Dead Man's Rule Read online

  PRAISE FOR DEAD MAN’S RULE

  Named a Book of the Year finalist by Foreword Reviews.

  “TOP PICK! . . . Acker whips up a winner with appealing characters and a plot wound as tight as a ticking bomb. The high stakes strike to the heart of today’s fears. Action in and out of the courtroom tops off this exceptional read.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Chilling! This work takes you into the world of the past, present, and possible future, seeping with espionage, deadly secrets, germ warfare, all mingled together for one exciting ride. Fast paced, brimming with mystery and suspense, this is surely a read you will not be able to put down. A real page turner.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Move over, John Grisham! In Dead Man’s Rule, Rick Acker takes readers of legal thrillers into a world of legal technicalities, international terrorism, and biological weapons . . . Acker writes in a straightforward style that compels the reader to read just one more chapter—again and again . . . Acker foreshadows with skill and unwinds the story artfully all the way to a powerful climax.”

  —Christian Book Previews

  “Dead Man’s Rule . . . delivers the gripping tale of Dr. Mikhail Ivanovsky, an eccentric Russian scientist who is trying to prevent the spread of a lethal ‘Ebolapox’ virus. The virus could wipe out entire cities within days and spread across a nation before the populace knew what hit them . . . It’s a legal thriller with all the trimmings—courtroom drama, murder, near-death experiences, shocking discoveries, and gripping story lines . . . Acker tells a good, strong story with excellent use of some devices that make fiction fun and effective . . . compelling and powerful.”

  —Randall Murphree, AFA Journal

  “[A] fast-paced book with subtle references to faith and doing what is right . . . This would be a good addition for those readers who shy away from traditional Christian fiction as too ‘preachy.’ I liked the book very much.”

  —Church and Synagogue Library Association

  “I’ve read a lot of thrillers, and this one was truly excellent. It’s a nice blend of Grisham and early Clancy—a legal thriller with bullets. The courtroom scenes are compelling without getting into tedious legal detail, and the fight scenes have plenty of zip. As a novelist myself, I had to admire Acker’s use of the written word. He really does a terrific job of creating a strong storyworld (the Chicago legal scene and Russian mafiya) with solid characters (loved the Russian ex-FBI agent) and a plot that moves. I don’t often read a book a second time, but I’m rereading this one. I give this book an A+, which is rare in my grade-book.”

  —Randy Ingermanson, physicist and Christy Award–winning novelist

  “The author paints an elegant fiction that is quite close to reality.”

  —Nwadiuto Esiobu, PhD, professor of microbiology and federally funded bioterrorism countermeasures researcher, Florida Atlantic University

  ALSO BY RICK ACKER

  When the Devil Whistles

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2016 by Rick Acker

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Waterfall Press, Grand Haven, MI

  www.brilliancepublishing.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Waterfall Press are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503934801

  ISBN-10: 1503934802

  Cover design by Cyanotype Book Architects

  For Anette

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  PROLOGUE A RELIC OF WAR

  CHAPTER ONE THE NEW CLIENT

  CHAPTER TWO HAIR ON FIRE

  CHAPTER THREE SECRET POLICE

  CHAPTER FOUR DISCOVERY

  CHAPTER FIVE THE DEAD MAN’S RULE

  CHAPTER SIX A PRAYER FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT DIED

  CHAPTER SEVEN A VOICE IN THE NIGHT

  CHAPTER EIGHT THE HUNTED MEN

  CHAPTER NINE OPENING STATEMENTS

  CHAPTER TEN THE SHOW

  CHAPTER ELEVEN A MATTER OF LAW

  CHAPTER TWELVE IN THE CHAIR

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN EVENING PRAYERS

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN JUDGMENT DAY

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN COUNCILS OF WAR

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN TWO WEEKS

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN THANKSGIVING

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN NIGHTFALL

  CHAPTER NINETEEN ENDGAME

  CHAPTER TWENTY A RITE FOR THE DEAD

  EPILOGUE SETTLEMENT

  AFTERWORD

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Some malady is coming upon us. We wait, we wait,

  And the saints and martyrs wait, for those who shall be martyrs and saints.

  Destiny waits in the hand of God, shaping the still unshapen.

  —T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral

  PROLOGUE

  A RELIC OF WAR

  November 16, 1985

  They were late.

  Alexei Zinoviev glanced at his watch and looked both ways down the dark, empty street. He swore nervously in Russian. As agreed, he stood on the north sidewalk, halfway across the Madison Street Bridge.

  A bitter November wind knifed down the Chicago River and caught him full force, whistling eerily as it blew through the grated steel of the bridge. He ducked his face into the collar of his greatcoat and cursed again.

  I’m much too exposed out here—and not just to the wind. He looked at his watch again. I’ll give them five more minutes.

  He couldn’t really blame them for being late. He had called them only an hour ago, and they had been expecting a meeting in Berlin, not Chicago. He had told his CIA handlers to meet him in Berlin. He had bought a ticket to Berlin under an assumed name. He had even paid an acquaintance who matched his general appearance to sit in his seat on the Aeroflot flight.

