THE PROMISED WAR

by Thomas Greanias

  “What are you saying?” Deker asked.

  “Even Moses did not set foot where we stand—east of the Jordan. Because he could not control the power God had granted him. Be careful, Deker. Once you set loose the power of God, even you cannot control it.”

  34

  Sam Deker flew like a phantom under the full moon, through the forests of palm trees, farmlands and abandoned hamlets. He wanted to save Rahab as much as Israel. But it was Rachel’s death he remembered now as he ran toward Jericho.

  It was Monday, March 29, 2010. Passover.

  Deker sat in the café, sipped his coffee and stared through the window at the three-story yellow bungalow across the narrow street in East Jerusalem. He glanced at his new Krav Maga watch, a gift from Rachel. Ten minutes past six, which left him twenty-two minutes until sunset. Rachel was probably at the Western Wall by now, preparing her Shabbat candle for the first evening of Passover and herself for disappointment when he failed to show up for her yet again.

  He patted the pocket of his dark kurta shirt and pulled out a small pen-shaped detonator with a red button at the end. A single tap would raise the trigger. A second tap would detonate the C-4 explosive disguised as a ceramic bowl inside the bungalow’s second-floor parlor. He twisted the safety feature at the base of the pen to reset the trigger to prevent any premature accident and put it back in his pocket.

  The bungalow was an elegant older building crammed between the newer multistory apartment buildings. It was also the home of Abdul Omekh, who had served as chief of staff to the former Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas. These days Omekh was a professor of modern history at Al-Quds Open University and lectured that the Jews had no historical connection to Jerusalem or the Western Wall.

  Tonight Omekh was hosting a special dinner of great interest to the IDF. Four cars already had pulled up and left within the past half hour, depositing guests. One of these guests, according to IDF intel, was the Black Dove, a Palestinian mole within Israel’s counterterrorism unit whom no one had been able to unmask.

  Deker was a demolitions specialist, not an assassin, and he had told his superiors that he thought this plan was a bad idea. Already he could imagine the lead in the Jerusalem Post: “A powerful bomb blast killed one of the Palestinian Authority’s leading political scientists last evening in East Jerusalem as he sat down to dinner with family and friends.” University students and colleagues would describe Omekh as “a respected professor.” Hard-liners would describe him as “a revolutionary martyred by Israeli terrorists.”

  Deker instead suggested placing a camera in the bungalow to make the identification and deal with Black Dove at a time and place of the IDF’s choosing. But his crazy new superior, Uri Elezar, insisted it was better to take care of the Black Dove now and identify him later through dental records.

  So last week Deker and his partner Stern paid a service call to the bungalow in a Gihon Water and Sewage Company van. The rains must have backed up the sorry sewers in the street again, the housekeeper explained, and now the stench was filling the home only days before an important dinner. When Stern returned to the van an hour later with a plumber’s snake and planted a bag of clumpy drain blockage, he handed Deker the bowl from the table in Omekh’s parlor.

  It was the first time Deker held the original bowl in his hands, and he was pleased with how exact a replica he had made of it with his C-4 bowl based on photos Stern had snapped from his first service call a few days prior. So exact was his copy of this bowl that for a second he worried Stern had botched the switch. But then he saw a chip beneath the base of the bowl and got angry with Stern.

  “Did you chip this bowl?” Deker demanded.

  Stern looked doubtful. “I don’t think so, boss.”

  Deker swore. “My bowl has no chip,” he said, and started reviewing the photos of the bowl that Stern had snapped before. He couldn’t see a chip. “What happens if Omekh sees that his bowl has magically repaired itself? He’ll know it’s been switched, and we won’t get another shot at the Black Dove.”

  So far, however, it appeared that Omekh had noticed nothing. The GPS tracker in the bowl showed it was still in Omekh’s parlor.

  Now the last car pulled up and Deker saw one of the few guests he could identify—a Hamas section chief—step out, followed by two more men Deker didn’t recognize. They were patted down at the door by two plainclothes security types and then disappeared inside. The car drove off and Deker took out his monocular and looked up at the second-floor window. All the guests had gathered in the parlor. Everybody who was going to attend had arrived.

