Phillip Margolin - Executive Privilege

“The last doctor I spoke to said he’d be coming out of the anesthesia soon. That was half an hour ago. The doctor said he was lucky. None of the bullets hit a major organ.”

We’re lucky, too, Evans thought ruefully. If I was any kind of shot we wouldn’t have a witness.

Evans opened the door. Aiello watched him with a pair of dull, blue eyes as he crossed the room and stood beside his bed. Evans guessed he would be a tough guy. How tough remained to be seen.

“I’m Keith Evans with the independent counsel’s office. How are you feeling?”

The man didn’t answer.

“I have good news and bad news, Joe.” Evans paused. “You don’t mind if I call you Joe or Aiello, do you? I’m certain they’re not your real names, but it’s the best I can do before we get a report on your prints.”

The prisoner still didn’t answer.

“Okay, have it your own way. So, what would you like to hear first, the good news or the bad news?”

Evans waited a beat. “Since you won’t make up your mind, I’ll give you the good news. The doctors say you’re going to pull through. That’s also the bad news, because you’ll be standing trial in federal court for murdering an FBI agent and in Oregon for murdering our witness. That means you’re a candidate for the death penalty. But there’s more good news. Now, you’re the witness. If you’re smart you can avoid a lethal injection.”

“You think you’re funny, don’t you,” the man managed. His words were slurred from the residual effects of the anesthetic.

“You’re right. I can be a wiseguy at times. I should cut the humor and get serious. So, seriously, Joe, I would love to watch you die for killing a decent young man whose shoes you aren’t fit to shine, but I have to ignore my personal desires and do my job. Professionally, I’m much more interested in the people who sent you to kill our witness than I am in sending you away. Tell me everything you know and we’ll deal. Clam up and you die.”

“We’ll see,” the man said. His dry lips cracked into a smile that told the agent Aiello thought Evans was incredibly naive.

“You think your friends will protect you but they won’t,” Evans said. “Facing a death sentence is a big motivation to talk, so you’ve become a problem. Think about the way your boss has been solving problems. Cutler was a witness who could hurt him. What did he do? He sent you and the man you just murdered to kill Cutler.”

Aiello’s eyes shifted, and Evans noticed.

“Yeah, Joe, we showed Dana Cutler your photo and she says you’re definitely the guy she shot in her apartment and one of the people who attacked her in West Virginia from the speedboat. The doctors say you have a recent scar on your thigh that’s consistent with a bullet wound. Coincidentally, it’s right where Cutler says she shot you.”

Aiello remained quiet.

“You can clam up, but do some thinking, too. Think about what happened when your buddy was arrested. You were sent to kill him because your boss can’t afford to leave witnesses alive. Now, you’re the witness, which means you’ve become a huge liability. As soon as he learns you’re alive, he’ll send more men to silence you. He has to. He can’t afford to let you talk.”

The smile stayed on the killer’s lips but it shrunk in size as Evans’s words registered.

“There are only two ways you can go, lawyer up or cooperate. If you choose door number one, you die. If you aren’t killed awaiting trial, they’ll take you out in prison after a conviction or you’ll be murdered in the free world if you’re acquitted. Cooperate and we’ll try to put away the men who want you dead, and we’ll work very hard to keep you alive. What do you say?”

“Fuck you.”

“Hey, Joe, I’m way too exhausted to fuck right now. What I do plan to do is take a shower, get some rest, then eat a hearty breakfast. After that, I’ll be back to talk some more. While I’m gone, I suggest you think about what I said.”

A week after the West Coast shoot-outs at the hospital and Marsha Erickson’s house, Erickson and Dana Cutler were tucked away in separate safe houses near Washington, D.C., and Keith Evans was swimming, once again, in the humid, ninety-degree heat of the nation’s capital. At nine o’clock Friday morning, fortified by a breakfast of bacon, eggs, biscuits, grits, and black coffee, Evans seated himself across from Charles Hawkins and his attorney, Gary Bischoff, in a conference room at the office of the independent counsel. With Evans were a court reporter, Maggie Sparks, and Gordon Buss, an assistant United States attorney.

Bischoff was a lanky man with curly, salt-and-pepper hair. He ran marathons for a hobby, and his cheeks were as hollow and his eye sockets as deep set as the victim of an African famine. Bischoff was dressed in an expensive suit that was tailor made to fit his skeletal frame, but Hawkins, true to form, was attired in a cheap mismatched jacket and slacks. Evans thought the president’s advisor looked less self-confident than he had when they’d spoken at his boss’s press conference.

“Would you like to tell us why you’ve summoned my client to this meeting?” Bischoff asked when the introductions were completed.

“Sure,” Evans replied. “We think he’s responsible for a couple of murders and attempted murders in Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia, West Virginia, and Oregon.”

Evans paused and counted on his fingers. When he was satisfied, he nodded.

“Yeah, those are the jurisdictions to which he can expect to be extradited. I don’t think I missed any. If I did, they’ll come after him, so you’ll find out where they are.

“Now, there are also some assaults in there and a burglary or two, and I’m certain I’ve forgotten a few more charges. Mr. Buss is the criminal lawyer. He can tell you all of the possible crimes Mr. Hawkins will be charged with committing, or you can talk to the DAs who’ll be filing the indictments.”

Bischoff had been practicing criminal law at the highest levels for thirty years, so he’d been around the block. Evans amused him and he laughed.

“You obviously haven’t seen Mr. Hawkins’s schedule. I don’t think he’s got time to brush his teeth, let alone run around the country killing people.”

“I didn’t say he committed all of these crimes himself.” Evans shifted his gaze to Hawkins. “He had help. For instance, he sent a fellow who posed as a lawyer and used the alias ‘Joseph Aiello’ to St. Francis Medical Center in Portland, Oregon, to murder one of his hit men, who we were lucky enough to capture. ‘Aiello’ killed our witness, but he didn’t get away. Now he’s spilling his guts, and he has a lot of interesting things to say about Mr. Hawkins.”

“A man facing the death penalty will say a lot of things,” Bischoff offered.

“True, but here’s something for your client to think about. Aiello’s real name is Oscar Tierney. Oscar’s prints aren’t on file. If he hadn’t given us his real name we wouldn’t have been able to figure it out, so you know he’s talking to us. He also says that he and the fellow he killed at the hospital are part of a black ops squad that operates out of the CIA. One of his assignments was to kill Dana Cutler, who he’d been led to believe was a spy for the Chinese. He claims that your client told him that Cutler was going to use the photos of Farrington and Walsh to blackmail the president into making decisions that would not have been in the national interest. I’ll give you Tierney’s statement by and by and you can learn how your client is able to commit mass murder while helping run the country.”

Bischoff smiled patiently. “That sounds like the type of story someone would concoct if they were caught in the act and had no defense.”