The Masada Complex (72 page)

Professor Silver hoisted his bag and followed Masada. “And shame on Rabbi Joshua Frank for dragging me into this ill-conceived scheme!” He used the rabbi’s full name to distance himself.

“Shame on me, Levy, for letting my affection for you get in the way of the facts.”

“But I’m a victim, just like you!” Silver hoped he sounded outraged. He desperately wanted to return the conversation to the woman who had killed Faddah. It didn’t matter what Masada thought about the bribe. She would be dead as soon as she told him what she knew about the woman-solider who had murdered Faddah. “Listen, we can ponder for days the events surrounding the bribe—”

“No need to ponder. We know what Rabbi Josh did, and who helped him.”

“But Masada,” he made his voice tremble, “as you correctly figured out, my only job was to give you the video clip.”

She was quiet.

Silver recognized Herod’s main palace and the casement wall of rooms around the edge. There was
the room.

“After my tires were slashed,” Masada said, “you appeared out of nowhere to offer a ride. You were planning to go back to search my car, right?”

Silver sighed. He had expected all along that Masada would one day connect all the dots, but why did it have to be today?

“Then you showed up in my house soon after the gas explosion, looking awfully surprised to see me alive. Your book reappeared under my fridge smelling of hashish. It’s logical, because no author would let his book remain in a house rigged to burn in a gas explosion, right?”

Silver didn’t respond. He feared that nothing he said would sound credible.

“With me surviving the series of
accidents
—the brownies, the snake, the explosion—you guys went for the real thing. A bullet. I saw you and Al in the synagogue. I thought you were trying to calm him down, but obviously you were prodding him to shoot me. Silly me.”

“You’re building a house of cards,” he said.

“And even after the disaster, with Raul’s body still warm, Al shows up in my house. And who’s right behind him?”

“Master of the Universe!” Silver shook his head. “Do you hear what you’re saying?”

“You picked up the gun and what did you say to me?
Too bad it has to end like this.
You were going to shoot me, right? And when the police rushed in, you put on such a great show of affection. You’re a great actor, Levy. You belong on the stage.”

“
Oy!
What am I going to do with you? Are you on drugs or something?”

“And guess who’s in Al’s hospital room when he croaks.”

“But I was in the bathroom! Is it my fault Al had a bad heart?” Silver’s indignation sounded hollow even to him.

“A coincidence, right?” Masada poked his chest. “Let me tell you what happened here, so you really understand Colonel Ness—the man you’ve been serving so diligently with your friend, the rabbi.”

“But—”

“Here.” She led the way to the entrance. “This is where the hostages were held.”

Silver leaned on a pile of rocks that was left from the barricade he had built with Faddah back then.

“Then, when you failed to kill me, you tried to convince me to let that Palestinian lawyer lock me up while you were about to hop on a plane to Israel with
him
.”

Silver cradled his face in his hands. “God help me, where did my sweet Masada go?”

“And you promised to hire a lawyer, while—”

“But I did hire a lawyer,” he protested. “We have a conference call in the morning. You saw the letter! I even mortgaged my house!”

“A mortgage on a house you don’t even own?”

Silver felt a pang of panic. She must have called someone in Arizona to check whether he owned the house. That could draw suspicion to him after she was killed. Who had she called? Silver lifted his hands in mock desperation. “How did you find out?”

“I guessed,” she said. “But you just confirmed it.”

“Ah. You’re a clever girl.”

“And the reason for your sudden
aliyah
was the eye operation, not compassion for Rabbi Josh. But Ness suspended the operation to pressure you to finish the job, right?” Masada gestured at the cliff’s edge. “Is Rabbi Josh already composing the eulogy, bemoaning my unbearable mental pain? And Ness is having a forgery made of a suicide note in my handwriting, where I retract my accusations against Israel and take responsibility for the bribe? The news of my self-inflicted demise would arrive in Washington just in time to stop the vote. How dramatic!”

He lifted the white visor of his cap and looked up at her, shifting sideways to move the blotch away from her lovely face. It would be impossible to surprise her with a shove. He might have to shoot her with Rajid’s gun. The silencer would prevent immediate exposure, but when her body was ultimately found, a bullet hole would complicate things greatly. Perhaps he would cover the corpse with rocks? But first, he must milk her for information about the woman who had killed Faddah. “I’m so hurt,” he said, “that you’d even think me capable of these crimes.”

“I don’t think. I
know
. As soon as I suspended my affection for you, I saw the logic. It’s like the three musketeers—a crippled colonel, a widowed rabbi, and a lonely professor.”

