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CHAPTER 16

By the time the bomb crew arrived, everyone had cleared out of the club. The bodies had already been removed, so it was just the bomber who was left inside with the crew. By that point, Mordechai had wrapped up his discussions with Benyamin and his officers and turned in his headset, so he beckoned to Ariel and they walked back up the street and around the corner to where Mordechai’s car was parked. They threw their armor in the trunk, Mordechai moved his blazer to the back seat, they got in, and moments later were moving down the street again.

Mordechai touched a button on the console. “Call Mendel,” he said.

The sound of a phone ringing filled the car. It rang three times, then Rabbi Mendel’s voice said, “Hallo.”

“Rabbi, Mordechai Zalman here. I have young Ariel with me, and we have had a somewhat intense evening. We both need about a half-liter of our favorite beverage. We will arrive in about twenty minutes or so.”

“Ah. I understand. It will be waiting when you get here.”

“Very good. Shalom.”

“Shalom.”

There was a click and the call ended.

They were a couple of kilometers closer to their destination when Ariel looked over at Mordechai. “Why does blood taste different?”

“What?” Ariel could see Mordechai’s head move as he glanced over at him.

“Why does blood in Israel taste different than blood in America?”

Mordechai chuckled for a moment. “I don’t know. Genetics, maybe. Diet, maybe. American blood banks mostly process their donations and separate red blood cells from platelets and plasma, but I think Israel is like most of Europe and they store whole blood with much less processing.”

Ariel snorted. “Kind of like the difference between low-fat milk and whole milk?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve noticed.”

“There’s a difference,” Ariel said. “I don’t know what it is, and I don’t know why, but I know it’s there.”

“Does the difference in taste make any real difference to you? Is it like different wines, or something like that?” Now Mordechai sounded amused.

“More like the difference between Coke and Pepsi. Not huge, but there. It just makes me curious.”

“Add it to the list of things you can research after you attain your degrees.”

Ariel snorted again.

Although he was driving reasonably, it still wasn’t long before Mordechai steered his car into the underground parking associated with the anonymous building where Dr. Mendel’s group had their facilities.

Ariel waited while Mordechai took his jacket out of the car and locked it, then they walked together to the elevator. Mordechai’s thumbprint sufficed to summon it. He caught Ariel watching. “Remind me to remind Rav Avram to have you added to the security list.”

Ariel was surprised when the elevator took them down rather than up, but the doors opened before he said anything, so he followed Mordechai out and down a short hallway. Mordechai again presented his thumb to another of the small metal plates, and a door opened before them. Ariel noted there was no handle on the door. After he walked through and the door closed behind them, he noticed there was no handle on the inside either.

“How do we get out if the power fails?” he asked.

Mordechai shrugged. “Battery backup for a couple of hours or so. Generator should automatically start after a few minutes. If it doesn’t, and the batteries run down, you don’t.”

“Remind me not to stay long, then,” Ariel muttered. “I’m still not very fond of spending a lot of time underground, you know, which is weird, considering what I am now.”

Mordechai chuckled.

They were in what appeared to be a small break room: refrigerator, microwave, counter with sink, a couple of small tables with chairs. Mordechai pulled a chair out and sat at one of the tables, waving a hand at another chair. Ariel sat as well, sagging in a bit of relief as the tension of the last couple of hours began to flow out of his body.

A moment later, a door at the other end of the room opened, and Rabbi Mendel walked in, followed by a young black woman carrying a tray with four bottles, two that from their coloring had to be blood, and two of water. “Over there, if you would, Elizabeth,” the rabbi said.

She delivered her tray to their table, smiled at Ariel, then turned and left.

“The silent type,” Ariel said.

“The techs don’t let me carry anything anymore after I dropped a bottle of blood a few months ago and it shattered on the floor,” Mendel said with a sigh. “Elizabeth says an old man shouldn’t have to carry things anyway, so if she’s around she makes sure I don’t.”

“One of the Ethiopians?” Ariel asked.

Mendel nodded as he settled in a chair between them.

Ariel read the labels on the two bottles of blood. “O positive and A positive,” he said.

“The two most common blood types in Israel,” Mendel said.

Ariel rested the tips of his right-hand index and little fingers on top of the two bottles. “May I?”

Mordechai made a permissive gesture toward the bottles. “Glasses in the cabinet,” he said.

Ariel went to the cabinet, found five glasses and brought them back to the table. He twisted the cap off the O bottle, poured a little into a glass, and lifted it to his mouth. He tasted the blood, considered it, held it in his mouth, then swallowed it. Mordechai had by then opened one of the water bottles, and handed Ariel a glass of water which he drank, swished around in his mouth, and swallowed. He then repeated the process with the A bottle and a clean glass. After finishing the second drink of water, Mordechai said, “Well?”

“There’s a definite difference in taste between the two,” Ariel said.

