Karen tossed the briefs in the immigration case onto Scott's desk.

"I researched the law, made notes in the margins. The parties argue the opposing views quite well, but I think we should get an amicus brief from a law professor."

"You're smarter than any law professor I know."

Karen Douglas was not yet thirty, but she was the smartest lawyer in the courthouse; on that everyone agreed (just as everyone agreed that Bobby was the luckiest lawyer in the courthouse, to be married to her). She had graduated first in her class at Rice with a degree in literature and first in her class at UT with a degree in law. The other judges kept trying to borrow her, but Scott refused. They also tried to hire her away, but she refused. She was smiling. She knew he spoke the truth.

"We need an objective view from someone without a political agenda," she said.

"That rules out Harvard professors."

"True."

"Who'd you have in mind?"

"Bookman at UT. I took his class. He's the last known practicing Jeffersonian in America. That's what he says, anyway. So he won't feed us either the Democratic view or the Republican view."

"Just the Jefferson view."

"Not a bad view. And he's famous. His opinion carries weight ... and it might give you some cover, whichever way you rule."

She always had her judge's back. She was like that. Scott had hired her at Ford Stevens out of UT law school and tried to teach her the law business. It didn't take; after Dan Ford fired Scott, she quit and joined the Shawanda Jones defense team. She met Bobby; it was love at first sight. Bobby married way up and had never forgotten it. The voices of the protestors outside rose again. Muslims demanding Mustafa's release had been joined by Mexicans demanding citizenship.

"I don't think there's cover on either case," Scott said.

Karen's expression turned down; she seemed almost sad. She pulled the local newspaper from her stack of documents and laid it on the table. ISIS in Dallas! the headline screamed. And Scott saw himself on the front page. Again.

"Well, at least the terrorism case pushed the immigration case off the front page," he said.

Any other time, the immigration case would be front-page news in Texas, but the front page had been consumed by the terrorism case. The former case would fly under the radar; the latter case would not. Karen sat down across the desk from him and stared at her hands. She finally spoke in a soft voice.

"Scott, the last year, we've been cloistered in this courthouse, safe from the world out there. Hearing cases the world didn't care about. But these two cases, the world does care. These cases, they're putting us out there again. Putting you out there again. Making you famous again." She looked up. "That didn't work out so well the last time."

"We're famous!" Boo said. "All the kids at school were talking about you because you're the judge on that case, those terrorists that tried to blow up Cowboys Stadium. A. Scott, they said you're a hero!"

"Whereas, Judge Fenney."

Last week he was a loony liberal at the middle school; this week he was a hometown hero. The life of a federal judge. He kissed each girl's forehead. He had just walked in the back door at the end of a long day at the courthouse. The girls had walked home from school. Kids could do that in Highland Park. They now sat at the kitchen table doing homework and watching the news. Their innocence-about terrorism if (hopefully) not oral sex-had ended that day at school. To some extent, anyway. They did not seem to grasp the gravity of the matter, an attempt to kill one hundred thousand people. It was the notoriety of his involvement that had captured their attention.

"I'm not a hero. I'm just the judge on the case."

Consuelo dabbed her eyes with her apron and came to him with her arms outstretched. She buried her head in his chest and wrapped her arms around him. Her round body shook with her sobs.

"Seor Judge, you are my hero."

He patted her soft back and inhaled the scent of dinner: enchiladas.

"They said it's the biggest legal case in Dallas since 'Who shot J.R.?' " Boo said.

"Wow, that's so exciting!" Pajamae said. "Who's J.R.?"

Boo shrugged. "I don't know." She pointed at the television. "A. Scott, you're on TV again!"

He looked at himself looking back from the television. He had had his first taste of fame in college when he had rushed for 193 yards against Texas; SMU had still lost the game, but he had been the star of the game. In the State of Texas, an amazing performance on a football field for or against the University of Texas brought instant fame. And not just fifteen minutes of fame, but fame that lasted years, perhaps a lifetime, fame that a man could build a life on, fame that could bring fortune if a man played his cards right.

Scott Fenney had.

The pros had not called because of the knee operations, so he had gone pro as a lawyer instead. He was smart, but he knew smart wasn't enough in the law business; smart lawyers without rich clients were a dime a dozen. And there were more smart lawyers in the world than rich clients. He had grown up poor but did not want to end up poor; he needed a rich client. So he played the fame card and lured a rich client into his billable-hour account: Thomas J. Dibrell, SMU alum, rabid football booster, and real-estate developer with a knack for getting himself into legal cracks, extrication from which required the expensive legal services of his lawyer. Life was good and getting better for A. Scott Fenney.

Then Judge Buford called.

