Clear and Present Danger

  Wegener stopped him with a wave of the hand. “The defense correctly points out that, since this is a capital case, it is customary to grant the utmost leeway to the defense. The court finds this a persuasive argument and grants the motion. The court also grants the defense five minutes to confer with his clients. The court suggests that the defense might instruct his clients to identify themselves properly to the court.”

  The lieutenant took them to a corner of the room, still in handcuffs, and started talking to them quietly.

  “Look, I’m Lieutenant Alison, and I’m stuck with the job of keeping you two characters alive. For starters, you’d better damned sight tell me who the hell you are!”

  “What is this bullshit?” the tall one asked.

  “This bullshit is a court-martial. You’re at sea, mister, and in case nobody ever told you, the captain of an American warship can do any goddamned thing he wants. You shouldn’t have pissed him off.”

  “So?”

  “So, this is a trial, you asshole! You know, a judge, a jury. They can sentence you to death and they can do it right here aboard the ship.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “What’s your name, for God’s sake?”

  “Yo’ mama,” the tall one said contemptuously. The other one looked somewhat less sure of himself. The lieutenant scratched the top of his head. Eighteen feet away, Captain Wegener took note of it.

  “What the hell did you do aboard that yacht?”

  “Get me a real lawyer!”

  “Mister, I’m all the lawyer you’re gonna get,” the lieutenant said. “Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

  The man didn’t believe him, which was precisely what everyone had expected. The defending officer led his clients back to their table.

  “The court is back in session,” Wegener announced. “Do we have a statement for the defense?”

  “May it please the court, neither defendant chooses to identify himself.”

  “That does not please the court, but we must take that fact at face value. For the purposes of the trial, we will identify your clients as John Doe and James Doe.” Wegener pointed to designate which was which. “The court chooses to try John Doe first. Is there any objection? Very well, the trial judge advocate will begin presenting his case.”

  Which he did over the next twenty minutes, calling only one witness, Master Chief Riley, who recounted the boarding and gave a color commentary to the videotape record of the boarding.

  “Did the defendant say anything?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Could you describe the contents of this evidence bag?” the prosecutor asked next.

  “Sir, I think that’s called a tampon. It appears to be used, sir,” Riley said with some embarrassment. “I found that under the coffee table in the yacht’s main salon, close to a bloodstain—actually these two on the photograph, sir. I don’t use the things myself, you understand, sir, but in my experience women don’t leave them around on the floor. On the other hand, if someone was about to rape a lady, this thing would be in the way, sort of, and he might just remove it and toss it out of the way so’s he could get on with it, like. If you see where I picked it up, and where the bloodstains are, well, it’s pretty obvious what happened there, sir.”

  “No further questions. The prosecution rests.”

  “Very well. Before the defense begins its case, the court wishes to ask if the defense intends to call any witnesses other than the defendant.”

  “No, Mr. President.”

  “Very well. At this point the court will speak directly to the defendant.” Wegener shifted his gaze and leaned forward slightly in his chair. “In your own defense, sir, you have the right to do one of three things. First, you can choose not to make any statement at all, in which case the court will draw no inferences from your action. Second, you are allowed to make a statement not under oath and not subject to cross-examination. Third, you may make a statement under oath and subject to cross-examination by the trial judge advocate. Do you understand these rights, sir?”

  “John Doe,” who had watched the preceding hour or so in amused silence, came awkwardly to his feet. With his hands cuffed behind his back, he leaned slightly forward, and since the cutter was now rolling like a log in a flume, he had quite a bit of trouble keeping his feet.

  “What is all this shit?” he demanded, again making people wonder about his accent. “I want to go back to my room and be left alone till I can get my own fucking lawyer.”

