The cool night air from the barred window soothed Rabbi Josh’s burning eyes but did nothing for his sore feet. He had paced the cell for hours, going from wall to wall, glancing at his broken wristwatch as if it could tell the time. Masada’s words had torn him apart. How cruel he had been to this woman, whose heart had repeatedly been broken by devastating losses. Now she was in mortal danger, and he was caged like an animal by his own people.
It had been hours, and his hands hurt from pounding on the door. Silver’s conversation with the taxi driver played repeatedly in his mind. Panic rose in his throat. He hit the door again. “Let me out! Please!”
What if they didn’t release him until the morning?
Masada would be dead.
Suddenly God’s plan became clear: Raul had died for a reason, for the greater good of Israel, because only his father could stop Silver’s evil scheme from consuming Masada and turning Israel’s only ally into a foe.
Raul died for a reason!
Rabbi Josh kicked the steel table. It shook. He tried to move it, but it was bolted to the floor. He fell to his knees and started to unscrew the bolts. All but one came out. He wiped his hands on his shirt and tried again. The last bolt wouldn’t budge. He wrapped it with the lapel of his shirt and tried, but the bolt was too tight.
He rolled on his back and looked up at the ceiling. Was God testing him again? Was it Masada’s turn to die because of his weakness?
The idea scared him so much that he jumped up, grabbed the table and heaved it upward. The last bolted leg bent, and he pushed the table all the way up until it stood perpendicular to the floor, three legs sticking out, the fourth leg holding it up like a skeletal dancer ready to pirouette. He forced the table down in the opposite direction, three legs pointing at the ceiling, and lifted it up, then down again, repeating it again and again, his muscles aching, until the leg broke off and the table slipped from his hands and fell.
Rabbi Josh lifted the steel table and threw it at the mirrored wall. It left a vertical crack in the mirror. He dragged the table across the room, held it up, and rushed back, ramming the corner into the crack, which got longer, slicing his reflection from the top of his head to his crotch. He did it again, and now the crack reached from the ceiling to the floor. Nearing exhaustion, he swung the table in a semicircle and hit the mirror, hammering it several times. The crack let out additional fissures. His arms and shoulders ached, but he kept going until the left half of the mirror broke and fell into the adjoining room.
They woke Elizabeth up in the middle of the night and made her stand in the hallway. She tightened the headdress and smoothed the yellow galabiya. Imam Abdul, the school principal, was holding a rope.
“Don’t you have respect for the law?” she asked. “Even the Sharia sets limits to abuse.”
“You’re an expert on Islamic law too?”
“I demand to see my father!”
“You will see him in the morning and depart with honor.”
His quick relenting surprised her. “Well, that’s good.”
He placed the rope around her waist, pulled a knife, and cut the rope at the exact circumference. “Go back to sleep,” he said.
As they were leaving, one of them said, “What will she do with seventy-”
The end of the sentence was lost in their laughter. It sounded like “burka’in,” which in Arabic meant “ponds,” but it made no sense. What would she want with seventy ponds? And why was it so funny?
Rabbi Josh tiptoed through the adjoining room, avoiding the mirror shards. The hallway windows overlooked the lit-up parking lot. The chicken-wire cage was empty. He tried to open a window, but it was fixed in a wooden frame. He broke it with his elbow and heard the glass fall on the asphalt outside. He got over the windowsill and hung by his hands. Shouts came from down the hall.
Below, the blacktop was strewn with broken glass. To one side was a planter with bushes. He tilted his feet and began to swing like a pendulum.
The voices in the hallway were getting close.
He swung wider, building up momentum, and let go, flying sideways. His bare feet landed just inside the planter, his body falling backward, cushioned by the bushes, the branches cradling his buttocks and thighs.
Someone uttered a curse above.
It was a perfect landing, but the branches sprung back up to their original position and catapulted him forward with force he had not anticipated. He blocked the fall with his hands. Glass slivers broke into fragments that lodged in the skin of his palms.
He sprinted across the parking lot, ignoring the blowing whistles and the pain in his blistered feet and bleeding hands, down an access road, through a small park with swings and a sandbox, along a dark alley and between two buildings, into Jaffa Street.
It was filled with people.
He grabbed a passerby’s wrist and looked at the watch. 2:26 a.m.
Masada had slept fitfully. She took a lukewarm shower and went downstairs at 2:28 a.m., carrying the video backpack. Professor Silver was waiting, dressed in a white shirt and blue suspenders. He was chatting with the front desk clerk. She asked, “You’re still here?”
“I took over at midnight.” The clerk’s acne turned angry red. “From my brother.”
Silver, in a white baseball cap but no glasses, clapped his hands. “Identical twins!”
“Not exactly,” the clerk said. “I read books, my brother plays electronic games.”
Taking Masada’s arm, the professor asked, “That’s the only difference?”
The clerk’s face turned even redder. “My brother likes blondes, I like older women.”
“Like aged wine,” Silver said, chuckling.
“Very funny.” Masada held the door for him.
“Meidaleh,” he patted her hand, “for me you’re a kid.”
The street outside was as busy as in midday. “Our driver is late.” Silver put down his shoulder bag and strained to see farther down the street. “Is this the punctuality of a retired army sergeant?”
“I’m going to buy a mobile phone tomorrow. Do you want one too?”
“Perhaps.”
Masada noticed how small and frail the professor looked. “I don’t have a good feeling about tonight. Let’s go back to sleep.”
Rabbi Josh ran up Jaffa Street. He knew the quickest route to the Ramban Hostel, but his pace was hampered by the human mass that filled the wide road, pressing against the storefronts, swelling into side streets.
He looked at someone’s watch. 2:29 a.m.
The intersection at Jaffa and King George was packed with dancing circles that turned in opposite directions within tight confines, resembling the inside of a clock. A woman grabbed his hand to pull him into a circle. He groaned in pain, retrieving his bloody hand.
She yelled, “Sorry,” and disappeared in the mayhem of leaping feet and singing, “Am Yisrael chai, the Nation of Israeli lives,” as if their voices could be heard all the way to Washington.
Rabbi Josh moved sideways, leading with his right shoulder, making his way up King George Street. At the top of the hill he paused and glanced back at the sight of thousands upon thousands of joyous Israelis, dancing ecstatically, hands locked in unity. Masada’s made-up news report had confronted them with the fragility of Israel’s existence. It had marginalized all political differences and unified everyone in yearning for Israel’s perseverance. Rabbi Josh watched in awe. He knew this sight was unlike anything he would ever see again in his lifetime.
He forced himself to turn away. At this moment, his concern wasn’t for Israel or for the Jewish people, but for one woman in mortal danger.
Farther along the street, the Jewish Agency compound sported a blimp in the shape of a yellow Statue of Liberty holding a torch whose flame was a Star of David. A youth ran by and dropped a yellow hat on the rabbi’s head, hitting the lump left by the police baton earlier.
“Nonsense!” The professor took her hand. “Don’t be a pessimist. This is an opportunity to reconnect with old friends, make peace with the past, relieve the guilt that’s been festering-”
“I heard you the first time.”
“But I hear nothing from you! As your friend, I’d like to know what happened to your family. I could understand you better, be helpful. Were you in America already when your brother was killed?”
“You don’t want to know.” Her eyes followed a family marching by, the father carrying the little girl, her head resting on his shoulder.
“But I do.”
“Beware.” Masada bent to tighten the straps of her knee brace. “I bring bad luck. Anyone close to me gets hurt.”
“I am not afraid.” Silver pointed. “Ah! Here’s our taxi.”
Rabbi Josh turned onto Ramban Street, his feet on fire, and kept running. Halfway down the street, a long line formed at a bus station, blocking his way. He yelled, “Move!” and plowed through. Cars and buses traveled up the street, their headlights in his eyes. The hostel was close, and he prayed the taxi was late.
A slight curve to the right, and he saw the front steps in the distance. He zigzagged between pedestrians, searching for Masada’s tall figure. Please, let her be there!
And there she was, stepping off the curb into the open door of a taxi.
He ran faster. “Masada!”
Professor Silver got in behind her and slammed the door.
Rabbi Josh waved his arms.
The taxi moved, merging into traffic toward the rabbi.
Leaping into the road, he ran in the narrow gap between the moving vehicles and the sidewalk. As the taxi drew near, he saw Masada in the rear seat, her head bowed, looking at the floor. He stepped into the road in front of the taxi, blocking the way, and waved at the driver to stop. The taxi swerved, avoiding him. He jumped sideways, the bumper missing him by a thread. “Stop!”
The taxi sped away, Masada looking down, not seeing him.
Professor Silver’s face appeared in the rear window. He smiled and waved.
When he saw the rabbi charging down the street like a madman, Silver thought, So much for Rajid’s assurances. As Ezekiel drove off, merging into traffic, Silver reached between the front seats, turned up the music, and yelled, “Oy! I dropped my medicine!” He peered at the floor by Masada’s feet. “Do you see it?”
Masada bent down, searching the floor of the car. Silver looked up just as Rabbi Josh jumped in front of the taxi. His hands were red, as if he had dipped them in paint, his hair wild, his mouth opened in a yell that was drowned by the loud music.
“Hey!” Ezekiel swerved around the rabbi. “What a meshugge.”
Silver rested a hand on Masada shoulder, keeping her down.
“Did you find it?”
“It may be under the seat.” Masada reached down, feeling the carpet.
“Is it?” He glanced over his shoulder and waved at the rabbi.
Rabbi Josh tried to chase the taxi, but it was no use. Running back to the hostel, he considered calling the police but realized he had nothing to tell them. Professor Levy Silver was a respected Jewish academic-vouched for by the rabbi himself. The only way to save Masada was by catching up with the two of them and confronting Silver face-to-face in front of her.
There was no answer at any of the taxi companies except one, where the dispatcher said that all his drivers had taken the night off to attend the rally.
The clerk gave Rabbi Josh a first-aid kit. Back in his room, he used tweezers to remove the glass shards from his hands. He took off his socks and cleaned all his wounds with alcohol. He bandaged his feet over a thick layer of ointment and applied antiseptic lotion over the lacerations on his palms before bandaging his hands. He changed his shirt and forced his feet into running shoes, which he could not tie with his bandaged hands. He used a wet cloth to wipe the dirt off his face. He could do nothing about his hair.
Downstairs, the clerk showed him a map of Jerusalem, tracing the way to the city’s eastern exit, where he could hitch a ride to the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea. “Make sure you stay out of the Arab neighborhoods,” the clerk tapped at the colored sections in the northern and eastern parts of the city, “and don’t go into a car unless you’re sure they’re Jews.”
“How can you tell the difference?” Rabbi Josh headed for the door, thinking of Professor Silver’s effective deceit.
The 3 a.m. news found them on the road, descending among dark hills into the desert. Masada tried to stretch her legs in the small car while the Voice of Israel tallied the likely votes in Washington based on the tone of each of the senators’ speeches. So far, it was forty-seven to twelve in support of the anti-Israel act. Even the opponents of the wholesale suspension of aid and cooperation did not object to the imposition of penalties as long as they were tied to the findings of an investigation. Only a lone senator from Connecticut, an observant Jew with a record of political independence, called for complete scrapping of the punitive legislation, arguing that the Israeli government’s official denial of guilt entitled it to an presumption of innocence until proven otherwise. The radio replayed Senator Mitchum’s earlier comments and predicted a final vote by 6:00 a.m., Israel time.
