TUCKER LINDSEY’S HAND SHOOK AS he poured himself a glass of water on the witness stand, spilling a little as he brought it to his lips. As his attorney, Bill Caulkin, took a break in the questioning to look over his notes, he hazarded a glance over at Karp, but quickly looked away as if he was a schoolboy who’d been caught doing something naughty. The cool reserve he’d always presented to the American public as the president’s national security adviser was a thing of the past, and Karp took note of it.
As trials went on, Karp studied how a defendant’s demeanor changed. It varied, of course, but generally, the weight of the evidence, particularly the defendant’s “inner secrets”—that evidence that the defendant believed would never be revealed—had the most profound effect on his mood. Without appearing to pay much attention, he watched how defendants interacted with their attorneys and sometimes, in a case such as this one, with their codefendants. He studied their body language, listened to their voices, and gauged their faces to see how they were sleeping or to search for the telltale signs of their being medicated.
Of the two defendants in this trial, Rod Fauhomme had exhibited the widest variety of behavioral changes. In the beginning, he manifested confidence and contempt for the charges brought against him and for Karp himself. He was constantly writing notes, many of which he’d pass to his attorney, as if directing his defense. His interaction with Lindsey was minimal but always with a macho, take-charge flair. But as the prosecution’s case had gone forward and the evidence against him—carefully laid out by Karp—mounted, and his attorney’s attempts at countering the prosecution were thrown back in her face, cracks appeared in his deportment, like the fissures in a dam about to give way. With each witness and every motion denied, anger, worry, and even fear would play across his face before he had a chance to control them.
By the time Karp rested the people’s case, Fauhomme’s florid countenance often had the look of a hunted animal. His eyes darted around and his smile looked more like a grimace. He frequently turned during breaks to glance back at the gallery, not as if he was searching for friendly faces but more like a deer looking for danger. He hardly spoke to his attorney, though he glared at her often, and he and his codefendant might as well have been sitting in different rooms for all the interaction they had.
Tucker Lindsey had also changed, but in a different way. He’d begun the trial as one might expect a national security adviser used to dealing with high stakes. He was cool and collected to the point where it often appeared that he was listening to an interesting discussion that hardly involved him. His body language indicated that he didn’t care at all for Fauhomme or have much faith in Faust, but more as if they were two people who didn’t matter to him than with any real acrimony. He’d occasionally leaned his head over to listen to Caulkin, but otherwise was basically as he was in life, haughtily self-assured.
However, as with Fauhomme, as the trial went on and the case against them piled up, the arrogant veneer gave way to fearful concern. Soon after Huff’s testimony he would sit through the entire proceedings with his head down and his hands on his lap or on the table in front of him, hardly moving except to pour a glass of water. The neatly coiffed hair and designer clothes gave way to a rumpled look, and sometimes he appeared to not have shaved. He’d grown noticeably thinner, with the hollows of his cheeks becoming more pronounced.
Karp noticed when he walked over to the defense table that if Lindsey looked up, it was with red-rimmed eyes, beneath which dark circles appeared as if painted on. His body language portrayed a man who heard the bell tolling his doom and had given up, or whose conscience was robbing him of sleep.
In the past, Karp had often seen defendants flag and take on the look of beaten men during the people’s case; after all, that’s when the deck would appear stacked against them. But then they would perk up when their attorneys began to present their case and at least appear to level the playing field. However, for Lindsey, the appearance of Ariel Shimon, who was followed by two more men who claimed they’d been blackmailed by Blair, Lee, and Baum—and had been as easily dispatched during cross-examination—had done little to change his deportment or appearance.
Karp had wondered if the defendants would take the stand and expose themselves to cross-examination. With all the trump cards in his advocacy arsenal, combined with his aggressive competitiveness, he hoped that one or both would try to challenge him.
After their last witness appeared the previous afternoon, the defense attorneys had put their heads together and then told Judge Hart that they’d like some time to confer with their clients over whether they’d appear on the stand. Hart had given them until the morning.
