Land, Jon

by [Kamal

  “I want to know if this oil matches up with the oil found in the wounds of the Wolfs victims while the West Bank was still under occupation.”

  The pathologist took the vial, tipped it sideways and back again, then headed for a microscope and refrigerator.

  “That shouldn’t take long.”

  “Then you’re saying you previously identified some kind of oil to be present in the wounds of the early victims.”

  The pathologist looked at her befuddled. “Of course. My report was in the file.”

  Until it, too, had been deleted, Danielle thought, along with the drawing, Ansar 3, and everything else that had proven the existence and revealed the identity of the Wolf to Israeli authorities months before.

  * * * *

  B

  en awoketo anintense painthrobbing inhis head,an alltoo familiar sensation of late. He tried to raise a hand to comfort the stinging lump he felt and only then realized his hands were tied to the back of the chair.

  “He’s coming around,” a voice said.

  Ben opened his eyes slowly, trying to take in as much as he could before being accosted once more. He was in a large square room with lots of chairs and little light. There were enough cracks in the drawn blinds to show that night had fallen outside. He couldn’t see his watch to determine how much time had passed since he had stepped up to the door of the Khalil home.

  “Who are you?” the same angry voice demanded, as a tall man appeared from behind the chair, hovering over him.

  “I’ve come to see Akram Khalil,” Ben stated simply.

  “What do you want with him?”

  “I speak to no one but Akram Khalil.”

  “He does not wish to speak with you.”

  “He should. I’m here about his daughter. I’m here about the man who killed her.”

  “The man who killed her is dead!”

  “No. Someone else killed her. I should know; I shot the man you think murdered her.”

  “Liar!”

  “Read the newspapers. They printed my picture today next to the story on the front page of both Palestinian dailies. Not a very good likeness, mind you.”

  “Enough!” a voice boomed from somewhere behind him, and Ben heard steps approaching. The voice sounded somehow familiar, authoritative but very nasal now.

  Ben saw the man from the side first and then the front. Dark and thick-framed, seething in his intensity, with very dark eyes that had turned black and blue over a bandaged nose. Ben recognized the voice now, remembered breaking the nose of a Hamas leader with a head butt in the back of a van six nights before, when he had been kidnapped.

  “You wanted me.” Akram Khalil greeted him coldly, his nose encased in gauze. “Here I am.”

  “It’s good to see you finally,” Ben said to him. “I’m sorry about your nose.”

  “You should be dead now, American.”

  “You’ll be glad I’m not after you hear what I’ve got to say.”

  Khalil’s nose was running, and he dabbed at his nostrils with his sleeve, careful not to disturb the bandage. “You’re not surprised.”

  “That you are a Hamas leader—no. That you were the man who kidnapped me Monday night—yes.”

  “And you still came here?”

  “Because we need to talk—”

  “Do we?”

  “—and help each other.”

  “How?”

  “The real murderer of your daughter must be caught.”

  “And you know who he is, I suppose,” Khalil said, sneering.

  “I will,” Ben assured. “I caught the first. I’ll catch this second butcher, too. That’s what I came here tonight for, to propose a trade: your daughter’s killer in exchange for information.”

  Khalil had stopped directly in front of him. Ben could see he was short and stocky, lots of muscle gone to fat and as much gray hair as black.

  “Information about Mohammed Fasil,” Ben continued. “What he came to Jericho twice for, as well as the subject of the meeting your daughter attended before her death.”

  “Then I’m afraid I cannot live up to my side of the bargain you propose. You see, I can’t tell you the subject of the meetings that brought him to Jericho.”

  “Then your daughter’s killer remains free and more of you will die.”

  “You misunderstand, American. I can’t because I don’t know. Not the specifics, anyway.”

  “I’m not a fool, Khalil. I know how important you are to the movement. Fasil wouldn’t have been in Jericho unless you set it up, approved it.”

  “Helped to organize—yes; approved—yes; but as for the specific agenda— no. The Israelis tried to infiltrate our ranks for years with little success. Then with the peace—” He uttered the word with contempt. “—came the pressure on our own people to crack down on us. Suddenly our large-scale missions were betrayed from the inside, our soldiers turned in by our own! Arafat’s secret police, men like you.” He fixed his gaze on Ben, eyes as contemptuous as his voice had been. “You don’t know how much damage you’ve done. Collaborators all!”

  “We were talking about your daughter, Khalil. Do you want her killer caught or not?” Ben asked quietly.

  “I would have killed you by now if I didn’t, American. I know Fasil was putting something big together that he needed lots of people for.”

  “Manpower drawn from the Qassam Brigades?”

