by Robert Ryan
Hank stared at his drink, his mind starting to wander down those dank corridors.
“Don’t think about it, sweetheart,” Rita said. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”
“No, it’s fine. I was just remembering something I haven’t thought about all these years. At the time it bothered me more than the beatings. It was this other POW. Some kid, a grunt right out of high school. Weird SOB. He’d been there a few months, most of it in solitary. A little while after I got there, they let him back into the general population. Barely said a word.
“Anyway, on Sundays they let us use one of the rooms as a chapel. One of the guys was a chaplain, and we’d have a little mass. One day this guy walks in and starts saying we can forget all this ‘God shit,’ he’s already tried it and look what it got him. He’s turned to Satan, he says, and that’s who’s going to get him out of there. Then he pointed all around the room, calling us the enemy, saying we’d be punished for our sins.”
“That’s awful,” Leah said.
“Yeah. For a while I wondered if there was something to the Satan thing, because a couple weeks later the guy escaped. And nobody escaped from the Hanoi Hilton.”
Rita shook her head against the Satan theory, then said, “Meanwhile, the doctor is telling me that Zeke had actually been dead for twelve minutes. The priest had already given him Extreme Unction.”
“Okay then,” Valerie said. “That was an interesting trip down memory lane. On the bright side, that’s why I’m here. As soon as dad got home, they decided to have another kid.”
Hank held up his glass yet again. “Another blessing. Here’s to life. And the Man Upstairs.”
Leah’s mind drifted to the evening she had planned with Zeke. First a candlelight dinner she had prepped last night, then a massage, then a bubble bath with drinks, then…
Having him spend the night was also a ploy so his folks could sneak over tonight and tomorrow to get his place ready for the party. The cleverness of their scheme made her smile. “I can’t wait to see Zeke’s face when he sees the home theater you got him.”
“Oh, he’s going to love it,” Rita said. “You know how he loves movies. I wonder where he got that from?” She gave Hank a coy look.
“Hey. There are worse things for a kid to be hooked on.” He looked at his drink with a raised eyebrow. “We really do need to cut ourselves off after this. We don’t need to be trying to set everything up half-drunk. I snuck by there earlier with the van and hid all the stuff in the guest room. You’ve got Zeke detail, right Leah?”
“It’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it. He won’t be there until seven tomorrow night.”
“Perfect.” He held up his glass again. “Well, there is one more announcement I want to make, since we’re talking about movies. The deal on the business closed today. Hank’s Video is no more.”
“Dad!” Valerie said. “That’s terrific!”
Rita just looked at him and smiled. Leah could guess what was going through her mind.
Hank had opened one small store in 1979, mostly because of a love of movies that ran in his family. They had never expected to get rich, just supplement his Army pension and disability payments. But fueled by Hank’s passion for movies and his military attention to detail, the store had grown into a chain. When Hank hit seventy last year, he and Rita had decided to sell, and use some of that hard-earned money to do all the things they had put on hold for so long.
“Come here, woman.” Hank wrapped his arm around his wife. “First thing we’re gonna do is take that cruise to Alaska.”
As Rita’s head landed softly on his shoulder, Leah saw a man in a long overcoat walk by the window very fast. She wondered where he was going in such a hurry. She looked at her watch. Six-forty.
The man in the long overcoat burst through the front door. He brushed past the hostess into the middle of the room. All in one motion he flung open his coat and brought the rifle up to his shoulder. Despite the screaming diving mayhem, Leah saw Hank coolly assessing the situation.
“DOWN!”
They dove for the floor, knocking the table over as they went. Hank spread his arms out to protect Rita. Valerie pushed Leah further behind her.
The gunman began screaming gibberish and opened fire.
Amid a cacophony of death the killer turned in a frenzied circle, spraying bullets wildly. Leah saw Zeke come through the door. He had a bouquet of flowers in his hand. She watched in horror as he dove behind the hostess stand.
