Friedland turned back into the room. Ross was standing in front of the desk, his blazer hooked over his shoulder, a busy man distracted from some important task. ‘Sullivan’s rung,’ he said briefly. ‘Wants to know about McVeigh.’
‘Oh?’
‘Where is he?’
‘In Israel.’
‘We know that.’ He paused, impatient, dismissive. ‘Where-abouts in Israel?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Has he been in touch?’
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘This morning.’ Friedland nodded at the phone. ‘Half an hour ago.’
‘He gave you a number? Some point of contact?’
‘No.’
‘He’ll get in touch again?’
Friedland shrugged, leaning back in his chair, half-turning towards the window, still thinking about his daughter. He’d tried to teach her to swim once, in Carshalton Baths. He’d bought her a pair of armbands and a new rubber duck. The child had cried, water in her eyes, the puzzling sting of chlorine. After a second attempt he’d given up. He yawned.
Ross was waiting, more impatient than ever. ‘Well?’ he said. ‘Will McVeigh be phoning again?’
‘He may.’ Friedland shrugged. ‘Or he may not.’
‘He has to.’
‘Has to?’ Friedland looked up, amused. ‘Has to?’
‘Yes.’ Ross frowned, one hand in his pocket. ‘Otherwise …’
‘What?’
‘Otherwise we’ll be looking for other ways of—’ he shrugged ‘—shortening the chain.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like that son of his.’
Friedland looked up at him, the smile wider, enjoying Ross’s impatience, his belief that the world existed to do his bidding. ‘What would you like me to do?’ he said. ‘Kidnap him?’
‘Maybe.’
‘You were serious?’
Ross looked down, surprised. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Of course.’
Friedland nodded. Then he stood up and extended a hand. Ross was staring at him, his own hand still in his pocket. ‘What’s that?’ he said.
‘It’s goodbye,’ Friedland said, advancing around the desk, shepherding Ross towards the door.
The phone began to ring. Friedland paused, glanced at Ross, murmuring an apology, stepping back towards the desk and lifting the phone. He listened for a while, nodding, then thanked the caller and hung up. Ross was back in front of the desk, staring at the phone. ‘McVeigh?’ he queried.
Friedland looked at him and smiled. ‘He says the stuff is safe. He says you have no problems. I assume that means the gas.’ He paused. ‘You should give your American friend the same message. Evidently they have a similar problem.’ He paused again. ‘McVeigh says he has the situation in hand. I gather he knows where the gas is.’
Ross stared at him. ‘What else?’ he said, nodding at the phone. ‘What else did he say?’
‘Just then?’ Friedland smiled again. ‘That was the coastguard. At Portsmouth. They’ve found my daughter. Washed up on a beach.’
*
McVeigh knew the journey was over because Cela told him so, her mouth to his ear, her arm cradling his head. ‘Nazareth,’ she whispered. ‘We’re there.’
McVeigh nodded, grunting. He’d been sick three times, vomiting quietly into the darkness. The stench had stayed with them, the sweet-sour smell penetrating the haze of diesel exhaust. Half an hour into the journey, McVeigh had known with absolute certainty that he wouldn’t survive. The endless pumps, the endless gear changes, the endless whine of the transmission. Twice they’d been stopped for checks, the truck lurching off the road, the engine still on, the compartment filling with exhaust. Cela had lain beside him, listening intently to the voices of the soldiers circling the truck, her body pressed to his, simple reassurance. On both occasions the stops had been brief, the driver joshing with the troops, an exchange of insults and a warning to take it easy as he engaged gear again, hauling the truck back on to the highway, resuming the journey north.
Once, the journey more than half-done, the truck had slowed on a long hill, the engine labouring down through the gears, the exhaust fumes thicker than ever, curling around them. McVeigh had shut his eyes, gasping for air, the vomit rising again in his throat, and Cela had calmed him, whispering in his ear, telling him that this was the worst of it, that no hill lasted for ever, that the top would come, and the fresher air afterwards, the long downhill stretch, nothing quite so bad any more. Listening to her, concentrating hard on the words, McVeigh had nodded, thinking of the men and women they’d left behind them, the scenes at the hospital, the broken heads and broken lives, knowing that their journey would be infinitely longer than his.
