Way of Escape (39 page)

“Got any idea what she's up to?” asked Russ.

The baron shook his head. “Something really sneaky if I know her.” He looked at the wall clock. “We better head for the meeting room. Time to induct Russ and Bonnie formally and,” he chuckled, “let them know who is really boss.”

“Dr. Legesse,” sighed Siddhu.

At that second, the private line rang. Devi grabbed it, listened, and handed it directly to Siddhu. “The Bedouin contact,” she said and carefully switched on the speakerphone.

“I have a message for the baron,” said the young male voice in Arabic. “The message is for him to come to the Good Gate above Kiriat Shimona tonight at eight o'clock. Tonight. The baron must come. Be ready to collect an important package.”

Devi translated and Siddhu looked frantically at Carl-Joran, who nodded and whispered, “It is a sign from Habib. It is he who is sending the message. Tell him we will be there.”

Into the phone, Siddhu replied in English, “The Good Gate, eight p.m.”

“Okay.” The caller replied in English and hung up.

“It's a three-hour trip to the Gate,” said Devi.

The baron turned to Russ, “Bring what you have there and let's get to the meeting.”

Dr. Legesse had seated Bonnie to her right at the long black table. The others took their places. She listened, pursed her lips, looked down at the tabletop, and tapping it, signaled she had come to a decision. “I believe it is a true message. Only Habib would send the message directly to Baron Hermelin, only he knows the baron is still alive. The boy giving the message probably does not even understand the words.”

“But Halima,” Siddhu argued, “how do you know they will bring the haji through the Gate? How do you know this is the truth? That Habib is alive, that it isn't a trap?”

“We don't,” said the doctor, “so we prepare. Devi, tell Taqi to get the Mercedes ready, then I want you to contact the Defense Force commander at the Good Gate. Make him understand the danger that is possible tonight.”

“Yes, ma'am, and I will bring my weapons.” She quickly left the room.

Russ leaned toward Carl-Joran and whispered, “Her weapons? She seems like such a mild-mannered kid.”

Carl-Joran roared with laughter. “You don't know about Israeli girls, do you? They serve in the military just like the men. Devi Hamberg spent two years as a tank commander and four years as a UBX officer.”

“She disarmed bombs!” Russ exclaimed. “I thought I was coming here to help rescue women. Jeez, I really do gotta develop a whole new attitude about women!”

Pounding the table for silence, Halima Legesse was trying hard also not to laugh, “There are women, and there are women, Mr. Snow. Soon you will know the difference.”

“Damned right,” he muttered.

“Baron,” Dr. Legesse went on, “here is how tonight will go. Are you ready?”

“Of course,” replied the big Swede.

The snow had reached Washington, DC and was continuing south with no letup. Whereas New York City took snow mostly in stride, DC did not. Roads quickly became impassable and impossible. Most office managers early on decided to send home as many workers as could be spared from their jobs. Tidewater let his staff go early and he decided to start the long commute to Virginia and his house. Little did he know that a courier had arrived at his front door minutes after he'd left for work to hand a large cardboard envelope full of papers to Arletta Tidewater in return for her personal signature. Arletta had never received such an important looking document with the big words: FOR YOUR EYES ONLY stamped on the front.

She had been seriously considering going to her mother's for the weekend. The news of closed roads and delayed trains had convinced her to reconsider. Instead, she had made herself a cup of Earl Grey tea and opened the envelope. The return address meant nothing to her. Some obscure department at the United Nations. Despite all her husband's warnings about strange packages, Arletta decided that something from the United Nations was a safe enough bet not to contain a bomb.

Thus it was that when Marion Tidewater arrived at his front door about four in the afternoon, he found it not only locked but his keys no longer worked. A note attached to a stack of printouts, all in a plastic bag to protect them against the snow was tacked on the door. He ripped open the plastic. The note stated simply that he should let her know where he would be living from now on so she could send him some clothes. Also so her attorney could send him the divorce papers, and if the thought crossed his mind to try and do her harm, she would forward on the copies of all his charge receipts and expenses to the Agency's Department of Internal Affairs.

Jerking the stack of printouts from the plastic, he flipped through them and went cold. Marion Tidewater had no doubts as to the origin of this material.

