Zealot Page 18

  “Just returning a favor I owe Marcus. Besides, I’m perfectly safe. Avram Mordecai hasn’t taken a head that wasn’t in self-defense in two thousand years. He’s too caught up in the affairs of mortals. As long as he doesn’t find out about that century I spent as a Samaritan, I’m in no danger from him.”

  Constantine ushered Avram into the study. “Avram Mordecai, Adam Pierson.” Methos reached over the back of the settee to shake his hand, unwilling to relinquish his comfy spot. “And of course, you know MacLeod. Glass of wine? A little brandy?”

  “None for me, thanks,” Avram said, seating himself on an ottoman across the room from MacLeod and Methos. Constantine offered him the box of smokes.

  “Cigar?”

  Avram selected one with a smile. “Whatever your vice, Constantine’s your man.” Constantine clipped the end of the cigar for him and handed him a lighter. “In the old days, there would have been whores in the back room,” Avram said as he lit the thing and took a few preliminary puffs.

  “Why do I never get invited to those parties?” Methos groused.

  “So,“ Constantine said, settling back into one of the leather armchairs with his own cigar, “I hear you had something of a near miss yesterday.”

  Avram shrugged it off casually. “When you try to bargain with terrorists, you get what you deserve.” He shot a look at MacLeod. “Don’t you agree, MacLeod?”

  MacLeod wondered where this was leading. “Avram, Hamas planted that bomb, not the Palestinian people. Hamas are your terrorists.”

  “These days Hamas has more Palestinian support than Arafat and his merry men do, MacLeod. What does that say about your Palestinian people?” Avram challenged.

  Constantine intervened. “What is this about, Avram?”

  “Haven’t you heard, Marcus? Our good friend Duncan MacLeod is shacking up with a terrorist.”

  MacLeod was angered by the accusation. “Maral Amina is not a terrorist.”

  “No?” Avram said, standing so he could look MacLeod in the face. “Then what do you call her? That woman is the legal representative of an organization whose stated purpose is the genocide of the Jewish people. You’re shtupping Hitler, MacLeod!”

  MacLeod took a long moment. He knew any immediate response he’d make would only make matters worse, and in his present state might prove violent. Another deep breath. “That was thirty years ago, Avram,” he said carefully. “The PLO has changed. The Palestinians have changed.”

  “People don’t change, MacLeod. Their words may change, their propaganda may change, but what’s in their hearts doesn’t change.” Avram spoke with his body, spoke with his hands, the cigar dancing through the air. “They wanted us all dead then, they want us all dead now. And I will not roll over and let that happen. Never again. And if you ally yourself with them, you ally yourself against the Jews. Against me.”

  MacLeod would not give in to his anger, because he knew too well that was not the way to deal with Avram. “I am not allying myself with anyone, Avram. This is not about politics. It’s about an individual woman I happen to be seeing. And who I choose to see is none of your damn business.”

  “Not like you to pick the wrong side, MacLeod,” Avram said, arms crossed in front of him, egging him on.

  “There is no right and wrong, Avram, not this time.”

  “Wrong again.” Avram shook his head sadly. “Didn’t you learn anything in Warsaw?”

  “Yes, I did. I learned that no one group of people has the right to oppress and destroy another people because of their ancestry or how they choose to worship.” He kept his voice low and nonthreatening. “Or did I get that wrong, too?”

  That stopped Avram for a moment, but just a moment. “Is that what you think this is about? Since when are you so naive? You’re buying into her propaganda, lock, stock, and barrel.”

  “Am I?”

  Avram stepped toward him, scrutinizing him intently. As the two men sized each other up, MacLeod couldn’t help but be reminded of their first meeting—the same hostility, the same inability to trust. Everything had changed since then, but apparently nothing had. They regarded each other in angry silence, resolute will battling resolute will, the only sound in the room the quiet tap, tap, tap of Methos’s foot against the carpet.

  Methos could stand it no longer. “Okay, look, a priest, a rabbi, and a chihuahua went into a bar one night—”

  “Pierson!” Constantine scolded.

  “What?” Methos said, feigning innocence. “You all seem to be confusing what sounds to me like a pleasant roll in the hay with the start of World War III. Chill out a little, would you? She’s just here to negotiate for a few run-down blocks of real estate.”

