by Jon Land
“No, there’s something else, something else I must tell you. The reason I am calling you.”
“Go on.” His brother’s voice sounded more impatient than concerned.
“It’s about your son. It’s about Dawud.”
“What about him?”
“Something . . . there’s been ...” The words kept catching in Ben’s throat, as if a net kept holding them back.
“Dawud’s in graduate school at Brown University,” Sayeed said, “and doing quite well. Studying under the famous Martha Joukowsky.”
Ben felt the net release, something different clutching his words. “Now?”
“His second semester.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Why are you calling me, Bayan? Why are you asking about Dawud?”
“Where is he now?”
“I just told you.”
“No, Sayeed, I mean today.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
The receiver felt stuck to Ben’s face. “Listen to me. I saw Dawud earlier today. In the Judean Desert.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“He had been killed, my brother.”
Silence.
“Sayeed?”
“What is this madness, Bayan?”
“Not madness. I saw his body.”
“Today?”
“A few hours ago. He was killed last night.”
“I received an E-mail from him this morning.”
“What?” Ben managed after a pause.
“It was waiting when I got to my office. Usually, he sends them to the house but I guess—”
“You haven’t spoken to him.”
“I just told you—”
“I mean over the phone.”
“No.”
Ben ran his free hand over his face. “He never told you he was coming to Palestine?”
“No, because he’s in school. At Brown.”
Ben let himself hope there had been some mistake, some terrible coincidence. Kamal, after all, was a popular name, and so was Dawud. Considering the large Arabic population in the Dearborn area, another young man with the same name could have easily been enrolled as well. That would better explain why he hadn’t even recognized the body in the desert as that of his nephew in the first place.
“I’m telling you, my brother, you have made a mistake,” Sayeed insisted.
But Ben still wasn’t totally convinced he had. “Call him.”
“Excuse me?”
“Call Dawud at Brown University. Get in touch with him. I pray you are right about me making a mistake.”
“I am right. I’m sure of it.”
“Then call me back, my brother,” Ben said, calmer, “after you have . . . reached your son.”
Sayeed Kamal sighed. “Very well. ...”
“Just one more thing, Sayeed. What was Dawud studying at Brown University?”
“Archaeology,” Ben’s brother told him.
* * * *
CHAPTER 10
W
ell, Mrs. Barnea,” the doctor said, entering the examining room with a folder open before him, “I have the results of your blood work.”
Following her meeting with Hershel Giott, Danielle had barely made the doctor’s appointment she had rescheduled from that morning, slowed further by the typically awful Jerusalem traffic. Through the agonizing stops and starts in the narrow hilly streets, her thoughts returned to the opportunity Giott had presented her with.
But what would happen once the commissioner learned what the doctor was about to confirm for her now?
The biggest impediment standing in the way of her promotion, Giott had said, was her relationship with Ben Kamal. Because he was a Palestinian. Because she had been associated with him so often in the media during the course of two other high-profile investigations. They were often regarded as a team and neither had done much to dispel that. The proponents of Oslo and Wye had used them as a symbol for the vast potential of peace. The trick, in Giott’s mind, was to take advantage of this notoriety, while at the same time defusing the political powder keg Danielle’s opponents in National Police could use against her with the more conservative elements.
For a time she had not known where her relationship with Ben was going. She fought what she was feeling and honestly believed she could win. Originally, they had tried their best to make it work and failed, and both had moved on. Then she had met a man who wasn’t like Ben, but at least was Israeli, and Danielle found herself not so much wanting him as desperately wanting to be pregnant. She lost the baby a month after she had last spoken with this man and, soon after, fate had thrown her and Ben together again.
This time Danielle had lacked both the strength and desire to turn away from him. The only time she felt secure and content was when they were together. She didn’t think of pregnancy again; it was the furthest thing from her mind. But the nights they managed to share became the happiest times of her life. She felt free, her true feelings no longer denied, for Ben Kamal was the only thing that could even remotely fill the emptiness that had plagued her since the miscarriage.
Then she had missed her period—not terribly unusual, the doctors had forewarned her. But she found herself waking up nauseous almost every morning and purchased a home pregnancy test. Never used it, afraid of the results.
What have I done?
Danielle should have felt thrilled by the possibility she was pregnant again, only the reality of the circumstances intruded. She had made this appointment with her OB/GYN, needing to know and too much a part of her hoping the signals her body had been giving her were wrong.
