“So I can look you up on Amazon and buy your book to read on my Kindle?”
“Yes, please do. I can use some sales.”
“Is there anything in particular that you like to write about?”
“Yeah, Islam, or at least what people call Islam. I’ve written a few novels about what’s happened to the religion in the past 700 years or so. My first book, which I published five years ago is called A Culture of Death. I wish I had as many sales as death threats.”
“Death threats? Can you tell me more about that, Mickey?”
“Well, let’s just say that I portray the religion of peace for what it appears to be, the religion of death. I’m not too popular with the jihadi set.”
“Okay, since you’ve led me down this path, I’m going to ask you a flat-out question. Do you think the jihadis, as you call them, have it in for you?”
“You can say that, Georgina. They want me either dead or in prison. And if I go to prison, I may as well be dead.”
“Muhammed, I mean Mickey, I want to change the subject if I may. I’ve just been given a document that discusses the evidence against you. It’s pretty damn overwhelming. It says here that your thumbprint was found on the bomb detonator. It also says that there’s a video of you standing next to the parcel that was later determined to contain the bomb. The time stamp on the video shows that you stood next to the parcel 15 minutes before the explosion. Would you like to comment, Mickey?”
“Georgina, if you were going to set off a fucking bomb, whoops sorry, would you leave a thumbprint on the detonator? Wouldn’t you get rid of the detonator? As far as the video goes, and I haven’t even seen it yet, any video can be doctored to make it look real. I’ve done a lot of research on that subject for my books.”
“We just got the call from the arraignment judge, Ms. Rice,” the security guard said. “Please report to the courtroom. The prisoner will be led up separately.”
The arraignment of Muhammed Sidduq took 25 minutes because of all the charges that the judge had to read. After each count, Mickey said, in a loud, strong voice, “not guilty.”
Chapter 13
“Hi, Matt, it’s Georgina Rice. Remember me? I’m the lady whose ass you kicked a few years ago on that Andres case.”
“Georgi, how the heck are you? I hear that you took a big job in New York. Senior partner at Jones, Brown, and Bingham, if I recall from the Law Bulletin. Congratulations. So to what do I owe the pleasure of your call?”
“Matt, I’m freaking out about something, and I think we need to talk. I read all about you representing that guy Ali Yamani, the man accused of the Water Tower Mall bombing. The National Law Journal did a good job of covering the story. To get right to the point, my firm represents the guy who is accused of the big mall bombing on Long Island last week. Just like Blake & Randolph we take on some pro bono criminal cases. The Law Journal went into a lot of details about the evidence against your client. Hell, it’s been all over the TV news as well. This is going to blow your mind, Matt. The evidence against my guy includes a thumbprint on the bomb detonator and a video of him standing next to the parcel that contained the bomb. They haven’t gone public with this stuff yet, but within a day or two you’ll see it on television. Matt, a fucking thumbprint and a video. This is too weird to be a coincidence. I have to be in Chicago the day after tomorrow. Can I see you so we can compare some notes?”
“You said that you were going to blow my mind, Georgi, and you just did. You have my total attention. How about the day after tomorrow at my office at 10 a.m.? I’ll have Woody Donovan there and my wife, Diana, who’s working with me on this case?”
“Great, Matt. Prepare to have your brain stretched even more.”
***
“Georgina Rice is here to see you, Matt,” Barbara said over the intercom. Diana and Woody were already in my office.
“Great to see you, Matt. You too Woody.” She gave us both hugs. “So this is the beautiful woman you married. It’s a pleasure to meet you. You know I had a big crush on your husband after the Andres case, Diana. There was something about getting my ass kicked on a big case that made my heart go aflutter.”
Diana laughed. “I sat in on the Andres trial, Georgina. When I saw you give Matt a hug and a kiss after the verdict, I knew I had to act fast.”
She squeezed Dee’s hand. “You two make a beautiful couple.”
“Okay, stop guys. You’re embarrassing me,” I said.
“And you’re boring me,” said Woody.
“I know we have a lot to talk about, but just bring me up to date on yourself, Georgi.”
“Well, as you know, I moved to New York to accept a partnership at Jones, Brown, and Bingham. I got married two years ago to a wonderful guy. He’s a federal judge.”
“What’s his name?” I asked, not that I expected to recognize it.
“Earl Lonergan.”
Diana and I looked at each other. Then we cracked up laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“Judge Lonergan officiated at our wedding three years ago.”
“Earl? My Earl? What were you doing in New York?”
“Matt and I were in the Witness Protection Program,” Diana said. “Long story. Judge Lonergan married us in a secret rooftop ceremony.”
I walked over to my bookshelf and took down a photo of the judge posing with us after the wedding.
It was Georgi’s turn to laugh. “Earl told me about performing a wedding for a couple in the Witness Protection Program, but of course he didn’t mention any names. As a matter of fact, it was right after your wedding that Earl called me and said an old friend of his from Jones, Brown and Bingham was looking for a litigation partner. After I moved to New York, Earl and I got married.”
“Georgi,” Diana said, “Matt and I are big believers in guardian angels. Maybe we’re your guardian angels and brought you and Earl together.”
