Blood Diamonds - [Kamal and Barnea 05]

by By Jon Land

  But none of that should have mattered to him; at least it wouldn’t have last year or the year before. He came at last to realize that the moment he had eased Danielle’s wheelchair from the hospital in New York everything had changed. The gulf that had always been there between them suddenly had no bridge. Instead of looking for excuses to be together, it became easier to look for ones to be apart.

  So many times they had succeeded in starting over. Now, since the loss of their unborn child, everything had changed. They were left with nothing much to say to one another, because the shape and essence of their relationship had changed. Ben had taught himself to understand and accept that, until Colonel al-Asi had told him of Danielle’s arrest.

  Strange how there had been no hesitation at that point, no question that he would act. Danielle needed him, after all.

  The thought made Ben shudder.

  His wife had needed him, and she was dead. His children had needed him, and they were dead, too. Life was about moments. A few earlier and his family would still be alive. A few later and he would be dead, too. Moments had brought him back to Palestine and eventually to Danielle, providing tantalizing glimpses again of a happiness he had forgotten was possible.

  But only for moments.

  “Identity papers,” Danielle continued, referring to what she had obtained for Ben from Sabi, “and a new passport, so you can get away from here now before it’s too late.”

  “Will you be coming with me?”

  “I can’t leave.”

  “Then neither can I.”

  “It won’t work, us being together,” Danielle said. “We should have figured that out by now.”

  “Maybe we never really tried hard enough.”

  Danielle groped for words. “You’re fooling yourself, Ben. Neither one of us has anyone else, and that’s the worst thing to base a relationship on. We only stay together when there’s no other choice. That’s why it’s never worked before.”

  “New York is why it’s not working now. If the baby had lived . . .”

  “It didn’t.”

  “We can’t leave things at that.”

  “We don’t have a choice, Ben, and we both know it.”

  “No, I won’t give up,” he insisted staunchly. “I’m done giving up.”

  “So what happens tomorrow when Levy dumps this whole mess on the government’s lap and we’re out of it? Ask yourself that.”

  “I have, and the answer is that I’m tired of losing you to things that seem more important.”

  “There’s always going to be something.”

  “After this, there doesn’t have to be,” Ben told her.

  The fish market had been the center of attention in Gaza for decades, packed with people buying and selling. Lately, though, there were fewer of both. The failing Palestinian economy, coupled with travel restrictions into Israel, had severely reduced demand, while a large number of fishermen had taken up rifles in place of reels.

  Still, a decent crowd of customers was moving amongst the rows of iced-down fresh fish, caught at sea just hours before.

  “I don’t see Levy,” Ben said, scanning the market nervously.

  “He said he’d find us,” Danielle reminded. “Let’s just stay on the move until he does.”

  An Israeli jeep spun onto the street and tore forward, violating the pedestrian-only law. Honking its horn, it surged straight for Ben and Danielle who could do nothing but turn away and hope to avoid recognition.

  The patrol jeep reached them and passed straight on by.

  “You think they’re looking for us?” Ben wondered.

  “No,” Danielle said curiously. “That was a special military police detachment. It must be something else.”

  The jeep had stopped close to the docks near a huge tray of ice next to a large scale where Gaza fishermen weighed their catch. Danielle drifted in that direction, pulling free of Ben’s grasp when he tried to grab her.

  All three military policemen were standing over the huge tray of ice, shaking their heads. One was making notes, another spoke into his walkie-talkie. Danielle reached the front of the small crowd that had gathered around them just before Ben grabbed her elbow.

  “What are you—”

  “Oh my God,” Danielle muttered, before he could finish.

  A body lay in the tray covered by ice, visible now only because the policemen had brushed the crystals and cubes aside. Danielle glimpsed the milk-white face of the corpse and felt her stomach flutter.

  It was General Dov Levy.

  * * * *

  Chapter 44

  D

  anielle spun toward Ben

  “Levy,” she muttered.

  Ben strained to peer over her, but now it was Danielle who eased him away.

  “Don’t let the soldiers see you,” Danielle cautioned, trembling with shock and rage.

  “The soldiers aren’t our biggest problem anymore. Whoever killed Levy—”

  “—could still be around, waiting for us. I know, I know. That damn cowboy! It was him, it had to be!”

  “Keep your face down!” Ben advised, when Danielle began peering up and down the street.

  “Black’s here. I’m going to find the son of a bitch. Finish him once and for all.”

  Ben swung her toward him. “Not now, not while he’s got the upper hand. All we can do is get out of here!”

