After closing his shirt, Devine reaches for his oxygen mask, then jerks sideways on his chair, as though a disc in his back suddenly caught painfully. After a moment, he leans to one side and slides his right hand beneath his buttocks. Then his left hand rips the oxygen mask from his face, and he heaves himself to his feet.

For a couple of seconds I think he must have sat on a bee, or maybe a spider. But then he starts to jerk spasmodically, his movements clearly uncoordinated. Several people in the audience cry out, but I only stare at Devine the way you stare at an audience volunteer during a Las Vegas magic show, trying to ascertain the nature of the profound change in him.

“Is he having a heart attack?” Rusty cries. “A seizure?”

Devine’s eyes are wide open, and there’s only panic in them. As my father rises from his chair, Devine doubles over and falls to the floor with a heavy thud. Dad hurries toward him.

“Everyone back in your seats!” Judge Elder commands, his voice booming through the courtroom like the voice of the law itself.

The bailiff has drawn his gun and is scanning the crowd with fear in his eyes. A stunned FBI agent restrains my father, but Judge Elder orders the agent to stand aside. The agent hesitates until Kaiser appears and pushes him out of the way. Dad slowly gets to his knees beside the fallen Double Eagle, but I don’t know what he can do. From where I stand, Will Devine looks as dead as a veal calf after the bang stick has been put to its skull. As I stare at his motionless body, Tim and Joe and two more of our bodyguards sprint into the space between the audience and the bench to cover Annie, Mia, Mom, and Jenny.

“Sit down!” Judge Elder shouts into his microphone. “The officers in the room will lead an orderly evacuation of the court.”

For a second it strikes me as strange that Judge Elder is talking about evacuation. After all, if a witness has a heart attack in a crowded courtroom, the best course is to keep everyone in place so that paramedics can quickly evacuate the patient. But Joe Elder senses malevolence behind this act. I suppose the closest parallel would be a Mafia trial. When a star witness against a Mafia don drops dead in the witness box, you don’t assume natural causes.

As Dad works over Devine, I notice Kaiser examining the chair in the witness box. Taking out a penknife, he carefully runs it over the blue upholstery, then stops about eight inches from the chair back.

Looking left, I see that Devine, if he’s not dead, soon will be. Dad is leaning over his mouth, where a white foam now covers the old Double Eagle’s lips.

“What was it, Dad?”