The Shortest Road: The Promised Wars: Book Two

© 2023 by David L. Robbins

All Rights Reserved

Cover Design by Matt Margolis

This book is a work of historical fiction. All incidents, dialogue, and characters aside from the actual historical figures are products of the author’s imagination. While they are based around real people, any incidents or dialogue involving the historical figures are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or commentary. In all other respects, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

Post Hill Press

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Published in the United States of America

Contents

Author’s Foreword

The Characters of The Shortest Road

Chapter 1: Gabbi

Chapter 2: Rivkah

Chapter 3: Vince

Chapter 4: Malik

Chapter 5: Rivkah

Chapter 6: Gabbi

Chapter 7: Vince

Chapter 8: Vince

Chapter 9: Malik

Chapter 10: Rivkah

Chapter 11: Vince

Chapter 12: Gabbi

Chapter 13: Malik

Chapter 14: Vince

Chapter 15: Gabbi

Chapter 16

Chapter 17: Rivkah

Chapter 18: Hugo

Chapter 19: Malik

Chapter 20: Vince

Chapter 21: Gabbi

Chapter 22: Vince

Chapter 23: Hugo

Chapter 24: Malik

Chapter 25: Hugo

Chapter 26

Chapter 27: Vince

Chapter 28: Rivkah

Chapter 29: Vince

Chapter 30: Gabbi

Chapter 31: Hugo

Chapter 32: Vince

Chapter 33: Hugo

Chapter 34: Vince

Chapter 35: Hugo

Chapter 36: Vince

Chapter 37: Hugo

Chapter 38: Vince

Chapter 39: Hugo

Chapter 40: Vince

Chapter 41: Hugo

Chapter 42: Vince

Chapter 43: Hugo

Chapter 44: Vince

Chapter 45

Chapter 46: Rivkah

Chapter 47: Vince

Chapter 48: Gabbi

Chapter 49: Rivkah

Chapter 50: Vince

Chapter 51: Rivkah

Chapter 52: Vince

Chapter 53: Rivkah

Chapter 54: Vince

Chapter 55: Malik

Chapter 56: Vince

Chapter 57: Gabbi

Chapter 58: Vince

Chapter 59: Rivkah

Chapter 60: Gabbi

Chapter 61

Chapter 62: Gabbi

Chapter 63: Malik

Chapter 64: Vince

Chapter 65: Malik

Chapter 66: Vince

Chapter 67: Gabbi

Chapter 68: Vince

Chapter 69: Vince

Chapter 70: Vince

Chapter 71: Gabbi

Chapter 72: Vince

Chapter 73: Gabbi

Chapter 74: Vince

Chapter 75: Gabbi

Chapter 76: Vince

Chapter 77: Malik

Chapter 78: Gabbi

Chapter 79: Vince

Chapter 80: Gabbi

Chapter 81: Vince

Chapter 82: Vince

Chapter 83: Gabbi

Chapter 84: Vince

Chapter 85: Malik

Chapter 86: Vince

Chapter 87: Malik

Chapter 88: Vince

Chapter 89: Malik

Chapter 90: Vince

Chapter 91: Malik

Chapter 92: Vince

Chapter 93: Malik

Chapter 94: Vince

Chapter 95: Malik

Chapter 96: Vince

Chapter 97: Malik

Chapter 98: Vince

Chapter 99: Malik

Chapter 100: Vince

Chapter 101: Malik

Chapter 102: Vince

Chapter 103: Rivkah

Chapter 104: Gabbi

Chapter 105: Vince

Chapter 106: Rivkah

Chapter 107: Vince

Chapter 108: Gabbi

Chapter 109: Vince

Chapter 110: Gabbi

Chapter 111: Malik

Chapter 112: Rivkah

Chapter 113: Malik

Chapter 114: Rivkah

Chapter 115: Malik

Chapter 116: Vince

Chapter 117: Vince

Chapter 118

For Lindy, who helps me get through.

