The smile that dawned on Mullaney’s face could have warmed the North Pole. “No, sir,” said Mullaney, his eyes bright. “You’ve already done it. Thank you, sir.”
Mullaney started to get out of his chair. “Wait … I did come here for a reason.” He held out his right hand. “Come on, Mr. Ambassador. You need to get some rest. Even if you can’t sleep, I want you lying down in your bed and getting some rest.”
“Is that an order, Agent Mullaney?”
“Yes, sir,” Mullaney smiled. “Yes, sir, it is. Let’s get cracking.”
Mullaney doubted Cleveland would get any sleep, but at least he and Hernandez had left with the ambassador stretched out on his bed, eyes closed.
“Brian,” said Hernandez, as they cut through the glass-enclosed portico separating the ambassador’s quarters from the staff offices in the north wing, “you look like the dazed driver of a tractor trailer full of hogs after it jackknifed and overturned on an interstate. Quite a mess. And son,” he said, leaning into his friend, “you’re beginning to smell like one of those old porkers too. Take a couple of hours. Get a shower. Try to rest. I’m a lot fresher than you are, so I’ll stay on duty and rouse you the moment anything comes up.”
Mullaney shook his head. He was on duty. This was not the time to leave his post. “I can’t, Tommy. Not with all this …”
Hernandez stuck out his left arm and stopped Mullaney in his tracks. “Wait a minute,” he said, spinning on his friend. “Are you some superhero? Are you indispensable? Let me tell you, if you don’t wind down a bit, get some rest, you’re going to end up being a liability to this operation and not an asset. We’ve got to protect the ambassador, find Mrs. Parker, find a way to move that box without anybody else getting killed, and get some intel on what’s going down with this announcement tomorrow … no wait, today. We need you fresh, Brian. Go take a break.”
Was it determination or pride driving his emotions, Mullaney wondered. Duty or arrogance? But he knew Tommy was right. He was exhausted, and he had nothing left to draw on.
“Okay … but call me if anything breaks. I’ll have my phone …”
“Right next to your ear … I know,” said Hernandez. “Take a hike.”
Walking through the gardens of the residence toward the small cottage that was to be his home for the duration of his assignment, Mullaney’s thoughts became more troubled with each step. The confidence he felt in his faith, the peace that rose up during his conversation with Cleveland was being pressed out of him by the crushing weight of failure that returned with a vengeance to rest on his shoulders.
In the short time he shared with Cleveland since the ambassador landed at Ben Gurion—what seemed like ages ago—Mullaney had discovered a man for whom he developed immediate respect. He could see why Tommy spoke so highly of the ambassador. Not only was Cleveland an easy man to admire, but he was also a man from whom radiated an aura of peace and confidence that engulfed all those who worked around him. And now, in less than twenty-four hours, Mullaney had twice failed to fulfill his duty. Not only was he fearful and distraught over Parker’s fate, but he also had failed to prevent the ambassador from being severely wounded during the attack and had failed to protect his daughter. No one dared say the words, but Palmyra Parker, missing now for nearly six hours, could already be dead.
Mullaney felt embarrassed and angry when he got booted out of Washington. He struggled mightily with self-pity when he realized Abigail was not going to accompany him to Israel. But now he simply felt defeated. A failure. Worthless.
Stoop-shouldered, his eyes on the gravel path in front of him, Mullaney looked for hope among the stones as he trudged through the garden toward his bungalow. He saw nothing but dirt. Everything gone. What did he have left? His mind clung desperately to the hope that a shower and some rest might revive his spirits.
His spirit. There hadn’t been much time to think about his spirit, his spiritual condition. Mullaney glanced up at the night sky over the Mediterranean. Are you there? Can you help? You didn’t answer my prayers that Abby and I would work things out. You didn’t answer my prayers to save my dad … to bring his mind back before you took his life. Are you there?