  Avram jumped on it. “A piece of the City of God! She has no right. It was taken from us, and now that we have it back, it is ours.”

  “Well, I’ll make sure to tell the Jebusites,” Methos said casually, strolling over to the decanter to freshen his drink.

  “Pierson, what the devil are you talking about?” Constantine was confused by the non sequitur.

  MacLeod didn’t appreciate Methos’s interjecting into his debate. “Adam,” he growled warningly.

  “The Jebusites, the people that shepherd boy—what was his name?—David took Jerusalem from in the first place. Under your tautology, looks like they can have their city back. Come to think of it, the Manhattan Indians may want to have a look at this, too.”

  MacLeod shot him another angry look. “You stay out of this.” But Methos held his ground.

  “Okay, maybe I am being facetious, but the point is, people have been fighting, and dying, over that same piece of arid hillside for nearly five thousand years. This is not an exclusive Arab/Jew thing. It runs much deeper than that.”

  Avram countered, “This isn’t about land. This is about the preservation of a people. About the protection of a way of life that dates back thousands of years. I have dedicated my entire life to this.”

  “And what about the Palestinian way of life? Does that mean nothing to you?” MacLeod said, and he was stunned by the intensity of the hate in Avram’s dark eyes.

  “What’s happened to you, MacLeod? Once you were willing to give your life to save a handful of Jews you didn’t even know. Once you fought with us, bled with us, mourned with us.” He thrust his smoking cigar into MacLeod’s face for emphasis. “The Duncan MacLeod I remember wouldn’t allow himself to get dragged around by his dick!”

  MacLeod grabbed the cigar from Avram’s hand and ground it out with such force it crumbled into leaves. Smoke swirled around them.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Warsaw: May 7, 1943

  Smoke swirled around him, so dense he could feel it against his skin. MacLeod fought for air. For each breath of oxygen he managed to draw in, he couldn’t stop the smoke from invading his lungs, tightening his throat. Sweat dripped down his forehead, into his eyes, the heat intense and growing hotter. Guided by the light of an electric lantern reflected eerily from the translucent smoke, he groped around the floor until he found a makeshift pallet. He ripped off the sheet, bit down hard on one edge of the cloth, and pulled with all his strength. The fabric tore. He pulled off a wide strip and tied it quickly over his nose and mouth. It couldn’t increase the amount of oxygen in the room, but it might limit the soot and ash filling his lungs.

  He tore off more pieces. “Avram, here!” MacLeod called out. “Take these.” Avram appeared out of the smoke rapidly filling the malina where the remnants of his unit had sought an hour’s rest and refuge. He took the cloths from MacLeod and began to pass them out to the others holed up in the bunker.

  There were eleven of them in all in the tiny room that had been dug beneath a dry goods shop on Ostrowska Street. MacLeod and Avram; Landau, from Avram’s unit, whose arm had been broken not an hour before by a wall that collapsed from a German shell; Rubenstein, another ZOB fighter from the unit; Miriam, who had been forced to seek refuge with their unit after a German squadron had blocked off access
to her own while she was couriering messages from Gutman; and six noncombatants—Singer the shop owner, his wife and son, a nephew, a neighbor woman, and a small, silent boy the nephew had found wandering in the streets.

  Miriam had known of the malina beneath Singer’s shop, and, when Avram realized they would need a safe place nearby to try to set Landau’s arm and to rest for an hour or two until nightfall, she’d led them there. Singer and his family had welcomed the fighters happily, offered them part of the little food they had remaining. In return, they begged for news from the outside. How went the battle?

  The Germans’ most powerful weapon in the war for the Ghetto had not been their tanks or their automatic rifles or the almost constant shelling by the cannons they’d placed just outside the Wall. The most fearsome weapon in the German arsenal had turned out to be the flamethrower. Nearly two-thirds of the Ghetto was in flames or had already collapsed into smoldering ruin. Thousands had been flushed from hiding and captured or shot by the Germans as they tried to surrender. Thousands more had perished in their hidden underground bunkers, overcome by smoke and heat as the buildings above them were systematically burned to their foundations.

