The Last Justice (30 page)

A low buzz filled the room.

"Have we found the package in the searches of the SG's offices or McKenna's house?"

"No," Simon replied. "We're hoping it's at the anthrax screening center. We should know first thing in the morning. We're also confirming the delivery address with the messenger service. The company is closed for the night, but we're trying to track down the owner at home. If we can't reach him, we'll speak with them first thing in the morning."

"Nice work," Pacini said. "Keep on top of it."The audible sigh of relief on the speakerphone prompted a few smiles in the war room.

"Okay, now Mr. Nash," Pacini said. "Detective Assad, please report on our visit with our White House buddy, Brad Wentworth."

Assad reported on the morning meeting at the White House and contrasted it with the encounter an hour ago at Wentworth's Georgetown home. "Nash is connected both to McKenna and, potentially, to Black Wednesday. Nash's company, Nevel, was identified by McKenna as a case of interest in Black Wednesday because the case would have benefited from a delay caused by the assassinations. The longer the case dragged on, the more likely the company suing Nevel would be forced to settle because of its financial problems. Once the case settled, it would prevent the disclosure of e-mails written by Nash to the White House. The e-mails-"

"The e-mails," Pacini interrupted to head off Assad from disclosing their content to such a large group, "said some things that would reflect poorly on the administration, Nash, and possibly McKenna."

"But if McKenna was somehow helping Nash with Nevel, and the documents in that case implicated both McKenna and Nash, why would McKenna identify it as a case of interest to the commission?" said a voice from the back of the room.

No one answered.

"Let's move on. What about our other law clerkwith secrets-Mr. Pratt?" Pacini said, taking a little pleasure in Doug Pratt's troubles. "Which brings us to the most promising lead: the Hassan case."

The agent at the whiteboard wrote "PRATT/HASSAN" beside Nash's name.

"We believe Pratt was being paid by the Hassan brothers to help stall their case in the high court, and when Pratt left the court, they paid him to keep tabs on the Harrington law firm's hunt for assets. From Pratt's phone records, we've also connected him to TFI, an investigation firm. We've connected TFI, in turn, to the Hassan brothers."

The woman from Homeland Security said, "We've been looking into Task Force Investigator Group. It's a private investigation firm staffed mostly with former federal agents. That explains the sophisticated bugs we found at the law firm where Pratt worked. It may also explain the hidden cameras at the court, which got the shots of the justices. It's possible they were using the pictures to blackmail Chief Justice Kincaid and Justice Carmichael on the Hassan case. It's also possible that after Kincaid's death, Pratt, maybe working with TFI or a rogue employee of TFI, decided to use the pictures to extort some money from Kincaid's widow. There are several calls between Pratt and Liddy Kincaid. But another possible theory for that is that Liddy Kincaid hired Pratt or TFI to murder her husband and his lover."

"Who knew they were having so much fun over there?" an agent said, prompting light laughter.

Pacini was not in a mood for jokes, and said, "My gut on Carmichael is that she was clueless about the pictures. She also struck me as someone who would have come forward rather than betray the court. I don't know about the chief justice. Is there anything to the fact that we believe that he may not have been a target of the shooter? The shooter was a skilled marksman, and it just doesn't jibe that he missed the chief."

A low murmur filled the room, but no one spoke up with any theories.

"Anything turn up at TFI's offices?" Pacini asked. "Did we roust any of these S-O-Bs yet?"

"Tonight we executed a warrant on their offices," the Homeland agent said. "They must have known we were coming. Their files were shredded. As for rousting, I got word twenty minutes ago that the three principals of the agency are currently on a plane to London."

"I want them held when they land," Pacini barked. "Contact our people in London to make it happen."

"Already done," the agent replied.

Pacini pointed to the young agent scribbling at the whiteboard. "I want to be on the next plane to Heathrow." The agent nodded.

"All these secrets," Pacini growled, "and we're still left with little more than a goddamn mark on the shooter's neck." He gave terse orders to the FBI team members and was only slightly more diplomatic with those from other agencies.' seeing Assad talking on a cell phone, he went over and interrupted him.

"Want to come with me to London?" he asked.

Assad cupped the phone with his hand, looking conflicted. It was Milstein. She was crying. Her father was dead.

Midnight Taft Memorial, Washington,

t midnight, McKenna and Kate huddled under a blue tarp on the lawn surrounding the Taft Memorial, a small patch of grass with a towering stone monument at its center. Rain pattered against the tarp, which Kate had bought at a twenty-four-hour CVS drugstore nearby.

They had chosen the site because, though it was only a short walk from the Supreme Court Building, the police were unlikely to notice them here, given the numbers of homeless people in the area. They had exhausted nearly all leads, and their last hope was to check the solicitor general's office in the Supreme Court for the package. Aside from the main office in the Justice Department building, the SG also had an office at the high court. It was little used, so perhaps the agents had missed it.

McKenna knew it was a long shot, and he sat under their makeshift tent, lost in thought. It was over, and he needed to find a way to spare Kate from the consequences of helping him.

"What are you thinking about?" Kate asked.

McKenna exhaled. "I'm thinking of how sorry I am for everything."

"I knew the risks," Kate replied absently. She stared out at the Supreme Court Building, portions of which were visible through the windswept branches of the trees surrounding the memorial.

