IT HAD BEEN Karen O'Keefe's idea to contact Troop. She couldn't stand the guy or his macho books but said Tom had to admit it made sense. With all his military contacts Troop was better placed than anyone to help find a good civilian attorney to defend Danny. Tom needed a lot of persuasion. He hated asking favors even of friends and Troop would have been last on any list.
"Listen, the guy could be useful in all kinds of ways," Karen said. "I googled him. He's the US armed forces' most popular author. Having him on Danny's side might not be such a bad idea. Think of the publicity."
"That sounds like a good reason not to get him involved. He'll probably just turn us all into a novel."
"Great," Karen said. "I'll make the movie."
"I thought you already were."
"Ouch."
When Gina and Dutch had first heard that Tom had Danny's blessing to find a civilian lawyer, they were predictably angry. They clearly felt as if they had been sidelined. But Tom knew he had to deliver—and fast. After a week of research and many abortive phone calls, he ran out of options and concluded that Karen might have a point. Swallowing his pride and the Pavlovian envy any mention of Troop's name inspired, he picked up the phone one last time.
As luck would have it the Famous Author was at his Montana residence, no doubt dashing off another throbbing ten-million-dollar blockbuster. He told Tom to get in the car that very minute and drive down to see him. The cabin, as he liked to call it, was five miles outside Hamilton, less than an hour's drive from Missoula and, predictably, turned out to be more of a mansion that just happened to be built out of wood. There were tall metal gates that opened spookily as Tom approached and security cameras whirred as he passed, tracking his progress along the driveway that wound for a mile up through the forest. There was a small black helicopter on the lawn and a glinting ruby-and-chrome Hummer near the front porch with a beautiful young blonde about to leap in. Tom foolishly assumed this had to be Troop's daughter but, of course, it turned out to be his girlfriend. Troop came out to greet him with a brave hug and a look overloaded with sympathy. He introduced him to Krista, who said a sweet hi and bye, kissed Troop lingeringly on the lips then thundered off in the Hummer.
The house had a travel brochure view of the mountains. The interior was lavish western chic, like an updated version of Ray's house only with more taste. It was all polished wood and stone and thick cream-colored rugs. There were elk and buffalo heads on the walls and Wild West paintings, including a Charlie Russell that Tom recognized. Troop's office was a kind of military command center the size of a small football field, with banks of computers and screens and flashing machines that were probably linked directly to the Pentagon. There were pictures of him on the walls with grunts and generals and politicians, including one on the White House lawn with George W. and Laura as well as countless framed bestseller lists with Troop's titles inevitably at number one.
They settled on the leather couch by the window and talked for an hour. Or rather, Tom talked, telling him about Danny and what had happened that night in Iraq. Troop listened, sipping a glass of ginseng tea and gravely stroking his beard.
"There's only one man for this," he said when Tom had finished.
It sounded like a line from one of his thrillers—or perhaps all of them. Tom almost expected to hear movie music and the thump of chopper blades. Troop went to sit behind his immense desk and picked up one of the half-dozen phones.
The lawyer's name was Brian McKnight. He had his own law firm in Detroit and specialized in defending cases of alleged military malpractice which, according to Troop, he was rarely known to lose. The two of them chatted and joked for a while and then Troop told him why he was calling and put the phone on speaker and introduced Tom.
McKnight seemed to know a lot about the case already.
"So, you were a Marine too," he said.
"No, that's Danny's stepfather."
"And is he okay about you bringing in an independent attorney?"
"Not yet. I guess he thinks it's disloyal or something."
"That figures. It sometimes takes a while to understand that loyalty has its limits. Cases like this are about politics. But you all need to agree on this."
"I'm working on it."
They arranged to speak again in a couple of days when Tom had consulted with Gina and Dutch.
Troop got up from his desk and came to sit on the couch again.
"I watched the DVD of your Blackfeet film the other day," he said. "It's a hell of a piece of work."
"Thank you."
"I remember once, all those years ago, when we were on the UM writers' program, you reading out a short story you'd written about a young Blackfeet boy living on the reservation. It was the best thing I ever heard. I remember thinking, shit, I wish I was half as good as that."
Tom laughed. Compliments always made him feel uneasy.
"I'm serious."
"Well, thanks. We were all completely in awe of you."
"Did you go on writing fiction?"
