Taking Morgan Read online

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he said. “Now, Morgan Cooper, before you ask me this question, please, tell me all about yourself.”

  Ben-Meir, Morgan noted with approval, was wearing his own gold wedding ring. What she had envisaged as a hurried drink was to become a leisurely dinner, accompanied by a fragrant Golan Riesling. She had spent enough evenings dining alone not to savor it.

  “I’m married, with two kids,” she began. “There’s Aimee, who’s ten, and little Charlie: he’s two years younger. My husband’s a lawyer. He used to work for a nonprofit law center but now he’s with Spinks McArthur: white-shoe guys with offices in a dozen American cities and more overseas. In fact, I’m sure they’ve got a presence in Tel Aviv. But he does pro bono work. Sometimes it’s kind of controversial. He seems to have a thing just now about defending the rights of Muslim terrorists.” Her candor was deliberate: much better that Ben-Meir hear about Adam’s clients from her, and in any case, she presumed he already knew. “We live in Bethesda, Maryland. Near enough to the Metro for the mortgage to be horrendous.”

  Ben-Meir nodded. It seemed that Bethesda was not entirely alien to him. “I understand the Bethesda school district has quite a reputation, though I’m more familiar with Virginia. I once spent a year there, living in Alexandria while I did my masters at NDU. But I’ve always thought Bethesda is one of the nicest DC suburbs.”

  “Well, we certainly like it. But I’m really a Lone Star State girl. My mom’s still down there, in toasty San Antonio.”

  “Hence the New Years when you weren’t at the Watzmans,” said Ben-Meir.

  “Hence the New Years. We go most years to get away from the cold. In summer, we escape the heat in England. Adam—my husband—he’s a US citizen, but his mother’s English. His dad’s from Boston, but Adam’s education until he went to law school was over there. Both his parents are Oxford professors. Well, not just regular professors. So far as I know, they’re nothing to do with the mafia, but over there they call them dons.”

  Ben-Meir laughed at her feeble joke. “So how did you two meet?”

  “Harvard. Early in our first semester. We both needed some coffee and we shared a table at a place in Harvard Square. Adam was obviously brilliant, what with his first class bachelor’s degree from Cambridge. Now he wanted to change the world by becoming a lawyer in the land of his birth, fighting for prisoners on death row—especially in Texas. Within a few minutes I’d told him that that was where I was from. My childhood had taken me a lot of different places: my dad was in the Marine Corps. But having seen a bit of the world, I wanted to change it too, which was why I was doing a masters in international public policy at the Kennedy School of Government, with a special focus on human rights.” She sighed. “I suppose meeting Adam must have been fate.”

  “And so what are you doing now? Putting your theoretical studies into practice?”

  “I know you’ve done your homework, Yitzhak. Yes. As I’m sure you’re well aware, I’m with the State Department Bureau of Human Rights.”

  “Tell me about that—and how do you manage to combine that with being a mother?”

  “Well, the truth is, until quite recently I didn’t. In the nineties I spent some time in former Yugoslavia. But once the kids came along, I kind of retired, at least from field work.”

  “Field work?” said Ben-Meir. “That is an interesting phrase. Did you know that intelligence officers use it?”

  “Do they really? Well, so do social scientists and college geology students.” Morgan looked back into his eyes, deadpan. “And it’s what the Bureau of Human Rights calls it, too.”

  “So what did you do when you were stuck back in Washington?”

  The true answer was that she had shown herself adept at the subtle art of clandestine operation logistics: indeed, her very success had become something of a problem when she did start trying to get back to the field, because some said she was indispensable.

  “Admin, basically,” Morgan said. “Anyhow, I hated it.”

  “But now you’re back in human rights field work?”

  Morgan smiled. Despite this strange situation, she felt proud. “Yes. And truth to tell, I love it. It suits me perfectly. The kids are a little older, and I know I want to travel, but also not too much. So my job right now is to keep an eye on Fatah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. I don’t need to tell you that neither of them is exactly a human rights poster child.”

