The Jerusalem Inception

Chapter 31





After several months of intense training, the time came for the first of three dives, which were required to earn the paratrooper pin. Lemmy’s company hiked all night, arriving with first light at an air force base somewhere in the Negev Desert. They spent the day cleaning their weapons, arranging their gear, and memorizing topographical maps.

As the sun was setting, they strapped on the parachutes and boarded the plane, whose tail was marked with a blue Star of David. It accelerated down the runway, and the two engines snarled as the plane detached from the ground and gained altitude, heading west into the sunset.

The soldiers sat on metal benches along the fuselage, their Uzis loaded and secure, their pouches stuffed with ammunition, and their parachutes strapped on snugly. Lemmy sat sideways and peered out through the small window. Sunsets reminded him of Fridays in Meah Shearim. A white tablecloth. Burning candles. What do you know tonight that you didn’t know this morning?

But now Benjamin alone was there to answer the questions at the Sabbath table, to debate the subtleties of Talmud between dishes, and to recite the blessing after the meal. Life in Neturay Karta had continued to exist, a parallel universe of worship and study, of Sabbath meals and strict observance of myriad rules. But Lemmy was no longer part of it. For them, he was dead.

His eyes caught a herd of mountain goats, like white shadows in the twilight, fleeing into a ravine, frightened by the roar of the plane. He tried not to think of the initial drop and freefall, the immense height, and the speed at which he would hit the ground should his parachute fail to open. Instead he thought of the navigation challenges that awaited him once he was safely on the ground.

Their training had been put on a tight schedule in order to prepare them for a fighting role. The consecutive drills left little time for sleep and even less time for reflection. Like his fellow soldiers, Lemmy lived out of a military duffel bag that contained everything he owned—his uniform, folded and pressed, his only set of civilian clothes, and Uri Zvi Greenberg’s Book of Denunciation and Faith. His proudest possession was a wooden box containing his father’s Mauser. He also had a black yarmulke, which he hadn’t put on since leaving Meah Shearim.

His friends knew he came from an ultra-Orthodox family that had banished him, but they never pried into his past. With endless grueling exercises across the Negev Desert, soldiers judged each other on integrity and teamwork. The outside world of family, money, or education was irrelevant, and Lemmy had won their trust.

“Get ready!” Captain Zigelnick’s stocky figure appeared in the glow from the cockpit.

The red light above the door came on. Two minutes to destination.

Lemmy was first in line. He clipped the automatic-release strap to the metal wire that ran along the ceiling. If the canopy failed to open, he would use the emergency strap for manual opening in midair.

Captain Zigelnick walked down the aisle between the two opposite rows of soldiers, his hand moving along the metal wire, verifying that everyone’s release strap was properly attached. The inside of the plane was dark. The soldiers were quiet, their faces tense. It would be their first time leaping from a speeding plane, followed by a night of solitary navigation through the desert.

When he reached Lemmy, the captain patted his shoulder. “Nervous, Gerster?”

“No,” he lied, reaching up to unclip the strap from the wire. “I don’t need this.”

The light above the door made the captain’s face red, adding mischief to his grin. “Count to three, then pull the strap.”

“Yes, sir!”

A minute later, the red light turned yellow. When the light turned green, they would jump in twenty-second intervals, which meant a half a mile between each soldier. After landing, he would be on his own. They had memorized individual routes through dry streams and over rocky hills. Like a nighttime treasure hunt, each soldier had to find and jot down codes painted on rocks at various destination points and reach the gathering spot by dawn.

Lemmy shut his eyes and imagined the topographic map he had memorized. He recalled the desert paths that served deer in search of water, the wadis—dry streams—that were always at risk of flash floods, the sharp-edged palisades that spiked along the rolling dunes. For a good navigator, the maps gave rich information in shades of brown and green that told of the forms taken by the earth. Lemmy’s Talmudic mind, trained to digest complex facts and weigh conflicting scenarios, found it easy to interpret the map, visualize the three-dimensional landscape, and memorize the details of his route. The rest depended on his stamina.

