Fatal Conceit (37 page)

However, after a heated discussion with Karp about “civic duty,” and talking it over with Marlene and Lucy, she agreed to testify and limit her stories to the events in Chechnya and Dagestan . . . on one condition: Lucy had to give her an exclusive interview about everything, which his daughter had agreed to on the added condition that she not be identified.

Of course, the lawyers for Fauhomme and Lindsey were infuriated by Stupenagel's follow-up story and their inability to control the feeding frenzy of the media. They vociferously denounced the accounts as “bald-faced lies” and insisted that Karp had to be behind their publication in an attempt to taint the potential jury pool. They filed motions to change venue and to dismiss the indictment, alleging prosecutorial misconduct by denying the defendant a fair trial.

At the hearing, when asked by Karp to establish the factual basis for the motion to dismiss, the defense was bereft of anything tangible and simply resorted to their claim that Karp was politically motivated and was manipulating the system to unjustly accuse their clients. Judge Hart, who'd been appointed to the case, admonished the defense attorneys that without a factual basis to support their motion, it would be denied, and they would be precluded from mentioning it during the trial unless they made an offer of proof that would pass legal muster.

Hart also slapped a gag order on both parties and their agents. The defense attorneys had violated the order many times since, whenever it was to their advantage, for example by offering broad hints to a television talk-show host that “the prosecution's star witness, Jenna Blair, is no innocent young woman and will prove to be an embarrassment to Mr. Karp's plans.” Asked to elaborate on that comment, they demurred, saying, “I don't want to try this
case in the media, but let's just say that Mr. Karp has placed all of his eggs in the wrong basket. Our clients look forward to clearing their names when the truth comes out.”

Two months after her first stories appeared, Stupenagel and her fiancé, Karp's office manager, Gilbert Murrow, met for a private dinner in the family loft on Crosby Street. Stupenagel was just back from her own clandestine trip to Chechnya, where she'd interviewed Lom Daudov for a story that was due out in a few days.

After Marlene's famous lasagna and a couple of bottles of Chianti, Karp asked Stupenagel who Augie was, but the reporter just laughed. “You've gotten enough cooperation out of me, Mr. District Attorney. I don't reveal my sources. But all kidding aside, in truth, I don't know who Augie is; I've only talked to him on the phone. I hope he'll come forward, but I could tell he was pretty worried just talking to me anonymously.”

“Why do you think he sought you out?”

“He doesn't like what went on,” she said. “I know he wrestled for a bit on whether sacrifices sometimes need to be made in the national interest, and whether this fell into that realm. But General Allen's death did it for him; he liked and respected the man.”

“Does he know anything about the murder?” Karp asked.

Stupenagel shook her head. “He says no, but that he wouldn't put it past Fauhomme. He has a harder time believing that Lindsey was involved, though he certainly didn't like the man.”

During Karp's trial preparation “Augie” did not reveal himself. Karp questioned whether he'd be able to introduce the events in Chechnya to a jury without a witness who could testify about them. Lucy was out; if convicted, the defendants would be able to assert personal bias on appeal and have a shot at getting another trial. He was resigned to going forward without the important link to a motive. Then, two months before the trial, he got an unexpected telephone call, but it wasn't from Augie.

“I'
VE GOT BAD NEWS, IT
'
S
about . . .” The aloof voice of his attorney, Celeste Faust, bored its way into his brain. Rod Fauhomme closed his eyes and rubbed his temples in agony. He sank back into the overstuffed leather chair that was one of two pieces of furniture in his living room and groaned. His head was pounding from a hangover and Faust's voice was only making it worse. He glanced at the note lying on the coffee table.
I hope they fry you, asshole . . .

He groaned again. Bad news. Over the past eight months, it had seemed that bad was the only news he got. Now with two months to go before his trial, fate was still piling on.

