“If that’s what you want, you should snatch it up. A Land Rover set up like this is common in South Africa but not so much in America.”
“Okay,” Hana said decisively. “I’ll take it. What’s next?”
“I can deliver it to you tomorrow either at your office or your home. All I’ll need from you is a cashier’s check for the purchase price and associated fees. I can break that down in an email.”
“Could you bring it to my house tomorrow evening around six o’clock?”
“Send me your address. Will your husband be at home? I know you want to surprise him.”
“Probably not. He’s out of the country, and I don’t know when he’ll be back.” Hana instantly regretted the last part of her comment.
“See you tomorrow evening.”
Five minutes later Hana received an email from Abdul. Everything looked in order, and she went downstairs to a branch bank in the building to get a cashier’s check. She worked on multimillion-dollar deals for clients all the time, but this was the largest monetary transaction she’d ever done on her own. The withdrawal didn’t leave much in her savings account. Hana slipped the large check into her purse.
“You never told me about the new case Jakob Brodsky wanted to talk to you about,” Janet said when Hana returned to her office.
Hana quickly summarized the conversation with Jakob and Vladimir Ivanov.
“That only sounds a little bit safer than tracking down terrorists so you can sue them.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not getting involved beyond helping Jakob locate an expert who can advise them about ancient artifacts. Mr. Collins is keeping me plenty busy.”
Chapter 9
The following morning Daud rented a vehicle at the fishing resort. The only car available for lease all the way to Amman was a BMW sports car. Daud bought a pair of dark sunglasses in the gift shop at the fishing resort along with a few souvenirs that would support his story as a businessman who purchased a few trinkets. He put on the sunglasses and was careful to obey the speed limit. Stopping at a red light in the center of Sharm el-Sheikh, he glanced sideways as a taxi pulled up beside him. It was owned by the same company as the cab driven by the young man who’d taken him and the Kolisnyks to the marina. The taxi driver looked very young. When the light changed, Daud pulled forward, and the taxi driver honked his horn. Daud flinched as the vehicle sped by him, but then realized the driver was impatient with another driver who hadn’t responded fast enough to the changing light. Daud approached the hotel where he’d stayed. A police vehicle was parked in front of the lobby. Only upon reaching the edge of Sharm el-Sheikh did Daud begin to relax.
It was a three-hour drive to the Taba crossing into Israel. From there, Daud could drive across the desert to the Jordanian border. When he reached Taba, he slowed to a stop. There were fifteen or sixteen vehicles in front of him, including four tour buses. Three Egyptian border guards surrounded the first car in line. Beyond the guards was the passport control office where Daud would pay an exit fee in order to leave the country. His greatest concern was that photographs of his face from the restaurant had fallen into the hands of the police in Sharm el-Sheikh and been sent to the border guards.
The car at the front of the line was cleared to move forward. Next came a bus, and Daud watched as the people on board slowly got off. He checked his watch and eyed the border patrol office where any information about him would be received. Fences extended on either side of the road. It could easily be over an hour before he reached the front of the line.
A slender young border patrol officer with the wispy beginnings of a mustache on his upper lip began walking down the row of vehicles with a piece of paper in his hand. He stopped at each car and looked at the driver and passengers. He reached the BMW, and Daud lowered the driver’s-side window.
“Because of the number of cars waiting to cross, we’re going to open another line,” the young man said.
Daud couldn’t see what was in the young man’s hand.
“I’ve always wanted to ride in one of these,” the young man continued. “The richest man in the village where I grew up drove a BMW. He used to pay me to wash it.”
“This is a rental,” Daud replied. “I’m on my way to Amman.”
The guard walked around the back of the car to the passenger seat. Without warning he suddenly opened the door and got in. Daud jumped. The guard then placed the paper in his hand on the dashboard. Daud could barely make out a grainy photo of a man, but he didn’t remove his sunglasses to get a better look. The guard rubbed his hand across the leather seat.
