Keepers of the Gate - [Kamal & Barnea 04] Read online

  Ben followed Wallid up the ramp and stood under cover of the overhang beneath the stadium’s second tier. With everyone in the crowd standing to watch the penalty kicks, he had no view of Fasil or any of the rows closest to the field.

  The crowd fell silent as the first Greek kicker lined up and fired his penalty shot into the goal, then erupted when the first Palestinian shooter did the same, high to the opposite corner. Ben feared he had missed something, went over his strategy to see if there was anything he had neglected. No, he had covered every angle. Mahmoud Fasil had not been out of his surveillance team’s sight since Fasil entered the stadium.

  The first three rounds ended with each team having made all of its penalty kicks. The fourth was the same, but the Greek player kicking fifth had his shot deflected wide by the Palestinian goalie. That gave Palestine’s leading scorer, Abdel Sidr, a chance to win the game.

  Sidr placed the ball down dramatically, lengthening the moment of utter silence in the stands as he measured his steps away from it. Ben tried to picture the chaos that would follow this upset, if Sidr knocked the ball home. He had seen European soccer crowds in action, couldn’t imagine the hysteria over victory here.

  Ben felt a slight chill.

  Chaos ... hysteria ...

  If anything happened, it would be now!

  Ben pushed his way down the aisle toward the box seats just above field level.

  Abdel Sidr started forward, swooping toward the ball.

  Ben caught a glimpse of Mahmoud Fasil before someone shifted sideways behind him. And then he realized. In the moment Sidr’s foot drew backward and then retraced its arc, he realized.

  What better time, what better place? ...

  “All Posts, move in on target. The exchange is going down!” he said into his walkie-talkie. “Repeat, the ex—”

  The rest of Ben’s words were drowned out by cheers when Abdel Sidr cracked his foot solidly into the ball and drilled it straight into the right-hand corner of the net. Ben continued trying to raise the members of his team as he was jostled and shoved by joyous fans intent on storming the field. Ben let himself be swept up in the flow that drove him down the aisle and spilled him over the lowest row of box seats onto the sideline.

  Ben landed atop three young men and pushed himself off them to his feet, walkie-talkie back against his lips. “This is Command. Does anybody have him? Repeat, does anybody have Fasil?”

  “This is Post Four. Field level. I’ve got him, I’ve got him! A few yards in front of the net. I think, yes, that’s Fasil hugging the hero Sidr.”

  “Keep your eyes on him! Everyone else, converge, but don’t try to take him until you hear from me.”

  “He’s moving away, pushing through the crowd,” Post Four reported.

  “I’ve got him now,” announced an out-of-breath officer.

  “Heading toward an exit,” Post Four repeated. “Big bastard on either side of him.”

  “I’ve lost him,” from the still out-of-breath officer.

  “Post Four,” said Ben. “Stay with him but don’t approach. Repeat, don’t approach.”

  Ben pushed his way through the mounting crowd, trying to see. The goal had spilled over and fans were tearing at the netting. Players elbowed their way forward to escape the frenzy. Ben thought he saw the game’s hero, Abdel Sidr, being rushed toward the player’s ramp by stadium security.

  “Command, this is Post Four. I’ve got the target. Closing now!”

  “No, just stay—”

  The sound of firecrackers made Ben break off his words. At least, that’s what they sounded like. But the panicked screams and sudden thrust of the crowd away from the noise told Ben they were gunshots,

  “Post Four, Post Four, come in! Post Four, come in!”

  Hoping for a reply, Ben drew his pistol and surged forward, no longer making any effort to be subtle.

  “Police!” he screamed. “Police! Make way!”

  The crowd scattered as best it could. Ben shoved people aside, saw Mahmoud Fasil change directions and sprint toward the other end of the field. His two bodyguards, meanwhile, continued toward the nearest exit, clearing a path with their drawn guns.

  Ben lifted his walkie-talkie to order his men after them, but the warning light was flashing now, telling him the battery had died. Ben pocketed it, as he neared the fallen officer. Post Four was barely out of his teens. Blood pooled beneath the hands clutching his side. The officer looked up at Ben in shocked fear when Ben pushed the crowd away and scooped him up as gently as he could to stop him from being trampled.

  “I’m sorry,” the young officer muttered, lips trembling horribly.

  “You’re a hero. There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

  “Rah a moot.”

  “You’re not going to die. I’m going to help you.” Ben laid the young officer down in the relative calm beyond the far sideline and used a hand to compress the man’s wound. The blood was warm, almost hot. Ben could feel it pushing up against his palm, wanting to spread. “You’re going to be fine.”

  Ben yelled to a pair of stadium guards when they passed and the men reluctantly took his place over the fallen officer.

  “One of you stay with him,” Ben ordered. “The other get an ambulance and bring it back here.”

