10.49 hrs.
Luke pushed through the crowd. Those waiting patiently to approach the wall shouted at him in Hebrew, but he ignored them. Luke was a head taller than almost everyone else here, and a lot stronger. There was nothing anybody could do to stop him barging through.
Ten metres from the wall he halted. The strange sound of the horn had filled the air again, and for some reason it chilled him.
He scanned around. More men in traditional dress.
Stop, he told himself. Think.
He’d seen four people emerge from the van. Four bombers, he reckoned. But they wouldn’t be together. That would be a tactical fuck-up, because if one was caught, they’d all be caught. No, Luke’s targets would be spread out, along the wall. He looked forward and to the left, where he saw the entrance to the tunnels. There’d be fewer people there. Easier to spot one of his targets.
Luke started shoving his way through the crowds again. Thirty seconds later he was at the entrance to the tunnels. He burst into the room that led into them. There were about twenty-five men in here, talking to each other quietly. Those who paid Luke any attention frowned at his appearance. He scanned their faces, trying to recognise one of the people he’d seen at a distance, or to identify anything suspicious about any of them.
Nothing.
He hurried through the room and took the tunnel leading north.
His field of vision was full of people. Many stared at him as he headed along the tunnel, keeping the covered section of the Western Wall to his right, and he just stared back at them, occasionally wiping away the sweat that ran into his eyes.
Peculiar glances.
Suspicion.
Once or twice one of the celebrants said something to him in Hebrew. He hurried past, every sense heightened.
Luke was fifty metres along the tunnel when he saw him. There were fewer people here now. The tunnel had just opened up slightly and there was a single Hassid facing the wall. His head was bowed, his eyes closed and his lips were moving silently. Luke stopped five metres from the man and didn’t have to look at him for more than a couple of seconds to know something was wrong. The guy was shaking. A thin trickle of sweat was dripping down the side of his face — a face whose skin was several shades darker than that of any of the Hassidim he’d seen so far.
And in his right hand there was a mobile phone.
Luke instantly recalled the tourist sign he’d seen yesterday in the plaza: ‘on the sabbath and holy days, smoking, photography and cellphone use are strictly forbidden.’ Surely a devout man would know that?
He slid the ceramic knife from behind his belt; just as he did this, the guy opened his eyes and raised his left hand to look at his watch. But then he noticed Luke.
His eyes widened and a look of panic crossed his face.
He glanced down at the phone in his right hand.
But by then Luke was on him. He hurled himself towards his target, thrusting his left hand up to his neck and slicing the knife across the back of his right hand. There was an eruption of blood; the man cried out in pain and his fingers spread out of their own accord as the blade severed his tendons. The phone hung loosely from the wire that was threaded up his sleeve and the man grabbed at it with his left hand.
Too late. Luke pulled the device loose, then yanked the man’s sleeve several inches up his arm. A strip of plastic explosive was taped to the skin. No doubt about it. He had his man.
Luke looked along the corridor. He saw three figures approaching from the direction of the plaza, but they were deep in conversation and after a few seconds they stopped anyway to face the wall. Looking north, nothing.
The bomber was shaking violently now, and the blood was flowing more freely from his hand. Luke pocketed the mobile, yanked the guy’s left arm behind his back, just a fraction of an inch from breaking point, and forced him down the corridor, out of sight of the approaching men.
Now they were alongside the ancient cisterns Luke had recced the night before. He tightened the bomber’s arm another few millimetres. The man gasped and the shaking became uncontrollable.
‘Where are the others?’ said Luke.
The man just shook his head.
Luke didn’t fuck about. He put his spare hand over the bomber’s mouth and yanked the arm upwards. There was a sharp crack as the bones broke and splintered, followed by a muffled, deadened shout of pain.
‘ Where are the others? ’
It was the bomber’s eyes that told Luke everything he needed to know. They flickered, almost involuntarily, in the direction of the plaza. Luke sighed. It was time to dispense with the fucker.
