23
Johnny Bolan closed and locked the door, turning to stare at Judith, who was in turn staring at him. Emotions collided within him, his feelings a jumble. The one thing he did know, however, was that he wanted to be with this woman, to be with her as long as she wanted him to.
"I never thought it would happen this way," she said.
"What way?" he asked, and moved toward her. Now that he had her here alone in his room, he felt awkward, unsure of himself. But she melted into his arms and all the fears vanished immediately.
"You," she said. "Us. In the middle of all this, with death our companion, I choose to fall in love… with an American killer, no less."
He pulled away from her. "I'm no killer," he said.
She smiled at him, touched the bruises on his face with gentle fingers. "No, you're not. What happened to you?"
He told her about Tel Aviv, leaving out nothing. When he was through, she sat on his bed, her face strained in concentration. "Then many of them are still out there," she said.
He nodded. "Yes."
She frowned. "I was afraid of that. Where is your brother now?"
He turned away from her. "My brother follows his own path. Let's not think of him anymore."
She stood and walked to Johnny, hugging him from behind. "We must think of him," she said into his shoulder. "His shadow hangs over everything we do."
He turned to her then, took her shoulders in his hands. "He's the Executioner," he said. "And he's out plying his trade."
"That's easy enough to say," she replied. "It's not your land, your people coming under the gun."
"You're my people," he said. "And your country is mine, too. I'm not trying to be callous, but I've decided to try and escape the hold he has on me."
"Just tell me where he is. My people can back him."
"You don't get it," he said. "While you were losing your lives at the reservoir, he was taking care of just as many all by himself. He doesn't need you."
"Suppose he fails?"
Johnny moved away from her and stretched out on the bed, staring at the ceiling. "I can't answer that."
She moved to sit beside him, laying her head on his chest. "Just tell me where he is."
"I… I can't. I've already broken one promise by bringing you up here. I won't break another. Please don't ask me to."
She sat up and looked deeply into his eyes. "All right," she answered quietly, her smile a sad one. "For you I put my fears away because I trust you. Am I wrong to do that, Johnny Bolan?"
"No," he answered hoarsely. "I'll always be here to calm your fears."
She stood, her eyes locking softly with his, her features a portrait of vulnerability. Reaching behind her, she undid the zipper in the back of her dress, letting the garment drop to the floor. Bra and panties followed, and she stood naked before him.
He reached out for her, pulling her onto the bed with him. Johnny's heart was pounding, his breathing ragged. She was so childlike, so yielding, that when he folded her into his arms, he wanted the gesture to be as much protective as it was sexual.
They lay wrapped up that way for a long time until their mutual need drove them toward fulfillment. And when the moment came for both of them, Johnny felt an exhilaration, the hope of a new and better life washing over him like high tide.
Afterward, they clung to each other, and Johnny experienced a kind of fullness that he remembered from his earliest childhood. He was going back, recapturing an emotional world that he had forgotten even existed.
Outside, the sky was beginning to darken.
"Almost Shabbat," Judith said, and kissed him lightly on the lips. "I wish you shabbat shalom."
"What does that mean?"
She smiled. "Shabbat is a time of great celebration in Israel. It is the day we give to God and to the pleasures he has given us. It is the day of the week when we put everything else aside and remember what it means to be human."
He smiled. "Shabbat shalom," he repeated, and drew her close. "Every day will be like Shabbat for us."
"Yes," she said. "That would truly be a wonderful thing… but…" Judith sat up, reaching for her clothes.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"I promised Hillel I'd check in before sunset," she said. "Just a call… I'll be right back."
"No, wait," he said, afraid that Hillel would think of some reason why she should go to Haifa. "Why don't you stay here and take it easy, and I'll go phone for you."
He pushed her back gently. "You'll spoil me," she said.
"Oh, yes."
He had to cross over her to get to his own clothes, the feel of her body exciting him again. She shyly covered herself with her arms. "Not now, after you've done what you were supposed to do."
