The Accused (31 page)

“Oh, by the way, Hilda gave me this runout that Dr. Redgrove just e-mailed. This is for you.”

And with that Jacki handed him a ten-page document from his co-counsel and friend.

As his associate started to leave, she turned and tossed a final comment over her shoulder. “Keep marching, General. And keep your powder dry.”

So Will buzzed Hilda and asked her to start working with his travel agency to check flight plans to The Hague. The International Criminal Court had set a date for a plea hearing for the following week. Will would be required to be present then, standing next to his client.

He also asked her to contact Tiny Heftland and put him on the alert that his help would be needed on the war-crimes case. Then after further reflection, the attorney buzzed Hilda again and also instructed her to have the travel agency check into an immediate flight for him down to Mexico. Will needed a chance to confer with his client before the court appearance overseas. Topping the list of his many questions would be a thorough inquiry into why Caleb Marlowe was back in Mexico—and why he had been arrested.

Will grabbed a cup of coffee in one hand and Len Redgrove's memo in the other and sat down on the couch in his office to start absorbing some of the history of the International Criminal Court.

In his research paper, Redgrove explained that the concept of an international criminal tribunal had been long in the making. The UN had created ad hoc war-crimes bodies to investigate and try offenses against humanity in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. But those proceedings had been limited to specific conflicts that occurred in specific nation–states. And in those cases, the nation–states that were victims of the atrocities had requested the assistance of the UN in
manning a war-crimes judicial body to administer justice within their borders.

By contrast, the International Criminal Court was a free-standing, and permanent, judicial body. Its jurisdiction extended arguably around the world—even, under some circumstances, to nations, like the United States, that had neither ratified the enabling statute nor formally agreed to be bound by its terms.

However, in July of 2002 a sufficient number of nation–states had become signatories to the Rome Statute, and the ICC was created. President Bill Clinton, in the waning hours of his presidency, had signed his name in approval. President George W. Bush and an outraged Congress had quickly vacated America's consent. Then they had gone even further. Congress had passed a law authorizing the president to use military force, if necessary, to counteract any attempted intervention of the ICC into American military affairs overseas. President Bush had threatened to cease American participation in UN peacekeeping missions around the world unless United States military personnel received formal immunity from prosecution under the ICC. Clearly, the U.S. stood against the court.

But as Will discovered, while the nation of Mexico had not been one of the original signing parties to the Rome Statute, it had later ratified it—bringing Mexico within the direct jurisdiction of the ICC.

Deep in thought, Will let the memo fall to his lap. Then there was a knock at his door.

Hilda swept in and handed him a fax. At the top it had the seal of the ICC and the introductory paragraphs on the fax cover sheet were printed alternately in Dutch, French, Spanish, and English.

He flipped to the next page and saw an order, signed by the International Criminal Court, providing for the immediate extradition of Caleb Marlowe.

Will quickly fished through his file to locate the telephone number of the prison in Mexico City where Marlowe was being held. After connecting and wading through several jailers who spoke only broken English, he was connected to a federal police captain who was second in command for the jail. His English was good, but his information was disheartening.

“Señor Chambers,” he reported nonchalantly, “your client—Mr. Caleb Marlowe, prisoner number X34T2—was transferred from this
facility late last night. Mr. Marlowe, as an international war-crimes accused, is being transported to a detention facility in The Hague, Netherlands.”

The attorney thanked the police captain and hung up the phone. Then he told Hilda not to bother with the flight to Mexico.

So,
Will thought to himself,
this is it
.
The battle has been joined.

49

W
ARREN
M
ULLBURN PUSHED HIMSELF
away from the Louis XIV desk and turned to the ornate table in this, his “small” study. He walked over to the floor-to-ceiling French doors that opened onto a third story balcony. Through the windows, he took in the view of the snowcapped Alps of Switzerland.

There was a discreet tap at his door. He gave the servants leave to enter, and a butler and serving maid brought in his lunch on a silver tray. They placed it on the table, bowed deferentially, and left.

Mullburn strolled over to the table, lifted the silver tray cover, and beheld his chef's creation for the day—a seafood salad, with fruits picked earlier that week on the island of Bali, and giant lobster caught off the tip of South Africa and flown in to his palace the day before. Also on the tray was a large china bowl of soup—a special bisque made from fresh tomatoes grown in the dry heat of Sicily.

Seating himself and spreading the linen-and-silk napkin across his lap, the billionaire pushed a button under the table, and a computer screen rose slowly from the tabletop. He pushed another button, and a panel retracted, displaying a keyboard with a smaller screen above it that showed a constant readout of oil prices in every market on the globe. Touching the keyboard, he booted up his link with a global geological map. As he scrolled down on the screen, the map holographically displayed, in concentric array, areas in the world where petroleum exploration was underway—not only Mullburn's, but that of every competing enterprise. In fact, it displayed any kind of survey project with any oil potential at all, going on anywhere in the world.

Mullburn tapped the keyboard again, and a small subscreen popped up that read:

LAST ENTRY UPDATED 1.24 HOURS BEFORE DATA RETRIEVAL

The billionaire employed dozens of scientists and technology spotters who performed covert surveillance on each area of oil exploration in the world. Using his newly developed software, they would report back several times each day, updating his global screen—usually with satellite photography of production sites, confidential information on production volumes, and intelligence on contract negotiations and joint-venture agreements, both existing and in process, for each site.