The green light went on. Zigelnick pushed open the door, and wind whirled into the plane. Lemmy shut his eyes, leapt into the darkness, and immediately regretted it. The wind grabbed his body and tossed him like a piece of paper. A moment later his fall stabilized somewhat as the colossal magnet of the earth pulled him downward with relentless force. The acceleration screamed in his ears. The pressure grew in his chest as his guts rose to his throat. He searched blindly for the release strap, his mind intoxicated by the thrill of free fall. A voice inside his head counted, Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three. Twenty-four.

He reached farther down for the strap.

His hand grabbed empty air.

Grabbed again.

Nothing!

Elie Weiss examined the photograph closely. The woman was smiling. A lock of light hair dropped nonchalantly across her forehead. Moshe Dayan, in uniform, stood behind her, his hands on her hips. They were looking up, possibly at a bird or a plane. Behind them was Dayan’s staff car and in the background, a sandy beach and a cluster of buildings. The date on the back of the photo placed it about a year before Dayan retired from the IDF.

“Bella Leibowitz,” Agent Yosh said. “Her husband was Lieutenant Colonel Gabriel Leibowitz. He was found dead in their apartment, his service Uzi set on automatic. The place was quite a mess. She discovered the body and called Dayan, who was then chief of staff. He sent army medics to clean up. It was ruled an accident, but there were rumors.”

Elie touched the photo. “Did he leave a note?”

“None was found.”

“She probably destroyed it.” Having run out of cigarettes, Elie took one from his agent’s pack—Royal, a filter brand. He lit it and, taking a draw, twisted his face in disgust. “Any evidence? Letters? Witnesses?”

The agent examined his notes. “Her neighbor said Dayan had visited her whenever the husband was away. Dayan stayed for an hour or two while his driver waited in the car. It went on for a few months but ended when the husband died. His mother made a scene at the funeral, but it was all hushed up.”

“We need more evidence,” Elie said.

The other agent, Dor, pointed to a photo of Dayan holding a ceramic object.

“What’s this?” Elie looked closely. “A cow?”

“A wine jar shaped like a bull.” Dor pointed to the eyes and ears. “Wine pours out of the mouth. It’s at least three thousand years old. Biblical.” He took out another photo, showing an outdoor collection of antique jars, tapestries, small fountains, and tools. “Dayan’s backyard garden. It’s full of these. Worth millions.”

“So?”

“Ancient artifacts must be handed over to the Antiques Authority.” Dor pulled another photo, showing General Dayan standing near a gaping hole in a hillside with a group of young soldiers holding shovels. “And Dayan regularly used military personnel and vehicles on his private digging expeditions.”

“It’s a good start.” Elie collected the photos. “Keep digging.”

The speed of descent was beyond anything Lemmy had expected. The voice in his head kept counting. Twenty-five. Twenty-six.

He had to find the strap and pull, or in a few more seconds he would hit the ground and die.

Twenty-seven.

He felt the strap on the tip of his fingers. Then it was gone again.

Twenty-eight.

It touched his palm, and he clasped it, pulling hard.

Nothing happened.

Twenty-nine.

Crack! The canopy popped open, and the straps yanked his shoulders. The howling wind suddenly quieted, and he was swaying in midair, surrounded by silent darkness. The plane’s buzzing sound faded into the night. He looked down, trying to estimate the distance to the ground. It was too dark.

The rocks appeared suddenly, leaving him little time to bend his legs, double over, and roll.

Everything hurt, but he managed to move all his limbs. He unstrapped the parachute, folded the canopy, and stuffed it into a backpack.

The skyline separated the starry sky from the hills. He recalled the map, visualizing the topography. From his landing point he was supposed to see a wadi ascending north, with steep rocks forming the right bank and more shallow, round hills on the left. He looked at his compass. The tiny arm glowed with yellow phosphorus, pointing north. He followed the skyline and exhaled in relief, recognizing the formation he had memorized back at the base.

He made sure the Uzi was loaded and the safety latch secured. The Egyptian border was only a few miles south, a porous line often crossed by Palestinian terrorists heading for the Israeli farming communities in the Negev Desert. Their attacks had intensified recently. Only a few days earlier Lemmy had read in Ha’aretz that Egyptian president Gamal Abdul Nasser had ordered his generals to transfer all remaining Egyptian forces from Yemen, where they had taken part in a bloody civil war, to the Sinai Peninsula, declaring: The Arab nation is ready to remove the last foothold of imperialism from our land. PLO leader Ahmad Shuqairi had told reporters at his headquarters in Gaza: Very soon the Jews will be repatriated to the countries they came from, but I estimate that none of them will survive the war.