"Okay."
She winked playfully. "Tell Hillel that I might not make it back to headquarters tonight."
He stood and began dressing quickly. "I'll definitely tell Hillel you won't make it back tonight."
He finished dressing and hurried out the door, taking the stairs two at a time. The bar was quiet, and nearly pitch-dark. Braxis wasn't in the bar, but Johnny could hear his television playing in an adjoining room.
The phone sat on the end of the bar. He hurried to it, forgetting that Braxis had pulled it out of the wall. He picked it up to find it dead.
"Damn."
Disappointed, he let the receiver fall to the bar top and ran to the door. He'd go to the cafe and call from there. He'd be back in fifteen minutes.
He unlocked the door and hurried into the alley, jogging the distance to the coffee shop along the ever-darkening streets.
The call to Hillel went uneventfully. He told the man that all was quiet and hopefully would stay that way, and Hillel passed a message back that the remaining ten Sabra agents in country were at the mikva and would remain for the evening.
The smells of evening meals cooking filled the ocean-cooled twilight air. He strolled back casually, filled with a sense of belonging, of fulfillment. Perhaps the dark night had passed. Perhaps the constant swimming against the tide could finally ease. He had done his part. He had soldiered with the best of them — the Executioner. Now, on Shabbat he was going to become a civilian again. He was going to put the fighting and the killing behind him and rejoin the human race. How did Judith put it? He was going to remember what it meant to be a human being.
The wailing came up softly, like the call of a distant bird. His mind ignored it at first, pushing it to a far, unused corner. But soon he couldn't resist the sounds as they drew closer.
A group of Arabs was coming across the square from the front gate. Several of the women were wailing and crying. They carried something with them, on their shoulders.
As the townspeople hurried to the entourage, Johnny felt himself moving with them. He knew what he'd find before he got there.
The group carried a body on an old wooden door, its head simply an empty cavity. The face, unfortunately, he recognized. It was the man his brother had fought the first night in Acco.
"No," he whispered low. Then louder, a plea, "No!"
He turned and bolted, his mind a totally separate thing from his body as he watched himself from outside, running back to Braxis's tavern. He kept picturing himself finding Judith naked and laughing, kissing away his fears, drawing him into herself. But the vision was hazy, ill-defined, and the panic he felt couldn't be reasoned away.
He reached the tavern in minutes. The front door stood open. He rushed in without a thought for himself, and nearly tripped over the body of Braxis.
The man lay on the floor, chairs and tables overturned all around him, a record of the last seconds of his life. His body lay torn open from close-range SMG fire, organs exposed, incredible amounts of blood splattered everywhere.
Johnny took all of this in an instant, his legs carrying him toward the stairs and Judith. He had vaulted several steps before the fighter's instinct took hold.
A sixth sense made him jump to the side, jus
t as a man stood up from behind the bar firing an M-16.
The noise rattled loudly in the small room, the banister exploding and collapsing as Johnny let himself fall backward, rolling down the stairs as another burst traced his path.
He hit the ground and dived for the bar, the gunner's vision obscured by the bar itself. When the man rounded the obstacle to finish the job, he was confronted by a charging madman, growling like a wild animal.
Johnny plowed into him on a dead run, momentum carrying them both toward the chewed-up stairs. They banged hard, the gun dropping from the man's hands as the wind went out of him.
Johnny grabbed him by the ears, bashing his head against the remnants of the banister, the man's face contorting in agony. Then Johnny grabbed the terrorist's lapels and threw him back toward the bar.
The man slammed into it and fell to the floor, nearly unconscious. Johnny dived on him after grabbing the whiskey bottle that he and Braxis had shared earlier.
The man's eyes cleared somewhat, just in time to see Johnny break the bottle on the side of the bar and raise his arm. He tried to scream, but his voice was cut off as Johnny Bolan buried half a broken bottle in his face.
