The communiqué from Guantánamo Bay came ripping through cyberspace at 2100 and landed simultaneously on the screen of Lt. Commander Jimmy Ramshawe and that of his boss, the director of the National Security Agency, Rear Admiral George R. Morris.
Within moments, it was linked to the CIA’s Middle East desk in Langley, and to the Surveillance Division in Washington, D.C. All the intelligence agencies were alerted. Ramon Salman had spilled the beans. The attempted atrocities on January 15 were a Hamas plot, masterminded by General Rashood, whose address they now had.
The information confirmed what U.S. intelligence chiefs had long suspected: Al Qaeda had dissipated into a kind of rabble, no longer coordinated without the cash and discipline of their erstwhile leader Osama bin Laden. The real, burgeoning power of the jihadist movement was held by the ruthless military council of Hamas and their ruthless military C-in-C, General Ravi Rashood.
The duty officer working the first night watch on the second floor of the Ops-2B building saw his own screen flashing the letters GBI. That meant Guantánamo Bay Intelligence coming through. He knew the drill and hit the direct lines to both Admiral Morris and Lt. Commander Ramshawe.
The admiral was 170 miles away in the Norfolk yards, and Ramshawe’s home telephone was patched through to the Australian embassy. Behind those great wrought-iron gates on Massachusetts Avenue, the young Aussie assistant to the director was having dinner with his fiancée, Jane Peacock, daughter of the ambassador.
Jane handed him the phone, heard him snap I’ll be there, and groaned. Jimmy kissed her and said, “I’m sorry, really sorry. But this is important.”
“It always is,” she replied. “See you tomorrow?”
“No worries,” he called, as he headed for the stairway. “We’re going out. Pick you up at 1900.”
“When the hell’s that?” she muttered. “Nineteen hundred! Jesus, what does he think I am, a midshipman?”
On his way around the Beltway, heading east toward the Parkway, Jimmy called the Big Man and told him to stand by for a call in thirty minutes on a more secure phone from his office. When he arrived, he was immediately informed that Admiral Morris was on his way in by helicopter from Norfolk. The breakthrough in Guantánamo Bay was the last piece in a long-running jigsaw puzzle.
All of the Western world’s intelligence agencies knew of the astonishing defection of SAS Major Ray Kerman during a pitched battle in the Israeli city of Hebron in the summer of 2004. They knew he had found some reason to kill two of his colleagues, and then had vanished.
Over the next five or six years, there were a number of daredevil attacks by the warriors of Hamas, involving highly trained troops and even submarines. The West suspected there was only one man capable of leading such sophisticated adventures, and it plainly had to be the work of Major Kerman, who was, even by SAS standards, a brilliant operator.
However, no one ever knew for sure. The name General Rashood surfaced every now and then, and informers referred to him by name, but no one ever found out who Rashood was, or anything about his background.
Admiral Morgan and Jimmy Ramshawe were darned sure he was Major Kerman, and a couple of times the U.S. military came within an ace of catching him. But he always got away, and still no one was ever certain of his true identity.
They were now. The transcript of the interrogation in Guantánamo made it quite clear that the question had been put to the terrorist Salman in an unambiguous way. Major Kerman and General Rashood were one and the same. Better yet, there was now an address, Bab Touma Street in Damascus, a street that ends at the Bab Touma Gate, the eastern approach into the city through the ancient Roman wall.
The last line of the communiqué from Guantánamo stated that in answer to the question What number Bab Touma? Salman had replied, within a hundred meters of the Gate. And that was enough. That was actually plenty. The CIA would take it from there. The important thing was that General Rashood was right now living the last few weeks of his life. There would be no mistakes. The reign of the world’s most lethal terrorist was drawing to a close.
Jimmy Ramshawe called Admiral Morgan on an encrypted line. He told him Admiral Morris was on his way. Arnold did not hesitate. “I’ll be right over,” he said. “Gimme forty-five.”
“No speeding, for Christ’s sake. I don’t want to send someone to get you out of the slammer.”
“On this little mission, young Jimmy, anyone stops my car, the whole goddamned police department will be looking for new jobs tomorrow morning.”
The likelihood of any Washington cop pulling over the admiral’s White House limousine (for life) driven by a White House driver (until he was late) was remote. In all the many years Arnold Morgan had served his nation, only one cruiser had ever dared to take such an action.
The popular story goes that the driver, overtaken by Admiral Morgan’s car, which was making about 105 mph around the Beltway, switched on his lights and siren and came screaming up behind him, muttering, “I don’t care who’s in that car, I’m pulling the crazy sonofabitch over and he’s going to pay the biggest fine. I might even have him jailed for three months.”
When the two cars came to a halt, the policeman took one look at the figure glowering in the back, and the blood drained from his face. He just said swiftly but sheepishly, “Oh… er… good afternoon, sir… I just wondered if you needed an escort.”
The admiral just growled, “Sure, if you can keep up… NOW HIT IT, CHARLIE!” And the big limo hurled gravel as it squealed off the hard shoulder, leaving the cop in a cloud of dust, cursing his bad luck.
Forty-four minutes after Jimmy’s phone call, Admiral Morgan, who had once been the director of the NSA, came thundering into the Ops-2B Building, under escort by two young guards who were both on the verge of nervous breakdowns, so urgent did the Big Man’s mission appear to be.
Which office, sir?
“The goddamned director’s office, of course. Where d’you think I want to go, the mail room?”
One of the guards went white. The other tried to turn away, but he caught the sly wink the admiral gave him. At the hallowed door of the director of the National Security Agency, one of them stepped forward to tap on the door. But the admiral just grabbed the handle and opened it, strode across the room, and sat down hard in the director’s big executive chair, which had once been his.
He always sat there when he visited Admiral Morris. It seemed, in its way, correct for the most respected man who had ever worked in U.S. military intelligence to be sitting right there. Admiral Morris considered it an honor. In lighter moments, even the President of the United States often asked Admiral Morgan if it would be okay for him to sit behind his desk in the Oval Office. It had been a standing joke between them ever since Arnold Morgan had swept him to power two years previously.
The door opened again, and this time Lt. Commander Ramshawe came through. “Admiral Morris has landed, sir,” he said. “He’ll be here in five.”
“Does he know I’m here?”
“Arnie, there are twenty-eight thousand people currently employed at this agency. Every last one of ’em knows you’re here.”
“Would that include the guys who bring the coffee?”
“Yessir, it’s on its way, nuclear hot with buckshot the way you like it.”
“Outstanding,” replied the admiral. “Now tell me about the little Arab who caved in under interrogation.”
“Well, it seems the Guantánamo guys got their lead from Reza Aghani, the one who got shot at Logan and went to Bethesda. He knew only a little, and took his orders from Ramon Salman, the Commonwealth Avenue guy who we picked up in New York. That confirmed Hamas.
