Fatal Convictions (6 page)

15

The living room was neat and stark, with no pictures or trinkets. A low ceiling, dim lights, and narrow windows made it feel a little claustrophobic. Alex and Shannon quietly discussed the case while they waited for their hosts to join them.

When Khalid appeared, he placed a tray with a brass coffeepot and demitasse cups on the small table. Ghaniyah placed a second tray next to the first, one that contained a pastry covered with syrup and nuts, along with bread and olive oil, plates and forks.

“How do you like your coffee?” Khalid asked. Shannon, who normally didn’t drink more than one cup a day, surprised Alex by saying she liked lots of cream.
She must want this case bad.
Alex requested extra cream as well, particularly after he saw the thickness of the jet black syrup that Khalid poured into the tiny cups.

“This is baklava,” Khalid said, pointing to the pastry. “It’s a little rich, but nobody makes better baklava than Ghaniyah. We also have hummus if you prefer.”

To be polite, Alex and Shannon each took a piece of baklava along with their coffee. They settled into the two chairs in the room, and the Mobassars sat together on the couch.

After a few minutes of small talk and nibbling at their food, Shannon put her plate on the floor, took out a yellow legal pad, and smoothly took control of the meeting. She asked Khalid to retrieve a copy of his automobile insurance policy and explained to the Mobassars that their coverage would be limited to $100,000 of uninsured motorist coverage unless somebody could find the truck driver who caused the accident. She politely began asking Ghaniyah questions about what happened.

Alex studied the vacant look in Ghaniyah’s eyes as her husband volunteered most of the answers. The imam’s wife wore a traditional Muslim robe and a colorful scarf but no head covering. She used no makeup, and her thin face looked gaunt and extremely pale. Her most prominent feature was a long and slender nose, slightly hooked at the end. Khalid, sitting next to her, showed none of the hard edge Alex remembered from the hospital.

As Shannon gently prodded for details, Ghaniyah did her best to provide answers. She had been driving south on North Landing Road in Chesapeake, going to meet with some women who attended the mosque. She met with them most every Thursday.

Alex pretended to take a sip of the coffee and slid forward a little in his seat.

“I remember a large truck coming up behind me,” Ghaniyah said. Her words were flat, as if she could barely summon enough energy to talk. “I saw the front grill in my rearview mirror, and I knew he was going to pass. When he started to go around me, I saw another car coming.”

Ghaniyah shrugged and looked past Shannon, as if trying to see the accident happen. “I tried to slow down, but the truck couldn’t get by fast enough and came back into my lane, so I swerved to the right. . . .”

Her voice trailed off, and Khalid touched her shoulder gently. “She remembers heading toward a tree, and that’s basically the last thing she remembers,” he explained. He talked as if Ghaniyah wasn’t in the room. “The doctors say she’s lucky the injuries weren’t worse. In fact, she’s fortunate to be alive.”

For the next few minutes, Shannon peppered both of the Mobassars with more questions. Was the car totaled? Did Ghaniyah remember anything about the license plate number of the truck? the color? any writing on the side?

Ghaniyah apologized but couldn’t remember much in the way of details. The cab was red, she remembered. And the trailer was white. There was writing on the side of the truck, but she couldn’t remember what it said. Everything had happened so quickly. And there was a picture on the side as well—fruits, maybe vegetables. It was some kind of produce truck, maybe. Ghaniyah had no idea about the license plate number. She wasn’t sure that she ever saw the back of the truck.

Her melancholy demeanor and pained expression were a stark contrast to Shannon’s bubbly enthusiasm. “It’s okay,” Shannon told her. “You’re doing great just remembering this much. Your main job is to get better.”

When Shannon finished her questions, Alex pulled the contract from his file. Alex and Shannon had decided beforehand that he should be the one to present it, given the inclination toward male authority in the Muslim world.

