Edge of Apocalypse (28 page)

"Yes. Yes, it was."

"Selling to some small-time Russian thugs I suppose."

"Right. A little pocket change. To pay the electric bills."

Katchi tried to laugh, but it caught in his throat.

"Small arms...," Demas muttered.

"You know. AK-47s. Rocket launchers."

Caesar Demas said, "Hmmm."

"I trust you're okay with that?"

"Oh, yes. I would be okay with that."

More silence.

Then Demas glanced over toward Georgio, who, Katchi suddenly noticed, had worked himself, his shirt still off, closer to them and was standing up.

Then he was joined by the second muscle guy who had a silly smile on his face.

Both of the men had their hands in their pockets. They were looking at Hamad Katchi.

"The Moscow trip was successful for you?" Demas asked.

"Oh, sure. Not a lot of money. But worth the trip I suppose."

Demas made a quick, flitting gesture to the two men, quick, almost indecipherable.

The two men came up to stand on either side of Katchi.

"Please stand up," Demas said calmly to Katchi.

Something wasn't clicking in Katchi's brain. In his business of trading in weapons of destruction and death, he should have recognized what was happening. The survival instinct should have kicked in. Fight or flight.

Except in this case, neither was an option. And the brain was jamming.

"Get up on your feet, Hamad," Demas said again. "And step on the mat."

Looking down, Katchi noticed a thick fabric mat in front of his chair.

He also noticed a life vest lying on the deck. But the life vest was not orange like all the others he had ever seen. It was blue. Like the ocean. Which was strange, because someone wearing it would not be noticed from the air.

Katchi followed Caesar Demas's command and slowly rose, trying to come up with something clever to say. Something to stop the clock from ticking. To stop the bad thing he vaguely felt in his inner gut was about to happen.

He tried to smile. "On-deck calisthenics--"

But he couldn't finish his lame attempt at a joke.

Before he could, the muscle guy with his shirt off had whipped a small handgun from his pocket and fired once into Katchi's thigh.

The explosion of searing pain went through his midthigh. He screamed and collapsed on the mat.

Caesar Demas was still sipping from his glass. Then he bent forward toward Katchi who was gripping his leg and moaning in pain.

"Who did you meet with in Moscow?"

"I told you, just some local gang. Small time operators--"

This time the other muscle guy pulled out his handgun, took aim, and shot Katchi in the other leg.

Katchi was pleading and screaming.

"Did you meet with anyone else?"

Katchi was unable to talk through the pain, but he was shaking his head.

Demas gave a nod to the two fellows.

The two guys strapped the screaming Katchi into the life vest.

Then they tossed him over the side.

Bobbing in the cold Mediterranean as the blood flowed out from the wounds in his legs, Katchi was still conscious. He could see Caesar Demas and the two muscle guys bending over the rails of the yacht.

Demas yelled out to him. "Just tell me yes or no. Did you agree to sell the RTS to Vlad Levko in Moscow? Agree to give Russia exclusive rights to the RTS? Just nod your head up and down if you can't talk. If you tell the truth, we'll pull you in. Fix up your legs."

Katchi nodded his head up and down.

Then a thought flashed through Katchi's mind.
I'm in the sea. Sharks? I'm spilling blood...

It was as if Caesar Demas could read his mind. "No need to worry about sharks. I read an article by a marine biologist that they are very rare in the Mediterranean."

Half a minute went by, but Demas made no effort to pull the man into the yacht. Katchi tried to yell out but didn't have the strength. He tried to lift an arm to get their attention, but it felt as if it were filled with cement.

Then he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Something moving in the water to his left.

But Demas and his two guys saw it first, and they had a better view.

It was a blue shark, its fin cutting the water toward Katchi. It was maybe four or five feet long.

Caesar Demas's last words to Hamad Katchi were, "I guess I need to tell that marine biologist he was wrong..."

Katchi felt a collision with his leg, like he had just been hit by a car. Then another hit.

