The Caleb Collection

by Ted Dekker

  That stopped him.

  “You lie!”

  “I don’t have the Ark, Ismael. Kill me and you achieve revenge, but you won’t stop the Ark.”

  “Throw your gun out!”

  “You’ll come out?”

  “Yes.”

  She heaved her gun into the camp and it landed on the sand with a dull thump.

  “Step out,” he said.

  “After you. I’m unarmed.”

  “Step out or I shoot Caleb.”

  Even as Rebecca stepped out, she knew it was suicide. Caleb might already be dead. And if he wasn’t, she couldn’t save him now.

  She walked out slowly and spread her arms, anticipating the slap of a bullet. But there was no bullet. Ismael waited ten seconds and then came out of the rocks, holding a pistol on her. His dark wavy hair was short, and he wore a scruffy black beard.

  His lips twitched. “Where’s the Ark?”

  “I told you, I don’t have it.”

  “I saw it.”

  “You saw a wooden feeding box with a blanket over it.”

  He stared at her for a long time. “Then we will go to war. This time the Arab nations are ready.”

  The way he said it sent a chill down her spine. He at least believed it. The Arab nations knew at the very least. And he was right, it would be war, unless Avraham had done something else with the Ark.

  “We don’t want war,” she said.

  “Of course you don’t. Israel will be destroyed. We, however, do want war. You have butchered our people long enough. It’s time for you to leave Palestine.”

  The form to her right suddenly moved. Caleb groaned and then lay still.

  “Don’t move,” Ismael said, waving his gun at her. “Don’t worry, your monk won’t awaken. If he wasn’t such a perfect lure, I would have finished him off on the road,” Ismael said. “Instead I’ve drugged him. But now he’s no longer useful, is he?”

  “Drugged him?” She took a step towards him.

  Ismael casually fired a shot into the sand by her feet. “I thought I told you not to move.”

  “Why should I care? You’re going to kill me anyway.”

  “Yes. I’m going to kill you.”

  “Then at least let me die with some dignity. My whole life love has evaded me—you know how that is. But now I’ve found that love. In this man.”

  The words sounded funny coming from her. It was an awkward moment. Her focus shifted from Ismael to Caleb. He’d rolled on his back so that his face shone in the moonlight. Blood had dried on his forehead. His hair lay in tangles, and his chest moved with his breathing. Suddenly she wanted desperately to be with him. To care for him. If there was only one thing she would do in this life, it would be to make sure that he lived.

  What a fool she had been to deny her love! Her eyes filled with tears and she blinked.

  Ismael slipped a knife from his belt and walked over to Caleb. “You want to die with dignity? Like my brother died?” He stood over Caleb wearing a wicked grin. “He has a pretty face, this one.”

  The blood in Rebecca’s head throbbed hot.

  Ismael began to kneel, and she began to panic. His gun was trained on her, unwavering, and his finger was already tense on the trigger, but in that moment she lost the ability to care what any of that meant. Her world simply exploded.

  “Hamil told me who your real father was,” she said.

  His eyes momentarily narrowed in confusion.

  Rebecca dove forward in that moment, while he was distracted by her absurd claim.

  Ismael’s gun boomed. Pain ripped through her right shoulder. She staggered to the right and launched herself at him. Ignoring the gun, which boomed again, missing clean, she went for his head with a blind fury she hadn’t felt since first understanding that her mother had been murdered. Her palm slammed against something soft and Ismael went limp.

  She pulled her arm back and smashed his face again with every ounce of her strength before he could fall. His face had changed shape. He collapsed in a heap, lifeless. She stood over him, panting. Her vision returned and she saw that his nose had been shoved back into his head.

  Rebecca dropped to her knees and brought trembling hands to Caleb’s face. “Oh, Caleb. Dear Caleb, I am so sorry.” She shoved her hands under his back and pulled at him. But her arms felt like rubber, and she only managed to fall back down on him.

