General would be well served if he were his counsel.”
“I quite agree,” said the judge, who’d been silent all this time. “But of course he’s not. An attorney will have to be appointed to represent Mr. Rosenberg’s interests — should I call him General? He is a general, yes? Is that how he likes to be addressed?”
“He’s actually a very humble man,” said Rubens, though the judge was looking at Rebecca. “He introduces himself as ‘Mr.,’ but those of us who’ve known him for a long time, usually we call him General. I suppose other people would use that as well.”
The judge nodded, but it was Rebecca who had the last word: “That would be fine, I think. I always just call him Daddy.”
Where he’d taken his time before, now the judge spoke quickly, laying out the steps that he would take. The first and most important was to appoint a lawyer to represent the General. A medical assessment would follow, probably fairly quickly, but of course the General’s lawyer would have an important say on the timetable. Everything from here on out would hinge on the General’s court-appointed legal representative. Interested parties would always be welcome to add relevant information, but the law directed the judge to work in a certain way and ultimately he would be the one to make the decision.
That was the opening for Rebecca’s lawyer. Rubens remained calm as the attorney suggested that a jury trial might be appropriate.
“An interesting point,” said Judge Croner. “Of course, the General’s attorney is going to be the one speaking for him, so from this point onward that would be a matter for him to propose.”
As a courtesy to the interested parties, added the judge, he would of course keep them abreast of the timetable for the proceedings. He would certainly work with the General’s counsel, whom he intended to name by the end of the day.
“Who would that be?” asked Rebecca’s lawyer.
“Naturally someone with experience and the high recommendation of the Bar,” said the judge, parrying the question gently yet firmly. He was not to be interfered with, despite his easygoing manner. “As I said earlier, a medical examination would proceed promptly thereafter. I would hope that the General’s counsel would be prepared for a formal hearing by the end of the week. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you,” said the judge, tapping his hands on the table and rising to dismiss them.
“So, what did you think?” McGovern asked as they descended in the elevator.
Rebecca, her husband, and their lawyer were in the car as well, and Rubens felt constrained to say he thought the judge was “a very nice fellow.”
“Very sharp,” said Ellen.
Was she talking to the other attorney or to him? Rubens said nothing until they were out in the parking lot and the others had walked off in the other direction.
“Is that timetable normal?” he asked.
“A little fast but not all that unusual. In a lot of instances, these decisions have to be made very expeditiously because medical care is involved. We could have a hearing on Friday and a decision right after that. Does it seem too fast?”
“No, I guess not.”
“The fact that the General is who he is will also push Judge Croner to get things settled very quickly,” added McGovern. “That’s why he tried to solve things without a formal process.”
“How did he try to solve things?” Rubens asked.
“Oh, that’s definitely what he was doing. If they had made more of an opening, he would have sounded them out in detail.”
“I’d appreciate it if you were more… forward,” Rubens told her.
“How so?”
“You could have defended me. I’m not representing the NSA.”
“That was obvious.”
“How? The judge doesn’t know me. When their lawyer said I was, you should have jumped right in. You did speak up, don’t get me wrong, but it was a little late.”
“Frankly, I would have preferred not saying anything at all,” she told him. “I only said that to keep you from talking. The fact of the matter is, Mr. Rubens, you’re not on trial. Neither is Rebecca. This isn’t that sort of proceeding. The real way to think about this, if you want to think about it, is to pretend you’re just watching. The judge invited you in as a courtesy. And the same with Rebecca,” she added before he could object. “The hearing is about the General and his competence. Not yours.”
“It’s about who watches his affairs.”
“It’s about
Rubens pursed his lips.
“What you said about what to call the General, that was better than any brief,” she added. “It was very eloquent.”
“It was just what I felt.”
“‘That’s why it was eloquent.” She glanced at her watch. “It would have been better if it didn’t come to this, but now that the process is under way, things will have a momentum and logic of their own.”
“Why would it be better if it didn’t come to this?”
“Don’t you think that? These sorts of disagreements don’t do anyone any good.”
Yes, actually, he did think that. Why was he being so argumentative?
And why did he feel as if he were the one on trial?
“I may be somewhat busy over the next few days,” Rubens told McGovern. “But you can call the number I gave you at any time, day or night.”
“Days will be fine. I’ll see you, Mr. Rubens.”
43
As soon as Dean put his foot on the edge of the crate he heard it crack. He grabbed the ledge and pulled himself upward as the box collapsed in a heap.
“Too late to switch places with you now,” he whispered to Lia over the communications system.
He thought he heard her growl in response.
Dean balanced precariously on the narrow ledge as he pulled the handheld computer out to scan for a burglar alarm. There wasn’t one, and the two halves of the window were held together by a simple latch at the middle, which was easily undone by sliding his knife in through the crack. He used the knife to swing the far window away, then leaned over to peer inside. Besides making it possible to see into the dark office, Dean’s night-vision glasses could detect beams from infrared devices used on alarm systems. There were none, and a second scan with the PDA failed to turn up a motion detector or more sophisticated bugging device.
“I’m in,” he told Lia as he swung inside.
“I can see that.”
“They don’t have a PC.”
“Smart of them,” said Lia.
The group that had rented the office claimed to raise money for a service that trained nurses. It did actually do this, and in fact donated more than a hundred thousand dollars every year to schools in Egypt, Pakistan, and Iran. But such international operations provided a pretext for passing information among a host of individuals and countries.
While terrorists typically went to great lengths to keep their communications secret, experience had shown that offices such as these in friendly countries often had surprisingly lax security. It wasn’t a case of hubris so much as human nature: if a threat wasn’t imminent, it tended to be ignored. Dean’s briefer had predicted there would be
