Exile: a novel

by Richard North Patterson

  “International? Or local—with services confined to the United States?”

  “Local. Hassan told me that all the phones we used were local. Something about avoiding U.S. intercepts or surveillance.”

  “And yet the telephone number on the slip of paper—supposedly Ms. Arif’s—had the country code for Israel and the West Bank.”

  Jefar placed his fingertips together. “That is what I saw, yes.”

  “Do you know why Hassan would call a cell phone registered to Ms. Arif, for which she received a monthly bill from a Palestinian service provider?”

  “I do not know.”

  David smiled faintly. “Doesn’t that strike you as a breach of ‘operational security’?”

  Once more, Sharpe tensed, apparently searching for an objection. But there was none, and the jurors were plainly interested in hearing Jefar’s answer. “I do not know,” he said tonelessly.

  For a split second, David wished that he could see Saeb Khalid’s expression. “Let’s back up a little,” he continued. “This morning you described entering a storage container at night and finding police uniforms, plastique, motorcycles, and a map showing Ben-Aron’s route. Do you have any idea who put them there?”

  “No.”

  “Or who might have ordered them to be put there?”

  “No.”

  “Who wired the plastique to the motorcycles?”

  “Hassan.”

  “Is there a reason you didn’t wire your own?”

  Jefar shrugged helplessly. “I did not know how.”

  “Did you check the plastique to see if Hassan had wired it properly?”

  “No. I would not have known what to check.”

  “So you don’t know when—or how—the wiring became disconnected?”

  “No.”

  David paused for effect. “But you do know that it wasn’t disconnected by the explosion. Because you pressed your toggle switch before Hassan did?”

  “Yes.”

  “That was contrary to Hassan’s order, true?”

  Jefar looked away. “Yes.”

  “Hassan’s orders were to let him go first.”

  “Yes.”

  “But isn’t that effectively what happened? When your motorcycle failed to explode, you stayed back, and then Hassan went for Ben-Aron’s limousine and ignited his own plastique. Just as he had planned.”

  “I suppose so, yes.”

  “So you’re alive because you stayed back—as ordered by Hassan—and because your motorcycle—wired by Hassan—failed to explode.”

  “Objection,” Sharpe said quickly. “Calls for speculation. The witness can’t know what would have happened.”

  “Really?” David retorted. “According to the prosecution’s own expert, Mr. Allegria, if Mr. Jefar’s bike had exploded he would not be with us. Mr. Allegria also suggested that the witness would have died had he been as close to the limousine as Iyad Hassan.”

  Sharpe stepped forward. “Mr. Wolfe had his shot with Special Agent Allegria, Your Honor. By his own testimony, Mr. Jefar is not an expert on explosives.”

  Briefly, Taylor considered this. “I’m going to sustain the objection, Mr. Wolfe. Do you have some other question on this subject?”

  “I do.” Turning to the witness, David asked, “You were close to the explosion. Why do you think you’re alive?”

  Jefar hesitated. “Because I wasn’t next to the car when Iyad struck it.”

  “And that was consistent with his instructions, right?”

  Taking out a handkerchief, Jefar briefly dabbed his forehead. “Yes.”

  “Okay. A while ago you mentioned the possibility that you and Hassan might be captured, not killed. Did you ever discuss what might happen to you if you lived?”

  “One night, in Mexico, Iyad spoke of this.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That the Americans would give us to the Jews, to torture.”

  Sharpe leaned forward; from her expression, David sensed that Jefar had never revealed this to her. “Did you discuss any other possibilities?” David asked.

  Jefar closed his eyes. “Iyad said they might send us to a CIA prison, in Russia. There they could do anything they wanted—remove our finger-nails, hold electric wires to our genitals.”

  This was a fantasy, David knew—any involvement in this assassination would make Jefar and Hassan public figures, far too visible for mistreatment to be possible. But to someone as unsophisticated as Jefar, the prospect might have seemed quite real. “Did what Iyad Hassan tell you about torture influence your decision to cooperate with the prosecution and implicate Hana Arif?”

