Exile: a novel (67 page)

On the bench, Taylor gazed up at the ceiling, attempting to conceal a faint smile. “Why don’t you leave that one to me,” David suggested to Allegria. “Please, answer the question.”

Allegria settled back in the witness chair. “Even if what you say is right,
Mr. Wolfe, Hassan couldn’t be sure Jefar would live. Way too big an explosion; way too many flying pieces.”

“Nonetheless, wouldn’t you say that whoever disconnected—or failed to connect—the wire substantially enhanced Ibrahim Jefar’s chances of surviving?”

Allegria folded his hands. “A lot would depend on luck, and how close Jefar was to the explosion. But if ‘substantially’ means going from ‘no chance’ to ‘some chance,’ then the glitch in wiring enhanced Jefar’s prospects of surviving.”

“And, in fact, he did survive.”

“Yes.”

David skipped a beat. “And therefore,” he prodded, “Jefar was alive to repeat Iyad Hassan’s story about Hana Arif.”

“Objection.” Sharpe’s voice crackled in the courtroom. “The question piles speculation on speculation.”

David did not care—that he had made his point was apparent from the curiosity on Bob Clair’s face as he looked from Sharpe to David. “I’ll withdraw it,” David told the judge with a careless air. “The last few answers were sufficient.”

But David’s moment of satisfaction was brief. At five o’clock, when the trial recessed, Angel joined him for the beginning of their second eight-hour shift, as they rehearsed, rearranged, and debated his cross-examination of Sharpe’s next witness, Ibrahim Jefar.

Toward midnight, David repeated what was obvious to both of them: “All questions and no answers.”

7     
E
ven had David been a visitor, he would have sensed that this day in court might tilt the balance of the case against Hana Arif.

Outside the federal building, police cordoned off the streets, and satellite trailers crowded tightly together. A small army of reporters recited live feeds into minicams; demonstrators shouted across the barricades. Inside the courtroom, reporters jammed uncomfortably into the wooden benches; the later arrivals leaned against the walls on both sides, their continuous chatter noisier than before. At the prosecutor’s table, Sharpe was flanked by her smart and methodical chief assistant, Paul MacInnis; Victor Vallis, the FBI agent in charge; and George Jennings, the head of the Criminal Division for the Department of Justice. David sat between Hana and Angel Garriques, who, like David, had memorized every fact they could gather about Ibrahim Jefar.

Awaiting the judge, Hana was quiet, filled with thoughts David could only imagine. Their brief conversation had touched on that morning’s news reports—the killing by the IDF of two Al Aqsa members in a village near Ramallah; the murder of a Jewish settler living above the souk in Hebron. Softly, despairingly, Hana had murmured, “My country,” and lapsed back into silence.

Behind them, Saeb took his place in the first row. Though he appeared self-contained, the thumb and forefinger of his left hand rubbed together, as though he were twisting a piece of paper into a tight ball. Even the jury seemed subdued.

“All rise,” the courtroom deputy proclaimed, and Judge Taylor took the bench.

Quiet descended. Folding her hands, the judge scanned the scene in front of her. In a tone that aspired to matter-of-factness but did not quite achieve it, she told the prosecutor, “You may call the next witness, Ms. Sharpe.”

Intently, David absorbed his first impression of Ibrahim Jefar. Under her breath, Hana murmured, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this boy before.”

Her accuser was quite thin, with hollow cheeks and a neatly trimmed beard that did not age his unlined face or limpid brown eyes. He looked alien and confused, as though he had arrived here by some cosmic accident, a wrinkle in time or space. And something terrible seemed to have seeped into his gaze: a hopelessness that pervaded his very being, the vision of years and decades spent waiting to die, sealed away from a life that, from now until death, would exist only in his memory. It would have been better, David thought, if Jefar had blown himself to pieces—not just for Hana and David, but for Jefar himself.

After a few preliminary questions, Sharpe asked Jefar to relate the story of his sister’s experience at the checkpoint. Even here, his voice sounded hollow and dissociated. “So this is why you joined Al Aqsa?” Sharpe inquired in a neutral tone.

“Yes.” Jefar said listlessly. “I wished to redeem my sister’s honor.”

“How did you become involved in the assassination of Amos Ben-Aron?”

Jefar, David noted, was unable to look at anyone for very long; his presence here seemed to have deepened his sense of failure. At length, he said, “One day, Iyad Hassan sat down next to me in class. He knew of my sister, and what the Jews had done to her. We talked for perhaps an hour.”