  He chuckled softly as he remembered the surprise in his CIA contact’s voice when she heard that he was actually in Chicago. He also relaxed a little—if the CIA hadn’t known he was here, the KGB almost certainly didn’t know either.

  The CIA and KGB also wouldn’t know that he had visited a local bank before arranging this meeting. Chicago’s large Russian community included many who had secrets of their own. And many of those secrets were kept locked away in safe-deposit boxes—so many that the bank employed a vault teller who spoke Russian. The teller had understood perfectly when Alexei insisted that the entire vault—not just the little aisle of booths—be empty when he put his package into the box. That was for the teller’s sake as much as for his own, though of course Alexei didn’t say so.

  So I’m looking out for bank tellers now? He snorted in the chill autumn air. I must be getting soft.

  Well, he could afford to get a little soft—or he could afford it after tonight, anyway. Obtaining information for the Americans had been a profitable little side business over the years, but this deal would be anything but little. After this, he could retire, bribe his way into a secure dacha on the Black Sea, and live like a king.

  There would be negotiations, of course, but Alexei did not expect them to last long. He knew his handlers would recognize the value of what he had and would quickly get authorization to pay a reasonable sum for it. He could only guess at just ho
w reasonable that sum would be. He was quite certain, though, that it would be enough to keep him in comfortable excess for many years.

  A bland gray sedan turned from Wacker onto Madison and slowed down as it approached the bridge. Alexei rubbed his hands and smiled with relief and anticipation. The Americans would have to pay a premium for leaving him standing in the cold for twenty minutes. But then, what could he ask for that he wasn’t already entitled to as payment for his package? This entertaining train of thought derailed when he noticed that the sedan’s right rear window was down. That could mean only one thing.

  Alexei’s plan had been good, but not foolproof—and the decoy he’d sent to Berlin turned out to be a fool. Vladimir Yazov had never been to Germany before, so instead of holing up in his hotel room as instructed until he got the “all clear,” he had decided to entertain himself at a midtown nightclub, or what passed for one in East Berlin.

  At the club he’d met a pretty blonde East German named Ilsa, who spoke Russian with a delightful lilt. She had somehow managed to buy a red Italian dress that clung to her figure and matched her bright-red nails and lips. After several hours of drinking and dancing, Ilsa and Vladimir had careened out the front door of the nightclub and headed down the narrow, shadow-filled street in the direction of his hotel. It was cold, but he was happy and drunk and oblivious to the chill. He had his arm around Ilsa’s waist, and they talked and laughed loudly, their voices echoing down the empty road.

  As they passed a large, windowless parked van, its lights suddenly went on and its doors flew open. Half a dozen armed men spilled out. They grabbed Vladimir and threw him to the ground. Two of them pinned him to the cold, wet pavement while two others searched him. A third pair pointed large pistols at his head. As soon as he saw the guns, he stopped struggling and lay limp. They weren’t wearing uniforms, but he had no doubt that they were Stasi, East German secret police. “What do you want?” he asked.

  With ruthless efficiency, and without a word, they took his money belt and wallet. They then turned him over, handcuffed him, and pulled him roughly to his feet.

  As they shoved him into the back of the van, Vladimir caught a glimpse of Ilsa standing on the sidewalk. She was talking casually to one of the men. “Help me!” he yelled to her, but she ignored him.

  The doors slammed shut and the van pulled away from the curb. Vladimir found himself sitting on a bench across from two stone-faced men with pistols in their hands. “What do you want?” he asked again.

  Silence.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  More silence.

  The back of the van was cold and drafty, but he began to sweat. “Look, I’ll tell you anything you want.”

  Alexei jumped back from the rail between the sidewalk and the street just as the car reached him. Three shots—probably intended for his head—caught him in the chest and side. There was no sound of gunfire to attract attention, just three shrouded flashes and the soft zip zip zip of bullets leaving a silencer. Alexei stumbled and fell.

  “Hurry!” a voice urged in Russian from the front seat of the car. A tall, dark-haired man jumped out of the right rear door, still holding a Makarov pistol. He shoved the weapon into his jacket and quickly searched Alexei’s pockets. As he knelt to frisk through Alexei’s pants pockets, Alexei’s hand suddenly grabbed the man’s arm and held it in an iron grip. His other hand shot into the man’s jacket and pulled out the Makarov.

  Zip! Zip! The would-be assassin, his eyes now vacant, fell heavily to the sidewalk beside Alexei.

  Alexei got to his knees, gritting his teeth against the pain. Broken ribs, probably. He congratulated himself for having decided to wear his new Kevlar vest. He hadn’t brought a gun because carrying one could get him arrested. And that might lead to an Interpol inquiry that would have most unfortunate results. Not that it mattered—he had a gun now.

  Another man was getting out of the driver’s side of the car. Alexei aimed at his head and pulled the trigger.

  Nothing.

