The Pardon

His lawyer sighed so loudly that the line crackled.

“Come on,” said Fernandez in desperation. “There has to be something you can do.”

“There may be one thing,” his lawyer said without enthusiasm.

“Yeah, baby!” He came to life, fists clenched for one more round.

“It’s a billion-to-one shot,” the lawyer said, reeling in his client’s overreaction. “I may have found a new angle on this. I’m going to ask the governor to commute your sentence. But I won’t mislead you. You need to prepare for the worst. Remember, the governor is the man who signed your death warrant. He’s not likely to scale it back to life imprisonment. You understand what I’m saying?”

Fernandez closed his eyes tightly and swallowed his fear, but he didn’t give up hope. “I understand, man, I really do. But go for it. Just go for it. And thank you, man. Thank you and God bless you,” he added as he hung up the phone.

He took a deep breath and checked the clock on the wall. Eight minutes after two. Just five hours left to live.

Chapter 1

It as 5:00 A.M. and Governor Harold Swyteck had finally fallen asleep on the daybed. Rest was always elusive on execution nights, which would have been news to anyone who’d heard the governor on numerous occasions emphasizing the need to evict “those holdover tenants” on Florida’s overcrowded death row. A former cop and state legislator, Harry Swyteck had campaigned for governor on a law-and-order platform that prescribed more prisons, longer sentences, and more executions as a swift and certain cure for a runaway crime rate. After sweeping into office by a comfortable margin, he’d delivered immediately on his campaign promise, signing his first death warrant on inauguration day in January 1991. In the ensuing twenty-one months, more death warrants had received the governor’s John Hancock than in the previous two administrations combined.

At twenty minutes past five, a shrill ring interrupted the governor’s slumber. Instinctively, Harry reached out to swat the alarm clock, but it wasn’t there. The ringing continued.

“The phone,” his wife grumbled from across the room, snug in their bed.

The governor shook himself to full consciousness, realized he was in the daybed, and then started at the blinking red light on the security phone beside his empty half of the four-poster bed.

He stubbed his toe against the bed as he made his way toward the receiver. “Dammit! What is it?”

“Governor,” came the reply, “this is security.”

“I know who you are, Mel. What’s the emergency?”

The guard shifted uncomfortably at his post, the way anyone would who’d just woken his boss before sunrise. “Sir, there’s someone here who wants to see you. It’s about the execution.”

The governor gritted his teeth, trying hard not to misdirect the anger of a stubbed toe and a sleepless night toward the man who guarded his safety. “Mel-please. You can’t be waking me up every time a last-minute plea lands on my doorstep. We have channels for these things. That’s why I have counsel. Call them. Now, good-”

“Sir,” he gently interrupted, “I–I understand your reaction, sir. But this one, I think, is different. Says he has information that will convince you Fernandez is innocent.”

“Who is it this time?” Harry asked with a roll of his eyes. “His mother? Some friend of the family?”

“No, sir, he. . well, he says he’s your son.”

The governor was suddenly wide awake. “Send him in,” he said, then hung up the phone. He checked the clock. Almost five-thirty. Just ninety minutes left. One hell of a time for your first visit to the mansion, son.

Jack Swyteck stood stiffly on the covered front porch, not sure how to read the sullen expression on his father’s face.

“Well, well,” the governor said, standing in the open doorway in his monogrammed burgundy bathrobe. Jack was the governor’s twenty-six-year-old son, his only offspring. Jack’s mother had died a few hours after his birth. Try as he might, Harold had never quite forgiven his son for that.

“I’m here on business,” Jack said quickly. “All I need is ten minutes.”

The governor stared coolly across the threshold at Jack, who with the same dark, penetrating eyes was plainly his father’s son. Tonight he wore faded blue jeans, a brown leather aviator’s jacket, and matching boots. His rugged, broad-shouldered appearance could have made him an instant heartthrob as a country singer, though with his perfect diction and Yale law degree he was anything but country. His father had looked much the same in his twenties, and at fifty-three he was still lean and barrel-chested. He’d graduated from the University of Florida, class of ’65-a savvy sabre-fencer who’d turned street cop, then politician. The governor was a man who could take your best shot, bounce right back, and hand you your head if you let your guard down. His son was always on guard.

“Come in,” Harry said.

Jack entered the foyer, shut the door behind him, and followed his father down the main hall. The rooms were smaller than Jack had expected-elegant but simple, with high coffered ceilings and floors of oak and inlaid mahogany. Period antiques, silk Persian rugs, and crystal chandeliers were the principal furnishings. The art was original and reflected Florida’s history.

“Sit down,” said the governor as they stepped into the library at the end of the hall.

The dark-paneled library reminded Jack of the house in which he’d grown up. He sat in a leather armchair before the stone fireplace, his crossed legs fully extended and his boots propped up irreverently on the head of a big Alaskan brown bear that his father had years ago stopped in its tracks and turned into a rug. The governor looked away, containing his impulse to tell his son to sit up straight. He stepped behind the big oak bar and filled his old- fashioned glass with ice cubes.

Jack did a double take. He thought his father had given up hard liquor-then again, this was the first time he’d seen him as Governor Swyteck. “Do you have to drink? Like I said, this is business.”

The governor shot him a glance, then reached for the Chivas and filled his glass to the brim. “And this”-he raised his glass-“is none of your business. Cheers.” He took a long sip.

Jack just watched, telling himself to focus on the reason he was there.

“So,” the governor said, smacking his lips. “I can’t really remember the last time we even spoke, let alone saw each other. How long has it been this time?”

Jack shrugged. “Two, two and a half years.”

“Since your law-school graduation, wasn’t it?”

“No”-Jack’s expression betrayed the faintest of smiles-“since I told you I was taking a job with the Freedom Institute.”

“Ah, yes, the Freedom Institute.” Harry Swyteck rolled his eyes. “The place where lawyers measure success by turning murderers, rapists, and robbers back onto the street. The place where bleeding-heart liberals can defend the guilty and be insufferably sanctimonious about it, because they don’t take a fee from the vermin they defend.” His look soured. “The one place you knew it would absolutely kill me to see you work.”

Jack held on tightly to the arm of the chair. “I didn’t come here to replow old ground.”

I’m sure you didn’t. It’s much the same old story, anyway. Granted, this last time the rift grew a little wider between us. But in the final analysis, this one will shake out no differently than the other times you’ve cut me out of your life. You’ll never recognize that all I ever wanted is what’s best for you.”

Jack was about to comment on his father’s presumed infallibility, but was distracted by something on the bookshelf. It was an old photograph of the two of them, together on a deep-sea fishing trip, in one of their too-few happy moments. Lay in to me first chance you get, Father, but you have that picture up there for all to see, don’t you?