Jack glanced toward the camera. “The problem is, you’re trying to do it on television.”
“Just tell me what to write. I promise I won’t sue you for malpractice.”
Jack suddenly had visions of
“It would be a lot easier if you just untied me and let me write it for you.”
Demetri gave it some thought, and to Jack’s surprise he called the cameraman over, whose hands were free.
“Untie Swyteck,” said Demetri.
He did so at gunpoint, and then Demetri ordered him back behind the camera. Jack took the chair at the news desk, pen and paper before him. Demetri stood off to the side, where he could keep the gun trained on Jack and still read what he was writing. Jack took a deep breath. He’d become a trial lawyer for many reasons, and disdain for drafting legal documents of any kind was one of them.
“I need your last name,” said Jack.
“Pappas.”
Jack inked out some language he recalled from law school. It was probably archaic, but clients expected that kind of stuff.
“What’s Sofia’s last name?” said Jack.
He started to answer, then checked his words. “Pappas,” he said.
“You understand that Sofia remarried, right?”
Demetri’s eyes narrowed. “Her name is Sofia Pappas.”
Jack sensed another opening, an emotional point of leverage that could shift the balance of power. It was a skill he had honed on death row, where careful navigation through his clients’ personal demons could spark connections with men who were beyond reach.
Jack put down the pen and said, “Why are you doing this?”
“Keep writing.”
“You’re doing this for Sofia? Is that it?”
He looked angry for a second, but if Jack was reading his expression correctly, it seemed to be morphing into something more complicated.
“I’m not mocking you,” said Jack. “I’d just really like to know.”
On the desk was a cup of water left over from the evening news, and Demetri drank it, as if his throat suddenly needed oiling.
“Right before I let Sofia out of your car tonight, do you remember what she said to me?”
“Not really,” said Jack.
“She said ‘I don’t deserve this.’”
“That meant something to you,” said Jack. It was an observation, not a question.
Demetri nodded. “I know she wasn’t trying to hurt me or blame me, but it opened up old wounds. Things that I had hoped were healed. She was talking about a night a long time ago in Cyprus, when we were young. It began as pure pleasure.”
“Until you got thrown off the building,” said Jack.
“She told you about that?”
“Yes.”
He seemed surprised, then tentative. “Did she tell you what those bastards did after they thought I was dead?”
“She told me what happened.”
“Everything?” said Demetri. “She told you
“Yes.”
Demetri breathed in and out. “I suppose it’s healthy that she can talk to people about it now. That wasn’t always the case. She wouldn’t even report it to the police. We tried to work through it, but it was too much. We lasted less than a year. Nine months.”
“Do you mean exactly nine months?”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
“Nine months from that night, or nine months after you got out of the hospital?”
“From that night.”
“Are you saying that Sofia was-”
“Just write the damn will, Swyteck.”
Jack took a moment to read the man’s eyes, his body language, his voice-trying to gauge whether the opening was still there. On death row, if you pushed the wrong emotional button, you called for the guard. The gun in Demetri’s hand made the risk of error prohibitive.
Jack picked up the pen, explaining aloud as he wrote.
“I’m drafting this so that everything you have when you die-whether it’s five hundred thousand dollars or five cents-goes to Sofia.”
“That’s the way I want it,” said Demetri.
Jack finished the paragraph in short order, then drew several signature lines at the bottom of the page.
“We’ll need three people to witness your signature,” said Jack.
“Aren’t we in luck? I have three hostages.”
“Yeah, but here’s an important point. In order for this will to be valid under the law, all three witnesses have to be alive to confirm that this is really your signature. So if any one of us gets killed here-well, there goes your will. Sofia gets nothing.”
Demetri gave him an assessing look. He seemed to sense that Jack was bluffing-and in fact, Jack had been bluffing all the way, starting with his claim that three witnesses were required.
“I got a better idea,” said Demetri.
He took the handwritten will and the pen from Jack and walked across the news set to the camera. Holding the paper right in front of the lens, he put his signature at the X. Then he folded up the will and tucked it into his pocket.
“Now I have a million witnesses,” he said. “All of us can die.”
Chapter 47
Secret Service Agent Frank Madera went straight from the Miami International Airport to the
He hadn’t told the FBI that he was coming, and he assiduously avoided contact with the feds after his arrival. Instead, he tracked down Manny Figueroa in a coffee shop adjacent to the studio. The MDPD SWAT unit had made it their official staging area. Its location was strategic-in a building separate from the studio but within the traffic control perimeter, so that they could mobilize without the entire world knowing about it. Figueroa was standing beside a table of doughnuts and coffee when Madera introduced himself as a member of the president’s elite personal security detail. It was enough to impress anyone, and Madera had his full attention as he explained- falsely-that the Secret Service had arrived to help protect the son of the vice presidential nominee.
“I hope you didn’t bring your own mobile command center,” said Figueroa.
“No,” said Madera. “That’s not what we do. Can you and I talk in private?”
A half dozen members of the SWAT unit were seated nearby in the dining area, waiting for the green light from Figueroa. They seemed incredibly calm, as they were trained to be. In a matter of minutes, one of these guys might storm a building and pump hollow-point ammunition into a man’s skull. Or not. It all depended on how things went. Madera was determined to have a say in that.
“Sure,” said Figueroa. “Step into my office.”
Madera followed him into the men’s room. Figueroa locked the door. Madera stood near the sink with his
