The Masada Complex (47 page)

“Your wife will take me seriously.”

Colonel Ness looked at her for a long moment. “That’s a line you mustn’t cross.”

“You leave me no choice.”

“My wife knows who you are. She won’t believe you.”

Masada reached for his earlobe, rubbing it between a finger and a thumb.

He closed his eyes, giving in to her touch.

“Your wife will believe me. She remembers you as a complete man.”

He pushed her hand away.

“Give me the document, and I’ll be gone from your life.”

“I can’t.” His voice was hardly audible. “Only if you help Israel. Take my trade. I have the documents here.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope.

“Fine!” Masada walked to the door and opened it. “Mrs. Ness? Can I talk with you for a moment?”

He wheeled forward into the door. It slammed shut, its glass insert rattling.

They faced each other.

A knock came from the door. Through the opaque glass they could see Mrs. Ness’s shadow, the two grandkids by her apron. “Dov?”

“We’re almost done.”

Masada reached for the door handle.

“Leave her out of it.” Colonel Ness glanced at the black-framed photo on the piano. “She suffered enough.”

Up close, Masada realized it was not Dov Ness in the photo, but a young man in air force uniform who resembled him, but whose softer chin and kinder eyes had come from his mother.

Mrs. Ness opened the door. “Come, my dear.” She took Masada’s hand. “The food is getting cold.”

After the funeral, Rabbi Josh went to pray at the Wailing Wall. Professor Silver claimed exhaustion and returned to the Ramban Hostel in hope of a nice meal, only to find the cafeteria closed for the Sabbath. A ten-dollar bill convinced the clerk to unlock the kitchen, and Silver found a few slices of bread and a half-empty milk carton in the fridge. The bread was dry, the milk no longer fresh, but at the end of a day of fasting he savored every bite. It was a far cry from his childhood memories of the
iftars—
the evening feasts during the month of Ramadan, the joyous gatherings of family and friends, overflowing with food, conversation, and laughter.

His solitary
iftar
in the privacy of his room put him in a contrite mood. Silver kneeled, bowed toward Mecca, and recited an improvised-yet-sincere prayer to Allah. He was too jetlagged to wash and, without his suitcase, had no pajamas to wear. He got into bed in his underwear.

Closing his eyes made the blotch disappear. In the morning, the cabby would drive him to that kibbutz by the Dead Sea, where he would look for information on Faddah’s grave and the soldier who had killed him. She was in her late forties now, probably fat, bored, and completely off guard. He would lure her to join him on a sightseeing drive, push her off a cliff somewhere, and listen to her scream all the way down—a fitting punishment. He would be back in the United States before her body was found.

A knock on the door tore him from his pleasant thoughts.

“Who’s there?”

“Room service,” a muffled voice answered.

The clerk must have realized he could earn a bigger tip with better food. “Hold on!” Silver wrapped himself in the sheet and turned the key.

The door was kicked in. It hit him in the face, jolting him backward. He tripped on the carpet and crashed into a night table, which collapsed on top of him.

After a long walk, Elizabeth found herself in a park bordering a residential neighborhood. Upon reflection, she realized the directions to the Ramban Hostel had been meant to take her from the main lobby exit, not from a side door. She retraced her steps to the Kings Hotel, found the main entrance, and made the right turn. Her feet hurt from the long walk, but she was determined to confront the professor.

She entered the Ramban Hostel and found the front desk manned by a kid playing an electronic game. She asked for Professor Silver’s room number.

The elevator wasn’t working. She took the stairs.

The place was dead quiet, as everybody was out for a Friday night meal with relatives or friends. On the second floor she paused. Upstairs, a heavy piece of furniture was knocked over, and someone shouted in pain. She waited, but there was no other sound from above.

Professor Silver groaned, his chest pressed by the night table. His forehead hurt where the door had hit him, and he could see nothing in the dark.

The door closed. The floorboards creaked.

He opened his mouth to yell for help, but he had no air to make a sound. He pushed the table off his chest, and it dropped to the floor with a thud. He sat up and tasted blood. With his forefinger he felt his teeth. All present. He’d bitten his tongue, and it hurt.

A hand grabbed his arm and lifted him. The air smelled of citrus blossom.

Finally he managed to speak. “Rajid?”

“Quiet!” He dropped Silver into a chair and turned on the lamp by the bed.

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.”