SIXTY-ONE

“Where is the United States in all this? Our government refuses to rescue my husband, and now this.” Abigail sat in the great room of Hawk’s Nest in front of the wide-screen Internet television. The screen was divided into six quadrants, each with a separate broadcast. She paged from one to the other. On the right-hand column, a news ticker scrolled through the headlines. “Who’s going to help Israel? My daughter’s over there!” Abby said.

Cal, sitting next to her with his laptop on the coffee table, looked up. “They still haven’t given us anything new, right?”

“Just that there’s some kind of fighter-jet skirmish over Egypt. Nothing else.”

“Mom, I keep trying to get Debbie on her Allfone …”

“Don’t bother. They’ve said Israel has blocked international calls.” Then she added, almost to herself, “Deb, honey, where are you? Are you safe?”

Cal waited a few minutes before broaching the next subject. “Mom, we need to talk. You’ve got a court appearance in two days in federal court in Manhattan.”

“Yes,” she said. “In the same courtroom where years ago they tried the blind sheik for the first bombing of the World Trade Center, and other terrorists after that.” She looked at her son, who was glued to the computer screen. “So, is your mother a terrorist too?”

Cal went snake-eyed. “Absolutely not. There’s something very wrong going on in this country. When patriots try to stop catastrophes because their government won’t, and then they get treated like the enemy.”

“Where is your father at this point? Rocky Bridger doesn’t know, Washington won’t tell me, and Israel is being invaded.”

“Mom …”

Abigail broke out of her thoughts and looked at her son. Cal was managing a half smile.

“You know what Dad would say if he were here?”

Abigail’s eyes softened. “Tell me.”

“He’d say, ‘Execute the flight plan unless you have a better one.’ How many times have we heard that? He went to Israel for his part of the plan. You stayed here for yours. Defending against this unjust criminal case is just part of what we have to do here. And one more thing, something my mother always says …”

Now she let go with a smile herself. “What’s that?”

“God is always in control, even when life isn’t.”

She studied her son. “Your dad would be proud of the way you’ve helped me.”

Cal’s eyes darted away for an instant, then he broke into a grin. “That’s our specialty in this family, isn’t it? Rescuing each other from disasters?”

They both let out a nervous laugh. It was a welcome relief, if only for a few moments.

“So,” Cal went on, “I’ve been looking at the criminal indictment that Harry emailed us, the one against you, Dad, and the Roundtable. First, they name every member of the Roundtable, even though you said some of them didn’t participate in the plan to stop the nuke.”

“I think I know why. The prosecutor’s trying to split us up, divide and conquer. There’s an old saying in criminal defense work: Last to plead, first to bleed. The key is to get members of the group to rush forward and cut favorable plea deals with the government in return for information that can be used against the other defendants. The last holdouts are the ones who get hammered in court. So they’ll put pressure on people like Fort Rice and others — agreeing to dismiss in return for their cooperation. But you know who the real target is.”

“Dad?”

“Exactly. I’ve talked to each member of the Roundtable. They’re scared, of course. Leander is the worst. But so far, they’re hanging tight, willing to fight this thing. No deals.”

“Mom, I’ve looked at this seditious-criminal charge they’ve filed. Here’s the bottom line. The Indictment reads, ‘The defendants conspired to oppose by force the authority of the United States by creating a vigilante paramilitary group purportedly to stop a nuclear attack, but instead provoked the detonation of a nuclear device causing widespread death, serious injury, and property destruction.”

“What’s your thought?”

“Doesn’t something jump out?”

“Let me guess … one phrase?”

Cal nodded.

Abigail finished the thought. “The phrase is ‘oppose by force the authority of the United States,’ that we somehow used our special-ops guys — courageous men who died trying to stop that nuke, who saved hundreds of thousands of lives if that truck had made it to New York City — that we used them to ‘oppose the authority’ of the government.”

“So somehow we need to show,” Cal said with his eyes closed and the muscles in his face tensed, “that we did not oppose the lawful authority of the federal government.”

“Which we do,” Abigail said, “by showing that our government refused to honor its sacred duty to protect American citizens, disregarding our many pleas, those of John Gallagher and Pack McHenry, that a nuclear catastrophe was on its way.”

“In other words,” Cal said summing up, “if the government abandons its authority, we can’t be guilty of opposing it.”

Abigail leaned back and lifted an open hand toward Cal. “Well done, Mr. Jordan. Let me urge you to think seriously about going to law school!”

After that, they disappeared into their own thoughts. Abigail knew that her defense would mean uncovering the seamy underbelly of Washington politics, and there was no tougher game of hardball anywhere.

Cal said, “So where do we start?”

Abigail’s answer caused even her to catch her breath. “By doing the very thing that every attorney who has ever lived counsels his client never, ever to do …”