“We’re not?” Buck said, moving back toward Michael.
“You’re doing what you’re supposed to do by heading toward Galilee,” Michael said. “About halfway between Jericho and Lake Tiberius we will put ashore on the east side of the river. We will hike about five kilometers inland to where my compatriots and I have hidden Dr. Ben-Judah.”
“How are you able to elude the zealots?”
“An escape plan has been in place since the first time Dr. Ben-Judah spoke at Kollek Stadium. For many months we thought the guarding of his family was unnecessary. It was him the zealots wanted. At the first sign of a threat or an attack, we sent to Tsion’s office a car so small it appeared only the driver could fit in it. Tsion lay on the floor of the backseat, curled into a ball and covered with a blanket. He was raced to this very boat, and I took him upriver.”
“And these stories about his driver having been in on the slaughter of his family?”
Michael shook his head. “That man was exonerated in a most decisive way, would you not agree?”
“Was he also a believer?”
“Sadly, no. But he was loyal and sympathetic. We believed it was only a matter of time. We were wrong. Dr. Ben-Judah is not aware of the loss of his driver, by the way.”
“He, of course, knows about his family?”
“Yes, and you can imagine how awful that is for him. When we loaded him into the boat he remained in that fetal position, covered by the blanket. In a way, that was good. It allowed us to keep him in hiding until we got him to the drop-off point. I could hear his loud sobbing over the sound of the boat throughout the entire voyage. I can still hear it.”
“Only God can console him,” Buck said.
“I pray so,” Michael said. “I confess, the consolation period has not yet begun. He has not been able to speak. He cries and cries.”
“What are your plans for him?” Buck said.
“He must leave the country. His life is worthless here. His enemies far outnumber us. He will not be safe anywhere, but at least outside Israel he has a chance.”
“And where will you and your friends take him?”
“Me and my friends!?”
“Who, then?”
“You, my friend!”
“Me?” Buck said.
“God spoke through the two witnesses. He assured us a deliverer would come. He would know the rabbi. He would know the witnesses. He would know the messianic prophecies. And most of all, he would know the Lord’s Christ. That, my friend, is you.”
Buck nearly buckled. He had felt God’s protection. He had felt the excitement of serving him. But he had never felt so directly and specifically a servant of his. He was humbled to the point of shame. He felt suddenly unworthy, undisciplined, inconsistent. He had been so blessed, and what had he done with his newfound faith? He had tried to be obedient, and he had tried to tell others. But surely he was unworthy to be used in such a way.
“What do you expect me to do with Tsion?”
“We don’t know. We assumed you would smuggle him out of the country.”
“That will not be easy.”
“Face it, Mr. Williams, it was not easy for you to find the rabbi, was it? You very nearly got yourself killed.”
“Did you think you were going to have to kill me?”
“I was merely hopeful that I would not. The odds were against your being the agent of delivery, but I was praying.”
“Is there an airport anywhere near that can handle a Learjet?”
“There is a strip west of Jericho near Al Birah.”
“That’s back downriver, right?”
“Yes, which is an easier trip, of course. But you know that is the airport that serves Jerusalem. Most flights in and out of Israel start or end at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, but there is also a lot of air traffic near Jerusalem.”
“The rabbi has to be one of the most recognizable people in Israel,” Buck said. “How in the world will I get him through customs?”
Michael smiled in the darkness. “How else? Supernaturally.”
Buck asked for a blanket, which Michael produced from a compartment near the back. Buck wrapped it around his shoulders and pulled it up over his head. “How much farther?” he asked.
“About another twenty minutes,” Michael said.
“I need to tell you something you may find strange,” Buck said.
“Something stranger than tonight?”
Buck chuckled. “I don’t suppose. It’s just that I may have been warned in a dream to leave through Egypt rather than Israel.”
“You may have?”
“I’m not used to this kind of communication from God, so I don’t know.”
“I wouldn’t argue with a dream that seemed to come from God,” Michael said.
“But does it make sense?”
“It makes more sense than trying to smuggle a target of the zealots out of here through an international airport.”
“But Cairo has been destroyed. Where are flights in and out of there being rerouted to?”
“Alexandria,” Michael said. “But still, you have to get out of Israel somehow.”
“Find me a small strip somewhere, and we can avoid customs and go from there.”
“What then do you do about going through Egypt?”
“I don’t know what to make of it. Maybe the dream simply meant I should take other than a usual route.”
“One thing is certain,” Michael said. “This will have to be done after dark. If not tonight, then tomorrow night.”
“I wouldn’t be able to do it tonight if the skies opened and God pointed in my face.”
Michael smiled. “My friend, if I had gone through what you’ve gone through and seen prayer answered the way you have, I would not be challenging God to do something so simple.”
“Let’s just say then that I am praying God will let me wait one more day. I have to be in touch with my pilot, and we’re all going to have to work together at determining the best spot from which to head back to the United States.”
“There is one thing you should know,” Michael said.
“Just one?”
“No, but something very important. I believe Dr. Ben-Judah will be reluctant to flee.”
“What choice does he have?”
