The Caleb Collection
Page 73
Caleb stopped immediately ahead and to the left of her. She followed his lead, coming abreast. He suddenly lifted his chin to the sky, threw his fists up to God, and screamed.
Rebecca jerked, surprised. A heavy weight suddenly pressed against her chest, and she immediately began to cry. Her mind scrambled for orientation. Her first instinct was to think she’d been shot. The shock she felt was the result of a bullet to her chest.
She turned to face Caleb. He stood there with an open jaw, screaming, like Hadane had in the desert. Only this time she could hear it. This time she was somehow in that scream.
She faced the soldiers. They stood exactly as they had been standing a second ago, looking wide-eyed, breathing steadily. But they were not shooting. The scene seemed frozen in time, with this latter-day Elijah screaming at the sky.
One of the soldiers suddenly lowered his rifle and looked around, absently. He scratched behind his ear and swatted at a fly. Others began to shift and look around, as if also distracted. Two of them began to talk beneath the scream that filled the air beside her.
Rebecca gawked at them, stunned. The soldier right in front of her, the one who had called for them to stop, glanced at her casually. He said something she imagined might be a greeting.
The air suddenly fell quiet. She looked slowly over at Caleb, afraid to break the spell. He gazed about, awed.
“Where are you going, miss?” It was the soldier in front of her.
Rebecca just looked at him.
“We are going to Jerusalem,” Caleb answered, putting his hand on her shoulder.
“Jerusalem. The holy city.” He nodded, satisfied.
“Thank you,” Caleb said to him. He nodded at Rebecca nonchalantly, as if this sort of thing were an everyday occurrence. “We should hurry.”
Caleb walked down the blacktop, between the two tanks and their mob of soldiers, nodding at one and then another. She followed quickly. Her bones seemed to be vibrating with a silent energy that hung in the air. Her legs felt wobbly, but she walked on, past nothing more than bored soldiers who hardly seemed to notice their passing.
Caleb stopped and turned in the road, just past the tanks. “You see, Rebecca? Do you see this?”
“Yes! Yes, I see! What—”
“Then you are seeing the hand of God.”
She glanced back. “Do . . . do they see us?”
“They seem to.”
“Then why aren’t they attacking us?”
“I don’t know. You could ask the same of Shadrach or Meshach or Daniel or Jonah. We are alive.” He continued walking and she strode beside him, heart beating like a tom-tom. They rounded a bend and the soldiers were gone.
Rebecca kept looking back, to make sure.
“This . . . this is hard to believe.”
“Believe it.”
“I’m not sure I have a choice anymore.”
They walked in silence except for the dull sound of their shoes striking asphalt. Caleb kept smiling at her, but he didn’t seem interested in explaining more. She wasn’t sure he knew more than he’d said. This had been God. Period.
“What now?” she finally asked.
“Now we go to show the world what we’ve seen.”
“I’m . . . I’m not sure anyone would believe . . .”
He was three steps ahead of her and he suddenly tripped.
But it wasn’t really a trip. He was hurled forward, midstride. He tried to catch himself with his right hand, but it buckled and he sprawled to his face on the blacktop’s yellow dotted line.
Rebecca’s heart slammed into her throat like a fist. She saw the blood immediately, seeping from the side of his head. For an impossibly long moment she stood, immobilized.
Caleb had been shot!
A bullet tugged at her tunic, just below her armpit. Panic swallowed her and she dove for the side of the road. The faint pfft, pfft of a silenced rifle reached her ear, and she knew in that instant, rolling to roadside boulders for cover, that Ismael was not dead. She’d heard this rifle before.
A dozen years of honed instinct screamed to the surface. She scrambled for a large boulder to the right of an outcropping. They had just been ambushed; this was a fact. Caleb had been shot in the head; this was also a fact. They had walked nonchalantly through the soldiers, and then Caleb had taken a bullet in his head.