The doctor leaned against the table atop which Danielle sat, dressed in a thin gown that made her feel cold. She tried not to shiver.
“Congratulations,” he said with a smile. “You’re pregnant.”
Danielle forced herself to smile back.
* * * *
CHAPTER 11
T
he Oasis casino lay in the desert outside the town of Jericho, just across the highway from a refugee camp. Some of the camp’s residents worked on the construction crews that had built the sprawling complex, thanks to money raised solely by Palestinian investors.
Ben surveyed the grounds of the new casino, envisioned as the first leg of the largest tourist resort ever to be established in the Middle East. Before it was finished, the Palestinian Authority expected to pour at least $150 million into a project meant to draw tourism to the fledgling state. Today the steel shells of two high-rise hotels cast shadows over the limestone-faced casino. Construction of a conference center had begun as well.
Farther in the distance, Ben could see the area where a golf course had been staked out. He’d heard that the Palestinian consortium behind the complex had finally relented and retained Israeli irrigation experts to help design the course and figure out how to keep the sprinklers flowing, water being a scarce commodity in the West Bank. Similarly, today the parking lot was full of Israeli tour buses packed with a multinational crowd. Since the casino’s opening, though, Israelis themselves by far remained the dominant customers, the irony of their fattening thin Palestinian pockets lost in the gambling craze.
Ben flashed his identification at the main entrance and went into the casino in search of Nabril al-Asi, head of the Palestinian Protective Security Service. He found the colonel on a raised walkway overlooking the huge floor of slot machines, their levers lashed downward as fast as players could feed in the tokens or coins.
“Come to try your luck, Inspector?” al-Asi said, smiling when he saw Ben approach. The colonel had jet-black, wavy hair sprinkled with gray that gave him a distinguished and dignified look. Though in his early fifties, his skin and teeth were flawless, and he bought his suits from the same private tailor in Tel Aviv who serviced Israel’s top officials and businessmen. Italian mostly, although lately he’d developed a liking to the American designers Hugo Boss and Joseph Abboud. He reminded Ben of the actor Omar Sharif,
though al-Asi claimed not to have seen any of Sharif s movies.
“Yes, but not on the machines. Besides, Palestinians aren’t permitted to play.”
“Those lucky enough to have foreign passports can. See, your dual American citizenship can finally be worth something!”
“What about you, Colonel?”
Al-Asi shrugged. He shifted sideways, changing the fall of the pants of his expensive Italian suit. “I, like all other simple Palestinians, must be content to watch.”
“Is that what you’re doing here?”
“In a sense. You see, the casino’s opening has lured a number of—what should I call them?—expatriates back into our midst. President Arafat is most concerned their presence could prove disruptive. I, on the other hand, informed him that it’s nothing a little winning can’t solve.”
“I could play some numbers for you,” Ben said.
“Strange, isn’t it?” al-Asi asked, ignoring his offer. He clasped his hands behind his back and moved slowly down the elevated walkway, Ben staying by his side. “Before us lies everything that Muslim tradition abhors. Alcohol, gambling, even men and women mixing among one another. So the Authority responds by banning all Palestinians, denying us pleasures everyone else is free to enjoy.”
“Few of us have money, anyway.”
Al-Asi slapped his hand on the steel rail and leaned forward. “An empty gesture, then. Across the road, four thousand refugees watch as at least that number of players disembark every day. The men who helped build this place are not even permitted entry to the parking lot.”
“Perhaps someday, Colonel.”
“The Authority planned a trip to Las Vegas for us to learn about casinos firsthand.”
“How was it?”
“I didn’t go. My wife wasn’t allowed to accompany me.”
“Were you taking a stand?”
“Just being practical. It would not be safe for her here with me so many miles away.” Al-Asi’s face took on a rare somber look that quickly faded. “Now, what has brought you to this den of impropriety, Inspector?”
Ben slid the mini-video recording disc he had taken off the guard in the Judean Desert from his pocket and gave it to al-Asi.
The colonel regarded the disc closely, squinting one eye as if inspecting a piece of jewelry. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a chip like this. . . .”
“It’s a mini-disc.”
“What music group?”
“A video mini-disc.”
“Of what?”
“That’s what I need to find out.”
Al-Asi returned his attention to the pit below, where lines of players stretched before the slots and the crowds waiting for a seat at the blackjack tables were three deep. “I doubt you’ll be able to find a slot machine that will take it.”
“I found it in the camp of the murdered American archaeologists.”
