Authors: Brian Haig
The little Russian was released and he nearly bounced out of his chair. He and Volevodz exchanged hateful looks as Petri passed
up the aisle. MP announced that he had no more witnesses.
MP remained standing, though. He looked at the judge and asked, “Could we have a moment, Your Honor?”
“Take all the time you need,” Willis replied, strongly intimating that time was not on his side.
Alex stood, too, then Matt, and for a moment they gathered in a tight triangle and conferred in tense whispers.
“What do you think?” Alex asked MP.
“We’re in trouble. Big trouble,” MP told him bluntly. “Kim was our star witness. But Caldwell blocked us from unloading her
most damaging testimony.”
“You don’t think Petri repaired that?” Alex asked, searching their faces.
Matt, the pro with years of big-time criminal experience answered for both lawyers. “Caldwell will cream him in his closing.
I certainly would. The opinion of a man who admitted framing people against the word of an entire government. The issue is
credence, Alex.”
MP nodded at this candid observation. “That’s exactly what he’ll do. If I try to counter it in my closing, it’ll only sound
defensive.”
“Then let’s go with it,” Alex stated very firmly.
MP and Matt exchanged looks. Both had badly hoped to avoid Alex’s proposal. Legally speaking, it was fraught with difficulties.
After a moment, Matt mentioned to MP, “He hides it well, but I think the judge is sympathetic.”
MP nodded. Not enthusiastically, but nonetheless it was a nod.
Alex said to both of them, “It’s all or nothing. Bluff, and do your best.”
“I hope you’re the lucky type,” Matt replied, clearly believing this was crazy.
“He wouldn’t be here if he was lucky,” MP replied dryly.
Alex and Matt fell into their seats. MP remained standing. Finally, he announced somewhat hesitantly, “I’d like to submit
a little evidence.”
Matt handed him a tape player, a compact Bose system with small but thunderously powerful speakers. Alex arranged the system
on his table, carefully directing the speakers toward the prosecutor’s table, while the bailiff strung an extension cord and
plugged it in. Next Matt handed Alex a tray loaded with about twenty cassettes. Alex noodled through the tapes and finally
settled on one that he carefully withdrew. MP took it and inserted it neatly into the recorder. Alex’s finger hovered over
the start button as MP said, “This is a phone call to Miss Tatyana Lukin, special assistant to the Kremlin chief of staff.
She’s a lawyer who also serves as legal advisor to Boris Yeltsin.” Alex stabbed play.
First, the sound of a ringing telephone.
“What? Who is this?” A woman’s voice in Russian, and the annoyed tone came across loud and clear.
“Please hold for the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” A female voice, bored, in English.
“Hello, Tatyana. Heard the news about your boy Konevitch? Made a big splash in the news on this side of the water.”
“How did you get my home number?”
“When I couldn’t get you at the office, my boys in the embassy tracked it down.”
“All right. Yes, I see that you’ve got him in jail. Why haven’t you just shipped him here?”
“It’s complicated. Not as easy as I thought. Listen, I need a big favor.”
“John, you promised me Konevitch.”
“Well, just listen. Some of these judges here are pigheaded. I need you to cook up a case for me.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t just throw his ass on a plane. Look, Tatyana, I really don’t care about the details. Understand? Come on,
your guys are supposed to be real good at this sort of thing.”
“What sort of thing is that, John?”
A long silence. “Look, give me whatever you like, just be damned sure it sounds convincing.”
“Is this absolutely necessary?”
“Probably not. He goes back to court in a week. No way in hell he won’t be deported. But the judge might act crazily. Call
it a precaution, insurance.”
Caldwell finally came to his senses and, doing something he should’ve done a minute before, yelled, “Objection, objection.”
Alex reached over and cranked the volume up full blast until it drowned out Caldwell’s voice. The voices on the tape howled
out of the speakers and filled the courtroom.
“You can keep him in jail, can’t you? A lot of powerful people here are opposed to letting you keep the FBI outpost in your
embassy. I’m doing my best, but, John, it’s a real uphill battle. Such a clear lack of mutual cooperation won’t go over well.”
