Just People

by Paul Usiskin

‘It’s mine.’

  ‘ZIM says otherwise.’

  ‘You don’t look like a shipping line employee.’

  ‘I’m with the Justice Ministry.’

  ‘Get off my land.’

  ‘That container is part of a Justice Ministry investigation. I have to examine it. I also need your proof of ownership documents, the name of the supplier and details of the delivery company.’

  ‘Get the fuck off my land.’

  ‘Give me proof of ownership of this land and of that container. I’ll give you five minutes.’

  ‘Turn around and get off my land.’ Calev was now less than a rifle’s length from him and prodded him with the barrel tip. Dov began slowly turning away, and Calev relaxed his stance.

  Calev recited, his words like short bursts from an automatic weapon, ‘His arms were gilded - from the hands - of the mighty Jacob - from there he sustained - the rock of Israel - from the God of your father...’

  Dov’s turn became continuous, his right shoulder dropped slightly, his right arm hooked under the M16 barrel, forced it away, locked it in the crook of his arm, as his left elbow came round and smacked into the side of Calev’s head, then his left forearm hammered in a back swing into the middle of Calev’s face and he ripped the M16 from Calev’s weakened grip and hit his chin with the butt and the barrel tip and the triangular fore-sight connected with Calev’s head and finally with both hands on the M16, Dov slammed the rifle into Calev’s chest. It took only seconds. Ignoring Calev writhing on the ground, he made sure the safety was off and fired the M16 at the other man’s feet, a burst of three. He dropped his weapon and raised his hands.

  ‘Take him up to the container,’ Dov indicated Calev. He wore Calev’s M16 across his chest, collected the other one, removed its magazine, cleared the round from the chamber, clicked the safety on, and slung it over his shoulder. Gun use made men lazy; they shouldn’t justify every little thing they do, like threatening with a gun, with a Torah quote. That’s lazy too.

  The container had had a door cut into its side from which a family of Calev acolytes clamored round their stunned and bleeding hero, their eyes looking lost and unfocused.

  Dov looked at his watch as he told Calev’s companion, ‘Two minutes left for those documents.’

  ‘I’d have to get back to Ron’s farm and ask his wife Shira for them, that’s at least fifteen minutes there and back.’

  ‘Call the farm. If Shira answers tell her if she doesn’t bring the documents here in ten minutes, I’m taking Calev into custody.’

  There was a moment’s hesitation.

  ‘Do it now.’

  He passed over his own cell phone. Shira answered. Dov told him to warn her not to call anyone and to come alone. The call ended and Dov had him collect all the other cell phones from the container. They were stuffed into an old shopping bag, beeping, ringing momentarily. Shira had disobeyed him. No surprise. Dov shoved the bag full of cell phones into a jacket pocket.

  ‘I’m going to examine this container. Make sure no one leaves.’

  Dov kept his hand on the loaded M16’s pistol grip as he walked round the container. On the opposite side at the base of one of the container’s wall posts were paint flecks that didn’t match the original fading brown marine paint. He found more low down on the truck’s right side hood/fender combination. He scraped some of the flecks off with a penknife into a small ziplock bag from his jacket.

  He returned to the container door. Calev was on a camp bed, IDF field dressing around his face, black bruising coming up around his eyes. He muttered words about Dov’s sister’s genitals and having intercourse with his mother.

  ‘My mother’s dead and I don’t have a sister,’ Dov affirmed. An old 4x4 had arrived and out of it came two people, a thin man in his forties, clean shaven, knitted kippah clipped to his dark hair and a woman, perhaps his wife, round weary face, orange scarf tied around her head.

  ‘Are you the guy from the Justice Ministry?’ knitted kippah asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you beat up Ron Calev?’

  ‘No. He threatened me with a loaded weapon during the course of my investigation and I disarmed him. Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Binyamin Gur and this is Tzippi my wife. We’re from Brandy Hill.’ He turned and pointed due south and slightly east to another hill with white buildings sprouting from it.

