The Kingmaker sd-3

by Brian Haig

  But the only tangible evidence to the act of betrayal was those documents stolen out of Moscow by the CIA’s mysterious source. And you had to ask yourself this: How does anybody know how those documents got there in the first place? Maybe some enterprising Russian agent stole them off Morrison’s desk. At least, that’s what I could claim. They weren’t willingly handed over; they were pilfered.

  I rifled through the documents and realized how weak that argument sounded, since the range of dates on their upper corners went back over a period of eight years, including the time Morrison worked in State, and the time he worked in the White House. Any sane person would ask themself, Hey, how could some Russian have infiltrated both State and the White House-two of the most closely guarded places on earth-day after day, year after year, and stolen those papers off his desk?

  But the beauty of America’s legal system is that the burden of proof rests on the prosecutor’s shoulders. Eddie could prove the Russians had reams of Top Secret documents with Morrison’s fingerprints on them, but he couldn’t prove how they got them.

  At 3:00 P.M., Katrina walked coldly back into my office and threw a sheaf of papers on my desk. She leaned against a wall, crossed her arms, and stared at me like I was a pathetic cad.

  I looked down at the papers. The cover sheet said it was a speech given by the President of the United States in the country of Russia in the fall of 1996. I saw the official document center stamp-evidently Katrina had gone through the archives to find it.

  It began with all the normal opening drivel you see in any speech about how happy the President was to be there, the great honor and privilege, what great friends Americans and Russians were, blah, blah, blah. Then the meat: Neatly underlined in red pen was the section Alexi described, the President of the United States saying Chechnya was an understandable thing, much like America’s Civil War, a struggle to hold the nation together. He added a few admonishments about how the Russians should be civilized and try to hold down civilian casualties and all that… still, he was justifying, in fact sympathizing with, their monstrous war.

  I finished the key sections and looked up. Katrina said, “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Do you believe Alexi now?”

  I rolled my eyes. “No. The President giving a particularly insipid speech doesn’t prove any damned thing.”

  She waved an angry finger around at the wall safes in my office. “What other chance do you have of getting Morrison off?”

  “I’m designing the defense right now. Golden’s case isn’t as foolproof as we thought. There’s no actual proof Morrison gave those documents to the Russians. And if he can’t prove the treachery, he can’t prove the murder charges. They’re linked.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No, I’m not kidding.”

  “Have you seen his witness list?”

  “Of course I haven’t.”

  “No concerns about that, huh?”

  “What are you implying?” I mean, the absence of a witness list while we were still preparing for the plea hearing was self-evident. Eddie and I wouldn’t have to exchange witness lists till we were staring at a full-blown trial.

  “What if his wife testifies? What if Mary says, ‘Yes, my husband was a traitor? I lived with him, watched him, saw his disaffection, his suspicious activities, his unexplained absences when he met with his contacts’?”

  “Wouldn’t happen.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. She’s protected from testifying against her own husband. I know her. She’d never participate in her own husband’s lynching. Her kids would never forgive her.”

  “These are the same kids who don’t know their father’s in jail? Hello… anybody home?”

  I was beginning to lose patience with this woman.

  “Mary won’t testify,” I insisted again.

  “Are you an expert on women now?”

  “Perhaps not, but I know Mary.”

  She continued. “You said she knew about his trysts in Moscow. Pull your head out of your ass. Any woman would want vengeance.”

  “We discussed it last night. She accepted it. She was resigned to it.”

  “Don’t be a fool. You’re ignoring your last chance to prove Morrison’s innocent.”

  “Look, Katrina, the CIA’s been watching the region like a hawk and doesn’t even believe the cabal’s there. If I bring it up in court, Eddie will cut my nuts off. I’ve got one day before the deal expires. What exactly do you want me to do?”

  Her face tightened even more. “Give Alexi the benefit of the doubt. Talk to the CIA and FBI. And stop putting Mary on a pedestal. Her husband cheated on her.”

