They were around thirty miles shy of the city, and the car was as quiet and fast as a brand-new Mercedes Benz. According to the driver, they had taken a new Mercedes, stripped off the body, and somehow fitted an aged, rusting thirty-year-old substitute over the chassis.
It now looked as if it belonged in an Arab side street, which was, after all, where it was now headed, and where it would spend the rest of its life, a totally forgettable, undercover adjunct to the most dangerous secret service on earth.
“Did the pilot contact you, Jerry?” asked Ben Joel.
“No need. I had your ETA and GPS numbers. I just waited a mile up the road until I heard the helo. Then I hit the gas pedal and here you all are.”
“Pretty neat,” said Colonel Joel. “Are we likely to be stopped or checked at the edge of the city?”
“Hell, no. This isn’t Baghdad. And even if the police were on the lookout for someone, they’d never check this thing. We look like a group of local Bedouin bringing vegetables to the market. No problem.”
The car sped on, straight up Route 5, over the railroad and down the freeway into the city. They hardly saw another car until they reached the streetlights of Damascus. Jerry took a swing to the western side and came in along Kalid Ibn al-Walid Avenue. They swung right just before the Hejaz Railroad Station and skirted around the north side of the Old City wall.
They drove through the Bab Touma Gate and headed down the street of the same name. Jerry took the second right, drove for fifty yards, and parked in the dark, right next to a grim-looking back door to somewhere. He ordered them all out, produced a key, and opened it.
“There’s no light in here,” he whispered. “Follow me up to the third floor.” And in single file they crept up the narrow staircase. Finally, on a narrow top-floor landing, he groped for another door, opened it with a key, and switched on a light.
“There’s one other apartment on this level,” he said. “We had to buy the fucker, make sure no one was in residence.” Abraham and Itzaak both laughed.
Jerry waited around for less than five minutes, just pointing out the bathroom and the coffeepot, before he showed them the view. And now he turned out the light and walked to the window. “That’s your target right there,” he said, pointing directly across Bab Touma Street. “That big place with the steps up to the front door. There’s two guards right inside it. Be careful at all times.”
And with that, Jerry was gone, leaving Ben Joel and his men staring out at the two-hundred-year-old townhouse across the street, where Ravi and Shakira Rashood, protected by at least two armed guards and probably more, were doubtless sleeping the untroubled sleep of the innocent.
Colonel Joel called his team to order. “It’s almost 0220. We’ll have something to eat, get some coffee, and begin the operation at 0300,” he said. “Four-hour shifts. Abraham, Itzaak, you crash out on those two mattresses in the bedroom. John and I will open the surveillance chart, and maybe Abe will fire that computer up while I get the range on these binoculars.
“We’ll watch the house in twenty-minute takes, and John can start preparing the weapon. We have no schedule for H-hour — that’s H for Hit. It’s entirely up to us. We just need to call home base when we’re going in.
“Problems?”
The other three shook their heads. And Colonel Joel put out the light, while he drew back the thick black curtain that covered the window. He raised the binoculars and focused on the house across the street.
“Okay,” he murmured, “there are curtains on the windows in the upper floors, but none on the street level. The main reception room is situated to the left of the front door looking in. There’s a glass-patterned window above the front door. I can see the light from the passage spilling in. I guess the guards are stationed right there where it’s light.”
Roger that, sir. Abraham was instantly on the case, typing out every word uttered by his team leader.
Ben Joel drew the curtains over the window. And turned on the light. He reached for his sandwiches and chocolate and said quietly, “Since we are under orders to make the hit in the hours of darkness, it’s going to be in that front room left of the door. It’s the only one we can see into after dark. That’s if we use a controlled explosion. Otherwise we’ll have to knock down the entire house, and that would cause havoc.”
“Whatever it takes,” said Itzaak. “The mission is to kill Rashood, and we’ve got enough high explosive in here to knock down the Wailing Wall. We’ll just do what we must.”
