TCG

A Headwater Sanitation Auditor greeted Rebekah Redstar at the front door of her home and mentioned that in recent months she had gone from a seven dollar subscription to five dollar a month can, and he wanted to know why. She asked, “Do I really have to explain it you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean your side blames our side for the Temple fire, right? So I lost my job. A lot of other Red Wingers did too. You know how it is. Money never seems to go far enough anymore. I had to take another look at my budget and trash pickup was a big item.”

“How did you manage it?”

“Oh, you know, I just got a little smarter in the groceries I buy and in the way I prepare my trash. You can nest trash within trash within trash if you just give it a little thought. Say, there isn’t a weight surcharge, is there?”

“Only if there’s evidence of compacting, which you’ve so far managed to avoid. Would you mind if I looked in your backyard?”

Rebekah was a little too savvy for that. “Show me a search warrant,” she said firmly.

“How about your husband, Miss Redstar? Is he home? Would he invite me out back?”

“It’s just me here, Rebekah said sternly. “And when I do find a husband, he won’t be the sort of fellow who does an end run around his own wife.”

“Did I hear you say you’re looking for work, Miss Redstar?” he tried again. “You know, your future employer might blame the inconvenience of any greater scrutiny of their dumpsters on the uncooperative off- duty attitude of one of their new employees, if word got back to them.”

“Get a warrant, clown!” she barked. “I know my rights!” She slammed in the Sanitation Auditor’s face.

Damnation! he thought. And the way judges were ruling nowadays, even ones like Porter, it would take more than going from a medium can to a small can to get a search warrant. So he left for the easier target next door. Rebekah’s neighbors had gone from a family-size jumbo ten dollar a month can to the basic five dollar one. They certainly had some explaining to do.

He made a note that if Rebekah Redstar’s trash was so much as one inch overflowing to charge her the full seven dollars.

As soon as the door slammed shut, Gabriel, Robyn, Hunky, and Dory came out from hiding to join Rebekah in her modest living room. Doris Day was belting one out on the radio that was the center of entertainment in the home. Hunky and Dory, as usual, were holding hands.

Rebekah had been in band class with the four of them, but in the wake of the Temple fire their school had totally shut down and it looked like nobody was graduating that year. And nobody seemed too upset about it.

Robyn said she was pregnant but she wasn’t starting to show yet.

“That was very satisfying,” Rebekah told them, “just like you said it would be.”

“It only gets better,” Gabriel told her. “Are you ready to go to your training house?”

“Ready when you are.”

Gabriel brought out the artifact he had duplicated for Rebekah, a perfect copy of the Golden Gift. He squeezed it to obtain about a foot of the hissing black shaft and fed a banana peel into it. The shaft gobbled it all up with not a trace left over.

“Where did it go?”

“Mike says it’s not magic,” Gabriel said, “but it’s rocket science so it might as well be. Hy says whatever the beam touches becomes transparent to everything except gravity. So as far as we’re concerned it’s gone. I mean it’s just, gone.”

“Why is it hissing like that?”

“That’s the air in the house being sucked in,” Gabriel explained.

Robyn said, “My father had one of these in a cave, and it ate all the air. He suffocated and died.”

That gave Rebekah pause. “I knew he died, Robyn, but I never knew how.”

“Let me show you a neat trick, Hunky said, in a bid to lighten things up a little. She tossed a bottle cap from six feet away. It would have missed, but the hissing air near the Golden Gift guided it in to its doom.

“It’s good for cutting too,” Robyn said.

She passed Rebekah’s softball bat through the black shaft. The bat fell into two pieces with the middle section effortlessly carved out.

“What is that dark beam?”

“That’s the relic in action,” said Gabriel. Not even light can escape.”

“Is that as long as it gets?”

“Nope, squeeze harder and it gets longer.” Gabriel tripled its “length. If you squeeze even harder it does this.”

Che tipped the shaft away from hez friends to keep them safe and made the shaft balloon out as a cone. The hissing became a terrifying roar. Che turned it off two seconds after letting it form. Then Gabriel said, “Let’s go down to your basement, Rebekah, and get to work.”

With the macro on wide beam Gabriel cut a tunnel from Rebekah’s basement to the next door neighbor’s house, which had no basement. The new tunnel was tall enough for them to walk through it without crouching. It ended with a little cave-in of earth.

A small ladder from Rebekah’s garage was brought forward. All of them quietly gathered under the floorboards of House Ten and waited for the sounds of footsteps above to stop. When they did, that meant everyone in the house had gone to work or school.

Rebekah and the Band all entered through an access hatch in the floor of a closet that had been constructed to allow the owner to make an inspection under the house. The womenfolk went to the kitchen. “Just grab a couple dinner plates,” Dory told Rebekah. “Just a couple of coffee cups. Not enough to raise any alarms.”

“I get it,” Rebekah said. “Even if they miss them, they’ll just assume someone broke them washing them or something.”

“Right.”

Gabriel took care of the trash. “I’m leaving enough for a five dollar can.”

“Why not make all the trash disappear?” Rebekah asked him.

“We learned our lesson the hard way. No trash raises alarms. Less trash just raises eyebrows. Now if your hosts here in House Ten go to a smaller can you’re saving them five dollars monthly.”

“So you can skim five dollars a month in value from this host.”

“Five dollars’ value in what?”

“A little food from the fridge, a little beer, electric power. After this I’m going to show you how to tap into their power lines safely, so you don’t have to pay for electricity. When you get seven or eight host homes on your grid they shouldn’t even notice the drain of your own use.”

“Ah, but living in caves underground, though,” Rebekah murmured, as though she were having second thoughts.

“It’s not that bad,” Hunky said. “Most days you spend in houses while the occupants are away, just like we are doing right now. Besides, no one is looking for you yet. There’s no reason you can’t keep living out of your own house for the time being.”

Everyone saw the hundred dollars of cash lying on the top of a dresser drawer in the master bedroom, but it remained to be seen what Rebekah Redstar would do. Rebekah saw Gabriel watching him. She looked at the money, then back at Gabriel. “What, are you crazy. We take that money and our whole structure will come crashing down.”

Some weeks earlier when Gabriel gave Hunky and Dory their own copies of the Golden Gift and told them to think of something to do with them, they started to dig under the ground, just like Robyn’s father had once done, but they did it to create a network of tunnels between houses. Their happy pastime was to explore empty homes when the owners were away at work, made all the more happier by their custom of “breaking in” each new addition to their network. Sex is a powerful motivator. Their constellation of homes soon numbered in the dozens.

Some of the houses on their network were never occupied and became B’nei Elohom “Safe Houses” most of the time, at least when Realtors were not showcasing them to potential buyers. Hunky was the one who came up with the idea of getting rid of their host’s trash.

Special Agent Mark Felt was long gone, with his mission complete, and even Bill Sullivan had been reassigned, but Clyde Tolson still hung around Headwater like a dirty old man leering an elementary school playground, digging up clues and corrupting the town leaders. When the mayor complained about the sudden shortfall in trash pickup revenue, Tolson recommended charging a flat ten dollars no matter what size can was used.

Many citizens, including not a small number of White Wingers, dropped weekly pickup service altogether. Citizens who cooperated with the new corps of Sanitation Auditors and allowed them to come inside their homes were punished by Gabriel most severely: The Trash Fairy never visited them again.

But those citizens who were ordered by Judge Porter to allow a Sanitation Auditor to inspect their homes were not punished. Trash pickup continued through a small hole that suddenly appeared in the bottom of their trash can. All of the citizens who were treated in this way resented the authorities enough not to mention the neat round hole.

By late fall in 1943 the homes in Franklin, Washington were complete and the Red Wing was migrating out of town by the trainload, six families a week. And a curious thing happened. The Squaw River, which debouched full-grown from the western slope of Green Dome, slowed to a mere trickle.

Yet the Band persisted in their life underground. Immersed in the unreality of it all Rebekah increasingly questioned her own sanity until she reached a breaking point. "But why?" she wailed one day when they were squatting in yet another stranger's house. "Everyone we know is moving to Franklin but you're still here. Why are you doing this?"

"We're staying until we gather you in," Dory told her.

"Gather me in? To what? The Band? I've been in the Band from the very beginning, even if I don't wear your crazy hats."

Rebekah reached out to grab Robyn's horns and fully expected the head-dress to come away in her hand. She was shocked to find it was firmly part of Robyn's head.

"So, not a hat."

"Becky gets a clue," said Hunky.

