“There’s enough prejudice against my client without muzzling her lawyer to make the prosecution look better than it deserves.” David slid a stapled document across the table. “As for my supposed violation of this court’s order, we’ve prepared a transcript of my interview. It’s notable for the absence of any reference to confidential documents, as opposed to a truth that makes Ms. Sharpe uncomfortable—that Israel is refusing to provide information potentially vital to defense.”
“This ‘truth’ is based on what? Divination?” The judge’s expression became as flinty as her tone. “I don’t need to read this—I took the time to watch you. The message was clear enough: you have a reason to believe that one or more members of Ben-Aron’s security detail may be implicated in his death. And that reason could only be the information Ms. Sharpe provided you pursuant to my order.”
David accepted the rebuke in silence, hoping to cool the judge’s anger before it tainted the proceedings. “My order,” Taylor continued, “does not allow you to perform the dance of the seven veils on CNN—a tease here, a feint there, a tantalizing hint of the delights to come.” The judge’s voice became more even. “I appreciate the problem of adverse publicity. So I’m not going to bar you from expressing skepticism about this case—based on the public record. But if you so much as allude to a document subject to my order, you’ll be back here to explain why you shouldn’t occupy a cell down the hall from Ms. Arif.” Judge Taylor stared at David for another moment. “All right. Let’s hear about your motion to compel the prosecution to request information from the government of Israel.”
David paused to organize his thoughts. “With apologies, Your Honor, I’ll start where I left off: with Ms. Sharpe’s reliance on her only witness’s polygraph examination to prosecute a woman who passed a polygraph examination of her own—”
“Yes,” the judge interrupted. “What about that, Ms. Sharpe?”
Sharpe looked momentarily startled. “The examination of Ibrahim Jefar was as much to determine whether he would take it as pass it.”
“And if he’d failed it, Counselor?”
Sharpe composed herself. “We would have assessed that result in light of the corroborating evidence suggesting that he was truthful. Once he agreed to take this test, and passed, we had an added degree of comfort.”
“Did Ms. Arif ’s results make you a little less comfortable? Or are some polygraphs more equal than others?”
“In the eyes of the law,” Sharpe responded, “they’re equally inadmissible. Which means that we’re thrown back on the evidence regarding Ms. Arif. All of which—Mr. Jefar’s statement and the physical evidence that corroborates it—points to her guilt.”
Taylor arched her eyebrows. “All the evidence available, you mean?” Turning to David, she asked, “Isn’t that your point here, Mr. Wolfe?”
“Exactly. So far, Israel has withheld information that may help Ms. Arif establish that she was framed as part of a conspiracy that may reach within Ben-Aron’s security detail. The United States cannot maintain this prosecution while refusing to ask for evidence that may discredit it.”
“Tease this out for me,” Taylor said. “Suppose that an Israeli abetted an assassination carried out by Palestinians. Would that, in itself, make Ms. Arif any less guilty than the late Iyad Hassan?”
“Let me answer with a not-so-hypothetical scenario,” David said. “Whoever leaked the route called either Hassan or, more likely, Hassan’s handler. Suppose, as I do, that this second person is not Hana Arif?
“Right now, the only real witness against Hana is a dead man. But a breach in security would mean that someone in Israel may know far more than Ibrahim Jefar about my client’s innocence or guilt—or, at least, may know who does. How can we have a fair trial without trying to unravel this?”
The judge turned to Sharpe. “What’s your answer, Ms. Sharpe?”
“ ‘Unravel this,’ ” Sharpe echoed. “How? By asking us to arrange depositions of every member of Ben-Aron’s security detail, at whatever cost to the national security of another sovereign nation? Israel would never permit it.”
“It was Israel’s prime minister who died, Ms. Sharpe. The Israeli government is counting on the United States to prosecute those responsible. And the United States cannot do that without providing Mr. Wolfe whatever he’s entitled to.”
“Which is whatever the United States possesses, Your Honor—not whatever Israel may have.”
