Rebecca had planned the mission with her father and Avraham late into the night. She would lead Avraham, Dr. Zakkai, and ten men south to the port city of Eilat where they would board the Ellipsis, an Antiquities Society freighter at Zakkai’s disposal. Dressed in the common garb of archaeologists and diggers, they would sail sixteen hundred kilometers directly south through the Red Sea, to Massawa, on the coast of Eritrea. The journey would take them two days. From Massawa they would strike west into Ethiopia, to the remote monastery the blind rabbi had told them about, apprehend Caleb and extract the Ark, if it was found, and then immediately return to Jerusalem.
What they would do then was hardly imaginable.
According to the Falasha priest, the monastery Debra Damarro rarely accommodated visitors. Caleb and his parents ran the rebuilt compound and worked among lepers in a nearby village. God willing, no one would even know the monastery had been taken. They would be gone from Ethiopia before an alarm could be raised.
Rebecca kept one hand on the wheel and removed her cap, allowing the wind to stream through her hair. She glanced back at the trailing open-bed truck, an old Nissan, hauling ten men who looked like nothing more than diggers for hire—a common enough sight in these barren hills. But the crates marked with large Antiquities labels at their feet didn’t hold the clay pots a curious onlooker might imagine. There was enough metal in those crates to take a small armed fort. They had sailed past three Israeli checkpoints with hardly a glance.
Beside her Zakkai sat in the Land Rover staring at the winding blacktop.
“Do you think we will find it, Professor?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I have been over the old man’s story a dozen times . . . To be honest I don’t know why I ignored the signs. We’ve always discounted the Ethiopian theory because of the ridiculous inconstancies in the Kebra Nagast. But to listen to the old priest, the inconsistencies are not the point at all.” He shook his head again. “The circumstantial evidence alone, put as he put it, is daunting.”
“After two years of chasing every possible lead in Israel, we’re suddenly confronted with the possibility of finding the Ark in Ethiopia. It seems impossible,” Rebecca said.
Zakkai stared out his window. “The writers of Jewish history, including the Bible, fell mysteriously silent after the reign of Manasseh. But then, if the priests had taken the Ark, they would’ve remained silent. In a strange way it makes perfect sense. You don’t hide something and then tell everyone where you hid it.”
“But you’re not sure.”
He faced her. “Sure? Of course I’m not sure. How could I be sure about finding something that has eluded the world for twenty-six hundred years? But . . .” Zakkai paused and she saw the glimmer in his eyes. “I do believe there is a reasonable chance. Although to be honest, I can hardly imagine what will happen if we do find it.”
Avraham spoke from the rear seat. “War will happen. A million Arabs will die in the desert.”
Rebecca studied the man in the rearview mirror. His short-cropped hair exposed an ugly scar on his temple, a gift from a knife-wielding PLO assassin who had barely missed his right eye. The cut had sliced into Avraham’s heart, Rebecca thought. The IDF major had subsequently been relieved of his command for his repeated use of unnecessary violence in skirmishes. The Israeli Defense Force might seem liberal in its use of force, but even they had their limits.
“You’re too eager for blood, Avraham,” Rebecca said.
“I am? This from Israel’s most celebrated assassin?”
“When I killed, I did so for God, not for blood. And even then with discretion.”
The man sneered. “We’ll see what happens to your discretion if we return to Jerusalem with the Ark. The Arabs’ missiles will be flying, and you won’t have time to think about either God or discretion.”
“We have no intention of letting Arab missiles fly. If we show restraint, they will as well. It’s a lesson you could learn. Either way, as long as you’re under my command you’ll kill only who I tell you to kill.”
“Of course,” he replied with a bite of sarcasm.
“Yes, sir, would be adequate. Or have you forgotten how to address your superiors?”
He flushed red and hesitated. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that we had joined the army. Army commanders don’t stop and cry at their mother’s graves before a mission.”
Rebecca blinked at his reference to her graveyard visit a few hours earlier, on their way out of Jerusalem. “You may not approve of my leadership, but my record stands on its own. I only know one way to execute a military mission, and as long as I’m in charge, you’ll do only what I allow. Are we clear?”
They had tolerated each other since her father had first brought him on, a year earlier, but Rebecca had never cared for his ruthless nature. She’d asked Solomon about him once, and her father had simply shrugged. “Times are changing, Rebecca. We may need his kind one day. Better to win their allegiance now.” She hadn’t agreed then, and she didn’t agree now.
On the other hand, if they ran into a firefight, she would depend on him. He was as good with a weapon as they came.
For a moment Rebecca was back at her mother’s grave, kneeling on one knee, praying. It had become a custom for her. There were two white headstones, the larger standing a meter in the grass and the smaller only thirty centimeters. Her mother, Hannah, and her five-year-old sister, Ruthie. Hannah had boarded the bus at seven o’clock with Ruthie on her first day of kindergarten. The bomb had blown the bus to bits four minutes later. Only three of the fifty-four passengers had survived.
