Directed Verdict Read Online Free PDF

chest.
    “Again,” Ahmed demanded. “Say it again.”
    As if possessed by a force greater than himself, Charles repeated the words, slowly, and in a barely audible whisper. “‘He was led as a lamb to the slaughter—’” he paused, taking a labored breath—“‘and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth.’”
    Ahmed’s silence caused Charles to raise his head. When he did so, Ahmed turned and looked at Sarah sprawled on the couch, the only sign of life in the heaving of her chest. “Some men need a little extra persuasion,” the Muttawa leader growled. He turned to Charles again and, with great force, pulled Charles’s right arm from behind his back and grabbed Charles’s wrist. He pushed hard against the back of Charles’s hand, nearly bending the wrist in half as he forced the hand toward the forearm. Charles flinched and ground his teeth, swallowing the scream that welled up in the back of his throat. Surely his wrist would snap in two.
    The pain returned. Searing, debilitating pain. And then Ahmed backed off slightly on the pressure but continued to hold the wrist. “Speak to me,” Ahmed said simply. “Or you will beg me to stop, and there will be no end.”
    Once again Charles summoned courage he did not know he had for another symbolic act of resistance. He gritted his teeth and made a futile effort to yank his wrist away from Ahmed’s iron grip. Charles knew immediately that he had made an awful mistake.
    Ahmed reasserted the pressure with a vengeance. This time he did not let up as Charles begged for mercy. Ahmed pushed harder; the pain intensified. It shot up Charles’s arm and engulfed his brain. And then it happened—the sickening snap of the wrist bone as his hand went limp.
    His bloodcurdling scream echoed throughout the apartment.
    * * *
    “When did you hold a prayer meeting on the steps of this courthouse?” Brad asked innocently.
    Angela Bennett bolted from her seat, hands spread in protest.
    “Mr. Carson, that’s not relevant,” Ichabod said gruffly, leaning back and folding her arms.
    “Judge, it is relevant. If you give me a few minutes, I’ll link it up,” Brad promised.
    The judge hesitated, then scowled. “Go ahead, Mr. Carson. But it better be good.”
    Oh, it will be, Brad thought.
    “Reverend Bailey, when and why were you praying on the courthouse steps?”
    “It was in the summer of 2000,” he said, “after the Stenberg v. Carhart Supreme Court case in which the Court sanctioned partial birth abortion. I just couldn’t believe that in this country our courts would defend a procedure like that—a procedure where a viable fetus is delivered into the birth canal, and then . . .” The reverend paused, pursing his lips and sadly shaking his head. “And then the skull is torn open with scissors, and the brain material is extracted to reduce the head size and ensure the child dies before delivery.”
    He did not look at Brad as he finished his answer. Brad chose to let the silence linger.
    “God help us,” the reverend mumbled into the silence. “I knew then it was time to pray.”
    Ichabod appeared unmoved except for the telltale vein, now a bit larger and pulsing a bit faster than before. She had been duped; Brad saw the realization in her eyes. The volatile issues she had worked so hard to keep out of the case were now cascading around her, and she was powerless to stop them.
    “Did you read the opinion in Stenberg before you went to the courthouse to pray?” Brad asked, pushing the point.
    “Yes, I pulled it off the Internet.”
    “Was there anything in the opinion that surprised you?”
    “Yes. I had heard so many news reports about the gruesome procedure referred to as partial birth abortion. But until I read the Stenberg decision, I had never focused on what really happens during a normal D and E procedure, not a partial birth abortion but the kind of abortion performed every day right here at the Norfolk