Sky Hammer. James Axler

milling throng filling the divided city.

      Adjusting the compact, green, TAV assault rifle slung at her side, Major Adina Kushner of the Israeli Defense Forces inspected the decorative brick topping of the concrete barrier separating the city of Abu Dis. A single brick was missing from the array,

      Walking along the edge of the scaffolding, the major breathed deeply, the smell of oranges from the nearby orchards almost overwhelming the traditional reek of gasoline fumes and camel dung.

      On both sides of the concrete barrier, Abu Dis was filled with people, all of them singing, talking, praying, cursing, milling around and taking endless pictures. In spite of the concertina wire frothy on the ground, the Palestinian side of the wall was covered with graffiti and the Israeli side dotted with posters. The major sighed. Civilians! What could you do?

      Situated on top of nearby buildings, television crews from around the world were already in place, their cameras sweeping the crowds on both sides of the concrete wall, doing background shots to be included into the news reports later. It seemed as if the entire world wanted to see the dedication ceremony of the wall. The famous wall. The hated wall. The “failing wall,” as one BBC anchor had cleverly dubbed the barrier, the wordplay based upon the famous Wailing Wall of Jerusalem.

      Started by another president of Israel right after the 9/11 al Qaeda attack on New York City in America, the wall was a desperate attempt to keep out the terrorist bombers that had plagued the West Bank, physically separating the nation of Israel from the Palestine territory. Although more and more people were simply calling it Palestine. These days, the hardcore Zion fundamentalists were grudgingly admitting that everybody deserved their own homeland.

      Eight yards high, ten yards deep in places and 720 miles long, the imposing barrier had been built along the exact 1967 borders agreed upon by Israel and Palestine at the time. Of course, once Israel started building the wall, the Palestinians decried the construction in spite of the earlier accord. They took the matter to the World Court, which decided the construction should stop until the delicate political matter of whether the Palestinians should be forced to keep the treaties they signed was decided. Israel ignored the court order and continued building, although, they did change the borders ever so slightly so that the wall was a bit more on their property. The concession brought fury from the horde of Jewish settlers now trapped on the other side of the wall and from the few Palestinians still inside the barrier.

      As a flight of Israel F-16-I jet fighters streaked by overhead, Major Kushner checked her wrist for the time, then looked at the position of the sun for confirmation. Only a few minutes to go. The wall had been finished for weeks, but this day was the ceremony of its completion. The last brick was to be officially laid today amid great fanfare, international press coverage and massive security. Why Abu Dis had been chosen for the ceremony, the major had no idea. Maybe because it was almost in the exact middle. Maybe not. Politics wasn’t her forte.

      Dressed in short pants and bulletproof vests, heavily armed Israeli soldiers moved through the crowd, smiling and polite, their sharp eyes checking everybody and everything.

      A small child was delayed as the soldiers checked his shopping bag, but it proved to contain only foodstuffs and assorted sundries. A stumbling drunk was quietly escorted to a private room where the soldiers ascertained that the man really was intoxicated and that his bottle held whiskey, not nitroglycerin or some other form of dangerous liquid. A known terrorist was found photographing the scaffolding near the wall, and hit with a tranquilizer dart from a disguised camera held by a Mossad agent dressed as a taxicab driver. The unconscious man was caught by two pretty Mossad agents, who scolded their friend for being drunk in public, and the criminal was hauled away to a private interrogation room.

      An elderly pickpocket tried working the crowd and, despite the massive security, actually got a couple of wallets from tourists before being apprehended. He willingly turned over the wallets, which were then surreptitiously returned to the owners, and the thief was thrown into a concrete cell for later trial.

      Always in pairs, F-16-I jet fighters moved across the sky, while Yas’ur-class helicopter gunships hovered above the crowds, staying carefully out of range of the news cameras. Several of the huge helicopters were equipped for surveillance, while a few were armed to the teeth, their wings bristling with armament.

      At strategic locations were brand-new Merkava-4 battle tanks; old Sho’t army tanks stood guard at street corners. A dozen Zelda-class APCs full of troops patrolled both sides of the border. Radar swept the sky and chemical sniffers checked every bag for contraband. Video cameras swept through the crowd, relaying the scene to a massive bank of police computers in Tel Aviv where sophisticated software cross-referenced every face to a list of known terrorists. When one was spotted, he or she was deftly removed from the crowd for questioning. One man tried to escape and make a break for the hole in the wall, but was tackled by the soldiers guarding the entrance. Another pulled a grenade and was torn to pieces by concentrated gunfire from the silenced pistols of security forces.

      Walking along the wall, Major Kushner reviewed everything. Flag poles adorned with the blue-and-white Israel flag flanked the platform on the north side of the wall, a precisely equal amount carrying the Palestinian flag on the south. There was a podium with a speech prompter in place, and near the gap on top of the wall was a single brick lying on a white pillow like some ancient virgin sacrifice. Nearby was a battered bucket full of wet cement and a shiny golden trowel. All of which had been checked for bombs, poisons and anything else that could mar the ceremony or kill the PM.

      At the base of the scaffolding was a full company of soldiers; six more in formal dress uniforms stood guard on the top of the platform. Only Kushner had no assigned post. She was the roving soldier ordered to walk everywhere, looking for trouble. But so far, so good. The military officer nodded in satisfaction. The area seemed secure. The Israeli Defense Force had done this sort of thing before, and there was nobody better. Everything that could be accomplished to secure the area had been already done in triplicate. This was an important occasion, and nobody was taking a chance of it turning into an international incident for some terrorist group out to grab some fast headlines.

      Suddenly the radio receiver in her ear crackled with an announcement and a few seconds later, a civilian band, all in matching uniforms, swelled into the national anthem of the State of Israel. Just then, a motorcade of six armored limousines stopped in front of the scaffolding and the prime minister got out waving to the crowd, which roared in approval. Only a few people jeered the man’s arrival, but their cries were lost in the overwhelming positive response. Cameras flashed continuously. Proceeding to the carpeted steps to the top of the platform, the PM moved to the podium and made the grand gesture of turning off the speech prompters. The people cheered in approval.

      “On this historic day,” the prime minister said softly into the microphone, the speakers amplifying his words until they boomed with biblical force across the entire city, “we lay the final brick in this modern day wall of Jericho. But unlike that ancient structure, this wall will be a symbol of peace and…”

      The politician stopped as Major Kushner touched her earphone and frowned. On the ground, dozens of soldiers were charging around, the Zelda APCs began to disgorge armed soldiers as police vans started rolling toward the scaffolding, armed troops guiding civilians out of its way.

      Removing a handkerchief from his pocket, the prime minister mopped his face and whispered to the officer, “Is there trouble?”

      “Unknown, sir,” Kushner replied. “But radar has picked up something odd.”

      “A missile?”

      Scowling in concern, Kushner shook her head as lightning flashed in the cloudy sky.

      Squinting into the clouds, the prime minster saw the flash again, but it seemed to come from the other side of the clouds and go right through to impact somewhere in the city only blocks away. But there was no explosion from a detonating warhead. He frowned at the sight. That didn’t resemble a missile, rocket or a bomb. It didn’t look like anything he knew.

      Below the scaffolding, the crowd was growing nervous, its murmurs increasing in volume.

      “Status report,”