Author’s Foreword

All principal events in The Shortest Road are based on the historical record. While several actual persons appear in this novel, the central characters are completely fictional. The exception is reporter Vincent Haas, inspired by the exploits and reportage of I. F. Stone and Kenneth W. Bilby, both journalists for New York’s Herald Tribune.

For the whole Arab world, the struggle is religious. It is for them a matter of Jewish religion against their own. The masses are gripped by widespread fervor. The men are keen to enter the fray as the shortest road to Heaven.

King Farouk I of Egypt

1948

The Characters of The Shortest Road

(In order of appearance)

Gabbi, Rivkah’s younger sister, Palmach

Vince Haas, American journalist for the New York Herald Tribune

Malik, a Bedouin

Barja, Malik’s older sister

Rivkah, Austrian immigrant to Israel

Tarek, commando jeep driver, born of Yemeni immigrants

Moshe Dayan, commander of the Eighty-Ninth Commando Battalion

Red Yakob, prisoner in Transjordan, Palmach

Benny, rear gunner in Gabbi’s commando jeep

Mrs. Pappel, Austrian immigrant to Israel

Jonny, commander of Gabbi’s jeep company

King Abdullah Husseini, Hashemite king of Transjordan

Hugo Unger, German plumber, survivor of Buchenwald, immigrant to Israel

Pinchus, commander in the underground dissident group Irgun

David Ben-Gurion, prime minister of Israel

Hillel, machine gunner in Gabbi’s jeep company

Elam, a driver in Gabbi’s jeep company

Count Folke Bernadotte, the UN’s envoy to Palestine, member of the Swedish royal family

Naftali, Romanian engineer on the Burma Road

Menachem Begin, leader of the Irgun

Major Keisch, officer in the Alexandroni Brigade of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF)

Abner, gunner in Gabbi’s jeep company

Pelz, Dayan’s second in command

Rabinowitz, young mechanic in the Eighty-Ninth Commando Battalion

Michael, Irish loader in Gabbi’s armored car

The mayor of Lydda

Schwimmer, Palmach captain

Shmulik, PIAT operator

Cohen and Spiro, members of underground dissident group, the Stern Gang

Chapter 1

Gabbi

May 14, 1948

Massuot Yitzhak

Arab Palestine

With her good right arm, Gabbi swept every dish, teacup, and saucer off the shelves. She threw pots and pans through the windowpanes.

By the light of a bonfire outside, she knocked the clock off the mantle and ground the bits under her boot. She smashed three lamps, the glass screen of a lantern, and that was it. There was nothing of real value in the small house, no antiques, no keepsakes or art. The Jews of Massuot Yitzhak had all come to Palestine empty-handed. Here on the edge of the Negev, they were the last of their lines, and the first of their lines.

Gabbi went out to sit on the porch step of her sister’s house. Not long ago this had been Gabbi’s home too. She might die today. It seemed a fine place to wait.

Tables and chairs burned nearby, near enough to feel the heat. Two young men with axes hacked the last of a rocker and a bed frame. Everything in her sister’s house that would burn had been dragged outside, demolished, and set alight, to deny the Arabs even the firewood. Inside, a farmer with a knife ripped apart mattresses and cushions. When the wreckers were done, they went elsewhere.

No one sat on the step with Gabbi; she wanted no one’s conversation. The bullet wound in her left shoulder talked enough.

The first light of dawn light washed the bare Judean hills rosy. Blood crusted in Gabbi’s uniform where the bullet had passed through. Blood had dried black on her wrist. Below Massuot Yitzhak, thirty Arab trucks waited in the wadi.

Using one hand, Gabbi raised a palm-sized rock. She smashed the barrel of her rifle until it bent. Her wound raised tears, but she pushed into the pain until she had ruined the pistol, too. Gabbi left both useless weapons beside her on the porch so the Arabs would see them when they saw her.

Three hundred armed Arabs entered Massuot Yitzhak. They came cautiously, dashing from cover to cover before they would step into the open. They seemed suspicious that the Jews might work some last-minute perfidy.