At a bend in the path, a wooden park bench looked out over the sea, blooming lilac bushes in an arc behind it, protecting it from being seen from the house. Mullaney lowered himself onto the wooden slats, propped his elbows on his knees, and dropped his head into his hands.
“Father.” He found himself speaking out loud. “I don’t know what you’re doing. I don’t know where you are. I don’t feel close to you anymore. I don’t feel your presence. I don’t feel your protection. I don’t …” Mullaney took a deep breath. Tried to focus his mind. Take his emotions captive and bring them in line with what he knew was the truth. So hard sometimes.
Raised in an Irish-Catholic family, he came from a heritage where men were generally expected to be strong and silent. Like his dad. There wasn’t a lot of expressive emotional sharing, particularly among men. Brian knew his dad loved him, but he seldom heard those words, which made it difficult to develop a truly intimate love relationship with God, his heavenly Father, even after he became a born-again believer. For an awfully long time, Mullaney wondered if he loved God … the way he was supposed to love God. He didn’t really feel in love with God, not the way others in his church seemed to be in love. He figured there must be some flaw in him, in his faithfulness, in his goodness.
Then he read the gospel of John. When he got to chapters 14 and 15, he went back and read them again. And again. In fact, he read chapters 14 and 15 of John’s gospel exclusively for an entire year. And something remarkable became apparent.
Three times in chapter 14, Jesus used almost identical wording in speaking to his disciples. In essence, he said, “If you love me, you will obey me.” And “If you obey me, you love me.” In two of the passages, Jesus said, “If you obey my commands … if you obey my teaching.” Then it slammed Mullaney right between the eyes. Here it was. Here was the one, sure way he could know that he loved God. Just obey. Obey the commands that Jesus spoke in the Scripture. Obey the words of God and obey those things that he knew God was prompting him to do—or not to do.
The struggle of obedience was one he fought daily. Probably the same battle as was being fought by every believer who was still living in a carnal body that was programmed to want what it wanted when it wanted it.
But there was something else in that fourteenth chapter of John that made the walk, this daily exercise of faith, a little easier.
After each of Jesus’s assertions that “if you love me, you will obey me,” Jesus followed up with a promise—the Father, Jesus himself, and the Holy Spirit would each actually live in every believer who professed faith in Jesus Christ as Savior. Hard to fully understand, but the promises were there in Jesus’s own words in the worn-out, much-repaired NIV Study Bible Abby had given him when they first got serious. “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth…. I will not leave you as orphans…. Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”
Sitting on that park bench, under the same sky Jesus once gazed at, Brian Mullaney felt confidence returning to his heart, determination returning to his mind. He was confident in this: the earnest desire of his heart was to obey Jesus—obey God—in all things. He was far from perfect … oh, so far from reaching that goal. But he had every assurance; he had faith, that he had help. That the almighty Creator of the universe lived inside him, inside Brian Mullaney.
And it was Mullaney’s job to take his emotions and the desires of his faulty flesh and shackle those feelings to the truth. Bring his thoughts as captives to his faith.
Tonight, no matter how he felt—no matter how lonely, no matter how much like a failure, no matter how far he felt from God—God was right inside, waiting for his prayers.
So he trie
d again.
“Thank you, Father, for loving me. Thank you for loving me so much that you allowed your Son, Jesus, to take on human flesh and become a man. That the Son of God offered himself to be crucified on a cross so that my sins were forgiven. And thank you, Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, for coming and living in my heart.
“Father, I’m afraid for Palmyra. I feel like a failure in so many ways. My emotions are ready to quit. To give up. But I know you are there. I know it. And I know I can trust you. No matter what the outcome, I can trust you, that your plan is good. Better than any ideas I may have.
“So, Lord, I put myself in your hands. I put Palmyra Parker in your hands. Please keep her safe and please allow us to find her and bring her home, alive and well. And I leave Ambassador Cleveland in your hands. Give him strength. And hope. And I give you everything else—I put Abigail and our daughters in your hands; I put my job and my career in your hands; and I put that box in your hands too. Please, Lord, keep us all safe. Bring us through this mess.”
