by Davis Bunn
But all that was going to have to wait, because Sandrine shut the phone and said, “We are in the green.”
Schlomo asked, “They are prepped at the other end?”
“They are ready to move on our say.”
He passed out energy bars and bottles of water, then nodded to Marc. Now it was his play. Marc asked, “Everybody clear on their roles?”
They spent the next thirty minutes going over each detail and fitting out their gear. Marc liked how they met his gaze. That they were all afraid was to be expected, but they managed their fear well. They understood the risks. They had lived with risk all their lives.
Sandrine remained on station by the rear window, observing now through infrared glasses. “The ninth truck is leaving,” she said.
“It’s time to move,” Schlomo said.
Kitra asked, “Do you think . . . ?” She stopped and dropped her head.
Marc urged, “Say it.”
“Could we take a moment to pray?”
Schlomo’s eyes rounded. He said something to Kitra in Hebrew. She looked at him blankly and responded in English, “That is correct. I and my family are followers of Jesus.”
He exchanged a second look with Sandrine, then said simply, “Understood.”
The four of them gathered and held hands, Marc and Rhana and Amin and Kitra. Marc then reached out toward where Sandrine and Schlomo stood, watching. He did not speak. It was their choice. After a moment’s hesitation, Sandrine walked over and took his hand. She then turned to Schlomo and said, “Come.”
The six of them stood in a circle. Kitra said, “Speak for us, Marc.”
Daylight was fully extinguished. The few vehicles that passed were night crawlers, blaring gangsta rap from open windows. Men hung elbows on the doorjambs and observed them with vulture eyes. A trio of women passed, their kerchiefed heads aiming downward, seeing nothing and moving fast. Marc moved with Kitra back to the block with the café. He entered the narrow path between that building and the next, so tight he could touch both walls without fully extending his arms. He stood on a garbage can to check the barred windows, and as before saw only silent darkness inside the shuttered businesses. He pointed out hand- and footholds to Kitra, then used them himself and scaled the wall, reached for her as she came near the top.
The roof was flat and dotted with satellite dishes and stray tables and a clothesline that held chef aprons and stained washcloths. They crouched behind a large trash can as a café worker came through the door on the roof’s other side. The man carried a plastic hamper and gathered up the dry laundry, humming a tune as he worked. When he left, Marc signaled Kitra to remain where she was and moved in a crouch across the roof. He scanned the other side, watched the workers by the last truck, then gestured Kitra forward. “Radio Schlomo, tell him they’re off-loading the last blower.”
As she spoke into the radio, Marc activated the sat phone and dialed the number.
Carter Dawes answered on the first buzz. Not even the scrambler’s static could erase the man’s adrenaline cheer. “Dialing for dollars.”
“We’re in position.”
“I’m two hundred and ten klicks out, thirty thousand feet above the Suez Canal. Green across the board.”
“Back to you in one.”
“Roger that.”
He handed the phone to Kitra. “Make the call.”
She coded in the number from the paper Schlomo had given her. She spoke briefly in Hebrew, listened, then cut off and said, “They move in five.”
“Radio the others an update.” He took back the phone, called Carter, and said, “Ready to light the target.”
“Well, what are we waiting for, sport?”
“Hold one.” Marc pointed Kitra to the other side. “Tell the others to go.”
She spoke the one word into the radio, then shocked him nearly out of his socks. She dropped the radio, gripped his face with both hands, and kissed him hard.
Then she turned and scurried back to the other side of the roof as he’d instructed.
Marc was so stunned it took a few seconds to realize the phone was squawking. “Say again,” he rasped into the receiver.
“Finger’s on the trigger, sport. Clock is ticking. Where’s my target?”
Marc nestled the phone between his shoulder and his ear. He lifted the bulky binoculars, switched on the laser, and fastened them on the garage’s second story. “Target is lit.”
“I have you five by five. I am weapons hot. Repeat, weapons hot.”
“Fire away.”
“Missile is away. Inbound in one hundred and ninety seconds.”
Marc was about to cut and run himself when a shout rose from the street below. One of the tall bodyguards pointed up at the laser pinpointed on the garage wall. He followed the glow back and saw Marc. Their yells brought out the other guards, who raised weapons and took aim just as Hesam stepped out of the open garage bay.
Which was when the night was split by thunder.
Chapter Forty
It was not a single explosion. It sounded like a hundred freight trains all colliding milliseconds apart. Even though Marc was expecting it, the noise was appalling. For the men down below, it must have scrambled their brains. They fired off their weapons in every direction, as though trying to shoot the noise out of the night. And that was exactly what Marc had hoped would happen.
Led by Schlomo, the team ran down parallel streets, tossing flash-bang grenades onto roofs, down alleys. Firing off rounds at windows and dropping in more stun grenades. Creating a rolling havoc.
Marc’s idea.
The Israeli-Gaza-Egyptian border was a potential free-fire zone. The locals would all have a bolt-hole of some kind, with reinforced walls and armored doors. If possible, they would have put it underground. Many of the apartment buildings had a collective basement with steel-and-concrete walls. It was time to find safety. And fast. Marc watched the locals vanish, prayed again that the human toll would be kept to a minimum.