936 King Ormi ruled Samaria for twelve years. When he died in the four hundred nine and seventieth year of the Covenant he left the kingdom to his son Ahab.

937 In the first year of his reign Ahab forged an alliance with the Phoenicians by gaining the hand of Princess Jezebel in marriage. Her father Ithobaal was both king of Sidon and a priest of the fertility goddess Astarte.

938 Jezebel herself had been trained to attend to Baal, who was believed by the Phoenicians to be the consort of Astarte. Jezebel demanded that a shrine be built to maintain her role as priestess of Baal so Ahab caused one to be made for her in the city of Samaria. Ahab also agreed Baal should have a shrine made for his wife the goddess Asherah too.

939 The Phoenician shrines multiplied in Samaria, and with them came their attendant priests and priestesses. There was a new prosperity that emerged from the alliance and the people became willing to accept the idolatrous practices of their new queen.

940 But bringing over from Sidon the priests and idols of foreign gods was too much for Elyon to abide. A prophet named Elijah was sent from Elyon. He frequently rebuked King Ahab to his face about the issue and constantly reminded His Majesty that his God was Elyon alone.

941 Queen Jezebel grew tired of the insolence of this Elijah and convinced her husband to bring matters to a head with a public demonstration. Two altars were prepared with slain bulls. The first priest who could get his god to set a bull on fire would prevail.

942 Jezebel thought it was likely that neither god would actually strike fire, in which case the arrangement was for Elijah to speak no more to the king of Elyon and allow the people to choose which would be their god.

943 Baal was much delayed in setting his bull aflame. His chief priest called in forty reinforcements to wail and plead and rip their garments and pluck hairs from their heads and beards.

944 Elijah called for jugs of water and completely dowsed his bull. Then Eylon opened a tiny fold-door inside the bull and allowed a small burst of sun fire to slip across. It was enough to kindle the fat in the bull to burn despite being entirely soaked in water.

945 The spirit of the crowd was raised such that Elijah was able to incite them to deadly violence against the priests of Baal who were standing there. Elyon never commanded this, but neither did he punish Elijah for causing it to be.

946 In the fifth year of the reign of King Ahab, in the four hundred four and eightieth year of the Covenant, the High Priest Azariah died, and his son Joash became Priest unto Elyon in Jerusalem.

947 And Joash begat Jehoairib, and Uzai, and he begat daughters besides.His father Azariah was the son of Ahimaaz, who was High Priest in the days of Abijah when he was the chieftain of the tribe of Judah. And Abijah was begotten of Rehoboam and his cousin Maacah.

948 King Ahab knew his wife Jezebel, and he begat Ahaziah and Jehoram, and a daughter named Athaliah. And Princess Athaliah was wed to Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat the chieftain of Judah, that there might be peace between that tribe and Samaria.

949 Ahab made alliance with Jehoshapohat to recapture the city of Ramoth-Gilead from the Arameans. The king was laid low by a stray arrow and died after he was carried back to the capital city.

950 Ahab's son Ahaziah became king over Samaria in the five hundredth year of the Covenant. But King Ahaziah reigned only one year. He died when he fell through a railing from the upper floor of his palace. And in the one and five hundredth year of the Covenant Ahaziah's brother Joram became king over Samaria.

951 King Joram tore down the pillar of Baal in Jezreel but to keep the people from making pilgrimmage to the temple of Elyon in Jerusalem he restored the golden calf at Beit-El and the one at Dan which had been set up in the days of Jeroboam.

952 Then the prophet Elisha, a disciple of Elisha, came before King Joram and said the idol was a great sin before God Most High. He said Elyon would chastise the king by bringing the army of Damascus against Samaria. And King Joram grew angry and commanded Elisha to depart from his presence.

953 Nevertheless, the seige came to pass, and things grew strait for the inhabitants of the city, such that the people contemplated cannibalism. King Joram sent forth soldiers to seek Elisha and drag him to his court that he might be put to death, but Elisha said Elyon Most High had decreed the the king’s death would follow hard upon his own.

954 Then Joram repented of the beheading that he thought to do to Elisha, and swore to remove the idol at Beit-El. And the seige by the king of Damascus was lifted and food was brought into Samaria.

955 But Joram forgot his vow to Elisha and the golden calf remained in place at Beit-El. And in th year five hundred and five of the Covenant, Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat son of Asa son of Abijah became chieftain of the tribe of Judah.

956 Elisha came before king Joram and said, “Behold, because you have sinned against God Most High, and have led the children of Israel to follow you in your sin, Elyon has said the posterity of the House of Omri shall be brought to an end.” King Joram grew angry and ordered Elisha to depart from his presence forever.

957 And in Jerusalem Jehoairib son of Joash became High Priest unto Elyon Most High in the five hundred and seventh year of the Covenant. And Jehoairib begat Jehoshaphat and Maachthi, and he begat daughters besides.

958 King Joram made alliance with Ahaziah, the son of his sister Athaliah, who became chieftain over the tribe of Judah upon the death of his father Jehoram in the five hundred two and tenth year of the Covenant.

959 Then Joram and Ahaziah gave battle at Ramoth-gilead to take back the city from Aram even as Jehoram father tried to do, but they were soundly defeated, and even the High Priest Jehoairib was felled by many arrows, and Jehoshaphat became High Priest unto Elyon Most High.

960 Following the retreat of his army Joram was assassinated by General Jehu at Jezreel. Jehu then led a revolt and slew all the male descendants of Omri and Ahaziah in a great slaughter.

961 Jezebel the widow of Ahab Jehu also ordered to be killed by her own eunuch attendants. Jehu then entered the palace at Samaria and declared himself to be king in the five hundred two and tenth year of the Covenant.

In 1952 there was a coup in Egypt deposing King Farouk, who had ruled his country since 1936. One of the coup plotters, a leftist revolutionary named Colonel Gamal Nasser, steadily rose in influence to become the usual President-for-life. In 1956 Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, seizing control from the British. He closed the Straits of Tirin in the Red Sea, which effectively put the southernmost Israeli port of Eilat under a blockade. At the same time he refused to allow any ships bound for Tel Aviv or Haifa to transit the canal.

The United Kingdom and France laid plans to take the canal back by force. They were interested in getting Israel involved in this operation. Israel was already leaning toward a tussle with Egypt, the question was simply when, not if. Cross-border fedayeen raids from the Gaza strip had never ceased in the eight years Egypt had occupied it.

The French began to arm the IDF, with special emphasis on the air force. In the third week of October Nasser moved part of his army into Gaza, including a number of artillery pieces which were used to shell the Israeli settlements near the border, of which Judith’s kibbutz of Yad Mordechai was the closest. But she wasn’t there.

Nasser also moved troops into the Sinai Peninsula, supplied with the latest Soviet military equipment. Judith missed all those developments. She was bounced by Michael in much the same way she had been taken from the Isle of Wight to Yad Mordechai, or from Yad Mordechai to Argentina and thence to Tel Aviv, except this time she moved through time as well as space. Five years were shaved off her life.

Judith skipped from 1951 and arrived in 1956 at the still tender age of twenty-three. For Michael the only difficult part was convincing Judith that what hy had done to her was real.

When Judith reported to her unit she explained her absence from all the scheduled drills with a claim that she had been overseas hunting Nazis. That was entirely sufficient. Her superior officers, knowing she was the apple of the Prime Minister’s eye, didn’t even bother to verify the claim by requesting to inspect her passport, and indeed she had none.

On October 29, four Israeli World War II vintage P-51 Mustang fighter planes flew into the Sinai and cut, with their propellers, all the telephone lines connecting the Egyptian forces in Sinai to their home office in Cairo. On the same afternoon, four hundred IDF paratroopers were dropped at Mitla Pass, only fifty miles from the Suez Canal.

Meanwhile, a force commanded by Colonel Ariel Sharon crossed the border and seized (through very hard fighting) three Egyptian positions along the one hundred fifty miles from Israel to the pass. Sharon then disobeyed orders to halt and proceeded to seize Mitla Pass at a cost of just thirty-eight Israeli lives.

On October 31 an Egyptian frigate fired two hundred shells into Haifa from the sea, but a French destroyer drove it off. Two Israeli destroyers then chased it down and opened fire, and later two Israeli warplanes damaged it with rockets. The Egyptian ship surrendered, and it was subsequently boarded and towed back to Haifa.

Israel fought a fierce series of tank battles for Abu Ageila, and after two days the Egyptians withdrew. From this position, Israel could supply its troops in the central Sinai without an attack from the rear.