Now Hamad Katchi was being pulled down under the water. He was fully in the jaws of the blue shark and it was wagging him back and forth.

The currents of blue water above him and the frothing bubbles from his own silent, underwater screams were the last thing Hamad Katchi saw before everything went dark.

FORTY-THREE

Harry Smythe knew the stakes in this case were as high as any he'd ever handled.

In Washington, D.C., in courtroom number twelve of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia, Harry was sitting at the counsel's table. At the other table were his opponents, two assistant U.S. attorneys. They would be arguing the case on behalf of Congress.

If Harry lost his motion for an emergency order striking down the subpoena issued by Senator Straworth's committee, he would have only one tactic left. He could try to get the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to take it up and issue an emergency stay against enforcement of the subpoena. But that was a stretch. So his only real chance was right here, in the courtroom of Federal Judge Olivia Jenkins.

Yet there was a sadly inevitable feeling of doom in the pit of his stomach. His arguments would be novel. Too novel. Judge Jenkins didn't like exotic contentions. She liked to decide cases when the issues were clear. When ordinary applications of settled law were involved.

This case was anything but ordinary. The suit that Smythe had filed argued that the court should quash a subpoena issued by a congressional committee--a subpoena that was clearly within that committee's jurisdiction.

Smythe heard the door open from the inner chambers behind the bench.

The bailiff strode in, followed by the court clerk, who slapped a court file on the judge's bench, and then the court reporter followed last.

Less than a minute later Judge Olivia Jenkins entered the courtroom, and the lawyers jumped to their feet.

The rest of the courtroom was empty. The government had secured an order from the judge clearing visitors and bystanders and barring the media on the grounds of national security.

Jenkins was an attractive, middle-aged black woman with a reputation as a smart, no-nonsense judge.

She glanced through the file and then called the case.

Harry Smythe strode up to the podium and offered his arguments. There were only two main points. First, that the RTS design belonged to Joshua Jordan, not the government. It was a matter of patent law and intellectual property rights. Congress had no right to force disclosure of weapon designs that were trade secrets and belonged to a private citizen. Besides, Smythe argued, Joshua Jordan had had no qualms about testifying to the select committee and he had answered all of their questions. The only "line in the sand" he drew was his refusal to produce highly sensitive documents for the design of the RTS weapon to members of Congress.

Judge Jenkins asked the assistant attorneys to weigh-in.

The first government lawyer was brusque. "The contract that the Pentagon had with Mr. Jordan states, Your Honor, that when the weapon was officially accepted by the United States, it would become the property of the United States. Mr. Jordan signed away any special rights he had to the RTS design--"

Harry Smythe shot back, "But the RTS system was still experimental. It was never officially accepted by the U.S. government--"

"You're wrong," the government attorney countered. "When the U.S. government used the RTS weapon to turn back incoming missiles--and used it, Your Honor, with Mr. Jordan's permission and participation, I might add--that was the same as 'accepting' the weapon for purposes of the contract."

Judge Jenkins made short work of that argument. "I'm
not
convinced," she said, "that Mr. Jordan retained any private rights to the RTS weapon design, at least as against the United States of America. He can protect his patent against other private citizens, but not against Congress, which is an arm of the U.S. government. Mr. Smythe, you've lost on that one."

Smythe then launched into his second point. That Joshua Jordan had a concern about the ability of the congressional committee to keep the RTS weapon design information secret.

"That committee had already leaked information to the press," Smythe said, losing his characteristic professional calm. His face was beginning to get flushed as he spoke with an angry passion. "How can we assume that it will not allow the leaking also of this sensitive weapons information?" he added.

"Mr. Smythe's argument concerns me as well," the judge said, motioning to the government lawyers to respond.

The second assistant attorney strode to the podium to address that point. "It seems to me that we could agree on steps to be taken that would ensure the super secrecy of this RTS information," he said. "Once Mr. Jordan discloses it, of course."

Judge Jenkins turned to look at Harry Smythe.

