Fuse of Armageddon (49 page)

Cohen’s flashlight beam settled on Kevin’s chest.

“Hey,” Kevin said. “You’re creeping me out.”

No warning. A silenced shot from the black shadows behind the flashlight. A bloom of red across Kevin’s chest. He fell, gurgling.

Then the beam found Kate. She dove sideways, rolling.

Cohen crisscrossed the beam, trying to find her.

Kate had the pistol up as she made it to her knees, aiming at the flashlight beam and pulling the trigger.

Nothing but a dry click. Twice more.

The noise alerted Cohen to her location and the flashlight beam swung toward her. He fired two quick shots, and the bullets caromed with the whining noise of angry wasps.

Kate made another rolling dive and fired another shot from the pistol. Dry click. Still nothing.

“You were set up,” Cohen said, chuckling lightly. “There’s no ammunition.”

Kate bit off her reply. Cohen just wanted the sound of her voice as a target.

She made another dive, and her shoulder collided with the wall. Her involuntary gasp drew another shot.

But this time she felt it instead of hearing it. The bullet was a baseball bat against her left shoulder, an epicenter of pain, riding outward in seismic waves. She dropped the pistol and clutched her shoulder.

Hunching, Kate ran. She collided again with the tunnel wall, but at an angle that bounced her forward.

Cohen’s beam found her again, but it also gave her enough light to see a turn in the tunnel. She ducked into it as another shot smashed into the stone.

But she was blind. She let go of her shoulder with her right hand and placed her palm against the side of the tunnel. She used the wall as a guide, sliding her hand along it as she ran as fast as her pain would allow.

45

Temple Mount, Jerusalem • 20:43 GMT


Brad Silver was gone.

Patterson and Davidson stood beside the heifer, waiting for the call from Saxon to bring it forward for sacrifice. Jonathan Silver had been sent with another soldier, who was ordered to watch the old man and the woman from the orphanage. Brad hadn’t even had them tied up; evidently he didn’t see them as much of a threat.

Almost losing the heifer to the old man had sure made Saxon jump, though.

In fact, it all came down to the red heifer. Patterson knew that. He had known it ever since seeing Saxon wash off the painted spots, and he had suspected it even before that. Overhearing the conversation between Brad and Jonathan Silver confirmed it.

Patterson was also at the point he’d been at that day in Afghanistan, when nothing mattered except talking to Sarah and he’d forced Lieutenant Saxon to allow him to make the phone call.

Except the stakes were higher now. Instead of letting Sarah know he was alive, her life depended on his actions.

Patterson couldn’t imagine getting out of this alive. He was part of a group barricaded on the Temple Mount. Maybe the other Freedom Crusaders were willing to fool themselves into thinking that once the site was taken they would be welcomed back into the world as heroes. But Patterson couldn’t see that happening. What he could see was some kind of pitched battle at the end of an indefinite standoff. Didn’t matter if it was Muslims or Israelis swarming the grounds; it was going to be their own Alamo.

Some of the Freedom Crusaders might believe it would be worth their lives to be the ones freeing the Temple Mount for the Christian world to reclaim after this Alamo was finished. At one time, he would have believed it himself.

It was coming down to something else for him, though.

Sarah.

He had to save her. He didn’t know where she was, and he didn’t have the power to release her anyway. But Saxon did. Or Saxon would be able to make a call to the person or persons with the knowledge and power to free her.

It shouldn’t be that difficult to get them to let her go, Patterson thought. After tonight, not much was left to keep secret. The whole world would know about the Freedom Crusaders. Sarah telling people that he was still alive and had called her wouldn’t be a threat to the operation then.

So he just needed something to bargain with to get Saxon to let Sarah go.

This
something
was obvious.

How to do it didn’t seem insurmountable either. Thirty-five acres was a lot of room to hide something.

But he didn’t have much time to do it.

Patterson lifted his rifle and pointed it directly at Davidson’s head.

“Huh?” Davidson said.

“I’m counting to five. You’ve got till then to get on your belly with your hands behind your back. Make any noise for help, and I’ll belly-shoot you. That way I’ll die a lot faster than you.”

“You’re kidding,” Davidson said.

