Текст книги "The Simple Truth"
Автор книги: David Baldacci
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 26 страниц)
But you didnt call no witnesses, didnt really do much that I could see.
Rider now got very defensive. I did the best I could. Remember something, Rufus, they couldve executed you. A little white girl and all. They wouldve gone for first degree, they told me that. At least you got to live.
Tomorrow, Samuel. I put you on my visitors list. Around about nineA.M. Thank you. Thank you kindly. Oh, bring a little radio with you. Before Rider could ask him why he should bring such a device, or why he should even come to see him, Harms had hung up the phone. Rider eased back in his very comfortable chair and looked around his spacious, wood-paneled office. He practiced law in a small rural town some distance from Blacksburg, Virginia. He made a fine living: nice house, new Buick every three years, vacations twice annually. He had put the past behind him, particularly the most horrible case he had ever handled in his brief career as a military lawyer. The kind of case that had the same effect on your stomach as curdled milk, only no amount of Pepto-Bismol could right the discomfort. Rider touched a hand to his face as his thoughts now drifted back to the early seventies, a time of chaos in the military, the country, the world. Everybody blaming everybody else for everything that had ever gone wrong in the history of the universe. Rufus Harms had sounded bitter over the phone, but hehadkilled that little girl. Brutally. Right in front of her family. Crushed her neck in a few seconds, before anyone could even attempt to stop him. On Harmss behalf, Rider had negotiated a pretrial agreement, but then, under the rules of military law, he had the right to attempt to beat that deal in the sentencing phase. The defendant would either receive the punishment in the pre-trial agreement, or the one meted out by the judge or by the members the military counterpart of a jury whichever involved less prison time. Harmss words gnawed at the lawyer, though, for Rider had been persuaded at the time not to put on much of a case at the sentencing phase. He had agreed with the prosecutor not to bring in any witnesses from outside the area who could attest to Harmss character and so forth. He had also agreed to rely on stipulations from the official record instead of attempting to find fresh evidence and witnesses. That was not exactly playing by the rules, because a defendants right to beat the deal was not supposed to be waived or bargained away in any substantive manner. But without Rider working behind the scenes like that, the prosecutor would have gone for the death penalty, and with those facts, he probably would have gotten it. It mattered little that the murder had happened so quickly that proving premeditation would have been very difficult. The cold body of a child could derail the most logical of legal analyses. The bald truth was nobody cared about Rufus Harms. He was a black man who had spent most of his Army career locked in the stockade. His senseless murder of a child certainly had not improved his standing in the eyes of the military. Such a man was not entitled to justice, many had felt, unless it was swift, painful, and lethal. And maybe Rider was one of those who felt that way. So he hadnt exactly practiced the scorched-earth policy in his defense of the man, but Rider had gotten Rufus Harms life. That was the best any lawyer could have done. So what could Rufus want to see him about? he wondered. ["C4"]CHAPTER FOUR
As John Fiske rose from the counsels table he glanced over at his opponent, Paul Williams. The young assistant commonwealth attorney, or ACA, had just finished confidently stating the particulars of his motion. Fiske whispered, Your ass is grass, Paulie. You messed up.
When Fiske turned to face Judge Walters, his manner was one of subdued excitement. Fiske was broad-shouldered, though at six feet he was a couple of inches shorter than his younger brother. And unlike Michael Fiske, his features were far from classically handsome. He had chubby cheeks, a too-sharp chin and a twice-broken nose, one time from high school wrestling, the other time a carryover from his cop days. However, Fiskes black hair was swept over his forehead in an unkempt manner that somehow managed to be attractive and intimate, and his brown eyes housed an intense core.
Your Honor, in the interest of not wasting the courts time, I would like to make an offer in open court to the Commonwealth Attorneys Office regarding its motion. If they agree to withdraw with prejudice and contribute one thousand dollars to the public defenders fund, I will withdraw my response, not file for sanctions and we can all go home.
Paul Williams leaped to his feet so quickly his eyeglasses fell off and hit the table. Your Honor, this is outrageous!
