By Dawn's Early Light Read online

  “Thanks, Gloria. Oh—” He snapped his fingers. “I almost forgot. My swim buddy in SEAL Six was a guy named Thomas Freeman. He’s retired now, but I’d like to reach him. See if BUPERS has his address and phone number, OK?”

  “Got it.”

  Michael spent the rest of the afternoon finishing his reports in progress. At 1358, Gloria knocked, then entered the office with several bound reports. “The ‘dead hand,’” she said, dropping the first folder into the cleared space on his desk. “Vladimir Vasilievich Gogol, the Russian military, Russian-Arab treaties, Russian-Iraqi economic agreements, and a Bible.” She followed the first report with four others and a battered leather volume. “The Bible is mine—I went home on my lunch hour and picked it up for you.”

  A twinge of guilt pricked Michael’s brain as he rested his hand on the leather cover. He had a Bible at home, too, and could have picked it up when he went home to pack . . . if he could remember where he’d put it.

  “And there’s this.” She pulled a note card from the pocket in her skirt. “Lt. Thomas Freeman, retired navy. Now runs Shark’s Deep Sea Fishing out of Tampa, Florida. Here’s his phone number and address.”

  Michael grinned at the card as if it were the face of his long-lost friend. “Deep sea fishing, huh? It fits him.”

  “Anything else, Captain?”

  “That’ll do it, Gloria. Thanks.” He met her tentative look with a confident grin. “This is no big deal, Gloria, just a routine liaison visit. In and out, that’s all.”

  One corner of her lip dipped in a wry smirk. “Sure. Whatever you say, sir.”

  Michael tucked the card with Freeman’s information into the Bible, then stood and scooped the stack of materials under his arm. “I’ll be in touch.” He tapped two fingers to his temple in what he hoped was an optimistic salute. “You hold down the fort, OK?”

  Gloria followed him out of his office and held tight to the doorframe as he moved past her desk. “You be careful,” she called, a note of worry in her voice.

  “I will.” He paused at the outer door and gave her a confident nod. “Nothing is going to happen. Israel’s at peace, remember?”

  Thirty-five thousand feet over the Atlantic, Michael Reed stretched his legs in the roominess of the first-class cabin and mentally reviewed his preparation. With one eye on the clock, he had rushed home and packed a week’s worth of clothing and tossed all but two of the reports in his suitcase, along with Gloria’s Bible. He had even taken the time to dial Shark’s business in Tampa but had reached an answering machine: “Hey, this is Shark, and we’re out on the water bringing in some of the biggest grouper you’ve ever seen. If you wanna come along on the next boat, leave your number at the beep.”

  Michael almost left a message, then decided to hang up. He had no idea where he’d be staying, and any mention of Israel might threaten the secrecy of his mission. Shark and the mystery of the unexploded shell would have to wait.

  Satisfied that he hadn’t forgotten anything important, Michael reached up and clicked on the airliner’s overhead light. No one sat in the seat next to him, so from his briefcase he selected the report on the Russian military, then began to read. John Howard, the Russian affairs section chief, was a friend as well as a coworker, and Michael knew the information would be reliable.

  “No greater peril,” the report began, “confronts the world today than the dynamic Russo-Iraqi political alliance. The man chiefly responsible for this association, General Vladimir Gogol, has recently been promoted from commander of the Moscow Military District to minister of defense. The political and economic chaos of recent years resulted in a power vacuum, which Gogol rose to fill.

  “This international alliance bears watching because both Russia and Iraq possess vast quantities of biological weapons that could set off global epidemics.”

  Michael read on, learning that an October 1998 United Nations special commission reported that its expert investigations team found that Iraq’s biological arsenal contained aerosol generators. These generators could spread lethal biological agents by several methods, including the relatively simple means of helicopter-borne commercial chemical insecticide disseminators. A Russian defector, Dr. Kanatjian Alibekov, now known as Ken Alibek, told U.S. authorities that he was the first deputy director of Biopreperat, the Russian designation for a military project comprising forty research and production facilities manned by more than forty thousand civilian scientists, engineers, and administrative employees. According to Alibek, Biopreperat was a full-scale biological warfare program engaged in the manufacture of anthrax, smallpox, plague, and other lethal viruses.

