by Ted Dekker
Zakkai shook his head. “No, but Solomon has it. He told me this morning that he’s confident the prime minister will lend a submarine.”
The others looked at him, surprised.
“Yes, Ben Gurion is more of a friend than you might think. Goldstein, on the other hand, is not. He has evidently already started to form a coalition against the Ark being brought to Jerusalem, if it is found.”
“They know?” Avraham asked.
“They know we’re looking.”
“God help us if this gets out,” Samuel said.
“Either way, we should begin laying the explosives,” Avraham said.
Samuel hesitated. “No. We’ll give them another twenty-four hours. Then we’ll talk about alternatives.” He turned and walked out.
27
The night had produced a weary plodding that had left Rebecca numbed. She led, to the front and to the left of Caleb’s camel, staring at the rising moon, feeling awkward in their silence. She had no idea what he was thinking back there, and she hardly had the courage to ask. As it was, they had talked enough in the previous two days to leave her with a headache. At least that’s what she told herself.
But there was more, wasn’t there? It wasn’t just her head that was hurting. It was further down, in her chest, where her heart belonged. Where a hole now struggled to push blood through her veins. In all honesty that’s how it felt, like a vacant black space, and she wasn’t thrilled to feel it.
He made no overtures. The moon rose and began to sink again and he said absolutely nothing. They had just come from a dream world where anomalies and impossibilities took center stage, and Caleb had settled into an austere silence that seemed to rub salt in her wounds. She didn’t have any wounds, of course. She was simply exhausted beyond reckoning. That’s what she told herself. But still it hurt like she had been wounded. A hole had been drilled through her chest.
Rebecca had looked back once and caught him looking at her, wearing a small smile. She had grunted and faced forward. She almost spoke to him a dozen—two dozen—times. But always the words refused to surface past her throat. And as the time stretched on, the prospect of speaking to him dwindled. She wasn’t sure what she might have lost back there at the camp, but she still had her pride.
She looked back at him again, much later, and saw that he had slumped over on the camel, asleep. She slowed her own camel until they walked abreast. Only then, when he made no move, did she nonchalantly study him. His head barely bounced with the camel’s slow gait. His black hair fell over his cheek and his lower lip stuck out further than normal, relaxed in sleep. His hands still held the reins gently—large hands accustomed to work. If not for his peculiarities, Caleb might be the kind of man she would consider spending time with. He was gentle and very kind and he would make a good father. Perhaps a good lover—
She blinked and looked back at the moon. It was absurd, of course. He was also a fool. And a Christian.
Her heart thumped unnecessarily hard. She nudged her camel forward and swore she’d never think such mad thoughts again.
If you take Caleb, you will take the madness, Hadane had said.
She answered him in a whisper. “The madness is in Israel, you old bat. I’ve been surrounded by it all my life. This is child’s play.”
She dozed in the early morning hours, waking every half-hour to verify their course. They entered the foothills as the horizon grayed with the first morning light. She recognized the terrain now—they were back on the same path she’d followed Caleb on. The spring should be another two hours ahead. She glanced back and saw that Caleb still slept.
The next time she looked back, nearly an hour later, he was awake.
“Good morning,” he said, smiling.
“Morning.” She faced forward, glad for the break in endless silence.
His camel strode up next to hers. “We’re back on the same path I came,” he said. “There’s a spring ahead.”
She looked over and offered a forced smile. “You doubted me? I learned to navigate by the stars before I was ten.”
“Not bad. If you can navigate your life as well as you navigate camels, you’ll do well.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning what I said.”
His cryptic talk had started already, and Rebecca wasn’t sure if she hated it or loved it. But his voice carried a strange thread of comfort, and maybe for this alone she continued.
“You are preoccupied with finding the path of life, aren’t you?”
He looked to the hills ahead and his smile faded. “I’m preoccupied with Christ now. He is the path, and I’ve found it again. It’s easy to miss, you know. Because it’s quite narrow. I walked it as a child, but somehow I wandered to the side. I never abandoned it, you understand, but what was once so clear and evident became foggy, and I lost sight of the path. Then I think I lost interest.” He shrugged. “It’s hard to be passionate about something you can’t see. Hadane helped me see again. The way of Christ has become obvious to me again.”
“Just like that, huh? Like flipping a light switch.”
“Yes. Just like that. And Christ is the light.”
“The Nazarene.” She shook her head and turned away. “The Jews crucified your man two thousand years ago, and Christians have been after us ever since. You almost wiped us out in World War II.”
“That was not us, but I am so very sorry.”
“It was Christians. You’re not a Christian?”
“Not if that’s a Christian. I’m an apprentice of Jesus. I am his bride, his lover, his slave. His way is to love, to turn the cheek, to die for another.”
“So then you would die for me?” The question came without thought and she immediately regretted it.
He looked at her with those green pools for eyes and it made her feel funny. “Yes.”
“Well, no offense, but I don’t think I would die for you. I would die for Israel.”
“That’s a start. So did the Nazarene.”
They traveled in silence for a while.
“You believe the Ark is really at the monastery?” he asked.
“I think there’s a good chance.”
