by Sam Bourne
‘Bet Alpha is the site of an ancient synagogue. Fifteen hundred years old. The Zionists love it because it “proves” they’ve been here as long as we have. If it’s gone, that’s one bit less proof.’
‘You’re not serious.’
‘Why not? What else do you think the Jerusalem team at Government House is talking about all day?’ He had still not looked up, his eyes remaining fixed on the white bishop he held between his fingers, hovering over the black rook. ‘It’s all about this.’ He captured the castle, replaced it with his bishop and moved back to his desk.
‘I don’t follow.’
‘It’s all about the past. All about who was here first, who has the prior claim. Do you know what drove the Israelis completely apeshit during Camp David in 2000?’
Toubi shifted in his seat. He resented being lectured to by this younger man.
‘Of all the things, there was one statement by President Arafat that drove the Israelis insane. He denied that there had ever been a temple for the Jews in Jerusalem. “How can this be the Temple Mount?” he said. “Why do you call it the Temple Mount? There was no Temple here. It was in Nablus!”’
‘What’s that got to do with Bet Alpha?’
‘It’s the same thing. An attempt, while we’re thrashing out who gets what, to weaken the other side’s claim. To tilt the scales in our favour. “Look, there’s now one less ancient Jewish site here. Maybe it never existed!”’
‘This is nuts.’
‘It is nuts. But I think some Palestinian took it into his head to do us a favour. To lend us a helping hand.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Do you have a better explanation?’
There was silence, broken eventually by Amiry. ‘And there’s the trader. This man Aweida, stabbed to death in Jerusalem.’
‘What can you tell me?’
‘Not very much. Apparently there was some Hebrew message pinned to the body. A page of the Torah. And Army Radio in Israel is reporting a claim of responsibility from a group nobody’s ever heard of. The Defenders of United Jerusalem.’
‘Settlers?’
‘Maybe.’
Al-Shafi rubbed his chin, scratching at his stubble. ‘In which case, Yariv is sweating right now.’
Toubi chipped in. ‘They always thought the Machteret would resurface eventually.’ Machteret, the Jewish underground. Like al-Shafi, he had learned his Hebrew in an Israeli jail.
‘If it has, they’ll be killing us. But it’s him they want to hurt.’
‘What would you like us to do, Mr al-Shafi?’ It was Amiry, who had risen through a movement of ideologues by remaining determinedly practical.
‘I want you to find out whatever you can about the incident in Bet Alpha. Comb the Israeli papers: read the military correspondents. Anything the army finds out, they always leak. And see what people here know about Afif Aweida. He has cousins in Bethlehem, I’m told. Talk to them. Was this man picked out at random, or is there a reason why a few Israeli fanatics would kill a greengrocer?’
‘Anything else?’
‘Yes. I want to know what that American woman, Costello, is up to. She called me with more questions about Ahmed Nour. There are at least three mysterious murders here, my friends. Unless we understand what’s going on, there will be more. And a lot of Palestinians will be dead-along with the best chance of independence any of us will ever see. I think you know what to do.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
E AST J ERUSALEM , T HURSDAY , 9.40 AM
For the second time in a week she was entering a house of mourning. This was a new development for her, though she knew of others for whom it was a standard ploy in the mediator’s repertoire. At a critical week in the Northern Ireland peace talks, for example, two young men, good friends-one Protestant, the other Catholic-were shot dead in a pub. The killings were designed to halt the peace process, but they did the opposite, reminding everyone why they were sick to the back teeth of war. The negotiating teams visited the bereaved families and came out with their resolve doubled. Maggie remembered it well: she had followed it all on a crackling shortwave radio, deep in southern Sudan. And when London and Dublin announced the Good Friday Agreement she had sat in her tent with tears rolling down her cheeks.
