A Far Justice (10 page)

STOP AMERICAN WAR CRIMES NOW

Hank glanced at the TV on the far wall and then back to the crowd below him. It was a strange sensation. He had a bird’s-eye view of the entire scene while focusing on the details as seen by the cameraman. Unfortunately, he had no idea what the Dutch commentator was saying but a gut instinct warned him that it did not match reality from his vantage point. He heard Aly gasp and turned around. She was staring at the TV.

“The photographs,” she whispered. The cameraman had focused on the huge photographs a group of demonstrators were holding above their heads. “They’re horrible.”

Hank’s stomach turned as highly detailed images of the six photographs cycled across the TV screen. “What are they saying?” he asked.

Aly translated. “This is the carnage from the Highway of Death. This is what Tyler did when he dropped prohibited weapons on innocent civilians. This is why the world is outraged.” She pointed at the photo that depicted a desert landscape littered with dismembered and incinerated bodies and burnt-out vehicles. “What did that? Napalm?”

“CBUs,” Jason said. “Cluster bomb units, not napalm. They’re explosive, not incendiary. The fires were caused by gas tanks the CBUs set off.”

“Oh, dear God,” she whispered. The image of the inside of a tank filled the screen. The interior was coated with what looked like a thick tomato soup mixed with large chunks of beef and bones.

“Dad didn’t do that,” Jason said. “Most likely a thirty-millimeter round with a depleted uranium warhead from an A-10 hit the tank. The projectile is so dense and hits the outside of the armor with so much velocity that a massive shock wave travels through the armor and is reflected off the inside surface that flakes off bits of metal. That’s the result.”

They all winced when the next photo cycled on the screen. Dismembered bodies littered the ground around a destroyed vehicle. “Most likely a direct hit by a 500-pound Mark-82 on a personnel carrier,” Jason explained.

A bitter, coppery taste flooded Hank’s mouth. “Gus?”

“Possible,” Jason conceded.

“I can’t believe Dad could do something like that,” Aly said.

Hank walked over to the window and stared down on the crowd. “Yeah, he probably did,” he finally said.

Aly joined Jason and held his hand. “What kind of world do we live in where good, decent men do things like that?” she asked.

“Gus didn’t do it by choice,” Hank explained. Below him, the crowd was growing larger by the minute.

“Oh,” Aly said, still looking at the TV. She ran to the window where Hank was standing. “Over there, next to the wall.” She pointed to a lone demonstrator holding a placard next to his face. “I saw him at the airport when I picked up Gus. He claimed he was there.”

Hank’s eyes drew into narrow squints as he studied the man below him. Even at a distance, he could see his horribly scared face. “Aly, can you get his name?” She hurried out of the room with Jason. Hank watched from the window as Jason emerged from the building and bulldozed his way through the crowd with Aly in his wake. They reached the demonstrator and Aly spoke to him. It was obvious the man recognized her. She handed him a business card and Jason escorted her to safety. They were back in the office within minutes.

“His name is Uwe Reiss,” she told them. “He’s from Belgium.”

“Tallyho the fox,” Hank said. “You’re looking at the second witness for the prosecution.”

Aly changed the TV channel to BBC World News. Scenes of similar demonstrations from every capital in Europe but Warsaw and Prague cycled across the screen. A woman newsreader announced that the recently released photos of “The true destruction on the Highway of Death has outraged Europe, and the demonstrations demanding justice have even reached the United States.” A scene of a large demonstration in San Francisco flashed on the screen.

“The Bezerkelies are at it again,” Hank said. The scene on the TV changed to a bigger demonstration in Washington D.C. “This is not good,” he murmured. “Okay troops, it’s late and time to knock off for the day. Jason, why don’t you and Aly go see your dad and keep him company? Maybe call home?”

Jason stared at his cell phone. “Sorry, Dad. No one’s home and Michelle isn’t answering her cell phone. Hopefully, she’ll call back while we’re still here.”

Gus paced the floor of his cell, five paces up, five back. “She’s probably out shopping.” But they knew that was not true. Michelle never left Clare alone and a nurse, or one of her boys, would have answered the phone. “How’s it going?”

“It’s too soon to be sure,” Aly told him. “But Hank seems very confident.”

“How are they treating you?” Jason asked, deliberately changing the subject.

