by Alana Terry
“We think a few are Jordanian and Palestinian and at least one is from Syria, although this is still unconfirmed. The rest seem to be from Serbia, Albania, Macedonia, Italy and Egypt. Two or three of them are family men, but the rest are single.”
“We followed one of the men last night right up until he went into a nightclub,” Zach explained.
“Did he come out of one of the houses?” Eli asked.
“Yes, and he had a key to the place so we know he lived there,” Pedro said.
“Did you catch the name of the nightclub?” Eli asked.
Zach and Pedro looked back and forth at each other, as if they hoped the other remembered.
“La Bestia Alata, I think it said,” Zach told them.
“Hm. The Winged Beast.” Eli grimaced and stayed quiet for a few minutes. “I don’t suppose any of you speak Arabic, do you?”
“I do,” Zach said.
“Good. I want you to go there and scope out the scene. Just don’t take the ladies there.”
“What do you know about the place?” Pedro asked.
“It’s the sort of place you wouldn’t bring your sister, or even your enemy’s sister. All sorts of unsavories spend time there, young and middle aged men who border on what you Americans call, uh, gangsters.”
“That’s the strange thing,” Pedro said. “Earlier in the day we saw our tango dressed as conservative as can be, like a proper Muslim man who prayed five times a day. But when he emerged later that evening, he looked like a regular thug. Am I right, Zach?”
“We followed him at first to make sure it was the same man,” Zach said. “He was, just all thugged out. It was really strange.”
Eli growled in a low tone. “I’ve heard they have a back room in the club where only members can go, but the use of that room is kept secret. I know of it because one of our brothers at the church used to frequent the club before he came to know Yeshua Ha’Mashiach. I can tell you he has no good words for the place. He calls it Il Ventre Della Bestia, or the Belly of the Beast.”
“And you want us to go in there?” Zach asked.
“I want you to find out what goes on in that back room,” Eli said. “But only if you don’t sear your conscience or compromise your soul in the process.”
The next evening, all six of the team members gathered for a meeting among themselves before heading out for more surveillance work. After much prayer and mutual decision, Zach and Pedro went to the club while Hadassah and Christina, and Tameka and Hyun agreed to pray at cafés just down the street.
“Then to the prayer room afterward,” Tameka said, “because we’ll all need it.”
Hadassah and Christina stopped along the way to buy some new clothes so they’d blend into the club district in Trastevere.
While they prayed, open-eyed as if they were merely chatting at a café on the outskirts of this sketchy section of Rome, Hadassah noticed one of the men she and Christina had been investigating. He was dressed exactly the way Pedro had described his tango the night before. Thug. Stereotypical gangster. She motioned to Christina.
“Shall I follow him?” Hadassah asked.
“Let me do this,” Christina suggested. “If anyone stops me, I’ll look more like a lost tourist than you.”
“Remember not to lie, though.”
“I remember.” Christina winked. “Still, I don’t have to tell the whole truth.”
Hadassah sat uncomfortably alone in front of those two cups of coffee. Christina was out of sight quickly, lost in the thick Saturday night crowds, but Hadassah still looked toward where she had last seen her, and prayed.
“You are so lovely, and I keep seeing your face everywhere I go.”
The man standing beside her table, standing practically over her, was one of the men she had been surveying. He sat in Christina’s seat.
Chapter 36: The Recording
HER HEART POUNDED BUT she smiled coolly at the Middle Eastern man sitting across from her. He was dressed just like the other two men, as if he was on his way to the Winged Beast club.
“I have seen you, too.” She employed her normal Brooklyn accent. “Such a strange occurrence in such a large city.” She switched on her watch’s voice recorder.
“Or maybe not so strange,” he replied. “How long will you be staying here?”
Hadassah shrugged. “A month.”
“You may be looking for work while you are here,” he said.
“I don’t know. Perhaps. But I am waiting for my friend.”
“Your boyfriend?”
“No, she’s just a friend.”
“Perhaps she would be interested as well in making some money while in this beautiful and ancient city.”
“I don’t think I’ll speak for her. But tell me what sort of work so I can consider.” She tried on her best innocent smile as she spoke.
“Waitressing, bartending, singing, dancing if you’re any good. You look like you have the body of a dancer, if I may say so.”
“Thank you, sir. But it’s been years since I’ve had a lesson.”
“Do you like to dance?” he asked.
“Sometimes I like to. Do you have ballet? I mean, that’s a ridiculous question, ballet’s just the only dance I know.”
“Ballet would come in handy.” His grin and glance made her even more uncomfortable. She tried her best not to cringe. “Would you like to come with me now and see for yourself?” he added.
“I have to wait for my friend.”
“Are you sure? Because it’s not far—just down the street. And I can buy you a drink as well while we discuss your possible employment. That is if you are old enough for a drink.”
“I am in Rome. But I’ll have to take a rain check.”
“A rain what?” the man asked.
“Sorry,” she said with a laugh, “American expression. It means I’ll have to do it another time.”
“You have the most exquisite laugh, young lady, if I may say so.”
“Perhaps if you have a card with your phone number, I could give you a call.”