  “Mr. Doe,” Wegener replied, “in case you haven’t figured it out yet, you are on trial for piracy, rape, and murder. This book”—the captain lifted his “Rocks and Shoals”—“says I can try you here and now, and this book says that if we find you guilty, we can decide to hang you from the yardarm. Now, the Coast Guard hasn’t done this in over fifty years, but you better believe that I can damned well do it if I want to! They haven’t bothered changing the law. So now things are different from what you expected, aren’t they? You want a lawyer—you have Mr. Alison right there. You want to defend yourself? Here’s your chance. But, Mr. Doe, there is no appeal from this court, and you’d better think about that real hard and real fast.”

  “I think this is all bullshit. Go fuck yourself!”

  “The court will disregard the defendant’s statement,” Wegener said, struggling to keep his face straight and sober, as befitting the presiding officer in a capital case.

  Counsel for the defense spoke for fifteen minutes, making a valiant but futile attempt to counter the weight of evidence already presented by the trial judge advocate. Case summaries took five minutes each. Then it was time for Captain Wegener to speak again.

  “Having heard the evidence, the members of the court will now vote on the verdict. This will be by secret written ballot. The trial judge advocate will pass out the voting papers, and collect them.”

  This took less than one minute. The prosecutor handed each of the five members a slip of note paper. The members of the court all looked at the defendant before and after marking their votes. The prosecutor then collected the ballots, and after shuffling them in his hand about as adroitly as a five-year-old with his Old Maid cards, handed them to the captain. Wegener unfolded the ballots and set them on the table in front of him. He made a note in his yellow pad before speaking.

  “Defendant will stand and face the court. Mr. Doe, do you have anything to say before sentence is passed?”

  He didn’t, an amused, disbelieving smirk on his face.

  “Very well. The court having voted, two-thirds of the members concurring, finds the defendant guilty, and sentences him to death by hanging. Sentence to be carried out within the hour. May God have mercy on your soul. Court is adjourned.”

  “Sorry, sir,” the defense counsel said to his client. “You didn’t give me much to work with.”

  “Now get me a lawyer!” Mr. Doe snarled.

  “Sir, you don’t need a lawyer just now. You need a priest.” As if to emphasize that fact, Chief Riley took him by the arm.

  “Come on, sweetheart. You got a date with a rope.” The master chief led him out of the room.

  The other prisoner, known as James Doe, had watched the entire proceeding in fascinated disbelief. The disbelief was still there, everyone saw, but it was more the sort of disbelief that you’d expect to see on the face of a man stuck in front of an onrushing train.

  “Do you understand what’s going on here?” the lieutenant asked.

  “This ain’t real, man,” the prisoner said, his voice lacking much of the conviction it might have held an hour or so earlier.

  “Hey, man, aren’t you paying attention? Didn’t they tell you guys that some of your kind just sort of disappear out here? We’ve been doing this for almost six months. The prisons are all full up, and the judges just don’t want to be bothered. If we bag somebody and we have the evidence we need, they let us handle things at sea. Didn’t anybody tell you that the rules have changed some?”

  “Yo
u can’t do this!” he almost screamed in reply.

  “Think so? Tell you what. In about ten minutes I’ll take you topside, and you can watch. I’m telling you, if you don’t cooperate, we are not going to fuck around with you, pal. We’re tired of that. Why don’t you just sit quiet and think it over, and when the time comes, I’ll let you see how serious we are.” The lieutenant helped himself to a cup of coffee to pass the time, not speaking at all to his client. About the time he finished, the door opened again.

  “Hands topside to witness punishment,” Chief Oreza announced.

  “Come on, Mr. Doe. You’d better see this.” The lieutenant took him by the arm and led him forward. Just outside the wardroom door was a ladder that led upward. At the top of it was a narrow passageway, and both men headed aft toward the cutter’s vacant helicopter deck.

  The lieutenant’s name was Rick Alison. A black kid from Albany, New York, and the ship’s navigator, Alison thanked God every night for serving under Red Wegener, who was far and away the best commander he’d ever met. He’d thought about leaving the service more than once, but now planned on staying in as long as he could. He led Mr. Doe aft, about thirty feet from the festivities.

