A Premature Apocalypse

by Dan Sofer

  She cared for Moshe. At one point, she had loved him. She’d never knowingly hurt his career, never mind put him in danger. Would she regret this? Criminal elements had tried to harm Moshe before. They had abducted him and his wife on Election Day, and, although Moshe had not gone into the details, their battered and bruised state indicated that the experience had not involved polite talk and cups of tea.

  Irina crossed her legs on the bench.

  No, there was no harm in this. She wouldn’t be proposing anything new. People already shouted it from the street corners. The move would boost his popularity and strengthen his standing. She’d just be giving Moshe a little nudge in the right direction.

  She glanced at her wristwatch. Fifteen minutes had passed. Today wasn’t the best day for this. She positioned her legs to stand when a familiar bearded man walked up to the secretary’s desk.

  After a short, hushed exchange, the secretary turned toward Irina, and the rabbi followed her glance.

  “Irina, good to see you.” Rabbi Yosef smiled and made for her.

  She stood. “Good to see you too.” The rabbi had gained a few more worry lines on his face and strands of gray in his beard. Government work had taken its toll.

  The worry lines deepened. “Is everything all right at the DBS?”

  “Busier than ever, but good. Is Moshe around?”

  “I hope so.” There it was again. The people in government were doing a lot of hoping. The premonition returned. “Let’s talk in my office.”

  He closed the door of his room when they were inside, and Irina settled in the visitor’s chair before the desk. Moshe smiled at them from the framed photo on the wall, an Israeli flag behind him.

  Rabbi Yosef took his seat. “Moshe’s still with the police.”

  “The police? Is he OK?” Had Moshe been in an accident?

  “They took him in for questioning yesterday. Some sort of corruption probe.”

  “But he’s only just taken office. He hadn’t held a public position before.”

  “Exactly. It’s probably nothing, trumped-up charges from the Opposition.”

  Irina sagged in the chair. Isaac Gurion and Avi Segal had bombarded Moshe and Rabbi Yosef with smear campaigns during the election. She’d have thought they’d stop dragging his name through the mud once he ruled the country. Apparently, she had been wrong.

  “Poor Moshe,” she said. “After all he’s been through.”

  The rabbi raised his eyebrows, a gesture both of empathy for Moshe and pessimism for any cessation of hostilities. “This all has to stay between us.”

  “Of course.”

  “Maybe I can help you—while Moshe is out?”

  The rabbi was right. He could help her. In fact, he’d make the job much easier for her. “Rabbi Yosef, I have a question about the Messianic Era.”

  “Sure, go ahead.” At the mention of religious doctrine, the rabbi seemed to relax. This was his area of expertise. Moshe had questioned him about the Messianic Era before proposing that they run as an independent party in the elections.

  “The Messiah is supposed to rule the Holy Land and bring justice to the Land?”

  “Among other things,” he said, and his eyes narrowed. “Why do you ask?”

  “I was just thinking. You’ve seen the posters around the city. People have been talking. Could Moshe be the Messiah?”

  There—she had said it. She had done her part, and now the rabbi would do the rest.

  Rabbi Yosef laughed, not in surprise or delight, but irony. His eyes hardened.

  “What?” she asked, and her brow moistened. Did he suspect she was acting on behalf of others? Would he ask who had sent her?

  “Nothing. Just… you’re not the first person to ask me that.”

  Irina breathed again. She was not the first. Others had made the same suggestion. The mission had a greater chance of success, and she shared the burden of guilt with others. What burden of guilt? Knock it off!

  “I understand,” the rabbi continued, “why people would think that. Moshe came out of nowhere and shot to the top. He’s trying to fix the system. But the Messiah is supposed to do many other things as well: rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem; bring back the dispersed tribes of Israel. It’s hard to see those things happening soon.”

  Irina couldn’t believe her ears. A month in Knesset had worn down the rabbi’s indomitable optimism. “What about the Resurrection—isn’t that one of the signs?”

