Requiem for Amalek

Requiem for Amalek

  By

  Ray Daniel

  * * * * *

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Requiem for Amalek

  Copyright © 2012 by Ray Daniel

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  This story is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

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  REQUIEM FOR AMALEK

  Remember what Amalek did to you, on the way, when you were leaving Egypt, that he surprised you on the march, and he struck those of you who were hindmost, all the weaklings at your rear, when you were faint and exhausted, and he did not fear God. It shall be that when The Lord gives you rest from all your enemies all around, in the Land that The Lord gives you as an inheritance to possess it, you shall wipe out the memory of Amalek from under heaven--you shall not forget!

  Deuteronomy 25:17-19

  #

  Four strong hands seized Yael Navas as she slipped through the door of the supposedly empty warehouse. The two men were large and lean and fast--ex-commandos. Together, they outweighed Yael by four to one, and they used that weight to drive her face into the cold concrete floor.

  One of the men stuck a knee into the small of her back. Yael could feel the skin tear as her spare magazine of 9mm bullets ground into her spine. The other man placed a foot between her shoulder blades, pinning her to the floor. Then he tugged at her handbag. Yael let the bag go. There was no sense risking an injury over it.

  The man on her back grabbed at Yael’s wrists, captured them, and forced them behind her. Then he drove her wrists up between her shoulder blades in a reverse prayer. He clamped his right hand around her wrists and his left forearm around her throat and pulled her to her feet. Her shoulders ached and stretched, but she was flexible enough that there was no tearing.

  Yael’s capture had been illuminated by streetlamps, whose orange sodium glow spilled through the dirty warehouse windows. Now the lights came on. She winced in the brightness, and the man behind her tightened his grip on her trim 120 pound frame and walked her into the center of the square room. He was very strong. She could not resist him.

  A small, dark-skinned man wearing a taupe suit and a goatee beard moved from the light switch on the wall to stand in front of Yael. His name was Hameni. He was Iranian, a criminal, and the target of Yael’s investigation. Nobody spoke. He was carrying a small antique table. Yael wondered if he was going to hit her with it. If he did, she planned to escape when the man holding her flinched at the impact.

  Instead, Hameni placed the table in the center of the room and gestured for her large black handbag. He said, “I am surprised Miss Navas. I would have thought that a Jew assassin of your reputation would have been more difficult to surprise.”

  Hameni put the handbag on the table and began pulling items out of it: a boxy Glock 17, a set of car keys, a wallet, a simple cell phone, two photographs, a book of matches, and a large can of barbeque lighter fluid. He focused on the matches and lighter fluid.

  “So it is true,” said Hameni, gesturing along the warehouse walls. “You were going to burn my treasures.”

  The warehouse was like a dragon’s hoard. It had a square floor fifty feet on a side. The center of the floor was clear, but the edges were piled with art that Hameni had purchased with money from his counterfeit medicine trade. Many of the paintings came from legitimate dealers, like the one whose information had led Yael to Hameni. Others had been sold to Hameni after they had been stolen from museums, galleries, and private homes. In addition to the paintings, there were sculptures, photographs, and antiques. The artwork was heaped together against the walls in a jumble. Its value to Hameni seemed to lie in the size of the pile, rather than the merit of the pieces in it.

  Yael said nothing. There was little to be gained by confirming his suspicion. In fact, she had been planning to burn down the warehouse. It was a plan born of frustration. She couldn’t find Hameni, but assumed that he would search for her if she outraged him. As she stood before her captor, her arms painfully pinned up between her shoulder blades and her breath hampered by the thick arm across her throat, she took some satisfaction in the idea that her plan had worked. She had found Hameni.

  Hameni put down the lighter fluid and picked up the pictures.

  “These are the pictures you’ve been showing? These are your dead clients?” he asked.

  Yael cocked an eyebrow and said nothing. She knew that silence unnerved those who love to talk.

  Hameni said, “Do not be surprised that I know about the pictures. Each of your informants was on the phone to me moments after your visit.”

  He walked closer to Yael. As he did, the man behind her tightened his grip on her wrists while the other kicked at her ankles with his foot. The kicks pushed her legs apart into a straddle. It was a wise move. She was supported by her wrists and the arm across her throat and would be unable to kick Hameni.

  Hameni pushed the picture of a woman up to Yael’s face and asked, “Who is this?”

  Yael said, “Janet Baker.”

  “This is the soldier’s wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “You told my art dealer that her husband was killed by the Iraqis.”

  “It is true,” said Yael.

  “I have no doubt,” said Hameni. “We both know the Iraqis are pigs. She was your client?”

  Yael didn’t answer. Janet Baker was not her client. Janet Baker had been her friend until the cancer, unchecked by counterfeit chemo medicine, had taken her. But the doctors didn’t know the truth about the medicine until the second death.

  “And this picture?” asked Hameni.

  “Ryan Baker,” said Yael. “He died last week. He should have responded to treatment, but did not. That was when the doctors discovered the false medicine.”

  “He was the son of the dead woman?”

  “Yes,” said Yael. Ryan had died an orphan.

  Hameni walked back to the small table and dropped the pictures onto it. He said, “Mother and son both die of the same cancer and you blame me?”

  “You stole their medicine and resold it,” said Yael, “You left them useless placebos.”

  Hameni rolled his eyes, “It was fate. They were doomed. I did not kill them. God killed them. God and bad genetics.”

  “God did not kill them,” said Yael. “But God will demand justice.”

  “Is that why you are here?” asked Hameni. “To deliver justice for God? Is this part of your Jewish law or are you acting on your own? Burning my art would not have been justice. It would only have been vengeance, and God has forsaken your vengeance.”

  Yael said nothing. The man behind her lifted her wrists. Her shoulders burned as the tendons stretched.

  Hameni stepped close and raised a hand as if to cup Yael’s breast. She could feel the heat from his palm. He took his hand away and said, “I did not kill them but I will kill you. At least, I will watch as my men do it. They know what pleases me.”

  Yael heard the man who held her whisper, “Yes!”

  Hameni continued, “I wonder what your Jewish law will say about this? I have heard that a woman taken in a town cannot claim to have been raped because her screams would have been heard by neighbors. But a woman taken in a field can make the claim because her sc
reams would be unheard. Yet, you are in a town but in a neighborhood where nobody will hear you. Will it be considered adultery?”

  Yael ignored the question.

  Hameni took Yael’s gun and walked across the room to an antique chair. He sat, made a dismissive flicking gesture and said to his men, “The Jew is yours.”

  The man in front of Yael stepped close to her. She could smell cigarettes and mint gum on his breath. He placed a hand on Yael’s breast, running it gently over her grey knit turtleneck. He probed with his thumb, found her nipple under the fabric, and gave it a gentle pinch. Yael gasped involuntarily.

  Yael could hear the breath of the man behind her quicken. The hot air tickled the short hair at the nape of her neck. She had expected to be on the floor by now, and she puzzled over the gentle nature of the attack. The man in front kept his thumb over her nipple and was massaging with a soft circular motion. Then he kissed her neck, and Yael understood the game. They wanted her to enjoy her rape. She let out a soft, intentional, moan.

  The man behind her whispered, “The religious ones always like it.”

  The man in front said, “Shut up.”

  Then Yael felt it, the slight loosening of the fist that held her arms. It was not loose enough for an escape, but she knew that her captor was conflicted. He wanted to feel her, but both his hands were occupied. Then he