The three men leaned over the computer screen, staring at the footballs, comparing and contrasting them. “The one in the video just before the explosion looks bigger than these, doesn’t it?” Abe said, peering closely at the images. He was speaking quickly and a little loudly.
“Seems that way,” Grossman agreed, “though it’s hard to compare sizes in different photos.”
Habash interjected. “But President Moore’s football seems to be in a significantly larger box. What does that mean?”
Abe again began moving in circles around the room. Habash could tell that an idea was clicking into place for him. With a furrowed brow, Abe spoke. “It’s only a surmise, but hear me out. President Moore was an evangelical Christian. He was also a strong opponent of nuclear weapons. Remember, he wrote a college paper in favor of nuclear disarmament, and he campaigned in favor of ending nuclear proliferation. He famously prayed for the day when the United States could give up its nuclear arsenal.”
“And it almost cost him the election,” Habash observed. “I remember. I was in America at the time.”
Abe continued to pace. “Yet he knew that as commander in chief he might someday have to press the nuclear button and kill millions of people.”
“He promised he would if it were essential to the security of the world,” Habash added, trying desperately to catch on to Abe’s line of thought.
Now Abe stopped his pacing and spoke to Habash and Grossman as if they were two of his students. “What would an evangelical Christian who hated nuclear weapons want at his side when he had to press the button?”
Grossman jumped at the chance to answer Abe correctly. “The Bible, of course,” Grossman said proudly. “That’s why the football is bigger. It has room for a Bible next to the nuclear codes.”
Abe was grinning now. He moved in a feverish circle. “Can we prove it? ’Cause if we can, we can prove that the bomb wasn’t planted in the briefcase of the Palestinian secretary of state, but rather somewhere right next to the president’s Bible,” Abe said triumphantly, continuing. “We can prove it, and we will, no matter what it takes.”
Habash, who was used to being in charge, asked, “So what do we do?”
In a gentle but firm voice, Abe began to hand out assignments. “Habash, first call Tom Ashe. Ask him to go through every one of his photographs and enlarge any of them that contain confetti fragments. I’m not only looking for letters. I’m looking for shapes as well. Grossman, I need you to get some of your people to comb the area and see if you can find any remaining fragments that the intelligence agencies didn’t sweep up.”
“I think they did a pretty thorough job of gathering up everything,” Grossman said. “They were there for days with little vacuum devices and other high-tech gizmos. I don’t think they could have missed much.”
Abe shook his head. “All they had to do was miss one piece. If they did, we have to find it. Remember, it’s paper, and Jerusalem can sometimes be a windy city. There must be a fragment somewhere waiting to be found.”
“I’ll give it my best shot, but I’m not hopeful.”
Abe then turned to Habash and said, “After you speak with Tom, you have to go to all your sources. Dig really deep. Where do the Palestinian security forces think the bomb was planted? They must know about the Bible fragments—maybe they even have some in their possession. How did they explain them?” Then, turning back to Grossman, he said, “The Shin Bet has to know about the Bible fragments as well. Why did Avigdor lie? What are they hiding? Who are they protecting? What’s going on here?”
Habash, who was getting caught up in Abe’s excitement and by the fact that they finally had a concrete break in the case, asked, “What about the Americans? They have to know about the Bible fragments, too. I want to know why everyone is so eager to let Faisal Husseini take the rap.”
Abe replied, “Look, there are two issues. The first and the only one I care about now is, did Faisal Husseini plant the bomb? It really is seeming now like he didn’t. If we can prove that, we win the case. That’s my job. That’s my only job. Once Husseini is acquitted, everybody will be asking the next question: If Husseini didn’t plant the bomb, who did? And if Husseini didn’t plant the bomb, why is the Shin Bet so anxious for the court to conclude that he did? That’s the big question for someone else to answer. Maybe you, Habash, once I’m safely home in Boston.” Habash knew that what Abe meant to say was “Once Emma and I are safely home in Boston.”