“Nice,” the young man said. “Drive over there.”
Daud pulled out of line and drove forward to the designated spot. The Israeli border was less than ten meters away.
“May I see your passport and registration for the vehicle?” the guard asked.
Daud handed him the passport. “The registration is in the glove box,” he said.
The young man looked at the passport. It contained a forged entry stamp from Jordan to Egypt. “You’ve not been traveling very much,” he observed.
“It’s a new passport.”
The guard nodded and opened the glove box to study the registration paperwork.
“This is a good year,” he said as he read. “The next model wasn’t as fast. I think the company was trying to sell them to rich young girls to drive in the city.”
Daud strained to get a better view of the sheet of paper. He was able to make out the name Rasheed Sayyid printed beneath the photo. He immediately adjusted his sunglasses so they were even closer to his eyes. Through the windshield he could see three additional border officers who had left the terminal building and were walking in their direction. The young man returned the registration to the glove box.
“Go to the passport office,” the guard said. “Are you transporting anything?”
“Just a few souvenirs from a fishing resort where I stayed near Sharm el-Sheikh.”
Daud handed the guard the plastic bag of items he’d purchased that morning at the gift shop. Inside the passport office, a bored-looking clerk gave Daud a receipt for the exit fee and stamped his passport. Outside, all four of the border guards were now circling the BMW. As he drew closer, Daud could see a captain’s insignia on the shoulder of one of the men.
“What were you doing in Sharm el-Sheikh?” the officer asked.
“Business meeting.”
“You didn’t drive this vehicle to get there?”
“No, I flew in from Amman. This is a rental.”
The captain pulled the other men aside. They huddled and talked. After a few moments the young guard who’d helped Daud glanced over at him and then touched the weapon on his hip. The captain and the young guard came over to him. The captain asked to see the exit document Daud had received in the passport office. He read it and handed it back to him.
“Have a pleasant trip,” the officer said.
The guard raised a metal bar blocking the road in front of the BMW. Daud waved to the young man as he passed by. Normally, border patrol officers smiled as frequently as guards at Buckingham Palace, but the young man grinned and waved in return.
Daud crossed the invisible line that separated Egypt from Israel and breathed a huge sigh of relief. A sign in Hebrew, Arabic, and English welcomed him to Israel. Never had he felt so welcomed.
* * *
Hana left the office to pick up Sadie.
“Have fun,” Janet said.
“Sadie is a great houseguest if you don’t mind answering a lot of questions. I think she’ll make an awesome trial lawyer when she grows up.”
“She loves everything that has to do with you.”
“And Leon.”
“Take pictures of the two of you doing something fun and send them to me.”
It took forty-five minutes to drive to Sadie’s school that was adjacent to one of the larger synagogues in the city. Two security guards patrolled the line of cars that snaked their way t
o the main building. Teachers on duty connected the right child with the right vehicle. Hana saw Sadie talking to several of her friends. She looked up and waved excitedly. Hana pulled to the curb, and a teacher came over to the car. Hana lowered the window and introduced herself.
“Mr. Neumann notified the office that you would be picking up Sadie,” the woman replied with a smile. “Have a good evening.”
In spite of a recent growth spurt, Sadie still wasn’t tall enough to sit in the front passenger seat of a car. She deposited her backpack and overnight suitcase on the rear floorboard.
“Are we going to pick up Leon?” she asked.
“Yes. Will you tell me about your day?”
It took only one question to launch Sadie into a fifteen-minute summary of her life at school. The little girl was extremely observant and remembered with precise detail what people said and did.
“But I didn’t let Jasmine ignoring me and sitting at the table with Emily and Shakira make me mad,” she said. “I just went over and sat with Katelin and Morgan. That was way more fun because Morgan just got back from a trip to Spain with her parents and older sister. She said the Spanish we’ve been learning at school really works. She talked to people who understood what she was saying. You and Daud went to Spain on your honeymoon, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you go?”