Judge Walters looked over his crowded courtroom, silently contemplated his equally bulging docket and flicked a weary hand at both men. Approach.
At the sidebar, Fiske said, Judge, Im only trying to do the commonwealth a favor.
The commonwealth doesnt need favors from Mr. Fiske, Williams said with disgust.
Come on, Paulie, a thousand bucks, and you can get a beer before you go back and explain to your boss how you messed up. Ill even buy you the beer.
Not in ten thousand years will you get a dime from us, Williams said disdainfully.
Well, Mr. Williams, this motion is a little unusual, Judge Walters said. In the Richmond criminal courts, motions were heard before or during trial. And there werent lengthy briefs attached to them. The sad truth was, most issues of criminal law were well settled. Only in the unusual case in which the judge was unsure of a ruling after he had heard the lawyersoral arguments would he ask for written briefs to review before making his decision. Thus, Judge Walters was a little bewildered by the unsolicited and lengthy brief filed by the commonwealth.
I know, Your Honor, said Williams. However, as I stated, this is an unusual situation.
Unusual? Fiske said. Try nuts, Paulie.
Judge Walters impatiently broke in. Mr. Fiske, I have admonished you before regarding your unorthodox behavior in my courtroom, and I will not hesitate to find you in contempt if your future actions warrant it. Get on with your response.
Williams returned to his seat and Fiske stepped to the lectern. Your Honor, in spite of the fact that the commonwealths emergency motion was faxed to my office in the middle of the night and I havent had time to prepare a truly proper response, I believe that if you would refer to each of the second paragraphs on pages four, six and nine of the commonwealths memorandum, you will conclude that the facts relied upon therein, particularly with regard to the defendants prior criminal record, the statements of the arresting officers and the two eyewitness accounts at the location of the crime allegedly committed by my client, are unsustainable with the established record in this case. Further, the principal precedent cited by the commonwealth on page ten was very recently overturned by a decision of the Virginia Supreme Court. Ive attached the pertinent materials to my response and highlighted the discrepancies for your ease of review.
As Judge Walters examined the file in front of him, Fiske leaned over to Williams and said, See what happens when you draft this shit in the middle of the night? Fiske dropped his reply brief in front of Williams. Since I only had about five minutes to read your brief, I thought Id return the favor. You can read along with the judge.
Walters finished reviewing the file and gave Williams a stare that chilled even the most casual observer in the courtroom.
I hope the commonwealth has an appropriate response to this, Mr. Williams, although Im at a loss as to what it could possibly be.
Williams rose from his chair. As he tried to speak, he suddenly discovered that his voice, along with his hubris, had deserted him.
Well? Judge Walters said expectantly. Please say something or Ive a mind to grant Mr. Fiskes motion for sanctions before Ive even heard it.
When Fiske glanced over at Williams, his expression softened somewhat. You never knew when you might need a favor. Your Honor, Im certain the factual and legal errors in the commonwealths motion are due to the overworked lawyers there rather than anything intentional. Ill even cut my settlement offer to five hundred dollars, but Id like a personal apology from the commonwealth on the record. I really couldve used some sleep last night. That last comment brought laughter from around the courtroom. Suddenly a voice boomed out from the back of the courtroom. Judge Walters, if I may intercede, the commonwealth will accept that offer.
Everyone looked at the source of the announcement, a short, almost bald, thick-bodied man dressed in a seersucker suit, his hairy neck pinched by his starchy collar. Well take the offer, the man said again in a gravelly voice laced with both the pleasing drawl of a lifelong Virginian and the rasp of a lifelong smoker. And we do apologize to thecourtfor taking up its valuable time.
Im glad you happened by when you did, Mr. Graham, Judge Walters said. Bobby Graham, commonwealth attorney for the city of Richmond, nodded curtly before leaving through the double glass doors. He had offered no apology to Fiske; however, the defense lawyer chose not to push it. In a court of law, you rarely got everything you asked for. Judge Walters said, Commonwealths motion is dismissed with prejudice. He looked at Williams. Mr. Williams, I think you should go have that beer with Mr. Fiske, only I think you should be the one doing the buying, son.
