By Dawn's Early Light

by Grant R. Jeffrey

  “The stone which the builders refused,” he recited, his deep voice resonating in the spacious chamber, “is become the head stone of the corner. This is the LORD’S doing, it is marvellous in our eyes.”

  Devorah closed her eyes and thumbed away a tear that slipped from beneath her eyelid. Coming with him to services, serving as hostess at his Shabbat meals, and observing the rituals in his presence—these small concessions were the least she could do to atone for all the ways she had already disappointed her father.

  Years before Michael had learned that one of the keys to successful intelligence work was learning to blend in with the surroundings. Try as he might, though, he didn’t think he’d ever be able to blend into the congregation of an Orthodox synagogue. Though there were other blond and fair-complexioned men in the crowd, Michael had the feeling he was the only one who couldn’t read Hebrew, follow the printed program, or wave his bundle of palm branches in sync with the others.

  He was almost relieved when he heard the quiet thrumming sound of Asher’s vibrating pager. Asher glanced down immediately, looked at the code on the screen, then switched the pager off and slipped from the row. Without hesitation Michael followed, noticing that two other men also left their seats. All the other men continued praying, their eyes either closed or focused on their prayer books.

  Devorah had joined them by the time they reached the small foyer that led to the street. “What is it?” Michael asked, looking from brother to sister. An air of suppressed excitement surrounded both of them like an electric field. Michael recognized the signs of tension immediately; he had worn their taut looks on his own face. “What’s happening?”

  “I’ve got to make a call,” Asher said, a grim look fixed to his mouth as he led the way to the parking lot. Michael saw only a handful of cars; most of the congregates had chosen to walk because driving was a violation of the Sabbath.

  Devorah carried a cell phone in her purse and had already punched in a number by the time they reached the car. She listened for a moment, then murmured something in Hebrew, and disconnected the call. “There’s been an incident,” she said, her brown eyes sparking as she looked at her brother. “Call your CO. I would imagine you’ll be asked to report to your base.”

  “Let me guess,” Michael said, sliding his hands into his trouser pockets. “The incident is at the Knesset.”

  Her brown eyes suddenly blazed into his. “Why would you say that?”

  “Something we picked up at the NSA—a series of radio transmissions from Echelon. Among a lot of other things, the word Knesset was mentioned.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, her eyes open and questioning, then she shook her head slightly. “I’ve been asked to report to the scene. You can either return to the service—”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  An odd mingling of wariness and amusement filled her eyes. “If you were a civilian, I’d definitely recommend that you stay here. But, after getting to know you, I can see why you’d be more at ease in a terrorist situation than in a synagogue.”

  Michael didn’t hesitate. “Let’s go,” he said, opening the car door.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  1956 hours

  THE SABBATH OFFICIALLY CEASED TO EXIST, MICHAEL REALIZED, WHEN NATIONAL security was at stake. Asher dropped him and Devorah at the rabbi’s house, where they jumped into her Fiat and drove toward a modern part of the city known as Kiryat Wolfson. Michael recognized the ribbed concrete Knesset building, the home of Israel’s parliament, as they pulled up. More than two dozen military and police vehicles were already on the scene. Bright lights flooded the area, and men swarmed over the grounds as if they had never heard the Sabbath was supposed to be a day of rest.

  Devorah left the car in an empty lot and strode confidently into the mayhem. She paused outside a large command vehicle, flashed her badge at a guard, and was allowed to step inside. After a moment, she came back out, her eyes like black holes in her pale face.

  “Apparently a group of terrorists has taken several members of Parliament hostage,” she explained, leading Michael away from the command post. “They overpowered the guards just after a Parliament meeting had been dismissed.”

  Michael lengthened his step and turned to cut her off, halting her resolute path across the parking lot. “How many hostages?”

  She stopped in midstep, a look of intense, clear light pouring through her eyes. “This is an Israeli operation, Captain. You have no duties here.”

