Land, Jon

by [Kamal

  “What is it?” Ben asked.

  She turned toward him. “Come have a look for yourself.”

  “At what?”

  “Your new partner.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 14

  B

  en was already twenty minutes late for the meeting with his Israeli liaison when he reached the Palestinian Authority building. He mounted the stairs quickly, struggling to collect his breath as he neared Mayor Sumaya’s office on the third floor. The door was partly open. He knocked anyway.

  “Come in,” Sumaya’s voice called back.

  “Sir,” Ben greeted, entering.

  “Ah, Inspector. We’ve been waiting for you.” The mayor rose at his appearance. Commander Shaath, seated directly in front of the desk, did not. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet . . .”

  Ben’s eyes followed the mayor’s slightly awkward gaze to the right and watched a ravishing, dark-haired woman rise from one of the twin chairs perched there.

  “This is Chief Inspector Danielle Barnea of the Israeli National Police,” Sumaya announced.

  They met halfway across the floor and shook hands. Danielle’s grip was firm and warm. She had small hands for her size, but carried plenty of strength within them. Ben felt calluses at the base of her fingers.

  “I look forward to working with you,” he said, hoping his lack of enthusiasm didn’t show through.

  “The feeling is mutual, Inspector.” But Ben could tell her own reluctance matched his.

  The fact that the Israeli liaison was a woman came as no surprise, since Dalia Mikhail had uncovered that fact for him mere minutes before. With no picture sent to her screen, what Dalia could not uncover was Danielle Barnea’s beauty. Ben let his eyes linger after Danielle’s had turned away. She was wearing a plain skirt and blouse colored an almost military olive green. She had an athlete’s build, that of someone who was used to working out. Her dark brown hair tumbled easily over her shoulders.

  “Chief Inspector Barnea was a last-minute replacement,” the mayor continued to Ben, seizing back control of the situation. “As such, she may need additional time to acquaint herself with the case.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Danielle said surely. “And I’d like to get started immediately, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all,” the mayor agreed. “Inspector Kamal?”

  Ben turned his gaze briefly on Sumaya. “I’m sure I can fill in any gaps in the chief inspector’s knowledge.”

  “And just how long have you been assigned to the case?” she asked him.

  “Since this morning,” Ben answered before the mayor could chime in.

  “It would seem you suffer from gaps of your own.”

  “Not so far as the most recent victim is concerned, and right now that is our primary concern.”

  Danielle swung back to Sumaya. “I was expecting to be paired with someone with more intimate knowledge of this investigation as a whole.”

  “Until this morning,” Ben countered, “there was no investigation as you would understand it. That’s why the mayor asked me to step in.”

  “After five murders?”

  “Eight now, counting the three Israeli authorities failed to investigate thoroughly and tie together.”

  Sumaya rose. “Well then,” he said, as Ben and Danielle stood staring at each other, “I don’t suppose there’s any more to be accomplished in this office.”

  In the hallway, after they had taken their leave, Danielle moved ahead of Ben and stopped at the top of the staircase. They stood there frozen as if each was waiting for the other to take the first step down.

  “We should go to my office at police headquarters,” Ben told her. “Review the case, get to know each other better.”

  Danielle Barnea took his remark as a challenge. “Bayan Kamal. Born 1960 in Ramallah. Son of the hero Jafir Kamal. Emigrated to America in 1965 to join relatives in Dearborn, Michigan. Father returned to the West Bank alone in 1967 and was assassinated in 1968.” Danielle sought out Ben’s eyes at that. “After a brilliant high school career, you attended the University of Michigan, graduating in the top third of your class. One year of law school followed by enrollment in police academy. Again graduated in top third of class and accepted job in Detroit police department. Married same year to an American woman. Two children. Was that a problem for you?”

  “Having children?”

  “Marrying an American.”

  “I am an American.”

  “I meant when you came back here. It would have been a problem for an Israeli.”

  “There were too many other problems for people to worry about that,” Ben told her.

  Danielle moved on. “I’ll skip ahead in your file to the point where you were assigned to head a task force investigating a series of brutal family slayings by a serial killer known as the Sandman. Shot and killed said killer when you found him—”

  “That’s enough,” Ben said.

  “You don’t want me to finish?”

  “Let’s skip to more recent history,” said Ben. “I came back here just over a year ago hoping to put my life back together. Teach detectives who didn’t even qualify as novices what a crime scene was and how to secure it.”

