Dead Lawyers Tell No Tales (10 page)

WHEN KERRI ARRIVED
at Cipher Inc.’s headquarters on the outskirts of Manassas in northern Virginia, she was impressed, though not surprised, by the security. She stopped at the guard station, produced her credentials, and watched as the unsmiling man checked a list and punched some data into a computer. He asked her to pop the trunk and then looked under the car with a mirror on a long, angled rod. He asked three questions: the street address of her childhood home, her mother’s maiden name, and Maddie’s birthday. It was unnerving, Kerri thought, to have so much information about her available on the Internet.

When the guard waved her through, she drove down a long, paved road lined by trees. She noticed nearly a dozen tree-mounted cameras monitoring her progress and a few gadgets that were probably heat and motion detectors. At the end of the road she encountered a large electric fence topped with barbed wire. She spoke into a speaker at the gate, a pleasant woman answered, and the gate eventually swung open.

Kerri wondered if the Pentagon was so well guarded.

Cipher’s headquarters was a five-story smoked-glass building, surrounded by a massive parking lot and a row of bulky concrete barriers designed to shield against suicide bombers. She parked, checked in at the front desk, and pinned on a bar-coded name tag.

Five minutes later, Sean Phoenix stepped off the elevator and gave her a firm handshake. If Daniel Craig ever tired of playing James Bond, this guy could take his place, Kerri thought. He was almost embarrassingly handsome with the chiseled look of an actor they might use for an Army recruiting video. He had a strong jaw, a perfect symmetry to his face, and to top it all off, dimples when he smiled.

He wore a tight black T-shirt that showed off the cable-like muscles of an endurance athlete rather than the bulky muscles of a weight lifter. He looked surprisingly young for a man in charge of such a massive operation.

“Thank you for giving me a few minutes of your time, Mr. Phoenix,” Kerri said.

“There are two rules,” Phoenix said crisply. “First, you’ll need to leave your phone and any recording devices at the front desk. The only camera allowed is the one your cameraman brings in. And second, please call me Sean. My dad is Mr. Phoenix, and I’m not answering any questions about him.”

Before the interview, Sean took Kerri on a guided tour of the building, and before long she had lost her sense of direction. He greeted people by their first names, introduced them to Kerri, and had them tell Kerri what they did.

The building was packed with analysts sitting in cubicles and young executives in small glass offices on the perimeters. Kerri had imagined an operation far different from this. She had pictured the massive war rooms featured in the movies with suspended televisions and maps lining the walls. This place looked like one of the Big Four accounting firms.

“Many of these folks are former CIA operatives or former Navy SEALs or have some other type of special-ops background,” Sean
explained. “A lot of them just scan websites, databases, and chat rooms so they can collect and analyze publicly available data. As a company, we monitor activities in more than sixty countries and communicate in more than a hundred languages. We’ve got Fulbright Scholars and Rhodes Scholars and even a few graduates of Southeastern University.”

They ended the tour in Sean’s office, another place that defied expectations. It looked much like the other offices in the facility except that it happened to occupy prime real estate on the fifth-floor corner overlooking the front parking lot. The walls contained a few sterile pictures and diplomas but no hint of personal information or family photographs.

The WTRT cameraman, Rob Stokes, had driven to Manassas separately and was already setting up his lighting and backdrops. A makeup artist did her magic, and Sean and Kerri took their places in two seats facing each other. Rob tested their mikes, then adjusted the backdrops to eliminate shadows.

Sean had agreed to a thirty-minute interview, and Kerri knew she had to get right to the point. She introduced Sean, thanked him for giving her a tour of the facilities, and then hit him with her first zinger.

“There are reports that you left the CIA because you fell in love with a Syrian woman who served as a spy for our country. My sources tell me that when she was discovered by the Syrians, the CIA disavowed her, leading to her torture and death. And that’s supposedly why you left. Are any of those reports true?”

Kerri was not surprised when the man didn’t flinch. She had watched tapes of his hearings in front of congressional subcommittees, and she had read transcripts of his testimony in court. He was basically unflappable.

“As far as rumors go, those are fairly tame ones. We have employees who scour the Internet every hour of the day, and we’ve learned how to separate fact from fiction. There are organizations who know how to plant a rumor and then seed it on other sites so it looks like it sprouts and grows spontaneously.

“But those rumors are false. I left the CIA because, at heart, I am an entrepreneur. Companies need effective intelligence in order to survive
in a multinational world. We know how to provide that. As a bonus, we know how to get paid doing it.”

