by [Kamal
“He’ll get the rest of my teeth next time.”
Ben stroked her forehead. “No, he won’t.”
He backed off slowly. Zahira’s hand hung outstretched in the air for a time. Then it flopped back to the bed and he hoped she had fallen asleep.
The commander was waiting for him at the nurse’s station.
“You know who did this, don’t you?” Ben accused.
“In this place, Inspector, it is better not to make trouble.”
“It looks like someone has already done that.”
“This is not your affair.”
“She lies there now because of me.” He moved so close their chests were almost touching. “You know who did this to her, don’t you?”
The commander nodded.
“Take me to him. Take me to him now.”
“Your authority ends at the gate, Inspector.”
Ben snatched off his badge and yanked his gun from its holster. He held both out for the commander to take.
“Not anymore.”
* * * *
T
he group of men were playing some sort of dice game, tossing a pair onto the ground and shouting for their numbers, when Ben approached.
“Ayad,” he called to the biggest of the group, striding right through the center of their game.
The most feared man in the refugee camp stood up and glared at Ben, snarling at the sight of his uniform.
Ben kept coming. Their eyes had not even met when he smashed Ayad in the jaw with his fist. Ayad flew into the spectators gathered behind him, tried to push himself back upward.
“I want you to know what it feels like.”
And Ben hit him again. Blood exploded from his nose, as Ben slammed a kick into the big man’s ribs. Ayad stumbled, breath sputtering.
“You beat up young girls who can’t fight back.” Ben pushed him to the ground and shoved his face in the dirt. “Well, I can fight back.” He threw him forward. “Come on, try me.”
Ayad struggled back to his feet, wobbling. He lumbered forward and cocked a huge hand behind him. Ben saw the punch coming and easily ducked under it, crashing an elbow into the big man’s kidney. Ayad screamed and lashed another wild blow outward. Ben hit him with a right and then a left, his frustrations spilling over, all bottled up inside since reaching Dalia Mikhail’s home that morning—hell, maybe since the night the Sandman paid his visit. To Ben, Ayad was the Sandman and al-Diib rolled into one.
“Is this what happens when someone stands up to you?”
Ben hit Ayad so hard this time his hand went numb.
“Is this what happens when it’s not a young girl who takes you on?”
Ayad’s hands sank to his knees, before Ben could hit him again. He spat out some teeth.
Ben grabbed him by the hair and yanked, keeping him from collapsing. “Arresting you would be too kind. I should kill you. But I don’t think I will. Know why? Because then there would be no one to look after the young woman’s needs when she is well again. There would be no one to make sure she has everything she requires. You’ll do that, won’t you, Ayad?” Still grasping the thick, dark hair, he nodded the big man’s head up and down. “I thought so. A true gentleman. I knew you had it in you.” He moved his face closer to Ayad’s, lowered his voice to a whisper. “Don’t fuck with Zahira again. If you do, I’ll come back. If you do, I’ll kill you.”
Ben pitched him down face first and walked away. He had forgotten the presence of the crowd. Today, none of them reached down for stones to throw at him. They stood immobile as he passed by en route to the commander, who was waiting just beyond the crowd that had formed, ready to give his badge and gun back to him.
* * * *
Chapter 29
H
ow well do you know this place?” Ben asked Danielle as their car approached Jerusalem’s Slave Market.
“Every Israeli police officer knows it,” she replied, “although we would prefer not to.”
“Tell me.”
“You’ll see for yourself.”
They had met an hour earlier at nine p.m. at a checkpoint station near the midpoint between Jericho and Jerusalem. Danielle noticed instantly the new wounds Ben had added to his collection. In addition to the bruises on his face, now his hands were skinned and swollen. He could barely close his right into a fist and the knuckles on his left continued to throb. It hadn’t been until well after departing the refugee camp that he even realized they hurt.
“How will you explain those to your superiors?” she had asked him.
“I’ll tell them my sex slave needed an extra beating,” Ben had replied, actually feeling himself smile.
“You look much too good for that to be the case.”
They drove together in her car, Ben having found a ride to the checkpoint. Once again he would be entering Israel in civilian clothes. In the Slave Market all cops were hated, no matter what their nationality.
“Learn anything more about the BMW our murder victim rented?” Ben asked her as soon as they were on their way.
“Unfortunately, our checkpoints are more concerned with who’s coming out of the West Bank than who’s going in. No log from that evening mentions anything about a yellow BMW. The real question is what brought him to Jericho in the first place.”
“The answer to which won’t explain why the Wolf broke his pattern for choosing his victims. Serial killers almost never do that, Pakad.”
“This one did.”
Ben thought about that briefly. “Which means we could be facing a killer who’s evolving, altering his methods slightly to give himself new challenges.”
