"Security censorship, eh?"
Daniel smiled. "May I talk to your staff?"
Baldwin kneaded his chin with one hand. "You realize, Officer "
"Sharavi."
" Officer Sharavi, that we are an arm of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and, as such, are entitled to diplomatic privilege with regard to police procedure."
"Of course, Mr. Baldwin."
"Understand also that involvement in local political matters is something we make a concerted effort to avoid."
"This is a criminal matter, sir. Not a political one."
"In this city," said Baldwin, "that's a fine distinction. One, I'm sorry to say, that the police don't often seem able to make." He paused, looked down at Daniel. "No, I'm sorry, Officer Sharavi, I just can't see my way clear to letting you disrupt our procedures."
As Daniel listened to the American, the image of the murdered girl intruded on his consciousness and he surrendered to a fantasy etched in anger: He, the policeman, takes hold of the bureaucrat's arm and leads him to the gully, over the edge, right into the butchery. Presses his face close to the corpse, forces him to inhale the stench of evil. Breathe that, experience it. Viscerally. Is it criminal or political, pencil pusher?
"I agree," he heard himself saying. "It is a very fine distinction. But one that we're getting better at recognizing. You remember, of course, the case of Corporal Takumbai?"
"Vaguely." Baldwin shifted his weight, looked uncomfortable. "Somewhere up north, wasn't it?"
"Yes it was. In Tiberias. Corporal Takumbai was part of a Fijian contingent assigned to the UNIFIL patrol in Southern Lebanon. He had a history of mental imbalance that no one thought was important. One night, during a holiday on the Sea of Galilee, he left his comrades, broke into an apartment, and raped two old women. Someone heard screams and called the police. When they tried to capture him, Takumbai wounded one officer and-"
"I really don't see what this has to do with-"
"-came close to killing another. Despite all that, we let him go, Mr. Baldwin. Back to Fiji, without prosecution. He was protected by his position with the United Nations and we respected that. We were able to separate the political from the criminal. There have been others, of course-a Frenchman, Grimaud, who was a compulsive shoplifter; a Finn named Kokkonen, who enjoyed getting drunk and beating up women. Even as we speak, the file of another Frenchman is being processed. This one was caught smuggling hashish resin out of the Beach Refugee Camp in Gaza. Like all the others, he'll be expelled without trial. Without public exposure. So you see, Mr. Baldwin, you have nothing to fear. We continue to protect the good name of the United Nations. We are able to make fine distinctions."
Baldwin glanced over his shoulder at Hajab, who'd listened to the exchange raptly, moving his head back and forth like a soccer fan. Reaching into his pocket, the American pulled out a set of car keys and tossed them to the watchman.
"Park the car, Zia."
Though clearly disappointed, the watchman complied. When the Lancia had driven off, Baldwin said to Danieclass="underline" "In any organization, there are going to be a few bad apples. That has nothing to do with the staff of this hospital. They're handpicked. Altruists. Good solid folk."
"I don't doubt that for a moment, Mr. Baldwin. As altruists they should be pleased to help."
The American peeled a papery shred of skin from his nose and looked toward the scene of the crime. A flock of crows rose from the gully. From somewhere behind the hospital came the bray of a donkey.
"I could," said Daniel, "go through channels. Which would mean a delay of the investigation-meetings, memoranda. We are a small country, Mr. Baldwin. News travels quickly. The longer something stretches out, the more difficult it is to keep it out of the public eye. People would want to know why so many criminals are avoiding punishment. One would hate to see the public image of the U.N. suffer needlessly."
When Baldwin didn't respond, Daniel added, "Perhaps I'm not speaking clearly. My English-"
"Your English is just fine," said Baldwin, smiling sourly.
Daniel returned the smile. "I had an excellent teacher," he said, then looked at his watch. Flipping over his note pad, he began to write. Several more moments passed.
"All right," said Baldwin, "but let's try to keep it quick."
He turned on his heel, and Daniel followed him under the arch and across the silent courtyard. A lizard scampered up the trunk of the big oak and disappeared. Daniel breathed in deeply and the aroma of roses settled moistly in his nostrils. Like a cool spray of syrup, filtered through the hot, morning air.
The hospital had a history. Daniel had learned about it in '67, during training with the 66th, when rumors of war caused every paratroop officer to study his maps and his history books.
The Amelia Catherine had begun its life as a private residence-a great, lumbering manse at the crest of the watershed between the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean.
Conceived by a wealthy German missionary as a wedding present for his young bride and named for her, the estate had been fashioned of native limestone and marble by the hands of local masons. But its plans had been drawn up in Munich by an Anglophile architect and the result was a self-conscious display of Victoriana transported to Palestine-oversized, decidedly snobbish, surrounded by formal gardens replete with boxwood hedges, beds of flowers, and velvet lawns that perished quickly in the Judean heat. The missionary was also a man of high taste, and he shipped over tinned meats and preserved delicacies, bottles of French wine stored in cavernous cellars beneath the mansion.
The object of all this architectural affection, a frail blond fraulein of twenty-one, contracted cholera two months after her arrival in Jerusalem and was dead three weeks later. After burying her near the Grove of Gethsemane, the grieving widower found himself shaken by a crisis of faith that sucked him back to Europe, never to return, abandoning his dream house to the ruling Ottomans.
The Turks had always entertained a disdain for Jerusalem and its structures and, during four centuries of reign, had transformed it from a teeming Crusader shrine into a dusty, disease-ridden, provincial village, home to beggars, lepers, and fanatic Jew-infidels. From the moment its foundation had been laid, the Amelia Catherine had been an affront to their world view-that a Christian-infidel should be allowed to build something so vulgar as a house for a woman, a house that looked down upon the mosques of AI Aqsa and the Rock, was a grievous insult to Allah.
Heavy taxes collected from the German fool had kept these religious reservations at bay. But once he was gone, the gardens were ordered fallow, the lawns burned, the great house transformed to a military warehouse. Soon, the stink of machine grease emanated from every marble corridor.
That state of affairs endured until 1917, when the British invaded Palestine. The debased mansion on Scopus was strategically located and its begrimed windows witnessed many a long bloody battle. When the gunfire died, on December 11, General Allenby was marching into Jerusalem and the Ottoman Empire was a thing of the past.
The British welcomed themselves with a ceremony of exceptional pomp-one that amused the poor Jews and Arabs whose families had inhabited the city for centuries-and like every conquering horde before them, the new rulers lost no time refurbishing the Holy City to their taste, starting with the Amelia Catherine.