Dead Sea Rising

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  “You’ve got to bring her in to talk to her?”

  “People like to help.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Life’s not fair, Doc. What’re ya gonna do?”

  “I don’t need a ride, by the way,” Nicole said. “I’ll go back later.”

  “Not a good idea,” Wojciechowski said. “Unless you know who sent this letter so I can pick him—or her—up right now, I can’t let you stay here alone. You’ll be safer at Sinai with uniforms outside your door.”

  “So you think this was more than just intended to scare me?”

  “I don’t know what to think, but it scares me. And it’s on me to protect you. You can show your dad the picture of that letter, but you know I gotta follow up with him—see what he makes of it. Meanwhile, you owe me your story.” He turned to Chakrabarti. “Pack it up, Pranav. Let’s go.”

  Downstairs, Freddie looked alarmed to see Nicole. “Lemme flag you down a cab.” She told him she had a ride with the detectives. “You’re not under arrest, are you?” he said.

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing I can talk about right now.”

  “Be sure to tell Ginny I’m keepin’ a good thought for her.”

  Wojciechowski stopped and spun, peering at the doorman’s nameplate. “What’s your last name, Frederick?”

  “Campbell. I go by Freddie.”

  “You know Virginia Berman, Freddie Campbell?”

  “Me? No, well, yeah, sorta. She visits Miss Berman now and then. Nice lady.”

  Wojciechowski seemed to study him. He handed Freddie his card. “You see anything suspicious, call me, hear?”

  “I see suspicious stuff all the time. What’m I lookin’ for?”

  “Anybody askin’ about Nicole or her mother, people you don’t recognize, that kinda thing.”

  “You betcha. You suspect foul play or somethin’?”

  “Just checkin’ things out, Freddie. Appreciate your help.”

  Wojciechowski told Detective Chakrabarti to drive. “I need to talk to Dr. Berman.”

  In the car he swung around from the front passenger seat to face her. “I know a lotta your background, but not all.”

  “You don’t have time for my whole story,” she said.

  “I’m just lookin’ for your why. Take me back to high school. I know you were a National Merit Scholar and all that—I hated your type. But you weren’t the typical bookworm. You also played, what, basketb—”

  “Volleyball. I could’ve played in college too, but by then I knew what it was going to take to follow my dream.”

  “Archaeology, right. You know I looked you up—well, had somebody look you up, if I’m bein’ honest. But I read all the stuff. You got more degrees than my whole family put together.”

  “Got the ones I needed.”

  “And all Ivy League?”

  She nodded. “Well, except Berlin.”

  “And you enjoyed that? All that studying?”

  “Not as much as digging, but yes. When you’re studying something you love, it can be fun even when it’s hard.”

  “That’s what I wanna get to. You love digging. Why? I mean, in the movies it looks like hard labor. Hot, sweaty, dirty, luggin’ heavy stuff around. And finding really valuable stuff is rare, right?”

  “It’s not like Indiana Jones, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Yeah, like that. You’re a history buff, okay, but if you’re not fightin’ Nazis or discovering priceless stuff, what’s to love?”

  CHAPTER 80

  Ur

  “Belessunu, you know I would help you prepare for the trip if I could,” Terah said.

  “That I do know,” she said, sadness in her voice. She shuffled between the bedchamber and the great room, carrying small stacks of clothing and personal items, stopping often to steady herself with a hand on the table or having to sit. Pain was written on her face. “You have long been attentive, husband. I do not know what has come over you that you could have—”

  “Nothing came over me! Nothing but love for you and our child!”

  “Blasphemy!” she hissed. “Do you think I am any abler than you to make this journey tonight? I know we must go, but let me make this plain, Terah. Nothing you can do or say will dissuade me from my devotion to the one true God. He has spoken to me and you know He has spoken to you …”

  “Please, I don’t want to hear—”

  “You will hear whatever I have to say from now on. And I am telling you that the worship of any other god, not to mention all these”—she swept a hand over the idol remnants—“will not be tolerated in our new dwelling. Our son will be raised to know and exalt the one true God of our forefathers.”

