The Washington Lawyer (6 page)

Jenson didn't respond. Then he snarled. “Humph.”

Paul sensed that meant he'd agreed.

“Okay,” Jenson finally said, “But it better be a good brief.”

“Have I ever given you one that wasn't? Those summary judgment papers I just did got us a great settlement.”

“Alright. Alright. That's enough. Try for Friday. And it better be your work, too. Not just Diane's.”

Feeling pleased, Paul charged down the stairs. He lined up bright-eyed Diane to help him.

Between Martin possibly becoming chief justice and Jenson, Paul saw his path to partnership as a minefield. But he would find a way to navigate through it.

Beijing

L
iu Guan sat at the head of the polished rectangular table in the director's conference room adjacent to his large corner office in the Xiyuan headquarters of the MSS. The four men he had selected to be members of his select operations committee were the best people in the agency. He had divided up the world among them. Chang had Europe; Chu, Asia and the Pacific; He, Africa; and Peng, Latin America. Liu reserved for himself control over operations in the United States.

He took one final puff on his cigarette, blew smoke circles in the air, snuffed it out, and began talking.

“We are embarking on a new day for Chinese intelligence operations,” Liu said. “Our old methods of relying primarily on our information coming from our scientists and engineers who travel abroad to conferences, as well as on information from foreign tourists, including ethnic Chinese, who happen to come to China for meetings, will still be utilized.

“But these will be secondary. We are now establishing an extensive network of agents in place in foreign countries, often as members of our embassy staff or as journalists. These agents in place will be charged with obtaining secret information in their host country and relaying it to Beijing. This change is consistent with our new status as the primary rival of the United States in the world order. We are on the verge of surpassing the United States economically and militarily within ten years.

“I want each of you to develop in thirty days a plan for installing at least ten agents in place within your assigned territory. Those will be the beginning of much more extensive networks of Chinese spies throughout the world. I won't tell you how to do it. Each of you should use your imagination and creativity.”

Liu paused to push back his wire-framed glasses and to run his hand over his pencil thin mustache.

“Now are there any questions?”

Looking around the silent room, Liu felt the vibration in his jacket pocket of an electronic device, connecting him to his secretary. She was aware that this was an important meeting for Liu. She would not have sent him a text message unless it was critical.

Liu removed the device and glanced at the message: “President Yao wants you to come to his office as soon as possible.”

Whenever Liu received a summons from the Supreme Leader, he dropped anything he was doing.

“This meeting is now over,” Liu said. “I will be expecting each of your plans in thirty days.”

The fifty–eight-year-old Liu marched back to his office. Though he was five foot ten, not a short man, he wanted to stand higher than most other men to gain a psychological edge, so at the MSS he wore platform shoes, which added another three inches, but they slowed him down. That wasn't a problem. He wasn't running any races within the MSS headquarters.

“Car ready?” he barked at his secretary.

“Yes, sir. Chou is out in front. He's arranged a motorcycle escort.”

Xiyuan in the West Garden section of Beijing, near the Summer Palace, was only seven miles northwest of Tiananmen Square and the president's office. The late afternoon traffic in central Beijing was fierce, and the motorcycles with their sirens and flashing lights, indicating an important official, were essential for Liu's car to cut through the gridlock. Beyond that, Liu, the son of a wealthy Shanghai real estate developer, loved the trappings of wealth, the symbols of power that elevated him above the common man.

Ten minutes later Liu was in the back of a plush black Chinese-manufactured limousine with tinted glass windows forcing its way through traffic. He had no idea why Yao wanted to see him.

He had developed a close relationship with Yao Xiao when Yao was engaged in an intense battle to succeed Xi Jinping as Supreme Leader. At the time, Liu was deputy director of MSS. In return for Yao's promise to promote him to MSS director, Liu surreptitiously forwarded to Yao damaging information about the two other possible choices. Liu had no doubt that information about the corruption of one and the sexual proclivities of the other destroyed their chances.

