The Washington Lawyer (2 page)

“So when are we getting married?” she asked again.

His heart was pounding. Keep control, he cautioned himself. He had to find a way to placate her.

“Right after the election, I'll divorce Linda. I promise. We'll be married before Christmas. We'll come back here for a honeymoon or anywhere you'd like. In thirteen months you'll be Mrs. Wesley Jasper.” He said it with conviction. Another false promise from a politician accustomed to making them.

She stared at him for a long moment, then added. “I can wait a year. But just so you know, and don't forget, I have that recording.”

“I would do it even if you didn't have it.”

She leaned over and kissed him. “I'll be a good wife for you.”

“I'm sure of that.”

She stood up. “We'll have great sex all the time. Now that we've settled that, I'm going for a swim.”

She sashayed toward the water, her feet bare. About ten yards away, she unzipped her sundress and let it fall to the sand. She wasn't wearing any underwear. As she bent over to pick up the dress, she paused for a minute, her legs spread, letting him admire her from the rear, the way he had most enjoyed sex with her this weekend. Certain he was watching, she laughed easily, picked up the dress and threw it back over her head. It landed on his face. The scent of her still fresh.

He tossed it onto the sand. This wasn't working out the way he had expected. He thought about that movie with Glenn Close—the one where she killed the bunny.

He watched her walk into the water. When it was up to her waist, she dove in and swam out in smooth strokes. He followed her blonde head, getting smaller and smaller under the moonlight. Then he stood up and walked along the beach. He saw his whole life crumbling and disintegrating. From the bluff above the beach, close to the villa they had been using for the weekend, he heard a noise. He pivoted and saw a small native boy, maybe ten or twelve, tossing a ball to a dog.

He shouted at the boy. “Get away.” The boy and the dog disappeared.

After another minute, Jasper pulled off his clothes, racing toward the water. He dove in and swam out to Vanessa.

Israel

A
t five on Monday morning, the sun was already beating down on the dig. Allison Boyd, dressed in khaki slacks and a pale blue polo shirt, with her brown hair up in a ponytail, stood with her hands on her hips watching backhoes excavate the stubborn, rocky soil. Three Israelis worked nearby with picks and shovels. Allison was extremely pleased.

The thirty-four-year-old archeology professor from Brown University had, with incredible persistence, overcome so many obstacles to get to this point. First, there were all those much older stuffed-shirt male professors, her peers in the United States, England, and Israel, who had dismissed the idea of discovering a town from King Solomon's time in this location. But Allison's development of a groundbreaking new dating technology that could establish relics were from Solomon's time, not the Omride Dynasty, caught the attention of British philanthropist Moses Halpern. He traveled to Providence to tell Allison that he believed in her work and admired her persistence, and he was willing to fund her search for the town. She believed this would be a major breakthrough.

The site work had begun three months ago, and then was shut down for two weeks because an official in the Religious Ministry claimed they were digging on holy ground. Allison and her Israeli partner, Zahava, went over that official's head and got the order reversed thanks to the intervention of a former general, now an archeologist, who told them, “I admire the commitment to the project the two of you have.”

That work stoppage order was now a distant memory. They had moved lots of earth. Allison was hopeful they would find something. If they didn't … well, she hated to think about that possibility—the money and time wasted—the damage to her reputation and that of Zahava, whom she had dragged into this.

She and Zahava were chugging bottles of water and watching the backhoes when Zahava asked Allison, “How'd you happen to become an archeologist?”

“When I was a little girl my father told me I had too much curiosity. I always wanted to know what was happening. No, it was more than wanting to know. I had to know. If a family member was ill, I leaned on other relatives to tell me what was wrong and if they would recover. I'd press my parents about our family history and their backgrounds. Digging up facts excited me. In school I thought about being a journalist—an investigative reporter—because they dig up stories. But writing wasn't my strong suit. The summer I was ten years old we took a trip to New Mexico, visiting the remains of indigenous communities. The guide told us how the people lived in caves on the sides of hills and how their society functioned. But what I saw in those caves spoke to me louder than the guide. I became hooked. I loved it,” she bubbled. “I still do. What about you?”

