Saving Sophie: A Novel (19 page)

“Then leave him out. You two will have to handle it.” Kelsen slipped a sealed envelope to each of the players. “Make it happen, boys.”

T
WENTY
-N
INE

“S
HE TOLD YOU SHE
could get in touch with him?” Foster said.

Liam nodded. He sat across the table from Foster and Kayla Cummings in the State Department’s office on the twenty-first floor of Chicago’s Metcalfe Federal Building. In the March deep freeze, a few flurries blew around outside the windows trying to make their way down to Jackson Boulevard. Down on the streets, the wind-battered pedestrians pulled their coat collars as high as they would go and leaned into the powerful gusts as they walked.

“Deborah told me she didn’t know where he was,” Liam said.

“And you believed her?”

“I don’t know. Doesn’t matter. She’s not going to give him up, but I think she’ll get a message to him and maybe he’ll talk to me.”

“Kayla believes something’s going down within the next few months.”

“Why?” Liam asked.

“Al-Zahani’s group is busier than usual,” she said. “I’ve been watching them. More frequent meetings. Whatever their plans are, there’s a good chance they’ll want to use that money soon. Especially if they believe the peace process is gaining momentum. If there’s a ransom payoff in the works, we need to get after it. Intercept it.”

“What do you want me to do?” Liam asked.

“Ideally, we’d like to insert you as the go-between. If Sommers is planning on ransoming his daughter, we want you to be the one to make the swap,” Foster said.

“I’ve never even been in that part of the world. I’m the wrong guy to do this.”

Foster shook his head. “It’s the perfect setup. You’ve got his sister’s confidence. She’ll talk to Sommers. Sommers’ll trust you. The Arabs have no book on you. Nobody’s ears’ll perk up while you’re poking around, there’s no reason to think—”

Liam shook his head. “I don’t have anyone’s confidence. His sister hasn’t reached out to me since I saw her. Besides, you told Jenkins you didn’t know if Sommers even had the money.”

Foster rocked back in his big leather chair. “He took the money. A perfectly responsible man who’s never stepped outside the lines all of a sudden decides to throw away his career, the trust that everyone’s shown in him, and steal a fortune from a client? Could there be any reason other than ransoming his daughter?”

“No.”

“And now his accomplices turn up dead. Harrington was shot through the head, and the only other guy we know about, the escrow officer, was killed last week in a hit-and-run up on Lincoln Avenue. There’s no one left but Sommers and whoever else might be involved.”

“Ellis is dead?”

Foster nodded. “Crossing Lincoln at Fullerton with a bag of groceries. Witnesses said a white van tore around the corner, flattened him, and kept on going. No license plates, of course.”

“So, who else is involved?”

Foster shook his head and pursed his lips. “We don’t know. Just figure there must be others. People keep turning up dead.”

“And you think the money is earmarked for terrorists?”

Foster looked at Kayla, slowly turned his head back to Liam, raised his eyebrows, and nodded. “You can bet that the money, or some of it at least, is earmarked for al-Zahani. Is he a terrorist? Kayla thinks so.”

Liam looked at Kayla. “And this doctor, this rich doctor that there’s no evidence on, you’re sure he’s a terrorist?”

“Positive,” Kayla said. “He may be a rich doctor, but terrorism, it’s a family tradition.”

“We want you to go over there, let you get a feel for the landscape,” Foster said. “Talk to whomever you can. Then come back, contact his sister, and tell Sommers you can make the exchange happen.”

“Why don’t you pick some guy who’s familiar with the landscape? I don’t know anything about that side of the world.”

“No, you’re the perfect guy. Sommers has to be thinking that whatever deal he made, it’s starting to come apart,” Foster said. “Two of the players are dead. If he hasn’t already, Sommers is going to realize he’s in over his head. He’ll talk to his sister and she likes you. That’s when you can step in. He’ll trust you.”

Liam shook his head. “I stopped working for the Agency years ago. I’m private now. Back when I was assigned to Northern Ireland, I knew about the landscape, the Provisional IRA, Sinn Féin. I could give you hours on Irish history. But the Middle East? I don’t know shit about it or the Palestinians. I don’t talk their talk. And I certainly don’t know anything about the evil doctor.”

“That’s just a social studies lesson. Kayla can fill you in. She’ll tell you everything we know about the al-Zahanis. And she’ll go with you every step of the way.” Foster paused and took a sip of coffee.

