Exile: a novel (36 page)

David scanned the report, and then reread selected passages with greater care. Mercifully, Sharpe could never enter it as evidence. But David knew that she felt what he, as a prosecutor, would have: that Hana’s accuser was telling the truth.

“Talk to your client,” Sharpe said.

What did she want from him? David wondered. He decided to be as dispassionate as possible. “There’s a death chamber at San Quentin. They strap the inmate to a bed and run two IVs into his left forearm to inject potassium chloride. That’s all, really.”

“Very clinical,” Hana said. “Clean—not like a bombing.” She paused, then asked, “I suppose there is an audience.”

“Yes. State officials. There are places for members of the victims’ families, if they care to come. And for the family of the prisoner.”

“I would not have them see this—Munira and Saeb. As for the others...” Her voice trailed off, and then she looked at David. “Of all the conversations we might have had, this is one I did not imagine.”

For a moment, David waited to speak. “Sharpe wants to make a deal. Information for your life, the name of others involved in killing Ben-Aron. Saeb, perhaps.”

“Why not Muhammad himself?” Hana asked in an ironic tone, then inclined her head, watching David. “About Saeb,” she said more quietly, “what is it that Sharpe thinks I must know?”

“What
do
you know, Hana?”

Their eyes met, and Hana looked away. “I have thought about this,” she said quietly. “Many hours. Who did this to me, I wonder.”

“Saeb?”

“So you have thought this.” Hana closed her eyes. “He could have, I know. But there are easier ways to disguise his role, and I am his wife. Why would he do this?”

“You tell me.”

After a moment, her eyes opened. “Do you wish me to lie? To do to Saeb, or anyone, what has been done to me?” Her voice filled with resignation. “I am innocent, David. I have no one to betray.”

“And nothing to tell me? Sharpe’s looking at your history—statements that suggest you favor violence. And whether Saeb does.”

“There’s a difference between us, David. Also between who I was when you knew me and today. In only a few years there will be three generations of Jews born in Israel, who will grow up speaking Hebrew like their parents and grandparents. It is all they know, like the Galilee was all
my
parents and grandparents knew. What are we to do, eradicate them all or simply turn them into refugees? And where does it end?” Hana shook her head, her expression rueful. “I wish there wereno Israel.Butif Ido not ask myself these questions now, what kind of person would I be?”

“And Saeb?”

“Saeb was defined when he was fourteen. He lost everyone; I merely lost an aunt. From that, I could perhaps imagine him becoming a suicide bomber—our young people have seen too much, and they feel so little hope. But to exploit them? It is morally bankrupt.”

“Is that what Saeb believes?”

Hana folded her hands. “I’ve told you, David. If Saeb consorts with so-called terrorists, I do not know it. Just as I told your FBI I know nothing about Ibrahim Jefar. Let alone why he’s lying.”

“I’m not at all sure he is.” David paused. “They gave him a lie detector test, Hana. He passed it.”

Her reaction was almost undetectable, a slight movement of her shoulders that made her seem smaller. “I see.”

“Sharpe believes him, and she dismisses my theory that you were framed as an excuse to meddle with our intelligence agencies and the Israeli government. That’s why she’s so comfortable asking for the death penalty.”

Head bowed, Hana said nothing.

It was time to confront her, David thought. “There
is
one thing you can do.”

“And what is that?”

“Take a lie detector test. Just as Jefar did.”

For a moment Hana was silent. “And the risks?”

“There’s only one. That you won’t pass.”

When Hana did not answer, David felt tension tightening his chest. “It would have to be done here,” he went on. “So Sharpe will know we’ve tested you. She’ll leak that to the media. If I can’t say you’ve passed . . .”

Still Hana did not look at him. With a calm he did not feel, David continued, “If you do pass, Sharpe may want the FBI to test you. But this at least might give her pause. And I can use the test results with Judge Taylor to justify going after the Israelis, and to tell the media Sharpe is prosecuting an innocent woman.”

David omitted the rest—that another use of the test was to force a guilty client to face reality. Or that, far more than he wished, Hana’s answer mattered to him. Like David, she seemed hardly to breathe. “In law school,” she said at last, “we learned that these tests are little better than witchcraft. The guilty can pass, the innocent fail. It won’t matter to this prosecutor.”

