by By Jon Land
“So was your active casework.”
“I’m pursuing this investigation unofficially,” Ben said, glad Jabral had changed the subject. “I was wondering if you could put me in touch with the old woman you wrote about. I’d like to ask her some questions.”
”Of course. Anything that helps keep you in the country a little longer,” Jabral said, his sarcasm typical but his eyes uncharacteristically evasive. “I’ll call you tomorrow, the day after at the latest.” He started to turn around to leave, then changed his mind. “You’ll keep this between us?”
“Of course,” Ben said, “whatever you say.”
He watched Jabral move off, cane tapping tentatively ahead of him as if he had suddenly lost his way.
* * * *
B
en entered the butcher shop Nazir Jalabad had directed him to and headed straight through to the rear of the store, where workers cut, cubed, and chopped away at meat and chicken in their bloodied white aprons. In addition to serving local patrons, this shop daily shipped meats and poultry to others in nearby towns where hard times had cut demand well below the need to buy in bulk.
“Over here,” a voice said, and Ben turned toward a collection of steel containers into which the excess fat, gristle, and bone had been dumped.
Standing among those containers in the cold refrigerated air, Nazir Jalabad was wearing a white apron too, only his was unbloodied.
“Outside,” he said when Ben got to him.
They moved through a wide rear door onto a raised porch that trucks backed up against to load the refuse.
”Why didn’t you tell me last night you weren’t part of Hamas any more?” Ben asked.
”Because you wouldn’t have believed me.”
“You’re sure you did nothing to upset them?”
”They had nothing to do with what happened to my niece,” Jalabad insisted. He fished a hand under his apron and came out with an envelope, which he extended toward Ben. “Inside you will find the names of three other girls who disappeared, like my goddaughter.”
Ben took it, surprised.
“I asked around to get those names. There were some who were not pleased with my inquiries.”
“Your former friends from Hamas?”
Jalabad flashed his sneer. “They threatened me. I do not like being threatened.” He moved a step closer to Ben and lowered his voice. “I understand there is going to be a suicide bombing today. In Tel Aviv. Atarim Square at one o’clock.” Jalabad checked his watch dramatically. “You can still make it, Inspector.”
* * * *
CHAPTER 7
A
long night, Pakad?” Hershel Giott asked as Danielle Barnea settled into the chair before his desk.
“Not really, sir,” Danielle lied.
She waited for Giott to take his seat and then leaned forward to set down before him the pages she had been holding. “These are some of Hyram Levy’s phone bills. As you can see, he made repeated calls recently to someone the phone company computers were unable to identify.” She watched Giott’s brow furrow as he began to count, and continued, “Thirty-one in total over the past two months.”
Giott picked up the pile of phone bills and began to study them. His eyes off her, Danielle let herself yawn. She had slept little the night before, plagued by the note that had been found in Hyram Levy’s desk with her name and hospital room number on it. She never remembered meeting the man, but it was possible he had attended her father’s funeral. Although Levy was ten years older than her father, the fact that he had been a much decorated general in the IDF meant their paths had likely crossed on more than one occasion. The two men had, after all, fought many of the same wars together.
So when Danielle went back to her apartment well after midnight, she had checked the guest signature book that had been at her father’s funeral as well as the shivah mourning sessions that followed.
Hyram Levy’s name was nowhere to be found. Nor had he written her a condolence card, or sent flowers, or made a donation in her father’s name to a charity.
But there had been so many handshakes, so many polite gestures of grief. Levy’s could have been among them, but Danielle couldn’t be sure one way or the other. And even if it had, how would that explain his notation of her hospital room number that Yori Resnick had discovered?
In studying the names in the memorial book, Danielle came across Ari Bar-Rosen’s and recalled how impressed she’d been that he had made time from his busy schedule to pay a condolence call. He had drawn her aside and explained simply that he had served under her father and had come to admire him greatly. He was handsome and strong, and Danielle could tell that his grief was honest. Just a few months later he had been elected prime minister, and she had recently received an invitation to attend his installation ceremony, to be held on Masada in a week’s time.
“You think these conversations may have something to do with Levy’s death?” Giott asking, snapping Danielle alert again.
“At the very least, the ultimatereason for his murder might have been discussed. Clearly something was bothering him, something he may have mentioned to the person at the other end of that phone number.”
Giott was holding the pages almost protectively when he finally met Danielle’s gaze again. “And you are asking me to find out who this person is.”
“Yes, Rav Nitzav.”
“So you can contact and question him.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“No?”
