The Jerusalem Puzzle

by Laurence O'Bryan

  ‘Sit down. You’re going to the hospital.’ She sounded shocked.

  ‘I’m not. I’m good. I’m just covered in soot, that’s all.’ I rubbed some from my hands. It stuck stubbornly. My skin felt raw, but the searing pain had been replaced by a dull throbbing, so much better than when the fire had been near, it was almost welcome.

  ‘I know where she is, but I can’t explain it to you.’ I shook my head.

  She shrugged. ‘Then show us. On a map.’

  ‘No, no. I’m coming with you.’ I shook my head again and again. ‘There can’t be any mistakes. I don’t care what happens to me. Do you understand?’ I pointed my finger at her.

  The pain in my hands was considerable, but I could make a fist and bend my fingers fully, and the skin wasn’t broken.

  I pointed at her again, my lips clamped together, my eyes blinking like an idiot. I wasn’t going to be whisked away. I was alive, but I had no idea what was happening to Isabel. That bastard could do anything.

  She shook her head with exasperation. ‘We get people like you now and again. If you last an hour I’ll be surprised.’ She took a silver pot of some salve from a pouch on her belt and took a big dollop out and held it in front of her.

  ‘Rub this into your hands and your wrists,’ she said. ‘If you can do that you’ll get by for a while.’

  The first sensation when I put the salve on was icy heat, then a horrible crinkly pain rushed up my arms as I rubbed the cream in. It took a lot to keep my expression still.

  ‘Did you find anyone else alive?’ A sliver of hope was still hiding inside me that Mark, or Ariel or Xena might have survived; that I’d been wrong about their injuries.

  ‘A Palestinian woman and an African woman are alive, but injured. My colleagues are tending to them. Five people are dead.’

  I swallowed. There was a foul slime of soot in my mouth.

  ‘I’m ready.’ This wasn’t the time for sentimentality.

  ‘You’re going to show us where your friend is?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She looked at the older officer who was standing near us. He nodded, looked at his watch, made some sign with his fingers. She pointed her finger into my chest.

  ‘Now you listen to me. We will do our best to find your friend. But if we meet local resistance we have to pull out. And you will come with us, okay?’

  ‘Why the hell will we pull out?’

  ‘We’re a snatch squad. We didn’t come here to search these hills. We’ll send a ground team in as soon as it gets light. They’ll coordinate a search with the local Palestinians. You have minutes to find your friend. That’s all we can give you. We have to get out of here soon.’

  There was no point in arguing.

  A stretcher was being placed in the helicopter as we walked out into the darkness. Its blades hadn’t stopped spinning. They were ready for a swift take-off. How long would they wait?

  Beyond, the darkness was thick. There were four of us walking through the valley away from the helicopter and the remnants of the camp. Another soldier in black had joined us. I’d expected there to be more of them.

  The older guy spoke into a mouthpiece as we walked back fast along the path we’d come along with the riders. I looked back towards the helicopter. Only the swish-swish noise of the slowly twirling blades gave it away. If you couldn’t hear where it was you wouldn’t be able to point it out.

  The stars and the crescent moon lit the path in front of us. Was I mad to hope?

  Soon we were halfway back to where we’d left the car. The rocks and bushes were shadows and ridges.

  I was fearful about what might have happened to Mark and Ariel and Xena. Faces, snatches of conversations were playing through my mind, over and over. A surge of emotion gripped me. Anger mixed with sadness mixed with fear at what might have already happened to Isabel.

  I had a sudden urge to go back in time. It seemed so close, that moment at the border when Mark had said goodbye, when none of this had happened, and almost reachable because of that.

  I remembered what Xena had said about the symbol, how she’d drawn it in the earth. Would I be able to find it? Had it really been put there as a marker to show where someone was being kept? I walked faster, moving ahead of the others, uncaring that I was leaving them behind.

  Suddenly, a shout echoed from a cluster of shadows ahead.

