Headwind (2001)

by John J. Nance

  “I talked to Giuseppe Anselmo himself. They’re overjoyed.” He looked around the table. “Okay, first order of battle is to get this defrocked little Texas judge safely contained and out of the way. Harris doesn’t need a maverick lawyer, and I don’t want any fallen cowboys riding into Buckingham Palace and asking the blinking Queen for a favor and screwing this up further.”

  “He’s screwed it up already?” McLaughlin asked with surprise. “I mean, I know he sounds like a bit of a caricature, but I have talked with him, and I checked out his background in international law before his close encounter with judicial ethics, and he’s no dummy. He practiced with John Harris for years.”

  The Secretary stared momentarily at McLaughlin. “Really?”

  “Yes. And, by the way, the thing that wrecked his judgeship was falling in lust with a female defendant, whom, I might add, he later married.”

  “Well, your oversexed and knowledgeable international legal scholar just blasted into Number Ten Downing a few hours back and essentially put the British Government in a corner, demanding to know what they were prepared to do.”

  “That, I take it, was not the right approach?” McLaughlin asked.

  “Are you kidding?” the Secretary asked with a smile.

  “I’m a lawyer, Mr. Secretary, not a diplomat. I’m sure Mr. Reinhart and I share a propensity for finding the shortest distance between two points. Not to defend him, of course.”

  “Of course.” The Secretary of State rolled his eyes and glanced around at the others again. “Defend Mr. Reinhart if you must, but just get him the hell out of my way. Understood? Send him on a tour, take him to din-din, buy him a cookie, get him drunk . . . whatever. Just get him out of my hair. This is a ‘No Amateurs’ zone.”

  Everyone nodded without comment.

  “Good,” Byer said. “We’re on a mission from God in the Oval, and that mission is to contain this situation until the Peruvians give up and die of old age. No extradition, no release, just a long, laborious, boring, and essentially useful submersion of this into triviality.”

  “And what if the PM and the British Secretary of State won’t go along with that?” McLaughlin asked.

  The American Secretary of State looked him in the eye. “You’re just a barrel of fun tonight, aren’t you, Mr. Assistant Attorney General?”

  “Just wondering, Mr. Secretary, what we’re planning to do if the British judiciary claps the cuffs on our ex-Pres and has him carted off to a waiting Peruvian plane with the blessing of the PM?”

  “Never happen.”

  “You’re sure? What about the rule of law? Britain understands that concept. Heck, we got it from them in the first place.”

  “Never happen, Alex. First of all, you yourself briefed me about the extradition procedure. It takes time. And I know this Prime Minister is a bit of a rogue, but the Court of St. James is still far too interested in American cooperation diplomatically and militarily to buck us on something like this. Extradition isn’t a worry. This Reinhart character is.”

  Office of the Foreign Minister, Rome, Italy

  Giuseppe Anselmo replaced the receiver and held it in place for less than ten seconds before turning to his secretary and bellowing in Italian.

  “Get the head of Rome Air Traffic Control on the line. Quickly, please!”

  There was a flurry of activity in the outer office and several lighted trunk lines glowing on his desk phone before the intercom line rang.

  “He’s on three, sir.” She passed the name and the title of the man and Anselmo stabbed at the button with a pudgy index finger, identifying himself with the subtlety of a gunshot.

  “Why are your people holding up the clearance of that EuroAir flight in Sigonella?”

  There was a confused response on the other end and a request to hold.

  “Ah . . . I thought, Minister Anselmo, that we were not supposed to release him. That is why the clearance has been . . . delayed.”

  “Who thought that?” Anselmo demanded.

  “I . . . ah, Minister, your staff told me your office did not want us to let him go.”

  “My staff? Who on my staff?”

  “Rufolo Rossini, your deputy. He didn’t tell me to do this, but from what he said, I assumed that you would want us to act, since it made sense.”

  “You assumed? Has Air Traffic Control now taken on foreign and domestic policy decisions as well?”

  “No, Minister, I . . .”

  “Release that flight at once. Get him out of Italian airspace as fast as you can. Rossini had no authority to give you that order.”

  “But, Minister, Italy was trying to arrest the occupant of that aircraft, no?”

  “Since you’re intent on making national policy, let me tell you what the President, and I, want. We want that EuroAir flight and the former American President on it out of Italy as fast as possible! The last thing in the world Italy needs is a worldwide media circus focusing on whether we’re doing the right thing with respect to President Harris. If we hold him, we lose. If we extradite him, we lose. If we try him, we lose. But if he flies away on his own to escape the warrant, we at least come out diplomatically intact. Where does he want to go?”

  “London.”

  “Wonderful. Let the English battle this one. Get him out of here!”

  “I’m very sorry, sir. If you’ll let me go, now, we’ll release the clearance.”

  “See to it! And don’t you ever dare make an assumption like that on your own again.”

