Tess Awakening (46 page)

Carmen flashed her trademark smile. “I work
here.”

“You still can’t be here, you must
leave.”

“I know this man; just give me a minute
please and I will go, I promise.”

The nurse smiled, charmed by the little
woman. “Only one minute, okay?”

Carmen waited for the nurse to leave. Amir
was waking up, trying to understand where he was. He started to
talk. “My son, forgive me. Please forgive me. Forgive me.” He kept
saying the same thing, over and over. Carmen touched his arm. Amir
tried to focus his eyes and did not seem to recognize Carmen.
“Amir, you know who I am. You are responsible for everything bad
that has happened. I am tempted to break your neck, but I think it
is better to let you stew in your misery. You killed your own son,
and you will have to live with your guilt for the rest of you
miserable life.

Amir was not listening. All he could say is
“Forgive me, forgive me.”

“That will be a cold day in hell,” Carmen
said as she left.

She went to see Nicola, who was still
unconscious, then met one of Jakes’ men downstairs. He drove her to
see Tess. Carmen could not think of anything that she could say to
provide comfort to Tess. All she could do is to be there and try to
help her through the grief.

Chapter 81

Jake was going through his private hell. He
deeply felt the loss of little Morgan. He loved the beautiful child
as if he was his own son, delighting in playing with him until it
was time to rest. Tess once found Jake napping on his back with the
sleeping baby propped on his bent legs, facing his dad, perfectly
cradled and comfortable. Jake could not keep from crying. On top of
his own grief, he had to worry about Tess, whose profound anger and
resentment, common emotions of the bereaved, had surfaced with a
vengeance.

Tess was struggling to avoid depression but
kept protesting against a cruel, unfair and incomprehensible fate.
This was a reaction to frustration—the source of which could not be
removed, so she felt trapped and helpless. She started to project
her anger onto Jake and even Carmen. She went into verbal
outbursts, sarcasm, and unreasonable or persistent demands of her
subordinates. Doctors explained to Jake that her behavior was an
understandable response to a traumatic situation and not
necessarily a personal attack.

Jake, Carmen, and General Turner made every
effort to listen to Tess empathetically and resist the temptation
to return anger with anger or becoming defensive when she made
baseless accusations. Worse, her anger started to turn inward,
replaced by silent bitterness, indifference, apathy, aggression,
and ultimately, depression.

Tess then succumbed to guilt feelings, now
searching for the cause of her loss. She kept asking “What did I do
wrong? “Could I have done anything differently? If only I hadn’t
brought the baby with us and left him with my dad.”

The doctors could do little other than
suggest patience. Tess’s behavior was explained as a part of the
grief process. This stage is remedied if people listen to the
bereaved person and help her express their whole range of feelings.
Listening to feelings without giving advice is the best helping
strategy, they added.

Jake worked hard to help Tess. He kept
embracing her even if sometimes she wanted to be left alone. He
wrapped himself around her at night, doing everything he could to
provide comfort and a sense of security. He also shared his own
sense of loss with her.

Carmen also sat with Tess for prolonged
periods of time. She just listened to her working through her agony
and despair. She knew that no amount of talk or platitudes would
help. Listening was the best medicine.

Carmen eventually felt that Tess was still
mired in self-pity, so she took a risk. “Tess, I cannot even begin
to understand your pain, but I know that if you must get back to
who you were.

Let me tell you a story. When I was fourteen
in South Los Angeles, I was raped twice. The first time I was a
virgin. The man didn’t care. He hurt me so much that I wanted to
die. After that, I felt that my life was not worth living. I
actually felt guilty, believing that perhaps I had brought the
abuse on myself.

Pops, my great grandfather, took action to
prevent me from sinking into an abyss of despair. The first thing
he told me was that I should never allow the actions of others to
dictate the direction of my life. Rather, he added, it was
important that I addressed the problem in such a way that such
abominations would not happen again.

