The Gun Runner's Daughter (31 page)

He answered with a withering look, then an apologetic one, then by putting his head between his hands. For a moment, there was silence, and had Dee looked up, he would have seen Alley watching
him with the cool green light of her eyes.

“When’s Levi on the stand?”

“First thing after opening statements. Maybe this afternoon.” Dee’s voice came from inside his hands.

“Start by asking him about Carlos Cardoen.”

He didn’t look up, but his neck stiffened. Another moment of silence, this time a very long one. Then Alley went on in the same quietly happy voice, and what she was saying came straight
out of the safe in Borough Park.

“Ask about my father’s trip in 1985 to Chile. Ask what h e was doing there?”

“Alley,” Dee interrupted. “What in God’s name are you talking about?”

“Shut up. Listen. Stein says my father wouldn’t have gone ahead with the Bosnian sale without U.S. approval. Stein says my father’s a puppet for an administration contravention
of the embargo. But you ask Michael Levi, bless his heart, what my father was doing in Chile, and listen to what he tells you.”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do. Think. Carlos Cardoen was building cluster bombs and chemical weapons for Iraq. We know that because Teledyne was a supplier—zirconium, remember? He was selling them up
to the day before the Gulf War. Only, Israel didn’t like that. They liked arming Iran, ’cause they’d been doing it since they trained SAVAK for the Shah, and they liked Iran to
keep Iraq fighting, and anyway they never had wanted to give up the revenue stream. But they didn’t like arming Iraq. That wasn’t about money, it was about blood. They thought Hussein
could turn his Scuds from Teheran to Tel Aviv, and it turned out they were right. My father went down to Chile as Israel’s direct representative to buy Cardoen off, then, when that
didn’t work, threatened him.”

Watching, listening with intense attention, Dee considered. Then he nodded.

“Okay. This has nothing to do with my case.”

“Listen to me, Dee. Cardoen was indicted by a grand jury in 1991, along with Teledyne. Pretrial, his lawyers proved U.S. government support for his arming. Proved. No one even denies it.
The Iraqi tilt is documented. Right?”

“Right. It didn’t have any bearing, though.”

“Doesn’t matter. What matters is my dad, in Chile as a special envoy of the Israeli prime minister, pursued absolutely the opposite policy. Tried to buy Cardoen, then threatened to
shut him down. He did it in direct contradiction of the U.S. government. And he did more.”

Beginning to understand, Dee nodded. Alley went on.

“So fuck Bob Stein and his claim that my dad was directed by someone in the administration, ’cause when he doesn’t like what the administration does, he goes his own way. And
you can prove it.”

Now Dee focused on her again. “How can I prove it?”

“You ask Mike Levi, under oath, what I tell you to.”

As if simply unable to comprehend what she was saying, Dee stared at her, the processes of his mind, complex, confused, transparent on his face. “That’s new evidence.”

“So what? It’s not exculpatory on the charges you’re prosecuting, there’s no obligation to disclose. Levi’s taking an immunity bath in that court. You bring an
illegality up, he’ll admit to it. Why not? And he doesn’t care if it implicates someone else: he can’t, he’s afraid of jeopardizing his immunity. You know how State’s
witnesses are, they have no pride—they’re not allowed to. He’s not going to perjure himself for my father.”

In the face of Dee’s amazement, she smiled suddenly.

“Feeling better now?”

3.

Dee nearly blurted his next words. “Why are you telling me this?”

Leaning against the kitchen table, her worn flannel nightdress hanging round on her naked shoulders, she showed him in profile her face, her breasts under her nightdress, her stomach.
“I’ve been thinking about this, Dee, and I don’t want a lecture from you. You understand?”

“No. I mean yes. I understand you don’t want a lecture. I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“Then listen. There are two people on trial here. Whichever loses is exiled from home. One’s my dad. Two’s you.”

Dee nodded comprehension, then shook his head.

“I see. You can’t do it. I can’t do it. He’s your father.”

“And you’re an asshole.”

Silence. And now Alley intensified her tone.

“I told you I don’t want a lecture. My father’s fine. You think he’s in trouble? Look at this.” Rising suddenly, she stepped to the desk and pulled out an envelope
containing perhaps a dozen of her father’s international bank account checks.

