Prince of Fire Read online

  Yaakov applied the brakes suddenly to avoid collidingwith a slow-moving transit van. Simultaneously he flashed his lights and pounded on the car horn. The van responded by changing lanes. As Yaakov shot past, Gabriel glimpsed a pair of Haredim conducting an animatedconversation as though nothing had happened.

  Yaakov tossed a kippah onto Gabriel’s lap. It was larger than most and loosely knitted, with an orange-and-amber pattern against a black background. Gabriel understood the significance of its design.

  “We’ll cross the line as settlers, just in case anyonefrom PA Security or Hamas is watching the checkpoints.”

  “Where are we from?”

  “Kiryat Devorah,” Yaakov replied. “It’s in the Jordan Valley. We’re never going to set foot there.”

  Gabriel held up the skullcap. “I take it we’re not terriblypopular with the local population.”

  “Let’s just say that the residents of Kiryat Devorahtake their commitment to the Land of Israel quite seriously.”

  Gabriel slipped the kippah onto his head and adjusted the angle. Yaakov briefed Gabriel as he drove: the proceduresfor crossing into the West Bank, the route they would take to the Arab village where Arwish was waiting, the method of extraction. When Yaakov finished, he reached into the backseat and produced an Uzi miniaturesubmachine gun.

  “I prefer this,” said Gabriel, holding up his Beretta.

  Yaakov laughed. “This is the West Bank, not the Left Bank. Don’t be a fool, Gabriel. Take the Uzi.”

  Gabriel reluctantly took the weapon and rammed a magazine of ammunition into the butt. Yaakov covered his head with a kippah identical to the one he’d given Gabriel. A few miles beyond Ben-Gurion airport he exitedthe motorway and followed a two-lane road eastward toward the West Bank. The Separation Fence, looming before them, cast a black shadow across the landscape.

  At the checkpoint a Shabak man stood among the IDF soldiers. As Yaakov approached, the Shabak man murmured a few words to the soldiers and the Volkswagenwas allowed to pass without inspection. Yaakov, clear of the checkpoint, raced along the moon-washed road at high speed. Gabriel glanced over his shoulder and saw a pair of headlights. The lights floated there for a time, then receded into the night. Yaakov seemed to take no notice of them. The second car, Gabriel suspected, belongedto a Shabak countersurveillance team.

  A sign warned that Ramallah lay four kilometers ahead. Yaakov turned off the road, onto a dirt track that ran through the bed of an ancient wadi. He doused his headlamps and navigated the wadi with only the amber glow of his parking lights. After a moment he brought the car to a stop.

  “Open the glove box.”

  Gabriel did as he was told. Inside was a pair of kaffiyehs.

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Cover your face,” Yaakov said. “All of it, the way they do.”

  Yaakov, in a practiced motion, bound his head in the kaffiyeh and tied it at his throat, so that his face was concealed except for a thin slit for his eyes. Gabriel did the same. Yaakov started driving again, plunging along the darkened wadi with both hands wrapped around the wheel, leaving Gabriel with the uncomfortable feeling he was seated next to an Arab militant on a suicide run. A mile farther on, they came to a narrow paved road. Yaakovturned onto the road and followed it north.

  The village was small, even by West Bank standards, and gripped by an air of sudden desertion—a collectionof squat, dun-colored houses crouched around the narrow spire of a minaret, with scarcely a light burning anywhere. In the center of the village lay a small market square. There were no other cars and no pedestrians, only a flock of goats nosing amid fallen produce.

  The house where Yaakov stopped was on the northernedge. The window facing the street was shuttered. One of the shutters hung aslant from a broken hinge. A few feet from the front door was a child’s tricycle. The bike was pointed toward the door, which meant the meeting was still on. Had it been pointed in the oppositedirection, they would have been forced to abort and head for the backup location.

