*
Amelia met me in the passage. She stared contemptuously at my single piece of luggage as only a woman could.
‘Is that really everything?’
‘I travel light.’
‘Light? I’d say gossamer.’ She sighed. ‘Right. Follow me.’
My suitcase was one of those ubiquitous pull-alongs, with an extendable handle and small wheels. It made an industrious hum on the stone floor as I trailed after her down the passage and around to the back of the house.
‘I tried to call you several times last night,’ she said, without turning round, ‘but you didn’t answer.’
Here it comes, I thought.
‘I forgot to charge my mobile.’
‘Oh? What about the phone in your room? I tried that as well.’
‘I went out.’
‘Until midnight?’
I winced behind her back. ‘What did you want to tell me?’
‘This.’
She stopped outside a door, opened it, and stood aside to let me go in. The room was in darkness, but the heavy curtains didn’t quite meet in the middle, and there was just enough light for me to make out the shape of a double bed. It smelled of stale clothes and old ladies’ soap. She crossed the floor and briskly pulled back the curtains.
‘You’ll be sleeping in here from now on.’
It was a plain room, with sliding glass doors that opened directly on to the lawn. Apart from the bed, there was a desk with an Anglepoise lamp, an armchair covered in something beige and thickly woven, and a wall-length built-in wardrobe with mirrored doors. I could also see into a white-tiled en suite bathroom. It was neat and functional; dismal.
I tried to make a joke of it. ‘So this is where you put the granny, is it?’
‘No, this is where we put Mike McAra.’
She slid back one of the doors to the closet, revealing a few jackets and shirts on hangers. ‘I’m afraid we haven’t had a chance to clear it yet, and his mother’s in a home for the elderly so she doesn’t have the space to store it. But as you say yourself, you travel light. And besides, it will only be for a few days, now that publication has been brought forward.’
I’ve never been particularly superstitious, but I do believe that certain places have an atmosphere, and from the moment I stepped into that room, I didn’t like it. The thought of touching McAra’s clothes filled me with something close to panic.
‘I always make it a rule not to sleep in a client’s house,’ I said, attempting to keep my voice light and offhand. ‘I often find, at the end of a working day, it’s vital to get away.’
‘But now you can have constant access to the manuscript. Isn’t that what you want?’ She gave me her smile, and for once there was genuine merriment in it. She had me exactly where she wanted me, literally and figuratively. ‘Besides, you can’t keep running the media gauntlet. Sooner or later they’ll discover who you are, and then they’ll start pestering you with questions. That would be horrid for you. This way you can work in peace.’
‘Isn’t there another room I could use?’
‘There are only six bedrooms in the main house. Adam and Ruth have one each. I have one. The girls share. The duty policemen have the use of one for the overnight shift. And the guest block is entirely taken over by Special Branch. Don’t be squeamish: the sheets have been changed.’ She consulted her elegant gold watch. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘Sidney Kroll will be arriving any minute. We’re due to get the ICC announcement in less than thirty minutes. Why don’t you settle in here, and then come up and join us? Whatever’s decided will affect you. You’re practically one of us now.’
‘I am?’
‘Of course. You drafted the statement yesterday. That makes you an accomplice.’
After she’d gone I didn’t unpack. I couldn’t face it. Instead I sat gingerly on the end of the bed and stared out of the window at the wind-blasted lawn, the low scrub and the immense sky. A small blaze of brilliant white light was travelling quickly across the grey expanse, swelling as it came closer. A helicopter. It passed low overhead, shaking the heavy glass doors, and then, a minute or two later, reappeared, hovering a mile away, just above the horizon, like a sinister and portentous comet. It was a sign of how serious things had become, I thought, if some hard-pressed news manager on a trimmed budget was willing to hire a chopper in the hope of catching a fleeting shot of the former British prime minister. I pictured Kate, smugly watching the live coverage in her office in London, and was seized by a fantastic desire to run out and start twirling, like Julie Andrews at the start of The Sound of Music: Yes, darling, it’s me! I’m here with the war criminal! I’m an accomplice!