These killings in Jerusalem lacked the moral clarity of the Belfast deaths. Truth be told, they had no bloody clarity at all. Shimon Guttman might have been shot simply because he appeared to be threatening the life of the prime minister; Ahmed Nour could have been a collaborator, executed for his crime; Rachel Guttman might have killed herself; the kibbutz up north might have been firebombed by angry Palestinian teenagers. Only the murder of Afif Aweida, claimed by some fringe Israeli group, seemed to be a clear attempt to sabotage the peace talks. But no one could be sure.
So Maggie’s visit to the Aweida mourning house didn’t quite carry the emotional weight of the equivalent journey in Belfast all those years ago. She wasn’t there to mourn two lads, a Jew and an Arab, who had been shot dead while drinking together. In truth, she wasn’t there to mourn at all. She had come to find out what the hell was going on.
The house was full, as she had expected. It was noisy, with a piercing wail that rose and fell like a wave. She soon saw the source of it, a group of women huddled around an older woman, swathed in shapeless, embroidered black. Her face seemed to have been worn away by tears.
A path formed for Maggie as she made her way through the mourners. There were women constantly brushing their cheeks with the palms of their hands, as if trying to banish a dust that would never clear. Some were crouched low, pounding the floor. It was a scene of abject grief.
Eventually Maggie reached the front of the room where she found a woman whom she guessed was around her own age, dressed in simple, Western clothes. She was not crying but seemed simply stunned into silence.
‘Mrs Aweida?’
The woman said nothing, staring past Maggie, into the middle distance. Her eyes seemed hollow.
‘Mrs Aweida, I am with the international team in Jerusalem trying to bring peace.’ Something told Maggie ‘American’ was not the right word to use here. ‘I came to pay my respects to your husband and to offer my condolences on your terrible loss.’
The woman still stared blankly, seemingly oblivious to Maggie’s words and the noise all around. Maggie stayed there, crouching down, looking at the widow as long as she could before eventually placing a hand on hers, squeezing it and moving away. She would not intrude.
A man materialized to steer Maggie away. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Please, you to know we thank America. For you to come here. Thank you.’
Maggie nodded and smiled her weary half-smile. But he hadn’t finished speaking.
‘He was a simple man. All he did was sell tomato and carrot and apple. He no kill anyone.’
‘Oh, I know. It’s a terrible crime that happened to your-’
‘My cousin. I am Sari Aweida.’
‘Tell me. Do you also work in the market?’
‘Yes, yes. All of us, we work in market. For many year. Many year.’
‘What do you do?’
‘I sell meat. I am butcher. And my brother he sell scarf, for the head. Keffiyeh. You know what is keffiyeh?’
‘Yes, I do. Tell me, are you all called Aweida?’
‘Ah, yes. Yes, we are all Aweida. Aweida family.’
‘Tell me. Is there anyone in your family who sells old things. You know old stones, pots. Antiquities?’
He looked puzzled.
‘Jewellery perhaps?’
‘Ah! Jewels! I understand. Yes, yes. My cousin, he sell jewel.’
‘And antiques?’
‘Yes, yes. Antique. He sell in the market.’
‘Can I see him?’
‘Of course. He live near to here.’
‘Thank you, Sari.’ Maggie smiled. ‘And what is his name?’
‘His name also Afif. He is Afif Aweida.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
J ERUSALEM , T HURSDAY , 10.05 AM
As they threaded through the back streets, narrow and made of the same pale stone as the rest of Jerusalem, Maggie realized that no one in the family had suspected that the Afif Aweida they were about to bury had been the victim of a case of mistaken identity. If it was a random killing, how could the killers have got the wrong man?
Because it was not a random killing. Of that Maggie was now certain. She pulled out her mobile to dial Uri’s number. A text message had arrived while she was in the Aweida house. From Edward. He must have sent it in the middle of the night.
We need to talk about what to do with your stuff. E.
Sari Aweida must have seen the expression on her face, the brow knotted. ‘No to worry, Maggie. We nearly there.’
She cleared Edward’s message, without replying, and hit the green button for the last number she had dialled. She would speak as if last night had not happened.
‘Uri? Listen. Afif Aweida is alive. I mean there’s another Afif Aweida. A trader in antiquities. It has to be the right one. They must have got the wrong one.’
