By the Rivers of Babylon

by Nelson DeMille

  “No more than we do,” said Hausner. “And I’ll advise you not to hold back that type of information in the future, General. As I see it you have two choices—the guest house at the Ishtar Gate or the Jewish village of Ummah.”

  Dobkin nodded. There was a good possibility that Ummah was no longer inhabited. There was also a chance that it was occupied by Palestinians. The third possibility was that the Jews there wouldn’t help. But was that possible? Was it possible for him to walk up to a primitive Jew who lived in a squalid mud hovel on the banks of the Euphrates, claim kinship, and demand help? Dobkin thought it was. And would Rish take retribution against those miserable wretches if he found out? Of course he would. But what were the alternatives? There were none. “I’ll try Ummah tonight.”

  “All right. I would have preferred that you take a shot at the guest house, but it’s your decision.” He turned and walked toward the shepherds’ hut with Dobkin. He turned to the big man as they walked. “I still can’t spare a gun.”

  “All right.”

  They walked on for a few more paces in silence. Hausner cleared his throat. “I asked the Foreign Minister to—”

  “Yes,” interrupted Dobkin. “I’ve got it. Digitalis. The Foreign Minister’s aide, Peled, has a bad heart. He has a month’s supply with him. I took two weeks of it.”

  “I hope that’s enough.”

  “Me too.”

  Burg came out of the shepherds’ hut with the two stewardesses, Rachel Baum and Beth Abrams. Their light-blue uniforms were soaked with sweat and what looked like blood and iodine. They gave Hausner an undisguised look of something that resembled a mixture of fear and disgust and kept walking.

  Burg shrugged. “They look at me like that, too. They were doing so well with their patient, Muhammad, until I sent him into remission. No one understands us, Jacob.”

  “Has he said anything new?” asked Hausner.

  Burg chewed on his empty pipe. “A few things.” He watched as the Lear headed west over the Euphrates. “I wonder if he’s going to base camp to get mortars and grenades?”

  Hausner watched as the Lear disappeared into the sun. “That would make it a little tougher tonight.”

  Dobkin lit a cigarette. “I’m glad I won’t be around.”

  “You’re going, then?” asked Burg.

  “Right. I’ll be eating matzoh and roasted lamb and dancing the horah tonight while you’re ducking bullets.”

  “I think you’ve had too much sun, General.”

  Dobkin told Burg about the Jewish village.

  Burg listened and nodded. “Pardon the joke, but it doesn’t sound kosher, Ben. Stick with the original plan.”

  “I have a better feeling about this.”

  Burg shrugged. Either way, it was suicide. “By the way, Muhammad says that Rish’s lieutenant, Salem Hamadi, is a homosexual. That would be consistent with institutional upbringing.”

  “Who cares?” said Hausner.

  “Salem Hamadi will when we broadcast it at top volume over the plane’s PA tonight.”

  Hausner smiled. “That’s low.”

  “All’s fair. Did you get the PA boxes strung out to the perimeter yet?”

  “It’s done,” said Dobkin.

  * * *

  Hausner moved into the shade of the delta wing. The earth and clay ramp was completed and he leaned back against the side of it. He felt the first stirring of a hot wind. Becker had reported that the Concorde’s barometer had been dropping rapidly all day. “Does anyone know the name of the east wind here?”

  “The Sherji,” said Dobkin. “Do you feel it?”

  “I think so.”

  “That’s not good. I understand it’s worse than the Hamseen in Israel.”

  “Why is that?”

  “It’s hotter, for one thing,” said Dobkin. “And there is only sand and dust here. It picks up the dust. It can choke you. Kill you. Especially on a hill like this. That’s how Babylon and all of Mesopotamia disappeared. Someone once said that a civilization would always survive if everyday people did everyday things every day. Well, that was true in Mesopotamia throughout every invasion—except the Mongol invasion. As soon as the women stopped sweeping the streets and the farmers stopped cultivating the land, the dust built up as the Sherji came out of the Persian mountains and carried the desert with it.”

  Hausner looked across the landscape toward the distant mountains. Dust devils began to form around the drifting sand dunes. They swirled across the hillocks and disappeared into the wadis, then appeared again, heading west toward them.

  Dobkin followed Hausner’s gaze. “From a military point of view, I honestly don’t know to whose advantage a dust storm would be.”

