BLIND TRIAL

by Brian Deer

  Hiroshi, behind her, read over her shoulder. “That says what I think it says, yes?”

  “It’s true, what it’s saying. It’s true. These cases… One of them… This one… They killed her.”

  “So desu ne.” Hiroshi chuckled. “Bye bye, BerneWerner. Bye bye.”

  Sixty-one

  THE TWELVE-by-nine-foot, clinical white module B felt smaller without its customary contents. It was trucked back to Washington in a stripped-down edition, without the desk, swivel chair, or monitor. Its LED display panels were left leaning inside, and its floorspace given over to storage. Marketing materials, free gifts, and wine glasses were stacked in cartons and crates.

  Ben sat on the floor where the desk ought to go, making no sound louder than cotton on cardboard. With his back against the video wall (now scrolling “No Signal”), his shoulders clamped between cartons of iPads and umbrellas, and his feet pulled so close he could smell shoe polish, he wondered how he’d ever stand up.

  Was anyone out there? He couldn’t be sure. Soft shoes on a hard floor might be silent. Twelve minutes had passed since the fire alarm died. Then two males approached, found the call point that triggered it, grunted “Fucking doctors,” and “Typical.” Since then, he’d kissed his knees among the cartons and panels without even a bossa nova to break the hush.

  But now… a sound. A soft intake of air… A sniff. Somebody was out there.

  The brush of a shoe… Another sniff… So close… Definitely this side of the trestle table.

  He tensed. Fight or flee? Most likely, he’d flee. He’d rise, stretch his legs, walk swiftly, but with dignity, to the stairs and up to the lobby.

  Another sniff and shoe. Then a hollow boom-moom: a hand on the module. So close. Whoever they were, they were only feet away. They’d touched the unit’s fiberboard skin. They must be at the entrance to the fake doctor’s office.

  Ready now: up and outta here.

  A shadow dulled the sheen of a lifeless LED panel, and loose strands of hair—translucent under a spotlight—shimmered in the draft from a fan. Then an auburn pixie cut, and a familiar face: a fellow scholar, Sarah-Jane Blitzer. She’d stepped through the arch and paused as if to listen.

  Hoffman must have sent her to search.

  Sarah-Jane’s head turned like a U-boat periscope. Her view: two feet above the cartons. Ben clenched his teeth as her eyeballs—in plain sight—scanned the video wall and a wireless hub, then swiveled downward and flickered across the cardboard that bookended either side of his hideout.

  Shit.

  He felt the heat of her gaze, blazing into his own. He felt his cheeks color. He grinned.

  But he knew he didn’t fool her: his grin was phony, a grin that says guilty as charged. It was a Tom and Jerry grin, an Itchy and Scratchy grin. She was the cat. He was the mouse. She’d caught him.

  Breath upon breath: Sarah-Jane’s eyes gripped him. He felt as if his belly touched his spine. But he couldn’t break away. And he couldn’t get up. Her look pinned him helpless in submission.

  Then Sarah-Jane blinked, her gaze dissolved, and her head turned a little… a little more… a little more… Her eyeballs rose and refocused on the video wall… Then, as softly as she’d come, she was gone.

  A hand on fiberboard… A shoe brushing floor… A sniff. Then silence.

  He was safe.

  THREE FORTY-ONE and a crescendo of murmurs: a crowd coming down from the lobby. It appeared that the event was about to resume. People were passing the module. Most didn’t speak as they filed into the ballroom. But some were speaking—and loud.

  “This’ll be good.”

  “Can’t wait.”

  “That’s your anti-vax cranks.”

  “Who is he?”

  Ben covered his eyes and pressed his nose between his knees. He felt what? He felt fear… and something else. It was fear with guilt in some composite emotion: two shades of paint in one can. It felt so familiar, like that highwire feeling. This color was a primary in his life. His shoulders rubbed the cartons, his palms warmed his eyes, his brain pumped the rhythm of his heart.

  He was hiding in his bedroom while a storm raged below. Voices. Angry voices. And whispers. It was something he’d done. It was sure to be his fault. He was definitely the cause of the commotion.

  All his life he’d been plagued by feelings like these. Like that rumbling as the car passed the house. He’d tried to escape them. He’d tried to embrace them. He’d tried to be good and be bad. But he couldn’t commit to one or the other till he knew what those voices said.

