Fatal Convictions (23 page)

61

The Lebanese knew how to eat. Multiple courses spread over two hours. Exotic Mediterranean cuisine. The food was served mezze—in small dishes that formed a colorful array of textures, aromas, and tastes. For Alex, an eat-fast-food-in-the-car, I-don’t-have-time-for-dinner guy, it was an eye-opening experience. Two hours spent with Nara in the soft light of a restaurant overlooking the Mediterranean was not quite heaven. But it was close.

He didn’t get back to his hotel room until nearly nine, and he still needed to review some things before tomorrow’s deposition. He kicked off his shoes and lay on the bed. He was jet-lagged and now had a full stomach in a warm room. He didn’t quite have the emotional energy to deal with the upcoming deposition right now. Alex closed his eyes. Maybe he would take a short nap first. Just a half hour or so . . .

The BlackBerry always sounded twice as loud when it woke Alex out of a sound sleep. He jerked awake, disoriented in a room that he didn’t immediately recognize.

The next feeling that hit was a sense of foreboding. Nobody ever calls late at night with good news.

“Hello,” he said, his voice scratchy. He checked his watch. The display said 10:37 p.m.

“Alex, this is Nijad Abadi,” the voice said. He had a heavy Lebanese accent, and it took Alex a second to place the name—Hamza Walid’s lawyer. “I am sorry to disturb you so late.”

“It’s all right,” Alex said, but his stomach had dropped to his knees. This could mean only one thing.

“I am very sorry to inform you that my client will not be able to be deposed tomorrow. I just learned of this myself and wanted to let you know immediately.”

“What?”

“My client—Mr. Walid—he will not be coming in for his deposition tomorrow. I am very sorry that we must cancel on such short notice.”

Alex was fully awake now. “You can’t cancel. I came all the way from America.”

“I know. And I am terribly sorry. But as we both know, his testimony is entirely voluntary. And Mr. Walid has had a change of heart.”

“What happened?” Alex demanded. “You at least owe me an explanation.”

“I am not at liberty to say anything more,” Nijad said. “However, I am authorized on behalf of Mr. Walid to reimburse you for your expenses.”

“I don’t want my expenses reimbursed!” Alex said, practically shouting. “I need to take Walid’s deposition. A man’s life is on the line. A friend of your client.”

“I am sorry. That cannot happen.”

“Let me talk to him.” Alex had quickly gone from confused to furious. How could they do this?

“That is not possible, Mr. Madison. He has asked that you communicate only through me.”

The rest of the conversation was a blur. Alex expressed his frustration in no uncertain terms, trying his best to put a guilt trip on the Beirut lawyer. When he got off the phone, he quickly called Khalid to see if Khalid could get in touch with Hamza and talk him into showing up. When that didn’t work, Alex called Abadi back and said that he would show up at the lawyer’s office tomorrow morning at nine anyway, just like they had planned. If Hamza reconsidered, Alex would be there.

“I’m afraid that would be a waste of time,” Abadi said. “When I spoke to Ms. Deegan, she said that she would be taking the first plane back to the United States.”

Of course,
Alex thought. Taj knew the deposition couldn’t go forward without her.

It was time to face the facts. There would be no deposition.

The one person Alex didn’t call that night was Nara Mobassar. He didn’t want her to find out over the phone. He would tell her face-to-face, first thing in the morning.

62

They were standing next to a concrete bench outside Abadi’s office when Alex broke the news. He had already gone inside, demanding to at least meet with Abadi, and had been told that the lawyer was not in. Alex had left the building and waited for Nara outside. When she arrived, he walked her to the bench and asked her to have a seat.

She froze instead, eyeing Alex suspiciously. “He’s not coming, is he?”

Alex shook his head. “No. He’s not.”

There was fire in Nara’s eyes as she tried to keep a stiff upper lip. “When did you find out?”

“Last night.”

“And you didn’t call me?”

“I didn’t want to tell you over the phone.”

Nara seemed to be on the verge of crying—they both had harbored high hopes for this deposition. She pursed her lips and set her jaw defiantly, but Alex could see tears forming in her eyes. He told her about the phone calls the previous night and his attempts to get the deposition back on track.

At some point, though he didn’t really notice when, Alex and Nara both sat down. She sniffed a few times and used a finger to brush some tears from the corners of her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said, as if she wasn’t allowed to cry. “I just knew that Hamza’s testimony would get the truth out there. It’s so unbelievably frustrating.”

“I know.” Alex wanted to hold her and offer some comfort, maybe let her cry on his shoulder, but he knew how that would look in the tabloids. “I feel the same way.”

