Covenant (33 page)

“This way!”

Mahmoud leaped from nowhere through the clouds of cement dust and falling embers, his hair and face caked with dust. He grabbed Ethan’s shoulder and yanked him away from the fire.

“What are you doing?” the Palestinian demanded.

Ethan saw the phantom image of Joanna spirited away on the crackling flames before him. Above the humming in his ears he heard the cries of Palestinians fleeing in the darkness, the screeching of women and the haunting cries of children awoken by the blast. Nausea poisoned his innards and swelled into his throat, and he jolted forward as a thin stream of bile splattered into the darkness at his feet.

“Come on!” Mahmoud shouted.

Ethan staggered along with him, trying to ignore the acid burning his throat as they stumbled across the broken remains of the building, illuminated now by the shimmering flames.

“Hurry, there will be more,” Mahmoud said as they reached the entrance to the tunnel.

Ethan clambered down the ladder on legs weakened from shock, Mahmoud following him underground once again into the cloying heat. Ethan reached the tunnel floor and turned to his right, regaining his senses as he jogged along the passage. He emerged into the subterranean chamber to see Hassim and Rachel looking panicked and confused.

“What happened?” Rachel asked.

“I don’t know,” Ethan said, guzzling water from his mug and turning to see Mahmoud join them in the tunnel.

“Air strike,” the Palestinian said urgently. “Somebody knows that you are here.”

“We have to get aboveground,” Rachel said, her features pale as she looked at the earthen walls surrounding them.

Mahmoud, his pistol held at the ready, gestured with a nod of his head to Hassim.

“Go, there is nothing more that we can do for you here. You must seek protection from Israel.”

Hassim was about to leave when the sound of thunder blasted through the tunnel.

Ethan had no time to react before the shock wave rushed down into the chamber, solid and unstoppable. Ethan felt himself hurled sideways as though clubbed by a giant baseball bat, saw Rachel flung to the ground in a blaze of confusion and noise. Hassim slammed sideways into a wall and crumpled to his knees. Mahmoud crouched before the blast, rolling over as dust and debris filled the chamber in a dense, choking cloud.

Ethan’s knees connected with the earth with a dull crack as grime filled his nose and throat. Fighting an instinctive panic, he struggled to get to his feet as the lights in the chamber flickered around him.

Rafael charged forward, his scarf wrapped across his face to protect him from the thick dust that swirled in diaphanous eddies down the tunnel toward him. Like a demon flitting through the catacombs of hell, he sprinted toward the light of the chamber as the second detonation thundered through the darkness, the walls of the tunnel shuddering beneath the blow. The light ahead flickered as the shadows of tumbling figures were cast through the glowing veils of dust.

Rafael rushed on with scarcely a pause, reaching into his pocket and producing a small pair of bolt cutters. As he reached the chamber he glanced left and right, then reached up to his left and with a single swift crunch sliced through the electrical cables running along the ceiling.

The light vanished, and he heard shouts of alarm from the chamber as the occupants were plunged into complete darkness.

T
he tunnel’s collapsed!”

Ethan heard Mahmoud’s voice shouting out to them, but in the darkness he could see nothing as grains of grit scratched across his corneas. His exhaustion suddenly overwhelmed him as he lost his balance and staggered, his darkened world gyrating and pitching. His voice when he called out was choked and raspy.

“Rachel? Hassim?”

For one long, terrible moment he heard no reply as he fumbled in the darkness with his hands outstretched. Something brushed his fingers, someone moving past him, and he heard the sound of rapid footfalls in the darkness.

“Rachel?”

“I’m here,” came her voice from another direction in the inky blackness.

Ethan flailed to his left, trying to stay upright.

“There’s a flashlight,” Mahmoud’s voice called out, “in the wall by the entrance.”

Ethan turned, guessing roughly where the entrance to the chamber was, and felt his way there with his arms outstretched. His fingers touched the walls of the chamber as he fumbled until he felt the wall vanish into the tunnel. Something brushed past him again in the darkness, disappearing almost before he had registered its presence.

“I can reach it,” he said, turning sideways.

Ethan struggled across to the opposite wall and groped in the blackness for several seconds until he found the recess where Mahmoud must have stored the flashlight. Quickly, he reached inside and grabbed a cylindrical object, turning as his thumb found a switch on the barrel. The beam burst into life, cutting a swathe of light through the cramped chamber.

Ethan blinked the grit from his eyes, sweeping the beam in Rachel’s direction. He saw her crouched beside the crates with Hassim, the scientist’s arms wrapped protectively around her.

“Get out of here, both of you!” Ethan shouted, pointing the flashlight beam down the tunnel to guide them.

Hassim lurched to his feet and hurried out of the chamber, with Rachel close behind.

“Mahmoud?” Ethan called, sweeping the beam to his left.

“Get out of here,” Mahmoud called, “they’ll hit the building again! Go now!”

Ethan was about to turn and run when he remembered his rucksack.

“My camera,” he said, rushing forward and directing the beam at the chair where his belongings had been deposited. He stopped dead in his tracks as he saw that the rucksack had vanished. Mahmoud appeared through the dust clouds, his face wracked with anger.

“Go, now! To hell with the rucksack!”

Ethan remembered his fingers brushing across someone in the chamber before he’d found the flashlight, and a shiver rippled down his spine. He turned the beam around the chamber before pointing it down the tunnel. In the light, he saw a severed electrical cable dangling from the tunnel ceiling. Before either Ethan or Mahmoud could say a word, a scream echoed down the tunnels toward them.

“Rachel!”

