by Ray Bentley
“So a true picture of something that actually happened here on this mountain 2,000 years ago, combined with visions of past and future kingdoms,” Lev agreed. “London was just a Celtic village when Jesus was on earth.”
“But, see, I don’t know why,” Jack complained. “I know what I saw, but why did I see it? Why me?”
“It seems to me,” Lev said, scrubbing the bristles on his chin, “every vision you’ve had has been of a mountain. Moriah, Eden, now Mount Hermon. You know, many times—maybe more than any other way—when God wants to impart something important to humans, He chooses a mountain peak to do it. Sinai. Mount Carmel—Calvary.”
“But why me? Why now?”
“Listen, Jack, you already know I believe the Temple is going to be rebuilt? Just like the rebirth of Israel in 1948, and us recapturing the Temple Mount in 1967, the Temple itself—on a mountain again, right? The Temple will be an important milestone toward the End of Days.”
“You don’t have to explain that one. End of the world stuff. I get it,” Jack agreed. “So how’s that all tie into tonight?”
Lev spread his hands. “I think you just got us an update. All the civilizations of the world are coming to a conclusion. The devil offered Jesus a short cut to establish His kingship and Jesus showed him all the anger and greed and bloodshed. Here’s the thing: Satan never actually held the deed to this place. He had a mortgage, but the debt’s been paid in full. For the past couple thousand years the Accuser’s still been collecting interest, but his clock is about to run out.”
The two men sat silent, staring into the future. Lev rubbed his eyes and yawned. Another thought struck Jack, and he asked, “So my vision tonight was another—sign?”
“Bingo!” Lev said. “And here’s the rest: you asked me why you were the one getting the visions? Did you ever stop to think maybe that’s the wrong question?”
“What do you mean?” Jack flipped the collar of his robe up against a sudden draft.
“Maybe the question should be: Since you are the one receiving the messages, what are you supposed to do with them?”
Jack gnawed his lip. “How do I figure that one? If I’m the only one getting these messages as you call them. . .”
“But you’re not,” Lev corrected. “There’s somebody else I want you to meet who’ll help you sort this out.”
“What, tonight?”
“Not tonight. Get some sleep—if you can. I’ll tell you more tomorrow. Oh, and Jack—go ahead and tell Bette about your dream. If you think you might be falling in love with her you need to trust her.”
Perched atop a boulder on the slopes of Hermon, Jack watched the pre-dawn sky ripen into scarlet over Syria and Lebanon. Stars faded. He considered the night’s grim and violent vision of the decaying world.
Bette’s voice interrupted his reverie. “Red sky at morning, sailor take warning, eh?”
“So they say.” His breath steamed in the frigid air.
“Well, look. I brought us coffee. American-style. There’s a Keurig in the kitchen. Dunkin Donuts brand. Black. I couldn’t find the sugar or the cream.” She sat beside him, passing him a mug. “You’re up early.”
“I hardly slept.” He warmed his hands on the cup.
“I know you were restless. It’s my job to know. You know?”
“Standing guard over the American professor?”
“Something like that.” She sipped her brew.
“What is it about this place?” Jack whispered. “I dreamed last night. I dreamed that in this place Satan offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if He would bow down and worship him. You know the story? The temptation of Christ?”
Bette nodded.
Silence. Wind stirred the trees. Bette looked across the lands beneath them. “Everyone knows it. I also listened to what Lev said yesterday, that this mountain is where Jesus was transfigured. Moses and Elijah appeared to Him here—it was the Messiah reclaiming the fallen world. Does it surprise you if I say the temptation and the transfiguration both happening on this mountain makes sense to me—if it really happened that way?”
“Go on.”
