Dr. Salibi was a Christian-Arab internist, holding an Israeli ID card as a resident of East Jerusalem. He brewed strong tea, gave Rabbi Josh a pill that removed the edge from his pain, and cleaned and bandaged his wounds before getting him into the car for the drive.
They descended to the Jordan Valley, past the lights of Jericho. The soldiers at a checkpoint waved them through. Continuing south along the black surface of the Dead Sea, they passed a sign for Kibbutz Ben-Yair. A few minutes later they reached Mount Masada. The car’s clock showed 4:38 a.m.
Parked at the circular driveway were two pickup trucks marked Kibbutz Ben Yair and a beige taxicab. A man leaned against the taxi, smoking and talking on a phone. Farther down the access road was a news van with a raised antenna dish on the roof.
Rabbi Josh embraced Dr. Salibi and hurried up the path to the tourist center at the eastern base of the mountain. The place was deserted. He followed the signs to the cable car terminal. A lone operator was reading a magazine against a portable lantern. The cable car was empty. In ten minutes he would reach the top and find Masada. He didn’t care about proving Silver’s guilt-that would come later.
The operator pushed aside a steel-mesh gate and opened the door. The car swayed gently on the tight cable. Rabbi Josh entered. The operator shut the door and returned to his post. The car detached from the dock and began its ascent.
Below, the rabbi saw the operator hold his hand to his ear, his lips moving. He hurried to the wall and hit a button on a control panel. The cable car stopped abruptly, swaying back and forth. He elbowed the window and gestured at the operator, who glanced up, shrugged, and returned to his magazine. Trying to slide the window open, Rabbi Josh realized the windows were fixed, transparent plastic. He banged on it again, but the operator didn’t even raise his head.
“Look at this place! King Herod’s fort!” Silver held on to Masada’s arm, taking in the scene by moving his head from side to side, shifting the blotch. They followed the group along a path marked by candles in brown bags.
“Rabbi Josh is using you.” Masada stopped walking. “Just like he used Al, and as the Israelis are using him. What else did he tell you?”
“Meidaleh, it’s not important.” He pulled her toward the group by the bonfire, determined to derail her line of questioning. “We’re here to honor your brother’s memory.”
“Answer me!”
Silver felt the bulge of Rajid’s handgun. “Masada, dear, your brother walked his last steps here. He deserves your full attention. You deserve it too.”
She glared at him.
“I know,” Silver said softly, “that you’re angry at me, but it’s only because I tell you the truth. Forget Rabbi Josh and Al Zonshine and the Israelis.” He pointed at the burning fire. “This is a sacred moment.” Before she could say anything, he left her and headed toward the group of kibbutzniks singing a melancholic Israeli ballad.
Galit sat on a broken marble column. He sat beside her and hummed the tune, glancing at her. She had once been his hostage on this mountain, had seen him cry for his fallen son and his failed plan. Silver did not recognize Galit, and she clearly didn’t recognize him-it had been many years, and he had worn a mask the whole time. But he felt an odd kinship with this Israeli kibbutznik-their lives had been transformed by the same disastrous dawn in 1982.
She gestured at Masada, who remained standing on the path where he’d left her. “Is she okay?”
“My dear friend has suffered many disappointments lately.”
Silver sighed. “She’s lost everything and has no prospect of recovery. I’m truly worried about her.”
“First time she’s here. All these years I’ve waited to see her.”
“Were you close to her brother?”
“Srulie was wonderful.” Galit took a deep breath. “They were both exceptional. But Masada was my hero, even before the tragedy.”
“She’s my hero too. What happened-”
“Then you understand.” Galit smiled.
Silver nodded. “It’s still hard for her to discuss what happened to him.” He motioned at the circle of men and women sitting around the fire. “Are they all survivors?”
“Relatives, friends. The kibbutz was never the same afterwards. Especially with all the secrecy surrounding the incident. It was hard to mourn, to heal, while the newspapers criticized us for playing with live ammunition, as if we didn’t know, as if we were dumb farm hands who couldn’t tell a hand grenade from a Roman ballista.” She took his hand and put it on her forehead, at the hairline. “Feel it?”
