The Blue Widows - [Kamal & Barnea 06]

by By Jon Land

  “Not a single one has been acted upon thus far,” Layla Aziz Rahani finished.

  “But what does all this have to do with you? Why do I raise these issues instead of simply presenting you with the facts and figures my accountants have assembled?” She waited, as if for a response. “Because it is very pertinent to the investment I am seeking. We are a closed society, but we are not going to remain that way for long. Oh, no. The high cost of dowries and marriage has left one and a half million women without husbands in my country. Our repressive social policies are destroying our economy, and drastic changes in the near future are inevitable. They have to come or, simply stated, Saudi society will cease to exist in any recognizable form. The answer is compromise. And, in this case, compromise means tourism.”

  Layla Aziz Rahani slid back behind the lectern and switched on the laptop computer. She heard a soft whir and almost instantly a three-dimensional artist’s rendition of a massive theme park filled the screen. The computer-generated motion provided scale, and the investors around the conference table gasped at the scope.

  “Tourism is the long-term answer to Saudi Arabia’s long-term problems,” Layla continued. “Not today, or tomorrow, but within the decade it takes for construction to begin on this and five other major resort projects I am proposing to this consortium. Tourism is my country’s last hope, and those with the foresight to realize that will also realize profits beyond their wildest imaginations. Tourism is the answer to our employment problems, as well as our growing poverty. Tourism will be the means by which women will someday be accepted as equal partners in a society that currently rejects them.”

  Shipley moved in front of the screen as another vantage point of the massive theme park was projected. “Ms. Rahani, your brother provided a prospectus on your proposal, and the numbers simply don’t add up.”

  Layla spoke facing the conference table. “That’s because my brother gave you the wrong numbers.” Again she moved out from behind the lectern. “You see, all funds you invest will be insured by shares in ten-year Saudi oil futures. So the numbers are these: You risk nothing with your investment. If my predictions and my plan fail, your negative costs are guaranteed.”

  Glances were exchanged around the table. A man Layla knew to be a media magnate named Carpenter leaned forward.

  “Let me get this straight,” he began. “You don’t really need our money, so what is it you need?”

  “Your names,” Layla replied, “and the influence you carry with the royal family. The ideas of influential businessmen and foreign investors are greeted warmly in my country, especially when their projects will guarantee employment for up to one million Saudis in the construction phase alone. I’m talking about a historic partnership here of the kind that has not been seen since the early days of Aramco. I’m talking about projects where no expense will be spared and the threat of loss to you will be virtually nonexistent. I’m talking about turning Saudi Arabia into a mecca of entertainment.”

  She could see by their faces that she had them then, a triumph made all the greater by her brother’s failed interference. Their money would help build a new Saudi Arabia, but they would never enjoy the profits. Because by that time their world would have begun an inevitable fall toward its own destruction. Money would be the last thing on their minds at that point.

  Layla Aziz Rahani’s expression changed ever so subtly as she studied their faces, thinking of a task much greater than building theme parks that had fallen to her with her father incapacitated. She believed in it as much as he, looked forward to the day when his vision, and now hers, would be realized.

  “We’ll need some time to study your proposal in depth,” said the man named Carpenter. “Crunch the numbers.

  “Take all you need,” Layla told him. “I’m a patient woman.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 20

  B

  en had made a list of eighteen bakeries in the Dearborn area when he finally closed the phone book. Sayeed watched from across the hotel room as Ben called each and every one of them, thickening his accent, speaking Arabic. Making notes as the voices on the other end of the line provided answers to his questions.

  “Hal ladaykum gurfa,” he would ask first. “Do you have a room to rent?”

  Sometimes he was referred to landlords. Other times the person who answered, or someone else in the bakery, was able to answer his questions simply and amicably. If he learned all available rooms above or attached to the bakery were rented, he crossed the establishment off his list. But if he was told there was, in fact, space available, he crossed that establishment off his list as well.

  “Why?” his brother asked him.

  “Because Latif would have moved somewhere no one would expect him, where no one would think to look. No trail left to follow. That’s the way men like this do things.”

  “This is a kid we’re talking about.”

  “He stopped being a kid when he signed on with Hamas, my brother.”

  “I still think you’re wasting your time.”

  “I hope so,” Ben said, thinking of Akram Khalil’s execution the day before.

  When he was finished, six bakeries remained on his list, each claiming they had no rooms to rent. The next step was to check each of them out.

  “You can go back to your students now,” Ben told his brother, clipping on the holster holding his Sig-Sauer nine-millimeter pistol.

  “You can’t expect me to walk away,” Sayeed protested.

  “The rest is up to me.”

  “You could just call the State Department.”

