Besides, Baruch no longer cared and his knees trembled with the realisation. He felt a great despair within. More letters to mothers and fathers explaining the hero’s death earned by their sons. Baruch headed from the rooftop to the stairwell, and checked the magazine in his sidearm as he walked. It was full. No doubt someone would find a use for the nine rounds that remained.
Townsville, Queensland, Australia
It had never happened before. Annabelle Gilbert was late getting to the station. She leapt from the taxi and flew through reception, running onto the set trailing a make-up artist who fussed with a tube of mascara. This was not good enough, she told herself, and there was no excuse. Okay, so Saunders had taken her to lunch, told her she had the world at her feet, and the two bottles of vintage merlot had worked their magic, dissolving her guard and melting time. Suddenly, it was five thirty-seven in the evening and the red light on the camera facing her would wink on in exactly twenty-three minutes. No, correction, twenty-two and a half minutes, she realised, glancing at her TAG Heuer.
‘Shit,’ she’d said, jumping up from the table, teetering on heels that clattered across the restaurant floor as she headed for the front door. Fortunately, as she’d run down the steps, a taxi arrived dropping off a couple of businessmen. One of them held the door open for her as she jumped in. Annabelle hoped the alcohol wouldn’t be noticed when she read the news – it was a sackable offence to be drunk on camera, and quite righly, too. The realisation that she had broken a number of her own professional and personal rules made her furious, white circles on her usually rosy cheeks the only indication of the anger welling inside. No time to prepare. No time to get her thoughts in order. Only time to wing it.
‘…and five and four and…’ The assistant producer held up three fingers silently, then two, then one, finishing the countdown pointing at her.
‘Good evening. This is Annabelle Gilbert with the six o’clock news. Tonight, anger at the pumps as petrol prices surge to as much as a dollar fifty-five a litre, huge seas batter the New South Wales coastline, and an IVF chimp gives birth to triplets.’
Gilbert turned to face another camera as its top light flicked on, and assumed her most serious face. A brief pause in the rolling script on the autocue glass in front of the lens allowed her an extra second to suitably compose herself. ‘The Israeli army today claimed a major victory in the war against terrorism, swooping on members of the radical groups Hamas and Hezbollah in Ramallah on the West Bank. The daring raid, utilising infantry, helicopters and tanks, cornered the terrorists as they met in a deserted apartment block…’
As Gilbert read the lines, footage of the attack played across the monitor facing her. Israeli soldiers dropped onto a rooftop from a helicopter. Then suddenly it was night and the black sky glowed orange with a massive explosion. The picture cut to show weary Israeli soldiers stepping out the back of a tank. Gilbert froze. One of those soldiers was Tom. Annabelle’s mouth went dry and her skin crawled with a cold sweat. The footage continued and showed Tom assisting a wounded soldier.
‘More than a dozen Israelis were killed in the assault on the terrorist stronghold,’ she read, not realising she was doing so. ‘Israeli officials claim that one of the terrorists killed in the raid was Kadar Al-Jahani, the man US intelligence experts believe masterminded the recent bombing of the US Embassy in Jakarta, causing the deaths of at least one hundred and thirty-seven people…’
Through sheer professionalism, Annabelle Gilbert had somehow managed to keep it all together during the half-hour bulletin. But when the floor producer drew his finger across his throat and gave the thumbs up signalling the end of the broadcast, Annabelle rushed from the set violently sick.
Sirkin Air Force Base, Israel
Unfortunately for Kadar Al-Jahani, and despite the news reports to the contrary, he was still very much alive. ‘Please…’ he croaked, lifting his head as far as he was able. Wilkes gave the man his waterbottle while the jailer adjusted the prisoner’s restraints prior to transport, manacles around his neck, wrists and ankles linked by a short chain that would force him to stoop and shuffle like a man whose muscles and tendons had dried and withered with arthritis and age.
‘Keep it,’ Wilkes said.
‘No. It is against the rules,’ said an Israeli sergeant, snatching the bottle from Kadar and handing it back to Wilkes.
‘Thank you anyway,’ said Kadar Al-Jahani in heavily accented English, his sunken dark eyes looking up from black and purple sockets.