“Terrible,” Professor Silver said. “America, of all nations, turning against us.”
“And for what?” Ezekiel lifted his hands off the steering wheel. “Some crazy Jews give money to a senator, and the whole relationship should go to hell?”
“It’s anti-Semitism,” Silver concluded. “Pure and simple. The goyim are always looking for an excuse.”
“Exactly.” The driver glanced over his shoulder. “And it’s not your fault, Miss El-Tal. You did your job, that’s all.”
Masada didn’t answer. What was the point?
Silver leaned forward. “Please, Ezekiel, she’s on a private excursion tonight.”
“My lips are sealed.” The driver turned down the radio, which was reporting on planned Arab celebrations in the West Bank and Gaza. “If I may, Miss El-Tal, I was deeply moved by your comments at the rally. You are a very brave woman to tell us what we don’t want to hear.”
Silver turned to her. “You gave a speech? What did you say?”
“Oh!” Ezekiel swayed his head from side to side. “You should have heard her. Reminded me of the prophet Deborah, who led us against the Canaanites thousands of years ago.” He quoted from memory, “And travelers feared the roads, caravans bypassing the land, unarmed villages emptied of their inhabitants, until God brought forth Deborah, brought forth the Mother of Israel.” The driver shook a finger. “It’s the same now. Jews are afraid to travel on the roads, to shop in malls, our enemies attack us with bombs and rockets and shootings. We need a leader like Deborah.”
“Find someone else,” Masada said.
“But you have the gift,” Ezekiel insisted. “Look at the incredible impact of your words!” He flashed his high beam at an oncoming car. “Seriously, none of the prophets wanted to prophesy. They were reluctant voices of morality. That’s why people listened to them.”
“Or crucified them,” Masada said.
Rabbi Josh jogged along the streets that skirted downtown Jerusalem, avoiding the crowds, and made his way to the city eastern exit. He slowed down when the burning blisters reached intolerable heat.
A group of Hassidic men danced in the forecourt of a synagogue, embracing bejeweled Torah scrolls. Their bearded leader stood on a chair in the middle, waving a U.S. flag that had been modified, the stars replaced by a large yellow Star of David.
As the pain got worse, Rabbi Josh developed avoidance techniques, putting more weight on one foot for a while, then switching, or walking on his heels or toes or even on the outside of his sneakers like a sailor with bowed legs-brief reprieves that kept him going.
It was 3:35 a.m. when he reached a well-lit intersection near Hebrew University and realized he was one of many waiting for a ride out of Jerusalem. He kept going. At the next intersection he saw a sign pointing to the Dead Sea.
Farther down, the road split. An overpass with no sidewalk veered left and up over the residential area, and a local road curved to the right. He continued on the local road while cars went on the overpass, their open windows letting out the sounds of passengers singing.
As he walked deeper into the Arab neighborhood, the air smelled differently and the homes showed no sign of life, as if the inhabitants had gone underground. He stopped by a driveway to tighten the bandages on his hands using his teeth. When he began walking again, the pain in his feet was tenfold. He endured this intensified pain for another dozen steps, hoping his feet would readjust, but tears blurred his vision.
He stopped and rested his bandaged hands on the trunk of a parked car. He looked up, but saw only a black sky. Taking deep breaths, he waited for the pain to subside. Time was running out-the memorial service would start in less than an hour. Would it last thirty minutes? An hour? As soon as it was over, Silver would lure Masada away from the others, near the edge, and-
A loud beep jolted him. The lights of the parked car blinked. Another beep.
He began to laugh and looked up. “That’s your divine answer? Peep. Peep. Peep. What’s that supposed to mean? Tough luck. Eat it.” He bumped the rear of the car with his hip, and it beeped and flashed again. “You want me to fail again?” He was shouting now. “Say hi to Raul for me, will you? Tell him I’m letting Masada down-literally! Tell him: Raul, your dad is a loser!” He hit the trunk of the car with his lacerated hand, immediately folding over in agony. “Oh, God,” he broke down, “not Masada! Please, not her! I beg you!” He sank to the pavement while the parked car beeped and flashed. “Not Masada!”
Nearby, a man shouted something in Arabic.
Ezekiel pulled into a gas station in the middle of nowhere and stepped out of the car, leaving the engine running, the radio blaring rock music with Hebrew lyrics. He started the pump and walked off a few steps, talking on his mobile phone, a burning cigarette dangling from his lips, his hand gesturing to emphasize a point in the conversation.
Silver said, “Can you believe this guy?”
“Israelis are addicted to phones.” Masada turned to Silver. “By the way, I called Young Israel in Toronto last week.”
“Did you?” Silver saw Ezekiel spit out the cigarette and stamp it with his heel.
“Asked for the Solomons.”
He turned to Masada. This line of questioning was going somewhere he didn’t want to go. “The Solomons?”
“Your friends. The couple Sheen mentioned.” She looked at him. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, of course.” He made himself smile. “I blanked out for a moment. The Solomons, my friends, yes. Did you speak to them? How are they?”
“Bernie’s dead. The wife is in an old-age home.”
“Oh.” Silver clucked his tongue. “Too bad. He was a fine doctor. We played poker every Thursday.”
“I thought he was a lawyer.”
“Was he? Are you sure? He was retired already when we met, so-”
“Why would Sheen use their name? It’s too specific. You could have called to check.”
Silver shrugged. “Twisted is the criminal mind.”
“Have you ever mentioned the Solomons to Rabbi Josh?”
“Yes!” Silver felt like kissing her for providing a convenient lie. “You’re so clever! I once told him how Bernie and I played poker, and the winner got to read from the Torah on the Sabbath.”
“That explains it. Rabbi Josh must have told Sheen to use their names.”
“Exactly.” Silver was pleased with his narrow escape.
Ezekiel returned to the wheel. “A full belly, and off we go!”
They drove in silence, Masada looking out the dark window.
After a while, she pointed at a cluster of lights. “That’s my kibbutz. Juicy tomatoes and dead heroes.”
“Ya Sidi?” A man bent over Rabbi Josh. The beeping and flashing stopped.
“I’m sorry,” the rabbi said, wiping his face, “very sorry.”
“It’s okay,” the man said in English with an Arabic accent.
“You come inside, please?” He hooked a hand under Rabbi Josh’s arm and helped him up.
“Ahhh!” The pain in his feet was unbearable, and he sat on the ground. He tried to remove his jogging shoes, but his bandaged hands got in the way.
The Arab man crouched and slowly removed each shoe. In the streetlight the rabbi saw a gray moustache and a striped pajama.
Free from the grind of the shoes against his raw feet, Rabbi Josh was able to walk slowly to the house. The front door had a large cross recessed into its wood facing. In the foyer a candle burned at the feet of a full-scale crucifix. The man shut the door and turned on the light. His eyes went over Rabbi Josh’s bandaged feet and hands, the long hair and tearful eyes. The man glanced at the crucifix, crossed himself, and hurried through a door.
A moment later the whole family appeared-the man’s wife, grasping his arm, five daughters, and a hunchback grandma who shuffled with a cane. Crossing the line formed by the others, the old woman measured him from head to toe.
Rabbi Josh knelt, his face level with her. He smiled, pointing to himself. “Joshua.”
She nodded knowingly, and her gnarled hand let go of the cane, which dropped to the floor. She caressed the stubble on his cheeks and the bruises on his forehead. She touched his hair and took his bandaged hands, kissing each one. She crossed herself and uttered a long sentence-not in Arabic, but in Latin. She repeated the sentence. Tears appeared in the creased corners of her eyes. She turned to her family and said tremulously, “Christo Santi.”
The youngest daughter looked up at her father. He crossed himself.
Then it dawned on Rabbi Josh. He rose painfully, shaking his head. “Oh, no!”
Masada got out of the taxi and looked up at the dark shadow of the mountain, its flat top outlined against the night sky. She strapped on the backpack and tightened each one as Oscar had instructed her. She offered to carry Silver’s bag, but he declined, shouldered it himself.
The cable car filled up quickly, and the two of them stood in the corner as the swaying car detached from its docking bay and began ascending through the darkness. A single fluorescent bulb lit the interior.
A woman in shorts and a windbreaker asked, “Aren’t you Srulie’s sister?”
All conversations ceased. Everyone turned to look at Masada.
“Don’t you remember me?” The woman smiled, and the dimples at the corners of her mouth brought out a faint resemblance to a cheerful girl in long braids.
“I remember,” Masada said. “Galit, Galit, yaffa ke’margalit.”
“Srulie had a way with words.” Galit passed a hand through her silver-lined, cropped hair. “I no longer remind anyone of a pretty gemstone.”
The cable car shook, passing over a series of rollers on its way up. Silver held Masada’s arm, his fingers digging into her flesh. The ride smoothed out. His grip did not loosen.
“Since that night,” Galit tilted her head at the mountain, “I’ve always wondered-”
“You were one of the hostages?” Silver let go of Masada’s arm and adjusted his white baseball cap. “Must have been terrible!”
Masada thought, How does he know it was a hostage situation?
Galit nodded.
“I am Professor Levy Silver. I made aliyah last Friday!”
Everyone murmured congratulations.
“You must be very brave,” he said, “to survive such an ordeal at a young age.”
Galit pointed at Masada. “Bravery is her department.”
“Bravado, maybe.” Masada’s mind was racing through past conversations with Silver-she had never mentioned a single detail about that night. Only an hour earlier, in the car, he pretended not to know anything, and now he was talking of hostages and their young age. How? It made no sense!
He opened his mouth to speak, but the cable car slowed its ascent and scraped against metal rails as it docked. The door opened, and they filed out onto a wooden landing. Masada reached back over her shoulder and felt up the top of the backpack until her fingers found the antenna. She flipped it aside to turn on the camera.
They followed a path lit by pale lamps. The backpack weighed heavy on Masada’s shoulders, and her knee ached, either from the climb or from the memory of what had happened on this mountaintop.
Silver tripped, and his bag slipped off his shoulder and banged into her.
“Ouch! What’re you carrying? Books?”
“I’m a professor.” He picked it up. “When I stop schlepping books, you’ll know I’m dead.” He patted her backpack. “And what’s in yours? Camping gear?”
“Who told you it was a hostage situation?”
He stopped and leaned against the stone wall, panting. “It’s common sense, right? This place is near the Jordanian border, so it must have been a terrorist attack.”
“The news at the time reported it as an accident with an old grenade. That’s all the public has ever heard.”
“Somebody must have told me.” Silver chuckled. “There are no secrets among us Jews, you know?”
Masada sensed he wasn’t telling the truth. “Who told you?”
He grabbed the railing and continued up the stone steps. “It’s not important.”
She helped him through a hairpin turn made of three steep steps. “Rabbi Josh, told you, didn’t he?”
He didn’t answer.
“You’re playing both sides.” She supported him up the last step. “We’re not children, you know.”
“For me,” Silver panted, “you are children. My children.”
They passed though a gate onto the flat expanse on top of Mount Masada. A bonfire burned in the middle of the ancient fort, shedding light on a large bronze plaque: Again Masada Shall Not Fall!
Rabbi Josh’s denials made little impression on the grandmother, who kept murmuring Christ’s name and touching his face. He removed the bandages from his foot to show her there was no nail hole in it, but the red, bloated foot only intensified her reverence. Eventually, he relented, placed his hands over her head, and gave her a lengthy blessing in Hebrew.
