NEXT BEST HOPE (The Revelation Trilogy) (18 page)

Judge Nix looked at the participants in the courtroom before proceeding.

“Is there any reason I should not now pronounce sentence?” he asked rhetorically.

Leadoff objected again. “I object to the entry of any sentence until we have had sufficient time to present mitigating evidence which would show the fine character of the defendant.”

“You had your chance, Mr. Pickens,” the judge said.

“I will now proceed to sentencing,” Nix said. “Does the district attorney have any recommendation on punishment?”

“Your Honor, I told Mr. Pickens long ago that I thought Mr. McNabb should do thirty days in jail as a sign to the community that people who supervise our children are held to a higher standard. I still think that is a fair sentence. It is undisputed that Mr. McNabb has no prior criminal record,” Bush said.

Leadoff, Curry, and Bush turned and looked to the rear of the courtroom when they heard the back door open. Three uniformed deputies entered and walked down the side aisle closest to where Curry stood. Each of them wore their service pistols in holsters, and one carried a.30-06-caliber bolt action carbine with metal sights. When they reached the railing that separated the gallery from the area where the counsel tables were, they stopped and stood at attention.

“The old ways are gone, gentlemen. I will apply the law of God, not man,” Nix said.

“Curry McNabb, I have found you guilty. You have violated the law of the land and the law of God. The Bible says ‘the wages of sin is death.’ Therefore, by the authority vested in me as the judge of this court, I hereby sentence you to death by firing squad.”

Then he turned to the deputies. “Take the prisoner to the courthouse lawn and carry out the sentence,” he said.

“What?” Leadoff said. “Are you out of your mind?”

He lunged at the guards as they approached Curry, and the deputy with the carbine swung the stock and hit Leadoff in the head. He fell back against the counsel table and knocked over a chair as he collapsed to the floor. The heavy old wooden chair bounced several times on the bare hard floor, each bounce sounding like a ball peen hammer striking slate. Leadoff lay motionless on the floor, unconscious. Bush bent down and moved toward Leadoff but caught himself and stopped short of helping him. He stood up straight and turned his back on Leadoff.

The other deputies handcuffed Curry and began forcing him towards the door that led down the hallway.

Curry fought and pleaded with them.

“Aren’t you the Smith boy?” he said to one of them.

The deputy wouldn’t look at him and turned his head away.

“I taught you ninth grade science,” Curry said. “Remember that field trip to Six Flags when you got sick and I carried you to the emergency room?”

The deputy was crying now.

“Shut up, Mr. McNabb. We don’t have any say in this matter,” Deputy Smith said.

At those words McNabb stopped resisting and hung his head as he marched with them down the halls of justice. At the end of a polished marble hallway, they took a left, went out a glass door and walked up a flight of granite steps to the well-manicured lawn where a crèche was already in place. It was ten-thirty and a small crowd milled around outside the courthouse, mostly office workers taking a smoke break or people drinking coffee, enjoying an unseasonably warm day. When people saw the strange procession, they began to stare.

“That’s Curry McNabb, ain’t it?” one old-timer said.

“I heard he was going to court this morning,” another man said. “I wonder what’s happening?”

The deputies marched Curry to the side of the building and made him stand in front of a brick wall. They did not offer him a blindfold or give him a chance to make any final remarks. As soon as he was in position, the two who had his arms stepped back on either side of him. When they were ten feet or so clear of him, the deputy with the bolt action carbine threw it up on his shoulder and immediately fired a shot that struck Curry in the head. He ejected the spent shell, inserted another round, closed the bolt and fired a second shot that struck McNabb in the head again where he lay crumpled on the ground.

“My God,” one of the ladies in the crowd screamed.

Several people began to rush to Curry, but the two deputies moved between his body and the crowd with their pistols drawn.

“Stand back. You have just witnessed the first execution in this county under the laws of New Israel. Let everyone here take heed lest the same fate befall you,” Deputy Smith said.

The crowd backed away just as Leadoff broke through into the open and saw Curry on the ground, his life poured out on the grass. There was a gash in Leadoff’s forehead where the rifle butt had struck him.