  “Objection,” Sharpe said. “The government made no such threats. All we told the witness was that his testimony—if we believed it truthful— entitled him to consideration in whether we sought the death penalty or life imprisonment.”

  “I understand that,” David told Taylor mildly. “My question was whether Mr. Jefar was motivated to accept that deal because he feared being tortured.”

  Nodding, the judge turned to Jefar. “When you entered your agreement with the prosecutor,” she asked him, “did you do so—in whole or in part— because you feared being tortured as Mr. Hassan had described? Either by the Israelis or by the CIA?”

  Jefar hung his head. “I was afraid of torture, yes. More than of execution.”

  Nodding, the judge looked back at David. “Mr. Wolfe?”

  David glanced at Jefar. Listless, Jefar sat there, only the crown of his head visible to the jury—a piece of human wreckage, exposed to the world as a potential dupe, his weaknesses and fears stripped bare, and still ignorant of the forces that might have delivered him to this fate. David felt a moment’s pity. But this was how he wished the jury to remember Ibrahim Jefar.

  “Thank you,” he said to Judge Taylor. “No further questions.”

  Returning to his chair, he saw Hana’s look of gratitude, and then Saeb’s appraisal of the witness, so chill that he could have been studying a specimen on a slide. An image came to David from the film General Peretz had shown him—a shadowy figure in a mosque, evocative of Saeb, who watched Ibrahim Jefar listen to the diatribe of a radical imam.

  Over the break, Sharpe seemed to have pulled Jefar together for redirect.

  “Concerning the plot itself,” she asked Jefar, “did Iyad Hassan ever tell you anything that wasn’t true?”

  Jefar shook his head. “No. It all unfolded as Iyad said.”

  “Did anyone working for the prosecution ever mention Hana Arif before you mentioned her to us?”

  “No. Never once.”

  “Did we ever threaten you with torture?”

  “No.”

  “Or treat you inhumanely?”

  “No.”

  “After Hassan gave you the name of Ms. Arif, did he consistently refer to the person who called with instructions as ‘her’ or ‘she’?”

  “Yes.”

  “As you sit here today, do you still believe that Iyad Hassan was telling you the truth?”

  Jefar mustered what remained of his pride, his voice still wan but firmer than before. “I do.”

  As Sharpe stepped closer, the jurors followed her. Speaking slowly and precisely, she asked Jefar, “Do you know of any reason why Hassan would lie to you about the involvement of Hana Arif?”

  “I know of none. Not from anything Iyad did, or anything he said.”

  And that was Hana’s problem, David knew—the great unanswered questions: why, and who? Head bent, Hana touched her eyes, mirroring Jefar.

  9

  With his heavy eyelids, curved nose, and small, pursed mouth, Special Agent Victor Vallis, Sharpe’s final witness against Hana Arif, reminded David of an aging turtle waiting to consume a fly. The fly was Hana; Vallis’s role was to anchor the prosecution case while assuring the jury that her defense was based on nothing that would qualify as evidence. Within minutes he had identified the threads of Sharpe’s narrative: Jefar’s accusation; the piece o
f paper with Hana’s prints and phone number; Hassan’s midnight call to Hana’s cell phone. Next he coupled Hana’s resignation as a member of the Palestinian negotiating team with her fiery denunciation of Ben-Aron. Then, piece by piece, Sharpe and Vallis parsed the evidence.

  “With respect to the slip of paper,” Sharpe asked him, “did the FBI perform tests to determine where it came from?”

  Vallis nodded. “We did. The paper was manufactured in Ramallah, and is of the type used by every professor at Birzeit University—including by Ms. Arif.”

  “Did the slip of paper bear any fingerprints other than those of Ms. Arif?”

  “Only Iyad Hassan’s.”

  David saw Bob Clair nod to himself. Vallis’s manner was calm, dispassionate, systematic—designed by Sharpe to appeal to a meticulous thinker like Clair. “How did you tie the telephone number to Ms. Arif?” Sharpe asked.

  “After her arrest, we confiscated her cell phone. Its number matched the number on the slip.”

