SANCTION: A Thriller (12 page)

A local chef, who’d turned a meager cop’s salary into a robust family business, which was beginning to rival the big name franchises in the area, owned “Terry’s Steak House”; one of President Vanderbilt’s favorites. The secret service hated it. It was a logistical nightmare for them, with walls of massive picture windows in every direction and an open air deck overlooking the blue waters of the always crowded harbor. The only bright side was that the owner always closed the top floor when the President dined, so that he could eat in peace.

“So, what are you gonna do?” Paine asked.

“Well, I thought that’s what I had you for Kenneth. I need a direction to take this thing in.” Vanderbilt said as he adjusted the napkin on his lap for the fifth time.

Paine hadn’t seen the President this morose since they’d discovered that a leak was about to link his administration to a nasty oil scandal.

“Yeah well, if I were you, I would do nothing. The American people are used to seeing Palestine tear itself apart every few years.” He said before greedily stuffing the dripping fish into his mouth.

“The only other thing you can do is…” Paine added between lips that were mostly closed to hold the food in. He looked up at the President and shook his head from side to side. “Never mind,” he said coolly and swallowed. He waited to see if Vanderbilt would take the bait.

“What?” The President asked eagerly hoping that Paine would once again produce a brilliant political response.

He had jumped onto Paine’s hook. Now all the man had to do was reel him in. ‘How did this guy get to be President?’ He asked himself. ‘Because I trained him, that’s how.’ he thought arrogantly.

“Well,” he continued. “You need a strong stomach just to hear this, let alone to implement it.” He warned.

He filled his empty wine glass from a seven year old bottle of red wine and sat back in his chair. He looked around the restaurant, as if to ensure that no one could overhear, and then leaned over the table on his elbows.

“Why doesn’t Israel just blow Palestine off the map?”

Vanderbilt blushed at the question but didn’t attempt a reply.

“Because, they don’t have to. They don’t have to give concessions or hold peace talks with the Palestinians or this new guy, Nazari. Where is a credible threat to Israel in the West Bank? What army in Gaza has the power to climb that fence and launch a barrage against them?” He took a long sip of his wine.

“Graham, they throw rocks at armored bulldozers and some of the fiercest military equipment on the planet.” Paine’s face became animated as he spun his proposal to the President.

“Palestinians have global support for their cause. The World bleeds with them, albeit emotionally, but still. They get to continue throwing those rocks and lighting up public transportation like a bonfire because they know that if the Israelis respond with full force, public opinion will drive them into a dark cave. What the situation warrants is a level playing field.” He let the words circle around in the President’s head before he went on.

“I want you to try to picture this,” he said pulling his cloth napkin off of his lap and stretching it out across the table. He pushed his plate aside and emptied his wine glass. Drawing a pen from his suit pocket, he began placing rough lines in the center of the napkin.

“What we have here is the West Bank. On one side we have our allies, Israel. On the other, we have the Palestinians whom we would like to have as allies.” He shaded in the crude rectangle along the line that represented Israel.

“Along this border are stationed some of the bravest, most well-armed soldiers in the Universe.”

Then he shaded in the other side.

“And on this side you have men and women who have been, for all of their lives, at odds with this superpower and ill equipped to do anything- with any lasting ramifications- about it. Again, let’s revisit their arsenal. Rocks, sticks, outdated RPG’s, inconsistent explosive devices, World War l grenades, sixty year old rifles and so on. They use terror as a means to an end because that’s what they have at their disposal. Now, if they had modern weaponry, Israel would begin to take them seriously. The Prime Minister would not be able to ignore their requests for concessions and would be eager to get through the peace process.” He placed his elbows on the table again.

“Furthermore Graham, if those same weapons came from the United States, then the world would be off our backs about all the support we have been giving Israel over the years and we would start to be seen as true advocates for peace in the region.”

Instead of being shocked as Paine had expected, the President appeared to be contemplating the suggestion. Now he was leaning in over the table. His hands were interlaced and hovering above his untouched plate of food.