“And then they went right to work on Salman, broke him down without laying a finger on him, and he confessed he worked for our old friend General Rashood, aka Major Ray Kerman. Once he’d gone that far, he apparently told the guys the precise whereabouts of the general, some side street in Damascus, and I guess that’s what we’re here to discuss.”
“Was that who he called in Damascus, the night before the Logan bomb?”
“Damn right it was. And he admitted it.”
The door opened again, and Admiral Morris walked in followed by the waiter. Admiral Morgan stood up and clasped his hand. “Good to see you, George,” he said, and for a few fleeting moments the ex-nuclear submarine commander from Chevy Chase stood and smiled at the former carrier battle group commander. They were two old warriors, friends for thirty years, patriots, and both still capable of cold fury at any threat to the United States.
“Arnie,” said Admiral Morris, “am I right in thinking we’ve got this Rashood character cornered in Damascus?”
“Well, not quite. But at least we know where he lives, which is a darned sight more than we have ever known before.”
“We don’t want him alive, do we?”
“Hell, no. This is one murdering sonofabitch. He’s blown up power stations, refineries, volcanoes, and god knows how many people. He’s smart, trained, and damned dangerous. Rashood is one of those people you kill, no questions asked. Nothing announced. Nothing admitted. Just get it done.”
“As I recall, Arnie, you’re kind of good at that sort of stuff.”
“Guess you could say I’ve had my moments. But not for a couple of weeks.” For the second time in a half hour, Admiral Morgan offered a conspiratorial wink, this time at Jimmy Ramshawe, who grinned and shook his head.
It was almost midnight now. Admiral Morris poured the coffee, firing a couple of buckshot sweeteners into his old friend’s cup. Jimmy delivered it to the big desk, and Arnold Morgan said crisply, “Okay, boys, whaddya think, do we shoot him, poison him, blow him up, or bomb the whole street?”
“Why not the whole city?” said Admiral Morris benignly. “Might as well start World War III while we’re at it.”
Arnold Morgan chuckled. “George, I’m more or less serious. It will probably not be that long before the Hamas leaders discover that someone has spilled the beans. Maybe a matter of three or four weeks. At which point, they’re going to move their General Rashood to a very different, much safer place. Maybe even to a different country, but certainly to a different city. Then we’ve lost him again. So we better get moving if we want to take him out.”
“I presume you rule out a full-frontal assault?”
“Christ, yes. We can’t do that, not with the new Middle East peace talks coming up.”
“Then you’re thinking straightforward assassin? CIA or even special forces?”
“Quite honestly, George, I’m not mad about either. First, we don’t really know how much protection Rashood has, how many bodyguards or even military security. And second, it’ll take us a while to find out. And even if we could get a team in place, or even a single sniper, we have no guarantee our man could get away; and if he were caught, there’d be hell to pay.”
“How about a bomb?” said Jimmy.
“Well, that’s a possibility. But we got so much trouble in the Middle East, it would probably turn out to be a bigger risk than the president would be prepared to take. Can you imagine the uproar if we either got caught, or somehow got the blame?”
“I could imagine it very easily,” interjected George Morris. “The liberal press would crucify us, behaving like gangsters, bullies, murderers, and Christ knows what else-reverting to the standards of our enemies and all that.”
“Don’t remind me, George,” replied Admiral Morgan. “But these things have to be considered. And in the end, we might have to get someone else to do it for us.”
“What? Go in and assassinate General Rashood? And then be prepared to take the rap for it if necessary?”
“There’s only one group who would fill those boots,” said Jimmy. “And that’s the Mossad.”
“My own thoughts precisely,” said Arnold Morgan. “Remember, Israel wants General Rashood dead worse than we do.”
“Remind me?” said Admiral Morris.
“Well, for a start, in the original battle in Hebron, he turned traitor against the Israeli forces, which counts as high treason and is punishable by execution. Then he masterminded those two huge bank robberies in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Christmas ’bout eight years ago… what was it? A hundred million minimum?
“Four months later, he led an assault force on the Nimrod Jail and released just about every one of Israel’s major political prisoners, killing almost the entire prison staff while he was at it. A couple of years ago, the Mossad thought they had him trapped in some restaurant in France. But Rashood turned the tables on the Mossad hitmen and killed them both. And the Israelis, as we know, never forgive.”
“Are they still looking for him?” asked George Morris.
“They never forgive, or give up,” replied Admiral Morgan. “Guess that’s why they’re still breathing as a nation. They’re still looking for him, all right, but no one ever told me they came even close to finding him. Rashood’s probably the most dangerous and clever opponent the West has had since bin Laden retired.”
“I don’t think we’d even need to ask the Mossad to help us,” said Jimmy. “Just tell ’em where he is. Assure them of the validity of our sources, and they’ll be grateful. We can probably leave the rest to them.”
“They might not acknowledge we’re asking for a favor,” said Arnold. “But they’ll sure as hell know why we’re telling them.”
“Do we need to involve the government and the president and everyone else?” asked Admiral Morris.
“Hell, no,” said Arnold. “This will be just a friendly chat between intelligence agencies. My view is the less said, the better. Until one day we get a call from an informer letting us know the archterrorist General Rashood has been killed by a bomb in Damascus.”
“How do you know it’ll be a bomb?”
“It just happens to be the Mossad’s preferred method of operating. Less risk of missing the target, and the ability to be far away when the timing device explodes.”
“How do we start?” asked Admiral Morris.
“That part’s easy,” replied Arnold. At which point he picked up the telephone on the big desk and said sharply, “Get me the Israeli embassy, would you… right away.”
Moments later the call went through, and Admiral Morgan ordered whoever was at the other end, “Put me through to the ambassador, would you?”
Sir, I would need to know the nature of your call before I am permitted to do that.
“I’m not at all used to explaining things,” replied Arnold, curtly. “Just tell Ambassador Gavron to return my call immediately. That’s Admiral Arnold Morgan. I’m in the director’s office at the National Security Agency, Fort Meade. And tell him to look sharp about it.”
Crash. Down phone. The young Israeli girl on the line at the embassy instantly realized that in her experience no one had ever passed on a message like that to Ambassador Gavron, and she knew the name Arnold Morgan. Precisely twenty-three seconds later, the phone rang in George Morris’s office.
And the other two heard Arnold say cheerfully, “Hello, David. Yes, I appreciate you tried to look sharp about it!” And they watched the great man chuckle at the minor explosion he had put under the switchboard at the Israeli embassy. At least, it was minor compared to the one he was planning for Bab Touma Street, Damascus.
“Urgent? Hell, no. I just decided it was too long since I’d seen you, and I’d made a highly classified decision to buy you dinner-tomorrow night?
“… What d’you mean, only if Kathy comes? I know she’s better-looking than I am… of course we’re going somewhere halfway decent. I’ll get a table at Matisse. And, no. That does not mean I must have an ulterior motive. Seven-thirty. See you then.”
Admiral Morgan had just reentered, in his customary rambunctious manner, the life of one of the Mossad’s most revered former commanders. Which, happily, always amused the life out of the battle-scarred Israeli general.
