W: The Planner, The Chosen

by Alexandra Swann

  All day long she prayed the same prayer over and over as she tidied up the trailer and waited. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she heard Keith’s motorcycle outside. His hair was dusty, and she could see little particles of dust float off his clothing as he entered the trailer.

  “What did you find out?” Kris demanded. She knew that he was tired, and she could have waited a little more patiently and asked him about his day, but she couldn’t stand the suspense any longer.

  “Well, Cicchetti is the real deal—for whatever that’s worth. The guy is a constitutional attorney with over 30 years of experience. He clerked for Rehnquist while he was in law school. Went on to become an attorney and started the Freedom League. He’s smart—Jessie was able to get into his law school transcripts—top of his class at Columbia Law School. He’s argued over twenty cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and lost only three of them. He believes in liberty and freedom and family and apple pie….He’s great, except that he’s totally useless.”

  “Useless? How is that useless?” Kris’ heart was pounding, and she was speaking much faster than she realized. “I asked Lena to help me get Michael and Jeff released. She gave me this number and said that he could help—that he might help. She must have thought that he would take their case and that he could get them released.”

  “What case? Mike and Jeff haven’t been charged with a crime. They’re not entitled to a trial; they’ve just been hauled away into the darkness—just like O’Brien, just like everybody. I’m surprised this Cicchetti guy’s not sharing a cell with them already—if he gets involved in this he will be. But let’s say that for some reason he’s suicidal, and he decides to commit suicide by acting as an attorney for two guys who’ve been arrested for domestic terrorism. Who would he go to? Without the right to a trial, they don’t need a lawyer.”

  “No, this is it, Keith. I just know it. You said that Cicchetti has argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and won. Maybe he would take Michael and Jeff’s case to the Supreme Court. Maybe he would argue that indefinite detention is unconstitutional—if he did that and he won, then they could be released. And not just them—everybody could be released. The note that Michael sent me said, ‘Fight for the laws of our country.’ This is what he meant.”

  “Fight how? Cicchetti argues cases about constitutional law, except that the Constitution apparently doesn’t exist anymore and, in case you’ve forgotten, neither does the Supreme Court.”

  “The Supreme Court exists. They just haven’t heard any cases while they’re waiting for their building to be cleaned up since that thing happened with the bomb threat.”

  “Oh, come on, Kris. Do you really think that after three years the U.S. government still hasn’t cleaned up one building in Washington D.C. so that the Court can meet, while, inexplicably, all of the other buildings around it remain perfectly safe? That ‘terrorist attack’ was such a stupid, transparent frame-up from the start. There was never any danger from explosives. It was just an excuse to lock up the building and disband the Court. This country is full of buildings—the justices could have found one to meet in while theirs was being cleaned if they hadn’t already known what was up. Those gutless wonders in Congress and SCOTUS just stood around looking scared while the President locked up the Supreme Court Building and took away all of their authority. I can tell you this—they’ll never meet again. That building will sit there closed until it falls down from neglect before another case is heard there.

  “So here’s what we’ve really got—a guy who used to argue a dead set of laws nobody respects anymore in front of a group of old has-been judges nobody respects anymore. If you ask me, Cicchetti is about as worthless as the world’s greatest buggy whip maker at the New York International Auto Show.”

  Kris walked outside. Everything Keith had said was true. There was no reason to believe that Cicchetti would meet with her. There was no reason to believe that if he did meet with her he would take her case. The U.S. Supreme Court had not met for three years, and the Constitution was no longer governing the country. This was a dead end.

  She looked out over the horizon. St. George was such a bleak place. The desert appeared to stretch on forever, and at the far end of it the sun had sunk below the horizon, leaving just a slight rosy tint in the sky. Where was Michael tonight? Was he in a dark windowless cell? Was he outdoors in a labor camp finishing a day of grueling work? Could he see this same sunset? Was he even still alive?

