MANNING
Where’s the car?
In the place where the Studebaker had been, we see only a smoking engine block, on its side, and the steel chassis frame, peeled completely of paint.
ARMORY COMMANDER
Exactly.
Manning takes three.
On the way out we pass a rack of Mossberg 500 ZMB shotguns, like the one that bowled me over during the warrant service at Brooklyn South.
MANNING
(to commander)
And one of these for my partner.
Ninety minutes down the road our convoy is halted by a skirmish in a migrant camp outside a town called Arad. It takes Israeli Special Forces units—Sayeret Matkal—working with their Palestinian counterparts almost two hours to restore order and clear the highway. Returning to board our Humvees, I see two of our young paratroopers giggling at something on a phone.
I look.
It’s the shower video, the one with Instancer cupping Rachel’s bare breasts in his soapy hands.
DANA
(to paratroopers)
Put that shit away!
The soldiers obey reluctantly. When I turn to Dana, she averts her gaze. Either Ben-David has told her more about our enterprise than she has indicated or she and the troops she commands have figured it out on their own.
28
EIN GEDI
OUR PARTY REACHES Kibbutz Ein Gedi at the peak of the late afternoon heat. Ben-David is waiting in the sun at the end of the entry drive. I’m startled at the depth of feeling produced by this reunion. Manning shakes Ben-David’s hand with real emotion. Ben-David has to pretend to wipe sweat from his eyes.
MANNING
Where’s Rachel?
BEN-DAVID
She’s safe. Don’t worry. We’ve heard nothing from you-know-who.
Ben-David shows Manning the latest from KAN 11:
Four new “LV” murders in the past twelve hours—two in Israel, one in Egypt, one in Turkey.
Thirty-two.
Thirty-three.
Thirty-four.
Thirty-five.
BEN-DAVID
What number does that make me?
Ben-David leads us inside to the dining hall. He’s in uniform—boots and desert hat, rumpled khaki trousers and even more wrinkled utility shirt. The digital thermometer on the wall reads 45.5 Celsius (114° Fahrenheit) even with a breeze and a line of industrial fans cranking.
Dana returns from the office to tell us there’s been another “schedule alteration.” Two civilian tractor-trailers were supposed to pick up Ben-David’s equipment—prototypes of solar power generation gear—and take it to the port of Haifa, from which it will be transported by sea to Cyprus for the climate conference six days hence. But an emergency has called the vehicles away. We’ll have to deliver the stuff ourselves, using army trucks and repacking everything.
DANA
I’m sorry. We’re all drafted for loading duty and it’s going to take all night.
We start working at sunset. Rachel has joined us, coming from the kibbutz dormitory where she has been sleeping. The Dead Sea shore for six contiguous miles north of Ein Gedi has been converted, we are told, into a half-military, half-civilian Eco-Research Park. The salt-heavy waters, which conduct electrical current nearly as efficiently as copper wire, have been employed for three decades in experiments by government agencies and civilian start-ups seeking tech breakthroughs to combat climate change. A consortium associated with the Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology at Haifa, runs this facility. Ben-David has been the intellectual guru and emotional catalyst behind many of these projects.
The building we’re in looks like the Apple campus in Silicon Valley. Everything is Cube Modern and automated, powered by sun and wind. The bay is air-conditioned, thank God. The loading is done by forklifts manned by facility crews. Our job, under Ben-David’s supervision, is to sort and rewrap the hundreds of pieces of equipment, which had been bundled for transport on forty-foot-long trailers and now must be broken down to fit on three-ton army trucks.
The gear, Ben-David tells us, is a revolutionary type of aeration apparatus for a system that climate engineers call SROG, Seawater Re-Oxygenation and Generation.
SROG technology mimics the process of photosynthesis in plants. It uses sunlight and salt water to produce electricity, which is then stored in an equally innovative medium constituted of 99.99 percent silica, i.e., sand.
This system alone, if deployed worldwide, says Ben-David, could retard if not reverse the most dangerous aspects of atmospheric carbon accretion.
Our party labors till midnight, when plans change again.