  “But I haven’t found Latif yet. That was the deal.”

  “And in return they leave me alone. Is that it?” Sayeed Kamal asked snidely.

  “Close enough.”

  “I don’t need your help, Bayan.”

  “Yes, you do, Sayeed. And for that I need leverage,” Ben said. “That means I need to bring them Latif, a man you should never have allowed yourself to become linked to.”

  “I am a prisoner of my ideals, Bayan, just like you are. You went back to Palestine to fight your battle. I stayed here to fight mine.” He paused, letting his point sink in. “It would appear both of us have lost.”

  “You belong in a classroom. You’re in my world now.”

  “I’ve made it mine. I will go with you to find Latif, or I will go alone. Choose.”

  Of the six bakeries remaining on Ben’s list, three were located in strip malls that lacked any possible facilities for rented rooms. The others had rooms above them, although in the case of one it became quickly clear that the lone upstairs apartment was the home of the bakery’s owner and his family.

  That left two establishments, three miles apart from each other on opposite ends of Warren Avenue. Ben and Sayeed spent an hour parked across the street watching each. Ben made some notes, said almost nothing.

  “This used to be your life,” Sayeed said at one point, as if he were trying to understand.

  “A good portion of it.”

  “You have your lock picks, your multiple identifications. Why don’t we just check the rooms out?”

  “Because we’re not sure if the owners of the bakeries are connected somehow.”

  “Safe houses?”

  “You help Latif get into the country. Somebody else takes things from there.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “We wait for Latif.”

  Sayeed looked across the seat, surprised. “You know the one where he’s been hiding out?”

  “Absolutely,” Ben said, starting the engine. “I’ll show you tonight.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 21

  T

  he helicopter hovered over the small clearing, kicking up dirt and tearing at the thick tree branches that formed a canopy over the scene. From higher up the clearing was barely visible, the cabin contained within it even less so.

  The chopper pilot gnashed his teeth as he settled lower, the rotor blade’s powerf
ul sweep whipping the branches about wildly. Instruments were useless. He had to go on sight and instinct, aware all the time that the slightest miscalculation would send the rotor slashing into wood and the chopper careening out of control to its death.

  “This must be very important, sir,” he said to the army major seated next to him, after they landed.

  The major was having trouble releasing the catch on his safety harness. “It is, Corporal, believe me.”

  “Well then, you better make it fast, sir,” the pilot said somewhat irreverently, feeling he deserved the liberty. “There’s a wind coming up in the mountains, and if we don’t take off real soon, we don’t take off at all.”

  “Just keep the meter running,” the major said as he stepped out.

  Finding the cabin deserted, he traipsed down a rough trail into the woods. After several minutes he heard a heavy thumping sound and followed it through some brush. He emerged in a slight clearing to find a man splitting wood with an ax. The man wore a terry-cloth bathrobe over his naked torso and jockey shorts. A pair of bedroom slippers covered his feet.

  “Professor Paulsen?” he called, checking the photo ID one more time to make sure he had the right man.

  The ID was dated a dozen years earlier, almost to the day, making it difficult to match faces. The man’s graying hair was thick on the sides now, growing wild in stark contrast to his bald dome. He had a stubbly growth of beard and a boxer’s nose that looked flattened at the top and bent outward at the bottom.

  “Professor,” the major called again, satisfied this was the same man.

  The man hefted his ax again, his torso flexing with a band of taut muscles that had lengthened, fighting age to keep their shape. Albert Paulsen, the major calculated, would be in his midsixties now.

  “Professor Paulsen,” he said one more time.

  “Never heard of him,” the man in the bathrobe said without looking away from his toils.

  “I’m Major Tory, Army Special Intelligence, sir,” the major said, advancing farther into the clearing. “I’m here to advise you that we have a Code Seventeen.”

  “Never heard of that either.”

  Tory stopped out of range of the old man’s ax. “Sir, my information indicates you developed the Code Seventeen procedure.”

  “Not me. Somebody else.”

  “Professor Paulsen—”

  “He died. I buried him in the leaching field.” The old man’s gray-blue eyes finally looked Tory’s way, shocking in their intensity. “You can arrest me if you want. But then you’d have dig through all that shit for the evidence.” He dropped the ax to waist level, making sure Tory could see the blade. “Nothing new for you army types, shoveling the shit.”

  “Sir, we have a Code Seventeen alert.”

  “You said that already.”

  “I’ve been ordered to—”

  “What? Take an old man somewhere against his will?”

  “Sir, my orders are—”

  “You’re not carrying a gun, Major.”

