The Price Of Power

by James W. Huston

  “I haven’t forgotten, Mr. Dillon. I remember—”

  “Please let me finish,” Dillon said. “I came up to congratulate you, and you basically said I was all wet. That bringing that Letter of Reprisal the way that we did was a challenge to the fragile government. Could have permanently damaged the country.” He stared at Pendleton. “You were arguing a position you didn’t believe in. You were arguing it because the Speaker of the House was paying you.” He put up his hand to stop Pendleton from interrupting. “Seems to me that now that you’re challenging the President, you have to believe in what you’re doing. I think impeaching Manchester is the right thing to do. I haven’t heard you say that yet.” He waited.

  The other attorneys’ eyes were huge. They wanted to look at Dillon and Pendleton simultaneously. Pendleton’s cool exterior was intact, however, and he finally spoke. “I believe that the President may in fact be a pacifist, and would therefore be unfit to serve in his office. I also believe he did not fulfill his job as Commander in Chief by not defending American citizens and property. What I don’t know, Mr. Dillon, and perhaps you know something I don’t, but what I don’t know, is whether he is a pacifist. He has never said so. Our evidence is circumstantial. Frankly, if he doesn’t testify, I think we are likely to fail. And if he does testify, it’s going to come down to my cross-examination. That’s why I need all the help I can get. So are you for us or are you against us?”

  “I don’t believe the President is fit to serve. I think he is a pacifist. And if he’s not a pacifist, I think he’s a coward. He was unwilling to stand up for the citizens of this country when they were murdered. So yes, I’m with you, I’m probably ahead of you. He needs to be held accountable.” Again Dillon turned around. But this time he opened the door and left the conference room. The door slammed loudly behind him, the sound of his shoes echoing on the marble floor as he walked away from Pendleton.

  “You did what?” Grazio asked, amazed, as Dillon recounted the scene in the conference room. “What the hell were you thinking? You trying to get us fired?”

  “I just don’t know about Pendleton. I know he’s good. But he’s just a mercenary. Everybody in this whole city is mercenary. Nobody operates out of principle. The politicians do what they have to do to keep getting elected.”

  “I do,” Grazio said, pointing to himself.

  “You don’t do squat,” Dillon said. “You have no responsibility—”

  The phone rang, interrupting Dillon’s tirade. “What?” he said, picking up the receiver. “I’m sorry, what did you say your name was? Carolyn? I’m sorry, do I know you?” He paused and listened. “Oh, of course. Hold on a second and let me put you on the speakerphone.” Into the speakerphone he said, “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes.” Carolyn Billings’s voice came over the phone clearly.

  Grazio, perplexed, stared at Dillon. Who was this woman?

  “So how’s Admiral Billings?” Dillon said, giving Grazio the information he needed.

  Grazio signaled his understanding and listened.

  “Oh, I guess he’s okay. They’ve got him locked up in the brig at Pearl Harbor wearing dungarees,” Carolyn said.

  “They didn’t release him on his own recognizance?” Dillon asked.

  “No, I thought everybody knew that. It’s been in the news.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure I saw it, it just didn’t really register. I’m sorry.”

  “Well, Mr. Dillon, I’m really quite sorry to bother you.”

  “No problem at all,” Dillon said.

  “My husband told me that I should call you. He said that you were on the USS Constitution when all this happened and there is something I need to talk to you about.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He said that you were the one who brought the Letter of Reprisal to him and delivered it from the Speaker of the House.”

  “Yes, I did,” Dillon said, feeling slightly guilty.

  “Well, frankly, Mr. Dillon, the JAG attorney who was representing him, and still is, I guess, just isn’t that … experienced. I mean he has a lot of experience, but nothing like this.”

  “I doubt there are very many JAG officers who have much experience with this.”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “I went to a criminal defense lawyer who everyone said was the best lawyer in Honolulu and he has agreed to help.”

  “Good, I’m sure that will work out.”

