Fatal Convictions (37 page)

100

Alex had been so focused on the witness that he didn’t know anything had happened behind him until he heard the shots. There was instant chaos, people screaming and scrambling for cover. In his peripheral vision, he saw Taj Deegan take a hit. He whirled toward the back wall just as Shannon lunged from her seat and knocked Khalid Mobassar to the floor. Alex froze.
Where are the shots coming from?

He dove for the floor, but that split second of hesitation cost him. He saw the flash of a gun and had time to register that it was held by a Middle Eastern man on the side wall with an eerily calm look in his eyes. Before Alex even heard the noise, he felt the slug explode in his left side and drive him backward, sucking the wind out of his lungs with the most intense pain he had ever experienced. There were more screams, but they seemed distant now as Alex gasped for air and the edge of his vision started going black.

* * *

Hassan had trained his whole life for this. He felt an almost supernatural ability to process all the stimuli at once, slowing the world like a frame-by-frame video. He had hit Taj Deegan and Alex Madison, but the little gymnast had reacted too quickly, tackling her client to the floor and pulling him behind the safety of the solid wood rail that separated the spectators from the counsel area.

Everyone else in the courtroom reacted the way Hassan had predicted for the weak-kneed Americans. Hysteria. People screaming and diving for the floor. There were no heroes in this bunch.

He swung the pistol in a wide arc and started quickly moving toward the front of the courtroom so he could stand over Khalid Mobassar and see the look of fear in his eyes before Khalid met his maker. Just before he got there, the back door burst open, and two deputies rushed in, guns drawn. Fortunately for Hassan, it took them a fraction of a second to locate their target. By the time they realized that Hassan was their man, he had unleashed a flurry of shots, dropping both of them as more screams filled the courtroom.

He was at the rail now and put his left hand on the top to sidestep over when he noticed a blur from just over his shoulder. He whirled quickly enough to see a man in a leather jacket diving into him with a jarring tackle that sent both of them crashing over the wooden rail and sprawling across the floor. Hassan held on to his Glock and whipped it across his assailant’s face, cracking the man’s cheekbone and spraying the area with blood. The man’s eyes rolled up in his head. Hassan scrambled to his feet and into his shooter’s stance.

He now had a point-blank shot at both Shannon Reese and Khalid Mobassar.
“Allahu akbar!”

But before he squeezed the trigger, he felt something slam into his chest, driving him back to the floor in an explosion of pain. He struggled to stand, but his movements were sluggish. His thoughts were cloudy; the world seemed to spin as blood poured from his chest wound. As he staggered to his feet, he saw Taj Deegan pointing a gun at him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw more deputies rushing through the back door. He saw a flash of gunpowder and felt more bullets tear into his chest and side.

Blood spattered the wall and carpet. One bullet exploded part of his face.

But Hassan was no longer there. In that last moment of life, he was riding through the infidels again, swinging his sword in a large arc, the arrows of the enemy piercing him from every direction.

His last thought was the grim certainty that he had allowed Khalid Mobassar to live. His last emotion was the fear of an angry Allah, condemning him, telling him that he should have done more.

At first there was calm. Then fire. And faces melting like wax.

The sound of wailing was deafening.

101

Alex felt as if an elephant were stomping on his chest; the courtroom was now at the end of a long tunnel back to reality. The shooting had stopped, but people were still yelling and shouting orders. He watched in a semiconscious state, as if he were stationed above it all, his mind separated from his body.

Shannon crawled to his side and patted his cheek. “Don’t you dare quit on me, Alex Madison!” she said, nearly hyperventilating. “Listen to me. . . . No! Don’t shut your eyes!”

Alex tried to obey, but the debilitating pain in his side was shutting down every shred of consciousness. Taj Deegan pulled off her blazer and stuffed it into his wound, applying pressure that Alex could barely feel. Just before the blackness completely took over, he felt Shannon pinch his nose and tilt his head back.

“Get an ambulance!” she yelled, then blew the first breath into Alex’s lungs.

* * *

Shannon was numb on the ride to the hospital. Detective Sanderson had the siren on and the lights flashing, and he tried to encourage her. “You did an amazing job with that CPR,” he said. “You probably saved two lives today.”

His words barely registered. Shannon had never seen so much blood. Alex, Kayden Dendy, and two sheriff’s deputies had been whisked to the hospital by the paramedics. Three other deputies and Ahmed Obu Mobassar had been pronounced dead at the scene. Taj Deegan had taken a shot to her back, but a bulletproof vest had saved her life. Khalid Mobassar was in shock but unharmed. Deputies had taken him back into lockup.

When Shannon arrived at the hospital, she followed Sanderson into the ICU like a zombie. A nurse informed them that Alex was already in surgery.

