Never Again

by Harvey A. Schwartz

  Levi’s military training kicked in without conscious thought. The man who’d kept his gun on Levi throughout the incident now had his back to him, having just leaped backwards to avoid the rubber gloves as they flew from the car seat. He faced the gloves, staring at them.

  Levi saw the two black SUVs in front of the tollbooth, doors still open. He could hear their engines running.

  Levi planted his foot firmly on the backside of the man with the gun. He shoved the man forward, causing him to fall onto the pavement, his hands landing on either side of the rubber gloves. His chest against them.

  The man screamed as if he’d landed on hot coals. Levi sprinted to the SUVs. He jumped through the open driver’s door of one of the vehicles, reached in with his handcuffed hands and dropped the gear lever into drive, simultaneously stamping his foot on the gas pedal. The vehicle shot forward, the momentum slamming all four doors shut.

  Levi lifted his hands to the top of the steering wheel. He spotted a pullout area to the right of the plaza. A brick building contained restrooms. A New Hampshire State Police cruiser was parked next to the building. Behind the parking area was a chain-link fence. Behind the fence was a road.

  Levi turned the wheel sharply to the right, heading straight for the parking area. He would ram through the fence and escape on back roads. It was not much of a plan, he realized, but it was a plan.

  The SUV jumped over the curb separating the parking area from the highway, accelerating as it headed toward the fence. The trooper’s eyes opened wide as he saw the black SUV speeding in his direction. He saw the FBI agents running and shouting.

  The trooper reached down and drew his .40 caliber Glock, sighted carefully down its extended barrel, focusing. The gun bucked and he immediately returned it to his target. He squeezed again and again and again, placing four shots within a six-inch circle in the middle of Levi’s face. The SUV continued through the chain-link fence and slammed into a tree.

  A SkyFox25-News traffic helicopter circling overhead to report on the mile-long backup at the Hampton tolls recorded the entire scene, which was forwarded to the television studio within seconds of Chaim Levi’s last breath.

  CHAPTER 51

  It was inevitable that the rally would be called the Million Jew March, despite a futile attempt by organizers to brand it as the Million Mensch March. It began with an announcement from Rabbi Simon Garfinkle of Congregation Beth Shalom, one of the rare Jewish mega-synagogues, with a congregation of more than 5,000 from northern New Jersey. He’d vowed to bring his entire congregation to the capital to pray for intervention in the Middle East.

  Other rabbis pledged to join Rabbi Garfinkle with their congregations. Word about the march spread across the Internet with the instantaneous speed of a new joke or cartoon, emailed from brother to sister to mother to uncle to business partner to college professor to office mates until the question “Are you going?” blanketed the Jewish community.

  As momentum built in the week leading up to what was planned as a two-day event, nobody knew how many people to expect. A million marchers was thought to be a conservative prediction. There was little else America’s increasingly desperate Jews could do.

  Even before the first marcher arrived in the District of Columbia, the event had achieved one of its goals. Politicians, from all levels of government, were forced to choose sides. Were they with the marchers, prepared to be photographed in the crowd, or even on the podium, or were they going to be conspicuously absent? Invitations to join the marchers were widely distributed.

  The response was as disappointing as it was predictable. The mall bombings, after the Coast Guard and FBI murders, tipped America decidedly into an anti-terror, anti-Jew frenzy. First Damascus, then coastguardsmen, then the FBI and, now, hundreds slaughtered by Jewish suicide bombers.

  The twenty-two Jewish members of Congress, to a man and woman, agreed to appear. Two senators, one from New York, one from California, said they would be there but they preferred not to speak. One former secretary of defense said yes, but the gossip was that his Jewish wife left him no choice since she would be attending regardless of whether he did or not.

  The rest of Washington’s elite found reasons to be out of the city or otherwise committed that weekend.

  The ad hoc organizing committee struggled to find enough prominent speakers to fill two days, especially speakers who could demonstrate that support for intervention in Israel went beyond Jewish voters. The organizers were disappointed that year after year of Jewish political contributions, millions upon millions of dollars, seemed to have been forgotten. They were equally disappointed that African-American leaders seemed to have forgotten the thousands of Jews who supported the civil rights struggles, with their money, their time and, as demonstrated by the murders of Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner in Mississippi, their lives.

