The Last Judgment (48 page)

The barrister was deep in thought, but remained unconvinced.

“The kind of plot you are describing is contemptible…so complex and so brilliantly arrogant that I find it hard to believe. Mullburn may be a genius of sorts—bold, aggressive, perhaps even ruthless—but if I'm finding it a rather bitter pill to swallow, then how are you ever going to convince the tribunal? Really, are you able to present unimpeachable evidence substantiating all of this?”

Will glanced over at Tiny, who was smiling to himself.

“I hope so,” Will replied.

Nigel could see he was being excluded. As an accomplished barrister, this was the first case where his lead trial counsel had deliberately kept him out of the loop. The American attorney had assured him it had to be that way. The fact that the barrister accepted it in good faith was a testament not only to Will's leadership but to Nigel's teamsmanship as well.

But as they concluded for the night, all three of them agreed on one thing. They had all observed Gilead's demeanor during the trial. He was deteriorating, looking increasingly forlorn and abandoned. No amount of encouragement from the defense team seemed to buoy him.

It was as if he had already begun visualizing himself on the table, strapped down, IVs connected…with nothing to do but count the minutes before the lethal injection was administered. It was heartbreaking—and from a strategic standpoint it could be a crippling problem. Gilead had yet to testify. He needed to tell his story incisively and with bold confidence. Whether he would be able to do that now seemed to be in grave doubt.

Will only hoped that the fact that Bill and Esther Collingwood had finally arrived and waded through the paperwork and background checks so they could sit in the courtroom would lift Gilead's spirits. Will had shared that with his client, but the young man had managed only a weak smile in response.

Now, Will and Nigel could only look to the next day for some solid signs that the course of the trial was turning their way. They were cautiously optimistic that they would win several central points during the upcoming testimony.

But they were to be bitterly disappointed.

They had subpoenaed Farousha Ali Khalid, the submissive wife of Yossin Ali Khalid, to testify. She was to be questioned on the many covert meetings in their apartment between her husband, Louis Lorraine, and Scott Magnit, where the attack on the Temple Mount was discussed. Will fully expected Farousha to deny that Gilead had been present at any of those meetings.

But she never uttered a word on that subject. She answered only a qualifying question, put to her by the prosecution in an attempt to block her testimony.

“You understand that under our rules of procedure,” Zayed asked, “you have the right of marital privilege to refrain from giving any testimony that might be considered offensive to the interests of your late husband?”

“I do,” she answered quietly in Arabic.

“Do you claim that privilege—and do you refuse to testify?”

She looked down. “I do refuse.”

Will objected to the ploy by the Palestinian prosecutor, arguing that he “had stretched the marital privilege beyond the point of
any legal recognition,” particularly because it was Gilead—not Farousha's husband—who was on trial. Judge Lee seemed mildly inclined toward Will's position, but in the end Judge Verdexler and Mustafa forged a majority to overrule his objection, effortlessly sidestepping the fifteen pages of argument Will had filed that morning on that exact point of evidence.

Farousha Ali Khalid, the only living witness to the meetings of the inner circle of the Knights other than Scott Magnit, was excused by the tribunal. She quickly exited the glass booth and scurried out of the courtroom, having never commented on the conspiracy that lay at the heart of Gilead's trial.

As his next witness, Will called Dr. Edward Tyrone, a history and religion professor at Southern Methodist University. With a PhD in history and an MDiv in theology, Tyrone was an undisputed expert on the history of evangelical Protestantism, having written numerous articles and books on the subject. He had reviewed the record in the case and interviewed those who knew Gilead's theological beliefs before he left for Cairo, including members of the Rolling River Bible Tabernacle in West Virginia. He had also reviewed the records of the Israeli police, which described much of Gilead's final sermon in Jerusalem just seconds before the blast shook the Temple Mount. Tyrone was prepared to testify that Gilead's theological leanings were perfectly consistent with mainline evangelicalism—and dramatically at odds with the theological position of the Knights of the Temple Mount.

And that is exactly what he would have indicated to the tribunal—had he been permitted to give his opinions. But immediately after Will had had Tyrone describe his educational and professional credentials, Samir Zayed rose to his feet and moved the court to bar the professor from testifying.

“What the accused may have believed in his mind about religion,” the prosecutor argued, “prior to his trip to Cairo, where he chose to play the part of the Caliph al-Hakim—or prior to the bombing—these things are irrelevant to this case. The accused is not being charged with religious heresy—he is charged with being
part of a plan to commit mass murder against Muslims. His actions, not his beliefs, are on trial.”

It was difficult for Will to maintain his composure during counterargument. “This is absurd,” he stated forcefully. “The prosecution wants it both ways. They want to try my client for being part of a religiously motivated bombing—yet they would deny me the right to show what my client's religious beliefs really were. As a believer in Jesus Christ, Gilead Amahn would never deliberately destroy innocent human life. And as a Bible-believing Christian, he simply would never have knowingly joined this dangerous, theologically confused religious cult—if they had clearly explained what they really believed. Mr. Zayed's argument insults the intelligence—and the judicial integrity—of this tribunal.”

Judge Verdexler lashed out first, suggesting that Will Chambers was the one who was insulting the integrity of the court, not the prosecutor. “You are telling us, Mr. Chambers, that if we don't see things your way, we are either fools or we are corrupt.”

But before the attorney could respond, Judge Mustafa joined in the fray, adding his admonition and reminding Will that he had been “previously warned against your self-righteous Christian preaching to this tribunal.”

