“It’s time, Brad.”
Barrett agreed.
Stanbridge continued, “I want your committee to look into this. Give us a vote out of the committee recommending impeachment.”
Barrett opened a maroon notebook and took out some papers. “I’ve done some thinking about this and have prepared a budget to hold the hearings.”
Stanbridge’s expression was slightly pained and he did not extend his hand for the budget. “Budget?”
Barrett showed his surprise. “Surely you don’t expect us to conduct the first impeachment hearings since Clinton’s without an expanded staff, without us doing it right? We’ve got to call witnesses.”
“Why would you need an expanded staff?”
Barrett handed him the budget and sat down. Trying to hide his irritation, Stanbridge reached for the papers, walked around his desk, and sat down heavily.
“I need to expand my staff, John,” Barrett said. “I need an additional eighteen lawyers and aides and according to my calculations—you can see there at the bottom—I need an additional 1.45 million dollars. I’ve already told the rest of the staff to start looking for potential new hires—”
“Are you out of your mind?”
Barrett was wounded. “Why do you say that?”
“You don’t need eighteen more people to conduct these hearings!”
“I think that’s the minimum I need. There will be a lot of questions of law that I’m going to need attorneys to research, there’ll be additional staffing necessary to handle the hearings, the research, the witnesses, the subpoenas—all the things that go with this. You know how it goes.”
“That’s not what I had in mind at all!” Stanbridge said, rising quickly and pacing across the room.
“Do you know how many people the Senate committee had that was created to investigate Watergate?”
“No, tell me.”
“One hundred.”
Stanbridge screwed his face up. “That’s just ridiculous.” He glanced at Barrett. “I’ve got a whole different idea in mind.”
“I can’t do this half-assed, John. The committee tried a half-baked approach with no real witnesses with Clinton. They looked stupid.”
“I don’t plan to. But I also don’t plan to make it into a circus. I don’t want weeks of hearings and people being dragged in front of committees for boring testimony. That’s not the objective.”
“Well, what is the objective?” Barrett asked.
“The objective is to get to the trial. Get a vote recommending impeachment out of your committee, to be voted on right away by the House. All we need is a majority. Once we vote on impeachment, then the trial begins. I want the focus, the pressure, to be the trial itself.”
“I can call him to testify in front of my committee.”
“Maybe, but that’s not how I want this to play out. I don’t want you to call him at all in front of your committee.”
“Don’t call the President?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I want to let him stew. He knows all he has to do to stop this is hold a press conference and tell everybody he’s not a pacifist, although that may not help him in the dereliction of duty charge. I think he’s going to start squirming if we get close to a vote. Let him squirm.”
“So what do you want the committee to do?”
“I want a whole different approach. I don’t want politicians grandstanding in front of the television cameras, trying to make headlines with their clever cross-examinations. What I want is a short, discreet set of hearings to gather the main pieces of evidence that I’m going to give you. Once those are gathered, you vote. We control that committee!” Stanbridge leaned toward him. “You can get a vote for impeachment out of there, can’t you?”
“I don’t know—probably.”
“Get it done. Recommend it to the House and I’ll bring it to a vote right away. We’ll set the trial immediately. That’s where we’ll find out the answers to the questions. You don’t need any new staff, just cannibalize from some of the other staffs. I’ve already told Dillon and Grazio to help you out. I’m sure you can get some from other places, some lawyers. Let’s keep this thing lean and fast. Brad, I want hearings to start in two weeks with a vote a week later. Can you do that?”
“I suppose, but the less investigation and the fewer hearings we have, the less likely I think the House is to support this.”
“You let me worry about that.”
“Whatever you say, Mr. Speaker,” Barrett said with a touch of sarcasm.
“Sorry to sit on your big party.”
“It may still be a party,” Barrett said. A thought occurred to him. “Maybe the way to set the trap is to invite Manchester to testify. Don’t force him. If he doesn’t take the opportunity to explain himself, I’ll get you the vote.”
Stanbridge liked it. “Do it,” he said. “We can’t force him to come anyway.”
Chapter Eight
Arlan van den Bosch walked into the Oval Office unannounced. The President peered at his Chief of Staff over his reading glasses. “What?” the President asked, annoyed.
“Sorry to bother you, Mr. President, but I’ve been chewing on something that I just need to get off my chest.”
The President waited for him to continue.
“Molly Vaughan.”
“What about her?”
“She’s involved with your enemy.”
“Which enemy?” the President asked.
“The Special Assistant to the Speaker of the House—the one who came up with this whole Letter of Reprisal bullshit, Jim Dillon.”
“The one who went down to the battle group? Molly got information from him, if I recall.”
“Ever since I was at that reception at the French embassy—they were there together—I’ve been thinking about it. She may be a big problem. She was actually kissing him.”
“Not that,” the President said, returning to his work. “You interrupted me because you saw a White House attorney kiss somebody?”
“It’s not just somebody, it’s the guy who has it in for you, or at least somebody who works for the guy who has it in for you.”
“Our obstacles are clearly before us, Arlan. Let’s not get too carried away in making them look bigger than they are.”