“The Dutch? No complaints. They leave the cell door open all the time and I’ve got the run of the halls. I’ve met most of the guards. Nice guys.” He perked up. “One of them has a brother who flew F-16s for the Dutch Luftwaffe. He’s one of the Dutch pilots who shot down those Serbian fighters in 1999.”

Aly was shocked. “The war over Kosovo? I knew we were there with NATO but we didn’t shoot down any of their airplanes.”

“Yeah, you did,” Gus replied. His tone was relaxed and upbeat. “Two of them.”

“Why didn’t we hear about it?”

“I don’t know. But I’d be very proud of what they did.”

The cell phone rang and Jason punched it up. Michelle’s face appeared on the screen. “I just got your message. I had to take Mom to the emergency room and they don’t allow cell phones inside.”

Jason handed the phone to Gus. “What’s going on, Pumpkin?”

“Oh, Dad, Mom’s really bad. I don’t know …” Her voice trailed off.

“It’s okay, darlin’. Just do what you have to. Tell her that I love her and will get home as soon as I can.”

“I’ve got to get back inside. I’ll call as soon as I learn anything.”

“I love you, Pumpkin.” Gus punched off the call and resumed his pacing. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

EIGHT

The Hague

Hank looked up from his desk Friday morning when a very sober and rigid
Melwin presented himself for inspection. Hank waved the Irishman to a chair. “Come on in.”

“Professor Sutherland, I don’t know how to thank you.”

Hank smiled. “Don’t even bother.” He sank back into his chair. “I prefer Hank. Okay if I call you Alex?” Melwin nodded in answer. “Alex, you can help us in a very specific way. Once the trial starts, I want you to raise every legal issue in the book and question everything. If someone even breathes ‘universal jurisdiction’…” Hank deliberately let his voice trail off to see how the Irishman would respond.

“Ah,” Melwin said, “
quasi delicta juris gentium.”

“I believe the correct term is
ratione bullshitus
.”

Melwin tried to smile, but couldn’t manage it. “That is not a legal term I am familiar with. But universal jurisdiction is certainly the court’s strangest excursion into unknown legal territory, and, I might add, totally beyond its charter.” His voice grew sad. “Crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide – the curse of our civilization. And we can’t seem to stop any of it. But for the first time, the court offers a chance to prosecute those responsible.”

Hank urged him on. “And?”

“While it denies it, the court is determined to impose its jurisdiction on states that are not parties to the Rome Statute. Such an over-reach of authority will cause a reaction. At what cost to the court, I don’t know, but I do fear for its very survival. And, as you have learned, the court is easily manipulated by the prosecutor, which only compounds the problem.”

“Alex, we’re going to get on fine.” He tossed Melwin the official translation of Toby’s statement. “What do you make of this?”

“I am familiar with this. It is what you Yanks call ‘the smoking gun,’ and will prove to the court’s satisfaction that Colonel Tyler knew there were civilians in the convoy when he bombed it. Now all the prosecutor has to prove is that his bombs killed one civilian.”

“It will never see the light of day in court,” Hank promised.

“Unfortunately, there’s a good chance it will. There’s an over-looked provision buried in Article Sixty-eight of the Rome Statute that states evidence can be presented by electronic or other special means in order to protect victims or witnesses.”

“Lovely,” Hank muttered. “The good Reverend is caught up in a nasty little civil war in the Sudan. Does that mean if he can’t get out, the prosecution can enter his statement as evidence?”

“It has never been tested in court, but it would appear so.”

“Son of a bitch!” Hank roared. “What happened to the defendant’s right to examine the witnesses against him in court? There’s no way they could get away with that in the States.”

“Pesky thing, your Constitution,” Melwin murmured.

“Gus swears that Person would never say anything like that.” Hank paced the floor. “But he knew Person twenty years ago. Who knows where he’s coming from these days. Maybe he believes they really did know there were civilians in the convoy.”

“Maybe they did know,” Melwin said, playing devil’s advocate. “The court is required to produce the witnesses, if it can. But it has no power to subpoena them, and as the prosecutor has Person’s sworn statement, there may be a certain lack of urgency.”

“And if we also call Person as a witness?”

“Ah,” Melwin replied, “that might increase their sense of urgency. But if Person appears and verifies his earlier statement, it would become his word against Colonel Tyler’s. The question then becomes, which witness would play better with the court?”

