“Mr. Ambassador?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, thank you for calling. I am so relieved,” Like a waterfall at flood stage, the words stormed through the phone into Cleveland’s ear. “It’s been a terrible few days and I was so confused and conflicted about what to do. The rabbi made me promise, but I couldn’t sleep …”
“Please, Rabbi Friedman, please slow down and take a breath,” said Cleveland. “I’m putting you on the speaker. Why are you contacting me?”
“You don’t know? Oh, of course not, how could you? Ahhh … let me start from the beginning.”
“Yes, please. But I don’t have a great deal of time.”
“Oh, yes, well … when you were here earlier this week, you received a package from Rabbi Kaplan. A package I believe he asked you to deliver to the Rabbinate Council at the Hurva Synagogue in Jerusalem—a wooden case with a metal box inside of it, correct?”
“Yes, Rabbi Friedman. That is correct.”
“And I believe the rabbi provided you with an anointing, the Aaronic blessing, to keep you safe from the protections built into the metal box, correct?”
“Yes.” Cleveland’s thoughts shifted from preparing for his meeting with the prime minister to the internal warning signals that were depositing doubt and anxiety into his spirit. “Is there a prob—”
“Problem? Yes … well … following your visit to the synagogue, Rabbi Kaplan was found dead in his office.”
Cleveland’s heart thumped against his rib cage like a ravenous tiger at feeding time.
“He was bleeding from his eyes,” said Rabbi Friedman. “His hair had fallen out and his tongue was hanging out of his mouth. It was thick and black. Three years ago, men broke into the synagogue. Two of them were found in the rabbi’s office. They died in the same way.”
Cleveland took a deep breath and tried to calm his fears. “What are you telling me—there is no protection?”
The silence from the other end of the call was more frightening for Cleveland than anything this man had yet said.
“Honestly, sir,” said Rabbi Friedman, “I don’t know. I know Rabbi Kaplan believed the Aaronic blessing protected the keeper of the box. He told me about the box, just in case my turn came. But he was keeper of the box of prophecy for twenty years without—”
“Hold on,” Cleveland interrupted. “If anyone touches the box, the curse kills them?”
The torrent of words had dried up. For a moment, there was silence on the other end of the phone. “It’s not exactly a curse,” Friedman mumbled. “And there are some who will know how to open the box. Some who understand the kabbalah and how to interpret the symbols on its surface. But for the rest of us …”
“The wooden chest must be some kind of protection, or I’d be dead already,” said Cleveland, frustration and growing anger accenting each of his words. “Tell me, Rabbi Friedman, is there anything else I need to know? Anything else that’s been kept from me?”
“No, no, no,” Friedman babbled. “Please, forgive me, Mr. Ambassador. I promised the rabbi I—”
“Good-bye, Rabbi.”
Mullaney’s thoughts were already with Palmyra Parker. “Are we turning around, sir?”
Cleveland’s face was ashen as he looked at his wristwatch. “We don’t have time.” His voice was flat and lifeless. “We’re halfway there. If we turn around now …”
“Brian!”
In the rearview mirror, Hernandez’s eyes connected with Mullaney’s. “Trouble—”
A flash of black whipped past the window. Mullaney turned to see a black Cadillac Escalade traveling at high speed as it pulled abreast of the Mercedes limousine. Then all hell broke loose.
Mullaney grabbed the ambassador, pulled him from the seat onto the floor of the limo and threw his body on top of Cleveland as he craned his neck to see outside. “Two more coming strong,” said Hernandez, but his words were cut short as the Escalade slammed into the left side of the limo and drove it onto the loose, stone berm of the highway. Mullaney heard a separate impact and the squeal of strained tires behind them, and he figured the ambassador’s support vehicle was also getting rammed. By instinct, Mullaney reached for the Sig Sauer automatic at the base of his back. But he remembered the bulletproof windows of the armored Mercedes and kept it in the holster. The limo jerked left, Hernandez trying to counter the impact from the Escalade.
“Our backup is getting—” Hernandez’s words were cut short when the massive Cadillac SUV slammed once more into the left side of the ambassador’s car. “Ouch. Hang on!”
