Secret Justice Page 11

  Skyles stood after Wolff. “Good morning, Your Honor. Richard Skyles on behalf of Lieutenant Kent Rathman, the defendant.”

  Judge Wiggins looked toward the U.S. Attorney’s table. “We’re here for a bail hearing. I’ve read the papers. Mr. Wolff, anything to add?”

  Rat watched Wolff closely. He didn’t like what he saw. Wolff looked very competent and comfortable. He made Skyles look like a rube. Wolff was perhaps thirty-five, with closely cropped blond hair.

  “This is a very serious case, Your Honor. It has national and even international implications. Not only is it serious in terms of the charges—manslaughter and a violation of the Geneva Convention—but it is serious in terms of the implications for the defendant involved. This is the kind of case that would ruin his career, and could cause him great personal embarrassment and humiliation. Rather than have such humiliation rest on his shoulders at the conclusion of this case, it is the belief of the United States that he would flee, and take his chances on not being brought back to trial.”

  “How much bail are you requesting?”

  “One million dollars, Your Honor.”

  “Mr. Skyles?”

  Skyles stood slowly, looking at the U.S. Attorney in disbelief before returning his attention to Judge Wiggins. “I frankly am shocked at the request of United States for bail, Your Honor. It is very clear that United States is the one that is embarrassed and humiliated by the existence of this trial. They’re doing everything they can to keep this trial away from the scrutiny that it deserves. To make the claim that this all-American hero, this Naval Academy graduate, who is considered by everyone to be the best special forces operative in the country, is likely to flee the country he loves because of this ridiculous charge is outrageous. Kent Rathman isn’t going anywhere. His job is here—which still requires his constant attention—his home is here, his girlfriend lives here, all his obligations are here. He’s not going anywhere.”

  “Do you have a recommendation for the court?” the judge asked.

  “Yes, Your Honor. Forgive me. Mr. Rathman respectfully requests that he be released on his own recognizance. As I said, he’s not going anywhere.”

  “I’m going to set bail at fifty thousand dollars. Anything else for today?”

  Wolff barked, “Your Honor, I request that Lieutenant Rathman be restricted to the D.C. area.”

  Skyles put out his hands. “On what grounds? His job may require him to travel with little or no notice. This is just another way for the government to take away his profession, to punish him before they have a conviction. He’ll be here for trial, Your Honor, or anything else you want him to be at.”

  “He’s a flight risk, Your Honor—”

  “No, he’s not, Mr. Wolff. Mr. Rathman’s bail will be without travel restriction.” He looked at Rat. “Mr. Rathman, you will not flee before your trial, will you?”

  “No, sir,” Rat said.

  “And you will be here for your trial, won’t you?”

  “Yes, sir, I will.”

  “You give me your word as an officer?”

  “Yes, sir, I do.”

  “Will there be anything else?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Skyles said. He looked around at the courtroom, as if in surprise. “Why are we in this secret courtroom with cipher door locks? Why are we not in an ordinary federal courtroom in the large federal courthouse the taxpayers have paid for that sits just a few blocks from here?”

  Judge Wiggins frowned. “You know very well, Mr. Skyles, that this is a case which may involve secret and even top-secret evidence. I assume it is that concern that has led to the selection of this courtroom.”

  “I heard that might be the case, sir. But then what is this secret evidence? It has certainly not been provided to me by the U.S. Attorney.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be informed at the earliest opportunity. Am I right, Mr. Wolff?”

  “Considering we received word that Mr. Skyles was retained approximately two hours ago, we have not had the opportunity to provide him with the evidence that he is entitled to at this point. He will receive everything . . . to which he is entitled, Your Honor.”

  Skyles smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Wolff. I’ll be over this afternoon.”

  The judge nodded. “Court is adjourned.” He banged his gavel down and stood to leave the courtroom.

  Skyles turned toward Rat. “Do you have fifty thousand dollars? Actually for bail, you’ll only need about ten percent of that. Can you put it together?”

