THE ATMOSPHERE IN PART 39 COURTROOM THE NEXT morning reminded Karp of what it must have been like at Yankee Stadium in 1938 before the second Louis-Schmeling heavyweight battle. It was the so-called fight of the century. The immortal Joe Louis had been beaten in the first fight in ’36 by the German, Max Schmeling. Shocked and humiliated, Louis felt that he had let down his country. He had always been the gracious champion; the Nazis, however, played it up that Schmeling’s victory was vindication of the superiority of the Nazi system.
Louis’s preparation for the second fight was a paradigm for laser focus and concentration. Without bravado or bluster, Louis was determined to pummel Schmeling into oblivion with unremitting ferocity. Indeed, from the start in round one, Louis tore into his opponent, putting him on the ropes, and wouldn’t let him fall to the canvas until the German was thoroughly beaten and unable to stand.
Psychologically, Karp prepared his case and, particularly, his summation with the notion that the defendant, Jabbar, would feel the same helplessness and frustration that Schmeling had known once the evidence was presented in a compelling and persuasive fashion.
Although no one was shouting, cheering, or jeering, the air buzzed with intensity as the spectators, media, and even courtroom personnel debated who would deliver the knockout blow. Everybody was aware of the disasters that had struck both sides the day before, once the media “legal experts” weighed in on television and in the newspapers regarding who they thought had suffered the most damage.
As the media had breathlessly reported, a prosecution witness—one of the city’s most prominent attorneys, Dean Newbury—had apparently succumbed to a heart attack or, some claimed, something more sinister.
According to one of the tabloids, which quoted an unnamed source “present at the death,” Newbury, who had already scandalized Gotham by pleading guilty to the murder of his own brother, “took a sip of water and just keeled over. He was dead before he hit the floor.” The paper’s source theorized that the water had been poisoned; however, the District Attorney’s Office, as well as the NYPD, would say only that no comment would be forthcoming pending the outcome of the trial and leaving the medical findings to the Medical Examiner’s Office.
Alleged legal experts were sure that Karp’s case was now in trouble. He no longer had Newbury to support the testimony of federal agent Jojola. A well-known liberal defense lawyer opined sanctimoniously on a national cable news network that “it will be tough for the district attorney to get a unanimous jury for what amounts to the word of a shadowy federal agent against that of a Harlem firebrand whose attorney, civil rights lion Megan O’Dowd, has not been afraid to play the race card, and justifiably so.”
However, other pundits were just as adamant that Karp’s dismantling of defense witnesses Braxton Howe and Alysha Kimbata had staggered the defense with a one-two combination. “One was made to look like a member of the Tinfoil Helmet Society and the other a liar.” Most of the so-called experts of this ilk predicted that for Jabbar to walk, he was going to have to take the stand and appeal to that one juror who “believes that pigs can fly.”
Scanning the stories in the morning newspapers, Karp had been pleased that no one in the media had made the connection between Newbury’s death and a small story buried in the inside pages about the “attempted robbery” of a Twenty-ninth Street bakery that had been thwarted when one of the proprietors shot and killed a male perpetrator. According to the story, the second robber, a female, had been taken into custody.
Now, as he waited for Judge Mason to enter the courtroom, Karp allowed himself a moment away from focusing on Jabbar to reflect on the events of Nadya Malovo’s capture. He marveled at the irony that with intelligence agencies, the FBI, and Interpol hunting Malovo, also known as Ajmaani, it was a little old Jewish lady, herself a holocaust survivor, and a wounded female U.S. marshal who had brought down the assassin.
After court the day before, Karp had Fulton drive him to Bellevue Hospital, where Goldie Sobelman had been taken after she collapsed following the shooting. He’d found Moishe sitting next to his sleeping wife, his head on her shoulder and his eyes closed as he held her hand. The old man had opened his eyes and picked up his head as Karp entered the room.
“How is she?” Karp had asked.
Moishe shrugged. “She was pretty shook up. I think killing that man was the worst part for her; it is such a violation of her values to harm another human being. But it was him or me. Before the drugs put her to sleep, she signed that she had chosen love over conscience. And then she cried herself to sleep.”