  “But—”

  “I will countenance no opposition on this, Terah! The Lord has spoken, and so have I. If you command me to abandon my resolve, you will have to bind me and carry me to the cave, else I will stay right here until Nimrod’s men find us.”

  “I want the boy to be healthy and safe,” Terah muttered.

  “Then you will bring no idol when you visit. And you will not counter anything I teach Abram about God.”

  Terah nodded miserably. “You understand that I will be your only visitor.”

  “That will not be easy, but I would not know what to say to any servants anyway. I don’t know how you will be able to face them.”

  “They will feel bad for me, Belessunu! One of their friend’s baby was devoured by ravenous dogs, and when the king demanded their master’s son be sacrificed, his wife abandoned him. I will gain much sympathy and respect.”

  “Your entire life has become a lie, Terah. I don’t know how you can face yourself. How will you sleep?”

  “I will rest easy, knowing I have done what I had to do to protect you and Abram from the king.”

  “And now I will do what I have to do to protect your son from you and your murderous, idolatrous ways.”

  Darkness had fallen when Ikuppi finally returned and set about loading the larger chariot with Belessunu’s supplies and making a place for her to sit with the baby.

  “Prepare a place for me as well,” Terah said. “I have one more ride in me this day.”

  “I’m glad you do,” Ikuppi said. “But you have become a burden rather than a help.”

  “Only temporarily, my friend. Once you deliver me back here tonight, in the coming days we will enjoy comradeship once more.”

  Ikuppi appeared as weary as Terah had ever seen him when finally he was ready to board his passengers. “Let me start with you, Terah,” he said.

  Ikuppi tossed Terah’s crutch into the chariot, then draped the injured man’s arm around his own shoulders and walked him out, propping him against the wheel. He leapt up and squatted to lift as Terah sluggishly climbed in and lowered himself to the floor. No matter how he adjusted himself, he couldn’t avoid pressure on his most sensitive injuries. Maybe this was a mistake and he should have said his good-byes inside. But there was more he wanted to tell Belessunu, and it didn’t seem right to have another man deliver her and Abram to their new home without his being there.

  Ikuppi brought him the sleeping Abram. Terah felt such a blend of emotions he couldn’t express himself to his wife when Ikuppi helped her into the chariot. Holding the baby merely confirmed in his mind that, as chaotic as the day had been, the end was all that mattered. He would soon have his family hidden and safe. How he had managed that was between him and his gods.

  CHAPTER 81

  Vietnam

  “Here she comes, Ben,” Red said. “He who hesitates …”

  He whispered, “It’s like she’s not even real.”

  “You’re hopeless. Find out if she’ll see you away from here.”

  “Not a chance. She wouldn’t look twice at me.”

  “Guess you’ll never know,” Red said.

  “She is fascinating,” Ben said. “I’ll give her that.”

  “That’s why y
ou can’t take your eyes off her? Because she’s fascinating?”

  Ben waited until Charm’s two-year mourning period was over and ventured into town alone for the first time. At the restaurant he asked for a single table in her section and was surprised when she approached with a menu and an iced beer. “My hero,” she said. “Where are your friends?”

  “I came to see only you,” he said, stunned at her tight-fitting turquoise silk tunic and white trousers. “That is beautiful!”

  “Thank you. It’s traditional. We call it an áo dài, and even men can wear it for special occasions. It would look good on you for New Year’s.”

  He laughed. “That will never happen!”

  “I’m glad,” she said. “Now, do you trust me?”

  “I’ll bite.”

  “You bite?”

  “Sorry, it’s an idiom. It means I’m listening.”

  “Father taught me English but not idiom. Or humor. I don’t get American humor.”

  “Anyway, let’s say I trust you. Then what?”

