The Last Judgment (51 page)

“Quiet!” Judge Mustafa cried out.

Putrie slowly shuffled toward the booth, giving one last, resentful look at his captors before he entered and closed the door.

Then Will began. He questioned Putrie on his area of responsibility within the island republic controlled by Mullburn…on Mullburn's face-to-face meeting with him and his boss's personal reliance on his expertise in breaking through the encryption system of a foreign state…and how later Putrie discovered he was to hack into the Mossad computer system and manipulate intelligence data regarding their surveillance of the Knights of the Temple Mount. Once he had accomplished that, Putrie reported, he had decided to apply for a U.S. patent for a program designed
to detect the precise kind of decoding he had just done on Israel's quantum-encryption system. Lastly, the computer genius recounted how, in the month prior to the bombing, he had been instructed by Mullburn's assistant, Mr. Himlet, to design and then construct a remote detonation system capable of setting off a large quantity of plastic explosives.

“Do you know of any involvement of the Israeli government in planning or encouraging the attack on the Temple Mount—or in deliberately permitting it to be carried out?”

“No. Those guys were not involved.”

“Do you know of any involvement whatsoever of Gilead Amahn in any part of this plot?”

Putrie paused for only an instant. Then he simply said, “No. Not him either.”

“And do you, Mr. Putrie,” Will asked, “have an interest in botany?”

Putrie gave a little grimace.

“Oh yes.”

“Including the deadly
cicuta maculata
plant, cuttings of which you brought to the Republic of Maretas from North Carolina?”

“Yes. Matter of fact, I have a fine collection now in my greenhouse…”

“Did you happen to work on the aforementioned computer detonation system after cutting some of those plants in your greenhouse?”

“I believe I did. Caught—green-handed, I guess.”

With that, the witness started mumbling something, half-smiling in a twisted grimace as if he were telling himself his own private, tortured joke.

When Will rested, Putrie perked up.

“Aren't you going to tell everybody how we first met?” he asked.

Will rose and faced the tribunal.

“The witness is referring to an encounter we had in North Carolina when I was working on an unrelated case.”

Then he concluded by adding, “But that is a different story altogether.”

Samir Zayed stepped quickly up to the podium. He asked Putrie how he happened to be in Jerusalem.

“I was kidnapped off the main island of Maretas…in the middle of the night…by these Israeli goons…”

The prosecutor then howled out several objections to the defense “obtaining a witness by an illegal seizure in violation of international human-rights standards.”

Mustafa, trying to contain the legal melee unfolding in front of him, said the tribunal would defer ruling on that until later.

Then Zayed asked what plea bargain the Israelis had made with Putrie to get him to testify.

“No death penalty.”

“Outrageous!” Zayed yelled.

“No more outrageous than your plea bargain with Scott Magnit,” Will countered loudly.

“The government of Israel can make no such promise to bind us!” Zayed went on. “The Palestinian Authority is not bound by that plea bargain. Mr. Putrie, we will arrest you here and now, and we will then prosecute you, and we will obtain a death penalty. Now, Mr. Putrie—do you wish to retract your testimony in light of what I have just said?”

The bald man in the black suit rose to his feet and stepped briskly forward to face the panel.

“Mr. Zayed—and Judges of this tribunal,” he said solemnly in a thick accent, “I am authorized by the government of Israel to announce that the Israeli police and the IDF have this building entirely surrounded and secured. Mr. Putrie is in the lawful detention of the nation of Israel. Any attempt by the Palestinian public prosecutor or the Palestinian Authority or their police to interfere with our custody of Mr. Putrie, will result in my ordering an immediate military intervention against this facility.”

There was a stunned silence in the courtroom.

In the media room, reporters were motionless, as stiff as stone artifacts, some holding cell phones, some with fingers poised over
keyboards. They were waiting, eyes fixed on the television monitor.

But Samir Zayed had played his last card. The catastrophic revelations in the final phase of Will's defense had left his prosecution dazed and dismayed. He raised his hands up in frustration, then dropped into his seat at the table.

Orville Putrie was quietly escorted out of the glass booth by the Israeli agents, out of the courtroom, and into an armored personnel carrier waiting outside the building. The Israeli police and IDF troops then rapidly retreated from the Orient House with their prisoner.

“The defense rests,” Will announced.

Then he renewed his motion for dismissal of the criminal case against Gilead Amahn.

“This tribunal will take the motion under advisement,” Mustafa said with an overwhelmed look on his face. He then declared the proceedings adjourned for three hours and slammed his gavel down on the bench.

In the media room, Jack Hornby was still standing in the same position. But his mouth had dropped slightly open. And his eyes were unblinking as he stared at the television monitor, shaking his head.

70

A
S THE COURTROOM CLEARED
, Will and Nigel tried to explain the significance of the day's roller-coaster developments to Bill and Esther Collingwood. While there was no guarantee that Gilead would be acquitted, they said, the testimony of Michalany and Putrie did establish a positive link to Warren Mullburn. That meant that the real plot had been hatched between Mullburn—for his geopolitical purposes—and Khalid and Lorraine—who had sought to fulfill the prophecy of their religious cult. For his part, Will figured that the oil tycoon must have used a highly trusted middleman to connect with the Knights and supply the deadly hardware, but his identity was still unknown.

As a result, that placed Gilead one full step removed from the real conspiracy. And it distanced him even further from the real players in the murder-and-mayhem plot. Coupling that with the other evidence of his innocence, the lawyers felt a real confidence that justice might be done after all.

