THE PROMISED WAR

by Thomas Greanias

  The central plaza of the fortress was dark, but Deker could make out the columns of the royal palace to his left and the colossal metallic temple of Molech glinting to his right. It was at least several stories tall, with two great bronze doors in its belly and a head in the shape of a bull.

  Deker could almost feel Molech’s eyes follow him and Ram toward the inside gate of the north wall.

  So far, Deker had yet to see the garrison headquarters and troop barracks, let alone the military supply dumps. Which was odd, considering the number of troops Ram claimed Hamas had under his command.

  The guards on duty at the iron gate recognized Ram and let them in.

  What Deker found inside was another world: a network of tunnels built inside the fortress walls, floor upon floor.

  “Welcome to our barracks,” Ram said as they pushed their way through the crowded tunnels, past stepladders and rows of hammocks. Torches hung like chandeliers above to give as much shoulder room as possible.

  This was how you hid ten thousand healthy, well-fed troops in a city of two thousand or so, Deker thought: pack them inside the upper walls enclosing the six-acre summit of Jericho’s inner fortress.

  “The shadow army?” Deker asked quietly.

  “Yes,” Ram grunted.

  “So there are at least as many more in the lower city wall?” Deker pressed, knowing that perimeter wall around the entire eight-acre city mound could theoretically hold almost twice as many troops.

  “We do not speak of those,” Ram whispered gruffly.

  At least, that’s what Deker thought he said. “What do you mean?”

  Ram either didn’t understand him or was simply changing the subject. “The torches make it too bright in here. You are no longer my brother but a soldier. I don’t know you. Follow me at intervals.”

  They crossed several more compartments and made their way past one of the mess halls before turning down a narrow flight of steps.

  Deker could only marvel. This was a city within a city.

  Although the tunnels in the wall were laid out in relatively straight lines, he quickly lost his sense of direction as he followed his guide up and down ladders and steps through various levels and compartments toward the middle of the north wall.

  Their odyssey ended in a ghostly hall with a vaulted ceiling. The rotting wooden beams could barely support the caved-in roof, so a giant concrete pillar had been built to hold up the ramparts above.

  And next to the pillar was the walled-up gate, its bricks a shade different from the rest of the interior wall.

  But there was a problem. A lone stonemason stood before them in a dirty apron, wiping the grease from his hands with a blackened cloth. He wore a handkerchief knotted over his head, his angry eyes in his soot-smeared face looking Deker over.

  “This is my relief?” he asked Ram.

  “No. This is,” Ram said, and snapped the mason’s neck.

  Deker watched the mason crumple to the floor and stared at Ram. “What did you do that for?”

  Ram said, “He’s going to die anyway, isn’t he? Either by your mud bricks or by Bin-Nun’s sword.”

  Deker couldn’t really argue with that logic and didn’t have the time. The clock was ticking and he had to get to work.

  Thanks to Ram, he had located the critical structural element in the north wall. It wasn’t the walled gate, as he had expected, but the concrete pillar. It was an impressive meter wide in diameter and ten meters tall.

  “The mud bricks will remove this pillar, and removing this pillar will allow the rest of the wall to collapse on itself,” Deker tried to explain to Ram as he set out his C-4 bricks. “Just like a tree falling down.”

  Ram looked up at the pillar thoughtfully and frowned. “But if you do that, then it will fall on top of the houses in the city below.”

  Deker said nothing, but he could see the reality sinking in as Ram had pictured it. Deker hoped Ram didn’t have any relatives there. But from the size of Rahab’s extended family, that seemed unlikely.

  “What about the walled gate?” Ram asked. “That part of the wall seems weaker.”

  “This is better,” Deker said. “I can’t explain it now.”

  He could definitely blow open the walled gate. The blast would turn the bottom five meters of the fortress wall to rubble. The problem was at the top of the wall. The ramparts above were reinforced like a bridge for the troops to march between watchtowers. Deker would need to blow up the top several meters of the wall to get it to fall properly. Otherwise the rubble would block the Israelites from entering the fortress.

