The Blue Widows - [Kamal & Barnea 06]

by By Jon Land

  “But I, unfortunately, don’t have the luxury of his experience. We are all prisoners to the perceptions of others, Danielle, and some of my colleagues in the Ministry of Justice don’t know you as well as I. They fought against me when I chose you to take over as rav nitzav, concocted this absurd proving period to show you were up to the job. Against my wishes, of course.”

  “I’m sorry if I’ve made your position difficult, Minister.”

  “David, please. It would help things greatly, if I could offer my colleagues some explanation as to the necessity of your actions.”

  “My intelligence was hot. There was no time to seek authorization through another channel.”

  “If I could tell them the source of this hot intelligence, we might be able to put this matter to rest.”

  “Anonymous. You know how these things work.”

  “All too well.” Vordi nodded, fighting to keep displeasure from creeping into his voice. “And you must do everything you can to protect his identify or risk losing his trust. There’s also been some concerns raised about the composition of your team. All women, I believe.”

  “There are, as you know, actually far more men assigned to Rapid Response than women. I chose women this morning because of the logistics.”

  Vordi smiled slightly and took another step closer to Danielle. “Rapid Response. I like that term.”

  “I was merely responding to the results of the investigation into the recent terrorist action in Netzarim, Minister.”

  “Oh I’m sure my colleagues will have no problem there. But they might question why you didn’t pass the results of your investigation on so the response could be handled by more appropriate entities.”

  “Apparently more appropriate entities handled it, after all. As my report indicated, all inhabitants of the compound were already dead when my team arrived.”

  Vordi shrugged his muscular shoulders. “I’m afraid neither Mossad nor the military was involved in the strike at Khalil’s compound.”

  Danielle tried not to look as surprised as she felt. The strike had been carried out with quick and deadly precision. Who else could have done it? Who else could have had reason to do it?

  “You can see why the identity of your source would be important to my colleagues,” Vordi continued. “Clearly, he must have shared the same information with another interested party outside of this government.”

  “He didn’t.”

  “You sound very certain.”

  “Because he’s reliable.”

  “Could it be that he was trying to get you killed, Danielle, that you were walking into a trap?” Vordi asked, trying very hard to sound concerned.

  “No, that’s not possible.”

  Vordi looked down, then up again. “You could have called me personally. I thought we trusted each other.”

  “I told you—”

  “I know what you told me. But I’m in a difficult position here, and actions like this make it more difficult.”

  Danielle swallowed some breath. “I apologize.”

  “No need. We’re friends, aren’t we?” He eased himself a bit closer to her. “Well, aren’t we?”

  Danielle shrugged.

  “I would like to be able to assure my superiors we can avoid incidents like this in the future.”

  “I can’t predict the future, Minister.”

  Vordi frowned. “I want this to work, Danielle. For both of us.”

  “So do I.”

  “Then you can’t afford to make any more enemies. You already have more than your share in the Ministry of Justice. Don’t give them the ammunition they need to hurt you, hold you back.”

  “Tell them I was doing my job, Minister.”

  “Your job, they would say, does not include matters of state security, only local. That means raids on the hideouts of suspected terrorists are forbidden jurisdictionally. That means the commando force you’ve developed is forbidden.” Vordi started to reach out to touch Danielle, then changed his mind. “I’m sorry. I know you’re right. But being right is not all a position like commissioner of National Police is about. I thought you knew that.”

  “I guess I’m still learning.”

  Vordi forced an uneasy smile. “You always were a tough student.”

  He started to reach for her again, and Danielle took a step back out of his range. “Have you analyzed the pages we recovered from Khalil’s hideout?” she asked him.

  “The pages,” Vordi repeated, flustered. “I haven’t checked yet. Why don’t we go get something for dinner? We can check on the results afterward.”

  “Sorry, I have plans already,” Danielle told him.

  “Another time, then,” Vordi said stiffly. He moved forward, brushing against her on the way to the door. “Think about what I said, Commander.”

  “I will.”

  Danielle waited until the elevator doors had closed behind him before heading into her own office. She moved to her desk and lifted the blotter to reveal the copies she had made of the pages salvaged from terrorist leader Akram Khalil’s compound. Then she picked up the phone and dialed Ben Kamal’s number in the United States.

  * * * *

  Chapter 7

  I

  need to fax you some pages,” Ben heard Danielle say as soon as he picked up the line in his office.

  “Not even a hello first?”

