The Covenant

by Ragen, Naomi

  In the midst of the dark, shifting shadows whose every revelation was suspect, a cause for a new rush of blood, a greater beating of the heart, a tightening of the grip around the small, vulnerable flesh of the precious child nestled in his arms, Jon tried to pray.

  Snippets of prayers would come to him, like large flakes of snow drifting down soundlessly from the branches of his memory that jutted out in all directions: his time in the army, his days in yeshiva, his childhood rituals: He sustains the living with loving kindness, revives the dead with great compassion, supports the falling, heals the sick, unchains the bound.

  He touched the filthy floor. His fingers rubbed together, feeling the gritty white film. He keeps His faith with those who sleep in the dust.

  Am I worthy, he wondered. Worthy of God’s intervention on my behalf? Or must the course of events, the freedom God gave each man to choose between good and evil, be allowed to unfold unhampered? Was it right, fair, to ask for a miracle?

  I don’t know, he thought. These are decisions for God. All I can do is pray. All I can do is ask.

  I trust in no man, nor do I rely on any angel but only in the God of Heaven who is the true God, he found himself repeating again and again. May the Father of compassion have compassion upon the heavily burdened. May He deliver our souls from evil hours. He who avenges blood has remembered them, He has not forgotten the cry of the humble. Those who were innocently slaughtered will not have died in vain.

  Old words—hundreds, thousands of years old—whispered in defiance and defeat in Masada; cried out on torture racks of Inquisitorial prisons; murmured by cracked, trembling lips in Majdanek . . . Had it helped any of them, he wondered for the first time. Brought any comfort? Or had they all died in agony anyway, burned in Auto de Fe’s, slashed by Cossacks’ swords, pierced by Ukrainian gunshots, suffocated by Nazi gas, torn to pieces by Islamic bombs . . .? He did not know. Only one thing was clear to him: he had no control over what would be done to him. The only thing he could choose was how he felt and how he behaved.

  When there was nothing left to gain, nothing more to lose, when one was face-to-face with the moment of greatest despair, to speak to God in love and thanks, rather than to curse Him and one’s fate, was the ultimate choice of any human creature, and perhaps the ultimate expression of one’s humanity. He drew comfort from the idea that millions of his people—facing a fate like his—had chosen to love God and believe; and that through the ages, enough prayers had been answered not only to ensure survival, but also to build an entire country on, a country that had blossomed like the most beautiful flower from the burnt and ravaged earth.

  The land of Israel is beautiful and blooming. Who built, who planted all of us together.

  Who would have imagined it possible?

  Apartment houses, lovely red-tiled villas by a warm sea? And factories and farms, and orchards? And so many books and plays and music and art and museums and libraries and universities! And synagogues on every square block, and study halls filled with chanting Talmud students. And an army of brave, handsome young men and women, like the young Israelites who wandered out of the desert under Joshua, ready to confront the walls of Jericho.

  That too was from God.

  He hugged liana gently, feeling her bones, her flesh, sensing the strong young flow of life that ran through her veins. If you can’t answer all my prayers, dear God, please answer this one: Let my children live! Let them go on—as our people have always gone on, generation after generation—to create something beautiful out of the ugliness. Let their mother live, to bear more children and raise them. Even—he thought, swallowing hard—if I can’t be here. Even if they have another father. Let the living go on, the building, the beauty. Let the incredible story of my people go on and on and on . . .

  He wiped the tears from his cheeks. He felt suddenly warm with the vital, young warmth of the child who nestled against his chest. And in that warmth, he felt he’d heard God’s answer.

  He put his hand in his pocket, touching the place where Nouara’s picture had been. One of the terrorists had found it, looked it over curiously, and then begun to laugh. What do the words mean, Jon had asked him. To his surprise, the man had answered him: “It means: ‘He who has health has hope. He who has hope has everything.’”

  He’d laughed, tearing it up. “You have nothing.”

  Thank you, Nouara, he thought, remembering. Thank you.

