‘I don’t think that’s necessary, do you, Corporal?’ asked Monroe.
‘No, sir, if you say so, sir.’
‘I say so,’ said Monroe.
‘Sir. Chew an American, ain’t chew?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘Just checking, sir.’
Monroe and Wilkes looked at the man and decided to let it go. Both had had enough of confrontation for a while. They lifted Kadar to his feet and helped him across to the bench seats running the full length of the aircraft’s fuselage. The Israelis had stripped him of his protective gear and the hood, leaving his prison garb drenched in sweat and his hair matted with dust and grime.
‘No way, sirs. I am the loadmaster here and this is my world. Them seats is ree-served for US Army personnel. You can sit there, sirs, you’re welcome. But yo’ motherfucker terrorist can sit his ass on the floor, okay? That’s SOP. Don’t like it, sirs? Take it up with the US Army. I’ll show you where he can sit.’The corporal pulled Kadar Al-Jahani up by his chains, choking him briefly. He led the prisoner to a cleared section of floor and pushed him down onto the checkerplate, locking the chains into a cleat. He walked off, shaking his head and grumbling about ‘motherfucker pussies’ and ‘do-gooders’.
Monroe gave the prisoner a sip from his water container. Kadar grabbed the bottle between both hands and brought it to his lips, gulping thirstily. ‘I think this is going to be one of those times when you wish you’d taken the train,’ said Monroe.
‘Yeah,’ agreed Wilkes. Around eleven thousand kilometres to go, sitting on little better than a canvas bench seat, the bare ribs of the plane’s fuselage for back support, with Corporal Punishment providing the in-flight service. Wilkes hated flying at the best of times. He knew the next thirteen or so hours would remind him why. But no matter how uncomfortable he was, the prisoner, chained to the bare floor, would have it worse. Wilkes shrugged. The man was a killer — he deserved that and more.
Wilkes and Monroe watched as the corporal rechecked that the rest of the load inside the vast belly of the C-5A was secured, pulling on the webbing holding down a Cobra gunship and, behind it, two LAVs — light armoured vehicles. The ramp under the aircraft’s enormous tail fin began to rise as the engines spooled up. Wilkes felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Monroe. In the palm of his hand was a set of foam earplugs. ‘Thanks, mate,’ he said. It was noisy inside the C-5A, but nothing compared to a C-130. Talk was still possible, however. Wilkes noted that, since the tank episode in Ramallah, his working relationship with Atticus had improved out of sight. Monroe mustn’t have too many mates, he observed, if it took that kind of demonstration to prove worthy of the bloke’s friendship.
‘Can I have more water?’ said the prisoner.
Wilkes couldn’t see why not. He offered the man his drink bottle.
‘Allah favours the merciful,’ said the man before taking a drink.
‘Well, then you’re in his bad books for sure, pal,’ said Monroe, to which he received a puzzled look from Kadar. ‘Remember, the US Embassy, Jakarta?’
‘Mohammed, may His name be praised, tells us to slay the pagans, the infidels.’
‘When will it stop, all this slaying?’ Monroe asked.
‘When Israel is pushed into the sea and the Arabian lands are returned to the Arabs. When the Palestinians have a homeland.’
‘So where will the Israelis go, given that they can’t just swim around in the Med indefinitely?’ Atticus Monroe folded his arms and stretched his legs out in front of him in a useless attempt to get comfortable.
‘Of course, they will all be dead. Or perhaps they will go and live in your country, America.’
‘I heard there are many people in the Middle East who think Israel is America,’ said Wilkes, finding himself drawn into the conversation.
‘Yes, and I am such a one. Israel, for all Washington’s denials, is an instrument of US foreign policy. The Americans give to the Israelis two billion dollars each year to spend on weapons. Who are these weapons to be used against? Why do the Americans give the Israelis so much money for instruments of death? Because the violence and unrest caused by Israel’s presence in the region suits America. It keeps the Arab world divided and the oil prices low. And that is why America is our enemy.’
‘You guys are deluded,’ said Monroe, realising he was having a nice chat with a man who had personally engineered the deaths of the people at the embassy. ‘And you are a murderer.’
‘No, I am a soldier.’
‘No, we’re soldiers. Don’t flatter yourself, pal. And I’m not listening to another word of this shit. You know, Tom, what these people here need is a whole bunch of those Lutheran missionaries to settle the place down. Worked in New Guinea…’ With that, he squashed the plugs into his ears, closed his eyes and hunkered down on the narrow seat.
‘And there you have the typical American response to the truth,’ Kadar Al-Jahani said with a sneer. ‘And why we hate them. Look at him. Americans only listen to Israel. I fight for a Palestinian homeland. I fight for the injustice done to my fellow Muslims by American foreign policy. You would do the same if you were put in my position.’
‘And what position is that?’ asked Wilkes. He had to admit, he was intrigued. He’d looked down the gun sight at plenty of fanatics and extremists over the years, but it occurred to him that he’d never actually talked to one.
‘Where are you from? You have a different accent to this American.’
‘Australia.’
‘Yes, Australia. Another instrument of American foreign policy. Well, Mr Australia, you come home one day and strangers are living in your house. What do you do? You ask them to leave and if they will not leave, you try to force them out, and if they kill your mother and your brothers and sisters and your children and still refuse to leave, what do you do about that?’ Kadar Al-Jahani spoke quietly and Wilkes had to lean forward, the noise of the taxiing aircraft making it difficult to catch all the words.
Wilkes had heard something like that before, but from the other side. Wasn’t it Major Samuels who said, ‘They rejoice in killing our grandmothers and children, our brothers and sisters’?
‘What are you doing in Indonesia?’ said Wilkes.
‘Do you not want to answer my question?’
The truth was that, no, Wilkes didn’t want to answer Kadar Al-Jahani’s question because he’d do what any man would do no matter what their religion or nationality or skin colour — he’d defend his family to the death. And he didn’t want to give the terrorist the satisfaction of hearing that. Fortunately, the massive engines of the C-5A began to shriek as it turned onto the threshold markers and a wall of noise came down on any conversation.
The prisoner shrugged and held up Wilkes’s empty waterbottle. Wilkes accepted it with a feeling of frustration. He knew the Israeli point of view and he’d just been given a glimpse into the reciprocal hate driving the machinery of the human meat grinder that was Middle Eastern politics. The Israeli perspective was no different to that of the Palestinians. And the meat grinder would go on consuming human lives until both sides were satisfied that the matter had been settled. It was really no different to the payback practised by the primitive PNG highlanders, a blood feud in which both sides believed they wore the white hats. Perhaps Atticus was right and what the place needed was a good dose of Lutheran missionaries. What would settle it for the Arabs? A Palestinian homeland? What would settle it for the Israelis? A secure Israel? These things had been offered in the past, yet both sides appeared more prepared to embrace hate than each other, and the opportunities for peace had been blown to pieces again and again and again…. ‘History is Israel’s curse and we have a lot of history here.’ Baruch’s words came back to him. The colonel was right. There was too much looking back and not enough looking forward. This supposedly was the place where loving gods had touched the earth, but instead of love they had left behind a poison that had consumed mankind for two millennia.