A couple of seconds later Tony rattled off a number that was one digit off from Jakob’s cell.
“That’s wrong,” Jakob replied and gave the correct number.
“Then somebody else received the text and photos. I hope you didn’t have anything valuable in the car.”
“No, I cleaned it out. But it was paid for, and I wasn’t planning on buying a new one anytime soon, especially if you could fix the problem it had with overheating.”
The irony of the car overheating hit Jakob and he stopped.
“Did you install an add-on to supposedly increase gas mileage?” Tony asked. “I checked our repair records, and we didn’t find anything. Have you taken it anyplace else for service?”
“Not in years. Do you think the thing you saw in the engine compartment could be the problem?”
“I don’t know. I never could figure out what it was. It wasn’t that big, maybe six to eight inches long.”
“I’m glad no one was hurt. Did the fire damage your shop?”
“No, the guys covered the car with foam, but the engine is a mess. There’s no doubt the insurance company will consider it a total loss. I’ll send the photos to the correct cell number as soon as we hang up, and I will let you know when the insurance investigator is coming. Do you need a loaner? I’ll give you one and make the insurance company reimburse me directly.”
“Uh, no, I’ve been using a private driver because of a health issue. This won’t change that.”
“You could still turn in the cost of the driver. That’s probably cheaper than the daily rental on a loaner.”
“Yeah,” Jakob answered absentmindedly as he continued to absorb the news. “Let me know about the investigator. I’d like to be there.”
The call ended. Jakob waited for the buzz that signaled the arrival of the photos. It took several seconds for the pictures to download. His jaw dropped open. The engine compartment of the car was unrecognizable. The compact vehicle looked like an eyeless skull. The photo of the blackened box showed only part of a small rectangular piece hidden by other engine parts. Fifteen minutes later Jakob received a text from Tony telling him the insurance investigator was on his way to the garage. Jakob immediately contacted Emily.
Hana exited a taxi and walked up a slight hill into the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. Much of the thirty-acre area had been destroyed by the Jordanian army in 1948, leaving only one of its thirty-five synagogues standing. After Israel captured all of Jerusalem in the 1967 war, an extensive rebuilding program began. Relying on old photographs and historical records, care was taken to rebuild what was destroyed.
Hurva Square, named after a large synagogue originally built in the early 1700s, was a major landmark. A small open plaza surrounded by shops and restaurants, the square was part of a common route to the Western Wall. Hana reached one entrance and stopped. Across the plaza was the snack and ice cream shop. It was odd watching normal activity take place at a crime scene where a woman had died and a small child was scarred, both inside and out. Blocking out the normal hustle and bustle, Hana moved to a secluded spot near a stone building and closed her eyes.
In her spirit she heard the final cries of Gloria Neumann and the screams of three-year-old Sadie. The surveillance video was silent, but as with the blood of Abel after he was slain by his brother Cain, the blood of Gloria and Sadie cried out for justice. A tear escaped Hana’s eye and rolled down her cheek. But it wasn’t a tear of sorrow; it was a tear of righteous rage.
Jakob got in the front seat of Emily’s car. “I’m more dependent on you than ever now,” he said.
“What do you mean? You look way better today than you did last week.”
Jakob told her about the loss of his car during the ride to the garage.
“You’ve had a string of bad luck,” Emily said when he finished.
“I’m not sure it’s just bad luck.”
“How long will this take?” Emily asked as they arrived at the garage fifteen minutes later. “I can’t wait long.”
“Let me see what the insurance investigator has to say.”
Jakob entered the office and recognized Diane, who worked for Tony. Another man was also present.
“This is Mr. Brodsky,” Diane said. “He’s the owner of the car that burned.”
A middle-aged man wearing a white shirt and dark pants introduced himself. He handed Jakob a scuffed business card. His name was Tom Murdoch. A camera hung on a strap around his neck, and a battered black briefcase rested on the floor beside his feet.
“I’m with Independent Adjusting Consultants,” he said. “Let’s take a look at the car.”
“Just a minute; I need to tell my ride to leave,” Jakob said.
The door opened just then and Emily entered. “Can I tag along?” she asked.
“I thought you couldn’t wait.”
“The former cop in me got curious.”
Murdoch led the way. Jakob walked behind with Emily. They entered the service area, which had six bays. Jakob’s car was in the last one. Tony saw them and approached.
“Sorry again about what happened,” the mechanic said, wiping his hands on a shop towel.
They reached Jakob’s car that sat on the concrete floor. Up close, the damage was even more devastating than in the photos. The engine compartment was a tangle of charred metal, missing hoses, and material burned beyond recognition. Murdoch didn’t say anything as he walked around snapping photos. When he finished, he laid his briefcase on the floor and took out plastic gloves.
“Let me see the picture your mechanic took of the aftermarket add-on,” the investigator said to Tony.
Tony pulled up the image and showed it to Murdoch, who stared at it for no more than a couple of seconds.
“Did you watch the video of the fire caught on my security camera?” Tony asked.
“Yeah,” Murdoch replied. “Can you raise the vehicle up on the lift?”
