The Last Judgment (31 page)

As they approached, Will could see an alarm clock and several cylindrical objects that, at a first glance, looked like sticks of dynamite. But on closer examination, he realized they were just auto flares taped together and connected with a wire to the clock.

“It's a nonbomb,” one of the technicians said with a chuckle.

“This is what I want you to see.” The detective held out two news clippings to Will. “We found both of these in the box with the phony device. I suppose they're self-explanatory…”

Will looked at one clipping, which contained the immense headline “MUSLIMS SLAUGHTERED IN TEMPLE MOUNT MOSQUE MASSACRE.” The other was a clipping announcing that Will Chambers had been retained by Gilead Amahn with reference to the bombing.

“Any ideas,” the detective asked, “who may have sent this?”

“I've been getting a lot of nasty e-mails and crank phone calls,” Will said, “ever since I took Mr. Amahn's defense. So, take your pick—nobody in particular, though.”

Before they parted, the detective asked Will, “Are you going to be around your office today? We're going to need some follow-up information from you.”

Will assured him he was, then he made his way over to the police line where Hilda and his younger associates, Todd and Jeff, were staring wide-eyed at the activity.

“What in the world is going on, Will?” Hilda asked with panic in her voice.

Will turned around and looked at the bevy of police officers and the bomb squad truck parked in front of the building.

“Just another day at the office, Hilda.”

46

“I
T WAS A
THREAT
.
”

“Actually, I'd call it more of a prank.”

“But that thing in the box—it looked like a bomb.”

“Well, yes…but the point is that it wasn't a real bomb—”

“Alright. So it was a fake bomb. But someone out there wanted you and the police to think it was real. Somebody was sick enough, vicious enough to cause the whole building to be evacuated…get the bomb squad called in…the whole nine yards.”

“Fiona,” Will was trying to sound reasonable and calm, “what can I tell you to make you feel comfortable with all this? I need to see Gilead. There's no way around it. The trial date is rushing up. I've done everything I can remotely…from here in the States. But now I need to get over to the Middle East. To dig into the facts for myself—it's critical. I wouldn't leave you at this point if I thought it wasn't safe…”

“I've heard that before.” Fiona was glaring over the kitchen table at her husband. But Will could see beyond the anger. The hurt in her eyes was obvious. Yet her last comment did make him wince a little.

“That's not fair—”

“Oh no?” she said. “It was in this house.”

“I know…”

“I was asleep in my bedroom.”

“That's why I had Tiny doing surveillance.”

“I was just seconds from being attacked. And, my precious husband, what if Tiny had turned his back for a second…or had
fallen asleep? I know it was a number of years ago…but I can still remember it. Tiny shooting that man after he had slipped into the house. A man with that big, horrible knife. Long, steel, with a jagged edge. A black handle. I still remember what it looked like…”

“You know that I can't get that picture out of my mind either—”

“I thought that was all over. Those types of cases. The risks you were taking. Making the kind of enemies that come after you and your family. And now it's happening all over again…”

“Fiona,” Will said, struggling against the internal conflict, “I don't know what else I can say. Tiny is going to be on guard every night. The sheriff's department will have unmarked squads posted in the area.”

“And what about Andy?”

“I think you'd better take him to school and pick him up personally. No car pools for a while.”

“Ahhhh…” Fiona cried out, putting her hands on the sides of her head in exasperation.

Will leaned back and studied her, trying to put his finger on it. He was being sucked down into the swirling tide. No matter which way he turned, he was feeling that his life was being swallowed up. Was out of control. That was really it—what his gut was telling him.

He looked at Fiona. Her dark hair, her deep eyes, her beautiful features. Despite the years, there seemed to be so little aging with her—just a bit of softening here and there.

“I love you,” he said gently.

She wagged an angry finger directly at her husband.

“Don't you understand? It's not about me. Not at all.”

Her eyes were filled with tears, and her voice was choked with emotion.

“It's you.” She started to sob. “I couldn't live without you. I don't know what I would do if something happened to you. I know it sounds so faithless. The Lord must be displeased with
me when I talk like this. I can sing about faith. I can live it all…except when it comes to you. I absolutely fall apart…”

Will gathered her up and held her, feeling her shoulders heave with sobs.

After several minutes, the crying stopped. Fiona wiped her eyes. For a moment or so she was silent. Then there was only the occasional sound of her taking deep, cleansing breaths.

After a little while she spoke.

“When do you leave?”

“Day after tomorrow.”

Fiona paused before she spoke again.

“It's gone so fast. Our years together. Marriage. Andy. Always so busy…not enough time…”

Then she sniffed a few times, and demurely placed a finger to her upper lip.

“I need a Kleenex,” she said.

They both broke into laughter.

She stepped into the bathroom to grab a tissue.

Alone in the kitchen, Will looked out the windows. He could see the treetops stretching up the mountain, and above the tops of the towering pines, the sky beyond.

Earlier it had been clear, with a bright blue and cloudless sky. But now he could see the trees starting to sway in the wind. And off in the distance, shades of billowing white and gray as the clouds were building.

Storms blow in so quickly,
Will found himself thinking,
close to the mountain.