  She shrugged, reluctantly breaking off her search for Jim Black. “You’re right.”

  “Come with me,” Ben said, taking Danielle gently by the arm.

  A tight cluster of trucks and vans, belonging to markets and restaurants, sat parked just beyond the dock area. Ben kept walking until he came to one with its engine still rumbling to power the compressor that kept the small truck’s rear hold comfortably chilled. He opened the driver’s door and eased Danielle up into the truck ahead of him.

  Ben pulled the truck into the street and squeezed past the congestion of others parked in all directions. Then he pressed out a number on his cell phone.

  “Al-Asi?” Danielle asked him, still quivering with rage.

  “Who else?”

  The phone rang once, then the signal died. Ben redialed, got the same results.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The colonel’s number has been deactivated.”

  “Try it again.”

  “I’ve tried it twice already. He warned me about this. It looks like his enemies may have finally caught up with him.”

  Ben continued to snail the truck onward, as a convoy of Israeli vehicles sped past him on the other side of the street, heading toward the fish market.

  “We’ve got our own enemies to worry about,” Danielle reminded.

  “Until we stop them, by fitting all the pieces together.”

  “The diamonds, Ranieri’s trail, whoever hired the cowboy...”

  “All connected,” Ben said. “To Russia.”

  “Russia?”

  Ben nodded. “You heard what Anatolyevich said. Whatever was on that freighter came from Russia, the city of Dubna, he told me.”

  “You’re saying we should go there?”

  “I’m saying I should, while you try to find someone in Israel you can trust.”

  “I’m more likely to be shot on sight, remember?”

  “There’s got to be something, someone,” Ben grasped.

  “Maybe,” Danielle said, thinking of something. “Maybe.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 45

  I

  need to know how long I have,” General Latisse Matabu said to Dr. Sowahy.

  The doctor finished checking her blood pressure and returned the gauge to the old, weathered medical bag he had carried for as long as she could remember.

  “With medication, a year,” Dr. Sowahy said flatly.

  “And without?”

  He shrugged. “A month before you are incapacitated. Another two, maybe, after that.”

  “Four weeks, then.”

  “It’s b
eginning to affect your brain. I cannot promise you will be mobile, or lucid, for even that long.”

  “Then I have much to do quickly,” Matabu said, realizing that General Treest wasn’t finished with her yet.

  She dismissed the doctor and moved to the mirror, disturbed to find how much the furrows and lines on her face had deepened. Her skin looked sickly pale and her eyes had lost their sheen. None of these symptoms were new, only more noticeable.

  What was new was the fact that Matabu realized she had misarranged the buttons on her uniform top. And when she tried to rebutton them, her fingers were stiff and fumbling. A wave of fatigue swept over her and left Matabu sitting on the edge of her cot, feverish and lightheaded. One of the bad spells that came and went, but had come with increasing frequency and ferocity as of late.

  The disease had not been diagnosed until the first symptoms appeared during her final months in the United States. A full battery of tests was ordered and, in the end, the doctors had handed her a pad full of prescriptions.

  Matabu had refused to take them, not believing she needed any. She couldn’t die because the work her grandmother had insisted she was born to do had not been completed yet:

  She was to be the savior of her people. Of course, her grandmother had died before Treest and his soldiers had come to her home that day when she was still a young girl. The guards her father had left had been beaten and maimed. Treest had found her hiding in the vegetable basement among the corn.

  Latisse Matabu shuddered with rage, haunted again by the memories of the searing pain tearing at her insides as General Treest had raped her. His men held her down until she gave up struggling and let herself go limp, feeling as much guilt as agony, while he thrust himself into her again and again.

  But even the rape wasn’t punishment enough to suit Treest. He had returned after Latisse Matabu gave birth to a child his rape had given her. Burst into her home and beaten her for concealing its existence from him, then snatched up the basket in which the child was sleeping and strode from the house.

  She had chased Treest and his shoulders up the hill, out of breath by the time she begged the general not to hurt her son, to give him back to her. But Treest calmly explained, half smiling, that she wasn’t fit to keep his child. It had taken three of his men to hold her back as the general carried the basket with her son inside to the edge of the hilltop and dangled it high over the river. Matabu remembered Treest grinning broadly before he let the basket go.

  Only then did his men release her. The basket had already plunged into the river by the time she got to the edge. She scrambled down the hillside, clawing her way, the branches and brambles scratching at her. Searched the riverbank, but couldn’t find her baby. Hell must have swallowed him up, a punishment for letting him been born.