A frigid wind hurled sand and dry leaves through the black night of narrow wadis and valleys that cut the terrain above Kiriat Shimona, the northern-most kibbutz in Israel. On the border, several miles further on, was the Good Gate. Here is where Habib Mansur had crossed into Lebanon, here is where he was to be delivered. Harsh mercury lights illuminated the entire three-meter-high border fence, the complicated zigzag wire fence structure which contained the actual Gate and went down into the staging area for tanks, missiles, rockets, antiaircraft guns, and other military machinery. The twenty-four-hour cafe at the taxi turnaround was busy as usual and Taqi parked close.

Devi, in her army uniform of khaki pants and dark green sweater with leather elbow patches, her rifle slung over her shoulder, and her pistol on her hip, went to talk to the local defense force commander who was expecting her. She saluted, he saluted. Carl-Joran remained sitting in the Mercedes, slumped down, hidden. Bonnie, dressed in one of Devi's army outfits and Russ, in a thick bomber jacket and heavy boots, took seats in the light at the cafe. They ordered tea and coffee respectively.

The baron was not happy about this arrangement. Halima was still not ready to let him show himself outright, so he sat with the back door unlatched, ready to jump out. The boss had spoken, he would follow her orders.

They waited, and waited.

Around midnight, Bonnie, her stomach finally loosening the tight clench it had been in since leaving Haifa, considered for the umpteenth time talking her husband into giving up for the night and going down to the hotel in the kibbutz. Not a single person had gone through the Gate either way for hours.

At that instant, a thin young man hesitantly, cautiously, began walking from the Lebanese side of the zigzag toward the Gate. The Israeli defense force commander and Devi, rifles resting on their arms, went to meet him as he stepped through. They took all his weapons off him: rifle, pistol, knives, and his papers were scrutinized before Devi led him to Bonnie.

“I am to talk to women?” the young man squawked toward the commander and Devi translated.

“Prove to me you are Bedouin and that you bring Haji Mansur,” Bonnie insisted, hoping her voice didn't crack and give her tremendous fear away. She felt Russ's big presence behind her, but still, she knew she was face on with a dangerous man.

Devi translated.

“Who are you?” the young man spit at Bonnie and Russ took a step forward, as did Devi.

“The baron's wife.”

“Your gray hair will not protect you if you lie,” said the young man with certainty. “Follow me to that side of the Gate. If the haji agrees, he will come forth.” The young man did not look directly at anyone anymore. He kept the hood of his burnoose tight around his head and face and brushing Devi aside, started back to the Lebanese entrance of the zigzag fence.

“Can we assume the enemy accompanies our haji?” Russ said after him and when Devi had translated, the young man nodded.

The Israeli commander stopped at the borderline. Devi continued alongside the small group. “I go in front. Russ, walk next to Bonnie.”

Pushing the Mercedes door open a bit further despite Taqi's admonition, the baron stuck a long leg out, wanting very badly to be at his wife's side.

Going only as far as the first checkpoint in the zigzag Gate, the young man stopped and spun on his heels. “I am sure the baron himself must come,” he insisted.

“No! It is enough your comrades and the haji see me,” declared Bonnie. Devi shouldered her rifle, finger brushing the trigger as she translated. Russ Snow towered over all of them and felt like the primary target.

“Perhaps my chief cannot allow the haji to come through,” warned the young man.

“Your chief is not a cruel man,” Bonnie continued. “He will not keep a dying man from safety. The enemy will not influence a chief such as yours, will they?”

At that, the young man's eyes sought out Russ's eyes, the only other man in the group.

“There is danger in the Gate. You would let women lead the way?”

“Two women in fact,” shrugged Russ with a nasty grin.

“So be it,” said the young man, resigned, and led the way into the final leg of the zigzag enclosure. Russ with Devi behind him and Bonnie behind her followed quietly, committing themselves to the penned-in area.

From the other side, a group of men in Bedouin burnoose robes embarked on their walk into the zigzag, carrying a larger man in an arm sling. That man was obviously weak, his head lolled and he seemed barely able to hold himself upright. At the exact center of the enclosure, the men carrying the man gently let him onto his feet. He instantly fell forward and Russ jumped quickly to catch him.