“That’s just it. He may not want a choice. With his wife and children gone, he may see no reason to go on, let alone to live.”
“Nonsense! The world needs him! We must keep his ministry alive.”
“You don’t need to convince me, Mr. Williams. I’m just telling you, you may have a selling job to get him to flee to the United States. I believe, however, that he will likely be safer there than anywhere, if he can be safe anyplace.”
“Your boots will stay driest if you stand in the bow and leap out when you hear the bottom scraping the sand,” Michael said. He had turned east and raced toward the shore. In what seemed to Buck the last instant, Michael cut the engines and raised them from the water. He nimbly jogged up next to Buck and peeled his eyes, bracing himself. “Fling your bag as far as you can, jump with me, and make sure you outrun the boat!”
The boat slid along the bottom, and Buck followed orders. But when he leaped, he fell sideways and rolled. The boat barely missed him. He sat up, covered with wet sand.
“Help me, please!” Michael said. He had grabbed the boat and was tugging it onto land. Once they had secured it, Buck brushed himself off, happily found his boots were fairly dry, and began following his new friend. Buck had only his bag. Michael had only his weapon. But he also knew where he was going.
“I must ask you to be very silent now,” Michael whispered as they pushed their way through underbrush. “We are secluded, but we take no chances.”
Buck had forgotten how long five kilometers could be. The ground was uneven and moist. The overgrowth slapped him in the face. He switched his bag from shoulder to shoulder, never fully comfortable. He was in good shape, but this was hard. This was not jogging
or cycling or running on a treadmill. This was working your way through sandy shoreline to who knew where?
He dreaded seeing Dr. Ben-Judah. He wanted to be reunited with his friend and brother in Christ, but what does one say to one who has lost his family? No platitudes, no words would make it better. The man had paid one of the steepest prices anyone could pay, and nothing short of heaven could make it better.
Half an hour later, panting and sore, he and Michael came within sight of the hideout. Michael put a finger to his lips and bent low. He held aside a bundle of dried twigs, and they advanced. Twenty yards farther, in a grove of trees, was an opening to an underground shelter invisible to anyone who hadn’t come there on purpose.
CHAPTER 11
Buck was struck that there were no real beds and no pillows in the hideout. So this is what the witnesses meant when they quoted that verse about having nowhere to lay his head, Buck thought.
Three other gaunt and desperate-looking young men, who could have been Michael’s brothers, huddled in the dugout, where there was barely room to stand. Buck noticed a clear view at ground level to the path behind him. That explained why Michael had not had to declare himself or give any signal to approach.
He was introduced all around, but only Michael, of the four, understood English. Buck squinted, looking for Tsion. He could hear him, but he could not see him. Finally, a dim, electric lantern was illuminated. There, sitting in the corner, his back to the wall, was one of the first and surely the most famous of what would become the 144,000 witnesses prophesied of in the Bible.
He sat with his knees pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped around his legs. He wore a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and dark dress pants that rode high on his shins and left a gap between the cuffs and the top of his socks. He wore no shoes.
How young Tsion appeared! Buck knew him to be a youthful middle age anyway, but sitting there rocking and crying he appeared young as a child. He neither looked up nor acknowledged Buck.
Buck whispered that he would like a moment alone with Tsion. Michael and the others climbed through the opening and stood idly in the underbrush, weapons at the ready. Buck crouched next to Dr. Ben-Judah.
“Tsion,” Buck said, “God loves you.” The words had surprised even Buck. Could it possibly seem to Tsion that God loved him now? And what kind of a platitude was that? Was it now his place to speak for God?
“What do you know for sure?” Buck asked, wondering himself what in the world he was talking about.
Tsion’s reply, in his barely understandable Israeli accent, squeaked from a constricted throat: “I know that my Redeemer lives.”
“What else do you know?” Buck said, listening as much as speaking.
“I know that He who has begun a good work in me will be faithful to complete it.”
Praise God! Buck thought.
Buck slumped to the ground and sat next to Ben-Judah, his back against the wall. He had come to rescue this man, to minister to him. Now he had been ministered to. Only God could provide such assurance and confidence at a time of such grief.
“Your wife and your children were believers—”
“Today they see God,” Tsion finished for him.
Buck had worried, Buck had wondered: Would Tsion Ben-Judah be so devastated at his inequitable loss that his faith would be shaken? Would he be so fragile that it would be impossible for him to go on? He would grieve, make no mistake. He would mourn. But not as the heathen, who have no hope.
“Cameron, my friend,” Tsion managed, “did you bring your Bible?”
“Not in book form, sir. I have the entire Scripture on my computer.”
“I have lost more than my family, Buck.”
“Sir?”
“My library. My sacred books. All burned. All gone. The only things I love more in this life were my family.”
“You brought nothing from your office?”
“I threw on a ridiculous disguise, the long locks of the Orthodox. Even a phony beard. I carried nothing, so as not to look like a resident scholar.”
“Could not someone forward the books from your office?”
“Not without endangering their life. I am the chief suspect in the murder of my family.”
“That’s nonsense!”
