Keepers of the Gate - [Kamal & Barnea 04] Page 12

  Danielle felt bile surge up her throat. She had just slammed a fresh clip home when the gunman leaped over the top of the couch, firing straight for her.

  * * * *

  B

  en landed face-to-face on the ground with the man dressed as an Israeli soldier. The man’s warm, reeking breath coated Ben’s face as they struggled for control of the Uzi. The soldier landed a knee in Ben’s groin, and a series of flashes, brighter than the stars in the Jeep, exploded before his eyes. He felt the breath catching in his gut, pushed all his strength into his fingers to maintain his hold on the Uzi.

  The soldier tried kneeing him again, got only the inside of his thigh, but twisted so he ended up atop Ben. Still eye-to-eye, Ben strained his neck to push his head upward. The man’s breath assaulted him again and Ben could feel the Uzi being wrenched slowly from his grasp. The man’s eyes bulged confidently, his finger ready to dart for the trigger. Ben visualized him pressing it, launching a river of hot lead into his belly. Then he heard gunshots coming from the house and thought of Danielle fighting for her life inside just as he was out here.

  Ben didn’t dare strip a hand from the Uzi. The man’s hot breath smelled like spoiled food and his ruined nose leaked blood that ran down Ben’s cheeks. Ben followed the blood trail, lurched forward with his mouth open and bit into the man’s nose. Bit hard, like he was tearing a stubborn piece of chicken off the bone.

  The screech that followed was the loudest one Ben had ever heard, as he clamped his teem tight and twisted his jaw. At first he thought he must have bitten his own tongue. Then he realized the marble-sized chunk of grizzle in his mouth was the tip of the man’s nose. Disgusted, he spit it free in the same instant the man jerked away from him. Pain tore the man’s thoughts from his Uzi long enough for Ben to push him over backwards, landing with his thumbs jammed into the eyes that had radiated confidence just seconds before.

  The man’s scream was hoarser this time and the Uzi clattered to the ground between them. Ben kept pushing his thumbs home until the man raked his face with his fingernails. Ben twisted away from the pain, and his assailant used a desperate burst of strength to shove him back. Ben’s shoulders thumped hard to the ground and what was left of his breath pinballed against his ribs. He climbed back to his knees, just as the man yanked the Uzi off the ground and leveled it.

  * * * *

  T

  he clip jammed on its way into her nine-millimeter pistol and Danielle knew she’d never be able to right it before the gunman’s bullets found her. A pole lamp teetered by her side and Danielle used a sweep of her arm to knock it over into the gunman’s path just before he loomed over her.

  The man tripped and slammed his chin into a coffee table which toppled under his weight, leaving him between the dead Katavis and atop the pictures his barrage had knocked from the wall. Danielle wasn’t sure whether the crunch she heard was bone or wood shattering, but she had the presence of mind to spin aside and scamper back toward the foyer.

  The man started shooting again in the same moment she dove to the floor and groped for the sidearm still holstered on the dead Israeli soldier’s belt. Her hand closed on the butt and she gazed back to see the killer staggering to his feet. His eyes were glazed, the right side of his face hanging lower than the left. Blood gushed from a gash under his chin as he stumbled forward and tried to level his pistol.

  The dead soldier’s safety strap was undone, allowing Danielle to draw his pistol in one swift motion. She steadied it on the man advancing upon her and opened fire just as his bullets started anew.

  Glass shattered behind her. A vase exploded to her right.

  Then the shooting stopped. The man halted, dropped his gun and crumpled to the floor, three dark holes widening in his chest before he fell over onto his stomach.

  * * * *

  O

  utside, thefake soldieropened firewith his Uzi. Blinded by Ben’s assault on his eyes, though, his shots flew wild and high, as Ben launched himself forward.

  Impact threw both men back to the ground, the Uzi sent flying to one side. The fake soldier turned onto his stomach and crawled fast for it. But Ben threw himself onto the man’s back and clamped both hands on the back of his head, holding his face in the dirt. The man heaved and struggled desperately, feet kicking and hands thrashing in all directions. They flailed backwards for Ben, but Ben arched his back to stay clear of their grasp. Pushing harder, visualizing the man’s face being driven into the ground— through the ground.

  Finally the man’s fingers clutched at the air, then dropped in frozen half-made fists. Ben kept pressing long after the assailant had gone still, kept pressing until he realized inside the house the gunfire had ceased and pushed himself up to go after Danielle.

  * * * *

  I

  nside, Danielle let the pistol drop from her grasp and stayed on her knees. The room seemed to be spinning. She felt dizzy and tried to steady herself with deep breaths.

  It was no use. Her position in the hall gave her a direct view of a dead boy seated in a chair, looking up as if to gaze at the wound that had killed him. A boy who would never do his homework or go out with his friends again.

