By the Rivers of Babylon

by Nelson DeMille

  Hausner stepped behind Becker. “The vote was unanimous. Otherwise we wouldn’t consider it.”

  Becker eased off on the throttle and called to Hess for full flaps. He held the wheel in one hand and the throttles in the other. He tried to line the nose up between the headlights. He kept his eyes on the Lear’s navigation lights. “What vote? What the hell are you talking about? I’m making a final approach on the most fucked-up runway I’ve ever landed at. What do you want?”

  Hausner spoke quickly. “The bomb is no good on the ground. Becker! The most it will do is mangle the tail.”

  “Go on.” Becker could see the Lear touch down and bounce. The Concorde passed over the threshold and Becker pulled off more power. The big aircraft began to settle to earth.

  “We’ve voted to fight on the ground,” said Hausner. “My men have some weapons. Can you put us down somewhere else?” Hausner was almost shouting.

  Becker could feel the cushion of air forming below the big delta wings. He shouted back. “Why didn’t you ask me two minutes ago? Trucks and men flashed by on both sides under the delta wings. The road was bad and the aircraft bounced dangerously. About two kilometers ahead, at the point where his rollout should end, was another group of vehicles with their headlights on.

  To his left front was a high, gently rising hill that he knew must overlook the Euphrates. Hausner screamed something at him. Becker made a quick decision before he had time to think about it rationally. He pushed the throttles forward and the huge aircraft rose again. He pushed heavily against the control wheel and rudder pedals. The Concorde yawed to the left toward the Lear.

  The Lear had taxied off the left side of the road and rested among the groups of vehicles that Becker had seen at the end of his intended rollout. Ahmed Rish watched from where he was standing on the wing of his Lear. At first, he thought that the Concorde had bounced badly and was skidding off the road. Then he noticed the position of the rudder and flaps. He dove into the Lear, shut off the jamming device, and screamed into the radio. “STOP! STOP!” He reached for the radio detonator, as the Concorde came hurtling directly at him, only a few meters from the ground.

  The Concorde was doing 180 knots and its landing gear barely cleared the earth. The delta wing provided more of a cushion of air than a conventional straight wing could. Becker aimed at the rising terrain to his left. The low-volume squeal on the radio stopped, and he could hear Rish’s voice screaming at him. In fact, he saw the Lear less than fifty meters in front of him, directly in his path. For a wild moment, Becker considered ramming the Lear, but he realized that killing Rish wouldn’t save them and hitting the Lear might kill them all at that speed. He had to clear Rish’s aircraft.

  There was no possibility of using the throttle or afterburners now. If he did, the Concorde would rise, and when the tail went, they would all die. Or if the afterburners used the last of the fuel and the engines flamed out, they would die. He had to keep the aircraft down, but not so low that they would hit the Lear or any other ground obstruction. Becker held his breath as the Concorde shot over the Lear. The landing gear missed the Lear and the Concorde sailed on. Now the ruins of a wall rose up in front of him. He took a chance and pulled back gradually on the wheel. The nose lifted slightly. As he streaked over the wall, he felt the rear bumper wheel hit it. The Concorde shuddered. Becker pulled back on the wheel again, and the nose came up to meet the rising hill. He would have liked to vault over the river, but he knew he had about two seconds before Rish pushed the button.

  * * *

  The Lear bounced wildly against its tie-downs as the Concorde shot over. Swirling debris pummeled the small aircraft and the men and vehicles around it. A huge dust cloud rose up and blinded everyone on the ground. Rish fumbled for the radio detonator, found it, and felt for the buttons.

  Becker snapped back the throttles. Rish was still screaming on the radio. The main landing gear touched the side of the hill as the Concorde’s nose flared upward. Becker reversed the thrust of the engines. The rear bumper wheel hit and bounced. The nose fell and the nose landing gear hit the ground. The aircraft bounced violently, throwing the men standing behind Becker to the floor. The computerized wheel-braking system alternately applied and released pressure on the wheel brakes. Most of the tires blew out. Then the tail exploded.

