“Interestingly,” Christina continued, “the first person to go on trial in this scandal is not one of the wrongdoers, but one of the whistleblowers. Julia Thomsen is charged with theft of information for participating in a scheme to steal documents from the district attorney’s office and leak them to the press.
“In a few moments, I’ll be joined by defendants’ rights activist Ted Braden. He’ll share his thoughts on this trial and other matters of concern to all of us. We’ll be right back, so stay where you are, you won’t want to miss this.”
“Clear,” said the man in the headset.
Christina turned and looked over her right shoulder. She saw Ted standing against the truck. He was talking with Dobson Howe. “Ted,” she called, motioning to him.
Ted walked over to her. “All ready?” he asked.
“I am,” she answered. “Are you?”
“Yes,” he said, seating himself in the chair across from her. It was uncomfortably upright to prevent slouching. The man in the headset clipped a microphone to Ted’s jacket and stepped back again. “Thirty seconds,” he said.
Christina adjusted her scarf. Then she leaned over and adjusted Ted’s collar. “Thank you for doing this,” she said. “I know you could have gone anywhere with this interview and I appreciate it that you called me. I hope I can return the favor someday.”
“Maybe sooner than you think,” Ted answered.
“Ten seconds,” said the man in the headset. “Nine, eight, seven...”
Christina sat up straight and arranged her face in a serious, earnest, pleasant expression. The man in the headset cued her.
“I’m joined by defendants’ rights activist Ted Braden.” Christina gave him a shallow smile. “Thank you for being here today,” she said. “What are your thoughts about this trial?”
“It’s a sham,” Ted said plainly.
“A sham?” asked Christina, with apparent surprise. “Why is that?”
“Because Julia Thomsen is covering for me,” Ted said. “I’m the one who should be on trial. I copied the files. The only reason those disks were in Julia’s house is because I asked her to get them out of my house. I thought my place might be searched. It never occurred to me that her place would be.”
“Are you saying that the charges against Julia Thomsen should be dropped?”
“I’m saying exactly that. I plan to turn myself in immediately to face charges of theft of information from the district attorney’s office. Julia Thomsen had nothing to do with it.”
Christina’s face oozed sympathy. “Why did you do it?” she asked.
“Because people need to know what their government is doing. They need to know when innocent people are framed and railroaded and wrongly convicted. That’s why I leaked the information to the press.”
“You leaked it to the press?”
“That’s right. I copied the documents and then I leaked them to the media. And you can verify that personally.”
Christina looked stricken.
“Those medical records that proved the LAPD had tortured Michael Dency, you got them from me, and you have my permission to say so on the air.”
Christina hesitated. She stared at him, moving her glossed lips slightly but not quite able to form words. Then she nodded. “Yes,” she lied, “You gave me that file.”
“The hell he did.”
Ted spun in his chair. The voice belonged to Jordan. She was standing next to a camera behind him. He saw Tiffany’s car double-parked on the street, hazard lights flashing. Tiffany was standing in front of the passenger-side door, watching them.
Christina shrewdly guessed from Ted’s reaction that the woman was no ordinary heckler. She waved off the security guard who was moving in Jordan’s direction. “Get that woman a microphone,” she said. Ted spun around in his chair again to face Christina. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” he said.
“What’s your name?” Christina asked, when a sound engineer had reached the woman and clipped a microphone to her blouse. “I’m Jordan Rainsborough,” she answered. Christina’s contact lenses almost popped out of her eyes. “You’re Jordan Rainsborough, the assistant district attorney?” she asked. “That’s me,” Jordan said. “I changed my hair.”
Christina, poised and unflappable, called for another chair on the set. The director in the truck talked into her earpiece and told her to go to a commercial.
“We’re going to stay right here,” Christina told the live TV audience and the director simultaneously, “because I don’t want you to have to wait even one minute to hear this. So bear with us, please, while we get another chair set up.”
