The Mentor Read online

  “That’s not true, Your Honor,” Lauren muttered. She stuck her pen in the weave of her braided chignon before raising her voice. “A half a city block had just exploded. That’s reason enough to stop anything moving within a five-mile radius.”

  Lee was hiding a grin when his clerk, moving more quickly than was appropriate, came into view. She reached toward Judge Lee. He wiggled his fingers, signaling her to put whatever it was on the desk in front of him. The clerk persisted, shoving the piece of paper at him while she leaned down and whispered loud enough for Lauren to know it was urgent. Judge Lee screwed his face into a look of displeasure, and it was in that moment Lauren became aware of everything: George Stewart jotted a note, a reporter cursed her inkless pen, Edie was reaching into her briefcase, Joe Knapp kept right on talking and Jonathan Lee was suddenly engrossed in what his clerk had to say.

  “The officer should have been on that block then, offering assistance to those who were injured instead of stopping an innocent citizen, a young man –” Joe was still talking.

  The clerk had her hand on Jonathan Lee’s shoulder.

  He was reading the note and then he stood straight up. An anguished “oh, my God,” was heard over Joe Knapp’s arguments.

  Everyone was stunned. Even Joe, who found it impossible to stop his discourse, and rolled on like a car with bad brakes, “...a citizen who, by Officer Readmore’s own admission, had not violated any law, whose vehicle was in good working order. Officer Readmore was bored...”

  “Shut up, Mr. Knapp.”

  Joe faltered and with a last sputter fell silent.

  Judge Lee towered above them all, white with fury. The muscles in his neck and jaw constricted. His eyes were red with the sudden madness that gripped him. There was a rustle. People squirmed. Comments passed from stranger to stranger. Henry moved in his seat George remained still. Confused, Lauren tried to nudge the proceedings back on track.

  “Officer Readmore,” she said quickly, “was explicitly told he wasn’t needed at the site of the explosion...”

  “Did you not hear me, Counsel?” Judge Lee swung his head Lauren’s way as he growled. “Shut your mouth. Don’t say another word.”

  “Your Honor,” Edie cried, on her feet, “I object...”

  “And I object to all of this, Ms. Williams. I object to the drivel that you and your associate have presented here when you should be pointing the finger at these monsters, all monsters, who roam our streets taking innocent lives.”

  “My Lord!” Eric Weitman exclaimed.

  “Don’t even think about saying anything, Mr. Weitman. You’re no better. Look at you. Look at all of you.” Lee glared at the prosecutors. “You’re arguing about the minutiae of stops and standing.” He threw his head to the other side and pegged the defense. “This side is defending sociopaths, idiots who believe they have enough brain cells to think their way through the ills of the world when all they’re doing is creating them. People like that should be...”

  “Your Honor! We’re still in session. We’re on the record!” This time it was the court reporter who found her courage.

  “She’s right, Your Honor. Call a recess,” Joe Knapp urged. Instead of listening, Jonathan Lee ended his career.

  “You’re right, Mr. Knapp, I should call a recess, but I won’t. In fact, I’d like to speak to Henry and George Stewart—for the record. They are slime. They are the worst our world has to offer. I sit here and listen to these ridiculous motions and arguments using conflicting case law when what we should be doing is sitting the jury and showing them pictures of the maimed bodies of the two people these men...”

  Everyone looked toward the Stewarts as Lee pointed a finger. Lauren caught Joe’s eye then flicked her gaze over to Edie who stayed still. Lauren moved forward without a clear idea of what it was she could do to stop this. Edie turned toward the marshals to assist when all hell broke loose.

  “This is unacceptable!”

  Hearts stopped, barks of surprise peppered the air and George Stewart rose phoenix-like from his chair. He pushed Joe Knapp’s neatly stacked papers, his briefcase and a cup of coffee off the defense table and onto the floor. In the next blink he slammed his fist atop his own attorney’s portfolio. So calm, so disciplined for the last hour, the elder defendant was suddenly active and angry.

