Thomas Greanias - The Promised War

"But what are your mud bricks against those great walls?" asked Salmon from the back of the tent. He was standing in the outer ring of aides, who were supposed to be seen and not heard; but his offense was taken in stride, as it seemed to be the thought on all the commanders' minds.

"I only have to blow out a section of the wall for you to enter, not the whole thing, and I've got enough mud bricks. It's like

cutting a tree to make it fall in a particular direction. Let me

show you."

He took his rod and tapped a spot on the north side of the upper fortress wall that he had specially prepared. The section fell like a drawbridge over the tops of the roofs to the lower city wall. Then he tapped the top of that lower wall and it, too, fell like a drawbridge to the reed mat.

There were murmurs all around, and a clear desire for further explanation.

"We don't have to bring down all the walls to enter the city," he told them. "Two pinpoint blasts-one in a weak section of the upper fortress wall and another in the lower city wall-will do the trick. The first blast will not only open the upper fortress wall, it will bring down the bricks on top of the buildings below like an avalanche, all the way down to the city wall. It may even be enough to smash through the lower city wall. But just in case, I will have a second blast to blow that wall in two. The bricks that spill down to the ground will create a slope that will enable you to climb over the lower revetment wall and into the city. From there you can climb straight up into the fortress, one after the other."

The commanders were amazed and delighted.

All except for Bin-Nun.

"You still have not solved the problem of gaining entrance to the city to plant your explosives," the general said. "By your own assessments, the walls are insurmountable, and you'll never pass through the main gate again. You fooled the guards once. But you can be sure they won't make that mistake again, or Hamas will make them pay for it with their lives."

Deker glanced at Elezar, who instantly knew where he was going, and warned him with his eyes not to go there. "There is another way, General," he said. "A way to pass through the walls."

Bin-Nun stared at him and told his commanders, "Leave us."

One by one the commanders cleared the tent, none looking back, until besides him there was only Bin-Nun, Elezar and Salmon, whom Bin-Nun allowed to remain.

Deker cleared his throat and said, "I was with the granddaughter of the woman who gave you refuge in Canaan forty years ago. I gave her the necklace her grandmother gave you before she died."

Bin-Nun closed his eyes. Elezar stared.

"Her name, too, is Rahab, and as her grandmother did for you, so Rahab gave us refuge and helped us escape Jericho. In return, I promised that we would spare her life and those of her family."

Elezar said nothing but did not dispute it, including their promise to spare her.

"Through her window in the north wall of Jericho, Elezar and I can get back into the city and plant the explosives," Deker said.

"If she doesn't betray us," Elezar finally chimed in. "There could be a contingent of Reahn soldiers waiting for us. We can't trust a whore."

"She saved our lives," Deker cut in.

"By lying to her authorities," Elezar shot back. "She is neither truthful nor trustworthy."

Bin-Nun seemed to wrestle with it for a moment, but then shook his head.

"Elezar is right. It's too risky. I cannot afford to let you go back and get caught. Before, you knew little. Now you know much. If you are captured, Hamas would have you, your explosives and our plans."

"Rahab can be trusted," Deker insisted. "Thanks to her, I learned Hamas' secret plan to destroy you."

Bin-Nun looked dubious. "Everybody has a secret plan to destroy us. How do I know this plan is real?"

"The plan is as real as the secret bridge you've built," Deker said, fixing his gaze on Bin-Nun.

The haunted look that Deker had seen in the general's eyes before he blew the dolmen monument had returned as soon as Deker said secret bridge.

"Hamas knows you're going to cross the Jordan at flood stage and not wait," Deker explained. "He also knows that, even with the secret bridge you've built, it will take three days for all Israel to cross."

Elezar stared, speechless for once.

"Hamas intends to bait you for a day and then attack when Israel is only halfway across, General," Deker went on. "He's got the Moabites lined up to wipe out the rear here on the east bank."

Bin-Nun was quiet, all his plans flushed. Elezar was amazed, either because of the quality of the intel or because Deker hadn't played the card until now.

"But we can help you, General," Deker assured him. "You show me this bridge you've built, and I'll show you how I can get Israel across in one day. Then it will be too late for Hamas to attack you when you're at half strength, and the Jordan will fall behind you like a wall to protect your rear from the Moabites. Then you'll let me return to Jericho through Rahab's window and bring down its walls."

Looks like wonders have finally ceased, Elezar."

Deker and Elezar stood with Caleb, Salmon and Achan on the east bank of the Jordan under the stars, just a stone's throw from the forward base and stone table where Caleb had first given them their instructions to spy out Jericho. Now they saw the secret ford that Caleb and his stonecutters had been hiding all along.

"It's an Irish bridge," a shocked and dismayed Elezar said

out loud.

"I see the bridge," Deker said. "What makes it Irish?"

"During the British Mandate of Palestine in the early twentieth century, Irish engineers in the British army breached dry riverbeds with concrete blocks that would survive the spring floods and allow vehicles to cross over," Elezar explained. "That's what Bin-Nun's army corps of engineers seem to have done here."

Deker was impressed. Caleb's stonecutters had constructed their own ford across the bottom of the Jordan by layering one stone atop another to build it up under the water's surface. Then they topped the whole thing off with twelve massive dolmen slabs, each about seven meters long. In so doing, they had created a platform wide and long enough for forty thousand troops and their families to cross the Jordan.

"So much for the parting of the Jordan, Elezar," he said. "This explains how the book of Joshua claims that the priests who bore the Ark of the Covenant stood on dry land in the middle of the Jordan until all the people had finished crossing the Jordan."

Elezar reluctantly had to agree, but still managed to look down his self-righteous nose at Deker with a glare. Elezar was still steaming over Deker's "dishonorable circumvention" of his authority back at camp by revealing the deal with Rahab. That Elezar learned of the secret Hamas plan to cut them off at the river at the same time as everybody else only further infuriated him. "You're untruthful, Deker," he had fumed. "And you cannot be trusted."

Neither, it seemed, could Bin-Nun.

"Bin-Nun leaves nothing to chance," said Salmon from behind, and with more than a hint of bitterness. "Nor to Yahweh."

Salmon and Achan must have known about the bridge all along. Yet another reason for Bin-Nun to sub him and Elezar for the Jericho mission in case they were captured and talked.

"Maybe," said Deker. "But your bridge runs below the surface of the water. Your engineers miscalculated how high the Jordan would rise at flood stage."

The Jordan had a zigzag current where its shallowest depths were in the middle. The center of the bridge actually broke the surface of the water every now and then, but it was clear the flooding was worse than even Bin-Nun had accounted for, and much of the bridge was a good meter underwater.