The Eighth Sister (Charles Jenkins #1)(93)

“The government opposes,” Velasquez stated just as quickly. “We believe the defendant to be a flight risk.”

“The defendant is married and the father of a nine-year-old boy,” Sloane said. “His wife is pregnant with their second child. She is currently on bed rest from pregnancy complications and is due any day. Mr. Jenkins has no desire to be anywhere but with his family and here in court to defeat these charges.”

Velasquez looked to one of the attorneys. He handed her a file. “Your Honor, we have a timeline of the defendant’s most recent travels outside the country. We’d like to present it to the court.”

Harden nodded and Velasquez hit the buttons on her computer as she handed Sloane a document. A timeline with arrows appeared on the courtroom monitors indicating the dates Charles Jenkins had traveled from Seattle to Heathrow Airport in the United Kingdom, and then to Sheremetyevo International Airport outside Moscow.

“The court will note, Your Honor, that the timeline is incomplete. There is no information pertaining to the defendant’s return to this country after his most recent trip to Russia. Yet, here he is. Either Mr. Jenkins is Harry Houdini and he somehow traveled back into this country by magic, or he used a fake passport. The government reiterates that Mr. Jenkins is a former CIA field officer and that he is a flight risk.”

Harden looked to Sloane, his eyebrows raised in question. Jenkins knew Sloane faced a dilemma. He couldn’t very well tell the court the truth, which would only confirm Velasquez’s argument that Jenkins had more than one passport for more than one country.

“Mr. Jenkins can surrender his passport to the US Marshals Service,” Sloane said. “And I will assure the court he will remain in the state of Washington to defeat these charges. As I said—”

Harden cut him off with a raised hand. “I’m going to deny bail at this time and find that the defendant is a potential flight risk. Counsel, you are welcome to brief me on this issue. Is there anything else?”

Jenkins felt weak in the knees knowing he would not be going home to his family, and what that would mean for CJ. Dad, are you going to jail?

“No,” Sloane said.

“Charles William Jenkins, you are hereby remanded to the custody of the US Marshals Service until such further time as the issue of bail is considered or for further proceedings in this matter. Court is adjourned.” Harden rapped his gavel once, stood, and quickly departed. The marshals returned to the table, this time with a belly chain they slipped around Jenkins’s waist, cuffing his hands to it. The chain extended to the floor and two ankle cuffs. Those two were snapped on.

“Get ahold of Alex, will you?” Jenkins said, worried what the news would do to her and to CJ.

“I’ll handle it,” Sloane said. “We’ll file a motion for bail as soon as we can.”

Jenkins knew it would not be soon enough.





54



Jenkins spent the next three days at the Federal Detention Center near the airport in SeaTac. He refused to eat jail food—concerned it could be poisoned. According to Sloane, Mitchell Goldstone had survived, was recovering in a hospital, and was set to be arraigned within the week.

Jenkins tried to sound upbeat when he spoke to Alex and to CJ on the telephone, but he knew the stress his arrest and imprisonment had caused both of them. Sloane had hired a nurse to care for Alex at his home, since he and Jake, who had insisted he be a part of Jenkins’s defense team, if only behind the scenes, would be spending long hours at the law firm. Sloane had also hired a retired schoolteacher to homeschool CJ. CJ had initially protested, until he learned his teacher had been a professional soccer player who had also agreed to privately coach him if he kept his grades up. The boy nearly flipped.

After thirty hours, Jenkins was transferred to the classification section and issued prison clothing, deloused, given a complete physical examination, and otherwise dehumanized. Sloane filed a motion that Jenkins be placed in administrative segregation, arguing that televisions made it a near certainty Jenkins’s arrest, and the charges against him, would be well-known to the other inmates, including military veterans. Harden agreed.

The noise inside the general population—radios blaring rock music and metal banging against metal—was near deafening. The inmates could not see one another and resorted to shouting through the cinder-block walls to keep from going crazy. It didn’t always work.

Jenkins didn’t speak, concerned everything he said was being recorded, which only further isolated him. He needed to get out so he and Sloane could prepare his defense.

If Jenkins was being paranoid, the fifth day proved it was with good reason. Sloane came to the jail and told him someone had broken into his law office, and that only a tripped security alarm had prevented the person from opening Sloane’s safe, which was where he kept Carl Emerson’s business card and the sealed envelope with the typed affidavit from Claudia Baker. Those two items were now the only evidence Jenkins had to argue that he’d been reactivated by the CIA. It wasn’t much.

Sloane had filed a motion for bail, and Judge Harden had set it to be heard the following morning. “He’s pushing us to move this matter quickly.”

“Have you gotten anywhere trying to find Emerson?”

“No, and the government isn’t helping. They say Emerson is no longer employed by the agency, and they don’t know his current whereabouts. It might be why Harden is pushing us. The longer we drag this out, the more time we have to find him.”