A Separate Peace

Author's Note

This story is a story of hope. Every effort has been made to not make political statements or offend anyone. Special thanks to Oggsbashan and Lauren-Hynde for advice on the history, attitudes and religions involved.

CET

Sarah Goldblum moved through the bazaar in Cairo feigning the stunned and rather vapid look of a western tourist. The myriad of sound and color had long ago lost its ability to mesmerize her. She dodged merchants hawking their wares, women in traditional dress shopping, and tourists, with an almost unconscious ease.

Sarah wore jeans and a conservative top, along with a baseball cap. Her long blonde hair was done up in a ponytail, and the expensive camera bounced at the end of its straps with each stride. The man walking next to her was slightly shorter than her six feet and was darkly handsome in his Hawaiian shirt and shorts. They looked like any western tourists, stopping often to examine the wares and occasionally arguing loudly in English with a vendor, over a price.

Jachin was totally at ease, but Sarah was nervous. The cover of American tourists worked best, but with the state of politics in the Middle East, it was inherently dangerous to masquerade as Americans. From her point of view, it was doubly dangerous, because they could very easily end up in trouble that had nothing to do with The Jackal and his militants.

Jachin was a good agent, but he was careless sometimes, especially when it came to the ladies. While he assured her that he hadn't said or done anything to blow their cover last night, Sarah was extra wary as they moved around today, keeping an eye on their only link to the terrorist cell, a thin Palestinian called Ahmed.

"Stop worrying," her partner whispered. "You're too tense, too watchful. Americans don't act like this."

"Nor do they cry out in Yiddish when they cum," Sarah shot back.

"A regrettable mistake, but come now. The girl was a German tourist, not an Egyptian whore," he said with irritating smugness.

"I don't like this place. There are too many eyes on me," she said sullenly.

"Oh no! Blonde hair, tits like ripe melons, legs up to your ass... There are always eyes upon you, Sarah."

She was covertly watching a short man who was staring at her from under his long lashes. She could feel his hatred for her, as if it were a physical blow.

"The blonde hair was not my idea, as you well know. When the eyes are sizing me up for a potential roll in the hay, it's one thing. That is not the feeling I get now," she whispered urgently.

"Pah, I could make a small fortune pimping you to these animals. Your problem is you haven't had a man in your bed in too long. Why I... He's moving."

The words were spoken softly, but the hard edge let her know exactly whom it was. Sarah turned and moved purposefully towards the alley where their man had just ducked out of sight. Jachin was two steps ahead of her, and only that saved her life.

As she rounded the corner, a wave of intense heat and a violent shockwave threw her to the ground. Jachin didn't even have time to blink as the car exploded, sending thousands of shards of glass and bits of metal into his body. Sarah caught some fragments in her arms, but she was spared the full blast of the explosion. People were screaming, running in all directions and diving for cover. An ambulance pulled up and two men leapt out, ignored the several bystanders who were down, and none too gently placed Sarah on a stretcher.

Her mind was foggy and she was disoriented, but she knew something was wrong. Once inside the ambulance, she realized it was just a panel-van with no medical equipment of any kind. She started to rise, but a foot slammed into her chest and forced her back down. The man who had been staring at her with such malevolence suddenly appeared in her vision. He jabbed a hypodermic needle into her arm and, within moments, the world began to spin. Sarah lashed out and broke the leg of the man who was standing on her chest, using her elbow as she had been taught. She actually made it to her feet, before the drug sent her conscious mind spiraling into darkness.

***

Sarah came to as the muezzin called worshipers to the evening prayer. She was staring up at a cracked plaster ceiling and, for a while, she just followed the lines with her eyes. She tried to move, but found she was restrained in some manner. Looking down she saw that she was naked, and that her legs were tied securely to the foot of the small bed where she was lying.

"So you awake at last," a pleasantly modulated feminine voice called with a slight accent. "I've been worried that Ali might have overdosed you."

"Where am I?" Sarah managed. Her mouth felt sticky and the words sounded thick to her ears.

"That isn't important. What is important is that you realize you are totally helpless and your life hangs by a thread."

Sarah heard the steel in those words. This wasn't someone playing games. She realized she was in real trouble and gathered herself before responding.

