by Paul Usiskin
More lights from the other side of the hill lit the scene, making it eerie. With them came the sound of straining vehicle engines. Moments later a crowd of people appeared, shouting, cursing, angry. Mclellan led villagers and a scrimmage of foreign protesters and TV crews up to the trailer carrying the container. The truck engine revved. YAMAM personnel kept everyone back efficiently, and managed to keep the Calev acolytes and the protestors apart. The crane was folded back behind the truck cabin, the driver released air from the brakes, engaged gear and the truck began its descent.
A camera light picked out Dov standing with the YAMAM commander next to him. ‘Have you got a spare facemask?’ he muttered.
‘Are you serious?’
‘No,’ Dov replied.
‘Mr Chizzik, Alan Dunstan from the BBC. Why is that container being removed? Why has Mr Calev been arrested? Are these two actions linked?’
Dov searched the crowd for Hisham but couldn’t see him. An Israeli TV newsman asked almost the identical question in Hebrew. Dov hadn’t been in front of the cameras for a while, but he was calm and controlled.
‘I can’t comment about an ongoing Justice Ministry investigation,’ he told Dunstan calmly. ‘Please contact the Ministry spokesman. Thanks.’ He repeated the same to the Israeli newsman.
He walked away to the other side of the hill in time to see the two JCBs, their top lights ablaze in near white cones, trundling down towards the track and the road. He hoped they’d avoid Hisham’s VW. Then he crossed the hilltop again. Hisham was alone. ‘My home town,’ he said without turning.
‘Of course it is. You’re from Nablus - a Nabulsi,’ Dov answered standing beside him. They saw Nablus twinkling brightly in the distance, Bnei Aaron’s orange boundary lights in the foreground, polluting the night sky. ‘We’ll talk,’ he said, hoping that sounded sincere. Hisham didn’t reply. His cell phone went. It was Ramallah HQ, Corporal Faris. The VW was needed urgently, like come in Hisham you’re time’s up. Dov was looking at him as he started arguing, and he bit back his words in embarrassment.
To Dov, he said, ‘I hope it will be soon,’ and walked back across the hill.
From his car Dov called to thank Amos. Then he mulled where he’d put Hisham on his white board.
Fifteen minutes later he was on Route 60, and the headline news on the hour described opinion polls showing The Jewish Land party climbing, after Brenner’s apparent slip-of-the-tongue-that-wasn’t on TV. In an interview he said he would approve IDF troops refusing orders to evacuate settlers. His voice was familiar with its faint American accent. The news commentator said, ‘Nahum Brenner’s later apology for condoning disobeying orders has been overshadowed by his party’s gains in the polls.’ The arrest of Calev was the fifth item in; Dov’s name wasn’t mentioned, neither were the words Palestinian or occupation.
He had a light bulb moment. It came on as he saw in his mind what he’d written on his white board about Stein and Levin and heard Amos saying they should be brought in. Who they worked for was what the light bulb illuminated. Nahum Brenner, The Jewish Land party leader. D’oh. He left Amos a voice mail asking for immediate surveillance of all Brenner’s Internet communications.
21
Hisham’s drive back to Ramallah took longer than Dov’s to Tel Aviv because there were sections of Route 60 that were forbidden to Palestinians and sections with roadblocks to impede them, so he took his own back route.
He called HQ. There was no answer. The dash clock said 21.37. Where was the night staff? The signal cut out, hilly terrain he presumed, or network jamming. That had become part of the unseen war between occupier and occupied. He drove another few kilometers and tried again. Still no reply. After ten minutes and nothing he tried the Chief’s mobile. He had both signal and ring tone.
‘Chief it’s Hisham, sorry to…’
‘Hisham where are you? We’ve tried to reach you…’
‘I’ve had no messages. I was in places with no signal. What’s happened?’
‘Didn’t Faris call you?’
‘Yes. He said it was urgent for me to bring the car back. That’s what I’m doing.’