“Oh, God, that so sweet. I can’t wait to tell Earl about this. Before I go on, I’m dying to know something. The typical lawyer in me had to do some research before I came here to meet you. I noticed that Diana’s name is on the firm roster as a paralegal. But I did some further checking and found out that Diana’s a full professor at Northwestern. I know that Blake & Randolph likes to hire talented people, but a full professor as a paralegal?”
“Matt and I love to work with each other,” Diana said. “He edits my articles and I help him with his cases. They me hired as a paralegal so we could talk about cases and not run afoul of client confidentiality.”
“Earl is going to love this.”
“So, Georgi,” I said, “tell us all about your criminal client and your thoughts on the Yamani matter.”
“I’ll start from the top. Okay, guys, I told Matt that I have something shocking to tell you, and I’m about to follow through on that promise. Mickey’s a 29-year-old library clerk.”
“Mickey? Is that his Muslim name?” Woody asked.
“No, his real name is Muhammed Sidduq.”
“My guy’s name is Al, short for Ali Yamani,” I said.
“Mickey is a college graduate, with a degree from the University of Cairo. And here’s something interesting. He’s also a writer. He’s self-published six novels, and all of them are critical of radical Islam. I started reading one of them last night. It’s entitled A Culture of Death. He’s not a bad writer, but somewhat preachy when he wants to make a point. He tells me that he’s gotten a lot of death threats because of his writings. As he said, he’s not popular with jihadis, and if you read his stuff you’ll see why. I’ll email you his author page on Facebook. You may want to start reading his books. I think it will help you with the Yamani matter.”
“Holy shit,” Woody said. “Pardon my language, but when I was at the jail yesterday to go over some facts with Al Yamani, he mentioned that he was a writer. He said that he’s written three novels.”
“He never mentioned that to me,” I said.
“When was the last time
you interviewed a criminal defendant and asked him if he had written any books? It only came up in conversation when I asked if he wanted some reading material. That’s when he mentioned that he was working on his latest book. Now, he’s writing on yellow pads, if you can believe that.”
“Did you get the name of any of his books, Woody?” Diana asked.
“Yeah, his first novel is called The Sands of Destruction. I bought it on my Kindle last night. Only $2.99.”
“And did you say that your client’s book is on your Kindle, Georgi?”
Georgina nodded.
“Hey, I have an idea,” Diana said. “Let’s read the first few pages of our clients’ books. It may give us some insights.”
“Great idea, Diana,” Georgina said. “I’ll go first. Here’s the first chapter of Mickey’s A Culture of Death.” It’s very short. Too short for a chapter if you ask me, but I’m not reading this as a literary critic.”
“Mahmood had grown accustomed to hiding. He had a price on his head for years, a price that someone was willing to pay to shut him up. A few years before, while kneeling at his mosque and listening to the imam call for death to infidels, and especially Jews, he opened his mouth and shouted, ‘Why do you preach nothing but hatred? Does not Allah have any message of love or kindness?’
Every eye in the mosque suddenly focused on him. So this how I shall die, he thought. Because he was seated near the rear entrance, he ran out the door as soon as the service ended. Mahmood never returned, and his life has been one of hiding in the shadows ever since.
‘Islam is not a religion of peace,’ he wrote on a wall on the outskirts of town. ‘It is a culture of death.’ ”
“Georgi, did you not say that he gets death threats all the time?”
“Yes, and I think you just heard why.”
“Diana,” I said. “Would you please read to us from Al’s book, The Sands of Destruction.” Woody handed her his Kindle.
She quickly perused the first couple of pages.
“This book has a preface. It may tell us something interesting. It’s the part of a book where an author often gives an idea what the book is about.”
She read from the preface of The Sands of Destruction by Ali Yamani.
“I entitled this book The Sands of Destruction, because the word destruction is what the story is all about. This is not a book about religion; it is a book about the perversion of a religion, and it’s transformation from a way to worship a supreme being, to a way of merciless killing. The perversion began over 700 years ago in the Dark Ages. Enlightenment has yet to pay a visit to the precincts of Islam.”
“And what did Al do for a living?” Georgina asked.
“He was a high school teacher,” I said.
“And my guy was a library clerk.”
“So we have two guys from modest occupations who are both quite literate and use their minds for writing fiction,” I said. “From what I’ve heard I don’t think we’re going to see any National Book Awards, but they both know how to write. Hey, it’s time we start to make a chart.”
I walked over to the white board and grabbed the marker.
“That’s my job, counselor,” Dee said. “I can’t read your chicken scratch.”
Dee approached the board.
“Diana, please put across the top the names of our clients, Al and Mickey, and under that put ‘similarities’ on one side and ‘dissimilarities’ on the other. The first entry under similarities should read ‘literate writers.’ ”
“How about next you put, ‘critical of Islam,’ ” Woody suggested.
“Both in their twenties” Diana wrote on the board.
“This seems like a good place to start talking about the comparisons between their criminal cases,” Georgina said. “Number one, both cases involved the bombing of shopping malls.”
“How about the thumbprints on the detonators,” I said.
“And let’s not forget to list ‘detonators in plain sight and not discarded,’ ” Woody said.
