Transgression

by R. S. Ingermanson

  Ari looked exasperated. “Rivka, with what is he going to ambush anyone? Sticks and stones?”

  “I don’t know,” Rivka said. Again, that irrational certainty gripped her soul. “Sticks, no. But stones—maybe. I don’t know. He’s crazy, Ari. He’ll keep trying as long as he’s alive. I know it.”

  “Rivka, with respect, a rational person would conclude that you are the crazy one.”

  “Fine. I’m crazy, Ari. Maybe you’re crazy, too, for wanting to marry me. We’re all a little crazy, right? So humor me. Just for one more hour, and then I’ll forget about it. Okay? Can you do that, Ari?” She was babbling, and she knew it, but she didn’t care.

  She started walking along the avenue that led toward Gamaliel’s home.

  Ari’s footsteps scuttered along behind her. “Rivka, where are you going? It is dangerous out in these streets at night.”

  “I just remembered something Gamaliel told me. He was quoting the psalms, about the mountains being around Jerusalem, about watching.”

  Ari caught up with her. “This is a surprise to you, that mountains surround Jerusalem?”

  “Historically, those mountains have been the site of numerous ambushes, am I correct? In the year 66, Josephus tells of an ambush at the pass of Bet Horon.”

  “Every schoolchild knows of that ambush,” Ari said. “There have been many in those hills, right up to the War for Independence in 1948.”

  “That’s where he is, then.” Rivka continued marching down the avenue. She passed the street where Gamaliel lived and continued straight, her eyes set on the gate far ahead, at the northwest corner of the city. The way to Caesarea. Paul would be going through that gate in less than an hour with four hundred infantry and seventy horsemen.

  Dr. West would have to be crazy to attack that many men.

  But he would have to be crazy to try to come back through time, too. If he was wacko enough to try that, then he would try anything. What did he have to lose?

  “Rivka?” Ari caught her sleeve, slowing her.

  She rounded on him and pulled away. “Listen up, Ari! I am serious about this. We’re in the endgame of this little chess match. Dr. West is alive, and he’s out there somewhere and he has a plan. You’re not going to lead, and I don’t expect you to. You have two choices: Follow me, or get out of the way.”

  Ari blinked and stepped back. “I am only trying to protect you.”

  She started walking again. “I’m safe as long as I’m doing what HaShem tells me to do.”

  They marched on in silence toward the gate. Before they reached the halfway point, Rivka felt her bravado crumbling. What made her think she had a clue what HaShem wanted her to do? When had she asked him lately?

  * * *

  Damien

  Damien sat at the top of the bluff overlooking the road, which was lit up by the full moon for a quarter of a mile. The road passed by him at right angles, less than thirty yards away. At that distance, Paul would be a duck in a shooting gallery.

  He pulled out his victory cigar and lit it, then leaned back contentedly and took a puff. This was better than that movie Independence Day which he had liked so much. This was a victory for all time.

  We’re going to win this one, Stu. Do you hear? We’re going to win it.

  Eyes locked on the road, he let his imagination drift. He remembered that Sunday night, years and years ago, when he had gone to liberate Stu.

  The window had been cranked full open, just as Stu had promised. Damien peered in. He had chosen this night because it was a new moon, which would make him less visible. It also made everything else less visible. He could just make out the white uniform pants in Stu’s Michigan State football posters. Stu lay in shadow, but Damien could hear his slow, even breathing. Lucky guy was asleep. He would never wake up again, that was for sure.

  Damien looked around one more time, his heart thumping. If anyone caught him, he’d be in deep trouble before you could say “Boo!”

  The coast was clear. He hauled himself up and set his knee on the windowsill. He listened intently. Nothing abnormal. He eased himself into the room and then listened again.

  His heart was hammering like the drums in 2001.

  Do it now, or don’t do it. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a pencil-thin flashlight. “Stu, you awake?” he whispered.

