Midnight

by Anna Dove

  “I’d love to try this,” said the woman, with a slight German accent, indicating a pasta dish with her finger.

  “That’s like what we had our first night back in the U.S.”

  “Jack, you remember everything,” said the woman, smiling wide at him. She was beautiful when she smiled, her dark eyes sparkling.

  Jack covered her small hand in his, and kissed her forehead.

  “What will you do when I leave tomorrow,” he said quietly. “Are you sure that you’ll be okay, in that house?”

  “Of course,” she replied. “They’re my relatives, however distant they are. I will be protected I’m sure.”

  “I wish I didn’t have to leave.”

  “Me too.”

  Jack nodded.

  “Maybe I won’t,” said Jack. “Maybe I’ll just never report. I’d rather be on the run with you than getting shot at halfway across the world.”

  Katrin shook her head.

  “Don’t say that. I believe you will come back just as you are now.”

  “Perhaps,” responded Jack noncommittally.

  “You always assume the worst, Jack.”

  “That is because my experiences have never proven otherwise.”

  “What about me?” Katrin looked at him earnestly.

  “You,” responded Jack, touching her chin softly, “you are the exception.”

  And the next day, Jack left, and Katrin tried to write to him, but he had been assigned to an operation in Iran with no communications. Three months later Katrin awoke in the middle of the night to a pounding on the front door of her house, and knowing that the old hunt had been renewed, she slipped out the window and fled, and then submitted her own obituary to the newspaper and vanished.

  29. The Witness

  "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known."’

  ---Sydney Carton, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

  There is a significant flaw in the American judicial system: in hyperpartisanship it is extremely challenging to expediently replace a Supreme Court Justice. Out of the nine justices previously sitting on the bench, only one remained alive following the attack. By majority vote, the remaining congressional members had overwhelmingly decided to proceed with the trial, the United States vs. Gilman, with one justice, rather than having to confirm eight other members to the Supreme Court--for who would nominate those eight other members? The president was a suspected criminal and the vice president was dead, and the next in succession, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, did not think it proper for him to appoint eight judges to the Supreme Court at this time. He demurred, when asked, and told the journalists that the next actual president would surely undertake that responsibility--but that it was such a grave responsibility that in no way would he presume upon the American people by acting upon it. He was a weasely fellow, the Speaker, who said few things in many words, and referenced “the American people” a good deal more than was necessary. But in this case, Congress backed him, because the House was held by Republicans and the Senate by Democrats and no one labored under the delusion that the Senate would ever confirm eight Republican-nominated justices to the Supreme Court. Rather than enter into gridlock, they all agreed to try the president before Justice Chammel, a fat, moderate, rubicund sixty-year old who had replaced Justice Clarence Thomas after his retirement in 2028. Justice Chammel was a firebrand, a genius, and a good man, who did not tolerate idiocy and spoke exactly what he thought. All members of Congress knew that he would render a just and expedient decision in order to help facilitate the process of the restoration of a proper government and bring traitors to justice.

  On October 30th the Supreme Court accepted the petition filed by Mr. Stone and set the date for November 4th, five days before the election. The morning of November 2nd, the courtroom filled so quickly that police had to be stationed to prevent more people from entering. Inside, they filled the benches, the visitors’ gallery, and spilled into the aisle, peering to the front for a glimpse of the one remaining justice and the deplorable accused. All firearms were taken from every person except military and government officials.

  At 10am sharp, Justice Chammel entered the courtroom, and everyone stood. He was very fat and very red. Haley, who was seated with the Senator, Landon, and Elizabeth, looked to her left and saw Adela Gilman standing next to Reed in the front row. She was dressed in a tight red dress with pearl necklace and a loose jacket over her shoulders. Her hair was pulled back into an elegant twist. The United States Solicitor General sat next to her, a man by the name of Oliver Garrett.

  “We will hear argument 08-740 today, United States versus Gilman,” began the Justice. “And I would like to point out, that since there are so many of you, I will require the utmost respect and order in this proceeding. Now, Mr. Garrett.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court,” began Mr. Garrett, a narrow man with black hair and black beard. He spoke in a nasally tone. “Whereas Section 110 of Article III of the United States Constitution--”

  “Yes, yes, I know,” interrupted the Justice, “He is being accused of treason and a host of other things, and his defense is that he has been framed. I am not living under a rock. I’ve read the brief, very well done on your part. If you have nothing besides what is in this brief, I would like to hear from the appellant.”

  “I have nothing beyond the brief, unless you have questions, Mr. Chief Justice.”

  “I have no questions. Thank you Mr. Garrett.”

  Mr. Garrett sat down.

  “Will the appellant please provide the argument.”

  Justice Chammel turned to Mr. Stone and the former president. The latter sat quietly and dejectedly, his shoulders slumped. He stared in front of him like a man in a daze. One could barely recognize him to be the same man that so recently struck such admiration and respect into the hearts of millions. He had been betrayed--and he knew it. He sat, in the deafening silence.

  Mr. Stone then stood up and was about to speak, when a man’s voice rang loud and clear throughout the chamber.