A fierce khamsin has come up with the fall of darkness. By ten the storm has become electric. Swarms of migdalim mini-tornadoes (“towers” in Hebrew) roar across the surface of the Dead Sea. Lightning strikes by dozens boom over the biblical landscape.
Electrical power has failed. A/C crashes. Temp soars to 105°, then 110°. No one can sleep. Across the loading area I spot Manning in some kind of clash with Rachel, with Ben-David in the middle and Dana and several other troopers looking on.
Do I care? I’m exhausted and dehydrated. My body clock is fifteen hours out of whack, and to top it all off I’m getting my period. Cramps knot my guts. I can’t remember why I’m here or what I imagined we had hoped to accomplish.
I cross toward the fracas in time to hear Rachel confronting Ben-David and pointing indignantly at Manning.
RACHEL
Why is he even here? Why did you let him come?
Rachel is telling Ben-David he must go to Haifa, to the port from which he and this equipment will sail for Cyprus. “Don’t listen to him!” she’s saying, indicating Manning.
RACHEL
The climate conference is everything! You’re the world’s last hope, Amos! You can’t risk your life. You must get to Cyprus!
Manning, with admirable self-restraint at triple digits Fahrenheit, makes the case that Cyprus can wait. The conference is six days away. We must go to Gehenna now, Manning says, with or without the trucks and equipment.
MANNING
This was the plan, Amos. You agreed to it in New York.
RACHEL
Don’t listen to him! You’re bait to him, that’s all. He wants you at Gehenna to draw Instancer. He doesn’t care if you die!
Manning tells Ben-David he’ll die if he goes anywhere except Gehenna.
MANNING
Instancer will kill you on the road, Amos. He’ll kill you in Haifa, he’ll kill you at the Cyprus conference, he doesn’t care. When you’re gone, the full slate of Righteous Men will have been eliminated. The only place we have a chance against Instancer is at the dig—at Gehenna.
RACHEL
Don’t believe him, Amos! You’re Number Thirty-Six to him, nothing more.
The paratroopers look on. How much of this can they make sense of? Do they have any idea who Instancer is, or what the stakes are in this debate?
Ben-David glances to his sister, then to Manning. He turns at last to Dana and the troops.
BEN-DAVID
Carry on as you were instructed, Lieutenant. The convoy will move out, as soon as the storm abates, for Haifa.
29
SHIT HAPPENS IN THE HOLY LAND
EIN GEDI TO HAIFA is 140 miles. It takes us twenty-seven hours just to get to Jerusalem, a third of the way.
The electrical storm refuses to subside. Ben-David orders the start anyway. We pull out at 1030 precisely on April 28, 2034.
I have never seen atmospheric conditions as hostile as these, or a landscape as bleak and devoid of life. Surface temperature of the macadam on Highway 90 is 55° Celsius (130° Fahrenheit). The asphalt has literally melted. We drive over dust and sand mixed with petroleum-derived goo.
Our convoy is Manning and Ben-David in army truck #1 with a soldier-driver, Eli. They are led by Humvee #1 with Dana as convoy commander, the sergeant from the airport, Giora, and a third trooper to man the
.50-caliber in the turret. Truck #2 is, like the first, an IDF “six-by” with a male soldier-driver, Hemi, short for Menachem. I ride beside Rachel in the tall, open, unbearably broiling cab. Behind us, the tarp-covered cargo bed is stacked roof-high with tech gear and distillation apparatus, part of the equipment that Ben-David is bringing with him to the Cyprus eco-conference. A second and third Humvee trail ours, providing rear security.
Manning has lost the argument of Gehenna versus Haifa.
He insists, however, upon riding at Ben-David’s side. He takes the Zombie Killer and packs one of the tunnel-busters behind the truck cab’s seat. His instructions to me, acceded to by Ben-David, are to rivet myself to Rachel. I am to ride with her, hydrate with her, march to the ladies’ loo with her. She is not to be permitted to stray from my sight or supervision under any circumstances. Nor will Manning let her be issued a weapon. Further, at his insistence, I have outfitted Rachel with an NYPD-issue lapel cam and audio recorder exactly like the ones Manning and I wear.