Kerri checked her notes to make sure she had the data right. “I found six separate lawsuits in the past seven years that were filed against Cipher Inc., and several reports of threatened lawsuits. You had a tortious interference-with-business claim seven years ago, three patent-infringement claims six years ago brought by competitors of your clients, another lawsuit filed two years later by the relatives of a government official in Sudan who claimed that Cipher operatives killed that official, and one suit three years ago claiming that Cipher stole confidential information from competitors of your clients. All of these have been settled out of court.” She paused for effect. “That seems like an awful lot of litigation.”

“There are an awful lot of lawyers,” Phoenix responded, flashing a quick smile. “All of those lawsuits were frivolous, and we’ve never had a verdict entered against us. But, Kerri, your husband’s a lawyer, and you know how much lawyers charge. In fact, your husband’s firm has represented us on several occasions. Some of those cases were dismissed by judges before they ever went to trial. Others we settled. The math is pretty simple. The cost of defending ourselves, even though we did nothing wrong, combined with the loss of focus on our main business, drove us to settlement. I’m a businessman. Those were business calculations.”

Sean hesitated for a moment, and Kerri thought he might leave the answer there. She was going to probe about a few of the cases, particularly the one arising out of Cipher’s alleged role in the assassination of the Sudanese official. But Sean Phoenix wasn’t finished.

“But in case there are any plaintiffs’ lawyers watching this interview,” Sean continued, leaning forward, “they should know that I’ve changed that philosophy. I’m tired of being blackmailed through a legal system in which the rule of law has become the rule of lawyers. Don’t get me wrong, Kerri—there are a lot of good lawyers out there. But for the vultures who think they can make a quick buck by filing these types of
cases—” he looked directly into the camera—“we’re done paying just to get the matter behind us. I’ve adopted a new motto, one you might have heard before: millions for defense but not one penny for tribute.”

Sean leaned back, message delivered.
Let the snotty-nosed plaintiffs’ lawyers chew on that for a while,
his expression seemed to say. He relaxed and turned to Kerri for the next question.

She found herself wondering if Cipher Inc. had been recently threatened with a massive lawsuit—if perhaps this entire interview had been arranged by Sean to deliver a single message.
Don’t mess with our company. We’re done paying just to avoid the costs of litigation.

“Can you tell me whether or not your company has any active contracts with the CIA?”

“If we did, that would be classified information.”

“What about the intelligence-gathering arms of other countries’ governments? Do you work for any of them?”

“That would be classified too.”

And so it went, one question after another, Sean stonewalling her at every turn. When the interview was over she thanked him, and he escorted her to the front door.

She left thinking she knew less about Sean Phoenix than when she had arrived. She had seen only what he wanted her to see, been told only what he wanted her to hear. She glanced in her rearview mirror as she left the facility. There was a story here, no doubt about that. And she would dig until she found it.

THE PHONE CALLS STARTED
when Landon was on his way to the hospital. He knew that Kerri had probably finished her interview and now wanted to check in on Maddie. He ignored the first two, but by the third one he could feel the desperation coming through the phone.

“How’s my girl?” Kerri asked after Landon answered. It was the voice of a mother at the beginning stages of separation anxiety.

“She’s good,” Landon replied.

“You guys having a movie date?” Kerri asked. “Nothing like
Tangled
for the 943rd time.”

Time to change the subject.
“How was the interview?”

“I’ll give you a blow-by-blow when I get home. Can you put Maddie on the phone for a second?”

It was, he knew, the moment of truth. He could have said that Maddie was in the bathroom, that he was in a bad cell zone, or any one of a half-dozen other stall maneuvers. But his relationship with Kerri was based on honesty.

“Actually, I’m just getting ready to go into the hospital to see a client. Somebody else is taking care of Maddie for a little while until I get home.”

There was silence on Kerri’s end. Landon decided to wait her out.

“And you were going to tell me this when?”

“I just did.”

“This client can’t wait until next week?”

“It’s Elias King’s son. He got in a fight today at school. Harry said I had to talk with him before Elias gets home.”

“I don’t understand why this is such a crisis. Who’s with Maddie, anyway?”

That was the question Landon really dreaded. But he couldn’t run from it now. “Rachel,” he said casually. He made it sound as if Rachel babysat for Maddie once a week.

“Rachel who?” Kerri’s tone turned accusatory. There were strict rules about who could babysit Maddie, a clearing process that would make the FBI proud, and extensive instructions. Rachel had never been considered for the list.

“Rachel Strach from work. It’s just a couple of hours, and I’ve been checking in every twenty minutes.”

This response generated another patch of stony silence. “You’re kidding, right? I don’t even know Rachel Strach.”

“I called everyone, Kerri.” Landon’s voice became a little testy as well. He wasn’t the one who had gone running out of town. “Nobody else was available. They’re having fun. They’re fine.”

