“Right,” Grimes said, “but it doesn’t say equal time, does it?”
“Mommy?” came Annie’s voice, high and sweet and tentative. She was wearing blue-jeans overalls and pigtails. She stood at the open door, curiously stealing a glance at the two men.
“Yes, honey?”
“Mommy, Jackie’s making dinner. It’s going to be ready soon.”
“Okay, honey. We’ll be done very soon, too. Now, let us work, babe, okay?”
“Okay.” She looked around shyly. “Hi.”
“Hi,” both men called out.
“Why are you smoking, Mommy?”
“Come on,” Claire said, “out of here. I’ll see you at supper.”
“But I want to play here,” Annie said with a pout.
“Not now, sweetie.”
“Why not?”
“Because Mommy’s working.”
“You’re always working!” Annie said, stalking off.
“Man,” Grimes said, “you got a serious case of that nasty habit. I thought no one in Cambridge is allowed to smoke, some zoning law or something.”
“Yeah, well, I’m going to quit when this is over,” she said. “I was going to invite you guys to stay for dinner, but-”
“Invitation accepted,” Grimes said. “I can smell it from here. Someone around here knows how to cook. I love garlic.”
“Terry?” she said.
“I can’t,” Embry said. He reddened immediately. “I’m sorry, I’ve-I’ve got to meet someone.”
“Cheating on the wife already?” Grimes said.
Embry smiled bashfully, shook his head.
“All right, now,” Claire said, “I want to find out whatever we can on Hernandez. Terry, I want you to start a file on every witness or potential witness, starting with Hernandez and the other six who gave statements against Tom. I want their, what do you call them, fitness reports, service records, the works. Then I want to interview Hernandez.”
“Uh, you better leave the interviewing on this guy to me or Embry here,” Grimes said.
“Why?”
“Because we’re both army guys. I’ve done my time in the service. We know how the shit works.”
“Fine, but I want to be there. I want to see his face.”
“Of course,” Grimes said.
“I also want to find out if this guy’s been offered anything in exchange for testifying. Like immunity. Same for anyone else they might call at the trial itself.”
“We get that in discovery,” Embry said. “The general-discovery request.”
“Well, no we don’t, necessarily,” Grimes said. “You got to put in a specific request. Demand the government state with specificity which witnesses are claiming privilege and why. Tell ’em you want a copy of all grants of immunity given to any witness. Or any promises of leniency. We want a copy of all informants’ agreements, including any records of monetary and property remunerations.”
“All right,” Claire said, lighting a fresh cigarette. “I want the names of all members of this unit, their current names and addresses and phone numbers. I’m going to have Ray Devereaux track them all down.”
“You won’t find ’em all,” Grimes said. “These guys disappear, sometimes.”
“Ray’s good,” she said.
“They’re better.”
“You think we can trust them in the discovery process?” Claire asked. “To give us everything we ask for?”
Embry hesitated. Grimes said, “Can you ever trust your opponent in discovery? In the real world, I mean?”
“Not always,” she admitted. “It’s always a question.”
“There you go,” Grimes said.
“But the Brady rule requires them to give us all exculpatory evidence, anything that might indicate Tom’s innocence,” she said.
Grimes chuckled.
“You don’t trust them,” Claire said.
“It’s why I have a job, baby,” Grimes said. “It’s what keeps the big bucks rolling in.”
“If we don’t get everything the prosecution has,” Claire said, “we got ourselves a mistrial.”
“If we can prove it,” Grimes said.
“Terry,” she went on, “I want you to do a complete search through the Iran-Contra hearings and the United Nations reports on abuses in Central America in the nineteen-eighties. See if there’s any mention of the massacre at La Colina.”
Embry jotted a note.
“All right,” she said, “we’re going to request that all charges be dismissed. We’re going to argue that the government has no jurisdiction, since we were in an area we weren’t supposed to be in. The government, in effect, has unclean hands.”
“But what about the desertion charges?” Embry said. “You’re not going to contest those, are you? I mean, he destroyed his military uniform and his IDs-he obviously had no intent to return.”
“Least of our problems,” she replied. “Our defense is duress.”
“Duress?”
“Desertion is a specific-intent offense. That means his intent counts, right? Well, he feared he’d be killed-whether he would have been killed or not, it’s a valid defense, as long as we can show the defendant had a good-faith belief he’d be killed. Maybe we can get it dropped to ‘unauthorized absence.’”
“It’s not the ‘defendant,’ it’s the ‘accused,’” Grimes said. “It’s not the ‘prosecutor,’ it’s the ‘trial counsel.’ You’ll get the hang of the lingo.”
Claire flashed Grimes a sulfurous look of annoyance. “Thanks. Basically, we’ll prove that the U.S. government is trying to make Tom the fall guy for a gruesome government-sanctioned massacre.”
“Baby, you can argue all you want,” Grimes began, back to inspecting the ceiling.
“You say the 32 hearing is for scoping out the government’s case,” Claire said. “Well, here’s how we’re going to use it. To let them see we know how to play the hard way, that we intend to play the hard way. That if they go ahead with this kangaroo court-martial, we’re going to bring out the shit they never want out. We plan to embarrass the hell out of them. We’re going to graymail them. Bring out operational info, stuff they don’t want out in the daylight.”
“It’s a closed proceeding,” Embry objected. “Both this hearing and the court-martial that may or may not follow. Totally sealed.”
“Closed?” Claire said. “We leak. No such thing as an airtight trial.”
Grimes chuckled dryly.
“Leak?” Embry asked, horrified. “But we signed a nondisclosure agreement. If we leak, they’ll do an investigation, and we’ll all be up on charges-”
“Hey, you wanted the case, right?”
“Well, no, ma’am, as I told you-”
“Claire.”
“Ma’am?”
“Call me Claire. And don’t sweat it. Leaks are almost impossible to prove, as long as you’re careful about where you call from. And if they can’t prove it, it goes nowhere. Anyway, then we’re going to argue against this closed-courtroom bullshit. We’re going to argue Tom’s Sixth Amendment right to a public trial, and the public’s right to a public trial.”
“And they’re going to argue national security,” Grimes said, now sitting up, drawn into the game.
“So we file an extraordinary writ for an open trial. We go to the federal district court.”
“They’ll say, ‘We’re not going to intervene in a military matter,’” Grimes said.
“So we file an extraordinary writ for an open trial with the Army Court of Criminal Appeals. And the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. And then the goddamned Supreme Court. And let them try to argue national security-I’m going to argue that the operation is no longer ongoing, hasn’t been for years. That they’re just trying to protect the reputation of the Pentagon. Where’s the national-security interest? They want to have it both ways-protect the national security, yet prosecute my client.”