The Boudicca Parchments

Chapter 70

The soldier was walking along by the side of the road. Officially, Israeli soldiers were no longer allowed to hitchhike, under standing orders designed to prevent kidnappings by Palestinian terrorists. Certain events had made the practice dangerous, even for male soldiers. To back up the rule and stamp out the dangerous practice, Israeli military police had resorted to staging fake kidnappings of soldiers caught hitchhiking, followed by swift military trials and fines.

But despite these measures and the obvious risks, some Israeli soldiers continued to hitchhike nevertheless, unofficially and inconspicuously. The army buses would normally take them as far as bus stops at major junctions and from there, they would make their way home using buses, on which they were allowed to travel free of charge.

So when Baruch Tikva saw the soldier walking along the road near the intercity junction, he knew that he was secretly hoping for a lift. He drove past at a slow speed and stopped just in front, opening the window and leaning towards the man on the asphalt pavement with a smile.

“Are you going to Mevasseret?”

He took a chance on getting it right. Naming a specific destination — a small township outside Jerusalem — would sound less suspicious than asking where he was going. If he got it wrong he could always loop around and try again with another soldier. But there was no need. Soldiers had been warned to watch out for tricks, like Arabs wearing Jewish-style skullcaps and playing Jewish religious music on the CD player. But you can’t beat appearance. Some Arabs can look like some Jews, and vice versa, but Baruch Tikva was pale-faced and so obviously of north European or north American ancestry that there was no way this soldier could doubt him.

“Yes.”

“Need a lift?”

“Yes… Thank you.”

Baruch pressed a lever to open the boot. The soldier threw his kit bag in the back and then got in the front seat, keeping his compact assault rifle. There were no doubts in the soldier’s mind when Baruch drove off in the promised direction. But within a few yards of where they had started, Bar-Tikva had whipped out a stun-gun, camouflaged as a mobile phone and given the soldier a ten second shock the torso that had left him barely conscious.

Realizing that a young fit soldier would probably not stay unconscious for long, Bar Tikva drove on, ignoring Mevasseret and looping back towards Motsa, a somewhat larger township outside Jerusalem. But instead of driving into Motsa, he stopped by the thick leafy trees by the entrance and finished off the job with a knife.

Then he got out, went round to the passenger side, hauled out the body and dumped it amidst the trees where it could not be seen from the road.

As he drove off and took the turning to Jerusalem, it was hard not to smile at how easy it had been. He would shed no tears over the dead soldier. Although the killing had been expedient rather than ideological, the fact was that the soldier had chosen to serve the evil Zionist entity. Even if he had been a conscript, he could still have refused. And he was obviously a Chiloni — a secular Jew and not a God-fearing one, with no commitment to Hashem and not in the least bit yiras shamayim.

The important thing to Bar Tikva was that he now had what he wanted: the assault rifle.