  He shrugged. “A great miracle, nobody can deny that. And another sign of the End Days. But is it the Resurrection? Many of the details do not match traditional expectations. And there are so many other signs that have not come to pass.”

  Irina stared at the man behind the desk. Was this the Rabbi Yosef who had physically bounced with excitement at her return, who had gushed about the approaching Redemption with unshakeable confidence? The man before her doubted the miracles that surrounded him. He would not aid her mission; he’d stand in her way.

  “Signs?” she asked. “What other signs could we need?”

  He stared at the desk, and his lips trembled. “Wars,” he muttered. “Disasters. For example—” But he didn’t complete the sentence.

  A teaspoon tinkled. They stared at the coffee mug on his desk, which shifted over the polished wood. And then the walls shuddered.

  Chapter 38

  “Are they for real?” Noga said.

  Among the masses around Zion Square, Eli gaped at the kings on the dais. The scene was wrong. Very wrong.

  How could this be? Had the Boss raised the former kings from their tombs and crowned them anew without him? A deep pit opened in the floor of his stomach. Had the Thin Voice abandoned him, not because his mission no longer required Divine intervention, but because the Boss had replaced him with another prophet?

  A rotund man in a suit bounded onto the platform and took the podium. He gave the crowd a sincere stare and patted his sweaty comb-over.

  “My fellow citizens,” he intoned, and his voice reverberated between the buildings and stores of downtown Jerusalem. “This is a historic day. Behold the return of your kings of old, the mighty kings of Israel!”

  Whispers circled among the crowd, fermented excited chatter, and erupted in cheers.

  The man pointed with his arm. “I give you King Saul, the first King of Israel; King David, the Sweet Singer of Israel; and the mighty King Solomon, the Wisest Man on Earth.”

  At the mention of their names, the kings rose from their seats and bowed for the crowd. A chant rose among the masses. David, King of Israel. Alive, alive and well! Men in white knitted skullcaps danced and waved their arms. An old lady broke into sobs. Little boys climbed onto their fathers’ shoulders to get a better view of their royalty.

  Then the realization hit.

  “That’s not them,” Eli said.

  “Who?”

  “The kings. They’re imposters.”

  “Are you sure? It’s been a long time.”

  “Three thousand years,” he said. “I kept to the north mostly. I only saw David a few times and at a distance. But he wasn’t a redhead, and he had a much smaller nose. The real Saul would rather fall on his sword than sit next to him, End of the World or not. As for Solomon, he wasn’t that fat.”

  The sweaty man on the dais raised his hands for silence. “Alas, my friends. Our rightful kings will not rule again.”

  A stunned silence descended on his audience.

  “‘Why?’ you ask. Because one brazen man has usurped their God-given rights and stolen the crown for himself and himself alone!”

  Boos resounded from every direction, then the crowd fell quiet to hear more about Public Enemy Number One.

  “You know who I’m talking about—the wicked villain, Moshe Karlin!”

  Eli and Noga exchanged a look of shock. Was he really accusing the current Prime Minister of being the anti-Messiah?

  “That’s right!” the man roared into the microphone. “King Karlin sits on their throne a
nd lords over us. But he hasn’t stopped there. His hunger for power knows no bounds. Thirsting for your blood, he has opened the gates wide for a zombie invasion. And while you struggle to keep your homes and your very lives, he feasts on the fat of the land, filling his pockets with our beloved country’s wealth.”

  “This is crazy,” Noga said.

  “Not crazy,” Eli said. “Evil. Who’s the prophet?”

  “Not a prophet,” she said. “A politician. Isaac Gurion, head of the Opposition.”

  “That explains it.” Eli glanced around. The mob was growing angrier by the minute. In a different generation, Eli would have marched over to the raised platform. He would have challenged the imposters and rained fire from Heaven. But the Magic had fled, along with the Thin Voice.

  He grabbed her hand. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Why?” Her eyes widened.

  He nodded toward Gurion on the stage. “I have experience with false prophets. They never end well.”

  They pushed through the crowd, cutting a path back toward the pedestrian mall on Ben Yehuda.

