Virgin (2 page)

"Let's get
to work!" Nabil said.

As his older
brother tethered the donkey to the nearest tree, Achmed spotted a dark lump in
the sand to his right. He knelt and touched it, gingerly. Hard, with sharp,
twisted edges. And warm. Still warm.

"I've
found a piece!" he cried aloud. The
first
piece! he boasted
silently.

"Drop it
here," Nabil said, pointing to a spot near the donkey's feet. "We'll
collect as much as we can and pile it here. When we've got as much as we can
carry, we'll load up and head back to the herd. And hurry, Achmed. As sure as
you breathe, we're going to have company soon."
Company?
Did he
mean other Bedouin, or Israelis? Not
that it
mattered. Either way, they stood to lose whatever metal they gathered.

Chaim Kesev set
his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. He wasn't cold--far from it in this
bulky flack jacket. No, the incessant vibrations from the engine coursing
throughout the helicopter's fuselage were penetrating the padding of his seat,
jittering up his spine, piercing his skull, and running to his teeth. He was
sure a couple of them would rattle loose if he had to take much more of this.

Man was not
meant to fly.

Kesev hated
flying, and he hated flying in helicopters most of all. But after he'd watched
the computer plot the course of the errant SCUD on the map, and seen the area
encircled for maximum probability of impact--120 kilometers southeast of Tel
Aviv--he knew he couldn't wait in the city for the report from the crash site.
Everyone else in the tracking center had been relieved that the SCUD had landed
in an unpopulated area of the Southern District wilderness.
Not Kesev. Not
when it was that particular area.

As soon as the
all-clear had sounded, he'd pushed his way aboard the reconnaissance
helicopter. His presence had raised eyebrows among the crew. Who was this pushy
little man, this swarthy, slight, five-eight, middle-aged, bearded wonder to
elbow his way onto their craft? But when he'd flashed them his Shin Bet
identification they'd sealed their lips. None of them had the nerve to
challenge the wishes of a Domestic Intelligence operative when the country was
under attack.

Kesev stared
down at the mountainous terrain below and wondered where they were.

"How much farther?" he asked the copilot lounging
in the seat directly ahead of his.

"Not much
longer now, sir," the airman said, then laughed.

"What's so
funny?" Kesev said.

"Sorry,
sir. It's just that whenever my family used to take
a trip, I'd drive my father crazy saying, 'Are we there
yet? Are we there yet?' And that's the answer he'd always give me: 'Not much
longer now.' And here I am, saying it to you."

"I was not
aware," Kesev said icily, "that a question concerning our arrival at
the crash site of a weapon hurled at us by one of our most vicious enemies, a
weapon that might contain chemical or biological toxins, could be construed as
childish."

"Oh,
sir," the copilot said, straightening in his seat and half turning toward
him. "I meant nothing like that. I--"

He knew he was
being unfair, but he was edgy and irritable and wanted to lay off some of that
burden on this youngster.

"Nor was I
aware that I was driving you crazy."

"Sir, I
was just--"

"Just keep
us on course."

"Yes,
sir."

On course.
The SCUD in question had been anything but. They had a
reputation for being about as accurate as a fireworks rocket, but this
particular missile's course had added a new dimension to the concept of erratic.
It had turned so far south that it never came within range of the Patriots the
Army had borrowed from the Americans. For a while it looked as if it might
crash into the Dead Sea, but its trajectory had flattened momentarily, carrying
it into the Wilderness.

Near the Resting Place.

Kesev had no
doubt that it had missed the Resting Place. A direct hit was inconceivable. But
anything focusing attention on that area posed a threat to the secret. He
wanted to see the crash site himself, and he wanted to be there when the
inspection team arrived. He'd be there to deal with any other intelligence
service that might try to tag along. Domestic intelligence was Shin Bet's
domain and Kesev was here to claim it for them. He feared that if he didn't
stake out his territory now, Mossad and Aman would be horning in and might
wander into areas they shouldn't. One area--the Resting Place--was not to be
disturbed.

Never
disturbed. He shuddered to think of the consequences. . . .

Kesev tried to
shake off the unease that had encircled his throat since he'd seen the computer
MPI printout.

"I'm still
waiting for the answer to my question," he said to no one in particular.

"ETA
twenty minutes, sir," the copilot said without looking at him.

That's better,
Kesev thought.
That's
the way to treat one of Shin Bet's top operatives.

Then he
reconsidered. Perhaps he was being too hard on the youth. He'd been a young
upstart once.

Dear Lord, how
long ago had that been?

Never mind.

"Who do
you think aimed this missile?" Kesev said, trying to lighten the leaden
mood that had settled on the cabin. "A blind man?"

"Yeah,"
the pilot said. "Ayatollah Stevie Wonder."

The copilot
laughed and Kesev forced a smile, all the while wanting to ask, Who's Stevie
Wonder? But he feared sounding out of touch. He was ever on guard against
sounding out of touch.

"Yeah,"
the copilot said. "Someone put a mean hook on that SCUD."

"Hook?"
Kesev said.

"You ever
play golf, sir?"

Kesev had tried
it once or twice but had been unable to comprehend the fascination the game
held for so many of his countrymen.

"Of
course."

"Well, you
aim a SCUD at Tel Aviv and it just misses the Dead Sea. I'd say that's one hell
of a hook."