  The key was this pillar. A single shot down the center would take it out.

  He didn’t need all ten bricks to take out this pillar and its section of the wall. But he had only one shot, and it would be messy. Ordinarily he’d use hundreds of small shots and control their timing with a handheld computer. Also, he’d usually have several days to prep this kind of blast. Now, however, he was trying to do it in less than an hour.

  The big slowdown was loading the C-4 properly into the bottom of the pillar. Normally, he’d drill a few hundred holes for his explosives, each one less than two centimeters in diameter and a few centimeters deep. Tonight he was basically slapping bricks to a pillar, and had to take his time to place them properly.

  He had one chance.

  Deker worked quietly the next few minutes until he realized things were too quiet. Too late, he knew something was wrong and turned to see Ram holding a dagger.

  “You!” Ram shouted, as if he’d never seen him before. “Spread your feet! Hands against the wall!”

  Deker did as he was told and could feel the rough hands run over his body. “What are you doing?”

  Ram spun him around and pushed the edge of his dagger under Deker’s chin. “Say nothing,” he said, his face close to Deker’s, breathing heavily. “Nothing.”

  Ram must have heard something, because several torches bobbed up and down in the darkness and a deep voice boomed, “Ram, is that you?”

  Deker remembered the voice from Rahab’s terrace.

  Hamas.

  “Look what I found!” Ram said, and kicked Deker in the groin.

  The blow sent Deker doubling over in agony. He slid against the wall to the floor, groaning in pain.

  Ram then reached down and pulled him up by the hair. “You’re in the hands of the Reahn National Guards now, Hebrew.”

  In spite of his jarring pain, Deker managed to stand up on his feet.

  “Excellent work, Captain Ram,” said Hamas, and Deker felt his eyes look him up and down, registering that the general was unimpressed with this Hebrew specimen. “Although I must say I was expecting a bit more coming from Bin-Nun.”

  Deker stared as Hamas walked toward him with several guards behind him, mouth in a snarl.

  “I see you’ve killed one of my men, Hebrew.” Hamas smiled. “When I’m done with you, you’ll wish you were as fortunate.”

  A giant forearm swung out of nowhere across Deker’s face, and everything went black.

  40

  There was a flash of light, and Deker felt another blow to his head. He opened his eyes in time to see Ram pull back his iron-hard fist and then bludgeon him in the face again.

  “The invasion plans, Deker,” said another voice with a thick Aramaic accent. “That’s your name, Hebrew, isn’t it?”

  Deker blinked to see that he was in some dank cell, and that a large figure was standing next to Ram. The figure bent over, and his smooth face with hooded eyes and long hair came into focus.

  Hamas. I’ve been captured. Maybe Ram has taken the credit.

  A hand reached out toward the silver Star of David hanging around Deker’s neck and roughly dangled it before his eyes. The IDF insignia in the center came in and out of focus, and Deker felt a profound aura of déjà vu settle over him.

  “The Hebrew invasion plans,” Hamas repeated. “Or Ram will have to kill you.”

  Deker spit in Ram’s face, just
to show Hamas they were on different sides and to let Ram know that he needn’t fear exposure—yet. Everything depended on how this all played out.

  “What invasion?” Deker asked as Ram wiped the spit from his face.

  Hamas said, “Ram, show him.”

  Ram grabbed him by his hair and dragged him across the floor with his chains and propped him up by the window. Deker looked out to see a cloud of dust in the distance. There was the glint of the golden Ark, seven priests with their trumpets in front of it. Armed guards marched before the priests and behind the Ark. They formed the clasp of a great necklace of Israelite soldiers encircling the city, six men deep and more than five hundred cubits away beyond the range of the archers.

  “That invasion,” Hamas said as he stood behind him, and Deker could smell his foul breath. “Behold the dust kicked up by the vast host of Israelite troops. Bin-Nun has been circling the city for six days now. Did you really think you could frighten us into surrendering with tall tales of Yahweh’s divine power?”

