Olives (30 page)

‘
I’m sorry,
Paul, I don’t mean to take it all out on you. I’m a little...
nervous right now. I’m sorry.’

‘
No, that’s
okay, Daoud. I understand. At least, I think I
understand.’

Ibrahim’s
rumbling voice came through the cloud of a newly lit cigarette. ‘We
think we need to make this public, Paul. If it is out in the open,
we think we might be safe. If Israel has an issue with our scheme
for the water, they should take it up with Jordan. Government to
government. Not this way, not the killing. They cannot go on this
way if people know.’

I nodded, but
my thoughts were a storm of conflicting ideas. The voice of the
Armenian priest came to me. ‘
We seldom have the benefit of certainties, Paul. It is a
luxury we can reserve for our love of God
.’

‘
How can I
help?’

Ibrahim
gestured at the
Mukhabarat
report on
the coffee table. ‘Take this. It’s yours. Daoud has given you the
Jerusalem bid document. Use them. You are a writer. Write. Not for
the Ministry, for the newspaper. The editor of
The Jordan Times
is expecting your call. You know him already, I think. I am
sorry to have been, is it presuming? But I made the
arrangement.’

‘
Presumptuous. But it’s okay. Of course I’ll do anything I can
to help. I’ll call him first thing in the morning. I hope it
works.’

It seemed
like a good time to leave. I picked up the document and walked to
the door. Ibrahim’s voice from behind me sounded casual as I turned
the lock.

‘
Oh, Paul.
Maybe it is a good idea to let your friend from the British Embassy
to know about this document as well.’

A thrill of
fear, alarm and shame burned through me. I paused and then walked
through the door without looking back.

I sat
watching Gerald Lynch drink Turkish coffee from a tiny cup. The
nightclub was empty except for the owner, Nadim, who had let me in
when I knocked on the garish door under an orange and red striped
awning. A fat, sweaty man with jowls and constantly darting eyes,
he brought coffees and an ashtray, mumbling and grinning in a
subservient dance for Lynch before leaving to sit in his back
room.

My head
throbbed with the start of one of the violent headaches which had
been part of my world since the nightclub bomb. The air smelled
faintly of alcohol, cheap perfume, sweat and stale smoke. Lynch
sniffed.

‘
Place is a
dump, but it’s safe. Nadim’s a twat but he knows which side his
bread’s buttered on. Coffee’s good. Try it.’

I took a sip
of the strong, sweet coffee.

Lynch flicked
ash into his saucer. ‘We got the documents. Thanks.’

I looked
across at him, his unshaven face was pale and his blue eyes
bloodshot from lack of sleep – there was no hint of alcohol on his
breath.

‘
I’m not
doing any more for you.’

Lynch nodded
wearily. ‘Here. Something for you.’

He shoved an
envelope across the chipped Formica tabletop. I opened to find an
official-looking document in Arabic.

‘
What’s
this?’

‘
Your
judgement. Don’t bother turning up to court tomorrow. You’ve been
found guilty of affray and have a three-month suspended sentence.
The fine of five hundred Dinars will be paid to the court in the
morning. Judge Khasawneh will say you were unfortunate and have a
good past record and he will hope you have learned your
lesson.’

I shook my
head in slow disbelief at Lynch’s arrogance.

‘
So that’s
it?’

He nodded,
his hands deep in his jacket pocket as he sat back on the cheap
metal chair. ‘That’s it, Paul. All over.’

‘
And what
about the Israelis and their bombings?’

‘
What Israelis, Paul? The
Mukhabarat
report
says they found American explosives. They could have been nicked by
any old raghead. We’ve double checked it all with our sources.
There’s no clear evidence of Israeli involvement in the Nai
bombing.’

I swirled the
black grounds at the bottom of my cup.

‘
Daoud Dajani
is in danger.’

