by Paul Sussman
She'd always known it would end like this. Ever since she'd come back from England all those years ago and started working as an informer for Har-Zion and Israeli Military Intelligence. The precise circumstances were a surprise – in a giant cave full of looted Nazi treasure, for God's sake! – but not the violence. That had always been a given. Frankly, she was surprised she'd lasted this long.
Beside her, Khalifa was saying something, although she couldn't seem to hear his voice, which was strange given how many other less tangible noises she was picking up. She didn't need to hear, though, because she could make out what he was saying from the movement of his lips. It was just one word, repeated over and over again, a question, the same question he'd asked her earlier.
Ley? Why?
What could she say? Nothing, really. She would have liked to explain. Really she would. Let at least one person know. Deathbed confession and all that. But then, how could she? How could she ever make him understand? Make anyone understand? That she had done what she had done not for any of the usual reasons people collaborated – money, coercion, ideology. No, she had done it because on the night of her fifteenth birthday, on a dirty patch of waste-ground on the edge of Jabaliya refugee camp, beneath a star-filled sky and with wild dogs howling in the distance, she had watched the person she loved more than any other in the world, her beautiful, brave, gentle father, the greatest man there had ever been, being beaten to death with a baseball bat. By his own people. Watched over by his own people. That's why she'd contacted Har-Zion and offered to work for him. That's why she'd gone along with the whole al-Mulatham thing; that's why, the moment she had found out about the Menorah, she had called Har-Zion from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, done everything she could to secure the Lamp for him. Because they'd killed the only person she had ever really loved, and because from that moment forth she had hated them, all of them, vowed that whatever else she did with her life she would make them pay for that, suffer for it, every last Palestinian. That was the reason. That was the answer. But how could she explain it? Make him understand? Communicate even a fraction of the misery and pain and hatred and torment that had consumed her all these years? She couldn't. It was impossible. Beyond her powers to illuminate. Always had been, always would be. She was just so desperately alone.
She looked up into Khalifa's face – a kind face, brave, handsome; like her father in many ways – and tried to squeeze his hand. At the same moment, with that curious gift of multiple sight that she seemed to have acquired as a result of her fall, she could see above her that Har-Zion had extended an arm and was aiming his pistol directly at her head. Go on, she thought, just do it. It's time. At least I tried to do one good thing before the end. One thing my daddy might have been proud of.
She closed her eyes and there she was again, lying at the bottom of the hollow, clutching her father's hand, her dark hair soaking up his blood.
'Oh God, my daddy. Oh God, my poor daddy.'
And then the shot rang out.
Her head jerked and snapped, and a neat black hole opened up just above her left eyebrow, a ribbon of blood spooling out across her cheek and chin and down onto the floor where it formed itself into a viscous, plate-sized puddle. For a moment Khalifa was too shocked to move, her hand hanging limp in his, the echo of the gunshot rebounding angrily around the cavern; then, shaking his head, he laid the hand gently down, came to his feet and backed away so that he was standing beside Ben-Roi, the two of them gazing up at the line of Uzi muzzles above.
He should have felt scared. More scared than he did, given what was about to happen to him. Whether it was because he was still drained from the beating he had taken, or simply because his death was now so inevitable his body just couldn't see any point in getting worked up about it, he felt a curious sense of calm. Zenab and the kids, they were his only real concern. That and the fact that he probably wouldn't get a proper Muslim burial. But then he was sure Allah would understand. Allah understood everything. That's why he was . . . well, Allah.
He glanced across at Ben-Roi and their eyes met. There were people he would have preferred to die with. But then again, maybe he'd been a bit harsh on the guy. Rude, yes. Arrogant, belligerent. Not the sort of person he'd choose as a friend. He was a good cop though, seemed to have worked things out pretty well. And who knows, if his own wife had been killed like that, butchered needlessly, maybe he, Khalifa, would have ended up exactly the same. You never could tell. He tried to mumble something, to apologize, to admit that his earlier decision to trust Layla's word over Ben-Roi's had been informed not by an objective assessment of the situation, but rather by blind prejudice, by the fact that he simply couldn't bring himself to believe a Jew over one of his fellow Arabs. He couldn't seem to find the words, however, and fell silent again. They held each other's gaze a moment longer, then, with a nod, turned away and looked up at the elevator, fists clenching, waiting for the bullets.
Everything went black.
* * *
For a brief, confused instant, Khalifa thought he was dead. Almost immediately, from the shouts of Har-Zion's men, he realized the generator must have cut out again, killing the lights. So unexpected was it, and so disorientating, that he didn't react, just stood rooted to the spot. Ben-Roi's instincts kicked in quicker, the Israeli seizing Khalifa roughly by the collar and propelling them both forward out of the line of fire. A split-second later the Uzis opened up, the darkness torn by crackling bursts of red and white, bullets pinging off the floor and thudding away into the crate stacks with a rat-at-at of punctured wood. The detectives tripped, crashed down, somehow managed to find their feet again and stumbled on, eventually banging into the rock wall directly beneath the elevator platform. There were more shouts and, as abruptly as it had started, the shooting ceased. They froze, eyes straining against the blackness.
