“It’s one o’clock in the morning, Emma. We don’t have many choices, but I know one that stays open until three. Meet me in the café at the Ticho House.”
Despite Abe’s objections—he wanted her to pack her things and board a plane to the States immediately—Emma left the King David Hotel an hour after she arrived. She walked to a Jewish café in a small museum that housed the art of a deceased Israeli artist named Anna Ticho. When she arrived, she found Habash at a table under a tree in the garden. She stopped in midstride when she saw him and couldn’t repress a huge grin from spreading across her face. He stood awkwardly; he looked as if he wanted to approach her, but he stayed where he was. The garden was full of tables with couples out for a late-night coffee. Habash hadn’t chosen only the place with the best coffee in Jerusalem but one of the most romantic date spots.
“Emma,” he whispered when she reached the table. “Emma.”
“I’m okay, Habash. Thanks to you and my father.” She sat.
“It was all your father’s doing. He was amazing.”
Emma nodded. “Just a typical day in my father’s life. Outsmarting the best lawyers a country has to offer, finding a smoking gun where nobody thinks to look, saving his daughter from certain death. It’s all old hat to Abe.” She tried to be as lighthearted as possible, because Habash’s serious expression bordered on morose.
He didn’t smile. He only stared at her.
So she soldiered on. “Order for me, Habash. Captivity did nothing to improve my Hebrew.” Of the many things she admired about Habash, his ease in dealing with different cultures and his gift with languages were at the top of the list. “Tell them how much sugar to put in. And get me a munchie.”
Habash appeared relieved to have a direct command to follow. He ordered a Turkish coffee—that’s what the Israelis called it, at least for now—and a Lebanese pistachio and honey baklava.
The two of them sat there. There was no breeze, but the night temperature was cool. Habash looked around the garden, content to be outside. “Emma, I am so sorry.”
“Don’t. It’s not your fault.”
“It is. Adam was my contact.”
Emma reached for his hand, but he pulled it away. “Habash, let’s not spend our time together talking about this. I’m okay. I survived. And believe me when I tell you that Rashid would’ve found a way to get to me, Adam or no Adam. I’ve never been surer of anything, ever.”
“I—”
“Habash, what do you do for fun?” she asked, breaking off a piece of the baklava and eating it with her fingers.
Habash looked stumped by the question and the abrupt change of topic. “Not much time for fun in this part of the world,” he finally said, stumbling over the words.
“Think. There has to be something.” She aimed for that lighthearted tone again. She realized that if Abe and Habash were going to stop regarding her as a wounded animal, she had to act as if nothing had happened to her.
After a moment he said, “Sometimes I go fishing in the north for a few days.”
“I bet you throw them back.”
“Mostly I don’t catch anything, but you’re right, I do throw back what I catch.”
Emma saw her opening. “Catch and release, we call it in America. It’s become a metaphor for certain types of relationships.”
“You mean when men make a conquest and then release their prey after they finish with them?” Habash leaned back in his chair and peered at Emma with a cool, assessing gaze.
She knew exactly what he was trying to do. So she decided to tease him a bit, to make it a social argument. “You make it sound so exploitative and sexist. You know, some women do the same thing.”
“It’s so American.” Finally a faint hint of humor out of him! For the first time since she arrived, he didn’t look so serious.
Emma gestured around the garden, which was full of couples leaning close to each other. “We learned it from the Israelis, who are famous for their sexual openness.”
“Infamous among my people. That’s one of the reasons Islamic fundamentalism is growing so quickly. The imams preach that anything but strict adherence to Islam will lead to debauchery”—he pointed to a gay couple kissing over their coffee—“and prostitution and the end of the family.”
“Sounds like the Christian right in America.”
“It’s more than that, Emma. Our traditions are so different. Your people are obsessed with the rule of law. My people are obsessed with the rule of God.”
