Heroes Never Die (21 page)

Tareef and Ayub stormed into the room.  Ayub took a seat to view the proceeding
, and Tareef stood in front of Stephanie’s table to ask questions.  She knew Tareef mistrusted her as much as Abdullah had trusted her.  But trust had nothing to do with it.  She was no longer dealing with the American system of justice.  Here, she was already guilty until proven innocent.

“Sultana,” Tareef began.  “In Saudi Arabia, only the testimony of two male witnesses is needed for a conviction.  Ayub and I charge you with the murder of King Abdullah Hamid.  You are also charged with spying for the CIA.  The purpose of this trial is not to prove your innocence.  Your role in the assassination is already perfectly clear.  You were sent to Saudi Arabia by the CIA to lure my brother to George Town where it would be easier to assassinate him.  Why did the CIA want Abdullah dead?”

Stephanie could feel her knees trembling beneath the table.  Tareef knew everything.  “I don’t work for the CIA, Your Highness.  Minute Magazine sent me to your country to hold an interview with Abdullah.  And I did not lure him to George Town.  An emergency assignment came up, and my editor ordered me to go there.  I was on my way out of your country when Abdullah detained me.  He willingly asked me to marry him, and I willingly accepted.  I did not murder my husband, but I saw the men who did, and I want them punished.”

“You saw who killed my brother?”

“Yes,” she claimed.  “I saw two men.”

“Who were they?” he demanded.

“I can only describe them,” she answered, hoping he would believe her phony defense.  “Both men were white.  They had brown hair, and I would guess them to be in their late twenties, about six feet tall, and very muscular.  They were completely dressed in black, including black leather gloves and black running shoes.  They behaved like trained professionals, as if they knew exactly what they were doing.  Neither of them spoke much, but when they did, their language was foreign to me.  But I heard them say a name, a name that sounded like Alec or Alex, or something like that.”

“Can you identify their language?” Tareef asked.

“I can’t say for sure, but if I had to guess, I would say they spoke Russian.”

Stephanie had been found on the beach holding a Russian-made weapon, and she knew the Russians had become restless waiting for Abdullah to open his air base to them.  She hoped Tareef would see a link between Russia and Abdullah’s death.

“Tell me everything that happened, sultana.”  Stephanie took a deep breath.  This had to be the prize-winning performance of her life.  One mistake and she was dead.

“Abdullah and I were sleeping when the men I just described broke into our room.  Neither of us heard them, and I didn’t know they were there until one of them jerked me out of bed.  He held a pistol to my head and put his hand over my mouth so I couldn’t scream.  Then the other man aimed his pistol at Abdullah and shot him.  I
, I was terrified.  I watched him die.  Abdullah – he never knew what happened.”  She buried her face in her hands to grieve.

“Finish your story,” Tareef demanded.

Stephanie looked up through her veil at Tareef.  Her story was working.  “The man who held me at gunpoint ordered me to do something, but I didn’t understand what he wanted.  The man who shot Abdullah began to search through the room.  He found some clothes and threw them at me.”

Tareef was appalled.  “You were not dressed?”

She shook her head.  “Abdullah is the only man who had ever seen me like that.  I was humiliated.  And I was very frightened.”

“Did these men make other advances toward you?”

“No.  They were in a hurry to get out of there.”

“What happened after you dressed?”

“I tried to go to Abdullah, but the man who held me at gunpoint wouldn’t let me.  He forced me to leave with them.  He put the pistol to the back of my head and pushed me out into the hallway.  The guards were already dead.  Blood was everywhere.  It was horrible.”  She was suddenly running through the hallway reliving the nightmare all over again.  The guard’s faces were paralyzed with fear.  She saw their gaping eyes.  She heard blood gurgling in their throats.

“Sultana?” Tareef called.  “Continue.”

She wondered where she had left off.  Her mind wavered between what had actually happened and the story she was desperately trying to fabricate.  She remembered running down the stairs to the parking lot, and she picked up her story from there.