  ‘Waqf!’ was the shout. Then the gravelly voice shouted, ‘Stop!’

  I stood still, my eyes probing the shadows. Then I glanced over my shoulder. The Israelis had taken cover behind some large rocks. I saw a glint from a machine pistol. ‘Walk back to us,’ hissed the Israeli officer. ‘We’ll cover you.’

  Was he going to suggest going back to the helicopters, pulling out, that I wait for a ground team to come in? I couldn’t blame him. The Israeli army’s presence here would only inflame things with the local Palestinians.

  Instead of going back though, I raised my hands and took a step forward.

  Isabel was near. I knew it.

  I wasn’t giving up. I didn’t care what happened to me. Not for one second.

  I felt the air from the bullet pass my cheek. I heard the sound of it being fired too, which meant one important thing. I was still alive. Whoever had fired in my direction was either a very good shot, missing me deliberately, or just getting his aim right.

  My foot shook as I lifted it.

  I spoke loudly as I put it down firmly in front of me, I had to go on. My hands were in painful fists. I could smell a faint whiff of gunpowder. In the distance the whoosh of the helicopter blades turning could still be heard.

  I heard a rustle up ahead. The taste of smoke was still in my mouth, like poison.

  ‘I am looking for my friend. Don’t stop me.’

  The next bullet buried itself into the rough ground at my feet, throwing dust into the air. I could feel the dust splatter my cheek.

  ‘Go back,’ came a shout.

  An insistent voice inside me said, do what he says, don’t be stupid.

  I took another step forward. As I did a cold sensation, as if death was near me, settled inside my chest.

  ‘Help me and I will help you find the man you are looking for!’ I shouted into the darkness.

  My voice sounded hoarse, dry. I stood still. Clinking noises sounded from up ahead, to my right.

  I shouted again.

  ‘You can kill me, go on, but it won’t help you or your people. I am the only witness as to who set the fire in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.’

  I coughed, put my hand over my mouth. There was a horrible acidy burnt taste in my throat now. My hand was trembling. Shock most likely. I didn’t care. I was beyond caring. I pressed my hand tight to my mouth. A smell of antiseptic cream filed my nostrils. My breathing was coming fast. A tremble passed through me, then died away. I had done my best.

  I heard the breathing of a horse. The Palestinian I’d met when they first showed up was looking down at me again.

  ‘Who set the fire in the great church?’

  ‘Will you help me?’

  ‘How many of our people are dead?’ he said it fast.

  ‘Two, at least. The Israeli helicopter will take one of your women to hospital.’

  ‘Ayeeeeeee.’ An angry sound escaped his lips. He turned his head to the sky as if saying a prayer. After a few seconds he looked back down at me.

  ‘You saw the planes in the sky?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They are claiming us Palestinians tried to destroy Jesus’s tomb.’

  I stepped forward. The horse was inches from me. I could smell its sweat.

  ‘The world must know who set that fire. Do you want your people to be blamed for something they didn’t do?’ I paused. My throat was sore. I spoke slowly as I continued.

  ‘Help me.’

  ‘Who set the fire?’ His gun, it looked old-fashioned compared to the machine pistols the Israelis had, was balanced on his knees. I was sure he could pick it up and fire it in
seconds though. And that it would work well enough to kill me. Occasionally his gaze drifted behind me. He was well aware of where the Israelis were.

  I was standing directly below him. The horse’s presence above me, its muscles shifting, was intimidating. Its breathing was loud.

  ‘You want to know?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Escort us back to where you found me. My friend’s being held somewhere over there. She was taken by the madman you’re looking for. That is why he came back here. He needed somewhere to hide her.’ Was I telling him too much?

  I didn’t care.

  He waved at the air behind me. ‘They will not come with you.’ He shook his head, as if there was no question of him shifting on that.

  To ask for them to come was probably too much. And if they went back to the helicopter, Xena and the Palestinian woman might get to hospital quicker too.

  ‘Okay, just take me.’

