Grains of Truth (30 page)

These lessons Ahmed had learned and learned well. He now spread the word with fervent conviction to enlighten his Islamic Brothers. His dedication and commitment to Jihad were absolute.

The removal of the woman called Julia Grant was easily justified. Casualties were a fact of war. Her role, at the least, had been that of an innocent pawn; at most, that of a spy: an enemy combatant.

Either way, her involvement would be made to serve Allah.

Chapter 35

“Uncle Benny!” cried the girl, brown curls bouncing as she tore across the yard and threw herself into her uncle’s arms. “Where have you been? What did you bring me?”

“Judyth! Mind your manners,” scolded the smiling woman that followed close behind to kiss her brother on both cheeks. “Where have you been? We haven’t seen you for days.”

The compact yet powerfully built man lifted the giggling child high into the air and gave her a hard, affectionate squeeze before setting her down. He held her hand as they all walked into the house. “Work, as always, all work. I will be away for awhile and had to come for a visit with my best girls before I go.” He refrained from expressing the thought that he hoped this visit would not be the last.

Benjamin Richter knew that he was regarded, by all accounts, an unusual man. It was unusual for a man such as he to have remained single all these years. But his dedication to his parents, his sisters and his country came first, leaving little time for much else. The family now lived in a suburb north of Tel Aviv, a beautiful place on the Mediterranean Sea.

Out on the terrace, Benjamin absentmindedly listened to Judyth’s childish chatter while his sister went to make some tea. The familiar saga of the Richter clan replayed itself in his mind, as it often did when he came here.

During World War II, his parents had fled Germany but not before his grandparents fell victim to the Nazis. Benjamin had heard the story many times. After the war, the family was stunned and profoundly grateful to learn that his father’s mother survived the indescribable atrocities of Auschwitz. She came to live with them and, every day, besieged them with tales of the unspeakable horrors of the death camp. Every day, until the day she died.

In his parents’ minds, the creation of Israel was fulfillment of the edict, “God having given the Israelites the land in covenant.” It was nothing less than the answer to their prayers. Although thankful for the existence of his country and faithful to the teachings of Judaism, Benjamin secretly harbored uncertainty as to the justification of the taking of the Palestinian lands.

He felt that the Israelis continued to pay a heavy price for the establishment of their homeland. Sadly—but predictably—from the beginning, its creation had brought constant strife and violence. Each time another person lost his life—on either side of the conflict—he would ask himself: How could anyone have failed to anticipate this? When one people’s liberation was founded on the dispossession of another?

Benjamin, born in the late 1950s, remembered spending his early childhood happily unaware of the volatile political situation churning around him. His best friend, Malak Zalouk, lived next door and they, practically from infancy, became inseparable. Innocent of the cruel reality that one being an Arab and the other a Jew made their friendship improbable at best, they played endless games of soccer and soldier, marbles and chess. 

Until one day in 1967, when both boys were only ten, armed Israeli soldiers came and forced his friend with his entire family—at gunpoint—from their home, forever. With only the clothes on their backs, they were escorted away. Everyone was crying and wailing. The last memory Benjamin had of Malak was one of tears flowing down his best friend’s cheeks, creating rivers of pain on his dusty little face. It was the last time Benjamin ever saw or heard of him. The Zalouk home—along with thousands of others—was appropriated by Israeli forces.

As he grew up, Benjamin attended school at New York University, receiving a degree in European history. When he returned to Israel to complete his mandatory military service, it was with a considerably broadened view of the on-going conflict.

He never regretted his choice to remain in the service of his country, moving up rapidly in the ranks. In time, he transferred to Intelligence in Shin Beth, the Israeli equivalent of America’s FBI. Both at work and at home, he kept his political opinions strictly to himself—no small feat. He felt sickened by the Palestinian suicide bombings and other acts of violence. But he never forgot the injustice witnessed as a boy. 

“I won’t ask where you are going,” said his sister quietly as she placed a glass of cold tea in Benjamin’s hand. She took a seat beside him in one of the comfortable chairs on the terrace, keeping her voice low. “Or what dark thoughts trouble you today.”

They each stole a glance at the old man, their father, seated not far away. A soft sea breeze cooled the heat from the bright morning sun. His tired eyes softened at the sight of his daughter pulling young Judyth onto her lap.

Another memory rudely elbowed the tender scene aside. One day, his mother and youngest sister had gone shopping in downtown Tel Aviv. Recently engaged, his sister went in search of her wedding gown. A suicide bomber walked into the café just as they were leaving. Both women were killed. His father now spent most of his waking hours in a rocking chair, as he did now, prayer shawl draped over shriveling shoulders, praying and rocking. Rocking and praying and grieving.

Benjamin sipped his tea.

After that, his transfer into Mossad, the agency responsible for planning and carrying out covert operations to prevent terrorist acts against Israeli targets abroad, was easy. He dedicated himself to the prevention of the development and procurement of non-conventional weapons by hostile countries that figured prominently in the mission of Mossad.

Some of the organization’s activities did trouble him at times. Arguably one of the most successful intelligence services of any country in the world, Mossad was known to have conducted kidnappings, bombings and assassinations in a number of countries. Shortly after Benjamin’s transfer, a Mossad team was credited with blowing up nuclear reactor parts in France, destined for Iraq, as well as assassinating a leading nuclear physicist who had agreed to work for Saddam Hussein.

Through all the years and all the pain and suffering inflicted by both sides, Benjamin Richer struggled to be objective. He pondered endlessly about what it would take to defuse the anger. It was the radicals who exploited the situation, continuing the blood-for-blood cycle of violence and murder—not the Palestinian people.

