Dead Sea Rising

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  Terah tried to slow his breathing and his heart, which seemed to thunder against the floor. He raised his chin so he could see his entire array of idols on the table. “So this is what you have wrought? Your servant lies here in abject humiliation, despite that only hours ago you told me my salvation drew nigh. I should curse and reject the lot of you!”

  But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Did they not have the power to put him to death for such blasphemy?

  What was this now? A rumbling beneath him! Did that portend the return of the chariot with his cherished one? Terah heard no wheels, no hooves. He felt only the movement beneath him. The idols began to wobble and pitch, then to topple. This was their answer to his profane challenge? Must he humbly beseech their forgiveness yet again? He was already prostrate!

  But then it struck him. When the promise of his deliverance had been impressed deep in Terah’s soul the night before—and proved true when he discovered the cave that saved his life—it had come not in response to his prayers to the gods. He had been praying to the God of his forefathers and his wife, the deity she referred to as the one true God.

  The shifting of the earth deepened, and the idols knocked into each other and rolled off the table, shattering as they hit the floor. “Is this You, God of Noah?”

  And Terah was transported to the same conviction he’d felt in the night when it seemed God had spoken directly to him. Now, deep inside, he sensed, felt, a pronouncement, as if God Himself said, “You shall have no other gods before me.”

  “Unclean!” Terah keened. “Unworthy! Lord, forgive me or strike me dead!”

  The earth stopped quaking. The idols lay in waste like Terah. For an instant he had believed. Had God forgiven him, proved by the fact that he remained alive? He couldn’t be sure. And as quickly as his faith in the one true God came, it also fled. Terah felt guilty about the state of the idols in pieces all around him. He must be careful not to further offend them if he had allowed another god to invade his home.

  Terah prayed to the shards on the floor. “I will repair each and every one of you and return you to your places of reverence.”

  The chariot rattled to a stop and from outside came the frantic voices of Ikuppi and Wedum.

  CHAPTER 45

  Manhattan

  Nicole wanted to defend her mother, to explain her to Detective Wojciechowski. But the truth was that he had read her fairly well. Humor was her go-to deflector mechanism. But she would not have even dreamed her husband or daughter could be suspects in a crime—let alone one perpetrated on her. What she was deflecting, Nicole was sure, was the reality that she had been a victim at all.

  “I apologize, George,” her mother said. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to take this lightly. Frankly, I’m having a terrible time accepting that someone, anyone, would even want to hurt me, let alone actually try.”

  “Got it,” Wojciechowski said. “But you understand, somebody didn’t just try. They did.”

  Nicole’s mother suddenly sounded exhausted. “I guess that’s not reaching me. I got it into my head that I had tripped and fallen and broke my hip. That became my reality.”

  “Back up, Virginia. Who told you you’d tripped and fallen, and what did they say you had tripped over?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I think I heard that in the ambulance or the emergency room. Someone told the EMTs, or more likely they told the ER people, because I don’t recall being put into the ambulance. Anyway, someone told someone that. Even that didn’t make much sense to me, because I walk every day, do pretty well for someone my age. I’ve never fallen before, and certainly never tripped in my own home.”

  “You don’t have loose rugs or a carpet that’s developed a raised edge?”

  “No. I’d notice something like that. I don’t remember tripping, don’t remember falling, don’t remember getting this rug burn on my forehead, don’t remember Teo finding me, helping me, calling 911, being carried out, any of that. Just the ambulance, the ER, and whatever they call that room where you meet the doctor before surgery. So you see why it’s hard for me to even accept that this was more than what I first heard it was.”

  “A trip and fall.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Let me tell you, ma’am, I’ve seen the photos of your back, and I’ve even seen the x-rays. ’Course, the doc had to explain what I was lookin’ at, but once he did, boy …”

  “What?”

