Dead Man's Rule (34 page)

“The work is all done, Mr. Simeon,” LeGrand announced. He showed Tony how to operate the new control panels, and they went over what to do in case of an emergency. Then Tony paid LeGrand’s bill and the security expert left.

Tony locked the door, watched the new sensors until they showed that LeGrand had turned out of the driveway, and armed the system.

LeGrand had added several new elements to Tony’s previous security system. There were now sensors on the upstairs windows, for example. He had also built a novel security device into Tony’s driveway.

But the heart of Tony’s security system remained unchanged. A dark-wood ceiling-to-floor bookcase lined one wall of his study, and one section of that bookcase opened to reveal what the previous owner of the house had told Tony was a “rum closet” used to hide liquor during Prohibition. Tony planned to use it to hide himself.

He knew that his sophisticated alarms and sensors could not protect him. They could do little more than warn him of approaching danger and notify the police. He needed a way to stay alive during the crucial minutes between the time an alarm went off and the time the police arrived. He doubted that he could outfight or outrun an assassin, so that meant hiding in the stuffy, unlit secret chamber until the police came.

He walked slowly into the study and stood looking absently at the bookshelf. Awards, plaques, and souvenirs from some of his more memorable victories filled several shelves. There was a crystal baseball bat bearing the legend “Heavy Hitter of the Year 1993,” the year he had won high-profile lawsuits for both an alderman and the Chicago Bears. A polished mahogany box held a gold-hilted dagger in a black-velvet sheath—a gift from an appreciative client who knew and admired Tony’s nickname. Next to it sat two plaques—one for “Biggest Plaintiff’s Verdict 1989” for a $100-million award he’d won for one bank against another, and the other for “Biggest Defense Verdict 1993” for his defense of the alderman.

Tony’s eyes lingered on the 1993 plaque. After a minute, he reached out and turned it facedown. The alderman had been guilty as sin, and Tony had known it. It was a fraud case in which the plaintiff, another alderman and former friend of the defendant, had accused him of lying during the sale of a business. Tony had won the case not by defending his client (who had a somewhat blemished reputation for truthfulness), but by attacking the plaintiff—a strategy that had taken the opposing attorney completely by surprise. Tony relentlessly undermined the plaintiff’s credibility during the trial, turning every mistake or exaggeration into a cunning lie to be exposed to the jury. It had worked, and at the end of the trial the defendant had escaped untouched. The plaintiff, on the other hand, had gone bankrupt from his legal bills and his losses on the business he’d bought.

It had been a brilliant and celebrated victory, one of many in Tony’s storied career. The sun had shone long and bright on him, but now its light was fading and he felt the approach of night. He was an old man in a cavernous mansion, alone with his awards and decades-old victories.
Nothing.
In fact, worse than nothing, because many of them represented the triumph of skill over justice.

He turned from the bookcase and saw his statuette of Prometheus standing on a granite plinth, in a Plexiglas case. It was twenty-three inches tall, a remarkably detailed bronze of piercing beauty. The muscular Titan stood against a jagged, Scythian rock, bound with heavy, god-forged chains. His belly had been torn open by Zeus’s vengeful eagle, but his bearded face was defiant and proud and his powerful legs held him erect, straining against the torturing bonds.

“I too was bound,” murmured Tony, “but I forged my own chains.”

He knew that breaking free of those chains wouldn’t be easy. There would be no “cheap grace,” as Bonhoeffer put it. Soon after his lunch with Pastor Wilhelm, Tony had begun to discover just how expensive grace could be.

Dmitry Kolesnikov had called him to discuss the Ivanovsky case. Dmitry was concerned about Nikolai Zinoviev, who was at the center of the case. They had put off his deposition for as long as they could, but Ben Corbin was entitled to Nicki’s testimony, and if he filed a motion to compel, he certainly would win, and Tony would look bad in the eyes of the judge.

Dmitry went off on a seeming tangent about Nicki’s drug problem and the risk that he might overdose. “What would happen to the case if he died?” he had asked. “Ivanovsky’s testimony would destroy us then, wouldn’t it?”

While Dmitry was speaking, Rosa had walked into Tony’s office and handed him an urgent message about another case. He skimmed it as they spoke. “Well, for one thing, Ivanovsky wouldn’t be able to testify,” he’d said without really thinking. “The Dead Man’s Rule would keep his testimony out. If you’re really worried about Nicki’s health, I can recommend a rehab clinic that some of my other clients have used.”

“Thank you,” Dmitry had said a bit too smoothly. “I’ll talk to Nicki and call you back if we decide to go that route. Well, I know you’re busy. I won’t take up any more of your time.”

Tony hung up the phone and turned his entire attention to the message in his hand.

He had forgotten about the conversation completely until three days later—when Nicki died on the day of his deposition. He realized then that Dmitry had known about the Dead Man’s Rule all along, likely from his second cousin, a disbarred lawyer who occasionally advised the Brothers. Dmitry had merely called Tony to confirm how the rule would operate in this case.