Mullaney could feel the car being pushed right, across the loose, stone shoulder of the highway.
“Hang on!”
Mullaney shifted his position to press Cleveland farther into the tight space between the back seat, the door, and the back of the front seat just as Hernandez jammed on the brakes, the limousine fishtailing through the flying stones.
The heavier Escalade was doing the job, pushing the ambassador’s car closer and closer to the embankment on the far side of the highway’s gravel shoulder. One more push should do it. As the driver turned the Cadillac harder to its right, the limo slammed on its brakes.
Looking up, Mullaney could see the Escalade whip around the front of the decelerating limo, its momentum continuing to the right as it skidded across the shoulder. But Hernandez’s desperate maneuver was too late to save the limousine’s slide. Mullaney felt the front right corner of the Mercedes drop off the road. In a heartbeat the limo catapulted off the shoulder, rolling and tumbling down a stone and gravel embankment. Mullaney wedged his body between the seats as he tried to protect the ambassador, but the sudden shift in relative gravity—what was up was now down; what was once right was now left—flailed Mullaney around the back seat of the Mercedes like the flicked tip of a leather bullwhip as he desperately tried to shield Cleveland.
The car rolled over twice, pounding Mullaney from roof to seat and back again. It was like being inside a cement mixer with humans instead of cement. Mullaney tried desperately to protect the ambassador, but Cleveland’s body broke loose from his grasp on the first bounce and now was being tossed around like drying laundry.
Its back end swinging around, the Cadillac turned 180 degrees, its nose pointing in the opposite direction. Stones flew, but the Escalade reversed its momentum and hurtled back toward the limo, which dropped off the edge of the highway and became airborne.
Shattering its shock absorbers, the Mercedes crashed to earth on all four tires, coming to a jaw-pounding stop in a swirling cloud of dust and crushed stone.
“Tommy?” Mullaney’s voice sounded as brittle as his body was battered. Gunfire was already erupting outside the limousine.
“Alive.”
“Stay with the ambassador. Make sure he’s okay. Lock it up and send the alarm.”
“Roger that. Be careful out there, Brian.”
Cleveland’s body was in the well between the seats, his hands over his head, groans escaping from his mouth. Mullaney pushed his body past the ambassador. With his right hand, he pulled the Sig Sauer from its holster. With his left he grabbed the right-side door’s handle and awkwardly drove his shoulder into it. Hitting the door, pain lanced across his back, but the door wasn’t stuck, and Mullaney tumbled out of the car and into the dust. He scrambled on the gravel back to the side of the car, slammed shut the door, and tried to ignore a rising eruption of pain in his back that sucked the breath out of his lungs.
Gunfire was coming from several directions as Mullaney fought to clear his head and get his bearings.
Keeping the car between him and the road, Mullaney rose on his haunches and peered around the back window, over the trunk. The four DSS agents in the chase vehicle were each out of the SUV, on the ground, using Heckler & Koch 9-millimeter submachine guns to pound out a lethal and withering return fire, two on the trailing Escalades and two on the lead Cadillac that forced the limo off the road. The 9-millimeter rounds were ripping through and penetrating the
doors of the Escalades, and Mullaney could see several inert bodies around the trailing Cadillacs, assailants who mistakenly thought car doors could protect them from the powerful punch of the 9-millimeter machine guns.
Turning his head to the right, Mullaney saw three black-clad hooded gunmen firing from around the Escalade nearest the Mercedes. A fourth emerged near the back of the vehicle, an RPG launcher held to his shoulder. Mullaney squeezed off two quick shots, dropping the gunman with the launcher, then squeezed off a second set to take out the hooded shooter who was firing from the driver’s-side rear door. Now that he had their attention, Mullaney dropped back behind the limousine as bullets began slamming into the Mercedes.
His earpiece crackled. “Watch your back, Brian.”
