The Medusa Stone

Unknown Location in the Middle East

News of Ibriham’s death in Rome reached Yosef a full day after the machine-gun attack because the team had been on the move during the night, traveling with their prisoner from their previous location in Lebanon to a more secure site. They were now ensconced in an urban safe house near the bustling city center, but cut off from it by the house’s ancient stone walls. The house was attached to its neighbors in the time-honored way of Middle Eastern cities, yet it had been vacant for several years.

The neighborhood was full of those sympathetic to their cause and would not report that the previously unoccupied house suddenly had ten people inhabiting it, eleven if one knew about Harry White held captive in the windowless cellar. This location did afford more amenities, but it was still much too dangerous to use for the remainder of their mission. Discovery by the police or special investigative services would mean either a shoot-out or execution after a quick, one-sided military trial. Apart from everything else, Yosef also had to consider the team’s next relocation, no more than a week away if he wanted to maintain the hard-and-fast rule about safe houses.

Yosef betrayed no reaction when he’d learned of the death of his nephew. But the few team members who’d worked with him before knew he was taking the killing very badly. He had a new hardness, a new layer of armor that shielded him from the loss and continuing pain of his life’s work.

Several of the team sat at the dining room table with pitchers of water and carafes of rich coffee. It was morning, the first minutes they had been able to relax. The remainder of the group were either on sleep rotation or out purchasing supplies. The dining room was heavy with both quiet grief and the coolness of the morning that soaked through the plastered walls.

Yosef had never used this particular safe house, but it was like so many others he had slept in, worked in, and killed in before. He had willingly given up his life to live like this, and while he felt no regrets for that decision, its toll was becoming too heavy. Losing Ibriham could very well be the last blow he would take.

No one at the table had spoken. Each was waiting for Yosef, the team’s new leader, to take up his mantle of command. He remained silent, inhaling cigarettes until the small astray before his chair brimmed. This morning had aged him a further ten years.

“What is the state of our prisoner?” Yosef finally asked, avoiding the real issue by addressing other details first.

“Settled as well as can be expected,” one of the team replied. “He’s much quieter and more cooperative since we started giving him cigarettes.”

“His injuries?”

“For an old man, he heals remarkably well. His hand’s doing fine.” This from a nurse who had been with the organization for a year.

Yosef lit another cigarette, watching the blue-gray smoke coil to the wood beams that trussed the high ceiling. He didn’t bother to blink away the smoke that scalded his eyes. The inquiring stares of his people galled to the point where he wanted to escape the room, the house, the entire organization. But not before Philip Mercer paid for his nephew’s death.

He forced himself from his reverie. “There is no point in going over what has happened. We all know that Ibriham is dead and this places me in command. It’s a job I don’t want, but that doesn’t matter.” If they wanted a morale-boosting speech, they could get it elsewhere, he thought. “We will continue as before. The only significant change of plans is that I will be heading to Eritrea to keep track of Mercer with those already scheduled to go. Also, when this operation’s done, I want our prisoner executed and I personally will deal with the American.”

The most junior member of the group spoke. “I am not questioning you, Yosef, but aggravating the situation with two more deaths won’t help our cause. According to our information, Mercer had nothing to do with Ibriham’s murder. Killing him will only draw more attention to our presence.”

Again nothing showed on Yosef’s face, but his voice was deadly. “Killing Mercer has nothing to do with our cause. It’s a personal matter. And no one will be aware of it. Eritrea’s a big country, full of danger. One more corpse buried in the desert will make no difference.”

He looked around the table to see if anyone else would question his decision, but none would meet his gaze. He had to keep the team focused for just a few more weeks, until the election. After that, he no longer cared what happened to them or himself, or God forbid, Israel.

Yosef thought back to the murder of his niece, Ibriham’s cousin, so many years ago. She’d been shot by an Israeli soldier who was so shaken by the accident that he’d been unable to return to active service. Ibriham had taken her death particularly hard, and Yosef had feared that he would join a Palestinian splinter group to reap his revenge. But days later, a bomb at a bus stop in Tel Aviv had killed eleven Israelis. Television reports showed cheering crowds of students in Gaza celebrating the martyrdom of the suicide bomber. That evening, Ibriham approached his uncle and asked to join him in the Mossad. Ibriham had been so impressed by the compassion the soldier had shown following the fatal shooting and so sickened by the crowds that the internal conflict that had torn him since childhood had cleared. He had said he was a Jew first and foremost and wanted to be like his uncle, dedicated to the preservation of the Jewish homeland.

