Keepers of the Gate - [Kamal & Barnea 04] Read online

  He pushed on through the mud, feet sinking into the fetid ooze up to his ankles. He lost a shoe, but didn’t dare try to retrieve it for the moments it would cost him.

  Thunder boomed overhead and Paul’s heart skipped a beat. He could smell his own sweat over the earth’s rancid stench, watched his breath misting before him in the icy air. His stockinged foot and remaining shoe were sodden, weighing him down.

  I can’t go on.

  The days and the miles melted behind him. He halted and doubled over, started to sink to his knees when he saw the stout, severed branch before him. He grasped it in both hands, so numb from the cold he could barely close his fingers around the wood.

  Holding the branch to use as a weapon, Paul backed up behind a tree and listened for the sounds of the soldiers. He lurched out, sweeping the branch like a bat, when the squish of their boots was upon him. But his chilled, stockinged foot betrayed him. He crumpled face down in mud with another mouthful of it choking his breath.

  A heavy kick sent a burst of pain through his ribs. Then a second kick spilled him onto his side where he lay gagging on the muck until a rifle barrel jabbing his chest pushed him onto his back.

  He looked up at the uniformed figures clustered over him, faceless shapes shrouded by the rain and the swirling mist.

  “State your name!” a voice demanded. Paul could see it belonged to a short, stocky man who had a black patch covering one eye. “Where have you come from?”

  Paul tried to speak but his throat was still clogged with dirt.

  “I said state your name!”

  The one-eyed soldier pressed the rifle barrel deeper into the boy’s solar plexus, and Paul gasped for whatever breath he could grab.

  “Shoot him, Sarge,” another of the soldiers said matter-of-factly.

  “Check his pockets first,” the one-eyed one ordered.

  Paul felt a soldier’s hand groping about him, tearing fabric away until it closed on a thin leather pouch, now soaked with water and filth. He tried to blink the cascading water from his eyes.

  “Holy shit,” the soldier said. “You better have a look at this, Sergeant.”

  The one-eyed sergeant removed his rifle from the boy’s chest and placed a boot in its place, as he inspected the pouch’s contents with his single eye.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” the sergeant muttered, as he gazed down at the boy again. “The kid’s Jewish!”

  “How the hell he get way out here?”

  “Look at his feet: he ran. Must have escaped from one of the camps we’re looking for,” the sergeant said and crouched down beside Paul, still holding the papers in his hand. “Listen to me, son. No one’s going to hurt you, not anymore. All that’s over. You’re safe now.”

  * * * *

  B

  ut now, fifty-seven years later, Paul Hessler still did not feel totally safe. Not a single photograph of him remained from his tortured youth. Had there been one showing him at twenty-six, he thought as he looked over at his son, it would have been the very image of Ari. Father and son shared the same ridged face and high forehead which combined to cast their expressions in perpetual shadows. Ari had his mother’s thick dark hair, and what little of Paul’s that remained had long gone gray from its original light brown. But they had the same eyes: deep, dark, and piercing, and the same lightish skin tone as well. Looking in the mirror, it seemed to Paul Hessler that his skin had begun to slide off his face, shed by the pitched cheekbones and sharp jaw. He was dismayed by the spiderweb of veins that had sprouted across his nose and cheeks, made even more pronounced by the dry hairiness his face had taken on. Hessler didn’t like looking in mirrors anymore, much preferred looking at Ari as a reminder of the man who used to look back.

  The car finally came to a halt outside the bustle of Ben-Gurion Airport, pulling ahead of the detachment of soldiers waiting for it. Hessler let himself out before the driver had a chance to come around to the door. His knees ached from sitting too long and his ankles felt swollen. He leaned against the car, as Ari, cased laptop slung over his shoulder, helped the driver lift their luggage from the trunk and the soldiers hurried to catch up.

  “Murderer!”

  The cry came from farther down the airport loading zone, screamed in a raspy wail from amidst the clutter of harried travelers jockeying for position. Hessler was still pressed against the car when an old man lumbered forward wielding a pistol. Their gazes locked and in that instant Hessler realized he was the target, the same instant in which his driver lunged away from the trunk, going for his gun, and Ari spun toward his father.

  “MURDERER!”

  A screech this time punctuated by the popping sounds of gunfire. Paul tried to dive to the concrete for safety, but his body betrayed him, refusing to accept his commands. Leaving him an easy target propped against the car.

  Maybe I’ve been shot. Maybe that’s why I can’t move....

  He saw the soldiers and his driver returning fire, draining their clips. Watched the old gunman collapse to the pavement right in the midst of those fighting to flee.