Thanks in large part to Liu, Yao had gotten the prize: president of the People's Republic of China, the Supreme Leader. Foreigners rarely understood how powerful that position was in the world's most populous country. It was Mao Zedong who established the almost unlimited authority of the office. His successors, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jinto, and Xi Jinping brought their own personalities and styles to the position, but all followed the autocratic approach of Mao to a great extent.

As a reward, Liu had expected Yao to elevate him to director of the MSS as soon as Yao assumed the presidency two years ago.

But that hadn't happened until five months ago, and Liu was concerned that Yao would never have done it if Liu had not greatly benefited from his secret relationship with Andrei Mikhailovich, his Russian partner who had given him a great deal of his information.

During the year and a half Liu waited for the promotion, he fumed at the ungrateful Yao, who had to know that Liu's boss, the existing director, was incompetent. But that period of waiting taught Liu a bitter lesson: Yao couldn't be trusted to keep his word. He also observed Yao turning on other former backers. The man had some of Mao's qualities. Even after Liu was promoted to director of MSS, Liu had to be careful to avoid having Yao turn on him.

* * *

Yao was alone, seated behind a large red leather topped desk in his ornate office. He didn't come forward or even rise when Liu walked into the cavernous office. Instead, he motioned to the empty chair in front of his desk.

As he sat down, Liu was struck by the fact that the sixty-three-year-old Yao had aged perceptibly in the two years he had been in the president's job. He had creases in his face, bags under his eyes, and a sallow look. The pressure of the office was getting to him.

The desk was empty except for a bound document which Liu recognized as the top secret summary of the documents Xiang had obtained from Senator Jasper, which Liu had personally prepared for Yao—and only Yao.

The president pointed to the document. “In your summary, you have powerful and sensitive information about American military actions, including their development of a new generation of long-range missiles and their commitment to aid Japan in the event we attack over islands in the East China Sea. How accurate is that information?”

“Extremely. I prepared it from copies of American internal documents.”

“Are you certain they were true documents? Not misinformation? The CIA is experienced at doing that.”

“Quite certain.”

“What's your source?”

Liu had an intelligence agent's reluctance to disclose a source, but Yao was the Supreme Leader. And he was now staring hard at Liu. Refusal to respond was not an option.

“US Senator Wesley Jasper from Colorado. He's the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He has been supplying the documents to my agent in Washington. I've code named it Operation Trojan Horse.”

“Your agent recruited Jasper?”

“No. I did. At a meeting in Tokyo in July.”

Liu expected a compliment, but deadpan Yao continued his interrogation. “How did you turn Jasper?”

“With money.” Liu hoped Yao wouldn't ask him how much. The expenditures were enormous, but so were the rewards.

Yao didn't follow up. Instead he told Liu, “One of the documents you summarized refers to a ‘Five-Year Plan for Asia and Pacific Deployment' being finalized now by the Pentagon.”

“Correct.”

“I want that five-year plan. Get it for me from Jasper.”

“I'm not sure it's been completed.”

“Then, as soon as it is. I must have that document.”

Yao's eyes were boring in on Liu. The normally unflappable spymaster felt uncomfortable.

Leaving the office, Liu decided to call Xiang in Washington and order him to fly to Beijing. A face to face meeting would be better to impress upon Xiang the importance of getting the plan from Jasper.

Washington

F
or Martin, the last several hours passed like an eternity. Finally, it was time to leave for the White House. First, he stopped in the men's room, where he straightened the collar of his red and blue striped shirt with a matching silk tie, concentric blue circles against a red background. He looked damn good, he decided. But he had to give Francis credit.

Coming into their marriage, he refused to spend a cent more than necessary for clothes. He remembered growing up, before his mother contracted polio, her taking him to Pittsburgh to Joseph Hornes and buying him his first suit when he was twelve. He recalled her waiting until the final reductions on the end of the season sales. He knew money was tight, but he'd felt sorry when she showed the salesman a defect, convincing him to knock it down another twenty percent.

