The Gates of Zion (53 page)

She unwrapped the big box in front of her, trying not to tear the paper. Lifting the lid, she pulled the wadded newspaper out from around the present. She gasped as the glistening black body of a new Speed Graphix was revealed. Gently she lifted it from the box and cradled it on her lap. A note dangled from the lens:
For the woman who etched the face of God’s chosen on the hearts of
the world. I am proud of you.

David

“Merry Christmas, David.” She sighed. “Thank you.”

Then she turned off the stove and switched off the light, too tired for tea after all.

33

The Tomb

When Howard opened his eyes, the door in the alcove of the church swung slowly on its creaking hinges. He scrambled for the revolver, feeling beads of perspiration form on his forehead as he waited for the face of Hassan to peer in the door. It was still dark outside, but he could make out the soft gray shadow of the donkey outside the door. After a moment he laid Moshe on the stone floor and stood to peer out the door. The street was deserted. Even the old man had gone, leaving the little donkey loose on the end of her rope.

Howard had no way of knowing how long he had slept, but he felt refreshed. He touched his wrist for the watch he had left at home, wishing he had an idea of what time it was.

He returned to where Moshe lay and felt the pulse in his neck. His heart was still strong. “Moshe,” he called. “Moshe.”

“Where am I?” Moshe moaned softly.

“In church, boy. Help me. Get up. We’ve got to get these scrolls back to Jerusalem. We’ve got to warn your men about Rabbi Akiva. And we’ve got to get you to a safe hospital.”

Moshe struggled to sit, wincing with pain. When at last he was on his feet, he leaned on Howard, and together they left their hiding place.

Howard boosted Moshe onto the donkey, then clucked the animal into motion, sighing as they passed from the confines of the town and back along the road he hoped would take them to Jerusalem―or at the very least, into the refuge of Mar Elias Monastery―before daylight.

***

Dressed in the uniform of a British officer, Gerhardt looked strangely out of place as he knelt in prayer beside Haj Amin in his private mosque on the grounds of the Dome of the Rock.

Haj Amin lifted his face from the darkness of the eastern sky and turned to Gerhardt. “We have no doubts about the success of your mission,” he said serenely.

“I am most honored that you would rise so early to pray on my behalf.” Gerhardt washed his hands in the bowl set before him.

“It is never too early to beseech Allah, the ever-merciful lord of the universe, on behalf of our people here in Palestine.” Haj Amin flicked the water from his fingers, then dried them on a towel extended by his servant. He rose slowly as Gerhardt waited respectfully, then stood.

“And what is the word from Hassan and Kadar?” Gerhardt asked.

The Mufti waved his hand, dismissing his servant. He smiled reluctantly. “Alas, I fear Hassan is somewhat of a bungler. Our quarry escaped. Mortally wounded, so says Hassan. He has members of the Jihad Moquades fanning the countryside at this very moment.

They will be found,” he said assuringly. He put his slender hand on Gerhardt’s back. “Ah, but you are our general, are you not? And what you do this morning shall shake the foundations of the world.”

“Let us hope that the Jews will see their folly and give up.”

They walked toward the luxurious residence of Haj Amin. “And if they do not, it will make little difference. What was that little song the Führer used to sing? ‘Crush the skulls of the Jewish pack and the future, it is ours and won.’ Eh?”

Stars still glistened in the sky as Gerhardt looked upward. “Those were good times.”

“And these will be better; you shall see. Are you sure you have not time for coffee?”

“I am indeed honored. But the trucks are waiting. Soon it will be daylight.”

Haj Amin nodded with understanding. “This is only the beginning for us, Gerhardt. Do well and there is no end to the heights you may scale.”

***

Howard and the little donkey with Moshe on her back had plodded nearly a mile already. Now the towers of Mar Elias Monastery loomed beyond a sharp bend in the road. Small lights seemed to dance across the hillsides surrounding them, and a large bonfire blocked the road a quarter mile ahead as they rounded the outcropping of limestone cliffs.

“Hassan didn’t waste any time,” Howard said aloud.

Moshe raised his head and glanced to the east. “Soon it will be dawn, and we are finished.”

The first light of day outlined the jagged black hills with a thin line.

