The key witness for the defense—the only witness who really mattered— was Malik himself. It was necessary for him to testify because no one else could put his version of events on the record.
He performed impressively. The empty sleeve was eloquent in itself, and when Malik explained the reason for it and why he carried a gun, two male jurors nodded in unconscious agreement. Later, under cross-examination, Malik never lost control or let himself be pulled into a discussion of his past: he simply waited for his attorneys’ objections to be sustained.
Yet, something was wrong. Jenna could feel it. In a business deal or a social situation, Malik could throw up a smoke screen of charm, jokes, mock anger, even tears—whatever was needed to carry him through. But this was a court- room, and as good as Malik was at deception, he wasn’t really good at plain lying. Jenna knew the signs. She could see them on his face, hear them in his voice. Could the jury recognize them, too?
In the postmortem that evening, J.T. and Rosalie seemed worried. Unspoken signals that Jenna couldn’t decipher shot back and forth between them.
“They’ll be done with our client tomorrow morning,’’ J.T. told Jenna. “We’ll have a little redirect, then rest. Judge’ll probably adjourn for the day. Then summation shouldn’t take more than another day, wouldn’t you think, Rose?”
“Better make it two,” said Rosalie. “Chiles is going to be on a soapbox.” “Yeah, make it two. Then it’s in the hands of twelve ordinary citizens, good and true.”
“What if—” said Jenna. She stopped. “What if what?” asked Rosalie. “What if I testified?”
The two lawyers glanced at each other.
“Testified to what?” said Rosalie.
“If I just testified for my—for Malik.”
“Well, I don’t see how that’s gonna happen,” J.T. finally drawled. “I told you we’re not gonna call you. And the bad guys aren’t gonna call you, either.”
“We couldn’t call you regardless,” said Rosalie. “You’re practically a member of the team.”
I see.
Another look between the lawyers.
“Is there something we should know, Jenna?” asked Rosalie.
It was like standing on the edge of a cliff, wondering what it would be like to—
“No,” she said. “Just a crazy idea.”
Back at the hotel, she opened the vial of Valium, then closed it. She wanted the calm—wanted it badly—but she needed to think clearly. Once before, she had saved herself through a deception, and it had cost the life of someone she loved. Could she go through that again? There was still time. She could just stand up in court. But no, they would shut her up, and no one would believe whatever she managed to blurt out anyway. After all, the whole world thought she was Malik’s lover. God, Jenna, how did you end up in this three-ring circus?
She could call a press conference. They wouldn’t shut her up. No, indeed.
The jackals would want their feast. She couldn’t—just couldn’t, that was all. Besides, Malik thought that he would be acquitted. So did J.T. and Rosa- lie—didn’t they?
And there was Karim to think about.
Whatever she did or didn’t do would be wrong—and she had done so much wrong already. She thought longingly of the Valium. Maybe even a drink. Sleep.
There was a tap at the door. Toni and Jabr.
“Someone wanting to see you, boss,” said Jabr. Through hard effort, he had trained himself not to call her Highness. “Not a reporter, I think.” “From Boston,” said Toni. “Says you know him. Here’s his card.” But Brad was already standing behind her in the hall.
“Yes, it’s okay,” Jenna heard herself saying. “Yes, I know him. It’s fine. Come in. Come in!”
Toni and Jabr hesitated for the briefest moment before standing aside and closing the door behind Brad, who had never taken his eyes off Jenna.
“I had to see you,” he said. “I couldn’t leave things the way they were. I had to tell you I was wrong to try to force you. I don’t care what else has happened, Jenna.”
“Shut up,” she said. “Just hold me. God, just hold me!”
The world became his arms around her, what she had wanted, what she had needed through it all.
“I love you, Jenna. I’ll always love you. Always.” “I love you, too.”
O
She had dozed but now was wide awake. What time was it? It had to be long past midnight. She curled close to Brad’s strength and warmth. She ran a finger lightly down his chest. He stirred, brushed her forehead with his lips.
“What is it, love?” he whispered. “I have to tell you something.” “Tell me.”
She told him everything.
Now and then, he interjected a question, now and then, a word of anger or astonishment. “My Christ,” he said when she had finished. “What you’ve been through, my love! What you’ve been through!”
She fought down a quick little spasm of sobs. “It’s not over. I’ve got to do something.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know what to do. What would you do?” “What difference does it make what I’d do?” “Don’t tell me that! Tell me what you’d do.”
He stroked her hair lightly, thoughtfully. “Who else knows about all this?” “Nobody. Malik knows some of it. And his daughter. Jabr, a little. You’re the only one who knows the whole story.” “What about Karim?”
“No. He doesn’t know. Not anything.”
“I don’t know what I’d do,” said Brad after a moment, “much less what you ought to do. I like to think that I’d tell him, then tell the world.” He got out of bed, went to the window, and cracked the curtain to peer out into the night. “But there are consequences to think of. Your life will change, and so will Karim’s. In the short run at least, those changes won’t be for the better. There’s no getting around that.” He closed the curtain. “I can’t decide for you, you know that. All I can do is tell you that whatever you decide, I’m with you. If you want to keep the lid on forever, I’ll help you hold it down. If you want to break it open, I’ll be beside you all the way.”
