Zealot

  “Your point?”

  “Her eldest son served in the Yom Kippur War, was killed in the Sinai. Ten years ago, her daughter lost a leg and her unborn baby in a terrorist bombing. My point is, what had that little pigtailed girl ever done to anyone to deserve a life like that? To lose one family to the Nazis and another to the Arabs?”

  “Nothing,” MacLeod answered.

  “Wrong! She’d been born a Jew. Born a Jew in a world where it’s on season on Jews. Well, no more, MacLeod. No more little girls will ever have to grow up like Rivka, I swear it!”

  “What about the little Palestinian girls whose fathers were at that mosque?” MacLeod didn’t want to believe what he was hearing, but he wasn’t going to let Avram get away with it. “You believe that it’s all right for you to murder? That it’s fine for you to butcher innocent men and women, why? Because you’ve suffered, Avram? Because you’ve been persecuted? And you think God approves of this?” MacLeod was livid.

  Avram shouted over MacLeod. “Protecting His chosen people is a righteous act in the eyes of God!”

  “‘Thou shalt not kill.’ That is what’s ‘righteous’ in the eyes of God.” MacLeod had had enough. “Okay, Avram. You and me, outside. Right now. It’s time to settle this.” He was more than ready.

  Avram smiled, shook his head. “No work during the Jewish Sabbath, MacLeod.” He looked beyond MacLeod, saw someone entering the sanctuary behind them. “Rabbi!” he called out. “A word if you have the time.” Then he turned back to MacLeod. “But soon. Soon enough.”

  “Not soon enough,” MacLeod muttered under his breath as Avram hurried away to meet the rabbi, then he stalked down the aisle and out of the synagogue.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Paris: The Present

  “Duncan, I’m all right. Stop fussing over me, you’re worse than my grandfather.” While ordinarily Maral didn’t mind being fussed over a little bit—it had been a while since anyone had—after three days in the hospital as the constant center of attention of nurses, doctors, technicians, and a host of security personnel, she’d reached her saturation point. “I can walk, you know.”

  “‘Hospital policy, Madame,’” MacLeod mimicked Maral’s doctor as he pushed her wheelchair down the corridor. “Just sit back and enjoy the ride.” He had become her stalwart protector, standing in for poor Assad, who had made the ultimate sacrifice so that she might live. More than once she had awakened in the middle of the night breathless and shaking as the dead had come to claim her in her dreams, to find MacLeod in the chair beside her, awake and ready to comfort her. Sometimes, when he thought she was sleeping, she would watch him through slitted eyes. He would be far away in his thoughts. Dark thoughts, she could tell. Thoughts that seemed to haunt him, to make him angry yet sad. She wished he would share his thoughts with her, but as soon as he knew she was awake, he was all smiles and pleasant conversation again, banishing the dark thoughts and refusing to speak of them.

  Farid led their way to a service elevator. The bulk of his men were downstairs, controlling the members of the press gathered at the main entrance to the hospital, awaiting Maral’s release. An elite team guarded the hospital kitchen, where the service elevator let out, and MacLeod’s car, parked around the back of the hospital next to the kitchen door. Together, MacLeod and Farid managed to spirit Maral out of the building and away from the prying attention of the media.

  “Where are we going?” Maral asked once they were safely free of the hospital. “I’ll need to freshen up and change before the signing this evening.” The Israelis and the remaining Palestinian delegates, spurred on by their anger at the act of terrorism at the Lutëtia, had worked diligently to nail down an agreement that both their cabinets would approve.

  “You’re sure you want to go? You know you don’t have to.”

  “I have to,” Maral protested. “I can’t let them think they can scare me away. I have to be there—for Assad.”

  MacLeod nodded. He had known that would be her answer before he even asked. “Your things are at the Jordanian Ambassador’s residence. Your delegation has moved there. More secure.”

  Maral was looking tired already. “I don’t think anything can ever be secure enough.”

