Saving Sophie: A Novel (25 page)

Catherine looked at the clock. “Shit, I got to get going. I’ve got court at nine thirty.
Kelsen v. Jenkins & Fairchild
is up on the status call.”

*   *   *

C
OURTROOM 1506 WAS BUSY,
especially on status days, which were known as Sherwin’s Cattle Call. Judge Sherwin, trying to move his lengthy docket, allowed only a few minutes to each group of lawyers, just enough time for them to inform him of their progress. When her case was called, Catherine and two other attorneys quickly approached the bench. Kelsen’s attorney informed the judge that discovery was moving along well and that several depositions had been scheduled. The judge then ordered all nonexpert fact discovery to be completed within 120 days.

“I’m going to set a preliminary trial date for next January,” Judge Sherwin said. “Final pretrial orders to be completed by January fifth. Pretrial conference on January eighth. Trial to begin January seventeenth.”

“What? January seventeenth?” Kelsen shouted from the back of the courtroom. “What the hell?”

The judge looked over and beckoned Kelsen forward with his index finger. “Come up here, sir.”

Kelsen approached the bench with a determined walk. “Why do I have to wait until January? They stole my money. I want a trial right now. Isn’t there a speedy-trial act or something?”

Judge Sherwin looked down at the attorneys. “Who is this man?”

“That’s Mr. Kelsen,” said the plaintiff’s attorney. “He owns the company.”

“Mr. Kelsen,” Judge Sherwin said, “you have a lawyer. Your lawyer will address this court. Don’t ever shout in my courtroom again. He’ll talk for you.”

“Well, he’s not talking. I want a speedy trial.”

“He’s doing just fine. January, if we can hold to it, would be an early setting on my calendar. I don’t want any more outbursts in my courtroom. Do you understand?”

“Your Honor, they stole eighty-eight million from me, those lawyers. I trusted them and they screwed me over. I want my money. I don’t want to wait until January.”

“I’m not getting through to you, am I?”

“No. Not if you want to stall this case until January. I want my money. Maybe I’m not getting through to
you
.”

“Mr. Kelsen, do you understand the phrase
contempt of court
?”

“Of course.”

“Well, you’re in it. Do you need my deputies to take you into custody so you can better appreciate courtroom decorum?”

“No.”

“One more word and you’re going to spend the next week in the Cook County jail. Now am I getting through to you?”

Kelsen nodded.

“The court will take a short recess.” Judge Sherwin pointed to Kelsen’s attorney. “Talk to your client.”

“We’re very sorry, Your Honor,” Kelsen’s lawyer said. “Mr. Kelsen is obviously quite upset about the theft of eighty-eight million dollars.”

“That’s understandable.”

F
ORTY

B
ECAUSE THERE WERE NO
direct flights from Chicago O’Hare to Ben Gurion International, the trip to Tel Aviv would take fifteen hours. Liam tried to sleep, but the cramped coach seats were increasingly uncomfortable. In contrast, Kayla sat tall and composed, reading, shuffling department papers, making notes.

“How do you do that? It seems like we’ve been in these seats for days.”

She shrugged and smiled.

“Kayla Cummings, that’s a pretty name. Are you married?”

“I was. My husband died.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Do you have any children?”

She shook her head and went back to her reading.

“Where did you grow up?” Liam said after a minute.

She smiled and put down her papers. “You’re just full of personal questions, aren’t you?”

“Occupational hazard, I suppose. I’m a PI. And I’d like to know more about the person I’m working with.”

Kayla shifted in her seat. “What about you? Are you married, engaged?”

Liam smiled. “No, but I’m working on it.”

“The attorney, Ms. Lockhart?”

“Good guess.”

“Not really a guess. It’s pretty obvious. So, what does ‘working on it’ mean? That’s an odd way of phrasing it. What’s standing in your way?”

“Oh? Now look who’s asking the personal questions.”

Kayla smiled. “Ah, you’re avoiding my question. How come the two of you haven’t taken the next step?”

Liam shrugged. “I can’t give you a reason. Maybe it just hasn’t been the right time. Do you have a boyfriend?”

Kayla laughed. “You’re right. This is getting too personal. We should keep it on a professional basis. We’re headed to Israel to find out what we can about al-Zahani and his group. Is there a deal in play? If not, can we put one in play? Hopefully, you’ll be able sniff out some information, maybe even make contact with Arif. I know the land, the people, the culture. And I know about the evil doctor. I’ll help you in any way I can. It’s probably best for us to leave the personal doors closed.”