As the next motion was called, Fiske snapped shut his briefcase and walked out of the courtroom, Williams right next to him.
Shouldve taken my first offer, Paulie.
I wont forget this, Fiske, Williams said angrily.
Dont.
Were still going to put Jerome Hicks away, Williams sneered. Dont think were not.
For Paulie Williams and most of the other assistant commonwealth attorneys Fiske faced, Fiske knew his clients were like their personal, lifelong enemies, undeserving of anything other than the harshest of punishments. In some cases, Fiske knew, they were right. But not in all.
You know what Im thinking? Fiske asked Williams. Im thinking how fast ten thousand years can go by.
As Fiske left the third-floor courtroom, he passed police officers he had worked with when he was a Richmond cop. One of them smiled, nodded a hello, but the others refused to look at him. To them he was a traitor to the ranks, suit and briefcase traded for badge and gun. Mouthpiece for the other side. Rot in hell, Brother Fiske. Fiske looked at one group of young black men, crewcuts so severe they looked bald, pants pushed down to the crotch, boxers showing, puffy gang jackets, bulky tennies with no laces. Their open defiance of the criminal justice system was clear; they were imperiously sulky in their sameness. These young men crowded around their attorney, a white guy, office-chunky, sweaty, expensive pinstripe soiled at the cuffs, slick-skinned loafers on his feet, horn-rim glasses twisting a little as he hammered home a point to his scout troop. He banged his fist into his meaty palm as the young black men, abdominals racked under their silk drug-trove shirts, listened intently, the only time they figured they would need this man, would bother to even look at him other than with contempt, or through a gun sight. Until the next time they needed him. And they would. In this building, he was magic. Here Michael Jordan could not touch this white man. They were Lewis and Clark. He was their Sacajewea. Shout the mystical words, Sac. Dont let them do us. Fiske knew what the suit was saying, knew it as if he could read the mans lips. The man specialized in defending gang members on any crime they cared to commit. The best strategy: stone silence. Seen nothing, heard nothing, remembered nothing. Gunshots? Car backfire, most likely. Remember this, boys: Thou Shalt not kill; but if thou Shalt kill, thou Shalt not rat on each other about it. He smacked his palm against his briefcase for added emphasis. The huddle broke and the game commenced. Along another part of the hallway, sitting on the boxy gray-carpeted seating built into the wall, were three hookers, working teens of the night. A variety pack: one black, one Asian, one white, they waited their turn before justice. The Asian looked nervous, probably needing a calming smoke or the sting of a needle. The others were vets, Fiske knew. They strolled, sat, showed some thigh, the jiggle of breast occasionally when some good old boys or young turks prowled by. Why miss some business over a little court thing? This was America, after all. Fiske took the elevator down and was just passing by the metal detector and X-ray machine, standard equipment in virtually every courthouse these days, when Bobby Graham approached him, an unlit cigarette in his hand. Fiske liked the man neither personally nor professionally. Graham selected cases for prosecution based on the size of the headlines they would garner for him. And he never took on a case he would have to work real hard to win. The public doesnt like prosecutors who lose.
Just a little pretrial motion in a dime-a-dozen case. The big man has better things to do with his time, dont you, Bobby? said Fiske.
Maybe I had an inkling that you were going to chew up and spit out one of my baby lawyers. It wouldnt have been so easy if youd been up against a real attorney.
Who, like you?
With a wry smile, Graham put the unlit cigarette in his mouth. Here we are, living in arguably the damned tobacco capital of the world, the biggest cigarette manufacturing facility on the planet just a spit on down the road, and one cant even smoke in the halls of justice. He chewed on the end of his unfiltered Pall Mall, noisily sucking in the nicotine. Actually there were still designated smoking areas in the Richmond court building, only not where Graham happened to be standing. The prosecutor let slip a triumphant grin. Oh, by the way, Jerome Hicks was picked up this morning on suspicion of murdering a guy over on Southside. Black on black, drugs involved. Wow, what a surprise. Apparently he wanted to increase his inventory of coke and didnt want to go through the normal acquisition channels. Only your guy didnt know we had his target staked out.