“I’d rather take my chances getting the statement excluded.”

“It is a conundrum,” Melwin said.

“Think about it,” Hank said. “Anyway, here’s the game plan. We’re going to question every aspect of the court that we can. I want to hear the judges’ sphincter muscles snapping shut every time you stand up. The court is on trial, not Gus.”

“And if we destroy the court in the process?” Melwin asked.

“Then it would have happened anyway. All we did was speed it up.”

A knock at the door interrupted them. Aly entered carrying a heavy file box and a letter. “The prosecutor sent these down,” she told them. “Its Gus’s Air Force records.”

Hank quickly thumbed through the file box. “How in hell did she get these?”

“More germane,” Melwin replied, “is why did she send them down now? She’s had these for weeks. I had assumed all this had been forwarded to you.”

Instinctively, Hank knew the answer. The firewall on the prosecutor’s computer had alarmed when it was penetrated but if Cassandra’s masters were half as good as he suspected, no one at the ICC would ever backtrack the intruder. However, Denise had assumed, correctly, that Hank was the guilty culprit. She was playing cover-up in case he had discovered a reference to Gus’s personnel files. “So what else does she have?”

“I need to go through it in detail,” Melwin said, “but I believe this is all.”

Aly handed Hank the letter. “They’ve added two more names to their witness list.”

Hank read the letter. “I’ll be damned. She’s calling General Davis Armiston.” Hank’s fingers drummed a tattoo on his desk. The implications of a retired United States Air Force four-star general testifying for the prosecution were staggering. “The other one, Nativadad Gomez, I’ve never heard of.”

Cassandra’s voice was there, filling his ear. “Nativadad Gomez is a naturalized American citizen who works for the Air Force in the Personnel Center at Randolph Air Force Base.” She paused. “By the way, we think the prosecutor turned over Colonel Tyler’s personnel files because they know their computers were penetrated.” There was an embarrassed silence. “We’re working on that one.”

Hank considered his next move. “Aly, please notify the prosecutor that we’re adding another name to our witness list; James Cannon, Colonel, United States Air Force, Retired. If we can find him. Don’t tell them that last bit.”

Aly and Hank waited in the corridor outside the cell to give Gus some privacy while he called home on Hank’s cell phone. Aly leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. “It’s wearing him down,” she said. “He’s more like a caged animal everyday.”

“At least he can call home,” Hank said.

Her eyes opened, full of tears. “It’s not helping.”

Gus came to the door and handed Hank his cell phone. “The doctors want to keep her in the hospital for now.”

“Are you up to talking?” Hank asked.

Gus checked his watch. “I’ve got an appointment with the prison shrink in a few minutes. I can’t put her off any longer.”

They went inside and Hank closed the door. “We need to talk about Melwin. I’ve brought him on as second chair.” Gus’s head jerked and his eyes flared with anger. Hank held up a hand, holding the pilot’s anger in check. “I read a few of his opinions and went through his notes. His analysis of the prosecutor’s case and strategy was brilliant.”

“A lot of help that was,” Gus snapped.

“He was stymied by the system,” Hank replied. “But he knows how the ICC really works; who swings the big bat, who pisses on who, and how deals are cut behind chamber doors. But here’s the real kicker – the ICC is hanging its hat on the doctrine of universal jurisdiction. They see that as its future and it’s the only way they can justify the expense of maintaining the court. Apparently, Melwin is the only person on the ICC who openly questions the validity of universal jurisdiction.”

“So why didn’t he resign?” Aly asked.

“Because the ICC pays his salary,” Hank replied. “A damn good one, by the way. A gut feeling tells me that Alex is unemployable any place else.”

“Like most of the clowns there,” Gus said. “He’ll sell us out in a heartbeat.”

“I don’t think he will,” Hank said. “Never underestimate Du Milan. She figured out our strategy days ago so it doesn’t matter what Melwin might tell her.”

Gus checked his watch. “I’ve got to go.”

“We’ll talk later,” Hank said. “For now, write down everything you can remember about Jim Cannon and Davis Armiston.”

Gus’s anger flashed. “Armiston! He couldn’t fly the jet worth beans and only survived the Gulf War in ’91 because Toby was in his backseat. The Armiston I knew was infinite confidence and zero competence. He was all politics and the youngest general since World War II. He pinned on his fourth star the week he became SACEUR. Rumor had it he was a total bust.”

