Fatal Convictions

99

Hassan had heard enough. While Alex Madison retrieved something from his counsel table, Hassan locked eyes with Fatih Mahdi. He knew Allah had brought him here for this very moment.

Mahdi stared back at him, his face composed and confident. Alex was back in the well, holding some papers and asking another question, but Mahdi ignored him, looking directly at Hassan. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, he nodded.

Hassan walked toward the back of the courtroom and approached the lone deputy stationed there. Hassan showed the deputy his bar card and leaned in so his voice wouldn’t be heard by others. “Excuse me. I’m representing Mr. Mahdi. A minute ago I was standing against the wall on the right side of the courtroom.” Hassan pointed to the place where he had been a few seconds earlier. “A man who had been there earlier left a briefcase and exited the courtroom after my client took the stand. Can you come check it out?”

The deputy looked around the back of the courtroom and nodded. He followed Hassan toward the briefcase as the testimony continued.***

“Were you here when I questioned Ghaniyah Mobassar about her pen register?” Alex asked.

“You know I was,” Mahdi said. “I was sitting in the second row.”

Alex hadn’t had time to subpoena the pen register associated with Mahdi’s wireless router between the time of Kayden Dendy’s visit last night and the start of court this morning. But that small detail wouldn’t stop him. Instead, Alex glanced down at the documents he had retrieved from his table and hoped Mahdi would remember his testimony earlier in the case when Alex had used other documents to discredit him. Sometimes, you just had to bluff it.

“The authorities confiscated your computers and hard drive when they conducted a search of your property. Isn’t that right?”

“That’s correct.”

“And they didn’t find anything on those hard drives that was suspicious. True?”

“Of course not. I had nothing to hide.”

“But now you know that under the Patriot Act, there are also records kept of every Web site visited by any computer hooked up to your home’s network. Do you understand that?”

“That is what you said in court this morning. I have no independent knowledge as to whether it’s true.”

Mahdi was being cagey, but Alex could see the calculating look in his eyes. Alex took a step closer to the witness, but not close enough so that Mahdi could see the writing on the documents. “Would you care to explain to the jury why you were looking at Web sites about brain injuries in the sixty days prior to Ghaniyah Mobassar’s accident?”

The witness stared at Alex for a long time without answering.

“Mr. Mahdi?” Rosenthal prompted.

“I do not know. Perhaps your client came to my house and used his laptop.”

“That’s the best you can do?”

This brought Deegan to her feet. “Your Honor, he’s badgering the witness.”***

Hassan pointed out the briefcase, and the deputy looked it over. When the deputy bent down to get a closer look, Hassan made his move. He slammed his knee into the deputy’s face, crushing the man’s nose. At almost the same moment, he brought his elbow down hard on the back of the deputy’s neck. The crack of bone told Hassan he had landed the perfect blow. In less than a second, he had the deputy’s revolver in his hand and whirled to face the infidels, feet spread wide in a combat stance.

A few spectators screamed. Somebody yelled, “Gun!” as Hassan squeezed off his first two shots in rapid succession. Though there was chaos in the courtroom, the world moved in slow motion for Hassan, presenting itself in vivid Technicolor-the vibrant hues of his childhood dreams.

He winged one of the deputies with his first bullet and put the second bullet into the neck of the other deputy at the front of the courtroom. The man crumpled to the floor in a lifeless heap. In the same motion, Hassan swung the gun toward Khalid Mobassar and his legal team, sitting ducks in a shooting gallery.

The noise in the courtroom became the din of his childhood battles, the sound of paradise calling. He was astride his horse, his nerves calm as he took aim at the infidels: Taj Deegan, Alex Madison, Khalid Mobassar, and Shannon Reese. He had a bullet for every one of them. His own bullet would come from the deputies who would eventually enter the courtroom to provide reinforcements.