Judgment

by Joseph Finder

  She nodded. “You mean, talking to the FBI, talking to people in Washington?”

  “About a case you’re presiding over.”

  “I know,” she agreed. “But I have no choice. I think this is the only way we’re all ever going to be safe. I have to keep digging.” Her head throbbed when she thought about the upcoming hours she’d have to spend poring over the discovery exhibits again. But she’d learned that the tiniest of crevices could sometimes provide a needed handhold.

  Hersh’s voice played in her head like a tape loop. You’re okay until you make that decision, thumbs up or thumbs down. Because once you do—they don’t need you anymore.

  “You’re right.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference how I rule, what judgment I put out.”

  He nodded, listened.

  “Kent Yarnell wants to bring me up before the CJC,” she said.

  “On what grounds?”

  She shrugged. “He eventually backed off. But whether he does or not, I’ve made my decision. It’s clear I have no choice but to resign from the bench. When this is over, I’m stepping down.”

  “Jules, no,” Duncan said. “That’s—”

  “I have no business judging others. You know that—”

  “Damn it, that’s crazy. You’re not going to throw away the life you’ve built for yourself, Jules.”

  “It’s a career, Duncan. That’s all. I can find another line of work.”

  “Bullshit. It’s never just been a career for you. It’s a goddamned calling. What you live, eat, and breathe. And you have a great future.”

  “Had.” Her voice was flat. “That future is in flames. I don’t know why you can’t see that.”

  Duncan just shook his head. “Stay focused on the now. Get through this, leave the long-term choices for the future. You hear me, Jules? It’s the only way.”

  61

  When her flight landed at Reagan National Airport in Washington, she made a point of observing her fellow passengers as they got off, and the people waiting for the next flight, and people walking near her. It was near crazy-making. It made her anxious. Plenty of people looked suspicious, if you were inclined to look at people that way. She also realized that looking people in the eyes often made them nervous. You generally avoid people’s eyes out in public.

  Situational awareness, Hersh had instructed her. “Look for patterns. And anomalies. If they’re following you, they’ll probably use a team, to do handoffs and keep you unaware of the followers.”

  In the cab on the way to Lafayette Square, to a steakhouse near the Treasury Department and the White House, she looked back a few times, but that seemed pointless. She wasn’t a spy or a detective; this wasn’t her expertise, checking for a tail. So was someone following her? She had no idea.

  She entered the restaurant and immediately spotted her old friend Aaron Dunn. Dunn was around her age, early forties, but it seemed that the pressure of his job had aged him. He looked very late-middle-aged. He was bald, with a gray fringe around his ears, the kind of balding pattern that inspires many men to shave their heads. He had heavy-lidded eyes that made him look bored or supercilious, though he was seldom either.

  “Judge Brody!” he said. “Hey, at the risk of sounding superficial, you look great.”

  She smiled, gave him a hug. “Thank you so much for doing this.”

  “No problem. He’s at the table.” He pointed. She looked over, saw a rotund guy with white hair, busy tapping something out on a phone. “His name is George Hastings. He’s the Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control in the Treasury Department.”

  “Okay, wow.”

  “So he’s a guy with juice,” Dunn said quietly, leading her toward the table. “He never goes out for lunch, so this is a big deal for him.”

  “I appreciate it.” She looked around. The restaurant was in a hotel located in the Old Post Office building. The decor in the restaurant was interesting: the old steel trusses and struts had been exposed and painted white.

  She introduced herself to Hastings, who stood up, a large, bulky man in his sixties with a shock of white hair and a red, chafed face. His demeanor made it plain he had better and far more important things to do. He was clearly doing his friend a favor.

  “I already ordered the candied-bacon appetizer,” Hastings said. “I’m on a tight schedule.” He had a soft southern drawl. “Try it. Great stuff.”

  She wasn’t late; he’d clearly gotten here early. She looked at the menu. The burger cost twenty-six dollars.

  She decided to get right to the point. They could be social afterward. She told him that, in the course of presiding over a sexual harassment case, she happened to come across some internal company documents. These documents revealed that the secret owner of the company was a Russian oligarch named Yuri Protasov. “You know the name?”

  “Sure. The Protasov Great Innovations Prize.” That was the rich prize, worth four million dollars a year to the lucky winner, given to a leading “innovator” in science—physics, chemistry, mathematics, or life sciences.

  “That’s the one. He’s gone to great lengths to keep his ownership of this company a secret.”

  Hastings shrugged. “So?”

  “So the financing for his purchase of this company came from a sanctioned Russian bank.”

  “Ah.”

  “Which I figured you might be interested to hear.”

  “Indeed. Do you know which bank?”

  “I think it’s called VTB. The VTB bank.”

  His eyebrows shot up, but he said nothing. “You know, Protasov is not an SDN.”

  “A what?”

  “A Specially Designated National. A blocked person. One of the named individuals you’re not supposed to do business with.” He said it with a slight smile, which surprised Juliana. It seemed to imply it was a rule that no one takes seriously. “Which means he’s okay to do business with. And this company—Wheelz, obviously—is not sanctioned.”

