The End-Time Foretellers Read online

  “The palace” was a small room with a toilet, shower and tiny kitchenette. In the kitchenette, there was a sink and a worktop with a hot plate and a small refrigerator underneath. There were a lot of stickers on the refrigerator. I approached the refrigerator and examined them: “Smile - it’s all for the best,” one of them said. “Hashem is king!” determined another.

  Binyamin pointed at the hot plate. “At your service, a small, basic kitchen.” I looked around. Very small and basic but it was right for me. I opened the refrigerator, it was new and empty.

  “There is only one condition,” Binyamin said. “You’re not bringing non-kosher food in here. It’s important to me that this unit remains kosher.”

  I wasn’t irritated by the fact that he wanted it to remain kosher, as much as the feeling that this was being imposed on me, that I was being decided for.

  Okay,” I agreed feebly. “How much did we say?”

  “$1,200 a month.”

  I nodded. A month? I hope this will be over much, much faster. Binyamin shook my hand warmly. “You made a good deal, partner.”

  I glanced in the room and saw a safe in the wall. “What is that?”

  “My arrangement with you is for the long term, but originally I built the place for Israelis here for the short-term. I installed a safe because I wanted to give them a sense of security that they can keep their passport here and their valuables.”

  “They weren’t concerned that whoever had stayed here before knew the code?”

  “Criminal mind, Yoav?”

  I smiled.

  “You’re right,” he said. “I changed the code for each one of them.” He approached the safe, pressed a few buttons, and then moved away from it and averted his gaze. “Enter a new code, four digits.”

  I approached the safe and looked at him. “You can look, there’s nothing secret here.” I quickly entered four digits.

  His gaze was still turned away from me and the safe. “I want you to feel safe, Yoav. A person’s privacy and sense of security are very critical thing. I learned that from personal experience in Hebron.”

  21

  The Schetritt Family’s Library, Brentwood, Los Angeles

  “We really tried everything,” Ben said.

  “There’s no such thing,” Schetritt answered angrily. He got up and paced back and forth, aggravated. “There must be better hackers out there, this is unacceptable to me. The servers in Brazil aren’t protected enough, you yourself have admitted it. We need to find someone who is an expert in information security. Only a world-class hacker can give us a real solution that can’t be hacked, or at least not in a reasonable timeframe. You know this very well.”

  The room was spacious, decked with heavy, tasteful furnishings. Marble flooring, expensive Persian rugs, a large mahogany desk and wooden armchairs upholstered in black leather. Mounted on the wall were bright torch-shaped lamps that illuminated him in a diffused light. Bookshelves crammed with books with fancy bindings adorned the walls. The air smelled faintly of cleaning products and the floor glistened.

  “I don’t know,” Ben said, closing his eyes and rubbing them tiredly. “Where am I going to find a hacker? We tried to recruit the best, it didn’t work. The system...”

  “It’s like...” Schetritt said dreamily, “fish.”

  “Fish?”

  “Where can you get fish?” Schetritt asked himself, and answered,” at sea or in Zelmanowitz’s deli. You understand?”

  Ben glanced at the clock. “You’re right,” he said. “I’ll look in the sea. I’ll look in the sea of hackers.”

  “Excellent!” Schetritt beamed. “You understand very well, Ben. In the end, you understand very well.”

  The quick, irregular pitter- patter of high heels sounded from the direction of the sitting room.

  “Tell me,” said Schetritt, “speaking of Zelmanowitz’s deli, what about that guy, Slotzky?”

  “Kiddush?” Asked Schetritt’s wife as she peered into the room. She looked like an electrified cat. Huge nails painted bright red and a mane of hair that had been handled by the best of the city’s hair stylists, and yet still resembled a cat’s bristly fur with an additional piece of lace fabric. Ben looked at her in trepidation. Schetritt, on the other hand, beamed. “Darling, thank you for reminding us!”

  Ben answered quietly. “I’ll talk to him, he might have some good – and expensive – ideas.”

  “We’ll talk about this later,” said Schetritt. “You have to find a solution, Ben. Use everyone you know and get us a solution. But for now; Kiddush!” he roared, his face joyous, and Ben trailed after him.

  22

  The Valley, Los Angeles

  I went on a walk to get to know the neighborhood a little bit. Low-rise houses, beautiful villas, front lawns... the American dream. Los Angeles is a quiet, tranquil city – above the surface, at least. A city where some four million people live. I know there are some rough neighborhoods, but the Valley is very quiet. Peripheral, stress-free.

  One of the things that have always bothered me about Tel Aviv is the stress and the density. In Los Angeles, it felt as though anything was possible.

  I heard a honk behind me and turned around. Ehud. He parked the car and came out to join me for a walk.

  “Amazing, eh?” he asked, pointing to the streets spread out before us. “The truth is it’s pretty amazing. I was just thinking about how uncrowded it feels, considering four million people live here, it’s quite the opposite of New York. I was there one time and it felt as crowded as...”

  “Four million?” Ehud asked. “Try eighteen million, four million is just the city of Los Angeles itself, but if you count the entire metropolitan area, it’s eighteen million. Several times the State of Israel.”

