Book 2 of The Elijah Chronicles
Research by Brock Thoene
©
2019
The Threshing Floor
Copyright 2019 by Rayburn J. Bentley
All Rights Reserved. No part of The Threshing Floor may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or in any means—by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise—in any form without permission. Brief passages (500 words or less) may be quoted by a reviewer in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, website, or broadcast.
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Scripture taken from the New King James Version® Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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Dedicated to Dorothy Jean Bentley
We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body
and to be present with the Lord.
II Corinthians 5:8
Dead Jews littered the cobbled lanes of Nuremberg’s Jewish Quarter.
Sides of buildings desecrated by graffiti: Tod für Juden.
DEATH TO JEWS
Electricity to the Sephardic Synagogue cut off.
And the Nazi Brown Shirts were still coming.
Candles illuminated the prayer books of two hundred swaying Jews who prayed the final, desperate prayers for deliverance from the book of Daniel.
“O Hashem, as befits Your abundant benevolence, let Your wrathful fury turn back from Your city Yerushalayim, Your Holy Mountain; for because of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers, Yerushalayim and Your people have become a mockery among all who are around us.”
Moonlight and the ominous glow of burning Jewish buildings shone through the four-hundred-year-old stained glass windows. Above the heads of the doomed congregation were scenes depicting the seven days of creation, the fall of man, and the great flood that had lifted up Noah’s Ark. Color and light wordlessly told the stories portrayed in the Torah.
Seventeen-year-old David ben Elijah, son and heir of the Chief Rabbi, craned his neck upwards to ponder the image of Father Abraham offering his only son, Isaac, to God. The ram God had provided for sacrifice struggled in the thicket.
David knew well that Abraham’s faith was so great he would have sacrificed his only son in obedience to the command of the Lord. And yet the ordeal had only been a trial to test Abraham’s great faith.
He wondered as the sounds of shattering windows and the roaring of Hitler Youth and Storm Troopers drew near, was this terrible night of destruction and persecution also meant to test the faith of the Jews of Germany?
“Save us, O Lord!”
Until this night, David could not have imagined anything more fierce than the wrath of God. But this was Nuremberg, the terrible gathering place of tens of thousands of Nazis. They congregated here with burning torches to proclaim their adoration of their Fuhrer! There was no field large enough to hold all the marching hordes who came to hear the speeches of the party leaders. This was the city where the laws against the Jews had first been passed.
Now Hitler had taken note of the Great Synagogue and the Jewish Quarter of the city. He had studied the city map and the Jewish boundary. With a sweep of his hand, he had condemned the ancient Jewish section to destruction. Because Hitler willed the extinction of all Jews in Germany, the Great Synagogue of Nuremberg was to be destroyed tonight.
“Save us, Lord! We call upon you, O Adonai! For the sake of your Name!”
David watched his father lead the prayers of the congregants. “Again, we are destined to wander in the wilderness.” Tears streamed down his father’s lined cheeks. “Unless we have a miracle.”
“Ascribe unto the Eternal, glory and might!”
David’s father went to the Ark where the Holy Torah scrolls were kept and opened the doors for the last time. Reverently the Word of God was removed, unwrapped from its covering, cradled like a baby, kissed, and passed from man to man.
The groaning tracks of the demolition equipment could be heard outside. From the gallery, a university student snapped photographs of the mob hurtling down the lane.
David gathered the scroll into his arms. It was said this scroll was over seven hundred years old. The pain of David’s grief nearly dropped him to his knees. “Ascribe unto the Eternal, the honor due unto His Name.” He kissed the scroll and passed it on.
“The voice of the Lord resounds above the waters!”
Outside the synagogue, a bulldozer, a tank, and a crane with a wrecking ball rumbled into place.
“Tear it down! Tear it down!”
“Not one stone left upon another!”
“Juden swine! Out! Out!”
Inside the synagogue, David’s father shouted over the din. “The voice of the Eternal thunders above the mighty waters. The voice of the Eternal in strength.”
“Destroy the Jews! Bring it down on their heads! Down with their Temple!”
“The voice of the Eternal doth shatter the cedars of Lebanon!”
A bullet smashed through a stained-glass window. The colorful scene burst into a thousand shards. Gleaming shrapnel rained down on the heads of the men in their silk prayer shawls.
Gleeful voices shouted, “Blow them up! Kill them all! Burn them!”