“Which Israel can decide to produce—or not.” The judge’s tone became impatient. “You’re mounting a prosecution based on hearsay from Jefar, against a defendant who passed a lie detector test—and whom you nonetheless propose, if successful, to execute. You can’t control what the Israelis do. But there’s nothing to keep you from presenting them with a choice: give the United States any information in its possession relevant to Ms. Arif ’s defense or put at risk this entire prosecution.”
Sharpe’s body, as stiff as her expression, betrayed her resistance to what she saw as David’s trap. “Your Honor,” she protested, “this court must be aware—as Mr. Wolfe most certainly is—of the Jonathan Pollard case. Pollard was an American Jew turned citizen of Israel who was convicted of stealing secrets from our government. When the United States prosecuted Pollard, Israel refused to identify his handlers at the request of the defense. That’s the precise response Mr. Wolfe is expecting here.” Sharpe adopted a more even tone. “Despite that, the United States was allowed to prosecute Mr. Pollard. If, as the defense anticipates, the Israelis decline our request on behalf of Ms. Arif, it should not affect our ability to prosecute.”
“According to whom?” Taylor rejoined. “I’m in this job for life. Whatever the fate of Ms. Arif, what matters to me is whether I can sleep at night. So here’s my order.
“First, the United States will request that the Israelis provide it with any information that tends to exculpate Ms. Arif or is otherwise relevant to her defense. Including,” Taylor added emphatically, “Mr. Wolfe’s assertion that she was framed.
“Second, if that information warrants depositions of Israeli government personnel, Mr. Wolfe may file a further motion seeking such depositions, setting forth the identity of the deponents and the specific grounds for deposing them.”
Startled by his success, David glanced at Sharpe, who appeared too stunned to conceal her dismay. “Third,” the judge continued, “I will defer setting a trial date to give the Israeli government time to produce, and Mr. Wolfe time to investigate, any information relevant to the defense.” Facing Sharpe, the judge concluded, “Should Israel refuse, this court will consider issues far more fundamental than when this trial might begin. Please convey that by whatever means our government deems appropriate.”
Sharpe, it was apparent, could not even muster the formulaic thanks.
“Is there something you don’t grasp, Ms. Sharpe?”
“No, Your Honor. Thank you.”
Nodding, Taylor turned to David. “Your papers suggest that you’re traveling to Israel. Regardless of its government’s response to my order, I suggest you take your trip sooner rather than later.” Her tone was cool. “I don’t want you coming back to me having done little more than file this motion, which, in all likelihood, you expect will get you nothing except what you really want: grounds for a motion to dismiss. That might suggest a certain cynicism—or even provoke it. Rather like your interview on CNN.”
It was a warning, if David needed one, that his own road would be hard, its end uncertain. “Thank you, Your Honor. I’ll take that advice to heart.”
“So you’re going to Israel,” Hana said gently. “The homeland you have never seen.”
“Yes. And also the West Bank.”
Hana nodded, and then gave him a piece of writing paper. “These are the names you wanted, friends and colleagues who know me well.” Her smile, though ironic, seemed almost melancholy. “Carefully culled, of course, to eliminate all those who think me capable of murder.”
David
did not know what to say. Hana rested a graceful finger on the last name she had written. “In the Galilee, there is my cousin Sausan. I’ve met her only once. But she is a young woman of interesting contradictions, a Muslim whose mother was a Christian and whose grandmother was a Jew—no doubt why she finds herself unmarried, running a school in Israel. She’s also very smart and very pretty.”
David smiled. “Is that why I should meet her?”
“If you think so.” Hana’s face was sober now. “But I have another reason for asking. Sausan can show you my parents’ village, I think, even the home where they lived. Her father will know where it is.”
David was surprised. But the depth of her expression suggested how important this was. “You want me to visit for you?”
“Yes. And for my parents.” She spoke more hurriedly, her eyes averted. “I have written how to find them at the camp. This would be yet another favor, David, a side trip to Lebanon. But I have no real way to reassure them, and they have little way to know what has happened to their village. Perhaps you can do both.”