“The rest of the puzzle…So let me tell you what I knew of this place when I was a kid. When I was a kid I was afraid of this mountain. We—my family—would come here and camp, you know. My father told us the legends around the campfire. Like ghost stories. In the book of Enoch, Mount Hermon is the place where the Watchers, the Fallen Angels, descended to earth. They swore they would take the daughters of men as their wives. The Watchers bound themselves under a curse that they would serve Lucifer and defy God. So this was called the Mountain of the Oath. The temples of the pagan god Ba’al were here. It is the place where Lucifer surveyed the world he stole. The headwaters of the Jordan River are here, formed by the snow and dew of Hermon. And this is the point of my father’s story.” She held up her two index fingers. “Two drops of dew, like brothers, begin their journey here in the same place. One dewdrop flows into the Jordon to give life to the vineyards of Israel. The other dewdrop forsakes Israel and flows down and down from these heights to end in death, stagnant in the Dead Sea. As Moses challenged the children of Israel, ‘I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.’ Choose life. Or choose death.”
The defiant words Jesus spoke to Satan were clear in Jack’s mind. He whispered, “And Jesus answered Satan, ‘It is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve…’ ”
The corners of Bette’s mouth formed a slight smile. “Yes. As a Jew, my father taught us this. Choose life. So, each human is like a single dewdrop of Hermon; choosing life or choosing death. Who we follow: God or Satan. Living water—or stagnant water, stinking and dead. My father told us kids the Mountain of the Oath symbolizes man’s eternal destiny; the unseen battle of Light and Darkness for men’s souls.”
Jack studied her profile a moment. There was so much more to this woman than he imagined. “We’ll need more than one cup of coffee to finish this discussion, I think.” A blast of light exploded on the horizon. “The sun is rising.”
“Yes. Light strikes the mountain peak first.” Bette nudged him. “Come on, then. Our coffee is getting cold out here.”
Chapter Fourteen
Having dropped Lev and Amir at the Partners with Zion office, Bette returned Jack to the King David. “I’ve got to go report in,” she said.
“Come and have lunch with me first. Besides, we have to make plans for dinner tonight.”
“Really?” Bette said with an arched eyebrow. “Lunch and dinner. Giving me orders, Dr. Garrison?”
“Nobody bosses Wonder Woman’s cousin around. But lunch and dinner are both needed for me to learn more about your own super hero powers.” Jack extended playfully hesitant fingers toward her hand.
Bette laughed and grasped his arm eagerly. “Actually, I wanted to take you to a concert tonight, but Lev has someone he wants you to meet, remember?”
“Whoever it is can’t be as interesting as you!”
The desk clerk spotted them arriving and called out, “Dr. Garrison! A message for you. It’s marked urgent.”
Jack frowned as he accepted the envelope. He and Bette stepped into an alcove flanked by potted palms.
“Knew it was too good to last,” he said, ripping open and scanning the note, then handing it to Bette. “I’ve been ordered back to London.” Bette read the communication while Jack continued fuming. “Not asked when I was returning. Not requested to come back. Ordered!” Jack’s finger stabbed the page with such force he almost knocked it out of her hand. “ ‘Flight tonight,’ it says. ‘Ticket waiting at El Al counter,’ it says. I’ve got a good mind to. . .”
Bette got his attention by looking directly into his eyes. “Are you ready to quit your job? Because that’s how you sound. There must be some important reason for them to be so abrupt.”
Jack grinned sheepishly. “It’s just that I’m not ready to leave—you,” he concluded.
�
�I don’t want you to go either. But if your Committee hadn’t sent you here, we wouldn’t have met in the first place, right?”
“But I don’t like this. It stinks. I think. . .”
Planting a kiss that rendered Jack first mute and then incapable of speech, Bette silenced his tirade. When she finally broke off the embrace she said, “Go and convince them your work here isn’t done. Then come back as soon as you can.”
Jack called Lev to tell him the news that he was called back to London.
“You’ve got time for dinner. You can’t go until you meet my friend Daoud,” Lev insisted.
In the evening, the shops and restaurants of Jerusalem were open and bustling with shoppers.
Jack made his way to meet Lev at Between the Arches Café just outside the security checkpoint near the exit of the Western Wall. There was a long line of people waiting for tables. Lev sent Jack a text telling him he and his friend were already seated downstairs.
