So at least Bin-Nun had had his reasons. And so, perhaps, did Israel today.
All the same, Deker knew he would never be able to erase from his mind that first horrific glimpse of twenty-four thousand blackened corpses strung out among a golden sea of shittah trees.
53
GILGAL
The sun beat down ever hotter as Deker approached the site of his latest candidate for Gilgal. This one had a familiar grade with a few ancient redbud trees bent in a way Deker had seen only once before. Deker was still consumed by an obsession for the truth that his discharge from the IDF and the offer to rejoin the Americans had only inflamed.
He took a shovel and started digging, continuing long after the sun went down and the moon came up.
Then he struck something.
He shined a light on the slab of rock and felt his heart jump when he saw the seal engraved on the surface: the sign of Judah.
It was one of the dolmen stones, but considerably smaller—maybe half of its original size, as though it had been cut or broken in two.
He felt a surge of hope and spent the next two hours digging around the slab, ultimately using his Jeep’s winch to pull it out and reveal the silo beneath it.
The silo was still filled with grain so old and cracked, it was like dust. Simply inhaling made him breathe it in and he coughed. He tied a cloth around his mouth like a surgical mask and dug through it until he struck something else.
It was a small bronze box with a crescent moon on it.
Just like Rahab’s jewelry box.
His heart skipped a beat.
He blew away the dust and cracked open the box.
As soon as he saw what was inside, he fell to his knees, weeping for no reason he could name. A moment later, after he had composed himself, he removed it.
His IDF tag with the Star of David.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Emily Bestler and Simon Lipskar, my editor and agent, for your support and friendship. To Judith Curr, Louise Burke and Carolyn Reidy, my publishers, who make it all possible. To Sarah Branham, Laura Stern, David Brown and the rest of the Atria, Pocket and Simon & Schuster family, my deepest thanks and respect to you all—you are the best in publishing.
To members in various intelligence communities who provided me with their unique perspectives about the three-thousand-year-old struggle that forms the backdrop to The Promised War, your humanity impresses as much as your expertise. To historians such as Richard A. Gabriel, whose works helped me reconcile the ancient biblical and military accounts of the events described in my novel, thank you for invaluable insights.
To those rabbis and scholars with whom I consulted, thank you for sharing your consensus that there is no consensus whenever such an esteemed group gathers. Thank you in advance for overlooking the inevitable errors and contradictions of my fictional account of the ancient siege of Jericho—they are mine and mine alone. Most of all, thank you for showing the humility of students still searching and stretching for meaning in a world that seems to deny its existence.
To my wife, Laura, who loves me for who I am, and to our boys, Alex and Jake, whom we love so dearly, thank you for being the joy in my journey through life.
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THE PROMISED WAR Page 19