Wilkes studied the captive terrorist. His body was more bruised than he would’ve expected. Blood caked his swollen lips and there were red pools under his toenails. No doubt there were other fresh wounds visited on him by his jailers that he couldn’t see beneath the rough cotton prison greys. There were few Israelis who hadn’t been directly affected by the actions of men like Kadar Al-Jahani and, despite the heavy guard and tight security, it was likely he’d been paid several unfriendly visits during his brief imprisonment.
‘You are not like them, I can see that. So then why –’
One of the jailers smashed his elbow into the side of Kadar Al-Jahani’s head. The other yelled at him, Wilkes guessed, to keep quiet. He thought of Major Samuels and his men, all dead, and of Colonel Baruch, his body found slumped in the back seat of a Humvee, his thumb inside the smoking Glock’s trigger guard. No, he had no sympathy for the prisoner.
‘I can see this is going to be a pleasant trip,’ said Monroe, swinging his gear over his left shoulder.
Wilkes agreed wanly. They, Wilkes and Monroe, were part of the security detail accompanying the prisoner to his next destination. Exactly what should be done with Kadar Al-Jahani after his capture hadn’t been resolved when they’d left Australia. Wilkes assumed he’d be brought to Australia via Diego Garcia for questioning, but now the powers upstairs had different ideas. And they made sense. Kadar was hardly going to give up anything important when politely asked to do so. Anything of value would need to be…extracted, Monroe had said, and he was probably right.
‘Where he’s going, the guy will give up his grandma when those assholes are finished with him,’ said Monroe after they were told of the prisoner’s final destination.
Before leaving the building, Kadar Al-Jahani was hurriedly kitted up in full Israeli army protective gear, ceramic body armour and helmet. He was then bustled towards the stone courtyard of the maximum security prison and into the glare of a morning sun that burned as if concentrated by a magnifying glass. At the last moment, a hood had been placed over the prisoner’s head and helmet and he was ringed by nervous soldiers armed with Uzi machine pistols and submachine guns. Two burly bodyguards hurriedly pushed him into the back seat of an IDF Humvee, one of four in the convoy, and climbed in after him along with three heavily armed soldiers. Wilkes and Monroe took their places in the last vehicle, sitting shoulder to shoulder with the security detail who stank of sweat, stale tobacco and gun oil – the smell of soldiers no matter who or what they fought for.
The convoy made its way through the streets of outer Tel Aviv to Sirkin AFB, just another military convoy with somewhere to go in a hurry. It drove to an apron well away from any Israeli Air Force or Sayeret infrastructure and activity, where a huge United States air force C-5A Galaxy transport plane sat on its own, gigantic wings drooping as if exhausted by the heat of the day. The prisoner was transferred to the belly of the plane, whereupon the responsibility for him passed to the US Army, and to Wilkes and Monroe. The soldiers saluted each other and the Israelis left.
‘Water…’ croaked Kadar Al-Jahani again, once the Israelis had departed.
‘Shut the fuck up, motherfucker. So you’re a fuckin’ terrorist, a terror-ist? A person who deals in terror? Well, here, I am the man who deals out the terror, y’hear, motherfucker?’ To underline his point, the US Army corporal, a bull of a man and black as the night, plunged his fist into the prisoner’s stomach.
‘Hey!’ said Wilkes, the punch taking him completely by s
urprise.
The restricted movement forced on the prisoner by his manacles, and the heavily strapped shoulder dislocated in his capture, made him drop to his knees, then onto his side as he struggled to regain his breath. The doctor provided to oversee Kadar Al-Jahani’s health, a US Army major, turned away as if he had something more important to attend to somewhere else in the plane’s cavernous interior.
‘I don’t think that’s necessary, do you, Corporal?’ asked Monroe.
‘No, sir, if you say so, sir.’
‘I say so,’ said Monroe.
‘Sir. Chew an American, ain’t chew?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘Just checking, sir.’
Monroe and Wilkes looked at the man and decided to let it go. Both had had enough of confrontation for a while. They lifted Kadar to his feet and helped him across to the bench seats running the full length of the aircraft’s fuselage. The Israelis had stripped him of his protective gear and the hood, leaving his prison garb drenched in sweat and his hair matted with dust and grime.
