The Masada Complex (75 page)

Rabbi Josh sprinted forward, but Professor Silver was faster, shoving Masada over the cliff’s edge. The rabbi dropped forward and grabbed her arm just as she went over. At the same time, his body collided with Silver, who stumbled and rolled over the low wall behind Masada.

His chest hit hard against the stones at the edge, but Rabbi Josh managed to hold on to Masada, who quickly grabbed the low wall. The rest of her body hung over the cliff, and Silver somehow stuck his arm into the lower part of the shoulder strap of her backpack, just above her left hip. The top of his head showed behind the small of her back. Far below, the professor’s white cap descended through the air to the distant, rocky bottom.

Rabbi Josh yelled, “Hold on! I’ll pull you up!”

Silver craned his head. “Quick!”

“Get a rock,” Masada said, “and hit this murderer on the head.”

Rabbi Josh wasn’t going to do such a thing. “Come on! Help me pull you up!”

“My hands are slipping.” Masada’s right foot found a small protrusion in the rock. “Cut the plastic cuffs.”

He kept his grip on Masada’s arm with one hand and reached for a shard of glass from the shattered lantern. He cut through the plastic strap, blood from his lacerated palm dripping on Masada’s wrists. Her hands free, she spread them apart, improving her grip on the stones. Her other foot found a toehold.

“Let’s pull you up!”

“Not with this dead weight.” Masada shook her hips against the cliff in brief, jerky motions.

“Stop it!” Silver’s voice was filled with panic. “Don’t!”

Rabbi Josh leaned over the edge, looking down. The emptiness under them made him dizzy. His grip on her arm was getting slippery from the blood. He let go and wiped his hand in the dirt. “Pull! We can do it!”

“My backpack has to come off.”

“No!” Silver yelled from below. “Save us!”

Rabbi Josh held her arms. “Now, Masada. Just
pull!
”

The men led the blindfolded Elizabeth out of the kitchen, through the hallway to the main door, and out of the mosque. They lifted her into a vehicle and made her lie on her back. The pouch they had tied around her hips was thick, and it bore into her spine, lifting her midriff.

“Enough of this!” She tore off the blindfold and found herself on a stretcher in an ambulance. The yellow robe covered her down to her ankles. The three men were joined by Imam Abdul, who also wore a white coat, a stethoscope around his neck.

They put a pillow on her belly and covered her with a white sheet. One of them got behind the wheel, fired up the engine, turned on the siren, and eased away from the mosque.

“What are you doing?” Elizabeth tried to sit up.

The Imam made her lie down. “The Jews are waiting for you in Jerusalem.”

The ambulance drove slowly down the hill, its siren whining.

“You can’t treat me like this! I’m not one of your chattel women!”

“You’re a martyr! Be proud!”

“What?” She pushed aside the sheet and pulled up the yellow robe. A strange corset, wide enough to cover her from pelvis to just under her breasts, was tied snugly with three copper buckles. Electric wires run around the whole thing. She felt with her hand behind her back, where several cylindrical containers were attached.

“Too heavy. I can’t pull up.” Masada glanced down, remembering Srulie’s broken body. The backpack, with Silver hanging from the strap just over her hip, was cutting into her shoulders. She let go of the low wall with her left hand, now only her right hand and toes carrying the weight, and reached down to poke at Silver’s face.

He yelled something in Arabic and pressed his face to her back.

“Murderer!” She clenched a fist and pounded his head. “You’ll die today, I swear!”

“I will not,” Silver shouted, “die alone!”

“Give me your hand!” Rabbi Josh pressed his chest to her right hand, but it was slipping. Masada returned her left hand to hold the low wall. She felt Rabbi Josh’s bandaged hands under her armpits. He groaned and lifted her enough for her elbows to clear the stones. The toes of her shoes slipped, but quickly found other tiny outcroppings in the sheer cliff. With her forearms flat on the line of stones, Masada flexed her fingers, breathing hard.

“Now let’s get you up and over.” Rabbi Josh grabbed her shoulders.

“Wait!” Her right shoe lost the protrusion, and the backpack pulled her backward with great force. She needed to reach her brace, but her muscles starved for oxygen. Pain bore inside her chest where Silver had rammed her, and her lower abdomen ached in a seething way. Wetness was spreading between her thighs.

Rabbi Josh leaned over, his cheek against hers. “Pull! We can do it together!”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re a good man.”