“When I was in Derry,” Liam reminisced, “I could walk the streets. I had family there. I was one of them. I knew all about the war of national liberation and I knew all the players. And, hell, that was fifteen years ago. In today’s world, I’m irrelevant. I don’t know anything about the Arab-Israeli conflict. I don’t know why people live on either side of a wall. I don’t know this doctor’s mind-set. What does he want?”

“He wants to be the grand cartographer. He wants to redraw the map of the Middle East,” Kayla said.

“It’s just education, Liam,” Foster said. “Kayla can teach you everything you need to know. Middle East 101. She’ll answer all your questions. You two can start tomorrow. Are you in?”

Liam shook his head, looked around the room, and then nodded. “Probably a big mistake. But, yeah.”

T
HIRTY

“W
HEN YOU GET TO
the Hebron Archaeological Museum, take her to the back, to the Canaanite room,” al-Zahani said to Bashir. “Let her see and touch the stones of her ancestors. Show her the discoveries dating back to the Iron Age, the age of King David. Even to the Bronze Age, when Moses sent his spies to Hebron. Let her see the evidence that Hebron was once the great capital of all of Canaan. Show her that Canaanites dwelled and farmed the land from the Jordan River to the sea. Let her see why it all belongs to us and not to the Europeans who now occupy our land.”

“She is in her room,
Sayyid,
” Bashir said. “She does not want to come out.”

The doctor shook his head. “This has got to stop. Tell her if she does not come out immediately, I will throw the stuffed bear away.”

Bashir spoke quietly. “Perhaps it is better if we let her take the bear on a trip to the museum. Then I can show the history of Hebron to the little one and her Sweetness.”

Al-Zahani stood. “Fine. Do it your way.”

Bashir nodded his agreement. “I will make sure she sees all of the historical treasures,
Sayyid
.”

Bashir knocked and quietly entered Sophie’s bedroom. She had pulled her chair to the window and was wistfully staring at the mountains far beyond. Her bear sat on her lap.

“Little one, would you like to take a walk with me?”

She shook her head. “I told Jaddi I don’t want to go to the museum.”

“But it is exciting and full of treasures. And we can take Sweetness on a bold adventure. To show him things of three thousand years ago. I think he might like to see the caves where teddy bears lived long before there were houses. And clay bowls where teddy bears kept their honey. Maybe afterwards, we can talk Sweetness into joining us for a dish of ice cream at the sweet store. Should we take him?”

Sophie smiled and nodded. “He likes chocolate.”

A few moments later, Bashir and Sophie walked into the library, hand in hand.

“It’s a wonderful museum,” al-Zahani said. “A place where you can appreciate the deep history of your people. Bashir, make sure she sees the cyclopean stones from the great tower of Hebron. Do you know, Sophie, the tower was so high that when Moses sent his spies, they thought that giants must live in Hebron?”

He bent over and kissed his granddaughter on the top of her head. When Sophie left, al-Zahani drove across town to the group’s small apartment. A teenager in a gray sweatshirt and soccer shorts stood by the back door. His arms were folded across his chest and he leaned against the brick wall. Al-Zahani ruffled his hair. “You’re a good lookout, Dani. Is everyone here?”

The boy nodded. Al-Zahani opened the door and ascended the stairs to the musty apartment.

“You’re finally here, praise be to Allah. The great doctor has arrived,” said Nizar.

Al-Zahani responded with an angry glance and took a step toward Nizar but was halted by Fa’iz’s calm command: “Stop. You are like children. We have serious work to do. We are four weeks from our destiny. How is the bus conversion progressing?”

“Almost completed,” Aziz said. “I think we will begin our transports next week.”

“I am pleased. And Sami? Who has heard from him?”

“I’m in contact with Sami,” Ahmed said. “He has been working at the distribution center for eight months, one of only three drivers. He has a regular route that will include all of our targets. More importantly, at the beginning of each week he is given a printout of the quantities ordered at each location.”

“Excellent. Have we solved the problem with the plastic bags?”

Al-Zahani answered tentatively, “Finally, we did. We received a shipment two days ago that meets our standards. They are being imprinted with the appropriate graphics and we will soon be filling them.”

“What does
soon
mean, Arif?” Fa’iz said, rubbing his long, wiry beard, dark gray along the edges, light gray in the middle, like a mottled skunk. “We have deadlines.”

“I need more time, I can’t be rushed. We are still replicating the organisms. Filling the bags is a slow process.”

