By the Rivers of Babylon

by Nelson DeMille

  The man rolled casually on his back. “Well, fisherman, this is quite a thing—being obliged to these Jews for our aid and comfort.”

  “Misfortune makes strange bedfellows,” agreed Dobkin. He glanced at the man. Yes. He had seen him on the glacis. He remembered the face as a blurred nightmare—but it was real. He had seen it. “How shall I call you?”

  “Sayid Talib. And you?”

  Dobkin hesitated. He had a perverse desire to say, Benjamin Dobkin, Israeli Army, General of Infantry. “Just call me fisherman.” His Arabic was not good, but he had to keep it passable so that Talib could find reason to continue the farce. Each of them was only waiting for the chance to rip the other’s throat out, and a wrong word would do it. He wondered if Talib had gotten a good look at his face on the glacis.

  How badly wounded was the man, Dobkin wondered. How badly wounded was he himself? He flexed his muscles under the blanket and took a deep breath. He seemed to have regained some of his strength.

  The clay oil lamp, a dish with a wick floating in some fat, flickered on the floor between them. Dobkin looked around him slowly. There was nothing but his blanket. He felt casually over his body. His knife was gone. He should have gotten a knife from someone. He felt something hard inside his top pocket. Pazuzu. They had given him back his obscene little statue.

  Dobkin and Talib lay on their sides staring at each other, listening to the wind blow and watching the lamp flicker.

  “How is the fishing, fisherman?”

  “It was good until tonight. What did you say your trade was?”

  “I am a buyer of dates.”

  Occasionally, the mask would slip and each could see in the other’s eyes the hate and the fear and the threat.

  “How did you come to be in the river?”

  “The same as you.”

  The conversation died and neither man moved for a very long time. Dobkin could feel his mouth becoming drier and his muscles fluttering.

  Then the wind blew open a shutter and the lamp went out, and each man let out a long animal scream as he lunged for the other’s throat in the dark.

  * * *

  Deborah Gideon lay naked on the tiled floor in the manager’s office of the guest house. Long welts from a whip and small burn marks from a cigarette covered her back. There was blood on her thighs, legs, and buttocks as well, from wounds caused, apparently, by some animal.

  Ahmed Rish washed his hands and face in a bowl of water. “Have her shot,” he said to Hamadi.

  Hamadi called out to the duty man at the front desk. “Kassim.”

  Rish dried his hands. What the girl had told him about Israeli numbers, defenses, and dispositions was not much more than he had already found out the hard way. But now he could fabricate his own intelligence report and his men would believe him. “We can be on that hill within an hour, Salem, if the Sherji stays with us. It will literally propel the men up that slope and hide their movements and sounds as well.”

  Hamadi nodded. The wind must have been sent by Allah, for if it hadn’t come, he knew that he and Rish would have been murdered by their own men. Strangely, only Rish seemed unaware of this. “I will assemble our people.”

  “Good.” He looked down at Deborah Gideon, then at the duty man who was staring at her. “Yes, yes, Kassim, you may use her. Then shoot her and burn the body and throw the ashes in the river. I want no evidence.” He turned to Hamadi. “A military operation is one thing. Torture and murder are another. We still have to negotiate for the hostages with Israel tomorrow.”

  Hamadi nodded. Rish drew fine and meaningless lines as only an insane man could. If he weren’t a hero to the whole Palestinian people, Hamadi would himself have murdered him long ago. The image of Rish, on his hands and knees biting that girl, turned his stomach. He, Hamadi, had tortured before, but this thing that Rish had done was something quite different. The whips and cigarettes had undoubtedly hurt the girl more than the bites, but it was the sheer animal terror of the madman snapping and howling and ripping into her flesh that had made her scream out everything he wanted to know. Hamadi could hardly blame her. He only hoped that the men outside did not understand what was happening. Hamadi turned and walked out of the room and through the small lobby onto the veranda.

