By the Rivers of Babylon

by Nelson DeMille

  “What are you writing . . . David . . . may I call . . . ?”

  “Yes. Of course.” He closed the book. “The log. The ship’s log.”

  She leaned toward him. “A log? You mean you’ve been keeping a record of all that’s happened?”

  “Well, only in a very dry, officialese way.”

  “May I see it?” She held out her hand and he passed it to her. She sat back, opened it, and flipped through the pages. She read a random entry. 1602 hrs: Switch to alt. tac. freq. Gen. Laskov broadcast last message: E-2D will keep us on radar. Laskov leaves decision to use Phoenix to us. Squadron turns back. She flipped a few more pages. 18:31 hrs: Flt. off. Hess dead from skull fracture caused by brick through windshield during rollout. Pilot should have had supersonic visor raised sooner in prep. for crash land. Might have averted death. She stared at that entry for a few seconds, then closed the book and looked up. She forced a smile. “We are called the People of the Book, and we are also a bookish people. The written word has kept us together since the Diaspora. It’s odd that no one else thought to keep a chronicle of what we did here.”

  “Well . . .” Becker found a cigarette stub and lit it. “It’s hardly a chronicle, Mrs. Bernstein—”

  “Miriam.”

  He hesitated. “Miriam, It’s just my job to—”

  “But that’s the point, David. It’s always someone’s job. A scribe. A keeper of the books. A scholar. A ship’s captain. Throughout history someone has always had the job of keeping the written records, and sometimes those records have been powerful and illuminating documents. Ezra was a scribe, and he has left us the only account of the repatriation of the exiles from Babylon. In modern circumstances, it can be an airline captain who performs this function.” She smiled at him.

  “I suppose.”

  She leaned toward him. “I can’t convince you of your own importance, but can I convince you to hide this book in some way?”

  “I suppose that’s a good idea.”

  She started to pass the book back to him, but hesitated. “Would you mind if I sat awhile and wrote my own account of what has happened here? I’ll try not to take up much space.”

  Becker forced a laugh. “Take as much space as you like. I made what I believe was the final entry just now.”

  “Thank you. Do you have carbon paper? I’d like to make a second copy of what I write. We can bury the book and leave the copy of my writing on the craft.”

  Becker found a piece of carbon paper in his flight kit. “The book itself has to remain on board. We can bury your copy.”

  “All right.” She took the carbon paper. “Thank you.”

  “No one is going to see either of them, you know.”

  She looked up at him. “The Ravensbrück Prayer was written on a scrap of paper, David.”

  “That prayer has a lot of meaning for you.”

  “It did.” She looked out the windshield for some time. “It was unsigned, you know, but the camp was mostly for women, and so perhaps that can give us a clue to the author.” She passed a hand over her face. “They told me that . . . that my mother died at Ravensbrück. And so I like to think that perhaps she wrote it.” She lowered her voice, and it was barely audible above the noise outside. “The words once had greater meaning for me, but what still does have meaning is that the human being who wrote it had faith. Faith that it would be found, but more importantly, faith that there would be free people left in the world after that terrible time who would find something of value in those words. And so it survived on a scrap of paper, although the author probably did not survive. It has been reproduced a million times, and it will survive the next holocaust.” She smiled again at Becker. “Genesis was originally written with lampblack on papyrus, David. If that first scribe had listened to someone like you, we would never have known how the world began.”

  He forced a smile. “I’m convinced.”

  “Good.” She took a pen from him and bent over the logbook. She wrote in quick, flowing Hebrew characters.

  Suddenly she looked up, and there were tears in her eyes. “That prayer had meaning for me, but it has very little now because it was a prayer of forgiveness—a call to turn the other cheek. The person who wrote it was tested in the extreme for those qualities and was not found wanting. I have been tested here—not very hard, mind you, not the way the testing was done at Ravensbrück—and I am no longer forgiving. The fact is, I’m happy the way it has turned out. I look forward to shooting the first enemy soldier who puts his head in here. If I make widows and orphans and childless parents and grieving friends before I die, I’ll be sorry for those unfortunate people, but it’s nothing personal. Do you understand that? Does it sound so terrible?”

  He shook his head. “An eye for an eye.”

  “Yes. And a tooth for a tooth.” She turned a page in the logbook and continued writing.

  * * *

  Hausner sensed, without looking at his watch, that it was close to dawn. The battle was nearly finished, and only a few Israeli rounds were being fired downslope.

  The Ashbals were advancing cautiously yet casually, laughing and shouting to each other through the blowing sand. They were not unaware that this apparent exhaustion of Israeli ammunition might be yet another ruse, but if it were, then the Israelis were playing it very close. In fact, an advance party of sappers had actually breached the perimeter at the south end near the promontory and had found the trenches deserted.

  They moved slowly through the windblown darkness. They could sense the kill now and they were savoring it. They came through the fallen abatis and over the crest. They paused curiously at the trenches, then moved over them. They experienced that strange, subdued exultation that comes with violating the long-forbidden lair of the enemy.

  Occasionally, a round or two of Israeli fire sent them scattering and slowed down their movements, but for the most part, except for the steady wind, which no one consciously heard any longer, there was an eerie silence on the hilltop.