  Whoever had murdered Yakov Katavi’s friends at the cooperative school had killed the soldiers Danielle had dispatched to guard the Katavis and then the Katavis themselves. She wondered if the father lay dead somewhere else in the house.

  Danielle leaned over and vomited. She was still dry heaving when Ben burst through the door holding an Uzi coated with dirt.

  “Are you all right?”

  Danielle managed to nod, wiped her mouth with a sleeve. Ben bent over and extended a hand to help her up.

  And the window over his right shoulder exploded under a fresh fusillade of fire, showering both of them with glass.

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 27

  G

  ive methe gun!”Danielle demanded, lunging to her feet. She stripped the Uzi from Ben’s hands and gave him the pistol she had taken off the dead Israeli soldier in its place.

  More gunshots sent glass raining into the house, followed by the sound of footsteps rushing over gravel. Danielle spun away from Ben and fired a burst from the Uzi out one of the shattered windows. Spent shells bounced off the wall and rolled across the wood floor.

  “The back!” Danielle said.

  None of the enemy was visible through the windows overlooking the house’s rear. Ben moved to the door first, prepared to open it while Danielle covered him. The first steps outside would be the most dangerous; if an ambush had been set, that’s when it would come.

  Ben emerged holding his breath with pistol ready, realizing he had no idea how many bullets remained in its clip. Satisfied no one was lying in wait, he signalled Danielle to follow.

  She joined him outside and scanned the open ground up to the field line where the vineyards began, searching for any signs of their attackers. Suddenly a series of thuds sounded inside the Katavi’s home.

  “Come on!” she rasped, realizing the enemy had concentrated their attack from the front.

  She grabbed Ben’s arm and yanked him on toward the thick vines of the fields, which they immediately saw were crisscrossed with vehicle-sized paths between the rows. The rustling of the vines sounded like the quiet sweep of trees on a fall day, loud enough, Danielle hoped, to disguise their footsteps and presence once the gunmen now inside the house offered pursuit. As an added advantage, darkness was descending quickly, the rain that had seemed in the offing holding off for now.

  The sweet scent of ripe grapes rose into the humid air, while stray stalks and the sharp branches of the vines raked their faces and arms as Ben and Danielle rushed amidst the rows. They continued running side by side until they heard a quick thump that seemed to resonate from beneath them.

  “What could—”

  Before Ben could finish his sentence the overhead irrigation system snapped on, drenching them thoroughly with a misty blanket of moisture, but failing to wash
the blood and death from the air.

  “Your damn Israeli water experts,” he muttered to Danielle.

  “Masters of modern technology.”

  They trudged on, clothes soaked and footprints instantly more noticeable in the damp ground.

  “Wait!” Danielle said, seizing Ben’s arm.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “They’re coming! I can hear them!”

  Ben gazed back down the path that had brought them this far. “We’ve got to make a stand.”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” Danielle said, and veered to the right.

  They passed into one of the open paths that ran between the rows and found themselves in a huge swathe of land that was in the process of being cleared. At the near edge loomed a massive combine that Danielle had glimpsed a few moments before between the rows of vines. As Danielle led the way toward it, she and Ben could hear its heavy engine still idling. On the ground alongside the combine lay the body of a man.

  “Yakov Katavi’s father,” Ben concluded grimly. “The killers must have found him out here.”

  “Quick!” Danielle said, starting forward.

  “What?”

  She didn’t respond, just led him in a sprint toward the idling combine, its dagger-sharp steel teeth stretching nearly thirty feet across. Before they reached it, Ben could hear the sounds of running feet sloshing through the freshly watered ground.

  Danielle handed him the Uzi and climbed up behind the controls of the combine, testing the pedals and shift as she gripped the wheel.

  Ben looked on in disbelief. “Do you know what you’re doing?” he asked, squeezing himself into the seat next to her.

  “I spent three summers working on a kibbutz. You’re damn right I do. Just stay down.”

  The smell of gasoline from its powerful idling engine was thick enough to taste and she feared the machine might stall out and flood as soon as she jammed it into gear. But the combine lurched forward when she engaged the transmission, sputtering once but then gathering speed across the open ground. Hesitating not at all, Danielle quickly located the controls for the cutter and threw a switch which started the machine’s steel teeth churning.

  The sounds of the pumps driving the irrigation outlets disguised the combine’s engine enough to keep the gunmen from realizing Danielle’s gambit. Rows and rows of grape vines were chewed up in the combine’s wake, but the gunmen never saw the huge machine until it burst from a row almost directly before them.

  Ben watched their eyes bulge in terror. One or two managed to get off a few errant shots while the rest turned to flee. The bullets clanged off the heavy steel of the combine as the machine swallowed the world in its path. It seemed almost surreal when it finally caught up with the first men, drawing them into its churning teeth and giving nothing but a red-stained ground back. The combine sucked them in and ground them up with a crackling sound like wood being fed into a chipper. The combine never slowed or even buckled, just rolled on effortlessly with whatever was left of the gunmen spread in red streaks over the earth in its wake.