Patterson replied with a single word. “One . . .”

Western Wall Tunnel • 20:46 GMT


When Kate finally collapsed, she didn’t hear footsteps, didn’t see a flashlight beam. Adrenaline had kept her going; a screaming instinct to survive had propelled her. She knew she hadn’t gone far. It was too dark in the tunnels. She couldn’t guess how far she was from the tunnel entrance at the Wailing Wall. Only that she’d passed the rope that led up to the house in the Muslim Quarter and had kept going because she knew there was no way to climb it with a shattered shoulder.

She’d stumbled forward until she’d reached some sort of cavern.

She fought to rise again. Feeling along the wall, she found what seemed to be a pillar embedded in a stone wall, then a large, upright stone. She fought off thoughts about spiders and sat and leaned against the stone, trying to wedge herself between it and the wall. With the first reaction of unbridled fear dissipating into the beginning stages of shock, the futility of her situation became clearer.

Kate was lost in total darkness. Her body was incapacitated. Even if she could somehow stop the bleeding and begin to search for an exit, Cohen was behind her, tracking her down.

Then a thought exploded through the lethargy of shock.

Tracking her.
All Cohen had to do was use his flashlight to follow the blood trail she’d left behind. He’d see that she’d been hit and that she hadn’t used the rope.

She tried to think things through from Cohen’s point of view. He couldn’t know how badly she’d been injured. He’d have to find her to make sure she had not survived. He would keep looking. There was no way she was strong enough to fight back. Or even keep running, for that matter.

What did she have?

Maybe enough resolution and anger to push away the blanket of shock that beckoned with such comfort.

And she had her cell phone.

Her right hand was slick with blood from where she’d clutched her shoulder. She wiped it on her jeans, then fumbled to get the cell phone. She flipped it open one-handed and concentrated hard to see the screen, willing away the unconsciousness that was so tempting.

There was no signal. That didn’t surprise her.

But maybe there was a way to beat Cohen. Even after she was dead.

Using her right thumb, she began pressing the keypad.

Temple Mount, Jerusalem • 20:52 GMT


“Sir.” Patterson had stepped into the floodlights around the nearly constructed incinerator.

Saxon had been in conversation with one of his soldiers and broke away with a frown. “You’re supposed to be guarding the heifer.”

“That’s why I’m here. It’s gone.”

Saxon’s mouth opened, shut, and opened again. “Gone? Who took it? Why didn’t you call for help? Give me a full report.”

“I moved it,” Patterson said. He set his rifle on the ground in front of him, then backed away slightly, making it clear he wasn’t armed.

“Son, you better start making sense real soon.”

“I disabled Davidson and moved the heifer myself.”

Saxon had a sidearm. He unholstered it, cocked it, held it chest high, and aimed it squarely at Patterson. “You’re still not making sense. But I do know insubordination when I hear it. Where is it?”

“Hidden about as good as a man can hide something like that in thirty-five acres in the dead of night. It’s muzzled, too. Don’t expect you’ll find it by listening for it. You can shoot me, but if you do, you won’t find it; I can promise you that.”

Saxon lowered the sidearm.

“I need to speak to Sarah again,” Patterson continued. “You arrange to get her somewhere safe where she can give me a call so I know she’s alive and escaped. Then you’ll get the heifer.”

“I can’t do that.”

“You told me she’d be dead if I didn’t obey orders. That tells me you know who to call.”

“I lied,” Saxon said. “She’s already dead.”

“That’s not true.”

“You killed her, Patterson. You broke silence and forced me to get you on the phone with her. She was dead the next morning.”

“That’s not true.”

“You got nothing to bargain for, son. Tell me where the heifer is.”

Patterson roared and charged Saxon, who easily sidestepped and tripped him. Patterson fell heavily, and Saxon was on top of him, pistol against his head.

“Now, son,” Saxon said, “tell me where the heifer is.”

“Not after what you’ve done to my Sarah. I’d rather be dead myself.”

“I’ll certainly arrange that,” Saxon said. “But I promise you, it will be painful.”

