Doha 12

by Lance Charnes

  Miriam gulped. Whatever that thing was in his hand, she didn’t want any part of it. She had a gun but didn’t dare use it; the shot would send the congregation stampeding for the exits, straight into the truck bomb. Don’t let him know you’re afraid. She scraped together all the grit she could find and said in Arabic, “Put that away and we can settle this man-to-man.”

  The Persian snorted out a couple notes of a laugh. “There’s only one man here,” he said in Arabic. It took Miriam a few seconds to decipher his thick accent.

  “I’ll pretend you’re one, then.”

  His face clouded over. The black tube clacked when it slapped against his leg. “I should have shot you at the train station when I had the chance.”

  “You tried, but you failed.” She swallowed the knot in her throat, raised her hand, beckoning him. “Come closer. You’re not afraid of me, are you?”

  When he moved he moved fast, the tube a blur. She ducked it just in time, the whir loud in her ear, then lashed out with her good leg and buried her foot in his crotch. He squeaked, bent double, crashed down on one knee. Miriam recovered, dropped back a pace, shot a kick at his throat, but the Persian rolled under it and swept her left foot out from under her.

  The impact of the marble floor knocked a cough out of her. Her head snapped back when she hit and dinged off the tile, filling her eyes with static. Miriam fought to catch her breath and stop the spinning in her brain.

  The Persian was back on his feet, grimacing but mobile. He lunged, driving the tube’s end down toward her outstretched leg. She jammed her right elbow into the floor, ignoring the burst of pain, and flipped herself over just as the tip of the tube dug into the marble with a metallic clunk. Sharp chips of stone sprayed her hand.

  Okay, Plan B time. She levered herself off the floor using the back wall for support, heard rather than saw the tube hurtle toward her, and let herself fall back against the brass railing. The tube caromed off the wall close enough for her to see what it was—a collapsible steel baton. Magav had been looking at those when she left the service. They’d learned it was too easy to kill someone with one of those things.

  The Persian wound up another swing. Miriam lunged off the railing and drove her right fist into his temple. He staggered, half-turned to face her. She smashed the heel of her left hand straight into his nose. The crack of cartilage filled the vestibule. As he staggered back, he got off a sloppy swing that almost missed, clipping her forearm. More stars in her eyes.

  They retreated to their corners, steadied themselves, panted in some air. The Persian’s eyes glowed with pain and hate even as blood poured down his upper lip and chin. Miriam leaned back against the wall next to the arch, shook her head to clear it, then reached for her earpiece. Gone. It lay near the railing, crushed. No time to dig the radio out of her purse. No Jake, no backup.

  The Persian twisted his face into a snarl, raised his baton, then leaped at her.

  Hurry up, Raffi. How long does this take?

  Kelila peeked around the stone wall again, seemingly the thousandth time in what felt like a year but was perhaps five minutes. The driver was still in shadow, just a shape.

  “I’ve got it,” Raffi’s voice rasped. “Black Chevrolet Express registered to Ernest d’Avila of Nyack, New York.”

  “No, no and no. It’s white and a Ford and right in front of me.” It’s him, it’s the bomb…

  “Take care of it,” Raffi said. “Be careful.”

  Kelila stepped back into the little alcove sheltering the door to the basement flat, knocked the snow off herself, rehearsed the next few moments one last time. Then a quick prayer, for Hasia, for herself, for Raffi. Please let us have a future.

  She squared her shoulders and stepped out onto the sidewalk. Kelila then turned in the van’s direction and strode forward with both hands in her coat pockets, right hand curled around the butt of her pistol. Let’s end this.

  People nearby were starting to look at them curiously. Standing together in the aisle without the company of children made them the most conspicuous adults in the temple.

  “Police?” the sick guy asked Jake in heavily-accented English.

  Jake shot a glance toward the nearest security guy, who was apparently paying attention to the scene on the bimah. “I’m Jake. You’re…?” He stared at the man who squinted back at him. Then he saw it; the face in front of him morphed into the half-fuzzy picture of the Iraqi shahid. Jake had been looking for a bald guy. “You’re Mahir, right? What’s in that tank?”