“Yes, but I’m not sure how steady it will be.”
“I’ll assume the risk. I’d rather not scoot around on my back.”
The frame of the car creaked as it rose higher. It shifted slightly to the right, causing Jakob to take a step back.
“That’s enough,” Murdoch said.
The car was about five feet above the shop floor. The investigator retrieved a small flashlight from his briefcase and crouched beneath the car. He reached up and tapped something with the end of the flashlight.
“What are you looking for?” Jakob asked, leaning over.
“The cause of the fire.”
Jakob glanced at Emily, who rolled her eyes.
“I need a crowbar,” Murdoch said, coming out from beneath the car.
Tony found one and handed it to the investigator. The car shifted back and forth as Murdoch used the crowbar. It reminded Jakob of a dentist pulling a tooth.
“I don’t think you should do that,” Tony called out.
“I’m done,” Murdoch answered.
A few seconds later, he emerged. There were black streaks on his white shirt and a line of soot across his forehead. He had something the size of an eyeglasses case in his hand. It was black and misshapen. He laid it on the ground and took several pictures.
“What is it?” Jakob asked.
“The cause of the fire,” Murdoch replied. “It’s a crude phosphorous explosive device. I haven’t seen anything like this since I served in a demolition unit in Iraq. The bomb was connected to the fuel line and detonated after the mechanic messed with it.”
CHAPTER 20
Hana dressed casually for her meeting with Daud Hasan. As it grew closer to two o’clock, she wondered why she hadn’t heard from him confirming their meeting. When the clock showed 2:01 p.m., a text arrived from Daud:
In the lobby. Reserved conference room 4.
Daud removed dark sunglasses and put them in the pocket of his short-sleeved shirt as she approached. He had a small leather satchel under his right arm. Hana carried her laptop.
“Good afternoon,” he said to her in Hebrew.
“Are we speaking Hebrew today?” she asked.
“Yes, it will be easier because all the information I have is in Hebrew. The conference room is on the other side of the elevators.”
Daud led the way to a small conference room with two computer stations against one wall. He positioned a small table in the center of the room and brought up two chairs. Laying the satchel on the table, he flipped it open and took out a stack of papers.
“The two sheets on top are my retainer agreement,” he said. “Please see if it’s okay and sign before we proceed.”
Daud was all business, and Hana adjusted her expectation that they might engage in small talk for a few minutes. She read the agreement. It wasn’t skillfully drafted and didn’t protect Daud to the extent it would if she represented him. The key provisions were the investigator’s fees and the scope of services he would provide. Both of those paragraphs were clear.
“Who prepared this for you?” she asked.
“A paralegal with a law firm in East Jerusalem. Is there a problem?”
“No, it’s adequate for our purposes, but after this case is over, you might want someone else to take a look at it.”
They signed the agreement. The investigator had a flamboyant signature. He slipped the agreement into the satchel.
“I’ll need a copy for my file,” Hana said.
“Of course,” he replied. “I’m a little distracted. There’s one in here.”
Wondering why the investigator was distracted, Hana signed the copy. Daud pushed the remaining stack of papers across the table to her.
“This is a summary of the attack on Gloria and Sadie Neumann,” he said. “It’s probably easier for you to read it and ask questions. The redacted information was blacked out by the Shin Bet investigator who gave it to me, but since so much time has passed, I can probably get a cleaner copy soon.”
“What information did they delete?”
“Names of all witnesses and the identity of the border patrol soldiers who killed Abdul Zadan and arrested Tawfik.”
Hana started reading. The document contained a minute-byminute time line of events. Included was information about the actions of two officers, one male and one female, who fired the shots that killed Abdul Zadan. Multiple photographs were mentioned but none included. “Where are the photographs?” she asked.
“Archived and available with more digging. There’s also a police file, but I don’t have it yet.”
Hana continued reading. Of particular interest to her was information about the Zadan brothers. They came from a village named Deir Dibwan that Hana had heard of but never visited. An uncle of the brothers was a suicide bomber who’d blown himself up and killed three other people at a Jerusalem bus stop during the First Intifada, or uprising, which lasted from 1987 to 1993. It was a familiar pattern. Because of his death by suicide for the cause, the uncle would be revered as a martyr and it was believed his actions would have a profound impact not only on his generation, but on children born into the extended family.
“What else do you know about the uncle who was a suicide bomber? Was he connected to any terrorist organization?”
“The al-Aqsa Brigade. But as you’ll read later on, there isn’t a link between the Zadan brothers and any specific group.”
Following the death of Gloria Neumann, the Zadan family home in Deir Dibwan was bulldozed to the ground by the IDF. Hana had always questioned the merit of destroying a house. It didn’t seem like a viable deterrent, especially since Abdul Zadan’s family received ongoing payments from the Palestinian Authority in appreciation for the sacrificial death of their older son. Houses destroyed could be rebuilt. Checks could be issued in compensation for a suicidal death. Lives lost were gone forever. It was a vicious cycle.