That was the way he always shopped until Francis dragged him kicking and screaming into Neiman's to buy an Italian suit. It cost more than a couple months of his initial salary at the firm where he began his career and where he spent several years before leaving to open his own firm with Glass. Now he wore expensive suits, shirts, and ties, but he still felt guilty spending a lot of money for them.

Riding down in the elevator, he thought: suppose someone had asked, “What would you give to be chief justice?” He would have answered, “Just about anything.”

Martin decided to walk. He liked having his office building so close to the centers of power. This was a major factor, he recalled, in his decision to select this new building in the 800 block of Pennsylvania Avenue when they'd outgrown their prior space. The location with Martin & Glass plastered in large black letters across the front had to make an impact on clients. And it probably helped bring in the best lawyers.

Walking west along Pennsylvania, as he stopped for a red light, he thought about how the firm had grown in the twenty-eight years since he and Fred Glass had opened up near DuPont Circle. Now there were five hundred and twenty lawyers, two hundred and seventy here in Washington. They had offices in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and Beijing. The firm was strong—almost an institution. It was sure to survive and thrive, even if Martin left and became chief justice.

The light changed. He stepped off the curb and winced. Damn left knee had been hurting for the last month. How much longer could he put off that surgery? He knew the cause: too much pounding in youthful basketball, followed by decades of jogging, skiing, and tennis. And he knew the solution was to replace the knee. But those operations never went as easily as the orthopods said. And, never mind their promises, you weren't really as good as new. So he took pain killers from time to time, iced it after sports, hobbled when it bothered him, and hoped it would magically go away.

He stopped at the guardhouse next to the opening in the black wrought iron fence separating the White House grounds from Pennsylvania Avenue. One of the soldiers inspected his driver's license, checked it against a list of visitors on a clipboard, and waved him through.

At the end of a twenty-yard walkway, he entered the west wing. In the entrance foyer were four armed guards. Again, his driver's license was examined, his face checked against the photo. Then he was passed through a metal detector.

“Follow me,” an escort said. Fourth door on the right, Martin remembered. The last of a series of small offices off the navy blue carpeted corridor. It astonished him that the White House Counsel had an office the size of an associate at Martin and Glass. Washington, Martin thought. Office size doesn't matter. It's all accessibility. Arthur's office was only a few yards from the oval office. No one's closer to the president. Next to Arthur's office was another room. The president's “other office,” Arthur called it. “Braddock's hideaway to escape for private time.”

Martin walked through an open door. “Hi, Mr. Martin,” Arthur's longtime secretary, Helen, said with a smile. She pointed to the closed door across the room. “He should be with you in a couple minutes.”

“How's your daughter like Cornell?”

Helen groaned. “That's the trouble, she likes it too much. All I hear about are the boys.” Helen paused to push back strands of long brown hair that had fallen over her eyes. “Sorry, I'm supposed to call them men. That and the parties. Not her classes or grades. Over Thanksgiving I intend to shape her up.”

Martin thought about his daughters' freshmen years. Karen at Yale was nose to the grindstone without a word from him or Francis. Lucy's first year at Northwestern sounded like Helen's daughter. Tri Delt was all they heard about. He'd been amused and sympathetic, he recalled. But Francis also lowered the boom during Thanksgiving break. “If she were a boy, you wouldn't have cut her any slack,” Francis had said.

Helen added sternly, “It's a rough world now, and you get only one chance.”

Moments later, she led him into Arthur's office. Martin saw the White House Counsel sitting behind his desk looking his usual disheveled self. He was five foot six with a pear shape and thin gray hair ruffled and out of place from constantly running his hand through it. He had a tie loose around his neck. A couple of spots of food on his suit jacket. Gut protruding over the top of his pants with suspenders holding them up. It always amazed Martin that Arthur was such a good tennis player.