“I have to do my job—”
“Fine. Do your job. But stay the hell away from mine.”
“My client has an absolute right to a probable cause hearing—”
“Not anymore.”
Ben blinked. “What?”
“Mr. Payne has already waived the hearing and agreed to proceed to trial.”
Ben spun around and faced Payne. “Is that true?”
Payne grinned sheepishly. “Did I do bad?”
Ben slapped his palm against his forehead. “I don’t believe this. …”
“I thought it would help move matters along. …”
“Judge,” Ben said, “I was retained to advise Mr. Payne on criminal procedure. If you aren’t going to follow the procedures, then I’m of no use to him. I’ll have to withdraw from the case.”
“That motion will be overruled.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me. You asked to be admitted and I allowed it. I’ll not permit you to turn around a few minutes later and withdraw. What is this, some kind of game to you? In, out, in, out. I don’t allow lawyers to do the hokey-pokey in my courtroom.”
“You can’t force me to stay on this case!”
“Mr. Kincaid, I suggest that you refrain from telling me what I can and cannot do. If you do not proceed with this case to the full extent of your abilities, I will hold you in contempt of court. And let me inform you that our sheriff takes my contempt orders very seriously. Got it?”
Ben bit down on his lower lip. “Got it.”
“Now let’s not have any more of these improprieties.”
“Improprieties? From me?” Ben knew he should remain silent, but he just couldn’t. “I came here expecting an impartial hearing, and instead I got a judge who won’t follow procedure and a DA who’s baby-sitting!”
Tyler’s jaw clenched tightly shut, but he still managed to speak. “Let me put a bug in your ear, Mr. Kincaid. You may think we’re just a bunch of hicks out here. You may think I’m some redneck judge who doesn’t know what he’s doing. Well, I went to law school just like you, mister. I run a clean courtroom, and your boy’s going to get a fair trial, whether I particularly care for him or not.”
“I never meant to suggest—”
“Let me tell you something else. This town wasn’t always the happy hamlet I’ve lived in the past thirty years. Back in the Fifties and Sixties, we had the KKK crawling all over us—protests, race riots, lynchings. It was a hellhole. Town barely survived.”
Judge Tyler swiveled his chair around and gazed out the window. “Maybe I wasn’t as strong back then as I should’ve been. Maybe I didn’t do all I could’ve done. Well, I’m not making that mistake twice. I’m not letting this … ASP gang tear apart my town. I’m—”
“ASP is not on trial, Judge—”
Tyler rose to his feet. “Mr. Kincaid, do not interrupt me again!” He allowed an uncomfortable silence to pass before he returned to his seat. “Since your client’s friends came to town, they’ve been terrorizing folks and frightening everyone half to death. If this continues, pretty soon Silver Springs won’t be a safe place to raise precious little girls like Amber anymore. Well, I’m not going to let that happen. Not again. Do you understand?”
Ben nodded. He sure as hell did.
5.
COLONEL NGUYEN SAT ON the makeshift porch of his home in Coi Than Tien and gazed up at the stars. The sentinels of the night. So calm, so unchanging. When he was younger, he knew the names of all the constellations. He knew where to find the brightest stars in the sky and how to follow their progress. Now he had no time for such amusements. Now when he looked at the sky, it was only to wonder if there could really be someone up there, someone overseeing this cruel and bitter world.
He glanced at his wife, Lan, and their eighteen-month-old daughter, Thuy, whom they called Mary. Their four-year-old, Huong (Holly), was already asleep. Lan held Mary in her lap and rocked her gently. Mary’s tiny eyelids were fluttering; soon she would be in the land of dreams. Her face was the very image of contentment; it made Nguyen’s heart swell. If only life could always be thus. If only contentment was not merely for those blissfully unaware.
The porch wasn’t much of a porch, just as their home wasn’t much of a home. It was a Quonset hut, actually, bolted together from surplus corrugated metal. The porch was no more than a thin stretch of dirt; Nguyen had built a wooden railing around it to create the illusion of a real porch.
It embarrassed the Colonel to have his wife and children live in such conditions. Back in the homeland, his family had been wealthy, important. They had the best of everything. But that was a different country, a country that no longer existed. And it was a long time ago. So long now that, as he gazed at the stars and cast his mind back, he could barely remember it.
Lan eased out of her rocking chair. Mary’s soft, rhythmic breathing assured them she was soundly sleeping. Lan tiptoed inside the hut to put her down for the night. Nguyen couldn’t help but smile; he loved nothing more than watching his wife and daughters. When he recalled how close he had come to losing his wife, to never having any children at all, he shuddered.
Back in Vietnam, Nguyen had been one of the most important men in the South Vietnamese army. He had personally served in the Airborne and in Special Forces; he had commanded a unit of over twenty thousand combat troops. His men had seen some of the bloodiest action in the entire bloody war. Many of the most critical South Vietnamese victories came as a direct result of Nguyen and his soldiers.
When Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese, Nguyen reluctantly fled the country. He hated the thought of leaving his homeland; he could not imagine being separated from the soil of his birth. But the North Vietnamese had not hidden the fact that they intended to “chastise” high-ranking South Vietnamese officers, particularly those responsible for critical military victories. Nguyen had two choices: flee Vietnam or face incarceration, torture, and death.
The Americans were precious little help. Nguyen didn’t blame them personally. They were caught short like everyone else when Saigon fell, as their many plans and schemes were destroyed. In the utter turmoil and chaos that followed, he was separated from Lan. He managed to get out before the fall; she didn’t.
Colonel Nguyen made his way to America and took a series of hard-labor jobs—sweeping floors, washing dishes, shoveling out horse stalls. Most of his spare time was devoted to trying to get Lan to America. He contacted all the proper agencies and authorities; no one could offer any assistance. He became more and more despondent as he became more and more afraid he would never see her again.
In the meantime Lan had somehow managed to evade the Vietcong rover packs more than ready to exact revenge upon the families of high-ranking officers who had slipped through their fingers. In time, she managed to fight her way onto a boat full of refugees. Boat was a generous description given by the press; raft would have been more accurate. She was shoulder-to-shoulder with a hundred castaways desperate to escape Vietnam or the harsh refugee camps established in Thailand and other Asian countries. But Lan never complained. She was certain that the boat, any boat, would take her to her husband. To freedom.
She was bitterly disappointed. Her boat drifted up one coast and down another. No one would take them in. They were shunned as if they were lepers or murderers. She could not understand it; she had committed no crime. She was trapped offshore, with no money and no means to contact her husband, even if she knew where he was. She became bitterly sick and filled with despair. She was ready to die.
Finally, the American government agreed to accept a limited number of the refugees. Lan’s boat was brought in and its occupants were identified. One of the agencies Nguyen regularly visited contacted him. He flew to Florida to meet her. Since he was by that time already an American citizen, she was able to enter the United States. He immediately took her to a Miami hospital—just in time. According to the doctors, if she had not received medical treatment, she would have soon died of pneumonia.