He took me over to the gym and taught me the
rudiments of boxing. Then he paid a couple of experienced guys to
teach me martial arts. I worked at this for months. I developed
some confidence, but I was still scared.”

“One day, as I was walking toward Pop’s
house, I froze in fear. One of the men that had raped me accosted
me. He wanted a repeat performance.

There was no one around that could help me.
Then it happened: my brain spun out and unleashed a rage so intense
that I could not recognize myself. I wanted to hurt him as he hurt
me and I wanted to make the damage permanent. Then I did the
unthinkable: I ran toward him.

He tried to grab me, so I hit him in the
solar plexus. Then I remembered my training. With my small fist, I
hit the man on the right side of the neck, his carotid artery. That
stopped him. Then I broke the ultimate martial arts taboo: I spun
around and jumped into the air and kicked him in the left kidney.
He fell to the ground, choking but still swearing he was going to
kill me.

He tried to get up and I kicked him between
the legs. Not once, but three times. That took care of him. He
would not be able to use his precious tool for a very long
time.

My rage still was not spent. I kicked him in
the face repeatedly and finally walked away, only to see Pops
sitting on a chair on the porch, smoking his pipe, having witnessed
the whole scene.

I was shocked. I asked him why he didn’t help
me. He just said that I could not count on him being there for me
forever and that it was important for me to handle such situations
on my own. ‘Don’t feel sorry for yourself, just get even and take
steps to make sure that no one will ever be able to hurt you
again.’

He got up to walk into the house and turned
around. “Today, you turned from a little kitten to an eagle. I am
proud of you,” he said.”

“That’s a great story, Carmen,” said Tess. “I
am not sure that it’s the same thing. You haven’t lost a
child.”

“Tess, I almost lost Nicola. He is not my
child, but for me, he is the most important person in the world
after you. You are entitled to mourn your loss, and I am sure you
will continue to hurt for the rest of your life, but you can’t
allow Amir to ruin your life. You are surrounded by people that
love you. It’s time that you get your life back.”

Tess took the advice to heart. “Carmen, I
cannot express my appreciation enough for being with me and for
taking enormous risks to bring the fight to Amir.”

“Tess, when I was in Chiavari with Nicola, I
learned that the best way to address misfortune is to come together
as a team, help people shovel mud away from the streets and put it
back on the trucks to take it away. I have also learned that we can
survive bad storms and flooding if we remain creative and take
appropriate bold action. We are the ultimate team. I will always
watch your back as I am sure you will watch mine.” Tess hugged
her.

***

Nicola had barely survived his wound but was
on the mend. For the first time in her life, Carmen was taking care
of someone other than herself, and she helped Nicola recover with
all the love she could muster. She was also still working through
her mind why she had killed Kemal in such a brutal manner. She felt
that she should have regretted what she did, and talked about it to
Nicola and Tess. Both of them responded that they would have done
the same thing. “Don’t forget, Carmen,” Tess told her, he almost
killed the man you love; at least you had your revenge. I would
kill Amir in an instant if I could. I just hope that he spends the
rest of his days in hell, flogging himself for what he did.”

The police investigated the massacre that
took place at Jake’s farm and determined that Carmen, Nicola, and
Tess were justified in using lethal force to defend from an attack
by criminal mercenaries. The investigators questioned Carmen’s
apparent excess of force against Kemal but eventually gave up that
line of inquiry. The attack by Amir’s men and the murder of a child
had shocked the community and made national headlines. Most of it
was explained away as a terrorist attack. Tess and Jake let them
think what they wanted. The only thing they wanted now was to make
sure that Amir would pay for his crimes.

Chapter 82

The Iraqi government now moved to extradite
Amir to face charges of treason. His lawyers in New York set up
roadblocks, arguing that the demands for extradition were
politically motivated. In any case, Amir had to answer for his
crimes in a local court. The State Attorney was preparing an
indictment against him. This was going to be an important case, and
they dedicated all the necessary resources to make sure everything
was done right.