“I don’t get this,” Kerri said. “If you couldn’t watch her for even a couple of hours, you should have told me. I would have helped make some calls or we could have talked about it or something. I don’t want some strange woman taking care of my child, especially when I don’t know anything about it.”

“
Our
child,” Landon said. “And she’s not some strange woman. She’s the one person at the firm besides Harry who’s taken me in and helped me get acclimated. And I’ll be home as soon as I get a chance.”

They sparred for a few more minutes and then hung up without a
single
I love you.
Landon quickly called Rachel, who assured him that Maddie was doing just fine. They were having a blast, Rachel said. “Take your time. And by the way, your daughter is adorable.”

Generally, Landon would say something like,
Takes after her mother.
But right now, he wasn’t feeling it.

“Thanks,” he said.

///

Jacob King was biding his time in the Chesapeake General emergency department. He sat on a bed behind a curtain, a gauze bandage covering a cut over his left eye. Julia stood next to him. The kid looked like a younger version of Elias—the same sharp angles on the face, the same curly black hair. Jacob’s hair was longer and not yet receding, and he had the spotted complexion and droopy eyes of a teenager, but there was no doubt this was Elias’s boy.

“Jacob, this is Mr. Reed,” Julia said. She turned to Landon. “I told him you were a college quarterback.”

They shook hands and Landon noticed that Jacob had long fingers and a strong grip for a skinny kid. “Your mom tells me you’re a quarterback too,” Landon said. “Maybe we could toss the ball sometime.”

“Sure.”

“How did your team do this year?” Landon asked.

“We basically sucked.”

“He played junior varsity,” Julia said, quickly coming to his defense. “Most of the good kids from his grade were moved up to varsity.” She caught herself. “Except Jacob, of course. They already had a good varsity quarterback.”

The small talk was off to a rough start, and Landon decided to get to the point. He wanted to talk with Jake alone, as Harry had instructed, but he was already pushing his luck by interviewing the kid in the hospital. He decided to plow ahead with Julia present. “As your mom’s probably told you, my firm represents your dad. And I need to ask you a few questions if that’s okay.”

“I know.”

Unlike most fifteen-year-olds, Jacob looked Landon straight in the eye. He had a wary gaze, at least in the one eye that wasn’t swollen nearly shut, but he didn’t seem to be intimidated.

“We know your dad’s innocent,” Landon said. “But the only way we can defend him properly is if everybody in your family is 100 percent honest with us. We can deal with stuff as long as we know about it ahead of time. But you’ve got to shoot straight with me, okay?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Landon saw Julia reach out to take her son’s hand, but Jacob pulled back just a little. He was trying hard to be the man, and Landon’s heart went out to him. Landon’s own father had run off with another woman, abandoning the family when Landon was in elementary school. It had been Landon, his sister, and his mother against the world. Jacob might experience a similar situation soon.

“I understand,” Jacob said.

“You feel up to answering a few questions?”

“Sure.”

For the next ten minutes, Landon quizzed Jacob about the night of February 4. Jacob didn’t remember anything out of the ordinary. If his dad had driven the 300M out of the driveway that night, Jacob was pretty sure he would have heard it. He claimed to be a light sleeper. He was certain his dad’s car had never left the house.

“I noticed you guys set up a weight room over the garage,” Landon said. “Do you happen to remember if you have any thirty-five-pound plates?”

Jacob scrunched his forehead, trying to remember. “I don’t think we have thirty-fives.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Pretty sure.”

“The reason I’m asking is because there were a couple of thirty-five-pound plates weighing down the bag that contained Erica Jensen’s body,” Landon explained.

Jacob shrugged. The information didn’t change his answer.

A nurse stepped into the curtained-off room and asked Jacob how he felt. She said the doctor would be able to stitch him up in a few minutes. She took his vital signs and looked behind the gauze bandage at the butterfly Band-Aid she had used to hold the cut together.

When she left, Julia spoke first. “Can we finish this sometime next week?” she asked. “He’s probably been through enough trauma for one night.”

“Sure,” Landon said. “And, Jake, we’re going to do everything we can to get your dad acquitted. I know your father and I know his reputation. Your father’s a good man. And Mr. McNaughten is a
really
good lawyer.”

Jacob nodded, his eyes glued on Landon.

“So why don’t you let us do the fighting,” Landon continued. “It doesn’t do anybody any good for you to wind up in the hospital.”

“Yes, sir,” Jacob said.

When Landon left the hospital, he felt the full weight of the case bearing down on his shoulders. He was sorry for young Jake. And he knew that Julia King, her life already shattered by an affair, could hardly cope with another crushing blow. He hoped, for the family’s sake, that Elias King was innocent.

And he hoped, for everyone’s sake, that he and Harry could prove it.