by By Jon Land
“Now what can I do for you?”
“Whoever was behind the massacre in Bureij has authentic Israeli military vehicles, Colonel. I’d like to know where they got them.”
* * * *
Chapter 23
S
o you see, Inspector, even though I am a cabinet minister,” al-Asi told Ben, as they approached Nablus, “most days I am not permitted to enter our largest city.”
His voice sounded more pained than bitter, and he looked at the city rising up beyond the approaching Israeli checkpoint almost nostalgically. The difficulty in traversing short distances was a memory Ben had left behind. It was the one that stood out above everything else in comparing life in Palestine to the rest of the world.
“This isn’t good,” al-Asi commented, as Ben braked the U.N. vehicle to a halt near the Israeli soldiers who had finally waved him on.
“It never is.”
“Not this bad. There was rioting in the streets of Nablus last night. Ramallah too. The massacre in Bureij set the mobs off. They might not be quelled this time.”
“Giving the Israelis the excuse they need to expel the entire population, annex the West Bank once and for all.”
Al-Asi looked as low as Ben had ever seen him. “The end of our dream, Inspector.”
“So if the Israeli army is proven to be behind the massacre . . .”
“The mob mentality is further fed.”
“And if the Israeli army is absolved . . .”
“Those in the street won’t believe the report.”
“Unless it comes from a Palestinian.”
“Apparently,” the colonel told Ben, “Alexis Arguayo understands that as clearly as I do. Otherwise you’d have been banished along with Chief Inspector Barnea. But it’s a good thing you weren’t. I think you’ll find what you’re looking for here in Nablus.”
The soldiers came to either side of the vehicle before al-Asi could elaborate further, starting yet another thorough examination of documents and identification papers likely to stretch far into the afternoon. They seemed to recognize Colonel al-Asi, both by face and position, affording him considerably more respect than Ben. Perhaps because of the colonel’s presence, it was only a half hour before they were sent through the checkpoint and an Israeli military jeep led them down the road into Nablus, past security patrols posted vigilantly at random intervals.
“I wonder if the Israelis truly realize what they’ve done,” al-Asi asked distantly.
“What do you mean?”
“These past four years, the number of Palestinians they have turned against peace forever.”
“I don’t think they care,” said Ben. “Or, perhaps, that’s what they want.”
“Slide your window down, Inspector.”
Ben touched the control and felt the oppressive heat surge into the cabin.
“Now tell me what you smell in the air.”
They reached the outskirts of the city and the Israeli jeep pulled off to the side, allowing them to proceed on alone.
“Something rancid,” Ben answered and slid the window back up.
“Garbage,” explained al-Asi. “It’s been nearly a month since anyone in Nablus had theirs picked up. It’s become a symbol to Palestinians of what their lives have become. And where are they to turn? Many, too many, have turned to conservative Islam. It’s impossible to keep head scarves for women on the shelves. Older men have to pray outside because the mosques are packed with so many of those younger. They have turned toward the only thing that offers them hope even as it preaches that for Palestinians to survive, Israel cannot.”
Their SUV passed a pair of bombed-out buildings that stood like fallen sentinels at the entrance to the city.
“There can never be any real peace now, Inspector,” al-Asi said, almost too softly to hear. “Both sides have realized that.”
Ben followed the line of concrete barriers, creating makeshift routes along once-bustling roads and avenues. A bit closer to the city center, he could see Nablus had been split in half by a six-foot dirt barrier. The other roads were cordoned off and a tank stood ominously at the edge of the main north-south thoroughfare, leaving the east-west route as the only passable one in the city. A pair of Israeli soldiers leaned against the tank smoking cigarettes while another pair rotated their eyes and assault rifles in tandem.
This road and the adjoining ones looked otherwise deserted, Ben noticed, although the source of the rising stench was clear. Garbage that had been piled futilely for pickup had been strewn across streets that had become asphalt patchworks riddled with ruts and jagged holes. Evidence of a people so lacking in hope that it would readily deface its own world.
“Once I managed to convince the Israelis to pick up the garbage,” al-Asi told Ben. “They came in a long line of trucks under heavy military escort. The residents booed the soldiers but applauded the trash haulers. I don’t think the Israelis got the point.”
They passed the now-shuttered building that had housed the Palestinian stock market. Structures that had held fledgling businesses were dark, empty tombs, power long shut off within them.