Hassan had obviously set his trap very well. He had gone ahead to the Arab stronghold of Talpiyoth, where young Jihad Moquades had flocked joyfully to the first call of Haj Amin. They were strong and tough and knew every inch of this territory.

“But you’ve got the advantage of age,” Howard muttered to himself.

“You old fool, after twenty-eight years of rooting around for old pots, you think they know this place better than you?”

“What are you saying?” Moshe asked weakly.

“Nothing,” Howard answered. “Lean on me.” They followed the road for a few more yards; then Howard glowered at the lights ahead. He turned and looked behind them. A pair of headlights swept toward them. “We’ve got to get off the main highway, Moshe. Can you stand the jolting?”

“Yes,” Moshe said, wincing as Howard led the donkey down an incline and into a ditch.

Howard laid the scrolls on the ground and quickly helped Moshe slide from the donkey. “Get down, close to the bank,” he instructed.

Turning the head of the animal away from the oncoming car so her eyes would not reflect the headlights, Howard lay down flat behind her and waited. He hardly dared to breathe as the engine shifted into second gear to begin the long pull up the road to the waiting group of Jihad Moquades.

For a moment the headlights shone on the bank behind them. Howard closed his eyes and prayed as shadows danced around him. Then the red glow of the taillights diminished in a swirling cloud of dust as the engine whined up the slope.

Howard stood and looped the lead rope around the branch of a shrub. He knelt beside Moshe. “Are you still with me, boy?”

“I can go … no farther,” Moshe replied haltingly.

“Of course you can.” Howard rubbed his hand over his mouth, swallowing the fear that pushed against his own throat. “You just feel like you can’t.” He looked around wildly, noticing the glimmer of three more torches bobbing toward them. One extended far over the edge of the bank, illuminating the rocks and brush just one hundred yards from where they lay. His mouth went dry as he heard the cry:

“Yehudah! Yehud!”

Moshe lay with his head against the dirt bank. His face was as white as the limestone around him. “Please go, Howard. Take the scrolls.”

Howard wrapped Moshe’s arm around his shoulder and tugged him to his feet. “Did I ever tell you about the time in the Argonne?” He panted. “The Germans were lobbing gas into the trenches, and even the rats were running.” He bent down and slung the scrolls over his other shoulder. “Lost my gas mask. Thought I was a goner,” he whispered, more to himself than Moshe. “Thought I’d never be that scared again.”

He propped Moshe against the donkey, then pushed him across her back. Moshe cried out once and then was silent. Howard felt his friend go limp, and he was thankful—at least Moshe was no longer conscious of the pain. The torches seemed to respond to the sound, bobbing more rapidly toward them.

“Yehudah!”

Howard scrambled over a pile of brush and headed due east, where the crack of daylight was growing ever wider. The surefooted little beast followed him through the shrubs and up over a hillside.

Howard glanced around him. In five more minutes they would be an easy target. He looked to the north, to where the monastery loomed, then back toward Bethlehem.

Suddenly he slapped his forehead at his own stupidity. He stood not more than twenty-five yards from the very archaeological dig he had worked at only three months before. Quickly he slid Moshe over his own shoulder, astonished at how light he felt. He removed the halter from the donkey and whipped her into a frenzied gallop toward the approaching men. He turned and scrambled as fast as he could, trying not to stumble over rocks and bushes as he made his way to a rock wall fifteen feet high.

“Somewhere along here …” Howard picked his way along the wall, touching its rough surface for support. He searched the bottom edge of the wall for an opening that led to a first-century tomb chamber beneath the shrubs. The opening was only two feet square so that artifact seekers and robbers could not plunder its contents. Howard stumbled onto a large pile of rocks and rubble. He froze. He had gone the wrong direction—twenty yards, maybe more.

He glanced anxiously toward the torches, now directly across from him, gathered in a circle in the road. He turned and scrambled back to the north along the wall, clutching Moshe and the scrolls as he counted his footsteps back from the rubble heap. “Fifteen, sixteen.”

He glanced anxiously toward the sun, praying that he would find their refuge before daylight slammed into the darkness and left them as exposed targets lined up against the wall for the firing squad.

“Twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six. You’ve missed it.”

