The Last Justice

by Anthony J. Franze

  "In 1862, there was a vacancy in the high court, and members of the House and Senate came together and nearly all signed a petition urging Lincoln to nominate a man named Samuel Miller to the Supreme Court. There was no partisan battle or media circus then. And it didn't take weeks for the president or the Senate to act. After getting the petition, Lincoln nominated Miller, and the Senate confirmed him by voice vote-thirty minutes later. I say this to stress that today's bipartisan effort is not unprecedented. It harks back to a day when what mattered was not politics, not opinion polls. Rather, what mattered was whether the nominee was the best person for the job. Certainly that is the case with the nominees today. So without further ado, I welcome Cynthia Edward King, Brook Paterson, Ivan Petrov, Victoria Prado, Henry Stanbery, and Reuben Walworth, our distinguished nominees for the United States Supreme Court, the greatest court in the world, in the greatest country in the world."

  Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia

  he knife darted toward McKenna's chest. He managed to dodge it, only to set himself up for a hard punch to the base of the jaw, knocking him to the ground. When he came to seconds later, a blurry figure was kneeling over him, the knife upraised. With his knee bent and his foot against the turf, he thrust himself aside, and the dagger sank into the dark sod.

  Pivoting, McKenna punched his attacker in the groin as his other hand pulled the gun from his waistband. But the blow did not slow down his attacker, who grabbed McKenna's hand and slammed it against the gravestone, and the gun went flying.

  McKenna scrambled after the weapon, while the other man clawed at his legs. He kicked out and felt his foot connect, and heard a grunt.' with the pistol not three feet from his grasp, he felt a sharp pain in his calf

  Suddenly, the man was on top of him, straddling his midsection, plunging down with the blade. McKenna bucked, and as his attacker fought to keep his balance, the knife hand veered in mid thrust, long enough for McKenna to grasp the man's wrist, stopping the blade from coming down on him. The blade quivered in the air just inches from McKenna's throat. The assassin put all his weight into it, pressing the blade toward home, and McKenna felt the bite on his neck.

  "Time for you to go see your dead bitch and gimp son," he said.

  McKenna took in the words, staring into the empty, soulless eyes. He was not going to die this way ... not here . . . not like this. He guided the blade rightward and pitched his attacker off and onto the wet grass. Still holding the knife hand tight, he felt the man's wrist torque backward, and the blade fell beside him. He jumped on top of the man and began hitting him rhythmically with both fists, breaking the nose, unhinging the jaw, pounding blindly.

  He stopped only when he realized that his opponent was no longer moving. Standing, he again felt the sharp pain in his left calf as he limped over to the package. As he picked it up and turned to go, something moved in his peripheral vision. The man in the camouflage jacket had crawled to the gun, which lay against Colin's headstone. His face soaked in blood, he took a shot.

  McKenna dove to the ground and scrambled toward the knife which still lay nearby. He heard another shot, and jumped to his feet. Before the next shot came, he charged toward his attacker.' man with the pockmarked face directed the gun at McKenna, but before he pulled the trigger McKenna dropped onto him, driving the knife into his chest.

  He heard shouting. A hundred yards out, several men in blue windbreakers were running toward him. With the package tucked under his arm, he hobbled toward the cemetery's entrance.

  Limping across a courtyard to a retaining wall at the front entrance, he fell to the sidewalk, dizzy and exhausted. His left pant leg and both sleeves were bloody. He could hear sirens, and someone was calling his name.

  "Jefferson!"

  Squinting, he saw the blurry outline of something big and round and redder even than the blood on his clothes.

  "Jefferson!" Aiden Porter said, opening the visor of his motorcycle helmet. "Can you hold on?"

  McKenna nodded, and Aiden helped him up onto the back of the motorcycle, kicked the bike into gear, and roared away as men in blue windbreakers ran yelling after them.

