by Jon Land
“What have you done with Danielle?” Ben demanded.
“I don’t know what you’re talking—”
“Yes, you do. Did you have her killed? If you did, I swear I’ll kill you too.”
Two other men finally joined Baruch inside the cave, fingers close to the triggers of their Uzi submachine guns.
“Give me the box, Inspector.”
Ben looked at the gunmen, then back at Baruch. The scene, him kneeling before them, was almost laughable. He handed the box toward Baruch, who snatched it away before Ben could change his mind.
“I wouldn’t open that, if I were you, Commander.”
A quick nod from Baruch and his two subordinates were on Ben, each taking an arm and jerking him upward. One of his legs had fallen asleep. He couldn’t put any pressure on it and when it buckled, the Israeli on that side kicked him in the shin.
He was still limping when he finally emerged from the darkness of the cave between the two men from Shin Bet where another four armed men waited. Baruch joined them halfway down the steps, prepared no doubt to officially take Ben into custody, when a phalanx of cars poured down the strip that passed for a road in the desert.
Baruch’s men tensed, readying their weapons as the approaching headlights caught them. They split into a wider spread, ready to shoot now.
The arriving cars, five of them, separated into a neat row, coming to a halt abreast of each other fifty feet before the Shin Bet agents. Even in the dark, Ben recognized Colonel Nabril al-Asi’s Mercedes at the head of the pack. The back door opened and al-Asi stepped out casually, all by himself.
The men from Shin Bet tightened their stances and steadied their weapons, a few sliding bolts back with an audible click. Al-Asi looked unfazed. He fastened the button on his double-breasted suit and walked straight into the armed camp alone without hesitation, seeming to ignore everyone but Moshe Baruch.
Only when the colonel reached the foot of the steps of the goat path leading to the cave did he finally look at Ben. Then he ascended leisurely, past gunmen who followed him with their weapons, and stopping just before he reached Commander Baruch
“Good evening, Commander,” al-Asi greeted. He slipped a hand casually inside his suit jacket and came out with a tri-folded document. “This is a court order confirming this to be land duly ceded to the Palestinians and instructing you to vacate the premises upon being served.”
Baruch’s lips curled back like a dog ready to spring. “We do not recognize Palestinian courts.”
Al-Asi quite calmly handed him the document. “This was signed by an Israeli justice.” The colonel’s gaze came to rest on the box still clutched beneath one of Baruch’s beefy arms. “As such, I’m sure you understand that all objects found on or removed from these premises are the property of the Palestinian people. Yes?”
Baruch inspected the order in the spray of the headlights. The pages crumpled in his hand as he finished reading them. He jerked the box out toward al-Asi’s chest.
The colonel latched his hands on it just before impact. “Similarly, Commander, I’m sure you understand that, according to the agreement between our governments, seizing a prisoner on our land requires a writ of cooperation or formal approval. I suggest you turn over Inspector Kamal to me until such time that we can work out his disposition.”
Baruch nodded and, with a flap of his hand, signaled the men holding Ben to let him go. Baruch drew himself up to his full height and stormed down the goat path, followed closely by the rest of his men.
Al-Asi and Ben watched them go from the steps, the box still held in the colonel’s grasp.
“Thank you, Commander,” al-Asi called after Baruch. “Let this go down as a high-water mark in the spirit of cooperation between our peoples.”
* * * *
C
olonel Al-Asi had returned the box to Ben as soon as they were seated in the backseat of his Mercedes. But he didn’t speak again until Moshe Baruch’s jeeps had sped past them. Ben noticed he was fiddling with a battery-operated poker game.
“Our casino management company gave me a few of these as gifts for my children,” the colonel said, barely looking up from the small screen.
“Must make them very popular in the neighborhood.”
“Unfortunately, other children are not keen on playing with mine. We have parties and no one comes. Their parents apparently know who I am. Was it the same for you back in the United States?”
Ben shook his head. “I lived among other cops. The kids used to argue which of us was the toughest.”
“I’d cast my vote for you.”
Ben tried to smile. “Even my sons didn’t.”
“I meant right now, Inspector.” Al-Asi went back to his video game. “We are thinking of adding these to the Oasis Casino, on a much bigger scale, of course. I thought it best to give one a try before I render an opinion.”
“And what do you think?”
“I’m still trying,” al-Asi said, waiting for his hand to lock digitally into place. He folded the hand without betting after it came up without even a pair.
“Is that the only gambling you’ve done tonight?” Ben asked him wryly.
“You are speaking of the court order I obtained signed by an Israeli judge. He’s quite a customer at the Oasis, one of the casino’s best. A fifty-thousand-shekel marker, all of it used.” Al-Asi’s stare didn’t waver. “I was able to clear the slate.”
“You’re a remarkable man, Colonel.”
