“Bastet goes with me.” Every word left a blood trail. “If she stays, so do I.”
“I want Bastet!” Eve wailed.
Bastet unleashed a summoning-the-dead yowl.
“Jesus,” Gene muttered. He glanced toward Jake, who shrugged. “All right, look. It can’t go to the safe house. But tell you what, I’ll take it home with me. Monica loves animals, the cat’ll come back fat and spoiled, believe me.”
Miriam braced her jaw, ready to protest. But then she caught Jake’s eye. Looking for support? He cleared his throat and said, “We should live so good as she will at their place.”
She considered the situation and the darkening in Gene’s face. “She’ll only eat this brand of food,” she said, finger-stabbing the plastic grocery bag next to the carrier.
Gene held up his hands, palms out. “Fine, whatever.”
“And she needs to be brushed once a day or she gets hairballs.”
“Lady, my wife won’t be able to keep her hands off the cat, it’ll come back bald. Enough already.” He jerked his chin toward the darker of the two cops blocking the doorway into the dining room. “Lou.”
The cop circled behind Jake, unzipped the duffel and extracted a set of black body armor. He passed it to Gene, then produced a second set.
Gene held the body armor toward Miriam. “Here, put this on.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’m serious. Put it on. You won’t need it ‘til you do, then you’ll want it. You, too, kid.”
Miriam looked again to Jake for support. He took the offered vest and said, “Go ahead, put it on, make him a happy man. At least they’re warm.”
Eve tugged on Gene’s overcoat. “Where’s mine, Unca Gene?”
Gene crouched in front of Eve and poked her belly through her parka. “Don’t have one your size, Princess. Besides, your daddy’ll protect you.”
Eve craned around to peer up at Jake. “Is that true?”
“Yeah.” Jake thumped his chest through the body armor. “Bullets bounce off me.”
Sohrab kept the eight-power scope centered on the safe house’s back door. He tried to ignore his wet front and freezing back; he’d been stretched out on the old brick apartment building’s roof for over two hours, ever since the overcast afternoon had turned into a dark night.
His perch dominated the southwest corner of the block. A tangle of naked trees partly screened the safe house’s door and the yard’s west side, but not the gate. Seventy meters or so from his position through a narrow gap in the branches to that gate. Nothing like the firing range.
Sohrab wasn’t a sniper. Kassim had been their sniper, but he was dead. This was Sohrab’s chance to redeem himself for that disaster at the train station. When Alayan handed him the rifle, his eyes told Sohrab the contract terms: all would be forgiven if he killed the two Jews.
Still no movement.
He squeezed his eyes shut, waited for the red blob floating behind his eyelids to fade out, then fitted the scope to his right eye socket once again.
The door opened.
Jake stepped into the cold, damp night, a cop with the duffels ahead of him, Gene close behind. He couldn’t help scanning the rooftops across the alley for movement. He snugged Eve against him with an arm around her shoulders; she had a death grip on his pea coat’s pocket with one hand, the top half of Jasmine with the other.
Jake, Miriam and Eve were to go straight into the lead car’s back seat and leave immediately. Gene and Lou (with Bastet) would enter the second car and follow. They’d take a roundabout route in case someone decided to follow them. Simple enough.
It was the thirty feet to the car that had Jake’s animal brain on full alert.
Sohrab centered the T-shaped crosshairs on Eldar’s chest. He wasn’t interested in trying for an obscured head shot in bad light while the targets were moving. He had four rounds in the magazine; he’d put the targets on the ground first, then finish them when they were still.
His finger squeezed the trigger.
One moment, Jake was walking toward the gate half a dozen paces away.
The next, he was flat on his back, stunned, gasping, his breastbone screaming he’d been hit by a jackhammer.
Eve’s high-pitched shriek filled the night. “Daddy! Noooo!”
Miriam’s voice, from a long way away: “Jake? Jake!” Then a thud, the simultaneous crack of a rifle, and another howl from Eve.
The snap of a very large stick being broken over an enormous knee echoed down the alley. Gur pulled his pistol and slid into the shadows. “Gunshot,” he told his radio. “Move in.”