There was a fair amount of clunking around while chairs, lights and cameras were moved, but in less than twenty seconds Jordan was seated between Ted and Christina as if it had always been planned that way.
“So tell me, Ms. Rainsborough,” Christina began, “Where have you been?”
“I’ve been in hiding,” Jordan said. “I’d rather not say where.”
“Of course,” Christina oozed. “Why were you hiding?”
“I was hiding,” Jordan said in a firm voice, “because I leaked documents to you and others in violation of the law. And I could face the rest of my life in prison for that.”
“You leaked the documents?”
“Yes, I did. Mr. Braden had nothing to do with it.”
“But he claims he leaked the documents.”
“He’s just trying to protect me,” Jordan said. “You know as well as I do that I’m the one who gave you that medical report that proved Michael Dency was tortured by police.”
Christina looked miserable. “I don’t like to contradict my guests,” she sighed.
Standing off to the side, Dobson Howe saw the flashing lights of the police car as it pulled up behind the NBC truck. He walked purposefully over to the driver’s door and waited for the officer to open it.
“I’m Dobson Howe,” he boomed. “I represent Ted Braden and Jordan Rainsborough. Are you here to take them into custody?”
“Yes, sir,” the officer answered.
“I will surrender them tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m.,” Howe said. “Arrangements have already been made.”
“All right, Mr. Howe,” the officer said. “I’ll just call it in and let them know I spoke to you.”
“Thank you, officer.” Howe turned and walked back toward the set. Christina was wrapping it up.
“And I think there’s a warning in this for all of us,” Christina said, “to guard our rights as if they might be taken away at any moment. Because under the law as it stands today, under the 37th Amendment, we could all be convicted of a crime we did not commit. It could happen to anybody. It makes you think, doesn’t it? We’re out of time, but I’d like to thank my special guest, Ted Braden, and my unexpected guest, Jordan Rainsborough, for being here today. We’ll be back at 5:00 with more on this fast-developing case. Bye-bye.”
“Clear,” said the man in the headset.
“Jordan!” Christina said. “I didn’t even recognize you.”
“Everybody hates it,” Jordan said, running her fingers through her near buzz-cut. “I’m going to let it grow again.”
Dobson Howe walked up to them. “Things are proceeding exactly as planned,” he said to Ted and Jordan. “The police were here. You’re both under arrest. I told them I’d surrender you at 9:00 tomorrow morning. We’ll get the charges dropped against Julia and then the two of you will go on trial starting sometime next week. I’m trying to get your friend Tiffany the reward money.” He turned and waved to Tiffany, motioning her to come over.
“I couldn’t believe it when you called me,” Jordan told Howe. “At first I thought it was the craziest thing I’d ever heard.”
Ted looked at her, then at Howe. “You called her?” he asked.
“Of course I called her,” Howe said. “Did you think I was going to do this twice?”
CHAPTER 13
Monday, August 7, 2056
The helicopter had barely touched down on the roof of Chick Hearn Arena when the door on the right side flung open and a dark-haired man stepped out, angry and showing it.
A younger man in his early twenties, well-dressed and wearing a headset telephone, rushed up to meet him. “I’m so sorry, Mr. McCarthy,” the young man said. “The overcrowding at LAX is so terrible, we tried everything but they wouldn’t give us permission for your jet to land there. I hope the chopper flight from Oxnard was comfortable.”
“Why didn’t you tell them who it was for?”
“Uh...” The young man hesitated, as if considering which potential answer was least likely to end his career.
Clark McCarthy glared at him. “Where’s the car?” he snapped.
“This way, sir.” The young man led the way to an elevator and punched the button several times. “Everything’s all set up and waiting for you, sir,” he jabbered.
McCarthy ignored him.
Clark McCarthy hated to travel. It was why he had jumped at the chance fifteen years ago to give up reporting and host a live interview show in New York. Sure, it was fluffy and lightweight, but if he was going to have to spend half his life on a plane and the other half waist-deep in foul-smelling carnage to win a Pulitzer, well, the Emmy Awards had prettier girls anyway.
