Private Sector (41 page)

Cy asked, “Unprovoked?”

“Well. . . yes. It was a complete surprise, Cy.”

When no further questions were raised, he continued, “He told me he wouldn’t sign unless the firm dropped all charges against him. I told him we wouldn’t be blackmailed. He told me how much he detested the firm. Harold, he called you a phony, pompous ass.” He looked at me and added, “These are his words, mind you—he said the partners of this firm are all limp-wristed assholes who lack the backbone to stand up to him.”

Cy looked at me. “True?”

“Parts of it.” For instance, it was true the partners were ass-holes.

“What parts aren’t true?” Cy asked.

Janet replied, “Are we done describing my client’s purported crimes and offenses?”

The partners all looked at one another. Cy replied, “I believe we are.”

Bronson informed Janet, “If you have something relevant and factual, we’ll hear you out.”

Janet acknowledged his patronizing tone with a smile. “Relevant?”

“You’re an attorney, young lady. You should know the definition.”

“If my client discovered a massive fraud involving your firm, would that be relevant?”

“No, it is not. I will not allow you to turn this into a circus.”

“Have it your way, then,” Janet replied. “I’m filing a civil suit in the morning for the vicious and unprovoked assault on my client by Barry Bosworth.”

“What?” Bronson exploded.

Janet said to me, “Please show these gentlemen your wounds.”

I obediently unbuttoned my shirt and pointed at a massive bruise on my left chest. It looked awful. In fact, it
should
look awful. I had invested a lot of time, trouble, and pain in the bathroom on the plane from Boston, using my shoe to reinforce and expand the mild bruise Barry had actually inflicted.

Janet explained, “These hideous wounds were inflicted by Mr. Bosworth in his attempt to coerce my client into signing a legally flawed audit.” Janet then said to me, “Explain the full extent of your injuries.”

It is axiomatic for lawyers to spice up a conversation with emotive adjectives and pronouns, and Janet had done her part, so I appeared appropriately distraught. “Barry ordered me into the men’s room. The moment we entered, he brutally shoved me against the wall, resulting in a severe concussion. He then assaulted me with his fists, inflicting these serious wounds. I now have short-term memory loss, blurred vision, difficulty breathing, severe whiplash, and mental trauma. I’ve developed a sleeping disorder, appetite problems, mental anguish, and self-esteem issues.”

They didn’t know whether to laugh or howl.

Janet added, “These injuries have been photographed, a doctor has examined my client, and we have statements from two renowned psychiatrists. Sean will require years of expensive therapy. His sterling military career is through, as is his ability to lead the happy, well-adjusted life he experienced before his employment here.”

Well, we hadn’t actually accomplished any of that on the plane ride down, but it is also axiomatic for lawyers to exaggerate, and indeed, they were all staring at Janet now, fully attentive, as she further explained, “Your firm placed my client in the grip of a sadistic bully, and Bosworth committed his heinous, unprovoked assault at the behest of your firm’s tawdry financial interests.” She allowed a moment for the shock to settle in. Then she said, “We’ll be asking for one hundred million in damages.”

“This is preposterous,” Bronson exploded, leaping out of his chair.

The two outside partners were shaking their heads and trying to make sense out of this circus. Cy’s eyes, though, were examining us—apparently, he was the only one in the room with enough sense to take this farce, and us, seriously.

He asked Janet, “You’re claiming Barry attacked Drummond?”

“No question about that.” She nodded in Barry’s direction. “It boils down to who had the motive. His partnership comes under review next month, and clearly relies on his ability to maintain Morris Networks as a client. Your firm is notorious for its treatment of associates. All that pressure. . . he simply snapped.”

Janet peered up at Bronson, who, incidentally, appeared livid, and she instructed him, “Sit down and act like an adult.”

Unaccustomed as he was to being talked down to, he huffed and puffed, while Cy tried to restore order, and Barry insisted, “Cy, Harold. . . it’s a travesty. I never touched him.”

