Ishmael Covenant

by Terry Brennan

  It was the sound of drums from across the plain that arrested Joshua’s thoughts and brought his concentration back to the battle forming before him. Abner and Hiram stood at either shoulder. Behind him, aligned along an east-west axis on the southern rim of the Rephidim plain, stood half the army of Israel—thirty thousand fighting men from Joshua’s tribe of Judah, each man carefully selected; another thirty thousand each from the tribes of Dan and Simeon; twenty thousand each from Reuben, Gad, Ephraim, and Asher. Behind that first phalanx stood a second wave of Jewish soldiers from the other five tribes—in total over two hundred thousand veteran fighting men.

  Across the plain, Joshua estimated at least one hundred thousand sons of Amalek waited in the shadows of the dawn. Yesterday, a phalanx of these mounted desert raiders had fallen upon the last remnant of the Israelite column slowly working its way through the Alush gorge. Joshua’s soldiers rallied to form a wedge of protection around the weak and defenseless stragglers and repelled these descendants of Ishmael. But the Amalekites were back, even more determined to destroy the people of Israel and the army at its head. The enemy warriors, their black, green, and brown robes flapping behind them like battle flags, were mostly mounted on swift, powerful desert stallions. From a strictly military point of view, Joshua expected he would need to employ every one of his infantry to overcome the Amalekite horsemen. But then there was Moses—and the staff of God.

  After glancing once more to the hill to the east where Moses stood firm, the staff held high, Joshua lifted his right arm, his old, nicked sword sharpened to a lethal edge. “For the glory of our God and in the name of Jehovah.”

  Behind Joshua, in a wave that reverberated through the ranks of soldiers, two hundred thousand voices joined in the declaration, “For the glory of our God and in the name of Jehovah.”

  And the host of Israel stepped out to cross the plain. In the distance, a great, swirling cloud of dust rose in the north, the mounted horde of Amalek racing toward them, committed to annihilation of the Jews.

  Twelve hours later, Moses still sat on a rock on the hill to the east, the staff of God held high above his head. His arms were pale, his fingers turning a shade of light blue. At times during the day, Moses actually dozed off in the heat of the sun. But the staff never faltered.

  First Aaron and Hur, then in succession other teams of Moses’s personal guard, took turns supporting his arms and the staff. And through the day, the army of Israel punished the bandits of Amalek, pushing them back across the field, slaughtering their horses as they fell, leaving alive no Amalekite warrior who came under their sword.

  As the sun slipped behind the low hills to the west, what little was left of the Amalekite army withdrew in defeat, riding north to escape the inexorable fury of the Israelite fighters.

  When the last stone was set in the altar, Moses approached and rested the staff of God on its edge. The army of Israel surrounded the altar, built at the base of the hill on which Aaron and Hur had held Moses’s arms aloft during the battle. Moses lifted his left arm. “Come, Joshua.”

  Aware of the blood that covered his arms and his armor, conscious of the filth that crusted over his legs and his feet, Joshua held fast. He was covered with death. How could he approach an altar?

  “Come, Joshua. Come … stand by me,” said Moses.

  The old man reached out his hand toward Joshua, who did not have the power or strength left to refuse. Joshua stepped to Moses’s side.

  Moses smiled at Joshua, then turned to the army and lifted the staff above his head.

  “Today God fought for us,” said Moses. “And he destroyed the army of Amalek. But know this.” Moses took the staff and pointed it at the armed soldiers surrounding the altar. Deliberately, he moved the point of the staff in an arc that encompassed all the army. “While we were on the hill, the Lord spoke to me. The Lord said, ‘Moses, write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven.’ We will call this altar Jehovah-Nissi, the Lord is our banner, for hands were lifted up to the throne of the Lord. And the Lord has sworn here, this day, that the Lord will be at war with the Amalekites from generation to generation.”

  The army of Israel raised a shout and sounded the shofar so that the hills of Rephidim rained praises on the bloody plain. But Moses stepped closer to Joshua and spoke so that only he could hear.