With that, Silver decided to change tactics. “Blessed be He for helping you figure out the truth. I’m filled with regrets. I made a terrible mistake. As Rabbi Hillel said—”

“Hillel again?”

“He said,
Better be a tail to the lions than a head to the foxes.
But your silly old Levy tried to follow the lions and instead ended up becoming a tail to the foxes. Could you ever forgive me?”

The Snake Path slithered up in tight turns, each section as steep as a rung in a treacherous stepladder. The Dead Sea slowly emerged from darkness, and a slight breeze came from it, tinged with dust and sulfur. Rabbi Josh grabbed on to boulders and pulled up higher and higher toward the top of the mountain. His hands bled in the loose bandages. He pushed away the thought of resting as he imagined Masada at the cliff’s edge, her face lit by the red dawn, Professor Silver behind her, his hands poised for a deadly shove while his lips whispered the name of Allah. The image so frightened the rabbi that he craned his head, looking up the sheer face of the rock, expecting to see her fall to her death.

He placed one burning foot ahead of the other, heaving his body upward. Each step was a shot of pain, God testing his resolve. “No,” he gritted his teeth, “you’re not getting Masada.”

Voices sounded from above. He kept going.

A woman yelped in surprise.

“Let me through!” He squeezed by her.

She flattened herself against a boulder. “Watch it!”

“Damned cable car,” a man complained, “why did it have to break down today?”

Fighting for air, Rabbi Josh asked, “Did you see Masada?”

The woman laughed, pointing up. “This
is
Masada.”

Another woman said, “Srulie’s sister? She took her friend for a walk.”

He bent over, feeling faint.

“They went to the north rim,” someone said.

Rabbi Josh forced his way up past the others.

“He’s too old to walk down,” a short woman said. “They’ll probably wait for the cable car to be fixed.”

“Watch your steps,” Masada said as they climbed over the heap of rocks at the entrance to the room. The stones were still black from the grenade explosion, preserved by the desert air all these years. There was no roof. At the opposite end of the room, only remnants of an outer wall marked the cliff’s edge.

Silver approached the edge.

“This is where my brother was pushed over. He died on the rocks below.” Masada tried to keep the images at bay, but she could hear Srulie yell,
Masada!

“So awful. Wasteful.” Silver peeked over the low wall at the distant bottom.

Masada joined him, their elbows touching. “Srulie was wonderful. Full of promise. I miss him every day.”

“Oh,” Silver sighed, “how could it happen? I still don’t understand. I don’t.”

She waited for him to continue, but he began to sob.

“Levy?”

He covered his face, crying.

She was shocked by his sudden emotional outburst. Despite her anger at his involvement with Ness and his crimes, Masada realized that Silver also cared deeply for her. “It’s been a long time,” she said. “I’m okay. Really.”

Silver shook his head, continuing to sob into his hands.

She began to regret her accusations. His breaking down like this revealed real feelings for her. He shared her grief as a true, caring friend. It made no sense, but it was a fact. “Enough, Levy. Please.”

He kept crying, hunched over, his back to her.

Suddenly it dawned on Masada: He was putting on another one of his sympathy-generating acts. Soon he would hug her, tell her how her suffering broke his heart.
Blah. Blah. Blah.

“You’re so full of shit!” She forced Silver around, grabbed his wrists, and tore his hands from his face, expecting to see his eyes dry.

But the professor wasn’t faking it. His face contorted with sorrow, his lips trembled with his sobs, and heavy tears rolled down his right cheek.

Only
his right cheek.

The tip of the red sun cleared the mountains across the Dead Sea, illuminating his face. Masada peered at his left cheek. It was completely dry. “What’s this?” She let go of his wrists and took his jaw in her hands, twisting his head left and right, alternating the reflection of the sun in his eyes.

The answer was coming to her, too bewildering to accept. In his right eye, moist and tearful, the rising sun reflected as a red ball, glistening and angry. But in his left eye there was little moisture, and the sun reflected as a sharp point of red, as it would in a curved glass mirror. “No!” She forced his face left and right again. “It can’t be!”

“Ah.” Silver pulled something from his pocket and wrapped it around her wrists. “Please step back, dear.”

Masada looked at her wrists, cuffed with a plastic strap locked in a one-directional slit.

“As I once said,” Silver mused, “too bad it has to end like this.”

“
You!”
Masada lifted her cuffed wrists over his head.

He pushed at her. “Let go!”

With her wrists locked behind his neck, Masada pulled him to her.

“Stop it!” He pushed harder, trying to wriggle out of her grip.

She pressed on the back of his neck, forcing him closer. She planted her lips on his left eye, pressed his head to her, and sucked violently. The bulb of his eye popped into her mouth. It felt smooth, cold, and hard.