"Oh, I've got the usual drawer full of unfinished novels. They all kind of hit a wall halfway through."
"That's a pity."
They were silent for a moment.
"Thanks for doing this for us," Tom said.
"You're welcome. If there's anything else, just let me know."
It was easier than Tom had dared expect to persuade Gina that they should at least meet with Brian McKnight. The three of them flew down to San Diego the following week. In all the years since Gina left, Tom and Dutch had never really had a conversation. In fact the only times they'd ever met were when Tom picked Danny up or dropped him back home. Tom remembered the guy being tall and big, like a bear with a buzz cut. But when the three of them met at the airport, Dutch wasn't at all like that. He was shorter than Tom and not remotely like a bear. Tom realized he must have concocted an image of him that fitted the Marine cliche. They shook hands while Gina watched, trying not to look too anxious.
On the plane they sat three in a row with Tom in the middle and it took him a while to get over how strange that felt. Sitting next to the guy he'd hated for years, the one who'd stolen his wife and his only son, whose influence—you could at least argue—had landed Danny where he now was, in the dock. And here they were, eating pretzels and coffee and making polite conversation, while Gina pretended to be engrossed in her book.
McKnight had booked a room for them to meet at a hotel called the Bristol on First Avenue and he was already there with Danny when they arrived. Danny looked as if he'd forgotten how to sleep. There were dark rings under his eyes. The months of waiting were clearly taking their toll. He gave Tom and Dutch exactly the same, carefully measured welcome.
McKnight was a dour ramrod of a man with gold-rimmed glasses and a ginger seventies-style mustache. Over the next two hours, during which time he never once smiled, they discovered that he was a former Marine, an NCIS investigator and attorney and knew every murky corner of the labyrinth in which Danny was currently trapped. He had already read all the paperwork and said he had serious misgivings about the way Danny's defense was being conducted.
All now hinged on the Article 32 hearing, he told them. It was already scheduled for the first week in January. It was on the preparation for this that all their energy needed to be concentrated, McKnight said.
"What is this hearing exactly?" Tom asked.
"It's the military equivalent of a grand jury. Basically it decides whether there's a case to answer."
"And if it decides there is?"
"Then the case proceeds to a court-martial."
Gina cleared her throat.
"What's the worst that could happen?" she asked.
"The worst?"
McKnight paused for a moment. He looked at Danny.
"Well, ma'am. Your son already knows this. The US military hasn't passed a death sentence on one of its own in many years. But I have to tell you that the power to do so remains untouched."
They didn't talk much on the flight back to Montana. When they said goodbye at the airport, Dutch shook Tom's hand and held on to it for a moment.
"Thank you, Tom, for doing this," he said. "I was wrong about getting an outside lawyer involved. I still find it hard to believe, but it looks like they were going to let the poor kid take the rap. With this guy McKnight on our side, maybe he stands a chance."
That night, for the first time in many years, Tom dreamed about Diane. It was a kind of updated version of the dream he'd had again and again during the year before she went to the gas chamber. The one that used to leave him cowering in the corner of his bedroom, shrieking and clutching his head until the whole house was awake. It had never actually been about the moment of execution. The terror had been more insidious, a kind of creeping prelude: sitting with her in a darkened cell, footsteps coming closer down the corridor, a shadow below the door, an eye at the grille, the click of a key in the lock, the door beginning to open.
It was Karen O'Keefe who kept him level as the weeks went by and summer turned to fall. She was often away, doing research or shooting interviews for Walking Wounded. But whenever she was in Missoula, staying with her mother, she would drop by two or three times a week. They would have lunch or supper and then spend a couple of hours going through some of the research material for their film about the Holy Family Mission. She had in mind a dramatized documentary and had written an outline that Tom liked a lot. And she had delved around and turned up some interesting new material, including photographs Tom never knew existed. Better still, she had located a journal kept by one of the Italian Jesuit priests who had run the place.
They went for walks with Makwi, who seemed to like her just as much as Tom did. The three of them even occasionally went running together. It was all still strictly platonic, though not without substantial restraint on Tom's part. As for Karen's, he couldn't be sure. She seemed to like him a lot. And by now he knew much more about her. She was thirty-three years old and for the past seven years had been living in Vail, having an affair with a ski instructor who had apparently always kept promising to leave his wife but never did. Finally Karen did the leaving instead.
