Casca 20: Soldier of Gideon (13 page)

"If it is your wish to spend a hundred dollars, I have a few trifles said to have belonged to St. Stephen, and part of a dress that may have been worn by Magdalena."

"Two hundred is my final word." Epstein slapped two bills on the table.

The Arab went on rolling the parchment and reached for the thermos. "For two hundred dollars I could, perhaps, sell you a fragment of the True Cross. It would represent a loss for me, but for such a gracious customer I–"

"Three hundred, damn you.
Three hundred and not one penny more."

"Aha. Now, for three hundred
," the scroll was back in the flask "I have a very interesting relic of the fisherman, Peter. If you would care–"

"The hell with it.
I've had enough." Epstein was heading for the door. "Are you coming, Colonel?"

"No." Casca picked up his glass. "I think I'll finish this wine. There are some items here I would like to look at more closely."

"Then I'll see you at the barracks." He bowed ironically to the Arab, his good humor returning. "Good bye, you old rogue. Don't cheat my friend too thoroughly."

Abu ben
Asid returned the bow and was shaking the scroll from the flask before Epstein crossed the threshold. He spread it again on the table, then turned his back and busied himself at some shelves.

Casca pored over the document. He recognized the words of the curse: "Soldier, you are content with what you are, then that you shall remain until we meet again. As I go now to the father, so you shall come to me."

The next phrase he guessed as: "And so it shall come to pass," but then his rusty knowledge of the ancient tongue gave out. He could only discern an odd word, a snatch or two here and there: "in that year," "when all the world." He leaned back on the cushions as Abu turned from the shelves. "A most interesting piece, Father; do you not have also the beginning or the end?"

"Alas no, noble one.
The stupid Bedouin used the rest of the scroll for a most unworthy purpose and would have so used this part too, but then another alerted him to its possible value. If this document were complete it would indeed be beyond price."

"Granted, old one.
But incomplete, it is surely not worth much."

"Not much to be sure. From you I ask only one thousand dollars."

Casca laughed. "The same as you asked of the rude Jew who has just left?"

"Your point is well taken, effendi. Your gracious manners merit consideration.
For you nine hundred, ahem, and fifty dollars."

"It would please me immensely to purchase this excellent antique from you, but such a price is way beyond my present means. I am but a poor soldier."

The Arab bowed. "Then let us say only nine hundred American dollars. Surely that is within the reach of a colonel in a conquering army?"

"A half colonel, Father, and I have not drawn pay. Nor have we yet conquered. I would undertake to return another time and try to meet your price, but who can say where the fortunes of war may carry me, or for how long?"

Abu seated himself opposite Casca, settling himself into the cushions like a man ready to sit for a long time. "Perhaps, as a special favor to a brave man, albeit an enemy of my people, I could let this precious item go for eight hundred dollars."

"You are most gracious. Another time and I would gladly pay this price. But just now my purse cannot stretch to even half of that figure. I can pay no more than three hundred and fifty."

"If it would serve, effendi, I would offer to tear the piece in twain and sell you one half, but I fear this would ruin its value altogether. I can see that you appreciate its worth, and I am moved. I will accept a mere seven hundred dollars."

"Alas, even so, I cannot buy. Four hundred dollars is more than I can afford. I can offer no more. "

"For such a genuine interest as yours, I will forgo my profit. Pay me but six hundred."

Casca took out his billfold. He withdrew four one hundred dollar bills and laid them on the table. "See, my friend, this is almost all that I have." He riffled a few other crumpled bills. "Perhaps there is another fifty here. Could you not permit me to buy your treasure for four hundred and fifty?"

The Arab looked at the bills, rolled his eyes to the ceiling as if in prayer, then looked directly at Casca. "I see that you earnestly want this piece. What can I do? I must suffer a great loss, but I will accept five hundred dollars.''

Casca made a show of digging out more bills and added them to the four on the table. "I shall be impoverished for a month, but it is worth it to do business with a gentleman."

The Arab scooped up the money and handed Casca the thermos flask. "Please roll your treasure with your own hands."

As if by chance his hand fell upon a small string of beads made of date pips.
"And perhaps you will also accept this little gift. These prayer beads are said to have belonged to one Saul of Tarsus who came to be St. Paul."

Casca accepted the beads and stood. The Arab stood, too, and walked with Casca to the door where he bowed him into the street.

"A thousand thanks, effendi. May you find in the scroll the message you seek."

Bemused, Casca replied, "Indeed, Father, I do seek a message amongst these words. I thank you for them."

"A little way down the street," Abu said, "toward the market, you will find a public scribe who may translate it for you."

Casca came upon the scribe's place of business on the sidewalk by the market place. He sat beneath an awning at a battered desk behind an ancient typewriter, surrounded by signs in half a dozen different languages: Arabic, Hebrew, Yiddish, English, French, Italian,
German. He offered to prepare correspondence, draft legal documents, compose love letters. One sign proclaimed: ANTIQUE DOCUMENTS APPRAISED. Another said: ARAMAIC TEXTS TRANSLATED.

