She wondered what the choice said. Was it I trust you, so let’s meet where I feel most at ease or Look at me—I’m just a plain old little rabbi? Genuine or horseshit? Gabriela had trouble being sure; her handle on Kupferman wasn’t as good as she wanted.
If you didn’t bet, you couldn’t win. “Thanks for talking with me,” she said. “You know what I’ve got in mind.”
“Yes. Your show wants to make a television spectacle of the Ark.” Kupferman’s voice was cold as Winnipeg winter.
But Gabriela nodded. “That’s right,” she said. “It’s an important discovery. People have the right to find out all they can about it.”
“True,” Kupferman said, which surprised her. Then she remembered the rabbi was archaeologist and theologian. Kupferman went on, “But do you remember what I told you? Do you remember the Biblical examples I cited?”
“You said that, if anyone disturbs the Ark and God doesn’t like it, that person dies,” Gabriela answered.
“Do you believe that?” Kupferman leaned forward, as if to impose the power of his personality on Gabriela. He had a formidable presence. But Gabriela had faced down the great and the notorious for years. Kupferman made no more than a middleweight intimidator.
“I don’t know,” Gabriela said slowly. “Are you afraid to let me try? If I open it and look inside and nothing happens to me, then what? One of two things, I’d say. Either God means for me to do it, or He’s not paying any attention.” Or God wasn’t there at all. Catholic upbringing or not, that was what Gabriela suspected. But she didn’t want to anger Kupferman, so she kept quiet about it.
“You realize you’re risking your life?” the rabbi persisted.
“I’ve done it before,” Gabriela said, which was true, even if not so true as she’d made it out to be before she fell from network grace. “I’ll do it again if you let me.”
“Are you sure you want to? The archaeologists know better. Isn’t there an English saying about fools rushing in?”
“I’m no angel, but I’m game,” Gabriela said.
The rabbi eyed her. “If I say no, you or your smarmy young associate will try to sneak or bribe your way into the Heikhal Ha-Sefer.” He’d nailed Brandon in one, though Gabriela hoped she didn’t react to the dig. Shlomo Kupferman didn’t sound admiring, the way most people would have. Gabriela would have herself; she relished other people’s gall. But Kupferman, a born tightass, seemed revolted at the idea.
Gabriela nodded anyhow. “If I figured out how we could get away with it, we would.”
What Kupferman said next made Gabriela doubt her own judgment, something that rarely happened: “ ‘And he softly and silently vanished away,/For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.’ ”
Could a born tightass quote Lewis Carroll? “I’ll take the chance,” Gabriela said.
“Are you sure, Ms. Sandoval? I am trying to talk you out of this. I do not want to go on while feeling I have your blood on my hands,” the rabbi said.
“You won’t. If you like, I’ll write a release that says I’m doing this of my own free will, and if anything happens to me I know it’s my own fault,” Gabriela said.
Rabbi Kupferman still looked dissatisfied. “You say that, but you say it expecting to open the Ark and live. You say it not believing in the power of the Lord, blessed be His holy Name.”
Gabriela looked him straight in the eye. “Yes, I do. So what? I’m willing to risk being wrong. Are you willing to risk that I may be right? You gave me old sayings, Rabbi. I’ll give you one back—put up or shut up.”
Did Kupferman go red? His expression didn’t change; he already looked as sour as one man could. “All right,” he said. “All right.” Jew though he was, he might have been Pilate washing his hands. “Write me your release. Maybe it will ease my conscience later.”
Jubilation burst in Gabriela. “Now you’re talking!” She took a notebook and a fancy Rotring fountain pen from her handbag. She wrote rapidly, signed Gabriela Sandoval in a neater hand than she used for her signature most of the time, tore out the sheet, and handed it to Kupferman. “Here. Are you happy now?”
“Happy? No. If you and your foolish show respected God’s power and feared to transgress against the Law, then I would be happy.” The rabbi read the release. “But this makes it plain you’re committing your folly of your own free will. Would you like a copy for your legal people—and your heirs?”