Ben thought they were headed toward the refugee camps that rimmed the northern half of the city: the two Askars, Old and New. But a second tank blocked the only route in and out of them, and al-Asi continued to follow the berm, his plans apparently unruffled. Here, even the centuries-old factories that made olive-oil soap and formed the only still functioning industry in the city had been closed down. But the thin warrens and alleyways were open and al-Asi signaled Ben to pull into one of the latter where he parked behind a burned-out husk of a sedan.
“The auto repair shop of Abu Kishek,” al-Asi explained, stepping out into the street. “He used to fix many of the government’s cars for us. Now that we have no government. . .”
“Don’t tell me: he’s found other ways to occupy his time.”
“Exactly, Inspector.”
* * * *
Chapter 24
U
pon arriving at Heathrow Airport outside London, Danielle moved straight from the diplomatic area of the international terminal toward departures and purchased a ticket for the first flight bound for New York. She produced her U.N. visa but paid for the ticket with her personal credit card.
She still had nearly two hours before her flight left, and she flashed her identification at a security checkpoint to gain access to a private lounge reserved for diplomats. A separate more leisurely area of the lounge contained soft drinks, snacks, and four televisions each closed-captioned in a different foreign language. Beyond the modular sofas and chairs stood a door manned by a plainclothes security man to make sure no one unauthorized entered the private offices and conference rooms.
Danielle lacked such authorization but, fortunately, the diplomatic lounge itself was outfitted with a bank of six computers, each contained in its own partitioned work space. All were vacant, and she settled herself into one nearest the center.
The machine was already on, and she clicked on the Internet icon. She thought of Victoria Henley, the fear in the young woman’s eyes as she told the tale of her brother and father. A few hours later she was dead, leaving Danielle to follow whatever trail she could uncover back to the United States and the 121st Evacuation Hospital.
Danielle watched the screen spring to life with the colorful graphics of a Web provider. She thought of Ben, off trying to find the true party behind the massacre in the village of Bureij. Separated from her again.
So what else was new?
Nothing. That was the problem. London for Ben and Danielle was no different from their time together in the United States, or the Middle East for that matter. More obstacles keeping them apart than reasons to stay together.
Danielle had started to key in the U.S. Army’s Web site in search of information about the 121st when another thought occurred to her. Many veterans groups maintained their own Web sites. Perhaps the 121st was one of them. She ran a search under “121st Evacuati
on Unit” and hit Enter.
Seconds later, a dozen listings filled the screen, the first directing her, as hoped, to the unit’s official Web site. She clicked on it and watched as the screen emptied and almost instantly began to fill again.
The 121st’s Web site was slick and professionally produced, its cover page full of impressive graphics and colors. A number of subheadings lined the left-hand portion of the screen from “Reunion Report” to “Buchenwald Revisited.” Danielle clicked on the heading labeled “Roster.”
A small clock icon appeared in the top right corner, as the screen dissolved and reformed again, this time into a listing of bios and contact addresses headlined by recent deaths of unit veterans. Danielle imagined a killer searching out his victims this very same way, heroes of World War II who had survived that and everything since only to make themselves terribly easy targets.
The Web site was not up-to-date, at least a few months behind judging from the brief listing of recent deaths: four of the twelve Victoria Henley had alluded to, all of them easily explicable through means other than coldblooded precision murder.
A death in surgery.
A car accident.
A heart attack.
A private plane crash.
Danielle clicked on the profiles page and scrolled down, counting as she went. Over three hundred personnel had been part of the 121st originally. Only thirty-seven remained listed on the site, of which a dozen had not updated their entries for several years, meaning their contact info could easily be out of date. The section finished in a listing of those for whom no bio was present along with a call to contact Jerry Nadler with any information.
Danielle realized why the Web site had not been updated for several months. Jerry Nadler was one of the dozen members of the unit to have perished in the past few months.
She went back to the head of the list and scrolled down more slowly, studying the current addresses in search of those closest to New York City. There was a Scarsdale, an Albany, a Stamford, Connecticut, and a Honesdale, Pennsylvania. Danielle was about to jot them down, then decided to just hit Print instead. Instantly she heard a whirring sound and saw a Hewlett-Packard humming to life on a stand to her right.
Who knew how many of these four were dead by now too? But Danielle only needed to find one still alive, one who could tell her what the 121st had uncovered in Buchenwald sixty years ago.
* * * *
Chapter 25
W
hat makes you think this man is ready to help us?” Ben said, as Colonel al-Asi raised his hand to knock on the repair shop’s side door.
“Because Abu Kishek wants something, Inspector, something I can’t give him that you can.”
“What’s that?”
