The Covenant Read online

  But anything in the mystical reaches of some quasicultural/religious backwater ruled by paternalistic old farts who oppressed women and interpreted musty old texts to make life easier—and more profitable—for themselves was quite outside her line of vision. The whole “Israel” thing just didn’t interest her. And it had absolutely no hold over her. Quite the contrary. The idea of Jews having their own state was quite repellant. The only thing Jews had in common was their silly, male chauvinistic religion (no sillier or more male chauvinistic than Christianity or Islam, mind you). There was no reason to mark off borders fanatically to preserve it. Just as there were Christians and Muslims all over the world, citizens of every country, so too the Jews should be everywhere. Anti-Semitism was outdated and discredited. It was the Israeli occupation that had people hating Jews all over again. It was something new. And the Israelis had only themselves to blame.

  She heard voices drift down the stairs with new urgency. Suddenly, Ismael was standing in front of her. His face was pale. “Come,” he beckoned.

  She walked up after him, not exchanging a single word. In the hall, she brushed past men holding AK-47 assault rifles. One of them opened a door and jerked his head toward her. She dutifully went inside.

  On the walls hung pictures of a frail old man sitting in a wheelchair dressed completely in white. His scraggly beard dripped down his face and onto his robe like spittle. His eyes, like two black stones, lightless and without humor, looked down on her intently. Yes, she thought. A physically challenged, anorexic Santa. A poster child for the Jihad Muscular Dystrophy Foundation. A basketball player for special Olympics against ageism. Good old Sheik Yassin himself.

  They led her into a room almost bare except for two chairs and a table. On one of the chairs sat a heavy man with a turban and a thick black beard. He almost looked like a yeshiva student. He said something to one of the men standing next to him, who in turn barked something belligerently to Ismael.

  “What?” she turned to Ismael, who shook his head curtly and seemed alarmed.

  “Hair. Your hair,” he hissed.

  She pushed the flyaway blond wisps back underneath the head covering and tied it back as tightly as she could.

  The fearless leader barked something else in a high-pitched voice that made him sound like a character straight out of The Simpsons—comical, almost ludicrous—a stark contrast to the decidedly uncomical gun-wielding goons spread out all over the place ready to obey his every word.

  They were beginning to annoy her.

  “Tell them I don’t have all day,” she suddenly said in a loud, clear voice.

  Ismael turned a bright red and mopped his brow. He began to explain, when Mr. Turban held up his hand for silence and beckoned her to take a seat across from him. She took her time. Then she took out her notebook and pen, crossed her long legs, instantly grateful to be wearing slacks and not a skirt. (If a strand of her blond hair offended their sensibilities, then what would an ocean of white thighs do?)

  “Now, Ismael, please ask my host who, exactly, is he?”

  In response, Ismael leaned over her, his lips almost touching her ear. “You are not in Piccadilly, Princess Diana. And you are going to get us both killed. The man you are looking at is Sheik Mansour, the right-hand man of Sheik Yassin, head of Hamas in Palestine.”

  She felt her hand tremble as she wrote down the words.

  Hamas. One of the deadliest and most merciless groups of terrorists in the world. She felt herself shiver as though she had been playing with a snake that she only now realized was not of the harmless garden variety, but the kind whose poison could kill a man in ten seconds.

  The sheik suddenly went berserk—screaming at the top of his lungs and waving his hands.

  She jumped up. “What’s he saying? What’s he saying?” she demanded.

  “He says that you are about to receive a videotape of the latest glorious exploit of the holy Izzedine al-Qassam Brigade against the murderous occupiers of holy Muslim land in Palestine. We want you to broadcast this to the Zionists. We ask that your network donate ten thousand dollars to our Muslim Benevolent Fund or this is the last time you will be allowed to enter our homes.”

  She watched the sheik slam his fist into his hand.

  “Get up, the interview is over,” Ismael hissed at her.

  “But . . .” She waved her empty pad helplessly. “My questions?”

  Two men rose and approached her threateningly. She put her pen away, took one last look at the evil turban-wearer and headed down the steps, Ismael holding her elbow and ushering her out.