  “We have enough problems,” said Hausner. “I could do without another one.” He looked at Burg. “We’ll get rid of the prisoner if you’re through with him.”

  “I assume you mean let him go.”

  “Yes.”

  Dobkin objected.

  Hausner offered him a cigarette. “Let me tell you a story or two.” He settled back against the cool earth ramp. “During the siege of Milan, in the twelfth century, the inhabitants filled grain bags with sand and used them to reinforce the battlements. The besiegers under the German Emperor, Barbarossa, thought the bags were filled with grain and became disheartened. Actually, the city was starving, but Barbarossa didn’t know that. Some years later, Barbarossa besieged the Italian city of Alessandria. A peasant took his cow out of the city for pasture and was captured by Barbarossa’s forces. When they slaughtered the cow for food, they saw that its stomach was filled with good grain. The peasant explained that hay and fodder were in short supply in the city, but there was so much grain that it was fed to the livestock. Barbarossa again became discouraged and lifted the siege. Actually, the Alessandrians were starving and the peasant and the cow were a ruse.”

  “You’re trying to make a point,” said Burg.

  “Yes. First we have a party. A little singing and dancing. Some feigned eating and drinking. Store every weapon we’ve got in the shepherd’s hut. Put a single round in all the spare magazines so that they look fully loaded. Look casual about food and ammunition. Set up a mock machine gun far enough away so that it will pass. Come up with more ruses de guerre. Make it look as if we have the Third Armored Division up here on rest and recreation. Then let Mr. Muhammad Assad loose.”

  Dobkin looked thoughtful. “It’s kind of obvious.”

  “To Rish and his officers. But the Ashbals will think about it.” He looked at Burg.

  “Why not?” said Burg. “I’m through with him.”

  * * *

  The three men went into the hut. Kaplan was still on his stomach, but looking well. Four other lightly wounded men, including Joshua Rubin, were playing cards. The wounded stenographer, Ruth Mandel, was wrapped in blankets and looked feverish. The Palestinian looked fearfully at Burg. Hausner could see that his nose was broken. He didn’t like the idea of keeping the man with the wounded, but the hut was the only enclosed area except for the Concorde, which was like an oven in the sun. The wounded, between them, could keep watch on him. And all in all, casualties were very light, so Mr. Muhammad Assad could report that piece of intelligence as well.

  The stewardesses were back and one of them, Beth Abrams, uncovered Kaplan’s wound. It was starting to fester and it smelled very bad. The whole mud-brick hut smelled of ripe bandages and sweating bodies. Beth Abrams put some sort of yellow pulp on the open gangrenous wound. “What’s that?” demanded Hausner.

  Beth Abrams looked up at him for a long second, then spoke. “It’s a local plant that is astringent. Like a witch-hazel bush.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I read it in an Army medical manual when I was in.” She dabbed it gently on the open wound as she spoke. “The fruit are lemon-yellow, about the size of tennis balls, and smooth. They lie on the ground tethered to long stalks. I forget the name, but these fit the description. They grow on the slope.
I’m using the pulp on everyone. There’s no alcohol left.” She covered up the wound and moved away.

  “All right.” Hausner turned to Kaplan. “How’s your ass?”

  Kaplan managed a laugh. “These two stewardesses keep putting that yellow slime on it. When they say fly El Al and be treated like King Solomon, they’re not kidding.”

  Hausner smiled. Kaplan reminded him of Matti Yadin. He’d have to see that Kaplan got a good promotion. “The smaller one, Beth Abrams, is a bit of a bitch, but she keeps looking at your ass in a non-medical way. Keep that in mind when you get back to Lod.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind tonight.”

  Hausner noticed that Chaim Tamir, badly wounded the previous night in the counterattack, was sleeping fitfully.

  Hausner crossed the small room to where the lightly wounded men were playing cards. He spoke to Joshua Rubin. “You never told me you were psychotic.”

  Rubin, a small red-haired man of about twenty, folded his cards and looked up. “You never asked. Who’s got my Uzi?”

  “It’s retired. There were only three rounds left in the magazine when they brought you in.”

  “Give it back, then. I want it here. In case we get overrun. I want to take the first bastard who comes through that door.”

