“Let’s hear it,” Mullburn barked.
Will paused. For a moment, he summoned up the mental image of Audra—making her hair, her features, her presence as real as he could. Then he recited what he had been told to memorize on the freighter.
I, Abdul el Alibahd, the obedient of Allah, know that you are the Great Satan. I know of the agreement you are making with OPEC, and what you wish to do with Saudi Petrol Company. I also know that you, Warren Mullburn, are no true follower of Allah. I know how you try to play the harlot between the Christian infidels and the believers of Islam, and try to destroy the purity of Islam. If you do not withdraw all of your evil plans, my followers will visit you in the night. First they will kill your bodyguards. And then they will come to you with their long, sharp, knives. And all night they will cut you apart, piece by piece, while you still live. And the last thing they will cut out of you will be your heart. And then they will bring your heart to me, Abdul el Alibahd, for I am the avenger of Islam, the leader of the Great Jihad.
When Will had finished speaking, he saw that Mullburn’s face was scarlet with rage.
Mullburn walked up to Will until he was so close that Will could feel his breath.
“Who told you this?”
“I already explained. Abdul el Alibahd.”
“Why would he pick you? An alcoholic lawyer with a failed career who goes around chasing the memory of his dead wife—why would he pick you to come here to tell that to me?”
“Because you have been tracking me. Because you must have a really big stake in the lawsuit that Dr. Albert Reichstad brought against my client,” Will responded firmly. “Because you know all about the deaths of Harim Azid and Dr. Richard Hunter—you’re probably the one that planned them. Because you’re involved in dirty deals with Kenneth Sharptin and OPEC. Because, even if Alibahd thinks you are the ‘Great Satan’—you know what? I don’t agree. You’re not the ‘Great Satan.’ You and this Alibahd creep both work for Satan, but only as middle-level employees. You’re nothing more than a demonic bureaucrat.
“And most of all, I’m here because you killed my dog and burned down my house. I wanted to see what kind of sick puppy would really do something like that.”
Mullburn glanced quickly over at the big blond bodyguard, then looked back at Will. Mullburn managed a crooked smile.
“Well. You have quite a vivid imagination, Mr. Chambers. It was interesting to meet you. But I’m afraid that you and I will not be seeing each other again.”
Then he turned to the big blond bodyguard and said, “Bruda, see Mr. Chambers out, won’t you? I wouldn’t want him to disappear in the desert at night. It can be dangerous out there.”
Bruda Weilder walked up in back of Will and spoke to him from behind as Mullburn disappeared.
“Mr. Chambers, how would you like some new religion?”
“Actually, the old-time religion is beginning to look better every day,” Will replied softly.
“Too bad,” Weilder said, and then he put something hard against the back of Will’s head. It felt like a gun barrel. “’Cause, when we get into the desert, I’m going to fill your brains with some really powerful karma.” With that, Weilder and his partner snickered.
Suddenly there was a noise of engines outside, along with the sound of tire screeches echoing off the buildings.
One of the guards ran in and said something to the other bodyguard in a low voice. Weilder quickly disappeared, and a moment later four uniformed police officers strode into the portico area.
“Warren Mullburn?” asked the one in front, as the other three scanned the scene.
“No,” Will replied, “I think he’s enjoying his Olympic-size pool.”
“Do you know anything about this?” the officer demanded, holding up a piece of tan paper towel with writing on it. Will smiled as he recognized his message:
HELP! I’VE BEEN KIDNAPPED! THIS IS NO JOKE. I’M AT THE MULLBURN “UTOPIA.” SEND THE POLICE NOW!
Just then Warren Mullburn breezed into the room, still in his bathrobe.
“I wrote that,” Will Chambers said, nodding toward the paper-towel note.
“Are you saying that Mr. Mullburn here is kidnapping you?”
“Certainly not,” Will responded. “I’m not being kidnapped, am I, Mr. Mullburn?”
Mullburn smiled through a tight grin. “Of course not.”
“Would you like to explain this note?” the police officer asked Will.
