Читаем Clear and Present Danger полностью

That was the other side of the equation. They didn't merely hire him. Somewhere else was another lawyer, one who gave advice without getting directly involved. It was a simple security provision. It also made perfect professional sense, of course, to get a second opinion of anything. It also meant that in special cases the drug community could make sure that its own attorney wasn't making some sort of arrangement with the state, as was not entirely unknown in the countries from which they came. And as was the case here, some might say. Stuart could have played his information from the Coasties for all it was worth, gambling to have the whole case thrown out. He estimated a fifty-fifty chance of that. Stuart was good, even brilliant in a courtroom, but so was Davidoff, and there is not a trial lawyer in the world who would have predicted the reaction of a jury - a south Alabama, law-and-order jury - to a case like this one. Whoever was in the shadows giving advice to the man in his den, he was not as good as Stuart in a courtroom. Probably an academic, the trial lawyer thought, maybe a professor supplementing his teaching income with some informal consulting. Whoever he- she? -was, Stuart hated him on instinct.

"If I do what you want me to do, we run the risk of blowing the whole case. They really could end up in the chair." It also would mean wrecking the careers of Coast Guard sailors who had done wrong, but not nearly so wrong as Stuart's clients had most certainly done. His ethical duty as a lawyer was to give his clients the best possible defense within the law, within the Standards of Professional Conduct, but most of all, within the scope of his knowledge and experience - instinct, which was as real and important as it was impossible to quantify. Exactly how a lawyer balanced his duty on that three-cornered scale was the subject of endless class hours in law school, but the answers arrived at in the theaterlike lecture halls were always clearer than in the real legal world found beyond the green campus lawns.

"They could also go free."

The man's thinking reversal on appeal , Stuart realized. It was an academic lawyer giving advice.

"My professional advice to my clients is to accept the deal that I have negotiated."

"Your clients will decline that advice. Your clients will tell you tomorrow morning to - what is the phrase? Go for broke?" The man smiled like a dangerous machine. "Those are your instructions. Good day, Mr. Stuart. I can find the door." The machine left.

Stuart stared at his bookcases for a few minutes before making his telephone call. He might as well do it now. No sense making Davidoff wait. No public announcement had yet been made, though the rumors were out on the street. He wondered how the U.S. Attorney would take it. It was easier to predict what he'd say. The outraged I thought we had a deal! would be followed by a resolute Okay, we'll see what the jury says! Davidoff would muster his considerable talents, and the battle in Federal District Court would be an epic duel. But that was what courts were all about, wasn't it? It would be a fascinating and exciting technical exercise in the theory of the law, but like most such exercises, it would have little to do with right and wrong, less to do with what had actually happened aboard the good ship Empire Builder , and nothing at all to do with justice.

Murray was in his office. Moving into their townhouse had been a formality. He slept there - most of the time - but he saw far less of it than he'd seen of his official apartment in the Kensington section of London while legal attach to the embassy on Grosvenor Square. It was hardly fair. For what it had cost him to move back to the D.C. area - the city that provided a home for the United States government denied decent housing to those on government salaries - one would have thought that he'd have gotten some real use from it.

His secretary was not in on Sunday, of course, and that meant Murray had to answer his own phone. This one came in on his direct, private line.

"Yeah, Murray here."

"Mark Bright. There's been a development on the Pirates Case that you need to know about. The lawyer for the subjects just called the U.S. Attorney. He's tossing the deal they made. He's going to fight it out; he's going to put those Coasties on the stand and try to blow away the whole case on the basis of that stunt they pulled. Davidoff's worried."

"What do you think?" Murray asked.