2013: Beyond Armageddon (11 page)

Incredibly, it had snowed again last night. Not much, but enough to cover the ground with a fresh white blanket. In the cold, raw October morning, gnarled black branches of prematurely leafless trees groped starkly against the gray sky, like the tortured fingers of dead hands imploring for heavenly mercy.

Good day for a funeral.

Zeke stared numbly at the three silver-gray caskets waiting to be lowered into the ground, three burnished metal containers that held all that was left of his family. Reese came up beside him with his mother and niece. Paige’s respectful smile was like the flicker of a lightning bug in the black hole of his grief. He tried to remember how old she was. Seven, maybe.

A few dozen other mourners straggled into position.

As a veteran, Hank Sloan could have been buried in Arlington, but Zeke hadn’t wanted to separate the family. Still, to keep his military service from going completely uncommemorated, he’d arranged for a military funeral.

A large flag covered the casket of Lieutenant Hank Sloan, a man who had helped end the Vietnam War. The members of the firing party stood awaiting the command to give the three-volley salute.

The priest waited respectfully until everyone was in position, then began the graveside service. “No words can lessen the pain we all feel today. And yet they’re all we have.”

As the priest tried valiantly to find meaning in death, Zeke heard only an unconvincing drone. Staring impassively at the three caskets, inside his head thoughts swarmed like angry wasps.

His sister had given her life so that Leah could live. The bullet that lodged in Leah’s chest had gone through Valerie.

That sacrifice couldn’t be in vain. He could never let any harm come to Leah.

“And so, though these children of God have finished their work here…”

From a nearby tree, as though to negate the priest’s attempts to extol the virtues of lives too soon ended, the unsympathetic “uh-uh” screech of a crow occasionally punctuated his words.

The jungle. The restaurant. Both triggered by the voice of Satan.

“We send them now to their final resting place…”

Again the contemptuous croak pierced Zeke’s heart. “Uh-uh.”

It was almost over now.

The scrolls. Father Connolly. Voices. Satan.

“Amen,” said the priest as he finished making the sign of the cross.

Silence settled over the bowed heads. Several seconds went by before the solemn command was given for the three-volley salute. Impeccably dressed in their honor guard uniforms, the firing party executed their duties with razor-sharp precision. The loud reports of their weapons crisply split the somber winter air. The sound struck Zeke as a clarion call to Heaven, announcing the arrival of one of its warriors. When the final volley died out, the bugler began Taps. Zeke felt his face tighten as he remembered the words:

Day is done, gone the sun
From the lake, from the hills, from the sky.
All is well, safely rest;
God is nigh.

The flag was folded and brought to Zeke. He nodded and stared for a moment at the piece of cloth his father almost died for. Was this a world worth dying for?

He took one last look around, fixing the location in his mind. One member of the honor guard remained standing by the grave. The Vigil, he would stay until the graves were closed. A stranger doing his duty for a fallen comrade. The power of the flag made him do that. Zeke stared at the lone figure until emotion threatened to overwhelm him, then began the trek to the black limousine. As he went he noticed something else.

On the way in, he’d been struck by the statues of angels everywhere. Now, however, in this remote corner of this bleak place, he noticed something disturbing—and yet somehow fitting.

There were no angels here.

East of Jerusalem. October 9

Golden light from the late afternoon sun made the necropolis almost seem to glow from within. Dotted with thousands of Jewish graves dating back to Biblical times, the ancient burial ground emanated a sacred feel as it sloped steeply down the Mount of Olives.

Near the top of the revered hill, a mound of fresh dirt stood in stark contrast to the long-undisturbed earth around it. Except for two men who stood staring silently at the grave, the mourners had all gone. The two old friends had asked for some time alone, and told the others they would join them soon.

Hassan wanted some good memory to take away from the grave of the woman he’d been planning to marry, but all he could think of was Norah’s shattered body dying in his arms. He wondered about the fanatic—a fellow Muslim—who had strapped the bomb to himself.

What thoughts were going through the minds of those he left behind? Did they really think him a hero?

Bitterness curdled in his heart.

