by Jon Reisfeld
The company had tastefully decorated the room with Persian rugs, black leather sofas and chairs and sparkling chrome-and-glass tables. Harkins’ Tours brochures beckoned from acrylic display holders on each end table, and several of the day’s finest travel, dining and lifestyle magazines sat neatly on the coffee table. Martin also noticed the tiny red power light glowing on the small security camera perched in the far corner of the room.
Just then, a strikingly attractive young woman appeared in the doorway leading to the back offices. She was dressed, professionally, in a navy pinstripe jacket, white blouse and skirt. Her pocket book hung down from her left shoulder, and she carried a soft, black leather satchel in her right hand. She stopped abruptly upon seeing Martin. “Oh, hello,” she said, looking somewhat surprised. “Have you been waiting long?”
“Just got here,” Martin said, returning her smile.
She came forward and shook his hand. “Hi, I’m Lacey.”
“Martin Silkwood.”
“I was just on my way out,” she said, brushing her sandy, brown bangs away from her hazel eyes. Martin looked at her and smiled. She was dazzling, he thought, with her butterscotch complexion and her understated makeup.
“You must be here to see Robert,” she said. “He’s the only one of us who routinely works eighteen-hour days. I’ll just buzz him to say you’re here.”
“That won’t be necessary, Lacey,” said a man, emerging from the doorway where she had been moments before.
“Oh,” she said, smiling and putting down the phone. She quickly gathered up her bags. “You’re in good hands, Mr. Silkwood,” she said, giving Martin a final smile. “I’m sure Robert will help your group put together a fantastic tour!” And with that, she left.
“Mr. Silkwood,” Robert said, stepping forward and extending his hand. He was a tall, lean, clean-shaven man in his late thirties, conservatively dressed in a blue and white pinstripe oxford shirt, a red and blue striped tie and charcoal gray slacks. “I’ve been expecting you,” he said, shaking Martin’s hand. “I’m Robert Brooks.”
“Nice to meet you.”
Brooks walked over to the front door, closed it quietly and then carefully turned the lock. “Lacey is new,” he said. “She’s a real go-getter, in addition to being easy on the eyes.
“Normally, this place clears out at six, but now I may have to start moving my evening hours back a bit. Come in,” he said, taking Martin by the elbow and leading him out of the reception area. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover in a very short time.”
Brook’s office was located at the back of the suite and was considerably larger than the others they passed along the way. Once inside, he led Martin past his formal desk and sitting area and over to a small round table by the window. Brooks then poured two mugs of hot coffee and fetched a laptop computer, which was already running. He sat down and pushed his Harkins Tours business card over to Martin. “This is for you,” he said. It listed him as ‘Senior Vice President, Sales.’
Brooks got right to the point. “Martin, tonight, you’re going to learn some highly sensitive information about our little enterprise. For starters, you already know my real name and my place of business. That, however, is about as far as your knowledge of our personnel will go. I have been chosen to be your primary contact, the only operative you will work with directly. From now on, I will be your sole link to the organization. And it will stay that way unless something happens to me. That’s how we operate. We maintain everyone’s anonymity, and safety, by keeping contact points to a minimum.
“Martin,” he continued, “everything we discuss here tonight must remain strictly confidential, understand?”
“Yes.”
“I want to be clear about this. You are agreeing never to mention this to anyone, not even to your closest friends and relations.”
“I understand.”
“OK, then. When I’m done, it will be your turn to make some decisions.”
“Such as?”
“Well, first, you will need to decide if you really want our help.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Martin asked. “You aren't about to spring some kind of outrageous fee on me, are you?”
“No,” Brooks said, with a chuckle. “Believe me, Martin, we neither want, nor need, your money. But we do operate within strict parameters, and we have certain expectations.”
“Expectations? I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”
“You may not. That just underscores my point. It’s also why we’ve instituted the following rule: You must formally request our help in order to get it. Now, what do you say we get started?”
“Sure.”
Brooks opened the laptop computer and turned it so Martin would have a clear view of the screen. “Let’s begin by reviewing your case.”
Martin nodded as the computer screen sprang to life. He could immediately tell, by its rapid operating speed, that Brooks’ laptop was not something you could buy on the street. Moreover, it appeared linked to a remote computer platform of extraordinary size and power. Brooks rapidly keyed in some numbers and, instantly, up came Martin’s case file. He clicked a link and the screen filled up with the image of a woman Martin had never seen before.
“That’s Beverly West,” Brooks said. “She’s the reason we became aware of your case.”
“That’s my wife’s attorney?” Martin asked.
“Correct.”
West appeared to be in her early fifties. The photograph captured her from the waist up. She sat with her body facing away from the camera, but she had rotated her upper torso so that she was staring down, imperially, into the lens, challenging it with defiant gray-green eyes.
Fit and trim for someone her age, she appeared to pay meticulous attention to every aspect of her physical appearance. Nothing looked haphazard or out of place.