  My head was shaking long before she was done. She stared at me and I saw in her eyes what was coming. I had the merest fraction of an instant to divert it… but I decided not to.

  “Then find yourself a new associate,” she said, her voice tentative, as though this was a bluff she didn’t want called.

  “Accepted,” I replied.

  Her head snapped back and she looked surprised, then confused and, ultimately, resigned. Without another word she spun around and left, closing the door quietly behind her, which wasn’t the way I would’ve done it, but then I have my flaws.

  I didn’t like the way this ended, but I’d lost my appetite for arguing with her. In cases like this you run into all kinds of dead ends, and you need to recognize when the street doesn’t go anywhere or you’ll spend days lost in cul-de-sacs. And, for the record, I didn’t have days.

  Anyway, I put that behind me and started going through the stacks of papers Eddie had left, searching for clues. I kept trying to focus on those papers, only it wasn’t working, and at five o’clock I called Mary and left.

  The black Porsche wasn’t there when I pulled up twenty minutes later. I walked to the entrance and rang the bell. Mary opened it immediately, as though she’d been waiting by the entrance. She was dressed to the nines in a short skirt and a low-cut bodice. She stepped out and gave me a tight hug and a kiss.

  “I’m glad you came,” she said. “I’m all alone. I could use some good company.”

  “What, no kids?”

  “I shipped them off this morning for a month at an outdoor ranch in Wyoming. They were going crazy being cooped up in this house. Nor was their grandpa handling it well, particularly after Jamie threw a football that broke a Ming vase.”

  “A Ming vase? A real one?”

  “Sixty thousand dollars’ worth of genuine Chinese porcelain.”

  I chuckled. “I knew that boy had greatness in him. I wish I could’ve witnessed that.”

  She chuckled and said, “No, you really don’t… I mean, you really don’t.”

  I peeked around her. “And Homer? He’s not hiding behind the door with a knife, is he?”

  “He’s at some Kennedy Center shindig and won’t be home until late. I’m sorry. I know how much you two enjoy each other.”

  “My night is ruined.”

  She grabbed my arm and tugged me inside. “Come on. I need a stiff drink and you look like you need one, too.”

  I pulled backward and said, “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  “My father has a special bottle of 1948 Glenfiddich. He’s had it for thirty years and refuses to open it, like it’s liquid gold.”

  Well, how could I possibly refuse?

  She led me back to the living room, where a fire was roaring in a truck-size fireplace. No lights were on inside the room; the only illumination came from the evocatively flickering flames. She made herself a vodka gimlet and me a tall glass of scotch, and then we sat on a brown leather couch that faced the big fire. I savored that first sip and guessed it was probably worth about two hundred dollars. It wouldn’t bankrupt old Homer, but it would give him a little something to remember me by.

  After a long while staring at the fire, Mary said, “Sean, I need to tell you something. No matter how this turns out, I’m
going to divorce Bill. I don’t know why I didn’t do it earlier. What a miserable marriage we had.”

  I nodded, because we both knew I wasn’t expected to offer any comment or condolence. He was my client. She was my former girlfriend. My prescribed role was to stoically absorb this news.

  She lifted her glass and took another sip. She said, “Bill and I haven’t had sex in over two years.”

  “Gee, two years. That’s a long time,” I replied awkwardly, because if you had to pick the most hazardous topic in the world for us to be discussing as we sat all alone in this big house, well, here it was. I added, “If it’s any consolation, he isn’t having any sex these days, either.”

  She stared into her glass and said, “I know about him. What about you?”

  “What?”

  She stopped staring at the glass and looked at me. “Are you involved… with Katrina, maybe?”

  “Uh, no. Our relationship’s professional… or it was… she quit today.”

  “That’s too bad. She seemed very nice.”

  Which part was too bad? That I wasn’t involved with her or that she was no longer on the team?