  A convoy of police and security vehicles ferried the Palestinians from the secure compound of the Jordanian Embassy to the even more heavily armed and gated Israeli Embassy, where the leaders of the opposing sides would meet to sign the East Jerusalem agreement. In the back of one of the cars, Maral was uncharacteristically quiet. The somber suit that she wore only enhanced the pallor of her usually vibrant complexion. The strain of the event was already beginning to tell on her, and it hadn’t even begun. She opened up her handbag and checked her hair in a small mirror for the third time.

  “Maral, you look fine,” MacLeod, sitting next to her, reassured her.

  She put the mirror away self-consciously. “I just need something to do with my hands,” she explained. He reached out and took her hand in his.

  “How’s this?” he asked, and she smiled gratefully at him, sitting there so calmly, strong and handsome in his own dark suit. She ran her free hand up his forearm. “These are beautiful,” she said, admiring the golden studs securing the cuffs of his hand-tailored shirt. “Are you going to tell me they were made by some quaint East African tribe?”

  “Would you believe West African?” MacLeod said with a grin, content to make small talk with her all night, if it would help relax her. “Aborigine?”

  The car slowed at the gate to the Israeli Embassy, and the driver showed their credentials to the gate guard. As they were stopped. MacLeod noticed Maral shiver from a sudden chill. “Are you cold?” He put an arm around her shoulders to warm her.

  “No,” she said. “I just don’t have a good feeling about this.”

  “It will be fine,” he assured her with more certainty than he actually felt. He was certain that Avram would try something at the signing. But it would do no good for her to worry, too. “I’ll be close by all night. You’ll be fine. I promise.”

  It made her laugh to think he could chase away the bogeyman with only his word. “Well, if you promise,” she smiled wistfully. If only he could …

  The signing ceremony took place in the ballroom of the embassy, a functional but not ornate reception area in the eastern wing of the building surrounded by the offices of embassy officials. Maral took her place with the other representatives of both peoples on a raised dais that stretched nearly the length of the room. Just in front of the dais was a podium with a cloth-covered table on which lay a copy of the historic agreement, waiting for the signatures of the two men upon whom the fate of two nations rested. The walls of the room had been tastefully decorated with the flags of the two peoples, and the theme was repeated on the table in a gold-embossed mahogany pen stand, which featured miniatures of the two flags and the actual pens used by Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat to sign the Camp David Accords two decades before.

  The rest of the room was filled with the world’s media, arranged in their standard pecking order—CNN, the BBC, and the big three American networks jockeying for space up front, while the lowly print journalists from the smaller Asian or South American papers had to settle for room at the back.

  Once he was sure Maral was settled in, MacLeod roamed the ballroom and the surrounding hallways looking for trouble—looking for Avram. He knew there were both Palestinian and Israeli agents throughout the crowd and on every entrance, but he was also well aware that only he knew what they were looking for. Periodically he would make sure to return to the front of the room, where he hoped Maral would see him and take some comfort from his presence.

  The French Foreign Minister served as moderator for the event, quite proud of France’s contribution to this historic moment, as he pointed out many times in his endless opening remarks at the podium. As he finally wound down, he introduced each of the Israeli delegates who worked on the agreement, then the Palestinians as MacLeod paced through th
e assembled media, poised, alert.

  Every security operative in the room seemed to tense when the Foreign Minister introduced the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the President of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat. The two men entered from opposite sides of the room, crossed the dais, and shook hands at its center. The press stood to applaud and the ballroom was aflame with the flashes of a thousand cameras. Although he couldn’t see him through the crowd and lights, MacLeod suddenly sensed another Immortal.

  As the two leaders took their seats near the podium, MacLeod found him. Avram had entered through the side door with the Israeli Prime Minister’s retinue, but remained off to one side of the dais with some other security men. As the French Minister droned on, MacLeod carefully made his way across the room. Then, to another round of applause, Arafat took the podium for his remarks and Avram ducked out the side door.

  MacLeod was right behind him. He followed him down a corridor lined with offices and out the east entrance into a manicured garden. Two security men stood vigil at the entrance, one Israeli and one Palestinian. As he stalked Avram across the garden, MacLeod knew he’d have to wait until they were out of sight of the two guards and the security cameras on the grounds before he could reach for his katana.