Tom remained confused about what he felt for her (or, more accurately, what it was appropriate to feel, for lust was an unruly beast and not so readily restrained). But what the hell. They enjoyed each other's company; she was fun to be around and she made him feel younger and more alive than he'd felt in years. The important thing was, he no longer doubted her motives. She made no secret of her continued wish to meet Danny and, should he prove willing, to interview him for Walking Wounded.
The opportunity would probably come at Thanksgiving. Danny was flying home to spend the holiday with Gina and Dutch in Great Falls. Relations were now so amicable that Gina, remarkably, had invited Tom to join them for Thanksgiving dinner. He was touched but not sure he was ready for this and had gratefully declined, saying he'd already accepted a previous offer. Danny was going to come over to Missoula at the weekend. Apart from the minor matter of timing, the alternative offer turned out to be real, for the very next day Karen invited him to her mother's Thanksgiving dinner.
"She's been driving me crazy, asking when she's going to get to meet you. She says if you don't show up she'll come by and grab you."
"I don't know which sounds the more exciting."
"Dinner, believe me."
For at least a decade, Tom had treated Thanksgiving and Christmas as if they didn't exist, turning down so many invitations nobody asked him anymore. Had it not come from Karen, he would certainly have turned this one down too. But when the day came he was glad he hadn't.
Lois O'Keefe looked at least five years younger than Tom knew she had to be—and so like her daughter it was uncanny. She had a wicked wit and teased him from the moment he arrived, mostly about the late and, it seemed, not unduly lamented Maurice.
"Tell you the truth, Tom, it was Norm who bought the wretched creature."
"Norm?"
"My ex-boyfriend. He absolutely doted on him—rather more than he did on me, as it turned out. They even had the same blue eyes. After Norm absconded, I found that a little disconcerting. As if the sonofabitch was still there, staring at me, checking up on me. Are you an absconder, Tom?"
"No, I think I'm technically an abscondee."
"Ah, well, there we are. We have something in common. Here's to all abscondees."
Apart from Tom and Karen, the other guests were a charming ragbag of the divorced and the displaced. There was a sweet elderly aunt from Chicago, a heart surgeon from Vancouver who was clearly one of Lois's old flames (according to Karen, there were a fair few of these), a University of Montana botany professor and her hunky but rather slow-witted boyfriend, and a suave, sad-eyed New Yorker called Gunter who did something incomprehensible with other people's money and seemed slightly ashamed of it.
Tom sat between Lois and Karen and felt honored. The food was delicious and the conversation fun.
"So, Lois," he said as she served him a second slice of pumpkin pie. "I hear you're moving to France."
"Oh, I don't know."
"She changes her plans all the time," Karen said. "Last week it was Provence. This week it's Tuscany."
"Ah, Tuscany." Gunter sighed into his glass.
"What's wrong with France?" the heart surgeon said. "I mean, apart from the French."
"I adore the French," Lois said.
"They sure don't like us."
"Nobody likes us. Tom, if you don't mind my asking, I mean, I know you've lived here most of your life, but are you still a Brit or...?"
"Lois, I don't have the faintest idea what I am."
Everyone laughed.
"I still have the passport, if that's what you mean."
"But what do you feel?"
"You sound like my therapist." He thought for a moment. "To be honest, I've never really felt I belonged anywhere or to any country or tribe. Which isn't to say I haven't wanted to belong. Anyhow, nobody likes the Brits either anymore, so we're all in the same sinking boat."
"Nonsense. I love the Brits," Lois said decisively. "Whenever I get the chance."
"Mother," Karen groaned.
Lois raised her glass.
"Here's to the good old sangfroid."
They all dutifully joined in the toast.
"What does sangfroid mean?" the professor's hunky boyfriend whispered.
"It's French for cold-blooded," Tom said. "Like reptiles."
"Nonsense," Lois said. "It's much stronger and more dignified than that. It means... composure."
As Tom left, while Karen stood behind her mother, grinning and shaking her head, Lois held on to his hand and gazed into his eyes and said how much she'd enjoyed meeting him.
"We didn't get to talk about your wonderful Indian book and that fabulous film. There was so much I wanted to ask you about. I'm only over the hill—"
"You can say that again," Karen quipped.
"Ignore my insolent daughter, Tom. Promise me you'll come again when all this noisy rabble isn't here."
He promised and she put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him on both cheeks.
