Illegal Alien

*9*

Frank immediately returned to his room and began making calls on his cellular, talking to a dozen different people in Washington. Two hours later the first phone call he’d made was returned. He put the phone to his now stubble-covered cheek. “Nobilio,” he said.

“Dr. Nobilio, please hold for Olympus.”

Frank waited through about a minute of static, then the familiar voice came on. “Frank?”

“Hello, Mr. President.”

“Frank, we’ve got a problem here, don’t we?”

“Yes, sir. I’m afraid we do.”

“The phones here have been ringing off the hook, ever since CNN reported the arrest. There’s not a single country on Earth that’s happy about California wanting to try one of the aliens.”

“I can imagine, sir,” said Frank. “I’m not a lawyer, but does California even have jurisdiction?”

“Murder is only a federal issue if it’s committed on federal lands, against federal officials, or if a fugitive crosses state lines,” said the president, himself a lawyer. “None of those conditions pertain here.” He sighed. “Several ambassadors have asked why we just didn’t sweep this whole Calhoun mess under the rug, and—”

“No, sir.”

“Pardon, Frank?”

“No— look, sir, Clete was my friend. He—” Frank paused, surprised to hear his own voice crack. “He was a good man, sir, and a good friend. I— I can understand the international feeling that maybe we’re going too far in prosecuting an extraterrestrial, but we should not forget Calhoun. Not ever, sir.”

“I know,” said the president gently. “And, as my aides have tried to explain to the foreign ambassadors, we’ve got a strict separation between the executive and legislative branch. I can’t be seen to be interfering with a court case, but…”

“Yes, sir?”

“Well, it’s not that long until Super Tuesday. The vice-president had already agreed to appear on Primetime Live tonight before this broke; Sam Donaldson is sure to skewer him. Everybody seems to be asking why Washington didn’t prevent this mess in the first place.”

“I understand,” said Frank. “Who are you sending out here to handle things?”

“Nobody, Frank. You’re it. You’re my man.”

“Me, sir?”

“I’d love to fly half the attorney general’s office out there, but it’d be suicide for me to be seen to be meddling directly. You’re already there, and as part of the Tosok entourage, you’ve got a legitimate role apparently unrelated to the murder case. You’re going to have to coordinate a defense for Hask, without being seen to be involved at all.”

“What about money, sir? I’ll need to hire a lawyer.”

“That’s a problem. We can’t be seen to be underwriting the defense in any way.”

Frank sighed, contemplating the magnitude of the task now facing aim. “I’ll do my best, sir.”

“I know you will, Frank.”

Olympus clicked off.

Frank went to Kelkad’s room in Valcour Hall. “Captain,” he said, “we will require money to hire a lawyer to defend Hask.”

“Money?” said Kelkad. “That green paper stuff? I am sure Engineer Rendo can replicate whatever we need aboard the mothership.”

Frank allowed himself his first faint smile since the murder. “No, you can’t do that. Duplicating money is a crime.”

“Oh. We have none of our own.”

“I know,” said Frank. “But I think I know a way…”

During his sixty-seven years of life, Dale Rice had heard the name for what he was change from Colored to Negro to Black to African-American. When he’d been born, there were still people alive who had been called slave.

Dale had white hair but black eyebrows, and large pouches of skin beneath his rheumy eyes. His nose was wide and misshapen. His three-hundred-pound body resembled an Aztec step pyramid; over it, he usually wore a charcoal-gray Armani suit, the pants held up by suspenders.

His wide, smooth face had seen a lot of history. Dale had been born in Montgomery, Alabama. He was a young man in 1955 when Rosa Parks was arrested there for refusing to give up her seat on a bus for a white man.

In 1961, Dale had become a Freedom Rider, testing the Supreme Court’s order outlawing segregation in bus terminals. When the bus he was on pulled into Anniston, Alabama, a mob of white men with clubs, bricks, metal pipes, and knives was waiting. The bus was firebombed, and as the black and white passengers escaped they were savagely beaten; it was during this fight that Dale’s nose had been broken.

In 1965, he and two hundred and fifty thousand other people marched on Washington, D.C., and heard the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., give his “I Have a Dream” speech.

Dale Rice had known King, and he’d known Malcolm X. He knew Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan. There were those who called him the top civil-rights lawyer in the United States. Dale himself thought that was probably true; he also thought it very sad that after all this time the United States still needed civil-rights lawyers.

The intercom on his desk buzzed. He pushed the talk button with a sausagelike finger. “Yes?” he said, his voice low and deep.

“Dale,” said a woman, “there’s a man here to see you. He doesn’t have an appointment, but…”

“Yes, Karen?”

“He’s shown me some ID. He works for the president of the United States.”

