with gravel. At the same moment Stratton leapt from his position and ran as fast as he could to the gully. He had estimated it would take him three to four seconds to get there and if his estimation of the sniper’s abilities was correct, that would be ample time.
He dived across the last few metres, rolled into the gully without a shot being fired at him and lay there for a few seconds. One other thing now seemed certain. The sniper was working alone.
Stratton could no longer see Abed and wondered if he had been hit, but there was no point in thinking about that right now. He could not waste another second and began to crawl up the gully as quickly as possible. Several yards up the hill, the cover increased and he got to his feet to move more quickly. Suddenly a shot rang out and he hit the deck. A second later he realised it had not been aimed at him but at Abed. Stratton pushed on and made his way to the crest.
The ground was almost flat at the top for a few yards before rising steeply again to meet the impregnable wall. There was no sign of anyone on the wall but then only a complete idiot would fire from that position since they would be silhouetted against the sky.
Keeping as low as he could without getting on to his knees he made his way towards the probable location of the sniper. Another shot rang out, again aimed below, and Stratton got down on to his belly and crawled to a crop of boulders from where he could see the likely sniper position. Since the gunman was still firing he was obviously confident his other target had run away. As he scanned for any sign of Abed, he saw him move quickly between a pair of boulders. The sniper fired again hitting the rocks inches from Abed. The Palestinian went up a notch in Stratton’s estimations. He was continuing to draw fire, allowing Stratton to get closer and at the same time find the sniper’s location, and judging from the last shot he was just the other side of Stratton’s cover.
Stratton moved swiftly and rounded the boulder to see a man squatting in what looked like a shell scrape with stones neatly arranged around the edges, his rifle in his shoulder and scope in front of his eye. The man heard Stratton step behind him and as he scrambled to turn and pull his rifle around, Stratton dropped a foot on to the weapon where the man was holding it and brought his fist down on to his jaw with such force he shattered several of the man’s teeth. The man yelped, giving up immediately, and released the rifle to hold his face, bringing his knees up into the foetal position in an effort to protect himself from further punishment while he cried some garbled words that could have been in any language. Stratton pulled the weapon away from the man, ripped out the breech, tossed it away, then jammed the end of the barrel between two large rocks and stamped on it fiercely enough to put a kink in it, rendering it inoperable.
The man looked between his fingers at Stratton and his whimpering slowed as he noticed his assailant’s Western features.
‘You ain’t Palestinian,’ he said in what sounded like a New York accent.
Stratton ignored him and moved to where he could see Abed looking up between some rocks. When he saw Stratton, he got to his feet brushing the dust from his clothes.
‘Where you from, man?’ the sniper asked in a pathetic tone, blood seeping from his mouth, the broken teeth giving him pain. Stratton did not answer. ‘If I knew you weren’t Palestinian I’d a never shot at ya. Honest, man.’
‘Why didn’t you ask?’
‘I’m . . . I’m sorry.’
Stratton threw down the gun, his anger melting at the sight of the pitiful creature, a flask and sandwich box beside him. ‘Where you from?’ he asked.
‘Brooklyn. I’m American.’
‘What are you doing here? Hunting out of season in New York?’
‘I’m Jewish, man.’
‘You speak Hebrew?’
‘Some words . . . No.’
Stratton scanned the walls of the settlement in case the shooting had attracted any of the sniper’s friends. There was no sound or movement but prudence dictated that they move on as soon as possible.
Abed climbed over the edge and stood the other side of the sniper, looking down on him. The sniper rolled on to his back to look up at Abed and grew even more frightened at the sight of the Arab. He looked between the two men frantically trying to gauge them.
‘What are you gonna do to me?’
‘You got any other weapons?’ Stratton asked.
The man hesitated before deciding this was not a man to lie to.
‘I gotta semi,’ he said, indicating the left side of his torso.
Stratton leaned down and pulled open the man’s jacket to reveal a steel-coloured semi-automatic pistol in a shoulder holster. He pulled it out of the spring-grip and inspected it. Afghanistan was the last time he had held a Russian 9mm Tokarev. The date on the side was 1938, the same age as the one he had taken off a dead Taliban in Kabul. He removed the magazine to find it full of the peculiar long Tokarev 9mm copper-coated bullets. He pulled back the top slide to find the breech not loaded and repeatedly slid it back and forth to test the return spring, the mechanism designed to pick up another bullet and shove it into the breech after the previous one had been fired - the return spring was one of the weaknesses of old semi-automatic pistols and this one was almost twice Stratton’s age. It felt strong enough. Perhaps it had recently been replaced. Stratton slid the magazine back into the bottom of the pistol grip, cocked it, putting a round into the breech, and let his arm fall to his side, the barrel, perhaps coincidentally, aimed at the man’s crotch. The man knew his weapon well enough. The Tokarev had no safety catch and when the hammer was back it was ready to fire at the touch of the trigger.
‘Spare clips?’ Stratton asked, using the American word for magazine.
The man kept one eye on the pistol and one on Stratton as he quickly reached into a pocket to produce a spare magazine filled with bullets.
‘These nine mil. longs are hard to come by.Where’d you get them?’ Stratton asked.
‘A guy in the settlement. He can get any weapon you want.’
Stratton placed the magazine in a pocket.
‘What are you gonna do to me?’ the man asked again, this time expressing more concern.
Stratton looked at Abed as if to ask him for an answer. Abed looked away. It was not his place to say, but if it were up to him he would leave the man alone. He no longer had the stomach for killing. He would never kill again unless he had no choice, he was sure of that.
Stratton had no intention of harming the sniper any further. For some strange reason he felt something of a hypocrite even considering it. He was not like this man who was here for the fun of it. There were several places in the world where humans could be hunted and shot with impunity, and the Israeli settlements were just one of them.Another was working for Western intelligence, but it was a far more exclusive club.
Stratton aimed the pistol at the man’s heart, placed the pad of his index finger on the trigger and pulled it; at the same time his thumb caught the top of the hammer as it sprang forward, and let it gently fall into its seat against the back of the firing pin.
The man flinched, then exhaled slowly, feeling a little giddy as Stratton placed the gun in his pocket.
‘Go home,’ Stratton said, and then turned and walked away.
The sniper switched his gaze to Abed, wondering if he might harm him, but Abed stepped over him and followed Stratton.
They walked at a brisk pace down the gully and on to the path to leave the settlement behind. Ten minutes later they headed up a track to find themselves amid the bustling throng of cars, trucks and people lining up to pass through the Kalandia checkpoint into Ramallah.
They had covered the distance in silence but Abed had hardly taken his eyes off Stratton, wondering what kind of man he was. What fascinated him was Stratton’s complexity. The man was clearly troubled by something, but Abed felt certain it had nothing to do with the problems in this country. He was Abed’s first contact with the West, he was the enemy, and in a very short time he not only believed he could trust him, he had to admit he liked him. That troubled Abed even more.
They climbed into one of the many taxis dropping Palestinians off at the checkpoint and Stratton told the driver to take them to the American Colony.