  “Lemme just say, if you injured yourself that way by fallin’, you musta done it on purpose. You didn’t just break a hip. You also broke ribs, and those bruises on your back would convince even you that you’ve been assaulted. I mean, the housekeeper says she found you lyin’ facedown, consistent with that abrasion on your forehead, but it doesn’t explain the bruises on your back. It looks like someone jumped on you with both feet, either to knock you down or after you were already down.” Wojciechowski sucked in a long breath. “Now, Virginia, I hafta ask you some difficult personal questions. So I’m gonna ask your family to excuse us now.”

  “Oh, I prefer they stay,” she said.

  “Trust me, I’ll give you that option, promise. But I need you to tell me that privately.”

  “I won’t be saying anything without them here, I can tell you that right now.”

  “And all you have to do is tell me that without them here and I’ll bring ’em right back in. Dr. Berman, and, Dr. Berman, would you mind?”

  Nicole’s father rose. “Be right outside,” he said.

  “You’ll be back in a second,” Virginia said.

  Her father followed Nicole out, and before the door was shut, her mother insisted Wojciechowski let them return. “Happy to,” he said, speaking quickly. “But this is your chance to tell me with a look, a squeeze of the hand, or just say it if you have anything at all you wanna tell me, just between the two of us.”

  “I would do that,” Virginia said. “And if I need to talk to you in the future, I’ll let you know. But I have no secrets from my family. There’s not a chance in a million they’d have had anything to do with this.”

  “Got it.”

  “And I’m not saying another word without them here.”

  “I hear you, ma’am, and hope you know I’m just doin’ my job.”

  Nicole was amused that her mother did not even respond to that.

  CHAPTER 46

  Ur

  Terah stretched to try to cover the tarn of blood that had streamed from his demolished nose, and he buried his face in his sopped sleeve. It was futile to try to hide the extent of the carnage, as if Belessunu would not notice. But maybe he could appear unconscious and make her wonder whether he was alive. Unless Wedum or Ikuppi had explained his injuries, she would have no idea what had happened to him.

  But even as he lay there, with them marshalling at the door, he hated himself afresh. She plainly had not given birth yet or there would be cries or at least women cooing at the baby. Yet here he was, trying to slow his breathing so his back wouldn’t heave and he might look dead.

  “Belessunu,” Ikuppi said, “you must not be alarmed at your husband’s face. He had an accident in the night and wants you to know it looks worse than it feels.”

  “What are you saying?” she said, her voice constricted as if in pain. “I was talking to him last night, and, oh! Oh, get me to my bed!”

  As the entourage noisily entered, someone stumbled over Terah’s bad ankle and he screamed. His ruse over before it began, he took another tack. “Did the earthquake delay you?”

  “Earthquake?” Wedum said. “Master, your idols! What has happened?”

  Ikuppi ran to help him sit up, but still Terah kept his face turned away. “The earth shook and threw me to the floor. I think my nose is broken.”

  “An earthquake struck only here?” Belessunu whined as Wedum and Yadidatum guided her past the drape into the bedchamber. “Husband, the only thing that delayed us was your insistence that we come here! I could have had the baby in the king’s cha
riot.”

  “I am sorry!” he called out as they moved her to the mat and lowered her.

  “Now leave us and close the curtain!” the midwife said, and Wedum fled into the great room.

  “Wait!” Ikuppi said. “Give Wedum clean clothes for the master!”

  “I am occupied!” Yadidatum said. “Come and get them yourself and then be gone!”

  Ikuppi backed into the bedroom, feeling for a clean tunic, his sword banging the doorframe. Wedum rushed out to draw water.

  With Belessunu deep into labor and caterwauling between instructions from the midwife, Wedum and Ikuppi pulled Terah from the floor and somehow got him back to his chair. It was not lost on him that he was getting twice the attention his wife was.

  “Yadidatum knows more than babies,” Wedum said. “When she is free, she can minister to you as well.”

  “I would not even ask,” Terah said. “I cannot allow myself to become beholden to her.”