Before Zahava had a chance to answer, Allison's assistant Jonathan raced up the rocky mound toward them. “Look at this,” he said bursting with excitement.

He was holding a black metal object. Allison placed it on a table and examined it under a microscope. The sun was reflecting off the metal.
It might be a piece of a spear or other weapon from King Solomon's time
, she thought.

Although so many had argued against her, telling her she was stubborn and pigheaded, she was convinced they were in the right place. Now she had a substantial object. But she cautioned herself not to get too carried away. They would need a lot more study of this metal and much more digging before any definitive conclusions could be reached.

Zahava was looking over her shoulder. “What do you think?” Zahava asked.

“It's too soon to draw a conclusion,” she responded.

Zahava turned to Jonathan. “Tell them to shut down the backhoes and use only shovels for now.” Jonathan raced off.

“This does look promising,” Zahava said to Allison.

“That's a good way to put it. We still have a long way to go.”

“Let's take a look for ourselves.”

Zahava walked quickly toward the location where Jonathan had found the object, with Allison two steps behind. Suddenly, Allison felt a powerful jolt in her body as if she were struck by electricity. She had an incredible pain in her stomach, causing her to double over, gasping for breath.

Zahava spun around. “What's wrong?”

“It just hit me. A blow to my stomach.”

“You better sit down.” Zahava led Allison to a chair under an olive tree.

She bent over to ease the pain.

“We should get a doctor,” Zahava said. “Call one to come here. Or I can take you into town.”

The pain was easing. Allison gave a sigh of relief.

“Let me call a doctor.”

“No need to. I'm feeling better.”

“At least rest for a while.”

“Okay. I'll sit here. You go to Jonathan and the others.”

Even as the pain abated, Allison had a sick feeling. She knew what caused it. Something terrible had happened to her twin sister, Vanessa.

Allison didn't want to tell Zahava because her colleague, the quintessential rational scientist, would have laughed at her and told her she was being ridiculous. But Zahava wasn't a twin. She didn't understand about twins. Allison had gotten jolts like this twice before, precisely when something had happened to Vanessa.

The first time was when they were twenty-two. Allison was playing field hockey, in training for the US Olympic team during the year she took off from archeology, after getting her undergraduate degree from Maryland and beginning graduate school at Brown. She had to call time-out and go to the sidelines. An hour later, she received a call from a hospital in Switzerland, telling her that Vanessa had broken her leg skiing.

What was it now? Vanessa had to be in trouble.

It was 10:30 now, Sunday night in Washington, DC. Allison didn't even know whether Vanessa was there. When they had spoken a few days ago, her sister was vague, no, evasive about her plans for the Veteran's Day weekend. Allison replayed their conversation in her mind the last time they spoke. Allison had asked:

“So what are you doing this weekend?”

“A little of this and a little of that.”

“Will you be in Washington?”

“I don't think so.”

“The weekend starts tomorrow.”

“I'm not as organized as you are.”

Vanessa plainly didn't want to tell her. “Listen, I'm not judging you and I won't. That's not why I'm asking. I'm just worried about you.”

“Allison, you live the way you want, and I'll do what I want. In Israel, you should hook up with an Israeli soldier. They're tough. You could run each other ragged doing your judo and end up in bed. When I was on a shoot once in Tel Aviv I met this guy, a colonel or a captain. He stayed hard all night.”

They both laughed. Allison never pressed Vanessa about her weekend plans. She was sorry now. Vanessa could be anywhere in the world, and Allison had no idea with whom.
Damn, damn, damn. I should keep better track of her. I can't let her get into trouble again
.

Frantic with worry, she took out her cell phone and dialed Vanessa's cell. The call went into voice mail. She tried Vanessa's apartment in Washington, but just received more voice mail.

She made up her mind to keep trying both numbers every half hour until she reached Vanessa.