He let go of the broken arm, which flopped awkwardly. He moved his left hand from the bomber’s mouth so that his palm was under his chin, which he pushed upwards so that his throat was fully exposed. It was the work of less than a second to slice the sharp blade of his knife across the bare flesh to create a gash half an inch deep and three inches wide. The wound vomited blood and the bomber tried to scream. No sound came from his throat, however. His larynx was severed and the life was draining from him. Luke knew how deep the cistern was. It took barely any strength to push the body sufficiently for it to fall into the cavity. The bomber’s body fell more heavily on to the ground than the mortar he’d thrown down last night — out of sight. They’d only find him when he started to stink.
Luke’s hands and T-shirt were spattered with the man’s blood. It didn’t matter now. He was already sprinting away.
Maya Bloom’s wrists were still stinging and sticky and her hands were clenched against the pain. None of this slowed her down. None of this was going to stop her doing what needed to be done.
Her head was down and her eyes forwards as she ran towards the gates leading into the plaza. The female queue snaked a good thirty metres back, but she hurried straight to the front, deaf to the shouts of complaint as she pushed through the body scanners. Moments later she was looking out over the crowded plaza.
She studied the crowd, paying particular attention to the area round the wall. Was there anything untoward there? Anything unusual?
Nothing. Just the faithful gathered on their holy day.
Her eyes caught movement. Three armed IDF soldiers pushing clumsily through the crowd towards the entrance to the tunnels. She turned to the right. A woman, her face lined and her body wrapped in a black robe, was about to walk past her, back towards the exit. Maya Bloom stood in her way.
‘What time is it?’ her hoarse voice demanded in Hebrew.
The woman looked taken aback. She glanced at Maya’s bloody hands, then back up at her face. ‘Five to eleven,’ she stammered nervously then continued to stare, clearly alarmed by the woman’s total lack of expression. The old lady sidestepped, put her head down and continued to walk. ‘Happy Hanukkah,’ she muttered as she passed.
Maya Bloom said nothing. Her mind was already elsewhere.
Luke stormed back down the tunnel. There was no way he could hide the blood on his clothes and skin, so he didn’t even try; and as he approached little groups of the faithful, who were either facing the wall or standing in learned discussion, he was aware of the horrified looks they gave him as they stepped aside to let him pass.
As he approached the opening to the plaza, he saw three Israeli soldiers fifteen metres ahead of him. One of them was giving instructions to the other two, and they immediately split up, one of them heading to his left at right angles to the main tunnel, two of them heading towards Luke.
He quickly backtracked, retracing his steps until he reached the entrance to a small anteroom opposite the wall. He ducked into the shadows, gripping the knife handle firmly, but with the blade hidden. Luke didn’t want to take these guys out, but if he had to, he would.
Footsteps approached. He found himself holding his breath. The soldiers were talking quietly to each other. Their voices grew more distinct as they got nearer, though Luke understood nothing of what they said, then they faded away as they walked past his hiding place. He gave it ten seconds, then slipped out again and ran towards the plaza.
The crowds were buzzing and he felt a moment of nausea as he emerged blinking into the light. It was a sea of people. Hundreds of them. How the hell was he going to find the remaining bombers among this lot?
Think, he told himself. Fucking think! What’s the bombers’ objective? Where will they be?
When the wall falls…
The wall was the target. Not the crowd, not the plaza. And to take out the wall you had to get close.
Luke rushed forward, pushing through the lines of people waiting to approach and pray. He knocked three men from their feet — they toppled back into the crowd and several people started shouting at him, but he hurried on. The wall was towering above him now, all twenty metres of it; and the horn rang through the air for a third time. Luke barely heard it. He barely heard anything. He was behind the front line of worshippers now, pushing himself along the length of the wall and examining the hands of each man he passed. Some were pressed, palm forwards, against the stones. Others had their hands clenched together in devout prayer. One or two were even kneeling down, with their arms stretched up to heaven.
