Dead Sea Rising

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  “I’ll tell you upon your return, friend, but first may I prevail upon you to take Abram back to Belessunu’s side?” Terah grew angry at Ikuppi’s hesitation. “I asked only out of courtesy. Just do it.”

  “Terah, as I have tried to make clear, if you retain any shred of respect for me, you’ll refrain from referring to me as your friend. I know well that you consider me your servant, not a colleague, and so I am obligated to merely obey.”

  “Then do so, Ikuppi! I am tired of your haranguing about this. If you cannot recognize my kindnesses to you—”

  “Kindnesses!” the guard said, reaching to take the child. “You merely indebted me for such a time as this.”

  “Nonsense! Only a friend would have warned me about the king’s designs on my son.”

  “Had I only known what that would generate in your heart!”

  “Just be about your business, Ikuppi.”

  The guard took the baby and appeared to soften. “He does seem a peaceful child. I pray you won’t spoil that in him.”

  Terah just motioned him toward the bedchamber. Belessunu roused as he tiptoed in. “Ikuppi,” she said, “where are my servant girls, and Terah?”

  “I am here!” Terah called out, hoping to thwart any comments from Ikuppi. “I will join you soon.”

  Ikuppi emerged, his countenance gloomy, as if he could barely stand to look at Terah. “Just tell me what to do with my cargo,” he said. “Let me finish this awful day.”

  “This is a glorious day!” Terah said. “Abram has been spared and—”

  Ikuppi leaned forward and whispered, “You have sentenced your family to a living dungeon. When it reaches Nimrod that the real Amraphel lives and is named Abram, what will you do then, living where you live, doing what you do for the king?”

  “That’s none of your concern, friend, as your assignment is silence. If the king ever becomes aware, someone is going to die, and it’s not going to be me.”

  “I pledge no further confidence, Terah. I must know the end of your plan.”

  CHAPTER 71

  NYPD Central Park Precinct Station

  Manhattan

  Detective George Wojciechowski pointed to a chair at a desk in the middle of the common area of the Senior Services and Domestic Violence Unit, where Ben felt conspicuous under the glare of overhead lights. Wojciechowski set the gray metal box before him, scooting into place next to him in a rolling chair.

  “We can’t do this in private?” Ben said.

  “Nobody here knows or cares what we’re doin’, Doc. What’re you afraid of?”

  Ben shrugged. “It’s just private is all.”

  Typically Ben retrieved the box every year or two from a spot near the ceiling in the dim lit privacy of his walk-in closet. Reviewing its contents rarely took more than five minutes—just long enough to remind himself of a former life. He couldn’t say this was evidence of a self he really knew—just one he remembered from an extended season of anger—and young love. Opening the box in front of anyone else, let alone in a room with plainclothes and uniformed officers nearby and a detective at his elbow, was new to him.

  Ben had never fully understood why he kept these talismans from the 1970s. After all, those were his pre-Ginny and, even more importantly, pre-Yeshua years. At times he had tried to puzzle out what made him so livid, so restless, so committed not to just escaping a lifestyle but to also turning his back on everything and everyone he should have loved.

  Something drew him to that box every so often, sometimes to appreciate the colossal difference between his old and new man, but always to breathe a heartfelt thanks to Yahweh for the gift of his soulmate. During the early years of his new life, Ben was spurred by the keepsakes to repent of how hurtful he’d been toward his parents. A marine psychologist he had initially distrusted because he was just that—apparently not good enough for private practice—suggested a reason for his regret. Back in the States and slowly recovering from multiple surgeries to render his ravaged hand at least serviceable, the Jarhead Shrink—as Ben referred to him—said he may harbor repressed guilt over the falling-out with his parents.