  Gurion’s voice boomed behind them. “At this very moment, the police are questioning King Karlin regarding multiple counts of the darkest corruption. We, your faithful servants, will not rest until we have removed the usurper from our midst. Down with King Karlin!”

  “Down with the king!” the people chanted, their faces twisted with rage. “Down with the king!”

  Noga squeezed his hand. “Wait—did you feel that?”

  He had—a tremor along the cobblestones. The mob stamped their feet in time to their chant. Could a thousand feet cause the ground to shudder?

  The earth shook again. Voices cried out around them, this time not in anger but surprise. A bulky man in a checkered shirt bumped into Eli. “Sorry!”

  Eli turned around. People held onto each other to keep their balance, bracing for another jolt. Fear filled their eyes. On the dais, the kings gripped the table, like a raft in a raging sea, while the false prophet jumped down the stairs and disappeared into the crowd, a rat abandoning ship. But was that ship sinking or merely buffeted by a large swell?

  The answer came in the form of an eardrum-tearing crack. Before their eyes, the dais shifted to the side, then plummeted like a rollercoaster car, and the entire platform, along with the podium, the table, and the “kings,” dropped out of sight.

  Women shrieked. People pushed and shoved each other, as the ground split and shattered beneath their feet. The earth parted, the buildings falling away on either side, as jagged fissures raced from Zion Square and snaked up the cobbled streets.

  “Get back!”

  Eli pulled Noga away from the widening crevasse, pressing into the packed walls of humanity as, around them, people slipped and fell, screaming and flailing, into the chasm. Great chunks of the torn road rose into the air as though God Himself had taken a chainsaw to the planet’s crust.

  Patches of cobblestone crumbled into the void. Eli cried out as he forced his way forward, away from the fissure, pulling Noga after him. Another crack sounded and Noga cried out. Her hand slipped from his.

  He turned, dropped to his knees, and peered over the edge. She hung by her fingertips from a rock ledge a few feet below the surface. “Eli!” The dark chasm yawned beneath her.

  “Hold on! I’m here.” He pulled at a chunk of sidewalk, testing that it held, then reached down with his other hand. “Take my hand!”

  His fingers brushed hers, half an inch from the rock ledge. No, not a rock; rather, a large translucent stone that refracted daylight into his eyes. What is that?

  “I can’t let go,” Noga said. “I’ll fall!”

  “No, you won’t. Just reach out with one hand.”

  Another shudder knocked the fleeing masses to the ground, and Noga shrieked.

  Eli reached further, willing his body to stretch, to grab her wrist and pull her to safety. Noga’s eyes projected terror and disbelief.

  “You can do it.”

  She reached for him, and he gripped her fingers for all he was worth. He couldn’t hold her much longer. “Good. Now grab the next ledge.” He eyed another handhold, another shiny outcrop further up. She did it. He heaved upward. Her boot found traction on the wall of the fissure, and she inched toward the surface.

  A smile flashed across her face for the first time since the ground had opened. She was going to make it. Soon, they’d roll back onto solid earth.

  Then, with another loud crack, the ground gave way beneath him, and they fell.

  Chapter 39

  “What’s the damage?” Moshe asked the ministers around the conference table. He had called an emergency cabinet meeting in the Government Room as soon as he got back to Knesset.

  Sivan glanced at the data sheet she had compiled. “The earthquake hit a magnitude of seven point two on the Richter scale and tore downtown Jerusalem to shreds. Buildings within a ten-kilometer radius show damage. There’s concern about aftershocks.”

  “Casualties?”

  “Dozens dead, a hundred missing. But the main danger is the aftermath. Electricity and water services are down across the city. Three gas installations exploded. A dozen roads are unusable. In short, the capital’s a mess. And the cellular networks are down—overloaded by people trying to contact their loved ones.”

  Moshe sank into his chair. With zombies on the march and his coalition in ruins, he faced trumped-up corruption charges, while superpowers flexed their muscles at the borders. As if that wasn’t enough, now he had to deal with a major natural disaster—and all in his first month!