"You can't do this to me! I'm an American citizen! I demand..."

"Enough!" the woman shouted as she stepped into Sarah's field of vision. "Do you take me for a fool? You are an agent of the Mossad, and you are my prisoner. If you were really Angelina Johnson of Peoria, Illinois, as your papers say, you would be less than useless to me. Think carefully before you speak again, we are both playing a dangerous game, and time is running against us."

"Very well. What do you want?" Sarah said quietly. This was no ordinary woman, and the light in her eyes convinced the tall woman that she wasn't one to be gainsaid.

"First, you will show me how to operate the transmitter in this camera. Then you will call in and report that you are all right."

"Very well," Sarah responded, "but you will have to let me use my hands to work it."

The woman, who now came fully into her view, was very short, and even in the concealing clothes she wore, it was obvious she was very slight. Her long dress was dark, long-sleeved, and covered her to the ankles. She wore a hijab and a yashmak that concealed her face. Sarah relaxed and waited, she was certain she could take this one, once her hands were free. The woman stepped to the head of the bed and pulled hard on the ropes, then stepped away quickly.

"The knot is undone; you may free your hands."

Sarah cursed inwardly, but freed her hands and sat up. She rubbed her wrists and glanced at the many scratches and cuts. They had been treated and that gave her some hope.

The woman tossed the camera in her lap. When Sarah looked up, she was staring down the barrel of a large caliber pistol.

"It occurs to me that you might think I'm stupid, simply because I'm Palestinian, as our last prisoner did. I assure you I am not and I know that you have not only a panic button on that device, but a coded phrase to signal agent in trouble. Should I even suspect you have used either one, I will ruin that beautiful bust and be gone long before anyone arrives to cart your carcass off to the morgue. Think carefully."

Sarah looked at her and nodded grimly. She carefully deployed the small antenna and depressed the shutter button, careful to stay away from the auto-feed button, which would send out the panic signal.

"All is quiet along the Nile," she said as she depressed the transmit button. When she let it off, the voice of Ariel Began, her section chief, came in return.

"Understood. Are the children all right?"

"They are fine."

Sarah looked up at the woman who still eyed her suspiciously.

"It's done."

The woman slowly lowered the pistol and nodded.

"Place the camera on the floor, and put your hands back in the loops."

When Sarah complied, the woman moved carefully around to the head of the bed and re-secured her wrists. She then tossed a thin blanket over Sarah's body and whistled loudly. A thick man with wild black hair and even wilder eyes came through the door.

Almost instantly, the two began arguing in an urban Palestinian dialect. Sarah understood the language, but they were speaking too quickly and her mind was still foggy. What she did catch left her mind reeling. This woman, was the most wanted terrorist of all. She was The Jackal!

The argument grew in volume and ferocity, until the man drew back his hand, as if to slap the small woman. Before he could move, the large pistol appeared as if by magic, its barrel resting right between his eyes. He gave Sarah a hate filled glance and stormed out of the room.

The small woman closed the door and sighed. With that sigh, she seemed to diminish again, becoming nondescript and non-threatening, but Sarah had seen differently and would never underestimate her.

"I take it that someone thinks I would be better off dead," she said after a long silence.

The woman glanced at her, and then moved to the small window and leaned on the sill, looking out at Sarah knew not what. It was too painful to keep her neck craned, so Sarah relaxed, staring up again at the ceiling.

"My brother-in-law Hashim has grown bold of late," she said at last.

"Bold, but not stupid," Sarah observed.

"No, not yet, but he is almost there. The fire of the fanatic burns in his eyes. There was a time when he deferred to me in all things, but he has grown to like playing the leader, and the whispers have begun to rankle. Soon he will do something very rash on his own, possibly to the detriment of us all."

"You are The Jackal," Sarah said. It was a statement, not a question.

"For a while longer, yes."

"All this time we have been searching and laying traps for a man. This is how you have made so many escapes!" Sarah marveled.

The small woman laughed bitterly. She turned from the window and moved to a chair within Sarah's limited field of vision.

"You are too intelligent for your own good."