He really was trying to scare her. How many men had done their best to make her turn green? Regiments of them. How many had had any luck? Damn few, especially the past twenty years. She shook her head. “That’s fine. I’ll tell Brandon and Saul you have it. If they need it, you can pull it out afterwards. But I’ll bet my life they won’t.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Ms. Sandoval,” Kupferman said.
* * *
—
“Dear, you’ve got to see this!” Rhonda Stark called from the living room.
Lester Stark was muttering at his Mac. Microsoft Word had just unexpectedly quit, taking with it an unsaved page of Sunday’s sermon. He thought the program was unsaved, too. When he asked, “See what?” he sounded less forbearing than usual.
“It’s Gabriela, from Jerusalem,” his wife said.
“I’m coming.” Stark would have watched anything in preference to the word-processing program that had done him wrong…again. I was going to save when I finished that paragraph, he thought. Close only counted in horseshoes and hand grenades.
Gabriela was staring out of the TV when Lester got there. The minister discounted that; she always stared. If she didn’t, somebody would have taken her to the doctor to see what was wrong.
“I’ll tell you one more time. Next Thursday, at nine o’clock Eastern, six o’clock Pacific—four in the morning on Friday here—I’ll open up the Ark of the Covenant, and we’ll see what’s inside.”
“She can’t do that!” Lester Stark exclaimed.
As if to contradict him, Gabriela went on, “I have special permission from Rabbi Shlomo Kupferman, the new Israeli Minister of Religious Affairs. He made me sign a release stating that I don’t hold him responsible for anything that happens afterwards.” She struck a pose. “And I don’t. Bringing the news comes first. I’ll see you Thursday, with the Ark of the Covenant.”
The TV cut to a commercial. “What do you think of that?” Rhonda asked.
“Either she’s gone ’round the bend, or Kupferman has.” Lester looked at his watch. Half past three here in Birmingham; it would be half past eleven in Jerusalem. He knew Shlomo Kupferman well, and knew he was a night owl. He had the rabbi’s number on his own phone. Taking it from his pocket, he made the call.
“Kupferman here. How are you, Lester?”
Stark smiled. Not many people from area code 205 called the Religious Affairs Minister. “I’m fine, thanks. Yourself? Your family?”
“Well enough. You’re calling about Gabriela Sandoval, aren’t you?”
“What does she think she’s doing? What do you think you’re doing, letting her try?”
“I’m giving her what she wants. She does want it—I made sure of that. She has faith in herself. I have faith in the Lord.”
“Yes,” Stark said. “But this could be tawdry. A spectacle on TV—”
“People need to know. Television will let them find out.” Stark heard the shrug in Kupferman’s voice.
“But what if it doesn’t turn out the way you want it to?”
“It will turn out as God wants it to, blessed be His holy Name,” Rabbi Kupferman said.
“Of course.” Stark couldn’t disagree with that. “But what if Gabriela takes the lid off and nothing happens? After all your warnings, you won’t look good then.” He remembered his hesitation over getting too explicit about what Revelation meant. Kupferman hadn’t hesitated at all. He’d thrown I and
II Samuel in the world’s face. Would he pay for it now?
“It will turn out as God wants it to,” the rabbi repeated. “I am a man. I have made a fool of myself before—that is part of being a man. There was a girl once—” He broke off. “But that was long ago. I would not be that kind of fool now…I hope. If I am some other kind of fool…it is because God wants me to be that kind of fool.”
Stark hadn’t called to debate free will and predestination. “Aren’t you afraid being wrong will hurt you?” he asked.
“No.” Kupferman’s answer was sharp. “The new government is in place. So is the new Knesset. We will move forward. This is not for publication, but we are going to relocate the structures that clutter up the Temple Mount now.”
“The Dome of the Rock? Al-Aqsa Mosque, too?”
“Yes, yes,” Kupferman said impatiently: it was as if naming them made them more important than he wanted them to be. “We’ll take them down. We won’t harm them. If I had my way…That’s what the Prime Minister wants, and that’s what he will get. The Temple Mount will be ours again, as it was in Abraham’s day.”