  “Gurion’s going to go to town with this.”

  Sivan shook her head. “Unlikely. He led an anti-government protest this morning at Zion Square. Something about replacing you with the Kings of Old. The earthquake hit during the middle of his speech. Eyewitnesses say the ground opened, swallowing the stage and everyone on it. Gurion hasn’t been seen since.”

  Silence reigned in the Government Room.

  “Dear Lord.” Moshe had aimed to outmaneuver Gurion, his virulent critic and rival, but he’d never intended him any physical harm. The timing of the earthquake was uncanny. To the casual observer, God had taken Moshe’s side. Moshe glanced at Rabbi Yosef, who seemed to sink deeper into his chair.

  “I wouldn’t get complacent,” Sivan said. “The Opposition is already spinning this against you.”

  She pulled out her phone and played a video clip. Rabbi Mendel of Torah True spoke into a Channel Two microphone, the sirens and strobe lights of emergency vehicles in the background. “This is the work of Moshe Karlin,” he said, “He’s plunged the nation into turmoil to distract our attention from his corruption charges.”

  “He has got to be kidding!”

  Shmuel said, “So much for ‘acts of God.’”

  “There’s been looting too,” Sivan continued.

  Moshe never understood how people could take advantage of a national tragedy to steal. “The police won’t be enough. We’ll need to call in the army to protect businesses until we can get a handle on the situation.”

  “It’s not just the businesses that need protection. The rift exposed diamond deposits in the ground.”

  Had he heard her right? “Diamonds?”

  “And other precious stones. People have been hacking away at the disaster site with hammers and picks, and many have fallen into the fissures.”

  Moshe didn’t know what to say. He’d run out of exclamations. The situation became more bizarre and surreal each passing moment. He turned again to Rabbi Yosef—was this another sign of the Messianic Era?—but the rabbi kept his eyes on the table.

  “Moshe,” Rafi said, snapping him back to practical concerns. “The army is already stretched thin with the Sixth Aliyah. We don’t have the manpower for this.”

  Moshe considered all the pieces on the board. Why the heck not? “We don’t, but others might. Shmuel, let’s meet right after and put things in motion.”

  Sivan gla
nced from Moshe to Shmuel, and back. “What’s the plan?”

  Moshe glanced at the walls. Gurion had learned about the Sixth Aliyah, and the Police Commissioner knew the goings-on at the Prime Minister’s Residence. The Knesset Government Room might be no different.

  “I’ll tell you all soon. Sivan, we need to address the public and calm everyone down. Meanwhile, those not involved with disaster management, push ahead with the new legislation.”

  He adjourned the meeting, and the ministers rushed to their tasks.

  Sivan caught him at the door. “What’s with the secrecy?”

  He threw another glance at the walls. “You were right about the leak,” he whispered. “It’s worse than we thought. Gurion’s people know everything we say and do. At Knesset and at home.”

  Sivan’s lips parted as the realization hit. “They’ve bugged us?”

  Moshe nodded.

  “I’ll have the Secret Service do a sweep.”

  “Our offices too.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Moshe met Shmuel in the hallway. “Let’s walk and talk. It’s time to call in favors.”

  Chapter 40

  Monday afternoon, Yosef wandered through Ground Zero in a daze. Large stretches of street and sidewalk had broken away and pointed heavenward. Jets of steam spouted from the immense dark chasm. The air smelled of burnt wood, gas, and rotten eggs. He hazarded a glance over the edge. Precious stones glittered along the walls of the rift. This can’t be.

  As both Vice Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, he needed to see the situation on the ground in person. Leaving his security detail at the military cordon, he strolled down what remained of the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall. Buildings on either side leaned away from the fissure like so many towers of Pisa. A steaming hole was all that remained of Zion Square. It was as though he had stepped onto the Hollywood set of a disaster movie.

  A man crouched at the precarious edge of the crater. Soldiers walked over and grabbed him by the shoulders. Diamonds, large and encrusted in dirt, trickled from his pockets as they dragged him to safety.