NEXT BEST HOPE (The Revelation Trilogy) (17 page)

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McDonald and his partner left Tyler and drove four hours north to the Arbuckle Mountains in southern Oklahoma where federal agents had converted an old warehouse into a prison for two high-security detainees, Tom Mooney and Chirp McVeigh.

Their captors held each prisoner in solitary confinement. Neither prisoner knew the other was in the same building. McDonald started with Mooney while his partner went to jerk Chirp’s chain.

When they brought Tom into the interview room, he looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. He sat in a folding metal chair and held his hands clasped in front of him. His upper body shook with convulsions, as though he was having a constant set of the dry heaves. He cried silently as he waited for McDonald to address him.

“Do you have any idea what awaits you, Mr. Mooney?” McDonald said.

Mooney raised his head and looked at the agent as he tried to make sense of his situation. After a while, he spoke through his tears.

“I’m an insurance salesman from Tyler, Texas,” he said. “I have treated people fairly all my life. I went to church, tithed ten percent of my income and attended my kids’ baseball games. Why has the Lord deserted me?” he asked.

“This isn’t about the Lord. It’s about the murder of the President of the United States of America,” McDonald said. “The sooner you come to grips with your actions, the sooner we can get down to business. What do you know about the man you were going to meet near Waco?”

“I don’t know him at all. They gave me a package and the directions to a farm house. My assignment was to hand the package to the man and come home.”

“Who is ‘they’?”

“The CM guy who spoke at prayer meeting and a friend of his that I met in the parking lot at the church later that night.”

“Did you know what was in the package, Tom?”

“I had no idea,” he said.

“What would you say if I told you it contained enough anthrax to wipe out half of Chicago?” McDonald asked.

“I had no idea,” Mooney said again as he curled into a ball and sobbed.

After he let Mooney cry for a couple of minutes, McDonald said, “I actually believe you, Tom. But the fact remains that you are in a world of hurt. The guy you were supposed to deliver the package to was one of several people whose name appeared on a list of conspirators to assassinate government officials on 4/11. Since you were on the way to help him prepare another attack, you are as guilty as he is in the eyes of the law. It is now or never for you. Either you help us, or you’re going down, all the way down, if you know what I mean.”

“I’ll tell you everything I know,” Mooney said.

“Let’s start with some pictures,” McDonald said as he dumped a binder containing hundreds of photos in Mooney’s lap. “Pick out the other man you met in the parking lot.”

Mooney wiped the tears out of his eyes with the back of his left hand and began to flip through the photo album with his right.

On the other end of the warehouse, McDonald’s partner poured it on Chirp McVeigh.

“Blackie DeLay dumped you, Chirp,” he began. “It seems he has bigger fish to fry.”

“I want a lawyer to replace him,” Chirp said. “I know my rights.”

“What rights? Are you talking about your constitutional rights? Under Executive Order 101, because you are a loyal member of CM from a seceding state, you are deemed to have renounced your citizenship in the United States. As a member of a nation in rebellion against the United States, you have no rights under the Constitution. That means you have no right to a lawyer, no right to a trial, no right to prevent our use of cruel and unusual punishment. In short, Chirp, you are screwed,” he said. “We know you are in this thing up to your eyeballs and we plan to use whatever steps are necessary to find out what you know.”

Chirp wasn’t the brightest candle in the room, but she knew enough to grasp that her future looked bleak. She had learned from years on the street that loyalty didn’t amount to anything if it wasn’t worth a hot meal, a fix, a place to spend the night, or a get out of jail free card.

“McDonald told me in Houston that if I talked, the death penalty was off the table,” she said.

“That was then; this is now,” McDonald’s partner said. “New occasions teach new duties.”

“What do I have to do to turn the clock back?” Chirp said.

“Come with me,” McDonald’s partner said.

He helped her get up and walked her down the hallway to the door to the interrogation room where McDonald was putting the squeeze on Tom Mooney. Without knocking, the agent opened the door, grabbed the handcuffs that bound Chirp’s hands in front of her and pulled her into the room. McDonald and Mooney looked up at them as they saw the couple burst in the room.