  Deker tried to piece together how long he had been held in captivity here. Surely it couldn’t have been six days. But his mind was a jumble of beatings and blackouts, and he had no clue. He turned to look the general in the eye. “Whether I live or die, Hamas, you already know that Bin-Nun is going to win no matter what.”

  Hamas smiled. “It’s been six days, Deker. Without you, they have already failed. Including your comrade Elezar. He only lasted two days before he died.”

  Elezar dead? Deker didn’t believe it. Dogs like Elezar never died; they always survived somehow. That the Israelites were circling the city, however, was no lie. He could see it with his own eyes.

  The familiar feeling of dread that so often overwhelmed him returned with a bitter vengeance. Deker cursed himself for his failure and resolved that, whatever else happened, he wouldn’t break.

  “Your cause is lost, Hamas.”

  “It’s Bin-Nun who looks lost to me, Deker,” Hamas said. “Is he waiting for a signal from you? Is that why he circles without striking? Or are you the one waiting for a signal from him?”

  Deker said nothing.

  “Ram, give him a signal.”

  Deker turned in time to see Ram cock his giant clenched fist before it hit him like a sledgehammer in the face. His head slammed against the wall and he blacked out.

  41

  Slowly the lights went on in Deker’s head. He was in a small, spare room with a table and two chairs on either side. On the table were his bricks of C-4 and detonators and a bowl of rotten apples. Two guards stood at the door.

  “I’ve always been fascinated by the occultic practices of the Hebrews, and before he died your comrade Elezar called these magic mud bricks,” Hamas said. “What did he mean by that?”

  Deker said, “If that’s why you’re keeping me alive, you’re wasting your time, Hamas. Kill me and be done with it.”

  “I need you for the show trial. But you need not worry. It will be brief. And then you’ll be exterminated. The people have to see that we’re doing something about the Hebrew vermin crawling inside our walls.”

  Deker said nothing. He was too tired. Hamas was disappointed he hadn’t gotten a rise out of him.

  Hamas was smarter than he looked. But perhaps that was because of the care he took to maximize his size and build with his armor. He was beefier than the lean Israelite commanders. But his eyes betrayed a stormy disposition, as if he were constantly running scenarios through his head. None of the faraway look of a nut job like Bin-Nun. Perhaps because the Israelites had nothing to lose except their lives. Hamas was compromised in this way, dealing with fanatics like Bin-Nun and presumably Elezar. Perhaps he saw some hope in Deker—a kindred spirit, so to speak.

  “Did you know Bin-Nun was a mercenary with the Egyptian army before the Exodus, Deker?” Hamas said. “Oh, yes. He and my father served together. They even got cut together. That’s right. Circumcision used to be a rite of passage for elite Egyptian officers. I see that Bin-Nun has begun to institute the practice with his men, like you. What I can’t understand is why he’d risk using such men as spies. It’s a dead giveaway that you’re a Hebrew. Because you’re certainly no Egyptian.”

  Deker was clothed now, but Hamas had wanted him to know he had been carefully inspected.

  “You know what I do with my men who disappoint me?” Hamas asked rhetorically as he picked up a worm-ridden apple from the bowl of fruit and began to slice it and the worms to pieces. “I cut off their penises and then their balls to make them eunuchs so they can become priests in the service of Molech. It’s a shame I can’t do the same to you. But I need to show your circumcision at the trial to prove you’re Hebrew. No matter. It’s not like you’ll ever get to use it with Rahab again.” Hamas paused for effect. “I’d hate to drag her into this nasty business.”

  Deker showed no emotion, but Hamas smiled as he stood up and pointed his knife over the table at him. The Reahn general either suspected or knew for certain that Deker was one of the two spies who had escaped him the week before at Rahab’s.

  “You think you can drop into my city for a night and make one of our moon princesses fall in love with you and risk her life and family for a bunch of Hebrews? Which is more likely, Deker: that Rahab used me to pass along information of our fortifications to you, or that she used you to betray your invasion plans?”

  Deker stared at the mud bricks spread out before him as

  evidence. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Just explain the plan to me, and I’ll spare her,” Hamas said. “There’s no reason why she should be executed along with you this morning for the king’s pleasure.”