On November 2 the IDF seized El Arish on the Sinai Mediterranean coast, which completely isolated the Gaza Strip. By that same evening, the Egyptian governor in Gaza surrendered. The Israelis penetrated to within ten miles of the Suez Canal and took possession of forty Soviet-made T-34 tanks and sixty armored vehicles which were left behind there.

Seren Judith Margolies’s part in the war began at Eilat and ran down the western shore of the Gulf of Aqaba. The objective was to seize the guns at Sharm el-Sheikh and lift the closure of the Straits of Tiran. Her commander was Colonel Avraham Yoffe, and she was part of a motorized infantry brigade of two thousand soldiers and two hundred vehicles.

Their route was along a camel track that was never designed to be used by wheeled vehicles. At one point at Wadi Zaala they all had to break out their spades, dig their vehicles out of deep sand, and push them uphill.

At Dahab Oasis they had their first firefight, at sunset, against the camel-mounted troops of the Egyptian Frontier Force. Later in the evening the force supplied with fuel in drums from a set of twenty barges towed down the Gulf of Aqaba from Eilat.

Judith volunteered to join a regiment-sized detachment who would board these boats to attack the Egyptians from the sea. The detachment was commanded by an officer with the rank of sgan aluf, or lieutenant colonel, named Motti Adan. Meanwhile a detachment of Ariel Sharon’s paratroopers advanced in a pincer movement down the Gulf of Suez, nearly doubling the size of the Israeli assault force.

At Sharm el-Sheikh a huge battery of naval guns were positioned to block all shipping making its way to Eilat. There, fifteen hundred Egyptian troops with their mortars and artillery held off the Israelis advancing overland.

Judith’s amphibious assault arrived under the guise of twenty deceptively painted, weathered-looking old barges slowly towed behind a jumbo tugboat. They were in two parallel trains of ten containers all linked together by flexible couplings.

At Lt. Colonel Adan’s command they all simultaneously broke free from each other and began moving under their own power toward the assigned beach. All twenty of the special landing craft began to take sporadic 40mm mortar fire from somewhere in the town but this was mainly just an annoyance. Each landing craft was coated with tank armor and constructed in the best shape for defense.

Judith made her way to the front of her barge, pushing through the men and women hanging on to straps from the ceiling. Israel was unique among nations. Ever confronted with a chronic shortage of personnel, men and women were drafted equally, trained together, and sent into battle together.

Judith raised hez voice to address her people, saying, “I’ve spoken with Colonel Adan. He gave us the most dangerous stretch of beach possible. We’ll be practically single file. When you disembark immediately turn to the right and get off the sand spit as soon as possible. We’re the first. Our mission is to take out the big guns that have been turned to face inland against the threat of our motorized infantry. You can hear the guns even now.”

The boat officer beached Judith’s assault craft right up onto the sand. The wall behind Judith dropped down to become a ramp, revealing a beach being torn up by mortar fire. Che knew the heavy shelling was soon to come. She yelled “Follow Me!” and led her people out onto the sand, the 1st Platoon of Gold Company.

Further down the spit were Blue Company, Orange, and White, each with five platoons, all of them storming the sand spit simultaneously. The astonishing sight of a rusty barge breaking up into twenty motorized landing boats, turning with perfect coordination like a drill team on parade, beaching on the spit, and disgorging a thousand IDF troops onto Egyptian soil was spotted by the alarmed men in the fort control tower. They called it in to a secondary gun battery somewhere in Sharm el-Sheikh.

Splashes began to fly up in the sea around them as the gunners got their range. The splashes got closer to the beach, and some of them struck the now abandoned landing craft. Gold Company 2nd Platoon, the people from the boat immediately next to Judith’s, was the first to be hit with an incoming 155mm shell. Artillery is the troop killer. Six people lay dead, another ten lay wounded or were knocked off their feet. Of the wounded, four would later die.

A pair of soldiers in Judith’s Platoon, a male and female, tried to pinpoint where the rounds were coming from the puffs of smoke on the beach. Blue 5th Plt. took three killed and seven injured before he got a fix. The woman called out the resulting coordinates over a portable radio and requested an airstrike.

At first Judith wasn’t sure what happened next. She found herself waking up with her legs soaked by seawater. It slowly dawned on her that she had been knocked by the concussion of an incoming mortar round and ended up a little ways into the water. Judith had no recollection of the last few seconds, minutes? She didn’t know. Her only thought at that point was dying was so easy.

But Judith was not to die on that day. Her body armor had intercepted most of the blast shrapnel, and the overpressure had been enough to put her in a mild state of shock but it was not life-threatening. Still, Judith was a little dazed, and she no longer led the assault, to be sure. She followed her people as quickly as she could manage.

A lieutenant assigned to serve under Judith had taken charge of the assault when he saw her go down. It was all handled as seamlessly as possible but the lieutenant no longer really had a coherent platoon to lead. Five were immediately dead, eight were wounded, and four of those would soon die from organ failure or simply by bleeding out. The survivors merged with the other platoons running towards the battery.

Judith walked, albeit very fast. The Orange 3rd Platoon was the last to be hit, two dead and five wounded, three mortally. Three Israeli Defense Force Gloster jet aircraft arrived to let loose cluster bombs on the coordinates that had been called in moments earlier. These broke up into many bomblets and saturated the area of the offending gun battery with many small explosions. These disabled the guns in the town and killed most of the personnel manning the weapons. As a side benefit most of the mortars were taken out as well.

After that Judith’s people were free to hurry off their vulnerable position on the beach.

At the fort Judith could see the Egyptians were not fighting up to snuff. She could sense a feeling of little boy lost among them. The surprise amphibious assault in their rear had been the turn of the tide. It was palpable. It fell over the Egyptians like a shadow and they began to surrender en masse.

The big guns of the fort were disarmed by 9 AM that morning. Then Judith, seeing the blue and white flag of her adoptive nation raised over the battery, fell at her feet in a dead faint. It was only then that she received the proper medical attention she needed.

The water route to Eilat was opened once more. Israel had achieved all of her war objectives in just one week. Total IDF losses were 172 killed and 817 wounded, with most of the casualties taking place at the Sharm el-Sheikh operation.

Having lost the war, Egypt was compelled by the terms of the ceasefire to allow Israeli shipping to pass through the Suez Canal once more. Immediately, an Israeli destroyer squadron passed from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea to support Yoffe, his battalion commanders, Judith Margolies, and all their infantry at the tip of the Sinai Peninsula.

In recognition of her contribution to the victory Judith was elevated from brevet segen to the regular company grade rank of seren, or captain, with the corresponding pay.

Not by word, correspondence, telegram, or phone call did Judith Margolies appraise her father in England of any of the things that she had achieved since she parted from him, nor any of the historic events that transpired daily around her.

962 After the death of her son Ahaziah at Ramoth-gilead, Athaliah had the entire royal line murdered except Joash, who was an infant spirited away by Jehosheba the sister of Ahaziah.

963 For six years Joash remained hidden in the temple of Elyon in Jerusalem under the eyes of the High Priest Jehoshapat while Athaliah ruled the tribe of Judah.

964 But in the five hundred four and tenth year of the Covenant Jehoshaphat died, and his son Jehoiada became High Priest unto Elyon Most High. And Jehoiada begat Pediah and Adonikam, and he begat daughters besides.

965 Athaliah introduced the worship of Baal to Judah but was killed seven years later in a coup orchestrated by the high priest Jehoiada, the husband of Jeho-Sheba. And Joash, who was only seven years of age, made chieftain over the tribe of Judah as a figurehead, while Jehoiada issued decrees in his name.

965 In Samaria Jehu caused the golden calf at Beit-El to be torn down, and the cult of priests that served the idol were put to death. Never again while the kingdom of Samaria endured would the city of Beit-El be disfigured by idolatrous images.

967 King Jehu reigned for eight and twenty years, but during his reign he was ever assailed by the Arameans in all the lands held by the children of Israel east of the river Jordan.

968 Therefore to gain an ally Jehu paid tribute to the Assyrians in the form of silver, gold, a golden bowl, a golden vase with pointed bottom, golden tumblers, golden buckets, tin, a staff for a king and many spears.

969 In the five hundred nine and thirtieth year of the Covenant Jehoahaz the son of Jehu ascended to the throne in Samaria upon the death of his father and reigned for seventeen years. But King Jehoahaz permitted the people to erect a pillar to the goddess Asherah in Samaria.

