Dead Man's Rule (25 page)

“I do not worry,” the scientist replied with a dismissive wave.

“Look, you trusted my judgment during this trial, right?”

Dr. Ivanovsky nodded. “Yes.”

“And it paid off, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then trust me one more time. As your lawyer, I
strongly
advise you to contact the authorities.”

“No.”

They had reached the crossroads that Ben had feared and expected. He chose his words carefully. “I cannot allow you to use my services to commit a crime. You know that. It would be a crime for you to obtain possession of biological weapons or instructions on how to produce them. If you are not willing to contact the proper authorities, I am afraid I will have to.”

Dr. Ivanovsky stared at Ben. His face grew red and the stringy muscles on his neck stood out as he clenched his jaws in shock and fury. Ben braced himself for an outraged tirade, but none came. His client slowly calmed himself and took a deep breath. “You always say nothing is for sure in courts,” he said evenly, though banked fires of anger burned behind his eyes. “Okay, so we wait until it is for sure that we win. We will talk tomorrow after we see what the judge has decided. I make no promise, but maybe we call the FBI then.”

Ben relaxed and smiled. “Good. Why don’t you come to my office at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. We can talk about the order and decide what to do.”

“Can I come at ten? There is a thing I must do first.”

“Ten is fine. I’ll see you then.”

All in all, Tony Simeon was satisfied with his life. He enjoyed his work and he was very good at it. He had few friends but many acquaintances. He was never alone unless he wanted to be. The years had rolled by in a comfortable, almost-unnoticed rhythm for nearly four decades.

But that rhythm had stopped suddenly, six weeks ago, in a confusion of squealing tires, a shout, and the awful sound of metal on flesh, a sound that would echo in his mind forever.

He had been walking down Washington Street with one of his partners, Dan Wood, on their way to a hearing. They were deep in conversation, clutching overlapping umbrellas to ward off a bitingly cold October drizzle. Tony slipped on a patch of invisible ice on the sidewalk and fell. Dan stopped and leaned over to help him just as a taxi rounded the corner of LaSalle and Washington going too fast. Its tires lost traction on the slick road and it careened toward them. Tony could see it from where he lay, but it was approaching Dan from behind. Tony shouted and scrambled to the side, but Dan couldn’t react fast enough. He had only half turned before the cab hit him in the side with a loud, dull noise like the sound of someone hitting a pillow very hard with a baseball bat.

The collision threw Dan twenty feet down the sidewalk, where he lay in an awkward, unmoving heap. Tony ran over to him and checked for a pulse, but there was none. He called an ambulance on his cell phone, then he stood in the chill rain, looking down at Dan’s body. A small crowd of onlookers gathered. He didn’t know what else to do, and he was relieved when the ambulance finally came for Dan’s remains.

He’d gone back to the office, told the necessary people, and made the necessary phone calls. Then he had sat down at his desk and tried to do some work. But for the first time in his professional life, he’d been unable to focus on the work in front of him.

Six weeks later, not much had changed. He still did his work well and could maintain the same courtroom manner, but the practice of law no longer held any joy or meaning for him. During his divorces and other life crises he had been able to lose himself in the practice of law and forget what went on outside the office and the courtroom. But now it was as if a blazing light had seared the eyes of his mind and soul, leaving him to wander blindly through the empty mansions of his life.

He had told himself that it was the shock of the event, that he would get over it in a day or two—or a week or two. But he hadn’t. Every day he came into work and tried to concentrate, and every day the frozen face of Dan Wood stared up at him from the pages of pleadings and cases. And every day the sound of squealing tires and that terrible impact rang in his ears.

“Hello, James. We’d like to talk to you for a minute.” Special Agent James Washington looked up and saw two men standing in the doorway of his office, one he recognized and one he didn’t. The man he recognized was Fred Giacolone, his CIA liaison. The other man was an older African American with an air of authority and a faint frown, as if his lunch were giving him heartburn.

“Sure,” James replied. “What’s up?”

Fred closed the door and said, “James, I’d like you to meet Bill Alexander, deputy director for intelligence here at the CIA. Bill has some questions about a file search you ordered last week.”