Nizar shouted, “Four weeks is all we have. Can’t you understand that? Your delay will be the ruin of our entire operation. We wait and wait for you, and all we hear is, ‘I need more time.’ Everybody else has done his job, Arif. Maybe you can spend a little less time with your American Jew-child.”

Al-Zahani flew at Nizar and knocked him off his chair. He grabbed him around the throat, squeezing until his knuckles were white. “You say one more word about my granddaughter…”

The others pulled al-Zahani away. Nizar lay on the floor coughing.

Fa’iz shook his head slowly. “What he said was wrong, Arif. But choking him…”

“Fuck him. He can die.”

“No, he can’t. He is our brother and indispensable to our operation.”

“No, Fa’iz, with much respect, I am indispensable to the operation. Nizar is a street thug. My father and grandfather were heroes, icons to our people. The al-Zahani bloodlines are royalty. My father commanded his army division, conquered this city, and ruled it for twenty years.”

“Your father was a common foot soldier,” Nizar said, his voice rough. “Everyone knows when he was a commandant in the Hebron garrison, he was a drunk and a womanizer.”

Al-Zahani threw a cup of tea at Nizar, who blinked his eyes and yelled, “You putrid son of a whore, you’re no better than anyone else. Your father and grandfather were murderers.”

“Enough! There will be no more of this,” Fa’iz demanded. “No more talk of Arif’s grandchild. No more insults. Hamid and Ibrahim were honored soldiers in our cause. No more violence among us. Save it for the Israelis. If all goes well next month, we will repeat the operation this summer in Tel Aviv. Samir has a brother who is now employed as an orderly. What a glorious year this will be. We will meet again Tuesday. Be mindful of our mission.”

T
HIRTY
-O
NE

L
IAM KNOCKED ON THE
door of the small state department office midmorning, carrying a cup of coffee.

“Come in please,” Kayla said, rising from her desk chair.

“I brought a couple of cinnamon scones.” Liam held up a paper bag and shook it from side to side. “My old friend Ben Solomon used to start his meetings like this. I guess it’s become a habit.”

“That’s very thoughtful, but no thank you.” Liam got the message: her wool suit jacket and skirt were fitted neatly around a trim figure that didn’t indulge in empty calories. “But you go right ahead,” she said. “I prepared some materials for you on the computer to go along with our discussion.” She pulled an extra chair over to her desk and angled the monitor to face the two chairs. The tiny office was barely more than a cubicle, and the chairs were squeezed into a small space. She gestured for Liam to take a seat.

Liam stared at the tight quarters. “Cozy.”

“It’s what they gave me.” Kayla smiled and patted the side chair. “Come on, sit down. You need to see the monitor. I prepared some slides. I won’t bite you, I promise.”

Liam nodded and took his seat beside her, close enough that her cologne was discernible, and the proximity of this attractive government official made Liam feel a little self-conscious. It occurred to him that he was glad he’d brushed his teeth.

“We have a lot to cover this morning,” Kayla said. “I’ll do my best to answer all your questions.”

“To be honest, I don’t know what questions to ask. I’m really unschooled when it comes to the Middle East. I only know what I read in the paper, and I don’t read that much. You think that al-Zahani is a Palestinian terrorist; I don’t know even what a Palestinian is. Exactly where is Palestine? What lands do the Palestinians claim and what is the legitimacy of their claims? Why do they refuse to recognize Israel?” He shrugged his shoulders. “And, most importantly, what’s the Agency’s dossier on al-Zahani?”

“Well, those are a lot of very good questions, Liam. Shall we begin?”

“Fire away.”

Kayla smiled. “You ask, ‘Exactly where is Palestine?’ ‘What’s a Palestinian?’ Those are good starting points, but perhaps there are no good answers right now. As to the al-Zahani family, we know quite a bit. In fact, tracing the genealogy of the al-Zahani family is a good way to follow the historical development of the modern Middle East.

“What is Palestine? A form of the word Palestine is found in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, apparently to refer to the land between Egypt and Phoenicia. The Greeks later used it in another form. The Romans referred to the land as Syria Palaestina, again to describe the land that lay east of the Mediterranean Sea. At present, there is no de facto or de jure country known as Palestine, nor are there any recognized borders for a state of Palestine. The last time there was an area of land officially referred to as Palestine was during the period of the British Mandate, from 1920 to 1948. Today there is no specific area of land called Palestine, though many people refer to the Palestinian presence in the West Bank as the Palestinian Territories.