970 In the five hundred four and fiftieth year of the Covenant Jehoaida died, and his son Pediah becamne High Priest unto Elyon Most High at Jerusalem. And Joash ruled the tribe of Judah in his own capacity for two years.

971 Pediah begat Zedekiah and Izhar, and he begat daughters besides.

972 Jashen of the B’nei Elohim, a servant of God Most High, came before Jehoahaz and said the pillar to Ahsherah in Samaria was exceedingly wicked in the eyes of Elyon.

973 He said Elyon Most High would certainly mete out chastisement even as he had done to the kings of Samaria before him. But King Jehoahaz waxed full of wrath. He ordered Jashen to depart from his presence and the king did not tear down the pillar.

974 After that the Aramean king Hazael assailed Samaria. In battles beyond count the army of Jehoahaz was steadily reduced to fifty horsemen, ten chariots and just ten thousand infantrymen. Yet the heart of the king was hardened, and the pillar of Asherah was not torn down.

975 In the five hundred five and fiftieth year of the Covenant Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz ascended to the throne in Samaria upon the death of his father and reigned for sixteen years.

976 Jehoahaz begat Jeroboam and Zichri, and he begat daughters besides. He tore down the piller to Asherah in the capital city and made an end to all idolatry in the kingdom.

977 In the five hundred six and fiftieth year of the Covenant Jehoash died, and his son Amaziah became chieftain of the tribe of Judah. And Amaziah begat Uzziah and Ahihud, and he begat daughters besides.

978 Then Adad-Nirari III, king of the Assyrians, marched with his chariots and armies to the great sea in the west. He erected a statue of his lordship in the city of Sidon, which is in the midst of the sea.

979 He received two thousand talents of silver, one thousand talents of copper, two thousand talents of iron, and three thousand linen garments with multicolored trim. All of these were tribute of Mari of the land of Damascus. He also received the tribute of King Joash the Samarian.

980 When Amaziah of Judah set up the idols of the Edomites in Jerusalem Joash advanced on that city. God Most High himself caused a portion of the city wall to crumble. King Joash carried off the Temple treasury and took Amaziah prisoner.

981 And the idols of the Edomites were also carried off to Samaria. King Joash ordered them to be stacked in the lowest level of the palace and he set a guard upon them, lest the Judahites retrieve them once more and fall into their grievous sin against God Most High.

982 In the five hundred seven and fiftieth year of the Covenant Amaziah was ransomed by the the tribe of Judah. The people acclaimed him as their own king when they received him back, as it did not suit them that their brother Joash, even one of the children of Israel, should assail the temple as though he were one of the foreign kings.

The house of Jashen and Leliel was too cramped for Ithuriel to properly show hyz father what hy had come up with so hy led hym to the top of the little knoll which was still adorned with Dory's tree house. Anael was waiting for them up there, with the saucer lying upside-down. Ithuriel could not hide hyz pleasure at the rare presence of hyz father, the seraph Michael, who was the absolute lord of the entire Earth and arguably at least half of Kemen.

To the north from the hilltop they could see where the Squaw River forked to form an island, but it was just a trickle now. Ithuriel brought that to Michael's attention. Hy said, "The town is dying a little bit every day, father. I've come up here many times and I've watched it shrivel."

"There is no wisdom in completely stopping the flow of water," Mi- chael said, knowing that Ithuriel was well aware the source of the Squaw River was actually in Nyduly Wood more than four years away as the photon flies. "But as you have seen I am reducing it by degrees. I keep it just below the level it needs to be to fully support the de- clining population of the town as it is from day to day."

"I understand," said Ithuriel. "That serves to keep them moving out. Eventually DECON will own the whole town, but by then they'll need to bring all their water in by truck. But one consequence I've noticed, father, intended or not, is that the White Wingers who thought it was a bargain buying up Red Wing homes at seventy cents on the dollar are now grateful to sell their own homes to the United States government for thirty cents on the dollar."

Michael allowed hymself a sly smile, and he glanced briefly at Anael. "Over the centuries many have attributed to me the virtue of divine justice." And Anael smiled gently back at him.

To the north and west they saw the island that formed the center of Headwater, anchored at one end by the courthouse and on the other end by the sheriff's station. But half of the business were closed so hard they weren't even boarded up. They were simply abandoned by their former owners and left for Clyde Tolson of DECON to remake them in whatever image he had in mind.

But Tolson himself had not been around for several months. The War in Europe had entered its final year and J. Edgar Hoover had given Tol- son's leash a tug. He made Tolson put whatever side project he had going on in Headwater on hold to hunt down actual domestic enemies, not phantoms, infiltrators who were Third Reich saboteurs and spies. Special Agent Bill Sullivan and Dr. Trochman were likewise nowhere to be found. Paul Bergin had been sent to the Chair, Klaus Hansen rotted in Leavenworth, and Special Agent Mark Felt had left when they left.

To the east over the roof of his sister's home Ithuriel could see the bulk of the town platted out south of the river. Dory's friends Robyn and So fie used to live over there but recently they had taken to hiding. It was eerily quiet, with very little traffic. Half of the homes lay entirely vacant.

South and east was the little bump informally called Mt. Motorcycle. It was perhaps fifty feet taller than Treehouse Hill. A very small cemetary lay on it's flanks. The railroad from the east wrapped completely around it and merged with itself, the absolute end of the line. Behind the rail yard the uppermost vale of the Squaw bent south, then turned west again to wrap nearly halfway around the small mountain called Green Dome that dominated the western sky line. On its summit lay the charred ruins of the temple, more or less untouched since the Desecration.

Anael waited patiently next to a giant hubcab about six feet tall and wide enough to fill a two-car garage. It was standing, as it were, on its head. In a recess that would have been in its undercarriage there was a round plate the size of a manhole cover that Ithuriel could move with a hand. As he did so, the control stick in the crew compartment moved as well. After Michael look at everything closely he asked his son, "What gave you the idea for this shape? It's hardly the most optimum choice, considering air resistance."

Ithuriel smiled. "Oh, well that is attributable to a most interesting story, father. Last June a US Marine C-46 transport plane crashed on the western side of the highest peak in the Cascade Range, and when word got around, a private pilot named Ken Arnold volunteered to aid with the search. While Arnold circled Mount Rainier he spotted a cluster of nine brightly glowing meteors rushing past his plane at supersonic speed toward Mount Adams in the south. Because they were pieces of a fireball in the process of breaking up, they seemed to be flying in formation, so Arnold assumed they were aircraft. He interpreted their intermittent bursts of brightness to be sunlight glinting off polished aluminum. The pieces were of irregular shape and they were tumbling end over end, which made them hop up and down in the air stream.

"After his flight Arnold told a reporter that they flew like a saucer skipping over water. This sighting sparked an ongoing national obsession with 'flying saucers' that borders on mass hysteria because people insist on identifying them as spacecraft operated by aliens. Perhaps it is just more fun that way. But by July there were many more saucer sightings. Some are honest mistakes much like the one Arnold had made, but most are outright copycat hoaxes. The reporter somehow garbled Arnold’s description. The pilot merely tried to convey that the objects moved like saucers, not that they looked like saucers. But it was too late, the erroneous quote was already in print, so everyone keeps 'seeing' saucers.

"When I was stumped on a final body design Remiel mentioned the big national flying saucer craze that is going on. He said, “If you make it in the shape of a flying saucer, then even if people see us and report it, they won’t be believed. If they photograph us in flight, they will be accused of taking a snapshot of a hub cap.”

"Brilliant. But I don't see a motor. What makes you believe it will fly?"

"Oh, father, I knew it would fly from the moment I lit off my copy of the Golden Gift and pointed it down towards the Earth. It pushed up against my hand. I knew the basic operating principle was negative energy, which acts like anti-gravity, and that is also what you use to hold open a fold-door. The source of this negative energy is your own stellar body, not anything in the relic itself. This I confirmed when I took one apart and found nothing inside but a garnet.

"Now as the scripture says, your thoughts are not as our thoughts, but you made the first Golden Gift yourself, and wherever it was taken, some corner of your mind continued to track that garnet so you could produce the killing effect on demand, and this you continue to do even as it is multiplied by Gabriel. This saucer I have made has a plate instead of a garnet, but if you touch it, your mind will track it also."

"And why would I volunteer to do that, son? Since the days of Lael Keter and Da'at have each had their own equivalent of the Golden Gift but they never allow a world-dweller to possess them because even a sun can only make so much negative energy in a given span of time, and deploying the Golden Gift at full blossom consumes it at a rate comparable to that of opening a fold-door."