Janet was handling this really well, and she sat patiently and waited for the noise and emotion to subside before she continued. She said, “Our case will obviously require us to expose the filthy scheme Bosworth was trying to keep hidden, a conspiracy involving a company named Grand Vistas that has been indulging in fraudulent activities with your client Morris Networks. We will show that Barry Bosworth put the scheme together, that he met with executives from Grand Vistas, that he arranged the appropriate contracts, that he and, by extension, the senior partners of this

firm were knee-deep in bilking thousands of investors.”

Cy looked surprised and said, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Janet replied, “Morris Networks and Grand Vistas will necessarily be included as litigants. The assault occurred on the improperly policed premises of the former, to cover up the illegal activities of both litigants.”

Janet stood and I followed her lead. She stared down at the partners and warned, “When the Pentagon hears about this, Morris Networks’ contracts will in all likelihood be canceled. I suspect Mr. Morris’s response will be to start shopping around for a new law firm.”

Cy appeared frustrated and implored us, saying, “Please, sit down. Let’s talk this out.”

Barry yelled, “He’s lying!”

Bronson said, “Young lady, you’re a fool if you think you can blackmail this firm.”

Well, we’d gone as far as facts and suspicions would allow, and before we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, I announced, “We’ll be filing at 10:00 A.M. at the Arlington courthouse. Shortly thereafter, we’ll issue a press release to the
Wall Street Journal
and the
New York Times.
I’d advise you to contact your clients and warn them.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

T
HE MOMENT WE STEPPED OFF THE ELEVATOR AND INTO THE LOWER LOBBY, George Meany moved about a foot from me, shoved a finger in my face, and said, “Drummond, I’ve had enough of you and your shit.”

I was a little surprised to see him, and a lot pissed over his finger in my face. In fact, I was just reaching out to stuff the finger up George’s ass when Janet stepped between us and said, “Knock it off, George. If you’ve got something to say, say it to me.”

He leaned back, surprised. “This doesn’t concern you, Janet. It concerns me and Drummond.”

“If it’s between you two, it concerns me.”

“No, it doesn’t,” he insisted. But of course it did. Still, he paused briefly before confessing, “No, I don’t appreciate this asshole convincing you to fly down here and putting you at risk this way. But that’s not why I’m here.”

“Then why are you here?”

He studied her face. He said, “The Director called me an hour ago. He’s furious. The Director, God damn it . . .” He paused and poor Georgie did look a little stunned, and my guess was that the conversation hadn’t been all that pleasant. He said, “All because your friend here was shooting off his idiotic mouth to some AP reporter.”

Janet glanced at me, then back at Meany. She asked, “What are you talking about?”

“The news, Janet.” In response to her blank look, he explained, “It’s being carried everywhere. This idiot, Drummond, told some reporter the killer is a dimwit, that the Bureau is bungling this case since we’ve failed to stop him. He also informed the reporter that the FBI is focused on the wrong suspect, that the man who attacked you clearly isn’t the L. A. Killer.” His eyes shifted to me. “Do I need to explain how much the Bureau appreciates having its nose rubbed in shit by this clown?”

I didn’t recall couching my comments exactly that way. But you see what happens when you do a favor for a reporter?

Now Janet also was looking at me, and she asked, a bit sharply, “Sean, please tell me you didn’t say all that to a reporter.”

“I sure did. All those women looking over their shoulders for a short, stumpy guy with a ponytail. It might even save a life. Did you or your boss ever think about that, George?”

“He’s lying,” Meany said. “Drummond called the reporter to humiliate me and harm my career.”

Not true. Just not true. But I kicked myself because I should have.

He stared at me and added, “Well, guess what, smart guy. The Director made a call to
your
boss. General Thomas Clapper, right? You’re the one who now has career problems.”

I was hoping Janet was seeing what a grouchy, vindictive dick-head this guy was.

But at the same time, it struck me that I might be in serious trouble here. In fact, I was having disturbing visions of Johnston Island Atoll, of Sean Drummond choking on leftover anthrax or mustard gas, or something.

Then again, with a world-class killer hunting my ass, and a roomful of pissed-off lawyers upstairs who would also like to murder me, this was the least of my problems. In fact, I had a lot of balls up in the air, and my life depended on remembering which were catastrophic and which were merely disastrous.