  “It’s not unusual for older teenagers to grow frustrated and long for their freedom and independence,” the counselor had said. “Dad and Mom represent the past, traditional values, outdated ideas. The mistake comes when an adolescent rejects them in entirety rather than just picking and choosing his own way and becoming his own person. You turned your back on everything, fled them, fled what they stood for—good and bad—and even fled the country. You admit you weren’t even fighting out of any sense of loyalty or patriotism. Ben Berman became the poster boy for the cliché of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.”

  Ben had to admit that resonated with him, and it didn’t entirely surprise him to discover the man wasn’t “just a Jarhead Shrink.” He was a partner in a huge counseling clinic and served wounded veterans pro bono on his own time. He hadn’t even suggested what Ben should do with his angst over the relationship with his parents. He simply cited possible reasons for it and left it to Ben to act upon, or not.

  When his mother wrote to ask whether she and his father would be welcome to visit him, Ben immediately responded that he would appreciate that very much. They arrived with tentative smiles—his father literally with hat in hand—and approached hesitantly. Ben spread his arms wide, his left hand wrapped big as a boxing glove. He intended a toothy grin, but tears cascaded as they embraced.

  “I need to talk to you,” Ben said, voice thick.

  “We’re here,” his father said.

  “I missed you. I love you. And I’m sorry.”

  “It doesn’t feel heavy enough to hold a weapon,” Wojciechowski said. “What’ll we find inside?”

  “A few letters,” Ben said. “A Purple Heart … and the photograph.”

  “Funny, your wife mentioned only the picture.”

  “None of the rest of it would have surprised her. Still can’t believe she saw it. She doesn’t know the combination, so I must have forgotten to spin the dial or put it back. Wonder how long ago this was.”

  “Glad we didn’t hafta bust into it.”

  “It’s irrelevant, you know. I mean, I wish she hadn’t seen it, but it’s not like some major deal that would make me want to hurt her.”

  Wojciechowski sat staring at Ben, as if he was done talking about it.

  Ben felt every eye in the place on him, but a quick peek told him not one other person in the room showed any interest in him or their boss. He pulled the box closer and held it in place with the stub of his left hand—all four fingers gone down to the large knuckles. Only his thumb remained intact.

  Ben rotated the dial to the right to 03, then left to 01, and finally right again to 54. When he slid the release lever, it seemed the click reverberated throughout the room. He was sure that would draw attention, but another glance proved him wrong again. Everyone else appeared lost in their own files or phone calls.

  Ben raised the lid to reveal three envelopes containing letters—one from a buddy in his marine unit who had known a nurse friend of his, another from his commander, and the last from a bureaucrat documenting his Purple Heart. The medal itself had slid to the bottom of the shallow box.

  His father had been so proud of that. “We prayed for you every day you were overseas,” he said. “And you know we’re not even sure there’s a god!”

  “I might be sure now,” his mother said. “Honored for you, yes, but so relieved it was not presented posthumously.”

  His father chuckled. “For so long, when people asked after you, we apologized for where you were. Sorry to tell you that, but no one could understand. But when we learned you were on your way home with a Purple Heart, no more apologizing. What’s our son doing these days? Coming home a war hero!”

  Ben never felt like a hero, and Nam vets were not exactly welcomed back as such. But he had earned that Purple Heart.

  To one side of the box, facedown atop everything else, l
ay the two-by-three-inch photograph. Wojciechowski handed Ben elongated tweezers with tiny rubber tips. “We may have to fingerprint that.”

  “Seriously? It’ll have only mine and maybe Ginny’s. Far as I know, no one else has been in this box.”

  “Humor me.”

  Ben gently lifted the picture by one corner with the tweezers and studied the penciled inscription on the back. Wojciechowski leaned close. “You mind?” he said.

  Ben shrugged. “Somebody, probably my friend Red, told me to write very gently to keep from leaving an impression on the front.”

  “Really faint,”

  Wojciechowski said. “What’s it say?”

  “Charm, 1972.”

  “That’s her name?”

  “It’s what she asked me to call her,” Ben said. “It fit. Her real name was Bian Nguyen.” Wojciechowski reached for his notepad. “C’mon, don’t write that down. This was more than forty-five years ago. I don’t even know if she’s still alive.”

