the Second Horseman (2006) (40 page)

"Drive!" he yelled again, though he knew both men were dead.

The car drifted to a stop and Hamdi jammed a hand against the driver's knee, trying to get his foot to depress the accelerator. Instead, the lifeless body just tipped to the right.

The sound of crunching glass was louder this time, and came from behind.

Hamdi jammed himself beneath the steering wheel and reached the gas pedal just as a powerful hand closed around his ankle. The car leaped forward and he was jerked violently back, slamming his head against the edge of the wheel.

"Help!" he shouted weakly. "I'm Edwin Ha--"

The pressure around his ankle disappeared and was immediately replaced by an arm around his neck. He reached behin
d h
im and tried to claw the eyes of the man who was holding him. At the same time, he heard the driver's side door open and his bodyguard's body being dragged from the car.

The blind rage that suddenly boiled up inside him provided enough strength to twist around and partially face his attacker, who was still hanging partway out the broken back window. He swung a fist at the man's head and bit down on his forearm, filling his mouth with the metallic taste of blood.

Instead of releasing him, though, the man just increased the pressure on his neck. After a few moments, Hamdi's strength abandoned him and he was shoved to the floorboard as the car began a smooth U-turn. The arm around his neck disappeared and he gasped for breath, too consumed with getting air into his lungs to notice the handcuffs closing around his wrists.

As his mind cleared, panic began to take hold. He pulled painfully against his shackles and tried to rise to his knees but was held in place by a knee in his back. It was becoming hard to breath again, but this time it was his own fear robbing him of oxygen. He forced himself to stop struggling and to concentrate only on his breathing. He had to regain control. To stay calm.

"Where are you taking me?" he finally managed to get out.

"Somewhere we can talk."

Hamdi had always prided himself on being a strong-willed man, someone able to do what was necessary when others wouldn't. In truth, though, that conceit had never really been tested. It would be now.

"Do you know who we are?" the man said.

Hamdi didn't answer immediately, instead letting the warmth and vibration of the floorboard seep into him. "The Jews."

Chapter
FIFTY-ONE

The gaps between the boards that made up the door were almost a half-inch wide but there was nothing but darkness beyond. Brandon's hand hovered over the ancient knob for a moment before he tried to twist it. Locked. Or more likely just stuck.

"I can't get it open, Colonel."

Colonel Iyov Silva, the man who had so pleasantly interrogated him weeks before, strode across the living room they had just torn apart, accelerating to almost a run before slamming a foot into the door. The crunch of splintering wood filled the tiny house, but it held. Silva lined up again and delivered another kick, this time pulling part of the jamb away from the wall and sending the door cartwheeling down a flight of stairs.

"Colonel," Brandon started, "it's over. There's no more time."

The man ignored him, stepping cautiously onto the stairs and feeling along the wall fo
r a
switch. When lights came on, he let out a long breath.

"Catherine! Another dirt floor!"

The clanging of metal sounded somewhere in the house and Silva descended into the cellar to start the now familiar process of digging through old furniture and dusty boxes.

"Did you find something?" Catherine said as she ran into the living room holding three long metal spikes.

Brandon didn't answer, instead concentrating on the glassy sheen of her eyes. As near as he could tell, she'd completely lost it. Completely.

They'd spent the last three weeks crawling through the abandoned buildings of this cluttered Israeli city, futilely searching every closet, basement, and attic. His hands were cracked and bleeding from manhandling furniture and jimmying doors and his back was killing him from the wooden floor he'd been using as a bed. Not that he'd really slept since they'd arrived -- instead, he just lay there, waiting for someone to decide that they'd outlived their usefulness and kill them both.

He grabbed Catherine's arm as she tried to get by and held her there for a moment. "Cath. Jesus. It's today. Do you understan
d m
e? I've been keeping track of time. The bombs go off today."

When she looked up at him, all that was visible was the blank desperation that had replaced hope in her. He let go and she ran down the stairs after Silva, asking the same doomed question she had a thousand times before: "Did you find something?"

In her mind, she was solely responsible for all of it -- the destruction of Israel, the deaths of countless people, the greatest ecological disaster in history. The superlatives just went on and on.

Maybe he should be thankful. They hadn't been tortured or summarily executed like he'd expected. Instead, they'd ended up here, working on one of the countless task forces charged with finding the warheads before they detonated.

"Shit!" he yelled, slamming a hand against the wall and dislodging some of the hundred-year-old paint. "Shit! Shit! Shit!"

He wanted to take the steps three at a time, but the dim light and rotted wood demanded a less dramatic entrance. When he finally hit the dirt floor, his eyes hadn't completely adjusted, but he could still make out Catherine using her spike to penetrate the earth in a careful grid pattern designed to uncover something the shape of a warhead. Silva was doing the same, though more slowly. Every time he was forced to move one of the old pieces of junk that littered the basement, he stared at it like it was a family heirloom.

"What the hell's going on, Colonel?"

Silva looked up from an old photo album resting on an ironing board. "What?"

Brandon held up his left hand, displaying an empty wrist. "You took my watch, but I'm not stupid. I can count. Today's the day they said the warheads would detonate. It's too late. We're not going to find them."

"There's still time," Silva responded. "Still a chance."

"How much time?"

He didn't answer.

"When are they going to go off, Colonel?"

"How would I know that?"

"Because you've found some of them. Not this one, but you've found some of them."

"I don't know what --"

"You've found some?" Catherine said. She stopped what she was doing and looked at Silva with an expression so pleading that Brandon found it hard not to turn away.

