Directed Verdict

by Randy Singer

“I want names and addresses of other church leaders.” Ahmed spoke in a low and gruff voice.

  Without thinking, Sarah slowly started shaking her head from side to side. Her husband could no longer see her, his view blocked by the bulky body of his interrogator. But Sarah willed her husband to defy this evil man. Just hang tough, she pleaded silently. Don’t give even one name!

  “I see,” Ahmed snarled as he let go of the hair and watched Charles resume his stare at the floor. “You make this difficult.”

  He turned to the agents in the family room. “Continue the search,” he commanded in Arabic, but this time he gave the orders slowly, enunciating the words carefully so the Reeds could comprehend. “Remove the woman’s clothes and search her for drugs, every hiding place on her body. Enjoy yourselves.”

  Sarah went numb.

  As if fueled by his wife’s fear, Charles reacted with the desperate impulse of a man who had nothing to lose. He jumped from the chair and shook off one agent just as Ahmed turned again to face him. Charles lowered his head and drove himself forward. He landed a perfect head butt, driving his forehead as a battering ram into Ahmed’s chin.

  Ahmed reeled backward, spitting blood, but quickly regained his footing. With the fluid motion of a martial arts expert, he spun and landed his foot squarely against the side of Charles’s face, the sound of cracking bone a testament to the blow’s force. Charles’s head snapped to the side, and his body hurtled against the kitchen wall, collapsing helplessly on the floor.

  Sarah dropped her face into her hands and screamed.

  A large agent instantly jerked her around and clamped his hand over her mouth. She bit. Hard. And she brought up her knee with all her might. He yanked his hand back, doubled over, and cursed.

  But now two more agents were up against her, pinning her to the wall, stuffing her mouth with some type of cloth. Her small frame was no match for these men. They were in her face, pinning her arms and legs. Then they went after her clothes with a vengeance, ripping open her cotton blouse, gawking and grinning stupidly.

  The prayer list, she remembered. They’ll see the prayer list!

  This thought energized Sarah, and with an adrenaline-fueled explosion she slipped away from one assailant and lunged at the other. He barely averted her wild swings, wrapped her in a bear hug, and threw her backward to the floor, landing squarely on top of her. Her neck snapped back, and her head bounced hard on the thin carpet.

  Everything went black.

  * * *

  Brad checked his notes and his nerve one more time. Ichabod would never let the witness answer these questions, but still he had to ask. When you try a case with one eye on the appeals court, you have to preserve the record. Make the judge rule. Demonstrate her bias.

  “Do you believe that human life begins at conception?” Brad bluntly asked Reverend Bailey.

  “Objection.”

  “Sustained,” Ichabod ruled. “That question ought to be taken out and shot.”

  “Do you have a basis in the Bible for your belief that human life begins at conception?” Brad persisted.

  “Objection, Judge,” prosecutor Angela Bennett whined. “That question assumes that the witness answered the prior question, which he didn’t.”

  “Sustained,” Ichabod snapped. “Mr. Carson, move on to something relevant.”

  “Do you believe abortion is murder?”

  Bennett stood but had no time to object. “Mr. Carson—” Ichabod’s voice had a hard edge—“do you understand English? The reverend’s personal beliefs about abortion are not relevant. Not relevant. Now move on to something that is or sit down so the witness may be cross-examined.”

  “May I at least explain the basis for asking the questions?” Brad asked, a trace of sarcasm in his words.

  “No.”

  Bennett smirked and sat down.

  Brad’s eyes locked on Ichabod as he planned his next line of attack. His next question dripped slowly from his mouth, but he kept his stare fixed on the judge, daring her to rule the question out of order. “The statute requires that you purposefully try to persuade a woman not to enter the clinic and have an abortion,” Brad explained. “What was your purpose in praying on the sidewalk in front of the clinic?”

  Ichabod frowned but did not speak.

  “To petition God for mercy,” the reverend said.

  Brad returned his attention to the witness. The man looked paler and more fragile than ever. “And why did you choose to have this prayer meeting in front of the abortion clinic?”

