The Washington Lawyer (12 page)

Martin felt stymied. Hell, he had just as much riding on this. Somehow he had to turn Jasper around. “Listen to me, Wes, no one from Dorsey on down will want that publicity. Anguilla lives on tourism. You think they want people hearing their beaches are fatal?” Martin shook his head. “No way. They'll change the records. That'll be the end of it.”

“You can't guarantee that.”

“Of course not.”

“Well, then I can't take the chance.”

“If you don't do this, you're exposing yourself to a much greater risk. Someone else may discover it. And you know damn well the cover-up can be a hellu'va lot worse than the deed.”

“Who? Who could discover it?”

“I don't know. But these things happen. A friend, a relative?”

Was Jasper even listening?

“We've been friends since college,” Jasper's voice was cracking. “Now I'm pleading with you to help me. You don't know Linda. She can be vindictive. She'll go to the media. Get a sharp divorce lawyer. Clean me out.”

Jasper lifted his glass, realized it was empty and put it back down. “Do you know how hard it is living on a senator's salary? Three houses. All heavily mortgaged.” He seemed about to break down and cry.

Martin wanted to say, “You should have thought about these things before you flew off with this babe.” But he needed to sound understanding. “Believe me, nobody's life will be destroyed. This is the only way to minimize the risk to both of us.”

“You don't understand.”

“Understand what?”

Jasper now began crying. “My marriage is already shaky.”

“I didn't know that.”

Jasper held up two fingers. “Two indiscretions. Dumbass mistakes. They meant nothing. But Linda found out. She's fixed on the three strike rule. One more and …” He sobbed. “And I'm out.”

Martin realized he had now lost all sympathy for Jasper. But he had to stay focused and not tell the man he was a fool. Martin could go down to Anguilla alone, he thought. But he had no first-hand knowledge. Without Jasper there, Dorsey could become prickly, convene a formal inquiry, and haul Jasper down to testify. Then the media circus would ensue. And goodbye chief justice. Seeing Jasper fall apart, crying like a baby, Martin now knew he'd never persuade him.

Minutes later, Jasper was putting on his coat. At the door, he said, “I really appreciate your help and support, Andrew. You're a true friend in my time of need.”

Alone, disgusted with the man, he poured himself an Armagnac. The idiot. He'd had enough forever of how they'd been friends since college. Some great friend, dragging him into this. Jasper could have taken the girl to a hotel and done anything he wanted with her there. He kicked the leg of the table so hard that his foot hurt.

Martin thought about how much he had at stake. There was more than the Supreme Court at risk. If the story broke in the press, he feared the impact on his life and career would be devastating. His mind flashed to Burke Marshall, a prominent lawyer and considered a possible Supreme Court nominee, who made a late night call to help Ted Kennedy avoid the consequences of another young woman's drowning in Chappaquiddick. That call ended Burke's tenure as a major company's General Counsel.

Martin couldn't let this destroy him. He had to try to forget about Anguilla and the Supreme Court for a little while, Martin thought, or he'd go crazy. His knee was stiff from sitting so long. He limped to the back door and looked outside. Clouds had broken up. The sky was clear.

He took the Televue NP101 refractor telescope and the mount from the closet in his study and carried them out to a concrete pad in the backyard. While he set up, he recalled his law school roommate Steve had gotten him hooked on astronomy and stargazing. He'd been blown away by the dazzling lights the first time he looked through a telescope. And the concept that he was looking at objects hundreds of millions of light years away was mind-numbing, the immensity of the universe serving to place daily travails into perspective. Martin loved the challenge of finding some of those objects.

This evening, sitting for stability, he wanted to bring into focus the brilliance of the Trapezium star cluster. First Orion. He had it. And Orion's Belt. Great. He adjusted the telescope and moved south and east. Ah, he had it, he thought with pride. The nebulosity. Now he could see all four stars, moving fairly quickly at the high magnification through the field of view, while he nudged the scope from time to time to follow them. But he couldn't find the fainter E and F stars. With this telescope, he'd never seen them. Maybe tonight he would. He refocused, straining his eyes. No luck. They were there, but not visible. They were just beyond his grasp. Would it be the same with the Supreme Court?