Abe continued, rallying his troops so that they could get to work. “But we can’t get ahead of ourselves. We don’t even get to the second question until we answer the first one definitively. And we’re awfully close to doing that now. So let’s not take our eye off the ball—the football—even for a minute.”
They all shook their heads in apparent agreement as Abe began to leave the room.
“What’s your task?” Habash asked Abe.
“I’ll tell you when I complete it,” Abe said mysteriously as he hurriedly left the room.
He went straight to his cousin’s house, hoping to find Shimshon Regel at home.
It was ten o’clock at night when Abe knocked on the front door of his cousin’s apartment. A lone bulb hanging above the doorway suddenly filled with light, and Shimshon appeared wearing a robe and sweatpants. He opened the door, speaking worriedly. “Any word about Emma?” He took Abe’s coat and ushered him inside.
Abe shrugged. “Nothing, but I think she’s safe for the time being.” He stepped from the foyer into the main room and peered through the doorway that led to the kitchen. “Is Hanna here?”
Shimshon shook his head. “She’s upstairs putting the children to bed. Since the kidnapping they’re having a hard time falling asleep.” His face was drawn and pale.
Abe stepped toward him and dropped his voice into a whisper. “I need your help.”
The urgency with which his cousin spoke signaled to Shimshon that Abe was asking for a special kind of favor. “To get her back or to help that guilty bastard you’re defending?” He made sure to speak in a low tone, so that his voice wouldn’t carry up the stairs to his wife and children.
Abe sat on the arm of a stuffed chair. “I can’t give you details, but it will help get Emma back.”
Shimshon took a deep breath. Abe hadn’t told his cousins of the deal he’d made with Emma’s kidnappers, so they hadn’t been able to understand why he had taken over as Faisal’s lawyer. In fact, they’d argued about it, Shimshon demanding to know why Abe would waste any time in Israel when he should be searching for Emma. But now, in the dark of night, seeing the determined look on Abe’s face, Shimshon had confidence that Abe knew what he was doing.
Shimshon was decisive. “I’m in. What can I do?”
“I need someone I can trust to do some dirty work.”
Shimshon was intrigued and sat next to Abe. “How dirty?”
“Not very. A two on a scale of ten. But if you get caught, it could be serious.”
Shimshon joked a bit. “It’s always serious if you get caught. As long as I don’t have to hurt anybody.”
Abe waved his hands in reassurance, and leaned forward. “No way. Just a small black-bag job.”
“Like in the old days.”
Regel had worked as a contract agent for the Mossad when he got out of the army. His specialty was cat break-ins—stealth entries into homes, offices, and cars to photograph documents without anyone’s knowing he was ever there. He’d always been quiet on his feet, and therefore he was so good at it that the Mossad offered him a full-time job. He turned it down to go to law school, but he never lost his touch. “What do you need?”
Before speaking, Abe glanced at the staircase to confirm that Hanna couldn’t hear. “I believe that the bomb exploded in close proximity to an English-language Bible—an Old Testament for sure. Don’t know whether it included a New Testament.”
A look of comprehension appeared on Shimshon’s face. “In other words, you don’t know whether it was a Jewis
h or a Christian Bible.”
“Right. And it could make a difference. But we do know it wasn’t a Koran, and that’s even more important.”
“Is that all?” Shimshon asked this question as if answering it were the easiest thing in the world. “What else do you need?”
“Several things. First, we need evidence that fragments of the Bible were embedded in the bodies of the closest victims and that material from the Palestinian secretary of state’s briefcase wasn’t. Second, we need to know what other fragments might have hit the victims so we can confirm where the bomb was planted—in what kind of case or packaging.”
“I get it. So if you find leather fragments, that points to a leather case. Plastic fragments to a plastic case, metal to a metal case, et cetera.”
“Exactly.”
Shimshon leaned back, the full scope of what Abe was asking him to do taking hold in his mind. “But where do you expect me to find out what fragments were in the bodies? That’s pretty delicate stuff.”
