The Jericho Pact

by Rachel Lee

  THE JERICHO PACT

  RACHEL LEE

  To Rolf Winkenbach, whose tireless assistance, constant patience and willingness to travel with camera and share things we might never have otherwise known about Europe have made so much possible.

  To our editor Leslie Wainger, whose belief never flags and whose suggestions always help. To her assistant Adam Wilson, whose patience exceeds Job’s.

  To one another, for having survived this book on speaking terms. Barely.

  Contents

  Part I: MIßTRAUENSVOTUM

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Part II: TARHL

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Part III: LA FLEUR DE GUERRE

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Part IV: LO OD

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Epilogue

  Authors’ Notes and Acknowledgements

  Coming Next Month

  Part I: MIßTRAUENSVOTUM

  (German: A vote of no confidence)

  Prologue

  Paris, France

  H ami Khadir did not hear the noise at first. He was both excited and troubled as he sat at a table in the café within the Grande Mosquée de Paris.

  On the one hand, his mother and sister would be arriving tomorrow from Algiers. He was looking forward to the visit and to showing them his new apartment in the twentieth arrondissement. For two years he had lived in student housing at the Sorbonne, where he was working toward his doctorate in urban planning. But while it had been pleasant enough in most ways, and while there were Islamic student groups at the university, the student quarters left him feeling cut adrift. At the end of the day, he found himself longing for the sights and sounds and smells of his native culture.

  The Belleville district of Paris, where he lived now, offered a pleasant alternative. For decades it had been a haven for artists and immigrants of all stripes, and its Arab quarter felt as close to home as Hami could feel while still continuing his studies.

  He had turned down a flat in the Clichy-sous-Bois, not wanting to live in the seething cauldron of anger and discontent that characterized the Islamic community there. Paris would never be his home, but neither did he wish to perceive himself as an exile while living there. As Hami saw it, contentment was something one made for one’s self, and he was determined to find it in every day.

  It was for this reason that he had come to the Grande Mosquée tonight. Even in Belleville, the tension in the streets had been palpable as Parisian youth, disgusted and disheartened by stifling unemployment, vented their anger on their Muslim neighbors. Hami had been spat on as he had walked from the Arab market to his flat, and rather than respond in anger, he had steeled himself to attend evening prayers and turn his thoughts to the words of the Prophet.

  For it was the Prophet—peace be upon him—who had set the example that Hami strove to follow. Tradition held that a woman had spat upon the Prophet every day as he was walking to the marketplace in Mecca. But Mohammed neither chastised her nor permitted his followers to lift a hand against her. Indeed, when the woman was not there one day, he went to her home to see if she was ill and to pray for her recovery.

  It was this spirit that Hami chose to emulate, both as a matter of faith and as a matter of simple survival. To meet violence with violence would surely cost him his seat at the Sorbonne, if not his life itself. To wipe spittle from his face was a small price to pay for the opportunity to complete his studies and return home to help build a better Algiers.

  Yet the affront still burned in his stomach as he sipped the rich Turkish coffee. He had done nothing to the young man who had spat on him. As he looked up at the beautifully painted ceiling of the café, he wondered if the Prophet had even felt the anger that Hami felt now. Was it more holy to feel and suppress the anger or not to feel the anger at all?

  Hami had learned from earliest childhood that jihad—the struggle—was the duty of every Muslim. However that word had been perverted by some, to Hami it meant simply the struggle to conform one’s life to the teachings of the Prophet and the will of Allah. If that were true, he reasoned, then perhaps there was no sin in the anger he felt. For if he felt no offense, if he did not care that someone he did not know and had never spoken to would spit in his face, then how could he struggle to overcome those feelings?

  It was this that he had discussed with the mullah after evening prayers. While the mullah had shared Hami’s anger, he had counseled Hami against retaliation. Indeed, Hami was pleased to note, the mullah’s reasoning had been much the same as his own. Hami’s duty was not to remain devoid of anger, for no man could expect that of himself. Rather, his duty was to transform that anger, to find in that pain a reason to draw nearer to Allah and, ultimately, to allow Allah to judge both the grievous and petty slights of men.

  The dull echoes of voices slowly filtered into Hami’s thoughts, and for a moment he thought perhaps they were the voices of angry young Muslims arguing with the mullah and elders in the mosque. Such arguments were increasingly common, and he could understand the young men’s desire to lash out and reclaim a measure of dignity. However much the mullahs might say otherwise, Hami knew there were times when these young men felt as if life offered no choice but to fight if they wished to retain their manhood.