  The screaming had just started to subside when a trio of soldiers barreled into Hessler to cover him. They took him down to the pavement and only in that instant did Hessler realize he hadn’t been shot at all. Two of the soldiers hoisted him to his feet to drag him to safety and, with great relief, Hessler looked over toward Ari.

  Oh, no...

  Paul Hessler felt trapped between thoughts, between breaths. His son Ari lay slumped on the sidewalk, blood running in several widening pools from beneath him.

  “Let me go!” he cried, lashing at the soldiers. “My son! My son!”

  But before he could tear free, Paul Hessler’s legs gave out and he crumpled to die pavement.

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 7

  D

  anielle returned to her study of the file on Michael Saltzman, trying to make sense of what she had realized back at his mother’s house. If nothing else, the work distracted her from the anxiety she felt over her coming appointment with Dr. Barr. His voice had had an edge to it when she spoke to him earlier, something not quite right hidden in the tone.

  Danielle knew it wouldn’t be long before Moshe Baruch called to inquire about why the case had yet to be closed. She didn’t know what she was going to tell him and was convinced he wouldn’t listen to her anyway.

  The gun was in his right hand when he shot himself. But Michael Saltzman was left-handed!

  The picture on his mother’s coffee table of him playing tennis had provided the truth. The question was, what did it mean? He could have shot himself with his off hand, of course, but nothing in the boy’s file or anything Danielle had learned from his mother indicated Michael was a candidate for suicide.

  He hadn’t left a note.

  There had been none of the tell-tale signs.

  The only notable thing Layla Saltzman had mentioned was the accidental death of a girl named Beth Jacober she referred to simply as her son’s friend. Danielle made a mental note to look into the accident, if for no other reason than to gauge Michael’s state of mind in the days preceding his death.

  The phone on her desk buzzed.

  * * * *

  O

  nce again Danielle approached Commander Moshe Baruch’s office on the fourth floor stiffly, prepared for the recriminations he was about to heap upon her. She wondered if she should voice her suspicions, but dismissed the idea even more quickly than Baruch would dismiss the validity of her conclusion. She only hoped Baruch didn’t know about her upcoming doctor’s appointment. He would goad her about it if he did, and she didn’t need that right now.

  “Please sit down, Pakad,” he said, sounding surprisingly restrained, even humble. “I have just received a call regarding you.”

  Here it comes, she thought to herself.

  “Apparently your services have been requested.”

  Danielle leaned forward.

  “You’ve heard of the shooting today at Ben-Gurio
n?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You will soon enough; the story was just released to the news media. In any case, the attack was aimed at Paul Hessler. I imagine you’ve heard of him.”

  “Of course. A Holocaust survivor who is today one of Israel’s greatest benefactors.”

  “It was Hessler’s son who was killed in the attack earlier this afternoon.”

  Danielle said nothing. Tragic events had become so commonplace over the years that she had been desensitized to them. First her brothers, then her mother, and most recently her father, not to mention her own miscarriage. Each successive death was greeted with a greater degree of resignation, until it seemed her feelings had been buried too deep to reach. After crying herself out for her own family, it was impossible to shed tears for a stranger.

  “Paul Hessler, apparently,” Moshe Baruch continued, “was a friend of your father’s. Were you aware of that?”

  “No,” Danielle told him, surprised. She had never once heard her late father mention Hessler.

  “In any case, as a result Mr. Hessler has requested that you take charge of the investigation into his son Ari’s murder.”

  “Shin Bet will have something to say about jurisdiction, Commander.”

  “Not anymore, they won’t. Apparently, Paul Hessler’s reach stretches into their offices as well. He insisted upon you, was quite adamant in fact.”

  “I don’t even know the man.”

  “Well, he knows you,” Baruch said, the displeasure plain in his voice.

  Puzzled as she was, Danielle was still able to enjoy watching her former superior officer in Shin Bet squirm, suddenly beholden to her. One call made on Paul Hessler’s behalf had placed Baruch in the uncomfortable position of relying on someone he had determined to destroy. The irony was striking. The same brand of politics that had buried Danielle behind a desk was now offering a temporary respite from Baruch’s punitive exile.

  “Mr. Hessler has checked into the Hilton in Tel Aviv,” Baruch said. “He’s expecting you in the next hour, Pakad.”

  Danielle pursed her lips and checked her watch. Her four o’clock appointment at the doctor’s was just an hour off. Meeting Paul Hessler would mean missing it.

  “I assume that’s not a problem,” Baruch continued.

  “No. Of course not.”

  Moshe Baruch tried to make his next words sound meaningless, nonchalant. “I’ll send that Saltzman case back to the local authorities.”

