like to consider me, I know you and your wife. This is personal. I'll put my heart and soul into defending you."
I paused to let that filter in and got . . . nothing.
"Look, is there somebody else you want? Just say so. It won't hurt my feelings. Hell, I'll even help arrange it."
And indeed I would. I'd throw my heart and soul into it. I wasn't there becausehe'd asked for me, but because Mary begged me. And if you want the whole squalid truth, that left me conflicted, because she and I had once been, uh . . . how do I delicately put this?Involved? What do you want to bet that a lawyer was the first one to utter that particular word that particular way?
Were they in the same chess club? Or did they have a torrid love affair that lasted three incredible years?
Yes, incidentally, on the last point.
His lips made a faint flutter, and I said, "I'm sorry . . . what was that again?"
"I said, I want you."
"You're sure, Billy?"
His head jerked up. "God damn it, call me Billy again and I'll knock you flat on your ass. You're still a major and I'm still a general, you stupid asshole."
Well . . . now there was a dose of the old William Morrison I knew, and never could stand. I was his wife's old slumber buddy, and trust me on this point: This is hardly a male-bonding thing. Nor would we have been pals, anyway, as he was a general and I was a major, and in the Army that's some hard frost, socially speaking. Besides, William T. Morrison was a stuck-up, overambitious, pretty-boy prick, and what in the hell was Mary thinking when she married him?
She could've done so much better. Like me.
I reached into my briefcase and withdrew a few papers. "Okay, sign these forms. The top one requests the JAG to name me as your attorney. The second allows me to root through your records and investigate your background." I held out a pen. "But first promise you're not going to use this to stab yourself or some such shit."
He yanked it out of my hand, scratched his name on both forms, then threw the pen at me. I mumbled, "Thanks."
He mumbled, "Fuck you, Drummond. I mean . . . fuck you."
Was this getting off on the right foot or what? I asked, "Have you admitted anything yet?"
"No . . . of course not. What kind of stupid asshole do you take me for?"
The man is dressed in ugly orange coveralls and is chained to a table in a high-security prison. Can this be a serious question? I said, "Keep it that way. Don't say a thing without me present. Don't hint, sidestep, deny, or evade. Guilty or innocent, your only leverage is what's locked in your head and we need to preserve that. Understand?"
"Drummond, this is my field, remember? Like I need some stupid asshole telling me how it's done? I'll run circles around any jerk-off they bring in here."
The grating arrogance I remembered so well was definitely creeping back to the surface. Was this good or bad?
Other considerations aside, I suppose good. It surely helped that some semblance of his internal spirit was flogging its way into his cerebral cortex. A moment before he'd been a suicidal husk, and if something didn't seep into that vacuum, his whole being might get sucked into nothing.
Anyway, I'd done my duty. I'd warned him, and it was time to complete my spiel. "The Army's facing a time clock of thirty days to formalize your charges and get us into court to plead. A month or so later, there'll be a trial. If you're found guilty, there'll be a sentencing hearing shortly thereafter. Do I need to tell you the ultimate penalty for treason?"
This is the kind of sly query we lawyers employ when our clients are assholes. He frowned, shook his head, and I continued, "Here's how we're going to do this. I'll get a co-counsel who speaks Russian, and I'll set up a satellite office here. Then I'll start my discovery process. You understand how that works?"
"Of course."
"Well, espionage cases are . . . different. It's going to be a real tug-of-war."
He nodded that he understood, though really he didn't understand squat. He was going to discover that his fate hung on a bunch of secret evidence the government's most tightfisted agencies would fight tooth and nail not to release, even to his