Sharpe’s sarcastic litany rattled David; in essence, he had just heard Sharpe’s closing argument, and it was as compelling as anything he could muster—at least without exposing Munira’s paternity and calling her as a witness. “That’s a well-crafted rebuttal,” he acknowledged to Judge Taylor. “But it only works if the prosecutor can wrench facts out of context. Here’s the context: did the Israeli mole—no doubt Markis—call Khalid? We don’t know; the Israelis may. Did Khalid work for the Iranians? We’re not sure; the Israelis may be. What was Khalid’s relationship to Hamas? We have intimations; the Israelis may have facts. Did the plotters plan to frame Hana, or did Khalid alter the plot? If the Israelis can put us on the road to finding that out, the argument Ms. Sharpe just delivered collapses altogether. And I won’t be forced to do what I otherwise will have to do: blow up the world of a twelve-year-old in order to defend her mother—”
“That’s not my problem,” Taylor cut in brusquely. “Your domestic drama is your own concern. But I remain troubled by the prospect of convicting Hana Arif based on hearsay testimony in which Jefar channels a dead man, Hassan, whom the jury will never see. And now there’s one more problem: Khalid’s testimony. What should I do if Khalid refuses to continue, and the prosecutor can’t cross-examine him for the benefit of the jury?”
“There are only two things the court can do,” Sharpe said promptly. “Either instruct the jury to disregard Khalid’s testimony or, better, declare a mistrial and start the trial all over again with different jurors. Anything else is unfair to the prosecution.”
“That may be true,” the judge responded with an ironic smile. “Still, ‘fair’ is the entitlement of both sides. We’ll worry about Khalid when the time comes. But in this trial, or a new one, Ms. Arif should have the benefit of whatever relevant information Israel may possess.
“I’ll decide what’s relevant. But my idea of relevance is very close to Mr. Wolfe’s. I’m adjourning the trial for a week. Four days from now, next Monday, I want a representative designated by the State of Israel to tell me whether it possesses any information about Khalid’s direct or indirect connection to the Israeli security detail, Hamas, Iran, Barak Lev—and what, if anything, it is prepared to divulge. And I also want the United States government to produce for the court, under the strictest confidentiality, any information it may have as to whether the Iranians or Hamas were involved in assassinating Amos Ben-Aron.
“Israel can decide what to do. Based on its decision, the court will either dismiss the case or allow the trial to continue. And neither government should assume that this court is bluffing.”
As Taylor hesitated, relief cut through David’s apprehension and exhaustion. “There’s one more thing,” he put in quickly. “Khalid. Not only is he a flight risk, but witnesses in this case have a way of getting killed. What I did to him today may have qualified him for indictment and put his life in danger. On either ground, the court should place him in protective custody.”
“Oh, I intend to,” the judge answered. “There are enough missing pieces without missing Professor Khalid. Based on what we saw this morning, it would truly be a shame to lose him.”
Two hours later, David was alone in his office, pondering his choices should Taylor keep the trial going and Saeb invoke the Fifth Amendment. A mistrial would allow new counsel to start over, better armed than David had been. But Saeb Khalid was the key to Hana’s defense. A new jury would never see him; the current jurors, no matter how sternly the judge instructed them, could never erase him from their minds. And there was a final, painful consideration: a defense where Saeb was not a witness would depend more heavily on Munira—both for her testimony implicating her presumptive father and by exposing who her father really was.
David tried to imagine what Munira was feeling now, guarded by strangers, frightened for her mother, perhaps divining that she must choose one parent over the other. He found it painful to think of her torment and confusion: the protective instinct of a parent for a child, in his case based on little more than biology, was nonetheless stronger than he ever could have imagined.
He was absorbing this with genuine wonder when the telephone rang. “This is Judge Taylor,” the judge said in a voice so somber that it jarred him. “I’ve already called Ms. Sharpe. I need you back in chambers right away.”
She did not explain herself, and David did not ask. “I’m on my way,” he said.