  He heard the rattle of the chains and locks, then saw a sudden ray of light on the floor as the door opened. He stiffened as the child buried her face in his chest. The room was suddenly flooded with light. liana looked up, surprised, then laughed, jumping out of his arms. He looked up, startled, wondering if he was dreaming.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Tul Karem, Samaria (West Bank)

  Thursday, May 9, 2002

  10:00 A.M.

  ISMAEL ABADI SAT in his living room in Tul Karem rewinding the second videotape from Bahama, which he had just picked up and watched for the first time. It was all right. The best that animal Bahama could manage. He thought of the way the child was dressed: the new, frilly dress they sold in children’s clothing stores in Shechem and East Jerusalem, a dress no Jewish child would wear. But at least she had been fed, bathed, her hair combed and tied back with bows. The doctor looked weary, but only a bit bruised. One would never suspect the beatings he’d been subjected to. The child, thankfully, had so far been spared.

  When Ismael thought of her, of any child, in the same place with that maniac Bahama, a chill ran through his body. But at least one thing was clear: a woman had been there to care for her. Maybe one with a heart, he hoped, not some fanatic Hamas or Fatah type who had successfully erased the last spark of human intelligence, decency and compassion from their soul. These were the new leaders of Islam. The hope of the Palestinian people.

  It made him nauseous.

  Sometimes he thought that he had been cursed with too much intelligence. Too much curiosity. How had the passion for a homeland turned into a passion for killing? If the Israelis moved out of the Middle East tomorrow, all of these groups would have to find new reasons to go on, because they didn’t know how to do anything else. They would start killing Jordanians next. And then Egyptians. Then they’d take over the oil fields of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. And in the end, when they’d taken over the entire world, they’d have to start blowing themselves up, because that’s all they knew how to do.

  They didn’t want a country. Not really. The boring matters of tax laws, health care, importing potatoes, opening sewage treatment plants didn’t interest them at all, nor were any of them educated or equipped to deal with any of those matters. They never imagined beyond the waving of the flags, the shooting of the guns on the day that the last Zionist Jews were either blown up or raised their hands in defeat.

  Not a single one of them had given a single thought to the day after.

  He shrugged, filled with a familiar feeling of contempt.

  He had just enough time to deliver the tape for the afternoon news and redeem himself with Julia for disappearing after the press conference, leaving her stranded.

  “Are you going now?” his wife asked.

  He looked at her pretty, dark face, the hair loose around her shoulders as she never wore it outside the house. She still looked like the sixteen-year-old he had fallen in love with at his brother’s wedding. After so many births, her body had not thickened, like so many Arab women’s. It was still lovely.

  “Yes, I must go.”

  He went into the children’s rooms. The empty beds of his three young sons who had already left for school were still disheveled with their nighttime tossing. The light was coming in from outside the window, filling the space with a sense of peace and warmth. In the second bedroom, Mustapha, two, and Wajin, four, were playing with their toys. His daughter was shrieking with laughter. She had long, dark curls like her mother and in the closet hung a dress very like the one the Jewish child was wearing in the latest
tape. He reached down and lifted her into his arms, kissing her gently on the top of her head. A wave of indescribable warmth and sadness and fear washed over him. He set her back down.

  “Will you be back early?” his wife asked, leaning against the door, looking him over curiously.

  “Inshallah.” God willing.

  “Inshallah”, she answered, her parting smile mixed with doubt.

  Even though his car had yellow Israeli license plates, he never worried about random sniper fire from wandering gunmen. He was well known in the area, and the giant letters TV spelled out with masking tape on the rear window could be seen for miles. He rounded the bend. To his shock, he saw an IDF roadblock. The Israeli army had pulled out eight years ago when the Oslo Accords were signed. This was an autonomous Palestinian area. What were the Israelis doing here?

