“Don’t make a damn to me,” Imelda snorted. “Got three offices in the back, air-conditioning, toilets, and lotsa electric outlets.”
“You’re right,” Katherine said, giving Imelda a warm, proud smile. “It’s perfect.”
Imelda beamed like a happy child. Her mouth spread from one earlobe to the other. I was flabbergasted. This was a lovefest. They were all acting like big buddies, patting each other on the back and grinning like fools. It wasn’t supposed to go down like this. Imelda Pepperfield was the grumpiest, gnarliest person God ever put on this green earth. One of the smartest, too. She did this great impression of a poorly educated, backwoods southern Black girl that somehow fooled nearly all the people, all the time. Not me, though. Imelda is as sly as any lawyer I’ve ever met and nearly as well educated. She has a master’s in English lit and a master’s in criminal law. She keeps all this well disguised because, like many professional noncoms, she knows the ship runs much smoother when the officers on the upper decks feel there’s some tangible basis for their perch on the roost.
I stared hard at Imelda and she glared fiercely right back.
Katherine interrupted our silent showdown by announcing, “They still plan to turn Whitehall over to the Koreans at five o’clock this evening.”
The smile melted off Maria’s tiny face, and Allie looked around the room as though she were searching for something to throw, or break, or kill. They really were an odd couple: complete opposites; one tall, one short; one loud and brassy, the other quiet, withdrawn, and well… grumpy. Not that I understood the first thing about gay relationships, but what the hell did they see in each other?
Anyway, I said, “I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“Why?” Katherine asked. “Do you think we scared them out of it?”
“I think they’re on the phone to D.C. right now. They’re both pissing in their trousers. Brandewaite’s the ambitious type who’d like to be a real ambassador or an assistant muckety-muck someday. And that big-lipped colonel has dreams of general’s stars. The kind of public recognition you just offered isn’t likely to further their careers any.”
“Turn up the heat then,” Katherine snapped. “Allie, call Carson from the Times, and Millgrew from the Post. Tell them I want to meet right away.”
Allie took a step toward her office before I quickly said, “I wouldn’t do that.”
“And why not?”
“Because you don’t want to set a precedent of running to the press every time you don’t get your way.”
“Bullshit,” tiny Maria said. “You just don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?” I asked derisively.
“The press is our best weapon. The system’s against us, and using the press is the only way we can level the playing field.”
“Look,” I said, as condescendingly as I could. “I know you all have this thing against the military, but I don’t. It happens to be where I make my living. The Army’s not perfect, but it’s a damned sight better than you give it credit for.”
Katherine and her coterie all did hairy eye-rolls for a brief second.
“Drummond,” Katherine said, like she was talking to somebody who’d just said something a few leagues below stupid. “You’re the one who doesn’t get it. You come from the other side of the line. You have no idea how your side plays.”
“Wrong. I’m from the other side. I know exactly how we play.”
Katherine started to say something and I cut her off. “Besides, like my mother always says, a good threat’s like a good steak: Let it marinate awhile. Give ’em three hours; then feel free to start babbling with your buddies in the fourth estate.”
Katherine, Allie, Keith, and Maria all huddled together in a corner and began discussing it. I clearly was not welcome. I clearly was not part of the team. It took nearly two minutes before they reached some sort of consensus and Katherine walked back in my direction.
“All right, we’ll wait,” she said. “In the meanwhile, it’s time for you to meet our client.”
Like I couldn’t guess what was behind this. She and the others thought I was finding it too effortless to barter our client’s fate, since I’d never met him and therefore hadn’t developed the sympathetic bond that often forms between an attorney and his customer. In their view, this whole thing was too impersonal for me.
They were making a big blunder, though. The truth is, I was probably more lenient on his behalf because I hadn’t met him. Given the crimes he was accused of, I dreaded how partial I’d be if I met him and became completely persuaded he’d actually done it.
But anyhow, there was no way I could turn them down, so I followed along behind Katherine and Maria as they walked out the door and climbed into one of the sedans Imelda, the traitor, had commandeered.
It took only ten minutes to reach the holding facility on base, an old, drab, one-floored building constructed of concrete blocks, very small, with your standard-issue black metal mesh on the windows. An Army captain with military police brass came into the front office and escorted us past a heavy iron door, then down a short hallway with about six cells on each side. Like most military facilities, the place was spotlessly clean. It reeked of disinfectant, but also cooked bacon. The captain informed us the prisoners had just finished lunch. It was BLT day.
We went down to the end and stopped in front of the last cell on the right. The door was made of steel, and the captain occupied himself for nearly a minute fumbling around for the right key. I paced nervously, because I didn’t know what to expect, although I was anticipating the worst. Murder, rape, and necrophilia are as ghoulish as it gets. I was having flashbacks from that movie The Silence of the Lambs.
The door finally opened and I spotted a figure lying on a metal bunk on the backside of the cell. He got slowly to his feet and approached us with his right hand extended.
He looked youthful, maybe twenty-nine, maybe thirty, with short black hair, intense green eyes, thick eyebrows, a long, straight nose, a strong, narrow jaw, and thin lips that gave an impression of unhappiness. He was very fit-looking, with a lean, sculpted body that could come only from a steady regimen of weight lifting and heavy jogging.
“Katherine, Maria, I’m glad you’re here,” he said, shaking hands with the two of them.
“I’m sorry we didn’t come earlier,” Katherine said. “As soon as we heard, we rushed straight to the embassy to try to get it reversed.”
“And did you?”
“We don’t know yet. We put a good scare into them, but it’s hard to tell which way it’ll go.”
Then there was an awkward moment as Whitehall studied me in apparent confusion.
Katherine finally said, “Thomas, this is Major Sean Drummond. You remember I told you I was firing the military co-counsel the command provided and requesting my own. This is him.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Whitehall said, thrusting out his right hand again.
I hesitated for only a brief moment before I shook it, but long enough for him to get the message. I then mumbled something incoherent that might’ve sounded like “Pleased to meet you, too,” or “You make me sick.” Whichever.
Whitehall sat on his bunk. Katherine and Maria followed and fell onto the bunk beside him. Me? I chose to prop myself against a wall in prickly isolation.
But I never took my eyes off my client. My first impression had been made the moment I heard the details of his crime, and I wanted to see how it squared with his physical presence. His uniform was sharply pressed and creased and his boots glistened as though he spent twenty hours a day rubbing polish on them. Maybe he did; what else are you going to do when you’re sitting on your ass in a cell? The emblem on his collar identified him as an infantry officer, and the ring on the third finger of his left hand was an Academy ring with a big red ruby. He looked like a model young officer: handsome, fit, and meticulously tidy.