  The march was scheduled for Friday and Saturday so it could include what was predicted to be the largest Sabbath service in history.

  A large Washington law firm, whose senior partners were virtually all Jewish, donated office space for the march organizers. On Wednesday of march week, volunteers, mostly college students, struggled to deal with the chaos of constantly ringing office telephones.

  “I would like to speak to whoever is in charge of the speakers who will address the march,” a caller said. “My name is Catherine Quaid.”

  “Please hold,” a young volunteer said. She answered three other calls and was about to run to the coffee machine when she noticed the light still blinking on her phone. She pressed the button for that line.

  “I think that Rabbi Garfinkle is handling all the speakers himself,” the volunteer said. “He is so very busy right now I am sure he could not speak with you. Could you leave a phone number, or, even better, an email address, and we will get in touch with you? I know they are sending out thank-yous already.”

  The woman caller laughed. “So much for international fame,” she said. “Maybe if Rabbi Garfinkle can’t speak with me, somebody else, somebody in authority, can spare a minute.”

  “I’m so sorry,” the volunteer answered, looking around. “I don’t think there is anybody who could speak with you. I’m so busy myself. I really have to go now.”

  “Wait, don’t hang up,” the caller said. She took a deep breath, audible over the telephone. “What’s your name, dear?”

  “Nicole.”

  “Okay, Nicole. Let’s try it this way. Do you know who the president of the United States is?

  “Of course, ma’am, it’s President Quaid.”

  “Good. That’s a start. Well, I am Mrs. Quaid. Some call me the First Lady.”

  “Oh my God. I am so sorry.” The young Wesleyan University junior hesitated. “Does your husband know what you are doing?”

  Within seconds, Catherine Quaid was patched through.

  “Joe, may I have a chat with you?”

  Catherine Quaid took Joe Bergantina, the head of her Secret Service detail, by the elbow and directed him to the balcony overlooking the Rose Garden behind the White House.

  “What is it, ma’am?” Bergantina asked. He liked Catherine Quaid. She had a mind of her own and didn’t take shit from anybody, including her husband. Wouldn’t want to be married to her, though, Bergantina thought.

  The First Lady walked casually with the Secret Service agent to the far end of the balcony, then turned and stood in front of him, uncomfortably close. Her voice took on an uncharacteristically venomous tone that sent alarm bells clanging for the agent.

  “Joe, you rat on me again and you’ll regret it for the rest of your life,” she said, glaring, her face inches from his. “What goes on between me and my husband is between me and my husband. You work for me. If you don’t want to work for me, fine; tell me, and I’ll get you an assignment guarding a bucket of frozen moose shit in Alaska.”

  The Secret Service agent, trained to throw himself in front of this woman and take an assassin’s bullet in his own body, was shaken by her
words.

  “Do you know what I’m referring to, Joe?” Catherine Quaid asked. “A little matter involving Air Force One? Does that refresh your memory, Joe?”

  She poked his chest with one finger.

  “Do you get my point, Joe?”

  Another poke, harder this time.

  He could barely collect himself enough to answer.

  “Yes, ma’am, yes, absolutely, ma’am, I understand one hundred percent, ma’am,” he stuttered.

  “Tell me, Joe, what would they do to a Secret Service agent who copped a feel from the First Lady? It wouldn’t be pretty, would it, Joe?”

  The poor man’s face was ashen.

  “That would be an exceptionally ugly scene, ma’am,” he said carefully.

  “So, Joe, may I assume that we have a clear understanding, you and I? No more whispering to anybody about what I’m doing or who I’m doing it with, right, Joe?”

  “Yes, ma’am, yes we certainly do,” he answered.