  The lights flicked on. Damien blinked, his eyes momentarily stunned. “What the…”

  Two very large hands grabbed his arms. “Young man, would you care to explain what you’re doing here?” A deep voice. Not Stu’s.

  “Stu!” he said, closing his eyes against the brightness. Stay cool and make something up. “What’s going on? I got the beer you wanted me to bring.” Lame, but better than nothing.

  He opened his eyes again. Two orderlies stood beside him, each gripping an arm. In Stu’s bed sat…oh, no! “Dad! What are you doing here?”

  “I might ask you the same question.” Dad looked like he was going to cry.

  “Where’s Stu?” Damien said. “I brought him some beer.”

  “Is that right?” Dad said, raising an eyebrow and staring at Damien’s hands. “Where is it?”

  “Where’s Stu?”

  “Somewhere else,” Dad said. “We checked him out yesterday and put him somewhere safe. We know what you brought.”

  Which meant the game was up. Damien wondered how they had found out. Probably Stu had let something slip.

  The door opened and a big cop walked in. He wasn’t smiling.

  A cold chill ran through Damien. They were going to lock him up and throw away the key. It wasn’t fair! He was a hero—doing the right thing for Stu. Weren’t you supposed to do unto others? Stu would have done it for him.

  It didn’t take long for them to get an admission out of him. They already knew most of the truth, and the drugs in Damien’s pockets confirmed their suspicion.

  As it turned out, no charges were ever pressed. Stu got locked up in some other dirt hole in some other city. Damien spent a couple of years trying to find out where, and then gave up.

  Over the years since then, he had found a thousand reasons to hate Western society. Technology was ruining the world. The moralists kept shoving their Christian virtues down everybody else’s throats. Between them, the technocrats and the religiocrats had screwed up Stu’s life beyond repair. And until now, there had been nothing Damien could do about any of it.

  Tonight, Damien would take care of that. At the root of the problem. Not only had Western religion set the stage for modern science, it had also set the moralistic tone which gave people the idea that they could decide that someone must live when that someone wanted to die.

  Damien puffed on his cigar. This one’s for you, Stu. Wherever you are.

  * * *

  Rivka

  When they reached the city gate, they found it locked. Of course. The city officials locked the gates at sundown. The Romans would have a key when they got here with Paul, but Rivka couldn’t wait that long.

  She remembered that this section of the wall had lain unfinished since the time of Agrippa. A few years from now, when the war started, the Jews would make a belated attempt to finish the wall.

  She followed the line of it south.

  “Where are you going?” Ari asked. “I thought you wanted—”

  “This.” Rivka pointed at the wall. It had been twenty feet high, but beyond the first bend, it suddenly decreased to about six feet. “Help me climb this, Ari.”

  He grumbled something, but boosted her up. She climbed onto the wall and walked to the other side. “Are you coming along?”

  No answer.

  Let him sulk. Rivka sat down on top of the wall and then dropped to the ground.

  Her right foot landed on a fist-sized stone. Her ankle twisted, and pain shot up through her leg. “Auggh!” She fell to the dirt, clutching her ankle.

  A moment later, Ari’s face appeared on the wall above her. “Rivka! Are you all right?”

 
“No.” She gritted her teeth. “I think I’ve sprained my ankle.”

  “Don’t move. I will be right down.” Ari turned around and lowered himself to the ground.

  Rivka sat up and took off the veil she had been wearing.

  “What are you doing?” Ari asked.

  “I’m wrapping my ankle,” Rivka said.

  “Let me carry you.”

  Rivka tried to object. He scooped her up and held her in his arms as if she were a baby.

  “Now, how can we get back into the city?” he asked.

  “We’re not going back in,” she said. “Not yet, anyway. I want to look for Dr. West. Let’s go back to the road.”

  He heaved a sigh that told her he thought she was an idiot. Which she already knew, but it was too late to worry about that. She had made up her mind, and she was going to carry through.

