The Bomb Maker's Son (16 page)

“So there’s really no way I can come down to court tomorrow morning?” he asks.

“We went over it. It’s a legal argument, so your presence isn’t required.”

“I can help you.”

“Help me like you did last time by showing your disrespect for the judge, your contempt for the entire judicial process? Help me by refusing to take off your shackles so you look like the murderous terrorist everyone thinks you are?”

“Do you believe that?”

“I’m your lawyer. I’m paid
not
to think about your guilt or innocence. Except I’m not being paid.”

“I get it. You’re a man of principle. Good for you. I mean I can help you with your fear.”

“How can you possibly help my stage fright?”

“Let’s just say a father’s presence can have a calming effect on a child.”

“I’m forty years old, not a child. You tried to turn the hearing into a circus. That’s hardly calming. I managed to get through it because I took prescription drugs, not because you were there.” And because Lovely was there, and I didn’t want to let her down.

“Maybe so. But how about listening to me right now?”

“I’d rather you tell me how to find Rachel O’Brien and your brother, Jerry.”

“I know fear, Parker. I lived with it every day for almost forty years. Afraid I’d run into someone who recognized me from the old days, afraid that the person in the next restaurant booth was FBI, afraid that Jenny and Dylan and Emily would discover who I really was. Fear consumed me. No, that’s wrong, it desiccated my soul from the inside out, so I thought I was alive when, in truth, Ian Holzner died the moment he went on the run. As for Marty Lansing, he never existed—not in this shell of a body. Reddick was right. Stealing a dead infant’s identity was shameful. So much of what I’ve done has been shameful.”

I wonder if that includes murder.

“How can you help me, Ian?” By this, I mean,
How can I help you?

“By teaching you how to embrace the fear.”

“You learned to overcome the fear when you became a fugitive?”

“I learned to embrace it when I decided to build bombs. You have to realize that fear keeps you sharp.”

“A little bit of fear keeps you sharp. A lot paralyzes you.”

“Listen to me. When you walk into the courtroom, behave like an emergency-room doctor performing triage. Focus on eliminating the real threat, whatever that might be. Single-mindedness makes you forget the trivial. When I was assembling explosive devices, I couldn’t worry about the cops bursting in or an FBI rat infiltrating the group. I had to make sure I didn’t cross a wire and blow myself up.”

“What’s that got to do with my glossophobia?”

“Don’t be so centered on self. Rely on—”

“Narcissism runs in the family.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“You and Harriet are the most—”

“Rely on Moses Dworsky. He—”

“Dworsky postures, second-guesses, and works only when he feels like it. I only tolerate it because I need his office space.”

“Then Lovely Diamond. She’s in love with you.”

“You might be right, but she won’t have me.”

He reaches his hand out as if to place it on my shoulder, but he must see my muscles tense, because he hesitates and gives two fatherly pats to the air. “What I’m trying to say is that if you have the love of others, you’re less afraid. That’s how I got through it, mostly—Jenny and Dylan and Emily. It’s a double gift. Your loved ones make you feel protected, and you don’t want to let them down, so you fight for them despite the fear.”

“I’ll take your advice to heart. Truly. But now I have to get back to work.”

“I know that I sound naïve,” he says, standing up. “White-bread, Orange County conservative. But I learned after so many years in hiding that the simplest, most sentimental ideas can be the best.” The man sounds like an omniscient father in one of those old-fashioned TV sitcoms. After the polemics and the radical tracts and the bombs, the change in attitude is almost bizarre. Which causes me to feel that he’s insincere, that he’s engaging in some sort of diversionary tactic. To divert me from what?

“Focus, friends, and love, Parker. They’re what’ll defeat your fear.”

