Land, Jon

by [Kamal

  “Let me go, you fuck! Let me go!”

  The boy’s long, tangled hair whiplashed from side to side.

  “Let me go!”

  Ben noticed a tooth was missing from the boy’s scared but feisty face. He was kicking at Ben now, scratching and screaming:

  “You fuck!”

  It was Radji, all right.

  * * * *

  Chapter 30

  B

  en yanked the boy away and held him fast at arm’s length. Radji tried to bite his hands.

  Ben jerked him hard when the teeth found flesh. “Hold it! I’m here to help you!”

  “Bullshit!” The boy made a snatch for the pistol wedged once again inside Ben’s belt. Ben knocked his hand aside and twisted to place the gun out of reach.

  Both turned as footsteps clacked their way, Ben dropping a hand toward the butt of his pistol.

  “Don’t shoot,” said Danielle calmly, sidestepping to survey all of the area around her.

  “I found their car,” she reported. “Abandoned. Blood. No bodies.” Another gaze about. “They’re on foot now. Could be anywhere.”

  Ben noticed her left arm was hanging limp by her side. Then he saw the neat patch of blood widening on her sleeve.

  “You’re hurt.”

  “Just a graze.” Her eyes fell on Radji. “Is this the kid? Radji?”

  “How do you know my name?” the boy demanded.

  “I told her,” said Ben.

  “And how did you know it?”

  “Your sister, Zahira, told me.”

  That softened the boy a little. “You know Zahira?”

  “I saw her today.”

  “How is she?”

  “Not good. Someone beat her up.”

  “Shit.”

  “It was my fault. I came asking about you.”

  “We need to get back to my car,” Danielle said impatiently, backing up against them. “Quickly, before the men from the Mercedes come looking.”

  “I’ll get it,” Ben said. And, before she could protest, “You’re in no condition to put up a fight if you run into them, or to drive. Let me have the keys.”

  She passed them over reluctantly.

  Ben headed off without comment, pistol held out and ready before him. He swung right at the head of the alley and covered the four blocks to Danielle’s parked car pressed against the dark shadows of the street’s buildings. He covered the last stretch in a sprint and lunged behind the wheel, slamming the door behind him. Fumbling the keys, he managed to wedge the proper one home and turn it. The engine roared to life. He swung the wheel hard and gave it gas. The car screeched around, mounted a curb, and then steadied itself as Ben headed back to pick up Danielle and Radji.

  She pushed the boy into the backseat, tucked his head low, and climbed in beside him. “Stay down.”

  Ben drove off, holding his pistol pinned against the steering wheel in his right hand until he was sure they were not being followed.

  “You need to get that arm taken care of,” he told Danielle.

  She leaned stiffly back in the seat and didn’t bother to argue.

  “The National Police building is five minutes from here,” she said, conceding. “I’ll direct you.”

  “Are you both cops?” Radji asked, drawing the logical conclusion.

  “Yes,” they said together.

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “You are under our protection,” Ben told him.

  “I don’t need your protection.”

  Ben screeched into a right and then a quick left. “You did tonight.”

  “From the men with guns back there,” Danielle added.

  “They could have been shooting at anybody. Maybe they were shooting at you!” the boy insisted.

  “They drove right by us. They came to kill you, and I think you know why,” Ben told him.

  “You think so?” Radji spat out.

  “Because of what you saw Sunday night in Jericho. Because you witnessed a murder and they don’t want you telling anyone about it.”

  “What if I didn’t see anything?”

  “They think you did.”

  “Why?”

  “Same reason I do: you were there.”

  “Who says I was there? Who says I saw anything? If I didn’t see anything, they’ll leave me alone. You’ll all leave me alone!”

  “Too late for that now. They’ve already tried to kill you once. They’ll try again.”

  “And what’s to stop them?”

  Ben looked at Danielle. “Us.”

  “What’s your name?” Radji asked.

  “Ben.”

  “That’s not Palestinian.”

  “It’s really Bayan. Everyone calls me Ben.”

  “You think you can protect me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bullshit! You don’t even shoot good.”

  “Few do in real life.”

  The boy turned his hand into a gun. “Bang, bang! There’s nothing to it.”

  “There is if someone in front of you is trying to do the same thing.”

  “Are you really Palestinian?”

  “Yes.”

  Radji eyed Ben warily. “You don’t sound like the rest of us.”

  “I was . . . away, for a while.”

  “No one ever goes away.”

  “I got lucky.”