David Gavron was a true sabra, an Israeli of the blood, and a patriot from his bootstraps to the jagged scar that was slashed like forked lightning across the left side of his face. He was six feet tall, lean, upright, very obviously ex-military, with a fair, freckled complexion, deeply tanned, with piercing blue eyes.
His sandy-colored hair, receding, still seemed bleached from the Sinai Desert, where, thirty-nine years ago, as a young tank commander, he had fought a desperate battle for his own life and for that of his country.
The bitterness of the Yom Kippur War remained for years in the hearts of the Israeli army commanders; but, for some, there burned a flame of pure fire that would never die. David Gavron was one of those.
On that most terrible day, October 8, 1973, Captain Gavron was twenty-six. And he was caught up in the frenzied rush to join General Abraham “Bren” Adan’s tank division. He was alongside the general as they charged out into the desert to face the massed ranks of Egypt’s well-prepared troops sweeping across the canal.
The Egyptians had slammed into the Israeli defenses while the entire nation was at prayer. When the two armies finally came face-to-face in the Sinai, General Adan was still unprepared. He was stunned by the suddenness of the attack, and every advantage was with the invaders. The Egyptian troops, backed up by literally hundreds of tanks, dug in, calmly, to await the hopelessly outnumbered Israelis.
General Adan and his men attacked with stupendous courage, and for a half hour it looked as if the Egyptians might lose their nerve and retreat. But in the end, their superior numbers held sway, and after four hours the bloodstained, battered Israeli armored division was forced back.
Hundreds had died. David Gavron was wounded, shot as he tried to drag an injured man from his burning tank. Then he was blown twenty feet forward by an exploding shell that seared the entire left side of his face. At that point, Israel’s fate hung in the balance. They were temporarily saved only by the gallantry of their teenage infantrymen, who fought and died by the hundreds trying to hold the Egyptians back until reinforcements arrived.
For a while, the Sinai was the Somme with sun and sand. But finally, assisted by Captain Gavron, General Adan re-formed his front line and once more they rolled forward into the teeth of the Egyptian attack.
David Gavron, his arm bandaged, his face burned, fought only thirty yards from “Bren” Adan. To this day he is still haunted by the memory of that moment when “Bren” raised his right fist and bellowed the motto of his embattled army-Follow me! It was, he says, the sheer nobility of the man.
No one who was there would ever forget that roar of anger and leadership, as the guns of the Israeli tanks once more opened fire. No one heard it louder than David Gavron, as his tank rumbled forward, and there, to his starboard side, was General “Bren,” right fist still clenched, at the head of his battered division, pounding toward the heart of Egypt’s Second Army.
The Israelis opened fire. They threw everything they had at the Egyptians, whose commanders finally lost their nerve completely and gave in. Nine days later, General Adan, with the always-faithful Captain Gavron, drove on and crossed the Suez Canal, and proceeded to smash the hell out of Egypt’s Third Army, before leaving it isolated in the desert.
Decorated for gallantry beyond the call of duty, David Gavron was promoted to become one of the youngest colonels ever to serve in the Israeli Army. He was groomed for many years to take up his position as head of the Mossad.
For all of their lives, the legendary General Adan and the subsequent prime minister, General Arik Sharon, would regard David Gavron as perhaps their most trusted friend.
Arnold Morgan knew every line of the above. He did not expect the ambassador to regard Ravi Rashood as anything less than a reptile that must be beheaded at any cost. David regarded any enemy of Israel in that light, as indeed Admiral Morgan did enemies of the United States. They were two military leaders who, through no fault of their own, considered their nation’s problems to be theirs to rectify. They were born that way.
The plush Matisse restaurant tonight would not be an ideal place for any terrorist to look for mercy. Especially if he happened to be General Ravi Rashood. Admiral Morgan anticipated having the upper hand, since he alone could tell the Israeli ambassador the whereabouts of the Hamas military leader.
Geographically, the restaurant was perfectly positioned, just about midway between the Morgans’ home at the edge of Chevy Chase Village, and the Israeli embassy, which was situated three miles north of downtown D.C. off Connecticut Avenue. The other attraction of Matisse was that it was generally regarded as among the top five restaurants in the Washington area, a favorite haunt of presidents and senators.
With its superb design inspired by Henri Matisse’s work, its gleaming white tablecloths, and French Mediterranean cooking, the restaurant felt no obligation even to put prices on its menu. The introduction of crude commercial considerations would doubtless have caused the head chef to have a nervous breakdown.
Arnold Morgan lived only a mile away, and he was a regular. For this night, he chose a corner banquette in the cozy back dining room, with its cheerful limestone fireplace. It was automatically assumed that a member of the proprietor’s family, the lovely young Deanna, would serve the table personally.
Admiral Morgan arrived first with his wife, Kathy. His driver, Charlie, dropped them right outside the door on Wisconsin Avenue, and they stepped out into a biting January wind gusting out of the northwest. As soon as they were seated, the admiral ordered a bottle of supreme white burgundy, his favorite Meursault, Premier Crus Perrières 2004, made by the maestro Jean-Marc Roulot at his small domaine off the main road through to Puligny.
He was certain this would please General Gavron, who, despite hardly touching alcohol while he was involved in the Mossad, these days had mellowed and hugely enjoyed a glass of what Arnold described as snorto-de-luxe.
This was plainly a phrase more befitting the torpedo room of a nuclear submarine than the fabled small chateaux of the Côte d’Or in central France. But it did not disguise the admiral’s knowledge and enjoyment of great French wine, and tonight was an occasion to be savored.
If it were successful, the admiral’s selections ought to be paid for by a nationwide donation drive of pure gratitude by the American people.
In the absence of that, Arnold would probably toss the check at the Oval Office for a refund. As for charging one dollar for his time and skill, the admiral would have had the same stunned reaction as the Matisse head chef if anyone happened to mention money.
At 7:42 P.M., Ambassador Gavron’s driver dropped him off outside the door. He arrived at the admiral’s table dressed in a dark blue lightweight suit, with a white shirt and a blue silk Israeli Navy tie. He leaned over to kiss Kathy’s hand and then shook the hand of Arnold Morgan.
Just then the chilled Meursault arrived, and the waiter poured three glasses. David Gavron raised his and said quietly, “To the United States of America.”
“Thank you, David,” replied the admiral, who usually presumed he was the United States of America, particularly in the event of trouble.
“Before we begin, let me have them prepare a bottle of Bordeaux for our main course,” said Arnold.
“No argument from me,” chuckled the Israeli, flashing his wide smile, which Kathy, along with several other beautiful women, some of them divorced, considered so engaging. It made him one of the most attractive men in Washington. Especially if anyone knew his background: decorated warrior, the Mossad’s James Bond, and latterly a high-ranking diplomat on the world stage.