  He slowed down. It was unusual. There had been no incidents on this road, nothing warranting this kind of blatant breach of the Oslo Accords. He felt his stomach tighten, his leg cramp from tension. He stopped the car, taking out his papers and rolling down the window. He found himself face-to-face with a submachine gun.

  “Get out of the car and put your hands up!” a giant of a man swore at him in English. These were not IDF uniforms, he realized, feeling a slow roll of panic.

  “I’m not going anywhere! Who are you?”

  A terrifying burst of gunfire flattened all his tires.

  He opened the door and jumped out, shaking, his hands up. “Don’t shoot!! This is a mistake. I’m a journalist . . .”

  He felt his windpipe crush and he gasped for air. “Shut the fuck up, Ismael. We know exactly who you are.” He felt his sleeve being rolled up and the sharp prick of an injection. When he came to, he tried to lift his arms, but they were chained to the back of a chair. So were his legs, he realized. The thick material of a hood blinded him.

  “Where am I?” he murmured hoarsely.

  “Oh, Sleeping Beauty’s up,” he heard someone with a Texas accent say, then footsteps. “We are asking the questions. And you are giving the answers. We want to know where the good doctor and his child are being held, and what your instructions are.”

  “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “Buzz him,” someone said. A pain like nothing he had ever felt before crashed through his body. He screamed.

  “Look, Isma-whatever-your-name-is, ass-in-the-air-turd, I’d be happy to buzz you straight through to your seventy-two virgins if you’re not going to settle down and cooperate. We are working under deadline here . . .” John Mellon told him.

  “First, tell me who you are,” Ismael repeated stubbornly.

  “We are your worst nightmare. We don’t have an ideology, no conscience and the rules of the Geneva Convention don’t apply. We kill people, and get paid well for it. Sound familiar, you terrorist scum? We’ve been paid to rescue the doc and his kid. So start talking.”

  Ismael said nothing, his heart beating rapidly.

  “Okay. You leave me no choice. Bring her in.”

  “Ismael.”

  It was his wife’s voice, he understood, stunned.

  “Abu, Abu . . .” He heard his children’s voices. They were crying, terrified.

  Wajin, Mustapha.

  His hands gripped the cold metal chain, slippery with sweat. “You don’t understand. Let me explain . . .”

  “Okay. Which one of us is going to rape this bitch first?” someone shouted.

  “WAIT!” he screamed. “I’ll do anything you want. Anything.”

  “We want names. And we want addresses. And we want them now, Ismael.”

  “Yes,” he said, slumping forward. “But take my family home first.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not an option. You get your family back when Elise Margulies gets hers.”

  “I had nothing to do with the kidnapping!” he screamed. “I’m a driver for BCN . . .”

  “And a long-standing Hamas member . . . We know all about it . . . so cut the crap.”

  He took a deep breath. “You don’t understand . . . It’s not so simple . . . What is it you want?”

  “Cut the crap!”

  “An address? Where they are?”

  “For starters.”

  “Even if you show up there with all your weapons, you’ll never get them out alive.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because it’s all booby-trapped. And you all stick out like a sore thumb—so big and blond . . . And your accent. The minute they whiff you, they’ll know.”

  “Not if you go with us.”

  ”If I show up and they aren’t expecting me, they’ll kill me and then they’ll blow up the house.”

  “What would they need to be expecting you?”

  “A coded message from Hamas headquarters in Europe.”

  “And who sends those out?”

  “The person in charge of all Hamas operations. Musa el Khalil.”

  There was a short silence.

  “So what do you suggest?”

  “If you can force Musa to send them a message telling them to extend the deadline, to transfer the prisoners to another cell . . . to me and my cell, for example. We’d have a small chance.”

  “Why small?”

  “Because the person in charge is an animal. Unpredictable. He could blow at any minute. The doctor could already be dead . . .”

  “Look, how do we get in touch with this Musa? Address, phone?”

  “I can’t tell you that . . .”

  “Bring his wife back . . .”

