Alex Mitchell - The 13th Tablet

‘Yes, sir.’

Jack rushed back into Mina’s room, turned on the computer and, using special software, retrieved the log file of every keystroke Mina had made during her visit. He read her emails, and then found the hotel in Safed where she had made an online reservation for two weeks. What was going on? Was Mina really going to Tel Aviv to attend an interview and then on to Safed for research? Or was all this just a cover?

Mina was early. She waited at the university cafeteria looking around her constantly. She had been here so many times, and had felt completely safe and carefree. Now, everyone seemed suspicious. What would she tell the professor? He would want to help her, but what if he ended up like Hassan? She could not let that happen. She opened her bag, took out a sheet of paper and wrote him an apology note. It would be better not to meet him at all. That way he would not be involved.

December 6th, 2004

Hassan had managed to sit up and was assessing his situation. He’d been kidnapped and forced to tell the American thugs all about Mina and where she lived. He hoped with all his heart that she had managed to flee before they got to her. His jaw ached and his right eye was so bruised, he wondered if it would ever see normally again.

They had put a canvas sack over his head, bound his hands, and beaten him in the back of the van until they had arrived at this basement flat. He guessed that they were in the suburbs, they would have needed a secluded place to conduct their dirty work. They had kept the sack over his head and two men held him on the ground, while a third poured water over the sack and into his mouth. So much water. He felt like he was drowning. With his lungs bursting and every muscle straining against his captors, he had felt death approaching fast. When they had eventually yanked the sack from his head he told them everything they wanted to know.

Having got all the information they needed, they had dumped him in an empty room, with his hands still tied behind his back. As far as he could tell, he had been here for at least two days, drifting in and out of consciousness. He had to find a way out. They had kept him alive for a reason; they certainly were not the sort of men who would let him live after they had got what they were after. Perhaps they had kept him as a back-up plan, in case they couldn’t get hold of Mina. If this was true, and he’d been here for at least two days, there was some hope — she must have eluded them. He had to get out of there before they returned.

What could he do? First and foremost, he needed to untie his hands. He looked around and noticed for the first time that the walls were made of rough concrete blocks. He dragged his arms across the jagged surface and before long he found a particularly sharp edge near the door. Pushing himself against the wall, he managed to stand up. He couldn’t help looking down at his soiled trousers. Hopefully, one day, he would forget all this. He started rubbing his bonds against the concrete block. A couple of hours later Hassan had picked the door lock and was running down a Mosuli suburban road.

‘The airport please’ said Mina, getting into a cab. She had a long journey ahead of her. There were only domestic flights leaving Mosul — she would have to fly to Baghdad, then take a connecting flight to Amman in Jordan and from there to Tel Aviv. She would buy herself proper clothes in Amman. She had been so dazed when she woke up in the infirmary that she had not noticed that Jack had brought her laptop and some clean clothes from her flat. She found them on a chair against the wall before leaving. But they were hardly interview material.

She had her passport, which she always carried with her, and that was all she cared about for now. As the cab headed out of the city, she tried to gather her thoughts but found it very difficult. She was still in shock after the events of the past few days, and she was terribly worried about Hassan. She could still hear his mother’s voice telling her what a good boy her son was.

She had a pounding headache. ‘It must be the drugs they gave me,’ she thought. She couldn’t get over the fact that Jack had deceived her. He had lied through his teeth about more than a decade of his life; that was no small fib. What else was he hiding?

Walking through the airport’s busy main entrance, Mina spotted a bearded man looking directly at her. Something about his dark suit made him seem out of place. Their eyes met, and he quickly looked away. Mina checked herself; she was being paranoid. She glanced again in the direction of the man, but could not see him anymore. She looked around, but there was no trace of him. He had simply vanished. She quickly bought her tickets and walked through customs.

The plane took off and Mina felt relieved to be on her way. Her heart still raced at the thought of what she’d been through but she was safe now, on a plane, flying far away from all this madness. She suddenly felt American again and wanted to hug a US flag or dress up as Wonderwoman, her favourite superheroine. She was also an immigrant of sorts, with long black hair, who had left the Amazons to embrace America. Mina was tired of feeling guilty or ashamed of her American heritage, tired of being a woman in a man’s world. ‘No-one will miss me,’ she thought.

She was looking forward to spending time in Israel, where few people knew her. A good opportunity to stop rehashing what she’d gone through and instead focus on her research. Maybe she would even find time to write a scientific paper on the tablet.

What would she do in Tel Aviv? The interview was taking place at the Sheraton Tel Aviv Hotel and Towers, a five star hotel overlooking the Mediterranean sea. The foundation had paid for her room in advance for three nights. The corporate world certainly knew how to take care of candidates. She had never been to Israel but she did have a friend there who worked at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv.

Liat was an Israeli archaeologist who had studied with Mina at Columbia for a Master’s degree. They had had a small falling- out over their political beliefs, but she liked Liat both as a scholar and as a friend. Hopefully Liat would feel the same when she called on her. She would just pop by the museum on arrival. Mina thought back to that year, when she was going out with Charlie, whom Liat had introduced her to. He had been heartbroken when she left for Iraq. She did not feel she had a choice, and to be honest — hindsight can be cruel — she doubted whether she had ever really been in love with him.

Charlie was a lawyer with an international firm in New York. He spoke a number of languages, was fun to be around, quick-witted and handsome. But Mina had always felt there was something missing. Their relationship was too easy-going. They could have gone on for years before realising that they were not really meant to be together. She thought back to the last time they had spoken, in a small Italian restaurant in the Village. Charlie could not understand why she wanted to leave the country, she had such great prospects in New York. She could do anything she wanted, even leave academia and write for a living. He had offered to help her out if she wanted him to. She toyed with the idea, but it was neither in her character nor her upbringing to be financially dependent on a man. She told him as kindly as she could that she needed a clean break and that their relationship was not significant enough to make her change her mind. He told her she sounded phoney, and she smiled sadly and said that she was sorry. Thinking back to how sure she had felt about her decision then, she worried that she might never find what she was looking for. She had felt a flicker of promise, of something meaningful emerging between her and Jack but the revelation about his past had left her feeling deeply betrayed by him.