Dressed in a gray business suit, Taylor sat at the head of her conference room, looking sallow under the fluorescent light. Whatever had happened seemed to have drained the animation from her face and voice.
“I won’t string this out,” the judge said to David. “Khalid is dead.”
A wave of emotion struck David hard, disbelief commingled with a sense of the inevitable, its residue a clammy feeling akin to nausea. Saeb Khalid was dead; David, perhaps, was the agent of his death. “How did it happen?” he managed to ask.
“No one’s sure yet,” Sharpe told him grimly. “They found him on the floor of his apartment. There’s no obvious sign of violence or a break-in. It could have been a heart attack—with Munira gone, there was no one there to help him. Perhaps only an autopsy can tell us more.”
David tried to fathom what had happened. “What does this do to your prosecution?” he asked.
“It doesn’t end it. As to what position we take about a mistrial, I’ve asked Washington for instructions. There’s nothing more I can tell you.”
For once, Sharpe’s tone was factual rather than adversarial. All three of them seemed stunned, like the survivors of a natural disaster. “I have to tell Hana,” David said finally. “Then I think Hana and I should see Munira.”
Nodding slowly, Taylor looked toward Sharpe. “We’ll make the necessary arrangements,” the prosecutor said.
Bryce Martel sat in David’s living room at dusk, nursing a tumbler of single-malt scotch. “Heart attack?” Martel said. “I wonder. If I were you, I’d subpoena the tapes of any security camera in Khalid’s apartment building, see who shows up slipping in or out of the entrances or the garage.
“It’d be risky to kill him. But maybe riskier to let him live—if you’re right, at the least Khalid could take the plot to the next level, potentially exposing whoever planned the assassination. This way you’re cut off again, just like with Lev and Markis.”
“True. But Sharpe says there weren’t any signs of violence or forced entry.”
Martel gave a dismissive shrug. “Maybe Khalid knew them. Maybe someone put a gun to his head and made him take potassium chloride, which can show up as a fatal heart attack. Or sleeping pills to help him ‘commit suicide.’
“We may never know. It might have been the Iranians—they’ve certainly killed dissidents in America. Maybe even the Mossad, though it’s hard to divine a motive. Or you may well have killed him.” Martel’s smile was bleak and fleeting. “This morning, I managed to secure a spot in the rear of the courtroom. You emasculated him in public, or were on the verge of doing so. You didn’t just want to expose him, David, you wanted to destroy him. But your due bill goes back years, I think.” Pausing, Martel inquired softly, “The daughter’s yours, isn’t she?”
David met his eyes but said nothing.
“There’s always an explanation,” Martel said matter-of-factly. “Even for the seemingly inexplicable. From the beginning, I wondered.” He sat back, the scotch cradled in both hands, his gaze reflective. “He may well have wanted to die. Imagine how soul-shriveling exposure of the truth would have been for a man like Saeb Khalid—cuckolded by a Jew for all the world to see, his best prospect a lifetime spent in an American prison. Each day would have been torture for him.”
David felt raw inside. “I had no choice, Bryce. As a lawyer or as a man.”
“I know,” Martel answered gently. “I never saw Khalid as the only victim, David. I don’t envy you, either. I don’t envy any of you—you, Hana, or Munira. No matter what comes next, you’ve all begun serving a li
fe sentence of your own. The only question is how well you’ll manage to adapt.”
19
At ten o’clock that evening, by special dispensation of the United States attorney, David met with Hana in the witness room of the federal detention center and told her that Saeb was dead.
She looked stunned, almost uncomprehending. Her only visible movement was the briefest of shudders.
Softly, David said, “They may have killed him, Hana.”
Hana shook her head, as though to clear it. “‘They’?”
“Saeb may have altered the design to implicate you. But other people were the architects.”
Hana bowed her head. “I don’t know what to think,” she murmured. “I don’t even know how to feel. It is all too much.”
They sat across from each other in silence, lost in their own thoughts. At last she looked up at him. “And you, David? What do you feel right now?”
