Page 144 of Hush

Renner conferred with Kryukov, softly talking while Kryukov nodded.

“Counselor, are you ready to present your case for the defense?”

Renner rose. “Your Honor, I am.”

“Please call your first witness.”

“The defense calls Vadim Kryukov.”

Tom froze. His jaw dropped, for a moment, until he yanked himself back to propriety. The rest of the court wasn’t as subdued. Ballard whipped around, staring at the defense table. Barnes, and behind him, the deputy director of the FBI, shared long looks. Reporters turned to each other, hushed whispers and chatter breaking out as confusion ran rampant. Jurors looked around uncomfortably, completely out of the loop.

He rapped his gavel three times. “Quiet, please. Step outside for your conversations.” He took a deep breath, and chose his words carefully. “This is a surprising choice, counselor.” He couldn’t ask ‘are you sure?’ or second-guess Renner’s legal strategy. He was already floundering, according to the media, and anything that looked like favoritism to the defense would be adding an anchor to his sinking career.

But calling the defendant to the stand was risky in all criminal cases and was reserved for the end of the defense’s case as a last-ditch effort to humanize the defendant to the jury. Putting a defendant on the stand ran the risk of the defendant tying themselves in knots with their testimony, or accidentally incriminating themselves, or worse.

Ballard looked like a shark that had spotted a tasty seal swimming on its own. He’d get the chance to go after Kryukov in cross.

The entire day could turn into a bloodbath, very, very quickly.

Renner nodded. “Your Honor, Vadim Kryukov needs to tell his story.”

Defense attorney-speak for he was drawing on empty and down to his last circus trick. His entire casehadbeen spelled out in cross, and there wasn’t anything more he could do. He couldn’t call expert witnesses to dispute the cause of death or manner of shooting—the cause of death and the shooter were clear. He couldn’t call experts to testify on the authenticity of the text as coming from Kryukov’s cell phone—cellular tower and carrier data confirmed that it did. And Kryukov was a known drug dealer. Who could he call to testify about the cocaine?

Tom nodded, and Kryukov crossed to the witness box. He was stiff, his spine rigidly straight, walking with all the pride he could muster as every eyeball in the courtroom followed his path. He still limped, but waved off the marshal who started forward to help him. His arm was in a thick cast, from his fingers to just below his armpit.

The bailiff swore Kryukov in, admonishing him that he was to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

He took his seat. Renner nodded to his client, smiling softly.

Tom leaned forward. The entire court seemed to be holding its breath.

“Let’s start plainly, Mr. Kryukov. Did you or did you not plan the attempted assassination of the Russian president?”

“I did not.” Kryukov’s voice was deep, his accent thickened. His lower jaw trembled, just faintly, after he spoke.

“Did you receive any CIA funds or assistance in order to perpetrate such a plot?”

Tom hissed. He held his breath. The entire conspiracy defense, laid out in one question. His eyes darted to Ballard. Ballard clung to the edge of the prosecution table, his muscles tense, primed and ready to jump to his feet.

“I didnot,” Kryukov repeated, his voice thick with passion. His words shook.

Muted gasps rose from the gallery, and Tom saw the jurors look among each other, confused. Kryukov was throwing out his entire defense in three simple words. What on earth?

Renner nodded, smiling again at his client. “How do you feel about the Russian president, Dimitry Vasiliev?”

“Ihatehim,” Kryukov spat. “I hate him, and Putin. I hate them both for what they did to me, and to my country. He—” Kryukov’s voice cracked, and he looked away, glaring at the far wall as he blinked fast and swallowed. “Vasiliev was friend of Putin’s. He continued Putin’s policy on homosexuals. We—our existence—was a crime, in everything but the law. We were harassed, beaten, entrapped. Arrested. I was beaten by Putin’s thugs over and over again. They used to follow me. One police officer pretended to want to meet up with me. It was a trap.” Kryukov swallowed again. “I was in hospital for three weeks.

“I was arrested for organizing protest in Moscow. I went to Lubyanka first, and then to prison camp in Siberia. I was… marked in Lubyanka. They said they were getting me ready for Siberia. That it was cold in the camps, and I should be ready to keep everyone there warm.”

Tom’s stomach lurched, turning around and around and tying itself into a Gordian Knot. He closed his eyes, blocking out memories, days from his past, echoes of his own history colored in similar shades of shame and terror.

But for the country of their birth, he and Kryukov had led different lives, had come to different destinies. He, the judge in Kryukov’s trial, and Vadim Kryukov, telling his story to a room full of people who believed he was a murderer.

Was Tom his judge because he’d stayed in his closet? Would he have been a firebrand if he’d had to fight the battles Kryukov had? Was he looking into a mirror darkly, as the poem went? What would he have had to endure, what indignities, grievances, tortures, had he not been a coward? What man would he have become?

Would he be strong enough to hold his chin high and share his truth in a court of law, in a country not his own?

Of course not. He couldn’t speak his truth today, and he was the judge. He had all the power, and Kryukov none, and yet Vadim Kryukov made his soul feel infinitesimal, his bones like pieces of a puzzle put together wrong.