When it had cut out earlier the generator had restarted itself almost immediately; this time it remained silent. They could hear whispering, a torch came on, then another, and then there was a faint creak and slap as someone started climbing the vertical elevator track towards the ledge above, presumably to try to get the generator working again. One of the torch beams was shone upwards to light the climber's way; the other started arcing back and forth over the crate stacks in front of them, vainly trying to pick them out in the blackness. The possibility that they might be directly beneath seemed not to have occurred to Har-Zion's men. Not yet, at least.
'Must move,' whispered Ben-Roi, cupping a hand around Khalifa's ears, his voice so low as to be barely audible. 'Need to get among crates.'
Khalifa squeezed his arm to show he understood. A shout from above indicated that the climber had got himself up onto the balcony and was now moving towards the generator room.
'Must move,' hissed Ben-Roi again. 'No time.'
Twenty seconds ticked by, both of them frantically trying to come up with a suitable course of action, aware that the moment they emerged from beneath the platform they would almost certainly either be heard or picked up by the torch beam. Finally, in desperation, Khalifa drove a hand into his jacket pocket and yanked out the five-bullet ammunition clip he had put there earlier, pressing it against Ben-Roi's arm. The Israeli guessed immediately what he was thinking.
'Throw left,' he whispered. 'We go straight. Hold hands.'
'What?'
'So we don't lose each other, idiot!'
From above there was a loud mechanical sputter as Har-Zion's man started cranking the arm of the generator. At the same moment the torch beam suddenly slipped away from the crates and started circling the floor at the foot of the elevator. For a moment it lingered on Layla's body, then started moving backwards towards their hiding place. It was now only a matter of seconds before they were spotted. Grasping Ben-Roi's hand and drawing back his free arm, Khalifa lobbed the bullet clip as hard as he could towards the far side of the cavern. It seemed to remain airborne for an impossible length of time and the torch beam was swishing in front of the tips of the
ir shoes when, with a loud clatter, it came down again.
The effect was instantaneous. The beam swept away and there was a stamp of feet as the Israelis moved towards the left side of the elevator, followed by a deafening rage of gunfire. The moment it began Khalifa and Ben-Roi started running, sprinting hand in hand straight ahead into the blackness, following what they guessed – hoped – was the line of the central aisle, wincing with every step lest they should slam face-first into a crate or some other impediment. Somehow they held their course, fear and adrenalin driving them on, covering about half the length of the cavern before they slowed, unlocked hands and felt their way into one of the narrow passages between the crate stacks, stumbling over the miscellaneous clutter of objects with which the passage was clogged. Behind them the gunfire gradually dropped off, and then stopped altogether.
They stood where they were, trying to catch their breath, the darkness smothering them like a swathe of black velvet, the cavern silent save for the repetitive thunk of the generator crank and the chatter of Israeli voices, low at first, but gradually becoming more urgent. Ben-Roi craned his neck, listening.
'Shit,' he whispered.
'What?'
'Fire.'
'What?'
'The shooting. It's set the crates alight.'
Even as he spoke their nostrils caught the first faint tang of burning wood.
'This place is a fucking powder-keg,' snarled Ben-Roi. 'It's going to fucking erupt!'
Khalifa didn't need to be told. He'd seen the cavern with his own eyes: oil drums, ammunition crates, explosives, stacks of tinder-dry wood.
'Dammit!' he hissed. 'Dammit!'
He flicked on his lighter and, cupping a hand over the flame to mask its light, began frantically casting around, searching for something, anything, they could use to fight their way out of the cavern. Har-Zion's men were shouting now, their voices increasingly panic-stricken as the fire apparently strengthened and spread. The coughing of the generator crank grew more urgent.
'Come on!' growled Ben-Roi. 'We need guns!'
'There aren't any!'
Khalifa pushed further into the crate passage, no longer caring about the noise he was making, weaving his lighter back and forth. He found paintings, sculptures, what looked like part of a large chandelier. No weapons, however, and he was beginning to get desperate when finally, hefting away a sack full of bank notes, he uncovered a long metal case which, when opened, turned out to contain a dozen brand-new Schmeisser sub-machine guns. An identical case beside it was stacked with ammunition clips.
'Hamdu-lillah,' he murmured.
He grabbed one of the guns and handed it with a couple of clips to Ben-Roi. He took another one for himself, and was just checking it over, getting to grips with the unfamiliar mechanism, when there was a sudden protracted crack of gunfire. They dropped, assuming it was being directed at them, only to realize from the alarmed yells of Har-Zion's men that it was actually an ammunition box exploding.
'It's going to go up like a fucking volcano,' hissed Ben-Roi.
They stood and forced their way back along the passage, a thickening orange corona filling the cavern away to their right. As they reached the gangway mouth there was a whumping explosion – an oil drum, Khalifa guessed, or maybe several oil drums – followed almost immediately by the roar of the generator as it finally burst back into life, a wash of icy-white light sweeping through the cavern, throwing everything into sharp and brilliant focus. Har-Zion's men let out a cry of delight, and with a whine and a clatter, the elevator resumed its slow ascent. Ben-Roi peeked out into the aisle, then withdrew his head.
