THE WAVE: A John Decker Thriller

by J. G. Sandom

  * * *

  Al-Hakim climbed the narrow gangway up onto the deck. The night watchman told him that the Chief Mate was expecting him. After a brief conversation, the Mate escorted the Egyptian to his quarters – a tiny fo’c’sle on the starboard side. There Al-Hakim remained the entire voyage south, sleeping for almost ten hours before the steward woke him early Monday morning. They would be docking in Port Said in another hour, he told the Egyptian. Time to get ready.

  As soon as the freighter approached the Egyptian coast, a small launch pulled up along the starboard beam, and the harbor pilot came aboard. It was his job to help the captain navigate the local waters, and to cue up for her passage through the 192-kilometer canal – from Port Said to Port Taufik on the Red Sea. Baqrah had not lied; everything had been arranged. Once the freighter was in convoy, the launch returned to pick up the harbor pilot, and to replace him with another pilot for the passage through the canal. At last, thought Al-Hakim, as he scrambled down the rope ladder. He was almost home. He stepped aboard the launch and, half an hour later, climbed safely up onto dry land.

  He was met by an Egyptian named Mashish, a placid young man who did not feel the need to chatter senselessly as Zimrilim had done. It was late morning and, despite the season, the sun was hot. Mashish drove silently along the coastal road to the Egyptian/Israeli town of Rafah. It was an uneventful journey and by the time they arrived at the border, it was well after eleven. Mashish pulled over into a narrow alleyway and stopped the car beside a nondescript white stucco house with a single desultory palm tree dozing in the front. Neither man spoke as he cut the engine and ushered Al-Hakim through the front door.

  The house was situated only fifty yards or so from the Israeli border. Al-Hakim could see the barbed wire fence that marked the line between the occupied territory and Egypt through the living room window. There was a terminal a little further north. A group of Arabs was standing by the barbed wire fence, shouting and waving at another group of Arabs on the other side. No wonder they had labeled it the “calling wall.” Just then, Mashish returned with a platter of fruit and a steaming pot of tea.

  “You’d better eat something before we cross,” he told him.

  Al-Hakim did not reply. He was staring out the window. Then he asked, “What is that settlement? Over there?”

  Mashish moved next to him. “Camp Canada,” he said. “More than three hundred and sixty Palestinian families live there, including mine. It was built by the Zionists in ’71 as a relocation camp for Rafah families left homeless by the widening of the roads in Gaza – part of Garron’s Iron Fist campaign. But in 1982, when the final phase of the return of Sinai to Egypt was concluded, those in the camp were stranded on the wrong side of the border. We were told that we’d be there for just a few weeks, that the Zionists would give us land in Tel el Sultan, give us work permits. But it never happened. Although the land was allocated, it wasn’t until ‘86 that Israel agreed upon some kind of repatriation process. Since then, only eight families have returned to Sinai. The rest are forced to renew their Egyptian tourist visas every six months. Today, unemployment in the camp hovers around seventy percent. It is a cemetery of the living.” He laughed bitterly. “The Zionists could transport ten thousand falasha, ten thousand Ethiopian Jews, in only a few days. But for us, eight families was all that they could manage. Even when we’re granted permission to immigrate, they insist we have twelve thousand U.S. dollars in construction funds. The PLO financed the first few families but, since the Gulf Wars, the money has dried up. Who has twelve thousand dollars? We barely have enough to feed our children.”

  “Who operates the terminal?”

  “It is manned by Palestinians, but the Israeli Army is in charge. You see over there?” he added, pointing at another small settlement on the Israeli side of the fence. “That is the illegal Gush Katif Jewish settlement. Over there. By the tanks.”

  “I see it.”

  Mashish looked at his watch. “It is almost time.” He moved away from the window and walked over to a corner of the room. Then he squatted on his haunches, pressed a piece of masonry in the floor, and a panel in the wall swung open. Mashish smiled and said, “They find the tunnels almost as quickly as we build them. But this one has never been used. It is brand new.”

  “Where does it go?” asked Al-Hakim.

  “To the Palestinian Community Center, beside the Gush Katif.” Mashish glanced at his watch again. “Look, now,” he said.