  “All right. I’ll get it for you.” Hausner looked around at the men, who went back to their cards. They were ordinary men, civilians, who had gone off the deep end for a few minutes the night before. Now they looked normal—were normal, arguing over a game of cards. What did Miriam Bernstein think of that? Did she understand that nice people were killers and killers were nice people? Did she understand that a man like Isaac Burg could smile and fumble around disarmingly with his pipe, then break a wounded prisoner’s nose and still be a nice guy? The bottom line was survival. If it had to be done in order to survive, it was done.

  19

  The sun seemed hotter than usual as it reflected off the skin of the Concorde. Hausner and Burg stood with their eyes shielded from the glare, watching the tail section being disassembled. Hausner wondered again why he had never thought of checking the inaccessible parts. The Concorde had been X-rayed once for metal stress, but no one had thought to look for shadows that didn’t belong there. Why hadn’t he thought of it? If you accepted a job such as his and people got killed because of an oversight on your part, how much was your fault? How much was the fault of your subordinates? How much did you have to do to atone for the resulting tragedy? Did you have to atone at all? Weren’t there some things that no one could reasonably be expected to foresee?

  The one man he couldn’t blame was Ahmed Rish. Rish was just doing his job as he saw it had to be done. It was Hausner’s job to stop Rish from doing that job. Hausner knew that what bothered him most, although he tried to keep it in its proper perspective, was that Ahmed Rish had outfoxed him. That was very personal. Like a slap in the face. Was he leading these people to their certain death because of his excessive pride?

  Excessive pride was always considered a sin in Jewish thinking. Babylon was a symbol of excessive pride, and Babylon was cursed. Babylon was brought to her knees. Was he acting out of wounded ego? No. He was following precedents set by Israel over the years. No negotiation with terrorists. Hard line. Unbending. It happened to fit his mood and personality, but it was not personal. Yet the thought nagged at him. He turned to Burg. “Is there anything else that is urgent?”

  Burg turned away from the tail section and pointed to a depression in the earth about two hundred meters away. Abdel Majid Jabari and Ibrahim Ali Arif were digging a latrine trench. They used the same tools as everyone else: lengths of aluminum braces to break up the hard crust and aluminum sheets to scoop out the broken clay and dust. Their hands were wrapped in clothing to protect them from the jagged aluminum. “I questioned them,” said Burg. “They are both Knesset members and it was not my place to doubt their loyalty, but the situation called for it. They were a little hurt and very angry. Maybe you can smooth it out.”

  Hausner watched the two Arabs for a while. “Yes. We’ll all have to answer for our actions if we get back, won’t we, Isaac? Here, Jabari and Arif are just two Trojan horses inside the walls of Troy, if you’ll pardon the metaphor. Back in Jerusalem, they could have you in front of a Knesset committee in a second, couldn’t they?”

  Burg shot Hausner a dark look. “I did what I thought had to be done. Do you back me up?”

  “Of course.” He watched the two men as they straightened up and wiped the sweat from their faces. Their kheffiyahs kept the sun off their heads better than any of the headgear most of the other people were wearing. “They are in an awkward position. But I don’t think turning traitor would help them with Rish. They don’t want Rish on this hill any more than we do. Less. He will do more than kill them. You know what they do to traitors.”

  Burg nodded. “It’s unpleasant.” He reamed out his pipe. “Incidentally, your friend, Mrs. Bernstein, gave me a hell of a hard time about casting aspersions on the loyalty of Jabari and Arif. And also about my methods of questioning our prisoner. She said that we have all turned into perfect barbarians. She’s right, of course. But we don’t think that’s so bad—do we, Jacob? But she does. Why is it that bleeding hearts refuse to see this world as it is?”

  “They see it fine, Burg. They just can’t pass up an opportunity to play the moral superiority game with bastards like us who have to slug it out in the shit so they can go do seminars on world peace and disarmament.”

  “Well, I don’t think as unkindly as you do of that type. Anyway, she’s causing trouble and I think you should do something.”

  “Like what?” He stared at Burg.

  Burg stared back. “That’s up to you.”

  Hausner wiped his palms on his pants. “I’ll see.”