  “The man who claims to be a judge in this court is nothing more than a vigilante able to abuse my son and myself publicly. He can use his words, and the power this so-called government gives him, and he can make us disappear. Until he does, we are guaranteed a speedy trial under the constitution and a trial by our peers. You are a crazy man and you are not my peer...” George bellowed at Jonathan Lee. His eyes blazed as he threw himself across the table. Both his hands came down with an awesome sound that made the courtroom itself shiver. It was an explosion of outrage. Instantly they all remembered what this man was accused of doing.

  A hysterical scream pierced the air.

  Other observers scrambled to their feet only to realize there was nowhere to go.

  Eric Weitman lunged at his client, but George was quick and evaded him.

  There was a cacophony of exclamations and half-formed questions. A camera flashed. The photographer scurried out the door. There was money in that exposed frame. Later, someone would try to figure out how a camera had been smuggled past security. Now they wondered what else might have been smuggled in. A bomb, perhaps? George would have sacrificed all of them, even...

  “Dad!” Henry Stewart called to his father like a child terrified to be left behind. The back door of the court flew open. The woman in yellow made it three steps into the room before raising her voice.

  “Henry!”

  Henry reacted instantly. A look of disappointment passed between them. He wasn’t beside his father in this fight. Then there was a softening, a hope, perhaps, that Henry would be smart and stay where he was. Henry looked back at his father. Mrs. Stewart advanced and Jonathan Lee did the same. He leaned over the bench, screaming at George Stewart who hollered back. George Stewart was ready for a fight, but he hesitated. The face he turned to those behind him was twisted with hatred and cold with disgust. The woman in yellow looked directly at him with beautiful blue eyes and that gave him purpose. George offered her a ghost of a smile before whipping around to the bench. He vaulted around the table that stood between him, his son, and the judge.

  “What the fu—” Edie yelled but before she could finish, Lauren threw herself in the path of the angry defendant. Edie called for her, pandemonium reigned, and the marshals finally got legs.

  Two of them tackled George, hitting him hard, pushing him to the floor. His political protests turned to grunts of pain as they whipped his arms behind and cuffed him. They pulled at him like a wishbone. Lauren dashed back to the table just as Henry made a move to help his father, but fear kept him tap dancing where he stood until another marshal got him in a headlock. He looked like he was going to cry.

  One marshal hollered, another moved past the bar to the rear of the court. Carolyn Stewart was on the inside of the closed doors. Everyone chattered, a few moaned and George Stewart was held tight against the broad khaki-clothed chest of a marshal who would break his neck if he wasn’t wearing a badge. In the front of the courtroom, another deputy had his hands on Jonathan Lee, restraining him, too. The judge didn’t struggle. One look forced the big man to release him. When Jonathan Lee spoke again it was quietly, with a coldness and conviction that sent shivers up Lauren’s spine.

  “You people are wrong.” He glared at the Stewarts. “This government is valid but it sure as hell is weak. If it were strong, my hands wouldn’t be tied by technicalities. There are times I long for the days when the only voice in a courtroom would be mine and the hanging tree was just outside of town. You would have been swinging from it...”

  “Your Honor, I demand a mistrial. Your Honor!” Joe Knapp had sufficiently recovered his wits to realize he had an opportunity here.

  “Your Honor.
A recess is in order...” Lauren cut him off fast.

  “You’re right. You’re both right.” Jonathan Lee threw up his hands. “Talk yourself blue in the face. I can’t tell who’s honest. Everybody does what they want anyway, and we’re killing each other. Go ahead, kill each other! I’ve been so dumb to think that I could do anything about any of this. I’m the fool. I’m the biggest fool of all.”

  The judge crumpled the note that started the mayhem. There would be no explanation. He looked at the ball of paper then at the uniformed men in the room. Finally, he took a look over his shoulder at the great seal of the land that hung above him. He tossed the paper onto the floor. He took off his robes. Snaps popped. Spectators jumped. He threw the robes on the floor behind the bench and then Jonathan Lee addressed everyone in the courtroom.

  “Do whatever you want with these two. It won’t make a difference. One way or another we’re all dead.”

