A Walk in the Darkness - [Kamal & Barnea 03]

by Jon Land

  His family had been murdered in the spring, and he remembered how cool and clean the air felt outside in contrast to that within his house. But tonight in Jericho, walking to his apartment from Father Mike’s, the air was dry and stale. Parts of it seemed to stick to his skin in the form of the ever-present dust shed by the buildings and the ground, and the only breeze he felt was in his imagination. The air smelled sour, as though it had gone bad, and Ben regretted his decision not to accept Father Mike’s offer of a ride.

  He squeezed through a construction site that had left a gaping hole in the street. Workmen had slung long boards across the chasm and left them in place for their return to work, whenever that might be. In Jericho, construction projects continued in dribs and drabs, only as money became available to complete them.

  He had just passed a flashing yellow warning beacon when he heard the dull hum of a car engine behind him, a rare sound since Palestinians almost never drove at night out of fear of being stopped by a random Israeli patrol. Ben figured this must be one of those patrols and readied his identification as he turned.

  An old sedan switched off its one working headlight and continued to approach him. Ben resumed walking and eased his hand to his pistol, unsnapping the safety strap on his holster. He closed his hand on the grip as the car picked up speed, its hum growing louder.

  Ben continued to walk, not turning until he heard the sedan’s tires screech behind him. He swung and fired in the same motion; twice, as the sedan roared at him. Both shots missed badly and he dared not chance another, turning to run instead.

  The sedan closed the gap quickly, bumper nipping at him when Ben veered down one of Jericho’s narrow alleyways. He heard the sedan screech to a stop and leap into reverse, single headlight switched on again and struggling to find him in the darkened alleyway. He ran, tipping over trash cans in his wake and hearing the car bashing them from its path as it gave chase.

  Ben reached the next through street and glanced back long enough to see the sedan still in pursuit. He sliced onto another alley even narrower than the last. Too narrow to accommodate the car’s width he thought. But the sizzling grind of metal told him the driver had refused to let that deter him.

  He looked back to see the car coming in a shower of white-hot sparks, left to right alternately as it bounced from side to side. Ben tried a few more shots, missed badly again, and rushed on with precious ground lost.

  Damn Moshe Baruch! he thought, fully believing the commander’s mistress, Captain Shoshanna Tavi, must be behind the wheel. Here to finish the job because Ben still hadn’t returned the video disc.

  He saw the rickety fire escape, left over from when the Israelis had occupied this section of Jericho, almost too late to leap for it. Out of reach he thought until his hands caught on the lowest rung and he jerked his feet up just before the sedan would have run him over. It careened beneath him, and Ben dropped down awkwardly behind it, his back raked deeply by a jagged piece of steel when the lowest section of the fire escape dropped with him.

  He hit the street hard, his back on fire, as the sedan wailed to a halt that blew sparks from both sides. The driver sped backward, Ben noting absurdly that both the car’s rear lights were burned out. He steadied his pistol on the rear window and fired, two more bullets wasted before his next three shattered glass in a series of soft pops.

  He leaped up and grabbed the ledge of a one-story building. His foot lashed outward and kicked the driver’s side mirror as the sedan sped past, out of control now.

  Ben leaped down, not daring to take any more chances. He thought he saw a figure desperately reaching across the seat to grab the wheel when he opened fire, three of his last five shots punching through the windshield. A fourth must have hit the radiator, because steam came billowing forth in great gusts.

  Baruch obviously insisted it look like an accident this time. Too bad it didn’t work. ...

  The sedan coasted backward, both twisted and torn sides grinding against the alley walls, steam continuing to pour from the grill. Ben snapped a fresh clip into his pistol and stepped warily forward. He watched the car coast to a halt on an odd angle, engine wheezing in fits and starts. The horn suddenly began to blare.

  There was not enough space on either side to negotiate, so Ben leaped up on the hood with his gun aimed toward the already shattered windshield. He had to mount the roof in order to peer inside the car, and the sight of two still, bloodied bodies made his stomach quiver.

  Neither was Shoshanna Tavi; the passengers were both men. Hard to say whether bullets or glass had done the damage, but neither was moving nor, it appeared, would ever move again.

  Ben leaned in farther, hoping to find some clue as to their identity. He brushed across the driver and his arm fell away from the wheel. A torn and tattered sleeve slid aside to reveal a splotch Ben first thought was blood but, in the spill of the flickering lamps from the adjoining street, realized was something else altogether:

  A tattoo of a red cross, upside down.

