And the message was written in an Aramaic script obsolete for 2,000 years, though the modern Hebrew alphabet sprang from it, not from the one the Hebrews originally used. If a Mossad hit man killed the President of Iran, would he have added that message? Would he have known enough to add it in that script?
This on top of how could an Israeli hit man take out the President of Iran at the instant the Iranians were launching missiles at Israel? Were his guards asleep? At that moment?
What about the Defense Minister’s guards?
What about the Grand Ayatollah, who dropped dead in front of thousands of people? Didn’t he have guards, too? He had to have more than the President of Iran did.
“The Mossad’s good, but not that good,” Orly said. “Nobody’s that good.”
“Well, if they didn’t nail the Iranians, who did?” Eric asked.
“I don’t know.” Orly sounded impatient. “The same person who grabbed three missiles out of the air.”
“Nobody could do that, either.” Rationally, Eric knew he was right. But the rational and what happened kept getting disconnected from each other.
Orly shook her head. “Somebody could. Somebody did,” she said. Ice walked up Eric’s spine, because he knew Whom she meant.
* * *
—
Jamal Ashrawi believed. You didn’t get to be Grand Mufti because you knew the right people, though that helped. But you needed fire in your belly, too. Ashrawi had it, and it had sustained him through thick and thin—through years of thin.
The Iranians also believed. They might believe wrongly, but they weren’t as bad as the Jews. And they believed fiercely. That often counted more in the jihad against Zionism.
Now, Jamal Ashrawi didn’t know what to believe.
Iran had launched missiles at Israel. (What would have happened to Hebron if a missile came down on it instead of Jerusalem a few kilometers away never crossed his mind.) The Israelis hadn’t launched antimissiles. They couldn’t have kept it secret. Ashrawi couldn’t think of anything more public than a missile launch.
But the Iranian rockets hadn’t come down anywhere. If the Israelis knew why not, they weren’t saying. If the Iranians knew, they weren’t, either.
They were saying the Israelis had decapitated their country. They weren’t saying how; either they didn’t know or were too embarrassed to admit they did. The nonsense from Daniel…Ashrawi had to borrow a Bible from a Christian Arab to understand that.
When he did, a shiver ran through him. Jews and Christians distorted their holy books. But not everything in the Bible was a lie. The holy Qur’an made that plain. Figuring out what was true, what twisted, and what false…God knew, and the Prophet, but it was harder for an ordinary mortal.
Daniel had prophesied that Nebuchadnezzar would fall, and Nebuchadnezzar fell. So Daniel was a true prophet. Then the Persians took over the Near East, which to Ashrawi only proved God had lapses in taste.
And now the Israelis were mocking those Persians (well, their descendants, but memories ran deep in this part of the world) with the prophecy that brought down the King of Babylon! It had to be the Israelis. Though how they’d bagged the Grand Ayatollah in the mosque in Qom…If they could do that, Ashrawi knew he wasn’t safe himself.
Al Jazeera cut away from the Iranians. An announcer said, “American sources confirm the Islamic Republic of Iran launched three missiles at Israel. Halfway to their destination, they disappeared from radar for no known reason.”
Halfway between Iran and the Zionist entity was over western Iraq. Suspicion flared in the Grand Mufti. Maybe the Americans had something to do with it. Who could guess what secrets were hidden in the desert?
The newsman went on, “These sources deny the United States shot down the missiles. The Americans are as baffled as the Israelis, who were about to launch Patriots against the rockets from the east.”
Someone handed him a sheet of paper. “This just in,” he said. “Russian sources confirm the missiles vanished from their radar installations in Syria. ‘We don’t know who did it, or how,’ one Russian said. ‘We wish we did.’ ”
If the Russians doubted the Americans knocked down the missiles, they probably didn’t. Did the Zionists? Ashrawi couldn’t believe it. If they did, they would have bragged about it.
