by Jon Land
“So are dead hostages.”
Wallid shrugged. “All the same, I would be in your debt, Inspector, if you try to defuse the situation peacefully.”
Ben nodded, yanked his pistol from its holster, and handed it to Wallid. Then he removed his jacket before he started forward, so the perpetrator could see he was unarmed.
The man’s sword, he noted as he approached, was a Turkish Kilij, an especially effective weapon developed near the end of the fifteenth century. The blade was straight for most of its length, then curved sharply inward to amplify the power of the razor-sharp edge. Ben also saw that this sword had a string dangling from its wooden handle, a price tag attached to the other end, no doubt; it was likely the wielder had picked it up from a nearby stand that sold battle-tested souvenirs.
“Listen to me!” its wielder ranted again. “I am here to help you, to save you! I have seen the devil. Do you hear me? I have seen the devil and he walks among us!”
Ben stopped twenty feet away. The man looked older than his voice indicated, in his sixties at least and few of those years had been kind. His arms were sinewy where once there had been layers of muscle, his face gaunt and ashen. He wore a kaffiyeh that had loosened enough to reveal a head bald except for two sides of matted silver hair. His eyes bulged as though he were hearing other voices at every turn.
The woman at his feet lay on her side, facing Ben’s direction. Her expression was a mix of shock and terror. Her right shoulder had been sliced, and some of the blood had dripped onto the street. The swordsman turned his gaze on the fallen woman, and Ben chose that moment to step forward far enough to draw the man’s attention upon him.
“Stop!” the madman ordered, eyes narrowing as he extended the sword in a knobby, skeletal hand. It shook in his grasp. “You! Have you seen the devil too?”
“Why don’t you tell me what he looks like?” Ben replied, holding his hands in the air to show he meant no harm. If he could distract the madman long enough, the pair of women beneath a fruit stand might be able to escape. But there would be no such effort from the wounded woman lying in the center of the street who remained at the swordsman’s feet.
“He looks like all of us,” the madman answered finally. “That is how he gets away with his work. We see him and don’t realize it. But I have seen him twice now. I remembered the mark he carries on his flesh.”
“What mark is that?”
“An upside-down red cross on his forearm. His disciples who wear the mark lie in wait for the weak to pass by so they can snatch them away. They can hide from most, but not from me!” The madman’s eyes bulged, looking like golf balls squeezed into his skull. “Show me your right arm! Do it now! Roll up your sleeve! Come on, quickly!”
He lurched forward with the sword, and the two women trapped beneath the fruit cart shrieked in terror.
Ben did as he was told, showed the man his bare arm even though the sword was very close to striking distance. He watched the madman’s wild eyes narrow and focus.
“See,” Ben said, “no upside-down cross.”
The man’s gaze relaxed. “Show me your other arm too.”
Ben rolled up the sleeve on that arm as well.
“Full of tricks, they are,” the madman said, satisfied after checking Ben’s left arm. “Can’t blame me for checking. You never know, do you?”
“No, you don’t.”
“The devil’s a sneaky bastard, he is. But he can’t fool me, not someone who’s seen him before.”
“When was the first time?”
The old man lowered his sword to waist level and maneuvered sideways until he was straddling the wounded woman. “I’ll kill them all until there are none to haunt me,” he raged and brought the sword overhead. “It’s the only way.”
Ben took a step forward to distract him. “Tell me about the first time.”
The sword trembled in the madman’s hand. He drew his eyes off the woman and back to Ben. “I was just a boy. He tried to recruit me into his forces. I should have known, though. Even then, I should have known.”
The madman sank to his knees, his sword clanking against the pavement, just inches from the wounded woman’s leg. Ben crouched down before him. He glanced quickly at the women pinned beneath the fruit stand and used his gaze to signal them to slip away. He watched them begin to slide out, before returning all of his attention to the madman.
“I thought I was free of him.After all these years, I thought I was free! But he has returned.” The madman’s crazed eyes became desperate, pleading. The sword flapped before him like an ornament as he spoke. “I must warn everyone before it’s too late because, you see, his time has come.” The madman pointed the tip of his sword at Ben. “Have you seen him too?”
“Yes,” Ben said in a tone meant only to placate the madman. But an electric shock jolted his spine as he remembered the night he’d come home in Detroit six years before to find a killer dressed in his family’s blood. The memories were especially clear in the wake of seeing the body of his nephew just a few hours earlier. “Yes, I’ve seen him.”
The madman lunged back to his feet. “Then you can help me find him.” Ben stood up slowly, careful to keep his hands in clear view. “I’ll help you, but first you must give me your sword.”
