“Very well.” Judge Nicols pointed the bailiff toward the slip of paper offered by the jury foreman. She accepted it, unfolded the sheet, read it carefully, shook her head once, handed it back. “The foreman may read the verdict.”
The rawboned man held the sheet awkwardly and said, “We find for the plaintiff on all counts.”
The court breathed a single sigh, one cut off by the sound of a man’s broken sob. The foreman stopped and looked down to where Austin was held by his wife. The foreman’s face was clenched up tight as a fist.
Judge Nicols finally said, “Proceed to damages, if you please, sir.”
“Yes ma’am.” He glanced down at the paper, but did not seem to recognize his own writing. So he looked up and said, “We could never punish them like we’d want, so we decided the two of them ought both to make an atoning tithe.”
She shook her head. “Just the damages, please.”
“Yes ma’am.” He rattled the sheet, cleared his throat, and said, “In the matter of actual damages, we find for the plaintiff in the sum of one hundred thousand dollars, such amount to be shared equally by the defendants.”
Austin drew himself up with a shaky breath, wiped his face with an impatient hand. Not wanting to miss any of it, not an instant.
“As to punitive damages,” the foreman glanced over at the defense, a spark rising from somewhere down deep, touching the edges of his voice and his features. “We find for the plaintiff and against New Horizons in the sum of one hundred and eighty million dollars.”
The courtroom’s collective gasp took wings and started to fly, but was hammered down to earth by Judge Nicols. The only sound at the defense table came from Suzie Rikkers, who wheezed a cry as hoarse as a wounded gull.
The foreman’s gaze lingered on the general until Judge Nicols said, “Proceed.”
“We find against the general and the Chinese government, and hold them to punitive damages of eight billion dollars.”
In the stunned silence that followed, two sounds etched themselves deep in Marcus’ memory. One was the whoosh of escaped breath as Logan took the news like a fist driven into his sternum.
The other sound was of Suzie Rikkers coming completely and utterly undone. “No!” The shriek hurled her from her seat. She tried to ram her way to the left, but James Southerland sat sprawled as if he had taken three bullets to the gut. She shrilled, “You can’t do this!”
Frantically she clawed her way past Logan, desperate to escape. When he did not move fast enough, Suzie Rikkers hiked up her skirt and began crawling over the railing. “This is my case!”
Judge Nicols clapped one hand over her mouth and leaned back in her chair as Suzie Rikkers fell into the aisle. She came up with clothes and hair awry, her fists swinging at empty air. “I won this case! It’s mine!”
Judge Nicols lowered her hand and revealed her smirk long enough to say simply, “Bailiff, remove this woman.”
Suzie Rikkers seemed utterly unaware of the hands that gripped her or the rising tumult that marked her passage. Marcus waited until she had been dragged screaming from the room to turn back to the defense table. Logan Kendall had not moved.
Judge Nicols stood and pointed to the first row of viewers. Marcus turned only because her outstretched arm demanded it. Three gray-suited men rose to their feet and moved to the bar, the wooden gate behind which the public was required to remain. Through the buzzing confusion in his mind Marcus thought that two of the men seemed vaguely familiar.
Judge Nicols did not keep him in suspense. “Two of these men are FBI agents, the other is the district attorney. While the jury was out I met with the DA and the agents, and I have agreed that they should proceed with criminal charges against James Southerland and General Zhao Ren-Fan. A warrant has also been issued for the arrest of Randall Walker. Later this day further warrants will be issued for the entire New Horizons board of directors. They are to be arrested, formally charged, and criminally prosecuted for the kidnapping of Gloria Hall.”
The New Horizons chairman remained slumped motionless in his chair. The general tried to make a break for it, leaping over the defense table. The agents and the bailiff moved together and wrestled him to the floor. As they handcuffed him, the general was shouting that they could not do this, and ordering the defense attorney to get him out.
But Logan was still recovering from his body slam, and could only stutter, “General Zhao is covered by diplomatic immunity.”
Judge Nicols refused even to look his way. Instead, she remained raptly intent upon watching the general be hauled away. “He is nonetheless charged. These gentlemen will be granted a formal hearing in three days, at which time diplomatic immunity may be invoked for the general.” She watched as the agents lifted James Southerland to his feet and cuffed him. She offered the New Horizons CEO the same grim smile she had granted the general, and said, “Until that time, the gentlemen are invited to be guests of our fair state.”
FORTY-NINE
Marcus stepped onto the brick portico and rang the doorbell. The night was crisp enough to hold a winter’s silence, so quiet he could hear the measured tread of someone walking to the door. Gladys Nicols looked through the narrow side window and showed no surprise at his presence. Instead she opened the door and said merely, “You had me worried for a time there, Marcus.”
“Me too. May I come in?”
“Of course.” She opened the door and said, “Can I get you something, a coffee?”
“No thanks.” He stopped at the sight of two teenagers standing midway down the front hall, a young man of perhaps sixteen and a girl a year or so older.
The young man said, “You did great in there, Mr. Glenwood.”
“Yeah,” the girl added. “Momma won’t let us say anything about a trial, but we were rooting for you all along.”
“Thank you.”
“Come on in here, Marcus.” Gladys Nicols led him into her study and slid the doors shut behind them. “Have a seat there by the fire.”
She waited until they had both settled and taken a long look at the fire before asking, “Did you catch the evening news?”
“I missed it on purpose.”
“You looked just fine.” She gave him the tiniest of smiles. “And my, but you sounded eloquent.”
Marcus did not know what to say to that, so he made do with a careful inspection of the flames.
“The press is calling it the ‘shoestring defense.’ I like that. It holds a certain ring.” When he did not respond, she went on, “The Chinese government has recalled its ambassador and declared the verdict to be an act of war. I have declined three invitations so far to travel up to Washington, each one coming from a higher authority. They can’t threaten a federal judge for doing her job, but they most certainly can try.”
“I’m sorry to have caused you all this trouble.”
“Do I look bothered to you?” She snagged a footstool with the toe of her shoe and drew it toward her. Once she had stretched out her legs and settled more deeply into the chair opposite him, she continued, “Let’s see, what else did the newscasters say? Three of New Horizons’ top sports stars have already declared they are breaking their endorsement contracts. Randall Walker was caught trying to board a plane to London using a false passport. And the State Department is lodging an official complaint against the ruling.”
Marcus rubbed his temples against the thought of the battles yet to come. “I’ll worry about all that tomorrow.”
She shifted in her chair, as though trying for a clearer angle on the issue. “I have been left with the distinct impression that Miss Gloria Hall had this planned from the beginning.”
Marcus said to the flames, “If you only knew.”