"Ah, yes, father, but Bat-El can supply unlimited amounts of negative energy from other branches, or even bring forward non-utilized negative energy from this branch, can she not? Besides, ever since that debacle with the FBI agents I've known what it is you're really after. It's not enough that you win and break through to the City of Stars with news of our existence. Keter and Da'at must be caught red-handed in active resistance, and you're enlisting Earthbound allies for them. Special Agent in Charge Tolson would forget all about schoolgirls with buffalo horns if he got a whiff of a flying saucer."

Anael winked at Michael. "Ithuriel has got you there, Lord."

"Yes, he always was a sharp cookie." Michael touched the pusher plate as his son knew he would.

"Thank you, father," Ithuriel said. "And now we're ready for you to come in, Anael."

Then Anael applied hez talent to lift the saucer from its edge until che was holding it over hez head. Che twisted it mid-air, and set it back down with the flight deck right side up. The interior ribs of the saucer had been designed to permit Anael to do precisely that without warping or snapping the vehicle in two.

"Thank you, Anael," said Ithuriel, and he opened the door in the side of the craft. It popped straight out, then slid to the right on tracks. "Shall we see if it flies?" He ducked his head and stepped inside.

Michael said, "That door is easily the most complicated part of this whole contraption," but he, too, stepped inside after his son. It    smelled like the interior of a very expensive automobile because the circular couch was upholstered in new leather. "Ah yes, a whiff of   home. The tanners on Arcturus IV did an amazing job."

"We can let ourselves be seen skinning cows every now and then to explain it, should Tolson ever capture a saucer."

"You go ahead, Lord," said Anael. "I prefer to watch the crash from here." Then che slid the door shut and watched it lift from the hilltop into the sky over Headwater.

983 In the five hundred and seventieth year of the Covenant Pediah died, and his son Zedekiah became High Priest unto Elyon Most High in Jerusalem. And Zedekiah begat Joel and Gemariah, and he begat daughters besides.

984 In the five hundred and seventy-first year of the Covenant Jeroboam II ascended to the throne in Samaria upon the death of his father and reigned for forty-one years. Jeroboam begat Zachariah and Elmodam, and he begat daughters besides.

986 And a decree went out from King Jeroboam to number Samaria. It was reported back to the king that the men of the kingdom able to hold a sword numbered more than three and ninety thousands, with their wives and men-children and maid-children and servants many more besides.

987 In battle Jeroboam prevailed over the Arameans. He took possession of Damascus, Lodebar, and Karnaim, and he extended the boundaries of Samaria from Hamath on the river Orontes. King Jeroboam took the whole Jordan valley to the Red Seat.

988 But King Jeroboam did not give glory to God Most High for his good fortune. He removed the idols of the Edomites from the depths of the palace and ordered them set up throughout the city of Samaria, thinking it was they who had caused him to prevail on the field of battle.

989 Then a prophet from the city of Tekoa named Amos came before the king and said he had caused the children of Israel to sin by setting up the idols of the Edomites.

990 Amos said unto the king, “Two years are appointed that you may act to remove the abominations from the sight of God Most High. Failing that, at the end of the two years a great earthquake shall smite many.”

991 But Jeroboam grew full of wrath and sent Amos out from his presence, and he did not remove the idols of the Edomites from their shrines in the city. When the two years had passed a great earthquake struck the kingdom, such as had never been known before, and forty thousand were slain.

992 In the five hundred three and ninetieth year of the Covenant Joel son of Zedekiah became High Priest unto Elyon Most High in Jerusalem. And Joel begat Jotham and Ramiah, and he begat daughters besides.

993 King Jeroboam of Samaria did not remove the idols of the Edomites, and he restored the shrines that had been smitten of God Most High in the earthquake.

994 Then Amos came before the king once more and said Elyon had decreed the kingdom would be ripped from the hands of Jeroboam’s son and be given to another. And Jeroboam grew full of wrath and commanded Amos depart from his presence and never return.

995 Then in the six hundredth year of the Covenant Jeroboam was struck down by Elyon Most High even as he sat upon his throne. Zachariah ascended to the throne in Samaria upon the death of this father, but he only reigned for six months before an officer of his army named Shallum son of Jabesh assassinated him and took the throne for himself in the six hundred and first year of the Covenant.

996 King Shallum did not tear down the shrines of the idols of the Edomites in Samaria. Then Jashen and Gabriel of the B’nei Elohim, servants of God Most High, came before the king.

997 And Jashen said, “Because, O King, you have permitted this great offense against Elyon to remain in Samaria, that the children of Israel are led to sin by worshiping the idols of the Edomites, Elyon shall make a quick end of your rule in the kingdom and give the throne to another.”

998 And Shallum waxed full of wrath. He ordered Jashen to depart from his presence. Then Jashen went with Gabriel to the cities of the tribe of Ephraim and chose from among them five righteous men who had never performed worship at the shrines of the idols of the Edomites in Samaria.

999 And the names of the righteous Ephraimites were Jalon and Kenaz and Haran and Millo and Shechaniah.

1000 And Elyon brought to the mind of Keter remembrance of the covenant he made when the father of the Israelites was yet living in the household of his own father, Yishak.

1001 Elyon said the time had come when he would settle families of the children of Israel in Kemen. But Keter said by the covenant Elyon was constrained to settle them in Haaretz west of the Wall of God.

1002 So Kushiel led the five righteous Ephraimites with their wives to the north and east of Haaretz and brought them to a cool vale between Shaula Wood and the very face of the Wall of God.

1003 Jalon knew his wife, and begat Salathiel and Mehullam and Ibnijah, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1004 And Kenaz knew his wife, and he begat Harim and Malchiah and Jimnah, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1005 And Haran knew his wife, and he begat Pashur and Esli and Buzi, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1006 And Millo knew his wife, and he begat Ohad and Rizpah and Raham, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1007 And Shechaniah knew his wife, and he begat Hasrah and Jonadab and Mahazioth, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1008 The same Ephraimites founded the city of Hadal, and in the fulness of time this city became the capital of the kingdom of Nath.

1009 King Shallum reigned only thirty days before another officer of Zachariah’s army, Menachem son of of Gadi, rose up and smote him in his turn. And Menachem took the throne of Samaria for himself in the six hundred and first year of the Covenant.

1010 And Menachem begat Pekahiah, and Nimshi, and he begat daughters besides. But the men of Tiphsah did not give assent that Menachem should be king.

1011 So Menachem smote that city, the coasts thereof, and put all inhabitants to the edge of sword, slaying even the women were heavy with child.

1012 And King Menachem heard a report that Jashen and Ithuriel of the B’nei Elohim, servants of God Most High, was seen in the city. So he tore down the shrines of the idols of the Edomites, and caused them to be melted down. Then Menachem had Jashen and Ithuriel brought before his throne in Samaria.

1013 And the king said to them, “Behold, the idols of the Edomites are no more. Bless you, then, my reign, in the name of God Most High that I may live long and lead the people into all righteousness.”

1014 But Jashen said, “Elyon has said, O King, that a great evil was carried out in Tiphsah, even to the slaying of women who were with child. Now Judah has become the apple of God’s eye, and God Most High has sworn to have nothing further to do with the king who rules from this city.”

1015 Then Menachem waxed in wrath, and ordered the B'nei Elohim to depart from his presence. So they went to the cities of the tribe of Manesseh and chose from among them five righteous men who had never performed worship at the shrines of the idols of the Edomites.

1016 And the names of the righteous Manessehites were Bashemath and Abihud and Ishiah and Imlah and Ithiel.

1017 Bashemath knew his wife and begat Eder and Ahishamar and Shammah, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1018 And Abuihud knew his wife and begat Raphi and Anah and Hezion, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1019 And Ishiah knew his wife and begat Zephi and Jerah and Harhas, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1020 And Imlah knew his wife and begat Alemeth and Henadad and Zidon, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1021 And Ithiel knew his wife and begat Hassenaah and Pahath and Hori, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1022 The same Manessehites built Menkant in the valley of the upper Sabik between Mount Rasal and Mount Menkant. Their settlement grew to become the leading city among the tribes in the south of Haaretz. In time these became the kingdom of Hamar.

1023 And Menachem exacted a head tax of fifty shekels upon every male in Samaria that he might give tribute to King Tiglat of Assyria. He reigned for ten years in Samaria, and his son Pekahiah ascended to the throne upon his death in the six hundred two and tenth year of the Covenant.

