Stuart eased his tone now that he had the upper hand. It was time for magnanimity. "You agreed. I didn't say anything. The government committed a gross violation of my clients' constitutional rights. A simulated execution constitutes mental torture at the very least. It's sure as hell illegal. You have to put these two guys on the stand to make your case, and I'll crucify those Coast Guard sailors when you do. It might be enough to impeach everything they say. You never know what a jury's going to think, do you?"
"They might just stand up and cheer, too," Davidoff answered warily.
"That's the chance, isn't it? One way to find out. We try the case." Stuart replaced the player in his briefcase. "Still want an early trial date? With this as background information I can attack your chain of evidence - after all, if they were crazy enough to pull this number, what if my clients claim that they were forced to masturbate to give you the semen samples that you told the papers about, or were forced to hold the murder weapons to make prints - I haven't yet discussed any of those details with them, by the way - and I link all that in with what I know about the victim? I think I have a fighting chance to send them home alive and free." Stuart leaned forward, resting his arms on Davidoff's desk. "On the other hand, as you say, it's hard to predict how a jury'll react. So what I'm offering you is, they plead guilty to twenty years' worth of whatever charge you want, with no unseemly recommendation from the judge about how they have to serve all twenty - so they're out in, say, eight years. You tell the press that there's problems with the evidence, and you're pretty mad about that, but there's nothing you can do. My clients are out of circulation for a fairly long time. You get your conviction but nobody else dies. Anyway, that's my deal. I'll give you a couple of days to think it over." Stuart rose to his feet, picked up his briefcase, and left without another word. Once outside, he looked for the men's room. He felt an urgent need to wash his hands, but he wasn't sure why. He was certain that he'd done the right thing. The criminals - they really were criminals - would be found guilty, but they wouldn't die in the electric chair - and who knows, he thought, maybe they'll straighten out. That was the sort of lie that lawyers tell themselves. He wouldn't have to destroy the careers of some Coast Guard types who had probably stepped over the line only once and would never do so again. That was something he was prepared to do, but didn't relish. This way, he thought, everybody won something, and for a lawyer that was as successful an exercise as you generally got. But he still felt a need to wash his hands.
For Edwin Davidoff, it was harder. It wasn't just a criminal case, was it? The same electric chair that would deliver those two pirates to hell would deliver him to a suite in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Since he had read
On the other hand, what if he disregarded what Stuart had just told him and took the case to trial - and risked being remembered as the man who lost the case entirely. He might blame the Coast Guardsmen for what they had done - but then he would be sacrificing their careers and possibly their freedom on what altar? Justice? Ambition? How about revenge? he asked himself. Whether he won or lost the Pirates Case, those men would suffer even though what they had done had also given the government its strongest blow yet against the Cartel.
Drugs. It all came down to that. Their capacity to corrupt was like nothing he'd ever known. Drugs corrupted people, clouded their thoughts at the individual level, and ultimately ended their lives. Drugs generated the kinds of money to corrupt those who didn't partake. Drugs corrupted institutions at every level and in every way imaginable. Drugs corrupted whole governments. So what was the answer? Davidoff didn't have that answer, though he knew that if he ever ran for that Senate seat he'd prance about in front of the TV cameras and announce that he did - or at least part of it, if only the people of Alabama would trust him to represent them...