Arnold studied the wine list, which he normally referred to as the race card, and chose a third-growth bottle from Margaux, the 1996 Château Palmer, which sits on the left bank of the Gironde, just west of the junction with the mighty Dordogne River.
“I think we’ll be okay with that,” he said. “Sixteen years old from the slopes near the village of Margaux, where they once grew the favorite wine of Thomas Jefferson… and you know something? People still say that after a really hot summer, those wines still surpass all others grown in the High Médoc.”
“Arnie, how the hell do you know all this stuff?”
“David, you may, during the course of this evening, become astounded at some of the things I know.”
“Not for the first time, old friend,” said the ambassador. “And, I hope, not for the last, given your predilection to share the snorto-de-luxe… by the way, this white burgundy is probably the best I’ve ever had.”
“They keep a darned good cellar here,” replied Arnold. “Shall we just sit quietly and have a drink, or do you want to have a look at the menu?”
Kathy spoke first. “Let’s just have a drink,” she said. “Unless David’s in a rush.”
“Not me, my dear,” he said courteously. “I’m happy to sit here with my two favorite people and sip the finest wine on earth until midnight if necessary.”
“That’s good,” said Arnold, sipping luxuriously. “Because there’s a character who looms from our past who’s just become highly topical.”
“There is? And who might that be?” asked the ambassador.
“Do you remember General Ravi Rashood?”
“Remember him! Jesus Christ, I still wake up in the night thinking about him. What’s he done now?”
“Well, nothing we actually know about. But we have some interesting new information about him.”
“And I bet I know where you got it.”
“I bet you don’t.”
“Okay, how about Guantánamo Bay, where you’re grilling the Boston airport bombers?”
“Now, how the hell do you know that?” asked the admiral, plainly incredulous.
“During the course of this evening,” said the Israeli, deadpan, “you may become astounded at some of the things I know.”
Both men laughed. But Arnold Morgan looked serious when he said, “No one knows who we have and who we don’t have in Guantánamo. Except, apparently, the Mossad.”
“We don’t know much,” said Gavron. “We just heard from one of our lawyers that both the wounded man who had the bomb, and the big cheese you picked up in New York, have been removed from the U.S. civilian justice system. We actually guessed the rest. Guessed, specifically, that you would want both terrorists out of the way, under military security, where you could interrogate them in peace and hopefully get some answers.”
“And that brought you to Guantánamo?”
“Absolutely. But I’m not going to ask you to confirm that. Because it’s none of our business. But I’ll say one thing: we would be inordinately grateful if you could help us to nail that terrible bastard Rashood… sorry, Kathy.”
“David, you forget, I live in the ops room of a nuclear submarine. Even our clocks chime the bells of the watch-I haven’t known the correct time for years, and I’m really used to sailor’s language.”
David Gavron smiled. “Of course,” he said. “Anyway, back to that terrible bastard Rashood… we’d do anything to find him. But he’s always escaped us, in Israel, in Syria, in France, once even in London. He always seems to be one jump ahead.”
“So you’ll be pleased to know I may have a permanent address for him?” interjected the admiral.
“Pleased? My entire country would be thrilled. He’s done us a huge amount of damage, and he’s still out there. Somewhere.”
Arnold Morgan, sensing an advantage, decided to keep his guest on the hook for a while. “Okay, let’s have a look at the menus, shall we? David, I don’t want you to get overexcited on an empty stomach.”
They read through the short list, three appetizers, four entrees. “All fresh, nothing frozen, and no bullshit,” said Arnold, glancing up at the newly arrived Deanna and saying, “Crab cakes, and then rack of lamb, please… Kathy?”
“Sea scallops and grilled rockfish, please.”
David Gavron went for gravlax and then breast of duck with risotto, spinach, and port sauce. All three of them were accustomed to making swift, firm decisions.
“Arnie, do you really have an address for Rashood?”
“Of course I do, and since you plainly know our source, you’ll understand we have assessed it as highly reliable.”
“Will you tell me?”
“Got a pen?”
David Gavron produced a slim gold ballpoint and a wafer-thin leather notepad, and looked up expectantly.
“He’s in Syria,” said Arnold. “ Damascus, Old City, right inside the Roman wall near the eastern gate. Bab Touma Street. Less than a hundred yards from the Bab Touma Gate itself, left-hand side of the street coming in from the Barada River bridge.
“Sorry we don’t have a street number, our informant did not know, and if he had known he’d have told us. He said it’s a big eighteenth-century house right around the corner from the Elissar restaurant.”
“That’s fantastic, Arnie. Does he live there with his wife?”
“What wife?”
“Oh, a Palestinian girl he met right after he defected from the Israeli army. I heard they were married almost immediately. She’s supposed to be very beautiful. And she’s also very dangerous-apparently gunned down two French secret servicemen a couple of years back, in Beirut.”
“She had a good tutor,” said Admiral Morgan.
“None better,” said David Gavron. “Ex-SAS major, wasn’t he? His background’s still a mystery, and the Brits won’t tell even us who he really is.”
“Nor us,” said the Admiral. “I think the guy embarrassed the hell out of ’em. Ramshawe says he’s from a rich family, Iranians living in London. He went to Harrow School and then the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, ended up commanding their top special forces, and then jumped ship and joined the goddamned Palestinians.”
“Harrow’s one of their top private schools, right?” asked Kathy.
“Sure is. Churchill went there. Guess they taught him about patriotism.”
“Probably taught the former Major Kerman too,” said David. “But he couldn’t sort out who he was, not until he ended up back in the desert. Funny, isn’t it? Turning his back on everything like that, becoming an enemy of everything he’d ever known.”
“Sure as hell is,” responded the admiral. “Can’t hardly imagine waking up one morning as a decorated, serving British Army officer, and suddenly deciding to be a goddamned Arab terrorist! Jesus Christ. Must have been some turning point.”
“Arnie, are you planning to get after him?” asked the ambassador.
“Not right now. Not with the Middle East peace talks coming up. We couldn’t afford to get caught, or even suspected.”
“Happily, my former organization suffers from no such constraints. You may leave it to us.”
“I had hoped so, David.”
“Yes, I guessed as much. There is, after all, no such thing as a free dinner. Especially one as good as this.”
Inside the briefing room, the atmosphere was subdued. The Israeli general, a man in his sixties, standing in front of the big computer screen on the wall, spoke quietly and firmly, pointing with his baton at the illuminated map of Bab Touma Street, Damascus.
“Right here,” he said, “we have rented an apartment on the third floor. It’s pretty basic, but it has a bathroom, cold water only, and electricity. Our field agents have moved in a couple of mattresses and some blankets. But you’re going to be uncomfortable. There’s no workable kitchen and nothing to cook on. We have installed an electric kettle and a coffeepot. There’s not much else.”
Before him, sitting at the conference table, were four ex-military secret service officers. All of them, for the moment, wore olive-green uniforms and had duffel bags slung on the floor next to them, alongside their M-16 machine guns. Two of these men wore the coveted wings signifying membership in Israel’s elite parachute division. They both wore officers’ bars on their shoulders. All four of them had the distinguishing three small Hebrew letters stitched in yellow above the breast pocket.
