The Nylon Hand of God

by Steven Hartov

  Fuck it . . .

  And then Buchanan was rescued from his own momentum.

  “You better cool it, Jack.”

  It came from the corner of the room near the steel magnetic door, where a large, curly-headed man in his forties was rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, squinting up at something on the ceiling, his hands jammed into the pockets of a green trench coat. In looks, he might have been one of the Israelis, except that his voice emerged in plain northeastern American.

  “Who said that?” Buchanan’s hand halted in midsignal to his troops. He was sure that the Israelis would not draw their weapons, but he hoped they would resist, and he was looking forward to the nostalgic blood and tumble of a close-quarter bar fight. Yet the voice confused him.

  “Simmer down, Jack. Way down.”

  Buchanan placed his palm over the chest of his deputy, a tall black man named Gold, and shunted him aside. And then he recognized the figure in the corner.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” the SAC thundered, then swung on his troops. “Who the hell let the Agency in here? What’s the matter with you people? You’ve probably got a goddamn news reporter in here too, for Christ’s sake!”

  Buchanan’s task force furtively glanced at each other as if someone had just passed gas at a funeral.

  “It’s a federal matter,” said the man from the corner. “As you so tactfully stated.”

  “This is not an Agency issue.” Buchanan waved his arms, his bunched raincoat whipping the ceiling. “You stay the hell out of this!”

  Yet the man ignored Buchanan, stepping slowly forward as he watched his own feet. The reflector lights revealed some gray now in his brown curls, some deep lines at his eyes suggesting a past of squinting through binoculars.

  “Mr. Bar-El,” the man said quietly as he turned toward the Israeli. “I apologize on behalf of my colleagues. It might be a good idea to bring your Consul General down here.”

  “You what?” Buchanan sputtered.

  “I wanted very much to do that, sir,” Bar-El responded. “But she is at the mayor’s office for a news conference.”

  “You apologize?” Buchanan crossed to the CIA officer in one long lunge. “You apologize on my behalf? Let me tell you something about these fucking people, Mister Langley—”

  “Jack.” The CIA man snapped it like a warning shot and lowered his voice. “You are on the edge now, Jack. The very edge. Go ahead, look down,” he suggested, though of course Buchanan did not oblige, his cheeks only reddening further. “You see what’s down there, Jack? Rocks. Big, jagged boulders, just waiting for you to fling your whole fucking career onto them.”

  Buchanan’s fists balled, the knuckles white as skinned onions. Yet he was reprieved once again as the charred elevator doors slid open. His people parted down the center of the room, anxious to give their boss an alternate target.

  Benni Baum stood alone inside the elevator. He was wearing his off-white turtleneck and well-worn car coat, carrying his soft valise in one hand. In the other he held the visitor’s pass issued by a police sergeant in the lobby. He had donned his reading glasses and was examining the document, a forger’s habit acquired while serving a stint in AMAN’s “art” department.

  “What the hell is this now?” Buchanan said in a low grumble. “Death of a Salesman?”

  The Americans burst into exaggerated laughter, for although the beefy Baum hardly resembled a Willy Loman, they snatched the opportunity to break the fevered tension.

  Benni snapped his head up, and the laughter subsided. The assembly did not know who he was and assumed he had taken offense, but the expression on his face was not a reaction to them.

  It was the stench. The heavy, nostril-wrinkling smell of explosive gases dissolved in heat, of human elements never meant to be grilled, blood and bone and flesh burned past well done. He had smelled it all before, in Zion Square and at the Coast Road Massacre. In Beirut, Belfast, Jerusalem, the explosion sites that he had come upon as investigator, visitor, or grieving countryman. And still, each time he smelled it, and more and more as the years passed, his expression reflected rage, but was as much a concentrated effort to stem the urge to vomit.

  The elevator doors began to close, and Benni slammed them back into their recesses. A Crime Scene man stepped forward and offered him a pair of light blue drooping objects that looked like hotel shower caps. Everyone was wearing the hospital booties, and Benni handed the man his valise, slipped them on, and stepped out.