Jack descended the steps. The cavernous restaurant was surprisingly cool. Voices echoed against the walls and resounded in a deafening cacophony, apparently the norm of Jewish nightlife.
Spotting Lev and Daoud at a too-small table on the opposite side of the packed room, Jack waved.
“Shalom! Shalom!” Lev pushed out a chair. “Jack, you’re late. This is my friend Daoud Farouk. Daoud—this is Jack Garrison. An American by way of London.”
Jack shook hands with Daoud, who looked remarkably like a young version of the actor Omar Sharif.
“Pleased to meet you.” Jack’s stomach rumbled at the exquisite aromas of Israeli food drifting from the kitchen.
Lev slapped him on the back. “I hope you’re hungry. Daoud already ordered for all of us.”
Wine was poured and in the center of the table was crushed olive dip with a basket of Focaccia bread; hot, flaky, fluffy, and perfectly seasoned.
“What are we having?” Jack asked.
Daoud replied, “Shakshuka—the apex of eggs for dinner! Pile of pita. Eggs poached in spicy tomato sauce. Crumbled feta cheese.”
Lev added, “You only get it here, Jack. This is the place. Someday I promise you’ll be somewhere—I don’t know—somewhere in the world and you’ll wake up in the middle of the night and remember your shakshuka dinner with Lev and Daoud. And the next thing you know you’ll be craving it and on a plane. . .”
“Right back in Yerushalayim!” Daoud finished.
Cheerful conversation went with the meal, and Jack’s irritation at being ordered back to London diminished somewhat. Only after the shakshuka was consumed and coffee ordered did Lev and Daoud come to the point of their meeting.
“I was born and raised a Muslim,” Daoud began his story. “My father was a high official in our mosque and fully committed to the ideology of Yassar Arafat and of Mohammed. Me and my brothers and sisters were schooled in a radical madrassa. Our religion taught us to hate the Jews. If a Jew hid behind a stone, the stone would cry out, ‘here is a Jew, come kill him.’ This is also true about Christians, we were taught. Christians are just as bad as Jews.”
“Tell Jack about your sister.”
“Yes. My sister. She was two years younger than me. She was sixteen at the time when she met a Christian boy quite by accident at the library. She was forbidden to go to the library, so she told my parents she was visiting a friend. Anyway, so she meets this Christian boy several times and they talk—only talk—they become friends and they talk about how Jews and Christians and Muslims should not hate—just the talk of teenagers dreaming. Then this Christian boy tells her about Jesus, who is all about love. And my sister became a secret believer. She kept a little New Testament hidden under her pillow and read it. Somehow my older brother discovered her deception—that she had a Christian boy as a friend. This was very bad. My brother and his friends confronted her. They beat her until she was almost dead. They left her in a park, bleeding, almost dead. Then they went to find the Christian boy to kill him too.”
Daoud’s coffee grew cold and his face clouded with the memory. “So someone finds my sister. She is taken to the hospital here. Hadassah Hospital. In Intensive Care. Almost dead. We get a call to come because she may not survive the night. And as we go to the hospital her Christian friend is being hunted so he can be beaten to death that very night.”
Lev frowned, and urged Daoud to continue. “Go on—tell him the miracle.”
“I did not recognize my sister when I saw her. Broken. Her face so battered—my mother and father wept bitter tears. How could this happen? My mother asked. What animal would do this? Then my other brother tells her it was for the honor of the family. And he tells my father that our eldest brother has done this and will do more to the Christian who dared to defile her. I ran from the hospital in the night, certain she would die. I ran all the way to the top of the Mount of Olives. And I was crying out with all my heart to this Jesus whom my sister came to love. I told Jesus that if He would save her from death that I would turn my heart to Him. And then—in the olive grove there I fall asleep as I weep. Suddenly I see a very bright light and a golden man with light beaming from his hands and his feet and from a place in his side—and I know it is Jesus.”
A wave of chills swept over Jack as he listened. “Were you dreaming? Was it a vision?”
