by Jon Land
“I should have thought of that!” Lace lamented. “I should have!”
“Thought of what?” an exasperated Rasin asked.
“Hurry!” was her only reply.
They were running now through the uneven, rocky terrain, Lace doing her best to support Rasin. He felt the small cannisters that made up his ration of the vaccine clacking together in the knapsack strung over his arm. He had totally lost his bearings in the dark. He had walked Masada a thousand times since his youth, certain that in a past life he had died here among the Zealots, perhaps as the leader Eliezer himself. Only this time the cause would come to a far more fruitful end. The blackness deepened, and Rasin knew Lace had led him close to the southern wall; he was quite sure of it when the hovering Sikorskys switched on their lights, turning Masada ablaze. Lace had stopped, and now he followed her gaze forward and down.
They had reached the vast water cistern in the southwest corner of the fortress. The helicopter’s stray light was sufficient for him to see into the cistern’s vast depth. He realized Lace had led him to the perfect place from which to release his allotment of the vaccine.
But there was something else. Coming up from the depths to meet Lace was Tilly with nearly twenty of his soldiers behind her.
“We move,” Lace told her, and then she led the rush off in a chorus of crunching stones, leaving Rasin to the task before him.
Major Shamsi saw the huge troop-carrying choppers hovering over Masada to return light to a scene that had been plunged in darkness. Confusion continued to rush through him. Those were Israeli aircraft all right, but did that mean they were Israeli soldiers waging war on Yosef Rasin’s forces atop Masada? And if so, why wasn’t he informed? He grabbed for the radio yet again.
“Base, this is Major Shamsi. Come in. Over.”
“We read you, Major,” returned the voice he had heard over nine minutes before.
“All hell’s breaking loose here. Where are those troops?”
“They’re en route, Major. Your orders are to keep the area secure.”
“Secure? Secure from what? We need a drop on top of the mountain, do you hear me? There’s a situation—Wait … Who is this? Identify yourself.”
Static.
“Put Commander Herzel on now!”
More static.
“Damn!” Shamsi screamed to himself, tossing the useless mike down.
They’d been had!
He located his second-in-command nearby and pulled him aside.
“Take a jeep and get to a phone. Call base. Tell them what’s going on here. Do you hear me?”
The lieutenant looked confused. “But, sir, the radio, you—”
“Our frequency’s been jammed! No one besides us has any idea of what’s happening here!”
The troops Lace had held back had left a number of battery-powered lanterns behind in the cavernous water cistern, and Rasin arranged them in a semicircle around him to aid his final preparations. The cistern was located deep within the bowels of the mountain itself, accessible only by a steep flight of stone steps. As for firing the shells, there was a window high within the cistern’s south wall through which rain water had entered. That same window would now serve as the perfect exit route for his vaccine-loaded mortar shells.
Rasin checked the sights again. Mortars had been his specialty in the army, and that had been the very reason why he had opted for this means of release in the first place. Of course, firing them from the roof of the bathhouse was considerably different than angling the shots through a window-sized portal. Unhappy with the trajectory as presented, he had no choice but to prop up the mortar’s base precariously with a rock and his crumpled knapsack to achieve the angle of fire needed to pass through the opening.
Rasin worked fast, blessing the brilliance of Lace for holding a third of his troops back here in expectation of just this sort of eventuality. He now believed she was right about McCracken. No one else could have devised such a plan, and only Lace’s being present to anticipate it had saved his operation from ruin. But there was anticipation required on his part as well. His problems were still many and complicated. The mortar fire from the cistern would undoubtedly bring McCracken in his direction. Even if he managed to launch all twelve shells of the vaccine, what good would it do if he fell into the American’s grasp? His plan extended far beyond this night, beyond this place. He had to be able to escape.
Satisfied at last with the position of the mortar, Rasin moved back toward the explosives Lace had left for him at the foot of the stone steps.
