Exile: a novel

by Richard North Patterson

  The judge raised her eyebrows, then abruptly asked Sharpe, “Is there any middle ground between your rather narrow sense of obligation and Mr. Wolfe’s presumed desire to dismantle our intelligence apparatus?”

  The phrasing of the question seemed to put Sharpe off balance. In a grudging tone, she answered, “I’m prepared to ask the FBI and our intelligence agencies for any information potentially exculpatory to Ms. Arif— excluding the sources and methods used to gather it. But that’s as far as the law requires us to go.”

  “ ‘Exculpatory’ according to whom?” David asked her. “Does that include information regarding a breach in Israel’s protection of its own prime minister?”

  “Not unless it relates to Ms. Arif.”

  “How can you know that it doesn’t, Marnie?”

  Judge Taylor held up her hand, demanding silence. “You should worry about that, Ms. Sharpe. I do. I appreciate the sensitivity of what Mr. Wolfe is seeking, much of which may not end up helping Ms. Arif.

  “But this is a case where—for once—it’s no exaggeration to say that the world is watching us. If you withhold information that becomes material to Ms. Arif ’s defense and that fact emerges later, any conviction could be thrown out. Unless Ms. Arif is no longer with us, which would create a somewhat larger problem.” Leaning forward, Taylor admonished Sharpe. “Threats to national security are not confined to leaking secrets. A real or perceived injustice, approved by this court, would not only tarnish this country’s image but might provoke fresh violence, here or overseas. I won’t be part of that. And I won’t let you be.”

  Surprised, David realized that the weight of Judge Taylor’s responsibility was working in Hana’s favor. “So here’s my order,” Taylor continued, speaking slowly and clearly. “The government will produce to the defense any materials in its possession that may exculpate Ms. Arif, or that relate to the assassination of Amos Ben-Aron. With respect to information that is classified or impacts national security, Mr. Wolfe will review it under the following conditions:

  “First, the documents will be maintained in a secure room supervised by the FBI.

  “Second, Mr. Wolfe alone can see them, and only after the FBI grants him a security clearance.” Turning to David, she said, “You can’t remove them, copy them, take notes regarding what they contain, or reveal their contents to anyone—not your employees, cocounsel, members of the defense team, or the media, and certainly not Ms. Arif.” She paused, adding incisively, “Any violation of those conditions, Mr. Wolfe, will be treated as criminal contempt—and worse.

  “Third, if you wish to use these documents in court or discuss them with your client, you will file a request under seal. Unless and until I grant your request, these conditions stand.” Turning to Sharpe, she said, “You can delete information about the sources and methods used in gathering intelligence. Otherwise, it is your responsibility—and you should be very clear about this—to ensure that our government errs in favor of inclusion.”

  Elated, David attempted to control his expression, even as he saw Marnie Sharpe strive to repress her frustration and surprise. “Next,” Taylor said to David, “you have a similar request for the government of Israel. Please explain what this court can do about that.”

  The sudden coolness of Judge Taylor’s tone suggested that she had granted Hana Arif all the favors David could expect. “What the court can do,” he answered, “is order our government to make this request on behalf of Ms. Arif—”

  “Your Honor,” Sharpe cut in, “you’ve already given Mr. Wolfe access to information that may jeopardize our relationship with the Israelis. Now he proposes to compound the damage by compelling us to troll for whatever the Israelis have, no matter how harmful to their own internal security. The only limit on such irresponsibility is this court.”

  Turning to David, Judge Taylor asked, “What exactly do you want?”

  David steeled himself. “Access to materials generated by Israel’s internal inquiry and depositions of the Israelis charged with Ben-Aron’s protection.”

  “On what grounds?” Taylor demanded.

  “We suspect that Ben-Aron was set up by a member of his security detail. If so, that person knows much more than Ibrahim Jefar, such as the true identity of the handler.”

