The Masada Complex (15 page)

“I’m not your immigration lawyer.” Elizabeth sipped from her drink and stood up. “Take your chances like everybody else.”

“My tourist visa is long expired.” He remained sitting, counting on her good manners not to leave an old man in midsentence. “I have no chance without your help, Elzirah.”

“My name is Elizabeth McPherson!”

“A new name doesn’t change the person.” His eye stung, reminding him how essential it was to obtain this woman’s assistance. He blinked to moisten the eye, trying to ignore the blotch in the middle of his vision.

She leaned over the table. “I’m not going to jeopardize my career for you or for my estranged father. Now leave me alone, or you’ll need a criminal lawyer too!”

“Please,” he forced himself to smile, “sit down for a minute.”

“I must wart you that under the law—”

“The law? What does the law say about a superior who sleeps with her married deputy every Wednesday night?”

Finally her arrogance collapsed, and redness descended on her face.

“Hire a lawyer?” He rattled the envelope. “Take your chances?”

She sat down. “Extortion is a crime.”

“Elzirah,” he said softly, “I offer you redemption, a chance to serve the Palestinian people.”

She took the envelope. “I can’t promise anything.”

Silver followed her outside. “I must travel abroad legally so I can return here without a problem and continue my work.”

Elizabeth unlocked her car. “These applications take months.”

He looked up at the full moon in the clear Arizona sky. The blotch created an eclipse. He closed his eyes, imagining he was already blind. “You have one week.”

She started the car. “There’s no way.”

“One week, or we both lose everything!”

At the rabbi’s house, Masada knocked on the door, expecting Shanty to greet her with barking. But there was only silence on the other side. She tried the handle. The door opened.

The tray of brownies was on the kitchen floor, empty, surrounded by crumbs, which she collected and wrapped in a paper towel. She tried his mobile again, and heard it ring in the other room, where he must have forgotten it. On the counter she found a veterinarian business card, called the number, and asked if Rabbi Josh Frank was there by any chance.

He got on the phone and told Masada that Shanty was sick.

When she arrived, Rabbi Josh was pacing the hallway while Raul played video games in the waiting room. Masada handed the crumbs to the nurse and explained her suspicion that it was laced with something.

They sat on a plastic bench. The walls were painted to look like blue water crested by foamy waves, seagulls diving toward a sailboat, beach toys scattered near a sand castle. Masada held his hand, but he pulled it away.

“Linda was on blood thinners for years,” he said, “but they stopped it a month before she was due to deliver. I should have known better.”

“What happened?”

“Normal delivery, no problems, but she kept bleeding. She nursed him once, and was gone.” He clicked a middle finger and a thumb. “Just like that. And I still don’t understand why God took her. I cannot reconcile myself to His decision!”

An hour later the vet appeared. “Your dog was poisoned.” He showed them a computer printout with a molecular diagram. “It’s a compound used to open sewage blockage. One piece of brownie would have given Shanty the worst diarrhea, but a whole tray was a shock to the system. We’ll keep her overnight, hydrate her as much as we can, and see how it goes.”

The vet left, and Rabbi Josh said, “Raul could have eaten those brownies.”

“It’s the Israelis,” she said.

“Then maybe you should drop it!”

Masada was quiet for a moment. “My readers deserve the truth.”

“Why? Would you tell a man standing at a cliff’s edge that his tests show a malignant tumor? Or that his wife has just filed for divorce? Would you yell
Fire!
in a crowded theater, even if fire is indeed raging nearby?”

“My job is to report the facts.”

“The facts about yet another corrupt senator? And what about the facts showing Israel’s vulnerability? The facts about millions of hostile Muslims seething to destroy Israel? The facts about Syria’s chemical weapons, enough to kill every living thing in Israel? The facts about Iran’s nuclear capability, a deadly menace to millions of Jews and Arabs?”

“My story was about a senator selling legislation.”

“Isn’t Israel’s need for a mutual defense arrangement with America irrelevant to this story?”

She shifted her weight to the left. “That’s not the point. Bribing a senator is wrong!”