Fiske wearily leaned up against the wall. Court victories were often empty, particularly when your client couldnt keep a lid on his felonious impulses. Really? Thats the first Ive heard about it.
I was coming down here anyway for a pretrial conference, thought Id fill you in. Professional courtesy.
Right, Fiske said dryly. If thats the case, why did you let Paulies motion go forward? When Graham didnt respond, Fiske answered his own question. Just making me jump through the hoops?
A mans got to have some fun with his work.
Fiske balled up a fist, and then just as quickly he uncurled it. Graham wasnt worth it. Well, as a professional courtesy, were there any eyewitnesses?
Oh, about a half dozen, murder weapon found in Jeromes car, along with Jerome. He almost ran down two policemen trying to get away. Weve got blood, the drugs, the whole candy store, really. Guy shouldnt have been granted bail in the first place. Anyway, Ive a mind to drop this rinky-dink distribution charge youre representing him on and just focus on this new development. Got to maximize my scarce resources. Hicks is a bad one, John. I think were gonna have to seek a capital murder indictment on this one.
Capital case? Come on, Bobby.
The willful, deliberate and premeditated killing of any person in the commission of a robbery equals capital murder equals death penalty. At least thats what my Virginia statute book says.
I dont give a shit what the law says, hes only eighteen years old.
Grahams face tensed. Funny talk coming from a lawyer, an officer of the court.
The laws a sieve I have to slip my facts through, because my facts always suck.
Theyre scum. Come out of the womb looking to hurt people. We oughta start building baby prisons before the sonsofbitches can really hurt anybody.
Jerome Hickss entire life can be summed up
Right, blame it on his piss-poor childhood,
Graham interrupted. Same old story.
Thats right,sameold story. Graham smiled and shook his head. Look, I didnt grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth, okay? Wanta know my secret? I worked my ass off. If I can do it, they damn well can too. Case closed.
Fiske started to walk off and then looked back. Let me take a look at the arrest report and Ill call you.
We got nothing to talk about.
Killing him wont get you the AG slot, Bobby, you know that. Aim higher. Fiske turned and walked away. Graham twisted the cigarette between his fingers. Try getting a real job, Fiske. *����*����* A half hour later, John Fiske was at a suburban county jail meeting with one of his clients. His practice often took him outside of Richmond, to the counties of Henrico, Chesterfield, Hanover, even Goochland. His ever-expanding pool of work was not something he was particularly pleased about, but it was like the sun rising. It would continue until the day it stopped for good.
Ive got a plea to talk to you about, Derek.
Derek Brown or DB1, as he was known on the street was a light-skinned black, with tattoos of hate, obscenity and poetry running down his arms. He spent enough time in jail to be buffed; wormy veins split his biceps. Fiske had once seen Derek playing basketball in the jails recreation yard, shirt off, well muscled, more tattoos on his back and shoulders. It looked like a damn musical score from a distance. Rising from the air like a jet on takeoff, gliding smooth, held up by something Fiske couldnt see, the guards and other cons turning to look in admiration, the young man slammed the ball home, finishing with high-fives all around. Never good enough, though, to play college ball, much less NBA. So here they were looking at each other in the county lockup.
ACAs offered malicious wounding, Class Three felony.
Why not Class Six?
Fiske stared at him. These guys were in and out of the criminal system so often they knew the criminal code better than most lawyers.
Class Six is heat of the moment. Your heat came the next day.
He had a gun. I aint going up against Pack when he got his shooter and I aint got mine. What, you stupid?
Fiske wanted to reach across and wipe the mans attitude right off his face. Sorry, the Commonwealth isnt budging from Class Three.
How much time? Derek said stonily. His ears were pierced, by Fiskes count twelve times.
Five, with time already served.
Bullshit. Five years for cutting somebody a little with a damn pocketknife?
Stiletto, six-inch blade. And you stabbed him ten damn times. In front of witnesses.
Shit, he was feeling up my bitch. Aint that a defense?