"You had to know I would realize it. Why keep me alive? It makes no sense."

"That is what my brother-in-law thinks. That we should kill you, as a warning, but only after hours of rape and torture."

Sarah blanched at the words and at the prospect. She was ready to die for her country, if need be, but she wanted very much to live.

"Fool. He is ignorant of your SOP, but I am not. Should you not report in, a host of agents would descend upon us, and being in Egypt would not stop them from killing us all. I planned to keep you alive and reporting until we could melt away, but he will have none of it. Idiot. He looks to God to rectify his stupidity."

"You don't think your God will see you through?" Sarah asked, regretting the words immediately.

"My God?" she practically spat. "Where was He when your military shot my father for nothing more than being on the wrong street? Where was He when my mother was burned to death in a rocket attack on Gaza? Where was He when my sisters and I found ourselves on the streets with no parents, no money and no food? God doesn't live in the camps, any more than He sits on your side of the wire with a sniper rifle. He has turned His back on us and the evil we do to each other in His name."

Sarah was taken aback. The depth of despair she heard in those words was heart-wrenching. The hopelessness behind them was even more frightening.

"If you know it's evil, why do you do it?"

"Because it's the only response to your terrorism that you recognize."

"Terrorism! We aren't the ones blowing ourselves up on busses filled with innocents!"

"No, you kill on a far grander scale."

"You're the terrorist here! Even now, you are plotting to set off a bomb in a nightclub. Don't bother denying it. We will stop you and the animals that carry out your orders this time. The noose is already tightening around you! I hope he makes that mistake."

The woman rose and whipped the blanket off Sarah's body, and her hand came back across her body as she prepared to deliver a back handed blow, but then that hand hesitated. The woman undid the yasmak that covered her face and let it fall away.

Here eyes were large and expressive, showing the wild emotions she felt. Her face was strong, with a firm chin and high cheekbones. Her lips were soft and full, the kind that just seemed to be begging someone to kiss them. She was the most beautiful woman Sarah had ever encountered in her life. Stunning beauty, the kind you expected to see in fashion magazines, not in terrorist hideouts.

"Oh, so self-righteous. So sure of who is an animal and who isn't. Shall I tell you about loosing my virginity?" she asked in a deathly quiet voice as she sat on the bed.

"Would it shatter your rosy little world to know I was gang-raped by a group of settlers after a rocket attack killed one of them? Would it shame you to know IDF troops stood by and let it happen? How about if I told you I was thirteen at the time?"

Sarah didn't want to believe it, but the honesty and pain in the words were beyond any doubt.

"No? How about if I told you of all the times I sold my body for a meal or fresh water? A place to sleep, where I didn't have to worry about roving gangs of angry youths with time on their hands because they have no jobs or education? Should I tell you the depths of degradation I have seen? The lengths to which a young mother will go to feed her child? The cruelty of men? How that knows no race, religion or creed? Perhaps you would like to hear about my brother, strapping explosives around his waist and going off to end his young life. What can you, who have lived among the oppressors, know about despair that is so deep it makes death seem preferable to life?"

The woman reached out and gently began to knead Sarah's left breast. Sarah tried to twist in her bonds, but she couldn't escape the soft, gentle hand.

"You have a beautiful body. How many meals did you miss growing up? Do you know what hunger is? Not the tiny thing most think of, but true hunger, that gnawing pain in your stomach that never goes away. I doubt it very much, my pretty Jewess."

"Stop," Sarah gasped when the woman's soft hand cupped her breast and gently squeezed, brushing her now hard nipple.

"This is how it feels to be helpless. At someone else's mercy. How do you like it? While you are enjoying it, try to imagine it as a way of life, and not just a sudden inconvenience. This is how we live, from day to day and minute to minute, helpless and without even the hope of succor. Shall I go on?"

Sarah's mind was racing. The juxtapose was so stark, the soft ripples of pleasure making her body respond, while the dark words ripped at the very assumptions she had based her life on.

"This is just a small taste of what your people have done to mine, just the tip of the iceberg, and still you wonder why we fight."

A loud banging noise, a car door slamming, sounded from somewhere and the woman was gone, flying to the window and out of Sarah's field of vision. Sarah heard an engine startup and the tires of several vehicles squealing. The woman ran to the door and disappeared.