  She leaned against the arm of the couch and put her feet up on the seat, stretching those tantalizing legs toward me. She chuckled. “Do you remember that week my father was gone and we stayed here?”

  “In this old mausoleum? We did that?”

  She gave me a light kick in the ribs. “Don’t play the fool with me.”

  “I remember.”

  “And I hid your clothes and made you walk around naked for two whole days?”

  “I wasn’t naked. I wore a towel.”

  “A facecloth as I recall.”

  “Same principle.”

  “Not when you’re wearing it on your head.”

  “Well, I’m modest.”

  “And on the second morning we were sitting in this very same room, on this very same couch, and Consuela the maid walked in?”

  Like I could forget that, either.

  Mary’s foot landed in my lap and she started giggling. “You were racing around this room looking for a pillow to hide your private parts.”

  “Your father should keep bigger pillows around.”

  She laughed and then we sat and stared at the fire some more. Mary was obviously using this opportunity to convey a message. Or maybe two messages, one subtle and one not. That divorce thing was clearly the unsubtle news. The more opaque message was that she might need the services of a rebounder when it happened, and I’d already pushed the ball through the net a few times, so to speak, so I stood in good stead. I pondered all this for a while.

  My dear friend Mr. Pudley pondered it as well. He shifted into position, feet in the sprinter’s blocks, and waited for my other brain to catch up.

  I finally asked, “Have you been interviewed yet?”

  “What?”

  “Have you been interviewed, Mary? Has the CIA asked you to sit down with an interrogator to go over your story?”

  “No,” she said, sounding off-balance, like, Hey, dope, you’re spoiling the moment here.

  “Have you found a lawyer?”

  “I haven’t settled on one yet.”

  I tore my eyes from the fire. “Mary? Why haven’t they interviewed you yet?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose they’ve been busy cleaning up everything else.”

  “Uh-huh. Why hasn’t your name hit the news yet? I mean, it’s irresistible. You’d think somebody would leak it.”

  She stared at my face. In the firelight she was as beautiful as I’d ever seen her, the light from the flames playing across her sculpted features, occasionally sparking a glint in her blue eyes. Mr. Pudley was getting very upset with me.

  She replied, “I’ve been expecting it. I pick up a paper on my way into the office, dreading the headlines. I guess I’ve been lucky.”

  “Bullshit,” I said. Softly, but I said it.

  “What?”

  “You helped snare him.”

  She didn’t even flinch. “What makes you think that?”

  The important thing to note from her response was that she didn’t say, “No, that’s not true.” I put my glass on the table. “Have you been asked to testify?”

  It was her turn to look away and stare at the fire.

  “Have you?” I asked, more harshly. “I’ll eventually get a witness list from Golden. I’ll know… eventually. Tell me now.”

  “Yes… I’m going to testify.”

  “Are you one of Eddie’s witnesses?”

  “Yes.”

  My lips popped open and shut a few times, like a grounded fish, but no sound came out. She finally stopped staring at the fire and faced me. Her voice turned pleading. “I had no choice. Sean, please, you have to believe me. Imagine how you’d feel if you learned your husband was a traitor. I put up with his affairs, but treason? That bastard used me. He soaked up everything I knew, undermined me, made me part of his treachery.”

  My lips were still popping open and shut as I tried to think of something to say, only nothing remotely intelligent was working its way to the surface.

  She stood and walked to the mantel. She stared at the flames and began speaking to herself, or the burning logs, or posterity. “I didn’t cause this. He did. And it’s not revenge, it’s self-defense. If I didn’t work with them, I would’ve been ruined. When they were tipped off by their source, they approached me and said it was my choice. I was his wife, for Godsakes. I’d shared everything with him. I would’ve faced professional ruin, disgrace, maybe even prison. I’ve got children, Sean. They didn’t threaten me, but we all knew the stakes.”

