35
F
rom almost the moment the door flew open, Jena began to wail. She was the first to realize what was happening in the mob scene outside. Aliyah figured it out next. Nabil must have thrown open the door just as his pursuers caught him. Her immense relief at seeing him alive changed instantly to fear for his survival.
Two policemen in blue berets were tugging him backward, one at each arm. Their apparent destination was a blue panel van with a caged windshield, just across the narrow street. And that was the least of Nabil’s worries. A mob had converged and was growing by the minute. Angry shouts of “Traitor!” and “Murderer!” flew from every direction, and the policemen could barely make headway. A stone soared above the crowd and landed with a sickening thud against Nabil’s back. He gasped and staggered as Jena screamed above the din.
Aliyah fought her way outside just as a chunk of cinder block landed by the doorway. Frightened for the child, she saw the girl squirming in her mother’s arms just inside the house. Dust from the maelstrom billowed into the living room like a brown spirit.
The crowd surged, and Aliyah was carried along with it, her chest squeezed so tightly she could barely draw a breath. It was all she could do to keep her footing. Fall now and she would be trampled. She held her balance and turned her head just in time to see Nabil looking right at her from a few feet away. His eyes were wide, but they seemed almost serene, as if he had already resigned himself to whatever was going to happen.
The policemen dragged him the final few feet to the van, where four more officers were wading into the crowd, clubs swinging. She heard the crack of wood against a skull. Several men fell, swallowed by the mob. The policemen gave a great heave, and Nabil ducked in through the rear of the van as his forehead banged against the top of the doorway. A spot below his hairline bloomed red just as the doors slammed shut and took him out of sight. Then the stones rained down in earnest, clattering off the top of the van.
As Aliyah turned to see where all the missiles were coming from, she saw a familiar face, back toward Nabil’s house. It was the doctor. He was shouting, “Murderer! Murderer!” as if leading the charge. Aliyah must not have been the only one to recognize him, because she saw the doctor suddenly turn as if to ward off a blow, and then she heard Nabil’s wife shrieking.
“You!” the woman said, stepping toward him with a sobbing Jena still in her arms. “It is your doing! You did this to Nabil!”
For a moment the mob seemed uncertain whom to support in this new confrontation. Then a few men opted to protect one of their own, although Jena’s presence helped to blunt their fury. Aliyah quickly moved forward to help. She found it maddening that she still didn’t know the woman’s name. Some of the more levelheaded men in the crowd helped her to chivy mother and child back through the doorway, but Nabil’s wife continued to scream at the doctor, who, looking a bit rattled, nodded in a gesture of thanks to his rescuers. Then he saw Aliyah, and smiled. She turned to try and escape, but couldn’t push through the mob, and before she knew it he was at her side, aided by his impromptu bodyguards. He placed his hand on her forearm, exactly where he had gripped her in the lobby bar of the hotel, and leaned closer to shout into her ear.
“How fortunate for both of us that I found you here.”
Her anger overcame her fear.
“What does she mean?” she shouted back. “What have you done to Nabil?”
“Now, now,” he said, in the manner of parent to child. “We are all upset. It has been a long and terrible night, but I am sure now that justice will be done.”
He released her forearm but then placed his hand around her shoulder. To everyone else it must have looked like a gesture of help or reassurance, but his grip felt strong enough to bruise.
“Come over here,” he said into her ear. “Let’s get you out of harm’s way. This is not your affair.”
Her impulse was to wrench free, maybe even to spit in his face. But she didn’t dare, not with emotions running so high. His protectors were still in tow, and the mob might do anything. So she let him steer her to the mouth of an alley, where they found a brief respite from the jostling. She opened her mouth to speak, but he beat her to it, lowering his voice so that only she could hear.
“Surely you shouldn’t remain here. Not after who you’ve been seen with, and who you’ve been talking to.”
“Are you threatening me with the same treatment?”
“I’m offering my help. Please, you look very upset. I will take you to my office. It is safer there, and only a few blocks away.”
“No, thank you.”
“Please. Why ruin things for your husband?”
Anyone watching might have thought from his expression that he was being as solicitous as possible. But his fingertips dug into her shoulder. She did as she was told. They walked side by side through the streets.
“I don’t want to go into your office,” she said, turning to speak into his ear.