Danny and Kelly drove over from Great Falls two days later for lunch. He looked less pale and drawn and had put on a few pounds in the month or so since Tom had last seen him. They gave each other a long hug and then Danny introduced Kelly. She was small and pretty and when Tom shook her hand she gave him a shy smile with a look in her eye that showed she knew a lot more about him than he did about her.
The conversation over lunch was a little strained. The court hearing hung unmentioned but defiant in the air around them. Tom asked Kelly about her family and her work. She was the daughter of a Marine Corps sergeant and had some sort of civilian administrative job at Malmstrom Air Force Base and seemed very smart. The two of them clearly adored each other. Every so often, without looking, Kelly would reach out and hold Danny's hand.
Over coffee in the living room Danny cleared his throat and announced that the two of them were engaged to be married. They weren't going to make a big deal of it, he said, just do it quietly, after Christmas. Kelly blushed and Tom said what wonderful news it was and went off to rummage through the kitchen cupboards for a bottle of champagne he knew to be buried there. He found it and put it in the freezer and while it was chilling Karen arrived. Tom had invited her to join them for lunch but she said it might be better if she just dropped by afterward.
She'd brought along a stack of documents about the Holy Family Mission and some tapes for him to watch. This was intended to signal the nature of her relationship with Tom, that it was strictly work, though Tom could see in Danny's eyes that the boy wasn't entirely convinced. The three of them sat chatting while Tom dusted the champagne glasses then they all drank a tepid toast—Tom with soda—to the forthcoming marriage, whose date had yet to be fixed.
As if working to a script, Danny asked Karen what kind of films she made and she told him about one or two of them, playing down the radical element, and finally, ever so casually, mentioned Walking Wounded. Tom watched his son carefully—and a little guiltily—to see if he suspected some sort of setup but he didn't appear to. And Kelly, bless her heart, even suggested that Karen should interview Danny for the film.
"Look what they're doing to us all," she said, taking his hand. "You risk your life for your country and this is how they treat you."
Danny patted her knee as if to say that was enough. But when Karen was leaving he asked for her phone number and gave her his.
Defying all protest, Kelly said she'd clear up and wash the dishes. It was obvious she wanted to give father and son some time together so they put on their coats and took Makwi for a walk. They went up into the forest and halfway along the trail Danny asked if Karen was his girlfriend. Tom laughed, a little too loudly, and said absolutely not, they were just working on the mission film together. Danny looked relieved.
"I thought she seemed, well, you know, a bit... young."
"Absolutely."
"I don't mean..."
"It's okay. I agree. Hell, I could be her dad."
They reached the raven rocks and sat there awhile staring out across the valley. There were ribs of snow along the distant ridge, the blue winter light fading fast. Tom asked about the final preparations for the hearing and Danny said he and McKnight had gone through everything over and over again. They were as well prepared as they could be. He said McKnight was bullish about their chances but that was probably how he always was.
"Well, he doesn't often lose."
"Dad, the case against me is pretty heavy. When Delgado gets up there on that stand... The guy hates my guts."
They were silent for a moment. Tom put his arm around the boy's shoulders.
"Just tell the truth, son. It'll be okay."
Danny nodded.
"There's something else Kelly and I wanted to tell you. I couldn't really say it in front of Karen."
"Oh?"
"Kelly's going to have a baby."
Tom didn't know what to say. Danny was watching him carefully.
"Wow. Is this, you know... I mean, was it planned?"
"Yes, of course it was."
"How many, I mean when is the baby—"
"She's twelve weeks. It'll be early June."
"Well, that's terrific news, son. Congratulations."
"Thanks."
"The timing's kind of interesting."
"Dad, the timing's what it's all about. If the case goes to court-martial and they find me guilty, then... Well, you know what the sentence could be. Kelly just wants to make sure we—she has some kind of, you know, someone to..."
Tom pulled his son toward him and hugged him. Damn it, he was going to cry and he so wanted to be strong for the boy. He swallowed and managed to hold back the tears. And then he laughed and gave Danny a slap on the back.
"Hell," he said. "I'm going to be a grandpa."
It was three weeks later that the Marine Corps delivered their early Christmas present. Brian McKnight got a phone call informing him that the murder charges against the other defendant, Eldon Harker, were being dropped. There had been some kind of deal. Harker would be testifying against Danny. It changed everything. The hearing was rescheduled for the beginning of May.