“Fire away,” Davids said, her voice loud enough to penetrate the earmuffs. “Empty the magazine.”
The trigger action was quick and required little pressure. But the gun bucked, and Jason’s first few shots were slow and off-target. He gained a feel for the gun and started squeezing faster, adjusting on the fly after each errant shot. Even after all the targets had dropped, Jason kept squeezing and firing, aiming at a piece of wood farther down the range, peppering the ground with 9 mm bullets. Shell casings flew past him, one hitting the rim of his safety glasses. He emptied the magazine in a matter of seconds.
Davids was smiling. They both hung their earmuffs around their necks.
“Whoa,” he said. “That was a rush. No piece of dirt is safe when I’m firing an MD-9.”
Davids eyed him with a look that seemed to indicate a slight reappraisal. “Most first-time shooters start a little more cautiously,” she said.
The second attache contained a shiny pistol that Davids handled with the pride of a first-time parent. “It’s a prototype,” she explained. “An MD-45. Five-inch barrel. Blue carbon steel and aluminum alloy frame. Rosewood grip. Two ten-round magazines.”
She loaded the gun and handed it to Jason. It felt a ton lighter than the MD-9, with a comfortable wooden grip that fit nicely into the contour of Jason’s hand. Davids popped the targets up and moved them back down the range to fifty feet.
Jason sighted in the gun, and Davids corrected his stance. “Relax a little more. Bring the gun straight up. Don’t lock your elbow.”
Unlike its evil cousin, the MD-45 felt smooth and comfortable in Jason’s sweaty hands. The trigger had a crisp let-off and very quick reset. He fired efficiently and with much greater accuracy. The gun had a larger-caliber bullet but only about half the kick. The longer barrel and precision machining made it easier to hit the targets even at this greater distance-not exactly in the heart but at least a shoulder wound or maybe one that strayed down to the thigh. He only missed the entire target once.
After he finished, Jason and Davids removed the earmuffs and safety goggles.
“You like it?” Davids asked.
“Yeah.”
“We’re going to order you one, Noble. I’ll ship it to a dealer in Virginia Beach. It’s a prototype that will have all of our latest safety features including-are you ready for this?”
“Sure.”
“A built-in GPS system for tracking the gun. That way if it ever gets stolen, you’ll be able to trace it. It’ll also have a fingerprint-activated safety lock that will allow the gun to be fired only by you.”
Jason knew those types of guns were in the works-some of the lawsuits he had researched even suggested it was negligence not to use safety locks like that in the design of every gun. But Jason didn’t know that MD Firearms was working on this prototype.
“I thought owning this type of gun might come in handy for media interviews or maybe even your closing argument,” Davids said. “You’ll hear a lot of talk about how we push semi-automatic assault weapons and how we’re the great merchant of death. Might be helpful for you to say that you own an MD Firearms gun, one equipped with a GPS system and fingerprint safety lock. Also, the publicity wouldn’t hurt our marketing.”
Jason wasn’t so sure. He still thought it might be more powerful to say he’d never owned a gun in his life. That way, nobody could accuse him of being part of the industry. But Davids wasn’t exactly asking his permission. He had the sense that nothing would alienate his client quicker than disrespecting her product.
“Let’s shoot a few more rounds and then get you fingerprinted,” Davids said, reloading the prototype. “Our market studies have shown just one glitch with the MD-45 so far.”
Jason waited, still wrestling with the thought of being a gun owner.
“With all those safety features, nobody wants to buy it.”
Jason left town without stopping by to see his father. He hadn’t spoken to his dad in at least a week, and his dad would have no way of knowing that Jason had flown into Atlanta.
Christmas would be here soon enough, and it would be mandatory for Jason to visit. He would keep it short-Christmas Eve and Christmas Day-making sure that some crisis in his law practice required him back in Richmond the day after Christmas. Jason’s older sister had married and moved to California. She only showed up every third year, and this would not be one of them.
Jason hated Christmas.
22
One week later
Robert Sherwood wanted to wring Andrew Lassiter’s scrawny little chicken neck but instead gave himself twenty-four hours to calm down. The drug patent verdict was the second time in three months that Justice Inc. had called it wrong. Sherwood’s clients were lighting up the phone lines. His efforts to calm them met with limited success. Felix McDermont, Sherwood’s largest and most unpredictable client, was beside himself.
“Take me off your list,” he told Sherwood. “I can flip a coin and get the same results.”
“Don’t do anything precipitous. We’re still batting over 90 percent.”
“Being forty million short based on your recommendation was precipitous,” McDermont replied. “Ending our relationship is not.”
After the phone call, Sherwood had begun polling his board members. When he had garnered the votes, he’d arranged a meeting with Andrew Lassiter for this morning.
The timing was lousy, but what options did he have? His entire life, Sherwood had made it a habit to deal with problems as soon as they reared their ugly heads. Problems only got worse with time, never better. Besides, if he waited until January, Lassiter might catch wind of the plan. He would lobby the board members, and they might soften once the heat from the patent verdict dissipated.
Sherwood had the votes now. There was no guarantee he would have them in January. He couldn’t change the fact that Christmas was only one week away. No doubt he would become legendary for this, the comparisons to Scrooge almost too easy.
But he had no choice. Lassiter could no longer be trusted.
“He’s here,” Olivia said.
Sherwood blew out a huge breath. If he listened carefully, he could hear the songs of the season echoing up from the street. The lobby of Justice Inc. was decorated with a large tree and the politically correct amount of white Christmas lights. The two failed predictions had cost the firm’s clients a lot of money, but the firm itself had been immensely profitable this year. Sherwood had just signed some hefty bonus checks.
Now this.
Olivia showed Lassiter into the office and closed the door. The two men shook hands. Lassiter was hunch-shouldered and red-eyed, wearing a ratty navy blue sweater and jeans, his laptop tucked under his arm. Sherwood had seldom seen Lassiter without the laptop. Lassiter’s hair looked like he had just rolled out of bed, and he blinked a couple of times behind his thick glasses. Why are the brilliant ones always so socially inept?
The two men had initially made a formidable team. Lassiter had developed the software and micromarketing formulas to predict jury verdicts, while Sherwood had worked the venture capitalists for financing and developed the hedge fund clients who paid so handsomely for Justice Inc.’s service.
As the company grew, Sherwood became the face man for interacting with board members, investors, and clients. Lassiter obsessively focused on the study of the human mind, constantly refining the formulas and models for predicting jury behavior.
But now he had lost his touch. And Sherwood was the one who got stuck cleaning up the mess when Lassiter was wrong.
“Have a seat,” Sherwood said. He motioned to the navy blue chair. He knew the rumors about the chair and had never done anything to discourage them. It was a useful way to signal bad news without actually saying anything. People could brace themselves.