Exile: a novel

by Richard North Patterson

  Though Martel appeared unruffled, he hesitated slightly. “I can’t tell you that, Ms. Sharpe. I’ve been asked to render an expert opinion on the prosecution’s case. I’m not a private investigator. Nor am I witness to some unknown fact.”

  “But you are, it seems, a logician. Logically, the wizard who framed Ms. Arif needed someone else to take that call, correct?”

  “So it would seem.”

  “So how would the person who answered—whom you can’t name— get his or her hands on the cell phone?”

  David did not glance at Saeb. But Sharpe’s strategy was clear: to force the defense to accuse Saeb Khalid—without sufficient basis in fact or reason—or risk allowing her to make David’s theory look utterly implausible. With admirable calm, Martel stated David’s objection for him. “Again, that’s beyond the scope of my role as expert. I’m an interpreter of fact, not a finder of new facts.”

  While it was true, that this answer did not satisfy the jurors was clear from Bob Clair’s face. “As an ‘interpreter of fact,’ ” Sharpe asked Martel in a faintly derisive tone, “tell me why it wouldn’t have been easier for your plotters to stick to what you characterize as the terrorists’ normal game plan: using a pseudonym for the handler, rather than taking the risk of falsely accusing a real person.”

  “Why might the planners name Ms. Arif?” Martel asked rhetorically. “As I said, one purpose could be to mislead you: instead of searching for the handler, you believed you already had her in custody, with your only remaining question in whether she would talk.” Pausing, Martel returned Sharpe’s condescension with a wintry smile. “But what if Ms. Arif knows nothing? If that’s true, the most you can accomplish is to literally bury your mistake, while never trying to find the one person whose identity could help you unravel the entire plot. The real handler for Iyad Hassan.”

  It was a perfect answer, David thought—and the only one Martel could give. “Any idea who that could be?” Sharpe demanded.

  “Nothing concrete. And it would be irresponsible for me to speculate.”

  “Really. So how did your ‘framer’ get ahold of computer paper with Ms. Arif ’s fingerprints?”

  Martel shrugged. “There are ways, obviously. People other than the defendant had access to her office.”

  Sharpe gave him a look of theatrical skepticism. “So someone used her phone, someone pilfered paper from her office, and someone told Hassan to lie. Is that it?”

  Martel nodded. “I’m saying that could be ‘it.’ ”

  “And coming up with the identity of whoever planned all this is beyond the scope of your assignment.”

  “Yes.”

  Sharpe gave him a chill smile of her own. “That’s truly disappointing, Mr. Martel. No further questions.”

  During the noon recess, David returned to his office, preparing with Angel Garriques for the next defense expert. “Sharpe took some of the edge off Martel,” Angel said with resignation.

  “An expert witness can only do so much,” David answered, and then his telephone rang.

  It was Ernheit. “I just got the lab test,” Ernheit said hurriedly. “The one they ran for Saeb Khalid.”

  David stood. “What is it?”

  “A three-page report. But I can’t make any real sense of it, let alone relate it to your case. Maybe you can do better.”

  “Fax it to me,” David said.

  “As soon as I get back to my office,” Ernheit promised. “Forty minutes or so.”

  Forty-five minutes later, when David left for court, the fax had not arrived.

  The second defense expert, Warren Kindt, was a former FBI agent with an expertise in bombmaking. David’s half hour of direct examination served to make a single point: in its role as bomb, Jefar’s Harley-Davidson was doomed to fail.

  The crew-cut Kindt looked tough, his manner was casual, his voice soft. “The wiring wasn’t connected to the plastique,” he said. “Simple as that. Jefar could have pressed the switch all day.”

  “Do you know why it wasn’t connected?” David asked.

  “If you mean how it became disconnected, no, I don’t. I’m not sure it was ever connected. The wire would probably need to be taped to the plastique. If the tape had simply peeled off, you’d think it would still be in the saddlebag containing the explosives. But I couldn’t find any tape, or any residue of tape.”

  “What does that suggest to you?”

