Pillars of Solomon - [Kamal & Barnea 02]

by By Jon Land

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 37

  A

  l-Asi stood amid the wounded men he had dragged from the temple himself. His clothes were soaked, filthy with caked blood and dirt. He had spread his suit jacket over his friend Marash’s trembling form. The archaeological students, to remain shielded from the storm, had clustered in one of two nearly twin chambers located to the left and right of the portico.

  “Let’s tie this one up,” the colonel said, looking at Marash, “so we can tend to the others. More help is coming.”

  It was another hour, though, before that help reached them, the nature of the emergency reason enough for Jordanian police and rescue vehicles to traverse the gorge, startling the donkeys when they screeched to a halt in front of the temple. The rains had turned torrential by then and the winds strong enough to stagger Ben, Danielle, and al-Asi as they stood vigil on the portico.

  There were four dead in all: both of Marash’s men and two of the four who had accompanied al-Asi. The dead were covered tightly in the same plastic drop cloths used to protect exposed dig areas overnight. The colonel’s three wounded men, including his driver, and a half dozen injured students crowded into the three ambulances to be taken to a hospital in Amman. Marash refused to be taken anywhere and insisted on being treated at the scene. Jordanian emergency personnel did the best they could dressing his shoulder and then immobilizing his arm in a tight sling, but he was clearly in considerable pain.

  “I don’t care that I’m hurt,” he said, grimacing, when al-Asi tried to get him onto an ambulance one last time. “You think I’m stupid? You think I am just going to hand this animal over to you now?”

  “This animal is what brought us here.”

  “That was before he killed two of my men. The situation has changed substantially. He will be tried in Jordan. We will be glad to provide you with his corpse.”

  “Two of my men are dead too, my friend.”

  “And I mourn for them as well, my friend. But we are in Jordan now.”

  “This man is a witness in two investigations, both in Israel and Jericho,” al-Asi reminded.

  “And now he is a murderer in Jordan.”

  Al-Asi nodded; Ben recognized the silky calm expression that appeared on his face like a mask. “Of course, your superiors knew of the precariousness of the mission you were undertaking.”

  Marash said nothing.

  “You did inform them, didn’t you?”

  “I was doing you a service,” Marash said, eyes widening.

  “A benevolent gesture between friends and colleagues, but difficult to explain, all the same. Open to a number of different interpretations.”

  Marash mulled the thought over.

  “This is the way I recall it happening,” al-Asi continued. “We entered Jordan without authorization to retrieve the prisoner and encountered resistance when we tried to apprehend him. You and your men arrived in the midst of the battle, summoned to the area by the archaeologists. You saved our lives and captured a criminal wanted by the Palestinian Authority on our behalf and returned him to us after securing a promise from me that he will face charges in Jordan first, but only after undergoing interrogation in Jericho. Can you live with that?”

  Marash turned toward Ibrahim Mudhil before responding. The smuggler’s wrists were cuffed and his legs were chained together. Up close, his scarred and sunken eye socket looked even worse than it had in the photo.

  “I can live with that, my friend.”

  The weather continued to deteriorate after nightfall, and Marash summoned vehicles to take all of them back to the border while the roads were still passable. Clearly the deaths of four intelligence officers, two of them Palestinian, would require the most delicate of diplomatic channels to deal with, but for now those channels would have to wait.

  Al-Asi was wearing a rain poncho provided by one of the Jordanian emergency medical workers when he approached Ben and Danielle. His hair was soaked, his suit pants sodden with water. A somewhat surprising sight for Ben, who had never seen the colonel anything but perfectly coiffed and elegantly attired.

  “Our transportation has arrived,” he informed them. “We are ready to depart. Get your prisoner ready to travel.”

  The ride through the mountains back toward the border and the Allenby Bridge was as nerve-racking as any of them could remember. Marash rode in the lead vehicle with a trio of Jordanian royal police. The second vehicle held Ben and Danielle in the rear, sandwiched around a shackled Ibrahim Mudhil, while al-Asi rode up front with their Jordanian driver. Their pace was painfully slow, headlights forging hardly a dent in the storm and the windshield wipers unable to keep pace with the pelting rain. Their tires churned fitfully through the water that had pooled high on the rut-filled roads.

  They were still ten minutes from the Allenby Bridge when a Jordanian army patrol jeep loomed before them, parked horizontally across the road. A uniformed officer emerged from the jeep and addressed Major Marash through a window of the lead vehicle. Once the officer took his leave, the passenger door opened and Marash climbed awkwardly out into the storm. He was flanked instantly by two Jordanian police, each opening umbrellas. He traipsed toward the second car, where al-Asi opened his window a third of the way.

  “I am told the storm has washed the bridge out!” Marash said over the sounds of the rain slamming down everywhere. “We can’t get across!”

  “I need to get this man to Jericho tonight!” al-Asi insisted.