When court reconvened, Hart asked if they’d reached a decision, at which point Caulkin said he would be calling Lindsey but that Fauhomme had not yet decided. A few minutes later, with the jury seated, Lindsey stood, buttoned his suit coat, and then, like a man summoned to his execution who just wanted to get it over with, took a seat on the witness stand.
During the direct examination, Lindsey had toed the company line by testifying that much of the testimony from prosecution witnesses had been misinterpreted or taken out of context. “For instance, the event described by Miss Lee in which she walked in on a meeting among myself, Mr. Fauhomme, and Mr. Baum did happen,” he testified. “However, her chronology was inaccurate. We were actually discussing the president’s performance during the debate on foreign policy the previous week when one of my men interrupted us with a report he’d just received on the events that had been transpiring in Chechnya. We were watching a taped version of the aerial reconnaissance vehicle’s view of the events—not a real-time transmission. Miss Lee walked in on us after the recording was delivered and that’s what she saw.”
“What about her claim that she overheard Mr. Fauhomme exclaim something in regard to Al Qaeda?” Caulkin asked.
“To be honest,” Lindsey said, “I don’t remember him saying that in particular. However, my focus was on what was going on in Chechnya, and the safety of Americans, not who was responsible at that particular moment.”
“Can you explain why you were looking at a recording from the drone several hours after the attack as opposed to in real time?” Caulkin asked.
Lindsey shook his head slightly. “I’m afraid the man who can answer that is dead. The recording was delivered to us by General Allen’s agency.”
“Was it common for Mr. Fauhomme to be present during what had to be a top priority event for you?”
“Like I said, we were there discussing foreign policy as it applied to the campaign,” Lindsey said, looking over at his codefendant without much expression. “I needed to see what was going on and I was at Mr. Fauhomme’s office. However, it was not uncommon for him to sit in on foreign policy discussions. It was a busy time for the president leading up to the election, and he relied on a lot of his closest advisers to keep him abreast of what was going on. Mr. Fauhomme obviously had a role in helping the president address some of these matters—both domestic and foreign policy—as they came up. I saw nothing unusual or untoward in that.”
“And what about Mr. Baum?” Caulkin asked. “Much has been made about his questionable background and why he possessed NSA identification cards if he was working for Mr. Fauhomme.”
Lindsey bit his lip. “Unfortunately, we did not do a good job of vetting Mr. Baum,” he said. “He came recommended to us—I believe by some of his former officers in the Marine Corps, who led us to believe that the charges against him in Afghanistan, which by the way were dismissed, had been overblown. Mr. Fauhomme indicated that he needed someone who could be trusted with sensitive matters, as well as someone who could work as his personal security. Mr. Baum volunteered. He never really worked for the NSA, but it allowed Mr. Fauhomme to have a liaison who had the necessary low-level security clearance he needed. Unfortunately, it appears that Mr. Baum, in concert with Miss Blair and Miss Lee, decided to work his own game.”
Caulkin brought up Stupenagel’s testimony regarding a source named “Augie” who had told her that orders had come from “you and Mr. Fauhomme” to attack the trucks bearing the American hostages at the Zandaq compound and then again the mosque in Dagestan before it could be ascertained that the hostages were safe.
“That’s nonsense,” Lindsey said with a scowl. “As I pointed out, we were not watching the attack on the compound in Zandaq in real time. It was too late to do anything regarding those events by the time we viewed the recording, much less attack our own people. As for Dagestan, well, I think the proof of the pudding is that Deputy Chief of Mission David Huff and the hostage we’ve now been told is the district attorney’s daughter are both alive and well. Believe me, if someone had wanted them to die during that attack, they would not be alive today. The president’s decision to order the attack came after the hostages were free and clear.”
“Why then would someone make that assertion—if they did—to Miss Stupenagel?” Caulkin asked.