The thought crossed Lemmy’s mind that PLO infiltrators might be lurking in the darkness, ready to welcome him with a burst of automatic fire. He pushed the thought away and focused on the task ahead. With a strip of cloth tied around his head to keep the sweat from his eyes, Lemmy ran up the narrow wadi, his boots stomping the rocks. He counted his steps to measure the distance. After two thousand steps, he held up his compass and searched the skyline, finding the boulder at the top of the hill on the right—a massive rock, wide and flat, reminiscent of the boulder his father had mounted every Friday to pray in view of Temple Mount.

Once on top of the boulder, he cupped his flashlight with his hand and turned it on. The series of letters and numbers had been painted on the boulder in black, and he copied them down on a piece of paper. He shoved everything back into his pouch, leaped off the boulder, and ran.

By the third target, Lemmy’s feet ached, his leg muscles burned, and his shoulders grew sore from the heavy backpack. The landscape had flattened, the skyline harder to decipher. He looked at his watch. He was making good time, but one erroneous turn and his advantage would disappear. He closed his eyes and concentrated, imagining the path ahead: Down a moderate slope at exactly thirty-seven degrees from the north, turn right and head east into a wide valley. He adjusted the strap of the Uzi and shifted the backpack slightly higher.

At the bottom of the hill he turned right. His throat was dry and his shirt was wet with sweat. But he kept going, determined to reach the final destination before anyone else. The army had become his new home, his new family. He hoped to be chosen for officers’ training and pursue a military career like Captain Zigelnick.

A wide valley should open before him any minute now. He had not been able to tell from the map whether the valley would be bare or cultivated. Such valleys had rich alluvial soil, and farmers from the kibbutzim traveled hours on their tractors to farm every piece of fertile land.

Lemmy sprinted across the field, happy to gain some distance at high speed, but his boot hit a hard object, and he fell. The packed parachute landed on his head, pushing his face into the dirt. He cursed, rolled over, and spat out the sand.

When he realized what had tripped him, his anger turned to joy. He lifted the watermelon with both hands and let go. It dropped and split open. A second later, his teeth sunk deep into the juicy, sweet flesh. It filled his mouth, dripping on his chin and onto his shirt.

Earlier that year, Israel had opened the largest manmade waterway in the Middle East, connecting Lake Kinneret in the Galilee to the Negev Desert through open canals and underground pipes. The immense project had been the brainchild of Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, whose dedication speech predicted: This waterway will transform our barren land into fertile soil, like blood flowing in countless arteries to every part of the human body.

The Syrians responded with efforts to divert the Yarmuch River, intending to dry up Lake Kinneret. When diplomatic mediation proved futile, Israeli fighter jets destroyed the Syrian dams. Lemmy thanked the anonymous IDF pilots whose attack had kept the water flowing south to nourish this watermelon field.

He was chewing on the last piece when rocks tumbled from a nearby hillside. He placed the watermelon on the ground, rubbed his sticky hands against his pants, and reached for the Uzi.

A man’s silhouette appeared against the starry sky.

Lemmy pressed the Uzi to the inside of his forearm, aimed at the figure, and threaded his forefinger into the trigger slot.

A watermelon burst open.

Lemmy’s forefinger eased out of the trigger slot. He picked up a piece of watermelon skin and tossed it.

A cry came in response, and an Uzi was cocked.

“Don’t shoot,” Lemmy yelled, laughing.

“Gerster! I’ll kill you!” It was Ronen, who had jumped from the plane right after Lemmy.

“Chill out. And let me help you with this watermelon.”

“Steal your own watermelon!”

“I already did. They’re so good.” Lemmy strapped on his backpack and shouldered the Uzi. “How many targets have you found?”

“Only two. The first was real close, but I got lost, had to go back and start over.”

“Don’t shoot anyone unless they speak Arabic.” Lemmy started running, and a piece of watermelon chased him.