Lynch glanced
around him, his face screwed up in distaste. ‘Daoud Dajani? He does
stuff with his money we don’t like. His brother was a suicide
bomber. He spends time on the playground with some very unpleasant
little boys. And his madcap water scheme is nothing short of
incendiary. There’s a very real danger it’ll end up pitching this
whole region into another stupid war it doesn’t need. Whichever way
you look at Daoud Dajani, he’s bad news. So fuck him actually,
Paul. And his safety.’

I frowned.
‘He’s a businessman, not a bomber.’

Lynch leaned
forward, his clear blue eyes fixed on me. He raised his finger.
‘You don’t know what he is, Paul, and you don’t know what he
isn’t.’

I dropped my
eyes as Lynch got to his feet.

‘
You did a
good job getting that bid document, Paul. We thought we had a
pretty good idea of what Dajani was up to with the water thing but
we’d only scratched the surface. We couldn’t work out why the
Izzies were going so bonkers over him. Now we’ve got a pretty clear
idea. He’s going to pull millions of gallons of water out of the
system. Sharon threatened war against Lebanon for splashing about
in the Litani River, so imagine what they’ll do if the Jordanians
award a contract to Dajani and his merry men authorising them to
suck Tiberias dry.’

I looked up.
Lynch had his back to the stage lights and I couldn’t read his
expression. ‘Try to kill him, perhaps?’

‘
You’ve been
reading too many Bond books, Paul. Governments don’t assassinate
people bidding for contracts. But it’s obvious Israel will defend
its national interest if Jordan starts to drain its water
resources. There’s a perfectly good British consortium making a
sensible bid which will help Jordan to better manage its water
without jeopardising regional stability. It’s in everyone’s
interest they win the privatisation. You want my advice? Stay away
from Daoud Dajani, Paul.’

Lynch patted
my shoulder as he walked past me. I sat looking at the scratched
black tabletop in front of me. A shuffle and a high-pitched cough
to my side revealed Nadim.

‘
Some more coffee,
seer
?’

I shook my
head and he cleared the cups away. I lit a cigarette and drew the
smoke deep into me, tapping the tabletop and trying to work out who
I could possibly believe in.

TWENTY-TWO

I slipped
into Aisha’s office and kissed her, stifling her surprised
greeting. Her soft lips tasted of coffee. She pulled back with a
fearful glance at the door.

I laughed.
‘It’s okay, there’s nobody else out there.’

There was
only a faint hint of colour on the side of her face and she had
covered up any other remaining marks with foundation. My own pains
had pretty much subsided apart from the headaches, although I still
had a few scabs from the glass cuts on my side. It didn’t hurt
anymore to kiss her.

‘
What are you doing up here,
ya
Brit? Shouldn’t
you be down in the dungeons working on your
magazine?’

‘
Zahlan asked
to see me. What time will I pick you up tonight?’

‘
Eight?’

I leaned
forward and kissed her again and this time we ignored the door and
the dangers of discovery. The woody, heady scent she wore made me
ache for her with an intensity reflected in her widened eyes. I
left her reluctantly and made my way to Abdullah Zahlan’s
office.

Zahlan was
dressed as a young business leader today, his ever-changing
wardrobe once again signalling his mood. He smiled, lifting his
internal telephone handset.

‘
Aisha? Can
you join us please?’

He gestured
to the chair in front of his desk. ‘Sit down, Paul. How are
you?’

‘
Well,
thanks, Abdullah. What gives?’

He tossed a
copy of
The Jordan
Times
across to me. ‘You have
seen this, I suppose?’

I certainly
had. In fact, I had written it. Teddy ‘Bear’ Smith, the newspaper’s
legendarily foul-mouthed editor, had been delighted with the piece
and had even insisted on paying me for it. A growling,
chain-smoking Mancunian with a sardonic, grim sense of humour,
Smith had whistled and cackled his way through my story. He’d
insisted on seeing evidence and grilled me for three hours about
every assertion in the piece, finally running it as a three-part
special in
The Jordan
Times
and its sister paper,
the Arabic
Al
Rai
. The newswires had picked
it up and I was glad I had used a pseudonymous byline. The story
was running on CNN.