David hesitated, then decided to tell the truth as he perceived it. “That all this has been waiting in time’s ambush since the night you walked out of my apartment. That of all of us, only Saeb is free now. And that the person most affected is the only one of us who’s innocent.”
Hana closed her eyes. “What will we tell her?” she said wearily. “After all these years, how do we tell her?”
David gathered his thoughts. “I’ve had a few hours to consider that,” he answered with deep reluctance. “In some better time and place, we could feel our way through it, saying as much or as little as seemed right for her. But you’re on trial for murder, and your defense has two key elements. As to the first—that Saeb, not you, was Hassan’s handler—Munira’s call to Yasmin makes her the only witness. As to the second—that Saeb framed you— Munira is his motive.
“In four days, the judge will decide whether to resume your trial. Unless you choose to risk what at best would be a life in prison—your husband’s final gift to you and Munira—we have to tell Munira everything.”
Hana’s face was a study in misery. “That we should have to make such choices...”
“I know,” David answered gently. “But there are only two ways out of this, I’m afraid. One of them, a mistrial, is only temporary, and I don’t think we want to take it.”
“Why is that?”
“Because it makes things worse for you. If Sharpe moves for a mistrial on Monday—which I believe she’ll do—it’ll be on the grounds that she can’t cross-examine a dead man, Saeb, whose interrupted testimony may have prejudiced her case. She’ll be right, of course. Which is why we’ll suggest that Taylor simply admonish the jury to ignore what they in fact can’t ignore, allow us to call Munira to testify about her phone call, and then climax your defense by proving that Saeb isn’t her biological father.”
Hana folded her arms, instinctively resistant. “I’m sorry,” David told her. “But even if Sharpe gets a mistrial, you’d be retried in six months—six months more spent in jail, separated from Munira, wondering every day if a mistrial has lessened your changes of acquittal. And all you’d gain for Munira is a six-month reprieve from the truth.”
Despairing, Hana stared at the white walls of the witness room. “What is your second way?” she asked.
“That may depend how the Israelis respond to the lousy choice I’ve given them: reveal whatever they know or risk the judge dismissing the prosecution and letting you go free. That’s the only way we can explain this to Munira in the way we think is right.” David leaned forward. “But Taylor doesn’t have to make that decision now, nor do the Israelis. By dying, Saeb’s given both of them—and Sharpe—an out. Instead of putting the Israelis to a choice, the judge can simply declare a mistrial and buy herself and both governments six months’ time. That’s exactly what I think she’ll do.”
Hana fell silent. David could feel her struggling to comprehend the full effects of a choice made so many years ago: that her husband was dead; that she and David must live with this; that her daughter had suffered and would suffer more, from the consequences either of truth—the shock of learning that David was her father—or of a lie—the possible conviction of her mother. “So how do I best protect her, David?”
“By telling her the truth at last, as gently as you can.” David softened his voice. “There are two ways she can look at this: either that she precipitated her father’s death or that she saved her mother’s life. So learning who I am to her, however hard, may be a kindness.”
Hana covered his hand with hers. “But it would be terrible to tell her in this way—so abruptly, at such an age—and then expose her in public with so much at stake. I know her. With all she has been through, Saeb’s death is too much already.”
David shook her head. “Saeb died,” he answered, “because all of us were impaled on a lie. Look at how well that served Munira.”
Pensive, Hana gazed at her hand on David’s. “If the judge gives us no choice,” she said quietly, “we will tell her. Until then, I will hope for a better way, and a better time. Not just for her sake, but for ours.” She looked up at him. “You may be her father. But no matter whose fault it is, I’m her only parent. You must leave this part to me.”
Listening to her mother’s words, Munira hugged herself in anguish and then began to cry, emitting a soft keening sound of grief for Saeb Khalid that pierced her real father’s heart.
Stricken, Hana embraced her. For himself, David could scarcely comprehend that he was part of this—sitting beside Hana in a strange hotel suite guarded by U.S. marshals, watching a Muslim girl shrouded in black who was his daughter mourn the man whom she believed to be her father.