A dozen fellahin came to collect Gabbi. She stayed seated while they formed a semicircle. The men were peasants in dark robes dusty at the chest and knees, grit in their beards from lying under Jewish gunfire for three days.

The Arabs ogled Gabbi, curious. She stayed motionless while they kicked through the ashes of the bonfire and rummaged through Rivkah’s house, until one Arab gestured her to rise.

She cradled her hurt arm. At gunpoint, the Arabs walked Gabbi to the cistern in the center of the kibbutz; there, the surviving defenders of Massuot Yitzhak were being corralled. Twenty out of the two hundred were wounded, some borne on doors used for stretchers. All the walls of the kibbutz were pockmarked by bullets. Bloody handprints smeared a whitewashed fence.

Gabbi stumbled through the gathered soldiers and farmers to a spot near the cistern’s pump. She collapsed to her knees beside the low stone wall. Gabbi held no romance about living or dying on her feet. She was simply too tired to stand.

Arabs stomped about the kibbutz looking for pillage, but the houses, barns, workshops, clinic, kitchen, and dining hall had all been gutted by its people, just as every weapon had been spoiled.

The Jews hunkered under the early sun, waiting for no clear fate. Those nearest the cistern passed around cups of water while the Arabs set fire to the orange orchard, the olive grove, and the fields of fodder.

For an hour, one fellah after another stamped up to the Jews to fling worthless rifles and broken clocks at their feet. Gabbi and the defenders had spent three days of battle prepared to die. That resolve did not fade around the cistern but passed among them like the water; they sipped from it and refreshed themselves against the fear that they would be murdered. They held hands and assured each other with nothing but the faith that whatever was going to happen would happen to them all.

As the sun climbed, smoke from the burning orchards and crops blew high past the cistern. At no particular signal, without a trumpet or curses, a dozen fellahin stepped side by side and leveled their weapons at the seated Jews. The dozen Arabs became a muttering fifty. One young settler, a boy as blonde as hay, was the first Jew to stand. Then all two hundred put their feet on the ground.

Gabbi turned a slow circle, listening to the settlers pray in many languages.

None of the Jews spoke Arabic, they could only guess what the fellahin were saying. The Arabs raised voices at each other and jabbed gun barrels at the Jews. The Arabs seemed rudderless, even as they grew wild-eyed, as if some alarm had gone off and they needed to take action now or lose the moment.

From behind, other fighters, not peasants but soldiers of the Arab Legion, rushed forward to push down the guns and shout in the faces of the fellahin. The legionnaires wore khaki instead of peasant robes, moustaches not beards. They gestured east towards the Jerusalem road and to the rumble of engines climbing the slope, past the quarry. The legionnaires shook their heads and slapped their thighs as if disappointed.

Quickly, two ambulances and three buses roared into the center of the kibbutz; each bore the scarlet emblem of the International Red Cross. Out of the buses streamed dozens of nurses in grey smocks and white mobcaps. Five men in shorts and safari hats followed from the ambulances. One tall and wide-shouldered woman strode through the thick of the Arabs to stand with the Jews, nearest to Gabbi. In commanding Arabic she announced something. When she was done, she spoke in English to Gabbi.

You are a soldier?

Yes.

The Arabs are going to take your people to Transjordan. We will guarantee your safety.

Where are you from?

Sweden. And you?

Austria.

You’re hurt. The nurse plucked at the blood-stiff threads at Gabbi’s shoulder. You come with us. We will evacuate the wounded.

I don’t want to go.

"And so you may die. This wound will get infected. I would not expect mercy in Jordan.

Decide quickly."

The nurse strode off to find some Arab in charge.

The defenders of Massuot Yitzhak insisted Gabbi leave with the Red Cross and the other wounded. Go, they said, keep fighting.

In the late morning, a Red Cross doctor put Gabbi’s arm in a sling. She boarded a bus filled with other wounded and the smells of antiseptic and gauze. All eyes were plastered to the chicken-wire windows as the Arabs loaded the rest of the defenders onto black trucks. The fires in Massuot Yitzhak’s fields and groves were finished; the final smoke drifted across the white hills east to the Dead Sea.