  “Sir, I—”

  “Real soldiers always carry guns. How do I know you’re who you say you are? Could be from the Girl Scouts of America come to track me down for those mint wafers I never paid for. Little bitches come knocking on your door looking for you to sign your life away to them. It’s a scam, you know.”

  “Honestly—”

  “Oh sure. Think about it, Major. Every year same box, same cookies. You think they bake new ones? Hell, no. They just keep shipping the old boxes until they run out. Win their merit badges for recycling.”

  “You were assigned to USAMRIID, sir,” Tory said, trying to move the old man back on track.

  “In point of fact, I helped modernize it.” Paulsen started to hoist the ax again, then stopped. Sweat glimmered across his chest hair. His muscles looked as though lean bands of steel had been wedged beneath his skin. “You know the best thing about living out here? No junk mail. Army APO siphoned it all out. You like junk mail, Tory?”

  “I . . . guess not, sir.”

  “Good thing. Here’s a fact that might interest you. Every year, you know how much paper goes into junk mail?” Paulsen didn’t wait for an answer. “The equivalent of ten thousand acres of trees, Tory, ten thousand goddamn acres. I come up here, chop some wood for my stove, and all the time I’m thinking of all the circulars, catalogs, and advertisements I’m denying the world. Wonder who’s behind it all. Girl Scouts of America maybe, using all their cookie profits to poison us with paper. Think about it, Tory.”

  “We really should be going, sir.”

  Paulsen steadied another log on the block before him. “Don’t let me keep you.”

  “Sir, I’m authorized to-—”

  “To what, shoot me? Take off your uniform, Tory, and prove to me you’re not a goddamn Girl Scout come to extract revenge. That’s why I came up here—they put a hit out on me. I’m bad for lard and artificial sweeteners. Here’s a fact, Tory. An artificial sweetener you might have put in your coffee this morning is actually a poison. Deadly as hell in the right composition and environment. Capable of wiping out a whole city if the wind currents are favorable. Think about it.”

  “That’s what I’m here about, sir.”

  “Sugar substitutes?”

  “Code Seventeen, sir. USAMRIID. You’re needed at the White House.”

  Paulsen’s mouth wrinkled up into the semblance of a grin, deepening the creases and furrows that lined his face beneath the beard stubble. “Something get away from them, Tory?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say, sir.”

  “Of course you’re not. You wouldn’t be. Tell them I’ll be along shortly, in my own good time.”

  “I’m not authorized to wait, sir.”

  “Didn’t expect you would be, Tory. Just be on your way. As for me, I’ve got wood to chop. Winter’s coming.”

  “It’s April, sir.”

  “Winter’s always coming. Waiting around the corner, just like the Girl Scouts. Got to be ready for them. Got to be prepared, Tory.” Here Paulsen held his gaze, the grin melting from his face. “Because you never know when things are going to get fucked up.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 22

  C

  ommander Barnea?”

  Danielle finally looked up at the young man standing in the doorway.

  “I’m Sergeant Ehud Cohen, Commander. I was told you wanted to see me.”

  Danielle cleared her throat, waved the young man into her office. She recalled the phone call she made to the detective bureau in Jerusalem requesting to see him as soon as possible. But she had made that call before accompanying Colonel al-Asi to the refugee camp in Gaza. Now all she could think about was that visit, especially Hakim’s last words.

  A woman! A woman had been among those who had executed Akram Khalil the day before!

  “Thank you for coming to see me, Samal rishon,” she said, settling her thoughts. “Please, sit down.”

  Cohen nodded and approached the chair in front of her desk. He was the lead investigator on the murder of the old Arab-Israeli woman from Umm al Fahm, Zanah Fahury, a murder Danielle had promised Colonel al-Asi she would look into.

  Ehud Cohen leaned forward a little. “Ma’am?” He had a thick shock of curly brown hair that made him appear younger than he was. Danielle had seen his file. In his early twenties, Cohen had served as a military policeman in the Israeli Defense Forces before joining the Jerusalem police as a detective.

  “Do you know why you’re here, Sergeant?” she asked him.

  He smiled confidently, clearly used to having his way with women. “I assume it has to do with a case, Commander.”

  “And so it does. A murder investigation, actually.” Danielle turned a manila folder toward him and eased it across her desk. “Here, take a look.”

  Cohen rose slightly out of his chair to grab the folder, then sat back down stiffly to open it. “It’s empty,” he noted, befuddled.

  “Maybe because it’s
the file on the investigation into the murder of Zanah Fahury.”

  Cohen repeated the name under his breath, as if trying to remind himself where he had heard it before.

  “Surely you know the woman,” Danielle continued. “You’re leading the investigation into her murder. Her body was found in a Jerusalem alleyway three days ago.”

  “The Arab,” Cohen recalled, nodding.