Eagle in the Sky

by Wilbur Smith

  Across the yard, a security agent had the pistol out of his shoulder holster and he dropped into the marksman crouch, holding the pistol with both arms extended as he aimed. He fired twice and hit the monkey-faced gunman, sending him reeling back against the wall, but he stayed on his feet and returned the agent’s fire with the machine-pistol, knocking him down and rolling him across the paving stones.

  The yard was filled with a panic-stricken mob, a struggling mass of humanity, that screamed and fell and crawled and died beneath the flail of the guns.

  Two bullets caught Hannah in the chest, smashing her backwards over a table of glasses and bottles that shattered about her. The bright blood spurted from the wounds, drenching the front of her white wedding gown.

  The centre gunman dropped his pistol as it emptied, and he stooped quickly over the copper salver and came up with a grenade in each hand. He hurled them into the struggling, screaming throng and the double blast was devastating, twin bursts of brightest white flame and the terrible sweep of shrapnel. The screams of the women rose louder, seeming as deafening as the gunfire – and the gunman stooped once more and his hands held another load of grenades.

  All this had taken only seconds, but a fleeting moment of time to turn festivity into shocking carnage and torn flesh.

  David left the shelter of the stone steps. He rolled swiftly across the flags towards the abandoned Uzi, and he came up on his knees, holding it at the hip. His paratrooper training made his actions automatic.

  The wounded gunman saw him, and turned towards him, staggering slightly, pushing himself weakly away from the wall. His one arm was shattered and hung loosely in the tattered, blood-soaked sleeve of his jacket, but he lifted the machine-pistol and aimed at David.

  David fired first, the bullets struck bursts of plaster from the wall behind the Arab and David corrected his aim. The bullets drove the gunman backwards, pinning him to the wall, while his body jumped and shook and twitched. He slumped down leaving a glistening wet smear of blood down the white plaster.

  David swivelled the gun on to the Arab beside the kitchen door. He was poised to throw his next grenade, right arm extended behind him, both fists filled with the deadly steel balls. He was shouting something, a challenge or a war cry, a harsh triumphant screech that carried clearly above the screams of his victims.

  Before he could release the grenade, David hit him with a full burst, a dozen bullets that smashed into his chest and belly, and the Arab dropped both grenades at his feet and doubled over clutching at his broken body, trying to stem the flood of his life blood with his bare hands.

  The grenades were short fused and they exploded almost immediately, engulfing the dying man in a net of fire and shredding his body from the waist down. The same explosion knocked down the third assassin at the end of the terrace, and David came to his feet and charged up the steps.

  The third and last Arab was mortally wounded, his head and chest torn by grenade fragments, but he was still alive, thrashing about weakly as he groped for the machine-pistol that lay beside him in a puddle of his own blood

  David was consumed by a terrible rage. He found that he was screaming and raging like a maniac, and he crouched at the head of the stairs and aimed at the dying Arab.

  The Arab had the machine-pistol and was lifting it with the grim concentration of a drunken man. David fired, a single shot that slapped into the Arab’s body without apparent effect, and then suddenly the Uzi in David’s hands was empty, the pin falling with a hollow click on an empty chamber.

  Across the terrace, beyond range of a quick rush, the Arab’s face was streaked with sweat and blood as he frowned heavily, trying to aim the machine-pistol as it wavered. He was dying swiftly, the flame fluttering towards extinction, but he was using the last of his strength.

  David stood frozen with the empty weapon in his hand, and the blank eye of the pistol sought him out, and fastened upon him. He watched the Arab’s eyes narrow, and his sudden murderous grin of achievement as he saw David in his sights, and his finger tightening on the trigger.

  At that range the bullets would hit like the solid stream of a fire hose. He began to move, to throw himself down the stairs, but he knew it was too late. The Arab was at the instant of firing, and at the same instant a revolver shot crashed out at David’s side.

  Half the Arab’s head was cut away by the heavy lead slug, and he was flung backwards with the yellow custard contents of his skull splattering the white-washed wall behind him, and his death grip on the trigger emptied the machine-pistol with a shattering roar harmlessly into the grape vines above him.