Lindsey shrugged. “You’d have to ask this ‘Augie,’ but it sounds to me like someone covering his butt at the CIA.”
Lindsey conceded that many of the original talking points regarding the attack on the Zandaq compound were “inaccurate.” But he blamed that on the administration’s well-worn rhetoric about “the fog of war” and “a fluid situation” compounded by the difficulty of not having enough “human intelligence gathering on the ground.” Part of his implication was that the CIA was at fault, and by association, the leadership of General Sam Allen.
“I don’t want to disparage General Allen,” Lindsey said. “He is a true American hero. However, he was new to the job and the agency was—how shall I put this—in turmoil due to the complete inadequacy of his predecessor, as well as the deterioration of the agency during previous administrations.”
Lindsey confirmed that he and Fauhomme had met with Allen at the latter’s request to discuss concerns regarding the events in Chechnya. “In my mind, it was nothing more than a quite normal disagreement between colleagues, which happens all the time with intelligence agencies based on who has what information,” he said. “I’m not saying that General Allen was completely wrong, but I did feel he was making assumptions based on disjointed, incomplete, and sometimes refutable facts.”
“I’m taking it that this was a pretty heated discussion?”
“Yes, it was,” Lindsey conceded. “General Allen came from a background where his opinions and decisions were rarely, if ever, challenged. He was a man of action; act now and ask questions later. For better or worse, that’s not how we operate in the intelligence-gathering world. We prefer to wait for all of the facts before making decisions, or even discussing the events; however, the media was all over this one, and the decision was made to try to give the American public our best assessment. In that situation, it is no surprise that we erred on some of the facts. However, at the time, General Allen got his back up, and to be honest, left in a huff. It was the last time I ever spoke to him.”
“Was General Allen at any time threatened with blackmail by you and Mr. Fauhomme regarding his relationship with Miss Blair?” Caulkin asked.
Lindsey looked as if he’d been asked an incredibly stupid question. “Absolutely not,” he said dismissively. “I was aware of the affair and concerned. As one of the president’s closest advisers I was worried about the possible repercussions on the president if the press found out. In fact, I was in New York when the general died, talking to Mr. Fauhomme about how to approach the subject with General Allen, as well as trying to find a common ground regarding Chechnya, when Sam Allen was killed.”
“I understand that you’ve met Miss Blair,” Caulkin said. “Could you tell us your impressions of her?”
Lindsey twisted his lips. “She and Miss Lee were both what we in politics call ‘power groupies,’ ” he said. “They’re like rock-and-roll band groupies but they gravitate to people with political power; money is important, too, but it’s almost secondary. We see them a lot in political circles. Some of them are fairly harmless, such as the obsessed housewife who volunteers for everything and is gaga for the candidate. Some just want to be where the action is, or they’re collecting notches on their bedpost like a baseball fan collects player cards. But others have more sinister motives . . . powerful men are susceptible to blackmail if they give in to temptation.”
Looking over at Fauhomme, Lindsey said, “I never told Rod this, I figured it was his business and I know he truly cared for her, but I always felt that Lee was one of these political groupies and that she was taking him for a ride. He was spending a lot of money on her—shopping trips and vacations—but it was never enough. And he once told me that she was putting a lot of pressure on him to take her to White House functions and introduce her to important people, which was entirely inappropriate.”
“And what about Miss Blair?”
“Like she said, I met her at Mr. Fauhomme’s party on Long Island,” Lindsey replied. “But I could tell right away that she was sizing up some of the men who were there. She zeroed in on the general pretty quick and then stuck to him like white on rice. It was pretty shameless the way she threw herself at him, whether he was exercising or reading a book in a hammock; she made sure she sat next to him at the dinners and followed him around like a . . . well, I think everybody knows what I mean. You heard how she dragged him off into the dunes after knowing him for, what? Twenty-four hours? And knowing he was a married man? She wasn’t exactly a paragon of virtue.”
