Dark Waters (10 page)

J
ordan paced the length of Weizman’s office, a small, gray room with windows that faced out toward the highway. Outside the detective’s door spread a maze of cubicles with desks and chairs, all painted the same drab gray as the carpet and manned by Israeli beat cops wearing navy slacks and light blue shirts.

Earlier, with no authority to arrest anyone, she had ordered the Marines to restrain the woman at the scene of the attack and waited for him to show up. In turn, he had hauled the woman in for questioning. Now, watching him pick his way across the squad room, she moved forward impatiently.

“The woman’s clammed up,” Weizman said, pushing her back and shutting the door behind him.

Jordan had expected her to ask for a lawyer. “Batya Ruth was the name on her registration,” she said. “We couldn’t find any more information on her.”

“That’s because it’s a cover name. The woman is connected.”

“What do you mean ‘connected’?”

Weizman perched on the edge of a desk. “Her real name is Batya Ganani. She works for Shabak.” The Hebrew and Arabic word for Shin Bet, the Israeli equivalent of the FBI.

“You’re telling me she works for the Israeli government?”

Weizman nodded. “She asked to speak to Ilya Brodsky, who heads up a special antiterrorist unit. Colonel Brodsky has ordered her release.”

“You’re letting her go?”

Weizman threw up his hands. “Of course. She is an agent of the State of Israel.”

“What about the attack on the judge and his daughter?” Jordan asked.

“Ganani claims she was tailing the Palestinians and realized they were planning an attack. She moved in to protect your flank. Shabak’s stance is that you owe her an apology and a thank you.”

“What about her involvement in the Dizengoff shooting? And al-Ajami? She must be the one you’re looking for. Why else would she be tailing the Palestinians?”

Weizman shrugged. “I can’t prove she’s involved or that she did anything wrong if she was acting as an agent of the government. I have no reason to suspect Shabak of being involved in nefarious dealings.”

“So you believe what she’s telling you?”

Weizman smiled thinly. “If she had wanted to kill you or the judge, you would both be dead.” He moved behind his desk, sat down, and gestured toward a chair. “Now I have some questions for you.”

Jordan ignored the seat he offered. “What questions?”

“I need something to justify the discharge of U.S. weapons on Israeli soil and to explain why you shot out the tires of a Shabak agent and held her at gunpoint.”

“Fuck.”

He smiled again. “Did you draw your weapon because you were threatened?”

Jordan could see where this was headed. Moving forward, she planted both of her palms firmly on his desk. “Yes, Detective
Weizman. I heard a shot in the alley as we were leaving the doctor’s office. I believe the Shabak agent shot out the front tire of a green Forester carrying four men who intended to ambush our transport. I drew my gun.”

“Go back to the embassy, Agent Jordan.” Weizman sat back, planting his elbows on the armrests of his chair, steepling his arms and tapping together his index fingers. “Take the judge and his daughter, put them under protective custody, and send them home.”

“I can’t do that.”

Weizman sat up sharply. “Are you saying you have no power to force them into your embassy? With what’s happened, the judge will not be so stupid as to refuse to protect his child.”

“Maybe you can order your citizens around, Weizman, but we can’t order Ben Taylor to do anything. He’s an American here on legitimate business. He believes that the medical treatments Lucy receives are saving her life.” Jordan made no attempt to mask her own skepticism. “We can’t force him to leave. If I could, I would. How about you have him deported?”

Weizman cupped his chin in his hand and shook his head. “He has legal documents and, so far, he has done nothing wrong.”

A door opened on the far side of the squad room, and Jordan turned as Batya Ganani stepped through the doorway. She glanced around until she spotted Jordan, and a faint grin spread across her face. She nodded slightly.

“Round one, Ganani,” Jordan said.

“Excuse me?” said Weizman.

“It’s an expression.” She started for the door, but Weizman called her back.

“Hold up. I have something for you.” The detective rummaged around in his desk drawer and then pulled out a small USB drive and pushed it toward Jordan. “It’s a copy of one we
found in the apartment at al-Ajami. I think you will find it interesting. It’s full of American pop music. Maybe you can help me identify its owner?”

*

Haddid trembled. No one had died. Yousif had been wounded, but the rest of them had come through unscathed.

“Where did that crazy bitch in the Volvo come from?” asked Fayez. “Who the hell was she?”

They were sitting on the couch in the safe house, watching through the bedroom door as Basim doctored a moaning Yousif. He was lying across the bed and looked pale. The four of them had failed to fulfill their mission.

“She is the woman from Najm’s house. She must be Shabak. I don’t know.”

Fayez raised his eyebrows. “If that’s true, then why aren’t we dead?”

