Avraham Azrieli - The Masada Complex

His excitement was contagious, and Elizabeth leaned forward, eager to hear.

“I had observed that every month, when the moon was full, a handful of teenagers from a nearby kibbutz climbed the mountain to camp on the summit until sunrise. So one evening Faddah and I crossed in the shallow part of the Dead Sea and climbed Mount Masada. We waited for them in the ancient fort and herded them to one of the rooms-part of the perimeter wall at the cliff’s edge. A few girls and boys. We tied them up and sent a girl to the kibbutz with a note that we would release the hostages if we were allowed to return to our family home in Haifa. I still had the front-door key!”

Elizabeth was biting her fingernails.

“But Allah intervened.” He shook his head. “Our note must have reached someone very discreet, who called the Israeli army. No media. A helicopter came, we started negotiations, but one of the Israeli hostages attacked Faddah, and I accidentally pushed him off the cliff. That ruined everything. The Israelis won again.”

“Do you know his name, the boy who fell?”

“No.” He looked at his hands. “I didn’t even see his face very well.”

“So they attacked?”

“From the most unexpected place. They sent a soldier up the cliff.”

The pencil snapped in Elizabeth’s hand. “ What? ”

“That cliff goes straight up, higher than a hundred-story building, nothing to hold on to, sheer drop. I didn’t bother to block off that side. But I should have, because one must always expect the Israelis to do the unexpected!”

“They sent a man up that cliff?”

“There you go,” he chortled. “You expect a man, but the Israelis? They sent a woman.”

“But how?”

“My poor Faddah. He wasn’t a fighter. I rushed to help him, but I was too late.”

Elizabeth swallowed as sickness rose in her throat.

“That evil soldier threw Faddah to his death.” Silver’s voice broke. “What kind of a monster kills a boy in such a manner? What fear he must have suffered, dropping through the air, knowing the horrible end that awaited him. Allah’s mercy!” The professor covered his face.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Elizabeth said, trying to comfort him. “She killed him.”

“One day I’ll find that soldier and push her over a cliff!” His face was red, his fist clenched. “ Damn her! ”

Instead of a gun, Ness’s agent drew a handheld computer. Masada advanced to the Starbucks order window. “Tall latte and a blueberry scone,” she said. “And a cup of ice water.”

The screen lit up, and Colonel Ness appeared, his face against a gray background. “You look tired,” he said, his voice eerily close.

“No more sentimental vistas?”

“How was the night with the rabbi?”

She didn’t answer.

“He is a good man. I hope he makes you happy.”

Masada paid, took the cardboard tray with two cups and a paper bag, and placed all of it on the floor by the agent’s boots. The woman held up the device, the screen facing Masada. There was a camera lens on the top frame, not larger than a penny.

Ness asked, “Did he show you my e-mail?”

Masada maneuvered the Corvette out of the narrow driveway and stopped at Scottsdale Road, waiting for a break in traffic. “Get out, or I’ll pour ice water on your gadget.”

“Please don’t,” he said. “We had to fill out a hundred forms to explain what happened to the ten-thousand-dollar helmet you destroyed.”

She took advantage of a narrow gap and sent the Corvette roaring in a tight, screeching turn, heading north. The motorbike appeared in the rearview mirror.

“We’re running out of time,” Ness said. “Every anti-Semite in Washington is jumping on the Fair Aid bandwagon. More than seventy synagogues have been desecrated across America-broken windows, swastikas, a firebomb in Chicago.”

“You should have thought about it beforehand.”

“We didn’t bribe Mahoney!”

Masada accelerated with full throttle, weaving between cars. “You think you’re the center of the world, don’t you? You Israelis are so arrogant.”

“And what are you? A sabra doesn’t shed her thorns by changing her passport.”

“There are half a million former Israelis in Los Angeles alone,” Masada said. “Israel is losing its people more quickly than it gains new immigrants.”

“I’d love to discuss demographics with you another time, perhaps face-to-face. But right now I have an excellent tip for you. Our sources in the FBI tell us that the money they found at Mahoney’s ranch was traced to a branch of Chase Manhattan Bank in New York City. The account belonged to a subsidiary of a construction company in Riyadh, which is managed by a Palestinian engineer from Ramallah.”

“How convenient.” Masada turned onto McDonald Drive and headed west. “Any leads about snakes or cookies?”

His forehead creased as if he didn’t understand. “I’ll e-mail the banking details to you.”

“The FBI still has my Blackberry.”

“Then my agent will bring over a copy.”

“Don’t bother,” Masada said. “I’m not stupid. You got caught and now you’re lying to get out of it. Take the heat like a man. Accept responsibility for once, unlike the last time you screwed up.”

“I told you we didn’t bribe him. I’m offering you a good lead!”

“You’re lying.”

“And you’re forcing us to demolish your reputation.”

“And you’re forcing me to tell the public about the hostage situation on Mount Masada, about how you let those Arabs kill my brother while you sat on your hands.”

“Break your oath of silence? That’s high treason!”

“You publicized my conviction. Deal’s off.”

Colonel Ness glared at her from the other side of the world. “You wouldn’t dare.”

Stopped at a red light, Masada leaned over and opened the passenger door. “Out!”

“No!” Ness barked from the screen. “I’m not done with you.”

Masada pulled the cup of ice water from the cardboard tray. “You’re going to experience connectivity problems.”

“One of the Arab who killed your brother might still be alive.”

Her left foot slipped off the clutch, the Corvette lurched, and the water spilled on her lap. Masada ignored the freezing sensation, focusing on Ness’s face. “You’re lying. They both died.”

“The young one, Faddah, you pulled over the cliff. But the other one was his father-Abu Faddah, Father of Faddah in Arabic. Him you stabbed in the eye.”

“I remember.”

“He threw a grenade and used your steel cable to slide down the cliff. We assumed he had died in the desert, but his body was never found, only his bloody mask.”

The light turned green, and Masada drove off, her mind swirling with emotions. Srulie’s killer? Alive?

“Officially,” Ness said, “the report concluded he must have fallen into a ravine and was consumed by animals.”

“But?”

“A year after the disaster, we learned that the PLO had paid for a glass eye in Italy. I sent someone to check, but the trail was already cold. The file was closed and sent to storage.”

“And you waited decades to tell me this?” She stopped in the middle lane, waiting to turn left on Echo Canyon Road.

“I had the file pulled out of storage. There’s some information I can give you. Eye color, age, physical description.”

“The trail was cold back then, why would it yield anything now?”

“We didn’t have the Internet then. You could search medical records electronically, find a match somewhere. You never know.”

“Why don’t you have Israeli agents search for him?”