By the Rivers of Babylon

by Nelson DeMille

  “Do you think the Iraqis would attempt a rescue?”

  “Who knows? The Arabs are capable of the most chivalrous acts imaginable and the most treacherous—all within the same day.”

  Hausner nodded. “I think they want this peace mission to succeed. If Baghdad finds out we’re here, we can expect help.”

  Dobkin waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal. “Who can say? The peace may already be lost. But I’m not a politician. Militarily, it would be difficult for them to aid us in this terrain. That’s all I know for certain.”

  Hausner stopped. They were near the Concorde. He could see people standing and speaking in small groups. He lowered his voice. “Why?”

  Dobkin spoke softly also. “Well, according to our latest intelligence, the Iraqis have very little helicopter mobility. They have less paratroop capability and virtually no amphibious craft, which would be needed to move troops this time of year. They’re well equipped for desert warfare, but there’s a lot of marsh and mud flats and swollen streams between the Tigris and Euphrates during the flood season. A lot of armies have come to grief in Mesopotamia in the spring.”

  “How about regular light infantry? Doesn’t anyone use them anymore?”

  Dobkin nodded. “Yes. Light infantry could reach us. But it would take a lot of time. There’s a small town a little south of here—Hillah—but I don’t know if they have a garrison or if they could reach us. And even if they could, would they stand up to the Palestinians?”

  “Let’s keep all this to ourselves.”

  “It’s military secret Number One. And I’ll tell you military secret Number Two. There are whole units of the Iraqi Army made up of displaced Palestinians. I’d hate to be the Iraqi military commander who had to test their loyalty by asking them to fight their compatriots. But we don’t want to lower everyone’s morale, so that’s not for public information, either.”

  Dobkin and Hausner moved toward the Concorde and stopped near the nose cone. Some meters beyond the nose cone was the structure that they had almost hit. It looked like a ruined shepherds’ shelter, but it wasn’t stone as Hausner had thought when they were careening toward it. It was baked brick. The baked brick of Mesopotamia. It was partly roofed with date palms. Hausner noted that it was not much different from the shepherds’ huts of Israel, or probably anywhere else in the Middle East. It was an ageless monument to the world’s loneliest profession. A link with the world of Abraham. He could see through a partly collapsed wall. Men and women were standing inside talking. This was the Foreign Minister’s meeting.

  Hausner turned toward a sound in the dark. He could make out the majority of the passengers standing under the starboard delta wing. Rabbi Haim Levin was beginning Sabbath services a little late. Hausner recognized the short silhouette of Yaakov Leiber supported by the other two stewards.

  Hausner saw something move under the fuselage. Suddenly Peter Kahn dropped down from the wheel well of the collapsed nose gear. He had a flashlight in his hand that he quickly shut off.

  Dobkin walked up to him. “How’s it look?”

  “Bad .”

  “What’s bad?” asked Hausner.

  Kahn looked at him and smiled. “That was a hell of a thing you did, Mr. Hausner.”

  “What’s bad?”

  “The auxiliary power unit. It got damaged when the landing gear collapsed.”

  “So what? Are we taking off?”

  Kahn forced a smile. “No. But there’s still a few hundred liters of fuel left in the bottom of two of the wing tanks. If we can start the APU, we can run the generators and we’ll have electricity to broadcast. The batteries won’t last forever.”

  Hausner nodded. Forever might be only a matter of hours for them, in which case the batteries were good enough. “Where’s the captain?”

  “On the flight deck.”

  Hausner looked up the sloping nose cone. A greenish glow came through the windshield. He could make out Becker’s outline. I’m going to talk to him.”

  Dobkin shook his head. “The Foreign Minister wants to speak to you.” He indicated the shepherds’ hut.

  Hausner didn’t feel up to it. “Not just yet.”

  “I’m afraid I have to insist.”

  There was a long silence. Hausner looked up at the flight deck, then back at the shepherds’ hut. Kahn became uncomfortable and walked away. Hausner spoke. “In my carry-on luggage, I have an identikit and a psychological profile on Ahmed Rish. I want to get it.”