  “Maybe the Authority should build a police academy.”

  “We have two, actually: one here in Jericho and the other in Gaza. I’ve lectured in both. Anything else?”

  “Why do they call you Ben?”

  “It’s not in your file?”

  “I wouldn’t have asked if it was.”

  “After we moved to America, the kids in school couldn’t pronounce my real name, so I became Ben. When I moved back, the name stuck. Now, quid pro quo, what do you say?” Ben feigned clearing his throat, ever so thankful now for Dalia Mikhail’s computer. “Danielle Barnea, born in Jerusalem 1962. Enters the army in the Engineer Corps in 1980, but requests transfer to Special Operations division of the Israeli Defense Forces following completion of her mandatory service two years later, just after the first of two brothers dies in the Lebanon incursion of 1982. Becomes first woman ever given full commission in the Sayaret. Seventeen active missions. Rank upon retirement from duty at age of thirty, lieutenant—”

  “Actually,” Danielle interrupted in a steely voice, “I was commissioned a captain on my last day.”

  “—Completes accelerated police training course and joins National Police with rank of sgan mefakeah—did I pronounce that right?”

  “Close enough.”

  “Or deputy inspector. Eighteen months later becomes the youngest woman ever to be promoted to pakad, or chief inspector, the same year a second brother was—”

  “I think we can move on now.”

  “Not quite. I was just coming to the part of your file that details your transfer to Shin Bet, effective three months ago following your arrest of the alleged terrorist Ahmed Fatuk.”

  “Not alleged. Fatuk masterminded the suicide bombings of two city buses.”

  “I heard he had moved in with his Christian wife in Jerusalem well before they took place.”

  “We had evidence.”

  “You have no proof.”

  Danielle took a deep breath. “You’ve made your point.”

  “As you’ve made yours.”

  “Then let’s go to your office, Inspector, and I’ll tell you what I know about the Wolf.”

  * * * *

  W

  hat would your mayor think if he knew I was from Shin Bet?” she asked when they were outside the building.

  “Anything you want him to, so long as you say favorable things about him to your superiors.”

  “We’ve come a long way, Palestinians caring what Israelis think about them.”

  “The mayor is smart enough to know who the real enemies are.”

  “And the big man, the one who looked like an ape and sat silently in the chair the whole time I was in the office?”

  “Commander Shaath. He’s not smart at all
.”

  “He wouldn’t shake my hand.”

  “Something else you and I have in common. Why try to hide your true position from us?”

  “Because the involvement of Shin Bet implies a more vested interest on the part of my government. We wanted to keep this cooperative venture on a civilian level.”

  “But it’s not, it can’t be. Everything about this is government, politics. Yours, mine. The whole world is watching this cooperative venture of ours, and if it blows up, it won’t be civilians like you and me who pay.”

  “That’s why both sides are so determined to make it succeed.” She looked at him with that same knowing stare. “Something I get the impression you don’t care too much about.”

  “I like to remain detached,” Ben said.

  “Were you detached when you went after the Sandman?”

  Ben felt a slight surge of static roll up his spine. “It was something I learned afterward.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you?”

  “I know your file, you know mine. Ask yourself.”

  “Different.”

  “Loss—always the same.”

  “We do have certain things in common then, don’t we, Pakad?”

  “Circumstances, not politics.”

  “Politics are circumstances.”

  They lapsed into silence, strangers sharing the same sidewalk and nothing more.

  “We should stick to the matter at hand,” Danielle said finally.

  “Fine, then. What can you tell me about the three killings that took place while the West Bank was still under Israeli control?” Ben asked her.

  “Unfortunately, the first two murders were not followed up on satisfactorily. We can only be sure of the two that came after Shin Bet’s involvement.”

  “That makes four before the pullout, Pakad. Nine total now, instead of eight.”

  “The first occurred in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem, not the West Bank.”

  Ben let the remark pass. “And the two locations that followed Shin Bet’s taking an interest?”

  “Ramallah and Bethlehem.”

  “I grew up in Ramallah,” Ben remarked. “I’ll have to show you my childhood home sometime.”

  “I imagine there’s nothing to stop you from returning to it now.”

  Ben gave her a long look before moving on. “In any event, Jericho’s the first place al-Diib’s repeated himself.”

  “I can tell you that the cases we investigated prior to the pullout were virtually identical to the ones you’re facing here.”

  “You didn’t hand over the files?”

  “No one asked for them.”

  “You could have offered.”

