Premeditated Murder (2 page)

“I already called Zack,” Big Tony told him. “He'll be here in a few minutes.”

Zack Wilson was Terry's closest friend, and the best lawyer he knew. They'd met in high school, and were now law partners. Although there were times, like these, when Terry wondered if Zack doubted the wisdom of that arrangement.

It wasn't that Terry was a bad lawyer. Far from it. He worked hard for his clients—even the worst of the deadbeats.

It was just that his style was different from Zack's. Terry was kind of dark, and bulky, and in your face. If you needed a brawler on your side of a criminal trial, Terry Tallach was your guy.

Zack, on the other hand, was more like a golden boy—lean, athletic-looking, fair-skinned, blond. He walked into a room, and you'd swear that somebody had actually turned up the lights. It was weird. He didn't dress very well, and he wasn't even that good-looking, but somehow, people were drawn to him. Especially women. And children.

And juries.

And Zack was smart, too. But in a way that people appreciated, not in a way that pissed them off. The combination made him a terrific attorney. Whether he was terrific enough to get Terry out of this jackpot was an open question, though. A very important open question. Being locked in a shithole sucked.

After what seemed like hours, but was probably more like forty-five minutes, Tony took a phone call; thirty seconds later the elevator bell rang, and then Zack's voice was greeting Gloria and Tony. Another minute passed, it sounded like Zack said, “Let me tell him,” and then Zack came around the corner.

As usual, he somehow managed to carry himself like he owned the place, even if the place happened to be a dungeon prison cell. He was wearing his default expression—a warm, genuine smile that managed not only to be all-inclusive but to radiate a message which everyone around him read loud and clear: Things were already pretty darn good, and they were just about to get better. Gloria was shuffling along behind him, probably to ask him to marry one of her daughters.

Before Zack even reached the cell, he began to speak. “The good news is that we just got assigned the biggest and most important criminal case Northampton has ever seen.”

If he was waiting for a response, he was going to wait for a while. That wasn't the good news Terry was looking for.

“The better news is that Gloria tells me it's meat loaf night.”

Aw, fuck. Zack couldn't get him out. He was screwed.

And then Gloria moved past Zack and started putting her key into the lock. Zack continued. “But the best news of all is that you won't be around here for dinner.”

January 30—Washington, D.C.

“EXCUSE ME, MR. PRESIDENT. YOU'RE NEEDED IN the Oval Office …”

Matt Ferguson tried to hide his relief as his body man, Carlos Oliveira, interrupted his meal. Matt stood, and suddenly the entire table full of dignitaries jumped to its feet. “Please stay seated, everyone,” Matt said. “You'll have to excuse me for a moment.” He tried to look disappointed. “Some business has come up that needs my attention. I shouldn't be long.”

And with that, he and Carlos made their temporary escape.

Forty-five minutes earlier, the band started playing “Hail to the Chief,” and a ballroom full of people decked out in monkey suits and evening gowns started to applaud. Matt continuously marveled at what a big deal people could make out of dinner, if they really put their minds to it. And when he stole a look at the long line of V.I.P.s he had to greet before he took his seat, he was reminded for about the fiftieth time that day how much he missed Sammy, and how glad he would be when she returned from helping their daughter move into her new place.

He was also glad that he had grabbed a few slices of pizza before dinner, because over the past months Matt had learned that the first forty-five minutes of every official state dinner consisted of stale toasts, small talk, and a smaller salad. He'd barely taken two bites of his appetizer when Carlos arrived.

As they walked down the long corridor toward the West Wing, a portrait of Thomas Jefferson came into view. They turned a corner and passed a painting of Abraham Lincoln. Six months ago, the idea that one of these days somebody might stick a picture of Matt in a White House corridor would have been crazy.

But that was before the phone rang on that summer night and changed his and Sammy's lives forever.

“Colonel Ferguson? This is White House Chief of Staff Vernon Browning. President Graham has asked me to call you to see if you would be willing to meet with him on an urgent matter concerning additional service for the country.”

Talk about understatements.

“What's going on?” Matt said now, as he and Carlos walked together.

“I don't know, sir. Mr. Browning just said that I should ask you to come back to the office. He said something about a development in East Africa that you should know about.”

Over the past two weeks, rebel forces had been amassing in the western provinces of Kenya, not far from its capital city, Nairobi. A civil war looked imminent. Months of drought and the resulting famine had already put a great deal of pressure on the recently elected government of President Mwanga. Not to mention the new strain of malaria that had been sweeping through the population like wildfire.

And if that wasn't enough, there were reports that Mwanga might use chemical weapons if a rebellion did break out.

They were still a minute or two away from the office. Matt looked over at the young man walking beside him. “You know, I haven't had a chance to talk to your father for quite a while. How's he doing?”

Carlos's father, José, had been Matt's staff sergeant in Vietnam, and had saved his life more times than either could remember.

“Poppy's fine, sir. He's still running the shop with Mom.” Carlos smiled. “She says even though he complains about that kind of work making him soft, that just means that he likes it there.”

“I'm glad to hear it. Give him my best, the next time you speak to him. And if he's ever in Washington, you know he's got a standing invitation to visit the White House, right?”

“Yes, sir. I've told him.”

“Good,” Matt said, and meant it, as they reached the area outside the Oval Office.

As always, CNN was playing on a television set mounted on the wall. Another former heavyweight boxing champ was going bankrupt, and Mitchell Stanton, a federal judge in Michigan, committed suicide yesterday. Matt was going to have to check into that.

