Rabbi Gabrielle Ignites a Tempest (3 page)

When Tim finally caught up with Benoit, just
shy of the cave's entrance, the Dominican father was bowed on his
knees, halted by a choking cough. At first, Tim thought his lungs
had succumbed to the ubiquitous dust. But a moment later, this
suspicion was abandoned in favor of a more palpable cause. It was
not dust that stopped Benoit. The tight air was impregnated with
thick a smoke, snaking through earthen conduits from outside.

Benoit hacked away as he spoke through a
cloth protecting his nose and mouth. "I... I was afraid of
something like... this."

"What's burning?" Tim asked, now joined with
him in the coughing.

"Oil... a Bedouin trick. Why enter... a
cave... when you can light a fire at the entrance and smoke us
out?"

Tim crouched alongside Benoit and breathed
through his sleeve. "The treasures here will be damaged
irreparably. How can civilized people do this?"

Benoit snapped in a voice conveying his
authority on the local Arab culture, "What's here is...
Judeo-Christian history, not… Bedouin history. These people live
only for today and tomorrow. They have no interest in their
own
past; why should they give a shit
about
ours
?"

Tim felt his lungs woefully short of air as
he sputtered, "Let's signal the Israeli drone."

"Let's not. Jews would love to crucify me on
the Via Dolorosa. And humiliate the Holy Father in Rome."

"You didn't wait for me back there," Tim
said, revealing an anger that had disturbed him since finding the
priest had already fled without him.

"If you had... kept to the schedule, we would
have made it," Benoit answered. "This is… your mess, not mine."

"A few minutes wouldn't have made any
difference. I've got fantastic fragments."

Benoit's coughing increased, breaking up his
words, "Time… to choose whether we want to get barbequed here... or
shot outside."
Tim considered Benoit's prospects, but somehow they
didn't seem to cover all the alternatives. He stretched himself
prone along the ground, staying as low as possible under smoke
wafting overhead. Despite hacking, he managed to keep his words
together. "…The Bedouin guard escaped through a hole somewhere.
We... must find it."

Benoit said nothing while hauling himself to
his knees.

Tim continued, "We didn't notice the vent
before... so it must have been in one of the conduits… over to the
left. Smoke will... exit through it like a chimney. Let's follow
the current above us."

Benoit seemed to agree, for he led in the
direction Tim suggested. Their path weaved in a semi-circle until
the tunnel forked into two channels. The men rolled on their backs
to observe how smoke seemed to move equally in both directions,
forcing them to split up once again. At least one might manage to
get out.

Tim discovered the vent only minutes later,
but it appeared too small for the stout Dominican.

As soon as Benoit rejoined him, he spied the
small aperture chiseled in the roof of the tunnel and said,
"Bedouin are... rodents. They can squeeze through fissures of any
size."

"Then we must become rodents too," Tim
replied, pulling a collapsible spade from his backpack. "Empty your
pockets into the packs. I'm leaving the carbine behind, but take
your Uzi. Be sure to bring all the water. If we get out of here,
we're going to need it. As I climb, I'll enlarge the passage for
you."

"Go without me... Timothy."

"We came here together and we'll leave...
together."

"An ignoble end for a fat priest who loves
his food," Benoit murmured. "...Before you start climbing, take a
deep breath. Smoke will funnel through the aperture, making
breathing impossible.
Et mon reverend
," he
paused to catch his companion's arm, "
Grace a
Dieu."

"Right," Tim said as he reached up to pull
himself into the opening, "let's pray the Good Father shows
compassion for His servant thieves."

Both clerics were nauseous, dehydrated, and caked
with a mix of smoke embers and dirt when they saw daylight ahead.
Fearful of Bedouin warriors waiting for them, Tim cautiously hauled
himself into the daylight to survey the terrain. His body remained
low to the ground, his camouflage tunic blending into the
surrounding rocks. He had just managed to pry Father Benoit free
from the last impediment when the buzz of an Israeli drone forced
him to shove the priest back into the hole. "From the frying pan
into the fire," he said before covering the aperture with his
camouflaged shirt. The top of Benoit's head poked into his
stomach.

