Zealot

  Constantine poured himself another drink. “Aye, there’s the rub, isn’t it? That’s the problem with the politics of Palestine. Everyone is in the right. Everyone is in the wrong. Everyone believes that God is on their side. Meanwhile, people are dying on both sides. More?” He offered the decanter to MacLeod, who shook his head. “And God, in his wisdom, seems to have decided to stay well out of it. Which is what I would advise you to do, if you weren’t already in the middle of it up to your ears.”

  “So what do I do?” MacLeod hoped that Constantine’s millennia of experience would yield an answer he had yet to think of.

  “Not much you can do, I’m afraid. Stop seeing the girl because one of your friends doesn’t approve? Seems rather adolescent to me. Besides, if you did, and then something should happen to her”—MacLeod’s stricken face at Constantine’s words told him all he needed to know—“you’d never forgive yourself. Speak to Avram? Certainly not tonight. Maybe in a couple of days, but you may have more luck talking to a door-post. When he digs in, it’s nearly impossible to move him.”

  “That’s for sure,” MacLeod agreed, remembering their time in the Ghetto.

  “Or let him hate you, if that’s what he wants to do. It’s not the end of the world. You can’t make everyone happy all the time, but, no matter what Avram says, you’ve got the right to do what makes you happy.” Constantine looked at his worried friend honestly. “Sometimes I think you forget that.”

  When MacLeod returned to the Lutétia that night, he felt no better than he had leaving Constantine’s. If anything, the security checks, the bureaucratic red tape, the pervading sense of fear and paranoia that surrounded the sumptuous palace only reminded him he was caught in the middle of a war. A war without battlefields. A war of words, of emotions pulled so tight the slightest incident could cause them to break. A war of rocks and bottles and hidden bombs that went off unexpectedly, in a bus or a school or in the mind of a fanatic.

  Assad waited patiently outside the door to Maral’s hotel room. Didn’t the guy ever sleep? He nodded a perfunctory greeting at MacLeod and stepped aside to allow him to knock.

  MacLeod rapped on the door lightly. “Maral?” He could hear her hurry to open it.

  “Duncan.” The door opened partway and she pulled him in, closing it firmly behind him. Her hair was down, a hairbrush still clutched in her hand, and she wore a simple pair of satin pajamas which he found more attractive than any sexy peignoir or the most revealing teddy. She had the ability to make anything look good.

  Maral gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, asking, “How was your meeting with your Israeli friend?” and resumed her nightly ritual of hair brushing. He didn’t know where to start. What to say? But his anger and disappointment showed in the way his body moved as he walked into the room. She set down her brush. “Not good, was it? Was it because of me?”

  He shrugged and went to sit on a tapestried couch across the room from her. There wasn’t really anything he could tell her.

  “Would you like a drink? Something to eat?”

  “No, thanks.”

  She moved to the couch and sat beside him, concerned about the shadows behind his eyes, the world-weary set of his shoulders. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No, not really,” he said. She didn’t believe him, but she wasn’t going to push.

  She put an arm cautiously around his shoulders. They were tense, the muscles wound in knots. When he didn’t seem to mind her touch, she snuggled a little closer to him. Still no response. Her other hand she laid across his chest and began to unbutton his shirt. She kissed him softly on the side of the neck, moving up toward his ear. The sinew connecting throat and jaw felt twisted and taut beneath her lips.

  He reached out and gently pushed her away. “Not now, Maral, please.”

  She looked at him a moment, a little stung, wishing she could figure out what was going on in that lovely head of his. “Okay,” she said, “help me understand this. You don’t want to eat. You don’t want to drink. You don’t want to talk, and you don’t want to play. May I ask why you are here, Duncan? You could just as easily be not doing all these things on your barge. Why come to me?”

  Why? That was a good question. Because… “I just wanted to be near you. Not to make love or fool around, but … just to have you close.” He smiled a wan little smile. “Sorry I’m not better company tonight.”

  Her heart melted at this peek beneath the white knight’s armor, a glimpse of the vulnerability locked inside. Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to hold him, to banish his demons and comfort him. Settling back into the couch and pulling her legs up beneath her, she put her arm around him once again and gently guided his head against her shoulder. “Close enough?”