“Concerning what?”

“The Zionists.” Jefar crossed his legs. “Iyad said that we would never be free until the scab of Israel was removed from all our lands, and we returned to claim what was ours. He said that only cowards shrank from the will of God.”

Beside David, Hana studied Jefar with a look of perplexity; if her knowledge of the witness was any deeper than David’s own, she showed no sign of it. “How did you respond?” Sharpe asked the witness.

Jefar looked up at her fleetingly, almost shyly. “From how Iyad was talking, I knew he was more religious than me. But I agreed with him about the Jews.”

“Did you discuss Prime Minister Ben-Aron?”

Jefar gazed into the distance, as though recalling the fatal divide between his life then and now. “I called Ben-Aron the abortionist of my sister’s baby. The soldiers at the checkpoint were only his assistants.”

“After that,” Sharpe asked, “did your relationship with Hassan continue?”

Jefar nodded, still addressing some middle distance. “After class, we would meet for coffee and talk about jihad and the occupation. I was very careful—I did not want to reveal that I was with Al Aqsa, or betray Muhammad Nasir, my commander in Jenin.” Jefar hesitated, then said rapidly, “But one day I told Iyad that every time I thought of my sister, my blood boiled and I wished to become a martyr—to make the Jews in Israel feel what they made
us
feel.”

David glanced at the jurors. Across the gulf of experience and culture, Bob Clair seemed to scrutinize the witness with a muted horror, as if looking at the Arab terrorist of America’s nightmares. “How did Hassan respond?” Sharpe asked.

“At first Iyad was quiet. Then he said that God would give me what I sought.”

“Did he say how that might happen?”

“Not then. But the next time we met, he asked me to his apartment, for dinner.” Jefar sat back, speaking in the monotone of a man narrating into a tape recorder. “I expected there would be others. But Iyad was alone. He showed me pictures he had taken of the Jewish security wall and the barriers the IDF had built around Birzeit. When I expressed my anger, he sat down, looked me in the eye, and asked if I was ready to consider martyrdom.”

“What did you say?”

At the neck of Jefar’s open shirt, his throat seemed to twitch. “That I was.”

Sharpe paused, intent on her witness. “Did Hassan then say what he meant?”

“He said that Muhammad Nasir had assigned him to carry out a special task, and wished for me to join. But that this involved performing my final service.”

“How did you respond?”

Jefar, David saw, seemed to look everywhere but toward Hana. “I was scared,” he said. “But I was also proud. I had asked Muhammad Nasir for this favor once before. So to Iyad, I said, ‘Tell me what Muhammad asks.’ ”

As Sharpe nodded her encouragement, David saw Ardelle Washington bite her lip. “And what did Hassan say?” Sharpe asked.

Jefar swallowed, then looked directly at the prosecutor. “It had been decided that revenge on the IDF was not enough. We would show our
resolve by cutting off the head of the Jewish serpent, the Zionist who had emptied my sister’s womb.”

David felt his skin grow cold. Beside him, Hana drew a breath. “And did you agree?” Sharpe asked.

“At first, I was filled with wonder. ‘How is this possible?’ I asked Iyad. He answered that Muhammad had assured him that the plan was carefully laid out, but that its details would be hidden, even from him. Each step would be revealed to us just before we took it.”

“Did Hassan say
how
the plans would be revealed?”

“There would be the tightest operational security. I was not to speak to Muhammad Nasir, or even visit Jenin. All instructions would come to Iyad alone. He would pass them to me.”

“Did Hassan say who would pass him the instructions?”

As though in a trance, Jefar merely nodded.

“We need an audible response, Mr. Jefar.”

“We needed someone close at hand,” Jefar said slowly, “who could also travel to America. Someone whose allegiance to Al Aqsa was not known.”

“Did Hassan tell you who that was?”

“In Mexico, I asked him. Iyad hesitated, then swore me to secrecy.” Jefar looked down. “It was a professor at Birzeit, he said. A woman named Hana Arif.”

Though she should not have been surprised, Hana appeared stunned, and David saw her skin turning pale. “Did you know Professor Arif?” Sharpe asked Jefar.

“On sight, yes. But only that.”

“And do you see her now?”

Hassan blinked. Then, as he had not done before, he looked directly at Hana, pointing as he did so. In a parched voice, Jefar said, “That is her.”

On the other side of David, Angel Garriques gripped his pencil with the fingers of both hands. Taylor still regarded the witness. “Mr. Jefar has hours to go yet,” she said to Sharpe. “We’ll recess for ten minutes.”