After the Arabs had crammed one hundred seventy captives onto their trucks, a dozen nurses boarded the second bus; this one followed the convoy out of the kibbutz. The trip east into Transjordan would take less than an hour. The remaining nurses and doctors took seats on Gabbi’s bus among the bandaged.

The tall Swedish nurse sat with Gabbi. The wounded raised fists to Massuot Yitzhak as the bus began to roll.

The nurse said, A few stitches. A week to ten days. You’ll be fine, with a pretty scar to talk about.

At the bottom of the slope, between the heights of Yellow Hill and Rock Hill, the quarry road met an intersection. The Arab convoy with the prisoners of Massuot Yitzhak turned south for Hebron. Gabbi’s bus and the ambulances turned north, for Jerusalem.

Gabbi asked, Why aren’t we going to Kfar Etzion? There’s wounded there. My sister is there, she’s pregnant. You can bring her, too.

The nurse fidgeted on the bench seat, uncertain whether to touch Gabbi before she spoke.

No, dear. There aren’t.

Gabbi’s shoulder stabbed, as if her wound knew something before she did.

What do you mean?

You don’t know. The Swede glanced about the bouncing bus. Some realization made her jaw drop. My God. None of you know.

Gabbi squeezed the nurse’s wrist.

What happened?

The world collapsed into Gabbi’s heart, which could not hold it.

What happened?

Yesterday. The Arabs killed everyone in Kfar Etzion.

Gabbi’s grip on the Swede faded. The nurse said, That’s why we came today. To protect the rest of you. We thought you knew.

Gabbi held a breath, not knowing whether to scream or hold it forever. She spent it on a word.

Everyone?

I’m terribly sorry.

Gabbi rammed her face against the chicken-wire window. A mile away, on the highest hill of the Gush, Kfar Etzion had not been burned. Gabbi slid her wounded arm out of the sling to hook both hands into the crosshatch wire and pull as hard as she could. The wire didn’t give.

She shoved the tall nurse out of the bench seat; the woman tumbled into the aisle. Gabbi leaped for the front of the bus. The nurse grabbed her ankle, almost tripping her. Gabbi kicked to escape. She would jump off the bus, run to Kfar Etzion, live or die by what she found there.

She tore at every nurse who rose between her and the door. The bus sped north for Jerusalem.

Chapter 2

Rivkah

Hebron

Arab Palestine

Rivkah awoke in darkness, to a call of her name. Rolling over to face the bars, a great figure stood before her cell.

Malik’s arms came through the bars. She rushed off the cot, into his grasp.

Forgive me. He pulled her tight against the iron between them. I could not come before now.

Rivkah did not smell on Malik the desert, no sun or sand, not the stink of his camel. Only guns.

He released her sooner than she’d wished. Rivkah stepped away.

Where have you been?

With the other prisoners of the Etzion bloc.

Rivkah backed away to sit on her mattress and not risk her legs failing at whatever news Malik brought.

All of them?

All of them. The Red Cross arrived in time. The other three settlements were allowed to surrender.

Did you see Gabbi?

Yes. She was wounded.

Is she…

Your sister walked out of Massuot Yitzhak, a bandage on one arm. The Red Cross was allowed to evacuate her. I could not speak with her, you understand.

Yes. Thank you.

Your villages have been looted and burned. They are no more. This is what has begun.

On impulse, Rivkah covered her stomach. She had secreted something, a child, away from Massuot Yitzhak and Kfar Etzion before they were razed.

Where will I be taken?

Into Transjordan. You will be interrogated in Amman. After that, a prison in Umm el-Jimmal. You will all stay there until the war ends.

What will happen then?

The Jews will win this war, but it will not be quick. Your baby will be born in Transjordan. There is a doctor among the prisoners. It will be well. Come here.

Rivkah rose. Malik reached inside his deep sleeves for a matchbox. He struck a flame, the brightest thing in her cell for three days.