“This bullshit means nothing to him. He owns half of Israel. By the time his appeals are finished, he’ll be a Knesset member, totally unextraditable. All they want from him, anyway,
is a fine. You said so yourself: only an exchange of assets is at stake. You, you have to come out of it in one piece. I need you.”

Dee’s reply was unexpected. He rose, crossed to where she sat in her wooden desk chair, knelt, and put his face against her stomach. She felt his lips through the
nightdress, and let a hand fall to his hair. Like this, they rested for a moment. When he rose, straightening his hair, he said:

“I’m not going to use it.”

“Use it.”

He crossed back to his briefcase, his expression altered to tenderness. Dee moved, Alley thought, was the person she had fallen in love with. Shrugging on his overcoat, he said:

“What’s your source?”

“His personal papers.”

“I could never introduce them without provenance.”

Feeling slightly desperate, she spoke urgently. “You don’t need to introduce them. Just ask Levi about the Israeli Iran-contra chronology Israel prepared for the joint committee.
It’s printed everywhere in the world, Dee. It showed my dad down there in Chile: they had to give that to prove that he wasn’t in a Ghorbanifar meeting, and no one asked any questions
about it.
U.S. v. Teledyne
makes Chile directly relevant. Levi’ll explain everything. I told you, he’s not going to perjure himself for the man he’s already turned
State’s evidence on.”

Overcoat on, he stared at her. “I’m not going to use it.”

“I want you to use it.” It came out with unexpected force, and he looked up at her, analytically, for a long second. Then he looked at his watch, and swore.

“I’m fucking late.”

“You got plenty of time. It’s seven
A.M.
”

“No, I don’t. I got a FedEx to drop off. And I’m due for breakfast in the office in fifteen minutes. Shit.” He opened his case, suddenly, clumsily, and pulled out a FedEx
envelope and a letter, then reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and withdrew a pen.

And Alley suddenly felt her heart pound in her chest.

As if she could hear a precise, mechanical click as another piece of the puzzle fell into place.

A feeling, she thought over the pounding in her chest, that was growing oddly familiar.

Before she could think, she said: “Leave it for me. I’ll take it across town on my way to court.”

“Would you? Thanks. Let me address it.”

“No, Dee.” She crossed the room in a few quick steps and took the paperwork from him. “Let me address it, you get going. Just sign the slip.”

“Okay, thanks. The address is on the letter.” He signed quickly, replaced his pen, closed his briefcase, and rose. From his height, in his suit, he regarded the woman before him, in
a nightdress. But whatever words were in his mind were clearly too much to say now. He kissed her, then turned to the door. Then he turned again.

A moment later, he emerged onto Jane Street, carrying his case, and stepped away down the street with the briefest of glances up to her window.

Alone in the apartment, Allison’s heart slowed gradually. She leaned down for the FedEx slip on the couch, and held it under the light. The return address, preprinted by
Federal Express, was from David Treat Dennis at the U.S. attorney’s World Trade Center office. His signature sat at the bottom of the form.

It was amazing the speed with which it had come to her. Now, she thought, she could fill in a fresh form at the FedEx office. She’d go at lunch from court, when the trial recessed.

The result? She had a clean, undated FedEx form preprinted with the U.S. attorney’s address on it, and with Dee’s verifiable signature.

And, should someone need them, his fingerprints.

Smiling, suddenly, in disbelief, her hand still on her forehead, now, in the empty apartment, she spoke out loud: “Jesus.”

It had been an exciting morning.

4.

Dee’s state of shock carried him through the taxi ride from the West Village right down to his office, like a cheerful companion encouraging him in his hour of
nervousness. A welcome companion, he thought, but a very strange one.

The information she had just given him was like a talisman, and the magic energy that it held was the proof of her love. It moved him profoundly, and continued to move him through the breakfast
meeting, a last review of the jury makeup by cards held in a polished wooden holder, showing the twelve jurors by seat and the four alternates.

