Peace

by Jeff Nesbit

  “I am surprised to see you,” Shira said. “I had not heard you were planning to visit us.”

  “I wasn’t.” Elizabeth gazed out over the courtyard, where children were playing happily in the bright sunshine and a yoga class was underway. “But I’d heard some things in Shuafat, after the arrests of the three men who’ve been accused of being part of the Tanzim. So I decided to visit a couple of the other camps in East Jerusalem.”

  Shira nodded. Between the two of them, they knew and heard things long before anyone else did in Aida. The Fatah trusted Dr. Thompson and her organization. And while she had no direct contact with the Tanzim—the unofficial military arm of the Palestinian Fatah that Israel and others considered to be terrorists—Dr. Thompson had friends who kept her informed. It never paid to be surprised in the Palestinian camps. Clashes and violence could break out easily. That rarely happened in Aida, but it was not impossible.

  “So what have you heard?” Shira asked Dr. Thompson.

  “That the Tanzim are very upset by the three arrests in Shuafat,” Elizabeth added. “And that they are considering some sort of action to protest the arrests.”

  Shira squinted her eyes in surprise. “Here, in Aida?”

  “Perhaps. But there’s something else that disturbs me even more,” Elizabeth said. “It’s merely idle talk at this point, carried in the past twelve hours by some in several of the camps. It seems that some sort of word went out to cause trouble…”

  “Trouble?”

  “With the Israelis. The reports appear to be filtered from Hezbollah, through the Tanzim. They want Israel distracted.”

  Shira sucked in her breath quickly. They both knew what that meant. The surest way to distract Israel—and the world community—was an attack in East Jerusalem. An exploding bus or car bomb anywhere in the Israeli settlements of Gilo or Har Homa was certain to cause massive turmoil for Israel and attract worldwide attention.

  Gilo and Har Homa were central to the indirect peace talks between the Palestinians, Israel, the United States, and others. The Palestinians wanted East Jerusalem as their capital. Israel considered East Jerusalem part of their own unified capital and the settlements in Gilo and Har Homa merely suburban expansion.

  “But why now?” Shira asked.

  “I don’t know, but the talk is that they want trouble with the Israelis,” Elizabeth said. “The arrests in Shuafat are an excuse.”

  “Well, that may explain it,” Shira said glumly.

  “What?”

  Shira glanced around nervously to make sure no one was listening. “I have heard this talk as well,” she said, her voice quiet. “Someone wants to cause very big problems for Israel right now, to distract them and the international community. This talk began in the past day.”

  Elizabeth always marveled at just how sophisticated her friend could be. If only Western leaders could understand, they would view people like the theater director as someone to be consulted, not shunned or penned up in a refugee camp with no resources.

  She nodded. “An incident in either Gilo or Har Homa would trigger severe reprisals and international attention immediately.”

  Shira studied Dr. Thompson for several long, awkward moments. It was clear she was struggling with some bit of information. “A church bus left here with American tourists earlier today,” she said finally.

  Elizabeth’s heart raced. “A church bus, with Americans?”

  “They visited Bethlehem first,” she said. “But they were going to come back through the Aida checkpoint, and into East Jerusalem after that. The driver…”

  “What is it?” Elizabeth pressed anxiously.

  “The driver—she has known the Tanzim for a long time now,” Shira said, her voice nearly a whisper.

  Elizabeth didn’t need to ask any more questions. She knew what this meant. Her friend didn’t have to tell her more. It was written between the words.

  “I must go.” Elizabeth turned quickly and began to hurry back to her jeep.

  “May Allah guide your path,” Shira told her. “Hurry. Perhaps there is still time.”

  Elizabeth nodded and quickened her steps. The possibilities—and the international ramifications—careened through her mind as she reversed the jeep and began to make her way through the bumpy, winding, open streets along the retaining wall that surrounded Aida, toward the one and only checkpoint into East Jerusalem from the refugee camp.