“I will be glad to,” Will replied, “but if you don’t mind, why don’t we talk in one of your squad cars?” Then Will looked at his watch. It was Sunday night, midnight, East-Coast time. The court hearing before Judge Kaye would begin in nine hours.
“I’ve got a plane to try to catch,” Will added.
54
JUDGE JEREMIAH KAYE SWEPT INTO THE COURTROOM of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., his robe flowing, and he perched himself behind the mahogany judge’s bench. His reading glasses were perched on the top of his head. His white hair was slightly unkempt, and a shock of hair hung down over his left eyebrow. His pale, wrinkled face was set in his characteristic early-morning smile—an expression whose good nature was subject to change depending on the level of good faith, cooperation, and intelligence of the attorneys who were to come before him on that day’s docket.
With the Great Seal of the United States behind him on the wall, Judge Kaye leaned over to his deputy clerk and whispered something. She said something back, and after they had both had a chuckle, the judge turned to the courtroom.
“Case number 01 CV 767, Reichstad vs. MacCameron and Digging for Truth Magazine,” the court clerk called out.
J-Fox Sherman was at the counsel table with two of his associate attorneys. Dr. Reichstad sat at the end of their table.
At the opposite counsel table, Reverend Angus MacCameron was sitting alone. There was an empty chair next to him where Will Chambers should have been sitting.
Sherman rose to his feet.
“Jay Foxley Sherman, counsel for the plaintiff, your honor. We are ready to proceed. I do note the absence, however, of opposing counsel, Mr. Will Chambers.”
“Reverend MacCameron, where’s your attorney?” the judge asked.
“I am not entirely sure, your honor,” MacCameron answered. “I am certain he will be here directly.”
“Uh-oh,” the judge said, looking over at his clerk. “This is not a good way to start out a Monday. Not a good way to start my docket at all. Here I came into this courtroom, having spent my weekend reading the voluminous briefs filed by both sides in this case. Prepared to listen to argument this morning—ready to decide the theological mysteries of the ages—I guess that’s what this case is about, right? Somebody’s going to be asking me to take sides on no less a question than the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth—isn’t that what’s behind all of this?” With that, the judge smiled.
“Not really, your honor. Not even close.” Sherman was smiling confidently.
“I was just pulling your leg a little, Mr. Sherman,” the judge remarked. “I do understand the legal issues here. But it does raise the question—”
That was when Will Chambers strode quickly through the swinging doors in the back of the courtroom, accidentally banging them loudly.
Will noticed Jacki Johnson sitting in the audience section, and he darted over to her and whispered, “Jacki, give me a legal pad, will you?”
She tossed a yellow legal pad to him. Will grabbed it and walked quickly up to the counsel’s table, carrying nothing but the pad of paper in his hand.
Judge Kaye carefully studied him.
“You’re a mess, Mr. Chambers!” the judge exclaimed. “Look at you!”
Will’s crumpled suit had several obvious grease spots, and the right knee of his pants leg was torn. Although he had gallantly tried to comb his hair in the airplane bathroom, his long tangled mane of hair sported several cowlicks. His white shirt had a few slightly cleaned-up bloodstains on it, and on
e of the buttons on his shirt collar was missing, causing one side of the collar to stick out slightly. His bruised face bore the stubble of having not been shaved all weekend.
J-Fox Sherman smirked and quipped to the judge, “Your honor, Mr. Chambers has obviously taken up a new legal specialty—homeless law!”
Sherman’s associates burst into laughter.
Judge Kaye was not amused.
“Thank you, Mr. Sherman. Your compassion for the underprivileged in our society is a real comfort to the court.”
Then the judge turned back to Will.
“What happened, counsel? Did you get mugged on the way over here?”
“In a manner of speaking, Your Honor.”
“Right here, near the courthouse?”
“No, Your Honor. It’s rather complicated. The FBI is looking into it.”
And with that, Will glanced over at Dr. Reichstad, who looked away.
Judge Kaye, who had been a Deputy Director of the CIA twenty years ago, before his appointment to the federal bench, had heard enough to have his curiosity aroused.
“Well, I hope the Bureau gets to the bottom of this for you, whatever happened,” the judge commented.
