Jury Town

by Stephen Frey

  “Fine.”

  “I don’t want anyone else delivering it but you. You will explain what you’ve found, but you will remain anonymous, and you will not testify. The attorney will have to find his own expert witness to explain it.”

  “That won’t be hard with the road map I’ll give the attorney.”

  “Good. Go.”

  When Federov was gone, Racine picked up the landline and dialed the number on the paper. His hand shook so hard as the phone rang he had to press it tightly to his ear.

  “Hello.”

  “Claire?”

  “Dad! Is it you?”

  “Yes, Claire,” he answered, almost unable to get the words out his emotion was so strong. “It’s me. I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Dad, so much.”

  She was on the west coast with her mother and the tennis pro. So there was no way to see her in the little time he had outside from the walls. But at least he could hear her voice.

  “Tell me everything, honey, everything about your life. I can’t wait to hear.”

  As she began to talk, tears flooded his eyes and cascaded down his cheeks. He put the phone on mute as she kept going. He didn’t want her to hear him cry.

  NORTH WOODS OF MAINE

  When the e-mail hit his phone, Dez scanned it quickly and then glanced up at the two handcuffed men sitting side by side on the couch in front of him. He and one of his subordinates had captured and detained the two men less than a hundred yards from here.

  One of the four who had scampered from the cabin in the SUV lights had escaped on the chopper—along with the young blond guy—and Mitch was dead, which was a terrible tragedy. But three of four wasn’t bad. And the fourth would probably hide for the rest of his days. The conspiracy had been shredded. Judge Eldridge—and Attorney General Delgado—were going to be very happy men tonight.

  Dez shook his head. “CIA and DHS,” he said, after glancing at the phone again to be sure he’d gotten the agencies correct. He’d picked their wallets from their pockets a minute ago, then called a contact in Washington with the names on each driver’s licenses. The answers had come back within seconds. “Unbelievable.”

  The two men on the couch stared back at him impassively for several moments. Then both looked away.

  “All those juries,” Dez whispered, “all over the country. You bastards.”

  He took a deep breath and looked around—then shot both men dead through the chests. He’d been given license to kill a few years ago, and this seemed an appropriate time to use the privilege. If he’d delivered these men to authorities, they would have made bail in hours—exactly like the men who’d attacked Victoria at her home outside Richmond.

  Dez chuckled as he gazed at the bodies of the two men, which were now crumpled over against each other on the couch. They weren’t going to make bail now.

  CHAPTER 49

  JURY TOWN

  “We’ve got to get everyone out of here!” Victoria shouted, bursting into Clint Wolf’s office. “Immediately!”

  Wolf’s eyes raced up from the file he’d been studying, and his expression went mystified. “It’s Sunday night. What are you doing here?”

  “The hell with what I’m doing here, we’ve got to get everyone out.”

  “Why?” Wolf demanded, rising from his desk. “What’s going on?”

  “We’ve been targeted. A Delta Airlines flight bound for Atlanta was hijacked out of Dulles four minutes ago. We have credible information that they’re going to fly the plane straight into us. Fighters from Andrews and Langley are jumping, but they aren’t sure they can intercept in time.”

  For several seconds Wolf stared at her without blinking, then his eyes narrowed. “Who’s the source?” he demanded. “How do you know this?”

  “Michael Delgado, the United States attorney general.” She raced to Wolf’s desk, grabbed the landline receiver, and held it up. “You want to talk to him? I’ll get him on the phone right now.”

  Wolf’s mouth fell open. “No, I … uh—”

  “I just hope to God you have that EVAC plan in place. You told me you did. You told me you’d thought all this through.”

  “I have,” Wolf answered calmly. “We’re fine.”

  Six minutes later, four buses were roaring away from Jury Town, filled with jurors.

  CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA

  Racine and Sofia jogged through the forest together, through the darkness and the mist of the evening, dodging low-hanging branches, sticker bushes, and rocks.

  When Racine stopped to get his bearings, Sofia leaned over, put her hands on her knees, and gasped much-needed oxygen. “I don’t have much left, David.”

  “You’ll be fine,” he said encouragingly as he spotted the target through the trees. He could hear the low murmur of hundreds of voices rumbling through the woods. “We’re almost there.” He took her hand. “Come on.”

  She rose up and pulled him to her. “You gave me such a beautiful gift this weekend, David,” she murmured. “You gave me the gift of seeing my children, even if it was only for a few hours.”

  She slipped her hand to the back of his neck and kissed him deeply.

  When she pulled back, he raised both eyebrows and blinked several times. “Where am I?”

  She smiled. “Taking me back to Jury Town.”

  “Oh, right. Come on.”

  Moments later they’d made it to the edge of a huge field in the middle of the forest four miles from Jury Town—where the jurors had filed off the buses to wait … for what, they hadn’t been told.

  Racine kissed her once more, then led her out of the forest and into the mass of jurors milling about in the field. They’d never been missed.

  “Delta flight bound for Atlanta, huh?” Wolf muttered as the jurors filed onto the buses to head back to Jury Town. “Good one, Victoria.”

