Vicious Circle (18 page)

“Islamic fundamentalists,” Sa’adat went on, ignoring Elihu, addressing himself to Baruch, “are the common enemy of the Shin
Bet and the Authority’s Preventive Security apparatus. Which is why the Isra’ilis gave us a free hand on the West Bank long
before the Authority took formal control of its villages and towns. Which is why an occasional Palestinian is suspended above
the ground from his wrists tied behind his back. The technique is not fool proof, but nine out of ten times we succeed in
getting the information we seek. When we fail it is because the Palestinian suspended by his wrists does not have the information
we seek, or suffers a fatal heart attack before he can recall it.”

Baruch realized Sa’adat did know something about the kidnapping after all. He was just taking his sweet time before sharing
it.

Sa’adat lifted the Russian revolver from the pile of dossiers and set it down on the desk with the barrel pointing directly
at Elihu. He pulled out one file folder and opened it. “Being an Arabist, you will surely be familiar with Islamic tradition
that holds that God sends down to earth, at the beginning of every century, what we call a
mujaddid
and you translate as
Renewer
, to restore to Islam the greatness it possessed in the time of the Prophet and the first
khalifa
.”

Elihu leaned forward. “An American journalist published an article a few days ago that mentioned this Renewer. The journalist
claimed a fundamentalist cleric in Aza told him that many among them believed that this Abu Bakr is the long-awaited
mujaddid
.”

A telephone rang in an adjoining room. A woman’s voice, muffled, could be heard telling someone that Sa’adat was in conference.
“The Authority’s Preventive Security apparatus started picking up
murmurs of a
mujaddid
two and a half years ago,” Sa’adat continued. “It began in the city of Hebron and then seemed to spread north to Jerusalem
itself, and eventually into Ghazeh. People talked about it in whispers behind closed doors. According to these rumors, the
Renewer was a blind man who saw more clearly than those with sight. He was so pious that he bore like a badge on his forehead
what the Holy Qur’an calls
the trace of prostration
. He taught that Islam had not failed Muslims; Muslims had failed Islam. He taught that faithfulness to the word of God and
the example of the Prophet would bring victory over the Jewish infidels. He quoted from the Qur’an the passage that begins,
‘
If there be twenty of you, patient men, they will overcome two hundred; if there be a hundred of you, they will overcome a
thousand unbelievers
.’”

“Were you able to discover the identity of this Renewer?” Baruch asked.

Sa’adat’s gold teeth flashed. “Before his untimely death, one of the Palestinians hanging by his wrists from an Isra’ili hook
in the wall”—the Authority’s deputy intelligence chief looked directly at Elihu as he said this—“told of a nearly blind vigilante
who was executing Palestinians accused of collaborating with the Jewish infidels. According to this prisoner, the vigilante
and the
mujaddid
were the same person. Because he was practically blind, this vigilante had a distinctive method of carrying out the sentence
of death—he probed with his finger tips behind the condemned man’s ear, and then fired a single small caliber bullet with
surgical precision into the base of his brain.”

Elihu looked at Baruch. “Of course! Since he’s blind, he is obliged to shoot at point blank range. And since he is shooting
at point blank range, he uses a small caliber pistol that is so quiet it doesn’t need a silencer.” He turned to the Palestinian
security chief. “We have a record of eighteen such murders.” He stressed the word “murders.”

Sa’adat said, “All told, there were twenty-three executions.” He stressed the word “executions.” “The difference between your
count and ours is due to the fact that five of the bodies were never turned over to the Isra’ili occupation authorities.”

Baruch said, “One of the Jewish bodyguards who died in the kidnapping, as well as the terrorist whose body was found in the
abandoned car, were killed by .22-caliber bullets fired into the brain stem from point blank range.”

“Let us agree,” Sa’adat said with bland innocence, “that the kidnapping of your Rabbi bears the signature of our blind
mujaddid
. I tell you sincerely, this vigilante is as much a menace to the Palestinian Authority and its Chairman as he is to you Jews.
There is no telling what ordinary Palestinians, responding to his simple call to wage holy war against the Jews, might do
if they come to believe he is God’s long-awaited Renewer. Every mosque in Islam will open its doors to him; every Muslim will
join his army to fight against the infidel. The Authority’s peace of the brave with the Isra’ilis will be swept away by a
sea of fundamentalist warriors obeying edicts issued by the
mujaddid
. Palestine will become an Islamic fundamentalist bastion. I myself will be accused of collaborating with the infidel, and
a small caliber bullet”—Sa’adat, still smiling, tapped the bone behind his ear with a forefinger—“will be fired into the base
of my skull.”

