The Gates of Zion (51 page)

“I have not had the pleasure.” The Arab sneered toward Moshe.

“This is the brother of your dead wife-to-be’s lover, Kadar,” Hassan interjected.

Kadar shot Hassan an angry glance, silencing him momentarily. “You are the Zionist, Moshe Sachar, are you not?” Kadar’s hand rose, also revealing a revolver.

Moshe glanced at the gun. “And what have you done with the Bedouins? Are they dead, too?”

“Oh no,” Hassan said. “They were most happy to assist us in our little party tonight. Most happy to leave the scrolls and scurry back to their tents. But you shall not worry. These scrolls will find their way into the hand of a Jew. The chief rabbi of the Old City has purchased them.”

“And what was the price?”

Hassan smiled, delaying his answer as long as possible to increase Moshe’s agony. “Information, my dear Moshe. And the blood of your pitiful little band of Haganah soldiers behind the walls of the Old City.”

Moshe glanced quickly at Howard; the realization that Akiva had sold out was clear on his face. “I see. Men for the scrolls. So the Mufti has a trained ape inside the Jewish Quarter as well as outside.”

Hassan lunged forward, slamming the barrel of his gun across Moshe’s cheek.

Moshe fell hard against the wall, barely missing Moddy’s clay water pots that stood stacked precariously all the way to the ceiling.

***

Inside Moddy’s shop, Howard jumped to his feet and rushed toward a dazed Moshe. But the old professor was stopped abruptly by the thrust of Kadar’s pistol barrel in his middle.

“And who are you, little man?” Kadar asked contemptuously.

Howard met Kadar’s stare with defiant silence.

“It does not matter,” Kadar retorted. “You are just as dead without a name.”

Ral Irman snickered as Moshe moaned and tried to sit up.

Kadar twisted Howard’s arm hard behind his back, then shoved him down beside Moshe. “Get on your knees. Kneel, I say. Next to this vermin Jew.”

Howard knelt beside Moshe, glancing around the room.
My last
sight will be of ancient clay pots and artifacts in such disarray as
to scare the life out of any archaeologist. A fitting end for one in
my profession.
He heard Hassan cock his gun and looked into the mouth of the barrel, strangely at peace.

“Wait!” shouted Ral Irman, rushing forward. “Do not shoot them yet.

Their pockets are filled with hundred-pound notes, and you will make them bloody!” he whined. “You promised me their money for my part. You promised!”

“You!” Hassan snapped at Howard. “Empty your pockets. Slowly.”

Howard emptied his pockets, reaching beneath his robes and pulling out his wallet, which he tossed on the floor.

“Now his.” Hassan pointed the gun at Moshe, who shook his head, as if attempting to clear his mind as Howard reached toward him.

Howard caught Moshe’s eyes and held them. They were full of a message, full of meaning. Howard frowned and lifted Moshe’s robe.

Moshe glanced toward the stack of pots, then quickly closed his eyes again. Howard reached for Moshe’s wallet, feeling a cold rush of adrenaline as his hand brushed the hard steel of the .38.

“No tricks. You are a dead man anyway,” Kadar warned. “Bring your hand out slowly.”

Howard felt the presence of the two guns trained on him. He could never outshoot them both. His hand tightened around the pistol grip.

He glanced at the jars, suddenly knowing what he must do. “I have it here.”

Pointing the revolver through the cloth of Moshe’s robe, Howard squeezed the trigger. The bullet exploded through the cloth and into the bottom row of jars, sending shards of clay into every corner of the shop. The wall of teetering jars crashed down upon the startled heads of Hassan and Kadar and Ral Irman.

Hassan shrieked and fired his gun as the avalanche of pottery caused a chain reaction of jars falling from the walls behind them.

Moshe cried out and gripped his upper arm as Hassan’s bullet slammed into him, splintering the bone and passing through the other side.

Howard jerked Moshe to his feet and, supporting him, half dragged him over the pieces of jars that littered the floor. He grabbed the leather pouch and the scroll of Isaiah as he hurried through the curtains and into the back room, where a stairway led down to the street. There, on the floor, was Moddy, soaked in his own blood, his gentle brown eyes gazing in sightless horror.

It would be only seconds, Howard knew, before the murderers would recover and pursue them. “Come on, Moshe!” he cried. “Get your feet under you, boy! I can’t carry you!” Howard threw the back door wide and dragged Moshe out.