The fresh lights of the Sikorskys allowed the battle to resume on the northern face of Masada, with Hiroshi’s warriors seizing even more of an advantage. In centuries past the labyrinth-like maze of storehouses had served as an enormous system for the stockpiling of many years’ supplies of weapons, food, and other essentials for life. It seemed fitting to McCracken that Rasin’s troops had chosen this maze of passages and rooms to make their last stand.
By now virtually all of Hiroshi’s samurai would be moving to enclose them and make the battle hand-to-hand. Gunfire continued to rage, but Blaine could tell by the cadence that it was wild and desperate. Screams periodically punctured the night as another of Rasin’s army of cutthroats fell to the silent approach and deadly swords of the samurai.
Blaine continued moving about. Rasin himself would stay beyond the battle, working frantically to fire his vaccine somehow into the air. Blaine had already searched the entire confines of the bathhouse and various ruins along the north and northwestern fronts. Coming up empty, he found himself gazing down from the northern palace lookout station at the three tiers of Herod’s palace. The uppermost tier stood at the summit, with the middle terrace some sixty-five-feet below and the lowest forty feet beneath that. The view from all, especially the lowest, was clear and spectacular.
The perfect setting for Rasin to work his black magic.
Blaine rushed to the winding, modern, man-made stairway that snaked down the mountain to the various terraces. The bottom terrace was his target, and in that moment he was certain Rasin would be there.
Hiroshi slid through the ancient corridors of the storehouse, gliding so as not to disturb the rocks that might give away his approach. He held his cherished katana high overhead. It had been handed down through his family line for generations, fashioned in the Koto period of Japan, known for the greatest swords in history. Twenty-nine-and-a-half-inches of promised death, silent as it was sure.
One of Rasin’s guards spun out toward him from an opening leading to a storeroom. Hiroshi brought the flat edge of his sword down on his rifle barrel, the bullets blasting errantly as he whipped the edge back up against the man’s throat. The man slammed up against a rock wall, gurgling blood, and Hiroshi mercifully finished him with a thrust through his heart. The man slumped. The old sensei continued on.
His years meant nothing now. His ancestors had fought on battlegrounds not much different from this, sometimes in their own service and sometimes that of a lord. The rest of his warriors came from similar traditions, and they moved as he did through the storehouse maze. There were sporadic bursts of gunfire, followed almost always by screams from the gun’s wielder as the samurai sent another to his death. Hiroshi continued on, licking the sweat from his lips and smelling the rusty scent of blood on the air. The battle refreshed and recharged him. He had been gone from the life of his ancestors for too long. This was where he belonged.
Something made Hiroshi stop still in his tracks. His ears caught a crunching sound, like that of horses carrying men on the attack. He rushed to the low point of the wall and peered outward into the dusty spill of light made by the Sikorskys’ floods.
Soldiers! Fifteen, maybe twenty rushing across the empty plain northward toward the storehouses. Where had they come from? The situation was about to change markedly. Hiroshi could see in his mind his men being mowed down as these reinforcements swooped unexpectedly into the area to the rear of his men. He had feared just su
ch a development as this.
“Blaine,” he called into his communicator. His back pressed against the nearest wall, he broke the rule of radio silence they had set for themselves. “Blaine, come in! Where are you?”
“Down on the northern terrace. What’s wrong?”
“Twenty of Rasin’s soldiers are charging from the south. We missed them.”
“Because somebody made us miss them, the same somebody who killed the lights. Goddamn it… .” McCracken put his lips closer to the microphone in order to whisper. “Johnny, can you hear me? Come on, Indian, I need you.”
“I’m here, Blainey.”
McCracken was about to ask where when he was interrupted by the abrupt and continuous fire of automatic rifles.
The sole source of the fire was Johnny Wareagle. He held in each hand an automatic rifle loaded with double clips, and was blasting away at the newly revealed troops. The news of the missing complement of soldiers had bothered Johnny from the moment he first heard it. He knew from the start they had to be hiding, and he was heading toward the scattered buildings to the south when he saw the troops led by a huge woman in black.