“How so?” Mendel asked, his eyebrows raised.

“The O positive seemed to taste a little bit sweeter than the A, which seemed to have a bit stronger metallic taste. Not a big difference between them, but there.”

“Interesting,” Mendel said. “And you did this why?”

“We had a conversation coming in,” Mordechai said. “He said the blood in Israel tastes different than the blood he had in the US. Seems like the difference causes may be more than just location.”

“Interesting.” Mendel opened his notebook and jotted a note. “I’ll have to pass that on to Dr. Hurwitz. I don’t think we’ve investigated that before. Do you sense the difference?” He looked at Mordechai, who shook his head. “Interesting,” Mendel said the third time. He waved his hands at them. “Go on, drink it.”

Mordechai repeated his permissive gesture, and Ariel took the A positive bottle. The two of them filled their glasses, and sat sipping. Ariel concentrated on the sensations: cool from the refrigeration, kind of like sipping a thick soup. He felt his body reacting to it as it slipped down his throat and into his stomach, almost like a hungry child grabbing for his favorite sweet. Ariel didn’t gulp it down or try to guzzle it. It needed more respect than that, he felt. The divine commandment about blood weighed on his mind.

They finished about the same time, and both took a drink of water to rinse out their mouths. “A word of advice,” Mordechai said. “Brush your teeth. The aftertaste of old blood does not make for pleasant breath.”

“Yeah, I figured that one out back in Chattanooga,” Ariel said. “I caught a whiff of my breath once the next day after a dose.” He shuddered. “That should be part of Vampire 101: Brush your teeth after a meal.”

Mordechai laughed, and even Mendel smiled at the lame joke. Then the smile faded away.

“So what happened tonight?” Mendel asked.

Mordechai sobered and leaned forward, clasping his hands on the table. “You should see the report from Yamam before long. A fairly standard attempt at a bombing, except the bomb fizzled. This group had a Plan B—which they don’t, always—which was to have two or three others in the club and some more outside, both groups with weapons. When the bomb didn’t go off, some of the club patrons escaped, but the rest were taken as hostages. Ariel and I came in the back—me to work, him to observe. I terminated two of them. We would have had two prisoners, but one of them—a woman—pulled a grenade and Ariel put her down on top of it. So, three dead terrorists, the bomber injured but captured, and a few civilians killed or wounded outside the building but most unharmed.” He shrugged. “Not the greatest of successes, but it could have been much worse.”

Mendel closed his eyes and shook his head. “Will they never learn? Will they never stop?”

“Doubtful,” Mordechai said.

“So this was impromptu?”

Mordechai shrugged. “Yes, to a degree, but once you’re inside of a building, everything becomes impromptu. Recall that ‘no plan survives contact with the enemy.’”

Ariel heard the quotes in Mordechai’s voice. “Was that Clausewitz?” he asked.

Mordechai turned to him with raised eyebrows. “Right period, wrong German,” was his response. “That was originally said by Helmuth von Moltke, called the Elder because he had a nephew who used the same name. A stuffy, snobbish, arrogant man, but probably the greatest general between Napoleon and World War II. I’ve often thought that if he had been commanding the German General Staff in World War I instead of his nephew, the Germans would have won that war, and there would have been no World War II. That might have been better for us.” He spread both hands across the table, palms up, and Ariel understood him to mean Jews.

“Did you know him?”

Mordechai nodded. “I did meet him not long before his death in 1891. We had a couple of conversations. I didn’t like him, but I learned some things from him.” Mordechai nodded a couple of times before he said, “That was a paraphrase of the original saying. The paraphrase is what you usually hear quoted. The original is somewhat longer.” His smile flirted with his mouth for a moment. “Moltke was a Prussian aristocrat, and like most of that lot would use three words where one would do.”

Ariel sat back, impressed again at Mordechai’s age. It was so easy to overlook that the man who was driving the car tonight was over two hundred sixty years old. After a moment, he realized that Mendel had said something to him.

“I’m sorry, would you say that again?”

“I said, how do you feel after tonight?”

Ariel thought about that. How did he feel? “Stressed. Frazzled. Glad I survived. Sorry that any of our people were hurt or killed, but glad I had a hand in keeping it from being worse.”

“I gave you an instruction to remain in the back,” Mordechai said in a level voice. “You disobeyed me.”

“You also told me to watch and listen. I couldn’t see anything in the back, and I couldn’t hear anything understandable. I didn’t plan to do anything—I was just trying to see—but when I saw the female terrorist holding a knife to the woman’s throat, I couldn’t let that stand.”

Mordechai’s mouth quirked. “So you took it on yourself to deal with her. You were actually farther away from her than I was. I would have taken her down in the next instant.”

“Maybe so,” Ariel said, “but I was there, and this is why I was there—to protect our people. Or in this case, to protect one very pregnant mother and the life she was carrying.”