“You will see from the map, gentlemen, that this apartment has a commanding view of the big house directly opposite, and we were damn lucky to get it. An old Arab man used to live there, and we paid him generously to get out. While you are in residence, you will ignore his mail, answer the door to no one, and use cell phones only under the most dire circumstances.
“You will eat a proper meal only once a day, and that will be after dark. For that you will leave by the back door, and never, under any circumstances, use the same restaurant twice. Fortunately, Damascus stays open very late.”
One of the paratroopers asked about the getaway, and the general answered sharply. “Right here,” he said, pointing with his baton, “one street back, is a locked garage, right before house number 46. You will of course recce this, and inside that garage you will find a very old, battered-looking wreck of an automobile, plainly on its last legs.
“However, it has been expertly converted, four new tires, new transmission, brand-new Mercedes engine, everything directly out of the show-room. When you leave, you will be in Arab dress and you will make your escape in the old car, which will run like a Ferrari and attract the attention of no one. There will be two heavy machine guns in the back in the event of an emergency.
“You will drive out of the east gate and turn hard right down to the circle, and then it’s marked, straight down the highway to the airport that lies to the southwest of the city.
“Two of our field agents will meet you. One will get rid of the car; the other will escort you to a private Learjet, and you will take off immediately for Israel. The agent already has your passports. You will not need them for entry into Syria. There will be no record that you were ever in the country.”
The general, whose name was never mentioned, stood before them in full uniform, his steel-gray hair cropped tight, his posture still rigidly upright. His face was a picture of military sternness as he outlined the operation designed to execute Ravi and Shakira Rashood, the sworn and proven enemies of Israel.
There have always been officers in the Israeli Army whose determination borders on fanaticism. They are men who will stop at nothing to keep their nation safe, and this particular general was most certainly one of them.
As a twenty-year-old infantry lieutenant, he had fought shoulder to shoulder against the invading Egyptians with General Avraham Yoffe, when they smashed their way through the Mitla Pass in the Sinai during the Six-Day War in 1967. They were six bloodstained days of pure heroism by the Israelis. In less than a week, they destroyed four armies and 370 fighter-bombers belonging to four attacking nations.
The general had not been brought up to drop his guard against enemies of the state.
And here in the plain white-walled briefing room, in the heart of Israel’s Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, he was once more planning a deadly strike against a couple of Palestinian terrorists who had posed more trouble for his nation than the Egyptian Second Army had done thirty-nine years previously.
It was a typical Mossad briefing. Two guards on the door, no cell phones permitted. The four men who were going in tonight had made their wills and had their last contacts with home. They would not carry any written notes with them when finally they were released, and they would leave from the rooftop, by helicopter, to the Israeli Army’s Northern Command HQ base for a short stopover. The sixty-mile onward flight to Damascus would take them over the Golan Heights, along the north-running 1974 Ceasefire Line, and then east over the desert into the southern area of the city.
The leader, sitting pensively, listening to the general, was Colonel Ben Joel, fortyish combat veteran, unshaven, former Special Forces, who had been involved in the revenge attack on Yasser Arafat’s house in Gaza. Ben was an infantryman, a ground-to-air communications officer, and an explosives expert, more accustomed to fighting with a club and tear gas against rioting crowds of Arab youths.
His number two was Major Itzaak Sherman, son of a true Israeli patriot, the legendary, highly decorated Sergeant Mo Sherman, who had gone into Entebbe Airport alongside Jonathan Netanyahu to rescue the hostages in 1976. Sergeant Sherman was a choral conductor in Tel Aviv, and no one in the aircraft ever forgot him, standing up as the commandos screamed in from the east, low over the pitch-black northern waters of Lake Victoria. Sergeant Sherman conducted these armed daredevils as they sang at the top of their lungs that most haunting patriotic song of Israel, “Onward-we must keep going onward!”-shutting out the fear of the great unknown that faced them when they landed.
As they dropped below a hundred feet, howling toward the runway, Mo Sherman hooked up the sound system to the bittersweet anthem written by Paul Ben-Haim and each man grappled with his onrushing task to the glorious strains of “Fanfare to Israel.”
Those who were there swear to God that that music made them all feel fifteen feet tall, revved them up for the murderous firefight to come in the airport, the fight in which Yanni Netanyahu was mortally wounded. Mo Sherman, brokenhearted, helped carry the young leader’s body into the aircraft for the homeward journey.
And here was Mo’s son, Major Itzaak, preparing to go into another hostile foreign country and carry out his unquestioning duty on behalf of his government. His father’s last words to him were simple: “Go bravely, son, and make sure you do not let anyone down.”
The third man was another ex-member of the Israeli Special Forces, a newly promoted Mossad agent, Lt. Colonel John Rabin, aged forty-one. His own father had died in the Sinai on the opening morning of the Yom Kippur War, along with hundreds of young soldiers facing the Egyptian tanks. John never knew him, but followed in his footsteps as a career combat soldier. Like Ben Joel, he was an explosives expert, but a specialist, said to be the best in the Israeli Defense Force.
The fourth member of the team was one of those Mossad hard men whose background was not publicized. He was a five-foot, ten-inch iron man from a small town south of Hebron. He was massively strong, skilled in close combat, and a maestro with a knife, a man who’d kill you as soon as look at you. His name was Abraham, and he was on the team as a personal bodyguard to the other three.
His wide smile and cheerful manner did not provide any clue to his true disposition. But the others liked him immensely and were delighted, to a man, that Abraham would be with them.
The wide single rotor flailed the cold night air as the Texas-built Sea Panther lifted slowly off the runway. It rose vertically for fifty feet, then tilted north toward the Sea of Galilee and rocketed away into the night, climbing to five thousand feet. When it reached the Ceasefire Line, it would drop down drastically, in order to come in under any Syrian radar that might be active. Unlikely, but remotely possible.
To the rear of the pilot sat the four Mossad special operators: Colonel Ben Joel, Major Itzaak Sherman, Colonel John Rabin, and Abraham the bodyguard. All of them were in Arab dress for the insert. And each one of them carried his personal light machine gun, strapped beneath his white robe.
They carried only food and water in their traveling bags, and no identity. All of their operational equipment was already installed in the apartment on Bab Touma-the high explosive, the detonators, the timing devices, the electronic wiring, the tool bag, a laptop computer, a long-lens camera, the binoculars, two cell phones, the front and back door keys, four mugs, one spoon, a bag of Turkish coffee, and a bag of sugar, plus two thousand Syrian lira.
They flew at almost two hundred miles an hour, in silence, for a half hour before the pilot called back, “We’ve cleared the Heights and we’re descending to around fifty feet… get ready… ten minutes.”
The Sea Panther came clattering over the cold, silent desert at the farthest possible point from Syrian military radar. None of the operators detected them; no one had the slightest idea they were there. The pilot used night goggles to spot the road running up from the south, and then called:
“This is it, guys, we’re landing.”