  The Rabbi started the Hanukkah payer. “Rock of Israel, father of all men, we are stirred by the sacred memories of Thy wondrous help…”

  Mahir licked his cracked lips. His eyes darted to the crowd on the bimah, to Jake, to the side aisles. Sweat beaded on his forehead. “Please,” he whispered. “Please, I must do my duty.”

  “What duty?” Jake’s heart beat so fast it felt like one continuous throb. He balled his hands into fists to keep them from shaking. “Show me your hands.”

  Kelila’s voice in his ear. “White van, engine on, a man with dark skin inside.” A flash of hope lit Jake’s brain. Did they find the other bomb?

  “When violent men rose up against Thee to desecrate their sanctuary, to demolish its altar…”

  Mahir frowned, but turned up his palms so Jake could see. No switch, no wires; wherever the trigger was, it wasn’t there. Jake had to find the trigger. If he didn’t, Mahir could set off the bomb any moment, before Jake could figure out what was going on.

  “You don’t want to do this.” Jake tried to ignore the sweat running down his own sides and make his voice comforting despite the vise wrapped around his lungs. “It’s kids. Look at them, Mahir. They haven’t done anything to you, to anyone. Please don’t do it.” Mahir licked his lips again, focused on the crowd of children. His eyes and lips saddened. Jake felt a tiny buzz of success; he’d touched something inside the bomber. “You got kids, Mahir?”

  After a long moment, Mahir nodded once.

  “I have a little girl. She’s six. She just lost her mom, she needs me. Your kids need you.”

  Mahir turned on him with an expression that shot a bolt of panic through Jake’s body. “Americans kill Diya!” he snapped, a bit too loud. More people looked their way; the nearest edged away on their pews. “Americans put Rashad in the prison. I am now nothing to them.”

  Shit! Jake backpedaled out of this man’s bulls-eye of pain. “I’m sorry. But those kids up there aren’t your enemy. They don’t deserve to die, any more than your son did.” He swallowed, hoped he wasn’t about to step off a cliff. “Don’t do to their parents what got done to you.”

  “Grant, oh God, that the heroic example of the martyrs of old may inspire us with renewed devotion…”

  Mahir’s head swiveled to stare at the side aisle. Jake followed his look; the nearest security guy had noticed them. The man touched his ear, moved his lips. His cohorts focused on Jake and Mahir, began to slide out of the wings.

  “You kill those kids, you hurt your own people,” Jake told Mahir. “You hurt Lebanon and Palestine more than you can ever help. Let it go. Let it go.”

  Mahir’s eyes softened as he took another look at the mass of children on the bimah. He stiffened his jaw to stop it from trembling.

  All around them, the congregation recited, “…may the light of Thy presence and Thy truth shine forth to dispel all darkness and lead all men unto Thee. Amen.”

  “Is the trigger on the tank?” Mahir hesitated, then nodded once. “Let me take the tank.”

  Mahir yanked the tank next to him like a straying child. “Stay away.”

  Jake glanced from Mahir’s face to his white and trembling knuckles on the tank’s vinyl handle. No way he was going to just give it up. Jake fought to keep his dinner down, to keep from turning and running.

  Kelila in his ear again: “No, no and no. It’s white and a Ford and right in front of me.”

  Refael: “Take care of it.”

  They
found it? For real? Jake allowed himself an instant of hope. “Listen, Mahir. Your friends outside? We got them. It’s over.” He swallowed and extended a shaking hand toward Mahir, palm up. “Let me help you.”

  Mahir swept a dull steel-blue pistol out from under his suit jacket. A woman screamed. A man yelled, “He’s got a gun!” People nearby cowered or stood up, ready to flee.

  Tears trailed from Mahir’s eyes, down his yellowed cheeks. “I cannot fail.” Then he aimed at Jake’s face.

  Gur paced steadily toward the man standing on the corner at 66th Street. While he tried to look as if he was on a casual stroll, he felt the familiar tingling rush of imminent action. He drew his weapon, held it behind his back. He had no backup. If this was the bomber, Gur knew he’d likely have just one chance to end this cleanly.