  She lay her cheek on his chest and began to weep. Deep in her belly a dam seemed to break. Two weeks of sorrow and desperation rushed from her eyes. And love. Yes, and love.

  She sobbed uncontrollably, letting her tears wet his tunic. She felt dirty and wicked next to his heaving chest. But his gentle breathing worked through her like a salve, easing the pain. He was alive.

  She lifted her head and kissed his chin and then his cheek. “I love you, Caleb. I love you!” The bullet had only nicked his head; she saw that now. She felt her shoulder, relieved to find only a surface wound.

  A gentle rumble floated on the air, and she thought he might be groaning again. It came again, from the south.

  The soldiers!

  Rebecca scrambled to her knees, grabbed him behind his neck and his knees, and hoisted him from the ground. He was heavy, but her military training had given her the strength of most men. She heaved to get her arms under him.

  Carrying him like a sack of potatoes, she stumbled across the camp and struck for the Jeep beyond the rocks. The rumbling grew louder, and she ran as best she could, staggering, lugging his weight.

  She reached the military Jeep, eased Caleb into the seat, fired it up, and bounced onto the road just as the first headlights poked over the hill. But they hadn’t seen her. She knew that because they stopped behind her at the camp, just as she took the first corner.

  She blazed into the night with Caleb slumped next to her. Alive, for the moment. But far from home.

  She began to cry again. It was hopeless.

  43

  Put it there.” Solomon lifted a trembling finger to the conference table in the Speakers Bureau. Four soldiers lifted the crate and eased it onto the dark wood surface, using the canvas-wrapped poles along its base. It settled with a clump that sounded obscenely loud in the stillness.

  “You may leave,” Solomon said.

  Jerusalem slept in the early morning hours outside.

  Behind and to the right of Solomon, Prime Minister Ben Gurion stood stock still. To his left, Speaker Moshe Aron stood by his desk, in front of mahogany wall units filled with black books. The room was richly decorated with classical paintings and exquisite trim, but their eyes were not on the décor. They were on the crate.

  The prime minister stepped forward. “So. This is it?” His voice sounded breathy.

  Solomon stared at the crudely constructed crate. His daughter had given her life for this crate, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. The news had thrown him into a tailspin. Of the team that went into Ethiopia, only Zakkai had survived. He’d managed to climb back aboard the expedition ship, but a Saudi warship had detained him half way up the Red Sea. Solomon had learned the ugly truth when they’d finally let him make contact. Rebecca was dead. He had cried his eyes dry.

  Now there was this crate, and it occurred to him looking at it that his own blood had purchased it.

  “Are we going to open it?” Moshe Aron asked, stepping up. It was as if they were kids, staring at a forbidden box in the attic.

  “Lock the door,” Solomon said.

  The prime minister walked for the door, and Solomon picked up a crowbar that rested on the couch. They stood around the table for one long, last minute. Solomon looked into their eyes and then gazed at Zakkai’s crate.

  “The fate of Israel is in that box, my friends,” he said slowly.

  “You’re sure this is the Ark?” Ben Gurion asked.

  “We will find out soon enough.”

  He jammed the claws around a rustic-looking nail. The room filled with the screech of iron pulling past wood.

>   “I would be careful,” Ben Gurion said. “Touching it might not be a good idea.”

  Solomon shook the nail free and dug at another. The first cross brace came off and he attacked another. The thumping of blood filled his ears. Dear Rebecca, your life will not be in vain. He pulled on the crowbar, working faster now.

  “Be careful, David.”

  Solomon ignored him. A tremor betrayed his excitement. Dear God, redeem your name. The second cross brace clattered to the table and then toppled to the carpet.

  Solomon stood back, breathing steady through his nostrils. A single nail held the boards on this side. “Pray to God, my friends.” He placed the tip of the crowbar between two boards and twisted hard. The brace popped and a single board slid down at an angle, revealing a dark interior.

  Solomon peered inside, mouth open, hand quivering. The fabric of a gray blanket stared back at him. “It’s covered!” He could hardly contain himself now. He dug furiously at the braces on the other side. The blanket would protect them and whatever it covered, he thought. For most of his life he had patiently begged God for a moment like this, and now he had lost his patience entirely.

