Covenant A Novel

JABALIYA

GAZA STRIP


Breathe.

Ethan sucked in a mouthful of dusty air, trying to overcome what felt like steel bands encasing his lungs. The flustered beat of his heart reverberated through his chest like war drums, his frayed nerves scraping the lining of his stomach like a convict’s nails against the stone walls of a cell.

He could see nothing through the coarse sack that was bound with rough cord around his neck, crushing his thorax and filling his nostrils with stale air. His arms were bound behind his back with rope that scoured the skin from his wrists and his knees ground painfully on an uneven floor of bare, rocky earth. He knelt with his head between his knees, kept breathing, and tried to refrain from weeping.

Fear wasn’t an emotion that Ethan enjoyed checking out, but it scalded now like acid through his veins. Vertigo from his loss of spatial awareness caused his blackened world to gyrate and pitch around him, further fueling his asphyxia. He had been incarcerated by men who would cheerfully kill him with neither hubris nor regret. And so, in all likelihood, was Rachel. The steel bands around his chest tightened at the thought.

The men who had captured them had wasted no time. His shouts for calm and for Rachel’s safety went unheeded, his body lifted by uncaring hands and shoved without ceremony into the back of a car before being driven through Gaza’s streets.

His journey had ended with his body being carried from the car and through a doorway. The muted noise of Gaza outside had been brutally shut off with the slamming of a door, and then the cords around his wrists had been mercifully loosened. Any relief he may have felt was swept away as he was forced to clamber blindly down a ladder. He had sensed the closeness of the walls around him, tasted the odors of damp and dust, and felt the warm, heavy air clinging to his skin. He had known then without a doubt that his Palestinian captors were taking him to the only place where they could keep him from any Israeli rescue attempt.

Underground.

Ethan had long known of the network of tunnels that perforated the ancient soil beneath Gaza. The tunnels of Rafah were well known to most, the subject of Israel’s wrath on many occasions as Palestinians used them to smuggle contraband from across the border with Egypt. This covert industry might have been left unchecked by Israel were it not for the parallel operations of insurgents bringing weapons and explosives into the Strip. But Gaza City itself was also a warren of interconnecting tunnels used to move men, goods, and equipment beyond the omnipresent eyes of Mossad, Shin Bet, and the Israeli Defense Force.

Ethan’s captors had prodded, shoved, and jostled him for what he estimated was perhaps fifty meters, the heat oppressive and the closeness of the earthen walls amplified by Ethan’s blindness until it felt as though the entire world were collapsing in around him. They had then led him to a cavity in the floor where he sensed rather than saw a heavy wooden trapdoor being lifted before he was wedged into the tiny space. The last thing he felt was a boot slammed into his back to jam him down firmly into the hole and then the door shut just above his head.

Breathe.

Ethan focused, and some of the crushing anxiety eased as he forced images of Rachel and Joanna from his mind. He could only guess at how long he had been incarcerated. One, maybe two hours? Christ, he was losing it already. A real man would have controlled himself, maybe even slept a little to conserve energy, but Ethan was barely able to sleep at home in his own apartment with the door double-locked and a gun under his mattress, so the chances of his catching some shut-eye while in the grasp of suicidal militants in Gaza seemed mighty f*cking remote. He was buzzing now on nervous energy, the kind that powered the muscles but ultimately drained the mind, poisoning it with paranoia, fear, and hallucinations.

The oppressive heat closed in around him in the darkness. It was joined by a chorus of voices reminding him that he had sallied valiantly forth to free one lost soul and had succeeded only in incarcerating two more. Moron. An image of his father appeared unbidden in his mind.

“You should have learned by now, Ethan,” the great Harry Warner had said, wagging a thick finger at him, pale eyes glowering above the twisted bayonets of his broad gray mustache. “What the hell did you think you’d achieve resigning your commission and gallivanting around the globe with a damned camera? Why didn’t you get a proper job like everyone else? You wouldn’t have ended up in this goddamn mess!”

He should have stayed in Chicago and not gotten involved. Doug Jarvis had a lot to answer for. Yet despite everything, somewhere within his tortured soul there remained a spirit that had not yet been extinguished, like a pale candle flame flickering alone in an immense darkness. Maybe he had a bit more of his father’s indomitable gumption than he had realized. If you’ve got nothing, you’ve everything to gain. He could deal with this.

A brief burst of Arabic punctured the silence. Damn. The pale flame gusted out.

More voices from somewhere above—muffled, distant. A new and nauseating flush of panic churned within him. Having yearned to be freed, he now feared that they had come for him with murder in their minds. The gumption vanished. A deep thud startled him as heavy wood banged against the roof of his skull, and then he felt a sudden updraft of hot air being sucked from his prison as the trapdoor was yanked open. Rough hands grabbed him and hauled him from the hole. Ethan tried to stand but his legs would not respond and he sprawled awkwardly as unseen hands dragged him across the rough, uneven ground.