Missed Tel Aviv by 120 miles. That was indeed far off
course. Too far off. Almost . . .

Don't think
crazy thoughts, he told himself. It's an accident. Another one of those crazy
things that just seem to happen.

But he'd long
known from personal experience that some things which seemed to "just
happen," didn't.

And he trembled
at the possibility that this errant SCUD incident might be one of those.

The Judean Wilderness

Achmed darted
about the field, collecting metal scraps of assorted sizes until both arms were
full, then he scampered back and dumped his finds on the steadily growing pile
by the donkey. The clang of metal on metal echoed like cracked bells through
the still air.

On his next run
he ranged farther from the donkey, searching for the crater where the missile
had exploded. He figured he might find the most metal there. Then again, he
might not--the blast might have hurled it in all directions, leaving metal
everywhere
but
the crater. But either way, he wanted to see it, be near
it, wanted to stand in the heart of its power.

He thought he
saw a depression in the sand on the far side of the field, at the base of the
opposite wall of the canyon. He ran for it.

As he neared he
noticed that the otherwise smooth sand of the field was increasingly littered
with shards of stone and streaks of darker earth, and how the trees surrounding
the depression were broken or knocked flat. The sparse grass smoked from fires
that had already burned out.

This was it. The missile must have exploded here.

When he arrived
at the crater he saw that the blast had shattered part of the cliff wall,
causing a minor landslide into the crater. A deep cavity there in the wall.
Almost as if ...

He picked up a
stone and hurled it at the hollow. It flew into the blackness but did not
bounce back. It disappeared, as if it had been swallowed. Then Achmed heard it
strike. Not with the solid impact of rock upon rock--with more of a
clink.
And
then a clatter. As if it had struck something hard and thin and hollow . . .
and broken it.

Achmed stood on
the crumbling rim of the crater and stared into the blackness in the wall. No
mere blast cavity here. This was a cave. He shivered with anticipation as
thoughts of Muhammad adh-Dhib raced through his mind.
Every Bedouin knew the story of the ten-year-old boy who discovered the first
Dead Sea scrolls in Qumran, not too many miles north of here; the tale had been
told around the fires for nearly half a century. And had there been a Bedouin
boy since who did not dream of finding similar treasure?

"Nabil!"
he called. "Nabil come quickly! And bring the light!"

Nabil came
running up. "What is it?"

"I think
I've found a cave!" Achmed said, pointing to the dark splotch in the wall.

Nabil snorted.
"There are caves all over these hills."

"No. A
secret
cave."

Nabil froze an
instant, then flicked on the flashlight and aimed the beam into the darkness.
Achmed's heart
picked up its rhythm when he saw the smooth edges of the opening and the deep
blackness beyond.

"You're
right, little brother," Nabil said, keeping the beam trained on the
opening as he moved around the rim of the crater. "It
is
a
cave."

Achmed followed
him to the mouth. Together they peered in. The floor of the cave was littered
with small rock fragments, a thick layer of dust, and . . . something else.

The beam picked
out an object with four short straight legs and what appeared to be a seat.

Achmed said,
"Is that--?

"A bench
or a chair of some sort," Nabil said.

Achmed was
shaking with excitement. He grabbed Nabil's shoulder and found that his brother
too was shaking.

"Let's go
in," Nabil said.

Achmed's dry mouth
would not allow him to speak. He followed his brother's lead, climbing over the
pile of broken and fallen-away stone. They entered the cave in silence.

Dry, musty air
within, laden with dust. Achmed coughed and rubbed his nose. They approached the
little bench, covered with a thick coat of dust like everything else. Achmed
reached out to brush the dust away, to see what sort of wood it was made of. He
touched it lightly.
The bench gave way,
falling in on itself, crumbling, disintegrating into a lumpy pile of rotted
flakes. "Oaf!" Nabil hissed.

"May Allah
be my witness, I barely touched it!" Apparently Nabil believed him.
"Then this cave must have been sealed for a
long
time. This place
is
old."

He flashed the
beam around. To the right--another bench and what looked like a low table; to
the left-- Nabil's gasp echoed Achmed's.

Urns. Two of
them: one lying on its side, broken; the other upright, intact, its domed lid
securely in place. "That's what my stone must have hit!" Achmed said.
Nabil was already moving forward. He angled the beam into the broken urn.

"Achmed!"
His older brother's voice was hushed. "A scroll! There's a scroll in this
one! It's torn and crumbling . . . it's
ancient!"

Achmed dropped
quivering to his knees in the dust. "Allah be praised! He has led us
here!"
Nabil lifted the lid of the second urn and beamed the light
into its mouth.

"More
scrolls! Achmed, they will be singing our names around the night fires for
generations!"

"Allah be
praised!" Achmed was too overcome to think of anything else too say.

Nabil replaced
the lid and swung the flashlight beam back to the broken urn.

"You take
that one. It's already broken but
be careful!
We don't want to do any
more damage to that scroll. I'll
take the unbroken one."

Achmed bent,
slipped his sweating, trembling palms under the broken urn, and gently lifted
it into his arms as if it were a cranky infant brother who had finally fallen
asleep. He rose to his feet and edged toward the mouth of the cave. He didn't
need the flashlight beam to light his exit--after the deep night of this tiny
cave, the moonlit canyon outside seemed noon bright. He stepped carefully over
the jumbled rocks outside the mouth, then waited on level ground for Nabil.