“But you must, because I have news. Although perhaps you already know.”
“What news? Tell me now.” She tried to stop, but he dragged her inexorably forward.
“Patience. Just know that even on a day as horrible as this, there has at least been one moment of good fortune.”
“What do you mean?”
He stopped, looked her in the eye.
“Have you really not heard?”
She shook her head. The doctor smiled.
“The senator, your husband’s patient. He has at last left this world. Your husband’s glorious work may now proceed. Come, I will tell you all about it.”
The doctor released his grip and resumed his progress. Aliyah stood dumbfounded in his wake, as stunned as if she had been struck by a stone from the mob. The last bit of sanity in her world had just slipped from her grasp, and was now lost in the chaos of the streets.
36
T
hey’ve taken him away,” Omar said slowly, in apparent disbelief. “They think he did it.”
“Did he?” I asked.
By then I would have given even odds on a “yes” answer. It wasn’t just the warning signs having to do with Nabil—all those dark hints I’d foolishly ignored, mostly because I liked him, true believer or not. It was Omar’s bearing that now convinced me. He was slumped in a chair with his head in his hands. His eyes were brimming wells of despair. I knew as acutely as anyone the crushing power of guilt, and I saw clearly the impact it had made on Omar. He had met the blow head-on and was reeling.
“Did he?
” I repeated.
Omar looked up with a start, as if finally hearing me from across a canyon. His eyes flared with anger.
“How the hell could Nabil have done it? He’d be in a thousand pieces!”
“Not if he planned it. Or supplied it.”
Omar shook his head.
“That’s crazy.”
“Then what about his contacts? The people he’s been meeting. I’ve heard things, you know, here and downtown.”
“I’ve heard them, too. I was even responsible for some of the introductions. But they were all part of a setup. If you think Nabil was capable of doing this to his own people, then you know less about all of us than I thought.” He looked up. “Do you truly believe what you’re saying? In fact, what
do
you believe anymore? I’ve been wondering that since the day you arrived.”
It was the same question Nabil had asked, when he caught me following him. He certainly hadn’t behaved then like a person with something to hide, and I now felt ashamed of the glib answer I’d given, my usual boilerplate of foolishness. Nabil hadn’t scorned me for that, either. If anything, he had seemed to pity me, not as an infidel doomed to damnation but as someone still searching for a place to drop his moral anchor.
“I don’t know what I believe. About any of this.”
“Well, stop believing Nabil was involved. All he’s guilty of is associating with some of the wrong people in Bakaa. Or wrong in the eyes of Dr. Hassan.
He’s
the one who did in Nabil. And like an idiot, I was helping him along the way; if only I had realized it at the time.”
“Dr. Hassan set up the arrest?”
“He’s been setting it up for weeks, apparently. He actually seemed proud to tell me all about it. Arranging for certain people downtown to invite Nabil in for a chat—using my name as entrée in some cases—and then having the meeting photographed. Having it arranged for Nabil to play host to some stupid American woman who was up to God knows what. Then whispering all the details into a few key ears on the Eighth Circle. All a part of the usual political vendetta out here. More of the same old Palestinian fratricide. Which I was happy to exploit for my own ends, of course. Thinking I was being so clever by pitting one side against the other. I thought they would both try to outdo each other and that the hospital would reap the rewards. Instead it’s the opposite. Everything has been undermined. Then the bombings came along, and Nabil was already at the top of the police list. They were already looking for him, and by the end of the week they probably would have arrested him anyway. That’s the way it works with my people. We turn on each other like fools. Then some even bigger fool turns on all of us and blows himself up, and the police go out and start throwing all the wrong people in jail. Just watch—they’ll arrest a few hundred by Friday. It’s the perfect excuse for getting rid of all the ones nobody likes.”
But I was still thinking of what he had said about the American woman.
“I saw her,” I said. “The American. Not just with Nabil. With Dr. Hassan, too. And I’m not sure she’s so stupid. Maybe they’re planning something.”
“Maybe.”
Then he waved it off, seemingly disinterested. Or maybe he wasn’t paying attention. I knew that symptom, too. You became so absorbed in the idea of your own complicity that you refused to contemplate someone else’s. He needed a good shock to the system. So I administered one.
