Jonathan got to his feet. Something Allen had dug up months ago now popped into this mind. “Find me that article from Sweden. Remember, the story about a plane that went down in the Baltic and a pilot was rescued?” He looked at Allen, whose body was leaning over the table with his pudgy hands pressed to a pale color under the stress of his weight.
“Sure,” Allen said, suddenly galvanized into action. “I think it’s in one of the folders over there.”
It was. Allen plucked it out of a binder and gave it to his colleague. The newspaper article dated back to March 8, 1989. It was written in Swedish and was stapled to a translation they’d gotten soon after Allen had been given the document by Victory Lines’ prior counsel in Germany. In less than two minutes, Jonathan had convinced himself that there was a link between an aircraft going down in the Baltic, the tail of a plane on the barge and the probable course of the Meecham. Jonathan had no idea what it meant, but it was an astounding coincidence—and worth examining with a fine tooth comb.
Allen gazed at Jonathan, perhaps waiting for some enlightened guidance.
Jonathan stared into the air for a while and then said, “I need to go there.”
“Where?”
“Sweden.”
Allen tilted his head to the side. “A little impulsive, don’t you think?”
“It would take me only a few days, and it could be well worth it.”
“Try convincing Gary,” Allen said, his face grimacing.
“I’ll tell him when I’m on my way there,” Jonathan replied, realizing Gary would ask too many questions, particularly now that Victory Lines was increasingly nerve-racked by the skyrocketing cost of the litigation. “I have a hunch, and I’m not letting go.”
Allen shook his head but didn’t say anything.
“In which paper was this published?” asked Jonathan.
“A newspaper in Visby, Gotland—an island off the coast of Sweden.”
“Ok, I’m heading there ASAP. And while I’m at it, I’ll stop over in D.C. to surprise Tillerman in person.”
“Why?”
“He’s a liar, and I want to see that jackass face-to-face,” said Jonathan. “Besides, there’s something strange going on. I feel it. You remember me telling you about that car crash—the guy following me?”
Allen nodded.
“His car was registered to a contractor at Bolling Air Force Base, in Washington, D.C.”
“And what does that mean?” Allen asked.
“Not sure,” Jonathan said pensively. “My brother-in-law called me with this information a short time ago.”
Jonathan left the room energized by his discovery. He quickly made arrangements to travel to Stockholm to dig up as much as he could on the air crash.
* * *
Multitasking was never Jonathan’s favorite part about practicing law. It was a life interrupted—constant interruption—combined with a requirement to know as much as possible about any given case at any moment and for any reason, important or not. He was engaged in a profession that demanded endless juggling acts with cases, some small, some large, many dull, most demanding a high level of attention necessary to retain client satisfaction and not instigate a malpractice claim. The Victory Lines matter was not the only litigation on his plate. It was one of many, and almost every moment at the office was devoted to tedious multitasking.
For Jonathan, the demands of his career came as no surprise. Growing up, he had seen the strain in his father’s eyes. It had become the norm for him as well, as he followed in his dad’s path. Normally, he felt it was a small price to pay to be able to do the work he loved. But for no apparent reason, while at his desk, his office door closed, he thought of Linda and questioned if it was all worth it—if being a lawyer was sufficient reason to give up so many hours with her, with her family, with their friends, with oneself. A life forfeited by interruption and distraction.
Jonathan drove home but couldn’t shake off the disturbing question. He had never considered it before with such intense reflection. By the time he parked his car in the driveway, he had forced himself to let the question die unanswered, but it just wouldn’t, no matter how hard he tried. It lingered as he entered the house and saw Linda on the couch, dressed in a pale blue suit with a glass of Chablis in her hand.
She had that look she always had at seven, her mind elsewhere—a customary early evening downtime before heading to the station for the nightly broadcast. This was the only time she enjoyed spending alone. A time in her day that was entirely hers, and Jonathan never dared disturb her moment of tranquil reflection, taking her satisfied world into a surreal suspension.
