Authors: Robert Ludlum
The Palestinian struggled to get up, sharp bolts of pain surging through his ribs and his knee, the tendons in his neck nearly paralyzed. Suddenly, without a scratch or a footstep, the door crashed open, the hotel lock blown out of its mount. The second commando—younger, his thick bare arms bulging in tension, his furious eyes surveying the scene in front of him—whipped his hand beyond his right hip for a holstered weapon. Azra hurled himself against the Israeli, smashing the commando into the door, slamming it shut. Code Blue’s gun spiraled across the floor, freeing his right hand to intercept the Palestinian’s arm as it slashed down with the blood-streaked blade of the knife. The Israeli hammered his knee up into the terrorist’s rib cage as he swung the gripped arm clockwise, forcing Azra toward the floor. Still the Palestinian would not release the knife! Both men parted, crouching, staring at each other, contempt and hatred in both pairs of eyes.
“You want to kill Jews, try to kill
me
, pig!” cried Yaakov.
“Why
not
?” replied Azra, thrusting his knife forward to draw out the Israeli. “You kill Arabs! You killed my mother and father as if you’d pulled the trigger yourself!”
“You killed my two brothers on the Sidon patrols!”
“I may have! I hope so! I was
there
!”
“You are
Azra
!”
Like two crazed animals, the young men flung themselves at each other with violence incarnate, the taking of life—hated life—their only reason for being on earth. Blood burst out of
punctured flesh as ligaments were torn and bones broken amid throated cries of vengeance and loathing. Finally it happened, the ending as volcanic as the initial eruption; sheer, brute strength was the victor.
The knife was lodged in the terrorist’s throat, reversed and forced to its mark by the commando from the Masada Brigade.
Exhausted and drenched in blood, Yaakov pushed himself off the body of his enemy. He looked over at his slain comrade, code Orange, and closed his eyes. “
Shalom
,” he whispered. “Find the peace we all seek, my friend.”
There was no time for mourning, he thought as his eyes flashed open. The body of his comrade, as well as that of his enemy, had to be moved. He had to be at the source for what came next; he had to reach the others. The killer
Azra
was dead! They could now fly back to Masqat, they
had
to. To his
father
! In pain, Blue limped to the bed and yanked back the spread, revealing his dead comrade’s Uzi machine pistol. He picked it up, awkwardly strapped it over his shoulder, and went to the door to check the hallway. His
father
!
In the far shadows of the Wadi Al Ahd, Kendrick knew he could not wait any longer, nor could he risk using a telephone. Conversely, he could not remain in the foliage across from the Aradous and do
nothing
! Time was winding down and the contact from the Mahdi expected to find the puppet Azra, newly crowned prince of terrorists, at the rendezvous. It was so clear now, he realized. He had been found out, either through the events at the airport or through a leak in Masqat—the panicked men from the past he had talked to, men who, unlike Mustapha, refused to see him and may have betrayed him for their own safety, as surely as one of them had killed Musty for the same reason. “
We cannot be involved! It’s madness. Our families are dead! Our children raped, disfigured … dead!
”
The Mahdi’s strategy was obvious. Isolate the American and wait for the terrorist to approach the meeting ground alone. Take the young killer, thus aborting the trap, for there is no trap without the American, only an expendable Palestinian on the loose. Kill him, but first find out what happened in Masqat.
Where was Azra?
Thirty-seven minutes had passed since they talked; the Arab called Blue was thirty-two minutes late! Evan looked at his watch for the eleventh time and swore silently, furiously, his unspoken words at once a plea for help and an outburst of anger at the swirling clouds of frustration. He had
to
move
, do something! Find out where Azra was, for without the terrorist there was no trap for the Mahdi, either. The Mahdi’s contact would not show himself to someone he did not know, someone he did not recognize. So
close
! So
far
in the distance of reality!