Mullaney spun around toward the front of the Mercedes. The pain of his movement drove him to his knees and his sight blackened for a split second. He sucked in a breath then threw himself to the right, behind the Mercedes’s front right tire as bullets started ripping up the gravel around him. Someone with a machine gun had gotten into a position near the back of the Escalade with a firing angle on the limo. He had to be firing from a height advantage. On his belly, Mullaney flattened himself along the ground and shimmied beneath the undercarriage of the Mercedes. He reached the shelter of the left front tire and peeked up. The rear window of the Escalade was open, but empty. Apparently, one of the attackers was firing down on the limo from the Cadillac’s cargo area. Mullaney dug his elbows into the gravel and steadied his aim on the open rear window just as a gun barrel, followed by a hooded head, emerged from the window and sighted down on the limo. Two taps on the Sig Sauer’s trigger and twin red moons erupted on either side of the shooter’s left temple.
Gunfire was now coming at them from under the front of the limousine, and his man fell down in a lump inside the back window of the Escalade. Three gone.
A relentless barrage from the American agents in the chase vehicle was shredding the front and the doors of the Cadillac. He could see other black-clad men sprawled in the dust on the far side of the ambassador’s support vehicle. The Americans were deadly accurate and their weapons were tearing the Cadillacs to pieces. And none of their fire had breached the integrity of the Mercedes. He fired a full clip from his Uzi at the agents in the support vehicle while slamming his vehicle into reverse. Time to leave.
He floored the gas pedal, spun the steering wheel to the right and the Cadillac whipped around, facing east on Highway One. He floored it again, sending a wave of stone projectiles slamming into the Mercedes. None of those made a dent either.
In his rearview mirror, only one of the other Escalades hurtled back onto the highway.
This disaster was not going to be well received.
His head barricaded behind his arms, Mullaney was only scratched by the angry shower of rocks kicked up in the wake of the fleeing Cadillacs. Lying prone under the Mercedes, the pain in Mullaney’s back increased as the threat raced into the distance. And then he noticed the blood dripping from his head down into the dust. Mullaney inched himself out from under the car.
“Wiley, what’s your status,” he said into his lapel mic.
“We’re okay. Two wounded, but nothing serious. How’s the ambassador?”
Leaning on the bullet-dented front fender, Mullaney pulled himself to his feet, his back and his neck stiffening like hour-old cement. The car’s windows were spider-webbed, but none had been punctured by the assailants’ bullets. He stepped closer to look inside. Tommy Hernandez had somehow worked his way into the back seat, his body positioned to protect the ambassador. His left arm was against his chest, his left hand gripping the right shoulder of his suit jacket. But his weapon was in his right hand, steady and ready to fight. Hernandez laid the gun in his lap and pushed the button on the key fob to unlock the car’s doors.
Mullaney tried to open the left side back door, but it was stuck. In one of its careening bounces, the Mercedes pinwheeled on the left side of its roof, compressing down on the door. Mullaney looked into the car. Tommy’s left arm looked useless. He and Cleveland were pressed against the right rear door. Mullaney’s only visual on Cleveland was the back of his shoulders.
“What’s his status?” asked Mullaney.
“Breathing.” Hernandez grimaced. “Bashed around pretty good on the outside—like each of us.”
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here.”
Cleveland’s voice betrayed him. He was putting on a brave face, but Mullaney could tell from his voice that the ambassador was hurt and struggling.
“He’s bleeding somewhere,” said Hernandez, “but not buckets.”
“Okay. Let me get some help.” Mullaney cocked his head to his earpiece. “Get that, Wiley?”
“Yeah … just cleaning a wound on Bob’s arm. Be there in a minute.”
Cleveland’s head hurt. He felt as if he had been slipping into and out of consciousness since the car started its first flip off the road. He had a vague memory of the limousine being rammed, then a nightmare dream of being in a trash masher. After that, everything was a blur. He knew there was shooting. He knew his chest was bruised and that he didn’t know if he could put weight on his left leg. Tommy said he was bleeding? Was he shot? And his head hurt.
What day was it?
And his head hurt.
With a delicate caution, Cleveland tried to shake the cobwebs out of his brain. Owww!
A sharp crack of rending metal speared Cleveland’s foggy mind like lightning on an August afternoon.
“Easy, Atticus,” Hernandez whispered. “We’ll get you out of here, sir.”
