Exile: a novel (68 page)

On the witness stand, Jefar looked wary and diminished. Approaching him, David stopped a comfortable distance away, hands in his pockets. The manner he chose was factual, dispassionate.

“As I understand it, Mr. Jefar, you never met Hana Arif.”

Jefar gave a quick bob of the head. “That’s true.”

“You never spoke to her about assassinating Amos Ben-Aron.”

“No.”

“You don’t even know whether, in fact, she’s affiliated with Al Aqsa.”

The witness shifted his weight. “I only know that from Iyad Hassan.”

“And it’s also true that Hassan is the sole reason you believe that Muhammad Nasir, the former leader of Al Aqsa, wanted you to assassinate Amos Ben-Aron.”

A defensive look crept into Jefar’s eyes. “That is true.”

David paused. “If I told you that Muhammad Nasir claimed that he was not involved in this assassination, and that he asserted that Hana Arif was not a member of Al Aqsa, whom would you believe?”

“Objection.”
A barely controlled anger jackknifed Sharpe from her
chair. “There is no foundation for that question, nor can there be. Muhammad Nasir is dead.”

“Nasir wasn’t dead when I met with him,” David told Taylor swiftly. “I’m probing the basis for the witness’s accusation against Ms. Arif.”

“With a groundless and unprovable hypothetical—”

“Enough,” Taylor snapped. “Both of you. Please approach the bench.”

They did so. “All right,” Taylor said to Sharpe in a lower voice. “Make your point here. Though I think I know what it is.”

“I’m sure you do, Your Honor. In his last few days of questioning, Mr. Wolfe has effectively told the jury that three supposed witnesses have been murdered. This
last
question is based on Mr. Wolfe’s self-serving account of a dead terrorist’s self-serving statement. It’s not only utterly unprovable, it’s hearsay—”

“So is Jefar’s entire testimony against Hana Arif,” David interrupted.

“Mr. Wolfe,” the judge said sharply. “We both know what you’re up to. You posed an inappropriate question, to which Ms. Sharpe was bound to object, and then followed up with a gratuitous statement couched as argument. Do it again and you’re looking at a mistrial.”

David bowed his head, feigning a penitence he did not feel. “It’s up to you,” the judge told Sharpe. “I’ll be happy to instruct the jury to ignore Mr. Wolfe’s statements about Muhammad Nasir.”

Sharpe shot David a look of spite. “Thank you, Your Honor. But I’m afraid that repetition will only serve his strategy.”

“All right,” Taylor said to David. “No more of this.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.” Satisfied, David returned to his station in front of the witness. “Let’s turn to the assassination plan itself,” he said to Jefar. “Did you discuss that plan with anyone but Hassan?”

Jefar seemed to hunch, becoming smaller. “Iyad told me not to—that this was Muhammad’s order. So I told no one.”

“Do you know whether Hassan lied about
that
?”

Jefar blinked. “I believed him...”

“Why?”

“Because he told me.”

“To summarize, then, all you ever knew about the plan to kill Ben-Aron was what Iyad Hassan told you.”

Jefar fidgeted with his shirt collar. “That is right.”

David tilted his head. “This morning, you testified about a prior conversation with Muhammad Nasir in which you asked to become a martyr. Did you tell him specifically what you wanted?”

“That I wanted to die as a bomber in the bastard country called Israel.”

“And how did Muhammad Nasir respond?”

Across the courtroom, David saw Sharpe stir, instinctively nettled by the reference to Nasir. But this question, unlike that to which she had objected, was rooted in Jefar’s own testimony. And its impact on the witness was so palpable—discomfort and bewilderment—that David knew at once that what Nasir had told him about admonishing Jefar was true. The witness rubbed both temples with his fingertips, as though to ward off a headache. “What Muhammad told me,” he finally answered, “was that it was better to kill the IDF soldiers occupying our land than Jewish civilians in the land that they thought was theirs. And that it was more useful for me to live as long as I could.”

“Am I correct in understanding that Nasir—and also Al Aqsa—was willing to accept an independent Palestine living in peace with Israel?”

“Under certain conditions—an end to settlements, fair borders, recognition of the great injustice done our refugees.”

“Isn’t that what Ben-Aron wanted?”

“So he said,” Jefar answered bitterly. “But my sister could not hear him.”