  “My son, hear my words. The Lord has a message for you, your children, and your children’s children. Remember what the Amalekites did here, when our people were weary and worn out. They cut off those who were weak and lagging behind. They had no fear of God. Tell your children this … When the Lord your God gives you rest from your enemies and the land of the inheritance, you are still to go out and blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. The Lord says … Do not forget!”

  1

  Hurva Square, Jerusalem, Israel

  July 20, 2014, 1:14 p.m.

  Rabbi Chaim Yavod raced into Jerusalem’s Hurva Square, choking on the thick, swirling stone dust that encased the square in a malevolent fog. He leaped over huge shards of fractured stone and concrete—white, arched remnants of the Hurva Synagogue’s once magnificent dome. A symphony of horror filled the square nearly as thick as the stone dust—moans of the wounded and maimed, wails of survivors as they stumbled over the bodies of those who were not, shrill and urgent sirens promising help but not prevention.

  Only moments earlier he had been sent to fetch Rabbi Herzog’s car. Then, in a mounting tide of rumbling destruction, the world that Chaim Yavod knew best was obliterated.

  The convulsions of the first explosion ripped the door of the black Toyota out of Yavod’s hand and knocked him back onto the uneven surface of the small parking lot. The ground shifting under his shoulder blades, Yavod felt three additional explosions shudder the stones of the street. He looked up, above the rooftops toward the north. What looked like a volcanic eruption of smoke, stone, and debris was roiling ever higher over the square that contained the Hurva Synagogue—outside of the Western Wall, the most revered symbol of Jewish worship in Jerusalem.

  Now Yavod frantically scrambled through the destruction in the Hurva Square toward the smoking, shattered remains of the synagogue. The sickening fear tearing at his heart pushed aside any concern about delivering the envelope inside his jacket pocket—the decoded second prophecy from the Vilna Gaon. Israel Herzog, chief rabbi of the Israeli Rabbinate Council, his friend and superior, was probably somewhere under the collapsed dome and crumbled walls of what had once been Israel’s most beautiful synagogue. Was Herzog alive … any other members of the council who were with him? Could he save them? Yavod pressed on through the escalating havoc.

  The Old City, Jerusalem

  July 20, 1:14 p.m.

  The leader consciously forced himself to keep a leisurely pace in the midst of the mayhem. The bombers were three strides north on Habad Street, headed for the souks—the three parallel covered markets of the Old City—and the Damascus Gate, beyond which they could disappear. All around them, people were racing: Israelis and Arabs alike ran toward the site of the explosions in the Hurva Square, while tourists, mothers, and children fled the dust and the terror.

  The two bombers looked like worn and weary workmen headed to lunch when the leader thrust out his right arm and grabbed his partner by the sleeve of his dirty work shirt, causing a brief human pileup behind them. The leader pulled his partner close to a building facing the street.

  “We need to go back.”

  “Risky,” said his partner.

  “Yes,” the leader admitted, “but we need to see for ourselves. We know,” he said, lowering his voice and looking side to side at the human tide moving past them, “that our work succeeded. But we need to give a report. It was a mistake not to make sure that the results were … effective. We don’t want to make another mistake. You’ll learn. Mistakes are not well tolerated. Come.”

  Ignorin
g his partner’s unspoken reluctance, the leader turned to his left and began walking against the flow. He turned left on Hashalshelet, the Street of the Chain, away from the crowds, then quickly right into a narrow, curving walkway. Halfway along Tif’eret Yisrael Street the leader saw a stone walkway ascending between two buildings on his right.

  “Wait.”

  He bounded up the stairs two at a time but stopped a head short of the top. In Israel, as was true throughout the Middle East, rooftops were often actively used as alternative living space, particularly in the cooler evening hours. It was possible this rooftop could be occupied. He peeked over the edge, left then right. No one. No chairs. No potted plants. To the right more steps led up to a second flat roof. He looked up to the higher roof, straight into the smoke and debris cloud gently settling over Hurva Square. He could hear the cacophony on the other side of the building in Hurva Square, but no sounds closer. With a quick wave to his partner, he pushed himself over the edge and moved toward the second set of stairs.

