Dark Waters Read Online Free Page B

Jordan had to work hard to keep the criticism out of her voice.
    Taylor looked at Lucy. “I didn’t have a choice.”
    “Judge Taylor, only a crazy person goes out and plays in the bully’s backyard after handing down a verdict like that. You are aware that the Palestine Liberation Committee has a presence here? That there are people here who might see you as hampering their efforts by placing sanctions on their money?”
    He turned his attention back to her. “I’m not stupid, Agent Jordan.”
    “No, you’re not.” But neither was she, and none of this added up. Jordan tried a different tack. “You’re here because of Lucy, because she’s sick? Why not see a doctor at home?”
    “Because Alena Petrenko is the best in her field.”
    Jordan pushed herself up from the wall. “You’re sure you didn’t know either of these two men?”
    “I’ve never seen either of them before.”
    It might make sense if Cline had been in the square to protect the judge. But Daugherty would have been the one who assigned him, and Daugherty thought he had already left for D.C. Plus, it didn’t fit for the sniper to kill the Palestinian and then take a shot at Taylor. He had to be shooting at someone else.
    “For what it’s worth,” Jordan said, “I don’t think you were the target. I think you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Unfortunately, your face has been all over the news, and we need to get you out of here.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll send someone with you to help pack up your things and make arrangements for you and your daughter to stay at the embassy until we can get you on a flight back to the U.S.”
    “No.” He spoke sharply, and Lucy’s head turned in their direction. He gestured to his daughter that things were okay. “We aren’t leaving.”
    Jordan frowned. “Excuse me?”
    “We need to stay.”
    “Look, I don’t know what prompted you to come here in the first place, but now it’s clear that the only reasonable thing for you to do is to go home.”
    “We can’t,” said Taylor. “Not yet. Besides, you said it yourself, no one was shooting at me.”
    Jordan heard the conviction in his voice, but it carried no logic.
    “Judge Taylor, maybe you don’t value your own life, but what about Lucy’s? What about her life?” She gestured toward the girl, who was paying close attention.
    “You’re right. We probably would be safer at home. But it’s for her sake that we have to stay.”
    Jordan could hear his desperation and see it in his eyes. “The doctor?”
    “Lucy goes for treatments every day. That’s where we were headed when . . .” His gaze shifted toward the bodies. “It doesn’t matter what happened here. Finishing her treatments is more important. I’m not taking her home until they’re done.” He held up a hand and measured two inches of air. “We’re this close, this close! We just need two more weeks.”

Chapter 7
    H addid followed Mansoor and disembarked in Yaffa. The stone walls quickly engulfed them as they wound their way west, moving from one narrow passageway to another. Near the water, they turned south and threaded their way through the maze of tourists who had come to see Yaffa, the “Bride of the Sea.”
    Mansoor spat on the ground. “Ignorant bastards.”
    Haddid was twenty-eight, too young to remember Yaffa in the early days, before al-Nakba , the 1948 occupation. But his father had told him how, prior to the war, Yaffa had been a thriving seaport surrounded by citrus groves that scented the air. It was renowned throughout the world for its fish and oranges, and the people had prospered. The exports to Europe afforded fishermen and farmers the chance to live in magnificent houses lining the shore.
    Now those same houses had been made into flats for rich Israelis or converted into restaurants, art galleries, and shops that catered to the throngs of visitors happy to erase the Palestinians from memory. Even the streets were