  “Well?” I asked. He looked at me. “I’m guessing you haven’t come here as an envoy of the national tourism bureau to welcome the tourist.”

  “Well,” Ehud said, “I just wanted to see how you’re settling in. Was Schetritt at the synagogue? “

  “You’ve already heard about me being there... No, he wasn’t, I have no idea.”

  “What’s the plan, Yoav?”

  “I’m starting to collect intel here.”

  “Do you have a lead?”

  As if I’d tell him.

  He grabbed my shoulder. “Listen, you have to cut out the attitude.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You think you’re some kind of cowboy, a cyber John Wayne, out here doing as he pleases without being a part of…”

  “What do you want, Ehud?”

  “Even though you’re a pain, I want to help you carry out our mission successfully. I gather you’re leaning towards Schetritt.”

  “Well?” I asked wearily.

  “I think you’re right and I think Rami is wrong.”

  “In what respect?”

  “Rami’s methods are cautious and slow, such as closing in on Schetritt slowly with the help of the community, all sorts of nonsense.”

  “So?”

  “So, it seems to me that you’re better off compelling him to get a hold of you.” Ehud’s eyes brightened. “Do you see?”

  “Not entirely.” I closed my eyes, he was beginning to tire me.

  “I’ve heard of a big games tradeshow that’ll take place in San Diego.” “Yes,” I opened my eyes. “I’m intending to go there. How did you know?”

  So, they had recorded my conversations with Amos about the trade show. They’re fast, these guys.

  “Are you thinking of trying the hacker challenge?” “Obviously,” I said. “How are you so familiar with the details?”

  “Familiar,” he said. “Familiar enough.”

  I looked at him. Perhaps he wasn’t so stupid after all. Just perhaps.

  “The hacker challenge is the best tr
ap you can possibly find. Schetritt will definitely be there. You knew about the challenge when you were still in Israel?”

  “Yes,” I said impatiently, “but I didn’t know about Schetritt. I just thought I’d go there to try the challenge. Now I can catch two birds with one stone.”

  “Do you really think you’ll be able to meet the entrance requirements for the challenge?” asked Ehud, folding his hands on his chest. He was one of the most arrogant people I’d ever met, smug and pleased with himself.

  “I’m going to take this one, Ehud.”

  “Take it? What place are you going to take?”

  I smiled. “Only first place.”

  “No way,” Ehud said. “The odds are zero, Yoav, you know that.”

  This conversation had run its course as far as I was concerned. “We’ll wait and see.”

  Ehud nodded, said his farewells and turned towards his car.

  “Ehud,” I said to him quietly. “There’s no need to bring Rami up to date right now. If I actually manage to infiltrate Schetritt’s business, we can bring him up to speed in retrospect. We don’t have anything right now, do we?”

  “Completely,” Ehud smiled, and walked away.

  “Are you going to the trade show?”

  “I don’t think so,” he answered from a distance. “I stopped playing Super Mario Brothers years ago.”

  23

  I heard a light rapping on the door and closed the laptop.

  “Yes?”

  Binyamin’s head peered through the door. “Want to go grocery shopping?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I don’t have much going on anyway.”

  That wasn’t accurate. The truth is that I went on the message board trying to glean new information about the Foretellers. The traffic on the message board was sparse, a few oblique messages. I wasn’t sure where to take things and I didn’t want to report to Rami that nothing had progressed. Maybe shopping with Binyamin would distract me from the dead end, I thought, and I would get back, vigor renewed, ready to figure out what exactly is going on there. We went into his blue pickup, a heavy old Ford. “Say, have you got a cattle ranch over here?” I asked. “Ah,” Binyamin said, and tapped the steering wheel, “No. I love this car, with a motor like this in Israel, I wouldn’t be able to make ends meet; over here it’s peanuts.”

  “What do you actually do?”

  “I... you could say I’m in renovations.”

  “Renovations?”

  “Yes,” he said with a big smile. “I try to improve the world step by step and I do artistic framing. I started in Hebron. I would frame passages from ancient scrolls or special texts. I have secret methods!”

  “Secret methods?” I asked.

  He sighed. “I know... Anyway, that’s my livelihood. At one time people appreciated artistic text framing, today everything has become digitized. People have no respect for the written and printed word and certainly not for the framed word.”

  I was about to respond but he went on. “I love to work with my hands, to take the time and attain the best results for my customers. Today everything is so frantic. People order from China in an instant, and then make do even if it’s not exactly what they had wanted. I belong to an old generation, Yoav, a slower generation, when people would pop by to say hello and drink tea and not just send you a text message or ‘like’ a post. The world has changed, is changing, and I’m not sure the direction in which it’s going is all that good. Everything is so extreme, everyone pulls in their own direction, uprooting the other from their spot,” he sighed again.

  We continued driving in silence. Finally, I asked, “What’s it all going to come to?”

  “What’s it all going to come to?” he asked.

  “What’s this insane world we live in going to come to?”

  “All will be good,” Binyamin said. “Don’t worry, Yoav, the Messiah is on his way.”

  “Really? I haven’t heard about that.”

