by [Kamal
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S
nipers, talk to me!” Danielle ordered, as she charged onto the dock and then down the pier, joining the eight members of her contingent already there. “Does anyone have a shot?”
“Negative.”
“Negative.”
“The boy’s too close to him.”
“Knife pressed against his throat.”
“They’ll be out of range soon unless we can find a higher vantage point.”
“Damn!” Danielle longed for a pair of binoculars to determine exactly what was happening on that boat.
“We’ve got to get a boat!” she said to the men clustered about her, their weapons still drawn with nowhere to aim. “There!” And she bolted for one that was just preparing to moor, a sleek craft that would suit her purpose nicely.
Suddenly a flood of Palestinian police in dark green uniforms stormed the dock in the Israelis’ wake, their guns drawn too. In the confused moment that followed, the two parties had turned their weapons on each other, locked stiffly in place.
“Don’t shoot!” Danielle screamed, waving her arms desperately. “Nobody shoot!”
* * * *
B
en’s head cleared instantly, and he leaped back to his feet.
“Stay where you are!” al-Diib ordered, drawing Radji’s head violently toward him.
The boy arched his back, trying not to move. The boat’s forward motion slowed so much that it was lost to the whim of the currents, bobbing aimlessly.
“You can’t escape,” Ben said, not raising his voice, holding his ground like a statue.
“I’ll kill him!”
“You still won’t escape.”
Al-Diib tightened his grip on the blade, panic and madness intermixing on his features.
“I’ll do it!”
Ben advanced a step, hands raised into the air. “Calm down.”
“You,” al-Diib ordered Ben, twisting Radji sideways, “you drive the boat.”
Ben nodded his acceptance, keeping his hands up as he slid toward the controls. Nothing else he could do at this point, not without a gun anyway.
The gun!
Radji had been reaching down for it and now Ben’s eyes turned to the deck casually, searching. He saw the pistol lying there in the water, exactly where he remembered it. But his eyes must have given too much away, because al-Diib followed his gaze downward, lighting up when they encountered the weapon almost at his feet. He started to crouch, holding fast to Radji in the process.
When al-Diib stooped awkwardly to retrieve the pistol, the boy sank his teeth deep into the wrist wrapped under his chin. The Wolf wailed in agony and slashed sideways with his knife a mere instant after Radji had torn from his grasp.
The boy lost his balance and went sliding along the deck, Ben lunging past him for the gun.
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D
rop your weapons!” one of the Palestinian police officers shouted.
“We can take them all out!” the voice of Danielle’s lead sniper reported in her ear. “Firm shots on all ten. Just give us the word.”
Danielle wondered if she had a choice. An honest mistake or calculated move by Commander Shaath had placed her men in a deadly stalemate promising peril. Time had slowed to a crawl, letting her visualize the coming moments as they might be if she gave the order to fire:
Israeli police and their Palestinian counterparts shooting it out on the docks of Gaza. The first cooperative effort by the respective peoples ending in a terrible, and preventable, tragedy while a killer got away.
With Ben.
She risked a glance at the water. The fishing boat seemed to have stopped well beyond the harbor, providing hope she might be able to reach Ben in time.
“We are members of the Israeli National Police force here on a joint mission with the Palestinian Authority!” Danielle shouted. “My men and I are going to climb onto this boat now. Shoot us if you want.”
And, holding her breath, she leaped onto the deck of the fishing boat and motioned her men to follow.
* * * *
Chapter 42
B
en dove for the gun. Unableto reachit, hemanaged toknock it skidding across the wet deck out of al-Diib’s reach.
Flat out on the deck now, Ben was caught by a vicious kick to the head. The blow from al-Diib’s heavy rubber boot caught him along the lower skull and jaw, rattling his entire face. The pain exploded through him as he tried to roll away, and a second kick smashed him in the kidney. He reached the gunwale and used it for leverage to hoist himself up.
The Wolf lunged for him, the scaling knife poised in his hand, looking dark and dull under the sun. With no space to backpedal, Ben sidestepped as the killer slashed the blade at him. It sliced through his shirt and drew a wet burst of agony across his chest. He could feel the blood soaking through the cotton. Ben recoiled in pain and shock, stumbling. It probably would have ended there had not al-Diib slipped on the wet dock when he tried a second thrust with the fish knife.
Ben recovered enough to sidestep again, but knew he couldn’t beat the killer at this game.
A weapon, I’ve got to find a weapon . . .
His pistol was too far away to even consider, so Ben was sweeping his eyes across the deck in search of something else when he saw Radji charging at al-Diib from the port side of the boat. The boy grabbed the killer’s arm with both hands and yanked the blade downward with all his strength.
