Anna brought her hands above her head, the left one still carrying Justin’s coffee thermos.
“You’re… you’re going to kill us?” she muttered.
“What a bitch.” Carrie threw the shovel to the ground.
Alisha grinned. “I told you, all of you, to stop dicking around with this Danish story and to stop looking for clues.” Alisha brandished her gun, pointing at their heads. “Things would have been much easier if you would had listened to me and agreed the Russians were pulling the strings. But no, you didn’t want to. What did you call me, Anna? Self-righteous? Am I being difficult, Justin? We’ll see how difficult this will be for each one of you.”
“So you work for the Danes?” Anna asked. “You’re their spy?”
“The pay’s much better, and I get to kill whoever gets in my way.”
“Alisha, this won’t work,” Justin said in a shaky voice. “Whatever the Danes and you have been plotting, it will fail.”
“Think about it, Alisha,” Kiawak said, still kneeling by the pit. “This is your country, your home. This is Canada.”
“On the map, yes, this is Canada,” Alisha replied in a calm voice. “As for my home, that’ll be wherever I want it to be. Justin, you had no idea what was going on here and even now, right before you die, you still don’t have a clue. And you will all go to your graves as ignorant fools.”
“Alisha—” Justin began.
“Enough,” she yelled. “Give me your guns. Now!”
Justin removed his Browning 9mm from his holster inside his jacket. Kiawak hesitated for a brief second. Alisha took one firm step toward him, and his hesitation melted away. Carrie laid down her Browning pistol. Anna placed the coffee thermos in front of her feet.
“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
“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.