Exile: a novel

by Richard North Patterson

  “So Sharpe will say,” David responded. “But if this is more than a Palestinian plot, it holds a funhouse mirror to Sharpe’s narrative. At the very least, one has to wonder what possible connection there could be between Hana Arif and the people guarding Ben-Aron.”

  “I’m trying to discourage you, David, not intrigue you.”

  David shrugged. “I can’t help thinking like a lawyer.”

  Shapiro put down her cup. “It’s time to start thinking like a congressman. So allow me to widen your field of vision. This case affects one of our country’s most vital interests: its relationship with Israel, and the rest of the Middle East. The White House, State Department, and Justice Department are all under enormous pressure. Do they prosecute Arif here or ship her to Israel? If her lawyer opposes extradition and wins, does some terrorist in, say, Chicago hold schoolkids hostage with a dirty bomb unless we set her free? And what does Israel do then?”

  David had considered none of this; now he did, dismayed. Pressing her argument, Betsy leaned forward. “And how would a lawyer oppose extradition if Israel demands it? By saying Israel can’t give her a fair trial? If you were her lawyer, David, you’d definitely want to emphasize that.” Shapiro’s tone became openly sarcastic. “And if you win and she’s tried here, Sharpe will go for the death penalty. Or maybe—given that she’s a dangerous prisoner to have in anyone’s custody—Israel will want the Justice Department to keep her, and kill her. Sharpe would be happy to oblige—if the case works out, she writes her own ticket.

  “In either scenario, you’d get to oppose the death penalty—another highly popular maneuver, especially in a case involving terrorists. In the meanwhile, all the politicians in our party, your would-be colleagues, will be bending over backward to placate Israel and its supporters. You’d be a pariah—”

  “Betsy,” David interrupted softly, “I’m handing over the case.”

  “To whom?” The senator paused, moderating her tone. “I know you say that, David. I believe you mean it. But you haven’t yet, and I worry, because I can’t for the life of me understand why you ever touched this in the first place. So out of an abundance of what I hope is needless caution, let me finish.

  “You’re living in an America redefined by its fear of terror. For you, defending Hana Arif would be the gift that keeps on giving, with consequences that will reverberate in your life long after you’re on Social Security. Assuming there’s any left.”

  The monologue had left David slightly shell-shocked. But beneath Betsy’s vehemence, he knew, she intended a kindness: the preservation of his future—in politics, and with Carole. “Thank you,” he said simply. “I appreciate your taking all this time.”

  “Consider it my wedding gift,” she answered with the slightest smile. “I’m sure that Carole has all the china and crystal you two will ever need.”

  Driving to his office, David found that the two conflicting conversations— one with Salinas, and the other with Betsy Shapiro—echoed in his mind, forming and reforming in a plethora of confusing patterns, reason colliding with emotion, the only constant his repeated image of Hana alone in a cell. Then he reached the office and found two messages from lawyers he respected, both turning down her defense, and an anguished one from Harold Shorr.

  9

  David found Harold Shorr at the head of the broad dirt path winding along the bay between the St. Francis Yacht Club and the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge, where Harold chose to take his daily constitutional. The afternoon was atypical of summer in San Francisco—breezy, crisp, the sky electric blue—and bikers and runners, the healthy young people the city drew like a magnet, passed them in both directions. But Harold trudged heavily, his hands thrust in his pockets, eyes fixed on the path in front of them. David knew that hard emotions, hurt or anger or disappointment, were painful for Harold to express: whatever he was feeling now seemed lodged in his throat.

  At last, Harold spoke. “Forgive me,” he said softly. “I promised myself never to intrude in your affairs, or come between you and Carole. But I’m afraid for her, and for you.”

  David turned to him. “It’ll be all right, Harold. Really.”

  “Will it?” Harold gave him a sideways glance of appraisal. “Carole wouldn’t tell me. But between you and this Palestinian woman, I think, there is something more than Harvard Law School.”

