JOHN JOJOLA SAT PATIENTLY AT THE TABLE IN THE FRONT OF what would have passed for a small lecture hall at a college. He looked up at three rows of tiered seating set in semicircles, in which twenty-three people now sat, all attentively waiting for him to speak. Also waiting, off to one side, was a stenographer who would record every word.
At the back of the grand-jury room, behind the jurors, stood DA Butch Karp, who appeared to be studying his notes but in a moment would be asking him questions about the death of Miriam Juma Khalifa. Then it would be up to this grand jury whether to indict Sharif Jabbar for her murder.
Jojola closed his eyes for a moment, his wide, bronzed face framed by straight shoulder-length black hair. He appeared composed, though his mind raced. This was not Taos; this was a grand-jury room at 100 Centre Street, New York, the Criminal Courts Building, which housed New York County’s criminal courts as well as the DAO. And he was no longer the police chief of the Taos Indian Pueblo but an agent of a secret federal counterterrorism agency headed by former FBI special agent in charge Espey Jaxon.
Along with a few trusted men he’d known at the Bureau, Jaxon had been looking for agents who would be “under the radar” of spies both within and outside the government. And after fate threw them together battling the Sons of Man, Jaxon had asked Jojola, a former Vietnam combat vet, to join his group for his tracking and guerrilla fighting skills.
Lot of good they did Miriam, he thought. He pictured her face in the moment before her death and felt a stab of shame . . . and an intense hatred for her killer, Nadya Malovo, and the man he would be testifying against for participating in her slaughter.
An immigrant from Kenya, Miriam had been the widow of Muhammad Jamal Khalifa, an American-born Muslim who’d blown himself up inside the Third Avenue Synagogue. Her father, Mahmoud Juma, had taught her since childhood that Islam was a religion of peace and that terrorists in her native Kenya and elsewhere were guilty of a grievous sin by misinterpreting the Koran to support the murder of innocent people. She’d been wracked with guilt at her husband’s act.
Miriam had also been angry at Jabbar, who, as the imam of the mosque, had recruited a cadre of young men from the congregation—poor, disenfranchised, and impressionable men like her husband—for “jihad” against the United States. She had argued with her husband as he grew more radicalized and spoke about a “big event” that would make him and Jabbar heroes in the Muslim world. Their arguments had become more heated and degenerated into violence. No longer willing to suffer his verbal and physical abuse, Miriam had finally moved out. So she hadn’t known that he’d been kicked out of the jihadi cadre for drinking alcohol and then had decided to prove his worth by strapping on a “martyr’s vest” filled with plastic explosives and ball bearings and detonating it in the synagogue.
A dozen men had died. But in the end, Khalifa’s murderous act had probably saved many other lives, and even the economy of the United States. It had pointed Jaxon at the Al-Aqsa mosque and then paid off big when Lucy Karp befriended Miriam. The two had met when Lucy, posing as a translator for “private security analyst” Jaxon, attended a social function at the mosque.
After her husband’s death, Miriam had been given the job of receptionist for Jabbar so that he could keep his eye on her. But that plan had backfired on the imam a few days after her husband’s death, when a package addressed in his handwriting arrived for Jabbar. At considerable risk, she’d taken the package, which contained a videotape her husband had made of himself with his “last will and testament.”
In the tradition of such tapes made by suicide bombers in other parts of the world, Khalifa had announced his plan to “offer myself in jihad against the Zionists.” But more important, after Miriam had handed the tape over to Lucy, he’d included coded language meant for his “mujahedin brothers” that Jaxon and his men were able to crack enough of—along with what Miriam told them—to know that a major attack was in the works. They had also learned from the tape that a Philippine terrorist, Azahari Mujahid, was involved and would be arriving by ship a few days prior to the event. They just didn’t know what the attack would entail or exactly when, other than near the beginning of the Muslim holy days of Ramadan.
In the days between Miriam handing over the tape and intercepting the terrorist Mujahid, John Jojola had met with her several times as she gathered evidence for them at the mosque. In case anyone followed her to these meetings, they’d made it appear as if she was meeting her secret lover, though in truth they’d spend most of the time talking and playing chess. He’d grown to like the young woman, who talked often about her dream of attending college and raising her young son, Abdullah.
But then Malovo had accused Miriam of carrying on a sexual affair that disgraced her “martyred” husband and announced that the young woman would pay for the sin and “bring Allah’s blessing on our plans.” At the same time, a plan was devised in which Mujahid and his men were intercepted and their places taken by Tran Vinh Do, a Vietnamese gangster who also had joined Jaxon’s group, and Jojola. They had been taken to the mosque and then found themselves unwilling witnesses as Malovo pulled Miriam’s head back and prepared to cut her throat.