Youre lucky youre not looking at murder in the first, Derek. The docs said it was a miracle the guy didnt bleed to death right there on the street. And if Pack werent such a dangerous slimeball you wouldnt just be looking at malicious wounding either. You couldve been looking at aggravated malicious wounding. Thats twenty to life. You know that.
Messing with my bitch. Derek leaned forward and popped his bony knuckles to emphasize the absolute logic of both his legal and moral positions. Derek had a good-paying job, Fiske knew, albeit an illegal one. He was a first lieutenant for the number two drug distribution ring in Richmond, hence his street name of DB1. Turbo was the boss, all of twenty-four years old. His empire was well organized, discipline enforced, and included the facade of legality with dry-cleaning operations, a caf�a pawnshop, and a stable of accountants and lawyers to deal with the drug funds after they had been laundered. Turbo was a very smart young man, good head for numbers and business. Fiske had always wanted to ask him why he didnt try running a Fortune 500 company. The pay was almost as good, and the mortality rate was considerably lower. Normally, Turbo would have one of his three-hundred-dollar-an-hour Main or Franklin Street lawyers take care of Derek. But Dereks offense was unrelated to Turbos business, so that accommodation had not been made. Sloughing him off to someone like Fiske was a form of punishment for Derek doing something as stupid as losing his head over a female. Turbo had no reason to fear Dereks turning snitch. The prosecutor hadnt even made any noises along those lines, knowing it was futile. You talk, you die in or out of prison, it made no difference. Derek had grown up in a nice middle-class neighborhood, with nice middle-class parents, before he decided to drop out of high school and take the easy route of drug dealing over actually working for a living. He had every advantage, could have done anything with his life. There were just enough Derek Browns around to make the world largely apathetic to the horrific lives of the kids who turned to the sugar-elixir provided by people like Turbo. Which made Fiske want to take Derek out to an alley late at night with a baseball bat in hand and teach the young man some good old-fashioned values.
The ACA doesnt give a damn about what he was doing to your girlfriend that night.
I cant believe this shit. Buddy of mine cut up somebody last year and he got two years, half that suspended. Out in three months with time served. And Im looking at five damn years? What kinda shitty lawyer are you?
Did your buddy have a prior felony conviction? Was your good old buddy one of the top men for one of Richmonds worst diseases? Fiske wanted to ask, and he would have but it would be wasted breath. I tell you what Ill go back with three and time served.
Now Derek looked interested. You think you can get that?
Fiske stood up. Dont know. Im just a shitty lawyer.
On the way out, Fiske looked out the barred window and watched as a new shipment of inmates climbed from the prison van, grouped close, shackles beating a chant on the asphalt. Most were young blacks or Latinos, already sizing each other up. Slave to master. Who gets cut or scored first. The few whites looked as though they might drop and die from sheer panic before they even got to their cells. Some of these young men were probably the sons of men Patrolman John Fiske had arrested ten years ago. They would have been just kids then, maybe dreaming of something other than the public dole, no daddy at home, mother struggling through a horror of a life with no end in sight. Then again, maybe not. Reality had a way of punishing ones subconscious. Dreams werent a reprieve, merely a continuation of the real-life nightmare. As a cop, the dialogue he had had with many arrestees tended to repeat itself.
Kill you, man. Kill your whole damn family, some would scream at him, drug-faced, as he put the cuffs on.
Uh-huh. You have the right to remain silent. Think about using it.
Come on, man, aint my fault. My buddy done it. Screwed me.
Where would that buddy be? And the blood on your hands? The gun in your pants? The coke still in your nostrils? Buddy do all that? Some buddy.
Then they might eye the dead body and lose it, blubbering. Holy shit! Sweet Jesus! My momma, wheres my momma? You call her. Do that for me, oh shit, do that, will you? Momma! Oh shit!
