The first thing she did when they were settled in a small room near the kitchen, was introduce herself to Musnah and explain that she not the police and had no authority over her and meant her no harm. She explained that she was talking to her on behalf of the Faysal family and was there to help. She said she knew that Musnah was a good person, that Hala had hired her to work for this family when she was just a teenager. She said she knew that Musnah loved this family, but she also loved her own family and had been placed in a difficult situation. Musnah remained silent and fearful.
Elisabeth leaned over to Layla and made a suggestion. Immediately the child left the room returning minutes later with her grandmother. Hala Faysal was amazing. She knew exactly what to do. As if trained and briefed for this mission, she leaned forward and spoke to her old cook in a familiar tone assuring her that she was in no danger, that the family needed her help and to please answer Elisabeth’s questions truthfully. Layla translated carefully and Elisabeth could tell by the older woman’s expressions that she understood what was being said. She smiled encouragingly at Layla and Musnah then said “I know you are worried about your grandson and about Saroyah. You feel either way you turn you may hurt one of them. But let me assure you nothing you say will be used to hurt your grandson. He is being held by the Israeli government. I give you my word that nothing you say can harm him but it could help us save Saroyah.” Haltingly the story emerged.
The grandson was spending time with his uncle Muhammad who was not a very good person. Musnah heard rumors he sold guns and things to the wrong people. She had urged her grandson to stay away from this uncle. This uncle has no blood relationship to Musnah. He was married to her daughter’s husband’s sister, who died many years ago. Musnah’s daughter’s family had not seen or heard from this uncle for many years. He was traveling, she heard in Afghanistan. He returned a few months ago and contacted people he used to know, among them her grandson Imad, who she called a kharoof (sheep). She said since he was a little boy, her grandson was easily led and influenced by others. She said when this uncle returned from Afghanistan, Imad began to spend time with him, lots of time. Then she received a note from that uncle Muhammad saying that Imad would be in great trouble unless she did one favor for them. The note instructed her to leave a small side gate unlocked on one specific day. It was the day that the child was taken. She said she had not known what to do. She had been frantic, but she said, tears rolling down her wrinkled cheeks, that she had not done it. She refused to open that gate even for her own grandson. She said a short time after that the child was taken and her grandson and the uncle were captured. She said she did not know who had opened that gate and repeated that she had not done so. Someone else did this terrible thing that led to the child’s capture.
As Musnah wept, Elisabeth encouraged her to continue. Musnah said that was all that she knew. She didn’t know who opened that gate or who came in through the gate and didn’t know who sent the note. “Do you have that note?” Elisabeth asked. Musnah nodded, slipped her hand into her apron pocket and handed Elisabeth a wrinkled square of paper with some Arabic script scribbled across it. Elisabeth handed the note to Layla who studied it for a few moments and said, “It says ‘your grandson will die unless you unlock the side gate in two mornings. Tell no one or he dies.’ There is no signature,” Layla, brown eyes wide, stared at the note dangling from her fingertips.
“That raises more questions than it answers,” Elisabeth murmured almost to herself. Raising and walking to the window she gazed out toward the olive trees, it was then she noticed two workers watching her.
Asking Layla to accompany her she walked outside in their direction. The men turned away averting their eyes but seemed interested in her. “You have something to tell me?” Elisabeth asked the men as Layla translated. Hesitantly, one man answered, “Yes, we were uncertain what to do about this when the little girl was taken, but we decided we have to tell you things we saw.” They glanced worriedly at Layla. Elisabeth understood that they didn’t want to speak in front of her but as she couldn’t talk with them directly there was no other choice. So she said, “Layla is helping me now. You can tell us what you saw without worry,” she said, “and please speak freely.”
One of the workers nodded sadly and said, “Several men met here the day the child was taken. One man looked familiar; he looked important, dressed in a Western suit. He arrived in a limousine.” The worker paused and looked at his friend. “He had several guards. Another man was older, he wore a long garment; he had a long beard, he looked like a holy man, a soldier with a gun guarded that man. There were two other men who also came. One of those men was older and one younger, they stood close together. They carried a large box. It seemed they were going to show what was in that box.” … here the man hesitated nervously.
Sensing there was more, Elisabeth asked, “was anyone else there?” Still the man hesitated, Elisabeth said, “please…” and the worker looked at Layla and sadly said,
“There was another man. He did not come inside and did not sit at the meeting, but stayed inside the big car. We saw him through the fence. We could see his face. Layla, it was your father. We are sorry to tell you this. This is why we did not tell before. He is the man of the house, perhaps it was alright that he opened that gate. He did not come inside to the meeting, he waited outside the gate but he was with the fancy dressed man in the big black car.” The other worker nodded and looked down at the ground. “We saw him, your father sitting in the back; the window was down because he was smoking a cigarette. He did not see us. We saw him. We are so sorry.”
The other man said, “We do not wish to say bad news for you or your family. We are very sorry. We mean no disrespect.”
Layla had gone pale and looked about to cry. “Please go on,” Elisabeth prompted reaching over and taking Layla’s small hand in hers. “This is important. What happened next?”
