Thomas Greanias - The Promised War

"Oh, yes, we know about that," Deker told him. "And that tunnel you've been digging right under this cave. If anyone is going to start the fire, it's going to be you."

Husseini picked up a bronze candelabra and brought it down heavily onto the floor's marble slab. It gave out a hollow thud, revealing the existence of a lower chamber, the well of souls. His face was an unreadable mask again.

"Is that really your concern here tonight, Commander Deker? Or are you afraid we might find something that Israel has been hiding from the world? Wise men have long believed that a cosmic portal exists here, a tunnel through space and time that leads to paradise."

Deker paused. "Or maybe it's the gate to hell."

Husseini was angry now. The expression on his face didn't show it, and his voice was steady and subdued. But his words were bitter and sharp.

"You think you're so special, Deker-better than the rest of us. That you're the human pin in a live grenade, standing alone between old Arabs like me and Jews like your Colonel Elezar. But know this: the Jews won't stop until they have destroyed the dome above us. Armageddon is inevitable. It's a time bomb that will go off. You can't stop it. Just like you couldn't prevent your girlfriend from blowing herself up with an explosive made by your own hands."

Deker felt the world give way under his feet at the thought of his Rachel and the horrible mistake he had made that had cost her her life. But he stood firm, emotionless in his expression, and turned to face Husseini, who picked up a ceremonial washbowl with a candle from the altar.

"I'm told the device looked something like this," Husseini said, stroking the red and black ceramic pattern. "You and your IDF masters intended to assassinate a Hamas militant inside the home of a Palestinian government official. But by some mystery known only to Allah, you mixed up the bowls, and the one with the explosive ended up in the hands of your beloved as she prepared to light her Shabbat candles to celebrate the first night of the Passover at the Western Wall. Mercifully, she perished the instant you hit your remote detonator. News reports said the six injured Jews around her took several hours to die."

In that second, Deker wanted to reach over and rip out Husseini's throat. And he would have, if he didn't know that's exactly what Husseini wanted him to attempt.

"The grief of your error must torment you every waking hour and haunt you in your sleep," Husseini went on, the corners of his mouth turning into a slight smile at having gotten even the suppression of a reaction out of him. "Perhaps that's why you can't leave this place. To you it was always a holy pile of rubbish, but to her it was her faith and life. Now it's her tombstone and you are a ghost stumbling in the graveyard of history. But it's impossible to bring her back. We can't change the past any more than we can change the future."

"That hasn't stopped you from trying." Deker produced a pottery shard he had found in an open trench at the base of the eastern wall. He pointed it like a dagger at Husseini's chest. "Your bulldozers are destroying ancient First and Second Temple artifacts. As if you can erase Israel from history."

Husseini's eyes flickered in fear for the first time that night as he looked at the shard in Deker's hand, clenched so tight that Deker didn't know he had cut himself until he felt a trickle of blood through his fingers. The Palestinian seemed to realize he had pushed Deker too far, but he stood defiant.

"Keeping your dead lover's memory alive doesn't change the fact that Jerusalem has always been an Arab and Islamic city," Husseini said, sticking with the party line to the end. "This piece of pottery you are waving at me is a plant. No Jewish temple ever stood here."

"Right," Deker said, placing the bloodstained shard on the small altar as a souvenir of this encounter. "Neither did I."

"Would that were true," Husseini told him. "But a man at war with himself can't keep the peace forever. You have a gift for destruction. You cannot suppress the expression of your nature forever. You will set the fire, not us. Because you are the fire. A tool to be used by your masters."

Deker wiped his bloodied hand on his trouser leg, gave him a slight bow and turned toward the cave entrance. He then vanished up the steps, leaving Husseini to his prayers.

• • •

Three minutes later-and six minutes later than he had promised Stern-Deker rappelled over the eastern wall and landed on the roof of a yellow Caterpillar backhoe loader parked against the base. He jumped off and raced down the slope of the Muslim graveyard abutting the wall, weaving his way through the tombstones toward the parked Gihon Water and Sewage Company service van.

He stopped the second he saw the cracked windshield and unmistakable bullet hole.

Deker whipped out his Jericho 9mm pistol from his pack and rushed to the driver's side of the van, aiming his Jericho through the window with one hand as he threw open the door with the other. Stern was slumped over the wheel, motionless. Deker felt sick with rage. He pushed Stern's head with the steel nose of his gun. The head rolled to the side, lifeless, revealing a bloody hole in the temple.

A flash in the driver's-side mirror caught Deker's eye and he glanced back to see a black van barreling up from behind. In the same motion, Deker jumped into the Gihon van, pushed Stern's corpse away and slid behind the wheel. He heard the squeal of brakes and the crash of boots on the ground. As he turned the ignition and shifted gears, the glass behind him shattered.

He felt a prick in the back of his neck and he lurched forward into the dashboard. His head hanging down, everything spinning, he saw Stern's twisted face staring at him before everything exploded in a burst of light.

The flash of light faded and Deker woke up to a nightmare of pain and confusion. His head was being knocked to and fro by the butt of a gun. He blinked his eyes open to see his superior officer, Uri Elezar, handcuffed and hanging upside down on a Nazi-style "Boger swing" with a rod behind his knees, his mouth open in agony. But Deker couldn't hear anything. Then another whack to the head opened his ears, and something like the whine of a jet engine filled his head before it faded into an irritating ring and Elezar's screams filled the room.

"We are the Jewish people!" Elezar shouted. "We came to this land by a miracle! God brought us back to this land! We fight to expel the non-Jews who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land!"

Deker watched a large figure standing next to Elezar strike the soles of his blackened feet and his back with a truncheon. Elezar cried out, and Deker saw drops of blood from Elezar's cut forehead hit the tile floor. The floor was covered with white powder, possibly salt, and underneath Deker could see a Byzantine mosaic.

"We are the Jewish people!" Elezar again rasped loudly. "We came to this land by a miracle! God brought us back to this land! We fight to expel the non-Jews who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land!"

A large face with dark hooded eyes appeared in front of Deker, and a hand reached out and snatched the silver Star of David hanging around Deker's neck and dangled it before his eyes. The IDF insignia in the center came in and out of focus. Then a hand snapped his head back, thick fingers pulled his eyelids apart and a hot beam of light blinded him.

A voice in English with a thick Arab accent said, "Still with us, Jew? Maybe we'll have better luck with you."

The accent of his torturer, the farruj-style beating of Elezar and the mosaic on the floor suggested to Deker that the enemy in the room was the General Intelligence Department, or GID, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan's powerful spy and security agency. All of which didn't make any sense, as Jordan was at peace with Israel and a proven ally of the United States in the war on terror. But it told him was that he wasn't getting out alive.