by B D Grant
Doherty purses his lips. “I wasn’t the one moving those patients,” he says, making eye contact with Calvin as he writes bus on the page so that he won’t have to worry about forgetting that Calvin partook in the bus ambush, “but if you want your girlfriend to stay within arm’s reach of people who would snuff her out as easily as you do those cigarettes, that’s fine by me.”
“Man, look,” the Dyna says, leaning across the table. “I can give you the names of who they flew off in that helicopter, but you have to get my girl and her kid out today.”
Doherty pulls out one of the back pages from the folder. He offers it to the Calvin, along with his pen. “Write down her name, the kid’s name, where she works, kid’s school, and their home address.”
He takes the paper and pen giving the paper a once over, and then the folder Doherty took it out of. He hesitates for a moment more. “Before I take my offer back,” Doherty says before Calvin can ask him anything about his folder containing blank paper.
When Calvin’s done, Doherty takes the paper, folds it, and then stands. “What are you doing?” Calvin asks, watching him.
Doherty holds the paper in the air between them. “Holding up my end of the bargain, and when I get back you’re going to do the same.”
Doherty takes the folded page to Bill, who’s already waiting on the other side of the door.
“Yes, Sir,” Bill says without Doherty having to say anything, taking sheet and unfolding it as he walks away. As Bill hurries off, Susan pokes her head out of the monitoring room where the camera feed is recorded. So much for her not watching this interview. She frowns at him when he nods at her turning to shut the door back.
“Alright,” Doherty says with the door shut behind him. “You want us to protect her? Make it worth my time.”
“What are you thinking, adding a random woman and child onto our already stacked plate?” Susan asks, clearly annoyed glaring up at him from the chair in front of the television monitor running the feed from the interview room. He’s only been out of the interview room for less than five minutes, but Doherty refuses to let this sway his halfway decent mood. “Do you think that the Council is going to foot the bill to keep them in hiding?”
“Doesn’t matter. This could be it.”
Susan holds her notes firmly to her chest as she scoots away from the monitor, making room for her boss to move by. Instead, Doherty turns to shut the door. “What are you talking about?”
“He could be what draws their leader out.”
“How?” Susan snaps. “He’s a nobody who killed Lane. That’s it.”
“No,” Doherty says slowly. “Calvin Sanchez was one of the Rogues shooting when Lane was shot. We don’t know if this guy was the one who did it.” Susan opens her mouth, but Doherty stops her. “Hear me out. He was selected to be the one to turn himself in. And he was chosen because they had the perfect leverage. And as soon as the girlfriend disappears, they’ll be on to us. And it’s gonna piss them off, but by that point there’s nothing they’ll be able to do? They’ll surmise that not only did he talk, but that he had enough information that we were willing to spend the manpower on protective custody.”
“Or,” Susan says, with none of Doherty’s energy, “they’ll think that we beat the information out of him that he has a girlfriend and are now trying to get information out of her.”
“Either way, they’ll be paranoid.”
“Only if he actually knew something! The guy told you, he’s only the muscle. Lane is dead, kids have been killed, and more adults than we will probably ever know have been taken by people like him. And you made a deal with him.”
“They would have killed his girlfriend and her child.”
“And the names he gave you? Charley Hemingway and Hector Guizman. Did you even think to ask him if those are aliases?”
Doherty just looks at her. “Course they are.”
Susan’s tone is harsh. “We don’t have the resources for this,” she says, pushing out of the chair.
He steps to the side as she pushes past him for the door. “What would you have me do, send the woman and child back to the city?”
Susan seethes, “Of course not.”
“What would you have me do then?”
She swings around to face him. “Quite taking it easy on Rogues who helped kill one of our own.” Before leaving the room, Susan grabs a peppermint wrapper left on the table next to the monitor and throws it in the trash. “And quit pissing me off.”
“Impossible,” Doherty says as the door shuts behind her.
Chapter 23
There are only five Supreme Council members presiding over Uncle Will’s sentencing amendment.
