The Kingmaker sd-3

by Brian Haig

  “You forgettin’ something?”

  “Let me see… briefcase… pen… underwear… No, I have everything.”

  “Like your co-counsel?”

  “Oh, I didn’t forget. They’re introductory meetings. She can wait here.”

  “My ass. She an attorney, ain’t she?”

  “I might even surprise you and be useful,” said Katrina, looking amused. “Hard to believe, I know.”

  Did I really need to explain the problem here? Other issues aside, first impressions are important in this business, especially when your first stop is the most tight-assed place on the planet. She was wearing a loose blouse, tight bell-bottoms, clogs, and a spiked collar around her neck. But on second thought, it might be worth bringing her along for the shock value. Maybe her nose bead and belly-button ring would set off the metal detector at the CIA. Wouldn’t that be a thrill?

  Three minutes later we were racing down the GW Parkway. Wanting a better angle on this woman, I said, “So tell me about yourself.”

  She chuckled and replied, “ ‘Tell me about yourself’?” like, What kind of asshole would phrase it like that?

  “It’s just a question. Answer however you choose.”

  “However, huh? Herpes-free single white female with a law degree from a third-rate school. Likes Chanel Premier Rouge lipstick, stands in long lines for U2 concerts, and would really appreciate less condescension from her boss. Does that work?”

  “Fine.” However, I believe I detected a veiled message.

  She said, “Quit jerking me off and tell me what you’re interested in.”

  “It’s called getting acquainted. Familiarity breeds teamwork. Says so in a management book I once read.” Of course, this was the same management book that told me how to conduct interviews, so its validity was highly suspect at this point. I said, “You mentioned your parents were Russian. How come they ended up here?”

  “I didn’t say they were Russian, I said they taught me to speak Russian. My father was Chechen; my mother was the Russian. When they got married… well, the Communists didn’t like Chechens or mixed marriages, and things became uncomfortable. They were smart. They came here.”

  “And you grew up in New York City?”

  “TriBeCa, before the yuppies discovered it. It used to be a nice neighborhood before all the condo associations converted it into high-gloss hell.”

  “And college?”

  “That would be CUNY and four years of humping dishes in Broadway restaurants with horny tourists groping my ass as I tried to balance a tray over my head. College sucked.” She paused a moment, then said, “Are we done yet?”

  “Almost. Why law school?”

  “As in, What’s a girl who looks like me doing in your profession?”

  “Hey, that’s a good question, too.”

  “If I had a rack of power suits and a Dooney amp; Bourke briefcase, you wouldn’t ask. Meet me in court someday and I’ll bust your nuts.”

  “I’ll bet you would,” I replied. Of course we both knew I was lying. “Why criminal law?”

  “It’s my turn.”

  “Who said we were taking turns?”

  “Don’t be an asshole,” she persisted. “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “Where’d you grow up?”

  “I was an Army brat. We were migrants. As soon as the bill collectors figured out where we lived, we moved on.”

  “Then this is legacy work for you, huh?”

  “I don’t think of it that way, no.”

  “How do you think of it?”

  “As a worthy trade inside an honorable profession.”

  “Wow. You actually said that with a straight face.” She regarded me a moment, then asked, “Why law?”

  I flashed my ID to the guard at the gate of the big CIA headquarters, and said, “Because back when I was an infantryman, I had the misfortune to stand in front of a few bullets. When the docs were done putting me back together they’d made a catastrophic wiring mistake and turned me into a lawyer.”

  “That sucks. I hope you sued their asses off.”

  “Well, you know how doctors feel about lawyers. They all shot themselves.”

  We pulled into a guest parking space and walked over to the entrance. A young man with a sour expression met us, handed us temporary building passes, actually showed us how to put them on, and then escorted us to the elevator. You have to love these people. We went up four floors and were then deposited at the office of the general counsel, where a secretary with the face of a dried prune eyed Katrina with a disapproving stare, then starchly told us to sit and wait. For all I knew, she had a gun in that desk. We sat and waited.

