Pillars of Solomon - [Kamal & Barnea 02]

by By Jon Land

  A chill suddenly passed through him. The summons! Jabral had been detained briefly in Israel by the IDF last week.

  It’s right in front of you.

  And it had been. The summons lying on the floor beneath Jabral’s desk.

  Ben grabbed two more pieces of fruit for the road and rushed for his car.

  * * * *

  N

  ot all routes into Israel were monitored by checkpoints. An estimated ten to fifteen thousand Palestinian workers used back roads and even old goat paths to get to their jobs whenever Israel shut her borders. The odds of getting through were very good. But for those who didn’t make it the penalties were severe, months of administrative detention with no charges filed, at the least. A stretch in Megiddo Prison on a trumped-up charge, at the worst.

  That morning Ben decided to take his chances. The road he chose he knew for a fact was a favorite among those who sneaked their way into Israel to keep food on their tables. His heart was pounding as he neared the border, out of worry as well as expectation over what might be waiting for him in the area Zaid Jabral had obviously been investigating.

  Ben veered off Jaffa Road, connecting Jericho and Jerusalem, and crossed the border without incident. He continued on toward the Arab town of Abu Ghosh, outside of which Jabral had been issued his summons. The hills beyond Abu Ghosh, west of Jerusalem, contained a number of kibbutzim established following the 1967 Six-Day War as defensive fortifications when Israel took Jerusalem. Most were open to tourists and advertised this fact from the highway, a fact certain to facilitate Ben’s entrance and minimize undue scrutiny given him. But which kibbutz, if any, had Jabral stopped at? And what was he looking for there?

  Ben decided to take them in order. It was not an altogether unpleasant task, especially given the comfortable temperature and cooling breezes that made the hot dusty air of Jericho seem much farther away than it really was. He made sure to park his car out of sight from the entrances, so no one would notice his white Palestinian license plates, and then walked on to the communes innocently, flashing his badge to the first residents to accost him. His English proved a godsend since he spoke no Hebrew at all, and the vast majority of Israeli adults and older children spoke English.

  At each kibbutz, he described Jabral in order to learn if the journalist had been there. If the answer was no, there was no reason to continue. The first three yielded nothing, but a fourth, which did not cater to tourists at all, proved considerably different.

  “Walked with a limp?” asked an older Israeli to whom Ben had been introduced.

  “And a cane, yes.”

  The old man nodded, gazing out over the freshly watered fields and groves. “The journalist. I remember him now. He was here last week, or maybe the week before.”

  Ben tried not to look too excited. “What was he looking for?”

  The old man suddenly turned suspicious. “Why are you asking?”

  Ben opted for the truth. “Because he was murdered two days ago. His name was Zaid Jabral. He was my friend, and I think something he learned here may be connected to his death.”

  “You’re Palestinian, aren’t you?”

  “Palestinian-American.’’

  The old man gave him a longer, tougher look. “I’m certain your friend didn’t learn anything here at all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He asked very specific questions, as I recall, about weddings and deaths and births. Especially births; he asked about them twice. He wanted to see our records. But they were all lost when we relocated here in 1967.”

  “Relocated?”

  The old man nodded. “After the Six-Day War, when Jerusalem was ours again, we were the first kibbutz to move to the city’s outskirts.”

  “From where?”

  “Halfway to Tel Aviv, near Sefir. I told your friend that and he became agitated. Asked me about the lost records again.”

  Ben wondered what had so sparked Jabral’s interest. “And he wasn’t interested in any records other than the ones that were burned?”

  “He didn’t ask to see any of the ones we had, so I guess he wasn’t.”

  “Did he ask about any year in particular?”

  The old man stroked his chin. “Late nineteen forties, maybe early fifties. I forget which. He stayed for lunch. Took a lot of notes. Asked if he could come back another time to do a more in-depth story on our way of life for the Arab press.” The old man’s face drooped a little. “I would have liked to have talked with him again.”

  “I would have, too.”

  The old man walked Ben back to the gate and saw him off. He hadn’t learned what he had come here after, but he had learned something:

  Zaid Jabral had stopped at this kibbutz and no other. That meant he knew the information he was seeking was contained in the records that had been lost over thirty years before, records from somewhere in the late 1940s or early 1950s.

  So Jabral hadn’t come here on a flier, hadn’t come here on a hunch. He had known exactly what he was after and where to find it.

  What am I missing, you damn ghost, what am I missing?

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 46

  I

  have taken the liberty of filling out a report on the joint operation I approved between us, the Israelis, and the Jordanian police yesterday,” Captain Wallid greeted as soon as Ben returned late that morning from his surreptitious visit to Israel. “Your signature is required before I file it.”

