“Mary, for crying out loud! I was just trying to bring some humor into the morning. Heaven knows I could use some.” He heard Valerie snicker and shot her a dirty look. “I’ll be happy to buy the Super Cycle.” He glanced quickly upward, wondering what it would take to get forgiveness for that one. “Okay?”
They rounded the corner, and Marc could see the clot of women already milling in a tight circle around the main entrance to Mervyn’s.
“Okay,” Mary said, only partially mollified. “We’ll meet you back at the escalators.” She gave him a little push toward the crowd of women. “Remember, you’ve got to get in there and go for it. Okay?”
He nodded glumly as the two of them turned and hurried away.With a quick eye, Marc surveyed the crowd, estimating there were close to a hundred women milling in a tight circle around the door. He moved around the periphery, looking for an opening of any kind, drawing several curious looks as he circled. He was the only male in the group.
“Ain’t no use,” a voice behind him said in a slow drawl. “They’re packed in tighter than a quart of pickles in a pint jar.”
Marc turned in surprise. An older man, near seventy, sat on a bench, a look of infinite patience carved into his features. Marc grinned. “Couldn’t have said it better myself,” he admitted. “But I have no choice. I either throw myself into the breach, or face a fate too horrible to contemplate.”
The older man just shook his head slowly. “May as well sit down No one’s going through that herd until they disperse across more of the prairie.”
Marc laughed, turning and eyeing the women again. “You may be right, but it occurs to me that this may be more a time for strategy than for strength.”
He went up on his tiptoes, peering over the sea of heads. Through the glass doors, at the far end of the store, he saw a man in a dark suit coming toward them, dangling a ring of keys in his hand. Marc checked his watch. It was nine fifty-four. Six minutes to ten. Uncanny, he thought. His housekeeper couldn’t fill the car with gasoline, but she knew the door opening routine at Mervyn’s down to the second.
“Watch this,” he called softly to the old man. “Strategy doth prevail.”
Walking swiftly back around to the center of the crowd, he took out his car keys, held them high in the air and began to jingle them vigorously. “Excuse me, ladies,” he called in a loud voice. Again he rattled the keys. “Ladies, if I can get through here, we’ll see if we can get the doors opened for you.”
Several of the heads in the rear swiveled around to stare at the keys suspended in the air, and then as if by some invisible hand, a path started to open directly in front of him.
“That’s it,” he sang sweetly. “None of us can get in until the doors are unlocked.”
In less than twenty seconds Marc was standing at the door, the Red Sea of women closing in tightly behind him.
Through the glass, the man in the dark suit was coming, but was still about twenty yards away. A rather frowsy-looking woman in a brown ski parka standing next to Marc was eyeing him with open suspicion. Fumbling with the keys, he gave her one of his best smiles, turning his body enough to block her view of the lock.
“Double locking system,” he said, lowering his voice to a half whisper. “Can’t be too careful.” He raised his other hand to cover the fact that his key did not even come close to fitting into the lock.
The clerk from Mervyn’s, obviously deep into boredom already, reached the door. The keys came up, and in a moment the bolt clicked. Marc helped him slide the door open about two feet, then slipped in quickly and pulled it shut again, cutting off the surprised cries from the women and catching the clerk off guard as well.
Marc patted him warmly on the shoulder. “The supervisor said to hold them here for another couple of minutes.”
The man stared at Marc, his pencil thin-mustache twitching. “What?”
“She said two more minutes, but I’d trust your own instincts.”
“What?” It was obvious the man was still opening doors because of limited mental speed.
“I’d give them thirty seconds, then get out of the way.”
Marc moved off with a friendly wave, leaving the man staring.
Six minutes later Marc was standing in the line waiting to pay for his purchase, a Super Cycle tucked under one arm and a smug look on his face. He felt a little sheepish for hassling Mary over this. These sales weren’t so bad after all—even door crashers. One merely needed to know exactly what door crasher meant.