  “I have new evidence--I will testify on behalf of Mr. Gilman--I will be his witness.”

  The Justice’s double chin shot up. A current like an electric shock passed through the room. All eyes searched--where did that voice come from? Who did it belong to? Whose was it? Necks strained and eyes searched, and gasps echoed. Murmurs circled the walls and bounced off the high ceilings, and the commotion grew from a whispering murmur to a hum, from a hum to a competition of sounds, of voices, of interjections and screeches and accusations. WHO SAID IT?

  “ORDER,” roared the Justice, pounding his gavel with all the might of his fat arm and bellowing with his ox-like tone. He did appear rather ox-like, up behind the bench, with broad shoulders, sagging cheeks, large sunken eyes, red-faced and irate. The first pounding having done consequently nothing to reduce the amount of noise coming from the crowd, he tried again, bellowing deep from within his stomach and stretching his lung capacity to the utmost. “ORDER. WE CANNOT PROCEED IF THERE IS NO ORDER IN THIS COURT.”

  The former president had risen to his feet with the rest of the crowd and was clutching his hands on the back of the seat in front of him. His knuckles were white and his body had suddenly come alive, tensed like an animal, his eyes searching the faces of the individuals in the room in a near frenzy.

  The third round of gavel-banging brought the noise down a little, and by the fourth bellow and pound the judge succeeded in restoring some semblance of order to the courtroom. People sat, but on the edges of their seats, chewing on their fingernails, eyes darting about the room, elbows drawn into their sides.

  Reed had gone white as a sheet, and looked quite stunned. He was not searching the crowd as the others were, but sat rigidly aloof, staring up at the judge. Adela sat on his right, her petite hands clasped in her lap and her face downturned. She also did not move.

&nb
sp; “Your Honor,” said Mr. Stone quickly, “I move that you accept the testimony of this witness now, rather than schedule a retrial, because this testimony may affect the upcoming election.”

  “Mr. Stone, that is never done. This is an appellate court.”

  “Your Honor, the circumstances are very unusual, and your Honor has discretion.”

  Justice Chammel sat in silence and looked out in deliberation on the crowd. He cupped his chin in his hand and narrowed his eyes. After fifteen very long seconds, he spoke.

  “Will the witness approach the bench.”

  “OBJECTION YOUR HONOR—” screamed the prosecution shrilly, rising to its feet.

  “SIT DOWN,” bellowed Justice Chammel.

  From the middle of the left-hand section rose a tall, lean man with resolution in his eyes. Haley stared, stunned, and Elizabeth grabbed her hand so tightly that she thought her bones would break.

  Jack took the witness box, looking out in front of him at the wide-eyed crowd. As he took the stand, one could have heard a pin drop. Reed, flicking his gaze towards the witness, turned seven shades paler and looked as if he might vomit. Adela nudged him with a confused expression on her exquisite face.

  “Your Honor, may I speak?”

  Again, his clear and collected voice rang out like music. Mr. Gilman still stood on his feet, dazed.

  “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

  “I will,” said Jack.

  “You may proceed,” said the Justice, staring at him with very round eyes.

  “Well, this testimony needs some background to it. So will you permit me to tell a short story?”

  “OBJECTION” blurted out the prosecution—

  “Overruled. Proceed.”

  “Thank you, your Honor. There was a woman named Katrin Von Gorben. She was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1966. Her grandparents were killed by the Russians during the second world war, not in combat, but carelessly, wastefully. Her father hated the Russians because they killed his parents. During the Cold War, he worked with the United States on the development of nuclear weapons. He assisted with many high profile operations and testings. He was a renowned physicist who used his talents to combat one of what he perceived to be the worst evils humanity could face-that is, nuclear war. He believed that the United States would benefit from advancing their nuclear technology to the point that no other country, primarily Russia, would dare try to attack. Now, Katrin was a teenager when he was working on this. She inherited his scientific mind, his love of physics, and easily understood his college-level lesson plans at the age of thirteen. From a very young age she helped him on his projects.”

  Jack paused, and looked around the room. All eyes were trained on his face, listening with rapt attention as she annunciated each word clearly.

  “She was seventeen when the Russians found out. Her father disappeared one night, and she never did see him again. She fled with her mother to Paris, where she lived undercover for twenty years, and then her mother passed away in her sleep naturally and peacefully. Katrin continued throughout this time to develop her understanding of nuclear physics and maintained contact with the United States. A few years after, she was discovered in Paris by the FSB, and the Marines sent a team to extradite her from the dangerous situation. Katrin flew to a suburb of Paris, where she barely escaped with the Marines team. One of those Marines was me.”

  A ripple of shock issued through the audience.

  “Katrin and I developed a relationship. She told me everything--all the details of every project she had ever worked on; she was the best teacher I could have asked for. I learned it all, and bragged about her and about my knowledge to my friends in the Corps. We lived so happily together for a while in Annapolis, and then I was called away again, with no chance to communicate while I was gone. The first thing I saw when I looked for her upon my return was her obituary in December of 2021. I threw myself into my work, earned lots of awards, and then last year I was sent with a special team to oversee the development of a nuclear weapon on Baker Island, which is a U.S. territory in the Pacific less than one square mile in area.”