“Oh, no,” Leadoff cried as the deputies pushed him back refusing to let him kneel next to his client. Leadoff looked at the lawmen and said, “This is nothing but cold-blooded murder.”

“We are obeying the Lord’s righteous law. You had better do the same,” Deputy Smith said as he walked over to Curry’s body and kicked it to make sure the condemned man was dead.

ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL
Link Jefferson carried a briefcase in each hand as he walked up the courthouse steps to the first pretrial hearing for Ithurial Finis. He paused halfway up and looked across the parking lot at a cement walkway totally enclosed in heavy duty chain link fencing wire. It led from the most maximum security federal penitentiary in the country to a holding cell in the courthouse annex. He knew that in a few minutes, guards would lead Ithurial Finis down that walk, and he would stand in the same courtroom with the man accused of killing the President. Along the exposed outdoor corridor, Finis would never be out of sight of a machine gunner who manned a turret on top of a forty-foot spire that towered over the flat land of the Missouri country side like the cathedral steeple in a medieval European berg.

The judge had ordered that no cameras be permitted in the hearing room itself, so in the lobby outside the courtroom, the press clamored for sound bites and took pictures of anything that moved. Link put his head down and plowed through the crowd, ignoring the media’s flood of questions. He entered the courtroom, took his seat at the counsel table and began laying out his papers, organizing his presentation to the judge.

Five minutes after Link sat down, he heard the back door of the courtroom open and saw his opponent enter. A cadre of his associates and paralegals tagged along behind him. Before the door closed all the way, he heard Finis’ lawyer tell the press that his client was an innocent man singled out for political reasons by the federal government as a scapegoat. “The world will soon know the truth,” he said as he shut the massive wooden door behind him and marched down the center aisle to the front of the courtroom where he slammed his briefcase on the counsel table to Link’s left. He motioned for his team to take their seats in the front row of the gallery outside the banister that marked off the pit where the lawyers would do battle. He didn’t speak to Link who swiveled his chair to his left and looked at him.

“That’s big talk, Blackie,” Link said. “Too bad it’s a damned lie. You shouldn’t promise more than you can deliver.”

“We’ll see, Mr. Acting Attorney General. I wouldn’t get too huffy if I were you,” Blackie Delay retorted.

The men sat in silence and stared at the pieces of paper that littered the counsel tables until they bolted to their feet when the bailiff pounded his gavel like a sledge hammer.

“All rise. The United States District Court for the District of Missouri is now in session, the Honorable David McNeil presiding,” he announced.

Link had requested that Judge McNeil receive the assignment for the case because of his experience with the jurist in the high-profile Issacharoff espionage trial. The case had taught him that McNeil was a stickler for the law. He was the sort of judge who would ensure that any accused receive a fair trial under the law and that any lawyer in the courtroom follow the rules. In the Issacharoff trial, McNeil’s determination to protect the constitutional rights of the accused had almost cost him his life. He was the real deal.

A door opened on Link’s left at the front of the courtroom, and McNeil hustled in as though he were late for school. Before he sat down, he scanned the courtroom for a second like he was getting the lay of the land and sat down in a large leather chair behind the bench. He never took his eyes off the lawyers seated in front of him or the people in the gallery.

“Please be seated,” he said. When everyone had complied with his request, he spoke to the bailiff.

“Where is the defendant?”

“They are bringing him now, Your Honor,” the bailiff said.

“We will be at ease until he arrives,” Judge McNeil said.

The tension in the courtroom was palpable as everyone waited for Ithurial Finis.

In an anteroom off the main courtroom, Ert and Agent Brown watched the proceedings on a closed circuit hookup.

“This ain’t good,” Brown said. “A federal judge isn’t accustomed to waiting for a prisoner to be brought in. Somebody is not paying enough attention to detail.”

“I hope that’s all it is,” Ert said.

About forty-five seconds passed before the door that provided access to the holding cell swung open. Two guards came out in full SWAT gear, carrying assault rifles. Behind them two more guards entered the courtroom, one on each side of the prisoner, who stood head and shoulders above them. He had manacles on his feet and hands and what looked like a catcher’s mask on his head. Two more armed guards trailed behind him as he walked in a deliberate shuffle and sat down next to Blackie with a movement like a scuba diver flipping backwards off the gunwale of a dive boat. As soon as Ithurial plopped into the chair, Blackie stood up.