  Al-Hakim stared through the window. As he watched, a small group of boys materialized on the outskirts of Camp Canada. They began to pick up stones, and to throw them with uncanny precision over the fence at the tanks guarding a pair of bulldozers beside the Jewish settlement.

  “Behold our Palestinian artillery,” Mashish added with a grin.

  The tanks came to life. Their turrets swung around toward the Palestinian refugee camp. Then, without warning, they opened fire with thirty-caliber machine guns. The children stood their ground. The continued to throw stones even as the sand around them exploded in puffs of dust. Al-Hakim watched with fascination. He could see tracers despite the noonday sun. Then the Israeli soldiers found their mark. A small boy, no more than eleven or twelve, picked up a stone, reeled back to throw it, when gunfire rippled through his chest and sent him sprawling to the ground. His head exploded like a firecracker. The rest of the boys dispersed in all directions.

  “It is time,” Mashish said. “Quickly now.”

  Al-Hakim followed Mashish into the opening. A narrow corridor led through the darkness to a staircase. They scrambled down wooden steps. As they moved, Al-Hakim could hear Mashish begin to cry. “Why do you weep?” he asked him. He could not see the Palestinian’s face. Mashish carried a flashlight but he kept it pointed at the steps.

  “It is with joy,” Mashish replied. “That was my brother by the fence, the one who fell.” He paused for a moment. Then he turned and said, “Now he is free.”

  * * *

  Ben Seiden drove into the parking lot of Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv. It was 6:00 AM on Monday and the lot was practically deserted. He parked his car and got out. It was another gorgeous day. The weather had been unusually balmy over the last few weeks, and he wondered at this as he made his way inside. Despite the recent bombings, Seiden – like so many Israelis – couldn’t help feeling somewhat cheered by the recent thawing in relations between the Palestinians and Israelis. PLO General Secretary Abu Mazen and Prime Minister Garron had just returned from yet another peace conference. Ever since the Second Gulf War and the overthrow and capture of Saddam Hussein, the United States had been pressuring both sides to come to an accord. Indeed, for the first time in history, a U.S. President openly sponsored the idea of an independent Palestinian state. And while Garron continued to throw up obstacles against the Roadmap, at least there had been some movement. But, despite the good news . . . No, because of it, Seiden was worried that the more radical terrorist groups, such as the Brotherhood of the Crimson Scimitar, would do whatever they could to undermine the peace process. They, like the extremists on the Israeli right, were likely to become even more intransigent as hopes for peace grew stronger. And now with El Aqrab in custody, it was a virtual certainty. The fact that Gulzhan Baqrah had hijacked that trainload of HEU in Kazakhstan weighed heavily on Seiden’s heart. “Somewhere on the soil of our enemies,” only meant one thing to him – Israel, perhaps more than ever before, was in jeopardy. And worse, due to the power struggle between El-Fatah and Hamas, the Israeli security apparatus was being pressured not to clamp down on the Palestinians. At a time when such pressure was most needed. Such was the irony of peace.

  Seiden entered the building, flashed his ID at Security, and made his way down the long green central corridor to his office. As he unlocked the door and stepped inside, he noticed instantly that something was amiss. The light on his desk was still on . . . and yet he had turned it off the night before. He always did. Seiden was a punctilious man. He hated the idea of was
ting energy. He made his way around his desk and stopped.

  There. In the floor. His safe was open. He couldn’t believe it. Mossad headquarters was, without doubt, the most secure location in all of Tel Aviv and yet, somehow, someone had broken in. He got onto his hands and knees and started rifling through the safe. How strange, he thought. Nothing appeared to be missing. He poured through the documents again. There was no doubt about it. Everything was there. Perhaps the thief or thieves had photographed the contents. Seiden closed the safe, fastened the door and spun the dial. Then it occurred to him. Even if nothing was missing, now someone could claim that it was.

  * * *

  Mashish and the Egyptian mule Al-Hakim drove along the outskirts of Beersheba, winding their way along the dusty desert road toward the old city. It had taken them several hours to make the journey from Rafah to Beersheba, but they had done so without incident. Mashish had been prepared. Despite the numerous checkpoints, despite the diligent searching of the IDF, no one had found the aluminum case that Al-Hakim had secreted in the bowels of the Renault 405.

