The Last Judgment (44 page)

But Judge Verdexler, after pointing out that even he knew that the Ninth Circuit was more often overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court than any other federal circuit, noted, “This tribunal is not bound, in any event, by United States law. We are an international body.” Both Judge Lee and Judge Mustafa nodded at that.

Will's final point was also quickly rejected by the judges. He directed the tribunal's attention to the fact that the criminal law specifically exempted “the providing of religious materials” from its reach. “Gilead's preaching therefore cannot be deemed a terrorist act or part of a criminal plot,” he contended.

But Judge Lee responded that the exemption was intended to cover the providing of written religious literature, not an act of preaching that—under the prosecution's theory—was a signal for the detonation of explosives.

After the court denied Will's motion for dismissal, the tribunal adjourned for the day. Nigel Newhouse tried to be optimistic, focusing on what had been achieved in the cross-examination of Scott Magnit.

“Well, as we both know,” Nigel said to Will in a hushed voice, since the public prosecutor was still lingering at his counsel table, “it's rarely a matter of getting a complete obliteration of the key prosecution witness. But I think, at a minimum, you neutralized Scott Magnit in your cross. Good show, Will.”

The two shook hands. Then Mira Ashwan came over and shook hands too, smiling and congratulating Will on a “truly excellent examination” of Magnit. During that interrogation she had sat quietly at counsel table, taking copious notes but asking no questions.

The three lawyers chatted briefly about the schedule for the next day. Both Nigel and Mira, and even the Palestinian prosecutor, knew who Will's first defense witness would be. The prosecution had announced there would be strenuous objections raised on that issue. And they all knew there was likely to be a frenzy of legal fireworks. But what Will hoped to accomplish with his first, controversial witness was still a mystery to everyone except Will himself.

The trio also talked a little about the headlines of the day, something they had not had time to discuss during the lunch break. The newspapers were all reporting that Warren Mullburn's negotiations with the Israelis seemed to be temporarily stalled.

At the last moment, Israel was balking at ceding control of the eastern half of Jerusalem to the Palestinians. That had sent the Palestinian Authority into a rage. Hamas leaders were promising to send a new wave of suicide bombers into Jerusalem to “break the back of Israel's oppressive reluctance.”

The parties were going to break for several days and then resume talks. President Harriet Landow, ever anxious to put her administration back into the limelight, had offered to send U.S. special envoy Howard Kamura to break the impasse, but her suggestion had been politely rejected by both sides.

During one of the breaks earlier that day, Mira had suggested a dinner meeting with Will. She said there were some defense strategies they needed to discuss, particularly dealing with the witness Will had subpoenaed for the next day. And she didn't feel comfortable sharing some of her concerns in front of the others. Her brother, a local chef, would prepare an Indian meal at their apartment. She and Will could then discuss the case while her brother was doing the dishes.

The two attorneys took a taxi to the apartment, which was located a few blocks away from the Damascus Gate of the Old City. En route, traffic was congested. The cars snaked along very slowly. The taxi then came to a complete stop along with the other traffic. Seeing a way to squeeze out, their cab driver wheeled his taxi sharply to the right and began nudging into the opposite lane. That was when they saw it.

There was a man wearing a heavy coat in the middle of the intersection behind them—four cars away, next to a bus stop. As the driver pulled into the opposite lane, he started saying something excitedly in Hebrew, motioning backward.

Instinctively, Will and Mira glanced back. An Israeli policewoman started running away from the man, waving to the cars and shouting in Hebrew, “Suicide! Suicide!”

Then, as they left the intersection behind them, it exploded in a deafening blast that rattled the cab windows. Mira shrieked and began crying. She buried her face in Will's coat.

Within seconds, the cab driver's cell phone went off. He snapped it on. Speaking Hebrew, he was talking to someone at the other end in calm, reassuring tones. After a few minutes he finished, sighed, and asked in English, “Everyone okay back there?”

Will was still numb, trying to process what had just happened.

“We're all right,” he muttered.

Mira's face was still in Will's chest, her shoulders were shuddering. She stayed there until she was able to regain her composure. Then she looked up at Will, wiping the tears away, and cursed softly in Arabic.

As they took an alternate route, Mira talked about the weariness of living in the midst of violence. How she hated groups like Hamas, and how she was “tired of ‘Israeli intransigence.' Why doesn't Israel simply let the Palestinian Authority have the eastern half of Jerusalem?” she asked forcefully. “Is a little piece of land so important that people have to die in the streets?”

The two lawyers were still in shock from the suicide bombing. They talked about it in the cab and were still talking about it as they walked up the narrow corridor of the apartment building.

Mira unlocked the door to the apartment, and Will followed her, smelling the aroma of Indian food. Taking her suit jacket off, Mira headed into the kitchen. There she found several covered dishes on restaurant warming plates along with a note from her brother.

“He was called into work at the restaurant,” she said, reading it. “I hope you are hungry. There's so much food here. You'll be plenty full when I get through with you.”

Will looked around the apartment, trying to cope with an increasingly uneasy feeling. He was still in shock from the suicide bombing.
Perhaps
, he thought,
that was it
. But he still had the lingering feeling it was something else.

Mira seemed to have shaken off the incident. She ran her hands through her hair, letting out an exasperated groan.

“I am in such a mess,” she said. “I just need to freshen up real quick. That's okay, isn't it?”

Will started to say something, but she interrupted him as she ducked into the bathroom, which was just off the living room.

“Just make yourself at home,” she shouted. “Take some of the food. Start eating. I'll only be a minute.”

