Dark Waters (17 page)

G
anani insisted on driving, and Jordan didn’t argue. The Shin Bet agent knew the roads to Bethlehem, and Jordan wanted the time to bring herself up to speed on their destination. And, as much as she hated to admit it, Jordan needed her as an ally.

Unfortunately, Ganani drove fast and jerky, yanking the wheel sharply at the start of each turn. The constant motion made it hard for Jordan to read. To subdue her queasiness, she alternated between watching the scenery and plowing through the State Department file on Israel that Daugherty had handed her on the way out the door—the briefing file she should have received the day she arrived.

The landscape looked just as described. Alpine vegetation blanketed the countryside. Intermittent settlements of white limestone and concrete terraced the hardscrabble hillsides between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The settlements, nestled among the trees and rocks, created miniature strongholds. The minimalist construction suited the militaristic society.

Near what she estimated to be the halfway mark, she spotted a small fortress perched on a hillside covered in pines.

“Is that Latrun?” she asked. If so, the distance to Jerusalem was less than she had thought.

“Yes.” Ganani took a curve at high speed, causing Jordan to reach for the chicken bar. “What do you know of Latrun?”

“Only what I’ve read,” Jordan said. “Very little.”

“It’s a very historic place. It has been the site of many battles going back to biblical times. Its location gave it strategic value. It’s where Joshua prayed for God to make the sun stand still so he could finish defeating the Amorites.”

The Shin Bet agent knew her history. Jordan knew few specifics about Israel’s ancient past. The reading she’d done covered mainly the current diplomatic events, the U.S. embassy’s history, and the background information on some embassy personnel. Her rudimentary knowledge of the country’s past and its religious sites came from high school and college history classes.

She flipped through the pages of the file to the section on Bethlehem, stopping at a picture of Manger Square. The Church of the Nativity stood at one end, the Mosque of Omar at the other. Between them stretched a large, paved square. The main entrance to the church, the Door of Humility, was small and squat, forcing even short people to stoop. The building looked old, uneven, and plain. Another picture showed two bell towers. The caption indicated they were part of the Armenian monastery and not the church.

“What can you tell me about Bethlehem?” Jordan asked.

“It’s in Palestine. In 2002, during Operation Defensive Shield, when we were rounding up militants, the Palestinians laid siege on the city. Dozens of wanted militants barricaded themselves inside the church for thirty-nine days.”

Jordan remembered watching the drama unfold on national television: the newsreels of Israeli tanks in Manger Square, the guns pointed at the Door of Humility. Eight Palestinians died from sniper fire, one Armenian monk was injured, and seventy-seven thousand dollars’ worth of damage was done to the church. The remaining militants were exiled—either to Gaza or to Europe.

“If my memory serves,” Jordan said, “the pope wasn’t too happy.”

“No, he wasn’t.”

Jordan understood the Israelis’ desire to round up the militants. They were behind the series of suicide bombings that had killed hundreds of Israeli citizens. What she didn’t tell Ganani was that she also empathized with the Palestinians. The issues weren’t so cut-and-dried. On the surface, the conflict was about land ownership and possession being nine-tenths of the law. But it seemed more complicated than that.

“Are you reading or skimming that?”

Jordan skimmed through the last few pages of the section. “Reading.”

Ganani nodded. “They say you’re a genius.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” Jordan knew she was smart, but she didn’t think of herself as exceptional.

“You graduated top of your class. You speak four or five languages.”

“Where did you get that? From the Shin Bet dossier on ‘Raisa Jordan’?”

“Is it true?”

“I speak five languages fluently,” Jordan said, qualifying her answer.

Ganani flashed a thin smile. “I’m sure you’ve done your own checking on me.”

“‘I like to know who I’m working with,’” Jordan said, quoting a line from
The Peacemaker
.

Ganani pointed to the file in Jordan’s hands. “What did you learn about Bethlehem?”

“Not much of importance for this trip. The population is 25,266 per the 2007 census report. The name means ‘house of bread’ in Hebrew and ‘house of meat’ in Arabic. The traditional art is mother-of-pearl carvings.”

“You’re right. Useless.” Ganani reached between her seat and console and pulled out a small, spiral-bound booklet. “This is
more technical information on our destination. You may learn something worthwhile to know.”

