path to conquest

by Unknown Author

  “Was that enough to grow food?”

  “Well, not really, but they’d socked away quite a supply. And there are all sorts of trails and pathways, so despite the siege, supplies could be brought in occasionally.” He motioned them over to the edge of the terrace, facing west. “Down there—that’s where some of the cisterns are. The water was channeled into the mountain, then fetched up by pail when needed. That part wasn’t especially ingenious, but it did get the job done.”

  Sunset had streaked the sky with ribbons of purple and red, and they were quiet for a moment of reverent observation. When Lavi continued, his voice was more intense, yet softer, as feeling replaced volume.

  “The siege lasted almost three years total. In the third year, Silva decided they had to take the fortress from the Jews. We weren’t going to surrender.”

  Neville shook his head. “Take this place? How?” “Hmmm, you can’t see it from here,” said Lavi, “but around the west side of the mountain, the Romans built a giant ramp from the desert floor nearly to the top of the cliff.” “We saw that when we flew in,” Pete said. “I was wondering what it was. My god, how did they build anything that massive?”

  “Slaves, prisoners of war. God knows, there’s no shortage of dirt and rocks. With enough labor, you can make a big pile of dirt and rocks. Then, at the top, they built a tower and mounted a battering ram.”

  “Didn’t the Zealots shoot at them while they were doing all that building?” said Neville.

  “Sure,” Lavi said. “But the Romans had plenty of ammunition to shoot back. Also, since the slaves and prisoners were Jews, the Zealots didn’t want to kill their own people, I guess, even though they were being forced to help the Romans.”

  “Those walls looked like double walls,” Neville said. “I wouldn’t think a battering ram could get through.”

  “They’re called casemate walls—outer and inner walls with space in between. The space was divided into rooms and used for living quarters and storage. Anyhow, the Romans started to break through the outer wall. The Jews reinforced it by pouring dirt between the inner and outer walls, to cushion the impact of the battering ram. They also used huge timbers and planks of wood from some of the buildings. But the Romans set fire to the wood. The wind almost changed direction long enough to save the Zealots, but then it changed back—blew the flames away from the Roman siege tower and back toward the inner wall.”

  “Divine intervention?” Pete suggested.

  Lavi answered with a fractional shrug, “Who knows? The Zealots figured time was running out. They didn’t want to be slaves or prisoners. They wanted to die as free men. So they chose to take their own lives.”

  Lauren gasped. “Nine hundred and sixty-seven people committed suicide?”

  “Not exactly,” Lavi went on. “Come on—let’s start back to the camp. Abdul and the others should have dinner ready.” He led the climbers back up the tiers of Herod’s hanging palace and picked up the tale. “What they did was, each man killed his own family. Kissed his wife and children good-bye, held them close”—Lavi swallowed, as if reliving that two-thou-sand-year-old agony—“then killed them. Then they drew lots to pick ten men to kill the others. Then one man to kill the other nine. The last man set fire to the palace—the big western one—-and took his own life.”

  The Israeli paused to let the story sink in. “The next morning the Romans battered in the wall, and they found nine hundred and sixty bodies.”

  “How do we know what went on?” Lauren asked in a whisper as they walked across the open plateau toward the tents.

  “Two women and five kids hid and escaped the decision to die. They told the story to the Romans, and Josephus Flavius, a historian of the time, wrote it all. All the evidence we uncovered in the digging supports the story Josephus wrote down.”

  “My God, that’s horrible,” said Lauren, still hushed as if respecting the ghosts that must roam the desolate place.

  “Not when you consider the alternative,” Lavi said in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “What do you mean?” said Pete.

  “What would the Romans have done with these Jews who’d been doing their level best to make Silva’s life as governor as difficult as possible—like we do to the Visitors? They would’ve been killed or made into slaves. Neither was any picnic. And imagine how pissed off the Romans must’ve been when they came streaming in here the next morning only to find bodies. Not exactly a satisfying end to a three-year siege. Oh, the Jews made sure to leave lots of food and supplies lying about. They wanted the Romans to know they’d died of their own volition, that they hadn’t been starved out.”

  “I wonder what we’d do in that same position?” Pete wondered.

