Zealot (14 page)

It was always regrettable when soldiers had to die in war. But these Israeli soldiers, like those who had gone before them,
like Avram himself, had stood among the ghosts of Masada as new Israeli recruits, had sworn the oath of allegiance to their
homeland—”Never again”—and vowed to fight and to die in her defense. As long as Israel was threatened, such sacrifice would
be necessary.

Avram reached up and pulled the cord, signaling his intention to leave the bus at the next stop. When the bus began to slow,
Avram stood and moved toward the door as the stop neared. He looked through the glass door and stopped cold. Two young girls
stood at the stop in front of a corner market carrying a cat in a small cage.

Avram took a deep, calming breath, then reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a large handful of coins. The bus pulled
up to the curb and the driver opened the doors. Avram started down the top step, then tripped over his own feet, sprawling
onto the pavement below. Coins clattered away in all directions.

“Please, children, can you help me?” he begged piteously, crawling on the ground to retrieve his shekels. To his vast relief,
the older girl, almost a teenager, set down the cat carrier to chase after the coins, and soon her younger sister helped as
well. Avram waved the bus driver on with a smile.

After the girls handed him the coins they had gathered, Avram thanked them. “And I’m so very sorry I made you miss your bus,
girls,” he said, handing them each a ten-shekel piece. “Here, you should take a taxi.” He reached through the bars of the
cage with one hand and began to scratch their cat under the chin. It purred against his hand. With his other hand, he reached
into the pocket of his long black coat and pressed the “record” button on a small tape recorder there. “I’m told taxis are
much safer than public buses.” The resulting explosion as his briefcase detonated blocks away shattered the windows of the
market behind them.

Paris: The Present

The room was large, larger than her entire apartment back in Ramallah, and it commanded a lovely view of the Square Boucicaut
just outside the Lutétia. Maral knew every inch of the view by heart, the way the light of the setting sun traveled across
the marble fountain and played in the spurting waters, the patterns of the pair of pigeons nesting between the ears of a bronze
horse bearing the effigy of some dead French king. She’d eaten most of her meals by these windows—but not too near, thank
you, Farid—taking in as much of Paris as she could from the confines of the narrow panes of glass.

Art nouveau monopolized the decor of the room, a style she’d never been partial to. There was nothing homey about this place
she was forced to call home. She knew she was supposed to consider herself fortunate. Paris hotel rooms were notoriously small—she
heard the usually stalwart Assad complaining he was barely able to open his suitcase in the tiny room he’d been given. Part
of her envied him his cozy accommodations. Her room was dominated by a huge bed hung with heavy draperies, a bed so tall a
mahogany stairstep was provided. She found any bed lonely since Ali’s death, and this monster doubly so. When she was one
and awake in the middle of the night, she felt very much like the princess and the pea, a nagging thought in the back of her
mind that someday they’d discover she wasn’t a real princess and send her back to her classroom.

Maral had no delusions about why she’d been selected for the negotiating team. She was raw and untried, the junior member
of the team, but she was secular and she was female, an important symbol to the Western world, which believed that all Palestinians
were intractable religious fanatics with rags on their heads and automatic weapons in their hands. Token symbol or not, she
was determined to make her presence felt. If true peace were ever to be created in her homeland, it would come not from the
religious bickerings of the fanatics of either faith, but from those who could step back and see those seated on the other
side of the table as people, not ideologies. And it would hold not because of posturing warriors showing off the size of their
manhood, but because of women, Israeli women, Palestinian women, women sick of burying their husbands and their brothers and
their sons, women who became mothers who would instill the message of peace in their children and their children’s children.

More than one of the old-school Palestinian diplomats she worked with called her naive, treated her like an impetuous daughter.
They could patronize her all they wanted—she knew she was having an impact. Hers was the voice of reason that had kept them
at the table when more extremist minds threatened to shatter the fragile understanding they’d managed to cobble together.
Hers, the hand that had slipped what they dismissed as “womanly” concerns like education for the children and health care
for the poor and displaced into a platform more concerned with the placement of guns and the movement of troops. As long as
she knew Arafat supported her, she had no qualms against butting heads with the stodgiest of the traditionalists.