  The hiss of the jet’s air conditioning broke into Michael’s concentration. He looked up, frowned at the small vent above his head, then flipped ahead through the pages of the report, his mouth set in annoyance. A report about airborne biological contaminants was probably not the most relaxing reading material he could choose while sitting in a sealed, recirculating atmosphere.

  He fanned through several pages on Russia’s biological weapon programs, then a headline caught his eye: Russia Poised to Invade Middle East. The analyst who had prepared the November 1999 report began the article by quoting Thomas Wimner, a British agent who had for years insisted that a Russian-Israeli conflict was inevitable. “The reason the Arabs and Iranians have delayed in the past,” Wimner wrote, “is because the peace process promised them vital real estate concessions that would make military victory more likely. Now that peace has been established and Israeli officials have agreed to withdraw from the Golan Heights and much of the West Bank, war seems unavoidable. We cannot afford to underestimate the desire of Russian nationalists to reestablish the country as a superpower. By providing the Islamic world with the military means to defeat Israel, Russian leaders will gain the economic means to regain a place of international superiority.”

  Wimner ended his comments with a statement that sent a disturbing quake through Michael’s peace of mind: “The next eighteen months in the Middle East will be fraught with danger. Statecraft of the highest possible order will be required from the United States if a catastrophic war involving chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons is to be avoided in the Middle East.”

  Michael closed the report and leaned his head back against the seat. What had that techno-geek Prentice plunged him into? Why had Stedman insisted upon sending him to Israel? If the intel experts knew peace would require “statecraft of the highest possible order,” why had the president sent him on a mere fact-finding mission? The secretary of state should have been dispatched, along with a few dozen diplomats skilled in Russo-Israeli relations. The president should have sent someone far more knowledgeable, someone who cared.

  He closed his eyes, grateful to admit the truth in the semi-darkness of the plane. He had always been a patriot; he would gladly die for his country. But the only emotion he felt for Israel was an overwhelming apathy, tinged with resentment. After all, if not for the Israelis, he would never have been deployed to Beirut, and Janis would still be alive . . . as would his son.

  Was it a son? His face burned as he recalled last night’s dream. Part of him was certain he had lain awake the rest of the night, but weariness could play tricks on a man’s mind, particularly when he was burdened with troubling thoughts.

  Outside the window, the blue sky had deepened, summoning a diorama of stars from the cobalt vault of the heavens. Michael reached up and flipped off the overhead light, knowing he would not read any more tonight. His mind was too occupied with other thoughts.

  He shifted in his chair and looked out the window. They were over the Atlantic, so he could see nothing in the darkness below. The first-class cabin grew quiet, the lights dimming as passengers settled in for the long flight and a nap.

  Michael reclined his seat, but his mind was not ready to let Janis go. Somehow, sitting in the darkness, the dream seemed to close around him again. Janis’s voice echoed in his ears, as vivid as if she’d only spoken to him an hour ago.r />
  A sudden realization brought a wry, twisted smile to his face. The prospect of this mission must have sent his conscience into hyperdrive. He hadn’t been to church in months, so his subconscious had sent Janis to remind him not to forsake his religious upbringing. She’d said all the right things—God loves you, God has a plan for your life, God has been protecting you—almost a word-for-word expression of the Four Spiritual Laws he’d been taught as a young boy.

  But not everything she said was part of the script. Michael frowned as he recalled her words about the shell from friendly fire outside Kuwait. He had not seen anything out of place that night, and the image of a shell outside their bivouac was not something he’d be likely to forget. Once he had awakened to a whistling sound like artillery, but it passed after a moment and he assumed the breeze was playing tricks on him. The devilish desert wind could howl like a wolf one minute and whimper like a puppy the next. It sprayed sand with force enough to scour bare flesh and sucked the moisture from a man’s throat and nostrils until he lay gasping for breath.