  Ben-Meir’s face betrayed nothing. “I don’t have to tell you that Gaza is extremely dangerous. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “You don’t have to tell me. Really, you don’t. But I only need to be there a couple of days, and there are people there who’ll take care of me. The thing is, yesterday I was stopped at Erez. I have no idea why, but as things stand I don’t know when they’ll let me in. I could cool my heels in Tel Aviv until someone way above my pay grade sorts the problem out, but it’s really important I get myself home by the beginning of next week. I thought maybe you could help.”

  “I don’t get it. You’re on your government’s tab. You’re staying at a nice hotel, and the weather is lovely. I’m sure you miss the kids, but they’ll be fine for a day or two longer, and my suspicion is that like any working mother you could do with a rest. Why not go to Steimatsky’s, buy a book that interests you and take it down to the beach? Or do some sightseeing. Have you visited Jerusalem, or the Negev? Perhaps we could go together. We could use my car. I’d be glad to show you round.”

  Morgan took a deep breath. “I’d love that. And in the old days, it’s just what I would have done. But now it’s not so simple. Look, this is going to sound pathetic, but next week is the children’s school spring break. And apart from wanting to be at home for them, if I’m not, Adam is going to kill me.”

  “Kill you? For being back a few days late?”

  “I don’t mean it literally. But he has a very big day coming up. For the first time in his life, he’s due to be making an oral argument in the US Supreme Court. His cases are always important—at least, that’s what he’s always telling me—but this one: well, it’s kind of a career milestone. He’s going to need all the time he can get to prepare, and although we do have a part-time nanny, she’s also a PhD student: she picks them up from school and sometimes she makes them dinner, but there’s no way she’ll agree to take care of them full-time while school’s out. So like I said, ordinarily, I could just wait until the border reopens. But this time is different. You said you know a lot of people. So is there any way you could make a call and get the people at Erez to promise they’ll open the gate for me tomorrow?”

  Ben-Meir was silent for a while before he spoke. “Morgan, I would not want you to remember me as someone who stoked any marital discord. But do you really understand the dangers? Gaza is a cauldron, no? So many people effectively trapped in such a tiny space, with so few opportunities, so few ways to escape. And with tacit support from your government, we have penned them in. You could conclude that we have created a laboratory to cultivate extremism, a pressure cooker for hate.”

  This time, she found it harder to meet his gaze. But she answered confidently. “Yes. But there are ways to reduce the risks. I’m not new to this shit. And if I get what I want—well, maybe you’ll be interested in meeting me again when I’m back.”

  Surely she had given him his opening: his chance to question her about her mission.

  “It would be my pleasure to hear all about your visit,” he said, “perhaps again over dinner. Anyhow. It’s true I may be able to help, and since if you stay here long enough, you’re going to go there anyway, I might as well see if I can shorten the wait. Be at Erez by nine tomorrow morning.”

  Ben-Meir raised his glass and clinked it against Morgan’s. “Let’s drink a toast. To a successful visit to Gaza. And above all, to a safe and timely return.”

  Over a decaf espresso, she asked Ben-Meir about himself. He told her his great-grandfather had emigrated to Palestine from Russia
in the early 1920s, that his wife was a psychologist called Ruti, and that they had two sons who were serving in the military. But he wouldn’t talk about his current work, nor his career in the army, and as she had expected, he refused her offer to pick up or split the tab. Afterward, he hailed another cab and dropped her back at the hotel, where they parted with the same careful formality with which the evening had begun.

  Back in her room, Morgan ran through her schedule. The weekly Saturday Erez closure meant that if she got through the gate next morning, Thursday, she wouldn’t be able to leave Gaza until Sunday. But she could still make a plane from Ben Gurion airport that evening. That would mean three nights in Gaza, not two—a thought that triggered an involuntary, visceral thrill. She went online and changed her flights.

  Finally it was time to call Adam, the call she’d been putting off for the past two days. But thanks to Ben-Meir, it was going to be easy. It looked as if her problems were resolved. The eastern seaboard was seven hours behind Israel: in DC, it was 4:00 p.m. She dialed his familiar cell phone using the hotel landline. It went straight to voicemail: “You’ve reached Adam Cooper. Please leave a message.”