A resident checked Shannon out, cleaned her up, gave her some drugs, and released her to join the others standing vigil in the ICU waiting room. For two hours, Alex’s friends and family stared at the floor and spoke in hushed whispers. Ramona led them all in prayer. Officers came and took statements about the chaos in the courtroom. The television in the corner of the waiting room played nonstop coverage of the day’s carnage until somebody turned it to a game show.

Detective Sanderson left the room periodically to check with the ICU nurses. It was one o’clock in the afternoon when he came back and stopped in the doorway.

Shannon looked up. “Any news?”

Sanderson managed a smile. “Your boy’s a lot tougher than he looks. The bullet entered the left side of Alex’s chest and missed his heart, major arteries, and stomach by a few centimeters. It hit his left lung and did some minimal damage to the liver. The doctor says that Alex will probably have some lung damage, but fortunately for him, the lung didn’t collapse. He says the liver has an amazing way of repairing itself. Basically, he’s going to be all right.”

Relief flooded the room, and Ramona summed up the feelings of pretty much everyone there. “So basically, it’s a miracle.”

102

Alex heard the voices before he opened his eyes. The sounds were familiar and comforting, but he couldn’t understand most of what they said. They were voices from another world, soft tones with an occasional laugh or chuckle.

He felt the wooziness of lingering anesthesia and high doses of painkillers. He couldn’t bring his thoughts into focus; his mind felt mushy and unresponsive. He tried to open his eyes but quickly closed them again. He was aware of an uncomfortable tube in his nose and other tubes hooked up to his arms and something packed against his left side.

The voices stopped for a moment, and there was an excited murmur. “He moved. I think he’s waking up.”

He tried to wake up—he really did—but the voices were still so very far away. He could only make out bits and pieces of what they were saying, as if he were underwater and people were calling to him from the surface. His mouth was dry. So dry. He tried to lick his lips; they felt like sand.

But none of this bothered Alex. Not even a little. He was floating in a wonderland of drugs and semiconsciousness, enjoying the warmth of his hospital bed. There was a nagging sense of something not quite right in the back of his mind, something he should be worried about. For a moment he struggled to place it. But the worries of the world could gain no traction in Alex’s state of narcotic bliss. He closed his eyes and relaxed.

“It’s okay, Alex. Get some more sleep.”

The voice was right. He was tired. Everything else could wait.

* * *

Sometime later—he had no idea how long—Alex managed to open his eyes and clear some of the cobwebs from his head. The room was dark except for the glow from a television set. The objects around him were strange and unfamiliar. He still felt detached from his body and struggled to break clear from his mental fog. He turned his head slowly to the left and saw his grandmother sleeping in a reclining chair. On the same side, toward the foot of the bed, Shannon was lying on a cot, her back to the bed, curled up with a thin hospital blanket over her.

He tried to say something, but his tongue was too thick, and he couldn’t form the words. His mouth was bone dry; his throat felt like it had swollen shut. He groaned and Ramona stirred. He tried to increase the volume, and this time she sat straight up, turning toward him. She stared for a second and then grabbed his hands. He spoke again, did his best to say, “Thirsty,” and his grandmother put a straw to his lips so he could suck down some water.

“Shannon! Shannon! He’s awake.”

Shannon quickly climbed off her cot, rubbed her face, and came to hover over Alex as well. He was remembering a few things now. The courtroom. The shooter. A sudden blast and a bolt of pain.

His side. He must have been shot in the side.

“I’m glad to see you guys here,” Alex said, his voice husky and dry. “But I always thought that heaven would be a little more plush.”

* * *

Over the course of the next twenty-four hours, Ramona and Shannon filled Alex in on the details he had missed. They often had to tell him the same fact on two or three different occasions as he struggled to regain his lucidity.

Ramona informed him that the shooter was Ahmed Obu Mobassar, the son of Ghaniyah and Fatih Mahdi. “He faked his own death years ago so that he could work undercover,” Ramona explained. She told Alex the authorities had found Nara tied up in a vacation home in the Outer Banks, traumatized but unhurt. Ahmed had tried to convince Nara that Khalid Mobassar ordered the honor killings, and he also tried to frame Khalid with a suicide note, but none of that worked.

Taj Deegan had immediately gained access to the pen register for Fatih Mahdi’s home and checked out the two months prior to Ghaniyah’s automobile accident. Just as Alex had suspected, they found sites explaining various aspects of closed head injuries. They also found searches for Sandbridge rental properties and numerous visits to the Beach Bible Church Web site. Most importantly, the pen register for Fatih showed that he was on the bank’s Web site at the exact moment that someone used Khalid Mobassar’s password to wire funds to Beirut.