Mordechai looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. “Agreed. And what you did was both right and righteous. However, understand that this was not a videogame or an action movie. Real lives were at stake, and a single mistake on your part wouldn’t have ended in Game Over, it would have ended in blood and death.”

Ariel said nothing in response.

Mordechai leaned forward. “You were stupid lucky. You did something stupid, and it worked out. You cannot take that chance. You cannot take your own path in any operation, because almost inevitably someone will die. It might even be you. There’s a reason why young vampires don’t survive long. But being who and what you are, most likely it will be some of those you are supposed to protect. You take orders from your leaders, you follow the plans, because that will almost certainly produce the most survivors, including yourself and any possible teammates.”

After a moment, Ariel nodded. “Fair enough. I’ll try to do better, and try to learn from you.” He smiled. It was a small smile, and a bit thin-lipped, but it was a smile. “You know, that line about this not being a videogame would have more impact if I was actually a gamer.”

Mordechai chuckled in return, and drew a line in the air as if counting score.

Ariel picked up his water glass and drained the last of the water, then sat there slowly turning the glass in his hands. Mendel stirred, and Ariel looked at him.

“It did not bother you to kill someone?”

“I’ve come to grips with that already, Rabbi,” Ariel explained. “When I decided to take this road, I had to deal with that. I’m not happy to be involved in that death, but really, she took her own life when she pulled that grenade out of her pocket. All I did was make sure that she didn’t hurt anyone else in the process.”

He gazed steadily into Mendel’s eyes, until the rabbi nodded in response.

“Well said,” Mordechai replied. “And tonight will provide your ashes. Your parents will receive closure.”

Ariel was startled by that. It hadn’t occurred to him yet that that was a possible result of tonight’s action. His mind was suddenly filled with the sight and sound of his mother crying hysterically. This would rock her world to its foundations, but…it would still be kinder and gentler than the truth of what he had become. He closed his eyes and clung to that.

He heard Mordechai stand up. “I’ve got something to do. I’ll be in touch. Would you see to it that Ariel gets home?”

“Of course, old friend,” Mendel replied softly.

Ariel heard the door open and close.

The room stayed quiet for a long time. Other than Mendel’s breathing, all Ariel heard was the mechanical sounds of the ventilation fan and the refrigerator.

Finally, Ariel opened his eyes. “Mordechai said that I should be added to the security list.”

“Indeed. We’ll do that before you leave tonight,” Mendel said.

After a moment, Ariel looked around. “Where did Mordechai have to go? Or is that

need-to-know territory?”

Mendel shook his head. “No, no security involved there. Tonight and much of tomorrow he’ll probably be at the Western Wall, praying. He always does that after one of these episodes.”

“Huh. I didn’t have him pegged as being all that religious.”

Mendel frowned. “He has more spiritual depth and understanding than the two of us put together, boy. He has been a vampire for over two hundred years, Ariel. Let that sink into your bones. He has known your fears and feelings and problems for ten times your lifetime, for a hundred times your experience as a vampire, and yet he still prays to haShem. He has survived over two hundred years of oppression, pogroms, and the Holocaust itself, yet his faith in haShem is still real and solid.

“Mordechai was personally acquainted with the Vilna Gaon. He is of the priestly lineage. Think about the implications of that. He has meditated on Torah and Talmud for over two hundred years. You should ask him what he believes. His insights are incredible. You should do so well when half his age you have.”

Mendel’s anger and passion rocked Ariel. He couldn’t speak for a long moment. He couldn’t find the words. “I’m…sorry,” he finally said. “I didn’t understand.”

“No, you didn’t,” Mendel said. “But you’re young. You’ve been through a difficult time these last few weeks, and everything you thought you understood about the world has changed, but you’re still very young. You’re very smart, you learn quickly, and you will be a valued part of our work before long, assuming you survive, but you are very young. You lack experience. Knowledge can come from training and study, but wisdom only comes by experience. Our job is to help you survive long enough to get that experience. That is why Mordechai has disarranged his schedule and his operations to spend as much time as possible with you. That is why he has called in two lifetime’s worth of favors to ease your way and smooth your path. If you survive and become half the man he is, it will be because of him. Never forget that. And he prays for you. You might spend some prayers for the consolation of his soul.”

Ariel considered that, staring across the room at a blank wall. At length, he sighed. “‘Is not wisdom found among the aged?’” he quoted. “‘Does not long life bring understanding?’”

The rabbi’s eyebrows raised. “You’ve studied Job,” he said with an approving tone.

Ariel shrugged. “One of my father’s favorite verses.”

“Then your father is a man of wisdom.”

Ariel nodded, a lump in his throat. That relationship was soon to break.

Mendel seemed to sense the emotion, and stood. “Come. Let us get you entered in the security lists so that you no longer have to rely on Mordechai’s thumb to gain entry.”


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