Jojola had tensed, ready to attack, though he didn’t have a weapon and others, including Malovo, did. He knew it would give away his cover, but he could not witness the execution of a young woman without intervening. He’d sensed his comrade, Tran, who was standing next to him, prepare to die in defense of the young woman as well.
What had happened next, however, was inexplicable. A distinct spirituality had possessed Jojola. When he’d looked into Miriam’s eyes, a woman’s voice had entered his head, telling him that Miriam did not want him to give himself away in what would have surely been a futile attempt to save her. He could hear the voice still: “She is prepared for martyrdom in the hope that her one death may save thousands, even millions. She asks that you remember the lessons you taught her from chess: that sometimes one piece must be sacrificed for the good of the many. This is her last request, and she asks that you honor it so that you will live to do as you must tomorrow.”
So Jojola had done nothing and prevented Tran from taking action as well. A moment later, Malovo had decapitated the young woman.
As a result of Miriam’s sacrifice, in their presence, with their identities unquestioned by murderous jihadis, Jojola and Tran had been able to save countless lives and keep the United States and even the West from plunging into economic chaos. But the shame of it had never left Jojola, nor had he forgotten his promise to bring her killers to justice someday.
Nadya Malovo had escaped after the stock-exchange attack and again more recently when she was involved in an attempt to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge. Someday, he swore now, as Karp cleared his throat in the back of the auditorium, she will pay. In the meantime, justice would begin with Sharif Jabbar.
“Mr. Jojola,” Karp began, “would you tell the jurors your current occupation?”
“I am an agent of a federal counterterrorism agency.”
“In that capacity, were you in the basement of the Al-Aqsa mosque on 126th Street in Harlem?”
“Yes, I was.”
“And could you briefly explain what you were doing there and what occurred?”
The heat of shame crept into Jojola’s face, but he nodded and responded.
An hour later, Karp waited outside the grand-jury room with Kenny Katz for the verdict. New York law required that anyone charged with a felony must be indicted in order to be tried in the state supreme court. The only exception to proceeding by way of indictment was if the defendant “voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently” waived the grand-jury process. However, defense attorneys usually wanted to see the entire grand-jury transcript, hoping for a legal infirmity or that a witness’s trial testimony was inconsistent with the grand-jury testimony.
Karp knew that the grand jury would indict Jabbar. After all, he only needed twelve of the twenty-three jurors to vote to indict. That would bring the defendant to trial in the New York Supreme Court.
“If you’re prepared, it should be about as tough as making a ham sandwich,” he said to his protégé Katz.
With a grand jury, the prosecutor is in total control. He is by statute its legal advisor. There is no judge, no defense attorney, no defense witnesses or cross-examination of prosecution witnesses. No need to prove the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. A much lesser burden of proof is necessary before a grand jury to obtain an indictment. In law, it is a “probable cause” standard requiring sufficient evidence that a crime had been committed and that the defendant committed it.
Not a very high threshold. Karp understood that the quantum of proof presented to the grand jurors should warrant the triers of fact, be they trial judges or trial juries, to find the defendant guilty if the evidence he presented went unexplained or uncontradicted.
He didn’t believe in wasting a lot of time and effort “trying his case” in front of grand juries as some prosecutors did. As a young assistant district attorney assigned to the Indictment Bureau at the DAO, he’d often present more than a hundred cases a month to GJs. Given the immense amount of crime occurring on a daily basis on the island of Manhattan, the supreme court impaneled four grand juries—two morning GJs and two afternoon GJs—to listen in the general course to presentations by assistant DAs of the garden-variety felonious mayhem inflicted upon the innocent citizenry of Gotham.
Throughout his career, grand juries had responded appropriately. Much of that was because he adhered to Old Man Garrahy’s insistence that on his legendary watch, before a case could proceed even as far as the GJ, his prosecutors be absolutely certain, “one thousand percent,” of the defendant’s factual guilt and that they had the legally admissible evidence to prove it at trial beyond a reasonable doubt. And those two factors didn’t always go hand in hand. On occasion, a prosecutor might have factual guilt, but because of legal, constitutional infirmities—such as acquiring evidence without a valid search warrant or an improperly obtained confession—the DA lacked sufficient evidence to convict. In those situations, the case did not go forward. It wasn’t about winning; it was about justice.
Having to satisfy that burden before a case got that far—a standard Karp had reinstated when he took over the DAO—made persuading grand juries to issue indictments a cake walk. It also was the reason he’d never lost a felony case.