  ‘The Bnei Aaron outpost.’ Dov stated, the details from the file coming to him, nicknamed Brandy Hill because of an earlier failed attempt to cultivate grapes for a local cognac. Bnei Aaron was a religious settlement with just over 1000 residents occupying almost as much land as Bat Yam, a coastal town with a population of 130,000, south of Tel Aviv.

  The file had revealed that the Gurs had protested to the J and S settler council about the damage Calev was doing to Highpoint Hill to build a new dairy complex. The council didn’t want outside interference. Calev was the kind of icon no one wanted to mess with. Justice Minister Hassid knew all this. He wanted to sidetrack Dov into a case that had no solution. Until the container turned up here, linked to the murder of a police officer, unloaded on a hill Calev had illegally decided to bite a chunk out of with his JCBs. Dov’s irritation with Hassid became anger at himself for getting angry, which became smug satisfaction that reality was aiding and abetting him to do just what he wanted. Maybe fate had conspired? Perhaps the God of Israel?

  ‘What’s the story with Calev?’

  ‘He has no legal right to do this to Highpoint Hill.’

  ‘Well OK, and do you have any right to yours?’

  Gur gave no answer.

  The whine of a jeep engine could be heard, climbing the hill. It stopped by the container and a woman in a long skirt made from an old pair of jeans rushed inside. He guessed she was Shira Calev, mother of eight children in eight years.

  ‘How did you know I was from Justice?’ he asked Ilan.

  ‘Someone called from the container. I guess you confiscated their phones since. No one’s been able to reach them.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘A family Calev helped. Former Tel Aviv drug dealers.’

  ‘Takes all sorts to be land robbers.’

  Shira emerged and approached Dov cautiously. He hoped that was because of who he was and not because of the M16s.

  Her eyes switched warily from his trigger finger to his eyes.

  ‘May you rot for what you’ve done to my husband,’ she began.

  He held out his left hand. ‘Documents?’

  ‘Go to hell!’ she growled.

  ‘OK. No documents.’ He pulled out his phone and dialed Amos. ‘You know that truck with the integrated crane? Get me one like that. I think I’ve found the container we’ve been looking for. I’ll wait. There’re two people to arrest. Have a YAMAM unit escort it.’ He meant the police anti-terror unit. ‘Get them to call me when they’re close.’

  Shira glared at him, face pinched, arms crossed. She’d have been attractive once, tall, boyish figure, now scrawny from constant child bearing and farm labor.

  ‘You and your husband will be arrested and charged with interfering with a state inquiry. Anyone else interfering will also be arrested.’

  He unslung his M16 and gave it to Gur then passed him the unloaded one. ‘I’m trusting you to keep them all back inside the container. Fire in the air if there’re problems, and if that doesn’t work fire at their legs. I’ll get back as soon as I can.’

  Dov gave Gur his cell number and went down to the JCBs, his automatic locked and loaded in his right hand. Its polymer frame made it compact and lighter than the original service gun from his days as a police investigator.

  He walked across the rocks and upturned earth to stand in between the JCBs. The drivers didn’t acknowledge him, though he knew they could see him. He walked round the side of the nearest and managed to climb
up to the big cabin window. He opened it and stuck his handgun into the driver’s chest and leaned across, turned the key and pulled it from the ignition.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘these diggers are now part of a state investigation. Ron Calev has no legal right to work this land. If you want to get stuck in the judicial process, that’s police interrogations, police investigations into your lives, court hearings etc, leave me the keys and your IDs and I’ll see you at National Police HQ in Jerusalem tomorrow morning. Where that’ll all start. If not, you can spend the next few hours moving as much of the earth back where it came from. I’ll be here for a while, get on with it!’

  Dov waited as the driver sullenly climbed down from his cab and went to tell his colleague, and Dov dropped the key into his hand when he returned.

  ‘It’ll be dark soon,’ he complained.

  ‘You’ve both got light arrays on your rigs. Use them.’

  He left the JCBs and made his way along animal tracks down to a thin line of fields that ran the length of the valley floor between the Highpoint and Brandy Hills towards the village Hi he’d seen on his was up.

