Land, Jon

by [Kamal

  Dedicating herself to that task, she made a brief stop in Jerusalem and then drove out to the camp to pursue an apparently legitimate course of action: a visit to Ahmed Fatuk, the terrorist whose arrest in Jerusalem had led to her promotion to Shin Bet.

  “What, no candy?” Ahmed Fatuk greeted her, after he had been escorted into one of Ansar 3’s many interrogation rooms. It was square and windowless, the walls heavy and dark. A steel table and pair of folding chairs made for the only furniture. In spite of the desert heat beyond, the room had a dank, chilly feel to it that made Danielle long for a sweater.

  Her chair made a screech across the floor as she shifted it inward. “I left the box in the car.”

  “You come here to gloat?”

  “I checked on your family.”

  Fatuk’s features froze. His lower lip trembled.

  “They’re doing fine,” Danielle continued. “They’ve sent many letters. I’m sure you’d like to see them.”

  “And what do I have to do for you in return?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Answer a few questions.”

  Fatuk pushed his chair away from the table. “They’ve been through this already with me.”

  “For their questions—not mine. Mine have nothing to do with you or anyone you’ve worked with in the past.”

  “And if I answer them?”

  “You get your letters.”

  “I want to see my children.”

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  “Then you leave here disappointed.”

  “And you stay here disappointed.” Danielle slipped an envelope from out of her pocket and slid it across the table. “From your wife. I’m sorry it’s not longer, but I couldn’t wait around for her to write more.”

  Fatuk’s eyes widened. He picked up the letter as though it might shatter at his touch. His hands quivered as he read it. Fatuk claimed he had renounced his past life after marrying his present wife, who was a Christian. Up until now Danielle thought it was just another elaborate cover. But watching Fatuk savor the few short sentences his wife had jotted down for him made her realize he was telling the truth. He would never have stayed in Jerusalem if he’d had anything to do with the crimes that made him one of the most wanted terrorists in Israel. She had arrested an innocent man, at least innocent of perpetrating the acts that had served as the basis for his incarceration.

  “The letters from your children are downstairs,” Danielle said after he looked at her again.

  “Let me see my children and I will help you.”

  “I can help you see them sooner; that’s the best I can do.”

  “Sooner?”

  “I can make sure you are given a firm trial date, do everything I can to guarantee the truth comes out.”

  Fatuk gazed around him. “The truth doesn’t seem to mean very much in here.”

  “All the more reason you should give yourself every opportunity to get out.

  Fatuk’s stare turned wary. “All right, what do you want?”

  “I need to know the name of a Palestinian tortured here who was released, say, somewhere around a year ago, maybe eighteen months, and—”

  Fatuk laughed out loud. “Just take the prison roster with you.”

  “Let me finish. This Palestinian would have suffered severe damage to his genital area, perhaps even mutilation.”

  “Oh,” Fatuk said, and looked down.

  Danielle studied him. “You know something,” she prodded. “I can tell you know something.”

  “I know the man you’re looking for is gone, all right, but his balls never left the camp.”

  * * * *

  A

  bu Garib,” Fatuk continued as Danielle hurried to write everything down. “What happened to him is quite well known.”

  “Why did the Israelis do it?”

  “It wasn’t the Israelis, Pakad; it was Garib’s fellow Palestinians who tortured him.”

  “He was a collaborator?”

  “Of the worst kind. Cost many men their lives. I heard some who might eventually have joined his list of victims got a hold of him in the shower. It wasn’t pretty.”

  “Describe him.”

  “I wasn’t here at the time, but I understand he was a very big man and powerful. He didn’t go easily.”

  “When was he released?”

  “A few months before I arrived.”

  “A year, then?”

  “A little more than that, I think. The Israelis knew he wasn’t any good to them anymore. So they cut him loose.”

  “Bad choice of words,” Danielle told him.

  * * * *

  T

  o confirm that Abu Garib had been released from Ansar 3 just before the murders in the West Bank began, Danielle went to the camp’s main office and requested his file. Her identification smoothed the process considerably and she had begun believing she had actually tracked down the Wolf when the clerk returned to the counter.

  “I’m sorry, we have no prisoner by that name.”

  “Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. He was a prisoner, released perhaps twelve to fifteen months back.”

  “I’m saying we have no such name on any of our data bases, Chief Inspector. I don’t know where you got your information, but Abu Garib was never a prisoner in this facility.”