Marc slipped down the rear wall and checked the main road. The street was utterly vacant. Even the workers off-loading the last truck were gone. The final blower was poised in midair, the forklift engine chugging softly, the door open and flapping. From inside the garage came a high-pitched caterwauling. A pair of diesel generators drummed a faint line of tension from behind the garage. Outside, the two remaining bodyguards crouched behind the truck and fired at the sky. They shouted something, which Marc assumed was their calling for the others to take position.
Then Marc saw him.
Their prey was fleeing out a side door Marc hadn’t noticed until that moment. Marc knew it was his target, though all he saw was a shadow, and only for a few seconds’ time. He started forward, then stopped as if a hand reached down from heaven and steered him back. The sight of the quarry had momentarily pushed out the thought of what was incoming.
He turned around and ran back, skirted down the narrow alley, flitted across the next street, and was just about to turn toward the garage when the night lit up a second time.
The Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile, or JASSM, had only recently been brought into full service. The pilots who had fired them in combat all used the same words to describe the effect, describing the JASSM as the “ultimate wow factor.” It wasn’t long before the new cruise missile had gained the nickname The Penetrator.
The Penetrator carried a half-ton payload, the largest of any jet-fired missile currently employed by any armed forces in the world. The missile itself was made from lightweight composite materials, and the fuel it burned was actually lighter than air. The result was a massive amount of force delivered to target.
The missile was designed to launch well away from border defenses, and built to kill deeply buried targets. As a result, the warhead was broken into three components, called multimodes. First there was what in munitions terms was classed a long rod penetrator, which basically meant the missile could grind through thirty feet of solid concrete like it was cutti
ng through butter. Then there came the aerostable slug, which released fragments as the missile dug home. Finally there was the high-heat submunition that burned at a temperature only slightly lower than the surface of the sun.
Though Marc was shielded by two blocks of buildings, the force was such that he was propelled a full forty feet, out of the alley and across the street and into the door of the building opposite.
When he had finally managed to right himself, he started running before he could shape the reason behind it. His brain told his legs to run. Marc assumed the purpose would come clear momentarily.
Of the garage, there was nothing left. The hole did not even smolder. The surrounding structures all bowed away, as though aghast at the force they had just witnessed. Two had collapsed entirely.
Marc spotted Hesam struggling futilely to draw his legs back under him. He knew it was Hesam because he was the only other person on the street. Marc raced over and slammed the man back to the ground, ground his face in the dirt, too angry to strike him with his fist, knowing if he did he might kill the man. And he needed Hesam alive. Marc had forgotten exactly why, but he knew it was important.
He rose and dragged the man upright with him. He frisked him, only to discover that the man’s fine clothes had been turned to rags by the blast. Hesam wore only one shoe. His hair was gummed tight with dust and debris. Marc rammed his pistol into the groaning man’s ear, leaned in close, and growled in a voice he did not recognize, “You’re under arrest.”
Chapter Forty-One
During the initial seventy-two hours following their successful assault on the Gaza tunnel system, the fallout just kept on growing. Marc did his best to ignore it all. He stayed on the kibbutz and worked at whatever task was assigned. He refused to enter a room where the television was on. He ignored all discussions of politics or external events. His only contacts with the outside world were two lengthy conversations with Samantha Keller, which he endured because he wanted updates on Walton’s health.
Mostly he rested. He rose for meals and worship and showers. He saw Kitra for fleeting moments, as she was doing precisely the same. The second evening he dined with her, Serge, and their parents.
Three days after his arrival, two intelligence agents assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv came to the kibbutz, commandeered an office in the admin center, and grilled him for five hours.
The fourth morning, Kitra was asked to deal with an urgent crisis at the factory. Marc volunteered for work detail. For the next five days the farm managers tossed him the absolute worst possible jobs and waited for him to fold.
Marc drained and repaired a sewage pump. He helped rebuild a decrepit farm truck’s engine. He picked a crop of late-blooming lemons. He dug fence-post holes in the rocky earth. He toiled from dawn to sundown. He relished the tasks with a simple pleasure that both delighted and worried him. He came to understand the lure of this place. How he was joining to a world dominated by cycles and seasons. If he chose, he could reside here the rest of his days, removed from the trials that dominated global politics. He could work until his days were done, then be laid to rest in the soil he had helped to farm.
He could be content. Almost.
He saw Kitra every day. Their talk was of small things. A new calf, a new child, the next crop. She described her slow progress in bringing the factory up to speed. She talked of how rested her parents looked after their holiday. She related how many of the managers had described Serge’s gradual rising up to the responsibilities, growing into the man who truly resembled his father. Marc listened more than he spoke. They would talk of the world beyond the kibbutz another time. And their future. Someday.
Eleven days after the strikes, Ambassador Walton felt well enough to return to his office in the White House basement. His first conversation with Marc started with, “Don’t come home.”
“Don’t worry.”
Walton sounded as though the effort of speaking drained him. “Admiral Darren Willits is being reassigned to a base in Okinawa. I’m told it’s the military’s way of telling him to retire gracefully.”