'They're halfway,' he whispered. 'One on the ledge above. I'll take him. Count of three, OK?'
They cocked their guns.
'One . . . two . . .'
Another loud explosion, the entire cavern seeming to shiver and tremble.
'Three!'
They charged out into the aisle.
* * *
The conflagration was worse than Khalifa had anticipated. Already, in just a matter of minutes, it seemed to have got hold of a whole raft of boxes away to their right, a yawning maw of fire that lurched and snapped at everything in sight, eating its way ever deeper into the crate stacks. Plumes of flame snatched at the cavern walls; fragments of blazing debris drifted through the air like fireflies. Overhead, a dirty froth of grey smoke rolled slowly across the ceiling.
All of this he took in in a split second before dropping to one knee and opening fire, the Schmeisser jolting and juddering in his hands. Beside him Ben-Roi was doing the same, strafing the far end of the cavern with an unbroken salvo of bullets.
The attack seemed to take Har-Zion and his followers by surprise. Ben-Roi was able to pick off the one up on the ledge, Khalifa took out two more on the elevator, the second of them slumping forward over the elevator's control lever, throwing the mechanism into reverse. The platform clunked to a halt, then, with an outraged squeal of machinery, starting to descend again, the Menorah standing impassive at its centre, its gold branches glinting in the strengthening firelight.
Their advantage was short-lived, however. After an initial moment of confusion the three remaining Israelis – Har-Zion, Steiner, one other – dropped flat onto the elevator floor and launched their own return volley of gunfire, viciously accurate. Khalifa was driven back into the passage between the crate stacks; Ben-Roi held his ground a moment, then dived into another gangway on the opposite side of the aisle.
'Don't let them get to the controls!' he yelled.
One of the Israelis was already trying to do just that, Har-Zion and Steiner covering him while he rolled across the platform and tugged at the body slumped over the up-down lever. Khalifa bobbed out and unleashed a barrage of shots at him, but was forced back almost immediately. Ben-Roi had more success, swinging out and despatching a volley of bullets down the cavern that thudded straight into the Israeli's flank, hoisting him into the air before slamming him down again at the base of the Menorah.
The elevator was now almost back on the cavern floor. In a last desperate effort to get it moving upwards again Steiner emptied his Uzi down the aisle, yelled something at Har-Zion and, while the latter covered him with his Heckler and Koch pistol, scrambled across the platform, seized the slumped corpse and, neck muscles bulging, tore it away, smacking his hand against the control lever to reverse its direction. The elevator stopped, paused a moment as if to catch its breath, then, grudgingly, started to rise.
Har-Zion let out a cry of triumph, only for the sound to die on his lips as his pistol ran out of ammunition. A man with normal freedom of movement would have taken only a matter of seconds to whip out a new clip and snap it into the magazine. Because of the constricting tightness of his burnt skin, however, he was unable to reload anything like that quickly. He shouted something, Steiner shouted back, indicating that he too was out of ammunition, and in that brief moment of confusion Ben-Roi saw his chance.
Yelling at Khalifa to follow, he leapt from his hiding place and started sprinting towards the elevator, stumbling momentarily as a massive explosion somewhere behind him rocked the entire cavern before regaining his footing and charging on, finger yanking at the trigger of his gun. His first shots went wildly astray, disappearing into the inferno away to the right. So did his next ones, which pinged harmlessly off the rock wall well above the elevator. His third burst found its target, punching into Steiner's neck and torso, slamming him backwards into one of the vertical tracks up which the elevator ran. For a moment he just stood there, blood bubbling from his mouth, a faintly surprised look on his face; then, slowly, as the platform rose beneath him, his body slid down the track and caught beneath the chunky metal wheels that ran along it, snarling them. There was a squealing as the lift's motor tried to fight the blockage, the wheels chewing and grinding at the corpse, before eventually, unable to take the strain any longer, the engine exploded in a shower of sparks and the elevator came to a dead halt, a metre and a half off the fl
oor.
Har-Zion was still clawing desperately for a new ammunition clip, screaming in agony as the strain of his movements caused his desiccated flesh to split and tear beneath his clothes. Seeing that he was helpless, Ben-Roi slowed to a trot and then a walk. He approached him, lifted the Schmeisser and pressed its muzzle hard against Har-Zion's head, seemingly oblivious to the plumes of flame now leaping all around.
'This is for Galia,' he whispered.
He took the trigger to within a hair's breadth of firing, then stopped. He had dreamt of this moment for so long, every day for the last year – to hold a gun against the head of the man who had murdered his fiancée, butcher him, just as Galia herself had been butchered. Yet now it came to it, now that the gun was in place and he need do no more than twitch his finger, he somehow couldn't bring himself do it. Not like this, not in cold blood. He bit his lip, willing himself to shoot, to give in to his hatred, but still it didn't happen; still a lone, small voice deep inside him – her voice – told him that it wouldn't be good, wouldn't be right, would somehow hurt him more than it would heal him. Har-Zion seemed to sense his reluctance.