I love this woman, he told himself as he gazed at her from the foyer.
She smiled up at him, serene and peaceful, and pointed to the second glass next to the wine bucket.
Jonathan’s question lingered in his mind, but he was not going to pester her with it. He suspected the thought had materialized as a by-product of his exhaustion, rather than a lucidly gathered one.
“You look stressed,” said Linda, her head tilting to one side.
“I’m fine, honey,” he replied. “I don’t want to bug you.” Jonathan had de rigeur always thought himself as skilled at camouflaging any tension in his trial work. But Linda was an equally skillful observer.
“Tell me,” she insisted, her welcoming smile pushing him to be more open. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m just struggling to line up new evidence in the Victory Lines trial.”
“Something new?” she quizzed, resting her wine glass on the coffee table.
Jonathan told her about the battle that had gripped the court earlier in the day, in particular his victorious cross-examination that left Peyton and his star witness tongue-tied and begging for a hole to crawl into.
Linda was intrigued. “Sit with me.”
“I’m also trying to get other Navy crewmen to testify, but it’s not easy tracking them down. Many are retired. Some are in Louisiana, and some in New Orleans, I’m guessing.”
“How badly do you need them?”
Jonathan nodded. “Like I need a drink.”
“Have some,” Linda said, raising her glass to him. “Maybe you need some help.”
Jonathan gazed at her but said nothing. He’d later realize what her comment meant, and how foolish he had been to have overlooked its significance.
“I know I’ve asked you this once,” Linda said. “But has it been hard for you to work on that case, knowing the incident happened around the time of Matt’s death?”
She had asked that when Jonathan first joined the Victory Lines case, and he remembered that the coincidence with his brother’s accidental death was somewhat trying in that it was yet another reminder of those dark days. “I’m fine with it now, I guess. I think of Matt a lot, regardless. I miss him.”
“I know,” Linda said.
“I love you,” Jonathan said, wanting to change the subject and contemplating again the question he had asked himself earlier. He gazed into her eyes.
“You’re acting a little odd,” she said as her hand gently caressed his hair. “What is it? It’s not only the trial, is it?” she asked with an inquisitive frown.
“No,” replied Jonathan as he took her hand into his and leaned into the couch. “I don’t know if we’re spending enough time together.” His mind spoke without his logic intervening. “You know, with your work and all. And with mine. I feel like our lives are shackled to our Outlook calendars.” But he suddenly began feeling silly about having brought it up. Jonathan respected her career, not because lawyers like media people, but because she was a woman who had stolen his heart nineteen years earlier. The passage of time had instilled an immense respect and devotion since their days as high school sweethearts, and throughout their marriage of nine years. “I’m sorry,” Jonathan mumbled and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t want to sound—”
“If you want me to give up the nightly news, I would do that,” said Linda without
an ounce of hesitation in her words, as if it had been negotiated long ago and all that remained was a formal request from Jonathan.
He was stunned. He had never imagined asking her to do such a thing. She was her own person, a local icon, a pillar of strength who had always valued her commitment to professionalism, not unlike Jonathan. And neither had ever floated the idea of asking the other to give up anything of the sort. He was embarrassed but also excited. It was a question he had never dared think, nor ask, but he adored her answer.
“You would do that?” Jonathan asked, his thoughts suddenly bouncing wildly with the idea of mutually giving up everything—his law partnership, her anchor work—and blindly going off to unknown horizons with a lot less money but far more time to stay around in each other’s company.
“Yes, darling, I would,” she said, Jonathan now convinced that her words had not left her mouth lightly. It was in the way she looked at him. She didn’t blink. She had put away her smile for that statement, a gentle seriousness he had often seen but in other contexts. And even after so many years, it comforted him to hear her declaration of devotion to their relationship, to him.
