While Justice Sleeps

by Stacey Abrams

bon mot

Tonight, it would tell him if he’d destroyed his life’s mission or saved it.

stone-faced Brandon Stokes, the president of the United States, staring

by Zoe Stokes’s unexpected early graduation,

“Thoreau had it right about nature versus man. Nature always wins.”

“Don’t tell me I’ve said things I didn’t say.

gaslighting

Boursin’s syndrome was the name of the disease, and she could read its trek in Justice Wynn’s panicked eyes.

“Knowing the law isn’t about the school. It’s about the mind. The heart. About understanding what the law intends as much as reading beneath what it says. Knowing how to find one’s way to the truth.”

condition you have yet to stumble into.”

what an asshole

But the evidence was clear. Justice Wynn had tried to kill himself.

of just dementia?

“Tell her…tell her to look to the East for answers. Look to the river. In between. Look in the square. Lask. Bauer. Forgive me.” “Justice? I don’t understand.” Frantically, Jamie leaned closer. “Who is Mr. Bauer?” “Tell Avery. East. River.” He gasped then, choking on a bitter gulp of air. “Between. Square. Forgive me.”

Avery Keene rolled to her side

Dr. Indira Srinivasan enjoyed the eerie thuds, the reverberations signaling her presence in this isolated wing of Advar Biogenetics, Ltd. This was her dominion. Midday here in Bangalore, a city teeming with

“Srinivasan.”

Nigel Cooper, founder and president of GenWorks Labs,

“Tigris.”

Jamie Lewis’s confession had revealed a loose thread: Ms. Avery Keene. Though

Chief Justice Teresa Roseborough maintained a careful distance from the clerk staff, including her own.

harridan

“These are John Lobbs. Three thousand a pair, for Christ’s sake! What the hell?” Wiping vainly at her mouth, she mumbled, “Sorry…rough morning.”

“I’m so sorry,” murmured Debi as Avery passed between them.

“This is Major William Vance, the president’s liaison from the Department of Homeland Security.”

“I swear to you, I had no idea that Justice Wynn had given me his power of attorney and named me his legal guardian. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get back to work.”

Ripe for seduction by a powerful man like Wynn.

“When did you last speak to Justice Wynn?” Avery folded her arms obstinately. “Homeland Security has a broad mandate, but I didn’t know it reached inside the Supreme Court.”

she has spunk

peripatetic

it is precisely Nigel Cooper’s relationship with President Stokes that allows us leverage.”

Advar

I expect you to take every necessary precaution against such a loss. Including resolving the unfinished business of Tigris.”

“Ms. Keene, you have worked for me for nearly two years now.” Recalling their evening encounter, Avery nodded warily. “Yes, sir.” “You don’t exhibit the typical signs of incompetence that I’m used to seeing.”

But America is a contradictory and precocious country, sir. We have, in a very short period of time, managed to commit venal sins against our own people and offer the world repeat examples of exceptionalism.

Americans are greedy, brilliant, ambitious, and compassionate. We like to remind everyone about our genius, and yet our leaders make fun of smart people. In less than two centuries, we took over more than half a continent, placed a man on the moon, and invented the Clapper. I enjoyed the contrasts.”

Where justice is known but rarely seen.

eidetic

“Of what, sir?” “Of the queen being responsible for saving the king, but that only his life is sacred. Should offend your feminist sensibilities, no?”

“My feminist sensibilities are not offended. In a game of strategy, the king is a figurehead, unable to save his own life without the aid of others. The queen is powerful and dynamic. She will protect the king, but not because of weakness. It’s because that’s what she’s supposed to do.”

The message said, ‘Look to the East and to the river’ for starters.”

“Lask Bauer.

He’s referring to a chess strategy known as the Lasker-Bauer sacrifice. In 1889, Emanuel Lasker defeated Johann Bauer at a tournament in Amsterdam. Lasker used his bishops on the board to lure Bauer into taking them. But in the process, Bauer left his queen vulnerable,

“So Avery Keene is one of the bishops.”

All the intelligence we’ve gathered says the Court is otherwise split. Wynn is the swing vote, and for all practical purposes, he is dead to the world.”

not sure how the US Supreme Court would have jd over a corp merger

“Wynn put the law clerk in play as the first bishop. We need to figure out who the second bishop is. Wynn anticipated that we’d try to stop him, and he has set up a separate path to victory. They may not even know they both exist.” “We’ll figure it out, sir.”

The financials on GenWorks would show clandestine U.S. funding for a covert military project. American tolerance for such behavior had eroded during Vietnam and ended altogether after Iran-Contra.

And that was without knowing what

the Tigris Project could do. So he’d issued...

Tigris could stop terrorism in its tracks.”

common good that will have dire consequences if the Advar and GenWorks merger is allowed to proceed.

But the chair needs to be empty first. Make that happen, Will. Then this whole mess is behind us.” “I understand, sir.”

telling him.to.kill J wynn

Ani Is in the River. Perplexed because Ani was neither a case name nor an employee, she opened the message, only to confront more confusion. Dumas Find Ani. WHTW5730.

Several messages had been sent to different phone numbers, each ending with @comcel.co.in. These were SMS texts transmitted via email to India.