Please don’t let him do anything crazy.
Unable to tear her eyes away, she watched Zeke rush the gunman from behind, holding the wooden hostess stand in front of him as a shield.
That was the last thing she saw.
CHAPTER 9
Jericho. The West Bank. October 5
His movements slowed by age and sorrow, Tarik locked the front door and took a goodbye walk through the place that had been his life for so long. Postcards and letters from around the world covered one wall. Many were from diplomats, a few were from presidents and prime ministers, mainly thanking him for making them feel safe and at home. Forty-eight countries were on that wall, Tarik recalled proudly, and their citizens had all come to his place and gotten along.
He stared at the espresso machine as though it were his child, smiling at the thought that he’d had it longer and kept it just as well. The first purchase he’d made for the café. The heart and soul of his operation. He turned it off, averting his gaze from his reflection in its still-gleaming surface, wondering what he would do with the machine. Maybe give it to Hassan. Give Tarik a reason to go visit.
Every piece of furniture, every pot and pan seemed to conjure up a memory. With sudden resolve he hurried back up front to bring the curtains down on the Oasis for the last time. He pulled a cord, and the heavy drapery slowly blotted out the waning sunlight coming through the large picture window. It felt as if it were doing the same to his heart.
He locked the front door and reached to lower its curtain.
Just as his hand closed on the cord, Hassan rushed up and pulled on the locked door. He looked dazed. His clothes were torn and blackened with dirt. There was a gash on his forehead and what looked like bloodstains on the sleeves of his jacket.
Tarik frantically unlocked the door and grabbed his son’s arm as he staggered in. “Hassan. What has happened? Are you all right?”
His words came in choked bursts. “I’m fine. A suicide bomber.” He stumbled backwards and threw his hands over his eyes. “They killed Norah.”
“What? Norah? How could she—”
“We were going on vacation. She just happened to be going through the checkpoint when the car with the bomb rammed into it. A speeding maniac. There was no stopping him. I was waiting to meet her on the Palestinian side. I pulled her from the wreckage.” His red wet eyes were wells of bottomless sorrow. “She died in my arms.”
The words coiled themselves around Tarik’s heart and squeezed. “Norah. No.”
Lightning does strike twice. A terrorist attack had killed Hassan’s first wife. Tarik had begun to believe his son would never recover, but just last week he had said he was going to propose marriage. Tarik remembered his apprehension when Hassan told him the news. A marriage between a Palestinian and a Jew. It had been cursed before it began.
Cursed. Tarik had cursed it with his shady dealings. He opened his arms and Hassan fell into them. “Who is responsible?” he whispered into his son’s ear, dreading to hear the answer.
Hassan angrily broke the embrace, pacing erratically. “Who knows?” His words came out through shards of emotion that scraped them raw. “I saw the bomber’s head lying on the ground as I ran to Norah. I recognized him. He’d been arrested for looting archaeological sites. But it’s the West Bank. Thieves use the things they stole to buy their way out of jail and they’re back the next night. We chased him away several times.” His bloodless smile looked like a scar. “Ironic, isn’t it? I dig up the treasure that helps to fun
d the terrorism that killed Norah.”
“Hassan, this is not your fault.”
Tarik wanted to believe his antiquities dealing to keep the business alive had nothing to do with this, but he knew better. The Palestinian who bought his artifacts despised the Israeli fence around the West Bank. Just last week he had said, “If they treat us like caged dogs, then we will behave like caged dogs. But we will not roll over. If you poke us long enough with a stick, we will attack. You may win eventually, but you will pay a heavy price.”
And now the heaviest price had been paid.
