A Premature Apocalypse Read online

  His fellow tourists must have shared his thoughts, for they streamed toward the cable car station. He joined them. He must get off the Rock and head for high ground. As he passed the turnstile, his arms trembling and his heart rate soaring, a more practical thought crossed his mind.

  He’d paid in advance for the hotel in Crete. Was it too late for a refund?

  Chapter 96

  Tom Levi couldn’t believe his luck. In the holding cell at the Talpiot Police Station, he’d perched on the edge of the cot and wrung his hands. His rump hurt from the stiff, thin mattress. He’d better get used to that. According to the rough officers who had arrested him, he’d be in a cell for the rest of his life. Why had the Lord abandoned him? Then the plump woman in the blue Israeli police uniform appeared at the bars. The bunch of heavy keys jangled in her hands as she hurried to unlock the cell door.

  “You’re free to go,” she said and bustled down the long corridor.

  He followed her, joining the flow of officers and offenders. The doors of the other cells stood open, as did the gate at the end of the corridor.

  “What’s happening?” he asked a uniform.

  “An asteroid is about to hit the city. The station isn’t equipped to protect you, so you’re being released.”

  Tom laughed out loud. God had heard his voice and seen his affliction, and now the Almighty had arranged world events to further His servant’s goal.

  He’d heard about the asteroid. The media had dismissed the doomsday predictions as fake news, political ploys designed to draw the public’s attention away from the Prime Minister’s failings.

  The midday sun smiled overhead as convicts and uniforms flooded the sidewalks of Talpiot. Tom turned his feet toward Hebron Road and the Old City. This time he wouldn’t fail.

  He’d been so close to his goal that morning. After infiltrating the Temple Mount maintenance team and planting his explosives, he had watched the grounds fill with Islamic usurpers. If they weren’t terrorists, they were enablers who provided financial and moral support. They had no right to trample the holy grounds of the Jewish Temple; they deserved to die.

  And their deaths would spark the Redemption. Vice Prime Minister Lev didn’t have the guts to act, so Tom would force his hand. He had waited outside the Gate of the Tribes, remote detonator in his pocket. But just as the Temple Mount reached full capacity, the Vice Prime Minister himself had stormed the grounds.

  Tom had half a mind to blow him up along with his Arab friends, but then Israeli security guards had followed Rabbi Lev inside. No Jews were to die that day; the goyim had spilled enough Jewish blood. He’d wait for the guards to leave with the misguided rabbi. Then he’d push the button.

  But the first men out of the gate were Arabs. They fled to the alleys of the Arab Quarter. His quarry was escaping! He reached into his pocket when hands grabbed his arms, lifted him off the ground, and dragged him onto the Temple Mount.

  To insinuate himself into the maintenance team, he had pretended to be a mute, but now he cried out. The detonator slipped from his pocket onto the large stone tiles and disappeared among the rushing feet of the crowd. Rabbi Yosef Lev had botched his plans again.

  As the squad car drove him to the station, the irony hit him—the Israeli security guards were Arabs too!

  The Old City walls rose over Jaffa Road. The streets stood empty. The city had taken the asteroid threat to heart. With nobody to get in his way, his job would be easy. He’d locate the detonator and complete his mission. The Temple Mount would return to rubble today, empty or not, along with that hateful golden dome.

  He picked up his pace, hitching up the hem of his robe and crossing the short bridge over the Hinnom Valley. Billboards announced a coronation ceremony and displayed images of Moshe Karlin and the Mahdi. What an abomination! To display the true Messiah along with that Arab imposter. With the Temple Mount razed to the ground, rebuilding the Temple would be easy. Karlin would thank Tom and reserve for him a seat of honor at the Great Feast under the Leviathan-skin canopy.

  A deafening boom overhead drew his eye beyond the billboard. The sun burned in the sky. The glowing orb seemed smaller than usual and had grown a short tail. Before his eyes, the orb waxed larger. That wasn’t the sun.

  Tom raced up Mount Zion. He sprinted through Zion Gate, bounded along the silent cobbled alleys of the Old City, and zeroed in on the Temple Mount.

