Here is a preview from State of Shock, a legal thriller by M. Todd Henderson.
PROLOGUE
Holding a newspaper in his hands felt strange. His mom still subscribed, out of interest or habit he wasn’t certain, and so the paper sat there lifeless on the counter every morning while he sipped his coffee and looked out the window at the brick wall of the apartment building next door. He was used to reading the news—sports, the Chicago Defender, the Daily Law Journal—on his phone. Never once had he pulled the morning paper out of its blue plastic bag. But today was different; today was a paper day.
Unsheathed and unfolded, he set it down on the kitchen table, then eyed his fingertips. He wiped them with a napkin, still soggy from soaking up a bit of milk that bounced off his Honeycomb and splashed on the table. The ink stains lingered, and for someone who liked everything just the way he liked everything, that fact stuck in his mind like a pine needle in a shoe. But there was a story he wanted to read—to see on the printed page. He’d survive the old-fashionedness and the inkiness.
There it was, right column, above the fold: “Ex-FBI Agent that Brought Down President, Chief Justice to Be Released.” He blinked. Deep breath through his nose like he was preparing to bench press some serious weight, he read.
Petersburg, Va.—Royce Johnson, the former FBI special agent whose investigation of his brother’s murder led to the resignation of a president and the impeachment of a chief justice, will be released Thursday from the Petersburg Federal Penitentiary after serving a sentence of a year and a day.
FBI Spokesperson Sam Wicklegreen declined to comment on the release, noting that “Royce Johnson is no longer an employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” Several former colleagues spoke on the record to criticize Johnson’s tactics, but off the record, others praised his unauthorized investigation as one of the most important things ever done by the Bureau.
Royce Johnson’s brother, Alex, a law professor at Rockefeller University, was found dead of a suspected suicide in his home in 2014. Believing otherwise but without jurisdiction, Agent Johnson launched an investigation on false pretenses. His investigation focused on Marcus Jones, 28, of Chicago, a former student of his brother. A failing grade, an incriminating email, and a receipt from a local gun range were enough to convict Jones of first-degree murder.
With Jones facing the death penalty, Agent Johnson discovered new evidence—a letter written by his brother, accusing the president’s pick to be the next Chief Justice of the United States, Duc Pham, of rape.
After restarting his investigation, the trail led to a covert team, headed by Bob Gerhardt, a former Navy SEAL turned Washington lawyer, that was unofficially handling the Pham nomination. Coming on the heels of several failed nominations and withdrawals, and with the ideological balance on the Supreme Court about to swing from conservative to liberal for the first time in several generations, Agent Johnson accused Gerhardt’s team of killing his brother to prevent him from coming forward and derailing Pham’s nomination.
During the process of trying to make the case against the president and her team, Johnson broke numerous laws and violated a host of FBI rules. The charges against him, which he pleaded guilty to in exchange for the minimum felony sentence, included weapons charges, breaking and entering, assault, and attempted murder. Several of Gerhardt’s team were assaulted by Johnson, and at least two bystanders, a shopper at a suburban Virginia mall and an Arlington-based priest, were injured as well.
Then-Chief Justice Pham denied any involvement in the plot, any knowledge of Gerhardt’s team, and any ill will toward Alex Johnson, whom he regarded as “a dear and long-standing friend.” But in the wake of reporting by the New York Times, eleven boys came forward, alleging they were sexually assaulted by Pham over a period spanning thirty years.
Johnson faces an uncertain future upon his release. He is a felon and disgraced former federal agent, but also a national hero to many. His family could not be reached for comment, and it is unclear where he will go or what he will do next.
Pham is facing rape and other charges in three states. He is out on $5 million bond. The first trial is scheduled for December 1 in state court in Illinois.
Bob Gerhardt is serving a life sentence at an undisclosed federal prison. Several of his team are serving sentences ranging from five to fifteen years for their involvement in the conspiracy to kill Alex Johnson.
The man put down the paper, exhaled, then picked it up and read it through again. When he’d finished, it fell onto the table, draping his cereal bowl like a tarp.
“National hero?” he muttered to himself. “Not to me, he ain’t,” he spat.
Picking up his phone, he checked his schedule.
“Thursday? Hmmm,” he said aloud, flipping through the meetings he’d set to drum up business for his new law firm—Jones & Associates—even though he had no associates and, as yet, no clients. Then he typed “Petersburg, Virginia” into Google Maps.
“I’ll see you soon, Royce, old pal,” he said, as he looked down at the paper. A picture of a smiling Royce Johnson, an American flag behind him in his official FBI portrait, stared back. “We’ll see how heroic you are.”
CHAPTER 1
Mike Church eased his kayak into the water, holding on to it with a line attached to a hook on the back. Turning the kayak sideways, he stepped into the cockpit with a middle-aged wobble, and settled back in the mesh chair. Short and stocky, with sandy hair and wide-set eyes, Church looked younger than forty-one. But he could feel the years and the lack of exercise brought on by the coldest Chicago winter in a generation.
The cool wind off the water made him glad for his wetsuit and wool hat. A few seat adjustments, his water bottle and waterproof pouch in their spots, and he was ready to go. As he pushed off the dock with his paddle, he couldn’t help but admire the new boathouse, with its sleek Scandinavian design and roofline of sharp, sequential triangles. The dark gray brick and oversized glass windows gave it a slightly sinister look. From the waterline, it looked like a face, eyebrows raised, scowling through wide-glass eyes that reflected the bright spring sun. The towers of the city behind him, he dipped the paddle into the water and headed west on the South Branch of the Chicago River. As soon as he was a foot from the dock, his blood pressure dropped and his heart rate slowed. He felt transported. Twelve inches made a new world.