  Morgan was surprised to note she felt disappointed. For once, she’d really been looking forward to chatting with him: to hearing how his case was going, as well as all about the kids. “Hi honey, it’s me,” she said. “Sorry to miss you. My trip got slightly screwed up, but I’ve managed to reconfigure. I should make the Sunday evening Continental flight through Newark and I’ll be at BWI early Monday. I’ll take a taxi home. Your Supremes case is safe. Tell Charlie and Aimee I can’t wait to see them. Love to you all.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Thursday, March 29, 2007

  Morgan did not have time to go running. In order to reach Erez by nine, she had to make sure she avoided the morning traffic, and that meant leaving soon after 7:00 a.m. As she had done two days earlier, she kept her hotel room. “This time, I feel pretty sure I won’t be seeing you later. At least not today,” she told the desk clerk. Still a little bleary, she walked on to the street and slipped into the back seat of Mohammed’s waiting car.

  “You want Erez?” he said.

  “Yes. Erez. It shouldn’t take too long.”

  “Insh’Allah.”

  The roads were empty. A few miles from the border, with more than an hour to go before it would open, Mohammed pulled off the road at a gas station. He filled the tank and bought coffee. They sat in the vehicle drinking it, saying nothing, with the windows open to the warm morning air. She wondered whether to try calling Adam—she’d love to hear how the children were, and he often worked late. But he would be pissed if she woke him. Better not to take the risk.

  Inside the terminal, the same listless agent was sitting in her cubicle. She looked as if she’d come direct from her boyfriend’s bedroom: she hadn’t time to brush her hair, much less take a shower. She yawned as Morgan approached, failing to cover her mouth with her hand. There was a speck of cigarette ash on the front of her khaki blouse.

  “What is the purpose of your visit?”

  “The same as it was when I tried to get through on Tuesday. Business. I am a United States diplomat.”

  The girl shrugged. “The name of your father?”

  “Robert E. Lee Ashfield.”

  “Mother?”

  “Sherry Ashfield.”

  “Her mother?”

  “Janet Jones.”

  “You are Jewish?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever been an Israeli citizen or resident?”

  “No.”

  Saying nothing, she stamped Morgan’s passport. With a dismissive tilt of her head, she indicated she could continue.

  Just in front of Morgan, a group of aid workers was talking loudly in English about the effects of Israel’s blockade of Gazan imports. Morgan hung back as one by one they pushed through the heavy, full-height steel turnstile at the back of the hall. Beyond, at the end of a short corridor, lay a walled, open courtyard. It looked as if there was no way out, although on the far side, there was a thick metal panel set into the wall. Morgan stood and waited, hoping these unsought companions wouldn’t try to start a conversation with her.

  “If we’re lucky, someone will spot us on the CCTV screens, and this will slide open,” one of the aid people said, pointing to the panel. He seemed to be addressing one of his colleagues, a tall, earnest-looking girl with a long, mousey ponytail. Morgan presumed she must be making her first visit. “This is it—the gateway to Gaza.”

  Several minutes passed, and nothing happened. Morgan’s cell phone rang, and she glanced at the number before answering: Mohammed. “Is okay,” she said. “Today no problem. You can go. I call you Sunday before I come back.”

  At last the panel opened, then closed again after they had all passed through. They still had to trudge down a long, covered passageway on the far side, but here there were porters to carry her bag, urchins competing for the chance to make a few shekels. At its end, they waited to have their passports stamped at a Palestinian Authority security check, then emerged at a sandy parking lot on open ground, the watchtowers and fortified gray wall five hundred yards behind them. On either side of the lot was devastation: smashed, blown out buildings, and seemingly random wreckage.

  “What’s this?” the neophyte aid worker asked. “What the hell happened here?” She sounded Canadian.

  “This is what’s left of the Beit Hanoun industrial zone,” her colleague replied. “The militants were using it as a rocket base, so the Israelis blew it up. Say farewell to the Gazan economic miracle.”

  Morgan looked away and then, on the far side of the lot, she caught sight of a huge, unshaven Palestinian, his skin the same color as his warm, brown eyes. He was smoking a cigarette, lounging against a Corolla. “Akram!” she said. Her face lit up. Akram was Abdel Nasser’s driver, a jovial father of six. He hurried toward her and bowed.

  “Habibi! Assalam aleikum. Keef halek?”

  “Aleikum salam. It’s good to see you, Akram. Alhamdulillah, I am fine.”