  “No one is getting to Jericho tonight, my friend, at least not for a while.” Marash pointed a finger back down the road. “There is a guard post a few miles back at the entrance to the valley. No longer in use but still functional enough for us to hole up until the bridge reopens.”

  “We will leave our people there. Then you and I will come back and check the bridge ourselves.”

  “Colonel, I—”

  But al-Asi slid the window up again before Marash could complete his protest. The Jordanian knocked on the glass twice before storming angrily back to his vehicle.

  With the road badly flooded on both sides, managing the swing back around the other way was no easy task. It took several maddening thrusts forward and backward before both vehicles finally headed off again in the opposite direction. The Shara Mountains around them seemed even more ominous in the storm, regularly shedding rocks and debris down into the road their jeep had to thump over.

  It was the sudden smoothing of the road, as much as anything, that told Ben they had reached the head of the valley just before they came to the guard post he remembered passing on their way into Petra. The post was a white stone structure that from the outside looked little larger than a shack.

  Ibrahim Mudhil, meanwhile, sat stoically between Ben and Danielle, treating the entire day’s events impassively, as if he didn’t realize the penalties he faced for the murder of four security officers. Regardless of what al-Asi had promised, the greatest struggle would still be between the Palestinian Authority and the Jordanian government to see who got to execute him first.

  The door to the post was locked, and Marash ordered one of the royal policemen to shoot it open. Then Ben and Danielle escorted their bound prisoner inside with Colonel al-Asi leading the way.

  The lights in the post still worked, as Marash found when he tried the switch with his good hand. The interior smelled moldy and damp with disuse. Just a single open room with an enclosed office cubicle on one side and a cramped bathroom containing a sink and toilet on the other. There was an empty desk, a long table, and a shorter one upon which rested an ancient shortwave radio the guard post must have used in its operating days to stay in contact with headquarters. Dust and cobwebs covered the corners of the walls and much of the ceiling. Several of the windows had cracked in a spiderweb pattern but hadn’t shattered yet, even with the rain slamming into them.

  Al-Asi drew Ben and Danielle aside as Marash issued orders to the driver and royal policemen who would be remaining behind. “I suggest yo
u both interrogate your witness now,” he said softly.

  ‘“Here?” Danielle asked.

  The colonel shrugged. “There may be no other place, no other opportunity. Even if the bridge is crossable by morning, the Jordanians will never let us leave their country with Mudhil.”

  Ben’s eyes fell on the small enclosed office. “We’ll take him in there,” he said to Danielle.

  Al-Asi had already walked over to Marash. “We will check the bridge now.”

  “You heard what they said at the checkpoint. This is foolish.”

  “I have learned only to accept what I can see for myself, my friend. Let’s go.”

  Marash looked between Danielle and Ben, and two royal policemen armed with pistols. “These men will protect you until we get back,” he said simply, casting a brief glance at the remaining driver.

  “You have more weapons in the trucks?” al-Asi asked him.

  “Yes,” Marash said, instantly regretting it. “A pair of rifles in each.”

  Al-Asi turned to Ben. “Accompany us to the trucks and bring two back inside with you.” Then, to Marash, “For added protection. Just in case.”

  Accompanied by a single driver, al-Asi held an umbrella over Marash and guided him through the rain. Ben kept pace with them and accepted the pair of automatic rifles gratefully. He rushed back through the storm, slammed and bolted the guard post’s door behind him.

  Then, much to Danielle’s surprise, he gave one rifle to each of the Jordanian royal policemen. The men smiled at him and tested their weight as Ben moved back to Danielle, who was hovering over the now seated Mudhil.

  Outside the front windows they could all see al-Asi and Marash drive off in the second vehicle.

  “Why’d you do that?” she asked Ben.

  “Do what?”

  “Give them the rifles.”

  “To show we trusted them.”

  “Al-Asi wanted us to have the rifles.”

  “The colonel also suggested we interrogate our prisoner as quickly as possible. We can’t do that if our Jordanian friends don’t let us.”

  Without missing a beat, Ben hoisted Mudhil up from his chair behind the long table and led him into the office-sized cubicle. Danielle followed. The Jordanians paid no attention at all, content to guard the post.

  The windowless cubicle had a small cot squeezed against one wall for the nights when thing were slow. Ben guessed the long shifts always comprised two men who must have rotated their sleeping in here. Beside the tattered and moth-eaten mattress, there was a single chair. Nothing else.

  Ben plopped Mudhil down atop the mattress and looked into his eyes. “What do you say we get started?”

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 38

  I

  would like a cigarette,” the smuggler requested.

  “Sorry, neither of us smokes.”

  “At least take my handcuffs off.”

  “And why should we do that?” Danielle snapped.

  “Because you want me to answer your questions.” Mudhil smiled, leaning back as much as his chains would allow.

