It was a shell game as Rahab moved Deker from room to room, avoiding any Reahn soldiers until they finally reached the ground floor. There Rahab pulled back an ornate rug to reveal a trapdoor and stone steps. He followed her down the narrow steps to the cellar below her villa.
Dust filtered down between the creaking wooden planks above, and Deker could hear the boots of the Reahn troops doing room checks. He looked down at the beaten earth below his boots and noticed it sloped upward to a small dark square in the far wall.
"This way," she told him.
Rahab's oil lamp illuminated a square tunnel opening in the wall. The bronze grillwork that had covered it lay on the floor.
They ducked through the short tunnel that led to a larger cellar filled with grains and rows of ceremonial jars. Then Deker saw the human skulls on the wall with seashells for eyes. The faces had been made up with lime to create some semblance of life.
"My other sisters," Rahab said calmly, and continued on her way. "The jars have the smaller bones of newborns burned alive to Molech."
Between the strange odor of the preservatives in the jars and the scent of plants to mask it, Deker felt ill.
"Your way out," she said, pointing to the dark end of the room.
Wooden steps rose up to a small alcove and a window, and Deker realized this cellar was actually inside the outer city wall. A shadow moved next to the window and a voice startled him.
"I'll take the cruel justice of Shittim to this so-called civilization any day," said Elezar. He was already fastening a rope to the window while the girl who had taken him below looked on. "What took you so long?"
Then Elezar saw Rahab in the light, still holding Deker's hand, and did a double take at the resemblance to Rachel.
"Rahab," Deker told him. "She's coming with us."
"No, I'm not," she said, and Deker felt her yank away her hand. "I have family here. Hamas will kill them in retribution as an example to all in Reah for my betrayal."
Elezar tested the rope and seemed satisfied. "You heard the whore."
Elezar said it in English, but Rahab got the drift.
"Abraham is my forefather too," Rahab said in Hebrew, surprising Elezar. "And as Yahweh made a blood provision for Abraham to sacrifice instead of his son Isaac, so he will make provision for non-Hebrews."
"What do you know of Yahweh?" Elezar spat back.
"I know that forty years ago Yahweh sent the Angel of Death to Egypt, and today he has sent Bin-Nun to Reah," she said. "But Hebrews were spared if they painted their doorposts with blood and the Angel of Death passed over them. I want to be passed over too. So I beg you, swear to me by Yahweh, since I have shown you kindness, that you also will show kindness to me and my house. Give me a true token, and spare my father, my mother, my brothers and all that they have, and deliver our lives from death when you destroy Jericho."
"No," said Elezar.
"She's saving our asses, Elezar," Deker shot back, and then told her, "Our lives for your lives."
"Two conditions," Elezar added in Aramaic, glaring at her. "One, neither you nor your family nor any of your sluts break your promise and talk about this business."
She nodded.
"Two, expect no kindness from us until after the Lord has given us the land."
She nodded again, and as she did they could feel the walls shake.
"What the hell is going on?" Elezar demanded.
"They're opening the gate for Hamas," she told them.
Deker stuck his head out the window and looked down the north wall twenty meters to the ground. The sound was coming from his right, and he looked east in time to see Hamas and his horsemen thunder out the main gate, only thirty meters or so out of view around the corner on the eastern wall. They were taking the main road toward the fords of the Jordan. Then the walls began to shake as the city gate closed again. Deker glanced up toward the top of the wall. The angle prevented him from seeing any Reahn guards, and hopefully the situation was the same for them.
He pulled his head back into the cellar and told Elezar, "We're good to go."
"Hamas and his riders will be scouring the fords up and down the Jordan," Rahab told them. "Hide in the hills to the north for a few days. Hamas will think he missed you and return. Then it will be safe for you to cross over."
Elezar looked noncommittal, refusing to confirm or deny any of their plans with her. Then he spoke to Deker in English. "We go for the Cave of Temptation. No more than a couple of kilometers from here. We hide out and then report back."
Deker nodded. The cave was allegedly the place where in coming centuries Jesus Christ fasted and prayed for forty days when he was tempted by the devil. By the sixth century, various monasteries and churches had been built over the entrance. By the twenty-first century it was a major tourist attraction in modern Jericho. The tram left from practically where he was standing inside the city and floated directly to the cave entrance. Tonight they'd have to take a more circuitous route.
Rahab said, "Now give me a sure sign that you will save us from death."
"The sign will be that you're still alive after we lay waste to your city and leave it on the ash heap of history," Elezar said, positioning himself in the window to rappel down the wall outside. "Deker, let's go."
Deker looked her in the eye. "Your lives for our lives."
She nodded.
Elezar shook his head. "I hope she's fucking worth it, Deker," he said, and disappeared out the window.
It was now just him and Rahab left in the cellar, along with the quiet girl in the corner who had been invisible the entire time.
"Hamas will suspect you lied to him," Deker told Rahab. "Come with us."
"No," she said. "You come back for me."
She looked at him in a way that told him that she had been saving her soul for him all along, even if she had been unable to save her body. Then she kissed him on the mouth and wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him tight.
Something was released in Deker at that moment, a primal desire to love and protect her, body and soul, no matter what. Like he had always wanted to love and protect Rachel. He didn't want to let go of her, but knew he couldn't protect her unless he did.
"I will," he promised as he moved to the window.
The wind had died down and the desert was an empty sea. Holding the rope, he climbed over the ledge backward, feet planted against the wall below the window until he was staring back inside at Rahab.
"Don't worry about the rope," she told him. "I'll pull it up as soon as you reach the bottom."
Deker hesitated, the nagging sense that he was forgetting something. Something was off here, but he couldn't put his finger on it. But time was running out.
He rappelled down the outside of the city wall, stopping twice on the way down. Seconds later his feet hit the ground and he was staring at the concrete revetment wall at the bottom. But there was no sign of Elezar, who had already taken off for the hills.
He gave the rope two sharp tugs and watched it disappear into the dark somewhere beyond view.
He took off into the darkness. Only once did he stop and look back at the city, trying to pick out which window among several in the north wall was Rahab's. But he wasn't sure.
Suddenly he realized what he had forgotten and Elezar most certainly had not.
The scarlet cord.
They were supposed to have told Rahab to tie a red scarf in her window as a sign to General Bin-Nun. Her rear cellar window in the city wall. Without that sign, the invading Israelite troops wouldn't know which portion of the walls, let alone which home inside, to spare.
Rahab was already dead.