At that very moment, four of the men threw off their robes and grabbed for the big Indian. The remaining men—the real Bedouin, including the young messenger, still wrapped in their burnoose, quickly traversed the Lebanese side of the zigzag back the way they came and disappeared into the black night.

In a flash, as the four aggressors, each with a hand on Russ, pulled guns from under their shirts, Devi jammed her rifle under the first man's chin. Stalemate. She shouted at the fallen man, “Habib! Is that you?”

“Yes,” came his faint voice.

Devi glanced at Bonnie. “Get him out of here.”

“I will do my best,” she responded and reached down and lifted the haji putting one of his arms over her shoulder. It was slow going. Bonnie staggered with the load because Mansur had almost no strength at all.

Devi Hamberg pushed the first man's head back with her gun and snarled, “Notice that the commander of the Gate guards is ready to fire several rockets across the border. I know you are not Lebanese and if you return over there, after the rockets land, they'll kill you.”

Slowly, the four men's weapons lowered. Devi and Russ disarmed them and Devi motioned for all but their leader, the small guy with Devi's rifle bore under his chin, to leave. Russ grabbed him and dragged him forward. They made their way back through the Gate and through the zigzag, catching up to Bonnie. Devi held the rifle behind their captive while Russ lifted Habib. Then they moved faster.

The commander and the baron, who finally could not stand it any longer and had jumped from the car, were waiting as they came out and they helped Russ put Habib in the Mercedes. Russ climbed in the front, the Carl-Joran and Bonnie in the back.

“We will meet you at the hospital in the village,” shouted Devi as the Mercedes sped away, but by the time she arrived there, Bonnie and Habib and the baron had been airlifted by helicopter to Haifa. It was up to her now to take care of the prisoner. The commander had released him to her. She phoned Dr. Rachel Bar-Fischer who agreeably responded yes, of course Ali Muhit, the personal assistant to the Darughih Quddus Sadiq-Fath, could be incarcerated at her facility. With pleasure.

Emergency medical staff were waiting on the roof as the Medivac landed. The two paramedics on board the chopper had already stripped off the dirty robes and awful bandages that had held Habib together for the last few days. Bonnie heard the woman paramedic comment that they'd be lucky if he didn't have gangrene.

“GWS through the right shoulder downward, lower back, thigh, and left calf,” shouted the paramedic handing Habib down to the ground crew. A stream of shouted statistics followed the crew into the hospital. Bonnie, Carl-Joran, and Russ found themselves left behind in a lounge near the operating theatre. Waiting again.

“You go to your rooms,” the baron ordered Russ, “and take Bonnie to our suite. You don't need to stay here.”

“I'll go,” said Russ and as Bonnie started to refuse, a doctor came from the operating room. Tired, he did smile though as he pulled off his mask.

“Mansur has one strong constitution. How he made it through, I really can't explain.” The doctor pulled off his gloves. “We got two of the bullets out; the one in his shoulder that went straight down into an arm muscle and the one that went into his hip. We've put him on a regimen of antibiotics and antifungal medications. Hopefully that will kill the bugs he picked up along the way. You folks might as well go home. He'll be asleep until morning.”

“Thank you, doctor,” said Carl-Joran standing.

“Just tell Legesse she owes me on this. She's been onto me already, on my cell phone in the operating theater for God's sake, and I want to make sure that woman knows her precious haji will live.” With a sigh, the doctor wearily pulled off his apron and tossed everything into a nearby bin.

The bright winter morning peeked over the Haifa cliffs and the golden dome of the Bab as the three took a taxi to the Nof. Before Bonnie joined her gently snoring spouse, she called the Weisburg Hochschule and left a message for Jani that included the phone number of the Haifa hospital. As sleep caught up with her, she wondered how Trisha was doing and she felt a pang of homesickness. No matter how wonderful the company, how great the adventure, there is nothing like your own bed in your own home, she thought.

Ali Muhit was numb with exhaustion and contrition. An Israeli woman doctor had ordered him into a locked room in a building surrounded by razor wire. This woman was in charge. She gave the orders and workers dressed like nurses followed these orders. Although food was offered, Muhit didn't feel like eating. He couldn't sleep. For the first time in his life, he was helpless in front of women.