Beckeman was on a conference call with the attorney general and the director.

"But what about the twenty-two other co-conspirators?" the director said. "We can't kill them all."

"Sure we can," Beckeman said. "Hell, I'll send Stryker, he can kill them all before lunch."

"I know we can kill them. What I mean is, we can't politically kill them."

"Might be a bit of a PR problem."

"You think?"

The three men sighed in unison.

"Did the president's call do any good?" the director asked.

"He's pondering," Mac said.

"The president?"

"The judge."

Beckeman snorted. "We're fighting terrorists and he's pondering. That's what's so damn frustrating about this job. We got the bad guys. We won. Now a judge might tell us we lost and they won. Can you imagine the boost Mustafa will get among Muslims if he walks out of the federal courthouse? He beat the U.S. government. Hell, it'll be on Al Jazeera all across the Muslim world. He'll be a fucking folk hero."

"Fenney is a good man trying to do the right thing," Mac said. "He just doesn't understand that right and wrong changed on nine-eleven."

"It's like Vietnam, liberals thinking we could win the people's hearts and minds. We couldn't then, and we can't now. These people's hearts and minds are with Muhammad."

Beckeman was a good guy/bad guy type of guy. You were either good or bad, right or wrong, black or white. There was no grey in his life. But judges were colorblind: all they saw were shades of grey.

"What the hell is it going to take for him to realize what we're dealing with? For him to understand that this is a goddamn war. That we're fighting for his freedom. His children's freedom."

THIRTEEN.

Monday, 25 January 13 days before the Super Bowl Scott woke the next morning with his decision firmly in mind. He would follow the Constitution and the Founding Fathers and not public opinion-or the president, the attorney general, the FBI, or even Frank Turner. God help him if he were wrong.

"Morning, Judge! How 'bout the Boys?"

Scott waved at the man picking up his newspaper. The morning news was all Cowboys that day. ISIS had been defeated in Dallas; now Dallas had to defeat the Patriots in the Super Bowl. It was seven the next morning, and his feet pounded the pavement of Highland Park but his mind remained focused on Omar al Mustafa. The FBI had presented evidence that he was guilty of hating America but no evidence that he was guilty of conspiring to blow up the stadium where America's Team played or that he was a danger to the community. Under the Constitution and the Bail Reform Act-under the law of the land-the Imam was entitled to release on personal recognizance, or at least with conditions attached. United States District Judge A. Scott Fenney had sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution, and not just in the easy cases. The Constitution was written not for the easy cases but for the hard cases.

Omar al Mustafa was a hard case.

Scott prayed the attorney general wasn't right about cumulative justice. That the Imam wasn't the bad guy in this case because of his past conduct. That he would not use his freedom to execute a plot to blow up the stadium. That- Tires screeched.

A white box van swerved hard in front of him.

Scott had run into the intersection without looking both ways. The van didn't hit Scott, but he hit the van. He instinctively turned his body; he took the blow with his shoulder, but his head snapped forward and banged against the van. The impact staggered him. He almost fell to the pavement but managed to stay on his feet. He grabbed his knees for support and stared at the concrete and shook his head to clear his vision but without success. Brakes squealed, a door creaked open, and footsteps came close. Neon yellow Nike sneakers appeared in his line of sight.

"You okay, Judge?"

His mind, his body, the world moved in slow motion. He blinked hard and turned his eyes up from the yellow sneakers to red nylon sweat pants to a number nine Tony Romo jersey to ... Ronald Reagan? Scott had suffered several concussions in college, and he felt concussed now. Numb ... fuzzy ... he again tried to shake his head clear. He heard metal scraping against metal . . . the side door sliding open ...

"Let me help you, Judge."

But Ronald Reagan didn't help him ... instead he grabbed Scott around the neck and slammed him hard against the van ... another arm wrapped around his neck from behind and a wet cloth covered his mouth ... he felt dizzy ... his body being pulled into the van ... his head went back against the floor of the van ... he saw a face above him ... a familiar face ... George W. Bush ... his felt sleepy ... his eyes closed ...

Boo sat at the kitchen table with the stethoscope around her neck, the blood pressure cuff in her hand, a glassful of kale smoothie on the table, and tears running down her cheeks. She wiped her eyes and checked the clock again: 7:45.

"Do not worry, Boo," Consuelo said from the stove. "Seor Judge, he will be back."

But Boo was worried. She knew she was worried because her finger tapped the table at a furious pace without her even thinking. A. Scott could have suffered a heart attack, a stroke, a broken ankle, an asthma attack (although she didn't think he had asthma), a deep vein thrombosis, early onset Alzheimer's, a migraine ... or, oh God, a car could have hit him. At eight sharp, she called Louis.