Then, collecting his thoughts, the judge resumed his statement to counsel.
“What I was saying before you stepped in, Mr. Chambers, was that the religious overtones make this an interesting case—but they are somewhat beside the point, considering the narrow legal issues I’ll be deciding today. Nevertheless, for what it’s worth, I will point out that my father was a rabbi. I know nothing in my background that would require me to recuse myself from hearing this case; I believe I can judge it fairly and dispassionately. But if either counsel wants to address my having been trained in the Torah as a young man, and my background in Judaism, I will not hold it against you. Either of you want me to remove myself from hearing this case?”
J-Fox Sherman was beaming. He shook his head “no.”
“I have no concerns in that regard, Your Honor,” Will seconded.
With that, Judge Kaye leaned back in his chair as Sherman walked to the lectern located directly in front of the bench and then began launching into his argument outlining why judgment should be entered against Angus MacCameron for having recklessly defamed and libeled Dr. Albert Reichstad.
Sherman’s argument was methodical and brilliant. He laid out the facts in excruciating detail. He read out loud, with appropriate sarcasm, the portions of MacCameron’s article that were the subject of the lawsuit.
“Your Honor,” Sherman argued, “upon what basis could any reasonable man ever write, as the defendant MacCameron did in fact write, that my client, a world-famous scholar in biblical antiquities, was ‘either lying, or he has committed scientific malpractice’ regarding his writings about 7QA? Even further—and even worse—what reasonable, lucid, or sane person would ever dare to write that my esteemed client had anything whatsoever to do with the death of that antiquities dealer, or Dr. Richard Hunter? MacCameron’s lawyer has failed, in his response to our motion, to show this court any credible evidence demonstrating why the defendant was not reckless in making those outrageous allegations against Dr. Reichstad. He points to no investigation undertaken by MacCameron to verify the accuracy of what he was about to publish to the world. That’s because MacCameron did no factual investigation when he wrote this inflammatory pack of lies against Dr. Reichstad. His only basis for what he wrote was apparently a hearsay conversation with Dr. Hunter—mysteriously and conveniently incapable of being verified because Dr. Hunter is now dead.”
Judge Kaye interrupted him.
“What about the tape-recorded message from Hunter—isn’t that some kind of basis for MacCameron to have reached the conclusions he did in his article?”
“Clearly not, Your Honor,” Sherman quickly responded. “The message on the answering machine was Hunter’s obscure reference to his obvious paranoid delusions that he was being followed; but he doesn’t say by whom. Further, there is no proof that the fragments he refers to in his message had any identity with the 7QA fragment.”
“So,” Judge Kaye interjected, “you do agree with Mr. Chambers, who has argued in his brief that when the message was analyzed the reference was to ‘fragments’—more than one?”
Sherman glanced over at Reichstad, who was staring ahead blankly.
“Yes, Your Honor, our experts listened to the tape—as did Mr. Chambers’—and, for what it’s worth, we agree that it was probably a reference to ‘fragments.’ But that point is irrelevant in any event. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that connects Hunter’s ‘fragments’—even assuming they actually existed—to the 7QA fragment obtained by Dr. Reichstad.”
“Do you agree,” Judge Kaye asked, “that I must rule on the recklessness issue separately from the issue of whether, in hindsight, MacCameron’s allegations actually ended up to be the truth? Aren’t those two distinct and separate questions?”
“They are distinct—but related,” Sherman answered. “We believe that MacCameron has produced no evidence thus far in this case that creates an issue of fact as to whether his outrageous and defamatory allegations are actually true. This court must rule in our favor. This court must find, as a matter of law, that Reverend MacCameron, undoubtedly fueled by his fanatical religious beliefs, viciously, recklessly, and falsely defamed and libeled my client. No jury trial is required on those issues. The only thing for a jury to decide, after this court awards judgment for Dr. Reichstad today, is what figure they want to put next to the dollar sign on the verdict form—where it says, ‘What sum of money do you find will reasonably compensate Dr. Reichstad for the false and defamatory statements published by Angus MacCameron?’”