  “Because that’s where the evil was happening,” the reverend said softly.

  “Speak up,” Ichabod demanded, “and move closer to the microphone.”

  “Because that’s where the evil was happening,” the Reverend Bailey repeated. “That’s where the babies were dying.”

  “Is the front of the abortion clinic the only place you have conducted this type of prayer meeting?” Brad asked.

  The prosecutor was on her feet, but her objection was forestalled by a quick look from Ichabod.

  “Don’t bother,” the judge said testily. “Don’t bother objecting, because I’m going to let it in. I’m going to give Mr. Carson all the rope he needs to hang himself.”

  Bennett shrugged and sat down.

  “No, it’s not,” the reverend said, leaning into the mike.

  “It’s not what?” Brad asked.

  “It’s not the only place we have petitioned God for mercy and to halt evil. My congregation and I have prayed over the last few years in front of our local pharmacy when they started dispensing the RU-486 pill, and in front of some of the bars down on Military Highway, and, you know, places like that . . .” His voice trailed off, and he leaned back from the mike.

  Brad gave him a sideways look of reproach. “Any other places you can think of . . . where you have petitioned God to end some perceived evil?”

  “How can this be relevant?” a frustrated Angela Bennett asked.

  “Because it shows the Reverend Bailey didn’t go to the abortion clinic with the purpose of persuading pregnant women as prohibited by the statute,” Brad answered. “His purpose was to petition God, and that’s not prohibited. And it shows he has prayed with his congregation at other places where he perceives evil influences exist, also for the purpose of petitioning God. In short, it demonstrates a pattern.”

  Brad looked at the judge and waited for her ruling. He knew she didn’t like this line of questioning, but neither did she like getting reversed on appeal for making bad evidentiary rulings.

  “Go on,” Ichabod said, without hiding her impatience. “Is there anyplace else you have done this prayer meeting thing?”

  “Just one other place,” the Reverend Bailey said meekly. He paused. The entire courtroom waited.

  “The steps of this courthouse.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” the prosecutor said sharply.

  “I agree,” Ichabod barked. “The remark will be struck from the record.”

  Her face flushed and the vein pulsed.

  She had taken the bait.

  3

  CHARLES REED TRIED TO FOCUS. His mind swirled in a rage of anger, pain, and helplessness. Two muscular agents forced him into the kitchen chair again and pinned his arms behind his back. Ahmed was in his face. Sarah lay motionless on the family room couch.

  She was alive, he knew. And by the grace of God, she had not been molested. After she blacked out, Ahmed started barking orders. Check the pulse. Lay her on the couch. Grab that list from her bra. Leave her alone.

  Charles did not know the reason for the last order. Maybe they were waiting for her to regain consciousness. Maybe they could get whatever they needed from him. Maybe even these men had limits on what they would do to American citizens. Maybe it was just a miraculous answer to his prayer. Whatever the reason, it gave Charles hope.

  “Who is Hanif?” Ahmed demanded, reading from the list.

  Charles stared at the floor. His face throbbed. The taste o
f blood trickled through his mouth.

  “Who is Khartoum?” Ahmed continued.

  More silence.

  One of Ahmed’s men removed a sleek black stun gun from its holster. He held it inches from the base of Charles’s neck and looked at Ahmed, apparently waiting for his cue. Ahmed grinned at Charles and boasted about the weapon. It would immobilize any man, Ahmed told him, with two hundred thousand volts of electricity. And the best thing, Ahmed claimed, was that the instrument left no marks on the victim except two small burn spots where the probes of the gun contacted the skin and unleashed the electricity. Only the central nervous system would suffer permanent damage, and the cause would be difficult to prove.

  Charles wondered for a fleeting instant how bad it could be.

  He soon learned. And for the next twenty minutes—for what seemed like an eternity—his hope for survival faded with every passing question, with every mind-searing jolt.

  “I need names of the leaders of the other church groups you have started.” Ahmed spoke deliberately and calmly, as if he knew Charles was beginning to have trouble understanding the words. “Don’t play games with me.”