“So you won’t do it.”

“No, David, I will.” She looked up at him then, eyes shiny with tears. “Because it matters to you.”

David told her nothing about how the test worked, what the examiner would do to arouse her fears, or that it was fear that made the test so useful. He recognized this as a form of ruthlessness in himself, less as a lawyer than the man who wished to know if Hana had betrayed him. That he was also betraying Hana he understood too well.

They met with the polygraph examiner, a rotund former FBI agent with an avuncular demeanor, in a room that, though larger, was as white and featureless as the one where Hana and David consulted. The examiner, Gene Meyer, sat across from them, his machine on the table. He began by trying to engage her in seemingly random small talk while he assessed her reactions. Hana’s responses were perfunctory, her manner indifferent. Abruptly, Meyer asked, “Have you had enough sleep, Ms. Arif?”

“Under the circumstances.”

“Then let me explain how the test works. When I ask you a question, three needles will record your reaction as a roll of paper runs through the machine, sort of the way doctors measure how our heart is functioning. So this machine is not the lie detector. You are.”

“And how is that?”

Hana spoke with an air of boredom, as though she did not have sensors stuck to her wrists, her thumbs, and, beneath her jumpsuit, near her heart. “When we lie,” Meyer continued, “our bodies react in ways that betray us—changes in breathing, heart rate, even the amount of perspiration on our skin. You don’t like to lie, do you?”

“That depends,” Hana answered. “But usually not.”

Meyer glanced at David. Only David knew, from long ago, that what passed for chill indifference could be anger Hana was struggling to
restrain. “Then let’s try something.” Meyer fished a deck of cards out of his pocket and spread them on the table. “Pick one.”

Hana did this. When she picked it up, David saw the queen of spades. “I’ll name every card in the deck,” Meyer said, “from ace to deuce, and ask if that’s the card you drew. Your job is to answer no to every question— even when the answer is yes. Do you understand?”

“Completely. With every card but one, I am to tell the truth. Once, I lie. And then you will see how good a liar I am.”

Meyer’s amiable pretense had begun to slip. Turning on his machine, he said briskly, “That’s the idea, Ms.Arif. Is the card you’re holding an ace?”

The paper began unspooling. “No,” Hana answered.

“Is it a king?”

“No.”

“Is it a queen?”

Briefly, Hana paused. “No.”

She did not change expression with this answer, nor with the answer that followed. Impassive, Meyer watched the graph unfold in front of him. “Is your name Hana Arif?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Are you married to Saeb Khalid?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have a daughter named Munira?”

“Yes. And I’d like to be with her again someday. So why don’t you ask about what I’m supposed to have done.”

Meyer’s eyes narrowed. “Do you recall ever meeting a man named Iyad Hassan?”

“No.”

“Within the last six months, have you spoken by telephone to Iyad Hassan?”

“No.” Hana leaned forward. “Let
me
suggest a question, Mr. Meyer: Were you involved in the assassination of Amos Ben-Aron?”

David felt himself tense. Meyer stared at her, then repeated the question.

“No,” Hana answered calmly. “But for the sake of completeness, perhaps you should ask if I was aware of any plan to kill him.”

When Meyer glanced at him, David nodded. It took all the discipline he had not to watch the needle. “Before the death of Amos Ben-Aron,” Meyer asked Hana, “were you aware of a plan to kill him?”

“No.” With the same indifferent manner, Hana sat back. “Now I will answer your other questions.”

They were numerous and detailed—whether Hana had typed her
telephone number on a piece of paper; whether she had received a cell phone call on the night before Ben-Aron was killed; whether she had ever spoken to Ibrahim Jefar; whether she had made any cell phone calls between the beginning of Ben-Aron’s speech and the bombing. The pattern fell into a rhythm that David found hypnotic: two voices, one asking damning questions, the other answering “No” ; the faint scratching of three needles on paper. Watching it unspool, David felt perspiration on his forehead.

Hana did not look at him. It was as though she had forgotten he was present.

