The lead detective sat down. “I am Detective Tamir. I’ll need to ask you about what she was working on, whether there were any threats made on her life or any other suspicious events.”
Habash nodded.
“Does she have family we can call?”
“Yes, her cousins are on their way. I called them when I heard what happened.” Habash stared at his hands. “And we have to call her father.” It was a call he dreaded making.
XIV
The Trip
EMMA’S ELBOWS WERE GETTING BRUISED. With every bounce and oddly executed turn of the van, her limbs jammed against its side. She’d managed to maneuver her body to keep her head from slamming against the ceiling, but just barely.
Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness by now, and she was very aware of the men sitting across from her. Especially Adam, or whatever his name was. Every time the van passed over a bump in the poorly cared-for roads they were traveling over, his feet kicked her knees. She had drawn them in as far as she could.
After the first fifteen minutes of travel, they exchanged vehicles with another pair of Arabic-speaking men. She knew that this was because the witnesses to the kidnapping had seen the big white van. She was quickly transferred to a smaller black van.
It was after the new van had taken off that she realized how angry she was. She felt anger like none she’d ever known. To think that this man had been submitting reports to Habash for years! And the photo that allegedly would incriminate TNT—what had been the purpose of delivering that to her? And why was he abducting her now? And who the hell did he work with?
But anger wouldn’t get her out of the back of the van, so she focused her energy on keeping track of the car’s turns. She counted rights and lefts, but that didn’t help. All she could tell was that they were traveling far from Jerusalem. The moment the road had gone from smooth pavement to rough dirt, she’d felt it. They’d been driving unpaved streets for some time now. They could be taking her anywhere, and she knew that her chances of escaping in a small desert town were much less than if she were in the bustling city.
Desert or no, she would make a run for it when the van came to a stop. And it had to stop sometime, right? Well, when it did, she’d be ready. She had decided that there was no way this could continue. To be a victim of kidnapping? That was not why she came here to Israel.
And she also wanted to free herself before her father could find out.
Abe. The thought of her father caused a lump to form in her throat, and unknowingly she let out a strangled sob.
Adam shifted his gun from one side of his lap to the other. She pressed herself into the wall of the van and brought a hand to her face to clear it of tears.
“What’s your real name?” she asked.
She was surprised when he met her gaze simply and said, “Mohammed.”
His direct answer made her feel bold, but before she could ask any other questions, the truck came to a lurching stop. Her head hit the roof with a resounding thud.
“Ow!” She slipped her hand beneath the veil that covered her hair to check for lumps, but Adam-whose-real-name-was-Mohammed pulled her arm away. Then he grabbed at her wrists roughly.
“No!”
“Don’t struggle, it won’t hurt, I promise.” He laid a finger across her wrist gently, as if to reassure her. She had no reason to believe a word he said, and yet she had no choice. He produced a pair of old-fashioned handcuffs from a bag that one of the gunmen handed him.
Her heart sank at the sight of them. “No,” she implored, pulling her hands away.
“They won’t be on long.”
Before he locked them into place, he pulled the fabric of her veil so that it covered her wrists and put the cuffs over that.
“That won’t work, you know,” she said matter-of-factly. “The fabric will slip and it’ll chafe my skin anyway. Just do it the right way.” And with that she shook the fabric from her arms.
He snapped them into place. Once she was cuffed, the other men sprang into action. Opening the back door of the van, they jumped easily onto the ground and turned to await Emma’s descent.
Emma wondered how she could run for it with four men so close to her and also how she would get the cuffs off her hands once she had made her breakaway. And then Mohammed pulled a large black hood from the bag.
“No!” She scrambled away from him, but he caught her arm and held it tightly. “You didn’t blindfold me up to now. Please don’t. It frightens me.”
“Up until now you could not see anything outside of the van. Now we are taking you to a house. It’s better that you don’t know exactly where it is.” Mohammed slipped the hood over her head. Her heart broke. This had been her only chance, and now she was bound and blindfolded. Her chest constricted, and her eyes filled with tears. He easily lifted her and handed her to the men on the ground. Emma could tell that she was now in sunlight, though she couldn’t see a thing.
Initially she thrust her weight downward, trying to immobilize herself. But then one of her captors poked her in the ribs.
“Just walk. It will be okay. We’re taking you somewhere safe,” Mohammed spoke quietly.
Safe. Safe was the last thing she was.
“Keep walking forward. Almost there. There’s a set of stairs in two paces. Five steps. Here we go.” Mohammed helped her navigate the stairs, with one hand in hers and one around her waist.
“Stop now.” He held her tightly to keep her from moving. She assumed she was on a landing of some sort. The voices of the other three men began to speak over one another, and then there was the call of a new voice, a female voice, and the ungreased squeak of a door.
The woman grabbed hold of her arms and corralled her into what Emma assumed was the house.
The environment instantly changed. The weight of heat in her lungs lifted, and her skin tingled with swirling cool air. The change in temperature was so dramatic that it gave her a chill. It was central air? She shook her head within the hood to dismiss her stray, bizarre thoughts; she should be concentrating on where she might be and how she might escape and how tall she thought her kidnappers were, not worrying about creature comforts like air-conditioning.
