by Reece Hirsch
Ordinarily, Will would have enjoyed this uniquely San Franciscan spectacle, as the Gay Pacific Islander and Gay Saudi Arabian delegations filed past, followed by the Dykes on Bikes, several of whom were topless, with buzz cuts and nipple rings. On this day, it barely registered as he tried to locate the Russians.
In order to gain a better view of both sides of the street, Will pushed forward to the iron barricade. He wished that he had specified which side of Market they were to meet on. As he examined the faces, his view was blocked by a shirtless young man bearing a placard that read GAY VEGANS TASTE BETTER. The young man caught Will’s grim expression and returned a beaming smile. “Happy Pride!” he said.
“Happy Pride,” Will muttered.
Then Will saw Yuri on the opposite side of the street. Yuri had already spotted him and was baring his tight-lipped, angry smile, waiting for Will to notice him. When their eyes met, Yuri gave him a finger-waggling, homosexual-mocking wave that drew disapproving glares from several people standing nearby. Yuri motioned for him to cross the street.
Will did not see Claire or Nikolai but assumed they must be nearby. He slowly wedged himself through a gap in the barricade and waited as the Bank of America float chugged past.
A cop on horseback about twenty yards away saw Will standing on the wrong side of the barricade and admonished him with a pointed finger.
“Look, a horsey cop,” said a young man standing behind Will.
“This is San Francisco,” his partner corrected him. “The term is mounted policeman.”
As he crossed Market Street, Will saw a float bearing down upon him with a dozen men in six-foot-tall wigs, one of which contained a replica of the Transamerica Building. They were belting out a musical number—it was the cast of Beach Blanket Babylon.
He was startled when he glimpsed a cop approaching through the crowd. When he turned, however, he saw that it was only a leather man wearing a leather version of a policeman’s peaked cap. Refocusing his attention on the south side of Market, he found that he had lost track of Yuri.
Then Will spotted him, standing about ten yards away with Nikolai and Claire under a black fiberglass sculpture. The crowd was less dense there, so he could see them clearly. Claire looked grim and tired, but she did not seem to have been harmed.
Nikolai and Yuri waited for him to approach. Will did not walk over to them immediately, taking a moment to assess the situation. Nikolai noted Will’s hesitancy and grabbed Claire by the arm, squeezing it hard enough to make her wince. Will took a step toward them, then another, his eyes darting from Yuri to Nikolai and back again.
Yuri was watching Will while Nikolai scanned the crowd. When Will was still ten yards away, Nikolai froze. He had spotted something or someone. He made a sharp remark to Yuri. After hearing their exchange, Claire started to shout something at Will.
An instant later, Yuri’s hand was reaching inside his leather jacket. Will stopped abruptly, as if he had come to the end of a tether.
Yuri drew a pistol from his jacket. In a moment of excruciating clarity, Will saw the glint of afternoon sun on the barrel of the gun, the concentration on Yuri’s face as he aimed.
An instant later, Will was shoving his way through the parade crowd, throwing elbows like Shaquille O’Neal. He heard no gunshots. Will managed to make it to Market Street and, drawing several shouts of resistance, clambered over the barricade into the street. He heard the cries multiplying behind him and knew that Nikolai and Yuri were plunging through the throng after him.
As he staggered onto Market Street, he found himself surrounded by a group of men dressed like nuns who had been outfitted at Frederick’s of Hollywood. It was the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a troupe of drag queen performance artists. The Sisters took his intrusion in stride—one blessed him, and another attempted to spank him on the ass with a ruler. Standing in the middle of Market Street, with Nikolai and Yuri at the barricades and once more able to take aim at him, he felt more exposed than the burly Sister standing next to him wearing fishnets over a thong.
The Sisters did not have a float that Will could hide behind, so he tried to stay close to the performers while moving against the tide of the parade. When he looked back to spot Yuri and Nikolai, he saw them climbing over the barrier. Will wondered if they were actually brazen enough to shoot him in the midst of a televised parade.
