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The son was now getting up.
‘I don't know. He wouldn't tell me. For my safety, he said.’
‘Your safety?’
‘I know my husband. He was a serious man. He would not suddenly go crazy and run and shout at the Prime Minister. If he had something to say, it must have been just as Shimon said – a matter of life and death.’
CHAPTER SEVEN (#u08150d5a-4cd8-5f64-be55-b99da7515ae9)
Beitin, the West Bank, Tuesday, 9.32am
He wouldn't need to be here long. Just ten minutes in the office, collect the papers and leave.
Except ‘office’ was not quite the right word. The two heavy padlocks guarding the metal door testified to that. ‘Workroom’ was more like it, even ‘storehouse’. Inside, it smelled like a potting shed. The fluorescent strip lights flickered on to reveal shelves filled not with papers, files or computer discs but stiff cardboard boxes. And inside those were fragments of ancient pottery, material Ahmed Nour had excavated from this very village.
He worked this way on every dig. Set up a base as close to the site as possible, allowing the latest findings to be brought back, catalogued and stored right away. He liked to do the job daily if he could: leave even a few burnt pottery shards around for too long and they would soon vanish. Looters, the curse of archaeologists the world over.
Ahmed found his desk: modest, metal, as if it belonged to the foreman on a construction site. Not so far off, he thought to himself. We're both in the business of human homes: they build new ones, I dig up old ones.
The papers he needed for his meeting with the head of the Palestinian Authority's Department of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage were right there, in a neat pile. Sweet Huda, he thought to himself. His young protégée had left everything in order: the permit renewal form, seeking permission to carry on digging in Beitin, and the application for a grant, begging for the cash to do it. Huda took care of all contact with the outside world now. She left him alone with no distractions – no phone calls, no emails, no blaring radio or crackling TV – so that he could bury himself in his work. If he concentrated hard, he could shut out modernity altogether.
That's what he had done this weekend. And he would have carried on doing it all week if it hadn't been for this damned meeting. The head of antiquities was an ignoramus. With no archaeological training, he was little more than a political hack. He wore a beard, which meant that the politics in question were of the new variety: religious.
‘My preference, Dr Nour,’ he had explained to Ahmed in their first meeting, ‘is for the glorification of our Islamic heritage.’ No surprise there. The new government was half Hamas. Translation: I'll pay for anything after the seventh century; if you want to dig up anything older, you're on your own.
The irony of it was not lost on Ahmed. Once he had been a hero to the Palestinian political class. He had been a founder member of a group of scholars who, decades ago, had insisted on looking at the ground beneath their feet in a radically new way. Until then, ever since the expeditions of Edward Robinson in the nineteenth century, those taking a shovel to this landscape were looking for one thing only: the Bible. They weren't interested in Palestine or the people who had lived here for thousands of years. They were searching for the Holy Land.
They were outsiders, of course, Americans or Europeans. They would arrive at Jaffa or Jerusalem giddy with scripture, yearning to see the route Abraham trod, to gaze at the Tomb of Christ. They longed to find the vestiges of the ancient Israelites or of the early Christians. Palestinians, ancient and modern, were an irrelevance.
The new generation, Ahmed among them, was trained in biblical archaeology – what other kind was there? – but they soon developed their own ideas. In the 1960s, several of them assisted a team of Lutheran Bible scholars from Illinois as they excavated Tell Ta'anach, a mound not far from Jenin in the West Bank. The Americans dug there for several years, such was their excitement. Ta'anach was mentioned in the Bible as one of the Canaanite cities conquered by Joshua, military leader of the Israelites.
But Ahmed and his colleagues began to see something else. They returned to the site, their focus now not Biblical Ta'anach but the Palestinian village at the foot of the mound: Ti'innik. These new archaeologists wanted to learn all they could about day-to-day life in this ordinary community, which had sat on the same spot for most of the last five millennia. Every heave of the archaeologist's shovel, every push of a spade, was making a political statement: this would be a Palestinian excavation of Palestine.
That put Ahmed Nour firmly into the bosom of the burgeoning Palestinian national movement. In whispers he was told that the Palestine Liberation Organization, then still secret, banned and run from abroad, approved of his work. He was nurturing ‘national pride’ and handily proving, at a time when most Israeli leaders were still denying even the existence of a Palestinian people, that the communities of these lands had the deepest possible roots.
His reputation only increased when he led students on a dig at an abandoned refugee camp, digging up the trash, the old sardine cans and plastic bags which revealed the way of life of people just a generation gone, those who had fled their homes in 1948. And his work here at Beitin had boosted his reputation yet further.
