Secret Justice

by James W. Huston

  Satterly came into the courtroom triumphantly and took the witness stand. The bailiff reminded him he was still under oath. He nodded and looked at Andrea, who was sitting at the back of the courtroom watching him carefully.

  “Good afternoon, Captain. Thank you for your willingness to return to this trial.”

  “Glad to help,” he said.

  “I just have a few questions for you, then we can let you get back to your patients. Sitting on the table in front of you is an e-mail that was brought here after it was taken from your computer by Ms. Ash. Have you seen it before?”

  “I’ve seen it, although I’ve never seen it printed out before.”

  “Did you give Ms. Ash permission to access this e-mail, or any other for that matter, on your computer?”

  “I did not.”

  “Is it authentic? Did you write it to Didier Picque?”

  “It is, and I did.”

  “Are you ashamed of it?”

  “Not at all. I was very disturbed by what Lieutenant Rathman did. I think torture and murder, or manslaughter, should always be investigated wherever they occur. And when it is done by Americans, we owe it to ourselves not to let this type of thing become ordinary, or accepted. I will do what I can to not let that happen.”

  The jury was warming to him. Several had uncrossed their arms.

  “Did you have anything to do with what Didier Picque may or may not have done about Mr. Rathman at the International Criminal Court?”

  “Not at all. I have never even spoken to him about it. If he responded to this e-mail, I don’t remember it being a very significant response.”

  “Do you have a bias against Mr. Rathman? Are you out to get him?”

  “No, sir. I have nothing against him personally. I do confess to a bias though against cruelty and torture.”

  “No further questions,” Wolff said. He looked at Andrea, and sat down with his back to her.

  Skyles rose slowly, gathering his thoughts. “Good afternoon, Doctor.”

  “Good afternoon,” he replied.

  “You have no bias against Lieutenant Rathman, right?”

  “Correct.”

  “You’re just biased against torture, and things like that. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “What about justice? Are you biased in favor of justice, and truth, and fairness?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “And yet you ran into the wardroom, interrupted the captain of the Belleau Wood, accused Lieutenant Rathman of criminal conduct, all based on the statements of a terrorist and mass murderer. Right?”

  “I wouldn’t put it like that.”

  “You never spoke to anyone other than a terrorist about what happened in Sudan, did you?”

  “I’ve talked to many people—”

  “You haven’t talked to anyone who was there, other than a terrorist. True?”

  “I don’t know that he was a terrorist.”

  “Oh, you don’t?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You’re prepared to give him a huge benefit of the doubt, but not an officer from your own service? You’ll take a terrorist at his word, but you don’t even ask Lieutenant Rathman what happened?”

  “I didn’t need to ask him. I had physical evidence.”

  “The only so-called physical evidence you had was vomit in the terrorist’s lungs. True?”

  “Essentially, yes.”

  “And the only possible cause of that is torture. Is that your testimony?”

  “There are other possible causes, but none of them apply here.”

  “There are other possible causes, aren’t there?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you never asked Lieutenant Rathman what happened, did you?”

  “No.”

  “You never gave him a chance to explain, did you?”

  “No.”

  “You just put him on report to the ICC right away, like a schoolboy running to the teacher?”

  “I sent the e-mail.”

  Skyles walked back to his place at the counsel table and stood behind his chair, right next to Rat. “Not only did you send an e-mail to Didier Picque, but you sent e-mails to others about the incident, didn’t you?”

  Satterly looked concerned. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Simple question. You sent e-mails to other people, other organizations with which you identify, about what you thought happened in Sudan. True?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  Skyles slowly reached down and lifted his briefcase to the table. He opened it and removed several pieces of paper. He looked at the first one. “On the same day as your e-mail to Mr. Picque, you sent an e-mail to the Human Rights Watch. True?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Skyles went to the next page. “And to Amnesty International. Right?”

  “Maybe.”

  “And to Doctors Without Borders. True?”

  “Probably.”

  Skyles glanced at the others. “In fact there were several others to whom you sent such correspondence, weren’t there?”

  “Yes.”

  “This was a crusade for you, wasn’t it?”

  “Are those more e-mails from my computer?” Satterly asked, straining to see what Skyles was holding.

  “Could they be?” Skyles asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why not? Did you send such e-mails?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You answered ‘yes’ to my question about other such e-mails. Were you telling the truth?”

  “I think so.”

  “You think you were telling the truth?”

  “I’m sorry, I’m confused. Are those from my computer?”

  Skyles ignored him. “In fact, sir, you identify more with the terrorists than you do with the American Special Operations forces trying to catch and punish them, don’t you?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  “You believe they have been mistreated and not given the protections they deserve under the American justice traditions. True?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you were prepared to take steps to ensure that your concept of justice was achieved for these terrorists, true?”

  “Not really. It’s not my role.”

  “You deny it?”

  “Deny what?”

  “That you were personally involved in attempting to achieve what you think is justice for terrorists in the custody of the United States.”

  “I am in favor of justice, sure.”

