“Okay. Here’s the thing. For three hours before Bales and his ROK counterpart interrogated me, a long line of Korean officers kept appearing with keys to my cell. I got my ass thrashed more times than I could count. Can I prove that? No. Then I got dragged in to see Bales and his ROK buddy Inspector Choi. They knocked me around so hard they cold-cocked me. Will I ever be able to prove it? No. Enough guys in that precinct got a piece of my ass that there’ll be a wall of silence harder than a woodpecker’s lips.”

“Then what do you hope to accomplish with Moran and Jackson?”

“We need to ask them if they got their asses crushed, too. We need to know if their testimony was coerced or not.”

“Assume for the sake of argument they claim it was coerced. Will you be able to prove that in court?”

“It’s doubtful, Your Honor. Choi has already filed a fabricated statement that claims Jackson was beaten up by his cellmate. I don’t know what Moran’s story is.”

“Then what’s your point? Why should I permit this if it’ll still prove irrelevant?”

“Because it could lead us down other paths.”

“And do you want to tell me what those other paths are?”

Carruthers, I suddenly realized, was considerably smarter than I’d given him credit for. I think he suspected from the beginning that we had some larger ulterior motive here.

I looked at Katherine and she looked at me, and we both realized that if we confided to Carruthers that we suspected the Itaewon Police Precinct of a mass conspiracy that included the massacre the day before, he’d wring both our necks.

Katherine, being the lead counsel, took over. “No, Your Honor, not at this time.”

He leaned back in his chair. He was still brooding and bouncing that little ball on his desk. “But you expect me to approve your request?”

“Yes sir,” Katherine said, and it did not escape my notice that she sounded and looked as meek as a housebroken kitten. Suspiciously so, in fact. She’d apparently switched to good cop/good cop routine.

Smart girl. There’s a time for in-your-face, and there’s a time for laying back.

The ball stopped bouncing and the judge bent forward again.

“All right, I’ll let you know my judgment. But if I allow it, the prosecutor has to be present. Moran and Jackson are his witnesses and he has the right to share in the fruits of your discovery. Another thing – call it point one: I want to know whatever you find out, as soon as you find it out. I don’t want to get into court and have any big surprises. Not on this case. Capisch?”

“Capisch, Your Honor,” we both respectfully replied.

“Point two: Don’t forget point one. God help you, don’t forget point one. Miss Carlson, don’t confuse me with those pansy-asses you baited and sucker-punched in the past. I’ll rip off your head and poop down your throat.”

Katherine sat and stared at him, and I have to tell you, there wasn’t any doubt in my mind that Barry Carruthers was not a man to tangle with. Nor was there any doubt that he’d researched Katherine’s trial history and was well aware of her theatrical tactics.

He then said, “Now, you step outside, Miss Carlson. I need to have a word with Drummond here.”

It wasn’t like she could say no. It was his office, after all. For once, she didn’t backtalk, or grumble, or anything. She got up and left.

I sat nervously in my chair and anxiously wondered what this was about. If he didn’t want witnesses, it had to be bad.

He picked up the ball and started squeezing it again.

“Drummond, do I need to tell you that our friends in Washington aren’t real pleased with your performance out here?”

So that’s what this was. He’d asked the civilian to leave so we could have a soldier’s heart-to-heart. He was about to deliver the mail, as they say. I slumped down in my chair.

“No, Your Honor. I think I’ve guessed that.”

“You’re a SPECAT special attorney, right?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” I replied, although my mouth was agape.

What I was admitting was that I’m a Special Actions attorney assigned to a secret court that handles the ultra-sensitive cases of soldiers assigned to what the Army calls “black units.” In other words, units whose purpose and missions are so absurdly secret and sensitive the military won’t admit they exist. There are a lot more of these units than the public has any idea exists, which is actually paradoxical, because the public supposedly is unaware any of these units exist. With the marked exception of Delta Force, of course, which has to be the most widely publicized nonexistent unit in history.

Although the soldiers assigned to black units take strict vows to never mutter a word about what they do, when one of these “black” troopers gets accused of a serious crime, most of them instantly forget that vow and start threatening public disclosure unless they get a favorable plea bargain. There’s also the danger that a public court-martial would expose information that could be hazardous to the nation’s security.

Thus the SPECAT tribunal, where I work. The judges are handpicked. The lawyers are handpicked. We all have security clearances that run down the length of our arms. I got to be one of these attorneys because I was in the outfit, which happens to be the “blackest” unit of them all, and I got wounded so badly on a mission that my career as an infantry officer, such as it was, was over. The powers that be decided to send me to law school and then make me pay it back by working as a SPECAT lawyer.

I’m sure they were all regretting it now.

Judge Barry Carruthers wasn’t supposed to know this, of course, because the existence of the SPECAT court was kept as secret from the rest of the JAG Corps as it was from the rest of humanity.

He was grinning. “Drummond, I spent four years as a SPECAT prosecutor.”

“I had no idea,” I admitted.

“Long time ago. But I’m not keeping you here to trade chummy stories about life as a SPECAT lawyer.”

“No, I don’t guess. You’re here to tell me to straighten up and fly right.”

“I’ve never heard of a court case that caused so much godawful carnage. You realize, don’t you, that this alliance is on the brink of disintegrating?”

“That’s what they say on the news.”

“The news don’t know the half of it, Drummond. The Secretary of State’s here on a last-ditch effort to keep it together. Personally, I don’t have any money on him. You should see the messages flying back and forth between here and Washington. It’s ugly. And if you and Miss Carlson come into my court and start trying to prove this Lee kid was gay, then don’t wait till the last American flight to get off this peninsula, because our boys will be loaded on troopships, and it won’t be long before Uncle Kim up north decides it’s time to come south for an extended visit.”

“Your Honor, I-”

“Knock off the ‘your honor’ crap. We both know this isn’t a proper judge-to-lawyer conversation. This is a mano-to-mano chat we’re having here.”

“Right.”

He fixed his eyes on my face. He paused for a moment to let me know this was a decisive moment. Then he asked, “Do you really believe Whitehall’s innocent? Don’t screw with me now, Drummond. I’m not the jury. You don’t have to persuade me. Give me a no-shit answer.”

I did not pause or hesitate. “Of murder, rape, and necrophilia, I do. The other crimes, I suspect he did.”

He leaned back in his chair and kept staring at me. I guess he was trying to look into my soul to see if I was capable of telling the truth or if I was just one more prevaricating, weasel-faced defense attorney.

Finally he nodded that big head of his and said, “All right. Do what you have to do. Talk to Moran and Jackson. On Friday, we’re gonna have a trial, and you and Carlson come in and give it all you’ve got. No holds barred. I won’t be easy on you, but if an American soldier, of all people, can’t get a fair trial, then you and I chose the wrong profession.”