  Danielle felt something prickle the back of her neck. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “And why not?”

  She knew her hand had been forced. “Certain irregularities have turned up.”

  “Irregularities?” said Baruch, fighting to keep his voice even.

  “It’ll all be in my report. It’s almost finished,” Danielle lied.

  The commander’s eyes grew uncertain, regarding her differently. Having been forced to assign her to an incredibly high profile case cast their relationship in a whole different light. No choice but to give her his support, even encouragement. How it must have made his skin crawl....

  “Then just make sure I have this report on my desk by tomorrow, Pakad. An extra day is the best I can do.”

  “Of course, Rav nitzav.”

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 8

  M

  y son wasscared,” thewoman hadsaid when Ben finally got her settled down in a chair in the nearest waiting area on the hospital’s second floor. “He was frightened. For over a week now. Always on his computer. Day and night. Hardly ever slept. Jumped when I came up on him from behind. I ask, but he won’t tell me, what’s got him so scared. He knew he was in danger, but he wouldn’t tell me why.”

  Ben couldn’t take his eyes off the woman’s pleading gaze. “What happened a week ago?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me that either. The damn computer. They gave it to him at school. No more soccer. No more friends. Just the computer. Always on the computer.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Hanan Falaya. Shahir was my son’s name.”

  “Do you live far from here?”

  “Not very. Why?”

  “Because I’d like to see your son’s computer.”

  * * * *

  B

  efore accompanying Hanan Falaya back to her home, Ben spoke with the female doctor, an American volunteer from Doctors Without Borders, who had pronounced Shahir dead.

  “Just a formality,” she explained, flipping through her notes. “He was dead at the scene.”

  “Cause of death?”

  The doctor’s glare mocked him. “I counted over a dozen stab wounds.”

  “What about signs of resistance? Cuts on his hands and fingers, for instance.”

  “Look—”

  “Did you check or not?”

  She slapped her chart closed. “You want to blame someone, blame your own police department for leaving him to roast on the side of the road for hours while they tried to arrange transport. Their report claims the boy was already dead when they reached the scene, but who knows?”

  “Were there any defensive wounds or not?”

  “No. His hands, fingers, and palms were clean.”

  “What about the fatal wound?”

  “It could have been one of several.”

  “Your best guess.”

  “A puncture that severed the aorta. I believe it was the first wound inflicted, so chances are the boy didn’t suffer very long.”

  “Common criminals who cut the heart with their first strike?”

  “You’re the detective, Inspector. Maybe it was their lucky day.”

  “It clearly wasn’t Shahir Falaya’s.”

  * * * *

  I

  know who you are,” Hanan Falaya said softly from the passenger seat of Ben’s ancient Peugeot as they drove to her home on the northern outskirts of Jericho. She wore a dark loose-fitting dress called a jallabiya, traditional for a Palestinian woman of the old school, but had adjusted the head scarf pinned under her chin so Ben could clearly see a face weathered by the years ahead of its time. “One of the police you arrested for that taxi driver’s murder six years ago was my cousin.”

  Ben stiffened behind the wheel. “And you still came up to me in the hospital?”

  “It’s all in the past, but his family misses him.”

  “The taxi driver’s family misses him as well, Umm Falaya.”

  “He was a collaborator.”

  “Suspected collaborator,” Ben corrected. “Guilty of giving rides to Israelis, of trying to make a living. Nothing more. But for some that was more than enough evidence.”

  “Including my cousin.”

  “Your cousin was one of the men who tortured and murdered him.”

  “My cousin fell in with bad men. It was their fault. Hal’arsat. The bastards. And for this he has a life sentence handed down by a military court with no appeal. Even the Israelis would have been fairer.”

  “Perhaps you would like to talk with them about your son’s murder,” Ben said, instantly feeling petty for saying it.

  Ignoring his taunt, Hanan Falaya stared across the seat, seeming to study him. “You don’t really look Palestinian.”

  “That’s what living in the United States for nearly thirty years will do.”

  “Your complexion and hair are lighter, and your hair is almost straight. You’re from Ramallah, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And yet when you came back you settled in Jericho.”

  “Because that was where the Palestinian Authority wanted me. Ramallah hadn’t yet been turned over to our control.”

  “Maybe you’ll move back there someday. A man shouldn’t be too far from his family.”

  “I don’t have family there anymore.”

  “Too bad,” said Hanan Falaya.

  * * * *

  M

  y husband isa refugeecurrently inexile,” she explained minutes later as they sat across
from each other in the cramped living room of her small frame house. “He is on a list of those currently seeking repatriation, a list the Israelis must approve.”