I sat there for a while, until I heard the noise of the minivan pulling up outside the front of the house, followed by a commotion of voices in the hall, and then a small army of footsteps thudding up the wooden staircase: I reckoned that must be the sound of a thousand dollars an hour in legal fees on the hoof. I gave Kroll and his client a couple of minutes for handshakes, condolences and general expressions of confidence, then wearily left my dead man’s room and went up to join them.
*
Kroll had flown in by private jet from Washington with two young paralegals, an exquisitely pretty Mexican woman he introduced as Encarnacion, and a black guy from New York called Josh. They sat on either side of him, their laptops open, on a sofa which placed their backs to the ocean view. Adam and Ruth Lang had the couch opposite, Amelia and I an armchair each. A cinema-sized flat screen TV next to the fireplace was showing the aerial shot of the house, as relayed live from the helicopter we could hear buzzing faintly outside. Occasionally the news station cut to the waiting journalists in the large, chandeliered room in The Hague where the press conference was due to be held. Each time I saw the empty podium with its ICC logo in tasteful UN blue – laurel boughs and scales of justice – I felt a little more sick with nerves. But Lang himself seemed cool. He was jacketless, wearing a white shirt and a dark blue tie. It was the sort of high-pressure occasion his metabolism was built for.
‘So here’s the score,’ said Kroll, when we’d all taken our places. ‘You’re not being charged. You’re not being arrested. None of this is going to amount to a hill of beans, I promise you. All that the prosecutor is asking for right now is permission to launch a formal investigation. Okay? So when we go out of here you walk tall, you look cool, and you have peace in your heart, because it’s all going to be fine.’
‘The President told me he thought they might not even let her investigate,’ said Lang.
‘I always hesitate to contradict the leader of the free world,’ said Kroll, ‘but the general feeling in Washington this morning is they’ll have to. Our Madam Prosecutor is quite a savvy operator, it seems. The British government have consistently refused to hold an investigation of their own into Operation Tempest – that gives her a legal pretext to look into it herself. And by leaking her case just before going into the Pre-Trial Chamber, she’s put a lot of pressure on those three judges to at least give her permission to move to the investigation stage. If they tell her to drop it, they know damn well that everyone will just say they’re scared to go after a major power.’
‘That’s crude smear tactics,’ said Ruth. She was wearing black leggings and another of her shapeless tops. Her shoeless feet were tucked beneath her on the sofa, her back was turned to her husband.
Lang shrugged. ‘It’s politics.’
‘Exactly my point,’ said Kroll. ‘Treat it as a political problem, not a legal one.’
Ruth said, ‘We need to get out our version of what happened. Refusing to comment isn’t enough any more.’
I saw my chance. ‘John Maddox—’ I began.
‘Yeah,’ said Kroll, cutting me off, ‘I talked to John, and he’s right. We really have to go for this whole story now in the memoirs. It’s the perfect platform for you to respond, Adam. They’re very excited.’
‘Fine,’ said Lang.
‘As soon as possible
you need to sit down with our friend here’ – I realised Kroll had forgotten my name – ‘and go over the whole thing in detail. But you’ll need to make sure it’s all cleared with me first. The test we have to apply is to imagine what every word might sound like if it’s read out while you’re standing in the dock.’
‘Why?’ said Ruth. ‘I thought you said none of this was going to amount to anything.’
‘It won’t,’ said Kroll smoothly, ‘especially if we’re careful not to give them any extra ammunition.’
‘This way we get to present it the way we want,’ said Lang. ‘And whenever I’m asked about it, I can refer people to the account in my memoirs. Who knows? It might even help sell a few copies.’ He looked around. We all smiled. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘to come back to today. What am I actually likely to be investigated for?’
Kroll gestured to Encarnacion.
‘Either crimes against humanity,’ she said carefully, ‘or war crimes.’
There was a silence. Odd the effect such words can have. Perhaps it was the fact that it was she who had said them: she looked so innocent. We stopped smiling.