  “Wonderful,” Catherine Quaid said. “Now, let me tell you where we are going tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 52

  Sarah Goldberg had met Rabbi Garfinkle two years earlier at a conference on youth aliyah to Israel. Aliyah, from the Hebrew word for “ascent,” referred to immigration to Israel. Rabbi Garfinkle was impressed with Goldberg. He contacted her within days of first proposing the march, asking her to serve on the steering committee. Sarah acknowledged to her husband that they were trying to get speakers from all around the country and she was probably the only Jewish Mainer Rabbi Garfinkle knew.

  Sarah was asked to speak at the event. She had no idea what to say. Recalling the civil rights struggle and Martin Luther King’s preaching of nonviolence sounded wishy-washy after news of the mall bombings. In the back of her mind, too, Sarah was aware that Abram was planning some violent action of his own, making her feel hypocritical preaching nonviolence.

  Sarah and Debra Rueben sat up late into the night crafting an outline of Sarah’s speech. Around eleven that evening, Abram returned from the meeting in Boston. His first words when he entered the house and saw Reuben startled her.

  “What happened to Levi?” he asked. “He never showed up. Never called either.”

  Reuben’s stomach had been twisted in a knot since she watched Levi drive away.

  “The man embarrassed me in front of some very important people. I’d built him up as some big new-day Maccabee warrior and then he never shows up. I got the go-ahead for my boys anyway, so I suppose there was no harm done,” he said, “but the man let me down. I don’t forget that easily.”

  “I hope he’s all right,” Reuben said quietly.

  Sarah looked at her husband.

  “You heard about the mall bombings, I assume?” she asked.

  “Heard about it? It’s just about all we talked about in Boston,” he said excitedly. “This is how the war is going to be fought, mark my words. Not by big, coordinated efforts but by small groups of fighters, each acting independently but all for the same goal.

  “Sarah, I know you believe that singing the right songs and waving the cleverest signs will get those Washington nudniks to do the right thing for Israel. You’ll see, though, my way works. My way works. Terror works. Nobody wants to admit that, but it is the truth. Terror brings change. We will make life so miserable for these politicians that they will have no choice but to give in; you’ll see.”

  “Is that what your secret big shots in Boston told you, Abram?” Sarah asked.

  “It certainly is, and it’s what I told them. They had no idea who did those mall bombings, but they were all for them. Sarah, you know what else we talked about?” Abram asked. “We talked about the lesson Israel taught the Arabs with Damascus. They’ll think again about the price they’ll have to pay for attacking Jews. We don’t know who ordered that bombing. Maybe we’ll never know. But I’ll tell you one thing, Sarah. Whoever did that, it was one Jew with giant balls.”

  He was puzzled by the knowing looks the two women exchanged. But he was too aroused to stop talking.

  “Do you think for one minute the United States would be willing to pay that same price? No way, never. When it comes to a choice between paying a dollar or two more for a gallon of gasoline or losing, say, Chicago or Dallas, don’t you think that would be an easy choice for Mr. President Quaid? Bombs send a message. Enough bombs send enough of a message. We certainly sent a loud and clear message to Damascus, didn’t we?”

  Abram was surprised that neither woman responded. He felt perhaps he’d gone too far with his talk about bombs.

  “So, how is the big speech coming?” he asked his wife.

  “Nowhere at all is where it’s coming,” she said dejectedly. “Somehow preaching nonviolence feels foolish, as if a sit-in at the Capitol is going to get any relief supplies, or Marines, to Israel. I’m not quite that naive.”

  “That’s nice to hear,” Goldhersh said, smiling. “Has there been anything on the news about who did the mall bombings? My three young friends are going to be excited about the two men—Hassids, I heard—who beat them to the first punch.”

  Abram walked across the room and picked up the television remote, turning on the TV in the kitchen, where they were sitting at a table. The 11 o’clock news was just beginning.

  The screen filled with video obviously filmed from an airplane showing a long traffic backup.

  “That’s the Hampton Toll Plaza,” Sarah said.

  “Hush,” her husband responded. “Listen.”

  “Dramatic footage taken from a traffic helicopter shows what the FBI says was a daring escape attempt by a man government sources confirmed was an Israeli military commando,” the announcer excitedly intoned. “The man was detained by the FBI on suspicion of smuggling weapons into this country.

