Final Storm (6 page)

That morning Hunter, Toomey and Ben flew the fighter escort for the KC-135 aircraft carrying the traitor and his lawyers to the trial. Even as they passed over the city before the sun was completely up, they saw that The Dome was thronged with people—ordinary citizens—pouring in through its concrete passageways.

As it would turn out, although more than 50,000 people were able to get in, more than twice that number camped outside, content, it would seen, to follow the progress of the trial via the large loudspeakers erected outside the Dome.

“Command, attention!” the Marine commander shouted out, bringing Hunter’s thoughts back to the flag-raising ceremony before him.

As the last of the Marines marched off the parade field, all eyes on the reviewing stand turned toward the low rumble that was building in the eastern sky. Squinting into the rising sun, Hunter could make out the swift-moving shapes, racing ahead of the sounds from their engines. The four F-4 Phantom jets streaked across the sky in a tight diamond shape and seemed to join as one to disappear into the hazy western horizon. Only the scream of their engines told those on the ground that they were making a wide turn to pass by again.

This time the Phantoms came in lower and slower, forming up in a tight chevron pattern, their leader in the center, two planes wingtip-to-wingtip, slightly behind on his right and left, and one tucked in behind him, offset just high enough to avoid his exhaust trail. As they neared the parade field, the Phantom in the number-two slot to the leader’s left eased back on his stick to bring the plane out of formation, its vapor trail describing a gentle swooping arc to the heavens as he climbed out of sight.

The remaining F-4s, now with the vacant position in their tight pattern, flew on over the reviewing stand.

The Missing Man Formation. A tribute by flying men to their companions, lost in battles fought and wars won but never forgotten. Every man assembled on the stand saluted and then bowed his head, each remembering fallen comrades who had paid the ultimate price for the victory that had cost them all so dearly.

Hunter watched as the Phantoms sped away to land at the nearby Syracuse Aerodrome. As the reviewing stand emptied out, he lingered for a time to watch the flag the color guard had raised as it lofted with each burst of wind, high atop the shining flagstaff at the head of the parade field.

Almost instinctively he reached into his left breast pocket and pulled out a small, frayed cloth. Carefully folded into a tight triangular shape, it revealed only a faded blue background arrayed with pale stars. Unrolling it to its full length, he stared at the red and white stripes creased and marked from being folded too long, and fingered its tattered edges.

It was a small American flag, the same one he had taken from the body of a man he saw brutally murdered in New York City way back when Hunter first returned to America after the war. He always considered the man, his name was Saul Wackerman, as the ultimate patriot; someone who was shot simply because he was carrying the American flag.

Hunter had carried it with him ever since, an act that for the past few years under the New Order, was punishable by death. This had never deterred him though, and it had come to be an authentic good luck piece for him.

Not so the photograph he always kept wrapped inside the flag. This was the well-worn picture of his estranged girlfriend, Dominique.

As it was, he hadn’t been able to look at it in two months …

“These proceedings will come to order!”

A hush fell over the jam-packed Dome stadium as the Chief Justice of the American Provisional Government, using an elaborate public address system, gaveled the trial open.

Hunter looked around the place, still amazed that the event would draw so many people, or that it was happening at all. In front of him, at the southern end of the Dome, a stage had been erected. The most prominent feature on it was the dark wooden jurist’s bench behind which the panel of five judges would sit. Before them were two long wooden tables—one for the 12-man team of Government prosecutors, the other for the defendant and his seven attorneys.

Behind these tables was a small gallery of assistants, aide-decamps and general go-boys. Behind them was a succession of three raised platforms, each one crammed to the max with TV cameras, wires, lights, generators, editing machines, and large, dish-like microphones. A massive spaghetti-twirled bank of wires—easily five thousand of them—stretched back from the TV platforms, up the Dome’s center aisle and out the front door, where more than half of them were attached to the virtual forest of TV satellite dishes located outside next to the arena.

Back inside, over the judges’ bench was a huge TV screen, once so popular with the Syracuse fans, especially those way up in the cheap seats. Now, the people in the back would look to this screen to show them what was going on.