Ben rushed al-Diib in that instant, halfway there when the killer yanked his arm from Radji’s thin grasp and lashed out with the blade.
Ben saw the knife slicing up and back, Radji still trying to strip it away.
“No!” Ben screamed as the blade sank into the boy’s stomach.
* * * *
O
nce aboard the Palestinian fishing boat with her team, Danielle directed its captain to head out of the harbor at full throttle. The man was too scared to argue. He took his place behind the controls and steered the boat out into the open waters of the Mediterranean after the still-drifting craft the Wolf had fled upon.
From this distance she could see nothing but shifting figures on the deck and took that as a sign that, if nothing else, Ben must still be alive.
“Faster!” Danielle ordered the captain, as her men steadied their weapons on the starboard side of the boat facing the stalled craft.
* * * *
B
en heardthe boygasp, asound likeair escapingfrom atire ashe stumbled backward and collapsed, hands clutching for the knife centered in a widening splotch of blood across his shirt. His eyes swam with fear, which quickly gave way to glazed shock as Ben threw himself upon al-Diib.
“Bastard!”
Did he scream or merely think it? He would never know, just as he never felt the impact of his body crashing into the bigger man’s, staggering him. In close, Ben felt better able to neutralize the Wolfs superior size, strength, and reach. He pummeled al-Diib with a series of wildly savage blows, the rage in him spilling over. This was the Sandman all over again, only this time there was a life he could still save.
The Wolf regained control of himself and rammed Ben into the cabin door. Ben felt his feet dangling off the deck as the killer yanked him forward and then slammed him into the door again. His spine stung, but Ben still managed to crack his forearms against the big man’s ears and then dig a thumb into one of his eyes.
Al-Diib wailed in agony. He dropped Ben and jerked both hands upward to comfort his injured eye. Ben lunged and aimed a kick for the Wolfs groin. The Wolf started to double over but managed to lash out a vicious roundhouse blow that caught Ben in the side of the head. His teeth smacked against each other and his face whiplashed to the side.
Al-Diib pounced again, hands closing on Ben’s shirt before he flung him hard to the deck, and Ben looked up to see the Wolf tear a long baling hook from the outer cabin wall.
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hoot!” Danielle ordered, when she sa
w the large shape lift the baling hook over his head. “Shoot!”
But there had not been time to wait for her marksmen to join them on the boat and three hundred yards was still too much distance for submachine guns and pistols to manage effectively. The result was a barrage of bullets hopelessly off the mark. A lucky shot was the best she could hope for until her boat closed the gap by at least another hundred yards or so.
That was still seconds from happening.
And she could see the baling hook starting down toward Ben.
* * * *
B
en wasdimly awareof thedistant gunfireclacking overthe boat. He kicked out with a leg as al-Diib put all his weight into his planned killing strike. The blow buckled the man’s right knee and threw his blow well off to the side, where the hook ripped shards of wood from the cockpit.
Ben skittered across the deck, no time to rise, and saw his pistol propped up on its butt against a bench seat just out of reach.
The Wolf started to raise the baling hook to position it for another wicked slash, having to rotate his weight to keep it off his ruined knee, his back to the water now. Ben watched the hook rise ominously overhead. He was still groping for the pistol when it began its deadly journey downward.
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C
rouched on the fishing boat’s deck, Danielle steadied her pistol with both hands, sighting down its barrel. Less than two hundred yards separated the two boats now, an acceptable distance though complicated by the expected rocking which turned all aim to shit. Fire, keep firing, and hope for the best was all she could do.
She exhaled deeply and squeezed the trigger, pulling it again and again without bothering to adjust her aim.
* * * *
A
burst of blood erupted from the Wolfs shoulder and he twisted violently sideways, giving Ben time to close his hand on the wet butt of his pistol. Ben drew the gun upward and fired in the same instant the Wolf was angling the baling hook yet again.
His first shots took the Wolf in the chest and punched him backward. Ben didn’t try to better his position or angle; he just kept firing. Enough of his bullets ripped into the Wolfs midsection to stagger him toward the gunwale. Ben adjusted his aim so that his last shots caught the killer in the throat and face, spilling him over the side of the boat into the water below.
* * * *
Chapter 43
B
en crawledacross thedeck andcradled Radjiagainst him, pressing a trembling hand atop the boy’s blood-soaked fingers to help stanch the bleeding.
How small his hands were. How terrified and childlike he looked now as he lay near death.
The scaling knife was still in the wound, a blessing since it would help reduce the blood loss. Its short blade, meanwhile, might have kept damage to the internal organs to a minimum.