  The waiting was the hardest part. Knowing what was coming—the surging current of the stun gun—and being powerless to stop it. How many times had they been through this? How much more could he take? How long ago had Sarah gone down? And what would happen to her now? His mind raced, chasing questions with no answers.

  Charles sensed movement behind him and convulsed at the thought of another jolt from the hated gun. “Please . . . I’m begging you.” He trembled, struggling for breath. “You’ve got to believe me. . . . I don’t know what churches you’re talking about. . . . These names on the card are just friends—”

  “Shut up,” Ahmed snapped. He grabbed Charles’s hair and jerked his head backward again, demanding eye contact.

  Charles prayed for strength.

  Ahmed slowly raised the corner of his mouth, a small and sick smile, then spit in Charles’s face, letting go of his hair. Charles’s head dropped hard against his chest. The saliva dripped from his cheek.

  “You think you are strong,” Ahmed whispered through clenched teeth. “But you are stupid. You will talk, my friend.” Ahmed paused, letting the words hang in the air. “You will talk.”

  Ahmed held out his palm to stop the agent with the stun gun. This time Ahmed himself would do the honors. He took the gun and jammed it furiously against the base of Charles’s neck.

  Burning flesh, surging electricity, searing pain. Charles shook and yelped as his body twitched involuntarily, the pain affecting every nerve ending, the electricity jolting his brain. His body was on fire from the inside out. His screams did not seem to belong to him, and he jerked uncontrollably in the chair, unable to escape the gun or to bear this new round of torture.

  Finally, mercifully, Ahmed disengaged the gun. Charles’s seizure continued, blood and saliva flowing from his contorted mouth into his lap. The smell of burning flesh filled the kitchen.

  Charles was losing his will to endure. He prayed for strength for the next minute, nothing more. He tried to focus on Sarah and the kids. He would make it one more minute for them, for the church members, for his Lord.

  Images flashed through his mind in rapid succession. Images of his wife and children, of baptisms of church members, of the face of Christ as it had been portrayed in his childhood picture Bible. Ahmed’s voice brought the parade to a stop.

  “We are just beginning,” Ahmed said gruffly, without emotion. “Do not be a fool. My men are anxious to finish what they started. On both you and your wife. Your wife needs help, and I need names. Let us make a deal.”

  The threat to Sarah brought Charles back to reality. He raised his head, looked out toward the living room, then locked eyes with Ahmed. What does he mean? Charles wondered. The eyes told him nothing. Can you deal with the devil? God, give me wisdom!

  Sudden clarity came over Charles in the midst of the pain, an immediate answer to a desperate prayer. This man is just keeping Sarah safe so he can use her as leverage against me. If I give up the names, he will have no reason to let either of us live, no reason to protect Sarah from his men. The informant must have told him the names of the Friday night worshipers. But the other names he does not know. My silence keeps Sarah alive.

  Ahmed narrowed his eyes. Charles was sure the man could read his thoughts. As Ahmed reached again for the stun gun, Charles mumbled a sentence and dropped his chin to his chest.

  “Again,” Ahmed demanded. “Say it again.”

  As if possessed by a force greater than himself, Charles repeated the words, slowly, and in a barely audible whisper. “‘He was led as a lamb to the slaughter—’” he paused, taking a labored breath—“‘and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth.’”

  Ahmed’s silence caused Charles to raise his head. When he did so, Ahmed turned and looked at Sarah sprawled on the couch, the only sign of life in the heaving of her chest. “Some men need a little extra persuasion,” the Muttawa leader growled. He turned to Charles again and, with great force, pulled Charles’s right arm from behind his back and grabbed Charles’s wrist. He pushed hard against the back of Charles’s hand, nearly bending the wrist in half as he forced the hand toward the forearm. Charles flinched and ground his teeth, swallowing the scream that welled up in the back of his throat. Surely his wrist would snap in two.

  The pain returned. Searing, debilitating pain. And then Ahmed backed off slightly on the pressure but continued to hold the wrist. “Speak to me,” Ahmed said simply. “Or you will beg me to stop, and there will be no end.”