  At the edge of the garden stood a garage of maintenance vehicles. Avram passed behind it and MacLeod followed him cautiously, expecting an ambush, but when he cleared the corner, he saw Avram standing in a patch of light behind the building, waiting for him.

  “I’ve heard that the cameras in this sector are out of order. It’s a shame no one will be able to fix it until tomorrow.” Avram drew his sword. “Now we settle this. We’ll let God decide.”

  “Is that what you told Marcus before you killed him?” The katana was in his hand. MacLeod was ready.

  Warily, the two Immortals began to circle. “I didn’t want to kill him. He gave me no choice.”

  “And those men in Hebron,” MacLeod said, looking for an opening. “I’ll bet they were a threat to you, too. Weaponless, on their knees, praying to God. Some threat.” He was trying to get Avram angry, get him off-balance.

  Avram wasn’t biting. “They served their purpose,” he said calmly. “Some mistrust here, a little fear there, sprinkle on a good dose of hate, and little by little the peace train goes off the tracks. And when it finally derails, they won’t even know which side did the final deed.” He feinted with a quick jab to the right which MacLeod’s katana easily batted away. “I’m just sorry you had to get in the way, MacLeod. Losing your head over a piece of Arab tail—I hope she was worth it.”

  MacLeod knew when he was being baited, too, and didn’t allow his anger to impair his judgment. He lunged to his left, then, when Avram had committed himself, corrected, and slashed to the right. Avram, overbalanced, couldn’t recover in time to block, and the katana left a neat slice down Avram’s face in its wake. First blood. “Now I’m giving you no choice. Fight me.”

  Avram didn’t command the power that MacLeod could put behind his blade, but he was quick and he was cunning. His fighting style combined the precise tactics of his Roman teacher with years of desperation, centuries of fighting with his back against the wall. It made him unpredictable, and that, along with the difference in their heights, allowed him to get under MacLeod’s guard more than once, scoring a jab to ribs, a slash across the abdomen.

  But despite the difference in their ages, MacLeod was the more experienced and better-trained swordsman, and in time experience won out. A combination attack, right and then left and then hard to the left again, and Avram was off-balance again. A slash to the head, and he was on his knees, the katana to his throat. MacLeod kicked the sword out of Avram’s hand.

  Avram glared up at MacLeod with defiance. “Go ahead and kill me. Everyone in that room’s dead anyway.”

  MacLeod stopped dead in his tracks, his sword poised at Avram’s neck. “You put a bomb in your own embassy?”

  “Kill me or don’t kill me, I still win, MacLeod. Go on, take my head.” Avram deliberately bared his throat against the gleaming blade of the katana. “Take my head! And by the time you’re finished with the Quickening, there’ll be nothing left of that agreement but a pile of rubble.”

  MacLeod shook his head. “You’re bluffing. You’d never kill your own Prime Minister.” He could feel his hands sweat on the ivory hilt of his sword. It was a hard call—the Avram he knew had been a lousy poker player.

  “C’mon, coward, do it,” Avram goaded. “Remember Marcus. Think about how I made him beg me before I killed him.” He rubbed against MacLeod’s blade so a thin line of crimson appeared at his throat. “And that Arab you’re screwing. I bet I could make her beg me, too—if she wasn’t already dead.” He looked up at MacLeod, his eyes filled with victory. “Or do you think you still have time to save her?”

  “God damn you, Avram,” MacLeod growled through clenched teeth. He pulled back the katana for the killing blow, swung hard—

  —and sliced him viciously across the midsection. Avram’s eyes grew wide, and he gurgled out a single sound. Then he fell to the ground, dead.

  For now.

  MacLeod ran back toward the embassy building with all his strength. When he was barely within earshot of the guards at the east entrance, he was yelling to the Palestinian. “Tawari’! It’s an emergency! Give me your communicator. I have to talk to Farid!” At the door the startled guard handed him the earpiece and started pulling the transmitter from his pocket. MacLeod was already running into the building with it. “Farid, can you hear me? It’s MacLeod. There’s a bomb! Clear the dais! Now!”