  If a church bus with American tourists exploded in either Gilo or Har Homa, it would immediately ignite an international firestorm. Israel would be forced to defend its actions and settlements in East Jerusalem fiercely—as it had for years—and it would trigger anew the old angers and furies that had surrounded peace talks almost since the end of World War II.

  It would also, Elizabeth knew, distract Israel and the United States for an extended period of time. That was the other piece of the talk she’d heard in Shuafat—that orders had come down through Hezbollah to provoke the Israelis in a big way. An exploding church bus in one of the two most prominent Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem with Americans aboard certainly accomplishes that, she thought.

  Her heart sank as she approached the last narrow, winding turn toward the checkpoint. Something had already happened. This particular checkpoint, normally busy with traffic, was relatively quiet. Today, though, more than a dozen Israeli soldiers had taken positions atop the retaining wall. Elizabeth hoped their rifles held rubber bullets, not real ones.

  Children, and a few unemployed men, were tossing stones from the far side of a street. None of them landed near the Israeli soldiers. But, Elizabeth knew, it wouldn’t take much to create a confrontation. Violence and conflict in and around the Palestinian refugee camps was always just a stone’s throw away.

  Elizabeth studied the line of cars in front of her. She knew, from long experience, that it could sometimes take hours for a car without yellow Israeli license tags to clear the Aida checkpoint into East Jerusalem. But the road narrowed here and took a sharp, left-hand turn before straightening out to enter the checkpoint. There was no way to see the cars toward the front of the line.

  Elizabeth closed her eyes for a moment. At times like this, she had always trusted that still, small voice to guide her. She did so now.

  Without another thought for her own safety, she put the jeep in park, grabbed the keys, and nearly jumped down from the vehicle. She hit the ground running, making her way along the stranded line of cars, up the winding street. She had no real plan.

  As she turned the corner, the checkpoint came into view. There, just three cars away from it, was a church bus with chipped, blue paint and a faded white cross on the back. It was full of tourists, anxiously waiting to leave Bethlehem through the Aida checkpoint and make their way north toward Jerusalem.

  Elizabeth slowed to a walk as she approached the bus and the checkpoint. She had no idea what might happen next, or how she could possibly determine if this was the bus her friend had mentioned. But as she walked, a certainty grew. This was that bus.

  She knew she had to do something. Beautiful resistance was one thing. Cold-blooded murder of innocent American tourists who merely hoped to see Bethlehem and Jerusalem on vacation was another thing entirely.

  Elizabeth glanced toward the window on the driver’s side of the bus as she passed by. Her heart nearly stopped as she recognized the driver—a young woman Elizabeth had known for years, first as a child dancing happily at Al Rowwad and, later, as an active student in the yoga and aerobics classes at the theater.

  The young woman, though, had her gaze fixed intently in front of her. Her hands gripped the steering column tightly. She didn’t look down as Elizabeth made her way past the bus to the checkpoint.

  As she neared the checkpoint manned by Israeli soldiers and officials, Elizabeth thought about what she would say. Was it possible that a woman such as this had talked and schemed with the Tanzim for years and now was prepared to take part in a suicide mission? Yes, she knew, it was possible.
But would the Israelis believe her?

  Thankfully, because some of them were now atop the retaining wall keeping a watchful eye, no soldier approached Elizabeth. She was able to walk inside the checkpoint building without incident. Once there, she moved quickly and deliberately toward two soldiers standing off to one side.

  She pulled her papers out as she approached them. She flashed them to both soldiers, holding them steady so they could see she was an American citizen.

  “Can we help you?” one of the solders asked casually.

  Elizabeth took one more step, drawing close enough to them that she would not need to raise her voice. “My name is Elizabeth Thompson, and I run World Without Borders.” She could see the name of the NGO meant something to them, which helped. “And I believe there is something quite dangerous about to happen near this checkpoint. Something you can help with.”