He brought out a whole pile of business cards from his pocket and rifled through them before selecting a card for her. She noticed a few written in Greek, some in Arabic, a handful in English, but most of them in Hebrew.
“Here’s my card. Please, call me for that, uh, rain check,” he said, staring into her eyes and caressing the tips of her fingers as he handed her the card.
“Tell me, sir, how would I be able to work here if I’m a foreigner?” She stared at the card, noticing it only listed his first name, Junayd, and a cell phone number. No address.
“We’ll help you take care of work permits. Once we decide to hire you, which I’m sure we would, we fill out the paperwork and submit the application on your behalf. It’s simply a formality, really. Immigration is quite generous with us.”
Hadassah thought he would never go, and she was sure she had crossed the line of R.S.O. regulations during the conversation before he finally did leave. She wanted to wash away the smell of his breath and the stench of his cologne, but instead she switched off the voice recorder on her watch and waited for Christina.
“Who was that?” Christina asked as she came from behind.
“You scared the beheebees out of me!” Hadassah covered her racing heart with her hand until her breath calmed. “He’s one of them, but I’ll explain later. What kept you so long?”
“I was watching you from over there and taking a few pictures. Also I was ready with a text to send for help if he tried anything.”
“Nice. Good thinking to take pictures. I got a voice recording. We need to stay here until we hear from the others, then we can talk about what to do next once we’ve reached the prayer room.”
The night had grown cold when the team convened near the café and walked through the Piazza to the prayer house on the other side of the city. Not one of them was short on reconnaissance information, but they were all silent on the road.
Instead of gatheri
ng immediately into one of the side rooms for a meeting, they headed straight for the main prayer room. The room was painted in pastel hues of blue and green, with a huge mural of the tree of life on one side. Painted within the tree of life, darker brown than the trunk, was the cross and, even more subtly, a lamb. Instead of leaves painted on, there were prayer requests taped or tacked on. Instead of fruit, there were notes of praise to God.
When they stepped inside, Hyun rejoiced; Zach wept; Pedro, Tameka and Christina prayed over Zach; and Hadassah sat in quiet prayer as a vision descended upon her, a vision of leading the despised and lowly through the sewers of Rome.
“Wherever you call me, Lord, I will go,” she whispered, with her arms raised high in the air.
The steady stream of prayers up front paused as someone made an announcement: the Messianic rabbi, Zebulon Hus, would be teaching on the End Times in five minutes in one of the side rooms. Pedro and Zach decided to stay in the main prayer room for a time of worship in the word while the ladies listened to Rabbi Hus’s teaching.
“How important it is to take Yeshua at his word,” Rabbi Hus preached. “He said we would have trouble in this world. He did not say to wait around for the rapture to take us up out of the tribulation—no, He said to watch and to pray. Watch what? And pray what? Watch on the walls, stand in the gap, like it says in Ezekiel. We sing in that old song, ‘These are the days of Ezekiel, dry bones becoming as flesh.’ If these are the days of Ezekiel then I tremble, friends, because those were days of God’s manifest wrath against sin. And many whom we stand in the gap for right now, those who refuse to repent from adultery, drug use, idol worship, murders and thefts, will be objects of His wrath. Pray you will not fall into offense when you see the wrath of God and of His Lamb against sin. Because I believe many in this room will see it.
“We are not going to be raptured out, Beloved of God, as if to watch the outpouring of His wrath from balcony seating—” at this the old man paused and wept. “No, my friends, we will be right in the midst of it; and if our eyes are not overflowing with tears like Jeremiah’s were, then we need to get closer to the heart of God. We will be rejoicing and weeping all at once—rejoicing for the Day of the Lord is near, and it is great; weeping, because the Day of the Lord is near, and it is terrible. Oh, Beloved of God, what a great and terrible day it will be. And just as Moses witnessed the great and terrible day of God’s wrath on Egypt, so you, too, will see, will pray, will partner with God, because now is the hour to ask God to open the seals.”
Did she hear what she thought she heard? Hadassah wanted to linger longer than five minutes as people in the room began to pray this prayer at the end of the sermon. But the team had delayed their meeting long enough.
The office they met in belonged to one of the leaders of the prayer house, who gave the key to Pedro and hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the door before leaving.
Everyone was as anxious to speak as they were to hear, but Pedro and Zach went first.
“The place was vile,” Pedro said. “I doubt those girls get paid a decent wage, if at all. I saw one smile, and it was forced, as if she knew what was expected of her. I spent most of the night observing without trying to look, if you know what I mean. And the mental attacks from the enemy were intense. I can’t, and don’t want to imagine, what it would have been like without your prayers.”
“I second what Pedro said,” Zach began. “I would have drowned in spiritual and fleshly filth without your prayers. But I found the door to the secret room. It was heavily guarded, and security packed semiautomatics. I found out the men’s room is quite close, and there’s a vent in one of the stalls.”
“What are you thinking of?” Hyun asked.
“I’m thinking I want to go back there next Saturday and see if I can get into the vent. The music is so loud I doubt if anyone would be able to hear me. But first, I need to find a hall of records for buildings to see if there are copies of blueprints. I want to know where I’m going if I’m going to crawl through the vents.”