Louis Wright lived east of the expressway but only ten minutes away from the judge's house. He figured if he was supposed to watch out for the judge, he'd better live close. His house was small, two bedrooms and one bath, but it was his. He had never figured on owning a home. People in South Dallas rented their entire lives or lived in the projects. Home ownership was not a common topic of conversation while strolling down Martin Luther King Boulevard; more like home invasions. But the judge had taken Louis Wright out of South Dallas and offered him a different life. A better life. He had gotten his GED and was working on his college degree, one night course at a time at the community college. He wanted to be a lawyer. Like the judge. His life had changed when A. Scott Fenney had pulled up to the projects in that red Ferrari. He smiled at the thought, but his cell phone ringing interrupted his thoughts. It was Boo.

"Louis, it happened again."

Boo looked up when Louis entered through the back door. She wiped her tears.

"Please find him, Louis."

"Which way did he go?"

She held out a piece of paper. "I made him draw his route and promise to run the same way every day. In case he had a heart attack."

Louis took the map. "I'll find him."

He didn't find him. An hour later, he had traced the judge's entire route through Highland Park, but he was nowhere to be found. He had found him that day a year and a half before on the beach in Galveston, bloodied and bruised, but he could not find him on the streets of Highland Park that day.

"If he frees Mustafa, I'm gonna fucking throw up," Beckeman whispered to the U.S. Attorney.

He felt as if he were in church. The congregation whispered even though court had not yet been called into session. Even though the judge was late. They sat at the prosecution table; Mustafa and Frank Turner sat at the defendant's table. The other defendants sat in the jury box and on chairs next to Mustafa. They waited for the judge.

Abdul jabbar slapped the judge's face repeatedly until he stirred. They had blindfolded him and tied his hands behind his back. He gagged then rolled over and threw up.

"Stop the vehicle, brother!"

His little brother stopped the van they had stolen that morning. Abdul helped the judge into a sitting position so he did not choke on his vomit. That would not further the plan.

Louis stood at the corner of Lovers Lane and Hillcrest Avenue just north of SMU, a big black man in a small white town. He feared the worst. Not from the white people and not for himself. But from those Muslims and for the judge. He had no doubt they had taken the judge. Followers of Mustafa. There were good Muslims and there were bad Muslims, just like there was good and bad people of all faiths and color; but these Muslims were beyond bad.

They were evil.

Louis Wright had seen stone cold bad before, up close and personal, but he had never imagined bad like these folks. Cutting folks' heads off. Burning folks alive. Killing women and raping children. That's pure evil, the devil's doing. His mama had always said that the devil was real, an evil force in the world; he had always figured she was just exaggerating, as she often did to make a point to her son about staying out of trouble in the 'hood. But he knew now that she had been right. His mama had been right about most things, except one. She had always said he was to never trust a white man. She had been right about the devil but wrong about the man. Of course, she never met the judge before she died.

"You lost?"

Louis snapped to the moment. A Highland Park police cruiser had stopped next to him at the curb. A big black man standing on a busy corner in Highland Park attracted attention. The white cop said again, "You lost?"

"No, I ain't ... I'm not lost."

"What are you, a security guard?"

Louis wore his uniform.

"Bailiff. Federal court."

"Really?"

Really. He had to remind himself as well each morning when he put the uniform on. He was a federal court bailiff making $50,000 a year. Working in a courthouse. Until a year ago, he made it a practice to avoid courthouses; nothing good happened to a black man in a courthouse, especially in Dallas. He had had issues with the Feds back then; but the judge-before he became the judge-had resolved his issues. Now Louis Wright no longer had to look over his shoulder. He had only to look out for the judge.

"I'm looking for the judge I work for."

"What judge?"

"Judge Fenney."

"The federal judge? On the terrorism case?"

Louis nodded. "He went running, didn't come back. I traced his route, didn't find him. I think he was grabbed."

"Grabbed? You think Judge Fenney was abducted?"

The cop called in to the station.

"Bobby, I'm worried," Karen said. "He's never late."

It was ten-thirty. She and Bobby stood huddled next to the bench. Carlos joined them.

"Where's Louis?"

Bobby's cell phone vibrated. He checked the caller ID: "Louis."

"Something ain't right," Beckeman said to the U.S. Attorney.

They stood and walked to the judge's assistants standing to the side of the bench. The magistrate judge's back was to them; he was whispering into a phone. After a moment, his hand holding the phone dropped. The woman grabbed him.

"Bobby ... what is it?"

"What's going on?" Beckeman said.

"Where's the judge?" Mike Donahue said.

The magistrate turned to them. His face was pale.

"Someone grabbed him off the street this morning while he was running."

Beckeman ran out of the courtroom with a gruesome image in his mind: the judge's beheaded body dumped on a Dallas street.

"They abducted the judge?"

"Yes, sir."

"Arabs?"

"Who else?"

"Why didn't we have security on him?"

"He refused."

"Jesus."

"Yes, sir."

The president of the United States of America sat behind his desk in the Oval Office in the White House. The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation stood across from him. The president shook his head.

"We don't kidnap judges in America."

"They do."

"What if they behead him? In America?"