  Yaakov snatched an Uzi submachine gun from the floorboard and climbed out of the car. Gabriel did the same, then pulled open the rear passenger-side door, just as Yaakov had instructed. He turned his back to the house and watched the street for any sign of movement. “If anyone approaches the car while I’m inside, shoot in their direction,” Yaakov had said. “If they don’t get the message, put them on the ground.”

  Yaakov hurdled the tricycle and drove his right foot against the door. Gabriel heard the crack of splintering wood but kept his eyes trained on the street. From inside came the sound of a voice shouting in Arabic. Gabriel recognized it as Yaakov’s. The next voice was unfamiliar to him.

  A light appeared in a nearby cottage, then another. Gabriel released the safety on his Uzi and slipped his forefingerinside the trigger guard. He heard footfalls behind him and turned in time to see Yaakov leading Arwish through the broken door, hands in the air, face shrouded by a black hood, an Uzi pressed to the back of his head.

  Gabriel turned his gaze once more toward the street. A man, dressed in a pale gray galabia, had stepped outsidehis cottage and was shouting at Gabriel in Arabic. Gabriel, in the same language, ordered him to stay back, but the Palestinian advanced closer. “Shoot at him!” Yaakov snapped, but Gabriel calmly held fire.

  Yaakov shoved Arwish headlong into the back of the car. Gabriel scrambled in after him and drove the informanttoward the floor. Yaakov ran around the front of the car to the driver’s-side door, pausing long enough to spray a volley of rounds a few yards from the feet of the Palestinian villager, who scurried back into the shelter of his house.

  Yaakov jumped behind the wheel, then reversed down the narrow street. Reaching the market square, he turned around and sped through the village. The gunfire and the roaring of the car engine had alerted the villagers to trouble. Faces appeared in windows and doorways, but no one dared challenge them.

  Gabriel kept watch out the rear window until the villagevanished into the darkness. A moment later Yaakov was once again racing along the rutted wadi, this time in the opposite direction. The collaborator was still pressed to the floor, wedged into the narrow space between the backseat and the front.

  “Let me up, you jackass!”

  Gabriel pressed his forearm against the side of the Arab’s neck and subjected his body to a rough and thoroughsearch for weapons or explosives. Finding nothing, he pulled the Arab onto the seat and tore away the black hood. A single eye glared malevolently back at him—the eye of Yasir Arafat’s translator, Colonel Kemel.

  The city of Hadera, an early Zionist farm settlement turned drab Israeli industrial town, lies on the Coastal Plain halfway between Haifa and Tel Aviv. In a working-classsection of the city, adjacent to a sprawling tire factory, stands a row of wheat-colored apartment buildings.One of the buildings, the one nearest the factory, stinks always of burning rubber. On the top floor of this building is a Shabak safe flat. For most officers it is a meeting place of last resort. Yaakov actually preferred it. The acrid smell, he believed, lent an air of urgency to the proceedings, for few men who came here wished to linger long. But then Yaakov was driven by other ghosts. His great-grandparents, Russian Jews from Kovno, had been among the founders of Hadera. They had turned a worthless malarial swamp into productive farmland. For Yaakov, Hadera was truth. Hadera was Israel.

  The flat was devoid of comfort. The sitting room was furnished with folding metal chairs, and the linoleum floor was buckled and bare. On the kitchen counter stood a cheap plastic electric kettle; in the rust-stained basin a quartet of dirty cups. Mahmoud Arwish, alias Colonel Kemel, had turned down Yaakov’s rather disingenuous offer of tea. He had also requested that Yaakov leave the lights off. The neatly pressed uniform he’d been wearing that morning at the Mukata had been replaced by a pair of gabardine trousers and a white cotton shirt, which glowed softly in the moonlight streaming through the window. Between the two remaining fingers of his right hand rested one of Yaakov’s American cigar
ettes. With the other hand he was massaging the side of his neck. His single eye was fixed on Gabriel, who had forsaken his folding chair and was seated on the floor with his back propped against the wall and his legs crossed before him. Yaakov was a formless shadow against the window.

  “I see you’ve learned a thing or two from your Shabakfriend,” Arwish said, rubbing his jaw. “They have a reputation of being good with their fists.”