He gave up on his futile search for meaning and glanced at Norah’s father to see if he was ready to leave. Mordecai Rosen seemed to have aged ten years. He appeared lost in some final communion with his departed daughter, so Hassan returned to his own reflections.

This is the ultimate result of terrorism, he thought, the part the world never sees: the burial of the dead, the lives torn apart, the searching to make sense of the senseless. Another innocent life snuffed out, the life of a beautiful person who had never harmed a soul, had just been born in the wrong place and carried a heavy label:

Jew
.

From somewhere nearby the screech of some bird of prey raked across his soul. A line from Poe’s
Raven
came to him:
Take thy beak from out my heart
.

When was the last time he had told Norah he loved her? A few days ago, he couldn’t remember.

She should never have been in the West Bank that morning. It was madness for her—for any Jew—to have been in the West Bank at all. The enmity ran too deep. She had only come because of him.

I’m sorry, Norah. I’m so sorry.

Gazing intently at the mound of dirt, he became so consumed by the notion that her death was his fault that he jumped when Norah’s father grabbed his arm and gently guided them from the grave.

They trudged in weary silence to the path along the edge of the burial ground and down to the base of the Mount. Only when they were a considerable distance from the grave did Mordecai break the ghostly silence.

“You and Norah had gotten very close, hadn’t you?”

Since neither was fluent in the other’s native tongue, they spoke in accented but excellent English.

“I loved her very much, Mordecai. I was going to ask her to marry me.”

A feeble smile struggled against the sadness. “You are a good man, Hassan. Your father raised you well. It would have brought me happiness to have you for a son.” He gently laid a hand on Hassan’s back as they continued down the hill. “How is Tarik?”

“Not well. He almost seems to be taking this harder than I am, if that’s possible. The day she died he had just closed up the café for good. Between that, and what happened to Norah, he seems to have given up. I have been after him for years to close the café, enjoy everything he’s worked so hard for. Now I hope it’s not too late. He sends his condolences. He wanted to be here, but he just couldn’t make it. I guess old age is finally catching up with him.”

“I wish him well.”

They walked on in silence. Hassan thought of all the sacred tradition that surrounded him. A feeling of reverence stirred under his heavy mantle of sorrow.

The archaeologist in him knew that little of the tradition was proven.
Archaeology be damned.
Right now he needed to believe in
something
, so he suppressed the scientist and the Muslim in him and sought solace in legends that were mostly Jewish and Christian.

Norah’s eternal rest would be on the very hill from which Jesus triumphantly entered Jerusalem. The graves of Mary and Joseph were somewhere nearby. Maybe they would look after her. At the bottom of the Mount was the Golden Gate into Jerusalem, through which the Jews believed the Messiah would come. From these very graves the dead would rise before Him for the Last Judgment.

Sleep well, Norah.

Muslim tradition had it that Saladin had bricked up the Golden Gate to keep the Messiah from returning and wresting Jerusalem from Muslim hands.

How ironic, he thought bitterly. That the Messiah should promise Jews He would come through an opening, and that another of his chosen ones should close it up.

Religious traditions. He shook his head at the folly of it all. No one would ever know any of this for certain. Certainly not the archaeologists. They still debated whether it was Saladin or Suleiman who had bricked up the Golden Gate. Neither had ever been proven conclusively.

Humans and their eternal longing for answers that aren’t there.

At the base of the Mount, they veered into the Garden of Gethsemane. A stone path wound through the grounds and they followed it into a small grove of olive trees. Halfway through, they came to a stone bench and sat. On either side of this small clearing, the trees and their branches leaned back, as if opening to admit—what? Hope? Forgiveness?—into the place of humanity’s vilest betrayal. It was here that the kiss of Judas had sent Jesus to his death.

Did my kisses do the same to Norah?
In the deepening cold, Hassan shivered at the thought. Not wanting Mordecai to see his distress, he looked to his left.

At the far end of the clearing, a lone olive tree stood watching from the shadows like a forlorn sentry. A gust of wind brought a feeble sound to Hassan’s ears. He strained to hear it, but it was low and intermittent and hard to make out. It could have been laughing, or humming, or whimpering, except that there was no one else in the garden. Finally he decided it might be the mewling of a stray cat. The sound died out and the remorse about Norah began to overtake him again. Thankfully Mordecai struck up a conversation and rescued him.