  Dazedly David turned to find the Brig beside him, the dead security guard’s pistol in his fist For a moment they stared at each other, and then the Brig stepped past him and walked to the fallen bodies of the other two Arabs. Standing over each in turn he fired a single pistol shot into their heads.

  David turned away and let the Uzi drop from his hands. He went down the stairs into the garden.

  The dead and the wounded lay singly and in piles, pitiful fragments of humanity. The soft cries and the groans of the wounded, the bitter weeping of a child, the voice of a mother, were sounds more chilling than the screaming and the shouting.

  The garden was drenched and painted with blood. There were splashes and gouts of it upon the white walls, there were puddles and snakes of it spreading and crawling across the paving, dark slicks of it sinking into the dust, ropes of it dribbling and pattering like rain from the body of a musician as he hung over the rail of the bandstand. The sickly sweetish reek of it mingled with the smell of spiced food and spilled wine, with the floury taste of plaster dust and the bitter stench of burned explosive.

  The veils of smoke and dust that still drifted across the garden could not hide the terrible carnage. The bark of the olive trees was torn in slabs from the trunks by flying steel, exposing the white wet wood. The wounded and dazed survivors crawled over a field of broken glass and shattered crockery. They swore and prayed, and whispered and groaned and called for succour.

  David went down the steps, his feet moving without his bidding; his muscles were numb, his body senseless and only his finger-tips tingled with life.

  Joe was standing below one of the torn olive trees. He stood like a colossus, with his thick powerful legs astride, his head thrown back and his face turned to the sky, but his eyes were tight-closed and his mouth formed a silent cry of agony – for he held Hannah’s body in his arms.

  Her bridal veil had fallen from her head, and the bright copper mane of her hair hung back – almost to the ground. Her legs and one arm hung loosely also, slack and lifeless. The golden freckles stood out clearly on the milky-white skin of her face – and the bloody wounds bloomed like the petals of the poinsettia tree upon the bosom of her wedding-gown.

  David averted his eyes. He could not watch Joe in his anguish, and he walked on slowly across the garden, in terrible dread of what he would find.

  ‘Debra!’ he tried to raise his voice, but it was a hoarse raven’s croak. His feet slipped in a puddle of thick dark blood, and he stepped over the unconscious body of a woman who lay, face down, in a floral dress, with her arms thrown wide. He did not recognize her as Debra’s mother.

  ‘Debra!’ He tried to hurry, but his legs would not respond. He saw her then, at the corner of the wall where he had left her.

  ‘Debra!’ He felt his heart soar. She seemed unhurt, kneeling below one of the marble Grecian statues, with the flowers in her hair and the yellow silk of her dress bright and festive.

  She knelt, facing the wall, and her head was bowed as though in prayer. The dark wing of her hair hung forward screening her and she held her cupped hands to her face.

  ‘Debra.’ He dropped to his knees beside her, and timidly he touched her shoulder.

  ‘Are you all right, my darling?’ And she lowered her hands slowly, but still holding them cupped together. A great coldness closed around David’s chest as he saw that her cupped hands were f
illed with blood. Rich red blood, bright as wine in a crystal glass.

  ‘David,’ she whispered, turning her face towards him. ‘Is that you, darling?’

  David gave a small breathless moan of agony as he saw the blood-glutted eye sockets, the dark gelatinous mess that congealed in the thick dark eyelashes and turned the lovely face into a gory mask.

  ‘Is that you, David?’ she asked again, her head cocked at a blind listening angle.

  ‘Oh God, Debra.’ He stared into her face.

  ‘I can’t see, David.’ She groped for him. ‘Oh David – I can’t see.’

  And he took her sticky wet hands in his, and he thought that his heart would break.

  The stark modern silhouette of Hadassah Hospital stood upon the skyline above the village of Ein Karem. The speed with which the ambulances arrived saved many of the victims whose lives were critically balanced, and the hospital was geared to sudden influxes of war casualties.

