Alex admired Nara’s quick thinking, but he wasn’t fond of her reasoning. Would a victory by Alex really be a win for all of America’s terrorist enemies? He knew he should think only about Khalid’s innocence-but at what cost to the country? He quickly put the thoughts aside. The soul-searching could wait.
“I also told them that if the court ruled against us on the Patriot Act, I had another defense that did not involve Hezbollah. This one did involve a small lie, however. You remember the doctrine of al toqiah?”
“I remember,” Alex said. How could I forget?
“I told them that I had convinced you I was a Christian and that my father had accepted my decision to abandon the faith. I told them that I would be the last witness called at my father’s trial and that this evidence would establish his innocence even without pointing the finger at Hezbollah.”
Nara looked sheepishly at Alex. “Sorry,” she said.
“You saved our lives,” Alex said. “No need to apologize.”
“They never really intended to kill us,” Nara said. “Think about it. They had the video and the script ready to go. They just wanted to scare us… and create evidence that would convict my father if they decide to kill us later.”
The logic seemed sound, but Alex was in no shape to figure things out. The adrenaline was gone. So, too, was most of the terror. In their place was a bone-weary fatigue. He rubbed his face and stretched his back.
Nara must have felt it too. She sighed and lay back on the bed, her legs dangling over the edge. She stared at the ceiling for a minute and then shut her eyes. “They’re the ones responsible for killing these women, Alex. They want to pin it on my father because he’s a reformer and they’re afraid of him-afraid of his ideas.”
Nara opened her eyes and looked at Alex. “Put me on the stand in my father’s trial,” she said. “I’ll tell the world what happened tonight. We can expose Hezbollah for who they are.”
Alex had a million reasons why that was a bad idea. The rules of evidence, for starters. But perhaps the biggest reason was Nara’s own safety. He had a duty to Khalid. But he would not sacrifice Nara to fulfill it.
He moved over and sat next to her on the bed. “Let’s talk about it later.”
Nara sat up, and Alex put his arm around her shoulder. As she leaned in, he could smell the shampoo in her hair. He pulled her closer. She wrapped her arms around his waist, burying her head on his shoulder. They sat like that for a moment, and then he felt her begin to cry.
He reached down and brushed the tears from her cheek.
“Alex,” Nara said softly, her voice so low that he could barely hear her, “I really should go now.”
“I know.”
It was hard to let her go, but he knew it was the right thing to do.
After she left, he kicked off his loafers and lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Given everything he had just been through, it would be impossible to fall asleep.
It took Alex two minutes to prove himself wrong.
69
The day after the kidnapping, Alex and Nara talked over breakfast about what they should do. They agreed that going to the authorities right now would be counterproductive. They also agreed that they should keep the matter between themselves. Nobody else could know-not even Shannon or Khalid.
But they disagreed vehemently on whether Nara should testify about their capture at her father’s trial. Alex didn’t think the testimony would be allowed. And if the judge did allow it, he was fearful that Hezbollah would retaliate against Nara.
And maybe against him as well, though he didn’t voice that particular concern.
Nara insisted on taking the stand. In fact, she wanted to be the last person to testify in her father’s case. That way, she could cast aspersions on Hezbollah and leave the commonwealth very little time to counter. Alex said the only way he would consider that was if she agreed to enter the witness protection program.
She found the suggestion laughable. “Let me get this straight. The same government that’s trying to convict my father of something he didn’t do is going to protect me?”
“Actually,” Alex said, “the state’s prosecuting your father. The witness protection program would be the feds.”
“A distinction without a difference.”
At the end of the day, they agreed to disagree. They would have three weeks to figure it out.***
When Alex returned to the United States, Shannon picked him up at the airport. He hadn’t been in the car two minutes before she started firing away with the questions.
Alex chose his words carefully. He felt sleazy about misleading Shannon, but he knew it had to be done. Shannon played everything by the book. If she found out about the train station incident, she would insist on going to the authorities. She would argue that, as Khalid’s lawyers, they had a duty to put Nara on the stand and have Nara describe what happened.
The ride to the office from the airport usually took about twenty-five minutes. With Shannon asking one question after another, it seemed like an hour. Plus, she wasn’t satisfied with generalities and made Alex describe his Beirut experience day by day. He made mental notes of the fibs he told so that he and Nara could be on the same page. He kept trying to change the subject.
Finally, on the third try, he was able to shift their conversation to the upcoming motion to suppress.
“Did you finish the research?” Alex asked.
“Yes. It doesn’t look good.”
“Impossible or highly unlikely?”
“Closer to impossible.”
Alex forced a tired smile. “The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer.”
Shannon groaned. “Madison and Associates-we specialize in cheesy cliches.”***
Judge Gerald Rosenthal was the newest of the nine Virginia Beach Circuit Court judges. His main qualification was that he had donated enormous amounts of campaign funds to both Republicans and Democrats at a time when the legislature was looking for a compromise candidate.
Judge Rosenthal was a thin wisp of a man with a strong type A personality, a rounded spine, and a pack-a-day cigarette habit. He’d quit smoking at least seven times but, at the age of sixty-two, figured he had already beat the odds.
Rosenthal started his career as a mass tort lawyer who sued most of the big companies in Hampton Roads. He made a killing from the asbestos litigation and somehow got the lion’s share of Virginia’s fen-phen cases as well. His advertisements were everywhere, and they were classier than most plaintiffs’ lawyers’ ads, at least in Rosenthal’s opinion. He had a pretty narrow focus when it came to politics. Tort reform was bad. Accordingly, Democrats were good.
Once he made his millions, Rosenthal became less of a Democrat and started discovering his Republican tendencies, especially the ones that despised high taxes on the rich. To make up for lost time, he supported Republican candidates with a vengeance, and thus, when the legislature deadlocked on all the more qualified candidates, Rosenthal found himself appointed to the bench.
When Alex learned that the Honorable Gerald P. Rosenthal had been appointed to hear the motion to suppress, it was not welcome news. To broaden his appeal on the Republican side of the ledger, Rosenthal had catered to law-and-order groups, earning the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police. In addition, he hated young personal-injury attorneys like Alex, who were stealing clients from Rosenthal’s old firm.
It didn’t surprise Alex that the rookie judge had drawn the shortest straw and been assigned this complicated hearing. What worried Alex was that Rosenthal might get locked into the case and serve as the trial judge. It would be a little like showing up for a basketball game and learning that your opponent’s grandfather had been chosen to ref.