The attorney-client privilege arguably covered their conversation, because Dmitry hadn’t technically used Tony’s advice to commit a crime but only to find out what the impact of a crime would be. Even if the privilege didn’t apply, Dmitry had carefully avoided saying anything incriminating enough to be useful to the police.

Tony, however, was not without options. All of them had consequences, of course, ranging from disbarment to death, but he was no longer a man who could—or would—turn a blind eye and do nothing. He had put off his decision for as long as possible. Then he had bought voice-altering equipment, and, deep into a sleepless night, he had called Ben Corbin.

Despite all that had happened since, Tony did not regret his decision.
But the game is not over,
he thought with a grim smile.
There’s still plenty of time for regret
.

Ibrahim would only get one shot, so it had to be perfect. He had waited all day for that shot, but it hadn’t come. First, the man with the LeGrand Security Services van had spent hours installing equipment. Shortly after he’d left, a plumbing contractor had come and dug a trench across the driveway and part of the yard, putting in white PVC pipe and leaving a ridge of raw earth where he had buried the pipe. When he finally moved his van out, Ibrahim could see that he had left a lump of steel plate and asphalt behind where he had torn up the driveway. All the while, Simeon had stayed inside behind shuttered windows.

It was late afternoon now, and still the lawyer had not shown himself. Even if he did, the glare of the low sun on the windows of the house would make a shot difficult unless he were to actually step outside. Ibrahim decided to abandon his primary plan and go with his backup. He methodically and quickly disassembled and packed his sniper rifle, a thin line between his black eyebrows the only sign of frustration that his iron self-discipline allowed to show.

He jogged through the school and out to his van, where he rapidly changed into workman’s coveralls and put magnetic stickers on each side of the van that read “Chicagoland Electrical Services—Certified Electricians.” He mentally ran through what he would need to do. He had watched the security devices go in and knew how to slip past them. Would there be others that had not just been installed? Maybe. That was one reason why this plan was the backup and not the primary option. He would also have to be careful while driving over that metal plate; he wouldn’t want to leave a scrape of paint or other evidence for the FBI. After all, the whole point of this mission was to deprive the Americans of evidence.

Will it work?
Tony wondered. In the courtroom and at the negotiating table, he had routinely bet millions—sometimes billions—on his ability to understand and outthink his opponents. Now he was betting his life and more. Much more.

Have I missed something?
His mind had begun to slip in recent years. Not much, but he could tell. He wasn’t quite as quick on his feet as he had been ten years ago, and he occasionally missed subtle points that would have been obvious to him in his prime. Maybe he had merely grown mentally and emotionally tired of the practice of law—or at least the way he had practiced it. That might explain why he had lost some of his edge. Or it might not.

God, I commit this into your hands,
he prayed silently.
I know you haven’t missed anything, even if I have.

He crouched nervously behind a chair in his living room, watching a narrow wedge of driveway through a crack in the shutters. He estimated that he had about thirty seconds from the time an alarm went off until an intruder could get inside and start looking for him, so he made sure that he had chosen a watching post less than thirty seconds from the rum closet.

A white van turned into his driveway and his heart nearly stopped. This was it. He jumped up from behind the chair and ran into the study. As he jerked open the hidden door, he slipped on an area rug and nearly fell. Regaining his balance, he hurried into the secret chamber, pulling the door shut behind him.

It was dark and silent in the little room, and Tony’s breath sounded unnaturally loud in his ears. The walls were cold, slightly dank, and close enough to make even a spelunker claustrophobic. The air was stale and smelled faintly of mildew.

Tony had a cell phone on his belt and was tempted to call LeGrand or the police. He resisted. The alarms should be enough, and he didn’t want to spring his trap too soon.

Ibrahim parked the van in the lawyer’s driveway, making sure that it blocked the nearest neighbor’s view of the front door. He suspected that the door would be locked and fitted with alarms, but both problems could be fixed easily enough.

He took out a simple magnetometer and swept along the edge of the door. The needle jumped where he expected it to, near the upper-left corner of the door. He put the device back in his toolbox and took out a thin strip of steel, which he carefully slid between the jamb and the door at the spot where the magnetometer had registered a field. Because the steel was ferrous, it would not interrupt the magnetic field, but it would tell him exactly where the magnet was.

Click.
The magnet pulled the strip down to the top of the door and Ibrahim drew it back out. Reaching into his toolbox again, he took out a tube of quick-setting glue and a tiny but powerful magnet. Placing the magnet on the end of the steel strip, he squeezed a drop of glue onto the magnet and slid the strip back between the door and the jamb, positioning his magnet above the alarm system’s magnet. Then he lifted it up and pressed it against the sensor until the glue dried, which took slightly less than a minute. He dropped the strip back into his box and grabbed a diamond-bladed power saw—the fastest and quietest model on the market. He quickly sliced through the dead-bolt lock and put his tools away.