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  There was complete silence in the room as Anielewicz weighed his faith in Avram against his distrust of MacLeod. Finally, he gave in. “Fine. But God help us all if you’re wrong.” He moved on to the next unit. “Gutman?”

  By the end of the meeting, it was nearly half past one in the morning. The Germans were expected to begin their assault at four. Anielewicz gave the word to the couriers to alert all the fighters to report to their stations and all noncombatants to enter the bunkers they had so carefully prepared over the winter and stay there. Until the end.

  One of the youngest commanders, a rabbinical student before God had made other plans for him and placed a rifle in his hands, led them in a brief prayer before they all started back to their units. As the commanders moved to leave, Anielewicz issued his benediction, and his challenge.

  “L’shanah hahor-or Birushala-yim!”

  Next year in Jerusalem.

  The final words of the traditional Haggadah told every year at the Passover seder. Next year in Jerusalem. They embodied thousands of years of history, of oppression, and most importantly, of hope. They were a beacon uniting the struggle against Pharaoh, against the Romans, against the Tsars, and now the struggle against the Nazis with the day-to-day struggle for life and Jewish identity. With it was the small comfort that the God who rescued his people out of the land of Egypt might somehow deliver them from this evil as well.

  As he walked through the dark, deserted streets back to his post on the other side of the Ghetto, vigilant, ready, the words haunted Avram. So many seders celebrated with friends and loved ones in so many lands. Happier times in Spain and Russia, Italy and North Africa, even America—but always the hope that next year they’d celebrate together in the Holy City. But there were so many nights like this one, waiting for the shadow of death to pass over, wondering who among his friends and those he loved would live to see the morning light.

  Avram moved silently across the cobblestoned streets. It was a skill he’d learned early on, to not be noticed, to disappear. As a Jew in foreign cities, it had kept him alive more than once. He moved like a ghost through a city of ghosts. Occasionally he could detect weak signs of life—the flutter of an upstairs curtain, shadows dashing furtively between timeworn brick buildings. Mostly he was one in the dark, one with the ghosts of Warsaw. Ghosts who had once hoped they, too, would live to celebrate Pesach in a Jewish Jerusalem.

  Avram himself had returned to Jerusalem only twice since the dark time when the Romans had dispersed his people to the four winds of the earth: once under the Byzantines, once under the Turks. Both times he’d left within a year, unwelcome in the place of his birth. Every street, every hillside was a reminder of what his people once were, once had—and had taken away. The Great Temple, the focal point of his mortal life, gone, destroyed. And in its place, the Dome of the Rock, built upon the blood and ashes of the Jews on the sacred Temple Mount by the followers of Mohammed. He’d vowed he’d never go back until Jerusalem was free once more.

  Next year in Jerusalem …

  He’d crossed out of the occupied Central Ghetto and into block after block of abandoned residences and factories that would never again hear the hum of machinery or the chatter of workers. Once the Ghetto had been bursting with the half million Jews forced behind its Wall. Now, with not even a tenth of its population remaining, most of the Ghetto lay vacant and desolate. This was the territory assigned to Tzaddik’s unit, the no-man’s-land between the Gesia Street entrance and the Central Ghetto. One last chance to try and stop the Germans before they could reach the last remnant of his people.

  Just ahead, he saw a figure dart out of the narrow passage-way between two buildings. Immediately, he shrank into the shadows of a nearby doorway. No one should be on this street. Unless they were coming from outside the Wall and had somehow gotten past MacLeod. He drew his pistol and checked it. Footsteps pounded toward him, echoing from the deserted cobbles, running.

  Closer. Avram braced himself, cocked the weapon. Then he reached out of the doorway and grabbed the runner.

  Rivka screamed.

  Avram released her immediately. “Rivka? What are you doing out here?” he scolded, more angry at himself than her for the tragic mistake barely averted. “You should be in a malina.“

  The twelve-year-old, her heart still pounding wildly from her scare, drew herself up proudly, and announced, “I’m not a baby, Tzaddik. I’m a fighter.”

  Avram always found it impossible to be mad at Rivka’s enthusiasm. “Fine, fine, you’re a fighter. at are you doing here?” he asked with almost fatherly concern.