“No!” He lowered himself farther, his chest resting on her forearms to stop them from slipping off. His own hands, bandaged and bleeding, held her upper arms. “I’m going to—”

“Put the shard in my right hand,” Masada said.

Rabbi Josh kept the pressure on her forearms, picked up the shard he had used to cut the plastic handcuffs, and placed it in her hand. Masada began to saw the backpack strap. The back-and-forth movement of the shard against the strap, which had sunk into her shoulder, also cut her shirt, then her skin, and her flesh.

“Hey!” Silver’s voice had an unfamiliar high pitch to it. “What are you doing?”

Masada kept working through the strap, ignoring the pain, her eyes turned up, watching Rabbi Josh’s tearful eyes, taking in every crevice of his face. The stubble on his jaws was golden, and his hair hung down over her, caressing her forehead.

Imam Abdul pushed Elizabeth down. “Shut up!” The ambulance made the turn toward the Israeli checkpoint, its siren changing tune to a fast beeping.

“Please! I don’t want to die!”

He hooked his finger in a metal ring that dangled from the side of the explosive belt. “If I pull this, you’ll blow up in two minutes.”

“No!” Elizabeth tried to unbuckle the belt. “My baby!”

“If you unbuckle it, the fuse will blow immediately.” He used his free hand to throw the sheet back over her, keeping his finger in the ring. “You have to die. Would you rather die alone, or take a hundred Jews with you?”

“I’d rather live! I beg you!”

“It will be a great victory. A senior American official dying for Palestine. You’ll go straight to Allah!”

The ambulance stopped at the checkpoint. She heard the driver yell something. The vehicle jerked forward. The driver yelled again. The Imam glanced nervously. She heard the Israelis shouting. The driver cursed and turned off the engine.

The rear doors of the ambulance opened. Two uniformed Israelis peeked in. The Imam at the soldiers, “I’m Doctor Abdul. She’s in delivery! The umbilical cord is around the baby’s neck! Let us through, or the baby will die!”

The soldiers cocked their weapons.

“Please,” he begged, “where is your humanity?”

An officer appeared, and Elizabeth recognized the young reservist officer who had let her through. Their eyes met, and he understood what was going on. He aimed his machine gun and yelled at them to step out of the ambulance. Imam Abdul smiled at Elizabeth and pulled out the ring. She felt a slight buzzing at her hip, a quick vibration that made her blood cold.

The men jumped down from the ambulance, their hands over their heads.

Elizabeth kicked off the sheet.

The Israeli officer saw the belt and froze.

She said, “Get out!”

He kneeled at the stretcher. “Let me take it off.”

“No!” She pushed his hand away. “It’ll blow.”

“Our guys can defuse it.” He yelled out the open door in Hebrew.

“Too late.” She got off the stretcher. “It’s about to blow. Get out!”

“Wait!” He was pale, his face looking even younger. “We can save you!”

“Don’t forget,” Elizabeth yelled as she slipped into the driver’s seat, “human rights!”

He hesitated.

“
Go!
”

He jumped off.

Professor Silver’s arm went numb. It was hooked in the backpack strap almost to his armpit, the blood flow cut off. His eye was too teary to see clearly, yet when he glanced downward, the awful distance below his dangling feet made him yell, “Joshua! Help us!” There was no response, but he registered the faint sound of scratching, and a certain tremor in the strap against his arm.

“Almost done,” Masada said.

The strap suddenly let go, and Silver dropped. His suspenders caught on Masada’s knee brace, its edge poking out through her pants like a hook, and he locked his arms around her lower legs.

Masada yelled in pain.

“Joshua!” Silver’s blue suspenders strip pressed against his cheek, stretching under his chin. “You failed to save your son. Don’t fail again!”

“Don’t listen to him.” Masada twisted in pain. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Save me,” Silver yelled, “or she dies too!”

“Now,” Rabbi Josh said, “I’m pulling!”

Silver held on.
Another minute, just one more minute, and the rabbi will pull us up.

“It’s not working,” Masada said. “You’ll fall over too.”

“Pull up,” the rabbi’s voice quivered. “Pull!”

She bent her knees and kicked hard, hitting the professor with her heels. Silver yelped and slipped down her shins. He pressed her shoes to his sternum, his face squeezed between her calves, his suspenders as tight as guitar strings, hooked on the brace. In that instant, when so little was keeping him from plunging to his death, Faddah’s face appeared, smiling at him.