Previous scholars had thrilled at this place as the Bet-El of the Bible, the spot where Abraham, heading south, stopped and built an altar, the place where Jacob rested his head on a pillow of stone and dreamed of the angels going up and down a ladder. But Ahmed was determined to examine not just the ruins around Beitin, but the village itself. For humble, tiny Beitin had been ruled by Hellenists, by Romans, by Byzantines, by Ottomans. It had been Christian and it had been Muslim: in the late nineteenth century, a mosque had been built on the ruins of a Byzantine church. You could still see the remains of a Hellenistic tower, a Byzantine monastery and a Crusader castle. All three. To Ahmed's mind, that was the glory of Palestine. Even in a forgotten speck like Beitin, you could see the history of the world, one layer on top of another.
That gave him an idea. He reached for one of the newer boxes, one that would contain the freshest finds from the site. He peered inside, his nose crinkling at the musty smell: human skulls from the early Bronze Age, some five thousand years ago, along with storage jars and cooking pots. He smiled, knowing he could do better, that he could go back even further. He unlocked a cupboard, to find the flint tools and animal bones that had first been found at Beitin in the 1950s and which had been traced back some five millennia before Christ. He would tell that oaf at the antiquities department about the traces of blood that had been spotted, a sure sign of ritual sacrifice, establishing that Beitin had once been the site of a Canaanite temple. Maybe it was playing the old biblical game, thought Ahmed with a pang of guilt, but he had to use whatever he'd got.
It still might have no effect. The man from Hamas would doubtless perk up at the reference to the nineteenth-century mosque and yawn at the rest. Or perhaps there was a chance he would see Beitin for what it really was, a place packed with the history of this land.
On tiptoes, stretching to put the most precious box back on the top shelf of the locked cupboard, he heard a noise. Metallic.
‘Hello? Huda?’
No reply. Probably nothing. He must have left the metal door to the workroom ajar and the wind had clicked it shut. No matter. He would seal this box and be on his way.
But then there was another sound. This time a footstep, unmistakable. Ahmed turned around to see two men coming towards him. Both were wearing black hoods which covered their faces entirely. The taller man was holding up a finger, which he theatrically placed over his lips. Hush.
‘What? What is this?’ said Ahmed, his knees buckling.
‘Just come with us,’ said the tall man, something strange in his accent. ‘Now!’ And for the first time Ahmed saw the gun, lifted and aimed straight at him.
CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_8df2826e-b578-5501-b0d2-555adda1ec1d)
The US Consulate, Jerusalem, Tuesday, 2.14pm
‘Our information is that the body, riddled with bullets, was dumped by two hooded men in Ramallah's main square about 10.45 local time. The corpse was propped up and displayed to the crowd for about fifteen minutes, then taken away by the same two hooded men who'd brought it there.’
‘Collaborator killing?’
‘Exactly.’ The CIA station chief turned towards Maggie, offering extra tuition to the newcomer to the class. ‘This is standard punishment meted out by Palestinians to any Palestinian deemed guilty of collaborating with Israeli intelligence. Usually they're accused of tipping off Israel as to the whereabouts of wanted terrorists or have warned the Israelis when an attack's coming.’
‘What's the Israeli reaction?’ The questions were coming out of a speakerphone pulled to the centre of the polished wood table: the voice of the Secretary of State in Washington. He had left it to his deputy to manage this last stage of talks on the ground. He had wanted to keep his distance, in case of failure.
‘So far pretty muted. Some boilerplate about Palestinians needing to prove they believe in the rule of law. But that was only a low-level spokesman, when prompted in a media interview. Nothing from any of the principals. I think they want to treat this as an internal—’
‘No chance they'd break off talks over this?’
‘We don't think so, sir.’
‘Unless they're looking for an excuse.’
‘Which they're not at this stage.’ It was his deputy, raising his voice to be picked up by the phone. ‘The talks are painfully difficult right now, but no one's walking away.’
‘Still hung up on refugees?’
‘And Jerusalem. Yes.’
‘Remember, we can't let this go on forever. If we're not careful, it's one delay, then another and before you know it—’
‘—it's November.’ This from Bruce Miller, officially titled Political Counsellor to the President, unofficially his most trusted consigliere, at his side since his first run for Attorney General in Georgia more than twenty-five years earlier. They spent more time together than either man did with his wife. His presence in Jerusalem confirmed what they all knew. That this push for peace was inseparable from American domestic politics.
‘Hello, Bruce.’ Maggie detected a sudden meekness in the Secretary of State.
‘I was just about to agree with you, Mr Secretary,’ Miller began, his voice twanging between a down-home southern accent and the Nicorette gum he chewed from morning till night. He had given up cigarettes eleven years ago, aided by a variety of nicotine substitutes. The patch had gone, but not the gum: it was his new addiction.