  “I’ll figure something out.”

  “I’m going to leave that in your hands. Call me if you get stuck. I’m going to go start rubbing against the U.S. Attorney. I’ve only seen this Wolff fellow once before. Never tried a case against him. Unfortunately, he is supposed to be one of the sharpest in the D.C. office. I guess we’ll find out just how sharp he is. I’ll see you later,” Skyles said as he followed Wolff out the door.

  The marshals took Rat by the arms and led him back to jail.

  * * *

  Even though it was April, the day dawned cold and hard. The slate-gray sky warned of a building storm and likely snow. The three woodsmen stomped the night’s cold out of their legs as they prepared to leave their camp just as they had done every day for the last four weeks. What had at first sounded like a lucrative easy job had turned into drudgery. They were there to find certain trees of certain diameters and single-cut them. It was tedious work, and only after accepting it had they realized that the trees they sought were hard to find. Only after arriving were they told their pay was based on finding and cutting the large trees, not just looking. They were to be paid by the piece.

  One week to go and then they could go back to Tbilisi for a two-week break. They looked forward to returning to the city, the capital of the Republic of Georgia, to taste some high-quality vodka instead of the swill they had brought with them in their flasks. They wanted to see families and girlfriends, and get paid. Then when they renegotiated their pay and returned back to the woods of Georgia, the remote thankless woods of Abkhazia, they would be farther away from winter and the cold would have receded a few degrees.

  They picked up their chain saws and hooks, and headed off to the trees they had found at the end of the day yesterday. Their feet were already cold as they shuffled through the beaten-down snow on the path left by them the night before. Thankfully there had been no new snow; it would be easy to find yesterday’s trees by their footprints.

  Giorgi, the biggest woodsman and the one clearly in charge of the group, began his usual grumbling as they left the camp. He, like the other two, had been born and raised in Georgia, and knew nothing other than working in the woods. Giorgi had brought an insulated coffee cup with him. He drank from it slowly as they walked, being careful not to burn his lip. “I say we start with the biggest tree that we marked yesterday. The one in the middle of that clearing. We can get the others to drag it out as we take on the other smaller trees around.”

  The two behind him, Shota and Tamar, nodded. They knew that to disagree with him was pointless; he simply talked to himself. They would do exactly what he said, whether he explained things to them on the way or just pointed and said, “Do this,” or “Do that.”

  They had four kilometers to walk before they reached their destination. Giorgi finished his coffee and slipped the handle through a loop on his belt. “Let’s walk faster. I’m freezing my balls off.”

  They picked up the pace along the path. As they walked they looked around for any other indication of life, or animals, or danger. They rarely saw anything that threatened them, but they kept their eyes open.

  “Giorgi,” Tamar called, pointing. “What is that?”

  The others stopped and looked. The virgin snow, uniform and smooth, was two feet deep everywhere they looked, except where Tamar was pointing. It was as if the snow had a hole not even a hundred yards off their path. It was an odd spot, a place where the snow had melted, or just vanished. Dead grass and dirt were clearly visible.r />
  Giorgi looked at the other two. “What is it?”

  Shota shivered against the cold. “No idea. Something warm. Maybe a dead animal.”

  “I don’t see a dead animal. And there’s no blood.” Giorgi looked around, looked at the sky to see how late it was getting. “Let’s take a look.”

  They walked carefully toward the melted opening. They crouched as they neared it, as if they were sneaking up on something that they didn’t know enough about. Giorgi’s cup clanked against his knife. They slowed as they approached the clearing. They got to within ten feet before Giorgi put out his arms to stop the other two. They looked into the melted spot and saw a silver cylinder lying on the dead grass.

  Tamar spoke. “What is it? And how did it get there?”

  Giorgi said, “Must have been warm, like a thermos.”

  “You think someone else is out here and left their thermos?”