  2

  Edie stood in the antechamber of Abram’s office and looked at him. She was stiff as a board; her eyes darted from one side of the room to the other. She looked at Abram. When she spotted Mark Jackson, Edie turned on her heel and disappeared as quickly as she had materialized. Abram stood up and walked across the great expanse of his government-chic office and through the outer office where the secretary sat. He looked down the small hall, unable to see the reception room from where he stopped. Curious, Abram followed. He didn’t bother glancing at the artistically challenged photos of his predecessors lining the walls. Instead, he looked into the reception area to see if his number two was, perhaps, waiting for him. She wasn’t. The oasis of green carpeting that supposedly designated this rarefied space, separate and apart from the concrete gray motif of the rest of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, was empty save for the wing chairs, couch and table that were of the same mold as those gracing a thousand motor inns across the country.

  Much as Abram would have liked to find out what had brought Edie back so suddenly and fiercely from the hearing, that’s where he stopped. There was other business, so Abram retraced his steps, noting that his secretary, Monique, didn’t look up for fear Edie had come back with him. Gently he closed the door to his office and briefly wondered where Edie had left Lauren Kingsley. If anyone was bloodied, it would be her.

  “I’m sorry, Mark.” Abram took his seat behind the desk. Mark Jackson, FBI Special Agent in Charge, sat in the chair opposite him resting his elbows on his knees. He was quite a man, carrying satisfaction and disappointment alike with a macho flair that was anything but off putting. Honest, trustworthy, and dedicated, he was the kind of man Boy Scouts and Marines dreamed of being. Add to those exceptional qualities a right to carry a gun, listen in on conversations, and raid the bad guy’s lairs and you had quite a combination. Abram smiled.

  “Now, where were we?”

  Mark shifted and referred to the third manila folder on his side of Abram’s desk. It was weekly update time for the two. This week the update was fairly pleasant. The mental scale of screw ups each man kept in his head was tipped slightly in favor of the U.S. Attorney’s office. All in all, though, Abram and Mark Jackson were on fairly even footing.

  “The Mexican Mafia.” Mark cleared his throat to give Abram time to find the folder. “We’ve got a slight problem with Little Joey.”

  “He doesn’t want to testify?” Abram jotted a note on his file while he spoke.

  “No, nothing like that,” Mark answered. “He’ll still talk, but he wants to take his girlfriend along into the Witness Protection Program. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, except he wants us to pay for the wife and kids, too. The cocky little bastard wants us to support a harem.”

  “Shall we?” Abram asked.

  “Naw. I talked to Jamison—good guy by the way—and he says as far as the prosecution is concerned, Little Joey’s got some interesting stuff but nothing we can’t piece together on our own if we have to. I say we offer one or the other but not both.”

  “Done. Anything else?”

  “The good news is we don’t have to worry about the press getting hold of the videotape of our surveillance. Judge Ferguson doesn’t admit exhibits into evidence until the end of the trial to save his clerk a little trouble. It’s a fine line, but public domain access doesn’t kick in until the evidence is actually booked. This way the media can’t get their hands on any of it. We can still keep this out of the limelight for a while.” Mark chuckled thinking of the reporters’ frustration with the black out. “They call every day looking for something. They’ve even hit up the mail clerk, can you believe it? The media can’t move without a visual.”

  Abram pulled himself out of the reverie he had fallen into.

  “Yes, yes, of course I can believe it. The ladies and gentlemen of the press are nothing, if not tenacious. I’m quite proud of how this has all been handled. It’s nice to be in control of the information for once.”

  “So, what’s bothering you?”

  Mark sat back, not terribly worried about Abram personally, but if his counterpart was preoccupied, the FBI should be, too. And, if it affected the FBI then it affected him, his reputation and his pride as an agent of the United States Government. In this jurisdiction Mark Jackson was the man and he didn’t want to just cover his bases, he wanted to know what was growing underneath them.

  Privately Mark thought Abram prissy. The U.S. Attorney was a man with a mediocre mind who lacked a certain character. That made Abram politically correct rather than public-spirited. The difference between them really boiled down to the fact that Mark felt privileged to work for the U.S. government. Abram, he suspected, just felt privileged.