But it was lonely work. And lately, its only reward had been coming back to this lifeless room, after a long, hard day at
the table, to watch the pigeons play in the square. The few times she’d been able to venture out into Paris shone like bright
jewels in the bleak memory of the past two weeks of negotiations, and that mysterious Duncan MacLeod seemed to be at the heart
of them.

She didn’t know what she was expecting when she called him. Just to hear his voice, really. Just to talk to someone who didn’t
give a damn which side of Suleiman Street was the border or who would guard the Garden Tomb. When he said he would come to
see her, her heart was lighter than it had been since she’d left Ramallah. She’d changed clothes twice since, and finally
settled on a pair of tailored slacks and a silk tunic in shades of rust and cinnamon that she knew highlighted her skin and
brought out her eyes. She hoped a pair of suede loafers would satisfy his request for comfortable shoes.

As the sun went down, there was a knock on her hotel room door. She got up quickly from her perch near the window and moved
toward the door. A voice called out, “Room service!”

Oh. “I didn’t call for room service,” she answered, disappointed.

“No, no, madame,” the voice outside protested in Pakistani-flavored French. “You put in your order about three hours ago.
The kitchen has been backed up.”

Three hours ago? She threw the door open. In a crisp waiter’s uniform and fake mustache, Duncan MacLeod stood behind a room-service
cart covered in white linen. “Room service!” he announced with a bright smile and a wave of his hand over the contents of
the cart, inclining his head to one side a bit to indicate the security men posted down the hall by the elevators.

Maral gestured for him to enter, managing to keep from laughing until she’d closed and locked the door behind him. “What are
you doing?”

“You ordered a rescue, madame,” he said in his outrageous fake accent. “Here at the Hôtel Lutétia, we aim to please. Would
you like that rescue for here or to go?”

“To go? You mean, out of the hotel?” She knew that’s what she had asked for, but she hadn’t actually dreamed it possible.

“Well, technically, it wouldn’t be much of a rescue if we just stayed here,” he said, resuming his normal, charming voice.

“But how?”

He lifted the linen skirt around the room service cart and indicated the empty platform below with an expansive gesture. “One
getaway vehicle, at your service.”

“You think of everything, don’t you?”

“I try,” he said with a modest shrug. “What do you say, game for a little adventure?”

She was torn. A good little girl would stay in her room alone, safe, secure, content to watch the pigeons. But she was so
tired of being everyone’s good little girl. A little adventure … One look at his face—caring, inviting—and her decision was
made. “I should leave Assad a note, tell him not to worry.” She pulled hotel stationery and a pen from the desk, scribbling
as she talked. “I get a wake-up call at six-thirty in the morning. Usually no one tries to contact me until then, but just
in case, I’ll let him know I’m with you.” She propped the note up on the pillows of her enormous bed and grabbed her coat
and purse from a nearby chair.

MacLeod had taken the food and service items from the cart, so it would appear he had left her with her dinner. Only the metal
plate covers remained to be returned to the kitchen. “Ready?” he asked, reaching for her hand.

“As I’ll ever be,” she answered, as he helped her into the cart. She curled up in a fetal position on the low shelf, clutching
coat and purse to her, and he lowered the linen cloth back down to cover her. She could see nothing but the shadows of his
legs through the cloth as he began to push the cart from the room.

They rumbled down the hallway and then stopped, at the service elevator she guessed. “
Garcon
,” she heard a man say in accented French. One of the security guards. She held her breath. “When will you bring our food?”

