O’Connell shook his head in disgust. “Good heavens, Mr. Garrity! That’s a precious and somewhat entertaining attempt, but the process of habeas corpus, as you well know, for approximately six hundred years, has been used to release human beings, not the truth as you see it. Overruled.”

“My Lord,” Michael continued, “had you not banned me from objecting to the showing of this tape, I would be pointing out at this moment that our code of criminal procedure prohibits the use of illegally collected evidence, and this tape under U.S. law is illegally made, and thus inadmissible in Irish proceedings.”

“But, in fact,” O’Connell said, leaning partially over the bench and shaking a gavel at him, “I have banned you from doing so, and thus I’ve heard not a syllable of what you’re not supposed to have said in the first place. Now SIT DOWN, Mr. Garrity, so I can view this tape before we all die of old age.”

While Sherry Lincoln had been in the cockpit using the satellite phone, neither Craig nor Alastair said anything about the tight fuel status or their return to Dublin. She spoke a few words into the phone, sighed, and handed it back to Craig.

“Couldn’t get through?”

“He’s in court. I’m sure he can’t answer it. I left a message.”

“Come back up anytime if you want to try again.”

“Thanks, fellows,” she said, moving out of the cockpit and closing the door behind her.

Alastair had been working a separate air-to-air radio frequency and quietly polling other aircraft flying the North Atlantic Track System for the latest winds displayed on their onboard flight computers, precisely accurate readouts not immediately available to weather forecasters. Craig was monitoring Shanwick Control and listening as well to the other frequency Alastair was on. He heard the copilot thank another flight crew, then sit up and look left. “I think we’d better try flight level three one zero,” Alastair said quietly.

“Why?”

“That was an eastbound flight about two hundred miles ahead of us. A seven forty-seven. He’s at three one now and getting winds of zero six five true at thirty knots. There’s an Airbus A340 at three seven zero just twenty ahead of him bucking headwinds of zero six six at fifty-four knots.”

The expression on Craig’s face was one Alastair did not want to see, but it was clear that the captain understood.

“Alastair, we had a tailwind coming out here! We still have…” Craig looked at the wind display on his flight computer. “Uh, oh… almost zero wind.”

“The low is coming south, Craig, and we’re flying into the counterclockwise flow.”

“My God, how fast is it moving?”

“Fifty to sixty knots at least, maybe faster. This wasn’t forecast.”

There was an eternity of silence before Craig spoke again. “So, what does this do to our fuel projections?”

“Nothing pretty. If those winds are correct, we can’t make it back to Dublin, even with dry tanks.”

“It really is Galway, then?”

Alastair nodded. “And getting a bit tight at that.”

Craig’s face turned dead serious. “Alastair, you’re not telling me we’re going to have trouble making the coast of Ireland now, are you?”

The absence of an immediate demur froze Craig’s blood as he watched the copilot sigh and hold a hand out, palm up. “I think we’ll make Galway, but without a lot of reserves. We… turned around a little late.”

“Oh my Lord!” Craig said, almost under his breath.

“That’s why we should go down to flight level three one zero, Craig. We gain more speed than we lose fuel economy.”

Craig nodded. “Call Shanwick Control. Let’s do it. We have to make this work, old buddy.”

Stuart Campbell had already connected his video camera to the television monitor. At a nod from Mr. Justice O’Connell he pressed the “play” button, just as several reporters filed into the back of the court to watch the black-and-white images of the Oval Office unfold on the screen.

Jay sat in painful silence and endured the replaying of the exchange between Reynolds and the President, glancing at his watch as surreptitiously as possible.

They should be past the halfway point by now, he calculated. He could imagine Sherry’s relief at the thought of actually touching down on U.S. soil.

When the tape ended, Campbell carefully pressed the “stop” button and turned to face the judge.

“My Lord, based on the sworn statements of Mr. Reynolds as to how this tape was made and whose voices and images are on it, I submit to you that the words of President John Harris himself irrefutably establish a prima facie case that not only fully supports the issuance of the Peruvian Interpol warrant, but mandates under the Treaty Against Torture that this court must issue an immediate arrest warrant under Irish jurisdiction, and must enter an immediate order of extradition of the defendant to Peru, subject to the normal appeals process.”

“My Lord,” Michael Garrity said, getting to his feet.

“Mr. Garrity,” Judge O’Connell said in a more subdued fashion. “What could you possibly say to refute what we just saw?”

Michael glanced down at the lengthy note Jay was pushing across to him and read it quickly before continuing.

“My Lord, I’ll readily admit that what we have just seen purports to be a scene in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington and a scandalous exchange between President Harris and Mr. Reynolds. I’ll also admit that the possessory chain of this tape from Mr. Reynolds’s hands to the present moment has been clearly and satisfactorily established. But in this day and age, not all that we see and hear can be believed. Electronic means exist to alter images and sound, and I submit to you that a very real possibility exists that the sound track on this tape is not the original sound track, but a substitute, carefully and cynically dubbed onto this tape cassette for the purpose of railroading an ex-president. After all, My Lord, we have the government of Peru directly involved in seeking to secure John Harris for purposes of criminal prosecution. With the power and resources of a sovereign nation involved, anything that is electronically possible could have been used to alter this tape.”

“Do you have evidence of alteration, Mr. Garrity?” O’Connell asked.

“No, My Lord. But the defendant should not bear the burden of proving that this tape is false. It is Mr. Campbell who should bear the burden of proving that it is authentic, yet he offers the tape with no firsthand witnesses and no means by which we can be sure whose voices we have heard.”

Stuart Campbell rose to his feet. “My Lord, as to the matter of who has the burden of proof, I beg the court recognize that this is but a hearing on the sufficiency of the warrant. The opportunity for President Harris to contest in detail or even wholly impeach the validity of this videotape will be afforded in the criminal trial in Lima. This is not the forum for testing the tape, but merely for showing that there is a prima facie reason to believe that Mr. Harris may have committed the crime as charged.”

“My Lord,” Michael countered, “are you prepared to rule, as Mr. Campbell desires, that the authenticity of this tape may not be questioned in this forum?”

“No, Mr. Garrity, I am not,” Mr. Justice O’Connell replied. “I’m reserving that judgment for the moment.”

“Then, My Lord,” Michael continued, taking a breath, “I offer into evidence what may well be the real videotape taken clandestinely, and illegally, by Mr. Barry Reynolds on the date in question.”