Breathing easier, I flipped on the light and continued on my way. No sense in trying to rush. At the end of a long straightaway I stopped again before making the next turn, wondering if anyone had yet entered the tunnel behind me and was now gaining ground. I again turned off my light and peered back into the darkness. By resting a hip against the wall to my left I could slouch more comfortably as I paused, although I still had to stoop to keep from bumping my head against the ceiling.
It was during this moment of repose that the magnitude of the effort to build the tunnel became evident. Down here it was easy to imagine the arduous and harrowing labor as men hammered their way through the stone. All that strain and bother just to reach a water supply in case of a siege. The same mentality had prevailed ever since—everything for defense, for insulation and separation. And such a fitting symbolic result, too—a deep seam through intransigent stone, set in eternal darkness. Ben-Zohar was right. It perfectly summed up the region’s hopes and fears. I was about to enjoy a small laugh on his behalf when a voice called out from behind with the suddenness of a gunshot.
“Freeman!”
I bumped my head in startled reaction, and nearly dropped the flashlight in my haste to switch it on. The beam showed no one at the far end of the straightaway. But the voice nonetheless called out again, this time with a hint of impatience.
“Freeman!”
Was it Ben-Zohar? Had he followed me here like a prankster, just to give me a scare?”
“David?” I called out. “Is that you?”
“No!”
“Who is it, then?”
Our echoing voices seemed to have taken over the confined space. The splashing from up ahead was now faint, as if it had advanced around several curves.
“No one you need to know. I am a messenger.”
“Messenger?”
“You must leave Israel. This is not the concern of your work.”
Odd phrasing, I thought.
“How do you know that?”
“You must leave. Today. Before the border closes.”
“Who are you? Who are you working for?”
Then there was nothing. Only the sound of someone sloshing against the current, a figure working alone in the darkness. He seemed to be receding, going the wrong way, and for a moment I was tempted to follow. But what would I say? And if I caught him, might he carry out the threat implicit in his warning?
I turned and resumed my progress forward, trying to go faster now. The next time a sandal slipped off I let it go, and then kicked off the second one. The rocks on the bottom were sharp, but it was easier to keep my footing. All I wanted now was to get out of here. But the roaring of voices and splashing from up ahead grew louder, and as I rounded yet another curve I spied someone just ahead in the beam of my light.
The first thing I saw was a Galil assault rifle slung across someone’s back. It was not a soldier, but a civilian in a red polo. He turned and grinned into my light, a bearded face, middle-aged. He was probably the chaperone of the loud boys ahead. He resumed walking, and the barrel and butt of his rifle bumped the walls with every step. At first it was a relief to have company, even if the gun was a little unnerving, banging around like that. But then the man stopped, and the noise from ahead rose to a din. It was almost unbearable, and after a few seconds it became clear we were making no further progress. I shone my light around the bearded man and saw that the boys had all turned out their flashlights. They were in their teens, maybe sixteen or seventeen, and they scowled and shouted angrily in Hebrew at the probing beam of my light. I then saw that several of them were turned sideways toward the walls, bobbing and bowing in prayer—as much as one could in this confined space—and chanting loudly. In the section where they stood, the ceiling rose much higher, to about twenty feet above their heads. We must be near the end of the tunnel, and they had stopped for devotionals. Some were reaching as high as they could stretch up the walls. I turned out my light to give them the atmosphere they wanted, and the chanting and sloshing continued. Looking behind me, I noticed the flicker of an approaching light. Thinking it must be the man who had warned me earlier, I panicked.
“Move!” I shouted in English to the praying boys. “Move it now!”
I turned on my light again, and they were still at it, calling out to their God from deep in this shaft dug by their ancestral king. Is that the connection they must feel with this place? A sense of doing whatever it takes to survive, to outwit the enemy?
From behind me came a burst of laughter and more sloshing. It was a family, a younger couple with two kids in their early teens. All four were speaking German. I tried asking in their language if they had passed anyone going in the opposite direction, but in my haste I mangled it.
“Hast ein Mann du passiert?”
“Ein Mann?” the daughter asked.
“Nein,” the son said. “Kein Mann.”