  “Coordinated by my daughter. The mission was a very complicated one, required lots of travel back and forth to the United States. Fasil was making arrangements to pick something up there. In New York.”

  Ben remembered the name and address Jack Tourcot had been unable to identify in New York City.

  “I don’t know what, where, or when,” Khalil resumed. “No one did, except Fasil. The recent wave of betrayals had turned him dangerously secretive. He trusted no one.”

  “You only knew he had set up a second meeting.”

  “And we learned he’d been killed right after that second meeting on Jaffa Street. We were hoping he might have had some clue on his person about what he was plotting.”

  “And when you couldn’t find anything at the medical examiner’s, that’s when you kidnapped me.”

  “In the hope you had found it first,” Khalil explained disdainfully.

  “I may have,” Ben told him.. “In Fasil’s Tel Aviv hotel room there was a name and an address in New York City.”

  “If you know that much, why did you bother coming to me?”

  “Because the name and address I found don’t exist.”

  “They must be written in some kind of code. Fasil was too cautious to leave anything so important where anyone could find it.”

  “What about the other members of the Qassam Brigade cell your daughter was part of? They have to know something.”

  “They were all to be given assignments independent of each other. Fasil never met with all of them at once. Small groups instead, a few at a time. We know their assignments hadn’t all been issued prior to his death.” Khalil paused painfully. “That was to be my daughter’s job. What else can we do to find her killer?”

  “For starters,” Ben told him, “you can untie me.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Danielle Barnea said from the open doorway, a nine-millimeter pistol held threateningly in her hand.

  * * * *

  Chapter 49

  P

  lace your weapons on the floor and put your hands in the air,” she ordered the gunmen surrounding Ben. “Slowly,” she added.

  Her approach to the door had been so silent and the attention focused on Ben so intent that none of them had heard her. Danielle turned to Khalil.

  “Untie him.”

  Khalil sneered at her and then looked at Ben unsurely before starting to unlace the knots.

  “This isn’t necessary, Pakad,” Ben said, feeling his wrists come free. “Mr. Khalil and I were just having a friendly little chat. He is, in fact, most interested in helping us bring th
e real killer of his daughter to justice.”

  Danielle made no motion to lower her gun, eyes fixed on the other Hamas soldiers. “How noble.”

  “How did you find me?”

  She looked at Ben quizzically. “I got your message to meet you here.”

  Ben rose, suddenly wary. “I didn’t leave one.”

  Danielle turned her eyes on Khalil. “Then I incapacitated your two outside guards for nothing.”

  Now it was Khalil who looked suddenly uncertain.”I had no guards posted outside.”

  “Then who—”

  Khalil swung toward a few of his men. “Check the windows!” he ordered.

  They stooped to retrieve their weapons before moving to obey. Danielle reached one of the dark drawn blinds ahead of them. She lifted a corner to gaze down into the street and saw a pair of jeep like vehicles parked directly in front of Khalil’s home. Two figures crept across the lawn, bringing long cylindrical tubes up to their shoulders.

  Rocket launchers!

  “Down!” Danielle screamed, and dove to the floor just before a huge section of the wall exploded behind the dual impact.

  Halfway to the window, three of Khalil’s men were blown backward through the air, lost to the flaming debris that crashed against the opposite wall. Ben and Khalil dove, too, Ben covering his head and looking up after the initial blast to hear a fresh sound whizzing their way. He thought he actually saw the rocket spinning through the newly created chasm, then buried his head again before it tore out a huge chunk of the far wall, spewing fragments of stone in all directions.

  “My family!” Khalil was wailing, pushing shards of it off him. “My family!”

  The terrorist tried to rise, screamed, and collapsed anew, clutching his leg. Ben crawled to his side and saw the jagged splinter of stone sticking out just above his knee.

  “How many?” Ben asked him.

  Khalil was breathing very hard. “My wife, son, and daughter—Amal.”

  “Where?”

  “Downstairs.”

  Ben looked at Danielle as the last of Khalil’s soldiers rushed across the debris-strewn floor to the chasm facing the house’s front. He had barely gotten his gun leveled when a sharp burst of automatic fire snapped him backward to the floor. Danielle used the distraction to crouch low and move fast for the doorway.

  Khalil screamed in pain and rage, trying to rise again. Ben tried to restrain him, but he tore away briefly as Danielle disappeared into the hall.

  “No!” Khalil raged. “Not my family!”

  Ben wouldn’t let go, dragged him back down to the floor.

  Khalil smashed a hand into his face. “You did this! You brought them here! A trap!”

  “No!” Ben insisted, holding on tight and accepting the wild blows. “They came to kill me!”

  Khalil’s struggle lost some of its fire. His eyes met Ben’s and saw the truth.