Kayla went back to her reading, and Liam wrestled with the stiff, little El Al pillow, trying to give sleep another chance. He folded it, he stuffed it between his shoulder and his neck, he placed it against the window, and he even laid it on the tray table. Kayla watched in amusement.

“Why aren’t you tired? How can you just sit there looking comfortable?”

Kayla smiled. “It helps to be half your size.”

“Tell me something. Why are you so certain that al-Zahani is a terrorist?”

Kayla paused for a moment. “Earlier this year, there was a wedding in Hebron. At Ma’arat HaMachpelah, the Tomb of the Patriarchs. A car full of terrorists opened fire on the wedding party and then drove away. Four innocent people were killed and others were injured. A week later, they caught one of the shooters. I interviewed him briefly at the hospital. He was dying, almost too weak to talk. But he told me that Fa’iz Talib and Nizar Mohammed had sent them on the attack. I’ve since discovered that al-Zahani is associated with those men.”

“That’s it? He’s associated?”

“There’s more. We’ll save it for a later time.”

“And now he’s got Sophie.”

“Right. And he seeks to trade her for millions of dollars. It makes perfect sense. Millions of dollars to fund another terrorist plot. We can’t let it happen.”

The plane started its descent, and Liam stared out the window at Tel Aviv, its beaches, green parks, and span of high-rise hotels. “Beautiful.”

Kayla nodded. “When Mark Twain visited here in 1867, he called the land desolate and unlovely. There’s a famous quote from him: ‘Even the olive and cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.’ He was right, you know. And it stayed that way for close to a hundred years, until it became the state of Israel. What you’re seeing is Israeli development.”

*   *   *

B
EN GURION INTERNATIONAL WAS
humming when they arrived. “Follow me,” Kayla said, bypassing security, opening a side door, and shepherding Liam through immigration control and into a waiting car. As they settled into the backseat, Kayla said to the driver, “Twenty-three David HaMelech.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the driver replied, “the YMCA.”

“What? The YMCA?” Liam said. “Are you serious? They’re putting me up at a YMCA? All the time I spent in Northern Ireland, the CIA never put me at a YMCA. Is this how the Agency operates now?”

The driver threw his arms into the air and started singing the familiar song.

“Really?” Liam said. “The YMCA?”

The driver snorted through his bursts of laughter.

“The YMCA is across the street from the King David Hotel, where we’ll be staying in Jerusalem,” Kayla said between giggles.

“Oh, Jesus.” Liam shook his head. “Are you guys having a real good time picking on the poor Irish chump?”

“Well, now that you mention it,” she said, smiling. She pointed at the horizon. “The airport is southeast of Tel Aviv. Our route to Jerusalem parallels the 1949 Armistice Agreement line—the Green Line—east, then south, and finally around to the east again, from one side of Israel to the other on a winding highway. If one traveled straight across the country, the distance from Tel Aviv to the West Bank, from the Mediterranean to Samaria, is as short as eleven miles.”

“Not very far for a rocket to travel,” Liam observed.

“You’re not the first to come to that conclusion.”

Once into the countryside, Kayla pointed at the hills, lush with foliage, pine trees, vegetable farms, flowers, and greenhouses. “Israel in the spring. Verdant and plentiful.”

“The land of milk and honey?”

“That’s an interesting biblical phrase. The referenced honey doesn’t come from bees. It comes from crushed dates. They grow on date palms in the valleys of the desert.”

The car dropped them at the King David just before noon. Liam’s room was on a top floor with a balcony overlooking the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City. It was a ten-minute walk to the Jaffa Gate and from there to the Via Dolorosa, the crowded market passageway where Liam planned to make the acquaintance of Jamal Abu Hammad. After a ninety-minute nap, Liam met Kayla for a snack in the King’s Garden Restaurant.

“What can you tell me about Abu Hammad?” Liam said.

“Well, he’s an Arab and he currently lives in East Jerusalem. Before that, he lived in Hebron. His family and the al-Zahanis go back a long time. To Haifa. He knows Arif and he has his ear to the ground in Hebron. He owns a shop in the Muslim quarter of the Old City. He used to be a resource for us, but there was an incident several years ago and he will no longer knowingly be an asset. That’s why you’re so valuable in this matter.”