As usual, he had actually brought two contracts along—he would first present the one that gave the firm one-third if they settled and 40 percent if they had to file suit. If the Mobassars balked, Alex would whip out a second contract with identical terms except the percentages were lower—25 percent if the case settled and one-third if they filed suit.

But as he watched Ghaniyah’s lifeless demeanor and her husband’s tender manner, Alex suddenly felt a little guilty for conspiring to take so much of his client’s money. Unless they could find the truck driver, the Mobassars would recover a maximum of $67,000 after attorney’s fees, an amount that probably wouldn’t even cover the medical bills. And it looked like Ghaniyah might need some kind of long-term care unless she improved.

Alex put the contract with the smaller percentages on top. “I think we’ve got enough information to move forward,” he said. “We need to let Mrs. Mobassar get some rest.”

“Thank you,” she said.

He nodded and gave her a smile.

He explained how contingency fee contracts worked—“We don’t get paid unless we win”—and told Khalid that it was important that the firm get started on the investigation right away. “You can read it if you want—” Alex shrugged, eyeing the two-page contract as if it were a copy of
War and Peace
—“but most people just sign.”

“I’m sorry,” Khalid said as Alex handed him the contract. “But I’ve learned to read everything. Is it okay?”

“Of course.”

“Would you like another piece of baklava?” Ghaniyah asked.

“No, I’m good. But it was great.”

Alex and Shannon waited in awkward silence as Khalid reviewed each provision of the contract. To make it worse, Khalid’s cell phone rang; he answered it, asked Alex and Shannon to excuse him for a second, and took the phone into a different room. They could hear him speaking rapidly in Arabic.

After Khalid left, Ghaniyah just stared straight ahead, and Alex started talking to Shannon about the case just to ease the awkwardness. Alex thought about how natural it was to talk as if the person with brain damage wasn’t even in the room.

When Khalid returned, he apologized and seemed distracted. “Where do we sign?” he asked, without reading another word.

Alex showed him and soon had the signatures of both Khalid and Ghaniyah. “Is her signature in this condition valid?” Khalid asked.

“I’m not sure,” Alex admitted. “But that’s why we had you sign it too.”

Khalid seemed ready to wrap up the meeting. He thanked Alex and Shannon, told Ghaniyah that he would see the guests to the door, and stepped outside with the two lawyers.

“She says she’s fine,” Khalid explained. “And I think that one of Allah’s blessings in all of this is that Ghaniyah doesn’t know how badly injured she is.” Khalid paused and appeared uncertain about how much of his private life he should reveal. “Sometimes, when she gets dressed, she puts her blouse on backward.” He looked down, as if he was a little ashamed of talking about his wife behind her back. “She can’t remember the simple things in the morning. One thing she can remember, but not two things in sequence. I have to tell her—brush your teeth . . . brush your hair . . . take a shower.

“Her personality . . . she used to be so . . .” He struggled to find the word. “So forceful . . . in a good way. Opinionated. Outgoing. It’s like somebody took that woman and replaced her with someone I don’t know.”

Khalid looked from Alex to Shannon and back to Alex. “I know you can’t fix all that . . . but I just wanted you to understand that . . . well, I don’t know what to do.”

“We understand,” Shannon said. “And I can promise you that we’re going to do everything in our power to get her as much help as possible from this case.”

“Thank you,” Khalid said.

It struck Alex that the man might know how to speak multiple languages and how to cope with the political chaos of a country like Lebanon. But when it came to living with a spouse who had a brain injury, Khalid was in uncharted waters.

“And, Mr. Madison,” Khalid said to Alex, looking his new lawyer directly in the eye, “I might appreciate a few of those prayers after all.”

16

Alex headed straight home after his meeting with the Mobassars and didn’t feel the least bit guilty about it. Shannon would undoubtedly head back to the office, but Alex had long ago stopped trying to keep up with her. He wanted to get in an hour or two of surfing before it got too late. He assuaged his conscience by reminding himself that he had landed a big new case today and could always bill a few hours at his home computer later if he got inspired.