Reading between the lines, it dawned on Baruch why they had been invited down to Jericho; the Palestinian Authority Chairman
and his Preventive Security apparatus were declaring war on the blind
mujaddid
who had murdered twenty-three collaborators and kidnapped Rabbi Apfulbaum. They would hang Palestinians by their wrists in
an effort to discover who he was and where he was. But once they found out, they would prefer it if someone else eliminated
the
mujaddid
.

That someone else would be the Israelis.

“
Lamma lo
?” Baruch said, thinking out loud. “Why not? You find him, we’ll kill him.”

Beaming, Sa’adat scraped back his seat and came around to the front of the desk. “This meeting never took place,” he announced.
“Those who say there is an understanding between us lie through their teeth. If, by some miracle, we discover where Abu Bakr
is holding the Rabbi, you will be the last to hear about it. God forbid a Muslim should denounce the
mujaddid
sent by Allah to renew Islam!”

Sa’adat accompanied his guests down the sandy path to the gate in the fence. “It was cheerful to see you,” he told Baruch.
“Come again when the spirit moves you. My home is your home, et cetera, et cetera.” The smile etched onto his face never wavered
as he added, “Next time, do me a service and leave your famous Mossad
katsa
home.”

T
HE BROTHERS
K
ARAMAZOV (AS THEY WERE NICKNAMED IN
police circles) barged without knocking into Baruch’s office. Azazel, wearing a heavy gold chain around his tanned neck and
a white-on-white shirt unbuttoned down to a tanned navel, sank with an exasperated sigh onto a couch. Absalom, dressed in
a custom-made pale mauve sports jacket and black trousers with knife-edge creases, planted himself in front of the desk and
began reading the work order that Baruch had deposited in their in-basket.

“‘From: Baruch.’” Absalom lifted his moist eyes from the paper clutched in his carefully manicured fingers. “That’s you.”

“That’s him,” Azazel agreed coyly.

“‘To: The brothers Karamazov.’ That’s us.”

Baruch started to say something but Azazel, from the couch, whipped both hands over his head as if they were helicopter rotors.
“Listen to Absalom,” he insisted shrilly. “Hear what he has to say.”

“‘Subject: Needle in a haystack.’” Absalom pouted. “Well, at least you got that part right.” He glanced down at the work order
and continued reading in a voice dripping with irony: “‘Cancel all leaves, all hands on deck.’ Oh, my, Baruch, aren’t we being
nautical
today. ‘I want you and Azazel and your people to comb through the records of former Palestinian prisoners. The list is obviously
long—’”

“He’s telling
us
that the list is long,” Azazel bitched from the couch. He rolled his eyes. “Oh, dear.”

Absalom plunged on. “‘—obviously long, and much of it is still not available on the Shin Bet’s main frame, which means you’ll
have to wade through hundreds of dusty file cabinets in the basements—but when has that fazed the brothers Karamazov?’”

“Flattery,” Azazel sniffed from the couch, “would normally get you everywhere, but not today.”

“‘Here’s what we’re looking for.’” Absalom flashed a vinegary smirk in Azazel’s direction. “Here’s what he’s looking for.”

“He’s already said what he’s looking for,” Azazel fretted. “He’s looking for a needle in his haystack.”

Absalom cleared his throat. “‘A male Palestinian, age unknown but I’m guessing he is in his forties or fifties, who (1) is
short and heavy set, (2) may have been arrested after being betrayed by one of the Shin Bet’s Palestinian assets, (3) probably
served major time in Israeli prisons as a result of this denunciation, (4) was in all likelihood a devout Muslim with (5)
seriously enough impaired eyesight so that someone could describe him as being nearly blind.”

“Forty or fifty,” Azazel blurted out. “Possibly betrayed. Maybe jailed. Probably devout. Nearly blind. Well, at least he’s
sure we’re looking for the
male
of the species!”