“You!”
For almost a full second Marc could not place the woman standing there, pointing her finger at him like a policeman’s nightstick. He knew he had seen her before…Then it came. This was the woman in the brown parka. At the time he had thought her frowsy. Now all he could think of was a mother grizzly coming down on him like a heat-seeking missile.
Marc managed a grin. “Well, hello again. I hope you’re having a wonderful day here at Mervyn’s.” The line moved forward one place.
“I knew you weren’t a store employee. How dare you use deceit to get in ahead of the rest of us?”
“Deceit? I never said I was a store employee.”
“You got a Super Cycle and I didn’t because you wouldn’t wait your turn like everyone else.”
Marc shook his head, not about to be intimidated. “As the saying goes, the race is not to the swift, but to the sneaky.”
With a “Hmmph!” she turned abruptly and left.
He had only moved three places forward when she reappeared. Several other women moved closer to hear. “I want that Super Cycle,” she demanded. “I was here half an hour early.”
“Lady,” Marc said wearily, “in the Guiness Book of Records, you just took the lead for poor losers.”
There were some angry murmurs around him, and Marc felt his face going red. This was getting to be ridiculous.
“So you admit that you got a Super Cycle by impersonating a store employee.”
“I held up keys and rattled them. Some impersonation.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear!” she cried triumphantly, beckoning vigorously behind her. A man in a dark suit stepped out from behind a display. “Allow me to introduce you to Mr. Abbott, head of store security.”
Valerie and her mother were standing in almost the exact same place at the top of the escalators, only this time when Mary spotted him, carrying a large polyester sack, she almost ran to meet him.
“Marc, for heaven’s sake! Where have you been? We’ve been here almost half an hour.”
Swinging the sack around behind him, he merely grunted. “Where’s your car?”
“Marc! Where were you? We’ve looked all over. Val even went back down to the toy department.”
“Look,” Marc said wearily. “Do you want me to carry this to the car for you or not?”
Valerie eyed the sack, and Marc turned slightly, keeping it behind him. This time Mary moved, and he turned again, but it was a feint. She had the sack, turned it, then gave a cry of dismay. “Marc! This is a J. C. Penney’s sack!”
“Mary, a group of Serbo-Croatian terrorists are about to bomb the Orange Julius stand. I suggest we get out of here immediately.” He heard Valerie cough. She was trying hard to maintain a sober demeanor.
Mary stared at him in disbelief, then she rummaged inside the sack. “And you paid full price?” she cried when she finally came up with the sales slip. “Marc, I could have gotten it anywhere for forty-nine ninety-five. I told you Mervyn’s!”
Marc sighed, a deep, weary sound of resignation. “Remember the deal I offered you earlier?”
“Deal? What deal?”
“I offered to give you the thirty dollars we were saving in the sale plus an additional twenty if I didn’t have to go in there.”
“Yes, I remember. So?”
“I’ll double that on one condition.”
“What?” she asked, thoroughly exasperated now.
“From now on, I’ll give you whatever money you need
. Just don’t make me help you spend it.”
Chapter Five
Allahu akbar!
The words of the muezzin, the crier who calls the faithful to prayers, blared from the loudspeakers atop the graceful minaret of the mosque. “God is great!” the voice cried with great solemnity, repeating the cry four times.
Ashhadu an la illallah.
“I bear witness that there is no God but Allah.”
Each muezzin throughout the Muslim world calls more than half a billion Islamic worshippers to morning prayers in his own distinct tone and style. Some make it a low, mournful dirge; others make it a cheerful, lighthearted chant. The voice calling the faithful to prayer from the stunningly modern and beautiful mosque at the King Khalid International Airport at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, made it into a fierce, almost threatening, command.
Ashadu anna Muhammad rasulu Allah.
“I bear witness that Mohammad is the Messenger of God.”
It was that time of day when, as the law stated, one could first distinguish the difference between white and black threads without artificial light. The sky in the east was showing the faintest of pale yellows and golds, but full dawn was still some time away.