  “But I have an interest. And so do you.”

  She showed her teeth in a tight expression that was not a smile. “I’ve received my orders. I am to keep you out of harm’s way.”

  Michael stepped back, stung. “You’re kidding.”

  A swift shadow of anger swept across her face. “I wish I weren’t. I am capable of far more than baby-sitting.”

  Michael bit back an oath and turned from her, then raked his hand through his hair. She had a right to feel irritated, and so did he. He had come to this God-forsaken land to insure Israel’s national security, and now, when it counted, the Israelis were politely and firmly pushing him away.

  He kicked at a rock on the ground, sending it scrabbling across the asphalt, then clenched his fists. Israel’s special ops teams were good, among the best in the world. He ought to leave them to do their jobs, but he had never been the type to walk away from a fight when he could do something to win it. And he could win this one. With President Stedman’s approval, he could get a few special toys the Israelis could use to safely pry those terrorists out of the building.

  He whirled around to face Devorah. “I want to speak to your commanding officer.”

  She shot him a cold look. “That would be a direct violation of my orders. I am to take you to Lod, where you’ll be safely out of danger.”

  “Don’t be stubborn!” Rancor sharpened his voice, and suddenly his hands were on her slender shoulders. “Take me to your CO, and now, Sergeant Major. I outrank you, and I’ve just given you an order.”

  Her nostrils flared with fury, but she turned on her heel and led the way back to the command post, leaving him to trail in her wake. Within a moment she flashed her badge again, and Michael followed her into the armored vehicle.

  Inside the enclosed space, two lieutenants sat at a table and huddled around an Apple PowerBook laptop with an attached whip antenna. One of the men looked up and frowned as Michael entered; another stood and addressed Devorah. “What’s the meaning of this, Sergeant Major?”

  “Captain Reed insisted on speaking to you.” Devorah’s voice was tight and clipped.

  “Don’t fault her; I’m afraid I pulled rank on the sergeant major.” Michael took a step closer and nodded to the officer with the most bars on his uniform. “I’d like to offer my assistance in this situation.”

  The lieutenant, a short, muscular-looking man with a pockmarked face, nodded brusquely. “Thank you, Captain, but we have things under control.”

  “How many hostages are there?”

  The officer pressed his lips together, obviously unwilling to reveal sensitive information.

  “Perhaps it would help,” Michael ventured, “if I spoke to your prime minister. I can place him in direct contact with President Stedman, who will assure him that I am here to help, not interfere. You won’t be violating any national secrets by talking with me; I know all about your Sayeret team; I even know about your top-secret Mista’aravim and Ya’Ma’M. But I also have access to weapons that might give you the edge in this situation.”

  The thin line of the lieutenant’s mouth clamped tight for a moment, then his thick throat bobbed once as he swallowed. “Thirty hostages. Twenty are members of Parliament; the others are aides, secretaries, and office personnel. The minister of the interior and the deputy prime minister are among the captives, and that information is top secret. Two security guards are already dead.”

  Michael bent over the table and glanced at the laptop. The screen displayed a black an
d white diagram, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out what the officers were studying.

  “These are the building blueprints?” When the men did not answer, he looked up and gave them a grim smile. “If I can’t help, gentlemen, I will back off and leave you to your work. But what if I tell you that this night’s assault could not only end with all hostages safe, but also with several terrorists in custody?” He paused, letting the question echo in the silence. Counterterrorist teams had to be quick and ruthless, which meant that few terrorists ever survived the violent assaults. But if one or two could be safely extracted and questioned in custody, the Israelis could gather information that would prove valuable in the months to come.

  The younger lieutenant pushed his glasses further up his nose and pointed to a line on the diagram. “The hostages are being held in the second-floor government room, on the same floor as the entrance. The terrorists have given us until 2300 hours to answer their demands. We have a hostage negotiator talking to them now by phone, trying to stall them. We will send in Sayeret and catch them by surprise.”