“Why would he cooperate with me? I’m an American and we’re underwriting the occupation of his homeland. Aren’t we the great Satan?”

“Although we’re mincing words here, Liam, Palestine was never considered the Arab
homeland
. Arabia is their homeland, over a million square miles of the Arabian Peninsula. The holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan. Those are Arab homelands. The West Bank was never considered the Arab homeland.”

“Does Abu Hammad live in a Zone A city?”

“No, Abu Hammad lives in East Jerusalem. Sixty-six years ago, he lived in Haifa. When the 1948 war began, Abu Hammad’s family followed the Arab commands, left Haifa, and fled to Jordan. After the 1948 war, they moved to Hebron. Later, Jamal moved to East Jerusalem when it was still under Jordanian occupation.

“The Old City, where you’ll be going today, was captured by Jordan in 1948 and was off-limits to Israelis until 1967. All the holy sites—the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, al-Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock, and Church of the Holy Sepulchre, shrines for all three Abrahamic religions—were blocked off by barbed wire. The square that now sits in front of the Western Wall was a slum. Today, under Israeli law, everyone is allowed access. The Old City has four quarters: Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and Armenian. Abu Hammad’s shop is in the Muslim Quarter, accessible easily through the Jaffa Gate.”

Liam stood, put his folded napkin on the table. “Then I’m off to the Old City to pay Mr. Abu Hammad a visit.”

F
ORTY
-O
NE

T
HE SKY WAS DODGER
blue as Liam left the hotel lobby. A breeze rolled down from the hills and rustled the trees in the parks, carrying the scent of spring wildflowers. Liam stopped for a brief moment in a park. With his hands in his pockets, he breathed deeply of the sweet air and took in the scene. A group of young boys were kicking a soccer ball. Two mothers were taking an afternoon walk, pushing their babies in strollers. It could have been Central Park. Or even Lincoln Park. But the ancient towers and domes rising above the trees gave a singular majesty to the landscape. He was in Jerusalem.

It was a short walk to the Jaffa Gate and thence to the Muslim Quarter and the Via Dolorosa. The narrow stone passageways of the Old City, with their tiny market stalls, diverse sounds and fragrances, were jammed with tourists. He stopped often to check for an address, and when he did, a smiling shopkeeper, offering “surely the most exquisite purchase in all of Israel,” would quickly approach him and tug at his sleeve.

Finally, Liam spotted Abu Hammad’s shop, shoehorned between a jewelry store and rug shop. No name or number was over the door or stenciled on the milky window, nothing that would identify the business that was conducted inside, except for a small cardboard sign, sitting on the inside window ledge, that said
ANTIQUITIES
. The door was unlocked and Liam pushed it open.

“Hello?” he said as he slowly entered the shop. A tall brass urn sat like a center pole amid assorted pottery bowls, masks, maps, scrolls, copper bowls, hand-forged weapons, and books. Stacks of books. Shelves of books. Piles of books. The musty smell of old books permeated the store.

“This is like a medieval garage sale,” Liam muttered.

It was hard to find a path through the room. Liam stopped to admire a large, flat, egg-shaped stone. He could barely make out the chiseled carvings that the ages had weathered away.

“It is part of a rolling stone, no doubt used to seal the entrance to a burial cave,” said a deep voice in a thick Arabic accent.

Liam caught sight of the man’s reflection in a framed mirror as he materialized from the clutter and shuffled forward. Abu Hammad was tall, maybe six feet two inches, but the years had bowed his back. He wore a gray tunic that hung down to his thighs. The loose, three-quarter sleeves rustled when he moved his arms. A knitted taqiyah covered the dome of his unruly, white hair. Decades of Middle Eastern sun had darkened his skin and carved deep folds in his forehead and the borders of his eyes. A rough goatee framed his wide mouth.

By contrast, Liam, in his jeans and Ulster Rugby shirt, was merely one of a million tourists who packed the stone passageways of the Old City.

“Maybe it sealed the cave Jesus was in before he ascended, no?” Abu Hammad laughed heartily. Then he flipped his hand. “Probably a piece of a burial stone from the third century. The inscription is interesting—‘Rise with the morning dove, O learned one.’ How do I help you, sir?”