It was a valid question. Plus, it would save Zuabi the trouble of killing them. Haddid shuddered to think how their leader would react to this latest news. There had to be some way of appeasing Zuabi without giving him the means to carry out his plan.

“Zuabi is going to be angry,” said Fayez, as if reading Haddid’s thoughts.

“It was beyond our control.” Haddid feigned disappointment at their failure to capture the girl and her father. In truth, he was glad. She was only a child.

His thoughts drifted to his own son. Sami was younger than the girl but held the same innocence of youth. Children did not care about war. They did not care about politics. They did not care about race. They cared only about what their parents told them. About playing with their friends. About eating. His son was always hungry.

And his wife. What did she care about? She only wanted Haddid to go to work and come home. She wanted him to put a roof over their heads and food in their bellies. She hated the violence. She hated Zuabi. As the head of the Palestine Liberation Committee, he supported three things she opposed—Hamas, jihad, and racism. Haddid’s beloved was convinced that one day it would be one of those three things that would bring death to Sami.

Haddid feared she was right. Zuabi was bent on revenge, and his view of the bigger picture was skewed. But these were not things he could share with his colleagues. If the others knew he rejoiced in their failure, there was not one among them that would hesitate to kill him.

“What are we to do now, Haddid?” asked Fayez.

Earlier, the man had treated him like he knew nothing, and now he wanted guidance? Why did he think Haddid had any answers?

“We wait,” Haddid said. “We need to see what the father and daughter choose to do.” It was possible that after this the man would take the girl inside the U.S. embassy. If he did, it was over.

Haddid closed his eyes and prayed to Allah.
Please, let the father use his brain
.

T
he minute Jordan reached her car, she plugged the USB drive that Weizman had given her into the auxiliary player of her car. She found herself listening to Taylor Swift. Not the kind of music she expected a couple of Palestinian terrorists to gravitate toward. What was she missing?

Tumbling the facts into place, she listed what she knew.

One, Cline had to have been trading information via a USB drive.

Two, the Palestinians didn’t have it. Why else would they have broken into the Taylors’ apartment and tried to ambush them on the way back from Lucy’s doctor’s appointment?

Then she realized what Batya Ganani thought she had already figured out.

Jordan pulled the drive from the USB port and gripped it tightly. The Palestinians must believe one of the Taylors had picked up the drive in the square. That’s why they had broken into the Dizengoff Apartments. But instead of finding the drive with the information they wanted, they’d come away with four gigs of Billboard’s top one hundred. They weren’t after the judge. They were after Lucy.

When their attempt to steal the drive failed, they had ambushed the transport on the way home from the doctor’s office. Jordan didn’t want to think about what came next.

Wheeling her car out of the police department headquarters, she made a beeline for Dizengoff Square. Parking on the street, she headed for the apartment, nodding to the Marine on duty in the courtyard and to the one posted on the stairs. Inside, she found Master Gunnery Sergeant Walker standing near the sofa, his weapon at the ready. When he recognized her, he lowered his gun.

“How is everyone?” she asked.

“Lucy went to take a nap. The judge headed to his room a few minutes ago. Are you here to keep me company?”

“No, I’m here because we found something.” Jordan held up the small USB drive.

“What’s on it?”

“Music.”

“Lucy’s?”

“That would be my guess.”

“Lucy’s what?” Taylor asked, emerging from the back room.

Jordan told him about their find. “Weizman gave me a copy. It was full of music. The kind of music an eleven-year-old girl listens to.”

Taylor lifted it out of her hand while Jordan told them what happened at the police station.

“That chick was Shin Bet?” Walker said. “Jeez.”

“What’s important is that the Palestinians seem to think Lucy ended up with the information they want, and Shin Bet knew about it.” Jordan turned to Taylor. “Has Lucy said anything to you about finding something that didn’t belong to her?”

“No,” Taylor said. “But then, she might not have realized what she had.”

Jordan reached out and touched his arm. “We need to ask her.”

“I want her to sleep. Let’s look around first. Maybe check her purse?” He walked to the kitchen and snatched up a pink
Coach bag dangling off the back of a chair. “She carries everything in here.”

He tossed the purse to Jordan and she sorted through its contents. A small compact with a mirror, lip gloss, gum, and a billfold with about ten dollars’ worth of shekels and a picture of a beautiful blond woman standing on the steps of the National Mall.

“My ex-wife.” Taylor turned the small USB drive in his fingers. “Where did you say this was found?”

“In the apartment of an Arab Israeli maintenance worker named Najm Tibi.” Jordan closed the billfold and put it back in the purse. “He was found dead alongside another man, Mansoor Rahman, a known jihadist connected to the Palestine Liberation Committee.”

Taylor’s eyes grew alert. “The PLC is the group whose assets I froze.”

Jordan zipped the purse shut. “This wasn’t about retaliation. It was about whatever information they were looking to get.”

