Forty-Eight X (22 page)

The hotel manager himself ushered his special guests to their luxury suite in the Peninsula Hotel. Fala was clearly exhausted.

“Stay here and rest,” Joshua insisted.

“I can take a couple of Advil,” she said. “I’m fine.”

“Sweetheart, as much as I enjoy your company, your Muslim roots and Arabic fluency are not important here. We’ll discuss anything I find when I get back.” He kissed her gently on the forehead and closed the drapes, darkening the room. “You just need a dozen hours of sleep. I’ll have the hotel doctor come up and give you something. Don’t worry. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

He was right, and she didn’t argue. She closed her eyes and was asleep moments after he departed.

Aman had arranged for the Filipino army to answer any questions Joshua Krantz would pose. A Filipino major was assigned to be his host and guide. Krantz had the timetable fixed in his head. An army helicopter would take little more than an hour to travel the three hundred kilometers to the “scene of the crime” on Jolo Island, south of Mindinao. He would inspect the site for a few minutes, discover the same slaughter he had seen before, and fly right back. He could accomplish his mission and return before Fala awoke.

The site indeed looked like a terrorist camp in the middle of a jungle—a scattering of thatched-roof huts, tunnels, and lookout towers in trees. The bodies were gone, but the dark red stains of a bloody carnage were everywhere—in the huts, on the ground, splattered on the surrounding vegetation.

“Did you find any unusual weapons?” Krantz asked.

“Nothing but the usual—Kalashnikovs.”

There were no witnesses to speak to. No survivors. No need to stay any longer. But Krantz knew his job was incomplete.

“I have to see the bodies.”

“We have plenty of photos.”

“No, I have to see them.”

“There were many,” the Filipino major responded. “They’ve been buried.”

“All of them?”

“In the heat they rot. It’s a terrible odor. And there are vultures here and bugs as big as birds.”

Krantz shrugged. “How hard would it be to unbury them?”

“Are you a
bissil meshuga?”
a bit crazy? the major responded with the little Yiddish he learned from his time training in Israel.

“Yeah, a lot of people I know would say that. But I can’t go home and say I saw a bunch of pictures. You’ve got to know that.”

“Meshugana,”
the major grumbled again. But he made no more arguments and began making some calls.

Krantz imagined that this disinterment was going to involve some expensive quid pro quo. In fact, it did later involve some expensive bargaining. To encourage Israel’s silence regarding what Krantz would subsequently find there on Jolo, the United States subsidized the Philippines in their purchase of Israeli armaments. As opposed to Krantz’s expectation that his request would “cost” Israel, the Jewish state actually made a hefty profit on the deal.

The same bulldozers that had dug the trench and buried dozens of rebel bodies two days earlier now dug up the same site. Krantz jumped into the trench when the bodies appeared. The face mask he wore did little to blunt the stench of death, that malicious and sul-furous odor of rotting flesh and feces. There was also the noxious smell of lye that had been tossed over the corpses. The Filipino major stood far back and even his eyes watered. One after the other, Krantz looked over the bodies. They all appeared horribly shredded by a weapon consistent with the Alexander scythe. What was even more interesting was that some had their limbs literally torn from their bodies. What kind of strength did these American soldiers have? About to move on, he noticed one body whose face and lips had been torn away. But there was something held between the corpse’s clenched teeth. It looked like a piece of tissue. Krantz pried the mouth open and found what looked like a piece of an ear. It was thick, black, and coarse, perhaps from exposure to weather or lye—but no other tissue on any of the victims’ bodies seemed to have discolored the same. It was in the victim’s mouth. Maybe that’s what saliva did to tissue? He would have to find out. Joshua put the fragment into a small plastic envelope and tucked it into his shirt pocket. He spent a few minutes more turning over bodies and finally decided he had enough and perhaps had found what he needed.

“Anything?” the major asked.

Krantz shook his head no.

The bulldozers were covering over the burial site again when their helicopter lifted off. It was an even quicker return to Manila. He had been gone less than six hours and expected Fala to be still sleeping.

Krantz asked to be dropped off first at the Peninsula. He wanted to see how Fala was feeling. But his major got a cell phone call en route and drove him instead where he was ordered—to the Israeli embassy.

Krantz was cordially ushered into the ambassador’s office. Like all Israeli missions abroad, it was an inner sanctum, a windowless office—secure from being targeted from outside snipers and well insulated from any electronic eavesdropping. After some polite introductions, Krantz quickly presented the evidence he had found at the Jola island site and asked that it be sent to
Aman
for identification and possible DNA analysis.

“Could you get me a driver back to the hotel?” he asked. “I think my business with
Aman
is done. They no longer have any need for an archaeologist.”

“Colonel,” the ambassador began, trying to calmly explain an unpleasant and perplexing problem, “Miss al-Shohada is not at your hotel.”

“Is she ill? Did they take her to a hospital?”

“No. No. The hospital doctor went to the room as you arranged. But he found the room in disarray, and Miss al-Shohada was not there. He called the police, and our people have been involved, too. But she is nowhere to be found.”

“And you’re sure she just didn’t go out for a cup of tea?”