But she didn’t know if he was dead. It could be a surface wound—head wounds tended to bleed more than most.
She stopped herself and closed her eyes. Dear God, listen to me . . . Caleb. Oh, dear Caleb! Caleb . . .
A bullet cut through the air centimeters from her ear and she ducked. She had to survive. Her heart was aching, as if one of those bullets had lodged itself at its core, but she forced herself to shove the emotion from her mind. Her eyes blurred with tears, and she grunted.
Rebecca ground her teeth, counted to three, and lunged to her left. She dropped to the sand, rolled backward, back behind the boulder, and sprang to the right, into a full sprint. This she did without hesitation, knowing that very few marksmen could possibly follow such an abrupt change in direction with any accuracy.
Ismael came close. His slugs whined past her furiously. But she reached the large clump of boulders she’d angled for. She sprinted around them and ran for the hills in the cover of the boulders.
She already knew what she had to do. The sun was setting in the west, and she would soon have the dark with her.
Dear God, help me.
She ran away from Ismael, her eyes blurred with emotion, desperately pushing back the panic. Twice she stopped and started back, but she knew that was what he wanted, and she forced herself to run on. Every step felt like a small death to her. She was leaving a part of herself back there on the road.
Caleb lying there.
42
The Dolphin class submarine sat on the surface in the Eilat docks, quiet except for the grinding of an electric crane that slowly hoisted a makeshift crate through its loading bay. A full moon shone from a dark sky, casting an eerie light over the sub’s black hull.
Of the dozen men who worked around the sub, most of them knew nothing about the contents of the crate. In fact, only the captain, Moses Stern, the first officer, a burly man whom they called Dan, and Avraham himself seemed to have any idea at all.
It was more than Avraham could have hoped for.
He watched the box swing towards the dock in its canvas sling. Water lapped gently against the steel hull three meters under the suspended sling.
Avraham was mildly surprised that half the members of the Knesset were not crowding the dock. David Ben Solomon at least. There were the six guards who waited with the army truck parked on the dock to take the Ark to Jerusalem, but they would hardly present any challenge. Goldstein’s ambush waited ten kilometers ahead, twenty men who would be attacking in the narrowest part of the road. These six would be easily overwhelmed.
Avraham’s greatest concern was avoiding the attackers’ bullets himself. If Goldstein’s men could follow simple orders and keep their fire away from the cab, he would be fine.
Captain Moses Stern strolled up beside him, arms behind his back, staring at the crate as it thumped softly to the concrete. Avraham had seen the man only once after his phone call to Goldstein, an hour earlier when they had first surfaced.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” the captain said.
“Yes. Hard to believe.”
“David Ben Solomon finally has his day.”
Avraham froze. Solomon? What did Moses Stern know about Solomon’s involvement?
Easy, Avraham. Everyone in Israel knows about Solomon’s obsessions.
“He has,” Avraham said. “I’m surprised he’s not here.”
“Believe me, if there was any way for him to be here without drawing unwanted attention, he would be. It’ll be hard enough to get it to him without half the Knesset pouncing.” Stern chuckled.
“Do you know him?”
“Solomon? Who doesn’t?”
“Actually, I know Solomon quite well,” the captain said. “I’ve sympathized with his ideas for twenty years. He’s a good man.”
Avraham swallowed. Waves of heat washed over his skull. Something was not right. “Yes. Yes, he is.”
“In fact, I talked to him just an hour ago,” the captain said. “He wanted me to tell you that there has been a slight change in plans.”
Avraham knew then that he’d been made. Solomon would have learned from the captain that Rebecca was dead, contrary to what he’d been told.
He eased nonchalantly to his right and nodded. A thousand voices screamed in his head. Two of them surfaced as options. The first was to accept the consequences of defeat. The second was to take the captain hostage and force the situation. He immediately opted for the latter.
Avraham jerked his pistol from his belt and whipped it around to face the captain. From the corner of his eyes he saw the three sailors behind him with rifles at their shoulders. The muzzles flashed simultaneously, like three rockets detonating at once.