“Meaning we haven’t challenged him enough.”
“Make no mistake about it, these monsters are fierce competitors. I’ve learned that the hard way—twice now. They thrive off being hunted as they are hunting themselves. They like being threatened at the same time they resent it. If al-Diib did not perceive that threat to be great enough, he may have purposely exposed himself to greater risk.”
“Making it easier for us in the process?”
“And more rewarding for him.”
* * * *
W
e’re almostthere,” Danielleannounced twentyminutes later. “We’ll drive along the Slave Market before we walk. It will help you to grasp what we’re dealing with.”
The Slave Market was a collection of streets running off a main avenue called Taifa. It was hard for Ben to tell what Taifa had been before; the boarded-up buildings and long-shuttered storefronts gave little witness. The streets were paved with cobblestone, mere alleys barely wide enough to accommodate a single car.
As Ben gazed out through the windows he found he did know the Slave Market, after all: not here, but in other cities where it went by other names. Every city had a place where for a price virtually anything could be had. Fetishes of all sorts were provided for. Drugs were available. Prostitutes battled homeless children and refugees for customers cruising the streets. Everything had its price. Money went a long way.
Few of the street lamps in the area functioned, casting the entire scene in an uncertain dull haze from the headlights of cars and the glow emanating from the buildings enclosing it.
“The police don’t patrol this place very often,” Danielle explained. “What’s the sense?”
Young people, some looking fairly respectable in fashionable jeans and jerseys, gathered in groups on corners sharing cigarettes or marijuana joints. Liquor was freely passed around. Women showcased themselves for all who passed. A portable stereo was playing somewhere close and one group of young men and women had turned the cobblestone street into a dance floor.
“How would someone like Radji have gotten here?” Ben wondered.
“Because he’s Palestinian, you mean? It’s not hard to sneak out of the West Bank alone or in small groups, especially for children. In Tel Aviv, most of Jerusalem too, authorities would stop them and ask for papers, identification. Here, no one bothers.”
&nb
sp; She eased the car beyond the center of the Slave Market and parked.
“You’ll want to carry your gun this time,” she advised.
“Against your regulations, Pakad.”
“I’m countermanding them, Inspector. Bring it.”
Ben wedged a pistol in his belt under his loose shirt and followed her out of the car.
“It’s strange,” Danielle said as they walked, “but this is one of the few places where Jews and Palestinians mix socially, the children anyway. The Palestinians bring with them what the Jews want to buy—hashish, mostly, very pure and strong, perhaps ten times as potent as marijuana. They are very enterprising. They can earn more here in a night than their parents can in a month. It keeps them coming back, taking the risk of having us throw them in jail.”
“And do you?”
“We have no choice.”
“Sad.”
“The saddest thing of all is that rarely does anyone come looking for them.”
“Probably because they’re scared to approach the Israelis.”
“No, the families of these kids, for the most part, just don’t care.”
Around the corner, they came upon a group of Palestinian boys, who scattered instantly. A pair of teenage girls strutted toward them. Ben blocked their path.
“We’re looking for a boy,” he said. “A Palestinian named Radji.”
The girls looked at each other. The taller one spoke. “There are lots of Radjis here.”
“This one would be twelve, thirteen maybe. Long knotty hair. Missing a front tooth.”
Again the two girls exchanged a glance. “Lots of them,” the taller one said impatiently. “Take your pick.”
And so it went. Ben and Danielle traversed the streets again and again, trying to blend with the scenery as much as possible. As time passed, the smell of drugs grew stronger in the heavy air and the sounds more hushed. Children of high school age weaved awkwardly from sidewalk to sidewalk. Others sat on the curbs, alone, heads bobbing up and down. Cars with their lights dimmed criss-crossed the streets looking for another kind of ware. The occasional slamming of a door indicated they had found it.
Ben watched as an old two-door, dark-colored BMW came to a stop in the center of the Slave Market. Only one of its brake lights worked. On the street, a teenage girl with long hair leaned her head in through the open passenger side window. As she flirted with the man behind the wheel, a throng of boys rushed the window, sticking their hands toward the driver. Their clothes bagged on their bodies, fashionably unkempt except for the grime that coated them.
“Money!” Ben heard one of them demand, as he drew closer. “Give us money, please. Whatever you can spare so we can eat.” The voice, young but bold, was laced by a slight lisp.
“Fuck you!” the boy blared as the BMW’s driver’s side window started up. He darted to the front of the car and slammed its hood with his palms when the driver tried to edge it on. Ben gave him a long look. The boy’s head bounced as he slammed the hood again, preventing the driver from pulling away. Long, unkempt hair flew haphazardly. A small rucksack nearly slipped from the boy’s shoulder as he retreated a few paces. The boy turned enough for Ben to catch a glimpse of his face in the shadowy shroud cast by the BMW’s headlights.