“But what about her tearful testimony and all that talk about true love?”
Lindsey rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, she said she came to New York to be an actress, and I guess she landed a starring role. I have to say, she pulled the wool over a lot of people’s eyes. I know Rod liked her—that’s why she was at the party—and the general was certainly taken by her.”
Caulkin walked over to the defense table to look at his notes, then turned back to the witness stand. “Would there have been any reason for General Allen to believe that his stance on the events in Chechnya would pose a threat to him?”
Lindsey looked thoughtful for a moment and then shrugged again. “General Allen was the acting director of the CIA and faced confirmation hearings. He made it quite clear in many circles that he expected to get the job. He might have seen this difference of opinions as posing an obstacle to his goals.”
“Was he expected to stick to the party line at the congressional committee hearings?” Caulkin asked.
Lindsey spread his hands as if the answer wasn’t as clear-cut as all that. “Well, in any administration, a certain amount of common concurrence is expected. We all can disagree and voice those disagreements, but in the end, the president is the boss,” he said. “As in any company, disagreements are generally kept in-house, but a united front is presented to the rest of the world. That’s called loyalty. But if General Allen felt compelled to give his opinion to the committee, no one would have stopped him.”
Quiet for a moment as though to consider his next statement carefully, Lindsey then went on. “I have wondered since his death if he felt that Mr. Fauhomme and I would sabotage his chances for confirmation because of this disagreement. After all, he knew that we have the president’s trust and confidence. I think he made his tape so that if the president changed his mind regarding his appointment, it could be ‘leaked’ to the press as if he’d been prevented from giving his opinion.”
“Is there anything else?”
“Well, if he was being blackmailed by these women and Mr. Baum, then that might have had him rattled as well. He knew that Baum worked for Mr. Fauhomme, and that Lee was Rod’s girlfriend. Sam Allen was under a lot of pressure, even more than I knew, and a guilty mind jumps to a lot of paranoid conclusions.”
Caulkin strolled over to stand in front of the witness with his arms crossed loosely. “Mr. Lindsey, the district attorney has made a great deal about some of your actions following the death of General Allen. One was your conversation with Constable Spooner after you learned from the FBI that Ray Baum had died in a car accident. Would you care to explain that?”
“Certainly,” Lindsey said, “though it’s a long story. Anyway, following the discussion with General Allen regarding his proposed testimony to Congress, Mr. Fauhomme and I concurred that the general was exhibiting some rather unusual behavior. Then the morning of Allen’s murder, I received a call from Mr. Fauhomme indicating that he’d overheard a telephone conversation between Miss Lee and Miss Blair in which they seemed to be discussing a video recording about General Allen. He didn’t put two and two together until he turned on the television and saw the news about the general’s death. He called me in something of a panic—I was in New York and staying at a nearby hotel—and that’s when I said he needed to send Ray Baum to Miss Blair’s apartment to talk to her about this.”
“Mr. Baum? Why not the police?” Caulkin asked as if surprised.
“At that point the best information we had was that this was a suicide,” Lindsey replied. “I have to say that some alarm bells were going off in my head—I haven’t been in the intelligence game all this time for nothing—and I wondered if this video had anything to do with the general taking his life. We didn’t know anything about Mr. Baum’s role as the killer, and he was the person we could get to her the fastest. Rod told me that in hindsight he wondered why Baum seemed so eager to go to Miss Blair’s apartment.”
“So what does this have to do with your conversation with Constable Spooner?” Caulkin asked.
Lindsey nodded. “We were starting to put two and two together as far as Miss Blair and Mr. Baum having some connection, possibly with Miss Lee, though to be honest, Rod didn’t want to believe that. I mean, Miss Blair just happens to be able to outwit and outrun someone she supposedly had no reason to suspect, except for a tattoo she saw on a grainy security camera? Mr. Baum had disappeared and we couldn’t contact him. The next thing we know, I got a call from the FBI saying he’d died in a car crash and that I needed to contact Constable Spooner. Call it my spy paranoia, or a hunch, but Baum showing up in Orvin? Why was he in Orvin, except that he knew he could find Miss Blair there? Suddenly it was clear to me that he’d arranged to meet her there.”