She was wearing a custom-tailored gray, herringbone suit jacket over a beige silk top. A short necklace of cultured pearls hung around her neck, complemented by a matching pair of pearl-and-diamond stud earrings. West’s dirty blonde hair, heavily frosted and worn in a pageboy, framed an attractive, but determined, face that seemed disturbingly lifeless, and cold, as if its taut skin and delicate, refined features were chiseled in stone. A layer of concealer, which West had used to hide her endless freckles, added to the illusion, by lending her skin, the subtle, mottled appearance of granite. Only her thin, frosted lips, which projected the tiniest hint of a smile, suggested otherwise.
Brooks continued, “West is a high-powered divorce attorney, from Rockville, MD, who is known to push the ethical envelope to extremes. She will do whatever it takes to give her clients the upper hand in divorce cases.
“Her practice generates ex-parte domestic violence petitions the way most law firms crank out subpoenas and document requests. She’s her own cottage industry! That behavior brought her to our attention long ago. Now, she heads a nationwide list of 3,521 unethical attorneys whom we monitor constantly.
“Every time a new client retains her for a divorce proceeding, our system flags us,” Brooks said, proudly. “Your wife hired her nine months ago, in late August.”
“No, that’s impossible!” Martin protested. “Katie and I only started having marital problems this winter.”
“Then, your wife must be psychic!” Brooks continued. “Here, look at this.” He clicked on an icon, and immediately, the image of one of Katie’s personal checks filled the screen. The check’s date line read: “August 23, 2018.” It was written for $2,500 and Katie had made it payable to “Beverly West, Esq.” The memo line read, “Retainer for legal services, divorce.”
“How do you explain that?” Brooks asked.
Martin stared at the screen, trying to comprehend what he was seeing. “I-I can’t,” he said, still smarting from the news. “How did you get a copy of this? Have you hacked the banks?”
“I can’t comment on that, Martin. But, I can assure you, the check is real.”
“I don’t doubt i
t,” Martin said, swallowing hard. “It appears to confirm my worst suspicions—even if my timing was way off.”
“Your suspicions?”
“Yes,” he said. “West called my attorney yesterday to present my wife’s settlement offer. Among other things, it stipulated that we could start dating other people immediately. When I saw that, I realized Katie probably had been having an affair. I guess it’s been going on a lot longer than I ever imagined.”
“Sorry,” Brooks said.
“Hey, what’s done is done,” Martin said dismissively. He continued to study the screen, unable to take his eyes off it. He didn’t want Brooks, a stranger, to see how troubled he was by this news. Only the pained look on his face, and the sudden shakiness in his voice, hinted at the powerful feelings of betrayal and hurt that were welling up inside him.
Oblivious, Brooks plowed ahead. He clicked on another icon and a new screen appeared. This one contained a spreadsheet titled, “Domestic Violence Case Disposition Report: Beverly West.” The document showed stats detailing every time one of West’s clients had sought a Temporary Restraining Order before filing for divorce. This particular chart covered the previous ten-year period, when fifty-two of West’s seventy-eight female clients had obtained at least one TRO as part of a ‘preemptive strike.’ A graph on the following page clearly showed the numbers trending upward.
Brooks hit some keys and highlighted several columns under the general label ‘Disposition.’ They showed that out of West’s clients’ fifty-two domestic violence cases, only three (six percent), ever led to permanent restraining orders. Judges dismissed ten cases at trial (twenty percent of the total). And West managed to settle all of the remaining thirty-six cases (seventy-four percent of the total) while awaiting trial.
“Based on these numbers, it appears that only one-in-ten of West’s petitions have merit,” Brooks said. “But here’s the really sad part, Martin: The legal profession only disciplined West once in all these years, and that action barely amounted to a ‘slap on the wrist.’ Her tactics work. They have helped her clients get the edge eighty percent of the time. And they’ve kept her completely out of trouble ninety-eight percent of the time.”
“How does she get away with it?” Martin asked.
Brooks smiled sympathetically. “You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“That the legal profession is self-regulated, with enforcement taking place at the local level, where political clout, personal relationships and financial contributions have the most influence. As a result, in most states—Maryland being one—anything goes, because the foxes literally are guarding the hen houses.”
Martin nodded. “I’m beginning to see that. But Robert, with all this information at your disposal, why did your group wait so long to contact me?”
Brooks took a sip of his coffee. “Two reasons.”
“First, we needed to make sure you were not an abusive person, because, as you’ve seen, Martin, at least some of West’s TROs seem to have had merit. If we had concluded you were abusive,” Brooks added, “we never would have offered our help.
“To find out, we checked police records going all the way back to when you were eighteen, and with the exception of a few speeding tickets, your record was clean. Zero arrests and zero violence. And when it comes to violent behavior, past violent acts are often major indicators of future behavior.
“In other words, violent people commit violent acts. Non-violent people, particularly non-violent people without any prior history of drug or alcohol abuse, rarely do.”
While he was talking, Brooks called up all the police report searches the organization had ever run on Martin. The details of every parking ticket and traffic citation he ever received suddenly flashed by on the screen.