The dark eyebrows rose toward the white cloud of hair. “Send him in.”

A thin white man came into the room. He was wearing gold wire-frame glasses and a gray suit that looked much less expensive than Dale’s. “Mr. Rice,” he said, in a slightly nasal voice, “my name is Francis Nobilio. I’m the science advisor to the president.”

Dale sat looking out at Frank over his own half glasses. Dale was a man of few movements, and he did not offer his hand. He indicated one of the empty chairs facing his desk not with a gesture, but simply with glance of his old, tired eyes. “I’ve seen you on TV,” he said. “You’re part of the entourage living with those aliens.”

“That’s correct, sir. And that’s why I’m here. One of the Tosoks has been arrested for murder.”

Dale nodded. “I was at the county courthouse today. Everyone was talking about it. The victim was that gentleman from PBS, right?”

“Cletus Calhoun, yes.”

“And you want me to defend the Tosok?”

“Yes.”

“Why me?”

Frank shrugged, as if it were obvious. “Your track record.”

“There are lots of good lawyers in this town.”

“True. But, well…” He paused, apparently not sure what to say next. “Look, it’s not exactly a civil-rights case, but…”

“But I’m black.”

Frank looked away. “There’s that.”

“And many of my most prominent cases have involved black defendents.”

“Yes.”

“Including a number of blacks accused of murdering whites.”

Frank shifted in his chair. “Well, yes.”

“So you figured I’m an expert at defending individuals that the court might be inclined to view as second-class citizens.”

“I, ah, I wouldn’t put it that way.”

“But that’s the issue, isn’t it? You’re afraid the jury will consider the Tosok to be something less than human.” Dale had a James Earl Jones voice; his every syllable was as a pronouncement from on high.

“The thought had crossed my mind, yes.”

Dale’s eyes were unflinching. “Would you have come to me if the deceased man had been black?”

“I— I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about that.”

“Black stiff, alien killer—not quite the same issue, is it? A jury is less likely to be enraged over the death of a black man.”

“I’d like to think that the color of the victim makes no difference.”

Dale’s eyes continued to bore into Frank’s skull for a few moments. “But it does,” he said simply.

“Look, I’ve got to find someone to represent Hask today. I called Janet Reno, and Janet says you’re the best there is. But if you don’t want the job—”

“I didn’t say that. I just want to make sure that it’s the right case for me—and that your expectations are realistic. I’m offered a hundred cases a day; I turn almost all of them down.”

“I know. You were asked to be a part of the Dream Team for the O.J. Simpson criminal trial.”

“True. And I passed.”

“Why?”

Dale thought for a moment about whether he wanted to answer this. Finally, he said, “Too many chiefs. Too many egos. I don’t work that way. You hire me, you get me—me, and one of my associates as second chair. Half the reason the Simpson trial lasted so long was that each of the gentlemen sitting at the defense table had to get his time in the spotlight.”

“You would be lead counsel. The rest of the team would be up to you.”

Dale considered. “You mentioned Simpson, Dr. Nobilio. Let me ask you a question. Why was he found not guilty in the criminal trial?”

Frank tucked his lower lip behind his teeth. He seemed to be trying to think of a politic answer. Finally, he shrugged. “Slick lawyering.”

“You think he did it? Think he killed Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman?”

“Well, yes.”

“Was justice done in that trial?”

Frank shook his head.

“You need a different lawyer. My secretary will suggest some names to you.” Dale heaved his massive bulk up from his leather chair, and this time he did extend a beefy hand.

Frank didn’t get up. “Don’t brush me off, Mr. Rice. I need you. If you think my opinion is incorrect, tell me why.”

Dale knew his own natural expression was a frown; he now let Frank see what his real frown looked like. But then he lowered himself back down, the chair creaking as it took his weight again. “The Simpson criminal jury only deliberated for four hours,” Dale said. “You know why? Because it was an open-and-shut case.”

Frank raised his eyebrows. “Open-and-shut!”

“Certainly. The jury was asked a single question: was there a reasonable doubt about O.J. Simpson’s guilt? And the answer was simple: of course there was. You and most of white America wanted the question to be: did Simpson do it? But no jury is ever asked to decide that. Instead, they’re asked, is there a reasonable doubt? And there absolutely was, on a dozen different grounds. The clear proof that Mark Fuhrman had perjured himself on the witness stand, the suggestion that he might have planted evidence, the EDTA preservative in the Simpson blood specimens, the possibility of DNA contamination, the gloves that didn’t fit, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That’s reasonable doubt.”

Frank said nothing.

“Since there was reasonable doubt, he was entitled to go free. Slick lawyering had nothing to do with it.”

Frank sounded dubious. “Oh.”

