The Price Of Power

by James W. Huston

  “Good morning, may I help you?” the receptionist asked.

  “Yes, I am here to see Mr. Chung.”

  “Your name?”

  “Carolyn Billings.”

  The woman spoke into her headset. Carolyn waited for five minutes and finally Mr. Chung’s secretary came into the reception area. “Right this way please, Mrs. Billings.”

  Carolyn was shown into Chung’s office, a corner suite on the top floor of the building. Here too the view was magnificent. Carolyn was shocked by its beauty and found it intimidating. She could never imagine having enough money to rent anything like it.

  Chung got up from his desk and greeted her. “Hello, Mrs. Billings, thank you for coming.”

  “Thank you,” she said, sitting down. “What a beautiful view, how do you get any work done?”

  Chung smiled at her. “Sometimes it helps me get work done, and sometimes it distracts me from getting work done. But I enjoy the view.”

  “I hope so,” she said.

  “So,” Chung said. “There are some things I wanted to go over with you and the admiral. First, I need the admiral to sign this formal letter retaining this firm. I have a place for your signature as well, so that you can be a client of the firm and therefore the conversations among the three of us will remain privileged.” She took the letter, folded it back, and signed where her name was.

  “You probably should read it before you sign it,” he said.

  “I trust you,” she said.

  “I think you should read it anyway.”

  She began reading the letter, her eyebrows going up at the last paragraph. “You need a twenty-thousand-dollar retainer?” she said, horrified.

  “Yes. That is my minimum for a criminal defense case.”

  “Your minimum what?”

  “My minimum retainer.”

  Her eyes went back to the letter. “You charge five hundred dollars an hour?”

  “Yes. You didn’t know that?”

  “No. How would I have known that?”

  “Who referred you to me?”

  She sat back and tried to control her breathing. “I don’t remember. I called a lot of people and I think almost all of them mentioned your name.”

  “But no one told you how expensive I was.”

  “No.”

  “I am sorry about that, it can come as a shock.”

  “Does that mean for every hour that you work I have to pay you five hundred dollars?”

  “Exactly,” he said.

  “Aren’t there any lawyers cheaper than that in Honolulu?”

  “Many,” he said.

  “Then…” Carolyn didn’t know what to say. She felt trapped. “Should we hire someone cheaper? Are there any good ones who don’t charge as much?”

  “That is entirely up to you. I am paid that amount regularly by numerous clients. If you do not want me to work on behalf of Admiral Billings, I will understand that completely. It is your decision.”

  Carolyn tried to think. “Mr. Chung, my husband needs the best defense lawyer around. Are you that person?”

  “I have a certain level of experience, Mrs. Billings, which I think places me well to defend him. As to whether or not I am the best around, I’m afraid I will have to leave that to you and others to say.”

  Carolyn sat quietly for some time, feeling a heavy weight on her chest. Chung regarded her curiously, not sure whether to say something or to begin working on something else while she decided. At last she said, “Do other criminal defense attorneys charge the same?”

  “There may be one or two that charge the same, but most would be much less expensive.”

  She bit her lip while she studied his face. Then she said slowly, “I just don’t know how we are going to come up with twenty thousand dollars. How much do you think this whole thing would cost total?”

  He smiled apologetically. “It is very difficult to say. So much of what I do is in response to what the prosecutors do. We will of course need to do a substantial amount of work and preparation, bring numerous motions, interview witnesses, take additional steps about which I will not bore you, but it can be fairly said that this will cost at least fifty thousand dollars, and could cost as much as five hundred thousand dollars. Easily.”

  He saw her shiver at his response but he went on. “This is a political trial, Mrs. Billings. Your husband should consider beginning a legal defense fund, for support from other people in the Navy and outside of the Navy, retired officers, perhaps those more politically aligned with the Speaker of the House than with the President. I am very confident that he could raise enough money to pay for this.”

  “You don’t know my husband, Mr. Chung. He has never asked anybody for anything, and he would never accept anything from anybody. He just wouldn’t. I will mention it to him, but…” Her voice trailed off.

  Her financial future flashed in front of her, and she got up and turned to go. “I suppose you had better get working,” she said reluctantly. “I’ll take this letter to have Ray sign it,” she said. Chung walked around his desk and opened the door for her.

  “I look forward to working with you, Mrs. Billings. We will do the best we can to get your husband off.”

  She took his outstretched hand, shook it, and left the office.

  Hughes and Michaels arrived at the SEAL Team quarterdeck at the same time as BMC Smith. “Chief!” Hughes said, happy to see the senior chief petty officer of his platoon.

  “Mr. Hughes, Mr. Michaels.”

  They walked toward the office of the commanding officer of SEAL Team One. The door was open. Commander Lincoln Hobbs, a Navy SEAL of mythological reputation, was waiting for them. Most of the SEALs called him Commander Hobbs to his face and Hard-Ass behind his back. He had been everywhere and done everything. It was rumored that even his wife called him Hard-Ass. He liked both names.

  The Team operations officer, his face serious, sat in a chair on the far side of the room.