“Listen to me, Omar. Dr. Hassan isn’t the only one who’s been using you. So have I.”
He seemed to finally emerge from his stupor.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, for starters, I was over on the Eighth Circle this morning. They sent a car for me. Asked me all kinds of questions about you.”
He surprised me by smiling, although it was not a happy smile.
“Fat fellow in a bad suit? Served you tea on a horrible painted tray?”
“Yes.”
“His name’s Mahmoud, or so I’m told. My personal case officer. Always looking into my business.”
“You know about his interest?”
“How could I miss it? He’s questioned about half my friends. I think he does it just to put me on notice.”
“Why?”
“Because of my work.”
I gave him an opportunity to lie, just to see if he would take the bait.
“For the hospital?”
“No. Other work. Things I haven’t told you about.”
Now we were getting somewhere. If he would level with me, then I would level with him. And as far as I was concerned, then neither the Mossad, the Mukhabarat, nor the CIA need know what passed between us.
“Like helping Basma Shaheed, you mean?”
“Mahmoud told you about her?”
“He wasn’t the only one.”
Omar raised an eyebrow, and seemed to store that item away before continuing.
“She is a Palestinian who does the good work of helping people keep their houses and their land, so I support her when I can.”
“With whose money?”
“My own, mostly. Sometimes I pass along donations from Europe. From people who are more comfortable doing business that way. It isn’t always so popular helping Arabs these days, you know.” He seemed to detect the wariness in my face. “What? You don’t think I’m giving her money from the hospital fund, do you?”
“Mahmoud thinks so. He said you’re keeping two sets of books.”
“Of course I am. One for the charity and one for, well, whatever it is you want to call this other passion. That doesn’t mean I’m stealing from one for the other. But it doesn’t surprise me Mahmoud would say that. It’s probably his latest way of fighting us. Smear us behind our backs.”
“Who’s ‘us’?”
“You’ve met most of them. Sami Fayez. Rafi Tuqan. A few others. Then there’s our artist friend, Issa Odeh.”
“The one who painted the stuff on your living room wall.”
“Yes. He got us hooked.”
“On what?”
“History, if you strip it to its essentials. Archaeology, if you want to get technical. Staking our claim on the future by finding our past. He took us out in the desert one weekend, one of his little excursions. He puts them together to recruit people to the cause of land preservation. I’m sure he never dreamed it would go over so well. And it probably wouldn’t have if I hadn’t just seen some news report from Israel. One of those biblical archaeologists who had just dug something up. You know how it goes. They find a few stones and say they belonged to King David. Then everyone oohs and aahs and says, well, it must really be true, then. They really
are
the chosen people, and this is their promised land, so those Arabs should go take a hike.
“Well, a few days later Issa takes us out to the terrace of a big wadi, out in the desert northeast of Amman. It’s a Late Bronze Age site, practically virgin. Hardly anyone knows about it. Why? Because no one cares, of course. Because no one is kicking in money for a dig, and no one is saying, ‘This was King David’s royal outhouse’ or ‘This was Solomon’s mudroom.’ But when you pick up an object from the sand, and then hold it in your hands knowing that someone made it over three thousand years ago, and not a soul since then has ever touched it, well, there is a certain power in that experience.
“And that’s when it hit me. Why not make those old ghosts work for us, too? Because Arabs have been walking these hills just as long as Jews. Longer, even. The Edomites, the Moabites. All of them built bigger and grander civilizations. If we can raise them from the dead—archaeologically speaking, of course—they’ll become part of our army. And that’s where Basma Shaheed comes into it. Support her and you save a few Arab houses, a few more dunams of Palestinian land. Hold on to enough land and, who knows, maybe you can get your own diggers in place, legally or otherwise. So that next time you find a site in East Jerusalem, or Nablus, or wherever it might be, then you have another army fighting for you. No need to throw stones anymore, Freeman. You just dig them up and put them behind glass.”
Omar’s eyes were ablaze. I hadn’t seen him this impassioned since our days on patrol.
“But that’s the West Bank. Why should anyone on the Eighth Circle care?”
“Because we’re doing it here, too. Jordan is untapped, untouched in so many places. That makes it the perfect place for building our body of evidence, establishing our tradition. It’s like staking claims in a mine. Of course, land prices being what they are, not everyone wants you to stake a claim. So you start making enemies.”
