The Covenant (28 page)

“Will you be back early?” his wife asked, leaning against the door, looking him over curiously.

“Inshallah.”
God willing.

“Inshallah
”, she answered, her parting smile mixed with doubt.

Even though his car had yellow Israeli license plates, he never worried about random sniper fire from wandering gunmen. He was well known in
the area, and the giant letters
TV
spelled out with masking tape on the rear window could be seen for miles. He rounded the bend. To his shock, he saw an IDF roadblock. The Israeli army had pulled out eight years ago when the Oslo Accords were signed. This was an autonomous Palestinian area. What were the Israelis doing here?

He slowed down. It was unusual. There had been no incidents on this road, nothing warranting this kind of blatant breach of the Oslo Accords. He felt his stomach tighten, his leg cramp from tension. He stopped the car, taking out his papers and rolling down the window. He found himself face-to-face with a submachine gun.

“Get out of the car and put your hands up!” a giant of a man swore at him in English. These were not IDF uniforms, he realized, feeling a slow roll of panic.

“I’m not going anywhere! Who are you?”

A terrifying burst of gunfire flattened all his tires.

He opened the door and jumped out, shaking, his hands up. “Don’t shoot!! This is a mistake. I’m a journalist…”

He felt his windpipe crush and he gasped for air. “Shut the fuck up, Ismael. We know exactly who you are.” He felt his sleeve being rolled up and the sharp prick of an injection. When he came to, he tried to lift his arms, but they were chained to the back of a chair. So were his legs, he realized. The thick material of a hood blinded him.

“Where am I?” he murmured hoarsely.

“Oh, Sleeping Beauty’s up,” he heard someone with a Texas accent say, then footsteps. “We are asking the questions. And you are giving the answers. We want to know where the good doctor and his child are being held, and what your instructions are.”

“Who the hell do you think you are?”

“Buzz him,” someone said. A pain like nothing he had ever felt before crashed through his body. He screamed.

“Look, Isma-whatever-your-name-is, ass-in-the-air-turd, I’d be happy to buzz you straight through to your seventy-two virgins if you’re not going to settle down and cooperate. We are working under deadline here…” John Mellon told him.

“First, tell me who you are,” Ismael repeated stubbornly.

“We are your worst nightmare. We don’t have an ideology, no conscience
and the rules of the Geneva Convention don’t apply. We kill people, and get paid well for it. Sound familiar, you terrorist scum? We’ve been paid to rescue the doc and his kid. So start talking.”

Ismael said nothing, his heart beating rapidly.

“Okay. You leave me no choice. Bring her in.”

“Ismael.”

It was his wife’s voice, he understood, stunned.

“Abu, Abu…”
He heard his children’s voices. They were crying, terrified.

Wajin, Mustapha.

His hands gripped the cold metal chain, slippery with sweat. “You don’t understand. Let me explain…”

“Okay. Which one of us is going to rape this bitch first?” someone shouted.

“WAIT!” he screamed. “I’ll do anything you want. Anything.”

“We want names. And we want addresses. And we want them now, Ismael.”

“Yes,” he said, slumping forward. “But take my family home first.”

“I’m afraid that’s not an option. You get your family back when Elise Margulies gets hers.”

“I had nothing to do with the kidnapping!” he screamed. “I’m a driver for BCN…”

“And a long-standing Hamas member… We know all about it… so cut the crap.”

He took a deep breath. “You don’t understand… It’s not so simple… What is it you want?”

“Cut the crap!”

“An address? Where they are?”

“For starters.”

“Even if you show up there with all your weapons, you’ll never get them out alive.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because it’s all booby-trapped. And you all stick out like a sore thumb—so big and blond… And your accent. The minute they whiff you, they’ll know.”

“Not if you go with us.”

”If I show up and they aren’t expecting me, they’ll kill me and then they’ll blow up the house.”

“What would they need to be expecting you?”

“A coded message from Hamas headquarters in Europe.”

“And who sends those out?”

“The person in charge of all Hamas operations. Musa el Khalil.”

There was a short silence.

“So what do you suggest?”

“If you can force Musa to send them a message telling them to extend the deadline, to transfer the prisoners to another cell… to me and my cell, for example. We’d have a small chance.”

“Why small?”

“Because the person in charge is an animal. Unpredictable. He could blow at any minute. The doctor could already be dead…”

“Look, how do we get in touch with this Musa? Address, phone?”

“I can’t tell you that…”

“Bring his wife back…”

Ismael writhed, screaming curses. “You idiots. I can’t tell you because I don’t know! Nobody does… Hamas cells are set up in such a way that you only know the four or five people in your own cell. That way, when someone is caught, he can’t give away the rest of the operation…”

He heard his wife scream.

“Wait… leave her…”John Mellon shouted. “Let me think… Look, Ismael. How would you suggest somebody find this Musa?”

“Go to the money.”

“Money?”

“Hamas funding. It’s through Islamic charities. The biggest one is in Saudi Arabia, called the Benevolent Charity Fund. It’s headed by a member of the Saudi royal family. They would know.”

“I’ve got to make a phone call,” John said suddenly. “Keep an eye on him. I’ll be right back.”

He returned in a few minutes. “Give us the information: the safe house address, how to get there, how it’s set up…”

Ismael hesitated. “I can’t do that. If you fail, which is one hundred percent certain, you have no idea what they’ll do to my family.”

“Buzz him. No, bring in the little girl…”

Ismael’s hands gripped the cold metal chain. “You are no better than they are…” He screamed, writhing in helplessness.

Suddenly, the room exploded with noises. Ismael heard his wife and children scream. He shouted out their names. There were scattered gunshots. Furniture crashed to the floor. And then, there was silence.