“The men forced me down the staircase.  We left the hotel through a side door that opened out into the parking lot.  I thought they were going to push me inside of a car, but they forced me to run to the beach.  A small boat was tied to the shoreline and I could see the light of a ship in the distance.  As soon as I saw the ship, I knew they were going
to take me someplace far away.”

“I struggled to escape
, but the man who held the pistol to my head knocked me to the ground.  He pushed me so hard that I broke my arm.  He jerked me back onto my feet, and I kicked him in his groin as hard as I could.  Then I tried to run away, but the man who shot Abdullah caught me and slammed his pistol in my head.  Everything went black.  The next thing I remember was waking up in the hospital.”

“How is it that you were found with a pistol in your hand?”

“I don’t know for sure, but those men probably placed it there so you would think I was guilty.  And their plan worked.  I want them found.  They must be punished for what they did.”

Tareef turned to Ayub.  “She is lying,” Ayub spitefully accused.  “She fooled your brother, Tareef.  Don’t let her fool you.”

Stephanie stared at Ayub.  He was glaring at her with the most lethal eyes she had ever seen, as though his next breath depended upon her death.  She was suddenly struck with the realization that Ayub could have been the one who shot Abdullah.  The guards would have trusted him, making them easy targets.  If she had not been standing out on the terrace when Abdullah was shot, he would have killed her, too.  Ayub knew she was lying because he knew the truth.  She couldn’t change her story without perjuring herself, and she couldn’t accuse Ayub without evidence against him.  It’s all over.  I’m going to be executed!

Tareef turned back to Stephanie.  “You are very good at playacting, sultana.  Unfortunately, you are not good enough.  The men who helped you assassinate my brother are not from Russia as you pretend.  They are from the United States, and they work for the CIA.  They also staged the theft of your purse to give you a weapon.  I order you to give me their names.”

Stephanie defended herself with reckless haste.  “I never saw them before.  The beggar who stole my purse knocked me down and hurt me, and the man who returned my purse grossly insulted both Abdullah and me.”

“You are lying,” he accused.  “You shot Abdullah with the weapon the CIA put in
to your purse.”

“No,” she yelled.  “That’s not true.”  Tareef nodded at the guard who was standing beside her chair.  The guard took hold of her cast and twisted her broken arm.  She screamed with agony.  Tareef waved his hand at the guard to make him stop, but her chilling cries continued.

“Perhaps now you are ready to tell the truth.  You work for the CIA, and you murdered my brother with the weapon your co-conspirators placed into your purse.”

“Abdullah had your guards check the contents of my purse,” she answered between deep sobs of pain.  “They found nothing.”  Tareef glanced at Ayub.  Ayub nodded his head to agree with her story.  Tareef still refused to let up.

“That only proves that you hid your weapon before the guards had a chance to search your purse.”

“That only proves there was nothing to find.”

“You are not the victim you pretend to be.  You are a cold-blooded assassin.  Perhaps you are not aware that we have a way of finding out whether a person is lying.  The eyes always reveal what you don’t want others to know.  If you are lying, your pupils will be dilated.  I am going to ask you one more time.  Did you murder my brother?”

“No, Your Highness.  I did not murder him.”

“We shall soon find out.  Lift your veil, sultana.”

S
tephanie slowly reached for the bottom of her veil and draped it up over her head, afraid that her own eyes would betray her.  She noticed the look of shock that came over Tareef when he saw her bruised and bloody face.  Then he stepped closer to her and looked into her eyes.

“It is just as I suspected.  Your pupils are large.  You murdered my brother.”

Stale hot air slapped her face with dizziness.  The room began to close in around her.  She was suffocating on her own breath.  “I told you, the man who shot Abdullah slammed his pistol into my head.  My pupils are large because I have a concussion.”

She was ready to break down.  Tareef motioned to the guard to get ready.

“Do you work for the CIA?”

“Until recently, I worked for Minute Magazine.  Abdullah asked me to resign, and I did.”