He turned and slowly retraced the last six steps, finally falling to his knees and laying Moshe down, feeling beneath the brush for the opening.
God, God. Where is it, God?
He reached out and suddenly put his hand into a hole only inches from where he had walked. He dropped the scrolls into it with a thud, then dragged Moshe feetfirst until his legs dangled in the hole from the knees down.

“I’m going down first,” he whispered. “Then I’ll pull you in.”

Moshe moaned in response.

Howard scrambled over his friend’s body, then dropped into an antechamber of the tomb as the first shaft of light split the night like an explosion. He grabbed Moshe and pulled with all his might as daylight raced across the land and beamed into the shaft where they tumbled to the soft earth.

***

David awoke to the fogged windows of his Plymouth. The first light of morning filtered in, accompanied by the steady roar of heavy trucks.

“Where am I?” he said aloud, sitting up and feeling the clout of last night’s Scotch. Rubbing a small round peephole on the window, David peered out as an armored car moaned past, followed by two huge British army cargo trucks.

David tried to start the car, but it responded with a solitary click every time he turned the key. He had left the lights on last night. The battery was dead. He wiped the windshield with his sleeve, laughing at himself as he recognized the familiar shops of Ben Yehuda and the still-blinking neon sign of the Atlantic Hotel three blocks away.

The army trucks slowed to a halt in front of the hotel—gears shifting lower and engines sputtering to a stop. David frowned and squinted.

“What are they doing?”

Suddenly the doors of the trucks flew open, and four men scrambled out and ran toward the armored car.

“What the … ?” David began.

He watched as the men clambered into the car, which roared and sped away from the trucks.

David reached for the door handle, then froze in fear with the certainty of what was about to happen. “They’re going to blow us up!” he shouted, throwing his door wide and jumping onto the pavement. “It’s a bomb! A bomb!” he cried into the quiet morning air.

An instant later a flash of white light ripped through the street as the trucks exploded. Two tons of dynamite sent a thousand white-hot shards of steel through the walls of buildings, collapsing them like firecrackers bursting inside a house of cards. David saw only the light. He did not hear the blast that tore the souls from Ben Yehuda Street and the Atlantic Hotel on Christmas morning.

***

Howard lit a candle from a stash of supplies that had been left behind during excavation. He rummaged through a knapsack, finding a Coke and a rotten orange. He threw the orange to the ground, and it rolled down the shaft and dropped into the main room of the tomb.

“What is it?” breathed Moshe.

“The last of Tommy’s lunch.” Howard dug into the knapsack again and took out a paper-wrapped piece of cheese. “Not in bad shape,”

he said after he’d unwrapped it.

“I’m thirsty,” Moshe said with difficulty.

“I’ve got just the thing.” He helped Moshe scoot down the shaft and through a small opening into the dusty gloom of a chamber ten feet square by four feet high with an oblong pit sunk in the center of the floor to give standing room. The museum had long since removed the bones of the first-century Christians who had been buried here. Now all that remained were six crypts in which bodies had been sealed until the flesh decomposed. The candle flickered eerily inside the chamber. Howard held it until wax dripped on the stone and then he set the candle in it. He settled Moshe against a wall and went back to the shaft to recover the scrolls.

He gazed at the bright sunlight streaming in through the opening.

“God help us,” he whispered, then he gathered the treasures and slid back toward the tomb chamber. He stopped short as he saw again the ashen face of Moshe and heard his shallow breathing. Shaking his head with concern, Howard climbed into the room.

“All the comforts of home,” he said cheerfully, depositing the scrolls next to Moshe. He pulled the Coke from the knapsack and popped the top from it on the ledge of the tomb. His own throat burned with thirst, but he held the bottle to Moshe’s lips and helped him sip. “Go easy,” he warned. “Just a little bit at a time.”

Moshe sighed gratefully and stared at the candle. “Thank you.” He watched Howard cram the lid back on the bottle and lean it against the wall. “What about you?”

“Not thirsty. You know how I am about warm Coke, eh?”

Moshe did not argue; instead, he looked at Howard. “You are a good friend. You could have gone ahead. The countryside is covered by now with the Jihad Moquades. What if they find us, Howard?”