They talked for a few minutes about what to do now. Alex tried to stay positive, but he also sensed that Nara liked it best when he played it straight. “What if we can still find Walid?” she asked. “What if he tells me who the bank account belongs to? Can I testify about that?”

“It’s actually kind of complicated,” Alex said. “If Hamza talks with us, we might be able to use whatever
information
he gives us so long as we can verify it in some other way that is admissible in court. But what he tells us would be hearsay. So the statements themselves would generally not be admissible.”

“Generally?” Nara asked, picking up on the loophole. “What are the exceptions?”

Alex grunted. “There are tons of exceptions. But the only one that might apply to Walid is if he said something that could be regarded as an admission against interest. In other words, he admits something that might subject him to criminal liability or might be against his own financial interest. Those statements are generally deemed reliable because people don’t incriminate themselves unless it’s true. But even if he made statements like that, we’d have to prove that he’s not available to testify, and we would need corroborating circumstances.”

Nara was silent for several moments, processing this information. Alex could see that she had latched on to this angle as a thin ray of hope.

“I’m going to call my father,” Nara said. “Find out who knows Walid. Maybe we can still meet with him.”

“Okay,” Alex said, though he was not very enthusiastic about the plan. It was one thing to take Walid’s deposition in the safety of another lawyer’s conference room. It was another thing to set up a clandestine meeting with a witness who had obviously been intimidated from testifying by Hezbollah leaders.

“Be careful,” Alex said.

Nara looked at him and nodded. “Do you want to go for a walk?” she asked. Resolve had returned to her moist eyes. The resignation and despair of just a few minutes ago had been replaced by the new possibility, slight though it might be, of a secret meeting with Walid.

“Sure,” Alex said, amazed at how quickly Nara had rebounded.

“My people are a resilient people,”
she had said. Alex thought about the amazing contrast he had seen between the bombed-out buildings around Martyrs’ Square and the glitzy new downtown where they had dined last night. Beirut knew how to rebuild. Today he had learned that even the areas devastated during the 2006 war had been reconstructed in ways that made them better than before.

Maybe he could learn from that.

He walked in silence with Nara for a while, thinking about the case and the ways he might still be able to win even without Walid’s testimony. They would challenge the Patriot Act. Plus, there was Khalid’s exemplary record as a reformer. They could blame Fatih Mahdi, a controlling husband with a misogynist view of the world.

He found himself hopeful for the first time in the case, as if maybe the pluck of the Lebanese was rubbing off on him. Or maybe it had more to do with Nara. Somehow, he felt more optimistic just being around her. Stronger. More courageous.

“We’ll figure this out,” he said. “With or without Walid, we’re going to be fine.”

“I know we will,” Nara replied.

* * *

It didn’t shock Alex when he got a call from Nara later that day. “I’ve found somebody who thinks he can set up a meeting with Walid. Can you be ready in an hour?”

Alex was ready now. But he thought he had detected just a hint of nervousness in Nara’s voice. “Where are we going?”

“To the Hezbollah district,” she said.

63

Alex drew considerably more stares in the Hezbollah district than he had in downtown Beirut. There were not many blond American males walking the streets with pretty Lebanese women. The old men sitting in front of the shops leered at Nara as she walked by. Occasionally, some would call out,
“Yalla habibi.”

The first time, Alex glared at them, and Nara chuckled. The men were smiling, too.

“What does that mean?” Alex asked.

“‘Come on, baby’ or ‘let’s go, baby’—that type of thing.”

“Smooth,” Alex said.

The signs in downtown Beirut had been in both Arabic and English, but in the Hezbollah district there were few English signs. Large billboards contained gigantic faces of men Alex assumed were Hezbollah leaders. Most of the women they encountered were totally covered and averted their eyes when Alex looked at them.

Buildings still showed the lingering effects of the 2006 war with Israel. As Nara had explained during the serviz ride, the Hezbollah leaders made their headquarters in the middle of civilian neighborhoods, and the Israelis had destroyed entire city blocks with their bombs. Several years later, the rebuilding still had a long way to go.

“The Lebanese government is corrupt and slow,” Nara explained. “One of Hezbollah’s greatest strengths is disaster relief and the rehabilitation funds it deploys.”

They eventually found a cramped little restaurant that reminded Alex of a New York deli. There was a counter for ordering food and just enough room on the opposite wall for a line of small tables. Nara talked in rapid Arabic to the proprietor and introduced the man to Alex. Alex didn’t catch his name, but the big man reached over the counter and shook Alex’s hand with the strength of a vise grip.

“I’m going to order for both of us,” Nara said in English.

“Great,” Alex answered. “I’ll take a Big Mac.”