  Wallid slid the neatly typed two pages across the desk, complete with a pen clipped to the top. Ben signed the bottom of the second page without reading it.

  “I’d like to see Mudhil again as soon as possible,” Ben said, sliding the papers back across the desk.

  “I have unfortunate news concerning that, Inspector. Another agency with an interest in him learned of his incarceration last night. They picked him up right after sunrise.”

  “What agency?”

  “I assure you their papers and requisitions were in order.”

  “In other words, Arafat’s secret police: Force 17.”

  Of all the competing and often redundant Palestinian security agencies, Force 17 enjoyed the freest mandate. Since its primary responsibility was the safety of President Arafat and his closest advisers, its personnel went to any lengths to assure his administration remained secure from both the inside and the out. In some respects, Force 17 was the next step beyond al-Asi’s Protective Security Service. In others, the organization was a world unto itself, its sole objective being to remove anyone who posed a threat to President Arafat, and it defined “threat” in the broadest sense of the word. Force 17 seldom shared information. Its personnel never worked cooperatively. They protected the president and did what he told them. That was all.

  “It is not wise to refer to them as the secret police, Inspector,” Wallid said, his tone flat as always.

  “What could they possibly want with Mudhil?”

  “I wasn’t here at the time, and I would not have asked if I had been. The duty officer called me at home. I tried to delay the transfer, but agents of Force 17 are not known for their patience.”

  Ben felt himself growing hot. “Does Colonel al-Asi know?”

  “I spoke with him first thing this morning.”

  “How do you suppose they found out we had Mudhil in custody, Captain?”

  “I suggest you ask your friend Colonel al-Asi that question.”

  Ben stood up.

  “You don’t have to go far, Inspector,” Wallid said. “He’s waiting in your office.”

  * * * *

  B

  y the time he reached his office to find Colonel al-Asi sitting behind his desk, Ben’s mouth tasted like paste again.

  “I hope my friend Marash liked the tie I gave him,” the colonel said, “because he won’t be getting the prisoner he expects from me.”

  “I wouldn’t worry,” Ben told him. “You have wonderful taste.”

  “I was hoping you would
stop in here before going to see your captain.”

  “He told me about Mudhil, about Force 17 taking him into their custody.”

  Al-Asi shook his head regretfully, hair returned to its perfect coiffure. But his eyes looked tired, evidence the colonel had probably not slept well last night either. “That’s what he told you because that’s what I told him. When I learned Mudhil had been removed from our custody, I thought the Jordanians had acted quicker than I expected. Then I received a call from Marash’s superior insisting that we turn Mudhil over to them.”

  “So if it wasn’t us and it wasn’t the Jordanians . . .”

  Al-Asi’s eyes grew interested. “Are you thinking of Al Safah, Inspector?”

  “Aren’t you, under the circumstances?”

  Al-Asi rose and moved out from behind Ben’s desk. “There is someone waiting in my car who most certainly is. Care to join me?”

  Ben nodded, aware he had no choice. Outside, the colonel’s Mercedes, back from Jordan and freshly washed, was parked in front of police headquarters, illegally as always. A tall, lithe figure with short black hair leaned against an open door smoking a cigarette.

  “Superintendent Faustin,” al-Asi called, “may I present Inspector Bayan Kamal of the Palestinian police.”

  The figure stamped out the cigarette beneath a scuffed black boot and turned slowly around.

  “Inspector,” the colonel continued, “Superintendent Faustin is with Interpol. I believe she can lend some important insight to your investigation.”

  She? Ben thought in the last instant before he saw her face.

  “We meet again, Inspector,” Faustin greeted.

  It was the woman who had saved his life in the butcher shop four nights before!

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 47

  D

  anielle called her office voice mail from her apartment. There was a message from Hershel Giott requesting that she contact him immediately, several from Yori Resnick, and several more from her direct superior, the chief of detectives, who sounded more perturbed with each successive call.

  Instead of facing any of them, she headed for Haifa, hoping that the drive would clear her mind, and that the hunch she was playing might pay off. The key to finding Hyram Levy’s killer, she told herself, was following the trail Ibrahim Mudhil had set her upon. That meant tracking down the shadowy figure she recalled from her own hospital stay—the man she had come to see as her number one suspect. Assuming Harry Walls failed to identify him for her, though, she had to have another strategy prepared. She proceeded on the assumption that the children, once delivered by Mudhil to his various contacts, were taken out of the country, and she considered the most likely options he had available to him. Danielle felt certain that security at Ben-Gurion Airport would have ruled out travel by air, which left travel by sea as the most probable choice. And travel by sea almost invariably meant departing out of Haifa.