“My goodness,” Stark said. Kupferman was a friend as well as a colleague. Stark wouldn’t violate his confidence—but he was tempted. This was enormous news. “You’re sure Gabriela’s stupid TV stunt won’t hurt your plans?”
“Lester,” Kupferman said, “I am positive.”
* * *
—
The waiter who led Brandon and Gabriela to a table in the Sheraton’s upscale restaurant spoke excellent English. The name on his little breast-pocket badge was PABLO; that and his features made Brandon guess he came from the Philippines. “Can I bring you something to drink?” he asked as he seated them.
“Let me have a St. Pauli Girl,” Brandon said. Ordering a German beer in Israel tickled his imp of the perverse.
Gabriela frowned. “I’m not sure I should.”
“You’ve got hours to kill yet,” Brandon said, which was nothing but the truth. To reach a big audience in America, the special with the Ark would start in the wee small hours here. He went on, “You can have an extra slug of espresso later if you think you need it, or even a nap.”
“Espresso, maybe. I wouldn’t sleep now—I’m too keyed up.” Gabriela swung her attention back to Pablo. “Let me have a glass of Chablis, please. He’s right. One won’t hurt.”
“Yes, ma’am. Coming right up. And your beer, too, sir.” The chubby little black-haired man hurried away.
Brandon eyed the menu. He wanted the best slab of steak he could get here. “Something with pasta,” Gabriela murmured to herself. She looked over the top of the menu at Brandon. “This is working out really well, you know? If we hadn’t come for the red heifer, we wouldn’t have been on the spot when the dirty bomb hit Tel Aviv.”
He smiled his most charming smile. “You were a little too much on the spot.”
“No kidding!” Gabriela shuddered. “I still don’t know what all I breathed in or what it’ll do to me. But I was talking about you. You earned the props for pushing me to get Kupferman to let us open up the Ark and see what’s inside of it, too. I didn’t think he’d let us, but he did.”
“What did we have to lose?” Brandon said. He noticed she wasn’t giving him the credit he knew damn well he deserved, the credit for being the one who went on-camera and pulled Moses’ old laundry list out of the Ark while Kupferman stood there with his thumb up his ass. Oh, no. She kept that for herself. She was the talent; he was the second stringer, the hired help. That was what she figured, anyhow.
Brandon had other ideas.
Pablo came back with a glass of white wine and a bottle of beer. As he set them in front of Gabriela and Brandon, he asked, “You folks ready to order?”
“I am,” Brandon said at once. The waiter raised an eyebrow. He went on, “I want the New York strip, rare, and a baked potato. Butter and chives on the potato—no sour cream.”
“Okay.” Pablo wrote that down, then turned to Gabriela. “And for you, ma’am?”
“I’d like the Sichuan noodles, please, with chicken.” She made a wry face at Brandon. “I’d like them with shrimp, but you can’t get shrimp here.”
“Nope.” Brandon nodded. If he was having steak, the butter on his potato was a Jewish no-no, too. But it was one he could get away with.
“Sichuan noodles with chicken.” Pablo scribbled again. “How hot you want the sauce?”
“As hot as the kitchen can fix it,” Gabriela said, not without pride.
The waiter looked alarmed. “Oh, no, ma’am, you don’t want me to say that to the chef. Kittirat, he’s from Thailand, from the Isaan country in the northeast, and he burn your tongue off. Americans, you don’t know what hot is.”
Brandon would have backed off after a warning like that. It just put Gabriela’s back up. “As hot as he can fix it,” she repeated. “My abuela would disown me if I said anything else. I’m Mexican, and I know as much about spicy food as any Thai ever born. You can tell him I said so, too.”
“Oh, no. I won’t do that. It would only make things worse,” Pablo said. “If I say you like it real hot, you get it real hot. I promise.” He scurried away, looking back over his shoulder as if to memorize the crazy foreigner’s face.
“Sure you know what you’re doing?” Brandon sounded sympathetic, but he was chortling inside. He couldn’t imagine how this might have worked out better for him. He would have tried it anyway, but now he had a real chance to bring it off.
