Peace on Earth
One of the very best thrillers of the last twenty years. Second novel by Stevens, now published as an ebook and still stunningly relevant to the Middle East conflict.The lives of three families converge: a Jewish family finally allowed out of Russia after years of persecution; a Palestinian family displaced by the Israelis from their ancestral home in Bethlehem; an English family from Hereford, home of the SAS: hostage, highjacker, rescuer – but who is really the villain, who is really the victim? A super novel of international intrigue and heartbreaking suspense.
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GORDON STEVENS
Peace on Earth
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
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London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by Hodder & Stoughton Ltd 1987
Copyright © Gordon Stevens 1987, 1997
Gordon Stevens asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
‘Do not go gentle into that good night’ reproduced by kind permission of J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd from The Poems by Dylan Thomas.
‘I Believe in Father Christmas’ lyrics by Greg Lake, Peter Sinfield. Copyright © 1977 by Leadchoice Ltd, administered worldwide by Campbell Connelly & Co. Ltd, 8/9 Frith St, London WIV 5TZ.
Used by permission. All Rights Reserved.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780006473152
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2016 ISBN: 9780008219369
Version: 2016-11-03
For Emily and Joe, who do not know.
And Souraya and Dyala, and the family
in the photograph, who do.
Peace on Earth describes situations and events in the mid-1980s. Since then, some things have changed. The Soviet Union, for example, no longer exists.
Sadly, other things remain the same.
CONTENTS
The boys were nine, almost ten.
They sat on the rock, the man beside them, watching the sun rise over the valley of the Jordan, the sweep of light spreading from the east and the shadows of the night disappearing.
‘When will you tell us the story?’ they asked.
‘What story?’ replied the man.
He remembered the morning he had sat on the rock and waited, the morning he had sat on the rock and wished he had never been born, the morning he had sat on the rock and wished they had never set him free.
‘The story that began with a verse from a poem.’
‘The story that began with a dream.’
‘The story that began with the family from the far-off land.’
They knew that he was playing the game with them, that he always played the game with them, and wondered why he would not tell them. The sun was growing warmer.
‘When will you tell us the story?’ they asked again.
‘What story?’
One day, he knew, he would no longer be able to hide the truth from them. One day he would tell them.
‘The story about the little boy.’
‘The story about the little boy who was born in Bethlehem.’
He knew what they were going to say.
‘The story about the little boy who died to save us all.’
He thought about the boy, about what the boy had done when he had grown to manhood, what the boy had done when he had been their age. The shadows had gone from the land. He knew that they were old enough to know, that they were too old not to know.
‘Today,’ he said at last. ‘I will tell you the story.’
The verse from the poem
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
from Dylan Thomas
‘Do not go gentle into that good night’
The dream
The tunnel was long, filled with smoke, the flames coming at him. He was moving down it, eyes sweeping from left to right. Not his eyes, she dreamt, it was as if he was behind his eyes, as if he could see the destruction around him through the sockets of his eyes. His breathing was deep and rasping, as if it was not his breathing. She heard the voice, guiding him, telling him where to go, what to do. Protecting him, committing him. She tried to wake from the dream, to take him from the tunnel, saw the death around him, unsure whether it was his death or the death of another. He was moving on, the smoke and flames coming at him, engulfing him, as if he was descending into Hell. She heard the voice again, saw the death again. His death or someone else’s, she was still not sure. He was moving on, deeper into the tunnel. She could no longer see him.