Kendrick threw the plastic shopping bag containing his starched clothes from Masqat into the densest interior of the bushes bordering the pavement of the Wadi Al Ahd. He walked across the boulevard toward the employees’ entrance, a postured, upright Royal Guard arrogantly on royal business. As he went rapidly down the cobblestone alley toward the service entrance, several of the departing help bowed obsequiously, obviously hoping not to be stopped and searched for small treasures they had stolen from the hotel—namely, soap, toilet paper and plates of food scraped from the dinners of jet-lagged or drunken Westerners too far gone to eat. Standard procedure; Evan had been there; it was why he had chosen the Aradous Hotel. Again Emmanuel Weingrass. He and the unpredictable Manny had fled the Aradous by way of the kitchen because a stepbrother of the Emir had heard that Weingrass had promised a stepsister of that royal brother citizenship in the United States if she would sleep with him—a privilege that Manny in no way could provide.
Kendrick passed through the kitchen, reached the south staircase, and walked cautiously up the steps to the second floor. He withdrew the gun from under his scarlet jacket and opened the door. The corridor was empty, and indeed it was the hour of the evening when the affluent visitors to Bahrain were out in the cafés and in the hidden casinos. He sidestepped down the left wall to Room 202, careful of every footstep on the worn carpet. He listened; there was no sound. He knocked quietly.
“
Odkhúloo
,” said the voice in quiet Arabic, addressing not one, but
more
than one to enter.
Strange—
wrong
, thought Evan as he reached for the doorknob. Why the plural, why
more
than one? He turned the knob, spun back into the wall, and kicked the door open with his right foot.
Silence, as if the room were an empty cave, the eerie voice a disembodied recording. Gripping hard the unfamiliar, unwanted, but necessary weapon, Kendrick slipped around the frame and went inside.… Oh,
God
! What he saw made him freeze in horror! Azra was slumped against the wall, a knife embedded in his neck, his eyes wide in death, blood still dripping in rivulets down over his chest.
“Your friend, the pig, is dead,” said the quiet voice behind him.
Evan whipped around to face a young man as bloodied as Azra. The wounded killer leaned against the wall, barely able to stand, and in his hands was an Uzi machine pistol. “Who
are
you?” whispered Kendrick. “What the hell have you
done
?” he added, now shouting.
The man limped rapidly to the door and closed it, the weapon remaining on Evan. “I killed a man who would kill my people as swiftly as he could find them, who would have killed me.”
“Good Christ, you’re
Israeli
!”
“You’re the American.”
“Why did you
do
it? What are you
doing
here?”
“It’s not my choice.”
“That’s no answer!”
“My orders are to give no answers.”
“You had to
kill
him?” cried Kendrick, turning and wincing at the sight of the dead, mutilated Palestinian.
“To use his words, ‘Why not?’ They slaughter our children in schoolyards, blow up planes and buses filled with our citizens, execute our innocent athletes in Munich, shoot old men in the head simply because all are Jews. They crawl up on beaches and murder our young, our brothers and sisters—
why?
Because we are
Jews
living
finally
on an infinitesimal strip of arid, wild land that we tamed.
We! Not
others.”
“He never had the chance—”
“
Spare
me, American! I know what’s coming and it fills me with disgust. At the last it’s the same as it has always been. Underneath, in whispers, the world still wants to blame the Jew. After everything that’s been done to us, we’re still the irksome troublemakers. Well, hear this, you interfering amateur, we don’t want your comments or your guilt or your pity. We only want what belongs to us! We’ve marched out of the camps and the ovens and the gas chambers to claim what is ours.”
“
Goddamn
you!” roared Evan, gesturing angrily at the bleeding corpse of the terrorist. “You sound like him! Like
him
! When will you all
stop
?”
“What difference does it make to you? Go back to your safe condominium and your fancy country club, American. Leave us alone. Go back where you belong.”
Whether it was the repeated words he had heard barely an hour ago over the phone, or the sudden images of cascading blocks of concrete crashing down on seventy-eight screaming,
helpless loved ones, or the realization that the hated Mahdi was slipping away from him, he would never know. All he knew at that moment was that he hurled himself at the startled, wounded Israeli, tears of fury rolling down his cheeks. “You arrogant
bastard
!” he screamed, ripping the Uzi out of the young man’s grip and throwing it across the room, hammering the weakened commando against the wall. “What
right
do you have telling me what to do or where to go? We watch you people kill each other and blow yourselves and everything else up in the name of blind credos! We spend lives and money, and exhaust brains and energy trying to instill a little reason, but
no
, none of you will move an inch! Maybe we
should
leave you alone and let you massacre each other, let the zealots hack each other to death, just so
somebody’s
left who’ll make some sense!” Suddenly, Kendrick broke away and raced across the room, picking up the Uzi. He returned to the Israeli, the weapon ominously leveled at the commando. “Who
are
you and why are you here?”
