Pop Goes the Weasel

isn’t slander per se?”
    “That’s correct, it isn’t. There’s a qualified privilege with respect to public figures such as your client.”
    “My client is not a public figure, Mr. Dowd. He is a very private individual. He is an intelligence agent. His very livelihood, if not his life, depends on his being able to work undercover.”
    The chief counsel was already exasperated, possibly because Halpern’s responses were so calm, yet always delivered rapidfire. “All right, Mr. Halpern. So why are you calling us?”
    Halpern paused long enough to make Dowd curious. Then he began again. “My client has authorized me to make a very unusual offer. I have strongly advised him against it, but he maintains his right to do so.”
    Dowd looked startled. I could tell that he hadn’t been expecting any kind of deal offer. Neither had I. What was this about?
    “Go ahead, Mr. Halpern,” said Dowd. His eyes were wide and alert as they roamed around the room looking at us. “I’m listening.”
    “I’ll bet you are, and all your esteemed colleagues as well.”
    I leaned forward to hear every word.
    Jules Halpern continued with the real reason for his call: “My client wants all possibility of a civil case being brought against him waived.”
    I rolled my eyes. Halpern wanted to make certain that no one could sue his client in civil court after the criminal court case was concluded. He remembered that O. J. Simpson had been set free in the one court only to be bankrupted in the other.
    “Impossible!” said Dowd. “There’s no way in hell that will ever happen. No way.”
    “Listen to me. There is a way, or I wouldn’t have broached the subject. If this is done, and if he and I can be convinced of a speedy route for a criminal trial, my client will waive diplomatic immunity . Yes, you heard me correctly. Geoffrey Shafer wants to prove his innocence in a court of law. He insists on it, in fact.”
    Dowd was shaking his head in disbelief. So was Mike Kersee. His eyes were glazed with astonishment as he glanced across the room at me.
    None of us could believe what we had just heard from the defense attorney.
    Geoffrey Shafer wanted to go to trial.

Chapter 78
    CONQUEROR HAD WATCHED her work High Street in Kensington for nearly six weeks. She became his obsession, his fantasy woman, his “game piece.” He knew everything there was to know about her. He felt — he knew — that he was starting to act like Shafer. They all were, weren’t they?
    The girl’s name was Noreen Anne, and a long time ago — three years , to be exact — she had traveled to London from Cork, Ireland, with lovely dreams of being a fashion model on the world stage.
    She was seventeen then, nearly five-ten, slender, blond, and with a face that all the boys and even the older men back home told her was destined for magazine covers, or maybe even the cinema.
    So what was she doing here on High Street at half past one in the morning? She wondered about it as she forced a coquettish smile and occasionally waved a hand at the leering men in their slowly passing cars that made the rounds of High Street, DeVere Gardens, Exhibition Road.
    They’d thought she was pretty, all right — just not pretty enough for British or American magazine covers, and not good enough, not classy enough, to marry or have as a girlfriend.
    Well, at least she had a plan, and she thought it was a good one. Noreen Anne had saved nearly two thousand quid since she began to walk the streets. She thought she needed another three thousand or so, and then she would head back to Ireland. She’d start a small beauty shop, because she did know the secrets of beauty, and also a lot about the dreams.
    So, here I am in front of the Kensington Palace Hotel in the meantime , she thought. Freezing my fine bum off .
    “Excuse me, miss,” she heard, and turned with a start. She hadn’t heard anyone come up on her.
    “I couldn’t help noticing you standing here. You’re an extraordinary beauty. But of course you know that, don’t you?”
    Noreen Anne felt relief the moment she saw who it was. This one wouldn’t hurt her, couldn’t if he tried. She could hurt him , if it came to that.
    He was old, in his late sixties or seventies; he was obscenely fat; and he was seated in a wheelchair.
    And so she went off — with Conqueror.
    It was all part of the game.

Chapter 79
    THE AMERICANS had promised a speedy route to trial, and the fools had actually delivered.
    Five months had