  Becker shut down all four engines. Hess pulled the fire-extinguishing lever. Kahn shut down all the systems. The Concorde rolled wildly up the incline, sucking debris into its engines with a sickening sound. The engines spooled down, and the only sound left was that of the remaining tires bumping over the rocky slope.

  Becker felt the rudder pedals go slack even before he heard the explosion. He knew there were still fuel fumes in the number eleven tank, and he tried to imagine how bad the damage might be. He wondered if the bulkhead had held. A secondary explosion of a full fuel tank would completely destroy the aircraft. Without the tail and rudder, the aircraft was completely uncontrollable, even on the ground.

  Suddenly, the front landing gear collapsed and everyone on the flight deck pitched forward violently. The nose plowed a deep furrow into the ground as the aircraft continued its rollout. Debris turned up by the nose cone began striking the windshield, causing spider-web cracks. Becker instinctively hit a hydraulic switch and the outer protective visor began rising into place over the windshield. He crouched down in his seat and looked up and out of the downward-sloped cockpit. A ruined structure loomed up a hundred yards ahead. Becker braced for the crash. Something flew up and punctured the windshield before the outer visor was fully raised in place. The glass slivers flew into the cockpit and slashed Becker’s hand and face. He shouted, “Hold on!” The Concorde slowed, then came to a quiet halt some meters from the structure.

  Becker looked up. “Everyone all right?” He looked to his right. Moses Hess lay slumped over the control column, blood pouring from his head. There was a huge hole in the windshield directly in front of him.

  Becker shouted behind him. “If you’re going to make a fight of it, get the hell out of the airplane!”

  Peter Kahn got up and shouted into the cabin. “Evacuate! Flight attendants! Emergency evacuation!”

  * * *

  Yaakov Leiber had unfastened his seat belt even before the aircraft came to a halt. He ran to the forward port door, rotated the handle, and threw the door open. The opening door activated the pressure bottles and inflated the emergency chute tucked under the doorsill. Hausner’s six men were the first ones out. The other two stewards were leading the passengers down the aisle toward the chute. The stewardesses opened the two emergency doors next to the seats over the wings. They led the passengers out onto the wings and down to the leading edge of the big deltas. People began jumping off the wings and sliding down the chutes.

  * * *

  Hausner picked himself up from the flight deck and half-ran, half-crawled to the starboard door on the flight deck. He opened it and jumped down before the chute inflated. He was barely on the ground before he started shouting orders to his men. “Down the slope! Move! The bastards will be coming up from the road! Over there! Get out a hundred meters!”

  * * *

  Dobkin followed Hausner out the door. He made a quick appraisal of their situation. They were on high ground, which was good. The area around the aircraft was flat and the ground fell away on all sides. To the east it sloped gently down to the road. To the west it fell off sharply down to the river. He could not see the north and south extremities in the dark. As for weapons, they only had perhaps a half-dozen .22 pistols, one Uzi submachine gun, and one rifle. He knew the Arabs had a lot more than that. He looked up at the tail assembly. It was badly mangled, but that didn’t matter any longer. The rear pressure bulkhead must have been blown in because there was baggage strewn in the wake of the Concorde. Toilet kits, shoes, and pieces of clothing lay in the deep furrow like seeds waiting to be covered for the spring planting. The last of the sun died away, and the sky was filled with cold white stars. Dobki
n suddenly felt a chill and realized that the Hamseen was blowing here. It would be a long, cold night. He wondered if any of them would see the sun rise.

  * * *

  Isaac Burg stood on the tilted delta wing as the other passengers jumped off. He turned and climbed up the fuselage and made his way toward the mangled tail. He braced himself against a twisted longeron and stared down toward the road about half a kilometer away. He could see truck lights bouncing across the uneven slope and the shadows of men as they ran in front of the slow-moving vehicles. He drew his pistol, an American Army Colt .45, and waited.