  He moved up these stairs more cautiously. He took one step and paused, then another and paused. The fifth step brought his head level with the upper roof. He peeked over the edge. This roof held signs of being used, but it was unoccupied at the moment. The vast, open Hurva Square lay beyond its edge. As if he were walking on an ice bridge in the spring, his body in a crouch, he edged to a small parapet wall at the end of the roof. A slight breeze carried the smoke, dust, and cries for help off to the west, giving the leader a fairly clear view of his handiwork—carnage, destruction, chaos.

  Front to back, the Hurva sat on a north-south axis, the front of the building and the large, open Hurva Square on the southern side. He and his partner were now situated on a rooftop looking northwest, catty-corner across the square, toward the ancient minaret of the Caliph Omar mosque on the far side. The Hurva, when it stood, was a massive square building of Jerusalem stone and masonry walls, almost its entire bulk covered by a huge dome. Now the Hurva looked like a squashed egg.

  For maximum destruction of the synagogue, and everything and anyone inside it, the first twin explosions had cracked the spine of the building. Then another set of explosions obliterated the walls at the corners, causing the majority of the destruction to fall in upon itself, like a deflating accordion. But the blasts had also hurled huge chunks of stone wall and concrete arch in every direction around the building.

  The trees in the square were shattered and stunted by the blasts, the umbrella-covered open-air restaurant tables that offered shade and respite for tourists were thrown against the walls of the adjacent buildings.

  A retaining wall of Jerusalem stone, two stories high, was tied into and ran across the rear of the synagogue, accounting for the higher elevation of Ha-Yehudim Street. That retaining wall, and a square chunk of the rear of the building attached to the wall, were the only parts of the Hurva that had survived the blasts.

  Below, butchery littered the vastness of the Hurva Square. Police and medical first responders were rushing around, looking for the living and covering the dead. Wails of grief battled with the still incoming sirens.

  “Let’s watch a moment.”

  US Embassy, Tel Aviv, Israel

  July 20, 1:16 p.m.

  In two hours, Rabbi Israel Herzog was scheduled to arrive with a secret that promised to make Brian Mullaney’s life even more unpredictable and out of control.

  The last two days—was it only two days?—had been relentless, seemingly endless, interrupted by only a few hours of sleep. He needed to shake off the weary exhaustion that was draining his muscles and dulling his brain. The daily security of hundreds of diplomatic staff rested squarely on his shoulders. Recently banished to Israel, his appointment as the US State Department’s Middle East Regional Security Officer (RSO) was little solace for the fact that his career was on life support.

  The phone rang.

  “Mullaney.”

  “Sir, it’s Floyd Bishop at the consul general’s residence. There’s been an explosion in the Old City. I think the Hurva’s just been blown up.”

  Hurva Square, Jerusalem

  July 20, 1:17 p.m.

  Chaim skirted the eastern edge of the square. A slight breeze had begun to move some of the choking dust to the west. Scrambling his way around giant pieces of wreckage, tearing up the flesh of his hands on the knifelike edges, and avoiding the growing crowd of civilians pouring into the square to help, he fixed his eyes on his destination—an arched doorway on the north side of the synagogue, at the base of the retaining wall, that led to a lower-level hallway and the offices of the Rabbinate Council on the western flank of the Hurva.

  Inside the arch, the door and its frame were no longer vertical. The doorframe canted to the right at a forty-five-degree angle, the door itself sprung open and hanging precariously from only one hinge. Chaim closed the distance, keeping a hopeful eye on the door for any sign of life and a wary eye on the still-smoldering rubble mound to his left that continued to disgorge debris onto the square. He acknowledged to himself the fear that was adding lead weights to his limbs but, with a deep breath, cast the fear aside and pressed himself through the precarious opening into the underbelly of destruction.

  The Old City, Jerusalem

  July 20, 1:18 p.m.

  The leader of the bombers had his eyes on the square below and his mobile phone to his ear.

  “The synagogue is destroyed. The rabbis and their package are now buried under tons of wreckage collapsed in upon itself.”