"Remember your first argument at the court?" she asked, deliberately changing the subject.

"How could I forget? That argument confirmed all the bad things everyone was saying about me," he added, referring to the beating he took in the legal press about his lack of experience for the job as solicitor general.

"Don't be modest," Kate said.

"Oh, and you weren't secretly hoping I'd crash and burn during that oral argument?"

"Maybe a little," she said, grinning. "But not after the argument."

'The case involved the right of students to express their religious beliefs on public school grounds. The litigation started when a school district suspended a little boy for passing out cupcakes at Christmastime with "JESUS LOVES You" written on them in frosting. McKenna had set forth the government's position, skillfully arguing that Johnny Cupcake, as the media had dubbed the boy, had just as much right to express himself as anyone else, so long as the school didn't endorse it.

"After that argument, I knew Winter had made the right decision in appointing you," Kate said. "So did the justices."

"I'm not sure you're recalling the same argument. I seem to remember the justices being pretty hard on me."

"Yes, but you handled it with such ease and grace. I loved your Harlan quote in response to Justice Wade's suggestion that your arguments were inconsistent."

McKenna smiled. In response to a pointed question, with perfect timing and delivery, he had said, "As for your consistency point, Justice Wade, I'm reminded of a quote from John Marshall Harlan: `Let it be said that I am right rather than consistent.' But with due respect, here I believe the government is both right and consistent."

"Don't be impressed," McKenna said. "It was a canned line I had already rehearsed."

"No, it wasn't."

"I actually remember that argument for another reason," he said, his tone more serious. "It was my little boy. With everything we were going through at the time, watching him slowly slip away from us, it offended me that the court was wasting its time on a silly issue that the kids in that classroom couldn't have cared less about. They just wanted the cupcakes."

Kate squeezed his hand.

They were startled by a man in a dirty winter coat, carrying a backpack, who hurried past. "Better move-cops are doin' a sweep."

They jumped to their feet, and McKenna grabbed Kate's hand and began leading her toward the Supreme Court Building. The rain was now coming down hard.

"I know somewhere we can go for the night," he said, not looking back.

They ran past the Supreme Court Building's majestic front entrance, down First Street, taking the first left onto East Capitol. He led them to a line of brick row houses, stopped at one, and opened a low iron gate. On the gate, an engraved brass plaque proclaimed, "SUPREME COURT HISTORICAL SOCIETY."They walked quickly down the brick path to the front door.

"You're not going to break in?"

"Nope. Your brother's not the only person who's ever locked himself out. I know Sullivan's got a key hidden around here," McKenna said as he looked under the front mat and searched the ground near the door.

Following his lead, Kate reached up and slid her fingers across a sill above the door. A key clinked down on the bricks.

McKenna smiled and picked it up. He turned the key and opened the door slowly, only to be greeted by a loud succession of beeps.

"Shit, it's alarmed!" he said, looking around the room for a keypad as the beeps grew louder and closer together.

"Here!" Kate said. She was in a room near the front door, which had a large table and bookshelves stacked with biographies of justices and other books about the Supreme Court.

McKenna went to the keypad. The beeps were accelerating. "What would Sully use for a pass code?" he said, talking more to himself than to Kate. "Wait!" he barked. "What year did John Marshall become chief justice?"

The director of the society was an affable fellow named John Marshall Sullivan. He loved to talk about the court and play chess on a set that had belonged to his favorite justice, John Marshall, for whom he was named. McKenna had struck up a quick friendship with him when Sullivan invited him to dinner after his appointment as solicitor general.

"In 1801, I think," Kate said.

McKenna punched in the numbers, but the beeping continued.

"Try 1803," she blurted, "the date of Marbury v. Madison," referring to Marshall's most famous decision.

McKenna punched in the numbers, and the beeping stopped. Cold and dripping wet, they both caught their breath.

"Don't turn on any lights," McKenna said. "The neighbors may get alarmed since no one's usually here past five o'clock."

As Kate made some cocoa she had found in the kitchen area of the restored row house offices, McKenna lit a fire in the fireplace of a sitting room. Kate came into the room with two mugs and a blanket she had appropriated from a staffer's office.

"Where should we sit?" she asked.

"The floor, I think. It would kill Sully if we sat wet on any of his beloved antique furniture."

They sat on the floor, close to the fire, with the dancing flames the only source of light.

"This is much better than outside," Kate said, leaning against him.

After sitting in silence, letting the mugs warm their cold hands, she turned to McKenna. "The truth is going to come out, and this will all be cleared up," she said, as if to convince herself as much as McKenna.

He looked at her. "You deserve better than me, you know. I was wrong to keep you at a distance. If I could go back.. ."

"It's not as if it's too late," Kate said.

it is."

"No, the truth-"

"Stop, Kate," he said firmly. He hesitated for a moment, then said, "I need to tell you something."

Kate looked at him intently. "What is it?"

McKenna hesitated.

"What is it, Jefferson?" she asked again with a tone of desperation.

"I took the bribe."

It hung in the air. Before Kate had time to fully process the words, he added, "Our insurance wouldn't cover the biological therapy Colin needed. It was expensive-considered experimental-and our only hope. We tried to get him into a clinical trial, but the wait was too long. My government salary was low, and Isabel had taken time off work to stay home with him. He wasn't responding to the other treatments. Nash knew, and he preyed on that."