The slugs took him in his right side, like a huge battering ram. In one instant he was thinking that he could at least kill the captain, and in the next the lead slammed into his arm and hurled him violently to the side. It occurred to him in midair that his shoulder was gone.
His world went black before he hit the water.
Rebecca had eluded Ismael and she was alive; that much was good. The Arabs had scoured the hills in search for her as night settled. She’d heard Ismael’s call to her—screaming that she was a witch and that he was going to kill Caleb slowly, like a pig. They were nine and she was one, he screamed, and sooner or later he would kill her as well. Like a pig. And then about four hours ago their sounds had faded to the north.
So then, Caleb was alive.
Or Caleb was dead and Ismael only wanted her to think he was alive to lure her in. Even if he was alive, he might be terribly wounded. Either way, Ismael was baiting her, daring her to come out.
It was there, huddled in the small crevice she’d found, that Rebecca first embraced the fact that she felt things for Caleb that she’d never felt for another man. It would have been one thing to feel sorrow at losing such a unique man of God. But to feel the impossible ache that gripped her heart and slowed her breathing—she knew that she loved him.
She was in love. With a crazy man who’d been shot in the head.
Although to be honest she had never loved a man, so she had nothing to compare it to. But this desperation that raged through her at the thought of losing him definitely felt like something you would call true love.
She grunted, clenched her eyes, and shook her head. She was in an impossible situation. The first thing she’d learned in the army was that the mind does strange things in impossible situations. It was natural for her to feel this compulsion to bring Caleb back.
She was about 250 kilometers south of the border, a border that was lined with tanks, if Ahmed had been right. Ismael waited with Caleb somewhere between her and that border. And three days had passed since Avraham had taken the Ark. She had to get to Jerusalem. Nothing else mattered now.
Except Caleb.
Dear God, except the one man who might have been able to get her past the tanks. Except the one man that made her heart hurt and her head spin.
She grunted again and stood. Caleb, Caleb. You’ll be the death of us all. She took a deep breath and glanced at the bright moon. Dear God, save us. This was your doing, not mine. For a fleeting moment she wondered about praying to the Nazarene. Only for a moment.
Rebecca jogged in the direction the Arabs had gone, keeping low and in the shadows of the boulders. With each footfall a small piece of her courage returned. She had been trained for this by the best. She had been the best. Killing was still in her blood.
Do you want to step off a cliff, Rebecca?
I’ve been in free fall since mother died, she thought.
Ismael’s camp was three kilometers north, in a group of rocks west of the road. She heard them before she saw them, which meant that they meant for her to hear them. Ismael wasn’t a stupid man. And if they meant to be heard, they had set a trap.
Rebecca ducked behind a boulder and stilled her breathing. She had to get a weapon. There were two ways to do this: the smart way—the way she’d been taught, the way Ismael would obviously expect—or the mad way. The smart way was smart because it actually stood a chance of working. The mad way was mad because it didn’t. Which was why Ismael would not expect it.
Rebecca was getting used to madness.
By the carrying voices, the camp was fifty meters ahead, just beyond a group of tall boulders. A fire crackled, and she could see the smoke rising gray against the black sky. She isolated at least five unique voices, which meant that there had to be double that. Nine Ismael had said. Nine to one. And Caleb.
She picked up a rock the size of her fist and hurled it over the boulders into the camp.
It clattered noisily and the voices quieted immediately. She’d done this once in the Golan, behind enemy lines, but not alone. She had two other prisoners with her. However ugly, the strategy had paid off.
Rebecca waited one last desperate moment and then bolted out of her cover to the west. She screamed—a long chilling scream that tore through the air like a gargoyle’s howl. Ten long, screaming strides, nine more than she knew was sane, and she threw herself back the way she’d come. She rolled on the ground quickly and then scrambled on all fours to the same rock she’d come from.