  Then his ears popped clear, like an aircraft landing. A hand thumped the module. And whispers. “For all that, Marcia, we gotta go ahead. Anything else, and we must have known.”

  “But that’s ridiculous. How on earth can we go ahead now?”

  “Look, (a) we’re shocked. Okay? (b) these claims are outrageous. And (c) that kid’s a nut. And that’s it.”

  The hand banged the fiberboard like the tree at Cleveland Avenue. “Blink now and they’ve got intent. You got that? Intent. We all go to federal prison. Accessories after the fact, obstruction of justice, conspiracy. This is some serious shit, Marcia. And not just for that motherfuckin’ dickhead out there. This is serious shit for you, me, every one of us. We don’t know nothing. We’re still in the dark here. Still duped. You follow me now?”

  “But what about that lot in there? What do you think they’re thinking? What are they thinking now? Really?”

  “Doesn’t matter a damn what they’re thinking. We got no choice now. It’s (a) shocked.” Bang. “It’s (b) outrageous.” Bang. “And it’s (c) he’s a nut. That’s it.”

  The whispers moved away—“We turned down C-SPAN”—and merged into the noise of the ballroom.

  A tap on a microphone, then Gelding’s British accent. “Ladies, gentlemen, doctors, if you please.” Instantly, the room snapped silent. “Thank you. This is all a shock, as you’ll imagine, and frankly we’re outraged. We are. We’re absolutely scandalously outraged. We’ve identified the culprit for this prank, and he’ll be dealt with very severely. But right now, we must get on with this afternoon’s business.”

  “Marcia.” Hoffman’s voice.

  “Yes. Our general counsel, Theodore Hoffman. Please do come up to the microphone.”

  A delay, then he spoke so matter-of-fact you’d think he was asking for a car to be moved. “We been watching this kid for a while, I can tell you. Long time. Never figured he’d go this far. For that, I’ve gotta apologize.”

  “Who is it?” a woman called.

  “One of those anti-vaccine fanatics. Well, you know how they get. Other companies get worse, and we empathize. MindSafe. Vaccine Choice Rebellion. QAnon. They’ve got all kinds of dumb names and all those crank websites.”

  A ripple of applause endorsed him.

  “Sometimes they’re well-intentioned. Misguided. Idealistic. But this one’s a nut. A drug addict. Drug dealer, we suspect. And involved in violence. This anti-vax thing’s getting nasty now. And after all we’ve done for him. I can only apologize for what’s occurred this afternoon. In my book, this is more than a prank. It’s terrorism.”

  A male voice: “Whose got the real paper?”

  Another: “What’s his name?”

  “Tampering with research publications, setting fire alarms. These aren’t matters we find humorous in the BerneWerner Legal Department. Anyhow, Marcia, everybody, thank you. Let’s not let him wreck this momentous day.”

  BETWEEN STACKS of cartons, two arms reached up and hauled Henry’s son to his feet. He stretched his shoulders. Blood surged to his brain with the force to wrestle order from chaos. The voices in the ballroom dimmed to irrelevance. Ben Louviere’s time had come.

  SCREWED INSIDE module B, usually opposite the swivel chair, was a mirror to remind staff of their image. He leaned toward it, studied his face, and straightened Luke’s fleur-de-lis tie. He squeezed his nose: the swelli
ng was fading. He flapped his arms. Ready for this.

  He peered through the entrance and studied the doors: the only ones open to the ballroom. The red-faced guard—brown-uniformed, punch-ugly—leaned against the frame with his back to the module, as if tasked to interrogate arrivals.

  Ben lifted a carton and stepped through the arch.

  The guard heard him move and turned to look.

  “Hi bro.” Ben smiled. “What’s up? How you doing?”

  The guard grinned broken teeth.

  “Excuse me, please.”

  “Sorry, pal. Private meeting.”

  “Yeah, well that’s okay. I’m here like part of it, you know. With Mr. Hoffman in there. Got this stuff to take in for after.”

  “Sorry, pal. Orders.” An arm shut the door.

  Gelding’s voice quietened. “Poor Trudy…”

  “Yeah, but you know, I got to take these in.”

