The Butcher's Theatre (48 page)

Red Amira Nasser. The dark hair and the fact that she was dull-witted put her in league with Fatma and Juliet. So far the only thing they’d come up with was a rumor that she had family in Jordan, had escaped there. And a medical chart at Hadassah Hospital—treatment six months ago for syphilis. No welfare payments, no other government records; a true professional, she lived off her earnings.

Avi parked the BMW next to Daniel’s Escort. He and Shmeltzer got out and trudged up the sloping pathway, kicking up dust. Daniel greeted them, summed up his procedures, gave them the list of Gvura members, and told them to do a weapons check on all of them, paying special attention to Bob Arnon. Any blade that remotely fit Levi’s descriptions was to be taken and tagged.

“Anything about this Arnon that makes him interesting?” asked Shmeltzer.

“He’s an American, he likes to play with guns and knives, he beat up on a leftist last June, and he hates Arabs.”

“Are his eyes flat?” Shmeltzer smiled sourly. He knew Little Hook from his days on the pickpocket detail, was far from being convinced of the hunchback s story.

“Bloodshot,” said Daniel. “Otherwise unremarkable.”

“Fucking political games, coming down here. A total waste of our time.” Avi nodded along like a dutiful son.

“Okay, let’s get it over with,” said Daniel. “Send a report to Laufer and move on.”

“Laufer knew my father,” said Cohen. “He thinks I’m his boy. I think he’s a shithead.”

“What’s with Malkovsky?” Daniel asked him.

“Nothing. Still edgy. I wish I were there instead of playing the shithead’s game.”

“The shithead cornered me in the hall this morning,”

said Shmeltzer. “Wanted to know what we’ve gotten out of these sweet souls—just itching for another press release.

I told him we just started, it was too early to tell, but from the way it looked, they were all blameless as newborn lambs—did the esteemed Tat Nitzav wish us to continue in the same vein? ‘What do you mean?’ he says. I say,

‘Should we start checkin’ out the other MK’s and their people too?’”

Daniel laughed. “What did he say to that?” “Made like an old car—sputters and snorts, metal against metal—then headed straight for the bathroom. Primed, no doubt, for a little vertical communication.”

Daniel got back to Jerusalem at two-thirteen, bought a felafel from a street vendor near the train station, and finished it while driving to Headquarters. Back in his office he began transcribing the interview with Kagan onto official forms, wanting to be rid of it as quickly as possible, then called the operator and asked for radio contact with the Chinaman. Before she completed the transmission, she interrupted, saying: “There’s one for you coming in right now. Do you want it?”

“Sure.” He endured a minute of static, was connected to Salman Afif, the mustachioed Druze, phoning from his Border Patrol Jeep.

“I’m out here with some Bedouins—the ones we spoke about that first morning. They’ve migrated south, found something I think you’ll want to see.”

He told Daniel what it was and reported his location, using military coordinates. Daniel pulled out a map and pinpointed the spot, three and a half kilometers due north from the Scopus ridge. Fifteen hundred meters past the perimeter of the grid search he’d ordered after viewing Fat-ma’s body.

So close.

“What’s the best way to get there?”

“I can drive up into the city,” said Afif, “and take you back, retracing on the donkey paths, but it would be quicker for you to climb down the first kilometer or so on foot—to where the slope eases. From there it’s a straight ride. How are your shoes?”

“They’ll survive. I’m leaving now—meet you there. Thanks for keeping your eyes open.”

“Nothing to it,” said the Druze. “A blind man couldn’t have missed it.”

Daniel hung up, put his papers away, and called Forensics.

He parked the Escort across the road from the Amelia Catherine, put on a narrow-brimmed straw hat to block out the relentless Judean sun, tightened the buckles on his sandals, and got out. The watchman, Zia Hajab, was sitting at the entry to the hospital. Slumped in the same plastic chair, apparently sleeping.

Taking a quick backward look at the gully where Fatma had been found, Daniel sprinted toward the ridge, climbed over, and began his descent.

Walking sideways on bent legs, he made rapid progress, feeling nimble and fit, aware of, but unperturbed by, dry fingers of heat radiating upward from the broiling desert floor.