There were security personnel everywhere. An entire battalion of the famous Football City Special Forces was on hand—600 battle-tough veterans. They were responsible for security outside the Dome. To accomplish this they were armed with everything from M-1 tanks to Roland SAM systems. No fewer than 20 of their assault helicopters were airborne at any given moment, ready to spot and deal with any kind of external problem that might disrupt the trial.

Security inside the arena would be provided by 500 members of the famous US Marine 7th Cavalry, the unit formed by the late Captain John “Bull” Dozer, and a 250-man contingent of Republic of Texas Rangers.

High above and looking down on it all would be three separate flights of fighter planes—F-20s, A-7s, and a few F-5s—providing a CAP over the entire city.

It would be a jury trial.

The 36 individuals empaneled had been picked from all over the continent by a re-charged Social Security computer. They would consider all the evidence to be given, as would the judges. They would decide on whether the ex-VP was guilty or innocent of high treason. And if the verdict was guilty, they would also-decide his sentence.

Off to one side of the jury box was another small gallery. This was the witness seating, and this is where Hunter, Jones, Toomey, Wa and at least one hundred other people were sitting.

Beside this gallery, and right next to the judges’ bench, was the docket in which the witnesses, and eventually, the defendant himself, would offer testimony.

“We will now begin with the prosecution’s opening statement,” the Chief Justice boomed over the PA system.

Dr. Leylah, the pretty woman psychologist who had hypnotized Hunter and the others, took the stand, cleared her throat and began to speak:

“The primary concern of these proceedings is the war itself, the war which the prosecution hopes to prove was a direct result of treasonous acts committed by the defendant while he held the second-highest position in this country’s government.

“We have conducted more than two hundred interviews with veterans of the conflict. We have studied thousands of official documents as well as several personal journals. We inputted all of this data into a Gray S7-SG supercomputer and programmed it to produce a single document, one that encompasses all of the separate depositions into one, uniquely written document.

“The result we have called ‘The First Book of Testimony.’

“Copies of this Testimony will be distributed to the justices and the defense team today. Tomorrow, we hope to give copies to witnesses and to those citizens who are on hand to watch this trial.

“Once you receive your copy, you will immediately notice that as I said, this testimony has been written in a very unusual way. In short, it will read like a book, or more accurately, a novel. The text was written in this narrative style by a special software designed to take many points of information and collate them into a narrative. To this end, the computer incorporated not only actual events, but also the thoughts, the opinions, and even dialogue, actual and as recalled by some of the principals involved …”

The doctor paused for a sip of water as she let the first part of her statement sink in to the thousands gathered.

“With the court’s indulgence, I will briefly explain why we have chosen to present the testimony in this rather unusual way.

“We on the prosecution team believe that what we do here at this trial will have a long-lasting effect on our country and our people, beyond what justice is meted out to the defendant.

“We believe that this trial has given us the opportunity to produce the first History Book, if you will, of the Second American era. But we also chose to produce it in this narrative style because we like to think we are realists. The future is unknown. We have no way of knowing whether in ten years our civilization here in America will still be on the road to recovery or whether it will be thrown back to the level of the Stone Age.

“We felt it was our duty to consider all the possibilities and produce a document that, no matter what the conditions are in ten years, or twenty, or a hundred, people will be able to read it, study it, remember it and, most important, retell it, whether it be in the hallowed halls of studious research, or around a campfire.

“So, therefore, this testimony was written by the supercomputer as an oral history, because we know that throughout the entire scope of mankind’s history, the oral tradition has certainly endured the longest, as the works of Plato and many others would attest.”

Once again, the pretty doctor stopped and took a sip of water. Then, to his surprise, she turned and looked directly at Hunter, sitting in the witness gallery just a few feet away.