  Somehow, Singer’s block had been spared thus far. It wasn’t until Avram had set Landau’s arm with an improvised splint, the other fighters had gratefully accepted a little water and some stale bread from Mrs. Singer, and MacLeod had signaled they’d best be moving on that they heard the rushing, the roaring of the beast above them. Thick smoke began pouring through the ventilator shafts. The shop was ablaze.

  Rubenstein stumbled in from the narrow tunnel that led topside, choking on the dense air. Avram quickly tied a cloth around the man’s nose and mouth. Rubenstein shouted to be heard above the roar of the conflagration above. “Tunnel’s clear so far. No fire,” but he shook his head at Avram’s look of relief. “There’s a squad at the end of the street. Six or seven. They’ll pick us off as soon as we show our heads.” Avram looked at MacLeod, anguished, out of ideas.

  MacLeod looked at the Singers, who looked to him with the last bit of hope they had in their hearts. The eyes of the poor little boy too traumatized to tell anyone his name, yet who’d somehow managed to hang on this long, seemed to bore right through him. MacLeod faced a decision he’d hoped he’d never have to make. Would it be more merciful for these innocent souls to die a quick death at the end of a Nazi rifle or a slower one here in the shelter they’d dug for their protection?

  Suddenly, Miriam pushed forward. “I have an idea,” she shouted. She pulled the cloth mask from her face and dipped it in a cup with a little water still at the bottom. As quickly as she could, she used it to wash the soot and grime from her face, then pulled the scarf from her hair, shaking her hair out so it was full and loose. Then she handed her pistol to Mr. Singer.

  MacLeod protested, “Miriam, what do you think you’re doing?”

  “Cover me,” she told MacLeod, hurrying toward the access tunnel. “And be ready to get the hell out of here!” MacLeod followed her up the tunnel. Behind him, he could hear Avram directing the others to do the same.

  As she reached the door to the outside, Miriam unbuttoned the top buttons of her shirtdress until the tops of her breasts were visible. She licked her lips and ran a hand through her hair. Then she threw open the door and ran out into the smoky street.

  “Hilfe! Don’t shoot!” she cried out in fairly good German, good enough at least to catch the German squad’s attention. “Help me, bitte! Der Juden, those horrible Jews, they kept me prisoner. Please, save me!” To add impact to her performance, Miriam dropped to the ground in a swoon.

  The squad started down the street toward her at a trot. As they drew near, Miriam reached into the pocket of her dress and wrapped her fingers around the prize secreted there—her last grenade. She and the other ZOB fighters had spent days working on this drill, she could do it in her sleep. She pulled the grenade from her pocket in one fluid motion, pulled the pin, and pitched it expertly into the center of the squad. Leaping to her feet, she took off running in the opposite direction.

  A second later she could hear the explosive erupt behind her. Almost instantly, the shock wave caught up with her, knocking her to the ground.

  MacLeod watched the explosion from the mouth of the bunker. Soldiers in the air, arms, legs flying apart from bodies. The air was filled with blood and the screams of maimed and dying men. Not a German was left standing. Immediately, he began to pull Landau and the others from the tunnel, pushing them toward the street in the opposite direction. “Run, run, hurry, move!” Rubenstein followed after the Singer family, carrying the little boy out of the bunker. “Go! Hurry!” Avram brought up the rear, herding them all toward a nearby alleyway.

  Only when everyone was out could MacLeod turn his attention back to Miriam, who was rising to her feet with a huge smile. Thank God, MacLeod thought, as she gave him a thumbs-up to let him know she was fine.

  “How was that?” Miriam called out, nearly laughing from relief. She began to run to catch up with him.

  “You were magnificent. Now let’s get out of here.”

  She’d nearly reached his outstretched arms when, blam, a single shot rang out. MacLeod watched helplessly as Miriam’s body jerked unnaturally in the air, then hit the cobblestones at his feet with a sickening impact.

  “MIRIAM!” he screamed, dropping to his knees, reaching out for her, heedless of any danger to himself as two Germans rounded the corner at a run, their rifles firing. Her eyes stared lifelessly into his own and he could see the light was gone. The bullet had shattered her spine, ricocheted into her brain. Death had been instantaneous. “Oh, God, no,” he whispered, and closed her sightless eyes with hands dripping with her blood.

