David Kessler - No Way Out

Alex remained standing.

“Your Honor at this stage I would like to renew my request for bail in accordance with my written submissions.”

Sarah Jensen — who had hung on to the case for the time being — rose to reply. But the judge stayed her with a raised hand.

“I’ve considered your submissions carefully Mr. Sedaka, but I see no reason to re-open the original decision to deny bail. This is truly an exceptional case in every sense of the word, but I am bound to consider the defendant’s past as an escapee and for this reason I cannot grant bail.”

Alex gritted his teeth. It was particularly hard on Claymore, because he was still being held at the Pre-Trial Detention Facility in Ventura to the Santa Rita Jail in Alameda County. To get to this hearing, he had been driven for six hours — across 375 miles from Ventura — to get here for this ten minute hearing.”

“In that case, Your Honor, I move that the defendant be transferred to the Santa Ritter jail.

The Santa Ritter Jail, in Alameda County had been modernized in 1989 and was now classified as a modern “mega-jail” complete with solar panels for power and a system of robotic carts to move food, laundry and garbage. However, despite this, it was heavily over-crowded and quite a violent place. There had been a number of “shank” stabbings there — several of them fatal. But Claymore was equally vulnerable in Ventura and at least in Santa Ritter he would be close to the trial venue… and close to Alex’s office.

“So ordered. Now, regarding the trial date. Does your client waive the right to a speedy trial?”

“No Your Honor.”

The judge peered down at the papers in front of him. If he had granted bail, Claymore would probably have been more amenable to waive his Sixth Amendment rights. But it was understandable, given that Claymore was to be held in custody, that his lawyer wanted the trial to take place as quickly as possible.

“I see that the Information was filed in Ventura County on the 26th of June. That means the trial must commence by the 25th of August. I also see that there’s a vacant slot on Justice Ellen Wagner’s docket in Court 7 between the August 17th and September 4th. Does that allow enough time for the trial?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” said Alex, nodding.

“Yes, Your Honor,” Sarah Jensen confirmed.

“So I’ll assign the case to that slot. Voir dire to commence on the 17th of August.”

Later that day, Elias Claymore was looking around uneasily as he was escorted out of the central block where he had been processed to his assigned block. He had survived at the Ventura pre-trial facility, but this was a new and unfamiliar environment and he would have to go through the process of adapting and acclimatizing all over again.

As he shuffled along, he was torn between whether to keep his head low and avoid antagonizing anyone, or to hold his head up to show that he wasn’t a natural victim.

He opted for the latter and was surprised to hear some of his fellow inmates actually cheering him. That was an encouraging sign. But it didn’t alter the fact that prison was prison. He was familiar with it, but that didn’t make it any more pleasant. He had never allowed himself to become institutionalized either before his escape or when he came back to serve out his sentence afterwards.

Since then, his financial success had accustomed in the lap of luxury. But the last month had re-acquainted him with prison and all its horrors. And in many ways this time it was worse. Last time around he had been a hero — at least in the eyes of his brothers. He was the freedom fighter who had stood up to the enemy. But this time he could feel the hostility all around him, and he could count on no one.

So when he walked now, it was with a sense of alertness and caution.

He was not looking forward to the trial. Alex was a good lawyer, but the evidence was stacked up against him. Worse still he feared that Alex didn’t believe him. And it was hard to take his mind off the case. If he didn’t think about the future, then all he had left to dwell on was the past. And that was even more painful. For it was not just his childhood that he had to contend with, but also his young adulthood — when he had turned from victim into victimizer.

He remembered the time he had followed a white woman home at the start of his campaign of vengeance and then forced his way into her house, smashing open the French windows from the garden to get at her. She had screamed as he approached her but he clamped his hand over her mouth to silence her. He then threw her onto the sofa and ripped her clothes off her. And as she begged and pleaded, he raped her.

But he didn’t hear her cries. He heard only those of his mother — those of his memory. But even those cries were drowned out by something else. In his mind he heard the smug voices of the callers to the talk radio station, who phoned in when they were discussing the rape of his mother. They came on the air one after another to say that the “black woman” was “lying” and that she was “probably just a hooker who didn’t get paid.” He was seeing the skeptical looks on the faces of the people on the TV show as some long-winded liberal lawyer tried to defend his mother’s reputation — not attacking the white “pigs” who raped her, just defending her reputation, but failing. And he remembered that the slanderous comments about his mother came from white women as well as men, speaking in their smug, sanctimonious middle glass accents about they “felt sorry” for this woman, but she “only had herself to blame.”

It had been incomprehensible to him. His mother had been raped before his very eyes, but whenever people discussed the case, those who claimed to speak for his mother were on the defensive, while the viciousness of the fascist pigs was never even talked about. His mother had complained to the police. But after his uncle had been beaten up and arrested on trumped-up drugs charges, she withdrew the complaint. It never even got to court.

That was white man’s justice — and white woman’s.

So when he raped white women as a “revolutionary act,” the pangs of guilt were numbed by the pain of anger.

His thoughts were truncated by large shadow in front of him and a sharp pain in his abdomen. He looked up to see a man in front of him. But in seconds the man was gone. Then he felt something wet against his flesh and he looked down to see blood accumulating on his torso.

While Andi sat in lounge at San Francisco International Airport waiting for her flight, she decided to check her eMail on her BlackBerry. Most of the messages were routine and work-related, but one of them gave her pause even before she read it. The reason it leapt out at her was because of the sender’s name: Lannosea .

What was it this time?

Andi moved the pointer to the message and then clicked. The message read:

You are playing with fire by helping that rapist nigger and that blackmailing sleaze-ball lawyer of his. If you had any guts — which you obviously don’t — you’d have told that slimy Sherman and that hypocrite Sedaka to fuck off when they badgered you into helping him. Instead you just lay down and spread you legs — figuratively speaking. I guess that makes you a rape victim too — or maybe just a whore!

Lannosea

A mixture of fear and revulsion broke out inside Andi as she starred at the message. Who was sending these messages?

She logged onto the Internet and quickly looked up Lannosea on Wikipedia.

Nothing.

She did a general search for the name but only found three listings. Two were flagged by warnings that they were dangerous websites that might contain spyware. The third was one of those question-and-answer websites and all it said was that Lannosea was one of the daughters of the ancient English queen Boudicca or Bodecea.