  The seas were really rough now, Alison noted. He gauged the wind at over thirty knots, and the seas at twelve or fourteen feet. Panache was taking twenty-five-degree rolls left and right of the vertical, snapping back and forth like a kids’ seesaw. Alison remembered that O’Neil had the conn, and hoped that Chief Owens was keeping an eye on the boy. The new ensign was a good enough kid, but he still had a lot to learn about ship handling, thought the navigator, who was a bare six years older himself. Lightning flashed occasionally to starboard, flash-lighting the sea. Rain was falling in solid sheets, the drops flying across the deck at a sharp angle and driven hard enough by the wind to sting the cheeks. All in all it was the sort of night to make Edgar Allan Poe salivate at its possibilities. There were no lights visible, though the cutter’s white paint gave them a sort of ghostly outline as a visual reference. Alison wondered if Wegener had decided to do this because of the weather, or was it just a fortunate coincidence?

  Captain, you’ve pulled some crazy shit since you came aboard, but this one really takes it.

  There was the rope. Someone had snaked it over the end of the cutter’s radio/radar mast. That must have been fun, Alison thought. Had to have been Chief Riley. Who else would be crazy enough to try?

  Then the prisoner appeared. His hands were still behind his back. The captain and XO were there, too. Wegener was saying something official, but they couldn’t hear it. The wind whistled across the deck, and through the mast structure with its many signal halyards—oh, that’s what Riley did, Alison realized. He’d used a halyard as a messenger line to run the one-inch hemp through the block. Even Riley wasn’t crazy enough to crawl the mast top in this weather.

  Then some lights came on. They were the deck floods, used to help guide a helo in. They had the main effect of illuminating the rain, but did give a slightly clearer picture of what was happening. Wegener said one more thing to the prisoner, whose face was still set in an arrogant cast. He still didn’t believe it, Alison thought, wondering if that would change. The captain shook his head and stepped back. Riley then placed the noose around his neck.

  John Doe’s expression changed at that. He still didn’t believe it, but all of a sudden things were slightly more serious. Five people assembled on the running end of the line. Alison almost laughed. He’d known that was how it was done, but hadn’t quite expected the skipper to go that far....

  The final touch was the black hood. Riley turned the prisoner to face aft toward Alison and his friend—there was another reason, as well—before surprising him with it. And finally it got through to Mr. Doe.

  “Noooooo!” The scream was perfect, a ghostly sort of cry that matched the weather and the wind better than anyone might have hoped. His knees buckled as expected, and the men on the running end of the line took the strain and ran aft. The prisoner’s feet rose clear of the black no-skid deck as the body jerked skyward. The legs kicked a few times, then were still before the line was tied off on a stanchion.

  “Well, that’s that,” Alison said. He took the other Mr. Doe by the arm and led him forward. “Now it’s your turn, sport.”

  Lightning flashed close aboard just as they reached the door leading back into the superstructure. The prisoner stopped cold, looking up one last time. There was his companion, body limp, swinging like a pendulum below the yard, hanging there dead in the rain.

  “You believe me now?” the navigator asked as he pulled him inside. Mr. Doe’s trousers were already soaked from the falling rain, but they were wet for another reason as well.

  The first order of business was to get dried off. When the court reconvened, everyone had changed to fresh clothing. James Doe was now in a set of blue Coast Guard coveralls. His handcuffs had been taken off and left off, and he found a hot cup of coffee waiting for him on the defense table. He failed to note that Chief Oreza was no longer at the head table, nor was Chief Riley in the wardroom at the moment. The entire atmosphere was more relaxed than it had been, but the prisoner scarcely noticed that. James Doe was anything but calm.

  “Mr. Alison,” the captain intoned, “I would suggest that you confer with your client.”

  “This one’s real simple, sport,” Alison said. “You can talk or you can swing. The skipper doesn’t give a shit one way or the other. For starters, what’s your name?”

  Jesus started talking. One of the officers of the court picked up a portable TV camera—the same one used in the boarding, in fact—and they asked him to start again.

  “Okay—do you understand that you are not required to say anything?” someone asked. The prisoner scarcely noticed, and the question was repeated.

