Counterplay

by Richard Aaron

  McKillum was a professional, careful witness and knew well the nuances of a courtroom. He was looking directly at the jury, shaking his head while he answered the question with an erudite English accent. When he paused to wait for the next question, there was absolutely no doubt in any juror’s mind that it was hopelessly improbable someone had loaded the emails onton Lestage’s computer.

  “I will put the question to you directly, sir,” said Dana, trying to sound like someone who knew what she was doing. “Is it possible for there to have been one break in, and in one session, make it look like all of those emails were sent and received on the dates and times indicated on them?”

  “Well, it is possible, yes, but so remotely possible as to just totally defy reason and common sense.”

  “Did you look for evidence of that possibility?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “What did you do?” This, of course, was a cow-plop question. It was like handing the expert a soapbox. McKillum took the question and ran with it. He spoke for a good ten minutes, talking about various protocols, acronyms, POP3 servers, IMAP protocols, domain name servers, and how other computers had been checked. On and on he went. Absolutely no one in the courtroom understood him, but by the end of his speech, he had so totally jargonized the issue that he sounded as though he had invented computers, emails, and the internet and only an oaf wouldn’t accept what he had to say. Dana had tried to object five minutes into the speech, but Judge Mordecai admonished her. “You have asked a question and this witness is answering it. Overruled.” It went downhill from there.

  At the end of the court day, Dana took a short walk to St. Paul’s Hospital.

  She was worried about Lee Penn-Garrett. Could someone of such learning and experience have screwed up an appeal on a basic evidence issue? Highly unlikely. And the heart attack. Is there even such a thing as a “mild” heart attack?

  It took the better part of half an hour to find him in a hospital so full of wings, additions, and towers. He looked pale, even grey, when she found him. He was hooked up to multiple monitors and tubes, bags, IVs, and wires; the equipment looked like the product of a meth head on a Frankenstein binge.

  The room had an unpleasant, antiseptic hospital smell.

  “Hey, Lee, how are things?”

  “Should be obvious, Dana. I’ve seen better days.”

  “Your secretary said it was mild.”

  “I told her to say that.”

  “Well, is it something other than mild?”

  “No, it’s mild. But it was a heart attack. It did some damage. I heard the news coverage. The Court of Appeal vacated the order, did they?”

  “Yes, Lee, unfortunately they did.”

  “On what possible grounds could they have done that?”

  “Sheff said we had to show that the documents were missing and without an affidavit, I couldn’t say otherwise.”

  “Dana, why don’t you just swear the affidavit?”

  “Well, Lee, it’s covered by attorney-client privilege, but seeing as you’re now pretty much Leon’s attorney, too, I might as well tell you.”

  Dana launched into a lengthy explanation as to how Turbee from TTIC had made contact with her, and how he, using the agency’s supercomputers, was able to establish what was missing. “And I gave him my word that I wouldn’t disclose his involvement or his identity. And I won’t.”

  “Okay. I see the problem. Was it Westin who set aside the order?”

  “Yes it was.”

  “She just thinks that she is so damn much smarter than anyone else. I’ve had to straighten her out a few times.”

  “But I can’t swear an affidavit.”

  “They’re playing on your inexperience, Dana. This is a murder conspiracy trial and no one should limit your right of cross-examination of a key witness like that. If there was anything misleading, Sheff could fix it in redirect.

  Mordecai’s order was stupid, and Westin’s stupider.”

  “She said that Judge Mordecai’s order was a bit unusual but he was allowed to make it and she would not interfere. She said all I had to do was swear a little affidavit. And when I said I wouldn’t, I think she just assumed I was lying, and then she fined me $5,000.”

  “What an ass,” retorted Penn-Garrett. “What a horse’s ass.” Dana looked nervously as the beeps from the heart monitor began to increase in speed.

  “Don’t get upset, Lee,” said Dana worriedly. “You could hurt yourself.”

  “I’ll be fine. I’m upset by all of this. The common law is a beautiful thing, but not when twits like Mordecai and Westin start mucking with it. They both should become notaries, or clerks, or something. The trial has become a farce.” The beeping picked up its pace. A nurse must have heard it, and peeked into Lee’s room.