1024 Pekahiah reigned for two years before word came to him that Elin, a nephil of the B’nei Elohim and a servant of God Most High, was seen in the city together with Jashen. The king gave commandmnent this Elin and Jashen should appear before his throne.

1025 And Pekahiah said to them, “Behold, Menachem who sinned against God Most High has been dead these two years, and I have not walked in his ways, neither have I set up idols that the children of Israel may be led into sin. Give to me the blessing of Elyon, therefore, that the people may prosper in the face of our foes the Aramites and the armies of Damascus.

1026 But Jashen said, “As I said before to your father Menachem, “God Most High has vowed to have nought to do with the king in Samaria, and Elyon’s vows are without repentance.”

1027 Pekahiah waxed greatly in wrath, and taking a spear he thought to smite Jashen, but even as his arm drew back with the spear he fell in a faint, for it was given to Elin that che could cause a foe to be stunned. Then Elin and Jashen departed from the presence of the king, and never again did any of the B'nei Elohim appear in the city of Samaria.

J. Edgar Hoover got tired of Clyde Tolson wasting time with his obsession on the high plains and called him back to DC. A war was still raging. Or perhaps he just missed him. When Robyn was seven months along Dr. Wahkan without fear of capture.

“I’m glad you came in,” he said. “Everything is moving along fine. When it's time to have the baby I know you won’t need to be sedated because you can choose to isolate your conscious mind from any pain, just like Lilith did in the Green Book, but it’s still going to kick your ass. Your body, your subconscious mind is still going to know something is going very wrong.”

“Why is that, Doc?” she asked. “Why can’t we just drop ’em like cows do and carry on?”

“Because humans are the only animals on Earth that walk upright, on two feet. At every moment we are faced with the threat of being disemboweled simply by standing up. So the hole in the pelvic floor has to be as small as possible to prevent that. At the same time, humans have the largest brains of any animal on Earth as a percentage of their total body mass. So the opening in the pelvis cannot be too small, do you see?”

Robyn nodded. “Otherwise the infant would get wedged in the birth canal and die.”

“Correct. The baby’s skull does not fully form until after birth, so it actually deforms during birth to ease the passage, but the ordeal is still very dangerous for both the mother and child.”

“Assuming we both survive, what am I going to get?”

“Well, Gabriel is a jen, hez sex chromosomes are X and Z. You’ve got two X’s. So there’s a fifty percent chance you’re going to get a beautiful and human baby girl, and there’s a fifty percent chance you’re going to get an equally beautiful baby nephil. Flip the coin again. Heads che’s an ambi, like Anael. Tails che’s a jen like Gabriel. I could have tested for it earlier, but now it’s so close there’s no point.”

The parochial school run by the Church of Green Dome was boarded up, but that wouldn't stop any B'nei Elohim equipped with the Golden Gift. The Band's tunnels even ran under the school. Yeshua was waiting in a classroom there, seated at the teacher's desk. Robyn, Gabriel, Hunky and Dory sank to their knees when they came in, but Rebekah, who didn't know the seraph, remained standing.

Yeshua said, "Please, children, take a seat. Rebekah, if you wish, you may sit too. In the front row, please. This is about you."

She did as the Lord bade her to do, never taking her eyes off him. Dory had said they were taking her to see Jesus and here he was, but Rebekah watched him carefully to see if she could detect any deception.

He said, "You grew up in the Church so you were taught my Father does not look at world-dwellers as Keter and Da'at do. You are not his servants, but his students. Nevertheless, he saw that having servants could be very useful so he set aside the B'nei Elohim. But even so, it is his will that service to him remains a matter of choice. Unending life is yours for as long as you choose, but if you wish to be released from his service my father will affirm that as well and leave you to live out your life in peace.

"This he did because the act of becoming B'nei Elohim was never a matter of choice. Gabriel and Doriel are B'nei Elohim simply because their parents are B'nei Elohim. Robyn and Hunky were made B'nei Elohim but this was done without their fully informed consent, even as the same was done to Jashen.

"In the beginning I drew followers to myself, and occasionally I have made use of my father's B'nei Elohim, but now as we draw near to the end I find I have need of something very much like the B'nei Elohim. Servants of my own, and many more of them than Elyon has chosen to have. Rebekah, I would have you become the first of my servants, but I differ from my Father in that I would make even the Change a matter of your freely-given consent."

After thinking about it for a moment, Rebekah asked, "Would I have the stupid white horns?"

Yeshua smiled. "No. The horns were originally so Keter and Da'at could identify the B'nei Elohim at a glance. Even they use them. They consider all planet-dwellers their slaves, so they do not have anything like the B'nei Elohim, but if you see a lan with red horns that is Keter, and a lan with black horns is Da'at. An entire demonology has grown up around that fact. I keep my own horns trimmed back because I'm supposed to be the savior and horns would undermine that. There will still be a physical change, Rebekah, but it will be less obtrusive and more practical. I have in mind something that will allow you to interface with machines."

"Will I have a special talent, like my friends do?"

"You, at least, will have such a talent, Rebekah. In the main, my servants will not have anything more than whatever abilities already belong to them innately, which can frequently be every bit as remarkable as any tricks my Father works through his servants. But in your case, Rebekah, you will have sexual power far exceedingthat of anyone who has ever lived, in Kemen or on Earth, because it is through sex that you will make new servants for me, whether they be man or woman, jen or ambi, lan or yen."

Rebekah seemed to be stirred by the offer but one thing bothered her. "Is sex how you will make me your servant, Lord?"

"No, no, that will be through a simple laying on of hands."

Hunky held up a finger and said, "Beats the needle."

Yeshua continued. "You will also have a perfect memory, just like your friends do . No one will ever be able to persuade you with pain, which is good, because my father and I have a profound secret that we would not have shared with Keter and Da'at. Your friends know this secret but they have never even hinted at its existence because that is bound up in the nature of the B'nei Elohim. If you choose to become my servant you will also know this secret, and you, too, will be unable to reveal it, even should you wish to do so and even after you leave my service. That, by necessity, is the only thing that remains forever outside of your choice."

Rebekah got up from her seat and drew near to Yeshua. "Then let it be done, Lord, even as you have said."

1028 Pekah of Gilead, the son of Remaliah and the king’s chief lieutenant in the army, slew Pekiahiah as he lay before the throne of Samaria, and Pekah took that throne for himself and became king in the six hundred three and tenth year of the Covenant.

1029 Then Elin and Jashen went among the people of the tribe of Gad to find five righteous men who had never prostituted themselves with the idols of the Edomites. And the names of these righteous men were Jeush and Manahath and Bedad and Shebna and Shimei.

1030 Jeush knew his wife and begat Jedaiah and Anathoth and Joatham, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1031 And Managhath knew his wife and begat Shillem and Haggith and Ludim, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1032 And Bedad knew his wife and begat Mehetabeel and Ishbak and Zaccur, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1033 And knew his wife and Shebna begat Jehudi and Zeruiah and Chelal, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1034 And Shimei knew his wife and begat Amasa and Jephunneh and Elisham, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1035 The same Gadites built the city of Kabark on a plain in Kemen that lacked for water. They built a mighty work of stone to dam the river Armak and dug many canals and ditches to water their farms from the lake that formed behind the dam. And their fields and orchards became the envy of Haaretz.

1036 In the six hundred three and tenth year of the Covenant Jotham, son of Uzziah, became king in Judah. Jotham begat Ahaz and Mehir, and he begat daughters besides.

1037 Uzziah ascended to the throne of Judah when he was sixteen years of age. Uzziah restored Jerusalem to its former glory and built up many farms across the land. He reconquered territory formerly belonging to the house of Judah in the Negev region and regained control of restive Edom.

1038 Uzziah begat Jotham and Geshan and he begat daughters besides. But near the end of his life Uzziah became a leper and retired to a house apart from the palace while his son Jotham ruled Judah as regent.

1039 In the six hundred four and tenth year of the Covenant Jotham, son of Joel, became High Priest unto Elyon Most High in Jerusalem. Jotham begat Urijah and Mattat, and he begat daughters besides. And in those days a prophet named Isaiah was first heard in the city.

1040 In the seven hundred two and thirtieth year of the Covenant King Jotham of Judah died, and his son Ahaz ascended to the throne, being then only twenty years of age. Ahaz begat Hezekiah and Moza, and he begat daughters besides.