  “I’m going to get you out of here,” Ben promised.

  “My family ...”

  “We’ll save them, I swear to you. Whatever hap—”

  The rest of his words were drowned out by a piercing explosion from downstairs.

  * * * *

  D

  anielle had just reached the top of the staircase when the front door and frame simply disintegrated beneath her. She thought she had seen two or three figures scampering past the door just before it disappeared, but wasn’t sure. She shook the debris off and started to climb back to her feet. Below, what had been the front door was a dark, smoke-shrouded chasm.

  A shrill sound stung her ears and Danielle hit the floor again an instant before another rocket sliced through the smoke left by the first and ripped into the stairway, blowing fragments in all directions. She felt the landing start to go. heard the entire structure groan as the floor gave way beneath her. She felt herself plunging downward, trying to brace for the coming impact.

  * * * *

  T

  he blistering blasts downstairs showered pieces of the ceiling on Ben and Khalil just after they reached the hallway. The whole house seemed to yaw. Khalil was muttering something, prayers it sounded like, but Ben dragged him on.

  A jagged breach lay where the second floor landing had been. Ben grabbed a pistol wedged through Khalil’s belt and tried to peer downward through the smoke, clutter of debris, and smoldering flames.

  Where was Danielle?

  The utter blackness of the house, together with the blast-ruined air, made a clear view of anything impossible. Ben was trying to figure out the simplest way down when he saw the three men enter through the jagged chasm encompassing the front door, sharp blue beams of light sweeping the area before them.

  * * * *

  D

  anielle had landed like a cat, stunned but not badly hurt by the plunge. She found herself lying on her side staring straight up at the ceiling when she heard moans.

  A child’s moans.

  What had Khalil said upstairs? A wife, daughter, and son, that was it. Three more down here amid the shattered remnants of the house, then, but only one set of moans.

  Danielle shifted toward the moans and began to crawl through the debris. The fall from the second floor had left her with no weapon, but instinct drove her on nevertheless. Palestinians or not, the three victims down here were innocent bystanders caught in a firestorm meant for her and Ben.

  Her body wasn’t cooperating, slowed and aching from the impact she’d suffered from the fall. Still, she was drawing closer to the moaning, thought she saw a young terrified face, and reached out for it.

  Suddenly a pair of hands latched onto her, fingernails raking her back.

  “Noooooo!” Khalil’s daughter Amal cried madly, as the trio of lights poured through the remains of the house.

  * * * *

  B

  en steadiedhis pistoljust asAmal Khalilgrabbed Danielle from behind. He sighted as best he could through the billows of smoke, fired, and kept firing at the figures lurking behind the sweeping lights. He knew he’d succeeded when he saw the shafts of blue spiral upward and dance madly on what was left of the first floor ceiling before being stilled.

  “You got them!” Khalil wheezed thankfully, removing a second clip from his pants pocket.

  Ben accepted the clip and jammed it home. Looking downward again he saw more shapes advancing toward the house, briefly visible through the steady blue beams.

  * * * *

  T

  he gunfire from above echoing in her ears, Danielle twisted fast and knocked the girl’s hands aside. She swept the girl’s legs out, landing hard atop her amid the remnants of a wall and ceiling. A thumb pressed deep into the enraged girl’s windpipe stilled her instantly.

  Danielle left her in the rubble and crawled for the nearest body downed by the gunfire from the second floor. The dead man’s automatic rifle was propped upward, pinned between the corpse and a thick pile of charred debris. The corpse’s face was Semitic, whether Israeli or Palestinian she could not tell. As she grabbed the rifle and doused the light affixed to its barrel, she glimpsed a second grouping of shapes approaching the house across the lawn.

  Danielle moved back to the young figure she had found covered in debris before being attacked by Khalil’s daughter. Closer inspection revealed a young boy lying semiconscious across the legs of a woman who must have been Khalil’s wife. Danielle reached down to feel for a pulse, found it weak but steady, as the new wave of gunmen stepped into the house.

  * * * *

  B

  en feltKhalil grasphis shoulderwhen thegunmen beganto fan out. Though a number were clear in his sights, he elected to hold off firing. With only this single clip remaining, he had to make every one of the sixteen shots count. That meant holding off until as many of the enemy’s number as possible were contained downstairs.

  He heard Khalil gasp and followed his gaze to find Amal rising with a severed plank in her hand. She cracked it across the back of a gunman’s head, continuing to pummel him with it as the other k
illers swung toward her.

  “Get dow—”

  A burst of automatic fire spun her around before Khalil could finish the desperate warning to his daughter. Ben could feel the air gush out of him as if he too had been shot.