He felt a hand massaging the back of his neck. He whirled around to see Francis.

“Hey, Galileo. I'm home.”

“Sorry. I didn't even hear you come out. You want to see something incredible?”

“No. I want to know what happened with Jasper.”

Reality had come crashing back with a vengeance.

“He refused to budge. He was pathetic, in tears, Linda's already caught him screwing around twice.”

She shook her head. “It's the air up on Capitol Hill. First their brains fill with hubris. Then it goes to their dicks.”

“Good, Francis, tell it like it is.” Martin felt a release from the awful tension.

“And the Supreme Court's up on Capitol Hill. So don't you get any ideas.”

“Who has time?”

“What are you going to do?”

“I thought about flying down alone and rejected it.”

“You're right. With Wes so scared, he'll turn on you. Make it look like it's all your doing.”

Her words jolted him. Yes, he was the one who had engineered the cover up.

“You'll have to leave it alone, Andrew. Hope everybody else does.”

Beijing

A
s soon as Xiang stepped off the plane at Beijing airport, two members of the Ministry of State Security whisked him through back corridors of the terminal, flashing their badges, circumventing security and passport control. A large black Chinese-made sedan with tinted windows was waiting in front of the terminal. “You'll be meeting Minister Liu at headquarters,” one of the men said.

Xiang was alone in the back. The driver sped off to Xiyuan, in the West Garden section of Beijing near the Summer Palace.

Soon they were in gridlock. Xiang was not looking forward to this meeting.

He was terrified of Liu.

Xiang had always been terrified of Liu.

He closed his eyes and thought about the first time he had met Liu. He was sixteen years old. Thanks to his father, he had already made a long journey in his life from the remote town in western China where he had been born. When Xiang was five, his father left Xiang and his mother to take a job assembling vacuum cleaners for export in a joint America-Chinese company in an industrial town south of Shanghai.

Xiang didn't see his father, who sent money, for five years. Not until Xiang, a brilliant student, the teachers' favorite, and at the top of every class, was attacked one day after school by resentful classmates. Two pinned him down while a third, holding a hot piece of coal with forceps, touched it against Xiang's left cheek. Xiang was hospitalized and his mother's pleas compelled his father to return to the town for a visit.

When his father heard what had happened, he arranged for Xiang to take a competitive exam for an elite boarding school in Shanghai. Xiang finished first in the exam. Six years later Xiang, who had an ugly scar on his left cheek, repeated that feat in the competitive exam for Beijing University where he planned to study economics and management.

That was when he first met Liu. Ten months before he was to enroll in Beijing University, Liu summoned him to an unmarked building in Shanghai. Without identifying his agency, Liu told Xiang that the government wanted him to go to college in the United States. He was ordered to apply to Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, and University of Illinois to study economics and management. He was admitted to all three.

Liu told him to attend CMU. He didn't know why Liu selected CMU, but it wasn't his to question. The government would fund his education and living expenses. “Understand everything about the United States,” Liu told Xiang. “But don't become seduced by the American life or American women. When you return to China after your education, we have plans for you.”

But during his junior year at CMU, Xiang fell in love with Kelly Cameron, whose Caucasian American family owned a candy manufacturing plant. He was planning to marry Kelly and remain in the United States.

When Xiang returned to China during the summer before his senior year for a brief visit with his parents, Liu summoned him to Shanghai for a meeting. To Xiang's astonishment and horror, Liu knew all about Xiang's relationship with Kelly and his plans to marry her. Somehow Liu had been spying on him.

Liu told Xiang that unless he broke off the relationship with Kelly and returned to China after graduation to follow the original plan, his parents would be arrested and suffer unimaginable torture.

Reluctantly Xiang complied. Back in China, a year later, Liu enrolled him into a training program for the Ministry of State Security, the Chinese equivalent of the CIA.