  “You storm the building, and you’ll sign your hostages’ death warrants.” Michael’s gaze fell to the blueprints on the computer screen. “This is a rather odd design,” he remarked, reaching out to adjust the angle of the screen. “The building entrance is located on the second floor?”

  “An afterthought,” the other officer said, crossing his arms. “The original plan called for the entrance to be located on the lower level of the southern side, but that area was within range of Jordanian artillery in the West Bank before the Six-Day War. So the blueprints were amended.”

  With his finger, Michael traced a blue line running alongside the government room. “This interior wall is constructed of—what? Plaster? Dry wall?”

  “Plaster and steel beams. The exterior wall is shielded concrete block.”

  “And do we know how many terrorists have joined the party? Have we any idea who they are or what they want?”

  An uneasy silence prevailed, and Michael’s patience vanished in a rush of frustration. “Gentlemen,” he fixed the senior officer in a steely gaze, “some very influential lives are at stake at this moment. I believe I can help you, but I will need your cooperation and a full briefing on the situation. So either brief me or call for someone who can. I’m quite sure those people in the Parliament building would want you to act speedily.”

  Still uncommunicative, the senior officer picked up a radio and brought it to his mouth, averting his eyes as he barked several orders in Hebrew. As he waited for a response, Michael watched Devorah’s face. When a voice on the radio responded, he saw a gleam of interest enter her eyes . . . and he knew he had won.

  “We counted eight terrorists before they cut the power to the video cameras,” the lieutenant said, his brows slanting in a frown as he set the radio on the table and turned his dark gaze upon Michael. “We are assuming they are affiliated with the PLO or Hamas. In the guise of a delegation of Israeli Arabs with an appointment to meet with an Arabic member of the Knesset, they entered the building as a session of Parliament prepared to break for Shabbat and Sukkot. Two guards and a tour guide were killed instantly as the intruders overran the staircase. At gunpoint, they herded everyone still inside the building into the government office. An hour ago they released two government officials, both elderly men, with a list of their demands. If we have not met them by 2300 hours, they say they will kill all the hostages.”

  Michael checked his watch. Eight o’clock, so they had less than three hours before people would begin to die. “How are they armed?”

  “Nine millimeter Spectre M-4s, we think,” the officer said, his brows furrowing, “and grenades. We have video footage of the initial assault.”

  “May I see it?”

  Without answering, the officer turned and picked up a remote control on the table. A small monitor mounted on a shelf on the opposite wall clicked on, and a red light glared from the video player beneath it. Michael watched the grainy black-and-white image and saw two uniformed guards stationed at a security checkpoint. The guards’ heads bobbed once or twice, perhaps they were laughing or talking. And why not? Parliament had just dismissed, the day was nearly done.

  A pair of men entered the picture, dressed in the long robes favored by many of the desert-dwelling Arab Bedouin. Michael scratched his chin.

  The robes would have immediately drawn his attention if he was standing guard, but he couldn’t blame the sentries for their lack of suspicion. One saw all sorts of people and costumes on the streets of Jerusalem.

  One of the delegates suddenly pulled a dark submachine gun from beneath his robe and dispatched the sentries with quick, neat double taps. The two guards fell silently, struck down before they even had a chance to react. Immediately, a host of other robed men came forward, a similar gun in each man’s hand.

  He stiffened in his seat. “Stop the tape, please.”

  The officer clicked the remote and looked at Michael.

  “About fourteen inches long, and they didn’t pull a safety or cocking lever,” Michael murmured, talking more to himself than to his companions as he stared at the frozen image of the gun. “That fits the Spectre M-4, but how did they get it past the metal detectors?”

  The Israeli lieutenant tilted his brow, looking at him uncertainly. “I beg your pardon?”

  Michael pointed toward the screen. “This can’t be your only security checkpoint. There have to be metal detectors at the main entrance, right? So how did these guys get through without setting off every alarm in the building?”