  No, he did not like the Middle East.

  Michael crossed his arms around the largely unread report and leaned his head against the plane’s plastic wall, willing himself to sleep. Each passing hour would bring him closer to the day he could return home.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Jerusalem

  0830 hours

  Wednesday, October 11

  RABBI BARAM COHEN LOWERED HIS EYELIDS, SHIELDING HIS DIMMING EYES FROM the tidal wave of morning sunlight that poured into the assembly hall at the Toldot Aharon Yeshiva as he opened the wooden shutters. He remained at the open window for another moment, aware of the shuffling sounds behind him, then turned to face the school’s thirty students. Without speaking, he lifted the tefillin, a small leather box containing portions of the Hebrew Scriptures, and fitted the leather strap around his skull so the square box rested firmly upon his forehead. A corresponding tefillin had already been strapped to his left arm, and as he walked to the center of the small platform at the front of the hall, he quietly ignored the awkward movements of his students’ preparation for prayer.

  Standing in the long rectangle of light from the window, he lifted his fringed prayer shawl—worn only by adults who were or had been married— and pulled it over his head. As his students followed in their prayer books, he began to chant the Adon Olam, the poem to open the Shacharis, or morning prayers.

  “Master of the world who was King before any form was created,” he began, reciting the words he had memorized as a boy in Brooklyn. “At the time when He made all through his will, then his name was called ‘King.’ And after all is gone, He, the Awesome One, will reign alone. And He was, and He is, and He will be in splendor.”

  A Sabbath stillness reigned in the hall, with nothing but Baram’s voice and the student’s sibilant whispers to disturb it. As Baram prayed, the deep peace that always came from recognizing the Master of the universe crept over him, as warming as the autumn sunlight spilling from the window. He swayed slightly on his feet, the long fringes on his prayer shawl almost sweeping the floor, then fell silent to allow his students a moment of silent devotion before beginning the Shacharis.

  He turned his own thoughts inward, mentally bowing himself to the King of Kings who had brought him to this place, at this time. Like many émigrés, he had come to Israel as a ten-year-old boy, eager to live in the land of Eretz Yisroel even though his rabbi and many others decried Zionism and its leaders. “How can we establish Eretz Yisroel without the Messiah?” his red-faced rabbi had shouted in the small Brooklyn synagogue. “Will Ben Gurion and the Gentiles build the temple? Will the Russian Jews who deny God bring in the Messiah? They cannot! The Torah and the prophets have spoken; we will not have a holy land until the Messiah comes!”

  Against the advice of his rabbi and others in the orthodox congregation, Baram’s father moved his family across the sea to Jerusalem. And as Baram studied the Torah, attended yeshiva school, and observed the Sabbath in his new home, he realized the routine of his life had not radically changed. But he was studying, learning, and worshiping in Israel, living under the same bowl of sky that had canopied Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. When the Messiah fulfilled the prophecies and stepped onto the Mount of Olives, Baram would be nearby and ready to receive him.

  Even at this moment, he was ready. His lips began the first prayer of the Shacharis, the Birchas HaShachar, or morning blessings. His mouth curved in a smile as he spoke the familiar and beloved words. Time had not weakened his childhood dream. Each passing year brought the chosen people closer to the Messiah, each passing hour diminished the allotted time of suffering and pain. His father had been right to leave America, and Baram was grateful his own son and daughter were native-born Israeli citizens. If only they would obey the God of Israel as eagerly as they obeyed the state.

  Clutching the edge of his prayer shawl, he lifted his hands slightly and closed his eyes, concentrating on the souls of his misguided children as he continued the cycle of prayers. He called upon a student to read the selected psalm and the song of the parting of the Red Sea. He led the students as they read Krias Shema, followed by the eighteen blessings known as Shemoneh Esrei. They lowered their heads to recite the Tachanun, or supplication, followed by Psalm 20, also known as Ashrei.