“Jordanian investors?”
“Saudis, too. And Iraqis, Euros, Americans. Probably even a few Israelis. Everybody with money wants in on this boom. Except they want to buy and build, and we want to preserve and protect.”
“What does the palace want?”
“Depends on who you ask. Everyone has his patron, and right now everyone with enough money and connections has at least one patron on the Eighth Circle.”
“Is that why Mahmoud asked me about Qesir, and the Wadi Terrace Project, and someplace near Madaba?”
“Hesban?”
“That sounds right.”
“Three of our resort sites, plus a guesthouse near Wadi Fidan.”
“What’s a resort got to do with preservation?”
“Our way of footing the bill, paying for more. You preserve the core of the site, then develop the surrounding area. Do it right and you’ve built both a buffer and a moneymaker to help with more acquisitions. Sami’s idea, and it’s genius, really. Except it infuriates the competition, which makes it harder to get all the permits and easements.”
I thought of the photo Mahmoud had showed me of Omar coming out of the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, and the one of Sami with his arm around the king. They must be spending some of their proceeds on bribes and patronage in palace corridors and at various ministries. But between Sami, Rafi, and Omar, they would have lots of valuable connections. No wonder the outsiders were pulling out the stops, even to the point of hiring freelance help from the Mossad once the Eighth Circle failed to produce the desired results. Enemies, indeed.
Now it was my turn to let him know just how deeply those enemies had burrowed beneath his foundation. I wasn’t looking forward to it.
“Didn’t you say the Mossad was tailing you in Athens?”
“I don’t think it was me they were following. They were after a contributor.”
“A contributor to the charity, you told me.”
He lowered his head and grinned sheepishly.
“A white lie, I’m afraid. I wasn’t yet ready to tell you about all this. Why put you in jeopardy when your work was going to free me up for more of this?”
“And this fellow, he’s sure it was Mossad?”
“He took down a tag number from the agent’s scooter and had someone run it. Apparently the rental agency is a known Mossad supplier.”
“And your contributors in Athens. They would be Norbert Krieger and Professor Yiorgos Soukas?”
His jaw dropped.
“Now how did you…?”
“That was me on the scooter. Following Krieger, and following you. Only I didn’t know at the time who I was really working for.”
I was prepared to have to shout him down in order to explain myself further. Even then I knew I wouldn’t have the heart to tell him that Krieger was dead. But Omar’s stunned reaction made it clear I wouldn’t need to do any yelling. His mouth was agape, and he slumped in his chair. So I began telling him my story before his shock turned to anger. I told him everything, going back all the way to that strange night on Karos when the owls hooted their warning. Then I backtracked further, to the fields of the dead and the dying in Tanzania, because he needed to hear it all—even the parts about Mila, if only because he was the one person who deserved a full explanation.
Then I apologized, not that I expected him to accept.
“At least it was for her, for Mila,” he said, hanging his head. “Consolation for you, perhaps. But not so much for me. I must have looked like such a fool a few moments ago, spouting off all about my new passion. Saving the world with a shovel and a little carbon dating. A fool’s errand, isn’t it, especially with people like you on the loose.”
“Believe me, if I had really known who was hiring me…”
“Does it really make any difference which agency? Mossad, CIA, Mukhabarat. They are all the same kind of people, especially on a night like this, when a few old stones seem pretty silly even to me.”
“I went by the Hyatt,” I said blankly. “It was horrible. Bodies piled at the curb. People with blood all over them.”
“Don’t try to pretend you’re one of us, Freeman. I know you sympathize, but it’s not the same.”
“I know.”
“But you do like some of our ways, don’t you? I suppose you think of this as a form of
taqiyya,
all these things you’ve been doing. Allowing yourself to lie and betray because you think it’s necessary for survival. Even if it’s Mila’s survival. Yes,
taqiyya.
Just like you told me back in the car in Nablus.”
He said it with weary resignation. And that might have been the way the evening ended, with a hollow feeling in my stomach, yet the relief of confession. But I still had a final chore to complete in Bakaa. One last sin to atone for, one last troublesome lead to pursue.
I headed out the door and began walking toward Dr. Hassan’s office.
Neither Omar nor I said good-bye.