  “And once Mr. Jefar confessed, what steps did the FBI take to verify his veracity?”

  “To start, we walked Jefar through every element of his confession. We found the van used by the assassins. We found the storage container, and extracted fingerprints belonging to both Jefar and Hassan. We retraced their steps from the day they crossed the border from Mexico—motel bills, meals, rental car fees—all charged to the Visa card Hassan picked up in Texas. Then we interrogated Jefar again to fill in any blanks.”

  “And what did you conclude?”

  “That Jefar was absolutely truthful,” Vallis answered firmly. “At no time was there any discrepancy between Jefar’s account and the physical evidence.”

  Beside David, Hana was very still—in her, a sign of tension. “Did you investigate Ms. Arif ’s movements?” Sharpe asked.

  “That was critical to her indictment,” Vallis answered. “According to Jefar’s confession, Iyad Hassan received a cell phone call informing him that the motorcade route had changed from Tenth to Fourth Street—from a caller Hassan identified as ‘she’—approximately ten minutes before the bombing. This matched a call shown on Hassan’s cell phone from a cell phone with a San Francisco area code. So it became important to explore Ms. Arif ’s activities in the time period surrounding the call.”

  “What did you determine?”

  “By her own account, shortly before the prime minister’s speech began, Ms. Arif left her hotel room, telling her husband and daughter that she wished to shop alone. A video taken by a security camera in the hotel lobby shows her leaving at eleven fifty-seven a.m., and returning at one thirty-one p.m.” Vallis paused, turning to the jury as he recited facts from memory. “Hassan received the call regarding the change of route nine minutes earlier, at one twenty-two. The assassins struck eleven minutes later.

  “Ms. Arif could give no specific account of her movements during that entire period of time. She bought nothing, nor do any sales personnel in the Union Square area remember having seen her.”

  “Did you question Ms. Arif about what she was doing?”

  “Yes. In a tape-recorded interview.”

  Briskly, Sharpe introduced the tape into evidence; remembering Hana’s vague responses, David braced himself. Sharpe pushed a button on the tape recorder. Vallis’s voice echoed in the courtroom. Where were you during Ben-Aron’s speech?

  Despite her rehearsal with David, Hana had hesitated. The tone of her answer was cool, disdainful. Wandering. Alone.

  Where?

  Around the area of Union Square.

  Why didn’t you watch the speech with your husband and daughter?

  I just didn’t feel like it, Hana answered in the same chill voice. I have heard too many speeches.

  Did you tell your husband you were going shopping?

  Yes.

  Did you?

  No. I didn’t feel like shopping, either.

  Since this questioning, David reflected, he had learned that there was another way to read these answers: as the responses of a dispirited woman, weary of her marriage and depressed about her future and Munira’s—a woman who needed a respite from her family. But its timing was terrible, and Hana’s voice on the recording sounded less despondent than indifferent.

  Did you go into any stores? Vallis asked.

  No. Not that I recall.

  What did you do?

  As I said, Hana answered, I wandered. I have no specific memory of where.

  On the tape, Vallis’s tone was clipped. Did you speak with anyone?

  No. At least not that I remember.

  In the courtroom, Hana gazed at the table, listening to the echo of her own words. She seemed to appreciate what David understood too well: that her answers fit someone who had needed to make or receive cell phone calls without being seen or overheard. Facing Vallis, Sharpe stopped the tape.

  “Was the FBI ever able,” Sharpe asked him, “to put together a more specific account of Ms. Arif ’s movements than the one she gave you?”

  “No.” Again Vallis looked at the jury. “It was almost as if, for one hour and thirty-four minutes, Hana Arif had ceased to exist.” Though quiet, Vallis’s voice held an edge of condemnation. “As of the assassination, Ms. Arif had been in San Francisco for a little over forty-nine hours. By her own account, as confirmed by credit card receipts and the hotel security camera, this period was the only time she was not in proximity to her husband or daughter.”

  Her expression sober, Judge Taylor glanced at Hana; among the jurors, Ardelle Washington raised her eyebrows. “Did you try to determine,” Sharpe asked, “whether some other person could have been the handler?”