“Emma, you will be hungry by now.” The woman leaned in and spoke to her gently.
This was not what Emma expected to hear, and almost involuntarily she shook her head no.
“Of course you are.” The woman took her hand and led her forward. “You should always eat when you can. Especially here.”
Especially here? What did that mean? Were they going to starve her? Beat her? Make a video and then behead her? As she imagined her heartbroken father watching the videotape, tears fell down her cheeks, dampening the hood.
The woman clutched her hand. “Don’t be frightened.”
Emma didn’t know what to make of this new captor. She spoke English without a trace of accent, unlike the men, with the exception of Mohammed, whose tones were thick with their country. “Where are the others?” Emma asked, gathering her courage.
The woman’s hand moved from Emma’s hand to her shoulders. She propelled her forward. “They’ll be back after we eat.” With that, the hood came off and Emma was blinded by bright white light. She raised her hands to her eyes but saw only the woman whose voice was so comforting. They could have been sisters. They were the same age, same build, even with similar hair. Only the woman’s traditional Arab clothing distinguished her.
“Those won’t do,” she clucked. She took Emma’s hands and called out in Arabic. Mohammed appeared.
“Of course,” he said as he removed a small key from his jeans pocket and unlocked the handcuffs.
Emma whirled around to face him, rubbing her raw, red wrists. “Why have you done this? What was the point of giving me that file? How could you betray Habash like this? You have to let me go!”
Mohammed didn’t answer. Instead he looked at the woman, nodded, and headed back out the door.
“He’s not going to tell you anyt
hing,” the woman chided, her gaze warm and her posture relaxed. It was as if she were talking about the weather.
“Then you tell me,” Emma demanded.
The woman’s face didn’t change expression, and Emma wondered what, if anything, she knew. “Come. Let’s wash you up,” the woman said. “Ah! And I didn’t introduce myself, did I? My name is Nawal.”
Emma was baffled by Nawal’s friendly demeanor, but it did the trick. Emma followed her without resistance into a large white room decorated with potted plants and wicker furniture. There were sea blue and green pillows thrown everywhere, on chairs and love seats and the floor. Emma had never seen a room like this in her time in Israel. It was like a room in a beach house on Nantucket, or from the pages of a Pottery Barn catalog. She eyed her captor suspiciously.
The woman crossed the room to the far wall, where she opened floor-to-ceiling curtains that revealed two glass doors. Emma gasped. The view was incredible, a large garden of orange and lemon trees with a green clearing only feet from the door. In the background was the panorama of a town set between two hills, with gleaming white houses and full green trees and cars in parking lots.
“Where are we?” Emma asked, not moving forward, staring at the view. She couldn’t help asking.
“Don’t you recognize it? This is Jericho, the famous city in the Bible.” The woman Nawal stood on the other side of the doors, beckoning to her.
Jericho, Emma thought dejectedly. Jericho was miles from Jerusalem, a town under Palestinian control. What she knew of Jericho was the walls, of course, and that there was a casino in the town. She also knew that Jericho was a middle-class city and that because it was mostly a peaceful place there wasn’t any significant Israeli presence. A perfect location to hide a prisoner.
Then another realization set in. Why had Nawal told her where they were, especially after her captors had taken such precautions to keep her from seeing their route? Did Nawal know something the others didn’t know—that it didn’t matter whether Emma knew their location? She’d never be able to tell anyone, because she wouldn’t leave there alive! She shuddered with fear as she took in the surroundings.
On the other side of the glass doors was a patio of white stone. To the left, where the woman stood, was a broad table, with a sink and a spigot. It was an outdoor washroom. Emma looked around at the view again.
“How do you have all this?” She gestured back at the house, then to the view and the wash area. Shimshon and Hanna were well-off, and their apartment was tiny compared to this place.
“We are very fortunate. And while you are here, you will be treated as a guest.”
Emma snorted. A guest would be allowed to leave.
The woman smiled. “A guest with restrictions.” She handed Emma a white towel and washcloth, then turned the spigot until a rush of water filled the basin. “Look how dusty you are from the trip! Wash, and then we’ll eat.”
Emma dipped the cloth into the water and dabbed the dirt away from her face, slipping it beneath the fold of the veil that remained in place around her hair. As she did so, she could hear birds twittering in the trees and smell the hint of oranges on the breeze that blew through her head scarf.
She couldn’t fathom what kidnappers were doing in a house like this.
When Emma had finished washing, the woman led her through a wide courtyard and into a spacious dining room. Nawal pulled a chair away from a large oak table and gestured for her to sit.
Emma’s mind hadn’t caught up to the events of the day yet. And the sight on the table added to her confusion. There were two bowls full of dates, figs, and oranges and a platter heaped high with couscous dotted with slivers of almonds and chunks of fig. A dish of hummus sat nearby, next to a plate of steaming falafel. There was enough food on the table for Shimshon’s family.
“You need bread,” Nawal called out in a loud, vibrant tone, and soon enough a tall, reedy girl with almond-brown eyes and long black hair rushed through a swinging door at the far side of the room. She was holding a large basket full of pita. “My sister. Always forgetful.”