  The last of his men and women, about fifty of them, sat crosslegged, huddled under their open pavilions, holding up the supporting poles. Hamadi blew his whistle and the Ashbals struck the tents and came scrambling toward the veranda. They stood in the wind with long trailing veils wrapped around their mouths and their kheffiyahs pulled low over their eyes. Hamadi held up his hand and shouted above the wind. “Allah has sent us this Sherji,” he began.

  * * *

  Hausner stood on the delta wing and watched the people swathed in all sorts of strange garments, walking like phantoms in the wind and dust, making their way under the failing moonlight.

  He turned and went into the cabin. The noise of the wind through the rent skin and the sand grating against the craft made it difficult to hear or speak inside. Holes that had been punched in the roof to let the heat out during the day now let the sand sift in, and there were little hills of it in the aisles. He made his way to the rear of the cabin through the door that led to the aft galley. Across the aisle from the galley was the small baggage compartment that abutted the split pressure bulkhead. The compartment was a shambles and still smelled faintly from the kerosene, melted plastic, and burnt garments.

  Miriam Bernstein had made a pallet of some half-burnt clothing and sat on the floor with her back against the hull and her legs pulled up to her chin. She was reading a book by the illumination of a small penlight that someone had given her. There was also a small emergency light on overhead. Hausner could see through the split bulkhead out to the twisted aluminum skin and braces in the tail. Swaying electrical wires and hydraulic tubing lent a phantasmagoric touch in the cold, blue moonlight. There was a grotesque sort of beauty in any ruin, thought Hausner—even this technological ruin which stood as a monument to insult him and remind everyone of how they got there. He looked down at Miriam.

  She glanced up over her book. “Is it time?”

  He cleared his throat and spoke above the wind. “She said she did not wake you. She said she fell asleep on her watch and never woke you.”

  Miriam closed the book gently and rested it on her knee. “She’s lying to cover for me. She woke me and I fell asleep.”

  “Don’t be noble, Miriam.” He looked at the book on her knee. Camus’s The Stranger.

  “Why not?” She shut off the penlight. “It would be a change of pace for this group.”

  “Don’t criticize what we’ve done here or how we’ve done it.”

  “Condemned people may criticize anything they wish. Well—is it time?”

  “Not yet.”

  They both let the silence drag out. Finally, she spoke. Her voice was belligerent and taunting. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t criticize. I’m one of you now. I mean, I killed that girl.”

  “Yes. You probably did.”

  “I had no choice, of course. You have a choice in this case.”

  “No, I don’t. Self-defense is many things to many people. To some of us, it’s shooting someone who threatens us. To others it’s shooting someone only after they shoot at you first. This case is also a case of self-defense, Miriam. Society defending itself against slackers and malingerers. It’s just a matter of projecting the facts. It’s a matter of what your perception of immediacy and exigency is.”

  She understood, had understood all along, really, “So, who goes on trial?”

  “Both of you. Unless whoever was at fault confesses.”

  “I’ve already confessed.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “We’ll both lie.”

  “I’m sure you will. There’s an army procedure for that, too. It’s happened before. You’ll both be found guilty on the testimony of Burg and myself.”

  “Is this all show or do you actual
ly intend to shoot one or both of us?”

  Hausner lit a cigarette. He wondered if he could even get anyone to sit on a court-martial board, let alone form a firing squad. What, then, was the purpose of this exercise? To show the rank and file that the game had to be played by the rules right to the end? To instill fear in all the fatigued men and women who wanted to sleep on guard duty or who might be slow in obeying orders in other situations? Or was this Burg’s way of bringing him down a peg or two?

  “Well? Do you intend to shoot us or not? If not, let me out of here. I have things to do. If you’re going to have a trial, have it now and don’t keep us waiting until morning.”

  Hausner threw his cigarette on the floor and looked down at her. Moonlight from the porthole illuminated her face. She was staring up at him, and her face did not look as angry or hard as her voice sounded. It looked open and trusting, ready to accept whatever he said. He suddenly realized that any meeting could be their last.