  Half a minute later, they reached the road. “Take a left here,” Rivka said. She snuggled closer to Ari. It felt nice to have a strong man holding her. She wished they could walk like this all night.

  “How far are we going?” Ari asked.

  “Until we find Dr. West, or until the Romans pass us.”

  “And how long will that be?”

  Rivka looked up at the moon. Paul would be leaving at the third hour of the night—three hours after sundown. Approximately. “I would guess we’ve got half an hour yet before they leave. That should give us plenty of time. I don’t think Dr. West’s going to go far up this road.”

  “Agreed,” Ari grunted. “We can go a long way in half an hour.”

  * * *

  Rivka

  The short man climbed onto his horse. All around him, Roman soldiers stood quietly at attention, awaiting the order to move out. It came soon enough.

  The northern gate of the Antonia swung open. Two hundred foot soldiers marched out, javelins poking up out of their backpacks, rising high above them like an evil forest. Behind them came seventy horsemen. The short man rode in the exact middle of these. Following in the rear guard marched another two hundred infantry.

  The soldiers had made good time in assembling. The commander of the fortress had ordered them to be ready to leave by the third hour. They had beaten that command by a good half hour.

  As the last of the men filed out, the fortress gate began swinging shut. The moon shone clear and bright in a cloudless sky.

  It would be a fine night for traveling.

  Chapter 36

  Ari

  ARI FELT HIS SENSES PRICKLING. A cliff loomed on the right side, casting the road into shadow. It was ridiculous to believe that Damien was really up there. But if he were, he could easily bombard them with stones from above. It would not take a very heavy rock to kill one of them from that height.

  Fifty meters shy of the cliff, Rivka whispered, “Stop. I think he’s close. Put me down.”

  Ari lowered her to the road.

  She kissed him on the cheek. “That’s for being a good sport. My ankle’s feeling a little better. I think I can walk now.” She hobbled toward the side of the road and examined the hillside carefully.

  “What are you planning to try?” Ari asked.

  She gave him a determined look that told him she was not merely trying. She was doing. “I’m going to climb this, of course. It’s not so steep here, and I think I can get up this way and get onto the top of that cliff from the back side.”

  Which was crazy. Meshugah. “No,” Ari said. “Let me do it, please. If there is anything to see up there, I will find it.”

  “And then what will you do?”

  “I will protect you from harm,” Ari said, and he meant it. He studied the hillside for a moment, and then chose his path. He had done a fair bit of climbing while in the Israel Defense Forces, but that had been almost a decade ago.

  Half a minute later, he looked down and smiled at Rivka. Already, he was six or seven meters high, and the view made him just a little dizzy. He had always had trouble with heights.

  Don’t look down, Ari Kazan. Focus on the goal. The goal is to reach the top. The goal is to secure the ground. The goal is to satisfy the lady’s curiosity. The goal is—

  He stopped short. The goal was not to save the life of that man Paul. That would be to sign the death warrant of countless millions of fellow Jews. The words of Dov echoed in his ears. The prime minister of the State of Israel commands that you must do your duty as a member of the reserves of the Israel Defense Forces.

  What was that duty? To block Damien West?

  That would be to aid and abet Paul, to enable the crimes of the church against world Jewry.

  But it could not come to that anyway. Damien could not succeed. The trajectory of the universe through phase space was single-valued. Nature would not permit Damien to change the past.

  Unless they now lived in an alternate universe, in which case Damien could do anything he wanted. In that universe, if Damien killed Paul, history would take a different path. Would it be better or worse? In either universe, Jews would still suffer and die. They were good at that sort of thing.

  It would be an interesting experiment, though, to see if Damien succeeded or failed. If he succeeded, then clearly they had tunneled to a different universe. If he failed, then that would prove nothing, since surely there must be many universes in which Paul survived this night.