A series of verbal explosions and curses filled his ear. ‘I’ll personally tear off his testicles!’ the Chief shouted. ‘They raided us this evening. There was an IDF operation targeting Not-For-Profits. They broke in to several offices in town and removed computers and paperwork. But there was another raid, targeting this building.’
‘What?’
‘They took your computer. And they took your cousin. We don’t know where.’
‘Who were they?’
‘They looked like regular troops.’
‘Looked like?
‘I was in my office on the top floor and heard noises and saw them from my window. They were in IDF combats but they had no comms packs, any of them.’
‘That’s strange.’
‘So was the vehicle they were using. They bundled Ziad into a black SUV.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. Not standard Israeli military.’
And you didn’t go down two floors and challenge them, did you, with your paratrooper training? he thought, ‘Who else was in the building?’
‘Just a night guard and a switchboard operator. There was also a Judicial Police officer looking after your cousin. He tried to resist them. They beat him up.’
‘And Ziad?’
‘Him too. There’s a lot of blood all over his cell.’
Hisham went quiet, piecing together what his cousin had told him about the cemetery, the fact that there seemed to have been two simultaneous but separate operations, the Not-For-Profits raid and Ziad. Who took him?
The Chief echoed Hisham’s thoughts. ‘This wasn’t random. I think whoever they were, they knew about the IDF raid on the Not-For-Profits, and used that as their cover. Get back here as soon as you can. I’ve recalled our staff. Brief me on what you saw today and update me on why Ziad is ... was important enough for all this.’
He’s been in that cell for four weeks and you never asked why. ‘Yes Sir,’ he said and began with the container on the hill. He was five minutes into it when the signal went. That his computer had been taken wasn’t a problem. He hadn’t inputted any of the details of the cemetery of numbers or the Highpoint Hill cases. They were still in his notebook; he patted his pocket to be sure it was still there.
Friday in Yafo. Meeting Ephraim Cordova was like stepping back in time to when the pathologist had first invited Dov to drink chilled dry Spanish sherry the bar kept just for him. So much had changed, he thought, walking hand in hand with Yakub. Restaurants and shops had closed, been demolished, or acquired new owners. New hotels, many of them boutique, together with new precincts burgeoned. Yet the original character and feel of Yafo hadn’t been completely lost.
This bar was on a secluded side street, in an un-gentrified pocket of a Yafo neighborhood full of crumbling palatial residences. It was in the basement of one decrepit structure, the focus of continuous legal family feuds over property rights. The bar owners were Jews, its staff Arabs, reflecting the upheavals in the port town’s history. Ephraim explained that the earlier place on the Main Street near the clock tower had closed.
In answer to Ephraim’s, ‘How are you Yakub?’ the little boy said,’ I miss my big brother Yaniv. He used to give me rides on Aba’s Segway, up and down the promenade in the summer.’
‘I am sure Yaniv will be back soon,’ said Ephraim, ‘and then he will take you for rides again.’
The waiter came to their table.
‘Ice cream for Yakub, chilled dry sherry and salted almonds and olives for myself and my good friend, the sherry, nuts and olives you keep for me.’ Ephraim told him. ‘I remember that it has to be strawberry and pistachio ice cream.’
‘Chocolate and pistachio,’ Yakub said.
‘Right, right, vanilla and
pistachio,’ insisted Ephraim, eyes twinkling.
‘No, chocolate and pistachio,’ Yakub giggled at the game.
‘Of course, how silly, coffee and pistachio.’
The waiter smiled patiently.
Yakub laughed as he repeated, ‘No, it’s chocolate and pistachio!’
‘So it is, so it is,’ beamed the old man. ‘I do not know how they do it, but they still make the best ice cream I have had since my childhood. People came from all over the country to Yafo for it. It is the mastik that does it. You know about that, Yakub?’
‘Oh yes, you told me last time, it makes it gummy’ said the little boy, legs swinging in anticipation. And when it arrived Yakub tucked in, gleefully ignoring ice cream hiding his top lip.