“A visa for his son to attend the Olympic Games this summer. The young man’s a champion boxer, capable of bringing Palestine our first medal ever. He used to train at the athletic center near the old Casbah before the Israelis closed it. Now he trains here in the auto repair shop, when the curfews allow.”
“Have you seen him fight?”
Al-Asi nodded. “An exhibition match with the Israelis when he was just a boy. Good, fast hands. Strong jaw. A Palestinian who deserves a chance.”
The door opened and a midsized, slightly overweight man with a receding hairline looked out nervously.
“Quickly,” Abu Kishek greeted, peering out to the edge of the alley. “Come in.”
He closed and locked the door again as soon as they were inside. The repair shop was larger than it looked from the outside, the air laced with the scents of motor oil and rubber. Ben noticed a corner of the floor had been cleared of all cars and supplies to make room for training equipment. A heavy punching bag dangled by a chain from a ceiling beam. A speed bag had been installed into the wall. Dumbbells and barbells were squeezed against a wall near an ancient treadmill a mechanic had turned on its side to better access the damaged controls.
“My son cannot run in the streets or the hills anymore,” Kishek explained, when he saw Ben eyeing the equipment. “He must do all his training in here.”
“Inspector Bayan Kamal,” Ben said, extending his hand.
Kishek removed a workman’s glove to shake it, then looked humbly toward al-Asi. “Thank you for bringing him, Minister.”
“You said it would be worth our while.”
“So long as you make it worth my son’s, yes.” He looked toward Ben again. “The minister has explained my son’s situation?”
Ben nodded.
“Are you able to help?”
“Given a reason to, yes.”
Kishek led them forward across the center of a shop packed with broken-down cars. With no money to purchase new vehicles, Palestinians had no choice but to hold on to their old ones, even as they advanced well past their effective life spans. Then again, few had anywhere to drive to these days. And, judging by the layers of dust accumulating on many of the cars, Ben guessed they had been here for a very long time.
They stopped at a far wall lined with tool-bearing shelves. The topmost held a wide assortment of tires, all of them used and few of them, by the look of things, that matched.
“I need assurances,” Kishek said anxiously.
“You want a special United Nations compensatory visa for your son to attend the Olympic Games this summer,” Ben told him. “I want information about the massacre in Bureij. I get what I want, and you get what you want.”
“I meant assurances that I will be kept out of your investigation, that what I’m about to tell you remains here in this shop.”
“You have my word.”
But Kishek looked toward al-Asi. “Minister?”
The colonel nodded a single time.
With that, Kishek took a deep breath and reached up to the wall as if to grab for a ratchet set. But he bypassed all the tools for a secret latch that gave with a click. Then he pushed open a door hidden against the wall.
“Remember your promise,” he said to Ben before leading the way through.
Al-Asi entered next, followed by Ben whose nose had already detected the pungent aroma of fresh auto paint. He found himself in a section of the shop about a third the size of the primary area beyond, lined with a smattering of military-style vehicles in various stages of alteration to make them appear authentic Israeli army issue.
“I want you to understand something,” Kishek said, while Ben continued to run his eyes about the collection, cataloging what he saw. “I don’t work for terrorists. I don’t do business with murderers. We use vehicles like these to travel between towns, reunite families, and transport vital supplies—food and medicine. You need to know that.”
“Whatever you say.”
“You are Palestinian.”
“Yes.”
“Then you must understand.”
Ben moved up to a truck drying under a set of heat lamps. “I understand vehicles like these have been used in attacks on several Israeli settlements.”
“I know nothing of that! Nothing!”
“But you know something about the massacre in Bureij.”
Kishek sighed deeply. “Some young men came to me last week seeking very specific vehicles. I needed the money for my son’s training. No one has any cash to pay for repairs. They tell me keep the car as collateral. What am I supposed to do with them all?”
“Get back to these men who came to you last week.”
Kishek took several breaths to steady himself. “They were looking for one transport and two Humvees.”
“Israeli military patrol,” al-Asi noted. “Standard deployment.”
“I told them I could handle the transports, but that I had no access to Humvees. They would have to settle for older-style Jeeps. They agreed. I named my price. They didn’t argue.”
“You met these young men in person?”
Kishek nodded. “Twice. Little more than boys really, three of them. They picked up their vehicles four days ago.”
“The day before the m
assacre.”
Kishek shrugged.
“How were you paid?”
“In cash. American dollars.”
“Do you still have the money?”
”Some. Hidden.”
”What did these Palestinian boys look like?”
Kishek scowled. “Who said they were Palestinian? You see, my son followed them when they left. They were Jews.”