“Ugly Americans,” Nara said.

The dish that Nara actually ordered was like nothing Alex had ever tasted. It featured chickpeas, olives, and radishes mixed with a creamy substance that had the texture of yogurt. All of this was wrapped inside some kind of dough. Alex ate the food with a smile and a few approving grunts. Truthfully, it didn’t compare to last night’s dinner, but Alex wasn’t about to complain at a restaurant in the Hezbollah district.

He chatted with Nara as they ate, and at least twice the owner came over to see how the guests were enjoying their meal. Alex lied about how great everything tasted, and Nara translated his compliments.

Just before they left, the man came back one last time and talked to Nara. When they finished chatting, she stood and gave him a hug. Alex also stood and shook the man’s hand. He gave Alex a good-natured slap on the shoulder.

When Nara tried to pay for the meal, another animated discussion ensued, and it was obvious that the man wasn’t going to let her. Alex smiled and nodded in appreciation. “Thanks,” he said. The proprietor smiled back.

After they left the restaurant, Nara looked for a serviz.

“What’s the deal?” Alex asked.

She unfolded a piece of paper that the man had apparently slipped into her hand. The writing was in Arabic.

“Hamza Walid is going to meet us tonight,” Nara said in a whisper.

“Where?”

“I don’t know. It just says where his driver is going to pick us up.”

64

fifteen years earlier

beirut, lebanon

Hassan Ibn Talib was a teenager at a Hezbollah training camp when he first held an AK-47. He had been in training for three weeks before the leaders handed him and the other recruits their very own assault rifles. The adrenaline pumped through Hassan’s body as he smelled the steel and oil. The gun felt cold and hard in his hands.

The leaders showed the boys how to load the gun, how to fire it, and how to care for it. After what seemed like an interminable amount of time, they allowed each of the young recruits to fire at some cardboard targets shaped like human silhouettes.

When Hassan’s turn came, he knelt down, placed his finger on the trigger, and pulled. At first, he fired tentatively, slowly. Few targets fell. But then he started firing faster, one blast after another, and the targets began to drop. His heart started beating quicker. He pulled again and again, faster and faster. Shell casings flew to the ground as Hassan blew through an entire magazine of bullets. The steel became hot in his hands, and the roar of the gun rang in his head.

When he stopped firing, the silence seemed deafening. Somehow, Hassan knew that things would never again be the same. He had started this day as a boy. Now he was a man. The gun had a mystical power unlike anything Hassan had ever felt.

He was born for this.

He looked at his leader, a man who rarely smiled. The man was grinning now.

“Very good, my son. Soon you will be ready.”

65

the present

beirut, lebanon

At 11 p.m., an old BMW pulled up to the curb in front of the Ramada, and the driver stepped out.

“Nara Mobassar?” he asked.

Nara responded in Arabic and told Alex that this was the one. They climbed into the backseat, and Nara had another exchange with the driver.

“Where are we going?” Alex asked.

“He wouldn’t say,” Nara responded. “Apparently Hamza is big on secrecy.”

“Are you sure about this?” Alex asked.

“For the third time,
yes
.”

Alex had lots of misgivings about the trip, but Nara, true to form, had an answer for everything. Alex didn’t like going without knowing the destination. But as Nara pointed out, they didn’t have much choice in the matter. What if it was a setup, Alex had asked. Nara said she trusted her sources. Plus, she had enlisted the help of several friends. She would send them text messages, updating them on her location. If they didn’t hear from her at least once every five minutes, they would call the police.

Alex could shoot a thousand holes in the plan. What if the police were slow to respond? What if somebody took her cell phone? What if Hezbollah thugs blew up their car or shot them without warning?

But he didn’t bother asking more questions. Nara was going, with or without him. If necessary, she would take someone else. And Alex wasn’t quite ready to admit that this woman from Lebanon had more guts—or a greater commitment to the case—than he did.

The one thing that still bothered him as they wound their way through the streets of Beirut was Nara’s insistence that they not tell Khalid. “If my father finds out, he’ll make us promise not to go,” Nara had explained.

That should have told Alex everything he needed to know.

Fifteen minutes into the trip, even Nara started looking a little nervous.

“Where are we?” Alex asked. He was afraid he already knew.

“The Hezbollah district.”

“And whose idea was this?”

Nara didn’t answer. She was too busy texting one of her friends.

The driver eventually veered off the main street, navigated a few side streets, and pulled into an abandoned parking lot.

“Here?” Nara asked.

The man nodded without turning around.

Alex looked at Nara and twisted his face.
Are you sure about this?

“It’s an old train station,” Nara said. “The trains in Beirut haven’t been running for years.”