She pointed to his hand. “That drive was found in the home of a terrorist involved in the murder of a U.S. Diplomatic Security Service special agent. Right now, I’m going on the assumption that this isn’t about you. This is about a trade. I’d like to find out what they were trading before anyone else winds up dead. Are you okay with that?”

“When you put it that way . . . ,” Taylor said.

“Great. Now what else would Lucy do with it?”

“It might be on her desk or stuck in a drawer. Or she might have thrown it away.”

Jordan pushed herself up from the couch. “Let’s ask her.”

Taylor led the way to Lucy’s room and gently pushed open the door. The hinge squeaked, but Lucy barely stirred. She was stretched out on the bed, her blond curls splayed across the pillow, her skin pale in the soft light seeping through the window curtains. Jordan couldn’t help but notice the dark circles under her eyes and that her cheeks looked fiery red.

“She looks sick,” Jordan said.

“The treatments are hard on her,” Taylor said.

The bedroom looked like it had been tossed again. Extra pillows from the bed were strewn on the carpet, jewelry littered the white dresser top, and shoes were jumbled on the floor of the closet. Jordan scanned the room in grids and, noticing nothing, decided it was just the mess of a preteen.

Taylor picked his way across the bedroom, knelt beside Lucy’s bed, and gently stroked her hair. “Luce?”

“Leave me alone.” She pushed her father’s hand away. She might have been eleven, but she woke up like the teenager she was going to be in a couple of years. Groaning, she rolled over and snuggled deeper into her pillow.

“Honey.” Taylor jostled her shoulder. “We need to talk to you, Luce. Wake up.”

“Go away!” She pushed at his hand pulled the pillow over her head.

“Lucy!” Taylor yanked the pillow away and settled his hand on her forehead. “She’s burning up.”

Lucy’s eyes opened. “What are you doing in my room?”

“Agent Jordan needs to ask you some questions, honey.”

“I’m sleeping.”

Jordan turned to Walker, who stood near the door. “Can you go get a thermometer?”

“There’s one in the bathroom.” Taylor gripped his daughter’s elbow and pulled her up in the bed. “You need to answer Agent Jordan’s questions.”

Lucy pouted and slumped back against the pillows in resignation. “What do you want to know?”

Jordan showed her the USB drive. “This is full of music I think belongs to you.”

“That’s not mine.”

“The drive is a copy, but I think that the songs on it are yours.”

Lucy held out her hand.

Jordan refused to relinquish the drive until she got some answers. “Lucy, I need to know whether you found another one like this.”

“Yeah. What about it?”

“I need it,” Jordan said. “I’ll trade you for it.”

Lucy rubbed her eyes, red and rheumy from fever. “Why? It doesn’t work.”

“What do you mean ‘it doesn’t work’?” Jordan asked.

Walker came back with the thermometer, and Taylor stuck it in Lucy’s mouth. “Keep this under your tongue.”

Lucy mumbled around the stick in her mouth. “It asked for a password when I plugged it in. I tried a couple of things, but I couldn’t get it to open. I threw it away.”

“When?” Jordan asked. “Where?”

“Over there.” Lucy pointed toward the dresser.

Jordan unearthed a wastebasket from behind some discarded jeans, but it was empty.

“I emptied it this morning,” said Taylor. “Before we left for Alena’s.”

“Is there a trash chute?” Jordan asked.

“I threw it in the dumpster in the alley.”

Jordan headed for the door, stopping short beside Walker. “You let him go out in the alley?”

The Marine snapped to. “No, ma’am. Not me.”

“Come with me.”

“Dumpster diving?” Walker rubbed his hands together in mock excitement.

“He stays,” Taylor called out from the bedroom. “I’ll go with you.”

Jordan turned around. She didn’t want him outside. It was hard enough protecting them when they stayed indoors.

“What’s Lucy’s temperature?” she asked. The fever spots on the child’s cheeks practically glowed.

“Thirty-seven.”

Alena had told them to call if Lucy’s fever reached thirty-eight.

Taylor shook down the thermometer and set it on the bedside table. “Go back to sleep, Luce.”

The child rolled over and turned her face to the wall. Taylor followed Jordan into the living room. “I want to help. I need to do something. I got us into this mess. I need to help get us out.”

To let him went against her better judgment. “I can’t put you at risk, Taylor. Walker is—”

“Supposed to be watching my daughter.”

“Supposed to be keeping you safe.”

Determination hardened his face. “I can handle myself. Besides, we can cover a lot of trash in tandem.”

Jordan tried to reason with him and then caved. She had no real authority over him, and he knew it.

“Okay,” she said, “But I get to go first.” Then, seeing the smirk on Walker’s face, she told him to shut up.