“Was ist los?” the father asked. He gestured with his flashlight toward the bottleneck of boys just ahead.
“They’re praying,” I said in English. “Religious students, probably.”
The father translated for his family, and everyone nodded respectfully. They wouldn’t have dared shout “Move it!” as I had just done, especially not in German, down here where the tunnel would make their voices sound like bullhorns, orders shouted by guards along a fenceline.
Eventually the boys moved on, a sluggish procession that soon found its way to the light. They stood off to the side of the Siloam Pool at the mouth of the entrance, putting their shoes back on and drying their legs. I blinked against the sudden glare and kept going, leaving wet footprints on the warm stone walkway. I expended the last reserves of my nervous energy in making the long, steep climb back toward the visitors’ center.
I finally sat down to calm myself at an overlook, just as the midafternoon call to prayer began from the speakers of Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City, droning out across the ravine. Answering in short order were two mosques on the Mount of Olives, one in a younger voice, the other almost wheezy. It left me at the center of a triangulation of prayer in an auditory target zone.
There was just no getting away from it here, this assault by faith. First I was besieged by prayer in the tunnel. Now I was taking Muslim fire from three sides. In Jerusalem, belief as a form of aggression achieved near perfection. Whether you went deep in the earth or climbed the highest hill, someone’s faith would track you down, catch you in its sights, and demand that you choose sides.
I waited a while and watched the people who had been behind me in the tunnel straggle past. No likely suspect emerged, not that I expected him to. I slipped on my shoes, deciding I had better leave soon for the border before someone else opened fire. Next time the ammunition might be more lethal than prayer.
30
Washington
I
n a smaller, newer tunnel in another part of the world, a tunnel not known to tourists, historians, or government officials, Abbas Rahim crouched with a small shovel in his hands at 5 a.m., digging the last three yards of the necessary twenty.
He had put away the power tools yesterday, and the Arab man who had flown in to help had departed the day before that.
Just as well on both counts, Abbas thought. The power tools, while essential, had been noisy. They risked attracting unwanted attention from above, even though almost no one ever inhabited the church sanctuary or its basement during the week.
The man, too, had seemed like an unwarranted risk, although his expertise in certain matters had admittedly been invaluable. All technical questions were now answered. The proper materials were in place.
But it wasn’t as if Abbas needed any company. He found it far easier to concentrate when working alone, same as when he was at the hospital. The nurses were always necessary, of course, but he never would have wanted an extra surgeon at his side. And that’s how he thought of this job, as a sort of macro-level surgery. He was performing a public service on behalf of the world’s greatest medical emergency, a case of geopolitical addition by subtraction. He was excising a spreading tumor from America’s body politic. The malignant hubris had to be removed before it metastasized further and killed more of the innocent.
The beauty of it all was that he could accomplish this without doing a single unethical thing. He was still holding to his oath in treating the senator. If anything, he was keeping the man alive with more zeal than ever, knowing that preparations here were not yet complete. But soon enough, God—if there were such a thing—could have his way and take the man. And then the real work could begin.
The final action would, admittedly, be a bit blunt. That’s the way it could go with large tumors. You had to destroy good and healthy tissue along with the insidious stuff. That was where your medical judgment entered into it, making those big decisions that affected lives. Sacrificing the few to save the many.
So he worked away as hard as he could, arriving at 2 a.m. in the darkened neighborhood of rats and ne’er-do-wells, descending into his locked underground chamber to lay out his tools and prepare the patient. Five hours later he emerged at first light, tired and grimy. Then he drove home to shower and shave before a day at the hospital. A grinding schedule, made possible only by getting to sleep every night at 7 p.m.
Every day he awoke in the darkness of the bedroom at 1:20 a.m., always his lowest moment until he swallowed the pill from the orange plastic vial, which was right there on his dresser top now that he no longer had to hide it from his wife. Aliyah had been effectively removed from the operating theater, because even though she may have meant well he had worried that she would eventually have second thoughts. That could have been disastrous. He knew because he had seen it happen before—a squeamish rookie nurse in attendance, not yet accustomed to all the blood, disrupting everything and endangering the patient.