  She grinned as Racine and Sofia passed in front of them and climbed onto the bus they were closest to. “Just testing, Clint, just testing.”

  CHAPTER 50

  JURY TOWN

  “Have you reached a verdict, Mr. Foreman?”

  Racine rose from his position at the back right of the jury box, pushed open the wooden gate of the back row, stepped down, and walked out so that he was in front of the jury box and directly before the camera.

  “We have, Your Honor.”

  “What say you?”

  “We find the defendant, Angela Gaynor, not guilty of all charges.”

  The courtroom exploded into applause, which would not be interrupted by the judge’s gavel.

  Armed with the White Russian’s proof, the Gaynor defense team had quickly proven that the e-mails supposedly sent to Jack Hoffman by Gaynor were fraudulent. In addition, Hoffman and the mayor had been subtly notified that their benefactors were mostly dead. Understanding that they would now be looking at long sentences, they’d both offered to recant their testimony in return for reduced years behind bars. The case against Angela Gaynor had quickly disintegrated.

  For a few moments, Racine watched the wild scene going on in the courtroom play out on the four screens mounted to the front wall of the jury room. Then he turned to look at Sofia.

  She was standing now, too, as were all the jurors. They were all smiling now that they’d given their first verdict inside Jury Town.

  But Sofia wore the widest smile of all—and she was giving it all to him.

  “Victoria, this jury program you’ve organized in Virginia has already achieved outstanding success. I wanted to be one of the first to shake your hand over the phone.”

  “Thank you, Senator Jordan. That’s very kind of you.”

  Miles Jordan was a four-term United States senator from Chicago, and chairman of the influential Armed Services Committee. African-American, he was revered by Democrats and Republicans alike, and he was one of the most powerful men in Washington. Getting a call from Miles Jordan was like getting a call from Daniel Eldridge—except this involved the national stage.

/>   “Your famous ancestor, Meriwether Lewis, would be very proud of you, Victoria. You are clearly cut from the same cloth of extraordinary achievement.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Your father would be proud, too.”

  Some young aide to Senator Jordan had been busy. “Thank you again, Senator Jordan.” Even if the aide had done the research, it was a bold and beautiful thing for Jordan to say, and it sincerely touched her heart. “That’s nice to hear. I hope he would.”

  “Oh, he would. Listen, I’m interested in this concept for my home state of Illinois. What do you call it?”

  “Jury Town.”

  “Yes, well, I wonder if you would have a conference call with some associates of mine in the state government back in Springfield.”

  This request could not be ignored or avoided. “I’d be happy to, sir.”

  “Great news. I can’t have California and New York getting ahead of Illinois on this initiative.” He chuckled in his deep, bass voice. “I’ll be second in the race to Virginia, but I won’t be fourth to them.” He hesitated. “If you don’t mind me asking, how did you come up with this concept?”

  This question could easily represent a test. Jordan might already be well aware of the concept’s origin. Jordan and Attorney General Delgado were close friends, she knew.

  “Oh, that’s confidential, sir,” she said in a lighthearted way. It was the best approach to take at this level of politics. It wouldn’t do her any good to drop Delgado’s name right now. She’d get much more mileage out of keeping the attorney general protected. “I have to protect the guilty.”

  Jordan laughed heartily. “I appreciate that. One more thing before we hang up.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Before you decide on your next outstanding achievement, come up to Washington and have lunch with me. I’ve already had some preliminary conversations about you with others of influence in this town. We think you may have something we want. More importantly, we think you may have something four hundred million people of this country want. Am I making myself clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” she answered firmly as a presidential thrill rushed through her.

  “I’ll arrange that call with my people in Springfield. And do me a favor. Go radio-silent on California and New York for a little while. Good-bye, Victoria. And congratulations again on Jury Town’s tremendous success.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Call over, she leaned back in her desk chair and gazed up at the ceiling of her home study as that thrill surging through her grew and grew with intensity. “President Victoria Lewis,” she whispered looking up at the ceiling. “What do you think, Dad?”

  CHAPTER 51

  VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA

  Angela walked along the sun-bathed sidewalk next to Trent, the two of them attracting fascinated double and triple takes from those going the other way.

  “Can I have your autograph?” a young boy asked shyly, holding up a pen and pad after scampering up to them.

  Trent glanced ahead. A man who appeared to be the boy’s father stood twenty feet in front of them on the sidewalk. He was waving and smiling back self-consciously.

  “You don’t want my autograph,” Trent said, leaning down to pat the boy on the shoulder as he towered over him. “You want this lady’s. She’s going to be the next United States senator from Virginia.”

  “Trent,” Angela said loudly. “He wants an all-star basketball player’s autograph, not a politician’s. Always give the people what they want.”

  “Well, he should be interested in yours,” Trent said as he took the pen and pad and scribbled his name. “You’re going to make history in a few days, Angie. Your signature will end up being worth way more than mine.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  With the not-guilty verdict, her campaign had quickly regained momentum. Only days to the election, and she’d pulled dead even with Chuck Lehman.

  “It will be,” Trent assured her, handing the autograph to the kid. “The rally tonight in northern Virginia will put you over the top.”

