Brian Haig - The Kingmaker

An hour later Katrina and I slipped out. It was late, but I wanted her to get a quick introduction to our client. We’d ask him a few simple questions, then return in the morning for the heavy stuff. It wouldn’t inconvenience him any. Prisoners in solitary know no time. They live in an infinity of boredom.

He was led into the interview room and the MPs went through the lock-him-to-the-table routine again. He seemed more aware than last time. Grumpy, but aware. I said, “General, this is Katrina Mazorski, who will serve as co-counsel. She’s a lawyer and she speaks Russian.”

He studied her for five sullen seconds before he exploded. “You’re shitting me.”

I had started to open my lips when Katrina held up her hand to shush me. She calmly said, “What part of that confused you?”

He rolled his eyes and said to me, “Christ, you stupid bastard. My life’s on the line, and you hire some groupie slut from a rock concert.”

“Ahh… it’s my looks that bother you?” She smiled. “That’s so surface. How about this? I got my law degree from U of Maryland-night school, no less. And I’ve only spent two years practicing law. Can you believe it? I can barely believe it. Now you can piss in your pants.”

He and I both stared at her in shocked disbelief. Like I needed this. She was going to give him a heart attack. She continued, “Consider this, however. I’ve won ninety percent of my cases and was top of my class at U of Maryland. No, it’s not Harvard Law, but if Harvard hadn’t been so damned expensive that I had to turn it down, who knows?”

He started to say something, she held up a hand, and said, “I have an IQ of 170, rate a 4.0 on the State Department Russian fluency exam, and I kick ass in court. Relax and have faith in Major Drummond’s judgment. He doesn’t tell you how to interpret satellite photos or whatever the hell you do, so why are you questioning his judgment in attorneys?”

I looked at Morrison, and his jaw was agape. I said, “How you doing, General?”

“Huh?”

“How you doing?”

“Shitty.”

“That’s prison for you. At least you don’t have some three-hundred-pound cellmate named Bubba who wants to give you a colorectal exam.”

He stopped staring at Katrina and faced me. “I have no television. They won’t give me anything to read. I just sit in my cell and go fucking crazy.”

“Right… that’s their game. They want you so freaking lonely and bored you’ll turn diarrhetic when they interrogate you.”

“And what are you going to do about that?”

“About what?”

“I’m a brigadier general in the United States Army, asshole. That’s supposed to mean something. Get off your stupid ass and do something.”

“Like what?”

“You tell me the answer to that. Get me a fucking TV. Get me books. Get me a cellmate, something, anything to keep me from going mad.”

“The Chief of Staff of the Army couldn’t get you a TV. This is part of the process.”

He began cursing and shaking his head like this was absolutely deranged. I allowed him to vent a few more seconds before I interrupted, “We’re going to ask a few questions. Nothing too intense, just a few start points.”

“Drummond, God damn it, you’re not listening to-”

“Question one,” I interrupted, affirming that he was right. “Did you betray this country?”

“What? No… of course not. It’s complete horseshit.”

“We’re your lawyers. Our conversations are protected and we need to know the truth to properly defend you. Did you betray your country?”

His face lurched forward and the veins stuck out in his neck. “Damn it, you asshole, I just told you. I never betrayed my country.”

“Why’d they arrest you?”

“I don’t know. Damn it, I don’t even know what I’m being charged with. How the hell do they expect me to defend myself when I don’t know what they’re saying I did? Huh?”

“The full range of charges hasn’t been filed yet. This morning’s newspapers say you began working for the Soviets in 1988 or 1989, that you transferred your loyalty to Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed, and you continued feeding them information through all these years. They say Ames and Hanssen were tossed to protect you. They say you’re the vilest mole in the history of espionage.”

This blunt soliloquy was intended to make him back down and stop climbing up our asses. I might’ve been more gentle had he not called me an asshole three times in one minute.

His eyes bulged. “Who’s saying this?”

“Unnamed sources leaking things in a torrent. And nearly every day leading up to the trial there’ll be a fresh revelation. And by the way, the CIA’s general counsel mentioned they may add murder to whatever charges they settle on.”

He was furiously shaking his head. “Oh, God damn it, no! This is so wrong. I didn’t betray anybody. I didn’t murder anybody. Nineteen eighty-eight? How did they come up with that?”

“We haven’t seen any evidence yet.”

“Get the fucking evidence, Drummond!” he shrieked.

“I’ve lodged requests with the CIA and the prosecutor. I’m not hopeful, though.”

“Why? They’d better produce something. What kind of fucking country is this? What kind of idiotic lawyer are you?”

Katrina soothingly said, “You need to get ahold of yourself. This is all part of the game.”

“It’s not a fucking game, bitch!”

“We’ll get the evidence.” She calmly said, “Your arrest put us on a treadmill. Right now, they control the pace. We’ll look for a way to reverse that.”

“And what the hell am I supposed to do in the meantime, huh? You assholes don’t know what it’s like in here.”

I said, “We’ll spend time tomorrow getting background. I’ll want to start back in 1988. I’ll need to know what you’ve been doing all these years.”

“Read my fucking record.”

“I did.”

“Then what the hell is there to talk about?”

“Job titles don’t help.” I added, “We need to know what you were doing, what you were working on, what you were exposed to. Then, when the evidence does come, we’ll have something to work with.”

He kneaded his temples and stared miserably at the table. I looked at my watch. It was nearly eleven-thirty. I said, “Tonight, think carefully about your actions over the past ten years. We’ll begin our questioning first thing in the morning.”

“I’m innocent,” he grumbled.

“Then fight to prove it. Get mad. Fight for your honor. Fight to see your family again.”

He looked up as though I’d just jarred his memory. “How’s Mary?”

“Fine. I stopped by her father’s house yesterday. She asked me to tell you she loves you.” Although that wasn’t really true, because now that I thought about it, she hadn’t said that. I added, “One more question… that father of hers, Homer?”

“What about him?”

“How can you stand that son of a bitch?”

He looked confused. “What are you talking about? Homer and I get along fine.”

Of course. Why had I even asked?

Once outside the prison and heading toward the car, Katrina, looking somewhat disapproving, said, “Your bedside manner sucked.”

“My manner was fine. You don’t get it.”

“What don’t I get?”

“He needed the shock treatment.”

“They teach you that in law school?”

“Our client is drowning in self-pity. Hard to detect, I know, but the clues were there.”

“And the shock treatment is supposed to… what?”

“To sober him to the realities of his situation.”

“But it has nothing to do with your dislike of our client?”

“Not a thing,” I replied, halfway believing myself. I asked, “And what about you? Was all that true? Everything you told him in there?”