David’s father touched his arm. Faded blue eyes searched the face of the young man. “It’s time. You are my only son, David. The last. You know what you must do.”
“I won’t leave you, Father,” David cried.
“You must go!” The old man commanded calmly. “It is arranged.”
Others turned to gaze upon the parting of father and son.
The young man with a camera descended from the gallery and slipped a roll of film into David’s pocket. “I got them all. Hitler’s friend, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, is down there right in the middle of SS officers. I got all their faces on film. Take care of this, David. Deliver it to the BBC. One day the world will see what they have done. Our Testimony.”
The President of the Congregation spoke, “David, you are the last. We are counting on you to survive.”
“How can I leave you?”
David looked up at the window of Abraham raising his knife to slay Isaac. This was true faith, yet David’s father would not permit David to stay and fight and die for the sake of the Name.
“My son. My only son. You must live,” the Rabbi said. “You will be our witness.”
“Papa!” David’s tears overflowed.
The old Rabbi stooped to pick up a palm-sized fragment of glass from the ruined window, studied it a moment, and wrapped it in a kerchief. He passed it to his son. “Keep this and know, as long as there shall be a remnant, like this piece of glass, Israel lives. My son, remember who you are, and where you come from! You must live! The way of escape is provided. We prepared for this moment. Turn your face to Yerushalayim. For the sake of your people, Israel. For the sake of the covenant! Don’t look back!”
What was the image on the shard?
David embraced his father in a final farewell, and then passed through ranks of hands reaching out to touch him in blessing as he left them. “Remember us . . . remember us . . . remember us . . . ”
Descending to the dark synagogue basement, David made his way through a long tunnel, emerging into a tailor’s shop two blocks away. It had all been arranged.
Quickly he changed from his clothes into a finely tailored German suit with the British passport and travel papers and money sewn into the lining.
“Don’t look back,” he admonished himself as he arrived on the street.
Gunshots erupted; the shouts of the attackers and the cries of the dying echoed around him. A Jewish grocer was pulled from his house and executed as the man’s wife and children were forced to watch.
The boom and crash of the wrecking ball against the synagogue cupola resounded as David carefully made his way toward the safe house.
Jack Garrison dozed fitfully beside Bette Deekmann’s ICU bed. He was dimly aware of the unrelenting hums and beeps of monitors and the breathing rhythm of the ventilator keeping Bette alive.
For a moment, Jack could not remember where he was. The sounds of medical machinery clamped him to the memory of a London hospital the night his wife, Debbie, clung to life after a head-on collision.
Debbie and their baby had not survived.
And now?
Jack forced himself to open his eyes; forced himself to return to the present. This was a new nightmare. He was in Jerusalem, not England. This was the best-equipped trauma ward in Israel, which meant it was among the best in the world.
But the pale, young woman in the ICU bed was Bette. His beautiful, vibrant Bette.
Tubes everywhere. Wires everywhere. Fluids dripping in and out. The odor of bleach mixed with sickness; sweat produced by fear and anxiety.
His head throbbed with the present reality. A sense of dread and impending loss; the hope and hopelessness of waiting for a breakthrough . . . every emotion felt too familiar.
Jack shifted in the reclining chair, trying to find a more comfortable position. Through the glass partition, he spotted the surgeon who had operated on Bette. No longer in his scrubs, the doctor leaned against the nurses’ station and spoke quietly to the Charge Nurse as he studied a chart. Both glanced up at the same moment and looked grimly toward Bette’s room.
Okay, Jack thought, trying to interpret their expressions. So it isn’t looking so good.
Jack needed answers. He ran a hand over his unshaven cheek and stood. How could anyone reconcile the ironies of this fragile life? There had been three surgeries piecing Bette Deekmann’s intestines back together after the terrorist attack that had almost taken her life.
But, infection had flared yet again.
The doctor had explained to Jack: “This was a severe stomach wound. She’s lucky to be alive. It is very, very difficult to get under control.”
So surgery number four was scheduled. Jack prayed this would be the last.
The monstrous equipment contrasted dully with Bette’s perfect feet; pink nail polish and still-cheerful painted daisy on her big toes.
Lingering at her bedside a moment, he tenderly touched Bette’s swollen hand, then went out to speak with the surgeon.
“Good morning, Jack.” The surgeon spoke in heavily accented English. Dark eyes betrayed the seriousness of Bette’s condition and invited Jack to voice his questions.
“Yes, it’s morning, isn’t it?” Jack replied. His gaze lingered on the chart written in Hebrew.
