High Crimes

“You hear me. I want Embry back on the team.”

“What makes you think he’ll come back?”

“Because they’ve probably got him doing drug busts and drunk-driving stuff. He’ll jump at the chance.”

“He quit, don’t forget. We didn’t fire him.”

“We shamed him into quitting. We also wronged him. We accused him of leaking, when now we know they had the office bugged. We need him. We need an insider, you said so yourself. We need someone to interview and develop witnesses, do all the scut work that you and I don’t have time for.”

“Hey, you don’t have to convince me. Talk to him. I sure as hell won’t.” In a louder voice he called out to Tom: “That look familiar?”

“What can I say?” Tom said. “I mean, how do I know it’s mine? Seriously. I mean, it’s an M-60. We used M-60s.”

“Obviously we’ll have our independent examiner look at it, and the bullets and shell casings,” Claire said. “I don’t trust them.”

“I wonder why,” Grimes said. “There’s a serial number on there. Stamped on the receiver. Look familiar?”

“Grimes,” Tom said, “you don’t really think I can remember the gun’s serial number after all these years?”

“Just trying to help. I thought you covert-action boys file down the serial numbers so they never get identified in case they’re found.”

“Old wives’ tale,” Tom said. “We were part of the army — we need serial numbers just like everyone else to keep track of weapons. We were just fancy about it. We used sterile weapons — new guns purchased by the Panamanian or Honduran governments, so there’s no chain of custody.”

“Shouldn’t it be a simple matter to figure out whether this was the gun used to kill all those people?” Claire asked.

“Sure,” Grimes replied. “Run the ballistics, compare the shell casings and the bullets to the barrel of the machine gun, see if you got a match.”

“And if there’s a match?” Claire asked. “How can they prove Tom fired it?”

“If there’s a match,” Tom said wearily, “then it wasn’t my gun.” All of a sudden he sounded defeated.

“But were there records of who got which gun?”

He shrugged, studied the floor. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “Each one of us was issued one machine gun, one rifle, one pistol. We used the same one every time. You had to sign it out.”

“So there’s records,” Claire said.

“Armory records,” Grimes said.

“But we don’t have them.”

“Haven’t come in yet. Maybe they don’t have them either.”

“If it’s exculpatory,” she said, “I bet they ‘lose’ them. Without the armory records, they don’t have a case.”

“It may be my weapon,” Tom said, even more slowly, covering his eyes with a hand, “but if it is... it wasn’t the one that fired the rounds. And if it’s the one that fired the rounds...” He made a sudden hiccuping sound. “Claire?”

She looked at him sharply. It was a sob, which he’d tried to stifle. He was weeping. The suddenness of it frightened her.

He lurched forward toward her. His chasers vaulted forward and grabbed him, threw him down on the floor. There was a loud crack: his skull hitting the floor. The guards seemed to take some satisfaction in it. He howled in pain.

“Jesus,” Grimes said.

“What are you doing?” Claire shouted.

“She’s my wife, for Christ’s sake!” Tom said. “I don’t have the right to touch her?” The guards were silent. “Claire, I want to talk to you! Alone!”

“We can’t allow that, ma’am,” one of them said.

“This is a legal visit,” she said. “We have the right to talk without you present.”

They moved Tom to the defense shop and waited outside one of the empty offices with Grimes while Claire and Tom talked.

By now Tom seemed to have regained his composure. “I’m sorry about that. It’s just that it’s sinking in.”

“What is?”

“What’s happening to me. United States v. Ronald Kubik. I think maybe I was in a state of denial. But this is real. This is happening. They’re never going to let me go. I realize that now. This is real.”

“I know what you’re feeling,” she said softly. Her chest felt tight. She wanted to cry on his shoulder but knew she mustn’t lose it; he needed to see strength and confidence, whether she felt it or not. “It’s a nightmare, a nightmare for all of us. But you’ve got to keep the faith. Grimes and I are doing all we can. We’re not going to let them get away with anything. I promise you.”

“Embry,” he said when he answered the phone.

“Terry.”

“Ms. — Claire. Hi.” He seemed glad to hear her voice. “How’s it going?”

“Same old same old,” she said. “We need you back.”

A long, long pause. “You figured out I wasn’t the leak.”

“I never thought you were.”

“Does Grimes want me back? Or is it just you?”

“Yes, he does too. Definitely.”

“But aren’t you guys always going to be suspicious? I mean, don’t you want me to take the polygraph?”

“How do we know you weren’t trained to beat it?” she said with a laugh.

31

Waldron was waiting not far from Claire, Grimes, and Embry in front of the secure-courtroom door at fifteen minutes before nine in the morning. When Claire arrived, he pounced.

“Ms. Chapman.”

“Major,” she said blandly.

“Are you ready to deal?”