  * * * *

  * * * *

  Chapter 40

  D

  anielle’s new Shin Bet troops were in position by the time Ben and Radji arrived to pick up where they left off the next morning, or, more accurately, to repeat much of what they had done the day before. The boy looked bored and restless, disgruntled about having to go through the same routine for a second day in a row. At least he and Ben would be safe, enclosed by what Danielle termed a “movable bubble.” Her men pretended to work at various legitimate tasks, so as not to draw attention while they shadowed Ben and Radji. Their disguises were so remarkable that in the dim early morning light, Danielle herself had trouble discerning them from the locals working on the docks.

  After returning to Jerusalem from the detention camp in the Negev yesterday, she had busied herself with another painstaking review of the case files on the murder victims prior to the Israeli pullout from most of the West Bank, searching for a clue as to what might have been deleted. Whatever it was, no degree of scrutiny was going to yield it; the perpetrator had been too thorough in his work, the text of the files so complete that nothing at all appeared to be missing. But someone had gone to great lengths to delete something from them, just as someone had erased all trace of Abu Garib’s internment at Ansar 3.

  With no firm evidence to back up her suspicions, Danielle had said nothing to Ben about Garib’s existence. Yet everything indicated that Israeli authorities might have accomplished far more in this investigation than they had ever let on. Why? The only answer seemed to lie in Ben’s earlier assertion that two killers were at large, the second merely imitating the methods of the first so Fasil could be targeted without fear of recriminations. Danielle felt as if she and Ben had switched roles, so that she was now seriously considering what she had vehemently denounced just two days earlier.

  Danielle watched Ben and Radji approaching one of the first boats to return with last night’s catch. Even to her, the two looked like a father and son out for a leisurely stroll. The sight made it so easy for her to picture Ben in that role that it hurt. Despite how her own losses haunted her, she could not even contemplate what losing his family the way he had had done to him.

  What she could contemplate was the growing attraction she felt for him. She had it passed it off at first to her own desperate longing for a relationship, perhaps any relationship, apart from the career that had so dominated her life. But she understood now it was much more than that. It was almost as though Ben was her emotional twin, that fate had thrust them together as the only two people who could save each other. Danielle found the irony in that striking, for finally it seemed that fate had conspired for, rather t
han against, her.

  She couldn’t squander this opportunity any more than he could, because it could be the last one either would get. The differences between them were nothing compared to what they held in common. But what would happen when this case was finished? Would she have the courage to tell him how she felt? Would they both have the courage to build a bridge strong enough to overcome the pressures of culture?

  She was watching Ben, his arm tossed comfortably over Radji’s shoulder, wondering if he felt at all the same way, when she saw the boy suddenly stiffen, his right hand starting upward.

  * * * *

  B

  y the second day, Ben found himself becoming discouraged. There were a dozen piers, each packed with boats bringing in their catch or steering out to sea again, not to mention the various buyers, merchants, and packers scattered about.

  He had returned to his office the previous afternoon to find the first batch of licenses permitting passage of select merchants between Gaza and the West Bank waiting for his attention. He intended to cross-match this list against another of all men treated at hospitals and clinics for genital mutilation or sexual disfunction. But, given the poor state of record keeping in the West Bank, he wasn’t optimistic this would lead anywhere.

  Moreover, there was something nagging at him he couldn’t quite grasp, something Danielle had said, misty words Ben hadn’t cleared up when they were right in front of him, and therefore had lost. He walked alongside Radji on the edge of the dock where it adjoined the many piers, distracted by trying to remember. He let the boy lead the way to help cheer him up, lift him from the funk he was experiencing ever since a disturbing visit to his sister, Zahira, yesterday.

  “In there,” Ben had said when they reached the hospital room in Jericho where she had been transferred.

  The boy had swallowed hard and entered, while Ben lingered in the doorway.

  Zahira looked much better than she had when Ben saw her in the refugee camp infirmary, but the bruises and swelling still made her a scary sight for a brother longing for the beautiful sister he remembered. Ben watched Radji’s knees wobble as he neared the bed. Standing there, the boy could do nothing but stare in silence until she reached over and took his hand in hers.

  Ben was waiting in the hall when Radji reemerged, shoulders hunched, sniffling from the tears he’d just shed. He noticed Ben watching and an angry snarl crept across his face.

  “I’m going to get the man who did this.”

  “I already took care of it.”

  “You arrest him?”

  “I beat the shit out of him.”

  The boy smiled at that. “You’re a better cop than I thought.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  Ben looked at Radji and knew he wanted, needed, to break down like any child would. But he couldn’t because he wasn’t a child anymore and hadn’t been for some time. Radji had learned to turn every emotional scar into a callus, and one was already forming over his latest wound as Ben stood there beside him. Ben wanted to take the boy in his arms and comfort him, looked down again and nearly gagged.