  He turned the photo over to reveal a color image—remarkably unfaded for its age but also brittle.

  “Wow,” Wojciechowski said, “that’s some face. Beautiful, but she doesn’t look more’n fourteen, fifteen at most.”

  “Twenty when I shot this. A year older than me.”

  Wojciechowski elbowed Ben. “That’s what she told ya, eh? Of age?”

  Ben looked down. “This was my first love, not some streetwalker. A waitress who wanted to be a teacher.”

  “Gotcha. Just teasin’. But your wife doesn’t know about her?”

  Ben shook his head. “Stupid, I know. Ginny told me about previous boyfriends. I told her about a couple of girls from high school and said I’d rather not talk about any after that.”

  “So she knew there were some?”

  “She knew I was a typical soldier. But that wasn’t who she was marrying. As long as I didn’t bring any diseases into the marriage, she wasn’t the type who wanted to hear about recreational stuff.”

  “But Bian, Charm, was no working girl. So this wasn’t just recreation.”

  “No, she was not. But I just couldn’t bring myself to tell Ginny about her. Not sure why.”

  “’Course you know why, Doc. You still had a thing for her. Maybe you still do.”

  “I haven’t seen her since January 26 of ’73.”

  “But you remember the exact date. You kept up with her, right? Wrote her? Felt conflicted, maybe guilty?”

  Ben nodded. “Conflicted and guilty for sure, but not why you’d think.”

  “Talk to me, Ben.”

  “I haven’t told Ginny yet, but I have to tell you?”

  “You wanna tell me, I can see it all over you. And if it helps clear you, maybe you still don’t need to tell your wife.”

  “Oh, I need to tell her. That’s clear. If she kept a picture of a man I didn’t recognize, I’d want to know.”

  “So she finds out you’ve kept up with this woman—”

  “I didn’t mean to imply that. Charm was my first true love. But when I was medevacked home, I treated her shabbily.”

  “How so?”

  “Tucked her picture into my little box and relegated her to my former life. Never wrote, never called.”

  “She write you?”

  Ben shook his head. “Zero contact.”

  CHAPTER 72

  Ur

  Terah put a finger to his lips and motioned Ikuppi close, explaining the location of the deep, multi-chambered cave he had discovered. “When you have filled the smaller chariot, I need both of them unloaded there. I only wish I could help. I might be able to in a few days, but this cannot wait, for obvious reasons.”

  “That is your grand scheme?” Ikuppi said. “You intend to live there the rest of your days?”

  “Not I! Belessunu and the boy. The story will go that when she learned of my sacrificing our son to the king, she abandoned me and fled to her homeland.”

  “And you expect me to transport her and the baby to the cave.”

  “You know I am unable, at least for now.”

  “Terah, you saw today the danger of carrying a newborn about. And your wife is certainly in no condition to travel.”

  “We have no choice! You must be careful, but I cannot risk their being found.”

  “Getting to the storehouse again, then two runs to your cave with the supplies, will consume the rest of the daylight hours. I won’t be able to pick up Belessunu and the baby until much later.”

  “Taking them after dark is best anyway, Ikuppi, and I will be in your debt.”

  Ikuppi closed his eyes and backed against the wall by the door. “You have no idea what you owe me. You have made of me a liar, and I am as guilty as you are for the murder of that innocent child.”

  Terah whispered hoarsely, “We have injured no one!”

  “And you believe that exonerates you …”

  “I will sleep well tonight, my friend, for you have helped spare my family.”

  “Terah, you have taken leave of your senses.”

  “I will be sure Belessunu and Abram will be ready by sundown.”

  “This is lunacy.”

  “I can forgive your insolence, Ikuppi, as long as I can count on you.”

  “Until day’s end, and then I am finished with you forever.”

  “And solemnly sworn to secrecy …”

  “Only for the sake of mother and child. I don’t care what happens to you.”