“I’ll be defenseless without it.” The madman’s eyes bulged again. “He sent you, didn’t he? This is a trick, a damnable trick. He’s full of tricks.” And he raised his sword once more over the wounded woman. “She is one of his tricks. Check her for a knife, if you don’t believe me. Check her for the knife she would have used to kill me!” The madman stopped briefly, as if waiting for Ben to do just that. He continued when Ben remained still. “The devil must have thought I wouldn’t recognize one of his legion, you see, but I have been waiting for the time of testing for so long, I was ready at every turn, just as I am ready now!”
And Ben watched the sword start downward.
* * * *
CHAPTER 8
I
would like to apologize for the confusion in the desert, Pakad,” National Police Commissioner Hershel Giott said as Danielle approached his desk.
“Commander Baruch had no right to assume jurisdiction,” she fumed, feeling the anger building in her anew.
“The situation is a bit more complicated than it seems.”
“It’s our case, Rav Nitzav. We should not have given in so easily.”
Giott looked grim. “Please, sit down so I can explain.”
Even rising out of his chair at her approach was an effort for him. Danielle moved to the front of his desk, trying to swallow down the thickness that had settled in her throat. The health of the head of the National Police had begun to fail him just after he announced his own retirement six months before, having agreed to stay on only until a replacement could be found. Now, with that day looming very close now, Danielle realized exactly how much she was going to miss this man who was as close to a mentor as she had ever known.
She could have lived with that more easily, if life hadn’t cheated Giott so badly. He had made plans to travel, finally having the time and desire. But then his wife had taken ill, and the ravages of age caught up with him as he struggled to care for her. Danielle knew his wife had cancer even before Giott confided in her, nearly breaking down when he explained the relentless deterioration of the woman with whom he had spent more than a half century. There would be no traveling for either of them now. The commissioner’s entire existence was confined to a modest two-story home in the Jerusalem suburb of Har Adar.
“Your wife?” Danielle posed tentatively.
Giott frowned sadly, adjusting the yarmulke on his small round head. “The same. Good days and bad,” he said, even though Danielle knew there were only bad at this point. “They are preparing to announce my successor. Two weeks more and he takes over officially. I would like you to be my guest at the ceremony.”
“Thank you, Rav Nitzav.” She fidgeted in her chair. “But I would like to discuss th
e murders in the desert.”
“We are discussing them, Pakad.” Giott’s eyes darted to the door, making sure it was closed. “My leaving the National Police presents some unique opportunities for those willing to seize them. Positions opening up that have not been available for some time. High-ranking positions, Danielle, like tat nitzav or even nitzav. Do you see what I am getting at?”
“No,” she said impatiently.
“I have been asked to recommend officers for the positions of commander and deputy commander. I would like to recommend you.”
Danielle felt warm, as if the chair’s leather had begun to suddenly sizzle.
“No woman has ever held either position,” Giott continued. “But you were the youngest woman ever to attain the rank of chief inspector, weren’t you? Who better to take the next step up in the National Police hierarchy.”
Danielle had always dreamed of attaining such a position, but thought the possibility remained years away. To hear Giott discuss it now, today, raised prospects as exciting as they were mind-boggling. A dream come true. Until she thought of the obstacle standing in her way.
“So the last thing we need at this point,” he continued, “is a dispute with Shin Bet. I thought it prudent to exercise discretion this morning. After all, Pakad, it is only one investigation.” His gaze hardened. “But there is another problem: your relationship with the Palestinian.”
Danielle had to search for her breath. “Ben Kamal.”
“I’m afraid that will sour the minds of many on you.”
“That was not the case when I was ordered to liaise with him in pursuit of a serial killer, or when our joint investigation led to the end of a white slavery ring.”
“Times, I’m afraid, have changed. You have continued to maintain contact with this Palestinian, have you not, Pakad?”
“Professionally,” Danielle managed.
“What about socially?”
“We’re friends, yes, colleagues.”
Giott eyed her cautiously. “There are rumors that the two of you are considerably more than that.”
Danielle lurched up from her chair and felt the familiar dizziness overcome her. She sank back down, a deep throb building between her ears.
“Are you all right, Pakad?”
“Fine.”
“Some water, perhaps, a piece of fruit?”
“No, thank you.” She held tight to the chair’s arms. “It’s just that my personal life is no one’s business, Rav Nitzav.”
“I’m afraid in this case it is. Given the difficult times you have experienced in the past year or so—your father’s death, losing your baby—I am not trying to judge you. No, your personal life only becomes an issue when it raises red flags that could adversely affect your career.”
“My dealings with Ben Kamal have done wonders for my career.”