  * * *

  As Hausner walked away, he noticed that the ground sunk into a shallow depression near the south ridge. Dobkin thought that this was the courtyard of the citadel and the south ridge was actually the city wall that ran from the citadel along the river to the Kasr mound in the south. The north ridge was similarly a covered wall. If the ridges weren’t so narrow-backed, they would have made likely avenues of approach for the Ashbals. Hausner admitted that neither ridge looked like a natural formation, but how Dobkin could see walls, citadels, watchtowers, and even courtyards was beyond him. It all just looked like dirt. It was much more completely obliterated than anything he’d seen in Israel. Dobkin said to picture a thick shroud over a corpse. If you had a previous knowledge of human anatomy, then it was not difficult to pick out legs, arms, face, stomach, and chest by the rises and falls of the shroud. So it was with cities. Courtyards and watchtowers. Walls and citadels.

  The two Arabs looked up at Hausner as he approached. Jabari spoke. “I didn’t have an opportunity to congratulate you on your defense of Babylon last night.”

  “That’s rather a dramatic way to put it,” said Hausner.

  Arif tried to catch his breath. He was bare-chested, and his stomach quivered as he panted. “I wish to congratulate you, also.”

  Hausner nodded. He stayed silent for a long while, then spoke. “Is there any reason for me to doubt you?”

  Jabari came close. A few centimeters from him. “No.”

  “That’s all you’ll hear on it, then. I suspect Mr. Burg would like to apologize, but his training makes that impossible.” He looked around. “I have a very important job for you two tonight.”

  “Even more important than digging the latrine?” asked Arif.

  “I hope so,” said Hausner. He sat with his feet dangling in the unfinished trench. They sat with him as he explained.

  * * *

  Dobkin and Burg called for another work break. They passed the word around to put on a show for the prisoner. Everyone complied, although the dancing and singing took more energy than anyone had to spare. The five AK-47’s and about ten pistols were stacked carelessly in the shepherds’ hut, as if they were extra weapons, and
ammunition was left lying on the dirt floor. A security man, Marcus, came into the shepherds’ hut with the Uzi submachine gun slung on his shoulder and gave it to Rubin, who put it ostentatiously under his blanket. He spoke with Rubin for a while and left. Another security man, Alpern, came in to visit with Kaplan and Rubin. He, too, had a Uzi, a little dustier then the other. It was the same one—the only one—passed through the cleft in the mud wall by Rubin.

  The M-14 with the daylight scope was paraded into the hut by Brin. Muhammad Assad looked at it. He stared at the scope. Brin saw him staring at it. The only secret weapon they had was the starlight scope, and Hausner ordered that it not be shown. Brin spoke to Assad in Hebrew, which the man couldn’t understand. “No, my friend, this is not the scope that put the bullet into you. We have another. But you’ll just have to wonder about it.”

  Assad was given a very big lunch of airline food and packaged delicacies from the luggage. He seemed mystified by some of it, but tried everything. One of the stewardesses poured water from a galley pitcher into plastic glasses for the wounded. They sipped at it. Joshua Rubin drank half of his and threw the rest out the cleft in the wall. If Assad had noticed that they weren’t as careless with water before, he did not show it.

  Assad was taken out of the hut by two security men, Jaffe and Alpern. Before he was blindfolded, he saw the dozens of glass jars that held the aviation fuel stacked in a hole dug next to the hut. A steward, Daniel Jacoby, was filling more jars from an aluminum pitcher filled with fuel. One of the aides, Esther Aronson, was fashioning wicks made from strips of cloth. This was no ruse, and Muhammad Assad was duly impressed.

  Alpern yelled to Esther Aronson to throw him a strip of cloth for a blindfold. She was slow about it—as she was told to be—and Alpern yelled angrily to hurry it up.

  In the interim, Jaffe spun Assad around and pointed him toward the perimeter. Assad glimpsed what he took to be a heavy machine gun on a tripod, but was only a broken strut from the front landing gear, blackened with soot and sitting on a truncated camera tripod recovered from the luggage. Spent shell casings tied together with string gleamed in the sunlight like links of belt ammunition. If Assad wondered how the Israelis came to be carrying a heavy machine gun on board, he didn’t ask. He saw all he was supposed to see in those few seconds, then the blindfold was quickly tied around his head. He was led to the edge of the perimeter where he was guided between two big aluminum reflectors and over the trench and earth wall. Halfway down the slope, the blindfold was removed and he was given a white handkerchief fixed to a length of aluminum hydraulic tubing. Jaffe, with the same tone in his voice that the Lord must have used with Lot’s wife, told Assad not to look back. Despite his wound, Assad made good speed down the slope.