The two former Russian rabbis, who had emigrated to Israel two decades earlier and now directed a small army of researchers
working for the national police, batted their eyes in Baruch’s direction. Absalom and Azazel were the butt of countless office
jokes, but Baruch took the position that what consenting adults did in their free time was their affair. All he cared about
was that they were capable of tracking a Palestinian through the voluminous national police–Shin Bet archives on the skimpiest
of leads. Only months before they had managed to identify a Nablus Arab who had thrown a Molotov cocktail at an Israeli patrol
on the basis of a description limited to two details; the bomber had asthma and gnawed on his finger nails as he was waiting
for the Israelis to pass.

Baruch settled back in his chair. “Look, I’m not stupid. I know there will be dozens of short, heavy male Palestinians who
were devout and suffered from bad eyesight and wound up behind bars after being denounced by a collaborator.”

“Dozens!” Absalom corrected him. “Hundreds is more likely.”

“If there are hundreds,” Baruch said in his crisp no-room-for-argument tone, “bring me their names. By the time you’ve narrowed
it down to hundreds, I hope we’ll have another detail or two so you can narrow the list down even further.”

S
OMETIME AFTER MIDNIGHT
, M
AALI, SLEEPING RESTLESSLY ON
a folding cot with an arm flung over her eyes to shield them from the two-hundred-watt overhead bulb, was awakened by the
long, deep sobs of a woman. For a moment she thought she had been crying in her sleep. Then, through the grille, she saw Isra’ili
soldiers dragging someone under the armpits along the passageway. The group came to a stop in front of Maali’s door. A key
turned in the lock, the door swung open and a woman was thrown into the small cell. She collapsed onto the cement floor as
the door slammed closed behind her with the brutal gnash of metal striking metal.

Crouching next to the prisoner, Maali turned her face up and cradled her head in her lap. The woman’s dark hair was matted
with sticky blood. There was a cut under an eye that was swollen shut, and an ugly purple bruise on one shoulder. Her prison
shift was ripped under the armpits. Both of her knees and one ankle were scraped and bleeding. The woman, who appeared to
be in her late twenties or early thirties, opened her good eye and peered up at Maali in fright. “They think they can throw
me into a cell with a collaborator and I’ll tell you what I wouldn’t tell them,” she whispered in Arabic. “It will not happen.”

“I am no collaborator,” Maali said.

“Go to hell.” The words were spit out from between sore lips.

Maali dragged the prisoner over to the cot and wrestled her onto it. She pulled off the underwear the Jewish doctor had given
her, moistened a corner with saliva and began to clean the woman’s cuts
and bruises. “What is your name?” she asked after a while. “Mine is Maali. I am the wife of Yussuf Abu Saleh.”

The young woman tilted her head to get a better look at Maali. “There is a Yussuf Abu Saleh who is said to be a disciple of
the
mujaddid
.”

Maali smiled proudly.

The woman said, “How can I be sure you are the wife of Yussuf Abu Saleh?”

“Because I say it. Because I am here. Because I have suffered as you have suffered.”

Air rattled in the woman’s throat as she spoke. “I am Delilah, the sister-in-law of Abu Bakr, the
mujaddid
. My husband and I were pulled from our automobile as we passed through an Isra’ili roadblock on the edge of Jerusalem three
days ago. I have not seen my husband since then, though I have heard his cries of pain coming from another room when they
were torturing me.”

The two woman embraced. Delilah put her mouth next to Maali’s ear and whispered, “Have you told them what they want to know?”

“Not a word has crossed my lips,” Maali shot back. “I will die before I betray my husband.”

The woman managed a twisted smile. “Whatever you do, tell me nothing. What I do not know I cannot pass on to the Jews if the
torture becomes too much for me to bear.”

Exhausted, Delilah sank into a fitful sleep with her head propped on Maali’s lap. At dawn the Isra’ilis came back for her.
“
Hatha baladna, il yahud kilabna
,” the woman cried defiantly as they pulled her from the cell. “
This is our country, the Jews are our dogs
.”

An hour later the door of the cell was thrown open and Delilah, bleeding from one nostril of what looked like a broken nose,
stumbled in. Sobbing convulsively like a baby, she collapsed into Maali’s arms. “They are convinced I know where Abu Bakr
is holding the Jewish Rabbi,” she gasped when she was finally able to talk.