On a cool, dry morning in November—the kind of day that during the twentieth century drew millions from the inclement parts of America to Southern California—I’m going to ask Carlton Gibson to exclude key evidence against Ian Holzner. Since JB’s bombing of the courthouse, security has tightened. The line of attorneys and spectators trying to get inside extends down the exterior steps and onto the sidewalk. I arrive quite early, but with this crowd I might be late for the hearing. I wend my way to the front and ask the marshal in charge whether I can jump the line. He refuses my request. He knows who I am and undoubtedly blames me for this mess. Once I reach the magnetometer twenty minutes later, the marshals order me to remove my shoes and belt. After I pass through the metal detector, they insist on patting me down.

Lovely greets me in the second-floor foyer, and we take the escalators to the courtroom. Before we go inside, she says, “Do you need me to go over the relevant cases with you once more?”

“Nope.”

“I could argue the case if you aren’t up to it. You know, if you’re feeling shaky?”

“The meds are working fine, thank you.” The truth is, I didn’t take the antianxiety medication this morning. It’s not that I’m taking Holzner’s advice about overcoming fear—I simply forgot.

“The meds make you logy,” Lovely says. “I prepared an oral argument just in case.”

My sharp look of incredulity quiets her.

We walk down the corridor to a courtroom that’s filled with media reps and curious onlookers, just as it was for the bail hearing several months ago. Mariko Heim has showed up again, her enforcers flanking her. Lou Frantz is sitting in the last row on my side of the courtroom. I haven’t consulted him about the case at all. I let Lovely do that. He nods and smiles slightly without showing his teeth. Sitting next to him is his old nemesis, Moses Dworsky, whom I asked to come. Like so many over-the-hill enemies do, they’re chatting amiably. I was hoping Jerry Holzner would show up again, but he hasn’t. Was there ever an Uncle Jerry, or did I make him up?

Marilee Reddick and her gaggle of Assistant US Attorneys walk into the courtroom and pass by without acknowledging me. I’m certain Reddick would love to aim some choice invectives at me for wasting her afternoon, but Judge Gibson’s microphone must be deterring her. I approach her and say, “Any leads on the JB bomber, Marilee?”

“Same answer as before. Ian Holzner and whoever is working with him.”

“It’s relevant to my defense in this case. You have an obligation to disclose it.”

“Take it up with the judge.” She turns away and pretends to talk with one of her assistants.

Suddenly, the judge, dressed in his robes, walks out of chambers and clambers into his chair. Even the courtroom personnel are surprised. The clerk cries out a tardy, “All rise!” and the spectators half stand and sit down because Gibson already has. Reddick and I remain standing.

“
Buenos días
, ladies and gents,” the judge says. “United States versus Holzner. Motion to suppress evidence. I’ll hear from Mr. Parky . . . Mr. Parker Stern.” The joke is getting old.

I go to the lectern, and the room rotates on its wobbly axis. The fear scorches my cheeks from the inside. I inhale, but the room won’t stop shaking. I steal a quick glance at Lovely. Her face shows no emotion. She’s undoubtedly worried that any show of concern will cause me to panic. She reaches for her black binder, where she has notes for her proposed oral argument. I’m actually about to ask her to take over when I realize why Holzner’s methods won’t work for the kind of fear I have. He was afraid of capture, afraid of prison, afraid of humiliation, afraid of losing his family. Those fears were real, and so when he tried to control them by focusing on something else, he knew what he was running from. My fears are about nothing—they just exist. It’s impossible to hide from a feeling that has no boundary. Paradoxically, this epiphany of hopelessness calms me down enough so I can speak.

“Your Honor, Parker Stern and Lovely Diamond appearing for the defendant, Ian Holzner. This is a motion to suppress a hand-drawn diagram of the Playa Delta Veterans Administration and certain fingerprint evidence of equipment traditionally used to make explosives. To admit the evidence would offend due process of law under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. It’s quite simple: agents working for the government of the United States, the greatest democracy ever known to humankind, dangled an innocent man over a third-floor balcony railing to force him to provide information about his brother. The word
appalling
doesn’t describe the horror of the government’s crime.”

“What the government did back then was a major no-no,” the judge says. “But it was Jerry’s rights that were violated, not Ian’s. Isn’t Ian out of luck under the case law?”

Lovely starts shuffling papers, a sign that she’s agitated, though the judge asked an obvious question.

