The Danger Within

by E. L. Pini

  “Dr. el-Masri,” Chayyim said, reading from Imad’s name tag. “Papers, please.”

  Imad reached into the pocket of his scrubs and drew his hand back out in a swift, wide arc to the left, following up with the rest of his weight and raising his right foot in a high kick to meet Chayyim’s face. Chayyim was caught off guard and crashed back into the wall behind him. Imad pressed his left palm to the side of Chayyim’s face and wrapped his right arm around his neck. He broke his collarbone, then snapped his neck and hurriedly dragged his body back into one of the stalls, sat it down on the toilet, locked the door from the inside and climbed out, eyes scanning the room in preparation for another attack.

  There was no one there. Imad knew that there was no going back—the situation had become strictly kill or be killed. He took several deep breaths. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. He raised his head and rocked it right and left, loosening the tension in his neck. Another deep breath. Time to go.

  When he got back to the hall, he noticed Marciano approaching the office, holding a bottle of orange juice and two bananas. The hallway was empty. Imad estimated the shrinking distance between them. The attack should ideally take place as close as possible to the door of Verbin’s office. He slowed his approach so that they would meet at the best spot. Marciano walked past him, smiling, and raised his hand to knock on Verbin’s door. The time was now. Imad spun back and his open hand chopped down on the back of the Marciano’s neck, delivering an accurate, powerful strike directly to the brainstem. Marciano lost his balance. The walls swam around him. He tried to stay upright, but his muscles wouldn’t obey him and he swerved, slowly falling to the floor. Imad caught him, appropriated his heavy Jericho gun, eased him into his wheelchair, grabbed his head and, with a quick twist, broke his neck. He opened the door to the office and shoved the wheelchair inside.

  “Mr. Marciano, join me for coffee?”

  “I’d love some. Thank you,” replied Imad.

  “What…” Verbin turned from the espresso machine and her welcoming smile froze. “What… what is this?” The cup fell from her hand and shattered at Marciano’s feet. He neither moved nor reacted in any way.

  “Call him, now! Tell him to get over here. Anything extra and I blow your fucking head off.”

  Verbin stared at Marciano, his slack jaw and the lack of muscle tone in his neck, and realized he was dead.

  “Call who?” she asked, her voice shaking.

  “Your husband, you dumb bitch.”

  “I’m not married. I don’t have a husband,” she said, feeling her hands descending to protect her belly, as if of their own accord. She forced herself to raise them back up. He couldn’t find out she was pregnant.

  Imad grabbed her neck and shoved the gun’s barrel into her mouth. She choked and gurgled, and when he loosened his grip a bit, she tried to knee him in the crotch but couldn’t reach. He raised his hand and slapped her forcefully. It was a new kind of pain, one she’d never felt before. She felt the inside of her head smacking against her skull, tried to steady herself—but the vertigo was too powerful, and she ended up falling on her back.

  Imad placed his foot on her neck, drew out the scalpel, grabbed Verbin by the hair and pulled her up with the scalpel shoved into her mouth. She clung with both hands to his wrist, trying to push out the knife. Imad just smiled and tightened his grip. The scalpel cut the inside of her mouth and she cried out in pain. When Imad let go and backed away a bit, she snatched the iPad from the table, raised it and slammed it down on the scalpel with all her strength. Imad blocked her easily and grabbed her throat again, smiling. For a moment, she reminded him of Anna. The same shocked insult on her face, quickly morphing into an uncompromising power, fueled by desperation. He knew there would be no surrender here, and if he’d had time, if he hadn’t had to get Ehrlich and his son, he would have truly enjoyed this game.

  Verbin raised her hand in surrender, as if to prove him wrong, and he released his grip around her throat. She wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth. There should be a letter opener and a pair of scissors, somewhere on the desk. Imad grabbed her by the hair and tilted her head back.

  “Call your husband, or I blow your head off.”

  Marciano’s body suddenly slipped from the wheelchair and his head smacked against the floor. A thin trail of blood mixed with saliva dribbled down his face. Verbin couldn’t tear her eyes away from him.