At times Abbas wondered how she must be faring over in Jordan. Their radio silence stood like a wall between them, between past and present, too. He experienced a vague ripple of unease on her behalf as he began to contemplate what their life would be like after he completed this surgery. Mustn’t think of that. It led in too many directions he didn’t want to go. It led only to more blackness and worry. So he swallowed a second pill while still on the job, because these darkest of thoughts would only stand in his way, unless he pushed harder. Then within an hour or so he felt better, and life continued according to plan.
Keep pushing, he told himself. Just keep pushing, and complete the job. It’s all for the best. A service to mankind. Addition by subtraction.
And genius, sheer genius.
31
I
awoke late that night to the sound of the mouse behind the baseboard.
Already my sleep had been troubled by dreams of falling—into wells, down staircases, over the sides of high stone parapets—long and heart-stopping plunges that inevitably deposited me at the bottom of some deep pit of darkness, where I scratched and clawed as the walls closed in.
No mystery where any of that came from, I suppose. The scare in Hezekiah’s Tunnel shook me up more than I had wanted to admit. Then the mouse provided the sound track.
I threw back the covers. They were soaked with sweat. I stood barefoot on the chilly stone floor and decided to make a cup of tea.
The border crossing had taken even longer than usual, and the atmosphere on both sides had been akin to the electric crackle in the air before a cloudburst, a whiff of something disastrous. Or maybe I was hypersensitive because the Jordanians again phoned Amman while inspecting my passport. As a result, I had arrived back on Othman Bin Affan Street well after dark, and too weary to go out for dinner. So I had scraped together a meal from what was in the refrigerator. Then, just before bed, I padded onto the dark lawn with a flashlight to dig up the gun. I could have sworn the spot looked different, but the gun was there, so I wrote it off to an overactive imagination. Then I caught up on the daily papers and went to bed, only to be troubled by my dreams.
I took the steaming mug of tea back to the bedroom. Just as I came through the doorway there was a popping noise, and immediately afterward the lights went out. Silence followed. Even the mouse was still. I set the mug on the floor and groped my way back to the kitchen, where, as luck would have it, the light switch still worked. The fuse box was just around the corner, and I saw that one of them was blown. But the replacement also burned out with a tiny burst of light only seconds after I screwed it in.
I dug out a candle from a drawer and stepped back down the hall to investigate. As soon as I entered the bedroom I smelled something burning, and not just the candle wax. Stooping to investigate, I saw a tiny wisp of smoke issuing from a seam in the baseboard. I was alarmed. The wiring in some of these older houses was notoriously unreliable, and for all I knew a short circuit was about to burn the place down. I quickly retrieved a stout, sharp knife from the kitchen, wrapped the handle in a sock for insulation, and began prying back the baseboard, working from the seam. A six-inch section snapped off, which surprised me until I saw how chewed it was in the back, presumably from the mouse. Then I saw the body, small and gray and singed. The tiny head was still smoldering, and there was a sickening stench of burned fur.
For a moment I actually felt sorry for my little housemate. The mouse had bitten into a wire, and from what I could tell it wasn’t entirely his fault, because the wire never should have been there to begin with. It was attached to a small plastic box, which I unscrewed from its place by using the knife blade. Then I placed the candle on the bedside table and forced open the box on the bed.
I am no expert on surveillance electronics, but it seemed quite obvious that this was some sort of microphone and transmitter. Who knows what its broadcast range was, or where the listeners might be? The manufacturer’s name, however, was printed clearly—it was straight out of the U. S. of A. At the sight of it my temper flared.
If this was supposed to demoralize me, it had just the opposite effect. I was more determined than ever to get things moving. In fact, it was time for the next step in the advancement of my autonomy. I vowed then and there to confront my employers. In the morning I would take this item straight to the American embassy and demand an audience. Better to assert myself now, when the only casualty was a mouse.
With that course of action settled, I was finally able to sleep soundly, and didn’t wake until after nine. I buried the mouse beneath a jasmine bush at the base of the wall along the front walkway, my fallen comrade in espionage, then washed the dirt from my hands and walked into town to buy supplies for a big breakfast to steel myself for the confrontation at the embassy. After showering and eating, I put the offending bugging device in my pocket, grabbed my car keys, and stepped out the door. Fiona stood in her front garden as if she had been waiting for me to appear.
