Chapter 16

The hearing entered its third day on Thursday morning. It was the first day of live testimony from a witness in the courtroom.

“The petitioner calls Zahra Bazzi,” said Farid’s lawyer.

Zahra grabbed Jack’s arm so firmly that he felt her fingernails through his suit. In a proceeding under the Hague Convention,

the petitioner has the right to call the abducting spouse to the witness stand. Jack had done his best to prepare Zahra for

this moment, but sometimes a lawyer’s best wasn’t quite good enough.

“I can’t do this,” she whispered.

It wasn’t Jack’s style to watch from the sideline as his client fought for survival on the witness stand. He did what he could

to stop Farid’s lawyer in her tracks.

“Your Honor, I presume Ms. Beech is calling my client as a witness to establish that she brought Yasmin to Miami without Mr.

Bazzi’s consent. If it would streamline matters, we are willing to stipulate to those facts.”

The judge seemed open to the idea. “Ms. Beech, are you willing to accept Mr. Swyteck’s stipulation and forgo your examination

of the witness?”

“Absolutely not, Your Honor. I have a right to question Zahra Bazzi on my own terms.”

“Nice try, Mr. Swyteck,” the judge said. “Ms. Bazzi, please come forward.”

With a subtle show of encouragement from Jack, Zahra rose from her seat beside him, stepped slowly to the other side of the courtroom, and stopped before the bailiff. It took only a moment to swear the familiar oath and settle into the proverbial chair that no one ever found comfortable. Zahra seemed particularly nervous, sitting up a bit too straight, her hands clenched tightly in her lap. The bailiff adjusted the gooseneck microphone to her level and stepped away, leaving nothing between her and Farid’s counsel.

“Good morning, Ms. Bazzi,” Beech began.

“Good morning,” Zahra replied, and that was the end of the pleasantries.

Beech worked quickly, getting Zahra to agree to basic facts that could not be disputed. Zahra and Farid were married in January.

Zahra adopted Yasmin soon after. In July, the family traveled to London on visas. Those opening questions would serve as the

foundation for the lawyer’s attack.

“I’d like to ask you more about that trip to London,” said Beech.

Her tone changed. The questions became sharper, more like accusations, which made it easier for Jack to discern her strategy.

Beech had rejected his proposed stipulation because she wasn’t really interested in gathering information per se. Her aim

was to expose Zahra as an unworthy mother skilled in the ways of fraud and deception.

“Ms. Bazzi, about six months after your marriage, you and Farid took your daughter Yasmin on a flight from Khomeini Airport

in Tehran to Heathrow in London. Do I have that right?”

“That was in July, yes.”

“To be exact, your flight landed in London on the twenty-second of July.”

“That’s correct.”

“The three of you checked into a hotel in Kensington, correct?”

“Yes. The Adria.”

“You had to be there by the twenty-second because Farid had an all-day business meeting scheduled for the twenty-third of

July. Isn’t that right?”

“Farid had a meeting. I don’t know if it was all day.”

“You knew about that meeting before you left Tehran, did you not, Ms. Bazzi?”

“I may have.”

“Ms. Bazzi, isn’t it true that Farid’s business meeting was the primary purpose of the trip to London?”

“He was thinking about reviving his hotel business in the UK. So, yes, business was the reason for the trip. But it was also to see if I liked London. My sister Ava loved it there, and Farid wanted to make sure I did too.”

“That was very thoughtful of him,” said Beech.

“Or controlling,” said Jack, rising.

“Mr. Swyteck, if that was an objection, it is overruled. I would advise both of you to keep your opinions to yourselves.”

The lawyers apologized.

“Ms. Bazzi,” Beech continued, “you don’t dispute that Farid left the hotel early on the morning of July twenty-third for that

business meeting, do you?”

“That’s my recollection.”

“Isn’t it a fact, ma’am, that as soon as he left, you took Yasmin from your hotel in Kensington, got in a taxi, and returned

to Heathrow Airport?”

She glanced in Jack’s direction, but he couldn’t change the facts. “Maybe not right after Farid left. But yes, we went back

to Heathrow that same morning.”

“You didn’t tell Farid you and Yasmin were going back to the airport, did you, Ms. Bazzi.”

“I didn’t tell him. No.”

“In fact, you kept it all a secret from him, didn’t you?”

“Like I said, I didn’t tell him.”

“You knew that the only place you could take Yasmin without your husband’s permission was back to Iran, didn’t you, Ms. Bazzi?”