“God’s presence does not dwell in the Ark. You do realize that, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t realize that,” she said. “You don’t believe the book of Exodus?”
“Exodus is only the beginning of the story. You don’t believe Isaiah?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then you know about the Messiah.”
She paused. “I am here because of the Messiah,” she said.
“So am I.”
She knew what he meant, of course. They fell silent. The sun was hot behind them now.
“When we get to the monastery, will you help me search for the Ark?” Rebecca asked.
He didn’t answer right away. She was aware that she had said me, instead of us, and it made her feel good. In a strange way she wanted Caleb to help her.
“I don’t know yet,” he said.
“I would appreciate it if you made up your mind.”
“If I don’t, will you try to force me?”
She looked at him and saw that he was smiling. She couldn’t help returning the smile. The notion of her forcing him seemed absurd. “I will tie you down and tickle you until you confess,” she said.
He raised a brow. “Then I would have to tickle you back, until you swear never to tickle me again.” He lifted a hand and wiggled his fingers. “These are very good ticklers, you know.”
It was a ridiculous moment and they stared at each other, caught by the exchange. He suddenly snorted in a short laugh. The sound was so strange that Rebecca chuckled.
“Oh, that was an appealing sound,” she said.
“Yes, I’m trying very hard to appeal to you.”
They began to laugh aloud, as much to break the awkwardness as for the humor of the exchange. Their laughter fed more laughter. The reprieve came to Rebecca like a desperately neede
d rain on a blistering hot day.
They came to the spring twenty minutes later, still chuckling now and then with offhanded comments. If Caleb was as mad as she had thought, his madness was infectious.
Umbrella-shaped mimosa trees formed a ring around two small brown pools, each roughly three meters across. A small cliff broken by several inlets formed a barrier on the south side, so that the spring remained shaded for most of the day—its only salvation, Rebecca assumed. Through the morning hours, they had left the white salts of the desert and entered the sandy soil of the hills. Vegetation grew in small pockets, scattered haphazardly over the hills. She had passed this way six days earlier, thinking that she was headed into the land of the dead. Now it all looked fresh and full of life.
Caleb reached the spring first. He dropped to the ground and immediately came around to her camel. He lifted a hand up to help her. Rebecca’s first inclination was to wave him off—she hardly needed help dismounting from a camel, especially from a man. She’d served in a man’s war and bested most of them; if anything, she should be the one helping him. She couldn’t recall ever allowing a man to help her like this.
But the thought was immediately supplanted by another—that she should take his hand because he was a man. Because this was not about helping, but about Caleb being a man and she being a woman. Both notions flashed through her mind in under a second, and she reached her hand out to his.
His grip was strong and warm. Their eyes met for a moment and she thought that maybe she really was losing her mind. It was the fact that she was hesitating, sitting on her camel with her hand in his, staring into his eyes. She should be dismounting!
She slid off the hump and landed lightly on the sand. “Thank you,” she said, unable to hide her smile.
“You are welcome.”
They let their camels drink in silence. A very light breeze blew through the canopy over their heads. In a way she stood at the crossroads of absurdities, she thought. She a Jew, he a Christian, both watching their camels slurp at muddy water in the middle of nowhere, while the end of the world loomed somewhere nearby. In Jerusalem.
Then suddenly something else was thrown into the crossroads. A small sound that didn’t belong. She lifted her head.
It came again, a light pounding.
Hoofs!
Adrenaline flooded her veins. Caleb jerked his head up—he’d heard it now as well.
Rebecca scanned the spring and assessed their situation quickly. They couldn’t outrun horses. They could make for the breaks in the cliff, thirty meters off, but their tracks . . .
“Quick! Take the camels into the cliffs.” She grabbed a blanket off her camel and swept it across the sand.
“Where—”
“Go!” she snapped. “To the cliffs.”
Caleb yanked on the reins and dragged the two reluctant camels around the pools. Rebecca followed, erasing the tracks behind her as well as she could. The horses came into view just as they entered the break in the rock. It was the Arab troop!
Rebecca cast one last glance over the covered tracks. She had no idea where the canyon behind her led. If the Arabs followed them, it would come down to a firefight. Her only hope was that the Arabs were heading directly for the monastery.
Then again, that would be a problem as well, wouldn’t it? They had horses and would easily reach the monastery first.
Rebecca pulled back into the rocks, breathing hard now. She grabbed her camel from Caleb. “Hurry! We have to take up a position that’ll give us an advantage under fire!” she whispered.
“Who are they?”
“The Arabs from the desert. I’m obviously not the only one who considers the Ark important.”
The small canyon cut fifty meters into the cliffs before angling to the left. Large boulders crowded the sandy bottom, and the walls on either side rose jagged. They turned a second corner and pulled up. A narrow path led from the canyon up to the plateau, two stories above them. Rebecca dropped her reins, ran up the path, saw that it ended in the plain, which offered no cover, and ran back down.
“We can’t risk getting caught in the open with camels,” she said breathlessly. “We’ll hide here and take our chances. Leave the camels in those rocks.” She pointed to a pile of boulders mid-canyon.