This resolute objectivity made him, without question, an unusual man. 

But when Benjamin learned of this latest heinous plot, it was too much, even for him. Israeli forces went into immediate action to deal with the threat of attack on the nuclear facility in Dimona. He was one of the few high-level officers included in the briefing on the second, more lethal, threat: the threat of a chemical attack on Jerusalem.

The cooling sea breeze could not dispel the sweat that leapt to the surface of his entire body at the thought of it now. The holiest city on earth—for Christians, Muslims and Jews. An indiscriminant massacre of his neighbors—men, women and children. Another holocaust. No. There could be no justification for this. And he would do everything within his power to prevent it.

Or he would die trying.

~

“The intelligence is unverified,” reiterated the head of Mossad to the three officers facing him. “But we know our enemy well enough to know the probability of its truth.” A frown further darkened his hardened features. “The chemicals will almost certainly come through Rafah. Security on all borders is in highest alert. With Gaza under Palestinian control, and the border open to Egypt, it’s the most likely point.”

“They could have already brought small amounts of chemicals through the tunnels,” said one of the men from across the table. Underground tunnels between the two countries had been used for years for arms smuggling and illegal immigration. Every time they discovered one and shut it down, another wormed its way through the earth.

“This information must be held in strictest confidence,” commanded the officer at the head of the table. “If word leaks out that we know of the plan, it will only make our job more difficult. And it might lead to a premature strike.” 

In a short time, they agreed upon a course of action. Tightening security in Jerusalem would be business as usual. It happened on a regular basis and would raise no alarm. Each of the three officers would designate and command a tight, elite force to investigate and attempt to uncover the entry point for the chemical weapons: one in Gaza; one in the West Bank, along the Jordanian border; and one at Israel’s most southern tip, on the Gulf of Aqaba.

Benjamin insisted they consider that possibility. He had a gut feeling as he looked down with heavy-lidded eyes at the map spread out before them. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled as he considered the close proximity of the borders of Israel to both Egypt and Jordan.

“Richter, you take the West Bank.”

Benjamin looked up. “With all due respect, sir, I’d be better with the Gulf sector.” He went on quickly before his superior could object. “I am, I believe, the most knowledgeable about that territory and have the linguistic ability to work most effectively there.”

~

Rays of the setting sun collided with the golden Dome of the Rock, sending shafts of light back onto the surrounding hills of the Holy Land. Benjamin sat on a stone wall at the far side of the large square, watching the constant surge of fellow Jews, praying and studying, as they did every day and every night, year after year.

He faced the Western Wall, commonly known as the Wailing Wall, that represented the most sacred shrine in Jewish and national consciousness. In the midst of the Old City of Jerusalem, it was the destination for pilgrims from throughout the world. He never tired of coming here. 

He took comfort in the fact that—while Jerusalem was divided into three sections: West Jerusalem mostly inhabited by Jews and East Jerusalem mostly by Arabs—the walled Old City contained Jewish, Christian, Armenian and Muslim quarters, where people of differing faiths managed to live side-by-side. It was here that he had moved after the murder of his mother and sister. It was here, in this convergence of three great religions, that he came to contemplate the incomprehensible complexities of the conflict in which he lived every moment of his life.

Benjamin glanced at his watch and reluctantly rose from his seat on the wall. As he moved toward this latest atrocity—walking the narrow, cobbled streets of the Old City in the Judean hills, with its long and intricate history—rage threatened to overwhelm reason, despair to annihilate hope.

This city—this land he called his homeland—had been contested for thousands of years. He knew the history, all too well. He knew that, in addition to Israel’s being a natural land bridge to three continents that made control economically desirable, ancient religious hatreds had caused endless disputes and bloodshed.

But never before, in all those thousands of years, had there been a threat so vile—so profane—as this.

Chapter 36

A massive jolt catapulted Julia back to the world of the living. Instant recall of recent events flooded her brain, sending a blast of alarm coursing through her body. Instinctively feigning continued unconsciousness, she struggled to untangle her wildly incoherent thoughts. Another hard jolt almost brought a cry of protest from her parched throat. A cacophony of squeaks and rattles foretold the vehicle’s state of disrepair.  It appeared to be bouncing over a field of rocks.

She lay on her side on a pile of coarse, smelly blankets that penetrated the thin fabric of her cocktail dress. Another blanket covered her, stifling in the heat. A wave of pure, unadulterated panic swept over her as she discovered her hands securely and painfully tied behind her back, and ankles similarly bound. The revolting rag covering her mouth made it difficult to breathe, much less cry out. Julia’s entire body, petrified beyond imagining, stiffened as another fearsome thought struck her.

What had become of Alex?

~

After endless lurching over the tortuous road, the vehicle rolled to a stop. A door groaned and she heard two men speaking in slow, conversational Arabic. Another door creaked open, closer to where she lay. The voices grew louder. One of them said something that brought raucous laughter before the door slammed shut. The voices drifted away, leaving a void of silence, interrupted only by the sound of a barking dog in the distance.

Tears began to soak the dirty rag and Julia sobbed uncontrollably into the blanket. She didn’t know how long she’d been left to her desolation. The sound of opening doors warned her to fight back the tears, and the vehicle began to move once more. The road evened out, and after a while, from exhaustion born of sheer terror, she drifted into a surreal, disturbed stupor.

When she awoke a second time, all was quiet—save the unmistakable cry of birds. They sounded like seagulls. Seagulls? They must be near the sea. Brilliant, she mocked herself, as her brain processed the implication. Without warning, a door only inches from her head screeched open, slicing through her befuddled thoughts. It scared her almost to death. A hand threw back the blanket covering her. Glaring sunlight blinded her completely.