  “You said you wanted to see me,” said Gabriel. “I don’t like when people ask to see me.”

  “What did you think I was planning to do? Kill you?”

  “It’s not without precedent,” Gabriel replied calmly.

  Shabak agents, he knew, were at their most vulnerablewhile meeting with assets from the other side. In recent years, several had been killed during meetings. One had been hacked to death with an ax in a Jerusalem safe flat.

  “If we’d wanted to kill you, we’d have done it this morning in Ramallah. Our people would have celebrated your death. Your hands are stained with the blood of Palestinian heroes.”

  “Celebration of death is what you’re good at these days,” Gabriel replied. “Sometimes it seems to be the only thing. Offer your people something instead of suicide.Lead them instead of following the most extreme elements of your society. Build something.”

  “We tried to build something,” Arwish replied, “and you tore it down with your tanks and bulldozers.”

  Gabriel glimpsed Yaakov’s shadow stirring in the window.The Shabak man wanted the topic moved onto less contentious ground. Mahmoud Arwish, judging from the menacing manner in which he lit a second cigarette, was not ready to concede. Gabriel looked away from the Arab’s single glaring eye and absently trailed his forefingerthrough the dust on the linoleum floor. Let him rant, Shamron would have counseled. Let him cast you as the oppressor and villain. It helps to assuage the guilt of betrayal.

  “Yes, we celebrate death,” Arwish said, closing the lid of Yaakov’s old-fashioned lighter with a snap. “And some of us collaborate with our enemy. But that’s the way it alwaysis in war, isn’t it? Unfortunately, we Palestinians are easily bought. Shabak calls it the three K’s: kesef, kavod, kussit. Money, respect, woman. Imagine, betraying your people for the affection of an Israeli whore.”

  Gabriel, silent, continued doodling in the dust. He realized he was tracing the outline of a Caravaggio— Abraham, knife in hand, preparing to slay his own son in service to the Lord.

  Arwish went on. “Do you know why I collaborate, Jibril? I collaborate because my wife became ill. The doctor at the clinic in Ramallah diagnosed her with cancerand said she would die unless she received treatment in Jerusalem. I requested permission from the Israeli authorities to enter the city, which brought me into contact with Shabak and my dear friend.” He inclined his head toward Yaakov, who was now seated on the window ledge with his arms folded. “In front of me he calls himself Solomon. I know his real name is Yaakov, but I always refer to him as Solomon. It is one of the many games we play.”

  Arwish contemplated the end of his cigarette. “Needlessto say, my wife received permission to travel to Jerusalemfor treatment, but it came at a steep price, the price of collaboration. Solomon jails my sons from time to time, just to keep the information flowing. He’s even jailed a relative who lives on the Israeli side of the Green Line. But when Solomon truly wants to turn the screws on me, he threatens to tell my wife of my treachery. Solomon knows she would never forgive me.”

  Gabriel looked up from his Caravaggio. “Are you finished?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Then why don’t you tell me about Khaled?”

  “Khaled,” Arwish repeated, shaking his head. “Khaled is the least of your problems.” He paused and looked towardthe darkened ceiling. " ’Israel is bewildered. They have now become among the nations like an unwanted vessel, like a lonely wild ass.’ ” His gaze settled on Gabriel once more. “Do you know who wrote those words?”

  “Hosea,” Gabriel replied indifferently.

  “Correct,” said Arwish. “Are you a religious man?”

  “No,” answered Gabriel truthfully.

  “Neither am I,” confessed Arwish, “but perhaps you should heed the advice of Hosea. What is Israel’s solutionto her problems with the Palestinians? To build a fence. To act, in the words of Hosea, like shifters of field boundaries. The Jews complain bitterly about the centuriesthey spent in the ghetto, and yet what are you doing with that Separation Fence? You are building the first Palestinian ghetto. Worse still, you’re building a ghetto for yourselves.”