Jordan skimmed the booklet. It was a biased accounting of the occupied territories but gave a thorough overview of the current tensions in the area. Checking the index, she flipped to the section on Bethlehem. When she was done, she read the section on Sheikh Sa’ad.

A sudden shift in Ganani’s driving signaled Jordan to look up.

“We are approaching the three hundred checkpoint to Bethlehem.” Ganani took the book and put it away.

The checkpoint consisted of one manned guard station serving both traffic lanes. Red-and-white-striped bar gates blocked both the north- and southbound sides of the road. To the east and west, thirty-foot fences stretched away, one capped by a manned observation tower. The layout reminded Jordan of a maximum-security prison entrance, with one major difference—the cage-like pedestrian passageways stretching along the barrier wall for those coming and going on foot.

Beyond the wall, the city of Bethlehem capped a hillside rising in the distance. Buildings bunched together on its peak resembled a woven
kippah
perched on a man’s head. Constructed of local stone, the buildings shone golden in the afternoon sun.

Ganani pulled into the vehicle queue. Checkpoint guards checked the IDs and travel papers for the car ahead. Then the bar swung up and down, and it was their turn. Ganani eased the car forward.

“
Dai
,” stop. An Israeli soldier stepped up to the window.

Ganani flashed her credentials. Jordan reached for her passport and embassy ID, but the soldier stepped back and waved them through.

Ganani kept watch in her rearview mirror. “We will be there in a few minutes. Do you know the layout of Manger Square?”

“From pictures and tourist maps.”

“The more in sync we are, the better our chance of saving the doctor and keeping the judge safe.”

Jordan smiled. Ganani was using her own logic against her.

“Point taken,” she said. “The main square is shaped like a large rectangle, with a smaller adjacent square to the southeast. The plaza is designated for pedestrians only, with a large number of benches and fountains throughout. There are numerous cafés, restaurants, and souvenir shops around the perimeter, with the town hall and tourist information offices close to the mosque.”

“We can expect security,” Ganani said. “Mostly at the entrances to the church. There will be a few Palestinian Authority guards, and maybe a few Bethlehem police officers. If they get suspicious, you can never know what they will do.”

“They’re manageable.”

Ganani glanced sideways. “How do you think we should proceed?”

“I’m just along for the ride, remember?” Jordan’s authority ended before they had crossed through the checkpoint.

“Taylor is your man.”

Jordan decided this was Ganani’s way of shedding the blame if something went wrong.

“Fine,” she said. “Park as close to the mosque as you can, but somewhere with an easy exit. We’ll find a bench with a direct line of sight to the building and pretend we’re friends visiting the square. The
hijabs
should protect our identities. Do you speak Arabic?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“How will you get the judge and Petrenko away from the square?”

Jordan figured now was not the time to tell her that her plan was to stick with Ganani and send Taylor and Alena with the other agents.

“According to the map, the square has multiple exits,” Jordan said. “We’re coming in on Manger Road, which turns into Shepard, right?” Jordan looked to Ganani for confirmation. The multiple names for every road made being specific harder.

Ganani nodded.

“Paul VI comes in on the north side,” Jordan said. “Milk Grotto runs east along the south side. Anatren, which becomes Kanah, runs south of the adjacent square. There are others, but those are the major routes. We’ll use whichever works best to get us out of the area fast.”

“You remembered all that from the file?”

“No, I studied the map before we left.”

Ganani grinned. “Still, that’s a very good memory.”

“Not bad, though it works better for some things than others.”

“We’re here.” Ganani slowed as they neared the main bus station to the north of the square. A group of Western tourists walking half-on, half-off the sidewalk slowed their progress.

Jordan spotted their turn coming up. “Take a right at the next street.”

Ganani flipped on her turn signal and juiced the gas. She beat the tourists to the intersection but nearly sideswiped a white BMW at the curb, drawing an obscene gesture from the driver. Jordan averted her gaze and lifted her hand to cover her face. Even with the
hijabs
, she didn’t want to take any chances that someone might recognize them later.

“It’s possible to get on the roof,” Ganani said.