So Clark McCarthy was more than annoyed when the chairman called him personally to break the news that every live show on the network would be relocating to Los Angeles to cover the trial of Ted Braden and Jordan Rainsborough.
“I’m already sick of them,” McCarthy told the chairman. “Ted and Jordan. Jordan and Ted. Their giant of a lawyer. The unfairness of it all. The injustice of the 37th Amendment. They’re overexposed and the trial hasn’t even begun.”
The chairman sighed. “I know, Clark, I know,” he said soothingly. “But if we’re not there, the air is going to be filled with the sound of zap-zap-zap as people change channels to a network that’s covering it. It’s like a fire. It’s not any different than a hundred fires they’ve seen before, but they want to see it anyway.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about my ratings,” McCarthy said.
“No, no, no,” the chairman said quickly. “You’re the apex, Clark, there’s nobody who can touch you. That’s why we want you to be there, in the lead. You’re our signature. Your presence tells viewers they’re watching something important.”
“Hmph,” McCarthy grunted.
“Do it for me, Clark,” the chairman said. “I know you hate remotes. I know it’s a damned nuisance. But we’ll back you up a hundred percent, whatever you need, you’ll have it.”
And the next thing he knew, Clark McCarthy was on the chairman’s private jet to Los Angeles, except that chronic overcrowding in the skies over Los Angeles had caused the jet to be diverted to the Oxnard Airport, eighty miles from the South-Central L.A. location where he was supposed to be interviewing Mayor Taylor Martinez about Ted and Jordan, Jordan and Ted, he was so sick of them both.
The young production assistant in the headset opened the door of the silver limousine that was waiting in the drop-off zone in front of the arena. McCarthy climbed inside and settled comfortably into the black leather seat, frowning when he saw the melon and prosciutto platter and the chilled bottle of Italian white wine that were set into a fold-down tray, along with two packages of white Oreo cookies and six bottles of diet creme soda. “So this is my dressing room,” he grumbled.
The production assistant came around the passenger side of the car and slid into the front seat next to the driver. “Florence and Normandie,” he said.
The heat from three portable 1K lights on stands had raised the temperature in Dobson Howe’s living room to a toasty eighty-five degrees. Howe sat in the middle of the room on one of his uncomfortable, low-backed kitchen chairs, because TV directors liked an attractive background and his wing chair would have blocked the view of the living room behind him. A thin white cable ran from the small camera on the tripod in front of Howe to the notebook computer set up on a rolling cart nearby. A cable from the computer was plugged into the wall jack. Dobson Howe was in his third hour of live interviews with local newscasts across the country.
In the kitchen, Ted, Tiffany and Jordan watched Mrs. Chang use a steak knife to slice through the tape on a carton that had just been delivered. “Your photos,” she announced. “Mr. Howe has been waiting for these.”
“Photos?” Ted asked.
Mrs. Chang took a handful of fine-point black markers from a pen holder on the countertop. Then she opened both doors of the oversized double oven. Jammed inside were eight cardboard boxes overflowing with mail.
“Autograph,” she said.
The mayor’s campaign team had advanced the event with their usual finesse. They had invented an excuse for a street fair, closing the busy intersection of Florence and Normandie to traffic and creating a one-day pedestrian mall. Small children holding balloons clung to their parents’ hands, filling the streets with the perfect background for the small stage where Mayor Taylor Martinez was announcing her new Raise the Roof education initiative.
“Minimum standards are not enough for California’s children,” the mayor shouted. “We should be setting maximum goals, rewarding high achievement, challenging our kids to reach up, to go far, to exceed their dreams. Let’s raise the roof!” The crowd applauded. “Our schools can be turned around,” the mayor continued. “Today we stand on a site that was once the hopeless capital of rage and despair in Los Angeles. Well, look around you. Families, businesses, jobs. It just takes leadership.” The crowd cheered generously.