The tall girl sneered at her sister, then pulled a chair out and sat down opposite Emma. Nawal pulled a chair next to their “guest.” Salma selected a piece of bread from the basket before placing it in front of Emma. “So you’re the daughter of the famous American lawyer, eh?” she sneered in heavily accented English.
“Salma!” Nawal admonished.
The girl called Salma popped a fig into her mouth and made an incredulous face at her sister. “What?”
Nawal was visibly angry. “It is not for you to be talking so freely!”
Salma rolled her eyes and shook her head, dismissing her sister.
Emma sat there, not filling her plate and not talking. Her heart had sped up at the mention of her father. Abe. They had kidnapped her because of Abe.
She picked up a fork and absentmindedly began to fiddle with it. “I was taken because of my father?” She asked the question pointedly of Nawal, who didn’t meet her gaze.
“Of course you were!” the girl called Salma answered. “Do you think we’d go to this trouble”—she gestured at the food on the table—“for any old rights worker?”
“Salma, Rashid wants to handle this!”
Emma’s sharp intake of breath drew the two women’s eyes. Rashid. Rashid. Emma instantly visualized the stack of papers Habash had handed her on her first day of work, the information compiled about Faisal Husseini. How after his father’s death he’d turned to religion. And how his brother had turned to communism. His brother Rashid.
Emma wasn’t so shocked by this revelation that she didn’t notice that the mere mention of Rashid’s name had caused the girl Salma to quiet immediately.
Nawal turned to Emma. “We know who you are, and that is why you are with us. If my sister says anything else, she will be cleaning the house for one whole month. Now, eat.” Nawal reached for Emma’s plate and piled food on it.
Emma had no appetite but remembered what Nawal had said about eating when she could. She stabbed a fork into her falafel, her mind desperately jumping from thought to thought as she tried to figure out the answers to her questions. Did they take her because of Abe? If so, why? How was Adam/Mohammed connected with Rashid Husseini? Mohammed had referenced Faisal’s poisoning before they’d nabbed her—were they the people responsible for the attack on Faisal? Had his own brother poisoned him? But, more important, what were they planning to do with her?
“It’s not poisoned, you know,” Salma spit out at her, as if reading her thoughts.
Emma raised her eyes to Salma and decided that she didn’t like her one bit. “I have some questions.”
Nawal and Salma looked at each other; Salma’s expression was one of delight, and Nawal’s was one of dread.
“I think it’s the least I’m owed here.”
“In Palestine we are all owed, and none of us ever get our due,” Nawal replied evenly.
“Why me? I came here to help you,” Emma pressed on.
Salma snorted. “You’re all alike, you Western snobs. No idea about what life is like here.”
Nawal spread a thin layer of hummus over her pita. “We will answer everything in time, Emma. For now, eat—and try to ignore my sister. That is what I am going to do, and that is what I want you to do, too.”
Salma collected two figs and pushed away from the table. “I’m done here.” And with that she got up and walked back through the door from which she had entered.
After lunch Nawal led Emma back through the section of the house she had already seen. “I’m taking you to your room now.”
At the top of a grand, ornately decorated staircase, Nawal drew a key from her pocket and opened a door to her right.
“You’ll be spending much of your time here,” she said. Emma walked into a large room, with a double bed covered in a handmade linen bedsheet. There were tapestries on the wall and urns of dried flowers on the floor, and a small, windowless, doorless bathroom st
ood off to the left. Also, there was an expansive picture window next to the bed, and the view was as breathtaking as the one she’d seen from the wash area. “We will come for you in the morning, and you can walk with me in the garden.”
“Walk?”
“Yes, walk. We are not tormentors, Emma.”
“I didn’t mean—” But she cut herself off. She was about to say that she hadn’t meant anything insulting by her words before remembering that she had every reason to insult her new “hostess.”
“At mealtimes I will escort you to the kitchen or bring you a tray. I’ll try to keep Salma from bothering you, but you have seen how headstrong she is. And you can visit the library as you wish.”
“The library?”
“It is down the hall, the next door to your left.”
Emma turned to the door, looking toward the hall in confusion. “I’ll be able to go to the library when I want?”
Nawal sat on the bed, smoothing out the linens as she did. When she spoke, her voice held a determined, deadly seriousness, one that Emma hadn’t yet heard. “Emma, while you are here, you can go to the library, you can walk with me, you can eat. If you try to leave the house, you will discover that you will not be able to, and then Mohammed will restrict your movements. We want to be courteous and to treat you better than we’d be treated by your kind, were the situation reversed.”
The phrase “your kind” hit Emma like a slap to the face. She was so taken aback by the steely sound to Nawal’s voice that she didn’t know what to say or do.
“Do you have any questions before I leave?”
It wasn’t until Nawal had risen and passed Emma on her way out of the room that Emma found her voice. “Yes. Why? Why did you do this? And why did Salma mention my father?”
Nawal raised an eyebrow. Her voice was again the pleasant one of a normal young woman. “You will know soon, Emma. Be patient.” And with that she walked out the door.
The Trials of Zion Page 8