Right after he changed into a pair of board shorts and a ratty T-shirt, his BlackBerry started vibrating. He was ready to hit ignore but checked the caller ID first.
Shannon.

“Please tell me you’re not back at the office,” Alex said.

“I like this guy,” Shannon answered, ignoring Alex’s statement. She had perfected that part of her job. “Have you Googled Khalid?”

He hadn’t, of course. But why would he need to with the obsessive Shannon Reese for a partner? “What’d you find?” Alex asked.

“Interesting stuff. He lost a son who was working in a refugee camp when the Israelis bombed Lebanon in 1996 as part of Operation Grapes of Wrath. For a while he became an outspoken supporter of Hezbollah. But eighteen months later, he lost his second son during a suicide bombing mission in southern Israel.

“And here’s the really intriguing thing: instead of fueling Khalid’s hate for the Israelis, this somehow mellowed him. He became a leading voice for an Islamic reformation and an outspoken opponent of those who preached violence and jihad. He came to the U.S. on a teaching visa about five years ago and started the mosque in Norfolk.”

Alex was delighted to see Shannon’s growing enthusiasm for the case. But most of this information seemed irrelevant. “And this helps us how?” Alex asked, slipping into his Chacos.

“Credibility. I mean, the only evidence we have that there’s a John Doe vehicle is the testimony of Ghaniyah Mobassar. The defense will never say it, but they’re going to play the Muslim card, painting the Mobassars as radicals who can’t be trusted. I’m just saying—they’re not that way.”

“Good,” Alex said. “I’m glad you like these guys. Now, why don’t you go home and get a life.”

“This
is
my life. Somebody around here’s got to work for a living.”

* * *

Two hundred fifty miles to the north, on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., Hassan Ibn Talib was also thinking about Khalid Mobassar. It had been nearly a week since Hassan had received the text message from Mobassar’s phone. This weekend, he would complete the assignment and send a one-word message in response:
Finished
.

Afterward, he would toss his phone into the river, get a new phone, and wait for further instructions. These honor killings, he knew, were just the beginning.

17

twenty-one years earlier

beirut, lebanon

Hassan was in the fourth grade when he first had the dream. It came the night after he betrayed his best friend, Mukhtar.

The two skinny Muslim boys had been walking home from school together, trying to pretend they weren’t nervous as they crossed through a neighborhood where a gang of Sunni Muslims hung out. Hassan had grown up hearing about the Lebanese civil war between the Christians and Muslims, but to a nine-year-old, those conflicts were ancient history. In real life, Hassan was less afraid of the Christians than of the Sunni Muslims, especially the gang of older boys who sometimes surrounded Hassan on his way home from school, demanding money and threatening him with his life if he ever told his parents.

Once, they had stopped Hassan when he had no money. They made him turn his pockets inside out and pushed him back and forth between them, shouting curses at him. They waived a knife in front of his face. “Don’t ever come here again empty-handed,
lout
!” One kid stepped forward and kicked Hassan between the legs, causing the most intense pain Hassan had ever experienced. He yelped and collapsed in a ball on the sidewalk.

The boys laughed. “Maybe he will talk like a girl now,” one of the boys teased. As they walked away, one of the boys spit on him.

Since then, Hassan had learned to save up portions of his lunch money, even though it meant going hungry a few days a week. It was the price of peace on the streets of Beirut.

On this day, wearing a white shirt and his hand-me-down black pants, he felt relatively safe. He was walking with Mukhtar, and he had a few Lebanese lirat in his pocket, enough to keep the bullies at bay. Hassan hated himself when he paid them, and he always dreamed the rest of the way home that one day he would stand up to them and fight. But he knew the next time they met, he would pay them again.

When Mukhtar saw the Sunni boys hanging out on a street corner several blocks away, he nudged Hassan, and they quickly crossed the street. They both fell silent and walked a little faster, eyes fixed on the sidewalk in front of them.