  As she watched the rose-colored hues fade to dark purple and then to black, she heard one voice in her head which became one thought in her heart, “Trust Me.” The empty coldness in her heart gave way to hope, “Trust Me.” The Lord had not given her this lead for no reason. She had to follow it; she had to try. Until she knew for certain that they were dead, or until she herself could not go on any longer, she was going to go on believing that Michael and Jeff were alive, and she was going to go on praying and working to get them released. There was no turning around—no going back.

  Keith had dozed off from the exhaustion of riding his bike hundreds of miles and then being with Jessie for hours researching Cicchetti. Tomorrow she was going to find out where Cicchetti’s office was, and she was going to go see him. If he refused to see her, she would keep trying until he agreed. And if he did not or could not help her, she would trust that her journey to see him had brought her closer to finding someone else who would help her. In the morning she would say goodbye to Keith and take his Jeep to wherever she had to go. She lay down on the lumpy couch, and for the first time in weeks she fell into a deep sleep.

  Chapter 16

  Early the next morning as the first rays of light began to shine through the window, Kris was up. Keith heard her and got up too. She told him that she was leaving and realized that he did not seem surprised. “Yeah, I figured you would.” He rinsed the dust out of his hair and ran a comb through it—sort of. The combination of dust and water had made his curls tangle, and he did not take the time to comb them out.

  Going outside, he got his bike and carried it into the trailer, as he always did when he was locking the place up for an extended period of time.

  “Well, there’s nothing to eat here, so I guess we can get something on the road,” he mumbled as he got his jacket.

  “Keith,” she stopped him. “I don’t want you to go with me. I know you think this is a fool’s errand, and you’re probably right. This is very dangerous, and you won’t have any way to get in touch with Jessie and Kyle. I’ll go by myself and let you know what happens.”

  “There’s no way I’m letting you take Rubi all the way to D.C. by yourself,” he used his pet name for his Jeep Rubicon. “Anyway, I don’t need to be here to get a hold of Jessie and Kyle. I’ve got my own ways of tracking down those two. Now get into the Jeep so that we can get going.”

  Keith was remarkably calm, but Kris could see that he had made up his mind, and there was no changing it. Anyway, he had the keys and she had little choice but to cooperate. Climbing into the Jeep, she prayed silently for a safe trip. She hated to see Keith put himself in any more danger; he was the only person she had left, and if she lost him too she did not know how she could bear it, so part of her wished desperately that he had stayed in St. George, but another part of her was relieved that he was going with her.

  The trip to D.C. from St. George was almost 2000 miles. It took the better part of three days for the pair to reach their destination as they took turns driving first through the baking desert and then through the increasingly greener countryside. Finally, just outside Charlottesville, West Virginia, Keith pulled up to a rundown motel. “We’re about 100 miles out now. We’ve got to get some rest before we go see this guy. If we’re going to ask him to stick his neck out for us, we probably want to at least be able to talk to him intelligently. And we might want to take a shower so that we don’t look like we live in a cave.”

  As tired and sore as Kris was, she had to laugh; together they made quite a rumpled, s
unburned pair. After three days in Rubi, the thirteen-year-old Jeep looked only a little worse than they did. Julian Cicchetti would either be really horrified or really impressed by their determination.

  After three days of driving and sleeping in the moving vehicle, even the nervous anticipation of meeting with Julian Cicchetti could not keep Kris awake. When she awoke the next morning, for a few seconds after opening her eyes she could not remember where she was or how she had gotten there. As her head cleared, however, she recalled that she had just made a 2000 mile road trip to see a man she had never met.

  An hour later she and Keith were back on the road. Keith had Julian’s office address in Washington D.C. printed on a slip of paper so that they could go straight there when they got into the city. They had not made an appointment ahead of time because Kris was afraid that if she called first he might refuse to see her. She would rather take her chances by just showing up at his office and hope that he would agree to give her a few minutes of his time than to call and be told that he would not see her.