“The Americans didn’t do it,” a Hamas man said. “The Jews didn’t.” He must have been thinking with Ashrawi. “Who did?”
“Maybe the missiles were flawed,” another man said. “Maybe the same thing made all three blow up. I wouldn’t drive a car an Iranian made.” Several people nodded.
“But they didn’t blow up,” the Grand Mufti said. “They just disappeared. That’s why the scientists are going crazy.” All Arabs knew Iranians were arrogant and incompetent. But they also knew Western scientists weren’t incompetent, no matter how arrogant they were.
“I don’t see how the Zionists could have done all that,” the Christian Arab said. “The timing is too good.”
“Who did?” Ashrawi said. “The Americans?” Everybody laughed. The Americans might have knocked down the missiles. But those assassinations? Not a chance. Saddam Hussein in his glory days couldn’t have brought off three simultaneous, widely separated hits in Iran. The FSB couldn’t, either. And the Americans had always been inept at such things.
The Christian Arab took back his Bible. “God knows who did it,” he said.
* * *
—
“God wills it!” Lester Stark’s fist crashed down on the pulpit. The gesture wasn’t scripted. You had to leave room for spontaneity, or your preaching would feel canned. “God wills it!” he repeated. “Can there be any doubt?”
There could always be doubt. Still, he hoped some of his listeners would remember that God wills it! was the Crusaders’ battle cry. Then he remembered the hysterical Iranian broadcaster slamming his fist down on the desktop. He wished he hadn’t done it himself.
He couldn’t take it back. “In destroying the missiles aimed at holy Jerusalem, and in destroying the men who sought to harm it and prevent the Third Temple, God has shown His power over our world.”
“That’s right, Reverend!” somebody yelled.
“Tell it!” someone else added.
“God wants the Temple to rise again now,” Stark said. “Do you know what that means?”
“Tell it!” The shout rose again.
“It means the Last Days may be upon us,” the preacher said. His televised colleagues said more than that. They left their listeners no room for doubt. For them, the Second Coming would happen week after next. If it didn’t…They’d find some way to get around that, too. They always did.
He worried again about being lukewarm. He also worried about his colleagues’ sincerity. Of his own he was sure. He hoped his listeners would notice. He really hoped God would. If God saw the falling sparrow, He might glance toward Lester Stark.
He stretched his hands toward the congregation. “I’m going to talk about the elephant in the room,” he said. “The elephant in the room is God. I’ve talked about God for a long time. But when I talk to you about God, I’m preaching to the choir.”
The camera cut away from him to show the choir in their blue satin robes. Some smiled self-consciously. Others nodded. Still others looked straight ahead.
“When I talk now, I’m talking about people in power,” Stark went on. His image returned to the monitors. “They pretend the elephant in the room isn’t there. They want to pretend He isn’t there. Then they can keep doing things the way they always have.
“But it won’t work any more, will it? Because the elephant is in the room. They can pretend all they want, but pretending won’t make it go away. Pretending won’t make Him go away.
“In a news conference, the Secretary of Defense said he didn’t know why the Iranian missiles disappeared. As
far as he knew, it was impossible. But it happened anyway. When something is impossible but happens anyway, what do we call it?”
“A miracle!” The congregation didn’t let him down.
He nodded. “That’s right. It is. When the three men responsible for launching those wicked missiles die at the same time as the rockets disappear, what’s that?”
“A miracle!”
“Right again,” Stark said. “Our friends in Israel say they didn’t do it. I have assurances from my friend, Rabbi Shlomo Kupferman, the Israeli Religious Affairs Minister, that they didn’t. I believe him. He was on the Temple Mount when the missiles flew. He would have been at ground zero, but he lived, praise the Lord.”
“Praise the Lord!” the congregation echoed.
“The Iranians admit their best doctors can’t say why their leaders died. They just did—the way Brandon Nesbitt died when he transgressed God’s will.” Stark paused. “What more do world leaders want? What more do our leaders want? Can’t they see? The times have changed. How loud must the elephant trumpet before they hear? When the Tribulation comes, which side will they be on?”