  No matter how seldom they spoke, or how long the duration between calls, her voice still had the same effect on Ben. His stomach fluttered, turned queasy and hollow. For an instant he could feel her softness against him, the scent of jasmine rising from her hair. Hearing her voice made him realize how much he missed her, brought back the memories. All of them, the happy ones as well as the unpleasant. The truth was that most of what her voice brought back to him was agonizing. There had been so many difficulties and setbacks in their relationship, so much struggle to maintain what culture, and fate, deemed impossible.

  Some of the happiest times had been the two months they had spent here in America, first in Detroit and then in Boston when John Najarian had relocated his corporate headquarters in the face of an unprecedented boom in the personal security business. The World Trade Center bombing, September 11, 2001, had turned Najarian into a wealthy man overnight, even as it made life for Ben newly impossible.

  Strange. He thought he had gotten to know bigotry well upon his return to the West Bank to help train the fledgling Palestinian detective force ten years ago. Never quite trusted, even though he was Palestinian. Always held in suspicion, an American first, and often only, in the eyes of his people.

  His people. Americans were more his people. He had grown up among them in Dearborn, been raised as one, and seldom considered himself anything else. After 9/11 his decision to live again as an American seemed not as wise. People looked at him hatefully, scornfully— the gazes similar to the ones cast at him in Palestine, except they lacked the fear and trepidation. In the West Bank his problem was often that he didn’t look Palestinian enough; in the United States, suddenly his problem was that he looked too Arab.

  The hate had eroded slowly as the months dragged on, but the suspicion did not abate. Even his conversation with Lewanthall from the State Department had been more or less typical. They needed Ben for only one reason: He was an Arab and only an Arab could penetrate the world of Mohammed Latif.

  Just as he had been hired to help bring down the People’s Brigade by an Arab father who had lost his son to the twisted vision of Hollis Buchert. If Ben had simply said no, recommended against the assignment as Danielle had urged, he believed she might still be with him today.

  And yet the whole point of going after the People’s Brigade in Pine Valley had been to make her stay. He knew she’d never leave if her work became more interesting and challenging, and he didn’t want to let go of her again. The two months they had shared together were not easy or blissful so much as promising in terms of what that period held for the future.

  Then the offer ha
d come for her to return to Israel and National Police. Ben had almost insisted that she take the job, because he knew how much it meant to her, knew it from the look on her face when she told him about the phone call and from the dreams she’d shared with him over the years. The chance to become the first female head of Israel’s National Police was too much to pass up. A career milestone as well as a vindication. Ben could have lived the rest of his life working for Security Concepts, but he could tell Danielle quickly tired of the tedium and daily minutia. He hoped going after the People’s Brigade would offer her the opportunity for the kind of action she had thrived on in the past.

  But it hadn’t worked out that way. Quite the opposite, in fact.

  “Is the fax private?” Danielle asked him now, ten months to the day since she had saved his life at Pine Valley.

  “Direct to my office. Why?”

  “Because I don’t want anyone else to know I sent these pages to you. They’re in Arabic. I need you to translate them for me,” Danielle continued, as her fax machine sucked the first page down to be stored for transmission, quickly followed by the second.

  Ben pictured her on the other end of the line. It was hours later in Israel, the end of what must have been a long day. But her skin would still be flushed with color, the waves of her hair tumbling naturally just past her shoulders. He imagined her smiling in the way that could make everything seem all right for him, no matter what.

  “Is there a sudden shortage of translators over there?” Ben asked her.

  “No, just of trust.”

  “Nothing sudden about that. Care to tell me where these pages came from?”

  “A raid.”

  “On behalf of National Police?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was it successful?”

  “No thanks to me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The target was already dead when we arrived.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “Akram Khalil.”

  “You’re kidding,” Ben said, after a brief pause.

  “Why?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Ben—”

  “I’ll explain later,” he interrupted, thinking of Mohammed Latif’s connection to Akram Khalil and Hamas, along with his brother Sayeed. He didn’t feel like saying more right now.

  “How quickly can you finish the translation?” Danielle asked him.

  “I’ll work on it tonight on the plane.”

  “Where to?”

  “Detroit.”

  “Visiting your family?”

  “Something like that,” Ben told her.

  * * * *

  Chapter 8

  C

  olonel Nabril al-Asi, head of the Palestinian Protective Security Service, was sitting at the corner table in the exclusive restaurant off the lobby of Jerusalem’s King David Hotel when Danielle entered. She watched him sipping red wine from an elegant crystal goblet, balancing it lightly by the stem. He saw her approaching and rose, laying his napkin down on his chair before he moved to pull hers out for her.

