Pillars of Solomon - [Kamal & Barnea 02]

by By Jon Land

  With a chill, Ben recalled Nazir Jalabad’s corpse hanging from a spike in the back of the butcher shop, his eyes gouged out. “Al Safah did that to you?”

  “He had it done. Punishment for making a mistake, slipping up. The last thing I saw with this eye was a hot poker coming toward it.”

  Danielle cringed. “What does this Al Safah look like?”

  “I’ve never met him. Nobody ever meets him.” Terror continued to claim Mudhil’s expression. “Listen to me. He’ll know that you’re onto him. It’s not just me he’ll be coming for!”

  Ben recalled the interrogation he had endured in the rear of Nazir Jalabad’s butcher shop by men determined not only to find out what he knew, but who else he had told. Jalabad had paid with his life for telling him about the disappearing girls, had hinted he had uncovered even more before he was killed. And Ben would have paid that same price if the mystery woman had not intervened. He had assumed incorrectly at first that his inquisitors were Hamas. Now he understood who had really sent them:

  Al Safah.

  Ben burst out of his chair. It tipped over as he pressed himself right into Mudhil’s face. “How many children did you steal for Al Safah?”

  “I...”

  “What did you do with them all?”

  “...can t...”

  “Where is Leila Fatuk?”

  “...tell you!”

  “But you know, don’t you? You know exactly where she is. You can tell me right now where I can find her.”

  Outside the rain slapped against the windows and crackled against the hard roof surface.

  “Perhaps he’d rather tell me if he killed Hyram Levy,” Danielle interjected.

  “No, that wasn’t me! I swear!”

  “You were in his shop?”

  “Not to kill him! Not to kill him!”

  “You did business with him.”

  “Yes!”

  “And then something happened and you killed him.”

  “No!” Mudhil coiled fearfully against the wall. “I’ve already said too much. Haududallah, I’ve said too much. . . .”

  “Then you might as well tell us the rest,” Ben urged. “Let us protect you.”

  Mudhil tried to laugh, and something like a rasp emerged behind his spittle. “Protect me from Al Safah? You won’t even be able to protect yourselves. We’re all going to die tonight.”

  “No one’s going to die,” said Danielle.

  A window shattered in the room beyond. One of the Jordanian guards screamed.

  “He’s here,” Mudhil muttered.

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 39

  I

  told them noth—”

  Ben clamped a hand over Mudhil’s mouth and drove him back to the mattress. “Stay down! On the floor, under the cot. Now!”

  Mudhil fearfully did as he was told. Danielle kicked open the door leading back into the main area of the guard post, pistol held high near the shoulder. Ben joined her on the other side of the door. They nodded and spun out together in a crouch, guns leading.

  One of the Jordanian policemen lay on his side in a spreading pool of blood. He had been shot in the face and had fallen on the rifle Ben had allotted him. The driver and the second policeman crouched beneath windows on either side of the guard post’s interior. The window near the driver had been blown out by bullets, allowing the storm to wash into the room.

  Ben and Danielle started forward, still crouched down. The side windows shattered almost simultaneously behind twin barrages of automatic fire, and they hit the floor. More glass popped inward, spraying them with shards and fragments.

  Danielle crawled over the glass toward one of the blown-out windows. Cold air and rain flooded the post, the wind whipping her hair wildly about. She finally pressed herself against the wall beneath the sill and signaled Ben to do the same as she steadied her gun.

  He reached the window on the other side of the room as multiple footsteps sloshed through the muddy ground beyond. He watched Danielle slide over to the side of the window and did likewise, ready when one of the attackers crashed his upper body through what was left of the glass.

  Ben spun away from the wall firing, enough nine-millimeter bullets pounding the man to catapult him back outside. Across the floor, Danielle’s first shot had snapped a second attacker’s head back. When he crumpled, his arms stayed perched on the drenched windowsill. Danielle hunkered low and pried the submachine gun from his hands, sliding it toward the center of the floor.

  “Scouts,” she said to Ben, tightly wedged against the wall. “Sacrifices.”

  “How many more?”

  The Jordanian royal policeman still crouched beneath a front window tried to peer out and was greeted by a hail of fire that coughed yet more glass into the room.

  “Tell him you know nothing!” Mudhil screamed from the doorway of the cubicle. “Tell him I told you nothing!”

  “Get back inside and stay down!” Ben yelled at him.

  His eyes flashed around the room and came to rest against the two tables. “Pakad,” he said, gesturing with his stare.

  She nodded.

  “Which windows?” Ben asked.

  “Both sides. So we can concentrate on the front.” She turned to the driver and the policeman. “Cover us.”