The army helicopter touched down just before 0100. The loadmaster jumped out and held open the door, with his other arm pointing toward the road. All four of the Mossad hitmen followed him out and, without a word, walked away from the aircraft, which was up and flying home thirty-six seconds after it had landed.
After a hundred yards, they reached the long straight road that led to Damascus, and they stood on its edge in the dark. In the distance they could see headlights coming toward them, very fast. When the vehicle reached them, it skidded to a halt. It was a big old clapped-out American Ford, its side door dented, one window cracked, in desperate need of paint, or even a clean. On the plus side, it was right on time.
Abraham automatically climbed into the passenger seat; the other three piled into the back. The driver, an Israeli field officer known to Ben Joel, just said, “Hi, Ben. Everyone aboard? Okay, let’s go.”
They were around thirty miles shy of the city, and the car was as quiet and fast as a brand-new Mercedes Benz. According to the driver, they had taken a new Mercedes, stripped off the body, and somehow fitted an aged, rusting thirty-year-old substitute over the chassis.
It now looked as if it belonged in an Arab side street, which was, after all, where it was now headed, and where it would spend the rest of its life, a totally forgettable, undercover adjunct to the most dangerous secret service on earth.
“Did the pilot contact you, Jerry?” asked Ben Joel.
“No need. I had your ETA and GPS numbers. I just waited a mile up the road until I heard the helo. Then I hit the gas pedal and here you all are.”
“Pretty neat,” said Colonel Joel. “Are we likely to be stopped or checked at the edge of the city?”
“Hell, no. This isn’t Baghdad. And even if the police were on the lookout for someone, they’d never check this thing. We look like a group of local Bedouin bringing vegetables to the market. No problem.”
The car sped on, straight up Route 5, over the railroad and down the freeway into the city. They hardly saw another car until they reached the streetlights of Damascus. Jerry took a swing to the western side and came in along Kalid Ibn al-Walid Avenue. They swung right just before the Hejaz Railroad Station and skirted around the north side of the Old City wall.
They drove through the Bab Touma Gate and headed down the street of the same name. Jerry took the second right, drove for fifty yards, and parked in the dark, right next to a grim-looking back door to somewhere. He ordered them all out, produced a key, and opened it.
“There’s no light in here,” he whispered. “Follow me up to the third floor.” And in single file they crept up the narrow staircase. Finally, on a narrow top-floor landing, he groped for another door, opened it with a key, and switched on a light.
“There’s one other apartment on this level,” he said. “We had to buy the fucker, make sure no one was in residence.” Abraham and Itzaak both laughed.
Jerry waited around for less than five minutes, just pointing out the bathroom and the coffeepot, before he showed them the view. And now he turned out the light and walked to the window. “That’s your target right there,” he said, pointing directly across Bab Touma Street. “That big place with the steps up to the front door. There’s two guards right inside it. Be careful at all times.”
And with that, Jerry was gone, leaving Ben Joel and his men staring out at the two-hundred-year-old townhouse across the street, where Ravi and Shakira Rashood, protected by at least two armed guards and probably more, were doubtless sleeping the untroubled sleep of the innocent.
Colonel Joel called his team to order. “It’s almost 0220. We’ll have something to eat, get some coffee, and begin the operation at 0300,” he said. “Four-hour shifts. Abraham, Itzaak, you crash out on those two mattresses in the bedroom. John and I will open the surveillance chart, and maybe Abe will fire that computer up while I get the range on these binoculars.
“We’ll watch the house in twenty-minute takes, and John can start preparing the weapon. We have no schedule for H-hour-that’s H for Hit. It’s entirely up to us. We just need to call home base when we’re going in.
“Problems?”
The other three shook their heads. And Colonel Joel put out the light, while he drew back the thick black curtain that covered the window. He raised the binoculars and focused on the house across the street.
“Okay,” he murmured, “there are curtains on the windows in the upper floors, but none on the street level. The main reception room is situated to the left of the front door looking in. There’s a glass-patterned window above the front door. I can see the light from the passage spilling in. I guess the guards are stationed right there where it’s light.”
Roger that, sir. Abraham was instantly on the case, typing out every word uttered by his team leader.
Ben Joel drew the curtains over the window. And turned on the light. He reached for his sandwiches and chocolate and said quietly, “Since we are under orders to make the hit in the hours of darkness, it’s going to be in that front room left of the door. It’s the only one we can see into after dark. That’s if we use a controlled explosion. Otherwise we’ll have to knock down the entire house, and that would cause havoc.”
“Whatever it takes,” said Itzaak. “The mission is to kill Rashood, and we’ve got enough high explosive in here to knock down the Wailing Wall. We’ll just do what we must.”
“Correct,” said Colonel Joel. “Let me have some of that coffee, will you?”
“Looks like we’ll have to get rid of the guards,” observed Abraham.
“No way we’ll get in there without,” replied Ben. “Unless there’s some time in the day when the house is left unprotected.”
“Can’t imagine that,” said John Rabin.
At 0300, they started work. Colonel Rabin was locked in the tiny kitchen with his explosive and detonators. Ben Joel stood in the dark with his glasses trained on the house across the street. Three times every hour, they changed places, while Ben entered the surveillance chart on the computer, mostly reporting no movement.
A little after 0600, there was a change. The front door of the Rashood residence opened and two youngish men dressed in jeans and loose white shirts emerged into the dawn. Colonel Joel grabbed the camera and fired off six pictures of them.
They turned left out of the house and walked together down Bab Touma toward the Via Recta. Ben looked carefully for the arrival of two more guards, but none showed up. But then he saw movement in the main downstairs room of the house: two other men, both carrying machine guns, were standing there staring out of the window. The powerful Mossad binoculars picked them up starkly. Neither one of them was Ravi Rashood.
When the watch changed and Colonel Rabin emerged from the kitchen to take over at the window, Ben Joel told him, “The guard duty changed at 0600. Two of them left, but the other two, who took over, did not come in through the front door. That means they were already in there. It’s a big house. There may be a guard room where they can sleep.”
“Unless there’s a back door they use?”
“We’ll recce that today, and maybe watch that door for a few hours-check when it’s used.”
“Okay. Do we need more help? Two watches will stretch us a bit.”
Colonel Joel was pensive. “Quicker we get this done, the quicker we can get the hell out. Let’s just go for it-I’ll get around the back end of the house this morning around 1100. Is the weapon ready?”
“Affirmative. I need about thirty minutes to check the timer. Any time after that, the bomb can be put in place.”
“Size?”
“I’ve made it in two halves. If we just want to blow that front room to eternity, we use just one. If we don’t mind knocking the fucking house down, we use the lot.”
Ben Joel chuckled. “Okay, John. It’s getting light; stay back behind that curtain. I’ve cut two holes in it for the binos. Don’t take your eyes off that place even for twenty seconds. I’ll get us some coffee.”