He approached her slender face and gently kissed her supple lips. He ran his hand along her neck, cheek, temple and through her soft hair. They kissed again, and again. Their tongues touched. Her breaths moved more air. Jonathan unbuttoned her blouse. Her breasts were warm to his delicate caress. Her nipples were hard and he pressed his mouth on one and then the other.
“Would you?” asked Linda between breaths. “Would you give up something as equally important to you, if I asked?”
A lawyer, like an animal, always guards one’s instinct of preservation, a permanency about one’s self-worth, one’s attachment to what is familiar. And Jonathan felt that intimacy with destiny collide with that little thought that had bothered him since this afternoon. And he did not know how to answer. His love demanded fairness, that what she had offered needed reciprocation. I must be fair, he told himself, while expunging the notion that he would ever go through with giving it all up. He kissed her neck and unzipped her skirt. “Of course I would.”
Jonathan’s hands slid along her thighs. He kissed her with all the passion a man could have for a woman he loved and marveled at her extraordinary beauty, both on the surface and in depth. As he slowly removed her nylons, their mouths locked again in heated motion. Her skin perspired just enough to tell him the surrender was entirely mutual. His fingers explored inside her. They began to reach for each other. They bumped into the table, the wine glasses falling to the carpet as the couch slid across the floor. He put himself inside her, and nothing else in the world mattered. Not the Victory Lines case. Not another God- or man-made thing. Nothing but Linda.
6
The ride across the Potomac from National Airport to the Washington Navy Yard took less than fifteen minutes. Jonathan checked his briefcase, making certain which documents he had at his disposal should the meeting with Tillerman become as challenging as he feared.
He pulled up in his rental car to the security gate on Dahlgren Avenue and asked the Navy guard on duty to contact Tillerman’s office.
“Your name?”
“Brooks, Jonathan Brooks.”
Jonathan had no clue how Tillerman would react to an unannounced visit on his turf. They had only agreed to a conference call for nine o’clock, and it was ten till. That didn’t mean he would accept to meet in person, but for Jonathan, a face-to-face offered a better chance to get things moving in the case. It was also an opportunity to gauge Tillerman, a seemingly worthy opponent who had yet to set foot in the New Orleans courthouse.
The guard closed his window to make the call. He dialed, waited, and then spoke. The man then raised his brow and glared in Jonathan’s direction. Judging from the guard’s frown, Tillerman was probably laying into him.
He then hung up, opened the window, and said, “Sir, you’ll have to park in that lot over there and walk the rest of the way. And please wear this pass on your jacket.” He gave Jonathan directions to Tillerman’s building on Patterson Avenue.
Jonathan was exhilarated, though he anticipated Tillerman’s displeasure.
The six-story office building was two blocks away, squeezed between a large parking garage and a brick edifice. It was the seat of the Office of the Judge Advocate General’s Admiralty and Maritime Law Division, one of the largest such practices in the world, with hundreds of lawyers representing not only the Department of the Navy, but its various divisions, its fleets, bases and installations worldwide, as well as the Marine Corps.
Tillerman had solid credentials and was fairly high up the totem pole in the Division’s litigation practice, which for the most part worked closely with lawyers from the Department of Justice. And many in the division were, like Tillerman, not naval officers, but rather attorneys with prior practices in prominent law firms.
Once out of the elevators, Jonathan made his way to suite 3043, apparently Tillerman’s office. As soon as he opened the door, he was greeted by an assistant, a petite woman in a dark navy uniform, her hair frizzy and her smile non-existent. “Mr. Tillerman will be delayed, sir,” she said with a snippy voice. “He’s had an unexpected call, which may take some time.”
So Jonathan waited. And waited. It would have been nice if she had offered coffee or water, especially after Jonathan had spent nearly forty minutes waiting in an ergonomically inhospitable wooden chair in the corner of the stuffy room. Jonathan realized Tillerman was probably yanking his chain. But it did not matter. Jonathan was there, in the flesh, to survey the enemy and raise hell if needed.