Without turning around, the driver said something in Arabic, and Nara replied. Alex heard tension in her voice. Nara and the driver argued for a few minutes before she turned to Alex.

“He says that Hamza will meet us down at the tracks. There are three abandoned railcars. I’ll tell you a legend about them on the way.”

Nara spoke to the driver in Arabic again. “I told him to leave the lights on and wait for us to get back,” she said to Alex. She typed out another text message. “You ready?” she asked.

“Not really.”

“Neither am I.”

Nara was the first to get out; Alex followed. They walked to the far corner of the parking lot and headed down a path toward the tracks. Abandoned buildings and overgrown weeds lined the walkway on both sides. In a few seconds they were beyond the lights from the BMW. Alex used the glow from his BlackBerry screen to shed some pale light on the path. Nara edged closer, and for some reason they found themselves whispering.

“They say that during the civil war, train cars like these were used to house prisoners and hold trials,” Nara said softly. “The legend is that the militia would hold the prisoners captive in one train car, give them a five-minute trial in the next, and execute them in the third. When that car was full, they’d haul it away to a mass grave.”

“I could have gone all night without hearing that story,” Alex said.

They were closing in on the train cars now, the noise of the city faint in the distance. Nara and Alex stepped over an old power line. Dead leaves crunched under their feet. There was an abandoned masonry building on their left, the shells of the three train carriages on their right. The place smelled like urine, and Alex imagined it was probably a hangout for the homeless.

“Hamza?” Nara called softly. “Hamza?”

Alex felt his heart race a little faster. The night was hot and muggy, but a cold bead of sweat ran down the back of his neck. They waited a few minutes in silence.

“I’m going to take a look inside those cars,” Alex said.

Using his BlackBerry again for light, Alex peeked inside all three cars. They were rusted and covered with debris, but there was no sign of anyone waiting for them. Nara stayed within arm’s length the entire time.

“I don’t like this,” Alex said. “Hamza could be leading us straight to the slaughter.”

“Three more minutes,” Nara said. “If Hezbollah wanted to kill us, we’d be dead by now.”

“That makes me feel better.”

There was a rustle in the bushes behind them. Alex turned and froze, staring at the spot where the noise originated.

Nara grabbed his arm and froze too. “Probably just rats,” she whispered.

“Rats,” Alex said, his voice skeptical.

“Stop being a wimp.”

Alex exhaled, but his heart was still trying to beat its way out of his chest. This kind of thing looked glamorous in the movies. In real life, you’d never hear the bullet that took you out.

Nara sent another text message.

“Are you ready to go?” Alex asked.

Nara nodded. “I don’t understand this.” It was the first time Alex had heard real concern in her voice. “Maybe something happened to him on the way here.”

Before Alex could respond, there was a flash behind them, and Alex pivoted. He stepped in front of Nara and was blinded by a spotlight. He shaded his eyes and saw something in his peripheral vision. But before he could grab Nara and run, he was broadsided by a man who hit him with the explosiveness of a linebacker, driving Alex into the ground. Alex tried to scramble free, but another man jumped on. They quickly had Alex facedown, his arms wrenched behind him as they slapped on some plastic ties as handcuffs.

He heard Nara scream, and he yelled her name just before they pulled a hood over his face.

Strong hands grabbed his arms and jerked him to his feet. He called Nara’s name again, and one of his captors punched him in the gut, doubling him over. They quickly straightened him up and pulled him along, speaking to each other in Arabic. Alex was struggling for breath but tried to concentrate. There were at least three or four voices, as far as he could tell.

They made him climb some steps into one of the railcars and pushed him into a seat. He heard a commotion next to him and the frightened breathing of Nara.

His captors stopped talking, and Alex felt the indent of a round barrel against his temple. He tried to look out the bottom of the hood, but everything was black. The only sound was his own heavy breathing.

He was certain he would die right there in that abandoned railcar in Beirut. Nobody in America would ever know the details. A lawyer and an imam’s daughter—never heard from again.

“Nara, are you okay?” he asked. He flinched, anticipating another punch.

“I’m fine,” she said, though her voice was breathless. “Watch what you say—they probably know English.”

There was no panic in her voice, and the sound of her composure steeled him. For the sake of Nara, he needed to be brave. He needed to show her that Muslims weren’t the only ones who knew how to die. He wanted to make a joke or some sarcastic comment that demonstrated his bravado. But words failed him as the gun jammed harder into his temple. His captors spit out more Arabic phrases, and Alex felt utterly helpless.

“It’s going to be all right,” he said to Nara, but his voice betrayed the truth.

He didn’t believe it himself.