Steve Martini - Double Tap

The witness nods. “Sometimes they’re called killing houses.”

The impact of the two words on the jury is almost palpable. I watch as at least four of them make a note of it on paper.

“And when you observed this demonstration, who was firing the pistol in question, the Mark Twenty-three forty-five automatic?”

“It was Sergeant Ruiz.”

“And do you recall, was he demonstrating anything in particular that day, the day you saw him with a pistol similar to the one in your hand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Can you tell the jury precisely what it was that he was teaching that day?”

“We were all inside the killing house,” says Quinn. “Sergeant Ruiz was showing us the proper procedure for target selection with the pistol.”

“The Mark Twenty-three?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Go on.”

“He was showing us how to sweep each target so that we could hit it twice, so that we could put it down-what is known as a double tap.”

At this moment Harry would drop his head onto the table except that half of the jury is watching us. The other half is taking notes.

Templeton now has the detective deliver a photograph to our table. It’s an eight-by-ten glossy, black-and-white, a picture of a group of soldiers, none of them looking particularly spit-shined, some of them with mustaches and longer hair. Most of the soldiers in the group look like they are older; some of them in their early thirties. Sitting on the ground in the front row is Emiliano. In his hand, unmistakable with the long silencer attached and what appears to be a square block of metal under the barrel, the laser sight, is the Mark 23.

“Your Honor, I object. We’ve never seen this photograph before.”

“I only got a copy this morning,” says Templeton.

Gilcrest waves us forward to the bench and hits the white-noise button.

“It was delivered to me by the witness during the noon break,” says Templeton. “Outside in the hallway. He only found it last night among some old papers in his files. He had copies made this morning.”

“Your Honor-”

Gilcrest holds up a hand, palm out, to silence me as he studies his copy of the photo, delivered to him by the bailiff.

“Are you offering the photograph to show that the firearm depicted in the picture is the murder weapon?” asks the judge.

“No, Your Honor. Only to show that the defendant was familiar with and skilled in the use of the model of that handgun.”

“Your Honor-”

“I’ll allow it for that purpose,” says the judge. “And I’ll instruct the jury accordingly.”

“I object, Your Honor.”

“Mr. Madriani, a witness has already linked the murder weapon to your client. It’s been established that it was issued to him in the Army. I can’t see any harm in showing the jury a picture of him holding a similar firearm.”

A picture being worth a thousand words, I could split hairs with him all afternoon, but he slaps me down, and we step back to the tables.

Templeton has the witness identify the photograph, and less than a minute later it’s up on the visualizer in front of the jury. The judge can instruct them until hell freezes. The picture of the murder weapon in Emiliano’s hand, projected onto a screen the size of that in a small movie theater, has a transforming effect inside the jury box. If the weight of evidence means anything-if Harry, Ruiz, and I were sitting on a balancing scale at this moment-our heads would be jammed up against the courtroom ceiling.

Harry and I are alone with Ruiz in the holding area off of the courtroom.

Emiliano is overflowing with apologies. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t tell you. We were sworn to maintain the secret. There is a presidential decision directive.” He cites to us the number, what is known as PDD-25.

“What does it say?” I ask.

“Gave us immunity from the law, as long as we didn’t tell anybody what we did. That was the condition,” he says.

I look at Harry. “If there’s a presidential directive barring public disclosure as to Delta, and if it has the weight of law,” I say, “we might be able to use it.”

Harry thinks about this. “Ask the judge to strike Quinn’s testimony? Instruct them to disregard the photo? They’ve already seen it,” says Harry. “He’s already ruled that the photo can come in.”

“He didn’t know about the directive and neither did we. We ask for a mistrial.” I turn to Ruiz. “Do you have a copy of the directive?”

He shakes his head. “It’s classified. I only saw a summary.”

“What did the summary say?”

“Nothing about Delta. But the people who saw the document, who had clearance to see the whole thing, they said it excused us from the law. Total exemption, they said, everything, as long as we didn’t talk, even posse comitatus “

“Delta was operating in the U.S.?” says Harry.

Ruiz nods.

Posse comitatus is federal law adopted after the Civil War to rein in U.S. troops and to prevent them from being used against their own citizens, except in federally declared emergencies.

I had seen claims in the press about Delta’s activities inside the United States. But until now I had always discounted them.

“Don’t ask me where, ‘cuz I can’t tell you,” he says. “That’s why I couldn’t say anything when you asked me what I did. The seven years,” he says.

“You’ve never seen the actual document?” says Harry. “The directive?”

“Just the summary. None of the troops in Delta saw the real thing. But we were told that we were excused from the law. Everybody under Joint Special Operations Command was.”

“Remember I asked you whether you’d ever been to Special Operations Command, and you said no?” I look him straight in the eye.

“That was the truth,” he says. “They’re located at MacDill Air Force Base, in Tampa. I’ve never been there.”

“You knew what I was talking about.”

“Yes.” He looks at me, then down at the floor, and nods. Emiliano stands in the corner of the room, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his suit pants, looking like a chastened schoolboy. His jacket lies on the floor where he took it off and threw it when he came in.

“I know you’re angry,” he says. “You have a right to be. But what was I supposed to do?”

“For starters, come clean with your lawyers,” says Harry.

“And if I told you about Delta, what would you have done? You would have had to find some way to tell the jury about it. Then Templeton would have been all over it.”

“But we could have brought it out,” says Harry. “Now it looks like we’re hiding it. And the picture, the one with the gun in your hand. .”

“I don’t carry a gun anymore. That’s a fact,” he says. “I haven’t carried a gun since I left the Army. You know what I use for protection?”

Harry shakes his head as if he could care less.

“A water pistol,” says Ruiz. “You don’t believe me? Ask the cops,” he says. “Sure, they didn’t put it in their report. They put it under ‘personal items’ when they booked me. But that’s all they found when they arrested me.”

“Why the hell would you carry a water pistol?” says Harry.

“Pretty handy,” says Ruiz. “You fill it with ammonia, it’s better than pepper spray, and you don’t need a license to carry it. You hit somebody in the eyes or the nose, believe me, they ain’t gonna bother you no more.”

“And you can do that at a distance with a water pistol?” says Harry.

Ruiz just looks at him and nods slowly, as if to say if he had his water pistol he’d show him right now.

“Let’s not let the jury in on that little secret,” says Harry. “When it comes to target shooting, I don’t think we’d need to give them any more credentials. All the same, you shoulda told us about Delta.”