  Wilson High School, Brooklyn, New York

  etective Assad wondered how many mold spores he was sucking in with every breath in the dank, musty basement. They had pored over volume after volume of high school yearbooks, scanning the pages for any mention of Britney Goodhart, flipping page after page of proms, basketball games, and smiling headshots.

  Assad's sneeze broke the silence. "I'm not sure how long I can stay down here," he said. "My allergies-"

  "Got her," Milstein interrupted. Assad dog-eared the page he was on, closed the yearbook, and went over to her. He sat down on an overturned mop bucket next to Milstein, who was hunched over on a tiny chair.

  "That's her," Milstein said pointing to a headshot. "Let's see if we can find her foster brothers."

  "We don't know their names," Assad said.

  "Yeah, but her roommate said one branded her with `T-B,'so let's look for boys with those initials. Let's just take it page-by-page from the beginning of the book."

  Milstein turned each page deliberately, making sure to catch just one at a time, taking it all in before turning to the next. Midway through the yearbook, under the heading "THE TALENTS OF WILSON HIGH," the photograph of a teenage boy caught her eye. He had a serious face and was holding up an intricate drawing of an apocalyptic scene. The artist was talented, but the picture troubling. It showed two boys standing tall, fists in the air, with a burning car behind them, and a vaguely female form lying in the background.

  "I can't believe the school let this in the yearbook," Milstein gasped, holding up the page.

  "That was before Columbine," Assad said, "back when schools didn't take that kind of thing as seriously."

  He read the byline: "Travis Bigler's portrait, which he calls The Chaos Brothers."

  "The Chaos Brothers. I suspect both are making chaos in an eight-by-twelve cell somewhere as we speak," Assad said. "This kid's initials are `T-B' and didn't Britney's roomie say she thought his name was Travis or Trevor?"

  Milstein brought the yearbook close to her face. "Oh, my God," she murmured.

  "What?"

  "The Chaos Brothers. That's it. Look how Bigler signed the picture."

  In the bottom right corner of the picture, Assad could make out the initials He flipped opened his cell phone, looked at it, then shut it and made for the stairs.

  "Where are you going?" Milstein shouted.

  "I've gotta get hold of Pacini before he gets on a plane to England, and there's no cell reception down here."

  Milstein started scooping up yearbooks and then followed him up. When she arrived upstairs, she found Assad sitting in the hallway, looking confused.

  "Did you reach Pacini?" she asked as large groups of students milled by, all eyes seemingly fixed on the two of them.

  "Yeah, he'd already canceled his trip."

  "What happened?"

  "He said he couldn't talk on an unsecured line. He's arranging a flight to get us to D.C. right away-said it's crucial. He already knows about Travis Bigler. He's dead."

  Milstein stared at him. "Dead?"

  "Jefferson McKenna killed him this morning."

  Petworth Neighborhood, Washington,

  cKenna awoke and took a few moments to realize where he was. Sitting on the floor of Scoob's run-down house, beaten and bleeding, he looked as though he had been through a war. He looked at his leg. The wound on his calf had been wrapped in athletic tape, and the bleeding had almost stopped. The gashes on his arms, less severe, were wrapped in a shredded T-shirt. His head was pounding.

  He could hear Scoob and Aiden in the next room, arguing ... about him.

  Aiden came in, looking discouraged. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

  "I've been better."

  "We need to get going."

  "You got my message on your voice mail?" McKenna said. "Is that how you knew where to find m
e?"

  "Yeah, and I got her the lawyer you recommended. I also called Javier and he's on his way here now."

  McKenna touched the tape on his calf, winced, and looked up at Aiden. "You open the package?"

  "Yeah. Are you strong enough to come look at something?"

  Pulling himself up with the back of the sofa, McKenna tottered a little, then followed Aiden into Scoob's computer room.

  "You can watch this, but then you need to go," Scoob said. They apparently had worn out their welcome and it was getting too risky for him.

  "There was a thumb drive in the package," Aiden said. "You'll probably want to see this."

  McKenna studied the screen, and the rage welling up in him almost made him forget the pain in his leg.

