matter. Deker was a demolition black belt who used his target’s own weight against itself.
As he leaned over and got to work with a single C-4 brick, he could feel old Kane breathing over his shoulder, watching him ply the putty into a natural sandstone groove halfway up one of the supporting boulders.
Moreover, since their lives were on the line, he would have to risk overkill and a flair for the dramatic by throwing in another brick for good measure: one brick of C-4 to blow out one leg with a short timer, and then a second brick on a slightly longer timer to push and twist the monument’s capstone up and out in the proper direction—away from his alleged ancestors.
Bricks lodged and smoothed into place, Deker inserted the twin blast pins with radio receivers deep into each clump of putty. He set the timers just a millisecond apart. The green light on each pin detonator began to blink, signaling that its explosive was armed.
Taking a look at what his hands had so quickly wrought, Deker suddenly worried that Kane and the rest weren’t far enough away.
“Get them back, Elezar!” he shouted.
Elezar began yelling as Deker ran toward the signal tower, most of the others in tow. But Kane, arms folded, remained standing a few meters away, refusing to look panicked or concerned.
Deker raised his arms to the sky like Moses for dramatic effect, tightening his grip around the wireless pen- shaped detonator in his right hand. His thumb rested on the red button on top. He pumped once, releasing the safety. Then he pumped again, sending a radio signal to the receivers embedded in the C-4.
There was a split-second delay, then a one-two blast that blew up the capstone. The shock wave blew him back off his feet and sent the line of commanders behind him to their knees, where they clapped their ears under their helmets. Meanwhile, broken pieces of rock exploded in the opposite direction.
Deker, ears ringing, felt the ground shake as the boulders bashed each other to bits and came raining down hard, raising a cloud of dust and debris into the air.
He coughed twice and helped the smiling old Kane up to his feet. If the guy wasn’t deaf before, he probably was now.
Everybody else removed their hands from their ears. A few went wobbly in the legs, having trouble with their balance. All were staring at the small pieces of rock scattered across the ground.
It was suddenly quiet again, save for the howls from a few boys who had secretly sneaked out for the show.
General Bin-Nun suddenly threw his hands up to heaven and shouted, “
Hope had returned to his haunted eyes with the explosion, and Deker could see a glint of genuine relief in his face as the rest began to chant after him.
“
But the shouts to heaven had wiped the smiles off the faces of Phineas and the Levites, who looked at Deker like he was the devil.
“
“What are they saying?” Deker called to Elezar.
Elezar, his eyes ablaze with joy, said, “It means ‘Every breathing thing.’”
“What does
“Bin-Nun has declared a holy war. They’re calling for death to everything that breathes.”
Deker had a sinking feeling. “What about us?”
“He says we’re free to return to heaven,” Elezar answered. “Just as soon as we spy out Jericho and come back and tell them how to blow up its walls.”
8
At sundown Deker stood in the clearing where he had blown up the dolmen monument and watched the column of smoke atop the signal tower turn into a pillar of fire. The change announced the start of a new day on the Hebrew calendar along with his and Elezar’s mission to spy out Jericho.
None of it made any sense. All he knew was that he wanted to cross the Jordan River and enter the Israeli- occupied West Bank territories and escape this nightmare. The shouts of the commanders from that afternoon were still ringing in his ears.
Deker scratched at his itchy change of clothing, which included a long-sleeved gray cashmere shirt, tight- fitting brown-burgundy wool pants and white deerskin boots. He couldn’t wait to see Elezar’s getup when his superior finally emerged from the nearby changing tent.
Standing by to bless them on their way was Phineas the Levite. The young, fat priest actually seemed sorry to see him go.
“You and the angel Elezar appeared and gave Bin-Nun his first miracle today,” Phineas told him in ancient Hebrew while he stood before the signal tower.
Deker was beginning to understand his ancestral tongue after hearing it spoken over his cattle-and-corn dinner, most of the talking coming from Phineas. The priest’s monologues were longer than Elezar’s. Speaking ancient Hebrew, however, would be a challenge, one Deker hoped would be wholly unnecessary as soon as he and Elezar were off.
“He needed a sign of Yahweh’s blessing on him as Moses had,” Phineas went on about General Bin-Nun, seemingly unaware that the halo effect of the pillar of fire behind him lent him a rather hellish aura. “He seems to have found it with you and your magic mud bricks. He’ll need more signs and wonders to lead us into the Promised Land.”
Apparently so, Deker realized, what with the likes of Phineas and the rest of the Levites whom General Bin- Nun had to deal with. They obviously had served as Moses’ own sort of Praetorian Guards until Bin-Nun wisely disarmed them upon assuming command of not only the army but also the nation, such as it was. Still, Bin-Nun had to assuage the clergy. Especially now, as they prepared to cross the Jordan River into the land they claimed God had promised their forefather Abraham.
“The manna grain that has fed us for forty years is drying up, and the troops have resorted to grabbing food by attacking caravans on the King’s Highway to the east,” Phineas confided in him. “The sooner we reach the land of milk and honey, the better for us all.”
If food was in short supply, Phineas certainly didn’t look like he was suffering as he lovingly used a stone to sharpen the bronze tip of his spear like a pool cue. It was the same spear, he had boasted earlier, that he had used to shish-kebab the Midianite princess Cozbi and her Hebrew backslider in mid-fornication. He took particular pride in demonstrating the motion of his single thrust through the back of the Hebrew and into the belly of the Midianite. He even hazarded a hope that she had been with child, although he confessed she would have been too early in her term to be certain.
Deker nodded at Phineas as Elezar at last appeared with Salmon and Achan, the young Judah Division guards who had welcomed them into Camp Shittim by hosing them down and whacking them around the decontamination tent.
Elezar had the horses and supplies, along with his equally hideous change of clothing: a long-sleeved tan cashmere shirt, close-cropped olive wool pants and white deerskin boots.
“What the hell is going on, Elezar?” Deker demanded as they mounted their horses. “We look like pimps from Tel Aviv.”
“The book of Joshua in the Hebrew scriptures says that Joshua the son of Nun sent two spies from Shittim to