Malik moved the match closer and pointed at Rivkah’s hand.

In Amman they will take that ring from you. Give it back to me.

She slid the silver band off her finger. Palming it, Malik blew out the match. He kept the scorched stick to leave no evidence of himself.

When the war is done, I will go to Missus Pappel and give her this again. I have something for you.

From inside his robes, Malik pulled a folded page of the Palestine Post. He handed it to her.

You cannot be found with this.

Malik struck another match.

Read it to me, child. Whisper.

He burned more matches while she read and whispered. Listening, Malik’s hand went to his breast.

Rivkah returned him the sheet.

Tell him I’m alive. Find a way.

I have no way to find him. There is a war.

She reached through the bars to touch his billowy sleeve where he’d hidden the page.

Try. Please. The paper says he’s in Galilee.

Malik nodded.

Tell him Chayim for a boy. Chaya for a girl.

Behind his black beard starry with grey, Malik said, Life. It is a good name. One day I will bring a poem for your child. Farewell, Rivkah.

The dark feathered around Malik. He retreated facing her and did not turn his back until far away from her cell. Rivkah lay on her cot, hands over her kicking belly.

Chapter 3

Vince

May 16

Samakh

Jordan Valley

Israel

In a trench beneath a copse of date trees, forty young fighters slept in shifts, their hands as pillows. They wore misfit uniforms, mostly their own clothes and boots mixed with military wear, a wool cap, an olive sweater. One in five had no weapon. Vince did not sleep so that he might see the start of the war.

At midnight, the Arabs arrived. Five miles west, a pearly string of headlights appeared beside the Yarmouk River. Once the first Syrian trucks rolled across the border at al-Hama, they became invaders.

The mile-long Arab convoy rushed across Israel’s borderlands. A few hundred Jews in their path were the first soldiers of Israel in two thousand years, young men and women who’d hoped for one peaceful night, their first as citizens of their own nation. They aimed guns into the dark, unsure what might come out of it.

Two miles away, the invading convoy left the road, climbed a hill, and shut down.

Vince was older than the others in the trench. They asked him, Will the Arabs come tonight?

Dawn.

His answer was passed down the trench; the Jews pulled in their rifles. Those who could go back to sleep did. A few stayed on watch.

Vince walked to the end of the trench where he lay down alone. He didn’t want to talk, to ask questions or answer them. He’d hurried here to Samakh to get in the way of the war.

At sunrise, the shelling began. The Syrian artillery was random and inaccurate; rounds exploded in an avocado orchard and the open fields, shells overshot the village to fall in the Galilee. The Syrians managed to blow up a few mud huts in the village.

During the barrage, an Arab infantry company moved into the buildings of an animal quarantine station two hundred yards south of the village. They laid low while the cannonade continued another hour, still with little effect. When the big guns stopped, the Syrians made no charge at the Israeli force, just satisfied themselves with patrolling the road in armored cars.

The sunlight became pleasant on the banks of the Galilee. The battle took on the feel of deadlock, even reluctance. In midafternoon, Israeli reinforcements arrived, a hundred Haganah from Tiberias. They were a professional-looking bunch in matching uniforms, each with a weapon. They dug in alongside Vince and the platoon. The Arabs watched and did not shoot, saving their ammunition.

At dusk, in ocher light, the Syrians finally pounced. An artillery salvo did little damage to the Jews’ dug-in positions. In the van of the Arab assault, a trio of armored trucks clattered toward the village, firing their stub cannons.

When the armored cars had rolled within a hundred yards of Samakh, the Syrian infantry broke into the open. To a trumpet fanfare and ululations, the hundred Arabs in the quarantine station charged at Vince and the young soldiers under the fig trees. Three hundred more Syrians launched themselves at the mud huts and stone walls of the village.

The defenders in the trench around Vince turned steely. One called to him, You should go now.

I’ll be okay.

The boy pointed to Vince’s press armband, a white P on a black field.