  They walked back to his car and got into it. Omar, one of Abdel Nasser’s bodyguards, was already inside, occupying the front seat next to Akram. Young and surprisingly slight, he was clean-shaven. His weapon, Morgan guessed, must be hidden in a pocket inside his Western-style gray jacket: presumably some kind of handgun. As ever, he seemed taut, nervous. Morgan sat behind the two men, and taking a white cheesecloth headscarf from her purse, she shrouded herself, trying to look inconspicuous.

  Omar turned to face her through the gap between the seats. “Before is problem?” he said. “You no come.”

  “Yes, I had problem,” Morgan said. “Israelis make problem for me at Erez.”

  He tutted nosily and shook his head. “Haram. Yehudi.”

  She hadn’t been worried about the effect of her non-appearance on Abdel Nasser. She felt a little bad that Akram and Omar must have waited on Tuesday for hours until it became clear she would not be making an appearance. But Abdel Nasser understood Erez’s vagaries better than anyone, and, like any CIA officer handling an agent, she had taught him to memorize an agreed communications plan, a series of alternatives if either of them failed to make their planned meeting. The first alternative was that she would simply show up on the Palestinian side of the Erez crossing at the same time two days later, or, if the border was still closed then, on the day it reopened. Now, thanks to her skill at manipulating Yitzhak Ben-Meir, the plan had been achieved. Any drive through Gaza these days was going to be a little sketchy: the next half hour or so would be dangerous. But she was in good hands. She could already feel her exultation rise.

  Akram eased the car out of the parking lot and onto the Gaza Strip’s main north-south artery, Salah ad-Din Street. He kept his speed below thirty miles per hour, and it was soon obvious why: there were almost as many horse-drawn traps as cars, while pedal bikes and motorcycles kept pulling out without warning from the roadside. The road was covered in ol
d pony manure, pressed flat by the passage of vehicles, and it looked as if no one had collected the trash for months. Between the shabby, off-white concrete buildings were piles of vegetables and peelings, some four feet high.

  Barely a mile from Erez, they were stopped at a crude checkpoint: a dozen men in dusty fatigues standing by two piles of tires which almost barred the road, leaving only a narrow gap between them. Akram wound down his window and commenced a conversation in Arabic.

  “Passport,” Akram said to Morgan. She gave it to him, and he handed it to the militiaman. His dark gray uniform was dusty and worn, but looked official: this must be the Palestinian Authority police service. After a few moments’ study, her passport was handed back.

  As they crawled along the road, they were stopped another four times: by the Hamas Executive Force, by the Preventive Security Organization, and then by Force 17, the Palestinian Presidential Guard. These were easily the best turned-out. Dressed in black, wearing sunglasses, and with much newer weapons, they were both sleeker and more aggressive, demanding that Akram get out of the vehicle while they inspected the trunk. Morgan’s Agency boss, Gary Thurmond, talked a lot about Force 17. He liked to refer to them as “our guys,” because the unit he led had arranged secret training for them in the deserts of Egypt and Jordan, and was running a covert munitions supply line. According to Gary, Force 17 was the key to ensuring that Gaza stayed out of the clutches of the militant Hamas, and would soon be able to crush them. Morgan was unconvinced. They might look professional, but that didn’t mean they had the will to fight.

  The last stop, where the road passed through the fringes of the huge Jabaliya refugee camp, was the most unnerving. The roadblock had been mounted by five or six wild-looking men with ragged beards, frayed jeans, and old, Soviet-issue Kalashnikovs, and as they approached, Morgan wrapped the scarf around her face so that only her eyes were showing, staring fixedly at her feet. She knew who these men were: members of the Dogmush clan, a local criminal mafia which controlled much of the camp and had lately begun to espouse its own brand of extremist fundamentalism. According to Abdel Nasser, its ideology was merely a front, and the kidnappings the clan was suspected of perpetrating had been carried out in order to make ransom money, not some political point. While they waited, a mother in a grimy purple coat with an infant balanced on her hip tapped on Morgan’s window, bringing her free hand to her mouth in a gesture of imprecation. To her shame, Morgan felt too uncomfortable to unwind the window and give her a ten-shekel note.