The Eleanor, as the boathouse was known, was proof of the Chicago Park District’s ambition, both in architectural design and as leading edge of the mayor’s plans for urban renewal on the South Side. Long the side of Chicago that was ignored, that was underfunded, that was bereft of opportunity, the South Side was going to have its day. The Eleanor’s home was a splotch of green space in a miles-long industrial corridor flanking both sides of the Chicago River on the outskirts of downtown. Called “Park No. 571”—naming things after people had long since grown too fraught—it was three hundred square yards of hope.
The South Branch of the Chicago River ran south from the main branch of the river, then turned west after cutting Chinatown (to the east) off from Pilsen (to the west). Headed southwest toward the Mississippi and eventually New Orleans, it paralleled the Stevenson Expressway for miles, all of which was lined with warehouses, industrial yards, concrete plants, manufacturing facilities, power stations, junk yards, and every other kind of operation that can blight a landscape but makes modern life possible. Despite the grit, millennials had flocked to the Pilsen neighborhood, given its proximity to downtown, its cheap rents, and its “authentic” vibe. Authenticity was as fickle as political correctness, but for now, Pilsen had it. Once the home of German immigrants—some thirty of whom were murdered by the 22nd US Infantry during the great railroad strike of 1877—and more recently Hispanic immigrants from across Latin America. Revitalizing Pilsen and the surrounding neighborhoods was at the top of the mayor’s to do list, as he bid for a third term in charge of the Second City. The Eleanor was both a beachhead of gentrification and a sop to the hipsters, whom he needed in order to maintain his grip on the city council.
At the point where the Eleanor stood, a small, mile-long capillary of the South Branch went off at a nearly ninety-degree angle, headed due south. In the process, it dissected two other up-and-coming blue-collar neighborhoods, McKinley Park and Bridgeport. Former home of the Great Chicago Stockyards, these neighborhoods had produced the political machine that had ruled Chicago for decades. It was to this day the hardscrabble heart of political power in the city and thus the entire Midwest. The mayor’s family home—an unassuming tan brick ranch where knees were bent and whispers made or broke fortunes—was just ten blocks away. Easily accessible to transportation into and out of the city and filled with great characters and eclectic architecture, Bridgeport’s vacant parcels were being gobbled up by developers and drooled over by aldermen looking to expand the tax rolls and their own opportunities for shaking the tree. Even the mayor’s dull-witted nephew, the newly elected alderman for the Bridgeport ward and the next link in the dynastic chain of Doherty power, could see the possibilities. If he were to own the city one day, as he and everyone else drinking Old Styles at Ricobene’s before a Sox game thought inevitable, he’d need to show the developers he knew the score.
On a map, this mile-long offshoot—really just a pinkie finger—was called the South Fork of the Chicago River, but everyone called it “Bubbly Creek.” Among all the streams, brooks, channels, tributaries, and creeks that drained the vast American continent into the Gulf of Mexico, Bubbly Creek was easily the most famous per mile. At least at a time. The creek was the dumping ground for animal parts and industrial waste from the Chicago Stockyards for four generations. More than three feet of fetid remains of cows, pigs, and sheep were at the bottom of the creek, lining the bed from the Eleanor all the way to where it petered out into an industrial park near Pershing Road. More than ten million cubic feet of rotten animal waste—enough to fill one hundred fifty Olympic-sized swimming pools—that didn’t make it into Swift sausages dwelt below the now-placid waters of the creek. Then as now, the methane produced by the rot bubbled up through the waters like a fart in the tub. This gave the creek its nickname and infamy. But weekend kayakers were oblivious. To them, history was charming.
Church paddled hard on his right, causing the kayak’s nose to turn left and head down Bubbly Creek. An avid outdoorsman, Church studied engineering at Princeton and worked for five years as an environmental consultant before going to Yale Law School. After a stint at the EPA in Washington and work for various environmental groups in San Francisco, Church came to Chicago to launch an ambitious new environmental law clinic at Rockefeller Law. Although it had been up and running for only a few years, he’d already brought several high-profile suits against the refineries that sulked along the southern tip of Lake Michigan like bullies on the playground leaning against the wall smoking disdainfully.
Neither environmentalism nor law brought Church to the creek; on this day, he was just looking to sweat. But, truth be told, sweating here, where so much environmental progress had been made, was way better than doing so in an air-conditioned gym surrounded by AirPod-clad investment bankers. Eighty years ago, one could walk across the creek on the animal remains and other waste that floated on the surface—now, an environmentalist could imagine it never happened.
The waters were calm and Church was eager to raise his heart rate, so he quickened his pace. The Stevenson Expressway overpass roared and shook as he passed beneath, his eyes focused on the shape the leading edge of the kayak cut into the water. Trying to ignore the loading docks of the mattress shops and fast food joints and nail salons that lined this part of the creek, he dug the oar deeper into the water and pulled it back and forth with increased intensity. He could almost pretend he was somewhere he wanted to be.
Ahead, the creek narrowed. The shops were gone. On his left, a vast, nearly mile-long open space was overgrown with brush and remnants of its former life. He drew the paddle out and let the kayak coast. The trees were budding, some leaves already starting to create the inklings of a canopy. Come back in summer, Church thought. Then, he could hide his eyes from the scars of commercialism he’d dedicated his life to undoing.
Just as he felt a blanket of relaxation fall over him, he felt a jolt. Greeeeeeech, the plastic of the kayak groaned its disagreement, as it collided with a submerged rock or industrial fossil. Church lurched forward, and then flipped into the water. His wet suit provided some relief, but within seconds, the creek’s forty-degree water sent him into near shock. Enveloped in cold, Church lunged toward the shoreline like a lungfish making its first moves onto land. He half swam, half ran to shore, collapsing in a lump on a rocky shore of broken concrete, garbage, and riprap.
Click here to learn more about State of Shock by M. Todd Henderson.