It was well past 3:00 a.m. before all of the preparations were complete. The plan was foolproof. Tyra took a fast-acting, short-lasting sleeping pill that gave her four hours of sleep before the mission became operational.
54
At nine o’clock, three judges filed into the Court of Appeal. McPhail, et al., stood up at the appellant’s side of the counsel table. Lee Penn-Garrett gave the judges a nod from the respondent’s side. Curiously, the appellant’s side was stacked high with casebooks, written arguments, case notes, factums, briefs and summaries on multiple issues, and, of course, a small archipelago of personal computers, some linked to LexisNexis, some containing electronic versions of the masses of materials that the lead counsels, together with an army of juniors, had assembled through the night. Penn-Garrett was leaning back, stretching, precariously balancing on the rear two wheels of his wheelchair. His side of the counsel table was completely clear. Blank. Not even the omnipresent yellow legal pad. Some wags likened a table without briefs and case law to an emperor without clothes. The speculation was rampant that Penn-Garrett was no longer fully engaged, that his once brilliant legal mind had been dulled by age, and was as empty as the counsel table before him.
As the clerk sweetly chimed, “Order in the court,” McPhail, et al., stood up, Penn-Garrett didn’t, and the quorum entered. Every knowledgeable person in the courtroom groaned or shook their head as the quorum bowed to counsel and sat down. There had been a last-minute change. The central chair had been taken over once again by Madam Justice Westin, the brilliant but often eccentric and usually acerbic judge; a judge who had tossed counsel out of her courtroom for wearing brown instead of black socks, for having tabs that were too wrinkled, or for wearing gowns that were in need of dry cleaning.
She looked up at counsel and nodded in the direction of McPhail and the rest, who introduced themselves with the typical formulaic opening: “May it please the court, my name is McPhail, initial D., and with me is . . .”
When Westin looked at Penn-Garrett, she saw a mischievous twinkle in his eye. He knew her well, and loved to play her. “Good morning, my lady, my name is . . .”
That prompted a cranky reply from the bench. “How many years have you been practicing, Mr. Penn-Garrett? Do you not know the proper way to introduce yourself to the court? ‘Good morning, my lady,’ is completely inappropriate. Do you get that?”
“Not really, m’lady. I’m a good morning type of person. My parents taught me to say ‘good morning’ when I meet people for the first time in the morning. I don’t quite see the court’s problem.”
“You wouldn’t. Try to remember the correct way to do it the next time.”
“I can’t promise, m’lady. At my age, I seem to be developing some sort of memory impairment, but of course I will do my best to comply with your direction.”
With that, McPhail began. Madam Justice Westin gave him about fifteen minutes to gain a good head of steam before she started. “Back up, Mr. McPhail. Are you really saying that a court has no jurisdiction over those who appear before it? Really?”
It went downhill from there. McPhail cited a case from the twenty-first century, and Judge Westin responded with a case from the eighteenth century. McPhail cited a case from the English House of Lords and Westin cited one from the US Supreme Court.
McPhail tried a different tack. “M’lady, it isn’t just anyone who has been sitting downstairs in cells for forty-eight-some hours now. It is the director of an American intelligence agency, instructed directly by the president of the US. He is traveling under a diplomatic passport as a government emissary. He can’t be forced to testify. It is completely improper to—”
Westin interrupted him. “What are you suggesting, Mr. McPhail? Are you saying to this court that the rank of someone before it should matter? That, somehow, someone of importance, or self-perceived importance, even someone in the president’s executive circle, has more rights, or different rights, than a person in the streets? Is that where you are going? Do we need to talk about constitutional law here? Should we start with the Magna Carta? That was 800 years ago.”
“Yes m’lady, I remember when they passed it,” came the crack from Penn-Garrett. Westin gave him a black look before turning back to McPhail.
McPhail began to stutter, something that he had not done since high school. “Of course we are all equal before the law m’lady. I am not suggesting otherwise. But the circumstances here are of such a nature that a modicum of common sense is required.”
“What are you suggesting now, Mr. McPhail? That Mr. Alexander is in some way more equal than anyone else, or perhaps that this court is bereft of common sense? Where are you going with this?”
She pounded on him for the better part of an hour before he sat down, pink with rage that this judge could so embarrass him before an international television audience.
At that point she looked at Penn-Garrett, who was still smiling and cantilevering on the back two wheels of his wheelchair.
“We do not need to hear from you, Mr. Penn-Garrett.”
“Thank you,” he said. “The three of you have a nice day now . . .”
“Mr. Penn-Garrett, you are completely out of line.”
“I don’t really think so. Try and relax a bit,” he replied. He wanted to call her by her first name, Anie, as the two of them went back almost fifty years, but he thought the better of it. This was, after all, spectacularly good news. He pulled out his phone and texted Dana before the judges had left the courtroom. Daniel Alexander would stay in lockup until Dana either called him as a witness or released him from the obligation of testifying. The director of TTIC was now in the slammer at