‘Unbelievable,’ said Ruth eventually, ‘to equate what Adam did or didn’t do with the Nazis.’
‘That’s precisely why the United States doesn’t recognise the court,’ said Kroll. He wagged his finger. ‘We warned you what would happen. An international war crimes tribunal sounds very noble in principle. But you go after all these genocidal maniacs in the Third World, and sooner or later the Third World is going to come right back after you, otherwise it looks like discrimination. They kill three thousand of us, we kill one of them, and suddenly we’re all war criminals together. It’s the worst kind of moral equivalence. Well, they can’t drag America into their phoney court, so who can they drag? It’s obvious: our closest ally – you. Like I say, it’s not legal, it’s political.’
‘You should make exactly that point, Adam,’ said Amelia, and she wrote something in her black and red notebook.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said grimly, ‘I will.’
‘Go ahead, Connie,’ said Kroll. ‘Let’s hear the rest of it.’
‘The reason we can’t be sure which route they’ll choose at this stage is that torture is outlawed both by Article Seven of the 1998 Rome Statute, under the heading of crimes against humanity, and also under Article Eight, that is war crimes. Article Eight also categorises as a war crime’ – she consulted her laptop – ‘“wilfully depriving a prisoner of war or other protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial” and “unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement”. Prima facie, sir, you could be accused under either Seven or Eight.’
‘But I haven’t ordered that anyone should be tortured!’ said Lang. His voice was incredulous, outraged. ‘And I haven’t deprived anyone of a fair trial, or illegally imprisoned them. Perhaps – perhaps – you could make that charge against the United States, but not Great Britain.’
‘That’s true, sir,’ agreed Encarnacion. ‘However, Article Twenty-Five, which deals with individual criminal responsibility, states that’ – and once again her cool dark eyes flickered to the computer screen – ‘“a person shall be criminally responsible and liable for punishment if that person facilitates the commission of such a crime, aids, abets or otherwise assists in its commission or its attempted commission, including the means for its commission”.’
Again, there was a silence, which was filled by the distant drone of the helicopter.
‘That’s rather sweeping,’ said Lang quietly.
‘It’s absurd, is what it is,’ cut in Kroll. ‘It means that if the CIA fly a suspect for interrogation somewhere in a private plane, the owners of that private plane are technically guilty of facilitating a crime against humanity.’
‘But legally—’ began Lang.
‘It’s not legal, Adam,’ said Kroll, with just a hint of exasperation, ‘it’s political.’
‘No, Sid,’ said Ruth. She was concentrating hard, frowning at the carpet and shaking her head emphatically. ‘It’s legal as well. The two are inseparable. That passage your young lady just read out makes it perfectly obvious why the judges will have to allow an investigation, because Richard Rycart has produced documentary evidence which suggests that Adam did in fact do all those things: aided, abetted and facilitated.’ She looked up. ‘That is legal jeopardy – isn’t that what you call it? And that leads inescapably to political jeopardy. Because in the end it will all come down to public opinion, and we’re unpopular enough back home as it is, without this.’
‘Well, if it’s any comfort, Adam’s certainly not in jeopardy as long as he stays here, among his friends.’
The armoured glass vibrated slightly. The helicopter was coming in again for a closer look. Its searchlight filled the room. But on the television screen all that could be seen in the big picture window was a reflection of the sea.
‘Wait a minute,’ said Lang, raising his hand to his head and clutching his hair, as if he were glimpsing the situation for the first time. ‘Are you saying that I can’t leave the United States?’
‘Josh,’ said Kroll, nodding to his other assistant.
‘Sir,’ said Josh gravely, ‘if I may, I would like just to read you the opening of Article Fifty-Eight, which covers arrest warrants.’ He fixed his solemn gaze on Adam Lang. ‘“At any time after the initiation of an investigation, the Pre-Trial Chamber shall, on the application of the Prosecutor, issue a warrant of arrest of a person if, having examined the application and the evidence or other information submitted by the Prosecutor, it is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the person has committed a crime within the jurisdiction of the Court, and the arrest of the person appears necessary to ensure the person’s appearance at trial.”’
