Doha 12

by Lance Charnes

  She winced. “I’m sorry. What are you going to do?”

  “Not much I can do.” Jake looked away, through the solid planks of the nearby fence. “If a mortician picks her up, we’ll need to have a funeral right away. So I have to leave her there, in a freezer, until this is over.” Rinnah was supposed to watch with him as their children grew up. Just thinking about burying her churned up both deep anger and sorrow. He prayed the anger would keep the sadness from crushing him.

  “I’m so sorry. If it helps at all…that’s not really Rinnah in that freezer.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He said it too fast, with too much of a bite.

  Miriam turned her face away. “Sorry. That’s what they told me when the Marines sent me a box full of Bill. It didn’t work for me, either.”

  Jake sighed. “Sorry I snapped.”

  They stood together quietly, their shoulders just brushing. Jake wondered how Miriam had gotten through losing her husband. Would he end up like her—a little distant, closed-off, hard to touch? What would that do to Eve? Would he take her over the edge with him?

  After a while, he said, “Thanks for reading to Eve. Hope she isn’t too much of a pest.”

  “Not at all. She’s darling, and I enjoy reading to her.”

  Jake nodded. “That’s great, I’m glad. Thanks.” He pictured Miriam and Eve sitting close on Miriam’s bedroom floor, wrapped in a story, warm and calm. Maybe he needed to read something other than police files. Maybe he should spend more time with his daughter. “I’ll go. I don’t want to bug you.” He turned toward the back of the house.

  Before he could take a step, she said, “Don’t go.”

  He stopped, looked back at her. There had been something in her voice—not quite a plea but more than a simple request.

  “Stay a while,” she said. “We don’t have to talk. Just…company.”

  He didn’t ask why. Jake stepped beside her, his elbow pressed against hers. The contact felt strange but comforting. After a few moments, she looped her arm through his. Together they ignored the cold and watched the snow, the lights, and in the corners of their eyes, each other.

  SIXTY-TWO: Crown Heights, Brooklyn, 13 December

  Gur leaned forward in the straight-backed wooden chair and peered through the tripod-mounted binoculars. Eldar and Schaffer stood together arm-in-arm in the paved back yard of the NYPD safe house, backlit by the kitchen windows, snowflakes gathering in their hair.

  He sat back and wondered what—if anything—this meant. In the two days he’d watched them, this was the first time he’d seen them touch more than in passing. Perhaps they were turning to each other for comfort after all that had happened. He knew what that was like.

  A sayan who sold real estate had put the team into an abused, foreclosed townhouse across the alley and three doors down from the safe house. This back bedroom had become their observation post, affording a sweeping view of the back of 1280 Carroll and much of the alley leading to the west. Sasha, on watch at ten, napped in the next bedroom; Kelila was still downstairs, trying to work.

  Gur wondered what Kelila would think of him if she knew he’d handed Hezbollah the safe house. Was she cynical enough yet to appreciate the gambit? Would she consider it a betrayal? His heart recoiled at what this could do to their relationship. He’d done what was necessary for the mission. But at what cost?

  No sign yet of Hezbollah, of course. It would take a few days for his message to wind its way through the multiple layers of cutouts between the Institute and the hit team’s handlers. Had the hostiles already gone home? That would be a disaster, a clean escape after making his team look like fools. His Lillehammer, indeed.

  He stole another look through the binoculars. The two of them were still there. Even now, nestled next to Eldar, Schaffer stood straight and squared-up; Gur recalled their service records and could easily imagine her in her green fatigues and web gear.

  Miryam Gottesman—now Miriam Schaffer—and Jaakov Eldar. Two people screwed by the system, first in Israel, now in their adopted home.

  And Gur had screwed them again. If his plan worked, the Hezbollah team would soon be heading this way to try once more to kill them. Should it work? In a just world, would it?

  Gur stretched, scrubbed his face, sighed. Who’s the greater threat to them? Hezbollah? Or us?

  SIXTY-THREE: Cherry Hill, 16 December

  After hours of neither sleep nor rest, Alayan finally gave up and half-fell out of bed.

