Sam Bourne - The Last Testament

Maggie had to work hard to stay cool. He had seen the text: he knew what it said . She couldn’t let him know that she hadn’t and didn’t. ‘So you were frightened that the Israelis would walk away, because Abraham bequeathed the Temple Mount to them?’

‘Or to the Muslims. It made no difference which one got it. Either way, the peace process would be over. We had to be sure neither of them got their hands on it.’

That allowed her a moment of relief: he was not ahead after all. Miller knew as little of the tablet’s contents as she did. She would stay on the offensive. ‘So it’s been you all along. Killing Kishon, Ahmed Nour, Afif Aweida, Guttman, Guttman’s wife -anyone who might know what’s in the tablet and who might talk.’ She didn’t want to mention Uri; saying it might make it true.

‘Don’t get carried away, Costello. Guttman was killed by the Israeli secret service. The guy looked like he was about to pull a gun on Yariv, what were they supposed to do?’

‘And that kibbutz in the north. The arson attack. That was you too?’

‘Guttman was one of the main archaeologists of that site. We thought he might have hidden it there.’

Now it was Maggie’s turn to say nothing. She stared at her wrists, red welts etched deep into both of them. She started shaking her head.

‘What’s that for?’ Miller asked, irritated. She said nothing. Then, slamming his fist on the table, he shouted, ‘Why are you shaking your fucking head?’

She looked up, glad she had needled him. ‘Because I cannot believe how deeply, profoundly stupid you are.’

‘How dare you-’

‘You did all this because you worried that the release of the testament would derail the peace process? All this killing, of people on both sides?’ There was a mirthless laugh in her voice. ‘You did all this to prevent the breakdown in the peace process? Did you not think, for one second, that tit-for-tat killings, in the most delicate stage of negotiations, might actually fuck the peace talks up all by themselves? I mean, it beggars belief. What is it with you Americans? Like, Iraq poses a threat: so let’s invade and make it a thousand times more of a threat! And now you’ve made the same mistake all over again.’

‘You have no right to lecture me-’

‘I have every right. I have been running around this country, risking my life, desperate to get to the bottom of whatever was causing all this violence, because I wanted to help save the peace process, because I actually believed in it. And now I find the real source of the trouble and of the violence that’s been destroying everything, wasn’t Hamas or Jihad or Fatah or the settlers or the Mossad or any of them. It was you!’

Miller had collected himself. ‘I always knew you were naive, Maggie; it was part of your charm. But this is too much. You don’t think these guys would have got started the moment they knew about the testament? Of course they would. There’s been plenty of killing going on here all week that had nothing to do with us. Qalqilya. Gaza. The schoolbus in Netanya. If we’d done nothing, all that would still have happened, all by itself. Same with Hizbullah and the Iranians going batshit.’ Eye-ranians . ‘That’s the real world, my girl. You’re facing a disease that’s ’bout to spread, you kill the first beast that gets it. Otherwise, it’ll kill the whole herd.’ It was the down-home, farm-boy shtick that Miller deployed to such good effect on the Sunday morning talk shows in Washington. It always intimidated the press, made them feel like soft-handed city boys.

‘So that’s what this was, eh? You derail the peace process a bit, before the lunatics derail it even more.’

‘There are no good choices in this game, Maggie. You should know that by now.’

‘And I suppose it was working. Until I came along and started poking around.’

‘Oh, you don’t need to worry about that.’

‘Why? You’d have pulled it off, wiping out anyone who knew about the tablet. Abraham’s secret would have remained a secret. But I waded in, didn’t I, obsessing night and day to uncover what you had decided should stay hidden. What a bloody fool I am.’

‘You want to ease up on yourself, Maggie.’

‘Why should I do that?’

‘Because you’ve done exactly what we wanted you to do-from the very beginning.’

JERUSALEM , FRIDAY , 9.41AM

Maggie stared at the ground. She needed to steady herself and this was the way she would do it. If she looked up, if she looked at him, she would lose her balance.

A shift had just taken place between them, they both knew that. Now she needed something from him as badly as he did from her. She was in a position of weakness. Had this been a negotiation about a border, or water, or even weekend access and custody of the house in the Hamptons, she would have known how to disguise the situation, how to conceal her neediness. But the most skilled negotiator becomes a dunce when negotiating on his own behalf. Maggie’s colleagues told repeatedly the story of the UN mediator who, despite winning a Nobel peace prize, had tried and failed to land himself a pay rise.

‘What the hell is that supposed to mean: I did exactly what you wanted me to do?’

Miller smiled. He knew as well as she did the mistake she had just made, revealing her need.

‘Oh, come on, Maggie. Let’s not dwell on this. We’ve got work to do. Believe it or not, we have a peace process to save.’

‘Like you care.’

‘You kidding? Are you fucking kidding?’ The smile was gone now. ‘What do you think we were doing here? This whole operation was about saving the peace talks. We knew they’d be deader than a turkey in November the second that tablet got out.’ He gave Maggie a look of deep disgust. ‘You just don’t get it, do you? Not any of you smug East Coast, European, liberal elite assholes.’ He leaned across the table, his eyes flashing. ‘You love all the nice stuff, the talks, the meetings, the plans, the counter-plans, the roadmaps, the UN resolutions, the ceremonies, the White House handshakes-you love all that . But d’you ever stop for one goddamned second and wonder how all that is possible? You ever wonder what drags a bloodthirsty bastard like Slobodan Milosevic to Dayton to sit down for one of your fucking peace treaties? Do you?

‘Well, I’ll tell ya. It’s evil fuckers like me and my masked friends outside, that’s what. Milosevic didn’t do the deal because you flashed your pretty eyelashes at him. Just like your brethren in the IRA didn’t sign on the dotted line because you or someone like you wiggled your ass in their direction. No, they did it because someone like me was threatening to drop a megaton of dynamite on their heads if they didn’t. And not just threatening. Sometimes we did it, too.

‘Sure, we let you guys get the credit and the peace prizes and the book deals and the interviews on Charlie Rose. Sure, let the New York Times suck your dick. I don’t care. I’ll be the son of the devil, I can take it. But don’t fool yourself, missy. There’d be no peace unless there were guys like me ready to make war.’

Maggie took a deep breath. ‘And that’s what you were doing here? A bit of war so that we could make peace, that’s what-’

‘You’re damn right, that’s what we were doing. And it made sense, too. The two sides are still in the room-’

‘Technically.’

‘There’s a back channel too, so they’re talking, believe me. Besides technically’s better than nothing. And nothing and nowhere is where we would have been if this bastard tablet had got out. I’m proud of what we did.’

‘Did everyone know apart from me?’