It was not in Coleman's character to abandon Rapp, but the kidnapped American family had appeared like a gift out of the predawn mist. It was a gift he could not pass up. Coleman paused briefly to catch his breath and take a drink of water from his camel pack. He placed the small hose between his lips and sucked in a mouthful of water. Wicker was far ahead of him now. At least seventy-five yards. He caught a glimpse of him as he scrambled over a rock shelf and disappeared from sight. A shadow moving in the shadows.
Coleman started again in earnest, on all fours, pawing and pushing his way up the steep mountain. He was both thankful and leery of the cover provided by the trees that enveloped the landscape. They traveled in the same gully that ran from the top of the mountain all the way to the sea. At times it was like a gorge and at others a babbling brook. Up on this high steep part there were more exposed rocks and less grass and moss. The torrential rains of the region washed away anything that wasn't anchored down by the roots of the trees and the surrounding undergrowth.
It would be nearly impossible for anyone below to see them. They traveled just off to the side of the gully where the leafy limbs of the trees provided good cover. Coleman worried about what might be waiting for them at the top. Mountaintops are a prized possession among opposing forces. They offer a bird's-eye view of the lay of the land and provide crucial intelligence. They also offer a nice perch to set up a counter-sniping team.
Sniping in the Special Forces is a life-and-death game played at the highest intellectual level. A sniper does not fear machine-gun fire, artillery shells or bombs from the air. A sniper fears the bullet of another sniper. Snipers will lay in wait for days, slowly, cautiously scanning every inch of the landscape, section by methodical section, to make sure they don't become the target of someone staring back at them through a high-powered scope. Fear of snipers, more than any reason, was why they wanted to be in position by sunup. Unfortunately, that precaution was out of their reach. They would now have to hope that they were the only men around with long barrels.
Coleman pressed on, his thighs burning with each foot that was gained in his quest for the relatively short summit. The pain was ignored and the pace was quickened. His lungs took in and exhaled a steady efficient supply of oxygen. He reached a sheer eleven-foot wall of rock. He was about to scale it when he noticed the trampled undergrowth to his left indicating Wicker's passage. Without hesitation he plunged through the foliage. When he got back to the gully he looked up and saw Wicker within striking distance of the summit. Coleman put his head down and redoubled his efforts. He figured it would take him no more than two minutes to reach the top.
TWENTY FIVE.
It looked like the roulette wheel would stop on Hebron, a Palestinian city of over one hundred thousand, twenty miles south of Jerusalem. In the fifty-plus years of Israeli statehood, Hebron had been a city caught in the middle. Located in a mountainous region, it was home to the Tomb of Abraham; a prophet revered by Muslims, Jews and Christians alike. A small community of Orthodox Jews lived near the center of the town, but they numbered less than a thousand and had to be protected by a garrison of Israeli Defense Forces.
The Palestinians resented the fact that a single Jew lived in their city and had tried countless times over the last century to rectify the problem by means that were less than humanitarian. The terrain lent itself naturally to urban guerrilla warfare; narrow streets that wound up and down hillsides flanked by multi story stone buildings with flat roofs.
Blind corners abounded and streets stopped and started without warning.
Israeli soldiers steered clear of much of the city knowing if they went in, there was a good chance they might not make it out. In short, Hebron was Palestinian-controlled territory.
It surprised David not in the least that this was where the meeting would take place. His altercation with Rashid in the parking garage had been extremely satisfying. If Rashid and his men understood anything it was force. They had seen their boss bested, and bested easily, by a younger man who by virtue of the meeting he was about to attend was somebody important.
Still, David didn't give them much time to react as they gawked at the bloody Rashid lying unconscious on the floor. He yelled at the men to get moving and climbed into the white Israeli taxi. The men hesitated, not sure what they should do.
"Leave him!" he ordered.
"When I tell Mohammed Atwa what he has done, he will be grateful that you left him here."
This was a name that stirred genuine terror in the Palestinians. The three men did not hesitate to obey. Mohammed Atwa was the head of Palestinian General Intelligence; an organization that many Palestinians feared more than Mossad. The security service was known for torturing and killing suspected collaborators with impunity. Atwa had even resurrected the old practice of killing Palestinians who dared sell their land to a Jew. He also happened to be the same man who ordered the torture and interrogation of David when he was a young teenager.
David looked out the window of the sedan as they meandered through the canyon like streets of Hebron. Darkness had fallen and they were no longer in the white Israeli taxi. Driving such a vehicle into Hebron would be akin to walking through Harlem in full Ku Klux Klan regalia. Instead, they'd switched to a yellow Palestinian taxi.
As they rounded a tight corner they came to a sudden stop. A group of masked young men immediately surrounded the car. They carried a variety of weapons from Russian-made AK-47s to American-made M16s. All four doors of the sedan were yanked open and everyone was told to get out. David was searched once again for a transmitter. When one of the men stepped up and tried to grab the attachИ cases, David stopped him with a stern rebuke. He placed both cases on the trunk of the car and opened one and then the other. The packets of neatly bound one hundred dollar bills left the men momentarily awestruck. The nicely dressed young man they were dealing with was apparently someone very important.
David slammed the cases closed before the guards had time to gather their wits. Acting impatient, he grabbed each case and told the men he was not to be delayed further. With the vision of millions of American dollars still fresh in their heads, none of them argued. David was walked through the barricade and placed in the back of a minivan.
The van raced up the street, turning several times. On each corner men stood watch with assault rifles at their sides.
Six blocks later they stopped in front of a three-story house. Both sides of the street were clogged with parked cars. David grew nervous for a second and then saw the vehicle he was looking for. The Mercedes sedan was parked just on the other side of a van. David breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that the armored car belonged to Mohammed Atwa.
Clutching the attachИ cases, he stepped from the van and walked toward the house. His arms suddenly felt very heavy, and everything began to slow down. He looked down at the cracked sidewalk and then slowly up at the two masked men standing guard in front of the blue wood door with chipped and peeling paint. The men were gesturing for David to hurry but he didn't hear what they were saying.
He just casually placed one foot in front of the other, and then the next thing he knew, he was in the house.
There were people everywhere. It was as if a party were going on.
Smoke and loud conversation filled the air. To the room on his left there was a virtual banquet; mounds of grilled lamb, shashlik, musakhan and chicken liver. A middle-aged man who ran the Popular Liberation Committee in Gaza was popping baklava into his mouth and nodding enthusiastically to the head of Force 17. Over in the corner he saw two men sipping Arab coffee and discussing something in earnest. One of the men he knew to be the head of security for Islamic Jihad but the other man he didn't recognize. David felt his throat tighten a bit; this was the culmination of meticulous planning and great patience. It was almost exactly as he'd dreamt it would be.