‘No way, sirs. I am the loadmaster here and this is my world. Them seats is ree-served for US Army personnel. You can sit there, sirs, you’re welcome. But yo’ motherfucker terrorist can sit his ass on the floor, okay? That’s SOP. Don’t like it, sirs? Take it up with the US Army. I’ll show you where he can sit.’The corporal pulled Kadar Al-Jahani up by his chains, choking him briefly. He led the prisoner to a cleared section of floor and pushed him down onto the checkerplate, locking the chains into a cleat. He walked off, shaking his head and grumbling about ‘motherfucker pussies’ and ‘do-gooders’.
Monroe gave the prisoner a sip from his water container. Kadar grabbed the bottle between both hands and brought it to his lips, gulping thirstily. ‘I think this is going to be one of those times when you wish you’d taken the train,’ said Monroe.
‘Yeah,’ agreed Wilkes. Around eleven thousand kilometres to go, sitting on little better than a canvas bench seat, the bare ribs of the plane’s fuselage for back support, with Corporal Punishment providing the in-flight service. Wilkes hated flying at the best of times. He knew the next thirteen or so hours would remind him why. But no matter how uncomfortable he was, the prisoner, chained to the bare floor, would have it worse. Wilkes shrugged. The man was a killer – he deserved that and more.
Wilkes and Monroe watched as the corporal rechecked that the rest of the load inside the vast belly of the C-5A was secured, pulling on the webbing holding down a Cobra gunship and, behind it, two LAVs – light armoured vehicles. The ramp under the aircraft’s enormous tail fin began to rise as the engines spooled up. Wilkes felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Monroe. In the palm of his hand was a set of foam earplugs. ‘Thanks, mate,’ he said. It was noisy inside the C-5A, but nothing compared to a C-130. Talk was still possible, however. Wilkes noted that, since the tank episode in Ramallah, his working relationship with Atticus had improved out of sight. Monroe mustn’t have too many mates, he observed, if it took that kind of demonstration to prove worthy of the bloke’s friendship.
‘Can I have more water?’ said the prisoner.
Wilkes couldn’t see why not. He offered the man his drink bottle.
‘Allah favours the merciful,’ said the man before taking a drink.
‘Well, then you’re in his bad books for sure, pal,’ said Monroe, to which he received a puzzled look from Kadar. ‘Remember, the US Embassy, Jakarta?’
‘Mohammed, may His name be praised, tells us to slay the pagans, the infidels.’
‘When will it stop, all this slaying?’ Monroe asked.
‘When Israel is pushed into the sea and the Arabian lands are returned to the Arabs. When the Palestinians have a homeland.’
‘So where will the Israelis go, given that they can’t just swim around in the Med indefinitely?’ Atticus Monroe folded his arms and stretched his legs out in front of him in a useless attempt to get comfortable.
‘Of course, they will all be dead. Or perhaps they will go and live in your country, America.’
‘I heard there are many people in the Middle East who think Israel is America,’ said Wilkes, finding himself drawn into the conversation.
‘Yes, and I am such a one. Israel, for all Washington’s denials, is an instrument of US foreign policy. The Americans give to the Israelis two billion dollars each year to spend on weapons. Who are these weapons to be used against? Why do the Americans give the Israelis so much money for instruments of death? Because the violence and unrest caused by Israel’s presence in the region suits America. It keeps the Arab world divided and the oil prices low. And that is why America is our enemy.’
‘You guys are deluded,’ said Monroe, realising he was having a nice chat with a man who had personally engineered the deaths of the people at the embassy. ‘And you are a murderer.’
‘No, I am a soldier.’
‘No, we’re soldiers. Don’t flatter yourself, pal. And I’m not listening to another word of this shit. You know, Tom, what these people here need is a whole bunch of those Lutheran missionaries to settle the place down. Worked in New Guinea…’ With that, he squashed the plugs into his ears, closed his eyes and hunkered down on the narrow seat.
‘And there you have the typical American response to the truth,’ Kadar Al-Jahani said with a sneer. ‘And why we hate them. Look at him. Americans only listen to Israel. I fight for a Palestinian homeland. I fight for the injustice done to my fellow Muslims by American foreign policy. You would do the same if you were put in my position.’
