The Eighth Sister (Charles Jenkins #1)(120)

“I wouldn’t know,” Emerson said.



They left the courtroom that afternoon in better spirits than any other day of the trial. Sloane and Jake returned to Sloane’s office so Sloane could prepare his closing argument. Jenkins went to Three Tree Point with Alex. They had a family dinner with CJ and the baby. They were both dog tired, but they thought it important. They left unsaid that it could be the last dinner they would share as a family.

After reading CJ several chapters of Harry Potter, Jenkins found Alex on the porch, sitting in one of the rocking chairs, feeding Lizzie.

“How many chapters tonight?” she asked.

“Three.” Jenkins sat in the adjacent chair.

“You’ll spoil him.”

“The first two were for him. The last one was for me.”

They sat in silence, the chairs creaking as they rocked forward and back. Jenkins said, “Do you think I should have taken the plea? A year or two wouldn’t have been terrible, would it?”

“It wasn’t just a year or two, Charlie. It would have been a lifetime of people believing you were guilty.”

“I’m not worried about what people think of me anymore. I’m worried about you and the kids. I’m worried about them growing up not knowing their father. I could miss it all.”

“We’re not there yet. Don’t go there,” Alex said.

“I want you to promise me that if I’m found guilty, you won’t wait around for me.”

“Charlie, stop.”

“You’re too young, and the kids need a father.”

“They have a father.” She reached over with her free hand and grabbed his. Her touch calmed him, if only a little.

“We’ll get through this, whatever the outcome,” she said. “We could have taken the plea, but we chose to fight, Charlie, and not just for you, but for CJ and Lizzie, and for all those other agents out there who might someday find themselves left out in the cold.”

“No agent has ever won.”

“Then you’ll be the first.”

“Emerson is going to get away with it, isn’t he? He’s betrayed agents and he’s betrayed his country. He’s responsible for those women’s deaths, maybe more, and he’s going to get away with it and live like a king.”

“Nobody gets away with anything, Charlie. Eventually we all have to answer for our actions.”

“I wish he had to answer here.”

“Maybe he will.”

“No,” Jenkins said, shaking his head. “He knows where the bodies are buried, and likely has the documents to prove it. The CIA doesn’t want to have those secrets come out and embarrass them. It’s easier for them to sacrifice Goldstone and me.”





69



Maria Velasquez’s closing stuck closely to her opening statement. Jenkins was a man in a desperate financial situation who sold out his country to the Russians to pay his bills.

“He sold what he had—his honor, his oath, and classified information,” she said.

Sloane told Jenkins the most important thing was to keep his closing argument integrally related to the opening, and to keep his promises. Sloane had promised to prove Jenkins’s innocence. Without any documentary evidence, that had been a difficult promise to keep, but they’d caught a break when Judge Harden called Carl Emerson to the stand. Emerson had admitted a connection between the CIA and TBT Investments and between TBT and LSR&C. He’d lied when he said he hadn’t seen or spoken with Jenkins since Mexico City, but Sloane did his best to refute that testimony with the card bearing the phone number. If nothing else, it gave Sloane something to argue.

Sloane brought a schoolhouse blackboard and chalk from home and placed the chalkboard in front of the jury. Tina had once used the blackboard to teach Jake. Several jurors sat forward, curious about what he had in store. Judge Harden also looked interested.

“On the first day of trial, I told you the defense would accept the burden of proving that Charles Jenkins is not guilty of the charges brought against him. I told you there would be no signed confession, though the prosecution contends Mr. Jenkins confessed. There is no signed confession. I told you we would prove the CIA was involved with LSR&C. We proved that. I told you Charles Jenkins had a phone number we traced to the company TBT Investments. We’ve proven that also. We’ve also proven that Carl Emerson was in Seattle in November 2017, and that Mr. Emerson continued his employment with the CIA until terminated at a later date. How would Charles Jenkins have known that Carl Emerson was in Seattle in November 2017 unless he’d met with him? How would Charles Jenkins have received a card with TBT Investments’ number on it unless Carl Emerson gave it to him before LSR&C’s offices were closed down and cleaned of every scrap of paper?”

Jenkins thought both were legitimate questions, and he noted several jurors furiously scribbling in their notebooks.

“Now, here’s the reality,” Sloane said. “Here’s what this case is really all about. In the winter of 2018, the CIA pulled the plug on two companies in Seattle that it was using as CIA proprietaries, and Charles Jenkins got left out in the cold. The government has charged him with two counts of espionage, one count of conspiracy, and two counts of selling US secrets to the Russians. The law says the burden of proof is on the government. But they haven’t proven a thing.