The drone appeared to circle Bedouin tents in
the valley below, tents Father Benoit had correctly predicted their
owners would pitch to conceal their intentions. A moment of relief
came when the aircraft eventually veered in a northerly direction.
But their relief passed immediately. In the wake of the drone's
receding engine, they now heard voices calling in desert Arabic,
announcing how Bedouin warriors were scrambling among surrounding
rocks.

Without standing, it was impossible for Tim
to know how close the pursuers were. He whispered their predicament
to Benoit, lamenting that he had abandoned his carbine inside the
cave, but then he knew it would be foolish to shoot it out with an
enemy he couldn't see. Benoit warned that Bedouin eyes were
superior to their noses and were keenly sensitive to movement of
any kind. Even the motion of replenishing one's lungs with air and
expelling it might reveal their presence.

Tim heard a boot plow into stones no more
than ten meters away, sending a stream of pebbles rolling down the
hillside. More boots pounded the rocks nearby, as Bedouin seemed to
be tightening a circle around them. Tim held his breath. Sooner or
later, shooting was inevitable. The bullets he expected didn't
come, at least not until the voices had begun to recede. Then
suddenly, two rifle shots erupted, then echoed among the rocks some
hundred meters below. Perhaps aimed at a jackal or rodent.

The sun seemed to penetrate Tim's shirt and
sear his flesh. Thirst racked their dry throats. But even sipping
from their water bottles was risky when they were uncertain where
the Bedouin were. Both men understood that it would be a long,
miserable day before it was safe to move after dark.

As the sun sank in the west, twilight lingered
interminably and when they first dared to stir, their muscles
ached, making standing an ordeal. Starlight was uncomfortably
bright, but there was no moon. Father Benoit discouraged searching
for the rappelling lines he knew the Bedouin would remove, if for
no other reason than to use the valuable cord in their camp. This
forced them to descend along a circuitous route into the valley,
making a wide detour around the Bedouin tents, then moving west and
working their way back to Tim’s Hyundai SUV, hidden under
camouflage netting in the ruts of a dry wadi. If they were lucky,
the Israeli operator monitoring the drone overhead would be looking
in another direction or perhaps mistake their movement for a feral
goat, ibex, or a rare leopard.

By the time Tim and Benoit reached the valley
floor, there was little doubt that they had been spotted. The drone
not only flew in their direction, but circled above, ominously
drawing smaller circles like a hawk targeting its prey. Even with
the cover of night, they could not traverse enough ground to
retrieve the SUV before dawn. This unwelcome development required
another change of plans: ten more hours hiding during the day and
moving only after dark. They were exhausted, ravaged by thirst,
encrusted in dirt, and suffering from pain in their joints, but
their spirits soared with achievement.

Once back in the SUV, Tim drove Father Benoit to the
Greek Orthodox Monastery of St. George near Jericho, where Benoit
sometimes retreated for meditation and prayer. The Dominican priest
then planned to drive Tim's vehicle to Bethlehem and hide it on
property abandoned by Christian Palestinians who, six months
before, had fled from sectarian violence in their neighborhood to
join relatives in Northern California.

"I'll need a computer and some heavy-duty
digital equipment," Tim told Benoit while driving to the monastery.
"With the right machines I can get started scanning and coding
these fragments. The sooner I begin, the sooner we’ll know what
we’ve found."

"Make a list for the abbot at St George’s,
Father Nicholas Afanasieff. I’ll see that everything you need is
sent as soon as possible."

"What if I must contact you?" asked Tim.

"Don't," the Dominican answered in an
uncompromising tone that precluded further discussion. "As soon as
the Israelis learn a cave's been fleeced, they'll come looking for
me. Hopefully, without photos from the drone that's been dogging
us. Stay under the radar,
mon ami
. When
you've got this stuff in digital format, I'll come to you."

***

Not more than a meter and a half tall, Dr.
Shimshon haLevi, an army surgeon in a commando regiment before
joining the police force as a forensic pathologist, stood on a
30-centimeter footstool, working over a corpse in Jerusalem's
police morgue. He would have skipped the removal of skin from the
skull of his cadaver had it not been for a desire to impress the
border-police officer beside him, Rav-seren “Major“ Zvi
Zabronski.