“One can lose track of time in here. You should take a break.”
“Can you tell me . . . still critical?
“Very critical. But . . . she is with us still, yes? A fighter. Truly. Anyone else, perhaps not. But she is physically strong and has such a will to live.”
Jack nodded. “Yes. Yes. But . . . is there any improvement? And when will we know?”
The physician sighed and chose his words carefully. “This will be a long, slow process. Perhaps a few days. She is heavily sedated; unaware that you are here. I suggest you go home and sleep.”
“Has anyone called her family? She told me her mother and father are in Singapore. But a large, extended family here in Israel, she said. A big family, she told me. But I’m the only one who has been by her bedside, except for her colleagues checking in.”
The doctor glanced at the Charge Nurse. “Family?”
The stocky woman seemed surprised by the question. “I’m sorry, Mr. Garrison. There is no one to call.”
Jack frowned. “She mentioned . . . Gal Gadot. A cousin.”
The surgeon smiled. “Ah, yes. Wonder Woman. A little joke among us. We say all our Israeli Defense Force women are second cousins to Wonder Woman.”
“But . . . her parents?” Jack stammered. “Brothers? In Singapore? They should be coming back to Israel. Do they even know what’s happened?”
Physician and nurse exchanged an uneasy look. “Perhaps you should ask her superior officer?” the doctor suggested. “Yes. Perhaps. But for now, Jack, you should go home and get some sleep, yes?”
Jack rubbed his aching eyes and looked through the glass at the small, frail figure in the bed. “Thanks. But please: if there is any change . . . either way . . . you have my number. I’ll be back this afternoon.”
“Of course. You are on the contact list.”
Jack reentered the dim cubicle and hovered above Bette for a long moment. Her lips curved around the clear ventilator tube. Jack whispered, “Please, God. Please let her live. Bring her back. This time, make it different.” Then, “I love you, Bette.” He carefully leaned through the tubes and wires of the hospital bed to kiss her goodbye.
What was it Bette had told him about never parting without saying, ’I love you?’ Something about never knowing if this might be the last time in this life to see someone you loved.
Jack felt the truth of her warning. The monitor above her head charted a heartbeat, which kept her moored to life by a thin, jagged thread.
“I love you, Bette,” he whispered again. One final, tender, touch of farewell.
An IDF sentry was at the door as Jack exited the critical care unit and made his way toward the family waiting room.
Lev, his face pained, stood up as Jack entered. “Hey, buddy.” The two men embraced.
“The stomach wound,” Jack explained. “Infection. They’ve got to open it up again; let it drain. She’s in an induced coma. On a ventilator.”
“Okay. Okay, Jack. Tough stuff. Come on, then. Let’s get out of here awhile. What do you say?”
Jack followed him to the elevator. “I’m afraid to leave.”
“I know. But your heart stays here. And we won’t stop pounding on heaven’s door until we get an answer.”
The skies above Jerusalem were pale blue as the friends stepped outside. Jack inhaled deeply, breathing in fresh air and expunging the smell of hospital disinfectant. Windswept clouds blocked the sun. He asked, “What time is it?”
“Six o’clock. Have you had breakfast?” Lev took his arm and headed toward the car park.
“What day?”
“It’s Wednesday. You’re in bad shape.”
“I can’t stay away long.”
“Sure. Let’s get you back to your hotel. A shower and a nap . . . and some food, maybe.”
“I’m telling you, Lev.” Jack held back a sense of panic as they pulled to the entrance of his hotel. “I can’t stay away too long.”
“I get it. But this is all going to take some time, okay? Go on up. I’ll come up as soon as I park.”
Jack unfastened his seatbelt, but still hesitated. “Somebody needs to contact her family, Lev. I thought the IDF would do it. Bette told me about her family. She has a huge family. They need to know. Her parents are in Singapore, she said.”
“This is all over the news. They’ve probably seen it.”
“Then where are they?” Exhaustion suddenly overwhelmed him.
Lev took it in. “Man, you gotta rest. Look at you. I’ll see what I can find out.”
Located in East Jerusalem where Rub’a el-Adawiya Street made a looping turn to the east, the Mount of Olives lunch counter possessed two advantages as far as Omar Barghouti was concerned. It was a half block from the bus stop by which he had arrived, and it was perched on a hill with excellent visibility in all directions.