  The three men – the Brig, Joe and David – kept their vigil together all that night upon the hard wooden benches of the hospital waiting-room. When more was learned of the planning behind the attack, a security agent would come to whisper a report to the Brig.

  One of the assassins was a long-term and trusted employee of the catering firm, and the other two were his ‘cousins’ who had been employed as temporary staff on his recommendation. It was certain that their papers were forged.

  The Prime Minister and her cabinet had been delayed by an emergency session, but had been on their way to the wedding when the attack was made. A fortunate chance had saved them, and she sent her personal condolences to the relatives of the victims.

  At ten o’lock, Damascus radio gave a report in which El Fatah claimed responsibility for the attack by members of a suicide squad.

  A little before midnight, the chief surgeon came from the main theatre, still in his theatre greens and boots, with his mask pulled down to his throat. Ruth Mordecai was out of danger, he told the Brig. They had removed a bullet that had passed through her lung and lodged under her shoulder blade. They had saved the lung.

  Thank God,’ murmured the Brig and closed his eyes for a moment, imagining life without his woman of twenty-five years. Then he looked up. ‘My daughter?’

  The surgeon shook his head. ‘They are still working on her in the small casualty theatre.’ He hesitated. ‘Colonel Halman died in theatre a few minutes ago.’

  The toll of the dead was eleven so far, with four others on the critical list.

  In the early morning the undertakers arrived for the bodies with their long wicker baskets and black limousines. David gave Joe the keys of the Mercedes, that he might follow by the hearse bearing Hannah’s body and arrange the details of the funeral.

  David and the Brig sat side by side, haggard and with sleepless bruised eyes, drinking coffee from paper cups.

  In the late morning the eye surgeon came out to them. He was a smooth-faced, young-looking man in his forties, the greying of his hair seeming incongruous against the unlined skin and clear blue eyes.

  ‘General Mordecai?’

  The Brig rose stiffly. He seemed to have aged ten years during the night.

  ‘I am Doctor Edelman. Will you come with me, please?’

  David rose to follow them, but the doctor paused and looked to the Brig.

  ‘I am her fiancé,’ said David.

  ‘It might be best if we spoke alone first, General.’ Edelman was clearly trying to pass a warning with his eyes, and the Brig nodded.

  ‘Please, David.’

  ‘But—’ David began, and the Brig squeezed his shoulder briefly, the first gesture of affection. that had ever passed between them.

  ‘Please, my boy,’ and David turned back to the hard bench.

  In the tiny cubicle of his office Edelman hitched himself on to the corner of the desk and lit a cigarette. His hands were long and slim as a girl’s, and he used the lighter with a surgeon’s neat economical movements.

  ‘You don’t want it with a sugar coating, I imagine?’ He had appraised the Brig carefully, and went on without waiting for a reply. ‘Neither of your daughter’s eyes are damaged,’ but he held up a hand to forestall the rising expression of relief on the Brig’s lips, and turned to the scanner on which hung a set of X-ray plates. He switched on the back light.

  The eyes were untouched, there is almost no damage to her facial features – however, the damage is here—’ He touched a hard frosty outline in the smoky grey swirls and patterns of the X-ray plate. ‘– That is a steel fragments, a tiny steel fragment, almost certainly from a grenade. It is no larger than the tip of a lead pencil. It entered the skull through the outer edge of the right temple, severing the large vein which accounted for the profuse haemorrhage, and it travelled obliquely behind the eyeballs without touching them or any other vital tissue. Then, however, it pierced the bony surrounds of the optic chiasma,’ he traced the path of the fragment through Debra’s head, ‘and it seems to have cut through the canal and severed the chiasma, before lodging in the bone sponge beyond.’ Edelman drew heavily on the cigarette while he looked for a reaction from the Brig. There was none.

  ‘Do you understand the implications of this, General?’ he asked, and the Brig shook his head wearily. The surgeon switched off the light of the X-ray scanner, and returned to the desk. He pulled a scrap pad towards the Brig and took a propelling pencil from his top pocket. Boldly he sketched an optical chart, eyeballs, brain, and optical nerves, as seen from above.