  “Would you pull the trigger yourself, Jacob?” The voice was inquisitive, as though she were asking his views on capital punishment in general.

  Hausner stepped toward her. He seemed undecided about what to do or say. He suddenly knelt in front of her and put his hands on her bare knees. “I . . . I would kill myself before I would harm you. I would kill anyone who tried to harm you. I love you.” The words didn’t surprise him as much as they seemed to surprise her.

  She turned her face away and stared out through the hole in the bulkhead.

  He grasped her knees and shook them. “I love you.”

  She turned her head back and nodded. She put her hands over his. Her voice was low and husky. “I’m sorry I put you in a compromising position, Jacob.”

  “Well . . . you know, one’s lifelong beliefs don’t amount to a hell of a lot when it comes to these decisions—decisions of the heart, as they say.” He forced a smile.

  She smiled back. “That’s not true. You’ve been pretty consistent. A consistent bastard, I might point out.” She almost laughed. “I am sorry I put you in this position. Would you have had an easier time shooting Esther Aronson?”

  “That’s enough of that. I’ll get you both out of this.”

  She squeezed his hands. “Poor Jacob. You should have stayed in your father’s villa. Idle and rich.”

  “Would you come to my father’s house for Passover?” He suddenly felt that if he asked her that question, he might make it there himself.

  She smiled, then took his hands and pressed them to her face.

  He felt a heaving in his chest that he hadn’t felt in many, many years. He waited a moment before he trusted himself to speak. “I . . . I’m sorry I . . . walked away from you before.”

  Her voice was deep and soft. “I understand.”

  “Do you?”

  “The future. We have no future.” She put her cheek against his chest.

  He pulled her closer. “No. We don’t.” He wanted to live. He wanted a future. But even if he lived, he knew he would lose her. Laskov or her husband. Or someone else. This was not a match that was destined to last. Then he would wish that he had died in Babylon.

  She was weeping now, and she sounded to Hausner like the wind, overwhelming and perpetually sad.

  He felt her tears against his face and thought at first they were his own, and then they were. It was all so sad, he thought; like waking after a bittersweet dream of your childhood and finding that you had a lump in your throat and your eyes were misty. It made the whole day sad and there was nothing you could do about it because it was a dream. It was that kind of sadness that he felt with her.

  They both clung to each other and she cried uncontrollably. He couldn’t think of anything to say to make her stop because, he thought, she had every right to cry if she wanted. That’s right, he thought, scream, cry, do anything you want, Miriam, only don’t suffer silently. That’s for fools. That’s the Miriam that everyone knows in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Let the world know your pain. If everyone howled at every injustice, every act of barbarism, every act of unkindness, then we would be taking the first step toward a real humanity. Why should people walk, unprotesting, to their deaths? Scream. Cry. Howl.

  As if she could read his thoughts, she threw back her head and let out a long wail.

  That’s right, Miriam. Scream. They’ve extinguished your blood, slaughtered your family, stolen your childhood, taken your husband, killed your son, murdered your friends, and left you here alone with a man like Jacob Hausner. You have a right to cry.

  Her sobs became louder, louder than the wind, and Hausner knew that Becker could hear her and that they could probably hear her outside, and he didn’t care if they did. “If I could do something to make it a little better, I would, Miriam.”

  She nodded to show that she understood, then suddenly she grabbed his head in her hands and kissed him the way she had kissed her husband on the day he went to war. “Yosef,” she sobbed his name. “Jacob.” She mumbled something else that Hausner could not make out.

  He put his lips to her face and neck and tasted her tears. Yosef. Teddy. Jacob. What difference did it make? As long as they brought her comfort and did not hurt her any further. Hausner wished that her husband would turn up alive. Should he tell her that Rish knew? No, never. He would never tell her that. But while she waited for Yosef Bernstein, he hoped that Teddy Laskov, or anyone, could give her what she needed. He wished it could be he, but he knew it could not be. He would not see Jerusalem again, and even if he did, he would be no comfort to her outside of Babylon. He licked her tears the way an animal licks another’s wounds.