  “This is what I’ll do to you. Unless you call Ehrlich, now.”

  Verbin was gagging, struggling to breathe, and once again caught her hands from dropping to protect her belly. “You don’t scare me. When Ehrlich gets here he’ll destroy you.”

  “Call him, now!” He held out the phone, lying on the floor.

  She took it and smashed it on the floor. The parts scattered across the room. “Call him yourself!” she said, her eyes still scanning the room for the letter opener.

  Imad bent her down toward the floor. “Pick it up.” The hand around her throat squeezed harder.

  When she managed to pull enough air into her lungs, she kicked at the phone battery. It slid under the screen obscuring the examination table. Imad pulled away slightly and raised his fist, aiming at her face. She raised her hands to protect her eyes, then instinctively lowered them to her belly. Imad realized that a change of strategy was in order. He slammed her into the chair, took out the electrical tape from his bag and wrapped it around her mouth.

  “Breathe through the nose, Doctor. It’s so much healthier,” he said cheerfully, tying her arms together and her legs to the chair.

  As he searched for the phone battery behind the screen, he noticed a hook attached to a long screw that fastened the screen to the wall. Perfect. He removed the hook and screwed it into the upper corner of the left door, all the way in. He then reassembled her phone and scrolled through the contact list. There was no “Avner” or “Ehrlich,” but “Honey bear” gave him pause. He scrolled through her WhatsApp conversations. “Oh, look, a photo of honey bear,” he said, grinning with satisfaction.

  He put the phone down and pulled out four cable ties. “See? Big enough even for your big ol’ honey bear.” He pushed the chair under the door handle, blocking the entrance, and sent honey bear a text: “I need you. Come quick. I’m at the office.”

  He pulled a hand grenade out of his bag and used another cable tie to attach it to the air conditioner vent above the door. He checked to see it was secure and then slipped another cable tie into the safety pin’s pull ring. Now he just needed to attach the other end of the cable wire to the hook he’d screwed into the door, but that would wait until Ehrlich and Eran were there.

  Verbin breathed slowly, as deeply as she could, and gradually managed to put her mind in order. This is obviously Imad, and he is obviously after Avner. I’m the bait. He won’t kill me, at least until he has Avner—then he’ll probably use me to pressure him. He wants to get something out of him. But what?

  It suddenly dawned on her that if she’d called Avner, like Imad had asked, she could’ve found a way to warn him. The unexpected cold touch of steel against her eyelids made her shiver. Imad was pressing a hand grenade to her face. “Do you know what this is?”

  Verbin nodded.

  Imad pulled out the safety pin and shoved the grenade between her tied hands. Verbin pressed against the strike lever as hard as she could.

  “Let go, and you have four and a half seconds to live.”

  93.

  “I need you. Come quick. I’m at the office.”

  A WhatsApp message, declared by the opening notes of La Donna è Mobile. She didn’t pick up when I called her back. Strange, she’d just sent the text. I called again, and again made it to her voicemail. I decided to wait a bit before calling again and got back to the matter at hand.

  Kahanov and I were going over the footage of Mahajna’s interrogation, again, trying to find something we might’ve mis
sed. Mahajna had enjoyed special privileges—the Service turned a blind eye to his business of moving illegals past the border. It did not look good for Kahanov that he turned out to be a double agent. I suggested that Mahajna might have been blackmailed and recruited only recently by Imad. Kahanov tended to agree, and then we were interrupted once again by La Donna è Mobile. The same text—“I need you. Come quick. I’m at the office.”

  I told Kahanov that “pregnancy brain” was taking effect sooner than I’d expected—far sooner—she was at her hospital, protected by two experienced Shin Bet bodyguards. What’s so urgent?

  “You should go see her,” said Kahanov. “I’ll be fine here.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, don’t worry.”

  “On my way,” I texted her, still feeling awkward about leaving Kahanov to sort through the shit by himself. Still, I got in the Harley and drove to the hospital.