  * * *

  Jabari and Arif slid down the chute and ran clear of the aircraft, Jabari helping the big Arif as he stumbled. They fell and crawled behind a small rise in the ground. After several seconds, Jabari looked over the top of the hillock. “I don’t think it will explode.”

  Arif panted heavily. He wiped his face. “I can’t believe I voted to fight.”

  Jabari leaned back against the earth. “You said yourself you were doomed anyway. As doomed as Jacob Hausner. Did you hear what was being said before? Hausner slapped Rish when he was in Ramla.”

  “Bad luck for Hausner. But at least he will die for a reason. I never slapped anyone except my wife, but Rish will cut my throat with as much glee as he cuts Hausner’s.”

  Jabari lit a cigarette. “You are a very self-centered man, Ibrahim.”

  “When it comes to my throat, yes.”

  Jabari stood up. “Come. Let’s see where and in what manner they propose to fight. Perhaps we can help.”

  Arif remained seated. “I’ll sit here. You go ahead.” He removed his checkered headdress. “Do I look Jewish now?”

  Jabari laughed in spite of himself. “How is your Hebrew?”

  “Better than half the members of the Knesset.”

  “Well, Ibrahim, if the time comes, it’s worth a try.”

  “Avraham . . . Aronson.”

  * * *

  Tom Richardson stood at the river side of the slope and looked down at the Euphrates. John McClure walked up behind him and put his foot on a low mound. Richardson could see a revolver in the hand resting across his knee. Richardson rubbed his cold hands together. “This was a bad move.”

  McClure spit out his match and found another one. “Maybe.”

  “Look, I don’t feel obligated to hang around. There doesn’t seem to be anyone on the river bank. Let’s go. We could be in Baghdad by this time tomorrow.”

  McClure looked at him. “How do you know where we are?”

  Richardson remained motionless.

  “I asked you a question, Colonel.”

  Richardson forced himself to look into McClure’s eyes and hold contact. He said nothing.

  McClure let the silence drag out for a few seconds, then raised his revolver. He spun the chambers and noticed Richardson flinch. He spoke softly. “I think I’ll stick around.”

  Richardson eyed the big pistol. “Well, I’m going,” he said in a calm voice.

  McClure could see several flashlights moving along the river bank. Three football fields away. That was the only way he would ever estimate distance. Three hundred yards. About 270 of those ridiculous meters. “They’ve already gotten around us.” He pointed.

  Richardson didn’t bother to look. “Could be civilians.”

  “Could be.” McClure raised the revolver, a big Ruger .357 Magnum, with both hands and fired two shots at the lights. The shots were answered by a burst of automatic weapon fire. Both men ducked as green tracer rounds streaked up at them. McClure reloaded. “Settle back and relax. We might be here a long time.”

  * * *

  Nathan Brin rested the M-14 on a rock. He turned on the battery-powered starlight scope and looked across the landscape. The scope gave everything an eerie green color. He twirled the knobs until the image was clear. He saw that they were among the ruins of a city. It all looked very lunar to Brin. All except the twenty or so Arabs walking nonchalantly up the slope from the direction of the road. A few hundred meters behind them, the trucks had stopped at the beginning of the slope. The Arabs were about 200 meters away now. He placed the cross hairs over the heart of the man in front. The man was Ahmed Rish, but Brin didn’t recognize him. He squeezed the trigger slightly, then remembered his training and swung the rifle to the last man in the file. He squeezed back harder on the trigger. The silencer-flash suppressor spit, and the only sound was the operating rod working back and forth. The man dropped silently. The file, oblivious of the dead man lying behind them, continued up the slope.

