Sword of Allah (10 page)

The man rolled over to face her. He was still asleep, but only just. She felt his hand brush her thigh and an electric shock ran through her. The danger was a thrill. His hand came back, moved up her leg, over the concave curve of her stomach and cupped her breast. She willed her nipple not to respond, but it ignored her, firming like gooseflesh and a warmth glowed in a spot below her belly.

She had walked to the bar in order to get a better look at the man who’d remained behind. Perhaps if she got closer, she’d recognise him? And then chance had intervened and an opportunity to meet him had presented itself. Literally. She smiled at the memory of the moment – Jeff’s embarrassment – and at her own impulse to go for it, every spy movie she’d ever seen providing her with the appropriate, pre-packaged cues:
use your assets, girlfriend.

After amazing sex, dinner, a night on the town and more amazing sex, Skye was lost. What should the next move be? Of course, she knew what she wouldn’t do – tell her boss who she’d seen, and what she’d done. No. Not
until she’d worked this through and come up with something concrete. At the very least, she told herself, she could sneak a look at his passport and jot down the details. Jeff was under her spell and that was a certainty. Skye had always had that effect on men, and this time she’d use it for the good of her country.

Skye looked at Jeff again. He was kind of sweet in a suburban sort of way, and his Australian accent was cute. Maybe she’d imagined those other two – her subconscious had just willed them to be bad guys. Jeff certainly didn’t seem like a terrorist. He was a money guy, an accountant, she remembered him telling her. And a wealthy one if the way he splashed around the cash was any indication.

‘Morning, honey. Thanks for staying,’ he said in a sleepy voice, eyes still closed.

How unusual, thought Skye, a man who didn’t order a taxi after he came.

‘That’s okay,’ said Skye, the words spilling out of her mouth of their own accord, in a husky voice that surprised her.

He rolled her on top of him in an unexpected burst of strength. ‘I thought you were still asleep,’ she said. Skye felt his organ warm and pulsing against her thigh. She reached down and held him. He was hard and damp from the previous night.

‘Fooled you,’ he said. She moved to accept him and, as he entered her, the intense pleasure of it surprised her and caused her to cry out. She breathed deeply, trying to control the power of the feeling between her legs before it engulfed her completely.

On a rooftop a good kilometre away, Lieutenant Colonel David Baruch watched the skirmish unfold on portable monitors, together with several other army brass and a bunch of pimply technicians. The picture on it was presented in luminous black and white: infrared. Occasional flashes flared the screen white, overwhelming its ability to present any picture at all for a few hanging seconds, indicating that a massive explosion had occurred. Baruch’s ears confirmed the fact a second or so later as the sound boomed and echoed around the stone and concrete houses like a clap of thunder following the flash. Overhead, two AW-1W Super Cobras prowled the skies, hunting for a clear line of fire for their twenty-millimetre cannons, but failing to find one.

The Palestinians had chosen to make their stand in the middle of a residential area, and neither pilot wanted to unleash their devastating firepower on innocent men, women and children. So they circled, looking menacing, but in this conflict no more than expensive bystanders. Baruch made the call and the gunships retired. The situation would have to be resolved by ground forces.

The colonel concentrated on the screen as the technician cycled through various options and magnifications, demonstrating the Prowler’s direct control capabilities, using cameras to zoom in on individual soldiers, then cutting back to infrared. Points of light danced and sparkled against the building that had become no more than a shell, marking the contact of full metal jackets striking the
concrete. Baruch had to admit he’d been wrong. He’d called it a toy, but the battlefield intelligence provided by the unmanned aerial vehicle was astonishing. The UAV circled the building, scribing lazy figure eights in the air several hundred metres above it. The platform was virtually silent (certainly its compact gasoline engine couldn’t be heard above the small arms fire) and, painted low-intensity grey like any other military aircraft, it was almost impossible to pick out against the hot blue sky. Yet the overhead view it afforded allowed a commander to position his forces for greatest effect. This sort of role was usually ascribed to helicopters, but that was an expensive option, even if the aircraft wasn’t shot down, which had been known to happen. At a couple of million US, the UAV was cheap – certainly when compared to a piloted vehicle – and, as such, expendable. Why put another of God’s children in the line of fire unnecessarily?

The picture transmitted by the Prowler was pretty straightforward. The terrorists, around four of them, were pinned down and cornered. There had been a drive-by shooting close to the temple, and a quick-thinking policeman had commandeered a motorcycle and tailed the criminals from a safe distance, calling in for assistance. The army, on constant alert, responded quickly, but then things bogged down. The fugitives had cynically taken cover in the middle of a densely populated residential area. Baruch did not want the deaths of innocent people on his hands, but so many innocents had died over the years in this unwinnable war. And that’s what it was, unwinnable. It was impossible to tell who was friend and who was foe amongst the Palestinians, and so it was easier to label
them all killers. But were he and his men any different? How many lives of innocent women and children had he inadvertently ended in his relentless pursuit of the enemy? He often thought of himself as being like a brain surgeon who operated with a cleaver instead of a laser, hacking away at a tumour rather than delicately burning it away, leaving the patient alive but better off dead. These were the thoughts and images he’d been struggling with for some time, lying awake staring at the ceiling, depressed and impotent beside his wife. But protecting his country was his job even if he was sick of having to wield the meat cleaver.