  “But he hasn’t given me a tape . . .?!”

  “Just keep moving,” Ismael hissed.

  She did what she was told, not that she had much choice: a dozen armed men were dogging her heels and there was no direction to go but out.

  They hustled her into their cars and sped down the roads. Aware that at some point someone was going to ask her to describe where she’d been and how she’d gotten there, she looked outside the tinted windows, searching for some landmark. But there was nothing to hold on to. The ramshackle buildings. The donkeys. The small boys with sticks. The old men in dirty pants. The women with enormous baskets on their heads walking through the fields. It was like looking out a porthole at sea.

  She felt her stomach begin to churn, the nausea sweeping over her in great waves with every bump in the road.

  “Tell them to stop, Ismael.”

  “I can’t do that! It’s dangerous . . .”

  “Tell them to stop or in one minute they are going to have digested British Airways food all over their cream leather upholstery!”

  She heard him speak. A moment of silence followed, interrupted by sudden snorts of laughter. The car halted abruptly. Crawling over her companions, the cold metal of their guns touching her arms and pressing into her legs, she stuck her head out the door and drained her digestive tract of any lingering traces of nourishment.

  She wiped her stinging mouth across her sleeve, then sat back down.

  All the way, the men laughed and joked with each other, throwing her amused glances. Thankfully, Ismael didn’t translate.

  The cars finally rolled to a halt. She followed Ismael out into the open road, looking around for signs of Sean and Jack. And then all of a sudden, she saw one of the terrorists (freedom fighters, she reminded herself; activists; Militants) walking slowly and deliberately toward her.

  He was an ugly giant, built like those old-fashioned British phone booths: square, with a gut that hung over his pants like ice cream bulging out of an overstuffed cone. The black metal of his gun gleamed like a deadly sea predator in the foggy cool of the shaded road.

  She stepped back. If he was going to demand a last-minute rape, this was the perfect place for it, she thought, looking at Ismael’s slender frame tensely watching from a distance.

  My savior, she thought dryly.

  Whatever was going to happen was going to happen. Her hand went to her pocket. She fingered her weapons.

  Wordlessly, he pushed a bag into her hand, then turned and walked away.

  The other men followed. She could hear the revving of the engines in the preternaturally silent place, where even a leaf scraping along the ground entered into the conversation.

  Ismael was suddenly at her side. “There they are.”

  She gazed up the road, and sure enough, they were: the beer-guzzling, white-man’s burden, woman-baiting old British boys’ club in the flesh, waiting with rather morose expressions on their faces, to welcome her home.

  “What, no brass band?” she murmured. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”

  “Damn insane, that’s what you are!” Jack fumed. “Could have gotten yourself killed with that big mouth of yours, and not knowing anything. And the brass would have been all over me. Blamed me . . .”

  “What have you got there,Julia, old girl?” Sean said, eyeing the bag enviously.

  “A video, I think.”

  Sean turned to Ism
ael. “Who picked you up?”

  “Izzedine al-Qassam.”

  “My God! You are lucky to be alive. Those guys have lovely ways of getting to know people. Like sticking explosives into human orifices, or pouring glue down throats . . . Most talented and inventive, in their own way.” He shrugged, lighting up. He took a long drag. “Tell me, dear, how nuts do you have to be to confront a fanatic who is just itching for the opportunity to live it up with his virgins in paradise?”

  For the first time in a long time, Julia Greenberg found herself speechless. To her greater surprise, she found that she actually did have something left in her digestive system. She bent over and felt part of her stomach lining come with it.

  “A video,” Jack said, taking the cassette out of its cartridge and turning it over. “And who did you say it was from?”

  “Sheik Mansour himself,” Ismael told them.

  “You met the sheik, in person?” Sean said, his eyes wide with astonishment and not a little envy.

  “Quite a scoop, Julia, and right off the plane. London will be delighted. And I’ll bet this is an exclusive. Congratulations, girl. And welcome.” The bureau chief smiled. Julia crawled into the seat beside the driver and closed her eyes, all her courage and bravado suddenly disappearing like helium from a balloon that has flown too high and finally met the pointy, unforgiving spires of skyscrapers not meant to be touched.