“Your Honor,” I say, “that’s ordinarily true about motions to suppress, where the police have conducted an illegal search of someone’s property, which doesn’t involve a deliberate threat to a person’s life and limb. This case is different. The test for a violation of due process is whether the government engaged in conduct that was shocking, outrageous, and intolerable. What COINTELPRO did to Jerry Holzner fits all three requirements. It was heinous coercion of a witness, typical of the actions of a totalitarian state—Stalinist Russia, Nazi Germany. That it happened on American soil is sickening. There’s never been a reported judicial opinion where the government was able to rely on physical coercion of a third party to obtain evidence against a defendant. To put it bluntly, the government shouldn’t be acquiring evidence by torturing an American citizen who’s done nothing wrong.”

I glance at Lovely, who’s nodding approvingly. I’m doing a decent job of putting her sophisticated thoughts into simple words. As strong as she thinks the argument might be, however, most courts and legal scholars have rejected her theory. The conservative Supreme Court has consistently favored the police, even when they violate a third party’s constitutional rights. So I have to drive the argument home.

“How rogue can a government agent go and still get away with it?” I say. “What if those criminals had decided to drop Jerry Holzner from that ledge and kill him after he disclosed the information just so they could cover up their activities? Would it comport with principles of due process to allow the government to use the evidence against his surviving brother? Of course not. Evidence that is the fruit of murder and torture is not constitutionally admissible against anyone, and to allow it in this case would forever taint this court and besmirch the criminal-justice system.”

“Didn’t Jerry Holzner bring a civil suit?” the judge asks. “Wasn’t that his remedy? Why let Ian, a criminal—an alleged criminal—get a windfall?”

“We haven’t been able to locate Jerry Holzner to get the entire story. The public files have long ago been lost or destroyed. But contemporaneous news articles reported that in 1977 Jerry Holzner settled his claim for two thousand dollars. Even back then, that amount was a pittance. Hardly compensation for being tortured the way he was. It’s pretty clear Jerry’s lawyers didn’t think he could stand up to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which at the time accused Jerry of aiding and abetting Ian Holzner, which was a blatant lie to cover up the government’s crimes. Plus, how attractive would Jerry have been as a plaintiff against the revered FBI of J. Edgar Hoover? Jerry’s brother was a wanted terrorist. No jury of the time would’ve had sympathy for him. No jury would’ve awarded damages against the FBI. And damages couldn’t begin to deter and punish the government for its behavior. An award of millions wouldn’t have made the government flinch. The civil remedy simply isn’t enough to vindicate due process. The
only
remedy consistent with the Constitution is to exclude this evidence here and now.”

Gibson has closed his eyes, and his nodding has continued throughout my presentation. I fear his head movements are not an expression of approval, but a sign that I’ve lulled him to sleep.

But then he says, “How do you respond to that, Ms. Reddick?”

Reddick hops out of her chair and sidles over to the lectern. “I respond with the Supreme Court’s opinion in
United States v. Payner
. The IRS set up a Bahamian banker. He was in Miami, transacting illegal business with some Americans. They arranged a date with a woman. Except, she wasn’t a woman—well, she was—but she was also an IRS plant. When the Bahamian was on the date, IRS agents broke into his hotel room, seized his brief case, got a locksmith to make a key, opened the case, and copied four hundred incriminating documents. What’s relevant is that they didn’t use the illegally seized documents against the Bahamian banker whose rights were violated, Your Honor, but against an American criminal named Jack Payner, who was convicted of falsifying his income-tax returns. Payner made the same due-process argument as Mr. Stern has made here, but the Supreme Court rejected it in a footnote. End of story, end of the defendant’s motion.” For emphasis she pounds on the lectern, but her fist catches the microphone and amplifies the noise into a sound that resembles a gunshot. The courtroom deputy starts, the marshals hop up, spectators gasp, a male voice lets out an elongated, “Whoa,” and Lovely Diamond springs up out of her chair, whether intending fight or flight I’m not sure.