“I believe so.”

“You more than ‘believed’ it, Ms. Bazzi. You came up with a plan to get around those travel restrictions.”

“Objection, argumentative,” said Jack.

“I’ll rephrase,” said Beech. “When you and Yasmin reached Heathrow Airport, you presented an affidavit to the customs agents,

did you not?”

“Yes.”

“That affidavit purported to grant Farid’s written permission for you to travel alone with Yasmin, correct?”

She paused, but she had to answer. “That’s true.”

“You told the customs agent that the signature on that affidavit belonged to Farid, didn’t you?”

“I don’t recall. I don’t think he ever asked.”

“Let’s be candid with the court, Ms. Bazzi: the signature on that affidavit was forged, was it not?”

“It was not Farid’s signature.”

“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, you knew that 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 explain why she 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.”

“Then what do you intend to show me?” asked Andie.

“Frankly, as little as possible—just enough to satisfy you that Ava Bazzi is alive.”

Westbrook unsealed the dossier, speaking into a Dictaphone to make a record of the exact time of each step of the process—opening

the dossier, removing six sheets of paper marked secret , and finally placing the documents before Agent Henning.

“What is this?” asked Andie.

“We got it from the Department of Homeland Security. It’s a law enforcement certification in support of a U visa. A U visa

is—”

“I know what a U visa is,” said Andie.

A U visa allows noncitizens to stay in the United States if they are the victim of a crime and are providing assistance to

a law enforcement investigation. Andie had seen U visas issued to victims of crimes ranging from blackmail to sex trafficking.

Andie flipped through the pages. “Are you saying that the US government issued a U visa to Ava Bazzi?”

“No. Ava Bazzi requested a U visa. It was denied.”

“When did she apply?”

“The date is on the application. Next to her signature.”

Andie flipped to the last page and checked the date. “February of this year,” she said aloud. “Eight months ago.”

“Put another way, sixteen months after your husband claims Ava Bazzi was murdered by the Tehran morality police.”

“What crime did Ava offer to help law enforcement investigate?”

“Torture by the Tehran morality police. Obviously, no US law enforcement agency has jurisdiction over that crime. That’s why the application was denied.”

Andie studied the application for a moment. “This form could have been filled out by anyone. How do I know it was the real

Ava Bazzi?”

“Are you accusing the State Department of defrauding you?”

“I’m just being thorough,” she said. And asking the questions my husband would ask , she decided not to say.

“Applications for U visas are processed in two stages. First, the application is reviewed. If everything is in order, then

the applicant appears in person at the nearest consulate or embassy to be fingerprinted. This application never made it to

step two.”

“There was no fingerprinting?” asked Andie.

“Not in the normal way fingerprints are collected. But turn to the last two pages of the dossier,” said Westbrook.

Andie did. The penultimate page was an FBI report describing the collection of latent fingerprints found on the U visa application

and setting forth two very clear prints from a thumb and an index finger. Attached to it was an Interpol fingerprint specimen

for Ava Bazzi. Most people are unaware that Iran was a founding member of the International Criminal Police Organization,

but Andie knew.

“I presume Ava Bazzi’s prints became part of the Interpol database when she was arrested in Tehran.”

“Correct. The FBI examiner’s conclusion is on the last page.”

Andie checked the examiner’s name. Leslie T. Cahill. It wasn’t anyone she recognized, but every FBI examiner was part of an

elite group.

“Based on a comparison of the latent prints on the application to those in the Interpol database, it is this examiner’s opinion

that Ava Bazzi is the source of the latent prints to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty,” said Andie, reading aloud

from the report.

“Proving that Ava Bazzi had her hands on the application,” said Westbrook.

Andie laid the dossier aside. “Why is this document classified?”

“It’s a sensitive piece of information that bears on active negotiations between the United States and Iran.”

“How so?”

“It supports the position of the Iranian government that Ava Bazzi is still alive. But it also supports the allegation that

she was tortured, which the Iranian government vehemently denies.”

“So, it’s classified because it cuts both ways?”

Westbrook considered her words before responding. “It’s classified because the State Department finds it useful in the current

negotiations with the Iranian government.”

“Do you plan to share this document with the Iranians?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“Whether the Iranians give us what we want.”

Andie was thinking only of a woman so desperate that she’d traveled all the way to Key Biscayne and begged an FBI agent to

help save her husband’s life.

“You mean whether they give you who you want,” said Andie.

“If you say so,” said Westbrook.

“I do,” said Andie. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.”