Immediately Wareagle darted back into the darkness, skirting the spill of the choppers’ floodlights. The ravaged guard tower rose before him and he charged up its steps to the highest point on Masada. A trio of soldiers had lost their lives trying to defend it at the battle’s outset, and Johnny added one of their Galil machine guns to his own M-16. Crouching low until the last, he waited for the sound of rocks crunching to tell him the troops were close enough.
McCracken’s call had come seconds before and left Johnny no time to explain. He simply rose in the darkness, unknown and unseen, and began firing away at the charge against the northern strongholds of the fortress.
He felt no kick of the rifles as he fired, nor did he hear the screams of the men he was killing. Their bodies dropped in waves between the officers’ family quarters and the stone quarry. It was several seconds before the return fire started, and by then the first of his clips was exhausted. Wareagle plunged downward to await the siege.
“No!” Lace screamed to the eight men who had survived the barrage. “Leave him! Follow me!”
Her eyes searched frantically for Tilly, finding her with a relieved smile propped behind a built-up storage hold in the ground. She rushed over and touched the smaller woman’s hair gratefully, then raised her scimitar overhead to lead what remained of the soldiers toward the battle in the storehouses.
She wanted to believe the gunman on the guard tower was McCracken. Not only had the person riddled their numbers, he had also denied them position on Masada’s most strategic point, from which the invaders could be cut down at will. That was his style, after all. But her feelings told her otherwise. This was someone else, equally dangerous to be sure. She would still have to find McCracken.
Hiroshi was ready when the fresh wave of Rasin’s soldiers reached the storehouses. Wareagle’s fire from the guard tower had bought him time as well as reducing the enemy’s number and alerting his men to their presence.
One of them leaped atop the jagged wall the old warrior had crouched behind. As soon as the man began to fire controlled bursts toward areas his samurai were rushing from, Hiroshi rose and, wielding his sword in a great arc, sliced through the man’s legs below the knees, toppling him over. Another soldier lunged rifle-first toward the wall, but Hiroshi extended his sword, and the man impaled himself on the blade.
A burst fired reflexively from the dead man’s gun caught the old sensei in the side and spun him. Hot pain flooded his midsection, and Hiroshi felt the spill of warm blood. The wound wasn’t mortal, but the blood loss would weaken him and make him a burden to his men. He had never lost grip on his sword’s hilt. With an effort he yanked it free of the dead man’s midsection and moved back down the corridor, using the wall for support.
“Hiroshi, what’s going on?” came McCracken’s desperate call.
“All under control, Fudo-san. Not to worry.”
This was spoken into a chorus of screams and machine gun fire as the remainder of Rasin’s men engaged Hiroshi’s samurai as best they could. The sudden influx of enemy troops had moved several of his men to switch from swords back to rifles. Some of them were being killed and this pained him, but they were dying the death of warriors, a most honorable passing that defined the very essence of their lives.
Hiroshi moaned into the microphone.
“You’re hurt!” McCracken cried. “Jesus Christ, where are you? Stay where you are!”
“Not to worry, Fudo-san. I can walk. That’s all I need for now.”
“I’m on the way. Just hold on,” Blaine answered sensing the sensei’s wounds were more serious than he would let on.
“Yes,” Hiroshi said, turning just in time to see a figure in black leather surge toward him.
He spun, leading with the sword. But his wounded side slowed his reaction, and even as his katana lashed out at the black figure he felt the strangely shaped blade he was powerless to block slice down at him. In the end he tried desperately to rotate his sword back to deflect the blow, but again his side betrayed him and his legs crumbled even before the scimitar sliced on a diagonal through his collar bone all the way to his heart. A bright flash of light followed and Hiroshi heard his ancestors calling as he spilled over.
Before Lace could move off, the muted voice of Blaine McCracken reached her ear, coming from the corpse’s wireless transmitter which had spilled from his head when he fell.