‘Sir…? Colonel…?’ It was one of the American technicians. Baruch realised he’d been daydreaming and snapped out of it. He ignored the young man with the disconcerting nest of green pimples on each cheek and contacted the lieutenant commanding the platoon on the ground. The UAV had done its job. It was a worthy addition to the inventory and he’d make his recommendation accordingly.

‘Yes, sir,’said Lieutenant Deborah Glukel into the handset. Baruch’s orders were easier said than done. ‘Benzona!’ she said to herself.
Son of a bitch!

The skirmish had been a vicious encounter. Two of her people were wounded and that was two too many. The proximity of noncombatants meant the gunships were useless, and so were tanks and other high-explosive options. This was a committed enemy. If they stormed the building, more of her own people would be put at unnecessary risk. But there was simply no other option.

‘We have to
fucking
take this fuckin
g
building one
fucking
room at a time. Horah!’ she said, working herself into it. Glukel sucked in the air and blew it out several times, like an athlete at the start of the hundred-metre sprint. Her people knew what to do. She made the hand signals clear and screamed the words out in her head at the same time:
ONE…TWO…THREE…GO! GO! GO!

Baruch saw the platoon move in on the screen followed shortly after by the increased clatter of small arms fire. One of the advancing soldiers fell to the pavement, dropping his weapon and lying still as others stormed the windows and doors. An incendiary hand grenade preceded the troops as they closed with the enemy, gasmasks fixed. The accompanying flare had turned the entire screen white and then it went completely blank, as if the intense light and heat had fused its millions of microprocessors.

The technicians, at first stunned, hurriedly checked connections and components with increasing panic. Baruch guessed the problem was bigger than a hardware crash. He resisted the temptation to make the banal observation that TV programs always seem to get interrupted at the climax.

Mushtaq had never tried to shoot down one of these pilotless planes before. His experience told him it would be tricky, but it had proved more than that. Ordinarily, he could hit the worm in an apple from four hundred metres on a still day, especially with this US-made M82A1A .50 calibre Special Application Scoped Rifle. The ‘Special Application’ designation referred to the fact that it was specifically designed as an anti-material weapon, rather
than for anti-personnel work. He’d chosen HEAP – high-explosive armour piercing – rounds for the job. Overkill? Perhaps. But he wanted to make sure of success. It was a beautiful weapon: muzzle velocity of eight hundred and fifty-four metres per second, and an effective range of around eighteen hundred metres. But this was no ordinary target. The plane didn’t stay still like a worm. Also, the thing was painted a shade of grey that blurred its edges, made them fuzzy and ill defined, especially with the intense blue of the sky behind it. Just watching it, trying to focus on it, made his eyes watery and sore. His commander wanted one of these things for reasons unknown. Orders had come down from the highest place. And they wanted it with as little damage done as possible, which is why they had brought him in rather than a man with a machine gun. One clean shot. He’d thought about where he’d put the bullet and decided on removing a wing where it met the body – the strongest point of the aircraft. That would bring it down. Simple enough, he’d thought, but in reality, not simple at all.

He counted the number of explosive-tipped bullets in his case. Twelve. That meant he’d taken eight shots at it and still no result.

Mushtaq sat at the top storey window behind a lace curtain, four blocks from the fighting, and waited. The owners of this flat had been accommodating but, really, what choice did they have? The man and his wife sat on chairs against the opposite wall, where he could keep an eye on them. They were Palestinian, but not all Palestinians were as committed to the fight as he and his comrades were. They had each other and they had
children, their smiling faces beaming from framed photos chequering the wall behind them.

‘You have a beautiful family,’ said Mushtaq. He wished he still had his family, but a stray round from an Israeli helicopter gunship had pierced the brick walls of his home and exploded, killing everyone and starting a fire. The Israelis asserted in the nightly television news bulletin that the people killed – his wife and three little children – were just more Palestinian terrorists.

The man and his wife smiled and nodded enthusiastically. They were scared, and they had every right to be. If the Israelis caught him shooting at them from this place they would blast it to rubble.

Mushtaq tried to recall his wife and children. He had loved then, but now he only hated. The Israelis hadn’t killed any terrorists that day but they had certainly given birth to one. And Mushtaq wouldn’t rest until he had shot a thousand Israelis dead in return.

He waited for the grey, ghost-like thing to fly overhead once more. His eyes were watering, but not because of the glare this time. He couldn’t see his wife or children clearly anymore, their faces were fading like those on an old print, and it was this realisation that caused the tears to flow.