  After rebuttoning her shirt, Latisse Matabu emerged from the small camouflaged shanty that held her living quarters and paused briefly. The world had forgotten what a beautiful country Sierra Leone was and, occasionally, so did she. At times like this, though, it took on the pristine glory of an artist’s landscape. Dew coated the leaves of the softly swaying branches which formed a canopy over the richly scented soil. The rivers would be calm now, like green ribbons wrapped around the countryside.

  Matabu continued past her ever-present guards to the camouflaged entrance of the complex of bunkers containing the greatest stores of RUF ordnance. She descended the rickety set of wooden stairs and continued down a dank underground corridor lit by single bulbs strung along the ceiling. The air was warm and smelled like mud, not much different from the vegetable basement in which she had hidden from General Treest. The final door down, made of thick wood peeling at the edges, had a different lock for which only Matabu had the key. She opened it, yanked the bolt back, and entered.

  A frigid blast of air struck her in stark contrast to the steaming heat outside. She could hear the rumbling hum of the four powerful generators required to keep the storage room below forty degrees Fahrenheit.

  Inside dozens and dozens of insulated crates had been stacked halfway to the dirt ceiling. Orhan had found his weapon on the shores of the Black Sea, thanks to the Moor Woman. Latisse Matabu had found hers in Russia, thanks to the Russian underworld.

  But the contents of these crates would not be used in Sierra Leone, because her grandmother’s tales of Orhan had showed her the necessity of identifying one’s true enemies. The Dragon had already made the preparations required to set the final stage of her plan into operation.

  Thinking of that day warmed her in the storage room’s chilly confines. She imagined her grandmother standing by her side, smiling with approval and pride.

  “I won’t let you down,” Latisse Matabu said softly. “I won’t let Sierra Leone down.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 46

  D

  anielle entered the jewelry store at the north end of Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv, but waited until the same man with whom she had seen Ranieri meet was available before approaching the counter.

  “I’m Jacob Katz,” he greeted. “How can I help you?”

  “I have some diamonds I’d like to get an estimate on.”

  It was cold in Tel Aviv for springtime. A light rain fell outside, keeping away many of the shoppers and strollers. She had moved through the street and shops, constantly alert to the fact that she was a wanted person. Her disguise would keep her from being recognized by the casual observer and even a posted soldier or policeman. But it would not do much good against a party out looking specifically for her. Jim Black, for example. Or National Police officials who might have been tipped off that someone meeting her description was seen in Tel Aviv.

  Katz & Katz stood as it had for nearly half a century; the sign outside read our forty-eighth year in business! Inside people shopped with their eyes instead of their wallets, gawking at the magnificent stones displayed behind thick, bulletproof glass.

  Jacob Katz, with a curly shock of brown hair that resembled a bird’s nest, leaned over the counter. A thick gauze bandage covered most of his left cheek. “You were saying?”

  “I was wondering if you might be able to do an appraisal for me.”

  “We normally get one hundred dollars for that kind of work.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “You’ll need to fill out a form,” the younger Mr. Katz said, and started rummaging through a drawer just to his right.

  “I think you may want to take a look before I write anything down,” Danielle told him, and laid some of the stones salvaged from Ranieri’s glasses on the glass counter. “You recognize these, don’t you?”

  Katz’s eyes bulged. He began to tremble. “What are you doing here? Who are you?”

  “Let’s go talk somewhere more private.”

  The younger Katz’s office was a cubicle, windowless and closet-sized. He shut and locked the door behind him.

  “They never sent a woman before.”

  Danielle watched the sweat beginning to form and soak through his shirt. He was breathing hard.

  She laid the same diamonds on the desk before them. “These frighten you a very great deal.”

  Katz touched his bandaged cheek. “After yesterday.”

  “These were the diamonds you gave Ranieri five days ago. But they were only a down payment.”

  “And you’ve come for the rest, is that it?”

  Danielle looked at his bandage, dark with dried blood in the center. “I came to find out who else already has.”

  Jacob Katz slumped into his chair.

  Danielle leaned over his cluttered desk. “I’m a chief inspector from National Police.”

  Katz’s eyes widened in fear. “I didn’t call you! I have nothing to say to you! If I talk, they’ll. . .”

  “They’ll what?”

  “My father,” Katz managed.

  “Keep talking.”

  “Get out! Leave me alone!”

  “Tell me about your father and I will.

  “Unle
ss they sent you. Unless they’re testing me.” He swallowed his face in his hands, then clutched at his hair. “Anee holeh.”