“Can I keep my BMW?”

“The idea is that you won’t want it anymore.”

“Fat chance of that.”

“Then they’ll work on your kids.”

“I don’t have any kids.”

“Even better. Spread it around among your friends and business associates.”

Thelen laughed.

“This sounds big. Will they roll it into the new Constitution?”

“I wish. We talked about it. Even about getting a new bill of rights for plants and animals. But it’s not happening.”

“Why not?”

“Didn’t you hear? Negotiations have broken down. They got stuck.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“No, but this really does sound like the last. The major players walked. Maybe next year. And it’s not totally dead. I mean, people are still showing up for work at the Pentagon. But we’re basically on our own.”

“Jesus,” said Thelen.

“It’ll be okay,” said Donny. “We need to take care of each other. Rethink our whole setup. That’s kind of what this deal is about. There’s even a mutual defense component.”

“Sounds like a train wreck to me,” said Thelen. “Is that why you had to give up your fee?”

“I had to do that to get them to all agree to the deal. To get them all to agree to get along.”

“What do you mean?”

“I had AMR nailed for their crimes, Terry. Them and Tripto Labs, as it turned out. The whole enchilada. The camps. The extermination program, how they disappeared all those people—for money, not politics like I thought. And how they hid the evidence. Lecker was running a program to help all the guys who were involved disappear themselves. DIY witness protection, but better than anything the government did.”

“Where are they?”

“All over. Some overseas, but most still here. And now they are all going to get turned in.”

“No way.”

“Way. Lou’s daughter took over the company that has to write the check for what happened. She owned it all along, and pretty much knew what was going down, even when she was a kid, so no surprise how eager she was to try to fix that. And how quickly she grabbed the reins and grew the heck up when it was real. Even managed to corral her overly enthusiastic boyfriend, my client, whose parents were among the victims of her family business.”

“Sounds like my family.”

“Not funny, Terry.”

He tipped an apologetic glass. “And so your fee?”

“To get Lecker to sign, I agreed to put my fee, which was just a tip over a million bucks, into a legal-defense fund for all those murdering bastards to get a fair trial.”

“Why the fuck would you do something as stupid as that? Even I think those guys should all rot.”