“Video,” Diana said as she wrote on the board. “And right under that I’ll put ‘time and date stamp.’ ”
“DNA from blood,” I said. “A dissimilarity. It only applies to Al Yamani.”
“No,” Georgi yelled. “They have DNA on my guy too. I forgot to mention it.”
“Al had a physical exam a few days before the bombing,” Diana said. “I think that’s an obvious dissimilarity.”
“No it isn’t,” Georgina said as she stood up. “I cannot believe I didn’t mention this. Mickey had a job physical a few days before the bombing. Somebody told him it was routine. He was told to go to a clinic in Flushing.”
Woody asked her for the name of Mickey’s employer. She told him it was the Bay Shore Public Library located near the mall that was bombed. Woody excused himself and went to the next office to make a phone call. He returned in five minutes.
“I just spoke to the director of the library. They don’t have a policy of giving physicals.”
“Did Mickey tell you how the physical was arranged, Georgi?” I asked.
“Yeah, he got a phone call telling him it was a routine physical for his job and he was given directions to the clinic.”
“So we have two bogus physicals” I said. “ No way is this coincidental.”
Diana had just finished jotting notes under the caption, “Physicals.”
“No disguises, even though they are supposed terrorists in a public place,” Diana said as she wrote on the board.
“Arrested days after the event,” Georgina said.
“Okay, guys, let’s pull together what we’ve discovered so far,” I said. “We have two highly literate writers in their 20s in modest occupations and have been accused of bombing a shopping mall in two different states. The evidence against them is so similar it’s scary. They both had thumbprints on the detonators which were found in plain sight. They weren’t arrested until days after the event. Then we have the convenient videos that were leaked from unknown sources. And today we discovered that they both underwent rigged physicals at which they gave blood and thumbprints. They both insist they were framed. What the hell is going on?”
“Somebody’s out to get these guys,” Diana said. “That seems obvious, at least to me. And I don’t think it’s the local Chamber of Commerce that has it in for them. With their books they’ve managed to piss off some segment of radical Islam, especially if you consider the death threats against Georgina’s client.”
Diana put “enemies of Islam?” on the board.
“But here’s the weirdest thing of all, folks,” Woody said. “Neither of these guys will open up to us on the big question—why? They’re both charged with capital murder, but both of them are holding back on the one thing that could lead us in the right direction.”
Diana put “Won’t tell us why they’re being framed” on the board.
“Please email the video of your guy to me, Georgi. Then I’m going to make a phone call,” Woody said.
***
As we ate sandwiches that had just been delivered from the deli, Woody walked, well, stormed was more like it, back into the room.
“I just got off the phone with my guy, Professor Max Moon, the forensics maven. I emailed him the video of Georgi’s guy at the mall in New York. Get this—fucking get this. The video of Georgi’s guy and the video of our guy were both taken with the same video camera, the same camera, a Nikon P510. Two locations, in two separate states, and both videos were taken with the same camera. Not an iPad or iPhone, but a professional video camera.”
“That’s not a coincidence,” I said, “that’s evidence—for the defense.”
Chapter 14
Bill O’Reilly, the wildly popular political talk show host of The O’Reilly Factor, went over his notes preparing for his next guest. O’Reilly often tells people that nobody throws him a pitch he can’t hit, but the thought of talking to his next guest gave him a knot in his stomach. He was upset because he didn’t like to
lose his temper on the air, which he would do on occasion. And the next guy up always got O’Reilly’s temper on edge.
“Ladies and gentlemen, our next guest is Ibrahim Youseff, the Imam of a mosque in Los Angeles, and a spokesperson for the syndicated TV show, Islam Today. Good evening Mr. Youseff, and thank you for joining us on The Factor. As I always say, you’re a stand-up guy for coming on our show.”
O’Reilly hated to say this, because the last thing he believed was that Youseff was a “stand-up guy.” He’s a lying polemicist, thought O’Reilly. But his producer convinced him to try to “make nice” because Ibrahim Youseff always bumped up the show’s already high ratings.
“Mr. Youseff, you’re aware of the recent bombings of the two shopping malls, one in Chicago and one right nearby on Long Island, where I live. Both of the gentlemen accused of those bombings have Muslim names, and from what we can see so far, the evidence against them can only be described as overwhelming. The death count in those two atrocities is shocking, with a combined total of almost 400 people. What say you, sir, do you have any thoughts on the matter?”
“Why do you drag me in front of your viewers just because a man with a Muslim name has been accused of a crime? Can you answer that for me?”
One of the many things O’Reilly loathed about this guy is his insistence on asking the host questions.
“Mr.Youseff, I should remind our viewers that you called the show and requested to come on. Nobody is dragging you before our audience.”
“You can tell your people whatever lies they want to hear, but I am telling your people that you dragged me here. As usual, you are not telling the truth.”
I’m a lot bigger than this guy, O’Reilly pondered, and have a much longer reach. I bet I can knock him out with one punch to the jaw. He cleared his throat and forced a tight smile, more like a grimace.
The Reformers: A Matt Blake Novel (The Matt Blake legal thriller series Book 2) Page 5