  Deker glanced at his watch. It was 6:15 p.m.

  The bronze sky outside the café seemed to weigh heavily over the squat buildings as sunset neared. But the narrow street was livelier than Deker had hoped. There were women carrying grocery bags, boys riding bicycles and street vendors hawking their wares. The explosion would shatter windows for fifty to one hundred meters around, and Deker worried about injuring innocents in the street.

  Rachel, of course, would be mortified to know that this was why he had missed her at the Western Wall tonight. Nasty business, and he was through with it. Which was why he would never tell her, only ask her to marry him and move back to the States, where she could pursue her graduate degree in psychology and then spend the rest of her life rehabilitating him.

  The thought of Rachel was the only thing that could bring a smile to his face. She knew something was up. She had come in on him at his apartment when he was hiding Omekh’s chipped bowl in his closet. She must have suspected he had already picked up an engagement ring. She had made some passing remark at dinner a few days later about “conflict” or “blood” diamonds and how important it was to make sure you knew where things really came from, and not to support industries that exploited children or funded wars.

  Fortunately, he would be able to assure her that the diamond he was giving her had come from his nana, and the only conflict it had seen was World War II. They could then talk about their bright, open future together. Deker yearned for that kind of innocence and passion for life again—before his two wars with the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan and this recent stint with the IDF in Israel.

  Rachel was the way.

  Deker looked at his watch. It was 6:16 p.m. He could picture her right now at the Western Wall. He could see her pour the water into a special bowl for the Shabbat hand-washing ceremony and dry her soft, strong hands with her little towel. And now, at exactly eighteen minutes to sunset, she was lighting her Shabbat candle.

  As the candle burned, she would spread her hands around the flames and draw them inward in a circular motion three times to indicate the acceptance of the sanctity of Shabbat. Then she would cover her eyes and recite the blessing:

  “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has hallowed us through His commandments, and has commanded us to kindle the lights of the holy Shabbat. Uncover your eyes and behold the Shabbat lights.”

  Deker swallowed and took the detonator out of his pocket again. He looked out the window of the café and pressed the red button twice and watched.

  There was a terrific explosion, and he felt the café shake. But the villa across the street stood still. The explosion had come from several streets away.

  People started shouting in the streets outside, but Deker just sat there, stunned.

  Almost immediately the TV in the Arab café blared the news that a blast had gone off at the Western Wall. Two young men in back high-fived each other, but the half-dozen other faces watched in sober dismay.

  Deker stared at the detonator in his hand as a wave of panic and nausea overwhelmed him.

  No, no, no, he thought. Jesus, no.

  Rachel.

  35

  Deker raced on foot through the twisting alleys of East Jerusalem toward the Temple Mount, tears forming in his eyes as he was breathing, “No, no, no!”

  By the time he reached the Western Wall Plaza, the lights of the am
bulances, police cars and news crews glowed in the twilight. He slowed his pace, catching his breath as he brushed past the EMTs toward the taped-off area.

  Four people were dead, a newswoman was breathlessly reporting as she stared into the lens atop her cameraman’s shoulder. Six others were injured, two critically.

  He scanned the crowd as he pushed his way to the police line. There were more onlookers than people praying at the wall. Knowing Rachel, she’d be the first to be offering comfort to the victims or support to the first responders.

  But he couldn’t see her anywhere in the chaos.

  He could, however, see Stern and Elezar standing to the side with a couple of plainclothes Mossad officers conducting their inspection before any evidence was completely contaminated. They were blocking his view.

  He approached them slowly, not certain if he wanted to talk to them or not. His feet felt like lead, his mouth was dry. The shouts and cries circling his head from the crowd gave him a headache, and the sight of the small ceramic shard in Stern’s hand made him nauseous.