  As Hami listened more closely, he realized the shouts were not coming from within the mosque but rather from the street outside. He rose from his chair and walked toward the door. If there were more demonstrators in the streets, he might need to plan another route home to avoid any more confrontations.

  He had just opened the door when he saw the bottle flying toward him, tumbling through the air, the flame at its neck creating a spiral of orange light that seemed to fix his concentration.

  He felt the crack as the bottle hit him and was vaguely aware of lying on the floor of the café, once more looking up at the ceiling, before the searing heat of the flames penetrated his fogged awareness. Now the world seemed to tumble as he felt himself rolling, the pain growing ever deeper, until finally, mercifully, the nerves surrendered and there was only peace.

  He would soon be in the arms of Allah. This he knew, and nothing else mattered. Not even the dull gray pipe in the hands of the man who stood over him, dimly reflecting the orange glow of the surrounding fires before it arced down toward his eyes and crushed him into blackness.

  1

  Rome, Italy

  I n the warehouse where Office 119 hid itself, Lawton Caine stood in a walkway between cubicles, absentmindedly juggling a round football between his feet as he watched a bank of television monitors on the wall. He wasn’t much of a footballer, having grown up in the United States, where football was an entirely different sport and what he now practiced was called soccer, but he had decided to adopt the European name for the s
port. It was, he realized, symbolic of a deeper change within him. He no longer thought of himself as a former FBI agent who had disappeared into the rabbit-hole world of Office 119. He was no longer an American living in Rome. This was home now, and learning to appreciate football as it was played in Europe was a way of connecting himself to this new stage of his life.

  Nearby sat his colleague Margarite Renault, formerly of the French Sûreté. She, too, had left an old life behind, although the change had not been as radical for her. She was still on her native continent, if not in her native Paris. But she seemed even more uncomfortable than he felt, for it was the rioting in her native city—and the burning of its historic mosque—that dominated the news broadcasts.

  They were waiting for a speech by the president of the European Union, Jules Soult. Except for light from the bank of monitors, the offices were dark. The other agents were either gone for the day or off on missions somewhere. Even El Jefe, the chief, had bailed, remarking that he had a dinner date that could not be postponed.

  Margarite and Lawton had joked about whether a woman was involved, but neither believed it. Their existence in and service to this ultrasecret UN organization required them to be invisible to the world and dead to everyone in their past lives. Relationships would not only complicate their mission, relationships could put all their lives in jeopardy.

  “You know,” Lawton remarked to Margarite, trying vainly to master a step-over while he watched the images of the burning mosque, “there’s something missing here.”

  She looked at him. “What would that be, apart from your appalling balance?”

  He smirked. “Give me a break, Margarite. I’m still learning. This wasn’t my game before.”

  “That’s more than apparent,” she said, her face deadpan for a long moment before she finally smiled. “But you weren’t talking about your footballing skills. So what’s missing, mon ami?”

  “Where are the pictures of young men in handcuffs, being led away by the gendarmes?”

  She nodded, her eyes scanning the broadcasts from all over Europe plus the international news networks. “What do you mean?”

  “Surely you don’t think the Paris police aren’t making any arrests. In every riot there are three kinds of pictures: buildings and cars burning, the rioters and the police making arrests. They’re showing the mosque burning. They’re showing the blood-stained and charred bodies of Muslims being taken into ambulances. They’re showing the French youth rioting. But no arrests.”

  She nodded. “The commentators are calling these riots an intifada, Lawton. The Muslims are starting them. The French are only defending themselves. Perhaps the police see no reason to make arrests.”

  He looked at her. “No reason?”

  “Oui,” she said. “It is…how do you call it in English when it is okay for hunters to shoot rabbits?”

  “Open season.” He frowned, scanning the endlessly playing views of violence. “You’re saying the French government is going to stand by while people kill Muslims?”

  Margarite shrugged. “Perhaps it is time for that. Why should French citizens stand by while Muslims take to the streets and burn buildings? Is there any proof that the Muslims did not start the fire at the Paris mosque?”

  Lawton’s gaze was intent. “What are you saying?”

  “You do understand that one of the primary objections to the EU Constitution was that the EU might accept Turkey as a member, yes? That would have permitted unrestricted travel to Arabs coming in by way of Turkey. Surely you know the anger we Europeans feel toward Spain for accepting so many immigrants from Morocco, because once they are in Spain, they can fan out through the entire Union.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  Margarite shrugged that irritating Gallic shrug that seemed to say she was above it all, when she wasn’t above anything at all. “It would be dangerous to allow any more Muslims into Europe. I agree with that. We had enough of terrorism with the Red Brigade and Black September. If we are xenophobic, then perhaps there is good reason for it.”

