The Last Testament Part 5

'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 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 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 d.a.m.ning eyebrow. Militants 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 ident.i.ty 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 gla.s.ses 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 h.e.l.l 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 p.i.s.sed, 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 f.u.c.king 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 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 pus.h.i.+ng 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 Was.h.i.+ngton: 'Everything's on track.'

CHAPTER NINE.

JERUSALEM, TUESDAY, 3.17PM.

Maggie headed to the room Davis had set up for her, a work s.p.a.ce 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! 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 a.r.s.e 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 peoplenot orcs or dragon-slayers but real peoplewithout 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 New York Times and and Was.h.i.+ngton Post Was.h.i.+ngton Post websites. The websites. The Times Times had a story about the Israel shooting on Sat.u.r.day night, including a profile of the dead man. Happy for the distraction, she read through it. had a story about the Israel shooting on Sat.u.r.day night, including a profile of the dead man. Happy for the distraction, she read through it.

s.h.i.+mon 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 Pa.s.sover 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 northeast 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.'

It all seemed pretty straightforward. He was a hawk, determined to make his last stand by appealing to the Prime Minister direct. He got too close and was gunned down. Simple.

And yet there was something about what Rachel Guttman had said, and the way she had said it, that nagged at her. She had insisted that her husband had seen seen something somethinga doc.u.ment, a letterthat would change everything, in the last three days of his life. Maggie looked at her wrist, where the widow had gripped her so tightly. Poor woman. To be so stricken with grief that she had started ranting at her, a total stranger. Maggie had seen other people who had lost loved ones trying, madly, to detect some higher meaning in the violent death of their husband, wife, mother or child. Claiming that the slain person had somehow foreseen their own death; that they were about to do one last great deed; that they were poised to make everything right. Maybe Rachel Guttman was suffering from that same, melancholy delusion. Maggie rubbed her wrist.

There was a knock on the door. Without waiting for an answer, Davis walked in.

'OK, the United States has decided to deploy its secret weapon.'

'Oh yes, what's that?'

'You.'

Davis explained that, as feared, the Palestinian delegation to Government House were now threatening to pull out over the death of the archaeologist. They suspected the hand of Israel. 'We need you to talk them off the ledge. Deputy Secretary wants to see you in five minutes.'

Maggie collected her papers and moved to turn off the computer. She was about to shut down the website of the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz Haaretz, the last one she had searched for information on Guttman, when she changed her mind, quickly checking the front page, just in case there was fresh word on the Nour case.

There was a news story, which she skim-read. It was written up as a straight collaborator killing: no mention of any possible Israeli involvement. But accompanying it was a picture of the dead Palestinian, what seemed to be a snap from a family alb.u.m. The archaeologist, with his thick salt-and-pepper moustache, was smiling at the camera, holding up a gla.s.s. A disembodied arm was draped over his shoulder, as if he were posing with an unseen friend.

Maggie got up to go, following Davis, but something drew her back to the picture on the screen. She had seen something familiar, without being able to identify what it was. She looked at Nour's eyes, but they gave nothing away. What was it she had seen? For a fleeting moment, she thought she had grasped itonly for it slip back below the surface, out of reach. She would see it again, thoughand much sooner than she expected.

CHAPTER TEN.

RAMALLAH, THE THE W WEST B BANK, TUESDAY, 4.46PM.

Her first surprise was at the brevity of the journey. She had climbed into the back of one of the consulate's black Land Cruisers only fifteen minutes earlier and yet now her driver, Marine Sergeant Kevin Lee, was telling her that she was crossing the Green Line, out of 'Israel-proper' and into the lands the country took in the Six Day War of 1967.

But it was an invisible border. There were no markings, no guards, no welcome signs. Instead, they were in what looked like another residential Jerusalem neighbourhoodone apartment building after another in that smooth, gleaming stonewhen Lee gestured, 'This is Pisgat Ze'ev. Even the people who live here don't realize this is across the Green Line.' He turned to look at Maggie. 'Or they don't want to realize.'

Maggie stared out of the window. No wonder everything about these negotiations was a nightmare. The plan was for Jerusalem to be divided between the two sides'shared' was the favoured US euphemismbecoming a capital for both countries. But she could now see that splitting it would be all but impossible: east and west Jerusalem were like trees which had grown so close, they had become entwined. They refused to be untangled.

'Now you get more of a sense of it,' Lee was saying, as the road began to bend. 'Pisgat Ze'ev on one side,' he said, pointing to his right. 'And Beit Hanina on the other.' Gesturing to the left.

She could see the difference. The Arab side of the road was a semi-wasteland: unfinished houses made of grey breeze blocks, sprouting steel rods like severed tendons; potholed, overgrown pathways, bordered by rusting oil barrels. Out of the car's other window, Pisgat Ze'ev was all straight lines and trim verges. It could have been an American suburb, cast in Biblical stone.