“He won’t be missed over here,” Marc said.
“No, I suppose not.” Walton paused to cough. After he caught his breath, he said, “His briefing consisted mainly of criticizing you.”
“He’s angry because it turned out I—”
“No, son. He’s mad as a boil because you publicly proved him wrong.”
“I haven’t said a thing.”
“You don’t need to. The Israelis are doing it for you. Not to mention the Iranian chemist they have kindly allowed us to debrief.”
The next day, Samantha Keller phoned to say Walton was back in the hospital, basically because it was the only way to make the man give his body time to heal. Marc thanked her and did not press for details. It was enough to know the old man would be forced to take time to mend.
Marc had never thought he would ever find such peace in a foreign desert. The isolation was, in fact, a true pleasure. Despite the blistering heat, the arid landscape held a singular beauty. Marc found himself energized by the place, the people, and the work. Seeing Kitra’s world from the inside proved a delight.
Kitra was housed with the other unmarried women, in a dorm on the synagogue’s south side. They met at meals, at chapel, and twice each week they joined her parents for a fine dinner.
He and Kitra discovered a bench at the kibbutz’s western border, beneath a carefully tended strand of desert pines, and made it their sunset meeting point. They walked through the grove of Valencia oranges, the leaves impossibly green against the pale desert sky. A few blossoms still clung to the branches, perfuming the sunset with a glorious scent. Claiming a special bench was part of the kibbutz’s courtship process. It announced the seriousness of the couple in a silent and solemn manner. By then, everyone knew his name. Everyone greeted him.
Marc kept waiting for the enjoyment to fade. But it didn’t happen. Instead he felt a faint sense of mounting pressure—not quite an impatience, but more like a siren that rang in the distance. One he knew he should respond to. But it was easy to ignore the alarm and the tension. All he had to do was throw himself into the next task. Join with the others for prayer. Walk with Kitra through the orange grove. Sit and watch the sun go down.
The news of the foiled attack was everywhere. During the fourth week, despite his best efforts, Marc found he could no longer escape the clamor. At first the Egyptians had been vicious in their condemnation. The Muslim Brotherhood government accused the Israelis of invasion by proxy. The words became a rallying cry throughout the Arab nations. Invasion by proxy.
Only the Iranians remained strangely silent.
The Israelis cordoned off the blocks surrounding the Gaza bomb site. The Palestinians rioted, so the Israelis brought in tanks and extended their cordoned area even farther. To all the criticisms and international furor, they replied simply, “Wait.” Wait and we will show.
And show they did.
It took three weeks of meticulous excavation, but they finally brought up an intact industrial blower and several canisters. The equipment in both the Sinai and Gaza houses had been completely destroyed, lost to fires that burned over sixteen hundred degrees, hot enough to erase every vestige of the deadly chemicals. But those items caught inside the tunnel remained intact.
The furor went silent overnight. Not even Israel’s worst enemy could condemn a country for stopping a biochemical attack of this magnitude. The thought of a million innocents dying from such a chemical cocktail sent shock waves around the world.
Still Iran said nothing.
Only then was Hesam al-Farouz drawn into the public spotlight. He was subdued and cowed and would not stop talking. Three weeks in an Israeli prison, with the prospect of a lifetime of the same, erased any hesitation the shadow prince might have held. He named names. He gave details. He described the approval process, all the way up to the ayatollahs in Qom. He held nothing back. The world press had a field day.
<
br /> The week after Hesam appeared on the world stage, Walton started calling. Marc had expected the calls, and refused to answer. He kept the phone off and skipped over a week’s worth of messages. He pretended it didn’t matter. Yet gradually the distant claxon rose in his brain. Especially at night, when he lay in his little room and wished he could stay. Forget the world. Ignore the call. Claim this as his home.
The next day, the kibbutz discovered that he and Kitra had played a vital role in stopping the attack.
One moment it was their carefully kept secret—Kitra hadn’t even mentioned it to Serge—the next, and the news was everywhere. Their photographs were splashed across the news, the television, everywhere. The entire kibbutz was transformed. Marc was turned into a hero. He knew then that his time here was drawing to a close, and there was nothing he could do about it.
The following evening, the bullish man was there when they emerged from chapel. Marc knew it was Chaver even before he greeted Kitra and her father, even before he turned and shook Marc’s hand and said, “Come, let us walk.”
Marc put two and two together. “You told the news about us.”
“Don’t look so outraged. Our people should not know that two national heroes live among them?”
Chaver was an aging bull, scarred by a lifetime’s battles and careless of his afflictions. The man leaned heavily on a cane. Even so, he moved with impatient grace, down the sidewalk and across the fields and away from watching eyes. “It is a good place, this kibbutz. A man of worth needs a place to stop and breathe the good air. Pray with people who live simple lives. Feel the earth in his hands.” He stopped and surveyed the hills going dusky gold in the sunset. “A good place.”
“Did Ambassador Walton call you?”
“He had no choice. You were not responding.”
Marc liked Chaver’s blunt honesty. He had the sudden impression that it would be hard to say no to this man. “You’re saying this life is not for me.”