  His sandals slid over the rounded stones as he took a corner and spilled into the courtyards before the Gate of the Tribes. He searched the smooth stone tiles for the detonator.

  There it is! He launched toward the small gray rectangle when a shadow passed over the courtyard and blotted out the sun. A fierce hot wind knocked him off his feet and hurled him back.

  His body slammed against the far wall of the courtyard and slipped to the ground. Chips of rock and dirt pelted him like rain. Clouds of dust billowed, then dispersed. A slow groan came from his throat as he exhaled. His shoulder and hip burned. Smoke rose from his singed robes. The Gate of the Tribes and Golden Dome were no more. In their stead, fallen stones crumbled and fires raged. The flames licked at the heavens like the pillars of an immense building, a temple not of wood and stone but of fire that had descended from on high.

  With a superhuman effort, he got to his feet and hobbled forward. A fit of ecstatic laughter overcame him, and his slight frame shuddered both with great joy and bone-grinding pain.

  Then water fell from the sky, wet and hard, and doused the fires. The flash shower lasted two seconds, as though God had emptied a heavenly bucket. Strange. The afternoon had been cloudless. The downpour soaked his tattered robes and matted his hair—and tasted of salt! As he doubted his sanity, a high-pitched whistle sounded, the terrifying whine of a Nazi V2 bomb descending on London.

  He looked up, then jumped. Splat! Two steps away, a large fish gawked at him through dead eyes. The stone floor tile had cracked beneath the unfortunate creature. Another whistle and another squelch. This time, a tuna. Two more whistles. Three. Dozens. Tom limped to the shadow of a stone wall as fish, sharks, and a large octopus pelted the ground.

  The whistles ceased. Tom hazarded a halting stroll among the piled-up wares of the unlikely fishery. He had skipped breakfast that day and lunch. Hungry as he was, he had lost his appetite for seafood of any kind.

  There it came again—another whistle, but much deeper. A shadow fell over him, so he looked up. Another object fell from the heavens, but he had trouble identifying this one. It was large. Very large. He glimpsed a long, tapered neck and long lateral fins, spread like the wings of a very large bird or a passenger jet.

  His last thought before that final squelch was, “I should probably get out of the way.”

  Chapter 97

  A month later, Yosef jumped out of bed early in the morning, his heart racing. Today was the day.

  He freshened up and hurried to the Yael Street synagogue for morning prayers. The air was redolent of palm branches and citrus fruit—the scent of the Succoth festival and new beginnings—and the leafy canopies of Sukkah booths peeked over the walls on Shimshon Street.

  Returning home, he opened his bedroom cupboard to dress a second time. His wedding suit hung on the rack, immaculate within its nylon cover, dry-cleaned and tailored to his current dimensions.

  Yosef had imagined that the Messiah’s arrival would be sudden and unexpected, a bugle call to arms from out of the blue. But, as always, reality had surprised. As Vice Prime Minister, he had played a key role in the meticulous planning of the ceremony, along with the Prime Minister and Elijah the Prophet. But knowing every step of the way ahead today did not diminish the immense joy that filled his heart to bursting.

  Dressed in his designated suit and new black fedora, he stepped into the living room and gasped.

  “What?” Rocheleh asked. She ran a self-conscious hand through her flowing jet-black locks. For the historic event—one might say the final event of history—she had splurged on a new wig.


  “You’re beautiful,” he said.

  She blushed. Truth be told, he almost hadn’t recognized her, but he kept that confession to himself; he wasn’t married yesterday.

  Beside her, their four boys stood at attention in identical suits and smiled from ear to ear.

  “Aba!” Ari and Simcha cried as one. “We got you!”

  They held out their new trading cards, and Yosef examined them. Well, what do you know? The laminated cards displayed Yosef’s own visage, with a healthy dose of Photoshop.

  “You’ve got me indeed.” Yosef had his very own rabbi card. The world was ending for sure. “Shall we go?”

  Outside, Baruch held the door of the limo open, and they piled into the ample back seats. The car pulled off.

  “Cyndi?” Baruch asked, his eyes smiling in the rearview mirror.

  “As always.”

  The driver pressed a button and, on the limo’s speakers, Cyndi Lauper sang “True Colors.”