  Alexei glanced frantically at the pistol and saw that a split shell casing had jammed the action. It would take several seconds to clear—seconds that he didn’t have. The other man had his gun out now. Alexei needed a diversion or he was dead. He pulled the safe-deposit-box key out of his pocket and shouted, “Here’s what you want!”

  He tossed the key over the man’s head, knowing that it would almost certainly fall through the grated surface of the bridge and into the river below.

  The man’s eyes momentarily left Alexei and followed the arc of the flying key as it glittered in the streetlights.

  Alexei turned and pulled himself up on the bridge railing, gasping in pain as the jagged ends of his rib fractures grated against each other. His groans brought the other man’s attention back to him.

  Seeing his quarry escaping, the man fired two quick shots into the back of Alexei’s head.

  Alexei collapsed on the railing for an instant and then began to slide over it. The driver ran around his car and tried to grab the corpse, but he was too late. It disappeared over the side, then splashed loudly into the Chicago River.

  The man looked down at Alexei’s dead face. It stared back up at him as the body drifted downstream. His orders had been to kill Alexei and search his body for any containers or papers. Well, his partner had done that—or he had started to, anyway, before Alexei had unexpectedly come back to life. The agent grimaced—that had been sloppy.

  He thought about jumping into the river and trying to tow the body to shore, but he saw the pale rings of ice around the bridge pilings and knew that the cold would probably kill him. Besides, the police or Alexei’s CIA contacts could show up at any minute. He glanced down the street and saw a pair of headlights about a half mile away, coming toward him. That settled it. He bundled his partner’s body into the car and drove off.

  The key fluttered gently to the muddy river bottom. The current tumbled it along for a few yards and then drove it into the soft silt. More silt collected around it, slowly turning it into an unrecognizable lump of mud, eventually hiding it entirely and forever.

  Half a mile away, Alexei Zinoviev’s package sat undisturbed in its safe-deposit box, to become a relic of a war that would end in a few years. Like the key, it was hidden and entirely forgotten. But not forever.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE NEW CLIENT

  This doesn’t look promising, Ben Corbin thought as he eyed the potential new client sitting in his lobby. The short, wiry man looked like he was about seventy, and the suit he wore was at least twenty years old. A thick shock of unruly gray hair crowned his large head. The man’s thin, age-spotted hands clutched a dilapidated and overstuffed briefcase in his lap.

  Ben didn’t need more clients, he needed more paying clients. In the six months since he had opened his own law practice, he hadn’t had any trouble keeping busy. The world, he had discovered, was full of people who wanted to hire a lawyer, but only a fraction of those people had both the desire and the ability to pay their legal bills in a timely fashion. That hadn’t been a problem at Beale & Ripley, the thousand-lawyer firm where Ben had spent the first seven years of his career. He had gone up to his fortieth-floor office every morning, worked hard for ten or twelve hours a day, and cashed a fat paycheck twice a month.

  The Law Offices of Benjamin Corbin had opened six months ago last week, and the past half year had been a mixed bag. Ben had won two trials but had been paid for only one of them. And the firm’s expenses were, of course, higher than they had projected. Not a lot, but enough to make their finances uncomfortably tight.

  Ben knew he was probably too busy to take the old man’s case, even if the man could and would pay. In fact, Ben knew he really should be preparing for a court hearing he had in less than an hour. The hearing wasn’t particularly important, but the case was. Ben represented a small company called Circuit Dynamics whose trade-secret software had been
stolen—or so Ben hoped to prove—by several car-part manufacturers. If Ben won, the damages would be at least $50 million, and Ben would get 10 percent of that under a partial-contingent-fee agreement he had with his client.

  He glanced at his watch. The old man had been referred by one of Ben’s more reliable clients, Cathy Pugo, so Ben had to at least talk to him. He swallowed his doubts and strode across the lobby with a smile on his face and his hand out.

  “Hello, I’m Ben Corbin.” He shook the man’s hand warmly.

  “Mikhail Ivanovsky,” the man said with a sharp nod. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Corbin.”

  “Likewise,” replied Ben. “Please come with me.” He led his guest into the firm’s conference room. It was small, but the table and chairs were beautifully finished solid oak. Ben also took pride in the fact that the paintings on the walls were both originals, though they had come from the Starving Artist gallery west of the Loop. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

  “Tea with sugar,” said Ivanovsky in clear but thickly accented English.

  Ben picked up the phone and dialed. “Susan, could you bring in tea and sugar for Mr. Ivanovsky? Thanks.” He surreptitiously glanced at his watch again as he sat down at the table. “I have twenty minutes before I need to leave for court. What can I do for you, Mr. Ivanovsky?”

  The old man reached down into his battered briefcase and pulled out a stack of papers. “I need you to get some things that are in a safe-deposit box. I bought these things, but they will not give them to me,” he explained opaquely.

  “Who won’t give them to you?” asked Ben.

  “The bank which this box is in. American Union Bank.” He riffled through the sheaf of papers and handed several to Ben. “Box number 4613 in the LaSalle Street American Union Bank building.”