  He raced down the corridor of offices toward the ballroom. As he neared the side door he and Avram had exited, the hall-way began to fill with frenzied people. Farid’s signal to evacuate the dignitaries had started a panic among the press.

  “Out of my way!” MacLeod screamed, pushing upstream, Railing against the current to get back to the ballroom. No time for niceties, he pulled and hit and fought his way through the door and into the room.

  The Israeli and Palestinian leaders were gone, taken out immediately. The last of the delegates were fighting for the door behind the dais. He didn’t see Maral. In the hall itself, the media were climbing over their equipment and each other in their hurry to escape, except for two cowboy journalists in the midst of the chaos determined to report live from the scene.

  Farid and his men were combing the room for the device side by side with the Israeli security, overturning chairs, scouring the dais, examining equipment cases, but still nothing. MacLeod looked wildly around the room. If he were Avram, where would he put it? Where would he plant a bomb?

  If he were Avram … “… they won’t even know which side did the final deed.” Suddenly, spotting the crossed Israeli and Palestinian flags, he knew.

  “Farid!” MacLeod screamed into the communicator. “The pen stand! It’s in the pen stand!” Across the room, he saw Farid dive for the podium. When Farid grabbed the pen stand, MacLeod could tell from his face he’d guessed correctly—the weight was all wrong.

  Farid clawed desperately at the device, trying to open it, but no success. “Farid!” MacLeod shouted into the security chief’s earpiece. Across the room, the two men’s eyes locked. “Throw it.” MacLeod gestured with his arms. “I’ll get it out of here.” Farid looked around, looking for some other option, finding none. “THROW IT!” MacLeod screamed into Farid’s headset.

  MacLeod waved everyone away from him as Farid drew back his arm to throw the device, and the press didn’t need to be told twice to scatter. As the small wooden box spiraled through the air, Farid muttered a quick prayer to Allah and braced for detonation on impact.

  MacLeod fielded the box into his midsection to cushion the hit, but even he was surprised it didn’t go off as he caught it. He headed for the ballroom door.

  MacLeod charged into the hallway yelling “It’s a bomb, out of my way!” To his dismay, the corridor was filled in eithe
r direction with the panicking press. They started to scream and run at his approach. He didn’t have time to think, to plan which way to go. He just had to get out. He ran straight across the hall to one of the offices. With a powerful kick, he broke open the door.

  A window, Thank God.

  Leading with his shoulder, MacLeod crashed and rolled through the plate-glass window as if it were paper. Somewhere far behind him he thought he could hear Maral scream.

  “DUNCAN!!”

  Once outside, he threw the bomb away from him into the night for all he was worth. Instantly, his world exploded.

  He was pain. A ball of pain. A throbbing mass of pain. Pain was his only reality. Pain was his awareness. He had no senses—no sight, no sound, no sensation—but he knew the pain. It moved in him and through him like a thing alive.

  Hearing returned first. Off in the distance, almost as if in another world, he could hear shouting and screaming, the insistent wail of a siren. Somewhere a woman cried … a woman … and then he remembered. He remembered Maral, the bomb, Avram, he remembered Immortality, he remembered the Highlands of Scotland so many, many years ago. He was no longer pain. He was once again Duncan MacLeod. He gasped for air, and it seared down his throat like molten lava.

  But MacLeod was still in pain. He struggled to force his eyes open and the night sky he faced was full of smoke and debris. He tried to turn his head—muscles and bones alike protested as he moved—and he could see figures move in the smoke. He knew he had to get up, to move away from the site of the explosion before anyone found him, before he was forced to explain, but his spine and his legs could not yet bear his weight. He pulled himself along the ground, half crawl, half drag, every inch new agony, until he reached a stand of bushes. He managed to roll beneath them, out of sight, and he lay there without moving, eyes closed, waiting for the healing, feeling the pain slowly start to recede.