Chapter 19

Sophie was inconsolable for days after Armando's death. Her old fears and dreams came back to haunt her, and she could find no way to fight them. How could her father have loved her? He must have seen what a horrible person she was. That was why he never came back! How could a woman who had it in her to shoot her own son be worthy of anyone's love!

All these years, she told herself, I thought I had it figured out! I was just fooling myself! What kind of person could do something so vile?

Finally Ramon, unfamiliar with this side of his wife, called on Linda for help. Sophie had been discharged from the hospital, but she had refused the counseling they offered. Most of her time was spent in Armando's room, lying on his bed, or touching his things as though she could somehow bring him back by being close to them.

Linda found her there and brought with her a glass of ice water.

"Oh, Linda! What am I going to do? Armando's gone, and the old dreams are back, worse than ever! I've been such a fool, thinking I could ever follow in my father's footsteps! He wasn't preparing me for anything! He left because he saw what kind of person I really am!"

Linda nodded sympathetically, then dashed the ice water in her face.

Shocked to her core, not only at the frigid water, but at her friend's behavior, Sophie could only gasp and splutter for several long moments.

"Wha... ? Why... ? What k-kind of f-friend are you?!" she stammered when she regained some command of her vocal facilities.

"The best kind, my dear," Linda answered, unrepentant. "The kind who's not going to sit idly by and watch you talk yourself into a another years-long guilt trip! C'mon!"

Still dazed, Sophie reluctantly let her friend lead her back to the room she shared with Ramon. Her husband gaped, shocked and amused as a bedraggled Sophie was shoved into the room. He had done as Linda asked and laid out one of her best work outfits.

Linda dragged her befuddled friend into the bathroom and quickly stripped both of them, then removed her prosthetic leg.

"Okay, you're going to have to help yourself a bit here," she told Sophie, guiding her into the shower as Linda hopped along behind her.

"Why are you... ?" Sophie started to ask, only to be interrupted by another blast of cold water, this time from the shower head.

"No talking," Linda told her, "Get clean."

Responding to the authority in her friend's voice, as though she were back in training, Sophie mechanically washed off a couple of days accumulation of body odor, then obediently scrubbed her friend's back. Still unsure of what was going on, Sophie dried off, and when commanded, helped Linda get her prosthetic back on. Back in the bedroom, she again followed orders and donned the clothes that Ramon had laid out for her.

When her friend and her husband led her toward the front door, however, she balked, pulling back, anger starting to overcome her shock.

"Wait just a minute! I'm not going anywhere until you tell me where we're going!"

Linda came to her and Sophie tensed, expecting to have to resist physical force. Instead, Linda whispered in her ear, "Trust me, Soph. You don't want to miss this!"

Still confused and a little angry, Sophie relented. She had known Linda for a lot of years, and no matter how she felt at the moment, she knew that Linda always had her best interest at heart. Certainly, no one else knew her as well.

For once, she allowed them to stuff her, wincing from her not-quite-healed wound, into the back of the ridiculous Presidential limousine. She thought it was silly for the President to ride in such a fancy car, but was in no mood to argue over it today. The gated fence around the Presidential estate that her brother had built also irritated her, but she hadn't thought it worthwhile to have it torn down.

Now, as the limousine nosed through the opening, she saw at least one use for the fence and the gate. Had the mob outside been allowed onto the grounds, there would be nothing left of the grass, flowers, and shrubs. The "We love you, Sophie" signs, today, were interspersed with "We are with you in your sorrow" and "Armando will always be remembered" as well as others. Hands reached out to touch the limousine as it slid through the solemn crowd. All the way to their destination, the street was lined with supporters and well-wishers, but at their destination, the signs were different.

"Shoot the Coward!", and "Orlov hides behind Children!" and similar messages gave Sophie a clue as to where they were even before she stepped out and recognized the courthouse. Inside, uniformed L9 soldiers flanked them and led them silently to a heavy wooden door which opened noiselessly onto a courtroom in which a trial was already in session. A hush, followed by a murmur of surprise washed through the room as Sophie entered, followed by Linda and Ramon.

Orlov sat at the defendant's table, a white bandage on the side of his head. The chair beside him was empty. Its occupant was standing, addressing the jury, and had not seen who entered.

" ... let her come to this courtroom and accuse my client to his face! If Sophie Thompson-Garcia has been so wronged..." at this point, the attorney noticed the change in the courtroom and the fact that the jury was staring, not at him, but past him. He turned with his mouth still open, but when he saw the cause of the disturbance, his jaws clamped shut.

The judge's gavel banged once and she asked, "Are you finished, Mr. Wilson?"

"Uh, yes. Yes your honor."

"Does the prosecution wish to call any more witnesses before closing?"

Sophie, as if waking from a deep slumber, shook her head and stepped through the waist-high gate between the spectators and the trial's participants. "The prosecution wishes to call me, don't you Doris?"

With a broad grin on her face, the prosecutor, whom Sophie had known in school, stood and addressed the judge.

"If it please the court, the prosecution would like to call President Sophie Thompson-Garcia to the stand."

"It would seem that the prosecution isn't being given a choice in the matter," the judge responded, her voice heavy with irony as Sophie marched stiffly to the witness stand without waiting to be told. "Please raise your right hand, Madame President, and repeat after me: Upon my honor as a Phoenician, I do solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, under penalty of a public flogging if I am found to have lied to the court."

After Sophie had repeated the oath and taken her seat, the prosecuting attorney approached. "Madame President, please tell the court how you first met the defendant."

"My Search and Recovery team captured him and some of his people in Memphis after some of the group had tortured, raped and killed a couple of members of a Phoenician convoy bound for Tupelo after they ambushed the convoy."

