Steve Berry - The Alexandria Link

“And an Israeli who murders,” Haddad said. “But we are what we are.”

Malone’s mind was clicking off possibilities. He had to do something, but Haddad seemed to sense his plotting. “You’ve done all you can. For now, at least.” Haddad motioned. “Look after her.”

“Cotton, you can’t just let them kill him,” Pam whispered, desperation in her voice.

“But he can,” Haddad said, a touch of bitterness in his tone. Then the Palestinian glared at Adam. “Might I say a final prayer?”

Adam gestured with the gun. “Who am I to deny such a reasonable request.”

Haddad stepped toward one of the wall chests and reached for a drawer. “I have a cushion in here that I kneel upon. May I?”

Adam shrugged.

Haddad slowly opened the drawer and used both hands to withdraw a crimson pillow. The old man then approached one of the windows and Malone watched as the pillow dropped to the floor.

A gun came into view.

Firmly grasped in Haddad’s right hand.

STEPHANIE WAITED FOR AN ANSWER TO HER QUESTION.

“Haddad is a threat to the security of Israel,” Dixon said. “He was five years ago, and he remains one today.”

“Care to explain?”

“Why aren’t you asking your own people this?”

She’d hoped to avoid this line of questioning but decided to be honest. “There’s a division.”

“And where are you among that division?”

“I have a former agent who’s in trouble. I intend to help him.”

“Cotton Malone. We know. But Malone knew what he was getting into when he hid Haddad.”

“His son didn’t.”

Dixon shrugged. “Several of my friends have died from terrorists.”

“A bit sanctimonious, aren’t you?”

“I don’t think so. The Palestinians leave us little choice in how to deal with them.”

“They’re doing nothing different from what the Jews did in 1948.” She couldn’t resist.

Dixon smirked. “If I’d known we were going to have this argument again, I wouldn’t have come.”

Stephanie knew Dixon didn’t want to hear about the terrorism of the late 1940s, which was far more Jewish than Arab in origin. But she wasn’t going to cut her friend any slack. “We can talk about the King David Hotel again if you want.”

The Jerusalem locale had served as British military and criminal investigative headquarters. After a local Jewish Agency was raided and sensitive documents removed to the hotel, militants retaliated with a bomb in July 1946. Ninety-one dead, forty-five injured, fifteen of the dead were Jews.

“The British were warned,” Dixon said. “Not our fault they chose to ignore it.”

“What does it matter if they were called?” she said. “It was an act of terrorism-Jew against Brit-a way to press your agenda. The Jews wanted the British and Arabs out of Palestine and they used whatever tactic worked. Just as Palestinians have tried for decades.”

Dixon shook her head. “I’m sick of hearing that crap. The nakba is a joke. Arabs fled Palestine in the 1940s on their own because they were scared to death. The rich ones panicked; the rest left after Arab leaders asked them to. They all honestly believed we’d be crushed in a few weeks. The ones who left went only a few miles into neighboring Arab states. And nobody, including you, ever talks about all the Jews who were forced from those same Arab states.” Dixon shrugged. “It’s like, So what? Who cares about them? But the poor pitiful Arabs. What a tragedy.”

“Take a man’s land and he’ll fight you forever.”

“We didn’t take anything. We bought the land, and most of it was uncultivated swamp and scrub nobody wanted. And by the way, eighty percent of those Arabs who left were peasants, nomads, or Bedouins. The landowners, the ones who raised so much hell, lived in Beirut, Cairo, and London.”

Stephanie had heard that before. “The Israeli party line never changes.”

“All the Arabs had to do,” Dixon said, “was accept the 1947 UN resolution that called for two states, one Arab, the other Jewish, and everybody would have won. But no. Absolutely not. No compromise. Repatriation was always and still is a condition prerequisite to any discussion, and that’s not going to happen. Israel is a reality that will not disappear. It’s sickening how everybody feels for the Arabs. They live in camps as refugees because the Arab leadership likes that. If they didn’t, they’d do something about it. Instead they use the camps, and the designated living zones, as a way to embarrass the world for what it did in 1948. Yet nobody, including America, ever chastises them .”

“Right now, Heather, I’m only interested in Cotton Malone’s son and George Haddad.”

“So is the White House. Our people were told you were interfering in the Haddad matter. Larry Daley says you’re a pain in the ass.”

“He should know.”

“Tel Aviv doesn’t want any interference.”

Stephanie suddenly regretted her decision to meet with Dixon. But she still needed to ask, “What’s so important? Tell me, and I might stay out of it.”

Dixon chuckled. “That’s a good one. Does anybody ever actually fall for it?”

“I thought it might work here.” She’d hoped their friendship meant something. “With us.”

Dixon glanced around at the concrete walkways. People strolled the mall, enjoying the day. “This one’s serious, Stephanie.”

“How bad?”

Dixon’s hand slipped around her back and reappeared with a gun.

“This serious.”

LONDON

MALONE SAW THE GUN IN HADDAD’S HAND AND KNEW THAT his friend had decided this was to be his last stand. No more hiding. Time to face his demons.

Haddad fired first, the bullet thudding into Eve’s chest and propelling the younger woman off her feet, a wound gushing blood.

Adam fired and Haddad cried out in agony as the bullet pierced his shirt and blew out his spine, dotting the wall and maps behind him in crimson smears.

Haddad’s legs buckled, his mouth gaped open, but not a sound escaped as the old man collapsed to the floor.

Pam screamed, a piercing falsetto.

The air seemed to have escaped from the room. Malone felt himself at the mercy of a bitter heart.

He faced Adam, who lowered his weapon.

“I came to kill him, that’s all,” Adam said, the geniality in his voice faded. “My government has no trouble with you, Malone, though you did deceive us. But that was your job. So we’ll let it slide.”

“So kind of you.”

“I’m not a murderer, just an assassin.”

“What about her?” he asked, pointing at Eve’s body.

“Nothing I can do. Just like there’s nothing you can do for him. There’s a price to be paid for mistakes.”

Malone said nothing, though he was half mad with terror and anguish. Surely the shots had been heard and the police called.

The Israeli turned and disappeared.

Footsteps receded down the stairway.

Pam seemed frozen in place, staring in disbelief at Haddad’s corpse, the old man’s mouth still open in a final protest. They exchanged glances but no words. He could almost understand the Israeli’s thinking. He was indeed a paid assassin, employed by a sovereign state, empowered to kill. But the son of a bitch was still a murderer.

George Haddad was dead.

And there was a price to be paid for that, too.

Dark thoughts held him in their thrall. He bent down and retrieved Haddad’s gun, then stood and turned for the door.

“Stay here,” he told Pam.

“What are you going to do?”

“Kill the son of a bitch.”

STEPHANIE WAS MORE PUZZLED THAN FRIGHTENED AT THE sight of a gun. “Apparently, Heather, the rules have changed. I thought we were allies.”