  “Are you sure you really want an answer, Counsel?” This question, disturbing in itself, betrayed Taylor’s root assumption—that Hana Arif was guilty. Catching herself, she hastily added, “As Ms. Sharpe pointed out, you’re treading on ground more suited to the secretary of state than defense counsel.”

  “As defense counsel,” David answered, “I propose to proceed under the same conditions already ordered by the court, and for the same reason: to obtain a fair trial for Ms. Arif.”

  “This is truly cynical,” Sharpe objected. “In the guise of seeking a fair trial, Mr. Wolfe is contriving to make this prosecution so costly to the national interest that we cannot pursue it. His tactic is not the least bit subtle: force the government to dismiss the case, or set up his own motion to dismiss it.”

  “Only if there’s a basis,” David responded calmly. “And the only basis would be if the United States or Israel sits on information that could establish Hana’s innocence. I’ve got no hope of getting anything from Israel. Under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, you do. Ask for it, Marnie, and then you’ve done all you can.”

  “And when the Israelis refuse, as you expect they will, I’ll have set up your motion to dismiss.” Sharpe turned to the judge. “Just how transparent must this get?”

  Watching Taylor’s expression, David stifled a response. “Enough,” the judge snapped, “from both of you.” Facing David, she still spoke sternly. “Whatever Israel might do is academic. I’ve given you broad access to whatever our government has. Before I compel Ms. Sharpe to reach into the guts of the Israeli government, Mr. Wolfe, find out if what I’ve given you provides some better basis for it.” Her concluding words, though softer, were definitive. “Six weeks after Ben-Aron was murdered in our city, I have no desire to further inflame our relationship with Israel.”

  However annoyed she was, Taylor had given him a basis for renewing his request; that this had occurred to Sharpe was apparent from her narrow-eyed contemplation of the table. Satisfied, David said, “Thank you, Your Honor.”

  “Oh, you’re welcome,” Taylor answered. “There’s one more thing you are entitled to: a trial within sixty days. I take it that you’ll pass on that.”

  David smiled. “Please.”

  “Then we’ll revisit a trial date in four weeks’ time, when I will have another hearing in the cozy confines of these chambers.” With a far more grave expression, she said to Sharpe, “A final question. In the event of a conviction, will the government seek the death penalty for Ms. Arif?”

  “That’s our office’s recommendation, Your Honor.”

  Taylor simply nodded. “I thought as much.”

  In the hallway, Sharpe and David walked together, bonded, despite their antagonism, by their experiences as Judge Taylor’s supplicants. “A good day for you,” Sharpe remarked in her flattest tone.

  “Some days are. Just not that many.”

  Sharpe stared straight ahead. “You know, David, I thought that trick you played on behalf of Ray Scallone defined your low point as a lawyer. But your performance today had a kind of tawdry grandeur. The temptations, I suppose, of your moment on the world stage, in such a worthy cause as Hana Arif.”

  “My only temptation is to let that pass,” David answered. “But you and I have a history, and it’s about to get much longer. So let’s try to put this in perspective.”

  Sharpe stopped, facing him. “Go ahead,” she told him, though her tone was not inviting.

  “You and I don’t like each other,” David said, “and I don’t like the death penalty. But I don’t doubt that you believe in what you do.

  “None of this is personal, and I didn’t particularly enjoy our morning together. But I got what I wanted, for
now.” Pausing, David looked at her intently. “An execution after a fair trial is the law. If you win, that’s what you’re entitled to seek. But without a fair trial, it’s not an execution—it’s murder. I don’t want our government to murder Hana Arif.”

  After a moment, Sharpe gave him a dubious smile. “You make it sound so simple. And you know so well it’s not. You’re far too clever for that.”

  “And so?”

  “We’ll find a way to live with each other, until one of us comes out on top. Other than an acquittal, that’s what you want, isn’t it? Just in case you need me.”

  Without awaiting his answer, she walked away.

  18

  In theory,” Bryce Martel told David over the telephone, “whether the Justice Department accepts Sharpe’s recommendations on Hana Arif won’t involve politics. But that’s nonsense. The White House will find ways to put its fingers on the scales.”