The men chatted as they sipped sherry and nibbled almonds and olives. They all came from Spain, Ephraim promised Dov. ‘The sherry is an Osborne Fino from Jerez where the best sherry comes from. The almonds and olives are from the Malaga food market. I bring them. You do not get almonds like these here and the olives are Manzanilla, kept in anchovy flavoured salt water.’ Dov agreed that together they were exceptional. Ephraim asked how Dov had got on with Fetlock, and Dov said he was very impressive in an American kind of way, and Ephraim said they were like that even with their hobbies, and Dov said Fetlock owed him a call, and Ephraim said he was sure he would call if he said he would, and Dov said yes, Americans were like that.
‘So you’ve something to tell me,’ Dov asked.
‘Indeed. It is this. I am leaving.’
‘Oh, you’re finally retiring?’
‘Yes and no. It is a combination. I am being replaced and so I have decided to leave.’
‘Replaced? There’s no one in the country to match you. Your hands have recovered, you don’t even need physio anymore.’
‘The technology has overtaken me, it has made me superfluous.’
‘What technology?’
‘Virtopsy.’ He slipped straight into medico-technical jargon, as he described an autopsy process involving ‘non-invasive imaging using three-dimensional robotic surface scanning, combining post-mortem CT, MRI, angiography, and safe biopsy collection.’
Sony’s white robot came to mind; Dov imagined one with Cordova’s initials on the head.
‘Ours is the second Virtopsy unit in the whole country. One benefit is that there will be no more body thefts by Haredim who oppose post mortems, because Virtopsy does not desecrate the corpse in any way. Interestingly, it was ZAKA who helped raise the money for that first system.’
‘Really?’ He made a mental note. ‘How long before this happens at Abu Kabir?’
‘Oh in a few days. Three at the outside, and six months before all investigators are also phased out and replaced with analytical systems.’ The old man maintained his dead pan look.
‘Hmm,’ Dov smiled.
‘Yes indeed, but that is not the end of it.’
‘There’s more? Let me guess. Ministers and their ministries are also going to be replaced. The country will be swamped with unemployed bureaucrats. They’ll have to build tiers for them on the beaches.’ Dov grinned at his sarcasm.
Ephraim didn’t smile back.
‘I said I am leaving, Dov. The country.’
‘Maybe they’ll invent a system of revolving and sliding beds for the best sun exposure, and...leaving the country?’
‘Yes but do carry on with your poor attempt at levity.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Where do you think?’
‘I don’t know Ephraim, the world’s your oyster.’
‘Maybe but I am not interested in being the human forensic hard drive for some institution. What is my name?’
‘Have you got sudden memory loss? Your name’s Ephraim Cordova, Emeritus Professor of...’
‘Subtlety, Dov, nuance, simple attribution of factual data to context. What is my name, in the context of where I am leaving for? Deduce it, do not guess it!’
‘Cordoba? You’re going to Cordoba in Spain?’ Incredulous.
‘Yes, they have even offered me citizenship. They’re doing that with all Jews who can prove Spanish antecedents. I would like to live my last years where my family originated. And to be frank, I have had enough of the Zionist dream. We want our freedom but someone else should pay for it. That is no way to assure a future for our children and theirs.’ Yakub looked up at the children reference.
‘What will you do there? Spain’s in a mess too. And they’re very pro-Palestinian.’
‘I will be far from this madness. As to how pro-Palestinian the Spanish may be, you need to wake up Dov, there is hardly anywhere beyond here where they are not.’
‘Who on earth do you know in Cordoba? This is your home.’
‘Her name is Isabela. I call her my Mujer de Córdoba, my woman from Cordoba, because it is right on both counts, she is my woman and she comes from Cordoba. We have had an e-mail friendship for years. I have visited her many times. That is where this bar gets the sherry, nuts and olives. I said I bring them. Isabela is from a family of lost and secret Jews and she wants to explore their past with a partner, me. You must come to visit. Cordoba is a beautiful city with its fountains and historical landmarks. I have prayed in the Simon Majeb synagogue, from the fourteenth century you know. A very emotional experience, life affirming, that we still pray there after the Inquisition. But the Mesquita is a place I harmonize with whenever I go, better than any synagogue I have ever been in and I close my eyes to what the Catholics did to it. They could not change the powerful spirit of that place. You must see al Andalus. The colors, that gilded orange globe, the blue of the sky, the silvery green of the olive leaves and the gold of the wheat. They say that home is not just a place, it is wherever in your life you do not feel alone.’
