Killing for the Company

The crowds were buzzing and he felt a moment of nausea as he emerged blinking into the light. It was a sea of people. Hundreds of them. How the hell was he going to find the remaining bombers among this lot?

Think, he told himself. Fucking think! What’s the bombers’ objective? Where will they be?

When the wall falls…

The wall was the target. Not the crowd, not the plaza. And to take out the wall you had to get close.

Luke rushed forward, pushing through the lines of people waiting to approach and pray. He knocked three men from their feet — they toppled back into the crowd and several people started shouting at him, but he hurried on. The wall was towering above him now, all twenty metres of it; and the horn rang through the air for a third time. Luke barely heard it. He barely heard anything. He was behind the front line of worshippers now, pushing himself along the length of the wall and examining the hands of each man he passed. Some were pressed, palm forwards, against the stones. Others had their hands clenched together in devout prayer. One or two were even kneeling down, with their arms stretched up to heaven.

One man, though, was doing none of these.

Luke was about fifteen metres from the tunnel entrance when he saw him. He was dressed just like the other bomber in a black jacket and black hat, and was standing quietly with his head bowed. His shoulders were shaking slightly but there was no sign of prayer. And no sign of his hands, which were secreted in front of him…

Luke took up position behind him. Slowly, so as not to alert anybody around him, he drew his knife and held it in his left hand. With lightning speed, he hooked his right hand round the man’s waist. His thin body went suddenly rigid, and there was a fumbling of his hands, but by that time Luke had a grip on the mobile phone he was carrying.

‘Take it easy, buddy,’ he said. His fingers had already located the lead which was plugged into the base of the phone and ran up the man’s sleeve. He pulled it from the socket and felt for the telltale consistency of soft plastic explosive. Sure enough, it was taped to the inside of the man’s arms.

Positive ID.

The bomber was shaking, just as his mate had done. So far nobody around them had clocked exactly what was happening. Luke didn’t know how long that would last. A commotion would alert the remaining two bombers, though, and that was the one thing he couldn’t risk. He hooked his knife hand around the man’s waist and, with a sharp, brutal tug he rammed it into the soft flesh of the bomber’s belly. The bomber exhaled like a punctured balloon and, as Luke slid the blade across his abdomen, he felt the guy go heavy. He removed the phone from his grip and pulled the knife from his body just as the man sank to his knees, head against the stone. For the moment he looked like he was praying.

Luke left him there, disappeared into the crowd and continued along the wall.

10.58 hrs.

All Alistair Stratton’s attention was on the laptop by his side. He could see his damaged face reflected in it, but his own injuries barely registered in his mind as he stared in the darkness of his room at the flickering image of the Western Wall.

There was a knock on his office door and his PA stepped inside. ‘ Get out,’ Stratton whispered without looking up. The kid was sensible enough to disappear.

Stratton’s hands were trembling and a bead of sweat dripped down the side of his dirty face. His lips moved silently.

Something caught his eye. Movement at the wall. Not the regular ebb and flow of the visitors, but something else. A number of Hassidim were drawing away from a certain point on the wall, like ripples of water from a stone.

Stratton’s muttering stopped. He squinted at the screen. The resolution was poor but he thought he could just make out what they were retreating from: a figure, kneeling at the stones.

Only now he wasn’t kneeling. He had tumbled to one side and was lying limp and still.

The Hassidim continued to step back and Stratton thrust his face at the screen.

‘Now,’ he whispered, as if he could somehow be heard in that square so far away. And then he shouted, his voice hoarse. Desperate.

‘ DO IT NOW! ’

Luke could sense commotion behind him. A shout. The dead bomber kneeling at the wall must have been discovered. How long till the remaining two realised what was happening? Minutes?

Seconds?

Still he scanned the crowds, aware that the mood of celebration was changing to one of panic. He put that from his mind. He had to concentrate… To focus…