As soon as they cleared the gate, Deker and Elezar found themselves in Jericho's main market square. The square was a flat acre in size and nestled between the main gate and the upper fortress wall. It was a deceptively cheerful, noisy scene, with splashes of color from the shop awnings, fabrics and ceramics. But the troops patrolling the ramparts on both walls above gave Deker the distinct impression that the prosperous ancients shopping and trading in the square below were, in the end, nothing but better-dressed rats in a stone cage.
"It won't be long before they figure out what happened to the patrol," Elezar whispered as they walked. "You're going to have to make your assessments quickly if we're to have any hope of getting out before the gate closes."
Deker nodded. Like everything else in this world, Jericho paradoxically struck him as smaller than he had envisioned and yet more formidable just the same. Jericho's mound looked to be barely eight acres if that, maybe the size of six square blocks in modern midtown Manhattan.
"I've got the pop count here at three thousand-maybe four thousand during the day when it swells from workers and tradesmen from the surrounding areas," Deker said, applying the ancient numerical ratio of five hundred people per urban acre. "That gives us a troop count of anywhere between eight hundred to fifteen hundred tops."
Elezar must have detected the dismay in his voice, because he asked, "Meaning what, exactly?"
"Meaning who needs Yahweh when you outnumber the Reahns ten to one?" Deker replied.
"Maybe Bin-Nun should even the odds by instead attacking Hazor to the north with its population of thirty thousand," Elezar said in an icy monotone. "You forget we're but two men in this city of three thousand. That's fifteen-hundred-to-one. You like those odds? And what about the mysterious 'shadow army' that Caleb and Bin-Nun are so worried about? Their ranks, if they exist, could number like the stars in the heavens or the grains of sand in the sea."
Deker said nothing and looked up at the sheer fortress wall that rose above them like a stone monolith with nothing but a horizontal slit near the top for still more faceless slingers and archers. Beyond it, the city's signature spire tower rose higher still. Even if the Israelites could ladder over the city wall in superior numbers, they'd be blocked by this even more immense wall inside, surrounded by the spearmen and soldiers on the ramparts above.
"Ladders are no good," Deker reported. "The first five meters of that concrete revetment wall will kill them before they even reach the rest of the city wall. All the while, the archers on the ramparts have clear shots from every angle. Then there are the four main towers, two along the lower city walls and two more along the upper fortress walls. On top of that, there's the fifth tower rising above the entire city."
They could barely see the glint of spears moving back and forth on the ramparts as they walked. Above them was the second line of sharpshooters atop the fortress wall and, above them all, the stone spire.
Tunneling was out too, Deker could see. The city wall extended belowground, thanks to its concrete skirt, and the city itself sat on a mound inside. As for a sneak attack through the sewer system, the drainage holes were too small for a man to crawl through, and the main well for freshwater, just to their south, had to drop fifteen meters to the natural spring below. It was guarded with its own platoon of Reahn troops and topped with iron crossbars like the main gate. A huge circular stone the size of one of those monster dolmen slabs back at Shittim sat nearby, and Deker expected the Reahns used it to seal off the well any time they closed the main gate.
"You look and I'll listen," Elezar said.
They joined the foot traffic moving between the market district and the commercial district on the city's south side. Deker noted the large number of metalworkers, carpenters and masons. They would be the ones who reinforced the walls whenever earth tremors or water damage eroded their foundations. Then there were the tanners, potters, tailors, bakers and cheese makers he would have expected. One small winery employed workers to stomp on grapes. Their hands had been cut off. Theft was no more tolerated here than bribes.
Most striking to Deker was the grain. It was everywhere: overflowing from jars, drying in stalks on rooftops, being carried back and forth in baskets. This was the harvest in the land of milk and honey. The people were shoving grain into every silo and orifice in the city. And the flow of a water chute from the fortress above suggested massive water cisterns of the kind found on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
"Everything looks fine, but I smell fear," Deker said. "They're pretending like there's no threat of an invasion. But they're preparing for one just the same."
"That's good," Elezar said.
"No, that's bad. Because they have enough grain and water to outlast an Israelite siege for years."
The reality was that, at first glance, Deker didn't see how Bin-Nun could avoid taking Jericho without suffering massive casualties. The losses in such a so-called victory would break the back of his war machine, demoralize the Israelites and open them to attack by Jericho's stronger neighbors in Canaan.
The walls had to come down first, somehow. There simply was no other way. And yet, the longer their shadows grew from the setting sun, the taller and more impregnable those walls appeared.
Elezar seemed to read his mind. "So, could you bring down the walls with your C-4?"
"I thought that was Yahweh's job."
"Maybe we are God's hand."
Deker asked, "How did the walls come down in Scripture?"
"The book of Joshua says the walls fell outward, not inward, and the Israelites marched single file up into the city."
Deker nodded as he looked around. The trick was ultimately going to be to find a compromised or hollow part of the upper wall and plant the C-4. That would steer the rest of the wall in the proper direction as it collapsed. If he did it right, he could actually use the avalanche set off by the wall cascading down the sloping city to take out a portion of the lower wall to boot. And if he was truly brilliant, the resulting collapse of the city wall would create its own ramp over that lower concrete wall at the bottom.
"It's possible," Deker said. "In theory, it's no different than dropping a high-rise in Tel Aviv. But it's still a huge job and requires careful planning. We need to get a look inside that upper fortress."
They began searching for a second gate that connected the upper fortress with the lower city, and found what they were looking for at the end of the commercial district: a guarded bronze gate in the upper wall. The gate was open to reveal wide stone steps leading up to the fortress, where a massive temple, fountains, royal courtyard and government buildings could be glimpsed.
But as they stepped toward the bronze gate, the blast of a horn sounded from a watchtower and a colored flag went up the stone spire. A platoon of shock troops emerged from the fortress and headed straight toward them.
Leading the way was the little boy whom Deker had spared, his throat wrapped with some kind of bandage. He also had a black eye now, swollen shut. He was on some sort of leash, like an ancient bloodhound. His open and animated eye darted to and fro, looking for them, as if his life depended on it even more than when Elezar had held a blade to his throat.
"They found the patrol," Elezar said. "They know we're here. We're blown."
Deker turned away from Elezar's accusing eyes as they beat a hasty retreat through the thinning crowds of the market square at dusk. They arrived just in time to see the main gate close with the clanking of chains and an earthshaking thud, sealing them inside.