‘And what position is that?’ asked Wilkes. He had to admit, he was intrigued. He’d looked down the gun sight at plenty of fanatics and extremists over the years, but it occurred to him that he’d never actually talked to one.
‘Where are you from? You have a different accent to this American.’
‘Australia.’
‘Yes, Australia. Another instrument of American foreign policy. Well, Mr Australia, you come home one day and strangers are living in your house. What do you do? You ask them to leave and if they will not leave, you try to force them out, and if they kill your mother and your brothers and sisters and your children and still refuse to leave, what do you do about that?’ Kadar Al-Jahani spoke quietly and Wilkes had to lean forward, the noise of the taxiing aircraft making it difficult to catch all the words.
Wilkes had heard something like that before, but from the other side. Wasn’t it Major Samuels who said, ‘They rejoice in killing our grandmothers and children, our brothers and sisters’?
‘What are you doing in Indonesia?’ said Wilkes.
‘Do you not want to answer my question?’
The truth was that, no, Wilkes didn’t want to answer Kadar Al-Jahani’s question because he’d do what any man would do no matter what their religion or nationality or skin colour – he’d defend his family to the death. And he didn’t want to give the terrorist the satisfaction of hearing that. Fortunately, the massive engines of the C-5A began to shriek as it turned onto the threshold markers and a wall of noise came down on any conversation.
The prisoner shrugged and held up Wilkes’s empty waterbottle. Wilkes accepted it with a feeling of frustration. He knew the Israeli point of view and he’d just been given a glimpse into the reciprocal hate driving the machinery of the human meat grinder that was Middle Eastern politics. The Israeli perspective was no different to that of the Palestinians. And the meat grinder would go on consuming human lives until both sides were satisfied that the matter had been settled. It was really no different to the payback practised by the primitive PNG highlanders, a blood feud in which both sides believed they wore the white hats. Perhaps Atticus was right and what the place needed was a good dose of Lutheran missionaries. What would settle it for the Arabs? A Palestinian homeland? What would settle it for the Israelis? A secure Israel? These things had been offered in the past, yet both sides appeared more prepared to embrace hate than each other, and the opportunities for peace had been blown to pieces a
gain and again and again…. ‘History is Israel’s curse and we have a lot of history here.’ Baruch’s words came back to him. The colonel was right. There was too much looking back and not enough looking forward. This supposedly was the place where loving gods had touched the earth, but instead of love they had left behind a poison that had consumed mankind for two millennia.
Just on twelve and a half hours later, the C-5A rolled to a stop. The nose on the monster raised while the ramp at the back lowered on huge hydraulic arms, and the Caribbean sun flooded in. After the darkness of the hold lit by occasional dim fluorescent strips, Wilkes and Monroe both blinked and squinted at the sudden ferocity of the glare. A squad of half a dozen US Army troopers armed with M16A2s were marching across the tarmac towards them, accompanied by a bird colonel and a couple of lieutenant colonels. Before they arrived, Corporal Punishment unlocked the prisoner’s chains after giving him a halfhearted kick in the legs, supervised by the doctor, to check that he was still alive.
‘Welcome to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, gentlemen. We’ll take it from here,’ said the colonel to Wilkes and Monroe with a soft Kentucky drawl as he strode up the ramp. ‘I do hope he hasn’t given y’all too much trouble.’
‘Well, yeah, actually – he’s a snorer,’ said Monroe, screwing up his face.
‘Good,’ said the colonel, distracted, looking at the man in chains being heaved to his feet. ‘I am now officially relieving you of the prisoner,’ he said with continued formality.
‘Why, thank you, Colonel,’ said Monroe.
‘I believe you’re going straight on to Diego Garcia once you’ve refuelled. We’ll have to show you our wonderful facilities some other time. Have a pleasant flight,’ he said politely. The colonel turned and walked down the ramp. The NCO commanding the squad shouted something incomprehensible and Kadar Al-Jahani was taken away, secreted in the middle of the knot of armed soldiers. Next stop, Camp Echo – so named because it recalled the infamous but now dismantled Camp X-Ray.
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