Dr. Salibi was a Christian-Arab internist, holding an Israeli ID card as a resident of East Jerusalem. He brewed strong tea, gave Rabbi Josh a pill that removed the edge from his pain, and cleaned and bandaged his wounds before getting him into the car for the drive.
They descended to the Jordan Valley, past the lights of Jericho. The soldiers at a checkpoint waved them through. Continuing south along the black surface of the Dead Sea, they passed a sign for Kibbutz Ben-Yair. A few minutes later they reached Mount Masada. The car’s clock showed 4:38 a.m.
Parked at the circular driveway were two pickup trucks marked Kibbutz Ben Yair and a beige taxicab. A man leaned against the taxi, smoking and talking on a phone. Farther down the access road was a news van with a raised antenna dish on the roof.
Rabbi Josh embraced Dr. Salibi and hurried up the path to the tourist center at the eastern base of the mountain. The place was deserted. He followed the signs to the cable car terminal. A lone operator was reading a magazine against a portable lantern. The cable car was empty. In ten minutes he would reach the top and find Masada. He didn’t care about proving Silver’s guilt-that would come later.
The operator pushed aside a steel-mesh gate and opened the door. The car swayed gently on the tight cable. Rabbi Josh entered. The operator shut the door and returned to his post. The car detached from the dock and began its ascent.
Below, the rabbi saw the operator hold his hand to his ear, his lips moving. He hurried to the wall and hit a button on a control panel. The cable car stopped abruptly, swaying back and forth. He elbowed the window and gestured at the operator, who glanced up, shrugged, and returned to his magazine. Trying to slide the window open, Rabbi Josh realized the windows were fixed, transparent plastic. He banged on it again, but the operator didn’t even raise his head.
“Look at this place! King Herod’s fort!” Silver held on to Masada’s arm, taking in the scene by moving his head from side to side, shifting the blotch. They followed the group along a path marked by candles in brown bags.
“Rabbi Josh is using you.” Masada stopped walking. “Just like he used Al, and as the Israelis are using him. What else did he tell you?”
“Meidaleh, it’s not important.” He pulled her toward the group by the bonfire, determined to derail her line of questioning. “We’re here to honor your brother’s memory.”
“Answer me!”
Silver felt the bulge of Rajid’s handgun. “Masada, dear, your brother walked his last steps here. He deserves your full attention. You deserve it too.”
She glared at him.
“I know,” Silver said softly, “that you’re angry at me, but it’s only because I tell you the truth. Forget Rabbi Josh and Al Zonshine and the Israelis.” He pointed at the burning fire. “This is a sacred moment.” Before she could say anything, he left her and headed toward the group of kibbutzniks singing a melancholic Israeli ballad.
Galit sat on a broken marble column. He sat beside her and hummed the tune, glancing at her. She had once been his hostage on this mountain, had seen him cry for his fallen son and his failed plan. Silver did not recognize Galit, and she clearly didn’t recognize him-it had been many years, and he had worn a mask the whole time. But he felt an odd kinship with this Israeli kibbutznik-their lives had been transformed by the same disastrous dawn in 1982.
She gestured at Masada, who remained standing on the path where he’d left her. “Is she okay?”
“My dear friend has suffered many disappointments lately.”
Silver sighed. “She’s lost everything and has no prospect of recovery. I’m truly worried about her.”
“First time she’s here. All these years I’ve waited to see her.”
“Were you close to her brother?”
“Srulie was wonderful.” Galit took a deep breath. “They were both exceptional. But Masada was my hero, even before the tragedy.”
“She’s my hero too. What happened-”
“Then you understand.” Galit smiled.
Silver nodded. “It’s still hard for her to discuss what happened to him.” He motioned at the circle of men and women sitting around the fire. “Are they all survivors?”
“Relatives, friends. The kibbutz was never the same afterwards. Especially with all the secrecy surrounding the incident. It was hard to mourn, to heal, while the newspapers criticized us for playing with live ammunition, as if we didn’t know, as if we were dumb farm hands who couldn’t tell a hand grenade from a Roman ballista.” She took his hand and put it on her forehead, at the hairline. “Feel it?”
His finger touched an elongated lump under the skin.
“Still there. A piece of shrapnel.”
“It’s the price we Jews pay for freedom.” He lowered his hand. “But that ludicrous rescue attempt, the commander sending a lone woman to attack-”
“He didn’t send her.” Galit’s face glowed against the flames. “It was her initiative. She was the only one who tried to save us. Those Arabs would have killed us all.”
Silver was offended. “Why do you say that? There was no-” He stopped himself from saying more. This wasn’t the place to proclaim the noble intentions of Arab terrorists, even if he knew those intentions first-hand.
“I’m not angry at her.”
“Why should you be?” He was getting close. “So she acted without orders. What happened to her afterwards?”
Galit turned and pointed at Masada. “Why don’t you ask your friend.”
“This isn’t happening,” Rabbi Josh said. There was an intercom setup by the sliding door of the cable car. He pressed the button. “Get me up to the mountaintop! It’s a matter of life and death!” Through the window he could see the operator glance up indifferently.
He found a glass-fronted box painted with a red flame containing an ax. He broke the glass with his elbow and managed to pull out the ax with his bandaged hands. “Here we go again,” he said, and went to the large window, which now overlooked the terminal below. He swung the ax and hit the window, which cracked loudly. He swung it again while the operator jumped to his feet and started waving frantically. The second hit blasted the window, and large chunks fell to the desert rocks, approximately four stories below.
At that moment, the car jerked and began to descend back to the base.
The operator opened the sliding door and yelled, “Are you crazy?”
“I must reach the top!” Rabbi Josh pointed up at Mount Masada. “Now!”
“The cable car is out of order!”
“Liar!”
The operator turned and walked back to his chair. “Take a hike.”
Rabbi Josh saw a sign: Snake Path. “How long to the top?”
The man drew on a cigarette and made smoke rings, which rose one after the other, melting into the darkness. The rabbi grabbed the lantern and ran to the dirt path. Behind him, the cable-car operator cursed.
Masada watched Professor Silver chatting with Srulie’s childhood friend. His slip about the hostages broke open a dam in her mind, letting out fact after fact. She didn’t move, fearing the flow would cease. Everything that had happened to her since Silver had first showed up with the memory stick suddenly made sense. How could she have been so blind?
Approaching them, Masada heard Silver say to Galit, “You mean, Masada knows who that woman-”
“Levy,” Masada said, “let’s take a walk.”
He hesitated. “We were just talking about you.”
She took his arm and helped him up, leading him away from the fire, toward the cluster of ruins at the northern edge of the mountain. “You and Rabbi Josh make quite a team.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What an irony,” she said. “I lost my only brother here, and now I’m back here to lose my only friend.”
“Oy vey!” Silver stopped, turning to her. “Don’t say that!”
“What else did our saintly rabbi tell you?” With the fire illuminating only one side of his face, she couldn’t make out Silver’s expression. “That I’m mentally ill? That I’ve never recovered from my brother’s violent death?”
“You don’t have to explain such pain to me. I know it firsthand. Listen to me carefully, meidaleh, as friends we must be open to each other-”
“Meidaleh, sh’meidaleh. That’s another coincidence, your choice of the same term of endearment my father had used.”
“Wasn’t he approximately my age? I’m fortunate to have lived much longer that your father, but all Jewish men of our generation share a certain vocabulary, right?”
“A verbal coincidence? A lucky break?” Masada pointed. “There’s the Lottery Room, where archeologists found eleven shards of clay the Zealots drew to select those who would help the others die before killing themselves. Now, who’s the lucky one?”
“They were idealists,” Silver said. “Heroic.”
“Heroes don’t slaughter their wives and kids for political reasons.” Masada resumed walking. “I don’t believe in luck. I want logic.”
“Logic and friendship are life’s twin essentials. Especially for us, the Chosen people.”
“Only logic. No friendships. No coincidences either.”
The professor shook his head.
“You see this square hole in the ground?” Masada turned so that the lens at the end of the pinky-size tube attached to her shoulder strap could capture what she was looking at. “The Zealots dug a mikvah two thousand years ago-a ritual bath in the middle of the desert-so they could come clean with their God. Would you come clean with me?”
“But Masada, I’ve always been straight with you.”
“You’ve had problems with your eyes, but I was the blind one.”
“I don’t understand,” he said plaintively, “why are you doing this?” He stumbled on a rock, and his bag slipped off his shoulder.
“Here are my questions.” Masada helped him up. “What logic caused Sheen to stay with you even though he could afford a hotel? Borrow your car even though he could rent one? Use Al to deliver the money even though Al was certifiably insane? Forget the memory stick in your car even though it contained a video clip of his crime? Can you see the logic in Sheen’s actions?”
“I’m sure there were reasons.”
“A single reason: Sheen never existed. He’s a figment of your imagination.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Facts don’t lie. They sometimes hide in plain view when I don’t want to see them, but they don’t lie.” Masada faced him. “Here is my logic: Rabbi Josh, a feverish Zionist, was recruited by Colonel Ness as an agent. Al had confided in the rabbi about the secret he held over Mahoney’s head, something dishonorable Mahoney did while he was a POW in Hanoi. The rabbi reported to Ness, who came up with the plan to use Al to bribe the senator to pass the Mutual Defense Act in the Senate. A hidden video camera captured the payment.” Masada tightened the shoulder straps, hoping Tara and Oscar were close enough to receive the transmittal. “Then Rabbi Josh recruited you, probably using the same Zionist ideology, to deliver the so-called lost memory stick to me, because he knew I’d never suspect you of foul play. With my ingrained bitterness about Israel, I barged ahead, extracted a confession from the senator, and went public with the story.”
“This is totally unfounded!”
“A perfect chain of cause and effect. Zero coincidences.”
“But why would the Israelis want the bribe exposed? It’s illogical!” Professor Silver looked odd without his eyeglasses, the baseball cap pulled down over his forehead. “It ruined any chance for the Mutual Defense Act.”
“That’s easy. Israel doesn’t need a mutual defense arrangement with the United States. In fact, it would be ruinous to the Israeli access to U.S. weapons and aid, because opponents in Washington would argue that Israel no longer needs a strong army if the U.S. military has to defend it in case of an attack. The Israelis always insisted on defending themselves, not relying on other countries.”
“So why?”
“Simple. Colonel Ness planned to pin it on Judah’s Fist, an imaginary secret Jewish organization, to incite a scandal. A bribe payment to a senator by American Jews would paint them as a fifth column in America, their dual loyalty unmasked, traitorous Judas, just like Jonathan Pollard, AIPAC, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.”
Professor Silver made a show of incredulity. “Why would Israel want the goyim to rage against American Jews?”
“What’s Israel’s biggest existential risk?”
“Nuclear attack by an Arab country.”
“Nations build nuclear weapons for deterrence, not for actual use. No, the only existential risk to Israel’s survival as a Jewish state festers in Arab women’s wombs.”
“Say again?”
“It’s simple math. Israel’s Arab population grows faster than the Jewish population. Diaspora Jews no longer move to Israel. In fact, there are more Jews living in the five boroughs of New York City than in the whole State of Israel. It’s a process that would lead to an Arab majority in Israel.”
Silver puffed air. “Demographics cannot be predicted with any kind of accuracy.”
“The trend is so clear that it’s only a question of time. However, what if the largest Jewish community in the world suddenly lost its comfortable coexistence with the gentile majority? What if a large number of American Christians returned to embracing the church’s long tradition of anti-Semitism? What if Jews were attacked in New York and Los Angeles and Miami? What would they do?”
