CHAPTER 24

Karl Burdett had gotten used to the power and prestige that the office of district attorney bestowed. While he would never admit it, subconsciously he knew that he was not talented enough to succeed in private practice and he dreaded the thought of scrambling to make a living at his age. That was why he needed Senior’s approval and support almost as much as he needed air.

Minutes after Amanda left his office, Burdett was in his car, headed for the Pope estate to deliver the news of Charlie’s return. He was almost there when Tony Rose sped by in a silver-gray Ferrari F43. Burdett was not surprised that Rose was visiting Senior. The tennis pro had been fired by the Westmont soon after Sally Pope’s trial. Less than a year later, he’d founded Mercury Enterprises, which had started small, manufacturing tennis equipment, and had grown rapidly when American wunderkind Gary Posner won the U.S. Open playing with a Mercury racket. The sports world was shocked when Posner signed an exclusive contract with Mercury instead of Nike or another monster sporting-goods firm. The terms were never made public but the rumors put Posner’s endorsement fee in the neighborhood of Tiger Woods’s. The source of Mercury’s funding was a tightly held secret but speculation ran wild that Arnold Pope Sr. was Rose’s secret backer and the money was Rose’s payoff for perjuring himself at Sally Pope’s trial. If so, the money was well spent, because Mercury’s stock and profits had risen as swiftly as Posner served. The firm now successfully sold hunting, fishing, golf, and basketball equipment and it had a line of clothing and foot gear. The face of Mercury was the handsome Tony Rose, but Burdett was certain that the brains and the money behind the company was Arnold Pope.

“WHAT’S THIS ABOUT Marsh?” Arnold Pope asked as soon as Burdett walked into his home office.

“He’s coming back to stand trial. He’ll probably be here within the week.”

“How do you know that?”

Senior’s excitement increased as Burdett recounted Amanda Jaffe’s visit.

“Bring me a copy of the case file,” Senior said as soon as Burdett was through.

“It’s big. It might…”

“I know it’s big. Copy it and have it here by tomorrow. And keep me up to date on every single development, no matter how small.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Karl.”

“Yes, sir.”

“In life it is rare to get a second chance. Now you have one.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“No, Karl, you will not simply do your best.” Senior locked eyes with Burdett. “Either you or Marsh will be totally destroyed by the end of this case. You decide who will be buried.”

Before Burdett was out of the room, Senior had swiveled his chair so he was staring through his window at Mount Hood, but it was not the majestic, snow-covered giant he was seeing. In his imagination, he saw Charlie Marsh sweating out his time on death row as each second brought him closer to a lethal injection. Then he thought about Amanda Jaffe. She was very good. Could she achieve what her father had accomplished? Funny things happened to rock-solid cases when a clever lawyer got in front of a jury. Look at the O. J. Simpson case. An idiot should have been able to convict him but he walked.

Senior had attempted to have Marsh killed shortly after he was granted asylum in Batanga, but the mercenary he’d hired had backed out of the contract. President Baptiste made a lot of money portraying Batanga as a safe haven for the most wanted. It only took a little research for the would-be assassin to learn the fate of those who attempted to end the lives of the fugitives whose safety the president guaranteed. The killers who were caught in-country met a fate too grisly to describe. A Dutchman who had murdered one of Baptiste’s guests had been pursued relentlessly by agents of the National Education Bureau. When they caught him, he earned a PhD in torture before his body parts were scattered around the tourist attractions of Amsterdam, guaranteeing that Baptiste’s message would be communicated worldwide. Try as he might, Senior could find no one who would risk Baptiste’s wrath. Now it appeared that his quarry was coming to him.

Senior pushed himself to his feet. At seventy, his joints were stiffening and his back had tightened up. Walking was a chore but he didn’t let anyone see his discomfort, because he never showed weakness. After completing the laborious climb to the second floor, he worked his way slowly and painfully to the room at the far end of the corridor, where Junior had spent his boyhood. Now it was a shrine. The shades were always down in this room and the ceiling fixture was coated with dust. When he flipped the switch, muted light cast a yellowish glow over the pictures on the walls and the trophies, medals, and mementos that filled the shelves. Across the room was a bed whose sheets never needed to be changed.

Senior sat on the bed and stared at a picture of Junior with the first President Bush. Senior was a good friend of the ex-president, who had spoken on Junior’s behalf at a fund-raiser during his son’s first congressional campaign. Other notable politicians had helped his boy get to Congress. They knew he was the future and they flocked to embrace him. Senior, who almost never cried, felt tears well up as he thought about what might have been had Junior not been cut down in the prime of his life by that…He took deep breaths until he was back in control of his emotions.

Pope shifted his attention to another photograph, Junior in his dress uniform shortly before his discharge from the Marines. If ever there was a man who looked like he should be president of this great country, it was Arnold Pope Jr.

Next to the picture of his son in his dress uniform was a picture of Junior holding a child in his hand as he would a football. It had been taken when Arnold Pope III was two weeks old. That bitch had named Junior’s boy Kevin out of spite, but his grandson would always be Arnold III to Senior. Just thinking of his only grandchild made Senior’s fists clench. Junior’s whore had kept Senior away from his grandson with restraining orders and by putting the Atlantic Ocean between them, but he had photographs and videos taken surreptitiously through telescopic lenses. What he did not have was his grandson, the future of the Pope clan and the last of his bloodline.

Junior was dead. Senior faced that fact every day. His boy had been a candle whose light would have guided America to a radiant new day of decency and honor. Charlie Marsh and the whore had snuffed out that candle and they would pay. Senior knew that he could never get his son back, but he could get revenge.

CHAPTER 25

Herb Cross’s wife was a CPA in the Portland branch of a national accounting firm. When she was promoted to a position in the firm’s national headquarters in Atlanta, Herb regretfully resigned. The regret went both ways. After Herb left, Frank used several investigators but none of them had been satisfactory. Then Amanda told Frank about Kate Ross.

Kate had a degree in computer science from Caltech and had been recruited by the Portland Police Bureau to investigate computer crime. After a few years of pounding a keyboard for a living, Kate had asked for a transfer. While working in Vice and Narcotics, she was involved in a shoot-out at a shopping mall that had left civilians and an informant dead. The Bureau had made Kate the department’s scapegoat and she’d been driven off the force.

Kate’s computer skills and police background helped her secure a job as an investigator at Oregon’s largest law firm. When Daniel Ames, a first-year associate at the firm, was charged with murder, Kate asked Amanda to represent him. After the two women cleared Daniel’s name, Jaffe, Katz hired Kate as the firm’s investigator and Daniel as an associate, and Kate and Daniel started living together.