He had no idea where the sniper was. If Hezbollah was using the Institute’s playbook—as it seemed they had been all along—they’d have blockers on either side of the house to catch squirters. But where?
There in the shadow, five or six meters ahead of him: an indistinct shape. Cop or terrorist? Gur couldn’t tell. He slid along the south fence to get a better look.
The cop by the vehicles opened fire.
Gene bent over Jake, pistol in his hand. “Kid, you okay? Jake? Hear me?”
Jake couldn’t get a full breath. The pain was like someone had cracked his chest open with a crowbar. Another cop charged past, gun drawn, aiming into the dark. Gunshots popped outside the fence. “Eve,” he gasped.
“Shit.” Gene’s head swiveled fast, scanning the yard. “By the gate. She’s okay.” He waved. “Stay there, Chava! Stay there! Your daddy’s okay, he just fell.”
“Miriam.”
“She’s down, I haven’t checked her yet. You—” Gene coughed out an “oof,” then crumpled on his side next to Jake.
Sohrab took stock. The police by the cars had started shooting at something, but he couldn’t tell what. He steadied the SIG-Sauer in his arms, sighted on Eldar’s head. One of the policemen—a broad-backed man in a dark overcoat—partly blocked the shot. Don’t you move…
Sohrab’s finger stopped at the trigger’s first detent. He exhaled, squeezed.
The cop moved.
He collapsed on his side, his big shoulder blocking the line to Eldar’s head. Goh! Sohrab tried to focus on the woman’s head, but a dark mass of branches screened it from him. Her back was still clear. He aimed between the woman’s shoulder blades, took his last shot, then rolled away from the roof’s edge and dashed toward the fire escape.
Sasha saw movement in a shadow across the alley, perhaps eight meters away. A man-like shape. It wasn’t shooting at the rooftops; not a cop. Screw positive ID. Sasha aimed into the shadow’s center, fired twice.
Fifteen meters away, the two cops behind the cars poured a waterfall of bullets on him.
Sasha dropped face-down, made himself as flat as he could. “I’m taking fire,” he panted into the radio. “I have contact.”
Gur’s voice said, “Do you have a target?”
The sound of a straining engine bounced down the alley toward Sasha. He glanced over his shoulder just in time to see the back end of a white van barreling toward him. “Van coming! Block the end of the alley!”
The van squealed to a halt. Sasha didn’t hesitate. He shot out both front tires, then used the cover of the van’s bulk to climb upright, stepped to the passenger’s window, and took aim.
He froze.
No…not Gene…
Chaos. Gunfire. A voice yelling, “Officer down! Officer down! Send backup, ESU and EMS to…”
Jake managed to suck down enough of a breath to make the stars fade from his eyes. He rolled onto his side to face Gene—Goddamnit, that hurt!—grabbed his uncle’s shoulder. “Gene! Where’re you hit? Talk to me!”
“Fuck,” Gene croaked. “Under my arm. Hard to breathe. Fuck. Fucking vests.”
“Hang on. They’re calling for help.”
Eve’s keening wail was gone; Jake could hear the gunfire again. He propped himself up on an elbow, searched the shadows for his daughter. He couldn’t see her, but he couldn’t see much through the pain-fuzz in his
eyes. She’s okay. She’s gotta be okay.
He arranged Gene’s left arm into a pillow for his big head. Panic crawled up his throat. “Don’t you fucking die on me, you fat son-of-a-bitch.”
“Take more than this. To kill me.” Gene coughed, a loose, syrupy sound. “Kid. Get outta here.”
“What?”
“We’re blown. Someone leaked. Take Chava and Schaffer. Keep them safe.”
“I’m not leaving you!”
“Go. Listen for once.” Gene coughed again, pushed his pistol against Jake’s chest. “Take this. Get lost. Before backup comes.”
“Gene…”
“Go!” The shout broke loose a coughing jag that forced bloody froth past Gene’s lips.
No, Gene, you can’t die, I need you. But he knew he had to go. Jake took the gun.
The shooting moved east, away from the gate. No sign of Eve. Where was she? Was she hurt? Jake checked where Miriam lay; she struggled to sit up, unvarnished agony in her face.
