Greg Rucka - A gentleman_s game

"It's not. The barrels here? They're new, they were moved in on Sunday, Noah. And this tent here, this one is new, too. Went up between Saturday night and Sunday morning. It's not a good sign. They've been very careful to hide things from us; why show us this?"

"Someone slipped up."

Borovsky shook his head. "You know better, my friend. You know better than to ever call the enemy a fool, or to accuse him of acting without care. We can see these because they could not hide them. And I will bet you when I see the shots tonight, they will show nothing, they will have found more netting to conceal it all."

Landau adjusted his glasses, sliding them back up his nose. "What are you trying to say?"

"I'm saying the camp is growing, Noah. From maybe sixty men to double that."

"What was it before?"

"Training and staging that splinter HUM group."

"So they've stepped up recruitment. Hardly surprising after Faud's death."

"Yes, in response to Faud's death." Borovsky leaned forward, more intent. "But indoctrination. We have intelligence coming out of the West Bank and Gaza that Hamas is doing something new with the bombers, with the suicide bombers. They're not just keeping them in the mosques and brainwashing them with dreams of being shahid, they're sending some of them away, out of country.

"Now we see this camp, and it's adding tents, adding fuel for its generators, growing so fast they can't hide themselves. I think this is where some of those kids are heading, Noah. I think they're going for indoctrination, heavy shit, maybe even basic training, to get them into countries other than Israel. I think it's going to start again, and I think if we don't shut this place down soon, we're going to be very, very sorry."

"It's in Saudi, the camp?"

Borovsky nodded. "Wadi-as-Sirhan. Eighty-odd klicks from the border with Jordan, Tabuk province."

Landau nodded, thought, then closed the folder and swiveled his chair back to face his keyboard.

"We can't touch it," he said.

"Okay, you didn't hear me because you're deaf or there's shit in your ears, I said-"

"We can't touch it, Viktor. Impossible." Landau found his place in his notes, resumed transcribing into the computer.

"Give it to the Chief, he'll hand it to the IDF-"

"A military operation inside Saudi Arabia? You're Head of Research, where's your brain, Viktor?"

Borovsky was glaring at him, Landau could see it reflected in his monitor. "We've done such things before."

"Not in the time frame you're looking for." Landau flipped the page on his notepad and had a momentary pause while he tried to decipher his own handwriting, then began typing some more. "If the Americans get a whiff, just the slightest hint, that we're considering a move against Saudi, they'll wet themselves, they will go insane. They'll say we're destabilizing the region, and that we're going to provoke a war. Israeli troops on Saudi soil? Would light a fire to make what's been going on these past five years look like a match. It's not going to happen, Viktor. Especially after the way we've been blamed for what the British did in Yemen."

"Damn you, look at me," Borovsky growled.

Landau stopped typing and looked at him.

"You say this and you say that." Borovsky spun the folder angrily, nearly ripping its cover off as he opened it once more, revealing the photographs. "And I'm saying to you that this camp-this camp-right here is now actively brainwashing young Arab men and women to think it's better to strap explosives to their bodies and to kill Jews than it is to live their lives working for peace! We have to act, we have to act to protect ourselves first, our allies second, and these children third!"

There was a pause and Landau stared at Borovsky, held it until the other man looked away, sinking reluctantly into a chair.

"I know how you feel, Viktor," Noah said. "I know the frustration. But we cannot act on it. There's no way."

"You know what they do, right? They find these kids, these kids who are angry and scared because we've made them angry and scared, and they tell them, Hey, you're sixteen, you're eighteen, you're twenty, your life is shit, isn't it? But you die like this, you die a martyr, you go to Paradise, and your family, we'll give them a big check. You just need to kill some Jews and yourself along with them, we'll take care of your family."

"I know."

"This camp, this camp isn't going to be only for us."

"I know that, too."

Borovsky held out his hands, palms up, as if out of words. The air conditioner in the room clicked off, and the only noise came from Landau's desktop, the computer humming, waiting to be used again.

"Our job is to protect Israel," Borovsky finally said, putting his hands down on the armrests of the chair, helping himself back to his feet. "I am always stunned when you tell me we can't do that."

"I'm not telling you that," Landau said. "The Americans are telling us that. The United Nations is telling us that. The European Union is telling us that."

"They're going to get hit, too." Borovsky picked up the folder, brandished it like proof. "And when there's more blood in the street, they'll ask us why we didn't do anything to prevent it. This is how you lost your wife and your boy, Noah, and you sit there and do nothing."

"It's not up to me."

"A coward's defense," Borovsky said, and left the room.

Saudi Arabia-Tabuk Province, the Wadi-as-Sirhan 14 September 2000 Local (GMT+3.00) "This is Nia," Abdul Aziz told Sinan. "Nia is shahid."

Sinan tried to hide his displeasure. It had nothing to do with the woman's desire to be shahid; he held the martyrs in the highest regard and remembered them always in his prayers. It had nothing to do with her manner, or her bearing, or even her appearance, veiled and garbed as was appropriate. He could even forgive her presence in the camp without a blood relation to watch over her. She was proper and respectful and Abdul Aziz called her shahid, which perhaps was overzealous, since the woman had not martyred herself yet, but otherwise there was nothing wrong with Nia that Sinan could see, nothing he could articulate to himself.

But Sinan did not like her here, and he didn't like the fact that Abdul Aziz was presenting her to him like this.

Nia bent her head slightly. The sunlight falling through the camouflage netting that ran in great swaths above them played with the eyes, made the bright brighter, the shade murkier. Sinan couldn't tell her age but guessed she had to be younger than twenty. She was small, too, and carried herself small, so the ultimate effect was that of a black-cloaked, vaguely female-shaped ghost, floating just beyond Abdul Aziz's shoulder.

"Salaam alaykum," Sinan said.

"Wa 'alaykum is-salam," Nia answered, and it was almost inaudible behind the veil.

Abdul Aziz said, "Sinan and Matteen were at the Great Mosque, outside, when the murders took place. It was Sinan who realized the evil that had been done, and it was Sinan who raised the alarm."

Nia raised her head slightly. Above the veil and below the cowl of her abaya, Sinan could see her eyes, large and expressive, the soft brown of warm wood. When she realized that he was looking at her in return, she hastily dropped her gaze.

"They should die for what they have done," she whispered.

Sinan thought the sentiment devoid of any venom, as if the girl were only repeating a line as it had been taught to her. It probably had, at that. There were some thirty other recent arrivals since Saturday, mostly men, but a handful of women just like Nia. Palestinians who had been undergoing instruction in the various Hamas-controlled mosques, all of them learning the glory and purpose of becoming shahid.

Sinan didn't know how their travel had been organized so quickly, or who Abdul Aziz had contacted to bring it to pass, and he didn't care. Once upon a time, Matteen had explained to him, this camp had held a splinter of the Harakat ul-Mujihadin, but then Abdul Aziz had asserted his control. Now, instead of training them to fight in their own lands, Abdul Aziz had decided to take the fight into the homes of their enemies.