Mortal Allies (9 page)

But when we arrived, the Korean fellas in blue suits were already hammering folks aside to make room for us to pass. It had to be Imelda, of course. She’d obviously called ahead. The woman never missed a beat.

The ministry was located five miles away, and fortunately the traffic, which in Seoul almost always moves like constipated molasses, was suspiciously light. Probably everybody and his brother was out protesting against us Americans, which falls under the heading of what you might call a mixed blessing.

The overly elegant Mr. Brandewaite and his trusted henchman, Colonel Piranha Lips, awaited us at the grand entrance to the Ministry of Justice.

Hands were swiftly shaken while Brandewaite, with a very virtuous look, said, “Hey, I’m damned sorry for that testy meeting this morning. I’m on your side in this thing. Please believe that. I called the minister and persuaded him to at least hear your argument. Now it’s in your hands. I wish I could do more, but my own hands are completely tied.”

Bullshit. This guy was the acting ambassador in a country that thoroughly depended on us to keep the North Koreans from launching what businessmen call a hostile takeover. There were all kinds of things he could do. The only reason he’d even lifted a pinkie was because he was scared witless about being publicly barbecued by Katherine’s gay buddies. But I kept that thought to myself.

We then trooped up some big stairs and walked across a wide hallway to a set of carved mahogany doors. Brandewaite and Janson seemed to know their way. We entered a cavernous anteroom with about six secretaries scattered at various desks. Brandewaite said something in Korean and one of the secretaries leaped from her chair in the obsequious way some Korean women have, bowed demurely, then led us to another set of carved doors. She knocked gently and we entered.

It was a big office with high ceilings, decorated, like most Korean official suites, with cheap-looking furniture, big scrolls on the walls, and a few watercolor paintings of peasants frolicking in fields, or big white cranes cruising through the air. I guess if you’re Korean, they carry hidden meanings. I’m not Korean, though.

The gentleman behind the desk nodded politely and indicated with a stately wave for us to take the seats arrayed directly in front of his desk. It did not escape my notice that he chose not to shift our conversation to the corner where three couches were located. In Korea, symbolism counts for a lot. The symbol here wasn’t hard to figure out. This wasn’t going to be a chummy little chat, so let’s not pretend otherwise.

The minister was elderly, white-haired, and had a broad, bony face, dark eyes, and a mouth so tight it looked as if it had been slashed on with a machete.

There was another Korean gentleman there also, even older than the minister, also white-haired, but more distinguished-looking, with a very handsome face and serene eyes. He sat quietly on a chair in the corner, the traditional place for notetakers and translators.

Brandewaite and the minister yammered back and forth in Korean. I couldn’t understand a word, but this was one of those exceptions to my general rule about what you don’t know don’t hurt you. What Brandewaite was saying might be real hurtful. His posture and mannerisms were almost comically obsequious.

Finally they finished, and the minister, whose name was Chun Moon Song, turned to us and in passable English said, “Miss Carlson, Ambassador Brandewaite says you are protesting our request for jurisdiction over Captain Whitehall.”

“That’s correct,” Katherine said.

“What bothers you so greatly? Do you not have confidence in the fairness of our Korean courts?”

In lawyer’s terms this was what’s called a verbal ambush, the legal equivalent of asking when you’re going to stop beating your wife.

Katherine never blinked. “Aren’t
you
the one who’s demanding a change of jurisdiction? Don’t
you
have confidence in the fairness of American courts?”

It was a nicely done turn of phrase, and if I didn’t dislike her so thoroughly I would’ve been real proud of her.

The minister blinked a few times, then sat back in his chair. He was a very powerful man, and this was Korea, which is a very patriarchal, Confucian land. He wasn’t accustomed to being challenged by anyone younger than him. He was painfully unaccustomed to being contradicted by a woman half his age.

“Miss Carlson, if a Korean soldier in America brutally murdered the child of your Secretary of Defense, how would your country respond?”

“In America, we honor our agreements. Our entire economic and legal system depends on it. If we had a contract, like our SOFA, we’d stand by it.”

“But you agree, don’t you, that the crime Captain Whitehall committed exceeds the bounds of ordinary criminality? Can’t you see why our people demand that
we
determine the punishment?”