  David felt a profound discomfort. “Was,” he amended. “I’m just trying to stay right with myself. As a lawyer, and as a man.”

  “And as a Jew, David?”

  “I didn’t know that they were different.”

  Harold emitted a weary sigh. “As a Jew, you have no right to such innocence.”

  David chose not to answer. Harold’s steps quickened, as did his speech, rising with emotion. “As a Jew, you’ve chosen to help a murderer of Jews, this Arafat with breasts.”

  “I’m finding her a lawyer, Harold. Was I just supposed to run away?”

  “Run away?” Harold stopped in his tracks, speaking to the ground at David’s feet. “You have no idea of what the world is like. In America, you’ve seen nothing. They hung my father in the public square. The worst thing that ever happened to your father was to be excluded from some private club. And even then, he had his own club—the safe world in which you were born, filled with books and music. The world of the German Jews until Hitler broke their windows—”

  “And slaughtered them like dogs,” David cut in sharply. “Because the Nazis had no rule of law.” In a more level tone, he added, “No doubt the people you saw die at Auschwitz remembered they were Jews, all too well. But only a society that gave them rights could have saved them from the ovens.”

  “Hana Arif,” Harold snapped, “is not a Jew.”

  “The rule of law is for everyone. In any other context, Harold, you’d be the first to see that. Why have Jews in this country always fought for minorities? Because they know the cost of denying people rights—no matter who they are—better than anyone. And it starts well before the government begins rounding people up.” David paused, searching for an analogy. “Why did Alan Dershowitz help defend O. J. Simpson?” he asked. “Not to strike a blow for spousal abuse but to vindicate the rule of law. Surely you still know the difference.”

  “So now you presume to lecture me from a civics book.” Harold looked into his face. “You risk your future, and my daughter, for such abstractions, all for a woman who seeks to drive a stake into the heart of Israel. And then you tell me, as a Jew, that I should feel pride in you.

  “I cannot. Non-Jews will scorn you as a pathetic seeker of attention, so intent on self-promotion that you will take on any cause, even of an assassin who despises us. As for our own community, some may see great principle in defending the murderer of Amos Ben-Aron. But more will see you as naive or worse—a traitor.”

  “I’m not defending her, dammit. But if I wanted to, I wouldn’t take a poll to find out if I should.” David fought to keep his voice low. “Or seek anyone’s permission—even yours. It’s my job, and no else’s, to decide what kind of man I am.”

  They stood facing each other, oblivious to the joggers swerving to avoid them. Harold’s face was etched with pain. “Let us sit,” he said finally. “Fighting with you makes me tired.”

  This was Harold’s way, David knew, of stepping back from the precipice. “It’s been a long day,” David responded. “This is making me tired, too.”

  They found a bench in the partial shade of two wind-blown pine trees and sat, gazing at the white-capped expanse of the bay, the gold-brown hills of the Marin headlands. Harold hunched forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped in front of him. “Do you truly not understand,” he asked, “that this woman is poison to us? Your defense of her is a denial of self, and of our history. Israel is our refuge.”

  “Not Carole’s,” David answered softly. “Her refuge is America.”

  “Where this Hana of yours has now brought us suicide bombers. This crime endangers America, and guarantees the kil
ling of more Jews. As an American, or a Jew, you must shun this woman.”

  “And as a lawyer?”

  Harold turned to him. “Are you the only lawyer in America? You’re certainly not a doctor in an emergency room, where only you stand between Hana Arif and death, with no time for moral choice. Let some other lawyer do it.”

  “I will—I just have to find one. So why are we even having this conversation?”

  Harold contemplated the question. “Because this is more than civics,” he said finally. “It’s not just legal abstractions that drew you into this, but a woman. And what you do because of her can’t be predicted—as I never would have predicted that you’d take the risks you have so far. Knowing, as you must have, what that might mean for you and Carole.” Tears came to Harold’s eyes. “I’m her father, David. And you’re hurting her. You, of all people, who she’s trusted with her heart.”