A slight movement in the sky caught his attention. Mushtaq knelt and placed the tripod supporting the barrel on the windowsill. He kept both eyes open behind the yellow shooter’s lenses of his glasses so that he could more easily catch the ghost-like craft in the ten-power scope. The wind at ground level was nil. What was it at five hundred metres, he wondered? The unmanned plane danced in the crosshairs. Mushtaq led it, guessing at its speed,
matching it in his head with the known velocity of his bullet, mind, nerve and muscle making untold and minute calculations and adjustments. Instinct squeezed the trigger, his index finger exerting no more than a kilogram of pressure, and the weapon’s stock jolted into his shoulder. At last, Mushtaq was rewarded by a small puff of white on the aircraft’s underside. The HEAP round did its job. The wing parted from the body cleanly,just where he’d aimed, and the two sections began their uncontrolled spiral to earth.

Lieutenant Deborah Glukel lay slumped on the ground outside the building. Medics rushed towards her in slow motion. Something had hit her in the chest with the force of a sledgehammer. The Kevlar plates in her body armour had done their job, but she couldn’t haul herself out of the firing line. She had just lain on her side, waiting for the headshot – there were no Kevlar plates protecting her face. The pain in her chest was intense and she guessed that several ribs and possibly her sternum were broken. Her platoon had done a good job. They’d stormed the building and killed all but one of the terrorists. She watched four men come and drag him away, unconscious. Those men were Shin Bet. They’d lock-tied the captured terrorist’s hands and feet behind him, blood streaming from his nose, ears and eyes. They dragged him across the broken pavement, threw him in a waiting black Mercedes and sped off.

‘Horah!’ said the medic kneeling beside her. ‘As your name says, you’re one lucky benzona, Lieutenant. You’ve lost your sergeant and two other men, with three others
wounded, but you’ll live,’ said the medic, yelling in Glukel’s face while they worked on her. Glukel meant ‘lucky’ in Hebrew, but the lieutenant didn’t feel it. The two dead soldiers had been laid beside her. One was her brother, his eyes open, staring, accusing. She cried, not because they had died, but because she had lived.

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Samuel Polski. ‘Who called in the fucking army?’ The man in his arms was dying. He cut the lock-tie behind the wounded man’s back, freeing his arms, one of which was broken. For years they’d been trying to infiltrate the Hezbollah. Finally, they’d managed the unbelievable only to have their own army come along, surround him and kill him.
Beautiful! Kakat! Shit!
The Mercedes dashed through the streets, heading for a Shin Bet safe house that contained a fully staffed OR with trauma specialists on hand. ‘Jacob, you
kakat
, hang on. Hang on!’ he screamed.

‘He’s saying something. What’s he saying?’ said Ahron Mandelberg, ripping open Jacob’s shirt, checking for chest wounds as the Mercedes bounced along.

‘
They will vex us in the east
,’ said Jacob as his heart gave out. He said it softly, almost in a whisper.

‘Jacob! Jacob! What did you say? Horah!’ Mandelberg placed his ear against Jacob’s chest. He slammed his fist against the man’s chest, cracking his sternum, trying to get his heart started.

‘He said, “They’ll vex in the east.” Does anyone know what that means?’ Mandelberg shouted, his ear close to the dead man’s lips. ‘Jacob! Where? East Jerusalem?’

‘Lie him down,’ called out Mandelberg as the car raced through the narrow streets. ‘Jacob! What did you say?’ yelled Mandelberg. ‘Is it some kind of fucking proverb?’

‘Forget it. He’s dead,’ said one of the other men. The concussion from a grenade had done its job well, shattering Jacob’s internal organs as completely as if a truck had hit him.

Baruch fingered the report of the operation. Two crack soldiers had died in the op, the platoon commander – one of his best – would be laid up in recovery for a month at least, and a Shin Bet agent working undercover had also died of his wounds. How the hell was he to know that one of the terrorists wasn’t a terrorist at all? The man ran with the enemy, fired on innocent people and then took on the army, for God’s sake. The whole fucking thing had happened so fast. And what would Shin Bet have done had it known one of their own was in that apartment building? Told everyone to pack up and go home? The icing on the cake was the loss of the UAV. It wasn’t one of theirs. It was on loan, on trial from the manufacturer in the United States, sponsored by the US military. And, of course, both were pissed about the disappearance of the multi-million-dollar toy, which meant his superiors were pissed at him too. Another excuse for them to hold back his promotion. A fifty-one year old lieutenant colonel in a young person’s army?
Horah!
Baruch snapped the folder shut.

The media had reported it differently, of course. They said it had been a great victory. Four senior members of the hateful terrorist group Hezbollah cornered, shot and
killed. And this time, no civilian casualties to account for. He was a hero. Everyone was a hero. The unwinnable war was being won. What would winning it mean? Baruch had no real idea. He shook his head, trying to clear it of doubt. He buried the report under a pile of papers on his desk. There was a tight feeling in his chest. Stress. It would be another night of non-performance in the marriage bed, no doubt, staring at the ceiling.