Hassan sighed as though exhaling a part of his soul. “The police will put the body parts back together and someone will claim responsibility—but that is no answer. Who is really responsible, father? Us? Them? Who is responsible for the endless slaughter of innocents? Who started it? It didn’t start in 1948. And it didn’t end in 1993 with the so-called Peace Agreement. Or any of the five thousand other ‘peace agreements’”—his fingers made bitter quotation marks in the air—“that went before. Tribes have been fighting over this land for thousands of years. Who struck the first blow? The Canaanites? The Hebrews? The Israelites? Philistines? Assyrians? Babylonians? Persians? Who put the idea in our heads that we must all fight over this accursed piece of ground forever? Yahweh told Moses it belongs to the Jews. Allah told Muhammad it belongs to us. But do we not worship the same God? Are we not all his children? How could He promise this land to two different peoples? He could not possibly want this. Could He? Who could possibly want this? What god can be made happy by all this slaughter? Why can we not stop?”
Hassan collapsed into a chair. His voice fell to a hoarse whisper. “Why can we not live in peace?”
Tarik struggled for words to console his son, who stared at the floor and went on in a lifeless monotone.
“We archaeologists dig here at Jericho because it is thought to be the oldest city. But why, father? Why do we dig? What are we looking for? What do we hope to find? Our roots? I’ve been digging around Jericho for thirty years—others far longer—and we’ve found traces of civilization upon civilization, going back to the Stone Age. One failed human experiment after another, long-forgotten souls who loved and hated and fought and died. For what? For the one who threw the first stone? Their bones and their empires turn to dust and were they ever happy? Are they now?”
Hassan looked up, his face a thundercloud of despair. “I burn for an answer. So I dig and I dig, but I find none.” He extended his arms toward his father in a desperate pleading. “Do you have one?”
Stunned, Tarik remembered that an hour ago he had been looking for answers in the bottom of a cup of espresso. Now he looked at the floor.
He had no answer for his son.
CHAPTER 10
Washington, D.C. October 5
Zeke stood in Leah’s hospital room staring at the monitor showing her vital signs. He caught sight of his reflection on the screen and shivered. He looked old and near death. The image reminded him of Father Connolly. The old man’s face loomed into view beside his on the screen. Like two tormented ghosts, the faces stared at him for a chilling moment, then disappeared. He tried to focus on the line showing her heartbeat. It was erratic. Thready.
“Gentlemen, I have to ask you to leave.”
The nurse was at the door. She had been coolly efficient from the moment they wheeled Leah in, obviously someone who’d been doing this for a long time. Her hair was closed-cropped and gray, sensible. Somebody’s grandmother, maybe.
Zeke barely looked in her direction, his gaze locked onto Leah’s ashen face. “I’m staying.”
“But, sir, please—”
“I don’t leave until a doctor looks me in the eye and says she’s going to be okay.”
“But—”
Zeke snapped his head to look at the nurse. “Did you hear what I said?”
Her eyes widened. She looked at Reese, hovering nearby. He shook his head and she quietly slipped away. Reese eased up beside Zeke. “They got the bullet out and stabilized her. The doctor already told us this is as good as she can be for now.”
“He’s got to do better than that.”
“He said it might take a few days to be sure.”
“Then that’s how long I’ll be here.” Zeke saw the concern on his friend’s face. “The son of a bitch took out my whole family, Reese. She’s all I have left. I’m not leaving her alone.”
Reese nodded. The doctor materialized in the doorway, the nurse a few steps behind. The doctor came up to Zeke. “Mr. Sloan, there’s no need for you to stay. You’ll do her more good if you go home and get some rest.”
The doctor was young, in his thirties, too good-looking. Zeke hoped he knew what he was doing. “I’ll be fine here. When you tell me she’ll be okay, I’ll leave. Can you tell me that?”
“Probably, yes. But not absolutely. The bullet stopped just in front of her heart. That’s our biggest area of concern. In two or three days I can give you a better answer.”
“You’ll know where to find me.”
The doctor stared at Zeke for several seconds, then turned to the nurse. “Helen, find a cot for Mr. Sloan, please.” He looked back at Zeke. “They start serving breakfast in the cafeteria at six in the morning.”
