The device gave a single, short beep.
The explosion was thunderous and blew the doors clean off the crypt walls and into the walkway.
Stratton was close to the entrance and only survived because he was not in the direct line of the blast. It was like standing beside the muzzle of a huge cannon as it went off.The shockwave threw him over and the explosion rocked his brain. The entire walkway shuddered and went black as pieces of stone and mortar fell from the ceilings. The traders’ tables directly in front of the crypt were shredded and blown away, the lighter debris flying out of the end of the tunnel like feathers from a burst cushion, followed by bellowing smoke. It seemed as if the ancient building complex would cave in. However, having survived so many wars over so many centuries it seemed it was not about to crumble now, as if Christ and Allah had agreed to protect their interests. The shaking quickly subsided and the buildings remained intact.
Stratton lay on the ground with his hands over his head, his ears ringing and mind spinning, but conscious enough to ask himself if his time had finally come. As he opened his eyes, blinking rapidly to clear the grit from them, he could see a distant light penetrating the thick dust.
He eased himself back up into the sitting position and coughed painfully, surrounded by smoke. The walkways were in near darkness, the dead neon lights dangling from their wires, making the daylight at the ends of the three tunnels contrastingly bright.
His recollection of the previous few minutes began to reassemble and he suddenly thought of Gabriel. There was no point even considering the possibilities of him surviving.
Stratton spat dirt from his mouth and thought about checking the plastic over the hole in his chest to see if it had fallen off but right then he did not care. His prediction of walking away from this operation alive, which was nothing more psychic than a wish, looked as if it might come true after all. He considered actually attempting to walk but quickly decided against it.Why bother, he thought? The place would be crawling with troops in a moment, and he would be carried off on a stretcher to a hospital. His thoughts went back to Gabriel and he felt sorry for the old guy. He realised he had to go into the crypt to check, just in case. Stranger things had happened, although he did not expect to find anything.
He gathered himself and prepared for the pain. Anger was always a good tool at times like this, like the final charge into the jaws of death, and, without wasting another second, he gritted his teeth and rolled on to his hands and knees. The pain was almost unbearable and for a moment he could not pull in a breath, then his diaphragm kicked in and his lungs took in the air stabbing him once again. He crawled up the wall, got to his feet and shuffled to the hole where the crypt doors once hung.
He expected it to be dark inside but a shaft of light beamed in through a hole in the roof where there was once a dome. The walls were scorched and anything that had not been made of stone had disintegrated, including Gabriel, except for one of his shoes. He started to feel giddy and was about to turn around and rest his back against the wall when he saw something on the floor in the middle of the room. He slid down the wall until he was sitting on the step then leaned forward on to his hands and reached out. He picked up the small metal sphere, rested back against the wall and inspected his find. It had to be the plutonium core - Pu 239, if the paper he had read on the likely device was accurate. If it was any higher than 239 he would suffer radiation poisoning and probably die, even if he had not touched it. But 239 was safe, a piece of paper was enough to protect from the rays.
He could hear footsteps approaching, mingled with the ringing in his ears, and he put the plutonium in his pocket.
A man stopped in front of him. The trousers were not that of a soldier’s and Stratton looked up to see it was Abed.
Abed crouched to look at the Englishman who appeared to be in a bad way, but he could judge his condition more accurately by looking into his eyes. They were as bright and determined as before and Abed knew this man was not so near to death.
‘You’d . . . better get away from here,’ Stratton said, finding the breath to speak. ‘This . . . place will . . . soon be crawling with soldiers.’
‘It’s already too late for that,’ Abed said.
Abed had wanted to leave soon after he saw the older man help Stratton to the floor, but the arrival of several soldiers at the other end of the walkway had made the prospect a risky one. He decided to wait until the place had become busier; despite the fact that would mean cordons and more police and soldiers, it would also mean more Palestinians converging to see what had happened, and he could say he was just another shopper caught up in the incident.
