Avraham Azrieli - The Masada Complex

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ve never lost a source.”

Before he could inquire further, the TV reporter appeared in the patio doors.

“I’ll be a few minutes.” Masada went into the house.

Professor Silver waited a moment and followed. The policemen were gone. He heard the voices in the study.

“Nice decor,” the reporter said. “Gothic.”

“Don’t joke,” Masada said. “We’re working together now. You better shut off your gas main.”

“You should feel very special. I think this is the first assassination attempt in Arizona since Geronimo.”

“Intimidation, not assassination. It’s just a bad prank.”

She was right, and Silver’s rage flared up again. Allah Almighty, why did you send me the only stupid Jew in the world?

“Did you find Sheen’s flight?”

“A single Air Canada flight that day,” Tara said, “arriving Phoenix at 9:00 p.m., but no passenger named Sheen.”

“Probably not his real name. You have the SuperShuttle records?”

Silver heard the fluttering of paper and Masada saying, “My source’s address is not on this list.”

“Maybe your source is lying?”

The professor held his breath.

“My source,” Masada said, “is the only person I trust in this town.”

Good girl . Silver exhaled.

“What makes you so sure?” Tara asked.

Silver strained to hear.

“He reminds me of my dad. That whole generation of Jewish men were the same-thoughtful, learned, soft spoken, ethical, always trying to do the right thing. Even his humor is like my dad’s.” Masada paused. “He’s kosher, trust me.”

In the hallway, Silver was beaming; he had managed to fool Masada El-Tal, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter!

“I know what you mean,” Tara said. “I had a source once who reminded me of my first boyfriend. He also turned out to be a scumbag.”

“My source was used as a safe house, that’s all. Sheen must have tipped the SuperShuttle driver to keep him off the log. Our last hope is your priest.”

A priest? Silver scurried away and dropped on the singed sofa, slumped, head back, eyes closed. Why does Masada need a priest?

The two women walked by, and the reporter asked, “Who’s the old Lenin?”

“Professor Silver is a good friend from Temple Zion.”

They walked away, and a moment later Masada’s footsteps returned alone. She shook his shoulder.

Silver opened his eyes in his best imitation of an old Jew rising from a brief nap. “ Oy! ” He stood up, leaning on her arm. “Did I fall asleep?”

She made him turn and began pounding his back and buttock, raising a cloud of soot. The burnt upholstery had clung to his shirt and pants.

“If I knew you’d spank me,” he said, “I’d fall asleep every time.”

“There.” She tapped his shoulder. “Best I can do.”

“I’m such a schlemiel.”

She led him by the arm to the front door, which was cracked at the hinges.

“Meidaleh, why don’t you drop the whole thing?” He reached up and pinched her cheek. “Move on to something else. Let sleeping lions sleep.”

“They’re not lions, and they’re not sleeping. They’re wide-awake bullies.”

“They can do more than mess up walls and slaughter cats.” Stepping outside, the sun’s sudden brilliance stabbed Silver’s eye. He removed his glasses and wiped his face. “It’s getting a little warm,” he said, his back to her. Opening his eyes cautiously, he saw that the fire engines and police cruisers were gone. The yellow line stayed. “What about the snake? That was deadly.”

“It was scary ,” she shuddered. “But if I had just slipped into bed, like they had expected, at most it would have bitten me on the foot, which happens to a lot of people in Arizona. I’d be in terrible pain, but every hospital in this town stocks enough serum to treat a whole football team, cheerleaders included, if they all run together barefoot into a rattlers’ den.”

The image made Silver shiver.

Masada hugged him. “I’ll see you at temple on Friday night.”

“Are you leading the discussion?” He laughed. “God help us.”

“God’s too busy dishing out suffering to his chosen people-famines, slavery in Egypt, civil wars, exiles, pogroms, expulsions, inquisitions, ghettos, Holocausts, terrorists, internal strife, missiles, corrupt leaders-”

“Good-bye!” Silver got into his Cadillac, turned on the engine, and blew her a kiss.

As he was about to drive off, a large SUV stopped in front of Masada’s house. Two men and two women came out, all wearing blue FBI windbreakers. One of them showed her a piece of paper before entering the house.

Masada leaned on Silver’s window. “Don’t worry. They won’t find it.”

An oval line of gravel stones circled the hump of dirt, and a photo of Shanty was stapled to a stick. Rabbi Josh felt sick. Officiating at hundreds of funerals over the years hadn’t prepared him for this one. Not only was the deceased a dog, but the mourner was his son.

Raul mulled the dirt, crying softly. The rabbi went into the house and found the rubber cat Shanty had favored. He gave it to Raul, who held it to his cheek.

After sunset, he prepared a dinner of chicken and rice. Raul sat in his lap, and they ate from the same plate while watching Clifford the Big Red Dog on TV. He gave the boy a quick bath, together with the rubber cat, and read him a story in bed. Raul cried again before falling asleep.

Back in the kitchen, Rabbi Josh watched CNN. In L.A., the Nation of Islam organized a march from the Steven S. Wise synagogue to the Israeli consulate, which turned the freeways into parking lots before flaring up into a full-fledged riot. A crowd of youth in Queens, NY, beat up yeshiva students, and a Saint Louis Jewish Community Center was burnt to the ground. Other Jewish institutions across America were vandalized with broken windows and graffiti, followed by sporadic incidents in Canada and Europe. The White House issued a statement urging Americans to “distinguish between criminal actions of foreign countries and law-abiding U.S. citizens of any religion who uphold our constitutional freedoms and way of life.” The President himself, however, had remained conspicuously mum, indicating through his spokesman that he deferred to the Senate on the issue of investigating Israel for its suspected “unfriendly legislative interference.”

One day, Silver thought, this ugly little house would be a tourist destination: The Flavian Silver-Abu Faddah Museum. Schoolchildren and academic scholars would come to learn about the man who defeated the Zionist apartheid state and restored Palestine to its rightful Arab owners-not by the power of the sword, as his comrades had tried, but by the power of his ideas.

If you can’t beat them, join them .

He had taken the phrase to new heights, joining the Jews and beating them at their own ancient game of manipulating the gentiles. He had studied how the Jews survived through gaining influence, leagues beyond their tiny numbers, by devising advantageous financial and political systems-emancipation, communism, socialism, and capitalism, all supported by their system of international banking. Living as a Jew and utilizing academic tools to study them had given him an understanding of their ways. His plan owed its brilliance to his immersion in the Jewish way of thinking.

Al’s white van was in the garage. Silver drove in slowly until the front bumper of the Cadillac connected with the tire he had placed against the wall. His eye, slow to adjust to the dark interior, was a poor judge of distance. With practiced motions he depressed the foot brake, turned off the engine, and put a few drops of saline in his eye.