  A shot whizzed close to MacLeod’s head. Before he could even respond, another rifle fired, this one from behind MacLeod, and the closest German fell, one side of his face blasted away.

  “C’mon, MacLeod, she’s gone. We have to go!” he heard Avram shout behind him as he fired again. “Let her go.” He knew Avram was right. He gathered up his rage and grief and managed to fire a shot straight through the heart of the second German before the tears came and blurred his sight. He staggered down the street, toward Avram and the others.

  * * *

  Midnight. The near-constant shelling from the artillery outside the Wall abated, and the streets of the Ghetto were once again quiet, a quiet broken only by the sporadic burst of gunfire and the shuddering collapse of buildings still aflame.

  MacLeod and Avram were still trying to make their way across the Ghetto to rendezvous with the ZOB leadership. It was little more than a mile as the crow flies from Tzaddik’s outpost at the edge of no-man’s-land and the malina on Mila Street where they were to meet, but the route was thick with German patrols, with entire blocks burning out of control and mutilated bodies strewn along the sides of the roads like so much driftwood. The burning streets were bright like day, but on the passable streets, long since burned-out or mercifully untouched, it was black, and the smoke that hung over the Ghetto made it even harder to see. Familiar landmarks were gone, reduced to rubble. The journey seemed endless.

  Now MacLeod and Avram faced the added problem of what to do about the family Miriam had given her life to rescue from the Ostrowska malina. They needed to find another safe place for the Singers to hide. But they all knew that “safe” was a relative term.

  They made their way in complete silence, keeping to the alleyways, staying off the main avenues. They moved a block, a half block, sometimes only the length of a single building at a time. MacLeod and Avram scouting ahead, signaling the others to catch up, they moved their party of ten from shadow to shadow. MacLeod was grateful that Avram’s decades in Warsaw gave him an innate sense of the Ghetto. He seemed to know instinctively where they were, where to go, what to avoid in this now alien landscape.

  At Lubeckiego Street, Avram signaled everyone to stop. They had no choice but to cross this major thoroughfare. He waite
d for a few minutes, trying to detect any signs of life, any movement. The street was dark, deserted, silent. Finally, Avram signaled everyone on. They crossed the street single file, each barely able to see the back of the one in front of them in the smoke-filled dark, moving quickly to get to the protection of the buildings on the other side.

  “Halt!”

  An unseen German barked the command. Suddenly the street was bathed in a blinding white light. Everyone froze where they were, unable to move, as if transfixed by the light.

  The spotlight seared into MacLeod’s eyes. He forced himself to try to see beyond it, but his entire world had turned to white. Tears streamed down his face from the effort. Finally, he raised his rifle, closed his eyes, and fired two shots into what he hoped was the center of the brilliance.

  The light was extinguished in the shattering of glass.

  “Run!” he heard Avram scream as several shots were fired by the Germans into the sudden darkness. MacLeod opened his eyes but could see nothing but the afterimage of the blinding light. He started to run toward Avram’s voice, in the direction he thought was safety. He’d gone several paces when Rubenstein grabbed his arm, helped him up the curb, and into the narrow passage between two buildings. As his sight began to clear, he could see the others had made it safely across as well.

  “Whoa, nice shooting, Tex,” Avram said with a drawl.

  “All in a day’s work,” MacLeod answered. Then, more somber. “Let’s move.”

  Another two blocks brought them to the burned-out hulk that used to house the Bund, the Jewish socialist youth movement. It was obvious the building had burned early in the battle, and the remains were now cold and dead. MacLeod watched a cloud of anger pass over Avram’s face as he surveyed the devastation. “What?” MacLeod asked.

  “There once was a library here,” Avram said quietly. “Thousands and thousands of volumes they’d managed to save. Generations of Jewish thought, Jewish lives, Jewish dreams. Gone. Just gone. Just like the rest of us. Like they never existed.” He waded into the rubble, gesturing MacLeod to help him while Landau and Rubenstein stood guard, pistols at the ready, watching the streets.“The entrance to Mendik’s base should be right around here.”