  “No. That you were personally involved, active, engaged, in pursuing justice, pursuing and defending their rights, on behalf of terrorists.”

  Satterly stared at Skyles for several seconds. The silence alone spoke to the jury. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at,” he said finally.

  “You are aware that Wahamed Duar was on trial aboard the Belleau Wood?”

  “I know the person that was thought to be Duar was on trial, but that it turned out they got the wrong man,” Satterly said with deep satisfaction.

  “You wanted Duar to receive the best possible defense, the best possible lawyer, didn’t you?”

  “Sure he should get a defense. And it looks like his defense was successful, doesn’t it?”

  Skyles brushed aside his attempt to turn it to his favor. He lowered his voice. “You paid for Duar’s attorney, didn’t you?”

  The courtroom was completely still. Everyone stared at Satterly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you deny it?”

  “Deny what?”

  “That you paid Mr. David Stern of the ACLU to defend Wahamed Duar, or who everyone thought was Wahamed Duar, in his tribunal aboard the Belleau Wood?” Skyles removed an e-mail from the bottom of the stack he had been holding.

  Satterly was speechless. “Is there anything wrong with that?”

  “Move to strike,” Skyles said.

  �
�Sustained,” Wiggins said, listening to every syllable, every nuance of Satterly’s testimony.

  “Did you help pay for the defense of the man accused of murdering hundreds of Americans and dedicated to murdering more?”

  “I helped a little.”

  He walked to Satterly without asking permission from the judge. But no one was going to stop him now. He had a certain momentum that no judge would interrupt unless he clearly abused it. “I’d like to show you an e-mail you sent to a person by the name of Deborah Craig. Do you recall this?” he said, showing him the e-mail. “You tell her in this e-mail that you had just sent a check for a thousand dollars to support the effort to provide Duar with a capable attorney. True?”

  “Did she steal that one too?” he said, pointing at Andrea.

  “Is what I said about the e-mail true?” Skyles demanded.

  “There was a fund-raising effort, by a group, I forget who, and I responded. It seemed right to me. People should have an attorney, not just a military attorney, when held on a ship and charged.”

  “And it goes on to confirm that you support not telling that lawyer who was really paying him. True?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the man who is to contact that lawyer, David Stern, was paid by you and others. Correct?”

  “It wasn’t my idea, but yes. He deserved—”

  “Stern never knew that the man who had retained him had no such authority from Duar, and that the money came from you, did he?”

  “Probably not.”

  “In fact, you had that man lie to Stern to achieve your sense of justice, didn’t you?”

  “I wanted to be sure—”

  “When your sense of justice is in play, the truth is a casualty, isn’t it?”

  “No, that’s not fair,” Satterly protested.

  Skyles sat, waited for a few seconds, then said, “I have nothing further, Your Honor.”

  Chapter

  25

  After the recess Wolff began his closing argument. As he got deeper into how Rat was an unwashed criminal, a runaway Special-Operations-homicidal-maniac, a mean-spirited killer, Rat’s thoughts drifted to the rental car parked two blocks away with a bag in the trunk. It was a gym bag no one knew about. Not Andrea, not Don Jacobs, not the Navy, not even Groomer, or Robby. The black Adidas bag contained several different passports with different names from countries like St. Kitts, and Costa Rica, several law enforcement badges including the FBI and the Coast Guard, and cash. Lots of cash. About as much as he had. If this went badly, if he was convicted, he would leave the country somehow and never look back. No one knew he had even rented a car. He had rented it under one of his other identities, and knew they would never track it until he was long gone.

  He was trying to decide where he should go. The list was short and represented the convergence of two primary criteria: he had to be able to get by either in English or Arabic, and the country couldn’t have an extradition treaty with the United States so he couldn’t be brought back to the States for sentencing. He wasn’t sure about the treaties, but figured he could find out the answer fairly easily.

  Rat turned in his chair and looked at Andrea sitting in the back of the courtroom. She was staring at Wolff with a look of barely restrained hatred. Rat loved the look on her face and the faith in him that it represented. He didn’t know if she now believed he had been falsely accused, or had thought about it long enough to no longer care whether he had done that of which he was accused.

  Finally Wolff was done and it was Skyles’s turn. Rat didn’t want to listen to him either. He was sick of the process. Duar was still out there heading toward the United States, and he couldn’t do anything about it except sit and listen to this ridiculous process. Rat suddenly noticed the judge was staring at him. He began paying attention to what Skyles was saying.

  “. . . the usual way the government proceeds. Ready, fire, aim. They decide the result they want, or who they want to get, and force things to come together to achieve it. But maybe once in a while it’s appropriate to ask why. Why is Lieutenant Rathman on the hot seat? Why has he been charged? Are they trying to make an example of him? For what? A murdering terrorist died under low-level interrogation. So what? Why can’t we all admit that we’re actually happy about that?”

  “Your Honor, this is totally inappropriate as a closing—”

  “Confine yourself to the evidence, Mr. Skyles.”