  Brin swung the rifle to the man who was now the last in line. He pulled the trigger again. Again, the only sound was the metallic slamming of the bolt and operating rod. The man fell. Brin smiled. He was enjoying himself, despite all his upbringing to the contrary. He swung the rifle and fired again. The third man fell but apparently let out a sound. Suddenly, the Arabs scattered among the rocks. Brin straightened up and moved behind the rock. He lit a cigarette. He’d done it. For better or worse, they were committed to the fight. He rather enjoyed the prospect. He heard a noise behind him and swung the rifle around. Hausner was staring at him. Brin smiled. “All right?”

  Hausner nodded. “All right.”

  * * *

  Becker stared out into the dark night. “Where the hell are we?”

  Peter Kahn had noted the coordinates on the Inertial Navigation System readout before the impact. He was reading an air chart by the lights of the emergency power system. “Good question.”

  Becker unstrapped his seat belt and pulled himself out of his seat. He took Hess’s head in his hands. His skull had been crushed by a large brick that lay now in his lap. There was no sign of life. He let the head fall gently and wiped his bloody hands on his white shirt. He turned to Kahn. “He’s dead, Peter.”

  Kahn nodded.

  Becker wiped his sweating face. “Well, get back to work. Where the hell are we?”

  Kahn looked down at the chart again and made a mark along a protractor. He looked up. “Babylon. We are by the rivers of Babylon.”

  Becker placed his hand on Kahn’s shoulder and leaned over the map. He nodded. “ ‘Yea,’ ” he said, “ ‘yea, we wept when we remembered Zion.’ ”

  BOOK TWO

  BABYLON

  THE WATCHTOWERS

  By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down,

  yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

  We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

  For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song;

  and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying,

  Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

  How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

  If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,

  let my right hand forget her cunning.

  If I do not remember thee,

  let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth;

  if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.

  Psalms 137:1–6

  And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms,

  the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency,

  shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.

  It shall never be inhabited,

  neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation;

  neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there;

  neither shall the shepherds make their fold there.

  But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there;

  and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures;

  and owls shall dwell there,

  and satyrs shall dance there.

  And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses,

  and dragons in their pleasant palaces:

  and her time is near to come,

  and her days shall not be prolonged.

  Isaiah 13:19–25

  10

  There was a stillness on the hilltop, broken only by the ticking sounds m
ade by the cooling of the four Rolls-Royce Olympus engines. The great white aircraft, with its front landing gear collapsed and its nose in the dirt, resembled some sort of proud creature brought to its knees. For a moment time seemed to falter, then a nightbird chirped tentatively, and all the other nocturnal creatures resumed their sounds.

  Jacob Hausner knew that everything—their lives, their futures, and perhaps the future of their nation—depended on what happened in the next few minutes. A determined assault by the Palestinians right then would carry the hill, and that would be the end of all their brave talk of defense. He looked around. In the weak light he could see people moving aimlessly around the Concorde. Some, he suspected, were still in shock from the crash. Now that the time had come, no one knew what to do. The actors were willing, but they lacked a script. Hausner decided to write one on the spot, but he wished he had Dobkin and Burg nearby to coauthor it with him.

  Hausner took the M-14 from Brin and looked down the slope through the telescopic lens. The three Arabs lay among the rocks where they had fallen. Hausner could see at least two AK-47 automatic rifles on the ground. If he could get those, it would put more substance behind their bluff.

  He turned to Brin. “I’m going down there to retrieve those weapons. Keep me covered.” He handed him the M-14 and drew his Smith & Wesson .22.

  One of Hausner’s other security men, Moshe Kaplan, saw him start down the hill and caught up with him. “Deserting already?”

  Hausner whispered. “If you’re coming along, keep low and keep quiet.” He noticed that Kaplan’s .22 had a silencer on it.

  They made their way in short rushes from rock to rock. One man would cover and the other would move. Hausner noticed that what he took to he rocks were actually huge pieces of dried clay and earth that had apparently broken off and fallen from the face of the hill. His movements caused other hardened slabs to break loose and slide downward. It would be difficult for an enemy to attack upward if they had to duck bullets as they moved through shifting clay and sand.