  His tone left no room for argument. He swung around and spotted Mahmoud Fasil just past the center line, weaving his way through the crowd. Ben started after him across the worn center of the field. He eased bystanders from his path firmly, never taking his eyes off Fasil. Gun held low by his hip, hoping to remain unnoticed for as long as possible.

  He was still twenty yards back when the terrorist turned and spotted him. Ben saw the gun coming up in Fasil’s hand, certain he was going to open fire on him when the terrorist twisted back around and fired a series of shots forward instead. Ben watched three bodies fall, their backs arching horribly as the life was ripped from them.

  “Fasil!” he screamed, as the chaos the terrorist had created converged from all directions.

  Bodies slammed into him, ping-ponging left and right. Ben felt his breath sucked away. He remembered as a child being kicked by a pair of boys who had pushed him down on the schoolyard ground, how he’d fought to get up and couldn’t. Today he fought to hold his feet, pressing on as he forced his pistol up and steadied it forward into the mad rush swirling before him.

  Damn al-Asi! Of all the cases to pass on to the police ...

  Whatever fear Ben had been feeling was trumped by rage. He swept forward, impervious to the panic cresting around him. He picked up speed, clearing his own way and sprinting in the same path plowed by players just minutes before. Mahmoud Fasil had almost reached the far goal when Ben stopped and joined a second hand to his pistol.

  “Police! Everybody down!” Then, “Fasil, stop!”

  Screaming, the crowd in front of Ben dropped en masse. Still twenty yards before him, Mahmoud Fasil froze, pistol held low by his hip.

  “Drop the gun, Fasil! Do it now!”

  Twenty yards was a tough shot for anyone, and Ben was hardly an expert marksman to begin with. But right now he didn’t care. Right now missing was the farthest thing from his mind.

  “Drop the gun!” he repeated.

  Fasil spun instead, and opened fire.

  Ben began firing too. It happened so fast he never consciously willed himself to do it. There was a dim awareness of muzzle flashes glowing from the bore of Fasil’s pistol, followed by a bubbling hollowness in Ben’s ears that accompanied the sharp reports of his own gun. He drew his finger back on the trigger again and again as rapidly as he could. His shooter’s stance kept the gun’s kick to a minimum, and the clacking of the spent, ejected shells burned through the stench of cordite into the edges of his consciousness.

  Whatever aim he managed came from instinct and practice, not measure or thought. He didn’t so much outshoot Fasil as outlast him when the terrorist’s pistol clicked empty. Ben saw his last few bullets punch the terrorist backwa
rds into the goal where the netting snagged Fasil and held him up.

  Ben kept hammering the trigger well after the slide had locked, ceasing only when the clinging of shells stopped echoing in his ears and the dull haze of bore smoke began to lift.

  * * * *

  B

  en movedthrough thecrowded, ranklocker room, battling the press and various proud Palestinian dignitaries for space as he headed for Abdel Sidr’s locker. The air conditioning hadn’t been installed down here yet, another casualty of the return to arms by Israelis and Palestinians, and the stifling heat led players to seek the quickest possible exit. Not Sidr, though. The smiling star, still bloodied and dirty from the nearly two-hour game, was between questions from reporters when Ben leaned over and whispered in his ear.

  “Hand over what Mahmoud Fasil gave you and I won’t arrest you until the press is gone.”

  The look in Sidr’s eyes when he saw the dangling police badge told Ben his suspicion had been correct. Fasil hadn’t waited around through the whole game for nothing. Sidr’s dramatic, clinching penalty shot had provided the perfect opportunity for what would otherwise have taken place here in the locker room.

  “Now,” Ben added, meaning it.

  Sidr barely missed a beat in answering questions, as he reached back into his locker and plucked a dirt- and sweat-smeared envelope from the shelf. He pressed it into Ben’s waiting hand with a forced smile. Then he cast his gaze toward the door, perhaps weighing his chances of disappearing through it with the rest of the crowd.

  “When you’re finished with your adoring public,” Ben told him, reading Sidr’s eyes, “my men will be waiting outside the locker room.”

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 3

  P

  aul Hessler stepped back into the shadows of the cavernous room as soon as the alarm began to sound.

  “We have incoming!” a technician blared from behind her radar screen.

  Hessler watched the general in charge of Israel’s Air Force Defense Command hurry across the floor. “Identification!”

  The technician studied the readouts streaming across the lower portion of her screen, while a neat white line streaked toward Israel’s airspace above. “Height, seven point five kilometers! Trajectory, eighty-five by sixty! Course heading, zero point one-five at fifteen hundred nautical miles per hour. It’s a Scud Four, sir.”

  “Origin!” the general blared, standing bent at the knees in order to study the screen himself.

  The technician studied some additional readouts, dragging a trembling finger across the bottom of her screen. Then she turned to look up at the general.

  “Iran, sir.”

  “I need targeting.”

  “It’s Tel Aviv, sir,” the technician reported, eyes back on her screen. “Eight minutes to impact.”