In monumental effort, Moshe gasped and leaned on Howard. The cold outside air helped bring him to his senses in spite of his wound, and Howard guided him quickly down the steep stairway and onto the street below.

Howard glanced up as Hassan, framed in the doorway, aimed and shot at them. The bullet ricocheted off the cobblestones only inches from his feet. Howard raised Moshe’s gun and, without bothering to aim, shot back, causing Hassan to dive back into the shop for cover.

“Come on, Moshe! We’ve bought some time at least!”

32

Sanctuary

Ellie clutched the frayed rope around Shaul’s neck tightly. He pulled her through the dark streets of the Old City like a hound on a hunt. Often the dog’s path took Ellie beneath low overhangs and around pails of overflowing garbage in tiny alleys, but Ellie had to give him credit; he seemed to be going
somewhere
.

“Are you sure this is out, dog?” she muttered breathlessly, uncertain whether she should have trusted her safety to a shaggy, four-legged beast.

“Shaul will take you home,” Yacov had guaranteed. “But you must not let go of the rope, or he will be home and you will be where you wish you were not.” Then the boy had whispered some magic words to Shaul, and off they had gone.

Right now, as they squeezed through an alley, upsetting stinking garbage cans that rolled and clattered after them, Ellie was tempted to follow her own nose to cleaner air. But she hung on, scrambling up the steps in the final ascent to Mendelbaum Gate. Up ahead four young Hasidic guards lounged indolently on the sandbags.

“
Shalom!”
Ellie called as Shaul dragged her toward their outpost.

“Halt!” cried the same young man whom Yacov had greeted by name. The men jumped to attention and blocked their path. “You cannot go from here. You must go back,” he instructed.

Shaul growled and the hair on his ruff bristled as he and Ellie stood before the men. “Easy.” Ellie stroked his head. “I have to get to the New City,” she explained as Shaul growled once again.

The four men stepped back a pace. They spoke rapidly to one another in a language Ellie did not recognize, then directed their attention back to her. “Rebbe Akiva and a small group of rabbis have gone to pray at the Wailing Wall this night, as they have always done on Hanukkah. They have not returned, and we fear for their safety.

Surely the Arabs have taken them, and you, a woman, may not safely pass into the streets beyond this point,” one of the men explained.

“Have you sent word to the British soldiers at Zion Gate?” she asked.

The oldest guard laughed bitterly. “And what shall they do? Arrest us for standing guard; that is all.”

“I’ve got to get to the New City!” Ellie insisted, staring past them into the dark corridors of the next sector.

“Madame,” said another in a thick French accent, “you do not understand—”

“I understand perfectly. A man’s life is at stake; you may be too proud to ask for help, but I am not.”

The sound of shuffling feet beyond the barricade stopped her midsentence. The guards whirled around and took their positions behind the barricade.

“Halt!” cried one in a shaky voice. “Who goes there!”

From the dark street, vague shadows moved toward them. Ellie pushed Shaul’s rump into a sitting position and sat down on the cobblestones beside him.

“Who goes there!” a guard demanded again.

The older guard had drawn a revolver from between two sandbags, and the barrel gleamed in the starlight.

“Rebbe Akiva,” came the solemn reply.

A cheer went up among the little band, and they scrambled to remove the barrier and open the passage for the stout bear of a rabbi and his group of four others.

“Welcome, Rebbe!” they cried. “We feared for your safety when you did not return.”

“When will you learn?” Akiva answered harshly. “This barrier is unnecessary. Our friends mean us no harm. The Haganah and the Zionists are the enemies of our peace in the Old City.”

“Were you not stopped by the Arabs?”

“Though the other rabbis refuse to join us, we are living proof that there is yet goodwill. There is no need for all of this―” He gestured angrily toward the barricade. His hands fell to his sides when he saw Ellie still sitting near the edge of the barricade. “And what is this?” he sneered. “Have you taken all your photographs?” He eyed her carefully.

Ellie couldn’t help but shiver. She wondered if the pompous rabbi noticed that she seemed much thinner than during their first meeting of the day.

“You! You are a journalist, you say! Well, take a photograph of this, for we are the only sane men left in Jewish Palestine!” He drew himself to his full height and glowered down at her.