As Taylor left the bench, Hana turned to David. “For Jefar, this is the truth.”

David nodded. Turning, he saw Saeb Khalid, shoulders slumped, staring at the floor.

For the next hour of testimony, Sharpe led the witness through each fateful move toward the assassination: the assassins’ departure from Ramallah; their circuitous route to Mexico; their illegal crossing into the United States; their acquisition of new identities; the long drive to San Francisco.
Then, step by step, the days spent using and disposing of cell phones; the acquisition of the van; the container filled with the tools of assassination, including a map showing the route of the motorcade. Jefar recited this in a sepulchral tone—except for the moment when they opened the container, when Jefar’s face and voice expressed a kind of wonder. Each step, David noticed, seemed to draw the jury deeper into the world of the two assassins; each step was preceded by a cell phone call, involving Hassan alone, after which Hassan referred to his caller as “she” or “her.” And each reference caused one juror or another to glance at Hana.

Toward the end of this litany, Sharpe introduced Prosecution Exhibit 62, handing it to David before passing it to the jury. Silent, Hana stared at a slip of paper bearing her own cell phone number.

When Sharpe gave it to Jefar, she asked, “Can you identify Exhibit Sixty-two?”

“Yes. Hassan brought it with him to San Francisco. I saw him throw it in a waste can at the last motel.”

“Did he tell you what the number represents?”

“It was the international cell phone number of Professor Arif.”

Angel Garriques stirred. “Perfect for NSA surveillance,” he whispered to David. “Who’d be that stupid?”

Hana kept watching the witness, awaiting his account of the assassination.

This was not long in coming. Though terse, Jefar’s account of the plot’s last few hours exerted its own spell; as the witness spoke, David envisioned the assassins dressing in their police uniforms before dawn; driving to an empty lot south of Market Street; pulling the motorcycles from the van as dawn broke; biding time for several hours until, their faces concealed by helmets and goggles, they took up their stations near Market and Tenth, nervously awaiting the motorcade that would mean their own deaths. Iyad Hassan, Jefar recalled, had begun praying under his breath in Arabic. To Jefar, he had murmured, “It is just as she promised.”

Then Hassan’s cell phone had rung. “As Iyad listened,” Jefar told Sharpe, “he became upset. ‘That was her,’ he told me. ‘They’ve changed the Zionist’s route.’ ”

Bob Clair, David saw, listened to this with a look of curiosity. “What happened then?” Sharpe asked.

“We must go, Iyad said—quickly. So I followed him to Fourth Street.”

“Did he keep the cell phone with him?”

“No. He threw it in a trash barrel.”

“When you reached Fourth Street, what did you do?”

Jefar inhaled, his eyes half shut. “We went a little way down the block, and waited. After a minute or so, the first limousine turned the corner.”

Sharpe moved closer, her quiet tone underscoring the moment. “Did you have a plan, Mr. Jefar?”

“We were to join the motorcade alongside the Zionist’s limousine. Iyad would be the first to drive into its rear door and detonate. I was to follow.” Jefar’s voice was husky. “Even if Iyad failed, I’d blow the Zionist straight to hell.”

“Did you follow these instructions?” Sharpe asked.

Jefar’s answer held a touch of shame. “We joined the motorcade, but when I saw the Zionist’s face, I could not stand to wait.”

“What did you do?”

“I pushed the switch.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing. Then Iyad turned his motorcycle into the Zionist’s limousine . . .”

“And then?”

Jefar looked down. “Everything exploded,” he said softly. “Even the air itself.”

Sharpe stepped closer still. “Did you expect to die?”

“At the moment I pushed the switch.” Pausing, Jefar summoned a kind of dignity. “I did not expect to be here. I do not
wish
to be here now.”

There would be more questions, David knew—the moment when Jefar found himself alive; his recuperation; his dealings with the government. But the rest did not much matter. Jefar had made Sharpe’s case.

8     
A
s a prosecutor, David Wolfe had been well known for relentless, even ruthless, cross-examinations; in one case the defendant, a stock promoter who had bilked retirees out of pension money, had asked for a recess in order to vomit. But a half day of watching Ibrahim Jefar, combined with the incendiary crime with which Hana stood accused, had confirmed David in a different strategy: a patient attempt to probe any holes in Jefar’s account. At its core was the troubling sense that Jefar had told the truth, and that the liar—if there was one—was Iyad Hassan.