  Danielle spun round in her seat, gun ready, to see if any had managed to escape the churning blades. But there was nothing to the rear but a series of moist, pulpy splotches coating the ground.

  “I guess we can forget about interrogating them, Inspector,” she said.

  Ben held his gaze on the gunmen’s remains. “Who were they, Pakad? Who the hell were they?”

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 28

  C

  aptain Asher Bain was waiting when the car pulled through the security gate and curled round the circular drive that fronted the house. It was one of the largest of the many magnificent homes built on the shores of the Mediterranean in the affluent suburb of Herzliya Pituah twelve miles from Tel Aviv.

  “Good evening, ma’am,” Bain said as he opened the car’s right rear door.

  The woman slid out high heels first, her long legs and hips clad in tight-fitting black pants. “My, you’re a chivalrous one now, aren’t you?”

  Bain looked her over carefully. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you here before.”

  “Special order, lover. What the general wants, the general gets.” She gazed about her. “I thought this house was on the beach.”

  “We’re two blocks away. More privacy back here.”

  “I can see why,” she said with a wink, suddenly distracted. “Nice breeze. Hey, I can hear the sea.”

  “I’m glad,” Bain said, stiffening. “You’ve been briefed, I assume.”

  The woman nodded. “What about you?” She wiggled her fingers before him. “Cash in advance, honey.”

  Bain handed her an envelope. The woman leafed through its contents, eyes gleaming, before depositing the envelope in her handbag.

  “Come this way,” Bain said, after the woman had clamped the bag shut again. He detested these nocturnal binges of General Efrain Janush, but the general, who was deputy chief of staff for the Israeli army, insisted upon them. Bain revered the man too much to voice his displeasure. Besides, he understood. Understood that the general’s position ruled out all pretext of a private life. Understood the madness that festered just beneath the surface of the great war hero’s psyche. If this was what it took to keep that madness at bay, then so be it. Certainly the general had that much coming to him.

  Bain had attended all three of the funerals of the general’s children. Two of the boys had been lost to war: one in Lebanon and one to a suicide bomber targeting a barracks. But it was the death of his daughter to cancer that pushed the general over the edge. His unmitigated hatred and mistrust of the Arabs was legendary, had been responsible for him being denied the position of chief of staff when he was up for it. The general fretted briefly, then continued about his business, resolved to do the job of protecting the nation of Israel that he had sworn to do.

  Only Captain Bain, his chief aide, knew how he kept his hate at bay enough to do so.

  Bain led tonight’s woman through the foyer and up the staircase that circled toward the second floor. She walked behind him but Bain was careful to keep his pace such that she was never totally out of line of his peripheral vision. He’d been a member of the Israeli Special Forces long before accepting this post and some things stuck.

  On the second floor he stopped at the third closed door they came to. “This room leads directly into the study. The door is on the left side.”

  The woman winked at him. “Been briefed, lover, like I told you.”

  “I’ll be outside the whole time.”

  “That’s up to you.”

  “When he’s finished with you, you will leave straightaway.”

  “Just the way I like it,” the woman said and disappeared into the room adjoining the study.

  Bain assumed the stance of his silent vigil, regretting he could not move far enough from the study to obliterate the sounds that would soon be emanating from within.

  Inside in the inner room the general sat stiffly in the leather chair set two yards away from a thirty-five-inch television. He heard the woman enter the adjoining room and raised the remote control device that had been set upon the chair’s arm. He knew the placement of buttons by heart and went through the proper sequence without even glancing down. The first button turned the room to black, the second activated the television whose blank screen lit the room a dull gray. A third sent an unseen VCR whirling and brought the screen to life.

  For all the technical wizardry, the quality of the television picture was notably poor. Grainy and ill-defined, too much contrast. The picture focused on a young woman lying naked on a bed of crimson sheets masturbating feverishly. The camera drew shakily closer to her, locked on her face.

  The woman was Arabic, that much and only that much was clear.

  The general’s fists clenched briefly and then he groped for the pair of small headphones perched upon the other chair arm and fitted them over his ears. The sounds of her moaning filled his ears. Janush smiled in anticipati
on of what was to come.

  Seconds later a pair of masked figures strode into the shot. Surprise filled the woman’s face. They grasped and dragged her from the bed where the camera followed them to a chair. The men thrust her naked form into the chair and strapped her arms and legs to it. The woman was still struggling. Her protests filled the general’s ears through his headphones. Better that way, he thought. The camera zoomed in on one of the masked figures whipping forth a knife, then panned to the bulging eyes of the woman who now lay still in hopeless terror. Her screams must have been too much for the microphone because they dissolved into static at their crescendo.