When at last Munira was able to speak, her face against Hana’s shoulder, she whispered, “Why did he die?”
David could see the agony on Hana’s face—the question could have two meanings, one far more devastating than the other. Gently, Hana answered, “We don’t know. But your father’s heart was very bad.”
Munira drew back her tearstained face, looking into her mother’s. “He was so angry at me. Maybe he didn’t want to live with me anymore.”
Touching her daughter’s cheek, Hana tried to smile. “Children think they’re the cause of everything, Munira. Women know better. And you’re nearly thirteen, as close to being a woman as a child.
“We fought over you, it’s true. But the fights were about us. We had ceased to love each other, or want a life in common.” Tears briefly surfaced in Hana’s eyes. “Love turned to anger is a terrible thing to watch. But you are a victim of anger, Munira, not its cause.”
As though relieved, if only for this moment, Munira leaned her forehead against her mother’s shoulder. To see them together again was, for David, deeply affecting. But he also knew that what Hana had told her was one more lie: for Munira to learn who her true father was would put her at the center of what had happened, the cause of it all. “It will be all right,” her mother assured her softly. “Whatever comes, David will help us.”
20
For the last few minutes that Hana was free, David left her alone with Munira, exiting the hotel with no plan but to walk aimlessly in the unseasonable warmth of a late-November day, letting his thoughts meander wherever they might. A black town car glided to a stop beside him. David spun, instantly alert, thinking of Saeb’s death as the rear window slid down.
“Get in,” Avi Hertz instructed him.
David hesitated. Then Hertz pushed open the door, and David slipped into the seat beside him.
Except for Hertz’s driver, the two men were alone. “Don’t worry,” the Israeli said. “The killing is done, I think. Unless you keep groping about like a blind man, attempting to divine the shape of something you can never see.”
The car sped away. “Where are we going?” David asked.
“To have one of those conversations that never happened, and that you will never reveal to anyone. Unless you’re a far bigger fool than I take you for, one who cares nothing for his client.”
David sat back, gazing out the win
dow, preparing himself for the pitfalls of a confrontation he had both feared and hoped for. He would ration his words until Hertz’s promises—or threats—showed him what to do.
Their destination, it transpired, was the middle of San Francisco Bay. As the powerboat knifed the chill waters, circling Alcatraz, the Israeli tossed David a slicker to insulate him from the cold. Hertz’s chauffeur, now the boat’s captain, could not hear them above the thrum of the motor and the churning waves splitting their wake.
Nodding toward the abandoned prison, Hertz said, “Sorry for the chilly setting. But here we are alone, and I rather like the symbolism.
“You’ve been spinning a story, Mr. Wolfe, in and out of court, trying to spare your client a fate similar to that of the former inmates of this unhappy place. Perhaps you would care for me to join my imagination to yours. The story might make more sense.”
“That depends on how it ends.”
With a peremptory gesture, Hertz waved David to a padded seat at the stern of the boat. “I can promise nothing. But we will see.”
Shrugging, David sat beside him. “Let’s start with the assassination,” Hertz said. “Among its obvious effects was to discredit Faras and Al Aqsa, ruin the last feeble hope of peace, and cement Hamas’s hold on power. It is certainly reasonable to suppose that a man like Saeb Khalid, and Hamas itself, might desire such a result.”
A salty spray dampened David’s face. “Hamas,” he amended. “And others.”
“Stay with Hamas, for now. Hamas has a presence at Birzeit. It is also reasonable to posit, as you have, that Iyad Hassan was not Al Aqsa but Hamas, and that he misled Jefar about his true affiliation. Just as it is possible to imagine that Khalid, not Hana Arif, approached Hassan. I simply do not know, whatever you may wish to believe, and, frankly, neither do you.” Hertz placed his hand on David’s wrist. “What we both know, and Khalid knew, is that Munira Khalid is your daughter. That seems to have influenced—if not warped—events and given you another interest to protect.”
Exile: a novel Page 61