“Thanks.”
“This first night will be the toughest. We’ll be in and out so be prepared to be woken up a lot. Please keep the path to her bed clear so we can get to her quickly if we need to.”
“Absolutely.”
The doctor nodded and left.
Zeke’s gaze went to the still-unwrapped bouquet on the stand beside Leah’s bed. Droplets of blood spattered the wrapper. The cheerfulness of the flowers taunted him. He snatched the small card from the bouquet and read it out loud: “To the most beautiful flower of all. Thanks for bringing love back into my life. Your can’t-wait-to-be-hubby.”
He sniffed the flowers. The hospital smell mixed with the cloying sweetness made him gag. He flung the bouquet across the room and doubled over in dry heaves, as if trying to bring something up from a very deep and empty place. Reese stood over him to see if there was anything he could do.
After a few final hacking coughs Zeke straightened up and spoke in a loud, raw whisper. “I just got it. It’s payback time.”
“Payback time?”
“For me. I’m getting paid back.”
“Paid back? For what?”
“For the jungle. I let that family die, so my family had to die to even it out. It’s my karma. You know: what goes around comes around, do unto others—all that happy horseshit.”
“Come on, man. The jungle wasn’t your fault. And neither was this. There was nothing you could have done to stop either one.”
“If I hadn’t stopped to get those flowers. Or gone to see Father Connolly—”
“You had to do those things, buddy. That’s who you are. There was no way to know this was going to happen. Besides, what could you have done to stop it? What could anybody have done?”
“I would have done something. Grabbed his arm, took those bullets if I had to. Better one person die than—”
His hands flew to his face. Behind them he kept muttering “no,” as if enough repetitions could undo what had been done. He collapsed into a chair and looked up at Reese through blurry eyes. “You got there a few minutes after I did. How did you know what had happened?”
“I heard the sirens inside the gym. They were so many of them I went out front to look. You told me you were meeting your folks at the Bipartisan, and all the vehicles were stopping right around there, so I took off running.”
“Did the police talk to you after I left for the hospital with Leah?”
“Yes. I told them who I was, they asked me about you and your family.” Reese looked away. When he looked back his eyes were moist. “I told them I’d get with you as soon as possible to… make arrangements.”
Zeke could barely get the word out. “Tomorrow.” He kept staring at Leah’s face, listening
to her labored breathing. “How many total ended up dead?”
“Sixteen.”
“Did you get a look at the guy who did it?”
“Yes. The police took him out right past me. Raving.”
“What was he saying?”
“Crazy stuff. Stuff you don’t need to hear.”
“Yes, I do. I need to know everything if I’m ever going to make sense of this.”
“No one can ever make sense of this, Zeke.”
“Come to think of it, what you just said makes the most sense. As much as I was raised to believe in God, meaningless chaos makes a lot more sense than Divine Order. What kind of God lets this happen?” He waited for an answer he knew couldn’t come, then said: “I need to know, Reese. There has to be a reason. Otherwise, nothing matters. Life is utterly pointless.”
Reese exhaled heavily. “He was mumbling crazy stuff, Zeke. Said Satan made him do it.”
The word went through Zeke’s head like a jagged bolt of lightning. “Father Connolly warned me.”
“What?”
“The emergency I had tonight. An ex-priest who was one of my old college professors gave me two ancient scrolls for safekeeping. Said they had a power, made it sound like they could conjure up Satan.”
“Come on now. Priest or no priest, this madman saying Satan made him do it is like saying he’s Napoleon. I don’t know what your friend told you, but you’re not buying this crap, are you? Every other fool on death row starts talking about Satan so they can cop an insanity plea.”
Zeke turned back to Leah. “I can’t think about it right now. I just want to make sure she’s all right.” He held her hand between both of his.
“You want me to stay?”
“No.”
The machines hooked to Leah beeped and clicked. The sound of her unsteady breathing through the respirator filled the room.