  At the entrance to the hospital, there was an anorexic-looking teen, probably a junkie, selling roses. I bought the whole bucket and told her to keep the change, then went up the stairs to Verbin’s office.

  ***

  “Dr. Verbiiiin,” I called out when I reached her closed door, sniffing the red roses. They were disappointingly lacking in fragrance. I assumed she was busy with a patient and sat on one of the reception chairs outside. But something was bothering me.

  Where was Marciano?

  Realization hit me like a bolt of lightning. I should have called Kahanov but couldn’t stop myself—I barged inside and found myself staring at a barrel aimed to my center of mass, and Verbin tied to a chair, a grenade between her hands, positioned between me and Imad’s gun. She squirmed a bit, as if trying to tell me something.

  “Shut the door, and sit down. Now!” Imad ordered, his right arm still aiming at me, the left pushing a scalpel against the back of Verbin’s neck. She made a strange, strangled sound. I kicked the door closed, my eyes never leaving her. I placed the roses on the table and slowly sat down, considering my options. If I attacked, would he go for Verbin? Yes, of course he would. He had nothing to lose. He’d hurt her anyway, and where was Marciano?

  “Go to the door,” Imad said, gesturing with the gun. I approached the door and noticed the grenade attacked to the vent.

  “Take the end of the cable tie connected to the pin. Connect it to the hook stuck in the door.”

  The kill range of the grenade would be around five yards. Fragments are effective up to fifteen yards. In other words, anyone who broke into the room, and anyone in the room, would be fatally injured if it went off. I could get control of the grenade, but he would just shoot Verbin, and the grenade would drop from her hands and finish the job. I slipped the end of the cable tie in wrong way up, so it didn’t catch. As I’d hoped, Imad didn’t notice. One trap neutralized.

  “Where is your son, Eran?” he asked.

  For a moment I wasn’t sure I’d heard him.

  “How should I know?” I eventually replied. “He’s a big boy. He does what he wants.”

  Imad pressed on the scalpel, again tearing that strange sound out of Verbin. When he decided it was having the appropriate impact on me, he asked again, “Where is your son, Eran?”

  “I can have Taissiri brought here. Let her go and I’ll have it done.”

  “Where is he?”

  I counted to ten and slowly said, “He’s at a Shin Bet facility in Tel Aviv. If anything happens to her, you can forget about him.”

  Imad raised the gun toward me and with his left hand sliced her forehead with the scalpel. It bled generously. “Okay, okay. Stop it, let her go. What do you want?”

  “I want you to get your boy over here!”

  “What’s he ever done to you?”

  I was buying time. At some point, Marciano would get here, and hopefully Kahanov, and I needed to figure out how to warn them about the booby-trapped door. I hoped they had the sense to insert a fiber camera before charging in.

  A thin, cruel smile stretched his lips.

  “He’s done nothing to me. But he’s about to give me so much.”

  He seemed to realize that I was trying to plan my next move, and in response he pulled another grenade from his bag and pulled out the pin, holding down the strike lever. He now had total control of the room. A gun aimed at me, a grenade in his left hand, another one booby-trapping the entrance, a third in Verbin’s hand. And where the fuck was Marciano?

  “If you let her go, you survive this,” I said again. “Hurt her and you end up like your daddy and your little brother Nasser, and Anna, and your cousin Mahajna. I personally killed every one of them.”

  He didn’t seem affected. He kicked four thick cable ties toward me.

  “Tie yourself to the chair,” he ordered.

  I slowly wrapped the cable tie around my left leg and the chair leg and again said, “Release her or you get nothing. And you’ll be dead.”

  “Oh? Do you plan on killing me?” he sneered.

  “Either me or someone else. They’re already looking for me. My security detail, who by the way are here in the hospital. Shin Bet. Police. Mossad. Do you really think you have a chance?”

  “Your security detail is already here.” He nodded toward the screen obscuring the exam bed, and for the first time I noticed Marciano’s body. I took a deep breath. I felt my blood boiling, searing my skin, pounding at the insides of my eyes.

  “That’s her guard, not mine.” I spoke as indifferently as I could. “And that was only one of them. And there is only one of you.”