“Another trip into the hinterlands?” she asked brightly.
The question seemed innocent enough, but I was in no mood for curiosity.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you were away for a few days, weren’t you? I was wondering if you’d been out exploring.”
“Jerusalem,” I said tersely.
“How lovely.” Her tone remained sweet, which softened me a bit.
“I would have been better off staying. We could have had dinner.”
“We still can, you know.”
“Maybe. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be around.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”
She sounded as if she meant it. But there was an edge of uncertainty in her voice, too.
“You had more visitors while you were away. A couple of rather quiet men.”
“Quiet?”
“Mysterious, even. And, well…”
She paused, flustered.
“Yes?”
“I’ve a slight confession to make.” She said it haltingly, but her next words came out in a torrent. “I’m afraid that while you were gone I decided to do a good-neighborly deed and fertilize that plant you put in. Which of course required that I do some digging around, and, well…”
“You found the gun.”
“And put it right back.”
“I know. It was there last night when I got home. Did you tell anyone?”
“Certainly not. But when those two men came ’round looking for you, well, naturally I wondered if…”
“Yes?”
“You’re not just working for a charity while you’re here, are you?”
“The answer’s a bit complicated.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“Tell me about the two men.”
“They were driving a black Mercedes.” She gasped and pointed toward the street. “Like the one that just pulled up next door.”
I turned and saw it idling at the curb. The windows were smoked so you couldn’t see inside.
“When did they come before?” I asked quickly.
“Both days you were away.” She was whispering now. “Usually around this time of morning. They tried your door. I asked if I could help, but they just shook their heads and drove away. I thought you might want fair warning, considering, well, whatever it is you’re up to.”
“Thank you.”
I considered going back inside, but for what? The gun? So I watched their windshield with arms crossed and waited, while Fiona did the same. Then both doors opened, and out stepped two men, presumably Jordanians, dressed in almost identical suits of charcoal gray. They were in no hurry, so I tried not to act impatient. They came up the sidewalk and stopped just short of the porch. The first one did the talking.
“Mr. Lockhart?”
“Yes. Who are you?”
“A representative of the General Intelligence Department,” he said in English.
“The Dairat al-Mukhabarat, you mean?”
He nodded, and I thought I heard Fiona gasp again, although no one looked in her direction. It seemed that I had mistakenly identified the source of the bugging device in my bedroom. I suppose I should have known better.
“You will come with us, please. I was told to reassure you that the appointment will not take long. And we will of course provide you with return transportation once it is concluded.”
“How long do you mean by ‘not long’?”
He shrugged. The man behind him hadn’t moved a muscle since they came up the walk. I supposed it was his job to make sure I cooperated.
“All right, then.”
“Be careful,” Fiona hissed. She had gone pale.
“I’m told these little visits aren’t that uncommon.” I tried to sound unconcerned.
“So I’ve heard.”
Neither gentleman seemed to mind that she watched my departure. Maybe that was a good sign. Or maybe they didn’t give a damn, which could mean anything. I wondered for a moment if I should leave behind the bugging device, but reaching into my pocket seemed like a bad idea with these fellows watching, although I found it curious that they hadn’t frisked me for weapons.
“Good luck,” Fiona said.
I nodded, stepped into the car, and disappeared behind the smoked glass. She was still watching as we rounded the corner.
The building didn’t look much different from any other office block in Amman, and the security, as with all government buildings, didn’t seem all that imposing. Either the Mukhabarat’s threatening reputation did part of the job for them or they were good at concealing their strength. I had little doubt that if I were to create some sort of scene in the lobby it would be dealt with briskly and forcefully.
My escorts, flanking me like stout gray bookends, took me upstairs on a clanking, narrow elevator, then walked me down an empty white hallway across a linoleum floor to an unmarked office. The door opened to a heavyset, fiftyish man who might have been a banker, although not a particularly successful one. He had thinning gray hair that needed combing, and wore a dark suit that was at least a size too small. He offered his hand, smiled almost shyly, and gestured for me to sit in a cushioned chair that was far more comfortable than I would have expected. A steaming teapot sat on a desktop tray, which had been painted luridly with a scene from Petra. He did the pouring.