  “Well,” said Lavi, “I hear some resistance groups have been in similar straits and some of them did what the Jewish Zealots did. Come along—I can smell the food.”

  Pete and the others quickened their pace to keep up with the Israeli. “Where are we going?” Pete asked.

  “In here,” Lavi replied, pointing at a solid-looking section of the old perimeter wall. He led them to an arched doorway low enough that they had to duck. A tarp had been rigged with tent poles to form an overhanging awning, under which they still had to crouch. Several of the other resistance fighters were gathered here around three camping stoves, where a splendidsmelling stew was being prepared and served on military-issue aluminum field dishes.

  Lavi guided the visitors over to sit on the hard ground with Gamel and Abdul, the two Arabs they’d met upon arrival. Scattered lanterns cast enough light to make the dining area cozy.

  “There’s coffee, too, if you want it,” Abdul said helpfully. Lauren dug into her plate of stew first, chewing the initial forkful somewhat warily. Then she licked her lips in approval. “Hey, this is good stuff. What’s in it?”

  Lavi waved off the question. “Ah, you don’t want to know that. . . .’’He held the serious expression for several beats, then grinned.

  Holding the plate at arm’s length, Lauren gave him a withering stare. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Of course, Lauren. We’ve been eating this for months and we’re still alive.” He suddenly made a wretching noise and fell back against the ancient mud-brick wall.

  Gamel rolled his eyes. “Same stew for months, and same Israeli jokes, too. Stay dead, Lavi—spare us another show!” “So, tell me, did you enjoy the tour?” asked Abdul. Pete, Lauren, and Neville chorused their enthusiasm. “Well, Lavi,” Abdul said, “you’ve got a much better future in the tour business than the joke business.”

  Pete wolfed down another mouthful of steaming stew. “How do Arabs feel living in a Jewish monument?”

  “Hey, we didn’t like the Romans either,” Gamel said cheerfully, “no matter what everyone wrote about Cleopatra and Mark Antony.”

  “I don’t mean to puncture your unity,” Lauren said, “but back at the UN, I never saw much harmony between your three countries.”

  “That was B.V.—before Visitors,” said Abdul. “I don’t know if Lavi told you, but ever since the archeologists dug Masada out of its own rubble, the armored units of the Israeli Defense Forces take their oath up here. When they do, they swear that ‘Masada shall not fall again.’ That’s a sentiment we can all go along with when you apply it to the whole world.” “Besides,” Gamel said, brow furrowed seriously, “Arabs and Jews weren’t always enemies. For a couple of centuries after Mohammed founded Islam and Arab armies swept across the Middle East and North Africa, we were the major power in the world.”

  “That’s right,” Abdul concurred. “Europe was entering the Dark Ages, and we Arabs kept the light of civilization burning. Our scholars not only preserved the knowledge of ancient Greece and Rome, they also formed the basis for modem mathematics. The Arab world was the center of art and trade. My homeland was the great crossroads, the place where traders from India and Asia came to sell their treasures and spices.” “They may sound like they’re blowing their own horn,” Lavi said
in a stage whisper, “but every word of it is true. The Jews who used to live in Palestine got scattered through the whole region by the Romans. There were Jews all over the Arab world, as well as the squalid little villages in Europe. Since we were always moving around anyway, we became merchants. We linked the Arab and Christian worlds.”

  “For two hundred years or so, under Arab rule, the Jews were allowed to practice their religion, which they weren’t allowed under Christian mle at the same time. And they even prospered,” Abdul said.

  “Uh, mates, if things were so bloody wonderful,” Neville interrupted, “what happened?”

  The Israeli traded sheepish glances with his Arab partners. “Things change,” he said ruefully. “Tides of history get pulled in different directions.”

  “Hey, anybody want to play chess after dinner?” Gamel asked, changing the subject completely.

  Abdul and Lavi uttered disgusted protests, leading Lauren to exclaim, “Ah-ha! Discord!”

  “They won’t play with me anymore. How about you, Peter?”

  “Sorry—never learned how.”

  “I’ll teach you!”

  “Don’t do it,” said Abdul.

  “You’ll regret it,” Lavi warned.