His call brought fame to Scott once again; but that time fame did not bring fortune. That time, fame cost him his fortune. Judge Buford appointed him to represent Shawanda Jones, mother of Pajamae and accused murderer of Clark McCall, the ne'er-do-well son of U.S. Senator Mack McCall, leading presidential candidate and the most powerful member of the Senate. Scott defended her and won her acquittal; but his rich client and his fortune were soon gone. As was his wife.

Now his face was again on the front page of the Dallas newspaper and his life story played out in the news. It was like watching a rerun on TV; it wasn't any better the third time around. Fame had entered his life again. What would it be this time: a promise or a threat? What would it bring: fortune or misfortune? This time there was no fortune or wife to take; he had nothing fame could take from him. Which gave him a certain peace of mind. He had learned the hard way about fame and fortune; fortune could be a nice change of pace in life, but fame brought nothing good in life.

"Look, you're on the news! Every channel!" Boo pointed the remote and flicked through the channels. "ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox ... It's all A. Scott all the time!"

Photos of Scott Fenney, football player, high-profile lawyer, defender of prostitutes and ex-wives, and federal judge played on the national news. The networks and cable outlets had called his office that morning and requested interviews. He had declined them all; it was unprofessional for a sitting federal judge to grant an interview concerning a pending case. So the reporter had pieced together his segment of the story from old newspaper accounts: his glory days in college, his rise and fall as a superstar lawyer, his successful defenses of Shawanda Jones and Rebecca Fenney, his appointment to the federal bench.

"Judge Fenney has proven himself a lawyer committed to justice, a fact that should give comfort to both the American people and the defendants."

"Wow, that's cool, A. Scott, all this attention."

"Not really."

As a general rule, federal judges below the Supreme Court don't get much attention. Which is a good thing. The way it's supposed to be. We don't want our judges to be celebrities or politicians. We want them to be studious and serious, just and judicious, fair and impartial. We don't want our federal judges yakking it up on The Late Show like presidential candidates. We don't want them to advocate or legislate; we want them to adjudicate. To judge.

We want them to avoid notoriety.

And they're able to do that most of the time. But every now and then, an intensely emotional case comes along that captures the attention of the people and the press-integration and school busing back in the sixties and seventies, abortion for the last forty years, and now Obamacare and immigration-and a federal judge comes under the harsh lights of the press and even the harsh scorn of the public. In court, someone always loses; thus, someone always leaves court mad. And they take it out on the only person available: the judge. And any judge who has ever entertained thoughts of a political career after the bench quickly realizes the error of his thinking.

"We will prove beyond any doubt that Mustafa was the mastermind behind the plot to bomb Cowboys stadium on Super Bowl Sunday," Mike Donahue said on the television.

He said it with the confidence of a prosecutor with damning evidence instead of the doubt of a prosecutor with no evidence. But he was not testifying under oath. The byline on the screen read: ISIS in Dallas. The story cut to Frank Turner sitting in a high-backed chair in his elegant office, the kind of law office only a wildly successful plaintiffs' lawyer could afford. He looked like a lord. The lord of the law.

"Look, everyone's happy the plot got thwarted and the stadium won't get blown up-hell, I've got a skybox on the fifty-yard line-but we still have to convict the bad guys. If the Imam is the bad guy, he should spend the rest of his life in prison. But there appears to be no evidence that he is. I've asked the prosecutor to provide some evidence-any evidence-tying the Imam to the stadium plot. So far, he has provided none. Nothing. Nada. So at the detention hearing Friday I will ask the government to do what the Constitution requires: put forth credible evidence that the Imam plotted to blow up Cowboys Stadium or that he's a flight risk or a danger to the community, and failing that, I will ask the judge to release the Imam pending the trial."

"Have you met with Mustafa?"

"I'm meeting my client right after this interview." He smiled. "First things first."

That, Scott thought, will be an interesting attorney-client conference. He recalled his first meeting with Pajamae's mother at the same detention center. He was more worried she would throw up on his $2,000 suit than whether she was innocent. It takes a while for a lawyer to warm up to a client he's convinced is guilty.

"Okay, you girls wash up for dinner."

He shooed them down the hall, fearful of what might come next. The story cut to the president in the White House pressroom standing before a room of reporters.

"We are celebrating a great victory today. Thanks to the heroic efforts of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, we have averted another terrorist attack on the homeland. We got the bad guys. The Super Bowl is safe. The game will be played. The American people should know that their government is working nonstop-and we will never stop-to discover and thwart terrorist plots."

And to Cowboys Stadium and the mayors of Dallas, Fort Worth, and Arlington, the NFL Commissioner, and Jerry Jones standing at a makeshift podium on the fifty-yard line bookended by two blonde and buxom Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders in short-shorts. The Dallas mayor spoke first.