His finger touched an elongated lump under the skin.
“Still there. A piece of shrapnel.”
“It’s the price we Jews pay for freedom.” He lowered his hand. “But that ludicrous rescue attempt, the commander sending a lone woman to attack-”
“He didn’t send her.” Galit’s face glowed against the flames. “It was her initiative. She was the only one who tried to save us. Those Arabs would have killed us all.”
Silver was offended. “Why do you say that? There was no-” He stopped himself from saying more. This wasn’t the place to proclaim the noble intentions of Arab terrorists, even if he knew those intentions first-hand.
“I’m not angry at her.”
“Why should you be?” He was getting close. “So she acted without orders. What happened to her afterwards?”
Galit turned and pointed at Masada. “Why don’t you ask your friend.”
“This isn’t happening,” Rabbi Josh said. There was an intercom setup by the sliding door of the cable car. He pressed the button. “Get me up to the mountaintop! It’s a matter of life and death!” Through the window he could see the operator glance up indifferently.
He found a glass-fronted box painted with a red flame containing an ax. He broke the glass with his elbow and managed to pull out the ax with his bandaged hands. “Here we go again,” he said, and went to the large window, which now overlooked the terminal below. He swung the ax and hit the window, which cracked loudly. He swung it again while the operator jumped to his feet and started waving frantically. The second hit blasted the window, and large chunks fell to the desert rocks, approximately four stories below.
At that moment, the car jerked and began to descend back to the base.
The operator opened the sliding door and yelled, “Are you crazy?”
“I must reach the top!” Rabbi Josh pointed up at Mount Masada. “Now!”
“The cable car is out of order!”
“Liar!”
The operator turned and walked back to his chair. “Take a hike.”
Rabbi Josh saw a sign: Snake Path. “How long to the top?”
The man drew on a cigarette and made smoke rings, which rose one after the other, melting into the darkness. The rabbi grabbed the lantern and ran to the dirt path. Behind him, the cable-car operator cursed.
Masada watched Professor Silver chatting with Srulie’s childhood friend. His slip about the hostages broke open a dam in her mind, letting out fact after fact. She didn’t move, fearing the flow would cease. Everything that had happened to her since Silver had first showed up with the memory stick suddenly made sense. How could she have been so blind?
Approaching them, Masada heard Silver say to Galit, “You mean, Masada knows who that woman-”
“Levy,” Masada said, “let’s take a walk.”
He hesitated. “We were just talking about you.”
She took his arm and helped him up, leading him away from the fire, toward the cluster of ruins at the northern edge of the mountain. “You and Rabbi Josh make quite a team.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What an irony,” she said. “I lost my only brother here, and now I’m back here to lose my only friend.”
“Oy vey!” Silver stopped, turning to her. “Don’t say that!”
“What else did our saintly rabbi tell you?” With the fire illuminating only one side of his face, she couldn’t m
ake out Silver’s expression. “That I’m mentally ill? That I’ve never recovered from my brother’s violent death?”
“You don’t have to explain such pain to me. I know it firsthand. Listen to me carefully, meidaleh, as friends we must be open to each other-”
“Meidaleh, sh’meidaleh. That’s another coincidence, your choice of the same term of endearment my father had used.”
“Wasn’t he approximately my age? I’m fortunate to have lived much longer that your father, but all Jewish men of our generation share a certain vocabulary, right?”
“A verbal coincidence? A lucky break?” Masada pointed. “There’s the Lottery Room, where archeologists found eleven shards of clay the Zealots drew to select those who would help the others die before killing themselves. Now, who’s the lucky one?”
“They were idealists,” Silver said. “Heroic.”
“Heroes don’t slaughter their wives and kids for political reasons.” Masada resumed walking. “I don’t believe in luck. I want logic.”
“Logic and friendship are life’s twin essentials. Especially for us, the Chosen people.”