  Haifa was a major Mediterranean port city, lined with harbors that featured a constant flow of boating traffic, both large and small. From fishing boats, to pleasure craft, to expensive yachts, to freighters hauling merchandise in and out of Israel, Haifa’s port was home to some, a way station for many, and a quick stopover for still more. Its strategic Mediterranean location made it conducive to trade for virtually any European commercial center and convenient for virtually any seaworthy pilot.

  The sound of boat horns and the smoky bellows of incoming freighters battled the noise of traffic inching its way along the city’s busy portside streets. All of Haifa was enveloped by a sense of having to get somewhere fast, noticeable from the rush of tourists to snap their pictures to the sulfur smell of steaming car engines mixing with the salty sea air.

  The city itself was built into a hillside layered into three separate tiers. But Danielle was concerned only with Haifa’s lowest tier, or port level, containing the harbor and central to all businesses connected with shipping.

  She drove around for some time in search of a parking space, finally managing to squeeze into a spot not far from the Kikar Paris. Paris Square was the center of the port district, a gathering point for any and all who had business in Haifa. Though lunchtime was still over an hour away, she walked toward the Banker’s Tavern restaurant located on Habankim Street, keeping the Mediterranean on her right the whole time.

  Banker’s Tavern was laid out in the rich dark hues and paneled walls of a traditional English pub. It was known for a varied menu, a packed crowd every day for lunch except Saturday, and, to a lesser extent, its most regular customer.

  Danielle had come to Banker’s Tavern to seek out a man who held office hours there every day in a corner booth. She knew him only as Sabi, although his bulbous frame and hoarse, cigarette-stained voice led many to refer to him as “Jabba” after the sluglike crime boss in the third Star Wars installment.

  The likeness was accurate in more than one way, since Sabi was as close to a crime boss as Israel had. A smuggler as well as an Israeli Arab, Sabi was one of the few people who got along with everyone. Palestinians welcomed him because of the constant flow of merchandise he expedited, free of Israeli duties and taxes, into the West Bank and Gaza. And Israeli officials looked the other way for the most part, because Sabi’s shipping contacts in Alexandria, Port Said, Turkey, and elsewhere were crucial to the nation’s trade. The National Police, meanwhile, left him alone because he kept control of the unsavory characters who came and went from Haifa much better than they could ever hope to. He could play both sides against the middle and never seemed to lose. He practiced his trade openly and was willing to give audience to anyone with a business proposition.

  Danielle had never met Sabi before, and as soon as she entered the Banker’s Tavern, she was amazed by the degree to which he resembled exactly what she had been expecting. He sat in his corner booth, occupying most of one side by himself. His huge jowls hung like slabs of meat from his face. He had a triple chin and a roundish, basketball-sized head that seemed to grow directly out of his neck. A pair of men sat opposite him in the booth. Sabi was drinking a tall glass of tea swimming with mint leaves. The men drank nothing, their eyes riveted on Danielle from the moment she entered the restaurant. She waited near the door patiently until a third man approached her.

  “May I help you?”

  “I’m here to see him,” Danielle replied, tilting her head toward Sabi, who seemed to look at her for the first time.

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No, just this,” she said, and produced her badge and identification.

  “Follow me.” The man led her politely toward Sabi. “Can I get you something?” he asked on the way.

  “No. Thank you.”

  “Very well.” He stopped slightly ahead of her when they reached Sabi’s booth. “Pakad Danielle Barnea of the National Police to see you, sir.”

  Sabi lit a cigar and puffed it to life as he waved the men across from him out of the booth. They left and took up a vigil out of earshot several yards away. Danielle slid in across from Sabi in their place. The booth offered an excellent view of the harbor, Sabi’s domain.

  “Something to eat?” Sabi asked her in a grating voice that sounded as if his vocal cords were coated in steel wool.

  He gestured toward the table where a generous assortment of foods had been laid out. Danielle recognized tabbouleh, a bulgur wheat salad, along with a spinachlike soup calledmelukkhiya, an assortment of breads and spreads, and a variety of pastries.

  “Help yourself. Min fadlak. Please. There is plenty.”

  There was indeed, Danielle thought, too much even for a man of Sabi’s bulk. Obviously he was always prepared for guests.

  “No, thank you,” she said.

  “Cigar?” he asked, holding a fresh one out toward her.

  “Not right now.”

  “Lots of women smoke them these days. I get these from Cuba, by way of Madrid.” He puffed some more, the fragrant smoke wafting across the table. His jowls flexed in and
out like a fish drinking air. “It’s the way of the world these days, eh, Pakad Danielle Barnea? Nothing gets anywhere directly.”

  “True enough.”

  “That’s what keeps me in business.”