The Way Back

Chapter 3-2

“What do you mean by that?” She looked quite pleased. Javi looked at the jury. They were going to find him guilty. He had no illusions about that. The footage was damning. Mrs Z had helped, but not enough. So he might as well tell the truth.

“I thought everyone would assume I’m already a criminal because I’m from Sabelville.”

This induced a stir in court, a couple of, “Hell, yeah,” shouts from his supporters. Chand grimaced. Suck it up, West Quarter boy.

“Are you claiming this hearing is unfair? You have a lawyer. You’ve been allowed to make your case, as anyone else would be. Are you claiming that Ixellans can’t get a fair trial?”

Javi looked her right in the eye.

“How many Ixellans are there on the jury?”

The judge had to bang his gavel to silence the chant of, “Nnone none none,” that Javi’s supporters immediately took up. And now several of the jury members were scowling.

Well damn.

* * * *

“Razz, sit down, we could be here for hours,” Stanten said. Razz snorted. Maybe if Stanten took a sledgehammer to both his legs he might sit down, but until then, he paced, up and down, up and down, in the quiet bit of corridor Chand had found for them to wait.

He stopped when Stanten stuck a boot out in front of him. Anyone else would probably have tripped, but Razz still had his reflexes. They exchanged a look and she didn’t speak this time, but he got the message that she’d had enough of it for now. So he stopped pacing and dropped into the chair beside her.

“I’m going to get some coffee,” Chand said, rising. “Can I bring some for anyone else?” Mrs Zhintaq went with him. Stanten watched them go, then turned back to Razz.

“Hope for the best, prepare for the worst,” she said. “Premeditatio malorum.”

He snorted. “Any more pearls of wisdom from the fortune cookie collection?”

She grinned. “None come to mind. It’s not worth worrying about the worst until it happens. Then we’ll deal with it.”

“Deal with it how?” he asked.

“An appeal, if there are grounds.”

“And if there aren’t?”

“I suspect a lawyer who can’t find some grounds for an appeal should give up criminal law entirely. And I bet Chand is especially good at it. He’s a campaigner.”

“And that might have worked against Javi in this case. Do you think the jury liked being told they’re a bunch of bigots who only want to convict Javi because he’s an Ixellan?”

She grimaced. “Might not have been the tactic I’d have chosen.”

Razz sat glowering for a while. Stanten left him alone in his silence, until he spoke again. Voice quiet, his simmering anger giving way to the fear underlying it. “I think he’s going to be convicted.”

Stanten sighed. “I think so too. The only question is first or second degree?”

He sat forward, elbows on knees, running his hands through his hair. It had grown longer than he usually kept it while they waited here on Patran for the trial. “What do we do if he is?”

“What can we do? We came here to get him a lawyer and to observe, give any assistance we can. We’ve done that. We’ll send a report back to Arien and return the balance of the bribe money. Then—”

“If he gets a second-degree verdict it would probably be a ten standard year sentence. He could be out in eight, with good behaviour.”

“And you’re thinking you’ll wait for him,” Stanten said.

“Maybe. Eight years can go by in a blink, can’t it?”

“Has he asked you to wait for him?”

“No. He’s hinted at the opposite during our visits, in fact. But I feel like, if I don’t, he’s totally abandoned here.”

“Not so. He has friends,” Stanten pointed out. “The protesters are still out there.”

“Are they friends? Or will they move onto the next cause when this is over?”

“Anya and Stefan seem to be genuine friends. Mrs Zhintaq won’t forget about him.”

It was true. As much as Anya and Stefan seemed to be impatient with him, they had also visited him several times. They’d all been kids together, at Mrs Zhintaq’s school, and appeared to genuinely care about him, not about the cause he represented. So he’d have friends here, if Razz left.

“The jury is coming back.”

Stanten and Razz looked up to see Mrs Zhintaq there. No Chand. He must have already gone into the courtroom.

“Already?” Stanten said.

Already? Hadn’t it been like a week? No. Razz checked his watch. Two and three-quarter hours. Was it bad they were coming back quick? Was it good? Razz stood and Stanten followed.

“We’ll talk afterwards, Razz,” she said. “We’ll decide what comes next, once we know what the situation is.”

“Yes, Captain.” It reassured him to call her that. To feel like she would come up with a solution, his job only to implement it, as he’d done in the old days, when she was the officer and he her sergeant, her instrument and strong right hand. But what solution could she offer?