  _______

  They made copies, and then they sat down to watch.

  “Okay, press play,” Sean told Ismael.

  Only the four of them were in the room, which had been cleared of secretaries, stringers, messenger boys, and of course, all “locals,” as they called Israeli Jews.

  The blank screen went on for four minutes, and then suddenly, when they’d all but given up, the voice-over began, followed by one of the most chilling images they had ever seen.

  “Good God!” Julia whispered, a lump in her throat. “It’s a child. She can’t be more than five or six.”

  Duggan got on the phone. “Get me the prime minister’s office.”

  He put his hand over the receiver and turned to Julia. “Call headquarters in Oxford and tell them to hold the evening news prime spot, we are going to be broadcasting.”

  “Hello, this is Jack Duggan of BCN. A videotape has been delivered to our offices anonymously, and it contains an ultimatum showing Dr. Jonathan Margulies and what appears to be his child . . . Yes, we are here. We’ll be expecting you.” He hung up. “The Israeli military, probably the Shabak—secret service, that is—will be here any minute to pick it up.”

  “I think we need to contact the mother. She shouldn’t hear about this on television,” Julia insisted.

  “Look, the Israelis are going to do that. We don’t want to be involved with hysterical Jewish mothers . . .” Sean waved her off.

  “Actually, that would be a great angle,Julia. Get her to let you film while she’s watching the tape for the first time. Do it before the Israelis take over. Get an exclusive. Let’s tell her she gets to see it if we get an exclusive.”

  “And if she says no?”

  “Then she can watch it with the rest of the world.”

  Julia leaned back. She felt sick and confused, her stomach filled with a desperate discomfort. It was just being tired, being hungry, she thought. “Does anyone have a candy bar?” she asked faintly.

  Right now, she needed something to sweeten the terrible taste in her mouth.

  Chapter Eleven

  (NINE YEARS EARLIER)

  Berkeley, California September 3, 1993

  8:30 A.M.

  ELIZABETH STOOD ON tiptoes, scanning the library shelves hopefully: Boa, Bob, Bod . . . ah . . . there it was, Boethius, Ancius, The Consolation of Philosophy. She took it down eagerly from the shelf. It was the first reading for the semester. The bookstores had copies on back order, and she had rushed to the library hoping she hadn’t been beaten to it by her fellow freshmen. Ah! One copy still sat on the shelf, she exulted, clutching it almost fearfully.

  “Oh, you found it!” The voice, a deep male baritone laced with disappointment, startled her.

  “I beg your pardon? Are you speaking to me?”

  “You found the Boethius. It’s the last copy, and the assignment is due next week. I was hoping . . .”

  She looked him over. Six foot two with the build of a linebacker. “You are in Von Nagel’s class?”

  He seemed amused at her skepticism. “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. You just don’t seem the type. The only people I remember seeing were freshman girls in plaid shorts and very short, pale debating-club men.”

  “I wasn’t aware that there was a body-type requirement. At least, it’s not listed in the catalogue,” he said with a completely straight face. “Anyhow”—his eyes lingered over her long, lithe body wearing a teeny-tiny miniskirt and a low-cut red T-shirt proclaiming: IF YOU CAN READ THIS, YOU ARE

  “Oh, I’m not the type at all. I’m sure this whole philosophy thing is going to turn out to be a huge waste of time.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Well, as my grandmother would point out: ‘Who hires philosophers?’ ”

  “My grandfather would agree. A waste of time.”

  “I wonder if Boethius would agree.”

  “I’m sure he would. He was very practical.”

  “How do you know? I thought you were desperately searching for the only copy, the one I just got.”

  “Actually, I’ve read Boethius before. During summer vacations in Switzerland at some horse camp I hated. You see, Boethius has been imprisoned, and he knows they are going to kill him any day, and so he’s writing all about the meaning of life. What man should be looking for. Those summers, I could really identify with that.” He finally grinned.