Now, in Nazareth, the truck stopped, reversed, stopped, reversed again and finally came to a halt. The driver killed the engine, and in the silence that followed, McVeigh heard him pulling the key from the ignition. Then he was down beside the cab, the door slammed shut behind him, voices at the tailgate, the sound of oil cans being wrenched out, the first glimmers of daylight penetrating the thick blue haze.
Dazed, McVeigh tried to help Cela slide out, feet first, finally joining her on the concrete outside. The truck had parked in a yard. The yard was surrounded by low, flat-roofed buildings. McVeigh, blinking, looked around, taking his first real lungfuls of air, marvelling at the sensation, an almost liquid taste. He looked at Cela. She was covered in oil and dirt, and parts of Hala’s thoub were caked in vomit. He reached out, apologizing, meaning to brush it off, but his knees began to buckle and the ground came up to meet him, his fall cushioned by someone stepping quickly forward. McVeigh shook his head, apologizing again, peering up at the huge face, the black beard, the gruff smile.
‘Moshe,’ he said thickly.
An hour later they were driving north again, back in Moshe’s truck, three of them in the driving compartment, the windows open, the hot wind flooding in. Water from a bucket in the yard had returned McVeigh to real life, but even now he could still taste the diesel and the vomit. Getting into Moshe’s truck, he’d caught sight of himself in the big wing-mirror, a creature from some horror movie, his hair matted with oil, his face caked in dirt, his eyes bloodshot. Cela, already in the cab, had extended a hand, helping him up, smiling, giving his arm a squeeze. Bucketing north to the roar of the engine, orchards and fishponds flanking the road, McVeigh had let the slipstream sluice through him, emptying his mind of everything but the moment when he could strip off his clothes, and raise his face to the shower, and feel whole again.
They reached the kibbutz in early afternoon, the hottest part of the day. Moshe swung the big truck off the road, bumping down a dirt track beside the chicken-houses. Out of the truck, Cela led McVeigh to a chalet he’d never seen before, a remote corner of the kibbutz. The front door was unlocked. They stepped inside, stirring a brief melody from the hanging chimes beside the door. The chalet was cool and dark after the heat outside. A fan revolved slowly in the ceiling. Cela walked across the big living-room, immediately at home, and disappeared through a door at the back. McVeigh heard the splashing of water from a shower, then Cela was back again, beckoning him, the long thoub discarded, clad only in her knickers. McVeigh joined her in the shower, stripping off his clothes, leaving them in a pile on the bathroom floor while she soaped him, head to toe, and then busied herself with a coarse flannel, rubbing and rubbing, loosening the oil and the dirt, massaging his scalp with her fingers, tender gestures, wholly intimate. McVeigh watched her at work, motherly, sisterly, doing what a best friend would do, without embarrassment, and he realized that his was what life must had been like for them all, years back, Yakov, Moshe, Cela, on this same kibbutz. Briefly enrolled, a stranger passing through, he’d joined this strange fraternity.
Clean again, exhausted, he let her rub him dry, more intimacy, her expert fingers, the rough nap of the towel in the smallest, wettest places. Afterwards she led him by the hand through to a bedroom, the single she
et already turned down.
‘Sleep,’ she said.
McVeigh lay on the bed, still naked, smiling up at her, and she ducked her head, kissing him on the lips, pulling up the sheet, promising to wake him later, promising to be there. The last he remembered, shutting his eyes, was the sound of the front door opening and closing, and that same sweet song from the chimes inside.
*
Abu Yussuf woke late, the curtains still tightly drawn, the motel room in darkness. He lay in the bed for a moment or two, staring at the crack of light down the middle of the big picture window. He could hear the whine of a chain-saw near by. Further away, the growl of a truck, getting fainter all the time. Apart from that, there was nothing.
The old man got out of bed, padding across the room, tugging on the cord at the side of the window, opening the curtains. Arriving in darkness, he’d had an impression of trees and water. He’d heard the water, walking in from the car, and he’d smelt it, the chill breath of a river or a stream. It had been quiet, too, miles from the Interstate, no traffic on the empty country roads.