You have the right to an attorney, he would calmly tell them. And that now was John Fiske. After a couple more court appearances downtown, Fiske left the glass and brick John Marshall Courts Building, named after the third chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. Marshalls ancestral home was still right next door, now a museum dedicated to preserving the memory of the great Virginian and American. The man would have turned over in his grave if he had known of the vile acts being debated and defended in the building that bore his name. Fiske headed down Ninth Street toward the James River. Hot and humid the last few days, the weather patterns had angled cooler with the coming rain, and he pulled his trench coat tighter around him. As the rain started, he began to jog along the pavement, his shoes cleaving through puddles of filthy water collected in dips of asphalt and concrete. By the time he reached his office in Shockoe Slip, his hair and coat were soaked, the water running in miniature rivulets down his back. Eschewing the elevator, he took the steps two at a time and unlocked the door to his office. It was located in a cavernous building that had once been a tobacco warehouse, its oak and pine guts having been given the new ribs of multiple office drywall. The reek of the tobacco leaves forever lingered, however. And this wasnt the only place it could be found. Cruising on Interstate 95 south past the Philip Morris cigarette-manufacturing facility Bobby Graham had referred to, one could almost get a nicotine high without even lighting up. Fiske had often been tempted to fling a lighted match out the window as he drove by, to see if the air would simply explode. Fiskes office was one room with a small attached bathroom, which was important, since he slept here more often than he did at his apartment. He hung up his coat to dry, and wiped his face and hair down with a towel he grabbed off the rack in the bath. He put on a pot of coffee and watched it brew while he thought about Jerome Hicks. If Fiske did a superb job, Jerome Hicks would spend the rest of his life behind bars instead of receiving the prick of lethal injection at the Virginia death house. Killing an eighteen-year-old black kid would not win Graham the attorney generals job he coveted. A black-on-black, loser-on-loser murder wouldnt even warrant a back-page story in the newspaper. As a Richmond cop, Fiske had survived, barely, the violence of combat. It swept through neighborhood and town, swelling large, like an aneurysm, the size of a county, leaving behind the shattered ghettos, and the soaring, dollar-consumed spires of downtown, flowing over, around and through the ill-conceived barricades of suburbia. And it wasnt just the commonwealth. Glaciers of criminal activity flowed from all the states. When they eventually met, then where would we go? Fiske wondered. He abruptly sat down. The burn had started slowly at first; it usually did. He sensed its march from his belly up to his chest, then spreading. Finally, like lava in a trench, the sensation of impossible heat started down his arms and poured into his fingers. Fiske staggered up, locked his office door and stripped off his shirt and tie. He had a T-shirt on underneath; always wore the damn T-shirt. Through the cotton, his fingers touched the starting point of the thickened scar, after all these years still rough-edged. It began just below his navel and followed the meandering path of the surgeons saw in an unbroken line, until it ended at the base of his neck. Fiske dropped to the floor and did fifty push-ups without ceasing, the heat in his chest and extremities surging and then diminishing with each repetition. A drop of sweat fell from his brow and hit the wooden floor. He thought he could see his reflection in it. At least it wasnt blood. He followed the push-ups with an equal number of stomach crunches. The scar rippled and flexed with each bend of his body, like a serpent unwillingly grafted to his torso. He attached a quick-release bar to the doorway leading to the bathroom and struggled through a dozen pull-ups. He used to be able to do twice that many, but his strength was slowly ebbing. What lurked beneath the fused skin would eventually overtake him, kill him, but, for now, the heat faded; the physical exertion seemed to frighten it off, letting the trespasser know that somebody was still home. He cleaned up in the bathroom and put his shirt back on. As he sipped his coffee he looked out the window. From this vantage point he could barely make out the line of the James River. The water would grow rough as the rain picked up. He and his brother had often boated down the river, or leisurely floated down it in truck-tire inner tubes on hot summer days. That had been years ago. This was as close as Fiske got to the water these days. Leisure time was over. He had no space left for it in his shortened frame of life. He enjoyed what he did, though, at least most of the time. It wasnt the life of a Supreme Court superlawyer like his brother, but he took a certain pride in his job and how he did it. He would have no money or grand reputation when he died, but he believed he would die reasonably satisfied, reasonably fulfilled. He turned back to his work. ["C5"]CHAPTER FIVE