  “There’s nobody but our camp within a hundred kilometers. And I’ve never seen a thermos—”

  “Then who left it there?” Tamar asked, growing annoyed.

  Giorgi ignored him. “Let’s see if it’s still warm.” Giorgi walked directly toward the cylinder. He knew he should be cautious but wasn’t sure why. It didn’t look dangerous, yet something was telling him to use extreme caution. Giorgi crouched down next to the cylinder and looked at it from as many angles as he could. The other two stood back slightly. “Looks harmless enough.” He removed his hand from his glove and touched the cylinder with one finger. “It’s warm.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not boiling hot.” He put his entire hand on it and felt the steady heat from the smooth metal cylinder. “We can use this to keep our tent warm.” He picked it up and felt its heft. “It’s not that heavy. Maybe five kilos. Here, warm your hands on it.” The other two took their gloves off and touched it. Giorgi handed the cylinder to Shota. “Take this back and put it in our tent. Then come back and we’ll go get that big tree. If that thing is still warm tonight, we’ll use it for some extra heat, huh? We can always use some extra heat.”

  Shota smiled and headed back to their tent. “Always can use some extra heat. A lucky day for the best woodsmen! The others will be jealous of our new heater!”

  Chapter

  8

  Groomer had never been in Don Jacobs’s office. He had been in the Counterterrorism Center several times but had never crossed the threshold of the office of the man in charge. It wasn’t that he was afraid of Jacobs, or anyone else for that matter. It was that Rat was the one who dealt with people at this level. Groomer just went along. But now it was time for him to take things into his hands, just a little.

  Jacobs was not expecting him and looked up in surprise when Groomer cleared his throat.

  “You’re with Rat,” Jacobs said.

  “Yes, sir. Lieutenant Junior Grade Ted Groome.”

  “What brings you here? Everything okay?” Jacobs asked, annoyed, not impressed by military rank, especially when it was the second-lowest rank in the Navy.

  “No, everything is not okay. We’ve heard about what happened to Rat and don’t quite understand how this has happened.”

  “I was surprised myself,” Jacobs admitted. He tossed his pen on the desk. “Frankly, I was blind-sided.”

  “How?” Groomer asked, watching Jacobs’s face for lies. “I thought you had your hand in everything.”

  Jacobs frowned slightly. “Meaning?”

  “Nothing in particular, sir. I just figured it would be hard for anyone to pull anything like this without you knowing about it. Who’s behind this? Because someone is.”

  “That’s what I don’t quite get. The Attorney General seems to be going after Rat, but I don’t get his motivation. Whatever it is, I don’t like it. This could give Rat, and the Agency, a black eye, and whoever else stands up for Rat. Even the Navy.”

  Groomer said, “I’ll stand up for Rat. As will the other guys.”

  Jacobs shook his head. “I’m not talking about standing up like that. I’m talking about taking the fall. Washington-speak. Which agency, which politician, which appointee, is going to get his head cut off.”

  “Well, sir, I guess a question that I have is what are you going to do about this?”

  “I don’t know. I will say one thing though, I’ll do what I can for Rat.” Jacobs paused. “But if in fact he tortured this guy and the man died because of it, and they can prove it, we’ve got problems. So did he?”

  Groomer hesitated.

  Jacobs put up his hand. “Don’t answer that question. Next thing you know they’ll subpoena me and ask me what you said. If you don’t say anything right now, it won’t go against you. Keep your ears open as well. If you hear anything that you think I need to know, you can tell me about it. We’re going to have to work this problem smart. But I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.”

  “No, sir. We’ve got to get him off though.”

  “Who’s running the team?”

  “I’m second in charge so until he gets out on bail, I am.”

  “Keep me posted.”

  Groomer stepped to the door, then turned around. “So as of right now, you have no plan to get him off.” He waited, but Jacobs didn’t reply. “Do you have any plans to do anything for Rat? Anything at all? I mean you approved this mission. You and Rat did all the planning.”