Al-Asi pursed his lips speculatively. “I wasn’t aware you had been assigned to the case.”
“I wasn’t. Not formally anyway. Pakad Danielle Barnea called after learning one of the victims was my nephew.”
Al-Asi reached out and touched Ben’s arm. “You have my condolences, Inspector.”
“Thank you, Colonel.”
“But I am surprised to hear that Pakad Barnea is involved in the case.”
“She was briefly, until Shin Bet replaced her.”
“I know of Shin Bet’s interest.”
Ben tightened his stance. “You ...”
“My Israeli counterpart informed me of their intentions.”
“Shin Bet?”
Al-Asi frowned. “One of their many agencies. They have almost as many as we do.”
“You gave them permission?”
“They weren’t asking for it.”
“Did they say anything else?”
“Lots about the prospects of an international incident and doing our best to avoid it.” Al-Asi rolled the mini-disc in his hand like a silver dollar. “I get the feeling this might lead to them being disappointed.”
“It came from the camera of a bedouin who was working as a guard at the Americans’ camp.”
The colonel raised his eyebrows at the clear meaning of Ben’s words. “And, of course, the Israelis on the scene missed it.”
“They accepted a reasonable facsimile.”
Al-Asi turned back to the floor. “And you said you weren’t a gambler, Inspector. . . .”
“I’d like to learn what’s on the disc, Colonel.”
Al-Asi gave the disc one last gaze before handing it back to Ben. “Not the kind of technology bedouins are likely to use, is it?”
“Unless they happen to be working for the Israelis,” Ben said over the clank of slot-machine levers being pulled and the clatter of chips being swept off blackjack tables into cavernous drop drawers. “How much did you know about what they were up to, Colonel?”
“I knew they were digging. I love to see foreigners chasing their tails in our desert.” Al-Asi’s tone sobered a little. “Seeing them murdered is something else again.”
“Precisely the reason why I thought it best to keep this disc. I was hoping you’d arrange permission for me to view it.”
“On one of the computers at the Palestinian Authority Headquarters.”
“Yes.”
“No,” al-Asi said, shaking his head. “Even if we have equipment that can play this, it’s a safe bet it was donated by the Israelis and, thus, not to be fully trusted.”
“What’s the alternative?”
Al-Asi paused to drink in the sounds of chips and slot-machine levers before responding. “I’ll have to make some arrangements. I’d get to it right away, but as you can see ...” A shrug completed the colonel’s thoughts as he gestured with a hand toward the domain beneath him.
“Your surveillance.”
“The reappearance of former freedom fighters can make for difficult complications.”
“I understand.”
The colonel looked hesitant all of a sudden. “There’s something else we need to discuss, Inspector. In fact, I was going to call you.” He pulled an envelope from the coat of his suit, careful to tug the fabric straight again. “I received this report yesterday. It concerns your brother Sayeed in America.”
Ben removed three stapled pages from the envelope and read them quickly, emotionlessly.
“This is the third such report in as many months,” al-Asi said when Ben seemed finished. “Apparently his dealings with these unfortunate elements of our culture have escalated to an unacceptable degree.”
Ben flipped through the pages quickly, gazed back at the colonel when he was finished.
“I have not taken any action yet, Inspector.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s the least I can do, out of respect for our friendship. One cannot have too many friends, though apparently he can have too many brothers. But you understand I must act on this at some point.”
“I understand.”
“Unless, of course, some unexpected intervention preempted any action on my part.”
Ben returned the report the colonel had provided. “Can you give me a few days to work something out?”
“A few, yes, especially in view of your nephew’s death. I have plenty of other concerns to keep me busy for at least that long. It’s a good thing for you so much of my attention is currently being directed here to the Oasis.” Al-Asi’s eyes widened. “In the meantime, why don’t you spend some time in the casino? I’ll even arrange a stake, so you can take advantage of that American passport that makes you extremely privileged among the rest of us humble Palestinians who are not permitted to play.”
The colonel turned from Ben when a casino manager wearing a tuxedo approached.
“Your winnings, sir,” the man said, and handed al-Asi a neat stack of dinars.
“Thank you,” replied the colonel, sliding them into his pocket.
* * * *
CHAPTER 12
W
&n
bsp; e must talk, Pakad,” Hershel Giott said tensely, a thin hand fastened around Danielle’s elbow as he led her across his office.
She had returned to National Police Headquarters, debating if and when to tell her superior the truth, only to find Giott in a state of agitation, with something else on his mind.