‘Slow down, Maggie. You’re not making any sense.’
‘OK. I’m on my way to meet Afif Aweida. I’m sure he was the man your father mentioned on the phone to Baruch Kishon. He deals in antiquities. It’s too much of a coincidence. I’ll call you later.’
Like most people talking on a mobile while walking, Maggie had spoken with her head down, staring at her feet. She now looked up to find no sign of Sari. He had obviously walked on so fast, he hadn’t noticed that she wasn’t keeping up. She stopped and looked around at the warren of streets, with turnings and alleyways every few yards, and realized he could have gone anywhere.
She walked a few yards forward, peering to her left down a turning so narrow it was dark, even in this morning sunlight. Its width was spanned by a washing line, and in the distance she could see two kids, boys she guessed, kicking a can. If she went down here, perhaps she could ask their mother-
Suddenly she felt a violent jerking backwards, as if her neck was about to be snapped. A gloved hand was over her eyes and another was covering her mouth, muffling her cry. She heard the sound as if it belonged to someone else.
Now she could feel herself being dragged backwards, even as her eyes and mouth stayed covered. She tried to pull her arms free, but they were held fast. She was dragged into an alleyway and shoved hard against the wall, the bricks pounding against the ridges of her spine. The hand covering her mouth moved down now, clamping her throat. She heard herself emit a dry rasp.
Now the hand came away from her eyes but, for a second, she still saw only darkness. Then a voice, which she realized was right in front of her, coming from a face entirely covered in a black ski mask. It was barely an inch away, the mouth close enough to touch her lips.
‘Stay away, understand?’
‘I don’t-’
The hand around her throat tightened, until she was gasping for air. She was being strangled.
‘Stay away.’
‘Stay away from what?’ she tried to croak.
The hand came off her throat, so that it could join with the other in taking hold of her shoulders. He held her like that for a second, then moved her whole body forward about six inches, so that she was tight against him. Then, still holding both shoulders, he rammed her hard in the other direction, straight into the wall.
The pain shuddered all the way through her, reaching the top of her skull. She wondered if he had shattered her spine. She wanted to double over, but still he held her upright, as if she was a doll that would slump into a heap if he let go.
Suddenly she heard a new voice, whispered directly into her left ear. For an instant she was confused. The black mask was still in front of her, its mouth only inches from hers. How was he speaking into her ear at the same time? Now she understood. There was a second man, invisible in the shadows, who had been pinning her to the wall from the side. ‘You know what we’re talking about, Maggie Costello.’
The voice was strange, indeterminate. It sounded foreign, but from where Maggie couldn’t say. Was it Middle Eastern? Or European? And how many of these men were there? Was there a third attacker she hadn’t seen? The surprise of the assault, combined with the darkness, had disoriented her entirely. Her senses seemed to have short-circuited, the wires crossed. She wasn’t sure where the pain was coming from.
Now she felt a hand on her leg, squeezing a thigh. ‘Do you hear me, Maggie?’
Her heart was thumping, her body still writhing in futile protest. She was trying to work out what kind of voice she was hearing-was it Arab, was it Israeli?-when she felt a sensation that made her quake.
The breath on her ear had turned moist, as she registered the unmistakable sensation of a tongue probing inside it. She let out the first sounds of a scream, but the gloved hand was back, sealing her mouth. And now the other hand, the one that had been gripping her thigh, relaxed-only to move upward, clamping itself between Maggie’s legs.
Her eyes began to water. She was trying to kick, but the first man was pressed too close: she could hardly move her legs. And still this hand was squeezing her, grabbing her crotch the way it would grip at a man’s balls if trying to inflict the maximum punishment.