Tameka and Hyun were the next to relay what they had learned.
“We saw one young man from our surveillance practically transform in front of our eyes,” Tameka said. “It was strange to see him go from the devout Muslim look to the gangster look as he walked along. No one seemed to take notice, either, which was the odd thing about the whole episode.”
“I waited until he was about fifteen yards ahead,” Hyun said, “and then I started to shadow him—all the way to the club. I had no desire to go in, but it took time to backtrack to Tameka while avoiding attention of bouncers.”
“I had about the same experience,” Christina shared. “I actually saw you, Hyun, from a distance, but thought better than to say hello, given our circumstances.”
Hadassah told them what had happened in the café and of the voice recording, although she didn’t dare play the recording in the prayer house. “I’ve been totally compromised for the surveillance work, but I think I have an idea.”
“The voice recording and pictures may be enough to blow their operation wide open,” Pedro said.
Hadassah shook her head. “More hard evidence is necessary.”
“I could take the camera into the club,” Zach said, “but I don’t know if it would pass the pat down on the way in.”
“I have an idea I’d like to share,” Hadassah said.
“What is it?” Hyun asked.
“I could try to get into the sewers, and survey from under the club.”
“The sewers of Rome are crawling with all sorts of people,” Hyun explained.
Hadassah nodded. “I know. But how do you guys feel about this plan?”
“Not too good about you being on your own,” Christina said.
“But I’m not sure what our other options would be,” Hadassah said.
“Me neither,” Hyun said. “And if you’ve been recognized and identified, some of the rest of us may have been as well. We’ll have to use far more caution. For now, Hadassah, help Zach find the building specs and investigate those sewers, but only in daylight. I’ll be calling Mr. Murray and Mr. Cooper tonight. I’m glad we stopped to pray—thanks for the suggestion, Pedro. We should do this as often as possible.”
“And make sure you catch one of Pastor Hus’s teachings next time,” Christina said.
“It was right on target.” Tameka lifted her face to the ceiling and closed her eyes. “He said that it’s the hour to pray for the Lord to open the seals.”
Zach’s mouth tightened, then he nodded his head. “Wow. I think I’m going to pray about that tonight.”
“Me too,” Hadassah added. “Rabbi Hus didn’t seem like the sort of man who’d jump ahead of God. And I’ll see you, Zach, first thing on Monday morning.”
When she arrived at her host home, Hadassah called Mom to ask for a map of Rome’s sewers.
“What do you mean I already have it?” Hadassah said. “Since when?”
“It’s one of the apps on your phone. You can also interface the map of the underground tunnels and sewers with the map of the city.”
“That’ll come in handy. But why don’t you tell me these things, Mom?”
“You know me, I only give out information on a need to know basis. I love you.”
Hadassah hung up the phone. “Done.”
“Did I hear you right?” Christina asked. “You already had maps of the sewers without knowing it?”
“My mom.” Hadassah shrugged her shoulders.
After locating the application Mom talked about, she e-mailed Matt. He had been in Iraq for three days at this point, but still hadn’t written her after the initial “I’m safe,” e-mail. She was worried, but held back most of the worry in her letter. Within five minutes of sending it off, she received his reply.
“Mr. Cooper was right about the work here in Iraq — not the safest, but I have only seen the mere perimeters of the assignment so far. Four of us are in Babylon now: Adam, Maleek, Paul and me. And what opulence surrounds
us. I can barely think of words to describe it. The buildings are not only taller than most in America, but the architecture surpasses any elegance I have seen in any other country. They employ color and texture here as if to please some heathen god. No one neglects to add what would be most pleasurable to the eye. A carving of a flower here, a statue of an animal there, but all tastefully done, and all covered with precious stones.
“This place feels like a museum, and I’m afraid to touch anything. Also, the people living here walk about as if they had to have dance lessons before they could live here. I’ve had to learn how to walk like this because there are police and soldiers everywhere, and people are stopped and searched frequently if they look like they don’t belong here. Our contact says this won’t last too much longer. He says it has to do with all the cargo ships coming up the Euphrates from the gulf. There have to be ten or more ships on any given day, and they operate with such precision.
“Now, about Eli trying to ask you out — why shouldn’t he think you’re gorgeous and extremely intelligent? You are. He should be jealous of me. I pray for you every day, even when I cannot write. I can’t wait to see you again.”
She searched the social networking sites to see if they could chat in real time. There he was, with the happy little on-line circle glowing green. Her face lit up when she saw the flashing screen—he had beaten her to the keyboard.
“Real time is always better than e-mail,” he typed.
“Real close is even better than that,” she typed back.
“The connection at the hotel is spotty; it may cut out before we say goodnight.”
“What time is it there?”
“Three forty-five,” he replied.
“Are you up early or late?”
“Either. I can’t sleep much. I’m worried about you. Write me as often as you can to let me know you’re okay.”
“I will,” she replied. “I love you,” she typed for the first time, but it came back with a message saying Matt was now off line and didn’t receive it. She had the option to send it as an e-mail, and she stared at the screen for five full minutes, debating. She closed her laptop instead. She didn’t want the first time she said it to be through e-mail.