From that time, Ibriham’s uncertainty gave way to a zeal that forced him to work tirelessly within the ranks of the Mossad. In just a couple of years, he’d topped the list of field operatives. This brought him to the attention of Israel’s current defense minister Chaim Levine, who was forming a secret team from within the ranks of Israel’s military and intelligence community for a shadowy program of his own. Ibriham quickly accepted Levine’s offer to join and eventually lead his cadre in pursuit of the minister’s dream. It had been Levine who drew Ibriham in, but now the responsibility fell on Yosef’s shoulders. The team watched him quietly.

“I know what you’re thinking: the old man has gone mad. You think I might jeopardize the mission with a vendetta against a man who’s actually helping us. I assure you, nothing will happen to Mercer until after he discovers the mine and we retrieve what we lost so long ago.” Yosef paused to fill a glass with water. “Ibriham’s death has been a devastating blow, not only to me personally, but also to you. But it doesn’t mean that we’re going to stop. In just a few weeks, if we are successful, we’ll rejuvenate our nation and will lay the foundation to ensure that never again will Jews feel that we do not have a rightful place on this planet.

“It’s true we have our land, bought with blood and defended with yet more. But since the founding of our state, we have lacked a soul. We’ve existed, lived, and died but never have we truly felt our place. Many thought taking Jerusalem in 1967 would give us that soul — the Western Wall, for generations known as the Wailing Wall because it stood inside Jordan’s borders. It was the wall built by King David himself when he erected the Temple. It’s a tangible piece of what we once had.

“We have it now,” Yosef scowled. “A towering wall of sandstone blocks that sits in the shadow of a mosque. I have been to the wall just once, back in ’67, as a soldier. I had killed to take those slabs of rock, killed joyfully. Since then, I find the area an abomination. There are more tourists there gawking than Jews praying. It sickens me.

“I fought and killed and nearly got killed for a symbol. The Western Wall was a first step but it was never meant to be the end of what we wanted to achieve in our promised land. It wasn’t until the Scud missiles slammed into Jerusalem and Tel Aviv during the Gulf War that a select group remembered that there was more work before Israel was complete.

“In a few weeks Defense Minister Chaim Levine will be Prime Minister. He’s going to nullify the peace accords and outlaw the PLO again. He’ll close our borders to the West Bank and Gaza, keeping the hordes in the slums they themselves have created. There will be no more suicide bombers because when he’s finished with the Palestinians, any of them willing to die for their cause will already be dead. In a short time, the Third Temple will rise on the foundation of its predecessors, and it will be the sacred heart of Jewry. It’s our mission to see that when the Temple is complete, God’s words will reside within its walls. That is our covenant with Him.

“Ibriham gave his life to this belief. And his death has not weakened my resolve, nor should it yours. We are closer than any have come in two thousand years. Because I want the geologist Mercer dead does not mean that I have abandoned our cause.”

Yosef finished what was the longest speech of his life, feeling bitter and empty inside. He cared nothing for the cause nor Chaim Levine. He’d only come out of retirement to help Ibriham. But his death gave Yosef a mission, a crusade more important to him than anything in the world. He wanted Philip Mercer to die.

“I’ll be leaving tonight with the rest of the Eritrea team. Before I go, I’ll speak with Minister Levine about finding a more suitable safe house. We can’t stay here for very long. Both Mossad and Shin Bet are looking for us, and Levine can’t risk our capture. He’ll have to find a more secure place than this, preferably on a military base, perhaps the secret weapons research facility in the Negev. I know he wants to distance himself from us in case we’re captured, plausible deniability, but we need his protection now that Ibriham is gone.”

Yosef knew that Levine would sacrifice everyone in the room if he felt it threatened his chances to become Prime Minister. Israeli politics was becoming as dangerous as those in some third world autocracy.

“Before I call Levine, Moshe, check on Mr. White and see if there’s anything we need when we move him again.” Yosef lit another cigarette, blowing a mushrooming jet of smoke across the table. “Remember this will be the last time he’s transferred so if he makes any special requests, grant them. In case we need him for another video for Mercer, we want him in good humor.”

“Yes, sir,” the young sabra said, getting up from the table to descend into the cellar.

The cellar walls were undressed stone, and the floor was heavily packed dirt hardened to an almost cement shine. The air was cool and damp, smelling of mold and neglect. Off a central hallway, a door led to Harry White’s cell.

There was no window in the wooden door, so Moshe had his pistol in hand when he threw back the dead bolts and kicked it open. By the murky light of the two dim bulbs strung along the ceiling, he could see the prisoner lying quietly on an army surplus cot. They had given him his clothes back for the move and allowed him this one measure of decency.

Harry looked at the teenager with the gun in his hand, and if he felt intimidated by the weapon, his attitude didn’t show it. He recognized him from the earlier cell and took the fact that the guard’s face was now uncovered as a very bad sign. “How about some food, you bastard. I haven’t eaten in days.”