  Dusk threatened as he reached an unpaved roadway and through olive trees either side he saw the village. It was a handful of buildings on the edge of a valley surrounded by five steep hills of which Highpoint and Brandy were two. All the houses were square, flat-roofed, mostly two stories. He could hear and smell sheep somewhere off beyond the main road. He walked up the path of a house with well tended flowers and trees. The stairs to the front door, lit by lamps either side, had caught his eye, black and white tiles on each stair creating a triangle pattern widening towards the top step. There were potted plants all the way up the steps. He knocked and a woman in a black abaya and hijab, opened the door, then turned away calling out, ‘Ahmad!’

  A man came to the door, tall, strong features, suspicion in his eyes.

  ‘I apologize for disturbing you,’ Dov said in Hebrew, ‘I’m looking for the Mukhtar.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I wanted to know if anyone had seen a container being delivered to Highpoint Hill.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’m investigating how it got there and who brought it there.’

  ‘Investigating?’

  ‘I’m from the Justice Ministry in Jerusalem,’ Dov produced his ID. ‘Wizeret el Ad’l,’ he added Justice Ministry in practiced Arabic.

  ‘Wait.’ Ahmad went back inside and made a phone call. Dov heard ‘Aiywah,’ and ‘Lah’, ‘yes’ and ‘no’. He returned and said, ‘my brother knows. He’s coming. Please,’ and ushered him in.

  Dov accepted a small cup of cardamom flavored sweet black coffee and munched on a honeyed pastry, as the family ate supper, chatting as if he wasn’t there. Ten minutes later the front door opened and a man similar to Ahmad but younger entered followed by another man, tall good looking, mustached, well dressed in dark trousers and sports coat. Ahmed’s brother wasn’t introduced. His left arm was plastered from wrist to shoulder in a sling. His forehead was deeply bruised. He stared at Dov through narrowed eyes and lit a cigarette.

  The one with the mustache said in English, ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Hisham Nabulsi of the Palestinian Civilian Police, CID,’ and showed Dov his ID and sat down. ‘Ahmad says you’re from the Justice Ministry?’

  Dov produced his ID again.

  ‘You’re here about the container?’

  ‘Yes, and you?’

  ‘I’m here about reports of damage done by a container as it was being driven up to the viewpoint.’

  ‘Damage?’

  Hisham explained and Dov described what he’d done since he arrived, omitting the reason for his interest in the container.

  ‘You’re arresting Ron Calev?’ Hisham asked, stifling surprise.

  ‘He’s being guarded at the container.’

  ‘By settlers?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Hisham looked incredulous. ‘He is notorious, not only amongst these villagers, but also amongst Israelis. He’s always avoided due process.’

  ‘Not this time. Does Ahmad’s brother have any details about the people who brought the container here?’

  ‘Why are you so interested in them?’ asked Hisham. ‘They were just a couple of Israelis with a truck and a container, deliberately damaging parked farm vehicles, and one of their bodyguards broke Ahmad’s brother’s arm when he protested. Not unusual. Settlers regularly Price Tag village property, uprooting olive groves, dispersing sheep and goats all over the hills. Stealing land is a past time.’

  ‘It’s part of an ongoing investigation,’ Dov said glibly.

  ‘I see.’ They both knew Dov wouldn’t say more. He asked what Hisham would do with the evidence he’d got.

  ‘Log it.’

  ‘Will you let me speak to Ahmad about the men and the container?’

  Hisham’s ‘Why?’ was acerbic.

  ‘It would help me with my investigation.’

  ‘I meant why would you ask me for permission and why should he speak with you?’

  Dov thought for a few moments, nodded and asked, ‘Do you know Dennis Allerdyce, the EUPOL COPPS CID liaison?’

  Hisham’s look of disdain was enough of an affirmative.

  ‘OK, you’re used to some form of co-operation with the Israel Police.’

  ‘I’ve heard about it, but I’ve never seen it in reality. You’re the occupier. Co-operation means we do as you tell us.’

  ‘I’m offering co-operation between you and me, starting now.’

  ‘What’s in it for us?’

  ‘My goodwill, and my promise to share anything I get about this case, and I mean anything because it’s linked to other matters and we could both benefit.’ He paused to let that sink in before asking, ‘did you ever come across an Israel Police officer named Avi Mazal?’