Emma realized that Habash was one sentence away from turning their reunion into a seminar on the roots of Muslim culture. “What about you, Habash? What kind of woman are you looking for? An Israeli type who’s open about romance and sex or a burka babe?”
Now he laughed out loud. Quite an improvement! She liked the way he looked when he laughed, less as if the world were about to end.
“Certainly not a burka babe, though there are some babes underneath their burkas,” he joked. “But not Lady Gaga either. Right now I have no time for a serious relationship.” His mouth drew into a grim line, and his serious expression returned.
“So why don’t you try some catch and release? There must be plenty of women who would nibble at your hook,” Emma teased.
“I wouldn’t be fun to date.” He began to look around the café, and Emma understood that he was growing uncomfortable with the topic. She wondered if he really didn’t know how attractive he was.
“That’s ridiculous, Habash. You’d be a great date. A lot of women like serious types. You’re dark and handsome,” she said, more shyly than she expected to.
At the outright compliment, Habash’s serious expression deepened. But then he smiled. “You left out the tall.”
“Tall is overrated.”
He appeared uncomfortable again suddenly, and his smile disappeared once more. “I don’t like the gamesmanship inherent in dating. My fantasy is becoming close friends with a woman and letting it progress toward romance if both people feel something.”
“What about work relationships?” Emma pressed. “Can they evolve into romance?”
“Hierarchy is not conducive to romance.”
Emma thought for a moment before saying what she was thinking, but then she decided to let it out. “What if they were friends first, and then one worked for the other?”
“Is that a hypothetical?” Habash asked, smiling.
“Of course it is,” Emma said coyly, placing her hand gently over Habash’s. This time he didn’t pull away. “What real person could I possibly be talking about?”
“Catch and release may be right for fishing, but I don’t believe in it for friends,” Habash said, withdrawing his hand from beneath hers. “Besides, you’ve been through an ordeal.”
“No. We’re not talking about that, remember? You said you didn’t like gamesmanship? Then why don’t we just cut to the chase and talk about us? I like you more than as my friend and boss.”
This kind of directness took him by surprise. His mouth formed an O, and he quickly looked around to see if anybody had heard. He was so unlike any American she had ever dated.
“I like you, too, but there are complications.” Again shifting to serious mode.
“You have a girlfriend?” she asked evenly.
He pursed his lips, because she knew the answer to the question, and avoided eye contact as he answered. “No.”
“A wife?”
Now he cocked his head and tried to converse with the table. “No. No.”
“A boyfriend?”
That got him to look up at her. “That isn’t even funny in this part of the world.”
“Well, then? It’s because I work for you?”
“Do you still work for me?”
“Of course. We have to find who bombed the American Colony. I’m not leaving Israel until we solve this crime, no matter what my father says. So what is it, then, if not another person or the fact that I work for you?”
He looked more uncomfortable than she’d ev
er seen him, and this was a man who had regular contact with terrorists. He took a deep breath and didn’t raise his eyes from his lap. “There are two complications. You work for me. Also, you’re American.” Habash paused and then, looking away, added, “And Jewish.”
This was the last thing that she expected to hear, and it made her angry. “Oh, my God! So, we’re both lawyers, Yalies, human-rights advocates—human beings. It’s so… so—”
“Jurassic?” he cut her off.
“Yes.” She unfolded her arms and placed her palm flat on the table for emphasis. “It’s Jurassic. It’s yesterday. It’s racist.”
Some people at neighboring tables looked over at them. Emma’s voice was carrying, but to Habash’s credit he didn’t try to silence her. Instead he replied calmly, thoughtfully. “Well, maybe I live in a world where differences still matter. Do you want your children to be Jewish?”
Emma shook her head and crossed her arms again. “Whoa, who’s talking about children here? I thought we were discussing a little romance.”
Habash looked disconcerted. “Catch and release?” he asked quietly.
She softened her tone. “No, nobody is catching anybody. We’re just trying to have a bit of mutual fun. Life is too short not to enjoy every moment.”