46

Western Wall Tunnel • 20:52 GMT


The sound of footsteps warned Kate of Cohen’s approach. Then came the beam of light, moving slowly from side to side, searching for spatters of blood.

She was in a fetal position. She’d removed a sock and balled it and was pressing it against the entry wound to stem the bleeding. She couldn’t tell if the bullet had exited and couldn’t do anything about bleeding on the back of her shoulder anyway.

With Cohen’s approach, she tapped into her anger and found the strength to roll into a sitting position and lean her back against the tunnel wall. She would face the next bullet, not turn away from it.

The light grew brighter. Slowly. And then it was trained on her face.

“Here you are,” Cohen said. The light moved down her body. He was probably trying to determine how badly she was wounded.

“Back there you didn’t monologue much,” Kate said. Her mouth tasted coppery. She didn’t think the bullet had pierced any part of her lung. The copper was from fear.

“Monologue?”

“It’s a term from a great movie called
The Incredibles.
Bad guys monologue to gloat and to justify themselves. You spent a little time bragging about the Davy Crockett. But to do it right, you should have first told Kevin how stupid he’d been to trust you and how brilliant you’d been to fool him. That was cold—shooting with no warning.”

“Ego is secondary to efficiency,” he answered. “Now won’t be any different. I don’t need to monologue. I just need you dead.”

He leaned in. Behind the flashlight came a click. He’d released the safety on his pistol.

Kate saw the outline of his hand and the gun. Ever cautious, he had not leaned in far enough to give her a chance to fight for it.

She was out of time.

“I was hoping you’d find me,” Kate said. His curiosity would maybe buy her an extra few seconds.

Then she waited. Next would come a question. Or a bullet.

Temple Mount, Jerusalem • 20:54 GMT


Circles of flashlight beams and the distorted shadows added to the eeriness. Patterson stood on his tiptoes, his ankles held together by plastic cuffs, his back against the trunk of an olive tree. His arms were extended in opposite directions along low branches, his wrists wired to the branches.

“We’ve got to do this,” Brad Silver said. Two Freedom Crusaders flanked him. One of them was Davidson. “Nobody stops us.”

“You had my wife killed.” Patterson doubted his body could feel any pain. He was deflated. “Nothing else matters anymore.”

Brad nodded at Davidson.

“Can we give him a chance?” Davidson asked.

“No. Kick him. Make it matter.”

“Sorry, man,” Davidson said. He kicked Patterson solidly in the groin. The sound of the impact was like a foot striking a soccer ball.

Patterson bucked forward so hard that the wire cut the skin on his wrists. Moments later, he vomited, silencing his low moans of agony. He choked on his vomit for a few seconds, then found air.

“Here’s what’s next,” Brad said. “Davidson’s going to put spikes through your hands, nailing you to the tree. Three spikes in each hand. Tell us where to find the heifer, though, and we’ll cut you down before any of this gets started.”

Brad cocked his head, as if waiting for Patterson to speak. “All right then. Davidson . . .”

Davidson approached with a hammer. “It’s dark,” he said in a soft voice. “I’m going to put the first one in the tree. Not your hand. Okay? But if you don’t tell him about the heifer, I got no choice for the other two.”

“Don’t feel bad,” Patterson said. “I know you got no choice.”

Davidson nailed the first spike.

“Tell us,” Brad said.

Patterson remained silent. They’d killed his wife. Wouldn’t tell him what they’d done to his wife and child. A spike wasn’t going to hurt compared to that pain.

Davidson put the second spike in the center of Patterson’s palm. He was crying. “Please, man, don’t make me do this.”

The spike hurt most with the first blow. Once it had gone through the front of his palm and the back of his hand, Patterson felt more shock than pain. There was mercy in the third spike because the pain from the second blurred with the next.

“We’ll stop now,” Brad said to Patterson. “Tell us where to find the heifer.”

Tears streamed down Patterson’s cheeks. He closed his eyes and remained silent.

“Kick him again,” Brad said.

“Sir, I—”

“Do it!”

Davidson put a half stride of momentum into the next kick.

More bucking. More vomiting.

“Where is it?” Brad asked.

“Killing a man’s wife,” Patterson said in a hoarse whisper. “That’s not freedom fighting.”