  A minute or so later, a guy in a nice suit poked his head out of his office and in an unwelcoming way said, “Come in.” We did that, too.

  It wasn’t a big office, but few government offices are. He had his J.D. diploma from Boston University hanging on his wall, as well as your typical rogue’s gallery of photos that showed him shaking hands with or standing beside a whole array of impressive and recognizable faces.

  I took one peek at those photos, realized with a sudden, overwhelming shock how outclassed I was, stood up, and fled. Just kidding.

  His name was Clarence O’Neil-he was somewhere in his late forties, and well along that road of regression from being a fairly fit, reddish-haired young man to becoming a florid-faced, stout, broad-nosed Irishman. His eyes lingered radioactively on Katrina for a few brief seconds, then he and I traded pugnacious glares, as we opposing attorneys are inclined to do. One way or another, Clarence was going to be in the background of this case, and probably was going to call a lot of the shots.

  He finally leaned back into his chair, ran a hand through his unruly, thinning hair, and asked, “What can I do for you, Major? Miss Mazorski?”

  I said, “We thought it might make sense to come over here and get acquainted. Maybe create some joint ground rules.”

  “I’m afraid I’m confused. This is a military case. It has nothing to do with this office.”

  I just love getting jerked around. “Let’s not go there. Your Agency headed up the task force that arrested my client. You’ve got vaults filled with information I need. Order your people to share what the law says I’m entitled to see, or I’ll walk out of this building and convene a press conference.”

  A nasty half-smile popped onto his face. “Every defense lawyer makes that threat. We’ve weathered it before, and we’ll weather it again. And frankly, ever since the World Trade Center, the courts are much more sympathetic to us.”

  I half smiled back. We were making progress. Pretty soon, we’d half smile each other to death.

  “How many of those lawyers attended press conferences wearing Army green? How many had Top Secret clearances? How many knew exactly how to embarrass this agency to get what they want?”

  He stood up and walked around his desk to position himself in front of me. He got less than a foot away and looked down at my face. It’s the oldest intimidation stunt in the book. You either stare at his groin like a pervert or up at his face like a supplicant.

  I opted for the supplicant option, in case you’re interested.

  “Listen, Drummond, your client betrayed this country in ways too horrible to contemplate. Sure, you’re only doing your job, and believe it or not, I admire that. But when you learn everything your client did, you’ll want to strangle him. He’s responsible for more havoc than you can imagine. We’re still trying to assess the damage, but it’s probable we’ll add murder to the crime of treason.”

  In an outraged tone, Katrina said, “Murder? That’s bullshit.”

  He pinched his nostrils and stared over at her. She was shrewdly trying to provoke more information from him. Smart girl… nice move… very commendable.

  Unfortunately, Clarence didn’t get to this level by being stupid. He went across the room and stared out his window. “William Morrison not only gave the Russians the names
of agents and turncoats, he also exposed the inner workings of our foreign policy deliberations and helped shape our responses to Russian acts that would turn your stomach. In the history of espionage, there’s never been one like him.”

  When neither of us responded, he continued, “Your client’s a master of duplicity. He worked right under our noses for over a decade and fooled everybody. For three years Mary Morrison headed up the task force responsible for finding the traitor. He slept beside her every night, so forgive me if we seem reluctant to share sensitive information. There’ll be no orchestrated effort to stonewall you-hell, I’ve already assembled twenty attorneys to cull through the evidence, but don’t you get on your high horse, Drummond. It won’t sell.”

  I tried to listen to his every word but was having some difficulty coming to terms with that one nasty zinger he’d let slip. Mary Morrison had been in charge of the molehunting task force-she’d been sleeping with the man they were now convinced was her prey. If Morrison was in fact a traitor, she’d been cuckolded in ways that almost defy the imagination.

  I stood up and Katrina followed my lead. “Mr. O’Neil, thank you for your time, and I look forward to getting your team’s products at the earliest possible date.”