Silver didn’t answer.
“The biggest wave of aliyah in the history of Israel! Hundreds of thousands of affluent, educated, worldly Jews moving to Israel, an infusion of new Jewish blood that Israel desperately needs. That’s why you guys arranged a bribe and invented the name Judah’s Fist, reminiscent of the historic Jewish betrayal of Jesus, and then tricked me into exposing the bribe. But I screwed up your plan. Instead of accusing a secret Jewish organization, I accused Israel, and Mahoney screwed it up further by killing himself, causing a corruption affair to turn into a veritable murder of an American war hero by Israel. So in addition to sporadic anti-Semitic attacks on American Jews, your plot produced a nasty backlash against Israel, which is why Ness is so anxious.” Standing near the hostage room, her back to the flickering bonfire, Masada watched Silver carefully to see his response.
“Master of the Universe, you’re brilliant!” He shook his head in awe. “Amazing! I’m so relieved that you figured out the truth. It’s been the hardest part for me, keeping secrets from you.” He sighed. “At least now you understand how pure my motives were, that I acted for the sacred purpose of saving Israel from a certain demographic demise. We’re both idealists, meidaleh, you and I. We’re the same, right?”
Masada was shocked at his sudden admission. She had merely been speculating. Had she hit the nail on the head the first time? It was too easy! She imagined Tara in the news van at the foot of the mountain, squealing at the monitor. Finally, a real breakthrough in their investigation!
“Thank God!” He looked up at the sky, which was tinged by predawn haze. “No more secrets between us! No more manipulations by the Israelis! No more treating us like pawns!” Silver waved a fist at the bonfire and the distant singing. “These Israelis, shame on them! Shame!”
Rabbi Josh didn’t see what tripped him. He got up, shone the lantern on his torn pants and scraped knees, and resumed running up the path. In the early twilight he saw the path slithering up the nearly perpendicular mountainside. A helicopter sounded in the distance, its engine noise bouncing off the cliffs.
The path forked. A sign pointed right to the Roman siege camp. He saw the outline of piled-up stones and restored huts where the ancient army had once camped. He thought of young Masada, a teenage kibbutznik, exploring the ancient ruins for coins or shards of clay. He looked at the sheer climb ahead and resumed running.
Professor Silver hoisted his bag and followed Masada. “And shame on Rabbi Joshua Frank for dragging me into this ill-conceived scheme!” He used the rabbi’s full name to distance himself.
“Shame on me, Levy, for letting my affection for you get in the way of the facts.”
“But I’m a victim, just like you!” Silver hoped he sounded outraged. He desperately wanted to return the conversation to the woman who had killed Faddah. It didn’t matter what Masada thought about the bribe. She would be dead as soon as she told him what she knew about the woman-solider who had murdered Faddah. “Listen, we can ponder for days the events surrounding the bribe-”
“No need to ponder. We know what Rabbi Josh did, and who helped him.”
“But Masada,” he made his voice tremble, “as you correctly figured out, my only job was to give you the video clip.”
She was quiet.
Silver recognized Herod’s main palace and the casement wall of rooms around the edge. There was the room.
“After my tires were slashed,” Masada said, “you appeared out of nowhere to offer a ride. You were planning to go back to search my car, right?”
Silver sighed. He had expected all along that Masada would one day connect all the dots, but why did it have to be today?
“Then you showed up in my house soon after the gas explosion, looking awfully surprised to see me alive. Your book reappeared under my fridge smelling of hashish. It’s logical, because no author would let his book remain in a house rigged to burn in a gas explosion, right?”
Silver didn’t respond. He feared that nothing he said would sound credible.
“With me surviving the series of accidents-the brownies, the snake, the explosion-you guys went for the real thing. A bullet. I saw you and Al in the synagogue. I thought you were trying to calm him down, but obviously you were prodding him to shoot me. Silly me.”
“You’re building a house of cards,” he said.
“And even after the disaster, with Raul’s body still warm, Al shows up in my house. And who’s right behind him?”
“Master of the Universe!” Silver shook his head. “Do you hear what you’re saying?”
“You picked up the gun and what did you say to me? Too bad it has to end like this. You were going to shoot me, right? And when the police rushed in, you put on such a great show of affection. You’re a great actor, Levy. You belong on the stage.”
“Oy! What am I going to do with you? Are you on drugs or something?”
“And guess who’s in Al’s hospital room when he croaks.”
“But I was in the bathroom! Is it my fault Al had a bad heart?” Silver’s indignation sounded hollow even to him.
“A coincidence, right?” Masada poked his chest. “Let me tell you what happened here, so you really understand Colonel Ness-the man you’ve been serving so diligently with your friend, the rabbi.”
“But-”
“Here.” She led the way to the entrance. “This is where the hostages were held.”
Silver leaned on a pile of rocks that was left from the barricade he had built with Faddah back then.
“Then, when you failed to kill me, you tried to convince me to let that Palestinian lawyer lock me up while you were about to hop on a plane to Israel with him.”
Silver cradled his face in his hands. “God help me, where did my sweet Masada go?”
“And you promised to hire a lawyer, while-”
“But I did hire a lawyer,” he protested. “We have a conference call in the morning. You saw the letter! I even mortgaged my house!”
“A mortgage on a house you don’t even own?”
Silver felt a pang of panic. She must have called someone in Arizona to check whether he owned the house. That could draw suspicion to him after she was killed. Who had she called? Silver lifted his hands in mock desperation. “How did you find out?”
“I guessed,” she said. “But you just confirmed it.”
“Ah. You’re a clever girl.”
“And the reason for your sudden aliyah was the eye operation, not compassion for Rabbi Josh. But Ness suspended the operation to pressure you to finish the job, right?” Masada gestured at the cliff’s edge. “Is Rabbi Josh already composing the eulogy, bemoaning my unbearable mental pain? And Ness is having a forgery made of a suicide note in my handwriting, where I retract my accusations against Israel and take responsibility for the bribe? The news of my self-inflicted demise would arrive in Washington just in time to stop the vote. How dramatic!”
He lifted the white visor of his cap and looked up at her, shifting sideways to move the blotch away from her lovely face. It would be impossible to surprise her with a shove. He might have to shoot her with Rajid’s gun. The silencer would prevent immediate exposure, but when her body was ultimately found, a bullet hole would complicate things greatly. Perhaps he would cover the corpse with rocks? But first, he must milk her for information about the woman who had killed Faddah. “I’m so hurt,” he said, “that you’d even think me capable of these crimes.”
“I don’t think. I know. As soon as I suspended my affection for you, I saw the logic. It’s like the three musketeers-a crippled colonel, a widowed rabbi, and a lonely professor.”
With that, Silver decided to change tactics. “Blessed be He for helping you figure out the truth. I’m filled with regrets. I made a terrible mistake. As Rabbi Hillel said-”
“Hillel again?”
“He said, Better be a tail to the lions than a head to the foxes. But your silly old Levy tried to follow the lions and instead ended up becoming a tail to the foxes. Could you ever forgive me?”
The Snake Path slithered up in tight turns, each section as steep as a rung in a treacherous stepladder. The Dead Sea slowly emerged from darkness, and a slight breeze came from it, tinged with dust and sulfur. Rabbi Josh grabbed on to boulders and pulled up higher and higher toward the top of the mountain. His hands bled in the loose bandages. He pushed away the thought of resting as he imagined Masada at the cliff’s edge, her face lit by the red dawn, Professor Silver behind her, his hands poised for a deadly shove while his lips whispered the name of Allah. The image so frightened the rabbi that he craned his head, looking up the sheer face of the rock, expecting to see her fall to her death.
He placed one burning foot ahead of the other, heaving his body upward. Each step was a shot of pain, God testing his resolve. “No,” he gritted his teeth, “you’re not getting Masada.”
Voices sounded from above. He kept going.
A woman yelped in surprise.
“Let me through!” He squeezed by her.
She flattened herself against a boulder. “Watch it!”
“Damned cable car,” a man complained, “why did it have to break down today?”
Fighting for air, Rabbi Josh asked, “Did you see Masada?”
The woman laughed, pointing up. “This is Masada.”
Another woman said, “Srulie’s sister? She took her friend for a walk.”
He bent over, feeling faint.
“They went to the north rim,” someone said.
Rabbi Josh forced his way up past the others.
“He’s too old to walk down,” a short woman said. “They’ll probably wait for the cable car to be fixed.”
“Watch your steps,” Masada said as they climbed over the heap of rocks at the entrance to the room. The stones were still black from the grenade explosion, preserved by the desert air all these years. There was no roof. At the opposite end of the room, only remnants of an outer wall marked the cliff’s edge.
Silver approached the edge.
“This is where my brother was pushed over. He died on the rocks below.” Masada tried to keep the images at bay, but she could hear Srulie yell, Masada!
“So awful. Wasteful.” Silver peeked over the low wall at the distant bottom.
Masada joined him, their elbows touching. “Srulie was wonderful. Full of promise. I miss him every day.”
“Oh,” Silver sighed, “how could it happen? I still don’t understand. I don’t.”
She waited for him to continue, but he began to sob.
“Levy?”
He covered his face, crying.
She was shocked by his sudden emotional outburst. Despite her anger at his involvement with Ness and his crimes, Masada realized that Silver also cared deeply for her. “It’s been a long time,” she said. “I’m okay. Really.”
Silver shook his head, continuing to sob into his hands.
She began to regret her accusations. His breaking down like this revealed real feelings for her. He shared her grief as a true, caring friend. It made no sense, but it was a fact. “Enough, Levy. Please.”
He kept crying, hunched over, his back to her.
Suddenly it dawned on Masada: He was putting on another one of his sympathy-generating acts. Soon he would hug her, tell her how her suffering broke his heart. Blah. Blah. Blah.
“You’re so full of shit!” She forced Silver around, grabbed his wrists, and tore his hands from his face, expecting to see his eyes dry.
But the professor wasn’t faking it. His face contorted with sorrow, his lips trembled with his sobs, and heavy tears rolled down his right cheek.
Only his right cheek.
The tip of the red sun cleared the mountains across the Dead Sea, illuminating his face. Masada peered at his left cheek. It was completely dry. “What’s this?” She let go of his wrists and took his jaw in her hands, twisting his head left and right, alternating the reflection of the sun in his eyes.
The answer was coming to her, too bewildering to accept. In his right eye, moist and tearful, the rising sun reflected as a red ball, glistening and angry. But in his left eye there was little moisture, and the sun reflected as a sharp point of red, as it would in a curved glass mirror. “No!” She forced his face left and right again. “It can’t be!”
“Ah.” Silver pulled something from his pocket and wrapped it around her wrists. “Please step back, dear.”
Masada looked at her wrists, cuffed with a plastic strap locked in a one-directional slit.
“As I once said,” Silver mused, “too bad it has to end like this.”
“You!” Masada lifted her cuffed wrists over his head.
He pushed at her. “Let go!”
With her wrists locked behind his neck, Masada pulled him to her.
“Stop it!” He pushed harder, trying to wriggle out of her grip.
She pressed on the back of his neck, forcing him closer. She planted her lips on his left eye, pressed his head to her, and sucked violently. The bulb of his eye popped into her mouth. It felt smooth, cold, and hard.
The wail of the muezzin woke Elizabeth up from a dream in which she held a smiling baby girl in her arms. She sat up. “It’s okay, sweetie.” She rubbed her belly. “I love you whether you’re a boy or a girl.”