In fact, it had been less than twelve hours but without natural light, Harry White’s circadian clock was fouled. Moshe looked at Harry blankly.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Harry nearly shouted. “You know, food. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, I don’t give a shit.” He pantomimed eating.

“You want to eat?” Having been born in Israel, English for Moshe was a second language and a particularly difficult one at that.

“Fucking camel jockey. Yes, I want to eat.” Harry sat up. He had taken off his prosthetic leg and Moshe stared morbidly at the empty trouser cuff that dangled off the bed. “And how about some hooch while you’re at it? My hand is killing me.”

Again Moshe stared without comprehension.

“You know, booze, swill, liquor, alcohol. Nectar of the gods, man! Bourbon, gin, vodka, scotch. Hell, I’d give anything for a Pink Lady right now.” Harry was getting nowhere and knew it. He lay back onto the bed, cradling his head in the cup of his hands for there was no pillow. “Ah, forget it. I may not know much, but I know Allah forbids you bastards from enjoying life’s last pleasure so just piss off.”

Moshe turned to go, but Harry stopped him with a shout. “But don’t forget some food, you stupid son of a bitch.”

Once again Harry was alone. There was a finality to the bolt slamming home that echoed. He heaved himself back up again, recovering his fake leg from under the bed and strapping it back into place under his pants.

They had drugged him late that night — that he did remember. Three men held him down while a woman slid a hypodermic needle into his arm. Of the trip to this new place, he recalled nothing. The room wasn’t any better or worse than his last cell except for the blessed relief that the DTs had not followed him. He had wakened, slowly, fearfully, but after twenty minutes realized that the flying monkeys weren’t going to bother him again. What a nightmare that had been.

As far as Harry was concerned, they could take detox and shove it up their collective camel-riding asses. He had spent the best part of forty years avoiding sobriety, and he wasn’t appreciative when it was forced down his throat. Apart from getting over the DTs, he was thankful they had left him his clothes.

Even to him, the sight of a naked, eighty-year-old man with one leg was pretty depressing, especially trying to piss into the little pot they had given him. His hands shook more than he ever realized, throwing off an already notoriously bad aim. God, will Tiny get a kick out of this story when I tell him.

For ten minutes he lay still, thinking. He had an advantage, two really, that his kidnapers didn’t know. One was that he didn’t fear death. He was too old for that. If they expected him to remain submissive, they’d made a big mistake. Thirty years ago, he knew, he’d be blubbering like a baby, but not now. That, he thought, was the one great thing about age. No one could hold death over you any longer. The fear just wasn’t there. His second advantage was his unshakable faith that if he couldn’t escape, he was sure that Mercer would come for him, someway, somehow. It was only a matter of time.

The locks barring his cell slid open again, and the door slammed back with a crash. The guard had his pistol in its holster, his hands occupied with a huge hunk of dark bread and a wedge of cheese twice the size of a pizza slice. And blessings of all possible blessings, he held a bottle nearly filled with a clear liquid. Even at the sight of it, Harry’s mouth flooded with saliva and his hands steadied. He looked longingly at the bottle. He wanted a drink so badly that Moshe was startled when Harry crossed the room with the speed of a man one quarter his age.

“I’ll give you a hand there,” he said, plucking the bottle from Moshe’s arms. He ignored the food the young Israeli had brought him.

Harry didn’t recognize the bottle’s blue label. With or without his glasses, the writing was an illegible scrawl, but he knew the smell as soon as he twisted off the cap and held its open neck beneath his alcohol-attuned nose.

“I have to say, I’m not much of a gin man myself, but under the present circumstances…” He tilted the bottle skyward, his throat bobbing rhythmically, gulping down three heavy swallows as if the harsh liquor had been mother’s milk. That first sip was the most pleasurable moment in Harry’s life and that included returning home after World War II. He sighed as the alcohol burned his throat and brought tears to his eyes. “I don’t suppose you’d want a snort?” He offered the bottle to Moshe.

Harry was shocked and more than a little intrigued when the dark-haired guard, no more than a boy with wide clear eyes and a face that had only recently seen a razor, took the bottle and took a long pull from it.

“I haven’t slept in two days,” Moshe said, proffering the bottle back to Harry. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me.” Harry was all charm. “It’s your booze. Take another pull, lad, you look like you could use it.”

“No, that is not permitted.” Moshe shook his head and left.

Harry sat back on the bed, the gin cradled in his lap. Damn. He’d hoped to get the kid drunk and escape but the little prick wasn’t going to fall for it. “Okay, Harry, old boy,” he said to himself, “what the hell is Plan B?”