“Du Milan is calling him as a witness,” Hank said.

“Oh no,” Gus moaned. “He hates my guts.”

“Don’t go falling on your sword and doing pushups yet,” Hank cautioned. “Don’t be late for your appointment. We’ll talk tomorrow.” Aly hugged him and they left.

Gus sat for a few moments and forced his anger away. “Fuckin’ Armiston.” He stood up, stretched, and headed for his appointment with the prison’s psychiatrist. Hank’s interview on Dutch TV with Harm de Rijn had changed everything and he now had free access around the prison during the day. The only thing he couldn’t do was walk out the main gate. He found the office in the administration block and knocked. The door opened and he sucked in his breath. The young woman standing there was six inches shorter than him, with dark blonde, carelessly cut hair, and a trim figure. She was very attractive in an unconventional way and rippled with an undercurrent of sexuality.

“Please come in,” she said. “I’m Doctor Therese Derwent.” They shook hands in the formal European manner and she motioned at the two easy chairs arranged in a comfortable corner of the office. They sat down and she crossed her ankles as she picked up his case file. “I have been monitoring your progress here.”

“Progress?” he asked. “What human being makes progress caged like an animal?”

“Please forgive me, that was a poor choice of words. I am concerned with how you are adjusting to your confinement.”

“I’m adjusting to my confinement just fine.”

“Are you?” She picked up the remote control for the DVD. The TV came to life. “These are not in chronological order,” she explained. “But they do make more sense arranged this way.” A series of scenes showed Gus wandering the corridors gazing aimlessly at his surroundings. Then he was pacing his cell. From time to time, he paused and carefully examined an item. Nothing escaped his scrutiny. She flicked off the DVD and leaned forward to study his face for a few moments. “You’re planning to escape,” she announced. It wasn’t a question but a statement of fact. “Please don’t.”

“Now why would I want to do that?”

“I understand your wife is quite ill and in hospital.”

“I’m surprised you’re the least bit concerned.”

“May I see your right hand?” she asked. She took his hand with both of hers, and her touch was warm and soft. “Most of the residents here enjoy conjugal privileges. I know the tensions can build and become quite unbearable.”

“Are you offering yourself up for the cause?”

“Please, don’t be rude. But certain accommodations can be made.”

It was late that same afternoon and Hank was listening to the BCC when he first heard the announcement. The President of the ICC had named Gaston Bouchard, a Belgian, as the presiding judge for Gus’s trial. The other two judges would be announced at a later date. “What’s the bad news here?” he asked Cassandra.

“Gaston Bouchard is Belgium’s former ambassador to the UN and the leading proponent of the doctrine of universal jurisdiction. He is also rabidly anti-American.”

“Rabidly?” Hank asked.

“Like in junkyard dog,” Cassandra replied. “I have a very detailed file on him.”

Hank sat his percom on top of a printer and a lengthy file started to spit out. “Cassandra, I need a profile on the Reverend Tobias Person. The prosecution has a statement he made claiming that he and Gus knew there were civilians at Mutlah Ridge. Gus says he would never make such a claim but I want to know where Person is coming from.” He picked up the file on Bouchard. It was not good reading and he was still mulling over the implications when Aly buzzed him on the intercom. Bouchard had commanded his immediate presence in his offices on the top floor.

“Take the elevator to the seventh floor,” she told him, “and cross the fly bridge to the East Tower.” Based on what he had just read, Hank knew better than to delay and hurried for the elevator.

Bouchard’s outer office was a complete counterpoint to the rest of the ICC’s palace and reminded Hank of an antechamber he had seen at Versailles, Louis XIV’s palace outside Paris. As expected, he had to cool his heels for thirty minutes, allowing Bouchard to establish his preeminence. It was a game Hank could play but for now, respectful humility was the order of the day. “Nice tapestries,” he said to the receptionist. She responded with an icy stare and ignored him. He shrugged and tried to make himself comfortable in a chair not built for normal humans. He chalked it all up to ‘the treatment.’ He stood when Denise entered, certain the imperious Bouchard would immediately receive them. He was almost right.

“Leave all electrical devices with me,” the receptionist ordered.