Pajamae nodded. Carlos laughed.

"At a football game?"

Boo rolled her eyes and turned to the only person on their row who might offer knowledge.

"Karen, what's oral sex?"

Scott and Bobby jumped out of their seats.

"We'll go with you," Bobby said.

"Absolutely," Scott said.

Karen shook her head. "Cowards."

The men hurried out of the row and up the steps, but once out of danger, Scott turned back to see the girls in their Dallas Cowboys jerseys huddled around Karen; Pajamae suddenly stood upright with an expression of disbelief.

"You lie!"

Boo followed her up. "I'm gonna throw up."

Bobby slapped Scott on the shoulder. "Narrow escape."

"Man, those girls," Carlos said, "they don't give a man no warning. They just throw it out there."

Tony Romo threw a long touchdown pass to put the Cowboys in the lead over the Giants. The Dallas Cowboys didn't play in Dallas, and the New York Giants didn't play in New York. But that day they both played where people had once lived. Poor people. The City of Arlington had condemned and demolished ninety homes to make room for the stadium. The City of Dallas had a chance to bring the Cowboys home; they hadn't played a game in Dallas since 1971 when they left the Cotton Bowl for Texas Stadium in Irving. The Cotton Bowl would have been demolished, and Cowboys Stadium built in its place. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to redevelop South Dallas, to bring people and money and business south of downtown. But politics got in the way. So Arlington got the Cowboys, and poor people got the boot. It was perfectly legal. Scott knew, because he had once condemned poor people's homes for Tom Dibrell's hotel.

The roof was open. God could see his team play-the Cowboys were way ahead at halftime, so He was happy that day-and Scott could see the blue sky. But the lights were still on. Bobby gestured around.

"I read in the Wall Street Journal that the stadium consumes more electricity during a single game than Liberia's entire electrical generation capacity."

"I'd hate to see the bill."

"Cowboys win one more game, three weeks from today they'll play in the Super Bowl right here. Be fun to bring the girls and Little Scotty."

"Ticket prices are way above our pay grade. And I'm not sure I'd want to be anywhere near this place that day."

"The bad guys are in jail. The Super Bowl is safe."

In three weeks, the Super Bowl would be played in that stadium, on that field. Scott again took in the massive stadium, from the tall glass entrance doors beyond each end zone to the playing field and then up thirty stories to the hole in the roof. It didn't seem possible to have built this place and less possible to bring this place down with a bomb. But apparently they had meant to try.

"This place will be a zoo."

"And it's not now?"

Kelly Clarkson sang on a stage set up on the fifty-yard line; her face played on the big screen. Fans danced in the aisles and sang along. Hawkers offered beer and hot dogs and cotton candy and beer; the aroma of popcorn and nachos filled the air. Pajamae bounced in front of her seat. Boo played with Little Scotty. Karen drank her coffee. Carlos and Louis zoomed in on the cheerleaders with binoculars. Bobby smiled like a man at peace with the world-until Karen deposited Little Scotty in his lap.

"Your turn," she said.

"Shit."

Scott recoiled at the smell. Bobby took it in stride; he was still accustomed to baby shit.

"You know, Scotty, our lives at the courthouse might be boring, but we've got good lives. Better life than I ever dreamed of living. For two renters in Highland Park, our lives turned out damn good."

"Damn good, Bobby."

Now Scott smiled like a man at peace with the world. He fist-bumped Little Scotty just as Bobby's pocket began singing "Sweet Home Alabama."

"What's that?"

"My phone."

He answered. He listened. He disconnected. He sat back.

"Shit."

"Get the boy a clean diaper."

"Not Little Scotty. The call."

"Who was that?"

"Porter's magistrate."

Judge Porter was the senior judge in the district.

"And?"

Bobby blew out a big breath.

"And the arraignment's at ten."

"What arraignment?"

"Omar al Mustafa and his twenty-two co-conspirators."

"He needs your help?"

Bobby shook his head. "You do."

"Why?"

He faced Scott.

"Because, Scotty, you're the presiding judge."

SIX.

Monday, 18 January 20 days before the Super Bowl The sun was just peeking above the horizon when Scott ran north on Preston Road past the walled estates of Tom Dibrell, Scott's former rich client, and Jean McCall, the senator's widow, and Jerry Jones. A black Lincoln Town Car pulled through the gates in front of Scott; the driver was Jerry himself. He smiled at Scott and drove off; he was a happy man that day, and well he should be. According to Forbes magazine, his football team was the most valuable sports franchise in the world at $4 billion; and if his team won one more game, they would play in the Super Bowl for the first time in twenty years. Any other time, that would be the biggest news story in Dallas; but this was not any other time.

ISIS had come to Dallas.

Scott had presided over perhaps a hundred criminal cases in the last year; most had ended quickly with plea bargains. Most defendants were guilty. A criminal case in federal court followed a fixed procedure, whether the case was tax fraud or terrorism: indictment; arrest; arraignment; detention hearing; pretrial matters; trial; verdict; sentencing or release. There was a routine to criminal cases. A terrorism case would not be routine, but that day-arraignment and detention-would be: the lawyers would make appearances or be appointed, constitutional rights and criminal charges would be read, pleas would be entered, and conditions would be set for the defendants' release pending trial; or the government would move for pre-trial detention, a detention hearing would be held, and he would decide whether the defendants stayed in jail or were released pending trial. The defendants had been indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction; no doubt the evidence against them was overwhelming. And he had no doubt that they would reside in jail until the verdict.

Scott continued north on Preston Road then turned east. His daily route took him past his old house. He wasn't sure why. He slowed as he came to the mansion at 4000 Beverly Drive. Two and a half stories, 7,500 square feet, six bedrooms, six baths, four-car garage, pool, spa, and cabana, all on one acre in the heart of Highland Park. And that master bathroom shower. He noticed a movement in a second-story window; it was Penny, standing there naked, as she had promised. Scott almost ran into a tree.