Xiang excelled in training. Afterwards, Liu spent ten years in Beijing examining and interpreting American documents. Then he received another summons from Liu, who had risen to deputy minister. This was the time, Liu told Xiang that he was being assigned to the Chinese Embassy in Washington. His cover would be as a member of the economic section of the embassy. He was to learn everything he could about economic and political developments in the United States and forward reports to Beijing via the diplomatic pouch. Meantime, Liu told Xiang, “We will move your parents to a comfortable apartment in Beijing; your father will receive a generous monthly salary without ever working again.”

For the next five years, Xiang did his job efficiently. Then Liu, who had been promoted to Minister for State Security, directed him to come to Beijing. That was five months ago.

“We'll be there in twenty minutes,” the driver said.

Xiang thought about that Beijing meeting when Liu told him about Operation Trojan Horse, which Liu had conceived. “Our nets have snared an important American. Senator Wesley Jasper from Colorado. You will be responsible for coordinating our activities with Jasper.”

Liu told Xiang about his meeting with Jasper in Tokyo in July. Then he said, “You must always keep in mind the objective of Operation Trojan Horse. We are concerned that the United States is shifting its military focus to Asia in order to counterbalance the huge growth of China's military. It's critical for China to know precisely what military moves the United States is planning to make and also which new weapons systems it is developing.”

Liu had cautioned Xiang that secrecy was critical. “Trojan Horse is the most important intelligence operation our country has.”

“I'm honored to be a part of it,” Xiang had said.

Until now, everything had gone smoothly. Xiang was passing valuable information he had gotten from Jasper to Liu in the diplomatic pouch. Xiang didn't have to worry about money flowing from Beijing to Jasper. The process had been established in the Tokyo meeting and was being handled in Beijing, with Xiang being informed when payments were made.

It was all perfect. The ultimate intelligence operation.

Now this!

The car pulled up in front of the Ministry. Two agents led Xiang up to Liu's office where the spymaster was alone, sitting behind an old battered desk that Xiang had heard Liu brought with him from the Internal Subversives Unit where he conducted torture filled interrogations and smoked foul smelling cigarettes.

Liu had a jowly face, lips pressed tightly together. Xiang thought they might be permanently joined because the man never smiled. He was wearing narrow wire framed glasses below thinning black hair and a high forehead due to his receding hairline. Behind those glasses were hard, cruel eyes that had frightened Xiang the first time he met Liu and terrified him when Liu told him to break off his relationship with Kelly.

Liu had asked for the meeting. Xiang decided to wait to tell Liu about Jasper until he heard what the spymaster wanted.

“One of the documents you forwarded,” Liu said, “refers to a five-year plan for Asia and Pacific deployment being prepared by the Pentagon.

“Yes sir.”

“I want that document as soon as possible. I really want that document. Getting it from Jasper must be your top priority. Do you understand?”

Xiang hesitated. He had to tell Liu and he had to tell him now.

“We have a problem with Jasper.”

Liu's eyes were boring in on him like lasers. “What kind of problem?”

Xiang reported, clearly and succinctly, everything that had happened since he had received the call from Jasper in the middle of the night. As he spoke, Xiang observed Liu becoming increasingly agitated. An angry scowl covered his face. Xiang hoped that rage would be directed at Jasper, not him.

At the end, Xiang reached into his briefcase and brought out the
Washington Post
which he had purchased at Dulles Airport, opened it to Vanessa's obit, and placed it in front of Liu.

After reading it, Liu pounded his fist on the desk. “Jasper is a fool,” he cried out. “We should cut off his prick. It would be better for all of us.”

“I agree with that,” Xiang said, relieved he wasn't the target.

“But we can't. The information he has been giving us is valuable.”

“I'm happy to hear that. As you instructed, I don't spend time reading the documents. I get them into the diplomatic pouch for transmission to you as soon as possible.”

“So, let me give you some idea of their value. The documents supplied by Jasper discuss the technology for a new generation of long-range missiles being developed by the United States. Also, American-Japanese cooperation to thwart our efforts to retake islands which are ours.