1041 In the six hundred one and twentieth year of the Covenant King Pekah made alliance with the newly-annointed King Rezin of Aram. Together they marched on Jerusalem to levy troops of King Ahaz of Judah to turn against Tiglat of Syria, but as foreseen by Isaiah their bid to overawe Ahaz did not prevail.

1042 But during the seige the Edomites conquered Elath, on the Red Sea, and drove the Judahites out of it. Thus they held themselves avenged for their idols which had been taken to Jerusalem.

1043 And Ahaz king sent messengers who pierced through the lines of the Samarians and Arameans. To Tiglat king of Syria they went, begging for succor, and with them sent the king also in tribute much silver and gold from the temple, and from the king’s own treasury.

1044 Then the Assyrians sacked Damascus and added the lands of Aram to their own territory, and King Rezin was executed.

1045 And King Tiglat assailed all the land of the tribe of Naphtali, and carried the people thereof captive to Syria. After that a party favorable to Assyria appeared in Samaria, with Hoshea, an officer of Pekah’s army, as its leader.

1046 Then word came to King Pekah him that a nephil of the B’nei Elohim, a servant of God Most High named Beleth, was abroad in the land of Samaria, together with the one named Jashen who was known to him on a time, and he sent messenges that both appear before the throne and give account of their doings in his kingdom.

1047 But Jashen sent word back to the king that he and Beleth were about an errand appointed by Elyon himself that had naught to do with the king in Samaria.

1048 Neither did Beleth speak a word to the messengers of the king of the nature of hez errand, as only Jashen could speak the Hebrew tongue.

1049 Then Pekah waxed greatly in wrath, and ordered his soldiers to go forth to seize Beleth and Jashen, and put them both into prison. But Beleth and Jashen fled from the approach of the king's archers, who then fired arrows to stop them.

1050 But the darts fell wide of the mark, for it was given to Beleth that che could weave a shielding spell about hezself and any who stood close to hem, a barrier no eye could see, yet one that no foe could pierce.

1051 And Jashen, who was trained to be a warrior in the land of his birth, drew his own bowstring, and slew ten soldiers of King Pekah. And none returned to tell the king of their fate.

1052 Beleth and Jashen went among the tribe of Naphtali that was in exile under the Assyrians and found of them five righteous men who never worshiped the idols of the Edomites. And those men were named Jehozadak and Semachiab and Huppim and Jehiel and Maath.

1053 Jehozadak knew his wife and begat Hoshaiah and Toah and Paruah, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1054 And Senmachiab knew his wife and begat Pelatiah and Athaliah and Giddalti, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1055 And Huppim knew his wife and begat Maadai and Jehoadah and Pelaliah, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1056 And Jehiel knew his wife and begat Jeuel and Arodi and Halohesh, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.10 And Maath knew his wife and begat Bariah and Hasshub and Azaz, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1057 The same Naphtalites built the city of Wazol at the very source of the river Sabik, and the stone Wall of God fairly loomed over it four vertical miles. There the Catwalk of legend touched bottom. The mines of Wazol offered much iron ore, as well as the coal to smelt it.

1058 Then King Tiglat of Assyria appointed Hoshea as king over the people of Samaria. He received from Hoshea ten talents of gold and a thousand talents of silver and had these brought to his capital.

1059 Hoshea paid tribute to Assyria every year while King Tiglat lived. And when reports came to him that Michael of the B’nei Elohim, a seraph of God Most High, was walking abroad in Samaria, King Hoshea did not demand Michael appear before his throne in the capital.

1060 And Michael himself went to the lands of the tribe of Zebulin, and found among them five righteous men who had never worshiped the idols of the Edomites. And these men were Abdiel and Azaiah and Kabzeel and Imrah and Epher.

1061 And Adbeel knew his wife and begat Mahali and Kittim and Gedaliah, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1062 And Azaiah knew his wife and begat Erran and Jeramee and Lehabim, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1063 And Kabzeel knew his wife and begat Letushim and Jonan and Rinnah, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1064 And Imrah knew his wife and begat Shiphi and Tabrimon and Eliab, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1065 And Epher knew his wife and begat Serug and Zehtam and Tiras, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1066 The same tribe of Zebuluin settled Kemen far up the vale of the river Nanki on the road leading north from the Saiph League. There caravans transferred their goods to rafts fashioned from logs felled from the endless forests of pine blanketing the foothills of the Wall of God.

1067 When King Tiglat died his son Shalmaneser attained to the throne. Then King Hoshea of Samaria sent ambassadors before the Pharoah in Egypt, and he ceased paying the yearly tribute.

1068 But nothing came to fruit after King Hoshea’s overtures to Egypt. Much chastened, the king offered to resume paying the tribute, but Shalmaneser refused, and gave battle, and took Hoshea captive in war. Shalmaneser’s armies laid seige to Samaria and took possession of the city after three years.

1069 And the nephil Gabriel of the B’nei Elohim, a servant of God Most High, sojourned with Jashen in the north. They found five righteous men from among the tribe of Issachar who had never prostituted themselves before the idols of the Edomites. These men were Shaphat and Abishai and Jaazaniah and Habaziniah and Gemalli.

1070 Shaphat knew his wife and begat Binnui and Salah and Heth, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1071 And Abishai knew his wife and begat Michri and Ezer and Gallim, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1072 And Jaazaniah knew his wife and begat Madai and Zabad and Ahasai, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.7 And Habaziniah knew his wife and begat Joed and Jaalam and Berachah, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1073 And Gemalli knew his wife and begat Zeror and Ahilud and Naarah, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1074 The same Issacharites built the city of Adjara on the western edge of Shaula Wood. It became a great crossroads in the land of Haaretz and the center of a weaponscraft that rivaled that of the Black Beards in Adan. And they set about to build a temple to God Most High after the manner of the house of God in Jerusalem.

1075 King Shalmaneser was assassinated by his half-brother Sargon with the support of the foremost generals of the army, as Shalmaneser’s seiges were deemed too long and fruitless. The army was withdrawn from Samaria to consolidate the king’s position in the capital city of Nimrud.

1076 And Leliel of the B’nei Elohim, a servant of God Most High, went with Jashen among the cities of the tribe of Reuben to find five righteous men who never prostituted themselves with the idols of the Edomites. And these men were Mattathah and Bichri and Hothir and Asarelah and Mahlah.

1077 Mattathah begat Gilon and Eliphal and Azrikam, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1068 But nothing came to fruit after King Hoshea’s overtures to other sons and daughters besides.

1079 And Hothir begat Abiud and Eliadah and Shebuel, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1080 And Asarelah begat Jeremai and Tabeal and Malcham, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1081 And Mahlah begat Anath and Geber and Raamah, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1082 The same Reubenites built the city of Mizal near Mount Naruthah, but the lee of the uplands was dry and impoverished. Ever the Reubenites struck north against the Red Beards of Linan for the rich fruit of the orchards round about that city, and they stole much cattle. At length the Reubenites prevailed and took possession of the city.

1083 King Sargon set eunuchs as governors of the provinces of Syria, that succession should not be a matter of blood. And he resolved to end the military matters left standing by his predecessor.

1084 Then Jashen and Remiel of the B’nei Elohim, servants of God Most High, went among the cities of the tribe of Dan to find five righteous men who never prostituted themselves with the idols of the Edomites.

1085 And the five Danite men were Pethor and Zabud and Abiram and Shamer and Ahumai.

1086 Pethor knew his wife, and begat Shisha and Zehtan and Elionai. And he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1087 And Zabud knew his wife, and begat Teman and Immer and Josibiah, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1088 And Abiram knew his wife, and begat Abiah and Kadmiel and Paseah, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1089 And Shamer knew his wife, and begat Jediael and Zobebah and Korah, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1090 And Ahumai knew his wife, and begat Zeziuah and Azzan and Sadoc, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1091 The same Danites built the city of Fatho at the foot of the Wall of God where many natural caves lay. The Danites delved deep with pick and spade to reap precious stones and much gold.

1092 King Sargon laid siege Samaria and recaptured the capital city. Twenty-seven thousand two hundred and ninety people dwelling in the midst of the city and in the land all about were carried off captive. And Sargon chose fifty of the best chariots for himself and distributed the rest among his army.

1093 Then Sargon appointed a general over the remaining people of the land of Samaria and collected the taxes of Hoshea their former and final king.