A shot boomed somewhere behind her, lighting the night like a flashcube. They were shooting for the sound. She lurched to her feet, ran to the east, towards the road, and then cut north in a full sprint. Before they had the time to reorient themselves from the scream she was past the camp, on its northeast.
She screamed again, running west, and then reversed her direction as she had before, back to the road. But this time she cut for the camp instead of running past it. Her breathing came hard, in burning pants, but she had to approach them as quietly as possible, so she ran without taking deep breaths.
She palmed the bowie knife from her waist and rushed the camp, hunched low to the ground, praying that the Arabs were still fixated on the north and the south.
Rebecca sprinted around a boulder and saw the camp in a flash. They had built a fire and now stood with their backs to it, six of them. A body lay curled up on the perimeter, under a small rock ledge. Caleb.
Rebecca hurled her knife in a full run and took the last ten meters screaming at the top of her lungs. The knife struck a startled soldier in his sternum and he grabbed crazily for it. His rifle thumped to the ground.
Half of them spun and began firing wildly in her direction, but by then she was even with them. She snatched up the fallen rifle, leapt right over the fire, past the two men on the far side and into the boulders beyond. One of them yelled out in pain, shot by one of his companions.
Rebecca ran to her right. Guns were still firing, chasing the sound of her echoing cry, but the boulders covered her retreat. She immediately doubled back. Back towards the camp, still in a fast run.
This time she dropped to her knees behind a large rock and brought the AK-47 to bear on the exposed camp. She was too winded to aim properly but at this range it would be difficult to miss. Her first shot ripped through them less than ten seconds after her first attack.
She killed four of them before they got off a single shot in her direction. The fifth was turning for her when she shot him through the chest.
Immediately, slugs smashed the rock around her. She heard the telltale puff from Ismael’s rifle to the south. Rebecca ducked and retreated into the night. She slid behind a group of low shrubs and lay on her back, panting as quietly as she could manage. Her lungs burned, and her heart fe
lt like it was tearing itself loose, but she had survived without a scratch.
Ismael had not been in the camp.
A crouched form suddenly ran past her, straight for two Jeeps that she now saw for the first time. She rolled on her side and shot him in the back.
That was seven. Two more.
One of the Jeeps suddenly roared to life. She scrambled to acquire a target, but she couldn’t make out the driver. The vehicle spun out in a U-turn. Its tires squealed on the pavement and it tore south. The eighth soldier had gone for reinforcements. That left Ismael.
“Rebeccaaa!” Ismael’s voice echoed in the night. “Rebeccaaaa! Do you know what I see, Rebeccaaa?”
The sound of his voice made her skin crawl.
“No? I see a man in my scope, lying like a baby. Is this your man?”
He was talking about Caleb. Rebecca pushed herself to her knees.
“I am going to shoot him, Jew. I’m going to put a bullet through his skull. Unless you step out by the fire.”
She ran towards the sound of his voice and slid to her knees behind a boulder, frantic. He would do it! He had nothing to lose.
“You can’t face me like a man?” Rebecca yelled. “You’ve allowed a woman to beat you, and now you have to kill an innocent monk to force my hand?” The fire crackled. “Is this the Palestinian way?”
“You’re taunting me, Jew! You take me for a fool?”
“I’ll throw my gun out to the fire,” Rebecca said quickly. “I’ll come out unarmed if you come as well. I want to meet Hamil’s brother.”
He didn’t respond right away. The reference to his brother was an afterthought, but it worked.
“Throw your gun out.”
She inched around the boulder. “You’ll come out?”
“Just throw your rifle out, Jew.”
“Not until you agree.”
“I don’t need to agree. I have your monk an ounce away from death.”
“Yes, but you want to agree. You want to meet me face to face. You want to look in the eyes of the person who killed your brother and fooled you into thinking you were in pursuit of the Ark while the real Ark sailed safely to Jerusalem.”