  A self-satisfied smile erupted on his face and remained there as I fled out his door. Score: Clarence one, Drummond zero.

  Back in the car, Katrina said, “Gee, you handled that well.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I wasn’t serious.”

  “I know.”

  “Am I missing something here? What was that about his wife?”

  “Mary Morrison was the CIA station chief in Moscow. You know those Washington power couples you always read about? Bill and Hillary. Dole and Dole. The Morrisons were all that in the world of supersecret agencies. Oh, and incidentally, I had a fling with his wife in college.”

  Sometimes, say things quickly enough and it doesn’t register. She frowned, however, and remarked, “A fling, huh? She wasn’t the one who talked you into defending her husband? Tell me this isn’t so.”

  “The relevant point is that he asked for me,” I said, partially answering her question, and partially not.

  “Then you and he are acquainted also?”

  I nodded, and she asked, “How well acquainted?”

  “More than I want to be.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “He’s a jerk.”

  “He’s a jerk?”

  “You’re right. Let me amend that. A social-climbing, ass-covering, arrogant, self-serving, mealy-mouthed jerk.”

  “Are we having objectivity issues?”

  “What’s not objective? The subject’s a jerk and all else flows from there.”

  Wisely, she decided on a different tack. “I was under the impression you guys promoted capable people to such high ranks. Don’t tell me Hollywood had it right all along?”

  “I never said Morrison isn’t capable. I worked with him once, back when I was in the infantry. Back before he met Mary, even.”

  She leaned against the door and said, “Tell me about that.”

  “I was a team leader of a unit that was ordered to take out a terrorist cell that was planning to murder some American diplomats in Israel. Only our intelligence agencies intercepted a few of their messages and somebody decided to preempt it. Morrison was the liaison officer from the intelligence community. I had no complaints there. He knows his job.”

  “What part did you have complaints about?”

  “Him. He was bossy and abusive to my people. He started telling us how to prepare for the mission, how to plan it, how to cut eggs. I told him to back off, and he rudely reminded me he was a lieutenant colonel and I was a lieutenant. He started angling to come along. I said no, he wasn’t part of the team, wasn’t screened, wasn’t trained. It was dangerous for him, and dangerous for us.”

  It wasn’t hard to guess where this was going. “But he went anyway?”

  “Some general who was a buddy of his pulled strings. He ended up on the plane.”

  “And did it cause a problem?”

  “I suppose that depends whose side of the story you listen to.”

  “I believe I’m stuck with your side.”

  “We landed on the coast twenty miles north of Beirut, then worked our way by foot down to the Shiite quarter of the city. We were all dressed up like Arabs, our hair and mustaches dyed black, our skin tinted. Morrison kept bossing my team around. We exchanged words a few times, and he got testy, so I got testy back. I couldn’t figure out what his game was. I assumed he was just a guy who wanted to have a war story to tell his grandkids. I underestimated him.”

  “How so?”

  “The target turned out to be different. Wasn’t anybody’s fault, it just was. We used our night-vision goggles to stake it out and saw nearly twenty guys, instead of the six we’d been told to expect. The whole mission had been rehearsed down to the minutest detail, and I had only eight men. Morrison insisted we had to call it off. I said we’d just replan it on the fly. The terrorist attack was scheduled for four days away, so it was then or never. He kept insisting, and that’s when I figured out his game. He was a plant. The intell folks were scared about what would happen if their information turned out to be wrong and the mission got bollixed. He was their bureaucratic stopgap.”

  She nodded like that made sense. “And…?”

  “We gagged and hog-tied him, took down the target, and picked him up on our way out.”

  “And you have hard feelings? Have I missed something here?”

  “Indeed so. We went back to Bragg and he went back to his intelligence unit in Maryland. A few months passed and my team was ordered to attend some ceremony. On the appointed day Morrison arrived with his general officer buddy, then some guy was reading the citation for Morrison’s Silver Star for gallantry in action. He got credit for the whole operation-planning it, leading it, even courage under fire during the takedown.”