  “Julian’s office is on Constitution Avenue,” Kris told her brother as he entered the D.C. city limits.

  “Of course, where else would it be?” Keith smirked as he headed in that direction.

  During his years as a cable network news photographer, Keith had driven in Washington D.C. many times; as a result, he knew the city well and found the address without difficulty. Cicchetti’s building had a cream-colored brick exterior with white columns in front. The architecture was reminiscent of the historic buildings on the street leading up to it, but the pale color of the brick gave it an ’80’s vibe. Keith found a long term parking lot several blocks away and paid the attendant $100.00 for one day’s parking. The pair then walked down Constitution Avenue past memorials and federal offices to Cicchetti’s building. The morning was warm and muggy, and the sun seemed to be playing hide-and-seek with the clouds.

  Kris had mentally rehearsed what she planned to say when she met Julian—just as she had always rehearsed all important interviews ahead of time. She had been so certain that he would help her, but now, as she walked to his office she was no longer sure. What if he flatly refused to see her? What if he were not even in town?

  They were now in front of his building. Keith went up the steps first and pulled the door open for her. Like Cicchetti’s law practice, the reception area appeared to be straight out of another era. The walls had a wainscoting in a warm cherry wood, and the floor was covered in the same polished wood with its comforting cherry tones. The cherry was accentuated by a beautiful moss green color on the walls above it. To the left of the room was a seating arrangement of a sofa and chairs upholstered in a fabric with deep burgundy and moss green stripes. At the end of the room was a huge fireplace that almost covered that wall—Kris could imagine that a fire crackling in the fireplace would be amazingly comforting during the bitter cold Washington winters. Directly in front of them was a round table holding an artificial arrangement of the same burgundy and green tones, and behind the table was a desk where a thin woman in her fifties sat facing them. She was working at her computer when they opened the door, and when they entered the room, she rose to greet them.

  “Good morning. May I help you?” Anne Davison inquired with a polite but businesslike smile.

  Kris walked toward the desk. “I’m Kris Mitchell—Linton,” she had not called herself by her maiden name for several years; the fact that she had done so now was proof of just how nervous she was. “This is my brother Keith—Keith Mitchell. We don’t have an appointment, but we were hoping to be able to speak with Julian Cicchetti. We drove all the way from Utah to talk to him; we won’t take up much of his time…”

  “Mr. Cicchetti had a lunch meeting, and he has already left the building. Normally, he receives visitors by appointment only. May I ask why you want to see him?”

  “Of course. My husband, Michael Linton, and my brother-in-law Jeff Conners were arrested by the federal government and are being detained. No charges have been brought against them, and they are not going to trial, but they have been accused of domestic terrorism by the government. It’s not true—neither my husband nor my brother-in-law has ever been involved in any acts of terrorism. But they did operate a website called The Wall which posted the names of Americans who had been detained under the indefinite detention provisions of the NDAA—the information they posted should be protected under First Amendment free speech. I was hoping to talk to Mr. Cicchetti. A friend of mine gave me his name, and she said that he could—might—help us. I was hoping that I could meet with him.”

  “Mr. Cicchetti is a constitutional attorney, Mrs. Linton; he does not practice criminal law. He works only on cases involving constitutional law.”

  “I know. I…” Kris was shaking inside, but she forced herself to steady her voice and her thoughts. She was going to get only one shot at this, and if she did not get past the gatekeeper she would have no shot at all. “I want to bring a case against the federal government on behalf of my husband and brother-in-law. I want to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the indefinite detention provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act. I know that Mr. Cicchetti is very busy, and I certainly can appreciate that he works by appointment. But Michael and Jeff were arrested nearly three months ago. I am not allowed to visit them; I am not even allowed to know where they are. The nature of their involvement with The Wall website makes them high profile detainees. We don’t have a whole lot of time to get them out. This is an emergency.