“You think I should tell, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he finally said. “For your brother, and for yourself.”
Again, that feeling of standing on a cliff. Very clearly, the thought came to her that it was now or never.
“What time is it in Boston?”
Brad squinted at his watch in the darkness. “A little after six.”
She switched on a lamp and reached for the phone. Her hands, she thought distractedly, were freezing.
Karim answered on the seventh ring, his voice fuzzy with sleep. “Mom?
Where are you?”
“Still in California.”
“It’s the middle of the night there. Is something wrong?”
“No. Well, yes. Karim, sweetheart, can you come out here? Just for a day or two?”
“Well, gee, Mom, what for?”
“I … I need to tell you something. It’s very important.” “So tell me.”
“I’d rather say it in person, not on the phone.”
“What, are you kidding, Mom? You mean they’re tapping the line or something?”
“No, no. It’s just—”
“So tell me. That’s what phones are for.”
“All right,” she said. “But you’d better sit down. This isn’t going to be easy for either of us.”
“I can’t sit down, Mom. I’m in bed.”
“All right.” She took a deep breath. “Karim, darling, I’m your mother, but I’m not who you think I am, who other people think I am. I didn’t want it that way. I had to do it. But now it’s time for the truth.”
For the second time that night, she told the story.
As it slowly sank in, Karim began to interrupt. His pain and confusion were palpable—and infused with growing anger.
“You’re telling me this guy, this prince, this creep that Malik killed—this guy was my father?”
“Y
es, but—”
“Then what about Jacques? What about Jacques?” “I made him up. Please believe me, I did it for you.”
“Believe you? How can I believe you? None of this is real. It’s just—it’s crazy!”
“It’s real, Karim, and there’s more to it.” She closed her eyes. “Please come out here, sweetheart. Or I’ll come back there, forget about the trial.” “Mom, whatever it is, tell me now.”
“I killed him, Son. Not Malik. I did it.”
In the next few minutes, she learned exactly how her brother had felt on that plane taking Laila out of al-Remal. She would never forget the words Karim used, the hatred he expressed. That she knew it was a defense reaction made it no easier to hear. And nothing she tried to say got through.
“How could you do this to me? You think about it! How could you do it? How?”
The phone clicked violently. He was gone.
When the tears finally came, it seemed as if they would never stop. She felt Brad’s arm across her shoulders, shrugged it off: no one could help her in this, no one could comfort her. Yet in all the agony, there was something else, a feeling long forgotten, a mingling of exhilaration and fear that approached pure joy.
She had stepped off the cliff. Was she falling or flying?
O
Morning spread colors slowly across the desert. Jenna ordered breakfast for two. Brad had fetched his one piece of luggage from his room two floors below. Karim’s phone was disconnected. Jenna, eyes still red and puffy from crying, wanted to go to Boston.
“Don’t,” advised Brad. “It won’t do any good now. Let him cool down a little.”
He didn’t add that something remained to be done here, but it was on both their minds.
Jenna sipped coffee and nibbled a cinnamon roll. For the first time in weeks, food tasted good.
“The lawyers say that they’ll rest the case today, and the judge will adjourn until tomorrow. I was thinking of calling a news conference after adjournment. But I don’t want to.” She shivered. “I don’t want them all … screaming at me.” He looked at her quizzically, with a glint of amusement. “Are you joking, Jenna? Maybe you’re too close to this thing. You don’t realize how big it is. Not just here. Everywhere. If you don’t want to deal with a crowd of reporters, if you’d rather have a quiet hour with Dan Rather or Diane Sawyer, all you’ve got to do is pick up the phone.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. You’re sure?” “I’m sure.”
“Do you know either of those people?”
“Sawyer and Rather? I’ve met them both. I don’t really know them.” “Never mind. I’ve got it. You’ll think I’m crazy, but …” She went to the phone and called information. Then, taking a deep breath, she punched the number.
“Mr. Manning’s in conference,” said the voice in Boston. “May I take a message?”
“Tell him it’s Jenna Sorrel.”
Barry Manning was on the line in four seconds. “Doc! Great to hear from you! My, but you’ve been a busy little bee since the last time I saw you.”
She told him what she wanted.
“An hour today, doc? You got it.” He shouted instructions to some- one—“Bump Moynihan. That’s right, I said bump him!”—then came back to Jenna. “Wait a minute, doc. Aren’t you in California?”
“Yes. I want to do it here. Today.”
“Yikes! Doc, I gotta ask: This is big, right? I mean, you didn’t just suddenly decide to push a book or something.”
“It’s big. I’m told it’s very big.”
“Then you got it.” More shouts to the background: “Book the first flight to LAX. Scratch that. Charter one. Half an hour. Me and the whole crew.” He sounded slightly winded when he came back on. “Don’t move a muscle, doc. I’ll be there.”
“I have to go to court. I won’t be hard to find.” “I’ll find you. Doc? Thanks.”
She hung up and breathed a deep sigh. Then she was laughing. “What?” said Brad.