When MacLeod spoke, it was in his odd, vaguely Pakistani accent, and she bit her lip so as not to laugh. “I do not know, monsieur,
but I will go down immediately and ask the chef.” The elevator arrived, and he pushed the cart in. “
Bonsoir! Bonsoir!
” he piped cheerfully to the guards as the doors closed.

The elevator moved briefly, then stopped. The doors opened, and she felt the cart rumble out onto another floor, then a stop,
a start, then a stop and some rustling sounds. She waited for what seemed like several minutes, afraid to speak, afraid even
to breathe too loudly, lest she give them away. Then the linen skirt flipped up and MacLeod was helping her out of the cart.

The cheesy mustache and waiter’s uniform were gone, replaced by a tight pair of jeans and a black T-shirt that hugged the
contours of his chest. “Where are we?” she whispered.

“Fifth-floor linen closet. I wasn’t really going to wheel you down the Boulevard Raspail. Put on your coat,” he whispered,
donning his leather jacket, and she complied. He stuck his head cautiously out the door, looked around, then motioned for
her to follow him out. Once in the hall, he pulled the room-service cart out of the linen closet and left it outside a neighboring
guest room. Then he took her hand and they proceeded down the hall as if nothing had happened.

Her heart was beating fast as they descended to the lobby in the guest elevator and he squeezed her hand in encouragement.
As the doors opened, they stepped nonchalantly into the lobby and toward the revolving doors.

“Uh-oh.” Before she even had a chance to notice what was wrong, MacLeod wrapped an arm around her shoulder and spun her around
in the opposite direction. They started walking quickly out of the back of the lobby and into a corridor of meeting rooms.
As they passed out of the lobby, Maral turned around and saw a flock of reporters at the door, anxious for a statement about
the Palestinian walkout at the day’s negotiations, and Farid and his men valiantly holding them at bay.

MacLeod ducked into a room labeled “Degas,” empty of people but set for a formal dinner, pulling Maral behind him. They hurried
across the chandeliered room and through a small door at the back. They found themselves in a stark, utilitarian hallway surrounded
by serving carts and metal shelving.

“I’ve never been backstage before,” Maral whispered. “Where does this go?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” He looked right, then left, then right again.“C’mon, this way,” he said, starting down the
corridor to the left. They’d only gone a couple of feet when a cadre of servers bearing trays of glassware for the Degas Room
came toward them in formation, blocking the hallway. “Or not,” MacLeod said, quickly changing direction and hurrying back
the other way, pulling Maral along in his wake.

Not too far past the Degas Room, they found a metal door labeled “
Sortie
.” Maral moved to push on the exit bar, but MacLeod pulled her back. “Wait.” He looked around the door, checking for sirens
or buzzers that might go off once they pushed the door on, but found none. “Okay, here goes.” He tensed himself for an alarm
and together they pushed open the door. There was silence.

They ran out into the night, into the alley behind the hotel. The Citroën was parked a couple of blocks away and they strolled
leisurely to it, hand in hand, Maral giggling like a schoolgirl at their little taste of adventure. As they drove back past
the hotel, surrounded by news vans with satellite transmitters on their roofs, she waved at it in triumph.

When MacLeod heard that Maral had seen virtually nothing of Paris since her arrival, he regretted their grand adventure was
taking place at night. There were so many things he would have loved to have shown her, he said—the rose window of Sainte-Chapelle
at sunset, the gallery of the Impressionists at the Musée d’Orsay, the Bagatelle gardens in the Bois de Boulogne. Maybe someday.
They had to content themselves with a moonlit ride up the elevator at the Eiffel Tower, but the look of delight on her face
as she gazed out over the twinkling splendor of the City of Lights when they’d reached the top made up for it all. And the
view of Notre-Dame from the deck of MacLeod’s barge, lit bright against the night sky, was better than any she could have
hoped for. It was a long while before he could even coax her belowdecks. Had it been summer and the breeze off the Seine not
so biting, she might have stayed there all night, gazing across the river at the wonders that man could create.