Like a brooding hawk, Fort Jackson perched on the desolate topography of southwest Virginia, fairly equidistant from the Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia borders and in the middle of a remote scrap of coal country. There were few if any stand-alone military prisons in the United States; they were typically attached to a military facility, due both to tradition and to the constraints of defense dollars. Fort Jackson did have a military base component; however, the dominant feature of the place would always be the prison, where the most dangerous offenders in the United States Army silently counted down their lives. There had never been an escape from Fort Jackson, and even if an inmate could manage to achieve his freedom without benefit of a court ruling, such liberty would be empty and short-lived. The surrounding countryside represented a prison of even greater menace, with jagged-faced, strip-mined mountains, treacherous roads with widowmaker drops, dense, unyielding forest laced with copperheads and rattlers. And along the polluted waterways awaited their more aggressive cousin, the water moccasin, anxious for panicked feet crashing its border. And the self-reliant local folk in the forgotten toe of Virginia the human equivalent of razor wire were well schooled with the gun and the knife, and unafraid to use either. And yet in the slope of the land, the breadth of forest, shrub and flower, the scent of unhurried wildlife and the quiet of ocean depths, there was much beauty here. Attorney Samuel Rider passed through the forts main gate, received his visitors badge and parked his car in the visitors lot. He nervously walked up to the flat, stonewalled entrance of the prison, his briefcase lightly tapping against his blue-clothed leg. It took him twenty minutes to go through the screening procedure, which included producing personal identification, verifying that he was on the visitors list, a pat-down of his person, walking through a metal detector and ending with a search of his briefcase. The guards suspiciously eyed the small transistor radio, but allowed him to keep it after confirming that it contained no contraband. He was read the standard rules of visitation and to each he gave an affirmative, audible reply that he understood. Rider knew that were he to run afoul of any of these rules, the guards polite facade would quickly disappear. He looked around, unable to shake the oppression of fear, of extreme nervousness, as though the prisons architect had managed to craft these elements into the bones of the place. Riders bowels clenched, and his palms were sweaty, like he was about to climb on a twenty-seat turboprop in the face of a hurricane. As a member of the military during Vietnam, Rider had never left the country, never come close to combat, to mortal danger. Damn ironic if he were to drop dead from a coronary while standing in a military prison on United States soil. He took a deep breath, mentally signaled his heart to calm down, and wondered again why he had come. Rufus Harms was in no position to make him, or anyone else, do anything. But here he was. Rider took another deep breath, clipped on his visitors badge and gripped the comforting handle of his briefcase, his leather amulet, as a guard escorted him to the visitors room. Alone for a few minutes, Rider eyed the dull brown of the walls that seemed designed to depress further those who probably already lived in the throes of near-suicidal intent. He wondered how many men called this place home, entombed by their fellow man and with excellent reason. And yet they all had mothers, even the vilest among them; some, Rider assumed, even had fathers, beyond the stain of semen on egg. And still, they ended up here. Born evil? Maybe so. Probably have a genetic test soon thatll tell you if your preschooler is the second coming of Ted Bundy, Rider thought. But when they drop the bad news on you, then what the hell do you do? Rider stopped his musings as Rufus Harms, towering over the two guards trailing him, entered the visitorsroom. The quick image was that of the lord to his serfs, reality the reverse of that. Harms was the largest man Rider had ever personally encountered, a giant possessed of truly abnormal strength. Even now he seemed to fill up the room with his bulk. His chest was two slabs of rebarred concrete hung side by side, arms thicker than some trees. Harms wore shackles on both his hands and feet that forced him to do the prison shuffle. He was accomplished at it, though; the shortened strides were graceful. He must be close to fifty, Rider thought, but actually looked a good ten years older; he noted the facial scars, the awkward twist of bone beneath Harmss right eye. The young man Rider had represented was the owner of fine, even handsome features. Rider wondered how often Rufus had been beaten in here, what other telling evidence of abuse he carried under his clothing. Harms sat down across from Rider at a wooden table heavily scored by thousands of nervous, desperate fingernails. He didnt look at Rider just yet, but instead eyed the guard, who remained in the room. Rider caught Harmss silent meaning and said to the guard, Private, Im his lawyer, so youre going to have to give us some space here.