Tareef nodded his approval to the guard.  The guard twisted her broken arm as far as it would turn.  Stephanie’s chilling screams echoed in the hollow room.  The guard refused to ease up.  Death seemed welcome.

“All right, all right,” she screamed like a crazed madwoman.  “I work for the CIA.  I killed Abdullah, and I killed all of the guards.  Then I ran to the beach and waited for a helicopter to rescue me. 
But the helicopter never came because the CIA was hoping I would be arrested so that I could present damaging evidence against them.  Are those the lies you wanted to hear?  You’re going to execute me no matter what I say, so why don’t you just get it over with?  But I promise you, the men who killed Abdullah will be free to strike again, and even in death I will never rest until the men who murdered my husband are punished.”

Stephanie panted to catch her breath.  The room was tense with silence.  She had just confessed to murder, and her confession was snarled with half-truths and lies.  She was so entangled in deception
that even the truth confused her.

A minister of the Saudi government suddenly burst into the room.  His dire expression was alarming.  Something had to be extremely urgent to warrant the interruption.  “Your Highness,” he panted, rushing through the formalities, “you must come at once.”  He led Tareef to the adjacent room.  Ayub
hurried after them.

Stephanie remained in the courtroom under the guard’s watchful eye.  Every second that passed only prolonged her agony.  Her arm throbbed with severe pain
, and her swollen fingers were beginning to look like a catcher’s mitt.  Her mind kept challenging her to endure the hardship, but her body kept crying out to accept defeat.  Then Tareef aggressively approached her table.  The choice to live or die was not her own.  Her fate had already been decided.

“Sultana,” Tareef charged.  “Stand to your feet and receive your sentence.”

“No,” she cried, her body trembling with terror.  “I didn’t kill him.”  The guard grabbed her broken arm and pulled her to her feet.  Her body stiffened with agonizing pain and the room closed in around her.  She could almost feel the executioner jabbing his pistol into her head.  She could almost hear the bullet whooshing out of the chamber and crushing her skull.  She could almost taste the blood gushing from her nose and mouth.  Her own life suddenly became a distant memory.  She struggled to take her next breath, forcing herself to live just so she could die.  This is not how I dreamed my life would be.  Brian!  I want more time with Brian.  Then the room turned dark, and she collapsed to the floor.

Chapter Twenty-Three:

Stephanie felt a cool breeze on her face.  She opened her eyes and saw a ceiling fan spinning so fast that the blades were nothing more than a blur.  The room was bright, and she wondered what time of day it was.  Then she realized she was in bed.  It was the cushiest bed she had ever slept in.  Where am I?  The palace maybe?  She looked at her left arm and noticed her swollen fingers sticking out from the cast.  Then she remembered that Dr. Sami had given her pain medication.  Her entire body was in a wonderful state of euphoric bliss.  She no longer cared where she was.  Then she closed her eyes and went back to sleep.

“Sultana?”  She heard the hazy sound of a man’s voice calling to her.

Then she felt the warmth of a loving hand
upon her cheek, and her insides filled with happiness, for she knew when she opened her eyes that Brian would be smiling back at her, but then she reasoned that Brian would never call her ‘sultana,’ and the terror of her ordeal returned.

“Abdullah?” she questioned in a faint whisper, remembering how he had knocked her to the floor with his powerful fist and then tenderly touched her face to soothe her pain.

“Abdullah is dead,” Tareef corrected, as he sat down upon the bed beside her.

S
tephanie suddenly saw herself standing over Abdullah’s body with a pistol aimed at his heart.  She trembled as she tried to steady her aim, then her eyes jumped open, and she saw the man who sentenced her to die.  She instinctively drew back, fully expecting him to twist her broken arm again.

“I’m not going to hurt you.  You are safe now.”

Stephanie struggled to comprehend what was happening.  “I don’t understand.  You sentenced me to die.  Why am I alive?”

“You collapsed before you heard your sentence
, but more simply,” he explained.  “You are alive because you did not murder my brother.”