Esther looked upset and pale, so Bill decided to take her back to the hotel. As Will, Tiny, and Nigel strode down the hallway to catch some fresh air, Jack Hornby dashed out of the pressroom in a frenzy to get a few quotes from the defense team, not only for his magazine article, but for the story he was now sending out over the wires.

“So, ‘man meets grizzly bear,' ” Hornby said, calling out a mock newspaper headline to Will, “ ‘and man eats bear!' ”

The trio caught a taxi and found a nearby café. It was a clear bright day, and they found an outdoor table, where they ordered some coffee and untwisted the defense of Gilead that had just rested.

Will explained to his bewildered co-counsel how it had all started with a magazine article that had been shoved under his hotel-room door. It was about the patent application Putrie had filed.

“Who on earth fed the information to you?” Nigel asked.

“A former Mossad agent in Jerusalem. And a good friend—Nathan Goldwaithe.”

“I thought he was dead,” Nigel exclaimed.

“No. That was actually his partner,” Will explained. “To protect him, the Mossad treated the death as if it were Nathan's—and he in turn has been living under an assumed identity ever since. Tiny and I finally pieced this all together when Michalany connected the dots on the plant toxin found in the computer components. We finally got a sit-down with the Israelis—who decided it was time to lift the cover on Nathan and start working with us to zero in on Mullburn. The only way to do that was to literally grab Putrie. When we convinced the Mossad it was in Israel's best interest to completely clear its name in the bombings, they decided to send in a group of special ops guys to seize Putrie and offer him a deal in return for his testimony.”

“Which is why,” Tiny said to Nigel, “Will here thought you ought to be protected from any involvement—in case things went bad, you know, allegations of kidnapping Putrie and that stuff. No sense putting two heads on the chopping block when only one will do.”

“Well, I must say,” Nigel said, still laughing a little at Tiny's sardonic comment, “your cases are hugely more exciting than the criminal suits I handle down at the Old Bailey back in London.”

When Nigel glanced over at Will, he noticed that his lead counsel had a strange look on his face.

“What is it?” Nigel asked, slightly alarmed. “You look like you've seen a ghost.”

“I just remembered why there was something familiar about you. I had this lingering feeling we had met. And I don't mean just last year at that legal conference—I mean way back, years ago.”

“I don't understand…”

“Your name. Newhouse. I just remembered. I had this case down near Cape Hatteras about ten years ago. An inheritance case, a contested probate of a will. That's where I had this run-in with Putrie, by the way. Anyway, I had to do quite a bit of historical research into a related case handled under the English court system all the way back in the 1700s…I read these old court transcripts. The arguments of counsel from three hundred years before. And there was this English barrister by the name of—”

“Oliver Newhouse,” Nigel said quickly.

“Exactly. That's the one.”

“Right you are. He was a rather famous barrister of his day. Actually, I am his direct descendant. His oil portrait hangs in our law rooms…in our offices there in Fleet Street. Where the old Inns of Court used to be.”

Will was shaking his head and laughing. Tiny and Nigel were now chuckling at him.

“You'll have to forgive me. But…Oliver Newhouse…that is amazing. You see, I sort of developed this connection with him during that case—bridging the centuries—a lawyer-to-lawyer thing. In a strange way, I felt it was almost as if Oliver had been my co-counsel in that case. I relied on his cross-examination questions from that ancient transcript—his arguments. It's hard to explain…”

After a moment of silence, Nigel raised his coffee cup and offered a toast.

“Here's to lawyers from all the ages,” he said.

“And to their private investigators!” Tiny added with gusto.

After more joking, the three of them started thinking about their return to the courtroom. And the solemnity of the moment started setting in once more. Despite rocking the prosecution's case with their revelations of the Mullburn connection, they still had no way to predict the outcome. They simply did not know whether they had succeeded in sparing Gilead's life or not. And that uncertainty had all the terrible crushing force of a pile driver.

By the time the three of them cabbed back to the Orient House, the Collingwoods were already in the courtroom. Palestinian police were nervously stalking the hallways. Then Zayed and his entourage filed in and sat down. Lastly, Gilead was led into the courtroom, flanked by his guards.

Gilead threw a quick kiss to his mother, nodded to Bill, and sat down. Will patted his client on the back and said a few things to reassure him as they awaited the entrance of the judges.

Minutes later, Judge Lee Kwong-ju, followed by Judges Alain Verdexler and Saad Mustafa, each in their crimson judicial gown, filed into the courtroom, seating themselves behind the wall of glass.

Lee glanced over at Gilead. Verdexler was looking aimlessly around the room. And Mustafa was nervously tapping and reshuffling the papers in front of him.

“The matter of the Palestinian International Tribunal versus Gilead Amahn, Case Number PA-ICRT-001…will all counsel and the accused re-stand, please.”

There was a shuffle of feet as Samir Zayed, Will Chambers, Gilead Amahn, Nigel Newhouse, and Mira Ashwan stood up.

“This tribunal has considered, first, the defense motion to dismiss this case.”

Mustafa glanced sideways at Lee Kwong-ju. Then he continued.

“The votes on this motion are as follows—Judge Mustafa votes against dismissing the prosecution.”

Esther Collingwood gave a pitiful groan and closed her eyes.

“Judge Lee,” Mustafa continued, “votes for dismissal of the prosecution. And lastly, Judge Verdexler—”

Mustafa scratched the side of his face, and then gave his head half a shake.

“Judge Verdexler votes—to abstain.”

“It's a tie,” Nigel Newhouse shot out in a strained whisper.

“A deadlocked court,” Will snapped.

Gilead was looking at one attorney and then at the other in total confusion.

“What's going on?” he asked hoarsely. “What…what's going to happen now?”