  With a quick glance at the postures, Baum assessed the confrontation. He placed a smile on his face, walked right past Buchanan, and held out his hand to Hanan Bar-El.

  “Shalom, Hanan,” Benni said warmly. Peripherally he saw the large man who had been facing Buchanan fade into a darkened corner.

  “Yoffi lirot ot’cha. Great to see you,” Bar-El responded with double sincerity, continuing in Hebrew. “And how should I call you?”

  “By my name,” said Benni. He would not be using a cover in the United States. There were too many American intelligence officers who knew him, and such behavior on Allied territory would be considered bad form. “You were expecting me.”

  “Badash notified me after you called him.”

  “Good,” said Baum. Uri Badash was Chief of Operations for Shabak and a good friend, but Benni would never tolerate an officer from another branch barging in on AMAN operations, so he always extended the same courtesy. “Now,” he said as he took Bar-El by the elbow. “Why don’t you step out of that line of gorillas. It’s looking like the Civil War in here.”

  Bar-El’s men grinned, and even Hanan could not suppress a smile as he followed Baum over to Buchanan. Benni stepped up close to the tall FBI man and thrust out a large hand.

  “Benjamin Baum.”

  “Jack Buchanan.” The SAC’s face was still set in a sneer, yet his arm was being pumped by a powerful piston. He showed Baum his badge. “Head of FBI for this region.”

  “A pleasure.” Baum stuck his hand into a pocket and came up with two business cards, handing one to Buchanan and the other to Bar-El.

  In the upper left corner was the menorah-and-leaf-cluster symbol of the Government of Israel, while the raised blue letters in the center said simply: BENJAMIN BAUM—SPECIAL SECURITY ADVISER TO THE PRIME MINISTER. No address, just fax and telephone numbers. While Buchanan examined the card, Bar-El raised an eyebrow.

  “Kartees yaffeh, Baum. Nice card,” he murmured.

  “Yes. Is the ink dry?”

  Bar-El rubbed a thumb across the lettering. “Seems to be okay.”

  “So, Mr. Baum.” Buchanan straightened up to ramrod posture. “How can I help you?” It was not an offer to serve. It was a suggestion to state your business and get out.

  “I sink, perhaps, zat I can help you.” Benni’s spoken English was heavily accented in German.

  Buchanan frowned down at Baum. The Israeli’s big bald head, bull neck, and wide shoulders no longer reminded him of a street salesman. “I’m not too sure you can help, Mr. Baum. We were just having a nonmeeting of the minds.”

  “Ja.” Benni’s eyes crinkled. “My age is not yet affecting my nose.” He touched the soccer-flattened appendage with a finger. “If you would excuse my lack of manners for just one minute?” And he turned toward Bar-El.

  Buchanan looked out over his troops and briefly rolled his eyes.

  “Nu, Hanan?” Benni prodded Bar-El in Hebrew. “Give it to me quick.”

  “This son of a whore—”

  “Hanan.” Baum raised a warning finger. “There are a number of NYPD detectives who speak fluent Hebrew.”

  Bar-El flicked his eyes over Buchanan’s troops.

  “This gentleman is the only problem here. Yesterday it was all fine. The EMS people were great, took good care of Ben-Czecho. Then the first NYPD people came in, and we were all working together.”

  “No conflicts?”

  “The New York cops are pros. They liaise with consulates every day, and th
ey know where the borders are.”

  “But they don’t have the labs for this, right? They can’t extend their authority.”

  “Right. So the task force shows up. And this guy barges in like Napoleon and decides that we don’t have the authority to investigate an attack on our own territory!”

  “Keep it calm, Hanan,” Benni soothed.

  “He was about to arrest us.”

  Benni blinked, and then he laughed in one long burst that turned the heads in the room. “Arrest you?”

  “You heard me right.”

  Baum put a hand on Bar-El’s shoulder. “You should have let him, Hanan. Then you’d never hear of him again.”

  “Well, you ruined it for me, Baum.” Bar-El smiled. “Now you owe me.”

  “Okay. I’ll try to fix it up here, if you don’t mind.”

  “The business card says you’re the boss.”