Sarah was alone for several minutes, but her bonds defeated her attempts to shake free. She stopped struggling as the woman came back into the room and sat heavily on the bed. Her beautiful face was drawn, and Sarah saw an armed figure pull the door closed.

"Well, you have been granted your wish," she said in a voice drained of all emotion.

"What do you mean?" Sarah asked. She was trying hard to study the woman's face, but her eyes were continually drawn to the gentle swelling of her breasts.

"How long have you been pursuing me?" she asked, apparently ignoring Sarah's question.

"Personally?"

"Yes."

"More than two years. I was put on your trail after you escaped the assassination attempt in France," the tall woman said, marveling at her own honesty.

"I organized my first group of freedom-fighters after your government killed my husband, five... six years ago."

"You've been active that long? We only became aware of you after the bombing of the Sea Breeze nightclub," Sarah said.

"Oh yes, I've been active, as you say, for a long while. One hundred and seventy souls bloody these hands," she said, holding out her delicate hands and staring at them as if Macbeth's wife.

"Does it bother you?"

"Sometimes, I don't see the point. So much death, destruction and pain, but what has it accomplished? We still live behind walls and barbwire, girls no older than I was still face the prospect of starvation. Many will choose the only way out. Our children grow up surrounded by violence and hate; they become young men who don't even know that another way of thinking exists. My best men listen to the recruiters from Hamas and Islamic Jihad and cease to fight, preferring to die as martyrs. But who stays to mourn them? Had I been born a man, I would surely be dead by now; I only survive because I have to work through intermediaries. I'm a rarity among rarities, an old freedom-fighter."

Despite her wish to hate this woman, Sarah felt her heart go out to her. She groped for words, but came up with only the tritest of banalities.

"You're not that old."

"I'm thirty-two, going on one thousand," she said quietly. "I have seen things no woman should see, experienced things no one should have to go through, and I have hated, with the blinding passion that leaves you feeling dead inside when it finally burns out and drowns in the futility of it all. I've turned my back on God and the world at large, living in the twilight, no longer seeing the sun. The souls of those I have destroyed cross my own with bloody footprints each night. I have drank the bitter cup of revenge to its very dregs, and found it does nothing to slack my thirst. Old? The very pyramids seem young to me."

The woman hung her head, but when she lifted it again, Sarah saw the hot tears running down her cheeks. Sarah longed to hold her, to comfort her. Their differences seemed small now, and she knew the agony of self-recrimination that came with taking a life. She had felt it on more occasions than she cared to count.

"I'm tired of being hunted... What is your name?"

"Sarah. Sarah Goldblum."

"That's a lovely name. I long now for peace. I wish to heal, rather than destroy. I'm tired, beyond words to describe, but you can't stop once you start down the road I have chosen. Death is at the end of that road, either from one of you or from one of my own. Death would be preferable now, to this living-death, but you can't go back, you can't undo the choices you have made."

"Give yourself up. If you stop this madness now, I'm sure the authorities will show mercy. Don't stay here until death finds you!"

She looked at Sarah, her expression angry, but then it softened, and she smiled ruefully.

"I think you honestly believe that. I was like you, once, an idealist, sure of myself and of my course. Now I am sure only that death will come. It shall find me, and I shall know peace, even if it is only the peace of the grave. Ali has finally convinced my idiotic brother-in-law to carry out a 'real' attack. They plan to bomb a major target in Tel Aviv. I don't know where. He has finally thrown off my feminine influence. They go now to steal money from an American bank," she added with a sardonic smile. Her soft hand traced lightly down Sarah's tummy, stopping just short of her soft, dark pubes.

"A bank?" Sarah gasped.

"Yes. It costs money to be a terrorist, as you would say. He is doubly stupid, as I have more than he could possibly imagine at my disposal, if he had only been less prideful and asked," she replied as her fingers traced back up Sarah's tummy.

"Stop that, please," Sarah managed.

"No, I don't think I will. You have a lovely body, and it seems to be responding, despite your protests. I think I shall see if these hands can bring pleasure rather than death."