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 31

  D

  anielle squeezed her Jeep Cherokee between two subcompact cars in her apartment parking lot. The Jeep was the wrong vehicle to have in Israel, especially Jerusalem, given the ancient city’s narrow streets and even narrower parking spaces. With the driver’s door able to open only a third of the way, Danielle barely had enough room to squeeze out.

  In a few short months, she wouldn’t be able to squeeze out at all.

  Danielle knew she should eat once she reached her apartment on the third floor, but her stomach felt unsettled again, just short of nausea. She should have expected this, of course, should even have been grateful for it, although that didn’t make her constant bouts with sickness any easier to bear.

  Danielle was sweating by the time she climbed the two staircases and approached her apartment. A wave of dizziness swept over her and she had to lean against the wall for support.

  Something shuffled behind her door. She snapped away from the wall, suddenly alert again, her breaths coming in short, quick bursts.

  What had she seen?

  Nothing, probably. What could she have seen? The lights, after all, were off inside the apartment, so how—

  Wait! That was it: streetlights streaming in through her living-room window pushed a thin swatch of light under the door. And for a moment, just a moment, that swatch had disappeared.

  As if someone had shifted position inside, suddenly and briefly blocking the light. A flicker of movement that was more than enough to alert her.

  Danielle backed up toward the staircase, her nausea forgotten, adrenaline having pushed it aside. She backed all the way down into the foyer, made sure the main door didn’t slam, and padded back to her Jeep. She climbed in as fast as she could and closed the door behind her to shut out the light. Then she pulled her cell phone from her shoulder bag and dialed her own number.

  Three rings, then the answering machine picked up.

  Danielle waited until the message was complete, keyed in her access code, and then pressed “6” to activate the room monitor feature.

  A few seconds passed. She couldn’t hear much, hardly anything at all, but those seconds were enough to convince her of one sound:

  Breathing. Soft, shallow, and muted breathing. The breathing of someone very much under control while awaiting her return. At least one person, though something told her there were more.

  Danielle eased her keys into the ignition and turned on the engine. Leaving the lights off, she backed slowly out of her cramped space and kept her eyes on her living-room window as she drove off into the night.

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 32

  B

  en continued to stare at the upside-down red cross that extended down the dead man’s forearm.

  The madman in Baladiya Square had described the very same tattoo yesterday afternoon, called it the mark of the devil!

  His thoughts a jumble, Ben rolled down the rear of the sedan to th
e street. The right side of his back exploded in pain. He recalled being raked by the lower edge of the fire-escape ladder and drew a hand to the spot, feeling a warm sticky patch of blood through his ripped shirt. It hurt to walk and he staggered out of the alley, suddenly unsure of his bearings.

  “His disciples who wear the mark lie in wait for the weak to pass by so they can snatch them away. They can hide from most, but not from me!”

  The madman’s eyes had been filled with terror when he had said that, the sword trembling in his hand. But what if he wasn’t mad at all?

  Ben finally headed on again in a daze and quickly realized he was in a completely unfamiliar neighborhood. Trembling now, he could smell the coppery scent of his own blood clearly and grew more light-headed with the passing of each block. He felt his feet moving, the rest of him following along, in and out of the patches of light provided by the sporadic functioning streetlamps. He thought he heard footsteps a few times behind him, but when he turned there was never anyone there. At last he realized he had somehow found his own street, his small apartment building just up ahead.

  Up the walk, key in the door . . . Taking it by the numbers as his breath slowly returned.

  Pushing open the building door when a hand grasped his shoulder.

  * * * *

  S

  orry I startled—” Danielle cut her own words off when she got a good look at him. “My God, what happened?”

  “You’re a day early. It’s only Tuesday.” Ben’s knees gave out as he tried to smile. He remembered the floor coming up fast, not striking it, and then feeling himself in her arms.

  “Easy now,” Danielle said. “I’ve got you.”

  “We were supposed to meet at your apartment,” Ben babbled. “You were going to cook dinner.”

  “That’s tomorrow.”

  She half carried him to his second-floor apartment, working the key into the door while somehow still holding him up. Ben didn’t realize he was walking again until they were inside and Danielle was steering him for the couch. She eased him down onto it as gently as she could. Ben felt a surge of pain shoot up his spine at the same time a flash exploded before his eyes.

  When he came to, Danielle was still there or, more likely, had come back: she was holding what looked like a first-aid kit in her hand now.

  “Lie still,” she said, opening the kit on a table she had dragged closer to the couch.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You’ve got a nasty wound on your back. Needs stitches, eight or nine at the most.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Well within my limit.”