One man, though, was doing none of these.
Luke was about fifteen metres from the tunnel entrance when he saw him. He was dressed just like the other bomber in a black jacket and black hat, and was standing quietly with his head bowed. His shoulders were shaking slightly but there was no sign of prayer. And no sign of his hands, which were secreted in front of him…
Luke took up position behind him. Slowly, so as not to alert anybody around him, he drew his knife and held it in his left hand. With lightning speed, he hooked his right hand round the man’s waist. His thin body went suddenly rigid, and there was a fumbling of his hands, but by that time Luke had a grip on the mobile phone he was carrying.
‘Take it easy, buddy,’ he said. His fingers had already located the lead which was plugged into the base of the phone and ran up the man’s sleeve. He pulled it from the socket and felt for the telltale consistency of soft plastic explosive. Sure enough, it was taped to the inside of the man’s arms.
Positive ID.
The bomber was shaking, just as his mate had done. So far nobody around them had clocked exactly what was happening. Luke didn’t know how long that would last. A commotion would alert the remaining two bombers, though, and that was the one thing he couldn’t risk. He hooked his knife hand around the man’s waist and, with a sharp, brutal tug he rammed it into the soft flesh of the bomber’s belly. The bomber exhaled like a punctured balloon and, as Luke slid the blade across his abdomen, he felt the guy go heavy. He removed the phone from his grip and pulled the knife from his body just as the man sank to his knees, head against the stone. For the moment he looked like he was praying.
Luke left him there, disappeared into the crowd and continued along the wall.
10.58 hrs.
All Alistair Stratton’s attention was on the laptop by his side. He could see his damaged face reflected in it, but his own injuries barely registered in his mind as he stared in the darkness of his room at the flickering image of the Western Wall.
There was a knock on his office door and his PA stepped inside. ‘ Get out,’ Stratton whispered without looking up. The kid was sensible enough to disappear.
Stratton’s hands were trembling and a bead of sweat dripped down the side of his dirty face. His lips moved silently.
Something caught his eye. Movement at the wall. Not the regular ebb and flow of the visitors, but something else. A number of Hassidim were drawing away from a certain point on the wall, like ripples of water from a stone.
Stratton’s muttering stopped. He squinted at the screen. The resolution was poor but he thought he could just make out what they were retreating from: a figure, kneeling at the stones.
Only now he wasn’t kneeling. He had tumbled to one side and was lying limp and still.
The Hassidim continued to step back and Stratton thrust his face at the screen.
‘Now,’ he whispered, as if he could somehow be heard in that square so far away. And then he shouted, his voice hoarse. Desperate.
‘ DO IT NOW! ’
Luke could sense commotion behind him. A shout. The dead bomber kneeling at the wall must have been discovered. How long till the remaining two realised what was happening? Minutes?
Seconds?
Still he scanned the crowds, aware that the mood of celebration was changing to one of panic. He put that from his mind. He had to concentrate… To focus…
The third bomber’s mistake was to turn around. It was obvious he’d been alerted to the disruption further along the wall. Luke was just two metres from him when the man looked back to see what was happening. It was obvious, too, that he realised Luke was on his case. Alarm creased his face and as Luke plunged the two metres to get him, he raised his right hand in defence, revealing the mobile phone he was holding. Luke clocked the lead trailing up his sleeve. He saw the man fumbling with the device with his left hand.
It was the last thing the bomber ever did.
Luke couldn’t be covert. There wasn’t time. He raised his knife, its white blade still bloody from its previous work, and slashed it across the bomber’s right wrist. It sliced the wire just as effectively as the flesh and for a split second the bomber looked in horror as the blood seeped from the wound. A split second, though, was all he had. Luke thumped him against the wall, jarred his chin violently upwards and whipped the blade across his throat.