  The Speaker and Ben Gurion helped him now, carefully pulling boards off as he freed them. Quickly they bared a dusty, gray wool blanket wrapped around an object Solomon eyed to be roughly one-and-a-half cubits by two-and-a-half cubits, with twin peaks on top. The blanket smelled musty—like something wet taken from a deep hole.

  They pulled off the last board and stood back. Sweat beaded Solomon’s forehead and he wiped at it. He reached a hand for a loose corner and touched the wool.

  “Careful, Solomon.”

  He barely heard the prime minister. When he tugged, the whole blanket came loose, and he yanked it off with a powerful jerk.

  Brilliant gold filled his sight. Solomon saw the chest, gleaming under the ceiling lights, and for a moment he thought he was going to fall from the quiver that shook his legs. He stood with the wool blanket in one fist, gawking at the rectangular chest he knew without a shred of doubt to be the Ark of the Covenant. Two cherubim, bowing with outstretched wings, knelt over the Mercy Seat. It was so bright that for a moment Solomon thought it might actually be glowing. He took a step back.

  Silence, tempered only by the pulling of ragged breath, held the room in an endless embrace. They were too stunned to speak.

  Ben Gurion walked slowly to his right, eyes peeled with shock. Behind him, the Speaker didn’t move, but he kept blinking and was breathing heavy through his nose.

  A fist of emotion rose through Solomon’s chest and he began to weep. Three thousand years of history seemed to boil up within him and spill out in an anguish that made his knees weak. He wanted to rush forward and kiss it, but he knew it would mean his death. The power of God Almighty surely dwelled within this Ark.

  “May God forgive our sins,” he said.

  “May God let his face shine upon us,” Ben Gurion said softly. A tear leaked from the prime minister’s eye and rolled down his right cheek. “My God, my God. I cannot believe what I’m seeing.”

  Moshe Aron found it in himself to move. He circled the Ark opposite the prime minister, still blinking.

  “‘And they shall make an ark of acacia wood; two and a half cubits shall be its length, a cubit and a half its width, and a cubit and a half its height,’” Solomon quoted. “‘And you shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and out you shall overlay it, and shall make on it a molding of gold all around.’”

  He paused, gathering himself. “‘And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the Testimony, about everything which I will give you in commandment to the children of Israel.’”

  “And inside?” Ben Gurion asked. “Do you think . . .”

  “The stone tablets and the scroll of the Torah,” Solomon finished. “All that is Judaism is contained here.”

  Solomon wiped at his eyes and walked around it slowly now, shaking his head and studying every centimeter. It was almost exactly as he’d imagined, although slightly more decorative. Concentric circular etchings ran around the lid. The cherubim were faceless, but their wings looked as if they’d been cast with a mold taken from a real bird. The space between them—the Mercy Seat—if he used his imagination, he could almost see God’s power hovering there. Israel would never be the same again. The Ark of the Covenant was in Jerusalem.

  “We have to rebuild the Temple,” Speaker Aron said in a low voice. “We have no choice.”

  Solomon exchanged a knowing look with the prime minister. They both knew that the Knesset would overwhelmingly agree, once they laid their eyes on what stood before them now.

  “God still speaks from this Ark, Solomon?” Ben Gurion asked.

  “Yes. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Then he will tell us what to do.”

  A rap sounded on the door and they exchanged glances.

  “David?” The muted voice belonged to Stephen Goldstein. “David, please open this door. Immediately!”

  Ben Gurion nodded at Aron who walked over and opened the door.

  Stephen Goldstein entered with Defense Minister Benjamin Yishai. “What is the meaning . . .”

  Goldstein saw the Ark and pulled up.

  Aron shut the door and locked it again. The room fell deathly still.

  It took a full five minutes for the initial shock to wear off—enough so that Goldstein could muster his old self anyway.

