John Grisham - The Broker

She almost dropped the needle. After a long painful pause in which she was completely speechless, she managed to utter, “I’ll check with the doctor.”

“You do that. On second thought, why don’t you poke him in his rather fat ass. He’s the one who needs to relax.” But she was already out of the room.

On the other side of the base, a Sergeant McAuliffe pecked on his keyboard and sent a message to the Pentagon. From there it was sent almost immediately to Langley where it was read by Julia Javier, a veteran who’d been selected by Director Maynard himself to handle the Backman matter. Less than ten minutes after the Ryax incident, Ms. Javier stared at her monitor, mumbled the word “Dammit,” then walked upstairs.

As usual, Teddy Maynard was sitting at the end of a long table, wrapped in a quilt, reading one of the countless summaries that got piled on his desk every hour.

Ms. Javier said, “Just heard from Aviano. Our boy is refusing all medications. Won’t take an IV. Won’t take a pill.”

“Can’t they put something in his food?” Teddy said at low volume.

“He’s not eating.”

“What’s he saying?”

“That his stomach is upset.”

“Is that possible?”

“He’s not spending time on the toilet. Hard to say.”

“Is he taking liquids?”

“They took him a glass of water, which he refused. Insisted on bottled water only. When he got one, he inspected the cap to make sure the seal had not been broken.”

Teddy shoved the current report away and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. The first plan had been to sedate Backman in the hospital, with either an IV or a regular injection, knock him out cold, keep him drugged for two days, then slowly bring him back with some delightful blends of their most up-to-date narcotics. After a few days in a haze, they would start the sodium pentothal treatment, the truth serum, which, when used with their veteran interrogators, always produced whatever they were after.

The first plan was easy and foolproof. The second one would take months and success was far from guaranteed.

“He’s got big secrets, doesn’t he?” Teddy said.

“No doubt.”

“But we knew that, didn’t we?”

“Yes, we did.”

Two of Joel Backman’s three children had already abandoned him when the scandal broke. Neal, the oldest, had written his father at least twice a month, though in the early days of the sentence the letters had been quite difficult to write.

Neal had been a twenty-five-year-old rookie associate at the Backman firm when his father went to prison. Though he knew little about JAM and Neptune, he was nonetheless harassed by the FBI and eventually indicted by federal prosecutors.

Joel’s abrupt decision to plead guilty was aided mightily by what happened to Jacy Hubbard, but it was also pushed along by the mistreatment of his son by the authorities. All charges against Neal were dropped in the deal. When his father left for twenty years, Neal was immediately terminated by Carl Pratt and escorted from the firm’s offices by armed security. The Backman name was a curse, and employment was impossible around Washington. A pal from law school had an uncle who was a retired judge, and after calls here and there Neal landed in the small town of Culpeper, Virginia, working in a five-man firm and thankful for the opportunity.

He craved the anonymity. He thought about changing his name. He refused to discuss his father. He did title work, wrote wills and deeds, and settled nicely into the routine of small-town living. He eventually met and married a local girl and they quickly produced a daughter, Joel’s second grandchild, and the only one he had a photo of.

Neal read about his father’s release in the Post . He discussed it at length with his wife, and briefly with the partners of his firm. The story might be causing earthquakes in D.C., but the tremors had not reached Culpeper. No one seemed to know or care. He wasn’t the broker’s son; he was simply Neal Backman, one of many lawyers in a small Southern town.

A judge pulled him aside after a hearing and said, “Where are they hiding your old man?”

To which Neal replied respectfully, “Not one of my favorite subjects, Your Honor.” And that was the end of the conversation.

On the surface, nothing changed in Culpeper. Neal went about his business as if the pardon had been granted to a man he didn’t know. He waited on a phone call; somewhere down the road his father would eventually check in.

After repeated demands, the supervising nurse passed the hat and collected almost three bucks in change. This was delivered to the patient they still called Major Herzog, an increasingly cranky sort whose condition was no doubt worsening because of hunger. Major Herzog took the money and proceeded directly to the vending machines he’d found on the second floor, and there he bought three small bags of Fritos corn chips and two Dr Peppers. All were consumed within minutes, and an hour later he was on the toilet with raging diarrhea.

But at least he wasn’t quite as hungry, nor was he drugged and saying things he shouldn’t say.

Though technically a free man, fully pardoned and all that, he was still confined to a facility owned by the U.S. government, and still living in a room not much larger than his cell at Rudley. The food there had been dreadful, but at least he could eat it without fear of being sedated. Now he was living on corn chips and sodas. The nurses were only slightly friendlier than the guards who tormented him. The doctors just wanted to dope him, following orders from above, he was certain. Somewhere close by was a little torture chamber where they were waiting to pounce on him after the drugs had worked their miracles.

He longed for the outside, for fresh air and sunshine, for plenty of food, for a little human contact with someone not wearing a uniform. And after two very long days he got it.

A stone-faced young man named Stennett appeared in his room on the third day and began pleasantly by saying, “Okay, Backman, here’s the deal. My name’s Stennett.”

He tossed a file on the blankets, on Joel’s legs, next to some old magazines that were being read for the third time. Joel opened the file. “Marco Lazzeri?”

“That’s you, pal, a full-blown Italian now. That’s your birth certificate and national ID card. Memorize all the info as soon as possible.”

“Memorize it? I can’t even read it.”

“Then learn. We’re leaving in about three hours. You’ll be taken to a nearby city where you’ll meet your new best friend who’ll hold your hand for a few days.”

“A few days?”

“Maybe a month, depends on how well you make the transition.”

Joel laid down the file and stared at Stennett. “Who do you work for?”

“If I told you, then I’d have to kill you.”

“Very funny. The CIA?”

“The USA, that’s all I can say, and that’s all you need to know.”

Joel looked at the metal-framed window, complete with a lock, and said, “I didn’t notice a passport in the file.”

“Yes, well, that’s because you’re not going anywhere, Marco. You’re about to live a very quiet life. Your neighbors will think you were born in Milan but raised in Canada, thus the bad Italian you’re about to learn. If you get the urge to travel, then things could get very dangerous for you.”

“Dangerous?”

“Come on, Marco. Don’t play games with me. There are some really nasty people in this world who’d love to find you. Do what we tell you, and they won’t.”

“I don’t know a word of Italian.”

“Sure you do — pizza, spaghetti, caffè latte, bravo, opera, mamma mia. You’ll catch on. The quicker you learn and the better you learn, the safer you’ll be. You’ll have a tutor.”