She noted the excitement in the young men’s faces. They didn’t understand her completely, so she spelled it out for them. “If it appears that you’ll be captured by a security patrol, your only option is suicide. We can’t take the risk of your capture exposing us. There is no way you would ever be able to stand up under a physical and pharmacological interrogation.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Moshe?” She looked at the youngest member of the team, the man most responsible for watching Harry White. “Get our prisoner ready. We should be leaving within ten minutes.”
“Okay,” the boy said smartly.
Harry knew something was up as soon as Moshe entered his cell. As the days of his captivity ran into each other, their interest in him, and thus their attention, had slackened. It was unusual for his guards to check on him unless it was meal time. Not being harassed gave him some comfort, but it didn’t offer any better chance of escape. They had guns and he did not.
Always a thin man, Harry had lost weight during his captivity. His cheeks hung like empty pouches off his face, and his bright blue eyes had sunk behind wrinkled folds of skin so they almost disappeared in his head. Despite his ragged appearance, he felt better than he had in years. He’d drunk sparingly of the bottle of gin Moshe had given him and still had nearly half left. At first it had been difficult not to polish off the bottle in one drunken sitting, but after getting over the physical craving, Harry’s discipline surprised even him. Back home, he drank more out of routine than any deep-seated emotional problem, and with the tension he’d experienced in the past weeks, boredom was no longer a problem.
Once this ordeal was over, however, he promised himself a week-long bender. But until then, he had to keep sharp. Knowing his life depended on his actions, he allowed himself only a few small sips before falling asleep after his dinner. Three weeks of near sobriety had done wonders to clear his mind of fifty years of accumulated hangovers. He was a bit more liberal with the cigarettes but he still smoked less than half a pack a day. A few more weeks of this, he joked to himself, would leave him feeling like he wasn’t a day over seventy-five.
“What’s going on?” Harry greeted the young Israeli when the boy nudged him gently awake.
“We are leaving, Harry. Get dressed.”
Harry sat up, swinging his foot to the floor. His prosthetic leg leaned against the wall like a little-used umbrella. “Time for another bogus call to Mercer?” Harry could only hope that his friend had understood the reference to Boodles during their last communication. Of course, the brand Moshe had given him wasn’t Boodles, but he was sure the men holding him wouldn’t recognize the brand while Mercer should. Even Harry knew that if Moshe drank, he couldn’t be a Muslim as he had first guessed.
“No, Harry, we are leaving this house,” Moshe replied while his prisoner strapped on his leg and began to dress.
Excitement tickled the back of Harry’s brain. He’d thought that if they ever moved him again, and they didn’t drug him as they’d done the last time, he might find a way to escape. He kept his voice neutral. “Where we headed?”
Moshe gave a small laugh. “You know I can’t tell you that.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He finished with his shirt and reached into the bundle of blankets to retrieve the gin still cached there. “Can I at least bring this along? Nothing makes time pass quicker than a drop or two of liquor.”
Moshe’s expression brightened. “We will share it on the drive. We’ll have a few hours together. But you must cooperate with us when we walk to a vehicle we have waiting.”
“Come on, my boy, look at me,” Harry chuckled. “Does it look as if I have a choice?”
Moshe laughed. Harry was as threatening as a toothless tomcat.
Their driver, David, called twenty minutes later. He was waiting at the Dormition Abbey just outside the Zion Gate. Lev and Jacob left the safe house immediately, their Uzis hidden under long dark coats.
“All right, people, get ready. They should be in position in a couple minutes. As soon as we hear the gunfire, I want us moving,” Rachel ordered.
The wait was only seven minutes.
The sound of gunfire was muted by the distance. Still it echoed throughout the old city. Rachel’s face remained impassive as they paused at the door. Seconds later, the night was filled with running feet and police whistles. She could imagine the people in the neighborhood cowering in their beds, quietly asking each other what was happening.
“Okay, let’s go.”
There were only four of them including Harry White. Moshe kept a tight grip on the old man’s arm as they eased out the door. Rachel took the lead, an automatic pistol held discreetly against her thigh. They had to cover about three-quarters of a mile through the Jewish Quarter to reach the waiting van, and while she didn’t like the exposure, she had no choice.
Harry’s mind worked furiously. He tried to recognize any landmark that might look familiar as they moved, but nothing came to him. He was in the Middle East, of that he was sure, but had no idea where. The one clue he had — Moshe drinking the gin with him — gave him nothing. And then he realized that a woman was now leading the team. A woman! Not in an Arab country. In a rush everything came clear. His kidnappers were Jewish! Some Israeli extremist group, no doubt.
He should have seen it all along. Moshe was a Jewish name, the name of a former Israeli leader. “Shit,” he cursed himself under his breath.
But how to make this work to his advantage? This was his best opportunity to escape, and still he had no ideas. Muslim or Jew, it didn’t matter as long as they were armed. He did sense the group’s tension and wisely decided not to delay them by intentionally slowing his pace. He could tell they were all in danger.
Rachel stiffened when she heard a group of men running toward them. She hid the pistol behind her leg just as a dozen soldiers rounded a corner a half block away, their equipment slapping against their uniforms. As soon as the security patrol spotted the four people breaking the curfew order, their weapons came up, twelve fingers tightening on the triggers.
“No, please, wait!” Rachel cried in Hebrew. “We are Israeli citizens!”
“What are you doing on the street?” the ranking soldier called back, his weapon centered on Rachel’s head.
“There was a shooting close to our apartment, my grandfather was frightened,” Rachel improvised, pointing at Harry. “He demanded we leave immediately. He is very ill. The strain is bad for his heart.”
“Return to your home at once,” the soldier ordered. “You should not be out here.”
“I know, but we cannot calm him.” She lowered her voice to draw on the soldier’s natural compassion. “His wife, my grandmother, was killed in the bombing at the Wall. He has not been himself.”
At that revelation, the leader of the patrol lowered his weapon, and his troops followed suit. The soldier looked at the group critically, deciding that a woman, two boys barely out of their teens, and a man who looked as though he would die at any moment did not pose a threat. The radio on his belt squawked, and he shifted his attention from Rachel to it.
“A patrol has made contact,” he said to his group. “Two men armed with automatic weapons. They’ve split up. I think one of the bastards is heading our way.” He looked at Rachel again, but already his concentration was on the hunt for the renegades. “Clear the street as quickly as you can. There are two of them out here tonight.”
Harry watched the exchange, realized that the patrol was about to leave, and got a sickening inspiration. It was now or never. God forgive me for what I’m about to do. Then as loud as he could, he screamed, “Heil Hitler!”