  Arwish started to raise his cigarette to his lips, but Yaakov stepped away from the window and slapped the cigarette from the Palestinian’s ruined hand. Arwish treated himself to the victim’s superior smile, then he twisted his head around and asked Yaakov for a cup of tea. Yaakov returned to the window and remained motionless.

  “No tea today,” Arwish said. “Only money. To get my money, I must sign Solomon’s ledger and affix to it my own thumbprint. That way, if I betray Solomon, he can punish me. There is but one fate for collaboration in our part of this land. Death. And not a gentleman’s death. A biblical death. I’ll be stoned or hacked to pieces by Arafat’s fanatical killers. That’s how Yaakov ensures I tell him nothing but the truth, and on a timely basis.”

  Yaakov leaned forward and whispered into Arwish’s ear, like a lawyer instructing a witness under hostile questioning.

  “Solomon grows irritated with my speeches. Solomonwould like me to get down to business.” Arwish studied Gabriel for a moment. “But not you, Jibril. You are the patient one.”

  Gabriel looked up. “Where’s Khaled?”

  “I don’t know. I only know that Arafat misled you this morning. You’re right. Khaled does exist, and he’s taken up the sword of his father and grandfather.”

  “Did he do Rome?”

  A moment of hesitation, a glance toward the dark figure of Yaakov, then a slow nod.

  “Is he acting at Arafat’s behest?”

  “I couldn’t say for certain.”

  “What can you say for certain?”

  “He’s in communication with the Mukata.”

  “How?”

  “A number of different ways. Sometimes he uses faxes. They’re bounced from a number of different machines, and by the time they arrive in the Territories, they’re almost impossible to read.”

  “What else?”

  “Sometimes he uses coded e-mails, which are routed through a number of different addresses and servers. Sometimes he sends messages to Arafat via courier or through the visiting delegations. Most of the time, though, he just uses the telephone.”

  “Could you identify his voice?”

  “I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him speak.”

  “Have you ever seen him?”

  “I believe I met him once, many years ago in Tunis. A young man came to visit and stayed in Arafat’s compoundfor a few days. He had a French name and passport,but he spoke Arabic like a Palestinian.”

  “What makes you think it was Khaled?”

  “The way Arafat was acting. He glowed in the presenceof this young man. He was positively giddy.”

  “That’s all?”

  “No, there was something about his appearance. They always said Khaled looked like his grandfather. This man certainly bore a striking resemblance to Sheikh Asad.”

  Arwish stood suddenly. Yaakov’s arm swung up, and he leveled his Uzi at the Arab’s head. Arwish smiled and pulled his shirt out of his trousers. Taped to his lower back was an envelope. Gabriel had missed it during his rapid search for weapons in the back of the car. Arwish removed the envelope and flipped it to Gabriel, who pried open the flap and shook the photograph out onto his lap. It showed a young man, strikingly handsome, seated next to Arafat at a table. He seemed unaware that his picture was being taken.

  “Arafat has a habit of secretly photographing anyone who meets with him,” Arwish said. “You have photographsof Khaled as a c
hild. Perhaps your computers can confirm that this man is truly him.”

  “It’s not likely,” Gabriel said. “What else do you have?”

  “When he calls the Mukata, it’s not his voice on the line.”

  “How does he do that?”

  “He has someone else do the talking. A woman—a European woman.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “She uses different names and different telephones.”

  “Where?”

  Arwish shrugged.

  “What’s her native language?”

  “Hard to tell, but her Arabic is perfect.”

  “Accent?”

  “Classical. Upper-crust Jordanian. Maybe Beirut or Cairo. She refers to Khaled as Tony.”

  “Tony who?” Gabriel asked calmly. “Tony where?”

  “I don’t know,” Arwish said, “but find the woman, and maybe you’ll find Khaled.”

  12

  TEL AVIV

  “She calls herself Madeleine, but only when she’s posing as a Frenchwoman. When she wants to be British, she calls herself Alexandra. When Italian, she’s Lunetta— Little Moon.”