  She smelled of sandalwood and fresh rainwater, and he nestled against her. “This is nice.” The satin of her pajama top was cool where it brushed his skin, and her thick jet hair cushioned his head like no downy pillow ever had. Gradually he could feel the tension and anger start to seep from his body.

  “Why don’t I tell you my good news?” she said, allowing her other hand to softly stroke his temple. “I think we finally have an agreement.”

  “That’s fantastic.” He tried to sit up, but she wouldn’t let him.

  “You can listen just fine where you are,” she scolded playfully, starting to massage his temples in soothing circular motions. “It is only a preliminary step, all about timetables and troop redeployment, but still, it’s a start. We meet again tomorrow morning before the sabbath recess to make sure all the i’s are dotted and the t’s crossed and all the alefs and sifirs are in the right places. If all goes well, Arafat and the Israeli Prime Minister arrive on Monday to sign the agreement.”

  “And what will the people think?” He closed his eyes, listening to the low timbre of her voice, feeling her healing touch.

  “Those who want the killing and the fear to stop will embrace it as a necessary step toward peace. The self-righteous, the extremists, the ultraconservative on all sides will despise it, because we all must make some painful concessions. This agreement won’t bring peace. In the short term, it will probably make things worse, until people have a chance to get used to it. But it lays the foundation for a lasting peace.” She moved her hands to his shoulders, her fingers digging deep into the muscles, releasing the tension, smoothing it away. “My grandfather says that a lasting peace is like a good marriage. Sacrifice and compromise are constantly required of both the bride and the groom, and the minute you take the relationship for granted, it’s gone.”

  “Wise man, your grandfather.”

  “Sometimes I think he was blessed with a very old soul.” If he’d thought he could, he would have turned around to see what exactly she meant by that, but his spine was quickly turning to jelly under her care. “He lost his land, he lost his wife, he lost one son to alcohol and the other to an Israeli bullet, yet he never became bitter. He kept his faith in Allah, but he didn’t use that faith to condone vengeance against those who wronged him as so many have. I have a lot of respect for him.”

  “You’re a lot like him, I think.”

  “I just wish I had his faith.”

  MacLeod reached up and touched her hand with his own. “You have faith in your fellowman, which is sometimes more difficult to keep.”

  She laughed. “I’m naive, you mean?” She worked on his shoulders for a few minutes more, the only sound in the room the sound of their breathing. She remembered nights when Ali would come home like this, tired in body, wounded in spirit, when only her touch could bring him peace.

  “Your Israeli friend will probably not like this agreement,” she said after a while.

  “He thinks I’ve picked the wrong side,” MacLeod said, unable to suppress a huge yawn. While he found the conversation interesting, Maral’s touch, just her very presence, were lulling him into a state of complete relaxation. Even his anger at Avram had washed away, replaced by compassion and a sense of pity.

&nb
sp; “There are so many like that,” she said sadly, “Arabs and Jews. Men whose idea of peace is not marriage, but bondage. The other side must be conquered completely, unable to cry out, unable to voice their dissent. Only then can there be peace. I feel very sorry for them.” She thought for a moment. “I don’t think the side of true peace is ever the wrong side, do you, Duncan?” There was no response. “Duncan?”

  Almost against his will, he’d fallen asleep against her shoulder. The tense lines of worry around his eyes and across the planes of his face had softened, and now he looked like an overgrown child, or perhaps an angel, as he slept. Maral didn’t have the heart to wake him. She slipped out from under him carefully and lowered him so his head rested on a pillow at the end of the couch.

  Maral wrestled the enormous bedspread from the bed and carried it back to the couch, tucking it in around MacLeod’s sleeping form. He looked so beautiful as he slept, she couldn’t help but kiss him sweetly on the forehead before she turned out the lights.

  Climbing into the spacious bed and sliding under the covers, Maral realized that for once she wasn’t struck by the same gut-wrenching loneliness the bed usually inspired. Just hearing the easy even sound of his breathing from across the room was like a lullaby, and she felt safe and protected. She smiled a little smile in the darkness and closed her eyes.