  “I see.” She stared out the windshield while I spent the rest of the drive to Golden’s office wondering how I was going to compartmentalize my feelings toward the lousy prick I was defending.

  The address I’d been given turned out to be a big, modern office building on 14th Street, a few blocks from the White House. We took the elevator to the twelfth floor, the doors slid open, and there stood two fierce-looking badasses with Uzi submachine guns pointed at our chests. Eddie has a real sense for how to orchestrate a warm welcome.

  I grinned somewhat awkwardly. “I’m Major Drummond, and this is Miss Mazorski. We have an appointment to see Major Golden.”

  The one on the right whispered something into his lapel, and another guard instantly appeared, only this guy wasn’t carrying an Uzi, just a big black pistol in a shoulder holster even an unpracticed eye could detect, since he had his jacket off so you’d be sure not to miss it.

  “Damn, guys, nobody told me this was a gun party. I would’ve brought mine and we could all whip them out and play who’s-got-the-biggest-gat.”

  Nobody smiled. Katrina said, “Don’t antagonize them. I’m not sure they’ve been fed yet.” Which was much funnier than what I said, but then, in certain situations, I don’t mind being upstaged by my underlings.

  The new guy hooked a finger and led us through a series of corridors, past a number of offices droning with quiet activity. Whatever agency this was, it obviously owned the full top floor of this building. Eddie had to be in heaven. He was all ego anyway, but blow a little fairy dust into it, like his own armed guards and dozens of special assistants, and he’d become Dumbo the Flying Elephant. I was seriously not looking forward to this meeting.

  We were eventually deposited in a big empty conference room and ordered to wait. So we waited. And more of the same.

  Our appointment was for eleven, and at twenty after, the door blew open and he entered, followed by ten or eleven fawning assistants. They just kept coming and coming, and the only one I recognized was Karen Zbrovnia, who wore h
er Army uniform, unlike Eddie, who sported an exquisitely tailored blue wool suit.

  So. A bit more about Eddie: Picture Robert Redford before he got old, wrinkled, and splotchy, toss in more persuasive bullshit than William Webster, and then add the generosity, grace, and selflessness of Jack the Ripper.

  Eddie is all this, and so much more. He is to Army law what Babe Ruth is to baseball, the holder of more records and awards than there ever was. At least that’s what someone once said about Eddie, and to show he believed every word of it, he made it a practice ever after to send autographed baseball bats to everybody he beat in court. Lots of us have those bats-I have two of them-and we all privately dream about someday bashing Eddie’s beautiful head in with them.

  He rounded the table and approached, squinting and offhandedly saying, “Drummond, isn’t it? Haven’t we met before?”

  This was Eddie’s trademark greeting to all opposing attorneys, his lousy way of saying, Hey, you’re so insignificant I barely recall we ever met.

  “Yeah. And who are you? I’m supposed to meet with some asshole named Eddie Golden. He here yet?”

  It was a very stupid thing to say, and Eddie immediately chuckled like this was just so damned amateurish, so adolescent, but he’s so magnanimous he’d just take it in stride instead of stuffing it down my throat with some snappy comeback. Which, really, was a snappy comeback.

  Admiring chortles erupted from his fleet of admirers. I swiftly said, “Uh, this is my co-counsel, Katrina Mazorski.”

  “Jesus Christ, Drummond. Where’d you find this one?” He laughed, igniting another broadside of yuck-yucks from the gallery.

  Katrina calmly weathered this, folding her arms and waiting patiently for the laughter to subside to giggles. She grinned. “You’re very funny, Eddie.”

  “I know.”

  “ ‘Where’d you find this one?’ That’s what you said, right?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  Her grin disappeared. “The implication being what, Eddie?”

  “Choose your own implication,” he replied, ever the cocky prick.

  “I can’t. Help me out here. ‘Where’d you find this one?’ What’s the implication? Why did everybody laugh?”