  “Gutman sent me to find Miriam. It’s time to report to the unit. Have you seen her?”

  “She’s at the lookout with MacLeod,” Avram answered, and then immediately regretted it as Rivka took off wildly down the street once again. “Rivka, wait!” He started after her.

  “I’m sorry, Duncan,” Miriam, her open shirtdress drawn loosely around her, nestled back against MacLeod’s naked chest and rested her head contentedly on his shoulder. Her throat and chest glistened with the mingled sweat of their bodies under the fullness of the moon. “I’m so sorry.”

  MacLeod, clad once again in his trousers, sat on the rooftop holding her close. “Sorry for what?” he murmured, nuzzling her ear.

  “Hmmmm, that’s nice …” she purred, her eyes half-closing. She lost herself in the sensation for a moment, then remembered what she wanted to say. “I’m sorry I acted like such a child, you know … before …”

  Smiling into her ear, he idly caressed one gently rounded breast. “I don’t see any children here.” He stroked its rosy peak with supple fingers. She inhaled sharply and let it out in a slow rolling sigh as he spoke. “I just see a beautiful woman who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to ask. Nothing to be sorry about.”

  “Really … ?” Her voice caught, then trailed off as Miriam felt his other hand trace a silken path up her bare leg. She had felt drained, emptied from more joy than she had ever imagined it possible to feel, and yet at the same time, energy surged through her at his touch.

  “Really,” he assured her. “Maybe I should be the one to be sorry.”

  “What for?” He had absolutely nothing to be sorry for in her eyes.

  “I don’t know,” he said, leaning her back into the crook of his arm, cradling her head and shoulders. She was feather-light. He leaned over her and pushed back the folds of the open dress from her belly, exposing the blackish purple contusions, the brand of the Pole on her fragile body. “Maybe for this.” Slowly, his lips touched the bruises and he gently covered them with tender kisses, as if he could somehow erase them from her body.

  He heard a sob escape her lips and pulled back, afraid he’d hurt her. But one look at her face, transported, told him otherwise. “Or maybe this,” he whispered, and gently kissed the gouge beneath her eye.

  “You didn’t start the war, Duncan,” she said after a moment.

  “No,” he agreed, “but I wish it was within my power to take you away from it.”

  “You already have.” Miriam arched her body in his arms so her mouth could reach his once again, her dress falling back, baring her shoulders, her breasts, her eager body to his touch.

  MacLeod’s mouth traveled from her lips down her throat. Miriam tilted her head back over his arm, exposing more skin to his caress. Tongue and lips guided by his fingers, he roved over her throat, lingered on the hollow at the join of head and torso, then buried his face between her breasts.

  And suddenly felt the telltale presence of another Immortal.

  MacLeod closed his eyes and sighed. He’d have to speak to Avram about his timing. But before he could begin to say a word to warn Miriam to dress, the rooftop door flew open and MacLeod found himself looking up into Rivka’s widening eyes.

  “Duncan?”

  At the sound of Rivka’s shocked young voice, Miriam sat up with a start and quickly pulled her dress closed, covering her body. Mortified, she turned her back
on the twelve-year-old, unable to look her in the eyes.

  “Rivka … ?” MacLeod was flustered. As he tried to stand up, Avram came pounding up the stairs behind Rivka.

  Avram took in the strained tableau and understood the situation immediately. He quickly placed one hand over Rivka’s eyes and spun her around with the other so they both faced the opposite side of the roof.

  “Hey!” she protested, squirming in his grasp.

  “Didn’t anyone ever teach you to knock?” Avram scolded her playfully as MacLeod helped gather Miriam’s things. “And you, goy,” he said over his shoulder to MacLeod with a laugh, “no one ever teach you to lock the door?”

  MacLeod helped Miriam button her dress in a fraction of the time it had taken him to lingeringly unfasten it. “What is she doing here?” MacLeod wanted to know.

  “Miriam’s supposed to be reporting to her station,” Rivka said with more than a trace of petulance. “Gutman sent me to tell her.” She squirmed harder. “Let me go, Tzaddik.”