47

A
CROSS THE PLAIN WOODEN TABLE
from Will Chambers, Gilead Amahn was seated in a metal folding chair, his hands resting on the surface in front of him. Down the hallway of the Palestinian police building, someone was laughing and yelling in Arabic.

Will's client looked gaunt and haggard, as if he had lost considerable weight. His face had a hollow look to it.

Will had arrived that morning and, to his surprise, clearing the red tape for his jail meeting with Gilead had taken only a few hours. Attorney Mira Ashwan had been helpful in the process.

Their conference was taking place in the police auxiliary building of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. The building had two large holding cells with walls on three sides and bars across the fronts. These were now the sites for imprisonment of Gilead Amahn and Scott Magnit, the American member of the Knights of the Temple Mount, who had also been charged with conspiracy to commit murder through acts of terrorism.

Will's interview with Gilead was conducted in a room about the size of a large closet. The attorney was pleased there weren't any guards present. But he also assumed that somewhere the Palestinian Authority had installed a listening device, a small remote camera, or both.

Will had paused for a moment to review a few of the notes that he had jotted down. He and Gilead had been going at it for
a little more than an hour, but covering only some of the supplementary background information Will was looking for.

During the lull, Gilead spoke up.

“How are your wife and your son?” he asked, trying to manage a smile.

“They're good, thank you.”

For an instant Will thought back to his departure. Before rushing off to school, Andy had given him the “shield of faith” badge he'd won at the Scripture-memory contest. He said it was so that his dad could remember him during the trial.

Fiona had driven him to Dulles airport. As he'd unloaded his multiple large briefcases and suitcase, she'd walked around to the curbside, where she kissed him goodbye.

“I love you forever,” she'd said softly.

But there was that look—distant, and a little hurt.

Will had kissed her back, hard, and pulled her to himself, lingering there for a moment and kissing her—their last embrace before one of the airport police yelled to Fiona to move her car.

“I'll get back as soon as I can,” he'd said. Then he'd gathered his collection of luggage and made his way clumsily inside.

Sitting there in the Palestinian police building in Ramallah, Will wished he could have said something more to Fiona.

“Where are you staying?” Gilead asked, breaking into Will's thoughts.

“In a hotel in Jerusalem,” Will replied, still a little distracted.

“Okay, here it is,” he said, finally remembering what he was looking for in his notes. “It's about that trip you took the year before the incident at the Islamic Center. When I represented you back then, you told me you had made a trip to Jerusalem and Jordan. But you didn't really tell me who you met with or where you went. I need to know that.”

Then Will hunched forward over the table and continued in a whisper that was barely audible.

“And I want you to explain this to me very quietly—for my ears only.”

Gilead nodded and leaned forward, his face only an inch or two away from Will's.

“I did some sightseeing,” he whispered. “I also visited the offices of the Holy Land Institute for the Word, who did the fundraising to pay for my defense. You remember I had been giving some thought to being a missionary to the Middle East, having been raised here—”

“Yes, but your parents explained to me that you dropped out of the missionary school—the one that's affiliated with the organization that sent them over to Egypt.”

“That's right. I just didn't feel it was right for me. I didn't feel the Lord's leading there. It was more like I was trying to please my parents than really find out what God's will was. That's why I was giving some thought to the Holy Land Institute, working with them over here.”

“Who did you meet with?”

“With the director. I had read about the organization in a Christian magazine. So I just sort of showed up. Walked in the door and told them who I was. About my background in Egypt. The fact that I was a former Muslim. That kind of thing.”

“Let me go back to something we were talking about,” Will said. “About what you did in Jerusalem.”

Gilead's eyes opened a little wider, and he studied Will before he answered.

“Where did you hear this?”

“I sent my private investigator here, to the Palestinian Authority, to start getting some of the pretrial discovery the court ordered them to divulge. And one of the reports we received mentions your attending a Bible study in Jerusalem. And there were Knights of the Temple Mount there with you—”

“Let me just make something very clear.” Will's client was struggling to keep his composure. “I didn't even know that there
was
such an organization as the Knights of the Temple Mount. You have to believe me. So I don't know who was, or was not, part of the Knights in that Bible study. I was doing some informal
witnessing, sharing the gospel here and there around Jerusalem. And I was at a café. Somebody told me about a Bible study I should go to. So I showed up.”

“You know that one of the inner circle of the Knights is here in a jail cell just next to yours?”

“Right. The American. He's tried to talk to me but—”

“I hope you didn't reciprocate?”

“No. I'm smarter than that. But I recognized him. I think his name is Scott.”

“Scott Magnit,” Will said. “He was one of three members in the inner circle.”

“Well, he was at the Bible study with me in Jerusalem when I visited there last year.”

“Well, there's something else you need to know.”

“What?” Gilead could see the concern on Will's face.

“Scott Magnit has struck some kind of a plea agreement with the Palestinian public prosecutor. He is now going to be testifying against you—pointing the finger—saying that you were in control of the whole operation. That you gave the signal for the detonation of the bombs. You were the mastermind, according to him.”

Gilead cast his eyes down and slowly shook his head.

“Is he telling the truth?”

“Of course not,” the younger man said, shaking his head vigorously.