He rested his head in his hands and thought of how much this attempt on his life would upset Palmyra.
Palmyra!
Cleveland fought against gravity and his better judgment and turned his head to the right.
“Mullaney!” he croaked.
“Yes, sir?”
Cleveland felt utterly fatigued after just one word. His breathing labored, he struggled with getting the rest of his …
“Wiley … get around the right side … Tommy, here, let me help you out.”
Mullaney was taking charge. Good man.
“Hold on, Mr. Ambassador. We’ll have you right out of there.”
No … wait. Cleveland felt the weight of Tommy Hernandez lift from his left side. He took a breath. And saw stars as soon as his chest expanded. No … wait.
“Brian … wait.” The words came out like coughs in the night, short, staccato bursts. “Palmyra. We … must … call …”
Mullaney swore under his breath and pulled out his mobile phone. The ambassador could hear sirens in the distance, closing fast.
“This is Mullaney. Duty officer—now!”
Cleveland closed his eyes and tried to slow his heart.
An Israeli Defense Forces helicopter roared overhead, then banked hard to hover over the wrecked limousine. Mullaney flattened his left hand against his left ear to shut out the noise. “Pat? I want you to personally get Mrs. Parker—take three agents with you—get her over to the ambassador’s quarters and stay with her. You …”
“She’s not here, Brian. Are you guys all right? Is the ambassador safe?”
“Don’t worry about us, Pat. Where’s Parker?”
“She went out. Said she was heading over to the open market at the Shmu’el Tamir Garden to get something to eat. I told her we had food here. She said, ‘Not like this.’ That was about forty minutes after you … aw, shoot, the ambassador may not be the only target, right? Sorry, Brian. We’ll get two squads on the street, one mobile going right to the garden, the other on foot. I’ll get back to you as soon as we find her. Sorry, Boss.”
“Don’t apologize. Find her.”
The ambassador’s head began to swim. He fought to remain conscious. The only thing keeping him alert was the words he heard Mullaney speak. Where’s Parker? Find her.
Two Israeli police cars skidded to a stop in the gravel at the side of the highway.
Palmyra!
Prime Minister’s Office, Jerusalem
July 19, 6:44 p.m.
The voice outside his office, speaking to his secretary, was unmistakable. The simple sound of it carried power and, as if he was pounding on David Meir’s door, demanded attention. Which, Meir knew, was Benjamin Erdad’s intention.
Meir pushed the button on his telephone that connected him to his secretary. “Rebecca, if he has a moment, please ask my secretary of internal security to join me.”
A momentary pause and Erdad marched into the prime minister’s office with the abruptness of a man who had just lost an argument with his wife and was looking for someone—anyone—to skewer with his pent-up rage. Meir grasped for something to release the pressure already building within the room. He waited until Erdad was standing before his desk, energy shimmering off his body like heat waves on concrete in August.
“Benjamin,” Meir said softly, “could you please shut the door. I would like a private word with you.”
With a nearly imperceptible shake of his head and a quizzical look in his eye, Erdad turned around and marched back across Meir’s thirty-meter-long office, his stride getting shorter and his pace slowing with every other step. By the time he came back to the prime minister’s desk, Erdad appeared a bit less agitated.
Thin, bald, with small wire-rimmed eyeglasses resting at the bottom of his nose, Meir leaned back in his leather chair. He attempted to look relaxed but wasn’t sure how well he was bringing it off. “Have a seat, Benjamin. I’m glad you stopped by. I’m expecting a visit from the new American ambassador at any minute, but I was wondering—”
“No wondering … we need action,” Erdad demanded as he threw himself into one of the chairs facing Meir’s desk. “The Arabs announce their peace offering tomorrow at noon—the long sought-after recognition of Israel’s right to exist—and your cabinet may be fractured beyond repair. We need a plan, Mr. Prime Minister. We must convince the cabinet members to support this covenant of the Arabs. Or Israel will find itself more hated and more isolated than we have ever been since 1948. We will look like arrogant fools. None will stand with us. Our national security will be more threatened than at any other time in our history. What are you going to do about the cabinet?”
Ishmael Covenant Page 21