Mortal Allies (24 page)

“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.”

And she smiled. “Circuitous logic? So? Isn’t that what law is all about? It’s the perfect catch-22. We didn’t invent it. We’re simply taking advantage of it.”

I was still hung up on my misgivings about this, but as much as I hated to admit it, she did seem to have a point. It was exactly the kind of clever loophole lawyers are hired to find.

“Okay,” I grumbled, not willing to verbally acknowledge her victory, and therefore struggling to move on. “So OGMM called and warned you about these preachers?”

“There’s a clerk in the outer office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who happens to be one of his most trusted assistants. He considers her like a daughter. She’s been with him since he was a brigadier general. His heart would break if he knew she was a lesbian.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“It’s the truth,” she said, smiling. “She was the one who actually typed up the memo that asked the Chief of Staff of the Army to meet with these preachers and invite them over here in the first place.”

My mind was reeling. This was a lot to take in. Finally I said, “So what do you think about these preachers?”

If I didn’t mention it before, one of the scariest things about Carlson is how incredibly fast she shifts moods. Before I could blink an eye, her smile vanished and was replaced by a snarling war mask.

“They’re the most dangerous threat we’ve faced yet.”

“Huh?” I was completely taken aback. “You’ve got to be kidding. Some bunch of overweight old southern hicks. How much damage can they do?”

I had misgivings about them, too, but the most dangerous threat we’d faced yet? Give me a break.

She leaned back in her chair and assumed this slightly superior air. “Look, Drummond, I know you find this difficult to accept, but we’re engaged in a war. It’s like the civil rights struggle of the fifties and sixties. These preachers, they’re the most potent weapon the bigots and homophobes possess. They’re the atomic weapons of the antigay side.”

I gave her a disbelieving look like I just knew she was overstating things. Because she was. Plus I knew it would piss her off. And it did.

She wagged an angry finger in my face. “Don’t you dare give me that look. I’m not exaggerating. They preach the worst kind of intolerance. They preach that homosexuals are sinful perverts, unnatural creatures, depraved seducers. They’re no different than the Catholic priests of the medieval era ordering their followers to burn witches and unbelievers at the stake. How can people listen to them? Just look how often they’ve been proven wrong — Galileo, Columbus, Scopes. Why do people believe them? If any other institution had been proven wrong on so many fundamental questions, it would be a laughingstock. It’s astonishing.”

“Katherine,” I said, in a deliberately condescending way, “you’re way too rabid on this. Like it’s some kind of no-holds-barred war. It ain’t to me. I’m a lawyer. We’ll probably lose, and if we do, I’ll just drink a beer, and maybe feel bad for a day or so, then start getting ready for the next court case.”

Okay, maybe I was exaggerating a bit, but her response was way out of proportion. It seemed I’d really whacked her unfunny bone, because she looked at me like I was the lowest thing she ever saw. Every bit of angelicism fled from her features. She actually turned this deep, dark shade of red, like there was a fire burning beneath her skin.

“Get out!” she said, coldly, controlled, but clearly on the verge of screaming.

I shrugged nervously. “Hey, don’t take it personally.”

“Get out, right now! I don’t want to see your face.”

I momentarily considered defying her, but one of the things I’ve learned in life is that when a woman’s angry at you, neither logic nor reason have a chance of prevailing. Like a vacuum sucks air from a room, a woman’s fury sucks every bit of rationality from a situation. I therefore did the only wise thing I could. I swiftly got lost.

It didn’t help that Imelda grazed me with another sizzling look when I passed by. Grumpy and the amazon stared at me, too, and they didn’t look real pleased to see me, either.

I suddenly realized something here. I was sexually stranded, isolated, alone. I was the only straight lawyer, for one thing. I was also the only male left on the defense team. Well, there was Keith, but he was in a coma (which I vaguely envied), so that left only me.

I went back to my room and turned on CNN again. I was sort of idly watching out of the corner of my eye while I relaxed on the bed and tried to think through my next step, when I caught a quick glimpse of Michael T. Barrone, one of those flashy, thirtysomething megabillionaires who’d made more money than God by being one of the early Internet pioneers. I don’t know why, because megabillionaires normally bore me to tears, but I turned up the sound.

“That’s right,” Barrone was saying to some hidden interviewer. “I did contribute the money. And I’ll keep contributing money until they tell me it’s enough.”

The interviewer’s voice said, “You’re a businessman, Mr. Barrone. And right now, this is a very unpopular cause. The Southern Religious Leaders Conference is calling for a boycott against your company. Aren’t you afraid it will harm your business?”