“But what about the shootings?”
Lindsey shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time there was a falling-out among killers.”
“And Miss Stupenagel and Mrs. Ciampi?”
“I have no idea, really,” Lindsey said. “Miss Stupenagel could be telling the truth—she was looking for Miss Blair, too, and figured out where she was hiding. Or . . . well, I’ll leave it to others to speculate.”
“What about the things you said to Constable Spooner?”
“Again, I tend to think in worst-case scenarios,” Lindsey said. “The whole situation was murky. I’ve got a dead general who was the acting director of America’s biggest spy agency; I have a woman on the run who supposedly has some sort of recording involving the general, and I have no idea if it includes sensitive classified material; and I have a rogue NSA agent involved in a car crash. I didn’t know who to trust or what information I could share with a small-town law officer.”
Caulkin walked over to the defense table and checked several items on a legal pad. Up on the stand, Lindsey attempted to pour himself a glass of water, but his hand trembled so much that he just put it back down. His attorney then closed his notepad like a professor finishing his lecture for the day. “Mr. Lindsey, you’re a very well educated man. A Rhodes scholar. A Ph.D. in International Studies. Could you have made more money in the private sector?”
Lindsey smiled slightly. “That’s not hard compared to a government salary.”
“So then I have to ask you, why did you decide to dedicate your life to public service?” Caulkin asked.
Lindsey blinked back what appeared to be genuine tears. “I wanted to serve my country,” he said, his voice husky with emotion, “and the American people.”
“Thank you, Mr. Lindsey,” Caulkin said, sounding a little choked up himself. “I have no further questions.”
Judge Hart nodded and looked at his watch. “I have a few administrative details I need to deal with, so let’s take a thirty-minute break. Court is in recess.”
As everyone stood while the judge departed, Karp looked behind to his wife and Stupenagel and was at first alarmed, and then puzzled, when he saw the young man who’d been watching the women walk quickly up to the reporter. He handed her something and then turned and left. Stupenagel looked at whatever was in her hand and then up at Karp before turning and running after the man.
Something in her expression said to Karp that he was expected to follow her. Still, it took him a little bit to work his way through the crowd and out into the hallway. At first he didn’t see anything but then he spotted his wife down the hall, waving. He hurried to her, but she went around a corner ahead of him.
Striding as fast as his long legs and a bum knee could move, he rounded the corner and saw his wife, Stupenagel, and the young man in a heated conversation at the end of a hall next to a window. The young man was startled when he saw Karp and began to turn away, but Stupenagel grabbed him by the arm. “You owe it to him,” she insisted.
“I gave you the tapes,” he said, looking at Karp.
“It’s not enough, damn it,” the reporter shot back.
“What’s going on here?” Karp demanded.
Stupenagel looked at the young man. He stared at her for a moment but then nodded. She turned to Karp. “Butch, I want you to meet Augie . . . the Augie . . . he just gave me these two recordings,” she said, holding up a pair of DVDs. “He says they depict a drone’s-eye view of the terrorist attack in Zandaq and the drone strike in Dagestan.”
“Is that true?” Karp asked.
The young man hesitated and then nodded. “Yeah,” he said, and then held out his hand. “Augie Nieto. I think you might want to hear what I have to say.”
After a brief chat with Nieto, Karp informed Jim Farley, the court clerk, that an emergency required his attention and that he’d be in his office during the break. He asked Farley to inform Judge Hart that he might need an extra half hour to handle the matter, which, of course, he would put on the record when court reconvened.
An hour later, Karp returned to court. Judge Hart gave him a funny look. “Everything okay?”