Jake squeezed Gene’s arm. “I love you, Gene. I wish you were my dad.”
“I know. So do I. Maybe you’d listen.” Gene made a weak sweeping motion with his right hand. “Fucking go.”
The van screeched forward, leaving Sasha completely exposed. He dropped, rolled into the darkest shadow he could find. Two cops advanced down the alley toward him, shooting at where he’d been moments before.
“I’m pinned,” he whispered into the radio. “Two cops coming. I’m going to drop them.”
“No!” Gur’s voice hissed. “I’ll draw their fire.”
“You’ve got ten seconds, boss. Kelila, don’t shoot the van. They have a hostage.”
Rafiq jammed his seat-belt buckle home. “What have you done?” he screamed. “What were you thinking?”
Alayan belted himself in while he fought the flat front tires to keep the van heading straight. “It just happened. Hold on.”
A streetlight smeared yellow over a blue sedan parked across the mouth of the alley. Alayan punched on the headlights, switched to high beams to blind the driver. He glanced right: a brick railing ending just centimeters from the sedan’s nose. Left: the stub of a concrete wall, maybe two meters clearance between it and the car’s back end. Left, then.
The van smashed into the sedan’s rear fender at nearly forty miles an hour, swatting away the blue car. The van’s windshield cracked, the seat belt and shoulder harness bit into Alayan’s body. He ignored the pain, Rafiq’s swearing and the hostage’s shrieking, skidded the van into the street, and stomped the gas pedal.
Jake crawled to Miriam, wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “You okay?”
“No, I’m not okay,” she spat in Hebrew. Every move made her teeth clamp so hard, the points of her jaw shone bright in the back door’s lightspill. She grabbed his coat lapel. “Don’t worry about me. Eve ran out the gate. After Gene went down. You have to find her.”
Another flurry of shots, this time to the west. Oh God, Eve, no, not out in all that… Jake gulped a couple breaths to tamp down the fear climbing up his throat. He lowered his voice so Lou—on one knee next to Gene, pistol sweeping the rooftops, Bastet’s carrier behind him—wouldn’t hear. “We both go. Gene said to get you out of here. Can you walk?”
She sat panting, staring at him through eyes that were barely slits. “We’ll find out.”
Gabir pressed hard into the dark angle where a chain-link fence met a cinder-block garage, holding his breath while two policemen pelted after the man who’d shot him just moments before. Gabir thought the man was a cop, but if he was, why were cops chasing him?
He wiped the blood from his eyes with his sleeve. No cops in sight, but an entire chorus of sirens headed his way. He had to go, now. He chirped Ziyad’s number. “Where are you?”
“Following the van. They’re going to leave it in a bad area. Where are you?”
“In the alley, going east. Ring when you can come get me.”
He’d scrambled past two houses when a movement near the police cars made him freeze mid-stride. Two figures stumbled out the gate and limped east, away from Gabir. Not police, not walking that way. The Jews? Still alive?
He followed them.
Lou didn’t try to stop them. “We gotta find Eve,” Jake told him, neglecting to mention they weren’t coming back. The cop grunted and stayed crouched over Gene.
They scooped up their abandoned duffels outside the gate and worked east, searching every nook and dark shadow. Miriam’s Walther glinted in her hands, as steady as her breathing was ragged. Jake tugged Gene’s pistol from his belt.
Eve had to be out there, scared, hiding. She had to be okay. The alternative was too awful for Jake’s mind to process.
Walking was pure torture. Body armor was supposed to keep you alive, not unhurt. Jake wondered if it was possible to break a breastbone. Miriam had been hit twice; he’d seen the hole in her coat between her shoulder blades, just left of center. The way she was grimacing, she might have a busted rib. An inch over could have cracked a vertebra.
“How’s your chest?” he whispered.
“Not too bad,” she said. She’d switched back to English, but her accent had taken over. “It hit right between my boobs, so there was a space. What about you?”
“Hurts like a son-of-a-bitch.”
Lights shone in most of the back windows of the townhouses they passed. The alley rang with approaching sirens, a fire engine’s air horn, the stutter tones of two or more ambulances.
