By the Rivers of Babylon (58 page)

Instantly, Becker saw a few gauges come alive as the propeller turned under water and activated a generator. The propeller also worked an emergency hydraulic pump, and he saw that he had pressure again in some of the systems. The Concorde was being powered by a water wheel. Desperate—but
trés pratique.
If Kahn were sitting at the flight engineer’s console, he would say that everything was looking good.

Becker knew that he had only a few seconds before the water caused this emergency system to fail also. Already the electrical and electronic components were flickering on the instrument panel. The hydraulic pressure, however, was holding. Becker turned his wheel, and the big starboard aileron went down as the portside aileron went up. The right wing dragged in the water and the left wing began to come around.

The Foreign Minister shook his shoulder. “David! I said—”

“Wait!” The Concorde began moving—banking—to the right. It partly changed direction and partly sideslipped toward the west bank. Ahead, Becker could see the earth quay of Ummah sticking into the river. Becker wanted to hit that quay and nestle the aircraft between its protective arm and the river
bank. If he hit the bank downstream of the quay, the aircraft might not beach itself but only slide and spin along the shore and come apart.

The Concorde was going down as fast as it was turning now. The change of direction had jolted it out of its lethargic sinking and speeded up the rate at which it was taking water. Becker gripped the wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. As he alternately watched the gauges and the ailerons, he could see that the hydraulic as well as the electrical power was failing. The gauges flickered and the ailerons began to straighten out. Now they were both horizontal again, trailing loosely in the water. Becker swore in English.

Still, the Concorde had begun its turn, and as with an aircraft in its proper element, thought Becker, inertia should carry the motion through.

But a flowing river was not exactly like the thin air, as Becker was rapidly learning. The Concorde again assumed the position of least resistance, with its nose and tail lined up in the direction of the current. But at least they were now closer to the shore, and the water moved faster here, giving the Concorde an almost imperceptible quantum of added buoyancy. Becker thought they might just hit the quay.

Suddenly, Becker heard cheers and yelling coming from the cabin, and he looked over his shoulder. Yaakov Leiber appeared at the door and ran into the flight deck. “The commandos are alongside in their rubber rafts!”

The Foreign Minister looked back out the side window. “Perhaps I should try to evacuate the wounded.”

“Nobody moves,” said Becker. “And I mean that literally. No moving around hack there. We’re about five degrees from sliding ass backwards into the Euphrates.”

Leiber walked more gingerly into the cabin and passed on Becker’s orders.

Becker saw a rubber raft come alongside the flight deck on his side. The officer in it, Major Bartok, shouted something about evacuating. Becker shook his head and made a motion with his hand to indicate that both the situation and the aircraft were very shaky.

Major Bartok nodded in understanding. He gave a thumbs-up and shouted something about Becker being not a bad pilot.

Becker turned his face away from the side window and
looked downriver. The quay was about 150 meters away now—about twice the length of the Concorde. The
gufas
were sliding past him on both sides, and he could see the strange-looking Jews in their primitive boats. He looked back to his front. It did not appear to Becker that the Concorde could intersect the quay. Yet he knew that somehow it would. He suddenly felt that their trials were over and that there would be no more tests and no more tribulations. An easy calm came over him for the first time in a very long time, and he relaxed as he stared through the broken windshield, a breeze blowing on his face. As he watched, the Concorde seemed to slide right. Or was it a visual distortion caused by the light on the rippling water? Were they headed for the quay ever since he’d gotten the Concorde to turn? He’d have to ask General Laskov later.

His right wing suddenly skimmed the shore and rode over the top of it, cleaving through mud huts as it went. The drag caused the Concorde to turn more sharply to the right, and as the shore got higher, the right wing rode higher and pushed the opposite wing deeper into the water.

The quay came up fast. The commandos and the villagers moved back and to the sides but stayed on it. The downward-pointed nose of the Concorde hit it first, just below the water line, like a Roman warship with an iron ramming prow. The quay trembled and split as the nose buried itself in the ancient mud brick and slime. Becker found himself staring at someone’s boots outside his windshield less than a meter away. The Concorde sank perceptibly, and Becker could feel its main undercarriage, or what was left of it after the slide, settling onto the bottom. People were all over the aircraft now—commandos, villagers, and survivors. He heard them on the roof of the fuselage, and he heard them wading over the left wing and coming in through the aircraft’s doors. He was vaguely aware of people shouting, weeping, and embracing. The next thing he was aware of was standing on the quay, saluting the Concorde. Someone led him away.

Miriam Bernstein and Ariel Weizman found Major Bartok in the confusion of the quay. The Foreign Minister indentified himself and asked quickly, “The Peace Conference?”

The Major smiled and nodded. “They are still waiting for Israel in New York.”

At the C-130, a crewman asked David Becker if they weren’t short of water during their ordeal.

Becker replied. “Yes, of course. Can’t you see everyone is very thirsty?”

“I see that,” said the crewman. “But I wondered why all the men are clean-shaven.”

“Shaven?” Becker ran his hand over his face. “Oh. He made us shave.”

Rabbi Levin had cornered Major Bartok at the edge of the quay and was demanding that he be taken by raft to Major Arnon, who was now on the hill, so that he could supervise the
locating and exhuming of the bodies. Major Bartok assured the rabbi that there was no need for him to go back, but Rabbi Levin proceeded to tell Major Bartok why he was wrong.

The village of Ummah had never seen anything quite like the procession marching through its one crooked street and was not likely to see anything like it again. The villagers helped carry stretchers and passed food and wine to those who wanted it. There was a mixture of crying and shouting and impromptu songs and dances. Flutes appeared, and their haunting notes lay over the quay and village as the people of the Concorde moved slowly toward the huge, towering C-130. An old man gave Miriam Bernstein a stringed instrument. A harp.