Outside the cafe were Coca-Cola crates, a row of two-liter plastic water bottles, and a blue-painted freezer offering popsicles and single-serving cartons of Nestle’s ice cream. The faded lettering on the sign over the door was written in English, Arabic, and Hebrew. “Rooftop restaurant,” it proclaimed.
The location was perfect for a meeting that needed to appear completely innocent.
The one who had called for this meeting, Rafa Husseini, was late, but not because of the traffic. It was just past six-thirty in the morning, and the street was empty of both cars and pedestrians.
Omar was not bothered by her tardiness. He leaned against the ice cream freezer, smoking a cigarette as if he had nowhere to be and nothing to do.
A block away, a once champagne Mercedes, now a sallow tan, nosed into a spot on the sidewalk between an electrician’s work truck and a roll-off trash dumpster. Without lifting his head or showing any interest, Omar noted the female figure that emerged from the car. Though middle-aged, she was dressed in Levi’s, a purple sweatshirt with the hood up, and hiking boots. The woman walked straight past Omar without speaking, bought a coke at the counter, and then went up to the rooftop terrace.
Taking his time, looking up and down the street, Omar finished his smoke, then ground out the butt under his heel.
The flat roof of the establishment allowed a rusting metal awning to provide shade for three picnic tables and six chairs, two of which were missing their backs; the advertised Rooftop Restaurant.
But the view was something else again. High enough to scan across the intervening valleys and ridgelines, Omar’s perch revealed the breadth of Old City Jerusalem and the skyscrapers of the modern city beyond. That is ours; should all be ours, Omar thought. Thank you, Jews, for your efforts. Now vanish from the earth! No? Then let me assist you.
Omar sat at one table and Rafa at another, though no one else was on the roof. They sat in silence, gazing out toward the west.
Rafa finally spoke. “Why did you choose this location?”
Omar snorted. “You’re the one who said ‘No’ to a meeting in Gaza City, and ‘No’ again to meeting in Ramallah. It made me think you have something in mind that you don’t want either your Hamas chiefs or your Fatah bosses to know about.”
Rafa looked angry that her motivation was so transparent, but she couldn’t argue with the conclusion. “This American president . . . this Trump,” she began. “He must be . . . ”
“Stop,” Omar insisted. “Don’t talk crazy.”
Mastering her thoughts, Rafa continued, “He is going to recognize Jerusalem as the Jews’ capital. And then he’s going to move the American Embassy there.”
“So? What do you expect me to do about it?”
“There is still time to prevent it!” Rafa insisted. “Protests in Gaza and the West Bank, but also showing the world . . . especially America . . . that it is not wise to go against the will of the Palestinian people.”
“Hamas receives electricity from the Jews. The Palestinian Authority sends their teenagers to private schools alongside Jews and Christians. They make big noises, but they don’t really do anything!” Omar complained.
“Which is why I come to you,” Rafa continued. “I consult for both Hamas and Fatah, but my heart is with Palestinian Jihad just like yours.”
Omar’s eyes narrowed. The tips of his finger and thumb brushed the hilt of the knife tucked in his waistband. “Who says?” he demanded.
“Doesn’t matter,” Rafa returned. “Do you want to hear about the job or not?”
Omar shrugged. “Talk. It’s what Palestinian leaders do best.”
Rafa explained how a highly placed, wealthy man in Britain had worked very hard to build and maintain anti-Israeli sentiment in Europe, only to see part of his labor undone by Jack Garrison. “He is an American professor, but he lives here. Now he works for a Christian group trying to build better and closer relations between Israel and the United States.”
Omar lit another cigarette and blew a spiral of blue smoke toward a hole in the dilapidated awning. “Again, So?”
“He is also the grandson of one of the Jewish heroes of the Great Disaster,” Rafa said, referring to the 1948 Jewish War of Independence. “Garrison also has a girlfriend who is with Yamam.”
“The Jewish anti-terror group. Wonderful. Could you pick any harder targets?”
“Don’t you see?” Rafa corrected. “That’s what makes them perfect! Take them all out, and we convince the world that a Jerusalem still enslaved by Jews is not and never can be safe for them.”
“Nice speech,” Omar noted. “How much?”
“Ten thousand, American. Five when you agree and the rest when the job is done.”
Omar was impressed but also suspicious. “I think there’s more to this job than you are telling me,” he suggested. “I don’t think either Hamas or Fatah knows about your plan or my payment. Nor do I think you can afford me by yourself. If you are willing to risk a bullet in the back of your head for embezzling, then there must be a personal reason.”