  “Either someone had removed the tape or Hassan had never taped the wire in the first place. Take your pick. The only thing I know for sure is that Jefar’s still here to testify against your client.”

  On cross-examination, Sharpe did what she could. “Isn’t it possible,” she asked, “that Hassan taped the wire to the plastique, and then it fell off while Jefar was riding his Harley?”

  “It could have happened like that,” Kindt answered. “Only what happened to the tape? It should still be in the saddlebag. But your crime lab folks found no tape.”

  Sharpe appeared unfazed. “Jefar claims not to have seen how Hassan connected the wire,” she pointed out. “So did Hassan need tape? Isn’t all that was required was for the wire to touch the plastique?”

  “True,” Kindt said agreeably. “Hassan could have put the bars of plastique on top of the wire, and assumed that the wire would stay where it was, weighed down by the explosives. One problem though—the wire was barely long enough to reach the saddlebags. With a motorcycle vibrating like a Harley does, a wire that short could come all the way out of the bag.

  “That’s where the wire was when I looked at it. But whether that happened because of the explosion—or before, or even after—I’ve got no way of telling.”

  Sharpe gave him an abstracted look, clearly framing her next question. “For the sake of argument, suppose—as the defense somehow imagines— that Hassan wanted Jefar to live. Would failing to connect the wire guarantee that?”

  “Hardly. The blast was meant to be tightly concentrated on its target. But an explosion that essentially emulsified an armored limousine, and everyone inside it, had a genuine likelihood of killing anyone as close as Jefar.”

  “How?”

  “You name it: fire, shards of metal, being thrown off a motorcycle and landing on your head. Even the force of the blast itself might have blown Jefar’s head clean off. If one of the sharpshooters didn’t do that first.” Kindt paused, then added firmly, “What I’m telling you—and all I’m telling you—is that Jefar’s own motorcycle was never going to kill him.”

  “But that’s hardly a guarantee,” Sharpe pressed, “that even a deliberate failure to connect the plastique would allow Jefar to live.”

  Kindt nodded his concurrence, more vigorously than David would have liked. “Any way you slice it, Ibrahim Jefar is a lucky man. Assuming that a life in prison, with death your only exit, is anyone’s idea of luck.”

  Hana, David saw, closed her eyes at the end of Kindt’s last answer.

  David’s redirect was brief and deceptively casual. “By the way,” he asked, “have you seen this technique before? That is, C-4 plastique wired to a detonator.”

  “Sure. At least half a dozen times.”

  “Name me the most recent.”

  “It was in Jordan,” Kindt answered, just as David had prepared him. “Someone parked a motorcycle next to the car of an Iranian dissident in Amman. When the guy came back to his car, the assassins blew up the motorcycle, and him with it.”

  “Any idea who the assassins were?”

  Sharpe started to rise, David saw. Then she shrugged, signaling her indifference. “Nobody’s sure,” Kindt told David. “Bombing techniques aren’t subject to copyright. But everyone’s guess was Iranian intelligence—the mullahs didn’t like this man at all.”

  “Thank you,” David said. “No further questions.”

  When David returned to his chair, he looked at Saeb, raising his eyebrows as if to say, “What do you think?” Saeb answered with a stare more expressionless than normal.
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br />   “I have no questions,” Sharpe told Judge Taylor with ostentatious boredom, confirming for the jurors that they had heard nothing of importance.

  It was six o’clock before David reached his office.

  Ernheit’s fax was on his desk—three pages, neatly typed. David scanned it hurriedly and then more systematically, his reading slowed by a growing sense of consequence far greater than he ever could have imagined.

  But for the surprise it contained, the report should not have taken him that long to grasp. “The client,” Saeb Khalid, had submitted three samples of hair and hair follicles for testing: specimen A, specimen B, and specimen C. Each sample of hair was from a different person; “the client” wanted to know if their sources were genetically related. In short, Saeb Khalid had asked for a comparison of three persons’ DNA.

  David read the results a second time, then a third. The donor of specimen A was not related to the donor of specimens B and C. But donors B and C were, beyond doubt, genetically linked.