Looking for cover, he was relieved to see a float rumbling toward him. It was a large, rolling lump of papiermâché covered with plastic flowers and bearing the slogan MORE THAN A LAW FIRM and, in smaller letters, CELEBRATE DIVERSITY! REYNOLDS, FINCHER & MCCOMB HONORS SAN FRANCISCO’S LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENDER COMMUNITIES. The float was manned by about a dozen people who were standing at a low railing along the side throwing Mardi Gras beads to the crowd.
Will scanned the railing for familiar faces. There was Jeannie Cruz, a secretary. Martin Reznik, a librarian.
A string of beads hit him in the chest. When he looked up, he saw that they had been thrown by Craig Logan, a paralegal he had worked with on the Jupiter deal.
“Didn’t expect to see you back so soon! Happy Pride!”
Will walked backward to face Craig and keep up with the float. “Can I join you up there?”
“This isn’t your coming-out party, is it, Will?” Craig reached down and extended a hand. Will climbed the steps built into the side of the float and joined Craig at the railing.
Craig put his arm around Will’s shoulder and looked out at the crowd. “How about a big smile for Don Rubinowski? I’m sure he’s watching this at home. He’ll be so pleased to see that you’ve returned to the fold.”
“Craig, I need your help. Is there a place around here where I could hide?”
“Once that closet door is open, Will, there’s no more hiding.”
“I’m serious, Craig. I need to get out of sight. Right now.”
“Well, there’s a cabin in the back where the driver sits. . . .”
Will inched past a line of bead throwers on the narrow walkway. He reached the rear of the float and opened a hatch to reveal a Teamster sitting behind a steering wheel in a cramped cabin, peering through a narrow window in the float’s façade.
Before ducking inside the cabin, Will glanced around for Nikolai and Yuri. It was then that he saw Nikolai beside the float, staring straight at him.
Will leaped over the opposite railing, hitting the pavement with an impact that launched him forward onto his hands and knees. He rose to his feet quickly and, without looking back, sprinted down Market Street in the direction of the parade.
A series of loud pops, each one accompanied by a flat, metallic echo like the sound of an aluminum bat hitting a ball. Gunshots.
There were screams and he heard the parade crowd pressing on itself in panic, the sound of people desperate to run but unable to move.
Will continued to run. He didn’t feel as if he had been wounded, but he fully expected his legs to fail him at any moment. Perhaps his life was already leaking out of him, and only adrenaline, that reality suppressant, kept him from recognizing the fact.
He staggered to a halt as he approached a woman who was standing in the center of Market Street, pointing a gun at his chest with legs braced and both hands on the weapon in a perfect Weaver stance. She looked like anyone else in the crowd in her jeans, running shoes, and short-sleeve blouse. She was in her early forties and had a hard face, made harder by dark aviator sunglasses.
“Department of Justice,” she said. “Get down on the ground and put your hands behind your back.”
Will examined the front of his shirt for traces of blood. “Have I been shot?”
“Not yet,” she answered. “And if you don’t want to be, you better get down.”
Will placed his palms down on the hot, gasoline-smelling pavement. He was pulled up to his knees, and the agent twisted his hands behind his back. The handcuffs pinched his wrists as they clicked shut. Market Street was no longer rumbling with the vibrations of
parade vehicles. The procession had come to a halt, and those who hadn’t run for cover at the sound of the gunshots were staring at the scene—the crowds of onlookers on both sides of Market, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the Reynolds Fincher staff on the float, and, presumably, the television audience at home.
The DOJ agent hauled him to his feet and walked him over to a knot of people a few yards away. Although he drew his share of curious stares, the crowd’s attention seemed to be focused on what lay before them.
Six men and women in sunglasses were arrayed in a circle around two figures on the pavement. They seemed to have formed the circle intentionally to block the view of the crowds and cameras.
