Bronson gripped the length of rebar with his right hand, flattened his back against the wall on the right-hand side of the archway and held the pebble in his left hand, ready to lob it.
He sensed the presence of somebody before the dim light revealed the outline of a man dressed entirely in black and holding a pistol in his right hand.
Bronson knew he had just one chance.
He flicked the pebble into the far corner of the chamber at the precise moment the man stepped inside the room. The stone clattered on the floor and immediately the intruder turned on his torch, the beam seeking out the source of the sound while he raised his right arm, aiming the pistol towards that corner.
And then Bronson swung the rebar down with all his strength, a short vicious arc that connected with the man’s right arm about midway between his wrist and his elbow, instantly breaking both bones.
The man screamed, a high wailing sound that echoed from the walls. He dropped the pistol and the torch, the beam immediately extinguished when it hit the stone floor, his left hand reaching to support his right arm as he bent forward in agony.
But Bronson wasn’t finished. He lifted the rebar again, higher this time, and brought it down just as hard on the back of the man’s skull. The screaming stopped instantly and the man dropped to the floor and lay still. Dead, dying or just unconscious, Bronson didn’t know. Or particularly care. He’d been forced to choose between his life and someone else’s. And now he had a proper weapon.
The man outside in the tunnel switched on his torch in panic, obviously having heard the noises but without knowing what had happened. Then the torch beam illuminated the unmoving shape of his companion, and Bronson guessed he’d now be looking for a target.
He reached down and grabbed the pistol the other man had dropped. The weapon felt instantly familiar, and he identified it by touch as a Browning Hi-Power, a pistol he’d used frequently during his Army career. The safety catch was off and the hammer was all the way back, ready to fire.
The man outside must have realized the stupidity of switching on his torch, because doing so had instantly identified his location. As soon as the light appeared it was extinguished. An instant later, the other torch was also switched off.
In the darkness, Bronson crouched down beside the archway, adrenalin pumping through him, aimed the pistol more or less at where he thought the torch had been, and squeezed the trigger once. He didn’t want to risk a second shot because he didn’t know how many rounds were in the magazine, though from the weight of the weapon he guessed it was at least half full.
He heard a curse, the voice raised in anger rather than pain, and at the same instant two shots rang out, the faint muzzle flashes in the blackness showing that the shooter was already on the move, heading back down the tunnel towards his companion.
Bronson rose slowly to his feet and eased himself through the stone archway until he could look back down the tunnel. About forty yards away, near the open gate, he saw the outline of two figures, the intermittent glow of light from their torches as they flicked them on and off, obviously trying not to become targets, showing that they were heading away from him.
Forty yards is too far for accurate shooting with a pistol, and in any case Bronson would never have shot anybody in the back, so he stepped back inside the chamber and switched on his torch. The man he’d hit was lying in precisely the same position and in the light from the torch Bronson could see the black hair on the back of his head was soaked in blood. He inhaled deeply, steeling himself, and checked the pulse in the man’s neck, but found nothing.
He realized his hands were shaking and took a moment to compose himself. Better that the anonymous man — who had after all been carrying a loaded and cocked pistol and presumably had intended to use it — should be lying there dead than Bronson himself.
Very faintly in the distance he thought he heard the sound of approaching sirens, and knew he had to get out as quickly as possible. He placed the pistol on the ground within easy reach and quickly searched the dead man, recovering a handful of nine-millimetre bullets from his pocket and a wallet that only contained cash, and not that much of it. He pocketed the wallet, tucked the pistol into the waistband of his trousers and picked up the length of rebar. His fingerprints were certainly all over it, along with the blood of the dead man, and he couldn’t risk leaving it behind.
Then he stepped out of the chamber and back into the tunnel.
41
Angela had been as good as her word.
She’d waited in the shadows by the entrance to the Western Wall Heritage, doing her best to keep out of sight and listening intently. The sound of the two shots from somewhere deep inside the tunnel complex had both shocked and alarmed her and she’d immediately dialled the Israeli police. But not from her mobile. She’d jogged away from the Kotel Plaza and made the call from the first public phone she’d found, telling the person who responded that she’d heard shots from inside the complex and that the door to the building was open.
The officer or dispatcher or whoever it was had told her firmly to remain exactly where she was, but Angela had replaced the receiver and immediately walked to an entirely different location which gave her a good view of the entrance to the Western Wall Heritage and just waited.
She looked and had sounded calm and in control on the phone, but her mind was in turmoil. Those shots could only have meant one thing: Chris must have been spotted by whoever had entered the complex before they got there. Even while her mind raced, imagining him dying alone and in the dark, lying in a spreading pool of his own blood on the ancient stones of some anonymous chamber or passage, another part of her brain was silently cursing him for his stupidity in going inside the tunnel complex at all, knowing that somebody else was already in there. And perhaps worse than that, for thinking he could take on men armed with guns when all he had with him was a length of steel.
For a few minutes, nothing happened. Then she faintly heard what sounded like another single shot, quickly followed by two more, but she was now so far away from the entrance to the tunnel complex that she couldn’t be sure. And moments after that she heard the unmistakable sound of a police siren.
She didn’t move, apart from slinking further back into the shadows and making sure that she could not be easily seen. She was determined to hold her position and to wait there until, hopefully, she would see the bulky figure of Bronson emerge from the open gate.
But that didn’t happen. Instead, two men stepped out of the gate, glanced in both directions and then exchanged a few brief words. Then they set off, heading away from the Kotel Plaza in opposite directions, not running but moving quickly. In the light from the moon, all she could tell was they had dark hair, and appeared to have swarthy complexions.
Less than two minutes later, four uniformed police officers ran into the square and headed straight for the Western Wall Heritage entrance, briefly examined the lock on the open gate and then vanished inside, pistols drawn and torches in their hands.
At that moment Angela knew that there was no point in waiting where she was any longer. If Bronson was still alive somewhere in the tunnels, the police would arrest him and he’d spend the rest of the night in a police cell, and probably the next several months or years in some Israeli jail. If he was dead, they’d remove the body, and if he was wounded but still alive, they’d take him to hospital.
Those, as far as Angela could see, were the only possible outcomes, and there was nothing she could do to influence or help Bronson with any of them if she stayed where she was. In fact, the longer she remained in the area, the more chance there was of being arrested herself, if only because she was on the spot and might have been the woman who had made the call about the gunshots. If, against all the odds, Bronson had survived and had been arrested, then the best place for her to be was out on the streets so that she could find him a lawyer or talk to the embassy or consulate or whatever British government presence there was in the city.