“Have you ever seen this man?” McDonald’s partner said.

“No, Chirp. Don’t,” Mooney cried out before she could answer.

Chirp glanced away from Tom and looked at the gray-tan metal wall of the prison chamber.

“That’s the guy who wrote the list you found in the safe at Minion headquarters. He knows where all the bodies are buried,” Chirp said.

“I think the Lord just smiled on you,” McDonald’s partner said as he hauled Chirp out of the room.

“Help Ms. McVeigh get cleaned up, get her something to eat, and bring her back to me so we can finish our little talk,” he told a female guard in the corridor.

LEADOFF PICKENS FLEW
home from Washington on the last plane out Friday evening. At DFW, he took a shuttle to the remote parking lot where his car had been parked for three weeks. He walked in his deserted house in Kilgore at two in the morning and crashed in the bed until seven when he arose to start preparation for his trial Monday morning.

It was a routine matter. Several months before 4/11, the high school principal, Curry McNabb, made a bad decision one night and ended up arrested for DWI. It was his first arrest. He immediately apologized to the community and offered to resign his position, but the superintendent and the school board knew he had a heart for kids so they wouldn’t accept his resignation. Curry had known Leadoff for years and asked him to handle the case for him. Leadoff agreed to represent him but refused Curry’s offer to pay him for his services.

“This one is on me,” Leadoff said when Curry reached in his back pocket for his billfold.

Leadoff had paid a visit to the district attorney, Sam Bush, to work out what he thought would be a routine plea deal. Bush saw it differently.

“This man had a responsibility to teach our impressionable kids right from wrong. He violated our trust. I am going to make an example of him. I’ll give him probation, but he has to serve thirty days in jail.”

“Thirty days in jail. Most guys with a clean record don’t serve any time,” Leadoff said. “He’s already suffered the loss of his reputation and ruined any prospect of advancing further in school administration. The community is standing behind him. They know he’s a good guy who just made a stupid mistake.”

“I’m not budging on this one, Leadoff,” the state’s attorney said.

“Well, I’ll see you in court then,” Leadoff said as he got up and left the prosecutor’s office.

Leadoff had studied the facts, briefed the law, and talked to the witnesses. He knew he had a fifty-fifty chance of walking Curry and a ninety percent chance that if he was convicted the sentence would be probated, and Curry would get no jail time. He liked those odds.

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The case was set for nine o’clock Monday. Leadoff and Curry arrived at eight-thirty and took their seats at the counsel table closest to the jury box. They moved their chairs to the side of the table away from the gallery so that they could face the crowd while Leadoff conducted his questioning of the prospective jurors, a process known as voir dire. By eight-fifty-five, no potential jurors had arrived, but the bailiff entered the courtroom from a side door and called the court to order.

“All rise. The District Court for Gregg County, Texas, is now in session, the Honorable Peter Nix presiding.”

In a minute, another door opened, and a half-bald man in his mid-fifties wearing a black robe with half-frame reading glasses perched on the bridge of his nose climbed a couple of steps to his chair behind a massive oak bench. He looked at the ground as he walked and when he sat down.

“You may be seated,” the bailiff said after Nix settled in his chair.

While the judge continued to fumble with some papers in front of him, Leadoff walked to the district attorney at the opposing counsel table and whispered, “What the hell is Nix doing on the bench? What happened to Judge Kettle?”

“I just heard this morning that Kettle resigned late last night and Nix got the appointment to replace him. You and I are learning this deal together,” Bush said.

“If I had to guess, I would say that chances are I am the one who is going to get screwed,” Leadoff said.

“Gentlemen, let me be the first to welcome you to the District Court of New Israel for Gregg County, Texas,” Judge Nix said as he looked up for the first time.

Leadoff felt his knees start to buckle.

“Your Honor, Leadoff Pickens for the defendant,” he said.

“The state is ready,” the district attorney said.

Leadoff spoke up. “Your Honor, I am confused about your announcement of a New Israel court. I am certain you realize that the United States has not recognized New Israel and that the country has no independent status whereby it could suspend functioning courts and substitute its judicial system.”