The watch changed at 0700. Abraham and Itzaak came on duty. Abraham left immediately to check out the garage where the getaway car was hidden. Then he skulked around the side streets and finally walked slowly into the street right behind Ravi Rashood’s house, adopting the gait of an old man.
There was a small backyard to the property, and that yard was surrounded by a twelve-foot-high wall. A hefty wooden gate, painted green, was shut tight, and it was secured by a chain and a large padlock.
“Jesus,” breathed Abraham. “You want to get in there, you’d have to blow that gate down with dynamite.”
Right now the street was absolutely deserted. And Abraham took a risk. He walked along the wall and stopped at the gate, pretending to take a rest. But he had a good look at the padlock, and found what he was searching for, rust. And there it was, right there on that thick, curved steel bar. No one had opened that door for a very long time. Abraham kept going, slowly, his white robe billowing in the light February breeze. The street was still deserted.
He walked past the back of the next house and saw a white truck parked against the high wall. For a split second he debated climbing onto its roof and taking a look into the backyard, but he dismissed that as too risky.
He continued for another hundred yards, and to his mild surprise saw a builder’s ladder lying on the ground, alongside a house on the left-hand side of the street. There was also a group of paint cans and a small cement mixer. This was work in progress.
Abraham considered borrowing the ladder and using that to take a good look into the Hamas colonel’s backyard, but thought better of it. I could give it a go after dark, he decided. Wouldn’t take more than five minutes.
Once more he took a devious route, checked out local cafés and a couple of restaurants, and then made his way back to the rear door of the apartment building, used a key to let himself in, and climbed the stairs.
Ben Joel, still unshaven and still awake, was talking to Itzaak at the window. Abraham told him the car was in place, keys under the front seat, and that the back entrance to Mr. and Mrs. Rashood’s home was bolted and barred, unused, and obviously secured.
He also explained he had not looked over the wall, but had found a way to do so, by borrowing a ladder and maybe using it after dark.
“I’m not too certain about that,” said the colonel. “What if you got caught?”
“Then I suppose I’d have to kill someone,” said Abraham, shrugging his shoulders.
“I don’t think so,” said Ben. “The last thing we need is a murder hunt conducted by the police in a back street behind Rashood’s house.”
“Hadn’t thought about that,” replied the Mossad hitman, gloomily. But then he brightened and said, “Ben, that back gate is never used. I know that. Right here we got a one-door house.”
“That’s what I’m working on. Thanks, Abe. The next hour should tell us something.”
And at that precise moment the front door of the big house on Bab Touma opened, and into the now-bright morning light stepped General Ravi Rashood, followed by his wife, Shakira, and a bodyguard holding an AK-47 Kalashnikov. Ben Joel stared at their photographic evidence, which was very little: two quite good pictures shot by the Americans of Ravi on a high cliff in the Canary Islands, and a better-quality print of Major Ray Kerman, supplied, reluctantly, by Great Britain’s SAS.
The images matched, no doubt. The man leaving the house on Bab Touma was General Ravi Rashood, commander in chief of Hamas. The woman accompanying him was plainly his wife, and the field agent’s description of her was accurate. She was indeed tall, dark-haired, and spectacularly beautiful.
It was 0900 and a cool fifty-eight degrees. The general was dressed in Western style, light blue jeans, a white shirt, and a brown suede jacket. Shakira also wore light blue jeans with high black boots, a blue shirt, and a leather jacket. Ben Joel grabbed the camera, pressed the long-range button, and snapped four close-ups of the Hamas terrorist and his wife.
The men from the Mossad watched as the guard stepped back and took up his position on a white bench set against the wall on the right-hand side of the front door. General Rashood and his wife walked down the steps alone and turned left toward Via Recta. They were in fact making their way over toward the Madhat Pasha Souq and a little restaurant where they often had breakfast.
Ben Joel did not care one way or another where they were going. He cared only what time they left, what time they returned, and the movement of the guards at the big house. With Ravi and Shakira still within sight, there was another change. A second guard came outside and sat on the opposite side of the door. Ben photographed both men, talking and smoking, their Kalashnikovs resting against the wall.
These were the 0600 men, who had begun their watch in that front room, moved out into the inside passage, and then taken up position outside at 0900. At noon, Ravi and his wife returned, walking slowly, reading newspapers.
They reentered the house, and almost immediately there was a guard change. Two young men arrived from the north end of the street. The men on the door handed over their AKs and left. The new arrivals sat outside. By Ben Joel’s calculations, there were no other guards inside the house.
Aside from several occasions when the guards went inside, always one at a time, the situation remained unchanged until 1800. At this time, four new guards came along the street together, the other two left, and the night watch took up position.
Colonel Ben Joel spent the afternoon sleeping, but now he had it clear in his mind. The four new arrivals guarded the house through the night, taking it in turns to eat and sleep. The photographs on the computer matched. The two men he had seen leave at 0600 that morning were the same two who now slipped inside the front door. The others stayed outside in the last of the light and the warmish air.
Much depended on General Rashood’s plan for the evening. If he went out for dinner, the two guards must be removed quietly before he returned, killed and hidden. The bomb must then be planted in that front room. If Ravi did not go out, they would have, somehow, to remove the guards, and then, in the immortal words of Colonel John Rabin, knock down the fucking house. No survivors.
As it happened, General Rashood dined out every evening, either alone with Shakira, or with friends.
At 1945, a taxi pulled up outside the house. There were no guards at the door, but almost instantly one of them came out and ran down the steps to speak to the driver. Five minutes later, Ravi and Shakira walked outside and climbed into the cab.
Colonel Joel, Colonel Rabin, and Abraham watched it pull away.
“John, any reason why we should not go in tonight?” asked Ben.
“Not at all. The weapon is absolutely ready. You just need to decide whether we design it to obliterate that one room, or demolish the building.”
“Okay. Let’s say we expect the general to return around 2300, or even later. According to our estimations, there will be a guard change at midnight. But we cannot wait until then. We need to take out and remove these two Hamas thugs guarding the door around 2230, and hope to Christ no one disturbs us.”
“And if anyone does?”
“Eliminate.”
“Guns?”
“Knives.”
“Messy?”
“But quiet. And that’s better.”
“That way, we’re counting on the general arriving back between 2300 and midnight?”
“Not necessarily.”
“But what if the second shift of night guards turns up and their colleagues are not there, deserted, gone missing?”
“What can they do but remain on station, wait for the boss, and then tell him two men have vanished? We don’t care. The bomb will be in place.”
“Okay, what if the general then decides to search through the house, and then goes straight to bed?-and with a wife like that, who could blame him?”
Colonel Joel laughed, knowingly. “I was coming to that,” he said. “We take out the two guards at 2230, as planned, insert the big bomb. And blow the bastard up as soon as Ravi enters the house and shuts the door. That way we don’t care which room he is in.”
“No, I guess not. But it does mean we won’t have much use for the timing device.”