  “Mr. Penn-Garrett, are you all right, sir?” she asked.

  “Yes, I’m fine. Just pissed off.”

  “Don’t be too pissed off. Look how it’s affecting your vitals. You could have another attack. Your blood pressure is pretty high, too,” she noted.

  “I said I’m fine.”

  “Sir, if you were fine, you would not be in the cardiac unit in St. Paul’s. Now you, young lady,” she said in a matronly voice, “is it you that is upsetting him?”

  “Maybe,” Dana said. “I’m just a messenger here, letting Lee know how the trial is going.”

  “And in doing that you elevated all his readings significantly. You need to tread a little more lightly.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” replied Dana humbly. The nurse left, and both Lee and Dana continued with the conversation as though she didn’t exist.

  “What do we do?” asked Dana. “Appeal the point to the Supreme Court of Canada?”

  “You can’t really. Not in the middle of a trial. Westin has screwed it up to the point that an appeal would result in almost an automatic new trial.”

  “Not if I have anything to say about it. And I will be damned before I do this trial a second time. DeFijter can do the next one.”

  “What about today’s evidence?” Penn-Garrett probed. “They had a computer guy on the stand?”

  “Did they ever. He showed almost conclusively that only Leon Lestage could have sent and received the emails. It ties him to the center of the conspiracy.”

  “That really is the only substantial evidence they have, Dana. The emails. You have to focus on those. That’s where you can find reasonable doubt. But with Mordecai, the whole trial is getting kind of random.”

  “You’re right about that. The old guy’s getting off axis,” Dana replied. “Will you be back in the courtroom?”

  “As soon as they let me out of here. They said in a day or two I could go home. They made me promise not to go to the trial, and I agreed, but of course I lied. This trial is far too entertaining to miss.”

  “Glad you think it’s a happy little barbecue, Lee, but I’m the one slowly roasting on a spit. This thing is wrecking me.”

  “Don’t let it, Dana. I think the jury is still riding with you, just because it bothers them that the judge is a miserable old goat, and there are four people at the prosecutors’ table, all of whom are jerks, and just you for defense.”

  They talked a while longer but, try as she might, Dana could not think of the Leon Lestage trial as being anything other than torment. She said goodbye to Lee, headed for the Skytrain, and went home to Chris and Bam-Bam.

  36

  For forty hours the Allegro Star clung like a barnacle to the hull of the massive MOL Honor. The captain of the supercontainer ship didn’t notice the imperceptible change in resistance and speed resulting from the unauthorized passenger. Jimmy had been careful to precisely center the Allegro Star onto the hull of the larger ship so that its computer-controlled steering of the MOL Honor would be unaffected. Only submarine camera systems could reveal the presence of the Allegro Star, and while the Port of Vancouver was heavily policed by the Canadian Coast Guard and the Vancouver harbor patrol, security had not yet reach
ed this level of sophistication. At some future point it would, but Yousseff would then simply modify or transform his system to continue to stay one step ahead of interdiction—a combination of art and science that he had excelled at for more than four decades.

  The MOL Honor entered the busy Juan de Fuca Strait and coasted to a halt at Brotchie Ledge, a shallow section of water south of Victoria, BC, and north of Port Angeles, Washington. At that point, two pilots from the Pacific Pilotage Authority and two immigration officers boarded the ship. The pilots threaded the massive ship through the San Juan and Gulf Island archipelago, where some of the passages were less than a mile wide and the ocean surface was cluttered with pleasure boats and sailing ships, all of whom seemed to blithely ignore the 18,000-container-load leviathan that appeared in their midst.

  On a grey Vancouver day, where the air and water came together in a damp fog, the MOL Honor entered the mouth of Vancouver Harbor, and, at low tide, just managed to fit beneath the Lions Gate Bridge. The ship’s schedule had been set when she left Tokyo Harbor nine days earlier and she was piloted past a fleet of waiting ships in English Bay and taken directly to the Centerm terminal of the Vancouver Port Authority. Leon Lestage, three decades earlier, had elevated his game from drug wholesaler to importer/ exporter at this very terminal.