  “I order for you,” she said.

  “I definitely trust you for that,” he said, handing her the menu.

  In a few minutes she delivered steamed long-grain rice smothered in a seafood and vegetable stir-fry. Ben breathed in the aroma. “If it tastes as good as it looks and smells …”

  “You don’t like it, you don’t pay.”

  “And if I do like it, you let me walk you home when you’re off work.”

  “That’s my reward for good ordering?”

  “It’s my reward,” Ben said.

  “Can I trust you?” she said.

  “With what?”

  “With me.”

  “Of course,” Ben said. “I don’t like the idea of your walking home in the dark. I’m not asking to come in. I’ll walk you to your door and disappear. Promise.”

  “It’s a long walk.”

  “Even better. More time with you.”

  She smiled. “But I don’t even know you.”

  “I protected you before I even met you.”

  “From a child!”

  “Oh, that hurt,” Ben said. “When I tell people about it, I say he was a giant. And ugly. And armed.”

  Charm laughed. “Okay, you walk me home and protect me from all the giant Vietnamese boys.”

  CHAPTER 82

  Ur

  Belessunu took Abram from Terah’s arms and hummed to him as Ikuppi feathered the chariot over the rocky route to the cave. They moved little faster than they could have walked, but walking was out of the question.

  Terah tried more than once to engage his wife in conversation, but she would not even look his way. He told her she would find the cave cooler, especially at night, and that he would keep stocking her with torches and oil lamps because she could not risk spending much time near the entrance. The cave had to look deserted should anyone happen by.

  “This trip will rarely take this long once I am healthy,” he said. “I will come every day if I can. I will just have to invent a story for why I continue past the livestock pen. Servants are bound to wonder.”

  Ikuppi lit a torch and helped Terah inside to a rock ledge where he sat and watched as the king’s guard showed her where he’d unloaded all the supplies and food. Belessunu was still plainly ignoring her husband, and when it came time for him to leave, he beckoned her near. She appeared to want nothing less. But Abram was down and still asleep, so she limped to Terah, standing rigid and seeming to eye him suspiciously.

  “Farewell, wife, and I will see you tomorrow.”

  “Examine yourself, Terah. And repent before God.”

  “I have nothing to repent for,” he said. She waved him off and turned away, plodding back to where the baby lay. “I saved our lives!” Terah called after her.

  As Ikuppi was pulling Terah up into the chariot once more, he said, “Just look at what we have done.”

  “What you have done, you mean,” Terah said. “You have accomplished much today, and I thank—”

  “We have lied to the king. We have murdered a child. We have threatened a midwife and her son. We have lied to grieving parents. We have misled an entire community. And now we have risked two more lives with this ill-timed trip and have left them in the wilderness.”

  “Protected and out of sight,” Terah said.

  Ikuppi spat. “We are of all men most wretched.”

  “Blame it on me, friend. You did only as I asked.”

  “I should have refused.”

  “Insubordination is punishable by—”

  “How well I know. Already I wish you’d executed me.”

  “You’ll feel differently tomorrow, Ikuppi.”

  “You are the one who needs to feel differently tomorrow, Terah.”

  Terah tried to encourage his friend the rest of the way home, but Ikuppi proved as quiet as Belessunu had on the trip to the cave. Terah still talked, cajoled, tried to draw the man out all the way until Ikuppi delivered him to his sleeping mat. “I will need your help in the morning, friend,” Terah said. “I will not be able to stand on my own.”

  “I cannot promise to be here.”

  “What do you mean? Who else can I trust?”

  “I told you, I am done with you.”

  “But surely not forever.”

  “That is my wish. Anyway, won’t your and your wife’s servants arrive in due time?”

  “Yes, but—”

  Ikuppi laid Terah’s crutch on the floor where he could reach it and strode from the room.

  “Ikuppi, wait, please!”

  But his footsteps continued until the door opened and shut.

  “Friend!”