  The two men rose on either side of their windows and tried to peer out from a safe angle.

  Ben and Danielle crawled for the larger table, which was long enough to cover the entire window. Then, staying low, they dragged it to the nearer of the side windows and turned the table sideways before sliding it over the shattered panes.

  The radio tumbled from the shorter table and crashed to the floor as they dragged it to the other side of the room. Tilted upright, it covered the window almost to the top of the frame. Neither of the tables would stop an assault, but they would stop bullets and, just as importantly, keep the force outside from seeing in through the guard post’s flanks, substantially reducing the enemy’s effective field of vision.

  Ben crawled across the floor and yanked the automatic rifle from beneath the dead royal policeman’s body.

  “What are you doing?” Danielle asked, crawling up to join him.

  “One of us has to go outside.”

  “You’ve never used a gun like that before, not for real.”

  “I’m a fast learner.”

  “Bad time for class. You won’t stand a chance.”

  “Against Al Safah?”

  “Against whoever’s out there. At night, in a storm. With a rifle you’re not familiar with.” Danielle slid the submachine gun toward Ben and reached for the automatic rifle; a Kalashnikov AK-47, she recognized. “I’ll go.”

  Ben grasped the submachine gun and tried to get the feel of it. “What do we wait for?”

  “The next barrage,” Danielle said, and turned back to the two men in the front of the room. “When it comes, I want you to return the fire this time. Even if you can’t see what you’re shooting at. Even if you feel like you’re wasting bullets.”

  The barrage came seconds later. More glass filled the air and the door thumped inward with repeated hits. The driver and the policeman opened fire as bullets continued to slam into the stone structure.

  The post itself seemed to be shaking when Ben and Danielle moved together for the smaller of the two tables. Ben drew it aside enough for Danielle to pitch herself through the shattered glass and roll once she hit the ground. Ben held his breath the whole time, submachine gun ready in case one of the enemy was lying in wait. When Danielle was no longer visible, he replaced the table and turned his attention to the front of the post, where more fire surged in, cracking apart the post’s interior and sending fragments of stone cascading inward.

  The driver was caught in the face with flying glass. He raised his hands desperately and a bullet took him in the stomach, spinning him around for a burst that stitched across his back. He twisted into the wall, bounced off, and fell face first to the floor.

  Ben rep
laced him by the window, firing out at shapes that were no more than blips of movement in the dark.

  Who were these men? Who had sent them?

  Ben thought of Ibrahim Mudhil cowering in the cubicle certain he was about to be taken by a spook story, a legend.

  Al Safah . . .

  Ben opened fired on some darting shapes, shattering remnants of the window glass. He heard something rattle on the roof, thinking it was footsteps until an explosion sounded and a burst of stone poured downward.

  * * * *

  D

  anielle snapped off two shots from the brush and killed the man who had hurled the grenade. She moved low amid the foliage that enclosed the previously abandoned guard post. The untended bushes, shrubs, and plants grew wild and untamed, offering her sufficient cover if she kept to a crouch.

  She wiped the pelting rain from her eyes and glimpsed a trio of gunmen converging on the front of the post while a pair trailed slightly behind them, more grenades held stiffly in their hands. Danielle sprang, but not before they had lobbed their grenades upward.

  She aimed for the rifle-wielding attackers first, then instantly turned her fire on the grenade throwers. She thought she had managed hits on all five, but her triumph lasted only until fresh fire poured her way from behind her. She swung fast and used the muzzle flashes to direct her return shots, her ears stung by the gun bursts and thunder, the night alive with the pounding of feet everywhere.

  But she couldn’t hold them forever, or even much longer with her remaining bullets. Danielle dove into the mud and pressed herself against the ground, in clear view of the four-wheel-drive vehicle that had brought her and Ben here. It was only a dash away, and she was weighing her chances of reaching it when the guard post erupted behind her.

  * * * *

  T

  he post’s flat stone roof coughed rubble into the air. Ben gazed up from the floor and realized he could see the night as chunks of the roof crashed to the floor. Part of the side wall gave way with it and utterly entombed the second royal policeman.

  Ben scampered through the crumbling mass of stone for the cubicle where Mudhil was stowed. He felt the rain pour over him, mixing with the dusty stone to create a sour, spoiled smell like mud baked by a scalding sun. He was crawling now, feeling flecks of rock and rain hit him.

  The cubicle’s door was missing, and inside he could see Mudhil pinned by the debris.

  “Give me your hand!”