  Jacobs began working on a memo he was reviewing, then looked up. “Call me if you hear anything I need to know.”

  * * *

  “Where’d you find this Skyles guy, in a bus terminal?” Rat asked Andrea as they walked into her apartment in Maryland.

  “I asked around Washington and found a guy who used to be a U.S. Attorney in D.C. I asked him who the U.S. Attorney feared the most. His name came up.”

  “I don’t know about him, Andrea. He’s a loose cannon. Undisciplined.”

  “Maybe. But maybe that’s what you have to do as a defense attorney. I don’t know. You want to take a shower?”

  Rat sat down heavily on the couch. “Maybe three or four. Being in jail . . . what a stinking, filthy place. I’ve been a lot of dirty places, but jail . . . it’s just so nasty. Makes you feel dirty inside.”

  Andrea could tell he had been affected. “So now what?”

  “So now we’d better start getting our strategy together, or I’m going to end in a stinking filthy prison—although I’ll tell you what, I will never go to prison. I would kill my—”

  “Kent!”

  “It’s just not happening. You should know that. And it’s kind of scary to think my life is in the hands of this Skyles lunatic, whose lifetime goal is to offend every U.S. Attorney in Washington.” He looked at her. “Did I tell you that when he met with me he had a friggin’ catheter hanging out of his hand? This guy said he wants to be a ‘shit-stick’ for every U.S. Attorney he runs into. So when they rub up against him they get shit all over them. How about that for a great strategy?”

  “I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.”

  He looked surprised. “How can you say that? He may have no idea. Maybe the U.S. Attorneys don’t like to face him because he’s incompetent. I’ve heard attorneys—”

  “Then get another attorney!” she said, exasperated. “It’s not like he’s my brother. He’s the only one whose name came up that you had any chance of affording without going completely bankrupt. If you don’t like him, get one of those fancy five-hundred-dollar-an-hour lawyers and just sign over everything you own. Feel free!”

  “We’ll see how Skyles does,” Rat replied.

  Andrea sat down next to him. “I’ve got to tell you, since they came and got you at the restaurant, I’ve been a wreck. I need to know what’s going on. Why are they going after you? What can I do? Do you want me to go to the press? Does Skyles want us to go to the press?”

  “He said something about it. I just don’t know if now is the right time.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “T
he trial’s in Skyles’s hands. I’m going back to work.”

  “You going to put your head in the sand? Pretend like there isn’t anything happening? That you’re not the focus of some tornado here in Washington that you can’t even see? Don’t you get that?”

  “Oh, I get it, Andrea. I understand exactly what’s happening. And I know who I need to talk to. It’s time to call in some chips. I’m going to work on this problem from some angles other people will not expect.”

  “That’s more like it,” Andrea said, starting to relax for the first time in two days.

  “I think I’ll take a few showers now.”

  * * *

  “Good morning. I’m Commander Little. I’ve been appointed to defend you.”

  Duar looked up at him skeptically. He had seen the first person selected by the United States Government to defend him. He was equally unimpressed with Little. He said nothing.

  “Do you mind if I sit down?”

  The translator conveyed the message, and Duar pointed to the seat.

  “Thank you.” Little opened his briefcase and took out some papers. His khaki uniform was clean and crisp. His reddish hair was closely cut and he had a very serious look.

  Duar examined the ribbons on his left breast, wondering what they meant. Once Duar realized he was not going to be killed or beaten he had grown comfortable with his surroundings.

  “Have you had a chance to examine the charges being brought against you?”

  “I know of no charges. I know that I have been taken against my will from my country.”

  “Well, perhaps you’ll be able to return to your country if you get off.”

  “Is it possible to avoid these charges? Are you serious?”

  “Yes. If you’re innocent.”

  “But I am innocent.”

  Little smiled. “Well then maybe you will return to your country.” He opened a file and began reading through it. “Can I ask you a few questions so we can start preparing your defense?”

  Duar shrugged.