Summer was approaching—twenty-three days since the dumping of Fatma, and the case was snaking its way toward the new season. The rainy season had been brief this year, attenuated by hot easterly winds, but clumps of vegetation still clung to the terraced hillsides, denying the inevitability of summer. Digging his heels in and using his arms for balance, he half-walked, half-jumped through soft expanses of rusty terra rossa. Then the red earth began yielding to pale strips of mendzina—the chalky limestone that looked as dead as plastic but could still be friable if you knew how to work it—until soon all was pale and hard and unyielding—a crumbling, rocky course the color of dried bones. Land that would rather dissolve than accommodate, the emptiness relieved only by the last starved weeds of spring.

Afifs jeep was visible as a khaki spot on the chalk, its diameter expanding as Daniel drew near. Daniel removed his hat and waved it in the air, saw the blue Border Patrol light flash on and off. When he was forty meters away, the jeep’s engine started up. He trotted toward it, unmindful of the grit that had lodged between his toes, then remembering that no sand had been found on either body. Afif gave the jeep gas and it rocked on its bearings. Daniel climbed in and held on as the Druze made a sharp U-turn and sped off.

The ride was spine-jarring and loud, the jeep’s engine howling in protest as Afif tortured its transmission, maneuvering between low outcroppings of limestone, grinding single-mindedly through dry stream beds. The Druze’s pale eyes were hidden by mirrored sunglasses. A red bandanna was tied loosely around his neck, and the ends of his enormous moustache were blond with dust.

“Which Bedouin clan is this?” Daniel shouted.

“Locals, like I told you. Unrelated to any of the big clans. They run goats and sheep from here up toward Ramallah, come in for the summer, camping north of the city.”

Daniel remembered a small northern campsite, nine or ten low black tents of woven goat-hair, baking in the heat.

“Just past the Ramot, you said?”

“That’s them,” said Afif. He downshifted into a climb, twisted the wheel, and accelerated.

“How long have they been herding here?”

“Eight days.”

“And before that?”

“Up north, for a month or so.”

Bedouins, thought Daniel, holding on to his seat. Real ones, not the smiling, bejeweled businessmen who gave tent tours and camel rides to tourists in Beersheva. The most unlikely of informants.

The Bedouin saw themselves as free spirits, had contempt for city dwellers, whom they regarded as serfs and menial laborers. But they chose to live at bare subsistence level in terrain that had the utmost contempt for them and, like all desert creatures, had turned adaptation into a fine art.

Chameleons, thought Daniel. They told you what you wanted to hear, worked both sides of every fence. Glubb Pasha had built the Arab Legion on Bedouin talent; without them the Jordanian Army wouldn’t have lasted twenty-four hours. Yet, after ‘67, they’d turned right around and volunteered for the Israeli Army, serving as trackers, doing it

better than anyone. Now there were rumors that some of them were working for the PLO as couriers—grenades in saddlebags, plastique drop-offs in Gaza. Chameleons. “Why’d they come forward?” Daniel asked. “They didn’t,” said Afif. “We were on patrol, circling southeast from Al Jib—someone had reported suspicious movement along the Ramot road. It turned out to be a construction crew, working late. I was using the binoculars, saw them, decided to go in for a close look.” “Ever had any trouble with them?” “No, and we check on them regularly. They’re paupers, have enough trouble keeping their goats alive long enough to get them to market without getting into mischief. What caught my eye was that they were all gathered in one place. It looked like a conference, even though their camp was a good kilometer north. So I drove and found them huddled around the mouth of the cave. They started to move out when they heard us coming, but I kept them there while I checked it out. When I saw what was inside, I had them pull up camp and regroup by the cave while I called you.”

“You don’t think they had anything to do with it?” The Druze twirled one end of his mustache. “How can you be sure with the Bedouin? But, no, I think they’re being truthful. There weren’t any signs of recent activity in the cave. Old dried dung—looked like jackal or dog.” “How many of them actually went into the cave?” The kid who found it, his father, a couple of others. We |Aere fairly soon after they did, kept the rest out.” ‘I’ll need fingerprints and foot casts from them for com-parison Forensics should be here within the hour. It’ll be a

long day.’

‘I’ll handle it, no problem.”

Good. How many men do you have with you?”

‘Ten’

‘Have them do a search within a one-and-a-half-kilometer

radius from the cave. Look for anything unusual—

clothing, personal articles, human waste—you know

‘Do you want a grid search?” ‘You’ll need reinforcements for that. Is it worth it?”