  He lurched to the window in his underwear, peeked outside. The thick stream of cars heading west on Kaighns Avenue led with blue-white beams and trailed red dots. He scratched his head, yawned, drifted to his computer. Seven messages since one A.M. Four junk emails, two regular business (expense voucher overdue).

  One from his handler in Beirut. “Targets are here: 1280 Carroll Street Brooklyn.”

  Alayan palmed the grit from his eyes and read again. How did he find them? He searched Google Maps for the address, dropped into Street View. His screen filled with a rank of brick-faced townhouses, each three window bays wide, stone trim and cornices, a full, red trash hauler partly blocking the view. He couldn’t tell which house was 1280, but it didn’t matter. His heart woke up, started trotting, then sprinting.

  We can still do this.

  Rafiq mumbled “Hum?” when he answered Alayan’s call.

  “Get the men together. We’re going to Brooklyn. I know where Eldar and Schaffer are.”

  SIXTY-FOUR: Crown Heights, Brooklyn, 16 December

  “‘…as Wilbur was being shoved into the crate,’” Miriam read, “‘he looked up at Charlotte and gave her a wink. She knew he was saying goodbye in the only way—’”

  Eve reached up and slapped the book closed. Miriam startled; Eve hadn’t moved that fast since they’d met. After a moment, Miriam swept her surprise under her mental rug and said, “Don’t you want me to finish? We’re almost at the end of the chapter.”

  Eve sat close beside her without touching, little arms wrapped around little knees, big eyes staring at her lap. She shook her head.

  Puzzled, Miriam cracked open the book and scanned the next two paragraphs. The spider dies? She slowly shut the cover and tucked the book out of sight behind her on the armchair’s seat. As she moved, she felt something hard poke her left hip. Jasmine had fallen to the floor between them. Miriam picked up the doll and offered her to Eve. The gloomiest little-girl eyes Miriam had ever seen examined first the doll, then Miriam’s face, then Eve took Jasmine in both her hands and nestled the doll against her thighs.

  “Why did you want me to read that book?” Miriam asked. Eve fingered Jasmine’s hands, hiding her eyes from Miriam. “Did your mother read it to you?”

  Eve nodded, but didn’t look up.

  Miriam sighed. She remembered saving one of her father’s shirts from the giveaway box as her mother emptied his wardrobe after he died. It didn’t even smell like him, but it was his, and sometimes she’d curl up with it at night even though it always made her cry.

  “You know, when I was just a little older than you are, I lost my father. I was so sad, I missed him so much. I thought I’d never stop hurting. Is that how you feel?”

  Eve nodded again, hugged Jasmine against her chest.

  Now what? Like the other teenaged kibbutznik girls, Miriam had been pressed into helping with the younger children, but that was more crowd management than nurturing. The past ten days had been the most prolonged contact she’d ever had with a child. Perhaps if she and Bill had been able to have kids she’d know what to say now. She knew she ought to say something, but what?

  Miriam stumbled through a couple false starts before she finally said, “You know what my rabbi once told me? You know what a rabbi is, right?” Nod. “He said that as long as I remembered my father, he’d never leave me.” To a ten-year-old girl feeling her heart shatter every day, it was great wisdom. This ancient, creaky platitude was all Miriam had to offer the grieving little girl beside her.

>   They sat together in silence, Miriam caressing Eve’s shoulders and neck, Eve doing the same to Jasmine. Tension zinged through the girl’s muscles like vibrating wires.

  “Don’t leave me.”

  At first, Miriam didn’t realize what she’d heard. She huddled closer to Eve, searching her face. “Sweetie? Did you…say something?”

  Eve peered up at Miriam through damp lashes. “Don’t leave me and Daddy. Don’t go away like Mommy did.”

  Miriam’s mouth dropped open. She’s talking! collided with What do I say? She scraped together some of her scattered wits, took Eve’s cheeks in her hands. “Um…sweetie, I’m…I’m just staying here with you and your father for a while, not forever. He’s trying to catch the bad men who hurt your mother so we’ll all be safe. You know that, don’t you?”

  A tear perched on Eve’s lower eyelid, quivered, then plunged down her cheek. “Please don’t go! Everybody leaves me! Mommy’s gone, Daddy went away…”

  “But he came back!” Miriam caught her breath. “Your father loves you so much, he’d never leave you.” If he had a choice. The Arabs might not give any of them a choice.