The curtains open, he gasped at the view, blinking in the sudden light. The hotel was surrounded by mountains. They towered above him, peak after peak, the dark greens of the pine forest turning to bare rock, blacks and browns, above the tree-line. He shook his head, marvelling at the transformation, a day and a half at the wheel, New York to up here, Maine, the very top of the US, the last page on the map. He turned away from the window, reaching for his clothes, remembering the decision he’d taken the previous evening. They might be looking for the car. They might have a description. Time to change the number-plate. Time for a different colour.
He dressed quickly, stepping out of his room, skipping breakfast, going straight to the car. Driving in the previous evening, he’d noticed a garage and a couple of stores in a village down the road. He’d go there first, find out where he could hire equipment, make some enquiries. Later, midday, he’d phone Amer again, tell him where he’d got to, tell him what was happening.
He drove south, every bend in the road offering a new mountain, a fresh view. The big, broad-leaved trees by the road were ablaze with autumn, a deep russet, the branches stirring in the breeze, the air perceptibly colder through the open window. Two miles down the road, he found the village. The garage was open, an old man in denim overalls pumping gasoline into an ancient pick-up. Two women were talking outside a hardware store next door.
Abu Yussuf parked the Oldsmobile and walked across the road. He hated travelling in daylight now, uncertain what the police might or might not know, aware all the time of the telltale exhaust-pipes, one real, one not. He pushed open the door of the hardware store and stepped in. There was a special smell about the place. He could smell wax, and hemp, and wood, a pungent resinous smell. He went to the counter, explaining himself, what he wanted. The woman behind the counter looked dubious. The village was tiny. The garage didn’t do that kind of thing. He’d have to go somewhere bigger, Houlton maybe, or even back to Bangor. Best thing to do, buy a paper, look in the classified ads, places offering that kind of service. The old man nodded thanking her, taking a paper, paying for it. The door banged shut behind him, and he walked slowly back to the car, the paper folded under his arm, enjoying the brisk warmth of the sunshine, the smell of the forest in the wind.
He got into the car, sitting back, taking his time, unfolding the paper, looking for the classified ads. Foreign news was on page five. His eye drifted down the page, then stopped. There was a grainy black and white photograph. It showed a line of youths, their faces masked. There were soldiers in the foreground, nearer the camera. They had helmets and shields. Some of them carried guns. The old man frowned, gazing at the photograph, recognizing the building in the background, the chest-high gates surrounding the Court House scrolled with barbed wire. Ramallah, he thought. He studied the photograph for a moment longer, looking for faces he might know, then his eye went to the headline underneath, his lips moving slowly, spelling out of the words, one by one. JAIL DEATH PROVOKES RIOT, the headline read.
The old man shut his eyes for a moment, shaking his head, trying to dislodge the headline, trying to make it go away, but seconds later it was still there. He moistened his lips. His lips were dry. He read on through the text, a stranger in the jungle, a path he didn’t know, every footfall fraught with danger. Then, abruptly, he saw her name. Hala. His Hala. His wife. The mother of his sons. Dead. Killed. In an Israeli military prison. He stared out through the windshield, seeing nothing, no trees, no autumn, no mountains, hearing the youths screaming abuse, the wailing sirens, the grim-faced Israelis with their megaphones and their broken Arabic, the smack of wood on flesh, the olive-green tide of soldiers, storming forward. He hesitated for a moment, breathless, sweating, then he reached for the ignition key, turning it, knowing what he had to do.
14
Sullivan was outside the Oval Office within a minute, answering the Presidential summons. So far the day’s news had been excellent: the United Nations, up in New York, was on the verge of voting for an air embargo of Iraq. Sources within the Security Council were predicting a near-unanimous ‘yes’. Better still, Eduard Shevardnadze, the Soviet Foreign Minister, had told the US Ambassador at the UN that Moscow was now prepared to back the use of force to free Kuwait. Nothing, no single gesture, could have pleased the President more. It was the living proof that the Cold War was over and won, the humbled Soviet superstate turning against the regime they had once backed and armed.