Half a block away, Clark McCarthy was interviewing an elderly man in a Lakers jacket. “So tell me,” McCarthy said with apparent warmth and sincerity, “What’s your reaction to the unfair prosecutions and wrongful convictions that have been coming to light in this city?”
The elderly man leaned toward the microphone. “Well,” he began, “I’m eighty-seven years old. I’m old enough to remember what it used to be like in this neighborhood. You couldn’t even walk around here. All along the street, places were boarded up. People forget how South-Central used to be.”
“But what about the wrongful convictions?”
“Gunfire all the time,” the man continued. “Couldn’t even walk around here.”
“Thank you very much for speaking with us today,” McCarthy said with well-hidden impatience. He shook the man’s hand warmly, patted him on the shoulder and turned to the producer who was standing next to the camera. “That’s enough of that,” he said in a low voice. “Aren’t there any younger, more attractive people we can talk to?”
Mrs. Chang put a cup of tea in front of Dobson Howe.
“Thank you very much,” Howe said. Five hours of interviews had slightly lessened the boom of his voice.
“It’s after six,” Tiffany said. “Anyone for pizza?”
“That’s a great idea,” Jordan said. “Let’s have it delivered.”
“No, no,” Howe intoned. “You and Ted go and pick it up. Give the photographers outside another shot.”
Mayor Taylor Martinez smiled radiantly when she saw Clark McCarthy. “Clark!” she said, “So good to see you again!”
“Mayor Martinez,” McCarthy said graciously, his eyes twinkling. He was a strikingly handsome man when he turned on the charm.
“I’ll be ready in just a moment, I just want to go into the trailer and fix my make-up before we start. Is that all right?” She smiled disarmingly.
“Of course,” McCarthy said. “We’re not on the air for forty-five minutes.”
“That’s perfect,” the mayor cooed. “Why don’t you come with me and we’ll chat.”
McCarthy took her arm and escorted her down the steps of the small stage and over to the luxury RV that the mayor’s staff had rented for the day. It was comfortably outfitted with sofas, tables and a fully-stocked refrigerator. Four staffers inside excused themselves and headed to a coffee bar across the s
treet when McCarthy and the mayor arrived.
“So,” McCarthy said when he and the mayor were settled in with cold drinks, “Things have been a little rough for you lately.”
“Not at all,” the mayor said. “We stay very positive, very focused on our issues, and we don’t get distracted or sidetracked.”
McCarthy nodded sympathetically. “Still,” he said, “You have your hands full with those media hounds. I’m in this business a long time, I’ve never seen anybody orchestrate a campaign of self-aggrandizement as well as Dobson Howe has done it. You would think he was running for something.”
The mayor shook her head. “I don’t think that’s it,” she said. “I did at first. But there’s no indication he’s running for anything, or even thinking of running.”
“No?” McCarthy said. “What do you think he’s up to?”
“Off the record?” the mayor asked.
“Certainly.”
“I think it’s ego,” the mayor said. “There’s no limit to what that man will do to get on television.”
“Much as I hate to break this up,” Dobson Howe said to the group seated around his kitchen table, “Opening arguments start tomorrow and two of you still have to drive home.”
Tiffany, looking pale and tired, pushed her chair back. “And it’s a long walk to the guest room,” she said. “Good night, everybody.”
“No, you stay right there,” Howe said gently. “You and I have some unfinished business.” Startled, Tiffany sat down again. Howe turned his gaze on Jordan. “Now, young lady,” he said, “You are not to sneak out of the side door of your building tomorrow morning.”
Jordan looked like she’d been caught shoplifting.
“I want you to go right out the front doors where the cameras are. It’s important,” Howe said.
“But why?” Jordan protested.
“Because the clip of you leaving your apartment in the morning leads the news every night.”
“They can use a shot of me from their file.”
“Not good enough,” Howe boomed across the table. “They’re going to need new footage every day. The better the pictures, the more airtime they’ll give the story. Didn’t you study communications in school?”
The 37th Amendment: A Novel Page 20