“We should do something about it, Mr. President.”
“Like what?”
“Let her go. She may be telling him our strategy.”
“Forget about it, Arlan.”
Van den Bosch’s face flushed. “There’s something else. I’ve been thinking about Admiral Billings. I don’t want him to be a martyr.”
“Spit it out,” Manchester said impatiently.
“He’s going to be tried by a bunch of admirals.”
“Right. So?”
“So, I think we ought to get it transferred to the U.S. Attorney. In a federal court, not surrounded by admirals, he’d get a much … better trial.”
“Go back to work, Arlan,” Manchester said.
Van den Bosch considered saying several things. He knew when Manchester wasn’t in the mood for political strategy. Unfortunately that was becoming the case more and more often. Almost as if he didn’t care what happened. “Good night, sir,” he said finally. He headed directly to his own office and picked up the telephone. “Get me the U.S. Attorney in Honolulu.”
Grazio tossed his pencil on his desk. “What are we supposed to do?”
“Make a proof plan for the impeachment trial. Assume it’s going to happen. So Barrett will know what evidence he needs to get out of his hearings.”
“What’s a proof plan?” asked Grazio, seeking clarification.
“You really should have gone to law school,” Dillon said, “then maybe you would understand some of this law stuff.... It’s a list of what you have to prove and what evidence you are going to use to do it. We have to prove that being a pacifist violates the Constitution, that it’s a ‘high crime’ or ‘misdemeanor.�
�� Then we have to prove that the President actually is a pacifist. As to the first, that’s going to be mostly legal research. As to the second, that’s where we’ll duplicate the work the Speaker did, tracing back through speeches, correspondence, articles, everything. You name it. We need a copy of everything this guy has ever said.”
“We can’t do this by ourselves.”
“We don’t have to. We’re just supposed to take the first cut at it. Then it goes over to the committee, and ultimately to Mr. Big, David Pendleton, and his staff of either Senate lawyers or private lawyers.”
“What about the Fifth Amendment and forcing the President to testify. Is that our deal too?”
“Exactly,” Dillon said.
“So what do I do?”
“I’ll do the legal research. You get all that info the Speaker said he already had before he went public with this. I’m sure he didn’t do it himself. Find out who did, and get it together.”
“You got it,” Grazio said, standing. “This is kind of exciting.”
“Or scary.”
“Same thing.”
Captain Clay Bonham, formerly of the Pacific Flyer, the ship sunk with twenty-five dead crewmen, two dead Indonesian port inspectors, and one dead SEAL, stood behind the one-way mirror in the lineup room in the jail in downtown Honolulu. His weathered face was fixed in an angry gaze. He wore a Hawaiian shirt that he had bought when he arrived in Pearl Harbor aboard the USS Constitution as a passenger. All his clothing had gone to the bottom with the Pacific Flyer. He hadn’t been home to San Diego since the attack. He hated Hawaiian shirts, and he particularly hated the one he bought. He wasn’t sure why he had bought it, it just seemed the thing to do. He thought it made him look stupid, which was tolerable, because he felt stupid. His life had turned into a disaster. He had been the leading captain of the Stewart Shipping Line. The man chosen for the maiden voyage of the Pacific Flyer, the newest cargo ship built by NASSCO in San Diego. A FastShip, a new design that used six 747-type jet engines to propel the huge cargo ship like a Jet-Ski. They had set a record for crossing the Pacific. But on arrival the ship had been hijacked, the crew murdered, and the ship sent to the bottom of the ocean. All except Bonham, and as he saw it, it was entirely his fault.
The group of federal lawyers who had been chosen to prosecute the Indonesian prisoners watched his face carefully. Bonham examined the first group of men in the lineup as they crossed the stage and stood in front of the height lines behind them on the wall. Some squinted from the bright lights; others attempted to turn away. Bonham studied each one carefully, straining to see their faces more clearly. He stepped up to the one-way mirror and put his face as close to the glass as he could. The men were only ten feet away. His eyes moved up the line then back the other way, checking each face carefully. He finally turned toward the prosecutor standing next to him and shook his head.
“You sure?” Babb asked.
“I’m sure,” Bonham replied reluctantly.
Babb murmured something to the guard at the door who spoke into a telephone.
The six men in the lineup were ushered offstage and six more took their place. Again and again, six new men were ushered in, and repeatedly Bonham was unable to identify anyone even though he wanted nothing more than to finger the men who had taken his ship and murdered his crew.
Before one of the groups was brought in, Babb approached Bonham. “Do you think you’ll be able to recognize any of them, Captain?”
“You’ve asked me that,” Bonham growled, as angry with himself as he was with this tedious prosecution effort.
“I’m asking you again.”
“I thought I might. I only saw five or so of ’em on the ship, and I only really got to look one of them in the eyes. Their leader.” He took a deep breath. “A guy who called himself George Washington.”
“I read your statement,” Babb said. “Have you seen him here?”
“No. I’d never forget his eyes.”
“He’s the same one who slapped you around on the videotape they sent, isn’t he?”