  He took a deep breath and his hands gripped the witness stand. His fingers were sweaty and cold and his heart raced. He cleared his throat and looked at the sea of faces upturned to his own.

  “I was told that it was for testing over the Pacific, like Operation Fishbowl had been. For a few months I stayed on Baker Island, in an underground bunker, monitoring the construction of the nuclear weapon. At that point I was sent home again to the mainland, because I had succumbed to post traumatic stress disorder from my previous missions. But before I left, one particular individual came to visit several times, to check on the construction. It was the Chief of Staff, Snyder Reed.”

  Sharp inhales, and then low murmurs, as people shifted in their seats. The prosecution again screamed “OBJECTION” but before he could finish, the Justice bellowed, “OVERRULED, PROCEED.”

  “He came several times. I am sure that if there are paper copies of his travel records, they will corroborate this. He was very interested in the details, and asked me for a lot of information. He wanted to be sure that it would be ready for testing before the summer. But, after a few months I was sent back to the mainland. I originally had a stipend for food and housing, but I grew dependent on alcohol and then was disqualified for the stipend. However, an old friend from the military, who worked at that time in the Chief of Staff’s office, kept me supplied with fifteen thousand dollars per month, ensuring that I stayed good and drunk.”

  “OBJECTION--”

  “Sustained.”

  “Well,” said Jack, “I did stay good and drunk. I was useless. When the attack happened, I fled the city up to northern Maryland, where I lived for a while with other survivors, and I got sober along the way. Our group returned when we heard that Mrs. Gilman was running for president, because we knew that she was having an affair with Snyder Reed.”

  A collective gasp, and then shouts, and the Justice pounded his gavel fruitlessly for five minutes.

  Was it true? The people looked from Jack to Reed to Adela, the latter of whom was sitting silently and composedly, save for a slight color in her cheeks.

  “We came back,” continued Jack once the noise had subsided. “And here, I found the one thing I thought I would never have.”

  In the crowd, a woman stood up. She was small and silver haired.

  Jack, seeing her, smiled, and as the room watched, she slid out from the row into the aisle.

  “Your Honor,” cried the prosecution desperately amidst a flurry of papers, “Who is this? We must bring this trial to the District Court again! This is not justice, this is not right!”

  “I am a witness, my name is Katrin Von Gorben,” she replied in a quiet voice, “If I may.”

  The Justice leaned back in his seat. One one hand, this really should be going to trial court, now that more evidence was coming to light. On the other, he was personally riveted by the turn of events. It is not every day that one sees dead people come back to life.

  “Will the witness approach the bench. Will the current witness sit down.”

  The prosecuting attorney threw his hands in the air with an “objection--this should be retried--”

  “Overruled.”

  The prosecuting attorney sat down with a blank expression.

  As Katrin reached Jack, she embraced him.

  “I’m so proud of you,” she whispered.

  Jack felt his old self melting away all of a sudden. Gone were the demons of despair and hopelessness—he had crushed their heads below his heel. Gone were the long nights blurred by glass bottles and an unquenchable thirst. Gone was his maddening fear of the past, the ghastly memories that hung about him like a dark cloud. Gone were his desires for self-preservation over all else, as he held the woman that he loved in his arms—and as he did so, his gaze moved from the stupefied judge upwards towards heaven, and he felt a strange se
nsation stirring in what he determined must be his very soul, that perhaps after all life was worth living, that the breath in his lungs was precious, that he was free—free from the chains of sorrow, free from the crippling power of guilt and shame, free from the man that he had once been. Love--he knew it. Hope--he believed it. Peace--he grasped it. His life stretched in front of him and the past faded as the darkness of the night fades into the newness of the morning.

  A sharp crack split the air, and Jack felt as if he had been dealt a blow to his heart, and he stumbled back a step. His gaze sank to his chest--there was a hole, and dark red fluid seeped quickly from it. The sounds in the room escalated, and then faded as he spun confusedly to Katrin. Her face--her mouth was opened in a wide cry, but he could not hear it. His eyes met hers, and there they remained, as he felt his heart slowing. He willed his heart to beat, to keep beating so that she could have a few more seconds. Her mouth closed, and his vision began to blur. Keep beating, keep beating, she needs more time. She needs to know that I love her. Keep beating. Slower now, his heart labored, but he kept his eyes fixed on hers, even as hers began to swim in tears, and then she nodded, slowly, solemnly, and with that, he managed a faint smile, and closing his eyes, he gave up his spirit.

  29. From Dust

  “So it’s true, when all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love.”

  ---E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

  Rain. Gentle, cold October rain, falling steadily on the meagre procession of black hats, black veils, black overcoats wrapped tightly around the figures, hunched and chilled, making their way up the hillside on the path leading between rows of gravestones. The graveyard extends for miles and miles, the simple white tombstones spaced equally apart in rows as if they were still standing at attention. Wisping mist ascends from the ground, as the souls of the deceased rise to guard their resting place.