  The streets of Baka had emptied for the public holiday, the shutters of stores drawn, tables and chairs stacked behind the darkened windows of coffee shops. Even Hebron Road was desolate of traffic, like a Sabbath day in the middle of the week, and a fitting start to the Day of Complete Sabbath. The Messianic Age.

  Most citizens and a swath of foreign dignitaries had already claimed their seats at the ceremony. The rest of the world would watch via live video feeds.

  He who prepares on the Sabbath eve will eat on the Sabbath, the Sages said. The preparations lay in the past now. Some had been thousands of years in the making. Now humanity could sit back and enjoy the show. He only hoped that for once in the history of humankind, things would go according to plan.

  There had been some thorny theological issues to iron out as well. Yosef had consulted with ancient texts and commentaries. Occasionally, he had conferred with the resurrected authors of those texts and commentaries. They had reached two conclusions.

  The first insight had come from an unlikely source—the Sitrah Achrah. The evil Other Side. The Anti-Messiah. Armilus. Henry Adams had identified the hidden message of the Resurrection. The message reinforced everything Yosef had learned about life, the universe, and everything, and became the cornerstone of their official view of the Redemption.

  Human beings only find true expression as unified wholes—thus the need to reunite bodies and souls. But physical reality has its limits. As such, the world and humanity are imperfect, incomplete. This was by design. God entrusts humans with the task of completing the world and perfecting themselves, and in doing so, they become partners in Creation.

  Secondly, Maimonides was right—the Messianic Era did not break a single Law of Nature. The time for magical thinking had passed. Instead, the epoch relied on miracles of science.

  The Aging Vaccination, created by Dr. Yariv Stern of the Shaare Zedek Medical Center, was a prime example. People who opted for the treatment—developed in collaboration with a Mr. Eli Katz—would, quite literally, live forever. As Isaiah had foretold, “He will swallow Death forever.” The only side effect to be noted over the next few years would be a phobia for extreme sports and motorized vehicles.

  The walls of the Old City towered on the horizon as the limo crossed the Hinnom Valley and joined the line of diplomatic limousines and SUVs that wrapped around Mount Zion. Traffic police manned the sidewalks and kept the approach roads to the Mount of Olives Cemetery open to VIP traffic only.

  Security agents in dark suits and glasses waited for Yosef, his wife, and children outside the limo and ushered them toward the large platform at the top of the cemetery.

  For the Messianic Era Induction Ceremony, the State of Israel had constructed the platform, complete with podium and microphones, beneath a protective canopy of—what else?—a Sukkah booth. But this was no ordinary booth. The sides were lined with the hide of a very large aquatic creature, previously thought extinct and roused recently from the watery depths by the same solar flare that had triggered the Resurrection and dislodged Planet Killer 7 from the Asteroid Belt. The sea monster had landed with deathly force in the Old City after the asteroid had vaporized the Mediterranean Sea. Yosef had arranged to rename the creature Leviathanosaurus.

  As they climbed the path to the platform, the foothills of the Old City sprawled before them.

  “Wow,” the boys said as one.

  Long lines of seats ran between the rows of gravestones, and the hills beyond bristled with spectators as far as the eye could see.

  The murmur of the waiting masses was the susurrus of a surging ocean, excitement in their whispers and tears of joy in their laughter. This time the Messiah would not disappoint.

  But who was the Messiah—or Messiahs? Yosef had discussed the matter at length with Moshe and Elijah. Surprisingly, Elijah had no idea. The prophet had lost the frequency of Divine revelation along with his miraculous powers. And although Moshe’s achievements seemed to qualify him for the role, he had balked at making messianic claims of any sort. In Yosef’s mind, paradoxically, Moshe’s refusal to reach for that crown proved that he was indeed the Messiah!

  After days of doubt, a solution presented itself. Their approach was simple—even trite—but seemed to be the one least likely to cause mass hysteria and pandemonium. The concept explained Elijah’s failing powers too. Yosef had even found a supporting source among the ancient texts. Yes. The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. The answer had been there all along. But only after millennia of failed messiahs was the world ready to hear it.