He didn’t wait to watch the bomber slide down the wall into a heap on the ground, nor even to gather up the phone. He’d already turned by then, to see the crowd backing away from him in horror. He also registered another disturbance about ten metres away. A quick glance told him that at least two Israeli soldiers were pushing through the crowd in his direction. One of them barked an instruction, but Luke was already on the move. Now that his bloodied knife was in full view he didn’t have to barge through the bodies — they retreated aghast from him.
In his mind he had a picture: the image he’d seen from the rooftop of the four bombers emerging from the white van. Three men, one woman. He could see the barrier separating the male and female sections of the wall five metres ahead. He hurried towards it and, seconds later, vaulted over.
He stopped to recce. The female section was just as crowded as the male, and though the panic hadn’t fully reached here, its ripples were just beginning. Facing the wall itself, and touching its stones, was a crowd of little girls. They seemed oblivious to the disturbance but their teacher, a tall, thin woman with dark, curly hair, was looking around in alarm. Her eyes widened as she saw Luke and the spatter of blood on his face, and she opened her mouth as if to scream. No sound came, but she gathered a few of the girls towards her, hugging them helplessly.
Luke paid no attention to her. The movement of the girls had caused a space to open out in front, occupied by just five terrified kids. He could see six or seven metres along the wall and there, in the middle of the crowd of children, one hand pressed against the stones of the wall and with her head turned in alarm towards Luke, was a pregnant woman dressed in a headscarf and a black robe.
Shouting. Behind him. The soldiers had reached the segregation wall between the male and female sections. They were screaming at him, first in Hebrew, then in English: ‘ Drop the knife! Drop it or we fire! ’
But Luke had one more job to do.
And all of a sudden he had a much bigger problem on his hands than the Israeli soldiers.
He was just launching his way towards the pregnant woman when he saw Maya Bloom coming towards her from the other side. She was ripping her way through the crowds, pushing the worshippers aside, her head slightly lowered but her eyes burning. She was five metres away now.
Suddenly the kids between Luke and the pregnant woman started screaming. He pushed them to one side, not caring if he scared or hurt them, as he lunged along the wall towards the pregnant woman. Her eyes were wide, her face horrified by the sight of Luke bearing down on her.
Bloom was still a couple of metres away when he hurled himself at the pregnant woman with the full force of his body. They collided with a vicious thump. The pregnant woman fell to the ground beneath him; three little girls were knocked over too, and they were screaming now at the tops of their voices as they saw Luke with his dripping knife at the ready, held above the pregnant woman’s throat, ready to strike.
But he didn’t.
The woman, who was whimpering and shaking, had raised her arms up above her head and Luke immediately saw that something was wrong. Her headscarf had slipped and her hair was dyed white blonde. There was nothing in her hands. No detonator.
His blood ran cold.
Luke grabbed the front of the woman’s robe. When he finally brought his knife down, it was not to cut into her body, but into the material of her clothes. He sliced open her robe with a single swipe, then ripped it apart with both hands. He saw her heavy breasts, encased in a flesh-coloured maternity bra. He saw the naked skin of her swollen belly. But he saw no explosives.
She was the wrong person.
The screaming was deafening now. It included not only the girls and their teacher, but also the pregnant woman, lying uncovered and petrified on the floor.
Luke looked up.
The first person he saw was Maya Bloom. She was standing above him, and from inside her jacket she removed the shard of glass — as sharp as the knife Luke was carrying and just as red from the blood that was oozing from her wrists. He prepared to push himself back up to his feet, but in that instant the soldiers were there. Two of them had their rifles pointing directly at him. The third — bigger than the others — bent down quickly, pulled Luke up to his feet and slammed him hard against the wall.
The knife slipped from his hands.
His head cracked against the stone.
Like a photographic snapshot he saw the crowds teeming with panic; he saw the barrels of the soldiers’ rifles; and he saw Maya Bloom, who was standing just two metres from his location, turn quickly away. In the same instant, a helicopter appeared above the Western Wall plaza: a Black Hawk, dark olive green, no doors fitted and no markings; a side gunner was manning a Minigun and panning across the crowd, and a fast-rope arm protruded a metre from the chopper. It had all the features of an SF aircraft. Half the crowd hit the ground and all of them, or it so it seemed, were now screaming.