Hayya ala-as-salah. Hayya ala-as-salah. As-salutu khayrun mina-an-nawn.
“Come quickly to prayer. Come quickly to success. Prayer is better than sleep.”
A dozen men in flowing robes and headdresses were gathered in the courtyard of the mosque around the place of washing, performing the wudu, the partial ablution. Each man went through the cleansing process quickly but thoroughly. The hands, the feet, the arms and the face—each were washed before coming before the face of Allah. Almost as one the men were finished. The king nodded, almost imperceptibly, then stood and led them inside the mosque.
Alahu akbar, Allahu akbar. La illaha ilallah.
“God is great! God is great! There is no God but Allah!”
The Muslim prays with more than his mouth. The entire body is involved as first he stands, then kneels, then prostrates himself so he touches his forehead to the ground. It is a solemn ritual, and the king felt a familiar thrill as he thought of this same act being repeated at that very moment all over the kingdom. In palaces, mud huts, mosques, fields, or even kneeling on a small prayer rug in front of a Bedouin tent—across the breadth of his land, his people were beginning another day by renewing their allegiance to Allah.
Finished, the king stood up, glancing at his diamond studded Cartier wristwatch. “It is time,” he announced to the crown prince, and they walked swiftly out of the mosque and headed for the main terminal and the departure lounge reserved for the royal family.
Twenty-five minutes later, a line of black limousines left the terminal building and the mosque behind, moving in the direction of Riyadh. As the sleek and lushly furnished automobiles reached the outskirts of the airport, they pulled off to the side of the road. The king stepped out of the lead vehicle and moved around to the front of the car. No one else followed suit, just rolled down mirrored glass windows to watch. It was still a few minutes before sunrise, and the sky was a brilliant burst of pink and turquoise. The air was pleasantly cool but held the first promise of the coming heat.
The king turned his head, thinking of those he had just embraced and sent onto the plane. The king was a handsome man, round of face, quick to smile and with dark, jet black eyes that could flash with fierce anger or soften with quick humor. Now the corners of his mouth pulled down as he thought of the crown prince and those who accompanied him. What kind of reception would their proposal find in America? The king had great respect and admiration for America, and yet he knew his allies too well. There would be a great outcry from the Zionists and their supporters when they learned the president was considering the sale of F-22 Barracudas to an Arab nation. Could the president hold to his promise?
The king sighed. While he did not have a Congress and voting constituents to worry about, he knew that a ruler is never truly his own man. In his own country there were the royal family, the council of ministers, the ulema or council of religious scholars who interpreted Islamic law, the tribal sheiks, and a host of others to satisfy.
The rumble of massive engines brought his head around. He watched impassively as the jumbo jet lifted off the ground, letting the sound batter at him like a cleansing wind. Slowly the huge craft banked around to the north. It caught the first rays of the sun, flashing them back at him as though they were a signal.
“The light of Allah is upon you,” he murmured. “Go with God, my brothers.”
Aboard the plane, the crown prince; the king’s half brother; Prince Feisal, Minister of Defense; and half a dozen others chatted quietly as the 747 climbed steeply, then banked to the west.
A few minutes later the seat belt sign winked out. The crown prince stood, and the others followed. They moved across the sumptuously furnished cabin to private compartments. Long, ankle length robes and cotton thobes came off and went into closets. Out of those same closets came three-piece business suits, gleaming Gucci shoes, and hundred-dollar ties.
When they gathered back in the lounge of the Royal family’s private airliner, the transformation was nearly complete. Except for the dark olive skin and the white headdresses held on with braided black cords, they had crossed that invisible line that separates the Orient from the Occident.
