I reached inside my trouser pocket and withdrew the videocassette tape Harry had given me. I handed it to him. “This is an uncut ABC tape of the massacre. You got people who can enhance it? Maybe clear up some of the blurring where the camera’s not focused properly?”

“Depends how many color pixels the camera caught.”

“Okay, here’s the thing. There’s a point in the film where I’m running out of the crowd, going after one of the two shooters. Then there’s a point where the shooter pauses to draw a new magazine.”

He wearily said, “We all know about that, Drummond. It’s been on all the TV news shows.”

“Right. Here’s the thing, though. Study the shooter just before he makes the decision to drop his weapon and hightail it. He looks over to his right.”

His interest perked up. “Okay, so there’s a spotter, or somebody else who was there.”

“Right. I think I passed right by him. I think he’s in the film. He’s standing perfectly upright, as calm as can be. Everybody else is either hitting the concrete or moving in confusion. Not this guy. He’s watching. He’s composed. That’s what I want you to check.”

Mercer took the videocassette tape. “Who do you think he is?”

“I haven’t got a clue.”

“Okay, we’ll give it a try.”

“How long?”

“Hard to say. Won’t take us long to compress and code this and send it back to Langley by satellite. It’s two in the morning there, though. They’ll have to roust some techies out of bed and get ’em to work.”

“It’s worth it,” I told him. “Trust me.”

“Yeah? Tell me more, Drummond.”

“Not yet. Get a clear picture of this guy.”

At that instant, Mercer’s cell phone rang. He pulled it up to his ear and turned away from me, so he could murmur and whisper with whatever spook buddy was on the other end. It was a brief conversation.

He put the phone back in his pocket and looked at me. “The guys following you are Korean cops. I guess they’re trying to keep an eye on you because of all the trouble you’ve been causing.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I said.

It was Wednesday afternoon. The trial opened Friday morning. We had thirty-six hours left. I hoped I wasn’t imagining things. I hoped the CIA’s techies could find enough color pixels to get a reasonable picture of this guy. I hoped he wasn’t just some guy who turned out to be deaf and blind and was standing perfectly still only because he didn’t have a clue what was going on. What I really hoped was that he didn’t turn out to be a tree.

The time had come for Katherine and me to pay another visit to our client. With thirty hours left till the trial started, we’d reached what lawyers call the moment of decision. We climbed into the sedan and I insisted on hitting McDonald’s and the Class VI store, which, to the uninitiated, is the military version of a liquor store, only the prices are much cheaper because the booze is untaxed. If the drunks of America had any idea how much Uncle Sam gouges them, there’d be another American revolution.

I splurged on two six-packs of Molson and another bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. I wasted a moment trying to persuade Katherine to get her OGMM buddies to recompense me for my costs, but she’s a stickler on these things. She said bribes don’t fall within OGMM’s idea of allowable expenses.

We actually had an amiable chat on the way over, although our discussion was intermittent and halting, and I could tell she was distracted and nervous. She kept tinkering with a leather band around her left wrist, and every now and again stared wistfully out the window, like she didn’t want to be in this car, like she really didn’t want to visit our client.

I guessed she was apprehensive about admitting to Whitehall that his defense was damn close to hopeless. That’s never a great feeling. On the other hand, Katherine had spent most of her legal career telling clients they didn’t stand a chance. I don’t know what her win-loss record looked like, but if it was 0 for 100, I wouldn’t be surprised. She’d won plenty of appeals, because that was the point of her strategy, but she was probably accustomed to seeing jury foremen shuffle their feet, and avoid her eyes, and look up at the judge, and say, “Hang the bastard.”

So what was making her so pent-up? It wasn’t the public spotlight, I didn’t think. She’d bathed in the public glare more than any other ten attorneys combined. She’d been cover-storied on magazines, profiled on those television news magazine series, had her glitzy moments with Larry King and Katie Couric.

Was it because this was a murder trial? After all, the worst that comes from your ordinary gay trial is maybe a few years in the slammer. More often than not, it’s a dishonorable discharge from the service, which is really nothing but a fancy epithet for being fired. Maybe the stakes were getting to her. Maybe the thought her client could get the death sentence was eating at her insides.

Anyway, the big bully rushed right down when the desk guard retrieved him. He broke into a huge, hungry smile when he laid eyes on me, and I winked and pointed a finger at the search room. He nearly sprinted for it.

He dug his hand inside the bag, withdrew his scotch, his two burgers, grinned hungrily, and then led us to Whitehall’s cell. I could teach that Pavlov guy a few tricks.

Again he said one hour, ushered us into the cell, then wandered off, actually caressing the bottle of scotch. I was smitten with envy. I wanted to caress that Johnnie Walker Blue with my tongue.

Thomas got up and studied both of our bleak faces for a stagnant moment. Then he reached out a hand and I shook it. He actually hugged Katherine, and I’ll be damned if she didn’t collapse into his body, then start sobbing on his shoulder. I heard these small, muffled moans. Her body was quaking.

He stroked her hair and said, “Hey, hey, come on. Take it easy, okay. Katherine, really. Don’t get all worked up. I know you’re doing your best.”

She finally pulled herself away, and I scratched my head a few times. I’ve seen some things in my day, but a defense attorney crying on a client’s shoulder? Everything was backwards in this case. But even more backwards was seeing Katherine Carlson with tears on her cheeks.

I decided it was time to immediately rearrange the mood in this tiny cell, so I put down my legal case, opened it, tossed two Big Macs at Whitehall, and then withdrew three beers.

I said, “Hey, Tommy, this guy walks into a bar with a monkey. The guy takes a stool at the bar, and the monkey perches next to him. The guy orders a drink while the monkey starts eating everything it can reach – peanuts, olives, lime slices, even napkins. The monkey wanders over to the pool table, where a couple of guys are playing, and he jumps up on the middle of the table, then lifts up the cue ball and swallows it whole. The monkey’s owner immediately knocks down his drink and says to the bartender and the other customers,‘Hey, I’m real sorry. The little bastard always eats everything he can get his hands on. I’ll pay for everything, I swear.’ So he does, and then he leaves. A month later, he and the monkey come back again, they take stools at the bar, and the guy orders a drink. Everybody in the bar watches as the monkey reaches across the bar, grabs a Maraschino cherry, holds it up to his eye, reaches down and stuffs it up his butt, then pulls it out and eats it. It’s so gross, people are getting sick. The guy says to the bartender, ‘Hey, I’m really sorry. I know it’s disgusting, but ever since he ate that cue ball, he measures everything he eats.’ ”

Tommy started laughing like hell. These huge guffaws were erupting from his throat. The joke was funny, but it wasn’t that funny. I guessed the tension and pressure had him teetering on an emotional cliff.

As for Katherine, she coldly said, “Is that a joke?”