Pausing, Moishe had caressed his wife’s arm and pressed her hand to his lips. “She saved me, you know. The bad woman, the one I told you about who made me nervous, was going to kill me, but Goldie spoke to her and melted even that evil heart. She said, ‘Please, child, if you must shoot, then I beg you, me first. I cannot stand to see him hurt.’” Starting to sob, Moishe, barely whispering, had said, “Those were the first words she’s spoken since the concentration camp.”
Karp had felt the emotion rise within him. “What do the doctors say?”
“They say that there is nothing physically wrong with her, but she probably has post-traumatic stress syndrome, and right now she needs to rest. So that’s what she’s going to do until she can come home.” He’d turned to look at his wife’s resting face, his eyes brimming with tears.
“You know that the two of you were almost killed today because you know me and I frequent your shop,” Karp had said.
“Not another word,” Moishe had replied before Karp could go on. “We do not turn our backs on our friends because of danger.” He’d chuckled. “God forgive me for saying this, but we would not be Jews if we allowed evil people to say who we will or won’t have as friends. Do not stop coming to our shop, or we will be very hurt.”
Karp had smiled, the guilt he’d been feeling since hearing about Malovo’s vicious plan subsiding. “What? And miss out on the best cherry-cheese coffee cake in the five boroughs? Never!”
As he’d headed home from the hospital an hour later, Karp had looked forward to a quiet evening with his wife and boys to decompress for a bit. He was feeling the effects of a physically taxing and emotionally charged day. But it was the weariness of a boxer drawing near the end of the fight, tired but satisfied that his pace and stamina would carry him through to the final bell. In the first case against O’Dowd, he hadn’t been psychologically prepared for the physical and mental rigors of the trial. He’d allowed it to wear him down and let O’Dowd carry the fight to him. But ever since that second trial, he’d steeled himself to go the distance, no matter how many rounds the opposition wanted to go with its rope-a-dope delaying tactics or list of inane witnesses.
An evening at home represented a breather between rounds. Yet when he’d arrived home, he’d learned that the day wasn’t over for Marlene. He’d walked through the door of the loft just as she was preparing to leave with an attractive young woman she’d introduced as Sherry Maxwell. She’d given him a brief rundown on what was happening in Warren Bennett’s case.
Karp wasn’t terribly pleased that his wife was tangling with yet another professional assassin. However, he’d been somewhat mollified when he heard that instead of her usual “go it alone” tendencies, she’d actually involved the police in the person of Detective Sergeant Bobby Scalia. He’d met her cousin before, a tough guy and a sharp cop, who would, he hoped, keep the love of his life safe from harm.
“The twins have had dinner, yours is in the oven,” she’d said, and kissed him. “Play your cards right, and I might even let you and Clay Fulton in on the glory tomorrow night. Now I need to run to save a sleazeball named Todd Fielding.” She’d hurried out of the loft with the young woman before he could ask any more questions.
Marlene hadn’t returned home until long after he’d gone to bed. Nor had there been much time to talk to her in the morning before he left for the Criminal Courts Building just after dawn. And what he’d found waiting for him outside the building had made him forget all about Warren Bennett for the moment.
Standing in the early-morning light was the hard right cross to the chin that would put his opponent on the canvas. He’d just needed to figure out how to land it.
As expected, O’Dowd’s direct examination of Sharif Jabbar concentrated on painting the illusion that he was the victim of a racist, paranoid government that was trying to silence him. But first, she’d dealt with his past criminal history to lessen the blow they expected on the subject from Karp’s cross-examination.
“Imam Jabbar, have you ever been convicted of a crime?” O’Dowd asked, as if she wasn’t sure of the answer.
“Yes, when I was younger. Before I became a Muslim, I ran with a rough crowd,” he replied. “I committed many crimes, including two I was convicted for—armed robbery and manslaughter.”
“Have you been convicted of any crimes since your conversion many years ago to Islam?”
Jabbar shook his head. “Nothing worse than a parking ticket.”
After further exploring his poverty-stricken, fatherless childhood, misguided teenage years, and felonious young adulthood, O’Dowd launched into the meat of her questioning. “Imam Jabbar, have you been an outspoken critic of the government of the United States?”
“Yes,” Jabbar admitted. “You cannot be a black person raised in Harlem and not know that racism is a fact of life in this country and that the main perpetrator of this offense is an oppressive government controlled by wealthy Christian white men and Jews. Once I became a Muslim, I learned it was doubly hard to be a person of color and a follower of Islam.”