  David’s mouth felt dry.

  For a long time—he had no idea how long—he stared at the last page of the report. He could not seem to move.

  At length, his hand trembling slightly, David reached for his Rolodex. It took a moment for his awkward fingers to flip to the card he needed. Composing himself, he dialed the number of Diablo Labs in Oakland, willing someone to still be there on a Friday evening.

  A man’s voice answered. “Steve?” David asked.

  “Afraid so—working late again. Who’s this?”

  “David Wolfe.”

  “Hey, David.” The pitch of Levy’s voice rose. “This must be about the

  Arif case.”

  David mustered a fair show of calm—at worst, he sounded to himself like a mildly harried lawyer. “I can’t say,” he said. “But I’m afraid it’s a rush.”

  “It’s always a rush,” Steve Levy answered. “So what have you got?”

  “I want you to look at the results of a DNA test performed in Israel.”

  Briefly, David described the report. “Do you have the samples they tested?” Levy asked.

  “No.”

  “Then I can’t tell you anything more than what you just told me. I sure as hell can’t tell you who these people are, or whatever else it means.”

  “I think you can,” David answered. “I’ll send you the report by messenger.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m enclosing a fourth sample. I’d like you to compare its DNA to the others.”

  “ASAP, of course.”

  “It’s about the Arif case.” Despite his effort to control it, David’s voice thickened. “All I can tell you is that this could help me save a life. But it’s Friday, so at least you’ve got the weekend.”

  When David got off the call, he stared at his darkened window, motionless. Then he took the scissors from his desk drawer, and cut off a lock of his own hair.

  11

  David navigated the weekend on autopilot. He caught up with the media—newspapers, cable TV, and the Internet—discovering with mild surprise that the doubts he was raising in the courtroom had begun to permeate the mass consciousness. At a friend’s dinner party, he employed his social reflexes to evade a barrage of questions about his defense of Hana while engaging in chatter that, hours later, he had forgotten. Minutes passed with agonizing slowness, or simply vanished. He was living in suspended animation, unreal even to himself.

  On Sunday, he met with Nisreen Awad, to rehearse her testimony as a character witness for Hana. Though she greeted him warmly, David remained detached and business like, going through the questions and answers with little affect or digression. The question that consumed him was the one he could not ask.

  Monday morning found him restless. Arriving in court, he passed through the media gauntlet without pausing, except to murmur, “It’s going well.” He sat at the defense table in a cocoon of his own thoughts, staring at Judge Taylor’s empty bench as the cacophony of spectators grew louder. He ignored Sharpe entirely. When Hana entered and sat beside him, asking how he was, he looked at her in silence, his gaze unblinking and intense.

  Her eyes widened slightly. “Is something wrong, David?”

  “I don’t know yet,” he said, and turned away.

  As a witness, Nisreen Awad was precise and firm, far less emotive than the woman he had dined with in Ramallah. She had known Hana for a decade, Nisreen told the jury, as a colleague in talks with Israel, and as her closest friend. She had seen Hana under stress, in the quiet of her home, and, most important, as a mother. “Above everything,” she told the jury, “Munira is Hana’s reason for being.”

  “Given all you know about Hana Arif,” David asked her, “do you believe that Hana is capable of participating in the assassination of Amos Ben-Aron?”

  For a long moment, Nisreen gazed toward Hana. “Absolutely not,” she said firmly. “So many reasons make such a thing impossible.”

  “Such as?”

  Nisreen spread her hands. “Where to start? For one thing, Hana has come to believe—and has told me many times—that yet more violence is not only pointless but an invitation for Israeli soldiers to stay in the West Bank. Look at what’s happened there since this man was murdered—more deaths, more reprisals, more repression. It’s utterly predictable, and the last thing Hana wanted.