It began with his arrest on the night he'd been celebrating as the high point of his career to date. The world was his oyster and the POTUS his pearl. Then a large black detective put him in handcuffs and stuck him in a police car next to Tucker Lindsey, who sat there blinking like an owl that had flown into a window thinking it could get to the other side. The NYPD detective, Clay Fulton, had gone back inside the condominium, and when he emerged and got into the car, he turned around and said, “Ever hear the phrase, ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned'? Well, that's nothing compared to a woman who's been kicked around by a fat asshole.”

One night in the Tombs had been bad enough. At his arraignment the next morning, a friendly judge ignored the district attorney's request that he be denied bail and released him with the caveat that he reside in New York City. He breathed a sigh of relief at the judge's decision. He didn't think he could have handled another night in the jail. The rancid smell of urine, unwashed bodies, and disinfectant, as well as listening to yelling and screaming and insane laughter in the dark, had made for a sleepless night. Then there was the large Puerto Rican with the black facial tattoos in the cell next to his who kept looking at him, licking his lips and telling him, “You look like a pink
puerco.
You understand
puerco
? Is a pig . . . is a nice fat pig. And I'm going to have you for dinner, piggy.”

With the inmate's oinking noises still echoing in his mind, Fauhomme walked out of the Tombs in the company of his lawyer, whom he let speak for him while he posed with what he thought of as noble resignation for the cameras. But the nightmare of the jail quickly faded in the sunshine, and he started smiling and joking with the media. “Mr. Karp is apparently hard up to find any real criminals in New York City,” he said sarcastically. “Instead of doing his job here and protecting the good citizens of this beautiful city, which I might add voted overwhelmingly for the president, he's trying to point the finger in the direction of Washington, D.C., so you won't notice what a lousy job he's done in the Big Apple. Politics over ethics is standard operating procedure with Mr. Karp.”

One of the president's closest political allies, a senator from a state in the Northeast, was waiting for him in a limousine at the curb. “Let me drive you home,” the old man said, then looked pointedly at his attorney. “Alone.”

At first he thought it was a nice gesture from the senator and, by proxy, the president—like giving a metaphorical finger to Karp and anybody else who thought he didn't have friends in
very
high places. But they hadn't driven five blocks before he got the first bitter taste of what was to come.

With a meaningful look, the senator told him that the president would continue to give him and Lindsey his “full faith and support. But for the sake of public perception, and I'm sure you understand this better than anyone, it would be better if there is no direct contact between you and the Oval Office. Okay?”

The senator didn't wait for an answer. “Now we've arranged for a great legal team headed up by a hotshot out of the Justice Department; her name is Celeste Faust, Berkeley law grad and all that, took a leave of absence just to help you out. She'll make short work of this clown Karp, and you'll have the resources of the federal government helping—on the QT, of course, but count on it. Otherwise, you need anything, anything at all, you call me; the president's got your back.”

The comment about not contacting the White House stung, but he didn't let it show. Of course he understood the political necessity for the president to publicly distance himself, he told the senator with a false smile. The midterm campaigns would be heating up in a few months, and it was an important election cycle for the cause. He didn't want to be a distraction.

That's what he said to the old man's face. But what was really going through his mind was that the president didn't need to send his lackey senator to warn him off, as if they didn't have a lot of history together and a common vision for the country.
If he'd called, I would have given him the advice myself until we get this cleared up in New York. But don't worry about it, Rod old boy, he won't forget that you're the one who got him elected.

Nevertheless, when he got out of the limo that day at the condominium he leased for Connie Rae Lee, Fauhomme had a queasy feeling in his stomach. He wondered what “full faith and support” and “the president's got your back” would mean in a pinch. He felt suddenly vulnerable, and it didn't help his disposition when he walked in the door to an empty apartment.

He'd expected to see Connie, groveling and begging him to forgive her, but she was gone, and so were all the clothes, jewelry,
furniture, and other gifts he'd bought her. It was a kick in the stomach, but he quickly pulled himself together.
So what if the rats are jumping ship,
he thought as he fixed himself a stiff scotch on ice,
nothing to worry about
.