  That last comment showed she’d been professionally coached. I could picture Eddie saying, “Okay Mary, now listen closely. Since you’re his wife, you’re going to be asked if you’re testifying under duress, if you’re doing this because you were threatened. Wink, wink… you weren’t, right? You’re just doing your patriotic duty. You’re responding like a loyal American to your husband’s infidelity to his country, your country.”

  My voice grew cold. “Did you help catch him?”

  She paused for a moment, then said, “Sean, I didn’t want it to be true. I thought at first I might be able to prove they were wrong, that their source was lying.” She spun around and faced me. “Think about what this feels like. They’re showing you reports on your husband’s movements, his phone calls, his trips to hotels with strange women. His watchers were standing in my office, shuffling their feet, avoiding my eyes, giving me the names of the women he was screwing, showing me pictures of his latest affair. He was sealing his own fate.”

  Her face looked stricken, her body tense, coiled. She was too emotionally immersed to realize how they’d strung her along, how she’d been played. Of course they’d showed her those pictures and let her overhear her husband’s voice making dates with his floozies. If I had to guess, that was Eddie’s idea also. It was definitely his style.

  I abruptly stood up. “I have to go.”

  She came over and took my arm. “Sean, please, I didn’t have a choice.”

  “I don’t either. Now that I know you’re a prosecution witness, I’m required to avoid you. It’s one of those odd little quirks us lawyers are required to live with. I can be accused of witness tampering.”

  I left her by the fire and I slammed the front door on my way out, because, like I said earlier, I’m not like Katrina. When somebody pisses me off, I share my anger.

  If Homer’s Porsche had been parked in the drive, I would’ve firebombed the frigging thing.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  My apartment building in South Arlington is called the Coat of Arms and was built sometime in the late fifties, a big red-brick monstrosity filled with tiny one-bedroom apartments with your proverbial cramped porches off the living rooms, and broom closets for kitchens and bathrooms. When the Coat of Arms was built, kitchens were considered utility rooms instead of stadiums, and bathrooms were where you went to deposit
your waste, not luxuriate in expansive, candlelit elegance.

  The Coat of Arms has three things going for it: It’s cheap, it’s cheap, and it’s only five minutes from my office. The neighborhood ain’t great, but neither is it a crime-infested ghetto. It is a semisuburban place, halfway on life’s journey between a slum and a modest home with a lawn that has to be cut and a basketball hoop your kids never use in the driveway.

  I slept in till seven, then made my way to the outdoor parking lot and my car. I was preoccupied, and I don’t mean by Mary’s confession the night before, or even by regrets about letting Katrina go. Those were niggling issues compared to something Mary had blurted out in her confession. She’d mentioned she’d been recruited to entrap her husband after a source tipped off the Agency about his treachery. A moment later, she’d admitted that she only joined the investigation to prove the tipster was wrong.

  I had a new threat to consider, a fresh and unexpected turn, as they say in thriller novels. There was a tipster out there somewhere.

  Somehow, in all of Eddie’s materials, there’d been nothing about any source tipping off the CIA and the molehunters about Morrison-no small oversight, if you think about it. In other words, Morrison hadn’t been caught by the brilliant detective work of the molehunters, or even by Mary turning him in. He’d been betrayed by someone, presumably somebody with direct knowledge. And if Mary was telling the truth, Eddie had the kind of witness I most dreaded-a guy who came over from the other side to testify firsthand to Morrison’s acts.

  I was pondering this as I opened my car door and two guys appeared behind me. I’m normally fairly observant-recent evidence to the contrary-and they appeared out of nowhere. No noise, no chatter, no footsteps; I actually smelled them before I saw them-personal hygiene wasn’t their shtick. One was Latino, the other black, and they were dressed identically: baggy jeans with crotches that drooped to their knees, muscle shirts, and doo-rags on their heads. Both were also big and muscular, with that street look that told you they weren’t collecting for UNICEF. Particularly impressive was the. 38 street special in the Latino’s hand, which looked considerably more threatening than the six-inch blade the other hood was holding.