“Johnnie, Lee, and the others, they didn’t pull off a miracle for Simpson. All they did was point out the reasonable doubt about his guilt. Any competent lawyer could have done the same thing—in that particular case. But you, Dr. Nobilio, are you shopping for a miracle worker?”

“Pardon?”

“Is there any reasonable doubt about whether your alien did it?”

Dale could see the surprise on Frank’s face. “Of course there is. Hask wouldn’t have committed murder.”

“How do you know that?”

“I— well, I mean, he’s an alien, and…”

“I saw you on Nightline a couple of weeks ago,” said Dale. “You said something about since the Tosoks are obviously technologically superior to us, they must also be morally superior. They’d faced all the demons of technological adolescence and come through it.”

“I did say that, yes. And nothing has changed my opinion.”

“Monty Ajax wouldn’t have laid charges unless he thought he had an exceptional case,” said Dale.

“I— I suppose,” said Frank. It was clear from his expression that he hadn’t considered the possibility that Hask might be guilty.

“If your alien is guilty, he will likely be found guilty,” said Dale. “This isn’t Perry Mason’s Los Angeles. The DA in this town wins ninety percent of the time.”

Surprise moved across Nobilio’s face. “I— I thought it would be more like half the time.”

“We elect our district attorneys, Doctor. You think the voters would keep voting in someone if he didn’t usually win? If I take this case, you must have realistic expectations. If your alien did it, and if he premeditated the crime, then he will quite likely be found guilty of murder one.”

“No. We need for him to go free.”

“I can’t guarantee that. And if he’s guilty, and if the police did not violate his rights—hardly a given, I grant you—there is no reason he should go free.”

“There’s more at stake here than the simple issue of who killed Cletus Calhoun. This is our first contact with aliens, for God’s sake. The repercussions of this going bad are beyond imagination. Look, you caught me off guard a moment ago. I did not come to you just because you’re black. I came here because of the career you’ve had. You take cases in which larger issues are involved all the time—civil-rights cases, test cases against unjust laws. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I want you.”

Dale considered. He kept his face impassive; the only sound in the room was the soft wheeze of his breathing. “My race, of course, shouldn’t be a factor—and I accept that it is not. But a reality that faces people of every race is the march of time. You’re still a reasonably young man, Dr. Nobilio, but I’m just a few years shy of my allotted threescore and ten. I’ve got a cabin in Georgia that I’ve been planning to retire to. This could be an extremely complex and drawn-out case.”

“I can’t deny that,” said Frank. “And I can’t say that you need this case as a capstone; you will be remembered for a dozen major cases.”

Dale’s voice was dry. “Only a dozen?” He was quiet for a time, then: “I require a retainer of fifty thousand dollars. My fee is five hundred dollars an hour for my time, plus two hundred dollars an hour for my associate’s time, plus expenses.”

“Now, ah, that’s a problem.”

“You were expecting me to work pro bono?”

“No, no—you deserve to be paid; I understand that. But the Tosoks don’t have any money, and of course my office can’t be seen as getting involved.”

“What do you propose?”

“Tosok technology will, of course, be introduced into Earth society; Captain Kelkad has agreed to patent the technology aboard his starship, and to pay you for your services a fee equal to one-quarter of one percent of all income generated from licensing that technology.”

“In perpetuity?” said Rice. “And not contingent on the outcome of the case?”

“In perpetuity,” agreed Frank. “And you get it whether you win or lose.” He smiled. “Before you know it, you may be richer than Bill Gates.”

“I don’t crave money, Dr. Nobilio, but…”

“But think of all the good you could do with it.”

Dale nodded. “Very well.”

“You’ll take the case?”

“I will.”

“Thank you. Thank you. When can you see Hask?”

“Where is he? Parker Center?”

Frank nodded.

“I’ll have Karen clear my afternoon.” He rose again, slowly, ponderously. “Let’s go.”

Frank got up. “We’ll want to go over his alibi, of course.”

Dale had moved out from behind his wide oak desk. He placed a giant hand on Frank’s forearm. “There is no ‘we,’ son.”

Frank blinked. “Pardon?”

“You’re not an attorney. You can’t be with Hask when I speak to him.”

Frank’s eyes narrowed. “What? Why?”

“Because conversations between him and me are privileged—but only if they’re in private. If they’re not, then any of the participants—yourself, but also him or me—are subject to subpoena.”

“But I want to be in on this. Hell, the president wants me to be in on this.”

“I understand—but you cannot.”

“Can’t you—I don’t know—deputize me? Something like that?”

“Make you an agent, you mean. No, I can’t do that—after all, there’s a reasonable likelihood that you’ll be called as a witness by one side or the other.” Dale began to move toward the mahogany doors to his office. “Sorry, son, but you’ve hired me, and now you’ve got to trust me.”