by Dan Sofer
Jericho.
“Oh crap.”
The City of Palms. The oldest known continuously inhabited city. Modern Jericho fell within Area C and the exclusive control of the Palestinian Authority.
Jericho was considered a calm city by Palestinian standards and even attracted a trickle of Christian tourists, but Jews wandering into Area C could expect a welcoming lynch mob and machetes. No Israeli citizen in his right mind entered Area C without an armored personnel carrier and helicopter extraction team.
Ben followed the van.
Signs in Arabic sped by as he approached the sprawling mass of Arab Jericho.
A loose roadblock of Palestinians in speckled army fatigues and Kalashnikovs flagged down the black van and its yellow Israeli license plates, and then waved it through.
Ben slowed. The van turned right and disappeared behind a clump of palms. He made a sharp right onto a dirt road that flanked the city along a dilapidated perimeter fence. He caught snatches of the van between trees and low, plastered buildings. It moved deeper into the city and he lost visual contact.
He idled on the dirt road for a few minutes. The engine quavered and cut out. He turned the key. The car coughed twice but did not turn over.
Wonderful.
Ben got out. He opened the back door, changed clothes on the back seat, and did his best to remove the mud from his face and arms. He emerged wearing shorts, a T-shirt, and a COD cap.
If anyone asked, he would be a clueless British tourist.
He kept the muddy trainers on. He might need to run.
His phone rang.
He glanced at the caller ID.
Mandy Rosenberg.
He’d forgotten about their appointment. No time for apologies or explanations now. And the phone had charged only a little in the docking station. He put the phone on silent and slipped it into his pocket.
Fifty meters along the perimeter fence, Ben found a hole. He stepped through and his shirt sleeve snagged on a strand of rusted chicken wire.
He made for the nearest clump of houses.
Wild grass and low brush littered the uneven, broken earth. A woman in a brown burka pegged bed sheets to a clothesline. Arab children chased a football barefoot in the dirt. Three chickens waddled by. The asphalt street had neither shoulder nor sidewalk. The houses, bare cement walls and flat roofs, grew denser.
Ben walked up a side street, deeper into the city. Beyond a cement wall, he spotted the edge of a black van.
A metal sign on the wall contained the street name in Arabic. Ben snapped a photo for later analysis. He moved closer to the edge of the wall. His shoes crunched on loose gravel. He heard no voices. The men must be indoors, storing their loot, sure that they had made a clean break.
He peered around the corner. The second black van stood at the other edge of a long, single-story housing complex. He photographed the license plates. There were no windows on this side of the building.
Time to turn back, flag down a tour bus, and return to the safety of Israeli territory. He could call the towing service for the car. Did his insurance extend to Area C?
A hard nozzle pressed into the small of his back. A large, muscular hand closed over his shoulder.
Ben froze. He didn’t dare raise his arms.
“Wakif,” said a deep, Middle Eastern voice. The man breathed hot air on the back of Ben’s neck.
“Wakif willa batokh.”
Over the years Ben had picked up snatches of Arabic. He had learned this particular phrase during his shortened service in the Israeli army.
Stop, the man had said. Stop or I’ll shoot.
Chapter 11
Mandy woke and struggled to open her eyelids; they felt lined in lead. She lay on a hard bed and through blurred vision realized she was in a small room with gray walls and a large brown door.
Not her room on Mendele. Not her studio on 63rd Street. Definitely not her frilled childhood bedroom.
Her mouth tasted like glue.
An image rose in her mind: the brown man in Ben’s house stepped toward her; an arm closed around her like strong rope; the sweet-smelling gauze over her mouth.
She had come to during the ride. She’d found herself under a heavy blanket in a dark, closed space that stank of motor oil, then drifted off again.
She lifted her head from the rough mattress. The springs creaked.
A man cleared his throat. A second bed stood perpendicular to hers and on it sat a gray hooded cloak; she couldn’t see the face inside it.
“Hi,” it said.
Mandy felt about for her bag.
“Don’t bother,” the cloak said. “You’ll get your stuff back later. Great playlist, by the way. ‘Upside-down you turn me.’ ‘Babooshka.’ Takes me way back. Gotta love eighties music.”
An awkward silence developed between her and her captor, who had broken into her iPhone. He seemed to be trying to chat her up.
“Where am I? Who are you?”
“I’m sorry.” Remembering his manners, he pulled back the hood and Mandy stared into the blue eyes and sparse red beard of the Western Wall street performer.
Damian.
Or was it King David?
How was he connected to the men at Ben’s home? And why had he followed Dave?
Damian smiled. “It’s me. Don’t you remember?”
Mandy hesitated. Was he still in character?
“Sure,” she said. “We took Art History together.”
Damian waved his hand in the air. “No, no, no.” He chuckled. Wholesome. Good-natured. He reminded her of Owen Wilson. “Before that.”
Here we go.
“Before that?”
She decided to play dumb. Best not to argue with the madman in the cloak who held the key to her prison cell.
“Yeah,” he said. “Before all this. Before I was Damian. Before you were Mandy Rosenberg.”
So you’ve been through my purse too.