  At once the anger drained from David. “I’m sorry, Harold. Please believe that . . .”

  “I love my daughter more than life. Perhaps you cannot love her quite that much. But more, I hope, than this woman you’re hurting her for.”

  “Do you doubt that?”

  Harold turned to him. “Why else do you make me worry for her? Have you stopped to think that because of what you’ve done already, someone may seek to do you harm?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What you may be bringing to our door is more than hurt, or even shame.” Harold’s voice was rough. “When I left the Nazis behind, I swore that no one would make me cower again. But then I had the child I had prayed for to the God I no longer believed in.

  “For myself, I fear nothing. But I can never escape my fears for her— that is why I did not wish for Carole to marry her Israeli. But it is you who has made me most afraid. Not only for her heart, but for her life.” Harold looked into David’s eyes. “In Israel, there are fanatics who would have gladly murdered Ben-Aron. Here there are extremist Jews every bit as angry, in a country that protects their right to arm themselves like terrorists. Do you think that they will choose to kill you in a manner that keeps my daughter safe?”

  Gazing at Harold, David felt the gulf between them: the instinctive fear of enemies was as embedded in Harold’s psyche as the first human’s fear of snakes. “Carole,” David told him, “is precious to me. All I’ve been hoping for is peace of mind. I’m sorry that I’ve shattered yours.”

  Harold shook his head, speaking slowly and sadly. “At my own wedding, there was no one from my family, or my childhood, to share our happiness. And so I’ve imagined Carole’s wedding, surrounded by the people who have watched her grow, a community of Jews who love her. I’ve imagined her children, my grandchildren, with her strength of mind and heart, unscarred by all I saw. They would be our future, a vindication of all that happened in my past.

  “And they would be your children, David—smart like you, confident like you, not afraid of anything.” Harold brushed his eyes, then looked away. “I have loved you as you are—as a son, and as the man my daughter deserves. I beg you, do not take this from me.”

  When David tried to answer, the words caught in his throat.

  “Wait,” Barry Levin said over David’s cell phone, “you’re asking our office to take on the defense of Hana Arif—the supposed linchpin of a conspiracy of unknown dimensions—in the murder of Israel’s prime minister?”

  The head of the federal public defender’s office sounded annoyed to be called at home on a Saturday afternoon. “Isn’t that what your office is for?” David asked.

  “In theory. But there’s some up-front ethical problems, a potential conflict of interest. We’re already representing Ibrahim Jefar, the chief witness against Hana Arif. Even if Arif chose to waive a conflict, a judge might bar us from representing her.” Levin’s tone was blunt. “Frankly, David, that would be a favor to us, and to her. We’re overwhelmed as it is: too many cases, too few lawyers, way too small a budget. I’d only take this case if someone made us—unless Arif chooses to plead guilty, we can’t give her anything close to what she’s going to need. They’re arraigning her on Monday, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Then the best I can hope for, in the interests of all, is that someone else is standing next to her.”

  With that, the chief federal public defender went back to playing with his kids.

  10

  That evening, after placing three more calls to out-of-town lawyers, David kept his word to Carole by preparing dinner. Their meal was subdued; David felt Carole trying to avoid expressing the tension she so clearly felt. By the time they went to bed, lawyers from Las Vegas and Los Angeles had turned down Hana’s case, citing her inability to fund her own defense. “With Michael Jackson,” one remarked, “it was only little boys. And no one good would have tried that case for nothing.”

  Though silent, both Carole and David were unable to sleep. The next morning, gently kissing her, David slid out of bed. “I’m going for a walk,” he told her. She did not ask him where, or why.

  His path took him through Fort Mason, to the end of a pier jutting into the bay. Until he reached it, he allowed his mind to wander from person to person—Carole, Harold, Hana, Munira, Saeb, Betsy Shapiro, Max Salinas, and even, to his surprise, his own father and mother. His questions were at once momentous and banal, the stuff of moral choice and a thousand dormitory bull sessions.