“My deep, dark secrets!” she said, and laughed harder. “I’ve been hiding them my whole adult life, and now suddenly I’m babbling them over and over like a … a crazed parrot! Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor?”
O
The defense rested at five minutes to noon, and the court stood adjourned until the following morning.
Jenna had a brief moment to spend with Malik before he was escorted back to his cell. For the first time, he seemed deflated, his customary cheer nowhere in evidence.
“I didn’t like the way they looked today,” he told her, meaning the jury. “I may be in trouble.”
“Don’t worry, Brother. It’s going to come out fine.”
He brightened. “You think so? Of course, you’re right. I’m getting to be a worrier.”
Three hours later, she went on the air with Barry Manning. He had brought video equipment, as well as audio.
He introduced her without his accustomed brashness. Clearly, he saw this as his graduation to the big time. “Doctor Sorrel tells me that she has something important to talk about, but she hasn’t said what. The sensible thing for me to do is get out of the way and let you listen. So here’s Jenna Sorrel.”
An hour later, she, Brad, Toni, and Jabr practically had to fight their way out of the rented studio. At the hotel, police ringed the entrance. Jenna looked at Brad.
“It’s okay,” he said. “They’re here to protect you—for now.”
Redemption
That night, the hotel was a castle under siege. Scores of reporters and hundreds of idly or malevolently curious citizens from all over south- ern California milled outside.
At one point, a helicopter hovered, roaring, a few yards from Jenna’s window, a cameraman leaning from the door. His shot of Jabr closing the curtains went out live on CNN.
Jenna, completely drained, could barely focus on the TV, which was replaying the story in endless detail. From time to time, she tried to reach Karim, without success. Brad took charge with an air of quiet command. His first task was to find Jenna a lawyer.
“What about Rosalie and J.T.?” she wondered. She was comfortable with them.
“They’re Malik’s lawyers. I’m not sure it’s ethical to work for us, too. But I’ll try. You have an unlisted number for them?’’
“That little lady’s a pistol,’’ J.T. laughed when Brad reached him. “Tell her we’re holed up like in the Alamo over here, thanks to her. Tell her we love her anyway. Tell her we admire her. But doggone it, we just can’t represent her. Y’all are from Boston. Ever hear of a Boston fella name of Sam Adams Boyle? Hell of a trial lawyer.’’
Half an hour later, Sam Adams Boyle was on retainer.
“He was watching your interview with Barry when I called,’’ Brad told Jenna. “It was too late for the network news back East, but they were running excerpts on a special bulletin.’’
“God.”
On the TV in front of her, Jordan Chiles was proclaiming the whole thing a desperate stunt and promising to carry forward the murder charge against Malik. Chiles looked a bit desperate himself. The election was barely a week away, and his showcase was blowing up in his face.
Moments later, Malik called from jail. His name was on a very short list of acceptable callers that Brad had given the hotel.
“Amira, why did you do it? Another day or two and it would have been over. We were winning, I could feel it.”
“I’m sorry, Brother. I know you were doing it for me. But I just couldn’t let you. And I had to stop lying sometime. For myself.”
“Who answered the phone?” The protective big brother, even from behind bars.
“Brad Pierce. You’ll meet him.”
“Ah, Baby Sister, you’ve been holding out on me. Bring him to court tomorrow.” Jenna could picture his mischievous smile. The man was irrepressible.
After Malik’s call, Brad had a long talk with someone in Washington, D.C. “A friend of mine,” he explained. “Known him since we were kids. He’s pretty high
up in the State Department these days. I’m worried about your immigration status—Karim’s as well—so I thought I’d try to head off trouble before it starts.”
In all the madness, Jenna had forgotten completely about the fact that she was in the United States on fraudulent terms. “You mean they could deport me?” “They won’t. If worse comes to worst, there are a couple of congressmen who’d be only too glad to do me a favor.”
She let it go. It was all becoming very distant, anyway. She was exhausted.
She closed her eyes.
Someone was pulling at her. “… to bed,” Brad was saying. “What about you?”
“A few more calls. I want to get some security people down here from our California division. Toni and Jabr need rest, too.”
She kissed him, bumbled off to bed without even washing her face, and fell into a dreamless sleep.
O
A cordon of police lined the courthouse steps. As Brad hurried Jenna to the building, she was astonished to hear cheers from the crowd. A group of women on the sidewalk lifted signs; some read “We’re with Jenna,” the rest, “We’re with Amira.”
Malik was seated with Rosalie and J.T. at the defense table. He turned to smile at Jenna, looked Brad over for a long moment, and nodded. After a long delay, the judge appeared and immediately summoned the defense lawyers and Jordan Chiles into his chambers. When they emerged a half hour later, J.T. was grinning broadly, and Rosalie was looking as elated as she was ever likely to. Chiles, scowling, glanced at Jenna with daggers in his eyes.
The judge explained that unofficial developments outside the courtroom normally had no effect on a case in progress. However, he had learned that at least two jurors had become aware of Jenna’s interview with Manning. In his judgment, their knowledge would have to be considered prejudicial.
Therefore, he was declaring a mistrial. He gave the prosecution seven- ty-two hours in which to decide whether to file new charges.
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