Abe exhaled. His cousin always did have a flair for the dramatic, especially when it came to spy games. He knew very well where to find out the information, but Abe obliged him by saying it aloud. “We need to see lab reports, autopsies, forensics—you know.”
Shimshon rubbed his hands together. “Those are top secret. Sounds like at least a six on a scale of ten, but I’ll get on it right away.”
Abe stood and put his coat on. Before letting himself out of the apartment, he turned back to Shimshon and warned, “You can’t use any of your old buddies.” Shimshon nodded, and Abe continued, “You’re on your own on this one. If anyone else finds out, they’ll shut us down—or change the reports.”
Shimshon clapped his cousin on the back. “I’m the lone wolf on this one, Abe. Blood keeps secrets.”
XXXI
The Attempted Escape
AT FIRST EMMA HAD SLEPT well in captivity. The room was cool, thanks to a breeze that carried through the open window—she was four floors from the ground and assumed that her captors trusted she wouldn’t risk crawling out of it. The mattress on the bed was lush and comfortable. And the smell of orange blossoms always soothed her as she drifted off to sleep.
But since Yassir’s visit, Emma was constantly on edge. It didn’t help that Mohammed and Nawal were jumpy when they were with her, and even the lazy guard was tense.
Now she slept with the beeper in her hand.
She was staring out the window at the moon, wondering what Abe was working on, when she heard it. A soft brushing against her closed door. She instantly jumped from her bed and searched the room for something, anything to use as a weapon. Of course there was nothing.
The sound continued, accompanied by whispers. Emma broke out in a sweat. She ran for the window, leaned out. It was a straight drop to the ground; the fall would surely kill her. There was no ledge, no nearby tree branch to grab hold of. Her throat tightened, and she looked anxiously, desperately over her shoulder at the door.
It opened, but only slightly. Emma tried to make herself disappear, pressing hard against the wall.
A small, slight figure slipped into the room, covered in shadow.
“Emma?” It was Nawal, dressed in black from head to toe.
Emma rushed forward, propelled by relief. But the expression on Nawal’s face stopped her.
“Come quickly. Where is your black dress?”
“There,” Emma mumbled, moving toward the clothing rack.
Nawal turned and shuffled through the clothes until she found what she was looking for. “Here. Quickly.”
She reached for Emma’s nightgown and pulled it up and off of her. Emma took the dress from her and stepped into it. “What’s happening? Did the verdict come in?” Emma whispered.
Nawal clutched her hand and moved briskly to the door, peering out of it cautiously. “You won’t last until the verdict comes in. So we’re getting you out. Tonight.” She grabbed a pair of shoes from the floor and thrust them at Emma. “Don’t put them on yet. Not until we’re out of the house.”
“Rashid—” Emma said.
Nawal spun on her heel and clutched Emma’s arm. “Rashid is not here. And they are planning to take you tonight. Now be quiet and let’s go. Mohammed is waiting with a car.”
Emma paused, remembering what Yassir had said: Sometimes hostages try to escape. The implication was clear—those who wanted to kill her might encourage her to “escape” so that they would have an excuse to shoot her. Was that what was happening now? Was she being set up?
Nawal, noting Emma’s pause, hurried her along. “We only have seconds. There’s no time to think. You have to trust me. You have to come now!”
Emma knew that her life could depend on the choice she was being forced to make. In an instant she decided. “I trust you, Nawal,” she said as she followed the other woman, tiptoeing into the hallway. The ever-present gunman was sleeping in the corner. When they passed him, he snored loudly and shifted in his chair. Emma froze for a moment but hurried after Nawal, who was halfway down the hall.
When they rounded the corner, Nawal continued into an area of the house Emma wasn’t familiar with. Behind a narrow door was a steep staircase. “Go!” Nawal commanded, whispering harshly into the dark. Emma began descending the steps, and Nawal followed, shutting the door behind her. Nawal kept her hand at the small of Emma’s back, and Emma tripped over the bottom three steps before landing on her knees in the back entryway of the broad front room of the house, the room that led to the outdoor kitchen. Nawal unlocked one of the glass doors. “Come. We’ll cross outside into the garage. Stay near the house.”