  When they had traveled a few kilometers east of the modern city, Mashish pulled over by a low stone wall and the men got out. Mashish was unhappy. It was only four o’clock but his favorite hummus joint, Bulgarit, on K.K. le Israel Street, was already closed. He was hungry, he told Al-Hakim. We will eat soon, the large Egyptian replied.

  They strolled along the dusty path and Mashish told Al-Hakim about the city’s past. Tel Sheva, the mound of biblical Beersheba where they now stood, was located in the northern Negev, several kilometers east of the modern city. The Arabic name of the mound, Tell es-Sab'a, preserved the biblical name. The ancient town was built on a low hill, on the bank of a wadi that carried floodwater during winter. The site itself was more of an administrative center than a city. It was small, about three acres in size, but it was strategically placed, for it guarded the road that ran from Transjordan to Gaza on the Mediterranean Coast, and the route proceeding from Beersheba to the Hill Country of Judah. An aquifer deep beneath the wadi ensured the year-round supply of water. It was this that had brought them to Beersheba. This and the symbolism of the town itself. From the period of David onward, Beersheba had served as the southernmost outpost of the Judean kings. Indeed, the ideal boundaries of the land of Israel were "from Dan (not far from Aval Bet Maacha, in the north) to Beersheba (in the south)," as quoted in Judges 20:1.

  The men walked between two stands of olive groves and up onto the naked flinty mound itself. A large area of the site had been excavated between 1969 and 1976, revealing the remains of several settlements, including various fortified towns of the early monarchic rule of Judah, covered by remnants of smaller fortresses dating back to the Persian and Roman periods. The earliest remains were a number of rock-hewn dwellings and a twenty-meter well supplying fresh water to the first permanent unfortified settlement of the Tribe of Simon.

  In the mid-tenth century BCE, the first large fortified city was established, serving as the administrative center of the southern region of the kingdom. It extended some ten dunams across the summit of the tel. This had been covered by an eighth century town, in the uppermost layer, a remarkable example of provincial city planning and indicative of the importance of Beersheba for the defense of the southern border. A sophisticated drainage system had been built beneath the streets to collect rainwater into a central channel, assuring the citizens a regular supply of water even during times of siege.

  “There,” said Mashish. “You see?” He pointed toward a large depression in the ground, lined with hewn stones.

  Al-Hakim looked down into the circular opening. It must have been at least seven meters wide and twenty meters deep, with a narrow staircase spiraling down along the inside of the well. He started down the steps. As he descended, Al-Hakim noticed an opening at the bottom of the depression which Mashish said led into the cisterns. Moments later, they ducked into the darkened passageway.

  They traveled through the tunnel for almost twenty meters before they came upon the first of the stone cisterns. Despite the flashlight Mashish carried, it was difficult to see. Al-Hakim stopped. “This is it,” he said.

  The cistern was exactly as Gulzhan Baqrah had described. Al-Hakim opened his aluminum case and knapsack and began to set up the equipment. After a few minutes, he turned toward Mashish and asked him for a pair of pliers. As the young man searched his satchel, Al-Hakim reached his hand into his shirt. Then, without pausing, he grabbed Mashish by the hair, pulled his head back with a sudden jerk, and slashed his throat with one quick stroke. The boy tried to scream but the sound was trapped like a bubble in his severed voice box. He coughed and sputtered. Then, finally, he lay still. Al-Hakim felt the body wither in his grasp. Soon, he thought, Mashish would be reclining with his brother in the Gardens of Bliss. Surrounded by virgins. Anointed with oils. Free.

  Chapter 18

  Sunday, January 30 – 8:27 PM

  Off the Coast of Gibraltar

  The El Affroun pitched and yawed in choppy waters as the deep blue Mediterranean met the inky currents of the cold Atlantic. Leaning over the starboard rail, in the shadow of Gibraltar, the Algerian mule Hammel studied the shoreline with interest. This is where the Libyans had bought their clothes, the garments they had packed inside that suitcase bomb, which had vaporized Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in Scotland. And because of that one simple oversight, that one mistake, over a billion dollars had been handed over to the families of the infidel survivors. The Colonel had capitulated. And Abu Nidal, who had authorized the bombing, who had confessed to it at a meeting of his Fatah-Revolutionary Council, was dead – assassinated by the CIA and left to rot, to the indifferent buzzing of flies, in some Iraqi hotel room.