  It was the middle of the night when she was gently awakened by the jostling of the bed. She rolled over and felt his warmth as he slipped under the blankets next to her. She reached out to him, and they held each other close until morning.

  “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” MacLeod asked Maral the next morning. The Palestinian delegation was gathered in the lobby of the hotel preparing to leave for the negotiations, but first the gauntlet of media arrayed outside the doors had to be faced. The press had been promised a statement regarding the impending agreement, and it had been decided that Maral, as the most telegenic and Western-friendly of the delegates, would be the one to issue it.

  “Why can’t we just get this over with?” she complained, pacing nervously like a prizefighter before the first round. “It’s the waiting that’s killing me.”

  Farid came out of the glass revolving doors back into the lobby. “CNN has arrived,” he announced. “Now we can proceed.” He gestured the others to follow him out.

  A small podium had been placed at the top of the stairs just outside the door, and representatives of the best and brightest of the world’s media services were jockeying for position around it. Farid cleared a path, and MacLeod escorted Maral to it, Assad sticking close to her to deflect the microphones and cameras pushing and shoving their way toward her. “Dr. Amina!” “Professor!” even “Maral!” the insistent voices called, but she ignored them until they reached the podium. The other delegates ranged themselves around her in a show of solidarity.

  Maral stepped up to the podium. Assad stayed just behind her, MacLeod off to one side with the delegates, both men vigilant. At the microphone, she cleared her throat politely, and the clamoring news crews settled down to hear the prepared statement.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the international press”—she could barely see through the sea of camera flashes and television lighting—“on behalf of President Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, I thank you for coming.” It was probably the last thing she really wanted to say to the press, but she had to be the “nice” one. “Late Thursday evening, a tentative preliminary agreement was reached between negotiators for the nation of Israel and the Palestinian people regarding the military redeployment and political autonomy of—”

  Suddenly, MacLeod felt it. An Immortal. Close. And getting closer. He scanned the sea of press…

  “—East Jerusalem. The details of the agreement will be finalized today. The Israeli and Palestinian cabinets—”

  …and there he saw, wedged between some reporters, the light of a flashbulb reflect off the barrel of a gun.

  “—will vote on the agreement on Sunday. The signing—”

  “Bundoo’ aya!” MacLeod screamed out. “Gun! Take cover!” Almost before the words were past MacLeod’s lips, the automatic was firing. MacLeod dived for Maral, but Assad was there first, knocking her away from the podium, driving her to the pavement, covering her with his body.

  As MacLeod went for the ground, he pulled the legs out from under the delegate standing beside him. The man fell heavily just as a bullet passed through the empty air where his heart had been a moment before. The bullet shattered the window surrounding the revolving door to the hotel and several of the Palestinians crawled frantically through the broken glass into the safety of the lobby.

  He saw Omar al-Sayyeed take a bullet in the thigh and blood geyser out of a severed artery, spraying the other delegates. As al-Sayyeed dropped, MacLeod grabbed him and started to drag him behind the podium. Suddenly, fire seared into his own shoulder and he lost his grip on the delegate.

  MacLeod steeled himself—block out the pain, no pain, no pain—and succeeded in getting the screaming al-Sayyeed to relative safety behind the podium. The other delegate whose life MacLeod had saved was crouched behind it. MacLeod grabbed his hand and pressed it hard into al-Sayyeed’s bleeding wound. “You let go, he dies,” he warned the man, then peered around the podium to find the gunman.

  All around, there was chaos. Reporters screaming, some dropping to the ground where they stood, others running for cover. There, in the midst of them, MacLeod spotted the shooter.

  Avram. In a baseball cap and ultrabaggy jeans, looking like a teenaged gangbanger.

  MacLeod didn’t allow himself time to be surprised. He started after Avram who, knowing he’d been spotted, ceased firing and took off running, through the traffic at a standstill in front of the hotel on the Boulevard Raspail, bolting across the Square Boucicaut, past the nesting pigeons, past the dead French king. MacLeod followed, breathing fire.