  “We didn’t think you’d want our help.”

  “Or, maybe, you didn’t want to give it.”

  “We didn’t have a lot of reason to.”

  “Because the victims were Palestinians?”

  “Because we were certain you would read something else into such an offer.”

  “And have we, Pakad?”

  “I’ll let you know tomorrow, Inspector.”

  “Of course, since you couldn’t catch the killer after four confirmed murders, why should we even want your help?”

  “The Wolf was no more visible under our tenure than yours.”

  “But he leaves at least one trademark behind, doesn’t he? Tell me about the areas of your victims’ mutilations, Pakad.”

  “Faces and genitalia. The Wolf is someone who enjoys his work, who always makes sure he has enough time to finish what he starts. When soldiers found the first one in East Jerusalem, they were not certain initially whether the victim was male or female, there’d been so much cutting.”

  “And the others?”

  “Not as bad.”

  “Our victims have all been bad.”

  “I know.”

  “Did he empty the pockets of the victims you investigated as well, Pakad?”

  “Yes. Why do you think he does that?”

  “To throw us off the track, perhaps; make us think robbery was the true motive. Or it could be just a ritual for him, souvenirs to collect and remind him of the kill. Neatly cataloged and displayed so he can relive the event in his mind. Monsters do things like that.”

  “What did the Sandman collect?”

  “The clothes his victims were wearing when he killed them. We didn’t release that information to the press until after”—Ben felt a shudder rise through him—”he was dead. Otherwise we would have had an entire city sleeping in the nude.”

  “Or not sleeping at all.”

  “That’s what it finally came to: the entire routine of a city altered. It’s frightening the damage a single man can do.”

  “Why are you so certain it’s a man in this case?”

  “Physical strength. In both attacks here in Jericho, the victim was badly overpowered. Make no mistake about it, Pakad; he’s big, strong, and male.”

  “And ritualistic.”

  “As most serial killers tend to be.”

  “But our killer doesn’t fit all the norms, does he? To begin with, his victims come from both sexes. That is most unusual.”

  “Was there any evidence of sexual activity in the victims Shin Bet investigated?”

  “No evidence of semen anywhere on the scene in our cases,” Danielle reported. “Also no indication of penetration, either vaginally or rectally. Are we saying, then, that sex is not important to the killer we’re after?”

  “The mutilation of the genitalia in both male and female victims would seem to indicate something like that. But someone either asexual or androgynous would still tend to prey on one sex, not both.”

  “Of course, all we know is there was no evidence of sexual culmination on the scene. That does not mean it did not follow in the Wolfs natural order of things once he returned home. Like clothes for the Sandman.”

  Ben remained calm. “That could be.”

  “Do you think he could be incapable of any sexual response? Say, if he too were mutilated, like the cabdriver whose murder you investigated.”

  “The motivation in that case was considerably different.”

  “I wasn’t talking about the case; I was talking about what surviving such a mutilation might do to a man.”

  It was something Ben had failed to consider. He should have, of course. Maybe he had missed it on purpose.

  “If we could generate a list of men maimed in such a way,” Danielle continued, “we’d have something to start with.”

  “Then we’d better start with your files, Pakad, because the odds are the maiming came as a result of Israeli torture, most likely at your Ansar 3 detention camp.”

  Ben expected Danielle to bristle at his comment. Instead, she showed no reaction at all.

  “If that were the case, Inspector, perhaps you could tell me why he’s killing Palestinians instead of Jews.”

  “Torture can do strange things to a man, Pakad.”

  “And just assuming his wounds occurred at Palestinian hands . . .”

  “Then treatment may have been obtained at one of the hospitals or clinics your army allowed to remain open during the occupation. I’ll run some checks. I’d ask you to do the same with your Ansar 3 records, but I imagine there would be too many to sort through. So the only thing we have for sure to help us at this point are the victims. Uncover how he found them, or why he chose them, and we find him.”

  Danielle loosened slightly. “If you’re looking for common denominators, our computers have already failed to find any worthwhile to us.”

  “Perhaps because they did not have all the information they needed. Testimony of witnesses and family members, for example. It is doubtful such people would have felt comfortable talking to Israelis. And a computer cannot visit the scenes of the killings like we can. A computer cannot weigh information that the original investigators may have missed.”

  “With that in mind, I’d like to review your files of the five victims f
ound since the pullout. I have mine in the car.”

  Ben led her toward the parking lot. “Then let’s get started.”