​     The courtroom was packed. 

     There was no bigger story in the news that day. 

     Trevor Harper had been captured after a three year manhunt! 

     As full as the courtroom was, though, Trevor still spotted Niki the second he was brought in. 

      She stood near the back wall. Niki was a smaller woman, it would be easy for her to get lost in the crowded courtroom, but she managed to stand where her and Trevor's eyes could stay locked.  

     The decibels hit cacophony level. The judge banged her gavel several times. Finally, she shouted, "There will be order in this court or I will have it cleared!"  

     That got everyone in the room to calm down. 

     Trevor counted, at least, twenty officers in that room. 

     "Read the charges, please," the judge said. 

     "Your honor?" someone shouted from the back of the courtroom.

     They came through the metal detector two at a time, eight of them.

     They were all male.

     They all wore glasses dark enough to make it impossible to see their eyes. 

     They all looked like they worked out four hours every single day. 

     They cut through the crowd like they were alone in the courtroom. 

     No guards stopped them. 

     People scattered rather than be touched by them. 

     Authority beamed from their every pore, an authority bigger than anyone else's in the courtroom, including the judge's. 

     Their leader, the one who'd originally spoke, stepped forward. 

     "The prisoner's coming with us," he said. He handed the clerk the papers he held, and the clerk, in turn, handed the papers to the judge. 

     Trevor never took his eyes off Niki.

     One of the men in dark glasses noticed.

     He nudged the guy next to him.

     Then, as a pair, they started towards Niki.

     Niki blinked a message to Trevor.

     That message:

​     NOW!  

                                                          CONTINUE