  "Aiden, I need to get to Capitol Hill," he said. "Will you help me?"

  Aiden scratched his chin. "I suppose I can relive my days as a page on the Hill and get you where you need to go. But I have one condition."

  "What?"

  "You introduce me to that hot lawyer at your office. The blonde one-had an office next to Kate. My sister would never do it."

  McKenna started to laugh, which resulted in a piercing pain in his chest. He put his hand on Aiden's shoulder. "I'm pretty sure I'll never be welcomed anywhere near the fifth floor of Justice," he replied. "But her name's Tracy. I'll see what I can do."

  "Good enough," Aiden said.

  Hart Senate Building, Capitol Hill

  he Judiciary Committee hearing was about to adjourn. As promised, every question the senators had asked the nominees had been a softball, the entire proceeding a lovefest.

  Pacini and Detectives Assad and Milstein rushed from the government van to the front of the Hart Building, where an agent escorted them past security to an elevator.

  "Do you think they'll delay the hearing before the vote?" Assad asked as they got out of the elevator on the second floor and approached the hearing room.

  "I'm friends with Senator Scheuerman," Pacini said, sounding more confident than he felt. "If I can find a way to pass him a note, he'll make sure they call a break and meet with us."

  They were allowed past security, through the double doors of the hearing room, where they took a seat in back. Pacini scanned the crowd for a Senate page who might be able to get a note to Bill Scheuerman, who was seated next to the Judiciary Committee chairman. He saw a familiar face that might be able to help: J. Bradley Wentworth, from the White House.

  Pacini got up to approach Wentworth, but stopped when a loud disturbance erupted from a door in the left corner of the room, behind the committee members. Guards were scuffling with three men.

  A panicky buzz filled the room as several agents pushed their way toward the nominees and formed a protective human barrier around them. The committee chairman called for order.

  Officers aimed their weapons at the three men, who stood with arms upraised, one of them holding a laptop in one hand over his head.

  "Put the device down!" an officer yelled, his gun drawn and trained on the man's head.

  Pacini looked at the men. One of them was familiar. His face was bruised and swollen, his clothes ripped and bloody, and he looked like a homeless person, but there was no mistake: it was him. Given what Milstein and Assad had discovered, it was time to intercede.

  "Stop! Lower your weapons," Pacini shouted to the officers as he walked down the gallery's center aisle toward the committee members, holding his FBI credentials high.

  The officers didn't budge.

  "Please," he said, "lower your weapons!"

  A senior Capitol police officer, who knew Pacini, signaled for the officers to lower their guns, and Pacini was allowed to approach.

  Pacini looked intently at the leader of the three men.

  "You can take me in, but please, play what's on the computer for the committee," he pleaded.

  Pacini stroked his chin. The logical thing to do would be to use the disturbance to call for a break in the hearing. But his gut told him to let this play out.

  Turning to the committee, he said in a loud voice, "Mr. Chairman, I'm FBI Deputy Director Frank Pacini, the coordinating head of the law enforcement arm of the Supreme Court Commission. I'd like to request that the committee hear from this man briefly."

  Senator Goldman banged his gavel. "With due respect to the commission, there's a process to follow, and this is not the time or place for public commentary-and certainly not from anyone who disrupts these proceedings."

  "I urge the committee to hear what he has to say," Pacini said.

  "We're hearing no witnesses," the chairman said. He looked rattled, as did the six nominees.

  Pacini managed to lock eyes with Brad Wentworth. No words were needed-the favor owed was being cashed in. Wentworth had no choice, and he walked onto the floor.

  "Mr. Chairman, I'm J. Bradley Wentworth, special assistant to the president. Given the importance of this matter, I strongly request that you consider Deputy Director Pacini's request."Wentworth looked as if he couldn't believe the words had come out of his mouth.

  The chairman looked nonplussed. Before he could respond, a reporter shouted, "That's Solicitor General McKenna!"