  The lieutenant’s forehead knit in puzzlement.

  Michael looked at Devorah, wondering if she followed his train of thought. “The Russians have been experimenting with weapons formed of lignostone, a compressed wood product originally developed in Holland for fuel.” He reached up and tapped the gun on the screen. “Lignostone would explain how these guns slipped through the first security checkpoint. The most recent intel we’ve received from Russia, however, said they have yet to distribute lignostone weapons to their troops.” He turned back to the Israelis. “Anybody got any ideas about how a wooden SMG could turn up in the hands of an Arab terrorist?”

  Devorah crossed her arms and stared up at the video monitor. “How do we know they are Arab terrorists?”

  “They’ve made the typical Arab demands,” the officer snapped. “They want the prime minister to authorize the release of all Arabs imprisoned for crimes against Israeli citizens. But most of these prisoners are guilty of murder—they are not political prisoners.”

  “They don’t shoot like terrorists,” Devorah pointed out. “Terrorists let loose with a hail of bullets. These men were neat and quick—and on target. Like trained commandos.”

  Michael leaned forward on the table. “She’s absolutely right. These demands could be nothing but a ruse. So why break into the Knesset?”

  The officer lifted one shoulder in a defiant shrug. “It is not for me to reason why, Captain. My job is to get those people out alive.”

  Michael turned when Devorah spoke again. “Perhaps they intended to make hostages of the entire parliamentary assembly. They might have succeeded, if the session had not ended early for Sukkot. What better way to shake a nation to its core than by wiping out the government in one sudden swoop?”

  The thought froze in Michael’s brain. What better way, indeed, particularly on the eve of an eight-day religious festival? If Devorah was right, these terrorists would not release their captives no matter what the Israelis did. They were only grandstanding now, biding their time in hopes of attracting media attention, attempting to get the most bang for their buck when they chose to die with their hostages. Michael had seen it before, in Beirut.

  “What would you do?” he asked Devorah.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but the lieutenant cut her off. “We are preparing to infiltrate the building,” he said, pointing to the blueprint on the computer screen. “In less than
one hour, we will send men in here—” he tapped the screen—“here, and here. We estimate that we may suffer a 30 percent casualty rate, but my superiors believe that is an acceptable number—”

  “Wait, please.” Michael sank to the edge of a bench seat and brought his hand to his chin, his thoughts racing. “You say they have grenades?”

  “Yes. One of the released hostages gave us that information.”

  “OK. So they have grenades. If experience teaches us anything, it’s that they will not be afraid to use them. Even if you use flash-bang grenades and incapacitate the terrs for fifteen seconds when you rush the room, reflex alone is enough to make one of those guys trigger a grenade. If you storm the building, you will lose most of the hostages and many of your men.”

  His eyes shifted from one Israeli officer to the other. “Let me contact my superiors, and I’ll see if I can help. I believe I can find a way to free the hostages without any losses. While I’m working, have your negotiator promise the terrorists media attention, and I guarantee they’ll be willing to keep talking. I think we can resolve this situation without losing a single man.”

  The Israeli lieutenant regarded Michael with somber curiosity. “We want to rush the building before the deadline. If we wait for you, we will lose the element of surprise.”

  “Please.” Michael clenched and unclenched his fist. “We’ll give them a surprise, but I can’t do anything if you continue to let time slip through our fingers. Speak to your CO and let me have that computer. We have no time to waste.”

  Frowning, the lieutenant in charge picked up the radio.

  Two minutes later, Michael sent a message to GWJ@prenticetech.com:

  Daniel:

  We have an urgent situation at the knesset. At least thirty hostages, many of whom are members of the Parliament. A dozen terrorists with a nonsensical demand. Probably a suicide mission of the highest order. Will need authorization from SS to initiate a rescue using every capability at my disposal. I have several ideas but will need permission to proceed.