1094 And Asrael of the B’nei Elohim, a servant of God Most High, was sent among the captives of the tribe of Ashur to find five righteous men who never prostituted themselves to the idols of the Edomites. These men were Ziphion and Ebed and Zuar and Akkub and Shubael.

1095 Ziphion knew his wife, and begat Abdiel and Shobal and Ithran, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1096 And Ebed knew his wife, and begat Nabal and Gera and Baladan, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1097 And Zuar knew his wife, and he begat Bimhal and Hodoviah and Seled, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1098 And Akkub knew his wife, and he begeat Shaul and Zabiel and Noadiah, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1099 And Shubael knew his wife, and he begat Jeduthun and Mallothi and Saruch, and he begat other sons and daughters besides.

1100 The same Ashurites settled at the midpoint of the river Nanki where it tumbled over a series of cataracts that would dash any cargo-carrying rafts to splinters. They portaged the goods to new rafts made from the same logs sent individually down sluices to below the falls.

1101 By order of the Assyrian king the people of the tribes of Dan, Asher, Zebulun, Issachar, Gad, Reuben, and half of Manasseh were relocated to lands far to the east. The planning for the move took longer than the march and the execution was without flaw.

1102 None marched under the lash, and many even went willingly. The children of Israel were a lettered people, even to the boys among them, and the Assyrians had need of them in the governance of their empire.

1103 The exiles built new homes in locations chosen such that when the time came for their sons to find wives it was more likely they would find a foreign man’s daughter rather than a daughter of their fellow exiles. None were compelled to intermarry, yet many of them did.

Jashen and Judith were warriors, both of them, but even they were shocked at the ruin of an old man they saw through the one-way mirror. A survivor of the camps, he was missing his nose and his entire lower jaw. Still, when the unfortunate man saw the prisoner cuffed to his chair it took two burly Mossad agents to restrain the Holocaust survivor from assaulting him in a blood-blind rage.

Neither Jashen nor Judith could stand to watch it any more. They turned away to face their own interrogator around their own table.

“Sir,” asked Judith, incredulously, “with all due respect, what was the meaning of that display? I’m a seren of the Tzahal. I bring in Doctor Josef Mengele, the Angel of Death, and you don’t believe me? Sir, do you think that I fabricated all this supplementary documentation?”

She gestured at all the paperwork arranged on the table between them.

“Documentation,” Commander Gavish of Mossad snorted. He wasn’t having any of what Judith was feeding him. “We were never properly briefed on the last high profile Nazi you brought in. You just appeared in the middle of the night on the front door of the old Mossad Headquarters with Horst Wagner and no explanation of how you found him, no explanation how you captured him, and and no explanation how you both ended up there. How fortunate for you the founding father of our nation had a keen sense of the propaganda value of such a stunt.”

“Yes sir, Commander Gavish,” she said, “as I recall, I even got a promotion after the stunt. The Prime Minister is also the Minister of Defense, after all, sir, even now.”

“And do you imagine old David Ben-Gurion will just walk in here as your own personal deus ex machina and allow you to carry off a repeat performance?”

“No sir. But by your leave, isn’t it obvious I had outside assistance on both occasions?” Her head inclined slightly toward Jashen.

“Certainly, but that brings me to the subject of your friend with no papers. You say he’s an American. I realize the United States was well-disposed toward our country during the War of Independence but lately, with Eisenhower in office, things have not seemed so good. And you, Seren Judith Margolies, an Israeli army officer with one of the highest security clearances in the country, have clearly been in long-duration contact with foreigners of unknown status, possibly intelligence agents, without declaring the contact and all relevant details through official means.”

“Sir, please review the security profile in my service jacket once more. You will see that I have indeed declared my association with a religious group that calls itself the B’nei Elohim.”

“B’nei Elohim? The offspring of God? That name was such an arrogant presumption we thought it to be some disgusting variety of messianic Christianity. Are you an actual member of this group, Seren Margolies?”

“She is not yet one of us, Commander,” Jashen chimed in, speaking for the first time since helping Judith bring Mengele to captivity, and speaking in Hebrew at that. “But our leader, Michael, believes Judith definitely promises to qualify for the B’nei Elohim one day.”

Gavish noted that for an American Jashen’s command of modern Hebrew was excellent, as though he were secretly sabra. It was somewhat better, in fact than Judith’s grasp of the language. She sounded as one expected a British citizen to sound after speaking the revived Hebrew language for only twelve years.

Gavish asked, “And what is the nature of your B’nei Elohim, Jashen, if they are not a Christian sect? Are they some offshoot of reform Judaism? Certainly the orthodox would have nothing to do with you.”

“In some ways, Commander, I would say we are more orthodox than even the haredim. After all, sir, what you think of as Judaism didn’t really come into existence until after the Third Temple was destroyed. But I didn’t come here to offend your religious sensibilities.”

“Then why did you come here?”

“Because lately the B’nei Elohim have taken on the role of pest exterminators. The low-level Nazis, the sadistic prison guards of relatively low rank who managed to worm their way back into German society or even smuggle themselves overseas, we just hunt them down and eliminate them. No one escapes, because ‘Never Again’, right? I tell you this in case you wonder why Judith keeps missing reserve duty. She’s got a higher calling. But back to the Nazis! The notorious ones, the unspeakably evil ones responsible for tens or hundreds of thousands of deaths, they don’t get off as easy as a round to the back of the head. So we bring them in, with ‘in’ meaning here to your headquarters in Tel Aviv. I was part of the extraction team for Mengele and I was also on the team back in ’51 for Wagner. Judith knows all about it, she can tell you. It turns out I have a knack for languages, and also I have some experience with undercover work. Michael tells me I’m impossible to intimidate, but that, I think, is mostly a Kuwapi tribal thing. Michael also asked me to hang around with Judith for this delivery because even though hy already gave this same speech to your Prime Minister once before it didn’t seem to sink in here at Mossad.”

The door to the interrogation room opened just then and a flag officer blerted, “Ten-HUTT!” Margolies and Gavish stood at attention from where they sat, while Jashen remained seated.

A very short elderly man with a bald head ringed by a wild tuft of white hair walked into the room with the chief of Mossad and two general officers of the Israeli Defense Force.

First he went to the one-way mirror to stare at Doctor Mengele sitting at a table with his hands cuffed to either side of his chair. The Prime Minister was silent for at least a minute, looking at the prisoner, before he finally spoke. “So there he is, eh?” Then he turned to examine the room he was in, with his glance settling at last on the face of Judith. “Seren Judith Margolies, is it?”

“Yes sir.”

“We never met, the last time.”

“No sir, but I am fully aware that you are very busy man.”

“Did you find the administrative token of my appreciation to be acceptable recompense for my failure to thank you in person, Seren Margolies?”

“Yes sir. The promotion was a very welcome surprise, but I would have helped delivered Mengele today even if I was still a sergeant in the reserves.” While she spoke she rolled up the sleeve of her uniform so the Prime Minister could see the tattoo she had received in the satellite camp of Buchenwald where her life came very near to being snuffed out.

Ben-Gurion saw the six numerals there and a dark cloud passed briefly over his face. Then he said, “The same rate applies today, Seren Margolies. I brought these army officers with me today to take note you are hereby brevetted to the rank of rav seren. And should the Arabs choose to get into yet another tussle with us I’m certain you will distinguish yourself in battle once more and make that full rav seren with all the pay and privileges that go with the rank.”

Jashen cleared his throat and addressed Ben-Gurion at that point. “Sir, I’d like to inform you that Michael, whom you’ve already met once before, is of the opinion the country will have at least ten years of relative quiet.”

“I see. And may I ask your name?”

“I am Jashen, sir, of the B’nei Elohim. I helped Judith make the Mengele extraction and also Wagner in ’51. But if Ha-Mossad is worried that we are working them out of a job we can certainly step back for the next decade while things go quiet. It seems Josef Mengele fancied himself a humble country doctor in Argentina, and when we fetched him we also fetched some of his patient’s charts. You can see the documents sitting here on the table. One of the folders is for none other than Adolf Eichmann. It seems the very architect of the Shoah didn’t much fancy seeing just any old doctor in Argentina. You’ll find all the contact information you need to scoop Eichmann up right there, because if there’s one thing doctors want to be absolutely certain of, it’s getting paid.”

That last bit sent David Ben-Gurion into a fit of hysterical laughter. When he recovered he said, “This is excellent, Jashen. We’ll take what you’ve given us and try to capture Eichmann ourselves. The day he arrives in the country, living or dead, is the day brevet Rav Seren Judith Margolies becomes a full major.”