"If we rush into federal court, and I lose, I'll be shipped right back here. We can try an appeal, and we will. But that takes time. I'll probably be dead long before."
"So it's a choice between very bad and awful?"
"More like between certain death and probable death."
"So what's this idea?"
"It's called a motion for habeas corpus. Technically, by shoving me into the federal prison system, they've created a loophole we should be able to exploit. It forces the government to show cause for my imprisonment. If a judge accepts it, the process happens very fast."
"How fast?"
"Three days after we launch it, we'll be in court."
"Oh… that fast." Elena stared at her shoes a moment. She began fidgeting with her hands. "Is it too fast?"
"Possibly," Alex told her. "We have a lot of enemies, here and in Russia. Everything has to happen at once. And everything has to succeed, or as my friend Benny puts it, it's game over. Also Mikhail will have to move up his time schedule. And we'll have to pray for a legal miracle."
"We're overdue for a miracle."
"I don't think it works that way. We'll have to produce our own."
"I'll call Mikhail the second I'm out of here."
"You have a busy weekend ahead of you. It's time to share everything with MP, then pray it's enough."
30
On September 18, 1996, one year and two months to the day since Alex's incarceration in federal prison, MP Jones bounced up the steps of the D.C. Federal Courthouse, one of the loveliest, most impressive buildings in a city littered to the gills with marble monuments. The day alternated between warmth and chill, the first hint that another long, humid summer in a city built in a swamp was coming to a close. Elena, along with a stout paralegal hauling a box of documents, accompanied him.
Two days before, Elena had called and frantically insisted on an emergency meeting. MP dropped everything and Elena arrived, pale, tired, angry, upset, and wildly determined. She told him Alex's idea and MP instantly launched a hundred objections.
It was too fast. Too risky. Federal court wasn't his thing. Besides, who knew what the Russian prosecutors and INS had cooked up, how much damning material they could throw at Alex? Elena insisted that she and Alex had entertained all the same reservations, told him about the four attempts on Alex's life, and that ended the discussion. MP called his clients with pressing cases over the next week and foisted their files off on other immigration specialists around town.
So they moved with deep nervousness through the wide, well-lit corridors, straight to the office of the federal clerk. MP signed in at the front desk, moved to the rear of the room, and waited patiently with Elena and his paralegal amid a clutter of other nervous lawyers until the clerk called his name.
He nearly sprinted to her desk. He proudly threw down a document and with a show of intense formality informed her, "I am introducing a motion for habeas corpus on behalf of my client Alex Konevitch. I ask the court for expeditious handling on behalf of said client, who has been incarcerated beyond any reasonable length and forced to endure immeasurable suffering."
The clerk, a large, feisty black woman, lifted up MP's motion and automatically plunked it into a deep wooden in-box, a vast reservoir filled to capacity with other such requests, motions, and lawyerly stuff. "First time here?" she asked without looking up.
"Uh… yes."
"This ain't no courtroom. Plain English works fine in here."
MP looked slightly deflated. "It's a habeas corpus motion." She chewed a stick of gum with great energy and stared intently into a computer screen. The sign on her desk suggested she was named Thelma Parker.
"I heard what you said," Thelma noted. "How long's your guy been in?"
"A year and two months."
"Uh-huh." Thelma did not appear overly impressed. "What facility he at?"
"At the moment, based on a federal contract, the state prison in Yuma. It's his third prison."
The reaction was delayed, but she slowly shifted her gaze from the screen and directed it at MP. "His third? Inside a year? That what you sayin'?"
"To be precise, inside fourteen months."
"What'd he do? Kill a warden?"
"An alleged visa violation."
"Come on, you bullshittin' me."
"On my momma's grave."
"That's an immigration matter. What's your guy doin' in a federal joint?"
"That's what we'd like the government to explain."
"He a U.S. resident?"
"That's one point of contention. The government said yes. Now it's saying no."
She poised her chin on a pencil. "That prison in Yuma, it's a badass place."
"So Alex tells me. He's locked up in D Wing, mixed in with the most rotten apples."
She leaned forward, almost across the desk. In a low, conspiring, all-knowing whisper, she said, "Truth now. Who'd your boy piss off?"
MP played along. He bent over and whispered back, "John Tromble."
"Figures." She picked MP's motion out of the pile and smacked it down on her blotter. She paged through it, frowning and considering the request with some care for a moment. "Gotta cousin works over at the Bureau," she eventually remarked.
A sharp pain suddenly erupted in MP's chest. Idiot. Why hadn't he just kept his big mouth shut?
After a moment Thelma Parker added, "He hates that Tromble. Says he's the worst thing happened since J. Edgar pranced around in a skirt. Tell you what, you done this before?"
After manning this desk for fifteen years, she had seen thousands of lawyers pass in and out of her office. One sniff and she could smell a cherry a mile away.
MP allowed as, "My usual cases are in immigration court."
"Thought so. You never done this before?"
"Pretty much."
A large, plump elbow landed on her desk and her large chin ended up poised on a curled fist. "Now, don't you worry. Way this works is, your motion goes to a judge. Now, you could maybe get lucky and it might end up in the box of, say, oh, Judge Elton Willis. He's a fair and judicious man. Then, assuming this thing gets stamped expeditious"-she winked at MP-"which might maybe happen about three seconds after you walk outta here… well, then the government gets three days to respond. Got all that?"
"Three days," MP said, winking back.
"Then it's show-and-tell time. This kinda motion moves fast. You got your stuff together?"
With all the humility he could muster, MP replied, "It's going to be an ass-kicking of historical proportions. They'll carry Tromble out on a stretcher."
"Uh-huh." A slow nod. "You got help? Sure hope you do."
"Pacevitch, Knowlton and Rivers. A classmate from law school's a partner over there. They're lending a hand, pro bono."
"Well, that's nice." Her eyes hung for a moment on the JCPenney polyester threads that hung loosely on MP's narrow frame. She smacked her lips and said, "No offense, but you gonna need a few thousand-dollar suits at your table." In a career that alternated between roaring barn burners and droning recitations of intolerable boredom, Boris Yeltsin was producing the biggest thud yet. At least he was sober this time-what a rare and welcome change, his chief of staff was thinking, as he rocked back on his heels and briefly scanned the crowd. Nearly all of them were staring edgily at their watches. A few seemed to be asleep on their feet. He looked longer and harder, and for the life of him could not find one person who seemed to be listening to Yeltsin.
His boss liked him along for these things. Principally it gave him a reliable drinking partner for the long ride back to the Kremlin. Plus he could always rely on his trusted chief of staff to lie and say the speech was stirring and deeply inspiring. They were a pair of wicked old politicians. The lies flowed easily and landed comfortably.
A man in a black leather jacket bumped up against him. He took a quick step sideways, to get some room. The man edged closer.