The Price Of Power

by James W. Huston

  “I try to be fair. He wanted to know what I would say.”

  “The purpose of those meetings was to prepare you for your testimony, wasn’t it?”

  “I suppose.”

  “And he prepared a script for you, didn’t he? He told you what answers to give, didn’t he?”

  “No.”

  “He told you the questions he was going to ask, didn’t he?”

  “Essentially.”

  “And you told him the answers you would give to each of those questions. Didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he told you to change some of the language, some of the nuances and implications of some of your language, didn’t he?”

  Black frowned and breathed in slowly. “He suggested alternative ways of saying the same thing.”

  “Because it would sound better and make his case better. Correct?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you have any doubt about that?”

  “No,” Black said, noticeably uncomfortable. He hoped for relief from the judge but none was forthcoming.

  “You would agree, Captain Black, that as a member of Admiral Billings’s staff, one of your primary requirements is loyalty, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your job, as his chief of staff, was to support and assist him in his job, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you did that, unfailingly, correct?”

  “I tried my best.”

  “And that’s why you came here to testify, to support your admiral as a member of his staff, correct?”

  “No, I do what is right, and if that means testifying against him as necessary, then that’s the way it has to be.”

  “That’s right, isn’t it?” Dillon asked. “Your loyalty only goes as far as what you believe is right. Correct?”

  “Yes,” Black said, feeling slightly redeemed.

  “And that same standard applied in the Java Sea, didn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were on his staff when the order was received, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “You never refused to comply with his order or to assist in preparing for the attack, did you?”

  “No.”

  “You participated in the planning of the event that you have now come here to say is a violation of the order, correct?”

  “I didn’t come here to say anything was a violation of anything.”

  “You only came here to recite the facts, is that it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it’s a fact, isn’t it, that Admiral Billings asked you whether you were ‘with him’ in conducting the attack on Bunaya?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you said that you were, that you disagreed, but that you were with him. Correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “But, Captain Black, as a Naval officer, your obligation when faced with an illegal order, is to disobey it. Correct?”

  “I’m not following you.”

  Dillon was rolling. “Well, let me give you an easy example.” He put a hand to his cheek as if in thought. “If you had captured some prisoners of war, and Admiral Billings had ordered you to execute them, you would not have said I disagree with what you’ve told me to do, but I’ll do it anyway, would you?”

  “No.”

  “You would in fact disobey that order because you thought it was illegal. Correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “You knew,” Dillon said, pointing at him, “at the time that you advised Admiral Billings that you disagreed. Correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you told the admiral that you were with him, right?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “And that’s because,” Dillon said, lowering his voice to draw attention to the question, “Captain Black, in your heart, way deep inside there, where none of us can see, you believed that the admiral had sufficient basis to go forward with the attack. You thought it was legal. Correct?”

  Captain Black squirmed and stared at the prosecutor, who was glaring at him, about to come out of his chair. His head began to move almost imperceptibly. “I think that’s probably right.”

  “Because if you didn’t think that, you would have had an obligation to disobey it or at least step down as a member of the staff. To resign. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No.”

  “In fact, later, Admiral Billings was convinced of your lack of loyalty and had you relieved. Correct?”

  “He asked me to step down—”

  “He replaced you with another officer, didn’t he?”

  Black grew angry. “Yes.”

  “You were in your stateroom when the attack occurred, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Imagining how you could get back at Admiral Billings for the humiliation of being relieved from your position. Right?”

  “No.”

  Dillon met Black’s eyes. “You thought Admiral Billings had fatally wounded your Naval career. Correct?”

  “I don’t know—”

  “You were angry at Admiral Billings, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “No further questions,” Dillon said, closing his notebook slowly. He walked to his chair and sat down, trying to take the air out of Pettit’s probable questions on his way.

  “Any redirect?” Captain Diamond asked, looking at Pettit.

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Pettit said, standing up quickly. “Captain Black, Admiral Billings and his staff received the order from the President, correct?”

  “Objection, leading,” Dillon said.

  “Sustained.”

  “The admiral and his staff received an order from the President telling him not to comply with the Letter of Reprisal. Is that a true statement?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “And Admiral Billings did not comply with that order—”

  “Objection,” Dillon interrupted. “That’s the ultimate question before the court.”

  “Sustained.”

  “Did the battle group immediately return to Pearl Harbor?”

  “Objection,” Dillon interrupted again. “Vague as to what ‘immediate’ means. The battle group most definitely did return to Pearl Harbor. That’s how the admiral came to be here. I think everyone knows that.”

  “Sustained.”

  Pettit continued, frustrated. “How long was it from the time the order was received until the battle group turned toward Pearl Harbor at the insistence of the Harry S Truman battle group?”

  “I don’t recall—several days.”

  “As his chief of staff, did Admiral Billings tell you that he was not going to comply with the order?”

