John Nance - Headwind

“Of course,” Geoffrey replied.

“Well, dead duck would be correct if they hand your client over to Peru,” Nigel joked, chuckling for a second before realizing the humor had fallen very flat. He cleared his throat and continued. “I will keep my calendar clear for you tomorrow.”

Jay looked in the direction of the door, where the men were waiting for him, then back at Nigel and Geoffrey. “Okay. I’ll call you later this evening after I’ve heard from the Prime Minister’s office.”

It took fifteen minutes of silence to reach the Secretary’s hotel. The other men in the car were obviously functionaries, Jay realized, after climbing in the car and trying to squeeze even the most rudimentary information from them.

The driver stopped at a side entrance, where a hotel security officer was waiting to usher Jay up a flight of stairs to a service elevator, and then to the fifteenth-floor suite where the delegation was waiting.

Jay introduced himself to the Secretary of State and the Assistant Attorney General he’d sparred with by phone from Laramie, then joined them at an ornate conference table.

An aide to the Secretary ran through a quick briefing: the British Government would not want to ruffle American feathers; ex parte contact with the Prime Minister’s office by anyone not a professional diplomat was highly inadvisable; and arrangements were already being made to rent a plush private residence for John Harris’s extended stay under house arrest.

“Mr. Secretary,” Jay replied, “I was promised a call from Deputy Prime Minister Sheffield. I still want to take that call.”

Secretary of State Joseph Byer nodded and raised his hand, palm up. “Mr. Reinhart… or may I call you Jay?”

“Certainly,” Jay replied.

“Very well, Jay, we’ve already indicated to Deputy Prime Minister Sheffield that we’re here to serve as the diplomatic conduit now, so I wouldn’t worry about not hearing from him. In fact, that’s why I wanted to meet with you, to put you personally in the hands of Mr. McLaughlin here…”

“I want to receive that promised call, Mr. Secretary.”

Byer smiled. “I know you do, Jay. Any good attorney would want to keep a death grip on this thing, but the current President of the United States did not ask me to come over here to stand on the sidelines. He knows, as does President Harris, how important it is to have direct government-to-government diplomatic understandings about these things, and having you in the loop actually muddies the waters.”

“Meaning?”

“Well, Jay, meaning that Sheffield will tell you one thing in diplomatic doublespeak and will tell me – or more properly the PM himself will tell me – something entirely different. He’ll tell me the truth as Britain’s closest ally. This is statecraft, Jay. I know you’re an experienced international lawyer, but this arena is very, very different from what you’re trained to navigate.”

“What do you propose, Mr. Secretary? President Harris is on his way inbound as we speak and will undoubtedly be met at Heathrow in an hour by police officers with the warrant.”

“We expect that.”

Jay warned himself to cap the rising anger in his gut at the paternalistic treatment. I need their help, even if this guy’s a sanctimonious windbag !

“Okay, but what about tomorrow, when we know Stuart Campbell will try to get what’s known as a committal hearing so he can press for rapid extradition? I’ll be there to fight that request and appeal it immediately if it goes against us, but I need desperately to know the mind of the PM. Have you any confirmed word from them?”

Byer glanced at two of his people as if trying to restrain himself from a sarcastic remark, then looked back at Jay. “We know this government’s mind already, Jay. They’ll give good and proper lip service to the need to follow international law and procedure, they’ll let the courts rule that President Harris should be extradited, and they’ll make it quietly known to the court that they expect Harris to be given leave to appeal, knowing that the appeal hearing will be set for a month of Sundays from now. After that, the British will do what the British did in the Pinochet case: delay, delay, and delay some more while they write careful, learned opinions and massage the diplomatic problems behind the scenes, and release pontificating statements about law and treaty responsibilities. In other words, this is the start of a long, long process, which will eventually end with President Harris being allowed to return to the United States. There’s really no cause for any of us to get too exercised.”

“Have you the word of the Prime Minister of England on that sequence, Mr. Secretary?”

“Now, look, in diplomatic affairs…”

“No, dammit!” Jay cut him off. “As President Harris’s attorney, I’m asking you a direct question with very grave legal import. With all due respect, Mr. Secretary, do you have the direct personal assurance of the Prime Minister of England that the scenario you’ve outlined is lock-down valid?”

Byer sat back and sighed disgustedly. “That’s not the way it’s done, Jay.”

“Then we have a major problem.”

“We have no problem at all, as far as I can see.”

“First of all, Mr. Secretary, you and the rest of the folks in this room are not going to shove me aside here, statecraft or no statecraft. I’ll certainly bow to and utilize your superior office and skills and support on understanding the equation, but I have a major decision to help John Harris make right now, and that’s whether to continue to a landing in the U.K., or go somewhere else.”

“That would be foolish…” Byer began.

“What would be foolish? Going somewhere else, or landing here?”

“Going anywhere else except the U.S., which that aircraft can’t reach. This is the friendliest forum Harris could possibly find, Jay. And for the record, we’re not trying to, as you put it, shove you aside. We simply have a better cross-section of talent to help you, and you should be guided by that. No, as Alex McLaughlin told you, we can’t be Harris’s primary counsel, but we can essentially handle this from the sidelines.”

“ I will handle this with your help. You will not handle this for me or for the President.”

“Poor choice of words on my part, Jay,” the Secretary said, trying to soften his stance. “Of course you’re the President’s lawyer. We respect that.”

“Nevertheless you’ve made the decision without consulting me or him that the President should come here?”

“Well, Jay, it appears you already made that decision before we arrived. We’re just advising you to stick with it.”

Jay rose from the table. “Excuse me a minute, gentlemen.” He walked to a far corner of the room and took out the piece of paper with the EuroAir cockpit satellite phone number and punched it into the GSM phone.

It took several minutes to get the President to the cockpit, and Jay could feel the contempt radiating from the conference table behind like a wave of infrared heat, felt but not seen.

Harris came on the line and Jay quickly explained what was happening.

“Very well, Jay,” the President said. “Hand the phone to Joe Byer, will you please? Then come back on the line.”

“Yes, sir.” Jay walked back across the room and explained the President’s request, handing the GSM phone to the Secretary of State, who put it to his ear and tried unsuccessfully to get a complete sentence out.

“Hello, Mr. Pres… yes, I… we’re… President Cavanaugh is very concerned about… yes. I realize that. Yes, sir, I’m fully aware of that.” Byer’s face was turning beet-red as he shifted the phone to his other ear and nodded. “Mr. President, you’re talking to the Secretary of State of… yes, sir. I understand. Yes.”