He cradled the boy to him, trying to keep him alive by sheer force of will, and grateful for the chance. He had never gotten such a chance to save his own sons. A few minutes earlier, if he had gotten home a few minutes earlier, he could have raced up the stairs and shot the Sandman before he went to work on them while they lay in their beds. That, Ben realized now, was what had been most unfair, what he had never been able to accept or rationalize. He had killed the Sandman when nothing but his own life was at stake, which wasn’t very much at all. Five minutes could have made all the difference, yet they were minutes he would never get back.
His eyes closed briefly to shut out the ache, and when he opened them al-Diib was climbing over the gunwale back onto the boat’s deck, his flesh chewed away in patches by fish and one eyeball hanging by a single strand down his cheek.
Ben came alert with a start, having been out for only a few seconds, the victim of a concussion-induced nightmare or hallucination. The world wavered, spun. He clutched the boy tighter to keep himself from sliding off.
He heard another boat approaching off the stern and felt his craft waver as Danielle led some of her team aboard.
“Ari!” she ordered.
Ben saw a man hurrying across the deck to him with a first-aid kit tucked under his arm. The man leaned over, placed it down and popped it open, then tried to pry the boy from Ben’s grasp.
Ben wouldn’t let go.
A shape knelt next to him. Ben felt soft hands on his shoulders, stroking him gently.
“It’s all right,” Danielle said softly. “Ari’s a trained medic. Let go of the boy, Ben. Let go.”
Ben looked up at her and released his grasp. Ari slid between them and went instantly to work.
“Will he live?” Danielle asked after Ari had inspected the wound.
“I’ve seen worse,” the medic replied tersely.
“That’s not what I asked you.”
“They lived.”
* * * *
B
en rememberedonly scatteredbits andpieces ofwhat followed. His body felt mercifully numb and he couldn’t seem to keep his eyes from closing. He was aware of a blanket being wrapped around him and someone holding on to him tightly:
Danielle. He knew her by the soft, lovely smell he had come to know so well these past few days.
A crowd had gathered by the time they returned to the docks. Two ambulances were waiting. If this had been America, Ben reflected in insane counterpoint, there would be media hounds about too. Here in Gaza, though, only the crowd greeted them, parting to allow the stretchers carried by the Israelis to pass through and held back at the fringes by the Palestinian police officers they had almost done battle with.
Danielle squeezed into Ben’s ambulance, keeping herself out of the way against the door. His eyes sought her out as the paramedics hooked him up to an IV. He began to feel better, more lucid anyway, almost instantly. His mind cleared and the memories flooded back like fresh blows from al-Diib himself. He cataloged his own wounds and figured, everything considered, he had come out all right. Nothing felt broken, and the slash across his chest qualified as little more than a laceration. The strikes to his head left him feeling like a watermelon was riding his neck, and the inside of his mouth tasted as though someone had stuffed it with cotton, but all that would pass.
Danielle was stroking his forehead. “It’s over, Ben. It’s over.” Her voice was relaxed, relieved.
But not sounding like she meant it.
* * * *
Chapter 44
T
hey gave Ben a Demerol drip at the hospital and the world turned to a drifting fog that soothed all the pain away. Hours meshed together, becoming practically indistinguishable. Ben was almost lucid when someone was in the room with him—a doctor, nurse, or visitor. But when alone, his mind tended to wander and he surrendered himself to it.
Early reports on Radji were positive. The Israeli medic had managed to get the blood loss slowed enough for him to reach the hospital alive.
Mayor Sumaya was Ben’s first official visitor and, not surprisingly, he was beaming.
“Congratulations,” he told Ben, triumphant and yet restrained. “Calls from the international press are typing up our phone lines. We’ve scheduled a joint press conference with the Israelis tomorrow to explain what transpired. The President is coming in personally to participate. He’s looking forward to meeting you.”
“I’ll have to send someone for a fresh uniform. . . .”
Sumaya smiled thinly. “The Wolfs name was Abu Garib. Apparently your theory about genital mutilation was correct, inflicted by other Palestinian prisoners when they learned he was trying to buy his way out of Ansar 3 by informing.”
“How did you learn that?”
“The Israelis were most forthcoming with the information.”
“They wouldn’t have been if they’d done the inflicting.”
“I’ve heard from Doctor al-Shaer, as well. He confirms that the knife recovered from the scene matches the wounds in all three of the Jericho victims. Not an exact match, of course, but it’s safe to assume Garib didn’t use a single knife for all his killings
.” Sumaya looked at Ben struggling futilely for comfort in his hospital bed. “The press is desperate to talk to you, you know, once you’re up to it.”
Ben tried to look pleased, neglecting to inform the mayor that Zaid Jabral was going to get an exclusive once he felt up to telling the story.