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Nash hoped it wasn’t the case, but it had to be done. “You told me you had some buddies downtown…D.C. Metro.”
“I know a bunch of guys down there. A few owe me some pretty big favors.”
“Good. Just keep it real quiet. You don’t want this traced back to you.”
“I know how to handle it. Just give me the basics.” Harris stuck out his big mitt, palm up, and said, “Charles, may I please use that pen?”
Charlie looked at the pen and then carefully placed it in Harris’s hand. He smiled at his own accomplishment.
Harris rubbed Charlie’s back and said, “You’re a smart little boy. Too smart for the Marines. You’ll have to go into the Navy like your uncle Artie.” Harris grabbed a sheet of paper and said, “Shoot.”
Nash thought of a dozen off-color remarks he could make about the men who sailed the seven seas, but kept them to himself. Thinking about Johnson, he said, “Six feet tall, African American, approximately one hundred and eighty pounds.”
“How old?”
“Late twenties.”
“Anything else?”
“He has an Airborne tattoo on his left bicep.”
“Name?”
Nash shook his head.
“All right. I’ll have a buddy of mine check the morgue for John Does.”
“Thanks,” said Nash while plucking Charlie off the desk. If something had happened to Johnson, he would never forgive himself.
“Don’t you have to get your ass downtown?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, good luck. Don’t take any shit from those peckers.”
At the door Nash stopped and said, “I’m not the one who’s going to need it. Rapp’s the one they have in their sights today.”
CHAPTER 57
CAPITOL HILL
RAPP stood in front of the witness table, his right hand in the air. He repeated after the committee staffer who swore him in. It was possibly the first time he’d ever taken the oath in front of this or any other committee, for that fact, where he actually planned on telling the truth. He knew this was one of the reasons so many of them hated him. His lack of respect drove their overfed egos wild. Professional parsers, bullshitters, and liars, they couldn’t get through a day without bending the truth in some drastic way, but God forbid someone come before their hallowed committee and do the same.
When he was done he sat down and looked up at the nineteen senators arrayed before him. They were sitting in judgment behind a heavy wood bench that curved around him and back like a horseshoe. The Judiciary Committee was without a doubt the most partisan in the Senate, due almost solely to the abortion issue and the fact that, in addition to the myriad of issues they faced, the committee was also charged with the confirmation of federal judges. Unfortunately, it affected everything that came before the committee. Of the nineteen members a dozen could be considered the most radical in the Senate.
Rapp was alone at the long witness table. He had chosen to make a statement that this problem started and ended with him. He had mixed feelings about how this was going to proceed. A very weary part of him had hoped they would be reckless enough to do this in front of the media. It would finally bring things to a head. It would force them to confront their lack of discipline and leadership. Anna would have loved that. His face being flashed all around the world would have all but assured that his days as a field operative would be done. In all the nights he’d been thinking about this, though, he knew they’d blink. These hearings were for show, and these vain men and women did not like to be embarrassed.
Their chairman was moving this thing along faster than they were used to. She wanted Rapp in her crosshairs before he changed his mind and lawyered up. But there were others who simply didn’t like the idea of a hearing with so many unknowns. They were used to getting written testimony in advance—kind of like getting the answers to a test and then making up your own questions. The whole system was rigged to their advantage, and Rapp was looking forward to dropping a few surprises on them. This was the one silver lining of a closed hearing. They were far more likely to grant him some latitude. If the cameras were present, and they sensed anything embarrassing, they would rally around each other like a pack of hyenas, howling and snapping until the clamor reached such a level that it would drown out the words of the witness. In a closed-door session, he stood a far better chance of being able to finish a point, and hopefully get them to put party politics on hold.
Chairman Lonsdale removed her reading glasses and set them in front of her. Rapp looked up and noticed that her demeanor had changed drastically during the fifteen-minute recess. The first ninety minutes of the morning had been spent hearing the testimony of Captain Leland, who had been flown back from Afghanistan. Lonsdale and her colleagues had treated him with the sensitivity a prosecutor would afford a rape victim. Now they were going to get their pound of flesh from the rapist.
With a disapproving frown, Lonsdale said, “Mr. Rapp, I trust you paid close attention to Captain Leland’s testimony.”
Rapp had been ordered to sit in the gallery during Leland’s testimony. “I did, Madam Chairman.”
“I considered it to be very truthful, yet,” Lonsdale said as she held up a sheaf of documents, “quite in contradiction to the written statement you have provided us.”
“Are you saying that you find my statement to be false?” Rapp asked.