Sullivan knocked twice on the door and went in. The President was sitting by the fire, his long frame occupying one corner of the sofa. He glanced up from reading a brief, his forefinger anchored in the middle of the page. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Take a seat here.’
Sullivan sat down. Over the last four days, the relationship between himself and the President had cooled. It was a difficult thing to measure, but Sullivan, who had a gift for sensing the political temperature, knew it was so. The phone had stopped ringing, the spontaneous calls for advice or a minute’s conversation. His mailbag had lightened. His name was suddenly missing from the circulation list of key policy documents. And, most ominous of all, he’d been excluded from two crucial meetings in the last twenty-four hours, both of them principals-only, his kind of people, honchos with real clout. His turf, that handful of squares on the gameboard that was Washington, was definitely under threat.
Sullivan sat down and the President smiled at him, nodding at the coffee-pot, returning to the brief. He read for perhaps five minutes, saying nothing, concentrating on the text. Sullivan poured himself a coffee, not touching it, leaving it on the low table between the two sofas. Finally the President looked up, closing the file, laying it face down on the cushion beside him.
‘Good news and bad news,’ he said brightly. ‘Both from Tel Aviv.’
‘Sir?’
‘The bad news you’ll know. Shamir is off the leash. He’s prepared to mobilize against Saddam and he’s told him so. More to the point, he’s told us too.’
‘Meaning?’
The President pulled a face, his eyes going to the buff file beside him. Sullivan could see the State Department seal on the back cover. It was a diplomatic brief, probably sourced direct, from Tel Aviv.
The President leaned forward. ‘Meaning he’ll pre-empt any moves west by Saddam. If Saddam lifts a finger, pow!’ He smacked his fist into the open palm of his other hand, a favourite gesture. ‘The guy’s history.’
Sullivan nodded. ‘But what’s he saying? Specifically?’
‘Nothing. But you wouldn’t expect him to spell it out.’ He paused, reaching for the coffee-pot. ‘The Pentagon guys are pretty clear about it. In the first place, he’d send airstrikes. He’d go for the airfields. He’d knock out his planes on the ground. Then—’ he shrugged ‘—he’d go looking for the Scuds. The Republican Guards. Any damn thing Saddam could use against him.’ He paused again, pouring the coffee. ‘You know these guys. When push comes to shove, th
ey’re single-minded. You know what matters to them.’
‘Tel Aviv? Jerusalam?’
‘Sure. And the rest of it.’ He shook his head. ‘Regardless.’
Sullivan nodded again, reaching for his own cup. The coffee was cold, but he swallowed it none the less. The President was right. The news couldn’t be worse. The day the Israelis bombed Iraq, the coalition would be history. The Egyptians would pull out, the Syrians would go, even the Moroccans and the Spanish might send their regrets. Should that happen, it would be a very different war. Without the backing of the UN, without a multinational Task Force, the US presence in the Gulf would be seen for what it really was: naked self-interest, the old battle for cheap oil, the First World against the Also-Rans.
Sullivan looked up. ‘And the good news?’ he grunted.
The President nodded slowly, thoughtfully, studying him across the table.
‘Our friends with the nerve gas …’ he said at last.
‘Sir?’
‘The Israelis have found them.’
Sullivan stared at him. ‘Found them?’
‘Well …’ The President smiled. ‘I guess not found them. But yes, they know who they are.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
‘They told us. This morning. Fresh stuff. Good stuff. Hot from the oven.’
‘What did they say?’
The President looked at Sullivan for a moment, the accusation plain in his face. Then he produced a yellow strip of paper from his pocket. He unfolded it, smoothing it on his knee. ‘Two names,’ he said slowly. ‘Ali Karami. And Abu Yussuf.’ He looked up. ‘Mean anything?’
Sullivan nodded. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘The first one. Ali. He was the kid they found up in the Catskills.’ He paused. ‘We knew that already. It checks out. He was the kid who disappeared from the hotel up in New York. The night the first guy got gassed. We knew that. We had that one already. It’s under control.’
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