Harry had the premonition already what the judge was going to do. It was all too reasonable. Too practical a solution for the judge not to jump on it.

"Mr. Smythe, what do you say about that?" Judge Jenkins said. "We do confidentiality procedures all the time in contested subpoena cases. Have Mr. Jordan produce the documents to this court. I'll fashion some restrictions on the committee that hopefully they will agree to. Then everybody's happy, right?"

But Smythe knew somebody wouldn't be happy. He knew that Joshua Jordan had no intention of divulging his RTS design for the eventual use--or misuse--by a group of politicians.

Smythe braced himself as he began to share the bad news. "Your Honor, I doubt that your creative solution will work."

"And why is that?"

Harry was about to pull the pin in the hand grenade. "Because Mr. Jordan is not inclined to comply with the subpoena. He won't divulge his RTS technology. Except to the Defense Department under conditions where he has some guarantee that it won't be used for political purposes and that it won't be shared with other nations."

There was a different look now on Judge Jenkin's face. No longer the mediator, the conciliator looking for a compromise among the parties. Now it was the aggravated judge who had the power to level judgment.

"The government in their response papers says that Mr. Jordan is deliberately avoiding service of the subpoena. Is that true?"

"They have been unable to serve him, Your Honor..."

"That's not what I asked. Is your client willing to admit service on the subpoena?"

"No, Your Honor. He isn't."

"So Mr. Jordan is in defiance of Congress. He's defying an official subpoena. I wonder, Mr. Smythe, if he will also be in contemptuous defiance of this court?"

"Your Honor?"

"As you know, the government has asked me as part of this proceeding to issue an order that Mr. Jordan produce his RTS data, and failing that to be held in contempt of court, and to be sent to jail until he complies. If Mr. Jordan is ordered to produce his RTS documents to this court, are you saying that he will disobey my order?"

Smythe now had to do a quick legal tap dance.

"Your Honor, with all due respect, you are asking me to commit my client to a hypothetical future situation. The fact is that you haven't yet ordered my client to produce his RTS documents...we only have the congressional subpoena--"

"Well I'm ordering it
now,"
the judge barked. "Your client has exactly forty-eight hours to turn over these documents to this court. Failing that, I will consider--and will probably order--his indefinite incarceration in a federal detention jail. You'd better tell your client he's in deep water right now. I hope he knows how to swim."

As soon as Harry Smythe pushed his way through the reporters milling around in the hallway outside the courtroom and yelled "no comment" to those peppering him with questions, he found a quiet corner.

He called Joshua.

"Josh, we've been shot down by the judge."

"Abby said we'd probably lose."

"The judge ordered you to produce your RTS documents within forty-eight hours."

"Or...?"

"Or federal marshals put out a warrant for your arrest. Then they haul you in for processing, take your mug shot, remove your personal effects for safe-keeping, and do a strip search. Then they put you in a jail cell."

"What's your next move?" Joshua asked coolly.

"Appeal it. But don't count on a favorable result. More important, Josh, what's
your
next move?"

"What I always do when enemy fire is incoming. Keep my head down and my finger on the trigger."

FORTY-FOUR

Part of her still couldn't believe it was happening.

Darlene Rice had settled in fairly well at the Living Waters Recovery Center in Tucson. From her vantage point, she felt as if she'd been making progress. The question now was whether the rehab specialist thought so too. Now Darlene was sitting across the desk from a female drug counselor named Margaret. It was her first review after having been at the center for several weeks. All of this still felt foreign to Darlene. One good thing, Darlene thought to herself, was that she really liked Margaret. She was kind but tough. A straight shooter.

Margaret looked up from a report, smiled, and began.

"We've finished the assessment. During the days you've been here we all think you've been very cooperative. In the end, you are the one who will be directing your own recovery. It may look like we're the ones in charge, but not really. A person has to understand they have an addiction, and then they have to
want
to get better. From our perspective, it looks to us like you do. That's a really good thing, Darley. We're very encouraged. You should be too."