“I’m almost to the upper terrace, Hiroshi. Be with you before you know it.”
Lace smiled and sped off in that direction.
McCracken cursed himself as he rushed up the last of the steps that would bring him back to the upper terrace of Herod’s palace and then into the battle. The straight abutment of the northern palace had seemed the perfect place for Rasin to launch his vaccine into the air over Israel. Placing himself in the fanatic’s mind, he was sure of it. His mistake had been to forget that someone else was directing Rasin’s strategems up here for him, someone who would never have permitted such an obvious move. Damn! He had committed the cardinal flaw, that of underestimating his enemy.
If that was his first mistake, his second was to dwell on it and to let his fear for the life of Hiroshi blot out his normal alertness. He sped heedlessly up the final steps onto the semicircular terrace that looked down over the remainder of the mountain. A sudden burst of automatic gunfire clanged off the steel support rail. His hand was stung and he was reaching for his Uzi when another spray sliced through the darkness and banged against the gun, ricocheting madly and stripping it from his grasp.
McCracken reeled sideways and grasped for the railing as the tracing fire searched for his shape in the blackness. His hands found the rail but, still numb, they slid off. His last measure of balance was lost and he pitched over the side of Masada to the dark abyss at the bottom.
Chapter 28
FEELING HIMSELF AIRBORNE, Blaine had flailed desperately for a hold as he began to drop, but he brushed the steel rail with his fingers and that was all. Arms extended, he slid for a brief time straight down the rock-face side before his legs slowed his pace and then caught on a narrow ridge extending out from the mountain. He gathered his breath and checked his extremities. Miraculously nothing was broken. His hands and arms were scraped but functional. His thick pants had been torn and he could feel blood from the lacerations trickling down his legs. No broken bones, though, nothing to stop him from going on.
He inspected the area in the darkness around him. He had gone over the rail on the side of the northern terrace, leaving a straight drop of nearly a hundred yards if his perch gave way. His eyes probed above him in search of handholds in the rock face to take him back up. He could conceivably manage it, but the time it would take would be prohibitively long.
He then looked downward and spotted beneath him the set of steps winding from one terrace level to another. He could not hope
to drop onto it, but he could ease himself down, a difficult and dangerous task but one requiring far less time. At once he began to lower his legs over the ridge that had saved him, shifting his weight to make him top-heavy as his hands replaced his legs on the ridge. He found a foothold firm enough for one foot but not two, and eased his bulk onto it as he began to dangle his left leg in search of another makeshift step. As he was feeling around blindly, his right foot slipped and he came close to falling again. Only his firm grip on the rocks prevented a disaster, and he hung there in space briefly to recover his bearings.
Somehow that flirt with disaster seemed to charge him. Inside, Blaine knew he was going to make it; he could almost see the rocky face with his legs and feet. He found a twisted rhythm, body never balanced the same way twice. When his feet at last grazed the safety rail bordering the steps, it seemed as if only a few seconds had passed instead of several minutes. He touched down, possessed by a strange calm that swallowed all the hurt and wounds.
But the trail of a mortar shell speeding through the air high over Masada stripped the calm away and Blaine threw himself into a rush back up the stairs.
From the base of the mountain, Major Shamsi contemplated the direction of the shells. He had seen battle often enough to know mortar fire when he saw it, but this shell had been fired apparently at nothing. The battle raging atop Masada already defied explanation. This just confused matters more.
Shamsi continued to gaze upward toward the sky, but it was his ears that snapped alert next, picking up a familiar pulsating sound approaching from the west. He turned to see the flashing lights of a quartet of helicopter gunships slicing toward Masada like buzzards over a corpse.
“It’s about time,” Shamsi said to himself. “About fucking time.”
Isser had issued the call-up five minutes into Isaac’s story, before he had even heard the tape containing the claims of Eisenstadt. They were airborne inside of twelve minutes and covered the distance to Masada in ten.
