The Hunted

MP was at home, babysitting the kids while his wife shopped for groceries. He promised to drop everything and meet them at his office in two hours.

18

The office of MP Jones was on the second floor of a seven-story commercial building, almost dead center in the middle of M Street. MP was a graduate of Georgetown Law, a prestigious school, though not top five. He did it the hard way, four years of night school while he slaved at two menial jobs. Four years of pinching pennies. Four years of sprinting from class to McDonald's, where he pushed the torts and contracts to the back of his brain and shoved Big Macs and greasy fries across the counter. Four years of the cruel monotony of mac and cheese, of sleepless nights, of vying with full-time kids from wealthy families and wondering if this was the right choice. But he made it.

He graduated bottom third, but at least he had no onerous student debts. No interviews with big firms landed in his lap; sadly, no interviews at all. He had, however, passed the very difficult D.C. bar exam the first time around.

The Immigration Service was hiring and nobody else took his calls. Why not, he figured. Spend as few years as practical learning immigration law, then hang out a shingle and get rich quick.

Now it was him, two other lawyers, three stressed-out paralegals, and one very rude secretary who hated her job and couldn't wait till something better opened up. They called themselves partners. They referred to their setup as a firm. Nothing could be further from the truth. They were three struggling, scrambling attorneys dividing up the rent, a clutter of secondhand office furniture, and a few second-rate employees. No casework was shared, no fat profits divvied up at the end of a prosperous year. There were no prosperous years.

Married, with two kids and an attractive wife six months pregnant with the third, MP had cold sweats that it might turn out to be twins. They lived in a tiny, shabby ruin of a house he rented in a modest, run-down South Arlington neighborhood across the river.

Immigration cases, MP learned the hard way, paid squat. Nearly all his clients were poor, desperate people whose language skills were rudimentary, their earning power zilch. Too many were indigents assigned by the court. Hopeless causes seemed to be his specialty. They were booted out with regularity, which did not incline them to pay their legal bills. Immigration law, he had learned the hard way, was a poor man's game. Wealthy clients were scarce. The very few, mostly millionaires fleeing legal or tax troubles in their own lands, were bitterly scrapped over by every immigration attorney in the city; usually the large firms with dozens of lawyers to throw at their defense landed them with ease. MP had long since stopped hoping for a big score. His livelihood depended upon a backbreaking log of cases, and the oft-disappointed prayer that half of his clients might pay their bills.

But Alex and Elena Konevitch were different. An odd case, he thought as he stared at them holding hands across his desk. These were seriously frightened people. Probably had a right to be.

"So then the FBI just left? Walked out the door?" MP asked after listening closely to their story. A yellow legal pad was splayed open in front of him on his desk. Ten pages were filled with scrawls, questions, and other musings.

"With our computer," Alex clarified. "Can we get it back?"

"They entered without a search warrant?"

"Alex asked about it," Elena replied. "They didn't give him an answer."

"Okay, they didn't have one," MP concluded with the sad confidence earned through hard experience. Immigrants had few if any rights in this country. The police knew it and too often abused them in ways that would be unimaginable against a full-fledged citizen. Yes, Alex and Elena had been granted asylum. But what the government giveth, it can, and sometimes doth, taketh away. MP had seen it before. That the Feds would act with such callous abandon was not a good omen.

"You're sure you committed no crimes in Russia?" MP asked. He had repeated this same question a hundred times in preparation for their asylum hearings a year before. It wouldn't hurt to hear the answer again. He studied their faces, hard.

"None," Alex told him. "A traffic violation once. I parked illegally and paid the fine."

Blushing slightly, Elena said, "When I was sixteen, I was with a group who had been drinking and became a public nuisance. I was brought before a judge and released."

"You're sure you didn't steal anything from the bank?" This question, obviously, was directed at Alex.

"Not a penny. Fifty million was stolen, according to the Russian news. But by the people who took away my bank, not me," Alex answered quite resolutely.

MP seemed undecided for a moment. He ran his pen aimlessly across a page, trying to decide what to do next. "Could you step out for a moment while I make a call?"