  “He cheats,” said Abdul.

  Gamel’s irrepressible good cheer clouded for an instant. “1 do not,” he protested. Then, turning his back to Pete: “Lavi doesn’t like to play because he loses all the time.”

  Lavi sneered. “Yes, and you keep referring to our so-called matches as replays of the Six Day War.”

  Gamel ignored that comment. “And I don’t know why Abdul refuses to play, except that members of the Saudi royal family are sore losers.”

  “Royal family?" Pete said in surprise.

  “Of course,” Lauren said, feeling incredibly thick skulled. “Prince Abdul ibn Aziz. Economics degree from Princeton. You were oil minister when we met briefly at a UN cocktail party four years ago.”

  Abdul smiled. “I’m flattered you remember.”

  Pete grunted, still astonished. “Then how did you wind up here?”

  The Saudi prince’s smile faded. “I’m also an air force pilot and a commando by training—the Royal Air Force College in England, then further training in your country, in Georgia, Yank.”

  “Oh, when he says Yank, he means the American kind, not the baseball kind,” Lavi put in. “Went to British public school as a kid. Every now and then I get the urge to call him Prince Charles instead of Abdul.”

  “At any rate,” Abdul continued, “to answer your question as to how I wound up here, when the Visitors overran Riyadh, our capital, much of my family was kidnapped or murdered. Some of us escaped and went underground. We realized we had to protect as much of our oil fields as we could. That’s when we formed the Arabian Defense Force.”

  “We need oil, too,” Lavi said. “Even before all this, we did buy Saudi oil, you know. So we contacted them and suggested putting ail our shoulders to the same grindstone.”

  Gamel looked up from the chessboard he was busily arranging in a pool of lantern light, obviously hopeful of finding a willing opponent. “That’s right. We all want to survive. Once we get through this, if we really want to, we can always go back to fighting about a Palestinian homeland and who really leads the Arab world and whether we still want to drive the Jews into the sea. But if we let the Visitors beat us, that’s the whole ball of wax.”

  Pete sighed wistfully. “Maybe you won’t want to fight about all that anymore.”

  Abdul nodded. “Maybe you’re right, Yank. Maybe we won’t. Let’s hope we get a chance to worry about it.”

  The group indulged in food and companionship for another hour or so, and Prince Abdul even entertained with some pretty fair blues-harmonica music he’d learned while stationed in America’s South. But Lavi finally pointed out that they would have to rise before the sun and they really should retire for the night. Some of the resistance fighters left the confines of the between-walls dining area to sleep in the tents. Others went down to a cave. Folding army cots were brought in for Pete, Neville, and Lauren and as they were being set up, Gamel took Pete aside. The Egyptian seemed uncharacteristically shy.

  “I, uh, I hope this doesn’t offend. . . . Um, when I joined the army, I was also sent to your country to train. I, uh, very much liked baseball. Before I got to America, the Yankees were the only team 1 had ever heard of. So I decided to be a Yankee fan while I lived there.”

  Pete chuckled. “Did you get to see any games?”

  “I was a tank commander, and we were trained in your deserts out west. But on my way home, we stayed in New York and then finally I got to your Yankee Stadium. I saw you play. When I learned to play—our instructors taught me—I played third base, so I watched very closely how you played.” Fearfully, Pete closed his eyes. “Oh, God, I hope I had a good day.”

  “Well, you kicked a grounder—”

  “Booted.”

  “Right—booted.”

  “Wonderful.”

  Gamel clapped him on the back. “Ah, but you made three impossible throws. You also hit a home run.”

  “Not so bad. then.”

  “Not bad? Great! So, what I wanted, uh, to ask you is—for your autograph?”

  “I’m just a doctor now, Gamel. Haven’t played for two years.”

  “But you were my only real baseball hero. All that matters is that I saw you play that one game before I went home to Egypt,” Gamel said, his eyes full of the same earnest hero worship Pete had seen in so many nine-year-old boys back home.

  “Well, I’d be honored to give you my autograph.”

  The Egyptian appeared greatly relieved. He stood in place, smiling at Pete. Pete smiled back, waiting. Then he made a writing motion with his hand.

  “Pen, Gamel?”

