The Caleb Collection Read online

  “We are walking on Islam’s third most holy site, Ismael, behind only Mecca and Medina,” his father said.

  Ismael did not respond.

  “How is that possible when this same piece of ground is the Jew’s Temple Mount? Their most holy place.”

  “Their claim’s illegitimate,” Ismael said. “They’ve manufactured a lie by saying that their Temple was built here. It’s always been holy ground for Islam.”

  “Yes, of course. But it’s still their most holy site. And yet whose guards do you see patrolling the Mount? The Waqf. Muslim guards patrol Jewish land. The Jews cannot even come up here to pray. Instead, they are confined below, at the Western Wall where they wail. We control their Temple Mount. You don’t see our victory in that? The irony? It is like the Jews taking Mecca from us.”

  “And they have Jerusalem—the legitimate capital of Palestine!”

  “Yes, they have Jerusalem. And encircling Jerusalem, we have the West Bank, which is encircled by Israel, which is in turn encircled by the Arab states. Concentric circles of opposing forces, but we rule the heart. This piece of ground we are walking on now. The holy place.”

  “And the West stands around us all, biding its time,” Ismael said.

  “The West is more friendly every day. One step at a time, Ismael. Today we make the Jews bow at the foot of our mosque”—he dipped his head at the Western Wall on their right—“and tomorrow we will push them into the sea.”

  “And what if today we have their Temple Mount but tomorrow the Jews take it? It’s here, on this plot of land, that our fate rests. All your other concentric circles will stand or fall with this one. They may not be admitting it, but Jews already have a plan for retaking the Temple Mount, and one day they will overwhelm us with it. We must strike first.”

  His father stopped and stared westward to the Jewish Quarter. The breeze carried a Muslim prayer call from the north.

  “I agree with you, Ismael—we can never allow Israeli control of the Noble Sanctuary. But unlike you I don’t think they have a plan for retaking it. In fact, we have their government shaking in its boots. We surround them on all sides, we march our Waqf on their Temple site, and we refuse them entrance. If they sincerely believed that the Mount should be theirs, they would have taken it many years ago. If they tried it now, the world of Islam would descend on Jerusalem with a vengeance they could never survive— they know that as well as we do.”

  Ismael spit to the side. “We should descend on Jerusalem now. We pick away at their skirts but refuse to go for their heart.”

  His father ignored his disgraceful act. “You think Israel’s allies would stand by for an unprovoked attack? Don’t be naive.”

  Ismael walked on and his father followed. They had always disagreed in degrees. Ismael lived his days soaking in the rhetoric of the PLO in Ramallah, and, frankly, hearing his father talk like this sounded odd. As if the mighty Syrian general had turned his back on the intifada and sided with the politicians who talked too much and did too little. A Palestinian state was not enough. The Jews had to be crushed. Both the ’73 war and the ’67 war could have been different if it weren’t for the old guard. They did a fine enough job fighting with words, but when it came to tanks and machine guns they were like women.

  His father was not like the old guard, of course. He knew how to use the tanks under his command and his hatred for Israel was as properly motivated as Ismael’s. The Jews had forcefully occupied Palestinian territory for many years, forcing millions of women and children from their homes; that was reason enough to hate. But there was more—the Jews’ religion was an open affront to Islam and in fact the dispute over the Temple Mount crowned the struggle. And of course they had murdered Hamil. Ismael’s older brother, Abu’s elder son. Hamil had been the second in command of Arafat’s Fatah when he took a sniper’s bullet.

  Ismael looked at his father. “A leader will come to the Jews and will conquer Islam—”

  “I know the prophecies of the al-Massih,” Abu interrupted. “It’s also prophesied that the prophet Jesus will then come back to defeat the Jews and establish Islam as the world’s only religion. Let us allow prophecy to run its own course. For now we must be careful to play the cards given us by the world. Any unjustified attack on Israel would only erode sympathies, which are now in the Palestinians’ favor.”