Whether the senator liked it or not, the administration was tied to him, and Lindsey,
like fucking Siamese twins
. If he went down it would be confirming everything the president's opponents were saying about Chechnya and the White House's culpability. The president would surely face calls for his impeachment; some of his fiercest detractors might even try to implicate him in Allen's murder. The administration had no choice but to support Fauhomme and do everything possible to get him off the hook.

I was tired of that bitch, Connie, anyway.
He fished the phone number of the blonde from the victory party out of his wallet.
They're all replaceable and only good for one thing. She'll be sorry she left.

In the meantime, he had more important things to concentrate on. That night he started organizing his defense as if he were getting ready for another presidential campaign. During his first meeting with Faust the next day, he instructed her to go on the offensive with personal attacks on Karp and the witnesses.

“Hire a marketing team to get the word out; here are some numbers for people I've used in the past when I wanted press but didn't want it to come back to me and the president,” he said. “And here's the cell number for a guy who can dig up anything you don't want to get your hands dirty with. I got plenty of dirt on Blair already. Now we're going to bury this fucker Karp.”

Soon his guerilla marketing team, with the help of his friends in the press, on Capitol Hill, and even a couple of A-list Hollywood actors, were beating the “politics of hate” drum so hard that he wondered if they actually believed it. Using his words, they painted Karp as a political hack, desperate to make a big splash before the midterm elections and beholden to his party's national committee for keeping him in office “despite his dismal record.”

The mainstream media obliged. One prominent newspaper columnist essentially ran word-for-word an essay Fauhomme wrote, but under his own byline, skewing the data Fauhomme's “new Ray Baum”—a clever former Army Intelligence goon named Bobby Raitz—had gathered on the New York DAO's track record so as to make it appear that Karp was “tough on minorities” but “willing to make sweetheart deals with wealthy white criminals.”

Fauhomme's strategy was to ensure one of two outcomes. The first, preferred result was to cause such a public outcry that, along with a lot of pressure behind the scenes from the White House, it would lay the groundwork for a politically sympathetic judge to dismiss the indictment based upon insufficient and/or tainted evidence adduced before the grand jury. The second was to taint the jury pool; the same thing, of course, that his attorneys accused Karp of attempting.

Both strategies seemed to work well at first. A quick public opinion poll conducted by his marketing team three days after his arrest indicated that a significant percentage of New York County citizens believed that the charges against Fauhomme and Lindsey were “political in nature.” The poll was immediately faxed and emailed to all the news outlets by the newly formed “New York Citizens for an Ethical District Attorney.” Released in time for the Sunday talk shows, the poll also implied that those people questioned overwhelmingly believed that the charges were part of an orchestrated campaign by Karp's national party to link Allen's death to the events in Chechnya in such a way as to implicate the president in a scandal.

“It is dirty politics at its lowest level,” the senator who picked Fauhomme up outside the Tombs said on one of the shows.

Fauhomme was pleased with the initial results. And Karp made it easy by refusing to defend himself or his office. But then things started to go wrong, beginning with the publication of
the bitch
Ariadne Stupenagel's first story.

The administration had been rocked by the allegations and privately
placed the blame on him. “You helped create this problem,” the senator complained. “Make it go away.”

“Wrong, Senator,” Fauhomme corrected the old man. “I was cleaning up a mess that Lindsey and his gang of spooks created, apparently with White House approval. If people had taken care of their own business, we wouldn't be in this predicament.”

“So how do we get out of it?”

“Deny, deny, deny, and at the same time hedge your bets—nothing set in stone, a lot of quotes about continuing to look into what occurred and adjusting as the facts are ascertained,” Fauhomme replied. “But stress that the president was in control of the situation in Dagestan the whole time and that this female hostage couldn't possibly have known what was going on in the situation room at the White House. Obviously, this woman doesn't want to be identified; we can use that to imply that this story was made up or that she's suffering some sort of mental breakdown due to her ordeal. I don't know why the president of the United States hasn't yet found out who she is. Doesn't matter, throw it all against the wall and see what sticks. In the meantime, find out who the fuck she is, which agency she's working for, and come down hard on her. And, Senator, when in doubt, attack, always attack.”