Avraham Azrieli - The Masada Complex

The Israeli commander responded through the megaphone. “What accident?”

“Allah took one of the hostages.”

There was silence. Than the officer’s voice sounded, hoarse, almost weak. “Release the others. Let them go.”

Abu Faddah tried to gauge the man’s tone. “Will you promise a safe passage back to Jordan?”

There was no response.

“We agree to release-”

A scream stopped him in midsentence. He turned.

At the open end of the room, against the background of a red twilight, a hand attached to a thin arm clasped Faddah’s throat. He tried to retreat backward into the room, but the hand pulled him down. His hips smashed against the low wall at the edge, and his legs flipped upward.

Abu Faddah ran, reaching for his son’s feet just as they cleared the edge and went over. He fell, screaming in terror on his long, long way down, while his attacker swung to the left, parallel to the sheer face of the mountainside.

Collapsing at the edge, Abu Faddah kept shouting his son’s name over and over, while far below a puff of dust mushroomed over Faddah, hiding him and the dead Israeli boy.

Something entered his vision from the left and he turned his head, too stunned to react.

The attacker swung back like an avenging pendulum, legs perpendicular to the wall, racing at Abu Faddah in an upward arc like a two-legged spider. He tried to fall back, away, but the attacker grabbed the front of his khaki shirt and pulled him down like an anchor. Dropping forward, Abu Faddah hit the low wall with both hands, blocking his fall.

The attacker was in uniform. Long hair. A woman?

A dagger appeared in her right hand. She stabbed upward through the mask into his left eye.

Fire exploded inside his head. He screamed and vaulted backward, tearing himself from her grasp. He rolled on the dirt floor, pressing his fist to the wound, liquid oozing from his punctured eye.

The woman landed on top of him.

He pushed her off, struggling to his feet. He forced himself to remove his hands from his face. His right eye worked, though blurred with tears.

The soldier came at him with the dagger raised for a downward stab.

He stepped backward, hitting the wall, and grabbed her wrist with both hands. She stabbed at him with inhuman force. The sharp point of the dagger, pink in the faint light, approached his face. She was taller than he, thin as a wire, stronger than any woman could be. Her mouth was open, moaning.

An avalanche of rocks cascaded off the barricaded entrance, and the Israeli commander uttered a staccato of Hebrew words.

She pushed harder, and Abu Faddah resisted, but the tip of the dagger inched closer and closer. In a second it would penetrate his good eye, then his brain.

The commander’s words were followed by the sound of a weapon being cocked. Another burst of Hebrew words from the commander had no effect on the Israeli soldier-she leaned downward with all her might, pushing the dagger at his eye.

A gunshot exploded and she screamed in pain and dropped, hugging her knee to her chest. The hostages wailed in fear.

Abu Faddah knew he had only a sliver of time before the Israeli commander corrected his aim. But there was no place to hide, no door to escape. He staggered to the cliff’s edge, preferring to join Faddah at the bottom rather than be shot in the leg and captured by the cursed Jews.

The Israeli commander shouted, “Stop!”

The hostages struggled to free themselves.

More rocks tumbled from the barricade. “Stop!”

Abu Faddah put his foot on the low wall, ready to jump. He noticed the steel cable slithering over the ledge into the room. He turned and pulled hard, freeing the cable from under the soldier. She looked up and began to crawl toward him.

He pulled the grenade from his pocket.

She groaned, dragging one leg on the ground, leaving a dark trail behind her as she clawed her way closer. Two of the hostages were on their feet, kicking loose the strings that bound them. On the opposite end of the room, the Israeli commander pushed more rocks off the barricade and squeezed in through the gap.

Abu Faddah found the fuse ring and pulled.

The woman soldier grasped for his leg, missing it.

He tossed the grenade to the center of the room.

She grabbed his shoe.

Abu Faddah kicked free, leaving his shoe in her hand. He gripped the cable and leaped into the empty air just as a terrible blast pounded his ears.

A horse whinnied outside the banquet hall, barely audible over the murmur of the guests. Rabbi Josh Frank glanced over his shoulder toward the tall doors in the rear, wondering whether the Phoenician Resort allowed horses on its grounds. The darkened hall was packed with round tables and smiling faces.

On the stage, Dick Drexel of Jab Magazine declared, “Welcome to the third annual award ceremony for Truth in Reporting!” His grinning face filled the huge plasma screen above.

Amidst the burst of applause, Rabbi Josh thought he heard the horse again. He turned to Masada. “Are you ready?”

“Not really.” She picked a cherry tomato from her small dinner salad and ate it. “Tastes like water.”

He took her hand and felt her shiver. The hall was cooled by powerful AC units that pumped chilled air through large ceiling vents. The LCD banner along the base of the stage showed the time and the temperature outside: 7:30 p.m. — 112°F

Masada leaned closer to him. “I can’t stand these things, but-”

“Necessary evil?”

Her white teeth showed against the tanned skin. She had shoulder-length dark hair that tended to fall over her face, adding another layer of mystery to this woman, who had enchanted him for nearly a year. She had lectured at his synagogue last summer, part of a speakers series organized by Professor Levy Silver, who was sitting across the table now, watching them with a satisfied smile. After the lecture, Rabbi Josh and Masada had lingered in the synagogue parking lot, arguing about her theme, America is the New Jewish Homeland. When she got into her Corvette, he asked her out, shocking himself-he had not gone on a date since his wife had died. But Masada agreed, and they met for a small dinner and a large bottle of wine, argued about Israel’s relations with Diaspora Jews, and made out like teenagers at her front door. They continued to meet and argue heatedly, but their intellectual fencing, rather than snuff out their passion, seemed to fuel it.

Masada spoke into his ear, “You think they’ll notice if I bail out?”

Rabbi Josh laughed, rubbing his five o’clock shadow.

Across the table, Professor Levy Silver winked behind his thick, black-rimmed glasses and said, “ Kinderlakh, you’re making the lights flicker.” He wore a red bowtie and green suspenders-they had teased him earlier about dressing up like a professorial cliche, to which he had replied, tugging at his gray goatee, “Every retired professor is a cliche.”

Masada flexed her leg under the table, tilting her foot from side to side. Rabbi Josh had asked her about the bulky knee brace, but she dodged the question. He wasn’t offended. Even though she spoke and wrote like a native English speaker, Masada was still a sabra immigrant whose occasional abrasiveness meant no harm.

The sound of muffled banging made them both turn. In the back of the hall, valet boys rushed in from the parking lot and shut the tall doors.

On the stage, Drexel announced, “It is my pleasure to welcome this year’s winner for Truth in Reporting, the author and journalist, Masada El-Tal!”

Rabbi Josh watched Masada make her way to the stage, pacing herself to hide the limp. She waved with a slender hand, acknowledging the applause.