“What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me. You just get out of sight and stay out of sight until I call for you. Hopefully they’ll pass. We’ll figure things out from there. Hurry!”
She already had the rifle in her hands, and she spun for the opposite side. She couldn’t do anything about the camels. If one of the Arabs walked into this part of the canyon, they would find a mouthful of lead. The unsilenced shot would bring on a full firefight, but she would have to take that chance. Better here than in the open.
28
The Republican Guard rode their horses hard, beyond the point of exhaustion, only because Ismael knew about the spring they now approached. Their water was gone. They had abandoned the two Jeeps in the foothills, loaded the munitions on the horses, watered them well, and struck directly for the spring. The tracker had estimated that the camel tracks they followed were less than several hours old by the signs. So then, the Jew could not be far ahead—camels were slow beasts. With any luck they would catch them before the monastery.
Ismael reined his horse up at the edge of the spring and dropped into the sand. The others crashed in around him. They let the horses stamp up to the waters, sweaty and snorting.
“Another run like that and we’ll kill them,” Asid said.
“But they aren’t dead, are they? If we fail with our mission, on the other hand, you might be.” Ismael was studying the banks as he spoke. The camels had skirted the twin ponds, dragging something. His pulse quickened.
“How far till—”
“Water the horses,” Ismael snapped. “I’ll be back.”
He slid his rifle from the scabbard, checked the load, and walked around the pools. The tracks led from the oasis to the cliffs, then into a canyon. He edged around the corner and saw that whatever they had been dragging had been lifted. A weak attempt to cover tracks. An attempt that a soldier as experienced as the Jew would make only in a hurry.
Ismael gripped the rifle in both hands and studied the sandy ground. The tracks disappeared around a bend. With a parting glance back at the oasis, he slipped into the canyon and hurried for a rock outcropping this side of the bend. Except for his steady breathing and the gentle murmur of voices from the watering hole behind him, the air lay still. He made his way up the canyon, running from rock to rock, keeping to the south wall.
At the next bend, he saw the large island of boulders in the middle of the canyon. And beyond the boulders, a path that snaked up a dead end. He thought immediately that he’d been too late. It must be a back way that Caleb knew, which would make sense if he’d lived in these hills all his life. But still, there was the fact that they had tried to cover their tracks, which meant that they might be only a few kilometers ahead. He should get back to the horses. The Jew would be a sitting duck in the open. Not to mention that camels—
A tan head suddenly eased out from behind the large boulders, thirty meters ahead.
A camel!
Ismael jerked back, his heart suddenly slamming in his chest. They were still in the canyon! They had tried to fool him, but now one shot to the head of their camels and they would be on foot.
Another thought crashed through Ismael’s mind: if he had been seen, which he would not put past the Jew, she would know that he had seen the camel. She may have been holding off a shot, thinking that he might see the path and leave. But now she had seen him jerk back—the next time he wouldn’t be so lucky. Speed. He had to act fast, before she expected him to.
Ismael ducked and ran into the canyon. He slid down at the base of the boulders, expecting a shot to ring out.
But none did. He inched around, keeping low at the base. The camels stood dumbly in the sun, not twenty meters off. Tw
o quick shots and the Jew would be as good as dead. He pushed himself to one knee and lifted his rifle.
It was the first time Rebecca had seen the Arab’s full face. He was Ismael. Son of Abu Ismael, brother of Hamil. She knew that because she had studied Hamil before killing him. Ismael, Hamil’s mourning brother, had shouted obscenities at a camera crew once, naming Rebecca as a witch who was poisoning the land. His hate for her ran deep, and she hardly blamed him. She knew how losing a brother or a sister felt.
If it had been any other face peering around that cliff wall, she might have pulled the trigger. But to see Ismael here, deep in the desert so far from Palestine—her head spun with questions.
And then he jerked back. One glance and she saw that the camel had walked out. He knew! She swallowed. So it would come down to a firefight after all. Dear God, favor Isaac.
Ismael acted quickly, diving to the rocks before she could regain a target. And then he rose to one knee, filling her sights. He was going after the camels! She eased the slack on the trigger. I’m sorry for your brother, Ismael. Now it’s your turn to die as well.
And maybe you as well, Rebecca. When the gunshot reaches the oasis, the soldiers will come. She had no choice.
Movement to her right caught her attention half an ounce from the hammer fall. It was the shape of a man, walking into play, and she knew in one unutterable moment of horror that it was Caleb.
She shifted her eye without losing Ismael and stared in shock. Caleb was walking towards the Arab! Dressed in a white tunic and strolling as if they had planned to meet all along.
Ismael rose to his feet, his rifle trained unwavering on Caleb’s chest. Caleb stopped three meters from the Arab.
Why Rebecca didn’t pull the trigger then, she would never understand. She told herself that it was because by coming out, Caleb was telling her not to. Ismael was standing there, his barrel pointed at Caleb, ready to send a slug through his heart with a twitch of his finger, and Rebecca remained frozen, like a block of ice.
“You are the Arab?” Caleb’s voice sounded softly down the canyon, a decibel above a whisper. In its wake absolute stillness. Rebecca had stopped breathing.