  At the edge of the square, just as MacLeod thought he was gaining on the smaller man, Avram mounted a motorbike he’d secreted behind a bush and roared out into traffic, weaving in and out of the stopped cars as he disappeared down the street.

  MacLeod knew he’d lost him. He vowed it wouldn’t be for long.

  He turned around and started running back to the hotel. Off in the distance he could hear sirens, police and ambulance on their way to help the wounded. The wounded. Oh God, Maral. He hadn’t thought he could run any faster, but the very thought spurred him on with a herculean burst of speed.

  Assad was dead. He knew the instant he pushed through the bystanders ringed around the spot where he and Maral had gone down. A shot through the head and one in the back.

  And Maral. She lay so still, covered in blood and gore. He couldn’t tell if she was breathing. Farid crouched by her head along with another somber man MacLeod prayed was a doctor. He forced his way over to Farid. “Tell me,” he commanded grimly.

  “She’s alive,” Farid said, and relief washed over MacLeod, “but unconscious. We believe she may have suffered a head injury when she fell. Most of the blood you see belonged to Assad, peace be unto him.”

  “He saved her life,” MacLeod realized.

  “That was his job, Mr. MacLeod. He was very good at his job.” The first of the ambulances pulled in front of the hotel, and the man with Farid hurried to meet it. Farid was quiet for a moment, as if he didn’t know how to phrase what he wanted to say. “And you saved delegates al-Sayyeed and Mokhtari. Assad had told me he thought you were very good, as well, and I did not believe him. I believe him now.” The two men’s eyes met, each holding a new respect for the other. Then Maral, moaning, began to stir. “Come, now we must help Dr. Amina.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Paris: The Present

  “Amy!” Constantine called out as he entered the office of the assistant curator of the Musée National des Antiquités without knocking, as was his usual custom. “Amy?” He was surprised to find it empty. The young archaeologist was generally quite diligent about her wor
k.

  He saw a figure walk past the office door, and he hurried out into the hallway. It was his secretary. “Naomi, where’s Dr. Zoll?” Naomi always knew everything. Some days Constantine wondered how he’d ever functioned for twenty-five hundred years without her. She directed him to the lunchroom and he set off in search.

  The lunchroom wasn’t much. A few half-empty vending machines, a microwave, a coffeepot half-full of tepid mud, and an ancient television. All the money in the museum’s modest budget was spent on the public areas and the exhibits. As Constantine entered the lunchroom, it appeared that more than half his staff were gathered around the TV.

  “What the devil’s going on here?” Constantine fumed. The staff snapped to attention at his approach, their guilt plain on their faces. “We open in ten minutes and there are already busloads of twelve-year-olds stacking up outside.” He spotted the assistant curator still staring at the screen, wide-eyed. “And you, Doctor, were supposed to have those attendance projections on my desk this morning.”

  “Look, Marcus, I know you’re not interested in years that have four digits in them, but could you possibly show a little compassion here?” The young archaeologist was always the only member of the museum staff with the guts to stand up to Constantine. The old general often thought what a fine Centurion she would have made. She was also a hell of a poker player, almost as good as his friend who was calling himself Pierson. “There’s history happening, Marcus,” she chided him.

  “What do you mean?” Constantine asked, but his colleague shushed him.

  On the TV, the news anchor spoke in clipped, somber tones. “Once again, two are confirmed dead in this morning’s shocking attack: Nigel Coles, a veteran cameraman for the BBC, and Ibrahim Nasir Assad, a member of the Palestinian delegation’s security team…”

  Constantine was appalled. “When did this happen?”

  “…Among the wounded, which some sources have placed as high as thirty, are three of the Palestinian delegates:” The talking head was replaced by silent video of Maral giving the Palestinian statement to the press. “Former PLO terrorist turned negotiator Salim Ghassan, who’s been taken to Hospital in serious condition; Omar al-Sayyeed, the deputy minister of labor, who is listed in good condition; and the spokesperson, Bir Zeit University professor Maral Amina, who is reportedly undergoing tests at this hour…”