Karp smiled. “Yes, Your Honor, thank you for your consideration and during the course of this afternoon’s proceedings it will become clear why I requested the extra time. Your Honor, with the court’s permission, I am now prepared to cross-examine this witness.”
The judge’s eyes narrowed for a moment, but then he said, “Okay, please proceed.”
Karp took up his favorite position standing beside the jury and placed his notes on the ledge. “Mr. Lindsey, as the president’s national security adviser, how is it that you did such a poor job of vetting Ray Baum?”
Lindsey frowned. “As I noted, I believe that he came with a recommendation from his former Marine Corps officers.”
Holding up his yellow legal pad and a pencil, Karp asked, “Can you provide the names of these officers, or where they might be stationed?”
“Not at the moment,” Lindsey said. “I might be able to dig them up later.”
“Later?” Karp asked. “You mean after this trial is over. How about this evening, Mr. Lindsey; perhaps you could find them this evening and get back to me so that we can contact them.”
“I suppose I could try,” Lindsey said.
“Thank you, I’d appreciate that,” Karp said. “But again, as the president’s spymaster, how is it that you were aware that the president’s married appointee to head the nation’s top spy agency was having an affair with someone you’ve labeled a ‘power groupie’ and yet had not said or done anything about it?”
“I was . . . uh . . . in New York to talk to Mr. Fauhomme.”
“The president’s campaign manager. So this was more of a campaign concern as opposed to a national security issue?”
“Well, both, in a way.”
“Both? So then you were talking to Mr. Fauhomme about the possible ramifications for the campaign, but who did you discuss this with from a national security standpoint?”
Lindsey furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”
“Well, did you contact your counterpart in the FBI? And if so, could you provide me with that name?” Karp said, again raising his yellow pad and pencil as though to write.
“No, I hadn’t gotten that far,” Lindsey said.
“So the campaign was a greater priority than national security?”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“I think you just did. But let’s move on,” Karp retorted. “So if I understood your testimony, the defendant Rod Fauhomme overheard Miss Lee talking to Miss Blair about some video of General Allen and then when he realized that Allen was dead in a New York hotel—apparently from suicide—the alarms went off and you told your codefendant to send Mr. Baum, a man you admittedly did a poor job of vetting, to what? Apprehend her? He’s not a police officer. Or just to get that recording?”
“I guess just to ascertain what the conversation about a video recording of the general might be,” Lindsey said.
Karp looked puzzled. “What made you think it was something other than what a girlfriend might have of her boyfriend?”
“Oh,” Lindsey said. “I guess there was some indication that the recording depicted the general’s murder.”
Karp’s eyebrows shot up. “So now there’s an indication that this recording could be evidence in a murder investigation, but instead of sending the police, or, say, the FBI, you told Fauhomme to send his man Ray Baum.”
“Or maybe Rod said he was sending Ray,” Lindsey stumbled. “I don’t remember the sequence.”
“It’s hard to remember a lie, isn’t it, Mr. Lindsey? Or as a master spy, do you register the difference?” Karp said.
“To be sure, I do,” Lindsey shot back before Caulkin could object.
“Would it surprise you to know that my office did not determine, or say, that this was a murder investigation until the day after General Allen’s body was found?”
“Like I said, I believe Miss Blair said something to Miss Lee about it.”
“Indeed, we know from their testimony that Miss Blair had seen the murder on her laptop and called Miss Lee. But you said that Fauhomme only told you that he overheard a conversation about there being a recording.”
“There might have been more to it than that . . . yes, I think there was something about a murder,” Lindsey said. He was starting to lose the shell of confidence he’d displayed when first called to the stand and was taking on the look of a cornered animal.
“But you didn’t call the police or tell Mr. Fauhomme to call the police?”
“I was concerned there might be a security issue.”
“Why? What led you to think that?”
“The general was the acting director of the CIA and this woman had a video of him. And now he was dead.”