  That got their attention. Both soldiers stood up straight instantly. “Where—”

  Elizabeth held up a hand. “Easy. Don’t move quickly.” She did not look over her shoulder. She didn’t want the driver of the church bus to see any unusual activity inside the checkpoint building. “I’ve just been told in the camp that there might be a bus—a church bus with American tourists—that could be on a suicide mission toward either Gilo or Har Homa.”

  The soldiers glanced out the window at the church bus less than one hundred feet from the checkpoint. “That bus?” one of them asked.

  “I do not know,” she said, “but it fits the description. Is there a way a few of you can come up from behind, enter the bus, and detain the driver before she knows what’s happened? You can search the bus after that.”

  The soldiers nodded. They were professionals. “We can,” one of them said. Without moving, he turned his head ever so slightly and spoke softly into some sort of communication device attached to the left side of the uniform. He spoke quietly for several minutes, then turned back to Dr. Thompson.

  “Just sit tight,” he said to her. “This should take only a few minutes. I don’t want you to turn back toward the bus. Keep chatting with us. I’ll tell you when it’s safe to turn.”

  Several long, tedious minutes passed. Elizabeth didn’t remember anything they discussed. Her mind was a blank.

  Then, as horns began to blare loudly, the two soldiers suddenly rushed past her and bolted through the doors of the checkpoint. Elizabeth whirled in time to see two Israeli soldiers pulling the driver of the bus from her seat and out the entrance. She was wailing loudly. She tried, unsuccessfully, to bite one of the soldiers but managed to deliver a swift kick to another.

  The blaring of the horns was deafening. But the Israeli soldiers knew their jobs and did them efficiently and quickly. Within five minutes, they’d discovered the explosives carefully wrapped inside dirty, greasy cloths and wedged inside the bus engine—in a place where neither dogs nor an undercarriage visual search were likely to find them.

  Elizabeth stared in shock at the chaos unfolding a few feet from her. Stones tossed by men and boys from the refugee camp were starting to rain down on the heads of the Israeli soldiers as they made the American tourists leave the bus and continued to check for additional explosives.

  Elizabeth was glad her deep connection to the Aida camp and her quick reaction to the news she’d heard had made a difference. No one would ever acknowledge or report her help. But that didn’t matter. It had never mattered to Elizabeth. She wanted peace as badly as the Palestinians she served.

  She was simply glad she’d managed to help avert a terrible event—one that made virtually no sense to her, but which had been designed to bring the world’s attention back to Israel and their settlements in East Jerusalem.

  She couldn’t begin to guess why the shadowy networks that linked the likes of the Tanzim and Hezbollah might wish to distract Israel and the international community right now. She just knew that there would be no violence at this particular checkpoint or near this refugee camp on this day. And for that, she was thankful.

  04

  WASHINGTON, DC

  The helicopter lifted off, lurched hard to the right, then flew like a banshee for a few feet before crashing, hard, against the wall at the far end of the room. The peals of laughter that erupted from the other end of the room seemed strangely out of place.

  “No, Hannah, you have to pull back quickly on the throttle,” Anshel Gould said, trying to keep from laughing. “You have to keep it in the air long enough for it to hover, then make the turn through the doorway.”

  “I tried,” Hannah said. “It didn’t fly right.”

  “Try again,” Anshel said gently.

  Anshel’s middle daughter, Hannah, turned to the task again. She moved quickly to retrieve the small, battery-powered replica of the American president’s helicopter, Marine One, from the floor at the other end of her dad’s corner office in the West Wing of the White House. She returned the helicopter to its base, charged it for a moment, then tried again.

  This time she was able to control the model of the helicopter as it lifted off. She kept the small blades whirring long enough for it to hover in the air a few feet over her dad’s extraordinarily cluttered desk, then inched the throttle forward on the remote that controlled the helicopter. It eased forward, clearing the doorway by mere inches.

  “It works!” she shrieked.

  Anshel smiled. His daughter was persistent.

  Hannah ran from the room quickly and followed the helicopter down the hall. The Secret Service agents milling around the Oval Office smiled. The president was still in the residence in the East Wing, so they let the helicopter pass by.

