“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.