Deputy Director Cohen followed Seiden from the room. They walked together by the holding cells toward the double doors at the end of the corridor and waited for the guard to buzz them out. When they had entered the stairwell leading up to the main floor, Cohen pulled Seiden aside and held him for a moment by the elbow. “I appreciate everything you’ve done, Ben,” he said.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Oh, and one more thing. I understand how an intelligent man might be tempted to retain some record of this event, in case he found his career… ” He struggled for the words. “How can I put it? His career no longer moving. Stalled, if you will. Promotions elusive. But I think such a man would have to fight against this temptation.”
Seiden examined the Deputy Director. He could not read his face. Cohen’s light blue eyes were impenetrable and cold, the color of icebergs in an Arctic sea. “Yes, sir,” Seiden said.
“Good, good,” said Cohen. He shook Seiden’s hand and turned away. Then he slipped back through the double doors and disappeared.
Mandelbaum ordered all the holding cells and corridors leading from the main entrance of the building to Interrogation Room B cleared. When the ground floor of the fortified structure looked like a ghost town, a figure left the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, entered the front door, and walked along the deserted corridors and stairwell to the basement. It was Yuri Garron himself, the Prime Minister. He was a huge man, tall and portly, with a round butcher’s face and large, expressive brown eyes. His thin gray hair was combed casually across the glistening dome of his head. He told the Director and Deputy Director to secure the recordings of the interrogation and to vacate the observation room. He wanted to be alone, he said. They did as they were told. As soon as Cohen and Mandelbaum had disappeared, Garron entered Interrogation Room B where El Aqrab was chained to the ceiling, his back still to the door.
“It is you,” the Prime Minister said as he finally got a good look at the prisoner. “When I heard, I couldn’t believe it. After all these years.” He laughed. “It’s like… like Déjà vu, as though I’ve traveled back to 1987, back to that incident with the interrogator from Ansar II.”
El Aqrab smiled. He knew exactly to what Garron referred. In August 1987, six Palestinians had escaped from Ansar II in Gaza. The Zionists assumed the escapees had slipped across the border into Egypt, but, subsequently, masked gunmen killed an Israeli officer in a daring daylight attack. Later the IDF announced that the killers themselves had died in an exchange of gunfire with Israeli forces. Among the dead was one of the escapees. He had not fled to Egypt, as assumed, but had gone underground to await an opportunity to shoot the officer, who — it was subsequently revealed — was the chief interrogator at Ansar II. Many Palestinians were thrilled by this event. After a depressing string of setbacks, here was an incendiary morale booster. The community held a massive funeral, attended by thousands of mourners.
“Yes,” said El Aqrab. “I remember.”
“Why did you come back?” asked Garron. “After all this time. Surely not just to kill Miller. He was the last one, wasn’t he?”
“No,” said El Aqrab. “You are the last one.” He smiled. “Tell me, Yuri. Do you still believe the Ansar escapees were responsible for the intifadah? I heard you say that once, on television.”
Garron didn’t respond.
“You still don’t get it, do you?” El Aqrab said. “It was never about the riots. It wasn’t the takeover of the government by the Likud, or your own ambitious settlement programs—”
“The Geneva Convention doesn’t apply to the Territories,” Garron said, interrupting him. “We’re entitled to settle there. God gave us that land. And besides, within the year, we will withdraw completely from the West Bank. All the checkpoints will be opened. As promised.”
“Allah has nothing to do with this. This is all about Garron. Even Rabin called the Gush Emunim and Kach, the Kahane Hay and all the other paramilitary settlers ‘Jewish terrorists.’”
Garron stepped up, as if prepared to strike the prisoner.
El Aqrab smiled. “Go ahead,” he said. “The truth is, Yuri, you are our greatest friend. Even though Arafat is dead, you continue to try and marginalize the PLO. And the more you marginalize the PLO, the more powerful The Brotherhood, Hamas, and Hezbollah become. You are a fool. What happens when you capitulate to the Americans and let the Palestinians have their fair and free elections? Do you think they’ll vote El-Fatah once again? And if El-Fatah loses, how long before your own people consider you expendable? You have grown old and soft, Yuri, and soon you will have an accident, I’m sure.” His voice was cool, clear as a mountain stream. “Old and soft,” he repeated. “But what motivates a boy to strap twelve pounds of high explosives to his chest and climb across the fence to kill himself? The Qur’an says we’re obliged to fight the enemies of Islam. And yet we do not do this with the support, nor the hindrance of some higher authority. No Prime Minister or President, no Mullah or Imam. The only path to self-empowerment, the only way to be is to defend the faith by preserving… no, by enlarging the boundaries of the Ummah. It may only be a neighborhood, a quarter or a Kasbah, but it is Muslim ground, sacred and worth defending, even unto death.”
“Just answer me,” Garron said. “Why did you come back? After all this time. Why?”
“I came back to for you, Yuri. For you! Don’t you understand? To see your face. The explosion: It’s already happening, right now, as we speak. With the cadence of glass as a liquid. The fuse has been lit. The flames are beginning to lick at your feet. Can’t you feel them? I wanted to watch, to see your eyes. They are the eyes of a dead man. You are a ghost.”
Garron drew nearer.
“Soon you will be a man without a party,” El Aqrab said. “Disowned. Cast out. Reviled. Soon the whole world, as we know it, will be gone. And whoever is left, whoever survives will look back and blame… you. The man ‘indirectly responsible’ for Sabra and Shatila!” He laughed. “I came to watch your death throws, Yuri. The end of your ugly, miserable little life.”
Garron struck the terrorist and this brought a smile of ghastly pleasure to El Aqrab’s thin face. “Be careful,” he said. “You wouldn’t want anything to happen to me, Yuri, would you? Not yet. I’ve seen to it that — if it does — everyone will know… ” He licked the blood off his lips. “… our little secret.”
Garron stepped back. He raised his hand again but it simply hung there, in the air, unmoving. Then it fell back at his side. Despite his size, Garron looked small and feeble beside the terrorist.
“And then what, Yuri?” El Aqrab said. “You will come tumbling down. Control will fall back to the Labor party, the liberals, the weak. And we wouldn’t want that, would we?” said El Aqrab. “When it rains, the water seller goes hungry. We have a common interest, after all, Yuri, a common enemy. It is called pity and forgiveness. It is called hope and reasonableness. Today it is embodied in the PLO’s Abu Mazen. But tomorrow… ” He laughed. “What you need is something to make the Americans veer away from peace. Something abominable. Something that will make what happened to the World Trade Towers seem like the work of children. Soon, Yuri. Soon, you will be forced to let me go. In a few days, not much more. Less than a week. You’ll see. Then all will be revealed.”
Chapter 11