Emma followed her out but was suddenly snatched from behind by her hair.
“What’s this?” The sneer of the voice cut through the night, and Nawal lunged for Emma. Yassir pulled Emma into his body, so roughly she thought he must have ripped out a handful of her hair. The pain was searing.
For an instant, Emma thought she had been set up. This was the trap, and it was being sprung. But there was no time for thinking; action was needed.
Emma pulled her leg back and kicked her assailant in his groin and elbowed his stomach at the same time. Her women’s self-defense class was serving her well, as it had nearly a decade earlier when she had used her martial arts to fight off an even larger man—a basketball player—who was trying to rape her. What also served her well was the element of surprise and Yassir’s sexism. The last thing he expected was a physical attack from this demure Jewish girl. The excruciating pain in his groin caused him to let go of her hair, but he was seething with fury and offended machismo. Nawal attacked him with her fists, but Yassir lunged for Emma, knocking Nawal to the ground. Emma searched her pocket for Mohammed’s beeper, but just as she found it, Yassir snatched the device out of her hand, threw it to the paving stones, and smashed it into pieces with his heavy boot. Emma began to cry. Nawal lay motionless in a heap.
Emma turned and ran right into Salma, who had a gun trained at her head. It was a setup—even if Nawal had not been a conscious part of it. The image of her grieving father flashed into Emma’s mind.
XXXII
The Autopsy
SHIMSHON DECIDED that his easiest source of information would be the Palestinian Authority Security Service, which was notoriously sloppy and corrupt. He knew there would not have been a formal autopsy on Suri Chalaba, because cutting open a dead body is against Islamic law. But there would be a report on the condition of the body before it was buried. If he could see that report, he could find out what fragments, if any, had been embedded in the body of the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority.
Shimshon could bribe a member of the Palestinian Authority Security Service. They came fairly cheap. But he worried that it might get back to the Israeli security people, who, he knew from experience, were also bribing members of the security service. Abe had directed him to do it on his own, so the lone wolf had to devise a plan to break in to the place—or the computer—where the report mig
ht be kept.
These days you could break in to a computer without going anywhere near the actual machine. But the thought of hacking worried him. First, he’d have to hire somebody to do it; second, it was too easy to trace a hacker’s source. So he planned an old-fashioned break-in.
Generally, his break-ins had been to homes, cars, businesses—easy targets, with little security. This one was different. The members of the Palestinian Authority Security Service were paranoid—and for good reason. The Israelis and the Americans—and who knew who else—were all over them. Every aspect of their work had been penetrated, from outside and inside. Information was money, and there was plenty of both to go around. So nobody trusted anybody, and everybody had someone else watching him. They weren’t particularly good at it, but they were cautious. They were also ruthless, and anyone caught spying would be tortured and killed. No trial. No sentence. Just execution.
Shimshon decided on a bold daylight entry. He knew that the small building that housed the security service was near the al-Aqsa Mosque. Although it was formally closed on Fridays, a skeleton crew kept guard, taking turns going to the mosque for prayer. Shimshon also knew that on this Friday a particularly dynamic and popular imam would be preaching. He learned from his sources that on every fourth Friday a new group of guards would be rotated through and that the old guards might not know some of the new ones. This was that Friday. It was the optimal hour—the perfect storm of opportunity.
It was an especially hot and muggy day. The yellow residue of a khamsin lingered in the air. Shimshon simply walked through the front door at 11:30 A.M. just as the imam was beginning his sermon. Two guards sat glued to the television, watching the imam as he called for “death to the heathens.” Everyone else was at the mosque. Shimshon mumbled a greeting in Arabic, which he both spoke passably and read, flashed a forged credential, and walked right into the records room. No one followed him. He knew he had only a few minutes before one of the guards might tire of the imam’s repetitive rhetoric. Even charismatic firebrands grew boring after a while. He got to work immediately.
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