“I saw three Council members meeting with detectives,” a woman says behind us as everyone takes their seats. “What were they doing?” another woman asks. “I figure it’s got to do with whoever’s going on trial next,” the woman replies. “The Rogues are going on trial next,” a quieter male voice says behind us, “but there’s no way for you to know that’s what they were going to discuss. They’ve got more than the trials going on.”
Uncle Will is hunched over next to his attorney at the defense table staring down at a paper in front of them. Uncle Will points at something on the page and his attorney’s lips curl into a devious grin.
I turn around casually to see who it is that’s talking about the Rogue trials but they’re quiet now. A guy in short sleeve button down shirt and khakis seated in the row behind me to the left looks at the man seated beside him. “You heard about what’s going on overseas? You think that’s where that ninth Supreme Council member is everyone is waiting to see?” I turn a tad bit more to see the man he’s talking to. The man next to him is dressed much nicer in crisp navy blue dress pants with a gray vest over a white dress shirt. He has the cuffs of the shirt folded tight up to his elbows. The man cuts eyes at the man in short sleeves. “Working for the department of defense does not make me privy to the world’s problems.” The man’s eyes narrow beside him. “You’re not answering the question,” the man says in the short sleeves turning back to face the front of the courtroom. I do the same not wanting them to notice me staring at them. “Don’t think I didn’t catch that,” the man mumbles. That’s about the time that the Council entered the room, and everyone fell silent as the courtroom officer announced, “Please stand for your honorable Supreme Council.”
The single door at the front of the courtroom on the left opened and the Council emerged one by one. None of them smiled as they glanced around the room before taking their seats. They all wore the same solemn expression. They sat, and then those of us in the audience followed suit.
I watch the Council intently; our seats behind Uncle Will at the defense’s table give us a nearly unobstructed view of them. There are three men and two women seated behind the Council’s table on the left hand side of the courtroom in front of the door they came in through. The courtroom isn’t big enough to have one big podium front and center for the Council to sit at facing the audience like a judge would in a normal courtroom. They have their table angled so that they can easily watch anyone on the stand and are able to see those of us in the audience seated behind the prosecution’s table and the defendant’s table without having to turn.
After a second of looking them over, I peg the youngest of the five Council members to be on the far side of fifty. There aren’t any nameplates in front of them, and only the man seated in the middle has a gavel on the desk in front of him.
The Councilman seated in the middle of the others pulls the gavel closer to him. When everyone has taken their seats and the room quiets down from the movement he speaks. “This is an amendment,” he says, looking at the prosecution and defense tables, “so there’s no need for opening statements, agreed?”
Uncle Will’s lawyer looks relieved, grinning slightly at the Council. “Yes, your Honors.” The prosecution’s mouth is drawn tight glancing over his shoulder at the man and woman dressed in suits behin
d him before responding. “Agreed, your Honors.”
The Councilman in the middle checks on both Council members seated on either side of him. “Alright then,” he says when no one speaks up. “The prosecution may begin.”
An amendment sounds like it should be a quick process. I was expecting our family, the defense, prosecuting attorneys, and the Council to be the only ones present, but when I got up to the second floor there were almost as many people taking their seats in the courtroom as there had been for Uncle Will’s initial trial. I try not to think about what this could mean as the prosecution stands. “The prosecution would like to call Catherine Jameson to the stand.”
“You and Mitchell Lanton spent the week leading up to the raid with Markeith Jarvis, a Seraphim suspected of being a Rogue working at The Academy, is that correct?"
Mom nods at the prosecutor. "He worked for The Movement,” she glances at the Council and then back to the prosecutor, “He admitted it openly.”
The prosecutor runs his finger down what looks like from where I’m sitting is a thoroughly highlighted paper in his hand. “There was a…” he looks closer at the paper, “hiccup, as Mr. Lanton told detectives, the night before the raid,” he looks up at my mom. “Can you explain what occurred for the court?” he asks.
