Arctic Wargame - Страница 15

“I don’t carry a gun,” she mumbled.

“It would have done you no good.” Alisha smirked as she gathered their weapons. “But you have a satellite phone and a PLB. Drop everything on the ground. Everybody, do it! All electronics and anything else in your pockets. Empty them out! Come on!”

They placed all their satellite phones, personal locator beacons, pocketknives, chap sticks, keys, and spare change on the log pads.

“Your watches too.” Alisha pointed at Justin’s wrist. “It’s not like you’ll need that funny compass, but let’s take no chances. Do it, or I’ll blow your head off.”

“What do you have in mind?” Justin asked.

“Can you fly the chopper?” Alisha asked Kiawak, gesturing toward the aircraft.

Kiawak nodded.

“Good, collect all that junk.” She pointed at the team’s belongings. “Stuff it in Justin’s backpack and walk in front of me. Very slowly! To the rest of you, all I have to say is… stay warm.”

Alisha began her retreat, carefully examining Kiawak’s every move.

“You can’t take off and abandon us,” Anna shouted. “We’re gonna freeze to death.”

“Yeah, you’re right. That’s the idea,” Alisha replied with another smirk, “but that’s part of the plan. I would say it’s about minus four now, which isn’t that bad. I’ll give you a couple of hours, but I would be surprised if you haven’t turned into ice cubes by nightfall.”

“Next time we meet, I’ll tear your heart to pieces.” Carrie jabbed the air with her arms and made violent gestures of ripping apart an object with her clenched fists.

“Maybe you’ll meet me in hell,” Alisha scoffed, “where you’ll be dropping by tonight. Dressed in a cold, white gown, as if you were a pretty little bride.”

Chapter Eight

Viborg, Denmark

April 12, 5:45 p.m.

“Has the jury reached a verdict?”

“Yes, Presiding Judge, we have reached a verdict.”

High Court Judge Laurits Handel heaved a sigh of relief at the jury forewoman’s reply. He nodded and removed his black-rimmed glasses without attempting to hide his smile. The appeal proceedings had consumed several weeks of time on an already overloaded court docket, and the judge was looking forward to the end of another intricate legal battle. The other two High Court Judges, sitting to Handel’s left and right, impatiently swiveled in their chairs.

“What is the verdict?” the judge asked the forewoman. She stood behind the wooden rail separating the jury from the rest of the courtroom.

“On the two counts of assisting in a conspiracy to commit terrorist acts,” the forewoman replied in a stern voice, her eyes fixed on the defendant’s unshaven face, “by a majority of nine to three, we, the jury, declare the defendant, Mr. Sargon Beyda, guilty as charged.”

Pandemonium exploded in the courtroom as soon as she finished pronouncing the word ‘guilty.’ Relatives of the defendant broke into angry barks, screams, whistles, and the occasional expletive. Joyful cries from police officers and numerous spectators, accompanied by a loud wave of applause, attempted to outdo the competition. The defendant, still in handcuffs, dropped his head in despair, despite his defense counselor’s words of encouragement. In the second row, behind the counselor’s seat, Lilith, the defendant’s wife, began to weep quietly. Media photographers scrambled for the best shots of the defendant, adding to the overwhelming chaos.

“Order! Order!” The judge, already on his feet, shouted at the disorderly crowd. The other members of the court followed suit, but their voices were too frail. Three deputies, in charge of maintaining order and peace in the courtroom, stepped forward, their refrigerator-sized bodies barricading the enraged mob away from the judges.

“Clear the room,” the judge instructed the deputies in a chirping voice. He made a quick exit through the doors behind the bench connecting to his private chambers. The other two judges used the same escape route. Two police officers, who escorted the defendant to and from the courthouse, snapped out of their standing guard positions and approached Sargon.

“Time to go, man,” one of them said. The other lifted Sargon from his chair by his right arm.

“The court is adjourned,” one of the gray-haired deputies boomed in a well-practiced, solemn tone, as if he closed with these exact words all trial hearings each time the court was in session. The other two deputies ushered the twelve members of the jury away from the emotional tide rising across the courtroom and toward the door to judge’s chambers. Then the deputies proceeded to shove people out, starting with the journalists, who were tossing out questions at the runaway jury. In less than two minutes, the large Courtroom E of the High Court of Western Denmark was completely empty.