Will sauntered into the kitchen. As he took the top off one of the dishes, something caught the corner of his eye and he glanced over.

Mira had left the bathroom door open at least six inches. She had started the shower and was now standing, poised and naked, in front of the open door, tying her hair back. She called out to him.

“Will, sometimes it's so nice just to wash the worries of the day off your body.”

He had caught only one inadvertent look. Now he was quickly walking out of the kitchen and away from line of sight into the bathroom. Shame and anger were pulsing through him.

How could he have gotten himself into this dangerous position with Mira? At first, standing in the living room, he tried to dismiss the incident as simply a cultural difference.

That's ridiculous,
he concluded.
Some things are universal—like sex. I've got to get out of here now.

As he started toward the door, on the table by the front door he noticed Mira's purse, which she had left there upon entering the apartment. There was a colored plane-ticket envelope inside. Something told him to pull it out. He did.

Will stared at the ticket inside.

That was when he realized the full extent of the betrayal.

And he would still be trying to come to grips with it when, down on the street, he hailed a cab, ducked in, and gave the cabbie the directions to his hotel.

62

A
SMALL ARMY OF LAWYERS HAD ASSEMBLED
in the main courtroom of the Orient House building, where Gilead's trial was progressing. The legal contingent was gathered at the prosecution table, and they had come to object, in the loudest and most persuasive fashion possible, to Will Chambers' controversial tactic.

And, more to the point, they had come to protect their internationally celebrated client.

The three judges were seated, as were Will, Nigel, and Gilead. Mira Ashwan scurried in slightly late, apologized to the judges, and threw Will a confused, distressed look as she sat down.

A well-dressed Palestinian lawyer rose and introduced himself as local counsel for a New York law firm specializing in international law, which had been retained by a prominent client who had been served with a subpoena by Will Chambers. The subpoena had commanded that client to appear and give testimony at Gilead Amahn's trial. The Palestinian lawyer then yielded to one of the four lawyers from the New York firm.

The one with a little gray in his sideburns and the custom-tailored Italian suit strode confidently to the podium and introduced himself. He jumped right into the event that had sparked the court hearing that day.

“My client, Foreign Minister Warren Mullburn, was served with a subpoena to appear today in this prosecution against the accused, Hassan Gilead Amahn. Minister Mullburn has been called as a witness by the defense. We object, in the strongest possible terms, to our client—who is, as this tribunal knows, the
Foreign Minister of the Republic of Maretas—being forced to take time away from his involvement in delicate and highly critical international negotiations. After all, he is here in Jerusalem to help forge a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, not be dragged into a criminal case. Minister Mullburn is entitled to the protections of diplomatic immunity as well as foreign sovereign immunity. And we demand that this outrageous subpoena be quashed by this tribunal immediately.”

Judge Mustafa asked for a quick recital of how Mullburn had happened to be served.

The New York lawyer proceeded to explain that Mullburn, his chief of staff, and several of his security detail were dining at the American Colony in Jerusalem. “A very large man dressed in a brown express-delivery outfit and carrying a box wrapped as a birthday present entered the restaurant, got past the maître d' and past one of Mr. Mullburn's personal security guards. Then he walked right up to the table and said the box was an urgent gift to Mr. Mullburn. One of the security agents at the table reached out, but before the delivery man could be stopped—by the way, he is seated behind the defense table there—he lifted the top off the box and tossed the subpoena at Minister Mullburn.”

Tiny leaned forward and whispered to Will with a grin, “I couldn't believe they fell for it.”

Judge Lee's usual tabula-rasa facial expression of controlled non-emotion had now changed slightly. He raised his hand to ask a question. As he did, his face was registering something, perhaps mild amusement.

“Did Minister Mullburn catch the subpoena?”

“Ah…as a matter of fact he did,” the New York lawyer replied.

“Then it appears,” Judge Lee concluded with a smile, “that Minister Mullburn was effectively served.”

The lawyer was nonplussed. He proceeded to argue eloquently that, because Mullburn was in Jerusalem on “an urgent diplomatic peace mission,” he was entitled to diplomatic immunity.

Further, he said, “because Minister Mullburn is an official with the government of the Republic of Maretas, he is entitled to foreign sovereign immunity.”

His last point went to the reasons listed by Will Chambers in his brief to the court as to why Mullburn was being sought as a witness in the first place. “Minister Mullburn knows absolutely nothing—I repeat,
nothing—
about the matters regarding which attorney Chambers proposes to question him.”

When the New York lawyer sat down, Will strode up. He paused, not just to collect his thoughts, but to ponder, just for an instant, exactly how high the stakes were at that very minute.

Will understood that if Mullburn's attorneys prevailed, the oil tycoon would be deemed immune from questioning. If that happened, then the central core of Will's defense would probably collapse. The final piece in Will's theory of Gilead's innocence relied on the circumstantial proof showing that Mullburn had some connection to the Temple Mount bombings. If Mullburn couldn't be forced to testify, then Zayed would move that the court exclude the defense's attempt to go down that route. He knew that the Palestinian prosecutor would object to any of the Mullburn-related defense evidence on the grounds that it would be unfair to impugn Mullburn, or to tie him into the massacre, without hearing
directly
from the notorious billionaire and current international diplomat himself. And if Mullburn were immune from testifying, the tribunal would have little choice—the court would likely have to bar that portion of Will's defense.

Will spoke first to the diplomatic immunity issue.

“In truth,” he argued, “Mr. Mullburn was not in the course of diplomatic activities when he was served. And as we all know, Mr. Mullburn's negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are currently on a temporary hiatus. Therefore, his testimony here will not interfere with that process.