The scarf had slipped off her head. She touched the cool skin of her scalp and reassured herself the hair would grow back. She covered her head, smoothed the front of the yellow robe, and went to the bathroom. After washing her face in the leaky sink, she joined the women in the kitchen to clean up from the pre-dawn meal the men had eaten before morning prayers. The women glanced at her while scrubbing the pots and plates.
On a small TV, set on a chair in the corner of the kitchen, a reporter appeared against the background of the Senate rotunda in Washington, where it was nighttime. He explained that a final vote on the Fair Aid Act would take place within minutes. Based on the positions expressed by the senators during the long debate, there was a clear majority for the anti-Israel legislation. After a brief transition by the anchorwoman in Atlanta, they cut to a black reporter in Jerusalem, shown against the background of Jews in yellow shirts, who had been dancing all night. “While the Israeli government has remained silent,” the reporter said, “the Israeli public has closed ranks in a rare show of unity, expressed in wearing yellow and exhibiting high spirits. But only few here expect the optimism to last, considering that the long friendship with America is about to suffer a devastating setback, and an uncertain future awaits this nation.”
One of the women approached Elizabeth and pressed a piece of paper into her hand. “My son, Salim,” the woman whispered, “is very ill. He’s only eleven. Pray for him.”
Elizabeth looked at the note, bewildered.
“Please,” the woman begged, closing Elizabeth’s fingers over the note, “tell Allah he’s a good boy, my Salim.”
Aunt Hamida led away the woman, who said over her shoulder, “Please! Allah will listen to you!”
Sharp pain shot through Silver’s empty eye socket. He bowed his head, slipped out of Masada’s locked arms, and shoved her as hard as he could. She stumbled backwards and landed on the dirt floor, her backpack hitting the opposite wall.
“Give back my eye!” He drew Rajid’s handgun.
The white porcelain eyeball appeared in Masada’s mouth. She turned her head and spat it over the edge.
Silver aimed the gun at Masada. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
She looked up at him, her mouth still gaping.
“Yes, I am Abu Faddah.” He found a rock to sit on, aiming the long silencer at her.
“You!”
“Listen!” He had to somehow control Masada until she told him about the woman soldier. “Your brother fell accidentally. I had no intention of killing any of them.”
“Murderer!” he began to get up.
“Your brother started fighting with-”
“Shut up!” She stood, wincing in pain, and took a step in his direction.
“Do you want to know how he died?”
Masada hesitated. She leaned back against the wall, staring at him.
“I came here in order to succeed where my fellow PLO fighters, with all their deadly attacks on Jewish kibbutzim, had failed miserably.” It was strange to tell her the truth, liberating in a way that made him feel young again. “It was a brilliant plan. I was sure it would work. I meant no harm to those kids. And I didn’t ask the Israelis to release any prisoners.”
“Save your lies.” Masada seemed ready to leap at him, no matter what happened to her. “You killed my brother. You!”
“I’m not the same person I was! For God’s sake, Masada, it’s almost three decades ago!”
“For me, it’s like yesterday.”
“Okay,” he said, raising his free hand to stall her, “I caused his death, I admit. I did a horrible thing. God has made me pay for it.” He waited, letting his expression of regret sink in. “For what it’s worth, I would like to tell you about your brother’s last moments. He was a brave boy-I swear, it’s the truth.” He put a hand to his chest. “Allah’s honor.”
Masada flinched, as if she could not yet comprehend the name of Allah coming from someone whom, until seconds before, she had known as an elderly Jewish professor.
“All I ask in return,” he said, “is that you tell me about the woman who killed my son.”
Her eyes widened. “Your son?”
“I knew the Israeli army would show up by helicopter.” He motioned at the open roof. “I tied up a sheet and placed the tallest hostage at the open side over the cliff, so they wouldn’t shoot in. It worked, but your brother attacked my son and got hold of the gun. Faddah wasn’t a fighter-that’s why I tried to recover our family home for him. I rushed to separate them. Faddah fell here,” Silver pointed at the dirt floor, “and your brother fell over there.” He pointed at the open end. “Allah is my witness, I tried to catch your brother, but he went down.”
“Liar!”
“Why are you always butting heads with reality? We both lost our dearest, but I was here, I saw what happened, you didn’t. And I accept responsibility for starting it, for causing the situation, but it should have ended without bloodshed. The disaster was solely due to the Israelis’ arrogance, the games they always play. You begrudge them too!”
“They didn’t push Srulie. Or throw a grenade.”
“It was an accident! I swear on Faddah’s grave!”
“You threatened to kill a hostage, and you acted on your ultimatum.”
Silver was surprised she knew about his ultimatum. The authorities must have told her after that night. “Empty threats, I assure you. I was an intellectual, not a man of action.”
“You killed him. You!”
“Enough!” Silver aimed the gun. “Your brother was arrogant, like you. It was his fault!”
Masada’s face was taut with hate.
“If you move, I’ll shoot you through the heart.”
“You won’t. You need information.”
He pointed at the open end. “The woman soldier who-”
“Who threw your precious Faddah after my brother and then stabbed your eye?”
“You know her!” He moved his face left and right, making sure the blotch wasn’t hiding Masada’s hands. “Where is she?”
“I’ll tell you. But first, explain how could a Palestinian, who lost a son to the Israelis, become their agent? How much are they paying you to betray your people?”
Within a few steps on the flat mountaintop, Rabbi Josh tripped on a castoff ballista and fell, landing on his hands and knees. He rose with difficulty, leaving bloody marks. He looked around to orient himself. The fort was much larger than he had imagined, at least three or four football fields put together side-by-side. He saw wooden scaffolds around half-ruined buildings and scattered pergolas for shade. Brass plaques marked different points of interest in Hebrew, English, and Arabic.
With the sunrise at his back, he figured north must be to his right. He ran.
Masada was in shock. Levy Silver was Abu Faddah? Was this another nightmare? The pain in her lower abdomen was real, and so was the black hole at the tip of his silencer. She was overwhelmed with rage, and it took all her self-control not to lunge at him. Tara had been right, and Masada was determined to reward her with his full confession on video. She stood straight, slightly turned so the tiny lens pointed at his face. “Traitor to your own people,” she said. “You repulse me.”
“Masada!” Rabbi Josh appeared at the heap of blackened rocks. He climbed over, lost his footing, and landed on his behind. “Stay away from him! He’s not-”
“You!” She picked up a pebble and threw it at the rabbi. “Came to witness the climax?”
Rabbi Josh’s breath came in short, wheezing sounds. Blood trickled from his bandaged hands. He held a bulky lantern, no longer needed in the rising sun. His shoes were unlaced, and bandages showed over his ankles.
“You’re quite a sight,” she said. “What’s Ness doing with you now? Biblical reenactments?”
Professor Silver raised the gun, aiming at her. “Stay where you are!”
“Don’t shoot!” Rabbi Josh cleared the hair that hung over his face, which was crusted with blood and dust. “The game is over, Levy!”
Silver turned the barrel toward him. “The game is only starting, Joshua.”
“If you shoot him,” Masada said, “your mutual boss will be upset.”
“My only boss is there.” Rabbi Josh pointed at the sky through the open roof. “And this man is an Arab.”
Masada laughed bitterly. “Ness didn’t tell you?” She saw blood collecting into a small puddle on the dirt floor under his hand. “An American rabbi and a Palestinian terrorist working together for a legless Israeli colonel. It’s like a tagline for a horror movie.” She moved a bit to the right, hoping the tiny lens could capture both of them. “Levy Silver. Or should I call you Abu Faddah? Or just turncoat.”
Professor Silver beckoned with the gun. “Move closer together, both of you.”
Rabbi Josh was startled by Silver’s missing eye. But the empty socket wasn’t bleeding and seemed to cause him no pain. His right eye glistened malevolently, so odd without his usual black-rimmed glasses. It was clear he was preparing to kill Masada, and the rabbi was determined to save her. He got ready to jump. The professor would shoot, but with enough momentum there was a good chance of toppling him, giving her a chance to run for it.
“Turncoat,” Masada mocked Silver. “Double-crosser. Quisling.”
“Shut up!” Silver moved the gun barrel back and forth between them.
Rabbi Josh bent his knees slightly, placing the right foot forward. Five, six steps, and he would be upon Silver. Even with a bullet wound he would be able to hold the elderly professor long enough for her to get away. He waited for the gun to turn to him, so that Silver would not press the trigger while the gun was pointing at her.
But Silver was too angry now, the long silencer shaking, his finger sliding into the trigger ring. “You dimwit Jews. You call me a traitor? Me? The Zionists took away my home, my family, my son. I’d rather die than work for them!”
Rabbi Josh hesitated. He had one chance. He must be certain his attack would save Masada. He inched closer, but she gave him a cautionary glance and said, “Abu Faddah, an Israeli agent.”
“Shut up!” Silver kept the gun on her. “Tell me where is the woman soldier!”
“Okay,” Masada said, oddly calm, “but only after you tell me the truth about the Mahoney bribe.”
Silver tossed his bag to Rabbi Josh. “Open it!”
The rabbi had advanced another step.
“Sit on the ground and open it!”
Rabbi Josh crouched, put down the lantern, and took the heavy package out of the briefcase. He removed three rubber bands that held the documents together. The top cover was blank. The second sheet had only a title in typed letters: Phase Three.
“I studied your history,” Silver said, “to understand how the Germans failed to rid humanity of the Jewish pests. I developed a plan, and you,” he pointed at Masada with the gun barrel, “helped me with the first phase. You wrote so convincingly, with such passion, that no one doubted Israel was behind the bribe.” He laughed. “But the money came from Ramallah!”
“God!” Rabbi Josh almost dropped Silver’s papers. “This is satanic!”
“Wait a minute,” Masada said. “This whole bribe operation was a Palestinian plot?”
“Exactly.” Silver grinned. “The plan, the execution, the funding-all directed by our leadership in Ramallah. You think of us as a bunch of stupid Arabs, capable only of shooting unarmed civilians or detonating explosive belts?” He glanced at his watch. “Within a few minutes, in Washington, the first phase of our operation will be accomplished, ending American support for Israel.”
“You’re lying,” Rabbi Josh said.
“The truth hurts,” Silver said. “But the future will hurt even more.”
“You know the future?” Masada leaned against the wall.
“The future will happen almost by itself. In Phase Two, without America, Israel will stand alone. The Europeans have always hated the Jews, and now they hate Israel. Asia is mostly Muslim. No government will alienate its population for the sake of Israel. The world will treat Israelis like it treated the Afrikaners-the apartheidization of Israel. International sanctions that will choke Israel until it grants Palestinian refugees the right of return and gives them the vote. And so, my dear former friends, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, from the Golan Heights to the Sinai Desert,” he smiled, the empty socket of his left eye squinting, “the dawn of a new Israel, ruled by an Arab majority.”
Rabbi Josh flipped the pages. A draft of a future press release was titled: The Burning of the Knesset: Government Declares Emergency Measures. He whispered, “Just like the burning of the Reichstag!”
“The Jews,” Silver declared, “will be very angry after the Arab majority elects a new government. It’s only reasonable to expect them to engage in rebellious sabotage. The world will understand the necessity of tough security measures to fight Jewish terrorism.”
“Heaven’s mercy!” Rabbi Josh turned to Masada. “Do you understand?”