“We can’t sue the PA,” Hana said. “The US courts have thrown out all attempts to sue the Palestinian Authority for paying money to the families of terrorists based on its status as a quasi-governmental entity. We have to find a nongovernmental defendant to sue for damages.”
“Like a bank.”
“Exactly.”
The next section revealed that after his arrest, Tawfik went to the Ofer Prison facility not far from Ramallah. Following a quick trial in a military court, he had received a nine-month sentence. Most juveniles didn’t serve their full sentences. The report didn’t reveal Tawfik’s current whereabouts.
“What happened to Tawfik after his release?”
“He was welcomed home as a hero in Deir Dibwan with his photo on posters plastered to the walls of buildings all over town. Locating him will be at the top of my list.”
The next pages contained information about the Neumann family. The basic data was familiar to Hana, but there was much she didn’t know, including details of their itinerary in Israel. As she read, Hana desperately wished that a brief stop in Hurva Square for ice cream could be erased. Specific details of Gloria’s injuries were set forth in a medical report. The young mother survived the trip to the hospital but didn’t make it to the operating room. The internal injuries and resulting blood loss were simply too much to overcome. An autopsy revealed three major organs slashed by the long knife. Sadie’s injury and medical care in the children’s wing was documented by several paragraphs. It had taken thirty-seven tiny stitches to close the wound on the side of her face.
“Sadie Neumann has a deep scar on her face,” Hana said.
“Do you have a photo?”
Hana turned on her laptop and showed Daud the photograph Jakob had included in the original packet brought to Collins, Lowenstein, and Capella. She added a few current pictures taken with her phone.
“You’ve spent time socially with the child and her father?” Daud asked when he saw the photos from the trip to the ice cream parlor.
“Just because of Sadie. She touched my heart the first day I heard about what happened to her and her mother. I didn’t mention it last night, but she’s the main reason I’m involved in the case.” Hana paused. “I went to Hurva Square earlier today. I’m determined to fight in every way I can against what happened there.”
Daud nodded. “That makes sense to me. When an investigation becomes personal, it takes me to a much deeper level of commitment beyond simply doing my job.”
Reading further, Hana learned that military police had seized three computers from the Zadan home in Deir Dibwan; however, the report didn’t contain a summary of what, if anything, was found on them. Following this entry was a list of publicized responses to the attack from several well-known terrorist organizations. They uniformly praised the Zadan brothers but none took credit for training or sending them. Normally, groups didn’t hesitate to acknowledge culpability in an attack, and their silence pointed to its being a lone-wolf act. This was the conclusion reached by the Israeli authorities.
“Not a very helpful analysis,” Hana said, pushing back her chair. “And it’s been almost four years since the attack.”
“But now I’m working on the case,” Daud said with a confident expression on his face. “The trail may be stale, but that can mean those responsible are no longer as careful as they should be.”
Jakob called Detective Freeman, who said he would come as soon as he could to the garage. Murdoch wanted to talk to the detective, too.
“Are you still willing to serve as my driver?” Jakob asked Emily as they walked to her car. “I don’t know what kind of risk I am to those around me.”
“Let me get back to you on that,” she answered as she opened the driver’s door. “I’m a music student now.”
Emily drove away, and Freeman arrived forty-five minutes later accompanied by an officer named Rob Colbert from the police department bomb squad. Murdoch placed the blackened object he’d removed from the vehicle on a metal desk in Tony’s office. Colbert picked it up and turned it over a few times.
“I’d like to see the video, but it seems plausible that this is a phosphorous explosive device
,” Colbert said, pointing to a small hole in one end of the box. “This is for the antenna designed to receive a remote signal to ignite the phosphorus. The antenna was probably just a wire and would have melted in the fire. The larger hole in the side of the box funneled the phosphorus to the fuel line. That part of the box is degraded to a higher degree than the rest of the container.”
Jakob now saw that the rectangular box was more crinkled on one side than the top or bottom.
“It isn’t very complicated,” Colbert said, turning to Jakob. “It’s likely the mechanic caused the wires to close a circuit when he touched the device. This isn’t like a car bomb that blows up suddenly in the movies, but once triggered it would cause a fire that spreads quickly.”
“Sorry, man,” Tony said to Jakob. “I had no idea.”
“Of course you didn’t. I’d asked you to check out the whole car.”
Murdoch spoke up. “In my experience an incendiary device like this is more suited to destroying property than endangering life, assuming the occupants of the vehicle are conscious and capable of getting out once the fire started.”
“That’s true,” Colbert said with a nod. “Let’s watch the video.”
Jakob could feel a headache beginning to spread from the place where he’d been struck.
“I rewound it to the correct spot,” the garage owner said.
The date and time were at the bottom of the screen. It was 7:08 a.m. The camera angle was wide and showed the entire shop. At the end of the row was Jakob’s car elevated on a lift. Tony came out from under the car and walked away. Even from the other end of the shop, Jakob clearly saw the sudden appearance of a white cloud of smoke billowing up from the engine compartment. Within five seconds flames peeked up through the crack between the hood and the right fender. The flame quickly spread and shot up three or four feet into the air.
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