"It's a great day in Dallas, even if we are in Arlington. The shock of learning about this dastardly plot has abated and been replaced by the thrill of victory-we beat the terrorists! Thanks to the FBI, the people of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex will enjoy the five-hundred-million-dollar economic impact of hosting the Super Bowl. It will be an economic bonanza."

The NFL Commissioner stepped forward.

"We are so proud of our law enforcement personnel. They're the real Super Bowl champions. Thanks to them, the game will be played on February the seventh in this great stadium."

A reporter shouted: "Commissioner, did you know about the threat?"

"No, but I know the FBI protects the Super Bowl. And we've since been briefed and assured that the game will be safe. Our fans will be happy."

The scene cut to rowdy fans at a local Hooters. The reporter shouted above the noise.

"Fans are happy at Hooters."

The cameras panned the crowd of young males drinking beer and young females wearing orange short-shorts and tight low-cut T-shirts. Scott spotted two familiar faces at a table in the back: Carlos and Louis. It was hard to miss Louis.

"We know how to party in Big D," the reporter said. "And the Super Bowl now promises to be the biggest party ever!"

And then to the FBI headquarters in Dallas.

"We were all stunned Saturday morning," the reporter said to the camera, "when the FBI announced the arrests of the terrorists and their plot to blow up Cowboys Stadium. The entire city seemed in shock the last few days. We were scared. We needed information, our questions answered: Who are these guys? Did the FBI get all the bad guys? Will we be safe at the Super Bowl? But now the shock has worn off and the realization that we won has taken over. The FBI saved the Super Bowl. We defeated the terrorists."

Scott had a distinct feeling of deja vu, like watching George W. on that aircraft carrier declaring "Mission Accomplished." The camera panned back to reveal the entire pressroom. The atmosphere was boisterous, like a locker room after a big victory; all that was missing were corks popping on champagne bottles. The victory was won; the bad guys apprehended; the plot thwarted. Good had prevailed, and evil had failed-except for one small problem: there was no evidence against Mustafa and the other defendants. They were innocent until proven guilty, and there was no evidence of guilt. Not yet, anyway. The attorney general and the grand jury had both overlooked that minor fact, and the trial jury-twelve citizens who want to be safe-would as well. Only the trial judge stood in the way.

Would he?

Would he stand in the way?

Would he stand for the Constitution and set the bad guys free?

Or was the attorney general right? Was cumulative justice the new standard for terrorists? Should he act today to prevent crimes tomorrow?

"And the hero of the day is FBI Agent Eric Beckeman, head of the Terrorism Task Force here in Dallas," the reporter said. "But he apparently didn't get the memo that this is a victory party."

It was the end of another long day of coming up empty. Mustafa was a bad guy, Beckeman knew it. He just couldn't prove it. He felt down, like Billy Hope in Southpaw, a hell of a boxing movie. Billy lost his Bentley, his mansion, and his kid-after they killed his wife. Of course, Beckeman didn't have a Bentley, a kid, or a wife. He had had one once-a wife-for about a year. But she didn't like being his mistress.

"I'll always be married to the Corps," he had said.

"Then go fuck the Corps Saturday night," she had said.

She filed for divorce the next week.

"Agent Beckeman," a reporter sticking a microphone in his face said, "you got the bad guys. But you don't seem happy."

"I'm not."

"Why not?"

"Because they're already plotting the next attack."

"The Muslims you arrested?"

"Other radical Muslims."

"How do you know?"

"Because that's what they do. That's all they do. Normal people get up, make the kids' lunches, drop them off at school, and go to work. These people get up and kill someone or plot to kill someone or celebrate because they killed someone. Killing is their job. It's what they do. And they will do it until we kill them. Every one of them. And their children. And their children's children. It will never end."

Boisterous had been replaced by silence.

"How do you know this?"

"I've seen the future."

"Where?"

"In the faces of those young Muslims we arrested."

"And what did you see?"

"Death."

"Did you conspire to kill a hundred thousand people at the Super Bowl?"

"I did not. As Allah is my witness."

"Well, in my experience serving God with a trial subpoena is a bit tricky."

Frank Turner, famous plaintiffs' lawyer smiled; Omar al Mustafa, the most dangerous man in Dallas, did not. They sat in metal chairs in his bare cell at the federal courthouse. It was quiet; it wasn't like at the county jail this time of night with holding cells occupied by drunks and dopers and hookers. These federal cells held only Islamic terrorists. Mustafa held a small book in his lap.

"But you knew Aabdar Haddad?"

"I did."

"He was your student?"

"He was."

"Did you know he was plotting to bomb the stadium?"

"He was not."