  “Sir!” Hessler heard another uniformed technician yell from the other side of the room, the schematics of the South Korean Scud Four missile displayed on his monitor. “The Scud Four was constructed to carry nuclear ordnance!”

  Paul Hessler watched the general hurry to another section of the center. This was Hessler’s first time inside Israel’s Air Defense Command headquarters located in a bunker buried in the Negev Desert. A much smaller version of NORAD in the United States, Air Defense Command constantly monitored Israel’s and surrounding airspaces to guard against the possibility of surprise attacks. Israeli ADC “shared” information from American satellites in orbit, eliminating the need to rely on standard and inferior ground-based radar systems for intelligence.

  “Take us up to Joshua Alert Status and get the prime minister on the line for me,” the general ordered a subordinate Paul Hessler couldn’t see from his vantage point.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Switch your display to the Big Screen.”

  Instantly the huge wall before the room’s personnel came alive with a computer simulation of Israel portrayed in three-dimensional virtual reality, so a shot of any part or all of the country could be displayed at any angle or from multiple perspectives. Much like watching a panoramic postcard come to life. Currently that was a downward view from the sky, as a white streak denoting the Scud Four missile, now over Jordan, inched closer to Israeli airspace.

  The general moved to a distant corner of the room, set off from the rest of the frantic activity, where a quartet of technicians were busy working four separate computer stations in restrained, calm fashion.

  “Arrow is on-line and tracking, General,” one of the four announced.

  “All system lights green,” added a second.

  “Awaiting your order, sir,” from the first again.

  “You have the go to launch intercept,” the general instructed.

  Their voices became a blur to Paul Hessler, as the words and seconds passed with the blip representing a nuclear weapon soaring ever closer to Israel on the Big Screen.

  “Beginning countdown now!”

  “System primed and ready!”

  “Automated launch sequence activated!”

  On one of the four technicians’ screens, a portion of the Negev Desert floor seemed to recede. A large white missile sprouted from the ground affixed to a launching arm.

  “We have a target lock! Thirty seconds to intercept launch!”

  “All lights green. All systems nominal.”

  On the Big Screen, the blip representing the Scud Four missile entered Israeli airspace.

  “Arrow fixed and ready.”

  “Fifteen seconds to intercept launch.”

  From a distance Paul Hessler watched information and data scrolling down computer screens far faster than the human eye could follow. He heard electronic beeps, saw flashing lights and notations.

  “Seven, six, five, four...”

  The Scud Four streaked over the West Bank on an elliptical course for Tel Aviv. It was a detonation-on-impact weapon, Hessler knew, compared to the more advanced ICBMs which actually detonated miles up in the atmosphere.

  “We have Arrow launch!”

  And on the monitor picturing the Negev, the white missile burst into the air, surging out of sight in a heartbeat.

  “Arrow has firm target fix.”

  “Sir,” a voice called to the general weakly, “I have the prime minister.”

  The general pressed a satellite phone against his ear. “I’m here, sir.”

  A second white streak appeared on the Big Screen, rising up out of the virtually realistic Negev Desert on an angle designed to intersect with the Scud Four’s course.

  “Speed and angle of ascent within parameters!”

  “Final intercept coordinates programming. Impact expected in ten seconds, nine, eight, seven ...”

  The Scud Four continued to soar over Israel, as the Arrow missile rose directly in line with it.

  “Five, four, three...”

  Paul Hessler tried to imagine Tel Aviv in the wake of a direct nuclear hit, had to remind himself to breathe.

  “Two, one...”

  The paths of the two missiles crossed each other, the white streaks merging into a single blinding flash.

  “We have successful intercept! We have a kill. Repeat, enemy missile has been killed!”

  The personnel of Israel’s Air Defense Command broke into spontaneous cheers and applause. Hessler continued to focus on the virtual sky over Israel that was now clear, until the overhead lights in the operations center snapped on. A large group of civilian, military, and government officials emerged from the darkness, clapping as well.

  “It works,” Hessler heard Israel’s foreign minister blare excitedly from behind him. “The damn thing works.”

  “This completes the drill,” a droning voice announced over the loudspeaker. “All personnel remain on station.”

  The applause continued as David Turkanis, foreign minister of the State of Israel, stepped from the shadows. In his early forties, Turkanis was considered a rising star in Israel’s Labor party and was already being groomed to fill the role of p
rime minister someday.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Turkanis announced, barely able to restrain his exuberance. “I give you Paul Hessler of Hessler Industries, developer of the Arrow Two Missile Defense Shield.”

  The clapping gave way to boisterous cheers, acknowledged by Hessler with a shy wave of his hand as he moved forward to join Israel’s foreign minister. Since the Arrow Missile Shield fell into Turkanis’s domain, the success of today’s test would help cement his place in the line of party succession. Coupled with his friend Paul Hessler’s vast influence, in fact, his rise to prime minister within the decade was virtually assured.