But after the explosion that had brought down most of the shelves in the shop on top of him, he made his way to the doorway to take a look and as the dust cleared saw Stratton lying on the ground with his hands around his head. After watching him struggle to sit in the doorway of the crypt, he felt compelled to go to the man and see if there was anything he could do for him. It was the Arab way.
‘You will live,
habibi
,’ Abed said, using the phrase of friendship.
‘That’s the plan for now,’ Stratton said. ‘Get out of here.’
‘When I have helped you,’ Abed said, opening Stratton’s jacket enough to see the blood on his torn shirt and the wound beneath it. ‘We must get you to a hospital.’
‘There’ll be plenty . . . of people here for that, soon enough.’
‘Look at it this way. By helping you out of the city, I could be helping myself.’
Stratton eyed him with a slight smile. ‘Maybe that would work . . . Okay. Let’s give it a go.’
Abed nodded and stooped to help Stratton up, when they both heard footsteps crunching on the debris and looked around.
Raz was standing a few yards away with a pistol in his hand levelled at them.
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Raz said, calmly and assuredly.
‘I’m just a tourist,’Abed said, standing up. He knew immediately that the older man in civilian clothes had to be Israeli police or military intelligence. ‘I was in a shop just down there when the explosion happened and I came to see if this man—’
‘Your name is Abed Abu Omar,’ Raz interrupted. ‘You’re from Gaza, and you are a terrorist.’
Abed could hardly believe what the man had said. His dreams of freedom immediately evaporated and were replaced by the image of a prison cell, with him inside, rotting in a corner.
The urge to run, no matter what the danger, took a grip of him.
Raz had been several streets away when he heard the shooting and had little doubt it was something to do with Stratton and his urgent dash into the city. As he hurried to where the sound had come from, the explosion was a shock that filled his mind with visions from so many bomb blasts he had been to in his city. As he broke into a run, in his mind he could already see the blood, severed limbs and struggling wounded. He arrived on the scene to see Stratton lying in the dust, and, again, he felt a mixture of anger and concern at the Englishman’s presence in his country which had somehow led to the explosion. But when he saw the man who was talking to him, every other thought left his head, brushed aside by the incredible possibility that it was Abed, his son. Only when Abed turned to look at him was he certain. His gun was already in his hand from when he first heard the shooting, and a part of him was thrown into confusion when Abed saw it aimed at him. Raz wanted to lower it, but he took a firm grip on himself and checked his resolve, knowing what he had to do.
‘Your presence here would suggest you have something to do with this,’ Raz said, accusingly.
Denying his involvement in the explosion was pointless. Abed was a wanted man anyway, and that was that. He could feel the walls closing in on him and hear the door to his cell clanging shut, filling him with dread.
‘I’m not going anywhere with you,’ Abed said. ‘You will have to shoot me.’
‘If that’s what you want, I will oblige you,’ Raz said, hearing the words come from his mouth, but not believing he had said them. He had already accepted Abed’s untimely death since learning of his connection with the Islamic Jihad, he just never dreamed he would be the one to pull the trigger. His son had become an enemy of the worst possible kind, and the need to eradicate him was greater than any bond of blood between them. Alive in a prison was better than death, but Abed was not going to accept that, and Raz knew he would be haunted for the rest of his life if he killed him. He had brought Abed into this world and then left him to live a vile existence in a shanty town, short of food and basic amenities, like an animal. And yet he had grown into a handsome, intelligent and good man, until he was given no choice but to turn against his own sense of right and become a terrorist. Everything about him was Raz’s creation and responsibility, and every pain and hardship Abed had endured was because of him. This was the final injustice, for both of them.
‘Why don’t you pull the trigger?’ Abed said, arrogantly. ‘Don’t you believe I would rather die than let you take me? After so many of us have killed ourselves? Death is not just a weapon for us, it is our only escape from you. I supposed it would ease your conscience if I went to jail instead. Well, I have lived in one of your jails all my life, surrounded by a wall of hate and death in every direction, and always in fear of my jailers’ visits to beat and torment me. Even if you threatened to send me back to Gaza, I would rather die. So pull the trigger. Please.’