  “She’s deeply angry with Israeli policy—that’s why she resigned from our negotiating team. But this crime has sent us backward.” Nisreen softened her voice. “Once again, we hear the sound of bombs and gunships. These are the sounds that gave Munira the nightmares she still suffers. I remember Hana saying, ‘If I could erase her memories of explosions and death, no price would be too great.’ More than anything she wishes for her daughter to be healthy in her mind and soul. Everyone else comes second.”

  For an instant, David had the bitter, intrusive thought that Nisreen Awad might not know just how true this was. “In your observation of Hana’s marriage,” David asked, “did you learn things that further persuaded you that she’s incapable of risking imprisonment or death?”

  Listening, Sharpe gave David a look of suspicion and surprise; on the witness stand, Nisreen Awad glanced uncomfortably at Saeb. “As to Munira,” she said at last, “there was great disagreement between Hana and her husband. Saeb wished to make Munira an Islamic woman in the most traditional sense—making her cover, not allowing her to go anywhere she might meet boys, arranging her marriage, and even limiting her education. Hana has a visceral aversion to such things: she fiercely wanted for Munira to have the freedom and opportunity to become an independent woman.

  “This led to bitter fights. I overheard the end of one—Saeb telling Hana that a cat would make a better mother than a woman who was American in everything but name.” Nisreen paused, clearly still troubled by the memory. “Soon after, Hana discovered a lump in her breast and thought she might have cancer. The lump turned out to be benign, but I can still remember the fear in Hana’s eyes. ‘I cannot die,’ she told me. ‘I cannot let this man ruin everything Munira is.’ ”

  In the jury box, David saw Ardelle Washington, a divorced mother of three, wince involuntarily. The courtroom felt even more still than usual; Taylor barely seemed to move, as though transfixed by what she was hearing. David had to will himself not to steal a look at Saeb. Softly, Nisreen continued, “Hana could not choose whether to die of cancer. But she could choose not to risk dying for an act of murder, which—in any event—is wholly contrary to her character. The prosecutor could show me far better evidence than this, and I would tell her that for Hana to be guilty is impossible in the deepest fiber of her being. A guilty verdict would separate her from Munira forever. Only her worst enemy could imagine a punishment this cruel.”

  David was quiet, letting Nisreen’s last statement echo in the courtroom. “Thank you, Ms. Awad. I have no further questions.”

  When he returned to the defense table, looking directly at Hana’s husband, Saeb’s eyes gli
nted with hatred and humiliation. Hana stared at the table.

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t have done that,” she murmured listlessly.

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t have married him,” David snapped under his breath. “But maybe that’s your sole defense.”

  Hana looked away.

  Sharpe cross-examined Nisreen as David would have, her tone dispassionate and ever so slightly belittling. Yes, Nisreen would do anything to save her friend—anything, Nisreen added, but lie. And no, Nisreen conceded, she could not explain the evidence. She admitted that there were no witnesses to the private conversations she had related, and was forced to acknowledge hearing Hana’s angry denunciations of Amos Ben-Aron as a pious hypocrite, talking peace while stealing land and water. By the time Nisreen left the stand, Sharpe had blunted her impact, and David was moving closer to a conclusion filled with risk: that Sharpe was forcing him to call Hana as a witness on her own behalf.

  David did not say this to Hana. At noon, he hurried to his office, noting as he left that Hana could no longer look at her husband.

  Steve Levy had called. Sitting in his chair, David took a deep breath and then returned the call.

  Levy was at lunch. For thirty minutes, David paced his office, pausing to take distracted bites of a pastrami sandwich he could not finish. When Angel knocked on his door, David shooed him away, insisting that he needed time to think.

  Minutes before he had to leave, his telephone rang.

  It was Levy. “I’ve run the test,” he said.

  David sat down heavily. “And?”

  “I don’t know what you’re trying to prove. But the results are clear enough. You already know that B is a genetic match with C, while A is a match with neither.” Levy paused, as though gazing at his notes. “The hair sample you sent me—which I’ll call sample D—matches neither A nor B. The genetic match is between that person and sample C.”

  It was seconds before David could ask, “And so?”

  “My conclusion, David, is that B and D are genetically reflected in the person represented by sample C. That’s really all it could be.”