  “Nonsense,” Benni scoffed. “This is your facility.”

  “Well, Uri Badash insists you’re a magician, so let’s see some magic.”

  Benni took his hand from Bar-El’s shoulder and rubbed his jaw. “Just one more question. Who removed the body of the terrorist?” He had learned from hard experience that the corpse of an attacker often yielded greater clues than recovered weapons or explosive residues.

  “Bodies, Benni. And they weren’t exactly that, either.”

  “Bodies?”

  “Yes, the girl too. The city medical examiner took them out.”

  “What girl?” Benni whispered. Casualties were not just numbers to him. Everybody in Israel seemed to know everyone else, or at least a close relative or friend.

  “A young woman. Nineteen. Here in the waiting area.”

  “One of ours?”

  “American girl. She came for a work visa. You haven’t seen the papers, have you?”

  “I haven’t stopped moving.”

  “There was more left of her than of the bomber,” said Bar-El. “Enough to bury.”

  Benni put his hands into the pockets of his coat and looked at the silly shower caps encasing his shoes. Children, he thought. We are eating each other’s young. He turned to the FBI agent and switched back to English.

  “Okay, Mr. Buchanan. I believe I understand the complexities.”

  “From whose point of view?” Buchanan crossed his arms.

  “Sir,” Benni said in a conciliatory tone. “Given that I hold the rank of colonel in my country’s military, I would never be so ungracious as to ask a man of your rank and responsibilities to justify his position.”

  The flattery had its effect, and Buchanan dropped his arms. “Appreciated.”

  “And so, my recommendation.” Baum lifted his hands, indicating the gloomy antechamber. “This area is technically United States territory, a portion of real estate of the City of New York. Correct?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “The area including and beyond that wall,” said Baum as he gestured at the smashed security booth, “which also contains valuable physical and forensic evidence, is the property of the State of Israel. Also correct?”

  “I said so myself before you got here.”

  “We will relinquish this area here to your investigators.”

  Bar-El’s men looked at their boss, pleading for his intervention. But Hanan shut them up with a hard stare.

  Benni continued. “And our people will have full jurisdiction over anything that is found on the other side.”

  “That’s exactly right,” said Buchanan too quickly, thinking he had been empowered by a political simpleton.

  “However,” said Baum, raising a finger, “there are conditions.”

  “What conditions?”

  “Your people will be assigned an Israeli liaison, to whom all evidence will become available without question.”

  Buchanan hesitated. “Well, I don’t know . . .”

  “And our people will be assigned an American liaison, who will operate under identical conditions.”

  With the offer so reasonable, Buchanan was hard pressed to object.

  “And,” Baum added, “the choice of an Israeli liaison is yours, if you please.”

  Buchanan thought for a moment. He could have it all his own way, with one small hitch, and of course he would feed the Israeli liaison exactly what he felt like and no more. The Director would be pleased. It did not take him long.

  “I choose you,” he said as he jabbed a finger at Baum.

  “Me?” Benni managed to look incredulous.

  “You said it yourself, Colonel Baum. Rank and responsibility. And you seem to be a reasonable man.”

  Benni looked over at Bar-El and shrugged. He turned back to Buchanan. “All right, sir. Ja, as you say.”

  “Good enough.” Buchanan began to don his raincoat.

  “Accordingly, if you don’t mind,” Baum continued, “I will select an American as your liaison to us.”

  “Be my guest.”

  Baum effected one of his short Germanic nods, then turned slowly, perusing the strange faces in the room. He finally faced Buchanan again, but he was pointing over his shoulder.

  “I will accept that man, over there.”

  Buchanan turned. Baum was gesturing at the CIA officer.

  “No way.” The SAC shook his head. “Not him.”

  “Why not, if I may ask?”

  “He’s not from my group.”

  “Then what group is he from?”

  “He’s not from my task force,” Buchanan snapped.

  “I’m from Langley,” said the voice from the corner.

  “Ah,” said Baum. “I see. Well, that is good enough, it seems to me.”

  “No way,” Buchanan repeated, his ire on the rise again.

