Chapter 9: Kennedy's Testimony
Author's Note: For reader reference, in a Federal criminal trial, the prosecution is NOT required to fully disclose and share all evidence with the defense prior to trial. A federal prosecutor can 'surprise' the defense with evidence…as you will see from this chapter.
"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"
Kennedy, standing in the witness box impeccably dressed and unruffled, raised his right hand. "I do."
"Please be seated," the defense attorney turned and started to pace the floor as Kennedy sat. "Mr. Kennedy, can you tell us in your own words just what happened?"
Kennedy sat back in his chair comfortably. "First off, let me say that I am completely horrified at the treatment that…the two witnesses…received on my island. I had no idea that my property was being used for human trafficking. I am often away on business, and in my absence Hans Keil and Rosa Capelletti run the place for me. I had no idea that they were trafficking in slaves.
"I first bought the place about ten years ago when the idea of having a quiet tropical retreat to which I could invite the foremost specialists in the world acquainted with my type of injury—the partial paralysis I sustained in the automobile accident years ago—while they were treating me. It was for that reason that I had an entire operating theater equipped with the basic tools for their trade built at the island, so that any doctor I invited would have what they needed there without having to resort to a mainland hospital in some foreign country unless they wanted specialized tests run. Hans Keil was one of the foremost neurosurgeons in Germany, and he was available to come to my island, so I invited him. Rosa as well—she professed to have some skill at nursing, and she was pleasant-mannered and quiet, so I saw no reason not to add her to my complement at the island. They have lived there for ten years and I have never had a problem with either of them.
"I had no idea what was going on. I have no idea where the skeletons, the bodies under the fishing platform came from. I knew that Hans and Rosa had some unusual tastes in consensual sexual activities, and so when I came to my island this time and found two women whom I had never seen before, both Hans and Rosa assured me that the women were there voluntarily, that they were consensual participants in these sexual games. And I never thought to question them, something that I regret now."
Sure you did. And pigs might fly. Clayton controlled himself with an iron will, fighting not to let his disgust and contempt show on his face. The man was openly lying; how he could stand there and say he didn't know, when they all had already seen drone video of him openly ordering Cam dropped into the ocean…it was incomprehensible.
"You have to understand that due to my infirmity, my choices in physical company are necessarily limited. However, I am human just as you all are, with the same needs and desires. So while you may think it reprehensible, unfortunately the only way I can achieve physical satisfaction is through visual cues.
"Neither Testarossa nor Hole ever indicated they were not there willingly—"
"Excuse me," the judge interrupted, leaning forward and fixing Kennedy with a steely gaze. "What did you just say?"
Kennedy flushed. "Neither of the two women—"
The judge shook his head. "That is not what you said. Please repeat for the court exactly what you said."
Kennedy flushed red. In an angry mutter, he snapped, "Neither Testarossa nor Hole ever indicated they were not here willingly."
"And by those…names…I take it these were the designations for Master Sergeant O'Hara and Corporal Arlington?"
Kennedy mumbled an affirmative.
The judge nodded decisively, and his voice acquired a hard edge. "This is the last time that I will inform you of this, Mister Kennedy. You will refer to the defendants by rank and name. Any more such slips and I will charge you with contempt. Is that understood?" At Kennedy's nod, the judge said icily, "Continue."
"Neither Master Sergeant O'Hara nor Corporal Arlington ever indicated they were not there willingly, never once indicated that they were there against their will. They also never once told me they were active-duty serving American military. If I had known that I would have repatriated them at once and turned Hans and Rosa over to authorities."
Sure you would, Clayton thought acerbically.
"Ho—Corporal Arlington—had extensive scarring on her body which led me to believe that she was one of those extreme masochists who get off on extreme sensations. She submitted to whatever Hans and Rosa wanted, never once told us she was not here willingly and never tried to escape."
"And yet when you arrived back at your island a week ago, both Master Sergeant O'Hara and Corporal Arlington were missing, were they not?" the defense lawyer asked.
"When I asked about the sla—when I asked Rosa and Hans about their absence, they told me that the two women were playing a hide-and-seek game around the island. They were hiding and we were supposed to find them."
"And what did Rosa and Hans tell you when you found them aboard your yacht?"
"They had sneaked aboard, unable to find food on their own, and when the crew member on the yacht found them and 'caught; them, they surrendered willingly."
"And were they punished?"
"It was a game! I protested against any sort of punishment but the two women insisted that the losing team pay the penalty. Since it was Hole's—Corporal Arlington's—idea to try and sneak aboard the yacht and steal it, she paid the price when Tes—Master Sergeant O'Hara—chose to punish her for their both being caught."
