High Crimes

“But it’s a goddamned despicable lie! Look, those assassination patrols were such a goddamned closely guarded secret, nobody knew about it. If there’s anything on paper about it, wouldn’t it be top secret or something? It wouldn’t be in my unclassified files!”

Claire sighed in frustration. “That’s true. It would be in the classified stuff.”

She looked at Grimes, who shrugged. “Whatever. We’ll get it excluded. Of course they won’t want that on the record anyway — it’s a government scandal, one of the most shameful secrets of the Vietnam War.”

“What are they telling you about what happened in Salvador?” Tom asked.

“We haven’t seen the records yet,” Claire said. “But Charles tells me discovery starts now, so we’ll see it soon.”

“The good news for you,” Grimes said, “is that we’ll be going to trial soon. The military has a speedy-trial provision. They’ve got to start the court-martial within a hundred-twenty days of the time you were locked up here.”

“But we don’t want a speedy trial,” Claire said. “We need as much time as we can get to comb through the evidence, interview the witnesses. Raise reasonable doubt. We don’t want to try this case half-assed. They’ve been putting this sham together for years, I’ll bet.”

“Hey, you’re in the army now,” Grimes said. “They got the right to force us to trial if they want, when they want. The good news for you, Tom-or-Ron, is that in less than four months you’ll either be out of here or—”

“Or in Leavenworth,” Tom said mordantly. “Or executed.”

“Right,” Grimes agreed with a blitheness that seemed inappropriate. “So the clock’s ticking.”

19

The military policeman stood straight and tall and perfectly dressed in a perfectly creased uniform. He had whitewalls behind his ears. His shoes appeared to be spit-shined to a mirror gleam. He looked like he’d just stepped out of an inspection box. He was “strac,” Grimes marveled. ‘Strac,’ he said, was army lingo for spiffy, impeccably attired, and groomed in the very best, strictest army manner.

He stood guard before a windowless room in the basement of a building at Quantico called Hockmuth Hall, where all classified materials in the Ronald Kubik matter were stored under conditions of the highest security. Outside the room Claire waited with Embry and Grimes.

“This is what we call a SCIF,” Captain Embry told Claire. He pronounced it “skiff.”

“Another new word,” Claire said dryly. “Meaning?”

Embry hesitated.

“Special Compartmental Information Facility,” Grimes said. “Something like that.”

“I think it’s Sensitive Compartmental Information Facility,” Embry said.

“Whatever,” Grimes said.

“I requested a continuance on the 32,” Embry said. “But the investigating officer turned us down.”

“What a surprise,” Grimes said. “Who is he, by the way?”

“Lieutenant Colonel Robert Holt. Nice guy.”

“They’re all nice guys,” Grimes said. “Watch out for nice guys in the military.”

Embry ignored him. “He instructed me that this is a case with national security implications, and any conversations regarding it must be conducted in the SCIF.”

“Whatever that stands for,” Claire said. Grimes caught her eye, which she took to mean Pay no attention to their instructions.

“Next time we talk to your husband,” Grimes said, “I want to do it outside the brig. I don’t trust these guys. Who knows who might be listening in?”

“They’re not allowed to listen in on conversations between attorney and client,” Embry said.

“Oh, I see,” Grimes said. “You want to tell ’em that, or should I?”

Grimes and Embry had just met this morning, and already Grimes was testing Embry’s patience. But Embry was too polite to rise to the bait. In any case, before Embry had the chance to say anything now, the door to the SCIF was opened by a security officer.

It was just a room, linoleum floors with government-issue green metal tables and gray metal chairs. There were, however, a number of large safes, Sargent & Greenleaf brand, officially approved government safes, that opened with combination locks. Inside were separately locked drawers, each with its own combination lock. Each of them was given a drawer where he or she was to lock up any notes taken. No notes were to be removed from the room. They’d brought yellow legal pads — Grimes had told her not to bother bringing a laptop computer — but even their own handwritten notes had to stay there in the locked drawers. All notes on classified files would become part of an official government file, kept under government control.

Claire found this alarming, even a little ominous. They couldn’t take notes out with them? How could they work anywhere outside this awful little room? The official headquarters of the Ronald Kubik defense was the library at her rented Thirty-fourth Street house, where all their files were kept; how could they work there without notes on the classified files? She was given no satisfactory answer. Neither Embry nor Grimes seemed perturbed by this ridiculous precaution.