  Ismael writhed, screaming curses. “You idiots. I can’t tell you because I don’t know! Nobody does . . . Hamas cells are set up in such a way that you only know the four or five people in your own cell. That way, when someone is caught, he can’t give away the rest of the operation . . .”

  He heard his wife scream.

  “Wait . . . leave her . . .”John Mellon shouted. “Let me think . . . Look, Ismael. How would you suggest somebody find this Musa?”

  “Go to the money.”

  “Money?”

  “Hamas funding. It’s through Islamic charities. The biggest one is in Saudi Arabia, called the Benevolent Charity Fund. It’s headed by a member of the Saudi royal family. They would know.”

  “I’ve got to make a phone call,” John said suddenly. “Keep an eye on him. I’ll be right back.”

  He returned in a few minutes. “Give us the information: the safe house address, how to get there, how it’s set up . . .”

  Ismael hesitated. “I can’t do that. If you fail, which is one hundred percent certain, you have no idea what they’ll do to my family.”

  “Buzz him. No, bring in the little girl . . .”

  Ismael’s hands gripped the cold metal chain. “You are no better than they are . . .” He screamed, writhing in helplessness.

  Suddenly, the room exploded with noises. Ismael heard his wife and children scream. He shouted out their names. There were scattered gunshots. Furniture crashed to the floor. And then, there was silence.

  “Okay. Enough,” a new voice suddenly commanded. “Put your hands up. The house is surrounded.”

  Ismael slumped down in his chair, feeling his body break out into a cold sweat. He covered his head with his hands, terrified. “Don’t shoot!” he pleaded. “I’m a prisoner!”

  “Relax,” a deep voice said mildly, bending down to unlock the chains around Ismael’s feet and hands. He felt the heavy material lifted off his face.

  Who would ever have thought the face of an Israeli colonel would fill him with so much joy?

  “Amos?”

  “Ismael. Long time no hear . . .” The tall, angular man bent down, grinning.

  For four out of the past six years that he had been working together with Shin Bet, passing over vital information about Hamas’s planned terrorist activities, he had come to understand that there were three things he had in common with this Israeli Jew: both of them loved their homeland and people, both of them loved l
ife, and both of them hated the brutality of murderous idealists. He put his hands to his throbbing temples. “Get my wife and children out of here! Please!”

  “You have my word, Ismael. Nothing will happen to them. They’ll be in a safe place.”

  “What the hell is going on here? What was this all about?” Ismael shouted in confusion, looking at the tall Americans with their hands behind their backs, the Israelis handcuffing them and confiscating their weapons.

  “Is this really necessary?” John Mellon asked, his big hands pressing against the handcuffs. “You know we are on the same side.”

  “Not exactly. I work for the Israeli government, and this is the land of Israel . . .” the colonel told him curtly. “And you work for?”

  “I thought your government decided it was the land of Arafat and no Israelis allowed, even to rescue your own kids . . .” John said contemptuously.

  The colonel’s jaw flinched.

  “What gave us away, anyway?”

  “One of your operatives in Gaza was picked up with your second weapons order . . . We see you got your first one.” He gestured toward the growing munitions pile in the center of the room.

  The Americans glanced at each other knowingly. The local boy. Figures.

  “Are you boys aware of those weapons-smuggling tunnels dug underneath the houses in Gaza to Egypt?”

  “Yes,” the colonel said tersely. “We know all about them.”

  “And are you planning to close them down at some point? Or are you waiting for Arafat to do that too?” John taunted him.

  The colonel said nothing. The tunnels were an old story. They put them underneath children’s bedrooms. The only way to destroy them was to bomb apartment houses.

  “So why didn’t you pick us up immediately?”

  “Well, we were curious about what you knew that we didn’t.”

  The big men glanced at each other. “So, now you know. You’ve got him. Your video delivery service and Hamas operative . . .”

  “I have nothing to do with any of this . . . I’m the victim here. They kidnapped me and my family, tortured me . . . I have a British passport. I’ve got a press pass, credentials . . .”