Rafa gripped the table until her nails scored little lines in the chipped paint. “The American blinded my brother, and the Jewish sharmuta killed him. I want them both dead.”
The surgery was finished. Bette was aware of the medical staff gathered around her. The sounds of alarms beeped far away.
“Blood pressure dropping . . . ”
“We’re losing her!”
“Bring her up!”
“Heartbeat . . . ”
Bette felt herself rise slowly from the bed. Suddenly, she was an observer as the world around her became covered in a gauzy veil. There were the doctors. The nurses. She saw them from above, all working frantically on a young woman laying ashen and unresponsive in a hospital bed.
Bette studied the patient, somewhat surprised there was another person sharing her room. Who was it? When did they bring her in?
A doctor shouted the name, “Bette! Bette! Come back to us, girl!”
Bette finally recognized herself. Her face. Her body. The medical staff was fighting desperately; commanding her to live. The man in charge worked to make her heart beat, and demanded that her spirit not leave.
Above it all, Bette smiled.
She felt the presence of someone beside her. Suddenly she was no longer in the hospital room but somewhere else; a beautiful place filled with light and music and a sense of peace so powerful that she no longer heard the sounds in the hospital room, or the people calling her to come back. She did not want to return to that place of pain and suffering.
Who was this man that appeared next to her? Not someone she knew, and yet he seemed familiar. An angel? Her angel?
He was clothed in light. His eyes were honey gold, and he studied her with a kind expression on his face.
Bright beams of light flowed from his hands and from his feet and from his forehead.
“Bette.” He spoke, and it was an embrace; as if her mother had rocked her to sleep and then said her name as she carried her to bed.
“I’m here, Lord,” she replied, though her lips did not move.
“I have been waiting for you.”
“Who are you?”
“I AM the one you have spent your life searching for.”
“I was lost. And now I have found you.”
“You were not lost. I have been beside you, watching over you all along.”
“Please. Do you hear the cry of my people?”
He lowered his head and searched her face tenderly. “I hear them. I love them. Who will go to them for me? Who will speak to them for me?”
“I will go. If you send me, I will go for you.”
The holy one smiled. “Yes. I knew you would. You must lay aside your life and pick up mine.”
“Give up everything?”
“For a time.”
Bette felt herself accept his offer. “Who should I tell them has sent me? What is your name?”
“You will find what you seek at Notre Dame. My gift to you is in the image of suffering.”
Bette reached up, longing to embrace him. “Please, Lord! When will I see you again?”
“Soon, my daughter. But remember I am always with you.”
His features faded into light. Suddenly, Bette found herself enshrouded by physical pain. Human hands and human voices touched and called out to her and to one another in victory and relief.
“Okay! We’ve got her!”
“Her blood pressure is rising!”
“Heart beating on its own again!” “Bette! Bette, honey! Can you hear me?”
Bette nodded. Her eyes fluttered open, and then closed again.
“Okay! A close one.”
Bringing Bette back to full consciousness was a process that took days even after the infection was finally declared under control. Heart rate and blood pressure remained steady. At last, she was able to breathe on her own. The ventilator was removed during the early morning hours.
Jack daubed her mouth with a cool, lemon-flavored wash. She licked her lips and sighed. That was the first sign she was coming back from the deep, medically induced sleep.
He was at her bedside at sunrise when, at last, she opened her eyes, saw his face, and attempted a smile through cracked lips.
“Bette, I’m here,” he whispered.
She tried to speak, but only croaked as her mouth formed his name and the question, “How long?”
“Don’t try to talk.” He stroked her forehead.
“How . . . long?” She rasped.
“You’ve been out quite a while. Fighting hard. But you’re back now. You’re going to make it.”
She shook her head in frustration. She did not want to know how long she had been in the hospital. “Home,” she breathed.
“Ah.” Jack finally tumbled to her meaning. “You want to know how long ‘til you can go home?”
She nodded.
He resisted the urge to laugh. “When you’re well enough. Then.”
She closed her eyes in a frustrated frown. “Home.”
“Sure.” He tried to reassure her. “But just try not to fight it. I’ll be here. They’ll want to know you’re awake. I’ll go fetch your nurse now.”
A curt nod of acceptance. Jack slipped out of the room and stepped to the nurse’s station.
“Okay. Ms. Deekmann is awake. And, big surprise, she wants to go home. Now.”