Mullaney took another deep breath. He settled his beating heart. He listened for anything in his spirit. He waited.
“Amen.”
Then he got up, looked at the darkened sea in the distance, and decided the best thing he could do now was get a shower, shave, and try to rest. He turned right and covered the rest of the path to his cottage at a more brisk pace than before. As he reached the door, he saw something taped to the glass window in the door. It was an envelope.
Mullaney pulled out his keys, opened the door and flipped on the light. Then he reached up and peeled off the envelope, holding it under the light. Abby!
Without closing the door, Mullaney ripped open the envelope, pulled out a letter, and quickly scanned it for words of hope.
“Oh … God … no.”
24
US Ambassador’s Residence, Tel Aviv
July 20, 1:28 a.m.
“And they didn’t tell the Israeli the truth … didn’t tell him where they really found the body.”
Jeffrey Archer was in his office, door closed and locked, lights off. He didn’t think he had much time, or he would have left the residence and made this call outside. But security was as tight as the lid on a half-filled bottle of honey. He felt compelled to take the risk.
“How did the maid die?” asked Webster.
“Nobody knows,” Archer whispered. “But she was in Palmyra Parker’s closet. The rumor mill is running at warp speed and the staff are scared out of their wits. Half of them think we’ve been attacked by some biological weapon. The other half believe Cleveland has come into possession of some ancient, deadly artifact with supernatural properties. If a reason isn’t discovered soon, I think a bunch of the locals won’t come back to work.”
Jaffa, Israel
July 20, 1:34 a.m.
In a quiet, residential neighborhood just south and east of the Jaffa Port, a weather-beaten blue Opel stopped in the middle of Ohev Israel Street, its emergency flashers blinking yellow along the darkened street. A large man in workman’s clothes peeled himself out from behind the steering wheel, pounded his fist on the sad car’s roof, went to the front and yanked open the hood. His head disappeared into the darkness under the hood as he inspected the engine.
At the far corner, near the intersection with Rabi Nakhman Street, a white panel van rolled to a stop at the end of an alley that ran behind the houses on Ohev Israel Street. At the same time, two young men on motorcycles sat on their bikes, visors up on their helmets, where the Los Angeles Garden extended both east and west from Ohev Israel Street. They were speaking in low voices and pointing off into the distance.
While these pieces came into place, Colonel Meyer Levinson of Shin Bet was in the back of a small, black truck with the markings of a cable TV company, parked opposite Sixty-Seven Ohev Israel Street, headphones fixed on his head, eyes closed, inserting his presence into the rooms of the one-story, yellow stucco house across the street.
“Two voices … a man and a woman, sir,” said the staff sergeant at his left who was wearing an identical set of headphones. “Both together in an inner room. No other voices. No other sounds.”
“Right.”
Colonel Levinson handed his headphones to the sergeant and turned to his right, toward the back of the truck. Six Shin Bet soldiers, clad all in black like Levinson, stood between the colonel and the tarp covering the back of the truck bed. All the men wore light, nearly impenetrable body armor and carried an X95 Micro-Tavor—the IDF favorite, Israeli-made, 9-millimeter assault rifle—nestled in their arms.
“There appear to be two civilians in an inner room,” Levinson said to his lieutenant. He lifted his head and spoke in hushed tones to the group. “We have no information about this man, Indowi, other than he is the owner of stall number sixteen in the Shem’ul Tamir outdoor market. He may be a harmless, innocent family man. Or perhaps not.” He looked at each of them. “You know the drill. Preserve life—both theirs and yours. Treat them with respect. They will be frightened with us storming into their home in the middle of the night, so keep it dialed down. We just want to talk.” Levinson paused. “We do not engage unless there is evidence of a weapon and intent to use that weapon. Understood?”
Each member of his team nodded.
“Right.” Levinson turned to the communications sergeant. “Put it in motion.”
