Avraham Azrieli - The Masada Complex

Silver had to focus the blotch on a point by Rajid’s ear in order to see his dark face. “Are you insane?”

Rajid unbuttoned his navy jacket, which he wore over a pink shirt, and pulled out a gun with a silencer.

“You can’t kill me. I’m indispensable to our national victory.”

“Arrogance is for the Israelis. You, on the other hand, have done your job.” Rajid wrapped his fist around the silencer, tightening it.

Silver could barely speak. “Let me explain!”

“You and me,” Rajid said, using the gun to point, “are Palestinian soldiers. Our lives belong to the fight against the Jews. The battle will be won when our colors fly over Jerusalem. Do you dispute this?”

Silver shook his head.

“What is to be done with a soldier who disobeys an order on the battlefield?”

“Immediate execution.” Silver wondered whether Ramallah had concluded he was dispensable. “But I did not disobey. How could I monitor Masada in Arizona? I am in Jerusalem because of your order!”

“The writer?” Rajid grinned. “You think I’m here because of her?”

“Why else?” Silver’s foggy gaze shifted between the pointed gun and Rajid’s dark face.

“Masada El-Tal is nothing. She can’t stop the American Senate. They will vote against Israel. It’s a done deal.”

The blood in his mouth had pooled behind his lower front teeth. Silver spat on the carpet. “Then why do you gallop through my door like a mindless colt? Have you no manners?”

Rajid loaded the gun in a quick, fluid motion and aimed it at Silver’s good eye. “You lied to me!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You gave me the documents of Phase One and Phase Two. But there is a Phase Three, correct?”

So that’s how he had earned Ramallah’s wrath! “I told you that I would share that information with the leadership in Ramallah. In person.”

Rajid sniffed the end of the barrel. “I love the smell of fresh powder.”

“Put the gun away.” Silver thought of his papers-the chronology, the technical details, the draft official decrees, the architectural drawings. “Exposure of such material would be ruinous, a public-relations disaster that would give the Jews instant victimhood. The Palestinian cause will be thrown back fifty years if my plans fell into the wrong hands.”

The handler leaped forward and swung the gun, missing Silver’s face by a hair. “You call me the wrong hands ?”

“Temper. Temper. You will never rise through the ranks if you don’t listen.”

“Don’t patronize me!” Rajid pressed the gun to his forehead. “Your insubordination dishonors me! As Allah is my witness, I’ll kill you if you don’t give me those plans! Where are they? In your bag? In the safe downstairs?”

The door shook with a fast knocking. “Professor?”

“Yes, Elzirah,” Silver yelled before Rajid had time to silence him. “One moment!” He rose slowly, the gun boring into his forehead.

Rajid’s mouth opened to speak, but she knocked again. “Professor!”

“Coming!” Silver reached slowly for the doorknob.

“Colonel Ness was my lover in the army,” Masada said to Tara. She beckoned the bartender and pointed to her empty water glass. “He’s still in love with me, which is a weakness I’ll use against him.”

“But the guy hasn’t contacted you in so many years.” Tara emptied her beer bottle.

“He’s followed my career, read everything I wrote, and probably had my photo taken by his agents regularly. That’s why he chose Phoenix for his Judah’s Fist bribe operation-so he could entangle me, use my friends, insinuate himself into my life. I’m sure he regrets it now, after I managed to expose his scheme.”

Tara sipped water through a straw. “Question is, why hasn’t he tried to contact you before, show up at your door with flowers, serenade you under your window, beg your forgiveness?”

“I think he didn’t want to hurt his wife.”

“That’s a new one.” Tara laughed.

“They lost a son in the air force. She made me stay for dinner, served a traditional Friday night meal. It’s my first since I left the kibbutz. When I saw him bless the wine, cut the bread, feed his grandkids, it was so normal, warm. I felt such pity.”

Tara twisted her face. “You pity him?”

“No. I pity myself.”

The Wailing Wall was taller than Rabbi Josh had imagined. The limestone-paved plaza glowed with an artificial brightness that reminded him of a baseball field. But rather than Diamondbacks’ baseball caps, the hundreds of men milling about wore black hats. And instead of hot dogs, they carried prayer books.

The human current swept him forward, depositing him among the swaying black hats. He stood with the praying men, facing the giant stones, which were smooth from centuries of human touch. The cracks filled with crumpled papers.

He kissed the stones.

Burying Raul had given him a good idea what it would feel like to die a torturous death. The finality of it, the prospect of a life without ever seeing Raul’s smiling face again, never touching his smooth cheeks or smelling his hair after a bath, broke something inside Rabbi Josh-not his faith, but his love for God. It was gone, replaced with anger and disrespect, as if he had witnessed a beloved friend commit an ugly act that could not be explained away, that would forever taint everything else that had once been good and worthy in their relationship.

Looking up at the Wall, Rabbi Josh said, “I quit!”

The simple declaration unshackled him. God now knew that this clergyman had resigned, that their professional association had been terminated due to irreconcilable differences over what constituted acceptable behavior by He who held all the power. Truth was, Rabbi Josh would have denounced God altogether. But he couldn’t, because he depended on God for the arrival of the Messiah and the Resurrection-his only chance of seeing Raul again.

Free of his divine employer, the rabbi turned away from the Wall. He was a regular Jew now, no longer a role model for his flock, no longer bound by a higher code of professional conduct. He was free to err and be petty, and to seek revenge like anyone else. Wait, big guy, come back and give me a kiss.

Elizabeth lifted her fist to knock again, but the door cracked and Professor Silver slipped out of his room, wrapped in a bed sheet. He shut the door and hurried down the hallway to the stairs. “Perfect timing,” he announced with exaggerated loudness. He descended one step at a time, feeling with his bare feet where it was safe to tread.

“Have you gone mad?”

He laughed, again too loudly, and led her through the modest lobby into an empty cafeteria. “Go on, yah aini, make us some coffee.” He pulled a chair and positioned it near the door, where he sat and watched the lobby.

Elizabeth made two cups of coffee and pulled another chair over, facing him.

“ Shukran .”

“You better stick to English, or you’ll blow your cover.”

“You could make a good agent.” He leaned forward, gazing intently through the open door.

Elizabeth saw a man with dark hair cross the lobby and push the glass doors with both hands in a violent manner, leaving the hostel. “You know him?”

“No worry.” The professor watched the lobby, as if expecting the man to return.

“What happened to you?” She touched a bruise above his left eyebrow.

“It’s Ramadan.” He chuckled. “By the end of a day of fasting I walk into walls.”