Sam Bourne - The Last Testament

‘Uri? Listen. Afif Aweida is alive. I mean there’s another Afif Aweida. A trader in antiquities. It has to be the right one. They must have got the wrong one.’

‘Slow down, Maggie. You’re not making any sense.’

‘OK. I’m on my way to meet Afif Aweida. I’m sure he was the man your father mentioned on the phone to Baruch Kishon. He deals in antiquities. It’s too much of a coincidence. I’ll call you later.’

Like most people talking on a mobile while walking, Maggie had spoken with her head down, staring at her feet. She now looked up to find no sign of Sari. He had obviously walked on so fast, he hadn’t noticed that she wasn’t keeping up. She stopped and looked around at the warren of streets, with turnings and alleyways every few yards, and realized he could have gone anywhere.

She walked a few yards forward, peering to her left down a turning so narrow it was dark, even in this morning sunlight. Its width was spanned by a washing line, and in the distance she could see two kids, boys she guessed, kicking a can. If she went down here, perhaps she could ask their mother-

Suddenly she felt a violent jerking backwards, as if her neck was about to be snapped. A gloved hand was over her eyes and another was covering her mouth, muffling her cry. She heard the sound as if it belonged to someone else.

Now she could feel herself being dragged backwards, even as her eyes and mouth stayed covered. She tried to pull her arms free, but they were held fast. She was dragged into an alleyway and shoved hard against the wall, the bricks pounding against the ridges of her spine. The hand covering her mouth moved down now, clamping her throat. She heard herself emit a dry rasp.

Now the hand came away from her eyes but, for a second, she still saw only darkness. Then a voice, which she realized was right in front of her, coming from a face entirely covered in a black ski mask. It was barely an inch away, the mouth close enough to touch her lips.

‘Stay away, understand?’

‘I don’t-’

The hand around her throat tightened, until she was gasping for air. She was being strangled.

‘Stay away.’

‘Stay away from what?’ she tried to croak.

The hand came off her throat, so that it could join with the other in taking hold of her shoulders. He held her like that for a second, then moved her whole body forward about six inches, so that she was tight against him. Then, still holding both shoulders, he rammed her hard in the other direction, straight into the wall.

The pain shuddered all the way through her, reaching the top of her skull. She wondered if he had shattered her spine. She wanted to double over, but still he held her upright, as if she was a doll that would slump into a heap if he let go.

Suddenly she heard a new voice, whispered directly into her left ear. For an instant she was confused. The black mask was still in front of her, its mouth only inches from hers. How was he speaking into her ear at the same time? Now she understood. There was a second man, invisible in the shadows, who had been pinning her to the wall from the side. ‘You know what we’re talking about, Maggie Costello.’

The voice was strange, indeterminate. It sounded foreign, but from where Maggie couldn’t say. Was it Middle Eastern? Or European? And how many of these men were there? Was there a third attacker she hadn’t seen? The surprise of the assault, combined with the darkness, had disoriented her entirely. Her senses seemed to have short-circuited, the wires crossed. She wasn’t sure where the pain was coming from.

Now she felt a hand on her leg, squeezing a thigh. ‘Do you hear me, Maggie?’

Her heart was thumping, her body still writhing in futile protest. She was trying to work out what kind of voice she was hearing-was it Arab, was it Israeli?-when she felt a sensation that made her quake.

The breath on her ear had turned moist, as she registered the unmistakable sensation of a tongue probing inside it. She let out the first sounds of a scream, but the gloved hand was back, sealing her mouth. And now the other hand, the one that had been gripping her thigh, relaxed-only to move upward, clamping itself between Maggie’s legs.

Her eyes began to water. She was trying to kick, but the first man was pressed too close: she could hardly move her legs. And still this hand was squeezing her, grabbing her crotch the way it would grip at a man’s balls if trying to inflict the maximum punishment.

‘You like that, Maggie Costello?’ The voice, its accent still so elusive, was hot and breathy in her ear. It could have been Arab, it could have been Israeli. Or neither. ‘No? Don’t like it?’ She felt the tongue and face move six inches away from her. ‘Then fuck off.’ The first man let go of her shoulders, then pushed her to the ground. ‘Otherwise we’ll be back for more.’

JERUSALEM , THURSDAY , 11.05AM

Tradition held that this hour was reserved for the forum, the informal kitchen cabinet of advisers that had surrounded Yariv since he first considered an entry into politics three decades ago. Every Thursday morning, the working week nearly over, was the hour to digest and analyse events, spot mistakes, devise solutions and plot the next moves ahead. They had been doing it when Yariv was Defence Minister, then Foreign Minister; when he was in the wilderness of opposition. Even, truth be told, when he was still in uniform serving as Chief of Staff. That was a politician’s job, whatever they might pretend, and don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise.

There had only been one change in the personnel. The two old buddies from army days still came, one now in advertising, the other in the import business. And so was his wife, Ruth, whose counsel Yariv weighed seriously. The only change was of necessity. His son, Aluf, had been a regular until he was killed in Lebanon three years ago. Amir Tal had taken his place, a fact seized on by the Israeli press who constantly described the young adviser as the PM’s adopted son, even, in a phrase that punned in Hebrew, Aluf Bet-Aluf the Second.

Ideally, the meetings happened at home, with Ruth bringing coffee and strudel. But not today. Things were too serious, he told Amir, to leave the office early. The forum would be just the two of them.

The talks at Government House were now effectively on hold, only a skeleton presence maintained on both sides. Neither Israel nor the Palestinians wanted to be accused by the Americans of pulling the plug, so they hadn’t dared walk out completely. But no serious work was being done. It meant the centrepiece of the Yariv-the peace effort-was collapsing before their eyes. He was taking heat from the right-the settlers with their damned human chain around Jerusalem-and he was ready to take it, but not if there was nothing to show for it. He remembered the man who had sat in this office just a few years ago, who had seen his premiership crumble in a matter of months once the Camp David attempt unravelled.

What was worse, he now confided in Amir Tal, as he spat the sunflower seeds into his hand, was that he felt confused.

‘Look, a pigua ’, a suicide bombing, ‘from Hamas or Jihad I fully expected. They did it to Rabin and they did it to Peres. They even did it to Bibi, for God’s sake. Anyone gets close to a deal, they’re on an Egged bus with dynamite strapped to their belly. I expected that.’ He raised his hand, signalling that he had not yet finished.

‘Even the Machteret I was expecting to hear from.’ They had both assumed that a resurgence of the Jewish underground was on the cards. Back in the 1980s, a handful of settlers and religious fanatics had sent bombs in the post or planted them under cars, maiming a series of Palestinian politicians. Several of their victims were still active, appearing on television in wheelchairs or with terrible facial disfigurement.