One of the bullies called out to them, but Hassan and Mukhtar refused to acknowledge him. Walking faster, Hassan watched the boys out of the corner of his eye. They started strolling toward him and Mukhtar, a pack of four or five of them. There were no adults around—no help on the horizon.

When the Sunnis shouted again for Hassan and Mukhtar to stop, Hassan bolted. He had good speed for a fourth grader, and in a few steps, he had left Mukhtar behind. Adrenaline fueled his body, causing Hassan’s heart to pump wildly, his shoes barely touched the pavement as he sprinted for his life. He could hear the Sunnis chasing him, shouting curses as they ran. Apartments and shops flashed past, and Hassan glanced over his shoulder. The boys were gaining!

He cut across a side street, dodging between cars and forcing a taxi driver to slam on the brakes. Horns blared. The older boys gained ground. Hassan took a sharp left turn, but one of the boys anticipated the move and had the angle on him.

Hassan stopped, circling back to the right. He saw a small convenience store half a block away—close enough that he might be able to get there first. He sprinted toward the store, bounding up the steps just before the fastest of the Sunnis arrived.

Hassan burst into the store, panting, one of the boys right behind him. Before Hassan could say a thing, the shopkeeper barked at both of them. “Don’t bring your roughhousing in here.” The man was heavyset with small dark eyes, curly hair, and a two-day growth. “You knock over something, and you’ve just bought it!”

“We’re just getting something to drink,” the Sunni boy said, catching his breath. He slung his arm around Hassan’s shoulders, and Hassan felt the sharp point of a knife in his ribs. Fear paralyzed him for a moment, and the older boy pushed him toward the back corner of the store.

“How much you got?” the kid whispered. He had cold eyes and dark, curly hair. He was wearing braces, and the metal gleamed when he smiled. It gave Hassan the chills.

Hassan reached into his pocket and retrieved the lirat. His attacker looked at them and frowned. Another Sunni entered the store.

The braces kid snatched the lirat from Hassan’s hand, his knife still pressing against Hassan’s ribs. The kid stuffed the money in his pocket and put his arm around Hassan, pulling him close. “We’re goin’ now,” he said under his breath. “Give me any trouble and I’ll start slicing off body parts.”

Terrified, Hassan left the store in step with his captor. The other kid joined them outside. A block away, Hassan saw other Sunnis pushing Mukhtar into an alley.

Once the kid with braces had pulled Hassan a half block away from the entrance to the store, he waved the knife in front of Hassan’s face. “You ever seen a dog neutered?” he asked.

Hassan shook his head quickly.

“If you ever run from me again, or if you tell anybody about today, you won’t have to see it, ’cause you’ll know what it
feels
like.”

Hassan nodded, his eyes wide with fright. He could hear Mukhtar begging for mercy in the alley. Then he heard the thump of fist on bone and Mukhtar begging for them to stop.

“Get out of my sight, you Shiite dog,” the older boy hissed at Hassan. He pushed Hassan backward, and Hassan tumbled to the pavement. Both boys kicked Hassan and made barking noises as he scrambled to his feet.

Hassan turned and stumbled away from his assailants. He glanced over his shoulder when he heard wails of pain from the alley. He stopped—torn between fear and his loyalty to Mukhtar.

“Get out of here!” the kid with braces yelled. He took a step toward Hassan, who tripped backward, turned, and started running. The tears stung his eyes and rolled down his cheeks as he sprinted away, too terrified to stop, too intimidated to try to get help for Mukhtar. His friend’s screams faded in the distance as Hassan made his way to the safety of the Shiite neighborhoods.

Mukhtar would not return to school for two days. He told his parents he had been mugged by two grown men looking for money. When Mukhtar did come back, he and Hassan started taking the long way home, avoiding the Sunni neighborhood altogether. Though Mukhtar said he didn’t blame Hassan for running away, their friendship was never the same.