Johnny was up, taking the M-16 as an afterthought. He pounded up the stairs, the door to his room hanging open also. He knew what he would find before he got there, but the horror of it still drove him to his knees.
Judith lay, still naked, on the floor. Blood was pooled all around her legs, her dead eyes opened wide in pain and terror.
She had obviously been raped. On her stomach, a six-pointed Star of David had been carved with a knife.
Johnny crawled to her, kissing her still-warm lips and closing her eyes. "My love," he whispered.
Then he saw the note. It lay on the floor next to her head. It read: Sorry you missed the party, but your girlfriend showed us a good time anyway. See you in Jerusalem. Abba.
The note was written in blood — Judith's blood.
Johnny stood slowly. He moved to the bed like a zombie and took the spread from it. Abba. Here. Mack had told him this would happen, had warned him the only way he knew how.
He walked to Judith, took one last look at her face, then covered her.
"Shabbat shalom," he whispered, then he turned his head and threw up.
After his stomach was as empty as his soul, he stood and moved back to the bed. Underneath it were the weapons they still had left. He placed them on the bed, then pulled the ends of the sheet together to bundle them.
Now he understood.
24
The Executioner left the Toyota on Mamilla Street with the key under the front seat. He climbed the long hill toward the Old City. Vacant dilapidated buildings surrounded him. Darkness was descending quickly now, nature's props for the carnage to come.
All of Israel was still reeling from the events of the past two days; a large crowd was flowing toward David's city to pray at the wall. If the PLO had its way, when the wall went up, a great many people would go up with it.
The destruction of the Western Wall would be a huge effort. The HaKotel, as it is called, stands one hundred feet high and faces a massive courtyard. It is built of solid rock two feet thick. Whatever Abba and his henchmen had in mind would be nasty.
Mamilla joined Hativat Yerushalayim at the Jaffa Gate. Bolan, dressed in the meekest of costumes, crossed over and entered the gate with the Shabbat crowds. He passed David's Citadel, and entered a world forgotten by time.
The Israelites had built this city thousands of years before, but others had known it, too. The Muslims under Saladin had held it, and the Turks, as well as European Crusaders and British on a different crusade.
The Romans had razed it in 70 a.d., only to rebuild it and lose it themselves. It is a city lost to time and place, and within its several-mile area are contained the most important relics of the three greatest religions on the planet.
Along with the Western Wall, Muhammad's rock stands several hundred yards away from the trail Jesus took to Calvary, the place of his crucifixion on which a church is now built. The history of many peoples resides within David's city, histories that Bolan felt pressing against him here at the crossroads of Planet Earth.
Bolan felt himself overwhelmed, dwarfed by the magnitude of what confronted him. He realized that his own feelings, his own internal conflicts, meant nothing compared to the immensity of the task that confronted him. He dared to call on Jerusalem to be the arbiter of his destiny. His own arrogance astounded him.
He moved straight ahead, picking the first street in a maze of arteries. He was in the Muslim quarter, a place called David's Street by the Israelis, and Chain Street by the inhabitants. Jerusalem is built on hills, the streets merely a series of steps wide enough for two people to pass side by side.
Not a good place to fight a war.
Bolan moved into the crowd at a pace that would appear pious. The steps of the street were jammed with people. On either side, small stalls filled every inch, their Arab owners selling spicy foods, clothes and handmade items, business as usual for two thousand years. The smell of burning hashish assaulted him from every third or fourth stall.
In a matter of minutes he was totally closed in. Narrow and winding, the street swallowed him up as if the entire universe existed on its narrow byway. People shoved, as young boys yelling, " 'Cuse, 'cuse, 'cuse," moved through the lines of people carrying trays of bag-el, local bread, above their heads. Dark wrinkled faces of old men peered inscrutably at the moving crowd from the depths of the stalls. And it was then, just then, that Bolan knew his test would come soon. He beseeched the universe to spare the innocents on the streets.