  “Well, it may work out,” she said haltingly, “but frankly, Mr. Dillon, we can’t afford it. He needs a retainer of twenty thousand dollars and he charges five hundred dollars an hour.”

  “You’re kidding me,” Dillon said.

  “No. I’m not.”

  “So,” Dillon said, “what can I do for you?”

  Carolyn’s voice had pain in it. “I’m not quite sure how to approach this, Mr. Dillon. Unless my husband gets a very bright attorney, he’s going to be convicted. That terrifies me. But we can’t afford to pay for this attorney. He said we should start some kind of legal defense fund. Ask people to make donations. Seems like a good idea to me, but Ray said absolutely not. He’s not going to anybody for money, and he sure doesn’t want me or anybody else to go public and start some kind of legal defense fund. So, I’m not sure quite what to do. Ray told me I could always call you if I had any problems, so I’m calling you.”

  Dillon looked at Grazio quizzically. “So what can I do?”

  “This all started, Mr. Dillon, because your boss decided to go after those terrorists. It was the right thing to do, but he put Ray in a very difficult position.... He’s paying for it. Your boss isn’t.” She hesitated and then went on. “Could you ask the Speaker if he has any way of getting my husband’s defense paid for?”

  “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ve got to go and see him anyway, and I will ask him. I’ll call you back. Can you give me your phone number?” She did. “All right, thank you for calling.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Dillon, and I hope this call wasn’t inappropriate.”

  “Not at all, Mrs. Billings. I appreciate your thinking of me.”

  “Good-bye,” she said, and hung up.

  Dillon hit the button on the speakerphone disconnecting the line.

  “Pretty amazing,” Grazio said. “Sounds desperate.”

  “Nothing focuses your attention like being a defendant and not being able to afford a good attorney.”

  “Think the attorney really matters?”

  “Definitely.”

  “How can some stupid attorney charge that much? You think any attorney is worth that?”

  “You think someone who hits four hundred in the majors would be worth some serious coin to a baseball team?”

  “Sure.”

  “Think they’d pay him five hundred an hour?”

  “They get five hundred a second.”

  “Exactly. And they’re not keeping anyone out of jail. What if the best attorney around—a four-hundred hitter—was willing to defend you when the government’s trying to put you in jail? Think he might be able to demand a premium?”

  “I still wouldn’t pay it.”

  “Yes you would,” Dillon said, heading toward the door. “Let’s go talk to the Speaker about this.”

  “This ought to be good.”

  * * *

  The ES-3 moved onto the catapult in the red darkness. The flight schedule was over for the rest of the air wing, but the group who never was appreciated kept flying. VQ-I detachment Six, aboard the USS Constitution but based in Guam, was flying the wings off their ES-3s for one more chance at the signal, the one Hernandez was working on from a mountain on Oahu. One more directional strobe, one more indicator to pinpoint where George Washington might be. They hadn’t heard it again since they got the first signal. The cryppies were tired, but enthusiastic. Nothing could happen unless they found Washington. And the only way they were going to find him was by catching one more UHF transmission.

  The ES-3 was an electronic version of
the S-3A Viking antisubmarine airplane, a fat and mostly ugly two-engine airplane that looked like an old AMC Pacer. It was affectionately known as the Hoover because of its distinctive bwoop sound when power was added. It sounded like a vacuum cleaner.

  The ES-3 taxied into position. Its four occupants sat in ejection seats that were too small for comfort. The sensitive electronics gear hummed in anticipation of the launch. The pilot checked his flight controls, turned on the exterior lights of the aircraft, and they all braced for the catapult shot. The hold-back fitting released, and the ES-3 was pulled down the bow of the Constitution by the catapult and thrown into the pitch-black sky. The ES-3 climbed away from the ship. The only other plane airborne was the E-2, the radar early warning aircraft that also had an ESM suite able to detect the UHF signal.

  The ES-3 headed toward the ellipse where the signal was thought to have originated. They emitted no radar, no transmission of any kind on the off-chance that Washington had his own ESM gear to detect the ES-3.