  Hannah, still keeping the replica of Marine One hovering in the air, managed to make the turn into the Oval Office. The Secret Service agents let her through to follow the helicopter. It made one pass of the room, pausing briefly over the president’s immaculate desk, then settled down on the carpet with the enormous presidential seal.

  Anshel managed a crooked smile for the agents as he ambled quickly up the hallway to retrieve his daughter and her helicopter. They were used to Dr. Gould’s kids early in the morning. This was the one time of the day that he had a chance to see them, before they went to school with their driver.

  “We’ll be out of your way soon,” Anshel called out to the agents.

  “No worries, sir,” one of the agents answered. “POTUS is still in the East Wing.”

  “But he’s headed this way soon?” Anshel asked.

  “Soon enough,” said the first agent. “But your daughter still has some flight time left.”

  Anshel tried to bring at least one of his three young daughters with him occasionally before he started his day at the White House. They would sit at a table next to his desk, finishing up homework or occasionally terrorizing junior staff in nearby offices. Everyone was tolerant. The pace was brutal in this White House—just as it was in any White House. They all stole moments like this with family when they could.

  Anshel was fond of saying that this White House was absolutely “family friendly”—just not for the families of the White House staff, who regularly put in eighteen-hour days, seven days a week. They’d all done everything they could to kid-proof the West Wing for the two young children of the president.

  The White House was, in fact, a wonderful place for the president and his family. His two children—a boy and a girl both still in elementary school—had the run of the place, both inside and out. The White House staff made sure the media left them alone. There were never any photos of the president’s two kids at play in the White House.

  Anshel’s boss had changed the political rules on his way to the Oval Office. He’d tackled every big issue thrown at him during his first year in office—from a looming economic depression, to national healthcare and the move to a clean energy future to head off the devastation of global warming—and had walked through that fire unscathed. He was, arguably, the most powerful presidential reformer on a grand scale since FDR.

 
Both Anshel and his boss visited the Capitol dome as much as possible. In fact, they’d been there more frequently since taking office than any previous chief of staff or president in recent history. Every part of the president’s agenda was calibrated with Congress in mind.

  But one rule had not changed. Family came first, whenever possible, and everyone who worked in the White House had to respect that. That meant Dr. Gould’s kids could run along the corridors of power near the Oval Office at 6 a.m. on a Thursday, and staff were expected to be tolerant and understanding.

  Anshel Gould was an enigma—an unusual sort in Washington. Yes, he’d once earned a doctorate in social psychology. But he’d never put that degree to any use whatsoever, other than to torment the right wing of the Republican Party. He’d entered politics long before he’d ever earned that Ph.D., running state campaigns in New York while he was going to school at Columbia.

  He’d never really gotten comfortable with the academic world. He much preferred the raw combat of politics. And Anshel learned early on that he was very, very good at politics—so good, in fact, that he’d won a seat in the New York congressional delegation at thirty-two and was the majority whip within four years. He’d barely finished his doctorate degree at Columbia by the time he’d packed his bags for DC.

  There was no doubt, in anyone’s mind, that Dr. Gould had given up a very promising career in the Democratic Party in Congress to join the president at the White House as his chief of staff. But Anshel never looked back in his life—not now, not ever.

  He’d long ago created his own, unique brand of something his friends likened to a sort of Zen Judaism. Take each step along the path with fierceness and joy. Never fear that your next step is incorrect. Focus every fiber of your being on that next step. And then the larger goal is achieved.

  That approach to life had always served him well. Anshel felt blessed and happy with his lot in life. He didn’t worry about what might have been. He took each step along the path with the confidence that he was doing the right thing, for the right reasons. Where that path ultimately led him was not his concern. Others could judge his success or failure along that path. Content to make the right choice at each and every step along that path, his steady gaze was always forward. He was a relentless, positive storm. Others chose to be swept along—or get out of the way.