doing there? Jimmy said he took off with one of the new Cairo mobile unit teams early this morning. He's got my car and he was supposed to pick me up for the meeting, the bastard!”
Feldman heard Cissy talking off-phone with someone and Bollinger jumped on the line. “Jon, what's going on?”
“Arnie, Hunter called me a while ago from Bethlehem. He's down there with one of the teams from Cairo. He wants the entire crew and equipment down there right now. Says we've got the chance for a real scoop if we hurry.”
“What's the story?”
“He didn't have time to give me details, but he said Bethlehem was the center of last night's quake and that thunderstorm. He said there's some really weird shit going on down there.”
That seemed to have Bollinger's attention, but he sounded irritated at the last-second fire drill. “This had better be good, Feldman,” he warned. “I'd like a little more detail to go on than ‘some really weird shit’ before we all just haul ass out of here in the middle of a story.”
“That's all I know, Arnie, but he was pretty insistent.”
Bollinger signed off, still grumbling. Feldman switched on the car radio. Finally, Israel Radio was back on the air. Feldman had to wait for the English version before he heard more appalling news of the night before. The widespread, global panic. The violence, the destruction, the death. This only reinforced in his mind his earlier argument to Anke.
Underscoring Hunter's claim, Israel Radio also confirmed Bethlehem as the epicenter of a major earthquake measuring seven point one on the Richter scale. With the exception of a mild tremor reported in Rome, apparently none of the other millenarian stronghold cities around the world had suffered like disasters.
22
Bethlehem, Israel 9:33 A.M ., Saturday, January 1, 2000
A rriving in Bethlehem from the north, Feldman overlooked a picturesque hillside town of about twenty thousand inhabitants, primarily Christian Arabs whose families had lived here for hundreds of years. Other than in the ethnic origin of its residents, Bethlehem had changed little since the birth of Christ. From rolling, sparse pasturelands that surrounded the town, shepherds still drove flocks of sheep and goats along worn, narrow, cobblestone alleyways into the central marketplace bazaar. Side by side with ancient, historic structures, newer construction had been randomly squeezed in over the centuries. But built of the same indigenous stone, most were hardly distinguishable from their predecessors.
Interspersed among this maze of densely packed dwellings were the elegant white-sandstone spires of a dozen churches. Including the center-most focus of the town, the fourteen-hundred-year-old Church of the Nativity, located in Manger Square over the grotto that Stephen Martyr had identified in A.D. 155 as the precise spot where Christ was born.
Feldman was amazed there was no visible damage from the previous night's violent quake. Instead of a disaster zone, he found the town swarming with millenarians. Shops and cafés were bustling and there were no signs of interrupted municipal services. No cordoned-off areas for utility repairs, no emergency crews digging through rubble.
The crowds were densest not near revered Manger Square in the center of town, as Feldman had anticipated, but at a large, parklike common on the north side. The common was encircled by connecting loops of Sderot King David on the north and Sderot Manger on the south—
sderot
being the Hebrew word for “street.” Near where the two loops of the boulevards met, Feldman spotted the WNN RV, parked behind a row of stucco buildings.
He knocked at the door, a bolt unlocked, and he was greeted by an unfamiliar, bookish-looking, middle-aged man in a tie and horn-rimmed glasses who, conversely, recognized him instantly.
“Mr. Feldman, we've been expecting you.”
Feldman was still not used to his newly acquired celebrity status.
“Good, you made it!” Hunter's
Feldman heard Cissy talking off-phone with someone and Bollinger jumped on the line. “Jon, what's going on?”
“Arnie, Hunter called me a while ago from Bethlehem. He's down there with one of the teams from Cairo. He wants the entire crew and equipment down there right now. Says we've got the chance for a real scoop if we hurry.”
“What's the story?”
“He didn't have time to give me details, but he said Bethlehem was the center of last night's quake and that thunderstorm. He said there's some really weird shit going on down there.”
That seemed to have Bollinger's attention, but he sounded irritated at the last-second fire drill. “This had better be good, Feldman,” he warned. “I'd like a little more detail to go on than ‘some really weird shit’ before we all just haul ass out of here in the middle of a story.”
“That's all I know, Arnie, but he was pretty insistent.”
Bollinger signed off, still grumbling. Feldman switched on the car radio. Finally, Israel Radio was back on the air. Feldman had to wait for the English version before he heard more appalling news of the night before. The widespread, global panic. The violence, the destruction, the death. This only reinforced in his mind his earlier argument to Anke.
Underscoring Hunter's claim, Israel Radio also confirmed Bethlehem as the epicenter of a major earthquake measuring seven point one on the Richter scale. With the exception of a mild tremor reported in Rome, apparently none of the other millenarian stronghold cities around the world had suffered like disasters.
22
Bethlehem, Israel 9:33 A.M ., Saturday, January 1, 2000
A rriving in Bethlehem from the north, Feldman overlooked a picturesque hillside town of about twenty thousand inhabitants, primarily Christian Arabs whose families had lived here for hundreds of years. Other than in the ethnic origin of its residents, Bethlehem had changed little since the birth of Christ. From rolling, sparse pasturelands that surrounded the town, shepherds still drove flocks of sheep and goats along worn, narrow, cobblestone alleyways into the central marketplace bazaar. Side by side with ancient, historic structures, newer construction had been randomly squeezed in over the centuries. But built of the same indigenous stone, most were hardly distinguishable from their predecessors.
Interspersed among this maze of densely packed dwellings were the elegant white-sandstone spires of a dozen churches. Including the center-most focus of the town, the fourteen-hundred-year-old Church of the Nativity, located in Manger Square over the grotto that Stephen Martyr had identified in A.D. 155 as the precise spot where Christ was born.
Feldman was amazed there was no visible damage from the previous night's violent quake. Instead of a disaster zone, he found the town swarming with millenarians. Shops and cafés were bustling and there were no signs of interrupted municipal services. No cordoned-off areas for utility repairs, no emergency crews digging through rubble.
The crowds were densest not near revered Manger Square in the center of town, as Feldman had anticipated, but at a large, parklike common on the north side. The common was encircled by connecting loops of Sderot King David on the north and Sderot Manger on the south—
sderot
being the Hebrew word for “street.” Near where the two loops of the boulevards met, Feldman spotted the WNN RV, parked behind a row of stucco buildings.
He knocked at the door, a bolt unlocked, and he was greeted by an unfamiliar, bookish-looking, middle-aged man in a tie and horn-rimmed glasses who, conversely, recognized him instantly.
“Mr. Feldman, we've been expecting you.”
Feldman was still not used to his newly acquired celebrity status.
“Good, you made it!” Hunter's
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