“And Iyad Hassan,” David prodded softly, “knew all about your sister before you ever told him.”

Jefar looked down. “Yes.”

“Other than Hassan, do you have any reason to believe that Muhammad Nasir, your commander in Al Aqsa, had changed his mind about the effectiveness of suicide bombings?”

“No.”

“Or about whether you should become a martyr?”

“No.”

In the jury box, Bob Clair raised his eyebrows, as though making a mental note. From voir dire, David knew that Clair was a linear thinker— he liked things to make sense, and here they did not. Emboldened, David asked Jefar, “Is it possible that Iyad Hassan, knowing about your sister, exploited your hatred of Ben-Aron to enlist you in an assassination planned by people other than Al Aqsa?”

“Objection,” Sharpe called out. “This is yet another hypothetical question, lacking any foundation in the evidence.”

Holding up her hand for silence, Judge Taylor turned to David. “Mr. Wolfe?”

“The question’s not only legitimate,” David said firmly, “it goes to another critical aspect of this case: whether the origin of the plot as described by Ibrahim Jefar—
and
by the prosecutor—is fact or fiction.”

“I understand,” the judge replied. “Perhaps you can frame the question in some other way.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.” Turning back to Jefar, David asked, “Do you personally know
who
designed the assassination plan?”

“No.”

“So Hassan could have been working for anyone, right?”

Briefly, Jefar looked dazed, as though the last solace of his days and nights—that he had carried out a mission authorized by Muhammad Nasir—was being stolen from him. Quietly, he said, “I cannot know.”

“This morning you mentioned operational security—the need to keep all details secret. Yet Hassan told you that Hana Arif was his handler. Did you wonder why, in Ms. Arif ’s case, Hassan breached operational security?”

“I asked him this,” Jefar answered wearily. “Iyad expected us to die.”

This was the answer David had hoped for. “Did Hassan give you the name of anyone else involved?”

“Only Muhammad Nasir.” Abruptly, Jefar added, “About Hana Arif, surely Iyad told me the truth. He had her telephone number on a slip of paper.”

“How did you know it was Ms. Arif ’s number?”

Jefar hesitated. “Iyad told me. But this is true, correct? Iyad called her on that number.”

David placed his hands on his hips. “How do you know that, Mr.Jefar?”

Jefar glanced at Sharpe. “From the prosecutor. This was shown on Iyad’s cell phone, yes?”

David smiled. “Lawyers, as Ms. Sharpe has been at pains to point out, aren’t witnesses. Based on your own personal knowledge, did Mr. Hassan call the cell phone number on that slip of paper?”

Jefar shrugged. “I cannot know.”

“And even if Hassan did call, you can’t know who—if anyone— answered.”

“No.”

“Do you know who gave Hassan the piece of paper?”

Jefar paused again. “Iyad said it was Professor Arif.”

“We’re back to Hassan again,” David said more harshly. “Do
you
know, Mr. Jefar, who gave Hassan the piece of paper with Ms. Arif ’s cell phone number?”

“No.”

“You also testified that, just before the assassination, Hassan threw his cell phone in a trash basket. Do you know why?”

“He always got rid of them, every day or two. He didn’t want our phone calls traced.”

“Twenty minutes from death? Given that Iyad Hassan was blown to pieces, what do you expect would have happened to his cell phone if he’d kept it with him?”

Jefar folded his arms. “Perhaps we would have been intercepted by the police. Who knew what would happen?”

It was an effective answer. David hesitated, then asked, “When Hassan threw the cell phone in the trash barrel, you were on Market Street, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And Market Street was lined with people who could have seen him do this.”

“I suppose so, yes.”

David paused. “That was the cell phone, was it not, on which Hassan had just received a call telling him that Ben-Aron’s route had changed.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know the number of the phone used to place
that
call?”

“No.” Jefar hesitated, then asked, “But wouldn’t Iyad’s cell phone also show that?”

“What exactly would it show?”

Jefar looked bewildered, as if he could not fathom how David could be so obtuse. “A cell phone number,” he answered.

“International? Or local—with services confined to the United States?”

“Local. Hassan told me that all the phones we used were local. Something about avoiding U.S. intercepts or surveillance.”

“And yet the telephone number on the slip of paper—supposedly Ms. Arif’s—had the country code for Israel and the West Bank.”