  The man rang off and Anselmo slammed the receiver back into place with enough force to startle his secretary, who peered around the corner of the office to make sure he was all right.

  “Sir?”

  “Find Rossini and get him in here immediately! I must find out who else he’s been manipulating behind my back.”

  Bow Street

  Magistrate Court, London, England

  Nigel White had briefed both Geoffrey Wallace and Jay Reinhart about the probable futility of any attempt to quash the Interpol warrant in the setting of a magistrate court.

  “Basically, all we can do is listen and grumble a bit, unless you’ve got evidence that the warrant is truly bogus,” White advised.

  Sir William Stuart Campbell’s presentation of the Peruvian warrant was predictable, but the image of Nigel White suddenly rising to his feet was not.

  “Judge, may it please the court,” Nigel said, watching carefully as the magistrate peered over the half-glasses he was wearing.

  “Mr. White? What say you in this matter?”

  Stuart Campbell turned in slight surprise.

  “On behalf of Mr. John Harris, former President of the United States of America, I pray the court consent to hear important evidence that the offered warrant, while authentic in its issuance by Peru, states its cause fraudulently, not only under British law, but under Peruvian law as well.”

  The magistrate frowned and leaned forward. “Mr. White, in the court’s view, this is not the forum for contesting the validity of those charges. In addition, I might add that you yourself just testified to the validity of the warrant’s origin, which is all I’m concerned with at the moment.”

  “What better forum exists, sir? Should we wait for the injustice of an actual arrest of a former head of state of the most powerful nation on earth before discovering that this warrant is essentially a lie, alleging a crime that in no way could have been committed by Mr. Harris? This does not constitute the application of justice.”

  “Perhaps not, Mr. White, but it constitutes the application of the laws of Great Britain in the matter of arrest and extradition, in the order in which they are to be applied. Now sit down please.”

  “No, sir, I will not sit. I stand to beg you to permit Mr. Harris’s American attorney, Mr. Jayson Reinhart, to speak to this matter.”

  The magistrate shook his head in mild disgust and pointed his gavel at Stuart Campbell, who had been standing at his respective table with a bemused expression.

/>   “Mr. White, unless you can convince Sir William Campbell here to permit such a useless debate, and one which in no way will affect my ruling, I require you to SIT DOWN, sir!”

  Stuart Campbell turned to the judge and raised a finger. “Sir, if you please.”

  “Sir William? Surely you’re not prepared to say such argument is acceptable to your client?”

  “On the contrary. However, the government of Peru also has no wish to engage in even the appearance of intransigence when it comes to presenting a full and complete evidentiary record. Regardless of the legal immateriality of it, I would be pleased to listen to Mr. Reinhart of America, if this court would consent to hear him.”

  The magistrate sat back as if struck. “Indeed. And just when I was prepared to expect you gentlemen to adhere to those boring procedures prescribed by law. But why should we stand on legality, eh? What do we think this is, a court? Very well, Sir William, I shall grant Mr. Reinhart an audience of five minutes, and that is that. Mr. Reinhart?”

  Jay got to his feet feeling entirely off-balance and unprepared. “Yes, your honor . . . ah, I mean, Your Lordship.”

  “I’m not addressed as ‘Your Lordship,’ Mr. Reinhart, and you needn’t be concerned with the courtesies of our court,” the magistrate said, leaning forward and gesturing with his gavel, “since you are not a member of this bar and are not required to follow them. Not a whit of what you have to say will legally amount to a tinker’s damn anyway, but as a courtesy to your client, and to yourself, you may address the court for five minutes.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Jay said.

  The judge sat back with an expression of mild amazement, his right hand cupping his face.

  “May it please this court,” Jay began, “I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this matter. I shall be very brief. And I should tell you that I am very experienced in international practice and fully understand the mandates of the Treaty Against Torture under which this Interpol warrant is presented. We are not arguing that President Harris is protected by the Doctrine of Sovereign Immunity. That doctrine does not apply to such crimes as charged, as was properly established in the Pinochet case. What this court should consider, however, is that the charges in this warrant are patently false and do not state a sufficient criminal allegation to be afforded the full faith and credit of a British warrant. Peru alleges that President Harris personally ordered the para-military raid against a suspected Peruvian illegal drug factory that led to the admitted torture and murder of eighty-four men, women, and children. It was a horrible act, to be sure. Yet Peru has failed utterly to offer any proof whatsoever in this forum, or any other, that connects the order to commence this raid with any knowledge President Harris could possibly have possessed that torture and murder were to be used by the hired mercenaries who carried out this action. President Harris issued a blanket order to the Central Intelligence Agency . . . called a ‘finding’ under American procedure . . . that called for the CIA to search out and destroy the drug-making capability of the subject factory. That order is a matter of record in American archives. There is virtually nothing in that order, or anything else that Peru has presented, which indicates that President Harris knew, or could have known, that the CIA agent in charge in Peru was going to hire a gang of cutthroats and instruct them to do what they did. Sir, in the utter absence of any evidence to support this warrant, and under the common law and the rules of criminal procedure of Great Britain, Peru has a required burden to present a case that has some connection with the crime, and they have failed that burden. In the absence of such threshold offering of proof, this court should deny the warrant.”