“But you’re a spiritual leader as an imam?”
“Yes, but I am also a leader of my community,” Jabbar responded. “And I take it upon my own shoulders to speak out against injustice and oppression for those who have no voice or are afraid of the government.”
“Are you afraid of the government, Imam Jabbar?”
Jabbar laughed sardonically. “I am now,” he said with an embittered smile. “I had not realized to what extent the government would go to silence me.”
“Well, don’t you say things that make you unpopular with the government and people in general?” O’Dowd asked. “For instance, weren’t you interviewed after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center in which you described the hijackers as heroes and the people who died there as, and I quote, ‘pawns of the U.S. government, and therefore legitimate targets’? Did you say that?”
Jabbar bowed his head. “I’m not proud of those comments,” he replied as he lifted his head and looked at the jurors. “I wasn’t thinking about the pain other people were in. I was just voicing a hope that now people of good conscience of all races and religions would sit up and take notice of the suffering caused in the world by this government. Suffering that would lead young men to sacrifice their lives to wake up the people of the United States to the fact that many more human beings die throughout the world every year as a result of U.S. bombs—many of them delivered by murderous Israelis—than died in the World Trade Center. Still, I was not thinking of the families and friends who lost their loved ones, and it was wrong. I’ve prostrated myself before Allah ever since, seeking forgiveness for what I said.”
“Does that mean you no longer believe that what you said—however harshly—is not true?”
“No. The words I used were wrong. But as Allah is my witness, the United States government, not its people, but the government and its agents are unjust and murderous.”
After several more minutes of exploring Jabbar’s political beliefs, O’Dowd switched gears. “Imam Jabbar, do you know anyone named Nadya Malovo, who also, according to the government agent provocateur Jojola, goes by the name of Ajmaani?”
“No. I never heard either name until after my arrest,” he replied. “And I’ve never met anyone who matches the description of such a woman.”
Through O’Dowd’s questioning, Jabbar explained his theory of how Jojola had infiltrated the Al-Aqsa mosque through deception and lies, hoping to discover evidence of serious wrongdoing on the part of Jabbar. But failing that and having heard that Jabbar was leaving on a trip to hand-deliver donations raised by the mosque’s congregation for Muslim charities in Africa, the agent had come up with a plan to frame him for murder.
“Imam Jabbar, did you in any way help plan the murder of Miriam Juma Khalifa?”
“No,” Jabbar replied angrily. “She was one of my flock. And a friend.”
“Did you assault or torture Miriam Juma Khalifa?”
“No, I did not.”
“Did you participate in any actions encouraging the murder of Miriam Juma Khalifa?”
“No.”
“Were you present in the basement of the Al-Aqsa mosque when Miriam Juma Khalifa was murdered?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Where were you?”
Jabbar paused and hung his head as if overcome with shame. “I was seeing my girlfriend, Alysha Kimbata.”
“Are you proud that you have a young woman for a girlfriend whom is not your wife?”
“No. I have sinned in the eyes of Allah and hurt my wife, whom I respect and love.”
“You were here when the jury heard the district attorney make a big deal that it might or might not have been sundown on the first day of Ramadan. What do you say to that?”
Again, Jabbar’s head fell forward. “He might be right. I believe that it was already sundown, but I am willing to concede that as an imam and a Muslim, I am sometimes lax with the prohibitions regarding food, drink, and sex during Ramadan. Again, I am an imperfect, sinful man.”
“You are an imperfect, sinful man who believes that it is his place as a religious leader to speak out against injustice,” O’Dowd repeated, “but did you participate in any way in the murder of Miriam Juma Khalifa?”
“I did not,” Jabbar said, looking from one black member of the jury to the next.
O’Dowd’s direct examination had taken up the entire morning and the first hour after the lunch break. But the crowd in the courtroom was as eager to see how Karp would respond to the jabs from the defense team as they had been that morning when he rose for cross-examination.
“Mr. Jabbar, if the United States government, or any other government, wanted to shut you up, why not just assassinate you?”
The question created a stir in the courtroom. But Jabbar had his answer ready. “I believe you all wanted to make an example out of me with a big trial. Then it will be easy to kill me in prison and make it look like just another inmate-to-inmate fatality. That way, the government can claim it had nothing to do with my blood on its hands.”