  “Yes, sir.” Skyles picked up right where he left off. “Somewhere behind the screens in this case, some Wizard of Oz is moving the levers, manipulating people and witnesses to put Lieutenant Rathman away for reasons you and I will never know. You can feel it, can’t you?” He scanned the faces of the jurors who were listening intently, but with some skepticism.

  “We’re all pawns in a much larger game. We don’t know who is pulling the levers, nor do we know what those levers are attached to. What we do know, because you’ve seen him testify before you, is that someone is out to get Lieutenant Rathman. And he was called as the star witness by the government. Did they not know about the facts that ultimately came out or did they just not care? Are we just part of some simulation of justice here, where they throw a bunch of nonsense in front of you, and hope you’re not smart enough to figure out that it’s completely inadequate? Maybe they think you’ll be so impressed with the setting and the somberness of the procedure, that you’ll overlook the fact that there is no evidence sufficient to convict Lieutenant Rathman.” He put his hands in his pockets and shook his head. “Don’t buy it. Don’t convict a man of a crime without evidence. Don’t take Lieutenant Rathman’s life away from him. We need him out there, we need him operating on our behalf fighting these terrorists. You heard everyone. He’s the best operative the United States has. Who here wants to disarm him?”

  Skyles waited, looked at the jury again with a challenge, returned to his seat and sat down. The judge sat in his leather chair and picked up the jury instructions in front of him. He pushed on his reading glasses. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, it is now time for me to read the jury instructions that you’ll use as a guide in arriving at your verdict. After I read the instructions, you’ll be dismissed to the jury room to begin your deliberations. All I want you to do today is to elect a foreperson since it is already four o’clock on Friday afternoon. After electing a foreperson you’ll be in adjournment until Monday morning at nine when you’ll return to this building to begin your deliberations on the verdict. Now please pay close attention as I read the instructions to you.”

  * * *

  The destroyers didn’t get there before sunset. Not even close. They based their intercept calculation on the heading the two Sea Dragons were holding when they were last sighted. But Hotary’s Sea Dragon had changed course immediately after the Navy P-3 had disappeared. Now in the darkness, Hotary had ordered his men to darken ship. No lights were to show outside of the ship at all. The bridge was so dark the faces of the men on the bridge were lit only by the glow of the instruments. Hotary knew moonrise wasn’t until two in the morning. It gave him plenty of time. The hours passed uneventfully as the Sea Dragon headed almost due north off the coast of Virginia searching for its prey.

  To the merchant traffic along the East Coast the Sea Dragon was just another cargo ship slipping through the dark Atlantic on a dark night with its surface-search radar on, a radar common to half the merchant vessels on the ocean, making eight knots. Hotary knew that the real Sea Dragon was within fifty miles of them and hoped the confusion between them would hold just long enough for the next step.

  Hotary walked over to the radar repeater where his assistant was studying the blips. “You see it yet?”

  The man pointed to one of the blips on the screen with his pudgy finger. “This should be it.”

  Hotary studied the blip and quickly measured the distance. “Only five nautical miles.” He glanced at the RPM indicator. “Increase speed to sixteen knots. Take heading to intercept the ship.”

 
The man nodded at him and confirmed the order. The ship turned slightly to the northeast and began closing on the radar blip. Their target was traveling at ten knots. The Sea Dragon closed on it steadily from a constant bearing.

  On the bridge of the other ship they noticed the radar contact approaching them from the southwest, closing with each minute at a steady pace. They grew concerned as the dark ship bore down on them. Their own ship was larger and not very maneuverable. The deck officer called the captain to the bridge. “Contact approaching from the southwest. Two miles away. It is overtaking us, and is on a collision bearing. Speed is sixteen knots.” The captain looked at the radar repeater and then at the deck officer who was looking through his binoculars. “See anything?”

  “No, sir. Nothing.”

  “Reduce speed to three knots. Try to raise her on the radio.”

  The change was transmitted to the engine room and the ship began to slow—if a collision course was in place, changing any part of the collision geometry would avoid the collision. Slowing was the easiest.

  And it was exactly what Hotary had anticipated. He turned the Sea Dragon slightly more to the east, repairing the collision course, maintaining sixteen knots. The radio crackled as he heard in a heavy Japa-nese accent, “Ship heading northeast off Virginia at thirty-two degrees North, seventy-four degrees West; this is the Galli Maru. State your intentions.”

  As they approached one mile, Hotary said to the other men on the bridge, “Get everyone ready.”

  Everyone left the bridge except Hotary, his second, and the helmsman. He could now see their objective, a huge ship with white writing on its side. Forward of the superstructure it was mostly flat, like an oil tanker. In large white block letters on the black hull were “L N G,” widely spaced and as big as buildings. Liquefied Natural Gas, natural gas cooled to such a temperature that it was rendered liquid in form, one hundred twenty-five thousand cubic meters of explosive gas.

  Hotary could not help but smile. Everything depended on this ship being on course and on time, and there it was, like clockwork. The liquefied natural gas ship was exactly where it was supposed to be, exactly when it was supposed to be there.