He was missing his left front tooth.
“That’s him,” Ben announced.
Danielle followed his eyes, looked back at Ben. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. That’s Radji.”
Even from this distance, the boy’s resemblance to his sister, Zahira, was unmistakable. Ben started forward, moving steadily but not hurrying, in the hope Radji wouldn’t notice his approach.
The BMW lurched forward, stopped, then lurched again as the beggar boys darted in and out of its way, knocking on the car’s windows and punching its fender. Radji remained boldly at the hood, backpedaling only fast enough to keep from getting run over.
Ben picked up his pace. He glanced behind him to find Danielle following tensely a few yards back and noticed an old dark Mercedes turn onto the street, picking up speed as it drew closer to the BMW. It slid past him and Ben assumed its driver was just another potential customer for what the Slave Market had to offer. He heard its brakes squeal and watched as all four of its windows started opening simultaneously.
“Ben!” he heard Danielle scream behind him.
He was in motion even before he heard her or saw the first weapons appear from inside the car. He had his gun out and was starting to cut across the street toward Radji when gunfire opened up from inside the Mercedes. The back window of the BMW exploded under the initial fusillade. Its tires spun madly, and the car careened into an abandoned row of fruit and vegetable stands, the street erupting in panic.
Ben and Danielle fired on the darkened Mercedes. In response, its occupants shifted their aim from the fleeing boys toward Ben and Danielle. Ben dove to the sidewalk beneath a barrage and rolled to confuse their aim. He caught a glimpse of Danielle running along the other side of the Mercedes spraying it with fire, her bullets like soft pops in the night.
“The boy!” she screamed, diving behind the crumpled remains of a pushcart for cover as the men in the Mercedes turned the bulk of their fire on her. “Get the boy!”
Ben lunged to his feet and spotted the group of Palestinian boys swinging into one of the Slave Market’s alleyways up ahead. He began to run, exchanging a fresh clip for his spent one, the only spare he carried. There was a screech behind him and he turned in time to see the Mercedes bearing down. It clipped a street sign and was snapping at his heels when Ben threw himself behind a grouping of trash cans that looked and smelled as if they hadn’t been emptied in a month.
The car continued to plow on toward the alley down which the boys had fled.
“Go! Go!” Danielle screamed, stopping to steady her aim before unleashing another barrage toward the Mercedes’s back window. “That way!” she directed, gesturing at another alley near Ben’s refuge behind the trash cans. “Cut him off!”
Ben scrambled to his feet. More rounds from her gun thundered toward the Mercedes. Spent shells danced on the cobblestones below.
Ben charged on past the hidden youths, who had sought cover nearby.
“Back!” he screamed at those in his way. “Keep back!”
As he neared the other end of the alley, a group of figures surged down the adjacent main street. He thought he recognized Radji’s flapping hair bringing up the rear at the same time as he caught the distinctive hum of the Mercedes’s engine.
With no time to think, he lunged out into the street paralleling the main avenue of the Slave Market. The Mercedes was coming at him dead on, one of its headlights shattered, the other winking on and off. He punched out half his remaining bullets and watched jagged holes appear in the windshield. The Mercedes wavered and skidded toward a row of abandoned industrial buildings. The driver spun the wheel wildly at the last, so the car merely sideswiped them, drawing a huge shower of sparks. It kept on going until it came to the next side street, where it swung left.
Had the boy gone that way? Ben hadn’t seen, didn’t know. He turned and took up the chase blindly.
Danielle reached him, didn’t stop.
“I’m going after them!” she screamed back, running almost as fast as the Mercedes was moving before she disappeared down the side street in its wake.
Ben brushed against the rough exterior of one of the street’s decaying buildings. His breath came in gasps, his chest on fire. Figures dipped and darted their way along the street in all directions, the children of the Slave Market still fighting to escape the chaos.
Suddenly a shape dashed out from a bulge in the crowd and sped down an alley a block away: a boy with long wild hair whipping across his face and a rucksack flapping from his shoulders.
Ben charged after him, aware the alley must spill out onto a normal avenue like the others. Considering Radji’s head start, if he lost the boy here, he would lose him for good.
; Ben spun into the alley, ignoring his body’s plea for air and the hot pulsing of his heart. Ahead he could see the other end of the alley was blocked. He slowed as the boy reached it and watched him, after briefly considering his options, swing around and charge back.
Ben pressed his shoulders tight against a building, crouching beneath the cover of a rusted pile of old metal. He heard the boy’s footsteps pounding toward him and lunged out just as they were ready to pass. He actually collided with Radji, who bounced off him and slammed into a building. The boy spun and tried to spurt by him, but Ben managed to grab him by the scruff of the neck.