Whether or not Mukhtar blamed him, Hassan blamed himself. The night of the assault, he lay awake in his bed, thinking back to his mother’s description of hell. Her face had been stern and somber, her eyes so intense that Hassan had to look away. “In hell, there are flames so hot that the skin will melt from your bones. You will wail and gnash your teeth, but there will be no relief from the fire and the unquenchable pain. Once your skin is burned from your body, another layer will appear, and the process starts over again.” His mother paused, and it seemed she was on the verge of tears. Hassan wanted to hug her, tell her it would be all right. “I don’t want any of you to ever be in such a horrible place,” she said.

At the time, Hassan had wished he could assure his mother that he would live in such a way that hell would never be an option. But now, after turning his back on Mukhtar, Hassan realized for sure that he had been destined for hell all along.

His works would never save him; Hassan knew that much. His only glimmer of hope came from another lesson—the story of Imam Hussein and those who followed in his footsteps as shahids—martyrs for the faith. “No matter what you have done wrong in this life, you will be forgiven with the first drop of your blood that is spilt. To die a martyr is to never die at all.”

And shahids, Hassan knew, were not just saved from the great horror of the Day of Judgment; they were given the crown of virtue and a place in Jannah along with seventy-two black-eyed women.

It was, Hassan had thought when he first heard the concept, quite an impressive list of benefits, though he couldn’t understand why any shahid would want to be bothered with seventy-two women. But by the fourth grade, Hassan’s thinking on the seventy-two women had begun to change as well.

The night of the assault, he tossed and turned, as if roasting over the flames of hell already. He wanted to tell his parents what had happened, but he knew they would confront the other boys and their families. The Sunnis would bide their time, but sooner or later they would exact their revenge. Visions of the knife flashed through Hassan’s head.

The house had been quiet for hours before Hassan finally fell asleep.

* * *

Hassan sat on a powerful black horse, the tents of his family and friends scattered around him in the intense heat of the desert. He held a sarif—a heavy, two-sided Muslim sword—in his right hand. His chest glistened with sweat and rippled with muscles. The heat shimmered over sandy dunes, engulfing the armies that surrounded the camp in a mind-warping haze. There were thousands of them—Jews, Americans, infidels of all nationalities. But mostly, there were Sunni Muslims, hordes of them on foot, some with knives and spears, others with bows and arrows, all with bloodshot eyes. A handful of other warriors came out of their tents and mounted horses, joining Hassan as the opposing armies closed in.

Hassan looked to his left and right, nodded, then reared his stallion back and led the charge. The eyes of his enemies grew large with fear, some throwing down their weapons and turning to run.

Hassan rode through them all, swinging the sarif left and right, each deadly arc severing the head of another infidel soldier. The warriors following him started chanting,
“Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!”

The battlefield turned chaotic. Swords and spears and arrows flew all around Hassan as his Shiite brothers dropped from their horses, soaking the ground with their blood. He felt a stab of pain as an arrow pierced his own chest, dropping him from his horse, and he looked down to see his own blood flowing. The hordes surrounded him, raising their spears to finish him off, their eyes demonic in victory. And then . . . a blinding light, just before everything became calm. He looked ahead and saw the golden carpet and the magnificent throne of Allah.

Paradise!

Heavenly power coursed through his veins, healing every wound, his heart beating with joy. He had done it! A martyr! He had become al-shahid!

He stood now as Allah held the scales, Hassan’s bad deeds weighing down the left side, his heart sinking within him. But then Allah reached his right hand above the other side of the scales and gently opened his fingers, releasing drops of precious blood, followed by a broad smile. He set the scales down and, as Hassan knelt before the throne, placed the crown of virtue on Hassan’s head.

A chant began from all sides, first as a low rumble and then as a booming echo, filling all of paradise.
“Islam zindabad! Allahu akbar!”

The crescendo only stopped when Allah raised his hand. “Al-shahid!” he bellowed, his voice filling the air like thunder. “Welcome to your reward!”