Casca sat on the tiny stool by the desk and spread out the scroll.

"You want English?" the scribe asked.

"It is my only language," Casca lied.

"Forty drachmas for a translation. Forty more for an appraisal."

"Then I shall have both." Casca laid a hundred drachmas on the desk.

The scribe peered intently at the scroll, then picked it up and held it toward the sun. "Undoubtedly authentic. I would estimate its age as more than a thousand years, perhaps two thousand. In the desert this material lasts forever."

He looked at it more closely. "Why, this could be a piece of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Numerous pieces have turned up since the first findings twenty years ago. Where did you get it?"

"I bought it from Abu ben Asid."

"
An honest enough trader as antiquarians go. If you paid anything less than one thousand American dollars you have made a bargain."

"What does it say?"

The scribe took the scroll and rolled it from one hand to the other as he read the small, close script. It was indeed an account of the removal of Christ's body from the cross, and of its being carried to the tomb that had been prepared for the rich Pharisee, Joseph of Arimathea.

"And the accursed one shall soldier on through many lives and many deaths, and shall come again unto the land of Israel." Casca was all ears. "And yet
again, and still again." A frown began to crease Casca's brow. "But from the curse he shall not be released, not even unto the seventh time he cometh unto Israel."

A long groan escaped from Casca.

"And the time of his release shall by this sign be known...”

"By what, man, by what?"
Casca shouted as the scribe paused.

The scribe shrugged. "There is no more. The end of the passage has been torn away." He handed Casca his change of twenty drachmas.

Casca let the coin fall and got wearily to his feet. The scribe said something he didn't hear. "What?"

"Your scroll, effendi.
Here is your scroll." The scribe held out the parchment.

"Oh. That? I don't want it." He turned away.

"Not even the seventh time?" Casca mused unhappily as he made his way along the narrow street. Somewhere that damned carpenter's boy had used the expression not even seventy times seven. But that had been something about forgiving enemies. In the Nazarene's whole life he had only encountered three: the money changers, whom he had taken to with a whip; Judas, whom he had cursed to hell for all eternity; and Casca, whom he cursed to soldier until he came again.

"Though he may die many deaths..." The words were still running through part of Casca's mind as another part dimly registered the soft pad of fast moving feet behind him. Lost in gloom, Casca had not noticed that his plodding feet had taken him along the crooked lanes of the ancient city. A dog-leg turn in the twisting street had placed him just beyond the mouth of a narrow alley, and out of it had come the scrawny Arab whose knife now pierced Casca's rib cage.

Ali had been born on a dirty rag on the stones of this alley and had lived in it and on it for all of his seventeen years. The street whore who had borne him had vanished from his ken about the time he was weaned. He had learned to steal as naturally as he had learned to walk, but not so well. To be a good thief took some talent and enterprise, and Ali possessed neither. He survived mainly on the charity of other thieves.

A year ago he had been caught in a stupid robbery attempt and had paid for it with his right hand. Since then he had been reduced mainly to begging as the lack of a hand was a severe handicap in the thieving business.

As a beggar he had been no more successful than he had been as a thief. His unclean hand, the one used to clean after defecating, attracted few and grudging
coins, and the loss of the right hand marked him for what he was. What he received mainly were curses and blows and kicks.

But of late things had improved. A poor old woman had taken him into her kitchen to give him some eggs, and Ali had thanked her by stealing her only knife
– a wretched scrap of hacksaw blade sharpened on a grindstone – and bound with twine for a handle. But the crude instrument had enabled him to add murder to his repertoire.

The Jordanian Army had been mobilizing for some time, and every so often a solitary, drunken soldier had stumbled down the alley, seeking even cheaper or more depraved women than the larger streets offered.

Ali's bare feet made almost no noise on the cobblestones, and the force of his rush with his puny weight was usually sufficient to drive the crude blade through the heart of the victim whose back lurched so temptingly before him.

At the first whisper of the footsteps Casca's body, unbidden, had folded into a sideways crouch away from the faint sound. The knife thrust that had been meant for his heart made instead a slash between two ribs beneath his right arm, the Arab's momentum carrying him stumbling past him to lose both the knife and his footing and fall in a heap on the cobblestones.

Casca fell onto him, both knees crushing the abdomen, bursting the spleen, rupturing the kidneys against the stones.

Casca's left hand grabbed the long, lank hair and slammed the skull on the roadway as the knuckles of his right hand crushed the Adam's apple.

The scarecrow body kicked spasmodically and its life was gone.

Casca reached to retrieve the knife,
then saw that it was a worthless thing, scarcely adequate for cutting up dog meat in the poor kitchen it had been stolen from.