  But, of course, Damien would not be atop this cliff. He had to be asleep, somewhere in Jerusalem with a very sore right arm. He was simply not capable of mounting any kind of an attack tonight on Paul or anyone else. How, for example, would he climb this hill with only one good hand? Ari found it difficult enough with two.

  Finally he reached the top. As Rivka had guessed, it was easy to walk around to the back side of the cliff. There he saw…nothing. No Damien. No human. Not even a rabbit.

  Ari leaned over the edge of the cliff and peered down to the road, waving at Rivka.

  But she was gone. He could see the whole stretch of road all the way back to Jerusalem. Nothing.

  Ari’s head began spinning, partly from the height, partly from the fact that Rivka was not where he had left her. He turned his head slowly from left to right, scanning the road as it bent around the cliff before continuing on west toward the Mediterranean coast.

  It was empty. Rivka had disappeared.

  God of our fathers, bring her back to me safely.

  * * *

  Rivka

  By the time Ari had climbed a third of the way up the hill, Rivka decided he wasn’t going to find anything. If Dr. West were up there, he would have seen them, heard them. And he would have done something.

  Therefore, he must be somewhere else.

  She couldn’t wait for Ari. His heart wasn’t in this anyway. She would have to take on Dr. West alone.

  She limped slowly around the bend and down the road, keeping in the shadows on the right side. Her ankle felt lousy, but at least she could walk. After a couple of minutes, her eyes caught a red glow up ahead, a tiny pinprick of light that shouldn’t have been there. She pressed deeper into the shadows, hobbling along a few feet off the road. It cost her time, but she had a little extra of that. She needed surprise.

  Her eyes stayed glued on that red dot in the night. What could it be? It floated well above the road, and a couple of dozen yards off on the right side. Careful, Rivka. Quiet.

  Then she smelled it—the disgusting odor of a cigar. The same smell that had made the lab smell like goat breath last Sunday morning when she had gone looking for Ari and found Dr. West alone. Was that only six days ago?

  By now, she stood within fifty yards of him, and the shadows had run out. She could stay here and wait for Paul and the Romans. But what good would that do? Would they listen to the warnings of a woman? Dr. West must have a plan or he wouldn’t be here. She needed to find out that plan. If she waited for Ari, he might arrive too late. Or he might argue with her. Delay would play into Dr. West’s hands.

  She had no other option. She would have to step out into
the light now. But then what?

  Obviously, she had to confront Dr. West. He was wounded. She was wounded. Neither had a weapon. Neither knew what the other intended. It would be a battle of wits alone. Assuming her mind was at least as sharp as his, she had a fifty-fifty chance of winning, right? Whereas she had no chance if she did nothing.

  Dr. West sat atop a bluff. It looked nowhere near as steep as the one Ari had climbed, and it offered a much easier route up. In fact, it looked like a rock slide waiting to happen.

  Was that the plan? Did Dr. West hope to level Paul with a rock slide? It didn’t seem quite plausible. The timing would have to be perfect. But if that was his plan, Rivka’s very arrival would ruin things. If she climbed up to Dr. West, he would have two options.

  He could do nothing, and then she could set off the rock slide early, before Paul arrived. Or he could trigger it himself, killing her, but wasting his only weapon.

  Rivka stepped out into the light and limped as quickly as she could toward the base of the bluff.

  At once, the cigar tip went out. She heard the sharp intake of breath from up above.

  No doubt of it now. That wasn’t a shepherd up there with his flocks. No time to waste being afraid. She had to go now.

  She reached the base of the slope and studied the climb. It looked steeper up close. She had thought it was forty-five degrees. Now it looked like sixty. God, give me strength.

  * * *

  Damien

  Damien gasped when Rivka suddenly appeared on the road below in an exotic red outfit. Where had she come from? He stubbed out his cigar and peered down at her. Had she seen him?

  Luckily, she was alone. There wouldn’t be any Lone Rangers riding to her rescue this time.

  She wore something on her right ankle. It looked like a bright red Ace bandage. No, it had to be part of that costume she wore.