He stared at her. Or through her.
He made another generous sweeping movement with his hand. “It’ll come back to you. I brought you a little something. “
Mandy braced herself for a fluffy teddy bear, but he produced a glass of water and a plate of apple slices. “Eat up. We’ll have plenty of time to catch up later.”
She didn’t like the sound of that but she was starving.
He placed the plate and glass at her feet and returned to the other bed.
“Go on,” he said. “It’s not poison.”
Mandy gulped down the glass of cloudy water and devoured the fruit. Damian, or rather King David, watched her closely.
“Can I go now?”
He frowned.
“What do you want from me?”
“You know,” he said and stood. “We’re going to be best friends, you and I. And believe me, you’re gonna need friends here.”
“Why?”
“‘Cause the other guys, the guys who brought you here? They’re crazy.”
Mandy sighed inwardly. “Crazy?”
“Uh-huh,” said the man who thought he was King David. “They’ll do anything to get what they want.”
“What do they want?”
Damian licked his lips. “A scroll jar. We got two already but we need the third. They think you know where it is. But you don’t. I know you don’t. You were sent here for a higher purpose.”
Mandy forced a poker face. She didn’t want to know about this higher purpose, and the game of Crazy Cop/Crazier Cop did nothing to comfort her.
King David seemed satisfied for the moment. He got to his feet and collected the plate and cup.
“I’ll see you later.” He winked at her. “Think on what I said.”
He entered a code on the keypad beside the door; it clicked open and he closed it behind him.
Scroll jars? What did they want with scroll jars?
Ben was the archaeologist. Mandy had fallen into a trap Damian’s pals had set for Ben.
Had Damian followed Dave to get to
Ben? Had Dave tried to protect Mandy by breaking up with her?
That was it!
Mandy shared Dave’s secret now. They were bound together. Dave no longer had to keep his distance. Any moment, he would sail in to rescue her.
Meanwhile, Mandy had a part to play. She’d find out what she could. Unlock the mystery from within.
And this King David was her key.
The keypad beeped and the large door clicked open. Two gray cloaks walked in, the brown man from Ben’s home and a taller, skinnier Caucasian with long slick hair and a wispy brown beard. He held a stick in his hand like a baseball bat but wide and flat.
“G’day, pretty.” He had the same Australian accent as Shortie. His smile made Mandy cringe.
He slapped the bat on the palm of his hand.
“It’s show time.”
***
Dave stepped out of the elevator, into the lobby of the Dead Sea Crowne Plaza, and prepared to meet his future parents-in-law.
He had never met the parents of his other girlfriends, certainly not after a second date.
Clammy palms: check. Trembling fingers: check. These were no ordinary parents. These were the parents of Shira Cohen, the closest to royalty Dave would get.
At the window that overlooked the pool, a hand waved. Shira’s hand. Dave recognized his mother and father at the table. The second couple faced the window: a balding man and a woman with satin black hair wound and held above her ivory neck by long pins. They grew larger and more intimidating with every step.
Just smile. And keep your mouth shut.
“There you are,” his mother said. “We nearly called the police. Steve and Beverly, this is our David.”
The balding man shook Dave’s hand. “A pleasure to meet you, David.” He smiled warmly beneath a bushy mustache.
Shira’s mother, Bev, gave Dave an amused smile and he understood where her daughter got her looks. Shira would age well.
“We’ve heard so much about you,” she said, in an unexpectedly high-pitched voice.
“Nothing terrible, I hope.”
He took the last vacant seat between the two fathers. Shira beamed at him from across the table and radiated elegance. Dave nodded at her politely.
Shira’s father fixed him with an intense, questioning gaze.
Here it comes.
“So tell me, David,” Steve said. “Who do you support, Manchester or Liverpool?”
His mouth dried up. His tongue squirmed uselessly like a beached whale. “Um.”
Manchester or Liverpool?
A wrong answer would estrange his future father-in-law forever. He tried to divine the answer from the dark, expectant eyes. Neither were London teams. It was a fifty-fifty chance.
Pick one, any one.
Steve erupted with laughter and clapped Dave on the shoulder.
“Did you see his face?” Dave’s mother said.
“What?” Dave said.
Shira smiled and lowered her eyes to the table.
“Relax, David,” his mother said. “Steve and Bev know all about you and football. In fact, they know everything there is to know about you.”
“Oh.” He felt his cheeks burn.
What else had his mom shared with Steve and Bev? Every faux pas and embarrassing moment since birth, probably.
She squinted at him. “David. What happened to your forehead?”
His fingers flew to the scratch below his hairline. His mother didn’t wait for an answer.
“Really, David. Try to be more careful.” She turned to Steve and Bev. “Did I tell you about the time he walked into a street lamp on Golders Green?”
“Mother! I was four years old.”
“He had a large red welt smack in the middle of his forehead for days. Anyway. What were we saying earlier?”
Bev replied, “You were telling us about the new painting.”
“Oh, yes. I walked into the lobby and this poor sheep was staring at me. I had to have it. It’s a Kadishman.”
Dave’s mom flaunted her interest in Israeli art at every opportunity.