Ethan sprinted out of the chamber toward her voice. He was almost halfway down the tunnel when he saw something large crumpled on the ground before him. He leaped over the body, glimpsing Yossaf’s bearded face slick with blood.

Mahmoud skidded to a halt beside the body, and then shouted after Ethan.

“Wait! We’re not alone!”

Another scream came from the darkness ahead and Ethan ran toward it, all thoughts of his own safety suddenly vanquished by the fear that something was happening to Rachel. He rushed into the small antechamber halfway down the tunnel, the bouncing flashlight beam illuminating Hassim and Rachel as they fled down the tunnel ahead, and then something slammed into Ethan’s stomach with immense force, voiding the air from his lungs. The flashlight spun from his grip as he fell to the ground, chunks of dust and grit filling his mouth.

He heard a shout of fury as he rolled onto his back, struggling against the pain swelling in his abdomen while he fought to regain his feet. In the diffuse, shifting light of the rolling flashlight beam he saw Mahmoud and a stranger locked in a furious exchange of blows, primal growls of rage and fear filling the tunnel as though wild animals were fighting for their lives.

Ethan struggled to his feet and rushed forward as Mahmoud was beaten back into the darkened tunnel beyond by his assailant. Ethan could see his rucksack on the attacker’s back and a bolt of fury coursed through his veins. He grabbed the bag and yanked the man backward with all of his might.

The attacker turned, shifting his balance with lightning speed and unstoppable force as he gripped Ethan with hands sheathed in black leather gloves. Ethan felt his body being propelled backward as the attacker turned Ethan’s advantage into his own and hurled him into the wall of the antechamber. Ethan’s skull smacked into the wall, jarring his vision as his teeth clashed in his jaw with a sharp crack. The man released Ethan as he fell, twisting so that Ethan felt his grip on the rucksack weaken and the fabric slip from his fingers. In an instant, the attacker vanished into the adjoining tunnel.

Ethan struggled to regain his balance, but almost instantly the tunnel was rocked as another blast slammed into the earth above his head. The walls of the tunnel crumpled around him, the light from the flashlight almost completely lost as the main chamber collapsed, clouds of dust billowing thickly through the tunnel. He heard a splintering sound as the desiccated timbers supporting the ceiling fractured beneath the blast, followed by an anguished cry from somewhere in the darkness.

“Mahmoud?”

Ethan’s own voice was feeble, his throat parched like the deserts above as he groped for the flashlight. He found it and turned the beam to see Mahmoud facedown before him in the mouth of the antechamber, shattered timbers and chunks of rock and earth piled high across the backs of his legs.

“Go!” Mahmoud spluttered angrily. “Get out!”

The ceiling of the chamber rippled, rocks and thick lumps of earth falling to shatter around Ethan’s feet as the timbers above his head groaned. A jagged crack in the ceiling snaked its way above his head and spilt streams of dust like dark water from its depths.

Ethan tossed the flashlight to one side and grabbed Mahmoud beneath his armpits, hauling with all of his strength. The Palestinian cried out as Ethan pulled, his teeth gritted and his eyes shut tight.

A timber as thick as Ethan’s thigh split above them, a cascade of crumbling dirt spilling onto Ethan’s head and shoulders. He ignored the falling debris, gagging for air as he repositioned his feet and pulled again on Mahmoud’s torso.

The earth trapping the Palestinian shifted and then suddenly his body slid free, Mahmoud kicking back against the debris as Ethan hauled him clear and toppled over. Mahmoud scrambled to his feet and grabbed the flashlight, pulling Ethan upright by his shirt and shoving him down the tunnel ahead.

The timbers behind them plunged down with a terrific crash as Ethan ran through the darkness, the tunnel ahead lit only by the wavering beam of Mahmoud’s flashlight. He lurched to the ladder, grabbing the rails and hauling himself upward on legs that were quivering with fatigue.

Ethan finally reached the top and dragged himself out onto the concrete, and Mahmoud followed him up and out of the tunnel. Ethan, his lungs sore and aching, coughed heavily and saw clouds of fine dust puff out of his chest. He barely had the strength to get onto his hands and knees, and as he did so he felt his stomach plunge in dismay.

“No.”

Rachel was sitting with her back to the wall and her hands over her mouth. She was staring at a body lying on the opposite side of the hatch from Ethan, just in front of the open door of the building. Ethan wiped the grime from his eyes with the back of his hand, and realized that the body belonged to Hassim Khan.

Ethan struggled to his feet and joined Mahmoud, who crouched down next to the scientist and searched for a pulse. Ethan looked down and saw Hassim’s eyes vacant and empty. Behind his head, thick blood leaked into cracks in the concrete.

Rachel looked at Ethan.

“Someone stabbed him,” she said, alternately angry and horrified. “A man had locked the doors. Hassim fought him for the key.”

Ethan felt a bleak sense of desolation overwhelm him.

“Whoever he was, he took my camera and the explosives.”

Mahmoud gently closed Hassim’s eyes and then stood, turning to face Ethan.

“His death will not be in vain. Allah willing, he will be in paradise, but we must get outside. They may bomb this building too.”

Ethan helped Rachel gently to her feet and followed Mahmoud in an unsteady run out into the night air.

To their right across the street a large building burned. Palestinians milled about in the light from the flames and pointed at Ethan and his companions. Before Ethan could orient himself to the world around him, a humming sound drifted through the streets from somewhere above. Palestinians immediately scattered in all directions as the sound reverberated between Gaza’s crumbling walls.

Mahmoud grabbed his shoulder.

“They are coming, run!”

Ethan took Rachel’s hand in his and turned, breaking into a run. Behind them, the humming sound became louder, as though some unspeakable prehistoric creature was swooping down from the inky blackness above.