“Time’s a-wasting,” Wells said.
Duto put the car in gear. “What a cluster.”
“So it’s a go?”
“Like our friend in Tel Aviv would say, shuffle up and deal.”
28
Salome was sitting in a wrinkled leather chair in the living room, watching the deadline clock tick away on CNN Internationaclass="underline" 21:35:42… 21:35:41… when the party started. Fists banging metal, a man screaming in a language Salome guessed was Afrikaans. He seemed to be at the next house over, on the other side of the wall to the north. Seconds later, a woman began yelling back.
Maybe screaming fights were common in this neighborhood. And Frankel had been sure Wells couldn’t have tracked him here. But in moments like these, she didn’t believe in coincidence. She drew the curtain a few centimeters, peeked into the yard and the street beyond. Something was different, though she couldn’t figure what.
“Go look,” she said to Binyamin.
“Take the gun?”
“Yeah.”
He grabbed the shotgun and stepped out as a dog on the other side of the house added its howl to the chorus. Salome looked at Frankel, still sleeping on the couch. “Amos!”
A car honked, once, long and loud. She realized what had bothered her outside. The car. She tugged aside the curtain to double-check. A white Audi was parked across the street, diagonally north, twenty or twenty-five meters away. She couldn’t see if it was running or anyone was inside, but she was sure it hadn’t been parked there when she came to the house.
“What’s happening?” Frankel said behind her.
“I think Wells. Go check Rand for a phone.”
“I already did—”
She flapped her hand, Don’t argue, just do it.
Outside, Binyamin stepped toward the people yelling next door.
“This wall. I can’t see anything—”
When Duto honked, Wells crept to the front of the roof. Eureka. The play had worked.
Only, it hadn’t. The man in the yard wasn’t Frankel. Even from the back, Wells knew. He’d seen Frankel in that Volgograd hotel room. This guy was much taller and broader.
Maybe Frankel had found the tracker and shucked the Mercedes overnight. He and Rand were a thousand miles away, and Wells was about to cut down a sucker paid by Frankel to drive the Mercedes here.
Or else Frankel had brought in reinforcements somehow. In that case, Wells was about to start a gunfight without knowing how many guys he faced. Either choice was bad, but the first was worse. Wells couldn’t shoot an innocent man. And just because the guy had a shotgun didn’t prove he worked for Duberman. The man stepped close to the wall and the Mercedes, yelled back to the house—
In Hebrew.
Good. At least Wells didn’t have to worry he was shooting a civilian. He pulled the Glock. The tile on the roof was cheap and cracked and didn’t offer great footing. But the roof itself was only slightly sloped and Wells was not even twenty-five feet away from the guy. An easy shot. The man never looked back. Never even turned his head.
Wells sighted, wasted a second wondering if his target knew what was really happening here. Probably not. Probably he’d taken a bodyguard job for the pay, been told the night before to get on a plane. Excellent benefits. Must be willing to travel on short notice. An employee. Nothing more. Maybe he would have thrown down his shotgun and surrendered if Wells gave him the choice. Maybe not. The answer didn’t matter. Wells had no choice himself.
Wells squeezed the trigger twice. He aimed center mass, missed a few inches high. The back of the guard’s head exploded in a slaughterhouse spray of blood and bone and brain. He crumpled face-first onto the scrubby lawn next to the Mercedes, dead before he knew what death was. Rudi would have been jealous.
From the room below, a woman yelled, “Binyamin!” Wells knew that voice. Salome. She must have flown directly from Jordan. So she and Amos were inside. How many others? Only the Mercedes was in the driveway, and no other cars were parked in front. They had taken a cab here. Which meant two or three people. Unless they’d taken more than one cab.
Wells fired two shots into the air, hoping that Duto would understand his message: That wasn’t Frankel and this isn’t over. Now he had to move. Where?
Two shots, then two more. From the roof. Of course Wells was on the roof. He was a vulture. A vampire. Salome looked out. Binyamin lay in the grass not ten meters away, his head a cracked egg. She lifted her pistol, hoping Wells would jump down.
“Wells!”
No answer. No noise at all.
“Wells! Don’t be a woman! Quit hiding!”
Still nothing. Was he creeping around up there? Or keeping still, hoping she would come out? She wondered how far the nearest police station was, how many minutes they had. The cops would take everyone into custody. They would need to sort out this strange house where Americans and Israelis were slaughtering each other. When they realized Witwans was a South African citizen, they would separate him and question him alone. Salome couldn’t imagine what he would say. She’d peeked in on him a few minutes before. He’d deteriorated badly since she’d last seen him. The broken blood vessels in his nose had advanced to his cheeks. Even in sleep he smelled sweet, sickly, his liver fighting a losing battle against the poison he poured down his throat.
And what if Duto was here? An American senator and the former CIA director. The police would listen to his story, no matter how bizarre it sounded. Salome’s mere presence here would help to confirm his accusation. How could she explain her sudden trip to South Africa, or how she’d ended up in this house with the former director of the South African nuclear program?
No, she and Witwans had to disappear. As long as they could escape this neighborhood and reach the highway, they should be safe. South Africa was huge, and she had plenty of cash. They could take the N1 all the way to Johannesburg, or head along the coast to Port Elizabeth. The police would have no way to connect them to this house. They’d been here only a couple of hours. No one knew who they were.
But they couldn’t go anywhere until they put a stake in the vampire on the roof.
Frankel ran back into the living room, his pistol drawn. “What happened?”
“Wells shot Binyamin. From the roof.” Luckily, they could speak openly in Hebrew. “Stay with him in case Wells tries to break into his room. Now.”
“What’s happening?” Gil, the second guard, yelled from the kitchen, at the back of the house.
“Guard the back door. Wells is on the roof.”
“How’s that?”
“Just watch it.”
She imagined how Wells might attack. The house was only about fourteen meters wide, eight across. Forty-five feet by twenty-five. Its layout was simple. In front, the living room spanned the width of the building. In back, the kitchen did the same. A center hallway connected the two rooms. The main bedroom ran along the right side of the hallway. A smaller bedroom and a bathroom shared the left. Witwans had naturally grabbed the big bedroom. Even in a kidnapped alcoholic haze, he acted the king.
The shouting next door stopped. In the silence, Salome listened for Wells. Nothing. Yet she was sure he hadn’t jumped down. The noise would have been obvious. She wondered why he hadn’t already tried to come at them. He’d just blown a man’s head off, so he couldn’t be planning to stick around for the cops. But if he figured that they would run, he might wait on the roof for the chance to pick them off.