That had been fifteen years ago, and it had sent Rebecca into the military and then on to train with the Mossad. But in the last two years since joining her father, a new desire had begun to burn in her belly. The desire to give life rather than to take it. To bear children. She was grown and she ached to be a woman. Not an assassin or an archaeologist or anything except a woman.
Her discourses at the grave began to change. Like the one this morning while the others waited a hundred meters away in the trucks.
“I am tired of the killing, Mother. I want to give life, not take it.” She set a lily on her sister’s grave, eyes blurred with tears. “Soon I will give life to a dozen children to replace you, little Ruthie.”
She imagined her mother’s husky voice. You will have to find a man first, Rebecca. You think children grow on trees?
“Yes, of course. I will have to find a man first.” She smiled. “A beautiful man with brilliant eyes who knows tender words and loves children.” The smile faded. “A man who will love me the way Father loved you. Loves you.”
She’d paused and closed her eyes. “Dear God, redeem your children.”
Beside her Zakkai was talking. “. . . but I would feel better traveling with an army to take the monastery by force,” he said. “We would be justified— the Ark is Jewish property, after all.”
Rebecca looked at him. “And you live in a fantasy world, Professor. You know as well as I that the Knesset sells its soul to keep this madness they call peace intact. They know what the Ark’s discovery would do— they would stop at nothing to prevent it. Sometimes I think they’re as much the enemy as the Arabs. If the Israeli army follows us to Ethiopia, it’ll be to kill . . .”
She stopped. They had come around a bend and two hundred meters ahead a checkpoint crossed the road. Three armed soldiers stood on guard, one on the right, two on the left. They were a hundred kilometers south of the West Bank—fifty kilometers south of Beersheba. Encountering a checkpoint this far south wasn’t unknown, but they should have been told about it. Which meant the roadblock was only hours old.
She snatched up the radio. “We have an unscheduled checkpoint ahead, Michael.”
“Copy.”
“What’s this?” Avraham demanded. He leaned forward and studied the nearing post. “We weren’t told of this.”
Rebecca slowed the Land Rover. “You’re right.”
Something about the way the checkpoint looked bothered her. She brought the Land Rover to a stop a hundred meters out. Several tires stood in a heap on the right and a long pole rested diagonally across the blacktop. An Israeli flag coiled slowly in the breeze.
Avraham leaned over Rebecca’s seat, sweat dripping from his chin. “You can’t stop here! They will suspect—”
“Shut up! Sit back. Something isn’t right.”
Avraham glared at her and sat back. She had to think.
To either side of the road the creamy desert stretched brown in the morning sun. Beyond the three guards in Israeli uniforms, one of which was now waving them forward, the blacktop snaked over the horizon. They sat on the road, like a bull facing the fighter. Why hadn’t they been told about this checkpoint? The Palestinians had been known to erect ambushes exactly like this one, waving an Israeli flag.
She keyed the radio again. “We will drive up slowly. Do exactly as I say. If we’re lucky it’s nothing. Under no circumstances will anyone bring out a weapon.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rebecca looked at Zakkai. “If anything happens, I want you on the floor. We can’t afford to lose you to a stray bullet.”
She winked at him and smiled. Then she eased the clutch out and rolled for the roadblock.
The checkpoint was Ismael’s first and most obvious choice.
The boy had given him more detail than he could have hoped for. Smart kid. Too bad. Rebecca was headed south by land, the boy had said. That meant they would take the Red Sea route to Ethiopia. If they were headed to Eilat, they would come down this road, and Ismael intended to stop them here.
Mustaf and Jamil were the only two patriots he knew who hated the Jews more than he. Both had watched their parents die at the hands of Mossad agents before they were ten. Ismael had simply told them that they were going to kill Hamil’s assassin. Rebecca.
The white Land Rover drove towards them. “It’s them,” Ismael said, pulling up his bandanna. “Ready yourselves. Remember, we want the girl dead.”
He glanced at the pothole in the middle of the road where they’d placed the explosive. It was now filled with gravel. We will see how smart you are, Rebecca.
Two separate images burned in Rebecca’s mind, and she slowed their approach to a crawl. The first was the stance of the soldiers. They were unmoving, which meant they were most likely nervous. The second was the small hole in the middle of the road. It appeared to be a repair, but a few chunks of asphalt, roadside, struck her as having just come from that hole. As if it had been freshly dug rather than slowly worn. And it was positioned to be directly under any vehicle that stopped at the pole they had set across the road. Most potholes were worn on the side of roads, where tires pounded. The three soldiers stood twenty meters back, rifles ready.
The PLO needed to learn a few new tricks, she thought. A bead of sweat broke from her brow and snaked past her left eyebrow. She stopped the truck fifty meters from the three men.
“Avraham. They have a bomb in the road. You see it?”
“The pothole.”
Zakkai shrunk in his seat. “Dear God! They’re not ours?”
“Easy, Professor. If we can lure them up to the hole before we go, they won’t detonate the bomb, unless they’re interested in blowing themselves to bits as well. Avraham, take a bottle of water and pour it on the engine block when I pop the hood. Yell at them in Hebrew—tell them that our car is acting up. Wait for them to approach the pothole and when they do, slam the hood.”