The nurse laughed and pushed the call number for Bette’s doctor. “I knew it was a good thing she was sedated. You know how many times she tried to pull out the ventilator tube and the IVs? Not exactly a cooperative patient.”
“Well, she’s awake and wants to go home.” Jack shrugged.
“Lots of luck to us all. That day will still be a while,” she said over her shoulder as she headed toward Bette’s room. “Go get some breakfast. We’ll ring if we need you.”
Jack raised his face to the hot water streaming from the hotel shower. Relief poured over him. “Thank you, God,” he breathed. “Thank you for giving Bette back to me.”
Even as he prayed in gratitude, he wondered, What if she had died? Would I still believe in God if Bette hadn’t made it?
The answer was imponderable. Jack had lost his conviction when his wife and child died. But now, in Israel, everything seemed different. He had not returned to faith, but rather, trust in the love and grace of Sovereign God was born anew in him.
But doubt remained. Could he have gone forward, once again, with inconsolable loss? Was his love strong enough that he could let Bette go? Jack stepped out of the shower and put on the King David Hotel bathrobe. He was too tired, he thought, to try to measure the strength of his faith. Not now.
He fell into bed. No more introspection. All he wanted was a few hours of untroubled sleep and then to wake up in a world where everything was put right and there was no more doubt about anything. No more tears. No more sickness. Love with a good woman. Kids. Peace. A perfect world. A perfect life.
Not possible, but even so it was a nice image to go to sleep to.
“We’re all still Adam, homesick for Eden,” he said aloud to himself and smiled as he drifted off.
Bette was aware of someone sitting beside her hospital bed. “Jack,” she whispered, opening her eyes.
“No. Not Jack.” The craggy face of her IDF Commanding Officer frowned back at her with an uncharacteristic expression of sympathy. “Me. Mordechai.”
“Modi? What are you doing here?”
“What? I can’t visit our best agent in the hospital?”
“Am I dying?”
“Almost died, I hear. But not quite.” He smiled. “I would have been sorry to lose you.”
“Yes. I’m sure of it. I almost flew away. Now I feel . . . not so good. Sick.”
“You are a very strong girl to have survived all this.” He shrugged. “The doctors tell me it will be a while until you’re back.”
Her throat still hurt from the ventilator. “I’m thirsty.”
He reached for a glass on her bed tray. “Ice chips only. They told me to give them to you if you asked.” He spooned ice onto her parched tongue.
Relief. “Modi, you wouldn’t come to visit unless there was a reason.”
The furrows on Modi’s forehead merged with a scar over one eye. “Okay. To the point. We have intercepted a conversation between the Hamas leadership. Bette, you were mentioned.”
“You mean, the attack?”
“Yes. The attack, but I’m talking about you. Your family connection. Your possible identity.”
Bette let the ice melt on her tongue. “So they know?”
“They expressed a suspicion only. But they mentioned your grandfather. Your father. The massacre.”
Bette drew a deep breath. “What does this mean?”
“It was a brief reference. You know, ‘the woman IDF soldier who killed our assassin is possibly related to . . . ’”
“How could they know?”
“We don’t have any more information. It’s probably nothing, but we wanted you to be aware of it.”
“What now?”
“We are keeping a bodyguard posted outside at your door for now. Not that anyone could get onto this floor, or into your room, but we want you to know there’s still an extra layer of protection in place.”
“Thank you. Thanks. And my brother?”
“No. Nothing at all about him. Not ever. Invisible. No suspicion.”
She closed her eyes in relief. “What about Jack?”
“You’ll have to decide what to do about him, Bette. I warned you not to fall in love.”
“Yes, you did. Thank you very much.”
“So. I guess that’s all.” He patted her hand, careful not to touch the IV. “We have decided to transfer you to Tel Aviv for recovery if that helps. A little distance. Sea air. A little time to heal and think things through.”
Bette nodded. Her eyes brimmed with tears. “Sure. Whatever you say, Modi.”
In the gathering twilight, streetlights popped on, beginning first in the depths of the Kidron Valley beneath the perch where Jack prayed on the Mount of Olives. The line of lamps climbed the slopes as daylight retreated, like torches carried by invisible hands. In the growing dusk, it was easy to imagine the electric globes were actually torches flaring and smoking against the cobalt Judean sky.
With growing conviction, he was, in fact, witnessing blazing firebrands. Jack was not surprised to find the robed figure of Eliyahu standing beside him. “So,” he asked without fear. “Where are we this time? Or should I say, ‘when?’”