“Mr. Pickens, New Israel has done just that. Prophet Westmoreland issued Executive Order 10-10 this morning from the national capital in Waco. Under the terms of that order, all former district courts are now courts of New Israel which will apply New Israel law from today forward,” Judge Nix said.

“And what law is that?” Leadoff asked.

“Executive Order 10-10 states that the Bible, specifically the King James Version, is now the law of the land. Judges are to apply it literally. Justice is to be swift and sure,” Nix said.

“Under these circumstances, Your Honor, I must request a continuance. There is no way for me to prepare a defense for my client if the trial is to be conducted under a set of laws and rules of procedure I haven’t even seen,” Leadoff said.

“I wouldn’t oppose his request for a continuance, Your Honor,” the district attorney said as he looked at Leadoff and nodded.

“That’s not how things work around here anymore, gentlemen,” Nix said. “The trial of this defendant will begin now. There will be no delays. Will the defendant please rise for the reading of the charges against him.”

“Your Honor, we haven’t selected the jury yet,” Leadoff said.

“There is no right to a jury trial in New Israel,” Nix said. “Please have your client rise.”

When Curry stood up, his hands shook like a man in advanced stages of Parkinson’s disease. He began to cry. Leadoff reached over and put his hand on his shoulder. “I’ll figure something out, Curry. It will be all right,” Leadoff said to him quietly.

The district attorney stood to read the charging instrument.

“Sit down, Mr. Bush. I will read the charges,” the judge said.

“Curry McNabb, you are charged with Driving While Intoxicated. The Bible says ‘Be not drunk with wine,’ yet on the seventeenth day of February a police officer stopped you for erratic driving and determined that you were under the influence of alcohol. These actions on your part violate the laws of New Israel and are an offense against God, its Founder,” the judge said. “To these charges how do you plead?”

Curry sobbed as he said, “Not guilty, Your Honor.”

“The court enters a not guilty plea,” Nix said. “Mr. Pickens, you may call your first witness.”

Leadoff sat still in his chair for a minute and looked around the empty courtroom. A thousand thoughts flooded his mind, and he felt rage well up inside. Slowly he rose to address Judge Nix.

“It is not my burden to prove him not guilty, Your Honor. It is the state’s burden to prove him guilty. We have the right to stand on the presumption of innocence until the state meets its burden. I must again object to these proceedings in their entirety. This is a travesty of justice,” Leadoff said.

“There is no presumption of innocence in New Israel. The charges are taken as true until the defendant rebuts them. You may call your first witness, or you may not. It’s up to you,” the judge said.

“May I have a moment to confer with my client, Your Honor?” Leadoff said.

“You may.”

Leadoff took Curry by the arm and led him out of the courtroom through a side door to a witness room. The bailiff guarded the door on the outside while the two men talked.

“Curry, this whole thing is hinky,” Leadoff said. “No appeals court will ever uphold a conviction obtained under these circumstances. I think the best approach is for us to put on no evidence, take whatever sentence he gives us and appeal immediately. It’s a misdemeanor, so you will be eligible for automatic release on bond pending the appeal.”

Curry looked Leadoff straight in the eye. “You’re my lawyer, Leadoff. There is nobody in this world whose opinion I trust more in this situation. I’m good with whatever you recommend.”

“Let’s get back in there then,” Leadoff said.

The men filed back into the courtroom, and Leadoff pointed to the chair and told Curry to have a seat. Leadoff remained standing as he spoke to Judge Nix.

“The defendant rests,” Leadoff said.

“What says the state?” Nix asked.

Bush said softly, “The prosecution rests.”

“Since both sides have rested, I will proceed to judgment. Mr. McNabb, please rise.”

Curry stood up.

Before Judge Nix said anything, he reached down and pushed a button that notified the sheriff’s office to send a deputy down the hall to the courtroom.

“Curry McNabb, you stand charged with Driving While Intoxicated. I have read the charging instrument to you, which under the laws of New Israel establishes your guilt. You have offered no evidence of your innocence, so I am duty bound to find you guilty. Therefore, I find you guilty.”