  If was his oldest son! Looking up, smiling at him as he said, “Daddy...”

  Ben shook himself alert, trembling. First Danielle had turned into Jenny and now this boy was turning into his son. Was he losing his mind? Or was it gone already?

  “You should have killed him,” Radji had said then, and started off alone.

  But today, here on the docks of Gaza he was, however briefly, a typical boy again, with an adult he could trust and depend on by his side. Secure in the knowledge that he would have a roof over his head that night.

  Perhaps the Wolf had done some good, after all.

  Ben’s thinking veered suddenly in another direction. How many days ago had al-Diib first struck in Jericho? And, according to Danielle, when had Fasil made his first visit in the guise of Harvey Fayles?

  He recalled the answers, examined them in his mind.

  Of course!

  The answer had been so obvious that he’d—

  Ben realized Radji had suddenly stopped and stiffened. He watched as the boy pointed a finger at a hulking figure lugging a basin of fish down the pier directly before them.

  “That’s him,” Radji said.

  * * * *

  Chapter 41

  B

  en’s eyesfollowed theline ofRadji’s finger.The hugeman the boy indicated had stopped dead in his tracks and lowered his basin of fish slightly. Their eyes met and in the frozen moment that followed, Ben knew.

  My God, it’s al-Diib!

  For an instant it seemed the man would simply turn away and continue about his business. But instead of moving on, he backpedaled and let the basin drop to the dock, holding Ben’s hate-filled stare the whole time. Al-Diib knew who Ben was, had killed Dalia Mikhail because this was some kind of game for him, a game Ben was determined to win.

  The basin clamored against the concrete pier, dumping fish in all directions.

  Ben already had the microphone at his mouth. “I’ve got him! Danielle, I’ve got him!”

  The Wolf had turned his back and was retreating along the pier past the boats moored there. Ben took a step forward, felt for the pistol concealed beneath his baggy shirt, didn’t rush. Al-Diib wasn’t going anywhere.

  “He’s getting away!” Radji screeched, and lurched forward into a dash before Ben could grab him.

  “Shit!” Ben exclaimed, and bolted too, his feet hitting the cold wetness of the dock seconds after Radji’s.

  He tried to hurdle the spilled basin of fish, but slipped and fell, precious moments lost as the boy gained ground on the killer he had recognized.

  “Stop! Killer! . . . Stop!” Radji wailed.

  Ben gave chase down the dock, as the Wolf lunged suddenly onto the deck of a fishing boat with Radji close behind.

  * * * *

  I

  ’ve got him! Danielle, I’ve got him!”

  Danielle, astonished as she was at the identification, responded instantly nonetheless.

  “All teams, converge on Batman and Robin!” she ordered, using the code names she had pinned on Ben and Radji. “Suspect is fleeing down pier number seven and, oh God, they are in pursuit!”

  From her position as shadow well back of the piers, she saw her teams respond instantly, their intricate covers abandoned in a breath’s length. Pistols and submachine guns, hidden until a moment ago, appeared in their hands. A few toting larger sniper rifles in canvas sacks rushed away from the action in search of the best vantage points from which to take aim. The rest bolted toward the pier in Ben’s wake, making no effort to conceal or disguise their intentions.

  “Police! Police! Police!” they screamed, to clear the crowd before them, and Danielle realized with inane embarrassment that a few of the cries had been shouted reflexively in Hebrew instead of Arabic.

  “Ben! Ben, can you hear me?” she roared into her microphone, lurching through the mounting crowds toward the dock.

  He didn’t answer. She saw him racing down the pier after the boy, who was charging after the suspect. She watched the Wolf jump onto the deck of a fishing boat and disappear from view. Radji hurdled over the gunwale with Ben right on his heels, just before the boat tore away from its mooring.

  * * * *

  B

  en felthis feetripped fromunder himwhen theboat spedoff. He fell backward and his head rammed the gunwale. Stars exploded before his eyes and he realized he had lost his pistol. Dimly, he flapped his hand around the deck in search of it, coming up empty.

  The fishing boat roared on into the Mediterranean, the dock shrinking behind it.

  Radji appeared a yard before him, terrified. He looked away from Ben for the deck. Ben followed his gaze, saw the pistol lying at the boy’s feet half buried in the murky water coating the deck.

  The roar of the engine softened, and the boat slowed. Ben shook his head to clear it and started to rise, as Radji reached down for the gun.

  Al-Di
ib pounced on the boy and yanked him upward, razor-sharp scaling knife pressed against his throat.