“Yes, my lord. He has personal knowledge.”
“Well, then, do I have jurisdiction over a man with a diplomatic passport?”
“Ordinarily, you might not. But he has walked into this courtroom, and by doing so, he has attorned to the jurisdiction of this court. He’s here, I can ask him to give evidence.”
“Like hell I’m going to testify in this joint,” said Dan. “This place is a joke. I’m leaving. We’ll just wait until Turbee here is done. He can’t be on the stand forever. My plane is waiting for you, Turbee.”
“M’lord, now I have a concern that Mr. Alexander is going to leave the jurisdiction. He says he has his own plane. He says he’s leaving. He just threatened a witness who is actually on the stand. In your presence. Mr. Daniel Alexander is a witness, an important witness, actually, who is flipping you the bird.”
“Anything to say about that, Mr. McSheffrey?” The judge turned his eyes on the lead prosecutor.
“Are you out of,” raged Dan, “out of your fucking mind, Judge? You are going to place the director of an American intelligence agency in a foreign jail cell while there are terrorist attacks being plotted around the globe?”
“First of all, you told me you were Mr. Daniel Alexander the Third. Therefore, logically, you are not Mr. McSheffrey. Now you’ll have your chance. Just shut up until I give you permission to speak. The next outburst and I will either gag you or fine you, or both, and I don’t care if you’re Jesus Christ or Mohammed. In this courtroom, the common law, the law of criminal evidence and procedure, applies. That, and of course, my rulings.”
McSheffrey nodded. “I’m not sure what Mr. Alexander can say that’s not hearsay, but if my learned friend says he has some evidence, I won’t stand in the way. And Ms. Wittenberg is right about the jurisdiction point. Anyone in this room is subject to the court’s jurisdiction.”
“Mr. Alexander, your turn.” A smile was sneaking out.
“Here is my diplomatic passport.” Dan waved it in the air. “You have no right to judge me or to hold me, and I’m leaving. If this is the Canadian justice system, it’s completely nuts.”
“Nuts, huh? Maybe. The Court of Appeal, definitely. Sheriffs, put this man in cells. Ms. Wittenberg wants to question him, he has relevant evidence to give, and he has openly flaunted my rulings. He will try to leave here. He has his own plane. Toss him in jail until Ms. Wittenberg is ready to call him. Oh, and by the way, take away his diplomatic passport. Hand it to the clerk. We will mark that as Exhibit 72. Then we’ll adjourn for the day. Compose ourselves some.”
Six sheriffs surrounded Dan. The two Marines looked like they might get into it, but they saw the number of sheriffs and RCMP officers in the room, and they demurred. The director of TTIC was taken out the side door by the officers, yelling threats as he went. “I will bomb this fucking courthouse to the ground,” he yelled. “I will flatten Vancouver. Does anyone know what a GBU-57 is? I will drop a dozen of them on this place. Does anyone know what a fucking MOAB is? I’ll drop a hundred of them on this place. I will . . .” The door closed, and they could still hear Dan raving as he was taken through a warren of halls and stairs to the holding cells. The tantrum went viral on the internet. Google reported millions of searches for “GBU-57” and “MOAB.”
There was total silence in the courtroom. Total silence until deep-throated laughter came out of the prisoner’s dock. It was Leon, laughing almost uncontrollably. “What a show,” he said. “What a carnival.” He was choking with laughter. Even some members of the jury were laughing a bit.
As the court began to thin out, Khasha approached the well. “Where did Turbee go?” she asked.
Everyone looked over and Turbee was not in the witness box, at least until one of the sheriffs walked over. “Poor guy is curled up in fetal position on the floor of the stand. He doesn’t want to get up.”
47
Ten minutes later, Judge Mordecai was in the chief justice’s office. “Did I go too far, Allan?” he asked, somewhat sheepishly.
“Nah, Shawn. You did the right thing. You have to control your
courtroom, and if someone is sitting there who can give evidence, and tells you that he’s leaving, and insults you, and then intimidates a witness, you had no choice. I would have done the same.”
“Good.”
“You maybe should tone down the language some, but those rulings, with the cell phone and this Daniel Alexander character, were completely correct. Hilarious, but correct. The late-night talk show crowd will go completely mental. I probably would not have made those rulings, but you did, and they are supportable in law. You can exhibit someone’s cell phone. You can order anyone in your courtroom to testify.”
“I thought so. Good.”
“Not all is good,” said the chief justice. “I have already received a call from the minister of justice. Apparently the president called our prime minister, who talked to the justice minister, who said we need to let Mr. Alexander and Mr. Turbee go.”
“He can’t do that. We are constitutionally independent,” replied Judge Mordecai.
“Yes, we are. I told the minister of justice that if he phones my office once more, I’m going to the press.”
“You, the chief justice, going to the press?”
“Damn right. You are running a complex trial, which has landed square into the realm of international conspiracy theories. You’ve gone completely viral on the internet. I think billions of people are going to see that clip where the sheriffs dragged Mr. Alexander away. But we are completely independent of the politicians. We are not going to bend with whatever political wind blows our way. We will
