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That meant winning the cooperation of Canadian intelligence officials, whose wiretaps had captured the details of Harb's shopping trips. Foreign intelligence had rarely been used in a U.S. courtroom before, and Bell's idea drew skepticism from federal officials. Nonetheless, Bell traveled to Canada in early 2002 to meet with some of that country's senior spooks. One of the top Canadian officials cut to the chase. "Tell me, what is it you really want?" he asked. Bell looked him in the eye. "What we want is to take your stuff and use it in an American courtroom." The Canadian seemed to admire Bell's directness. Soon they had a deal.Bell's plan worked beautifully. Not long after he presented Harb's lawyer with some of the incriminating wiretaps, Harb agreed to negotiate a plea bargain. But he was worried about his own safety, and that of his family in Lebanon, so Harb insisted that the negotiations be secret. That meant that Bell couldn't talk with him in jail. Instead the two met in an empty room in the federal courthouse, Bell sliding his large frame behind a table across from the diminutive Harb, who wore handcuffs and an orange prison jumpsuit. Over time, the two managed a kind of odd rapport: Harb would sing the praises of Islam, and Bell would counter with his own firm Catholic beliefs.
In exchange for a lenient sentence, Harb was prepared to incriminate Hammoud as the cell's mastermind, and say that Hammoud had provided Hezbollah with "material support" in the form of financial contributions. But Harb had one major condition. Since his cooperation would mean a Hezbollah death sentence for his relatives in Lebanon, he insisted that all 12 of them be relocated to the United States. Bell told him that he could not make such a commitment because it required approval from high levels in Washington, D.C.
"You can find a way," Harb told him. Otherwise, Bell could find another witness.
With the trial date fast approaching, Bell rushed background checks on Harb's family to ensure they weren't terrorists, and then he convinced the State Department to bend its rules. On Easter Sunday, 2002, Harb's family drove to Syria under cover of darkness to board a plane to the United States. But there was a last-minute snag with their visas. Bell was repeatedly dragged away from Easter dinner with his family to take urgent phone calls. Each time he returned grim-faced and picked at his turkey. "I can't talk about it," he would say apologetically.
The snag was ultimately solved, and Harb finally got what he wanted: a call from his relatives saying they were safely on American soil. Bell was then free to enter Harb's plea, and he quickly used the opportunity to file new and much harsher charges against Hammoud. Now it would come down to a face-off between the two men at Hammoud's trial.
Bell worked feverishly day and night preparing for the April 2002 opening of the trial. Always in the back of his mind was his family's safety, and a disturbing call he had received from the FBI some months before.
"Hammoud is trying to have you killed," an agent told him. An informant said Hammoud had asked him to "put two bullets into the skull of the arrogant bastard prosecutor" and bomb the courthouse to destroy evidence. Bell and his wife had discussed sending the boys out of town to stay with relatives until the trial was over. But Gayle ultimately decided against it. "We'll stay here and do this together," she told him. Bell even turned down round-the-clock protection from federal marshals. Better not to spook the boys, he figured.
He also found out that he wasn't the only individual who was in danger. One afternoon, Bob Fromme came home early to find two Arabic-looking men standing in his living room, rummaging through a briefcase. They fled out his back door. Despite a sweep of the area and an undercover effort in the Arab-American community, the intruders could not be identified.
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