  “I’m so glad you were able to join me, Chief Inspector,” he greeted, smiling fully. “I trust things went well today.”

  Danielle sat down and pulled her chair up to the table. “There were some complications we need to discuss.”

  “Of course. As soon as we order. You’ve eaten here before?”

  “Actually, I haven’t. The menu’s not exactly in keeping with a chief inspector’s salary.”

  Al-Asi held his glass out in the semblance of a toast. “What about a commissioner’s?”

  “I’m still commander for another two months yet.”

  “Yes. You must forgive me for continuing to address you as ‘Chief Inspector.’ It brings back memories of happier times.”

  “I spoke to Ben today.”

  “He’s well?”

  “Sounds it.”

  “But you have your doubts.”

  Danielle took her menu in hand but didn’t open it. “You haven’t spoken to him yourself?”

  Al-Asi sighed, the shine fading from the bright eyes framed by his perfectly coiffed salt-and-pepper hair. “Any correspondence I might have with Inspector Kamal in this political climate could prove most inconvenient and uncomfortable for him. It’s difficult, yes, but. . .” The colonel’s face brightened slightly. “... at least I have you.” He sipped his wine again, gazed about at the tables of people enjoying their meals. “You know, for the first time I think I know what Inspector Kamal felt like in his years over here.’’

  Danielle leaned forward, curious. Officially, contact between the head of National Police and a Palestinian official of al-Asi’s rank and stature was strictly forbidden. Although he was still head of the powerful Protective Security Service, the Israeli crackdown of the past several years had destroyed his organization and negated much of his influence. His headquarters had been leveled, and most of his personnel had either been arrested or gone into hiding.

  Though his power was diminished, al-Asi found himself in the uncomfortable position of acting as liaison between the Palestinian Authority’s ruling cadre and Israeli officials charged with keeping the peace. Since Palestinian officials lacked the power to control the worst of the militants, the latest intelligence on them was supplied from time to time by al-Asi to the appropriate parties in Israel, who would then take appropriate action. That was how Danielle had learned the location of the elusive Akram Khalil.

  “What do you mean?” she asked the colonel.

  “Inspector Kamal never felt comfortable among his own people. He felt isolated, shunned. It is that way for me now. Before, at least, I could rely on fear and intimidation. Not anymore. So I spend more and more of my time away from my home, my family. Here, inside Israel, I am protected because I provide a service. A few miles away I would be targeted for providing that same service. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad have a price out on my head.”

  “It’s a dangerous game you’re playing, Colonel.”

  “Fully supported by those above me, I assure you, Chief Inspector.”

  “Those who don’t have the guts to turn in the butchers themselves.”

  “They fear for their lives.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “I fear for my world, for Palestine, if these radicals are not dealt with. We know where they are but can’t do anything about it. You can do what must be done, but you don’t know where they are.”

  “Someone else must have known where Khalil was; they got to him ahead of me.”

  Al-Asi set his wineglass down. “That is disturbing news.”

  “The deputy minister of justice assures me it wasn’t Israeli Specials Ops.”

  “That would be David Vordi?”

  “You know him?”

  “Not personally. I understand he was instrumental in securing your current position for you.”

  “Vordi was one of my trainers in the Sayaret.”

  “You should know he has pictures of you in his apartment. Surveillance photos, I believe.”

  Danielle squeezed her lips together. “Recent?”

  “Minister Vordi seems to have taken a keen interest in you, Chief Inspector, and I doubt his motivation is as unselfish as mine.”

  Danielle started to look around the room.

  “Don’t worry,” said al-Asi. “I already checked. Apparently the minister is leaving you on your own tonight.”

  “He was married once. His wife divorced him.”

  “Pity.” Al-Asi looked down at his wine, thinking. “The assault on Khalil’s hideout was professional?”

  “Very. Almost no bullet holes in the walls.”

  “So the gunmen didn’t miss.”

  “Or waste any effort,” Danielle added. “They knew what they were doing as well as I do.”

  A waiter came and took their orders: seared duck breast for Danielle, a veal tenderloin for al-Asi, who ordered a second bottle of wine.

  “I’m glad you were a
ble to join me in spite of these unexpected complications.” Something in the colonel’s gaze had changed. No longer was it distant and dreamy, but focused and sure. “I thought giving you Khalil might be of benefit to your current situation, a favor I was hoping I could exchange for another.”