  “Okay, but as I said, the money came from a sanctioned Russian bank. Making it an illegal transaction and one that the US Government can shut down.”

  “Mrs. Brody—Judge Brody, excuse me—forgive my bluntness, but is it appropriate for you to be doing this inquiry?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’d have to ask a judge.”

  He smiled. “I see. Well, the thing is, Judge, we’re not really doing much by the way of enforcement these days.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No, our enforcement and compliance unit is gone.”

  “How do you mean, gone?”

  “No one ever got appointed to run it. The position’s been vacant for a few years now. The whole unit—people left, retired early.”

  “There’s really no enforcement?”

  “There’s self-disclosure. Voluntary compliance. But no—no cops running around arresting people for sanctions violations. Anyway, look.” He sighed. “Okay, he’s a Russian. All this paranoia about Russia—people are tired of it.”

  “They are, huh?”

  “Enough, already. I wish I could help you, but I don’t have the time or the resources or, to be perfectly plain about it, the inclination. I’m not the type of person to go on a one-man crusade, fighting the bureaucracy.”

  She nodded. “I understand.”

  She didn’t understand, actually, not really, but saw nothing to be gained by arguing with the man. She thanked Hastings, and when he got up to go back to work, she excused herself to use the bathroom.

  As she passed the table next to theirs, her eye was caught by the shoes worn by the businesswoman sitting next to them. They were nothing fancy—a pair of black napa leather round-toe pumps, well worn, the heel neither skinny nor chunky. The soles of the shoes were red and badly scuffed.

  She had remembered seeing the exact same pai
r of shoes on a woman at her departure gate at Logan Airport in Boston that morning. She knew that red soles were a trademark of Christian Louboutins. And she remembered because she’d noticed how scuffed-up the soles were. She’d thought: They must be well-loved, those shoes.

  She looked from the scuffed red soles up to the woman’s face. She was a bland-looking person, forgettable—short brown hair, glasses, a dowdy brown suit. The sort of person who blends into the background. She was dining with a man who was equally forgettable.

  Juliana’s eyes met the woman’s, and her stomach clenched and her heart started thudding.

  The woman quickly looked away, and Juliana continued on to the restroom. There, she stared at herself in the mirror above the sinks.

  It was no coincidence that the woman with the Louboutins was here, next to their table, maybe listening in.

  She’d seen this woman before. She was sure of it.

  And she wondered how much of her lunchtime conversation had been overheard.

  62

  By the time Juliana got back to the table from the restroom, the woman in the Louboutins was gone. So was Hastings. Aaron Dunn apologized profusely. “I didn’t know it was that bad in the bureaucracy. The so-called Deep State. Plus, back when Hastings and I played poker, he was sort of a no-bullshit kind of guy. Someone who wouldn’t put up with crap. I guess staying there too long changes you.”

  She walked him back to the Justice Department. “Don’t worry about it,” she said, though of course she’d flown to Washington just for this meeting. “What about Capitol Hill? Do you know any members of Congress, or senators?”

  The Walk sign came on, and she was about to step off the curb when a bus came blasting by, through the red light, brakes squealing. She thought of that solicitor in London, killed in a bus accident, and it took a moment for her pulse to stop racing.

  “I know some chiefs of staff,” he said. “What were you thinking?”

  “Anyone you could get me in to see this afternoon?”

  “Now?” He shook his head. “Sorry, but that’s a very big ask. Which is fine, but I don’t have anyone I could call for a favor like that.”

  Martie, she thought. She knows everyone.

  After she said good-bye to Dunn, she took out her phone and hit Martha Connolly’s number.

  “Martie, I need a big favor.”

  “Anything,” Martie said immediately.

  “No, this is a big one. I need a few minutes of an influential senator’s time.”

  “Who?”

  “Whoever you know who’s on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Who has a link to the intelligence community. And has clout.”

  “Okay. To talk on the phone?”

  “In person would be much better. Even if it’s just five minutes.”

  “How soon?”

  “This afternoon.”

  Martha didn’t laugh. “Time sensitive, is it? Well, it would be good for you and Senator Hugh Comstock to get to know each other a bit. Let me see what I can do.”

  * * *

  —

  Senator Hugh Comstock agreed to be pulled out of a staff meeting for ten minutes to meet with Judge Brody. It was a testament to Martie’s remarkable clout.

  He had a long, thin nose and a prominent jaw. He sat behind his desk, an antique mahogany hulk, and listened with rapt attention as Juliana talked.

  “The lead investor, and the person controlling the company, is a guy named Yuri Protasov,” she said.

  “Okay,” the senator said guardedly, and she could see his interest flag at once.

  He was a senator from Illinois, on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Martie thought he’d be interested in what Juliana had to say. Juliana had done some research on her phone, looked up who Senator Comstock’s biggest donors were, and didn’t see Protasov’s name. That had been a relief. If Protasov was a major contributor of his, he’d be unable and unwilling to help. Instead, Comstock’s biggest corporate donor was a Chicago-based biopharm company.

  “But the reason I think he’s taking such pains to keep his ownership a secret is that the money he used to buy Wheelz was wired to his company from a Russian bank that’s under US sanctions.”