  Ben took a long look at her medical kit. “The way we’ve been getting along lately, I think I should be concerned.”

  “The alternative is a long wait at the clinic.”

  And then he saw the hypodermic in her hand.

  “Relax, Inspector. All soldiers in the Sayaret receive medical training equal to the best emergency technicians.”

  He winced from the sting of the alcohol. The numbness came almost instantly after she shot home the Novocain.

  “You won’t even have a scar,” she promised. “I’m good at this.”

  “Lots of practice?”

  “On cadavers.”

  “Wishful thinking on your part, maybe.”

  “Just lie still. . . . That’s it. Can you feel this?”

  “What?”

  “I just pinched you.”

  “Did it hurt?”

  “The Novocain’s kicked in. Don’t watch if you’re squeamish. . . .”

  Ben watched her remove a needle and a spool of stitching from her kit, then turned away.

  “You really should be more careful at night, Inspector,” Danielle said, threading the needle.

  He felt a slight prick when she eased it into his skin, pinching the sides of the wound together. “I was. It didn’t matter.”

  “Who was it?”

  “There were two of them, and the attack wasn’t random.” Danielle stopped her work and Ben turned to look at her. “They came after me in a car.”

  “Baruch’s people again?”

  Ben recalled the tattoo of the upside-down cross on one of the dead men’s arms and shook his head. “I didn’t have the pleasure of seeing Captain Shoshanna Tavi dead behind the wheel.”

  “You killed both?”

  Ben nodded.

  “Shouldn’t you call someone?”

  “Finish the operation first.” Ben kept his head turned away from her work, imagined the thin nylon being threaded through his skin. “Two weeks you don’t come, and this week you show up a day early.”

  “There was someone inside my apartment,” Danielle said deliberately. “I called you, and when there was no answer, I drove here as fast as I could.”

  “Be nice if we could get along this well when our lives aren’t being threatened.”

  “I thought of that too.”

  Ben winced. “How you doing back there?”

  “Almost done,” Danielle said, and pulled a small scissors from the kit. “So if Baruch’s people weren’t behind all this, then who was?”

  Ben’s thoughts veered again to the mark of the red cross on his assailant’s forearm. How could he explain the connection with the crazed rantings of a madman to Danielle?

  “I don’t know. Someone else who wants the disc probably, or that rock I gave you. Learn anything about it yet?”

  “Nothing that makes sense.” Danielle snipped the stitching and applied a tight dressing. “I think you’ll live.”

  Ben gingerly pulled his shirt back down over his side. “What about a prescription?”

  “I’m fresh out.”

  “I’m not: there’s wine in the kitchen,” he said, and started to stand up.

  Danielle eased him back down. “Not so fast. Allow me.”

  “In that case,” said Ben, “bring two glasses.”

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 33

  B

  en called Palestinian police headquarters to report what had happened when Danielle went to fetch the wine. Captain Wallid and all other ranking officers were out, so he was put on hold while the desk clerk scurried to locate the watch commander. There was a click and then a dial tone, signaling he’d been cut off.

  Ben hung up the phone and gazed at his furnishings, so meager when compared to those in Danielle’s apartment. Most of his possessions had been purchased before Israeli duties had made many items prohibitively expensive and created a flourishing black market. With peace, if it ever truly came, would come free trade and a boon for both Israeli merchants and Palestinian consumers. It was ironic to Ben that the most militant forces against peace remained the Hamas radicals and the black marketeers. More than once he had wondered if they might actually be the same people or, at least, partners in a twisted conspiracy.

  Danielle returned with a bottle of wine she had pulled from the top of a small rack on the kitchen counter.

  “How’s this one?”

  “My best. A modest label from an Israeli vineyard Colonel al-Asi gave me as a gift for my fortieth birthday.”

  Danielle placed two glasses on the table next to her still-open medical kit. “You’re getting old,” she said, and worked the cork out with a soft pop.

  “Not as old as I feel right now. What should we drink to?” Ben asked as she poured.

  Danielle filled her glass only a quarter of the way and stopped it well short of her mouth. “The fact that you know more than you’re saying.”

  “About what?”

  “About who attacked you and who was waiting in my apartment.”

  “I don’t know anything,” Ben conceded, “not for sure.”

  “And if it was the same people who killed the Americans in the desert? Your nephew?”

  “Then I would say it makes us even.”

  “What?”

  “You think there’s something I’m not telling you. I know there’s something you’re not telling me.” He l
eaned forward but stopped short of reaching for Danielle’s hand. “You don’t have to wait until tomorrow anymore.”