He won’t attack right away but will just sit on our trade routes, starve us out and then come in.”
“You know this?”
“My spies and scouts tell me that for the past two months Bin-Nun has had his stonecutters building a bridge of stepping-stones across one of the fords in the Jordan. I even know their line of march. It’s going to take three days to cross.”
Rahab grew still. “You’re going to attack the Israelites.”
“When they’re at their most vulnerable,” Hamas said. “I’m going to let Bin-Nun get half his people over. Then, when they’re split in two, half on the east bank and half on the west bank, we strike.”
“‘We’?”
“I’m going to kill their head, and then Moabite raiders will slay their tail in retribution for the slaughter of their women at the hands of the Levites,” Hamas announced. “Then we’ll finally rid this land of these locusts and I can accomplish what my parents’ pharaoh failed to do.”
Deker could see the scenario that Hamas described vividly. He drew his sword back just a bit, overwhelmed with a desire to kill this swine right now, when the drop from the tip of his blade fell to the bowl and splashed softly on a grape.
In that instant Rahab spoke loudly. “And if that doesn’t work?”
Hamas didn’t seem to notice the splash or turn his face up to the pergola roof. Instead he picked another grape and stuffed it into his mouth and turned to Rahab.
“I have a plan to save us in case we fail,” he mumbled with his mouth full. “Nothing I’d be stupid enough to share with you. Where did these spies say they were going?”
“They didn’t,” she replied. “I don’t know which way they went. But from what you said, it seems plain that they’re going straight for the Jordan to report back to Bin-Nun. Think you can catch up with them?”
“They’re dead already,” he promised her as he walked out
of view and Deker heard a door open. Before it closed behind
him, Hamas added, “Next time I see you, my flower, I’ll eat the sweeter fruit.”
20
It was a shell game as Rahab moved Deker from room to room, avoiding any Reahn soldiers until they finally reached the ground floor. There Rahab pulled back an ornate rug to reveal a trapdoor and stone steps. He followed her down the narrow steps to the cellar below her villa.
Dust filtered down between the creaking wooden planks above, and Deker could hear the boots of the Reahn troops doing room checks. He looked down at the beaten earth below his boots and noticed it sloped upward to a small dark square in the far wall.
“This way,” she told him.
Rahab’s oil lamp illuminated a square tunnel opening in the wall. The bronze grillwork that had covered it lay on the floor.
They ducked through the short tunnel that led to a larger cellar filled with grains and rows of ceremonial jars. Then Deker saw the human skulls on the wall with seashells for eyes. The faces had been made up with lime to create some semblance of life.
“My other sisters,” Rahab said calmly, and continued on her way. “The jars have the smaller bones of newborns burned alive to Molech.”
Between the strange odor of the preservatives in the jars and the scent of plants to mask it, Deker felt ill.
“Your way out,” she said, pointing to the dark end of the room.
Wooden steps rose up to a small alcove and a window, and Deker realized this cellar was actually inside the outer city wall. A shadow moved next to the window and a voice startled him.
“I’ll take the cruel justice of Shittim to this so-called civilization any day,” said Elezar. He was already fastening a rope to the window while the girl who had taken him below looked on. “What took you so long?”
Then Elezar saw Rahab in the light, still holding Deker’s hand, and did a double take at the resemblance to Rachel.
“Rahab,” Deker told him. “She’s coming with us.”
“No, I’m not,” she said, and Deker felt her yank away her hand. “I have family here. Hamas will kill them in retribution as an example to all in Reah for my betrayal.”
Elezar tested the rope and seemed satisfied. “You heard the whore.”
Elezar said it in English, but Rahab got the drift.
“Abraham is my forefather too,” Rahab said in Hebrew, surprising Elezar. “And as Yahweh made a blood provision for Abraham to sacrifice instead of his son Isaac, so he will make provision for non-Hebrews.”
“What do you know of Yahweh?” Elezar spat back.
“I know that forty years ago Yahweh sent the Angel of Death to Egypt, and today he has sent Bin-Nun to Reah,” she said. “But Hebrews were spared if they painted their doorposts with blood and the Angel of Death passed over them. I want to be passed over too. So I beg you, swear to me by Yahweh, since I have shown you kindness, that you also will show kindness to me and my house. Give me a true token, and spare my father, my mother, my brothers and all that they have, and deliver our lives from death when you destroy Jericho.”
“No,” said Elezar.
“She’s saving our asses, Elezar,” Deker shot back, and then told her, “Our lives for your lives.”
“Two conditions,” Elezar added in Aramaic, glaring at her. “One, neither you nor your family nor any of your sluts break your promise and talk about this business.”
She nodded.
“Two, expect no kindness from us until after the Lord has given us the land.”
She nodded again, and as she did they could feel the walls shake.
“What the hell is going on?” Elezar demanded.
“They’re opening the gate for Hamas,” she told them.
Deker stuck his head out the window and looked down the north wall twenty meters to the ground. The sound was coming from his right, and he looked east in time to see Hamas and his horsemen thunder out the main gate, only thirty meters or so out of view around the corner on the eastern wall. They were taking the main road toward the fords of the Jordan. Then the walls began to shake as the city gate closed again. Deker glanced up toward the top of the wall. The angle prevented him from seeing any Reahn guards, and hopefully the situation was the same for them.
He pulled his head back into the cellar and told Elezar, “We’re good to go.”
“Hamas and his riders will be scouring the fords up and down the Jordan,” Rahab told them. “Hide in the hills to the north for a few days. Hamas will think he missed you and return. Then it will be safe for you to cross over.”
Elezar looked noncommittal, refusing to confirm or deny any of their plans with her. Then he spoke to Deker in English. “We go for the Cave of Temptation. No more than a couple of kilometers from here. We hide out and then report back.”
Deker nodded. The cave was allegedly the place where in coming centuries Jesus Christ fasted and prayed for forty days when he was tempted by the devil. By the sixth century, various monasteries and churches had been built over the entrance. By the twenty-first century it was a major tourist attraction in modern Jericho. The tram left from practically where he was standing inside the city and floated directly to the cave entrance. Tonight they’d have to take a more circuitous route.
Rahab said, “Now give me a sure sign that you will save us from death.”
“The sign will be that you’re still alive after we lay waste to your city and leave it on the ash heap of history,” Elezar said, positioning himself in the window to rappel down the wall outside. “Deker, let’s go.”
Deker looked her in the eye. “Your lives for our lives.”
She nodded.