  Dobkin hesitated. “Well, I suppose . . .” Dobkin suddenly looked surprised as it hit him. “Why the hell do you have that with you?”

  “A hunch.”

  “I’m impressed, Jacob. I really am. All right. They’ll want to see that.”

  Hausner jumped up to the leading edge of the delta which was a few meters from the ground. He walked up the sloping wing to the emergency door.

  * * *

  The sloping cabin was dark, but an eerie green light came through the door leading to the flight deck. The seat belt and smoking lights were still on and the Machmeter still functioning. It read MACH 0.00 And always would. The cabin was empty. It smelled of burnt kerosene. Hand luggage, blankets, and pillows were scattered everywhere. Hausner could hear Rabbi Levin’s clear voice coming through the split pressure bulkhead where the tail used to be.

  He walked into the pitched flight deck. Becker was adjusting knobs on the green-glowing radios. There was the sound of electronic humming and the crackle of static. Moses Hess lay slumped over the instruments where he had died. Becker was speaking in a low voice and Hausner realized he was not speaking into the radio, but to Hess. He cleared his throat. “David.”

  Becker turned his head but said nothing. He went back to the radio.

  Hausner stepped up to the seats. He felt uncomfortable with Hess’s body lying there. “You did one hell of a job.”

  Becker began going through the frequencies again, monitoring but not attempting to transmit.

  Hausner moved closer, between the seats, and his leg brushed Hess. He stepped back. If he had his way, the body would be buried in ten minutes. But he knew the rabbi wouldn’t allow it on the Sabbath. Unless he or someone else could successfully plead health reasons, Hess’s body wouldn’t be buried until sundown. “I’ll get him out of here, David.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” A loud radio whine filled the cabin. Becker cursed and shut it off, then shut down the emergency power. The dim lights went out, and moonlight filled the flight deck. “The bastard is still jamming us. He can’t do a very good job of it from where he is, but he’s trying.”

  “What kind of chance do we have to contact someone?”

  “Who knows?” Becker leaned back and lit a cigarette. He stared through the windshield, then turned back to Hausner. “The high frequency radio seems to be completely dead. That’s not unusual. It’s very sensitive. If we can get it to work, we could theoretically call any place in the world, depending on atmospheric conditions. The VHF radio is working fine and I’m broadcasting on 121.5—the International Emergency Frequency. I’m also broadcasting and monitoring our last El Al frequency. But I don’t hear anyone, and I’m not getting any responses.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, the VHF radio works on line of sight only. I haven’t looked, but I imagine there are hills around us that are higher than we are.”

  “There are.”

  “And the batteries are not as powerful as a generator. And don’t forget that Rish is broadcasting static on every frequency with his broad band transmitter, and he can keep his engines and generator running.” Becker blew out a long stream of smoke. “That’s why not.”

  “All right.” Hausner stared out the windshield. He could see people moving in the shepherds’ hut below him. “But we could probably contact an airplane overhead without much difficulty. Right?”

  “Right. All we we need is an airplane overhead.”

  Hausner noticed the blood-smeared brick that had killed Hess now
sitting atop the flight console. In the green glow of the instruments he could make out the ancient cuneiforms pressed into it. He couldn’t read cuneiforms, but he was certain that the brick said what most of the bricks of Babylon said: NEBUCHADNEZZAR, KING OF BABYLON, SON OF NABOPOLASSAR, KING OF BABYLON, AM I. The brick was very much out of place and time in the flight deck of the supersonic craft. He turned away from it. “I’ll mount an aircraft watch from the top of the fuselage. We’ll work out a system to signal you when one is spotted.”

  “Sounds good.” He looked for a long time at his dead copilot, then back at Hausner. “Kahn’s working on the APU.”

  “I saw him. He says it looks bad. How long will the batteries last?”

  “It’s really hard to say. I can monitor for quite a while, but every time I try a transmission I’m really pulling a lot of juice. I don’t know how much more power is being pulled off on the emergency circuit. The batteries are nickel cadmium. They’re good, but they don’t give much warning that they’re on the way out. They perform pretty well right up until the time they die.”