  It’s the explosive bowl I made to blow up the Hamas gathering. I mixed it up with the original bowl. Rachel must have found it at home. Oh, my God. I’ve made a tragic mistake.

  Their faces said everything when they half-turned and saw him. They looked away as he pushed his way through and beheld the charred bits of limbs and flesh of the victims strewn across the plaza.

  Deker collapsed to his knees, his soul swallowed up by a black void of grief and hopelessness, and wailed like a dying animal.

  Rachel was gone, and with her the spark of his own life.

  36

  Even from the abandoned farm, Deker could see from a distance that Jericho was sealed up tight as a drum. Everyone must have fled the surrounding fields as soon as the Israelites had crossed the Jordan and sought refuge inside the walls of the city. No one went in and no one came out.

  That included Rahab, assuming she was still alive.

  As he looked up to see the clouds move like a spirit across the moon and listened to the rustling trees whisper ancient secrets, Deker felt as if he were the last soul alive in this world.

  Until he spotted a movement out of the corner of his eye.

  Moving quickly and quietly through a date grove, careful not to betray himself with a sound, he peered out through some palm leaves and started.

  Kneeling in the dirt, hands stretched out toward the heavens with his sword across them, was none other than General Joshua bin-Nun.

  He seemed to be talking to somebody Deker couldn’t see.

  Deker squinted his eyes and scanned the horizon, looking for a security detail of young Judeans like Salmon and Achan—or, worse, Hamas and a squad of Reahn assassins. But there was nobody else.

  Deker couldn’t believe Bin-Nun would expose himself to the enemy while his troops were recovering from the mutilation he had inflicted on them back in Gilgal.

  Deker whipped out his scythe sword, just in case he had missed some shadow force, and rushed through the brush toward Bin-Nun.

  Bin-Nun, sensing his approach, spun around quickly with the point of his sword to Deker’s throat, stopping him cold. Then, looking at him quizzically, Bin-Nun asked him, “You mean to save her, don’t you?”

  “I do.” Deker sheathed his sword. “Who was that you were talking to? Why is the general out alone without his guards?”

  “I came to inspect Jericho for myself,” Bin-Nun told him. “I was praying and looked up and saw an angel standing in front of me with a drawn sword in his hand. It was a real angel, not like you. I went up to him and asked, ‘Are you for us or for our enemies?’ The angel replied, ‘Neither, but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.’”

  Deker took a breath. “The commander of the army of the Lord?” he repeated in as even a tone as possible, so as not to suggest he doubted Bin-Nun. “What did he say?”

  Deker stiffened as Bin-Nun put a hand on his shoulder and turned him toward the city about a kilometer away. “Can you pick out this harlot’s window in the city wall from here?”

  Deker pointed. “That one: sixth window to the right along the north wall.”

  Bin-Nun asked, “You are certain?”

  “Yes,” Deker replied, although he wasn’t really.

  Bin-Nun glanced at the pack of explosives Deker had slung over his shoulder. “You will enter the city through the harlot Rahab’s window tonight with your explosives,” he told him, and Deker felt a wave of electricity rise up his spine as the words he longed to hear spilled from Bin-Nun’s lips. “You will lie in wait for six days, and on the seventh day you will blow the walls on our signal. This is the plan that Yahweh has revealed to Israel.”

  Deker nodded. He hadn’t seen this angel of the Lord, but he was pleased with the angel’s instructions to Bin-Nun all the same, as well as Bin-Nun’s response of faith in going along with them. Surely that would make the Levites happy. “How will I know the signal?”

  “For six days the army will march around Jericho behind the Ark of the Covenant and seven priests carrying rams’ horns,” Bin-Nun said. “But on the seventh day we’ll circle the walls seven times with the priests blowing their trumpets. Listen for a long blast on the trumpets. That’s when I’ll have the army give the war cry. Our shout will be your signal to blow the walls. We’ll rush the stairway of rubble you will have created and climb over the walls and into the city. The city will be doomed to destruction and all who are in it.”