“Okay. Enough,” a new voice suddenly commanded. “Put your hands up. The house is surrounded.”

Ismael slumped down in his chair, feeling his body break out into a cold sweat. He covered his head with his hands, terrified. “Don’t shoot!” he pleaded. “I’m a prisoner!”

“Relax,” a deep voice said mildly, bending down to unlock the chains around Ismael’s feet and hands. He felt the heavy material lifted off his face.

Who would ever have thought the face of an Israeli colonel would fill him with so much joy?

“Amos?”

“Ismael. Long time no hear…” The tall, angular man bent down, grinning.

For four out of the past six years that he had been working together with Shin Bet, passing over vital information about Hamas’s planned terrorist activities, he had come to understand that there were three things he had in common with this Israeli Jew: both of them loved their homeland and people, both of them loved life, and both of them hated the brutality of murderous idealists. He put his hands to his throbbing temples. “Get my wife and children out of here! Please!”

“You have my word, Ismael. Nothing will happen to them. They’ll be in a safe place.”

“What the hell is going on here? What was this all about?” Ismael shouted in confusion, looking at the tall Americans with their hands behind their backs, the Israelis handcuffing them and confiscating their weapons.

“Is this really necessary?” John Mellon asked, his big hands pressing against the handcuffs. “You know we are on the same side.”

“Not exactly. I work for the Israeli government, and this is the land of Israel…” the colonel told him curtly. “And you work for?”

“I thought your government decided it was the land of Arafat and no Israelis allowed, even to rescue your own kids…” John said contemptuously.

The colonel’s jaw flinched.

“What gave us away, anyway?”

“One of your operatives in Gaza was picked up with your second weapons order… We see you got your first one.” He gestured toward the growing munitions pile in the center of the room.

The Americans glanced at each other knowingly. The local boy. Figures.

“Are you boys aware of those weapons-smuggling tunnels dug underneath the houses in Gaza to Egypt?”

“Yes,” the colonel said tersely. “We know all about them.”

“And are you planning to close them down at some point? Or are you waiting for Arafat to do that too?” John taunted him.

The colonel said nothing. The tunnels were an old story. They put them underneath children’s bedrooms. The only way to destroy them was to bomb apartment houses.

“So why didn’t you pick us up immediately?”

“Well, we were curious about what you knew that we didn’t.”

The big men glanced at each other. “So, now you know. You’ve got him. Your video delivery service and Hamas operative…”

“I have nothing to do with any of this… I’m the victim here. They kidnapped me and my family, tortured me… I have a British passport. I’ve got a press pass, credentials…”

Colonel Amos looked at him knowingly. Ismael fell silent.

“Why didn’t you call us?”

“Bahama is involved,” Ismael blurted out. “I have children… I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t risk my children.” He raised his head, looking the colonel in the eyes: “Ever since you signed those fucking Oslo agreements, Arafat and Hamas and every other group have been killing us informers—and plenty they just imagine are informers—by firing squad, raping their wives and daughters. No trial, nothing. And you Israelis with your foolish peace fantasies—you let them! You’ve made it much too dangerous for people like me to help you.”

“Tell you what. Why don’t we get you and your family out of here? Then I’ll buy you lunch and we’ll talk. I’ll make you an offer, Ismael. A good offer. One you’ll find hard to turn down,” the colonel said almost gently. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” Ismael said slowly, wearily, wondering what choice he had. “I’m ready.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Thursday, May 9, 2002
11:00
A.M.

I
N THE ROYAL
neighborhood of Nasariya, where one palatial estate after another crowded the streets beyond the extravagant fountains of its traffic island, the home of Whalid and Amina Ibn Saud was considered almost embarrassingly modest. Finished in natural white stone and gray slate, its clean lines drew shrugs from the neighbors, whose white gingerbread moldings and pink-and-green brickwork seemed to go on forever The odd taste of the couple was usually dismissed with the reminder that Amina was a foreigner—an American—who, while embracing Islam, had embraced little else that a Saudi wife should.

Rumors about the tall, blond wife of Whalid Ibn Saud were a hobby, almost an avocation, among their neighbors. It was said that she never left the house except to drive to King Faisal Hospital to have a baby, or to the airport to leave the country. And although she had been doing this ever since she became Whalid’s bride six years before, each time she left, rumor had it that he had thankfully divorced her or that she was leaving for good and would not return. And each time she came back, rumor had it that one or the other of the couple must be dying. Or that she’d repented, and would never leave the country again. And when, six months later, like clockwork, much to the consternation of the pundits who had predicted otherwise, she picked herself and her three children up and found her way out of the country once more, the rumors began all over again, with greater fury.

And thus, although hardly any of her neighbors had actually met her,
everyone had an opinion about Amina Ibn Saud and at least one story they were delighted to share, embellish and trade for others.

These were the most popular: it was said that unlike other Saudi wives, Amina refused to wear the
abaya
—the traditional black cloak that covers Saudi women from head to ankle with only two holes for their eyes to peer out at the world—and that as a result she was forbidden by her husband to leave the house to visit shopping malls or supermarkets, and had everything delivered. It was said that inside her seemingly plain and drab home was an Olympic-sized pool, a gym, and a running track, which only she apparently used, dressed in tight outfits with the names “Nike” or “Adidas” printed on them. It was purported that the family held private screenings of forbidden films, and arranged private concerts with world-class musicians flown in for evening soirees attended by the elite of American and British inhabitants of Riyadh: its doctors, company directors and British Council cultural employees. And at these parties, it was said that Amina Ibn Saud did not cover her hair, and thus her husband refused to allow his relatives to be invited. It was also said that she held classes for women in which she and they would encourage each other to read foreign books and shamelessly discuss un-Islamic topics, including sexual practices.