  “We did,” Vallis answered firmly. “Wedid not pick Ms. Arif out of a hat, or ignore other possibilities. But we could find no evidence in conflict with Iyad Hassan’s statements to Ibrahim Jefar, or Jefar’s confession.”

  Sharpe nodded her satisfaction. “Thank you,” she said. “No further questions.” When David glanced at Saeb—an impulse he could not restrain— Saeb’s eyes were locked on him, his look cold and accusatory. But whether this reflected Saeb’s belief that David had failed his wife or his suspicion that David hoped to offer him up as an alternative, David could not tell.

  David’s initial approach with Vallis was clinical and linear, a reflection of the witness’s own demeanor. “Let’s go back to the evidence you cited against Ms. Arif,” David suggested. “Start with the call from Hassan’s cell phone to her, the one that occurred at 12:04 a.m. on the morning of the assassination. Did Ms. Arif’s cell phone reflect any other calls to or from Mr. Hassan?”

  “No.”

  “Or calls to or from any number you can’t account for?”

  “It did not. But by Mr. Jefar’s description, Hassan switched cell phones frequently, to avoid being traced. It’s logical that the handler would follow this procedure. Which is why, we believe, the call to Hassan about the change in route was made from another cell phone.”

  “A cell phone with a San Francisco area code, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which you can’t connect to Ms. Arif?”

  “That’s true.”

  David moved closer to the witness, his questions coming faster. “Have you been able to locate that cell phone?”

  “We have not.”

  “Or find any record of who bought it?”

  “No. It was purchased for cash, at Teague Electronic in San Francisco. The salesperson can’t recall the buyer.”

  “You’re an expert in counterterrorism, Agent Vallis. Is the technique you describe—the use of cell phones, purchased for cash, that are frequently replaced—common to terrorists?”

  “Terrorists and drug dealers.”

  David adopted a look of puzzlement. “Have you ever known a terrorist to make or receive calls on a cell phone registered under his real name, for which he received a monthly bill at his home address?”

  Vallis hesitated. “No.”

  “So in your considerable e
xperience with terrorists, Hana Arif is the only alleged terrorist dumb enough to have done that?”

  Vallis crossed his arms. “We assumed this call reflected an emergency.”

  “You ‘assumed’ that,” David repeated. “Can you recall a case where one terrorist wrote his or her number for another terrorist on a piece of paper?”

  “It’s not usual—more often, they just call each other, and let the cell pick up new numbers. But I’ve seen instances where someone has written down their number.”

  “Do you remember any where the terrorist typed their telephone number?”

  “No.”

  “So you ‘assumed,’ Agent Vallis, that Hana Arif was stupid enough to use her own cell phone in communicating with Ben-Aron’s assassin, having cleverly typed out her own phone number to conceal her own handwriting.”

  Vallis compressed his lips. “Not everything terrorists do is logical.”

  “Certainly not in this prosecution. According to Iyad Hassan, the plotters used local cell phones to avoid surveillance. Does that make sense to you?”

  “Yes. Sophisticated terrorists know that calls to or from international numbers can be traced by the National Security Agency.”

  “Would you say that the terrorists in this case were sophisticated?”

  “If you’re referring to the ultimate planners, yes.”

  “Except for Ms. Arif,” David said. “I guess no one told her not to use her own international cell phone.”

  Bob Clair, David noticed, studied Vallis with the ghost of a smile that seemed to reflect less humor than curiosity. Shrugging, Vallis said, “It was only one call. If Hassan’s cell phone had blown up with him, we never could have traced it.”

  This was a good answer, David recognized. “But Hassan threw the phone in a trash can,” he said, “where the police were able to find it.”

  “That’s true.”

  “And tossed the slip of paper in a wastebasket at his motel, where the police were able to find that, too. With respect to Ms. Arif, you seem to have caught one lucky break after another.”

  “Some breaks,” Vallis allowed. “But I remind you that Ms. Arif ’s own fingerprints were on that piece of paper. No one could have put those there but her.”