  Hausner nodded. He knew that. He worried about it. The starlight scope had nickel cadmium batteries also. “Do you think you want to hold off and save the batteries to turn over the APU if Kahn can fix it?”

  Becker rubbed his hand through his hair. “I don’t know. Shit. Everything we do from now on is going to have to be some sort of trade-off, isn’t it? I don’t know just yet. I’ll think about it.”

  “Right.” Hausner grabbed onto the flight engineer’s chair and pulled himself forward toward the door. He caught hold of the jamb and turned. “See you later.”

  Becker turned in his chair. “Are we going to make it?”

  “Of course.” Hausner walked up into the steeply tilted cabin and located his flight bag.

  * * *

  Hausner went out onto the wing and jumped off the leading edge. He could see that the Sabbath service had just finished. Most of the men and women headed quickly back toward the perimeter. Some were walking toward the shepherds’ hut, among them, Rabbi Levin. Hausner fell into step with him. “Can we bury Moses Hess?”

  “No.”

  “We have to begin building some sort of defensive works. Would you object to some work on the Sabbath?”

  “Yes.”

  They stopped by the wall of the shepherds’ hut. A few people from the Sabbath service walked past them and into the hut. Hausner looked at the rabbi. “Are we going to work together or are we going to be in conflict, Rabbi?”

  The rabbi slipped his prayer book and tallit into his jacket. “Young man, it’s the nature of religions to be in conflict with rational secular goals. Of course Moses Hess should be buried tonight, and of course you should start working on defenses. So we’ll compromise. You order everyone to work over my objections, and I’ll take charge of Moses Hess’s body and forbid his burial. These are the kinds of compromises Israel has made since 1948.”

  “And they’re damned stupid. It’s all a lot of hypocrisy. Well, have it your way for now.” Hausner stepped toward the opening of the hut.

  Rabbi Levin took Hausner’s arm and drew him back. “Survival is often a mixture of stupidity, hypocrisy, and compromise.”

  “I have no time for this.”

  “Wait. You’re an Anglophile, Hausner. Did you ever wonder why the English stopped for tea at four P.M. in the middle of a battle? Or why they dressed for dinner in the tropics?”

  “It’s their style.”

  “And it’s good for morale. Good for morale,” he repeated and tapped Hausner on the chest. “We don’t want people running amok just because we happen to be sitting on a hilltop in Babylon surrounded by hostile Arabs. So we do everyday things in everyday ways. We hold Sabbath services. We don’t bury our dead on the Sabbath. We don’t work on the Sabbath. And we won’t be reduced to eating lizards or something of that sort because lizards are not kosher, Jacob Hausner.” He tapped Hausner again on the chest, harder this time. “Nor will we break any other religious laws.” He brushed some dust off Hausner’s shirt. “Ask General Dobkin why soldiers in combat have to shave every day. Morale, Jacob Hausner, Form, Style, Civilization. That’s how to keep this group functioning. Keep the men shaving and the women’s hair and lipstick straight. It will follow from there. I used to be an Army chaplain. I know.”

  Hausner smiled in spite of himself. “That’s an interesting theory. But I asked you if we were going to get along.”

  Rabbi Levin lowered his voice. “I’ll rant and rave about The Law, and you rant and rave about military expediency. People will take sides. Internal strife is not always bad. It works to make people forget what a hopeless position they’re in when they’re arguing about trifles. So you and I will argue over trifles. Privately, we’ll compromise. Like now. I’m attending this meeting on the Sabbath. I’m a reasonable fellow. See?” He walked into the hut.

  Hausner stood staring at the spot where the rabbi had been. He couldn’t follow all the logic. It was a mixture of Machiavellian, Byzantine, and convoluted thinking with a dash of plain Jewish for good measure. He half suspected that the rabbi didn’t understand all he was saying himself. The man was definitely eccentric. But what he said had a good gut feeling.

  Hausner walked toward the entrance to the hut.