“Milk or sugar, Mr. Lockhart?”
“Both, if it’s black tea. I’ll help myself.”
“As you wish.”
He sounded neither stern, rushed, nor upset. He might have been about to offer a job promotion, for all you could tell from his tone. It was a strange sensation, sipping the hot, sweet tea as he beamed approvingly from his chair by the window. The blinds were open onto a view of the Eighth Circle, where traffic was in lazy motion in the midday sun. Photos of King Hussein and King Abdullah joined in the smile-fest. The intended effect, I suppose, was to encourage conversation, perhaps even glibness. For the moment I was willing to oblige, if only out of nervousness. My fingers were moist against the teacup.
“I’ve heard about these little visits,” I said.
“Have you? Then you’ll know there’s nothing to fear.”
“Depending on what you want, of course.”
“I hope you understand, Mr. Lockhart, that you aren’t under any obligation to answer my questions.”
“Just as I was under no obligation to get into the Mercedes?”
“Correct.”
“So I can just get up and walk out?”
“Of course. We’re not detaining you. This is strictly voluntary.”
“And if I leave, what happens then?”
“These things are not under my control.” Still the benign smile. “I do not have that kind of authority, and thus cannot say.”
“So, if my visa was revoked tomorrow, it would have nothing to do with you?”
“I’m glad you grasp the situation so readily.”
“Yes. Well, I hope you won’t be too disappointed in me, then. I really don’t know very much about what goes on in your country.”
“We don’t expect that you possess any state secrets. We’re simply curious about some of your recent activities. What you’ve been doing, who you’ve been speaking with. You keep some interesting company, don’t you?”
“Depends on what you mean by ‘interesting.’”
“Well, your employer, to begin with. Omar al-Baroody.”
Was his own government suspicious of Omar? For what? Dealing with people like Nabil, or plotting to protect Arab landholdings in Jerusalem? Hard to believe the Mukhabarat would be too worried about the latter.
“His charity, you mean?”
“Or this, perhaps.”
He picked up a glossy black-and-white photo and placed it by my teacup. Everyone who abducted me seemed to have photos of Omar, and this one was an eight-by-ten of him coming out the doorway of a dingy two-story stone building just off the Third Circle, maybe a block down from the InterContinental on Zahran Street. A sign above the arched front entrance said it was the Amman office for the Department of Antiquities, in the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
“Have you ever accompanied your friend on one of these visits?”
“No.”
“Do you know how often he is spending time there lately?”
“I wasn’t aware he was spending
any
time there. But he has mentioned this as one of his hobbies.”
“Is this, in fact, one of the pursuits he is spending his charity’s hard-earned money on?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“And you would be aware, wouldn’t you, since you’re his second-in-command?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. I would be.”
“How much access do you have to his books?”
“The charity’s account books? Complete access. I reviewed them a week ago. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“What about contributions from his two friends, Rafi Tuqan and Sami Fayez?”
“A thousand dinars apiece, if memory serves. But I’d have to double-check.”
He frowned.
“That’s all? Only a thousand apiece?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you said you had reviewed Omar’s books?”
“I have.”
“
Both
sets?”
Well, at least one of us was learning something new.
“I was aware of only one.”
“He said that, did he? To his trusted old friend? He told you that with a straight face? ‘Here, Freeman, here are our books,’ and then let you believe those were the only ones?”
“Maybe because they are.”
“Or maybe because you’re covering for him.”
“I’m telling you what I know, and what I’ve seen. If you know more than I do, that’s not my problem.”
“Have you accompanied Omar yet on any of his weekend expeditions into the desert?”
“No.”
“No?” He sounded surprised. “Has he invited you?”
“No.”
“He will. Soon, I would imagine. Then you’ll get the sales pitch. Maybe then you’ll learn about the second set of books.”
“What sales pitch?”
“Has he ever mentioned a place near Madaba called Hesban?”
“No. What sales pitch?”
“What about Qesir?”