Karp had other reasons to believe in putting on a bare-bones case for grand juries. “Whatever the witnesses say is recorded, and, as you know, that transcript is turned over to the defense,” he’d said to Katz. “Why give them any more insight into our strategy than we have to? Plus, between now and the trial, witnesses might alter their testimony somewhat as they remember or forget details. The defense will jump on these as ‘inconsistencies’ and try to attack on cross-examination. So, keep the testimony—and therefore the transcript—as brief and limited as possible.”
Karp had started the case against Jabbar by calling to the witness table the first police officer to discover the remains of Miriam Juma Khalifa in the basement of the Al-Aqsa mosque. Then he’d called an assistant medical examiner, who testified that Miriam Juma Khalifa was the victim of a homicide and the cause of death was decapitation with a sharp instrument, “probably a large knife.”
When he’d finished with the AME, Karp wondered briefly what had become of the videotape of Miriam’s murder. Probably in the offices of some terrorist Web site waiting for the right moment to be broadcast as yet another so-called courageous act of jihad lunacy, he thought.
The next witness had been Mahmoud Juma, the father of the victim. He’d testified that Jabbar, the imam of his mosque, had recruited young men, including his son-in-law, for the purposes of “violent jihad.” Juma said that he’d had numerous arguments with his son-in-law, who’d quoted Jabbar, regarding the use of terrorism in the name of Islam prior to the young man blowing himself up in the Third Avenue Synagogue.
The old man had held together pretty well until Karp had asked him about the last time he’d seen his daughter, on the day she was murdered. He’d said she’d asked him to take her son to Chicago to visit relatives “until the danger has passed,” and then she’d left for the mosque. “I never saw her alive again,” he’d said, beginning to weep.
Then Karp had called his last witness, John Jojola. Giving as comprehensive but terse an answer as possible for what he was doing at the mosque, Jojola had also kept the graphic details of Miriam’s death to a minimum. Karp had asked him prior to his testimony to limit his responses. “If I want more, I’ll ask.”
Karp had not asked Jojola why he hadn’t tried to save Miriam. “I doubt Megan O’Dowd will be so kind,” he’d told Katz. He wondered if the jurors had caught the strain that seemed part sadness and part rage in his friend’s testimony. He knew Jojola’s history with the girl and had heard the spiritual story about the woman’s voice urging him not to act. It ate at Jojola, and Karp sympathized.
As part of the process, grand jurors were allowed to ask questions of the witnesses by raising their hands. While allowing them to exercise this right, Karp kept a tight rein on what was asked and answered. He always self-edited what he said and did in the grand jury and at trial in the supreme court, because he was constantly concerned with keeping a legally impeccable record that would pass appellate muster.
“For instance, it’s pretty common for grand jurors to ask if the defendant has a criminal record,” Karp had said to Katz. “I gently explain that such information would be highly prejudicial and inadmissible at trial. We don’t want to taint the record here.”
After he was finished with the witnesses and his case presentation was completed, Karp had taken a few minutes to inform the jurors about the law regarding homicide. In part, he explained that based on the evidence presented, Jabbar was guilty of common-law intentional murder by acting in concert with others to cause the death of Miriam Juma Khalifa. And in fact, he did cause her death, by decapitating her, even though Nadya Malovo had wielded the knife.
“Jabbar and Malovo both possessed the requisite intent to murder the deceased and participated in this execution together, even if only one of them held the knife,” he’d told the jurors.
He’d closed his presentation by telling the jurors “to keep in mind that an indictment is an accusatory instrument used to bring a defendant to trial in New York Supreme Court, part of the process that will lead to a fair due process hearing affording the defendant the right to question all witnesses and any physical and/or documentary evidence presented against him. And if the defendant so chooses, to present evidence to advance his cause.”
Karp had walked out of the room and sat down at the table with Kenny Katz to wait while the jurors deliberated. Their verdict would be announced by means of a buzzer: one buzz for indictment, two for dismissal, three for a question.
Relaxed and calm, Karp now read over the indictment document he’d already prepared. One buzz, and he and the jury foreman would head up to Supreme Court Part 30, the designated courtroom where indictments were filed.
The buzzer went off. Once. He and the jury foreman headed up to Part 30, where Karp requested that the presiding judge set Jabbar’s arraignment for the following day.
At that arraignment, Karp was going to ask that the defendant be remanded without bail, and he would state that “the People are ready now for trial and intend to expeditiously move the case. Any delays, therefore, in a speedy trial would be at the hands of the defense.”
After returning from Part 30, Karp looked at Katz. “Care for lunch across the street?”
“Sure. Anything you’d like me to do?”
“Yeah, give O’Dowd’s office a call, and say we’re going to arraign her client tomorrow and to check with the court clerk to see what time.”