70
Early the next morning, Paige headed to the KOA campground on General Booth Boulevard. She wasn’t looking forward to her talk with Wyatt, but there was no sense putting it off. No matter how much she practiced the lines, she couldn’t really think of a diplomatic way to phrase it. The client had decided that Paige should argue the case before the Supreme Court. They would both have to honor that request. It was as simple as that.
The rain pelted her car on the way, forcing her to keep her wipers on full speed. When she arrived at the campground, the place was a muddy mess. She parked as close as possible to Wyatt’s RV, pulled up the hood on her raincoat, and walked quickly to the door. Wyatt let her in, and Clients came bounding over to get some love. She rubbed Clients and took off her shoes. The place smelled like cigar smoke and wet dog.
“Want some coffee?” Wyatt asked.
“Nice of you to drop by,” Wyatt said. He was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved untucked button-down shirt rolled up at the sleeves. It didn’t look like he’d bothered combing his hair.
Paige took off her raincoat and hung it over a chair. As much as she had grown to appreciate Wyatt, it was still awkward trying to engage him in small talk. She decided to just get to the point before she lost her nerve. “I wanted to talk to you about the Supreme Court argument.”
Wyatt leaned back and crossed his arms. “What about it?”
Paige explained it as best she could. Kristen had requested that Paige argue the case. She had tried to talk Kristen out of it but to no avail. Kristen was worried that Wyatt’s credibility had been hurt by all of the recent publicity. Paige had not asked to be lead counsel or even planted the seed. Kristen was adamant about it, but to be honest, Paige was scared to death.
She was nervous, and she knew Wyatt could hear it in her voice. He stared impassively at her as she spoke, making it impossible to read his thoughts. When she was done, he simply shrugged his shoulders, got up from his seat, and went over to a box of notebooks sitting near the small table in the RV. He pulled them out and placed them on the table one at a time.
“These are all the cases you’ll need to review,” he said, his back toward her. “This first notebook deals with state secrets. The second covers the Feres Doctrine, which will probably not come up, but just in case. This one here has a copy of the transcript from our hearing in front of Judge Solberg, the Fourth Circuit’s opinion, and a copy of our briefs.”
Paige got up and looked at them, opening them to see that Wyatt had been reading the cases and highlighting key passages. He had scribbled notes in the margins. The man had been working a lot harder than Paige thought.
“Are you okay with this?” she asked.
“You mean getting fired by the client?”
“She’s not firing anyone, Wyatt. She’s just switching which one of us argues the case.”
“It’s her call,” Wyatt said. “And it will make my life a lot easier.”
Paige didn’t know what kind of reaction she’d been hoping for, but this wasn’t it. Their alliance had started off on rocky terms, but she had developed a grudging respect for the man. Now he probably thought Paige had undercut him with the client. “Looks like you’ve done a lot of work already,” she said.
Wyatt placed the notebooks back in the box and put the lid on it. “Gazala Holloman called,” he said, changing the subject. “Said that she had been in touch with Saleet Zafar through an intermediary. He’s agreed to meet with me if I fly into Dubai and follow his instructions.”
This was all news to Paige. “Dubai?”
“It’s in the UAE. I can fly there with just a passport. There will be someone to smuggle me across the border. Not only that, but Zafar is going to take me to meet the owner of the home where that lamb was sacrificed by Admiral Towers. I’ve been trying to figure out how I could do this trip and argue at the Supreme Court at the same time. I guess Kristen just simplified things for me.”
It seemed to Paige that he said it with a hint of resentment, but what did she expect? “Are you going alone?”
“That’s one of the terms,” Wyatt said.
Then he changed the subject again. He had received a subpoena to appear before a grand jury on September 25, less than a week before the scheduled Supreme Court argument. Paige hadn’t received one yet, but Wyatt assured her that one was coming. The feds were looking at obstruction charges against all of the plaintiff’s lawyers. Wyatt, of course, saw it as a grand conspiracy. They would all get indicted, and their Supreme Court hearing would be toast.
Paige wasn’t surprised by the news of the grand jury, but Wyatt’s prediction of an indictment put a lump in her throat. “I’ve got an attorney,” Paige said. “Landon Reed.”
“I know. He’s good.”
“Can’t say,” Wyatt replied. “In fact, we shouldn’t discuss the grand jury at all. Anything we say is not protected, and I don’t want someone accusing me of coaching witnesses.”
Paige sat back down and Clients came over for some more attention. He put a paw on her leg and she took the hint, rubbing his head and scratching his back. “You really think we’ll get indicted?” Paige asked Wyatt.
“Hard to tell,” he said casually, as if he were discussing whether the rain would soon blow over. “But you can’t rule it out.”
It was his opinion, he told Paige, that they needed a plan B for the Supreme Court argument, just in case. And he just happened to have one. Starting in two days, on Saturday, Paige should begin practicing her argument every morning in front of a panel consisting of Wyatt, Wellington, and Landon Reed. “I’ll hire Landon as a consultant on the case. That way, if they indict us, he can argue the case at the Supreme Court.”
Paige didn’t respond. She was having a hard time getting past the thought of a federal indictment.
“Every afternoon I’ll review the tapes of the practice arguments with you,” Wyatt continued, as if the sword of an indictment hanging over their heads was just a small annoyance. “We’ll go over the questions and critique your answers. In the evenings, you can study some more and get ready for the next day.”
Paige had her own style of preparing for oral arguments, and this wasn’t it. But she had just delivered some hard news to her cocounsel and didn’t want to reject his proposal out of hand. She agreed to give it a try, at least for a few days. She was thankful he was still engaged, and she could learn a lot from the guy.
Before she left, he hit her with one last question. “You’re not producing your computer pursuant to that grand jury subpoena, are you?” he asked.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about it.”
“There are exceptions. I need to know that you’re not producing your computer. And I need to know for sure that you’re not the one who leaked the Marcano deposition.”
Paige bristled at the suggestion. “Of course I didn’t leak it.”
“What about your computer?”
She didn’t know how much to tell him, especially without checking first with Landon. “They’re not going to be getting it.”
He looked at her suspiciously, narrowing his eyes. “Whatever you do, don’t give it to them before the rule to show cause hearing tomorrow,” he said. “And don’t cut any deals with them either. I think I’ve got some ideas.”
Just what I needed, Paige thought. Wyatt putting on a big show at the hearing tomorrow. But what did it matter? She couldn’t produce her computer even if she wanted to. “Don’t worry about me,” Paige said. “They’re not getting my computer.”
“Good.”
The spark in Wyatt’s eye worried Paige. Tomorrow was going to be a long day.