  “Ah, do you have one?”

  “Uh, yeah, sure.” Pete pulled a ballpoint out of his back pocket. “Paper?”

  “Ah, do you have paper, too?”

  Pete shook his head and started to laugh. “Yeah, sure, Gamel. Out in the shuttle. C’mon.”

  Chapter 16

  “Me? On a camel? No way!" Pete shook his head emphatically, looking like a child refusing to take medicine, mouth clamped shut in permanent resistance.

  “What’s so terrible about camels?” Gamel asked. “I’ve been riding them since I was a tiny child.”

  “Yeah, well, you were bom with camels.”

  Gamel flared in mock anger. “I beg your pardon!’

  “You know what I mean.”

  Gamel shrugged mildly. “Well, that’s part of the plan. You don’t ride, you’ll have to walk.”

  Abdul, Lavi, and Neville regarded Pete with bemused interest. Lauren’s look was more of a sharp probe. “What’s with you and camels?” she demanded.

  He hunched defensively. “I don’t care to tell you. I’ve got my reasons.”

  “This is one very weird phobia you’ve got, and one lousy time to reveal it.”

  “Well, we never had to worry about camels in New York, now did we, Lauren?” he said, his voice peevish.

  She stamped her foot on the hardened dirt floor of the sleeping area within the ancient battlement walls. “Peter, this is downright ridiculous. Tell me right now—”

  He threw his hands up. “Okay, okay. Who cares if I’m embarrassed?”

  “We don’t,” said the other five in harmony.

  Pete glared. “I once took my daughters to the Bronx Zoo and they wanted to go on the camel ride. Fine. What did I know about camels? Lawrence of Arabia rode ’em, that’s good enough for me. The girls are thrilled. They think the camels are cute. The trainer gets ’em up there, the girls are still thrilled. I go to pet the damned beast and it lets out this horrible roar and tries to bite me. I don’t like camels.” He noticed everyone attempting—and failing—to stifle sniggers. “Satisfied?” Abdul controlled himself enough to say, “Must have been a New York cab driver reincarnated as a camel.”

&nb
sp; “Ho, ho,” Pete sneered. By now Lauren had doubled over in laughter. Pete smiled sweetly at her. “Hey, Laur—how’d you like me to tell everybody about your favorite phobia?” She straightened up in a hurry. “Don’t you dare.” “Why? I think these four men would get a real kick out of knowing that you—”

  She clapped a hand over his mouth. “Well, almost time to get going. Let’s go over the rest of the plan in the shuttle, en route—what do you say?”

  With cooperative and conspiratorially neutral faces, the others concurred, starting to pack up the maps and charts they’d spread out for the strategy session.

  With the first highlights of dawn starting to tinge the eastern sky, the Visitor shuttlecraft lifted off the top of Masada, heading toward the sunrise. They rose high over the Dead Sea, its calm surface reflecting the sky’s morning glimmerings. Pete was at the controls, with Abdul ibn Aziz in the co-pilot’s position.

  In a few minutes they were over the barren badlands of Jordan. In the dim early light, Pete could see that except for a narrow tear-shaped section along the Jordan River Valley, King Hussein’s country was mostly arid plateau. Prince Abdul told him the land got progressively more dry as it stretched to the east, toward his own country.

  “The Jordanian Desert is called hamada. Nothing but sand interspersed with gravel and chips of flint.”

  “Sounds like we wouldn’t want to crash there,” Pete said. “Definitely not.”

  Soon they were over Saudi Arabia, flying quickly above vast expanses of uninhabitable sand, on a course taking them southeast.

  “Hard to believe you’ve got people living in your country, Abdul,” said Pete.

  “When I’ve toured the desert, I’ve often thought the same thing, Yank. But the whole country isn’t like this.”

  “No?”

  “Actually, some parts are worse. In the south we have a region called Ar Rab al Khali—the Empty Quarter. It’s two hundred and fifty thousand square miles of sand and dunes. The wind blows the dunes every day of the year—always shifting and changing, almost as if they were alive.” “Abdul, tell me something. Why has the Middle East always been a place that somebody was trying to conquer? It’s not exactly the garden spot of the world.”