  Lawton felt startled. There was an undercurrent in her words that he hadn’t expected. “What exactly are you saying?”

  “I am saying that we would not be having these problems if we hadn’t allowed so much immigration from countries that do not share our cultural and moral viewpoints. How can there not be problems when there is such a divide, and the Muslims make every effort not to cross it? How can there not be a divide when we have London, Madrid, Black Christmas and Prague to show us that we are allowing dangerous people to live among us?”

  “They’re not all dangerous.”

  “Of course not. But enough of them are, and how are we supposed to know who is who?” She pointed to one of the screens, where young Muslim men were throwing rocks at the Paris police. “Do you think words or naive feelings can stop this? The Muslims come here to work and make money, and then they refuse to accept our way of life. They create tensions. Then some among them go out and kill others. Why do they do that, Lawton?”

  He opened his mouth to reply, but swallowed the words when he realized that he couldn’t answer her question.

  “We are infidels to them,” Margarite continued. “As far as they are concerned, we are not human.”

  “I’m sure that’s not what the Qur’an teaches.”

  She shook her head. “The Bible teaches many things that we do not heed. Why should Muslims be any different? My country is secular. We long ago threw off the yoke of the Catholic Church. Yes, there are still Catholics in France, still priests and churches, but most of us have moved beyond that. And one thing I know for certain. All of us believe that government should be secular. But the Muslims do not share this view. They do not like our secular society.”

  “So you tell them they can’t wear veils to school? You make them violate shari’a?”

  Again she shrugged. “Live like us, or go somewhere else. That law also limited the size of a cross a Christian may wear to school. It was not discriminatory.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  “No, I do not.”

  Lawton gave up and returned his attention to the ball at his feet. He could see Margarite’s point of view, though he didn’t agree. But he knew he wasn’t going to change her mind, and their mission in Office 119 was difficult enough without manufacturing rifts between agents.

  Margarite sighed at the silence and looked to the television. “Despite what I think about all this, I can see that this event will be used. And I fear how President Soult will use it.”

  “How so?”

  “That mosque was built with funds donated by the French government in gratitude for the service of Algerian Muslim soldiers in the First World War. When the Nazis took Paris, the mosque hid over two hundred Jews from them in its basement. Now they’ve burned it down. Soult will use that crime to justify his ambitions.”

  “Don’t you agree with his plans for a more united Europe?” Lawton asked. “He seems to say a lot of the same things I hear you saying.”

  A long silence passed between them. Then Margarite said, “I can agree with his goals and disagree with his methods, Lawton. I know what he did in the army, in Chad. He is ruthless, and he will not shrink from violence. A lot of innocent Europeans will get caught in the crossfire.”

  “Including a lot of innocent European Muslims,” Lawton said, hearing the edge in his voice, no matter how he tried to curb it. “Many of them have lived here for generations. They are Europeans, too, Margarite.”

  “A nice sentiment,” she said. “But a bit naive, my friend. Muslims are a quarter of the French population. Many people see them as fifth column agents for a Moorish invasion. We remember our past, Lawton. Never again will we surrender one hundred virgins a year as tribute.”

  “Your memories are too long,” Lawton said.

  “Perhaps,” Margarite replied. “But the Muslims also remember. They remember the Crusades and the attack by the Mongols. We are not like you American
s, who seem to think that history began the day you were born. The attacks of 9/11 surprised you only because you persistently forgot all that had come before. We do not forget, so we are not surprised by what is happening now. We have been fighting Muslims for centuries. We cannot simply wish that conflict away.”

  “You’re saying there will be war.”

  “Perhaps,” she said. “Perhaps there is no other way.”

  Lawton shook his head and drove his instep into the ball, releasing his frustration in the thud of its impact on the wall, then softened his foot as the ball rebounded so that he could settle it gently at his toe. “There must be another way, Margarite. We can’t meet force with force forever. If everyone takes an eye for an eye, the entire world goes blind.”

  “Keep your hips forward as you strike the ball,” she replied. “You will get more accuracy and power. We can only do so much, mon ami. The key is to do it well.”

  2

  Berlin, Germany

  F atigue pulled at Karl Vögel’s shoulders like the pack he had once carried on endless marches in the Bundeswehr. As Chancellor of Germany, he now carried a briefcase rather than a field pack—refusing to let his aides carry it for him was a mark of pride—and he was no longer required to trek all night over rocky trails in the Schwarzwald. Yet he felt more exhausted tonight than he had then.