  Deker’s mind raced in circles, and to his profound amazement he found himself standing up and heard himself shouting.

  “We are the Jewish people!” he cried out. “We came to this land by a miracle! God brought us back to this land! We fight to expel the non-Jews who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land!”

  “So be it,” Hamas said, and delivered a devastating blow to Deker’s gut.

  Deker collapsed to the floor, bloodied and bowed. He writhed in pain and saw flashes of light and stars and then the tip of a boot as Hamas gave him another swift kick to the face, breaking his nose.

  “The last thing you will see before you leave this earth is me killing Rahab before your eyes,” Hamas told him, making a gesture with his knife across Deker’s neck as everything began to fade. “Then I’ll make a show of killing you in front of the king. Then my ten thousand troops and I will kill Bin-Nun and all the Hebrews. As surely as the sun sets today, the world will finally be rid of your kind forever.”

  42

  Deker kept his head up as the guards brought him outside to the vast temple court of the fortress like a condemned gladiator into the arena. At least two thousand chanting Reahn citizens were on hand to watch him burn as a sacrifice to their god Molech in hopes the deity would save them from Yahweh.

  The rising sun bathed the dust on the paving stones with a golden hue in the early-morning light. The ground quaked as he walked and he could hear the Israelite war trumpets blasting in the distance. With every blast of those Israelite horns, nervous glances would erupt from the faces of the crowd for a moment before the Reahns redirected all their fear and hatred toward the prisoner. A young mother with her three children, all with the same blue eyes, watched him as he was marched past them, and began shouting.

  “Molech! Molech! Molech!”

  The bronze Sphinx-like visage towering above the temple court had a bull’s head with two towering chimneys for horns and an immense two-story stone oven for a belly. Even now nine eunuch priests, bejeweled and dressed as horned devils, danced before Molech and fed him with sacrifices.

  To his horror Deker realized those sacrifices came from a pile of several dozen human corpses beside the statue. One by one the corpses were flung into the furnace of Molech’s belly, much to the delight of the crowd. Every time a corpse was cons
umed, Molech’s eyes would turn red and smoke would erupt from his horns.

  The Reahns had cleaned Deker up and clothed him in a sackcloth tunic, and painted his swollen eyelids in the way they marked their dead, but without the honor. Now they tied him to a stone obelisk in the center of the courtyard before the colossal metallic statue of their god.

  The flames from Molech’s belly were so high that Deker felt the heat halfway across the courtyard. But there was a method to this madness, he realized. Every time the Israelites gave a short blast of their terrible war trumpets, the priests would toss another corpse into Molech to divert the crowd.

  Deker had no idea if this was the Israelites’ first go-around of the morning or the seventh. At any moment a long trumpet blast would fill the air, followed by the Israelite war cry. But there would be no explosion, no “divine escalator.” Instead, Bin-Nun’s eight thousand troops would smash themselves to pieces against Jericho’s impregnable walls while ten thousand Reahn troops picked them off until neighboring armies, seeing the carnage, would sweep in for the mop-up.

  All because he, Sam Deker of the Israel Defense Forces, had brought this cataclysm upon his people and the world. Now, for the first time since Rachel died, he prayed the only prayer he knew by heart.

  Hear O Israel: the LORD our God is One.

  Deker lifted his eyes to see thousands of bronze helmets, gleaming spears and red, white and black banners. The faces looked like the walls surrounding him: impenetrable stone gazing down at him dispassionately on this Day of Judgment, with no sign of fear or anything else. Only the backs of the Reahn troops on the ramparts and watchtowers facing out seemed to acknowledge the eight thousand armed Israelite troops marching around the city.

  Hamas knew he had already won this war before it had begun. This much was clear on his face as a gong sounded and Hamas walked out in his full military regalia before the royal tribunal seated before the pillars of the palace opposite the temple. The small, slight figure of the king sat in the center. He had the face of a bureaucrat, a caretaker, and looked lost amid all the pomp and circumstance of death.