  ‘Tell me who set that fire.’

  ‘Don’t tell him anything,’ said a voice behind me. It was the older Israeli soldier.

  ‘I’ll tell you when we get there.’

  ‘Tell me now,’ said the rider.

  I studied him. Pale moonlight glinted on his skin, gave him a hard look, but there was something trustworthy about him too. Something in his eyes.

  I hesitated, not sure what to do. Should I show him that I trusted him? Surely if he’d wanted me dead, he could have shot me already?

  ‘Come back,’ said the older Israeli, loudly. ‘Forget this. You will not find your friend this way. We will send a team here in the morning.’

  I looked up at the Palestinian. ‘The man who set the church on fire is the man you are looking for in this valley.’

  ‘Then we will find him together.’

  The Palestinian reached down to pull me onto his horse. It turned as he did so, its feet stamping. I reached up. It took two tries to get up, but a minute later we were riding slowly through the darkness.

  Other riders joined us from behind rocks as we passed them. Two minutes later the helicopter roared as it passed over us, flying low. The men with me might have wanted to loose a few bullets at it, but it was gone from the sky in seconds.

  Soon all I could hear was the clip-clop of horseshoes on the track. Had I done the right thing?

  Was there still a chance to save Isabel?

  60

  Isabel had given up. She’d spent a long time banging on the wall of the cave, on the floor too. It echoed, she’d found.

  She was hoping someone would hear her, come for her. But they didn’t. And now she was sitting with her back against the cold rock wall again.

  Her mouth was as dry as the stone around her. Her

  tongue felt huge, rough. And her throat seemed about to close.

  She’d drifted into a fitful sleep and had woken with a blinding headache. Susan’s lifeless body was still beside her.

  She knew that Susan was near death. And guiltily she dreaded what would happen after she died. One of the courses she’d done for her degree in biology had gone into a little too much detail about what happened to you after death.

  The air was rancid already. But within twenty-four hours of a person dying the bacteria inside the intestines would start to eat their host. And then they would spread through the body. Isabel wasn’t going to be able to see the big green and purple patches break out on Susan’s skin, as the bacteria reached it. But the overwhelming smell of rancid gas emanating from the body would tell its tale.

  And the darkness would be evil then. The tiniest insects in the area, and their bigger and bigger cousins, would all burrow their way to the cave. And then they would feast. And as their numbers grew, and more of their eggs hatched, they would look around for more food.

  She didn’t want to be alive when that happened.

  It had been an easy decision to make, in the end. There was no hope. To believe anything else would be just fooling herself. If she couldn’t build a way up to the opening, and she couldn’t attract attention, and a horde of insects were on their way, there was no other answer.

  But it was one thing making a decision, and another carrying it out.

  Though she had a good weapon to do it with. She lifted the rock, feeling it in her hand. It was six inches long, four wide, and jagged at each end. It would take a mighty blow to ensure she died from a single self-inflicted wound. But at least she knew the best place to strike; the recess just above the eyes.

  The frontal cortex was right behind it and a proper blow would knock her out. And kill her.

  But it had to be done with all her strength. Because what would happen if she didn’t die? Would she lie awake and brain damaged as the insects found her?

  She weighed the stone in her hand, tapped it on the rock floor, then tapped it harder checking it wouldn’t break too easily. If only he hadn’t taken the belt from her jeans. She could have pulled it tight quickly, then knocked herself out. Asphyxia would have finished her off for sure.

  But there was no point in thinking about what-ifs, about Sean, about the life they could have had.

  She could hear a rustling.

  It was the insects. The smell must have brought them. It was drawing them quickly.

  She stood quickly, stumbling sideways. There was something on her foot. Revulsion made her shake her legs. Salty tears welled. Then she heard another noise. Were they on the roof? She looked up, saw red eyes.

  Lots of them.

  Her breath came in stuttered gasps as a cold trembling passed through her. She put her hands out, turned, kicked. The darkness was the worst thing. At least if you can see your enemy you have a chance.