  The guy’s stance said, “Try me, please.”

  “You have a supervisor I can speak with possibly?”

  “Yup. In there.” And witty.

  Gelding trilled. “Magnificent. Quite fantastic.”

  Weak applause from the ballroom. More talking.

  Ben checked a clock: 15:56.

  He turned toward the module and back. “I’m sorry.”

  “No worries.”

  Then he turned again—only this time quicker—and back even quicker than that. He released the carton, which flew through space and struck the guard’s guts dead square.

  The guard reeled backward.

  Ben kicked him in the nuts.

  Champagne bottles rolled across the floor.

  Ben grabbed a door handle and pulled it toward him.

  The guard recovered and lunged.

  But Ben had momentum. He was through the double doors, onto the jazzy carpet, and bathed in white light. He strode past empty chairs to the aisle.

  “Ladies, gentlemen, doctors, everybody.”

  A hundred heads turned as one.

  “That paper you’ve got’s true. It’s all true. That man there’s a murderer. They killed a volunteer. And they probably killed Doc Mayr too.”

  Two hundred eyes converged on a single point: him. Doctorjee’s, Wilson’s, Gelding’s, Hoffman’s, Darlene Ruffin’s, Sarah-Jane Blitzer’s… And there, by the aisle, Sumiko’s face told him she knew he was telling the truth.

  The Grand Ballroom froze, like a video stalling, or that subway train screaming toward him. Doctorjee, Hoffman, Sarah-Jane, Sumiko… Even the guard stopped to think.

  A beat. A beat. Then everything moved. Everything moved at once.

  Gelding hammered the microphone: a sound like gunfire. “Somebody do something. Please.”

  Doctorjee rose, clasped his fingers to his throat, and bent to the floor for his rucksack.

  “These people are murderers,” Ben called. “They rigged the results. The vaccine made those people sick.”

  Then a fault-line shifted—a tectonic realignment—and the security guard returned to his mission. He rushed, grabbed… But his grip was halfhearted… To him, this was only a job.

  Ben strode toward the podium. But Hoffman blocked his path. The general counsel lifted a chair. Behind him: the fax machine, spot-lit and ready. In a moment, it would hum, a tug of paper would begin, and the license for the vaccine would emerge.

  “This is shocking,” Gelding shrieked. “He’s mad. Deranged. Well, this is outrageous. Do something.”

  Now the guard tried again, an arm swinging for a punch. But a foot snagged his leg, and he stumbled. Someone had tripped him: Hiroshi Murayama. He’d come to the rescue with a foot.

  Ben returned to the doors and hurried left behind the chairs.

  Hoffman yelled. “He’s on drugs. Watch out.”

  Left at the wall, down the side to the front, left again, and back to the fax machine. He stopped, looked around. The ballroom was paralyzed. He knocked lights aside and pulled wires. He grabbed the machine, dragged it from the table, and lifted it, straight-armed, above his head.

  Then he swung it—yanked it—cable mountings snapping—and hurled it to the carpet.

  Smashed.

  A chunk of plastic flew off. The paper feed shattered. The gray-and-black casing split apart. He bent, picked it up, and crashed it down again. The keypad snapped in two.

  Everyone was standing. Heads were shaking. Rubber wheels sped down a ramp. And there across the room—his skin dark and bright—Theodore Hoffman’s face ran with sweat.

  WEDNESDAY JULY 30

  Sixty-two

  THE BERNEWERNER Building at ten Wednesday morning looked as bright and clear as the sky above Atlanta. Approached from the east, it sparkled. As staff departed Monday for the Washington event, window cleaners’ cradles were winched from the roof and an eight-strong crew in pressed-white coveralls squeegeed every pane of the hexagon. Now the bronzed glass reflected the towers of upper Midtown like pendants in a crystal chandelier: the red GLG Grand, the rose-colored Promenade, the Rosa Porrino One Atlantic Center.

  The Tenth Street entrance got special attention: stripped of stickers—“Sliding Doors” and “Do Not Push”—before a meticulous wash and buff. Now, two days later, they reflected their surroundings in crisp mirror-image reversal. In a wide cement turnaround, out front of the building, a white Taurus Interceptor of the Atlanta Police Department gave the appearance of righthand drive. And a metallic green BMW, with two men in the front, met another seeming to come the other way.