  “I hope so,” she said as the boy raced away gleefully and handed the pen to his father—but not the pad.

  “I’m not sure about today,” Trent said, motioning ahead to the restaurant they were walking toward. “I don’t like breaking bread with the enemy, especially so close to the battle.”

  “Martha Lehman is not the enemy.”

  “She’s married to Chuck Lehman, isn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then she’s the enemy.”

  “You’re wrong. Martha’s great. I’ve met her before several times, and she is wonderful. She’s a tireless worker for her charities, too. She wants to talk about opening an inner-city home for runaway girls down here in Virginia Beach. I’d look pretty bad if I turned her down on that—oh, jeez.”

  Angela stumbled forward as her left heel momentarily caught a crack of the sidewalk.

  At the same moment she pitched forward, a rifle exploded from the second floor of a parking garage three blocks away. The bullet screamed harmlessly off the pavement behind her.

  But the second shot found its mark.

  WASHINGTON, DC (GEORGETOWN)

  When Chuck Lehman answered the loud, persistent knocking at the front door of their home, he was shocked to find no fewer than fifteen law-enforcement officials in front of him—some in uniform, some in suit and tie.

  When the lead investigator had explained what was happening, Lehman, in a shaky voice, requested five minutes alone. He was given three.

  After he’d raced upstairs, he turned into the master bedroom, then entered Martha’s expansive walk-in closet. She was sitting in one corner of the large room, knees pulled to her chin, tears streaming down her face.

  “I did it for you, Chuck,” she whispered as heavy footsteps hurried across the living room downstairs and began climbing the stairs toward them. “Don’t let them take me away,” she begged. “Save me, Chuck.”

  “You set up Angela Gaynor? You wanted the White House that badly?” He shook his head as the pack of officers entered the bedroom behind him. “There’s nothing I can do, Martha. You’re going to jail … and then to prison.”

  Lehman put his face into his hands. You thought you knew a person.

  VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA

  “Is he going to be all right?” Angela whispered anxiously as she held Trent’s huge hand. She sat beside him as he lay on the bed in the ICU.

  “He’ll be fine,” the surgeon answered confidently. “The bullet did some damage to his right shoulder, so he won’t have much of a jump shot for a while. But he’ll live.”

  “Damn,” Trent whispered, “there goes my comeback.” He grinned up at her. “Kiss me, Senator Gaynor.”

  EPILOGUE

  RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

  “I’m sorry again about your nephew, Judge Eldridge.”

  “Thank you, Victoria,” Eldridge said quietly from behind the desk of his Supreme Court office. “At least Mitch died honorably. He had a lot to make up for. He knew that. I think that’s why he did what he did in Maine. He knew going up on that helicopter wasn’t going to end well. He took the courageous way out. He died in battle.”

  “It’s ironic. If he hadn’t taken those payoffs from Salvatore Celino, we might never have found out who was manipulating the juries.”

  Eldridge shook his head. “It’s still difficult to believe how high up the conspiracy went and at what agencies. CIA, DHS, NSA. It’s astounding, really, and a shining example of how we must always question our leaders … and check on them constantly. Concentration of power is a recipe for evil.”

  “And we didn’t get them all. One of those men is still out there.”

  “As is whoever tried to kill Angela Gaynor. Thank God, Trent Tucker is all right.”

  “I still find it hard to believe that Chuck Lehman’s wife was the one who passed Angela’s location on to the shooter,” Victoria remarked. “She was th
e one who set Angela up. She seems like such a sweet soul.”

  “Martha wanted her husband to be president, at any cost. She was quietly but unquestionably obsessed with it. Has she said anything yet about who the shooter was?”

  “Not as of yesterday. I’m not sure she knows.”

  “Angela came so close to being assassinated.”

  “So close to not becoming a United States senator and now she’s on the Hill. She’s quite a success story.”

  “As are you,” Eldridge pointed out, smiling. “Jury Town is a massive success. The reason I asked you to come to my office today was to tell you that every judge I’ve spoken to claims it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to the Commonwealth’s jury system. It’s exactly as we hoped, Victoria. The juries are becoming incredibly efficient and incredibly knowledgeable. A couple of my old cronies say it’s starting to get embarrassing because the jury members are more familiar with the law than some of the attorneys coming before them.”

  Victoria laughed. “Maybe someday they’ll be more familiar than the judges.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Eldridge replied good-naturedly. “What’s going on with the other states?”

  “Illinois is just weeks away from bringing their project online, and California and New York won’t be far behind.”

  “And you? What’s next for you?”

  She grinned as she rose from the chair in front of his desk. “I’ve got my eye on something big.”

  Eldridge winked. “So I heard from Senator Jordan. He told me you two had an excellent lunch in Washington last week.”

  Victoria nodded. “We did.” She smiled back at him as she rose from her chair and headed for the office door. “You’re a tough man. I love you, Your Honor.”

  He chuckled. “Just remember me when you’re president, Ms. Lewis.”

  “That’ll be pretty easy … because I won’t ever forget you. I can’t.” She moved out of the office and grinned at Dez, who was waiting for her. “So, what are we going to do with the rest of the day?”