  In military terms, resistance was light and scattered. The Ashbals were having everything their own way, but patience and caution were still called for. After coming so far, none of the survivors wanted to meet his end within minutes of the final victory. They all wanted to share in the fruits of that victory.

  The Ashbals refrained from answering the scattered Israeli fire for fear of drawing return fire on themselves. They signaled quietly to one another in the dark and tried to join up and form a single search line to sweep across the flat terrain. They did not want anyone slipping through their advance. The Ashbals in the center of the evolving line could begin to distinguish the outline of the Concorde whenever there was a break in the dust clouds.

  The Israelis moved back slowly and quietly, firing only enough to keep the Ashbals at a distance and slow down their advance. There was no final plan, no last orders from the command post, but the retreat was orderly. About half the Israelis had decided to try to escape down the western slope and half had decided to stay and meet their fate where they stood.

  The wounded were moved out of the shepherds’ hut and into the Concorde where it was felt they might have a better chance to survive a massacre if they were temporarily out of the way during the worst of it. There were, however, persistent rumors that the wounded were to be killed before the Ashbals could get to them. There seemed to be some confusion on that point.

  The Israelis on the west slope fired down toward the Euphrates to try to determine if there were any Ashbals there.

  Ahmed Rish spoke on his field radio and ordered his small force there to return the fire. He didn’t want the Israelis to run inadvertently into a massacre down there. He wanted them for himself on the hill.

  The Ashbals on the river bank fired up the glacis, and everyone’s heart sank as they discovered what they really had known all along—there was no escape route. There was a great deal of confusion, and some of the people who had counted on escaping that way began to weep.

  Hamadi to
ok a call over the radio from the officer in charge of their rear area, Al-Bakr. “Hamadi here. What? Who is he? Well, find out! Did he complete the call? The Baghdad operator confirms that? What was he saying? Yes, I know you don’t speak Hebrew, damn it! I’m sure he speaks Arabic. After you take his first eye out, he will speak it for you. Yes. Keep me informed.” He handed the phone back to the operator. He looked at Rish. “Ahmed.”

  Rish turned to him as they advanced slowly through the dust. “I understood enough of it. It is of no importance.”

  “But if he got through—”

  “No importance!”

  Hamadi turned away. More and more he felt that their fate was sealed. They were being hemmed in on all sides by forces over which they had no control. If he were to turn around and walk away into the night, he would live to see the sun come out of Persia. But he could not do that any more than he could kill Rish.

  John McClure watched the green tracer rounds arc up from the base of the glacis and pass in front of his foxhole. “Well, we’re not going to get down that way.” He put his last two cartridges into his Ruger. “Well, Colonel, did you learn how to say ‘take me to the American ambassador’ yet?”

  Richardson carefully put on his blue tunic and buttoned it. “We’re going to have to be very careful in the next few minutes, McClure. Our lives may hang on a misunderstood word or gesture.”

  McClure placed the first loaded chamber to the right of the hammer. “Why’d you do it, Tom?”

  Richardson straightened his tie and uselessly brushed some dust from his shoulders.

  “I said, why’d you do it?”

  Richardson looked at him across the small foxhole. “Do what?”

  McClure cocked the pistol, and the cylinder turned left so that the cartridge was under the raised hammer.

  Richardson found his cap and poured sand out of it. He looked down the big open muzzle. “Money. I have a weakness for expensive things.”

  “How much money, Tom?”

  “A cool million. American.”

  McClure gave a low whistle. “Not bad.”

  “No. Safely deposited in a Swiss bank, I should add. I was supposed to get another mil afterwards, but I don’t think so now.”

  “Maybe they’ll still come across, Tom. Those people have lots of it.”

  “That’s right, John. Those people have more petrodollars— our dollars—than they know what to do with. The West is hemorrhaging money and getting transfusions of oil.”

  “Interesting figure of speech, Tom. But we’re not talking about that or about Israel, either. We’re talking about you, Tom—a Colonel in the United States Air Force—selling out to a foreign power. That’s still against the law—even in America.”

  Richardson straightened the cap on his head. “Well, I haven’t been home in some time so I can’t verify that, John. It used to be all right to publish classified Pentagon papers. Are you sure it’s still against the law to sell out to a foreign power?”

  “Don’t temporize, Tom.”

  “Right. Well, I’ll take my punishment when I get home. I wish you’d put that thing down. I’m not running off.”

  “People talk better when they’re looking down a muzzle, Tom.” McClure spit out a matchstick. “I thought you liked these people.”

  “It’s not very fashionable to be an open anti-Semite these days.”

  “I see.”

  Richardson’s face underwent a remarkable change. His mouth hardened and his eyes became narrow slits. “So, I went and had a celebration drink down at the Officers’ Club with Israeli flyers who I was training at Travis in 1967. And I commiserated with them in 1973 after the near disaster. The next thing I know, someone puts in a good word for me and I’m posted here. I almost vomited when I got the assignment.”

  McClure did not respond.

  After several long seconds, Richardson looked up at McClure. “Anyway, no one was supposed to get hurt,” he said softly.