  A small wedge of bitterness rose through Ismael’s throat. He despised this kind of talk. His father had the power to deliver all of Palestine in one fell swoop with his armies, but instead he talked about world sympathies.

  “And if the cards show a plan by the Israelis to retake the Temple Mount? Will you let your tanks sit rusting then?”

  Abu shot him a stern glare. They were both soldiers now, but the general was the elder. Ismael held his eyes.

  “Don’t be a fool! Your patriotism pales next to mine.” Abu turned away, and for a brief moment Ismael fought an urge to strike him. He shuddered in the dark.

  The impulse surprised him. Maybe the killing had thinned his blood. The little green pin on his collar identified him as a sharpshooter who had killed more Jews than any other since Ramadan—a badge he wore with pride. But his father was not a Jew.

  “Believe me, I will never allow the Jews to take the Mount,” Abu Ismael said softly. “The Haram al-Sharif is to Islam what blood is to the body.”

  Feet pattered on the stone behind them. It was the boy, Bennie, finally come from his assignment. Ismael took a calming breath.

  The boy slowed to a walk. He looked as Jewish as he did Palestinian, a product of a mixed marriage. The plan had been simple. A week earlier, one of their operatives had learned from the boy’s mother—a secular Falasha Jew—that Bennie was assisting an old blind rabbi who was meeting with David Ben Solomon. They had taken the mother yesterday and told the boy she would die if he did not report. The Mossad did not corner the market on information.

  The boy stopped before them, winded.

  “Well?” Ismael demanded.

  Bennie glanced nervously at the general.

  “You’re safe here, boy. I suggest you begin speaking. Did the old bat meet with Solomon?”

  “Where is my mother?”

  “Waiting to see you. Speak.”

  “Yes. They talked for a long time.”

  A ball of hope turned in Ismael’s gut. He had wanted to impress his father with this show of intelligence gathering. Who knew, the boy might actually have something.

  “And what did they talk about?”

  “About the Ark.”

  “The Ark?”

  “The Ark of the Covenant. Rabbi Hadane told them where it is.”

  At first the boy’s words didn’t register. They knew that Solomon had taken up an interest in ancient artifacts, working with Zakkai from the Antiquities Society this past year or so. Solomon obviously wanted to construct evidence about the Temple that would help persuade his people to rebuild it. But the Ark?

  His father cleared his throat. “What do you mean?”

  “The rabbi is from Ethiopia. He says that the Ark from King Solomon’s Temple is there. He told them how to find it.”

  Ismael blinked. His breathing stopped. A stun grenade could have been dropped thirty meters away at that moment and he might not have noticed. He turned slowly to his father who was glaring at the boy.

  “You are saying that Solomon actually believed the man?” Abu asked. “They think they know where the Ark is?”

  “Yes. They had a letter that showed it. The woman is going tomorrow to get it.”

  Even in the dim light Ismael could see his father’s face go white. “Tomorrow?” He grabbed the boy’s shirt. “This is not a time to play with words! The Ark is a myth!”

  “Please . . . please, sir! I’m only telling you what I heard.” Tears filled the boy’s eyes.

  “Is this possible?” Ismael asked. “Could they actually find the Ark?”

  Abu Ismael released the boy.

  The initial shock began t
o give way to heat, which spread down Ismael’s neck. “If they were to find the Ark and bring it to Jerusalem, it would mean—”

  “I know what it would mean!” Abu said.

  Ismael finished anyway. “They would demand the Temple Mount to rebuild their Temple!” It was something they all knew. According to legend, Solomon’s Temple had been built to house the Ark. If the Ark were found, the people of the book would not rest until the Temple was rebuilt.

  Abu Ismael studied the boy. “Do you think the Ark is really where the man said it was?”

  The boy shifted nervously. “When they read the letter—”

  “Father, we have to stop them!” Ismael interrupted.

  “We don’t even know it exists,” Abu said. “We are hearing a boy who’s telling of a story told by an old blind rabbi.”

  “You heard him. Solomon believes it!” Ismael turned to the boy. “Who is the woman?”

  “Solomon’s daughter. Rebecca.”

