removed quietly before he returned, killed and hidden. The bomb must then be planted in that front room. If Ravi did not go out, they would have, somehow, to remove the guards, and then, in the immortal words of Colonel John Rabin, knock down the fucking house. No survivors.
As it happened, General Rashood dined out every evening, either alone with Shakira, or with friends.
At 1945, a taxi pulled up outside the house. There were no guards at the door, but almost instantly one of them came out and ran down the steps to speak to the driver. Five minutes later, Ravi and Shakira walked outside and climbed into the cab.
Colonel Joel, Colonel Rabin, and Abraham watched it pull away.
“John, any reason why we should not go in tonight?” asked Ben.
“Not at all. The weapon is absolutely ready. You just need to decide whether we design it to obliterate that one room, or demolish the building.”
“Okay. Let’s say we expect the general to return around 2300, or even later. According to our estimations, there will be a guard change at midnight. But we cannot wait until then. We need to take out and remove these two Hamas thugs guarding the door around 2230, and hope to Christ no one disturbs us.”
“And if anyone does?”
“Eliminate.”
“Guns?”
“Knives.”
“Messy?”
“But quiet. And that’s better.”
“That way, we’re counting on the general arriving back between 2300 and midnight?”
“Not necessarily.”
“But what if the second shift of night guards turns up and their colleagues are not there, deserted, gone missing?”
“What can they do but remain on station, wait for the boss, and then tell him two men have vanished? We don’t care. The bomb will be in place.”
“Okay, what if the general then decides to search through the house, and then goes straight to bed? — and with a wife like that, who could blame him?”
Colonel Joel laughed, knowingly. “I was coming to that,” he said. “We take out the two guards at 2230, as planned, insert the big bomb. And blow the bastard up as soon as Ravi enters the house and shuts the door. That way we don’t care which room he is in.”
“No, I guess not. But it does mean we won’t have much use for the timing device.”
“Not at all, John. We wait for that door to close behind the general. We set the timer for ten minutes. And then we leave. We just bolt down the stairs, straight to the garage, and we’re gone, out of here. We’ll be about four miles away when the blast occurs. All we need to know is that Ravi’s in there.”
“Can’t fault that, boss,” said Colonel Rabin agreeably. “Shall we go out for an hour?”
“Good idea. We haven’t eaten all day. Tell Abe and Itzaak we’ll be gone for a while and we’ll bring food back.”
Two hours later, the Mossad’s hit team was in order. Everything was packed away in a couple of big mail bags, which Jerry would pick up later that night. At 2225, Itzaak and Abraham, still in Arab dress, went downstairs and walked the short distance into Bab Touma Street, which was very quiet, though not entirely deserted.
They crossed the street and walked up the steps to the front door of the Rashood stronghold. Major Itzaak Sherman rapped sharply on the door, which was instantly opened, and the Israeli found himself looking at the barrel of an AK-47.
The guard spoke in Arabic—
Itzaak just said, “Please, sir, I need to speak to General Rashood.” The guard hesitated and stepped forward, saying, “I thought there were two of you—” But he was too late. Abraham swooped out of the shadow and rammed his combat knife straight into the man’s heart. It was a deadly blow, viciously hard and accurate. The guard gasped, tried to yell, but he was dead before he hit the floor.
From inside, there was a call of “Rami, who is it?” And the second guard stepped out onto the front porch and met with an identical fate when Abraham, using a second knife, plunged it into the man’s heart.
By this time, Colonel Ben Joel had crossed the street, carrying the bomb in a leather duffel bag. He raced up the stairs and into the room on the left. Right behind him came John Rabin. They both hit the floor and began to screw the device to the underside of the big heavy table in the center of the room.
Meanwhile, the other two were dragging the two bodies down the steps and into a small open front yard, below the main street window. This area was unkempt and overgrown, and it had a gateway but no gate. The walls around it were two feet high. It took exactly one minute for Abraham and Itzaak to dump the dead men into the far corner of the tiny yard, where they would never be discovered until it was light, and maybe not even then.
At this point, Major Rabin was working alone on the electronics of the bomb, with Abraham standing guard on the door, in case either of the sleeping second-shift guards heard something and came to investigate. But the house was deathly quiet.
Colonel Joel hurried back across the road and opened up a connection from his cell phone to that of Colonel Rabin, who was still under the table in Ravi’s house. They spoke briefly, for no more than eight seconds, and then John Rabin screwed in the last wire, set the detonation mechanism to coincide with the electronic box up in the apartment, and left.
Carefully, he made certain that the front door did not lock automatically, since they did not want Ravi and Shakira to be locked out. They just hoped the couple would return before the midnight watch change.
Meanwhile, they regrouped in their observation post and watched. The small black box that would activate the bomb was resting innocently on the window ledge.
It was 2315 now, and there was no sign of the general. But Abraham saw it first, the lights of a taxi coming around the corner from Al-Bakry Street, swinging right into Bab Touma. It pulled up directly in front of the house they watched.
“Here we go, boys,” breathed Abraham, who was apparently unaffected by the double murder he had committed less than an hour previously. “They’re back.”
And all four men saw the lovely Shakira emerge from the back left-hand passenger seat of the cab. From the other side, there emerged her escort, who took her arm and walked up the steps.
They reached the front door and knocked, but the door opened even at Shakira’s light touch. She was doubtless mystified by the absence of the two guards, but she entered the house, followed by the man, presumably Ravi, who was somewhat lost in the shadows. But at least neither of them had noticed the two hidden bodies.
Colonel Joel saw the light flood into the front room. Toward the rear he could see a male figure. Shakira was nowhere to be seen.
“That’s it, John,” snapped Ben. “That’ll do for us. Set the timer for ten minutes and let’s go.”
John Rabin turned the dial, pressed the activate button. The residents of the house on Bab Touma were on borrowed time. The four Mossad men stampeded down the stairs and out into the dark. They ran through the back street behind the apartment and reached the garage. The key fitted easily, and they pushed the door open.
And there, inside, was the converted Mercedes Benz. Colonel Joel jumped in the front passenger seat. Abraham rummaged for the key and started the motor. Major Sherman jumped in the backseat, and John Rabin waited outside to shut and lock the garage door.
The car moved forward. The last member of the team climbed into the rear seat, and Ben Joel hit the button to inform the field agent Jerry that they were on their way. Abraham drove swiftly to the Bab Touma Gate and swung right onto the road that would take them down to the airport perimeter road.
But before they reached that crossroad, John Rabin’s bomb went off with a crash that ripped into the night sky. It was so powerful that it blew the roof thirty feet into the air. The entire building went up with a stupendous blast, exploding the ancient cement and brickwork into the street, outward and upward. Flames leapt into the air. Rubble, glass, and stonework rained down from the sky. The world’s oldest continuously occupied city shuddered on its sandy foundations.
“Holy shit!” yelled Abraham. “We just did it. Tel Aviv, here we come.”
Ten minutes later, as Abraham gunned his supercharged wreck down the airport highway, Ravi Rashood