“Well,” said the first worker, “The fancy dressed man and the bearded man talked about something referring to the box. They opened the box and took out guns, different kinds of guns, not like the guns we have ever seen. The fancy man seemed to know the two men with the box but the bearded man did not and he was uninterested in the box. That bearded man was interested in the fancy man; he talked mostly to him but the old man’s guard interested in the box and spoke with the old man about the box.” said the second worker.
“We left then to return to work,” the second worker continued. “We never saw them again. We don’t think that they saw us. We did not see Saroyah and did not see them take her. If we had seen that we would have stopped them. I assure you we would not have let them take the child away. She is like our own child. Later when we heard the child, was gone we worried that it had something to do with that meeting. But we also worried that if those men knew we had seen them they would return and kill us or our families. And we worried that if we told what we knew we could lose our jobs here at the Olive Grove. We grieved for Saroyah but also we feared for our own children. We hope she is still alive but fear that she is not. These were frightening men, Layla. They had hard eyes, very hard eyes.”
Pulling out her cell phone, Elisabeth texted a summary of what she learned to Gil and Hadara. The text she received expressed her feelings exactly “It’s getting harder and harder to put this puzzle together.”
- 34 -
DECISIONS AND COLLISIONS
They whispered together in the back seat of the black SUV, trying to determine their next course of action. Zuhair Bayan, his most trusted advisor seemed unsure of himself and that made The Great One uneasy. Galed Rashid had texted details of what appeared to be an American Cowboy-style standoff in the parking lot of the Yitshak Ben Zvi Hospital in Be’er Sheva. It was ludicrous. It was completely unacceptable! They were The Sword of Justice. They were meant to work in the shadows. They were meant to be hidden from the public eye until they were able to carry out a grand act in the name of Allah! Then they would burst into the spotlight of the wo
rld. Clever, respected and feared. Declaring the greatness of Allah! Speaking against the impurity of Israel and the West, they would lead their faithful Muslim followers into the dawn of tomorrow. But now they looked like fools. Stuck in some parking lot waiting to kill some little girl. It was beyond ridiculous and yet what choice did they have? The child had seen more than she should have. She had seen his face! She had seen him with a Lebanese official! They should have killed her when they caught her. Now they were stuck. Should they bomb the whole hospital? Should they breech the building and shoot everyone surrounding the child? NO, that would invite shame and criticism, not awe and respect. Their followers would not be pleased with such an action. All they could do was to wait until the child left the hospital and was in a more neutral area. Then they would capture her or shoot her, and only her.
Zuhair Bayan was worried. This was indeed a complex problem with no easy solution, but what worried him even more was The Great One himself, he seemed so hesitant and uncertain. He didn’t look well. Bayan, his doctor not just advisor, felt his pulse and checked his heart but there were no drastic signs of distress. He had no medicine to prescribe. The Leader shrugged the doctor off. “This is not necessary,” he said. “I am physically well, my friend. I am worried, that is all. I have the weight of the world on my shoulders; that is all to be said.” Bayan considered the situation, the Leader was a thoughtful man given to introspection, but this was different, the man was changing; he was more distant but Bayan couldn’t put his finger on exactly why. He thought it started when the boy called Rafi arrived at the camp. Zuhair Bayan had a strange feeling about that boy. He was too perfect and his connection with The Great One was too strong. A youngster, a complete stranger won The Great One’s ear. Out of thousands of followers, this young man had been chosen. Just like that. It made no sense. There was something magnetic about the boy, something almost hypnotic. Bayan didn’t understand it; he didn’t like it.
He sighed and felt a deep worry settle into his chest. He had been trying to turn The Great One against the boy with suggestions and innuendos. He wanted to eliminate the boy to kill him like the traitor he believed he was. He worried this was backfiring and that every negative utterance was turning The Great One against HIM and not the fledgling. He felt The Great One’s eyes on him when he was not looking, staring at him, watching him. On the one hand he wanted to kill the boy and be done with it. On the other hand he feared that The Great One would be infuriated if he took such drastic action against his protégé. He thought, What if it is a mistake? It could never be undone. What if this turns The Great One against me? He believes that this young man is destined to be his voice to the world, that he is meant to lead The Sword of Justice. Bayan made a final decision as he reached for his cell phone. Better to be safe than sorry, he thought as he began texting.
Simon and Sammy disguised in caps and beards had been preparing the props and costumes needed for their grand production. Pockets full of shekels; they combed the area around the hotel introducing themselves as agents for Continent Film Producers hiring extras for a documentary on “How Israel’s Transit Authority Handles the Handicapped.” They had a whole spiel about the forthcoming film due to air on 60 Minutes in mid-September and coached people as they handed out money, maps, and instructions. People eagerly offered their time and talents for the venture. A dress rehearsal was scheduled to begin shortly using several entrances and exits in the hotel’s garage. Everything had to be letter perfect, no exceptions.