He avoided the tree and averted his eyes and ran faster.

Almost four years before, a federal case had taken the $3.5 million mansion from him. He had gotten a daughter in return. What they call in the real-estate business, a steal. He now found himself faced with another federal case. But this time, he was the judge. In three hours, the most dangerous man in Dallas and twenty-two co-conspirators would appear before him charged with plotting to kill a hundred thousand people during the Super Bowl. This was not a silly case; this was terrorism. This case belonged in federal court.

His judicial life would no longer be boring.

He ran through the safe environs of Highland Park, Texas, that bright sunny morning completely unaware that his life was about to change again. That this federal case would change more than just his judicial life. That it would change his life. And his daughters' lives. Just as America had never been the same after 9/11, they would never be the same after this case. He just didn't know it that day.

Scott turned the Expedition onto Commerce Street and stopped. Directly in front of him stood the federal courthouse. Parked in front of the courthouse were a dozen network and cable TV trucks with satellite booms extended high into the blue sky. The world's attention was again tuned to Dallas, Texas, just as it had been on November 22, 1963. The FBI SWAT team wore full combat gear and wielded military-style weapons and stood guard behind temporary barricades; hundreds of protestors and as many of the press stood on the safe side of the barricades. The protestors chanted "Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar ..." and waved signs that read "MURDER" with a photo of Aabdar Haddad and "RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION IN THE USA" and "NOT ALL MUSLIMS ARE TERRORISTS." The press collected interviews and outrage from the protestors for the evening news. Scott had been through a trial with the press, but never before with the SWAT team. He steered into the parking garage and was met by four members of that SWAT team. He rolled down the window.

"ID please," the agent said.

Scott held out his official identification card. While the agent examined his ID and compared the photo to his face, the other agents opened the back doors and searched the inside with bomb-sniffing dogs and the underside with mirrors for bombs attached to the frame. The agent handed the ID card back and waved Scott through.

"Good luck, Judge."

As if he knew something Scott did not.

The most dangerous man in Dallas looked like a grandfather. He was. He had seven children and six grandchildren. He stood with his hands folded in front of him and no taller than five and a half feet. He had coarse grey hair and a neatly trimmed grey beard, dark eyes and complexion, and a steady gaze over wire-rimmed reading glasses. He wore a white federal detention jumpsuit, a black skullcap, and shackles, but he retained a calm, almost spiritual demeanor. He did not seem outraged at his arrest; it was as if he fully expected it, as one just expects bad things to happen in life.

If the U.S. government had its way, bad things would happen to the little man standing before Judge A. Scott Fenney.

The bench sat high, and Scott sat behind the bench; he looked upon the courtroom crowded with G-men and G-women, members of the press and public, and twenty-two co-conspirators standing shackled behind the Imam Omar al Mustafa like soldiers behind their general. And the young men offered the fierce expressions of fighting men or men itching to fight.

Magistrate Judge Robert Herrin sat to Scott's left. Typically, the magistrate judge presided over arraignments; but this case was not typical. Twenty-three co-defendants in a joint trial assured it would not be a typical case. And the nature of the crime-conspiracy to blow up Cowboys Stadium during the Super Bowl-was anything but typical. This crime was not an attempt to distribute two kilos of cocaine or turn a tidy profit from insider trading; this was a conspiracy to commit mass murder. Consequently, every eye in the courtroom was fixed not on the judge but on the alleged mastermind.

Karen and Carlos sat to Scott's right. Louis stood off to the side in his bailiff's uniform poised to quash any outburst in the courtroom. In the well of the courtroom stood a slight-and scared?-young woman next to the Imam. A few feet away stood a middle-aged man; he was not scared.

"Appearances, please," Scott said.

The not-scared man spoke. "U.S. Attorney Mike Donahue for the government."

Donahue had the face and the body of an Irish boxer; he had fought at Boston College. The face he could not hide; the body he tried to hide behind a buttoned-up suit, but his appearance always suggested that his body was trying to punch its way out. He had been a felony prosecutor with the Dallas County District Attorney's office for twenty years. When a Democrat won the White House, Republican U.S. Attorneys around the country were replaced by Democrats. Mike Donahue was a Democrat. U.S. Attorneys were political appointees of the party in power, but most were experienced prosecutors. Public defenders were neither. The scared young woman now spoke in a voice that was almost a whisper.

"Marcy Meyers, Assistant Federal Public Defender, for the defendants."

She was a sophomore in high school making her first debate appearance.

"All of the defendants qualify for appointed counsel?"

"I don't know, Your Honor. I got into the office this morning and was sent up here for the arraignment. My boss said to just plead them 'not guilty.' "

"Did he now?"

"Yes, sir."

"And when did you start working in the Public Defender's Office?"

"Last Monday."

"A whole week on the job."

"Yes, sir."

"Why wasn't a more experienced PD sent up?"

"I was next up for a case."

"You said your boss talked to you."

"On the phone. He's out of town. He called in."

"What have you done during your first week?"

"I've helped defendants prepare financial affidavits to qualify for our office to represent them."

"Well, Ms. Meyers, why don't you help these defendants with the affidavits after the arraignment?"

"Yes, sir."

Scott addressed the defendants. "Gentlemen, each of you has been named in a federal indictment and in the arrest warrant pursuant to which you were taken into custody. If any of you contend that you are not the individual named in the warrant-that is, that the government arrested the wrong person-please step forward now so that your identity can be verified."

None of the defendants stepped forward.

"Please raise your hand if you speak and understand English."