An unintelligible mumble from Tromble before she cut him off. “President Yeltsin asked me about this case just yesterday.
He keeps asking if he needs to discuss it with your president.”
“Hey, we’ll find a way. I don’t care if I have to bribe the judge or kill his wife. I’ll find a way.”
Caldwell was now on his feet, screaming “Objection!” at the top of his voice.
Alex pushed stop. The tape finally went quiet, though it seemed to echo for a long moment. He glanced around and studied the
faces in the court.
Tromble was melting into this chair. Every eye in the court was on him.
Directly to his front, Caldwell spent a long moment in terrified confusion. Eventually he repeated, an octave higher but more
quietly this time, “Objection, Your Honor.”
“Sidebar,” the judge replied and scrambled off his bench. Again Matt accompanied MP, and this time he added Alex to his entourage.
Again one of the Justice boys accompanied Caldwell, who arrived red-faced and furious.
“Lawyer’s meeting,” Caldwell snapped, directing a finger at Alex. “He has no business here.”
“His presence is necessary to establish the provenance of the tapes,” MP answered very nicely. “This is a hearing, not a trial.
What do you say, Your Honor?”
“That might be a good idea,” Willis answered, still a little shocked by what he had heard.
“That’s clearly an illegal, inadmissible tape,” Caldwell snapped, at the judge, at MP, at anybody in earshot.
“To the contrary,” MP argued in a voice dripping with phony confidence, “it’s legal and quite admissible.”
“Was it taped with the consent of the conversants?” Caldwell demanded.
“That’s American law,” MP replied with a smug smile, trying to bluff his way through.
Alex quickly interjected. “This tape was made in Russia. Russians are allowed to tape and wiretap to their heart’s content.
No law bans it. In fact, it’s our national pastime.”
Caldwell had no idea whether that was true or not. “Your Honor, please,” he pleaded, “it’s blatantly inadmissible. Obviously
the product of a wiretap.”
His Honor looked at MP. “Well?”
“Yesterday, the prosecution introduced into evidence a wiretap provided by the Russian chief prosecutor. It concerned the
supposed activities of Orangutan Media. I didn’t challenge him on whether the tape was the product of a legal warrant, and
am now dismayed that he’s even making this argument. He established the precedent. I should be accorded equal latitude.”
“Do you have more tapes, Mr. Konevitch?”
“About twenty here. Another fifty or so in a safe-deposit box.” “Are you requesting to play all of them?”
“Not at all,” Alex replied. “My wife and I picked out the most damning ones.”
“These are all conversations between Tromble and this lady?”
“No, just one more of those,” MP insisted, borrowing a bit of Alex’s confidence. “I’d love to play it. It’s the one where
Tromble brags to this lady about all the terrible prisons he’s sending Alex to. He promises her that he will keep my client
suffering until he snaps, until he begs to be returned to Russia.”
“And what material’s on the rest of the tapes?”
“Tatyana Lukin had two… well, I guess you’d call them business partners.”
“Go on.”
“Nicky Kozyrev, a notorious syndicate chief. This is a guy with Interpol and Russian police records long enough to stock a
library. And General Sergei Golitsin, a former KGB deputy director hired by Alex as his corporate chief of security.”
“These are phone conversations?”
“Some,” Alex replied. “Most were captured as the three of them sat in back of a fancy limousine.”
“And their role in this affair?”
It was time for the lawyers to take over, and MP answered, “Glad you asked. They stole Alex’s money and his companies. Then
they framed him. Then they orchestrated his persecution here.”
“And these tapes prove those accusations?”
“I’ll leave that for you to decide.”
“And how did you come by these tapes?”
“My client.”
“And how did you acquire them?” he asked, peering now at Alex.
“I hired a private detective. He did the taping and sent them to me.”
After a moment of quiet consideration, the judge suggested, “Let me tell you what worries me, Mr. Jones. For all I know, your
client had those tapes produced by actors.”
It was Matt Rivers’s turn at bat and he opened with a mighty swing. “My firm had the tapes analyzed over the weekend by a
reputable laboratory. A clip of Tromble doing a TV interview was compared against the tape you just heard. Perfect match.
Identical voice print. That analysis is included in our submission.”