  “Where are you?” asked the leader of the Disciples.

  “On a rooftop, overlooking the square.”

  “Remain. Make sure no one has escaped. Do not get caught.”

  The leader closed the phone and stuffed it in his pants pocket just as his accomplice poked him on the shoulder.

  “You see … there is one. Looks like a rabbi,” said the accomplice, as the thin, black-coated man gingerly approached a darkened archway in the retaining wall to their right.

  They hunkered close to the parapet, their eyes on the slight figure who slipped into the darkness.

  “He goes in,” said his companion.

  “Yes. And we wait until … if … he comes out.”

  US Embassy, Tel Aviv

  July 20, 1:18 p.m.

  Habit and training prompted Mullaney to swing his chair to the left toward the three-foot-square Jerusalem street map that was attached to a huge cloth board in his office at the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel.

  Even though he had only been “boots on the ground” in Israel for two weeks, he knew where the consul general’s residence was located—on Gershon Agron Street across from the sprawling Independence Park, in an Americanized compound less than a mile from the Old City.

  Floyd Bishop was a seasoned and respected agent of the Diplomatic Security Service, someone who could be trusted. But Mullaney needed all the facts. “How do you know it was the Hurva?”

  “I don’t. I can’t be certain,” said Bishop. “But as soon as I heard the explosions and felt the ground move, I grabbed a pair of binoculars and ran up to the roof. We’re on a rise, and the rear of the building looks out over the Old City. There was still a cloud of debris and smoke in the air to pinpoint the location. The explosion was pretty much due east of here, north of the Zion Gate … sort of split the distance between St. James Cathedral and David’s Tower. I can’t see it clearly through the smoke and ash, even with binoculars, but the Hurva is less than two thousand yards away from here, in that very spot. And that’s where the debris cloud is. If I had to make a bet—”

  “Okay,” said Mullaney, “take a—”

  “Listen, Brian—excuse me, sir,” said Bishop, acknowledging Mullaney’s rank, “but that was a huge explosion—actually several explosions if I counted correctly. There’s going to be a lot of dead people over there, sir. A lot of tourists. Could be some of ours.”

  Mullaney wiped a hand down his lined face and then scanned the map in front of him, calculating. I
n his nineteen years in the Diplomatic Security Service, he’d approached every assignment with constant vigilance, articulate intelligence, and an external calm that carried over to all those with whom he served.

  Now the world kept blowing up around him. Mullaney was responsible for protecting the lives of every individual assigned to the US diplomatic mission to Israel and—by extension, he believed—responsible for every American soul in the land of Israel.

  But he was failing miserably in fulfilling those responsibilities. First Palmyra Parker, the ambassador’s daughter, was kidnapped and now—probably because of a decision he made—the historic Hurva Synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem, Israel’s most beautiful place of worship, was a smoldering pile of rubble. Only minutes earlier, Rabbi Israel Herzog called him from inside the Hurva, announcing that the Rabbinate Council had cracked the code of a two-hundred-year-old prophecy that Mullaney hoped would put an end to the death and mayhem that followed the scrap of parchment from Germany to Turkey to Israel. Was Herzog still in the synagogue when …

  Mullaney held the phone to his ear but there was little that was holding up his hope. “All right, Floyd, how many agents on duty over there?”

  “Eight, at least—could be more if some of the agents stuck around after the shift change.”

  “How’s your exterior security?” asked Mullaney. He visualized the long, high stone wall, topped by wrought iron fencing that ran along the front of the compound on Gershon Agron Street.

  “We’re solid,” said Bishop. “Mostly Israeli nationals—long-time service guys who are ex-IDF—with one of our agents in charge. We’re solid here, Brian, and we’re the closest.”

  Mullaney walked to the window and looked to the east where, forty-four miles distant in the Judean hill country, the contested city of Jerusalem was located. Still a formidable physical presence in his mid-forties, the spreading streaks of gray at his temples were a testimony to the daily stress he carried on his broad shoulders. Today he also fought the twin scourges of guilt and discouragement.