“Your Honor, I request that the marshal remove my client’s chains. With the security we have in this room, there is no reason for him to have to sit here bound like this,” he said.

McNeil wasted no time. “Mr. DeLay, when there are jurors in this courtroom, your client may appear in street clothes without shackles. Until then, he will remain bound when he appears.

“Today, we will consider a number of pretrial matters. First, is the defendant’s request that the charges against him be dismissed because of the illegality of his arrest. I have reviewed the motion in detail, but I have a threshold question for you, Mr. DeLay.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“It appears that your motion is premised on the arrest having occurred in violation of the U.S. Constitution,” McNeil said.

“That’s right, Your Honor,” DeLay said.

“Under Executive Order 101, your client is not entitled to the protection afforded by that Constitution by virtue of his status as a member of a seceding state who has pledged his loyalty to New Israel. How is it that you say the U.S. Constitution applies to him under these facts?”

“My client has made no such pledge, Your Honor,” Blackie said.

“Mr. Jefferson?” McNeil said.

“We have evidence that he has in fact pledged such loyalty, Your Honor. But the government’s position on this matter is that he should be afforded every protection the Constitution provides American citizens. We believe the evidence is sufficient to convict him under the laws of the United States, and that is how we intend to try the case,” Link said.

“Very well. I don’t suppose you have any objection to your client receiving more protection than the law requires do you, Mr. DeLay?” McNeil asked.

“I have no objection, Your Honor,” Blackie said.

“Then we will proceed on that basis,” the judge said.

“As I said, I have studied your motion carefully, Mr. DeLay. I find it without merit and deny it,” McNeil said.

“But I haven’t even argued it yet, Your Honor,” DeLay said as he sprang up from his seat.

“I’ve heard the argument you put forth in your motion a hundred times in my court, Mr. DeLay. A hundred times it is has been a loser. No amount of argument can change that.

“Next, we will move to your motion about illegal surveillance,” McNeil said as he flipped through the papers in front of him.

Before McNeil could look up, Ithurial Finis lurched forward in his seat and his head struck the counsel table hard with a sound like a watermelon dropped from ten feet above a concrete driveway. Blackie DeLay looked at Finis, shook him and called to the guards.

“Get him some help. He is out cold.”

McNeil reacted. “Mr. Bailiff, please call an EMT and get him in here now.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” the bailiff said.

Finis teetered in his chair, fell to his left and hit the floor with a thud. For a second, no one knew what to do. One of the guards with the SWAT gear on approached him to check his breathing. He reached down and felt his wrist.

“He’s appears to be unconscious, Your Honor. But he is breathing and has a strong pulse,” the guard reported to McNeil.

Meanwhile one of the other guards knelt next to Finis and rolled him off his side on to his back in an apparent attempt to ready him for CPR should the EMTs need to administer it.

From a laid out position on the floor, Finis leaped to his feet, kicked his shackles off his hands and feet and drove his shoulder into the guard nearest him. The two of them went down together, and Finis rolled over the top of him. He flipped up on his feet with the guard’s assault rifle in his hand and sprayed the gallery with a quick burst and fired a volley in McNeil’s direction. Everyone in the courtroom hit the floor. Finis jumped the banister and raced toward the back door. Three guards followed behind him and checked the crowd as they protected Finis’ rear in his escape. Before he disappeared out the back door, the last of the SWAT guards fired a final burst of bullets into the courtroom to freeze people in place for a few extra seconds.

In the lobby, Ithurial fired in both directions and watched reporters dive under benches while he ran toward the front entrance. He shot two security guards dead before they could draw their weapons and never broke his pace. He threw the door to the outside open and looked around him like a lion deciding which antelope in the herd to kill. In the distance, he saw the pre-arranged signal and cut a diagonal down the steps. When he made it to the street, a pickup pulled next to the curb and slowed only enough to allow Finis to hurl his body into the bed before it revved its engine and shot off down the street.