With an uncharacteristic degree of emotion in his voice, Judge Lee voiced concern about the fairness of the majority's ruling. But Verdexler and Mustafa were not swayed. The positions of the judges were now falling into a recognizable pattern. And as Will saw it, he was consistently one vote short.

Larry Lancer next testified as a fact witness, and was mildly helpful to the defense. Under Nigel Newhouse's questioning, he described how, in the year prior to the bombing, Gilead had visited his office at the headquarters of the Holy Land Institute for the Word. Lancer had known of Gilead's adoptive parents and their mission work in Egypt and had discussed the evangelistic mission of his institute with the young man. Gilead had taken some literature, but had never returned and never called back. The impression Lancer had was “that Gilead was a normal evangelical
Christian man, who was considering doing some evangelistic work in Israel…there was nothing in our conversation that gave me any concern about the orthodoxy of his theology.”

With that last comment, both Will and Nigel felt they had recovered some small amount of ground that had been lost when Dr. Tyrone had been prevented from testifying.

However, in cross-examination, Lancer admitted a deep sympathy toward Gilead's plight—and he admitted that a wealthy supporter of his ministry had been paying, through his institute, all of Gilead's legal fees and expenses. Further, Lancer had to concede that his institute was providing free office space to Gilead's defense team. As the two attorneys sized it up, if the tribunal wanted to look for reasons to discredit Lancer for obvious bias in favor of Gilead, it wouldn't have to look very far.

The last defense witness of the day was a young woman with long blond hair named Susan Solomon. Will led her through the questioning. Solomon's parents, who lived in a religious community outside of Jerusalem, were orthodox Jews. However, she had found herself searching for her own individual spiritual road. So when she heard about a “nondenominational Bible-study group” that was meeting just beyond the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, she decided to attend.

Solomon recalled meeting Gilead in a crowded upper room in an empty apartment…and how she had asked him questions about the Old Testament versus the New Testament.

“What did he tell you?” Will asked.

“That a relationship with God wasn't about rules, exactly. It was about God's grace. And he went on to say he felt God had led me to that meeting.”

“I have shown you pictures of Yossin Ali Khalid and Louis Lorraine. Did you see them there that night?”

“I did. At one point they left and went downstairs.”

“Did they take Gilead with them?”

“No. Mr. Amahn was still answering some questions I had.”

“When did you leave the room?”

“A few minutes later, I decided to take a break…go outside and smoke a cigarette. When I got to the top of the stairway to go down, I saw them—that Lorraine guy talking with Mr. Khalid. They were just outside on the street level…the door where they were was sort of half-open.”

“As you stood at the top of the stairs, could you hear them?”

“Sort of…I did hear Khalid say they shouldn't force some question to Mr. Amahn. Lorraine wanted to ask Mr. Amahn something about himself, but Khalid said no, not to do that…”

“Did they say anything else?”

“Well, that Khalid guy said he was keeping his eye on a girl with a backpack—and I was sure he was talking about me. It was a little creepy, because all of a sudden I got the feeling he was trying to recruit me for some religious group—and I really wasn't into that. So I hurried down the stairs and walked right past them. Khalid saw me hit the street, and he called after me…but I just kind of kept walking.”

“Did Gilead Amahn, in any of his statements to you, talk about the Knights of the Temple Mount?”

“No. Never heard of them till after the bombing.”

“Were Gilead's statements about God—did they strike you as being Christian in nature?”

After a moment's reflection, Solomon said, “I'm not sure. I'm not that much into Christianity per se. I did think that some of the things he said made some sense…you know, got me thinking. But then I was totally bummed out by what I overheard from Khalid about his trying to target me for his group.”

Zayed was friendly and warm as he questioned the witness.

“In response to Mr. Chambers' questions, you said that you ‘sort of ' heard Khalid and Lorraine—those were your words—
‘sort of '
heard them.”

“Yeah.”

“But didn't hear very well?”

“Some things I heard. The things I described already.”

“Good. Thank you. That's what I meant. Okay—but some things they were discussing you didn't hear. Right?”

“I guess.”

“Right before you left the room and got to the top of the stairs—whatever they were discussing then down on the street you could not have heard. True?”

“That's probably right.”

“And if they were saying, for instance, that Gilead Amahn was part of a plan to destroy the Temple Mount…that his job would be to give the signal for the bombing—”

“Hey, wait a minute—”

Will looked up from his notes. There was a look of surprised recollection on Solomon's face. Then she explained.

“I just remembered. Khalid did mention a
signal
.”

“Did he say that the accused, Mr. Amahn, would give the signal?”

“He may have…I'm not sure.”

“You must be sure. Didn't he say that the accused would give the signal for the bombing—”

“No—nothing about a bombing. Believe me, I would have remembered that. He just said, like, ‘he will give us the signal'…something like that.”

“Hassan Gilead Amahn would give the signal…”

“I'm not sure who he was talking about…”

“He must have meant the accused because you said they had just been talking about Mr. Amahn.”

“I'm just not sure who, or what, he meant…”

“You must be sure about this—you will not leave this courtroom until you are very sure—”

Will was up on his feet, objecting loudly that the prosecution was “harassing the witness, and engaging in repetitive questions in an apparent attempt to wear down Miss Solomon.”

Judge Mustafa intervened. But rather than sustain Will's objections, he launched into his own questions of the witness, asking her in several different ways whether Khalid seemed to be saying that Gilead Amahn would be giving some kind of signal.