  * * *

  Dobkin had never tasted blood, or another man’s sweat, for that matter, and he was surprised at how salty they both were. The Arab had him by the testicles and he had his teeth in the Arab’s windpipe. They both meant to kill the other, but without weapons, they had been uncertain at first of how to go about it. They had begun by battering each other about and striking at the obvious places—the head—the chest. Talib had smashed the oil lamp on Dobkin’s head, and blood and fat ran over the big man’s back and neck. But these spots had been protected by nature’s armor. Then the old instincts, buried so deep in the psyche, returned. Each man felt a tingling down his spine, and his neck hair raised and his testicles drew up as each became aware of what he had become. They found the weak spots that nature had inexplicably left exposed.

  Dobkin concentrated on forcing his jaws closed and tried to ignore the searing pain. He had missed the Arab’s jugular, but he knew that the cartilage of the windpipe would collapse if he persevered.

  Talib was trying to get a better hold of Dobkin’s testicles, but the big man’s knees kept battering at him as they rolled across the mud floor. Talib reached around and poked at Dobkin’s eyes, but Dobkin squeezed them tight and buried his face deeper into Talib’s neck. Each man was fighting the battle of his life in almost absolute silence. Neither man ever once considered asking for mercy.

  In another hut, across the crooked lane, the two appointed attendants made herbal tea over a crackling fire of thistle and told stories to keep each other amused. They heard nothing unusual, just the whistling of the wind and the slapping of the shutters.

  Dobkin could take the pain no longer. His thigh wound was open and hemorrhaging, and he felt that he was going to lose consciousness. He found the terra cotta figure in his pocket and brought it down hard on Talib’s ear. The wing of the wind demon shattered as it struck. The Arab’s scream was lost in a sudden loud rush of wind that threw open the shutters.

  Talib, stunned, loosened his grip long enough for Dobkin to pull away. Dobkin raised his huge hand and smashed the jagged edge of the Pazuzu down on Talib’s good eye. The man let out a long scream and covered his face. Dobkin took the sharply pointed fragment of the demon’s wing and plunged it into Talib’s jugular. A stream of blood spurted up into Dobkin’s face.

  Talib thrashed across the room holding his throat with his hand and making gurgling
sounds. The two men collided several times in the small, dark room, each time letting out primal noises as they touched. In his death throes Talib splattered blood across the floor and walls.

  Finally, Dobkin fell back into a corner and remained still. He listened until he was certain the Arab was dead, then he lay back, fighting to remain conscious. He spit and spit to get the taste of blood out of his mouth, but he knew he never would.

  27

  Laskov and Talman were as surprised as anyone to have been invited back to the Prime Minister’s meeting.

  Laskov listened to the photo-analyst, Ezra Adam, as the young man gave his report. The analyst spoke apparently without passion, but Laskov could tell that the man was saying, “I have found the missing Concorde. Believe me. Go and get them.” Laskov had heard too many photo-analysts over the years to mistake the tone. The man went through each of the dozen high-altitude SR-71 infrared photographs that the Americans had taken only hours before at the Israelis’ request.

  The various ministers and generals, most of whom could not discern anything from the light and dark blotches, followed Adam with their own set of photographs as he spoke.

  Adam laid down another photograph and looked up at the Prime Minister. “So you can see, sir, it’s somewhat difficult to read night photos with the—what do you call it?—the Sherji kicking up dust, and the high altitudes and all. We really should have our own low-level shots, but of course I understand there are political—”

  “Get on with it, young man,” snapped an air force general. “Let the PM worry about that.”

  “Yes, sir. Well, here—photo number ten, then. Similar to the others. I’ve seen this pattern before. Small scattered and random residues of heat. Suggestive of a battle, perhaps.”

  “Or a shepherd’s encampment,” said an army general.

  “Or a village,” added a Cabinet minister who didn’t know anything about infrared photography an hour before but was catching on fast.