  “Tie it already!” he barked, pressing the gun into Verbin’s ear and eliciting another strangled, painful cry.

  I fastened the cable tie, knowing that whatever small window of opportunity I had here would close the moment I finished tying my other leg. I carefully felt for the pocket in my boots with the small knife Eran had given me, the one that had gotten us out of Lebanon.

  “Wonderful,” said Imad. “Now the other leg.”

  I kept feeling around for it but couldn’t find the knife. Then it hit me. The knife was in my old Blundstones.

  A roaring Allah hu akbar! rose from my pocket. Kahanov’s ringtone.

  “Take it out, slowly, and toss it over to me,” he said, shoving the gun against Verbin’s ear. She groaned.

  I reached into my pocket and slowly drew out the phone. If only I’d taken a Glock, I could have killed him, right now. I caught a glance at Kahanov’s smiling face on the screen and threw the phone to Imad. He crushed it with his heel.

  He approached me slowly. Verbin was staring at me, and I tried to somehow transmit my thoughts to her. Sometimes it works. I wanted her to know that I wouldn’t let anything happen to her or the baby. A sequence of orders suddenly surfaced—locate the primary threat. The grenade? No, Imad wouldn’t use the grenade. He wants to live. The primary threat is the gun. Divert! Strike! Control! That was my strategy—I’d practiced it dozens, hundreds of times.

  Verbin’s eyes were still on me, searching, probing for an answer. I gave a fraction of a nod, hoping that translated as “whatever you do, don’t drop the grenade.” To my surprise, she burst into laughter. Imad swerved around in response, and she pushed her chair back with all her strength. The chair tipped and fell back, Verbin along with it. Imad was staring at her, uncomprehending, confused. I leapt up from the chair, my right shoulder smashing into his face. I cracked his jaw, and he lost balance, tried to steady himself. I grabbed the barrel of the gun with both hands, tried to divert it. This maneuver should be performed quickly and continuously, but with one leg tied to the chair, I couldn’t create momentum. I struggled to shift the gun away, and he was still resisting.

  I was holding the barrel, but it was still aimed at me. Imad managed to pull the trigger and hit my shoulder. A split second of silence. I snapped out of it first. I lunged at the gun, pain screaming inside my s
houlder. Imad stepped back, and I managed to grab the gun and move it away but couldn’t follow up with a strike. Imad struck my ear with the grenade in his other hand. I took it and kept struggling, moving in a half-spin that brought my shoulder into his face, and leaned my entire body weight onto the hand with the gun. His wrist gave under the weight and he dropped the gun. I bent to pick it up, and he kicked me in the face, snapping my head back. Blood trickled into my eyes. The shoulder he’d shot was a burning orb of pain, the rest of the arm paralyzed. He realized this and kicked the bullet wound. I tried to fire, but my hand was limp and useless. He was panting, trying to prepare for his next attack. So was I. Eran, my Eran, be here with me, I thought, or maybe said out loud. It suddenly occurred to me that it wasn’t just hard for me; it was hard for him, too. The survivor here would be the one who could move past his breaking point.

  I filled my lungs as much as I could and let out a booming kiai that seemed to stun him for a fraction of a second. I then fired three bullets into his torso. Two of them hit the mark. He grabbed his stomach with both hands, and the grenade fell from his grip and rolled toward Verbin.

  Four and a half seconds.

  I dove after the grenade and grabbed it.

  Three and a half seconds.

  I grabbed Imad by the hair, slightly lifting him.

  Two and a half seconds.

  I shoved the grenade underneath him.

  A second and a half.

  I fell on top of him, pinning him to the floor.

  Boom.

  94.

  Imad’s body was torn in half. Blood was gushing from my throat. I tried to stop the bleeding, but my hand refused to move. Shrapnel must have hit my carotid artery. I was floating in a dark space, in a fetal position, spinning weightlessly, like an astronaut, faster and faster. A white beam of light pierced through the black. I was spinning faster, uncontrollably. I felt like my head would split down the middle, and I blacked out.