  “Gentlemen. Please close the door,” Hard-Ass said, and Chief Smith pulled it shut behind him. “Sit down.” They gathered at the table. “We may have something going.”

  “Yes, sir. What’s up?”

  “You heard about the strike on the American gold mine in Irian Jaya?”

  “Yes, sir, I’ve read the message.”

  “They’ve taken two hostages, the president of the mining company and his wife.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The Constitution battle group has an ellipse. They think they’ve located where these people are within a twenty-mile or so radius.”

  “An island?”

  “There are a bunch of islands in that ellipse, but they’ve got it pretty close.”

  Hughes traded looks with Michaels and Smith. They were all wondering the same thing.

  “Somebody’s gotta get them out,” Hobbs went on. “We’ve been notified if someone goes, it will be us. I want you to handle it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Hughes said, excited. “Are these the same guys that Jody Armstrong went after?”

  “We think so,” Hard-Ass said. “I’ve got a target folder set up for you here. Lieutenant Commander Sawyer has put it together with Intel. It contains the op report from Armstrong’s two feet-dry evolutions, the one where they reconned the first island, then the second one when they went ashore to support the Marine landing. A lot of good stuff. You’ve probably read part of the op report.”

  “Yes, sir,” Hughes replied.

  “These are bad people. They’re doing bad things to a lot of Americans. We’ve got to stop them.” He studied his men. “And now they’ve got hostages. I want you thinking about various COAs.” Courses of Action. “I don’t know what the mission is going to be yet. They’ve just notified us that they may need a platoon to supplement Lieutenant Armstrong’s det on the ARG.” The Amphibious Ready Group. “My guess is it will be a selective personnel recovery, but we don’t know. You’re the brain trust of your platoon. I want you to keep this compartmentalized. Start your
planning, come up with some COAs, and think about getting ready. Your platoon’s already been read in, so you can just start the planning. We don’t know when you’ll be going, or even if you’ll be leaving. I just wanted to give you a heads-up so you can start thinking about it tonight. Armstrong may go after them himself, he may need our help. We’ll have to see how this thing plays out, but you’re it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Hughes said. He started making a mental list of what he would need. “Charts?”

  “Intel’s waiting. They’ve broken out what charts we have and a few other things that will be helpful.” Hard-Ass scanned the faces around him. “Your platoon up for this, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’d better be. Get going.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Hughes said, standing up quickly and motioning for Michaels and Smith to follow.

  President Manchester glided smoothly across the water in the lap pool at the White House. The pool had originally been installed by President Roosevelt, then taken out and filled up during the renovation by President Truman. But Manchester loved swimming, and had reopened the pool in one of his first acts as President. He had taken a lot of heat for it. Selfish. Waste of money. Silly. Inappropriate. He didn’t care. He wanted the pool. He tried to swim every morning, but succeeded only three or four mornings a week. He swam for thirty straight minutes. Like a machine, the Australian crawl, one arm over the other, racing turn, and back the other way.

  Arlan Van den Bosch and Cary Warner, the National Security Advisor, stood at one end of the pool and waited. Van den Bosch’s nose was turned up slightly. He’d always hated swimming, and the smell of the chlorine wafting off the water nearly made him sick. He especially hated the indoor pool, the humid, overheated room plus that chlorine stench. To see the President groping through the water in a bathing cap was almost more than he could bear. He tried to avoid the President at this hour of the morning, but he had to talk to him now. Van den Bosch wondered what time the President had started. He usually began at five thirty, but it was now five past six. The Chief of Staff knew the alarm on the President’s rubber waterproof watch was always set to go off exactly thirty minutes after he dived into the water. The President would hear it, stop swimming exactly where he was, and get out of the pool. Van den Bosch sat down on the end of a ribbed pool deck chair with his hands folded in front of him and waited.

  He knew they should ask the President to stop swimming. Every moment that went by made them feel worse. They looked at each other and at the clock. Finally, Warner walked over to the side of the pool and said in a loud voice, “Mr. President!”

  The President lifted his head up and treaded water. “Yes,” he said, his face showing his irritation at being interrupted.

  “We need to talk to you right now.”

  The President swam to the side of the pool. He climbed out effortlessly, walked over to the chair that held his towel and robe, and began toweling himself off. The Chief of Staff tried not to snicker at the slightly absurd sight of a President of the United States in a blue Speedo swimming suit with a bathing cap turned up from his ears and goggles pulled onto his forehead. After removing his cap and wiping off his face, he turned to them.

  “What is it?”

  Warner handed him the photograph. “We received this via fax from our embassy in Indonesia about an hour ago.”

  Manchester looked at the eight and a half by eleven-inch photo and was immediately repulsed. “My God. Who is this?”

  “President of that mining company, Heidel. The one who got nabbed out of his bed. He’s been murdered or at least apparently has been murdered.”

  “Are you sure it’s him?”

  “Yes, sir. We had it checked by his company. Their headquarters are in Houston. They confirmed it.”

  The President closed his eyes and began rubbing the center of his forehead up and down with two fingers, as if he were trying to remove an ink mark he had just seen in the mirror. “One hour ago?”