  As the chorus of youthful voices faded, Baram silently signaled another student to recite the Shir Shel Yom, or daily song. For his reading the boy chose the Thirty-seventh Psalm, and Baram’s heart lifted at the sound of the familiar words. “I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread. They are always generous and lend freely; their children will be blessed.”

  Caught up in the sense of something wonderful and totally beyond his comprehension, Baram lifted his face to the warming rays of the sun and closed his eyes. The Master of the universe was faithful. His children would return to the faith of their fathers. After all, a man or woman who had lost faith had nothing left to live on.

  When the student finished the psalm, Baram reluctantly lifted his lids and returned to his responsibility. “It is our job to praise the Master of everything,” he said, ignoring the sounds of adolescent shuffling as his students stood to join him in the recitation of the final prayer, the Aleinu. Their voices joined his, rising in a multilayered tapestry of sound designed to glorify The Name. “Give greatness to the Creator of the beginning, for He has not made us like the nations of the lands. He has not made us like the families of the earth, for He has not made our portion like theirs, and our lot like their populations. For they bow to nonsense and emptiness, and they pray to a god who cannot save while we kneel, bow, and give thanks to the King of emperors, the Holy One, Blessed is He.”

  His students’ voices ebbed and flowed as they bowed during the prayer. Taking strength from the sound of their youthful devotion, Baram closed his eyes again and continued. “He is our God, there is no other. It is truth! There is nothing without our King. As it says in the Torah, ‘Today you shall know and take to heart that HaShem is the God, in the skies above and on the earth below, there is no other.’”

  A profound silence filled the hall as Baram finished. Slowly he lowered his prayer shawl to his shoulders, then opened his eyes and looked out at his students. They were moving back to their seats, lifting their books as their lips moved in whispered confidences. The hall should have resonated with the sound of their movements, yet Baram heard not a sound. A preternatural silence flowed through the room, muffling the sounds of release and activity and life.

  He shuddered faintly and fought down the momentary fear that wrenched his bowels. This could not be a trick of one from the other side, for this was a holy place, consecrated to the Creator of the universe.

  He closed his eyes, bringing his hand over his heart. The backs of his eyelids seemed to glow as though the room had filled with an unearthly light. Terror, pure and oceanic, gripped him and in an instant he knew that if he dared to ope
n his eyes and look up, he would see the ceiling rolled back and the sky open, revealing the blazing ladder of YHWH.

  The mere thought of such a sight chilled his blood. He was unworthy. He had taught many, yes; as a rabbi he was held in some esteem, but he had not been able to awaken the hearts of his beloved children. And only those whose human minds had attached to the Divine Intellect could see visions . . .

  Baram.

  The voice rolled through the room like thunder and righteousness, lifting the hairs on Baram’s arm. His heart pounded; he could feel each separate thump like a blow to the chest. Opening his eyes, he squinted into a golden light that blocked everything else from view.

  The hour is approaching when the house of Israel will know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord their God, and none else.

  The voice, flowing like the sound of rushing water, seemed to emanate from the light, which pulsed softly with every word. Though he squinted directly in the face of that blazing orb, Baram felt no sense of heat or burning.

  I will show myself holy through them in the sight of many nations. Then they will know that I am the Lord their God, for though I sent them into exile among the nations, I will gather them to their own land, not leaving any behind. I will no longer hide my face from them, for I am the Sovereign Lord.

  Baram nodded slowly, recognizing the words of the prophet Ezekiel. “What,” he asked, seeing nothing but that holy light, “would you have me do?”

  The voice, without rising at all, took on a note of urgency. Prophesy, son of man, and tell the house of Israel that I will put my Spirit in them and they will live. Then they will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it.

  Baram lifted his hands, his ears filling with the rushing sound of many waters—or was it the fluttering of angels’ wings? Then he folded gently at the knees and crumpled into a heap, his lids slipping down to cover his eyes. When he could open his eyes again, he found himself lying on the floor, a huddle of pale and worried faces circled around him.