The Associate (20 page)

With his left hand, he reached forward, touched the glass, then slid it slowly toward him. He stopped when it was six inches away. He could smell the barley and hops. The glass was still cold, or cold enough.

The war shifted from good versus evil to run versus stay. He almost managed to shove himself away from the bar and sprint back through the slots to the front door. Almost. Oddly, it was Keefe who helped him make the decision. Keefe was his best friend at Washoe, and Keefe was from a wealthy family that was paying for the third rehab. The first two tanked when Keefe convinced himself that a little pot was harmless.

Baxter whispered to himself, "If I drink this beer now, and if things turn out badly, I can always go back to Washoe, and with two failures, I'll be convinced that total abstinence is required. Just like Keefe.

But right now I really want this beer." With both hands he clasped the glass, raised it slowly, sniffing as it grew closer. He smiled when the cold glass touched his lips. The first sip of Nevada Pale Ale was the most magnificent nectar he'd ever tasted. He savored it, eyes closed, face serene.

From over his right shoulder someone yelled loudly, “There you are, Baxter!”

He almost choked and he almost dropped the glass. He jerked around and there was Brother Manny, closing fast and obviously not happy. “What are you doing?” he demanded as he lowered a heavy hand on Baxter's shoulder and seemed ready to trade punches.

Baxter wasn't sure what he was doing. He was drinking a beer, one that was definitely off-limits, but he was so horrified at the moment he couldn't speak. Brother Manny delicately took the glass and slid it down the bar. “Get rid of this,” he growled at the bartender, then he sat on the stool next to Baxter and moved in low until his nose was once again five inches away. “Listen to me, son,” he said in a soft voice. “I cannot make you leave this place right now. That is your decision. But if you want me to help you, then say so. I'll get you out of here, take you back to my church, make some coffee, and we'll tell some stories.”

Baxter's shoulders sagged and his chin dropped. The ale was still attacking his taste buds.

“This could be the most important decision of your life,” Brother Manny said. “Right now, at this moment. Stay or go. If you stay, you'll be dead in five years. If you want to go, then say so and we'll leave together.”

Baxter closed his eyes and said, “I'm so weak.”

“Yes, but I'm not. Let me get you out of here.”

“Please.”

Brother Manny practically lifted him off the stool, then put a thick arm around his shoulders. They slowly made their way past the

slot machines and empty roulette wheels, and they were almost to the front door when Brother Manny realized that Baxter was crying. The tears made him smile. An addict must hit the bottom before he starts his climb.

THE PASTOR'S OFFICE was a large cluttered room next to the sanctuary. The secretary, Brother Manny's wife, brought them a pot of strong coffee and two mismatched mugs. Baxter sat low in an old leather sofa and sipped furiously, as if he could rinse away the taste of the beer. The tears had stopped, for now.

Brother Manny sat close by on a wooden rocker, and as he talked, he moved slowly back and forth. “I was in prison in California,” he was saying. “The second time around, in a gang, doing worse stuff on the inside than we did on the streets. I got careless one day, got away from my turf, and the rival gang jumped me. Woke up in the prison hospital with broken bones and cuts and such. Cracked skull. Terrible pain. I remember thinking death would be welcome. I was so sick of living, sick of my life, sick of the miserable person I was. I knew that if I survived and one day got paroled again, I'd end up on the streets, playing the same game. Where I grew up, you either went to prison or you died young. Sounds very different from the way you grew up, doesn't it, Baxter?”

He shrugged.

“In many ways it is, in many ways it is not. My life was all about myself, much like yours. I loved the bad things, just like you. Pleasure, selfishness, pride--that was my life, and it's been yours, I suppose.”

“Oh, yes.”

“It's all sin, and it all leads to the same end--misery, pain, destruction, ruin, then death. That's where you're headed, son, and you're in a hurry to get there.”

Baxter nodded slightly. “So what happened?”

“I got lucky and lived, and not long afterward I met an inmate, a career criminal who would never be eligible for parole, and he was the gentlest, sweetest, happiest person I'd ever talked to. Had no worries, every day was beautiful, life was grand, and this from a man who'd spent fifteen years in max security. Through a prison ministry, he'd been exposed to the gospel of Christ, and he became a believer. He said he was praying for me, as he prayed for a lot of the bad guys in prison. He invited me to a Bible study one night, and I listened to other inmates tell their stories and praise God for his forgiveness and love and strength and promise of eternal salvation. Imagine, a bunch of hardened criminals locked away in a rotten prison singing songs of praise to their Lord. Pretty powerful stuff, and I needed some of it. I needed forgiveness, because there were lots of sins in my past. I needed peace, because I'd been at war my entire life. I needed love, because I hated everybody. I needed strength, because deep inside I knew how weak I was. I needed happiness, because I'd been miserable for so long. So we prayed together, me and those bad boys who were like little lambs, and I confessed to God that I was a sinner, and that I wanted salvation through Jesus Christ. My life changed in an instant, Baxter, a change so overwhelming I still can't believe it. The Holy Spirit entered my soul, and the old Manny Lucera died. A new one was born, one whose past was forgiven and his eternity secured.”

“What about the drugs?”

“Forgotten. The power of the Holy Spirit is far greater than human desire. I've seen it a thousand times with addicts who try everything to quit--rehab clinics, state facilities, shrinks and doctors, fancy meds sold as substitutes. When you're an addict, you're powerless in the face of booze and drugs. Strength comes from somewhere else. For me, it comes from the power of the Holy Spirit.”

“I don't feel very strong right now.”

"You're not. Look at yourself. From Washoe Retreat to a cheap

bar in a run-down casino in a few hours. That might be a record, Baxter."

“I didn't want to go to that bar.”

