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.” She turned and looked down into the open grave and began.Peace be to men who are of bad will,and may an end be put to all vengeanceand to all talk about punishment and chastisement.The cruelties mock all norms and principles,they are beyond all limits of human understandingand there are many martyrs.Therefore, Goddoes not weigh their sufferings on the scales of your justice,so that you would demand a cruel account,but rather let it be valid in a different way.Rather, write in favor of all executioners, traitors, and spies,and all bad men, and credit to themall the courage and strength of soul of the others.Miriam’s voice wavered as she continued reciting the prayer.Then, as she came to the end, her voice strengthened.All the good should count and not the evil.And for the memories of our enemies,we should no longer remain their victims,no longer their nightmare and their shuddering ghosts,but rather their help, so that they may cease their fury.That is the only thing that is asked of them,and that we, after it is all over,may be able to live as humans among humans,and that there may be peace again on this poor earthfor the men of good willand that this peace may come also to the others.Hausner only half-listened as the last sounds of Miriam’s voice died in the darkness.It was a senseless prayer—a dangerous prayer for people who were going to have to live with revenge and hate in their hearts if they were to survive.Miriam, Miriam.When will you learn?The funeral service was ended.Hausner realized that everyone was gone and he was alone.He looked out across the Euphrates, out across the black mud plains, out to where the black velvet sky met the black horizon, out toward Jerusalem.He fancied he saw the lights of the Old City, but it was only a star setting on the horizon.It disappeared, and in that moment, he knew he would never go home again.BOOK THREEBABYLONTHE ISHTAR GATEGo ye forth of Babylon,flee ye from the Chaldeans,with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this,utter it even to the end of the earth;say ye, The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob.And they thirsted not when he led them through the deserts: he causedthe waters to flow out of the rock for them:he clave the rock also, and the waters gushed out.Isaiah 48:20–2121They came soon after the funeral service was ended.They did not come on line as they had the night before, but in small squad groups and fireteam groups—in threes and sixes and nines.They moved quickly and silently from one area of cover and concealment to the next.They picked out the best avenues of approach, having found them the hard way the previous night.They were surprised to find the low walls built across the gullies, but they crawled up and over them like snakes and continued in the erosion gullies upward, toward the crest.Noise control and light discipline were excellent, equipment was taped down, faces were blackened, and the death penalty was in force for any breach of orders.Ahmed Rish crawled with his lieutenant, Salem Hamadi, some distance behind their advancing army.Both of them knew that this might be their last effort.If they failed, it would mean humiliation and eventual death at the hands of their own men or at the hands of a tribunal made up of other Palestinians.Worse yet, they might be hunted for the rest of their lives by Mivtzan Elohim.They might spend the remainder of their lives at Ramla.The irony was that the head of Mivtzan Elohim, Isaac Burg, was within their grasp, as was fame, fortune, and glory.For Rish and Hamadi this was the most important night in both their lives.Rish covered his eyes as a swirl of sand blew in his face.He put his mouth to Hamadi’s ear.“The ancient gods are with us.Pazuzu has sent us this wind.”Hamadi wasn’t sure whom the wind was sent for.He spit some sand out of his mouth and grunted.* * *Nathan Brin rubbed his eye and looked again, then shut off the scope.He put his arm around Naomi Haber, who was nestled next to him.“My eyes are strained.I’ve been seeing things since sundown.” He pushed the rifle sideways across the earth wall.“Here.Take a look.”Naomi ran her hand through his hair and wiped the sweat and camouflage dirt from his forehead.The inevitable had happened, after hours of forced company and a high state of nervous tension, combined with the fact that neither of them knew if they would be alive very much longer.She doubted if she would look twice at him in a café in Tel Aviv.But this was Babylon, and perhaps some of the wantonness of the place hung in the air like a vapor.Their lovemaking, accomplished between sunset and the end of the funeral service, had been as hurried as Hausner’s and Bernstein’s, but much more frantic.It was interrupted whenever either of them had had a premonition or a panicky moment and they had stopped to scan the slope.They had laughed over the clumsy affair.But that was before, when there was little chance of the Ashbals being in the area.Now they were dressed, and the threat of attack was very serious.Naomi Haber put the scope to her eyes and scanned.This was much different from match shooting.Much different.She could hit moving and still targets with uncanny accuracy, but she never was much good at picking out targets from a cluttered background.She was not yet familiar with the night view of the terrain.The eerie green glow further confused her.“See anything?” asked Brin.“I don’t think so.That damned wind.”“I know,” said Brin.The Sherji was picking up dust and sending wispy shadows across the land that could only be seen in the powerful scope.She cursed silently and handed the rifle back to Brin.“I’m not good at this.”Brin took the rifle and pointed it straight into the air.He scanned for a full three minutes before he spotted the Lear overhead.He estimated its altitude at better than two kilometers.Well out of range of his rifle.Hausner had told him to look for the Lear and to try to knock it down.He considered sending one round at it, but decided against wasting the ammunition.They were jammed, and that’s all there was to it.He switched off the scope and sat back.“Let’s give us and the batteries five minutes rest.” He lit a cigarette in his cupped hands.* * *The Ashbals took their time, resting between areas of concealment, then moving quickly to the next.They knew that the Israelis would have put out early warning devices and outposts, and they were on the lookout for both.In addition, they were under orders not to return any probing fire [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]