"You. Who's the judge?" Tromble asked, squinting at the two Justice boys whose names he couldn't remember because frankly he didn't care to.
"Elton Willis," replied Bill, only too proud to be here in the office of the FBI director.
Tromble looked like a lemon had been stuffed in his throat. "Oh, not Willis."
"He has a fairly good reputation," Bill argued, obviously not getting it.
During his brief tenure as a judge, Tromble and Willis had attended a few legal conferences together and, on one sour occasion, had even shared a podium for a spirited debate on civil liberties, one of many legal topics about which they held diametrically different views. The audience were other judges and the results were predictable. Willis was intelligent, methodical, measured, with a former Jesuit's grasp and approach to law. To put it mildly, the scholars and justices in the audience didn't seem to grasp the subtlety of Tromble's theories. It wasn't the first or last time he'd been pelted with boos, but it was probably the loudest.
"He's a lefty wimp," Tromble growled, daring anybody to contest this conclusion. He leaned back in his chair and cracked his knuckles. "You ready for the show?" he asked Caldwell.
"It's a knockdown case. In and out inside one or two days."
Tromble traded glances with Hanrahan. "What's the one thing we've overlooked?"
No clue.
"Publicity. Press. We need to bang Konevitch on every front page," he said, almost predictably.
Caldwell loved this brainchild. "Great idea," he announced quite loudly. "If we don't, the defense will. Better to preempt them."
"Our Russian friends need to see we're serious. All this time, but we haven't forgotten them."
"I could hold a few press conferences," Caldwell agreeably offered.
Tromble cleared his throat. "Well, we'll see if we need you." He paused briefly. "Hanrahan, tell the boys downstairs to kick it in gear. See if Nightline or Good Morning America has an opening for me. And call that blonde lawyer over at Fox News, you know the one. She always has an opening for me."
"Pretty short notice. We've only got two more days, boss."
"Tell them it's the biggest trial of the year."
Hanrahan looked away and pondered the tabletop. "Maybe that will work, maybe not." Truth was the newspaper and TV people were tired of his boss and his unrelenting attempts to steal ink and camera time. He was a preening spotlight hog, a master at shoving himself before every camera in sight. The boys downstairs in the public affairs office were working eighty-hour weeks, but had flat run out of angles, lies, and lures to get him press time.
"All right," Tromble said, thinking up a fresh angle quickly. "Tell them I intend to be a witness at this trial. A historic occasion. First time an FBI director has ever been on the stand."
"Good idea," Hanrahan said.
Caldwell offered no objections. Go ahead, give it your best shot, he was tempted to shout. Bill this as the biggest trial of the century, if not forever. You'll be a witness, but I'm the prosecutor, it's my show, and I'll damn sure find a way to make you second fiddle.
The meeting broke among frothy promises to make sure Konevitch would at last have his long-overdue appointment with justice.
31
The front steps of the Federal Courthouse looked like a convention for something. A few dozen TV crews were gathered, klieg lights in place, cameras loaded and ready to roll. Another dozen print reporters milled around aimlessly, drawn and stoked by the buzz fed by the FBI's impressive publicity machine.
Inside the court another dozen journalists were already seated at the rear benches, pool reporters who would rush out and share the dirt and drama with their less privileged brethren.
At one table sat a clutch of five lawyers, led by Jason Caldwell, looking rather resplendent in his fine new five-hundred-buck Brooks Brothers suit, bought in honor of his breakout debut. It matched his blue eyes. It would look great on camera. A pair of INS colleagues sat to his left, and on the floor beside them rested a large stack of evidence. The two boys from Justice were banished to a shallow space on the far side, though their exact purpose in the trial was an open question, especially between themselves.
At the defense table, MP huddled importantly with a pair of well-dressed guns from Pacevitch, Knowlton and Rivers, one of many monster firms in a city where lawyers outnumbered ordinary citizens three to one. Directly to his right sat Matt Rivers, a law school classmate who had served as best man in the hastily arranged wedding between MP and his by then noticeably pregnant bride.
Top of his class, in his third year, Matt had been wined and dined by big firms from New York and Chicago. But he chose PKR, as it was commonly known. He was drawn by its no-holds-barred reputation, a feared powerhouse, a collection of divisions that did many things from corporate through criminal, with branch offices in six American cities, and ten more spread around the globe. Notice that PKR was involved in a case often had the terrifying effect of getting even the most recalcitrant opponents to promptly initiate settlement talks. PKR's unwritten motto was "pile it on," in honor of the firm's willingness to throw a hundred lawyers at a troubled case. However many lawyers were committed against it, PKR doubled it and wrenched up the hours, drowning the competition in useless motions and watching it sink in exhaustion. To put it mildly, PKR did not like to lose. Matt's competitive streak-aka his killer instinct-had been identified early and carefully nurtured and cultivated. The cultivation included partnership within five years: three hundred thousand a year, plus bonus, plus car.
Though their lives and fortunes diverged, Matt and MP still lunched together every few months and shared tales from the opposite ends of the legal profession. There was one condition that was strictly followed; Matt picked the eating hole and paid the check. This law was laid down in the early years after MP took Matt to Taco Bell; no longer accustomed to such fare, Matt's stomach rebelled with horrible violence.
At Alex's behest, MP had approached his old pal a few months before for a favor. MP was seriously outgunned, and Alex pressured him to find some reinforcements, but since funds were short, to find somebody willing to do the work for the promise of the publicity it might generate. Tromble seemed to be doing a masterful job at stoking that publicity, and Matt took MP's appeal to the firm's management committee. It was a simple and quite common request; assign one or two lawyers on a pro bono basis. The bulk of the work would be handled by MP: all he really wanted was the firm there, in the background, throwing its weight around, striking fear in the opposition. A simple immigration matter failed to fuel the committee's enthusiasm until Matt launched into Alex Konevitch's fascinating background and the strange nature of his supposed crimes. Interest swelled, then the partners on the committee became curiously fired up about the whole idea.
Two years before, PKR had joined the pell-mell rush of Western firms pouring into the new market of democratic Russia and opened a small, struggling branch in Moscow. The PKR boys in Russia were immediately hired by a free-market oil company battling to fend off a vicious takeover by a shady consortium with heavy government contacts. One day before the first hearing, PKR was notified by the Ministry of Justice that its lawyers had just been disbarred, and its branch office was no longer welcome. The PKR lawyers were all booted out. The oil company was swallowed up two days later.
What a great way for PKR to shoot a big middle finger back at the Russian government, the senior partners agreed. Among its many fine attributes, PKR never forgot a slight.