“That leaves us too far from Taylor. We need to stay on the ground and stay close.” Jordan couldn’t shake the feeling that the men they were dealing with had only one agenda in mind—get the USB drive and go. Witnesses were a liability.

Ganani’s response was to tighten her hands on the wheel.

“You do what you want,” Jordan said, trying to relieve the tension. “I’m staying on the ground.”

“I’ll go with you.”

Jordan fiddled with the listening device in her ear. “Time to go live.”

She pressed the button on the communication transmitter hooked near her waist and resisted the urge to dip her chin and speak directly into the dot microphone attached to the inside of her tee. “Com, are you there?”

“Here.” The tech’s voice blasted through the receiver. Jordan quickly adjusted the volume on the transmitter.

“What’s Taylor’s time of arrival?”

“He’s approaching the Beit Jala checkpoint.”

“Are there eyes on him?”

“Negative. He is in the twenty-one bus, ahead of the car. He will be at the station in five minutes. Gidon Lotner is monitoring his frequency.”

Jordan turned to Ganani. “What’s Detective Lotner doing on this job?”

“He and Weizman both,” Ganani said. “Two of our men were called off because of a bombing in Gaza. We’re short-staffed, and the detectives were willing to help.”

“When did this happen?”

“We agreed on the swap while you were changing.”

“And you didn’t think to mention it?” Jordan’s bullshit meter was on high alert. This was feeling more and more like a setup to her.

“I didn’t think it mattered.”

She would ask more questions later. For now, she refocused her attention on the job.

Jordan heard static, and then com broke through. “Are you in position?”

“Almost,” she answered.

Jordan wondered how Taylor was holding up. He was on edge, determined to do whatever it took to get Alena Petrenko back. He had been fitted with a static mike, tuned to a different frequency than the one on which they were talking. It transmitted continually, avoiding the need for him to cue the transmitter hidden under his shirt collar. The idea was to make it more difficult for the kidnappers to detect the com device. It also meant Taylor couldn’t manipulate the situation and prevent them from hearing everything the kidnappers said in the event the men arrived without Petrenko. It made him angry at first, being left out of the loop, but the second channel offered the agents more options. And once the team switched to his frequency, Taylor would hear everything that they said, too.

“Com, we need a signal for switching to a private channel,” she said.

“Does the judge speak Hebrew?”

“Not much.” At least not much she was aware of.

“Then let’s use the code word
tsara
.” Trouble.

“I’m switching over to Taylor now.”

Jordan turned the dial on the transmitter and was instantly assaulted by the chatter of tourists through Taylor’s com device. Many spoke English. They all seemed excited to be nearing their destination. Lotner’s voice cut through, updating Taylor on everyone’s whereabouts.

As Jordan listened to his monotone, she calculated the distance from the bus stop to the entrance of Manger Square. Three, maybe four blocks—approximately one-third of a mile. The cars in front of them moved forward, and a Palestinian boy of about nine signaled Ganani to pull the car into the next vacant parking spot. The Shin Bet agent shook her head and pointed to a spot on the curb nearer the exit. They weren’t likely to be boxed in there.

The boy ushered them into the space. Ganani asked him to point to the nearest public bathrooms and then tipped him well.

Reaching across Jordan, she pulled a blue
hijab
out of the glove box. “Let’s start there.”

Keeping her head down, Jordan pulled her scarf over her head and followed Ganani across the square. Without her head covered, she would draw attention. She didn’t want anyone remembering her.

At the tourist information office, she noted the clerk seated inside behind a window pasted with flyers of events, the prayer schedule for the mosque, and the hours of access to the Church of the Nativity. Scooting past, she ducked into the restroom. Once inside the bathroom stall, she straightened her black
hijab
, tucking in the stray tendrils of hair curling around her face.

“Ready?” Ganani asked.

“Ready.” Jordan scanned the square as they exited the restroom and made their way slowly toward the mosque. She could see why the kidnappers had chosen the square. It teemed with people. Young boys kicked soccer balls around the fountains and benches while tourists of all ethnicities queued up in front of the Door of Humility or window-shopped the jewelry and tchotchke stores. Young Arabs, men in Western clothing, and women wearing
hijabs
strolled along the marble pavers.