  “The New York Times reported on its website minutes ago that undisclosed sources in the Department of Homeland Security hinted that the Israeli had smuggled weapons of mass destruction into this country. The source did not elaborate about the type of weapons, although the source did say that while a small amount of radioactive material was recovered in the man’s car, more of the weapons remain at large.”

  The aerial camera zoomed in on a Honda Accord crushed against a tree near the tollbooth.

  Debra Reuben screamed. “That’s the car Chaim was in!”

  The television news reader continued, “The terrorist, who has yet to be identified, overpowered two armed FBI agents. He was shot and killed attempting to escape.”

  “No, no, no, no, no.” Reuben’s head slumped to the table. Sarah placed an arm around her shoulder. Without removing her arm from her friend, Sarah looked up at her husband. She spoke over Reuben’s sobs.

  “So much for nonviolence,” Sarah said. She paused in thought. “Abram, the car—whose car was he driving? They’ll trace the car, won’t they?”

  The large man did not answer. Despite his career buying and selling death-dealing devices, this was the first violent death that had visited his life, at least so closely. The reality of what he was planning to do settled into his consciousness. But only momentarily. He collected himself quickly and answered, “The car belongs to my Mr. Aleph. It doesn’t matter whether they trace it to him or not. He isn’t going home again.”

  Goldhersh glanced at his watch.

  “By now, they are on a road trip.”

  Sarah looked up at her husband in surprise. She spoke in a flat monotone.

  “Where are they going, Abram? Tell me.”

  He smiled. “The same place you are going, dear. To our nation’s capital. Just like you, they have a message to deliver. Care to guess whose message will be more persuasive?”

  Sarah returned to Reuben, who was moaning, repeating her lover’s name. Goldhersh stood by her side, watching the two women, not knowing what to do. He felt badly about criticizing Levi, and angry at what he viewed as Levi’s murder.

  After several minutes, Reuben lifted her head and rubbed her eyes. She looked up at
Goldhersh. Her face was resolute. She shrugged Sarah’s comforting hands from her shoulders and stood up, only to pace back and forth, finally stopping in front of Goldhersh.

  “Abram,” she said, her voice cold. Goldhersh didn’t know it, but this was the same voice that ordered a pilot to fly to Damascus. “We can’t let them keep killing us—there, here. Jews don’t stand meekly and let the Nazis cart us away anymore.”

  “I’m glad one of you ladies agrees with me,” he replied cautiously, unsure about the sudden change in the woman, and her voice.

  “You’re not entirely wrong,” Reuben said. She knew so few people who’d died in her sheltered life. Nobody had been gunned down in public. Levi’s death shocked her, shook her beliefs.

  “Abram, you talk about needing a new Haganah.” Haganah was the underground Jewish military force that fought against the British occupation before Israel gained independence. “Maybe the first member of that Haganah was just murdered.”

  Goldhersh beamed, looking at the two women.

  “Abram, come with me,” Reuben said. “I want to show you something in your swimming pool.”

  Debra Reuben and Sarah and Abram Goldhersh sat before the living room TV. Debra Reuben mumbled almost silently, speaking to herself or, perhaps, whispering to Chaim Levi’s ghost. Abram Goldhersh thought only of the object at the bottom of his swimming pool. Can it really be an atomic bomb? An atomic bomb in my swimming pool? Sarah Goldhersh said nothing, but she recognized that a speech in Washington about nonviolence was simply silly.

  Television news buzzed with speculation about the announcement of the president’s surprise midnight speech on a topic of “supreme importance.” Debra, Sarah and Abram shared one thought. Can things get any worse?

  Midnight. They would soon find out.

  The president sat in the Oval Office, an American flag behind him. The camera opened with a tight shot on his face, then zoomed back to show his desk, a pen and two sheets of paper on it. The president gestured, and people walked in from off camera to stand behind him. They included the majority leaders of both parties, Homeland Security director Paterson, the new acting attorney general, and Gen. Cruz, chairman of the Joint Chiefs.