"The Seraphim we had been gathering Rogue intel from broke out of the motel where we were staying.”
He tucks the paper under his arm seeming to scrutinize what she just said. “And you couldn't have that, could you, Mrs. Jameson?”
She glances at Uncle Will’s lawyer. He gives her a minute nod and she turns back to the prosecutor. "It was not ideal, no.”
"But it was more than that, wasn't it?" the prosecutor pushes.
Mom holds his gaze. "What are you getting at?"
He turns his back to her to face us in the audience. "What I'm getting at, Mrs. Jameson, is that you couldn't have this suspected Rogue, or anyone for that matter, go back to the organization previously known as, ‘The Movement’ and alerting them that you were working for your brother, because you were, in fact, working both sides."
One of Uncle Will's attorneys stands. "Objection, your Honors. Mrs. Jameson has already been cleared of any wrongdoings related to her departure after realizing that the Seraphim Mr. Lanton and her were questioning had gotten away.”
"None of which the prosecution has been made aware of," the prosecutor says to the Council.
The Councilman in the middle lifts a hand at the prosecutor before speaking. "As you have been told, along with the defense, certain information will be withheld for the safety of those involved if we the Council deem it irrelevant to the case."
The prosecutor turns back to observe the audience. When it appears that he’s looking at someone on my row I follow his eyes to the man seated two spots over from my dad who is frowning looking between the Councilman who just spoke and the prosecutor. The prosecutor rests his eyes momentarily on someone else father back in the audience before asking, "What is your history with The Movement, Mrs. Jameson?” keeping his back to my mom.
The defense stands. “Objection, your Honors. What Mrs. Jameson did in her teens and early twenties has nothing to do with this proceeding.”
The Councilman with the gavel looks around at his fellow Council members. The Councilman to his left speaks up. “We’ll allow the question.” He looks at my mom. “Please answer the question.”
My mom is doing a better job at maintaining her composure than Dad is next to me. He stifles a throaty growl as the prosecution gives my mom a smug grin.
"My husband was a low-ranking member in The Movement after he graduated high school before he and I moved out of Aurora. They used him to entice Seraphim our age to join the organization.”
The prosecutor turns sharply, taking a step closer to her. "Only your husband?" I glance over at my dad, but his eyes are glued on the prosecutor.
Mom’s chest rises and falls as she takes a deep breath. "I can tell you right now I never working with or for The Movement.” Mom’s face darkens as she goes on. “I loathe The Movement, or Rogues, or whatever you want to call them. Everything that they stand for and do is dark and twisted.”
To my surprise the prosecutor isn't shaken at all by her straight-forward response. In fact, he smiles.
He crosses to his desk to retrieve a different paper laying the highlighted one down. He holds the new page up for everyone in the audience to see. "This is a list submitted into evidence of members of The Movement who were in attendance for an emergency meeting that was called to discuss the planned murders of Aurora’s council members.” A quiet murmur spreads through the audience as he walks over to my mom and hands her the list.
Mom takes the paper from him, but she doesn’t look at it.
“Would you be so kind as to read to the court the name written third from the bottom.” It’s not a question.
She scans it, stopping close to the bottom and then begins shaking her head at it. She looks up at the audience. Her eyes settle on my dad. “My name is third from the bottom.”
“Not just your name,” the prosecutor says, waving his pointer finger in the air as if he were checking the wind direction in the room. “What is next to your name?” Mom inspects the paper closely and her mouth draws in tight. She sets the paper down in front of her on the stand.
“You’ll be held in contempt if you don’t answer him,” the Councilman seated on the far left of the table tells her.
Mom wraps her arms protectively across her chest. Her shirt pulls a little across the bulge of her belly. “It appears to be my signature.”
More murmurs spread through the audience. Uncle Will turns to his defense eyebrows raised looking at him expectantly. His lawyer lifts his left hand from the table in front of them keeping his wrist resting on the table. My uncle crosses his arms loosely over his chest going back to looking at my mother.