"Come on, Colonel. Tell her."

Silva seemed to soften for the first time in the weeks they'd been together. He glanced at his own watch and then nodded slowly.

"Yes, Catherine. We've found others. In fact, we've found all of them -- except this one."

Her face animated slightly and she sagged against the spike in her hand. Brandon walked over and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She was completely exhausted. Honestly, he had no idea what was keeping her going, but whatever it was, some of it seemed to have just drained from her.

"The bombs were all set to detonate at the same time, right? When?"

"Soon."

"Then get us the hell out of here. We're not going to find it."

"How can you be so certain?" Silva said. "If you have any information you neglected to provide me, now is the time."

"Jesus Christ," Brandon said angrily. "Have I ever done anything that would lead you to believe I'd give my life to blow up a bunch of dirt I'd never set foot on until a few weeks ago? And what the f--"

Silva held up a hand and Brandon fell silent. "You're a very exhausting man, Brandon. Has anyone ever told you that?"

"You don't believe we know anything, do you?"

He shook his head.

"Then let's get the fuck out of here! We'v
e d
one what we can. Colonel. You've evacuated, you've searched, and you've found all the bombs but one. You've saved your country . . ."

Silva pulled a single cigarette from his pocket and lit it. "We captured Edwin Hamdi shortly after you told us about him. Our best interrogators were sent -- men I've worked with for years. It didn't take long for information on the location of the warheads to begin to flow. At first it was worthless, but as the questioning went on, it improved."

He took a long drag on the cigarette and then looked at it in a way that worried Brandon.

"Given time, anyone can be broken down," he continued. "Even the strongest and most clever of men. But we didn't have time. We had no choice but to begin the questioning . . . forcefully. The drawback to that approach, of course, is the toll it takes on the subject. By now he is exhausted, confused. Even if he wanted to tell us where the remaining warhead is, it's possible he would no longer be able to."

Brandon didn't respond immediately, trying to shrug off the matter-of-fact description of the brutal torture he and Catherine had doomed Edwin Hamdi to.

"Then it's time for us to go, Colonel."

Another drag on his cigarette. "Yes, it's time to go."

When they stepped outside, the sun was directly overhead, eradicating shadows and giving everything the look of an overexposed photograph.

The city appeared to be completely dead, but Brandon knew it wasn't. After sunset, it was speckled with intermittent lights. Mostly old people, a soldier had told him. People who preferred to die in their homes than to try to embark on a new life in their final years.

At its height, there had been at least five hundred men assisting in the search -- smashing in doors with sledgehammers, tracking progress on laptops, eyeing him and Catherine with a mix of curiosity and suspicion. A few days ago, though, the city had been deluged with a procession of trucks, helicopters, and busses -- all of which were quickly crammed with soldiers and sent on their way. As far as Brandon could tell, there were only about a dozen of the original search crew remaining. Maybe less than that now.

"The next address is just across the street," Catherine said, pulling a pen from her pocket and marking the paper in her hand. She started forward, but Silva gripped her shoulder. "Perhaps we should take a short break and enjoy this beautiful day?"

Men began to appear in doorways, moving slowly toward the middle of the empty street, shaking hands and talking softly amongst themselves. Brandon watched as some wandered away and others huddled together. Silva just stared up into the empty sky.

"You're not leaving," Brandon said. "Jesus . . . You're not leaving."

"No," Silva said.

"Why," Brandon said. "Why would you stay here?"

Silva shrugged. "I suppose we all have our own reasons. Some because they cannot walk away from the land of their God. Others --"

"Are you crazy?" Brandon shouted. Everyone on the street turned to look at him. "Are you all crazy? A nuclear bomb is going to go off here! You're going to die! Do you understand? Die!" He moved away from Silva and spoke directly to a knot of men standing near the sidewalk. "What's the point? To be heroes? People won't remember. To pray? It won't work. If God wants you dead, let him come down here and kil
l y
ou. Don't do it to yourself!"

Honestly, he wasn't even sure any of his audience spoke English. There wasn't any reaction at all to his words.

"No!"

At the sound of Catherine's shout, he spun around and saw her backing away. "You can't die here! You can't make Brandon stay. This is my fault. You don't have to die because of me."

Colonel Silva, the man who a few weeks ago had been so willing to torture and kill them, walked up to her and put a hand on her back. "It's not your fault, Catherine. You're not to blame. And I'm sorry you and Brandon are here. I didn't agree with that decision. It --"

The hum of an engine stopped him in midsentence and everyone turned toward the sound, watching a sand-colored panel van skid around the corner and bear down on them. Brandon took a few hopeful steps toward it. Had they found the nuke? Had they changed their minds and decided to evacuate him and Catherine?

The van skidded to a stop about twenty yards away, enveloping them in a thick cloud of dust. Brandon grabbed Catherine by the arm and followed the men movin
g t
oward the vehicle. This might be their only chance.

The driver jumped out and ran around to throw open the vehicle's rear doors. He ducked inside for a moment and when he reappeared, he was dragging what looked like a dead body behind him.

The smell hit Brandon almost immediately -- but not the stench of death. It was the stink of old sweat and blood. He covered his nose and continued to edge forward as the driver released the collar of what had once been an expensive suit and let the limp man fall to the ground.

Catherine mumbled something and he looked over at her. "What?"

"Hamdi," she said quietly. "It's Hamdi."

By the time a rough circle had formed around the prostrate man, he was showing signs of life. They all watched as he struggled to his knees despite the zip tie securing his hands behind his back.