When Meyer was done, he was silent for a time, studying the roll of paper. “How do you think you did?” he asked Hana.

Hana shrugged. “I suppose it depends on how good the machine is. Or you are.”

Meyer looked up from the paper. “Can you think of any reason why you wouldn’t have passed?”

“I’m sorry. That’s not something I can answer with yes or no.”

Slowly, Meyer smiled. “You passed, Ms. Arif. Not a twitch. Except on the queen of spades.”

David inhaled. Turning to him, Hana spoke with a quiet that betrayed a deeper emotion. “So now your questions are answered, David. Except, of course, whether I have a conscience. For that, no machine can help you.”

“As opposed,” David asked, “to the psychopathic human bomb you’ve chosen to believe?”

“Jefar intended to die. His story makes sense. There’s evidence to support it that implicates Arif.” Her tone became sardonic. “But this test does suggest that you might want to call her as a witness on her own behalf. She may have the same mesmerizing effect on a jury that she had on this machine. And, it seems, on you.”

“Meaning?”

Sharpe considered him. “You’re better off when you don’t believe,” she said evenly. “When a case is just a chess game. Arif ’s got you off balance.”

Nettled, David held his temper. “This kind of thing won’t help us. I could as easily say that you’re an overambitious prosecutor with a make-or-break case, feeling so much pressure that you’d rather convict the innocent than no one.”

“And you
will
say it, I expect. Sooner or later.”

“Only if you force me,” David answered. “The first day I joined this office, your sainted predecessor, Bill Kane, drilled it into me that I had an absolute obligation to ascertain the truth, to act with fairness and integrity and leave nothing to chance. And never to bring charges against anyone who I didn’t absolutely believe was guilty. So is that still the standard, Marnie? Or is ‘less than certain’ okay when the victim’s the prime minister of Israel?”

Sharpe took a sip of her tea, gazing at David over the rim. “What are you proposing?”

“That maybe we’re both right—Hana’s telling the truth, and so’s Jefar. The difference is that Hana
knows
the truth, and Jefar just knows what Hassan told him.”

Sharpe shook her head. “That makes no sense. Why would Hassan lie to someone who was going to kill himself?”

David shrugged. “Why did Jefar’s motorcycle not blow up?”

“Accident,” Sharpe answered dismissively. “Your theory piles coincidence on top of an incongruity: that Arif was framed for no reason, by a man about to die. At least give me some plausible human motivation that would lend this notion credence.”

With unerring aim, Sharpe had illuminated the flaw in David’s logic. “I can’t yet,” he conceded.

Sharpe’s smile was skeptical. “And Ms. Arif has no idea, of course.”

“No. Nor do you. As far as I can tell, you’re prosecuting Hana without a clue about how the assassination was put together, or by whom. Shouldn’t that bother you a little?”

For a moment, Sharpe seemed to contemplate the swath of morning sunlight on one corner of her desk. “Our investigation is far from over. In the meanwhile, what would you have me do? Issue a public apology and ship Arif back to Ramallah?”

“Not before you give her your own polygraph,” David said calmly. “Take a chance, Marnie. Hana’s even willing to sit for the same examiner you used on Ibrahim Jefar.”

Sharpe raised her eyebrows, an expression of surprise tinged with distrust. “There
are
conditions, of course.”

“Just one: that if she passes, you’ll dismiss the case. If you come up with more evidence, you can always refile.”

Sharpe shook her head emphatically. “Kick her loose because she can pass a polygraph? No way. I wouldn’t test her even if your proposal weren’t absurd.” She jabbed a finger at the report in front of her. “For whatever reasons—which might be prior training or sheer heartlessness—we already know Arif can pass a polygraph. If she passed yours, I can only imagine your next performance on the
Today
show.”

Abruptly, frustration broke through David’s patience. “This is something out of Kafka,” he snapped. “You tell me Jefar passed a polygraph, then say that Hana passing one means nothing. So now we’re on the conveyor belt, moving toward the trial of a woman you can’t be sure is guilty.” His
speech became staccato. “Maybe you’ll convict her. Maybe you’ll even get the death penalty. But based on the evidence as it stands, will you have the nerve to show up when she’s executed?”