“It’s been weeks,” said Afif. “There was that strong khamsin eleven days ago.”

He stopped talking, waited for Daniel to draw the conclusion: The chance of a footprint or clue withstanding the harsh easterly heat-storm was minimal.

“Do a grid within half a kilometer from the cave. If they find another cave, tell them to call in and wait for further instructions. Otherwise, just a careful search of the rest of it will be enough.”

The Druze nodded. They dipped, traversing a network of shallow wadis strewn with rocks and dead branches, the jeep’s underbelly reverberating hollowly in response to an assault of dancing gravel. Afif pushed his foot to the accelerator, churning up a dust storm. Daniel pulled down the brim of his hat, slapped one hand over his nose and mouth, and held his breath. The jeep climbed; he felt himself rise out of his seat and come down hard. When the particles had settled, the Bedouin camp came into focus along the horizon: dark, oblong smudges of tent, so low they could have been shadows. As they got closer, he could see the rest of the Border Patrol unit—two more jeeps and a canvas-top truck, of all them sporting revolving blue lights.

The truck was pulled up next to a ragged mound of limestone and surrounded by a mottled brown cloud that undulated in the heat: goatherds shifting restlessly. A single shepherd stood motionless at the periphery, staff in hand.

“The cave’s over there,” said Afif, pointing to the mound. “The opening’s on the other side.”

He aimed the jeep at the flock, came to a halt several meters from the goats, and turned off the engine.

Two Bedouins, a boy and a man, stood next to the canvas-topped truck, flanked by Border Patrolmen. The rest of the nomads had returned to their tents. Only the males were visible, men and boys sitting cross-legged on piles of brightly colored blankets, silent and still, as if tranquilized by inertia. But Daniel knew the women were there, too, veiled and tattooed. Peeking from behind goatskin partitions, in the rear section of the tent, called haramluk, where they huddled among the wood stoves and the cooking implements until beckoned for service.

A single vulture circled overhead and flew north. The goats gave a collective shudder, then quieted in response to a bark from the shepherd.

Daniel followed Afif as the Druze pushed his way through the herd, the animals yielding passively to the intruders, then closing ranks behind them, settling into a mewling, snorting pudding of hair and horns.

“The family is Jussef Ibn Umar,” said Afif as they approached the pair. “The father is Khalid; the boy, Hussein.”

He handed their identification cards to Daniel, walked up to the Bedouins, and performed the introductions, calling Daniel the Chief Officer and making it clear he was someone to be respected. Khalid Jussef Ibn Umar responded with an appropriate bow, cuffed his son until the boy bowed too. Daniel greeted them formally and nodded at Afif. The Druze left and began instructing his men.

Daniel inspected the ID cards, made notes, and looked

at the Bedouins. The boy was ten, small for his age, with

a round, serious face, curious eyes, and hair cropped close

to the skull. His father’s head was wrapped with wide strips

of white cloth held in place by a goat-hair cord. Both wore

loose, heavy robes of coarse dark wool. Their feet were

blackened and dusty in open sandals, the nails cracked and

yellow. The smallest toe on the boy’s left foot was missing.

Up close, both of them gave off the ripe odor of curdled milk

and goat flesh.

“Thank you for your help,” he told Ibn Umar the elder. The man bowed again. He was thin, stooped, sparsely

bearded, and undersized, with dry, tough skin and one eye

filmed by a slimy gray cataract. His face had the collapsed

look of toothlessness and his hands were twisted and crisscrossed with keloid scars. According to the card he was

thirty-nine, but he looked sixty. Stunted and damaged, like

to many of them, by malnutrition, disease, inbreeding, the ravages of desert living.

At forty, it was said, a Bedouin was old, approaching

uselessness. Not exactly T.E. Lawrence’s noble desert conqueror. thought Daniel, looking at Khalid, but then again, most of what the Englishman had written was nonsense—in

high school he and his friends had laughed at the Hebrew

translation of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom until their sides ached.

The boy stared at the ground, then looked up, catching Daniel’s eye. Daniel smiled at him and his head snapped back down.

Clear eyes, clear complexion, a bright-looking kid. The short stature within the range of normalcy. Compared to his father, the picture of health. The result, no doubt, of ten summer weeks camped outside the Ramot. Forays by social workers, tutors, mobile health units, immunizations, nutritional supplements. The despised ways of the city dweller …