Blood Brothers by Rick Acker

doesn’t,” interjected Siwell. “You must not have heard me before—why won’t your client disclose what secrets he took?”
    Ben smiled thinly and kept his eyes on the judge. “That brings us to our TRO motion. Mr. Siwell thinks my client has a multibillion-dollar secret. Is that the sort of information that should be entrusted to an embezzler?”
    Karl stirred in his seat and muttered something under his breath. Siwell was apoplectic. “Your Honor, I object! This isn’t argument, it’s slander! Mr. Corbin can’t—”
    “Your Honor, please!” said Ben, raising his voice over Siwell’s.
    Judge Reilly held up his hand. “Counsel, you can respond when Mr. Corbin is finished.”
    “Thank you, Your Honor,” continued Ben. “We moved for a TRO because there is substantial evidence, summarized in Gunnar Bjornsen’s affidavit, that there is some questionable accounting going on at Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals. Furthermore, it appears that the problem goes all the way to the top—senior management was either cooking the books or knew that they were being cooked. That has to stop immediately. We ask the Court to order that auditors be appointed to review the company’s books and monitor all financial transactions until the completion of the trial on our permanent-injunction motion. Appointment of auditors is particularly crucial if Your Honor is considering granting the plaintiff’s TRO motion; there’s no telling how much damage current management will do to the company if they get their hands on what Mr. Siwell says is a multibillion-dollar new product. We respectfully request that the Court enter the proposed order submitted with defendant’s TRO motion.”
    “Thank you, Mr. Corbin,” said the judge. “Mr. Siwell?”
    Siwell picked up a copy of Ben’s TRO motion, holding it by the corner as if it were a dead fish that had spent several days in the hot sun. “Your Honor, this is pure, unadulterated bovine feces.” A chuckle ran through the courtroom, and, to Ben’s dismay, the judge smiled. “All of the allegations Mr. Corbin just made are provably false. Karl Bjornsen, the president of Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals, has canceled a full schedule of appointments this morning so that he could be here to respond to my opponent’s fantasies, if Your Honor thinks it necessary. He will testify that they are all categorically false. This is a squeaky-clean company with squeaky-clean books. The defendant knows that, by the way. He was president of Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals until six months ago, which brings up another point—he would have been in charge of the kitchen during any book cooking.
    “Plus, putting a team of auditors in charge of the company’s finances would be an enormous and unwarranted financial burden, and it would interfere with the company’s financial decision-making.”
    “Anything further, Mr. Corbin?” asked the judge.
    “Yes, Your Honor. The auditors would only interfere in the company’s financial decision-making if the company was deciding to defraud shareholders like my client. All the auditors would do is to monitor the company’s finances and stop any wrongdoing. And there would be no financial burden, because—”
    “Your Honor, there’s no fraud here—” Siwell interjected.
    Ben ignored him and kept talking. “If no fraud is found, my client will bear the cost—”
    Siwell also kept going: “And no wrongdoing, except by Mr. Corbin and his client, who—”
    The judge held up his hands. “Counsel, Counsel.” Both lawyers fell silent. “I’ve heard enough. I’m going to deny both TRO motions. Okay, moving on to the next items on our agenda. You both want preliminary injunctions. How long will it take to put on your evidence?”
    They spent the next fifteen minutes haggling over when the preliminary-injunction hearing would commence, how many days each of them would have to put on evidence, what deadlines would apply to prehearing discovery, and so forth. Judge