  “Is that your statement, Mr. Reinhart?” the magistrate said, still sitting back, his chin on his hand.

  “Yes, sir,” Jay said, feeling completely ineffective.

  “Thank you.” The magistrate sat up. “Now, if you gentlemen don’t mind terribly, I will proceed to issue my ruling and get on to the press of daily chores before this court.”

  Stuart Campbell had sat down as Jay spoke. He stood suddenly.

  “Sir?”

  The magistrate’s face registered complete surprise. “Sir William? Whatever more can be said, sir?”

  “I should appreciate the opportunity to answer, for the record, of course, the good Mr. Reinhart’s challenge to the evidentiary basis of this warrant.”

  “Must you, Sir William?”

  “Yes, sir, indeed I must.”

  “I shall warn you again that this bears in no way on my ruling. You don’t need to answer his statement. What he said is immaterial to this case at this juncture. Need I remind you that this merely concerns the arrest warrant, not extradition?”

  “I understand, sir, but this is a very serious case involving international legal precedent, and one which the world will be watching with great interest. It behooves us, I think, to make the record complete.”

  “Oh, very well. Proceed,” the judge replied, sitting back and laying his gavel on the bench before him.

  “Thank you,” Campbell began, turning to look at Jay as he picked up a thick sheaf of papers. “I shall provide a copy of this brief for the court, and for Mr. Reinhart, but let me summarize. Mr. Reinhart alleges that there is no connection between President Harris’s general orders to the CIA and the ultimate infliction of torture and death on the occupants of a rural building which, although serving as an illegal drug lab, also contained the wives and children of many of the workers . . . all of whom were tortured. In fact, in the torturous interrogation that proceeded over two days, some of the men, women, and even children were beheaded, many of the women and girls raped and brutalized, and ultimately all of them who were still living were then locked in the structure and burned to death. Only one person, a young girl, escaped to tell the tale. She was fifteen. She had been raped and maimed and left for dead with the others.”

  Nigel White was on his feet. “Sir, I must object to this shameless recitation of horror stories in place of legal substance!”

  “Sustained, indeed!” the magistrate snapped. “Sir William? No more of that.”

  “Yes, sir. My point is this. The government of Peru has uncovered proof that on the nineteenth of November of that year, fourteen days before the raid began, President John Harris was briefed in the Oval Office of the White House by a CIA covert operations chief named Barry Reynolds, that there was a group of former ‘Shining Path’ guerrilla mercenaries who had agreed to conduct the raid and the destruction of the drug factory for the price of one million dollars, U.S. Mr. Reynolds left the Oval Office thirty minutes after he entered with the verbal approval of the President of the United States to conduct the raid and to pay for it from secret CIA funds. In that briefing, Mr. Reynolds had provided ample warning that the only force available to carry out such a raid were professional thugs, and that a high risk existed that they would be brutal and bloodthirsty in their work, and might well disregard their instructions and maim and torture the occupants of the factory before killing everyone. President Harris, having been informed of this and advised by Mr. Reynolds to disapprove the raid, nevertheless ordered the raid carried out because he was convinced that stopping the heavy supply of processed cocaine and heroin from that district was far more important than the lives of those involved. Of course, the President undoubtedly did not expect women and children to be involved, but he did expect human beings to be the victims of the raid he was authorizing. We have copies of the presidential appointment logs showing a gap of thirty minutes in his schedule that day. While there is no mention of Mr. Reynolds’s visit in those logs, Peru’s investigation has uncovered irrefutable evidence of that visit and has verified the details of what transpired, and it is this proof that forms the unshakable foundation of this warrant.”

  Nigel White began to rise but Jay put a hand on his shoulder and stood instead.

  “Judge, may I ask a question?”

  “I can’t see why not, Mr. Reinhart,” the magistrate said sarcastically, “sinc
e we’re apparently making up a new criminal procedure here as we go along. By all means, proceed.”

  “Sir William, what is the nature of this so-called irrefutable evidence?” Jay asked.

  With a supremely confident expression that sent cold chills down Jay’s back, Stuart Campbell turned and faced him in silence for a few seconds.

  “I’m very much afraid, Mr. Reinhart, that we have that information from the source himself. You see, Mr. Reynolds was sickened by what happened. He has had a long and distinguished career with Central Intelligence and is a man of conscience who was directed by his superiors to bring this onerous option to President Harris. He did so reluctantly, thinking that a President of the United States would never approve the use of thugs and the dangers such an act entailed. After the raid he was in an agony of conscience and felt personally responsible. The record will show that he resigned his CIA position and subsequently contacted the President of Peru personally to inform him of his own involvement and provide proof that the raid had been ordered from the Oval Office.”