“What so wrong with deterrence, so the Arabs think twice before attacking Israel?”

“His voters deserve to know he’s corrupt.”

“The public’s right to know about yet another political graft is more important than Israel’s survival?” He didn’t wait for a response. “You go and publish such a thing with complete disregard for what it would do to Israel and Jews, and to those who love you!” He pointed at the waiting area, where Raul was playing.

Almost in a whisper, she said, “I wish I could switch places with Shanty.”

“That’s a cliché you’d never put in writing!”

“I mean it.”

Rabbi Josh sighed and put his arms around her. “You must find these people. Finish what you started. There’s still time to prove Israel wasn’t behind this bribe.”

“But it was.”

“Then we’re not worse off. But if you discover it was someone else, then the Fair Aid Act would fail, and Israel would be spared a disaster.”

At her second-floor apartment on Twenty-fourth Street, Elizabeth McPherson put the last French fry on her tongue, savoring it.
The Barber of Seville
played softly in the background. She swung her legs onto the ottoman, leaning back, and enjoyed the cool sweetness of the strawberry shake. She tilted the cup and moved the straw with her lips, sucking the last drops. She had much to savor—her estranged father reaching out, a long-overdue promotion to the top floor, and a baby.
Their
baby. David would move in with her at first, and when his divorce was final, they would buy a house with a backyard. He would teach their son to throw ball on the grass under the kitchen window while she made dinner. All those years of hard work had rewarded her with professional success and financial security. Now happiness arrived, the American dream, sweeter than honey.

The phone rang. Was it David, stealing a moment from his wife? She picked up.

“Professor Levy Silver here.”

“How did you get this number?”

He chuckled. “I know what needs to be known. Have you looked at my documents?”

“No.”

“We don’t have much time.”

“
We
?”

“And get some rest,” he said, “so you have energy for Mr. Goodyear tomorrow night.”

She slammed the phone and ran to the sink, where she lost her dinner.

After washing her face, Elizabeth took the brown envelope and sat down.
Integrity. Attention to detail. Strict application of the law.
These three rules and long hours in the office had brought success. But Father’s friend knew her secret. Not that she regretted falling in love with David. How could she regret the best thing that had ever happened to her?

She turned the envelope upside down, and its content fell into her lap.

On top was an Italian passport, issued originally in November 1983 to Flavian Silver, with entry and exit stamps from Italy, England, and Canada, and a single entry to the United States two years ago. In the photo he looked younger behind the same thick, black-rimmed glasses, his goatee a bit darker. His driver’s license was from Canada. Several university diplomas, a PhD in European history from the University of Ottawa, a Best Teacher Award from the graduating class at the University of Toronto, and several citations of his articles in academic journals. There was a photocopy of a
New York Times
review of his book on the Evian Conference under the headline
How the Nazis Tested World Tolerance as a Prelude to Mass-Extermination.

Elizabeth set the documents aside. He had stayed in the United States illegally. His application would have no chance, even with a job offer backing it up. The conclusion was a load off her chest—she couldn’t help him even if she wanted. He would have to accept that. She closed her eyes, enjoying the music.

Masada lowered the soft top and started the Corvette. With the sun gone behind the red horizon, the day’s scorching heat had lost its edge. But she was hot with rage. Colonel Ness had sent his agents with laced brownies to scare her into cooperating. He would get the opposite!

Engaging first gear, Masada gave the throbbing motor a rich squirt of gasoline and let go of the clutch. Cutting through the parking lot, she turned onto Seventh Street, merging into traffic. Northern Boulevard took her to the Squaw Peak Parkway, where she pressed the pedal to the floor, launching the Corvette at full power all the way to three-digit speed.

She let go, slowing down, tilting her head sideways, the warm wind ruffling her hair. The desert hills passed by, the brown rocks and dry air reminiscent of the Judean Desert of her youth.

There were no news vans or police cars in front of her house. Waiting for the garage door to rise, she closed her eyes, willing Shanty to recover. Ness had gone too far!