  “Please, if I could just have ten minutes of Mr. Cicchetti’s time this afternoon, I promise you that I will not take more than that. And if he says that he doesn’t want to help us, I will drop it, and you won’t hear from me again. Please…this is extremely important.”

  Anne was thoughtful. “I cannot promise that he’ll see you, but I will relay your message to him when he returns. If he agrees, ten minutes is really about all that you will have. Give me a phone number where I can reach you, and if he says that you can come in, I’ll call you and tell you what time.”

  “Thank you. Thank you very much.” Kris gave Anne her mobile number, and then she and Keith left the building.

  “What do you think?” she whispered to him as they walked down the steps.

  “I think we need to go find some lunch and wait to see if she calls back. There’s a cafeteria around here where the press used to hang out while we were waiting for some jackass to give us a sound bite. We can go over there and get the world’s most expensive hamburgers and wait.”

  They walked to the cafeteria and then stood in line for forty-five minutes to each get a single patty burger with a single dill pickle slice and no other toppings. It was expensive and pathetic-looking, but after waiting so long they were glad to finally be seated and eating. Just as Kris raised the sandwich to her lips and opened her mouth to take a bite, she heard her phone ring. The hamburger hit the plate with a thud as she grabbed the phone from her purse and answered it.

  “Mrs. Linton,” Anne greeted her, “Mr. Cicchetti says that he can see you for ten minutes at 2:00 this afternoon.”

  “I’ll be there. Thank you.”

  Kris looked at her watch. It was 1:30 and Cicchetti’s office was a thirty minute walk from the cafeteria. “I don’t have time to eat this,” she looked at her uneaten burger. “You stay here and eat; eat mine too. Cicchetti’s going to see me, but he’s only going to give me ten minutes. I’ll come back and fill you in as soon as I’m done.”

  This time Keith did not object. He was exhausted and hungry, and no good was going to come from his jumping up from lunch to go meet with some old, out of touch guy who was probably never going to see them again anyway.

  Kris half walked, half ran to Cicchetti’s building, arriving at one minute before 2:00. She checked her reflection in the compact mirror in her purse before entering. She did not have any makeup, but she did have a little lipstick that she had saved for special occasions. Applying it, she checke
d to make sure that her hair looked presentable, and then she opened the door to the offices.

  “Mr. Cicchetti will see you now,” Anne was waiting for her. Behind the reception area, a door opened to a bullpen with spaces for paralegals and clerks. A couple of employees could be seen milling around but, basically, the offices were empty. Kris surmised that Cicchetti’s practice had suffered over the past few years. Past the hallway was another set of doors, and behind those doors was a large office with an over-sized cherry wood desk. Julian Cicchetti rose from his chair to greet her as she entered the room.

  Kris studied him carefully. Nearly two decades in real estate had allowed her to meet many different types of people and had taught her that first impressions are, in fact, often very accurate. He was about six feet tall—medium build. His thick black hair was cut conservatively but not overly short. He had olive skin and distinctly Mediterranean features. Behind his gold-rimmed glasses were eyes so black that the pupils were hard to detect. He was probably about fifty-five years of age, but his hair did not have any gray—which implied that he colored it. His dark charcoal gray suit was expensive and fit perfectly. His tie was a conservative gray and black stripe.

  The office, like the man, was perfectly neat. The desk looked well-organized—there were no pictures; the only objects it held were his laptop, a couple of metal file organizers, and a pile of carefully stacked papers. Behind his desk was a credenza with a book case—many of the books looked worn, as though they had been read and reread.

  Kris’ impression of Cicchetti—based on his dress, his office and his overall demeanor—was that he was a conservative, careful, methodical man—a man who planned each move thoughtfully. He was probably a good chess player. Those traits, no doubt, stood him in good stead as he prepared his legal arguments. However, would such a cautious man be willing to risk the wrath of a power-hungry federal government by taking a case for a couple of condemned men? Kris’ intuition told her that he would not, and her heart sank.