The same sun that caught the burnished skin of the 747 over Riyadh had risen above the Mount of Olives enough to bathe Jerusalem in the first golden-pink glow of morning. Nathan Shoshani put his head back and drew in a deep breath of the cool, fragrant air, listening to the sounds of an awakening city. In an hour or so the roads would be swarming with tourists and Arab street hawkers selling olivewood camels and Holy City bookmarks. But now there was only the braying of a donkey, out of sight somewhere below him in the village of Silwan. Behind him he heard the soft cooing of a dove.
He glanced at his watch grudgingly, knowing that this would be his last look for some time to come at the city he loved so deeply. He was tall and broad across the shoulders. His hair was black, thick and curly, as was the hair on his arms, chest, and back. Dark-brown eyes looked out from heavy brows that almost touched when he frowned. At thirty-six he still had the lean look of an athlete, with trim waist and rock-hard stomach. But then, a field agent for the Mossad—Israel’s intelligence agency—was expected to stay in top-notch physical condition.
Like most Israelis, he was casually dressed—leather sandals with no stockings, faded jeans, and a plain cotton shirt, open at the neck. He too would change into a business suit before his arrival in New York. But for the long Atlantic crossing he much preferred the comfort of something less confining. With a sigh he turned and climbed the few steps to his car, thinking of the coming confrontation with his father.
A few minutes later, he pulled into a parking place outside a small apartment building in West Jerusalem. Like most other buildings in the city, it was made of the beige-white Jerusalem stone that gave all of Jerusalem—even the most modern of buildings such as this one—a sense of antiquity in keeping with the history of the ancient city. As he stepped out of the car he could see the gleaming white dome of the Shrine of the Book, home of the Dead Sea Scrolls. But his mind was not on Jerusalem stone or the Shrine of the Book. He ran up the three flights of stairs and rapped on the door sharply.
For someone in her midsixties, Esther Shoshani was a strikingly handsome woman, slender of build, fine of feature, with only the first streaks of grey touching her hair. When she opened the door and saw her son, her face softened instantly into a radiant smile. “Ah, Nathan, we were afraid you wouldn’t have time to stop by before you had to leave.” She spoke in nearly flawless English.
He gave his mother a perfunctory kiss on the cheek and a quick squeeze, then pulled away and moved into the apartment. “Where is he?”
Esther Shoshani was not only still attractive at sixty, she was also very perceptive, especially when it came to the two men in her life.
She caught her son’s hand. “He’s in the alcove,” she said, holding him back. “He’ll be out in a minute.”
But Nathan pulled free and strode across the small living room. He stopped as he caught sight of his father near the window of the small room off the kitchen. The morning sunlight streamed through the window, backlighting his father and leaving him in dark silhouette. Nathan stepped back. It was forbidden to interrupt in any way a person engaged in morning prayers.
Yaacov Shoshani was shorter than his son and beginning to stoop slightly at the shoulders, but any sense of age was dispelled by the graceful dignity of his movements as he rocked slowly back and forth. The prayer shawl or tallit was over his head, the square shape of the tefillin on his forehead silhouetted in the light. More commonly known as phylacteries by Christians, the tefillin were small, hollow boxes made of one single piece of black leather. Sealed inside were intricately inscribed scrolls containing selected passages from the Torah. One was worn on the forehead, a second on the bicep of the left arm.
Though it had been almost a decade since Nathan had donned the tefillin and prayer shawl on other than special occasions, he knew every move, every word of the blessings, every phrase of the recitations. He felt a curious mixture of the old childish awe and a growing irritation. This particular set of tefillin had been in his family for five generations. To know that his great-great-grandfather had donned those same phylacteries in the same exact ritual over a hundred years ago touched him with a sense of continuity that was unlike anything else he had experienced.
He turned and saw his mother watching him, her eyes pleading. “Do you have time for breakfast?” she asked.
“No, Mama, thank you. My plane leaves at nine. And I have to stop by the office in Tel Aviv before I go.”
“Some coffee, maybe?”
“No, thank you.”
Her eyes looked past him, and he turned to see his father coming to join them, holding the folded tallit and the velvet bag that held the tefillin.