  The four crewmen settled in for the four-hour flight, knowing the chances of hearing anything were virtually zero. The two cryppies were in the back, two T-branchers—men whose job it was to find and identify signals. Their gear was wide open. The UHF receiver was ready to receive and track a momentary signal across the entire UHF spectrum. It would automatically find it, determine its direction, and record it for later evaluation.

  They flew a racetrack pattern east and west fifty miles south of the area where the last signal had come from. They waited for anything that might hint of George Washington. The night was quiet. Suddenly, a brief UHF transmission flashed onto the receiver. It spiked at a frequency close to the last transmission. The cryptologist listened carefully in his headphones, then it was gone. He glanced at the cryptologist sitting next to him in the back of the ES-3. “Hear that?”

  The other CT’s head bent forward, indicating he had. “Did you hear the click?”

  The first man signaled a thumbs-up.

  “It’s a relay. It’s going to another island for retransmission. Who the hell are these guys?”

  “Did you get a good strobe?”

  He checked his equipment. “Dead on,” he said.

  “Let’s get this transmission recording to RSOC right away. See if they can fingerprint the transmitter. If it’s the same one, this guy’s dead.”

  Chapter Ten

  Is his holiness available?” Dillon asked Robin, the Speaker’s administrative assistant.

  “The Speaker is in his office alone,” she replied.

  He and Grazio went toward the door. “Mr. Dillon?” Robin said.

  “Yes. What’s up?”

  “He’s not in the best of moods.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” Dillon said. He knocked on the door, then opened it and the two men walked into the Speaker’s office.

  Stanbridge stood at his desk in the corner reading and marking various papers. The stereo hidden in the bookcase played soft classical music. Haydn’s Te Deum, Dillon noted. “Morning, Mr. Speaker.”

  “Hello, Dillon … Grazio,” the Speaker said. “What’s up? I’m busy.”

  “We just got a call from Admiral Billings’s wife,” Dillon said.

  The Speaker showed no recognition for a moment and then a light went on. “Billings’s wife? Why’d she call you?”

  “They’ve got him locked in the brig wearing a jumpsuit. The Navy lawyer who was going to defend him is a chump, so they hired a fancy criminal defense lawyer from Honolulu,” Grazio said.

  “So?”

  “So he’s five hundred dollars an hour and they can’t afford it. She’s not sure he’s going to get off at all, and she thinks the only chance he has is to get the best defense lawyer that they can find.”

  “So, why’d she call you?” the Speaker asked again.

  “She said that you’re the one who caused this, so maybe you could help get her husband out of it. He’s just caught in the middle,” Grazio answered.

  “I caused it?” The Speaker shrugged his shoulders. “That takes some nerve.” He walked around his large desk, slid the papers in a drawer, and put down his pen. “You were there, Dillon, right?”

  “Where?”

  “When the Letter of Reprisal was delivered to Admiral Billings and he decided what he was going to do.”

  “Oh, of course, sir. Yes, I was there.”

  “He made a choice, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did I tell him what he had to do?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Did you?” The Speaker’s eyes met Dillon’s.

  “No, sir. He asked me if I thought it was legitimate, and I said yes. Which I do.”

  “So there it is. He made a choice and he’s got to live with it.”

  Dillon regarded him with surprise. “Mr. Speaker, I don’t think he’s asking us to get him out of it. He doesn’t want some special intervention, some new law. He just wants help with his legal defense.”

  “How are we supposed to do that? Pass a new appropriations bill to specifically fund an admiral’s legal costs when he’s already got a government-appointed lawyer? Not happening, Dillon.”

  “Can’t we help raise money for his defense?” asked Grazio. “Can’t we start a legal defense fund?”

  The Speaker stared at the men. “Are you both nuts? How would that look? No way. He made his bed, now he’s going to have to sleep in it.”