  Ben thought he saw the boy’s eyes dart toward the door latch. “How do I know you’re not in on this with them? Find out if I know anything before you kill me.”

  “Because if I were one of them I wouldn’t care what you know. I’d only want to make sure you didn’t share it with anyone else.”

  “So I won’t.” Radji thought for a while. “Take me back to the camp. They’ll never find me there, never even think to look probably.”

  “You were thrown out for hitting a guard with a rock. They won’t take you back. You know that.”

  “A cop like you can’t pull strings?”

  “Not in that place.”

  “Can’t shoot, can’t pull strings . . . What good are you?”

  The kid was trying for bravado. Inside, though, Ben knew he was terrified. What little he had that was important to him was gone. Ben thought of Zahira lying in her infirmary bed. Brother and sister, two of a kind.

  “I am going to take you to someone who will protect you,” Ben said.

  “Shoots better than you, I hope.”

  “He doesn’t have to.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ll see.”

  * * * *

  T

  hey dropped Danielle off at the National Police building before heading back to the West Bank in her car. Radji remained quiet the whole drive east and actually nodded off a few times; even slept through one of two frustrating delays at Israeli checkpoints where the pass Danielle had provided did little to smooth their passage into and through the West Bank.

  “Who did you say lives here?” Radji asked, when Ben at last pulled the car to a halt before a modest home on the outskirts of Jericho.

  It was just after two a.m., and Ben and the boy stood in front of the small house nestled comfortably among others like it on the crowded street.

  “A friend of mine.”

  As Ben started up the walk with Radji in tow, the door opened and the huge shape of Yousef Shifa emerged, ducking under the lintel. Shifa looked even bigger and more menacing than he had two days before in the restaurant he had single-handedly commandeered.

  “Hello, Yousef.”

  “Right on time, Inspector.”

  Ben smiled. He had never been more glad to see anyone in his life. “I can’t thank you enough for this.”

  “The call about the job came this morning. I start tomorrow. I am much in your debt.”

  “You can consider it paid in fall.”

  The huge man looked at Radji before responding. “Your friends are welcome in my home any time, Inspector, no matter the circumstances.”

  “I wasn’t sure yo
u had room.”

  “Five kids inside already. What’s another?”

  “I will speak with the personnel department, Yousef. You will not be starting your job at police headquarters tomorrow. You will be working for me first, making sure this boy is protected at all times.”

  Radji looked from Ben to the giant. “He’s no good at shooting.”

  “I,” said Shifa, smiling at the boy who barely reached his massive chest, “don’t have to worry about that.”

  * * * *

  T

  here was a single message on his answering machine when Ben returned to his apartment. He pressed the Play button nonchalantly, starting to unbutton his shirt.

  “Inspector Kamal, it’s Tawil. I’m on Jaffa Street, near the Hisbe. You must come as soon as you return. I will wait for you by the alley where the murder took place.” There was a pause, then, “I think I know—Oh my God . . .”

  Ben went cold when the sound of what could only be gunfire came over the line. He heard glass shattering over the tape, was halfway back to the door when the message finally wound to a close.

  * * * *

  Chapter 31

  B

  enpulled his car to a halt on Jaffa Street beyond the main square close to the Hisbe minutes later to find the area in utter chaos. Not surprisingly, Commander Shaath had taken personal charge. The big man was issuing orders from behind a makeshift barricade formed of two cars and three jeeps which closed off the crime scene.

  Shaath watched him approach, not bothering to disguise the smirk of satisfaction on his features. “First your father’s whore, now the young officer you corrupted. Maybe I should be arresting you.”

  In that instant Ben wanted more than anything to do to Shaath what he had done to the refugee camp strongman Ayad. Liked picturing the commander on his knees counting the number of teeth he had left. Instead, Ben took a deep breath and simply tried to walk past him.

  Shaath blocked his path.

  “How long ago did this happen?” Ben asked him.

  “Why don’t you tell me how you learned of it?”

  “A message from Tawil on my answering machine requested that I meet him here.”

  Shaath gazed down at the body. “You’re late.”

  Ben felt his heart pounding with anger and jammed his fists into his pockets to keep them still. “You haven’t even asked me what Tawil called me about.”

  “I expect you will put it in your full report, if you ever get around to writing another one.”

  Shaath turned away and moved back toward the body. Ben followed him. Tawil lay facedown in the street, his blood staining the pavement. The receiver of a phone mounted on the outside of a shop door, the one he must have used to call Ben, dangled over him. Dozens of red splotches showed through his uniform, and Ben recalled the sound of automatic gunfire that had come over his answering machine. A window adjacent to the phone had been shattered by bullets. Tawil’s own pistol lay on the pavement just out of his reach.