Sherman concluded by adding, with a confident smile, “And I would suggest, Your Honor, that the court have some calculators on hand for the jury’s use—the kind that have room for lots of zeroes.”
Will walked up to the podium with no notes. He smiled and thanked the judge for his attentive and astute questions during Sherman’s argument. He first argued why the judge should not rule on whether MacCameron was reckless in making his accusations against Reichstad. Will recited from memory the legal cases Jacki had researched for him—court cases that stressed that a trial judge ought to refrain, whenever possible, from trying to make decisions in place of the jury, where such decisions hinge on the state of mind of a party to a lawsuit. Those kind of issues, Will submitted, “are usually appropriate to be made by the jury after hearing all the facts, and all of the evidence—after a full jury trial—not here, in a hearing before trial.”
But Judge Kaye appeared impatient with that argument, interrupting Will and asking, “Then why do the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure specifically give me the power to grant judgment for Mr. Sherman’s client here? Can you show me one, credible, concrete fact that indicates a reasonable basis for MacCameron’s obviously defamatory article? I admit, most state-of-mind issues, like the recklessness issue here, are best left for the jury to decide at trial. But sometimes, Mr. Chambers, someone writes something that is so outrageous and so damaging, with no basis whatsoever in fact, that the court has no alternative but to find at this stage of the case, as a matter of law, that the element of recklessness has been proven beyond any doubt by the plaintiff.”
Will attempted to continue, but was interrupted again by the judge.
“Really, counsel, what was the basis for those allegations against Dr. Reichstad that your client published, anyway? Aside from the conversation he had with Hunter at the Between the Arches Café—and, as a side note, I’ve eaten at that restaurant on some of my visits to Jerusalem. But anyway, aside from that conversation—and that strange answering-machine message—on what did MacCameron base his published accusations against Reichstad? A dream? A vision? Was he motivated by an upset stomach caused by an undigested bit of beef, to bring in something from Dickens’ Christmas Carol? Really, Mr. Chambers, what other evidence of any kind did he have before he
let loose with that diatribe against this world-famous scholar?”
“The truth, Your Honor. Reverend MacCameron saw the truth—and then published what he saw,” Will Chambers replied.
“Does he have special eyes? Can he see things differently than the rest of us? Does he have X-ray vision? Is your client Superman?”
“No,” Will responded, smiling. “But he does see things differently. He views the world through a glass—as we all do. For most of us that glass is dark and the light is imperfectly reflected. But Reverend MacCameron views the world through a particular glass—through the prism of the Bible. He believes that Dr. Reichstad’s conclusions about 7QA are false—but not just false. Diabolically false.
“Mr. Sherman ridicules Reverend MacCameron’s beliefs. But I do not. I do not presume to possess the knowledge—or the arrogance—that would cause me to ridicule a magnificent written record that is two thousand years old. A written record, as it were, printed with the blood of those who all died horrible deaths for a specific belief—a belief that what they saw following the death and burial of Jesus of Nazareth defied the laws of the natural world, and changed their lives forever.
“We have not yet had the chance, as the court knows, to examine 7QA in its original form. But I believe that if we are permitted to do so, we will find that 7QA is only one part of a larger fragment. Where are the other parts of that fragment? And what will they say when the jigsaw puzzle is put together? What message will they bring to us out of the dust and the desert sands of two thousand years of oblivion? If Your Honor permits us to go to trial on the issue of truth as a defense, then those are the very questions we will address—and that the jury will, in its collective wisdom—be able to answer.”
Judge Kaye rocked back and forth in his black judge’s chair.
“And exactly what is the truth here, Mr. Chambers?”
Will paused, and in a quiet voice he answered.
“Interestingly, that is the same question that Pontius Pilate put to Jesus in the Praetorium in Jerusalem, Your Honor. He asked that very same question of Jesus, within the great arches of that Roman hallway. But then, Pilate turned and left prematurely—oblivious, perhaps, to the answer. I am sure that this court will be much more judicious than that. I am confident that Your Honor will permit us to go to trial—at least on the issue of truth. For all his indiscretion, Pilate did let the people decide. That’s all we ask here—a trial. And then, let the people in the jury decide.”
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