“Still,” he said, “timing is everything. We also have learned, from experience, that the best time to approach a husband is shortly—very shortly—before his wife hits him with a TRO. Otherwise, we find most husbands dismiss us as a bunch of lunatics and never seek our help.”
“That makes sense to me,” Martin said, recalling how he had felt immediately after viewing the video disk. “By the way, who was that guy on your video?”
“All I can tell you,” Brooks said, “is that sometime in the past, several top people in the intelligence community (military and civilian) were put through the same meat grinder that’s now preparing to turn you into sausage.
“They didn’t like it any more than you will. While they lacked political influence, these men more than made up for that through their access to power. I’m talking about the kind of raw power you get with control of billions of dollars in state-of-the-art intelligence-gathering equipment, command and control of highly disciplined special ops units, global satellite networks, secret offshore accounts and classified technologies.
“Eventually, they got together and quietly devised a way to use the resources at their disposal to help anyone being victimized by ‘the system’: legal, judicial, banking—whatever—and to help set things right.”
“That’s incredible,” Martin said. “And they’ve been able to operate undetected the whole time?”
“Of course. Why do you think we call them ‘spooks’?”
“Does this organization of yours have a name?” Martin asked.
Brooks smiled. “I call it the ‘home office,’ but there really is no official name. And again, that’s deliberate. Our founders were not looking to draw attention.”
“Listen, Martin,” he continued, “we want to help you out of your current predicament, and we can because our resources are considerable. We have access to people and assets you can scarcely imagine. The point is we can be extremely effective. Even so, we will only help you up to a point, and I want to be perfectly clear about this.
“Our goal is to reestablish a level playing field for you with the court. We believe in the justice system. We just want it to work properly: free from bias and corruption. So, that’s as far as our interference goes. Despite what you may think, we are not subversives. Although some might call us ‘terrorists’—if they even knew we existed—we think of ourselves as reform artists.”
Martin looked puzzled. “Reform artists? I don’t get it.”
“We call ourselves ‘reform artists,’” Brooks continued, “because we effect systemic change through actions taken on an individual level. That’s not easy to do. It requires great sophistication and delicacy. When we get involved on someone’s behalf, such as in your case, we take precautions to make sure no one gets seriously hurt, no one gets killed, no one gets threatened, and no one’s property gets damaged or destroyed.
“Instead of blowing up buildings and terrorizing people, we achieve our aims peacefully, by bringing institutions back into balance. It’s a subtle, disciplined approach to maintaining the social order.
“Sometimes our efforts produce permanent changes in people. Other times, the effects are just temporary. But gradually, we move society in a better direction. You could easily compare our work to continental drift. Its effects may seem miniscule in the moment, but when compounded often enough, over time, it can change the face of the world.”
Martin considered everything Brooks had said. “What you do sounds impressive, Robert, I’ll give you that. But I don’t have millions of years in which to see meaningful results. My case goes before the judge in just five days. And everything I care about—my relationship with my kids, my position with my firm and my reputation—it’s all on the line. Everyone keeps urging me to just settle the damned thing and make it go away. I don’t like the idea of rewarding my wife for lying. And I’m sure that, if I settle, I probably won’t like the terms I get, either.
“But more importantly, I don’t want my kids blaming me for breaking up the family. I don’t want them believing, for one instant, that their father ever abused them or their mother. I also don’t want anything left in the public record that might lead people to conclude that these domestic viole
nce charges ever had merit.
“Robert, what assurance can you give me that, if I do ask for your assistance, your plan will work?”
“I can’t guarantee anything, Martin,” Robert said. “No one can. All I can say is that we will do everything in our power to ‘level the playing field’ for you. What happens after that is largely out of our control.”
Martin frowned. “That’s not what I would call a compelling sales argument.”
“Maybe not,” Brooks said. “But what’s your alternative? If you go to trial without our help, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get screwed.”
“I could settle,” Martin said.
“Really? If you thought that was a viable option, I doubt we’d be having this conversation.”
Martin thought for a moment. “How soon would I need to give you an answer?”
Brooks looked him squarely in the eyes. “I need your decision right now, Martin. Tonight. We barely have time to plan and execute the operation.”
“Whose fault is that?” Martin asked. “You guys had forty-eight hours in which to contact me. What the hell were you waiting for?!”
“I don’t know,” Brooks said. “That’s not my call. But I am sure whoever was responsible had a good reason. Regardless, I need your answer now.”
Martin put his left elbow on the table and, leaning forward, began rubbing his temples with his left hand. As he did, he closed his eyes. “I’ve got to think this through,” he said. Then, he looked up. “Can you, at least, give me until morning?”
“Impossible,” Brooks said.
Martin glared at him. “You’ve got to be kidding me! I can’t do this now!”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know!” he said. “I’m just not ready.”
Brooks quietly exited the database and shut down the laptop. Then, he looked at Martin, who was still leaning over the table, rubbing his temples. “We’re done here,” he said, indifferently, closing the laptop and returning it to its case. “I’m sorry,” he said, standing up.