As Levinson and his men buckled on their helmets, the large man buried under the hood of the Opel pushed himself out and slammed shut the hood. Only one house showed light in the windows—number Sixty-Seven. He threw up his hands, muttered under his breath, crossed the sidewalk, and gently knocked on the door of Sixty-Seven Ohev Israel Street. Two men in black left the white panel van at the top of the alley and slipped through the shadows to the rear of number Sixty-Seven.
The large workman knocked on the door once more, but before his knuckles could strike for a third time, the door opened a crack, a thick security chain still in place.
“Yes?” asked a man’s voice.
“Forgive me, I know it’s very late. But this old beast threw a rod,” said the workman, pointing a thumb over his shoulder at the Opel in the middle of the street. “Dead as a doornail. Can I use your phone to call a tow truck?”
“No mobile?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t have to bother you at one thirty in the morning. But it’s in my jacket pocket at home.”
The man behind the door hesitated. He spoke a few words in Arabic to someone in the house. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but it’s much too late. It’s not safe to open our—”
The workman shoved his muscular body against the door, snapping the latch and chain from its mooring, his left hand reaching around and grabbing the man’s wrist in a viselike grip.
Levinson and his team were already out of the truck and moving through the doorway as the workman squashed the homeowner against the wall of the entry.
“Police … keep your hands in sight,” Levinson called out as he rushed into the inner room. A woman was seated at a table, a backgammon board on the table between two chairs. Anger quickly replaced the surprise on her face. She raised her hands and her voice in protest but her words were drowned out by shouts, running feet, and the deadly, rapid rattle of automatic weapons toward the back of the house.
Two of his team came up on either side, their muzzles pointed at the woman’s chest. “Restrain her.”
Moving back into the hallway, Levinson could see that any threat had been neutralized. One man lay on the floor of the kitchen, blood pooling quickly around his head. Levinson looked to his left, into a small bedroom. His lieutenant was removing a notebook from the hand of a second man whose bullet-riddled body was draped over the footboard of the bed.
“These two came out of the bedroom with Uzis,” said the lieutenant, handing the notebook to Levinson. “That one tried to escape out the back door. I saw this one duck back into the bedroom when the officers in the alley opened up. He was leaning over the bed, grabbing this no
tebook, while shooting through the open door. This notebook must have high value.”
Levinson turned over the notebook in his hand. It was small, the size of a small calculator, about twelve centimeters long and half as wide. It was bound in rich, brown leather. Inside were ruled pages. About half the book was filled with what looked like the personal notations of an ordinary life … phone numbers, addresses, and directions. But this man, a terrorist doing somebody’s bidding, led no ordinary life, and these were not ordinary notations. Levinson raised up a prayer of thanks, hoping they were clues.
25
US Ambassador’s Residence, Tel Aviv
July 20, 1:58 a.m.
Cleveland was unable to sleep or rest. The faucet on and hot water running into the bathroom sink, he was corralling the water in his cupped hands and spreading it across his face when his mobile phone chirped. He looked down at the counter. No caller ID. He wiped his face dry with a towel and tapped his phone to take the call.
“You know what I want.”
The voice was soft, the words spoken with an unintelligible accent. They seemed to leave a sheen of oil on the air, a pollution that rippled across the top of Cleveland’s shoulders.
“Or what?”
“You know the answer to that also.”
“I need proof of life.”
“That can be arranged.”
“When?”
The call disconnected. Cleveland sat down on the edge of the tub, lowered his face into the towel, and wept while he prayed.
Bewilderingly, along with a rising tide of hope, Cleveland was engulfed with warmth, as if he was in the embrace of two huge arms. The change was so startling, Cleveland lifted his head to see who was in the room with him. The bathroom was empty. But his fear had vanished.
His girls were running down the field in Lawrence Park, attacking the other team’s zone. It was so good to see them again. Why would Abby take the girls from him? Why go to live with her father? What had he done that was so awful? I’m a good man …
Ishmael Covenant Page 25