  “I know you don’t mean that, Ikuppi, but whatever happens to me had better not be a result of your loose tongue.”

  “Of that you can be sure. I will remain silent as the dead.”

  CHAPTER 73

  Manhattan

  Nicole’s father looked ashen when he returned to Eleven West. He would not meet her eyes. “Everything go okay?” she said.

  He nodded and busied himself with her mother. He ran a finger across her forehead to keep hair away from her scab, then gently tugged at her bedding.

  “She’s fine, Dad. You need to talk?”

  “Eventually,” he said, still looking away. “I know you need to go.”

  “I can wait,” she said.

  “No, it’s all right. There’ll be time. You coming back to spend the night?”

  “I can. You need me to?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. I mean, I’ll be here. We can talk then.”

  “We can talk now, Dad, if you need—”

  “No, later.”

  “I’m just going to run home and try to get some work done on the Saudi thing, force myself to open that letter, you know.”

  Her dad appeared lost in thought.

  “Okay?” she said.

  “Hmm? Yeah, sure. You go. Have Abigail get you a car.”

  “It’s Saturday, Dad. I’ll get a cab.”

  “She won’t mind,” he said. “Pretty sure she’s in town.”

  “Dad! She doesn’t like doing stuff for me when she’s working, let alone when she’s off.”

  “Oh, I’m sure that’s not true.”

  “Last time I asked her to get me a car she said it was cheaper to Uber. Well, I know that.”

  She could tell she’d lost him again and chastised herself for rehashing her petty problems with his assistant.

  “She’s just watching out for the bottom line,” he said absently.

  Always defending her.

  “She told me to do whatever I wanted, ‘because you always do.’”

  “She didn’t say that,” her dad said.

  “What, I made it up?”

  “She didn’t mean it, not the way it sounds.”

  Dad could live in his fantasy world. It wasn’t that big a deal.

  “How’s Ginny doin’?” Freddie asked when Nicole emerged from the cab at her building. “No bag, so I expect she’s still there and you’ll be heading back.”

  Nicole didn’t want to get into the attack, so she just updated him on her mother’s condition.

  “Worse than they expecte
d, huh?” he said. “Too bad. Give her my best. And you’re gonna need a ride again when?”

  “Couple of hours. I’ll call you a few minutes ahead.”

  On her way up, it hit Nicole. Today was Shabbat! As a Messianic Jew, she did not follow sabbath laws, but the little congregation she and her parents attended did meet on Saturdays. She called to tell them the Bermans would not be there and ask for prayer, but the call went to voice mail. No surprise, the small staff had to be preparing for the service.

  As soon as she reached her apartment, Nicole sat, still in her coat, and sliced open the one dreaded piece of mail. She hadn’t been this nervous since awaiting the judgment of her thesis leading to her D. Habil. from Universität Berlin five years before. The doctorate of habilitation was a necessary addition to her PhD from Columbia six years before that, as only with a D. Habil. did she qualify to lead a dig.

  Fingers shaking, she found only a single sheet of stationery. Nicole anticipated a denial, pending her fulfillment of a list of requirements. But as she unfolded the page, she could only stare.

  دكتور نيكول بيرمان: لقد حان الوقت لمشاهدة ظهرك.

  She let the page drop as if it were on fire, dug through her handbag for Detective Wojciechowski’s card, and punched in his number.

  “Whoa! Slow down there, Dr. Berman,” he said. “What’s it say?”

  “It’s just one line in Arabic. ‘Dr. Nicole Berman: The time has come to watch your own back.’”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes, sir, and no signature … Detective?”

  “Thinking. Gimme a sec.”

  “Should I be scared? Because I am.”

  “Listen, don’t touch the letter or the envelope again. It’s already gonna have your prints on it, and the mailman’s.”

  “Woman’s.”

  “You know her?”

  “Sure.”

  “How’s your mail delivered? She bring it right to your door?”