“Like Flavius Silva,” Masada commented, as if this was merely an intellectual discussion. “Tell us the rest, Abu Faddah, and I’ll tell you where to find the woman who catapulted your son.”
The gun shook in Silver’s hand. “Flavius Silva smashed the Jews, but he didn’t finish the job. The Germans wasted resources on fighting Russia and America instead of concentrating on the extermination of the Jews. But we will finish the job. My designs cover information systems, government regulations, architectural blueprints, personnel charts, transportation, and processing-”
“What’s COCA?” Rabbi Josh looked at a map of northern Israel.
“An acronym,” Masada suggested, “for concentration camp?”
“We won’t use that term publicly,” Silver said. “Retraining Academies would be better. The Jews will be pacified by the educational flair.”
The rabbi turned the page, finding a map of the Dead Sea area.
“Final stage will be here.” Silver pointed through the open end of the room at the still body of water. “From the lowest land in the whole world a new future shall rise.”
“What’s ProPla?” Rabbi Josh asked.
“Processing plant for the bodies,” Masada said. “He’ll use salt.”
“Acid.” Silver smiled. “Less offensive than smoke stacks, wouldn’t you agree?”
As soon as Elizabeth finished eating, the baby became active, poking her from within until she smiled. It was almost six in the morning, and the kitchen was filling up with men, who gathered around the small TV. The screen showed the podium at the U.S. Senate, where the most junior senator was completing his remarks against Israel.
Senator Mitchum, in a red tie and fresh makeup, took over the podium. “Let me quote the writer Masada El-Tal,” he declared, “who courageously stepped up to the challenge despite her conflicting loyalties.” He held up a copy of Jab Magazine. “She wrote: Only a country founded on the religious sectarianism would feel justified in manipulating the legislative process of a democracy. And only a country that glorifies its sons’ ultimate sacrifice could justify sacrificing its own integrity. And with these wise words,” the senator declared, “I hereby call for a vote on the Fair Aid Act, which will suspend all military aid to, and cooperation with, the State of Israel, pending a full Senate investigation of the events leading to the tragic suicide of our colleague from Arizona-”
An aide tapped his shoulder and whispered in his ear.
Senator Mitchum returned to the microphone. “It seems that new facts have emerged.” He covered the microphone, consulted with someone else, and announced, “We’ll take a brief recess.”
The anchor’s face appeared on the screen. “We go live now from Mount Masada, near the Dead Sea, in Israel.”
The picture changed again, and Professor Silver appeared on the screen.
Elizabeth covered her mouth. The professor was aiming a gun with a silencer at the camera. His glass eye was missing. Behind him was a wall of rough stones. She listened with growing fear as he admitted he had bribed Senator Mahoney as part of a Palestinian plot to take over Israel and exterminate the Jews.
Professor Silver laughed. The two Jews were stricken by shock, especially Rabbi Josh, who resembled a car wreck survivor. “Don’t try anything funny!” Silver held the gun with both hands, shifting its aim constantly. “Now you tell me where I can find the woman who killed my son.”
“Yes, the crazy soldier,” Masada said. “What do you remember?”
“She swung on a steel cable and grabbed my Faddah, then she attacked me.”
“Tall and stringy, with black hair.”
“Yes.”
“Like me?”
Silver felt a chill.
Masada pointed at the low wall at the edge. “Your dear Faddah didn’t even fight. Maybe he preferred death to staying with Papa.”
“No!”
She pulled up her right pant, exposing a brace. “Did you notice when Ness shot me in the knee? Or was your eye hurting too much?”
“You!” He realized she was telling the truth. It was like a string of dominos falling in a row. “That’s why the your brother yelled-”
“Masada!”
It was the rabbi’s voice, and Silver realized he’d focused on her, forgetting the rabbi. As he turned, his finger starting to press the trigger, Rabbi Josh threw the lantern, hitting the gun, which flew over the edge into empty air. The lantern shattered on the floor, and the rabbi leaped forward.
There was one thing Silver was determined to do: Punish Faddah’s killer! He threw himself at Masada. His shoulder rammed her in the chest, propelling her over the edge.
Elizabeth McPherson could not move. Senator Mitchum’s face reappeared on the TV screen. “Well, considering the new information, we will take this matter under advisement. The Fair Aid Act is withdrawn. This session of the United States Senate is adjourned.”
The senator disappeared from the TV screen, replaced by the black reporter in Jerusalem, smiling as circles of yellow-clad Jews danced around him. “The atmosphere in this ancient city,” he yelled over the noise, “is ecstatic. People feel vindicated. Not only was Israel proven innocent of the bribery charges, but a terrible Palestinian plot to destroy the Jewish people has been exposed. Someone here just told me that God has intervened to prevent a second Holocaust. But that, of course, is a matter of faith. Reporting from Jerusalem, this is-”
Someone turned off the TV. Elizabeth saw her father being carried in. Aunt Hamida helped her kneel before him. Father’s hand rested on the scarf covering her shaved head. He mumbled a blessing.
The men carried Hajj Mahfizie from the kitchen. Aunt Hamida helped Elizabeth to her feet and hugged her tightly. “Ah-Salaam, Elzirah.”
“See you soon,” Elizabeth said.
Aunt Hamida started crying and ran from the kitchen.
This was it. She was free to go. Surely the Israelis at the checkpoint could call a taxi for her. She went to the door.
Three men in white coats blocked her way. They grabbed her arms, turned her around, and blindfolded her. She felt her yellow robe being lifted up to her armpits. A heavy pouch was tied around her waist, and the robe was pulled down over it.
Rabbi Josh sprinted forward, but Professor Silver was faster, shoving Masada over the cliff’s edge. The rabbi dropped forward and grabbed her arm just as she went over. At the same time, his body collided with Silver, who stumbled and rolled over the low wall behind Masada.
His chest hit hard against the stones at the edge, but Rabbi Josh managed to hold on to Masada, who quickly grabbed the low wall. The rest of her body hung over the cliff, and Silver somehow stuck his arm into the lower part of the shoulder strap of her backpack, just above her left hip. The top of his head showed behind the small of her back. Far below, the professor’s white cap descended through the air to the distant, rocky bottom.
Rabbi Josh yelled, “Hold on! I’ll pull you up!”
Silver craned his head. “Quick!”
“Get a rock,” Masada said, “and hit this murderer on the head.”
Rabbi Josh wasn’t going to do such a thing. “Come on! Help me pull you up!”
“My hands are slipping.” Masada’s right foot found a small protrusion in the rock. “Cut the plastic cuffs.”
He kept his grip on Masada’s arm with one hand and reached for a shard of glass from the shattered lantern. He cut through the plastic strap, blood from his lacerated palm dripping on Masada’s wrists. Her hands free, she spread them apart, improving her grip on the stones. Her other foot found a toehold.
“Let’s pull you up!”
“Not with this dead weight.” Masada shook her hips against the cliff in brief, jerky motions.
“Stop it!” Silver’s voice was filled with panic. “Don’t!”
Rabbi Josh leaned over the edge, looking down. The emptiness under them made him dizzy. His grip on her arm was getting slippery from the blood. He let go and wiped his hand in the dirt. “Pull! We can do it!”
“My backpack has to come off.”
“No!” Silver yelled from below. “Save us!”
Rabbi Josh held her arms. “Now, Masada. Just pull!”
The men led the blindfolded Elizabeth out of the kitchen, through the hallway to the main door, and out of the mosque. They lifted her into a vehicle and made her lie on her back. The pouch they had tied around her hips was thick, and it bore into her spine, lifting her midriff.
“Enough of this!” She tore off the blindfold and found herself on a stretcher in an ambulance. The yellow robe covered her down to her ankles. The three men were joined by Imam Abdul, who also wore a white coat, a stethoscope around his neck.
They put a pillow on her belly and covered her with a white sheet. One of them got behind the wheel, fired up the engine, turned on the siren, and eased away from the mosque.
“What are you doing?” Elizabeth tried to sit up.
The Imam made her lie down. “The Jews are waiting for you in Jerusalem.”
The ambulance drove slowly down the hill, its siren whining.
“You can’t treat me like this! I’m not one of your chattel women!”
“You’re a martyr! Be proud!”
“What?” She pushed aside the sheet and pulled up the yellow robe. A strange corset, wide enough to cover her from pelvis to just under her breasts, was tied snugly with three copper buckles. Electric wires run around the whole thing. She felt with her hand behind her back, where several cylindrical containers were attached.
“Too heavy. I can’t pull up.” Masada glanced down, remembering Srulie’s broken body. The backpack, with Silver hanging from the strap just over her hip, was cutting into her shoulders. She let go of the low wall with her left hand, now only her right hand and toes carrying the weight, and reached down to poke at Silver’s face.
He yelled something in Arabic and pressed his face to her back.
“Murderer!” She clenched a fist and pounded his head. “You’ll die today, I swear!”
“I will not,” Silver shouted, “die alone!”
“Give me your hand!” Rabbi Josh pressed his chest to her right hand, but it was slipping. Masada returned her left hand to hold the low wall. She felt Rabbi Josh’s bandaged hands under her armpits. He groaned and lifted her enough for her elbows to clear the stones. The toes of her shoes slipped, but quickly found other tiny outcroppings in the sheer cliff. With her forearms flat on the line of stones, Masada flexed her fingers, breathing hard.
“Now let’s get you up and over.” Rabbi Josh grabbed her shoulders.
“Wait!” Her right shoe lost the protrusion, and the backpack pulled her backward with great force. She needed to reach her brace, but her muscles starved for oxygen. Pain bore inside her chest where Silver had rammed her, and her lower abdomen ached in a seething way. Wetness was spreading between her thighs.
Rabbi Josh leaned over, his cheek against hers. “Pull! We can do it together!”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re a good man.”
“No!” He lowered himself farther, his chest resting on her forearms to stop them from slipping off. His own hands, bandaged and bleeding, held her upper arms. “I’m going to-”
“Put the shard in my right hand,” Masada said.
Rabbi Josh kept the pressure on her forearms, picked up the shard he had used to cut the plastic handcuffs, and placed it in her hand. Masada began to saw the backpack strap. The back-and-forth movement of the shard against the strap, which had sunk into her shoulder, also cut her shirt, then her skin, and her flesh.
“Hey!” Silver’s voice had an unfamiliar high pitch to it. “What are you doing?”
Masada kept working through the strap, ignoring the pain, her eyes turned up, watching Rabbi Josh’s tearful eyes, taking in every crevice of his face. The stubble on his jaws was golden, and his hair hung down over her, caressing her forehead.
Imam Abdul pushed Elizabeth down. “Shut up!” The ambulance made the turn toward the Israeli checkpoint, its siren changing tune to a fast beeping.
“Please! I don’t want to die!”
He hooked his finger in a metal ring that dangled from the side of the explosive belt. “If I pull this, you’ll blow up in two minutes.”
“No!” Elizabeth tried to unbuckle the belt. “My baby!”
“If you unbuckle it, the fuse will blow immediately.” He used his free hand to throw the sheet back over her, keeping his finger in the ring. “You have to die. Would you rather die alone, or take a hundred Jews with you?”
“I’d rather live! I beg you!”
“It will be a great victory. A senior American official dying for Palestine. You’ll go straight to Allah!”
The ambulance stopped at the checkpoint. She heard the driver yell something. The vehicle jerked forward. The driver yelled again. The Imam glanced nervously. She heard the Israelis shouting. The driver cursed and turned off the engine.
