Not an innocent man – a free man.

The South Koreans would of course go so insanely crazy with rage they’d probably throw every last American trooper off the peninsula.

The Army would reassign me to be chief counsel on some Aleutian island nobody had ever heard of – and leave me there till the next ice age.

My client, who was possibly a murdering, raping necrophiliac, would adore me.

Katherine would send me Christmas cards the rest of my life.

I’d hate myself forever.

These were all the points I listed in my head as I tried to reason through this. Although I shouldn’t have been the least bit ambivalent, because, technically, there was no debate. It was open and shut. I was supposed to immediately inform my co-counsels and my client of everything I’d just discovered. That was the right and proper thing to do. That was the legally ethical thing to do. It even happened to be the expedient thing to do.

Of course, I wasn’t about to do any such thing.

Some lawyers believe in winning any way they can. It isn’t about guilt or innocence – it’s about winning no matter what it takes. I don’t happen to be one of them.

Clapper had foolishly created an impression of command influence in this case that would be impossible for any military judge to ignore. But were Clapper’s remarks to some bunch of preachers really prejudicial to Whitehall’s fate?

Of course not. On the other hand, it wouldn’t hurt to let Clapper sweat. It might even be helpful.

CHAPTER 14

I went to the hair parlor to see Katherine. Bedlam reigned: Phones were ringing, the clerks were jumping around taking messages, referring calls, scribbling and passing notes. The amazon and the grump were hunched over the fax machine frenziedly shoving papers through the slot and looking like a pair of hens with their tails on fire.

I ignored them and even Imelda, who glowered at me as I walked by. I guess she was pissed that I’d cold-shouldered her these past few days. Hey, what the hell? She’d betrayed me, right? She’d chosen her lot. Didn’t she know they were all gay?

Anyway, I went straight into Katherine’s office. She was on the phone; she shot me a distracted look and kept right on talking. I planted myself in the chair in front of her desk. I wasn’t going anywhere.

Finally she hung up. “Well?”

“I’ve got some very bad news.”

“This isn’t about the religious delegation, is it?” She waved a dismissive hand through the air.

“You mean you already know about them?” I asked, surprised.

“Drummond, I knew about them five days ago. I knew about them before they even walked into the Pentagon to get briefed.”

I got instantly suspicious. “Bullshit. How?”

“OGMM. They keep me informed of things I need to know.”

“Is that so?”

She leaned back in her chair and ran a hand through that long, luxurious hair of hers, as she apparently weighed whether or not I was worthy to be entrusted with this knowledge.

“This stays between us, right?”

This was Katherine Carlson. Before I agreed to anything so open-ended, I said, “It doesn’t involve breaking any laws, does it?”

“Come on, Drummond. If I was breaking laws, think I’d admit it? To you, of all people?”

She had a good point. I simply shrugged.

She leaned toward me. “Do you have any idea what OGMM does? How it works? What it is?”

I didn’t, actually, though I wasn’t going to admit that. Not to Miss Always Number One in the Class, anyway. “Of course I know,” I said with a facial expression and arm gesture intended to imply supreme confidence. “It’s one of those nonprofits that gets oodles of money from guilty-feeling rich liberals and gays, right?”

“Partly right. From a funding angle, anyway. But OGMM’s unique from other gay rights groups. It was formed by gay service-members themselves. It was set up as a secret organization – secret in existence and secret in membership. Put simply, its purpose is to protect gays who want to serve their country without having their rights violated.”

“Only it’s not secret any longer, right?”

“Its existence isn’t, no. It came out of the closet in ’91 when the big debate erupted. However, the identities of its members remain closely guarded. Since all the active members are on active or reserve duty, they can hardly afford to be identified as card-carrying members without betraying their orientation. Then there’s the inactive rolls made up of veterans.”

“So how big is it?”

She smiled. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

“Try me.”

“Four hundred thousand members. Give or take a few.”

“Did I hear that right?”

“That’s right, Drummond. Most are veterans, sort of like a gay VFW, if you will. Some go all the way back to the days before the Second World War. The oldest living member served in World War One.”

“And how many are still on duty?”

“About twenty-five thousand at the latest count.”

It suddenly struck me what I was hearing. “You’re telling me… what? You’ve got twenty-five thousand gays on duty right now? And these people… they, uh, they keep OGMM informed of things?”

She looked like the Cheshire cat who’d just swallowed the Cheshire canary. “You’d be surprised what we know and how quickly we learn it. We even have generals and admirals on the rolls. A few in very important positions, too. Last time I checked, about seven thousand of the active members are officers.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This was fantastic – like having an army of twenty-five thousand spies in uniform. You’d never know if you were talking with one, or sitting next to one in a meeting, or standing beside one at a Pentagon urinal – even in the general officers’ latrine, apparently. They were invisible.

“This is outrageous,” I blurted. “It’s a large-scale conspiracy. I mean, it’s espionage on an almost unimaginable scale,” because, really, that was what it sounded like.

“Don’t be overdramatic, Drummond. These people aren’t giving OGMM the details of the global war plan. Nothing they disclose is classified. They simply call OGMM whenever they see or overhear something that infringes on their rights. They’re not disloyal, either. They’re completely loyal to their own sexuality, and they’re convinced they’re defending the Constitution they’ve sworn to defend. They are, too, believe me.”

“But they’re breaking the law,” I stammered.

“Yeah? Name a law they’re violating.”

I needed a moment to consider that one. I mean, there was something horribly wrong about this. I just knew there was – there had to be. I searched my memory banks of laws and precedents. I spent probably twenty seconds doing that while she sat and watched me with a look of amusement. As far as I could tell, though, she was right – if they weren’t exposing classified information, they weren’t breaking any laws.

Then it hit me.

“Aha!” I said, convinced I’d just found the fatal wrinkle in her argument. “How about when they have to list what organizations they belong to? Every single recruit has to admit that on the recruiting questionnaire. And to get a security clearance you’ve got to do it again.”

“Good point,” she said. “Except that since it’s public knowledge that OGMM is composed of gay people, that means the mere admission they belong to OGMM is synonymous to admitting they’re gay, right?”

“So?”

“And under ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ it’s illegal to ask, right?”

“But they are being asked, Carlson. That’s the point. And if they don’t list it, they’re lying on an official questionnaire. That’s breaking the law.”

“Come on, Drummond – I thought you were a lawyer. What happens if you try to enforce an unconstitutional law? It’s the same as no law at all, right?”

I weakly countered, “That’s circuitous logic.”