“Correct,” said Colonel Joel. “Let me have some of that coffee, will you?”
“Looks like we’ll have to get rid of the guards,” observed Abraham.
“No way we’ll get in there without,” replied Ben. “Unless there’s some time in the day when the house is left unprotected.”
“Can’t imagine that,” said John Rabin.
At 0300, they started work. Colonel Rabin was locked in the tiny kitchen with his explosive and detonators. Ben Joel stood in the dark with his glasses trained on the house across the street. Three times every hour, they changed places, while Ben entered the surveillance chart on the computer, mostly reporting no movement.
A little after 0600, there was a change. The front door of the Rashood residence opened and two youngish men dressed in jeans and loose white shirts emerged into the dawn. Colonel Joel grabbed the camera and fired off six pictures of them.
They turned left out of the house and walked together down Bab Touma toward the Via Recta. Ben looked carefully for the arrival of two more guards, but none showed up. But then he saw movement in the main downstairs room of the house: two other men, both carrying machine guns, were standing there staring out of the window. The powerful Mossad binoculars picked them up starkly. Neither one of them was Ravi Rashood.
When the watch changed and Colonel Rabin emerged from the kitchen to take over at the window, Ben Joel told him, “The guard duty changed at 0600. Two of them left, but the other two, who took over, did not come in through the front door. That means they were already in there. It’s a big house. There may be a guard room where they can sleep.”
“Unless there’s a back door they use?”
“We’ll recce that today, and maybe watch that door for a few hours — check when it’s used.”
“Okay. Do we need more help? Two watches will stretch us a bit.”
Colonel Joel was pensive. “Quicker we get this done, the quicker we can get the hell out. Let’s just go for it — I’ll get around the back end of the house this morning around 1100. Is the weapon ready?”
“Affirmative. I need about thirty minutes to check the timer. Any time after that, the bomb can be put in place.”
“Size?”
“I’ve made it in two halves. If we just want to blow that front room to eternity, we use just one. If we don’t mind knocking the fucking house down, we use the lot.”
Ben Joel chuckled. “Okay, John. It’s getting light; stay back behind that curtain. I’ve cut two holes in it for the binos. Don’t take your eyes off that place even for twenty seconds. I’ll get us some coffee.”
The watch changed at 0700. Abraham and Itzaak came on duty. Abraham left immediately to check out the garage where the getaway car was hidden. Then he skulked around the side streets and finally walked slowly into the street right behind Ravi Rashood’s house, adopting the gait of an old man.
There was a small backyard to the property, and that yard was surrounded by a twelve-foot-high wall. A hefty wooden gate, painted green, was shut tight, and it was secured by a chain and a large padlock.
“Jesus,” breathed Abraham. “You want to get in there, you’d have to blow that gate down with dynamite.”
Right now the street was absolutely deserted. And Abraham took a risk. He walked along the wall and stopped at the gate, pretending to take a rest. But he had a good look at the padlock, and found what he was searching for, rust. And there it was, right there on that thick, curved steel bar. No one had opened that d
oor for a very long time. Abraham kept going, slowly, his white robe billowing in the light February breeze. The street was still deserted.
He walked past the back of the next house and saw a white truck parked against the high wall. For a split second he debated climbing onto its roof and taking a look into the backyard, but he dismissed that as too risky.
He continued for another hundred yards, and to his mild surprise saw a builder’s ladder lying on the ground, alongside a house on the left-hand side of the street. There was also a group of paint cans and a small cement mixer. This was work in progress.
Abraham considered borrowing the ladder and using that to take a good look into the Hamas colonel’s backyard, but thought better of it. I could give it a go after dark, he decided. Wouldn’t take more than five minutes.
Once more he took a devious route, checked out local cafés and a couple of restaurants, and then made his way back to the rear door of the apartment building, used a key to let himself in, and climbed the stairs.
Ben Joel, still unshaven and still awake, was talking to Itzaak at the window. Abraham told him the car was in place, keys under the front seat, and that the back entrance to Mr. and Mrs. Rashood’s home was bolted and barred, unused, and obviously secured.