The rear doors of the ambulance opened. Two uniformed Israelis peeked in. The Imam at the soldiers, “I’m Doctor Abdul. She’s in delivery! The umbilical cord is around the baby’s neck! Let us through, or the baby will die!”
The soldiers cocked their weapons.
“Please,” he begged, “where is your humanity?”
An officer appeared, and Elizabeth recognized the young reservist officer who had let her through. Their eyes met, and he understood what was going on. He aimed his machine gun and yelled at them to step out of the ambulance. Imam Abdul smiled at Elizabeth and pulled out the ring. She felt a slight buzzing at her hip, a quick vibration that made her blood cold.
The men jumped down from the ambulance, their hands over their heads.
Elizabeth kicked off the sheet.
The Israeli officer saw the belt and froze.
She said, “Get out!”
He kneeled at the stretcher. “Let me take it off.”
“No!” She pushed his hand away. “It’ll blow.”
“Our guys can defuse it.” He yelled out the open door in Hebrew.
“Too late.” She got off the stretcher. “It’s about to blow. Get out!”
“Wait!” He was pale, his face looking even younger. “We can save you!”
“Don’t forget,” Elizabeth yelled as she slipped into the driver’s seat, “human rights!”
He hesitated.
“Go!”
He jumped off.
Professor Silver’s arm went numb. It was hooked in the backpack strap almost to his armpit, the blood flow cut off. His eye was too teary to see clearly, yet when he glanced downward, the awful distance below his dangling feet made him yell, “Joshua! Help us!” There was no response, but he registered the faint sound of scratching, and a certain tremor in the strap against his arm.
“Almost done,” Masada said.
The strap suddenly let go, and Silver dropped. His suspenders caught on Masada’s knee brace, its edge poking out through her pants like a hook, and he locked his arms around her lower legs.
Masada yelled in pain.
“Joshua!” Silver’s blue suspenders strip pressed against his cheek, stretching under his chin. “You failed to save your son. Don’t fail again!”
“Don’t listen to him.” Masada twisted in pain. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Save me,” Silver yelled, “or she dies too!”
“Now,” Rabbi Josh said, “I’m pulling!”
Silver held on. Another minute, just one more minute, and the rabbi will pull us up.
“It’s not working,” Masada said. “You’ll fall over too.”
“Pull up,” the rabbi’s voice quivered. “Pull!”
She bent her knees and kicked hard, hitting the professor with her heels. Silver yelped and slipped down her shins. He pressed her shoes to his sternum, his face squeezed between her calves, his suspenders as tight as guitar strings, hooked on the brace. In that instant, when so little was keeping him from plunging to his death, Faddah’s face appeared, smiling at him.
Masada’s legs shook hard, and he heard her groan. At first he thought she wet herself, but the liquid soaking her pants was red. “Joshua!” Silver turned his head to make his voice heard. “Thou shall not kill!”
Elizabeth turned the ignition key, her foot pressing the pedal to the floor. The engine roared. She turned the steering wheel all the way, shifted gears, and the ambulance jerked forward. It made a wide turn in front of the gate, barely missing the whitecoated Arabs kneeling at gunpoint by the roadside, and raced back toward the camp.
She made the turn onto the main strip without slowing and sped up toward the mosque. Reaching the top of the hill, she drove the ambulance into the courtyard, up to the entrance. She got out and ran into the mosque. The explosive belt pressed down on her hips under the yellow robe. She shut the steel door and locked it, throwing the key far down the corridor, and ran to the prayer hall.
Hundreds of men were bowing, their foreheads to the carpeted floor. Father was in his chair, the book in his lap. She rushed to him.
Hajj Mahfizie looked up at his approaching daughter. His mouth opened.
“Father!” She took the book, tossed it, and sat in his lap, throwing her arms around his neck. “Oh, Father!”
He tried to push her off.
The men began shouting, scrambling to their feet. A bottleneck formed at the single door.
Elizabeth rested her head in the small of his neck. She smiled as the baby moved inside her. Father quivered, and his gaping mouth emitted a moan.
A blinding light flashed.
Horrible pain tore through her body.
Rabbi Josh struggled to pull Masada up. “I’m bleeding badly,” she said. “It’s over.”
“No! Pull up!”
“It’s too late for me. Go find a young woman, have lots of kids.”
His hands tightened around her arms, struggling against the slush of congealing blood on his palms. “I can’t lose you!” Tears fell from his eyes onto her face.
“Joshua,” Silver shouted, “save us!”
Masada’s elbows slipped, and she was hanging by her hands again. The toe of her left shoe found a protrusion and hooked onto it, relieving some of the weight. Her right hand, pressed between Rabbi Josh’s chest and the rough stone, began to slip out. She glanced at the red roofs of Kibbutz Ben-Yair and the deep blue of the Dead Sea. A light breeze came from the water. “You were right. I love this place.”
Rabbi Josh tried to hold on, his own body leaning precariously over the low wall. Masada turned, barely hanging by her left hand, and reached down with her right hand. The professor moaned below. With the tips of her fingers she pulled up the pant leg, exposed the brace, and drew a dagger.
Rabbi Josh locked his hands on her left forearm. He felt his body inch forward, approaching the point where his own weight, together with the force of their bodies, would pull him over.
She looked up. In her green eyes he saw no fear, only determination and peace.
The rabbi held on to her. “I’d rather die with you!”
Masada smiled. “Don’t die for my sins.”
He understood.
“Shalom,” she said softly.
For a brief moment, Masada kept her balance on the tip of her shoe on the rock protrusion. She bent her legs, crouching, hooked her arm behind Silver’s neck, and while they were suspended in the air she sank her brother’s bone into his eye socket. Silver’s agonized scream tore the silent air, echoing from the rocky cliffs while Masada kicked the rock and sent both of them flying backwards in an arc.
An instant later, about a quarter of the way down, her backpack exploded, and a cylindrical object shot up above her. It was shiny, like silk, attached with wires to what was left of the backpack. Air rushed into it, unfurling it, and a blue-and-white canopy spread out.
With the parachute open, Rabbi Josh could not see them anymore. They hit the desert floor, and a cloud of white dust bloomed, gliding aside in the lazy breeze while the silky canopy descended, covering them like a shroud.
The military helicopter flew south, tracing the bleached shore of the Dead Sea. Rabbi Josh watched the large craft pass over his head and land among the mountaintop ruins. He stuffed Silver’s papers into the bag and ran over, bowing under the rotating blades.
Before he climbed in, the rabbi saw another helicopter, this one coming from the west, painted with a red Star of David on a white circle. It cleared the barren peaks and made a rapid descent to the desert floor.
Colonel Ness was sitting in the middle of the cavernous belly, his wheelchair anchored to the floor. A leggy young woman helped the rabbi into the helicopter, slid the door shut, and took Silver’s bag. Voices filtered through the partition hiding the cockpit. The helicopter took off.
Through the window, Rabbi Josh watched the sheer walls of Mount Masada while the helicopter descended to the bottom. He closed his eyes and recited a prayer for her.
As soon as they landed, a ramp lowered at the rear of the helicopter, letting in dust and engine fumes. The woman released the wheelchair and rolled Colonel Ness down the ramp. Rabbi Josh followed.
The military medics from the other helicopter had already pulled aside the parachute canopy and released the backpack straps from Masada’s back. She was lying face down. Silver lay next to her, his face turned to the morning sky, the bone dagger sticking out of his eye. They were both bleeding, the dark liquid too thick to penetrate the hard desert floor, instead pooling together in the narrow space between them.
The young woman picked up Silver’s gun from the ground, the silencer still attached. She stuffed it in her belt.
They watched the medics turn Masada over, strap an oxygen mask onto her face, and hook her up to an IV line. Her chest continued to rise and sink slowly.
Colonel Ness maneuvered his wheelchair among the rocks. He slipped off the wheelchair and sat on the ground next to Masada. While the medics unpacked additional equipment, he pulled up Masada’s pants leg, exposing the brace. He opened the knee cover and extracted a small memory stick, which he handed to his assistant. With a handkerchief he wiped Masada’s face around the oxygen mask. He combed her hair with his fingers with gentleness that touched Rabbi Josh more deeply than any demonstration of grief. Leaning forward, his hands on the ground beside her head, Colonel Ness kissed her forehead.
While the young woman wheeled Ness up the ramp, Rabbi Josh kissed Masada and prayed while holding her limp hand. “Blessed be He, who brings healing to the sick and infirm.”
The medics used aluminum rods to set her spine and limbs for transport. The rabbi climbed the loading ramp into Ness’s helicopter, tears flowing down his cheeks. The rotors sped up and the ramp began to rise. The medics crowded over Masada beside the other helicopter, and he caught a last glimpse of her unconscious face. It was calm, almost happy.
As soon as the wheelchair was properly anchored to the floor, the helicopter took off. Sounds of talking and the crackling of radio transmission came from the enclosed cockpit. They flew around Mount Masada’s northern protrusion and landed in the circular driveway in front of the tourist center. The engine died down.
Ness’s assistant slid open the side door, and the blonde reporter climbed into the helicopter.
Tara dabbed her wet eyes with a crumpled paper tissue. “Horrible! So unnecessary!”
“The extra weight screwed it up.” Colonel Ness lifted his arms in the air. “It wasn’t meant to carry both of them. If she had only let go instead of holding him all the way down, the parachute would have slowed her enough to land safely.”
“Oscar should have told us,” Tara said, “that there was a parachute in the backpack. Does he work for you?”
“Every Israeli is a soldier.” The colonel handed the reporter a sheet of paper. “Masada’s exoneration. We found it in the wrong file. She was right. The conviction was voided when she was released from jail, just as she claimed in the immigration court.”
Tara took the document. “I’ll make sure they restore her citizenship.” She saw Silver’s bag. “I’ll need these documents for my special report. It’s beyond comprehension. Masada really did prevent another Holocaust!”
Colonel Ness glanced at his assistant, who spoke into a handheld device. Rabbi Josh saw a man climb into the helicopter and take the professor’s bag. His bald pate was surrounded by long, frizzy curls, which dangled over his shoulders.
“Ezekiel,” the colonel said, “make a set of photocopies for the lady.”
“Excellent stuff,” Tara said. “Explosive.”
Colonel Ness asked, “What do you hear from Washington?”
“Everybody’s got egg on their faces,” Tara said. “They’re coming up with ideas for pro-Israel legislation-a new trade pact, military cooperation, the works. I hear Senator Mitchum announced he’ll sponsor the U.S.-Israel Mutual Defense Act himself, with identical language to the one Mahoney submitted before he died. He said it would be a fitting counteract to the monstrous Palestinian plot against Israel, which proved the necessity of a mutual defense arrangement. He said it would constitute biblical justice.”
The colonel shook her hand. “Thank you for helping our just cause.”
Tara hugged Rabbi Josh. “If you ever come back to Arizona, give me a ring.”
“I’m staying here,” he said.
The reporter left, followed by the man with the frizzy hair.
“Take a seat.” Colonel Ness beckoned the rabbi. “We’ll give you a lift to Jerusalem.”
“Wait!” Ness’s assistant exchanged a few sentences in Hebrew on her handheld communications device. She leaned over the colonel and spoke in his ear.
Colonel Ness sighed. He looked at Rabbi Josh. “Masada stopped breathing.”