  “Rebecca Solomon!” Ismael felt a tremble take to his fingers. “Hamil’s killer.”

  A long unearthly silence seemed to suffocate them. Surely his father would forget his political nonsense now. The Hamas didn’t need the general, of course—the Syrian army had no immediate authority here. But one day the Palestinians would need the Syrian army.

  “If this is true—”

  “Please, leave us until we call you,” Abu said to the boy.

  The boy ran off towards the steps.

  “I am with you,” Abu said. A familiar tension filled his father’s voice. He hadn’t become a general by kissing babies. “But it must be done quietly. If even a rumor surfaces that they have found the Ark, true or not, it will become a problem. And not just for the Palestinians. The entire Arab world will be affected.”

  The words came like honey, and Ismael felt a sudden surge of adrenaline sweep through his bones. The Hamas had failed to kill Rebecca Solomon on three separate occasions. This time he would not fail. Could not fail.

  “You must find out what she knows before you kill her,” Abu said.

  “Yes. Of course.” Ismael’s voice cracked and he cleared his throat.

  “I assume you have the people you need for this?”

  “I prefer to work alone,” Ismael said. “It’s something I do well.”

  Abu looked at him, but Ismael could not judge his expression. Ismael’s mind was already gone—after the girl. You will soon die, Rebecca. They could never prove her involvement in Hamil’s death, but now it didn’t matter. She would die either way.

  “Take at least two others. The best you have,” Abu said. “You can’t afford a mistake on this. If I thought it would help, I would send you a couple of my men, but we don’t have time for that.”

  “Yes.” And your men don’t know how to kill, Father. Not like I do. They may have big guns and bombs but they carry their knives like women.

  “ . . . cannot allow this to spread,” his father was saying. “We can’t make the same mistake Solomon did with the boy. Find out everything the boy knows and then kill him.”

  “Of course.”

  Ismael smiled. He had decided to kill the boy a week ago. Now his father was not only agreeing with the decision, but ordering it.

  The sound of music drifted on the breeze. It was going to be a good night, he thought. A glorious night.

  3

  Rebecca had planned the mission with her father and Avraham late into the night. She would lead Avraham, Dr. Zakkai, and ten men south to the port city of Eilat where they would board the Ellipsis, an Antiquities Society freighter at Zakkai’s disposal. Dressed in the common garb of archaeologists and diggers, they would sail sixteen hundred kilometers directly south through the Red Sea, to Massawa, on the coast of Eritrea. The journey would take them two days. From Massawa they would strike west into Ethiopia, to the remote monastery the blind rabbi had told them about, apprehend Caleb and extract the Ark, if it was found, and then immediately return to Jerusalem.

  What they would do then was hardly imaginable.

  According to the Falasha priest, the monastery Debra Damarro rarely accommodated visitors. Caleb and his parents ran the rebuilt compound and worked among lepers in a nearby village. God willing, no one would even know the monastery had been taken. They would be gone from Ethiopia before an alarm could be raised.

  Rebecca kept one hand on the wheel and removed her cap, allowing the wind to stream through her hair. She glanced back at the trailing open-bed truck, an old Nissan, hauling ten men who looked like nothing more than diggers for hire—a common enough sight in these barren hills. But the crates marked with large Antiquities labels at their feet didn’t hold the clay pots a curious onlooker might imagine. There was enough metal in those crates to take a small armed fort. They had sailed past three Israeli checkpoints with hardly a glance.

  Beside her Zakkai sat in the Land Rover staring at the winding blacktop.

  “Do you think we will find it, Professor?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I have been over the old man’s story a dozen times . . . To be honest I don’t know why I ignored the signs. We’ve always discounted the Ethiopian theory because of the ridiculous inconstancies in the Kebra Nagast. But to listen to the old priest, the inconsistencies are not the point at all.” He shook his head again. “The circumstantial evidence alone, put as he put it, is daunting.”

  “After two years of chasing every possible lead in Israel, we’re suddenly confronted with the possibility of finding the Ark in Ethiopia. It seems impossible,” Rebecca said.