“Of course not. But you did.”

“Why?” His voice was soft, fading.

“Because you've never said no.”

A tear rolled down Baxter's cheek, and he wiped it with the back of his hand. “I don't want to go back to L.A.”

“You can't, son.”

“Can you help me? I'm pretty shaky here, okay? I mean, I'm really scared.”

“Let's pray together, Baxter.”

“I'll try.”

The Associate

Chapter 19

Six months after the Trylon-Bartin dispute went public with the filing of the lawsuit, the battleground had been defined and the troops were in place. Both sides had filed ponderous motions designed to capture the higher ground, but so far no advantage had been gained. They were of course haggling over deadlines, schedules, issues, discovery, and who got to see what documents, and when.

With the waves of lawyers working in sync, the case was plodding along. A trial was nowhere in sight, but then it was far too early. With monthly billings to Trylon averaging $5.5 million, why push the case to a conclusion?

On the other side, Bartin Dynamics was paying just as much for a vigorous and gold-plated defense coordinated by the bare-knuckle litigators at Agee, Poe & Epps. APE had committed forty lawyers to the case and, like Scully, had such a deep bench that it could send in another wave whenever necessary.

The hottest issue so far was no surprise to either set of litigators. When the forced marriage of Trylon and Bartin unraveled, when their

clumsy joint venture blew up, there had been a virtual slugfest for the documents. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of documents had been generated during the development of the B-10 HyperSonic Bomber. Researchers employed by Trylon grabbed all the documents they could. Researchers for Bartin did the same. Software was routed and rerouted, and some of it was destroyed. Hardware controlled by one company found its way to the other. Thousands of secured files disappeared. Crates of printed documents were hoarded and hidden. And throughout the melee each company accused the other of lying, espionage, outright thievery. When the dust settled, neither knew exactly what the other possessed.

Because of the supersensitive nature of the research, the Pentagon watched in horror as the two companies behaved outrageously. The Pentagon, as well as several intelligence agencies, leaned heavily on Trylon and Bartin to keep their dirty laundry private, but they were ultimately not successful. The fight was now controlled by the lawyers and the courts.

A major task for Mr. Wilson Rush and his Scully & Pershing team was to accumulate, index, copy, and store all documents in the possession of Trylon. A warehouse was leased in Wilmington, North Carolina, about a mile from the Trylon testing facility where most of the B-10 research had taken place. After it was leased, it was completely renovated and made fire-, wind-, and waterproof. All windows were removed and replaced with a six-inch cinder-block wall. A Washington security firm wired the warehouse with twenty closed-circuit cameras. The four large doors were equipped with infrared alarms and metal detectors. Armed guards patrolled the empty warehouse long before any of the documents arrived.

When they did arrive, they came in unmarked tractor-trailer rigs, complete with more armed guards. Dozens of deliveries were made over a two-week period in mid-September. The warehouse, nicknamed Fort Rush, came to life as ton after ton of paperwork was

stacked neatly in white cardboard boxes, all waiting to be organized into a system understood only by the lawyers up in New York.

The warehouse was leased by Scully & Pershing. Every contract was signed by Wilson Rush--contracts for the renovations, security operations, transporting of documents, everything. Once the documents entered the warehouse, they were deemed AWP--Attorneys' Work Product--and thus subject to a different set of rules regarding disclosure to the other side.

Mr. Rush selected ten associates from his litigation team, ten of the brightest and most trusted. These unlucky souls were shipped to Wilmington and introduced to Fort Rush, a long, windowless hangar of a building with shiny concrete floors and a pungent industrial smell to it. In the center was the mountain of boxes. Along both sides were rows of empty folding tables, and beyond the tables were ten large, fierce-looking copy machines, with wires and cables running everywhere. The copiers were, of course, state-of-the-art color and capable of instant scanning, collating, even stapling.

Far away from their New York offices, the associates were allowed to wear jeans and running shoes, and they were promised bigger bonuses and other goodies. But nothing could compensate them for the dismal job of physically copying and scanning a million documents. And in Wilmington! Most were married, with spouses and children back home, though of the ten, four had already suffered through a divorce. And it was quite likely that Fort Rush would be the cause of even more marital problems.

They began their forbidding task under the direction of Mr. Rush himself. Every document was copied twice, in a split second, and instantly scanned into the firm's virtual library. Several weeks down the road, when the task was complete, the library would be accessible by a secured code, and once inside, a lawyer could locate any document in a matter of seconds. The firm's computer experts

designed the library and were supremely confident that its security was impenetrable.

To impress upon the associates the gravity of their seemingly mindless work, Mr. Rush stayed for three days and was involved in the unpacking, sorting, scanning, copying, and repacking. When he left, two other litigation partners remained and directed traffic. Such mundane work was normally contracted out to a copying service and supervised by the firm's litigation support staff, but that was far too risky with these documents. They had to be handled by real lawyers who appreciated their importance. The real lawyers manning the copiers averaged about $400,000 in salary, and most had at least one degree from an Ivy League school. At no point in their graduate or postgraduate studies could they have pictured themselves running copiers, but after four or five years with Scully & Pershing they were shockproof.

The rotation began after the first week. Eight days in the warehouse, then four days in New York, then back to Wilmington. The assignments were staggered, and a total of fifteen associates were eventually used. All were forbidden to discuss any aspect of Fort Rush with anyone in New York. Security and confidentiality were paramount.

The first project took six weeks. Two point two million documents were copied, indexed, and added to the library. The associates were freed from Fort Rush and flown back to New York on a chartered jet.

By then, Bennie knew exactly where the warehouse was located and had a general idea of its security features, but his interest in these matters was only passing. What Bennie wanted, of course, was access to the virtual library, access only his spy could deliver.