Elsewhere, Elisabeth and Layla were doing their best ‘CSI’ imitations in the compound, focusing on the area near the side gate. Walking through the compound they found a small area near the animal pens where several chairs and a small table were arranged and the ground was littered with cigarette butts and several discarded bottles of soda. Footprints in the soft, sandy earth showed different sized sandals and a few pairs of hard soled men’s shoes. Elisabeth collected the bottles and several cigarette butts from the earth while Layla searched the broader area. Inside the feed shed, Assi approached her meowing for attention. “This is Saroyah’s cat, Assi,” Layla called to Elisabeth bending over to pet the cat’s head, “She just had a litter of kittens. They must be around here somewhere.”
“See if you can find them,” Elisabeth suggested, “I think this is why your sister was out this way. I don’t think those men came here looking for her. I think they were meeting here and she saw them. Find Assi’s kittens so we can see how old they are and we will have another piece of our puzzle.”
Five minutes later, Layla called to Elisabeth from a nearby shed. Turning, Elisabeth saw Layla’s eyes staring at her through a slit between two logs. In her hands was a tiny kitten about a week old. Elisabeth was triumphant! Focusing her cell phone camera on the shed she declared, “This is where those men had their secret meeting. Your sister was captured because she saw them. She can identify them. Whoever they are they could not risk being seen together. I don’t know why they were here to begin with but this much is clear. They didn’t want to be seen and she saw them.
Maybe this stuff,” she held up the evidence she’d collected, “will give us fingerprints that will identify those men and help us figure out what they were doing here in the first place.”
Hadara and Gil took turns watching the jeeps in the parking lot and watching Saroyah sleep. The ‘limping men’ took turns pacing past the curtained ER rooms and talking with the men in the jeep. Everyone pretended to be unaware of each other, moving at a slow casual pace, avoiding eye contact and feigning disinterest. Gil concluded they did not intend to attack the child in the hospital, but were waiting for her to be discharged. That meshed with their plans perfectly.
During the night Mikhail Gendel arrived, moaning with his head wrapped in bandages, he was assigned to the cubicle next to Saroyah’s. From his vantage point, he could watch the child and the action in the hallway. Around 6AM, Yosef appeared wearing green surgical garb. Stethoscope around his neck, he busied himself checking patient charts and examining Mikhail and Saroyah. By mid-morning two more jeeps bearing reinforcements joined the two parked at the perimeter. The totals were four – for Mossad and ten – for Sword of Justice. Hadara would have been worried, but she knew reinforcements were en route.
Jamila and her children arrived at the ER. Grim-faced and determined, they had packed their crucial belongings. Most would be shipped to Chevra Hatzollah Headquarters in Chicago and some they would carry. The hardest thing for Jamila had been the talk with her parents. This was the worst possible time for her to be leaving them, now that they were getting older. Jamila had devoted her life to the Olive Grove. The business and family responsibilities had been her main focus. Now, it had come down to one decision. She had to choose her children’s safety. Her parents would be safe where they were. The servants would care for them, protect them if necessary. And it’s not as if they were incapacitated.
Her parents sat silently hugging their grandchildren as they listened to their daughter. This was a lot of information to absorb and they were emotionally overloaded. Her father was the first to speak. His mind still strong and clear; he understood Saroyah’s situation; he knew about The Sword of Justice. He and his wife had been apprised of the situation and were not surprised that Jamila was planning to flee with her children to another country. If they weren’t safe here they agreed that Jamila and the children should go. Amal and Hala Faysal were not extremists, they were peace-loving Lebanese, strong believers in the Muslim faith, but not against or opposed to other faiths or other ways of life. Through the years they had traveled the world extensively. They appreciated many of the things that other countries had to offer. They especially loved America. New York City with its Broadway shows and gourmet restaurants was a favorite of theirs. Fifteen years ago, they purchased a condo on the Lower East Side so they could vacation in New York every year. That was available to their daughter and her children. “You must do what you must do,” Hala said as she hugged her weeping daughter and
kissed her grandchildren in turn. “We will be fine here; we will keep things going until you can return.”
“Go in peace, my daughter.” Her father added “Keep your children safe and return to us as soon as you are able.” Amal hugged each of his grandchildren close, “We will keep you in our prayers,” he said to them.
As they were getting in the car, Amal approached his daughter and asked, “Do you know where the men are?” He was, of course, referring to his two sons and his son- in-law, Jamila’s errant husband Gamil.
Jamila shook her head, “No, Abii, I have not heard from any of them.” Amal frowned and shook his head.
“I will try and find them,” he said to her.
“Do be careful, Abii,” she said, “Do not take any unnecessary risks.”
“Do not worry about me, I am not unused to troubling times you know,” her father said with a sly wink.
Saroyah was awake and overjoyed to see her family crowding into the small curtained cubicle. Hadara allowed a brief reunion and then sat them down for a briefing. It was of the utmost importance for each and every one of them to be clear and to know exactly what would be happening and when. Tension flooded the small curtained cubicle as the complex plan was outlined.
Seeing Double: An Elisabeth Reinhardt Novel Page 19