“Look at us,” he said, touching Hassan’s cheek with affection. “An Israeli and a Palestinian, friends. The world says it’s impossible.” He stuck his hands in his coat pockets to warm them. “How long have we known each other?”

“Almost thirty years. I was fresh out of university and you got me my first job in marine archaeology at Caesarea. You were directing the underwater part of the dig, and you needed an assistant. Errand boy was more like it, but you still found time to teach me the best way to do things underwater. I loved it.”

“Yes, those were gentler times. Compared to this, anyway. Even though there was no love lost, it was still possible for Palestinians and Israelis to work on the same dig without looking over their shoulder for a madman with a bomb.”

The bomb reference pierced Hassan’s heart, but he struggled to keep the conversation light. “Do you miss being underwater, after all these years with a desk job at Antiquities?”

“Yes. Yes I do. I never should have let that doctor talk me out of diving. ‘Heart murmur.’ Whose heart
doesn’t
murmur?”

Hassan’s laugh was feeble. His heart was murmuring right now. “Maybe you should get a second opinion.”

Mordecai let out a weary sigh. “I don’t know if I’m up to it anymore. How about you? Do you miss it?”

“Yes. Terrestrial is much easier, but not nearly as exciting. I’ve thought of switching back, but I just don’t feel like uprooting myself to go where the underwater digs are. I still dive when I can, but I’ve gotten comfortable working in Jericho.”

They fell silent for a while, then Hassan said, “You used to bring Norah to the Caesarea dig sometimes. She couldn’t have been more than ten. We used to give her a little shovel. She’d get so excited when she thought she found something—which she never did, nothing of any importance—but we always let her think so.” Hassan saw her father’s pained look. “She grew up to be a very good digger, though. One of the best. I saw that at Megiddo, when I took last season off from Jericho. I didn’t know her very well at first, just enough to say hello whenever we crossed paths. I hadn’t seen her since she was a little girl. For the first time I saw her as the beautiful, talented woman that she was. A
good
woman. We started dating, and… we fell in love.

“We were going to leave from my house for a romantic week on the Mediterranean. I was going to propose. I had it all planned.” He struggled to go on. “I never should have had her come to the West Bank. I should have gone to her.”

Mordecai touched his shoulder. “Neither one of us is at fault, my son. Some greater power decides these things. Who lives, who dies.”

No one had ever called Hassan “my son” except his father. Coming from Mordecai Rosen in this time and place, he liked the sound of it.

A wind rustled the leaves. The sun made them look like fluttering pieces of silver.

“Some greater power,” Hassan said. “I wonder. Look where we are. Somewhere in here Jesus was betrayed. One of the legends about Judas says he hanged himself from one of these trees.”

Mordecai nodded. “Legend always tells us something or other. Another version says Judas hanged himself at Akeldama in the valley of Hinnom.”

“Jahannam,” Hassan said.

“Gehenna,” Mordecai said.

“Hell by any other name,” Hassan said.

Mordecai made a small forlorn nod. “Scientists have checked these trees, but olive trees don’t have rings, so they are very difficult to date. Although some have been known to live for two thousand years. Or more.”

It was getting quite cold. Hassan heard the whimpering again. A little louder now, coming from his left. He stood and motioned for Mordecai to follow.

As they walked toward the single olive tree at the head of the clearing, Hassan struggled for something positive to say. “This is a fitting place for Norah to rest, Mordecai. She is at one with the ancients, in the holiest of burial grounds. If the Last Judgment does take place here, as we are told, hers will be a favorable one. She was a saint.”

“Thank you, Hassan. It is small consolation when such a beautiful life is cut so short, but we must hope. Mustn’t we? Is there hope?”

“I wish I could answer that question. I want to believe, but how can I? You said some greater power decides these things. But how can anyone believe in a God who lets these killings keep happening? How can we stop them, Mordecai? Surely there must be something we can do to stop the slaughter.”