"Feeling all right?" the pathologist asked
without removing his eyes from the body.

"Let's put it this way," answered Zabronski
as he rocked back on his heels to combat mounting nausea in his
stomach, "I wouldn't want to be eating lunch now."

"If you feel sick, step away. Me? I got used
to this sort of thing. The boys I worked on in the army were a
mess, if they were lucky enough to stay alive."

"I'll make it," said Zabronski, his balding
head shining in the Halogen spot-light as he tested his resolve by
forcing himself to bend far over the corpse. "The report says that
Bedouins brought this fellow to Jericho last night. When one
kinsman kills another, they don't come to the police. I can tell
you right now, Doctor, this guy wasn't killed by another
Bedouin."

"So why did they bring him?" the pathologist
asked, while glancing to Zabronski, his enlarged owlish eyes
blinking through perfectly round spectacles.

"They think he was killed by an outsider and
they want us to find out who. Notice anything unusual?"

"Not much of his face to work with. You can
see how jackals gnawed at his facial muscles where I found a bullet
lodged in the jawbone. Bedouin youth, in his late teens. Exposed to
the elements for two days, I'd say."

Major Zabronski studied the exposed portion
of the skull where the pathologist was poking a stainless steel
scalpel. "The intake officer wrote that vultures led his tribesmen
to find him. Any ballistics on the bullet yet?"

"Absolutely. You're not going to like this,
major. The slug was 9-mm, probably from an Uzi."

"No, I don't like that at all," Zabronski
answered. "Thank God we're not the only bad guys using Uzis these
days. Cause of death?"

"People don't usually die from a single
bullet, especially if it hasn't entered a vital organ like the jaw.
But they can go into shock and bleed to death."

"You're certain he's Bedouin?"

"His neck was wrapped with a white kafia. The
braided '
agal
is definitely Negev Bedouin.
Look at the color of his skin. Alabaster white. Desert people never
expose their torsos to direct sunlight. And his teeth are badly
decayed for a young man. That means he had little contact with
modern dentistry. When I finish my report, what should we do with
the body?"

Zabronski angled away from the table, saying,
"My orders are to return it to his tribesmen. I can tell you,
Doctor, I'm not looking forward to this. I must make an official
condolence call. And there's nothing worse than sitting in a stuffy
mag'ad
accepting the hospitality of a
Bedouin sheik. We all know they hate our guts, but their culture
requires them to be hospitable and feed all visitors, including
Jews, who they particularly despise. And for my part, I can't stand
roasted sheep testicles and their syrupy coffee. The delivery of a
body that should take a few minutes will take the better part of a
day."

"Will they help you find the killer?"

"To an extent, but when we do, they won't
want us to punish him. Bedouin have their own brand of vengeance.
The minute I return this corpse, I'm setting into motion another
killing. Who's exactly? That's never clear because it's not
necessarily the original killer. And these days, their young
stallions study in the universities and pass themselves off as city
Arabs. Revenge can have a long-reach, far from the desert."

"Can't you do anything to stop this?"

"Not unless the government is willing to
endure a Bedouin rebellion. These are proud people who know only
one brand of justice—their own."

"So you'll go slow tracking down the killer."
The doctor flashed a conspiratorial smile in Zabronski's
direction.

The policeman started to reply but stopped
himself, thinking it unwise to disclose his department's
not-so-pretty law-enforcement practices in the Occupied
Territory.

From the morgue, Zabronski made a second official
visit. Galya Bar Jehoshua, with the insignia of a colonel in the
Israel Defense Force on her shoulders, met him in her Jerusalem
office with a handshake as strong as his. The police officer noted
her tiny, but somewhat heavy, figure, immediately accrediting her
success in the IDF to brains rather than brawn. She dropped back
into her chair and motioned for him to take a seat opposite her,
removing a pair of reading glasses she had perched on her forehead.
A young female enlistee brought coffee in fired clay mugs.