‘There’s a suicide bomber,’ Luke roared at the three soldiers, but he could barely be heard above the noise of the chopper and the screaming. ‘A pregnant woman! THERE’S A FUCKING
SUICIDE BOMBER! CLEAR THE AREA! ’
The troops remained in position, their clothes flapping in the wind from the downdraught of the heli — which was no more than fifteen metres above the crowd — staring dumbly at him. Luke shook his head. This was it. The screaming was growing louder, and across the roofs of Jerusalem a church bell sounded.
Eleven o’clock. Eleven o’fucking clock… He’d failed. He wouldn’t even survive to see the consequences.
From his pocket came a ringing sound as someone, somewhere, tried to remote-detonate one of the bombers he’d neutralised; five seconds later the second phone he had confiscated joined in.
And it was from this position, unable to move, unable to do anything more, that he witnessed it all happening.
Maya Bloom scanned the wall, blocking out the sound of screaming, ignoring the air currents of the chopper and the chaos and alarm it was causing; ignoring the shouts of the idiot British soldier. It didn’t take more than a couple of seconds to locate her. She was approximately six metres further towards the south end of the wall, also dressed in a black robe, with a headscarf and a shawl, her face slightly fattened by pregnancy; and she was the only woman in the vicinity, with the exception of Maya herself, who was not crazed with panic.
Far from it. She appeared calm and resolute.
Not as resolute, however, as Maya Bloom.
She knocked two children out of the way and now there was open ground between her and this second pregnant woman. It took less than a second to cross it. And in that brief window of time, a scene flashed before her eyes. She was a child, standing on the streets of Tel Aviv. Her brother stood beside her and together they looked upon a sight of indescribable carnage. Their mother was there, lying on the ground. The clothes had been burned from her torso; the skin was charred, filling the air with the stink of smoking flesh; both arms had been ripped from her body. The young Maya was screaming and she continued to scream even when Amit put his arms around her and pressed her face against his chest so that she would not have to look upon the aftermath of the Palestinian bomb that had just torn their parents — and their lives — apart.
The pregnant woman had a mobile phone in one hand and as she saw Maya Bloom coming towards her she was gripping it firmly. The Israeli threw herself at the woman. As they tumbled to the ground, she thumped the woman’s right wrist against the stones of the Western Wall. Her grip loosened and Maya Bloom tugged the phone from her. The device became disconnected from the lead to which it was attached.
A fraction of a second later it started to ring.
Maya Bloom threw the detonator to the ground and raised the shard of glass up above her head, gripping it hard even though its sharp edges cut into her palms. A second later she brought it slamming down into the exposed neck of the pregnant woman. The point of the glass sank into the flesh like a knife into dough. Once it was a couple of inches in, she rotated it clockwise through ninety degrees. Then back again. She repeated this twisting motion three times and with each turn the river of blood that gushed from the wound grew stronger. A harsh gargling sound escaped the victim’s lungs and her limbs started to shake. It took her no more than twenty seconds to die, but even when her body was still, Maya Bloom didn’t stop. She raised the shard again and brought it stabbing down on the woman’s face. Piercing, puncturing, as all the hate she felt spilled out.
By the time her frenzy had finished she was almost as bloody as the murdered woman. She was on all fours, an animal in the wild, and it was only the feel of cold steel against the back of her head that brought her back to the here and now. She looked over her shoulder to see the appalled face of a soldier who was pressing his rifle against her, and she became aware once more of the screaming of the children and the other women as they fled the horror.
And then the soldier started to shout as well. His voice was hoarse. He needed to scream to be heard over the noise of the chopper hovering above the heads of the crowd.
‘Lie on the ground with your hands on your head! Lie on the ground! Lie on the fucking ground. NOW! ’