“I am code name Blue. That is my response and I will give no other—”
“Code name
what
?”
“Blue.”
“Oh, my
God
…” whispered Evan, glancing over at the dead Azra. He turned back to the Israeli and, without comment, handed the Uzi machine pistol to the stunned commando. “Go ahead,” he said softly. “Shoot up the fucking world. I don’t give a damn.” With those words, Kendrick walked to the door and let himself out.
Yaakov stared after the American, at the closed door, and then over at the corpse slumped on the floor against the wall. He angled the weapon down with his left hand and with his right pulled out the powerful miniaturized radio from his belt. He pressed a button.
“
Itklem
,” said the voice of code Black outside the hotel.
“Did you reach the others?”
“Code
R
did. They’re here—or I should say I can see them walking up the Al Ahd now. Our elder colleague is with
R; G
is with the eldest, but something’s wrong with the latter.
G
is holding him. How about you?”
“I’m no good to you now, maybe later.”
“
Orange?
”
“He’s gone—”
“
What?
”
“No time. So’s the pig. The subject’s on his way out; he’s in
a red-and-blue uniform. Follow him. He’s gone over the edge. Call me at my room, I’ll be there.”
As if in a daze, Evan crossed the Wadi Al Ahd and went directly to the line of shrubbery where he had thrown the plastic shopping bag. Whether it was there or not did not really matter; it was simply that he would feel more comfortable, certainly be able to move more quickly and be less of a target now in the clothes from Masqat. Regardless, he had gone this far; he could not turn back.
Only one man
, he kept repeating to himself. If he could find him within the parameters of the meeting ground—the
Mahdi
! He
had
to find him!
The shopping bag was where he had left it, and the shadows of the shrubbery were adequate for his purpose. Crouching in the deepest bushes, he slowly, article by article, changed clothes. He walked out on the pavement and started west toward the Shaikh Isa Road and the Juma Mosque.
“
Itklem
,” said Yaakov into the radio while lying on the bed in his unsullied room, towels wrapped tightly around his wounds, warm and lukewarm wet washcloths scattered about the spread.
“It’s
G
,” said code Gray. “How bad are you?”
“Cuts, mainly. Some loss of blood. I’ll make it.”
“Then you agree that until you do, I take over?”
“That’s the line.”
“I wanted to hear it from you.”
“You’ve heard it.”
“I’ve got to hear something else. With the pig eliminated, do you want us to abort and head back to Masqat? I can force it if your answer’s yes.”
Yaakov stared at the ceiling, the conflicts raging inside him, the scathing words of the American still scalding his ears. “No,” he said haltingly. “He came too far, he risks too much. Stay with him.”
“About
W
. I’d like to leave him behind. With you, perhaps—”
“He’d never permit it. That’s his ‘son’ out there, remember?”
“You’re right, forget it. I might add he’s impossible.”
“Tell me something I don’t know—”
“I will,” interrupted code Gray. “The subject dropped the uniform and has just passed us across the street.
W
spotted him. He’s walking like a dead man.”
“He probably is.”
“Out.”
Kendrick changed his mind and his route to the Juma. Instinct told him to stay with crowds on his way to the mosque. After he turned north on the wide Bab Al Bahrain, he would head right at the huge Bab Al Square into the Al Khalifa Road. Thoughts bombarded him, but they were scattered, unconnected, unclear. He was walking into a labyrinth, he knew that, but he also knew that within that maze there would be a man or men watching, waiting for the dead Azra to appear. That was his only advantage, but it was considerable. He knew who and what they were looking for, but they did not know him. He would circle the rendezvous like an earthbound hawk until he saw
someone
, the right
kind
of someone, who understood he could lose his life if he failed to bring the crown prince of terrorists to the Mahdi. That man would betray himself, perhaps even stop people to stare into their faces, anxiety growing with each passing minute. Evan would find that someone and isolate him—take him and
break
him.… Or was he deluding himself, his obsession blinding him? It did not matter any longer, nothing mattered, only one step after another on the hard pavement, weaving his way through the night crowds of Bahrain.