Page 45 of Grave Danger
“You forged his signature, didn’t you, Ms. Bazzi?”
“I—I signed it for him.”
“Without his permission, correct?”
Again she glanced at Jack, but there was no objection he could make.
“Yes. Without his permission.”
“In fact, you traveled to the UK with that forged document in your possession, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Before you even boarded the plane in Tehran on the twenty-second of July, youknewthat you were going to use that forged document to abduct Yasmin the very next day.Didn’t you,Ms. Bazzi?”
She didn’t answer. The judge looked down from the bench. “The witness shall answer,” he said.
She drew a breath, then answered. “Yes.”
“That was all part of your premeditated plan, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘plan.’”
“It was your plan to abduct Yasmin and take her to Miami, so that Farid would never see her again. Isn’t that true, Ms. Bazzi?”
“Objection,” said Jack.
“Overruled,” said the judge. “The witness will answer.”
“It took some planning, I suppose.”
“Yes. I’ll bet it did,” said Beech. “No further questions, Your Honor.”
Farid’s lawyer stepped away from the lectern, and Jack’s gaze followed her to her seat beside her client. Both looked satisfied. In fact, it was the most content Jack had seen Farid since the start of the hearing.
Judge Carlton looked at Jack. “Mr. Swyteck, do you have any questions for Ms. Bazzi at this time?”
Jack was entitled to question his own client so that Zahra could explainwhyshe abducted Yasmin, but it was up to him to decide when to ask those questions.
“Your Honor, as I stated earlier, we do not dispute the fact that my client took Yasmin Bazzi to Miami without her husband’s consent. Our defense is under the Hague Convention: that returning Yasmin to her father would put her in grave danger of physical or psychological harm. My preference is not to put on evidence in support of that defense until the petitioner has presented his case in full and this court rules that a defense is necessary.”
“Very well,” the judge said. “We will proceed with the petitioner’s case to its conclusion, at which time the respondent may retake the stand to present her defense, if necessary.”
“Thank you, Judge,” said Jack.
“Ms. Bazzi, you are excused.”
Zahra stepped down from the witness stand and returned to her seat beside Jack. Her hands were shaking, and her eyes sought Jack’s approval, or at least his reassurance that things hadn’t gone that badly.
“Are we going to be okay?” she asked in a hushed voice.
Jack rested his hand atop hers to stop the shaking. “We’ll be fine,” he said, though he didn’t want to mislead her. “But we have a lot of work to do.”
Andie flew into Reagan National Airport and arrived at the State Department midafternoon Thursday. The confidential dossier on Ava Bazzi was viewable only in person, which made the trip necessary, though Andie imagined it would take a team of bureaucrats to sort out whether the cost of the plane ticket should come out of the FBI’s budget or the State Department’s.
A middle-aged man met Andie in the fourth-floor lobby of the Office of Children’s Issues. He introduced himself only by his last name, Westbrook,and led her down the hallway to a small conference room. The room had no windows. The only furniture was a small rectangular table with a chair on each side. A dossier folder was on the tabletop.
“It’s not the full dossier on Ava Bazzi, of course,” said Westbrook. “Some portions of the dossier are classified as Top Secret. Obviously, those are not here for you. The rest of the dossier is classified as Secret, but most of the Secret information is irrelevant for your purposes.”