Chief of Staff Vernon Browning was waiting for him in the Oval Office. Impeccably dressed, as usual, in a gray suit, starched white shirt, and dark tie, Browning said, “Good evening, Mr. President. I'm sorry I had to interrupt your dinner …”

The thin, fifty-something political powerhouse worked very hard at his job, which included about a hundred thousand different functions, among them to organize the White House staff, to help prioritize the avalanche of information flowing into the Oval Office, and to advise the President. Browning was remarkably good at his work. Matt felt extremely fortunate that he'd been willing to stay on after President Graham's death.

“I owe you one, Vernon,” Matt replied. “You know how I hate those things.” He and the Chief of Staff sat down across from each other in the center of the room. “What's up?”

Browning opened a folder that he had been holding, glanced down at some notes, and then looked back up at Matt. “Mr. President, we have good intelligence that several thousand Tanzanian troops have been mobilized and are now gathering at the Kenyan border. And we suspect that more troops will be joining them soon. They appear to be trying to do this covertly, but it won't be a secret for long.”

“So Kenya doesn't know about this yet?” Matt asked.

“That's right, sir. President Mwanga is meeting with several other African heads of state at the U.N. over the next few days. As soon as he hears about this, he'll fly back home, the Kenyan Ambassador to the U.N. will request an emergency meeting of the Security Council, and they'll appeal to us to send them anything you can imagine—peacekeepers, advisors, troops, weapons. You name it, they'll want it.”

Matt nodded. “If I were in their shoes, I'd probably be looking around for a hand, too. Mwanga's on the verge of fighting a two-front war using an army that's about half the size of the Rhode Island National Guard.” He paused. The guy running Kenya before Mwanga had been connected to a Russian thug who was infamous for supplying just about anything to anyone—including weapons to radical third-world countries that were barely safe in the hands of the most stable governments. “We never learned whether Mwanga ever got hold of any of those chemical weapons we were worrying about last year, did we?”

“No, sir,” Browning replied.

“Okay,” Matt said, standing up and walking behind his desk. The Chief of Staff rose, too. “I'll need a briefing here in an hour. I want Defense, State, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the National Security Advisor, and Homeland Security there. Half of them are probably at the dinner.”

“Secretary of Defense Maisenbacher is still out of the country,” Vernon said.

“Never mind,” Matt said. “Rusty will cover it.” The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Russell Levine, had been a classmate of Matt's at West Point; Rusty Levine was about the only friend Matt had among his senior advisors.

“Very good, Mr. President,” Vernon replied, heading toward the door to his adjoining office. But just before he reached it, he turned back. “Would you like Kenny and Adrienne at the meeting, sir?”

Ken Stoutland and Adrienne Tippins were the administration's top political advisors. Most of the time, the pair seemed more worried about approval ratings polls than whether Matt was actually doing something right. At a time like this, Matt needed them about as much as a case of hives.

“I don't think so, Vernon,” he answered. “What's the Navy got in the area?”

Browning thought for a moment. “The Kitty Hawk Battle Group is off the west coast of India.”

“Okay,” Matt said. “Tell General Levine that in about ninety minutes I expect he'll want to order an amphibious assault group to detach and head for the coast of Kenya.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. President.”

As soon as Browning left the Oval Office, Matt picked up the phone and hit the intercom. “Carlos, can you please send my regrets to the table at dinner? Something urgent has come up. And then bring me the latest briefing notes on East Africa.”

“Yes, sir,” the young man replied.

“One more thing,” Matt continued. “If you can find me a chicken salad sandwich and a Coke, that would be great. And grab something for yourself, too. It's going to be a late night.”

TWO

THE CLERK:
Defendant, please rise.

     
Members of the jury, harken to the indictments returned against this defendant by the grand inquest by the body of the County of Hampshire.

     
Indictment 79443, Calvin Thompkins.

     
At the Superior Court begun and holden at the City of Northampton within and for the County of Hampshire, on the first Monday in February in this year, the Grand Jurors for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on their oath present that Calvin Thompkins, on or about the 14th day of January at Northampton, in the County of Hampshire aforesaid, did assault and beat Rudolf Lange with intent to murder the said Rudolf Lange and by such assault and beating did kill and murder the said Rudolf Lange … the said John Bercher … the said Marc Nathenson … Mitchell Nathenson … Marianne Duhamel … Helene Ghazi.

     
Against the peace of said Commonwealth and contrary to the form of the statute.

     
To these indictments, members of the jury, the defendant has pleaded not guilty and for trial thereof he has placed himself upon the country, which country you are.

     
You are now sworn to try the issues.

(Trial Volume II, Pages 212–213)

January 30—Northampton, Massachusetts

ZACK WAS HAVING A SINGLE-PARENT MOMENT.

He was sitting on the couch in the living room, playing “I'm Being Somebody” with his four-year-old son. Which at the moment consisted of Zack watching Justin run back and forth in front of the coffee table in only a pair of little white underpants, giggling like a maniac and waving his skinny arms back and forth over his head with two fingers on each hand raised in the peace sign. Or was it the victory sign?

Was it okay to burst into the laughter that Zack could barely hold back? Or would that hurt the little guy's feelings?

What in the world was he doing trying to be this boy's father?

It wasn't that he doubted his love for Justin. Four years ago, the arrival of the baby with the raven black hair and dark eyes had transformed Zack's life into something much more meaningful than he had ever imagined possible. He would do anything for his son. Absolutely anything.