  Mudhil obliged weakly, his flesh powdered by the dirt and dust. Ben steadied his submachine gun in one hand and with the other pulled Mudhil back into the center of the post. All that remained reasonably whole were the walls, and of these the front one looked as if it could tumble at any time.

  Ben saw a series of figures rushing for what remained of the post’s entry. He shoved Mudhil behind him, steadying his submachine gun in one hand, pistol in the other.

  As he readied to fire, a roar like thunder sounded just before the back end of a jeep crashed through the remnants of the front wall.

  * * * *

  D

  anielle started shooting from inside the jeep the moment it screeched to a halt with all four tires perched atop splintered stone inside the post.

  Ben leaped up from behind the jeep, blasting away with his submachine gun until it clicked empty.

  “Get in!” Danielle screamed at him.

  She looked back to see him hoisting Ibrahim Mudhil through the jeep’s shattered rear window. Danielle discarded her empty AK-47 and opened fire with her pistol in its place, feeling the vehicle rock as Ben joined Mudhil inside.

  “Drive!” he yelled.

  Danielle floored the jeep and it slammed through what was left of the wall and rattled to the ground. The hood flew open and then snapped down again. The headlight on the passenger side fluttered and died.

  The windshield exploded under a burst fired from straight ahead. Danielle ducked and floored the accelerator pedal. The jeep zoomed forward and struck a gunman dead on. Part of the loosened bumper separated at impact and ground along the ground. The jeep thumped up onto the road and shed it altogether.

  Danielle kept her eyes trained on the rearview mirror until she was satisfied no one was following.

  “You’re going to talk to us now, aren’t you?” Danielle said, turning her gaze on Ibrahim Mudhil. “You’re going to tell us everything!”

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 40

  I

  don’t hear you speaking,” Danielle continued, her eyes riveted on Mudhil in the rearview mirror.

  She braked the jeep into a spinning, screeching halt diagonally across the flooded road. Its one remaining headlight flickered briefly, catching the mountains that rose again before them in its spill, as she spun around and faced Mudhil.

  “We’ll wait for them here, I don’t give a shit! We’ll wait for Al Safah himself until you talk!”

  “Drive, please!”

  “Talk!”

  Mudhil flapped his hands in concession. “All right, all right. . . Yes, yes, but keep driving. Please!” He peered frantically out the window.

  Danielle righted the car and started it forward again.

  “Faster!” Mudhil urged, from low in his seat.

  “If I stop again, I’m tossing you out! No more chances. We ask a question, you answer it. Clear?”

  “Anything! Anything!”

  “Ben,” Danielle said, and drove onward through the storm.

  “Leila Fatuk wasn’t the only girl you kidnapped, was she?” Ben asked Mudhil.

  “No, there were many. Mostly girls, some boys. All ages.”

  “And what did you do with these children?” he asked, almost fearing the answer.

  “Delivered them. Different checkpoints, different contacts.”

  “And what did your contacts do with the children?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He asked you a question!” Danielle wailed from behind the wheel.

  “I don’t know!”

  She screeched the jeep to a halt once more. “We’ll leave you here if you don’t talk.”

  “I’m telling you, I don’t knowwhat happens after I deliver them!”

  “You deliver them to Al Safah. That’s what you’re saying.”

  Mudhil trembled visibly. “I told you before, I’ve never met him, never seen him.”

  “But these men—your contacts,” Ben picked up, as Danielle once again edged the jeep forward through the storm.

  “None of them had ever seen Al Safah either. Like me, except . . .”

  “Except what?”

  Mudhil glanced up fearfully at Danielle in the front seat.

  “They were all Israelis.”

  “Your contacts?” Danielle demanded, shaken.

  “Don’t stop! Please! I am telling the truth.”

  “And these Israelis,” she resumed, “they were the ones who gave you your assignments, selected your targets for you?”

  “No, that was someone else.”

  “Who?”

  Mudhil said nothing.

  Danielle’s foot teased the brake.“Who?”

  “Hyram Levy.”

  The jeep thundered through the storm.

  * * * *

  Y

  ou killed didn’t you?” Danielle raged.

  “I didn’t kill him! I swear!”

  “But you know who did. You must.”

  “No! I know nothing about that!”

  Danielle thought of something. “Hand me my bag.”

  “Your . . .”

  “My bag. It’s back there somewhere. Check the floor.”

  Mudhil found her bag there and handed it over the seat.

  Danielle fished wildly through it until she located a copy of the picture constructed by Moshe Goldblatt. A picture of the man last seen with Hyram Levy, the man who had visited her in the hospital.

  I can help you. . . .

  She held it out behind her over the seat. “Take this. Tell me if you’ve eve
r seen this man before.”