‘Shit,’ she’d said, jumping up from the table, teetering on heels that clattered across the restaurant floor as she headed for the front door. Fortunately, as she’d run down the steps, a taxi arrived dropping off a couple of businessmen. One of them held the door open for her as she jumped in. Annabelle hoped the alcohol wouldn’t be noticed when she read the news — it was a sackable offence to be drunk on camera, and quite righly, too. The realisation that she had broken a number of her own professional and personal rules made her furious, white circles on her usually rosy cheeks the only indication of the anger welling inside. No time to prepare. No time to get her thoughts in order. Only time to wing it.
‘…and five and four and…’ The assistant producer held up three fingers silently, then two, then one, finishing the countdown pointing at her.
‘Good evening. This is Annabelle Gilbert with the six o’clock news. Tonight, anger at the pumps as petrol prices surge to as much as a dollar fifty-five a litre, huge seas batter the New South Wales coastline, and an IVF chimp gives birth to triplets.’
Gilbert turned to face another camera as its top light flicked on, and assumed her most serious face. A brief pause in the rolling script on the autocue glass in front of the lens allowed her an extra second to suitably compose herself. ‘The Israeli army today claimed a major victory in the war against terrorism, swooping on members of the radical groups Hamas and Hezbollah in Ramallah on the West Bank. The daring raid, utilising infantry, helicopters and tanks, cornered the terrorists as they met in a deserted apartment block…’
As Gilbert read the lines, footage of the attack played across the monitor facing her. Israeli soldiers dropped onto a rooftop from a helicopter. Then suddenly it was night and the black sky glowed orange with a massive explosion. The picture cut to show weary Israeli soldiers stepping out the back of a tank. Gilbert froze. One of those soldiers was Tom. Annabelle’s mouth went dry and her skin crawled with a cold sweat. The footage continued and showed Tom assisting a wounded soldier.
‘More than a dozen Israelis were killed in the assault on the terrorist stronghold,’ she read, not realising she was doing so. ‘Israeli officials claim that one of the terrorists killed in the raid was Kadar Al-Jahani, the man US intelligence experts believe masterminded the recent bombing of the US Embassy in Jakarta, causing the deaths of at least one hundred and thirty-seven people…’
Through sheer professionalism, Annabelle Gilbert had somehow managed to keep it all together during the half-hour bulletin. But when the floor producer drew his finger across his throat and gave the thumbs up signalling the end of the broadcast, Annabelle rushed from the set violently sick.
Sirkin Air Force Base, Israel
Unfortunately for Kadar Al-Jahani, and despite the news reports to the contrary, he was still very much alive. ‘Please…’ he croaked, lifting his head as far as he was able. Wilkes gave the man his waterbottle while the jailer adjusted the prisoner’s restraints prior to transport, manacles around his neck, wrists and ankles linked by a short chain that would force him to stoop and shuffle like a man whose muscles and tendons had dried and withered with arthritis and age.
‘Keep it,’ Wilkes said.
‘No. It is against the rules,’ said an Israeli sergeant, snatching the bottle from Kadar and handing it back to Wilkes.
‘Thank you anyway,’ said Kadar Al-Jahani in heavily accented English, his sunken dark eyes looking up from black and purple sockets.
Wilkes studied the captive terrorist. His body was more bruised than he would’ve expected. Blood caked his swollen lips and there were red pools under his toenails. No doubt there were other fresh wounds visited on him by his jailers that he couldn’t see beneath the rough cotton prison greys. There were few Israelis who hadn’t been directly affected by the actions of men like Kadar Al-Jahani and, despite the heavy guard and tight security, it was likely he’d been paid several unfriendly visits during his brief imprisonment.
‘You are not like them, I can see that. So then why —’
One of the jailers smashed his elbow into the side of Kadar Al-Jahani’s head. The other yelled at him, Wilkes guessed, to keep quiet. He thought of Major Samuels and his men, all dead, and of Colonel Baruch, his body found slumped in the back seat of a Humvee, his thumb inside the smoking Glock’s trigger guard. No, he had no sympathy for the prisoner.
‘I can see this is going to be a pleasant trip,’ said Monroe, swinging his gear over his left shoulder.
Wilkes agreed wanly. They, Wilkes and Monroe, were part of the security detail accompanying the prisoner to his next destination. Exactly what should be done with Kadar Al-Jahani after his capture hadn’t been resolved when they’d left Australia. Wilkes assumed he’d be brought to Australia via Diego Garcia for questioning, but now the powers upstairs had different ideas. And they made sense. Kadar was hardly going to give up anything important when politely asked to do so. Anything of value would need to be…extracted, Monroe had said, and he was probably right.
‘Where he’s going, the guy will give up his grandma when those assholes are finished with him,’ said Monroe after they were told of the prisoner’s final destination.
Before leaving the building, Kadar Al-Jahani was hurriedly kitted up in full Israeli army protective gear, ceramic body armour and helmet. He was then bustled towards the stone courtyard of the maximum security prison and into the glare of a morning sun that burned as if concentrated by a magnifying glass. At the last moment, a hood had been placed over the prisoner’s head and helmet and he was ringed by nervous soldiers armed with Uzi machine pistols and submachine guns. Two burly bodyguards hurriedly pushed him into the back seat of an IDF Humvee, one of four in the convoy, and climbed in after him along with three heavily armed soldiers. Wilkes and Monroe took their places in the last vehicle, sitting shoulder to shoulder with the security detail who stank of sweat, stale tobacco and gun oil — the smell of soldiers no matter who or what they fought for.
The convoy made its way through the streets of outer Tel Aviv to Sirkin AFB, just another military convoy with somewhere to go in a hurry. It drove to an apron well away from any Israeli Air Force or Sayeret infrastructure and activity, where a huge United States air force C-5A Galaxy transport plane sat on its own, gigantic wings drooping as if exhausted by the heat of the day. The prisoner was transferred to the belly of the plane, whereupon the responsibility for him passed to the US Army, and to Wilkes and Monroe. The soldiers saluted each other and the Israelis left.
‘Water…’ croaked Kadar Al-Jahani again, once the Israelis had departed.
‘Shut the fuck up, motherfucker. So you’re a fuckin’ terrorist, a terror-ist? A person who deals in terror? Well, here, I am the man who deals out the terror, y’hear, motherfucker?’ To underline his point, the US Army corporal, a bull of a man and black as the night, plunged his fist into the prisoner’s stomach.
‘Hey!’ said Wilkes, the punch taking him completely by surprise.
The restricted movement forced on the prisoner by his manacles, and the heavily strapped shoulder dislocated in his capture, made him drop to his knees, then onto his side as he struggled to regain his breath. The doctor provided to oversee Kadar Al-Jahani’s health, a US Army major, turned away as if he had something more important to attend to somewhere else in the plane’s cavernous interior.