“Only logic. No friendships. No coincidences either.”
The professor shook his head.
“You see this square hole in the ground?” Masada turned so that the lens at the end of the pinky-size tube attached to her shoulder strap could capture what she was looking at. “The Zealots dug a mikvah two thousand years ago-a ritual bath in the middle of the desert-so they could come clean with their God. Would you come clean with me?”
“But Masada, I’ve always been straight with you.”
“You’ve had problems with your eyes, but I was the blind one.”
“I don’t understand,” he said plaintively, “why are you doing this?” He stumbled on a rock, and his bag slipped off his shoulder.
“Here are my questions.” Masada helped him up. “What logic caused Sheen to stay with you even though he could afford a hotel? Borrow your car even though he could rent one? Use Al to deliver the money even though Al was certifiably insane? Forget the memory stick in your car even though it contained a video clip of his crime? Can you see the logic in Sheen’s actions?”
“I’m sure there were reasons.”
“A single reason: Sheen never existed. He’s a figment of your imagination.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Facts don’t lie. They sometimes hide in plain view when I don’t want to see them, but they don’t lie.” Masada faced him. “Here is my logic: Rabbi Josh, a feverish Zionist, was recruited by Colonel Ness as an agent. Al had confided in the rabbi about the secret he held over Mahoney’s head, something dishonorable Mahoney did while he was a POW in Hanoi. The rabbi reported to Ness, who came up with the plan to use Al to bribe the senator to pass the Mutual Defense Act in the Senate. A hidden video camera captured the payment.” Masada tightened the shoulder straps, hoping Tara and Oscar were close enough to receive the transmittal. “Then Rabbi Josh recruited you, probably using the same Zionist ideology, to deliver the so-called lost memory stick to me, because he knew I’d never suspect you of foul play. With my ingrained bitterness about Israel, I barged ahead, extracted a confession from the senator, and went public with the story.”
“This is totally unfounded!”
“A perfect chain of cause and effect. Zero coincidences.”
“But why would the Israelis want the bribe exposed? It’s illogical!” Professor Silver looked odd without his eyeglasses, the baseball cap pulled down over his forehead. “It ruined any chance for the Mutual Defense Act.”
“That’s easy. Israel doesn’t need a mutual defense arrangement with the United States. In fact, it would be ruinous to the Israeli access to U.S. weapons and aid, because opponents in Washington would argue that Israel no longer needs a strong army if the U.S. military has to defend it in case of an attack. The Israelis always insisted on defending themselves, not relying on other countries.”
“So why?”
“Simple. Colonel Ness planned to pin it on Judah’s Fist, an imaginary secret Jewish organization, to incite a scandal. A bribe payment to a senator by American Jews would paint them as a fifth column in America, their dual loyalty unmasked, traitorous Judas, just like Jonathan Pollard, AIPAC, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.”
Professor Silver made a show of incredulity. “Why would Israel want the goyim to rage against American Jews?”
“What’s Israel’s biggest existential risk?”
“Nuclear attack by an Arab country.”
“Nations build nuclear weapons for deterrence, not for actual use. No, the only existential risk to Israel’s survival as a Jewish state festers in Arab women’s wombs.”
“Say again?”
“It’s simple math. Israel’s Arab population grows faster than the Jewish population. Diaspora Jews no longer move to Israel. In fact, there are more Jews living in the five boroughs of New York City than in the whole State of Israel. It’s a process that would lead to an Arab majority in Israel.”
Silver puffed air. “Demographics cannot be predicted with any kind of accuracy.”
“The trend is so clear that it’s only a question of time. However, what if the largest Jewish community in the world suddenly lost its comfortable coexistence with the gentile majority? What if a large number of American Christians returned to embracing the church’s long tradition of anti-Semitism? What if Jews were attacked in New York and Los Angeles and Miami? What would they do?”
Silver didn’t answer.