  A rumble filled the room. Behind McKenna stood Aiden joined by Javier Mendoza. With Aiden's knowledge of the maze of Capitol Hill from his days as a page, they had managed to bypass security at the entrances to the Hart Building by entering the Dirksen Senate Building, which had a little known hallway connecting it to the hearing room in Hart.

  Again the chairman banged his gavel. "Mr. McKenna, we'd be happy to hear from you at an appropriate-"

  "A man tried to kill me this morning," McKenna interrupted in a loud voice. The room grew suddenly quiet. "The same man killed Griffin Nash. He was after a digital recording that Parker Sinclair, my former law clerk, had sent me. I believe it is the reason Parker was killed. I'd like to show it to you."

  "Mr. Chairman, we haven't had a chance to review this recording, but we have reason to believe Mr. McKenna," Pacini said. To his left, Javier was working with a technician and plugging cords into the back of the laptop computer he had with him.

  Before the chairman could respond, a digital image appeared on the monitors in front of the committee members and on the large screens that had been set up so the gallery could get a clear view of the hearing. The chairman started to object then abruptly stopped when Senator Scheuerman put a hand on his shoulder.

  Javier pushed a button, and the video image of a man and woman kissing in a small room appeared on the monitors. The man's back was to the camera, and woman's face was obstructed. A black robe hung on a hook in the background. The woman pulled off the man's shirt and began unbuckling his belt. But she stopped suddenly, as if hearing a noise. The man turned toward the camera, and with a keystroke, Javier froze the frame on a single face on the screen. It was as if the air had been sucked out of the room.

  "This is a fabrication, a computer hoax!" Judge Ivan Petrov, the nominee for chief justice of the United States, shouted above the din of gasps and exclamations. It was a video of Petrov and his law clerk, Dakota Cameron.

  Another click, and the video continued. It showed Dakota putting her fingers on Petrov's lip to quiet him. Someone had entered the judge's chambers. She then slipped out the back door of the room as Petrov hurriedly buckled his belt and grabbed for his shirt.

  The next frame on the screen froze, then zoomed in, enlarging the image. It was unmistakable: the letters "CB"burned into his lower neck, in the little valley between the trapezius and the collar bone.

  "This is ridiculous,"Petrov said, his voice shaking. "With the right software, I can put my face on Angelina Jolie's body. Mr. Chairman, this is a transparent stunt to disrupt this hearing." The chairman banged his gavel in a vain effort to stem the rising furor.

  Pacini now approached the committee, doing his best to look calm and composed. "Mr. Chairman," he said, "we have not had a chance to analyze this video. But I came here independently, to reque
st a delay based on information uncovered by my team. We believe that the man whom Mr. McKenna confronted this morning is the Black Wednesday assassin. His name was Travis Bigler. His neck was branded in the same manner as the man in this video, with the letters `C-B.' I requested the delay because we have learned of a close connection between Mr. Bigler and Judge Petrov."

  In that moment, Pacini recalled Parker Sinclair's purchase of spyware. Sinclair must have stumbled onto Petrov's connection to Black Wednesday while spying on his ex-girlfriend, perhaps triggering a chain of events that got him killed.

  "You can't be suggesting that Judge Petrov..." a Republican senator said.

  "I think Judge Petrov can put this to rest right now," Pacini said, "by showing us his neck."

  Petrov stood. He looked confused, and his head had a slight tremble, reminding Pacini of a Parkinson's patient. Then Petrov went limp and sank to the floor.

  The chairman gave up trying to control the proceedings as the room erupted in shouting. Photographers muscled in to get shots of Petrov passed out, as spectators pushed their way out of the room. U. S. marshals and Capitol police officers yelled and struggled to maintain a protective ring around the other nominees. A crowd formed around Petrov.

  Pacini pushed his way through and saw Petrov regaining consciousness. Reaching down, he pulled on the judge's shirt collar. The neck mark was not there.

  But he looked closer. Something was unusual about the skin on the right side of Petrov's neck ... The color was somehow off, and it seemed almost flaky in texture.