“We both know that, my friend, but a man’s perception soon becomes his reality. Anyway, where could someone send my things without leading my enemies to me?”
Buck dug into his bag and produced his laptop. “I’m not sure how much battery life is left,” he said. He turned on the back-lit screen.
“This would not happen to have the Old Testament in Hebrew?” Tsion said.
“No, but those programs are widely available.”
“At least they are now,” Tsion said, a sob still in his throat. “My most recent studies have led me to believe that our religious freedoms will soon become scarce at an alarming pace.”
“What would you like to see, sir?”
At first Buck thought Tsion had not heard his question. Then he wondered if Tsion had spoken and he himself had not heard the answer. The computer ground away, bringing up a menu of Old Testament books. Buck stole a glance at his friend. Clearly, he was trying to speak. The words would not come.
“I sometimes find the Psalms comforting,” Buck said.
Tsion nodded, now covering his mouth with his hand. The man’s chest heaved and he could hold back the sobs no longer. He leaned over onto Buck and collapsed in tears. “The joy of the Lord is my strength,” he moaned over and over. “The joy of the Lord is my strength.”
Joy, Buck thought. What a concept in this place, at this time. The name of the game now was survival. Certainly joy took on a different meaning than ever before in Buck’s life. He used to equate joy with happiness. Clearly Tsion Ben-Judah was not implying that he was happy. He might never be happy again. This joy was a deep abiding peace, an assurance that God was sovereign. They didn’t have to like what was happening. They merely had to trust that God knew what he was doing.
That made it no easier. Buck knew well that things would get worse before they ever got better. If a man was not rock solid in his faith now, he never would be. Buck sat in that damp, moist, earthen hideout in the middle of nowhere, knowing with more certainty than ever that he had put his faith in the only begotten Son of the Father. With his bent and nearly broken brother sobbing in his lap, Buck felt as close to God as he had the day he trusted Christ.
Tsion composed himself and reached for the computer. He fumbled with the keys for a minute before asking for help. “Just bring up the Psalms,” he said. Buck did, and Tsion cursored through them, one hand on the computer mouse and the other covering his mouth as he wept. “Ask the others to join us for prayer,” he whispered.
A few minutes later, the six men knelt in a circle. Tsion spoke to them briefly in Hebrew, Michael quietly whispering the interpretation into Buck’s ear. “My friends and brothers in Christ, though I am deeply wounded, yet I must pray. I pray to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I praise you because you are the one and only true God, the God above all other gods. You sit high above the heavens. There is none other like you. In you there is no variation or shadow of turning.” With that, Tsion broke down again and asked that the others pray for him.
Buck had never heard people praying together aloud in a foreign language. Hearing the fervency of these witness-evangelists made him fall prostrate. He felt the cold mud on the backs of his hands as he buried his face in his palms. He didn’t know about Tsion but felt as if he were being borne along on clouds of peace. Suddenly Tsion’s voice could be heard above the rest. Michael bent down and whispered in Buck’s ear, “If God is for us, who can be against us?”
Buck did not know how long he lay on the floor. Eventually the prayers became groanings and what sounded like Hebrew versions of amens and hallelujahs. Buck rose to his knees and felt stiff and sore. Tsion looked at him, his face still wet but seemingly finished crying for now. “I believe I c
an finally sleep,” the rabbi said.
“Then you should. We’ll not be going anywhere tonight. I’ll make arrangements for after dark tomorrow.”
“You should call your friend,” Michael said.
“You realize what time it is?” Buck said.
Michael looked at his watch, smiled, shook his head, and said simply, “Oh.”
“Alexandria?” Ken Ritz said by phone the next morning. “Sure, I can get there easily enough. It’s a big airport. When will you be along?”
Buck, who had bathed and washed out a change of clothes in a tiny tributary off the Jordan, dried himself with a blanket. One of Tsion Ben-Judah’s Hebrew-speaking guards was nearby. He had cooked breakfast and now appeared to roast Tsion’s socks and underwear over the small fire.
“We’ll leave here tonight, as soon as the sky is black,” Buck said. “Then, however long it takes a forty-foot wood boat with two outboard motors and six adult men aboard to get to Alexandria—”
Ritz was laughing. “This is my first time over here, as I think I told you,” he said, “but one thing I’m pretty sure about: if you think you’re coming from where you are to Alexandria without carrying that boat across dry land to the sea, you’re kidding yourself.”
At midday all six men were out of the dugout. They were confident no one had followed them to this remote location and that as long as they stayed out of sight from the air, they could stretch their legs and breathe a little.
Michael was not as amused at Buck’s naiveté as Ken Ritz had been. He found little to smile about and nothing to laugh about these days. Michael leaned back against a tree. “There are some small airports here and there in Israel,” he said. “Why are you so determined to fly out of Egypt?”
“Well, that dream—I don’t know, this is all new to me. I’m trying to be practical, listen to the witnesses, follow the leadings of God. What am I supposed to do about that dream?”
“I’m a newer believer than you, my friend,” Michael said. “But I wouldn’t argue with a dream that was so clear.”