"And you let him go free?"

"He was not among those actually involved in the attack, so by law he and the rest of the group were banished to Florida - as far from Phoenician territory as you could get at the time. He was, however, the leader of the group and likely planned the attack."

"Objection! Speculation!" Orlov's attorney shouted.

Sophie turned to the judge and said quietly, "I just took an oath to tell the whole truth. This is the truth as I see it."

"Overruled," the judge said, and banged her gavel as the defense attorney started to stand. "I said overruled, Mr. Wilson!"

As Wilson reluctantly planted his backside again, Sophie continued. "My team and I watched the camp for some time before attacking, and we overheard Mr. Orlov giving orders for an attack on our base in Arkansas. He was also the designer of the catapults and ballistas they intended to use for that attack. Based on his obvious leadership of that group, I naturally concluded that he had planned the attack on the convoy and was, at least peripherally, responsible for the rape, torture and murder of the convoy leader and one of his wounded female crew members. I don't think that train of thought could reasonably be called speculation, especially since the purpose of those activities was clearly to obtain information about our base so the group could launch their attack."

"Had you had any other contact with Orlov before he ran for President as your opponent in the last election?"

"Yes, after my L9 training and successful completion of a mission to Hawaii, I was ordered to Indiana as liaison between the regular army and the L9 units protecting an annexation candidate group from two rival groups who wanted the territory to be annexed for themselves. Orlov was leader of the Southern group."

"And what was the nature of your interaction with Mr. Orlov?"

"I had proposed a possible peaceful solution to the conflict that required the agreement of the opposing groups. I used L9 commandoes to get messages to the leaders of each of those groups. An L9 fire team infiltrated the headquarters of each group and delivered its message to set up a meeting. Each fire team was promised safe passage back to our lines. The team that visited Orlov was ambushed on the way back. Their training, however got them back with only minor injuries."

"And did the leaders of those groups attend the proposed meetings?"

"Yes. I was designated as their contact since it had been my idea. The northern leader attended and bargained in good faith. Orlov attended only after sending several of his people ahead to try to set up an ambush."

"And were you caught in that ambush?"

"No. My previous interactions with Mr. Orlov had instilled in me a deep distrust for the man so I took the precaution of sending L9 teams into the woods near the meeting site far ahead of time to forestall any possible ambush. Fortunately, they were successful. Mr. Orlov tried to use the presence of the ambushers to threaten me during our negotiations."

"Tell, me, Madame President, what was the outcome of those meetings?"

"I offered to annex both groups. The northern group leader asserted that he had to discuss it with his people. A few days later, he sent word that they agreed to our proposal. Orlov, once he realized that his ambush had been foiled, agreed to the proposal immediately."

"He didn't discuss it with his people?"

"No."

"Why do you think he agreed so readily?"

"I can only give my professional opinion, since I don't have concrete evidence to support it."

"Given the witness' successes as both a diplomat and a military leader, the prosecution would like to ask the court to consider her an expert on the subject."

"Objection!" Wilson started from his seat.

"Approach the bench! Both of you!" the judge commanded.

Sophie overheard the subdued conversation as the lawyers stood before the judge.

"What is the nature of your objection, Mr. Wilson?" the judge asked.

"The ah, the witness has not been established as an expert in this field, your honor." Wilson replied.

"You are, no doubt, aware of the witness' public record, Mr. Wilson?" At the attorney's affirmative nod, the judge continued, "In light of that record, can you think of anyone who is more expert in this area?"

"Uh, no, your honor."

"Then return to your seat. Step back, Doris." the gavel banged again and the judge addressed the courtroom. "Objection overruled! The court accepts Ms. Thompson-Garcia as an expert witness."

"Madame President, please tell the court the basis for your expertise in matters of this sort."

"As a military leader, it was my duty and my responsibility to understand the character and motivations of the leaders of my enemies, as well as those who served under me. Not to have done so would have engendered unacceptable risk for my troops. It was that understanding that led to my role as a diplomat on a number of occasions, preventing armed conflict by proposing peaceful solutions to opposition leaders."

"And in the case of Mr. Orlov's ready acceptance of your proposal for annexation, how did you interpret his actions?"

"I suspected subterfuge, but did not have enough information to draw further conclusions. His ready acceptance suggested that the annexation proposal fit in with some plan of his, but I could not guess, at the time, what it might be."

"And now?" Doris prompted.

"In hindsight," Sophie replied, "it would appear that Mr. Orlov thought he could use Phoenicia's military supremacy to form his own empire. My chief of staff and I were suspicious enough of his candidacy in the last election that we took the precaution of setting up certain protocols with the cooperation of Generals Lee and Carson to ensure against the usurpation of Phoenicia's government."

"Very well. Will you please tell us in your own words what happened the day of the attack on the government building?"

"It was two days after the election results had come in. I was angry at Orlov for having blatantly lied in some of his speeches during the campaign and was determined to call him out, as any Phoenician would. I had asked my Chief of Staff the day before to locate him and deliver the message. When I entered the office that morning, she met me with the news that Orlov and some of his followers from before he became Phoenician had disappeared and their weapons and survival gear with them. As I mentioned earlier, we had made contingency plans with the military for several scenarios in which there might be danger to the government from within, so I asked my Chief of Staff to get General's Lee and Carson on the phone. While I was waiting for the call, my husband called to tell me that my aunt had been shot..."

Sophie stopped suddenly, a fresh wave of guilt washing over her as her eyes desperately searched the faces in the courtroom. Surely ... Yes! There was Aunt Ruth, smiling worriedly at her, her arm in a sling. Uncle Jamaal had his arm protectively around her shoulders, but relief flooded Sophie as she realized that Aunt Ruth was alright.