  Ikuppi held a wet cloth above Terah’s upper lip and pressed his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. The bleeding finally stopped, but the pressure was so painful that Terah had no doubt the nose was broken. Somehow the men succeeded in wiping the blood from Terah and the floor and getting him into the fresh tunic.

  “What do you want me to do with this mess?” Wedum said, indicating the fragments of idols.

  “Save every piece and return them to the table. And then let’s pray Belessunu brings forth a daughter.”

  “We can pray to broken idols?” Ikuppi said.

  “I don’t know,” Terah said. “I never have. But we would not be praying to the pieces. We would be praying to the gods, and they know my intentions.”

  Belessunu called out from the mat in the other room, “Do you hear yourself, Terah? You yourself admit that the idols are just pieces! Your shaping them into images changes nothing!”

  “Concentrate on delivering our daughter!” Terah said. “The gods are listening.”

  Wedum had just moved all the remains of the idols to the table when the midwife grew excited and Belessunu screamed.

  “That’s it!” Yadidatum said, but for a long moment nothing more.

  “What is happening?” Terah said. “Shall I come in?”

  “No!” both women yelled in unison.

  “What of the baby? Is it all right?”

  “It will be!” Yadidatum said. “Master, you have a son!”

  And as Terah broke into sobs, the baby wailed.

  CHAPTER 47

  Parris Island

  Ben Berman had painted himself into a corner. By day he kept his head down, pasted on a game face, and endured whatever his drill sergeants hurled his way. He was as close to quitting as anyone, but he had left himself no choice. Clearly in the best shape of any of his fellow recruits, Ben found that allowed him only to survive. Some days he was within seconds of throwing in the towel and storming back to freedom.

  He would hardly have been the only one. Every day two or three recruits seemed relieved to take the walk of shame, suffering no end of ridicule for drubbing out and running home to Mama. But unless they literally escaped, the Corps stalled the processing of their paperwork and made their lives miserable. Some simply shut down, refusing to follow orders, execute drills, or even move—desperate attempts to force the hands of the Marine Corps. But the longer the USMC could hold these washouts, the more they could berate them for reneging on their contracts, reminding them they would have been the worst choices for the Corps anyway.

  Ben wondered what the deserters would say when they finally staggered back to loved ones who had seen them off to become marines. Nearly every day he believed that humiliation would be preferable to the relentless torture of mind and body he suffered at boot camp.

  But Ben had left himself without that option. He had done too much, said too much, had irrevocably turned his back on his parents’ lifestyle and priorities. He had arrived in South Carolina expecting to bear up under unpleasant training, get himself shipped to the front, and do whatever he had to do to prove to his parents he was a gung-ho patriot. Which, as his father had observed, was anything but the case. Ben’s aim proved more transparent than he wished. He had made the ultimate play to exert his independence—and while that goal still seemed worthy, accomplishing it loomed light-years beyond what he expected. There had to have been a better way to achieve the same result, but he couldn’t rerack now. He had to play this out to its conclusion, and if that meant giving his life for his country in Vietnam, so be it.

  Only he knew such a sacrifice would have nothing to do with his love of country and everything to do with establishing his own identity. And every day that priority hit him as more and more misplaced. Stupid, really. Having no options somehow focused Ben on the task.

  He made a name for himself as a potential leader, but he never really got with the program—not inside. By day, he was the macho marine, quietly making his statement about values. By night, he pressed his face into his pillow and silently cried himself to sleep, his resentment of his parents slowly eroding while he vowed never to admit that. He planned to make his own way in life, not even inviting them to his graduation or official induction ceremonies.

  Ben wrote his parents twice, each time with a brief note on a souvenir postcard designed to give them a hint of his new geography and daily routine. His mother wrote him at least weekly, while his father responded only to the postcards. Both simply expressed their love for him and pleaded for information about where he might be deployed. Naturally Vietnam became the elephant in the room.