“Really? A government capable of—as your own expert witness testified—secretly carrying out the attacks on the World Trade Center, assassinating several presidents and other leaders, could not simply murder the imam of a local mosque and get away with it?”
“Like I said, you all want to make an example out of me,” Jabbar retorted. “A warning to any black man who dares speak out against racism and oppression.”
“Like the Reverends Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson? Why haven’t they been framed or murdered?” Karp replied.
“They’re black, and so they, too, feel the sting of racism’s whip,” Jabbar said. “But they’re Christian and have large followings, so it’s not as easy as going after the imam of a small mosque in Harlem.”
“Mr. Jabbar, the jury heard testimony about the digital movie camera that was found at the crime scene in front of the chair where Miriam Juma Khalifa was murdered,” Karp began.
“Yes, we often make recordings of my Friday sermons to share with the faithful who could not attend,” Jabbar responded.
“I see. And as we heard from the People’s witnesses, the memory card from the camera is missing, and the inference from your direct examination is that Mr. Jojola or some other nefarious agent of the government, such as a police officer, removed it. Is that correct?”
Jabbar shrugged. “They must have—that’s how they operate.”
“Why?” Karp asked. “Why would someone working for the government, such as Mr. Jojola, record the murder of Ms. Khalifa, if that’s what was done, but then remove the memory card?”
“I don’t know,” Jabbar replied. “Maybe to show it to his Jew masters.”
“Or maybe you and your followers recorded the murder to send to radical Islamists in other parts of the world?” Karp suggested.
“That’s what you want these people to think!”
“Or maybe it was removed because you, or Nadya Malovo, wanted to make sure the evidence of your part in this heinous crime wouldn’t be found, at least not until you were out of the country with your cash.” Karp continued. “Mr. Jabbar, are you absolutely sure that you were not present in the basement of the Al-Aqsa mosque when Miriam Juma Khalifa was tortured and then cruelly decapitated?”
“I was not there.”
“Are you as sure of that as you are of the rest of your testimony?”
“Absolutely. May Allah be my witness.”
“Did you lead a group of men in calling for her murder and then celebrate when this atrocity was accomplished?”
“I did not.”
“You were eating and having sex with Ms. Kimbata. Is that what you said?”
“Yes.”
Karp paused and looked as though he was at a loss for where to go from there. He looked up and shook his head. “You’ve certainly come a long way from your humble beginnings.”
Jabbar smiled. “Allahu Akbar. Yes, God is great.”
“Ah, yes, God is great,” Karp repeated. “But God does not like to be mocked.” He turned to Judge Mason. “Your honor, at this time, I have no more questions for the defendant.”
O’Dowd rose and informed the court that she had concluded the defendant’s case. She renewed her perfunctory motions to dismiss the case, which she had already tendered when Karp concluded the People’s case.
Judge Mason turned to Karp and asked, “Do the People wish to proceed by way of rebuttal?”
“Yes, your honor. The People call Alysha Kimbata to the stand,” Karp said. He turned to the back of the courtroom as the doors opened and the young woman entered.
“Your honor I object to this travesty of justice!” O’Dowd shouted. “I have no doubt that the government was able to put the screws to Miss Kimbata in order to force her reappearance here to lie for them.”
“Your honor, the court and jury will learn from this witness as part of the People’s impeachment-rebuttal case that the only people who ‘put the screws’ to Miss Kimbata were the defendant and defense counsel,” Karp shot back angrily. “As well as her father, who was acting on behalf of the defendant.”
Karp looked up at the frightened young woman as she took the witness stand. He admired her courage. When he’d arrived at the Criminal Courts Building that morning, Kimbata and several other older women wearing traditional Muslim clothing had been waiting along with Mahmoud Juma.
The older man had stepped forward. “Mr. Karp, Miss Kimbata has something she would like to say to you, as well as something she wants to give you,” Juma had said.
Karp had surmised as he invited the group up to his office that Miss Kimbata had had a change of heart and wanted to recant. That was part of it.