The stump of the Arab's right arm caught his eye.

"Lucky bastard," Casca muttered as he booted the body aside. "Last thieving done."

Glennon
and the others were waiting at the jeep. Epstein inquired if Casca had been any further impressed with the antiquarian's merchandise, and Casca answered: "Nah, just trivia."

Epstein noticed the rent in Casca's shirt, and the dried blood.
"You were attacked?"

"More trivia," Casca answered, feeling the line of dried blood where the wound had already healed to a scratch.

They drove back to the barracks in a mood of near silent anticipation, the only conversation being some speculation as to which front they might next be ordered to.

Moynihan was playing endlessly with the dial of his radio, but could only raise Radio Jordan.

The Arab station was playing a Hebrew hymn, and this was followed by an Israeli pop song. Then came the startling announcement, first in Hebrew, then in English, and finally in Arabic: "This is Radio Jordan from the city of Ramallah coming to you by courtesy of the Israeli Army Corps of Electronic Engineers. We are pleased to announce that this city is now securely in the possession of Israel, as are the cities of Nablus and Bethlehem.

"Citizens of Tel Aviv will be relieved to know that Israel is also in
possession of Qalgilyah, and the bombardment of the city and suburbs of Tel Aviv from that quarter is now at an end.

"The city of Gaza and the whole of the Gaza Strip
is now secure to Israel. Our troops are also in control of the Suez Canal.

"We can now report that on Monday, Syrian planes attacked a Haifa oil refinery and the
Magiddo airfield. In retaliation the Israeli Air Force bombed the principal Syrian airfield near Damascus, surprising many of that base's airplanes on the ground and destroying most of them.

"A Jordanian Air Force attack on Israeli airfields was also repulsed with losses to Jordan of twenty nine planes.

"Iraqi planes attacked the city of Nathanga and lost seventeen planes in the attempt.

"The Lebanese Air Force has lost a British made Hawker Hunter aircraft over the Sea of Galilee. A second aircraft managed to escape back to Lebanon.

"Confirmed losses of the United Arab Republic are three hundred and nine planes, including all thirty of their Russian built Tupolev 16 bombers, and ninety-five MiG 21's. We have confirmed Syria's loss of thirty-two MiG 21's and twenty eight other aircraft.

"In destroying a total of four hundred and sixteen enemy aircraft, the Israeli Air Force has lost twenty six planes.

"As a courtesy to our Jordanian audience this station will now resume broadcasting in Arabic."

The last sentence was greeted with hearty laughter from all the men in the jeep.

"Victors can always afford to be gracious," Casca observed.

"Aye," said Moynihan. "Is this war over already,
d'ye think?"

"It will never be over," Epstein answered.

When they arrived at the barracks, it appeared that the war might indeed be over. Israeli troops were dancing joyously about, firing rifles into the air, shouting and laughing like boisterous schoolboys.

"Well, Harry went out a victor anyway," Moynihan grunted. He didn't join in the celebrations, but went to his hut and lay on his bunk, playing with the dial of his radio.

Casca knew all too well how he felt and a little later poked his head in the doorway.

"Is this area off limits to commissioned officers?"

A chuckle burst from Moynihan. "Only if they're Protestants."

"Then I'll come in." Casca stepped into the hut. "At last count I qualified as a pagan."

Moynihan waved a hand at his radio. "It's all over, bar the shouting. Bloody long way we've come for a week's work."

"Epstein says it will never end."

"Nor will it for him. If you want to make your great grandchildren rich, buy shares in Israeli Air Industries. They're going to be in business for another thousand years."

Moynihan stared at the ceiling, not far from tears. "I never thought Harry would've bought it in a corny side show like this."

Casca searched his mind for the words he knew he wouldn't find. "Mohammed said: None falls, even by a killer's hand, until his allotted time be run.' "

"And what the hell would he know?" Moynihan shouted and punched a button on the radio. "Just look at the bloody mess he left behind him."

“... early reports of the Israeli attack indicate more than a hundred U.S. servicemen killed and wounded," came the steady voice of a BBC announcer. "As yet there is no indication as to what the U.S.S. Liberty was doing in the area."

"In South Africa today, the prime minister..." Moynihan was twirling the dial. "What the hell is going on? Maybe I can get Voice of America."

But he could find no other reports and returned to the BBC in time for the headline summary.

"The U.S. Navy's U.S.S. Liberty, an electronic intelligence vessel, was detected today fourteen miles offshore from the Gaza Strip and was attacked by Israeli planes and motor torpedo boats inflicting heavy casualties."

Neither Radio Cairo nor Radio Jordan mentioned the incident. Radio Israel also ignored the action, but supplied the news that the Israeli attack on Sharm el Sheikh, blockading the Gulf of Aqaba, had found the fortress deserted by UAR forces.