The two senior attorneys, Daniel Edelson and Beth Callahan, with whom he would sit at the prosecution’s table, were impeccably groomed and animated by an air of suppressed excitement.
After the short meeting the three lawyers, together with the four paralegals who would sit behind them in the benches, crossed town by car. In front of the courthouse, from the window, he counted
uplinks from NY1, WPIX, WOR, the three networks, and the BBC. Stage fright surfaced strongly at the sight, and he was grateful to be able to follow his well-groomed elders through the gauntlet of
television and still cameras and up the stairs into the federal courthouse.

Inside, the defense team had just arrived. Dee was conscious of shaking Bob Stein’s large, soft hand and looking, briefly, directly into his sharp eyes. Then he was in his seat and behind
him he could hear the room filling slowly with people.

There were many reporters, but even more observers. A strange entertainment, he thought with nervous detachment. He had a glimpse of Alley entering in a charcoal suit and sitting a row behind
Bob’s team. Then, in front of him, a stenographer took her place, and fear, unexpected in its intensity, mounted. But there were still neither bailiffs nor a judge, and in the pause that
followed the talisman which Alley had given him exerted again its strange power.

What did it mean? To his surprise, he found that without his knowledge a corner of his mind had been following the ramifications of Alley’s strange betrayal of her father to its logical
end. And that end was twofold.

First, in legal terms, it altered the entire course of the prosecution. It meant that the questioning of Levi had to change dramatically, for one. Did he know how to do it? Like magic,
Dee’s nighttime researches into the
NAR
’s interest in Rosenthal came fluently to his mind: names, dates, locations. Even in his nervousness, he appreciated the irony that he
should be using Dymitryck’s work to win this trial. It meant, in fact, that Stein’s key defense—the claim that Rosenthal was following government directions—could be dealt
with on the very first day of trial. From there, it would be a rout.

Second, in personal terms—and here Dee’s heart swelled—it meant that Alley was prepared, literally, to sacrifice her father for him. That was an astounding thought, all the
more so in this state of heightened awareness under pressure.

Time was running out. The bailiff entered and called all to rise, then Judge Thomas stepped behind the bench. Now he would instruct the jury. That could take a very variable
amount of time. Then Dee would rise for opening statement, then Stein. After that, Levi would come in, and Dee would go to work.

For the next ten minutes, Dee did not hear Judge Thomas.

For the next ten minutes, Dee barely heard his thoughts.

When he came to himself again, he found the judge was looking at him. And then he felt himself rising, as calm as he had ever been in his life.

Head down, a thumb and forefinger pinching his lips, Dee Dennis paused for effect. When he looked up again, he spoke in a low tone. It was sufficient: the room was dead silent.

“Ladies and gentlemen, during this trial, the defense is going to speak to you a lot about a certain portion of our government’s business. Specifically, you are going to learn about
how our government regulates its contacts with other countries, and even more specifically, you are going to learn about how a certain class of arms transfers are made between our government and
other governments. This class of arms transfers is usually referred to as covert, or gray-market. And the defense will claim that now, as in the Iran-contra affairs, the executive branch of our
government directed Mr. Rosenthal’s activities.

“That’s a strong argument, ladies and gentlemen, because it’s impossible to prove, and as such it’s also impossible to refute. Where we show you proof of guilt, the
defense will claim that the proof of Mr. Rosenthal’s innocence is classified. Where we show you crime, the defense will talk about plausible deniability.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if I could ask you one thing, it would be to not be fooled by this, this . . . confusion about covert activity. There are two things that I can tell you, from years
of experience, are always true in the arms business. The first is that every person who makes an illegal arms deal pretends he has some CIA agent directing him; and the second is that every time an
Israeli breaks the law selling arms, you can be sure that it’s in defense of the safety of Israel. But when it’s time to count the profits, don’t kid yourself that any of that
money is going either to the U.S. taxpayer or to the Jewish people. It’s going into private, secret, numbered Swiss bank accounts, and the only people it’s helping are the individuals
who broke the law to get it.

“During the course of this trial I will show you in the clearest terms possible that not only has the Falcon Corporation historically operated in the world theater without any U.S.
government direction, but that they have, again and again, specifically fought our government’s direction and acted precisely contrary to our interests. And I will do so in the perfect
confidence that this jury will act on behalf of the citizens of the United States, whose membership in the United Nations specifically forbade the foreign military sales of which Ronald Rosenthal
stands today accused. Thank you.”