Washington

A
ndrew Martin ate a piece of Saint-Nectaire on dark bread as he sipped some of the fabulous 1990 Clos de la Roche from Dujac, the third spectacular wine he had served this evening, and looked around the dining room of his Foxhall Road house. He could barely control his excitement. This was one of the best days of his life. This morning's Sunday
New York Times
had reported that Chief Justice West had prostate cancer and was planning to retire shortly. While he felt sorry for West, Martin was thrilled that the article named him as one of the people being considered for chief justice.

It wasn't official, but Martin, the powerful Washington lawyer, knew that when the
Times
carried an article beginning, “
The New York Times
has learned that … ” it was generally conveying information from an official leak by the Braddock Administration. This was a trial balloon to gauge public reaction. Being on the Supreme Court had been Martin's dream from his first year at Yale Law School. Now it might be a reality. And being the chief justice certainly elevated the prize. He closed his eyes for a second and imagined himself sitting in the center of the bench with four black clad justices on each side of what would become known as the Martin court.

When he opened them, he turned his attention to the elegant dinner table. Martin was seated at one end; his wife, Francis, of thirty five years, looking lovely and radiant in a lavender Valentino sheath, sat the other end of the table of eight. The three other couples, no one sitting next to a spouse, were Secretary of State Jane Prosser and her husband, Philip; the Speaker of the House, Hugh Dawson, and his wife Louise; and Drew and Sally Thomas from New York. Martin's friendship with Drew spanned more than thirty years, since the first day they'd both arrived at Queens College, Oxford, on a Rhodes scholarship. Drew now ran a successful private equity firm.

Drew tapped a spoon on a glass to gain everyone's attention. “To enhance Andrew's candidacy to be chief justice,” Drew said, “he needs a song. Now Andrew, you've argued in the Supreme Court forty-eight times and won forty of them.”

“Actually, only thirty-nine,” Martin said.

“Don't nitpick. So when you enter the court to take your seat on the bench, the other justices will sing … ”

Taking the cue, Sally, Drew's childhood sweetheart, a good-looking, vivacious gray-haired woman who had aged gracefully, began singing to the tune of Hello Dolly, “Well, hello, Andrew, it's so good to have you back where you belong … ”

The others laughed. “Hey. That's great,” Louise said. Then in good spirits from the free-flowing wine, they all joined Sally in the singing.

“You're looking swell, Andrew …”

“Bear with me everybody,” Martin said after they finished the song. “I desperately want to talk about something else. That's a prerogative of the host, to change the subject. Isn't it, Drew?”

“Absolutely.”

“Good. Francis and I saw Verdi's Luisa Miller at the Kennedy Center last evening. It was fantastic. Anybody else going?”

“We have tickets for Tuesday,” Jane said.

Hugh added, “Did you know that Verdi's parents were dirt-poor peasant farmers?”

As the discussion about Verdi continued, Martin stole a quick look into the mirror along the side wall above the black marble topped credenza. He looked damn good for fifty-eight. Hadn't gained a pound in the last thirty-five years. Still a hundred and seventy-five on his six-one frame, thanks to lots of exercise. And he had the same sandy brown hair.

“Wrong.” Drew spoke up. “They kept a little inn combined with a village shop. But what always struck me about Verdi was that he was rejected by the conservatory in Milan.”

“Ah, but with talent you always succeed,” Hugh said.

“Not always, unfortunately,” Philip retorted.

“Speaking of music,” Louise said, looking at Francis, “Andrew told me that you performed on the violin several summers at Aspen. What was it like?”

“It was so long ago.”

“Please tell us.”

Francis gave a tiny nod to a tuxedo-clad waiter in the corner of the room, who then began clearing the Limoges plates with the cheese and salad course. Next would be a cold Grand Mariner soufflé that Francis had made.

As Francis began talking, Martin felt a vibration in the vest pocket of the jacket of his Lanvin suit. What the hell? Then he remembered. Concerned that he'd miss a call from Arthur Larkin, the White House Counsel, about the chief justice nomination, Martin had broken his rule of never leaving his cell on during a meal. He yanked the phone out and glanced at caller ID. It was a number he didn't recognize with a 202, Washington area code. It might be Arthur. He better take it.