He paused again. “I want to make sure they’re on the Lord’s side. I want you to help me. Contact your Representative or Senator. If you don’t know how, go to my Web site.”
The monitors ran the URL superimposed on his picture. Some people in the congregation wrote it down. Most already had it bookmarked, though. Fewer in TV land would. If they didn’t need to Google it, they were more likely to use it.
“My site has mailing, e-mail, and Twitter addresses for every Representative and Senator. If you don’t know whose district you’re in, enter your Zip code and find out. And it has the President’s mailing address and e-mail address and Twitter handle, too. These people will only know what you think if you tell them. So tell them!”
Other ministers pushed more political buttons than he did. He hoped that meant Congress would take more notice when his audience sent messages. He hoped to make Congress pay attention. Lots of Congressfolk were secular. If God walked into their office, they might not believe He was there.
But if enough voters believed…their elected representatives would act as if they did. It might not save their souls. With luck, it would save the country.
As Stark stepped away from the pulpit, he nodded. He couldn’t make politicans come to him or Jesus. That lay between them and God. If he could make them act responsibly, he’d be satisfied.
“What happens after the Temple goes up again, Reverend?” a plump woman asked.
“I’d expect the Antichrist to follow,” Stark answered. “In what form and when? I don’t know. That’s in God’s hands.”
She nodded. “Isn’t it exciting?”
“It is,” Lester Stark agreed. “But frightening, too, because it’s so easy to be led astray. We think it can’t happen to us, and that’s the Antichrist’s greatest weapon.”
“You don’t need to worry, Reverend,” the plump woman said, which proved she wasn’t listening.
But, because she wasn’t, she wouldn’t understand if he explained—she had preconceptions filling the slot where the explanation fit. So many people were like that. “I pray, that’s all,” Stark said, and left it there.
* * *
—
Why this is hell, nor am I out of it. Gabriela Sandoval first ran into that line of Marlowe’s in a sophomore English Lit class. It had stuck with her ever since. When things went wrong, it seemed to describe life in ten words. When César dumped her, when the judge said he could keep Heather all the time, when she did her damnedest to scuttle her own career…Yeah, the world looked inescapably hellish at times like that.
As it did now. People didn’t know why she hadn’t shown up at the Shrine of the Book. She and Saul both knew they had to keep that quiet. Gabriela and Brandon would have been a bad reality show, not something real, if word ever got out that Brandon doped Gabriela. And that would have been a total catastrophe just when the show was starting to win its cohosts some fresh credibility.
Just to make things more fun, she and Brandon had partnered with Saul on the business side of the venture. Saul had a will. Gabriela had a will. Brandon, it turned out, had shuffled off this mortal coil without one. All of his relatives, by blood or by former marriage, thought they were entitled to all of his assets. All of them lawyered up as fast as they could. Dorsal fins started circling in the blood-stained legal waters.
Gabriela and Saul had lawyers of their own, of course. So did Gabriela and Brandon. It got complicated and expensive, because not all the attorneys pulled in the same direction. Gabriela—and Gabriela and Brandon—could afford that for a while. But the entity that had been Gabriela and Brandon was in deep financial kimchi if this trip to Israel went down the toilet without yielding a lot more than it had so far.
“Lemme lay it out for you,” Saul said to Gabriela when she was fully functional and when the excitement about Brandon’s untimely demise had died down a bit—though it still wasn’t as dead as he was. “We had a blockbuster here. The way Brandon bought it proves we did. We should ride that as hard and as far as we can.”
“I know.” She sat on the edge of her bed, head down, the heels of her hands pressing against her eyes. “But it makes me sick. Everybody goes on about how bravely he died—”
“Not everybody,” Buchbinder broke in. “There are all the He-messed-with-God-so-he-deserved-what-he-got folks, too.”