  “Well, we prepared a message to the Joint Chiefs indicating that we were not going to comply.”

  “And that message was sent, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “No further questions.”

  “No further questions,” Dillon echoed.

  “May this witness be excused?” the captain asked the two attorneys.

  “Yes,” they said simultaneously.

  “You may step down, Captain Black, you’re free to go.”

  “This would be a good time to take our lunch break,” said Diamond. “Let’s reconvene at 1300.”

  “Let’s go get some food,” the admiral said.

  They threaded their way through the crowd, notebooks in hand, and got in the admiral’s white sedan. ‘To the officers’ club,” Billings said. “I had the club set up a table in a corner so that we could talk.”

  The driver dropped them off in front of the old building that dated from the 1930s. It was painted off-white and there was brand-new carpeting leading from the entryway to inside the club. It had been recently refurbished in an attempt by the new base commander to recapture some of the tradition of the old Navy, to put some class back into the base, and encourage the officers to eat somewhere other than
McDonald’s. A few officers had banded together, obtained obligations from several hundred officers to pay dues to the officers’ club, and reestablished the commissioned officers’ mess. Now it was back to its original sheen with the decor being reminiscent of the forties. It was beautiful.

  Admiral Billings, Molly, Dillon, and Carolyn sat in the corner some distance away from any other table. Every officer in the club knew who they were and left them alone. Immediately after they ordered, Billings spoke to Dillon. “Sure nailed poor Captain Black,” he said.

  “I didn’t even touch him,” Dillon said.

  “Well, I’d like to see it when you do. How did you know that he’d met with the prosecutor?”

  “I didn’t, I was guessing. I figured he must have since he remembered the order so well and probably hadn’t looked at it for quite a while up until the prosecutor began preparing him. That’s the kind of question you can’t go too far wrong with. If he has, it makes it look like it’s all a script. If he hasn’t and he remembers the order that well, then it looks like he has an agenda.”

  “It’s good stuff,” Billings said. “How do you think it’s going so far?”

  “I don’t know, Admiral, I think we’re getting killed.”

  “What do you think, Molly?” Billings asked.

  She began hesitantly. “I think as well as we could hope for right now, given the ruling that the order is legal.”

  “Now that we’re in the heart of the trial, what’s your plan?” Billings asked.

  “I’m getting there,” Dillon said. “We may have to rely on jury nullification.”

  Molly was shocked. Admiral Billings was confused.

  “It’s when the jury knows what the law is, and knows that you violated it, but votes for acquittal anyway, either because they don’t like the law, or because they thought you were justified.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “You just can’t call it that or ask them to do it.”

  “On another note, but the same subject, I got an interesting e-mail this morning,” Billings said.

  Dillon didn’t answer. His head was buried in his notebook, reviewing an outline for the next witness. Billings waited for Dillon to respond. Dillon was oblivious.

  “What e-mail did you get?” Molly asked, trying to kick Dillon under the table but missing.

  “Dillon, are you listening?” the admiral said.

  “What? Sorry, I was looking at this outline.”

  “I said I got an interesting e-mail.”

  “Oh, what about?” Dillon said, his mind still on his notes.

  “It’s from Admiral Blazer.”

  Dillon’s eyes immediately went to Billings’s face, and his brain focused on the topic. “What did he say?”

  “He’s pretty sure that those radio communications they’ve been tracking are from our friend Mr. Washington. Not only that, he’s getting ready to go in.”

  Dillon raised his eyebrows. “And do what?”

  “Take him out,” Billings said with no show of emotion.

  “On what authority?”

  “He didn’t know. I told him you had it all figured out, and you were going to take care of it, and that he’d get whatever authority he needed.”

  “You told him what?”

  “Well, you told me you had this thing wired, so I told him that the authority was about to come. Isn’t that right?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say that, but it’s a possibility. I haven’t really done anything about it.”

  “It’s time, Dillon. Do something about it,” the admiral said, stabbing a crouton in his salad and breaking it.

  “I’ll send an e-mail to the Speaker,” Dillon responded. “I can’t guarantee that he’ll do it. I don’t even work for him anymore. He may not even acknowledge I exist. But if he does, it might solve Admiral Blazer’s problems.”

  “What do you have in mind?” the admiral asked.

  “Remember the Letter of Reprisal?”

  “Vaguely,” the admiral said sarcastically.

  “Article One, Section Eight. All Congress has to do,” Dillon said, “is read on.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Commander Beth Louwsma leaned over the back of first-class petty officer Elizabeth Sherry and squinted at the digitized image on the computer screen that she was manipulating.

  “Can you get it any more crisp?” Louwsma asked.

  “No, ma’am, I’ve tried and this is as good as we’re going to get.”

  Louwsma continued to study the image, taken in the early morning light by satellite. “Good shadows. Should be able to measure whatever we need.”