“Thank you, Mrs. Jameson,” the prosecutor says plucking the list off of the stand as he turns away from her and heads to his table.
Mom faces the Council. “I was not a Rogue,” she tells them, the prosecutor snaps back around, “nor did I ever take part in any plans to hurt anyone.”
“That will be all, Mrs. Jameson!” the prosecutor announces over her.
Uncle Will’s attorney stands. “Your Honors, this list is nearly two decades old. The prosecution is clearly grasping at straws.” The Councilman and woman on the right of the table look to the Councilman in the middle seat.
The prosecutor has yet to take his seat. From the side of the prosecution’s table he takes a step toward the Council. They all look at him. “Working with Rogues, the very people William McBride planned to raid, shows just how poor his judgment was prior to raiding a school that ended in seventy-three deaths.”
“Several of those deaths you’re referring to,” the defense says loudly, “are including the remains of bodies found in the underground facility who were dead long before any of my client’s people stepped foot onto that campus.” The attorneys glare at each other.
I scoot closer to my dad. I know he isn’t a Rogue, an ex-Rogue yes, but he’s been out of the organization for over sixteen years.
“Approach the bench, both of you,” the Councilman with the gavel says, looking at both men.
I lean in toward Dad as both men walk over to the Council’s table. “I don’t understand,” I whisper, “Mom just told them that she wasn’t a Rogue. There’s got to be plenty of Veritatis in here to know that she’s telling the truth.”
“Arguing over the evidence is a waste of this courts’ time,” the Councilman with the gavel says to the attorney’s growing quieter as he speaks until I can no longer hear what he’s saying.
“It doesn’t matter if she’s telling the truth,” Dad whispers. “Her signature on that paper links her to The Movement. The prosecution is simply trying to plant doubt in the Council that your uncle wasn’t thinking clearly when he ordered the raid. Your mother can honestly say she wasn’
t a Rogue and still have been a Rogue.”
I look around at Mom on the stand and then at the Council. Uncle Will’s attorney is leaning across the table talking quietly with the Council. “Umm, what?”
Dad glances around at the Seraphim seated in the row right behind us. None of them are looking at us. “Her belief of what constitutes someone being a Rogue could be way different from everyone else’s. If her perception could be so far off that she, or anyone, could tell a lie without Veritatis being alerted to a lie. Even if that person was being completely honest.” I sit back thinking it over. How we perceive the world can allow us to unknowingly lie about it? That doesn’t make sense.
“We could take a recess,” the Councilwoman seated on the far right says loud enough for me to hear her.
Dad is still looking at me. He leans toward me, getting closer than I’d been to him. “You remember that friend of yours in middle school, Amber?”
“Amberly, the crazy one?”
Dad snickers, “That one. Do you remember your mom and me having to pick you up from a slumber party because you two got in big fight?”
I know where he’s going with this. The slumber party had been for Amberly’s birthday. We somehow got the topic of the eye color of one of the boys in our class who we thought was cute when Amberly comes out with, “My eyes are hazel. Isn’t hazel such a pretty word?” Amberly’s eyes were not hazel. “Yeah,” I tell Dad. “We got in an argument and then I asked to go home, because Amberly kept saying her eyes were hazel when really they were brown.”
“But your ability hadn’t alerted you that she was being dishonest. Your mom and I had to have a long conversation with you about it afterwards. You could just see that her eyes were brown — “
“But her genuine belief was that her eyes were hazel,” I finish. Dad nods, sitting back in his seat. I weigh it out, but I can’t decide if this somehow makes it easy to lie to a Veritatis or if it’s just pure dumb luck, with the dumb aspect of it far outweighing the luck. “But, this amendment is about Uncle Will, isn’t it?” I ask quietly. Someone behind us shushes me. I look over my shoulder to see the man with rolled up sleeves from the Department of Defense cutting his eyes at me. I stick my tongue out at him just a little before turning back to the face the front of the courtroom.