The Arabs can’t read that.

Syrians flooded over open ground or loped behind their battlewagons. They fired wildly and bellowed their resolve as they advanced. The Haganah and farmers pressed their cheeks to their rifle stocks and picked out one Arab each to kill, and laid out grenades at their knees.

The armored car in the lead thundered at a squat stone house on the eastern rim of the village. The house vanished behind the blast but when the smoke cleared the walls had held. Before the Arab gunners could reload, the house answered.

From a window, a 20mm autocannon unleashed a powerful burst, five rounds per second, each bullet larger than a finger. The Jewish gun chewed through the battlewagon’s armor plating; the gun crew let the destruction of the truck be long and terrible to make a point. Their rounds punched through the Syrians’ steel with screeches that drew every eye and ear. The assault paused as the riddled truck sparked and shook, all four tires popped. The vehicle collapsed on its rims the way a dying beast might fold its legs.

Behind the ruined armored car, the second and third Arab trucks reversed, wanting no part of the Israelis’ autocannon. But a trumpet sounded again and the infantry moved around the retreating vehicles. The foot soldiers stepped into the road, out from cover. The Israelis opened up on them.

The first rank of Arabs fell; behind them, a hundred dropped to their knees and bellies to shoot back. The hundred infantrymen from the quarantine advanced against a withering fire to fight within fifty yards of the village. Every step was costly, trading grenades and rifle fire. By the dozen, Arabs fell in the road and on the stony open ground. The battle cries of the invaders became the wails of the wounded.

If they had surged, the Syrians might have won the battle, might have overrun the trenches and swamped the village. But the Jews emptied their weapons and their last-ditch hearts, and the Arabs hedged.

The blare of another bugle turned the Arabs around. The Haganah and the farmers stopped firing while the Arabs helped their hurt off the battlefield and dragged their dead off by the boots.

Chapter 4

Malik

May 17

Hebron

Arab Palestine

Malik raised his hands in mock surprise, as though a puff of smoke had come out of the goat stew.

"Wallah."

Barja waited beside the table, hands on broad hips. She and Malik had inherited their father’s great size. Malik had grown tall while Barja grew stout.

She asked, Is it spicy enough?

He tasted more, then tapped the spoon against his temple as if to jar his thoughts.

There are no words that can describe this meal. He licked his lips where a fire smoldered; the stew was seasoned too hot. Sit, sister.

Barja pulled out a wooden chair. She wore a pale cotton thob she’d embroidered in blue cactus flowers, and a turquoise headscarf. Barja’s husband was dead. Her son had left the house yesterday and she did not know where he was.

Malik dug into one more mouthful, then set the spoon aside.

Give the rest to a beggar. It will give him hope of God.

The white tiles of the kitchen floor gleamed, spotless. The next room over was a small den where Barja greeted her embroidery clients and the religious men who brought her monthly widow’s stipend. Every night, she made up the sofa and slept there; she let her son Hadi have the one bedroom.

Malik pushed his hands inside the sleeves of his black robe.

I must leave for a while.

Barja lay both palms on the table. She wore four gold rings, gifts from Malik. On his hidden hands he wore ten.

As children, Barja had defended him. She lacked soft ways both then and now.

With a war started? You go?

Allah’s will.

You have no idea what Allah’s will is. Where will you go? Back to your desert? She said this as if the desert were a barren place.

To Galilee.

Galilee? What is there? Are you going to fight?

No.

Then why?

A friend.

I don’t care.

Careful, sister.

Your place is here, protecting us. Not someone in Galilee. We are your family.

You’ll be safe.

Barja muttered, "Feh."

But you must do something.

I will not take instruction from you. Not if you are leaving.

You must keep Hadi here.

Why?

Malik said, He is wild.

He had a wild father.

The Jews killed his father. And they will kill Hadi. Listen to me. The street is full of fools shouting how easy it will be to win this war. Hadi is seventeen. He and his friends are the first ones who will accept a gun from anyone and get on a truck. They will not come back.

That is why you must stay.

