“My hotel is within walking distance from there.”
“Good. I’m trying to get to the Central Bus Station on Jaffa Road. It’s less than a mile before the Old City. If you don’t mind, I could use a ride on a night like this.”
Marcus looked at him a moment. His thoughts replaying the night his wife and daughter were killed when he stopped to help a man. “Die! You hear me? You’re dying now…a slow damn death…the pleasure of watching….”
“Are you okay?”
Marcus stared at him, stared at the insignia of the eagle on his uniform. “Yeah, I’m fine. Sure, let’s go. You can be my GPS.”
The man grinned, tossed the duffle bag over his shoulder, and followed Marcus to the car. “No problem.”
Marcus unlocked the doors. “Put your bag in the backseat. C’mon, get in or you’ll get soaked.”
The man sat on the passenger side of the front seat. Marcus pulled up to the main road. “Which way?”
“Turn to your left, and we’ll be going southeast. I’ll get us there. Name’s David, what’s yours?”
“Paul.”
“I had a good friend named Paul.”
“Where’s he today?”
“Killed. He was a good soldier and a great man. Paul went in with the first wave of paratroopers. That was a helluva fight.”
Marcus said nothing for a moment, the wipers slapping the rain off the windshield, the car traveling beneath cones of light from the street lamps. He glanced over to the man, his face streaked in moving shadows from the rain against the windows. “Was he a family friend?”
“You could say that — we grew up together.”
“Are you here on leave? I don’t recall any U.S. troops stationed in Israel.”
“Yeah, but I’m passing through.” He felt for a cigarette in his pocket. “My last smoke got caught in the rain.” He looked down at a lighter in the palm of his hand. “Maybe this is finally the time to give ‘em up.”
“Smart move, Colonel.”
“You spotted my bird, huh?”
“It’s not hard to see.”
Lightning traveled across the sky in a horizontal burst, the flash reflecting off the lighter. “Is that a Zippo?” Marcus asked. “I haven’t seen one quite like that since my grandfather used a similar lighter around the farm.”
“Best lighter ever made.” The colonel rubbed his thumb across the roller, sparking the wick, and he stared at the flame for a moment, the fire dancing in his eyes. Then he snapped the top shut, the smell of lighter fluid in the Toyota. “So, Paul, what brings you to this land?”
Marcus slowed for a pothole. “I’m here to research passages from the Bible.”
“You don’t have to travel all the way to the land of Zion to do that.”
“Maybe not, but there’s a lot of research information at the university and the library here.”
“Sometimes you might learn more about the Bible by walking this land. Get out and toss a net where the apostles fished. Look across the same valley were King David watched the sun set. Walk the roads, fields and towns where Christ walked. That way the stuff that’s in the pages can have more meaning. But what the hell does a soldier like me know? Not enough to get out of the damn rain.” He chuckled and wiped a drop of rainwater from his arm. “You got a wife back in Virginia?”
“I used to.”
“Divorced?”
“No, she was killed.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Marcus said nothing.
“Meaning no disrespect, but you don’t have the look of a man who lost a wife in an accident. You have the look of a man who lost a wife because someone took her life.”
“What kind of look is that?”
“The kind I’ve seen on the battlefield in the eyes of some men. Not so much fearless as it is they have nothing to fear for…including their own lives. This is a helluva time to swear off smokes.”
Marcus drove silently through the rain, swerving to miss another pothole. The colonel laughed softly and said, “When I first came here, the damn roads were all like that, potholes everywhere. Some of the roads were dirt or gravel. We have our own Burma Road here, too. Not like that seven hundred mile snake of a road in China. The Burma Road here is still unpaved. It makes for a good walk on a Sunday morning.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“Take a left at the next intersection. We’re not that far from the bus station and a lot closer to the Tower of David.” He set the lighter down. “Tell me, have you found something in the Bible that you can hang your hat on, something that resonates in your gut, or better yet, in your heart?”
“Most of what I’m doing is trying to put puzzle pieces together. I think there are a lot of missing pieces. Maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
“Could be. Funny thing about that kind of stuff, though. The more that’s revealed to you, the more you begin to feel in awe or sort of privileged in some way. Information is knowledge, and that’s power. A spiritual journey — that’s the power I’m talking about. I often wonder if that spiritual versus worldly battle raged in people like da Vinci. Solomon had so much revealed to him that after a while maybe he got tired of listening to those who didn’t know a damn thing. But he sure gave us a lot to think about in Proverbs. Wisdom comes from finally realizing and admitting how damn little you know.”
Marcus smiled. “So you’ve got it figured, right?”
“Maybe. Not that I’m any more enlightened than you. But when you sit back down and look at that picture puzzle you spoke of, think of this: God knows so much more than David, Solomon, da Vinci or Einstein. But He still listens because we’re just discovering it. Pal, that’s gotta be real love. Hey, that’s my stop up ahead. You can let me out at the curb. Rain’s slackin’ up.”
“I can pull in closer.”
“No, don’t bother. A little fresh air before I catch the bus would be good. Sometimes it’s crowded. Sometimes just a few folks are riding it.”
“Where are you headed?”
“Jordan. I can get out here.”
Marcus stopped the car and the man pulled his duffle bag from the back seat. “Much obliged,” he said waving. “Hey, I didn’t catch your last name.”
“Marcus. Paul Marcus.”
The man grinned. “Maybe we’re kin. We have the same last name.”
Marcus put the car in gear and pulled away, he looked in his rearview mirror and the colonel was standing there, unhurried, holding his bag, his gaze following the car. Marcus glanced down to turn off the wipers. He looked up again in the mirror and the colonel was gone. He stared at his watch. It had stopped, 9:29 p.m.
Then he remembered the story his driver had told him the day he was picked up at the airport — the story of David Marcus.
TWENTY-THREE
A half hour later, Paul Marcus was back in his hotel. He parked the Toyota, reaching over to touch the floor mat on the passenger’s side where the man’s boots had rested. It was damp, a trace of mud on the floorboard.
In his room, Marcus replayed much of the conversation he had with the mysterious colonel. Who was he? Marcus started toward the bathroom, but stopped when he caught the blink of a tiny red light on the phone. He lifted the receiver and played the message: “Paul, this is Alicia. I tried to reach you on your cell. It was as if the signal went nowhere…only heard a white noise kind of sound, like the distant roar of water. I couldn’t send a text either. Call me.”
Marcus looked at the clock on his nightstand: 12:05 a.m. He pinched the bridge of his nose, his body drained. He reset his watch and called Alicia. “I just got your message.”