“We’re not talking about building an army here. It would only require enough military power to pose a perceivable threat.” Paine said.

A thin, blond waitress approached from the restaurant’s kitchen. Paine stopped talking. The President observed his friend as he feigned interest in the girl’s menial task of refilling their water glasses.

She asked if they needed anything else. The President quietly thanked her and sent her on her way.

“As I was saying, we wouldn’t need to give these guys a Nuke or anything, just a few tanks, some up armored Humvee’s and training.”

Kenneth was interrupted for a second time, by the President’s aide.

The aide leaned over the President’s shoulder and cupped a hand over her mouth, hiding her lips. She whispered into his ear for a prolonged period of time.

Kenneth watched the President’s face closely. One of Vanderbilt’s great skills was that he could keep a poker face like no one else Kenneth knew. His expression didn’t change until the aide quickly walked back to the security detail in the other room.

The President stood and grabbed his suit jacket from the back of the chair. He flung the jacket around his shoulders and popped his left hand through a sleeve.

“Well, I don’t know what you think about my proposal Graham but I believe that aside from doing nothing, arming the Palestinians is all you have left.” Paine stated, adding to his fragmented conversation with the President.

Vanderbilt looked at his friend, who was still seated at the small round table.

“I think you may be onto something. Have you had any more luck getting in contact with Imam Nazari’s guy, to set up that meeting?” Vanderbilt asked, still maintaining his winning poker mask.

“Not yet, he has been unreachable this week, why?” Paine answered as he started to stand.

“I think it may be good to have a talk with him, especially since he lifted the ceasefire twenty minutes ago.”

D
urrah Nejem sat on the couch in her living room, her two daughters seated to her right and left.

Kingsley walked over to one of the windows in the front of the house and peered through a set of dingy white curtains. He could see Efran Levy pacing back and forth, squawking into his cell phone. All of a sudden the Jewish man stopped. His head jerked up violently and he looked to the house. Alarmed, Kingsley opened the front door and stepped into the hot sunlight.

“What’s up?”

Efran’s face had turned a light shade of gray in seconds.

“Nazari has lifted the ceasefire, we must leave this place now.” He said as he strode toward Kingsley.

Kingsley stepped back into the house and motioned toward the door at Brad.

“Time’s up, we have to go.”

Brad didn’t take his eyes off of the old woman. She was a rock, no tears formed in her eyes, no fear was present. She just sat there next to Saleem’s sisters and remained quiet.

Tom’s voice broke through his concentration and Brad looked from Durrah to him.

Kingsley frowned. He had never seen his friend like this. He was non-responsive, belligerent, and reckless. Now he seemed incoherent. Brad was so focused on winning back his brother that he had stopped being Brad Ward and had become something like a machine.

Efran stood outside the home. He leaned in, making sure not to place even a toe beyond the threshold of the Nejem household. For the first time, Durrah Nejem raised her head. She returned Efran’s gaze, only hers had maliciousness in it.

Everyone knew that the Hamas had taken a breather during the forced ceasefire. Not a single weapon had been discharged in the previous four months, since Imam Nazari had instituted his peace initiative. The men who constituted the militant wing of the Hamas were itching to start lobbing sixty year old munitions at Israeli forces.

Brad could see the tension in Kingsley’s face. His friend wanted to get out of there fast.

There was no way Brad was leaving without questioning Durrah. He bent down to her level, his lips only inches away from her ear.

“Where is your son?” He asked in Arabic.

Durrah moved away from Brad and rested her shoulder against the back of the sofa. Again, without thinking, Brad reached around the woman’s neck and cupped her cheek. He pulled her back to him and angled his lips in the same place, mere inches away. This time he shouted.

“Where is your son?”

Durrah Nejem’s tough exterior melted and she began to weep. Unfazed, Brad pulled her in still closer and shouted the same question. This time he said it in English.

“Where is Saleem Nejem?”