He also explained he had not looked over the wall, but had found a way to do so, by borrowing a ladder and maybe using it after dark.
“I’m not too certain about that,” said the colonel. “What if you got caught?”
“Then I suppose I’d have to kill someone,” said Abraham, shrugging his shoulders.
“I don’t think so,” said Ben. “The last thing we need is a murder hunt conducted by the police in a back street behind Rashood’s house.”
“Hadn’t thought about that,” replied the Mossad hitman, gloomily. But then he brightened and said, “Ben, that back gate is never used. I know that. Right here we got a one-door house.”
“That’s what I’m working on. Thanks, Abe. The next hour should tell us something.”
And at that precise moment the front door of the big house on Bab Touma opened, and into the now-bright morning light stepped General Ravi Rashood, followed by his wife, Shakira, and a bodyguard holding an AK-47 Kalashnikov. Ben Joel stared at their photographic evidence, which was very little: two quite good pictures shot by the Americans of Ravi on a high cliff in the Canary Islands, and a better-quality print of Major Ray Kerman, supplied, reluctantly, by Great Britain’s SAS.
The images matched, no doubt. The man leaving the house on Bab Touma was General Ravi Rashood, commander in chief of Hamas. The woman accompanying him was plainly his wife, and the field agent’s description of her was accurate. She was indeed tall, dark-haired, and spectacularly beautiful.
It was 0900 and a cool fifty-eight degrees. The general was dressed in Western style, light blue jeans, a white shirt, and a brown suede jacket. Shakira also wore light blue jeans with high black boots, a blue shirt, and a leather jacket. Ben Joel grabbed the camera, pressed the long-range button, and snapped four close-ups of the Hamas terrorist and his wife.
The men from the Mossad watched as the guard stepped back and took up his position on a white bench set against the wall on the right-hand side of the front door. General Rashood and his wife walked down the steps alone and turned left toward Via Recta. They were in fact making their way over toward the Madhat Pasha Souq and a little restaurant where they often had breakfast.
Ben Joel did not care one way or another where they were going. He cared only what time they left, what time they returned, and the movement of the guards at the big house. With Ravi and Shakira still within sight, there was another change. A second guard came outside and sat on the opposite side of the door. Ben photographed both men, talking and smoking, their Kalashnikovs resting against the wall.
These were the 0600 men, who had begun their watch in that front room, moved out into the inside passage, and then taken up position outside at 0900. At noon, Ravi and his wife returned, walking slowly, reading newspapers.
They reentered the house, and almost immediately there was a guard change. Two young men arrived from the north end of the street. The men on the door handed over their AKs and left. The new arrivals sat outside. By Ben Joel’s calculations, there were no other guards inside the house.
Aside from several occasions when the guards went inside, always one at a time, the situation remained unchanged until 1800. At this time, four new guards came along the street together, the other two left, and the night watch took up position.
Colonel Ben Joel spent the afternoon sleeping, but now he had it clear in his mind. The four new arrivals guarded the house through the night, taking it in turns to eat and sleep. The photographs on the computer matched. The two men he had seen leave at 0600 that morning were the same two who now slipped inside the front door. The others stayed outside in the last of the light and the warmish air.
Much depended on General Rashood’s plan for the evening. If he went out for dinner, the two guards must be removed quietly before he returned, killed and hidden. The bomb must then be planted in that front room. If Ravi did not go out, they would have, somehow, to remove the guards, and then, in the immortal words of Colonel John Rabin, knock down the fucking house. No survivors.
As it happened, General Rashood dined out every evening, either alone with Shakira, or with friends.
At 1945, a taxi pulled up outside the house. There were no guards at the door, but almost instantly one of them came out and ran down the steps to speak to the driver. Five minutes later, Ravi and Shakira walked outside and climbed into the cab.
Colonel Joel, Colonel Rabin, and Abraham watched it pull away.
