“Am I somehow to blame for their dysfunction?” asked Gabriel of no one in particular, and no one responded. “Did it happen because I lived here in this valley? Do they hate me because I drained it and killed the mosquitos and made it bloom? If I were not here, would the Arabs be free, prosperous, and stable?”
For a brief moment, he continued, it seemed peace might actually be possible. There was an historic handshake on the South Lawn of the White House. Arafat set up shop in Ramallah, Israelis were suddenly cool. And yet all the while the son of a Saudi construction billionaire was building an organization known as al-Qaeda, or the Base. For all its Islamic fervor, Osama bin Laden’s creation was a highly bureaucratic enterprise. Its bylaws and workplace regulations resembled those of any modern company. They governed everything from vacation days to medical benefits to airline travel and furniture allowances. There were even rules for disability payments and a process by which a member’s employment could be terminated. Those wishing to enter one of Bin Laden’s Afghan training camps had to fill out a lengthy questionnaire. No corner of a potential recruit’s life was spared scrutiny.
“But ISIS is different. Yes, it has its questionnaire, but it’s nowhere near as thorough as al-Qaeda’s. And with good reason. You see, Natalie, a caliphate without people is not a caliphate. It is a patch of empty desert between Aleppo and the Sunni Triangle of Iraq.” He paused. Then for a second time he said, “Which is where you come in.”
“You can’t be serious.”
His blank expression said that he was.
“You want me to join ISIS?” she asked, incredulous.
“No,” he said. “You will be asked to join.”
“By whom?”
“Saladin, of course.”
A silence ensued. Natalie glanced from face to face—the mournful face of the avenged remnant, the familiar face of the chief of the Office, the face of a man who was supposed to be dead. It was to this face that she delivered her response.
“I can’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m Jewish, and I can’t pretend to be anything else just because I speak their language.”
“You do it all the time, Natalie. At Hadassah they assign you Palestinian patients because they think you’re one of them. So do the Arab traders in the Old City.”
“The Arab traders aren’t members of ISIS.”
“Some of them are. But that’s beside the point. You come to the table with certain natural attributes. You are, as we like to say, a gift from the intelligence gods. With our training, we’ll complete the masterpiece. We’ve been doing this for a long time, Natalie, and we’re very good at it. We can take a Jewish boy from a kibbutz and turn him into an Arab from Jenin. And we can surely turn someone like you into a Palestinian doctor from Paris who wishes to strike a blow against the West.”
“Why would she want to do that?”
“Because like Dina, she is grieving. She craves vengeance. She is a black widow.”
There was a long silence. When finally Natalie spoke, it was with a clinical detachment.
“She’s French, this girl of yours?”
“She carries a French passport, she was educated and trained in France, but she is Palestinian by ethnicity.”
“So the operation will take place in Paris?”
“It will begin there,” he answered carefully, “but if the first phase is successful, it will necessarily migrate.”
“Where?”
He said nothing.
“To Syria?”
“I’m afraid,” said Gabriel, “that Syria is where ISIS is.”
“And do you know what will happen to your doctor from Paris if ISIS finds out she’s actually a Jew from Marseilles?”
“We are well aware of—”
“They’ll saw her head off. And then they’ll put the video on the Internet for the world to see.”
“They’ll never know.”
“But I’ll know,” she said. “I’m not like you. I’m a terrible liar. I can’t keep secrets. I have a guilty conscience. There’s no way I can pull it off.”
“You underestimate yourself.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Allon, but you’ve got the wrong girl.” After a pause, she said, “Find someone else.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.” She folded her napkin, rose, and extended her hand. “No hard feelings?”
“None whatsoever.” Gabriel stood and reluctantly accepted her hand. “It was an honor almost working with you, Natalie. Please make no mention of this conversation to anyone, not even your parents.”
“You have my word.”
“Good.” He released her. “Dina will take you back to Jerusalem.”
20
NAHALAL, ISRAEL
NATALIE FOLLOWED HER ACROSS the shadowed garden and through a pair of French doors that led into the sitting room of the bungalow. It was sparsely furnished, more office than home, and upon its whitewashed walls hung several outsize black-and-white photographs of Palestinian suffering—the long dusty walk into exile, the wretched camps, the weathered faces of the old ones dreaming of paradise lost.
“This is where we would have trained you,” explained Dina. “This is where we would have turned you into one of them.”
“Where are my things?”
“Upstairs.” Then Dina added, “In your room.”
More photos lined the staircase and on the bedside table of a tidy little room rested a volume of verse by Mahmoud Darwish, the semi-official poet of Palestinian nationalism. Natalie’s suitcase lay at the foot of the bed, empty.
“We took the liberty of unpacking for you,” explained Dina.
“I guess no one ever turns him down.”
“You’re the first.”
Natalie watched her limp across the room and open the top drawer of a wicker dresser.
You see, Natalie, Dina is grieving, too. And she is very serious about her work . . .
“What happened?” asked Natalie quietly.
“You said no, and now you’re leaving.”
“To your leg.”
“It’s not important.”
“It is to me.”
“Because you’re a doctor?” Dina removed a handful of clothing from the drawer and placed it in the suitcase. “I am an employee of the secret intelligence service of the State of Israel. You don’t get to know what happened to my leg. You aren’t allowed to know. It’s classified. I’m classified.”
Natalie sat on the edge of the bed while Dina removed the rest of the clothing from the dresser.
“It was a bombing,” said Dina finally. “Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv. The Number Five bus.” She closed the dresser drawer with more force than necessary. “Do you know this attack?”
Natalie nodded. The date was October 1994, long before she and her family had moved to Israel, but she had seen the small gray memorial at the base of a chinaberry tree along the pavement and, by chance, had once eaten in the quaint café directly adjacent.
“Were you on the bus?”
“No. I was standing on the pavement. But my mother and two of my sisters were. And I saw him before the bomb exploded.”
“Who?”
“Abdel Rahim al-Souwi,” Dina replied, as though reading the name from one of her thick files. “He was sitting on the left side behind the driver. There was a bag at his feet. It contained twenty kilos of military-grade TNT and bolts and nails soaked in rat poison. It was built by Yahya Ayyash, the one they called the Engineer. It was one of his best, or so he said. I didn’t know that then, of course. I didn’t know anything. I was just a girl. I was innocent.”