It was enough to arrest Fatih and Ghaniyah, according to Shannon. In confidence, Taj had told Shannon that Ghaniyah’s lawyer was already talking about cutting a deal. She would testify against Fatih in exchange for a reduced sentence.

Alex remembered the shots that preceded the one that hit him and asked about fatalities. Three deputies had died and two were seriously wounded, Shannon told him. Kayden Dendy had undergone reconstructive surgery on the left side of his face. Because of the threat she had received prior to trial, Taj Deegan had been wearing a Kevlar vest, or she might be dead as well. Ahmed had died from numerous gunshot wounds, including a bullet fired from a gun Taj Deegan kept in her briefcase.

“There were lots of heroes,” Shannon explained.

“Including Shannon Reese,” Ramona added.

The drugs kept Alex on an even keel as he absorbed the news. His mind told him that the deputies were somebody’s father and somebody’s husband. But his emotions barely registered, suppressed by the magic of narcotics and the calm demeanor of the nurses and doctors who took care of him.

It wasn’t until evening on the second day that the full force of the tragedy began to register. Shannon peeked into the room and asked Alex if he was ready for some visitors.

Honestly, he just wanted a little peace and quiet. Visitors made small talk until Alex could no longer keep his eyelids open. When he responded, he sometimes caught himself rambling in and out of cohesiveness, depending on his level of fatigue.

But Shannon apparently wasn’t asking for permission. She disappeared and a few seconds later returned, followed by Khalid and Nara Mobassar.

103

Khalid and Nara approached Alex gingerly, and it dawned on Alex how awful he must look. He hadn’t showered in two days. He had that forty-eight-hour unshaven look and a scummy taste in his mouth that came from sleeping so much. He felt like he was getting behind on his pain medication, despite his efforts to push the button on the morphine drip every time he woke up. His side throbbed. It felt like somebody had taken his insides out and beat on them with a hammer before sewing him back together.

He reached over and took a quick sip from his water bottle. “Thanks for coming by,” he managed. He smiled, but he knew it looked halfhearted.

Shannon stood on the left side of his bed, and Khalid and Nara stood next to his tray table on the right. Khalid started to talk and then swallowed hard to regain his composure. Alex was still a little groggy for this much emotion.

“I feel like I owe you my life,” Khalid said.

“She’s the one who knocked you to the floor,” Alex said, rolling his eyes toward Shannon.

“I don’t mean just that,” Khalid said. The sadness etched into his eyes made Alex remember how much this man had lost in the last few days. “I mean the way you stood by me in court and believed in me. There’s no way I can repay you for that.”

As Alex looked up at his client, he realized that he had never seen Khalid cry, even after everything the imam had been through. But there were tears in his eyes now, and he placed a hand on Alex’s forearm.

“You are one of the bravest men I’ve ever met,” Alex said. “If I had half your courage, I’d be unstoppable.”

Khalid shook his head slowly. “I’ve heard it said that success is when those who know you best love you most. By that standard, with the exception of Nara, my life has been quite a failure.”

Nara reached over and held her father’s hand.

“That’s not your fault,” Alex said. “People make choices. Even when you love them, they make choices we don’t understand. Nara is your legacy.”

Alex locked eyes with her. Nara looked tired, but her expression conveyed a deep sense of gratitude . . . perhaps not only for what Alex had done but for what he was saying now. He tried to concentrate, but his thoughts started running together.

“I’m sorry I doubted you, Khalid. There were times . . . I don’t know . . .” The sentence seemed to fall off a cliff. Alex wanted to somehow convey his admiration for this man’s unwavering convictions and for his trust in Alex as his lawyer. But he couldn’t quite string the words together.

“I’m sorry. . . . I forgot what I was trying to say. But what I meant was that you can’t blame yourself. What you’ve done, and the way you handled yourself in this case, is amazing. And you’ve also got a pretty amazing daughter.”

The comment actually made Khalid smile. A thin smile, with a trace of irony, but it helped Alex realize that the only things Khalid had left were his faith and his daughter.

A nurse walked in and took some notes about Alex’s vital signs. While she did this, Shannon and the Mobassars chatted as if Alex had left the room. By the time the nurse finished, the mood in the room had lightened. Khalid and Nara asked the expected questions about Alex’s injuries and how he was feeling. Alex started fading fast, and after an awkward silence, Khalid said that he and Nara should probably be going.

“I’d like to stay in touch,” Alex said.

“I would like that very much,” Khalid responded.

Nara looked apprehensive and turned to Shannon. “Would it be okay if I had a moment with Alex?” she asked. Shannon looked a little surprised but didn’t object. Khalid touched Alex on the shoulder and thanked him again. He promised to come by the next day.