“John, any reason why we should not go in tonight?” asked Ben.
“Not at all. The weapon is absolutely ready. You just need to decide whether we design it to obliterate that one room, or demolish the building.”
“Okay. Let’s say we expect the general to return around 2300, or even later. According to our estimations, there will be a guard change at midnight. But we cannot wait until then. We need to take out and remove these two Hamas thugs guarding the door around 2230, and hope to Christ no one disturbs us.”
“And if anyone does?”
“Eliminate.”
“Guns?”
“Knives.”
“Messy?”
“But quiet. And that’s better.”
“That way, we’re counting on the general arriving back between 2300 and midnight?”
“Not necessarily.”
“But what if the second shift of night guards turns up and their colleagues are not there, deserted, gone missing?”
“What can they do but remain on station, wait for the boss, and then tell him two men have vanished? We don’t care. The bomb will be in place.”
“Okay, what if the general then decides to search through the house, and then goes straight to bed? — and with a wife like that, who could blame him?”
Colonel Joel laughed, knowingly. “I was coming to that,” he said. “We take out the two guards at 2230, as planned, insert the big bomb. And blow the bastard up as soon as Ravi enters the house and shuts the door. That way we don’t care which room he is in.”
“No, I guess not. But it does mean we won’t have much use for the timing device.”
“Not at all, John. We wait for that door to close behind the general. We set the timer for ten minutes. And then we leave. We just bolt down the stairs, straight to the garage, and we’re gone, out of here. We’ll be about four miles away when the blast occurs. All we need to know is that Ravi’s in there.”
“Can’t fault that, boss,” said Colonel Rabin agreeably. “Shall we go out for an hour?”
“Good idea. We haven’t eaten all day. Tell Abe and Itzaak we’ll be gone for a while and we’ll bring food back.”
Two hours later, the Mossad’s hit team was in order. Everything was packed away in a couple of big mail bags, which Jerry would pick up later that nigh
t. At 2225, Itzaak and Abraham, still in Arab dress, went downstairs and walked the short distance into Bab Touma Street, which was very quiet, though not entirely deserted.
They crossed the street and walked up the steps to the front door of the Rashood stronghold. Major Itzaak Sherman rapped sharply on the door, which was instantly opened, and the Israeli found himself looking at the barrel of an AK-47.
The guard spoke in Arabic—What do you want?
Itzaak just said, “Please, sir, I need to speak to General Rashood.” The guard hesitated and stepped forward, saying, “I thought there were two of you—” But he was too late. Abraham swooped out of the shadow and rammed his combat knife straight into the man’s heart. It was a deadly blow, viciously hard and accurate. The guard gasped, tried to yell, but he was dead before he hit the floor.
From inside, there was a call of “Rami, who is it?” And the second guard stepped out onto the front porch and met with an identical fate when Abraham, using a second knife, plunged it into the man’s heart.
By this time, Colonel Ben Joel had crossed the street, carrying the bomb in a leather duffel bag. He raced up the stairs and into the room on the left. Right behind him came John Rabin. They both hit the floor and began to screw the device to the underside of the big heavy table in the center of the room.
Meanwhile, the other two were dragging the two bodies down the steps and into a small open front yard, below the main street window. This area was unkempt and overgrown, and it had a gateway but no gate. The walls around it were two feet high. It took exactly one minute for Abraham and Itzaak to dump the dead men into the far corner of the tiny yard, where they would never be discovered until it was light, and maybe not even then.
At this point, Major Rabin was working alone on the electronics of the bomb, with Abraham standing guard on the door, in case either of the sleeping second-shift guards heard something and came to investigate. But the house was deathly quiet.
Colonel Joel hurried back across the road and opened up a connection from his cell phone to that of Colonel Rabin, who was still under the table in Ravi’s house. They spoke briefly, for no more than eight seconds, and then John Rabin screwed in the last wire, set the detonation mechanism to coincide with the electronic box up in the apartment, and left.
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