  “We can’t know if this is the original Ark,” Goldstein said.

  “It is the original,” the prime minister returned.

  “Have you opened it?”

  “No. Be my guest.”

  “This is ridiculous. We can’t throw our nation into war over this.”

  “Go ahead, Stephen,” Solomon said. “Touch it. Open it. See for yourself.”

  Goldstein collapsed in a chair and wiped his forehead.

  The prime minister turned to the minister of defense. “What’s your assessment, Benjamin?”

  “My assessment is that we are headed for war,” he said.

  “Then we will head for war,” Ben Gurion said. “We can’t ignore our history any longer.”

  “A war may not be easily won.”

  “You’re telling me something new?”

  “No.” The defense minister walked towards a Re’uven painting of olive trees and pomegranates and gripped his hands behind his back. “But this war will be a war with four fronts. We’ve never faced anything similar.”

  “You’re talking about the Palestinians within our borders. That would require some preparation. They haven’t had the time.”

  “Maybe. But forty thousand armed Palestinians could tip the balance in the favor of an upgraded enemy.” He turned around. “Either way, we can’t allow them to make the first move. We should activate our reserves now.”

  “Don’t be reactionary!” Goldstein snapped. “You activate the reserves and you will only escalate the situation. Can’t you see that?”

  “Escalate to what? An inevitable war?” the prime minister said. “It’s time to get this over with.”

  “If our air force were caught off guard, and the Palestinians launched a coordinated attack . . . it could get ugly,” the defense minister said.

  “You’re forgetting the Ark,” Solomon said. “We have the Ark. We have God on our side, and therefore we have no choice.”

  “You don’t know what you have, Solomon,” Goldstein said. “You have a gold box.”

  Solomon stared at him and fought the impulse to walk over and slap him. “Blasphemy comes too easily to your lips, my friend.”

  The room quieted and they stared at the Ark.

  “Activate the reserves, Benjamin,” the prime minister said. “Bring the military to full alert. Twenty-four hours?”

  “Yes. Twenty-four hours.”

  “And deploy a level-one armament of tactical nuclear weapons.”


  “I must object—”

  “Yes, Goldstein, I know that you object.” He faced the Speaker. “Call an emergency session of the full Knesset. When can we have them all here?”

  “By tonight, I would think.”

  “Sooner. We will meet at noon. Put the word out immediately.”

  “It’s three o’clock in the morning.”

  “The phones don’t work at three in the morning?”

  “What about the Americans?”

  Ben Gurion hesitated. “In the morning. We don’t need them shutting us down before we get started.” He eyed the Ark. “May God have mercy on his people.”

  44

  The sun was coming up on Rebecca’s right, and the border was approaching dead ahead. Caleb had not budged.

  Rebecca had piloted the Jeep north, her nerves stretched to the snapping point. She’d tried to wake Caleb, but whatever drug Ismael had administered refused to release him. The use of various drugs was not uncommon in both camps, and apparently Ismael had used them before. Caleb was nearly comatose.

  She had stopped the Jeep once and considered turning east, crossing into Jordan, and heading north the back way. But there was no reason for the detour—if anything it would only increase her risk, if such a thing were possible. The only way to reduce her risk was to head back the way she had come, and that hardly seemed like a reasonable alternative.

  She’d headed north again, driving slowly, anticipating a checkpoint at every corner. None came. Her mind had considered every possible outcome of this drive north and every one of them ended very badly. She was headed into the mouth of the lion and Daniel slept like a baby beside her. She was Isaac, and the ram had been drugged to a stupor an hour before it was to make its lifesaving entrance.

  Her tunic was damp with sweat, despite the cool night air. But two things kept her crawling north. Three things.

  First, the simple fact that Jerusalem lay directly to the north. Second, going south or any other direction gave her no more nor less hope than going north. And third, Caleb had insisted they go north. True enough, he was no longer giving directions. But she knew that her only hope was somehow in him, if not in the waving of his wand like Moses over the Red Sea, then as the man she loved.