The Eighth Sister (Charles Jenkins #1)(105)

After Harden denied the motion, the selection of jurors was as efficient as the pre-trial motions. In federal court, the judge asked most of the questions of prospective jurors. Sloane and the government were each limited to three questions. Sloane told Jenkins that most jurors entered a courtroom assuming that if a case had made it to trial, the allegations were likely true. Therefore, his first question had to cause jurors to rethink, or at least reconsider, their preconceived opinions about Charles Jenkins, the spy.

At the lectern, Sloane said, “By a show of hands, how many of you believe the United States has in its employ spies who work behind the scenes and in the shadows to protect our country’s national interests and national security?”

In an era of daily terrorist threats, almost everyone on the panel raised his or her hand. Jenkins noted on a legal pad those who did not. “And how many of you believe, by a show of hands, that in order to protect our country’s national interests, the government doesn’t always provide the public with information about where their spies are working and what they are doing?”

Again, nearly every prospective juror raised his or her hand.

“How many of you would agree that sometimes the government makes mistakes?”

This time everyone in the jury pool raised a hand. Sloane sat, and Jenkins felt that the tide had, at least, turned slightly before the government had the chance to brand him a traitor.

Velasquez did just that.

“How many of you, by a show of hands,” she said, “believe that persons who sell classified information to a foreign government should be punished?”

The show of hands was unanimous. Velasquez’s two follow-up questions were equally stinging and equally persuasive.

In the end, Sloane utilized eighteen of his twenty preemptory challenges to dismiss certain jurors. Velasquez used seventeen. Just two hours after starting the voir dire process, they had a jury of nine women and three men. Most were well educated and held positions of responsibility. Sloane told Jenkins he was pleased with the group.

Harden wasted no time moving the case forward. “Is the government prepared to give its opening statement?”

It wasn’t a question. Velasquez slid back her chair and stood. If she wasn’t prepared, she didn’t show it. Confident and poised in a navy-blue, single-breasted jacket and skirt, she placed a laptop on the lectern but abandoned it to face the jury.

Emphasizing the theme that she had first raised in voir dire, Velasquez said, “The Justice Department doesn’t move forward on a case of this nature unless there is full consultation and evidence to support it.”

Jenkins saw Sloane move as if to stand, but he remained seated. The statement was argumentative, but he deduced from the jurors’ expressions that they didn’t believe it, at least not all of them.

“During the course of this trial you will hear evidence that the defendant, Charles Jenkins, was facing both personal and professional setbacks. His security company, CJ Security, was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and so was he. Mr. Jenkins’s company was in debt to its security contractors and to various vendors. He was also on the verge of personal financial collapse. He had used his family farm on Camano Island as collateral for business loans to get his company off the ground. In simple terms, he needed money or he’d lose his home.”

Velasquez took small paces to her left and told the jury of Alex’s complicated pregnancy and her preeclampsia. She paced to her right. “So, what could Mr. Jenkins do? How could he save his family?” Velasquez paused as if expecting a juror to answer. “He could rely on a skill he’d once possessed, against a foe he had once combatted, a foe he knew would be very anxious to receive the type of unique information Mr. Jenkins could deliver. You see, Mr. Jenkins was once a spy for the Central Intelligence Agency. In the late 1970s, he worked out of the CIA’s Mexico City field office for a man named Carl Emerson. Mr. Jenkins ran operations against the Soviet Union and its KGB officers stationed in Mexico City. Mr. Jenkins therefore had access to confidential information on American agents working in Russia, and on double agents—Russians spying for America.”

Velasquez discussed Jenkins’s abrupt departure from the CIA and his admitted dissatisfaction with the agency. She then turned toward Jenkins and raised a finger. “And so, facing both a personal and a professional catastrophe, what did Mr. Jenkins do? He had a perfect cover to travel to Russia. LSR&C had opened an office in Moscow and it was CJ Security’s job to provide security to the workers and investors there.”

Velasquez went through the trips Jenkins had made to Moscow, the information he had allegedly disclosed, and how that information had first originated in Mexico City. “Those two agents who Mr. Jenkins disclosed to the FSB,” she said, “paid for Mr. Jenkins’s betrayal with their lives.”

Jenkins could feel the eyes of the jurors boring into him and fought not to react.

Velasquez explained how, upon Jenkins’s first return from Moscow, his company received a $50,000 wire transfer from somewhere in Switzerland. “It was a straight trade—money for information. He was debt ridden and he was desperate.”

Fluctuating between being outraged and being pragmatic, Velasquez explained to the jurors Jenkins’s mysterious return to the United States after a second trip to Russia, seemingly without the use of his passport. She told them about his interactions with FBI agent Chris Daugherty, insinuating the meetings had been motivated by a fear of being caught. Then she said, “And he made up a story.”