  “Yes, sir. There are two more pages with the fax.”

  “Let’s have ’em,” the President said, sighing. Warner handed him the second page. It was a scrawl in awkward lettering that said: “Wife next if Hawaii prisoners not released.” Then Warner gave the President the other photograph page, of Mrs. Heidel sitting in a chair in a hut in her soiled nightgown, her hands tied behind the chair.

  “How long do we have?” Manchester asked, not wanting to know the answer.

  “No way to tell,” Van den Bosch replied. “But if we’re going to let them go anyway, the sooner the better.”

  The President sighed again and gave the pages back to Warner. “They didn’t even give us a chance to respond to their last demands. They say ‘immediately,’ we start working on the problem, and they murder him anyway. What do they expect from us? Who are these people?”

  Van den Bosch answered, “We don’t know anything more than we knew before. None of them are talking. At first they appeared to be what they claimed—the Front for an Islamic Indonesia—in keeping with the huge Muslim population—” He quizzed Warner. “What is it? Eighty-five? Ninety percent?”

  “At least.”

  “Anyway, turned out they were probably just pirates. You’d think though that after getting hammered by the Marines, they’d hesitate to come after us again. But this George Washington character isn’t motivated like most people. He’s a fanatic.”

  “And they have Heidel’s wife,” Manchester stated, putting his robe on.

  “Yes, sir. That’s her,” Van den Bosch said, gesturing toward the faxed photo that Warner held in his hand. “It’s too late to save him,” he added.

  “Obviously,” the President said. “Did we get their kids back safely?”

  “Yes, sir. They’re with Heidel’s brother in Houston.”

  Warner spoke. “We’ve also received a report from the USS Constitution battle group. They’ve picked up some UHF radio transmissions that may correlate to these folks. It’s encrypted. Even the local smugglers don’t use encrypted UHF. We’re very suspicious. We think it’s Washington.”

  “Can you locate it?”

  “We think so. We’re getting it narrowed down,” Warner replied.

  “What about the Navy down there. Who’s in charge?”

  “Admiral Blazer,” Van den Bosch answered.

  “What’s he like?”

  “Solid guy. He’s the one who went down and put Billings in custody and brought him back to Pearl Harbor.”

  “Can we rely on him?”

  “I don’t know,” said the Chief of Staff. “I can ask Admiral Hart what he thinks.”

  “Tell him to start heading toward that island.”

  Van den Bosch was surprised. “And do what?”

  “I’m not sure yet. Just tell him to head for the island and stay near it. And I want a hostage rescue team ready. Get the special forces involved now. We have to keep all our options open.”

  “Will do, sir,” Van den Bosch said enthusiastically, pleased by the President’s decisiveness. “Shall we tell the press about this?” he said, indicating the photographs.

  The President took a deep breath. “It’s been through the embassy. It’s going to get out anyway.” Reluctantly, he said, “Set up a press conference. And get with the Attorney General. See what he thinks about these prisoners in Hawaii. If we can’t convict them…”

  Van den Bosch said, “That’s the problem. We’ve got George Washington, or whatever the hell he calls himself, down there trying to hold us up to release all these prisoners, and we may not be able to hold them anyway. It’s going to look like we capitulated to this guy!”

  “We’ve known that,” the President said.

  “They’re poking us in the eye, Mr. President,” Warner said. “This guy is trying to get to you. Trying to make you look stupid.”

  The President was resigned. “We don’t have many options.”

  Warner began haltingly. “Mr. President, we are encouraged by your de
cision to send the Navy to find them and to get the special forces ready. But we need to know that you have the stomach for it.”

  “For what?” Manchester asked, anger forming.

  “For finding them,” Warner said pointedly. “If we do find them, you’ll have to decide all over again what to do about it. That didn’t work out so well last time—”

  “You let me worry about that. You just find them.”

  Van den Bosch added, “We just wanted to make sure. Frankly, sir, with the impeachment process cranking up, we need to know your heart is in this.”

  Manchester threw down his towel in disgust. “Anything else?”

  “No, sir.”

  Manchester strode past them without saying a word.

  They watched him, then looked at each other. Van den Bosch spoke first. “I don’t know, Cary. I don’t know what drives him.”

  “Nobody does. That’s the problem.”

  “If we don’t find out pretty soon, it may be too late.”

  “It’s his own funeral.”

  “It may be ours too.”

  Stanbridge closed the door behind Bradley Barrett, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Barrett had come at Stanbridge’s request. They got along quite well, but Stanbridge never forgot that Barrett wanted his job one day.

  Barrett had short black hair and a straight aristocratic nose. He was easily three inches taller than Stanbridge and had the carriage of a statesman, which Stanbridge lacked and craved. Barrett had the look of a politician, the kind a party might put on a poster and not snicker about.

  Stanbridge put his arm on Barrett’s shoulder momentarily. “Thanks for coming. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

  “I’d say we do.”

  “Coffee?”

  “No thanks. Too late for me.”

  “Let’s get right to the point,” Stanbridge began.

  “Love to,” Barrett responded, feeling confident, nearly exuberant.