'Yep, it's pretty simple,' said Lee. 'The infrastructure here is great. And over there it's s.h.i.+t.'

They drove on in silence, Maggie's eyes boring into the landscape around her. You could read a thousand briefing notes and study a hundred maps, but there was no subst.i.tute for seeing the ground with your own eyes. It was true in Belfast and in Bosnia and it was true here.

'Hold up,' Lee said sharply, looking ahead. 'What have we got here?'

Two thin lines of people were standing on either side of the highway.

'Can we stop?' Maggie asked. 'I want to see.'

Lee pulled off the road, the gravel crunching under the vehicle's tyres. 'Ma'am, let me get out first. To see if it's safe to proceed.'

Ma'am. Maggie tried to guess the difference in age between herself and this Marine Sergeant Lee. He could have been no more than twenty-two: she was, theoretically anyway, old enough to be his mother.

'OK, Miss Costello, I think it's clear.'

Maggie got out of the car, to see that the people were forming a line that stretched off the side beyond the road, trailing down the hillside and into the distance. In the other direction, on the other side of the road, the same thing. Some were holding banners, the rest were holding hands. It was a human chain, breaking only for the highway itself.

Now she understood it. They were all wearing orange, the colour of the protest movement that had sprung up to oppose the peace process. She looked at the placards. With blood and fire, Yariv will go With blood and fire, Yariv will go, said one. Arrest the traitors Arrest the traitors, said another. The first had mocked up a portrait of the Prime Minister wearing a black and white keffiyeh, the traditional Palestinian headdress. The second had Yariv wearing the uniform of a n.a.z.i officer, down to the letters SS on his collar.

The woman holding the keffiyeh banner saw Maggie looking. She called over: 'You want to save Jerusalem? This is the way!' A New York accent.

Maggie came closer.

'We're "Arms Around Jerusalem",' the woman said, handing Maggie a flier. 'We're forming a human chain around the eternal, undivided capital of the Jewish people. We're going to stay here until Yariv and all the other criminals are gone and our city is safe again.'

Maggie nodded.

The woman lowered her voice, as if enlisting a co-conspirator. 'If it were down to me we would have called it "Hands Off Jerusalem". But you don't win every battle. You should stay here a while, see what true Israelis feel about this great betrayal.'

Maggie gestured towards the car, her features crinkled into an apology. As she walked back, she could hear a song drifting up from the hillside. It was out of time, as different people in different places struggled to keep up with each other; but even so it was a haunting, beautiful melody.

As Sergeant Lee ushered her back into the car and they continued on their way, Maggie thought about what she had seen. Against opposition this committed, Yariv surely had no chance. Even if he were able to make the final push with the Palestinians, he had his own people to overcome. People who were prepared to ring an entire city, day and night, for weeks or even months.

By now they were on a smooth road with hardly any traffic on it except the odd UN 4x4 or a khaki vehicle of the Israel Defence Force, the IDF. Any other vehicles, Lee explained, belonged to settlers.

'Where are the Palestinians?'

'They have to get around some other way. That's why they call this a bypa.s.s road: it's to bypa.s.s them.'

Lee slowed down to join a checkpoint queue. A sign in English indicated who was allowed to approach: international organizations, medical staff, ambulances, press. Below that, a firm injunction: 'Stop Here! Wait to be called by the soldier!'

The driver reached across for Maggie's pa.s.sport, wound down the window and pa.s.sed it to the guard. Maggie dipped her head in the pa.s.senger seat, to get a good look at his face. He was dark and skinny, with a few random wisps on his chin. He couldn't have been more than eighteen.

They were waved through, past an empty hulk of a building that Lee identified as the City Inn Hotel. It was pocked all over with bullet holes. 'During the second intifada intifada they fought here for weeks. Took the IDF ages to finally clear the Pals out.' He turned to smile at Maggie. 'I hear the room rate's real low now.' they fought here for weeks. Took the IDF ages to finally clear the Pals out.' He turned to smile at Maggie. 'I hear the room rate's real low now.'

Just a few minutes after they had been driving through Israeli suburbia, they were in a different country. The buildings were still made of the pale stone she had seen in Jerusalem, but here they were dustier, forlorn. The signs were in Arabic and English: Al-Rami Motors, the Al-Aqsa Islamic Bank. She saw a clutch of wicker rattan chairs on a street corner, young men loafing on them, thin cigarettes between their lips. The furniture was for sale. Walking in the road, sidestepping the potholes, were children on their way from school, labouring under oversized rucksacks. She looked away.

On every wall and pasted on the windows of abandoned stores were posters showing the faces of boys and men, the images framed by the green, white, red and black of the Palestinian national flag.

'Martyrs,' said Lee.

'Suicide bombers?'