‘Jesus,’ said Lang. ‘What are “reasonable grounds”?’
‘It won’t happen,’ said Kroll.
‘You keep saying that,’ said Ruth irritably, ‘but it could.’
‘It won’t but it could,’ said Kroll, spreading his hands. ‘Those two statements aren’t incompatible.’ He permitted himself one of his private smiles and turned to Adam. ‘Nevertheless, as your attorney, until this whole thing is resolved, I do strongly advise you not to travel to any country that recognises the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. All it would take is for two of these three judges to decide to grandstand to the human rights crowd, go ahead and issue a warrant, and you could be picked up.’
‘But just about every country in the world recognises the ICC,’ said Lang.
‘America doesn’t.’
‘And who else?’
‘Iraq,’ said Josh, ‘China, North Korea, Indonesia.’
We waited for him to go on; he didn’t.
‘And that’s it?’ said Lang. ‘Everywhere else does?’
‘No, sir. Israel doesn’t. And some of the nastier regimes in Africa.’
Amelia said, ‘I think something’s happening.’
She aimed the remote at the television.
*
And so we watched as the Spanish Chief Prosecutor – all massive black hair and bright red lipstick, as glamorous as a film star in the silvery strobe of camera flashes – announced that she had that morning been granted the power to investigate the former British prime minister, Adam Peter Benet Lang, under Articles Seven and Eight of the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Or rather the others all watched her, while I watched Lang. ‘AL – intense concentration,’ I jotted in my notebook, pretending to take down the words of the Chief Prosecutor but really studying my client for any insights I could use later. ‘Reaches hand out for R: she doesn’t respond. Glances at her. Lonely, puzzled. Withdraws hand. Looks back at screen. Shakes head. CP says “Was this just single incident or part of systematic pattern of criminal behaviour?” – AL flinches. Angry. CP: “Justice must be equal for rich & poor, powerful & weak alike.” Shouts at screen, “What about the te
rrorists?”’
I had never witnessed any of my authors at a real crisis in their lives before, and scrutinising Lang, I gradually began to realise that my favourite catch-all question – ‘How did it feel?’ – was in truth a crude tool, vague to the point of uselessness. In the course of those few minutes, as the legal procedure was explained, a rapid succession of emotions swept across Lang’s craggy face, as fleeting as cloud shadows passing over a hillside in spring – shock, fury, hurt, defiance, dismay, shame … How were these to be disentangled? And if he didn’t know precisely what he felt now, even as he was feeling it, how could he be expected to know it in ten years’ time? Even his reaction at this moment I would have to manufacture for him. I would have to simplify it to make it plausible. I would have to draw on my own imagination. In a sense, I would have to lie.
The Chief Prosecutor finished her statement, briefly answered a couple of shouted questions, then left the podium. Halfway out of the room, she stopped to pose for the cameras again, and there was another blizzard of phosphorus as she turned to give the world the benefit of her magnificent aquiline profile, and then she was gone. The screen reverted to the aerial shot of Rhinehart’s house, in its setting of woods, pond and ocean, as the world waited for Lang to appear.
Amelia dipped the sound. Downstairs, the phones started ringing.
‘Well,’ said Kroll, breaking the silence, ‘there was nothing in that we weren’t expecting.’
‘Yes,’ said Ruth. ‘Well done.’
Kroll pretended not to notice.
‘We should get you to Washington, Adam, right away. My plane’s waiting at the airport.’
Lang was still staring at the screen. ‘When Marty said I could use his vacation house, I never realised how cut off this place was. We should never have come. Now we look as though we’re hiding.’
‘Exactly my feeling. You can’t just hole up here, at least not today. I’ve made some calls. I can get you in to see the House Majority Leader at lunchtime and we can have a photo op with the Secretary of State this afternoon.’