“All day, I could not get out of my head that Allah hates a liar more than any sinner, because all sin starts with a lie of some kind,” Kimbata had told him. “My father tried to convince me that lying if it was for the good of Allah was okay. But I knew in my heart that it was not. Miriam was my friend, and it was horrible what they did to her. Then when I went to bed, I had a dream that the great Muslim saint, Hazrat Fatemah Masumeh, came to me and told me what I needed to do to make amends.”
Dreams, divine intervention, or guilty conscience, Karp didn’t care. What she’d handed to him was a knockout punch, but he had to set up his opponent to land it.
Now, Karp asked, “Miss Kimbata, when you appeared on behalf of the defendant yesterday, did you tell the truth about him being with you on the night in question?”
“No,” she replied.
“Why not?”
“I was afraid.”
“Of who?”
“My father and Imam Jabbar.”
“Why?”
“My father said that I had to lie to help Imam Jabbar, because that is what Allah wanted me to do. He said if I did not lie, he would disown me and send me back to Yemen, where I would be stoned to death as an adulteress.”
“Are you an adulteress?”
“No. I am a virgin.” As she spoke and the courtroom started buzzing, the young woman kept her eyes downcast.
“Miss Kimbata, after you came to my office with some of the women from the Al-Aqsa mosque this morning, did you agree to a medical examination arranged by my office and conducted by a physician?”
Kimbata nodded her head. “Yes,” she said softly.
“And did that examination determine that you are, indeed, a virgin?”
“Yes.”
“So, you have never had sex with a man, including the defendant?”
“No.”
“Thank you, Miss Kimbata. I understand that this was terribly embarrassing for you,” Karp said gently. “Now, I need to ask you another question. This morning, you gave me something that was wrapped in a plastic bag. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you get this item?”
“My father kept it in his desk.”
“How did you know it was there?”
“On the night of Miriam’s death, Imam Jabbar came to my family’s home, and I saw him hand it to my father.”
“Was anything said?”
Kimbata nodded. “I heard Imam Jabbar say something about martyrs and Miriam. And then he told my father to keep it safe and that someday when the world was converted to Islam, it would prove who had fought for Allah in this country.”
“You took this item from your father’s desk?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“I read in a newspaper that a memory card was missing from a camera in the mosque, and—”
“Objection!” O’Dowd thundered, seeing too late the haymaker Karp had thrown. “We’re witnessing firsthand the furtherance of the government conspiracy against this imam.”
“Your honor, the People will call more witnesses in a moment who will testify to the authenticity of the memory card, as well as the fact that a single thumbprint was located on it belonging to the defendant,” Karp replied calmly.
“Overruled,” Mason ordered, and waved O’Dowd to sit down. “Please proceed, Mr. Karp.”
Glancing over at the defense table, where O’Dowd slumped back into her seat with hatred for him writ large on her face while Jabbar merely looked sick to his stomach, Karp turned back to Kimbata. “You were saying?”
“Yes, I read that the memory card was missing from the camera. I believe that what I gave you is that memory card.”
“Thank you, Miss Kimbata,” Karp said, walking over to the prosecution table, where Kenny Katz handed him a plastic bag containing a small black square. “Your honor, the People request that this memory card be marked for identification People’s Exhibit thirty-two. Miss Kimbata, is this the memory card that you observed the defendant give to your father, as you previously testified?”
“Yes.”
“And this is the same card you gave me this morning?”
“Yes.”
“Just a moment here,” O’Dowd objected. “I demand a voir dire on the authenticity of this evidence.”
“No objection, your honor,” Karp said.
“Proceed, and be brief,” Judge Mason instructed O’Dowd.
“Miss Kimbata, you have no idea if this card is the one you gave the district attorney. Isn’t that a fact?” O’Dowd said.
“No, that is not true,” Kimbata answered.
“Look, Miss Kimbata, I’m not suggesting that you didn’t give a card to the district attorney. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, I understand what you’re saying.”
“But really, child, you don’t know whether or not the district attorney is showing you this card, I believe People’s thirty-two, for identification. He switched it. Isn’t that possible?”
Before the witness could answer, O’Dowd glanced over at Karp and wondered why he hadn’t objected. She looked back at the witness, who said, “No, Ms. O’Dowd, I know this is the same card I gave Mr. Karp.”
Scoffing, O’Dowd said, “Well, my dear, what makes this memory card any different from any other?”
“May I see the memory card again, please?” Kimbata asked.
O’Dowd handed it to her.