Hana told her about Seville, Grenada, and Cordoba.
“I think Morgan went to Grenada, but I’m not sure.” Sadie paused and looked out the car window for a moment. “If I visited Israel, would I be able to talk to people in Hebrew like Morgan did in Spain?”
Hana answered in Hebrew, and Sadie replied in the same language. The conversation continued for a few more simple sentences.
“That answers your question,” Hana concluded in Hebrew. “Your Hebrew is clear and easy to understand.”
They reached the dog day care center. Hana parked near the front door.
“Come inside with me to get Leon,” she said.
The dog greeted them with several loud barks and trembled with excitement. Sadie knelt down and rubbed the sides of his head with her hands. The dog jumped into the rear seat with her. Sadie spent the rest of the drive talking to Leon. They reached Hana’s house and pulled into the driveway.
“Can I walk him to the corner and back?” Sadie asked.
“I’ll go with you.”
Hana lived on an infrequently traveled dead-end street in a quiet neighborhood, but she wasn’t going to let Sadie out of her sight. On the way to the corner, Leon stopped repeatedly to investigate an interesting smell.
“I wonder what he’s smelling,” Sadie said. “Did you know a dog can smell forty times better than a person?”
When Hana worked as a security officer at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, they regularly used bomb- and drug-sniffing dogs. The animals demonstrated remarkable speed and accuracy. Leon halted for the fourth time at the base of an electric company power pole. When they reached the corner and turned around, Leon began to pull harder on the leash. The only thing that interested Leon more than smells at the end of his nose was the prospect of food in his mouth. Sadie held the leash with both hands.
“Heel!” Hana commanded.
Leon quickly dropped back to Sadie’s side. Sadie patted him on the head.
“Good boy,” she said.
“He wants his supper,” Hana said.
After they’d returned to Hana’s house, Sadie used a bright red cup to scoop three generous helpings of food into Leon’s metal bowl. Hana gave the dog fresh water.
“That will keep him happy for a few minutes while we prepare our dinner. We’ll start with the rest of the hummus you made the other night. I saved it for us to share.”
There was only enough hummus for each of them to eat two pita squares.
“It still tastes good,” Sadie said, “but I can tell it’s not fresh. It makes me more hungry.”
“Shouldn’t you say hungrier?” Hana asked.
Navigating Anglo-Saxon words and their illogical forms was one of the hardest aspects of English for both Hana and Sadie. The girl wrinkled her forehead for a moment and silently mouthed the options.
“Either one is okay, but when I haven’t eaten for a long time, I feel more hungrier,” Sadie answered.
“When did you go a long time without food?”
“On Yom Kippur. My grandparents didn’t eat anything for the whole day. I tried to do it too.”
“That’s called fasting.”
“There wasn’t anything fast about it. It seemed like the day would never end. I drank a glass of milk. I’m not sure if that’s cheating, but it tasted yummy.”
“You’re not fasting tonight. I thought we could make some homemade pizzas.”
A big smile creased Sadie’s face. “Will this be like the last time when I could put anything I wanted on my pizza?” she asked.
“Of course.”
Hana had already prepared the dough. Taking the two lumps from the refrigerator, she let Sadie flatten one of them with a rolling pin while the tan-colored baking stone heated up to 500 degrees in the oven. Sadie liked thin-crust pizza. She was beginning to branch out from generic cheese pizza, and Hana had purchased a variety of toppings. She laid them out on the kitchen counter.
“Here are artichoke hearts, cooked ground beef, diced sun-dried tomatoes, sliced onion, spinach, two kinds of mushrooms, peppers, three varieties of olives—”
“The olives are for you,” Sadie interrupted. “I bet you’ll eat all three.”
“You are correct,” Hana replied, popping a green one into her mouth. “I eat olives any way I can get them.”
There was also Swiss chard, roasted corn, mozzarella, and goat cheese.