  Was their answer the answer—the solution? Who knew? Yosef craved certainty, but in the end, he’d found none. He’d learn to live without. Tom Levi had been certain of his apocalyptic plans. Perhaps a little self-doubt was a good thing after all.

  The security guards deposited his family among the front rows at the foot of the platform and continued with Yosef onto the stage.

  In the distance, the Old City gleamed, unrecognizable. In one fiery instant, the asteroid had vaporized the sacred grounds of the Temple Mount, obliterating the mosques, the domes, and the Western Wall, and uprooting centuries of buried history and smoldering conflict.

  The flat slab of bedrock that remained solved two contentious issues. With no vestige of the hallowed Temple Mount, technically there was no way to build a third Temple. And with no Temple, the topic of sacrifices became moot. Sorry.

  The clean, open space stretched from the former Western Wall Plaza to the outer edge of the Temple Mount, with no indication of where synagogue ended and mosque began. Thanks to Noga Shemer’s findings regarding the Ten Lost Tribes, there was no need.

  Instead, the State had earmarked the grounds for a new non-denominational structure, a memorial to centuries of bloodshed. The display would include a huge holographic model of the Jewish Temple. A Temple of Fire, indeed!

  On the platform, Yosef took his seat beside the young dashing man in the black leather jacket. Yosef had suggested a more “appropriate” choice of clothing—a flowing robe, perhaps, and a pointy hat, but the prophet would have none of it. “I’m not a wizard,” he had said. “Or a Greek.” He didn’t seem to like the ancient Greeks much.

  Yosef nodded a greeting.

  Elijah folded his arms. “He’s late.”

  Yosef gazed at the endless crowds, at the hats and kaffiyehs, the skullcaps and the healthy bare heads of hair. From the first rows of seats, Rabbi Emden tipped his hat at him. Beside him sat all seven sages of the Great Council. Tears seeped unbidden into Yosef’s eyes.

  “Better late than never,” he said. “Better late than never.”

  Chapter 98

  That morning, Moshe Karlin made a detour on his way to the Mount of Olives. He had an important errand to run. The Prime Minister’s cavalcade stopped outside a dusty store on the seedier side of Pierre Koenig Street in Talpiot. His mission was close to impossible. Luckily for him, he’d brought along a secret weapon.

  A bell chimed as he pushed the glass door open and they walked insid
e. Knickknacks crowded the shelves and floor: embroidered chairs with carved armrests of polished oak, a selection of wall clocks, and, beneath the glass countertop, an array of wedding bands and diamond-encrusted rings.

  The old man behind the counter looked up from his coffee and newspaper, as he had the first time Moshe had entered the pawn shop. But today a glint of suspicion sparkled in the vulture eyes beneath the wisp of cotton candy hair, and his shoulders tensed.

  Moshe placed his hands on the counter. “I’ve come to reclaim my watch.”

  If the old vulture had recognized his Prime Minister, he made no sign of it. “It’s not for sale.” The declaration was an opening bargaining position if ever Moshe had heard one.

  Moshe didn’t argue. He didn’t have to.

  Moshe’s secret weapon let out a derisive harrumph. “You should be ashamed of yourself, young man,” Savta Sarah said. By the looks of him, the storekeeper had not been addressed as a “young man” in over seventy years. “Moshe’s grandfather bought that watch and passed it on to Moshe’s father after him. It is a family heirloom of great sentimental value.” Her implication: sentimental but not monetary value.

  The vulture behind the counter licked his lips. Finally, he had met a worthy opponent, and he savored the challenge. He slid Moshe’s old watch from beneath the glass display. He caressed the leather strap and pointed to the brand name that glittered in gold leaf.

  “This, madam, I’ll have you know, is a Rolex Bubbleback, 1948 Limited Edition. Few have survived to this day and none are in such pristine condition. This collector’s timepiece is worth at least eighty thousand shekels.”

  Moshe had asked for half that amount when he’d pawned the watch to buy his freedom from Boris. In his desperation, he had settled for ten thousand.

  “Eighty thousand shekels?” Savta Sarah gasped. “I could buy this entire store for eighty thousand shekels, including its owner.”