The judge ordered Amir held without bail.
Amir’s lawyers went into high gear. They argued that their client
was in need of urgent psychiatric care because he was traumatized
and not responding to stimuli or other people. Eventually, they
were able to move Amir to a secure medical facility for
observation.

Amir mental state was indeed problematic. He
now started to delude himself, uttering disbelief and denial about
his responsibility for the death of his son. He struggled to reduce
his anxiety about what had happened, but the reality of what had
transpired made it difficult to alleviate the pain in his soul.
Everything inside him shouted “No”! His mind struggled to escape
reality. Unable to tolerate the pain that emerged from his guilt,
Amir fell into emotional anesthesia, allowing numbness and
confusion to overwhelm him. He wanted to cry but couldn’t, so he
withdrew into himself; he no longer cared about anything.

Amir continued to act erratic and mentally
disturbed, but slowly recovered from his depression. Now he started
to rationalize his position. Yes, he caused his son’s death, but
only because Tess had taken the baby with her instead of leaving
him with his grandfather for the weekend as they usually did. He
didn’t know that the baby was in the car. He sprayed bullets in the
direction of the vehicle because he wanted to kill Jake, the man
that had turned Tess against him so he could have her for himself.
Had he succeeded in killing him, Tess might have realized the error
of having chosen the wrong man and perhaps, in due time she would
have returned to him.

Amir now resolved to plot the next step. He
missed the convenient services of Kemal, the faithful implementer
of his wishes. It was too bad that Carmen had made mincemeat out of
him. ‘What is it about these women,’ he thought, ‘why do they need
to act like men?’

Amir’s lawyers decided that an insanity
defense would keep him out of jail so that they could fight for
another day.

The insanity defense is generally assumed to
apply to psychopaths and sociopaths. Amir’s behavior throughout his
life did reflect patterns of antisocial personality disorder. He
habitually disregarded the rights of others, failed to respect
laws, engaged in deceitfulness, lying, and conning others for
personal profit or pleasure. Other troubling indicators were
irritability and aggressiveness, reckless disregard for the safety
of others; lack of remorse and rationalizing having hurt or
mistreated others.

Critics argue that the insanity plea is a
rich person’s defense. Only wealthy defendants can retain
high-priced psychiatric experts. Persons represented by public
defenders are usually afforded a psychiatric examination for the
defense, but they may not get the same quality of assessment, nor
are they typically able to hire more than one examiner. Since money
was no object, Amir’s lawyers made sure that several distinguished
psychiatrists worked on the case.

Three men posing as relatives visited Amir.
They had the proper passports to prove it. Amir continued to mask
his recovery by acting strangely, but at the end of the visit, the
men received crystal clear instructions on what to do.

Despite housing people who had committed
violent, often heinous crimes, the facility where Amir was kept was
still a hospital, not a prison. The patients were constrained but
not locked up. There were police officers at hospital entrances,
and others stationed nearby on call to respond quickly to staffers’
alarms when a fight broke out. But uniformed guards did not patrol
the halls of even the highest-risk units. So the most violent
patients were left to terrorize the others freely, with only
doctors and nurses to stop them.

Amir’s men saw plenty of opportunities to
engineer his escape from the facility. They coordinated with Amir
and implemented the plan. At the designated hour, Amir punched
three men lining up for dinner in the mess hall. A melee
immediately exploded. Inmates started to overturn tables,
overwhelmed the few guards in the area, pummeled each other, and
engaged in an orgy of violence.

The guards outside ran into the building to
help quell the disturbance. Amir punched two of them and sent them
flying on the shiny tile floors. He made it to the front door where
he met two of his men. They had used a truck to topple the front
gate and left the vehicle in place. Hustling Amir to a waiting
black SUV, they speeded away, reaching a clearing where a
helicopter was waiting. They abandoned the car and boarded the
aircraft, which rapidly took to the air.