  “Yes, ma’am, only there isn’t much we need to measure. The question is what is that?” she said, pointing with the arrow on the screen.

  “What do you think?”

  “Well, we’ve imaged the whole island several times. We’ve had a few people, but we’ve never gotten anything that looks like this.”

  “What do you make of it?”

  “It looks like a rug.”

  This made no sense to Louwsma. “Why would anybody be carrying a rug out of a dirt floor hut in the morning?”

  “And why would they have a rug in the middle of a tropical island in the first place?” wondered Sherry.

  “They wouldn’t. It’s got to be something else. The conclusion that we are fighting not to make is that our friend Mr. Washington has killed his one and only hostage and that’s her wrapped up in a tarp or a net of some kind.”

  “It sure could be a body,” Sherry said. “It looks kind of heavy, and it’s at least as long as the person carrying it.”

  “How big is Mrs. Heidel?”

  “Five-five, one twenty-five,” Sherry said instantly.

  “And how big do we estimate that man is?”

  “Five-three, hundred and forty.”

  “Could be.”

  “Print out a copy of that photo. I’m going to show it to the admiral.” They stood in silence next to the printer waiting for the photograph to come out. Both understood the implications if this was Mrs. Heidel. Neither wanted to form a conclusion.

  As soon as the last line was complete, Louwsma took the picture from the printer and walked directly to SUPPLOT. Admiral Blazer was in his gray leather high-back chair concentrating on the screens full of symbols of ships and airplanes throughout the busy sea east of Singapore.

  “Morning, Beth,” the admiral said. “What have you been up to since breakfast?”

  “This,” Louwsma said, handing over the photo without her usual pleasant smile.

  Blazer studied her face. “What’s this?” he asked, taking it.

  “Satellite photo taken this morning of the island. We caught somebody carrying something.”

  Blazer raised his glasses to look at the photograph more carefully. “What the hell has he got?”

  “We don’t know, sir.”

  “Probably a trash bag,” Blazer said.

  “You think they put their trash in bags and haul it around? For what?” She indicated her disagreement. “And in six-foot-long bags? I don’t think so.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think they’ve got a body inside a tarp of some kind.”

  “A body?” Blazer asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Whose body?”

  “Either one of them, or Mrs. Heidel.”

  “I thought they got their wish when all those criminals were released from Honolulu and flown to Jakarta at American taxpayers’ expense.”

  “Well, they may have got what they wanted, sir, but Mr. Washington doesn’t seem to equate getting what you want with providing anything in return. He wants it all.”

  Blazer examined the photograph carefully once more. “Have we got any input from Washington on interpreting this?”

  “Yes, sir. We’ve been in conversation with them by e-mail.”

  “What’s their take?”

  “They’re not saying anything. They don’t know.” />
  “Great. You think it’s her?”

  “Yes, sir, I do. I think as soon as the prisoners were released, they killed her and now they’re taking her off the island, probably in preparation for evacuating it themselves. This is probably just an interrogation spot for them. Not a headquarters kind of place. I don’t think we’ve found their headquarters yet, frankly.”

  “I think you’re jumping to conclusions,” the admiral said. “But don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying that you’re wrong. Chief of Staff!” he said loudly.

  “Yes, Admiral,” Commander Curtis said.

  “Look at this photograph.”

  Curtis studied it, then said to the admiral, “Yes, sir, I overheard your conversation. This could be a big problem.”

  “I’ll say,” the admiral said. “Here’s what I want to do, Beth. Draft a flash message to the Joint Chiefs. Tell them the hostage may have been killed and this may be evidence. Put it in their laps. Second, send a copy of this photograph over to Lieutenant Commander Larson. I want his input. Third,” he said, “get a message to Jody Armstrong on the Wasp and that SEAL Team they’ve stood up at Coronado. I think they’re on San Clemente now. Tell them to be ready to move. No support from anybody else. No amphibious operation, no helicopters, no jets, just the SEALs. I want them to get onto the island, give this sonofabitch and his cohorts one warning and a chance to surrender, and then take them out.” He ignored the wide eyes of his staff. “Clear?”

  “As soon as National Command Authority gives them the go-ahead.”

  Blazer reluctantly agreed. “Right. When the President says to go. Not before, unless something else happens.”

  Dillon, Molly, Carolyn, and Admiral Billings returned to the courtroom quickly, arriving before anyone else. Dillon wanted to continue preparing. He moved papers around nervously, not realizing he was doing the same things over and over. He couldn’t understand why he wasn’t making the progress he expected. Molly was getting ready for the witnesses she was scheduled to take. They weren’t sure of the exact order of witnesses, although they were supposed to know who was coming each day. Dillon felt suddenly chilled and shivered. He was amazed at how humid and damp it was outside and how cold he was inside the gymnasium courtroom.

  Molly leaned down next to him. “You doing okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I guess so. Am I making a fool of myself?”