Anyway, Meany began briefing Janet about all the things he’d done to catch the killer. And it all sounded really impressive, unless you listened really closely, in which case it amounted to a lot more of Meany sniffing his own ass.

Also, it went on for a while, because Meany was one of those guys who mistake words and action for results. But he finally wrapped it up, saying, “So, that’s where we’re at, honey.”

Janet replied, “Good. What’s next?”

“Next is you. We need to get you out of here, to someplace safe. The Director authorized a safe house. We’re also beefing up your security detail to ten men.”

Janet said, “George, that’s excessive.”

He smiled and touched her arm. “I’d make it twenty if the Bureau would let me. You’re the most important thing in my life, babe. I’m taking no chances.”

Even the other agents were coughing into their hands and rolling their eyes, which I guess George noticed, because he swiftly mentioned, “Actually, the Director was very expressive about taking every precaution concerning your safety.”

Well, which was it, George—love and lust, or orders from on high?

Understand, though, that I really didn’t give a shit about his motives, and I was actually very pleased with this arrangement. I actually wanted—no, I actually
needed
—Janet tucked away in a safe and faraway place.

So we bid each other adieu, which in Janet’s case meant a kiss on my cheek, which surprised me a little and annoyed George Meany a lot, before he whisked the damsel away to his mountain fortress.

But I now owed George big-time.

And, as if I didn’t have enough problems already, I suddenly recalled that my leased Jag was still parked near the Pentagon heliport, all of Meany’s guys had just left in a cloud of shiny Crown Vics, and I was fairly certain nobody upstairs was in the mood to give mean old Sean a lift back to his apartment. This really got on my nerves. I called a cab.

I actually knocked on my own apartment door, which I don’t ordinarily do. But I was glad I did, because it was opened by Danny, who wore a bulletproof vest and, coincidentally, was directing the nasty black barrel of an M16 assault rifle at my face.

He said, over his left shoulder, “It’s all right. It’s him.”

He stepped back and I entered. I noticed two other men in the middle of my living room, also wearing bulletproof vests, and both were at that moment lowering their weapons.

Spinelli waved an arm in their direction and said, “Chief Warrants Bill Belinovski and Charlie Waters.”

We all nodded at one another. I said to Spinelli, “Problems?”

“None. The provo owes me a few. I told him you was a witness to the murder of an Army soldier and needed protection.”

His reference was to the provost marshal of Fort Myer and the Military District of Washington, a full colonel by rank, military police by branch, who had the unenviable task of overseeing law and order for the entire Army community living around the Capital area. This entails some thirty thousand people, so this is a guy who survives on aspirins and hemorrhoid suppositories. And after signing this authorization, I was going to have to send him my firstborn child, or, considering my romantic prospects, somebody else’s firstborn.

Understand that I’d done everything I could think of to draw the killer to me. But Mrs. Drummond didn’t raise an idiot; no sir. While there’s a certain gallantry in solitary combat—you know, the knights of old, mounted on their trusted steeds, swords at the ready, charging one another in a celestial contest of courage, skill, and wits—the Infantry Manual clearly states that if you show up for the fight, and it turns out it’s an even match, you planned wrong.

Anyway, I faced the three of them and asked, “Did anyone, by chance, happen to remember to bring a flak jacket for me?”

Spinelli lifted one off the floor, tossed it at me, and said, “No weapon though. No authorization for that.” He then asked, “How sure are you he’s coming?”

“Enough so that I just took out a million dollar term life policy.”

We all chuckled, which is the right and manly thing to do in such situations. Everybody knows Army guys are steadfast, hard as nails, and brave to a fault, so that was the act we were trapped in.

But Bill, who incidentally was about six foot two, about 220 pounds, and about as well acquainted with weight machines as our killer, asked me, “What can you tell us about this peckerhead, Major? Strengths, weaknesses.”

“I’m glad you asked. You’ve studied the composite?”

“Danny showed us the shots.”

“Then we all know what he looks like”—I reconsidered that— “well, we know what he looked like this morning. He might be into disguises. But I’m expecting a blind date to drop by. So if a tall, really ugly, fat broad with big tits shows up . . .”

“Yeah?”