The Rule of Nine Read Online Free PDF

with confirmation since we control the Senate. If you wait until after the midterm elections, that may not be the case.”
    Merle looked at him. “Has someone sent you here to ask me this?”
    â€œNo, of course not. I’m speaking as your friend. Look at yourself. Every time I see you, you’ve lost another ten pounds. You’re working yourself toward an early grave. If you stay on the court until the current administration leaves office, and there is no assurance of a second term, you may find yourself in a partisan vice, unable to get off without changing the balance of the court. Think about it.”
    â€œGo on,” said Nick, “I’m listening.”
    â€œIf you end up with a Republican in the White House, and if he gets two terms, you’ll be well into your eighties before he leaves office, if you can live that long. Nick, I’m telling you as a friend, now is the time to think about getting off.”
    â€œThe administration has two more years on its current term,” said Nick. “That’s if they don’t get a second term.”
    â€œYes, but the confirmation process takes time. If you wait until the election is on top of us, there’s no way to be sure that the president will be able to make the nomination, and that it won’t get blocked in the Senate. Now is the time.”
    It was a problem. Everybody knew how the game was played. It was why the balance on the court never changed, at least not in recent decades. There was a time when presidents made mistakes and unwittingly appointed moles from the other side of the philosophic divide. Now that was nearly impossible given the mind meld of interrogation to which candidates were subjected. So unless there was a sudden death on the court, which was rare, the balance was static.
    Root realized, as did most observers, that the court was the only real agent for permanent and lasting change in the system. Its members were immune from the whimsy of voters and the restraints of the ballot box. Once confirmed by the Senate, they were there for life. They could pick and choose the cases they heard and in this way dictate the policy agenda for the country. If the voters rebelled and elected a hostile Congress and president, the court could strike down any new laws that were enacted. A long-term change in the political balance of the court was tantamount to a revolution. It was why Roosevelt tried to pack the court with additional new seats that he could appoint during the Depression. Sooner or later the balance on the court would change. The only question was which direction the revolution would take.

FIVE
    L ife has turned upside down in the eight months since the shoot-out in front of the naval base. I have trouble sleeping at night. Like a turtle shrinking into its shell, sudden noise has me compressing my neck until my head is between my shoulder blades. The doctor tells me that this will pass in time.
    Who could have ever guessed that a chance meeting with a young woman, Katia Solaz, in a grocery store would have led her to become a client in a murder case, or that the quest for evidence in that case, and the search for a witness in Latin America, would have ensnared us in an attempted nuclear assault on an American military base. It is like an ongoing nightmare.
    In the hours after the shootout, before the smoke had even settled, federal, state, and local police held a chaotic news conference not far from the scene. My name, along with Herman’s, got mentioned as “persons of interest” already in custody. It didn’t matter that the cops told the press we were not necessarily suspects.
    In less time than it takes to boil an egg, the names Paul Madriani and Herman Diggs ricocheted from one cable news network to another. It was a story with global reach. Within an hour, people inHong Kong supping on Chinese glass noodles with chopsticks were seeing file photos of Herman and me on television. Bad