Chapter 36 CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 36
THIRD PERSON’S POINT OF VIEW
The courtroom buzzed with an atmosphere of tense quiet. There was electricity in the air, laden with unspoken words from the Jakarta news headlines that everyone in the courtroom must have been reading.
The jurors, picked at last through a tedious process of voir dire in which Alexander’s attorneys had dripped the words “powerful men with secrets,” took their seats in the jury box, their faces a blank canvas.
Elysia knew the meaning of the stormy eyes behind the swirling tales of weapons trafficking, the most feared angle in this trial.
Kieran stood at the defendant’s table, his dark charcoal suit almost black, absorbing all light. He was a statue, a marble idol of focused determination. He did not glance at the jury or at Alexander Bennett’s smirk from the plaintiff’s table.
His eyes were looking straight ahead, towards the vacant witness stand, preparing for the coming fight.
Alexander Bennett appeared as though he were attending his own personal victory parade. He offered a sympathetic smile to the juror who looked in his direction.
Judge Armitage walked up onto the bench, her face grim, revealing nothing. "Counselors, may I assume that you are ready to begin your opening statements?”
“The People are ready, Your Honor!” Announced Alexander’s attorney, an elderly lawyer by the name of Donovan.
Elysia rose up and stared at the judge. “The Defense is ready, Your Honor!”
“Mr. Donovan, you may proceed,” said Judge Armitage nodding.
Donovan made his way over to the jurors, the confidence of a trained performer evident in every move he made. He did not yell. He talked to them as if they were rational beings; this was much scarier.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” He started. His tone was calm and smooth as velvet. “This trial is about nothing less than truth and the extreme measures taken to cover it up.”
He gestured towards Kieran. “You will see seated here in front of you Kieran D’Angelo, a man of great power and wealth; a king in a kingdom of secrets and deceit.”
Donovan paced up and down, meeting the eyes of each juror. “Mr. Bennett is being sued by Alexander Bennett. Why would he do this? For asking questions! For uncovering the dirty secrets of D’Angelo through competition. Secrets of fake documents? No. Bigger secrets. Secrets of what the company really sends across our oceans.”
He left the meaning hanging there, the specter of the leaking story doing its job in the courtroom, manipulating the situation.
“It is a tool,” Donovan went on once more, his tone becoming condescending. “It is an attack to eliminate the messenger to keep the message unheard. My client is not a fraudster. He is a whistleblower facing the huge backlash from a man who stands to lose everything. Throughout this trial, you will see the true fraud. You will see a company and a man desperately trying to silence the truth.”
And what a masterful, toxic start that was. It set the entire case into context as a smokescreen defense. Yet, Miss Castello maintained an impassive look, keeping her hands on the table.
After Mr. Donovan had made his opening statement and took his seat, satisfied with himself and a nod from his client, Judge Armitage directed his gaze towards Elysia. “Miss Castello?”
Miss Castello arose slowly; she did not move forward straightaway to the jury box but remained standing behind the table and put her palms flat on its smooth surface. She regarded the jury box members, not as an entertainer but rather as an equal who wanted to present the complicated situation to them.
"Ladies and gentlemen," said Elysia in her cool tone, projecting to all corners of the room. “Mr. Donovan is correct on one point. This case is about truth.” Elysia paused for effect. “Yet, he has thoroughly misunderstood who the liar is.”
Taking in her hand a single sheet of paper— the first page of Aris Thorne’s log, Elysia moved toward the jury box.
"The truth isn't a secret on a boxcar. The truth is a line of code. A digital signature. A timestamp." She raised the sheet of paper to prove her point. "What you see here is a log. It registers each single occasion when there was access to an illegal program in my client’s company network— a program aimed at replacing true documents with counterfeit ones."
Elysia locked eyes with one of the jurors sitting right in front of her, a middle-aged lady with sharp eyes. "What you see here is the ‘who’. It shows a certain AB_Executor— Alexander Bennett's personal digital ID who logged into this secret program. It registered that he did this access during the exact same days those ‘counterfeit’ documents appeared in the system."
There was some whispering around the room while Alexander's smile became completely frozen in place as he met her gaze.
“This case,” she continues, her voice picking up strength, an inexorable force. “Is not one of retaliation. It is one of revelation. It is one of exposing a carefully orchestrated, high-tech effort to create fake evidence and then using that evidence to decimate their competition. My client is not seeking damages in order to bury this information. He is filing suit because he knows the truth— the truth,” she held up the paper for emphasis. “And it was taken from him and substituted with lies.”
She pivoted to point an accusing finger at Alexander Bennett. “This man didn’t want answers; he wanted to plant spies. He didn’t want secrets; he created them. When his plan went awry, he used a tried and true tactic— point fingers at the other guy and yell ‘Look there!” she mimicked the headline.
“He wants to discuss ships and secrets because he can’t discuss servers and data. The evidence convicts him.”
She returned to her own table, leaving the log sheet behind decisively. “This hearing is going to be all about the facts, not rumors and leaks. The facts are going to be in digital format, financials – proof of an organized fraudulent scheme carried out by Alexander Bennett. This isn’t your chance to decide what’s in the tabloids; this is your chance to decide the facts. And the facts will be sitting over there in a minute.”
Elysia finally lowered herself into her chair. There was complete silence in the court room. The members of the jury were no longer staring at Kieran suspiciously; they were staring at Alexander with sharpening interest.
Judge Armitage cleared her throat and gave him a long look. “Thanks, Counsel. Mr. Donovan, you may call your first witness.”
Mr. Donovan stood up, though he no longer appeared quite so confident. “The plaintiff calls Ms. Sylvia Graves.”
The doors swung open. Sylvia stepped inside, her head held high, looking every bit the uncooperative truth teller, clad in professional business attire. She swore and took her seat in the witness box, deliberately not making eye contact with Elysia.
Elysia felt ice running through her veins. Sylvia was the first piece to be moved by Alexander in his new game of desperation.
But the old games no longer applied for Elysia. With the log in her hand, she was already one step ahead and as Sylvia started her performance, telling lies about manipulated Peter Vance, all Elysia did was jot down one word on her legal pad.
That word was Check.
The real game had only just begun.