  Avram looked back at MacLeod, who signaled it was safe. Avram released her. She turned around with an icy glare for Miriam and MacLeod. “It’s time to go,” she announced.

  MacLeod moved to her, touched her arm, “Rivka, I’m sorry,” but she shrugged him off and ran down the stairs. Miriam, with a weak smile, turned to follow. “I guess I should go “

  Avram gave her a brotherly peck on the cheek. “Be careful, tsatskeleh.”

  She smiled at the term of endearment and moved to the doorway. Then she stopped, one last look at MacLeod. “God be with you, Miriam,” he said.

  For a moment she looked tearful, then she smiled again. “And also with you, Duncan MacLeod.” She closed the door to the rooftop behind her as she left.

  Avram moved across the roof toward MacLeod. He picked up the empty wine bottle and regarded it with a wry smile. “I asked you to keep my seat warm. I didn’t say get it hot and sticky.”

  “You knew, didn’t you?”

  Avram shrugged. “I suspected.” MacLeod was silent, clearly troubled. Avram put a hand on his bare shoulder. “You did the right thing.”

  “Did I?” MacLeod wasn’t so sure. “Miriam’s so … young.”

  Avram’s eyes were frank, his words brutally honest. “And she’s probably not going to get much older. None of them are. And they know it.” MacLeod looked away, blinked hard. “Look, I know you don’t want to hear it, but that’s our reality here. Old morals, old standards, they don’t apply anymore. You do what you have to do to survive. That’s the only commandment we’ve got left.”

  MacLeod’s voice was tight. “It’s not fair.”

  “No, it’s not,” Avram answered, matter-of-factly. “No one should have to die like this. Least of all someone like Miriam.”

  “Then why can’t we stop it?”

  Avram could hear the weight of centuries in his friend’s cry. It wouldn’t help him to know that more centuries didn’t bring the answers. They only brought more pain. “Look, Duncan, you made her happy. You gave her light in the middle of darkness. You let her know she was worth something when the whole world tells her she’s more worthless than a dog. It’s a mitzvah, MacLeod, a blessing. Don’t rob it of its Joy”

  MacLeod Looked around for his shirt. “What about Rivka?” He found it in a heap behind the munitions crate. He shook it out and slipped it on.

  “She’ll get over it. Or she won’t. She’s just a kid. Kids’ dreams get shattered all the time, and they survive it. She will, too.”

  But sometimes dreams are all you have to get you through, MacLeod thought. But he knew Avram was right, they had more urgent things to worry about than the hurt feelings of a twelve-year-old. In less than two hours, the army of the devil would be massing outside the gates.

  He and Avram passed the intervening time in relative silence, each preparing for the coming struggle in his own way. Back in the Highlands, the warrior MacLeods would prepare for battle with glad hearts, with boisterous songs and loud war cries, with the clanging of steel to bolster their courage and throw fear into the hearts of their enemies. A glorious sight it would be, the clans arrayed for battle, confident in their bravery, sure in their victory, raising a ruckus that could wake the dead. But here, so far from the green fields of Scotland, victory was far from sure. And it was a very long time since the prospect of war had gladdened MacLeod’s heart.

  May-Ling Shen, who had helped open the door to the Eastern philosophies to him, had taught him another way to prepare—the kata. Visualizing the opponent, practicing defense and attack over and over first in the mind, then again on the practice floor, calmed and readied the spirit for battle. But that required an adversary whose method of attack could be known, whose moves could be predicted, and who would fight honorably. The evil facing them was none of those.

  In the end, after physically checking his weapons a dozen times, making sure they were cleaned and armed, ensuring that their makeshift incendiary devices were free of cracks and leaks, and then making sure again, he resorted to a battle-preparedness technique centuries older than himself—vigil. He sat in silence under the stars, unmoving under the nearly full moon that ushered in the Passover, and opened his heart and his mind … to God, to the universe, to whatever source whence enlightenment might come. But none came.