David hesitated: some part of him resisted meeting the man and woman so influential in Hana’s refusal to marry him, and who, if they knew him as her lover rather than her lawyer, would no doubt turn him away. “I know,” Hana said in a softer voice, “this is deeper into my life than you wish to go. Or than, before, I ever wished you to go. But our journey has become much more complex than I imagined. And so I ask.”
After a moment, David nodded. Putting the paper in his pocket, he stood.
“David?” Looking up at him, Hana hesitated. “This will be a good trip, I hope. Not just for me, but you. But whatever happens, please come back safe.”
For an instant, their eyes met, and then she looked away. “I’ll try,” David said, and left. When, by instinct, he turned back toward the witness room, Hana was gazing at him through the clouded window.
David went home and packed for Israel.
P A R T
The Besieged
1
David took an overnight flight to Tel Aviv.
His seat in business class reclined into a bed. Adjusting his pillow, he glanced around him at his fellow passengers, predominantly middle-aged Israeli businessmen or Hasidic Jews, the women in sober clothes, the men with side curls and black hats and coats. The men tended to be pale, either portly or too thin; in David’s estimate, they could have used a few hours in the gym or, at least, in unfiltered sunlight. He felt no more connection with these fellow Jews than if they had all been Muslims.
Closing his eyes, David fell asleep.
Toward dawn, when he awakened, Hasidic men draped in prayer shawls were drifting toward a small corner of the compartment, apparently to seek the first light of morning. They held prayer books; a leather strap was wound around their arms, a small leather box strapped to their fore-heads. The box, David discovered in a guidebook, held a parchment inscribed with a portion of the Torah; the purpose of the strap was to bind the body, mind, and heart, the better that the men should act for good, not evil. A worthy goal, David supposed.
From between the seats in front of him, a Hasidic boy of perhaps seven, dressed like his father but with a child’s bright-eyed curiosity, peered at David as if at some foreign creature. But when David smiled, the boy grinned back at him, delighted to make contact. At once David thought of Munira, swathed in black, reading the Koran under her father’s watchful eye. That any culture imposed a belief system on its children, other than free inquiry and free choice, remained alien to him, he realized, despite the harsh lesson he had learned from Hana.
An hour later, they landed. David had come to Israel at last.
Leaving the plane, he followed the signs to the baggage claim area, his meeting place with Bryce Martel’s friend Zev Ernheit.
Ernheit was a broad-shouldered man in his early forties with a graying crew cut, prominent features, and perceptive brown eyes that seemed to take in David with skepticism and a trace of grim amusement, as if to say, What have I got here? It was the expected response, David supposed, of a former Mossad operative to the Jewish lawyer for the accused Palestinian assassin of Amos Ben-Aron.
Ernheit’s handshake was firm, his manner direct. “If you’re not too tired,” he said, “we’ll stop for a history lesson on the way to Jerusalem. Martel assures me that anything I tell you will be new.”
Even as he spoke, David noticed Ernheit’s air of tensile alertness, the way his glance swiftly took in those around them. The loose short-sleeved shirt he wore, David realized, concealed a gun. “Anything,” David answered with a smile. “And everything. Including who really murdered Amos Ben-Aron.”
Ernheit merely shrugged, his look of amusement gone.
The newly paved roadway from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem ran through a landscape of rocky hills that had once been desert but now was dotted with pines. The early Zionists, Carole had told him, had determined to create an arable land by planting trees—in Hebrew school, Carole and her friends had raised money to support the planting of yet more trees. What David was seeing now, Ernheit told him, was a hundred years of planting, more than two hundred million trees, creating Israel’s own small miracle, the only man-made climatic change in human history that was for the better.
“All these trees,” Ernheit observed, “are a metaphor. The State of Israel is not only rooted in our history but in the sweat of a million Jews. The land that Palestinians claim as theirs is not the land they left.”