  Hisham weighed up Dov’s offer, knowing a vaguely positive answer would be tacit acceptance. He tried, ‘I’ve heard his name.’

  He gave Dov a carefully edited version of the Shehadeh abduction and that he’d heard Allerdyce ask to speak to Mazal. He mentioned the tire casts he’d managed to make at the abduction scene.

  Dov detailed Mazal’s death and his suspicions, giving no names, that Mazal might have known something about the abductions, that someone knew Mazal was meeting Dov and was probably killed for it, and that his death and trying to identify the perpetrators had brought Dov here, because there were suspicions the truck carrying the empty container had been involved and that the occupants of the truck cabin might be the perpetrators.

  ‘OK, you need to speak with Samir, that’s Ahmad’s brother. Wait. Please.’ Hisham huddled with the brothers. They took some convincing. Then Ahmad spoke firmly with Samir, who said ‘OK.’

  The descriptions Samir gave him fitted Stein and Levin.

  There was a knock at the door, Ahmad opened it and said in reasonable English, ‘Colin, it is good to see you, come in. We have other,’ he paused and shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘guests,’ looking back at Dov and Hisham.

  A European with a stubble hair cut to match his unshaven cheeks entered, smiling. He wore a t-shirt under a brown hoody, jeans and black Doc Martin boots and when his eyes met Dov’s his smile became knowing.

  ‘Which part of the Israeli Nazi apparatus are you from? Shin Bet Goy Department? You’re not Mista’aravim, you don’t look Arab enough.’ He meant the anti-terror infiltration unit.

  ‘He is the one from their Justice Ministry,’ Ahmad told him, ignoring the verbal aggression. ‘He has arrested Calev.’

  Mclellan snorted, ‘Justice?’

  Dov stood up. ‘International Solidarity Movement or Palestine Solidarity Campaign? Whatever it is, I don’t waste time with Israel deniers.’

  ‘I’m Colin Mclellan of the PSC. You’ve arrested Calev? Where?’
r />   ‘He’s on the hill at the container. He’s injured,’ Ahmad told him. Dov was bemused at how Ahmad knew this detail, but still wanted a low profile. Too late. Colin had his cell phone out and was either texting or Tweeting.

  Dov called Amos. ‘Nu?’

  ‘They’ll call you.’

  ‘Good.’ To Hisham he said, ‘I have to get back to the container.’

  ‘I can drive you.’

  He hesitated. ‘OK,’ then thanked Samir and Ahmad for the hospitality and the information, inclined his head to to the family, and walked out past Mclellan. At Hisham’s Passat with the PCP logo, he said, ‘Look I don’t want any more people around this than are necessary, so if you could take me up there and leave me there, that’d help. Just don’t stick around, your vehicle’s very conspicuous.’

  ‘I’ve every right to be there. I’d at least need to photograph the container. It’s my duty.’

  ‘If anything kicks off, don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  ‘If a police officer cannot investigate, what’s the point?’

  Dov paused. ‘Agreed. Let’s get this done fast.’

  Hisham took his time. He had no choice, it was night. After leaving the village on its only road traveling south, he went on over rough ground along another track, until he was climbing the back of Brandy Hill on a settler surfaced road and the dark outline of Highpoint Hill filled the windscreen above them. Dov’s cell rang. YAMAM reported that the truck was twenty minutes away. Their chopper’s ETA was ten minutes and could vehicle lights be on at a landing place. He didn’t recall asking for a chopper. Another plus for Amos.

  Hisham parked off the track halfway up the hill and walked with Dov. He quickly photoed the container before the chopper landed, helped by headlights from Gur and Dov’s vehicles. The YAMAM unit took over from Gur, creating a secure perimeter around the container, three YAMAM officers entered it, deaf to the abuse and blind to the hail of objects thrown by the Calev groupies and his hysterical wife, took Calev then Shira to the chopper cabin. The container’s contents were emptied. The truck’s lights announced its arrival, and once on site, the container was lifted onto the trailer. The chopper took off.