Kimbata held up the bag and nodded. “This morning, Mr. Karp asked me to scratch my initials on the middle of the disk. It’s hard to see, but they’re there.”
The courtroom was completely silent. Judge Mason shook his head at O’Dowd. “I assume, Ms. Dowd, you have no further questions.”
O’Dowd shook her head and plopped down in her seat.
Karp then requested that the memory card be received in evidence and said, “I have no further questions, either. Your honor, the People now recall John Jojola.”
Kimbata quietly climbed down from the witness stand and walked quickly to where the other women waited in the aisle to escort her from the courtroom. As she left, Jojola returned, but instead of taking the stand, he walked over to where a screen had been set up at the far end of the jury box.
“In just a moment,” Karp explained to the jury, “with the court’s permission, I will play part of the material captured on the memory card in the basement of the Al-Aqsa mosque, taken from the desk of Bakr Kimbata by his daughter Alysha Kimbata. At times, you will notice that either the sound or the picture will be turned off so that comments that do not pertain to this trial cannot be heard and so that you will not be unnecessarily accosted by gruesome images. This has nothing to do with the quality of the recording.”
Karp made a signal, and the courtroom was darkened. The screen next to Jojola came alive with the images of men, their faces covered with scarves and ski masks, some of them holding assault rifles, chanting slogans. Jojola, who was standing next to the screen, used a pointer to tap one of the men on the screen. “This is Sharif Jabbar.”
The chanting stopped when the camera’s point of view swung to a statuesque woman, also with her face partly covered, standing with a small Asian-looking man. “That is Nadya Malovo,” Jojola said, pointing to the assassin. “And this is my partner.”
On the screen, Tran began reading from a statement the woman handed him. “All thanks are due to Allah. We ask for his help and guidance, and we ask his forgiveness for any sins we commit.”
As everyone in the courtroom’s attention was fixed on the screen, Karp stole a look at the jurors. They were as rapt as those in the courtroom gallery. Tran ended his speech with “Allahu Akbar!” As the other jihadis joined in shouting “Allahu Akbar!” the camera panned out, showing the man Jojola had identified as Jabbar leading the chant. “Allahu Akbar!”
The picture cut out, and when it came on again, a young woman, bound and hooded, her hands and face bloody, was on her knees in front of a man. “This is . . . this is Miriam Juma Khalifa,” Jojola said, choking up as he used the pointer. “And of course, the man is me.”
On the screen, Jojola was tense, his face clouding with anger and horror as Malovo, a knife clenched in her hand, moved into the picture and began reading a statement of her own. Jojola appeared ready to attack Malovo but then looked back at Miriam. A moment later, his body relaxed, and he nodded almost imperceptibly and said something in an unknown language.
“What did you say there?” Karp asked quickly.
“It was Vietnamese. I said to my partner, ‘Do nothing. This is as it should be.’”
Next to the screen, Jojola stood with his head bowed as, on the recording, Malovo demanded to know what they were talking about. “Is there a problem?” she said, and made a signal to the cameraman. The screen went black again.
This time, when the images returned, Malovo was pulling back Miriam’s head by the hair, exposing the young woman’s throat.
Then, disconcertingly, the victim smiled up at her assassin. “La ilaha illal lah! There is no God but God,” Miriam said.
The response seemed to enrage Malovo, whose face contorted. She placed her knife at Miriam’s throat and started to cut. The screen went black again.
“We purposefully have spared you seeing the actual murder,” Karp explained, then looked at O’Dowd, who leaned on her elbows with her face in her hands. “Unless the defense wants to object and force us to show it to you.”
“No objection,” O’Dowd mumbled without bothering to lift her head.
The screen once again filled with the images of the men in the room. But instead of celebrating, they appeared subdued. Only one continued to chant.
The camera pulled in close. Although a scarf covered his face from his nose down, the excited, bulbous eyes of Sharif Jabbar were clearly visible as he alone shouted triumphantly, “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!”
Looking at the jurors, Karp knew that they were recalling hearing that same man a half hour earlier, shouting the same thing from the witness stand.
Allahu Akbar, Karp thought, turning his attention to Jabbar, who sat slumped in his chair, staring disconsolately at nothing at all, like a pummeled, beaten fighter who could no longer answer the bell. God truly is great.