“Get up!”

Ethan struggled to his knees and somehow managed to command one of his tingling feet to shift beneath him. He staggered upright, swaying as stars of light sparkled in the darkness before his eyes.

“This way!”

A hand shoved him and he stumbled blindly forward, banging off the walls of the tunnel and dislodging chunks of earth and dust with his shoulders. He heard whispered exchanges from behind him and guessed that two men were following.

The air became slightly cooler, and the tone of the hushed voices changed as he emerged into what felt like a larger space. A hand grabbed his shoulder, turning him around and shoving him downward. Ethan slammed into a wooden chair that almost toppled backward beneath him. Before he could react he felt himself being bound again, this time to the chair itself, and for a brief moment he was almost comfortable as his weary body settled onto the chair.

A long silence ensued and he braced himself for any sudden impact. Something wrenched at the hood over his face and a harsh white light burst into his eyes. He blinked away from it, squinting and struggling to focus on his surroundings.

The room was surprisingly large, about five meters square and braced at the corners and the center by old but sturdy wooden pillars. The earthen ceiling was restrained by a simple latticework of timber beams, from which dangled a single unshielded lightbulb that illuminated the room with an unnatural glow. A handful of scattered crates and boxes lined the walls of the room, and in one corner two AK-47 rifles leaned against a large four-gallon water canister.

“Welcome.”

Ethan squinted up and to his right to see a pair of dark eyes observing him. A thick scarf covered the rest of the man’s face. He looked about twenty-five years old, his hair thick and black, coarse stubble peeking above the scarf. Ethan looked into those eyes and did not like what he saw there.

“Who are you?” he asked, already knowing the answer but eager to establish some sort of dialogue with his captors. Keep them talking, always keep them talking.

The dark eyes narrowed cruelly. “Are you that stupid?”

Ethan managed to hold the Palestinian’s gaze with a thin veneer of bravado.

“You don’t look like one of the good guys.”

The man leaned close to him. “You parachuted into Gaza from an Israeli airplane at night. You don’t look like one of the good guys either.”

“Where is Rachel?”

The features creased into a smile that conveyed no hint of warmth or comfort. “She remains well.”

“Let me see her.”

The man straightened, glancing at his companion before whirling and plunging his fist deep into Ethan’s stomach. A surge of air blasted from Ethan’s lungs as his eyes almost burst from their sockets. Ethan gagged as he bolted forward over the blow, trying not to vomit as he strained to suck air back into his lungs.

“You may not,” his captor said simply, above the blood rushing in Ethan’s ears. “Who sent you here and why?”

Ethan sucked in another lungful of air, waves of nausea flushing and tingling like needles on his skin.

“Nobody sent us,” he gasped. “We were forced out of our airplane over Gaza.”

The Palestinian strolled across the room and grabbed a small chipped mug, dipping it into the open water canister and sipping from it as he returned to stand before Ethan.

“The airplane continued into Israeli airspace,” he said quietly. “It was not damaged so there was no reason to escape from it. I will ask you one more time. If you do not answer me properly, I will make you very sorry that you ever encountered me. Who sent you and why?”

Ethan shook his head, slowly gaining control of his breathing.

“Nobody sent us. We’re not Israeli. I’m American; so is Rachel. We were forced to jump from the airplane by an organization trying to stop us from reaching Jerusalem.”

The Palestinian looked across at his companion, who remained impassive, standing with his arms folded and regarding Ethan from behind a scarf that scarcely veiled a thick beard.

“That, my friend, would seem highly unlikely, would it not?” Ethan’s interrogator leaned close to him, the smell of tobacco thick on his breath. “If I were sitting where you are and you were questioning me, would you believe what you have just said?”

Ethan looked at the man and performed a rapid mental calculation.

“I’d wait and see what evidence turned up,” he said.

A cruel smile creased the man’s features. “Yes, so would I.”

He raised a hand and clicked his fingers. Instantly, the bearded man grabbed something from inside one of the nearby crates. Ethan recognized his rucksack. The Palestinian reached inside and produced Ethan’s camera, handing it to his companion.

The Palestinian held it to Ethan’s face.

“This, my friend, is my evidence.”

Ethan saw the screen change as the Palestinian cycled through the camera’s menu and selected a video. He felt a deep chill as he saw the film of Ayeem being beaten by the MACE guards out in the Negev Desert, his Bedouin companions held at gunpoint nearby.





They weren’t with us,” Ethan said quickly, aware of the sweat soaking his skin. “The man being beaten was our Bedouin guide, Ayeem. He was captured by those guards in the desert.”

The Palestinian’s features tightened as sheet lightning danced behind his dark eyes.

“And you filmed it. How do you say? Something for the folks back home?”