The modern houses of Israeli Jews, David saw, tended to be white stucco structures with red roofs, which seemingly had sprung from nothing. Clustered together, they reminded David of the exurbia that typified southern California, with its sense of suddenness, vitality, man’s irresistible enterprise. On a nearby hill, David spotted a cluster of sprawling homes above which the dome of a mosque was outlined against blue sky. “An Arab village,” Ernheit observed.
David nodded. “The architecture’s different.”
Ernheit kept his eyes on the road. “The cultures are different,” he answered laconically. “Jewish children leave home, Arab sons bring their wives home to live with their families. So the homes themselves just keep on growing.”
Quiet, David thought of Hana and her parents. “About Ben-Aron,” Ernheit said abruptly, “our important conversations will take place out-of-doors. You’re an intruder here, an unwelcome guest. Take it as a given that your telephone calls will be monitored, your hotel room bugged. You’re also likely to be followed.”
“For what reason?”
Squinting in the midday light, Ernheit put on sunglasses. “Let us suppose,” he said, “that our government believes what you do—that a conspiracy to murder our prime minister included Jews. Assume further that they do not yet know who was involved in the conspiracy, or its dimensions. In which case they are as anxious to know as you are. Perhaps more.”
“Why waste time on me?”
“Why not? You may actually stumble across something they want to know. There are some in Israel who, for reasons of their own, may wish to help you.”
And whose side are you on, David wondered. He could not be entirely sure, he thought to his discomfort, that Ernheit was not himself a human wiretap. “I’ll remember that,” David answered.
They stopped on a hill with a distant view of the city of Jerusalem. At its crest, partially shaded by leafy green trees, was an ancient stone building that, but for the Islamic inscription above its entrance, could have been a church. As they approached it on foot, David asked, “What place is this?”
“A good place to start,” Ernheit answered. “The church that became a mosque. The burial place of Samuel, perhaps the greatest prophet of the Jews. One of only three—the others being Aaron and Moses—ever to converse with God.”
“Who built the original structure?”
“Crusaders, the scum of Europe. They came to extract holy relics and instead struck Islam at its heart, setting off its ceaseless conflict with the West.” Pausin
g, Ernheit pointed to the inscription. “That’s the work of Saladin, the great emperor who reconquered Jerusalem and restored honor to the Muslim world. So this became a holy place for three religions.”
David followed Ernheit through the entrance. Inside, the stone building was divided into sections—a mosque where Muslims could pray, a portion of the old church preserved for Christians, and, at its center, two sets of steps, one for men and one for women. Following Ernheit down the stone steps, David saw the tomb of Samuel covered in cloth, beside which three Hasidim sat, their heads bowed, reciting prayers as their bodies rocked slowly back and forth.
Emerging, Ernheit and David sat on the hillside facing Jerusalem. Pointing to an adjacent hill, Ernheit said, “That’s where Saul, the first king of Israel, built his palace. But the structure you see is the unfinished palace of Hussein, the Bedouin king of Jordan, abandoned when we conquered it in the war of 1967. You begin to understand, I imagine, what I’m telling you.”
David sorted through his sense of shifting boundaries, religious sites built on top of one another, the intertwined histories of contending peoples. “That everything here is complicated,” he ventured.
Ernheit laughed softly. “Even truth. In the Middle East, there are at least four versions. For believers there is theology—the written word of God, infallibly true. But for Jews and Muslims, God’s truth is different and conflicting.” Ernheit hooked a thumb at the structure behind them. “Here, as you have seen, is archaeological truth, the record of men’s footprints, to which theological truth does not always conform. Then there is historic truth, combining fact and myth, a narrative of the past as a people wishes it to be.
“Finally, there is political truth—history’s first draft, a story of the current day in which religion, archaeology, and history are shaped to the need of the teller. Which is why Arafat insisted, contrary to the Jewish truth, that the Dome of the Rock, the Muslim shrine, is not built on the site where Abraham came to sacrifice his favorite son, Isaac—who, in the Islamic telling, was Ishmael, the precursor of Muslims.”
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