Al-Asi gave the electronic game a closer look. “You know initially the Israeh courts forbade their citizens to patronize the Oasis. Gambling is illegal in Israel, after all. They were afraid of being labeled hypocrites until a few judges, like our friend, came to their senses. A good thing, as it turns out. Ironic that the same Israelis who have bulldozed our homes are now losing theirs to us.”
“We need to get going.”
“Where to, Inspector?”
Ben cradled the ancient wooden box, thinking of Danielle. “I’ve got a delivery to make.”
* * * *
* * * *
CHAPTER 63
D
anielle was dreaming of her family. Her father presiding over a Sabbath dinner Friday night, while her mother made trip after trip from the kitchen, seldom sitting down for longer than a minute at a time. She was on one side of the table next to her younger brother Yakov, her older brother Jonathan directly across from them. Both dead now.
In the dream Danielle felt the same peace and security she had known on nights like that. But tonight’s dream was even better because two new faces had joined the table. Danielle had a baby in her lap, snuggling against her breast, smelling sweet and soft. And next to her sat Ben Kamal, chatting and smiling with her family in the dream as he never would have been able to in reality. He reached over to stroke his child’s head and grinned. Danielle kissed him lightly on the lips, holding as tight as she could to the serenity of that moment as if she knew it would end when the dream did.
Why couldn’t things actually be this way? Why couldn’t her family still be alive, ready to accept the man she loved into their lives?
How can I expect them to when I’m not ready to accept him into mine?
She awoke with that thought on her mind, remembering the moment she had lain on the rocky island shoreline fully expecting to die. The gunman looming over her had been ready to fire when two spotlights suddenly blazed onto the scene.
A pair of fishing boats had arrived in clear view of the shore within seconds of each other, alerted by her flare. The fishing boats pulled up on either side of the craft that had anchored first, shining their twin spots on the shore before the trigger could be pulled.
Men shouted out in bullhorns using broken English. Danielle’s would-be killers had no choice but to proceed with their apparent rescue. They carried her onboard their boat, and the fishing boats, both having picked up other survivors of the Ulysses, followed the smaller craft to St. John’s Harbor in Newfoundland, where the docks were
lined with dozens and dozens of media representatives come to cover one of the greatest sea disasters of all time.
Upon carrying Danielle onboard, her captors had drugged her, leaving her too woozy to either escape or call attention to herself. And, much to her dismay, they had kept her drugged ever since. Danielle had only a few moments of lucidity interspersed amid the dreams. Worse, the pleasant security those dreams brought made her reluctant to see them end, the chemical haze they provided infinitely preferable to reality.
But reality was all that could save her now. No one even knew where she was. Her captors were professionals not open to negotiation, even if she were in a position to manage it. She realized she must force herself to concentrate on escape, use strength of will to push the drugs out of her system, or at least negate their effect.
She came awake earlier than they must have expected this morning and found her arms and legs strapped to the bed. She had just begun trying to work herself free of her bonds when a key rattled in the lock and the door opened.
Danielle closed her eyes, pretending to be unconscious. She recognized the pair of men who entered from the stench of stale sweat mixed with the residue of sea spray. They seldom spoke in her presence, but this morning she heard them exchange a few words while pulling one of the straps binding her arms free.
Italian! They are speaking Italian!
It took all of her will for Danielle to keep her eyes pinned closed, continuing the illusion that the sedatives were still doing their job. Nonetheless, she felt her arm jerked harshly out from the strap and her shirtsleeve peeled back.
In that instant, the last moment before a fresh supply of the drugs would be shot into her vein, Danielle contemplated trying to overcome these two now. She did have one hand free, after all, and the element of surprise lay on her side. Her legs and other arm, though, remained strapped to the bed. Impossible to maneuver enough to overcome any captors, much less ones this professional.
Danielle felt the sharp bite of the needle being jabbed into her forearm, twitching as its contents pumped home to swim with her blood. The world around her turned to pillowy cotton again. Whereas before she hadn’t opened her eyes, now she couldn‘t. The sensation was that of floating lazily. Stretch your arms out and swim with the wind.
And the two men were speaking in Italian again.
We must get the boat ready—something like that. Just one more hour and she will be .. .
Danielle lost the rest of the words in her mind, lost everything, and drifted away.
* * * *
CHAPTER 64
I
n preparation for our landing at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci International...”
Ben Kamal listened to the flight attendant’s instructions repeated in English, Italian, and Hebrew. He tightened his grasp on the leather satchel he had held in his lap the whole of the flight from Tel Aviv. There had been one stopover in Athens, but Ben had remained on the plane. The delay had been maddening for him, the sixty-minute interval spent wondering if men in dark suits were going to board the plane and spirit him off before anyone noticed. He didn’t breathe easily again until they were bound for Rome, and then his gaze remained shifting and furtive, forever scrutinizing all the new passengers who had boarded.