“Okay. So Ray Baum trots on over to Miss Blair’s apartment but she escapes—or, as you suggested, he let her escape,” Karp said.
“Perhaps.”
“Yes, perhaps. She goes missing and then so does Ray Baum?”
“That’s right.”
“Did you have reason to believe that she was involved in the death of Sam Allen?”
“Well, she disappeared right after.”
“What made you jump to the conclusion that she was a fugitive from justice as opposed to maybe a witness or just a frightened young woman whose lover had been murdered?”
“Well, I didn’t know, but we certainly wanted to question her.”
“But that’s not what you told Constable Tom Spooner,” Karp said. He walked over to the prosecution table and picked up a sheaf of papers. “I’m holding a copy of People’s Exhibit 18, the transcript of your conversation with Constable Spooner the day after Ray Baum was killed while trying to murder Miss Blair.” He walked back to the witness stand and handed it to Lindsey.
“Would you turn to page six, please,” Karp said. “Are you there?”
“Yes.”
“Could you read what I have highlighted, starting with line ten,” Karp said.
“ ‘Do me a favor and secure the area around the cabin—no one in or out,’ ” Lindsey read. “ ‘We’ll have another team up there as soon as possible. We are also looking for a fugitive. White female, blond, hazel eyes, about thirty years of age. Her name is Jenna Blair but she may be using an alias.’ ”
“Thank you,” Karp said. “So you described her as a fugitive. Fugitive from what? A hunch that she was involved in a murder that you didn’t even know was a murder yet?”
Lindsey shrugged. “I was using the term fugitive loosely. I just meant she was wanted for questioning.”
“Okay, turn to page three and read lines four through seven,” Karp said.
“ ‘Can you tell me if there was a laptop computer located in the car?’ ” Lindsey began.
“Let me stop you there,” Karp interjected. “You’re the one asking the question, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, now you want to explain why you wanted her laptop?”
“Because of the recording on it.”
Karp looked taken aback. “But wait a minute, you didn’t say anything about knowing this recording was on her laptop.”
“It might have come up. Like I said, I was focused on finding the girl and learning what I could as fast as possible.”
“Turn to page nine, please, and read lines one through three,” Karp said.
“ ‘This is a national security case and we don’t want it compromised,’ ” Lindsey read. “ ‘Same thing with that computer; if it’s located, no one is to touch it; it contains highly classified material.’ ”
“So did you just have a hunch that there was highly classified material on that computer,” Karp asked, “or were you worried that it had evidence of a murder that you were involved in?”
“Like I said, General Allen was acting director of the CIA and I had to see what was recorded,” Lindsey responded, sticking to the script.
Karp walked back to the prosecution table and picked up another sheaf of papers. He held them up. “This is People’s Exhibit 19,” he said. “It’s the transcript of a recording made of you and your team outside the 13th Street Repertory Theater.”
He handed the transcript to Lindsey. “Would you remind the jury what you were doing there?”
“We were there to apprehend Miss Blair and recover her computer,” Lindsey replied sullenly as he looked at the pages.
“Turn to page three, please, and read only the line highlighted in yellow. This is you speaking.”
“ ‘If she runs, take her down,’ ” Lindsey read.
“And what did you mean, ‘Take her down’?”
“I meant capture her.”
“Really? Read the next line only please.”
“ ‘And try not to hit any civilians.’ ”
“If you were only trying to capture her, why were you concerned about civilians?”
“I had no idea if she was armed,” Lindsey said.
“Okay, turn to page ten, and begin reading until I tell you to stop,” Karp said.
“ ‘You need to come with me, Jenna, I can protect you. . . . How? Sam was a general and he ran the CIA and they still killed him. How are you going to protect me? . . . We’ll put you in the witness protection program. You can’t keep running.’ ”
“Okay, stop,” Karp said. “So now she’s a witness, not a security threat or a killer?”