  “So now what?” asked Zak as the MOL Honor dropped anchor at the enormous terminal.

  “We’re here,” replied Jimmy. “The city of Vancouver.”

  “Sure, but we’re stuck underwater, attached to the hull of a container ship. We need to be on land.”

  “I know,” Jimmy replied. “The next part is going to require a little more effort on your part. It’ll be dark in a few hours. Then we’ll detach. I’ll bring the Allegro Star to the surface, you guys get off, and I’m going to skedaddle the hell out of here.”

  “Get off how?” asked Zak.

  “I can’t take you to shore, Zak,” Jimmy replied. “I’m going to raise us up so that we crest the water’s surface by a foot or two. I’m going to surface for no more than thirty seconds. The three of you get off, and I’m taking her back down.”

  “How far from shore will we be?”

  “About a quarter mile. Maybe a bit more. I can’t take you in any closer.” “I’ve got an artificial forearm,” Zak said. “I can barely swim.” “I’ll help you to shore, Zak,” Richard said.

  “Damn,” complained Zak. “Getting to shore here is going to be just as bad as getting off in Karachi.”

  “Well, if you like, we can go through immigration,” Richard said wryly. “The lack of passports will be the least of our worries. We’ll be whisked off to the States the instant their computer systems identify us. Apparently we were part of a rogue operation, Zak, and Kumar here is one of the most wanted terrorists in the world. None of what we know will see the light of day. In fact, we’ll likely end up in the Denver Supermax and Kumar here will end up at Gitmo, where they will squeeze every last drop of information out of him before he’s carved up for crab food. It’s only 400 yards. How hard can it be?”

  Zak reluctantly nodded his head, and they waited tensely until midnight. Jimmy noiselessly detached the Allegro Star and brought her to a point midway between Canada Place, a cruise ship terminal, and the Centerm container terminal.

  Just before they surfaced, Jimmy opened a small cupboard door beneath the forward video screens. “You may need this. Money solves most any problem.” He handed all three of them thick wads of fifties and hundreds of Canadian and American money.

  “Do you guys just keep stacks of money lying around everywhere?” Richard asked.

  Jimmy chuckled. “Cash is Yousseff’s biggest problem. When you run an operation like he does, you generally have a few million lying around in various currencies. In fact, this is how he built Karachi Dry Dock and Engineering. He paid everyone in cash, and used an incredible amount of money for research and development. It actually pissed him off when KDDE became successful in its own right, because large successful companies do not pay a workforce of a thousand people in cash. So he built other businesses, starting them all the same way. He probably earns more money from legit businesses now than he does from the drug trade. He is the shrewdest, smartest guy I have ever met. I mean, look at the Allegro Star. Dummies don’t build craft like this.”

  At midnight the Allegro Star surfaced and the three of them bid Jimmy farewell and slid into the murky water. It was worse than any of them anticipated. The water was bitterly cold, brackish, and full of the by-products of the heavily industrialized harbor. Zak made it on his own for several minutes. “Rich, I can’t do this,” he hissed, furious at asking anyone for help. “I’m going down here.”

  Richard reached over to help. “Flip onto your back, Zak. I can pull you along easier that way.”

  It took the three almost an hour to cover the quarter mile from ship to shore, and by the time that they reached the small artificial beach of Crab Park, Jimmy was approaching Brotchie Ledge and preparing to resurface.

  They lay exhausted on the beach for a few minutes, but Richard put an end to that. “We can’t stay here and build sandcastles, Zak. The sun will be up in a few hours and we’ve got to be out of here. Jimmy told us that on the other side of those tracks is what the locals call the Downtown Eastside. It’s skid row. In our current condition we’ll fit in there.”

  “That’s because we’re vagrants,” Zak responded. “No fixed address. No ID. No nothing.”

  “Stop grousing, Zak. We’ve got a job to do,” snapped Richard.

