Several of the spectators looked the captain over, whispering back and forth, and finally dismissed him.
Jake Grafton? Why is he here? Yocke scribbled down the name in his notebook and put three question marks after it.
A few minutes later the door behind the bench opened and Bader came in, followed by Thanos Liarakos. Bader glanced at Aldana and the audience and sat down beside Rodriguez-Herrera.
Judith Lewis moved to the chair at the far left of her table and Liarakos took the one she had vacated. He spoke to the defendant, got something in reply, then spoke to Lewis.
He looks tired, Yocke thought, and studied the attorney. Dark, trim, of medium height with black hair streaked with gray at the temples, Liarakos habitually wore thousand-dollar tailor-made wool suits. He was wearing one today, if Yocke’s eyes could be trusted. Liarakos normally looked every inch the successful criminal lawyer. Yet Mergenthaler had said that Liarakos had spent the summer of 1989 playing baseball in a professional senior league in Florida. At the age of forty-one he had tried out for a team composed almost exclusively of former major leaguers and made it. Jack Yocke didn’t know exactly what to make of that.
This morning, the reporter thought, the honest, sincere face that juries loved looked softer, less on stage. Then the explanation occurred to him — there was no jury.
“All rise,” the bailiff announced. The lawyers rose respectfully as the audience shuffled noisily to its feet. Aldana hesitated a second, and Liarakos pulled almost imperceptibly on his sleeve.
The magistrate, enshrouded in her judicial robe, entered and took her seat behind the raised bench.
The bailiff chanted the incomprehensible incantation that opened every court session and ended with a curt “Be seated.”
Jack Yocke kept his attention on the defendant. Aldana was leaning forward in his chair staring at the magistrate, a fiftyish woman with her hair pulled back severely, wearing a stylish pair of large glasses. He didn’t take his eyes off her as she read the indictment handed down by a grand jury in Miami several years ago and the interpreter spoke in a low tone in his ear. Yocke could just hear the rat-a-tat-tat of the Spanish, although he couldn’t make out the words.
“How do you plead?”
Liarakos half rose from his chair. “Not guilty, your honor.”
The magistrate ordered a not guilty plea entered in the record, then addressed the prosecutor. “I understand you have a preliminary motion in this matter, Mr. Bader?”
“Yes, your honor. May I approach the bench?”
She nodded and he walked up and handed the clerk a paper, which the clerk stamped and passed to the magistrate while Bader handed a copy to Liarakos.
“The prosecution is asking the court for a gag order in this case, your honor. The order is to apply to attorneys for both sides and the defendant.”
“Any argument, Mr. Liarakos?”
“No, your honor. We will have some motions of our own, and I understand you have set a date next week to hear them?”
“That’s correct.” She gave him the date and time. “Without argument, Mr. Bader, your motion is granted.” She consulted the proposed order. After a moment, she read, “ ‘Counsel for the government and the defendant, and the defendant, are enjoined from discussing this case, the facts, legal theories, possible witnesses, testimony to be introduced at trial, and any and all other matters connected therewith with the press or any of the representatives thereof. They shall not do, say, or write anything for publication or broadcast that might in any way prejudice possible jurors or interfere with the orderly administration of justice.’ Is there a motion for bail, Mr. Liarakos?”
“Not today, your honor.”
“Mr. Bader?”
“We have filed a motion, your honor, to confiscate the defendant’s assets as proceeds of criminal activity.” The courtroom buzzed and the magistrate looked stern. She raised her gavel but the noise ceased before she could tap the anvil. Bader continued: “We’d like you to set a date for a hearing.”
The attorneys and the magistrate discussed the scheduling and checked their calendars and settled on a Monday in January.
“This matter is adjourned until next Thursday.” The magistrate rose from the bench as the bailiff intoned, “All rise,” and the reporters gathered their coats for the dash to the phones.
As the marshals put the cuffs on him, Aldana got in a heated discussion with his attorney. Yocke edged as close as he could.
“Why didn’t you argue against this?”
Liarakos spoke too softly to hear, although Yocke tried.
“But she can’t make me be silent!”
More whispers.
“No one can gag me up. No one.” His voice was loud, but the sharp edge of command was there too. The crowd stopped dead, captivated by this drama. “That woman can’t gag me up while they send me up the railroad for a crime of which I am not guilty. This is supposed to be America! Not the Germany of the Nazis or the Russia of the Stalinistas.”
“This is not the time or place—”
“Are you my lawyer or their lawyer?” The voice was a brutal snarl.
“Shut the fuck up.” Although Liarakos’ voice was low, it cut like a whip.
The lawyer turned to the nearest marshal. “Clear these people out of here, please, and give me a moment alone with my client. You may wait in the hallway. Ms. Lewis will knock on the door when we need you.”
“Everybody out.” The crowd began to move.
Just before he went through the door, Jack Yocke glanced back at Chano Aldana. The defendant was glaring at Liarakos, his face dark with fury, his lips pressed together. His body was tense, coiled.
In the hallway Yocke sprinted to catch up with Jake Grafton. “Captain, wait! Please! Jack Yocke of the Post. I was at your party the—”
“I remember you, Jack.” Grafton had his dark bridge coat over his arm and held his white hat with the scrambled eggs on the bill in his left hand. Yocke glanced at his chest to see if the blue-and-white ribbon of the Congressional Medal of Honor was displayed there. It wasn’t. Maybe Mergenthaler was correct: he had said that Grafton never wore the decoration he received several years ago for ramming El Hakim’s plane with his F-14 over the Med.
“I’m curious, Captain. You were the last man in town I expected to see here today. Why’d you come?”
“Wanted to get a look at Aldana.”
“Officially?”
For a fraction of a second Grafton looked annoyed. “What’s an official look?”
“I mean is this personal or does the Joint Staff have some interest in Aldana?”
“No comment.”
“Aw, come on, Captain! Gimme a break. Why is the military interested in Chano Aldana?”
A grin spread slowly across the captain’s face. He settled his white hat on his head, nodded, and turned away.
Jack Yocke watched him go, then remembered he needed to find a phone.
“You should have seen him come unglued, Ott. That man is something else!”
“Jack, you need to stop using those banal phrases. People will get the idea you’re a semiliterate bum.”
“I’m telling you, Ott, you should have seen him! Oh, he never really lost his temper. He didn’t actually threaten Liarakos, but that look! This man could order the murder of hundreds of people. He could kill them himself. I was ten feet from him and I could literally feel the energy.”
“Maybe you should write a letter to Shirley MacLaine.”
“Listen to me, Ott. Aldana is criminally insane.”
“He’s behind bars and guarded night and day. What should we do about it?”