“In your current position,” Giott agreed. “But for a person considering advancement...” He shrugged his narrow, bony shoulders. “If you are truly interested in attaining an appointment to such a high-level position, you must break off all contact with this Palestinian, both professionally and socially. Such contact is good public relations, and I know it has proven effective. But it does not make good politics.”
“I’m not a politician.”
“As a chief inspector, you don’t have to be.” Hershel Giott gave her the fatherly stare she had known so well for so long. But the stare was weaker now, the eyes behind it less potent and powerful. “When I walk out of this building for the last time, Pakad, I want to feel good about what I leave behind. Not just the state of our police force, or the person who replaces me in this chair, but also the people I care about. I worry what will become of them when I’m gone, when others of different judgments and political persuasions are left to make decisions.” Giott sat back and folded his arms. “You understand the kind of man of whom I am speaking?”
“Yes,” Danielle said, thinking of Commander Moshe Baruch’s appearance earlier that day at the crime scene in the Judean Desert.
“The solution in your case, Pakad, is to become one of those who makes decisions, instead of one who is affected by them.”
“Perhaps I would be better off remaining where I am,” Danielle said bitterly.
“There are no guarantees of even that, I’m afraid. My successor, and those to whom he is beholden, might feel threatened by your successes and your celebrity. And right now you are too easy a target for someone who may carry his insecurities in his briefcase. I intend to do everything I can to secure this appointment for you. Call it a payback for your standing up for me last year.”
“After all you’ve done, you don’t owe me anything.”
Giott’s round face looked suddenly small and sad. “I let you down, Danielle. I’d like to make up for that, and I’ve got precious little time left to do it. But I need your help, your cooperation. Can I depend on you giving it, Pakad?”
Danielle nodded.
* * * *
CHAPTER 9
T
he blade had begun its descent, Ben launched himself into motion. He managed to cut off the looping strike by catching his shoulder beneath the madman’s elbow and felt the worn, brittle bones wrenched on impact.
The blade stopped a mere yard from the wounded woman’s head where it dropped from the madman’s grasp and clattered against the street. Ben tripped the madman’s feet up and took him down hard to the pavement.
“He’s back, I tell you!” the madman raged. “You must listen to me before it is too late! The devil is back! You’ll see!”
Ben held the man down as the uniformed Palestinian policemen rushed forward, led by Captain Wallid.
“Excellent work, Inspector!” Wallid complimented, helping Ben to his feet.
* * * *
I
t was nearly four p.m. by the time Ben returned to his office. He took out a form he himself had created for the Palestinian police force and, at Captain Wallid’s request, began to fill out his report on the incident in Baladiya Square.
Having barely started to type on the old IBM Selectric, Ben realized he could put off the phone call to his brother in the United States no longer. He forgot Sayeed’s home phone number halfway through dialing and had to hang up in order to reconstruct it in his mind. He finally pressed all the numbers out, his breath growing short as the phone began to ring.
“Hello, you have reached the Kamals ...”
Ben greeted the recorded message with relief, glad for another respite. Upon hanging the phone up before the message was finished, though, he remembered his brother would probably by now be in his office at the University of Michigan, Dearborn, where he was a professor of earth sciences. Ben ran his hands over his face, glad he couldn’t remember his brother’s number there. Ben’s mouth was dry and tasted sour, and the back of his shirt had soaked through with sweat. His flesh seemed coated with the same murky film that had covered Danielle’s Jeep and he carried the musty scent of the desert on his clothes. Worse, his shoulder ached where it had taken the brunt of impact in deflecting the mad swordsman’s blow. Perhaps he should get it looked at in the clinic or, at least, fetch himself some ice.
No! Prolonging this call is only making it worse. . . .
Ben fished his address book from the top desk drawer and flipped through the pages in search of his brother Sayeed’s number at the university. It had been so long since he’d called, he forgot where he’d written it and located it squeezed into a dog-eared page in the middle. He dialed the number hoping for a prerecorded message again.
“Professor Kamal,” he heard instead.
Ben swallowed hard.
“Professor Kamal,” his brother repeated.
“It’s Bayan, Sayeed.”
Now it was his brother’s turn to be silent. Their relationship had soured well before Ben’s return to Palestine, when Ben had fallen in love with and married an American woman. Sayeed found this to be such an affront to the Palestinian culture it had become i
ncreasingly difficult to maintain cordial relations with him. He had insulted Ben’s future wife at a family dinner, and Ben had left with her before the first course was complete. Now he remembered so clearly the disappointed look on his then young nephew Dawud’s face in the window as he drove away.
“I almost recognize your voice,” Sayeed said finally.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t bother.”