“It is not the way such things are done, Pakad,” Giott said in the voice of a parent scolding a petulant child. “In your absence you have obviously forgotten the way they are done.”
“I thought—”
“You thought to come to me first and that is good, so I can tell you how.” His voice grew even more stern. “Has anyone else examined these records?”
“No.”
“Are there any other copies?”
Danielle shook her head.
“Very well. You will leave this material in my possession. I will make some calls. After determining whom this phone number belongs to, I will speak to this person myself and decide, myself, whether they have information pertinent to this investigation. Then and only then will I decide whether or not to put you in touch with them. Clear?”
“Clear, sir.”
“And if I decide not, you will forget about the presence of this number on the murder victim’s bills. Yes?”
“Also clear, sir.”
“Very well, Danielle. Now leave me.”
* * * *
D
anielle was summoned back to the commissioner’s office less than an hour later. His expression was etched in stone. He was wearing his yarmulke now. He barely met her eyes as he spoke.
“This is a very delicate matter, Pakad.”
“I understand,” Danielle sighed.
“No, you don’t, I’m afraid. The man Hyram Levy called all those times is a deputy cabinet minister for the outgoing government. He has served for six different governments in all, both Labor and Likud, over a twenty-five-year period.”
That would make him about Levy’s age, Danielle calculated for herself.
“His name is Max Pearlman,” Giott continued, “and you are meeting him for lunch this afternoon. Twelve-thirty at Atarim Square in Tel Aviv.”
* * * *
CHAPTER 8
B
en drove madly through the streets of Jericho to the Palestinian Authority building. He rushed through the door and hurried to the offices of the Palestinian Protective Security Service.
Nabril al-Asi was not in his office. No, nobody knew where he was. No, he couldn’t be reached. Yes, he had a cell phone, but no one in the building seemed to know the number.
Ben charged up to the fourth floor and Ghazi Sumaya’s office, but, as usual, the mayor of Jericho was elsewhere too. His receptionist promised to try and reach him and have Sumaya call Ben at police headquarters.
Ben saw the phone resting atop the security desk and burst toward it.
“Hey!” the on-duty police guard yelled when Ben snatched the receiver to his ear.
Ben flashed his identification as he pressed out a number in Israel. Phone service between the West Bank and Israel, even Jerusalem, was only two years old, but he thanked God for it. He had to call Danielle now; he had no other choice.
Nothing happened. The call hadn’t gone through.
He tried again.
Still nothing. Dead air. All too familiar.
“What’s wrong with this thing?” he screamed at the nearby cop.
“Where are you calling?”
“Israel, goddamn it, Israel!”
“They shut off all long-distance service this morning,” the uniformed cop told him. “To punish us.”
And themselves this time, Ben thought, standing utterly still.
He checked his watch. It was almost eleven-thirty, giving him no time to try any more channels.
Then Ben remembered the pass into Israel that Colonel al-Asi had finally secured for him so he could visit Danielle in Hadassah Hospital. He hadn’t used it because she had checked out on the very day he intended to visit. The pass was still tucked in his glove compartment.
And he would use it now.
* * * *
CHAPTER 9
D
anielle arrived at Atarim Square just before twelve-thirty. Located on the corner of Tel Aviv’s fashionable Hayarkon Street and Ben-Gurion Boulevard, the square was built on an elevated platform and lined with shops and cafes on both sides of a boulevard that had been closed to traffic.
The establishments were all doing a brisk business, and under other circumstances Danielle could have enjoyed strolling down the center amid tables, benches, and canopies set atop the street-sized promenade’s checkerboard pattern of white and beige stone. It seemed to her that more big-name franchises like the Gap, Benetton, and Au Bon Pain had opened since she’d been here last, but she hadn’t been paying nearly as much attention to her surroundings then.
She had come to Atarim Square with Ben in the final days of what had become a relationship impossible to maintain. The square had not been the site of their final breakup, but Danielle remembered watching other couples walking hand in hand and thinking that it was never going to work out no matter what they did. There were limits to how much culture could be overcome, even in their own minds. Passion had fooled them, and when the intensity slowly wore off, reality had set in. They’d fought it for a while, but in the end they couldn’t overcome reality’s harshness, and they had separated a year and a half ago.
She approached a deli called Moshe’s, where she’d been told Max Pearlman had lunch whenever he was in Tel Aviv. Since he would be out of the government in less than a week, that might soon be every day. Of course, it was still possible the new prime minister, Ari Bar-Rosen, would add Pearlman to his government in some capacity; he had served in six of the last seven, after all.
