Page 110 of Grave Danger
A metallic blue sports car pulled up beside him at the red light. The music was so loud that Jack’s head started pounding. “Andie, I asked to meet at home because I need to talk to my wife in absolute privacy. Your response is that I should meet with the FBI?”
“Except you’re not reaching out to me asyour wife. Agent Logan told me what happened at Zahra’s town house. You think the FBI is up to something sneaky, and you’re putting me in the middle. Just because we ditched the rule against talking about our work, that doesn’t mean you can use me to your strategic advantage against the FBI. That’s not fair, Jack.”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” he said, but she wasn’t totally off the mark. “I’m sorry. I understand how you could see it that way.”
“So, you’ll come downtown?”
“Yes. You’re off the hook. Tell Logan I’m on my way.”
The call ended. The sports car beside Jack made a right on red, and a sedan pulled forward in the lane. Jack did a double take. It was Farid. He signaled for Jack to roll down the passenger-side window, which he did.
“Talk?” he asked, pointing to the coffee shop across the street.
Apparently, Jack wasn’t the only one who had been sitting in his car outside Zahra’s town house to watch law enforcement’s next move.
“Sure,” Jack shouted back, and when the light changed, he followed Farid into the parking lot. They climbed out of their cars, but Jack had to make something clear before they entered the coffee shop.
“We’re in a gray area,” said Jack. “If you and Zahra were still in litigation, the rules of professional conduct would prohibit me from speaking directly to the adverse party without his counsel. My position is that the case is over.”
“Over or not, I have no lawyer,” said Farid.
“I just spoke to her,” said Jack. “She was talking to the police on your behalf.”
“I fired Ms. Beech. Not that it matters. You might say I never had a lawyer.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Come,” he said as he opened the door. “I’m buying.”
Jack followed him inside. They ordered two cups at the counter and took a table away from other customers, where they could talk in private.
“Ms. Beech and I had many disagreements,” said Farid. “Mostly about case strategy. I think she felt free to ignore my views because I wasn’t paying her legal bills.”
Jack couldn’t hide his surprise. “She did all that work without getting paid?”
“No, I said I didn’t pay her. She got paid top dollar—by the Iranian government.”
“Just so you know, it’s not unusual in this country for a lawyer to represent a client whose legal bills are paid by a third party. It could be a parent. An employer. An insurance company. I once represented a collegeprofessor whose students raised money for her defense. But even where someone else pays the bills, the client makes the decisions. Not the person paying the bills.”
“That’s nice in theory,” said Farid. “But in this case, I wasn’t the one calling the shots. I would never have told my lawyer to present a fake custody order to the family-court judge.”
Jack was in the middle of a sip and nearly coughed through his nose. Zahra had told Jack the order was a fake. And now Farid had confirmed it.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
Jack cleared his throat. “You understand that anything you tell me, I can use against you. I could go to the judge, tell her what you just told me, and ask her to vacate her judgment enforcing the Iranian order.”
“I won’t repeat any of this publicly,” said Farid. “If you go to the court with this information, I will have to deny this conversation ever happened. And how far will you get with the judge when even the US State Department says the Iranian order is authentic?”
Jack couldn’t argue with Farid on that point. But it was still a lot to swallow. “Did Heather Beech know the Iranian order was a fake? A lawyer should never knowingly put on false evidence.”
“Youdid,” said Farid. “When you painted me as an abuser. None of that happened.”
Jack looked him straight in the eye from across the table. He feared Farid could be playing him, setting him up for a complaint to the Florida Bar—or worse.
“Is that your angle here, Farid? Are you trying to get me to say something that sounds like an admission that the evidence against you was false? Are you recording this conversation on your cell phone and planning to make strategic edits before you send it to the FBI or the State Department?”