  A couple more tears met their ends on Eve’s face. She snuffled. “You’re gonna go.”

  Miriam stammered, “Sweetie, I…it’s…I have to—”

  Eve’s entire body jerked; her eyes dissolved the same way Jake’s did. “You can’t go away, you can’t, not you too…” Her words trailed off into hiccupping sobs.

  Miriam gathered Eve’s little shaking body into her arms and squeezed as hard as she dared. She couldn’t promise to stay forever. As powerless as she felt, she didn’t have it in her to lie to Eve. She could kill a man at a hundred yards, beat information out of a prisoner, edit complicated legal documents, use power tools and change her car’s oil, but she didn’t know how to help this haunted little girl.

  Jake knew.

  She rocked Eve and patted her back with one hand while she fumbled her cell phone off the easy chair’s arm with the other. “Shh, sweetie, it’s okay, it’s okay…” Miriam picked Jake’s number out of her call log, stabbed out a text message—“eves talking”—then punched “send.” Then she turned her full attention back to Eve.

  Eve was so small, so heartbreakingly fragile.

  “I know what it’s like. When someone you love leaves you. You feel…I don’t know, like you’re standing in the middle of a desert where everything’s dead. You feel like you’ll be alone forever. But you won’t, really.”

  Eve’s face burrowed into her neck; hot tears trickled into the collar of her tee shirt.

  “Shh, motek, it’s okay, I’ve got you, hold onto me, that’s right.” Miriam held her tight, kissed her hair. “But…if you love someone, you’re never really alone, they’re never really gone. I know it’s hard to believe, but trust me on this.”

  The great jolts that had run through Eve’s little body were smaller now, the wails softer, the thin arms’ grip around Miriam’s neck a degree less desperate.

  “You always…remember the love, the time you spent together. It keeps you warm. It keeps you company. Until…someone else comes along to…to fill the hole. Someone you can love, who’ll love you, who’ll make the hurt go away and help make you whole again.”

  “She doesn’t understand Hebrew.”

  Miriam snapped her head up. Jake hovered a couple paces away at the foot of her bed, his face fighting his own emotions. “I was speaking Hebrew?” He nodded. “For how long?”

  “Last three-four sentences. It’s okay, I’m sure she got the message.” He took a step closer, knelt in the beige carpet, stared at his daughter as if watching for a miracle.

  “Eve?” Miriam gently untangled Eve’s arms from her neck and turned her toward Jake. “Your father’s here. Do you want to talk to him?”

  Tear tracks and snot and wild hair covered Eve’s face. Her chin trembled, her eyes scrunched into red slits. She snuffled, shook, hugged herself. “Don’t leave me again, Daddy.”

  A tear coursed down Jake’s cheek as he lifted Eve from Miriam’s arms. “I’ll always come back for you, Bunny.” His voice stumbled. “Always.”

  Miriam swallowed, looked away. The love and sorrow and pain on their faces was so clear and vivid it could be painted there. A powerful urge hit her to throw her arms around them both and let them know their world would get brighter with time, that they’d survive the darkness.

  Her hand began to reach for Jake, but she snatched it back. These two were skirting the edge of a huge emotional whirlpool, one she’d already fought too often. Getting any more involved would only drag her under. The last thing she needed in her life was to once again drown in grief.

  SIXTY-FIVE: Near Wheatland, Pennsylvania, 19 December

  Al-Shami glanced away from the highway rolling beneath him toward the light-skinned Iraqi in the passenger seat. With his hair and eyebrows gone, Mahir resembled a mannequin come to life. He was the quieter of the two shuhada, the oldest by at least fifteen years, the one who’d needed the least convincing. A son dead in Ramadi, another in an Iraqi prison, a failed business, an absent wife, a body betraying him—he had quite enough reasons to take this step.

  Mahir pulled the iPod earbuds out of his ears. “Have you known a lot of shuhada?”

  “A few.”

  “What are they like, usually?”

  “All kinds. They have different reasons, if that’s what you mean. Some better, some worse.”