“He deserved what he got, but not on account of that.” Gabriela still didn’t want to think God could reach out and strike someone dead. She really didn’t want to think she would have been that someone if Brandon hadn’t drugged her. No matter what Rabbi Kupferman said, she hadn’t believed touching the Ark could kill. Who in his or her right mind took that Old Testament shit seriously?
Evidently God did. There sure wasn’t any other explanation for Brandon Nesbitt’s death.
“This is what we’ve got right now.” Saul plainly didn’t like contemplating a large, muscular, divine thumb coming down on the earthly scales, either. “We have all the stuff from Tel Aviv after the dirty bomb went off. We have the footage of the Ark coming out and going across Jerusalem. We have the interviews you and Brandon did. We still need to film at the kibbutz with the red heifer.”
“If we add all that in with what we’ll get from the Dome of the Rock coming down and the Third Temple going up, we can put together a pretty fair Last Days package. That should pay some bills,” Gabriela said.
“Some, yeah.” Saul paused. Gabriela knew that meant things were going to get difficult. The producer didn’t like quarrels. He got into them, but he had to nerve himself for them first. “But this is a religious mess, and you aren’t the most religious person who ever came down the pike. Brandon wasn’t, either. That’ll hurt marketing.”
“What have you got in mind?” Gabriela asked carefully.
“It’s not my idea, actually. One of my lawyers suggested it to me.” No, Saul wasn’t going to take any heat he didn’t have to. After the disclaimer, he went on, “He said maybe you should get an evangelical trained seal to narrate some of this stuff—put a pious spin on it, like. That’ll help pull in the born-agains, the folks who look for a preacher-man to talk to them about religion.” Trained seal was lawyerspeak for an expert who’d trot out what he knew for cash.
Preacher-man grated. Gabriela got that one of the reasons people didn’t take her as seriously as they should have was that she peed sitting down. But, while she hated that, she knew it was there. And she knew she wasn’t religious enough to satisfy all the target demographic. Cautiously, she asked, “Who does your lawyer have in mind?”
“He started down from the top,” Saul said. “First name he picked was Robertson, but Pat’s pissed off the Israelis, so that won’t fly.”
“He’s old as the hills, too,” Gabri
ela said.
“Older,” the producer agreed. “He also mentioned Falwell’s kid, but we would like to sell this in blue states, too, right?”
“Might be nice,” Gabriela said. Don’t throw away audience ahead of time was good advice any time. “Who, then?”
“The next name Moishe came up with was Lester Stark. He’s into this stuff,” Saul said.
“Is he?” Gabriela knew Stark’s name—who didn’t?—but little about the preacher’s interests.
“Yeah, he is. I did my homework after Moishe mentioned him. The guy is pretty sane. I think you can work with him. He’s not poor—don’t get me wrong—but the place he lives in wouldn’t make Trump jealous or anything. And he’s still married to the gal he started dating in high school. No sexy secretaries, no choirboys, none of that crap. I even read some of his sermons online.”
“Did you?” Gabriela made sure she sounded impressed. By the way Buchbinder said it, he wanted a medal for courage above and beyond the call of duty. He might deserve one, too.
“Sure did.” Yeah, Saul was proud of himself. “And you know what? They aren’t too bad. The guy can write English, which not everybody can these days. He talks about stuff that worries people. When he quotes the Bible, he doesn’t sound like he’s twisting its arm to get it to say what he wants it to, either.”
“All right, you’ve convinced me,” Gabriela said. “I’ll call him. If he says no, we take another step down, that’s all. Thanks.”
“All part of the service,” the producer answered.
As soon as he left, Gabriela phoned Birmingham, Alabama. She didn’t think she’d ever done that before. She needed a few minutes to wade through flunkies and get to Stark’s administrative assistant, and a few more to convince the man she was who she said she was.
“Hold, please, Ms. Sandoval,” the administrative assistant said. “Reverend Stark should decide whether he wants to hear more about this.”
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