Jefar placed his fingertips together. “That is what I saw, yes.”

“Do you know why Hassan would call a cell phone registered to Ms. Arif, for which she received a monthly bill from a Palestinian service provider?”

“I do not know.”

David smiled faintly. “Doesn’t that strike you as a breach of ‘operational security’?”

Once more, Sharpe tensed, apparently searching for an objection. But there was none, and the jurors were plainly interested in hearing Jefar’s answer. “I do not know,” he said tonelessly.

For a split second, David wished that he could see Saeb Khalid’s expression. “Let’s back up a little,” he continued. “This morning you described entering a storage container at night and finding police uniforms, plastique, motorcycles, and a map showing Ben-Aron’s route. Do you have any idea who put them there?”

“No.”

“Or who might have
ordered
them to be put there?”

“No.”

“Who wired the plastique to the motorcycles?”

“Hassan.”

“Is there a reason you didn’t wire your own?”

Jefar shrugged helplessly. “I did not know how.”

“Did you check the plastique to see if Hassan had wired it properly?”

“No. I would not have known what to check.”

“So you don’t know when—or how—the wiring became disconnected?”

“No.”

David paused for effect. “But you
do
know that it wasn’t disconnected by the explosion. Because you pressed your toggle switch before Hassan did?”

“Yes.”

“That was contrary to Hassan’s order, true?”

Jefar looked away. “Yes.”

“Hassan’s orders were to let him go first.”

“Yes.”

“But isn’t that effectively what happened? When your motorcycle failed to explode, you stayed back, and then Hassan went for Ben-Aron’s limousine and ignited his own plastique. Just as he had planned.”

“I suppose so, yes.”

“So you’re alive because you stayed back—as ordered by Hassan—and because your motorcycle—wired by Hassan—failed to explode.”

“Objection,” Sharpe said quickly. “Calls for speculation. The witness can’t know what would have happened.”

“Really?” David retorted. “According to the prosecution’s own expert, Mr. Allegria, if Mr. Jefar’s bike had exploded he would not be with us. Mr. Allegria also suggested that the witness would have died had he been as close to the limousine as Iyad Hassan.”

Sharpe stepped forward. “Mr. Wolfe had his shot with Special Agent Allegria, Your Honor. By his own testimony, Mr. Jefar is not an expert on explosives.”

Briefly, Taylor considered this. “I’m going to sustain the objection, Mr. Wolfe. Do you have some other question on this subject?”

“I do.” Turning to the witness, David asked, “You were close to the explosion. Why do
you
think you’re alive?”

Jefar hesitated. “Because I wasn’t next to the car when Iyad struck it.”

“And that was consistent with his instructions, right?”

Taking out a handkerchief, Jefar briefly dabbed his forehead. “Yes.”

“Okay. A while ago you mentioned the possibility that you and Hassan might be captured, not killed. Did you ever discuss what might happen to you if you lived?”

“One night, in Mexico, Iyad spoke of this.”

“What did he say?”

“That the Americans would give us to the Jews, to torture.”

Sharpe leaned forward; from her expression, David sensed that Jefar had never revealed this to her. “Did you discuss any other possibilities?” David asked.

Jefar closed his eyes. “Iyad said they might send us to a CIA prison, in Russia. There they could do anything they wanted—remove our finger-nails, hold electric wires to our genitals.”

This was a fantasy, David knew—any involvement in this assassination would make Jefar and Hassan public figures, far too visible for mistreatment to be possible. But to someone as unsophisticated as Jefar, the prospect might have seemed quite real. “Did what Iyad Hassan tell you about torture influence your decision to cooperate with the prosecution and implicate Hana Arif?”

“Objection,” Sharpe said. “The government made no such threats. All we told the witness was that his testimony—if we believed it truthful— entitled him to consideration in whether we sought the death penalty or life imprisonment.”

“I understand that,” David told Taylor mildly. “My question was whether Mr. Jefar was motivated to accept that deal because he feared being tortured.”

Nodding, the judge turned to Jefar. “When you entered your agreement with the prosecutor,” she asked him, “did you do so—in whole or in part— because you feared being tortured as Mr. Hassan had described? Either by the Israelis or by the CIA?”

Jefar hung his head. “I was afraid of torture, yes. More than of execution.”