  Dillon felt as if he were seeing a stranger. “I think it’s your bed, Mr. Speaker.”

  The Speaker’s face reddened. “I may have designed it, I may have even built it, but he’s the one who made it, and now he’s in it.” The Speaker changed the subject. “By the way, I got a call a few minutes ago from David Pendleton over at the Senate building. Can you guess why he called me?”

  “Well,” Dillon said evasively, “he probably thought that we were doing such a great job on the team together that he wanted to thank you for getting me involved.”

  The Speaker wasn’t amused. “No. As a matter of fact, he said you were insubordinate, disrespectful. Not a team player. Is that true?”

  “Well, I had kind of a bad time over there. I never told you about a conversation he and I had after he argued before the Supreme Court on the Letter of Reprisal. He basically said he didn’t believe in it, but he did it because he was asked to. And today, there he was like a cheerleader, trying to get everybody pumped up to bring down the President. I just asked him if he believed in it this time. I think he took offense.”

  “I would’ve too,” the Speaker said. “Do you both know what it will mean if the President is convicted?”

  “Of course. He’ll be removed from office,” answered Grazio. “It would also be the first time in the history of this country that an American President’s ever been impeached and convicted,” Dillon added.

  “More than that,” the Speaker said. “He’s been such a strong President, everybody has assumed he’s going to be reelected. If he’s out, then Bill Fuller, that weak-tit of a Vice President of his, would be in, and he’s very beatable. This could be my big chance. If the President goes, I just might run.”

  Dillon glanced away, unable to face the Speaker. “Yeah, I guess that’s right,” he said. “Was that your objective all along?”

  “Of course not,” said the Speaker, offended. “It just occurred to me.” The Speaker raised his eyebrows and addressed Dillon in a tone that hinted of an insider’s circle. “Think what this could mean for your career. Start thinking about what job you’d like to have in the White House,” Stanbridge said as if he had just handed Dillon a present. “You too, Frank,” he said, turning to Grazio. “Where would you like to work?” He waited for Dillon or Grazio to respond. Neither said anything. “Well, I’ve got work to do,” the Speaker said.

  Dillon inclined his head. “Right. Thanks for the time.”

  “Thanks for the time,” Grazio echoed, turning and heading for the door.

  They walked back up the sta
irs to Dillon’s office and closed the door behind them. Dillon sat down heavily and leaned back in his chair.

  “What are we doing here, Frank?”

  “Working, making the world safe. Making better law.”

  “No, we’re not,” Dillon said. “We’re just part of the machine, like a wheel. Everybody is on one of the spokes. Everybody fights to get to the hub and stay there. That’s it. That’s the whole enchilada. Get to the hub and stay there for the rest of your life. The hub is either being in charge of the House of Representatives, being in charge of the Senate, or being the President, with the last one the best.”

  He suddenly sat forward. “Even when you do things for the right reason, even when you come up with solutions, it’s all seen as another step toward the hub. Get power and keep it. It’s driving me crazy!”

  “What did you think politics was about, anyway?”

  “I thought politics was about making the country better. About making people’s lives better.”

  “That’s where you start in D.C., but that’s not where you end up,” Grazio said.

  “I just thought some people were different. Like the Speaker. Look what we did with the Letter of Reprisal. That was the right thing to do. But now, it’s just a tool. The President is trying to squash Billings, the Speaker’s trying to squash the President. It’s just a game.”

  Grazio’s expression was noncommittal. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “I’m going home,” Dillon said with finality.

  Grazio was surprised. “You can’t. You’ve got a lot of work to do. It’s too early,” he protested, checking his wristwatch.

  “I don’t care. I’m going home.”

  “What’re you going to do at home?” Grazio asked, trying to read Dillon’s face to see if he was going to do something rash.

  “I’m just going to read, I think.”

  “What’re you going to read?”

  “Something that has nothing to do with politics, or the Constitution, or Senate rules for impeachment. I’m in the middle of an excellent book. You should try it.”