“That’s absurd!”
“If you have a better idea, make it quick. We’ve done this before.” She keyed her radio. “Michael, we’re running a double blind. Like the Golan Heights. Have Mark put his sights on the guard to the right and wing him when Avraham shuts the hood. No killing. Make sure they don’t see the gun.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rebecca turned to Avraham. “The steam will mask the shots. Move it. And leave the door open—if you miss us, jump in the back of the other truck. Once we go we won’t stop, so I suggest you don’t miss.”
Avraham grabbed a bottle of water and shoved the door open, cursing under his breath. He immediately began to yell their dilemma, holding his hands up in a helpless gesture. He might not like being told what to do, but he was doing it well. Rebecca popped the hood.
The air remained quiet—they weren’t firing. Rebecca eased a handgun from under her seat and held her breath. What if she was wrong? Imagine the mess that would result in shooting an Israeli soldier.
Avraham shielded the water bottle from the soldiers and dumped it onto the engine. A cloud of steam swallowed the front of the truck. Unable to see the checkpoint now, Rebecca watched Avraham, who jumped back from the hood, cursing loudly like any surprised motorist might. He waved at the guards, calling for help, then stopped to listen.
Their response sent Avraham into a frenzy. He screamed at them, furious. “Can’t you idiots see that I’m stranded here? I don’t care if you’re manning the checkpoint. I’m the only car that needs checking and I’m smoking like a bomb here!”
Avraham ducked back behind the hood and then pulled out to urge them on. The soldiers weren’t taking the bait. Rebecca began to mull through a change in plans when Avraham suddenly cast her a side glance. His hand reached the side of the hood. This was it; they were walking forward.
“Stay down, Professor,” Rebecca said. It had been two years since she had killed a man, and now the familiar rush of adrenaline pumped through her veins. She keyed the mic. “Here we go.”
Avraham suddenly jerked the hood down and dove for the back.
Rebecca’s foot smashed the gas pedal to the floorboards before the hood slammed. A single crack of gunfire rang over the engine’s roar, and the soldier on the right staggered back.
The second got off one wild shot before Mark’s next shot took him through the shoulder. The force of the bullet spun him to the ground.
The third soldier wasn’t in sight.
Avraham managed to roll into the backseat. “The third one! Off the road! Get off!”
Rebecca understood immediately. The third soldier had pulled back and might still detonate the bomb.
She yanked the wheel hard, three meters from the pothole. The Land Rover roared onto the desert sand and Rebecca aimed it directly at a red pickup truck, behind which she assumed the third soldier waited.
The mine detonated then, just as Michael’s truck cleared it. She saw the truck swerve badly in her rearview mirror and she knew it had been hit, but for the moment there was still the third soldier to worry about.
In a sudden burst of anger, Rebecca very nearly rammed the red pickup. She saw the soldier crouched behind now, staring directly at her. He made no move to shoot or run; his eyes were black with resolution, not fear.
A small chill of dread ripped up Rebecca’s spine at the sight. This was no common Hamas terrorist glaring at her.
At the last moment Rebecca jerked the wheel. They roared to the pickup’s left and when they were abreast, she reached out and pumped two slugs into the left rear tire. The soldier had vanished.
Rebecca shot past the disabled vehicle and bounced back onto the blacktop. The second truck followed, swerving ungainly behind.
“Go, go!” Zakkai shouted, straining for a view behind. The sound of automatic weapons fire riddled the air, but no bullets struck. And then they were out of range, leaving a cloud of dust in the desert air.
They stopped three kilometers down the road and changed out a shredded tire. One of the men’s cheeks had been cut by a rock, but the tailgate had caught most of the flying debris.
Next time they might not be so lucky.
“Let’s move!” Rebecca urged, shoving the old tire off the road. “Our Hamas friend knows how to change tires too.”
They filled the trucks and rolled towards the Red Sea, three hours to the south. The day was hot, but Rebecca couldn’t shrug the lingering chill in her bones. Something in the man’s stare stayed with her. She had not seen the last of him.
Ismael watched the trucks disappear over the horizon, seething. Behind him Mustaf and Jamil held their respective wounds, but he hardly noticed them. An image stuck in his mind—the soldier girl, eyes flashing brown, jaw fixed and smooth as she methodically shot his tire out.
Rebecca.
It was the first time he’d looked into her eyes, and with that one look he knew two things with utter clarity, as if Allah had spoken them directly to him. He knew that Rebecca Solomon had indeed killed his brother. And he knew that he would soon kill her. Today she had outwitted him with her clever little stunt. Tomorrow would be different.
The thought stopped him. She was no idiot; it was possible that her reputation was justified. Ismael spit into the sand. Either way it wouldn’t matter. He had the advantage. He knew her route and he knew her destination.
He blinked at the horizon. You may be searching for your precious Ark, pretty Rebecca, but you will find something very different.
Ismael grinned and reached for the spare tire. He knew what he would do now, of course. In fact, he’d almost anticipated the roadblock’s failure. Now that failure only put him on the path he had wanted. Alone this time.
The path of the true hunter.