“Fire away,” said James, trying not to sound as apprehensive as he felt. Getting a closed-door visit from the deputy director could hardly be good news. James was FBI, but his job was to be a point of contact between the two intelligence agencies. He hoped he hadn’t done anything to screw that up.

Deputy Director Alexander looked him in the eyes. “Mr. Washington, why did you request our files on Alexei Zinoviev?”

It was a routine, everyday errand—the kind one forgets almost before it’s over. Yet Khalid Mohammed would never forget buying stamps on Wednesday morning.

The day was clear and cold. A bright, small sun shone in a pale-blue sky. Khalid decided it was a perfect day for a brisk walk.

The post office was about half a mile away, meaning the round trip would take about half an hour by foot. That would still leave plenty of time to call in his supply orders before lunchtime, as long as there weren’t long lines. Khalid doubted there would be at this time of day and set off at a quick pace, humming to himself as he walked.

As soon as he stepped inside the doors of the post office, he knew that he had guessed wrong about the lines. They snaked around the edge of the wide floor. Refusing to let this unexpected annoyance dampen his good spirits, he looked at his watch and decided that he would wait ten minutes. If he hadn’t reached the counter by then, he would walk back to the office, count this as his daily exercise, and pick up the stamps later.

A long and battered cork bulletin board ran along the wall beside the line. It was covered with hundreds of flyers for missing persons, library book sales, wanted criminals, and other government and community announcements. The “wanted” posters were mildly interesting, and Khalid idly scanned them as he waited. They ran the gamut from murderers to forgers to tax cheats. There was even a man wanted for stealing trees.

A ripple ran through the line and it slowly shrugged forward like a giant, lazy caterpillar. Khalid found himself in front of a new collection of faces and crimes. Right in front of him were police sketches of two vaguely familiar faces. According to the posters, they were both wanted “for attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, kidnapping, and burglary.” He looked more closely at the faces. They looked uncomfortably like the two men he had met just before evening prayers the day before. Khalid doubted that his esteemed neighbors could be criminals, so he carefully read the descriptions under each sketch. They matched—even the injury to the shorter man’s hand was described exactly.

Khalid’s mind whirled. Could these posters be right? When it came to Muslims, the American government had adopted an “arrest first and ask questions later” policy, or at least that’s how it seemed to many people at his mosque. Could he call the FBI, knowing that he might be sending innocent men to prison or deportation? On the other hand, could he
not
call the FBI, knowing that these men might be dangerous criminals who could strike again? He prayed for guidance.

The phone rang in Sergei Spassky’s empty office, disturbing the silence that had reigned for most of the past twenty-four hours. The FBI and police had been there earlier in the day looking for clues, but otherwise it had been as still and dark as a tomb. It was a spacious but windowless room in a half-empty office building that Sergei had found quiet or lonely, depending on his mood and the time of day. Stacks of documents and file folders nearly covered the wide desk and matching round table. The phone sat atop one pillar of paper, jangling loudly.

After four rings, voice mail picked up. “You have reached Sergei Spassky of the Spassky Detective Agency. I’m not here right now, but if you leave your name and phone number at the tone, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

“Hi, Sergei, it’s James Washington. Listen, I need to talk to you about that file request you gave me a couple of weeks ago. It’s important, so give me a call as soon as you get this message. Thanks. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Seven hundred miles away, James hung up the phone and debated what to do next. Should he have someone from the Chicago office try to track down Sergei today, or should he wait to see if Sergei called back tomorrow morning? It was after six in Langley, so it would be past five in Chicago. Getting an agent to give up his or her evening based solely on a request from the CIA would be tough and unpleasant. And it would be ten times worse if had to give an “I’m sorry but this is classified and I can’t tell you why we need to find him” bureaucratic stiff-arm. James didn’t feel like going through that hassle, particularly since the Agency had sat on this for two weeks before suddenly making it his emergency half an hour ago. Besides, Sergei was pretty good about returning phone messages. So James decided to let the matter rest.