  As Ben excelled in weapons training and marksmanship, he became a favorite of the leadership and was lauded as a future rifleman who would make his country proud. He played the game but couldn’t have cared less. He wished he’d thought of another way to assert his independence and take a stand against elitism. Ben hated everything about the military except how he looked in uniform.

  It was unhealthy, he knew, but he found himself fantasizing over the prospect of dying overseas.

  CHAPTER 48

  Ur

  The midwife Yadidatum delivered the placenta and had Wedum dispose of it. She helped Belessunu begin nursing the baby and sat quietly instructing her in newborn care. Terah remained in misery, longing to see his son while dreading what it all meant. His career, his life as he knew it, was over. There would be no declining the king’s insistence on seeing the child, whom he would surely kill, perhaps with his own hands.

  Terah wanted to pray, but the idol bits strewn on the table could do nothing now. What if he promised to recreate them from fresh, unspoiled materials and offered them his unwavering loyalty for the rest of his days? Might they then impress upon him what he was to do?

  “Help me kneel before the table,” he said, whimpering.

  Wedum and Ikuppi, who had sat avoiding his gaze, leapt into action, each taking an arm and struggling to position him on the floor. Terah moaned when Wedum put too much pressure on his damaged shoulder, but soon he was on his knees, leaning on his crutch. The odor of his own blood sickened him. He leaned as far as he could reach and ran his fingers over the bits of ivory and wood and precious metals splayed before him. He detected no power, no aura, and couldn’t shake the feeling that Belessunu’s assessment of the icons was correct. Could it have been her god who had forced these to collapse and scolded Terah for putting other gods before him? Terah didn’t want to consider the consequences if that were true.

  As the night before, when he prayed to whatever god seemed available and willing to rescue him, Terah wanted to cover himself. Pray to the gods but then also pray to his forefathers’ God? Or the other way around?

  Despite the fact that in the moment it seemed clear that Belessunu’s God had provided haven and delivered him from the dogs, as well as shaken his idols to the floor and warned him, Terah cast his initial lot with the gods he knew. He couldn’t deny they had ignored his desperate plea for a daughter, but could that mean they also had a plan for what h
e was to do now? Or was this their plan—to have his son murdered at the hands of the king. He bowed his head and wept as he prayed, “Is this my destiny, my calling, to prove my loyalty to you and even to the king?”

  “Terah!” Belessunu cried out. “Do you not know I can hear you?”

  “I am not praying to you, wife!”

  “That’s wise,” she said, “because I can do no more for you than can the residue of your carved trash. I have made you a father, but I cannot allow you to offer our son to the gods—especially to the king.”

  Her voice suddenly changed, causing Terah to painfully turn, alarmed. Wedum and Ikuppi looked frightened as well, and it sounded as if the midwife herself had begun praying to the gods. But Terah knew what was coming, because he had experienced the same thing from Belessunu the night before.

  “The one true God speaks,” she said in a monotone, the only other sound the baby’s suckling. “The Lord your God sits high above the nations, My glory beyond the heavens. Who is like the Lord your God, Who lives on high and stoops to behold things in the heavens and in the earth?”

  She fell silent, and Terah trembled. He was overcome with longing to see his son and yet felt drawn to—to what? To what seemed the safety of his idols, despite their state. Was he mad? What god had cursed him with a manchild? “May I see the lad?”

  “Yes,” Yadidatum said. “Come.”

  “I need assistance.”

  “You are all welcome.”

  Wedum and Ikuppi muscled Terah past the drapery into the sleep chamber where Belessunu sat on the far end of the mat with her back to the wall, the ruddy child in her arms. The midwife immediately rose as the men entered, and as she moved to stand behind them, Belessunu wiped the baby’s mouth. One chubby hand reached for her face from within his wrappings. Terah’s wife looked exhausted, her hair heavy and matted, but she also appeared as happy as he had seen her in months.