The phone rang at the woman’s desk. She answered and glanced at Jonathan. “He will see you now,” she said coolly and then pointed to the door, as if Jonathan had not read Tillerman’s name etched on it in four-inch letters. She then resumed her paper shuffling.
“Is this the way your firm conducts telephone conferences?” were the first words out of Tillerman’s mouth.
“No, but this isn’t a normal case, is it?” Jonathan replied as they shook hands. He sat in a chair facing Tillerman’s oversized desk.
“I took the liberty of calling someone in for our talk,” the Navy lawyer told Jonathan. “He should be here momentarily.”
Jonathan didn’t like the sound of that and asked, “Who?”
“I’ll let him introduce himself. I suggest we work hard to reach some sort of agreement. He will not agree to give you additional sensitive documents, but perhaps there are other things that could put you at ease in this case. But he’s not the kind of person who plays games, and he’s no push-over in this town. And neither am I.”
“Well, then we’re all alike,” Jonathan said, mockingly. “Three stubborn advocates standing on a pile of false evidence.” He had no intention of letting Tillerman get any kind of upper hand, and certainly not when it came to chest-thumping. It was then that a fleeting thought made him smirk: the way lawyers posture. He’d seen every insult and arrogant gesture in the book, and what he had seen in the last few seconds was one of the better examples of archaic, pointless, shallow and hysterical bravado that educated men should know to avoid.
“For us,” Tillerman began, his head tilting back on his chair, “your little case is an annoying and useless expenditure of taxpayer money. And if you believe there had really been a collision, you should have sued the Navy when you had a chance.”
“What our clients and their prior lawyers did or didn’t do back then is irrelevant now. I’m here to talk about fabricated evidence and witness tampering.”
As Tillerman was about to say something else, probably just as pointless as his earlier comment, his secretary knocked and peered in. “Sir, Vice-Admiral Scar—”
“Yes, yes, I’ll be right there,” Tillerman snarled, interrupting her. He stood up, gave Jonathan a condescending glance and quickly left the room.
Jonathan surveyed their silhouettes through the frosted glass. Tillerman seemed agitated, but there w
as no sense in reading into it. Perhaps he was just the cocky jerk that he appeared to be from the first day Jonathan had spoken with him by phone some months ago.
An entire minute passed, and then the two men strolled in.
“Good morning, I’m Vice-Admiral Scarborough, Defense Intelligence Agency,” said the man walking ahead of Tillerman. He was a brawny guy, in his fifties, his face tanned and heavily wrinkled around the eyes. He wore a spotless dark Navy uniform with rows of patches sewn across the left side of his jacket, no doubt portraying an illustrious career.
“Pleased to meet you,” Jonathan said. He shook the vice-admiral’s hand and returned to his seat, attempting to appear unfazed by his presence. But underneath his calm demeanor, Jonathan was quite troubled. He could not understand why someone from the DIA would have anything to do with this case. It didn’t make sense from the mountain of evidence Jonathan had gathered since pre-trial proceedings began. Jonathan was familiar with the DIA only because it was headquartered at the nearby Bolling Air Force Base, where his brother Matt had once served as a translator with the 11th Wing before being transferred to the Pentagon.
The vice-admiral took a seat next to Jonathan and crossed his arms.
Jonathan told himself to start things off with a bang. “Gentlemen, perhaps this is a good opportunity to restate the obvious dilemma in this case. The evidence points to a deliberate attempt on the part of the Navy to conceal the actual course of the USS Meecham during the period in question. This is a huge problem for us, for the court, and certainly for the jury.”
“Now listen here,” the vice-admiral said with an icy stare. He turned his chair a bit more toward Jonathan and cocked his head back. “I don’t give a damn about your claims against the defendant insurer. From my standpoint, you can bleed them dry to your heart’s content. But what I care about most, and where you’ll have nothing to gain in fighting us, is to venture into matters that have nothing to do with your client and everything to do with keeping our nation safe, which is what I do every single day, along with many brave men and women. I will not compromise on that. Am I clear?”
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