Rabbi Josh turned away, unable to look at them. He felt pressure building up inside his chest. He took a few steps, bumping into the partition that separated the cockpit from the fuselage. He had failed Masada, as he had failed Raul, and as he had failed Linda. He knew he should be crying, but there was only numbness, as if he had become empty and dry inside. And there was also a pungent smell that penetrated through the mist of his agony, infusing him with a sense of danger. He turned his head left and right, sniffing. In the calm air, with the helicopter blades still, the scent assailed him. “What’s this smell?”
“Smell?” The colonel’s assistant shrugged. “I don’t smell anything.”
Rabbi Josh found a handle on the cockpit partition and opened it. He was hit with a whiff. Citrus blossom!
The pilot on the left was short, his arms thick and white. But the other man was dark, with slicked-back black hair and mirrored sunglasses. “You!”
The man smiled.
Rabbi Josh turned. “This man is an Arab!”
Colonel Ness didn’t respond.
“He’s one of them!” Rabbi Josh sprang forward and snatched Silver’s gun from the young woman’s belt, aiming it at the cockpit. “He was at the mosque with Silver! He started the riot!”
There was a long silence.
Colonel Ness cleared his throat. “His name is Rafi. The professor knew him as Rajid. He’s on my team.”
“What team? Who are you people?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“Yes!” Rabbi Josh threaded his finger over the trigger.
Colonel Ness passed his hand through his white hair. “In 1982 Israeli intelligence learned that a bright PLO activist in Jordan was planning to cross the Dead Sea with his teenage son and take hostages on Mount Masada. Our people analyzed his profile. They decided he could be made into a double agent, but with a twist.”
Rabbi Josh glanced at the cockpit, but the two men didn’t move.
“When he acted, I was ordered to eliminate the son and capture Abu Faddah alive. But he foiled our aerial attack by rigging up a sheet as a roof. Clever man. So we landed, and I radioed central command for new orders. Our psychological profilers had told us he wouldn’t use violence, and we settled to wait. Unfortunately Masada recognized her brother from the air and, being unaware of the secret plan, didn’t take well to the waiting game. She managed to grab my loudspeaker, made threats, things got out of hand, and her brother fell off the cliff. She attacked alone, I had to shoot her in the knee to save the bastard, and he repaid me by throwing a grenade.” The colonel rested his hands on the stumps of his legs. “So much for psychological profiling.”
“And you let him escape?”
“We had him picked up later by Bedouins on our payroll. After he recovered, we arranged transport to Italy and he adopted a fictional identity of a Jewish history professor. He chose the name Flavian Silver-funny, isn’t it? Faddah means silver in Arabic. And all along he thought he was working for his PLO brothers to destroy Israel, while in fact he was working for us.”
Rabbi Josh felt dizzy. “I don’t understand.”
“We helped him develop academically, produce reports on Jewish life in Europe, write about Nazi treatment of the Jews, and so on. We arranged for him to teach in different places and kept him on ice. It’s been a long run.” The colonel motioned at the dark man in the cockpit. “Rafi was twenty-one when he became Abu Faddah’s handler.”
“Twenty,” the man said with a lopsided grin.
The colonel nodded. “It’s not easy to run an agent who’s certain he’s working for your enemy, but we did it. A great success.”
“You call this a success?” Rabbi Josh groaned. “You almost destroyed Israel!”
“It went a bit out of hand.” Colonel Ness looked at the metal ceiling for a moment in contemplation. “We let him do what he wanted, execute his plan to bribe Mahoney on behalf of a fictitious Jewish organization, and cause a scandal.”
“A scandal?” The rabbi’s voice shook. “Do you realize what you’ve done.”
“We did nothing. Abu Faddah has done it all-planning and execution. In fact, we were going to tip Masada at the right time, help her expose him as a Palestinian agent and shift the blame to the Arabs. I mean, even he didn’t know he was working for us. And the cash we gave him was traceable to the Palestinians. It was perfect. We let him run with it because we knew we could shut him down any time we wanted.”
“But why would you want this scandal?”
“We wanted American Jews to experience a painful lesson, that even in America the gentiles are capable of violent anti-Semitism. We hoped it would cause thousands to make aliya and help bolster a Jewish majority in Israel. Then, before things got really bad, we would tip off Masada, and she would expose Silver as a Palestinian agent, thereby redirecting the public’s anger at the Arabs while rejuvenating Israel’s victim status. It was a simple, a fail-safe operation.”
“Obviously it wasn’t!”
Colonel Ness nodded. “We got more than we bargained for. He was doing his own thing, coming up with more phases. But still, the end result is excellent. This whole affair will help Israel regain popularity. The world witnessed firsthand how the conniving Arabs attempted to destroy U.S.-Israel friendship, take over Israel, and exterminate us.”
“But it wasn’t the Arabs!”
“Their evil plan-”
“Their plan?” Rabbi Josh thought he would explode. “It’s your plan!”
“Oh, no.” The colonel made a dismissive gesture. “The whole plan, from the bribe to the extermination of the Jews in post-Israel Palestine, was hatched by Professor Silver, otherwise known as Abu Faddah. And it’s not even his original plan. Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, went to Berlin in 1936 and met Hitler and Eichmann to plan for the Nazi occupation of Palestine. They were going to build a concentration camp near Nablus to exterminate the Jews of Palestine. Abu Faddah was inspired by those old Arab plans. Hate made him terribly creative.”
Rabbi Josh looked at the gun in his hand. “This can’t be happening. It can’t!”
“The mufti started a mosque in Hamburg,” Ness continued. “The same mosque where, sixty years later, eleven young Arabs prepared to fly planes into the World Trade Center.” The colonel’s finger drew a line in the air. “There is a thread connecting anti-Semitism, Fascism, Jihadism, and mass murder of innocent people. Our operation succeeded in exposing-”
“You call this a success?”
“Abu Faddah was sincere in his work-a brilliant professor, if you ask me. His ideas, his architectural designs and technical improvements, spiced up the whole picture. Tara will show all of it on TV. Hundreds of millions of viewers will see it.”
“They’ll see a fraud!”
“Why?” Colonel Ness seemed offended. “These were his ideas, and he executed his own plan, every part of it!”
“But you helped him, gave him the money to do it.”
“As far as he knew, it all came from Ramallah, courtesy of a senior Palestinian agent named Rajid.”
In the cockpit, the agent patted his own shoulder.
“But you facilitated it!”
“So? Banks lend money to people to buy cars. Are fatal car crashes the banks’ fault? Come on, Rabbi, use your Talmudic logic!”
Shaking his head, Rabbi Josh said, “None of this would have happened if not for you.”
“Don’t fool yourself. The Arabs would do it in a heartbeat. The Syrians, the Iranians, the imams in a thousand mosques, they all aspire to exterminate the Jewish people because they’re jealous of our success and progress. Look at your friend Levy Silver, previously known as Abu Faddah. He is the ultimate proof that our struggle is righteous. Have you ever heard of any other Holocaust scholar channeling his creative energy into designing another genocide? This will force the world to recognize the existential threat posed by Islamic fundamentalism to western civilization.”
“It’s immoral!” Rabbi Josh aimed the gun at Ness. “You tricked America-our friend!”
“Morality and politics are unrelated. You heard Tara.” The colonel motioned at the open door. “Suddenly everybody in Washington is scrambling to help Israel.”
“God will never condone such deceit!”
“How do you know what God will or will not condone?”
“I do!”
“Maybe your God will be upset, because your God is the Diaspora God, the meek God of exile and bent knees, the God of turning the other cheek.” Colonel Ness pounded his chest. “My God is the Israeli God, the God of standing tall, of self-respect, of sovereignty on our ancient land. My God is the God of fighting back! Of victory by all necessary means! Of never, never, never giving up!”
Rabbi Josh looked at the gun in his hand. “And Masada?”
Colonel Ness pursed his lips. “She was the perfect choice, an anticorruption crusader, an impeacher of two Arizona governors, winner of a Pulitzer Prize, and above all, a critic of Israel.”
“You destroyed her.”
Ness’s assistant whistled. “Can we go already?”
The colonel opened his arms. “We took every precaution to ensure her safety. It breaks my heart. But Israel prevailed. Our national survival is the only thing that really matters.”
“No!” Rabbi Josh aimed the gun. “The Almighty will not allow such manipulations, such blood spilling for no good reason.” He moved backward, toward the door. “Masada was right all along. It was you, toying with our lives. She was right, and she died thinking she was wrong. But I’m going to fix that. Masada deserves to have the truth come out!”
The young woman got up and approached Rabbi Josh. He aimed the gun at her. She closed the distance between them, snatched the gun, and tossed it to the colonel.
Ness pointed the gun at Rabbi Josh. “Sit down.”
“Why? You’ll kill me too?”
The colonel blew air through his lips. For the first time he looked angry. “This whole affair was supposed to resolve itself in Arizona without a drop of blood. But the senator blew his head off, Masada was deaf to our hints, and the professor pursued his own agenda-going blind scared him to death.”
“But you gave him this gun,” Rabbi Josh pointed, “to use on Masada this morning, to kill her!”
Colonel Ness glared at him. “I love Masada. You think I’d risk her life?”
“I think you’re a psychopath.”
“And I think we’ve had enough.” The colonel’s arm rose, aiming the silencer straight at Rabbi Josh’s chest. He pressed the trigger, and the gun coughed like a champagne bottle.
The rabbi clasped his chest, searching for the bullet hole.
Colonel Ness’s assistant laughed.
The colonel aimed the gun at her and pressed the trigger again.
She beat her chest and yelped.
Colonel Ness put the gun to his head and shot himself. “Dummies,” he said, “they’re all dummies.”
Rabbi Josh smoothed his shirt. “My Raul died by a real bullet, shot by a man working for your twisted agent. Was that part of your plan, to get a little boy killed?”
“Of course not. It was a tragic case of collateral damage.” The colonel’s eyes remained level with the rabbi’s. “I understand your pain. Your heart is broken. And it will remain broken. I know this, because I also lost a beautiful boy for Israel. And I’ll sacrifice ten more sons if Israel needs them.”
“You’re sacrificing much more: The truth!”
Colonel Ness pointed to the open door. “They won’t believe you, but you can try if it makes you feel righteous. Go ahead, betray your people. Help the enemies of Israel.”
Rabbi Josh looked at them-the young woman on the bench, the agent in the cockpit, the colonel in his wheelchair. “You,” he said, “are the enemies of Israel.”
He followed the road along the shore of the Dead Sea. The day’s heat was rising. He walked slowly, carrying his sneakers under his arm. The colonel’s helicopter took off behind him and headed south, out of earshot. Moments later, the medical helicopter ascended from the desert floor and flew north, leaving a wake of white dust. The rabbi closed his eyes, remembered her last smile, and whispered, “Shalom, Masada.”
He kept walking, the asphalt warm under his feet. He knew Colonel Ness was right. They won’t believe you.
A lizard crossed the road in front of his toes, paused to look up at him, and disappeared under a rock. Ahead, the red roofs of Kibbutz Ben-Yair grew nearer.
Engine noise sounded from behind.
He stopped and turned.
A green tractor was gaining on him. It pulled a trailer piled with cardboard boxes marked: Ben-Yair Tomatoes. The driver was a young woman. She slowed down, coming to a full stop.
“Boker tov!”
“Good morning,” Rabbi Josh replied.
“I’m heading to the kibbutz.” She took off her cap, letting loose a cascade of dark, red-tinged hair. “Want a ride?”
He nodded.
She patted the fender over the huge wheel of the tractor.
“Hop on!”