“One final note,” she said. “Every classic has its hero. And this document, as programmed by the Gray supercomputer, will be no different …”

T
HE REST OF THE
first day of the trial was taken up by a multitude of procedural motions—instructions to the jury, swearing in of witnesses and so on. The defense team’s opening statement went particularly slowly as it had to be translated from Finnish to English. As it was, the statement was a long, rambling affair, which, if Hunter had understood it correctly, claimed that not only was the ex-VP innocent, he had actually “sacrificed” himself for the good of the nation.

The trial was adjourned at sundown that day, those gathered feeling slightly cheated at the anti-climactic tone to it all.

But the second day would prove to be more exciting.

One hour before court was to begin the next day, Hunter was draining his third cup of coffee in the cafeteria of the United American Army’s temporary Syracuse headquarters when Mike Fitzgerald walked in.

Hunter had found sleep impossible the night before, due in most part to the trial, but also to his bizarre encounter with Elizabeth Sandlake exactly one week before. He just couldn’t stop thinking about it, and he knew his lined face and baggy eyelids probably telegraphed his condition.

But, if anything, Fitzie looked worse …

He fetched a cup of coffee and sat down beside Hunter, clutching a videotape as if it contained an explosive charge.

“What the hell happened to you?” Hunter asked, not quite believing that anyone could look worse than he did this morning.

“Terrible things, Hawker,” he answered, neatly slipping a pint bottle of scotch from his pocket. With magician’s precision he deposited a splash of the liquor into his coffee cup, did the same for Hunter’s, then returned the flask to its original hiding place—all in one smooth motion. “I’ve been up close to forty-eight straight hours now, and still I have a full week’s work ahead of me.”

Early in the planning for the trial, Fitz had been appointed as an Officer of the Court. Because he was not directly involved in the war’s hostilities (he was in the hospital at the time, recovering from an airplane crash), the Irishman found himself on the court’s “discovery” team, the group of men who would interrogate the ex-VP and report directly to the trial’s justices. As such, Fitz had been working day and night and he looked it.

The stocky Irishman took a long swig of his coffee then put the videotape up on the table.

“This tape is part of the Vice President’s testimony,” Fitzgerald told him. “
His
deposition, you might say …”

Hunter picked up the tape cassette and turned it over in his hands. “I knew he was being questioned,” he said. “But I didn’t realize you were videotaping it.”

“Oh, yes,” Fitz answered, lighting a cigarillo. “By his attorneys’ request.”

“That figures,” Hunter said. Just because the world had quaked through a third world war, plus five years of aftershocks, didn’t mean that all the fancy lawyers had been suddenly swallowed up.

“And this is just six hours of about thirty that he gave,” Fitz said, taking the cassette back.

He shook his head and looked straight at Hunter.

“Hawk, you won’t believe what that bastard has told us,” he said gravely.

“I’ll believe anything at this point,” Hunter answered.

Before Hunter could ask him again, Fitzgerald blurted out, “It’s a terrible thing he’s done to us, he has.”

“Of course it’s terrible, Mike,” Hunter said. “I mean the guy’s picture could replace Benedict Arnold’s in the encyclopedia next to ‘worst traitor.’”

“You’re not getting the point,” Fitz said. “I’m talking about what he told us that we didn’t already know.”

“Well,” Hunter said simply, “just tell me …”

Fitz shook his head. “I cant,” he said. “I’m an officer of the court in all this, remember. You’re a witness. If I pass inside information on to you, it could screw up the whole trial.”

Hunter suddenly felt his teeth clench. He knew that due to the intentionally strict guidelines set up for the trial, all it would take was one slip-up and the ex-VP could go free. Right or wrong, that was the American way and
that
was what the trial was really about.
Preserving
the American way …

Yet Hunter could tell by Fitz’s demeanor that something big, something downright
explosive
was on that tape.

“I’m afraid to ask you even for a hint,” Hunter said in a hushed tone.

“Of this, you don’t want a hint,” Fitz said, finishing his coffee and getting up to go. If anything, he looked worse than when he walked in. “You’ll just have to wait until the bastard takes the stand. It will all be in the court documents they’ll pass out. You’ll see it right before you in black and white.”