“Rabbi Lebowitz is very ill. He needs an ambulance,” Ellie said softly. “Do you think there is a way―”

“Rebbe Lebowitz!” Akiva spat the name. “A traitor. God’s punishment is just.” His eyes narrowed. And then, surprisingly, he smiled at Ellie. “But go, child. You see, we have walked the streets of the Arab Quarter and no harm has come to us. Go, if you must.”

Ellie stared up at him, drawing a breath as if to speak; then she looked at the guards, who stood shamefaced against the barricade.

“Come on, Shaul,” she said to the dog. She passed out of the safety of the compound and into the no-man’s-land of the street beyond.

The sound of Shaul’s paws scrabbling over the stones mingled with her heavy breathing. There was no other sound along the empty corridor. Darkness pressed heavily against her mind. She imagined a face in every shadow, a hand reaching out from every alleyway. Her hands grew clammy, and a cold knot formed in the pit of her stomach. She suddenly wished she had taken the time to find a bathroom before she left the safety of the Old City. “You’re scared, Ellie old girl,” she said to herself. “Still watching, God?”

As they turned a corner, Shaul stopped in his tracks, sending Ellie tumbling over the top of him onto the pavement. She cried out and groped for the end of the rope. Shaul growled, then backed a step.

Ellie caught her breath and shivered in her sweat-soaked blouse.

“What is it?” she whispered to the dog.

Fearful, she grabbed the rope and pulled the dog tightly to where she sat, wrapping her arms around his neck. She whirled around as footsteps closed in behind her.

Twenty feet from her in the other direction, a shadowy figure stepped from between two deserted buildings. Three more men followed behind him, their robes billowing, ghostlike, in the wind.

Ellie cried out and struggled to scramble to her feet. She searched for a way of escape, but both routes were cut off. She backed up until she slammed against a wall, dropping Shaul’s rope.

The big dog barked, then snarled and charged away from her, passing through the legs of the startled Arabs as they closed the circle around Ellie. “Shaul!” she cried. “Come back!”

One of the Arabs gave a short, brutal laugh. “We have been searching for you, Haganah woman. Your dog will not save you.”

“You’ve made a mistake.” Ellie held her camera out. “I’m a news photographer, you see,” she said in a panicked rush.

“So this is the picture taker,” a voice whined from beneath the checkered keffiyeh on her right. She could not see their faces, only the shadows framed by the light head coverings. Eight men now pushed nearer to her.

“Y-yes. For
LIFE
magazine.”

“Ah, a woman journalist.” The voice sounded with a crisp British accent. “You are the one we have been looking for.”

Others nodded, and an argument broke out as one of the men brushed her neck with his fingertips.

“Where are the others, Haganah woman?” a voice demanded.

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” Ellie tried to sound calm and defiant. “I am an American citizen, and I demand that you―”

A white-clad figure grasped her by the throat and pushed his body hard against hers. “You demand nothing, woman!” he snarled, his hot breath filling her nostrils.

“Let me go!” She struggled against him.

“We shall let you go—before Haj Amin. But first we shall have our way with you, Haganah woman!” His hand began to wander over her body in a too-familiar way.

“P-please.” She choked. She felt as if she were going to be sick.

“Break that door down!” the man shouted. A rattle of gunfire sounded as the lock was blown from the door of a deserted house.

Ellie screamed as two men dragged her toward the darkness of the doorway. Hands reached out, touching her, and she kicked out against them. “Let me go!” she cried.

Inside the building someone lit a lamp, and it flickered dimly on a rough wooden table. The men tore at her clothes and slammed her roughly onto the floor.

As the jeering, shouting men swarmed around her, she screamed, “God! Help me!”

Suddenly the burst of Sten gun fire exploded from the doorway.

Bullets crashed into the ceiling, sending plaster cascading down on Ellie and the men. The Arabs leaped up and whirled around. The laughing stopped, and instantly silence fell.

Ellie closed her eyes as sobs racked her body. Then she heard the low growl of Shaul.

From the door came the voice of Captain Luke Thomas. “Having a bit of fun here, are you, lads?”

Ellie opened her eyes as the Arabs backed away from her, their eyes riveted on Luke’s Sten gun.

“She is Haganah!” shouted a young Arab. “She smuggles weapons into the Jews. We are told this. Arrest her!”