The oil magnate paused, and then tapped the keys until the holographic globe spun slowly. He stopped the projection at North and South America and then zoomed in on the Mexico project. When he clicked on “view,” an image of the offshore oil project gradually came into view. He tapped down for a closer look, and the image enlarged to a close-up on the deep-water drilling structure. Today, Warren Mullburn would spend the afternoon assessing each of his competitors' projects and then comparing them to the golden egg—Global Petroleum/Nuevo Petróleo Nacional de México—a subsidiary of New Century Oil.

He minimized his global survey map and brought up a small screen that said:

SOCIOLOGICAL AND GEOPOLITICAL FACTORS IMPACTING THE PROJECT—

• Senate Select Subcommittee on the American Response to Terrorism in Mexico/Chairman—Senator Jason Bell Purdy (first term—Georgia)

• Economic Summit of the Americas (date pending—was rescheduled)

• Federal Elections (National) within Mexico

• International Criminal Court—in Re: The Matter of Caleb Marlowe, Accused

He clicked on the International Criminal Court bullet point. A display of the specifics of the case appeared on the screen. He then clicked on the category “Defense Counsel.”

The information flashed on his screen.

WILL CHAMBERS, ESQ./MONROEVILLE, VIRGINIA

Co-counsel: Dr. Len Redgrove, University of Virginia Law School, Charlottesville, VA

Mullburn eyed the screen. Then, from his solid-silver spoon, he took a sip of the tomato bisque.

“Mr. Chambers,” he muttered after he had swallowed, “you continue to be a fly in my soup.”

50

I
T WAS LATE
. T
HE GRANDFATHER CLOCK
had chimed the quarter-hour several times since Will had climbed quietly out of bed and padded into the large front room with its high, timbered ceilings, exposed log walls, and massive stone fireplace. But he didn't bother to look at the time on the face of the clock. He knew it was now just a few hours before dawn would start showing up over the distant Blue Ridge Mountains. When the gray of first light would filter, dimly, through the windows of the big log house.

He and Fiona had had a good evening together. Because Will would be a flying to The Hague the next day, they had both left for home early—he from the office, and she from a meeting with her business agent about concert contracts.

At home Fiona cooked a magnificent beef Wellington. Then after dinner they watched some of the news on television, then took a stroll in the full moonlight along the path that wound its way through the woods toward the hills in back of their house.

They talked again about how God had brought them together—and laughed about their first awkward dinner together in Baltimore at Luigi's. The dinner had followed one of Fiona's concerts, where she had invited Will to listen backstage. He had often recalled this memory of her lilting, passionate voice—and how, even though separated from the thousands in the audience before her, Fiona had seemed to embrace them personally with a sense of warmth and authenticity. That was the first time she had come alive as a person to him—dazzled him.

On their walk through the woods, which were illuminated so brightly by the moon that the trees cast shadows, he recalled to his wife another concert—one that she had ended with an a cappella rendition
of “Amazing Grace.” He related how hearing her sing the words of that hymn—the idea of once being lost but then being found—had moved him in a way he had found surprising, even overwhelming. Fiona had never heard that story before—at least not about “Amazing Grace.”

After their walk the two went to bed early because of Will's flight the next day.

But then something startled Will out of his sleep. In his mind there had been an attacker who was pursuing a woman. The woman had been walking calmly, not seeing her pursuer rushing at her from behind. It had not been Audra. He thought deeply about the meaning of the face of the woman in his dream. No, this time the nightmare had not been about his murdered first wife. This time the face of the woman had been very different.

This time, the woman had been Fiona.

Will had bolted up from bed so quickly that he didn't have time to catch his breath. Fiona was still sound asleep next to him, so he had walked quietly into the great room and sat down in the leather chair that looked out over their front acreage and the long driveway down the hill. He decided he would sit there and pray quietly, and wait for the dawn.

Then he felt a hand touch his left shoulder gently.

He turned and saw his wife's face, still sleepy, but concerned.

“What is it?” she asked, putting her hands on both of his shoulders.

“A dream. You were being pursued by someone. You were being threatened. So I woke up—and couldn't get back to sleep,” Will explained. “I'm okay now. It's nothing, I guess.”

Fiona brushed the hair back from his forehead and put her hands on both sides of his face.

“Talk to me. Tell me everything. Don't minimize this. Don't brush it aside.”

“Okay. So—you know me pretty well by now. I try not to let my emotions rule my judgment. But I can't shake this feeling of fore-boding…this feeling there's some kind of catastrophe approaching. I can't pinpoint it. I can't even put a name to it. I don't know whether it's you…or us…or something beyond our marriage and our life together. It's just this feeling I can't shake. I'm sorry. I didn't want to wake you up.”

She shook her head and smiled.

“You and I are split from the same atom,” Fiona said. “Things that you're dealing with—they're important to me.”

Will tried to cover up a big yawn, and they both laughed.

After a few minutes of chatting about his flight, whether he had packed everything, and when they would next connect by telephone, they both rose to go back to bed.

“You know, maybe you should move in with your father while I'm gone,” Will suggested. “Just to be safe.”

“Safe from what?” Fiona replied casually. “I'll be perfectly all right. Absolutely safe.”

“It's just that…thinking about you alone in the house. I just don't feel real easy about that.”

“And what about the trip you took down to Mexico?” she asked. “You didn't give it a second thought then. And I was fine. Please don't worry about me.”

They slipped under the cool sheets of the feather bed. The darkness outside was now fading, giving way to a gray light. Fiona rolled over next to Will, tenderly wrapped her arms around him, and then kissed him sweetly and gently on the lips. The moment was fleeting, but perfect—the mingling of best friends, lovers, and kindred souls.