Chapter 42: Kill Or Be Killed
It was the second day of the trail, around eleven in the morning and I was already called to the stand. Daniel and I locked eyes for a moment then I turned back to the lawyer against me.
"Miss Lawson, we have confirmation stating that you were in fact one of the three people in Paris four years ago who where involved in the murder of Cleo Matthews, an American-born French citizen with no records claiming that she was ever involved in crime. We also have confirmation that you have over thirty alias'. Would you like to tell the judge and jury about how you were bored with your life or shall we just leave it with the fact that you've murdered dozens of people who were not only innocent, but some married and some with children."
"You make it sound so much nastier than it really was. I'm not denying that I'm guilty or anything, but for your information, Cleo was involved in crime or whatever the hell you people like to call it. She was a traitor to your country. She was a master hacker, a professional, a might I add great, killer, and she had three degrees from this secret school in Oregon giving her masters degree in physic abilities. The fact that you couldn't seem to find any records of her other sides, just proves that you don't check the United State's database as much as the other countries around the world."
"Why don't you tell me about your alias' then?"
"My alias'? Well, I have a lot of them to start off with. Some are just to get away for a while, escape this hell I turned my life into by being born, and some are, or were made up by some bastard my father hired or hell, even my father himself. We didn't always have the best relationship and I wasn't always looked at as the slut everybody finds me today."
"I think my client is done talking to you, Mr. Taylor." Daniel interrupted before the lawyer could speak.
"How would you know that?"
"I don't. But what I do know is that she has offered to give out extra information if you sit your ass down and listen for a change." Daniel was firm and Jordan hesitated.
"Mr. Baritone, you may have the floor now. Mr. Taylor, please be seated." The judge said. Daniel pulled out some papers and I sighed, glancing at me and then up at the judge.
"Your honor, Miss Lawson is innocent in this case, and I have evidence claiming it. The real murderer of Mr. Carl Edmonson is Cleo Matthews, the young woman the government thought to be dead because of Miss Lawson." He paused and the room filled with whispers.
"Order!" The judge yelled before Daniel went on.
"Four years ago, precisely five months before Miss Lawson arrived, Cleo Matthews was spotted by the German government in a secret facility at the border of France and Andorra. Her appearance was the first of many at the facility and the Germans warned their citizens to stay away from her if they came in contact. Cleo, being a master hacker, shut down the German's database before it spread to the whole country and beyond. That's when she went to work planning her faked death. At this time Miss Lawson was in New Zealand, faking her status as a doctor's daughter. The doctor was a secret agent for the New Zealand government and specialized in high-class European status precautions. Being her teacher, he knew that she could only learn by being part of the battle, not just watching it. So he sent her and his assistant, another doctor at the hospital where he worked, who was a secret agent for Australia, to Germany when he got a coded email from security in Berlin. It was weeks after when Miss Lawson was framed for Cleo Matthews, a supposed English teacher at a high school on the outskirts of Paris, murder. And that is only the beginning of what I have come to know with the information Miss Lawson has provided for me."
"Your honor, isn't it a possibility that Mr. Baritone's client could have lied about every single piece of information, switching the truth with lies come from the deepest part of psychopath's minds?"
"Please enlighten me then when I say that not only did my client prove that she was not guilty in several of her claimed cases, but she is also confessing to every other murder, crime, and delegation committed not only by her but by the people who will in fact take her life because of these confessions. Not only that, but she has also given me a hard copy of this information straight from the opposing side's computer database."
"Yeah, she's given you a hard something." He said under his breath. I swallowed. Oh shit. The iris' in his eyes flickered a little, a goldish color to say the least and I shook. Turning to the guard next to me I whispered.
"You were born to this job, correct?" I asked. He nodded. "And you'd take your life to protect someone else's?" He nodded again. I swallowed. "I've done horrible things, I know. And the fact that I'm innocent in these cases don't make up for it. But if you want to win this war in the long run, you have to trust me. In a few minutes hell will break loose and if you don't cover me, someone other than us might die. There are over a hundred people in this room. You have to trust me. Please."
I could tell that this was a hard subject, but he nodded. I sighed and stood up.
"You know, I don't really get why you chose to be the lawyer. Obviously you can't keep your mouth shut when it comes to attempting to win. But your more of a bar fight kinda guy. Not this judge and jury shit. So why don't you do this, leave now and let everyone else decide whether to hang me, put me in jail, or whatever else they have in their sleeves. But stop fucking with the government, Allan, it's not worth your time, and in the long run, neither am I."
"Sweetheart, you have so much to learn. But unfortunately that'll have to wait when you shake my hand in Hell."
His hand reached for his belt buckle, not the buckle itself, but the concealed weapon it hung onto. Frantic, the guard beside me covered me and that was my move. Of course, I knew I was putting an innocent man in the line of fire, but if I did my job correctly, I'd save both, if not all the lives in the building. My hand grabbed the gun from his holster and I fired. I hadn't felt the pain and shock of actually killing someone in a while. And sadly, the rush wasn't even a good feeling.
Pulling the trigger is never easy. Killing someone isn't either. And when you have to do it, you sometimes just hope to God that you won't have to feel the pain afterward. The rush... used to be a good feeling. I used to be okay with the fact that I had stopped somebody's heart. But now, now it felt horrible. He deserved it, obviously, with his record and all, but I had just killed someone in front of an audience. And I was breaking down.
"Can we be done now?" I croaked, sighing and setting the gun down. I ran a hand through my hair and breathed heavily in and out. I was trying not to let the tears out. "You have the information you need on me to swear me guilty. So please, just take me to the goddamned prison."