Danielle could see Pearlman sitting at a canopied table set on the edge of the square itself, close enough to reach out and touch the strollers and cyclists. Even the most recent photos she had seen of him must have been old, picturing a man with more hair that had barely begun to whiten. He was seated, but a young man with watchful eyes stood not far away surveying the scene from behind dark sunglasses. His bodyguard, she guessed.
The bodyguard watched Danielle approach, sliding over to make it obvious she had to go through him to reach Pearlman.
“It’s all right, Lev. This must be my luncheon guest,” she heard Pearlman say.
The bodyguard stood aside and Danielle walked straight to Pearlman, who rose to greet her.
“How did you recognize me?” she asked him.
“Attractive young women don’t approach me very often these days.” He took her hand warmly in both of his, then opened a palm to the table, ”Please, join me.”
Danielle chose a chair that gave her a view of the promenade. Old habits. “How much did Rav Nitzav Giott tell you about what I wanted to talk about?”
”Some. Enough. Because of your medical examiner, we can’t hold Hyram’s funeral for at least another three days.”
”I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I understand.” Pearlman sipped what Danielle thought was iced tea. He must have been almost the same age as Levy, early seventies. His eyes were a piercing shade of gray and looked as though they belonged to a much younger man. “You know the truly sad thing? There won’t be a single family member at the funeral. Hyram never married, claimed he never had time. I think he was very lonely these last few years. It’s not a very good way to die.”
”Being murdered never is.”
Pearlman’s free hand balled into a still formidable fist. “The man lived through every war this country ever fought to be killed in his own shop, God’s justice, acccchhhhhhh!”
”According to Mr. Levy’s phone bills, the two of you hadn’t spoken much at all in the past year up until two months ago, when he began calling you on a regular and increasing basis.”
Pearlman shrugged. “Like I said, he had gotten very lonely.” He leaned forward. “And I’ll tell you something about my friend Hyram. He got feelings sometimes. Ever since I’ve known him, he got feelings like premonitions about things. I can’t remember many times that he was wrong. In fact, I couldn’t recall even one for you now.”
“You think he knew he was going to die?”
“He never said that, not in so many words, but I think he was expecting it. I think he kept calling me for reassurance. I think he was scared.”
“Some of the calls were very long.”
“A lot of reassurance.” Pearlman smiled sadly. His teeth were crooked and stained by tobacco. “And we had a lot to talk about, much to rehash. Many adventures.”
“You knew him a long time.”
Pearlman straightened, looking proud. “Since the very beginning.”
“As children?”
“No,” he said, “a different beginning . . .”
And as Pearlman began to tell his tale, Danielle’s eyes strayed to the promenade, where for a fleeting second she thought she caught sight, impossibly, of Ben Kamal weaving his way through the crowd.
* * * *
CHAPTER 10
Palestine, 1947
Y
ou’re doing it all wrong!” said David Wollchensky when Max Pearlman missed the target yet again.
The rifle felt ridiculously heavy in his hands and looked ridiculously light when Wollchensky snatched it from him. He was dressed as a beggar, the disguise he often chose when he wandered the streets in Arab-controlled areas, trying to pick up tidbits of intelligence.
“Here, let me show you.”
Barely a week had passed since Wollchensky had saved Pearlman, Jacob Rossovitch, and Hyram Levy from the British patrol on the beachhead at Caesarea. But already they were being trained as soldiers in the service of Israel. None of them had known what to expect when they embarked on this journey. Like everyone else, they came in search of fulfilling a destiny. They came home.
David Wollchensky turned out to be a soldier of the Haganah, an underground resistance movement determined to take Palestine back, at least enough of it to forge a nation, no matter what means that required. The stakes were too great to even consider costs; that much Pearlman understood very well. Like Rossovitch and Levy, he had lost his whole family and history to war. As a survivor, the value of his own life paled in comparison to living in a place where it could never happen again. Becoming a part of the movement toward a new state was what provided purpose when everything else was gone. The dream of Israel gave him a reason not just to exist, but to live
.
As dramatic and tragic as Pearlman’s own story was, though, it was nothing compared to David Wollchensky’s. He had been imprisoned in a Polish ghetto, where he watched his mother die of disease and his father of a Nazi bullet to the head. The Nazi commander would celebrate the Jewish Sabbath every Friday night by gathering the town in the square and reading the names of ten young men of bar mitzvah age. The boys would draw marbles from a box, half of them black and half white. The ones who drew black were hung on the spot, in full view of the entire town.