  Ben hit the brakes, throwing Luke against his belt, and sending stuff clattering in the back. He swung right, braked again, parked nose to the cruiser, leaped out, and strolled to the doors. The glass was taped with makeshift yellow crosses and a yellow-framed laser-print sign.

  DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

  FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

  DO NOT ENTER

  THIS BUILDING IS CLOSED

  Ben made binoculars with his fingers against the glass, and glimpsed men and women in dark pants and white shirtsleeves stacking plastic crates around reception. More crates were piled against a Proud of our Products stand, like stuff getting ready to ship. Each bore a label, scrawled with red Sharpie.

  9/09, 9/10, 9/11, 9/12…

  16/1, 16/2, 16/3…

  He stepped away from the doors, dug his hands in his pockets, and strolled, so casual, to his car. He reversed in an arc around the white police Ford. This wasn’t a time to chew the fat with cops.

  He swung right onto Tenth—gas, turn signal, gas—and hung the next right for the freeway.

  “Like to see their faces, bro. Shame we gotta go. We talking about a trial here, or what?”

  His foot pressed the pedal and the car surged forward down a ramp to I-75 North.

  THE BMW felt heavy with all his shit to take home. They’d been up since dawn cramming it in: back and forth past the pool, hauling boxes, bags, and books. Now, with clothes heaped to the windows, and the Gibson in the trunk, it was adios Atlanta, nice to know you Georgia, look out for my return with the band.

  He filtered left onto the freeway, fished out the Maui Jims, and hit the player with Son Volt’s Trace. He’d often covered a track by his hero, Jay Farrar, about a river town resisting a flood. He cranked back the sunroof. Luke’s hair fluttered. Commuter traffic snarled on the inbound.

  He dropped his seat a notch and Luke did the same. In seven hundred miles they’d be home.

  TWO HOURS later, they were north of Chattanooga, climbing toward the Central time zone. On the pine-covered slopes of the Tennessee Valley, Luke saw an eagle soar out across the interstate: a silhouette, hardly moving on the breeze.

  “Know what I think?” he said, inspired by the bird.

  “Do tell, Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

  “What happens to them doesn’t matter much at all. It’s what happened to you that counts.”

  “What, lost my first job after fifty-seven days? Just as
you predicted, I guess.”

  “Shit, who predicted. It’s what you did, man. Shows if you do the right thing, and pick the right moment, it can pay off a life’s worth of shit.”

  “Oh yeah? And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Like, balance it all out, you know? Like how the smallest crack of light lets you see in a dark room.”

  “You think?”

  “I think.”

  “Therefore I am.”

  Luke sensed avoidance: which was probably to be expected. It was too deep to analyze. Yet. But late Monday evening, plus half the day Tuesday, they’d gone over and over the facts. Then Tuesday afternoon Ben went to his bedroom, called his mother, and talked for an hour.

  Luke sat by the pool, and when his buddy resurfaced, more than one eye was red.

  TWO HOURS more and they were the better side of Nashville, then another two, past Paducah. Luke took the wheel near the Illinois state line and, as they cruised at 70 mph into God’s own jurisdiction, he squeezed his Motorola. Back on call.

  Ben replayed Trace, rolled a joint in the glove box, and cracked a can of Heineken beer. That would be illegal transportation of an alcoholic beverage: a twelve-month suspension—for the driver.

  Ben shut the roof, lit the joint, breathed deep, and let the smoke trickle from his lungs. “Trouble with you is you’re so theoretical, you know that? Always looking for the smart explanation.”

  “So… Tell me I’m wrong. What’s the dumb explanation? Why didn’t you go along with that scam?”

  “Yeah, well look at it this way. What if it was you who’d gotten that vaccine? You thought about that?”

  “Sure I have.”

  “And thought you were protected, caught the bug, and got worse for the shots?”

  “You know me. Would have laid that on you.”

  “Yeah, and you could have. You could have laid that on me. Think of that. Think of what I’d be in on.”

  “Well, shit’s incremental. Nobody wakes up one day and says, ‘I’m gonna fuck everyone over.’ I mean, Henry Louviere wasn’t born bribing judges. People get suckered into shit.”