Kingsley placed a boot underneath the coffee table that separated him from the woman and Brad. He jerked his foot up and the coffee table launched into the air. Several items that had been sitting on it, including a dark brown beverage, spilled onto the floor. The large man shoved his right arm between Ms. Nejem and Brad. Brad resisted but Kingsley overpowered him and forced him to the side of the couch. Once Brad let go of his hold on Durrah, Kingsley stood her up and pulled out a pocket knife. He prepared to cut the tie that bound her hands behind her back when a whooshing wind ripped past the front door, followed by a deafening crash. A homemade bomb had exploded next door in the hands of an inexperienced teenager. Everyone in the Nejem house was sent to the ground.

Kingsley and the Palestinian woman were knocked to their backs. The Green Beret scrambled around in the mess from the coffee table and rose to a kneeling position.

Brad ran toward the empty doorway and grabbed Efran from outside. He yanked him into the house. Sporadic gunfire erupted all around them. Brad took a broken mirror off of a wooden table next to the front door and held it outside the house. He could see young men running about franticly firing rifles into the air. It was evident that they weren’t reacting to Brad and Tom’s breaking and entering activity but to Imam Nazari’s official lifting of his restraints.

Brad shifted the mirror around so that he could see what was going on, on the other side of the house. It was the same sight, men running in a hectic dash toward the Israeli line. They threw Molotov cocktails, sticks and rocks, anything they could get their hands on. It was the beginning of an intense mob controlled riot. He pulled the mirror back inside and threw it on the ground. Efran studied his face.

“We must get out of here. If night falls…we don’t want to be here. We’re not with friends.” The Mossad agent said as he looked at the women on the floor.

As a Mossad operative, Efran Levy had a mountain of training under his belt. When he said anything that pertained to the Palestinians, it was golden. Brad nodded and crouched down low. He moved over to where Kingsley was still kneeling. His friend had his rifle trained on the only way into the tiny house. Durrah Nejem just laid on the floor in the same position as she had fallen in.

The sound of small arms fire reverberated off of the gray cinderblock walls of the house, sounding to those inside like the world was to end. The two sisters huddled together on the sofa, their hands still bound behind their backs. Screams and shouts in Arabic mixed into the tin pinging noise of the gunfire. Brad got up from the floor and moved down the hallway, examining the ceiling along the way. He found a two foot by two foot square piece of plywood in the closet of the master bedroom. It was an access point to the attic with a door that led to the roof. Standing on an old space heater he prodded the plywood cover with the tip of his M4 Carbine. He pushed the board all the way up and to the side. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and leapt up to the square hole.

Brad crouched along a walkway in the attic until he came to the locked door that accessed the roof. He put his shoulder into it and shoved. The door popped open and swung out on its hinges. All along the bright skyline, people shouted from their rooftops and fired weapons into the air. None of them focused on the Nejem home but they were none the less surrounded by an increasingly volatile mob.

Brad lowered himself back down and jumped off the space heater. He sat on it and tried to strategize a way out of the rapidly exploding West Bank. An idea came to him and he stood up and rushed into one of the other rooms in the house. When they had cleared the place earlier, he had noticed some men’s clothing piled up on one of the two twin beds. He sorted through the pile but didn’t find what he was looking for.

He searched the closet, also to no avail. Then, in a nightstand against the far wall, he pulled out four head dressings and matching robes. He folded them under his free arm and marched back into the living room. Kingsley looked up when he entered.

“What have you got Brad? We’re gonna be hurting real bad if we don’t do something quick.” Kingsley asked as he eyed the clothing Brad carried beneath his arm.

“What is that?” Efran asked.

Durrah and her two daughters looked up.

Brad handed one of the robes and head coverings to Efran and tossed the other set to Kingsley. Kingsley stood and stepped into the robe. He then proceeded to fold the black and white checkered square fabric into the traditional Kufiya over his head.

The clothing was more formal than everyday garb. Brad guessed Saleem or his brother Raza probably wore it, during special events or holidays like Ramadan. He hoped anyone curious about the attire would merely assume they were marking the end of the ceasefire as a reason to celebrate.