The judge rapped his gavel. "I am fining you one hundred dollars for referring to Master Sergeant O'Hara and Corporal Arlington in derogatory terms."
Kennedy gasped. "I never—"
"Yes, you did, just now, you called them both slaves, you called Corporal Arlington Hole, you started to call Master Sergeant O'Hara Testarossa and caught yourself just in time. But that was two offenses and you're being fined for that. Your next offense, the fine will double."
Kennedy glowered, but said nothing.
His lawyer continued briskly, "So you claim you didn't know they weren't here willingly, but what did you think when you saw Corporal Arlington hanging in the boathouse by her wrist with anchors tied to her ankles?"
"I was in shock. I felt that even if she had been willing, hers and Rosa's games had gone too far and it was impossible for me to continue observing their 'play'. I felt that if she was indeed finding this to her liking, this meant she needed mental help, psychological help, and I gave Rosa the order to get her down, treat her, and then I was going to find a psychologist, because she was plainly mentally ill, to like such extreme activity."
"No further questions," The defense lawyer retired to his seat as Abbie got up.
"Now, Mr. Kennedy. You say you never knew these women were here unwillingly?"
"Yes, that's correct."
"So how do you explain the fact that the slave dealers say it was specifically you who purchased both women at the slave auction?"
"Perhaps Hans and Rosa used my name at the dealers' in Amsterdam. I don't know."
"And the flight plans for your private plane in Amsterdam customs? Do they have access to your plane too?"
"I have on occasion allowed them use of my plane, yes."
"And you're absolutely sure that it was not yourself who purchased Master Sergeant O'Hara and Corporal Arlington in Amsterdam? And may I remind you that you are under oath and compelled to reply with the truth?"
"I was not there."
Abbie returned to the prosecution table, picked up a digital recorder, and held it up. "Prosecution would like to admit into evidence Exhibit E, audio recordings from the time Corporal Arlington entered the dealers' market in Amsterdam until the time both women were rescued from Kennedy's island. Corporal Arlington was fitted with an implanted GPS chip so that her unit could track her and bring both of them home, but along with the GPS chip a small microphone on a micro datachip also recorded audio from during her capture. The following is from the slave dealers in Amsterdam." She hit the play button.
A male voice shouted, "I bid twenty-five thousand Euros for both!"
Another voice. "Thirty thousand!"
A different voice. 'Forty thousand!"
The first voice. "Forty five thousand."
A new voice, quiet but with an undercurrent of power. "Fifty thousand." Damien Kennedy's voice.
The first voice, again. "You always bid on the best ones, Damien. Leave some of the good stuff for us. Sixty thousand!"
Damien's voice. "Seventy-five thousand."
Abbie clicked off the recorder. "Mr. Kennedy. FBI voiceprint analysts prove conclusively that that is your voice on that audiofeed offering increasing sums of money for both women. Do you still deny this?"
Kennedy said nothing.
"I'm going to assume that is a yes, which means, Mr. Kennedy, that you have perjured yourself with your earlier statement. Now onto another more egregious point. Mr. Kennedy, it is your assertion that it was Corporal Arlington's decision to steal your yacht in this 'chase me, find me' game that was apparently being 'played' with the two women escaping? And because it was her decision, when it failed her commanding officer Master Sergeant O'Hara chose to whip her to punish her for the indiscretion as part of the game?"
"Yes." Kennedy ground out through gritted teeth.
Abbie looked down at the digital recorder in front of her, clicked to another digital file, and turned it on. Now Clayton and the rest of the silent courtroom could hear panic in Cam's voice as she begged them first not to use the barbed wire whip, then Cam begging Shana to whip her with the leather whip because the barbed wire was too cruel. Shana's voice, shaking with anguish and misery, refused; then a strange whistling sound and a scream of horrific agony from Cam. Three times, as Shana broke and begged and pleaded to be allowed to whip Cam with the leather thong whip instead of the barbed wire, and Cam's screams growing less and less until finally she apparently passed out, followed by heartbreaking sobs from Shana.
"FBI voiceprint analysis proves it was definitely your voice, Master Sergeant O'Hara's, and Corporal Arlington's. And then, when we analyzed the contents of your computer, we found this." She pointed the remote at the viewscreen, but instead of a static picture suddenly the jury was seeing an actual video taken of an outdoor scene; Corporal Arlington sagged between two posts to which she was tied, with blood and strips of flesh hanging from her back as Shana crouched at Kennedy's feet, hands clasped in front of her in a pleading gesture. Her pleading words cut over the shocked murmurs from the jury. "Stop it, please, tell him to stop. You want me to whip her, I'll do it, okay, I'll do it, just please, please tell him to stop. I'll do it, I'll do whatever you want me to do, just make him stop, please, he'll kill her!"