The public gallery was crowded, jostling the three of them. Razz tried to keep space for Mrs Zhintaq, preventing her from being knocked off her feet by the crowd. She was a short woman, easily overlooked if scuffles broke out. If that happened Razz would lift her over the waist high barrier between the public gallery and the courtroom, hand her to a bailiff to get her out safe.

He was trying to distract himself, he realised, making those plans to keep his mind off worrying about the verdict and his impatience about how long it all took to happen, with much milling about. Javi had been brought back into the courtroom, sitting there in his nice suit, pale and tense, staring ahead and saying nothing as Chand talked at him.

The court began to settle as the judge returned. He resumed the session and asked the jury if they had reached a verdict. They had and passed him up a piece of paper. Razz’s last hope that they were hopelessly deadlocked and a mistrial would be declared quickly faded. No jury became hopelessly deadlocked in under three hours.

Javi and the two lawyers rose. The room fell near silent, nothing but the rustle of clothing, a cough here and there. The judge read the paper and folded it again, addressing Javi.

“Javid Barasa. On the charge of murder in the first degree you have been found guilty…” He said more, but it was lost in a roar from the public gallery, split between people supporting Javi and those happy to see him convicted, who shouted their approval.

The judge yelled for silence, and got it eventually. Javi was still pale, but had not broken down, still stood straight, not weeping or protesting. Taking him as an example, Razz straightened up, kept his control.

“I can pass only one sentence in light of this verdict,” the judge said. “Javid Barasa, you are sentenced to life imprisonment, to serve a minimum of twenty years.”

The roar again. And Javi almost broke this time, Razz saw. A shudder went through him and he hunched over as if he’d been punched in the gut. But none of the shouting or protesting came from him. Some of it came from Razz. He shouted inarticulate protests, until Stanten squeezed his arm.

The roar of protest turned into something else. Singing. Javi’s supporters were singing, something in the Sabellan language, something that sounded pretty stirring, ignoring the demands for silence. A sob at his side brought his attention to Mrs Zhintaq.

“I taught them that,” she said, gulping, speaking through tears for Javi, and all her students maybe. “It’s the anthem of the Legion of Ixellan. I taught it to them, so they’d always remember where they came from.”

The judge shut that down quickly. He ordered Javi be taken down and the court be cleared. By the time Stanten and Razz got outside, almost last, protecting Mrs Zhintaq from the rush, Chand had emerged and was talking to Anya and Stefan and a small group of Ixellans.

“I was saying, I’ll start drafting an appeal immediately,” Chand said as Stanten’s group approached. “This is far from over.”

“Can we see him?” Stanten asked.

“Not right now,” Chand said. “He’ll be taken back to the city jail and transferred from there to a high security prison, probably in a couple of days. There’s a lot of paperwork to do first and they usually do a medical examination in the city first before transfer. I’ll try to get you in to see him before he’s transferred. I have to go.”

He scurried off. Razz scowled after him. “f**k appeals,” he said. “I’m done observing.” He dropped his voice. “We should bust him out.”

“f*****g A,” Anya said. Then grimaced. “Sorry, Mrs Z. But I agree. We’ll help. I can get you people.”

“Yeah,” Stefan agreed. “Best to do it now, before they transfer him.” A murmur of agreement from the small group of people. Many nods.

“Calm the f**k down, all of you,” Stanten said, with no apology to Mrs Zhintaq for the swearing. “Nobody rush into doing anything stupid. Anya, are you going to help Mrs Zhintaq get home?” Anya looked a bit sulky about it, but nodded.

“Yes, we’ll take her back with us.”

“Then I suggest you get moving. It’s been a long day.” There was no reason they should obey her, but she put the old officer’s snap into her voice to turn the suggestion into an order. It worked and they went off with the teacher, though there with plenty of muttering still going on.

“We f*****g should though,” Razz said. “And the kid is right, doing it before he’s transferred, or during the transfer would be the best time. Grab him while they’re moving him, like we did on Veston, remember, with General Hella.”

“Do I need to remind you that we had a squad of thirty people for that op?”

“Those Ixellan kids would help.”

“A squad of thirty trained people.”

“We can’t just do nothing!”

“Right now that’s exactly what we’re doing.”