CHAPTER 14

At home, Diane insisted in desperation that Kevin quit the case.

After Nihudian’s death, he felt as if he was in a constant daze. He had been the one who insisted on going to Sokolaz, despite Nihudian’s reservations. Now, because of him, two little girls in Sarajevo had lost their father. While Kevin didn’t have the will to resist Diane’s stance, neither did he do anything to take himself off the case. He was stuck in limbo, as if he had become a numb caricature of whom he had once been.

Slowly, after a few days and some long jogs through the Wassenaar dunes, Kevin’s instinct to fight began coming back. If he quit now, Nihudian’s death would have been for nothing. Even if he lost, at least if he saw Draga’s case through, he would vindicate the principle that even war criminals should receive a vigorous and effective defense. A Muslim man had died while trying to obtain favorable evidence for an accused at the Tribunal. The least he could do, Kevin decided, was to continue the pursuit of that evidence.

“I’m going to stay on as Draga’s lawyer,” he finally told Diane. He explained his reasoning as she recoiled with fear. “But I promise I’ll never set foot in Bosnia again.”

If she was relieved in the slightest, Diane didn’t let on.

Kevin decided to try to get his hands on a list of the bona fide Black Dragons who were trained and enrolled under Draga’s command. Under the Tribunal’s rules of superior responsibility, if Kevin could prove that a crime was committed by someone impersonating a Black Dragon, Draga could not be held responsible for that crime. Kevin needed a roster of the Black Dragons to look for the name Victor Vidic and other persons who had been identified as having committed war crimes.

He wrote Bradford Stone, but received a sharp reply that they had no such list.

Draga was sorry about Nihudian, but when Kevin asked him about the existence of such a list, his client was steadfast in not wanting to participate in his defense.

Kevin next asked Zoran Vacinovic, but Vacinovic said his government wouldn’t serve up lists of its citizens that the prosecution might use to indict people for war crimes.

Kevin found the entire scenario unbelievably frustrating. In the U.S. Attorney’s office, he could get his hands on a document by having an FBI agent serve a subpoena. As a defense lawyer, he was reduced to begging, and still he couldn’t get what he needed.

That night, Kevin helped Ellen pack her suitcase for their long-planned Christmas visit to California. “Guess what?” he said casually. “What you said about people dressing up like the Black Dragons is coming true.” He told her about what the former judge had said.

Ellen was proud. “You ought to listen to me more often, Daddy. I’ll solve your cases for you.”

“Well, solve this for me, Ms. Detective,” said Kevin, sitting down on the edge of her bed. “How do I get a list of real Dragons to prove that the people who committed the war crimes are not on that list and therefore were not under Draga’s command?”

“What are the choices?” Ellen always wanted her problems to be multiple choice.

“Number one, we get it from Draga. Number two, we get it from the Serbian government. Number three, we get it from the prosecution. But they’ve all said no.”

“Elementary, my dear Daddy,” Ellen said. “I choose number four.”

“But there’s no number four.”

“Think outside the box, dude,” Ellen said, giggling. “That’s what you tell me.”

“You’re a big help, Sherlock. Here’s your fee.” Kevin reached over and tickled Ellen on her sides. She convulsed with laughter and scampered away.

Think outside the box. Good advice, Kevin mused.

It made him think of his old friend and former colleague, Bud Marcello, who had survived a long career in the bureaucratic FBI by doing just that – again and again.

Two days later, Kevin was lunching with Bud Marcello at Mac’s in Santa Rosa.

“I still can’t picture you as a defense lawyer, Kevin.”

“It’s not exactly what I had in mind either,” Kevin admitted as he sipped a Diet Coke. “I never knew dealing with a client could be so difficult. I wish Draga would help with his defense. Some clients want to help too much, but this guy won’t help one bit.”

Bud was amused. “He wants to be a martyr. That’s his choice. At least he can’t complain about the outcome.”

“I just can’t play to lose. It’s not my nature. Plus, I’m not convinced he did what he’s charged with.”

“Oh, an innocent client,” Bud said, laughing. “You’ve turned into a real true believer, old buddy.”

“That Tribunal is a prosecutor’s dream. They hold all the cards. They almost put me in jail. Can you believe that? Then I filed a motion for intelligence agency files on my client and they pretended it never existed. Vanished, even though I had a file-stamped copy. It makes me think somebody is hiding something. I’ve been thinking that if I could get my hands on the CIA’s records, they might have a list of men under Draga’s command.”

“That could break either way for your client, you know?”

“Yeah, well, right now I’m willing to take the chance.”

Kevin had been edging up on something, but he let Bud take the lead.

“Hey, remember that lady and her husband who worked for the CIA and were convicted of selling information to the Russians? Andrew and Maria Jones.”

“Sure do.”

“You know, I handled a lot of the interviews with them.”

Kevin did know. He had remembered somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean on the flight to San Francisco about Bud’s involvement in the espionage case, wherein the Jones couple had eventually cooperated with the government in exchange for lighter sentences. Even in instances involving CIA officers, the FBI had jurisdiction to investigate criminal prosecutions of U.S. espionage laws.

“Maria is okay. She’s Italian, you know?”

“A real pisano, huh?” Kevin grinned.

“She found herself in some stuff that was mostly Andrew’s doing – that guy I did not like – and she went along for the ride. Anyway, she’s doing her time at the federal joint in Pleasanton. Go see her and tell her ole Bud says howdy.”

“It’s worth a try,” Kevin said, smiling inwardly, thinking: How many retired FBI agents would consider a convicted CIA spy “okay.” Bud Marcello was one of a kind.

Bud took out his pen and wrote something in Italian on his napkin. “Show this to Maria.” He handed Kevin the napkin. “In the meantime, I’ll make some calls.”

The next morning, Kevin drove to the women’s prison and was led into a conference room near the warden’s office. The prison resembled a college campus, except for the towering barbed wire fences that surrounded the facility. The inmates were allowed to roam freely within the fences, and after a few minutes, Maria Jones opened the door to the conference room and entered unescorted.

“Ms. Jones, I’m Kevin Anderson,” Kevin said offering his hand.

Maria Jones shook Kevin’s hand. “I was expecting you.”

“That’s good. A mutual friend asked me to show you this.” He pulled out Bud’s napkin.

Maria picked it up and read the note. She was a small, thin woman, who looked to be in her early forties. Her dark black hair was streaked with gray and pulled back in a bun. Her skin looked wrinkled and her eyes tired.

Kevin expected Maria to be cautious. She had received a twenty-year sentence, and Kevin figured that, like most inmates, she still clung to some hope of getting out earlier, either by cooperating further with the government or by filing post-conviction legal challenges. What he was asking her to do now did not fall into either category.

Maria smiled warmly. “Your friend has been good to my family since I have been in here. I’d like to pay him back by helping you if I can.”