  They crossed the railway tracks that separated the small park from the Eastside, traveled south along the alleyways for three blocks, and entered hell. The pavement was covered in discarded needles. People in various stages of consciousness littered the steps and corners of the alley, and eyes peered at them from the darkness of various crevices. Even in their damp and dirty clothes, the locals knew that the three didn’t belong.

  “Take a good look, Kumar,” said Richard. “Take this in. This is what you and Yousseff are selling.”

  Before the battle resumed in Courtroom 401, a courier came to counsel table. “Ms. Wittenberg,” he paged. “Is there a Dana Wittenberg here?” Dana gamely raised her hand. “Wittenberg here,” she said.

  “Special delivery from the Law Society,” said the courier.

  McSheffrey elbowed Archambault. “Watch this,” he said slyly.

  Dana opened the letter. It began with a neutral “Dear Ms. Wittenberg.” After a few businesslike sentences, the words began to tear through her like machine gun fire:

  It has come to our attention that you used an inappropriate epithet, to wit, “Fuck you,” in reference to Crown counsel in the presence and within the earshot of such counsel, the court clerk, the court reporter, numerous sheriffs, and in front of a crowded public gallery. Such conduct is inappropriate for any member of the bar of the Province of British Columbia and constitutes conduct unbecoming for a member of the bar. You are hereby ordered to appear before the Discipline Committee of the Law Society on December 19 at 10:00 a.m. to show cause why you should not be disciplined for such an inappropriate remark . . .

  There were a few more sentences referring to the folly of ignoring Law Society missives. Dana sat down, stunned. She had been a lawyer for all of five months and already she was up for disciplinary proceedings. White faced, she wanted to sob until she heard McGhee’s voice coming from the next counsel table. “Hey, Little Puppy, you’ve been a bad, bad doggie,” he said with a churlish chuckle.

  She was contemplating running, screaming, out of the courtroom, just as the clerk called the court to order.

  37

  The battle had resumed in Courtroom 401. “That’s the case for the Crown,” said Sheff proudly, knowing he’d it nailed down and Wittenberg had nothing. Not one witness, not one expert, not one exculpatory document in her barrister’s case. The deadly evidence was safely secured in a drawer in his desk in his locked office. Leon Lestage, sitting darkly in th
e witness box knew it, too, and was devising intricate Rube Goldberg contraptions that would visit a slow and painful death on everyone at Blankstein deFijter, starting with the trough-swilling swine that sat in the upper corner offices.

  “Very well, then, let’s hear from the defense. Ms. Wittenberg, how are we doing today?”

  “Swell, my lord, just totally swell,” she said, softly, still reeling in shock from the Law Society letter.

  “I like the sound of that,” chuckled Judge Mordecai. “Call your first witness.”

  “Umm, I don’t have a witness.” She heard Penn-Garrett groan from the back of the courtroom. No counsel ever responds to such a question in that manner. An experienced defense counsel would shrug her shoulders and say, “That’s it? That’s the best the Crown can do? There is absolutely no case of substance to be met here. The Crown has wasted the jury’s time for six weeks and that’s all they have? I don’t need to call any evidence to counter that steaming pile of slop that somehow the Crown managed to shovel in the door.”

  But not Dana. A small, pathetic, “I don’t have a witness,” was all she could muster. She had absolutely no intention of putting her client, a murderous drug dealer, on the stand. Lee Penn-Garrett would have rolled his wheelchair down to counsel table if the sheriffs would have let him.

  “No witnesses, Ms. Wittenberg? That’s a bit unusual in a case like this. Let’s just go to closing submissions to the jury. Ms. Wittenberg, you go first.”

  “The prosecution should go first, m’lord.”

  “Wittenberg, read the damn Criminal Code. You called no evidence. You go first. The lectern is there. Get at it.”

  “Yes, my lord,” said Dana, red faced as McGhee and Danson giggled their way through another session of her tormenting.

  Dana was thoroughly beat up. Embarrassed, outflanked, and outmaneuvered at every turn. She began her jury address, which she had not fully prepared because she mistakenly assumed the Crown would go first, but no one had told her about the switch around if no evidence was called. She had no notes. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this case . . .”