‘I mean, they've only had sixty years to think of an answer to all this. Jesus! We can't maintain this pitch forever.’ He was leaning forward now, his wiry frame hunched so that his mouth would be closer to the telephone. His neck seemed to jut out at key moments, the two horns of hair bestriding his bald pate floating upward as he did so. Maggie tried to work out what he reminded her of. Was it a cockerel, its head popping forward and back metronomically? Or a feisty bantamweight in an illegal ring, somewhere in the backstreets of old Dublin, ready to fight dirty if he had to? He was mesmerizing to watch.
‘We keep saying—’ he gestured at a TV set in the corner, silently showing Fox News, ‘this is about to get resolved this week. If nothing happens, we're back to square one. Only trouble is, there's no such place in the Middle East. Doesn't fucking exist! You never can just stand still. Screw it up here, and you go right back. Look what happened after Camp David. Israelis were shooting Arabs in the streets and Arabs were blowing up every café in Jerusalem.
Because the folk who sat in these chairs tried to get it right and they screwed up.’
Silence, including from the speakerphone. They knew what this was: a rollicking from the top, doubtless with more to come.
‘We do have more on this collaborator killing,’ said the CIA man, a tentative attempt to alter the mood.
‘Yes?’ The Secretary of State.
‘As I said earlier, ordinarily such a minor incident wouldn't warrant any discussion at all. At the height of the last intifada, these summary executions were happening all the time, at the rate of nearly one a week. But since the parties are supposed to be on a ceasefire, even an internal infraction like this one could turn—’
‘This is background. You said you had more information.’ Miller, conveying another message from the boss: cut to the chase, there's no time to waste.
‘Just a couple of oddities. First, the dead man was in his late sixties. That's older than the usual profile, which tends to match that of the militants themselves.’
Miller raised a damning eyebrow. Militants.
‘Or rather the terrorists themselves. Second, we've had a word with our Israeli counterparts today and they tell us this man was precisely what he seemed to be, an elderly archaeologist. He had done no work for them that they knew of.’
‘So the Palestinians got the wrong guy?’
‘That's possible, Mr Secretary. And death by mistaken identity is not unheard of in this part of the world. But there are other possibilities.’
‘Such as?’
‘It could be the work of a rebel faction. Security's so tight in Israel just now that they can't pull off a terrorist outrage here—’ He left a subtle emphasis on the word ‘terrorist’, for Miller's benefit. ‘So killing one of their own, especially an innocent, well-respected Palestinian like Nour, is the next best thing. It sows dissension among the Palestinians and could provoke the Israelis into breaking off negotiations. Destabilizes the process.’
‘Sounds a long shot to me,’ said Miller, still craning forward in concentration. ‘Israel could say it shows Palestinians are lawless, can't be trusted with their own state. But Israeli public opinion would never swallow it. Break off the whole peace process just because one Arab's blown away? Never. What else?’
‘The other curiosity relates to eye-witness reports from Manara Square in Ramallah. The hooded men hardly spoke but when they did, we're told they had unusual accents.’
‘What kind of accent?’
‘I don't have that information, sir. I'm sorry.’
‘But they could be Israeli?’
‘It's a possibility.’
Miller fell back into his chair, took off his glasses and addressed the ceiling. ‘Christ! What are we saying? That this might be an undercover Israeli army operation?’
‘Well, we know Israel has always run undercover units. Codenamed Cherry and Samson; special forces dressed as Arabs. This could be their latest operation.’
Still rubbing his eyes, Miller asked: ‘Why the hell would they do that now?’
‘Again, it might be an effort to destabilize the peace talks. It's widely known that elements within the Israeli military are fiercely hostile to the compromises the Prime Minister wants to make—’
‘And if this got out, then the Palestinians would be so pissed, they'd walk away. The killing of one of their national heroes.’
‘Yes. And even if the Authority were ready to let it go, the Palestinian street wouldn't let them.’
‘Hence the accidentally-on-purpose slip of the accent.’ The words were barely audible through the chewing.
‘Its one of the lines of enquiry we're pursuing.’
‘It's like a hall of fucking mirrors here!’ Miller threw himself back in his chair. ‘We have the Israelis and the Palestinians at each other's throats. And now we've got rogue elements on both sides.’
‘The possibility at least. Which is why we're taking a close look at the Guttman killing.’
‘What's that got to do with it?’
‘We're asking some questions about the security detail that protects the Prime Minister, wondering if it's possible it was infiltrated. We don't want to rule out the scenario that the man who shot Guttman did so deliberately, following some other agenda.’
Maggie leaned forward, about to mention her strange encounter with the Guttman widow, the previous night. His message was urgent, Miss Costello. A matter of life and death. Maybe it would sound flaky to bring that up here. On the other hand—
It was too late. Miller was getting up out of his chair.
‘OK, people, I think that's enough Oliver Stone for one session. Mr Secretary, we're going to keep pushing the talks at this end as if none of this other stuff was happening. Is that OK with you?’
‘Of course.’
‘And shall I leave you to brief the President?’