The two figures sprawled on the asphalt were Nikolai and Yuri. Nikolai was lying facedown and motionless, arms splayed. Yuri was lying faceup in the street, his hand clenching in a fist and unclenching, as if by that action he were somehow managing to keep his heart pumping. The agents broadened their circle slightly as they inched away from the shockingly large pool of blood that drew everyone’s eyes to the Russians like a big red spotlight.
Will searched the crowd for Claire’s face, but she was nowhere to be seen.
A young agent wearing a bright blue polo shirt and cargo shorts was shouting into a cell phone.
“Where’s the ambulance?” the agent barked. “The parade has stopped and we’re on fucking television!” He paused to listen to the voice on the other end of the line, then shouted, “If it was only half a block away, why isn’t it here yet?” Another pause. “That’s what the cops are there for! Get them to clear the goddamn intersection!”
Will waited with the agents for an ambulance to arrive. Numb from shock, his eyes wandered over the scene, from the dead and dying figures of Yuri and Nikolai on the pavement, to the anxious attitudes of the agents, to the morbidly curious faces of the parade crowd.
“Shouldn’t somebody be helping them?” Will asked the woman agent.
“One of ’em’s already dead. The other one’s probably gonna be gone soon. There’s not much we can really do till the ambulance gets here, anyway.”
The noise of the parade had died away, leaving a strange quiet that was punctuated by the troubled murmuring of the crowd and, finally, the wail of an ambulance siren. The floats and the parade marchers shifted to the opposite side of Market Street to make way for the ambulance, which crept fitfully toward them as obstacles were removed from its path.
When the ambulance finally arrived, its rear doors slammed open. Three EMTs bearing gurneys emerged in a practiced drill. Nikolai and Yuri were borne into the ambulance. Nikolai was brusquely hoisted aboard like so much cargo. Yuri was lifted with more care, an indication that he was still alive. Yuri’s fist was no longer clenching, but his eyelids were half open and he seemed to be breathing.
“Come on,” the woman agent said. “You’re going with them in the ambulance.”
“Why?”
“The one that’s still alive might have something to say to you.”
Will and the agent climbed into the back of the crowded ambulance, with Nikolai and Yuri on the gurneys and a paramedic. The other two paramedics rode in the front.
“If it were my decision, you wouldn’t be back here,” the paramedic said. He was a small, muscular man with bushy, black eyebrows. He didn’t seem particularly alarmed by the life-and-death event before him.
“It’s not your decision,” the agent said.
When Will looked over at Yuri, he saw that the Russian’s glassy, heavy-lidded eyes were fixed on him. Will couldn’t be sure if he was really seeing him, though. Perhaps his attention was already directed inward. The interior of the ambulance was brilliantly lit. Watching the harsh lights flicker and fade in Yuri’s eyes, Will felt as if he were standing outside a house that was being prepared for a vacation, the windows going dark one by one.
A gurgling rose in Yuri’s throat, followed by a garbled Russian phrase.
Will looked at the agent and the paramedic to see if they had heard.
“He says, ‘Fuck you,’” said the agent. “Loose translation.”
“You speak Russian?”
“That’s why I’m here.” She’s hoping Yuri will say something that will incriminate me, Will realized. That’s why he was allowed to ride in the ambulance.
Will returned his gaze to Yuri, who was still staring at him intently over the head of the now-busy paramedic, with a look that he read as hatred. He had been taught to feel compassion for all living things, but at that moment he was simply glad that Yuri’s career of inflicting pain was drawing to a close.
Will noticed that the ambulance had stopped. No one seemed to be in a hurry as they climbed out into the sunny spring afternoon.
“He’s gone,” the paramedic said, removing the IV from Yuri’s wrist.
The paramedic, the agent, and Will stretched for a moment in the driveway in front of the emergency room, glad to be out of the ambulance’s cramped quarters.