  “Edie’s bothering me. She and Lauren were arguing motions this morning in front of Jonathan Lee. They should still be there, yet here she is, back already.” Abram looked out the window toward the California mountains. On this gloriously sunny day they were snow topped. He wasn’t impressed by the beauty, so he swung his head back toward Mark. “I can’t imagine why, can you?”

  Mark became wide-eyed, a “duh” gesture. “They got it done. Lee probably ruled, the Stewarts are back under lock and key, and everyone’s ready for lunch. I wouldn’t sweat it, Abram. Everything is set on that one. It’s been top priority with my office since the blast. We’re not only taking down the Independent Militia, we’re taking down GOAL, Abram. The Guardians of American Liberties.”

  “That would be so very nice, Mark. Quite an ambition.” Abram sighed. “But, I’d feel better if you were focused on getting this conviction.”

  “No problem. We’ll do both. I’m going to turn the boy. He’s scared and I’m betting he’s going to roll over. Don’t forget, Nick’s still undercover. With his information we’ll be able to indict a bunch of folks who will wish they never even heard of George and Henry Stewart. Put these guys away. Make a public spectacle. Really work the press and we will have renewed the public’s faith in the Bureau. Your office, too, of course.”

  Abram stiffened at the slight. There had, naturally, been setbacks in the last months. Abram could point to juries, judges, and poor evidentiary work on the investigators’ part to explain the few problems his office experienced. But they were hardly at a critical turning point.

  “A conviction isn’t as easy to get as it seems, Mark. Readmore’s a hero now but he walked a fine line with that stop. If the stop was bad, then we won’t be able to use the hardware in the back of the truck. Without it there’s no comparison to what you picked up on post blast. Without it, your confidential informant better be good as gold.”

  “Judge Lee won’t toss the evidence. I’d bet you even the Supreme Court wouldn’t screw up this one.” Mark stood up and put his folders in a pile before wandering to the window. He ignored the view of the mountains and focused on the street below.

  “What’s happened to Los Angeles, Abram? What’s happened to this country? We’re overrun by foreigners who don’t want to jump into the melting pot anymore. All those damned leaders—minority, community, w
hatever—they’re loudmouths trying to make a buck or get their faces on TV. Human megaphones, that’s all they are, and they’re tearing this country apart. The more they scream about their rights, the more the good old boys holler back about theirs.”

  Mark took a step left to the low table on which Abram had lovingly laid an intricate battle scene full of little metal soldiers. They must have cost a fortune. Mark picked up an infantryman. It was an apt choice. That’s the way he thought of himself even though he was a general in his own, very real world.

  “I’m not saying I agree with the militia, you understand, I’m simply saying I understand how they’ve been pushed. Their kids have been pushed out of schools; they’ve been pushed out of jobs, and it’s government mandates that are pushing them. Heck, half the television stations are foreign language and they need translators at McDonalds.” He was smiling when he looked over his shoulder.

  “I’ll tell you, Abram, we wouldn’t be having these problems if there was more assimilation. I know it’s not politically correct, but it’s common sense. We’ve got a lot of organized groups from the Mexican Mafia to the Independent Militia, and it’s the militia that scares everybody because they’re our own. They’re the ones pushing back big time now, Abram, and we’ve gotta do the same before we lose control completely. Judge Lee knows that.”

  “You’re right, in theory.” Abram was polite but not convinced. “But things happen, Mark. We can’t speak this plainly to the judge. At the very last, the decision is beyond our control.”

  “I’ve controlled this one from my end, Abram. I’ll leave my confidential informant in place until the last minute. He’s the best and with the physical evidence in that truck, the eyewitnesses...”

  “How many witnesses again?”

  “Three. Homeless guys, but they all saw the truck, and one swears he got a real good look at the Stewarts.” Mark waved the little tin solder and shot down Abram’s concerns. “We can’t miss on this one. We’re heroes. We acted so fast getting them indicted the afterglow alone is enough to see us through. The L.A. Times has had Readmore on the cover of their Sunday Magazine for Christ’s sake. It’s just like the movies.” Mark warmed to his favorite subject.