  The optical nerves, one from each eye, run back into this narrow tunnel of bone where they fuse, and then branch again to opposite lobes of the brain.’

  The Brig nodded, and Edelman slashed the point of his pencil through the point where the nerves fused. Understanding began to show on the Brig’s strained and tired features.

  ‘Blind?’ he asked, and Edelman nodded.

  ‘Both eyes?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  The Brig bowed his head and gently massaged his own eyes with thumb and forefinger. He spoke again without looking at Edelman.

  ‘Permanently?’ he asked.

  ‘She has no recognition of shape, or colour, of light or darkness. The track of the fragment is through the optic chiasma. All indications are that the nerve is severed. There is no technique known to medical science which will restore that.’ Edelman paused to draw breath, before going on. ‘In a word then, your daughter is permanently and totally blinded in both eyes.’

  The Brig sighed, and looked up slowly. ‘Have you told her?’ and Edelman could not hold his gaze.

  ‘I was rather hoping that you would do that.’

  ‘Yes,’ the Brig nodded, ‘it would be best that way. Can I see her now? Is she awake?’

  ‘She is under light sedation. No pain, only a small amount of discomfort, the external wound is insignificant – and we shall not attempt to remove the metal fragment. That would entail major neurosurgery.’ He stood up and indicated the door. ‘Yes, you may see her now. I will take you to her.’

  The corridor outside the row of emergency theatres was lined along each wall with stretchers, and the Brig recognized many of his guests laid out upon them. He stopped briefly to speak with one or two of them, before following Edelman to the recovery room at the end of the corridor.

  Debra lay on the tall bed below the window. She was very pale, dry blood was still clotted in her hair and a thick cotton wool and bandage dressing covered both her eyes.

  ‘Your father is here, Miss Mordecai,’ Edelman told her, and she rolled her head swiftly towards them.

  ‘Daddy?’

  ‘I am. here, my child.’

  The Brig took the hand she held out, and stooped to kiss her. Her lips were cold, and she smelled strongly of disinfectant and anaesthetic.

  ‘Mama?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘She is out of danger,’ the Brig assured her, ‘but Hannah—’

  ‘Yes. They told me,’ Debra stopped him, her voice choking.
‘Is Joe all right?’

  ‘He is strong,’ the Brig said. ‘He will be all right’

  ‘David?’ she asked.

  ‘He is here.’

  Eagerly she struggled up on to one elbow, her face lighting with expectation, the heavily bound eyes turned blindly seeking.

  ‘David,’ she called, ‘where are you? Damn this bandage. ‘Don’t worry, David, it’s just to rest my eyes.’

  ‘No,’ the Brig restrained her with a hand on her arm. ‘He is outside, waiting,’ and she slumped with disappointment.

  ‘Ask him to come to me, please,’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes,’ said the Brig, ‘in a while, but first there is something we must talk about – something I have to tell you.’

  She must have guessed what it was, she must have been warned by the tone of his voice for she went very still. That peculiar stillness of hers, like a frightened animal of the veld.

  He was a soldier, with a soldier’s blunt ways, and although he tried to soften it, yet even his tone was roughened with his own sorrow, so that it came out brutally. Her hand in his was the only indication that she had heard him, it spasmed convulsively like a wounded thing and then lay still, a small tense hand in the circle of his big bony fist.

  She asked no questions and when he had done they sat quietly together for a long time. He spoke first.

  ‘I will send David to you now,’ he said, and her response was swift and vehement.

  ‘No.’ She gripped his hand hard. No, I can’t meet him now. I have to think about this first.’

  The Brig went back to the waiting-room and David stood up expectantly, the pure lines of his face seemingly carved from pale polished marble, and the dark blue of his eyes in deep contrast.

  The Brig forestalled him harshly. ‘No visitors.’ He took David’s arm ‘You will not be allowed to see her until tomorrow.’