“The biggest wave of aliyah in the history of Israel! Hundreds of thousands of affluent, educated, worldly Jews moving to Israel, an infusion of new Jewish blood that Israel desperately needs. That’s why you guys arranged a bribe and invented the name Judah’s Fist, reminiscent of the historic Jewish betrayal of Jesus, and then tricked me into exposing the bribe. But I screwed up your plan. Instead of accusing a secret Jewish organization, I accused Israel, and Mahoney screwed it up further by killing himself, causing a corruption affair to turn into a veritable murder of an American war hero by Israel. So in addition to sporadic anti-Semitic attacks on American Jews, your plot produced a nasty backlash against Israel, which is why Ness is so anxious.” Standing near the hostage room, her back to the flickering bonfire, Masada watched Silver carefully to see his response.
“Master of the Universe, you’re brilliant!” He shook his head in awe. “Amazing! I’m so relieved that you figured out the truth. It’s been the hardest part for me, keeping secrets from you.” He sighed. “At least now you understand how pure my motives were, that I acted for the sacred purpose of saving Israel from a certain demographic demise. We’re both idealists, meidaleh, you and I. We’re the same, right?”
Masada was shocked at his sudden admission. She had merely been speculating. Had she hit the nail on the head the first time? It was too easy! She imagined Tara in the news van at the foot of the mountain, squealing at the monitor. Finally, a real breakthrough in their investigation!
“Thank God!” He looked up at the sky, which was tinged by predawn haze. “No more secrets between us! No more manipulations by the Israelis! No more treating us like pawns!” Silver waved a fist at the bonfire and the distant singing. “These Israelis, shame on them! Shame!”
Rabbi Josh didn’t see what tripped him. He got up, shone the lantern on his torn pants and scraped knees, and resumed running up the path. In the early twilight he saw the path slithering up the nearly perpendicular mountainside. A helicopter sounded in the distance, its engine noise bouncing off the cliffs.
The path forked. A sign pointed right to the Roman siege camp. He saw the outline of piled-up stones and restored huts where the ancient army had once camped. He thought of young Masada, a teenage kibbutznik, exploring the ancient ruins for coins or shards of clay. He looked at the sheer climb ahead and resumed running.
Professor Silver hoisted his bag and followed Masada. “And shame on Rabbi Joshua Frank for dragging me i
nto this ill-conceived scheme!” He used the rabbi’s full name to distance himself.
“Shame on me, Levy, for letting my affection for you get in the way of the facts.”
“But I’m a victim, just like you!” Silver hoped he sounded outraged. He desperately wanted to return the conversation to the woman who had killed Faddah. It didn’t matter what Masada thought about the bribe. She would be dead as soon as she told him what she knew about the woman-solider who had murdered Faddah. “Listen, we can ponder for days the events surrounding the bribe-”
“No need to ponder. We know what Rabbi Josh did, and who helped him.”
“But Masada,” he made his voice tremble, “as you correctly figured out, my only job was to give you the video clip.”
She was quiet.
Silver recognized Herod’s main palace and the casement wall of rooms around the edge. There was the room.
“After my tires were slashed,” Masada said, “you appeared out of nowhere to offer a ride. You were planning to go back to search my car, right?”
Silver sighed. He had expected all along that Masada would one day connect all the dots, but why did it have to be today?
“Then you showed up in my house soon after the gas explosion, looking awfully surprised to see me alive. Your book reappeared under my fridge smelling of hashish. It’s logical, because no author would let his book remain in a house rigged to burn in a gas explosion, right?”
Silver didn’t respond. He feared that nothing he said would sound credible.
“With me surviving the series of accidents-the brownies, the snake, the explosion-you guys went for the real thing. A bullet. I saw you and Al in the synagogue. I thought you were trying to calm him down, but obviously you were prodding him to shoot me. Silly me.”
“You’re building a house of cards,” he said.
“And even after the disaster, with Raul’s body still warm, Al shows up in my house. And who’s right behind him?”
“Master of the Universe!” Silver shook his head. “Do you hear what you’re saying?”
The Masada Complex Page 40