They were teenagers now, but isolated from the outside world until the radio flitted into their lives. The Voice of America, the World Service of the BBC, Radio Liberty broadcast by an emigre staff in Munich and beamed from a massive transmitter across Central Europe. The curtain was pulled back, a shaft of sunlight brought in. There was contact with the forbidden, excitement and stimulation at the illegality of it all. David said he'd purchased the radio, and smiled. They knew it was beyond his means, and he'd also said they had no need to learn more of its acquisition, only to listen and to understand.

It became a secret thing, special and precious with its expanded short wave band, and a door through which they followed the June War of 1967, and the War of Atonement of 1973. They heard of the tribulations endured by those of their faith who sought to emigrate from Russia to the State of Israel, were told of the trials of those not permitted to leave the Motherland that they wanted to forsake. They knew of international protest at the lot of Soviet Jewry, they suckled themselves on what they believed to be the strength of world opinion. Heady and intoxicating drink for the four teenagers…

And David was their leader.

Nothing had ever been formally decided. It had never been talked over, but the time came when he made all the decisions for the group. At first there had been discussions, followed always by inevitable agreement to David's point of view, till within the last two years the pros and cons were no longer argued. David announced what they would do, and there was immediate concurrence. And as he assumed command so David's personality seemed to grow, and he took on a mantle in the minds of the other three of new strength, new influence. Yet when Moses submitted to the men in khaki, with their instruments and their drugs, when he gave the names, then David would follow to an identical cell, a fashioned and geometric imitation of the one that Moses lay in now, and his future would be as strongly etched as was that of Moses.