  “You must have been one strange kid.” She grinned back.

  “You have no idea, so . . .?”

  “So . . . what?”

  “So here we are, both needing the same book, and only one of us having it.”

  “I thought you read it already.”

  “But I haven’t memorized it. And the assignment is very word-specific, very page fifteen, paragraph two . . .”

  “True. And therefore?”

  “I await a generous philosophical response to an existential dilemma.”

  She laughed. “Well, I suppose we could do the assignment together. The question is when, and where?”

  “Your place or mine?”

  “Neither. Someplace neutral wrould be better.”

  “Library?”

  “Can’t talk.”

  “Under the trees?”

  “No back support.”

  “Rome Cafe on College Avenue?”

  “Much too noisy.”

  He cracked his knuckles and smoothed back his dark hair impatiently. “Are you always so choosy?”

  “Philosopher’s prerogative.”

  “Perhaps you would like to suggest something?”

  “Look, I was actually heading toward the Botanical Gardens. I can meet you at the entrance at three.”

  “If it doesn’t rain.”

  “It won’t.”

  The Botanical Gardens of UC Berkeley were green and lush, with rare species of Mojave Desert plants, and birds that rioted overhead like little old ladies gossiping on park benches. That was the setting, where it all began.

  His name was Whally. That was all she knew at the beginning. And it was enough. Boethius took care of the rest:

  “Alas how men by blindness led

  Go from the path astray,

  Who looks on spreading boughs for gold

  On vines for jewels gay? . . .

  But in their blindness men know not where lies the good they seek.

  That which is higher than the sky, on earth below they seek

  What can I wish you foolish men?

  Wealth and fame pursue,

  And when your toil false good has won,

  Then ma
y you see the true!”

  There, in the fading sunlight, two strangers explored life with a man condemned to death hundreds of years before, a man who discarded as false happiness all roads to power, fame, riches, pleasures or honors. True happiness, according to Boethius, was being self-sufficient. Needing nothing outside. And there is nothing, he concludes, greater or more self-sufficient than the supreme good. Men who seek evil, seek something which has no power; in fact, which doesn’t exist at all. Evil men have ceased to exist, pronounced the philosopher, holed up in his cell, waiting for death, surrounded by evil.

  They were both students. She, barely eighteen, the first time away from home, in the first bloom of a beauty that turned heads and made ordinary people stop whatever they were doing. She flaunted it, the sleek, tall, young body of the dancer she was before her height cut short any hopes of ballet. But she kept that dancer’s graceful carriage. Her hair, a sun-kissed, California blond, had every delicate shade from platinum to golden brown. She wore it carelessly, uncut, letting it fall down her back and across her shoulders. The clothes were careless too. Salvation Army castoffs. Secondhand Chanel jackets purchased from genteel shops that paid parsimonious society matrons for their discards. She loved pairing Chanel with torn jeans or flowing Indian cotton pants and beaded sandals. Somehow, despite her mother’s pronouncements to the contrary, she never looked ridiculous, the way fashion models on the runway never look ridiculous in the outlandish and laughable creations of talentless and pretentious designers: see-through blouses and metallic underwear, pointed skullcaps, fur bikinis. There was something in the arrogant, insouciant carriage of those fabulous beauties that made onlookers believe in their self-congratulatory saunter through flashing lightbulbs and applause.

  Like the models, Elizabeth was so tall, so truly, remarkably beautiful, there was nothing she could do to dim that glow. Not that she hadn’t tried: short haircuts. Big glasses. Baggy pants. Shirts like unfitted sheets. Orthopedic shoes. Purple tights. Gray suits. She tried, but nothing worked. And so she stopped trying, embracing instead the freedom of being the center of attention. She gloried in it, and learned that it wasn’t necessary to protect oneself from come-ons and whistles and rude remarks. She was philosophical about it. It was like the rain. It existed in the world and could not be altered. It was often not to one’s liking, and even mildly injurious. But it didn’t kill you, and in the end, one could find shelter and wait for it to pass.