The agent turned to Will and pulled an identification badge from her wallet. “I guess it’s time to introduce myself. I’m DOJ Special Agent Joan Fisk. The San Francisco PD is going to let us take you down to our offices for questioning now.” She glanced at him. “It’s better for you than spending the night in jail.”
“Is it better? Because I think I’d take the night in jail.”
Agent Fisk ignored him. “I guess you already know this drill, but I’m required to tell you that you have the right to an attorney.”
“Actually, I don’t know the drill. I do corporate work. I’m not a criminal attorney,” Will said, absently.
“Oh, yeah?” Agent Fisk responded, returning the badge to her wallet. “Well, as far as we’re concerned, you’re a criminal attorney now.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Will was taken to the DOJ’s offices on Geary Street and ushered past an expanse of cubicles into a conference room. Agent Fisk offered him coffee, which he accepted.
He was still carrying the memory stick that contained the encryption keys, and he worried that soon he would be asked to empty his pockets. Once the agents figured out what the encryption keys were, the proceedings were likely to take on an entirely different tone.
After returning with a cardboard cup of something lukewarm, Agent Fisk left the room without a word. This, he thought, must be the point in the process where the suspect is left alone with his thoughts to ponder his fate. If the tactic was intended to make him anxious, it was working.
Will’s first-year criminal procedure class was a hazy memory. Everything he knew about the process of arrest and interrogation he had learned from television. He had already decided that as soon as his interrogators arrived, he was going to “lawyer up,” as they said on the cop shows. The question was, who would his lawyer be?
Although he had spent most of his adult life working in law firms, Will knew very few criminal lawyers. Major law firms generally did not handle criminal cases, except for some white-collar criminal defense work. The top firms viewed criminal law as low-rent, dirty, and, worst of all, not particularly lucrative. Even though many of his peers had formed their first notions of the legal profession watching Michael Kuzak try criminal cases on L.A. Law, that was not the reality of the practice of law for most graduates of good law schools. In order to pay off the sizable student loans required by a top-twenty law school, graduates needed to earn top salaries—which were paid by the major law firms. And those firms did not do criminal work.
As he sipped the coffee and scanned the ceiling, trying to spot cameras and microphones, he searched his memory in vain for the name of a criminal lawyer that he could trust.
The conference room door opened and Dennis Tyler and Mary Boudreaux, the two agents who had interviewed him at his office, entered.
“Hi, Will,” Mary said, frowning sympathetically.
“Will,” Dennis said, curtly. Will thought that they must be almost as tired of this good-cop, bad-cop routine as he was.
Dennis
and Mary sat down opposite Will at the conference table. “It’s pretty clear that you weren’t being straight with us at our last meeting,” Mary said. “But we’re not going to hold that against you for now. Clearly, you were under some pressure.”
“What do you want to know?” Will asked.
“Someone phoned the San Francisco PD with an anonymous tip about a terrorist attack on the BART system. It involved the Russian mafiya.” Mary paused. “And Aashif Agha.” Another pause. “And sarin nerve gas. We know it was you that placed that call, Will.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Will felt that if he told the truth, he and Claire would be convicted as participants in a terrorist plot. The theft of the encryption keys alone was probably enough to ensure that they would spend the rest of their lives in prison. If Will reached the point of disclosing everything, he would do it only after consulting with a criminal defense attorney, and he wasn’t about to say anything that would incriminate Claire.
“Do you really expect us to believe this crap?” Dennis said. “Who else is going to make that call? We already know about your links to the mafiya. After today’s little incident, surely even you can’t deny that. In our last meeting, we told you about Agha and his efforts to purchase sarin. Obviously, you put that information together and left the message warning about the BART attack.”
“We know that you were trying to do the right thing,” Mary said. “And that will be taken into account if you tell us the whole story. Why don’t you start with how you got involved with the Russians?”
“I don’t think I can respond to questions like that without a lawyer present.”
This was enough to redirect the line of questioning. Dennis pointed behind his back through the plate glass window of the conference room. “Do you see those people working out there in those cubicles?”