  Once again Charles summoned courage he did not know he had for another symbolic act of resistance. He gritted his teeth and made a futile effort to yank his wrist away from Ahmed’s iron grip. Charles knew immediately that he had made an awful mistake.

  Ahmed reasserted the pressure with a vengeance. This time he did not let up as Charles begged for mercy. Ahmed pushed harder; the pain intensified. It shot up Charles’s arm and engulfed his brain. And then it happened—the sickening snap of the wrist bone as his hand went limp.

  His bloodcurdling scream echoed throughout the apartment.

  * * *

  “When did you hold a prayer meeting on the steps of this courthouse?” Brad asked innocently.

  Angela Bennett bolted from her seat, hands spread in protest.

  “Mr. Carson, that’s not relevant,” Ichabod said gruffly, leaning back and folding her arms.

  “Judge, it is relevant. If you give me a few minutes, I’ll link it up,” Brad promised.

  The judge hesitated, then scowled. “Go ahead, Mr. Carson. But it better be good.”

  Oh, it will be, Brad thought.

  “Reverend Bailey, when and why were you praying on the courthouse steps?”

  “It was in the summer of 2000,” he said, “after the Stenberg v. Carhart Supreme Court case in which the Court sanctioned partial birth abortion. I just couldn’t believe that in this country our courts would defend a procedure like that—a procedure where a viable fetus is delivered into the birth canal, and then . . .” The reverend paused, pursing his lips and sadly shaking his head. “And then the skull is torn open with scissors, and the brain material is extracted to reduce the head size and ensure the child dies before delivery.”

  He did not look at Brad as he finished his answer. Brad chose to let the silence linger.

  “God help us,” the reverend mumbled into the silence. “I knew then it was time to pray.”

  Ichabod appeared unmoved except for the telltale vein, now a bit larger and pulsing a bit faster than before. She had been duped; Brad saw the realization in her eyes. The volatile issues she had worked so hard to keep out of the case were now cascading around her, and she was powerless to stop them.

  “Did you read the opinion in Stenberg before you went to the courthouse to pray?” Brad asked, pushing the point.

  “Yes, I pulled it
off the Internet.”

  “Was there anything in the opinion that surprised you?”

  “Yes. I had heard so many news reports about the gruesome procedure referred to as partial birth abortion. But until I read the Stenberg decision, I had never focused on what really happens during a normal D and E procedure, not a partial birth abortion but the kind of abortion performed every day right here at the Norfolk Clinic.”

  “And is that what motivated you—,” Brad began.

  “Stop! Right there!” Ichabod demanded, her harsh words echoing off the courtroom walls. “You are flaunting this court’s rulings, Mr. Carson.” She clenched her teeth and hunched her shoulders. “Move off this line of questioning.”

  “Doesn’t the prosecution have to make her own objections anymore, or are you just—”

  “Don’t push it, Mr. Carson,” Ichabod snapped. “Don’t push it.”

  Brad pulled a copy of the case from his counsel table and turned to the dissenting opinion of Justice Anthony Kennedy. “Do you recall these words from the opinion?” he asked the reverend. He began reading as if Ichabod had never spoken. “Are these the words that caused you so much anguish that you went first to the courthouse and later to the clinic for the purpose of begging God to stop these procedures?”

  Ichabod looked stunned, but Brad could sense the wheels turning. Would she dare rule out of order, as being too emotionally charged, the very words from an opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court?

  “‘In a D and E procedure,’” Brad read, “‘the fetus, in many cases, dies just as a human adult or child would: it bleeds to death as it is torn from limb to limb. . . .’”

  The prosecutor jumped to her feet again. “I strongly object to this inflammatory tactic,” Bennett shouted in an effort to be heard over Brad’s reading.

  “‘. . . The fetus can be alive at the beginning of the dismemberment process and can survive for a time while its limbs are being torn off. . . .’”

  Ichabod started banging her gavel. “Mr. Carson! Mr. Carson!”

  The prosecutor continued objecting, and a loud murmur rose from the left side of the courtroom. The Reverend Bailey’s eyes widened.