ME
(to Rachel)
From now on, every word you speak, every sound within your hearing, and everything this camera sees will be recorded. You don’t have to do a thing. It’s automatic. Goes straight to the cloud, meaning the permanent database of the NYPD.
The convoy vehicles themselves are equipped with sophisticated Israeli-made comm gear, including interior and exterior cameras linking all vehicles to the column commander, i.e., Ben-David, and to one another. Every trooper wears a mike and headset. Every console/instrument panel mounts separate tablet-type screens for each truck and Humvee. All are tied in by laser and GPS locators, so that each vehicle knows where all others are at all times. Rachel’s police recorders are for Manning and me only, so that we miss nothing of what she does or says.
The convoy proceeds north out of Ein Gedi on highway 90. The Dead Sea is on our right. We stop briefly at the research facility at Mitspe Shalem. There Ben-David picks up more eco-equipment for Cyprus.
The loading proceeds in heat so intense even the birds and lizards have taken cover. Dana and her security party are nearing a breaking point, not so much from the heat or the labor, but from the tension produced by the foreknowledge of what they might have to confront, i.e., Instancer—and the fact that this eventuality has apparently not been addressed by their commander.
Here under the eaves Dana stands and confronts Ben-David.
She does so with respect but with passion.
DANA
Amos, our orders are to escort you and this equipment to Haifa and to see you safely aboard ship for Cyprus. This of course we shall do. However . . .
Giora, Hemi, and the other troopers listen intently. Dana gestures to Manning, to Rachel, and to me.
DANA
None of us in the security party is blind or deaf. We have read the news and heard the rumors. We know who these people are and why they are here—
BEN-DAVID
And your question is?
DANA
We are soldiers, Amos. We are not afraid to fight.
Ben-David’s glance scans the faces of the other paratroopers. Clearly they stand with their lieutenant.
BEN-DAVID
Our destination, Dana, remains Haifa. Should that change, I promise you will be the first to know.
The crews finish loading the equipment—titanium tanks for the SROG system. Titanium apparently is more impermeable even than stainless steel in corrosive environments. Our convoy is three trucks now instead of two, escorted by the same three Humvees.
What is it like to drive in a khamsin? Through our truck’s windshield (I remain with Rachel in six-by #2), which is caked with dust so thick that high noon feels like midnight, the ribbon of desert road, half liquid and whipped relentlessly by a foot-high stream of sandstorm grit, is virtually invisible. Stones the size of golf balls bound across the road surface and pound into our tires and mudguards.
In the cab, speech is impossible. Our “deuce-and-a-half” weighs six tons empty, nine loaded. We are buffeted like a microbus. Our driver, Hemi, wrestles the wheel gamely. How he can see the road, I have no idea.
The convoy is derailed again at Almog, south of Jericho. Migrant riots have produced a mass evacuation. Highway 90 north is closed.
We turn west toward Jerusalem. Ben-David’s plan is to take Highway 1 to 6, the Rabin Highway, and head north on this route to Haifa. But the westbound lanes are backed up for miles with inhabitants fleeing toward the coast. Our convoy struggles past Wadi Qelt and Khan al-Ahmar.
This is the West Bank. The territories. Checkpoints manned by security men of the Palestinian Authority and others by soldiers of the IDF halt our convoy over and over. We reach the outskirts of East Jerusalem at sundown in a standstill crush. It takes four hours to cross from Highway 417 at Jahalin to the Old City, a distance of less than five miles.
Through all this, Manning stays glued to Ben-David. When he’s not physically at his side, his eye remains on him. I do the same for Rachel. But while Manning’s job is to protect Ben-David from Instancer, mine is to keep watch on Rachel to shield Manning. How on edge are we? A column of vehicles is defenseless in densely packed traffic, and our convoy’s situation is worse because of the anarchy and civil disorder within the city.