Twenty-first century Jerusalem had disappeared: no autos, no paved streets. So had eleventh century Jerusalem, the seventh, and the first. No longer were there any Christian Crusader buildings, or Muslim Domes or Roman fortresses . . . or even a Jewish Temple.
The flat expanse of rocky plateau Jack knew as the Temple Mount was bare. Extending from it toward the south on the point of a rocky outcropping was a primitive fortress roughly the shape of a spearhead. The land around the tip of the blade fell away sharply; sheer cliffs defined by the sides and intersection of two deep canyons. Vertical rock faces were surmounted by battlements of stacked stone. Low places and gullies had been filled with rubble to prevent anyone from using them to ascend the heights.
As if Eliyahu knew Jack had fully taken in the setting and was now ready for his question to be answered, the night was suddenly populated.
Mocking laughter echoed from the hilltop: “You will never take Jebus!” a hoarse voice jeered.
“Go back to your kingdom of Israelites . . . and your other sheep,” another unseen figure scoffed. “Do you see these cliffs and these walls? A lone blind man and a single cripple could defend them . . . and one of them could go home to supper!”
Gales of sarcasm tumbled over the walls, rebounded from valleys, and deluged the canyons.
Torchlight illuminated the grim faces of warriors standing on the hillside near Jack and Eliyahu. Bearded men in conical helmets wore leather vests and carried short swords and spears. Their robes were hitched up and belted to leave their legs bare at mid-thigh above sandaled feet.
The tallest of them, a ruddy-complected man whose hair glinted dark red in the firelight gestured with his sword toward the mockers on the heights. “I have been king in Hebron these seven years,” the unmistakable chief of the group said. “Shall I return there with the laughter of the Jebusites ringing in my ears?”
“King David,” Eliyahu murmured to Jack.
The soldiers of the Jewish king replied with growls and angry words. “Never!”
“The Almighty gave this land to your fathers and our fathers; to Father Abraham, and then the tribes,” asserted one. “The rest of Canaan acknowledges you as king . . . and so will this place.”
“Brave words,” King David replied drily. “I have sworn that whoever strikes the first blow against the Jebusites will be the captain of my host. Will it be any of you?”
A clamor of voices responded. Some proposed a direct assault up the steep cliffs. Others suggested attacking the wall that defended the city at the edge of the tabletop plateau on the north. Others, more cautious, offered a siege. “We’ll starve them out,” one said.
A muscular figure with a hawk’s beak for a nose and fierce eyes stepped forward along with two others of similar build and features. “I will strike the first blow,” the volunteer swore, holding his sword hilt over his heart.
“So, Joab,” David said. “And how many of my men do you need to make good on your promise? A hundred? Two hundred?”
Joab jerked his head left and right to the pair of warriors flanking him. “Just my brothers and I. So long as you surround the city on all sides. Just before moonset let the archers attack from the valleys and the sling-men from along the wall to the north. Let them be as loud as possible . . . think of Gideon attacking the Midianite camp. Keep a hundred swordsmen in reserve near the northern wall for when I open the gate.
“Only,” Joab added, “let no torches appear, or any of our troops be seen just there.” Joab pointed toward a clump of trees halfway up the pillars of jagged limestone.
Before any time had passed Jack and Eliyahu were threading their way into a cleft in the rock; the fourth and fifth members of Joab’s raiding party, though unseen and unheard by the others. A fold in the rockface . . . hidden from view and protected from entry by a thorny grove of acacia shrubs . . . led to a hole just barely large enough for an armed man to wriggle through.
Once inside, Joab struck a flint rock against the edge of a dagger. The shower of sparks ignited a tar-covered torch with which he led the way forward.
“How did anyone find this place?” Jack wondered to Eliyahu as he dropped to his feet in the shoulder-high passage behind the entry.
“This is the location of the thicket where the Almighty caused the ram to be caught by his horns. You remember: when Abraham brought his son Isaac to this mountain in obedience to the Lord’s command.”
Jack nodded. In another vision, he had witnessed the moment when Abraham’s knife flashed in the sun over his boy’s chest . . . and God had halted the Patriarch and then rewarded him and all his descendants for his committed faith.
Eliyahu continued, “Where the Almighty promised to bring Himself as the ultimate sacrifice. It was from the offspring of those acacia barbs that a crown of thorns was woven for the Messiah; the Son of David. Remember, everything means something!”