He paused to check the map. Every path eventually led to an exit and the one he was on headed back towards the Damascus Gate. He made up his mind. He would search as far as the gate, and if he did not find Zhilev, he would quit. As for Abed, since he no longer knew where he was, the Palestinian was on his own.
Stratton jogged up an incline and paused at a right turn that led towards what looked like a monastery on the brow of a rise where several monks were having a conversation. Straight ahead, in the distance, was the main market again. Both paths led to the gate. He was about to take the less crowded monastery option when something caught his eye. In front of him, protruding into the street and attached to the corner of a large building at a crooked angle, was what appeared to be a small mausoleum.The entrance was protected by an iron fence linked to a pair of ancient pillars, their tops broken off just above the level of the gate, which was chained shut.What caught his attention was the carving in the stone above the door. It was of Christ lying on the ground with his cross over his back, but above that was written the number three in Roman numerals. The last thing Gabriel had said to him as he left the hotel was the number seven without knowing what it meant. Beside the number three were the letters STA. The meaning hit him like a freight train. He had read the short blurb on the back of the map about the fourteen stations of Christ’s journey with his cross through the streets of the old city to his eventual crucifixion. STA was short for station. A sign on a wall named the road as the Via Dolorosa, the Path of Pain.
He quickly opened his map and searched the list on the back of it. Station three was where Christ fell for the first time. Station seven was where he fell for the second time. Stratton turned the map over hoping to see the stations indicated, but they were not.
A Palestinian stepped out of a shop a few yards away and Stratton hurried over to him. ‘Where’s station seven?’ he asked urgently.
The Palestinian did not appear to understand him. Stratton took his shoulder with the minimum of politeness and directed his attention to the mausoleum.
‘Station three. Three,’ he said, holding up three fingers. ‘Station seven,’ he said, holding up seven fingers. ‘Where is it?’
The man still appeared confused. Then the penny dropped and he repeated the number in horrible pronunciation while holding up seven of his own fingers.
‘Seven. Yes. Where?’
The man pointed towards the market area and before his hand had levelled in that direction, Stratton was off at the run.
He grabbed the Tokarev in his pocket, not only to stop it bouncing about, but in anticipation of meeting the Russian although the feeling remained that he was too late. Much as Stratton wanted to get away, it was his nature that if there was even the most slender of chances of succeeding, he could not resist pursuing it. There might be life yet left in this hunt. If there was ever a time to start praying, this was it. It was certainly the right place.
He sprinted around a gentle curve to see people milling about the marketplace ahead and slowed to search for station seven.
He concentrated on the walls hoping to find something written above a door or a plaque on a wall. A woman in traditional dress approached carrying a bag brimming with assorted vegetables and Stratton blocked her path.
‘Station seven? Seven?’
As soon as he asked her it was obvious she could not speak anything other than her native tongue and she looked at him as if he were an alien and moved around him without uttering a word. He turned to ask a man passing the other side of him who did not understand either.
Stratton carried on along the walkway which grew steeper. Up ahead it passed through an arch to burrow inside the city. Traders’ tables lined one side of the tunnel which was illuminated by strip lights fixed to the low, arched stone ceiling.
Suddenly shouts came from inside the tunnel but Stratton was too far away to see what the commotion was. As he moved under the arch, he could see the walkway ended at a T-junction some forty yards ahead. More shouts echoed through the stone tunnels and people scurried away to avoid a couple of police officers running across the end of the junction.
He closed on it just as a soldier, clutching his M16, followed the police officers, pushing his way through the people and shouting at them to move.
Stratton did not care what the fuss was about and concentrated on searching for station seven.
Before he reached the end of the walkway he stopped dead in his tracks. Directly in front of him, twenty yards away, at the end of the T-junction and facing him, was a pair of doors set into the stone wall, and above them, on a large brass plaque, was the number seven in Roman numerals and the letters ST.
The black doors were shut.Trash was strewn about the ground, and Stratton was suddenly positive he was looking at the place where an atomic bomb was ticking away. When he had first learned it was a nuclear device, he had considered what he would do if he found the bomb armed and ready to go. The brief report he had read on its probable type and construction had provided no hope of dismantling it. The only plan he had come up with was to warn the authorities of whichever country he was in and let them deal with it, while he got out of there as quickly as he could. Now that he was possibly faced with that option, he could not improve on this choice of action, but before he could do anything, he had to see the bomb.
He was about to take a step forward when one of the doors started to open inwards. He stopped dead in his tracks and his hand shot to his pocket, pulled out the Tokarev and held it down against his thigh, partly covered by his other hand. He did not move any further nor did he even blink as the door opened fully and a large figure took a step through it.
Zhilev saw Stratton immediately and froze in the doorway. There was a handful of locals in the vicinity but this white man, in his battered leather jacket, standing some twenty yards away and staring directly at him, stood out like a tree in a field of snow. Zhilev did not miss the gun in his hand held low by his body. He looked into the man’s eyes and knew instantly that he had come for a fight, a fight to the end, and he also had the distinct impression the man was no stranger to such situations. He was smaller than Zhilev, and alone as far as he could tell, but his cold, unswerving eyes revealed everything he needed to know about him. He had come for Zhilev, there was no doubt of that, which meant the man knew what he was up against, and yet he was there, standing like a rock, his feet apart and shoulders square. A hint of fear cracked through Zhilev’s body, shooting from the pit of his stomach to every part of him, but he maintained control as his mind raced to consider his options. He had only two as far as he could see: continue out of the crypt, or go back inside. His aggressive nature wanted to push forward and take on this foe, but something in his heart warned him that at this precise moment he would lose, if for no other reason than he had left the Uzi on the table inside. The man was waiting for Zhilev to make his next move.