  Zakkai stared out his window. “The writers of Jewish history, including the Bible, fell mysteriously silent after the reign of Manasseh. But then, if the priests had taken the Ark, they would’ve remained silent. In a strange way it makes perfect sense. You don’t hide something and then tell everyone where you hid it.”

  “But you’re not sure.”

  He faced her. “Sure? Of course I’m not sure. How could I be sure about finding something that has eluded the world for twenty-six hundred years? But . . .” Zakkai paused and she saw the glimmer in his eyes. “I do believe there is a reasonable chance. Although to be honest, I can hardly imagine what will happen if we do find it.”

  Avraham spoke from the rear seat. “War will happen. A million Arabs will die in the desert.”

  Rebecca studied the man in the rearview mirror. His short-cropped hair exposed an ugly scar on his temple, a gift from a knife-wielding PLO assassin who had barely missed his right eye. The cut had sliced into Avraham’s heart, Rebecca thought. The IDF major had subsequently been relieved of his command for his repeated use of unnecessary violence in skirmishes. The Israeli Defense Force might seem liberal in its use of force, but even they had their limits.

  “You’re too eager for blood, Avraham,” Rebecca said.

  “I am? This from Israel’s most celebrated assassin?”

  “When I killed, I did so for God, not for blood. And even then with discretion.”

  The man sneered. “We’ll see what happens to your discretion if we return to Jerusalem with the Ark. The Arabs’ missiles will be flying, and you won’t have time to think about either God or discretion.”

  “We have no intention of letting Arab missiles fly. If we show restraint, they will as well. It’s a lesson you could learn. Either way, as long as you’re under my command you’ll kill only who I tell you to kill.”

  “Of course,” he replied with a bite of sarcasm.

  “Yes, sir, would be adequate. Or have you forgotten how to address your superiors?”

  He flushed red and hesitated. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that we had joined the army. Army commanders don’t stop and cry at their mother’s graves before a mission.”

  Rebecca blinked at his reference to her graveyard visit a few hours earlier, on their way out of Jerusalem. “You may not approve of my leadership, but my record stands on its own. I only know one way to execute a military mission, and as long as I’m in charge, yo
u’ll do only what I allow. Are we clear?”

  They had tolerated each other since her father had first brought him on, a year earlier, but Rebecca had never cared for his ruthless nature. She’d asked Solomon about him once, and her father had simply shrugged. “Times are changing, Rebecca. We may need his kind one day. Better to win their allegiance now.” She hadn’t agreed then, and she didn’t agree now.

  On the other hand, if they ran into a firefight, she would depend on him. He was as good with a weapon as they came.

  For a moment Rebecca was back at her mother’s grave, kneeling on one knee, praying. It had become a custom for her. There were two white headstones, the larger standing a meter in the grass and the smaller only thirty centimeters. Her mother, Hannah, and her five-year-old sister, Ruthie. Hannah had boarded the bus at seven o’clock with Ruthie on her first day of kindergarten. The bomb had blown the bus to bits four minutes later. Only three of the fifty-four passengers had survived.

  That had been fifteen years ago, and it had sent Rebecca into the military and then on to train with the Mossad. But in the last two years since joining her father, a new desire had begun to burn in her belly. The desire to give life rather than to take it. To bear children. She was grown and she ached to be a woman. Not an assassin or an archaeologist or anything except a woman.

  Her discourses at the grave began to change. Like the one this morning while the others waited a hundred meters away in the trucks.

  “I am tired of the killing, Mother. I want to give life, not take it.” She set a lily on her sister’s grave, eyes blurred with tears. “Soon I will give life to a dozen children to replace you, little Ruthie.”

  She imagined her mother’s husky voice. You will have to find a man first, Rebecca. You think children grow on trees?

  “Yes, of course. I will have to find a man first.” She smiled. “A beautiful man with brilliant eyes who knows tender words and loves children.” The smile faded. “A man who will love me the way Father loved you. Loves you.”