“I didn’t know,” Lindsey replied. “I was trying to get her to give up.”
“Continue reading, please,” Karp said.
“ ‘Witness protection? Witness against who? That guy? You know and I know he wasn’t acting on his own. Sam told me that people were upset with him because he wasn’t going to go along with the “official” story on Chechnya. . . . What people? . . . He didn’t say. I think he was trying to protect me. But he said he was being blackmailed because of his relationship with me.’ ”
“Okay, stop,” Karp interrupted.
“She’s a good actress,” Lindsey said, but his head hung.
“Yeah, I’d say she deserves a Tony,” Karp replied sarcastically. “Please turn to page thirteen, and read starting with line five.”
“ ‘I wouldn’t know about that. What I do know is that you’re playing a very dangerous game, and if you don’t come with me now, I can’t be responsible for what happens to you. . . . What’s going to happen to me? . . . Nothing if you come with me. . . . What are you going to do with that recording? . . . We’ll find this man . . . and if others are involved, we’ll go after them too. The FBI will. . . . Is that who you’re going to give the recording to? The FBI? . . . Yes. It’s a bureau investigation now.’ ”
“Stop,” Karp demanded. “Mr. Lindsey, you said you were after the laptop computer, right?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do with it?”
Lindsey stared at him and shook his head. “You know what I did. You had a GPS tracker. I took it to Rod’s apartment. It’s in my lawyer’s office.”
“So you never turned it over to the FBI?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Again Lindsey just stared at him. He shook his head again, then glared at Fauhomme. “We were concerned that if we brought another agency in, there might be a leak, and we weren’t sure who was involved.”
“Read the last line of the last sentence on that page,” Karp said tersely.
Lindsey looked down and started to speak but then had to stop and cleared his throat. “ ‘Seal the doors. And get in here. I want that bitch now!’ ”
Karp walked up to the witness stand and held out his hand for the transcripts. Lindsey handed them over without raising his head.
Nor did he look up when Karp asked his next question. “This was all about protecting the president’s re-election bid, wasn’t it?”
Lindsey let out a large sigh but didn’t answer.
“It all started with a lie about what happened in Chechnya, didn’t it?” Karp persisted.
“That’s not true,” Lindsey said quietly.
“It’s not?” Karp said. “Mr. Lindsey, let me ask you this. You’ve testified that you only saw the attack on the Zandaq compound after the fact, is that true?”
“Yes.”
“And that you had no knowledge of a call from someone named Wallflower, who has been identified as Lucy Karp, until after the fact, is that true?”
“Yes.”
“And that there were no orders given to fire upon trucks bearing the hostages in Chechnya, or on the mosque in Dagestan until it was clear that the hostages were safe, is that true?”
“Yes.”
Karp walked up to the witness stand until he was only a few feet from the visibly trembling and red-faced national security adviser. “What if I was to tell you that I am going to call a witness in rebuttal who can prove that you are a liar?”
“Who?” Lindsey gasped.
Karp whirled to look at the gallery. “Augie Nieto, would you please stand up!”
As the gallery murmured, the young man stood up. Karp turned back to Lindsey. “I’m sure you recognize Augie Nieto. What do you say, Mr. Lindsey?”
Lindsey stared for a long time at the young man. Tears appeared in his eyes and he struggled to speak, then he hung his head.
“Mr. Lindsey,” Karp said calmly. “Your attorney asked why you got involved in public service. I ask you now to recall your answer and then tell the jurors the truth.”
Slowly Lindsey began to nod his head and then lifted his chin until he was looking Karp in the eyes. He blinked several times, then passed a hand across his face as if wiping sleep from his eyes. “Most of what I said before was a lie . . .”
As the courtroom erupted, with reporters running for the hall to make their calls and the defense attorneys screaming objections, Karp smiled with grim satisfaction. “Then, Mr. Lindsey, I believe it is time for you to start telling the truth.”