  She had to do it. She had to act. She wasn’t going to listen as they ate her.

  Was it ever right to kill yourself?

  She could roll, spin, kill lots of them.

  But more would come.

  And they would bite her, poison her. Scorpion hordes in these parts enmesh any larger prey in cobwebs after disabling it to keep it warm and alive. Then they lay their eggs inside it. In the softest parts of the tissue.

  She had thought about not coming to Jerusalem after she’d read about that.

  She should have listened to her instincts.

  She held the rock tight, stroking the rough edges as if she loved them.

  What was that? Was her mind playing tricks?

  No.

  A weight lifted from her. The rock covering the entrance hole was being moved. A saviour was coming! The wound-tight ball of anxiety inside her exploded. Tears rolled fast down her face. A trembling cascade of relief poured into every part of her.

  Even when he shouted down at her she couldn’t stop crying with it.

  Though she bowed her head with disappointment as he roared and the hope inside her dimmed like a candle extinguishing.

  When she opened her eyes again she could make out Susan Hunter in front of her, on the saucer-shaped floor of the cave. Her body looked swollen.

  ‘Stand in the middle, where I can see you,’ came his voice, hard as ever.

  ‘I will throw down some water.’

  She stood still. The thought of water had made her throat open, as if it was already in her mouth. But she knew there was a good chance he was lying.

  ‘Throw it down,’ she croaked. ‘I cannot move.’

  ‘Come forward,’ he said.

  She still had the stone in her hand. She leaned forward.

  She could see him now, silhouetted against the stars, a jagged-edged curtain of spangled light, a purple shadow set against the subterranean blackness of the cave roof.

  He was holding something. What was it?

  She leaned forward. It glinted, darkly. It was a gun! She threw the rock. It didn’t even reach the hole.

  The flash from the muzzle was an orange explosion.

  61

  I heard the gunshot. It was coming from somewhere up ahead.

  ‘We have no guns that make a noise like that.’ He ki
cked the horse under us. It set off at a faster pace. But still it kept its nose down, as if it was sniffing the dark ground as we moved forward.

  The sound of another gunshot reached us. Then two more.

  ‘Can’t we go faster?’ I said.

  We weren’t even cantering. We were walking.

  ‘Do you want my horse to break a leg?’

  ‘I’ll buy you a new horse.’

  ‘You cannot buy a new horse in the middle of a ride.’

  I wanted to shout at him, but I restrained myself. We bounced on. It was an agonising journey. The gunshots could be about Isabel. That evil bastard was shooting at someone. Or had he been spotted by someone else? Was he in a fire fight? The next minutes felt like wading through treacle.

  ‘Get down. Your car is over there. This is where you wanted to go.’

  I slid from the horse. Its leg muscles were trembling.

  The rider who’d taken me looked over his shoulder, first one way, then the other. His horse must have picked up on something too. It was moving restlessly, stomping.

  Then there were three other riders beside us. All men. Two were wearing white Arab headdresses. The sky was darker now, heavy clouds had rolled over. The moon was low, visible in the south, where the clouds hadn’t reached. Details, especially those at ground level, were hard to make out. Shadows ruled.

  I could see our car. It was a dark shadow. I walked towards it.

  A shot rang out.

  The rider, the man who’d kept his word, who’d taken me here, slumped forward, fell almost soundlessly to the ground. The other riders were down from their horses and among the rocks before the body had settled.

  I crouched.

  I was watching for the next gun flash.

  And my heart was thudding. He was near.

  62

  Lord Bidoner was packing. He had ordered a limousine to take him to Heathrow airport. The fact that an airstrike had been launched against Egyptian air bases would be enough to start a stock market panic. And that conspiracy video going viral would create international outrage.

  The attack on Egypt would lead to a demand in the new Egyptian parliament for the total renunciation of the peace treaty with Israel, public support for Palestinian resistance, and free passage for shipments to Gaza from Iran.