“Not at all, John. We wait for that door to close behind the general. We set the timer for ten minutes. And then we leave. We just bolt down the stairs, straight to the garage, and we’re gone, out of here. We’ll be about four miles away when the blast occurs. All we need to know is that Ravi’s in there.”
“Can’t fault that, boss,” said Colonel Rabin agreeably. “Shall we go out for an hour?”
“Good idea. We haven’t eaten all day. Tell Abe and Itzaak we’ll be gone for a while and we’ll bring food back.”
Two hours later, the Mossad’s hit team was in order. Everything was packed away in a couple of big mail bags, which Jerry would pick up later that night. At 2225, Itzaak and Abraham, still in Arab dress, went downstairs and walked the short distance into Bab Touma Street, which was very quiet, though not entirely deserted.
They crossed the street and walked up the steps to the front door of the Rashood stronghold. Major Itzaak Sherman rapped sharply on the door, which was instantly opened, and the Israeli found himself looking at the barrel of an AK-47.
The guard spoke in Arabic-What do you want?
Itzaak just said, “Please, sir, I need to speak to General Rashood.” The guard hesitated and stepped forward, saying, “I thought there were two of you-” But he was too late. Abraham swooped out of the shadow and rammed his combat knife straight into the man’s heart. It was a deadly blow, viciously hard and accurate. The guard gasped, tried to yell, but he was dead before he hit the floor.
From inside, there was a call of “Rami, who is it?” And the second guard stepped out onto the front porch and met with an identical fate when Abraham, using a second knife, plunged it into the man’s heart.
By this time, Colonel Ben Joel had crossed the street, carrying the bomb in a leather duffel bag. He raced up the stairs and into the room on the left. Right behind him came John Rabin. They both hit the floor and began to screw the device to the underside of the big heavy table in the center of the room.
Meanwhile, the other two were dragging the two bodies down the steps and into a small open front yard, below the main street window. This area was unkempt and overgrown, and it had a gateway but no gate. The walls around it were two feet high. It took exactly one minute for Abraham and Itzaak to dump the dead men into the far corner of the tiny yard, where they would never be discovered until it was light, and maybe not even then.
At this point, Major Rabin was working alone on the electronics of the bomb, with Abraham standing guard on the door, in case either of the sleeping second-shift guards heard something and came to investigate. But the house was deathly quiet.
Colonel Joel hurried back across the road and opened up a connection from his cell phone to that of Colonel Rabin, who was still under the table in Ravi’s house. They spoke briefly, for no more than eight seconds, and then John Rabin screwed in the last wire, set the detonation mechanism to coincide with the electronic box up in the apartment, and left.
Carefully, he made certain that the front door did not lock automatically, since they did not want Ravi and Shakira to be locked out. They just hoped the couple would return before the midnight watch change.
Meanwhile, they regrouped in their observation post and watched. The small black box that would activate the bomb was resting innocently on the window ledge.
It was 2315 now, and there was no sign of the general. But Abraham saw it first, the lights of a taxi coming around the corner from Al-Bakry Street, swinging right into Bab Touma. It pulled up directly in front of the house they watched.
“Here we go, boys,” breathed Abraham, who was apparently unaffected by the double murder he had committed less than an hour previously. “They’re back.”
And all four men saw the lovely Shakira emerge from the back left-hand passenger seat of the cab. From the other side, there emerged her escort, who took her arm and walked up the steps.
They reached the front door and knocked, but the door opened even at Shakira’s light touch. She was doubtless mystified by the absence of the two guards, but she entered the house, followed by the man, presumably Ravi, who was somewhat lost in the shadows. But at least neither of them had noticed the two hidden bodies.
Colonel Joel saw the light flood into the front room. Toward the rear he could see a male figure. Shakira was nowhere to be seen.
“That’s it, John,” snapped Ben. “That’ll do for us. Set the timer for ten minutes and let’s go.”
John Rabin turned the dial, pressed the activate button. The residents of the house on Bab Touma were on borrowed time. The four Mossad men stampeded down the stairs and out into the dark. They ran through the back street behind the apartment and reached the garage. The key fitted easily, and they pushed the door open.
And there, inside, was the converted Mercedes Benz. Colonel Joel jumped in the front passenger seat. Abraham rummaged for the key and started the motor. Major Sherman jumped in the backseat, and John Rabin waited outside to shut and lock the garage door.
The car moved forward. The last member of the team climbed into the rear seat, and Ben Joel hit the button to inform the field agent Jerry that they were on their way. Abraham drove swiftly to the Bab Touma Gate and swung right onto the road that would take them down to the airport perimeter road.
But before they reached that crossroad, John Rabin’s bomb went off with a crash that ripped into the night sky. It was so powerful that it blew the roof thirty feet into the air. The entire building went up with a stupendous blast, exploding the ancient cement and brickwork into the street, outward and upward. Flames leapt into the air. Rubble, glass, and stonework rained down from the sky. The world’s oldest continuously occupied city shuddered on its sandy foundations.
“Holy shit!” yelled Abraham. “We just did it. Tel Aviv, here we come.”
Ten minutes later, as Abraham gunned his supercharged wreck down the airport highway, Ravi Rashood arrived back from dinner with the wife of his close friend Abdul Khan, one of Shakira’s half-brothers.
The scene of pure devastation was beyond belief. The entire street was blocked with rubble. Two police cars were already there; a fire engine was trying to get in from the wrong end of the street. Sirens were blaring, blue lights flashing, women screaming.
Ravi raced to what was left of the front of his house. But that was simply pointless. There was no front to his house. Rudy Khan was hysterical, but Ravi had no thought for anyone except Shakira, and he ran with a helpless desperation around to the back of his former home.
He reached the padlocked green gate, and, from behind it, he could hear a woman screaming, incoherently, plaintively. He spotted the white truck, and with one bound was on the hood, and then the roof, staring down into his own backyard. He could see that the inside door to the yard was open, and there, crouched on the ground, was Shakira, terrified, covered in blood, but alive.
Abdul, who had brought her home to make coffee, was not with her. Instinctively, Ravi knew he was dead. He also knew if he jumped over the wall, he and his injured wife would both be trapped. There was no way out through the collapsed house.
He jumped down to the street, and ran back around to the front of the house and yelled for help. The police and the ambulance crew were only too glad at least to save someone’s life. Six of them arrived at the gate and the cops blew the lock away with a submachine gun, taking care not to allow bullets to penetrate the green gate.
Twenty minutes later, Shakira and Ravi were on their way to the President Hassad General Hospital, where fifteen stitches were required to repair a cut on her head, sustained in the basement-level kitchen when a part of the ceiling had caved in.
She was also in severe shock, and the surgeon decided she should stay overnight. Ravi remained with her, and most people in the drama were happy. The Hamas terrorists were merely thankful that Shakira lived.
And the Mossad men boarding the Learjet were in self-congratulatory mood. Mission accomplished. Nearly.