  Ali Hammel shook his head. One little mistake; that’s all it took. One loose thread and the entire tapestry unraveled. He visualized the silver briefcase in the closet of his fo’c’s’le. I must gird myself with care, he thought. I must check and re-check every move, the smallest of my decisions. I must be . . . perfect.

  He looked astern at the fading Mediterranean. It had been a largely uneventful journey, by fishing trawler, from Syria to Algiers. There, he had hopped this freighter bound for South America. They would put ashore at the Canary and Cape Verde Islands before landfall at Recife and Rio in Brazil. He sighed. He did not like the sea. Water was foreign to him. He had grown up in the town of Tamanrasset in Algeria, in the heart of the Sahara, and the thought of being out of sight of land, aboard this hulk of rotting wood and rusted steel, filled him with dread.

  The son of a minor government official, Hammel was the descendent of Tuareg warriors of the Kel Rela, Berber tribesmen who had ruled the Sahara since the time of Herodotus. Ironically, despite the frequent tension between the indigenous Berbers and the Arabs, Hammel – like his father – became a member of the regional government, albeit as a gendarme. By the age of thirteen, he was a police informant, then a policeman at seventeen, and finally the Tam Chief of Police at twenty-six. Indeed, it had been the friction between the Arabs in the north and the Tuareg Berbers of the south that had precipitated his advancement. The officials in Algiers believed a Tuareg Chief of Police would engender greater . . . and this was usually where they stumbled . . . “self-control amongst the local Berber population.” To this day, the Tuareg called the Arabs Les Chinois – the Chinese – because they came from somewhere far away, and to the east. The fact that the Arab Almoravids had conquered what would eventually become Algeria back in the eleventh century didn’t mean much to the Tuareg. The Berbers bore the water bag of memory. The Arabs would always be outsiders in their minds. And even though the Berber tribes were nominally Islamic, most practiced the religion with a primitive simplicity. They were animists at heart. If a spider bit, or a scorpion stung a Targui, he was made to drink a potion laced with words from the Qur’an, scribbled earnestly on a tiny scrap of paper, as if the symbols themselves would assuage the poison in his blood.

  Hammel wou
ld have still been Chief of Police, to this day, if he hadn’t met Fadimata – in all probability. But he had fallen in love, that most pernicious of weaknesses, ensnared by her unnatural beauty, her family and friends, seduced into a coup attempt against Abdeliza Boutenflika, the Algerian President. Fadimata’s family had been the most devout of Muslims. And, despite his agnosticism at the time, Hammel had joined their fundamentalist cause with zeal. He was in love, after all, a vassal Amerid, a Harratin or slave to his own heart, more than willing to parade his loyalty and passion for the sumptuous Fadimata.

  The coup failed, of course. Nearly every member of Fadimata’s family had been executed, or assassinated, and Hammel had only managed to escape by venturing forth on camelback across the great erg on the track to Mali. For a time, at least, he remained in south Algeria. As an ex-gendarme, he knew the habits of the smuggler with a lover’s intimacy. He knew the secret byways of the brigand, the least watched caravan routes and khans, and – most importantly – how policemen thought. For almost two years he survived as an outlaw in the desert. He became what he had hunted all his life. And, ironically, he became a true believer. Hammel found Allah in the wastes of the Sahara.

  It was only when a fellow outlaw was captured and revealed Hammel’s most treasured hiding places that he was forced to flee the country. If he’d had a heart to break still – after Fadimata, after watching her gunned down like that inside her tent that night as she slept – it would have shattered into a hundred million pieces as fine and weightless as the sand grains of In Salah. But he had had no choice. It was death or exile, and – to his surprise – Hammel preferred to live. After all, he had a purpose now, a raison d’être. The coup may have failed but, like Bin Laden and al-Khalayilah, like El Aqrab himself, he was committed now to something larger than his own vainglorious existence.