Katherine looked at him very curiously. “I don’t agree. You’re speaking as though you’ve already convicted Captain Whitehall.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, somewhat clumsily. “My command of your language is flawed.”

“Is it really?” she asked, not missing a beat.

The minister ignored her, because the only other alternative was to simply throw us out of his office. In fact, I couldn’t figure out why he didn’t just do that.

Instead he drew his neck back a bit and said, “I assure you, Miss Carlson, that Captain Whitehall will get every benefit of the doubt. He will be treated as fairly as though he were in an American court.”

I have to tell you, at this point, that I have an egregious flaw. Most lawyers live for long-drawn-out arguments. It’s what attracts them to the profession. They love the interplay of opposing arguments, the commingling of subtle nuances and hair-splitting points, the thrill of intellectually besting a worthy, voluble, articulate opponent. I just don’t happen to be one of them. I guess you’d say I’m impetuous, or impatient, or both.

Before anybody could utter another word, I blurted out, “Damn it, Mr. Minister, Whitehall’s an American soldier. He’s stationed here on the orders of our government to protect your country’s security. He’s here involuntarily. If he’s convicted in your courts, using your legal standards, the consequences will be damned serious. Miss Carlson’s movement will raise all kinds of embarrassing issues. They’ll keep them alive for years. Whitehall will become a symbol, a martyr to a travesty of justice. His face will become as common on CNN as . . . well . . . as mustard on hot dogs. Is that what you want?”

Now I’d gone ahead and done exactly what Keith had accomplished in Brandewaite’s office that morning. I’d brought their gay movement and all its political and media clout into this. But frankly, given the stakes of this case, philosophical debates weren’t likely to have sway in this room.

“You really believe that?” the older gentleman in the corner suddenly asked.

“I absolutely do,” I blurted out. “It’s a damn shame what happened to that Korean kid, but he’s dead and you can’t bring him back to life. You need to seriously consider the damage this will do to the alliance.”

The older man looked thoughtful. “And you believe we will harm our alliance?”

“Believe it? Buddy, I know it. I don’t care what Mr. Brandewaite or Colonel Janson have told you. Their job is to kiss your asses, but it’s not mine. I can tell you like it is. Americans might not be very sympathetic to the gay movement, but they’re extraordinarily sympathetic to the rights of a serviceman serving on foreign soil. A West Point graduate, with eight years of distinguished service and an unblemished record. They’ll make Whitehall sound like Joan of Arc. They’ll make you all sound like Torquemada and his band of merry inquisitors. You’ll have the same CNN legal correspondents who analyzed O.J. Simpson’s trial spending months picking apart the very gaping differences between your legal system and ours. This is America we’re talking about. There’ll be a made-for-TV movie on the air before you can lock his cell door. And no matter how diplomatic we want to be in this room, face facts. Compared to America’s, yours are kangaroo courts.”

Brandewaite’s face was crimson. He stood up and was just about to box my ears when the older man in the corner briskly motioned him to sit down. Then the minister and the older man in the corner exchanged some kind of hidden cue, a slight shifting of the eyes maybe.

The minister said, “Thank you very much for coming to see me. I will inform you of my decision later today.”

That was the diplomatic equivalent of “get lost” and “don’t let the door slam you in the ass” all rolled into one. We got up and hustled out of his office. Brandewaite stomped his feet the whole way, but he waited till we were outside before he attacked.

“Drummond, you stupid ass, do you know who that man was you were talking with?”

“No, I don’t,” I said. “And I frankly don’t care. They’re making a terrible blunder and they need to hear the truth.”

Brandewaite stared at me incredulously. “That was Lee Jung Kim, the minister of defense. It was his son who was murdered and sodomized.”

I’d like to tell you I handled this news with my usual debonair aloofness. But I didn’t. I felt my face burn with shame. Somebody should’ve told us he was in the room. Actually, he never should’ve been there in the first place. No parent whose son was murdered should have to hear the lawyers wrangling behind the curtains of justice.

The fact he was there, though, was revealing. In America, the family of the victim would never be invited into the judge’s chambers. How in the hell were we supposed to believe Whitehall was going to get a fair shake if he got turned over?