  * * *

  About fifteen people were standing, talking in low voices. Everyone became quiet and heads turned toward Hausner. He paused at the doorway. A blue-white moonbeam shone through the date palms and lit up the spot where he stood. Ariel Weizman, the Foreign Minister, came across the small room and took his hand. “You did a splendid job, Mr. Hausner.”

  Hausner allowed his hand to be shaken. “Do you mean in allowing the bombs to be placed aboard my aircraft, Mr. Minister?”

  The Foreign Minister looked at him closely in the moonlight. “Jacob,” he said softly, “enough of that.” The Foreign Minister turned around. “Let us begin. We’re here to define our objectives and estimate our chances of carrying out those objectives.”

  Hausner set his flight bag down and looked around the room as the Foreign Minister went on in his parliamentary speech patterns.

  Kaplan was lying on his stomach, against a wall. A blue El Al blanket covered him from the waist down. His bloody pants lay on the floor next to him. Two stewardesses, Beth Abrams and Rachel Baum, were looking after him, and Kaplan seemed to be enjoying it. Hausner was grateful that El Al stewards and stewardesses received quite a bit of medical training.

  The ten official delegates to the peace mission were there, including the two Arabs, Abdel Jabari and Ibrahim Arif. Miriam Bernstein stood near the cleft in the wall. She looked good by moonlight, reflected Hausner. He found himself staring at her.

  The Arab prisoner sat in the corner, his wrists bound to his ankles. His face was caked with dried blood where Hausner had hit him. His fatigue shirt was stiff with blood from his shoulder wound. Someone had opened the shirt and put a dressing on his shoulder. He appeared to be half asleep, or drugged.

  Hausner listened as everyone took a turn speaking. A regular Knesset meeting. Arguments and points of order and calls for votes. They couldn’t even decide what they were there for, why they had decided to fight, or what to do next. And all the while his five men, with a few other volunteers were manning an impossibly long defensive perimeter. It was a microcosm of Israel: democracy in action, or inaction. Churchill was right, he reflected. Democracy is the worst form of government—except for all the others.

  Hausner could see that Dobkin was also becoming impatient, but his training had taught him to defer to the politicians. Hausner interrupted someone. “Has anyone questioned the prisoner?”

  There was a silence. Why was this man speaking out of turn? What did the prisoner have to do with anything? A Knesset member, Chaim Tamir, looked down at the prisoner, who was apparently sleeping soundly now. “We tried. He’s reluctant to talk. Also, he is hurt badly.”

  Hausner nodded. He walked casually over
to the sleeping Arab and kicked him in the leg. There were a few surprised exclamations, including one from the Arab. Hausner turned around. “You see, ladies and gentlemen, the most important speaker in this room is this young man. What he says about the military capacity of the other side will determine our fate. I risked my life to bring him to you, and you are speaking only to each other.”

  Hausner could see that Burg and Dobkin looked relieved and anxious. No one spoke. Hausner continued. “And if this young man has very bad news for us, it should not become general knowledge. So, I suggest everyone except the Foreign Minister, the general, and Mr. Burg leave.”

  The room exploded into shouts of indignation and outrage.

  The Foreign Minister called for quiet. He turned to General Dobkin with a questioning look.

  Dobkin nodded. “It really should have been the first priority. We must question him no matter what condition he is in. And we must do it without delay.”

  The Foreign Minister looked surprised. “Then why didn’t you say so, General?”

  “Well, the prisoner was hurt and the stewardess had given him pain killers, and then you called this meeting—”

  Hausner turned to Burg. “Will you do it?”

  Burg nodded. “It’s my specialty.” He lit his pipe.

  The Arab prisoner knew that he was the subject of conversation, and he looked unhappy about it.

  The Foreign Minister nodded. “We will continue this meeting elsewhere and leave you alone with the prisoner, Mr. Burg.”

  Burg nodded.

  The assembly began filing out after the Foreign Minister. They looked angry and almost rebellious.

  Miriam Bernstein stopped in front of Jacob Hausner and looked up at him. He turned his back to her, but she surprised him and herself by grabbing his arm and half turning him back around. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “You know very well who and what I am.”