“I see.”
“Also, they compared Miss Lukin’s voice from the tape you just heard against the remaining tapes. It’s her speaking to Tromble,
and it’s her speaking with her co-conspirators.”
“And these tapes are in Russian?”
Matt’s turn again. “We hired three actors to role-play in English. We’re submitting the originals as well. You can check the
accuracy of the translations if you wish. No expense was spared. They’re quite good.”
Matt couldn’t wait for the judge to plow through them. The actors were professionals, used by New York publishers to make
audiobooks. Over a very busy weekend, they rehearsed together for hours. Not only did they reproduce the conversations with
passion, conviction, and fluidity, but they captured the small but important details that add a certain verisimilitude. The
sounds of Nicky’s furious snorts. The menace in Golitsin’s voice. The woman who did Tatyana was nothing short of spectacular,
a purr so spot-on you could almost picture her seductiveness.
Caldwell looked like a whipped dog. It was obvious which way the judge was leaning. His case was falling apart before his
eyes. He could do nothing to prevent it. The sad truth was, he was dying to hear the tapes himself.
The judge said, “I want to hear them in my chambers before I decide. I expect both of you want to be present,” he said, looking
at the lawyers, then at Alex. “Not you. This is a matter for lawyers to hash out.”
Three minutes later, court was adjourned until further notice. The solemn-faced judge issued one last ominous instruction:
Tromble would be present when the court reconvened. It was an unchristian sentiment, and he felt mildly guilty about it, but
Tromble had done him no favors, and he fully intended to repay it.
The judge and lawyers disappeared to his chambers. The reporters straggled out to join their colleagues on the front steps
where they would share the incredible events of the morning and file as much as they could before court reconvened. Within
minutes, the legal talking heads were back in the studios, on the air, sharing updates, squawking away, and shoving opinions
and predictions at whoever cared to listen. The opinions were divided and, hotly debated.
Half thought the judge might make a rare exception since this was, after all, only a habeas corpus hearing, where the benefit
of the doubt normally leaned toward the accused. The other half claimed the defense didn’t have a prayer.
Court reconvened four hours later. The reporters were notified and they bickered and fought with one another for choice seats,
or even standing room at the crowded rear of the room. Would the judge allow that first tape? If so, what was on the others?
And the big question of the day was, how screwed was John Tromble, director of the FBI? The sense of curiosity was running
at fever pitch. The studios were screaming for updates the moment a decision was rendered.
With grim faces, the lawyers marched out and fell into their chairs. Alex was led back to the defense table after four long
hours of cooling his heels in a holding cell. He had, however, showered, shaved, trimmed his own hair, and changed into a
respectable suit and tie. The time had come, he decided, to present a before-and-after shot for the viewers.
And the contrast between the downtrodden criminal and this towering, clean-cut, handsome man at the table was indeed striking.
You saw what they did to me, his old self screamed—now look at what I was before the power of the state fell on my head.
The side door opened. Willis hefted his robes and walked up to his bench. He appeared sad, furious, shaken, and slightly nervous.
Court was brought to order and things settled down quickly. Willis stared at the ceiling for a long moment, his usual habit
before rendering his decisions. A powerfully affecting moment—the former priest searching for guidance and wisdom from on
high. Tromble, by contrast, looked perfectly miserable, squirming in his seat, unable to get comfortable.
The eyes came down. “After listening to all the tapes and giving the issue due consideration, I’ve decided to accept the tapes
into evidence.”
Alex leaned far back into his chair. Elena actually released a squeal of joy.
But as the court had heard only one tape, the significance of this decision was mysterious. The reporters remained mute.
He looked at Alex. “Sir, will you please stand?”
MP squeezed Alex’s arm. The “sir” seemed to be a good sign. He stood.
“Let me begin by expressing my deepest apologies.” Willis adjusted his robes and paused briefly. “Let me add a strong personal
recommendation. I expect you and your attorney to file a civil suit against the FBI and Department of Justice. You have been
wronged, sir. No amount of money will make up for it but it won’t hurt, either.”
Tromble was seated in his chair, struggling to square the competing demands of appearing confident and powerful while trying
also to be completely invisible.