He would have to stow the satchel under the seat in front of him for the landing, but his eyes would never leave it. Inside was the ancient box containing Josephus’ scroll that his nephew had first dug up and then reburied in almost the very same spot. The box itself was unremarkable, bled of color and showing signs of decay from its long years beneath the earth. It was cracked in several places and the simple latch had swollen, no longer a neat fit. It felt light and delicate in Ben’s hands, prickly with the splinters from the spots where the wood had peeled away.
The papers Colonel al-Asi had provided allowed him to effortlessly negotiate Customs and Immigration and emerge into the warm sun outside Leonardo da Vinci International. There Ben boarded an express bus to Vatican City. He had intended to take a cab, but the sign posted on the bus’s front proved too inviting and eliminated any need to wait in the long taxi line.
As it turned out, he had to wait inside the bus instead, though he fortunately had a seat all to himself until just moments before the bus set off. Once again he tucked the satchel atop his lap for safekeeping through the duration of the drive. He noticed a team of young Gypsy pickpockets working the passengers standing in the center of the bus and, since he was clearly a foreigner, feared they might target him. Traffic was congested this time of day, so it took thirty minutes before the bus discharged its passengers at the head of St. Peter’s Square, the ceremonial beginning of the Vatican.
But Ben bypassed the lavish square, frequented by thousands of tourists at any time during the day, in favor of the Porta Sant’Anna, an entrance to the nonpublic areas of Vatican City. It was here that the picture Colonel al-Asi had found of Gianni Lorenzo had been taken. A number of Swiss Guardsmen, outfitted in their lavish blue uniforms, stood guard behind a steel-bracketed gate, occasionally posing for a photograph snapped by a tourist from the sidewalk.
Ben slid up to the gate as soon as there was an opening and leaned close to the steel, giving the nearest Swiss Guardsman a slight smile. “Excuse me, I’d like to see the captain commandant of the Swiss Guard,” he said innocently, tucking the tote bag close to him, and hoping the man spoke English.
The guardsman shook his head slightly, as if he didn’t understand. “Signor?”
“The colonel of the Swiss Guard—Gianni Lorenzo. I’d like to see him.”
Now the guardsman returned Ben’s smile. “The captain commandant is not available to tourists, signor.”
Ben made himself looked surprised. “Oh, I’m not a tourist, I’m an old friend.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
Ben nodded. “No, but please tell Colonel Lorenzo that Winston Daws is here to see him.”
* * * *
CHAPTER 65
D
anielle awoke to the sensation of being at sea again. The sudden jolt of a boat being kicked up to more speed got her stirring.
But not very far.
At first, she thought she couldn’t open her eyes. Then she realized her eyes were open, but she couldn’t see anything, because there was nothing to see. She was in some kind of box, but a quick run of her hands along its sides told her it was made of a thick durable plastic instead of wood or metal.
Her mind cleared little by little and Danielle continued to feel about the edges of the box, searching for a seam or a break, a place where she could wedge her fingers through and pry it open. She found none. Instead, all she could feel was the boat’s thin hull smacking against the waves.
They were taking her back to sea, planning to drop her body among all the others lost when the Ulysses GBS had gone down. What was one more to be identified someday when it finally washed ashore? By the time the fish and parasites got done with her, no one would know the difference.
Danielle fought to clear her mind, consider the predicament with a soldier’s cold precision. The fact that this was a small craft meant there could only be a few of the enemy onboard. Their plan would be to throw her over the side after reaching a predetermined point. They would have to open her tomb to do so, of course, and that was when Danielle would strike. If she was lucky, one or more of the men might be occupied when she made her move. If she got really lucky, there would be something within reach she could use as a weapon.
Danielle could feel the small boat riding the sea harder, each thump sending her thrashing about her confines with no way to brace herself. She thought of Ben, of the look on his face when she told him she was pregnant. How happy he seemed, until she had told him of her plans for the baby.
Ben, Danielle said out loud as the boat continued to slam over the waves.
* * * *
CHAPTER 66
W
ould you like me to remain, Colonel?” asked the Swiss Guardsman who h
ad escorted Ben up the stairs to Gianni Lorenzo’s elegant office in the Government Palace.
Lorenzo looked from Ben’s eyes to the satchel tucked beneath his right arm. “That won’t be necessary.”
“Of course, sir,” the guardsman said and stood rigidly until Ben had closed the door behind him.
“Does he have a tattoo of a cross patee on his arm, Colonel Lorenzo?” Ben asked, unable to disguise the bitterness in his voice.
The captain commandant of the Swiss Guard continued to size him up, then pulled back the sleeves of his robe. “You mean like this, Inspector Kamal?”