Aisha came in
and sat opposite me. I looked at the paper Zahlan had tossed. The
final part of the series was splashed across the centre pages with
pictures of the remains of the bombed nightclub.

‘
Yes, I
have.’

‘
Do you know
this Simon Trent?’

I glanced up
at Zahlan, but couldn’t read his expression. I avoided looking at
Aisha. ‘No, should I?’

‘
It’s just
that you’re a journalist. I thought you might have met
him.’

I shook my
head, gesturing at the piece. ‘Sorry, Abdullah, never even heard of
him. What do you think of this?’

Zahlan sighed
heavily and wheeled around on his chrome-armed black leather
executive chair.

‘
It’s
obviously caused a huge row. Our government has threatened to break
off diplomatic relations with Israel. You know this,
right?’

I shook my
head and tried desperately to stay calm as the surge of adrenaline
pulsed through my body.

‘
No, I
didn’t.’

‘
Yesterday.
Israel has withdrawn its ambassador for consultations. They have
threatened grave consequences if we proceed with the privatisation
and the Jerusalem Consortium wins. Daoud Dajani is under police
protection.’

I was
sweating. I’d known this feeling before; it comes with the job. The
phone call from the guy whose business has failed because of the
article you wrote, the woman whose husband has left her because of
your news story. Or, in my case, the head of the borough council
you have accused of having an affair with another councillor who
turned out to be helping her deal with cancer. End of
career.

I had pushed
Lynch’s warnings to the back of my mind as I got on with the job of
documenting Daoud’s tale. I had made my decision, sitting there in
the stink of the nightclub. But I hadn’t considered the reaction
would be this big.

Aisha’s full
voice was bright and neutral. ‘The Israelis have denied they were
involved in the attacks, no, Abdullah?’

‘
They have.
The Americans are mediating.’ Zahlan ran his hand through his hair.
‘It’s a mess, to be honest.’

He pushed his
chair back and went to the window. ‘I have just been with Harb.
He’s spent the morning with the Prime Minister and HM. It’s been
decided.’

He turned to
face the window as he spoke, his hands held behind his
back.

‘
We’re going
ahead with the privatisation. It’s an open and transparent process
conducted fairly and to international standards. It’s a matter of
sovereignty that we have control over the resources and assets of
our own country. We will not be bullied.’

Aisha stood,
her eyes shining and a huge grin lighting up her face. ‘That’s
fantastic news, Abdullah!’

Zahlan sat
back at his desk, picking up a pen and waggling it at us both. ‘The
Minister would like you both to go down to the Dead Sea tomorrow to
be ready for the conference. He has asked if you could write news
releases for us as well as working on the magazine through the
conference? The Ministry will pay you for the additional work, of
course. We want to get blanket coverage for this and explain to the
world why it is a critical issue for Jordan. HM’s press people and
the Petra news agency have both agreed to issue our releases for
us. Can you do it?’

‘
Of course,
Abdullah. No problem.’

‘
Great.
Aisha, try and get Paul access to as many stakeholders as you can
so he can create as much volume as possible. We need to get our
story told.’

We left
Zahlan’s office and went together into Aisha’s, where she closed
the door and kissed me and told me what a terribly clever Paul
Stokes I was and how much she owed me for helping to save her
brother’s life.

The knock on
my front door came just after I arrived home from the celebratory
dinner at Aisha’s house. I was thinking dreamily about the next
morning’s drive down to the Dead Sea for the conference. We planned
to take the long way round so I could see Kerak, the crusader
castle mentioned in TE Lawrence’s
Seven Pillars of Wisdom
. Of the many books I had accumulated in my attempts to
come to some sort of understanding of Jordan and its people,
Lawrence’s account of the Arab Revolt had woven its magic and I had
nagged at Aisha until she had agreed to the detour. I wandered over
to the door and pulled it open. Lars waited on my doorstep, his
face a picture of sick misery and his arms crossed against the late
night cold.