  “Mr. Buchanan,” said Benni, yet now his tone was also changing. ‘I will not be handling evidence here, and he will not be handling evidence over there. We will simply be informational conduits, a task for which I am sure we are both competent. I choose him.”

  “Forget it,” Buchanan spat. “And you know what?”

  “Yes, yes. I see.” Baum cut him off, holding up a hand. “We will just take a short break, then, while I telephone our ambassador in Washington and have him call the White House with your complaints. Shall we?”

  Buchanan opened his mouth, but nothing emerged. His jaw worked for a moment as he thought, I’m gonna be fifty. In three weeks. Fifty. I don’t need this shit. I don’t even care. Fuck it.

  “You three!” He pointed at the uniformed cops and started issuing orders. “Two of you can go back downstairs. ATF, I only need three of you here. Lab stays too.” He thrust his jaw at an NYPD detective. “O’Donovan, choose your own team.” His eyes flicked toward the Israeli contingent. “And watch them like hawks. Gold,” he murmured now, “let’s get the hell out of here.”

  He brushed past Baum as someone stabbed the elevator button. The doors opened and Buchanan stepped inside, tore off his booties, and flung them back out onto the burned carpet, where a Crime Scene man picked them up gingerly and placed them in a plastic bag. The men and women who followed their boss removed their foot condoms more politely and, jammed to overflowing, the elevator closed.

  A cloud of dust swirled past the reflector lights in the wake of the departed investigators. And then, as if released from a frozen dimension, Buchanan’s remaining subordinates began moving to their tasks.

  The uniformed cop took up a post near the elevator. The two Crime Scene men opened their heavy toolboxes. First they distributed surgical gloves to the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms personnel and the NYPD detectives. Then they both donned the old active infrared night vision goggles, took up filtered flashlights in their hands, and began examining the burned carpet, looking like alien insects in search of a meal. An Explosives Ordnance Disposal expert from the Redstone Arsenal came up with miniature colored pennants and began to mark the blast area. The outer fringes would be blue, closer to the source of the detonation would be red, and ground zero, in front of
Moshiko’s booth, would be yellow. The three NYPD detectives huddled to one side and produced notepads.

  Bar-El walked over to Baum, wearing a satisfied smile. “Just like David Copperfield.”

  “I haven’t read it since I was a boy,” said Benni. “What’s the allusion?”

  “I meant the magician.” Bar-El laughed as Baum waved off the compliment.

  “Well, a deal is a deal.” Benni cocked his head toward the steel entrance door. “Let’s go inside.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to liaise here?”

  “All in good time.”

  The passport and visa section of the facility was closed and devoid of personnel. Still, the urgent sound of ringing telephones echoed everywhere. Whenever Israel endured a crisis, from the rescue of Ethiopian refugees to a war in the Gulf, it seemed that half of the three hundred thousand Israeli expatriates in the Greater New York area called in to volunteer. Pilots wanted to fly, nurses wanted to nurse, and paratroopers were ready to do anything requiring muscle. But today the phones warbled away unanswered, for there was nothing anyone could do.

  The reception area was fairly intact, with the exception of a line of blast trajectory leading from Moshiko’s booth to a bank of windows at the opposite wall. Jagged sections of the booth’s door were scattered about like plywood puzzle pieces, and where Moshiko’s mangled body had come to rest against the far wall, the remnants left by Emergency Medical Service lay untouched. Empty infusion bags sat in amoebic stains, and a pile of blood-soaked bandages still oozed serum. A flat, army-style olive mattress was soaked to a dark umber, and on it lay the tatters of his jeans, blazer, and shirt.

  For a moment, Benni stared at the pair of black sneakers that lay on their sides. Then, as the GSS men stepped across the carnage and went back to their posts, he felt the cold wind slicing through the shattered windows, turned toward the passport section, spotted an empty office, and crooked a finger at the man from Langley.

  Baum walked into the cubicle, set his valise on the wooden desk, and turned as the CIA officer closed the door and folded his arms. The two men looked at each other for a moment, and then both their faces were crossed by wide mischievous grins, like those of twin schoolboys who had once again duped an unsuspecting teacher.