Pablo came back, not with their dinners but with two huge glasses of ice water. He set them both in front of Gabriela. “Maybe these help put out the fire. Maybe.” He paused, then added, “I bring you glass of milk, too, if you want. Milk supposed to be good for hot food. Regular hot food, I mean, not what Kittirat gonna do to you.”
“I’ll be fine,” Gabriela replied. The look on Pablo’s face said It’s your funeral, lady loud and clear. Brandon saw it. If Gabriela didn’t—and how couldn’t she?—she pretended not to. Shaking his head, Pablo went away again. Once he was gone, her self-assurance slipped a bit. She murmured, “I hope I’ll be fine,” and sipped from the Chablis.
“You can still back out,” Brandon said, hoping he would make her want to do anything but.
“Like hell I will,” she snapped, so that worked fine. She went on, “If I fry my tonsils, I do, that’s all. It’s just chili powder. It won’t kill me. It’s not like that damn plutonium.”
“I hope that doesn’t come to anything.” Brandon even more or less meant it. He’d been exposed to radioactivity, too, though less than Gabriela had. If it bothered him, he could see how it would scare her. That was about as far as his empathy stretched. Anything that didn’t bother him was just somebody else pissing and moaning off in the distance.
Here came Pablo, with a tray on his left shoulder and supported underneath by his left hand. He used his right hand to pluck two plates off the tray and set one in front of Brandon, the other before Gabriela. Even the steam rising from her Sichuan noodles was enough to make Brandon’s eyes water. He wished he had a gas mask again, though he couldn’t see how he’d eat with it.
“Enjoy your dinners, folks,” the waiter said, and beat a hasty retreat. His eyes were bound to be feeling it, too, and maybe the inside of his nose with them.
Brandon tried his steak. It was as rare as he liked, and a fine piece of beef as well. He chewed and swallowed with real appreciation.
Then he watched with clinical detachment as Gabriela twirled noodles onto her fork and raised them to her mouth. “¡Madre de Dios!” she whispered. She grabbed one of the glasses of ice water and gulped. When she lowered it, it was half empty. A tear ran down her cheek. The makeup crew at the Shrine of the Book would have some extra work to do.
“How is it?” Brandon asked.
“It tastes good,” she said. “It d
oes, honest. But the heat—! Whatever he put in there, it could boil water at the South Pole. I’m going to eat it anyhow.” She took another defiant bite.
“You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.” Brandon had never been into hurting himself for the fun of it. He didn’t light forest fires in his mouth when he ate dinner. Even in this much-inked age, he wore exactly zero tats. Hurting other people, now…Yes, there had been times when he got off on that.
“Oh, my God!” Maybe Gabriela’d got the measure of the noodles now: she exclaimed in English, not Spanish. But exclaim she did. A tear slid down her other cheek. Sweat popped out on her forehead. She drained her first glass of water and started the second. Brandon caught Pablo’s eye and pointed at the water glasses. Nodding and grabbing a pitcher, the waiter hurried over to refill them.
“You all right, ma’am?” He truly sounded anxious.
“I…think so.” Gabriela’s voice sounded as raspy as if she’d smoked three packs a day for years. “Tell, uh, Kittirat he’s an hijo de puto.”
Brandon didn’t follow the español. By Pablo’s scandalized giggle, he did. Away he went, still chuckling.
Gabriela would steel herself, take a bite, wince, and gulp water to extinguish the flames. Before long, that had its inevitable effect. She stood up, murmured, “I’ll be right back,” and made for the ladies’ room at a pace Pablo would have envied.
As soon as her back was turned, Brandon’s hand darted into his trouser pocket. It came out with a tiny plastic pill bottle. Fast as he could, he spread a whole roofie, crushed to powder, over Gabriela’s noodles. It vanished into the fiery Sichuan sauce and the pill bottle disappeared well before she came back.
She didn’t notice anything odd as she started eating again. The peppers masked whatever slight bitterness the Rohypnol added. Brandon savored his steak. No way in hell she’d go on in the wee smalls. Unless the crack of doom sounded, she’d be out till close to noon, and she wouldn’t know what had hit her. She might suspect, but she wouldn’t know.
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