  As Danielle looked on disapprovingly, Ben slipped behind Mudhil and uncuffed his wrists.

  “I’m told you’re a dangerous man,” Ben said.

  “I’ve been accused of that,” Mudhil said, stretching his arms.

  “Please don’t give us a reason to prove your reputation wrong.”

  Mudhil settled back comfortably, his single eye rotating between Ben and Danielle. “I’ll be glad to answer your questions now.”

  “You’re not worried the answers might get you in trouble?”

  Mudhil turned toward Ben, smirking. “When the Jordanians realize how much more they are missing, they will gladly make a deal in exchange for its return.”

  “What about us?”

  “Your government will do the same when they learn how much I possess that belongs to them,” Mudhil said confidently. Then his expression changed, coming up just short of a wink. “That is, unless we go back and share the treasure ourselves.”

  “Steal it from the catacombs, in other words.”

  “There’s plenty to go around.”

  Ben dragged the chair close to the prisoner and sat down facing him. “You think this is about smuggling?”

  “I got careless. You caught me.” Mudhil sounded nonchalant now. “What else could it be about?”

  Ben shoved his chair a little closer. “We don’t care about whatever artifacts and antiquities you’ve stockpiled. This isn’t about smuggling. Tell him why you’re here, Pakad.”

  “Your fingerprints were found in the Jerusalem shop of Hyram Levy. He was murdered four days ago. We believe you were there with him very close to the time he was killed.”

  The confidence drained from Mudhil’s expression. “Levy?”

  “You smuggled goods for him, didn’t you?” Danielle demanded. “Did you fill orders or bring items to him on your own? What happened, Ibrahim? He caught you moving fakes and wanted his money back? You ripped him off and then you killed him, is that it?”

  Mudhil seemed not to hear her. “Levy,” was all he said, more of a mutter, the cockiness in his tone gone.

  “Inspector,” Danielle said, “why don’t you tell him what you’re doing here?”

  Ben looked into Mudhil’s single eye. “I have a picture of you in the process of kidnapping a girl named Leila Fatuk in Jericho last week.” He looked toward Danielle. “A pity we’ll probably have to fight the Jordanians for him now.”

  “He would be best off cooperating with us.”

  “A man who kills two Jordanian intelligence officers might not find this country’s courts very sympathetic. ...”

  “What do you want?” Mudhil’s tone sounded suddenly desperate. His single eye blinked rapidly.

  “I think we’ve got your attention now, don’t we, Ibrahim?” Ben pulled back a little. “The chief inspector here would like to know if you killed Hyram Levy. I, on the other hand, am much more interested in the whereabouts of Leila Fatuk.”

  “I can’t tell you!”

  “Tell us what?” Danielle asked him.

  “Anything. About the children. For all our sakes. Please! You must believe me!”

  “Children,” Ben repeated. “It wasn’t just the Fatuk girl, then. There have been others.”

  “If I tell you anything about the children, I will die. He will kill me for sure. He will kill all of us.”

  Ben leaned forward again. “Who? Who are you talking a—”

  “Listen to me—it may already be too late,” Mudhil said fearfully, twisting his eye desperately about. “He’s probably already on his way! We’ve got to get away! Do you hear me? We’ve got to get out of here!”

  “Just as soon as the bridge is passable,” Ben told him.

  “No, that will be too late. He’s coming, I tell you! You don’t know what you’ve done!”

  “Why don’t you tell us?”

  But Mudhil’s single eye continued to bulge furiously. “B’id ash sharr, we’re trapped here!”

  “Who is this person you’re so frightened of?” Danielle broke in.

  Mudhil took a deep breath, needing every bit of it to steady himself. “Al Safah.”

  Danielle shook her head uncertainly. “What does that—”

  “It means ‘the Butcher,’ Pakad,” Ben said, feeling a cold shudder course through his body.

  “You see why I can’t tell you anything!” Mudhil roared. “You see why we must get out of here!”

  “What is he talking about?” Danielle demanded of Ben. “Who is this Al Safah?”

  “Not a who, Pakad: a what. A thing, a monster, a spook story I thought I had forgotten.” Ben’s voice grew slightly distant. “When I was small boy and misbehaved, my mother would say I had better be good or Al Safah would come and take me, as he took many children and made them disappear.”

  Mudhil came forward off the cot until Ben restrained him by the shoulders. “He’s not a spook story; he�
�s real, I’m telling you!”

  “And how do you know this, Ibrahim?”

  “Because I work for him.”

  Ben eyed Danielle before responding. “You kidnapped Leila Fatuk because Al Safah told you to?”

  “He’ll kill me if I talk!”

  “And the Jordanians will kill you if you don’t,” Danielle reminded.

  Mudhil fixed his one eye upon her. “They will never get the chance unless we get away now! Listen to me!” He touched his empty eye socket with a trembling hand. “I know.”