Everything was happening too fast for the survivors, and very little of it was registering consciously. Everyone had questions to ask, and the more questions the commandos asked, the more questions the people of the Concorde asked.

Major Bartok picked up his radiophone and called Captain Geis, whom he could see sitting up in the big flight deck of the C-130. “Tell Jerusalem. . . . Tell Jerusalem they have freed themselves from their Captivity. We will carry them home. Casualties and after-action report to follow.”

“Roger,” said Geis, and relayed the radio message.

The Prime Minister sat back and wiped his eyes as the radio message came over the loudspeaker. He thought of how they had been unsure of themselves and how they had doubted. But in the end they had said
Zanek
—“Go”—and that was what was important. He wondered who had lived and who had died. Was the Foreign Minister alive? The delegates? Bernstein? Tekoah? Tamir? Sapir? Jabari? Arif? How about Burg? And how about Dobkin? Would he live? And Hausner. The great enigma and troublemaker. How long had the Deputy Minister of Transportation—Miriam Bernstein—kept the Minister of Transportation from firing him? He had a lot of questions to answer if he were alive. The Prime Minister opened his eyes and looked around the room. “Heroes, martyrs, fools, and cowards. We’re going to need at least a month to sort out who is who.”

Captain Ishmael Bloch taxied his C-130 up the Hillah road. On board were all Major Arnon’s commandos, fifteen exhumed or unburied bodies from the hill, including Alpern’s, plus a
mutilated corpse from the base of the hill. The commandos had found Burg’s shoe with his daybook stuffed inside, and this enabled them to move quickly to complete their unpleasant assignment.

There was also a body so badly torn by the shrapnel that it was almost left behind as an Arab, but a sharp-eyed soldier had noticed the Hebrew letters
hanging from a heavy chain around the neck. Also on board were thirty-five wounded Ashbals along with half a dozen Arab dead who were identified as possible wanted terrorists. Ahmed Rish and Salem Hamadi were not believed to be among them.

On the operating tables were General Dobkin and Deborah Gideon. The two surgeons were waiting for the aircraft to lift off before they could go back to work.

Rabbi Levin, who had gotten his way about being returned to the hill, came over to the operating tables and looked up at the surgeons. The man operating on Deborah Gideon looked up and nodded quickly. The woman who was operating on General Dobkin pulled down her surgical mask. “I have never seen such brutality.” She paused. “But he’ll live. You’re not needed here, Rabbi.” She smiled and pulled her mask back in place.

Rabbi Levin turned and walked to the rear of the aircraft to find Lieutenant Giddel so that he could continue their argument on the necessity of serving only kosher foods during field operations.

The C-130 was taking a long time to lift, and Captain Bloch was becoming impatient. “I told you we’d roll to Baghdad.”

“I hope this isn’t a toll road, Izzy.”

The big aircraft finally lifted off, and Bloch banked it sharply to the left over the Euphrates. He looked down at the Concorde, almost directly below him. “You know, Eph, I’d like to meet the crazy bastard who flew that thing in here and sailed it out.”

“Becker. I’ve flown with him on reserve training. He’s pretty good.”

Bloch smiled. “Hey, this was one hell of an operation, wasn’t it?”

Major Bartok watched the old man on the donkey as he made his way at his own speed across the mud flats. The C-130 was nearly loaded and its engines were turning, but that didn’t seem to impress the old man in the least. Bartok stood patiently on the huge tailgate and waited.

Shear-jashub seemed to have no fear of the monstrous machine, and neither did his donkey. The old man rode the beast up onto the ramp and stopped when he came abreast of the Major. He did not dismount but asked abruptly, “What has become of
Aluf
Dobkin?”

“He is in that aircraft, Rabbi.” He pointed overhead. “He is well.”

The old man nodded. “You will give him a message for me?”

“Of course.”

“It is also the answer to your question.” Shear-jashub straightened himself on the donkey. “We of Ummah thank you for your kind offer, but we cannot go to Israel with you.”

The major shook his head in frustration. “Why not? There is no future for you here.”

“We are not concerned with the future here,” said Shear-jashub, stressing the last word.

“Come home to Jerusalem, Rabbi. We have room. March everyone into this airplane right now. There is nothing to be frightened of. Go. Gather your people. Bring your goods and your animals, if you wish. Ummah will fit nicely in the belly of this big bird. Go and gather them up, Shear-jashub. The Captivity is over. Come away from Babylon.”

The old man peered into the cavernous craft. Strange lights and noises came out of it. He could see those other Jews in there—the Israelites—walking, sitting, weeping, laughing. He had not understand all that had happened, but he understood enough to know that they came from a powerful nation and that Ummah could join that nation and the sons and daughters of Ummah could grow up in this nation. “We have many friends and kin in Hillah and Baghdad. What will they think when they come to Ummah and find that we are gone? We cannot go like that.”

Bartok made a gesture of impatience. “I can’t believe you would want to
stay
here. This is a terrible place.”

“It is
our
place. Let me tell you that which I told the
Aluf.
There must always be a remnant left behind. In every nation there must always be we of the Diaspora. Nevermore can they lay hands on us all by taking Jerusalem. Do you understand that?”

Major Bartok looked out over the mud flats, then back at the old man. “Yes, I understand that. But this land is different. There is something evil about this place. You who are in this
land came here as slaves, and you are still thought of as slaves.” He saw that he was getting nowhere and he sighed. The last of the wounded were taken aboard, and he knew he could not wait. His first obligation was to them. He forced a smile. “Rabbi, remember this—if this Brit Shalom that everyone is speaking of goes well, then all the Jews of this land will be able to come to Israel if they wish. Tell them in Hillah and in Baghdad that we are waiting for them. And we are waiting for Ummah . . . and for Shear-jashub.”