  “But we’re not talking about them, Tom. I may not like them either, but I’d hold out under torture before I’d betray them. Know why, Tom? ’Cause that’s what Uncle says I got to do. That’s what I get paid for . . . Tom.”

  Richardson ignored the entire exchange. His face softened again. “That reminds me, John,” he said brightly. “Can I purchase you? A hundred thou?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Half?”

  “Nope.” McClure found his last match.

  “Plus the whole second mil if I get it?”

  McClure seemed not to be paying attention. He chewed on the matchstick and spoke as he chewed. “You said no one was supposed to get hurt. But a lot of people got real hurt, Tom. Real hurt.”

  “I know. And I am sorry about all of this, John. None of this was supposed to happen. Who could have foreseen this? That’s my real regret. All these casualties.” He stared out into the dust.

  “If no one was supposed to get hurt, Tom, why’d you pick 02?”

  Richardson licked his dry lips. “Well . . . all right . . . if there was to be any trouble, then 01 was to be the . . . demonstration. We knew any trouble would come from Avidar. Not Becker.”

  McClure let out a short laugh. “Knew? How can you know these things? Suppose that against all we know about human nature and that kind of thing, Becker had gassed it and Avidar had played your game? That would have left you trying to tread sky at a couple thousand meters, my boy.”

  “Calculated gamble, John. You see, I gamble with my own life, too. I’m no coward.” He continued to stare out into the dust. “I hear voices. Should we go out and surrender or should we sit tight and wait for them to get here?”

  “You’re awfully goddamned anxious to surrender to these young gerbils or whatever the fuck they call themselves, Tom. Do you think they’re going to give you a hero’s welcome, Richardson? They’re going to murder you, you stupid son-of-a-bitch. And then they’re going to murder me to make sure no one knows about you.”

  Richardson shook his head and smiled. “No, they won’t kill me. Rish has a boss, and that boss and I worked out a guarantee for my safety. We foresaw problems with Rish. If I’m killed, then a letter in my safe at the Embassy will be opened, and it names names—Arab terrorist agents in Israel, including my contacts and others. I think ahead, John.” He paused. “I won’t let them harm you, either.”

  “Thanks, Tom. You’re better than the American ambassador. Well, I wonder if Rish is in control of these guys . . . or in control of himself. I think maybe they’re all so worked up they’ll shishkebob you. . . . But maybe they won’t.” He seemed to be thinking. “You know, Tom, American justice is very lenient these days. That’s why you don’t care if I get you home. In most countries they’d hang you up by your left nut in a dungeon and forget about you. In the good old U.S. of A., a general court-martial or a Federal trial will get you ten to twenty—if we can get a conviction at all—and you’ll walk in six . . . or less. Walk right to Switzerland. And the U.S. won’t turn you over to Israel afterwards because that would raise one hell of a squawk.”

  “I don’t make the rules.” Richardson looked wary.

  “No, but I do, sometimes. When I’m authorized to.” He paused. “Did you say if you died, that would blow the cover on a whole lot of terrorists?”

  “Wait! There’s no need for any wet stuff, John. There’s lots of things to consider here.”

  “Yes, there are, and if we had more time, then maybe we could work something out. But time is something we don’t have.”

  “Hold it!” Richardson instinctively put his hands out in front of him. “I can guarantee your safety. These people—”

  McClure thrust out his big .357 Magnum between Richardson’s hands and fired a few inches from his heart. The impact sent Richardson’s head snapping back and his officer’s hat flew off and was taken up into the wind and sailed westward.

  * * *

  David Becker moved quickly down the ramp. In his hand was a metal can that contained a carbon copy o
f Miriam Bernstein’s short chronicle, wrapped in oil rags and plastic. He picked a spot at the base of the earth ramp and dug a quick hole with a length of aluminum brace. He thought it was a useless exercise, but she seemed so intent on it. She appeared to be brave enough about death and didn’t show any signs of hysteria, but she also seemed a little irrational about this chronicle, so he thought it best to go along with her. He placed the can in the hole and covered it quickly. The logbook itself, containing the original of her chronicle, was tucked under a loose floor section in the cabin. There was a chance that Israel would repatriate the Concorde someday, and so perhaps a worker would find the log. But as for the buried chronicle he wondered if it would ever be uncovered. Perhaps it would. After all, he had uncovered Pazuzu.

  He straightened up and wiped his hands. He could hear two Arabs shouting to each other above the wind. They weren’t more than two hundred meters away. An Israeli took a shot at the voices, and one of them let out a sound of pain. No, thought Becker, they will not be in a good mood when they get here. Yet he never once regretted the decision to fight, and he had never heard anyone else say they regretted it, either.

  He moved over to the front wheel well and spoke to Peter Kahn, who was still working on the auxiliary power unit. “Come on, Peter. It’s a little late for that. Come onto the flight deck.”

  Kahn took his head out from the well. “What the hell for? Look, when they get here, I want them to see Peter Kahn breaking his ass on this son-of-a-bitching power unit. Maybe they’ll feel sorry for me and give me a ticket to Lod.”