  Mahir nodded, turned his gaze out his window to the trees blurring past on Interstate 80. “Do they ever fail?”

  Al-Shami stifled a sigh. This was why he tried to keep his distance from the people who used his products. “Never,” he lied, “and neither will you.” That part might actually be true. Mahir knew he’d die soon—instantly in four days, or slowly in agony over perhaps three months. He had no incentive to stretch it out.

  “Insha’Allah.” Mahir paused. “Our target. Is it important? Will it make a difference?”

  “Of course it is. Of course it will.” In someone’s fever dream, perhaps. Would it drive the Zionists into the sea, restore Palestine, bring justice to the Arab world? Of course not. That wasn’t the point to it. But even he knew better than to pile this dose of reality on Mahir. The man would be sacrificing his life, after all.

  It would get the Americans’ attention, though, make them angry so they’d lash out in stupid ways, the way they had in 2001. The more harm they did to themselves with their revenge, the more likely they’d face defeat in the end. That was the point, the long-term goal.

  “How long before we reach New York?” Mahir asked.

  Al-Shami pushed a button on the GPS unit resting on the front dash. “A little under eight hours. Then a four-day wait, and you’ll enter Paradise.” And I’ll be on a plane to Damascus, he finished, to do all this again.

  SIXTY-SIX: Crown Heights, Brooklyn, 20 December

  Jake checked his watch when he heard Gene’s rumbling voice outside the kitchen’s back door. Almost seven; late for him. Next came his uncle’s stomping-the-feet-clean ritual. The door burst open; Jake got one look at the thunderstorm in Gene’s face and blurted, “What’s wrong?”

  “You’re moving.” Two plainclothes cops followed Gene through the door, closed it, planted themselves by the sink. “In an hour. Get packed.”

  “Can we finish dinner?” Miriam asked. Half her pasta still waited on her plate.

  “If you can do that and pack in an hour, yeah.” He leaned toward Eve. “How’s my favorite princess?”

  Eve twisted around until her knees balanced on her chair seat. “Hi, Unca Gene.”

  Gene popped her a gentle smile and ruffled her hair. Four days since she’d started talking again, and he still beamed at every word she said.

  “Why are we moving?” Jake flicked his attention between Gene’s face and a third cop just entering, this one hauling a large black duffel he dumped on the kitchen floor with a thud.

  Gene’s eyes shifted from Ja
ke to Miriam and back, taking in the domestic scene at the little kitchen table. “The guys have seen activity. People walking, cars shuffling around, stuff that doesn’t belong.” Miriam squeezed Eve’s shoulder. “Maybe it’s nothing. But we got a place open in the Village, so just in case…” Gene shrugged.

  Gene tried to sound casual, but Jake could see the worry in his face. NYPD wouldn’t move them unless there was good reason. They found us. Jake’s heart stepped into double-time.

  Alayan watched from the dark shadow beside a garage as the two parked black sedans ticked away their warmth outside the gate into 1280 Carroll, ten meters away. Four men had gone through the gate with the authority that comes with a badge and a gun. Now one emerged hauling a black suitcase with wheels in one hand and a large duffel bag in the other. He heaved these into the lead car’s boot, thunked closed the lid, disappeared back through the gate.

  Suitcases? They were leaving? He chirped all four of the men. “They’re moving, probably soon. Take your positions.”

  The team had to finish Eldar and Schaffer tonight. They couldn’t fumble away this gift from Allah, this last chance to fulfill their duty. They had to save the Party from its own worst impulses…and save themselves at the same time.

  They gathered in the kitchen with five minutes to spare. Jake and Miriam each dropped a duffel next to Eve’s Princess and the Frog roller bag at the kitchen door. Eve tucked Jasmine into her coat, and Bastet crouched in her blue carrier on the kitchen counter. Gene bent to look into the cat’s golden eyes; they had a tense, silent standoff. “You can’t bring it to the new place.”

  Miriam stiffened. “I’m not leaving her.”

  “You’ll have to. Only two-legged animals where we’re going.” Gene stood straight in a clear attempt to assert his authority, but found himself an inch shorter than the now stone-faced Miriam. Watch it, Jake silently warned his uncle. Don’t mess with the cat.