They didn’t speak for a long time. Around them the café patrons returned to their coffees and food. Habash looked steadily at her and then said, “I’m not so good at fun. How do we start?”
“How about this?” Emma said, leaning over the table and kissing Habash gently on the lips.
He moved back ever so slightly. Realizing what he was doing, he moved forward a bit awkwardly and placed his hand over hers. She knew that public displays of affection were asking quite a bit of him, but he had made her too angry talking about her being Jewish for her to care much.
When the kiss ended, she sat back down in her seat. “We’ll start slowly. See where it goes.”
“If this is slowly, I would hate to think what fast is,” Habash said self-consciously.
Emma laughed. She was happy that he was still sitting across from her, holding her hand.
XXXVII
The Blackboard
ABE HAD EVERY INTENTION of packing Emma up and taking her home to Boston the very next day. But as he feared and as Rendi cautioned she would, Emma refused to leave until the job was done, and in her mind the job was solving the entire mystery. She wasn’t content with Faisal’s acquittal. Now more than ever, she was determined to find out who the guilty party was.
More than that, she was convinced that only Abe could help her and Habash get to the bottom of the case. What Abe had done to save her just increased her admiration for his professional skills and reduced her ambivalence about his role in “her” big case. Abe begged her to drop it, but she was resolute. So the next day, Rendi and Abe met Emma and Habash at Pal-Watch. Rendi understood that there was more to the relationship between Emma and Habash than work, and this was all but confirmed when she and Abe walked into Habash’s office and caught the pair standing a tad too close. Rendi uttered a surprised sound, and Abe stood in the doorway looking a bit unsupportive.
Habash guiltily sprang away from Emma and walked around to the other side of his desk.
“Glad to have her back?” Rendi asked knowingly.
“Of course. We need her if we’re going to solve this case,” Habash replied sheepishly, staring at the floor.
“Don’t give him a hard time, Rendi,” Emma joked, embracing her stepmother.
Any disapproval Abe felt evaporated when Emma kissed his cheek. He hugged her tightly, not wanting to let her go. Emma disentangled herself from his grip and trotted across to an overstuffed chair opposite Habash’s desk. She flopped into it and stretched her legs. “Are you ready to get to work?” she asked. “The sooner we solve this thing, the sooner you can get me home, Daddy.”
Abe smiled. “That’s all the incentive I need.”
Talking about work put Habash at ease. “I’m happy to take your help. You proved Faisal’s innocence, so as far as I’m concerned you can do anything. Have you tried walking on water?”
“I’m Jewish. We don’t do that. We learn to swim,” Abe replied with a grin.
But his grin vanished almost as quickly as it appeared. Focusing on the task at hand, Abe took off his suit jacket, placed it over the back of a chair, and walked to the large gray blackboard that covered the near wall of Habash’s office. “Let’s start with what we now know that we didn’t know before the trial,” Abe suggested. He didn’t want to waste time with further pleasantries. His primary goal was to get Emma home as soon as possible, and he knew he could achieve it only when the crime was solved. He also knew that the Israeli and American authorities were hiding something, though he had no idea why. His team seemed to be the only group interested in uncovering the truth—wherever it pointed. All others involved had an agenda and were looking to pin it on some group whose conviction would serve their interests.
“Okay,” Emma began. “We know the bomb was planted in the nuclear football.”
Abe wrote this information on the blackboard under the heading “Knowns.”
“That eliminates the group that took me,” Emma insisted. “A bunch of Marxist amateurs couldn’t tamper with the case holding American nuclear codes. Besides, those guys don’t believe in wholesale killing.”
“Only retail,” Abe said, shaking his head.
Emma shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
“Okay, let’s put Rashid Husseini’s group under the column of ‘Didn’t Do It,’ ” Habash said as he stood and took the chalk from Abe. “Who else?”
Nobody said anything at first, and then Emma spoke. “The Israeli government.”