* * *

The two police officers pushed Sargon down the narrow hall leading to the west wing of the court, which housed administrative offices, press conference rooms, and a small cafeteria. A third one followed two steps behind them. Experience had taught the escort team they were most vulnerable during the loading and unloading of detainees. The courtroom disturbance had triggered the team’s defensive instincts. Worried that Sargon’s friends may have planned an escape, their eyes double-checked every door and questioned the faces of every person they passed in the hall.

“Look, mommy, the police… and a bad guy,” a young boy blurted, pulling on his mother’s arm. She stopped stabbing at her BlackBerry for half a second and whipped an angry stare at the boy before returning to her e-mail. One of the officers frowned at her indifference, but smiled at the little boy, who smiled back.

The escort team hurried down the last set of stairs, which opened into a small vestibule, and proceeded to the right exit taking them to the back of the building. Another police officer awaited their arrival in a Toyota Previa van parked less than six feet from the door. Two officers nudged Sargon into the middle of the backseats and sat on either side of him.

“We’re good to go,” the team leader said. He sat in the front passenger’s seat, removed his cap, and placed it over the dashboard.

The driver nodded and glanced at the two officers in the rear-view mirror, as he put the Toyota in reverse. “How are you boys back there?” he asked over a microphone attached to the side of the dashboard. The bulletproof glass separating the front seats from those in the back was also soundproof.

“We’re ready,” one of them replied on a similar microphone embedded on the side door, as he fastened his seatbelt. The other officer nodded and rearranged his baton hanging on the left side of his waist. He inspected his HK pistol resting on his holster under his right arm.

The driver looked over at the team leader and asked, “Guilty?”

“Like Cain after slaughtering Abel,” he replied. “His relatives raised some objections, and the judge kicked everyone out of the courtroom.”

“I see.” The driver turned left onto Gråbrødre Kirke Stræde, the road in front of the High Court building. “So, it’s back to Horsens Pen?”

“Yes. For now. I’m sure they’ll transfer him to Københavns Fængsler,” the team leader said.

* * *

Sargon let out a whining yelp, like a puppy spooked while soaking sunrays on his front porch. He had picked up some Danish in jail and he knew the meaning of those words. Fængsler meant “jail” and københavns was “Copenhagen.” It was the toughest prison in Denmark, beyond full capacity, ruled by thugs and flooded with drugs. Forget about the concepts of openness, normalization, and rehabilitation, held high and sought after at the detention center in Horsens. The center had a library, recreational facilities, water ponds, and separate units for conjugal visits. Any intimacy inmates could expect at the Copenhagen Prison would follow dropping the soap accidentally while sharing the showers.

Sargon groaned as the terror of spending twenty plus years in the Copenhagen rat hole began to boil in his mind. Will it be twenty? Twenty-five years? He remembered discussing the possible sentence with his defense counselor, but their legal strategy never envisioned a guilty verdict. After all, the public prosecutors could prove only that Sargon had been sending money to his brother, a fact established through witnesses during the trial. But the allegation of “conspiracy to commit terrorist acts” was a long shot, even though Sargon knew the money was for the financing of terrorist camps. Still, the jury had rendered a clear-cut verdict: he had supported terrorism. The court was pretty much at liberty to impose any jail term, even life imprisonment.

I’ll never be able to see my children grow up. How will Lilith do it on her own? Sargon dropped his head between his handcuffed hands to hide his face.

* * *

“What does your wife think, Inspector?” the driver asked his team leader. They had just turned the corner to the Lille Sankt Mikkels Gade, the road taking them to Horsens, a city sixty miles south of Viborg. Lake Søndersø appeared on their left, between green trees and shrubs hedging around two-story, red-roofed houses.

“Huh, what?” the team leader replied. He was still watching the occasional vehicle appearing in the sparse traffic behind their van.

“The transfer. What does she think of your transfer?”

“Oh.” The team leader glanced at the driver for a second before returning his gaze to the side mirror. “She doesn’t like it. Her family lives in Århus, and she wants to stay close to them.”