  “How so?”

  “Oh, the president might ask the attorney general for a ‘briefing.’ There’s no doubt the national security adviser is in constant contact with the Israelis, and concerns about foreign policy, national security, and homeland security will all weigh on the decision. Ultimately, this isn’t about the life or death of Hana Arif. It’s about our relationship with Israel, protecting foreign leaders on American soil, and punishing and preventing acts of terror. None of which helps your client.”

  David could not disagree.

  Two days later, David flew to Washington. But in the event, his appearance before the committee of the Justice Department felt like ritual, Kabuki theater stripped of meaning.

  They met in an ornate conference room in the wing dedicated to the Criminal Division, a throwback to the era when public buildings aspired to majesty. David recited his arguments against the death penalty for Hana Arif. The committee members listened politely; the chairman, a gray-haired civil servant, questioned him with dispassion, as though this were a routine case. For David, this dissonance with reality confirmed that the decision would be made elsewhere, were it not already made.

  In the car to the airport, David placed a call to Saeb. “I want to see Munira.”

  “For what reason?”

  “To prepare her.” David waited a moment. “They’re going for the death penalty, no question.”

  “Was there ever?” Saeb’s voice was emotionless. “What do these bureaucrats of death have to do with Munira?”

  “I promised Hana,” David said, “that as the case moved forward, I’d explain matters to Munira. At least as best as I can.”

  “No need. You can explain them to me, her father. Then I will talk to her about whatever is appropriate. This is how a family should be.”

  David paused, striving for calm. “Saeb, I don’t ask you for much. But this is one promise I’m keeping. Consider it my fee.”

  It was only after speaking that David recognized how inflammatory this was. In a brittle voice, Saeb said, “So this is how you choose to remind me.”

  “Let’s not quarrel about it,” David answered coolly. “I can be at your hotel by six o’clock.”

  Without responding, Saeb hung up.

  When he arrived at their suite, Saeb opened the door. Munira sat on the couch, again covered in black, looking expectantly at David.

  “I have told Munira,” Saeb said coldly, “that I wish for you to speak to her. But she is tired. Please make it brief.”

  Saeb’s pretense of command was impressive—from his tone of voice, he could have been speaking to a servant. “Thank you,” David said politely.

  David and Munira sat in the hotel’s somewhat shabby restaurant, drinking tea.

  Matter-of-factly, Munira said, “My father does not like you. And you do not like him.”

  David tried to smile. “What makes you think that?”

  “I watch you.”

  “At Harvard,” David ventured carefully, “I knew your mother better. Now he’s your father, and protective of you.”

  Munira gave him a searching look. “And of my mother?”

  The ambiguity of the question, which could be understood to intimate a connection between David and Hana, made him even more tentative. Perhaps it was nothing; perhaps he overrated the perceptiveness of an adolescent girl. Or this girl, at times so like Hana in her acuity. “He worries for her,” David answered. “We all do. Sometimes that affects us in different ways.”

  Munira considered this, her long lashes half-covering her gaze at the table. “Why did my father wish for me to see you?”

  “I wished it also. Do you mind?”

  Munira hesitated, then shook her head. Gently, David asked, “How has it been for you with your mother away?”

  Eyes still downcast, Munira shook her head again, but much more slowly, a gesture as eloquent as speech. “What do you do, Munira?”

  “They sent me books to study, from my school in Ramallah. There are assignments. When I’m done, my father tells me to study the Koran.” Munira’s voice grew quieter. “Except when I can see my mother, that is all.”

  The utter loneliness she evinced, the image of this child in a prison of her own, where the slow passage of time was a punishment, stirred David’s deepest sympathies, even as it also evoked her mother. “When you visit her, how is she?”

  Munira’s eyes closed. “I can’t really talk to her—my father’s always there. They do not even let me touch her.” The girl’s voice grew husky. “Sometimes, it is like she is already dead.”