Barrone’s face got very steely. “The hell with my business. OGMM asked me for the money, and I’m only too damned pleased to give it to them. What’s happening here is wrong. I’ve got gay employees . . . Everybody does. I’m putting my money where my principles are.”

Then Michael Barrone evaporated into thin air, replaced by a shot of several hundred Americans in the cavernous lobby of what looked to me to be the Shilla Hotel, one of the swankest inns in all of Korea.

A female voice, struggling to sound dramatic, was saying, “And so, three more planeloads of gay activists arrived in Seoul today, adding to the three that landed last night, and three more are expected tomorrow, adding a new twist to what has already proven to be the most dramatic military court case in many decades. This is Sandra Milken, reporting live in Seoul.”

I fell back hard and cursed loudly. The effect was lost, because Carlson couldn’t hear me, and the cursing was directed entirely at her.

She wanted a cultural war, and by God she was going to have one. This had to be her idea, her response to all these preachers. And believe me, it was a fantastically awful idea.

You don’t import a few hundred angry, screaming American homosexuals to Korea, of all places, and expect things to work out. She was courting the worst kind of calamity and grief.

C
hief Warrant Officer Three Michael Bales could not have been more amiable or polite. He smiled so hard it was a miracle he didn’t break his face. He shook hands with holy fury and said “pleased to meet you” like he really, really meant it. He invited me into his office, offered me a seat, brought me coffee, asked me how I was doing, how I liked Korea, how I liked the accommodations at the hotel, and so on, and so on.

As performances go, it was a doozy; about what you’d expect from a professional cop who knows the way things are. See, Bales, being an experienced CID investigator, knew that he and I were on a collision course. He was the investigator who broke the case. He was the chief witness for the prosecution. He was the linchpin to every iota of evidence that pointed at my client.

He was going to end up on a witness stand where Carlson or I were going to try our best to bend him over backward and slip him the willie. We had to prove he was an incompetent bungler, the damned fool who messed up the evidence, jumped to conclusions, mishandled the witnesses, overlooked things that would exonerate my client, and just generally dicked it up.

This was inevitable. He knew it and I knew it. Any attorney representing a seemingly guilty client has no other option but to attack the credibility of the key prosecution witness.

That’s why he was turning on the charm. As we say in the Army, he was presetting the conditions of the battlefield.

The moment I laid eyes on him, I silently cursed. Young, maybe thirty-five or so, dark-haired, strong-featured, with pleasant, pale blue eyes and a benevolent, engaging smile. Unlike most CID guys, who dress horribly, he wore a finely cut gray pinstripe suit with a plain white, freshly starched cotton shirt and a simple striped tie. Lord Fauntleroy he wasn’t, but he looked dapper enough. Worse, he seemed competent and damned handsome in a very earnest, midwestern, likable way.

Here’s why this was bad. Court-martial boards are as susceptible to appearances as anybody else. In fact more so. They’re trapped in their chairs ten hours a day with nothing to do but observe the main actors. They watch and they listen, and they watch and listen some more, and they form opinions. And military men and women, just because of the screwy way they are, are more swayed by appearances than just about anybody else.

I would’ve been much happier if Bales was a middle-aged, balding guy with grungy teeth, a hefty beer gut, scuffed-up shoes, and a plaid sport coat and striped trousers. At least then, when I tried to persuade the board that he’d been criminally negligent, they’d look at Bales, and say to themselves, “Yep, I could see that.”

Anyway, Bales got done with his pleasant routine, and we sat and stared at each other like a bull and matador.

Then I broke the ice. “So, Chief, I’ve read your statements, and, as you might imagine, I’ve got a few questions.”

“Yes sir,” he said, perfectly straight-faced. “I thought you might.”

“Right. Question one, then. When you first got to Whitehall’s apartment building, exactly how many South Korean police were there?”

Suspecting I was up to something clever, he paused, appeared thoughtful, then said, “To the best of my recollection, perhaps twenty.”

“Perhaps twenty, huh? Does that mean you don’t exactly know how many?”

Again, he appeared thoughtful. He said, “That’s correct, Major. I don’t know exactly how many.”

“Pardon me for asking again. I just want to be clear on this point. You don’t know how many Korean police officers were at the apartment building?”

He looked at me very steadily. Crime scenes are supposed to be tightly controlled, almost hermetically sealed. From reading his and Sergeant Wilson Blackstone’s earlier statements, I already had some fairly strong suspicions that things had gotten out of hand. Now I had the feeling I was getting that big break — the stuff we defense attorneys dream about.