Sam Bourne - The Last Testament

‘I don’t believe that. Not any more.’

‘Come on. You haven’t changed that much.’

‘Look, I didn’t suddenly forget that people are dying there and everywhere else. I know only too well how much death and killing goes on in every fucking corner of this planet. But I happen to have realized there is nothing I can do about it. So it’s better I stay out of it.’

‘The White House doesn’t agree.’

‘Well, the White House can just shove it, can’t it?’

Bonham sat back, as if assessing his prey. After a pause he said, ‘This is because of…what happened, isn’t it?’

Maggie stared out of the window, willing her eyes to stay dry.

‘Look, Maggie. We know what went on there. You fouled up very badly. But it was one black mark on an otherwise exceptional record. The White House view is that you’ve done your penance. And you don’t help anyone by staying in exile like this. You’re not saving any lives here. It’s time you came back.’

‘You’re saying I’m forgiven.’

‘I’m saying it’s time to move on. But, yes, if you like, you’re forgiven.’

For the first time Maggie met his gaze. ‘But what if I haven’t forgiven myself?’

‘Ah, that’s a different problem, isn’t it? Shouldn’t be too tricky for you, though. That’s a Catholic specialty, isn’t it? Cancelling out the sin through repentance? Redemption and all that? So this is your chance.’

‘It’s not as simple as that.’

‘True. You’re not going to bring back the lives that were lost because of what happened. Your mistake. But you can prevent more lives being lost. And that’s got to count for something. Hasn’t it?’

She was about to say that she had once promised Edward that she wouldn’t travel again. But she said nothing.

‘It’s your choice, Maggie. If you believe that nothing else matters but your life here, your relationship here-’

She knew he’d heard the row in the kitchen.

‘-you’ll ignore me and send me away from here. But if you miss the work you were born to do, if you care about ending a conflict that’s spread so much bitterness around the world, if you want to make things right, you’ll say yes.’

‘Tell me something,’ she said after a long pause. ‘Why the house visit? Why all this cloak and dagger bullshit, pretending to be a client?’

‘We tried phoning you, but you didn’t return our calls. I didn’t think you’d let me into the building.’

‘You called?’

‘We’ve been leaving messages here since yesterday afternoon. We left a couple early this morning.’

‘But,’ she stammered. She was sure she had checked, sure that there was nothing on the machine.

‘Maybe someone deleted the messages before you got to them.’ She felt the air seep out of her lungs. Edward .

Judd threw an envelope on the table, thick and heavy. ‘Tickets and briefing material. The plane for Tel Aviv leaves this afternoon. The choice is yours, Maggie.’

JERUSALEM , SATURDAY , 11.10PM

After-dark meetings were part of the tradition of this office. Ben-Gurion had done it in the fifties, debating and deciding till the early hours; Golda, too, always worked late at night, most famously when the Egyptians launched their surprise attack on Yom Kippur in 1973: legend has it the old lady barely slept for days. Somehow this room, with its single high-backed chair, reserved for the Prime Minister, lent itself to such encounters. It was small and intimate, with two couches forming an L-shape on which advisers or aides could sit around and talk for hours. The desk was functional, built for use rather than to impress. Rabin used to sit here alone deep into the night, with his own ink-pen, letters to the parents of soldiers-which, being Israel, meant every mother and father in the land.

Rabin was long gone now, taking the ashtrays that accompanied his chain-smoking habit with him. The current incumbent preferred, when stressed, to nibble on sunflower seeds, a habit which made him the peer of bus drivers and stallholders across the country. He gestured now to the man from Shin Bet, Israeli’s internal security service, to begin speaking.

‘Prime Minister, the dead man was Shimon Guttman. We all know who we’re talking about: the writer and activist, aged seventy-one. The first reports suggesting he was armed have now been discounted. Our investigators found no sign that he carried any weapon. Examination of the body showed he was killed by a bullet to the brain.’

The PM grimaced, then cracked one more seed shell between his front teeth.

‘As you know, he was found clasping a handwritten note, addressed to yourself. Intelligence say it will take some days to piece it together, the words were obscured by the blood-’

The Prime Minister waved him quiet. The head of Shin Bet put away the paper he had been consulting. The Deputy Prime Minster stared at his shoes; the Foreign and Defence Ministers stared at the PM, trying to gauge his reaction: none wanted to be the first to speak.

Amir Tal, special adviser to the PM and the youngest man in the room, decided to fill the quiet. ‘Of course, this has immediate political implications. First, we will come under fire-’

The Prime Minister raised an eyebrow.

‘Sorry. We will be criticized for making a bad mistake, killing an innocent man. That kind of flak could come our way anytime. But, second, if we are about to sign a peace deal, this will make things much harder. The right were already boiling; now they’re claiming their first martyr. They insist it is not a coincidence: Guttman was one of our loudest critics. And not just ours. He said the same thing during Oslo and again during Camp David: “Anyone who talks peace with the Arabs is a criminal who should be on trial for treason.” Arutz Sheva was on the air an hour ago saying “So now we know the government’s plan; they want to silence dissent with gunfire”.’

‘Could they be right?’ It was the Foreign Minister, addressing Tal, avoiding the boss’s eye.

‘Excuse me?’

‘I don’t mean that we deliberately killed him. But that it was not a coincidence. Could it be deliberate in the other direction, the opposite of what Arutz Sheva are saying?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I mean, was this a set-up? Guttman knew how things worked. You can’t just rush towards the Prime Minister, shouting and screaming, and then reach into your jacket. He was a smart guy. He’d have known that.’

‘Are you saying-’

‘Yeah. I’m wondering if Guttman wanted to get shot. If he was deliberately luring us in, daring us to kill a famous opponent of the government.’

‘This is crazy.’

‘Is it? This is a guy who his whole life has gone in for the grand spectacular gesture, the great protest. And now, finally, it’s the big one: we’re about to make peace with the Arabs, to give away holy Judea and sacred Samaria. To prevent such a calamity, a fanatic like Guttman would have to come up with the biggest possible gesture. One that might actually mobilize the right.’

‘He would sacrifice his own life?’

‘He would.’ The Prime Minister had uttered his first two words since the meeting began. Until now, he had sat back, listening to the debate. That was his style. First, hear the arguments among the competing members of his court. Then, pepper them with questions. So how should we respond? What are our options? The cabinet had braced itself for just such an interrogation. But instead the Prime Minister had just leaned forward, saying nothing, cracking open yet another salty seed shell. Until those words: ‘He would.’

After a long pause, as if completing a thought that had been unspooling in his own head, he added, ‘I know this man. Inside out.’