“The room was torn apart. She clearly struggled. We are sure she was taken. We suspect she has been kidnapped, but there has been no ransom demand, no messages, no threats. In these cases I can’t say for sure, but we don’t know if she’s still alive.”

Krantz felt like a fish caught on a hook. He ached. It was a terrible painless pain. He was being pulled to where he didn’t want to go, but he knew he had no choice.

No, I am not an archaeologist
, Krantz thought to himself.
I
am a fucking spy. And this business working for
Aman
is not yet over
.

K
rantz spent three days in Manila with the Filipino police and military looking for Fala. They were thorough and not insensitive to his concerns. He was an honored guest in their country, and understandably they felt responsible. But Fala was nowhere to be found. There were video monitors at the hotel entrance. She certainly did not leave through the main entrance. How was it possible that a tall, beautiful Egyptian woman could disappear so completely? But no one had seen her. No struggles had been reported. No large packages carried out. There was no forced entry into the room. Desperate, Colonel Krantz even made inquiries at the Egyptian and American embassies. They were sympathetic but just as unhelpful.

On his final day, Krantz decided to review the tapes of everyone who had checked into the Peninsula from the time of his arrival and two days prior. An archaeologist’s talent was being meticulous in sifting through material, looking for clues to the past, tossing aside the detritus to find the bones of history and the truth. He finally discovered one person of interest. A businessman, an American, had checked into the hotel the day before their arrival. He had two oversized pieces of luggage with him, and two porters had struggled to load them onto a cargo rack. Although the American checked out the next afternoon, he left without luggage. Where had it gone? And why leave without it? Could he have managed to stuff Fala into a suitcase? It wasn’t possible. Krantz provided the American’s name, photo, and passport information to the Americans and of course, to the Israelis. No one had a record of the man. His identity was a forgery. So Krantz had a suspect but still plenty of questions and no answers.

If she had been taken, it had to be because of this spy business. And he was responsible for getting her involved in that. It had something to do with Alexander’s battle scythe, Maimun, the Right Hand of God, terrorists, the Americans, or—well, he didn’t know. But Krantz had spent years searching for obscure clues about ancient civilizations, for knowledge that lay hidden for hundreds or thousands of years; he would make no less an effort to find the woman he loved.

On his flight back to Tel Aviv, he read through several newspapers. He was thorough in reviewing the standard world bad news—typhoons, terrorism, political corruption, global wars, economic downturns. He even glanced through the fluff about celebrities and bizarre events. Nothing was enlightening. There was a clue in a small column in the back pages of the
Manila Times
—unfortunately, Krantz didn’t recognize it.

The
Manila Times
reported: “The United States embassy today issued a warning to Americans traveling in the Philippines to avoid the Asecuro Chimpanzee Sanctuary. Several chimps escaped from the fenced shelter on Sunday. Two fled through the park and still elude capture. Several others attacked tourists in a taxicab, causing the passengers minor injuries. Those animals were shot by local police. ‘We don’t know how the chimps were able to escape and why they became violent,’ said animal keeper, Marco Gutierrez. ‘Chimpanzee attacks are rare but not unheard of,’ he explained.”

At about the same time Krantz’s flight for Israel left Manila, Fala was awakening four thousand miles away. She knew she had been kidnapped and probably drugged, but she had no idea of how, or why, or where she now was. The room her captors had placed her in looked like a modest hotel room, nothing luxurious like her lodgings at the Peninsula, no flat-screen television, five-hundred-thread-count
frette
linens, marble floors, or lavish furnishings. She had a queen-sized bed with clean linens, a coffeepot on an old scratched bureau, a television with a remote, and a minibar—comfortable but not lavish accommodations. But she wasn’t restrained. She splashed cold water on her face to shock herself into a little more astuteness and then she tried the door. Unexpectedly, it was unlocked. She was not a prisoner. Looking out, she viewed a sterile hallway with a lot of other serially numbered hotel room doors. There was an ice machine in the middle of the corridor and an elevator at the end. She thought she might run. Perhaps her captors had forgotten to lock her room and would be coming back. But where was she and to where would she run? She parted the curtains in her room to reveal a glass door that led out to a balcony. When she opened it, a rush of dry, incredibly hot air almost smothered her. She was on the third floor of a building that overlooked a broad white sand beach and an oasis of palm trees surrounding a pool populated by sunbathers. And there was a distinct odor of something cooking below, something familiar but unfamiliar. She was at some resort, she thought. But was this some beach in the Caribbean or the Pacific? Was she in the Middle East or Africa? She thought about yelling for help, but the door was unlocked. She could walk out and simply ask for help. She was about to do just that when her phone rang.

“Ahlan,”
she said “hello” in Arabic.

“Ahlan bik,”
came the polite Arabic response; “and hello. I hope you’re feeling better.”

“I would feel better if I knew where I am and why I’m here.”

“All in good time, Miss al-Shohada. Why don’t you take your time, get dressed, and I’ll meet you in the lobby. There’s a buffet breakfast right outside.”

“Who are you?” Fala asked.

“Oh, I’m sorry. My name is Dr. Joshua Jaymes and I’ve been assigned to show you around. I’ll be waiting for you in the lobby. Take your time. Good-bye.”

The accent was American and that odor of something cooking below—she recognized it now. It was bacon and eggs. The mullah was right, Fala thought.