  The man materialized out of the murk, a dusting of white on the shoulders of his dark car coat and brimmed hat. The streetlight on the northwest corner backlit the falling snowflakes and partly silhouetted him. Gur glanced at the banner under the light—an abstract blue dreidel, “Celebrate Chanukah!” After tonight, perhaps.

  Gur closed to within two meters of the man, who now watched him curiously. He was roughly Gur’s height but appeared stockier, although that might have been the winter clothes—or a bomb vest. The hat brim shadowed the man’s eyes, but Gur could make out the long face, large ears and close-cropped hair.

  “Pardon,” Gur asked in English, “what is the time, please?”

  The man pulled his left hand from its coat pocket—it held a cell phone—and nudged back his cuff. The streetlight glimmered on silver around his wrist. “Seven hours, ten minutes.” His heavy accent was from someplace in the Levant.

  Gur flipped his pistol’s safety. “Are you Adad al-Shami?” he asked in Arabic.

  The man cocked his head, as if he didn’t understand. He shifted slightly, twisting his body toward Gur without moving his feet.

  The shot caught Gur by surprise.

  He sensed rather than heard the muffled thud. A red-hot arrow of pain drilled through his gut. Gur staggered backward a step, collapsed on one knee into the snow. He wrenched his Beretta out from behind his back, fired three rounds into al-Shami’s blocky torso before the bomber freed his pistol from his coat pocket. Al-Shami rocked backward, grunted.

  Gur lined up a head shot. His finger tightened on the trigger.

  Al-Shami fired twice.

  The baton’s tip plowed a furrow in the stone just above Miriam’s head, spraying rock shrapnel in her ear. Already bent over, she launched off the wall and drove her shoulder into the Persian’s stomach, carrying them both into a heap in the middle of the floor with her on top. She grabbed his ears, slammed his head into the marble. He grunted, tried to buck her off, but she used her weight advantage to stay on and bounce his head off the floor again.

  Suddenly, she found herself flat on her back with fireworks bursting inside her head. Everything she saw was fuzzy and doubled. Miriam struggled up on her elbows, blinked away the whirlies, then tried to find the Persian.

  He used the back wall for leverage, struggling to his feet while keeping his eyes locked on Miriam. The Art Deco chandelier above them picked out a shiny wet spot on his hair; his eyes didn’t focus correctly. But he still held that damned baton.

  Miriam lurched upright. Her momentum carried her to the nearest doorway. She had to get that baton away from him. Until she did, he could hurt her a lot more than she could him.

  She noticed the brass stanchion and plush scarlet rope blocking off the door. In a moment, she’d unhooked the rope and hefted the post into her arms. It was a meter long, heavy, about the same weight as the loaded Negev light machine gun she’d sometimes packed in Magav, but not as well balanced. It’d have to do.

  They pushed off their walls at the same time, the Persian’s baton poised at the back of its next swing. Miriam led with the stanchion’s base. When he was just over a pace away, she feinted a jab at his chest. He slapped the post with the baton, trying for her hand but only smacking the base. The clang echoed louder than any gunshot. While he winced and shook out his hand, Miriam drove the base into the side of his head.

  The Persian fell like a sack of rice. Miriam took a step closer, raised the stanchion high. The next one would smash his skull.

  His arm moved faster than she could register. The baton crashed into her left knee.

  Her entire leg exploded.

  Once again she was on the ground. The stanchion slammed against her ribs. The pain in her knee drilled directly into the middle of her brain, passing through her stomach just long enough to put it through a blender.

  She squeezed away involuntary tears, searched for the Persian. He’d crawled a few feet away, out of reach, and while she watched, he forced himself onto his hands and knees. Blood trickled from his temple into the mess on his chin. His unfocused eyes searched for hers.

  Miriam tried to sit up, but the blowtorch in her leg scorched more of her nerve endings. The pain burned off what little adrenaline she had left. She gasped out a string of Hebrew curses, fell back. The radio or gun in her purse dug into her kidney.

  The Persian used the other stanchion and the arch to haul himself to his feet. He collapsed back onto one knee. Through it all, he never let go of that damned baton.

  Miriam realized she couldn’t hear the rabbi anymore, or the singing or the piano, just the little mewling noises from the crowd downstairs. Why was it so quiet? Where was Jake?