“Not so fast,” Rendi interrupted. Habash’s hand stilled, his piece of chalk dangling in midair. “We know the Shin Bet lied about where the bomb was planted,” Rendi continued. “Why? Maybe to cover up something done by Israelis. I wouldn’t put them on the board—at least not yet.”
Abe nodded. “I agree that they’re hiding something, though I doubt it was their own direct involvement.”
Turning to Habash, Rendi asked, “Which Israelis would have a motive to kill their own prime minister, along with dozens of other Israelis who were in the crowd?”
“TNT,” Emma interjected, not giving Habash a chance to answer.
Habash groaned, and Abe said, “No.”
“Hear me out,” Emma continued bravely. “That picture Mohammed gave me did incriminate TNT.”
But Abe quickly dismissed this. “You’re talking about the photo with the Star of David in the piles of rubble?”
Emma was dumbstruck. She looked at Abe with her mouth wide open. “He said you’d see it!”
“Who did?” Abe asked.
“Mohammed,” she replied.
The room filled with tension, as Abe and Habash were angered at Emma’s casual use of her abductor’s name. Rendi placed a hand on Abe’s arm, and so when he spoke, his voice sounded calm. “Emma, that photo proves nothing. TNT didn’t do this. They’d never consciously kill the American president or the Israeli prime minister. Their goal is the elimination of a Palestinian state. Killing the heads of state of both their own country and their greatest ally’s runs counter to their purposes. Not to mention that they’d never get access to the football.”
“But what about the Star of David? It can’t be a coincidence,” Emma insisted.
“I hate to disappoint you and your buddy Mohammed,” Abe replied, sarcasm coloring his tone, “but the picture was Photoshopped. I had a local expert check it out. It’s a fake. A good fake, but a fake nonetheless.”
Emma quieted. She hated being proved wrong, especially by her father. As Habash wrote the name “TNT” in the “Didn’t Do It” column, she even sulked a little.
“The question is, who benefits from the death of all these leaders?” Rendi mused.
“Iran,” Habash said matter-of-factly. “They have motive, but th
ey could never get to the football.”
“Let’s keep to the plan. Listing those who could get to the football,” Abe countered.
A silence descended upon the four of them. There was one logical suspect that nobody had focused on. Emma finally said what they were all thinking. “It could be an American. An American with high security clearance.”
Habash didn’t write this down. “Not necessarily. Though I agree with the high-security-clearance part. Any of the agencies that swept the room at the American Colony prior to the meeting might have been able to get to the football, as long as the agent in possession of it was willing to help.”
“What if the Secret Service agent holding the football was a suicide terrorist?” Emma wondered. “What if he was al-Qaeda, or an Iranian agent, or just some kind of nut?”
“Unlikely. They screen those guys pretty carefully,” Rendi noted.
“Who exactly has access to the football?” Abe asked Rendi. “Are there cryptographers who change the codes? Technical people who test the buttons?”
Rendi stood up and reached for her cell phone. “We should put Dennis on the payroll,” she said jokingly. “I’ll ask him. He’ll know.”
Two hours later the foursome split up. Rendi left to meet Savage for drinks, and despite threatening to join their “date” to make sure all was innocent, Abe went home to the King David Hotel to place a few phone calls of his own. He had to make arrangements for a longer stay in Israel, and now that he had a small idea of the size of their undertaking—proving who bombed the American Colony Hotel could take weeks, if not months—he needed people to cover for him in the States.
So Emma coerced Habash into walking her to Shimshon’s apartment. It didn’t take much effort, really. Habash was very happy that his feelings for Emma were now in the open. After their coffee date, all he could think about was when he could take her out again. So after one well-aimed jest about how she shouldn’t walk by herself in the dangerous streets of Jerusalem, Habash grabbed her hand and escorted her.
When they got to the apartment, Emma asked, “Do you want to come in?”
Habash kissed her forehead. “Not now. You need to rest, and I should get back to the office.”
The Trials of Zion Page 18