  David did not doubt that the answers to these questions might define his future, and that of others. That he had to consider them at all filled him with misgivings and, at times, a deep resentment of Hana Arif—he had offered her a life with him, and instead she had returned to disrupt the life he had worked to build without her. The evidence against her, while fragmentary, was damning. Yet the David Wolfe who had loved her, against all reason, could not accept that she was capable of murder.

  That she was capable of lying, and perhaps untroubled by it, he knew well. But he kept recalling what she had said to him two nights ago: To stay with Munira, I might murder Amos Ben-Aron. But I would never risk abandoning my daughter. Though David had never been a parent, this had the resonance of truth.

  I love my daughter, Harold had told him, more than life. Perhaps you cannot love her quite that much. But more, I hope, than this woman you’re hurting her for.

  Sitting at the end of the pier, David pondered his choices.

  A lawyer who insisted on Hana’s innocence would have few options. The nature of the evidence did not admit the possibility of mischance. Either Hana was an architect of terror or another architect had created a design that might condemn her to die in prison, from old age or lethal injection.

  Were he a congressman but Hana dead, could he tell himself that he had acted rightly?

  To hand this case to a capable lawyer would, perhaps, allow for peace of mind. Even setting aside the costs to David, the doubts he had expressed to Hana were compelling—there might well come a moment, fatal to her defense, where his emotions would distort his judgment. But Max Salinas was not the answer. And in the absence of a better alternative, David also knew his own strengths. He was a talented and creative trial lawyer, ready for this challenge, and he understood Sharpe and the system better than most. The fact that others would despise him would not in itself be a deterrent—were it not for Carole and his ambitions, he might well take the case.

  So there it was—yet wasn’t. Because he had already paid too high a price for loving Hana Arif.

  Did he still? Such a feeling was absurd—at most, surely, he loved his memories of a twenty-three-year-old woman he once had thought he understood. As for the woman in prison, thirteen years a wife and mother, he would believe in her at his peril. So let me tell you who I’ve become, Hana had implored him, in the years since you believed I was worthy of becoming your wife. I’m a mother. A mother who loves Munira far too much to let Saeb raise her without me.

  Restless, David plucked the cell phone from the pocket of his wind-breaker.

  On i
ts voice mail was a message from a former colleague living in Manhattan. His own practice was jammed with trials, his friend explained; his new marriage, he added dryly, was something he could not abandon for the pro bono defense of a Palestinian terrorist accused of murdering the prime minister of Israel.

  David found himself gazing at the cell phone in his hand. What kind of terrorist mastermind, Hana had asked, passes out her cell phone number?

  Once again, his lawyer’s instincts quickened. If there was a deliberate breach on the Israeli side, he had told Betsy Shapiro, then someone potentially within our reach holds the key to what happened, and who was behind it.

  Putting away the cell phone, David began his long walk home, trying to untangle principle from passion, wholly uncertain of what lay ahead.

  “It would just be for the arraignment,” David said slowly. “Until I can find somebody who’s qualified to defend her.”

  “You won’t.” Sitting in David’s living room, Carole spoke softly; what betrayed her was the look in her eyes, filling with hurt and disbelief. “Do you love me at all, David? Or my father?”

  David’s mouth felt dry. “Of course. But if I do this, neither of you is going to die. If I don’t, Hana Arif may well. Maybe there’s no living with you if I take this case. But how do I live with myself if I don’t? This isn’t about who loves who the most.”

  “Isn’t it? Then why defend her?”

  “Because something’s just not right here, and she deserves a decent lawyer—”

  “You and she were lovers. You can’t cloak this in being a lawyer—you’re my fiancé, we have a life together. Now all that feels like it was a script someone else had given you to read.” Carole stood, her voice choked with feeling. “I think you’re still in love with her, like in some Hitchcock film about obsession, Fatal Attraction in reverse. You’d throw away our life just to get her out of jail.”