  A gunshot echoed through the massive cavern of the sanctuary. Then screams. Then the unmistakable sound of masses of people moving fast all at the same time.

  Oh, no. God, no. Jake? Was that Jake?

  She caught the Persian’s eye again. His face reflected the thought screaming in her head: fuck this, no point holding back now.

  They both scrabbled for their guns. He drew his first.

  NINETY-SEVEN: Central Park East, 23 December

  Kelila approached the van, trying to look casual as her mind crunched through all the possibilities. Someone in the back. Bomb vest on the driver. Deadman’s switch. No, that would be too dangerous for someone who had to drive. He’d have a traditional detonator, something requiring thought, even if not much thought.

  Just do it.

  As she approached the van’s nose, she pulled her hands free of her pockets, pushed up the cuff of her left sleeve and pretended to discover she’d forgotten her watch. She stopped, stamped her foot, looked back over her shoulder as if deciding whether to go back. When she turned toward the van, the driver looked her way.

  Now. Do it now. She smiled, stepped up to the driver’s window, held up her bare left wrist and tapped it, the universal got-the-time gesture. She slid her right hand into her coat pocket, gripped the pistol.

  The driver’s window whirred down. A black face peered out at her. His face. The face of the African shahid. “Yeah?”

  Every muscle in Kelila’s body clenched. “Excuse, what is the time?”

  The driver looked down at his watch.

  Kelila drew her weapon, thrust it toward the man’s head, and fired three times before he had a chance to look up. The pop pop pop barely escaped the van’s cab. Three red blotches bloomed in a tight group over his left ear. He slumped in his seat harness, his right hand thumping against the center console. Then, silence.

  The van didn’t explode. I’m still alive.

  Kelila pulled her red Mini Maglite from her bag and checked the interior through the window, careful not to touch the van. No stacks of dynamite or barrels of ANFO, just metal shelves full of cardboard boxes. No blood in the passenger seat; all three bullets were still inside the man’s skull. A hand-operated detonator was clamped to the center console, gray with a T-handle, one of the German ones scattered all over the Mideast. Right van, she thought.

  Four cars had passed since she’d shot the driver. It was long past time to go. Kelila yanked the keys from the ignition, dropped them in her pocket, stowed her flashlight, th
en sauntered west toward Fifth Avenue. “It’s done,” she told her earpiece. “Someone needs to secure the van.”

  No answer.

  Two sharp thumps. They could have been backfires. Kelila knew they weren’t.

  “Raffi? Are you okay?”

  “Come on, Mahir. There’s no point. Put that away.”

  Mahir edged backward, dragging the tank along. His pistol muzzle shuddered more than just a little. Jake hoped the man wouldn’t shoot him by accident.

  Two security men edged down the aisle behind Mahir, guns aimed and ready. The congregation melted away from them row by row; Jake could hear the shuffle of feet scurrying down the side aisles. Four security men swept the ambassadors off the bimah, and the now-crying children burrowed into their parents’ bodies. The rabbi stood frozen in the pulpit, face turned to plastic. All around him, sobs and squeaks and inhaled gasps of “ah!” “oh!”.

  Jake couldn’t move even if he wanted. His legs and feet simply wouldn’t answer his brain. Everything inside him had collapsed into a tiny, self-protecting ball. He could barely breathe, but he knew he had to keep talking. Talking might keep him alive.

  “Put that thing down,” he whispered. “How about you and me, we both live tonight?”

  Mahir’s mouth twitched into a grimace, full of pain and a hint of regret. “I die in months, I die now here. My life you cannot save.”

  The security men stopped, perhaps fifteen feet away. Both had their weapons locked on Mahir. The one behind him stepped up on a pew. If either of them missed, they’d drill Jake.

  Jake stifled a sigh of frustration. How could he reach a man who had absolutely nothing to lose? “Don’t go out like a monster,” he said, without realizing he’d been thinking the words. “Don’t kill those kids. That’s not Allah’s will. Make peace with our God.” Mahir’s brows wrinkled. “We have the same God, Mahir. We’re both people of the Book.”