  Ben knelt down to study the angle the bullets had come from, then turned his gaze down the street in that direction, anxious to fix the scene in his mind.

  “Leave now,” he heard Shaath say from over him. “Or I will have you escorted away from here.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “This was preventable,” Shaath said, still looming. “With all the recent unrest, I gave orders that no man should be out patrolling alone at night. Too easy a target for anyone with a gun.”

  “Not just anyone,” said Ben, returning to his feet to look the big man in the eye. “Someone who came to kill him.”

  Shaath’s ears perked up and he glowered at Ben. “What do you think you’re saying?”

  “This wasn’t random. He wasn’t executed because he was a cop on patrol. Tawil was murdered because he had found something out he was trying to tell me.”

  “I told the mayor a more senior officer would have been a much better choice when he forwarded your request.”

  “I chose Tawil because he had initiative, too much apparently. He had already made . . . certain discoveries. I should have discouraged his enthusiasm, should have insisted that he keep me more up to date.” Ben felt himself stiffen, not able to hold back the thoughts flooding forward. “And I will not stand here now and listen to anyone belittle the dedication to his duty that ultimately got him killed.”

  “Did you file reports outlining Officer Tawil’s discoveries?”

  “They only surfaced today.”

  “Then you will not mind confining yourself to a desk tomorrow until you have filed your reports. Consider that an order, Inspector.”

  Ben headed back in the direction the bullets had been fired from, moving slowly in order to look for signs of Tawil’s presence near any of the buildings along this section of the street. The night breeze had blown a thin trace of fresh dirt and dust over the sidewalk, impossible to discern individual footprints in most cases. But Tawil’s standard police-issue heavy-soled boots made a distinctive impression wherever a print was visible. Also, since the young officer’s pair was relatively new, they were still shedding black from their treads.

  Ben found enough black smudges and recognizeable imprints to follow a trail heading down the street toward the phone booth. The trail disappeared at a building that housed a small gift shop, located a mere block from the alley where the man who called himself Harvey Fayles had met up with al-Diib.

  Ben pulled a small flashlight from his pocket and crouched low. The one set of footprints that continued on clearly matched Tawil’s shoes. He must have been retracing the path he believed the victim had taken that night. The street where Fayles had parked his Mercedes was in this direction as well, another few blocks beyond the alley.

  Something dawned on Ben, something he should have realized earlier and had somehow missed. Fayles had left the car in the nearby driveway just after midnight. Since the earliest possible time of his death, according to al-Shaer, was at least an hour after that, he must have been killed after whatever meeting he had come here for had been completed. That was what Tawil had realized. They had been looking in the wrong areas for the person he had come to meet, asking about the wrong times. And what if the person wasn’t as important as the location? What if the victim’s meeting had taken place right here on this very street in this building where Tawil had seen something that had led to his excited phone call to Ben?

  But someone must have seen Tawil, someone from inside the building perhaps, who had then tailed the young officer to the phone booth and cut his message to Ben short in a barrage of bullets.

  Ben switched off his penlight and rose, hand reaching for the doorknob of the building in question, when he heard footsteps behind him. He looked up to find a police officer he didn’t recognize standing defiantly over him.

  “Commander Shaath insists that you leave the crime scene.”

  “I didn’t know this was part of it.”

  “I have orders to escort you back to him if you refuse.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  He let the officer lead him toward the lighted area where Commander Shaath was making a show of assigning men to search for witnesses, sending them off to do a door-by-door, canvass the neighborhood. Talk to a bunch of people who weren’t about to talk back.

  He made Ben wait several minutes before acknowledging his presence. “You would be better off working on your past-due reports, Inspector, instead of interfering in matters which do not concern you.”

  “This is my case. I think that means it concerns me.”

  Shaath took one step forward. “Officer Tawil’s murder is not your case. I do not accept your theories, and Mayor Sumaya is not here to overrule me this time. I’ll want all your reports on my desk by noon tomorrow. Failure to have them there will mean your ass. No excuses. We at headquarters would like to know what you and your Israeli friend have been doing. That includes Major al-Asi. And the mayor.”

  “I think I’ll wait to hear all this from the mayor
, if you don’t mind.”

  “I do mind. I mind that you are an American just passing through our world. Free to leave it, to walk away anytime you choose.”