When we climbed into our sedan, Katherine put a hand on my arm. “Don’t worry about it. You had no way of knowing.”

“You’re not the one who just stuffed his combat boot down that old man’s throat.”

We stayed silent for a few uncomfortable minutes. Then Katherine forgot all about my embarrassment. “Other than that, how do you think it went?”

“Hard to say,” I told her. “If logic prevails, they’ll leave well enough alone. The problem is, Koreans aren’t known for being logical.”

“What are they known for?”

“You know what the other Asians call them?”

“What?”

“The Irish of the Far East. See, they’re not like the Japanese or the Chinese. For one thing, Koreans aren’t inscrutable. They’re mercurial. Don’t expect them to be hyper-practical like the Japanese, or coolly calculating like the Chinese. Koreans run in deep drafts of hot and cold. They don’t always decide in their own best interests, because their emotions sometimes overcloud their brains.”

It wasn’t funny but she chuckled anyway. “Anyway, Attila, you did real good in there.”

“Yeah, well. You didn’t do so bad yourself.”

This exceptional instance of mutual bonhomie lasted till we got back to the hair parlor and I noticed that some asshole had hung a large sign over the entrance. In big, black, bold letters it said HOMOS. Then in pale, infinitely smaller letters underneath, “Home Office of Moonbeam’s Office Staff.”

Keith had to be behind this, since he was the only one who’d heard me use that nickname. He had a sense of humor, I guess. A perverse, sick one, but in his eyes I guess it seemed pretty funny. I looked every which way to make sure no one was peeking as I passed beneath that sign and entered our headquarters.

Katherine collected the lawyers and Imelda and dragged us into the office Imelda and her girls had set up for the lead counsel.

Imelda and Allie and Maria were cracking jokes with one another and acting real chummy. I needed to have a talk with Imelda. Maybe the poor woman didn’t know they were all gay.

“Okay,” Katherine said, once she had us all quieted down, “here’s how it stands. Sometime in the next few hours, the decision will be made on jurisdiction. We’ve done everything we can. If it goes to the Koreans, you’re all out of here, because none of us knows the first thing about Korean law. I’ll help find a capable Korean attorney and stay behind to supervise his efforts. If it stays in U.S. jurisdiction, then we’ve just lost another day in preparing our defense.”

We all traded glum looks, because this was a pretty disheartening summary. Accurate, but disheartening. The only thing we’d accomplished was to argue about where Whitehall would be tried, and frankly that wasn’t going to help us get him off. Which was a pretty dim ambition anyway, if you asked me, but nobody was asking me.

Then giving us all a solemn look, Katherine said, “The strategy I’ve decided to employ is to prove he’s innocent. We’ll organize our efforts on that task.”

I was sure I hadn’t heard that right. “I, uh . . . could you repeat that, please?”

“I said we’re going to prove he’s innocent.”

I immediately leaped out of my chair. “Damn it, Carlson, you can’t do that. That’s idiocy. We all know what the evidence says. Unless he was framed, he’s as guilty as a fox in a henhouse with feathers crammed in his teeth.”

“Good point,” Katherine said, rubbing her chin. “That’ll be our defense. He was framed. You’re right. There’s really no other option.”

I couldn’t believe this. No experienced lawyer would ever decide their strategy this way. Not in a murder trial. Not in any trial. No law school advocated the process of elimination.

“Damn it, don’t do this!” I sputtered out. “Focus on the prosecutor’s case. It’s the only viable strategy.”

Katherine shook her head back and forth. “Do I need to remind you I’m the lead counsel here?”

“Look, damn it, you got no idea what you’re getting into. If you claim he was framed, you have to prove that. Nothing’s more dangerous than a frame defense. You shift the burden of proof away from the prosecutor into your own lap. You’ll give the prosecutor the opportunity to knock holes in our defense. Rule one of criminal law: When it looks like your client’s guilty, make it impossible for the prosecutor to prove his case, not poke holes in yours.”

Katherine stood up and placed her tiny hands on her thin waist. Her angelic face turned real unangelic. “Don’t lecture me, Drummond. I went to law school, too. I’ve thought about it. Our client was framed for murder, rape, and necrophilia. That’s our defense.”