“The sheep portraits with the colors?” Shira said. “I adore them.”
Dave focused on the menu. He could do with a solid meal. That morning he’d faced armed gunmen and certain death beneath the City of David; now he perused a dinner menu. A funny thing, life.
His eye settled on the fish and fries. He looked around for a waiter.
“Our house is filled with them,” his mother said.
“It feels as though a herd of sheep is crossing the living room,” his father chimed in.
Laughter all round.
“And the dining room,” his mother added.
“How do you ever serve lamb?” Bev said.
More laughter.
“Shira, my dear, when you’re back in London come by and I’ll give you the guided tour,” his mother offered.
Shira, apparently, had hit it off with her, a fact that aroused mixed emotions in Dave.
A waiter arrived with a large tray of dishes. He placed one before Dave: a fillet of grilled fish and French fries.
“I haven’t ordered yet.”
“That’s for you, David,” his mother said.
Dave’s blood boiled. “Mother! I think I’m old enough to order for myself.”
“It was getting late. No sense in you watching while the rest of us eat.”
“But how do you know what I want?”
She laughed. “I’ve known you all your life, dear. I know what you need. Would you prefer something else?”
Dave opened his mouth but words didn’t follow.
“I rest my case,” she said.
The conversation returned to oil paintings of livestock.
Dave stabbed the fillet with his fork and sliced off a piece.
He chewed in silence.
The white fish was delicious. And Dave had been spared the traditional paternal grilling. Strangely, he felt cheated.
Through the French windows, swimsuits lay on sun chairs in the softening light. Children frolicked in the pool. The calm, salty waters of the Dead Sea lapped the sandy shore beyond and drew the eye to the blue haze of the Jordanian mountains. Six o’clock and daylight still reigned.
“What a lovely day,” Dave’s mother said. “And a lovely start to new relationships. Make a toast, darling.”
Dave’s father raised a glass of chardonnay. “To Shira and Dave.”
Dave almost choked on his French fries.
“To Shira and Dave,” the couples declared.
Dave looked around the table. Shira smiled and sipped her wine. He tried to spot the hidden camera.
“Shira, dear,” his mother said. “I’m so glad you agreed to come to Israel.”
Dave’s fork clanged loudly on the plate. “Mother, can I have a word?”
She rolled her eyes and wiped her lips on the napkin.
“What’s going on?” Dave said as soon as they were out of earshot.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, Shira coming to Jerusalem, conveniently bumping into me, getting back together. Did you set this up?”
“David,” she said, offended. “You’ve been heartbroken over the girl for years. All I did was ask the right people a few questions. Make connections. I did what any concerned mother would do. Isn’t this what you wanted?”
“I didn’t want you to twist her arm.”
“She’s here of her own free will, David.” Her voice softened. “You were made for each other. Now go sit down and stop making a fuss.”
She pinched his cheek and marched back to the table.
He followed. He sat down. He smiled at Shira. He ate his fish.
Shira Cohen had fallen into his lap without any effort on his part. All the dates he had endured, the singles events, the stratagems, the stress, had amounted to nothing. He’d had only to fold his arms and wait.
Dave watched the people around the table. Their mouths talked and chewed, their cutlery processed the
food. He heard not a word they said.
This is your life, Dave. Your future.
Yet, in a narrow tunnel below the City of David, when death had seemed imminent, he had not seen the face of Shira Cohen.
Dave’s phone sang “Jerusalem of Gold.”
“Excuse me.” He wiped his mouth, got up, and stepped through the glass door to the pool deck.
He didn’t know what he would say. He didn’t even know what he felt. But he had to hear Mandy’s voice and perhaps he would find out. He answered.
“Mandy,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to call you.”
On the other end of the line, a man laughed. “Mandy can’t talk right now. But you can speak with me.”
The voice was cruel and mocking, and clearly Australian.
“Who is this?”
The man laughed again. He took his time, enjoying the game.
“You have something of mine, David Schwarz. You and your friend at the City of David.”
Ornan? No.
One of his men?
“What?” he asked.
The man on the phone lost his patience. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Dave did. The round black stone lay in an orange cooler on a shelf in his ground-floor Jerusalem apartment, a hundred kilometers away.
“You better cough it up if you ever want to see your girlfriend again.”
Dave was about to protest that she wasn’t, technically, his girl, when another voice spoke.
Mandy’s voice. “Be careful, Dave. They’re—”
The voice cut out.
Dave lowered his body onto the slate steps that descended to the pool area.
The cruel voice returned. “Call me when you’re on the road.”
“Wait,” Dave said. “I don’t have it with me. I’m out of town. It’ll take a few hours at least.”
The voice was silent a moment. “You’ve got till tomorrow morning. I’ll call again. Come alone. Call the cops and your girl gets it. Understand?”
“Yes. But listen. I’m not the one who—”
The line disconnected.
Oh, God. Oh, my God.
For the second time that day, Dave wished he had never met Ben, had never heard of Ornan’s and the Foundation Stone.
A woman in a yellow bikini and wrap-around sunglasses walked her toddler up the stairs.
Don’t panic.