Zhilev stepped back into the crypt, shut the door and looked at the device on the table, now completely exposed, the wood discarded. He considered his next action. Whatever it was going to be, it needed to be immediate. It might already be too late, but soldiers do not think like that. The wisdom in a developing situation is to strike quickly. To hesitate could be to lose. The decision he had to make was about the bomb. There was a panic sequence on the three arming buttons. Hitting them in one direction set the device to fifteen minutes, and then each hit of the last button reduced it by a further five minutes. Three strikes, five minutes each, and it detonated immediately. His hand hovered over the buttons, the pressure mounting to make a decision. Was fifteen minutes enough time to get away? From here on he would be doing everything at the sprint. If he could get through the man standing outside, he could get out of the city in less than five minutes. If he could grab a car, any one in the street, wrench the driver out and drive like the devil, he could get five miles away in ten minutes if he drove over pavements, through traffic lights and through people if they got in his way.
Zhilev did not waste another second thinking about it and hit the buttons in sequence. The device bleeped twice indicating acceptance of the change. Zhilev snapped up the Uzi, checked the safety was off, held it firmly in one hand and gripped the door knob with the other.
Stratton held the pistol in two hands and moved to one side, away from the position his enemy had last seen him in, and started to walk slowly forward. His enemy had three options: to charge out and fight, or stay inside and wait for Stratton to come in and get him.The third option did not bear thinking about and that was the man committing suicide and taking everyone with him.
Stratton sensed movement behind him but dared not turn to look in case Zhilev came out at that precise moment. It sounded like running. He concealed his gun under his jacket in case it was more soldiers, and he was right. A police officer ran past, closely followed by another. As the third and last officer passed him, Stratton saw the door to the crypt open and Zhilev emerge at the charge, a weapon in his hands. The following seconds were a mass of noise and confusion and seemed to last far longer than they really had.
Machine-gun fire filled the tunnel as Zhilev unleashed a hail of bullets in short, accurate bursts. The copper-coated lead rounds hammered into the first officer’s flak jacket before tearing open his throat. His colleague close behind him took a round in the arm before two smacked into his head killing him instantly. Stratton brought his gun up, but the third officer sidestepped in front of him while fumbling with his own sub-machine gun, overwhelmed by the shock of the surprise onslaught. Stratton fired between the falling bodies and a bullet slammed into Zhilev’s side. But the Russian was in full fury and only death would stop him now. His next burst travelled up the third officer’s body, from his crotch, across his flak jacket and into his face, sending him backwards into Stratton.They fell back together, Stratton’s head one side of the officer, his gun the other. The way was clear for a shot but Stratton was falling. As another burst from Zhilev went wide and hit the wall and ceiling in front of Stratton, something hammered into Stratton’s chest with horrifying force and immediately began to burn. Stratton fired repeatedly until he hit the ground on his back, the weight of the officer knocking the wind completely out of him. But as he fell his bullets ripped into Zhilev - one of his kneecaps flew off, his left hip exploded as the bullet bounced off the bone, a round penetrated his stomach, another his chest, two struck the wall behind him, and the last three shattered Zhilev’s jaw, drilled through his neck and ripped a piece of the side of his head away.
Zhilev stood for a moment in a daze, the world spinning, his vision blurred, images from his life that he had not remembered for years flicking in front of him like an erratic slide show. The only conscious thought he had, which lasted less than a second before the lights went out, was that it was over. The Uzi clattered across the stone floor, and Zhilev dropped back in front of the doorway to the crypt, hitting the ground like a felled oak.
Stratton released the gun to pull himself out from under the police officer’s body with what felt like all the strength he had left. He took a deep breath before trying to sit up and the pain, like a bolt of electricity, seemed to ignite his entire chest and forced him to lie back. He reached a hand under his jacket and felt around his body, his mind unable to pinpoint the pain, and withdrew it to find it wet with blood. He had been hit by a bullet, a ricochet off the wall. He started to feel giddy and fought to control his mind. This was not the time to go unconscious. The will to live and win remained iron in him and the fight was not yet over. While the bomb remained unexploded there was a chance left, be it a desperate one, but that was what this fight had come down to. He knew Zhilev had set the bomb’s timer to detonate. Why else had he made his last desperate charge? The problem was Stratton did not feel he had the strength to carry on.
He looked towards the sound of moaning nearby and saw a Palestinian woman on the ground holding her bleeding arm, a dead trader beside her.
Stratton rolled carefully over, every inch of effort causing a searing pain, and got on to all fours. He reached for a table and, calculating each move and preparing himself for the sting, pulled his feet under him and pushed upwards. He immediately became dizzy and gripped the table to steady himself. It was obvious he was not going to stay upright without support and quickly planned a route to the entrance of the crypt using the line of traders’ tables. He heard more running behind him but this time the boots slid to a halt. Stratton looked over his shoulder to see soldiers taking cover in doorways or on their bellies where the walkway curved out of sight, their weapons pointed at him. He ignored them and pressed on. He did not have a gun and hoped they would at least try to identify his role in the carnage before they shot him.
He reached the last table and considered the gap across the walkway to the crypt entrance. It was only a couple of yards but seemed a long way without help, and so he took a moment to gather himself before he made what was going to be a very painful effort.
Abed had heard the gunfire from outside an old antique shop not far away and had ducked inside after seeing several soldiers running up the walkway towards him. They ran past the entrance and he remained hidden, concerned about the sudden increase in police and military activity in the old city. As the echo of gunfire subsided, he cautiously looked out of the front door and could see a man lying on the ground. He could not be sure, but it looked like the big Russian, and he was not moving.
Abed checked in the opposite direction where traders and shoppers were slowly emerging from shops and doorways, none daring to come any closer, and thought about getting away before the place was crawling with soldiers when he saw a white man casually making his way through them and heading in Abed’s direction.