“That’s the guy.”
“I want to go through them all. If we can’t identify any of these prisoners, I need to know that right away.”
Bonham was concerned. “I thought you had a confession from one of them.”
Babb hesitated. “We have some information from one or two of them. Mostly about their activities on the island and where they bought weapons. We have one who discussed the attack on the Pacific Flyer, but I’m not very happy with his statement. I have doubts about its … admissibility,” he said.
Bonham was shocked. “These guys might get off?”
“It may be, Captain, that none of the men involved in the attack on the Pacific Flyer were on the island when the Marines attacked. We may not have any of them.” Babb put his hands in his pockets. “Unless you can ID one of them…”
Dillon closed the door to his Georgetown apartment, threw his overcoat on the arm of the couch, and walked to the kitchen counter where his answering machine blinked at him. He hit the play button on the machine and went to the refrigerator to pour a glass of water.
The first two messages were from the captain of the basketball team on which he played in a winter league, and another was from a Senate staffer asking for his help in landing a job in a law firm in California. The last message was from Molly. “Hey, Jim, call me.”
The machine rewound as he picked up his portable phone, pressed the speed dial button, and heard Molly’s phone ring. She answered it. “Hey,” he said. “What’s up?”
“Hey,” she said, happy to hear his voice. “Guess who called?”
“Uh,” he said mockingly, “Speaker of the House.”
“Very funny, guess again?”
“I don’t know, who?”
“DeSalle.”
“What? Who?”
“You know, DeSalle, the French guy that we saw at the embassy the other night.”
“He called you?”
“Yup, called me at work this afternoon.”
“What in the world for, other than to hit on you, which of course would be the obvious reason.”
“I think he called to hit on me.”
“I told you.”
“No, he said he was calling to thank me for coming because he thanks all the people who come to receptions at the French embassy who were invited.”
“Right, he didn’t call me,” Dillon said. “You buy that?”
“Sure, I buy it, why wouldn’t I?” she said, implying that she didn’t buy it at all.
“Hey, guess what?” Dillon said.
“What?”
“What can you do in February that you can’t do in August?”
Molly thought for a second. “Ski.”
“Exactly. And guess what else?”
“I give up. What?”
“I’m going.”
“You’re kidding? How come?”
“I need a break.” He sighed. “I’ve got to get away from Washington for a weekend. I think I need to smell some pine trees.”
Molly suddenly got quiet.
“I want you to go with me,” he said.
“What?”
“To Wintergreen,” he said. “I want you to go skiing with me.”
Molly paused. “I can’t, Jim. I can’t afford it.”
“I’m buying.”
“You’re buying? Why?”
“I want to. What do you say?”
“I don’t know. When are you leaving?”
“Thursday evening, we’ll be back Sunday.”
“I don’t know, Jim, I’ve got so much to do…”
“What? Can’t you just bring your computer, do some work while we are out there?”
“Probably.”
“Come on, Molly. We need this.”
“Do you think the Speaker would mind if you go with somebody from the White House?”
“I doubt it,” Dillon said, thinking about it for the first time.
“I’ll see if I can get off,” she said enthusiastically.
“Sounds like a blast to me, I really hope you can make it.”
“Where would I stay?”
“I booked two rooms.”
She hesitated. “Can you afford this?”
“I’ve been saving.” He paused. “I want to be with you, away from Washington.”
“I’ll let you know as soon as I can.”
“Thanks. Night, Molly.”
“Good night. Bye.”
“Yes, your Honor, good morning, I am Craig Marsh, on behalf of Sien Buntan, and as a representative of the other defense attorneys, all of whom are present,” said Marsh.
“Good morning, Your Honor. Harry D. Babb, on behalf of the United States.”
“Good morning,” said the magistrate, taking in the sea of attorneys and onlookers. “It is my understanding, Mr. Marsh, that you are here to request an order shortening time for a motion to quash a so-called ‘confession.’ ”
“Yes, Your Honor. My client and others like him from Indonesia and elsewhere were taken by force by the United States military in an unprovoked attack on the island of Bunaya. Frankly, Your Honor, I’ve been looking at the evidence that the United States has given us through mandatory disclosure. There isn’t any. No evidence whatsoever to keep my client in jail, and there is no evidence on which to base an indictment. There is certainly insufficient evidence to convict. As this court knows, every single defendant has been in a lineup. The captain of the Pacific Flyer, Mr. Clay Bonham, has seen every single one of the defendants and could not identify a single one as someone who was aboard the Pacific Flyer when the attack occurred on that ship.
“The only evidence that even links my clients—”
The magistrate put up his hand. “Stop. You came here for an order shortening time on a confession.... Do you have any opposition?” he asked the U.S. Attorney.
“No, sir,” Babb said. “The sooner we get this motion out of the way, the better off we’ll all be.”
“Fine. Motion is set for a week from today, and must be filed by close of business today—I assume you have the motion ready to be filed, Mr. Marsh?”
“Yes, sir, I’ve got it right here.”
The Price Of Power Page 10