  The only response was the clatter of Ikuppi’s sword on the side of the chariot as he mounted. Strangely, from the hoofbeats it sounded as if Ikuppi had taken the one-horse chariot rather than the three-horse.

  Good man. He is still thinking of his master, even now, leaving me with the larger transport.

  CHAPTER 83

  Manhattan

  Simple and unread as Detective Wojciechowski liked to come off, Nicole found him street-smart and a quick study of people. Either this was his way of indicating to her, without saying it in so many words, that she was no longer a suspect, or he was trying to take her mind off her fear of the threatening letter.

  But she had quit worrying about being cleared of anything related to her mother. She believed truth and time walk hand in hand, so both she and her father would be revealed as innocent as they were. And while she was certainly alarmed that someone seemed to specifically target her in the fake letter from the Saudis, she had to admit she had no idea how scared she should be. She was frankly relieved she could still anticipate a genuine response from Riyadh, even if it likely required more work. It was unlikely to constitute a flat rejection of her application.

  Her overriding emotions remained anger and frustration that someone had attacked her mother, and she was desperate to know who. Primarily Nicole wanted her mother safe and healthy, but she also wanted justice. Whoever had done this would not get away with it.

  In rehearsing her story for Wojciechowski, Nicole was reminded again how she had been shaped by her parents. Sure, her father taking her all over the world and involving her in significant Holy Land archaeological digs planted in her what she believed to her core was her reason for being. But her mother had been every bit as instrumental to Nicole’s spiritual life as she had been to her husband’s. Her mother had led her father to faith in Christ, and despite not being Jewish herself, had urged him to become a Messianic Jew and always liked to say she had “married into the faith.”

  Jewish ethnicity is most often connected with a mother’s genetics, but Nicole’s parents raised her as a Messianic Jew as well. She could not remember knowing anything but that Jesus was the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament, which also made her fully expect that He would also fulfill all the prophecies about Him in the New Testament.

  To Ni
cole’s surprise, when she expressed that to Wojciechowski, Detective Chakrabarti chimed in from behind the wheel. “So you believe Jesus will return and rule the world for a thousand years at the end of time.”

  “I do,” she said.

  “As do I.”

  “No kiddin’,” Wojciechowski said. “Didn’t know that, Pranav.”

  “To my shame,” the Indian said. “But the occasion never arose to tell you.”

  “Yeah, that’s not the kinda stuff we usually talk about on the job.”

  “You might be surprised, George, how many officers are men of faith.”

  “That would be a surprise,” Wojciechowski said. “We can be a pretty earthy bunch. I still remember a lotta the stuff I learned in church as a kid, but I’ll never be good enough to be a religious guy.”

  “Neither will I,” Chakrabarti said.

  “Nor I,” Nicole said, touching Pranav’s shoulder and catching his eye in the rearview mirror.

  “What?” Wojciechowski said. “But you both just said—”

  “We’ll have to talk,” Chakrabarti said. “But I’m most interested in Dr. Berman’s story right now. Aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, Nicole,” Wojciechowski said. “But lemme ask you this: You seem like your own woman, makin’ your own way and all that, but you give as much credit to your dad as you do your mom for who you turned out to be. That’s not the way it’s supposed to go these days, is it? Don’t women stick together now and kinda downplay always seein’ themselves … I don’t know, only how they relate to men?”

  “I get that,” Nicole said. “I do resent many of the roles society would like to relegate me to. And, yes, as the daughter of a foundation owner, I have benefited from privileges few others enjoy. But if you don’t mind my saying this, Dad didn’t get me into Yale or Princeton or Columbia.”

  “But gettin’ to go on all those digs had to look good on your résumé.”

  “Granted. But they didn’t do my schoolwork for me or achieve my grades or degrees. I don’t want to brag, but if that doesn’t make me an independent woman, I don’t know what does. And while I’d love to someday meet the right man, so far I’ve done this on my own.”