“I filmed it and then shouted out to them,” Ethan gasped. “If I had film of it, then they couldn’t kill Ayeem. They’ve chased us from that moment onward.”

The Palestinian sneered at him and stood upright, handing the camera back to his companion. They exchanged something and then he turned back to Ethan. Ethan saw one of the explosive devices he had stolen from the camp in the man’s hands. The Palestinian’s head blocked the light from the bulb. His voice was almost a whisper, but laden with an electric charge that crackled as he spoke.

“Each year, Israel attacks our homes with tanks and fighter planes. They kill innocent men, women, and children. They fire mortars at hospitals and United Nations buildings, and they shoot white-phosphorus rounds at fleeing Palestinians, burning them alive. They use remote- controlled drones to attack civilians hiding in buildings and then claim that they were being used as human shields.” He set the device down at Ethan’s feet and then reached down to his own waistband. From within it he withdrew a long, wickedly curved blade, a crescent of steel that glittered in the light. “My sister, my mother, my father, and two of my brothers were all killed during the wars that Israel has waged upon us, and I am not unusual in this. We all live among the ghosts of our murdered families.”

Ethan managed to drag his eyes away from the blade, looking instead at his captor.

“We did not come here to kill anyone,” he insisted.

The Palestinian looked at Ethan with an expression that was no longer angry but far beyond such a pitiful emotion. It was the look of a man who had descended through the worst dungeons of horror that mankind’s prodigious talent for inflicting pain could offer, and had returned fearing nothing, not even death itself.

“I believe you,” he whispered finally. “But I don’t care. You see, my dead sister was three months old. They dug her corpse out of the remains of our mother’s home. She had burned to death, but they wouldn’t show the pictures of her remains on your Western television networks because it might offend some people.” The Palestinian suddenly grabbed Ethan’s hair, yanked it back until it hurt, and turned the blade against his throat. Ethan felt the cold steel touch his skin, felt his pulse throbbing against the blade. “I asked you, my friend, to tell me why you are here.”

Ethan peered at the man through the corner of one bleary eye. Tell him everything, for Christ’s sake. His voice sounded thin in his own ears.

“You asked me who sent us and why. Nobody sent us. We came here looking for someone, but were forced to jump from the airplane to protect that camera and what it contains. The explosives I stole from an American camp in the Negev, owned by the same people who pursued us. Check the photographs in the camera!”

The Palestinian raised the blade in his grip. “Who were you looking for?”

“A scientist who went missing in the desert: Lucy Morgan, Rachel’s daughter.”

The Palestinian’s left eyelid twitched erratically.

“Why would you be here and not the mother alone?” he snapped.

“I was asked to help her by the American Defense Intelligence Agency. They’re afraid that Lucy’s abduction might be an attempt by insurgents to derail the peace efforts out here.” Ethan let what felt like an unconvincing glare settle on his strained features as he hissed. “They think that you took her.”

“Why did they ask you?” the Palestinian shouted, spittle flying into Ethan’s face.

“Because I know Gaza!” Ethan yelled back as a sudden and unexpected anger surged through him. The pale flame flickered back into life. “Because you bastards took my fiancée away from me and I spent years searching for her in this shit hole! If I could have my way, I’d blow every single one of you terrorist bastards to hell for what you’ve done!” Ethan glared at the Palestinian for a moment longer, felt hot tears scalding his own face and running down across the hands of the man about to kill him. The anger faded, lost amid a turmoil of despair, regret, and helplessness. “So go ahead and do it, because like you, I’ve got nothing left to lose.”

An unexpected void of calm descended upon Ethan’s shoulders, the fear suddenly purged from his veins as he realized that he meant every word. The Palestinian held the blade still, his expression riveted on Ethan, and then from the deep silence another voice spoke softly.

“That is enough, let him be.”

The Palestinian looked past Ethan, then lowered the blade and stood back without another word.

Ethan struggled to look over his shoulder and saw that another narrow tunnel led away from the chamber into some unknown darkness. A figure moved out of the shadows, thin and bespectacled, his features drawn and lightly touched with graying stubble. He moved to stand before Ethan.

“Who are you?” Ethan rasped, his throat parched.

“My name is Dr. Hassim Khan. I was working with Lucy before she disappeared. I am truly sorry for your suffering, Mr. Warner, but these men had to be sure you were who you said you were. Rachel has told us everything.” He turned to Ethan’s captor. “Release him; he is telling the truth.”

Ethan blinked in confusion as the Palestinian moved behind him and began loosening the restraints from his wrists.

“We thought that you’d been abducted by insurgents,” Ethan said to Hassim.

The doctor shook his head. “No, Mr. Warner. These men are not insurgents. They are protecting me.”

Ethan’s mind reeled as he tried to assimilate what he’d heard.

“Protecting you from what?”