  For a moment, David remembered his father’s final illness: Philip Wolfe withdrew within himself, a skeleton without the power of speech, his death certain, the only question its day and hour. David could still recall the visit when his sense of helplessness became the wish for death to come.

  “I won’t let your mother die,” he promised Munira.

  Two weeks later, Marnie Sharpe held a press conference.

  David watched in his office. “The Department of Justice,” she began, “has determined to seek the death penalty in the prosecution of Hana Arif...”

  That afternoon, at Sharpe’s invitation, David returned to her office. “I guess you’re going to tell me how Hana can cheat death.”

  “Why don’t we make a modest beginning,” Sharpe answered. “With her husband.”

  In his surprise, David laughed aloud. “Surely that’s your theory,” she continued imperturbably. “Who else could have ‘framed’ her—the hotel maid? We agree on one thing, David: there’s a genuine possibility that Khalid was involved. If so, why not let Khalid take her place?”

  “By orphaning her daughter? Hana trades Saeb’s life for a life in prison. Then it’s all a question of who Munira gets to bury last.” David shook his head. “Even assuming Hana’s guilty, you’ve got a fairly perverse sense of their family dynamics.”

  Sharpe did not smile. “I want whoever planned this. Someone’s going to tell us. Khalid may be your client’s only chance to live. After that, he can make his own decisions.”

  “To repeat, Marnie—Hana knows nothing. Even if Saeb is involved in this, she can’t help you.”

  Sharpe sat back, as though stymied by the gulf between them. Then she reached into her desk and produced a typed document of several pages. “Read this,” she said.

  “What is it?”

  “The report of our polygraph test on Ibrahim Jefar.” She slid it across the desk. “As you know, I don’t place much stock in these. But our examiner is as good as the FBI has, and he gives Jefar straight A’s. I watched the test. Jefar’s either a sociopath, a gifted liar, or what I firmly believe him to be— a tormented and confused young man who did not expect to be alive to take a polygraph, and chose to tell the truth.”

  David scanned the report, and then reread selected passages with greater care. Mercifully, Sharpe could never enter it as evidence. But David knew that she felt what he, as a prosecutor, would have: that Hana’s accuser was telling the truth.

  “Talk to your client,” Sharpe said.

/>   19

  “So,” Hana said softly, “they wish to kill me. How do they do this? I would like to know.”

  What did she want from him? David wondered. He decided to be as dispassionate as possible. “There’s a death chamber at San Quentin. They strap the inmate to a bed and run two IVs into his left forearm to inject potassium chloride. That’s all, really.”

  “Very clinical,” Hana said. “Clean—not like a bombing.” She paused, then asked, “I suppose there is an audience.”

  “Yes. State officials. There are places for members of the victims’ families, if they care to come. And for the family of the prisoner.”

  “I would not have them see this—Munira and Saeb. As for the others...” Her voice trailed off, and then she looked at David. “Of all the conversations we might have had, this is one I did not imagine.”

  For a moment, David waited to speak. “Sharpe wants to make a deal. Information for your life, the name of others involved in killing Ben-Aron. Saeb, perhaps.”

  “Why not Muhammad himself?” Hana asked in an ironic tone, then inclined her head, watching David. “About Saeb,” she said more quietly, “what is it that Sharpe thinks I must know?”

  “What do you know, Hana?”

  Their eyes met, and Hana looked away. “I have thought about this,” she said quietly. “Many hours. Who did this to me, I wonder.”

  “Saeb?”

  “So you have thought this.” Hana closed her eyes. “He could have, I know. But there are easier ways to disguise his role, and I am his wife. Why would he do this?”

  “You tell me.”

  After a moment, her eyes opened. “Do you wish me to lie? To do to Saeb, or anyone, what has been done to me?” Her voice filled with resignation. “I am innocent, David. I have no one to betray.”

  “And nothing to tell me? Sharpe’s looking at your history—statements that suggest you favor violence. And whether Saeb does.”