  The senator nodded, examined his fingernails. No longer paying attention.

  She told him about the deaths that she suspected were connected. He didn’t seem to react.

  Then she said, “So I have a plan that I think—”

  “Okay, let me cut you off here,” Senator Comstock said. “Save you a little time.”

  “Sorry?”

  “You’re someone who Martha Connolly thinks is worth listening to. She thinks you’ve got the Supreme Court in your future.”

  “Martie is sometimes prone to hyperbole.”

  “So I don’t understand why you’d want to throw it all away.”

  “How would I be throwing it away?”

  Her phone started ringing. She ignored it.

  “By going after Yuri Protasov. Do you know who he is? Let me tell you who he is. He is the genie who grants your wishes. He is not someone you go to war with.”

  “I’m not talking about a war—”

  “You want to go after him on some, what, grade D SEC misdemeanor? A violation of sanctions that no one pays attention to anymore? This man is an icon. He’s a great man. He may be from Russia, but he’s become an integral part of American life.” Now he was looking right at her, pointing at her, surprisingly impassioned. “My wife was treated for ovarian cancer at the Protasov Cancer Institute at Sibley Hospital, okay? I’m on the board of the Protasov Family Foundation.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Dammit, she hadn’t checked the list of board members.

  “When people put me down, they call me the ‘senator from biopharma.’ Because my biggest support comes from the pharmaceutical industry. And I don’t mind that at all. I’m proud to be the senator from Oncopharm. They’re in the business of saving lives.”

  “Oncopharm is—”

  “The majority shareholder is Yuri Protasov.”

  “I see.”

  “A man who has given away a billion dollars of his own money.”

  “So I’m told.”

  “Oh, sure, his rivals have tried to smear him. All those rabidly anti-Russia people. I’m afraid you’ve been bamboozled by the fake news.” The senator shook his head. “It so happens that if you run a charity, a museum, or a hospital, part of your job description is sucking up to a gentleman named Yuri Protasov. So I don’t think you’re getting the message here, Ms. Brody. You don’t go after a man like Yuri Protasov. You send him thank-you notes.”

  After she left Senator Comstock’s office, Juliana checked her phone. A voice message and a text from Martha Connolly. The text read, I’ve got someone else for you.

  63

  The Old Saloon, on Fifteenth Street, was a Washington institution, established in the mid-nineteenth century, and known for its oysters and its crab cakes and its rude waitresses. It was the oldest saloon in Washington. The bar was made from solid mahogany, and the antique gas fixtures had been electrified. The Old Saloon was also known as a watering hole for CIA types.

  Juliana quickly found the man she was meeting. It wasn’t hard; he would stand out in any crowd. He was wearing a blue-and-white seersucker suit and a navy bow tie. He looked as though he’d walked out of another era. She gave him a smile and sat at his two-top. She thought: What kind of undercover CIA operator actually wants to stand out in a crowd?

  “Should I say ‘Your Honor’?” he said. She’d lost count of how many times someone had asked her that, socially. People were sometimes intimidated by judges and dealt with it by joking around.

  “You must be Paul.”

  They shook hands. He was working on a drink already, something brown on the rocks.

  His name was Pau
l Ashmont, and he was some kind of muckety-muck in counterintelligence at the CIA. He’d gone to Yale with Martie Connolly. Besides that, she knew only that he was a Russia expert and pretty high up the ladder. He was in his seventies and looked as though he enjoyed a hard-drinking, hard-smoking life.

  She started at the beginning, told him about how she’d been entrapped. Ashmont nodded and smiled. “What the Russians call kompromat,” he said. “Compromising material. Blackmail. They’re skilled at the art. And of course they used a cutout.”

  “I’m surprised you were willing to meet me,” she said. “I’m not exactly getting the welcome wagon in DC.”

  Ashmont chuckled. “Any friend of Martie Connolly’s is a friend of mine.” He took a sip of his drink. “Though I understand you tried my friends at the Bureau and got turned away.”

  “And yet you’re here.”

  “Call it a personal interest of mine. Mention Yuri Protasov and you sure as hell get my attention.”

  “Why’s that?” she said.

  “How much do you know about the guy?”

  “I think I know the basics. Philanthropist, investor, billionaire . . .”

  “That’s right. Estimated wealth of fifteen billion dollars, which puts him at number sixty-one on the Forbes list of the world’s billionaires. Owns the largest private bank in Russia. Owns a Siberian natural gas company. Owns the largest private house in London—Paragon House, in Mayfair.”

  “I know.”

  “He owns a Manhattan penthouse and a villa in Sardinia and, last I heard, a Greek island. Guy’s got houses in California, Aspen, Montana, Nantucket, Paris, Moscow . . .” He counted out with his fingers. “And he’s a sailor. Owns the world’s biggest superyacht. Two hundred forty meters long. Cost a half billion dollars. Two swimming pools and two helicopter pads on deck. Sorry, I’m kind of a yacht freak. What else? Two kids at Yale—my alma mater, like most Ivy League colleges, sure loves those oligarch kids. Good for the endowment.”

  “Sure.”

  He drained his drink and signaled the waitress for another.