‘You like that, Maggie Costello?’ The voice, its accent still so elusive, was hot and breathy in her ear. It could have been Arab, it could have been Israeli. Or neither. ‘No? Don’t like it?’ She felt the tongue and face move six inches away from her. ‘Then fuck off.’ The first man let go of her shoulders, then pushed her to the ground. ‘Otherwise we’ll be back for more.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
J ERUSALEM , T HURSDAY , 11.05 AM
Tradition held that this hour was reserved for the forum, the informal kitchen cabinet of advisers that had surrounded Yariv since he first considered an entry into politics three decades ago. Every Thursday morning, the working week nearly over, was the hour to digest and analyse events, spot mistakes, devise solutions and plot the next moves ahead. They had been doing it when Yariv was Defence Minister, then Foreign Minister; when he was in the wilderness of opposition. Even, truth be told, when he was still in uniform serving as Chief of Staff. That was a politician’s job, whatever they might pretend, and don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise.
There had only been one change in the personnel. The two old buddies from army days still came, one now in advertising, the other in the import business. And so was his wife, Ruth, whose counsel Yariv weighed seriously. The only change was of necessity. His son, Aluf, had been a regular until he was killed in Lebanon three years ago. Amir Tal had taken his place, a fact seized on by the Israeli press who constantly described the young adviser as the PM’s adopted son, even, in a phrase that punned in Hebrew, Aluf Bet-Aluf the Second.
Ideally, the meetings happened at home, with Ruth bringing coffee and strudel. But not today. Things were too serious, he told Amir, to leave the office early. The forum would be just the two of them.
The talks at Government House were now effectively on hold, only a skeleton presence maintained on both sides. Neither Israel nor the Palestinians wanted to be accused by the Americans of pulling the plug, so they hadn’t dared walk out completely. But no serious work was being done. It meant the centrepiece of the Yariv-the peace effort-was collapsing before their eyes. He was taking heat from the right-the settlers with their damned human chain around Jerusalem-and he was ready to take it, but not if there was nothing to show for it. He remembered the man who had sat in this office just a few years ago, who had seen his premiership crumble in a matter of months once the Camp David attempt unravelled.
What was worse, he now confided in Amir Tal, as he spat the sunflower seeds into his hand, was that he felt confused.
‘Look, a pigua’, a suicide bombing, ‘from Hamas or Jihad I fully expected. They did it to Rabin and they did it to Peres. They even did it to Bibi, for God’s sake. Anyone gets close to a deal, they’re on an E
gged bus with dynamite strapped to their belly. I expected that.’ He raised his hand, signalling that he had not yet finished.
‘Even the Machteret I was expecting to hear from.’ They had both assumed that a resurgence of the Jewish underground was on the cards. Back in the 1980s, a handful of settlers and religious fanatics had sent bombs in the post or planted them under cars, maiming a series of Palestinian politicians. Several of their victims were still active, appearing on television in wheelchairs or with terrible facial disfigurement.
‘Maybe,’ Yariv continued, ‘they’d firebomb an Arab playground or two. Even do the Mosque.’
He didn’t need to say which mosque. They both knew the wilder elements of the Machteret dreamed of blowing up the Dome of the Rock, Islam’s most cherished site in the Holy Land, thereby clearing the ground for the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple on the same spot.
‘But these attacks? They make no sense. Why would the Palestinians attack some visitors’ centre in the north? Why do it at night when no one’s around? If you want to screw up the talks, do it in the day! Kill lots of people!’
‘Unless it was a warning.’
‘But that would be a warning. Whenever they wanted to send a message before, that’s how they did it.’
‘Al-Shafi has denied all responsibility for it,’ said Tal.
‘Of course. But Hamas?’
‘They have too. But-’
‘But we don’t know whether to believe them. And this stabbing in Jerusalem. I don’t believe the claim of responsibility. Defenders of United Jerusalem or whatever bullshit name they gave themselves. Why haven’t we heard of them before? There’s always some crackpot group ready to claim credit for actions they didn’t take. Could be just some street crime.’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘What do you mean?’ The Prime Minister was now cracking and spitting at a frantic speed.
‘You know we’ve been pursuing the Guttman investigation. We’ve had the son, Uri, under surveillance. He’s working closely with Maggie Costello of the State Department-’