  “Yeah, right, I understand, okay?” he responded without turning his head. “Look, what do you want to know?”

  The questions were already written down, of course. Alison, who was also the cutter’s legal officer, ran down the list as slowly as he could, in front of the video camera. His main problem was in slowing the answers down enough to be intelligible. The questioning lasted forty minutes. The prisoner spoke rapidly, but matter-of-factly, and didn’t notice the looks he was getting from the members of the court.

  “Thank you for your cooperation,” Wegener said when things were concluded. “We’ll try to see that things go a little easier for you because of your cooperation. We won’t be able to do much for your colleague, of course. You do understand that, don’t you?”

  “Too bad for him, I guess,” the man answered, and everyone in the room breathed a little easier.

  “We’ll talk to the U.S. Attorney,” the captain promised. “Lieutenant, you can return the prisoner to the brig.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” Alison took the prisoner out of the room as the camera followed. On reaching the ladder to go below, however, the prisoner tripped. He didn’t see the hand that caused it, and didn’t have time to look, as another unseen hand crashed down on the back of his neck. Next Chief Riley broke the unconscious man’s forearm, while Chief Oreza clamped a patch of ether-soaked gauze over his mouth. The two chiefs carried him to sick bay, where the cutter’s medical corpsman splinted the arm. It was a simple green-stick fracture and required no special assistance. His undamaged arm was secured to the bunk in sick bay, and he was allowed to sleep there.

  The prisoner slept late. Breakfast was brought in to him from the wardroom, and he was allowed to clean himself up before the helicopter arrived. Oreza came to collect him, leading him topside again, and aft to the helo deck, where he found Chief Riley, who was delivering the other prisoner to the helicopter. What James Doe—his real name had turned out to be Jesus Castillo—found remarkable was the fact that John Doe—Ramón José Capati—was alive. A pair of DEA agents seated them as far apart as possible, and had instructions to keep the prisoners separate. One had confessed, the captain explained, and th
e other might not be overly pleased with that. Castillo couldn’t take his eyes off Capati, and the amazement in his eyes looked enough like fear that the agents—who liked the idea of a confession in a capital case—resolved to keep the prisoners as far apart as circumstances allowed. Along with them went all the physical evidence and several videotape cassettes. Wegener watched the Coast Guard Dolphin helo power up, wondering how the people on the beach would react. The sober pause that always follows a slightly mad act had set in, but Wegener had anticipated that also. In fact, he figured that he’d anticipated everything. Only eight members of the crew knew what had taken place, and they knew what they were supposed to say. The executive officer appeared at Wegener’s side.

  “Nothing’s ever quite what it seems, is it?”

  “I suppose not, but three innocent people died. Instead of four.” Sure as hell the owner wasn’t any angel, the captain reflected. But did they have to kill his wife and kids, too? Wegener stared out at the changeless sea, unaware of what he had started or how many people would die because of it.

  4.

  Preliminaries

  CHAVEZ’S FIRST INDICATION of how unusual this job really was came at San José airport. Driven there in an unmarked rental van, they ended up in the general-aviation part of the facility and found a private jet waiting for them. Now, that was really something. “Colonel Smith” didn’t board. He shook every man’s hand, told them that they’d be met, and got back into the van. The sergeants all boarded the aircraft which, they saw, was less an executive jet than a mini-airliner. It even had a stewardess who served drinks. Each man stowed his gear and availed himself of a drink except Chavez, who was too tired even to look at the young lady. He barely noted the plane’s takeoff, and was asleep before the climb-out was finished. Something told him that he ought to sleep while he had the time. It was a common instinct for soldiers, and usually a correct one.

  Lieutenant Jackson had never been at the Monterey facility, but his older brother had given him the necessary instructions, and he found the O-Club without difficulty. He felt suddenly lonely. As he locked his Honda he realized that his was the only Army uniform in view. At least it wasn’t hard to figure out whom to salute. As a second lieutenant, he had to salute damned near everybody.