Daoud considered the question carefully. “It was real. It could only be real. So—Jesus asks me what I want. I tell Him—I want my sister to live. And I want to truly know God. Not a god who fills us with hate, but the God who loves. The God who brings peace for us all—salaam—shalom. And then Jesus says to me, ‘Daoud, go back to your family. Your sister will live.’ I knew it was Jesus. He heard my prayer and answered. The light from His wounds bathed me in warmth and peace. And that has never left me.”
“And the miracle,” Lev urged.
“My sister lived. Against all odds. She recovered and within days was well. She and I were given sanctuary with the family of the Christian boy. Others in my family have become Christians. My oldest brother who tried to kill her. She has forgiven him. She married the Christian boy and they have two beautiful children. They are in America now.”
Daoud spread his hands. “And so that is my story. There is no peace between Arabs and Jews and Christians without the love of Jesus. His light will quench the fires of hate between the sons of Isaac and of Ishmael. So Lev wanted you to hear this. Put this in your report. Jesus will come soon to Jerusalem. His Holy Temple will once again stand on this mountain. Then every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord. And I am not afraid to tell the whole world. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”
It was still early when the three men parted.
Jack stood at the window of his hotel room and gazed toward the Temple Mount. Something big was coming. Jack felt it. A miracle was coming soon which would crack hearts of stone and bring peace to Jerusalem.
In the distance, projected lights of a classical concert reflected on the Western Wall like flames. Jack propped his feet on the railing of his balcony as the universal language of music drifted on the breeze.
His suitcase was packed for his flight to London. The limo would pick him up soon, yet he clung to these last moments, determined to drink in every detail.
His room service meal was mostly untouched and the hotel room was dark behind him.
Debbie would have loved Jerusalem and this night, he thought, sipping his wine. His life would have been so different had she lived.
And now? There was Bette. Fierce and brilliant. Angry and gentle. Wise, yet quiet in her wisdom.
Debbie and Bette. There never were two women more opposite. One loved the romance of The Merchant of Venice. The other saw a threat against her people within the plot. They could have played the lead roles: Portia and Jessica.
Jack wondered if perhaps both women viewed the world rightly. Romance and bitterness were inseparable truths for the descendants of Abraham.
There was no time to sleep, though Jack longed to dream again.
The stars blended with the twinkling lights of Jerusalem until there was no distinct line between heaven and earth.
“On such a night as this…” he whispered.
Thousands of years of history overlapped and melded into one eternal moment: “What was, what is, and what shall be.”
Past, present, and future flowed like a deep river from this holy mountain.
On such a night as this—Abraham. Isaac. David the Shepherd. David the King. King Solomon the Wise, builder of the First Temple. Conquering armies. Dissolute kings and holy prophets. Wise men. Shepherds. Jesus of Nazareth. Judas. The cross and an empty tomb. The Mount of Olives where Jesus ascended and where angels promised He would return again.
All history remained active and alive, embedded in the stones.
In the distance, the orchestra played the final song: the national anthem of Israel. Hatikvah, The Hope. Jack stood at attention and sang quietly.
The phone rang and broke the spell. Jack did not turn on the light before answering.
“Your airport limo is here, sir,” the voice said in perfect American English. “Shall I send the bellman to help with your luggage?”
“No, thanks. I can manage. I’ll be down in a minute. Have my bill ready for me, please.”
Chapter Fifteen
Jack stood in Lord Halvorsham’s office in the Gherkin. He had been standing for several minutes already, not having been invited to sit since he arrived. The flow of criticism aimed at him gave no sign of stopping.
“And where did you disappear to?” Halvorsham demanded. “Sent no word of your travels. Ignored all attempts to reach you, delayed your return for several days. . .”
“May I speak now?” Jack inquired. Taking the pause in his boss’s tirade for consent, Jack said, “I have never been required to give daily reports on previous missions for the Committee and I certainly wasn’t told to do so this time. I traveled to an area where no cell phone use was possible and as soon as I received the message back at my hotel I returned to London as—ordered.”