“Never, but… Johansson will decide?”
“Yes,” Stig said. “You’ll meet him before we begin the operation.”
Kazimir could barely believe what he was hearing. As far as he was concerned, Bradley Johansson was some remote icon that everyone quoted and deferred to, a historical giant. He wasn’t someone you got to meet in the flesh. “Fine,” Kazimir said faintly. “Where is he?”
“At the moment? I don’t know. But we’ll meet him on Earth.”
…
While she was being built, the Second Chance was the unisphere’s primary news story. Details of her design, stories about her construction, spun briefings on the politics behind the decision to build her, gossip on who would be picked for her crew, it all pumped up the ratings for any news media show. Then came the Alamo Avengers attack, and modest interest became outright fascination. It culminated with over seventeen billion people accessing her departure for Dyson Alpha in real-time. After that, as she traversed hyperspace for month after month, there was a distinct feeling of anticlimax, and even a little frustration. Commonwealth citizens simply weren’t used to anything that important being off-line; worse, it would be a year until they did hear what happened. Until then, everybody would just have to fall back on the old familiars of TSI soaps and dramas, squabbling politicians, badly behaved celebrities, and the Commonwealth Cup now moving into the quarter finals.
Then news of Morton’s arrest was released, along with the names of the arresting officers, and every train to Oaktier was suddenly full of reporters hungry for more information. The case was a studio editor’s dream: a Paula Myo investigation of an ice murder, a wealthy suspect with big political and business connections, a strong hint of financial scandal. And sex. What had once been idle Oaktier gossip about Morton seducing the beautiful young Mellanie and ruining her chances on the national diving team was pushed high up the coverage agenda, featuring heavily on every report and info-profile. His earlier conquests were soon tracked down and coaxed into telling their stories for respectable sums of money. Bribes were offered to Darklake City forensics officers to reveal exclusive insights into the evidence that the prosecution would present—which led to five subsequent contempt-of-court proceedings. Tara Jennifer Shaheef and Wyobie Cotal were forced to apply for nonharassment court injunctions against the swarms of reporters laying siege to their homes.
After a month’s buildup, expectations were running high. On the first morning of the trial, Darklake Superior Courthouse had to be cordoned off from the frenzy of media and public interest. Street barriers pushed the expectant crowd back half a city block. A long convoy of police cars and patrolbots escorted the prisoner van around to the secure reception area at the rear of the courthouse, its movements followed by cameras on a dozen helicopters. They never got a glimpse of Morton; the van vanished into a locked garage bay.
The trial venue was Court One, which the judicial authorities had hurriedly spent a large amount of their annual maintenance budget on sprucing up. With Oaktier about to spend at least a week in the focus of the entire Commonwealth, impressions were suddenly paramount. The rich golden brentwood paneling around the dock and judge’s bench was buffed. Both of the lawyers’ long heavy tables were resurfaced and waxed. The walls and ceiling were repainted, with the big justice symbol taken out for cleaning. Every polyphoto strip shone down brightly; the sound system was checked and balanced correctly.
The revamp worked; when the fifty selected pool reporters were finally allowed in on the first morning they all remarked to their audiences how solemn and dignified the chamber was. The kind of place you could put your trust in, knowing that here justice was both fair and thorough.
Presentation was also foremost in the defense strategy. The first time Morton was seen since his arrest was when he walked into the packed courtroom, dressed in a deep purple designer suit, his thick hair perfectly styled, and looking very confident—almost mystified as to why he was here. It was not the image of a guilty man awaiting the inevitable verdict that Paula Myo always got when she prosecuted. As he reached the dock he bowed politely to the curving panel of silver one-way glass that shielded the jury and protected their identities. Just before he sat down he glanced around the packed public gallery, found who he was looking for, and smiled warmly. Every reporter swiveled around, retinal inserts focusing on Mellanie, who was perched elegantly in the front row, wearing a stylish navy-blue jacket and plain white blouse. Dressed so, she managed to project herself as both the epitome of bewildered innocence, and tremendously sexy. Just an ordinary Girl-Next-Door standing by Her Man in the face of a terrible injustice.
Then Paula Myo walked in, wearing a smart gray business suit and black leather shoes. Formidably cool, she exuded her own special brand of confidence. In the studios of a hundred news shows, they once again ran the clip of an impassive sixteen-year-old Paula at her parents’ hugely emotional trial. As it showed across the Commonwealth she sat down between the city’s chief attorney, Ivor Chessel, and Hoshe Finn, whose best suit appeared ancient and derelict amid the high-fashion statements that the principals were wearing.
Judge Carmichael made his entrance, and everybody stood. Morton flashed a reassuring grin up to Mellanie, captured by fifty professional pairs of inserts.
Once the charges had been read out, the defense lawyer, Howard Madoc, immediately applied for a dismissal, citing contamination of evidence by the media. Ivor Chessel attested that the evidence itself was still sound and irrefutable, and only a small part of the prosecution case. Judge Carmichael rejected the appeal, and with the posturing over, the trial began in earnest.
Prosecution laid the case out simply. Morton was a man driven by his raging manic thirst for money and power. His marriage to Tara Jennifer Shaheef was a simple and ruthless first step to achieving that goal. Her family money was used to fund AquaState, giving that small company the financial muscle to go after and win large building development contracts. AquaState under Morton’s fiery management grew successfully until it was ready to go public.
The share flotation was all part of his original grand scheme. It made him rich and gave him the leverage he needed to gain a seat on Gansu’s board. After that, his rise was unstoppable.
But his plan had faced ruin as his then-wife Tara Jennifer Shaheef grew bored with their marriage. If she filed a divorce, AquaState would either be wound up or sold off and the proceeds split between them. Morton would still be rich, a lot richer than he was at the start of the marriage, but it wasn’t enough for his purpose. It was still too early for the flotation to take place; AquaState wasn’t quite big enough to attract investors. That required another two or three years of uninterrupted growth. “So you killed her,” Ivor Chessel said, standing in front of the dock. “You removed the one obstacle left to flotation, your own wife. And with her out of the way, supposedly living on Tampico, you were free to build up AquaState to the level you required.”
Morton gave Howard Madoc a helpless look—unable to believe anyone could make such an absurd accusation. The defense lawyer, a dignified man who kept his appearance firmly middle-aged with the first frost of silver in his hair, shook his head sadly at such blatant theatrics by the prosecution.
The first prosecution witness was the city’s head of forensics, Sharron Hoffbrand. She confirmed that the bodies dug out of the forty-year-old condo’s foundations were indeed Tara Jennifer Shaheef and Wyobie Cotal. They had both been shot at close range by a very high-powered nervejam weapon, and their memorycell inserts had been erased, probably by an em pulse. The exact time was slightly difficult to pin down after so long, but she could narrow it down to a three-day period in the middle of the week when Morton was away at the conference in Talansee.