them to lay down tracks for the current job.”
“Have you tested it?”
“Oh, it works great! We applied it to the last series of audies we ran for Hypno Health Associates, and Brimmer, the head guy over there, man, loves it. He said it’s more than doubled the depth of trance states. (Did you know he runs biofeedback on every one of his subjects...just to avoid lawsuits?) Anyway, he told me it will probably prolong the effectiveness of a routine hypno session by twenty percent.”
“I like where you’re going with this,” Clancy said. “It’s got possibilities.”
“Oh, you have no idea, man!”
Clancy could see Liu was now ready to burst. He started a mental countdown, ‘three, two—.’
“You see,” Liu began, jumping the gun, “my theory was that if the mind heard the audie in a hypnotic state, then every detail would be remembered—even those subliminal messages that we do not take conscious notice of. No two people are alike, you know, so each of us responds better to different thought suggestions. Therefore, the more suggestions we provide, the more universally powerful the experience. And now, with this layering effect, I’ve found a way to add limitless bandwidth and power to the audies."
Clancy was all smiles.
“Oh, and that new head juice is awesome, too, boss,” Liu added. “I stuck myself once before listening to the hypno audie, “You’re The Stud Your Momma Said You Never Could Be,” and then I went home and made love to Melinda for two solid hours—and I mean solid.”
“Well, I guess that’s conclusive proof of efficacy,” Clancy said, laughing. “By the way, have you got a copy of the sublim script?”
“Sure.”
“Good. Email me one when you get back to your desk. I want to check the quality of the selections. Nice work, Jay.”
“Thanks, man.”
Clancy returned to his office and fired off a quick email to his ‘silent partners’ to let them know the status of the current project and to share Jay Liu’s latest stroke of genius.
He told them, based on the enhancements Jay had outlined, that the ten-minute dream narrative sequence they had ordered probably would occupy about one-half a gigabyte of data storage space compressed rather than the standard one-hundred-megabyte file. He also mentioned Jay’s personal experience with the ‘head juice’ that they h
ad sent along for testing. He concluded by saying the new audie would be ready for transmission to them within the hour.
Clancy knew they would be extremely pleased. Initially, five years earlier, when he was short on cash and they offered to become his financial “angels”—for a piece of the action, of course—he had been concerned that they might be a front for organized crime. But, gradually, ‘little things’ had convinced him that they were somehow hooked into the intelligence community. That’s when any remaining qualms he might have had completely disappeared.
Chapter 15
Martin pulled up to 3745 Diamond Court Center at 7:50 p.m., his heart pounding. The building, which was dark, except for its lobby, appeared to be the typical, nondescript suburban office complex. It had lots of glass, lots of steel, fake polished-onyx flooring, and a generous assortment of tall indoor trees and ubiquitous potted plants.
At this time of day, the building and its parking lot were nearly empty. Martin entered the lobby and took the elevator up to the second floor. When he stepped off, he saw a law firm to his left and a mixed-use executive office suite to his right. Its glass door read, “Suites 201 to 235.” The door was locked, and only a few security lights lit up the reception area behind it.
Martin walked over and pressed the bell. Moments later a buzzer sounded, and he entered. Lights illuminated only one of the two hallways opening onto the reception area, so Martin headed in that direction. Toward the end of the hall, past several offices and conference rooms, he found Suite 221. The door was slightly ajar. He could see lights shining inside, so he entered.
Harkins Tours’ reception area contained all the obligatory destination posters for a regional bus tour company. These included: A composite poster of Washington, D.C. destinations; a fiery, mid-autumn shot of Skyline Drive as well as scenes of historic Williamsburg; wild ponies at dusk on Assateague Island; Marlin fishing off Maryland’s Atlantic coast; a composite photo of historic Annapolis, MD; and a breathtaking view of the Greenbrier Resort, once the favored retreat of presidents and railroad tycoons.