The rest of the day and Saturday passed quietly. Dov spent the morning playing with Yakub in Lana’s flat, chatting, watching the rain clouds circle down from the north and in from the sea. Yakub never complained about being inside. He rarely complained at all and Dov admired such self-possession, sure he’d inherited it from Lana. He was in his bedroom reading again the book Dov had brought him from America.
‘You should both come over to my place,’ he said cheerily as lunch was ending.
Lana smiled, as if she’d expected this.
‘Yakub’s been but you’ve never come over together! I don’t get it!’
Lana looked anxious. She didn’t want Yakub to hear his father’s voice raised against her, but she knew why Dov had nearly shouted.
‘This isn’t about Yakub, is it? It’s because I have someone else and you can’t accept it. You know my red lines. One is that while Yakub and I want you to be his father, because you are, it doesn’t allow you to be anything else. We aren’t a married couple, we won’t be living as partners. What I do in my private life is my business. You won’t be meeting whoever else I choose to share it with. Yakub’s just a child. But don’t interrogate him, don’t pry. It’s nothing to do with you.’
‘First how dare you suggest I’d ask him about whoever you’re seeing. Second I just don’t get it. What’s the problem? We’re his parents. He understands we share his parenthood and that we aren’t together as a couple. But for both of you not to visit my home together, that’s crazy. And it’s even crazier now he’s been to my place. What are you afraid of, that I’d kidnap him and turn him into an Israeli child?’ He was on his feet. ‘I’m going to go now, but this discussion isn’t over.’ He managed to control his frustration enough to pop into Yakub and give him a reassuring hug.
He hated himself for pushing at Lana. She was right, it wasn’t his business. He was being selfish with his barely concealed hope that some day Lana would rediscover her love for him.
How many women have I slept with since Lana? I can’t remember and I didn’t love any of them, though I hoped
for something lasting, each time. None of them compared to Lana. How would I be without Lana in the world? He mentally kicked himself for being so maddeningly sentimental. And then reproved himself; this was not sentimentality.
22
Privately the TNT2 operations coordinator admired how during the Six Days of the Bidermans, not a clue as to the identity of a single member of the Palestinian unit emerged, if Gurwitz could be believed. His own research and planning had been completed long before the Biderman operation. The Shehadeh abduction was a shelf model. It had been ready to implement for months, waiting for the green light, and when that came, he’d intensively examined the operation for any deficits, found three, and made the necessary revisions and updates. The PCP HQ raid netting Ziad, showed that his team had absorbed its lessons well, like an appetizer for the main course, the core of the TNT2 reprisal plan.
It ran on schedule, his. TNT2’s public claim of responsibility for the operation would be made after the targets were safely hidden, and while official Israel was waking up to it.
Using black SUVs wasn’t practical. Seven identical vehicles crossing in and out of the West Bank on the same day would be conspicuous, even if they didn’t go via checkpoints. So seven more ubiquitous vehicles were chosen, anonymous white mini-vans of different makes, with no windows, well used.
The two-man teams, driver and medic, were trained as rigorously as Sayeret Matkal; the trainer was ex Sayeret. The sequence was the same, and practice perfect, though the time of day and location varied. Each of the targets were young Palestinians, students at different institutions, one at a music conservatory, another at a private college and the rest at universities across the West Bank, including the Israeli college at Ariel. There was nothing random about any of them. They were all the sons and daughters of the mayors of seven of the largest West Bank Palestinian municipalities.
Each was lured with urgent messages from fathers or mothers busy at their municipal offices, and once in the vehicles each was given a sedative injection. The teams were instructed that if they were ever confronted by Israeli security or military, he, the coordinator, would resolve any issue.