‘Sure. Yes.’ Everyone in the room, including the Secretary of State seven thousand miles away, knew this was an empty courtesy: Miller and the President spoke a dozen times before breakfast, no matter how many time zones stood between them. If there was any briefing to be done he would be doing it, probably within minutes.
Miller looked up. ‘Anything else?’ He looked towards Maggie, who shook her head, and then to the consul who did the same. ‘OK.’
The room broke up, every official eager to show the man from the White House that they were hurrying to return to their duties. Maggie filed out behind Davis.
They all left too fast either to see Miller pull out his cellphone or to hear the three short, staccato words he whispered into it once he was connected to Washington: ‘Everything's on track.’
CHAPTER NINE (#ulink_50e28b61-fec7-5fe7-abb5-88c31891527c)
Jerusalem, Tuesday, 3.17pm
Maggie headed to the room Davis had set up for her, a work space for all State Department visitors. Just a desk, phone and computer. That's all she would need. She closed the door.
First, she checked her email. One from Liz, in response to a message Maggie had left on her phone, telling her of the sudden trip to Jerusalem. Subject: You go, girl!
So my serious sister, you've finally made it into my crazy world. You know you're now a character in Second Life? You know, the online thing where I waste WAY too much of my time. Seriously. You're in some Middle East peace talks simulation thing. It even looks like you: though they've given you a better arse than you deserve. Here's a link: take a look …
Maggie clicked on it, intrigued. Liz had mentioned Second Life to her a couple of times, insisting it was not just another dumb game but a virtual addition to the real world. Liz loved it, evangelizing about the way you could travel and meet people – not orcs or dragon-slayers but real people – without ever leaving your computer. It sounded horrendous to Maggie, but her curiosity was piqued. What did Liz mean, that Maggie was now a ‘character’ in it? A ‘peace talks simulation thing’ she understood: there were several of those online, where graduate students would role-play their way through the latest round of Middle East negotiations. Impressive that they already knew she was in Jerusalem. She guessed there had been a paragraph in one of the Israeli papers.
The computer eggtimer was still showing, before eventually freezing in defeat. A message popped up saying something about a security block on the consulate network. Never mind, thought Maggie. Some other time.
She went back through the inbox. Still nothing from Edward. She wondered if that would be it, if they would ever speak again, other than to arrange the removal of what was left of her stuff. Which, thanks to him, was not much.
She clicked her email shut then, out of habit, brought up the New York Times and Washington Post websites. The Times had a story about the Israel shooting on Saturday night, including a profile of the dead man. Happy for the distraction, she read through it.
Shimon Guttman first came to prominence after the Six Day War in 1967, in which he was said to have performed with military distinction. Seizing the chance to make the most of Israel's new control of the historic West Bank territories of Judea and Samaria, Guttman was among the group of activists who famously found an ingenious way to re-establish a Jewish presence in the heavily Arab city of Hebron. Disguised as tourists, they rented rooms in a Palestinian hotel, ostensibly to host a Passover dinner, or seder. Once installed, they refused to leave. In the stand-off with the Israeli authorities that followed, Guttman was especially vocal, insisting that the Jewish connection to Hebron was stronger than with anywhere else in the land of Israel. ‘This is the spot where the Oak of Abraham stands, the ancient tree where Avraham Avinu, Abraham our father, pitched his tent,’ he told reporters in 1968. ‘Here is the Tomb of the Patriarchs, where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are all buried. Without Hebron, we are nothing.’ Guttman and his fellow activists eventually struck a deal with the Israeli authorities, vacating the hotel and moving instead to a hill north-east of Hebron where they established the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba. That hilltop outpost has since flourished into the modern city that exists today, though speculation mounts as to its fate in the new peace accord which could be signed as soon as this week.
That would explain it, thought Maggie. Guttman was worried that the settlement he had founded was about to be surrendered to the Palestinians, along with the scores of other Jewish towns and villages Israel was bound to give up. He had been trying to persuade the Prime Minister to change his mind. And he clearly enjoyed the dramatic gesture. He had climbed a roof in Gaza a few years back and had, she now saw, seized a hotel in Hebron a generation before that. A regular performance artist, she thought.
She Googled him, looking into the handful of English language websites carrying Israeli news. They all told similar stories. Guttman had been first a war hero and then a right-wing extremist with a knack for the big stunt. One site contained a clip of video, apparently from a protest, Guttman at the front of a crowd on some dusty hilltop, all of them waving Israeli flags. Maggie guessed it was some settlement, either about to go up or come down.
He had been an imposing figure, a thick plume of grey hair blowing in the breeze, a healthy belly spilling over the top of his trousers. He filled the frame. ‘The Palestinians need to look at the history,’ he was saying. ‘Because the history says it as clear as can be: the Jews were here first. This land belongs to us. All of it.’
