"They're Coming to Get You"

     "You're going to be indicted any day now," my lawyer told me.
     That was twelve days ago.
     It's not the first time he's said this.  I think it's the fourth time.
     I sat on the edge of my seat.
     "After three and a half years of investigation, now they're going to haul me away?"
     "Yes," he said.
     "How sure are you?"
     "Ninety-nine point nine percent."
     The government's [sealed] case against me started in June 2009.  My office was raided on June 16, 2010.  I've been living with dire expectation ever since.  And lots of predictions, all bad.
     "How do you know for sure?" I asked.
     "The prosecutor called me.  He wanted to meet.  He said he might be willing to settle."
     "Really?" I was astonished.  "Settle?"
     The absence of ethics, when it comes to "settling," makes me sick.  But lawyers everywhere say it's the most cost-effective thing to do.
     Settling means giving a bunch of money to people in exchange for their leaving you alone.  At least that's what I thought it meant.
     "You don't want to hear the settlement offer," he told me, rolling his eyes and shaking his head.  "It's not an offer.  It's unacceptable."
     "Tell me," I insisted.  "I want to know."
     "The prosecutor wants $1.4 million, and for you to plead guilty to numerous felonies...and he wants you to do jail time."
     Felonies?  Jail time?  Millions of dollars?
     I heard this as though it were through a foghorn at the harbor on an icy night.  My lawyer was announcing a battleship about to come in, weapons at the ready, a ship hell-bent on destroying my home town.
     "Pleading guilty would mean having my medical license taken away, right?"
     "Probably," he said.
     "How is that supposed to be a settlement?"
     My lawyer laughed.  Only lawyers can laugh at times like this.
     "I guess he figures if you go to trial and are found guilty, you'll do more jail time.
     "Does he really think this is an offer we can take seriously."
     "No," my lawyer said abruptly.  "At least...I can't take it seriously."
     "So what do I do now?"
     "Prepare to get indicted."
      Indictment means the government sends people in uniform to your door at the crack of dawn, with TV and newspaper reporters jostling behind them.  They handcuff you.  They take you to jail.
     "How am I supposed to prepare for that?"
     "Well, I know you have a grown son with a severe disability.  You need to line up care for him, for when this happens."
     "What if I can't?"
     "They'll take him into protective custody."
     "That would be horrible.  He can't speak.  He can't communicate."
     "They don't care."
     "How long will I be in jail?"
     "That's the least of your worries," he said, waving his hand in the air.  "I don't care about jail!"
     The single battleship entering the harbor was being trailed by a few dozen more--all of them speedy, vicious, rapacious, stocked with massive weaponry.  They were going to decimate everything.  
     Here I am, standing on the shore in my bathrobe and my motorcycle boots, shivering in the damp air, and my lawyer is waving a flag.
     "Help!"  I cry out, into the fog.  "Help!"