  “You’ll hear about it, big time. The Messiah is coming and he’s going to rectify all the problems. All the problems, my friend.”

  “Happy is the believer.”

  “Wait and see,” Binyamin said. “We’re going to see some upheaval in the world. Wars, disasters, doomsday and such. But after that all will be good. Like a little injection, it will hurt a bit and everything will be better. With God’s help – a new order coming soon. A new light will shine on Zion, soon we shall all get to bask in its light.”

  “Sounds scary,” I said.

  “If you’re on the right side, you have nothing to worry about.”

  ***

  I found the frozen fish section, Binyamin was in another part of the grocery store. Everything here is expensive. He explained to me that that’s just the way it is – kosher food over here and especially good quality kosher food is very expensive. Much more expensive than in Israel. I promised him that I’d make spicy tuna fish for the Shabbat meal, like our neighbor Aliza made. I recall the smells that would emanate from her house on Thursday evenings and Friday mornings. Anything for the holy Shabbat, she would say.

  The grocery store was not dirty but it was overly stocked, there was no sense of space or variety. Everything was functional, everything you needed and not much more, unlike other US supermarkets.

  Binyamin approached me with his shopping cart.

  “You’re sure you are up to cooking, Yoav? I don’t want to trouble you, I’ll make a delicious fish for Shabbat.”

  “Absolutely, it’s nothing,” I said. “It’s no trouble, it’s a pleasure, let me make something as well, for Shabbat it’s important, isn’t it?”

  Binyamin was elated. “You know,” I told him as we continued to walk around the supermarket, “it’s easier here and less stressful in a way.”

  “What?”

  “The whole religion thing. Shabbat, food. I don’t know. In Israel, I always feel leery about it, and here with you it doesn’t irk me so much.”

  “There’s something to that,” Binyamin said. “Here you are among non-Jews, and the Shabbat meals and the closeness to Judaism give you the sweet and auspicious feeling of being part of the Jewish people. In my opinion, the polarization in Israel between conservatives and liberals and between the religious and the secular – it’s killing us.”

  “Completely.”

  “Something must be done, we have to unite the people. Redemption is dependent on it, Yoav.”

  “Really?”

  There was something sweet about him, even if I disagreed with his wild opinions. A naive belief that “you and I will change the world.” A feeling that there is a chance, a very strange chance to my tastes, but a chance. It lent him a positive energy that exploded out of him, like a child who wants to do good in a cruel and alienated world. It was also annoying at times, but at least he fought for something, I stopped long ago.

  It wasn’t that I had no opinions. When I thought about the state of affairs it pained me, but unlike him I didn’t really feel it. Nothing burned in me. I whiled the days away, he was set aflame by them. This difference was clear to me from the moment we met. Maybe it’s something I learned at an early age, to be detached. Not to feel the pain, not to want so much. It was strange and enchanting at the same time.

  “Yes, only when we are united, only when we understand that beyond all the disagreements we have something in common, we have unity. Only then do we have a chance, my friend. But we are so very far from that. We quarrel over everything, divided in everything.”

  Binyamin loaded the shopping cart with a few cans, took one can out and examined it carefully. When he saw that I was looking at him, he said, “I wasn’t sure of the kashrut.”

  “So?” I cooperated, “What do we do?”

  “Unfortunately, I don’t know anymore. I once thought the answer was kiruv, to perform outreach and show people th
e beauty of Judaism. Now I don’t know anymore. In our difficult state of affairs, the main and perhaps even the only thing that can unite the people is... “

  “What?”

  He looked at me and said nothing.

  24

  San Francisco, California

  Ehud looked at the address he had scribbled quickly on the piece of paper, Bryant Street. A green sign hung over a large red brick building. In large white lettering, it said: Sports Basement. He went into the sports store. A young, energetic sales assistant smiled at him, “Can I help you?” She was wearing an Adidas tracksuit and an unwavering smile.” A tennis racket and a ball. Pronto, please.” He looked out the window and moved about impatiently.

  The young sales assistant asked, “What kind, sir?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “What kind? I mean, are you looking for something with a lot of power to improve your game or something more geared towards control?” He looked at her and didn’t answer.

  “A relatively small head, or large?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Excuse me? I don’t understand.”

  “Something. Give me what you’ve got.” The saleswoman looked at him, surprised, and nodded. He glanced at his watch and tossed a hundred-dollar bill on the counter, “quickly.”

  ***

  The car came to a sudden stop at the intersection of Bryant and 15th in San Francisco. It stopped at the curb, between the fire hydrant and the intersection. The flower baskets that adorned the building’s entrance and its windowsills leant it a pleasant air that did not foreshadow what was to come. The stop was not planned and it raised an alert in the control center. It was a silver Toyota Prius with a strange-looking contraption on its roof. The object that stopped it was a small tennis ball that had appeared out of nowhere and landed in front of it. The car hesitated a while and after 50 milliseconds decided to put itself in reverse. Once the tennis racket landed behind it, it froze, hesitating as to how to proceed. A micro-explosion allowed Ehud to break into it and disable the communications systems. He manually took over the navigation systems and headed off wildly towards Los Angeles.