Raz could only stare at him. He wanted to tell the young man that he not only believed him, he also understood. For in many ways, he had lived the pain with his son.
‘What are you waiting for?’ Abed asked, raising his voice. ‘Are you afraid? Let me make it easy for you.’
Abed took a step towards Raz who tightened his grip on the gun.
‘Wait,’ Stratton said. ‘Wait,’ he repeated, then broke into a painful cough.
Abed paused to look down at Stratton who was raising a hand as if asking them to hold on while he got through his choking session.
‘He . . . he works for us,’ Stratton finally said after taking a deep breath.
Raz was initially thrown by the revelation, but then it explained some recent events. The two of them being here together did certainly raise a question, and Stratton was no doubt a member of MI6. He would certainly not be trying to save Abed’s life otherwise, who was now obviously the man seen running from the hotel with Stratton.
‘He works for British intelligence?’ Raz asked.
‘Yes. We need him,’ Stratton said.
Raz suspected the last comment, but then why else was Stratton trying to help Abed? He could not have known him for very long. In fact, if it was Abed who Stratton had met in Ramallah the night before, it would have been for the first time. That was also why there was no report of Stratton leaving the town, because he never went through any of the checkpoints. He couldn’t because he was with Abed who could not take the risk. No doubt they went through the old quarry. Shin Bet deliberately left that area unguarded for the times when they needed to monitor specific characters moving through it so that they could mount surveillance operations from a solid start point inside Ramallah, or entering Jerusalem. The only reason Stratton could possibly be helping Abed was loyalty. It was that warped British sense of fair play; even though Abed was a wanted terrorist, he was in the old city helping Stratton and therefore did not deserve to be captured. He would be fair game only when he was off and running again.
‘Don’t waste your breath,’ Abed said to Stratton. ‘You don’t know his kind. He wants to take me away and interrogate me, for weeks if necessary, until they have every piece of information they can get out of me, and then, if I survive, they’ll toss me into a stone room and leave me there until I can find a way to kill myself. He will kill me. He just needs a little help.’
Abed took another step towards Raz.
‘Stand still,’ Raz commanded. But Abed did not obey him.
Raz stepped back. ‘Stand still, I said,’ he shouted, but Abed ignored him, his expression calm, his hands moving out from his side ready for the shot that he hoped would kill him.
‘I’ve saved your life too many times to want to kill you now,’ Raz said, standing firm, the gun levelled at Abed’s heart.
Abed did not understand, and although the comment slowed him, he took another step closer to Raz, who was now within reach of him.
‘I am your father,’ Raz said.
Abed froze.
Stratton was equally stunned.
Raz stared at Abed, shaking with the effort to control his finger on the trigger, desperate not to have to pull it. ‘Do you remember the time you were hit by a car leaving your university?’ Raz said. ‘You thought you had damaged your hip so badly you would have a limp. Did you ever wonder why you received better care than all the other patients in your ward?’
Abed remembered it well, but he never thought he had a mysterious benefactor.
‘And during the many incursions into Rafah, the times you were released while others were taken away. You were on a list of people not to be harmed. Did your mother ever tell you where the money came from each month while you were growing up? And do you remember that day in your metal shop, when you were shot at by the soldier who had threatened one day to kill you? The last shot you heard came from the building beside you. That shot killed the soldier, fired by me.’
Abed was rocked to his very foundations, even more so than the night his mother revealed his father was an Israeli. The shock was tenfold now that he was facing the man he had thought about all his life and never believed he would ever see.
Raz was no longer looking at Abed but at the ground in front of him, his eyes seeing only his own youth and remembering Abed as a baby in his arms in a derelict building in Rafah camp. He lowered the gun and his arm hung limply by his side.