Keep him here.

The sun would set in an hour. Malik had never been north beyond Jericho. His camel’s feet had not touched a paved road except to cross it. Galilee, a sea he had not seen, lay a hundred miles away.

Rising, Malik touched fingertips to his chest, to his lips, then his forehead.

"Habib Albi."

As he left, Barja did not respond that she loved him in return. Malik had done nothing but upset his sister. He had only tried to make peace. He might have lied but had not. Perhaps he should have.

Malik fed and watered his camel. The beast ate greedily, grunting and burping at the trough so loudly that even children who knew camels laughed.

Malik headed east through the outskirts of Hebron. He would camp tonight in the hills north of al-Shuyukh, tomorrow at the oasis outside Jericho. After that, he would follow the River Jordan north to Galilee. Vince had written his last column from Samakh, a village beside the sea. Malik couldn’t be certain he would still be there, but Vince was famous and people would know of him.

On the edge of Hebron, the houses became small and threadbare, the trees short and wind-bent. The setting sun cast gold on the hills of Judea and charcoal in the clouds. Malik and his camel padded by a well where women gathered for their evening wash. His ambling camel blinked long lashes at them, but Malik kept his own eyes on the east.

Ahead, before the dirt lane faded to pebbles, then sand, three soldiers emerged from the last cinderblock building. They wore moustaches and fezzes. Malik marked them as foreign.

All three threw up hands as if they knew Malik and understood he would be difficult to stop.

Malik reined in short to make the three foreigners walk to him. The camel, with an ugly disposition, spit.

The soldiers wore the uniform of the Arab Legion.

Malik slid hands inside his sleeves. "Salaam’alaikum."

The shortest, skinniest legionnaire lowered his hands. He left his rifle on his back while the other two leveled their weapons at their waists.

Where are you going, friend?

The camel chuffed like it understood the question.

Malik said, About my business.

The little one rested hands on his hips. What business is that?

My own.

The little soldier exchanged glances left and right. The two flanking him shifted their stances, one foot in front of the other.

The little one said, Maybe it’s best if you stay in Hebron until the war’s over.

Friend, I know those hills better than you know your mother.

The little one seemed unsure if he’d been insulted.

We’ll need to take your rifle.

You have your own.

We’re disarming all the local militias.

Ah. I see. But don’t you believe the Palestinian people should fight for themselves?

We will do a better job of it for them.

I am not in a militia. I have business elsewhere. I will keep my rifle.

The little one crooked a finger at Malik’s holstered long gun. One soldier took a stride. Before he could take a second step, he stared into the bore of a pistol Malik drew from his black sleeve.

The second legionnaire twitched as if he might come to his comrade’s defense. Malik stilled him with a second pistol whipped from the folds of his robe. The legionnaire stopped so quickly the tassel of his fez swung across his forehead.

From high on the grumbling camel, Malik said to the two in his sights, Pull the magazines out of your rifles and toss them.

The little one barked, Don’t.

They ignored him and rid themselves of their rifles.

Malik spoke down to the little soldier. Where were you three days ago?

What?

Were you in Gush Etzion?

I don’t have to tell you anything.

The small legionnaire was a mean man, but he was not under one of Malik’s pistols. Malik asked one of the soldiers looking into his guns, the one he deemed the youngest of the three.

Were you there? In Kfar Etzion?

Yes.

Were you there for the killing of the Jews?

The youngest soldier could not guess Malik’s intent.

Yes.

All of you?

Yes.

What is your tribe?

Howeitat.

All three of you?

Yes.

I am of the Tarabin. You are not my brothers, my cousins, or my friends.

Malik swung the pistols away from the Jordanian boys to the little, mouthy one. With both guns he shot the fellow in the center of the chest, so he could die watching Malik ride away.

Chapter 5

Rivkah

Amman

Transjordan

The interrogator wore a white headscarf, black skirt, and jacket. She was matronly and thin.

Referencing Rivkah’s bloody shirt, she asked in English, Are you hurt?