The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

Isaac.
Zadin was now less than fifty meters behind the two courageous rabbis, one
Polish-born, a survivor of the infamous camps where his wife and child had died,
where he had somehow kept his spirit and learned the importance of faith; the
other American-born, a man who'd come to Israel, fought in her wars, and only
then turned to God, as Benny himself had done so brief a span of days before.
The two were barely ten meters from the surly, dirty Arabs when it happened. The
Arabs were the only ones who could see that their faces were serene, that they
truly welcomed whatever the morning might hold for them, and only the Arabs saw
the shock and the puzzlement on the face of the Pole, and the stunned pain on
the American's at the realization of what fate had in mind.
On command, the leading row of Arabs, all of them teenagers with a lengthy
history of confrontation, sat down. The hundred young men behind them did the
same. Then the front row started clapping. And singing. Benny took a moment to
comprehend it, though he was as fluent in Arabic as any Palestinian.
We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome some day
The TV crews were immediately behind the police. Several of them laughed in
surprise at the savage irony of it. One of them was CNN correspondent Pete
Franks who summed it up for everyone: 'Son of a BITCH!' And in that moment
Franks knew that the world had changed yet again. He'd been in Moscow for the
first democratic meeting of the Supreme Soviet, in Managua the night the
Sandinistas had lost their sure-thing election, and in Beijing to see the
Goddess of Liberty destroyed. And now this? he thought. The Arabs finally wised
up. Holy shit.
'I hope you have that tape rolling, Mickey.'
'Are they singing what I think they're singing?'
'Sure as hell sounds like it. Let's get closer.'
The leader of the Arabs was a twenty-year-old sociology student named Hashimi
Moussa. His arm was permanently scarred from an Israeli club, and half his teeth
were gone from a rubber bullet whose shooter had been especially angry on one
particular day. No one questioned his courage. He'd had to prove that beyond
doubt. He'd had to face death a dozen times before his position of leadership
had been assured, but now he had it, and people listened to him, and he was able
to activate an idea he'd cherished for five endless, patient years. It had taken
three days to persuade them, then the fantastic good luck of a Jewish friend
disgusted with the religious conservatives of his country who'd spoken a little
too loudly about the plans of this day. Perhaps it was destiny, Hashimi thought,
or the Will of Allah, or simply luck. Whatever it was, this was the moment he'd
lived for since his fifteenth year, when he'd learned of Gandhi and King, and
how they had defeated force with naked, passive courage. Persuading his people
had meant stepping back from a warrior code that seemed part of their genes, but
he'd done it. Now his beliefs would be put to the test.
All Benny Zadin saw was that his path was blocked. Rabbi Kohn said something to
Rabbi Goldmark, but neither turned back to where the police were stopped,
because to turn away was to admit defeat. Whether they were too shocked at what