“Goat cheese?” Sadie wrinkled her nose.
“I grew up eating it all the time. Ours came from goats in the town where we lived.”
Sadie took a tiny piece of goat cheese and put it in her mouth. Her negative expression didn’t change.
“At least you tried it,” Hana said.
“What will you do with the stuff we don’t put on the pizzas?” Sadie asked.
“Toss it into salads. Nothing will be wasted.”
Sadie carefully spread marinara sauce to the edges of her pizza, sprinkled on mozzarella cheese, and added beef, tomatoes, mushrooms, and corn. She picked up an artichoke heart and nibbled it.
“This is good,” she said before strategically adding one to each quadrant of her pie.
Hana piled on everything except Swiss chard, onions, and spinach. Once the cooking stone was thoroughly heated, Hana slid Sadie’s pizza onto the sizzling rock. Leon had finished eating and stood at the counter with his nose in the air, sniffing the ingredients.
“He smells the goat cheese,” Sadie said. “May I give him a bite?”
Hana rarely offered Leon table scraps. “Yes.”
Sadie held a piece in her open palm. Leon immediately licked it up with his broad tongue. When the edges of the pizza started turning brown, Hana removed it and put hers into the oven.
“It looks yummy,” Sadie said, staring at the bubbling cheese.
Hana took a photo of Sadie and her pizza to show Ben and Janet.
“Help me set the table,” Hana said.
Sadie didn’t yet know where everything went on a table. It was the sort of thing a mother would teach a daughter.
“You sure are quiet,” Sadie said. “What are you thinking about?”
“Sorry,” Hana replied, dodging the question. “If you’re serving dessert at a fancy party, the fork goes on the left side of the plate, and if the dessert is eaten with a spoon, it’s placed on the right side. For regular meals like ours, the dessert utensil is placed above the plate like this.”
Hana placed a spoon in a horizontal position.
“What are we having for dessert?” Sadie asked.
“Ice cream.”
“Chocolate?”
“Double chocolat
e.”
The timer sounded and Hana took her pizza from the oven. Sadie’s pizza had cooled enough that she could eat it. They sat down, and Sadie held out her hand so Hana could hold it while she prayed a blessing in Hebrew.
“I love the way you make the words sound,” Sadie said when she opened her eyes. “But I didn’t understand everything you said.”
“I didn’t just thank God for the food; I also prayed a special blessing for you and your daddy.”
“Will you teach me a Hebrew prayer?”
“I’m sure you’ve been learning them in school.”
“Yeah, but I want to know one that no one else says.”
Hana thought for a moment. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll start with the blessing I just prayed for you and your daddy. I asked God to be close to you all the time and reveal himself to you in a way that you can really know it.”
Sadie was a quick learner, and before they finished a second slice of pizza, she could repeat the prayer without mistakes.
“Can I tell it to my daddy?” she asked. “He’s not that interested in talking Hebrew.”
“Yes, he’ll love it coming from you.”
Sadie was hungry and left only one narrow piece of pizza.
“Homemade pizza is like the hummus,” she said, daintily wiping her mouth with a napkin. “It tastes so much better when you make it yourself. Maybe I’ll be a chef when I grow up.”
After they ate ice cream, Hana let Sadie take a shower and wash her hair with Hana’s shampoo. The little girl came out of the bathroom wearing her pajamas and insisted that Hana smell her hair.
“I hope the smell lasts until I go to school tomorrow,” Sadie said, holding a thick strand of black hair to her nose.
They spent the rest of the evening working on a puzzle and reading to each other. Sadie yawned twice but tried to stifle it.
“You can’t hide that you’re tired,” Hana said. “Brush your teeth, and I’ll tuck you in.”
“And sing a song?”
“Of course.”
While Sadie brushed her teeth, Hana positioned Sadie’s pillow with Fabia propped up on it. After Sadie climbed into bed, Hana tucked the sheet under her chin.
Promised Land Page 8