John Nance - Headwind

“I’m sorry?” Michael replied.

“DCI. The Director of Central Intelligence,” the President responded. “Anyway, I received word that we were at a critical juncture in this search-and-destroy mission, and Reynolds needed to brief me personally. I recall thinking that it was an odd request, since usually the DCI or his direct deputy do such briefings.”

“So Mr. Reynolds did come to the Oval Office?” Jay asked.

John Harris sighed and nodded. “Yes, he did. There were times when such off-the-record meetings were necessary. We even have them occasionally with members of the military. No time record kept, no names on the appointment calendar. Nothing to indicate it ever occurred, for national security reasons as well as political reasons.”

“I see,” Garrity said, his eyes locked on the President. “You call it plausible deniability, if I’m to believe Hollywood.”

“That’s not too far from the real phrase,” Harris continued. “Okay, so I received Reynolds, he was there on schedule, and the Secret Service slipped him in the west door to the Oval. Matt? Were you the agent on duty that day?”

“No, sir. I’ve… brought individuals in through that door, but I don’t recall that one,” he said with great care, his normal unreadable expression changing ever so slightly.

“Well, that’s how it was done. Reynolds… and I recall this very, very clearly because of my utter shock when I got the report later on the bloodbath that had transpired… Reynolds told me that they had a team ready to go in and raid the drug factory and destroy it. We knew we could not use Americans, expatriates or otherwise. We needed mercenaries, and that’s what he had found. I asked him if they were militarily trained, and he assured me that they were trained and disciplined and veterans with formal military experience essentially gone bad. He assured me they would stick to their orders, kill only if unavoidable, and that they would thoroughly understand that their target was the factory, not the people who worked there. I knew there were campesinos … peasants… pressed into service in such places. But we had to stop the flow.”

“So you approved the raid?” Jay asked.

“Yes. As Commander-in-Chief, and ultimate head of special operations and every other government function. I had to act. The flow of their heroin into the U.S. was reaching epidemic proportions, and an incredible percentage was coming out of that very facility, and the exiting government under Fujimori was doing absolutely nothing.”

“But, John,” Jay interrupted, “the most important point is this: Did Reynolds in any way, form, or fashion indicate to you that the mercenaries you would be authorizing him to hire would torture or murder the workers?”

“No, he did not. In fact, as I’ve already said, he assured me they would follow orders. And my orders were to do no harm to the workers and to kill only in self-defense.”

“Then,” Jay continued, his eyes welded on John Harris, “why does Stuart Campbell allege that Barry Reynolds made a videotape of that meeting, a tape that shows the opposite?”

John Harris thrust his arms wide open in a sweeping gesture of frustration.

“I DON’T KNOW! Dammit, Jay, do you have any idea what an accusation like that does to me? I know I’m not suffering from Alzheimer’s like poor Ronnie Reagan. So far I remember things clearly, thank the Lord, and I know for an absolute fact that there can be no such video or audio evidence because this President never… repeat, never… listened to any such representations from Reynolds. I mean, you couldn’t even read that into his words between the lines, because I specifically asked him if he was sure they wouldn’t go overboard!”

Jay was nodding. “I demanded a copy of the tape.”

“And?” John Harris snapped, his breathing accelerated and his face reddened.

“And Campbell never delivered it, which was in part, I’m sure, because neither of us stayed in London long enough.”

“We need a copy of that tape, I’m afraid,” Michael Garrity said.

“Damn right we do!” John Harris said. “I mean, in the first place, the incredible act of claiming to have taped a conversation in the Oval with the President of the United States is ridiculous enough.”

“You know, when… people were brought in that way,” Matt interjected, “we usually knew precisely who they were, and although we would pat them down, we wouldn’t run them through the metal detector.”

“Meaning?” Jay asked.

“Meaning, it’s not impossible that a known CIA chief could come through the door with a hidden camera wired to him. It’s not something you’d expect.”

John Harris looked Jay in the eye, speaking slowly. “If there is a tape that has any words spoken by Reynolds or myself that vary from what I just told you, it has been electronically fabricated or altered.”

Jay nodded slowly. “It’s entirely possible. But how do we prove it?”

“Indeed,” Michael Garrity said, his eyes on the far wall as he stroked his chin. “A tape like that at a full-blown trial can be challenged, but in a hearing like this…”

“It can be challenged here,” Sherry said, coming partially out of her chair, her eyes wide. “Remember the Rodney King thing? Those police officers were beating the hell out of the man on camera, in living color, and the defense team somehow fuzzed it up to the point of an acquittal. Who’s going to believe a ridiculous fake like this?”

“That’s loyalty talking, Sherry, for which I’m grateful,” the President said sadly.

“He’s right, Miss Lincoln,” Garrity added. “A tape like that in front of a judge at this stage is going to be very difficult to challenge.”

“Can’t we attack it as illegally made and therefore inadmissible?” Jay asked.

“Perhaps, but that’s entirely up to the judge, and you’re dealing with a bizarre combination of things, a U.S. President, the White House, a CIA chief, and I’m not certain that even a U.S. court could so easily declare such a tape patently inadmissible. Keep in mind that you told me Reynolds was a respected senior officer of Central Intelligence.”

“So, if Campbell produces it in court in Dublin, it would be a problem?” Jay asked.

“No,” Michael Garrity said, carefully choosing his words. “No, Jay, it wouldn’t be a problem. For what we’re trying to do, it would be a disaster.”

Stuart Campbell finished the last call he had to make and opened the window overlooking St. Stephen’s Green to clear his head.

The temperature was moderate, if not balmy, and a light breeze rustled the curtains. He could almost feel the presence of the Four Courts building on Inns Quay bordering the River Liffey, unseen but less than a mile distant. There was something in the history of the structure that always affected him, a symbol of defiance on a level that his native Scotland had never achieved. The building had been left barely standing in the ruins of the Irish Civil War in April of 1922, a victim of shelling by pro-treaty forces that had all but collapsed the dome. The steely determination of the Irish had rebuilt it to be as much a symbol of the rule of law as the rule of the Republic, and the Four Courts had become the center of justice in the Republic.

It would be the situs of the battle to come, and not the first for him. With the British and Irish legal systems essentially identical in form, he had been – as they expressed it – “called” before the Irish bar as a barrister many years back in a case representing U.K. interests. It had been a thrill he would never discuss with his fellow English barristers, many of whom delighted in rolling their eyes at anything Irish.