Jake spotted something in a patch of weak light a few yards east of the still-idling unmarked police cars. He knelt by the object.
His heart withered.
“What is it?” Miriam asked.
“Jasmine.” He picked the doll off the ground, brushed a leaf fragment from her hair. “Eve wouldn’t leave her like this, not for anything.” He choked on his next words. “They’ve got her.”
SIXTY-SEVEN: Brooklyn, 20 December
Rafiq rocked the little girl as best he could while strapped into the car’s back seat. She pressed her face into his shoulder and sobbed, “Daddy! Daddy!”
“Shh, it’s okay, Eve, I won’t let anyone hurt you,” Rafiq said in English. He pinned back Alayan’s ears with a stare and hissed in Arabic, “You kidnapped a baby. I can’t believe you’d do something that low.”
Alayan looked out the window at the passing slums and the furtive shadows ghosting through them, jaundiced in the weak streetlights. The tires thudded over broken pavement. “She might be useful.”
“Useful.” Rafiq just managed to bottle his disgust. Abducting an enemy was one thing; he’d done that before without flinching. But a child? Beyond contemptible.
He hugged Eve tighter and stroked her thick black hair. He recalled her peeking around her mother’s hips in the apartment, all shyness and big brown eyes. Now her mother was dead, and for all he knew, he was the only thing standing between her and the same fate.
“We can’t harm her, sidi,” Ziyad said, voice unsteady. “The Quran says, ‘Lost are those who slay their children.’”
“I’m aware of what the Quran says.”
Sohrab said, “She’s a Jew. It doesn’t count.”
Rafiq clamped a hand over Eve’s ear. “She’s a child. I didn’t hear the ‘except for Jews’ part in that verse.”
“What do we need her for, anyway?” Sohrab demanded. “The Jews are dead. I shot them both in the heart.”
“Did you see blood?” Alayan asked.
Sohrab hesitated. “It was dark.”
Alayan growled, “Until we hear that they’re both dead, we keep the child so we can get to them again.” He watched the girl for a few moments, his mouth working hard to keep something inside, then looked away.
Eve caught a second wind and wailed like a police siren. Rafiq whispered in English, “Hush, sagirah, you’re safe with me.”
“How many Palestinian kids have the Zionists murdered?” Sohrab sneered at both Eve and Rafiq.
Rafiq shot ba
ck, “So that’s our standard now? We can be as bad as they are?”
Alayan clapped his hands once. “Enough! Ziyad, left at the next corner. Rafiq, you’re in charge of the girl. Keep her fed and quiet. If she disappears, you’ll pay, understand?”
He understood. He’d be happy to ensure nothing happened to Eve until Alayan came to his senses, even if it meant defying all of them. If he’d wanted to randomly slaughter women and children, he had plenty of Hezbollah teams to choose from; he’d gone with Alayan because he’d always chosen his victims carefully and kept collateral damage to an absolute minimum.
He prayed that hadn’t changed. For Eve’s sake—and for his own.
SIXTY-EIGHT: Brooklyn, 20 December
At least none of the team died.
Not much of a victory, Gur thought. Still, it was better than they’d done lately. Kelila’s car was wrecked; thank God she hadn’t been in it. The sayan who’d rented the cars to them was probably already talking to the police.
“You’re sure it was Eldar’s child?” he asked Sasha.
“Yes, boss. She was half a meter from me, at most.”
Kusemek! “Was she hurt?”
“I couldn’t tell.” The apprehension in his face made him seem almost vulnerable. “I looked in her eyes and…well, I couldn’t…”
“I know.” Gur wondered if he could have taken the shot. God knows he had before. He’d killed a Hamas man who held his sleeping infant son in his lap. On a bad night, he could still hear that baby crying. “Kelila, did you see her?”
“Yes, it was her. I only got a couple seconds’ look, but I’m sure of it. Poor thing.”
“The covers got away,” Sasha said.
So had Hezbollah. “Yes, I know.” Gur rubbed his eyes. “All right, take a few minutes to unpack. Make a sweep of this new neighborhood, see if we were followed. This is the last flat we’ll get from this sayan, so let’s not burn it unless we have to.”
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