* * *
Faisel ibn Faisel sat on the high stool, the snaking stem of the hookah set comfortably between his lips, bittersweet hash smoke rising indolently from the bowl of the tall, ornately carved pipe.
He watched.
Tourists and faithful moved past his vantage point in the wood-carving shop, and sometimes he felt as if the entire world would one day walk past this place. But the entire world did not interest Faisel ibn Faisel — it was only one man he sought.
He remembered the old days before 1967, when the Jews weren't allowed to visit their accursed Wall, or come to Muhammad's city at all. Perhaps, after tonight, they would come no longer. And it was one man, they said, one man who stood between his nephew, Abba, and the destruction of the Wall — the man they called the Executioner.
The walkie-talkie squawked loudly beside him. He picked it up and pushed in the button. "Salaam," he said loudly into the instrument.
"Wa alaikum as salaam," came the distorted reply. "We have seen no one come through here yet."
"I have seen no one either."
"Perhaps the American does not come."
"Yes, I… Wait a moment." Faisel ibn Faisel squinted into the crowd on Chain Street. Among those moving in the direction of the Jewish quarter was a Hasid.
He had seen many of them come through here since '67, in their black outfits and coats, but none, not one, had ever worn a flower in his lapel. They were always plain, always the same. He pushed the button back in and spoke in a whisper. "The devil is passing me now. He is dressed as a Jew, a Hasidic rabbi. He is large, huge, and wears a flower on his coat lapel. Pass the word."
Faisel turned off the radio and reached under his mishla, his hand closing around the butt of the Colt Python that rested there. He drew out the 357 Magnum and flipped out the cylinder to check the .38 Special load. The American was big, but he was human. All the precautions seemed trivial at this point. He would finish the big man himself — right now.
He pushed the hookah aside and stepped into the street.
* * *
Bolan, senses honed, moved carefully, his head turning just slightly, his eyes continually shifting from side to side. He caught a flash of peripheral movement behind him, saw a glint of metal in the old man's hand and had a second to wonder at such sloppiness before swinging around, the Linda filling his h
and.
"Down!" he yelled as he pivoted. The crowd screamed and dived for cover, leaving on their feet only an old man with a Colt Magnum and his executioner.
The Arab was no fighter. Bolan's action froze him, his face wide-eyed. They stood postured for several beats, facing death across a human sea, the realization of his own end filling the Arab's face. Then reality flooded in, other voices, other guns — everywhere.
The Arab tried to fire, but Bolan's single shot caught him chest-high before the old-timer could even pull the trigger. He fell back into the stall, brass and carved wood clattering everywhere as a woman shrieked loudly.
The Executioner turned to see rifles poking out of stalls on both sides of the steps. Presents from Abba. He raked a burst at full auto across the stalls, then jumped into the closest one for protection.
Civilians were up, trying to scramble away as the Arabs opened up with SMGs, the noise rumbling in the streets as people fell bleeding to the stone steps.
Bolan slid to the ground, the thin, wooden sides of the stall ripping apart in long splinters as earrings and knickknacks danced and fell under the hail of lead.
A woman and child were huddled in the back of the shop. Bolan motioned them down, then turned streetside, firing at two gunners who charged down the stairs from the other direction.
The first was an obese, bearded man with an old Lee-Enfield rifle. Bolan ripped his belly open on auto, guts spewing from the gaping wound. The man's momentum carried him farther down the stairs, blood gushing from his mouth and nose until he tumbled over the body of a tourist and fell into a vendor's cart, ice cream tumbling all over the steps. The second hitter tried to duck into a stall, but Bolan emptied the clip as he led him in, the man falling out of the stall seconds later, half of his face blown away.
Bolan retreated and unstrapped the Ingram, taking a second to jam another clip in the Linda. He jumped back out again, using the overturned ice-cream cart for cover. He opened up the Ingram as the world came apart around him, bullets pinging off the metal icebox of the cart and thudding into the bodies already littering the steps.
Death Has a Name Page 13