  After checking and double-checking the detonator and wires that led to the store of explosives buried beneath the Gesia Street gate, Avram prepared himself in a similar fashion. But where MacLeod had been able to empty his mind, Avram’s was full of thoughts and images he couldn’t erase. The light fading from his beloved Deborah’s eyes as she accepted death at his hands over enslavement to a Roman master on another Passover eve. The defiance in the face of his teacher and friend Rabbi Isaac as he offered his mortal life to the sword of the Crusaders storming the archbishop’s palace in Mainz, a place that should have been sanctuary for all. And the children torn from their mothers’ arms in the streets of Warsaw, the mothers sent to certain death in the ovens of Treblinka, their squalling children to God only knew where.

  His nostrils filled with the smoldering ruin that was once the tiny Russian shtetl of Onyetka, and he choked from the memory. He could hear the agonized screams of those consumed by flames as the Great Temple fell around them, their escape blocked by the mighty Roman legion. Slowly, he began to take hold of the memories, to focus. Painstakingly, he folded them together in his mind, building a foundation. And on that foundation of anger and hate and pain, Avram carefully centered himself. When he finished, he was ready to face the enemy. He was more than ready.

  MacLeod spotted the shadows at a couple of minutes past four. A truck passing outside near the Wall, stopping every fifty yards or so to discharge a handful of Germans. MacLeod indicated them to Avram with a quick nod of his head as he dropped to all fours on the rooftop. Avram joined him.

  “Guess they’re here to make sure we don’t try to leave the party early,” MacLeod said as he made his way over to the detonator.

  “I’d never think of being so rude,” Avram said. So far there was no action at the gate itself.

  Silently they waited, watching over the narrow brick wall that formed the boundary of the rooftop. All around the outside of the Ghetto Wall they could see the German soldiers taking up their positions, readying their weapons. But MacLeod knew that these soldiers were simply laying siege to the Ghetto, ensuring that no one got out. It remained to be seen how many soldiers would be poured into the Ghetto itself.

  Suddenly, off in the distance, the sound of gunfire. Sharp, staccato blasts followed by an explosion. “Ours,” Avram identified the sounds and their direction. “Nalewki Street. Couple of rifles and a grenade.” Then the sound of automatic fire returned and more grenade explosions. The fiery light from the Molotov cocktails flared and waned in the darkened Ghetto. The battle had been engaged in earnest. Avram could tell that MacLeod was reining himself in, that he wanted to be at the heart of the action so badly he could taste it. “Soon e
nough,” he counseled. “Our time will come soon enough.”

  It was hard on them both, not knowing what was happening in the Central Ghetto, hearing the guns and the bombs and not knowing who was falling, who was dying. But their duty was to their station—this would not be the only battle, just the first in a long campaign. At one point their spirits were lifted as they heard a loudspeaker outside the Wall warn the men stationed there “Juden haben Waffen! Juden haben Waffen!” The Jews have weapons—they’d surprised the Germans after all. But the element of surprise would only work in their favor so long.

  Finally there was movement outside the Gesia Street gate. Armored vehicles and a troop transport. Avram’s unit had placed several abandoned cars and an old wagon in front of the gate to block it, and it was obvious the Germans were having trouble getting it open. But not for long.

  With a tremendous crash, the massive wooden gates were torn asunder. Wood fragments flew in all directions as an armored tank barreled through the gate, pushing the cars out of its way as if they were toys, splintering the wagon beneath its treads. As the tank entered the Ghetto, MacLeod raised the plunger on the detonator. Avram signaled to MacLeod to detonate the mine, but MacLeod shook him off.

  “Wait for it …” MacLeod hissed. His fingers were itching to blow the bastards to kingdom come but he held back until both the tank and the transport were in range of the mine.

  MacLeod pushed down on the plunger with all his strength. The answering explosion knocked him back from the edge of the roof as Gesia Street opened up like a pit from Hell, fire and shrapnel erupting from its bowels. Cobblestones flew and walls crumbled. Windows were shattered for blocks around. The choking cloud of smoke and dust was blinding.

  MacLeod crawled back to the edge of the roof and peered through the dust at the street below, where the tank lay on its side, a behemoth beached by its own weight, belching smoke. Behind it, what remained of the troop transport was in flames. He could hear the screams of soldiers as they tried to escape the wreckage. Their luckier comrades retreated on foot back through the gate in terror, abandoning their dead and wounded.