Clayton's throat closed as a lump rose in it at the wild, anguished pleading in Shana's voice. He was startled out of his shock a moment later as Kennedy lunged half-out of his chair, and his eyes were alive with malice as he almost screamed at Abbie, "Those were from my work computer, anything at my company is private and confidential without a warrant, you bitch!"
Abbie didn't even blink. "Mr. Kennedy, we did not violate your company privacy. Let me explain something. The employees and the board of directors at your company were so sure that you were innocent of the charges that we didn't even need a warrant; they opened their computer systems to our forensic IT technicians. The techs did not access the portion of the server with client files, but they did find a signal that tied your personal computer into the company's network. By hijacking the signal we found videofeed from all the cameras all over the island with which you recorded many of your…activities…which were clearly illegal as we know that Master Sergeant O'Hara and Corporal Arlington were not there by choice. You used your own private computer to collect the video feed from the island, but apparently you also wanted this garbage to be available for your viewing pleasure at the office, so you co-opted your company's secure network for your own illegal activities."
"You BITCH!" Kennedy screamed, and in two fast steps he was off the witness stand and lunging for Abbie. "You BITCH, you RUINED it all…!"
Time seemed to slow; the courthouse bailiff was fat, out of shape, and too far across the room to do anything; Abbie felt terror close her throat as she saw him lunge for her, eyes wild; then, almost preternaturally fast, a blond blur from her right knocked into her, shoving her off her feet, sideways, and at the same time, a flash of titian red hair and a navy blue suit flashed before her eyes…
And then time snapped back into focus, and screams of shock from the jurors were choked off into deathly silence. Alex had reacted first, knocking Abbie out of Kennedy's way as the man lurched clumsily toward Abbie with arms outstretched; and the flash of red hair had been, of all people, Shana O'Hara, with her FBI-permitted gun drawn and pointed at Kennedy as she straddled his prone body on the floor.
No one moved. No one even dared to breathe. Shana's face was cold and hard and set, impassive and statue-smooth; her arms trembled, but even with that movement there was no way she would miss the frozen figure of Damien Kennedy lying on the floor in front of her. Not with her gun only an arm's length from his heart.
Clayton's tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth; he had to lick his lips and clear his throat twice to get his voice working. "Stand down, Master Sergeant."
Beside Clayton, Snake Eyes had risen too, his face a mask of anguish and empathy, and Clayton knew what he was thinking, knew what each one of his soldiers were thinking. No one is going to blame Shana if she shoots the bastard right here. No jury would convict her. Everyone would be positive she'd done the world a favor. But if Shana killed a man in cold blood, it would sink in later, and she would never forgive herself, no matter how much she hated him, no matter how much he'd hurt her and Cam.
And then, in the silence, a soft voice. "Shana."
Cam.
She made her slow, halting way around the wooden bench back, stopped just inches before setting foot on the courtroom floor. "Shana. Let the cops take him. This isn't our way."
"He hurt me. He hurt you. He hurt you more than any single person in this room. How can you stick up for him?" Oh, the bitterness in Shana's voice. "He's a waste of air and space. I should put him out of his misery right now." And she thumbed back the safety on the gun.
"I'm not, Shana. But for our sakes and for those other women whose bodies he dumped off the fishing platform, he has to pay for what he's done. Killing him now won't be anything except an easy way out. You spent time with him. You know how he thinks. Don't let anger keep you from thinking this out. He's a cold-blooded planner, a thinker. He is counting on you to shoot him, to keep the trial from going forward, to keep any of his other nasty secrets from coming out. If you kill him now he gets what he wants; he wins. Don't let him win, Shana."
A shadow left Clayton's side and approached Shana. One step. Two. Three. And then Snake Eyes was reaching out with a hand, touching the gun, closing his fingers on it, and then it was in his hand and out of Shana's, and cops were closing in on Kennedy from all sides as Shana took two stumbling steps back, away from him, and looked up. And caught Cam even as the younger woman's legs gave under her, and the two women were hugging, crying, as they both crumpled bonelessly to the floor. "Thank you, thank you," Shana whispered into Cam's shoulder.
The judge rapped his gavel in the silence. "Court will adjourn for the day. We will reconvene tomorrow at nine AM. Bailiff, I want Mr. Kennedy in restraints—I will not have his shenanigans interrupting my court again, is that clear? Get him out of here."