  Even as Bin-Nun spoke these final words, Deker could hear footsteps in the brush growing louder and turned to see Elezar emerge from the shadows, eyes on fire.

  “General Bin-Nun,” Elezar said, breathing hard as he glared at Deker. “What is the meaning of this?”

  Deker cleared his throat. “We are discussing Rahab the harlot and her family,” he said quickly. “She hid us from Hamas and helped us escape with the knowledge of his plans to cut us down at the Jordan. She also warned us to march at least five hundred cubits away from the walls to remain outside the long range of the archers.”

  Bin-Nun pursed his lips. Deker had forgotten to give him that intel earlier about the kill zone, and it was clear the general considered it more than useful. Then again, Deker spared Bin-Nun the obvious reminder that he himself had made a similar sort of promise to Rahab’s grandmother forty years ago, and that it was about time he fulfilled it.

  “Rahab the harlot shall be spared,” Bin-Nun said, and Deker felt his lungs exhale in relief. “Only Rahab and all who are with her in the house, because she hid you, and only on two conditions.”

  Deker took a breath and waited. So did Elezar, keenly searching for any loopholes Bin-Nun might give him.

  “First, you will make sure she binds a scarlet cord in the window through which she let you down and which you are about to climb up,” Bin-Nun said. “This will be a sign to me that she hasn’t betrayed you to Hamas. It will also be a sign for our troops to avoid her house when we storm the city walls. If she fails to do this, we will be blameless in her death.”

  Deker nodded. This was the very blood-on-the-doorposts Passover protection and sign of her faith in Yahweh that Rahab had been seeking all along.

  Deker asked, “And the second condition?”

  “She must bring her entire family into her house, or they will be slaughtered with the rest of the Reahns,” Bin-Nun stated. “Whoever ventures outside the doors of her house into the street, his blood—or hers—shall be on his own head, and we will be guiltless. If any of our men lay a hand on her family inside her house, their blood will be on our head.”

  It was Deker’s turn to glare at Elezar. “Got that?” he said, and turned his face to the walls of Jericho.

  37

  Deker could see the walls clearly as he and Elezar approached slowly and quietly in their camouflaged uniforms they had soiled with the dirt in which they now crawled. The concrete revetment wall ahead cut an even line across the sandy ground, the jagged brick wall above it risin
g into the dark. Every now and then, when a cloud broke to reveal a thin shaft of moonlight, he could glimpse the Reahn helmets and spears waiting for them atop the wall.

  According to his calculations, Rahab’s cellar window on the north wall was only thirty or so meters from the main gate around the corner at the east wall. So Deker used the gatehouse tower to his left and the forbidding city spire dead ahead as his markers all the way in. But the walls were coming up fast now, blocking his view of the markers, and the clouds were parting too much, forcing him and Elezar to move more quickly than they’d like to keep from being spotted overhead.

  Deker dragged himself across the sand to the base of the wall when a dazzling white light from the sky stabbed the ground just behind him and in front of Elezar, who stopped cold just outside the patch of light.

  Deker pressed his back against the rock and held his breath in the shadows. The ground was awash with moonlight now, brought by a break in the night clouds. Deker was aware of the crunch of boots and the sound of voices growing louder on the wall high above.

  “Clear!” shouted one of the Reahn sentries.

  “All clear!” repeated another sentry.

  Soon Deker was standing up, back flat against the wall, staring out toward Gilgal and its awesome pillars of fire, waiting for Elezar. For a terrifying moment, Elezar looked as though he were sure he had been spotted and was about to do something stupid. But the shaft was cut off again by another cloud and Elezar made it over quickly in the dark.

  “They can’t see a damn thing with the fires, Elezar,” Deker assured him in a low whisper. “We just have to keep quiet.”

  Deker turned and looked up the sheer face of the wall. There beyond his view was Rahab’s window. All he needed to do was climb the wall, pull himself through the window in Rahab’s cellar and then drop Elezar a rope. The reddish brick wall that began five meters overhead was uneven enough that an experienced climber like himself could manage it without much difficulty.