Demonstrators, Israelis as well as Palestinians and migrants, apparently have run amok protesting a reduced ration of drinking water. Our convoy enters the city from the southeast, from Bethlehem via the Jericho road. Firemen are knocking down blazes in wrecked and looted storefronts; they use chemical foam instead of water. Police in riot gear have cordoned off half the city. Our vehicles snake through the bedlam, thanks only to Dana, in the lead Humvee, flashing her ID and talking smack at each checkpoint.
Our party overnights in the trucks in a neighborhood called Abu Tor outside the Old City. Time is 0130, April 30. Drivers catch what sleep they can sprawled across the bench seats in their cabs; everyone else tosses in pools of sweat atop the stretch-wrapped cargo. All night the windstorm continues unabated.
Reveille arrives at 0430. Our party wash with hand wipes, brush our teeth using thimble-splashes from water bottles.
The trucks roll out at 0510. Traffic is already dense with motor vehicles, many of which have apparently been in the streets all night trying to flee the city, and also with pedestrians pulling carts and wagons hauling families and their possessions. We have to shut down to keep from boiling over.
Six hours pass. Time is 1130 before we escape the warren of local streets and at last crawl onto Highway 1 West. The sun is high now. The dust storm has eased. For a mile or more, we make speed. But at Abu Ghosh, still inside the city limits, our column runs into an even more massive traffic jam. Police and emergency vehicles creep forward along the shoulders amid a chaos of honking horns, stalled and overheated cars, and ragged refugees in the hundreds, many carrying children or wheeling old folks and belongings, all tramping toward the coast on foot.
Our driver, Hemi, goes forward to investigate the holdup. I start to step out myself but the metal of the exterior door handle is so scorching from the sun that I jerk my hand back, cursing. “Stay in the cab,” calls Hemi. “Don’t be a hero.”
Manning stands on the roadside in the searing sun, packing the Zombie Killer, keeping watch over our convoy commander. Ben-David himself is on the military radio to Dana and Giora, seeking alternative routes. I check my phone for external temp: 121° F.
Hemi comes slogging back, his shirt soaked in sweat. He mounts to the cab. He’s wearing gloves on both hands. “Another water riot,” he says. Apparently mobs have attacked a convoy of tankers a few miles ahead.
We turn back for Highway 60. We will bypass Ramallah, a Palestinian city in the West Bank, and take mountain roads along the border with Jordan. “Might get a little breezy up there,” says Hemi.
Our convoy covers five miles or so, climbing all the way, with traffic thinning dramatically behind us.
The Ramallah road is as jammed as Highwa
y 1. Dana, breaking the trail, signals for the convoy to veer right onto a bypass route. The vehicles follow in order, in second gear and then in first, onto an unpaved, single-track road that hugs on its left a parched basalt ridge and teeters on its right above the sharp, sere drop-off to the Jordanian desert.
Ten miles down the bypass one of the trucks behind us overheats. The convoy stops. As soon as the engines are shut off, the other two six-bys boil over. An hour is spent transferring coolant from one of the seawater evaporators in the cargo bays to the radiators of the trucks.
Time is now 1330. Heat is beyond my capacity to describe. I’m hunkering with Rachel in the shade under Ben-David’s deuce-and-a-half. We have left the bypass road and turned onto a bypass-of-the-bypass. Unpaved, unmarked. I can’t find it on any map or on my phone. The Jordan Valley desert—the Ghor—sprawls below us on the right. Temperature down there must be 150. Across the entire expanse, which is barren as a floor of linoleum, heat lightning crackles—scores of strikes every minute across a vista of what seems like at least thirty miles.
West, the grade descends through rugged hill country to the coastal plain and the Mediterranean. The result along the summit is an east-to-west gale like a furnace blast. Wind-driven sand and gravel howl up from the desert floor with the force of an industrial abrader. Did I mention it was hot? Dana, with her head wrapped in a checkered kefiyyeh, ducks into the shade under the truck.
When she sees Rachel she stiffens.
DANA
You still here?
RACHEL
Fuck you.
DANA
Tell us something. You have to tell us something.
RACHEL
About what?
DANA
Him.
Dana wears a pistol on one hip. She carries her Uzi on a sling over her shoulder.
36 Righteous Men Page 19